Aloha kākou,
Reaccreditation, new faculty hires, cutting-edge research, student awards and more industry-infused curriculum were just some of the bright spots for the College in 2022. We are honored to be the state of Hawaiʻi's primary source of engineering education and innovation, and are excited to share our recent successes with you. Read on for some of the year's highlights, and here's to another great one to come.
Mahalo,
Brennon Morioka, PhD, PE Dean, College of Engineering
22% increase in research awards $11M in awards
in expenditures
more graduates from previous year
5 new faculty hired in AY '22-23 10% growth from previous year
NASA’s last launch attempt for the Artemis I mission was on November 16, and University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa researchers created new technology to assist the Artemis project.
UH Mānoa researchers from the Hawaiʻi Institute of Geophysics and Planetology (HIGP) developed “foundation enablers” which are advancing the project’s satellite infrastructure for a prolonged presence on the Moon. Satellites are important communication devices to relay information from space to Earth. While the technology isn’t being used for the current Artemis I mission, NASA has funded the UH research to develop the technology for use in future missions, while providing a training ground for budding middle school, high school and university student scientists.
Artemis I is an uncrewed mission to launch a rocket carrying the Orion spacecraft around the Moon and back to Earth to thoroughly test its system before future flights with astronauts. Artemis is part of the next era of human exploration to a sustainable presence on the Moon to prepare for missions to Mars.
“The Artemis program symbolizes a rebirth of America’s space program, drawing inspiration from the Apollo program, which was arguably the height of the United States’ crewed space program,” said Frances Zhu, HIGP assistant professor. “NASA is investing in technologies, but also the next generation of space scientists and engineers, which they call the Artemis generation. The NASA grant we received to build these satellites has allowed UH to take a lead role in developing aerospace education tools, bolstering UH’s efforts in establishing an aerospace engineering program.”
The College was thrilled to welcome aboard five new faculty in the 2022-2023 academic year.
Dr. Zhiyue “Philip” Wang (Civil) comes to us from the University of Minnesota. His research focuses on novel environmental biotechnology, biological wastewater treatment, and nutrient removal and energy recovery.
Dr. Amin Rafiei (Civil) received his Ph.D. from North Carolina State University in 2019, and the goal of his research is to investigate the fundamental behavior of soils in order to build stable foundations for renewable energy devices and hence leverage the exploitation of renewable energy resources.
Prior to joining us, Dr. Paul Schmitt (Electrical) was a research computer scientist at the USC Information Sciences Institute and was previously an associate research scholar at Princeton University. His research interests include networked systems, privacy, network traffic inference and analysis using machine learning, scalable Internet measurement, and connectivity in developing regions.
Dr. Igor Molybog (Electrical) comes to us from the University of California at Berkeley. Originally from Ukraine, Prof. Molybog visited UH for a conference in 2019 and fell in love with the place. He enjoys the atmosphere on campus and is eager to work in such an environment.
Dr. Xiyu “Chrisy” Du (Mechanical) comes to us from Harvard University. Being stuck in her studio apartment during the Pandemic inspired her to want to move to Hawai’i. Her research revealed that UH has many professors who do “cool work.” She is a big fan of food and often reflects on the science behind it. Given that there are a lot of mechanical engineering concepts involved in cooking, she dreams of one day teaching a course that incorporates her two passions.
Engineering programs at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa have been accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET), confirming that they meet standards essential to prepare graduates to enter STEM fields in the global workforce.
The following programs are accredited:
Biological engineering, College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources (CTAHR)
Civil engineering, College of Engineering
Computer engineering, College of Engineering
Electrical engineering, College of Engineering
Mechanical engineering, College of Engineering
Ocean and resources engineering, School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST)
In addition, construction engineering, which was launched in fall 2019 by the College of Engineering, retroactively earned accreditation from October 2019.
A new partnership was recently established between the University of Guam, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard (PHNSY) that provides a pathway for engineering students at the University of Guam to transfer to UH Mānoa after their sophomore year and earn a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, then gain possible employment with PHNSY and potential transfer to the Guam Naval Shipyard.
UH Mānoa College of Engineering Dean Brennon Morioka and Department of Mechanical Engineering Professor Marvin Young traveled to Guam in September 2022 to kick off the partnership with meetings with University of Guam leadership and PHNSY representatives. This partnership was enabled by developing a win-win-win strategy.
“UH Mānoa benefits by increasing its student population and supporting the university’s goal of diversification. Guam benefits by increasing their home-grown technical workforce without having to stand-up an accredited mechanical engineering degree program, and PHNSY benefits by increasing the technical population of prospective staff and providing the ability to assess long-term suitability of engineers for Hawaiʻi and Guam operations,” Young said.
As icebergs break off from glaciers in the polar regions and travel toward the equator, they pose a major threat to marine transportation, offshore equipment and the environment, including sea-level rise. However, researchers still struggle to predict the behaviors of these massive blocks of ice as they move and melt in warmer waters.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a pair of four-year grants totaling $1.5 million to University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and University of Rhode Island (URI) researchers who will inspect icebergs using autonomous robots and underwater profiling floats with the goal of analyzing their behaviors and allowing scientists to better predict their effects.
UH Mānoa Department of Mechanical Engineering Assistant Professor Zhuoyuan Song and his team in the College of Engineering will deploy autonomous robots in waters off Twillingate, Newfoundland, Canada to map icebergs above and below the water surface. They will scan and map the icebergs to learn a variety of characteristics, including the shape, size and drifting speed of icebergs, their melting speed, how they are affecting the marine life around them as they melt, the interactions between freshwater and saltwater, and more.
“By combining and coordinating three types of marine robotic platforms, we will create comprehensive multi-modal iceberg mapping data sets that are critical for validating iceberg drift and deterioration models as well as building empirical iceberg geometrical models,” Song said. “This novel collaborative robot team could also be adapted for monitoring coastal processes, such as shelf-water intrusions, harmful algal blooms and sand wave migration that vary in both space and time.”
businesses and organizations to provide educational and workforce development opportunities.
“Utilizing the ClimbHI platform this past year has allowed us to expand our outreach efforts to a wider swath of schools and classrooms throughout Hawaiʻi and allow us to efficiently and effectively connect with STEM educators seeking classroom presenters, mentorship, expert judging, and other support for their students,” said Kimberly Perez Hults, College of Engineering director of marketing and outreach relations.
“Our team of student ambassadors, along with other students, faculty and staff, have really stepped up to the plate to meet these requests, having logged many hours engaging in these activities both virtually and in person. We are thrilled to be a ClimbHI top contributor and appreciate everything they are doing to build these critical industry-to-education connections.”
UH Mānoa’s College of Engineering joined 19 others in the top business category, including The Queen’s Health Systems, YMCA of Honolulu and HMSA.
A valuable University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa engineering program provided 15 rising high school seniors from Hawaiʻi and Japan with opportunities to conduct meaningful laboratory research, engage in professional development and cultural activities, participate in engineering challenges, and visit with engineering firms to explore career opportunities in a variety of settings.
The College of Engineering’s signature internship program relaunched this summer after a four-year hiatus and is now known as the Junior Engineers Summer STEM Experience (JESSE). To be selected for JESSE, interns underwent a rigorous application process that included submission of transcripts, teacher recommendations and essays demonstrating their passion for engineering.
At the start of the program, each intern was paired with an engineering lab and mentor most of whom were graduate students and given a meaningful research project to complete either individually or in a small group setting. Seven labs participated and spanned different engineering topics, from drone technologies to aerospace to water resources and geotechnical testing.
Sprinkled throughout the weeks of lab time were additional educational opportunities such as resume workshops, public speaking and presentation training and site visits to various local employers.
How do you safely land a helicopter in an urban area, or improve medevacs? Those are the kind of real-world situations University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa College of Engineering students tackled when they worked with the U.S. Army’s 25th Infantry Division and the U.S. Air Force’s 15th Wing at Hickam Air Force Base, gaining practical experience, while setting themselves up for potential internships and careers.
The fall 2022 engineering course was part of the Hacking for Defense program, under a new initiative called the National Security Innovation Network, housed in UH’s Office of Innovation and Commercialization. Twenty students tackled the following issues, which are related to helicopter safety and consolidated training for airmen:
• Improving safety equipment used on medevac missions to make them safer for the person being rescued as well as for the crew working on the rescue mission.
• Making helicopter landings safer for dense urban environments, because people on the ground often rush towards the helicopter, putting both the crew and the local population in danger.
• Consolidate training and certification for airmen readiness.
“The number one thing the students should be gaining is real world experience in problem solving. We say that this course is about problem solving and not about the problem you are assigned,” said Jeff Hui, UH Mānoa’s Hacking for Defense instructor.
The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa took home five awards in a North American NASA rocket competition, the most of any of the 13 participating institutions from the U.S. and Canada. The final results from the April 2022 First Nations Launch High-Power Rocket Competition at the Richard Bong State Recreational Area in Kansasville, Wisconsin, were announced in June.
The UH Mānoa team entered the Moon Challenge phase of the competition. It captured first place for oral presentation, and third place for the grand prize award and written report. UH Mānoa also won the spirit award and aesthetic award. Aside from reaching a height of 3,000 feet, participants of the Moon Challenge were required to:
• Design and construct a dual deploy high-power rocket with a GPS data logger onboard
• Maintain a stable flight
• Reconstruct a 3D trajectory of the rocket flight from the data collected from liftoff until landing, and plot it against a satellite imagery map
• Satisfy all technical requirements for the rocket
“I’m very happy and proud of the team’s accomplishments. Our team started off not knowing each other at all, but in the short time we had to complete the work for the competition, we hit it really hard and the team’s dedication and hard work can be seen through every step from design, to build, to presentations and our papers that we dedicated a lot of late nights to writing,” said Nikki Arakawa, team member and UH Mānoa senior electrical engineering major.
