student success
YSU Takes Top Prize in National Engineering Contest
A YSU student engineering group bested teams from 18 other universities, including Penn State and Purdue, to take first place in a national Green Energy Challenge competition in Las Vegas. The 13-member YSU team won the top prize with an energy saving plan they designed for the Youngstown Historical Center of Industry and Labor, located on West Wood Street on the YSU campus. They presented the plan before a panel of judges at the National Electrical Contractors Association Annual Convention in September. “Once again, our students shone on the national stage against competitors from prestigious engineering schools around the country,” said Theodore R. Bosela, a profes-
sor of Engineering Technology and the team’s advisor. “Their performance is another indication of the caliber of students at YSU, the quality of our Engineering Technology and Engineering academic programs, and reflective of YSU's emerging role as an urban research institution.” In photo, YSU NECA Chapter team members accepting the first place award are, from left, front row: Bosela; Kalen Wallace, Mike Currao, Jarrett Scacchetti, Dave Wright, Ethan Parks, NECA president Dennis Quebe, Jacob Tibbits and Nick Gealy; second row, Bob Page and Jason Nutt. Students not pictured who participated in the written proposal included Nicholas Brown, Michael Sammartino, Matthew Biedka and Drew Duraney.
Team Presents Research at International Conference
Six YSU undergraduate students spent their summers on research combining the disciplines of mathematics and biology and then presented their findings at an international conference, the 2012 Annual Meeting of the Society of Mathematical Biology. In photo below, the student researchers are, from left: Joelle Ballone, Mark Radetić, Robert DeVita, Sarah Ritchey and Matt Pierson. Estee George is not pictured. Math majors Ritchey, of Sharon, Pa., and George, of Boardman, presented a poster titled “Modeling Butanol Production by Clostridium beijerinckii.” DeVita, a biology major from McDonald, was a co-author. Biology major Ballone and math major Pierson, both from Youngstown, did their poster on research titled “Mathematical Modeling of Growth and Selenium Metabolism of S. maltophilia O2.” Radetić, a biology major from Austintown, was a co-author. “Conducting interdisciplinary research and presenting results at an international conference is a great experience for students,” said George Yates, an associate professor of Mathematics and Statistics and one of four faculty members who advised the two student teams. “It gives them opportunities to exchange research ideas with a worldwide audience and to see what others in mathematical biology are investigating.” Scientists, mathematicians and undergraduate students from 23 countries and 35 states participated in the conference, held at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and hosted by the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis. The YSU students are participating in a research program in mathematical biology and undergraduate research at YSU funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation.
FALL 2012
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