Escabí Research May Yield Clues to Developmental Problems · 2019-10-04 · Escabí Research May Yield Clues to Developmental Problems see page 9 University ... from M.I.T. or Stanford

School of Engineering, University of Connecticut www.engr.uconn.edu Winter 2005

Also In this Issue:Engineering Jobs and EngineeringEducation in Connecticutsee page 2

The Stanley Works EstablishesComprehensive Endowmentsee page 4

Escabí Research May Yield Clues to Developmental Problemssee page 9

University Selects Three Endowed Named Facultysee page 8

Electrical & Computer Engineering Hosts REU Program see page 6

The state of engineering education maderecent headline news in Connecticut

when a venerable company with deep localroots announced plans to expand to theWest and Midwest, initially citing theshortage of engineers in New England.

In Connecticut, 70 percent of all engineering undergraduate students, and 60percent of graduate students, are enrolled at the University of Connecticut Storrscampus. UConn is the only public engineering degree-granting institution inthe state. UConn’s School of Engineeringhas made exceptional strides in increasingthe size and quality of our program. Since1997, our undergraduate enrollments have increased from 800 to about 1,500students. Our freshman enrollments inengineering have more than doubled. These dramatic increases are due to ouroutreach programs aimed at K-12 studentsand teachers, along with help from alumniand friends such as the visionary corporateleaders at United Technologies. In fact,

Engineering Jobs and Engineering Education in Connecticut35 high school valedictorians and salutatori-ans were admitted to engineering for the fall2004 semester at UConn.

Our success is real. To quote Dr. JohnCassidy, Senior Vice President of Scienceand Technology at United Technologies, in the April 8, 2004 issue of the New YorkTimes, “In the past few years we have hiredmore engineering graduates from UConnthan any other school. The best UConngraduate is in the same ranks as a graduatefrom M.I.T. or Stanford or Georgia Tech orpick-your-favorite top-notch engineeringschool. UConn graduates are holding theirown in my view, and that was not the casefive or 10 years ago.” But the questionremains: are we doing enough?

According to the American Society forEngineering Education, 425 B.S. degreeswere conferred in engineering by all collegesin Connecticut last year. In the meantime,the Connecticut Department of Labor indicates that over 1,400 engineering jobsbecome available every year in the state. For every entry-level engineer produced byConnecticut’s higher education system,there are three engineering job openingswithin the state. At UConn, we receivethree or four phone calls for every engineer-ing student, from companies—as far awayas California—seeking to hire our gradu-ates. In fact, some Connecticut companieshave been trying to fill engineering vacan-cies for two years. There has not been amore robust job market for young engineersat any time during the last 35 years.

According to the U.S. Department ofLabor, Connecticut employs over 9,300aerospace and mechanical engineers. At UConn, we have 20 faculty members in our mechanical engineering department(which includes aerospace engineering related courses). This is a 465:1 engineer-to-faculty ratio. Pennsylvania employs 8,400aerospace and mechanical engineers, whileits public universities have 110 facultymembers in these disciplines for a 76:1ratio. Kansas, with 2,500 aerospace andmechanical engineers, has 64 faculty members in aerospace and mechanical

engineering in its public engineering colleges for a 39:1 ratio. And Montana has320 aerospace and mechanical engineers,and a mechanical engineering faculty sizeonly slightly smaller than UConn’s.

The extreme imbalance between the size of the industry and the size of the engineering faculty is because engineeringeducation has never been given as high apriority in Connecticut as in other states.Although the preceding example highlightsone industry, the same imbalance exists inevery discipline of engineering. Becausemost college graduates prefer to build theircareers close to home, the notion thatConnecticut companies can ask the legisla-tures of Pennsylvania, Kansas, or Montanato pick up the tab to educate future genera-tions of Connecticut engineers is a fantasy.

It is not too late to stop the imminentloss of high-paying engineering jobs fromConnecticut that will occur if we fail toproduce enough engineering graduates in Connecticut. Connecticut should beinvesting in engineering education to adegree that is at least on par with competingstates. This requires tripling our engineeringfaculty numbers; only after tripling wouldUConn’s School of Engineering be of similar size as engineering programs at the University of Michigan, Illinois, or Purdue; all public institutions in stateswith multiple engineering degree-grantingpublic universities.

Choosing to compete in our technologi-cally-advancing world is costly. Continuingthe underinvestment in engineering education in Connecticut is a clear path to economic mediocrity.

Amir FaghriDean, School of Engineering andUnited Technologies Corporation ChairProfessor in Thermal-Fluids Engineering

2 FRONTIERS WINTER 2005 www.engr.uconn.edu

A Message from the Dean

IN THIS ISSUE

45

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6

10

14www.engr.uconn.edu WINTER 2005 FRONTIERS 3

DeanAmir Faghri

Associate DeansTheodore Bergman, Research & OutreachIan Greenshields, Academic Affairs

Assistant DeanMarcelle Wood, Undergraduate Education

Director of Development William Kissick, Jr.

Writer/EditorNan R. Cooper

Graphic Designer/IllustratorChristopher LaRosa

Photo CreditsDeborah BarrettPeter MorenusAmvrossios Bagtzoglou

Frontiers is published twice yearly by theOffice of the Dean, School of Engineering at the University of Connecticut.

261 Glenbrook Road, Unit 2237Storrs, Connecticut 06269-2237Telephone: (860) 486-2221

Published for the alumni, faculty, students,corporate supporters, and friends of the School of Engineering at the University ofConnecticut. Suggestions are welcome.Send correspondence and address correctionsto the Editor at the above address or e-mail to [email protected]

UNIVERSITY OFCONNECTICUTSCHOOL OF ENGINEERING

The Stanley Works Establishes Comprehensive Endowment 4

In Memoriam: Professor Erich Richard Stephan 4

Students Play Key Role in Devising Bike Plan 4

2005 Connecticut Invention Convention Date Set 5

Third Construction Career Day a Success 5

Electrical & Computer Engineering Hosts REU Program 6

New Name for Metallurgy Department 6

Luh’s Methods Help Industry Optimize Performance 7

University Selects Three Endowed Named Faculty 8

Escabí Research May Yield Clues to Developmental Problems 9

Engineering Hosts Mid-Atlantic Industrial and Hazardous Waste Conference 10

Engineering Puts Homeland Security in the Spotlight: ICATHS’04 11

Top Honors for Engineering Faculty 12

Engineering Welcomes Kissick as Director of Development 13

School Honors Top Faculty and Staff for 2004 14

Faculty News 15

Alumni Society President’s Message 17

School Welcomes New Faculty 18

Alumni News 19

In Memoriam: Joseph Stern 19


Agenerous $200,000 gift for endowmentfrom The Stanley Works of New Britain,

Connecticut will fund a comprehensive arrayof scholarships and learning opportunities forstudents and teachers associated with NewBritain High School. The novel agreement,with a value of $300,000 after inclusion ofstate matching funds, forges new territory inbuilding an educational and employmentbridge between the School of Engineering,one of Connecticut’s largest high schools,and one of the state’s largest and most distinguished employers.

“We are delighted by this new alliancewith The Stanley Works and look forward tomany years of symbiotic relations betweenthe company, New Britain High School andthe UConn School of Engineering,” said Deanof Engineering Amir Faghri. Building a linkbetween collegiate engineering programsand high schools has long been one of thedifficult challenges facing schools and colleges of engineering nationwide. Yet thislinkage is critical, most agree, as a means to increase the number of engineering gradu-ates nationwide and thereby help the U.S.regain its preeminent role as the world’stechnology leader.

The 160-year old company is a worldwideproducer of tool products and security solutions for professional, industrial and consumer use. A centerpiece of the endowment is The Stanley Works ScholarProgram, which will support undergraduate

scholarships in engineering for studentsgraduating from New Britain High School.The endowment agreement is augmented bysignificant additional funds from The StanleyWorks that will support:

• Tuition for one New Britain High School teacher to participate in the School of Engineering’s da Vinci Project summer workshop each year. The program immerses junior high and high school math, science and technology teachers in fundamental engineering concepts and equips them with engineering modules that can be incorporated into their school curriculum.

• Annual support for The Stanley Works Scholar to attend the School of Engineering’s Bridge program, a residen-tial summer program that introduces qualifying incoming freshman students to intensive math/science coursework before the start of their freshman year in engineering.

• Support for summer employment opportunities for The Stanley Works Scholars and New Britain High School teachers.

• Support for New Britain High School to introduce interested students to engineering via the classroom.

• Mentorship and leadership training programs.

The Stanley Works EstablishesComprehensive Endowment

In Memoriam: Professor Erich Richard StephanThe School of Engineering was saddened by the death of Dr. Erich Richard Stephan, professor emeritus of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Connecticut. He taughtat UConn for nearly 40 years before relocating to Port Charlotte, FL after his retirement. Dr. Stephan passed away on August 26, within two weeks of his 92nd birthday. He wasborn in Esslingen, Germany, and emigrated to the United States with hisparents at the age of 10. He was an avid sailor, designing two largesailboats and building them in his backyard. Dr. Stephan was predeceased in 1998 by his wife of 57 years, Myreta HammannStephan. He is survived by their three sons, Craig, Eric andRonald, and four grandchildren. A memorial service was held in Storrs on October 30.

The University of Connecticut campusplan may soon reflect the efforts of agroup of engineering students who seekto transform the Storrs campus into amore bike-friendly environment. Studentofficers of the Institute of TransportationEngineers (ITE) student chapter are collaborating on an ambitious plan tosurvey the University community relativeto bicycling habits and use, recommenda-tions for improving the bike-friendlinessof the campus, concerns about bike safety and other aspects.

The effort is being spearheaded by ITE student chapter president JeffLaMondia, chapter secretary EricJackson, and treasurer Craig Jordan,with guidance from associate professorsof Civil & Environmental EngineeringJohn Ivan and Lisa Aultman-Hall. Dr. Ivan is the faculty advisor to the ITEstudent chapter and Associate Directorof the Connecticut TransportationInstitute; Dr. Aultman-Hall is Director ofthe Connecticut Transportation Institute.The coalition effort involves the entirestudent chapter of ITE along with members of the ConnecticutTransportation Institute, the UConnEcoHusky organization and the campusEnvironmental Policy Advisory Council.

According to Mr. LaMondia, the seedof the idea arose when representativesfrom the EcoHusky group approached theITE student chapter for information onhow bicycle transportation could be

Students Play Key Role in Devising Bike Plan

Continued on page 20

Construction Career Day took center stage again for the third year when 1,100Connecticut high school juniors and seniors, as well as 250 guidance counselors,

participated in the October 5 and 6, 2004 program at Mountainside Recreation Facilityin Wallingford, CT. The program affords students a unique hands-on exposure to diversecareers in commercial construction. The Connecticut Transportation Institute (CTI), a center affiliated with the School of Engineering that includes faculty from the Civil &Environmental Engineering department, co-sponsored the program.

Construction Career Day featured an array of interactive exhibits, trade industry displays and hands-on demonstrations in bricklaying, concrete stamping, power sawing,drilling, rebar tying, carpentry, electrical splicing and welding. The high school studentsenjoyed a unique opportunity to operate heavy construction equipment—includingbulldozers, excavators, bucket trucks and crane simulators—under the guidance ofskilled professionals.

CTI program director Donna Shea and James Mahoney, Operations Manager for the Connecticut Advanced Pavement Laboratory, participated on the planning commit-tee, and CTI staff members Stephanie Merrall, Mary McCarthy and Jack Stephens (professor emeritus of Civil & Environmental Engineering) volunteered during theCareer Day events.

In addition to the high school students and counselors, representatives from LocalTechnical Assistance Programs (LTAPs) in other states also participated, with the objec-tive of learning how Connecticut so successfully plans and executes the event. They enjoyed their involvement and offered enthusiastic praise for the ConstructionCareer Day program.

The program’s sponsors also included the Connecticut Department ofTransportation, Federal Highway Administration, Connecticut Bituminous ConcreteProducers Association, Connecticut Construction Industries Association, PBE, Inc. and a number of skilled trade unions.

Third Construction Career Day a Success

www.engr.uconn.edu WINTER 2005 FRONTIERS 5

Mark your calendars for a fun family event you won’t want to miss. The University of

Connecticut will once again welcomeConnecticut’s outstanding young inventors toStorrs when the 2005 Connecticut InventionConvention (CIC) comes to Gampel PavilionSaturday, April 30, 2005. The School ofEngineering has hosted and co-sponsored the convention since 1999. The CIC is astatewide event that customarily brings more than 3,000 school-age children, parents,sponsors and judges tocampus for the culminat-ing competition of a program begun in morethan 100 state schools inthe late fall. During theday, the top-winning K-8inventors from elementaryand middle schoolsthroughout the state willshowcase inventions oftheir own design and construction before panels of judges, parentsand other visitors.

The non-profitConnecticut InventionConvention is designed to encourage and developcreativity and the spirit of invention among students. Judging is performed by teams of volunteers from Connecticut companies, academia and the legal profession, who querythe participating student inventors about theirindividual projects and assess the novelty, execution and documentation of the inventions.

CIC is run by volunteers and underwrittenby grants and in-kind support from community,educational institutions, business and charitable organizations, and the University of Connecticut/School of Engineering. For information about the Connecticut Invention Convention, please contact RameshMalla at (860) 486-3683 or by e-mail at [email protected]. Or visit the CIC website at www.CTInventionConvention.org.

2005 ConnecticutInventionConvention Date Set

What’s in a name? A lot, when it comes to image branding and percep-tion. So early in 2004, the Metallurgy & Materials Engineering Departmentundertook steps to change the depart-ment’s name to Materials Science &Engineering (MSE).

The department began in 1968 asthe Department of Metallurgy, a namethat aptly reflected the research andteaching interests of the faculty mem-bers at the time, which revolved aroundmetals. Later, when faculty with expert-ise in ceramics and composites joinedthe department, the name was changedto Metallurgy & Materials Engineering.Today, the research and teaching inter-ests of the currentfaculty membersencompass broadareas of metals,ceramics, poly-mers, biologicalmaterials, andcomposites. The concept of a “metallurgy”department has gradually beenreplaced by a more up-to-date focus onmaterials. So theevolution in tech-nological focus led naturally to thename change—a “tail-wagging-the-dog” scenario, in essence.

New Name forMetallurgyDepartment

Last summer, the Electrical & ComputerEngineering (ECE) Department launched

an innovative Research Experiences forUndergraduates (REU) program, enabling agroup of undergraduate students to engage incutting-edge engineering research. The REU program in Electrical & Computer Engineering,sponsored by the National Science Foundation(NSF), is the second within the School ofEngineering: in 2002, the Chemical EngineeringDepartment won an REU grant to develop a program centering on nanotechnology. The NSFREU in the ECE Department is a year-long program with a summer component focusing on external students and an academic year(fall/spring) component focusing on students at UConn.

The NSF REU program funds undergraduateresearch at designated university programsnationwide, giving students valuable exposureto the academic research environment and motivating them to consider graduate study in technical fields.

As it is being administered within the ECEDepartment, the three-year REU brings eightundergraduate college students from around the nation to the department each summer, and another eight UConn engineering studentsto the department each fall, to work one-on-onewith individual faculty members for 10 weeks.The program awards participating students a

Electrical & Computer Engineering Hosts REU Program

stipend plus coverage of expenses associatedwith housing and transportation. Studentswork on a research project of their choice,under the supervision of a faculty member, in exciting areas such as biomedical ultra-sound and optical imaging, RF power trans-mission, optical sensor technology, computerarchitecture, optical analog-to-digital conver-sion, semiconductor material characterization,quantum communication, and mission-specificintegrated microsystems.

To qualify, a student must be a U.S. citizenor permanent resident; a senior or junior inelectrical engineering, computer engineeringor a related field; and have a minimum college GPA of 3.0.

Beyond the lab-centered portions of theprogram, participants also attend workshopsand exercises intended to improve communi-cations skills, and workshops in which attendees explore ethical issues in scienceand engineering. The REU Program also offers students the opportunity to meet with industrial scientists and tour local manufacturing companies.

Associate professor Eric Donkor, who isthe principal investigator on the winning NSF proposal, oversees the REU program. For details of the REU program in Electrical & Computer Engineering, please visit the website at www.engr.uconn.edu/ece/ece_reu.


For Dr. Peter Luh, complex mathematicalmodeling and optimization offer powerful

tools for solving myriad manufacturing, design,and performance problems in our society. Dr. Luh, who is the SNET Professor ofCommunications & Information Technologies in the Electrical & Computer EngineeringDepartment, is at the forefront of informationtechnology and respected internationally forhis expertise in the planning, scheduling, and coordination of design, manufacturing,and service activities to optimize system performance. He also is an expert on auction-ing, load and price forecasting, portfolio optimization, and risk management for thenewly deregulated power markets.

Dr. Luh is applying his complex mathemati-cal modeling and optimization techniques tohelp resolve one of the major challengesinvolved in optimizing the generation and distribution of electricity. In a deregulatedelectricity market, he explains, an independentsystem operator (ISO) uses supply offers and demand bids from market participants to pair offers and bids in an auction mode.These auctions also set market clearing pricesfor market settlement. The methods currentlyemployed by most ISOs would cause con-sumers to pay significantly higher costs thannecessary, directly conflicting with goals set out by the Federal Energy and Regulatory Commission (FERC) to minimizeconsumer costs.

With funding support from the National Science Foundation, SouthernCalifornia Edison, and Select Energy (a divisionof Northeast Utilities), Dr. Luh and his colleagues—UConn professor of EconomicsVicki Knoblauch, Harvard University’s DavidPepyne, and Southern California Edison’s GaryStern and Joseph Yan—and graduate students

have developed a new generation of auctionmethods to reduce the costs paid by consumers. Numerical testing results demon-strate that the methods are effective and near optimal, and the resulting payment costs are significantly lower than those obtained byusing methods currently used by most ISOs. In addition, Dr. Luh’s efforts for NortheastUtilities include the prediction of electricityload and prices, development of optimization-based offer strategies, portfolio optimization

and risk management; and previously near-optimal approaches for unit commitment,economical dispatch, hydro-thermal coordina-tion, and purchase and sale of power.

Another of Dr. Luh’s current research projects, also funded by the National ScienceFoundation and partially supported by UnitedTechnologies Research Center, is on the configuration and operation of complex systems using intelligent and secure buildings (e.g., hotels, apartment complexes,and office buildings) as the problem context.Performance and safety considerations arecomplicated by the avenues by which peopletravel through buildings—such as stairs, elevators and escalators—and by ventilation,heating and cooling systems. Dr. Luh and hiscollaborators, UConn assistant professorLaurent Michel and associate professorEugene Santos, both of Computer Science &Engineering, will establish methodologies thatare coherent across configuration and opera-tion phases, and across normal and emergencymodes. The key idea is to synergistically

integrate modeling and optimization with formal semantics and constraint satisfactionfrom computer science.

“If successful,” he said, “the results of thisresearch will provide a systematic frameworkand a valuable set of methods for buildingdesigners, operators, and first responders forthe coherent and optimized configuration and operation of buildings. They will also be usedto support the investigation of next generationpolicies, standards, and procedures.

The results can also be extended for the configuration and operation of other complex systems such as security monitoring, vehicles,and aircraft.”

Dr. Luh has applied his complex modelingand optimization techniques to help companiessuch as Pratt & Whitney, Toshiba, UnitedTechnologies Research Center, and DeltaIndustry optimize planning and scheduling ofproduct manufacture and repair services, and improve on-time delivery of products.

Dr. Luh’s impact on the School ofEngineering has been far reaching during his 24-year career at UConn. From 1997-2004, he was Director of the Booth Research Center (BRC), a centerpiece of the School’scomputing and communication resources. At the University level, he played a key role in winning support from the NationalScience Foundation to link UConn with theInternet II network.



SoEResearch

Luh’s Methods Help IndustryOptimize Performance

If successful, the results of this research will providea systematic framework and a valuable set of methods for building designers, operators, and firstresponders for the coherent and optimized configura-tion and operation of buildings. “

”

Endowed named and chair professorshipsare among the most coveted, highest

honors to which academics aspire. Theybring prestige to a University, enhancerecruitment and retention of world-renowned faculty and support fundraisingefforts. Since 1998, the School ofEngineering has secured funding to support17 endowed chair and named professor-ships. During the fall, the University ofConnecticut Board of Trustees named threeengineering faculty members to endowednamed and chair professorships.

In November, the Board of Trusteesnamed Yaakov Bar-Shalom the Marianne E. Klewin Professor in Engineering.Dr. Bar-Shalom is a Board of TrusteesDistinguished Professor (since 2002) in the Department of Electrical & ComputerEngineering.

Dr. Bar-Shalom, who was named aSchool of Engineering DistinguishedProfessor in 1998, is a world-renowned

authority in targettracking, detection,estimation and datafusion, and manyaspects of randomsystems theory andits applications. He is widely recog-nized as a premierresearcher in the

area of multisensor/multitarget tracking.His work involves development of comput-er algorithms that track objects, such as airplanes in flight. His work is alreadybeing used in Boston by Logan Airport’sground traffic monitoring system, by theNavy, and in Israeli and U.S. missiledefense systems. His algorithms also drive an Australian radar system that tracks all sea and air traffic within a 2,500-mile radius.

He received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Princeton University in 1970 and worked as a ResearchScientist/Engineer for Systems Control,Inc. in California before joining theUniversity of Connecticut in 1976. Dr. Bar-Shalom has published prolificallyin the field of target tracking, authoring

more than 130 peer-reviewed journalpapers and four books. He is a formerAssociate Editor of IEEE Transactions onAutomatic Control (1976-1977) andAutomatica (1978-1981). He is a frequentkeynote speaker at major conferences in hisfield. He is a Fellow of the Institute ofElectrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE),and recipient of the IEEE Control SystemsSociety Distinguished Member Award in1987. Dr. Bar-Shalom served as presidentof the International Society of InformationFusion in 2000 and 2002.

Dean of Engineering Amir Faghriwas named the United TechnologiesCorporation Chair Professor in Thermal-Fluids Engineering. The appointment was announced in September by Dr. FredMaryanski, interim provost.

The chair position is one facet of a $4 million gift from United Technologies(UTC) and its Pratt & Whitney unit. Both companies are headquartered inConnecticut and have enjoyed a long histo-ry of close educational and research rela-tionships with the School of Engineering.

Dr. Faghri enjoys an international reputation as a leader in heat transfer

research, educationand service. His scholarly record of over 250 publications—including 150 refereed journalarticles—six booksand editorial volumes, and six

patents, in addition to his current serviceon the editorial boards of eight of the most prestigious journals in the field, attestto the quality of his contributions and tothe respect he holds among his peers. His signature work, Heat Pipe Science andTechnology, is internationally acclaimed forits depth and breadth of coverage, and it isthe most widely used book on the subject.

Despite the many demands of his role as Dean of Engineering, a position heassumed in 1998, Dr. Faghri has remainedan extremely productive researcher who has

dramatically advanced the science and technology of heat pipes, which are usedworldwide for thermal management inspace, military and commercial applications.In the 1990’s, Dr. Faghri developed new high heat flux low-temperature miniature/micro heat pipes for commercial cooling of laptop computer chips. Mostrecently, he invented two innovative heatpipe cooling systems for portable fuel cellstacks. He has made significant and seminalcontributions in the area of multiphase heat transfer for applications ranging fromadvanced cooling systems, to alternativeenergy systems including solar energy systems and thermal energy storage devices.

Dr. Faghri joined the University ofConnecticut in 1994 as professor andDepartment Head of MechanicalEngineering. He was the Brage GoldingDistinguished Professor in the Departmentof Mechanical and Materials ScienceEngineering at Wright State University,Dayton, OH, before coming to UConn.Dr. Faghri has received many honors andawards, including the prestigious 1998American Institute of Aeronautics &Astronautics (AIAA) Thermophysics Award and the 1998 American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME) HeatTransfer Memorial Award.

Dr. Faghri received his M.S. and Ph.D.degrees from the University of California at Berkeley (1974, 1976).

In addition, the UConn Board ofTrustees named Thomas K. Wood theNortheast Utilities Chair in EnvironmentalEngineering Education. Dr. Wood is a professor of Chemical Engineering and holds a dual appointment in the

Department ofMolecular and Cell Biology. He received hisPh.D. from NorthCarolina StateUniversity in 1991and embarked onhis academic careerat the University of

University Selects Three Endowed Named Faculty

SoEHonors



In a maze of quiet labs deep in the recessesof a psychology building at the Storrs

campus, assistant professor of Electrical &Computer Engineering Monty Escabí andassistant research professor Heather Read,of the Department of Psychology, applytheir individual expertise toward under-standing how living creatures processsound. The pair recently received a five-year, $875,000 grant from the NationalInstitutes on Deafness and OtherCommunication Disorders (a unit of theNational Institutes of Health) to conductresearch that will shed light on how thecentral nervous system interprets complexsounds in the environment, such as speech,background noise and animal vocalizations.

“Animals easily detect and distinguishsounds in their environment that areimportant for predation, survival and repro-duction,” Dr. Escabí explains. “In humans,sound recognition is particularly importantin the analysis of speech and music.Communications sounds, speech and musiccan vary dramatically in their frequencycontent and temporal sequencing. How thebrain is able to achieve a relatively stablerepresentation is remarkable, given the highlevels of background noise encountered innatural environments. Our most powerfulsupercomputers fail miserably at such simple sound recognition tasks.”

Drs. Escabí and Read are interested inunderstanding how individuals with certaintell-tale developmental brain damage—

associated, for example,with dyslexia and

other learning disorders—

process sound.Dr. Escabíexplains that

recent studies conductedby researchers at HarvardMedical School and BethIsrael Hospital found astrong correlation betweendyslexia and dysfunctionalauditory processing systems,or hearing deficits. Seeking tounderstand how the processworks, Drs. Escabí and Read areemploying a variety of complextechniques, drawing from fields asdiverse as engineering, physiology and anatomy.

“Our approach is centered on relatingsingle brain cell (neurons) activity to vari-ous properties of complex sounds,” says Dr. Escabí. “These properties will then berelated to the underlying brain circuitry.Neurons form the basic computing unit in the brain, much as transistors are theprincipal building block in computers. Yet, considering the function of individualtransistors (or neurons) is unlikely to revealthe underlying function of a computer (or brain). For this reason, we must alsoconsider its architecture. Thus our goal isnot simply to understand inner workings ofindividual neurons, but to also characterizethe collective activity from a large networkof brain cells in sound analysis and recogni-tion tasks.”

To do this, Drs. Escabí and Read areperforming in vivo experiments in whichthey record electrical activity from singlebrain cells in conjunction with anatomicalmapping of the auditory cortex, which islocated in the temporal lobe of the brain.This involves techniques derived from signal processing, systems identification,control systems, and information theory inorder to characterize how auditory neurons

process the frequency range andduration of acoustic sounds. The labsetup includes an array of intercon-nected computers displaying variousdata captured in real time: a tree-likeimage of brain neurons, a rainbowimage of the auditory cortex reveal-ing what portions respond to specificfrequencies of sound. The action

revealedin these com-puter monitors actually transpires within asmall, sound shielded room in which ananesthetized lab rat receives sound in oneear while monitors and cameras track theanimal’s brain responses, mapping out what parts of the auditory cortex respondto specific sound frequencies.

Understanding how brain-damaged animals process sound is key to developingtherapeutic strategies to help individualswho are hearing impaired or who sufferlearning disorders, such as dyslexia, that are related to hearing dysfunction.

Findings from the research, says Dr.Escabí, will support development of prosthetic technologies for the hearingimpaired that artificially enhance speechand other sounds in a manner that comple-ments normal hearing function. This wouldbenefit today’s hearing aid and cochlearimplant designs by improving their accura-cy and making them resistant to back-ground noise. Furthermore, such findingscould lead to biologically inspired speechand sound recognition systems that closelymimic natural hearing processes.

Dr. Escabí joined the University ofConnecticut in 2000 after earning hisPh.D. in bioengineering from theUniversity of California at Berkeley and San Francisco. He earned his master’sdegree from Columbia University in 1995.


Escabí Research May Yield Clues to Developmental Problems

Dangerous waste pollutants, and methods for detection, containment and remediation,were the focus of a three-day conference held at the University of Connecticut October

8-10, 2004, when 60 academics and industry representatives participated in the 36th

Mid-Atlantic Industrial and Hazardous Waste Conference. The event was sponsored by the School of Engineering, the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, and theEnvironmental Engineering Program at UConn.

The conference was chaired by Dr. Amvrossios Bagtzoglou, associate professor of theUniversity of Connecticut and co-chaired by Dr. Konstantinos Kostarelos of PolytechnicUniversity. Recent developments in research, engineering, practice and regulation wereexchanged during the conference, which included 44 papers and a selection of poster presentations. Keynote presentations were delivered by Dr. Domenico Grasso, newly seated Dean of the College of Engineering and Mathematics at the University of Vermont; Dr. Ronald Green, principal Staff Scientist at Southwest Research Institute; Dr. HilaryInyang, Duke Energy Distinguished Professor and Director of the Global Institute for Energy and Environmental Systems at the University of North Carolina—Charlotte; and Dr. David R. Miller, professor of Natural Resources Management & Engineering at the University of Connecticut.

Papers addressed the following areas:

• Novel treatment processes for industrial waste, soil, sediments, ground water and gas-phase pollutants, including bioreactors, bioremediation and in situ technologies

• Biodegradation processes, microbiology and novel organisms• Environmental toxicology and environmental forensics• Water treatment and disinfection• Integrated waste management, landfills, composting and waste-to-energy technologies• Hudson River and New York Harbor estuary contamination• Watershed and water quality modeling• Sediment and contaminant transport modeling• Pollution prevention, waste minimization, industrial ecology and sustainability

The full papers and extended abstracts were published in a CD-ROM proceedings, and selected papers will be peer-reviewed for possible inclusion in a special 2005 issue ofthe Journal of Water, Air and Soil Pollution: Focus on Advanced Remediation Technology,Kluwer, for which Dr. Bagtzoglou serves as Editor.

Engineering Hosts Mid-AtlanticIndustrial and Hazardous Waste Conference

In addition to his contributions as aresearcher, Dr. Luh has devoted significanttime toward professional service. He currentlyis Associate Editor of Discrete Event DynamicSystems, Associate Editor of IIE Transactionson Design and Manufacturing, and FoundingEditor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions onAutomation Science and Engineering (T-ASE),which was launched in 2004. The creation of T-ASE arose out of a bifurcation of the IEEETransactions on Robotics and Automation,of which Dr. Luh was Editor-in-Chief from 1999-2003.

Dr. Luh is a Fellow of the Institute ofElectrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) anda Council Member of the Connecticut Academyof Science and Engineering (CASE). He is alsoa member of the Institute for OperationsResearch and the Management Sciences(INFORMS), Sigma Xi, and a senior member ofthe Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME)and the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE).Dr. Luh received the Distinguished ProfessorAward presented by the School of Engineeringin 2000.

He has authored or co-authored 15 bookchapters, 82 journal papers, and 203 confer-ence papers on subjects as diverse as gametheory, decision-making, power systems, andmanufacturing systems. Three conferencepapers garnered him Best Paper awards. Healso received the King-Sun Fu Memorial BestTransactions Paper Award, IEEE Transactionson Robotics and Automation; OutstandingAchievement Award, United TechnologiesResearch Center; Award of Appreciation, East of California Asian American StudiesConference; and Distinguished Service Award,IEEE Robotics and Automation Society. He is an active researcher with more than 70 grants, totaling over $8 million throughouthis UConn career, and he is co-inventor on one U.S. patent.

Dr. Luh received his Ph.D. in applied mathe-matics from Harvard University, and his mas-ter’s degree in aeronautics and astronauticsfrom the Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology (MIT).

Peter Luh continued from page 7



Securing the nation’s citizenry, infrastruc-ture and government from terrorism

was the focus of the second InternationalConference on Advanced Technologies forHomeland Security held August 12-13,2004 at the University of Connecticut campus in Storrs. The School ofEngineering once again organized and hosted the event, which drew 350 attendeesfrom industry, government, first-responseunits, and colleges and universities through-out the Northeast.

The program, staged in the School of Engineering’s elegant InformationTechnologies Engineering building, combined talks, posters and exhibits aimedat a broad audience, including technologyleaders, managers, policy makers, small and large business leaders, and emergencyresponders. School of Engineering DeanAmir Faghri opened the conference with an overview of the role of academic institutions in developing cutting-edgetechnologies that can be employed in safeguarding the nation from terrorism.

University of Connecticut PresidentPhilip Austin welcomed attendees anddescribed how the events of 9/11 trans-formed colleges and universities nation-wide, from the dampening effect of newregulations governing foreign graduate students to the altered focus of research initiatives. He then introduced U.S.Congressman Rob Simmons (CT), who flew from Washington, D.C. directfrom the 9/11 Commission hearings.Congressman Simmons counseled the audience that “It is not enough for the federal government to address the issues ofhomeland security alone” and urged univer-sities, corporations and individual citizensto “provide for the common defense” of thenation. Congressman Simmons discussed

how the post-Cold War intelligence community must adapt to a world in which isolated extremist groups—not entirenations—are the enemy. He weighed in on the concept of an intelligence czar anddescribed the daunting challenge of combining seemingly disparate intelligencedetails into a cohesive portrait of impendingthreats.

The School of Engineering’s AssociateDean of Academic Affairs, Ian Greenshields,spearheaded the entire conference, whichincluded 10 concurrent technical and policy sessions, 40 speakers and 30 posterpresenters.

A variety of engineers, business leadersand government officials addressed the audience during dual, concurrent sessionsover the two days, including officials fromthe U.S. Department of Homeland Security,DARPA, NSF, the American Association forthe Advancement of Science, the IdahoNational Engineering and EnvironmentalLaboratory, the U.S. Military Academy, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and theConnecticut Homeland Security EducationCenter. Subjects ranged from specific securi-ty-oriented technologies being developed by industry to methods for sensing andidentification, security vs. individual free-doms to government funding opportunities.A number of the 2003 ICATHS speakersreturned to Storrs for the 2004 programwith more detailed information developedin the last year. Major John Buturla, formerly Director of the ConnecticutDivision of Homeland Security under theDepartment of Public Service, delivered theopening day’s luncheon talk.

John Voeller, Chief Technology Officerof BV Solutions, regaled the audience witha “what I did on my summer vacation” storyprofiling his experience as a White HouseFellow associated with the Office of Science& Technology Policy. Mr. Voeller identified

three technological areas that are crucial tohomeland security: dynamic surveillance,so-called “genetic databases,” and activedetection and disruption. Dynamic surveil-lance techniques would permit us to actively detect a potential weapon. Geneticdatabases, he explained, will allow us toautomatically tag every unit, constantly feednew information into a database and traceall transactions back to their origin. Suchtechnologies would eliminate money laundering, masking and smuggling—financial conduits that support terrorism,he observed. He cautioned that although we may succeed in developing some ofthese technologies, they ultimately may fail us due to our inability to coordinatecomplementary efforts, prevent duplication,learn from our past successes or failures,know our financial investment, or othercomplexities.

Bruce Schneier, founder and CTO ofCounterpane Internet Security and authorof seven books on the subject of homelandsecurity, told the audience that security is acomplex system, a way of thinking. “A bankvault is a wall that separates money fromcriminals,” he said. “But lots of things areassociated with the vault beyond ‘how thickis that wall.’ We have to think in terms ofsystems and interactions.” A vault entailssystems governing the combination, usageprocedure, customer access, installation,alarms and response, and failure. He wenton to say that “terrorists are like entrepre-neurs, seeking to maximize their success,”and that smart attackers think outside thebox, cheat, and invent new crimes. Dealingwith terrorism will require new strategies, a new way of thinking, and security systemsthat are designed for failure, he said.

Ruth A. David, President and CEO of the ANSER Institute for HomelandSecurity, former Deputy Director forScience and Technology at the CentralIntelligence Agency, and member of thePresident’s Homeland Security AdvisoryCouncil, asserted that terrorism and

Engineering Puts HomelandSecurity in the Spotlight: ICATHS’04



Professor-in-Residence Anthony DeMaria(B.S. Electrical Engineering ’56, Ph.D.

Engineering Physics ’65) of Electrical &Computer Engineering, received the 2004Connecticut Medal of Technology, which recognizes extraordinary achievements by an individual from the academic or business community in fields crucial

to Connecticut’seconomic competi-tiveness. Themedal, which hasbeen presented ononly three occa-sions, is awarded by the ConnecticutBoard of Governorsfor Higher

Education with the assistance of theConnecticut Academy of Science andEngineering. The two previous recipientswere Charles H. Kaman, Founder andChief Executive Officer, KamanCorporation, and H. Joseph Gerber,Founder, Chairman and President, GerberScientific, Inc.

Dr. DeMaria was presented the medalNovember 10, 2004 during the Alliance for Connecticut Technology InnovationDay and Award Dinner: it recognizes his life-long contributions to photonics. In addition to his duties as a Professor-in-Residence in the Electrical & ComputerEngineering Department, he also is a chief

scientist in the Laser Division of Coherent-DEOS of Bloomfield, CT. The companymanufactures lasers for materials processing,remote sensing and infrared counter-meas-ures and employs approximately 240 staffmembers. The core company was built byDr. DeMaria in 1994 after he purchasedthe intellectual property (IP) of the CO2

laser unit of Hamilton Sundstrand to startDeMaria Electro-Optics Systems, Inc.(DEOS). He served as chairman and CEO,polishing the company into the world’sleading manufacturer of sealed-off, RF excited waveguide CO2 lasers for industrial and governmental applications.The company was purchased in 2001 byCoherent, Inc. He is a member of both the National Academy of Engineering(since 1976) and the National Academy of Sciences (1997). He is one of fewer than100 engineers in the nation to have beennamed to the prestigious National Academyof Sciences.

Douglas Cooper, Department Head andprofessor of Chemical Engineering, wasnamed the 2004 Carnegie Foundation forthe Advancement of Teaching ConnecticutProfessor of the Year. The announcement wasmade during a November 18 media eventin Washington, DC. The State Professors ofthe Year Award Program selects outstandingeducators in all 50 states, the District ofColumbia, Guam, Puerto Rico and theU.S. Virgin Islands. Award winners are

chosen on the basis of their extraordinarydedication to undergraduate teaching,determined by excellence in the followingfour areas: impact on and involvement with undergraduate students; scholarlyapproach to teaching and learning; contributions to undergraduate educationin the institution, community, and profes-sion; and support from colleagues and current and former undergraduate students.

Dr. Cooper previously was chosen one of three 2003-2004 University of

ConnecticutTeaching Fellows inrecognition of hiscommitment toexcellence in teach-ing and studentmentoring, forsuperior studentadvising and sponsorship, and

development of a popular simulation software program for industrial process control, Control Station. Control Station®

is used by 120 universities in 25 countriesas an instructional aid for hands-on trainingin control system analysis, design and tuning. In 2001, he received one of twoUniversity of Connecticut AlumniAssociation Faculty Excellence Awards inTeaching, for undergraduate instruction.

Top Honors for Engineering Faculty

California, Irvine before joining theDepartment of Chemical Engineering as an associate professor in 1998. Early in hiscareer, Dr. Wood also worked briefly withRohm and Haas Company, Bristol, PA, and Becton Dickinson and Company,Research Triangle Park, NC. An expert inphytoremediation, Dr. Wood is interestedin various applications, from using bacteria to remove environmental pollutants fromsoil, to modifying natural biofilms to inhibit corrosion. One of his long-term

research projects involves the genetic engineering of bacteria to remediate suchtoxic solvents as tetrachloroethylene (PCE),a compound used in dry cleaning and manufacturing operations across the globe.PCE is among the most potentially toxic ofpollutants found in municipal groundwater.Dr. Wood and his research team are manip-ulating the metabolism of a bacterium sothat it effectively breaks down PCE andother dangerous solvents aerobically.

Dr. Wood has received numerousawards, including the Outstanding JuniorFaculty Award, School of Engineering(2000); the Rogers Outstanding TeachingAward in Chemical Engineering, UConn(2000); and the U.S. Army Research Office Young Investigator Award (1992).He has more than 70 peer-reviewed journal articles. He has one U.S. patent and is on the editorial board of Applied and Environmental Engineering.

Named Faculty continued from page 8

SoENewsICATHS continued frm page 11

homeland security are problems thatare here to stay and “probably will not be eliminated in our lifetimes.”Because the threat has become long-term, she encouraged attendees toconsider two key attributes in devel-oping homeland security technologies: sustainability and acceptability. Dualbenefit solutions,she said, enhancetheir sustainability.Acceptability variesaccording to theclimate of thetimes, and “to theextent citizens seebenefits in theirdaily lives, we havea better shot atdeploying solutionsthat become thefabric of our lives,”she said. Becausewe cannot create an invulnerablefortress, Dr. David said, we must findways to reduce our vulnerability.

ICATHS’04 had a number of highprofile conference chairs, including as its Honorary Chair William A. Wulf,President of the prestigious NationalAcademy of Engineering; Honorary Co-Chairs were U.S. Congressmen Rob Simmons and Christopher Shays, both of Connecticut. The GeneralChair was Dean of Engineering andUnited Technologies CorporationChair Professor of Thermal-FluidsEngineering, Amir Faghri.

For details of the conference,including selected PowerPoint presentations and video footage,please consult our conference websiteat www.engr.uconn.edu/icaths. CD-ROM conference proceedings areavailable by contacting Nancy Coogan at (860) 486-0883 or by e-mail [email protected].


The School of Engineering is pleased to welcome William L. Kissick, Jr., who joinedthe professional staff in September as Director of Development. Mr. Kissick brings a

wealth of experience spanning more than 20 years as a development officer, consultantand administrator. His professional vitae includes service at Dartmouth and Yale.

Mr. Kissick earned his B.A. degree from Denison University, Granville, OH, and his MBA in strategic planning from The Wharton School of the University ofPennsylvania. As Director of Major Gifts at Yale University, he led a team of 29 staff

members in preparation for a $2 billion development campaign.During two stints at Dartmouth College, he served as AssociateDean for Development and External Relations for the ThayerSchool of Engineering, and earlier, as Senior Associate Directorof Major Gifts for the college. At the Thayer School, he directeda $60 million capital campaign and secured a $15 million naming gift for a new Engineering Sciences Center. In his roleas Senior Associate Director of Major Gifts at Dartmouth, Mr. Kissick managed the major gifts operation for 14 westernstates in a $425 million capital campaign. His previous

experience also includes positions with Deerfield Academy, MA; Barnes & Roche, Inc.consultants, Philadelphia; St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY; and the William PennCharter School, Philadelphia.

The role of the development officer is critical to academic institutions today. It issurprising to many parents of college students that tuition and state tax monies cover a comparatively modest portion of the day-to-day expenses involved in running an academic unit. Funding secured through development activities supports an array ofprograms that are vital to a university’s or school’s growth. Among these are scholarshipsfor academically gifted students and students from underrepresented populations, special programs aimed at undergraduate retention, outreach activities targeting K-12students and their teachers, marketing and promotion.

Mr. Kissick sees his role through a wide-angle lens that encompasses not merelyfundraising, but also investment in students who will help shape the nation’s future. “If I could invest in every one of our kids, I know it would produce phenomenal dividends,” he says. He finds it ominous that the U.S. is falling behind other nations in mastery of math and science—a deficit, he says, that jeopardizes not only their abilityto participate in the high-tech debates of the future but also to contribute towardimproving the nation’s economic well-being.

Unlike some colleges that focus solely on education, the School of Engineering’smore expansive mission of education, research and outreach is appealing to Mr. Kissick,because it promises not only to “put educated engineers into the workstream but alsopush technology down the production stream.”

He was drawn to the University of Connecticut by the combination of unparalleledinfrastructure investment, world-class research programs and enlightened planning forthe future. “When UConn is asked ‘Where do you want to be in 10 years,’ the answerreflects an evolution from our current place, not emulation of someone else’s model,” he reflects. He also finds the University and Engineering focus on diverse populations at all levels, from the undergraduate all the way up to the faculty pools, right on targetand indeed crucial to a well balanced, successful economic and social future.

The School of Engineering welcomes Mr. Kissick and looks forward to his role inadvancing its multi-pronged mission in coming years.

Engineering Welcomes Kissick as Director of Development


Each year, the School of Engineeringhonors its top faculty members in

several categories to recognize individualpeers for their sustained outstandingresearch and teaching performance.Among these plaudits are the OutstandingJunior Faculty Award and theOutstanding Teaching Faculty Award. In addition, the School honors one staff member whose performance throughout the year greatly benefitted the entire School.

Two top-performing assistant profes-sors were presented the 2004 OutstandingJunior Faculty Award, Michael W. Renfroof Mechanical Engineering and S. PamirAlpay of Materials Science & Engineering.The award is presented to assistant orassociate professors who have establishedoutstanding records of scholarly achieve-ment in research, teaching and servicewith the promise of continued outstand-ing contributions in the future. It entails a cash award of $2,000 and a grant of$5,000 for professional development, recognizes scholarly achievements in sustaining high quality research, teachingand service.

Dr. Renfro joined the MechanicalEngineering Department in fall 2002from Purdue University, where he was aVisiting Assistant Professor of MechanicalEngineering. He received his M.S. and

Ph.D. degrees inmechanical engineer-ing from Purdue in1997 and 2000,respectively. Sincecoming to UConn,

School Honors Top Faculty and Staff for 2004

Dr. Renfro has achieved an exceptionalrecord of success in garnering research sup-port from federal sources. He received a cov-eted five-year National Science FoundationEarly Career (CAREER) Award in 2003, inexcess of $400,000, for his research involvingflame stability. In addition, he has receivedfunding from the U.S. Air Force Office ofScientific Research, the U.S. Army and LinkFoundation. Other research foci includelaser-induced fluorescence, diagnostics inreacting and nonreacting turbulent flows,measurements for turbulent combustionmodeling, and flow visualization. He hastaught extensively in the area of thermody-namics, fluid mechanics, and heat transfer.With a scholarly record that includes morethan 19 peer-reviewed journal articles, Dr. Renfro is regarded as among the mostpromising junior researchers in the area ofcombustion diagnostics and spectroscopy.

Dr. Alpay joined the Materials Science & Engineering Department in 2000 after

completing a post-doc-toral fellowship at theUniversity of Maryland.He received his Ph.D.(1999) from theDepartment of MaterialsEngineering at the

University of Maryland and his M.S. fromMiddle East Technical University in Ankara,Turkey. Dr. Alpay, whose expertise lies inelectronic and smart materials, received a five-year, $500,000 National ScienceFoundation CAREER Award in 2002 to

research and engineer artificially layered fer-roelectric superlattices and compositionallygraded ferroelectric films. He has launcheda major effort in the area of functional thin films and phase transformations, has published more than 40 refereed journalarticles as well as one book chapter, and haspresented over 15 invited talks at majorprofessional conferences. Dr. Alpay recentlysubmitted, together with Dr. J.V. Manteseof Delphi Research Laboratories, a bookentitled Graded Ferroelectrics, Transpacitors,Transponents as a part of the FunctionalThin Film Materials to be published bySpringer Verlag, selected by the editors as it pertains to the creation of a family ofentirely new devices.

The 2004 Outstanding Teaching Awardwas presented to Sanguthevar Rajasekaran,UTC Professor of Computer Science &

Engineering andDirector of the GE E-Engineering Clinic. Dr. Rajasekaran receivedthe award for excellencein undergraduate orgraduate teaching, advis-

ing and development of innovative teachingmethodologies. In accepting the award, he received $2,000 in cash and a grant of$5,000 for professional development. Dr. Rajasekaran earned his Ph.D. in com-puter science from Harvard University in1988. Before joining UConn in 2002, he was Chief Scientist with Arcot Systemsof Santa Clara, CA while on temporaryleave from his faculty position in theComputer & Information ScienceDepartment at the University of Florida,Gainesville. He is an expert in the area ofapplied algorithms, particularly parallel,randomized algorithms and computationalgeometry. His work on packet routing is


considered by peers to be seminal, and hisstudies in integer sorting have helped pio-neer new methodologies. Dr. Rajasekaranearns top teacher ratings from his under-graduate students and the admiration andrespect of his undergraduate and graduatestudents. Throughout his career, he hasstriven to secure financial support for new curriculum development, and he contributed his time as a collaborator on a recently-won $1.2 million NSFInformation Technology Research (ITR) grant.

In addition to the School-wide awards,each department honored outstanding faculty for teaching and/or research contri-butions within their home department.

Wilson Chiu, assistant professor ofMechanical Engineering, was honored

with the OutstandingMechanical EngineeringFaculty Award. Dr. Chiu is the recipi-ent of a NationalScience FoundationCAREER Award as

well as the Young Investigator Award fromthe Office of Naval Research.

Professor of Civil & EnvironmentalEngineering John DeWolf received the C.R.

Klewin, Inc. Award forExcellence in Teaching.Dr. DeWolf, whosecareer at UConn spansmore than three decades, is a member of the Connecticut

Academy of Science & Engineering and co-author (with F.P. Beer and E.R.Johnston) of the third edition of Mechanicsof Materials, McGraw-Hill.

Laurent Michel, assistant professor ofComputer Science & Engineering since

2002, was presented theComputer Science & EngineeringDepartmentOutstanding FacultyAward. He is co-authorof the book Numerica,

A Modeling Language for GlobalOptimization (MIT Press).

The Electrical & Computer Engineering(ECE) Department honored two faculty

members. Professor Geoff W. Taylor receivedthe OutstandingResearch Award for his sustained researchcontributions in thefield of optoelectronicintegrated circuits.Professor John Enderle,Director of theBiomedical EngineeringProgram, was presentedthe OutstandingTeaching Award for

his contributions in teaching.The Rogers Teaching Award, which

resides in the Chemical EngineeringDepartment and whoserecipient is selected by asenior class vote, waspresented to assistantprofessor RanjanSrivastava. Dr. Srivastavajoined the department

in the fall 2002 term and works in the areaof biological systems at the molecular andcellular level.

Mark Aindow, professor of MaterialsScience & Engineering (MSE), was present-ed the 2004 Outstanding Department

Member Award for hisexceptional contribu-tions in teaching,research and service tothe MSE department.

The School ofEngineering also

honored former doctoral candidate ZhigangBan of the Materials Science & EngineeringDepartment, who received the school-wideOutstanding Doctoral Thesis Award. This honor recognized both Dr. Ban, who received his doctoral degree in 2003,and his thesis advisor, assistant professorPamir Alpay.

George Assard, II, a computer engineer inthe Engineering Computing Services (ECS)

unit of the School ofEngineering, was pre-sented the OutstandingStaff Service Award forhis dedicated, capableservice to the faculty,staff and students of

the School. Mr. Assard, who holds a B.A. from UConn, joined ECS in 2001. He manages the ECS Help Desk and oversees management and support of thecomputer software and hardware for theentire School of Engineering, including faculty, staff and students. Mr. Assard alsooversees the Engineering Learning Center,which provides a venue for engineering faculty to train their students on more than74 software programs. His previous experi-ence includes employment with theUniversity of Connecticut Student HealthServices, Power Specialists Associates Inc.,Lincoln Financial Group, and a consultingfirm that he founded in the early 1990s,Eastern Clinical Solutions.

Mark Aindow, associate professor of Materials Science & Engineering, was appointedEditor of the Journal of Materials

Science. Established in 1966, the journal is the largest of the interdisciplinary materialsengineering journals and is now published by Springer.

Professor and Department Head of Computer Science &Engineering Reda Ammar,and UTC Professor of Computer

Science & Engineering SanguthevarRajasekaran were selected as AssociateEditors of the journal Computing Letters,published by VSP International Publishers, the Netherlands.

Emmanouil Anagnostou,associate professor of Civil &Environmental Engineering, and his graduate student Ryan

Knox, received the American GeophysicalUnion (AGU) Outstanding Student Paper honors for their poster paper entitled “2004:Evaluation of Radar Rainfall Estimation inWidespread Early Spring Rainfall Events.”Ryan presented the paper during the AGUspring assembly.

Research by associate professorof Civil & EnvironmentalEngineering AmvrossiosBagtzoglou was profiled in the

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s August2004 electronic newsletter, “What’s Hot?What’s New?” The research centers on application of chaotic flows for efficientgroundwater contaminant remediation.

Rajeev Bansal, professor of Electrical & ComputerEngineering, is editor of therecently published book, the

Handbook of Engineering Electromagnetics(706 pages) published in August 2004 byMarcel Dekker, New York. The book providesin-depth coverage of fields such as wirelesscommunications, fiber optics, microwave engineering, radar technology, electromagneticcompatibility, materials science and biomedicine.

Board of Trustees DistinguishedProfessor and Marianne E. KlewinProfessor in Engineering YaakovBar-Shalom, of the Electrical &

Computer Engineering Department, was pre-sented the Outstanding Leadership Award bythe International Society of Information Fusionin recognition of Dr. Bar-Shalom’s service asPresident of the society in 2000 and 2002.

John Enderle, professor ofElectrical & Computer Engineeringand Director of the BiomedicalEngineering Program, received the

IEEE Engineering in Medicine and BiologySociety (EMBS) Service Award “For a meritori-ous career in biomedical engineering educa-tion as exemplified by excellence in classroomteaching, promotion of design, hands-on expe-rience in the learning process, and publicationof textbooks and editorial support of EMBMagazine.” He is Editor of IEEE Engineering inMedicine and Biology Magazine, a publicationof EMBS.

Professor-in-Residence ofMaterials Science & Engineering(MSE), Maury Gell, serving as PI—along with professors of Mechanical Engineering Eric Jordan and Baki Cetegen,and professor of MSE NitinPadture—was presented a $1.2 million three-year grant fromthe Office of Naval Research inearly December. The grant willsupport continuation of multi-disciplinary research involvingmanufacture of dense engineeringceramics using an innovative solution plasma spray process.The ceramics will be used in the

aerospace, transportation, energy and biomed-ical industries where high and low tempera-ture strength, toughness, wear resistance andinertness to hostile environmental conditionsare required.

Joseph Helble, professor and former head of ChemicalEngineering, is serving a year-long sabbatical as a Revelle

Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

His appointment in the office of U.S. SenatorJoseph Lieberman (CT), who serves on theSenate Environment and Public WorksCommittee, involves advising the Senator onenvironmental issues encompassed under theumbrella of “global stewardship.”

Electrical & Computer Engineeringprofessor Faquir Jain and associate professor of ChemistryFotios Papadimitrakopoulos

received a U.S. patent (number 6,797,412) in September 2004 for their novel invention, “Full Color Display Structures UsingPseudomorphic Cladded Quantum DotNanophosphor Thin Films.”

Associate professor of ChemicalEngineering Richard Parnas hasbeen invited to join the EditorialReview Board of the Elsevier

journal Composites, Part A: Applied Scienceand Manufacturing.

Department Head and professor of Mechanical Engineering Ranga Pitchumani was electeda Fellow of the American Society

of Mechanical Engineers in recognition of hissignificant achievements and contributions to the processing science of materials andcomposites.

Ken Reifsnider, Director of theConnecticut Global Fuel CellCenter and the Pratt & WhitneyChair Professor of Design &Reliability, was elected a Fellowof the American Society ofMechanical Engineers for his fundamental contributions in the

lifetime prediction of advanced compositematerials. In addition, Dr. Reifsnider and NigelSammes, United Technologies Chair Professorin Fuel Cell Technology, report that the firstissue of the Journal of Fuel Cell Science &Technology was released in November. Dr.Sammes is founding and chief Editor of thenew ASME journal, which is published quar-terly, and Dr. Reifsnider is Associate Editor.

FacultyNews



Dr. Sammes also received an EnvironmentalProtection Agency (EPA) 2004 GreenCircle Awardfor “contributing significant time to environmentalinstructional programs,” and his involvement onthe Connecticut climate change stakeholder group.

Interim Department Head and professor of Materials Science &Engineering Leon Shaw was electeda Fellow of ASM International, “For

significant contributions to the fields of synthesisand processing of composites and nanomaterials.”ASM International is the leading professionalsociety of materials engineers and scientists. In addition, Dr. Shaw was co-inventor (with R.-M.Ren and Z.-G. Yang) on U.S. patent (number6,793,875), “Nanostructured Carbide CermetPowders by High Energy Ball Milling” awardedSeptember 2004.

Guiling Wang, assistant professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering,was recently appointed AssociateEditor of the Journal of Geophysical

Research Biogeosciences (JGR-Biogeosciences).Her term extends December 2004 throughDecember 2007. JGR-Biogeosciences is a new,interdisciplinary journal that seeks to understandthe functions of Earth systems across multiplespatial and temporal scales.

Peng Zhang, assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering, wasreceived the American Society ofMechanical Engineers (ASME)

Melville Medal in 2004. The Melville Medal is thehighest ASME honor for the best original paper(not published elsewhere) that has been publishedin the ASME Transactions during the two preceed-ing calendar years.

The innovative breast cancer researchof Quing Zhu, associate professor ofElectrical & Computer Engineering,was profiled in the September 2004

issue of the journal Molecular Imaging Outlook,a publication of Diagnostic Imaging.com. Dr. Zhu’sresearch, conducted in collaboration with physi-cians at the University of Connecticut HealthCenter and Hartford Hospital, involves the fusionof ultrasound and optical imaging to diagnoseaggressive breast cancers.

Dear Fellow Alumni:

I have been elected President of the UConn EngineeringAlumni Society (“EAS”). I am excited about this opportunityand look forward to leading the EAS as we devise new ways to help Dean Faghri achieve the aims of the School of Engineering.

During the past four years, as an active member of theEAS I have been instrumental in planning and implementingmany of the society’s sponsored events. Among these events were a number of success-ful Dean’s Receptions staged in New York, Hartford and Boston, and a golf tournament.I am pleased to report these events were well attended and the golf tournament raisedfunds toward the UConn Engineering Alumni Scholarship Fund.

In the coming years, I plan to build on these activities and to devote my term aspresident to continuing to organize and sponsor events that allow engineering alumni to network and socialize while furthering the goals of our alma mater. One of the mostrevealing things I have noticed during my involvement with the EAS is the diversity ofcareers that engineering majors pursue after leaving UConn. It’s apparent that an engineering degree from UConn provides a solid foundation for many varied profession-al pursuits. I am also impressed with the notion that as professionals, one of our mostvaluable resources is our fellow alumni. As such, the EAS will continue to host andsponsor events to support networking and socializing activities.

During my term, I would like to expand our Dean’s Receptions beyond the Northeast.To this end, I would like to identify alumni who are interested in hosting events and in participating in sub-committees of the EAS. I urge you to contact me if this notioninterests you. We will continue to schedule dual-purpose fundraising events, such asthe golf tournament, with an eye toward augmenting the EAS scholarship fund whilealso having an opportunity to socialize and network.

I look forward to serving as your president and encourage you to contact me withsuggestions and ideas as to how we can make our alumni association a strong and vital organization.

Best regards,

Lisa A. BongioviMcCarter & EnglishCity Place I185 Asylum StreetHartford, CT 06103(860) [email protected]

Alumni Society President’s Message


In September, the School of Engineering welcomed seven new faculty members.

The Civil & Environmental EngineeringDepartment welcomed Lanbo Liu, formerlywith the University’s Department of Geology & Geophysics (dissolved by the University in 2004), who joined the department as anAssociate Professor, and Jeong-Ho Kim, whoassumed the position of assistant professor.

Dr. Lanbo Liu earned his M.S. degrees in geophysics at Peking University (1981) and in

civil and environmentalengineering at StanfordUniversity (1992). Heearned his doctorate ingeophysics at StanfordUniversity in 1993. Hecompleted a post-doctoral

Carnegie Fellowship at the Carnegie Institutionof Washington and joined the University ofConnecticut Department of Geology &Geophysics in 1995. Dr. Liu is Associate Editorof Geophysics, the Society of ExplorationGeophysics journal. His interests lie in subsur-face imaging through geophysical surveys forengineering and environmental purposes, and numerical modeling of wave propagation. His work on sound source detection in urbanenvironments has generated wide public interest and was cited by the New York Times,Discover magazine, and other domestic andinternational popular science media.

Dr. Jeong-Ho Kim completed his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Illinois,Urbana-Champaign in 2000 and 2003, respec-

tively. He received several awards during hisacademic career, includ-ing the AmbassadorialScholar Award, presentedby Rotary International; the Young Researcher

Fellowship Award in the Second MITConference; and the inaugural ASME PTC 60Student Benchmark Competition Award in the Seventh U.S. National Congress onComputational Mechanics. His research interests include computational fracturemechanics, functionally graded materials,finite element methods, fuel cells, bone,micromechanics models, structural analysisand nonlinear analysis.

School Welcomes New FacultyThe Mechanical Engineering Department

welcomed Horea Ilies in the capacity ofassistant professor. Dr. Ilies completed hisM.S. degrees in mechan-ics and mechanical engineering fromMichigan State Universityand Technical University

of Cluj, Romania, respectively, and earned hisPh.D. degree in mechanical engineering fromthe University of Wisconsin - Madison. Beforejoining the University of Connecticut, Dr. Iliesgleaned industrial experience for several years with Ford Motor Company, where he was involved in research, manufacturing, and product design and development. He is co-inventor on one U.S. patent and severalpatent disclosures. His research interestsinclude geometric and physical computing,shape synthesis and geometric reasoning, and theoretical and computational aspects for systematic mechanical design and manufacturing.

The Materials Science & EngineeringDepartment greeted two new faculty members,Bryan Huey and Rampi Ramprasad.

Assistant professor Bryan Huey, whoearned his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, joined the

department in July. Dr. Huey also completed post-doctoral studies atOxford University, the EPFL Department ofPhysics in Switzerland, and the Ceramics Division

at the National Institute of Standards &Technology (NIST). His interests include scanning probe microscopy for voltage mapping at the nanometer scale; ultrasonicforce microscopy to investigate nanoscalemechanical properties of nanocomposites; in vitro scanning probe microscopy to study the mechanics of biological structures; and piezo-force microscopy for quantitative measurements of ferroelectric thin films. He has authored more than 20 scholarly journalpublications and two major book chapters. Dr. Huey runs the NanoMeasurement Labs in the Institute of Materials Science, whichhouses three new microscopes designed to

promote nanoscale education and research atthe undergraduate and graduate levels.

The department also welcomed assistant professor Ramamurthy (Rampi) Ramprasad, who earned his M.S. and doctoral degrees inMaterials Science & Engineering at theWashington State University (1992) and

the University of Illinois,Urbana-Champaign(1997), respectively. Dr. Ramprasad completeda post-doctoral fellowshipat the Department ofPhysics & Astronomy at

the University of New Mexico. He began hisprofessional career as a Senior Staff Scientistin 1998 with Motorola’s R&D laboratories,Tempe, AZ, and was a Principal Staff Scientistfrom 2001-2004. He has authored/co-authoredmore than 22 peer-reviewed journal articlesand filed four patents.

The Electrical & Computer EngineeringDepartment welcomed assistant professorYunsi Fei. Dr. Fei earned her M.S. in electron-ics engineering from Tsinghua University,

China (1999); and herM.A. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineeringfrom Princeton University(2001 and 2004). Dr. Fei’sresearch interests encom-pass embedded system

and integrated circuit design automation,power analysis and optimization of ICs andsystems, mobile computing systems, high per-formance and low power computer architec-ture, and hardware/software co-synthesis. She is a reviewer for ACM Transactions onDesign Automation of Electronic Systems anda number of symposia and conferences.

Zhijie "Jerry" Shi joined the ComputerScience & Engineering Department as anassistant professor. He earned his Ph.D. and

M.A. degrees in electricalengineering fromPrinceton University in2004 and 1999, respec-tively, and his M.S. incomputer science fromTsinghua University,

Beijing, in 1996. Dr. Shi's research interestsinclude computer architecture, cryptography,computer security, algorithms and digital circuit design. He has 10 scholarly papers published in technical journals and conferenceproceedings.

AlumniNewsGeorge Abe (M.S. Mechanical Engineering,‘85) is President and CEO of CambridgeResearch, Inc. in Woburn, MA.

Matthew Adiletta (B.S. Electrical Engineering,‘85) is Director of Communication ProcessorArchitecture at Intel in Hudson, MA. Mr. Adiletta is an Intel Fellow, and holds over 100 patents.

Robert Becker (B.S. Computer Science andEngineering, ‘82) is Senior Vice President ofEngineering & Operations at Mercury ComputerSystems, in Chelmsford, MA. Previously, he wasVice President of Engineering at MicrotechSystems (now part of 3M) and at PicturTel.

Allen N. Bickel (B.S. Chemical Engineeringand Chemistry, ’79) MBA, is Director of Sales &Marketing for DYNEX Technologies, CapitalGenomix, Inc., Chantilly, VA, which was divest-ed from Capital Genomix in October 2004.

Robert Beinstein (B.S. Civil & EnvironmentalEngineering, ’99) P.E. is employed with Cabrera,Inc., of East Hartford, which is a specialized radiological and environmental consulting and field services firm.

Les Boette (B.S. Chemical Engineering, ’68) is the chief plant engineer for American FoamTechnologies, Lewisburg, WV.

Elaine Brodeur (B.S. Mechanical Engineering,’68) was recognized as an outstanding courseleader by the American Institute for CharteredProperty Casualty Underwriters and theInsurance Institute of America.

In Memoriam: Joseph SternIt is with great sadness that we note thedeath in November of alumnus Joseph Stern(B.S. Electrical Engineering, ’44), an esteemedfriend of the School who, with his wife Claireand daughter Linda Johanna, established theJoseph L. Stern, Claire Morris Stern and Linda Johanna Stern Scholarship Fund in2003. Mr. Stern was president of SternTelecommunications Corp. (STC), New YorkCity, a communications systems

consulting company he founded in 1975.During his rich career, Mr. Stern worked with RCA, the Army Signal Corps, and CBS,which he joined in 1946. As Vice President ofEngineering for CBS, he was responsible fordeveloping TV studio and transmitting facili-ties, including the Empire State Buildingplant, planning for the World Trade Centerfacility, and 12 other plants located in North and South America and in Israel.

He worked on thedevelopment ofcolor TV systemsand converted allof the CBS trans-mitting plants tobroadcast color. In2003, Mr. Stern was inducted into the School of Engineering’s Academy ofDistinguished Engineers.

David Burns (B.S. Computer Science andElectrical Engineering, ’77) is chief executive officer of Copernic Technologies Inc., Boston.

Jeffrey M. Campbell (M.S. ChemicalEngineering, ’94) was tapped to join theresearch unit of Hunter Manufacturing’s AppliedResearch Center, Edgewood, MD, which devel-ops new technologies and materials that willform the basis for improved nuclear, biologicaland chemical collective protection equipmentand systems.

Anthony D’Andrea (B.S. Civil Engineering, ’72)is chairman of the Connecticut Board ofExaminers for Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors.

Thomas Doggart (B.S., M.S. MechanicalEngineering, ’87, ’94) founded a metallurgicalengineering company, Nomad Metallurgy Inc. of Fort Mill, SC.

Joel Douglas (B.S. Civil Engineering, ’77) was selected one of Medical Device &Diagnostic Industry magazine’s 100 notable people He is a co-founder and chief technologyofficer of MysticMD, Inc. He holds 60 U.S. patents.

Michael Field (B.S. Mechanical Engineering,'75) is Senior Vice President of Marketing, Sales and Customer Support at Pratt & Whitney, East Hartford, CT.

Anthony Gazikas (B.S. MechanicalEngineering, ‘81) is Vice President ofDevelopment Informatics at Pfizer in New London, CT.

William Hewitt (M.S. Mechanical Engineering,‘68) was appointed to the Board of Trustees ofthe Medical University of South Carolina, and isChairman of The Citadel's School of BusinessAdvisory Board.

Brian Hoffman (B.S. Mechanical Engineering,‘86) is Vice President of Operations at theDanaher Corporation in Massachusetts.

Britt Johnston (B.S. Computer Science andEngineering, ‘85) is Chief Technology Officer atPeerDirect in Bedford, MA.

Michael Lombardi (B.S. Civil Engineering, ‘96),P.E., was elected Vice President and Secretary of the University of Connecticut EngineeringAlumni Society’s Board of Directors. He isManager of Civil Engineering & BusinessDevelopment with BL Companies, a Meriden,CT-based architectural, engineering and environmental sciences consulting firm.

Craig Lund (B.S. Electrical Engineering, ‘82) isVice President and Chief Technology Officer atMercury Computer Systems in Chelmsford, MA.

Tom Martin (M.S. Electrical Engineering, ‘71;Ph.D. Electrical Engineering, '74) is Presidentand Chairman of the Board of PhononCorporation in Simsbury, CT.

Charles Roche (Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering,’94) an engineer with Pratt & Whitney, East Hartford, joined the adjunct faculty of theUniversity of Hartford and is chairman of themechanical engineering advisory board of theUniversity of Massachusetts – Lowell.



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better used on campus. The coalition devel-oped a survey intended to better understandhow students, staff and faculty view the Storrscampus’ current suitability for bike use andhow the campus could be adapted to enhancebicycle use and safety.

“Bikes are an important form of transporta-tion that is generally underrepresented at theUConn Storrs campus. We hope to integratethe bicycle culture into the greater Universitycommunity in a manner that ensures greatersafety, convenience and friendliness for bikeriders,” said Mr. LaMondia.

Surveys were distributed in dining halls,the UConn Co-op, at bus stops and other venues as well as online during November.Members of the ITE student chapter tallied and analyzed the results, and Mr. LaMondiaand Mr. Jackson presented the group’s findingsbefore the University Master Plan AdvisoryCommittee. The team also provided the committee a written report that included a section, prepared by undergraduate CraigJordan, detailing how 10 other universitieslocated throughout the Northeast have encouraged bike use on their campuses. It is hoped the Committee will act on the coalition’s findings in early 2005.

Bike Plan continued from page 4

AlumniNews continued

Andrew T. Rose (B.S., M.S., Civil &Environmental Engineering, ‘85, ‘86), was awarded a Gerald R. Seeley Fellowship by the American Association of EngineeringEducators (ASEE). He is an assistant professor of Civil Engineering Technology at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown. He received his Ph.D. from Virginia Polytechnic Institute.

Bill Summers (B.S. Chemical Engineering,’84) MBA, has been named Global SalesDirector – Informatics, Thermo ElectronCorporation. He formerly was Vice President of Sales for chemicals/pharmaceuticals withAspen Technology.

Michael Townsend (B.S. MechanicalEngineering, ’83) MBA, is president of Polytec,Inc., a manufacturer of laser-based measuringinstruments in Auburn, MA.

Clement Valerio (B.S. Electrical Engineering,‘70; M.S. Electrical Engineering, ‘76; Ph.D.Electrical Engineering, ‘84) is Vice President of Research and Development at PhononCorporation in Simsbury, CT.

Mark Vergnano (B.S. Chemical Engineering,‘80) is Vice President and General Manager ofDuPont Nonwovens in Wilmington, DE.

Karl R. Wurst (M.S., Ph.D. Computer Science& Engineering, ‘91, ‘04) received tenure andwas promoted to Associate Professor ofComputer Science at Worcester State Collegeand has been appointed Chair of the ComputerScience Department.

Z. Jane Wang (M.S., Ph.D., Electrical &Computer Engineering, ’00, ‘03) assumed aposition as assistant professor in the Electrical& Computer Engineering Department at theUniversity of British Columbia.

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