Plus...The latest news on all EME programs - page 8

Fall/Winter 2008

www.eme.psu.edu

In This Issue:

New Faces...................................3

Alumni and Friends Update .........4

Faculty News ...............................6

Program Updates ........................8

EME Education ..........................12

Student Voice ............................14

Newsletter

Program Update Issue

With a little bit of football and a lot of friends...EME takes time out during its busy fall semester to have a little fun - page 14

From The Department Head

Dear Alumni and Friends,

It’s hard to believe that we’re already halfway through the 2008-09 academic year and nearly the whole way through 2008. Since our last newsletter just a few short months ago, there has been a whirlwind of activity here at University Park. In October we had our official visit from the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET. Up for re-accreditation are our programs in environmental systems engineering, mining engineering, and petroleum and natural gas engineering. Initial feedback has been positive with evaluators commenting on the impressive performance of our faculty and high caliber of our students. No deficiencies were identified in any of our programs. We will receive the final reports in July.

Throughout this fall semester we have also been in the thick of an extremely busy industry recruiting season. Twenty-two companies have visited Hosler Building over the past four months to interview students from all of our programs for both internships and full-time positions. And that doesn’t count the companies who elicit résumés via email or who choose to conduct interviews through the University’s Bank of America Career Services Center. In these harrowing economic times, this is good news for our students. Whereas many other industries are facing a dreary employment outlook over the next year, the job market for our EME graduates is showing no signs of bleakness. In fact, interest is up. For those of us in the energy and minerals industry, this is hardly news. However, I’m pleased to say

that both current and prospective students have also recently started to take notice of the bright future a career in the energy industry can offer them, as reflected by the 500% increase in our enrollment numbers over the past five years. (More specific information about current program enrollment figures can be found in the program update sections starting on page 8.)

Our faculty also continues to excel in the classroom and on the research front. New student societies are being created, new academic and industry partnerships are being forged, and new research projects are receiving funding and national recognition. Furthermore, our faculty and students continue to receive awards and recognitions. More information about individual faculty accomplishments can be found on page 7. Student awards start on page 14.

With a growing student body and a commitment by Penn State to bolster energy-related research activities and education at the University, we are receiving strong support from Dean Easterling in the EMS College, and from the University for our programs and energy research. As the department continues to expand, we are currently still in the midst of the faculty search process for three positions in petroleum and natural gas engineering, one position in mining engineering, and two positions in energy and environmental economics. On top of that, we have just convened a search committee for a new faculty position in quantitative analysis of energy risk, a joint appointment with the Department of Meteorology. As always, we are looking for the best and brightest to fill these faculty openings, and there’s no better source for finding talented people than our own alumni. If you know of someone who you think would be a good fit and would make a great addition to our team, please let us know.

In addition, the department’s rapid growth is making it necessary for us to modernize and improve our laboratory facilities. In the past we have updated or replaced equipment as needed. In order to be able to accommodate the sustained influx of students, however, it has become essential for us to embark on an all-inclusive, full-scale lab enhancement project. We look forward to your support on such a large-scale undertaking. You will be hearing more about these specific lab proposals in the coming months.

I hope you have a joyous winter season and a safe and happy new year.

Yaw D. Yeboah, EME Department Head

2 www.eme.psu.edu

Connection is a publication of the Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences at Penn State.

Submissions for future issues are welcome and can be sent to:

Connection newsletter

116 Hosler BuildingPenn State UniversityUniversity Park, PA 16802-5000or by e-mail to: eme@ems.psu.edu

Editorial Director: Yaw Yeboah, YDY1@psu.edu Writer/Editor: Rachel Altemus, RLA7@psu.edu Pub. Design Assistant: Anna Morrison, AMM277@psu.edu

U.Ed. EMS 09-67

This publication is available in alternative media on request. Penn State is committed to affirmative action, equal opportunity, and the diversity of its workforce.

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New Faces

Over the past few months there have been some new faces popping up inside Hosler Building. In that time, EME has been pleased to welcome one new faculty member, Randy L. Vander Wal, and two new additions to the staff, Carole Donald and Jennifer Howard. In October, Dr. Vander Wal started as an associate professor of energy and mineral engineering. That same month, Ms. Donald joined the department in the new position of receptionist, while Ms. Howard came on board a month earlier as the department’s special events assistant.

Randy L. Vander WalAssociate ProfessorEnergy and Mineral Engineering203 Hosler BuildingUniversity Park, PA 16802-5000814-865-5813 (Voice)814-865-3248 (Fax)ruv12@psu.edu

Dr. Vander Wal’s research career began in physical chemistry studying quantum-state resolved, molecular photodissociation dynamics. In post-doctoral work, his research expanded into linear and non-linear laser-based optical diagnostic development and then broadened at NASA-Glenn to include the synthesis, characterization and applications of organic and inorganic nanomaterials. Presently, he characterizes himself as a research chemist with keen interests in real-izing applications for nanomaterials and clean carbon technologies/conversion.

Vander Wal’s direct experience includes synthesizing a range of nano-materials including carbon nanotubes, onions, capsules, metal oxide semiconductors, noble and transition metal catalysts and nitrides. Synthesis methods have included CVD, plasma and ablative methods with emphasis upon reacting flows for scalable production, e.g carbon nanotubes production. Applications where fundamental studies will have profound impact include clean coal and liquids conversion, composites, tribology, sensors, Li ion batteries, catalysis and optical pressure and temperature sensing. A rather unique feature of his work has been use-inspired synthesis followed by application testing, which exploits the synergy between chemical and size-scale properties.

At Penn State, Vander Wal will be teaching courses in fuels engineer-ing and energy conversion and transfer at interfaces: the role of nano-structure. Prior to joining EME, he had served as a senior research scientist at the NASA-Glenn Research Center.

New faculty and staff join EME Carole DonaldReceptionistEnergy and Mineral Engineering110 Hosler BuildingUniversity Park, PA 16802-5000814-865-3437 (Voice)814-865-3248 (Fax)cld14@psu.edu

Carole Donald joined the depart-ment in October 2008 as the receptionist. Carole serves as the department’s first point of contact for faculty, students, and visitors by greeting or providing them with information either in-person or over the telephone in the main office. Carole also provides general office support for the department endowed faculty by scheduling meetings, appointments, and EME conference rooms; arranging travel and meeting accommodations; typing various reports and correspondence; and processing various forms. Carole previously worked as a staff as-sistant with Penn State’s Golf Course Turf Grass Management. She has been working at Penn State for the past five years with positions in the Department of Food Science and Department of Chemistry.

Jennifer HowardSpecial Events AssistantEnergy and Mineral Engineering110 Hosler BuildingUniversity Park, PA 16802-5000814-863-1707 (Voice)814-865-3248 (Fax)jxh6@psu.edu

Jennifer Howard joined the department in September 2008 as the special events assistant. She is responsible for coordinating the department’s corporate recruiting program, which involves heavy scheduling of campus visits by industry representatives, assisting visitors with travel logistics, and coordinating interview schedules with student participants. Among other duties, Jennifer will also assist with the preparations and planning of different programs, seminars, and events in the department. For the past year, Jennifer has worked for Penn State’s Department of Recreation, Park and Tourism Management, a unit of the College of Health and Human Development, as the administrative specialist. Prior to that, she has worked for Marriott, Starwood, and Embassy Suites in Virginia as well as at Penn State’s Department of English.

Alumni and Friends

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Mineral Economics alumnus brings the voice of industry inside the halls of academiaby Anna Morrison, Publications Design Assistant, Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering

It’s not every day that a former student has the opportunity to return to his alma mater and hold class with a room full of faculty. However, that’s exactly what Mr. Stephen A. Yatsko (’71, B.S. Mineral Economics) got to do one day this fall. While visiting Penn State in September, Yatsko, vice president of development at TerraGen Power, sat down with a handful of faculty from the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences to discuss the current achievements and challenges of energy exploration, development, policy, and financing. Joining Yatsko in the conference room were Dr. Alan Scaroni, Associate Dean for Graduate Education and Research in the EMS College; five faculty members from the Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering including Drs. Seth Blumsack, Jeffrey R. S. Brownson, Derek Elsworth, Andrew N. Kleit, and Sarma Pisupati; Dr. Amy Glasmeier from the Department of Geography; and Associate Professor Emeritus of Mineral Economics George Schenck, the returning alumnus’ former adviser. For the EMS faculty, this informal gathering was not only a chance to discuss these national issues, it was also a welcomed occasion to hear directly from an experienced player in the field. “Thanks to Steve’s discussion with our faculty, I was able to see the enormous potential that alumni from the Mineral Economics degree program have to inspire the new students that we are producing from our EME degree programs,” said Jeffrey R. S. Brownson, assistant professor of energy and mineral engineering. “He offered numerous possibilities for research and development opportunities in the multidisciplinary tradition that we have come to expect from the Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering.” During his career, Yatsko has been involved in the negotiation of power purchase agreements with operators and purchasers of both renewable and fossil fuel energies, functioned as an independent consultant to energy companies, and served as a development manager for various organizations. At this time, he explained, he primarily operates as a developer of alternative energy including solar, geothermal, and most particularly, wind power. These alternative energies proved to be the predominate focus of the conversation, with talk ranging from how to find prime locations for wind farms and geothermal drilling to government regulations on the use of land for energy exploration and development. Amidst discussion about the technological advancements and successful development projects in the alternative energy industry, Yatsko reminded the group that there are other key factors to consider

beyond the engineering component. “We must pay attention to the political and economic aspects of energy development along with engineering.” The politics of energy, he continued, often come into play when developers encounter divergent attitudes amongst federal, state, and local governments. He went on to explain that many local communities will push for alternative energy exploration but federal government regulations end up prohibiting any such activities. This dichotomy, he said, makes it all the more imperative for alternative energy developers and communities to “work together toward a common goal.” Drawing on his mineral economics roots, Yatsko also explained that alternative energy development projects risk not seeing the light of day if they don’t pay attention to their cost-effectiveness. “A venture must make sense to the financial community…[and] we have to be able to maximize the project’s cash flow while keeping in mind the interests of the ultimate consumer. It all comes back to mineral economics.” When asked specifically how engineers and researchers could help their colleagues in the alternative energy business, Yatsko had two immediate suggestions: find ways to use or store the large amount of energy that is generated but not typically needed, and find a way to more accurately predict wind, solar, and geothermal resources. Whether talking about wind, solar, or geothermal projects, all those present in the conference room agreed that close collaborations between industry professionals and members from the academic arena

Alumni guest Stephen A. Yatsko (right) with his former Penn State faculty adviser Dr. George Schenck (left)

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could help bring about better efficiency and economic performance and more successful development of alternative energies in the future. “Since a reliable and reasonably-priced supply of energy is crucial to our modern economy and society, researchers in the energy field must be able to communicate and collaborate with real-world practitioners, so we can be sure that our research efforts are directed at resolving the actual challenges faced by society,” said Seth Blumsack, assistant professor of energy policy and economics. “At the same time, for a practitioner who may be focused on a particular project or technology, the breadth of knowledge, resources and innovative thinking that academic researchers can offer, presents a tremendous opportunity.”

Before the end of the hour-and-a-half session, Yatsko was asked the proverbial question that many successful graduates are called to answer. What advice would he give to graduating students? “Know your numbers, and be able to communicate well. The rest is common sense.” “You also need a good mentor in the beginning,” added Dr. Schenck. Smiling at his former faculty adviser, Yatsko agreed.

In MemoriamEugene G. “Gene” Gagnon (‘70, Ph.D. Fuel Science), 72, of Venice, formerly of Shelby Township, Michigan, died Thursday, September 25, 2008 of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Survivors include his beloved wife of 41 years, Mary Alice, children, Mark (Katherine) of Chicago, Brian (Allison) of Washington, DC and Michelle Bertman (Erik) of Johannesburg, South Africa, and 3 grandsons, Lucas, Axel Bertman and Alexander Gagnon.

Over the past eight years he had fought at least four types of cancer, beating three of them. He served as a physical chemist in the Research and Development Labs at the General Motors Corporation for 30 years, retiring in 2000. He was credited with numerous patents and publications in the field of electro-chemistry including early stage development of Nickel/Zinc battery powered electric vehicles and later developed and implemented strategies for GM plants worldwide to successfully recycle spent fuels and lubricants. He was very active in the Electrochemical Society, Inc as Divisional Editor of the Journal of the Electrochemical Society, Chairman, Vice-Chairman and Secretary-Treasurer of the Battery Division, presenting technical papers on a yearly basis. For 27 years he taught evening courses as an Adjunct professor in mathematics and Calculus at Lawrence Technology University, and several years at Detroit Mercy where he taught intermediate Algebra to mainly inner city students who were fearful of math. He often said teaching was his professional love. A graduate of Penn State (Ph.D.), Stevens Institute (M.S.), and Loyola College in Montreal, he was a four year letterman in basketball and the team’s MVP in 1957 and conferences third leading scorer.

Alumni News and Notes

Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration (SME)Annual Meeting: Feb. 22-25, 2009, Denver, COReception to be held Tuesday, Feb. 24, 5:30 to 7:00 PMat the Centennial H Room, Hyatt Regency - 650 15th Street, Denver

Upcoming Alumni Receptions

Some attendees at the alumni reception at the SPE meeting in Denver in October 2008

Shree Vikas (’96, Ph.D. Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering, ’96, M.Eng. Environmental Pollution Control) joined ConocoPhillips as the Director, Market Intelligence & Strategy in the company’s Project Development & Procurement organization. After graduating from Penn State, Dr. Vikas spent over 10 years in the Washington, DC area where he was involved in energy technology, policy and strategy consulting; and worked as Director of Energy Markets at SAIC before moving to Houston in summer of 2007. He has also been appointed Vice President of the Houston chapter of the International Association of Energy Economics (IAEE) – an interdisciplinary professional association involved in exchange of ideas, experiences and issues in the field of energy economics.

Tom Wood (’78, B.S. Geosciences, ’80, M.S. Mineral Processing) has been working in the engineering and construction industry, with an emphasis on environmental and mining related work, for the last 28 years. He is currently the Director of Construction for Jacobs Field Services, in Golden, CO. He is directing all the construction activities in the rocky mountain region including the new renovations of the Climax Molybdenum mine (Climax 2010 project) and a large number of upstream oil and gas projects.

William H. Renton (‘47, B.S. Mining Engineering), age 84 of Lake Placid, FL, died on Sept. 22, 2008 at his daughter’s home in Bel Air, MD. Born in Lawrence, PA, he was the son of the late William Docherty and Mary Emily Usnick Renton. A veteran of the U.S. Army Air Corps, he had worked as a mining engineer. He was very active at Penn State; nationally as a member of the Theta Chi Fraternity; the Past President of the Placid Lakes Country Club Men’s Association; an active member of the Lake Placid Historical Society; and a 60+ year member of the Benevolent Protective Order of the Elks.

Mr. Renton is survived by his wife, Jeanne E. Renton of Lake Placid, FL; two sons, William D. Renton and wife, Cindy, of Mooresville, NC and Richard C. Renton and wife, Danielle, of Chagrin Falls, OH; four daughters, Karen Miller and husband, Barry, of Piedmont, SC, Kathy Weiss and husband, Bob, of Brunswick, OH, Deborah Renton and husband, Craig Cash, of Bel Air, MD, and Margaret Renton and husband, Scott Tampa, of Huntington Beach, CA; a sister, Gerry Dolinar and husband, Joe, of Bethel Park, PA; a brother, Harry A. Renton and wife, Marilyn, of Erie, PA; 13 grandchildren and eight great grandchildren.

Working with students of the Penn State Mining Society, the department recruiter, and alumni, I have been working hard on student recruitment. By mid-fall semester, undergraduate enrollment had reached 39. Part of the success is the tremendous enthusiasm of the students, who last year formed an International Intercollegiate Mining (Mucking) Competition team and this year have formed a student mine res-cue team. I have also led the preparation of the Mining Engineering ABET Self-Study for the fall accredita-tion visit, which had a successful outcome, requiring primarily the addition of a structural geology course. I also assumed the department responsibility as the EME graduate program officer.

In the fall semester, I am teaching Mineral Property Evaluation, a section of the college’s first-year seminar, and the capstone mine design course. I have worked with Dr. Kecojevic and others to publish seven papers and one book chapter, and served on the NIOSH Study Section (4-year term), a National Science Foundation review panel, and on the program committee of the Illinois Clean Coal Institute. I made professional trips to Lima, Peru; Xi’an, China; Las Vegas for MINExpo; and Anaheim for the National Safety Council Confer-ence. I continue to serve as the director of the Western U.S. Mining Safety & Health Training & Translation Center, which is now in its final year. I also assist the Miner Training group with their work on two Brookwood-Sago grants, and am working with Drs. Ityokumbul and Ramani on a series of mining training courses for Nigeria.

Larry Grayson

I have edited and contributed a chapter to a handbook published in June of 2008 by the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE). The multi-volume handbook in-cludes the work of some 85 authors and cov-ers 13 major topic areas in the safety, health and environmental fields. Sales have been strong, as the new book has already sold out of its first printing. A portion of the royalties from the book sales are coming to Penn State

to fund the ASSE and Joel M. Haight scholarship. I am currently heading up the effort by ASSE to present a webinar series on the 13 topic areas covered in the book. I’ll be presenting the first one for ASSE in January.

Joel Haight

Faculty News

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We are pleased to share with you some personal messages and updates from EME faculty members on their recent news and accomplishments.

Dear Friends:

Within a few days from the time that I am writing this note the four digits of the current year will change to 2009. My wife Filiz and I send our best wishes for a healthy, happy and prosperous New Year to all of you.

Looking back at the end of the year 2008, I find myself thinking about many diverse things. On one level, this has been one of, perhaps, the most challeng-ing years of my academic life at Penn State. The faculty shortage that we have been experiencing added more to the shoulders of the faculty who are on board. However, challenges always bring some opportu-nities. In this note, I briefly touch upon one of the new educational experiences that we are trying to provide our students. In the spring of 2007 I started to teach the first and last courses in the petroleum engineering capstone design series. My goal has been to add a new dimension to the learning experience of our students by bringing an industrial partner to the classroom. In 2007, Rex Energy provided a very significant level of expertise to the design projects that our stu-dents worked on in the area of field development plans for Marcellus Shale play. I thank Rex Energy for bringing a good level of opera-tional experience to our classrooms. This coming year National Fuel Gas will be the industrial partner in the capstone engineering design project involving the development of expansion plans for an existing underground gas storage field. I am hoping to report to you about the outcome of this project at the end of 2009 as I am confident that our students are again poised to learn from this collaborative learning experience.

As someone said, please continue to consider your goals for the New Year as new journeys rather than destinations. This is what I aspire to do every year, as the beginning of each New Year brings the excite-ment and dynamism of a new journey.

Happy and healthy trails,

Turgay Ertekin

An Update From The Faculty

Connection 7

Due to the generous support of mining alumni through the Centennial Career Development Professorship in Mining Engineering, my Ph.D. student Dragan Bogunovic and I were able to complete an industrial project on an integrated data environment system for analysis and control of energy consumption. The entire project was completed over a two-year period at a surface coal mine, which is operated by the largest North American lignite coal com-pany. Support from this company and the mine management team, particularly Tom Kovach, Tres Tipton, Vern Lund, Mike Heger and Paul Mongeon, is gratefully acknowledged. I am also happy to report that Dragan completed his degree this semester and is now working for that same coal company. I wish him all the best in pursuing an industrial career in coal mining.

Vladislav Kecojevic

First of all let me wish you all a Very Happy and Prosperous New Year. I wanted to share with you that I could reach out to and per-sonally teach over 2,500 students this year on energy related sub-jects. I also developed and taught EGEE 302 (Principles of Energy Engineering) for the first time

to Energy Engineering students. It has been a pleasure to teach in class, online, and hybrid (blended learning) classes. Our research paper on “comparing in class, online, and hybrid (blended learning)” received the Energy Conversion and Conservation Division Best Paper Award at the Annual American Society for Engineering Education meeting in 2008.

On the research front, our research group has grown to about eight graduate students (four Ph.D. and 4 M.S.) working on various topics such as oxy-fuel combustion, behavior of various density and size coal particles during entrained flow gasification, gasification, and gasification of coal and biomass blends. We are also exploring the use of microwaves for biomass gasification bio oil production. We are col-laborating with researchers from U.S. DOE, West Virginia University, Carnegie Mellon University, SRI International, Niksa Energy Associ-ates, REM Engineering Services, and Leonardo Technologies, Inc. on the gasification behavior of various density and size fractions. The goal of this team is to better understand the impact of the non-homoge-neous nature of coal on coal gasification systems and to develop better modeling tools to improve reliability and efficiency of coal gasifiers.

Sarma Pisupati

It has been an extremely busy and reward-ing year for the Miner Training program. We are just wrapping up our 2007-2008 Brookwood-Sago project, which features a webcast and training program to enhance escape-related skills for miners who may be involved in an underground mine emergency. In September we were notified that the Miner Training team had received its second Brookwood-Sago Safety Grant

Angela Lueking, assistant professor of energy and geo-environmental engineering, was awarded funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, for her project entitled, “Hydrogen Trapping through Designer Hydrogen Spillover Molecules with Reversible Temperature and Pressure-Induced Switching.” This is one of ten awards given by the DOE in August for its Research and Development for On-Board Vehicular Hydrogen Storage initiative.

Sarma Pisupati, associate professor of energy and mineral engineering and undergraduate program officer of energy engineering, was selected to receive the John T. Ryan, Jr. Faculty Fellowship in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences. The purpose of this fellowship is to provide supplementary funds to an outstanding faculty member.

Two “Most Cited Author” Awards were presented recently by Elsevier to Dr. Chunshan Song, director of EMS Energy Institute, professor of fuel science in Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering, professor of chemical engineering (courtesy) in the Department of Chemical Engineering and associate director of Penn State Institutes of Energy and the Environment. In addition, at the 14th International Congress on Catalysis held in Seoul, Korea in 2008, Dr. Song was again recognized as one of the “Top Cited Authors” in catalysis (among all the papers published during 2003-2007) in a special reception hosted by Elsevier.

Dr. Song published two of the top 50 most cited papers among researchers in catalysis worldwide. Each of the following two papers has received over 300 citations according to Elsevier’s citation database “Scopus”. These two papers are also the top 50 most cited papers among the over 10,000 papers published in catalysis during 2003-2007 by Science Citation Index (SCI) at Web of Science by ISI.

C.S. Song. An Overview of New Approaches to Deep Desulfurization for Ultra-Clean Gasoline, Diesel Fuel and Jet Fuel. Catalysis Today, 2003, 86 (1-4), 211-263.

C.S. Song, and X.L. Ma. New Design Approaches to Ultra-Clean Diesel Fuels by Deep Desulfurization and Deep Dearomatization. Applied Catalysis B: Environmental, 2003, 41 (1-2), 207-238.

Faculty Accolades

Continued on page 15Continued on page 15

Dear Alumni and Friends,

Demand continues to be strong for the EBF program. At last count, we had 219 majors, making EBF the second largest major in EMS. We continue to work on our innovative instruction. Seth Blumsack has been perfecting EMSC 304, Environmental Management, using case studies from a variety of energy sectors such as petroleum exploration, clean-coal technology and biofuels to illustrate how businesses respond to environmental and climate-related issues. This term we were pleased to have Joe Goehring, the former chief trader for Hershey Foods, teaching EMSC 301, Commodity Markets. The students were captivated by Joe’s use of real life examples from his own career to motivate how these crucial markets operate.

The fall saw the opening of our graduate option in Energy Management and Policy (EMP). The EMP option combines engineering training with economics and policy analysis to create analysts who will have the interdisciplinary training and sophistication necessary to address society’s energy and environmental challenges. As part of this new graduate curriculum, Seth Blumsack has developed a course in policy analysis and risk analysis for M.S. and Ph.D. students in engineering, and a graduate-level energy economics course is also planned. Despite the fact that the EMP option was not publicly announced until July of 2008, we have several very promising students in the program with interests in water resources, renewable

Andrew Kleit, Program Officer, Energy Business and Finance

Program Updates: Energy Business and Finance &Energy Engineering

From The Program Officer - EBF

8 www.eme.psu.edu

Dear Alumni and Friends,

It is always a pleasure to write to you about the exciting and new Energy Engineering program. I am really delighted to report that Energy Engineering is growing by leaps and bounds. Last year we started the program and through word of mouth we had about 9 students come in the program. This fall our incoming class was 26. Several others have decided to also switch into Energy Engineering. As of last week, enrollment stands at 57 with

From The Program Officer - EN ENG

Dr. Sarma Pisupati, Program Officer, Energy

Engineering

energy, and electricity reliability. Our department head Yaw Yeboah is working hard together with other college administrators to gain financial support for EMP students, as well as other EME graduate students.

While the EBF and EMP programs are still relatively new, international recognition of these programs is growing. Beginning in the spring of 2009, EBF and EMP will host the first-ever professional student chapter of the U.S. Association for Energy Economics. EMP students have been invited to present research papers at the Technology, Management and Policy consortium meeting, to be held this summer in Vancouver, British Columbia. The consortium consists of a number of prestigious international university programs with an interdisciplinary focus on science and public policy (other consortium members include Carnegie Mellon, the University of British Columbia, Cambridge University (U.K.) and the Technical University of Delft (Netherlands)).

Despite the current financial difficulties in the economy, we are looking to hire two new EBF assistant professors. Seth Blumsack, Andy Kleit, and Sarma Pisupati will depart the day after New Year’s for San Francisco, for the annual meeting of the American Economic Association. At the meeting, Blumsack, Kleit and Pisupati will interview a number of promising young economists for our open positions, with the top candidates invited to visit Happy Valley and meet the EME faculty. In addition, the Penn State Institutes of Energy and the Environment has provided financial support to create a third new faculty position in the area of energy risk. This position will provide valuable support to the EBF program as well as the program in Weather Risk Management in the Meteorology Department.

100 mark next year.

Most of the courses required for the program have been developed and offered at least once. For the first time, our Industrial and Professional Advisory Committee (IPAC) met in April 2008 and reviewed the program curriculum. The IPAC report was very positive about the program in general and specifically the research experience (EGEE 497) and the capstone design course (EGEE 464W) in cooperation

26 freshmen, 14 sophomores, 11 juniors and 6 seniors. All the seniors are pursuing dual majors in either chemical or mechanical engineering and energy engineering. It is always refreshing when the high school students walk into our offices on their own enquiring about the energy engineering program and show the enthusiasm to be part of the global energy solution rather than parents encouraging them to pursue careers related to energy. We hope to touch the

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Program Updates: Environmental Systems Engineering &Industrial Health and Safety

with the Learning Factory of the College of Engineering. Thanks to the Committee members: Dr. Dustin Davis (GE Global Research), Jim Dickinson (Babcock & Wilcox Power Generation Group) and Dr. Rashid Khan (KAUST). John Fox, General Manager PureCycle® Solutions of UTC Power visited us and gave a very exciting lecture about the opportunities in Alternate Energy and energized the Energy Engineering students.

I am also very pleased to report that the first dual degree Energy Engineering graduate Mansoor K. Aleidi was the EMS College Marshall in May 2008. Mansoor is now working for Saudi Aramco in Saudi Arabia.

The Energy Engineering Capstone Design course is offered in cooperation with the “Learning Factory” in the College of

Engineering. Through the Learning Factory, industrial groups sponsor small projects that can be completed by a group of students in a semester. Students from various disciplines (usually 4-5 depending on the project) work collaboratively in consultation with the sponsor, complete the project and “show case” the outcome at the end of the semester. The program is looking for these industry-driven projects. If you would like to sponsor a project or know someone who can, please pass this information or contact me. More information can be obtained about the Learning Factory by going to http://www.lf.psu.edu/.

That’s all for now. If you have any comments or suggestions please do not hesitate to let me know by dropping an email at spisupati@psu.edu.

Have a wonderful and safe Holiday Season and Prosperous New Year!

Dear Alumni and Friends,

Enrollment in the ENVSE program is continuing to hold steady. We currently have around 80 students. We have just had our ABET accreditation visit in October. No weaknesses or deficiencies were identified, putting us on track for a favorable final report. A final evaluation report from the visit will be sent to us in 2009.

As you will read about in the IHS program update, we are still in the process of integrating industrial health and safety into the ENVSE program. The current proposal is to

give students the choice between two options, one in environmental systems engineering and one in environmental health and safety engineering. As we move forward with this, it may become necessary for us to modify our program educational objectives. In doing so, I would be happy to receive your input and ideas via email at: mti1@psu.edu.

Best wishes for the new year!

From The Program Officer - ENVSE

Mku (Thaddeus) Ityokumbul, Program Officer,

Environmental Systems Engineering

Dear Alumni and Friends,

The IHS program is going to be part of a new two option approach in the Environmental Systems Engineering program.

A proposal has been submitted to the Faculty Senate to discontinue the current Industrial Health and Safety degree program and to begin offering an option in the Environmental Systems Engineering degree program titled Environmental Health and Safety Engineering. Students will receive much of the same training in safety engineering that they had been receiving previously, but they will now receive more course work in environmental engineering. The companies that recruit our students have been asking for such a move and EMS is responding with this new option. Students taking the new option will graduate with an ABET accredited Environmental Systems Engineering degree and as soon as approval is received, a marketing effort will begin to attract students to the new option.

On November 6, 2008, the Industrial Health and Safety Society sent four delegates to the Future Safety Leaders Conference in Louisville, KY. This conference is held annually and brought students from around America. Dr. Mark Radomsky drove four students - Nasir Ismail, Brian Marpoe, Sunghae Park and Chris Martis from State

From The Program Officer - I H S

Joel Haight, Program Officer, Industrial Health and Safety

Continued on page 10

10 www.eme.psu.edu

Program Updates: Mining Engineering

The program has seen good growth in the last year and four months. Enrollment has risen to 39 as of November 25 compared to 23 in November 2007. Two students will graduate in December 2008, and four others will graduate in May 2009, overcoming a significant lapse for graduates (over a year).

The ABET visit is complete now, and the visit proved successful. A structural geology course must be added, but recognition in the growth of undergraduate student

enrollment and faculty stability was much appreciated. The Program Evaluator was very impressed with the enthusiasm and quality of the students. The final evaluation report will be received in 2009.

The students have energized into two teams now. The International Intercollegiate Mining (Mucking) Competition team will compete for the second time in March 2009, this time in Butte, Montana. They promised not to come in last overall next time, and have already begun practicing at the Graymont lime site.

At the annual meeting and dinner of the National Mine Rescue Association in Canonsburg, PA, Penn State announced the formation of its first mine rescue student team. The program is now in the process of getting the necessary equipment from eager supporters. This will be only the second university team to compete in industry mine rescue competitions, and the first in coal. Missouri University of Science and Technology is the other, and it has two teams.

From The Program Officer - MNG E

R. Larry Grayson, Program Officer, Mining Engineering

The Penn State Mining Society has seen a significant growth in attendance this semester as well. At the first meeting, the attendance from last year was nearly tripled. The leadership team is President Brett Ashley, Vice President Drew Mason, Secretary-Treasurer Mark Rotz, Social Chair Tim Nolan, and Service Chair Alex Bugbee. They have organized several field trips, including to Joy Mining Machinery and a nearby Hanson Aggregates mine, and have attended MINExpo and the PCMIA/SME-Pittsburgh Section joint annual meeting.

Mining industry recruitment for internships and permanent jobs continues to be strong. Twelve companies gave information sessions and/or conducted day-long interviews in the fall 2008 semester. Several others solicited résumés by email. Industry has also been strongly supportive of student scholarships and other student activities, which is very heartwarming.

A sense of excitement about the growing program has begun to percolate among various constituencies now, as we encounter them at professional venues. To our dedicated alumni, keep the faith; the students, staff and faculty are working hard toward even greater things! We appreciate all of the offers to help recruit high school students, and jump at every opportunity you give us. If you have time during the 2009 SME Annual Meeting, drop by our booth and let’s talk.

Mining engineering faculty and students at the Curtin Gap Quarry Field in October 2008

Students competed in the 2008 International Intercollegiate Mining

(Mucking) Competition

College, PA, to Louisville.

The conference trained students to think as the future safety leaders who have important and crucial responsibilities to make the workplace safer in the near future. Discussions and talks were also part of the conference agenda to educate the current safety students. Many notable faculty and engineers with extensive backgrounds in safety were present.This trip was one way for the IHS society to teach its members about the important role safety professionals need to play in the near future.

IHS Update... Continued from page 9

Connection 11

Program Updates: Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering

The 2008-09 Academic Year started with an undergraduate enrollment of almost 150 students. Perhaps, more importantly almost 50 students are enrolled as freshman. The statistics that we have collected over the course of years show that typically our freshman class size doubles when they become juniors. If these statistics continue to hold, in the next few years we expect to have an undergraduate enrollment of 250. Furthermore, we believe that these enrollment levels will be steady for a

foreseeable future. At the graduate level, on the average we have had 35 students enrolled at a given time and the last and current academic years are not exceptions. During the 2007-08 Academic Year, 13 B.S., 6 M.S. and 3 Ph.D. degrees were granted.

In terms of undergraduate enrollment, we would like to have a steady enrollment level of not more than 250 to 300 students. With these numbers, we will be graduating approximately 60 to 70 students per year. We expect that 20% of these students will be international students, and most probably, they will not be available to the U.S. job market. This will leave us with 50 to 60 graduating seniors who will be eligible for the domestically available job positions. The number of graduate students should depend on the number of faculty teaching at the graduate level and the established research programs. For a faculty size of six to eight, we should be able to accommodate 30 to 40 graduate students. With the help of the current increased demand in petroleum engineers, our enrollment levels are now on the right trajectory. At the graduate level, historical enrollment numbers have been steady. Most of our graduate students are international students and they are sponsored by their national oil companies and/or government agencies. We believe that over the course of years the high standards that we have exhibited in our graduate program have resonated very well with the international sponsoring agencies.

We believe that our core curriculum of 129 credits gives ample time to students to become active learners. However, we would like to fortify the contents of our curriculum by offering some technical electives and revising some of the topical areas covered in the existing courses. The areas that need some special emphases are petro-physics and reservoir characterization, geo-statistics, risk management and

From The Program Officer - PNG E

Turgay Ertekin, Program Officer, Petroleum and Natural Gas

Engineering

uncertainty analysis, and topics related to offshore technologies and underground gas storage operations. Furthermore, we would like to see that each of our instructional laboratories is supported by endowed funds. Such endowments will provide a good degree of flexibility to maintain and upgrade the instructional laboratories.

In the research front, PNG E faculty have research programs which involve mainly some theoretical and computational developments in the areas of fluid flow dynamics in porous media, reservoir modeling, enhanced oil recovery, unconventional reservoirs, pipeline engineering, phase-equilibria, well test analysis and artificial expert systems. These research programs are supported by national and international oil companies and federal agencies.

During the 2007-08 Academic Year, due to two phased-in retirements and a departure, we have experienced a significant faculty shortage. During the current academic year, we have three tenured/tenure track, one fixed term, one emeritus, and one adjunct faculty member teaching our undergraduate and graduate classes. Currently, we are conducting searches for three faculty members to fill in the open faculty slots. When these searches come to a conclusion we hope to have two new junior faculty members and one senior faculty member added to our current core petroleum and natural gas engineering faculty. In the subsequent years, with the help of the fact that energy is a top priority item on Penn State’s agenda, we will vigorously pursue all the possible opportunities to bring the core petroleum engineering faculty members to nine. In order to be able to attract top-notch faculty to the program we would like to have every faculty position attached to a named endowment. At the present time, within the program, we have one endowed chair and two endowed faculty fellow positions. All these three endowments are established by our alumni. We hope to increase the number of these faculty endowments with the help of our industrial partners so that each faculty position becomes a named faculty position.

PNG E students attended the Shell Petroleum Engineering Camp in Robert,

Louisiana in May 2008

Continued on page 15

EME Education

12 www.eme.psu.edu

Watson retires after 26 years of serviceAfter 26 years of service, Robert W. Watson retired on June 30, 2008 as an Associate Professor of Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering and Geo-Environmental Engineering in the Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering. Watson joined Penn State as an instructor of petroleum and natural gas engineering in 1981 and became a

tenure-track faculty member in 1988. During his career, he contributed to the instructional activities of the petroleum and natural gas engineering program immensely by teaching almost every single course that has been offered as part of the curriculum. His research interests include drilling hydraulics, stripper well technologies, underground gas storage operations and engineering evaluation of oil and gas prospects.

“Bob has been an extraordinary colleague and friend, and it is a bittersweet feeling to say goodbye,” said Turgay Ertekin, George E. Trimble chair in earth and mineral sciences and undergraduate program officer and professor of petroleum and natural gas engineering. “Ever since he joined us all those years ago, Bob has been a pillar in the petroleum and natural gas engineering program. He helped build the very foundations that have made this program such a success.”

Before joining Penn State, Watson worked for National Fuel Gas Company for several years. During his almost three decades of service as a petroleum and natural gas engineering faculty member, he often brought his extensive field operations experience to the classroom very effectively. “Dr. Watson’s former students have always applauded the real-life situations they are exposed to in his classes,” explained Ertekin. “His students always stress that those practical insights that they acquired in his classes helped them to bridge the theoretical discussions and real-life cases in a much more meaningful manner. This, in turn, made them much better engineers in their respective professional settings.”

Outside the classroom, Watson has also used his previous experience to maintain strong connections between the EME department and

its industrial partners. “What in my mind sets Bob as a peer apart from the rest of us in the area of service is his untiring efforts in establishing a very effective partnership between Penn State and the local petroleum and natural gas industry in the Commonwealth,” noted Yaw D. Yeboah, department head and professor of energy and mineral engineering.

Some other highlights of Watson’s service activities include his 1990 appointment by Governor Robert P. Casey to the Oil and Gas Technical Advisory

Board (and subsequently becoming an elected chairman of the same board) and his appointment in 2003 to the Energy Subcommittee of the Ecosystem Management Advisory Committee of the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.

“Bob is truly a distinguished petroleum engineer, a respected petroleum engineering professor and an acknowledged petroleum engineering scientist in the petroleum engineering community,” said Yeboah.

Watson is a native of Pittsburgh, PA and received

his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in petroleum and natural gas engineering from Penn State. He is married to Rebecca Watson and has one daughter and two grandchildren. He plans to reside in State College and will continue with his research programs at Penn State and his unwavering support of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Pittsburgh Penguins.

Dr. Robert Watson

Robert Watson addressing faculty, staff, and friends at his retirement celebration in July

2008 at the Nittany Lion Inn

Chatting at Dr. Watson’s retirement celebration in July 2008 at the Nittany

Lion Inn, from left to right: Robert Watson; Alan Scaroni, College of EMS

associate dean for graduate education and research; Yaw D. Yeboah, EME department

head; and Turgay Ertekin, George E. Trimble chair in earth and mineral sciences

and undergraduate program officer and professorof petroleum and

natural gas engineering.

Connection 13

Penn State University was selected as one of two beneficiary universities for the 2008 World Oil Awards dinner on October 16, 2008 in Houston, TX. The honor goes to educational institutions that demonstrate excellence in preparing students for careers in the petroleum industry. Texas Tech University was the other beneficiary at the black-tie gala.

“The Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering’s program in petroleum and natural gas engineering has a long tradition of turning out top graduates that shows no sign of slowing,” said Yaw. D. Yeboah, department head of energy and mineral engineering. “It’s always nice to see the dedication of our faculty and efforts of our students being recognized.”

By accepting the recognition, the EME department received a donation from the proceeds of the dinner, which will be put toward student travel and/or scholarships. The University and the PNGE program will also receive additional publicity by having a profile written up in the World Oil magazine and its corresponding web site. In addition, William Easterling, dean of the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, was selected to serve on the 2008 World Oil

Awards Advisory Board. According to a press release issued by the World Oil magazine, members of the board include industry executives, academic representatives, and a committee of up-and-coming leaders in the petroleum industry who help to judge the short list of nominations for the 13 available awards.

The theme of this year’s World Oil Awards was “Focus on

the Future.” Seven years running, the purpose of the accolades is to acknowledge the contributions of both big and small companies for their innovation and achievements in the petroleum industry. Awards are given for best completion technology, best data management solution, best data application/visualization, best drilling technology, best exploration technology, best fluids, best well intervention, best production technology, and best outreach program. Other honors include the Health and Safety Environment/Sustainable Development Award, the Innovative Thinkers Award, the New Horizons Award, and the Next Generation Award. Sponsors of the 2008 event included Schlumberger, Halliburton, and Weatherford.

As representatives of Penn State, Dr. Easterling and Sean Miller, assistant director of development in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, attended the awards celebration at the Houstonian Hotel along with close to 350 industry guests. “This offers us a great opportunity to be able to meet with people in the petroleum industry and to be able to share with them all the good work we are doing here at the University,” said Miller. With an eye to returning to the global petroleum event he added, “Hopefully we can have more of that great work we do in the PNGE program get nominated for awards in the future.”

From left to right: EMS Dean William Easterling; Sean Miller, assistant director of development in EMS; Perry Fischer, editor of World Oil Magazine; and Victor

Schmidt, drilling engineering editor of World Oil Magazine.

2008 World Oil Awards lined up and ready to be presented at the black-tie gala

in Houston, TX

Penn State Selected as Beneficiary University at 2008 World Oil Awardsby Anna Morrison, Publications Design Assistant, Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering

ConocoPhillips and Penn State have awarded the first ConocoPhillips Energy Prize to David A. Gonzales II, San Antonio, to further develop the Layered MagWheel, a new technology to provide magnetic acceleration and frictionless braking for vehicles, increasing energy conversion and efficiency.

2008 marks the inaugural year of the ConocoPhillips Energy Prize, which recognizes new ideas and original, actionable solutions that can help improve the way the United States develops and uses energy. The Prize focuses on innovative ideas and solutions in three areas: developing new energy sources; improving energy efficiency; and combating climate change.

Sig Cornelius, senior vice president, finance, and chief financial officer of ConocoPhillips, said, “Developing diverse sources of sustainable, reliable energy; reducing greenhouse gas emissions; and significantly improving energy efficiency all require technological advances.

“Along with our partners at Penn State, we are pleased to recognize David A. Gonzales II and the finalists for their innovative ideas to maximize our existing resources and identify new opportunities,” he added.

William Easterling, dean of Penn State’s College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, noted, “Like ConocoPhillips, Penn State believes that the nation needs fundamentally new knowledge and applications of that knowledge to diversify its energy supply, while simultaneously improving the efficiency by which it generates and utilizes that energy. The development and commercialization of energy technologies based on novel ideas, such as those represented by the ConocoPhillips Energy Prize, will assist the

ConocoPhillips, Penn State announce energy prize by Vicki Fong, Penn State Live

Continued on page 15

Student Voice

14 www.eme.psu.edu

Graduate Student Finds Success at 2008 SPE Paper Contest

Denis Pone, Ph.D. candidate in energy and geo-environmental engineering, took home a first place prize from the 2008 Mid-Continent/Rocky Mountain/Eastern regional Society of Petroleum Engineers student paper contest. His paper entitled, “Kinetic Modeling of the Sorption of Carbon Dioxide on Powder and Non-powder Bituminous Coal for Sequestration and Enhanced Coalbed Methane Recovery,” grabbed the top spot for the masters/

Hyun Jae Kim and Ramanathan Sundararaman, both Ph.D. students of the Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering working in the EMS Energy Institute, have been selected as winners of the Student Best Paper Awards at the Spring 2008 and Fall 2008 national meetings of the American Chemical Society, respectively. Only one such award is selected by the ACS Petroleum Chemistry Division at each ACS national meeting.

Sundararaman, a student of Dr. Chunshan Song in the EMS Energy Institute, was selected to receive the Student Award for Best Paper based on the paper entitled, “Partial oxidation using air for insitu peroxide generation in diesel fuel for selective oxidation of refractory sulfur compounds,” which he presented at the ACS Fall 2008 National Meeting in Philadelphia, PA, held Aug. 17-21, 2008. The research by Ramanathan aims at a novel oxidative desulfurization process by using air at mild conditions for producing ultra-clean fuels without using hydrogen.

Hyun Jae, also a student of Dr. Song, was selected to receive the Student Award for Best Paper at the ACS national meeting in Philadelphia held Aug 17-21, 2008. This award is for the paper entitled, “Hybrid zeolite-supported Pd catalyst with high sulfur tolerance for low-temperature hydrogenation of aromatics in diesel fuels,” which he presented at the ACS national meeting in New Orleans during April 3-7, 2008. The work by Hyun Jae focuses on a new concept for catalyst design towards low-temperature hydrotreating and dearomatization for producing ultra-clean diesel fuels in the future.

EME holds its fall flingNeither the first blows of the crisp autumn air nor the dampness left by a morning rain shower could deter members of the EME community from joining in the fun at the department’s annual fall picnic this past October. Connecting undergraduate and graduate students with faculty and staff, the event, organized by a coalition of student volunteers from all EME undergraduate programs, was held at Sunset Park in State College, PA.

Good food and the delights of meeting new people would have been enough to please the crowd, but to add to the allure of the gathering, organizers arranged for a raffle contest with some very choice prizes. One lucky winner walked away with a football signed by Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, while several others won an assortment of football jerseys, chairs, and baseball hats. At the end of the day,

everyone was able to enjoy a scoop of the Berkey Creamery’s ice cream, which was graciously donated by the Office of the Associate Dean for Educational Equity in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences.

“It’s not a bad way to get into the swing of the semester,” said one staff member. And as the department continues to attract more and more students, it’s events like these that will

help EME remain a close-knit community.

Faculty and friends chat at the EME Fall Picnic

The EME Fall Picnic provided the opportunity for students, faculty

and staff to meet new people

Two EME/EMSEI students receive awards at America Chemical Society national meeting by Sarah Haner, Writer/Editor, EMS Energy Institute

doctoral division during the two-day October competition at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. Pone, a student of Dr. Jonathan Mathews, will next have the opportunity to participate in the international student paper contest, held during the 2009 Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition in New Orleans, LA.

Denis Pone

Connection 15

Yaw D. Yeboah, department head and professor of energy and mineral engineering, received a 2008 Black Achiever in Chemical

Engineering Award at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AICHE) Annual Meeting & Centennial Celebration in Philadelphia, PA on November 16-21, 2008. The award was given in recognition of Yaw’s extraordinary contributions to the field of chemical engineering and the engineering profession.

Faculty Accolades... Continued from page 7United States in meeting its energy needs while spurring economic growth.”

More than 300 proposals were submitted for evaluation by a panel of energy and environmental experts, which selected five finalists. Proposals were judged on the basis of creativity, scalability, commercial viability and sustainability.

The first runner-up was Corban Tillemann-Dick and team of the Greater Washington, D.C., area for the Radial Expansion Engine, which increases the efficiency and decreases the weight and cost of internal combustion engines by increasing the percentage of the combustion chamber reacting productively and capturing energy otherwise lost through the exhaust system.

Second runner-up was Logan Bryce and team of Belt, Mont., and Seattle, Wash., for the Micro Wind Distributive Power Generation, a small form-factor turbine to harvest power from wind at velocities of 12 mph and below, using an inverter system that allows direct connection to power mains.

The remaining finalists were Miguel Bagajewicz of University of Oklahoma for the Acoustic Mass Pump, and Greg Rau, Institute of Marine Sciences, University of California, Santa Cruz, for the Carbon-Negative Electrolytic Hydrogen.

Each of the five finalists received an award of $25,000 to further the development of their concept. The winner received an additional $100,000; the first and second runners-up received an additional $50,000 and $25,000, respectively.

The awards were presented Oct. 13, 2008, at a ceremony held at ConocoPhillips Corporate offices in Houston following formal presentations by the five finalists to the panel of judges.

The judges were: Charles Bierbauer, dean, mass communications and information studies, University of South Carolina; Ralph Cicerone, president, National Academy of Sciences; Peter Jackson, senior director, oil industry activity, Cambridge Energy Research Associates; James Kimble, fellow, biofuels and long-range technology (retired), ConocoPhillips; and Chunshan Song, director, EMS Energy Institute, professor of fuel science and chemical engineering, Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering, Penn State.

ConocoPhillips Energy Prize... Continued from page 13

We believe that the current worldwide reality check on the demand and supply of hydrocarbons will help us in maintaining a steady flux of undergraduate students into the program. Over the course of years, the Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering program at Penn State has enjoyed a wonderful interaction with the petroleum industry. During the years when the Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering program experienced low enrollment levels, petroleum industry never abandoned the program. While we are grateful for this, we also see this as an implicit recognition of our efforts towards achieving the academic excellence. At the present time the needs of the petroleum industry for well-trained, capable, talented new petroleum engineers is at an all-time high. We are fully aware of the fact that this adds new responsibilities to our shoulders and we are excited and determined to fulfill our obligations.

PNGE Update... Continued from page 11

from the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) in the amount of $100,000. The purpose of this grant program is to develop a “miner’s tool box” to enhance the capability of miners to escape or evacuate the hazards of mine emergencies. As part of the project the Penn State Mining Training Program (PSMTP) will work closely with Penn State Public Broadcasting to produce two high definition training DVDs. Aside from our successful projects related to training material development, we continue to see high demand for our new miner classes, and mine instructor train-the-trainer courses.

Mark Radomsky

As we approach the end of the semester, it has been over a year that I have been working at Penn State, and I have become familiar with the rich traditions and vigor of our program. The strong ties and sup-port of the alumni has been amazing and heartwarming for me and gives us ever-more incentives to try harder and excel in our teaching and research.

So far, I have taught the Fiery Furnace as a general education course, introduction to mining engineering, and had the pleasure and fun of teaching surveying class! Also, in forging ties with civil engineering and construction industry, I have taught a course on “Tunnel and Shaft Construction” last spring and am prepar-ing a course on “Ground Support” for next semester. As for research, I completed a project on Low Power Excavator or so called “Moon Mining” project with development of the first ever cutterhead with variable spacing. Also, with the support of Kennametal Inc, we are looking at the rock bit interface for conical bits and launching a new project for development of Smart Bit or Smart Drum, with many ap-plications in the mining industry, from coal mining to Iron ore.

Meanwhile, our geomechanic lab has been revived and with a few new pieces of equipment, we have been running some rock mechanic tests for various projects. I look forward to getting feedback from our graduates and the industry on any of these topics to develop research projects that could serve our industry.

Jamal Rostami

Faculty News... Continued from page 7

16 www.eme.psu.edu

Newsletter

Department of Energy and Mineral EngineeringCollege of Earth and Mineral SciencesThe Pennsylvania State University110 Hosler BuildingUniversity Park, PA 16802Phone: (814) 865-3437

An Opportunity To Give

The Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering EME Undergraduate Education Funds

To make a gift, please complete and return this form with a check made payable to:The Pennsylvania State UniversityEME Undergraduate Education Funds116 Hosler BuildingUniversity Park, PA 16802

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I would like to support EME with my gift of:

□ $50.00□ $100.00□ $250.00□ Other: _____________

Please use my gift for the following area of need:

□ Incoming Student Incentive Scholarship Fund □ Departmental Undergraduate Scholarship Fund□ Undergraduate Travel Fund□ Teaching Laboratories Upgrade Fund