UAB Engineering, Spring 2013

ENGINEERING SPRING 2013

SAFERSAFERMaking Streets

Creator of SAFER Barriers Finds New Home at UAB

ENGINEERING AGENDA

DEAR ALUMNI AND FRIENDS,

It brings me great pleasure to present to you this issue of UAB

Engineering. The past year has brought many exciting changes

to the school—all of which you will read about in the pages

ahead. We are extremely grateful for the opportunities that lie

before us and are thrilled to be able to share our progress with

you through this publication.

As you explore this issue, you will notice that we have

recently welcomed several new members to the UAB School

of Engineering family. As many of you already know, the

School of Engineering selected a new dean earlier this year.

Dr. J. Iwan Alexander will be joining us August 1 from CASE

Western University where he was the Cady Staley Professor

and chair of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace

Engineering. With more than 40 years of engineering experi-

ence, we are confident that his leadership will have a broad,

positive impact on UAB for many years to come.

Also joining the School of Engineering this past October

as professor and vice president of product development was Dean Sicking, Ph.D. Dr. Sicking is perhaps best

known as one of the developers of the Steel and Foam Energy Reduction (SAFER) barriers that are used on

NASCAR and IRL racetrack walls around the world. We are delighted to have Dr. Sicking on board, where his

leadership of highway safety research is proving to be an invaluable asset to our progress.

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to express my deepest thanks to all of you for supporting UAB and

the School of Engineering. It has been my pleasure to serve as interim dean for the school and I am especially

thankful to all of you who have remained connected and engaged. As the UAB School of Engineering continues

to experience exciting changes from year to year, we are grateful for one thing that is constant—your support.

Thank you for being such a vital part of our extended community.

Melinda M. Lalor, Ph.D.

Professor and Interim Dean, School of Engineering

1 UAB ENGINEERING MAGA ZINE • SPRING 2013

UAB ENGINEERING MAGA ZINE • SPRING 2013 2

F e a t u r e s

Building Smarter, Building Better: New Center Creating Cities of Tomorrow ......................... 7

Shelter from the Storm: Materials Provide Enhanced Tornado Protection ............... 9

Homegrown Leadership: SOE Alumni Now President and Provost of UAB ............ 11

D e p a r t m e n t s

Student Spotlight ............................................................. 12 Alumni Profile .................................................................. 15 Development ................................................................... 17

CONTENTS

UAB Engineering is published by the UAB School of Engineering in collaboration with the Office of Public Relations and Marketing.

Executive Editors: Matt Windsor, Victoria Allen • Managing Editor: Grant Martin • Writers: Victoria Allen, Grant Martin, Kevin Storr, Greg Williams • Executive Art Director: Ron Gamble • Art Director: Jessica Huffstutler • Photography: Steve Wood • UAB Engineering Editorial Board: Melinda Lalor, Ph.D., Interim Dean; Zoe Dwyer, Ph.D., Director of Freshman Services; Victoria Allen, Director of Development and External Relations; Beth Briggs, Alumni Relations Officer; Tina Bryant, Administrative Support

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SAFERSAFERMaking Streets


For more than 30 years, Sicking

has been a leading figure in highway

safety research. His designs are

installed on guardrails and other road-

side barriers throughout the United

States. He was also one of the devel-

opers of the Steel and Foam Energy

Reduction (SAFER) barriers that are

used on NASCAR and IRL racetracks

around the world.

Sicking joined UAB last fall as a

professor and the vice president of

product development after a nation-

wide recruiting battle saw UAB pit-

ted against other top universities for

Sicking’s services. “Dr. Sicking is an

authority on highway safety research

whose work has had a tremendous

impact,” says Linda Lucas, Ph.D.,

UAB provost and former dean of

the School of Engineering, who was

instrumental in Sicking’s recruitment.

“We knew there was potential for

him to do great things here, thanks

to the multidisciplinary work already

going on in our school as well as the

possibility of partnerships with indus-

try outside of UAB.”

The Perfect Pitch

Even though Lucas and others

could see the enormous potential

for a world-class highway safety

research facility in Birmingham,

Sicking actually had no previous

knowledge of UAB or the surround-

ing area. A native of Texas and

longtime resident of Nebraska, he

says UAB was nowhere on his radar

screen before a chance meeting at

an engineering conference brought

him into contact with UAB professor

David Littlefield, Ph.D. “A mutual

friend introduced us, and it turned

out that David and I have a lot in

common,” Sicking says. “During the

conversation, I told him I was looking

for a position and that I had some

Making Streets


If you’ve driven any distance along an interstate in the past couple of decades,

you have likely driven past the work of Dean Sicking, Ph.D. And if you’ve had the

misfortune to crash your car into a guardrail along that interstate—and lived to

read this story—it could be that you have Sicking to thank.

SAFERSAFERImage courtesy Trinity Highway Products


interviews lined up. A couple of days

later, he called and asked if I would

consider UAB.

“It caught me by surprise. Not just

because I hadn’t had any contact

with UAB, but also that a full profes-

sor would have the authority to make

that call. There aren’t many places

in my experience where faculty

and administrators have that kind of

cohesive relationship.”

According to Littlefield, he was

immediately intrigued by Sicking’s

research, which he says was closely

aligned to his own work at UAB,

albeit for different applications. “I

had no idea at the time how recep-

tive UAB administrators would be,

but I knew there was at least the

potential to form a partnership with

Barber Motorsports Park,” recalls

Littlefield. After discussing Sicking

with Lucas and UAB vice president

for research Richard Marchase,

Ph.D., Littlefield says he discovered

that there were multiple other tie-ins

on campus for someone of Sicking’s

capabilities—particularly in product

development. “This was an area

UAB had been aggressively pursuing

for some time,” Littlefield says. “So

even though our meeting was purely

coincidental, the timing couldn’t

have worked out better.”

As luck would have it, Littlefield’s

pitch intrigued Sicking enough for

him to make a visit to Birmingham,

and soon after, he was hooked. “I

loved everything about Birmingham,

from the staff at the hotel to the

administration and the extremely

high level of research being conduct-

ed at UAB,” he says.

Another key figure in his recruit-

ment, Sicking says, was George

Barber, owner of Barber Motorsports

Park in nearby Leeds, Alabama.

Barber is building a new state-of-the-

art research facility for Sicking on

site at his track. “The facility will be

large enough for us to conduct crash

tests for a wide variety of research

purposes,” he says. “We will have a

rail system that will allow us to study

the impact of a vehicle hitting a bar-

continued on next page

Q: Your devices have saved hundreds of people from serious injury or death in highway accidents. Have you ever crashed into one of your own devices?

A: I’ve never hit one of my own systems, thank God. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who has crashed into one of our systems, but I have received letters from people and heard stories from police officers who have worked the acci-dents. I hope my experience continues to stay on the research side.

Q: Has studying hundreds of accidents influenced your choice of vehicles?

A: Yes. Mass is your friend. Anyone who tells you small cars are just as safe as larger vehicles doesn’t know what they’re talking about. In a collision between small and large cars, the smaller car almost always gets the worst of it.

Q: Your SAFER barriers have been installed at racetracks all over the world. Are you a fan of auto racing?

A: When I was a kid, I was a big fan of A.J. Foyt, an IndyCar racer and fellow Texan. But when I graduated college and started working, I didn’t have much time for sports. These days, if I have time to follow any sport, it’s usually foot-ball.

THREE QUESTIONS FOR DEAN LEO SICKING, PH.D.

Dean Sicking received a bachelor’s degree (1980)

in mechanical engineering and a master’s degree

(1987) in civil engineering from Texas A&M. He then

worked as a researcher at the Texas Transportation

Institute while working on his Ph.D., which he re-ceived from A&M in 1990.

SAFERSAFER

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rier, for example, or we may simulate

the effects on dummies inside the

vehicle. The impact lab will have a

wide range of capabilities, so we

just need to generate some research

to start utilizing it. The synergy

between the university and industry

is the kind of collaboration I really

want to be a part of.”

From Highways to Speedways

Sicking began his career at the

Texas Transportation Institute at

Texas A&M. From there, he moved

on to a “small research program”

at Nebraska that was being run by

one Ph.D. student and two master’s

degree students. From that modest

start, however, Sicking was able to

build an internationally recognized

program, growing a research budget

of $100,000 per year to more than

$1 million per year in his first three

years. Most of that increase came

from recruiting various state depart-

ments of transportation to fund

research at Nebraska.

“Over the years, we generated

dozens and dozens of safety devices

to the point where it’s virtually

impossible to drive more than a mile

on any major freeway in this country

without encountering one of our sys-

tems,” Sicking says. “Our roadside

safety devices save hundreds if not

a thousand lives per year without

getting a whole lot of attention, but

when we build a device that saves

one or two racecar drivers, everyone

wants to know about it.”

While the disparity of media atten-

tion may seem ironic to some, there

is a stark difference between hear-

ing anecdotal evidence of someone

walking away from a frightening

highway crash and actually see-

ing the video footage of a racecar

driver emerging from what could

have been a fatal impact. In 2002,

that’s exactly what millions of race

fans saw when NASCAR driver

Kurt Busch crashed into the wall at

Indianapolis Motor Speedway dur-

ing the Brickyard 500. “It was a

scary crash because the impact with

the barrier was on the driver’s-side

door,” says Sicking. “Normally that

would be very serious if not fatal,

but the fact that he was unhurt

was obvious when he immediately

climbed out of the car.”

Soon after that experience,

NASCAR had SAFER barriers

installed at all of its tracks. Since

then, there has not been a fatal-

ity resulting from an incident with

an outer wall barrier in any of

NASCAR’s three major series.

“OUR ROADSIDE SAFETY DEVICES SAVE HUNDREDS IF NOT A THOUSAND LIVES PER YEAR WITHOUT GETTING A WHOLE LOT OF ATTENTION, BUT WHEN WE BUILD A DEVICE THAT SAVES ONE OR TWO RACECAR DRIVERS, EVERYONE WANTS TO KNOW ABOUT IT.”

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Hig

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Pro

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Reducing Risk

During the 1990s, Sicking wrote

the industry standards that the

National Cooperative Highway

Research Program set for safety

performance evaluation. To do that,

he and his team reconstructed

800 high-speed crashes across

the American interstate system.

“Because there is such a wide distri-

bution of impact scenarios on a high-

way, there is a limit to what you can

do,” Sicking says. “But we selected

the 85th percentile impact speed

and the 85th percentile impact angle.

If you combine those two together,

it turns out to be the 95th percentile

worst-case impact condition. We

can’t design all of our safety devices

to accommodate the guy who is

running from the cops at 100 miles

per hour when he crashes. If we did,

it would be so expensive that few

places could afford them, so a lot

of dangerous areas would go unpro-

tected. So we made a design that

could protect against the worst-case

scenarios in the most common acci-

dents at normal highway speeds.”

The first widely used system

Sicking developed was an energy-

absorbing guardrail terminal—a

device that sits over the end of a

guardrail that flattens the guardrail

when hit by a vehicle. The first

study of the device showed that out

of 400 crashes, there were three

injuries and no fatalities—reducing

the amount of risk by a factor of 10.

With all the research data and real-

world results showing the product a

success, however, Sicking says no

amount of data could match the sat-

isfaction he got from one personal

letter.

“The first time this thing ever

got hit was when a young lady was

driving home from the library at the

University of Texas,” Sicking explains.

“She was driving a small pickup truck

with her cruise control set at highway

speeds when she fell asleep and

drifted off the road. She hit the guard-

rail at 65 or 70 miles per hour, and

her only injury was a bruise across

her chest caused by the seat belt. I

got a very nice letter from her father

describing the crash. He felt that she

almost certainly would have been

killed had she hit one of the other

common guardrail systems, and there

is a high probability that he was right.

But to hear that from a father who’s

daughter walked away unhurt—you

live for moments like that.”

Despite the success his systems

have demonstrated, not everyone is

pleased. Sicking describes another

letter he received—this one from a

highway patrolman who came upon

an accident—where the driver got

out of his car and started cursing

and kicking at the vehicle. When the

policeman got closer, he heard the

man say, “I can’t even kill myself

right.”

“Over the years, I’ve heard of sev-

eral police officers who say some-

one admitted at an accident that

they had been trying to commit sui-

cide by hitting one of our systems,”

Sicking says. “I think that’s a pretty

good testimonial of how effective

they can be.”

“OVER THE YEARS, I’VE HEARD OF SEVERAL POLICE OFFICERS WHO SAY SOMEONE ADMITTED AT AN ACCIDENT THAT THEY HAD BEEN TRYING TO COMMIT SUICIDE BY HITTING ONE OF OUR SYSTEMS,” SICKING SAYS.

“I THINK THAT’S A PRETTY GOOD TESTIMONIAL OF HOW EFFECTIVE THEY CAN BE.”


Building Smarter, Building BetterNew Center Brings Scientific Disciplines Together to Build Cities of Tomorrow

“When we talk about smart and

sustainable cities, we are talking

about two different things,” says

Fouad Fouad, Ph.D., co-director

of the center and chair of the UAB

Department of Civil, Construction

and Environmental Engineering.

“Sustainability refers to using meth-

ods and materials that are energy

efficient, low-cost, and use recy-

clable materials. Smart buildings

use technology to help save energy,

reduce pollution, and things of that

nature. Our goal through this cen-

ter is to connect all the disciplines

across campus so that we can take a

more comprehensive approach that

looks at all these considerations.”

Building Better Health

Civil engineering graduate student

Sarah Bettinger is aware of the role

diet and exercise play in obesity

rates. But what about environment?

Through the Center for Sustainable

Smart Cities, Bettinger is investigat-

ing whether or not the built environ-

ment of two nearby cities contrib-

utes to obesity rates. “Specifically,

we are interested in how things like

outdoor air quality, municipal water

quality, housing conditions, and

transportation options and livability

might impact obesity rates, Bettinger

says. “Housing conditions could

include the prevalence of mold, inci-

dence of air conditioning, and other

factors, while transportation con-

cerns include proximity to services,

neighborhood design and safety, and

the availability and accessibility of

In its early years, Birmingham’s explosive growth earned it the nickname “The Magic City.” Today,

UAB researchers are exploring the science behind such magic. The UAB Sustainable Smart Cities Research

Center brings together scientists from a variety of disciplines to investigate new ideas of how to make the city

of tomorrow a smarter, safer, and healthier place.

Illus

trat

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transportation systems.”

Although Bettinger’s research has

not reached any preliminary conclu-

sions, Fouad says such research is

indicative of the multidisciplinary

approach of the center’s research.

“In civil engineering we have always

focused on questions of sustainabil-

ity in civil engineering, but when you

look at the scope of this research,

it calls for expertise in a variety of

areas. Not just engineering disci-

plines, but medicine, public health,

business, and many others.”

Global Scope

Although much of UAB’s research

will have a local impact, Fouad

says the results of such research

could have a tremendous impact on

future growth worldwide. “Cities

are responsible for about 75 percent

of energy use, 60 percent of water

consumed, and 80 percent of green-

house gases worldwide,” he says.

“Sustainable, smart cities on a global

scale will increase quality of life and

provide ways for future generations

to meet all of their needs.” To that

end, the center hosted the UAB

Sustainable Smart Cities Symposium

and initiated activities with the

Planning Commission of Greater

Birmingham in an effort to find ways

to improve the quality of life locally.

Fouad and co-director Maria Norena

also have traveled to meetings and

conferences internationally to discuss

sustainability issues with leaders in

other parts of the world.

“Our goal is to use this cross-

disciplinary approach to attract

funding on a national level,” Fouad

says. “Another goal is to educate the

community. One problem with sus-

tainable or ‘green’ technology is that

there is some resistance to those

types of initiatives. So educating the

public on how sustainability can posi-

tively effect their lives will be a key

part of our mission and goals.”

THOSE MICRO-AIR VEHICLES fly-

ing reconnaissance missions into

combat zones or into nuclear spill

sites to detect radiation someday

may be designed at the School of

Engineering.

Senior engineering students were

challenged to build an MAV weighing

less than 10 grams and powered by

a four-volt battery.

Their recent test flight was sched-

uled to last one minute, but it fell

short—by about a minute, jokes Roy

Koomullil, Ph.D., associate professor

in the Department of Mechanical

Engineering. “Even so, we consider

this one a success because it was

the first MAV designed at UAB.”

Koomullil, along with Gary Cheng,

Ph.D., an associate professor of

mechanical engineering and mentor

for the student design group, took

the use of propellers off the table

and required the students to design

flapping wings using industry soft-

ware. “Industry and the government

labs all use computational simula-

tions before they fabricate the model

or the prototype,” Koomullil says.

“It’s important for the students to

learn simulation before they enter

the workforce, and this software

gives them valuable experience.”

The School of Engineering online

master’s program is ranked as one

of the best by U.S. News & World

Report. Two master’s-level pro-

grams, Advanced Safety Engineering

and Management (ASEM)

and Construction Engineering

Management (CEM), were ranked

27th based on faculty credentials and

training, student services and tech-

nology, admission selectivity and

student engagement.

“I am thrilled that our totally online

Master of Engineering programs at

UAB have received national recogni-

tion,” says Martha Bidez, Ph.D.

Flying HighSOE Launches Micro-Air Vehicle Program

Shelter from the Storm Modern Materials Provide Enhanced Protection against Deadly Storms

Occasional

tornadoes have

long been an

unfortunate fact

of life in Alabama.

But after a rash of

severe storms in

2011 left hundreds

dead and caused

millions of dollars of

property damage,

UAB scientists

say there is a new

urgency to apply

cutting-edge

materials science

to the creation of

21st-century storm

shelters.

“Our effort to improve storm shel-

ters started in the wake of Hurricane

Katrina and grew more urgent after

we saw 62 Alabama tornadoes in

one day in 2011,” says Uday Vaidya,

Ph.D., professor within the UAB

Department of Materials Science &

Engineering. In that year, tornadoes

caused 551 deaths nationally—

including 245 in Alabama—and prop-

erty damage exceeding $28 billion.

“With an average of more than

1,370 tornadoes per year for the past

three years in the United States, it’s

time we changed the way storm

shelters are built, with the goal of

saving more lives,” Vaidya says.

No-Fly Zone

Panels for a new high-tech shelter

created at UAB have passed the

National Storm Shelter Association’s

tornado threat test.

In the NSSA test, 15-pound two-

by-fours fired from a pressure can-

non were unable to penetrate the

panels, made of recycled materials,

in a dozen attempts. The wooden

missiles hit the panels at 100 miles

per hour, the speed at which projec-

tiles typically exit a tornado funnel

spinning at more than 200 miles

per hour. Such a storm would rate

EF5 on the Enhanced Fujita scale

and be capable of leveling well-built

homes. Passing the tornado test

means the panels also pass the less-

taxing NSSA hurricane standard,

where nine-pound missiles are fired

at 60 to 75 miles per hour.

The successful test represents a

first step toward commercial avail-

ability, which the team hopes to

achieve by the 2013 tornado season.

Materials used in testing must withstand wooden projectiles hit-

ting at speeds of 100 miles per hour.


The final hurdle comes this fall when

the assembled structure will under-

go testing.

The UAB panels were tested at

the NSSA facility on August 1, and

the related patent applications filed

on August 24. The UAB panels

met the NSSA standards, which

are based on Federal Emergency

Management Association and

International Council Code (ICC 500)

requirements. Based on these early

results, Vaidya and his team have

lined up Sioux Manufacturing to fab-

ricate the tabletop-size panels should

the final approvals come through.

The team estimated that if merely

30 percent of the roughly 600,000

homes in the Southeast United

States were to opt for a storm-

shelter retrofit, it would represent

a $500-million market. UAB spinoff

Innovative Composite Solutions, led

by Vaidya and winner of the 2009

Alabama Launchpad Competition,

would oversee aspects of panel

assembly in Birmingham.

No Gaps in the Armor

The recipe of thermoplastic and

fiberglass resins and fibers used in

the panels are stronger per-unit den-

sity than the steel used in many cur-

rent shelters and weigh 80 percent

less, Vaidya says. Some of the same

foams and fibers are used in the lat-

est armored military vehicles.

The panels, connected to each

other and the floor of an interior

room, are designed to keep a fam-

ily from being crushed or becoming

airborne and to protect against flying

debris. They also leave the assembly

line looking like typical interior walls;

they do not need paint and never will

corrode.

Made from discarded liner once

used to wrap offshore oil-rig pipes,

the panels also embrace green engi-

neering techniques. Recycled materi-

als used in the experimental phase

itself kept thousands of pounds of

waste from landfills.

The design team is continu-

ing to refine the shelter roof and

its armored door, which will be

sheathed in the same paneling as

the walls. The door also will feature

a custom three-deadbolt locking sys-

tem and piano hinges.

The initial phases of the panel

design effort were funded through

the National Science Foundation’s

SBIR Phase II program.

“To see panels pass our most

extreme test the first time is very

impressive,” says Larry Tanner, P.E.,

manager of the NSSA/Texas Tech

Debris Impact Test Facility. “If it

saves even one life, it will have been

worth the effort to design it.”

Selvum Pillay, Ph.D., associate pro-

fessor in the School of Engineering

and team member at ICS, says the

shelter represents one of many

potential applications for a new

generation of materials across many

fields. “Related efforts under way at

UAB seek to re-engineer the pilings

that failed during Hurricane Katrina to

flood New Orleans, dampen sound

for quieter cities, and better fortify

combat helmets,” Pillay says.

The panels designed by UAB engineers were tested at the National Storm Shelter

Association’s research facility in Lubbock, Texas.


The Long Way Home

Watts has held many leadership roles

during his career, and it all started with

an undergraduate degree from the UAB

School of Engineering.

A native of Birmingham, Watts was

named Student Engineer of the Year

in 1975 by the Alabama Society of

Professional Engineers during his junior

year at UAB. A year later, he was one of

three students to receive a national engi-

neering award. He earned a bachelor of

science degree in engineering in 1976.

After graduating, he would leave engi-

neering to pursue a career in medicine,

but he says his training at the School of

Engineering was invaluable. “I loved my

undergraduate experience at UAB,” Watts

says. “It was wonderful, and over the years, I have really

enjoyed watching UAB grow. After I finished my neurol-

ogy residency, I would often come over and give grand

rounds and serve as a visiting professor, so I always main-

tained a connection with Birmingham and with UAB.”

Continuing the pattern of academic success he had

achieved as an undergraduate, Watts was valedic-

torian of Washington University School of Medicine

in St. Louis, and he completed internship, residency,

and fellowship training at Harvard Medical School and

Massachusetts General Hospital.

He served a two-year fellowship at the National

Institutes of Health and was a member of the faculty at

Emory University before returning to UAB to become

chairman of the Department of Neurology in 2003. He

was named dean of the School of Medicine in 2010

before becoming the university’s seventh president in

February 2013.

Familiar Leadership

While Watts’s return to UAB can be seen as a home-

coming of sorts, few people have a closer connection to

the School of Engineering over the past 30 years than

the UAB provost. Lucas served as the school’s dean

from 2001 until 2011, but her roots in the school go

much deeper than that.

Lucas earned her bachelor of science degree in math-

ematics and chemistry from the University of Alabama

and her bachelor of science in engineering from UAB.

She earned master’s degrees in mathematics, educa-

tion, and materials engineering from UAB—as well as a

doctorate in biomedical engineering with an emphasis in

biomaterials.

She joined the school’s faculty in 1982 as an assistant

professor and was named chair of the Department of

Biomedical Engineering in 1995. As dean of the school,

Lucas oversaw the construction of the Shelby Building

for Biomedical Research as well as other new state-of-

the-art laboratories. She also helped usher in 21st-cen-

tury education by offering a variety of online options for

long-distance students.

With a pair of engineers now leading the way for UAB,

expectations are high for UAB to continue to establish a

claim as one of the great universities of the 21st century.


Homegrown LeadershipUAB President and Provost Both Earned Degrees from the SOE

IT IS NOTHING NEW for School of Engineering alumni to emerge in various leadership roles throughout the nation.

But never before have the school’s graduates had such a direct impact on UAB, with UAB president Ray Watts,

M.D., and provost Linda Lucas, Ph.D., both holding degrees from the School of Engineering.

Ray Watts

Linda Lucas

student spotlight


In what has become a local tradition, students from cen-

tral Alabama middle schools and high schools converged on

Bartow Arena in October for the fifth-annual Blazer BEST

competition.

Based in Dallas, Texas, B.E.S.T.

(Boosting Engineering, Science, and

Technology) Robotics, Inc., is a nonprof-

it, volunteer organization. More than

10,000 students participate in B.E.S.T.

events nationwide.

Blazer BEST

In addition to the annual event at Bartow Arena,

this year’s competition included a kickoff at the

Galleria Mall in Hoover.

Seniors Engineer Solution for NASA Cryogenic Freezer

They were about five years old when Buzz Lightyear’s catchphrase “To

infinity and beyond!” was adopted by a generation of youngsters. Now, the

childhood fantasy of working toward a space-based existence is reality for

a select group of engineering students.

Logan Beane, Jeffery Black, Amanda Haglund, Brandon Kirkland, and

Justin Terrell designed a test fixture for evaluating cryogenic insulation

materials as part of an engineering senior design project. Their work

revealed that glass microspheres, hollow borosilicate glass spheres approxi-

mately the diameter of a human hair, are a more efficient thermal insulation

solution than the current technology for the NASA GLACIER cryogenic

freezer design, which was previously developed by the UAB Center for

Biophysical Sciences and Engineering.

The microspheres will be incorporated into future GLACIER units and

other CBSE projects pending approval from NASA officials at the Johnson

Space Center in Houston.

Friends, potential students, and

other visitors were treated to a

glimpse of the endless possibilities

of engineering at the school’s annual

open house last spring, with every-

thing from a catapult to a 3-D virtual-

reality system on display.

Senior mechanical engineering

student TERRANCE SERNA demon-

strated the catapult, using a stuffed

animal as the projectile, he and a

young volunteer sent it flying toward

a basketball hoop.

BHARAT K. SONI, PH.D., chair

and professor of the Department of

Mechanical Engineering, took visi-

tors on a virtual 3-D tour of a house,

a flying jet, and the human body.

Visitors inserted their hands into the

body and a large screen displayed

what was inside, such as the valves

within the heart along with a heart

thumping sound.

Open House 2012


student spotlight

STUDENTS from the UAB School of

Engineering placed second at the

IEEE SoutheastCon 2012 hardware

competition held in Orlando, finish-

ing higher than any other school in

the state of Alabama. The students,

Wade Sweatt, Wesley Butsch, Chad

McMicken, and John Higgins, were

members of the senior design class

in the Department of Electrical and

Computer Engineering.

“This strong finish once again spot-

lights our sharp engineering students

and strong engineering programs.

Both compete well not only in the

Southeast, but also nationally,” says

Melinda Lalor, Ph.D., interim dean,

UAB School of Engineering.

The competition featured 45

schools from across the Southeast.

The UAB team qualified for the grand

finale where they had to race eight

other robots, an event that was tele-

vised live on big screen TVs during

the awards banquet, to see who

could navigate a course, find targets,

and make electronic calculations fast-

est.

“There are four blocks on the

course and two plates at each

block,” says Chad McMicken, UAB

senior. “The robot was required to

either measure the voltage, capaci-

tance, and temperature, or distin-

guish between a saw-tooth and a

square wave. The robot then had to

take the appropriate course of action

based on those measurements to

earn points at each task block.”

“The difficulty didn’t lie in what

the robot had to do as far as naviga-

tion and moving,” says John Higgins,

UAB senior. “The difficulty was in

making the measurements that were

required because the circuitry for one

measurement wouldn’t work at all for

the other measurement and would

actually hinder the measurements.”

The UAB team finished a close

second to the combined team of

Florida State and Florida A&M.

The students said the second-

place finish was rewarding, but gain-

ing all that experience in real-world

electronic applications that apply to

their industry is the real payoff.

Homecoming 2012

The School of Engineering had another

great Homecoming in 2012. The activities

were organized and led by students, and the

SOE finished second in the Building

Decoration Competition, won the

Most Creative Passenger award in the

Gurney Derby, and was recognized for

the Most Spirited Float at the annual

Homecoming Parade. Dhruv Patel was

the student leader for the school’s

Homecoming activities.

SOE Finishes First Among State Schools at IEEE Competition


The Information Engineering and

Management (IEM) program celebrated

its 10th anniversary in 2012 with a din-

ner and reception at the UAB Alumni

House.

During the ceremony, IEM Director

Dale Callahan, Ph.D. (right), and alum-

nus Todd Miranda, spoke about how

the program has furthered the careers of its gradu-

ates, as well as what the future may hold for IEM.

IEM Dinner

FARRAH VACCA, a student in Advanced Safety and

Engineering Management, recently helped change a stan-

dard created by the California Division of Occupational

Safety and Health with a thoughtful comment.

Vacca, a safety professional for a Bay Area major

pharmaceutical company, was enrolled in EGR 616:

Policy Issues in Prevention through Design when she

was assigned to find and comment on a safety standard

that was open for public comment. She noticed

Cal/OSHA had written the first safety

standard for microtomes—blades of

steel, glass, or diamonds that cut

extremely thin slices of material for

observation in microscopy—that

are used by Vacca’s company.

“Cal/OSHA’s standard said to

keep hands one inch from the

blade and recommended using a

device, such as tweezers, which is cumbersome and not

the ideal fix for the problem,” says Vacca. “I talked to

the microtome users in our shop and they said handling

the blade with tweezers makes it less safe, so my com-

ments focused on the principal of prevention through

design—fixing the systemic problems of the design, the

way it is manufactured, and the safeguards that are in

place.”

Cal/OSHA’s summary and response said Vacca’s

public comments would provide better safety

than the existing standard. The board added

that although they regulate employers,

not manufacturers, Vacca’s input may

“induce manufacturers to take a fresh

look at their equipment and develop

designs that will move in the direction of

engineering out the hazards” over time.

Online Student Helps Fashion New OSHA Standard

WHEN HE WAS a teenager growing

up in Hueytown, Alabama, George

Little says he “wouldn’t have had a

clue where Omaha was.” Over the

past two decades, his knowledge of

geography has grown considerably

deeper.

Little was recently promoted

to CEO of HDR, an engineering

and design firm based in Omaha,

Nebraska, that designs and man-

ages construction projects all over

the world. With more than 7,800

employees in 185 offices, HDR has

managed projects in more than 60

countries and currently has five proj-

ects in China, including designing the

world’s first “medical city” in Beijing.

“This will be the first fully integrated

health community in the world,”

says Little, a 1981 graduate of the

UAB School of Engineering. “We’re

working on a master plan that will

include 10 hospitals with 1,000 beds

apiece. To put that in perspective,

consider the growth of UAB’s medi-

cal center over the last few years,

then multiply the size of that entire

medical center by 10.”

When completed, the Beijing com-

plex will cover 4.7 square miles—

equal to two-thirds the size of

Manhattan—and is expected to cost

7 billion in U.S. dollars. That’s quite

a responsibility for a CEO who says

he started his career with no higher

ambition than securing a job as an

electrical engineer.

Exploring Options

“I never had aspirations to be presi-

dent of a company or anything like

that,” says Little. “Being the CEO of

an international company would not

have been on my radar, but I have

been very fortunate throughout my

career to have good mentors at UAB,

at Alabama Power, and at HDR.”

Little started out working for

Alabama Power while still an under-

graduate at UAB. He stayed with

Alabama Power for eight years

after graduation before taking a job

with HDR’s office in Minneapolis,

Minnesota. “The electrical work I

was doing was actually a very small

part of what we were doing, so I

was exposed to a wide range of

disciplines,” he says. “I got experi-

ence with wastewater engineering,

highways and bridges, and really the

whole variety of construction and


Eclectic Engineering:Degree Leads Alumnus to a Wide World of Business Opportunity

alumni profileHDR may not be a household name, but chances are

most people have encountered one or more of the

company’s projects—which include bridges, power

plants, hospitals, prisons, and more.

George Little is a 1981 graduate of the UAB School of Engineering. He was inducted into the Alabama Engineering Hall of Fame in 2010 and was named one of UAB’s “40 Engineers Making a Difference” in 2011.


design projects HDR handles. As

my confidence grew, I realized that I

enjoyed working with clients and the

business development aspects of

being in management.”

Little worked several years as

manager of the Minneapolis office

before moving to Omaha to take

over the company’s engineering

division in 1998. “I had never done

much traveling outside of the state

of Alabama before I took the job

with HDR,” he says. “I began travel-

ing around the country with HDR

starting in 1994. We had some inter-

national projects back then, but noth-

ing like what we have now.”

Bridges, Ballparks, and Beyond

While HDR may not be a house-

hold name, chances are most

people are familiar with at least

some of the company’s projects,

such as the Hoover Dam Bypass

or T.D. Ameritrade Park in Omaha,

which replaced Rosenblatt Stadium

in 2011 as the home of the NCAA

College World Series. “There are

six primary areas where HDR func-

tions,” Little says. “Our engineering

company works in transportation,

which includes designing highways

and bridges as well as transit sys-

tems; water/wastewater, where we

design and build water plants and do

groundwater modeling; and our fed-

eral and energy group.

“Our architecture company focus-

es mainly on health care, where

we’ve been ranked number one in

design for the past eight years; sci-

ence and technology, which deals

with high-level research facilities;

and civic and community architec-

ture, where we design large prisons,

courthouses, and other facilities.”

With such diverse interests, it’s

important to have associates who

can work across many disciplines,

Little says. It also helps to be in

touch with the needs of tomorrow

while building for the needs of today.

WENDY SUDSINSUNTHORN, a 2007 UAB School

of Engineering alumna, applied her creative and

technical skills to work on everything from Harley-

Davidson motorcycles in Alabama to Thomas the

Tank Engine in New York City. Soon, she may

be coming to an iPad near you through her new

position as an engineering project manager for

Apple. Sudsinsunthorn recently spoke with UAB

Engineering about her wide-ranging experiences.

How does the office environment differ between a

more typical engineering job (like Harley-Davidson, for

instance) and a toy company?

The corporate environment is different, but the

small-company environment allowed me to have

exposure to a lot of different aspects of busi-

ness. The corporate environment at Fisher Price

has enabled me to see the benefits of cross-

functional teams and checks and balances.

At Fisher Price, you had

every child’s dream job. What

prompted the move to your new

psiition with Apple?

I had an amazing year

working at Fisher Price be-

fore I was approached with

an opportunity to work for

Apple in California. I am excit-

ed about the move and to be

working for one of the top companies in the world.

How can prospective engineering students (and anyone else)

best position themselves to land a great job like yours?

First, get involved on campus within your discipline

and/or with student organizations. Study hard to make

good grades, but also diversify your resumé with intern-

ships, community service, and organizations. And most

important, get some experience!

From Motorcycles to MacsSOE Grad Takes her Talents to Apple

development

ADAM STRYKER TELLE’S career was cut tragically short when

he was killed in a car accident in 2012, but the legacy of the

2010 SOE alumnus will continue to impact engineering students

for decades to come. A generous gift from CDS-John Blue

Company and other friends and admirers of Telle has established

an endowed award in the Department of Mechanical Engineering

to honor Telle’s memory. This award provides a way to celebrate

the continuation of his legacy at UAB.

“Adam Telle was such a special guy to us all,” says Marty

Gray, CFO of CDS-John Blue Company. “He was so proud to be

an engineer and was just starting his career. It just made sense

to us to remember him by helping someone else realize their

engineering dream just as Adam had done.”

Telle received a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering

from the School of Engineering in 2010. Following graduation,

he began his career as a design engineer at CDS-John Blue

Company in Huntsville, Alabama. On February 7, 2012, Adam’s

promising career was cut short when he lost his life in a car acci-

dent at the young age of 24.

This endowment is an appropriate tribute to Telle’s memory. It

will positively impact the lives and careers of students like Telle

who benefit from it, as well as the School of Engineering, the

university, and the community.

Melinda Lalor, Ph.D., who was interim dean of the School of

Engineering at the time of the award, adds, “This gracious gift

will make it possible for a continuous chain of talented young

people to learn and grow as UAB engineering students, and then

positively contribute to the greater engineering community. It is

an appropriate way to remember this fine young man.”


CDS-John Blue Honors Adam Telle by Supporting SOE Students

A Tribute to One, a Gift to Many

Adam Telle was such a special

guy to us all. He was so proud

to be an engineer and was just

starting his career. It just made

sense to us to remember him

by helping someone else realize

their engineering dream just as

Adam had done.

— Marty Gray, CFO of CDS-John Blue Company

“

“

MAKING A BEQUEST to the UAB School of Engineering is a

thoughtful and flexible way to achieve your charitable and financial

goals without making an outright gift today. Your bequest to the

school may reduce your estate taxes and will give you peace of mind

knowing that:

• you are making a gift that will provide a legacy of support for

professors, students, and programs at the School of Engineering;

• you may direct your bequest to a particular

purpose, program, or department (the SOE

and the Office of Planned Giving will work

with you and your advisors to ensure your

gift is structured properly); and

• you will be invited to join the Torchlighter’s

Society, an exclusive group of donors who

make lifetime gifts to UAB.

If you would like to learn more about

making a bequest to the SOE, please

contact development director Victoria Allen

at (205) 934-8481 or [email protected].

UAB School of EngineeringDESIGNING A BETTER TOMORROW

www.uab.edu/development/areas/academics/engineering.

Learn more at

UAB School of EngineeringHOEN 100 • 1075 13th Street South1720 2ND AVE SBIRMINGHAM AL 35294-4440(205) 934-8400

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Documents

UAB Engineering, Spring 2013