Spring 2006 News Archive

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5/9/06- Mun Choi (MEM Department Head), Yury Gogotsi (MSE), Bradley Layton (MEM), Athina Petropulu (ECE), and Fredricka Reisman (Goodwin) were recently awarded an NSF grant entitled “Research Experiences for Teachers in Emerging Technologies.” The grant is a 3-year project with a budget of $450K, in which 20 teachers per year from the Philadelphia region will be trained in experiential learning through laboratory discovery. It is representative of the College of Engineering and MEM Department’s initiatives in working with the School District of Philadelphia for teacher professional development and improvements in K-12 STEM education.

Joanne Ferroni (Director of Outreach, MEM) provided valuable contributions in the writing of the proposal and in implementing the program during the past three years that made this competitive renewal proposal possible.

4/27/06-The MEM Department received a new site program from the Dept. of Education for the Graduate Assistantships in the Area of National Need (GAANN) entitled: “GAANN Fellowships in Biomedical Applications in Engineering” (Mun Choi, PI). Co-PIs: Yury Gogotsi, Michele Marcolongo, Jaydev Desai, Kimberly Cook, Franco Capaldi, Tiffany Miller, Moses Noh, Bradley Layton, Freddie Reisman (Goodwin) were awarded $400,000 to provide fellowship support for Ph.D. students for stipend and tuition.

4/13/06- Dr. Howard Pearlman was awarded a new NSF CCLI Exploratory Grant to integrate sports into the engineering undergraduate curriculum. The grant process was extremely competitive; 844 proposals were submitted of which only 8% were awarded! This is a collaborative effort between Drexel, Rowan and Gloucester County College. The award amount is $175,000 for three years.

3/17/06- Dr. Paul Oh was selected by Boeing as a 2006 Welliver Fellow, a highly selective program designed for young faculty that is Boeing’s equivalent of the Young Investigator Program offered by many government agencies. Each year, Fellows are hosted by Boeing to help develop cutting edge research and to better prepare tomorrow's graduates to practice world-class engineering. The program networks Fellows and Boeing peers that can form the basis of long-term relationships that involve research programs, educational offerings, and opportunities for our students to participate in development programs.

Past Fellows include distinguished faculty at top engineering schools including Dimitri Mavris (Georgia Tech), Rakesh Kapania (Virginia Tech), Alison Flatau (Univ. Maryland), Anastasios S. Lyrintzis (Purdue) and Philip J. Morris (Penn State).

3/9/06- Profs. Eli Fromm and Adam Fontecchio received the National Science Foundation GK-12 grant of $615,523 for FY 2006 with a total of $1,847,998 expected by the end of FY 2008 for the project entitled, "Track 1, GK-12: Engineering as a Contextual Vehicle for Science and Mathematics Education." This project will be under the direction of Eli Fromm (ECE), Adam K. Fontecchio (ECE), Mary Jo Grdina (School of Education), Mun Young Choi (MEM) and William F. Lynch (School of Education). This program will provide fellowships for outstanding graduate students who are interested in broadening their educational experiences while pursuing their engineering degrees at Drexel University. Joanne Ferroni (MEM Director of Outreach) prepared this successful proposal and assists in every aspect of MEM's outreach activities.

3/7/06- A.J. Drexel Plasma Institute has just received two new grants on Hydrogen production- one of the important research directions of the Institute. One of the grants is from the Florida Institute of Phosphate Research and entitled, “Hydrogen Production by H2S Decomposition in Plasma” and the second one is from W2 Company entitled, “Hydrogen Production by Plasma Conversion of Biomass”. The combined budget for these grants is $360K for 1.5 years. Prof. Alex Fridman (MEM) will serve as the PI and Dr. Alex Gutsol as the co-PI.

3/7/06- Tein-Min Tan (PI), Alan Lau (Co-PI), Jonathan Awerbuch (Co-PI) were recently awarded an FAA contract entitled, “An Analytical and Experimental Study of Widespread Fatigue Damage in Aircraft Fuselage”. This project involves experimental and computational investigations of crack propagation and methods to mitigate damage. The budget for this 3-year project is $644,000 and will work to further enhance the collaboration with FAA that had started by this investigation team.

3/7/06- Prof. Sorin Siegler (PI) received an R21 grant from NIH. The grant entitled, “Skeletal Development of Clubfoot Treatment,” focuses on a non-operative serial casting procedure used to correct congenital infant clubfoot deformity (Ponseti Technique). This 2 year grant with a budget of $405,000 is a collaborative effort that will also involve Thomas Jefferson University, University of Pennsylvania, and Royal Columbian Hospital of Canada as subcontractors to Drexel.

GK-12 Fellowships Awarded to Two MEM Graduate Students(6/14/06)

MEM Faculty Members on the Road to Advancement(6/9/06)

MEM Senior Design Teams Reign in First and Third Place of CoE Competition(6/8/06)

Dr. Mun Choi Invited to Space Shuttle Atlantis Launch (6/6/06)

MEM/CBE Team Receive Honorable Mention at the US EPA’s National Sustainable Design Expo (6/2/06)

Karen Johnson Selected to Attend Prestigious International Institute of Women in Engineering

2006 Summer Conference in Paris, France(6/2/06)

Dan Hanna Selected for Harvard Business School's 2006 Summer Venture in Management Program (6/1/06)

MEM Undergraduate Receives REU to MIT (6/01/06)

Two MEM Senior Design Groups Selected to Move on to CoE Competition (5/31/06)

Drexel University Hosts the First Greater Philadelphia Sea Perch Challenge(5/17/06)

Drexel and MEM Host 2nd Annual Indoor Aerial Robotics Competition(5/10/06)

ASME Scholarship Winners Announced(5/02/06)