UH Engineering Newsroom

ECE Professor Ovidiu Crisan Retires
(May 16, 2012) Friends, colleagues and students of Professor Ovidiu Crisan celebrated his career achievements at a retirement luncheon this month. Crisan came to the Cullen College of Engineering as a visiting professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Two years later he was promoted to professor, a position he held for 26 years. Through the years, Crisan developed a record of strong rapport with both undergraduate and graduate students. He taught courses in electromechanical energy conversion, circuit analysis, power electronics and electric drives, advanced power system analysis, and power transmission and distribution with an unparalleled teaching style.

Song Wins Research Award from UH
(May 15, 2012) The University of Houston has awarded Gangbing Song, professor of mechanical engineering in the Cullen College of Engineering, a 2012 Excellence in Research and Scholarship Award. Pradeep Sharma, chairman of the mechanical engineering department, nominated Song for this honor. "Professor Song is an internationally recognized researcher in smart materials and structures," Sharma wrote. "His many original and creative research contributions have made him a leader in this field."

Junior Faculty Make Strong Showing in State-Run Grant Program
(May 13, 2012) The state of Texas received more than 270 proposals for its Norman Hackerman Advanced Research Program. In the end, only 12 grants were awarded, two of which went to researchers with the University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering. Assistant professors of chemical and biomolecular engineering Jeff Rimer and Gila Stein each received two-year, $80,000 grants from the program, which is administered by the state’s Higher Education Coordinating Board and designed to support basic research performed by early-career investigators.

24th Annual Crawfish Boil Raises Scholarship Funds for Engineering Students
(May 7, 2012) The 24th Annual ASME/UH Crawfish Boil raised significant funds to support University of Houston mechanical engineering students. Held each year as the kickoff event leading into the Offshore Technology Conference, the crawfish boil continues to draw thousands of attendees. In total, the event is expected to net more than $60,000 for UH engineering scholarships, contributing to a 24-year total of more than $1.5 million. UH engineering alumnus Tom Tilton (BSME '76) received the annual Outstanding Achievement in the Oil Industry Award, commonly known as the Titanium Award.

Lienhard’s Inventing Modern Featured by Amazon
(May 7, 2012) John Lienhard, M. D. Anderson Professor Emeritus of Technology and Culture with the University of Houston’s Cullen College of Engineering, is no stranger to mass media. He has been broadcast thousands of times on public ratio stations across the country thanks to Engines of Our Ingenuity, a segment he created to illuminate the links between technology and culture. Now Lienhard is being featured on another medium. Online retailer Amazon has selected his book Inventing Modern as a featured e-book for the month of May.

Cullen College Faculty, Staff Honored for Excellence
(May 7, 2012) UH Cullen College of Engineering faculty and staff were honored for outstanding performance in teaching, research and service at the college’s Spring 2012 Faculty-Staff meeting on May 2. President Renu Khator addressed the group with a special message of her vision for the college, and Dean Joseph Tedesco discussed the college’s progress in a number of areas.

ECE’s Han Honored Twice at IEEE International Conference
(May 4, 2012) Zhu Han, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering in the University of Houston’s Cullen College of Engineering, received not one, but two best paper awards as a recent international conference of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).Han and his co-authors received the honors in two separate technical tracks for work presented at the IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference, held in Paris in April of this year. The first article deals with mobile cloud computing. The second article involves smart power grids, an emerging type of grid that is actively managed to ensure the most efficient use of electricity.

Distinguished Alumni, Faculty to be Honored at 2012 Awards Gala
(May 3, 2012) On June 1, the UH Cullen College of Engineering and the Engineering Alumni Association will honor alumni and faculty at the 2012 UH Cullen College of Engineering Alumni Awards Gala held at the Four Seasons Downtown. The event was established in 1987 to recognize the achievements and service of college alumni, faculty and friends. This year's honorees are William C. Miller (BSPE '55), C. Rick Coneway (BSCE '73, MSCE '76), D. Wayne Klotz, P.E. (MSCE '76), Rebecca Ginsburg (BSIE '03, MSIE '04) and Demetre J. Economou, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering.

Researcher Improves Batteries through Hybrid Nanoparticles
(May 2, 2012) From finding directions to making phone calls, working on laptops to driving hybrid and electric cars, much of life is lived through battery-powered devices. It’s no surprise, then, that developing better batteries is a major thrust of science and engineering research. Haleh Ardebili, assistant professor of mechanical engineering in the UH Cullen College of Engineering, recently published an article in Nano Letters outlining a technique to improve the performance of lithium ion batteries, which are used in devices such as laptops, cell phones and MP3 players and are even seen as possible power sources for electric cars.

Alumnus Honored with Bridge Dedication
(May 1, 2012) The Houston civil engineering community came together last Friday to honor the late Charles Joseph “C.J.” Tamborello (BSCE ’61) by dedicating a bridge in his memory. The pedestrian bridge at Sim’s Bayou in Houston’s FM Law Park was the last designed primarily by Tamborello before his death in 2005. It now bears a plaque in his honor. Tamborello was extremely active in the area’s civil engineering community as a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Council of Engineering Companies and other organizations.

Concrete Canoe Team Places Third in Competition
(May 1, 2012) The UH chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers participated in the concrete canoe competition at the 2012 Texas-Mexico Student Regional Conference in San Antonio last month, taking third place overall. The UH team’s entry named HOPE was dedicated to raising awareness of breast cancer. Over 25 UH students were involved in various aspects of the competition, which comprised a design paper, an oral presentation, the final product of the canoe, and five paddling race categories. UH was the only school to win a top-three award in each category.

CEE Honors Four New Academy Members
(April 26, 2012) The Academy of Distinguished Civil and Environmental Engineers welcomed four new members at the second annual Induction and Award Ceremony this month. Hosted by the UH Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, the celebration honored John Odis Cobb, Billy M. Cooke, D. Wayne Klotz, and Jimmie Schindewolf for their dedicated advancement of the profession, field and the university.

Five NSF Graduate Research Fellowships awarded to UH students, alumna
(April 20, 2012) From cognitive neuroscience to theoretical physics, this year’s National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellows from the University of Houston (UH) have their sights set on careers in fields ranging from medicine to energy. Recognizing outstanding students pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines, the three-year fellowships cover tuition and include a $30,000 annual stipend.  Darren Seibert, a biomedical engineering major, and Audrey Cheong, an electrical and computer engineering graduate student, received awards this year.

Brain-Controlled Exoskeleton One Step Closer to Reality
(April 19, 2012) Researchers have put in decades of hard work developing an interface that would allow the human brain to control prosthetic limbs. It’s ironic, then, that the end result may be surprisingly simple. Jose Luis “Pepe” Contreras-Vidal, a professor of electrical and computer engineering with the UH Cullen College of Engineering and director of the Laboratory for Non-invasive Brain-Machine Interface Systems, has made great strides in developing a brain-machine interface that is far simpler than what was once predicted. He recently published a paper in a special issue of IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering showing his latest findings in this arena.WATCH YOUTUBE VIDEO

Out of the Darkness Campus Walk Held at UH
(April 19, 2012) The UH Program for Mastery in Engineering Studies (PROMES) sponsored the 3rd Annual Out of the Darkness Campus Walk at Lynn Eusan Park last Saturday. The student-led event benefits the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and is just one of many events that take place nationwide. PROMES serves as the UH event’s sponsor organization, and many volunteers come from the PROMES community.

Catalysis Research Earns Industry Interest
(April 18, 2012) Jeffrey Rimer, assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, is working with petrochemical companies to commercialize his technique for creating more efficient catalysts for chemical reactions. Rimer published his first article on this technique in a recent issue of Angewandte Chemie International Edition, which is one of the highest impact journals in general chemistry research. This work was featured on the back cover of the April 2nd issue. This method involves a class of materials known as zeolites. As catalysts, zeolites are used in the petroleum and chemicals industries to produce many different products.

Engineering Students Present Research at Symposium
(April 16, 2012) Cullen College of Engineering undergraduates showcased their semester-long research in poster presentations at the inaugural UH Spring Undergraduate Research Symposium on April 12, held at the university’s Rockwell Pavilion. Students represented mentored work in biomedical, chemical, civil, electrical, and mechanical engineering programs. Civil engineering major Nicholas Leschke worked with assistant professor Craig Glennie to characterize the error in terrestrial laser scanning targets.

23rd Annual Engineering Golf Tournament Raises Money for Cullen College
(April 13, 2012) The UH Cullen College of Engineering hosted its 23rd Annual Golf Tournament at Sienna Plantation Golf Course on Monday, April 9. More than 25 teams registered to play in the tournament, which raises money for the college. Larry Witte, professor of mechanical engineering and golf tournament chair, presented a $25,000 check to Dean Joseph Tedesco. Over the course of the tournament's history, some $100,000 has been raised for the college.

College Mourns Passing of ME Professor David Zimmerman
(April 12, 2012) David Zimmerman, a professor in the Cullen College of Engineering’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, passed away Tuesday, April 10, 2012. Zimmerman earned his doctorate, master’s and bachelor’s degrees in mechanical engineering, all from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1982, 1984 and 1987, respectively. He then served as a faculty member at the University of Florida before joining the Cullen College in 1993. Widely respected by his colleagues, Zimmerman held many leadership roles in his department, including associate chairman of mechanical engineering from 2000 to 2009 and interim department chair from 2010 to 2011.

Biofilm Prevention at Heart of Latest CAREER Award
(April 6, 2012) The UH Cullen College of Engineering has won its fifth National Science Foundation CAREER Award of 2012. Assistant Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Jacinta Conrad received the five-year, $400,000 grant to develop surfaces that limit bacterial motility, or movement. How bacteria move, Conrad said, influences the formation of biofilms, colonies of bacteria that are protected by an extracellular matrix made of proteins. Once formed, biofilms are extremely difficult to remove and often extremely problematic. Biofilms that form in oil and water pipelines foul the liquids flowing through them. In hospitals, they are implicated in up to 80 percent of all non-specific infections, while they are cited as a significant source of drag on marine vessels.

ECE Grad Student Honored for Image Analysis Research
(April 5, 2012) The Microscopy Society of America has named UH Cullen College of Engineering graduate student Raghav Padmanabhan one of its 2012 Presidential Student Awardees. Padmanabhan is pursuing his Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering under Badrinath Roysam, Hugh and Lillie Cranz Cullen University Professor and chair of the college’s ECE department. He won the award for his paper, “Active Machine Learning Method for Identification of Cell Types in Multiplex-Stained Histopathology Specimens Imaged by Multi-Spectral Microscopy.” As an award winner, he will present the paper at the 2012 Microscopy & Microanalysis Annual Meeting, set for July 29 to August 2 in Phoenix.

Hsu Wins American Concrete Institute’s Highest Honor
(April 5, 2012) Thomas Hsu, John and Rebecca Moores Professor of Civil Engineering with the UH Cullen College of Engineering, has been named an Honorary Member of the American Concrete Institute, the highest distinction given by the organization. The award was presented to Hsu at the ACI’s Spring 2012 Convention, held in Dallas from March 18-22. In honoring Hsu, the organization cited his “groundbreaking research in the fields of concrete materials and the torsional response of reinforced concrete members and … outstanding contributions as a teacher and mentor.”

AIChE Student Chapter Hosts Regional Conference
(April 4, 2012) Engineering students and professionals connected at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) 2012 Southwest Regional Conference last month, hosted by the UH AIChE student chapter. The event, held at UH, comprised three days of networking and learning opportunities, including a career fair, competitions and workshops covering topics in exploration and production, refining and chemicals, midstream trading, and intellectual property law.

ConocoPhillips Donates $1.125 Million to University of Houston Programs
(April 3, 2012) ConocoPhillips is donating $1 million to the University of Houston’s growing Energy Research Park (ERP) and $125,000 to a number of engineering, science and business programs at UH. The $1 million gift will support the ConocoPhillips Petroleum Engineering Building, which is located in the ERP and serves undergraduate and graduate students. ConocoPhillips also gave $1 million to UH last year and intends to follow up with an additional proposed gift of $1 million in 2013. n recent years, UH has identified energy as a key strategic focus for faculty research and teaching. The vision for the ERP is to build a premier research and education facility for students and faculty as well as establish a unique environment for the best minds to forge new business approaches to the way energy is created, delivered and used.

Akay Honored by Two Engineering Associations
(April 2, 2012) The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers has named Metin Akay, founding chair and John S. Dunn Endowed Chair Professor of the Cullen College’s Department of Biomedical Engineering, to its inaugural group of IEEE Brand Ambassadors. Additionally, Akay has received an invitation to join the International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering, a member organization of the International Federation for Medical and Biological Engineering (IFMBE). In conjunction with this invitation, Akay has been named a Fellow of the IFMBE. In informing Akay of this honor the IFMBE cited his, “distinguished contributions to the field of medical and biological engineering.”

Engineering Undergrads Represent UH in Energy Innovation Challenge
(March 29, 2012) A team of four undergraduates in the UH Cullen College of Engineering have been named semi-finalists for the MIT Clean Energy Prize, an energy innovation competition. This is the first time that UH has been represented in the business plan challenge. Mechanical engineering majors Mario Laposse, Eduardo Jasso, Andres Paez and John Vu developed several ideas in the category of Deployment and Infrastructure, choosing carbon sequestration as the most viable. Their company, Envir Energy, aims to solve cost assessment problems in carbon capture, transportation and storage systems by commercializing new methods in carbon sequestration.

Engineering Alums Create Online Social Marketplace
(March 27, 2012) It started as a conversation among friends, about a common issue of college life: the price of textbooks. As undergraduates, Ade Adesanya (BSEE '11) and Eric Imasogie (BSIE '10) developed the idea of giving other college students an online space to post items they need. The idea was based loosely on the concept of crowdfunding. The business idea grew to become givepals.com, a social site in which users can create a profile and list what they want to buy, sell or trade, from cell phones to textbooks to furniture and beyond.

Alum Named IEEE Young Engineer of the Year
(March 26, 2012) Cullen College of Engineering alumnus Cary Gallaway (BSEE 2006) has been named the 2012 Young Engineer of the Year by the Houston Section of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). Gallaway is currently a project manager working out of the Houston offices of Burns & McDonnell, a privately held firm offering engineering, architecture, construction, consulting and environmental services. He began working with Burns & McDonnell in 2004, when a cold call he made to their offices yielded an internship. Upon his graduation in 2006 he accepted a full-time position with the company.

Professor Working to “Replace Clinicians” in Imaging Research
(March 21, 2012) If Howard Gifford has his way, physicians will be forced out of a large area of medical imaging research. Frankly, that’s probably how they want it. Gifford, an associate professor of biomedical engineering at the UH Cullen College of Engineering, was awarded a $1.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop an mathematical model to analyze images produced by new PET and SPECT scan technologies, key tools in the early detection of cancer. This grant was initially awarded when Gifford was a researcher at the University of Massachusetts Memorial Medical Center and has now officially been transferred to University of Houston.

Researcher Developing Lab-Grown Heart Tissue
(March 14, 2012) One day, people in need of a heart transplant won’t have to wait for a donor organ to become available. Instead, hearts (and other organs) will be grown the lab, often out of the patient’s own cells. This seemingly science-fiction future will only become real, though, thanks to the efforts of researchers like Ravi Birla, associate professor of biomedical engineering with the UH Cullen College of Engineering. Birla has won a $788,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to study the best method of growing three-dimensional cardiac patches and conditioning these patches to behave like normal heart tissue. Originally awarded when Birla was a researcher at The University of Michigan, this grant has now officially been transferred to the University of Houston.

PNAS Article Outlines Efforts to Speed Study of HIV Immune Response
(March 9, 2012) A researcher with the UH Cullen College of Engineering has published an article in one of the nation’s foremost scientific journals outlining successful efforts to rapidly identify and characterize immune system cells that fight HIV. The article by Navin Varadarajan, assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, is based on research he conducted in collaboration with investigators at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Ragon Institute. It was published in the March 6 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Shih Wins College’s Fourth CAREER Award of 2012
(March 9, 2012) Assistant Professor Wei-Chuan Shih has won a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, making him the fourth professor with the Cullen College of Engineering to do so this year. This is also the first CAREER Award from the NSF’s Biophotonics Program granted to an institution in the greater Houston area. Designed to help junior-level faculty launch long-term successful research careers, CAREER awards are among the most prestigious grants in the sciences; the CAREER program is one of only a handful of faculty awards that are factored in the official Top American Research University rankings.

UH MAES Students Focus on Leadership, Professional Development, and Outreach
(March 8, 2012) Members of the UH chapter of the Society of Mexican American Engineers and Scientists (MAES) expand their professional outlook by engaging in a range of conferences, workshops and volunteer opportunities this semester. Last month, MAES members attended the 23rd annual National Leadership Conference in Houston. Attendees experienced an intensive program of personal and professional leadership training, connected with company representatives, and had the opportunity to compete with other MAES student chapters from across the U.S.

Retired Exxon Mobil CEO Reflects on Energy Industry, Honors Neal Amundson at Lecture
(February 28, 2012) The late Neal R. Amundson, Cullen Professor of Chemical Engineering, was honored last Friday night at a memorial lecture delivered by Lee R. Raymond, retired chairman and chief executive officer of Exxon Mobil Corp. at the University of Houston. Raymond spoke before an audience of 200 about his extensive and distinguished career in the energy industry over the last five decades and paid tribute to Amundson, his doctoral advisor and mentor.

Engineering Alumni Association Hosts EWeek Reception
(February 27, 2012) The University of Houston Engineering Alumni Association (EAA) hosted the 2012 Engineers Week Reception and Program on Tuesday, February 21 at the University of Houston Hilton, in celebration of National Engineers Week. Over 200 engineering students, alumni, faculty, staff, and sponsors attended the event, now in its eighth year."Our event was specifically created to benefit just UH engineering students and organizations," said Cynthia Oliver Coleman (BSChE ’71), founder and chair of the event.

Diesel Center Hosts Fuel Economy Roundtable
(February 23, 2012) Representatives from government, industry and academia gathered earlier this week to discuss these issues at the “Fuel Economy-Enhancing Technologies for Fleets” roundtable, hosted by the UH Cullen College of Engineering’s Texas Diesel Testing and Research Center. The center performs research and development of new diesel technologies and offers third-party verification of technologies developed by other groups. About 30 people attended the event, held at the Diesel Center’s facility at the University of Houston’s Energy Research Park.

Retired Exxon Mobil Executive to Give Neal R. Amundson Lecture
(February 20, 2012) Lee R. Raymond, who had a distinguished career with Exxon Mobil Corporation, will give the Neal R. Amundson Lecture on Friday (Feb. 24) at the University of Houston. Raymond’s career at Exxon began in 1963, and he rose to serve as board chairman and chief executive officer of Exxon from 1993 until its merger with Mobil in 1999. He continued to hold the same positions with ExxonMobil until he retired in December 2005.

ASCE Honors Professor Song for Aerospace Service
(February 16, 2012) Cullen College Professor of Mechanical Engineering Gangbing Song has been named the recipient of the 2012 Outstanding Professional Service Award from the Aerospace Division of the American Society of Civil Engineers. The award is intended to honor an individual who has improved the conditions under which civil engineers “advance aerospace sciences and technology and space exploration and construction.”Song’s contributions in this arena revolve primarily around his work as an organizer of the Aerospace Division’s biennial Earth and Space Conference.

NSBE Awards $10,000 to PROMES Program
(February 13, 2012)The National Society of Black Engineers has named the Cullen College’s Program for the Mastery of Engineering Studies (PROMES) a winner of a 2012 ExxonMobil – NSBE Engineering Impact Award.The award was given in recognition of the program’s success in recruiting and retaining students from underrepresented minority groups and includes a $10,000 grant in support of these efforts. PROMES conducts recruitment outreach targeting minority students and offers seminars, collaborative learning workshops and peer mentoring programs for those who enroll in the college.

Report Examines Cracking and Fatigue in Highway Illumination Poles
(February 3, 2012) Mina Dawood, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, has published a report outlining factors that contribute to cracking of high mast illumination poles during fabrication. The report also provides strategies to prevent these cracks and potential failures from occurring. The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDoT) gave Dawood a one-year $50,000 grant to study the problem through computer simulations and analysis of existing data. To perform this work, Dawood took into account many different factors that could impact pole life, including wind and terrain conditions specific to the state’s five major urban areas of Austin, Dallas/Ft. Worth, El Paso, Houston and San Antonio.

ECE Welcomes Image Analysis Expert
(February 3, 2012) Saurabh Prasad, an expert in signal and image processing and analysis, has joined the faculty of the Cullen College’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.Prasad earned his Ph.D. from Mississippi State University in 2008 and then served as a research assistant professor with that institution until earlier this year. He joined the Cullen College in January as a research assistant professor and will take a tenure-track assistant professor post this fall. He will conduct his research out of the National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping, a National Science Foundation-funded center.

Cullen College Announces 2011-2012 Outstanding Students
(February 1, 2012) Each year, the UH Cullen College of Engineering recognizes outstanding upperclassmen from each of its eight undergraduate programs, in honor of National Engineers Week. Two students have been chosen as Outstanding Senior and Junior for the 2011-2012 academic year. Senior electrical engineering major Brian Clark and junior chemical engineering major Preston Broom were selected from a group of top students representing the college’s eight undergraduate programs.

Polymer Solar Cell Research Earns College Third NSF CAREER Award
(January 25, 2012) Gila Stein, assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, has won a prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER Award, valued at up to $500,000 over five years, to characterize and improve polymer-based solar cells.Polymer cells have several attributes that could make them a viable alternative to standard silicon-based cells. They are lighter and more durable, easier to produce and have a lower raw materials cost. At this point, however, they are not as efficient. Stein will work to determine how efficiently these new solar cells generate electricity, and work to optimize the most promising polymer/fullerene interfaces.

Bao Wins NSF CAREER Award to Study Graphene’s Optical Properties
(January 25, 2012) Jiming Bao, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, has won a National Science Foundation CAREER Award to study the optical properties of graphene. One of the most prestigious grants offered by the NSF, CAREER awards are designed to help junior-level faculty build their research programs and establish a track record of successful investigations. Bao’s grant, for $400,000 over five years, will allow him to examine the optical properties of graphene, one-atom-thick sheets of carbon.

UH Department of Mechanical Engineering Welcomes New Faculty Member
(January 24, 2012) The Cullen College of Engineering has welcomed a new faculty member to the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Philippe Masson joins the department as an assistant professor. In his previous appointment as a research faculty member at Florida State University, Masson studied high power density superconducting machines for aircraft propulsion. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering - Applied Superconductivity in 2002 from University Henri Poincaré. Masson’s stay in the U.S. was extended after he received additional funding from the Air Force to work on simulations of fundamental phenomena in superconductors.

Rodrigues Wins NSF CAREER Award
(January 23, 2012) Debora Rodrigues, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, has won a prestigious CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). CAREER Awards are given to junior-level faculty with the goal of helping them launch successful research and educational careers. The grant, worth up to $450,000 over a five-year period, will allow Rodrigues to study the environmental impact of nano-scale materials that utilize graphene, single-atom thick sheets of carbon. Though graphene is one of the most promising nanomaterials in existence, its impact on the environment is unclear.

PhD Candidate Honored for Academic and Philanthropic Achievements
(January 19, 2012) Isis Mejias has been busy lately. She received a scholarship from the Rotary Club of Humble Intercontinental, secured a $50,000 grant for Engineers Without Borders – Central Houston Professional Chapter, and became a US citizen, all while successfully taking her qualifying exam for the Ph.D. in environmental engineering at the Cullen College of Engineering. “I got involved with Engineers Without Borders (EWB) about two years ago and started working on a project to bring water to a hospital in Maseno, a town in Kenya,” Mejias said.

Cullen College Faculty Enhance Teaching Skills
(January 17, 2012) The UH Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering hosted a teaching development event for faculty this month. The Mini-ExCEEd Teaching Workshop, presented by American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), was a two-day series of seminars open to Cullen College of Engineering faculty that focused on innovative ways of conveying engineering concepts to students and being more successful in the classroom.

NASA Grant Funds Congo River Basin Research
(January 5, 2012) With a surface area of approximately 2.3 million square miles, the Congo River Basin is the second largest river basin in the world, surpassed only by the Amazon. Compared to the Amazon, though, the Congo basin is a mystery. Its remote location combined with political instability in the region have prevented geoscientists from gathering even the most basic information about the basin: How much water exists in its wetlands? Is most of this water from direct precipitation, river flooding or upland runoff? How much of the basin is wetland? All these are unknown. Hyongki Lee, assistant professor in the Cullen College’s Department of Civil and Engineering, recently won a $663,000 grant from NASA to answer such questions. According to Lee, this research should give researchers a better understanding of everything from regional climate to greenhouse gas emissions.

Charles Kirkpatrick, Cullen College's Second Dean, Passes
(January 3, 2012) Charles V. Kirkpatrick, who as dean from 1965-1975 led the UH Cullen College of Engineering through a period of tremendous growth, passed away in December at the age of 95. During his time at the University of Houston, Kirpatrick oversaw significant improvement to the college’s graduate program. Under his watch, the college began offering Ph.D.s in five academic areas and hired several prominent faculty members to support these programs. He also actively supported engineering students and the profession through service as an advisor to both the UH student chapters of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers and the Society of Petroleum Engineers.

Sharma Named Chair of UH Mechanical Engineering
(January 3, 2012) The UH Cullen College of Engineering has named Pradeep Sharma the new chair of its Department of Mechanical Engineering, an appointment effective Jan. 1, 2012. As chairman, Sharma said his primary goal will be to dramatically improve the department's national ranking through enhanced reputation among students and other engineering colleges. One way to achieve this, he said, will be to emphasize that faculty secure prestigious grants and produce not simply more journal articles, but more articles in highly regarded publications. Teaching will also continue to remain a high priority for the department, he stressed.

RoboShasta 2.0 Debuts at Cullen College
(December 19, 2011) A team of Cullen College engineering students presented their senior design project this month, unveiling the next-generation RoboShasta, a UH mascot "bot." The semester-long project culminated in an advanced version of an existing anima-tronic-inspired cougar. The team, comprised of Kasey Herman, David Aguilar, Tim Sweet, and Andrew Luu, developed the bot with a purpose beyond the specifications set forth by Professor John Glover's course. RoboShasta can interact with humans. It is trained to track colors and objects. It has a manual mode, a female voice, and a sense of humor.

ECE Department Welcomes Contreras-Vidal, Brain-Machine Interface Researcher
(December 15, 2011) The Cullen College of Engineering's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering has welcomed Jose Luis 'Pepe' Contreras-Vidal as its newest faculty member. Contreras-Vidal, who joins the college as a full professor, was previously an associate professor with the University of Maryland. He earned his Ph.D. in Cognitive and Neural Systems from Boston University in 1994. His research focuses on the development of non-invasive methods of interfacing the human brain with machines in order to help those who have suffered severe injuries such as limb amputation, spinal cord injury, or stroke. Individuals confined to a wheelchair could use a brain-machine interface to walk with a robotic exoskeleton, for example, while those who have lost a limb could control a multi-functional prosthetic device.

Professor Wins Grant to Improve Online Security
(December 12, 2011) The days of worrying whether it's safe to pay a bill online may soon be over. Such encrypted transmissions could end up immune to hackers thanks in part to the efforts to Yuhua Chen, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the Cullen College of Engineering. Chen is collaborating on a three-year $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to help develop an uncrackable form of data encryption that is ideal for protecting the most sensitive information sent over the internet. This approach is a new spin on quantum cryptography. It takes advantage of the basic principles of quantum mechanics, the study of how the smallest possible particles of matter and waves of energy behave.

Longtime Civil Engineering Professor Osman Ghazzaly Retires
(December 7, 2011) Osman Ghazzaly came to the University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering in 1966 as an assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Three years later he was promoted to associate professor, a position he would hold for nearly three decades before being promoted to professor in 1997. Along with teaching graduate courses in geotechnical engineering, and undergraduate courses in mechanics, materials and transportation, Ghazzaly served as associate chair of the department, director of graduate and undergraduate studies, and graduate and undergraduate advisor over various periods in his academic career.

UH Department of Biomedical Engineering Welcomes New Faculty Member
(December 5, 2011) Associate Professor Howard Gifford joins the UH Department of Biomedical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts Medical School. His research focuses on the medical imaging process with the goal of improving chances of detecting or quantifying a certain target. Specifically, Gifford works to optimize the performance of a task to read images, by examining hardware and image acquisition protocol as well. "It's a question that has received a lot of attention recently because medical imaging is a burgeoning business," Gifford said. "There's new hardware being invented every day. What I'm interested in is trying to predict how a clinician, looking at an image, might perform given a particular imaging processing protocol."

Honors Engineering Students Build Habitat for Humanity Home
(November 18, 2011) Students with the University of Houston's Honors Engineering Program (HEP) recently participated in a Habitat for Humanity build project earlier this month in northeast Houston. In the joint event with KBR, HEP students helped construct a home in the Milby Park subdivision, alongside KBR volunteers. The Honors Engineering Program cultivates community among honors students pursuing an engineering degree, and provides an enhanced academic experience hrough project-based courses, mentorship opportunities and visits with industry partners.

UH ChBE Researcher Wins Award at Annual Meeting
(November 15, 2011) Pranit Metkar, a graduate research assistant in the UH Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, was selected as a winner at the Catalysis and Reaction Engineering Poster Session held during the 2011 AIChE Annual Meeting in Minneapolis for his poster entitled "Determination of Controlling Regimes for Various SCR Reactions on Zeolite Based Monolithic Catalysts."

UH Signs MOU with National Tsing Hua University
(November 15, 2011) To develop joint research efforts and give opportunities for students to participate in academic exchange programs, the University of Houston signed a Memorandum of Understanding with National Tsing Hua University on November 8. One of the highest ranked institutions in Taiwan, National Tsing Hua University invited representatives from UH to a signing ceremony, which included a delegation from the Texas House of Representatives led by Rep. Charlie Howard. The other members included Reps. Alma Allen, Angie Chen Button, Jessica Farrar, Eric Johnson and Hubert Vo.

UH Designates Certified Information Security Officer for Cullen College
(November 15, 2011) The UH Cullen College of Engineering has taken a step towards enhanced information security with the addition of a newly appointed role. Director of Engineering Computing John Young recently became the college's Certified Information Security Officer, having met several criteria for this designation.

UH MAES Students Connect and Compete at National Symposium
(November 3, 2011) The UH chapter of the Society of Mexican American Engineers and Scientists (MAES) received several awards at the 37th Annual National MAES Symposium last month in Oakland, California, including first place in the College Decathlon. The four-day conference drew over 1500 students from all over the country in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) disciplines, for academic and professional advancement.

Cullen College Wins World Oil Award
(October 26, 2011) The UH Cullen College of Engineering shared the stage with FMC Technologies earlier this month as co-winners of a 2011 World Oil Award. Presented by World Oil magazine, the awards recognize "the industry's leading innovators and innovations that represent the best technological achievements or contributions." The two won the Best Outreach Program honor for the Cullen College's new Subsea Engineering Program. The program was proposed by executives at FMC and subsequently launched by the Cullen College at the beginning of 2011.

UH Engineering Students Receive Access to E-Learning Library
(October 21, 2011) A Houston multimedia company has given UH Cullen College of Engineering students access to an e-learning library that will enhance their knowledge of the petroleum industry. PetroEd provides a range of multimedia technical training for the oil and gas industry with a comprehensive e-learning library. The company's Open Petroleum Education Network (OPEN) allows students all over the world to take e-learning courses, at no cost to either the student or their educational institution.

Engineering Tops Salary Survey of Recent Grads
(October 20, 2011) Even in a soft economy, years of schooling are paying off for many recent engineering graduates. Bachelor's degrees in engineering fields attracted six of the top 10 average salary offers for members of the class of 2010-2011, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers.Topping the list were recent chemical engineering graduates, who drew an average salary offer of $66,886. Mechanical engineers reported the third highest average offer at $60,739, followed by electrical/electronics and communications engineers at $60,646.

Tissue Analysis Gets Boost from Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration
(October 13, 2011) A cross-disciplinary collaboration between faculty at the UH Cullen College of Engineering and Duke University has opened up new avenues for cancer research and other clinical investigations. This collaboration is centered on the FARSIGHT software suite, developed by a group led by Badrinath Roysam, chair of the college's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. FARSIGHT is designed to rapidly analyze images of human tissue collected from laser-scanning microscopes by quantifying specific molecules of interest in cells and tissue. Researchers have used it for everything from analyzing brain tissue after injury to studying the effectiveness of experimental medications.

UH-led Team Receives $3.1 Million DOE Award to Develop Superconducting Wire for Wind Turbines
(October 11, 2011) The University of Houston will lead a public-private research team that has been awarded $3.1 million by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to develop a low-cost superconducting wire that could be used to power future wind turbines. This support is part of the DOE's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) program, which recently announced it has awarded $156 million to 60 cutting-edge research projects designed to improve how the U.S. produces and uses energy. Venkat "Selva" Selvamanickam, M.D. Anderson Chair Professor of Mechanical Engineering, director of the Applied Research Hub of the Texas Center for Superconductivity at the University of Houston (TcSUH) and Chief Technology Advisor for SuperPower, will lead the research project.

Litvinov Named Director of Materials Engineering Program
(September 27, 2011) Dmitri Litvinov, John and Rebecca Moores Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has been named director of the Cullen College of Engineering's Materials Engineering Program. The graduate program, which offers both a master's and a Ph.D. track, focuses on engineered materials and their processing for a wide range of engineering applications, from renewable energy to biomedical engineering to information technology. Specific areas include solar cell materials, superconducting ceramics for energy applications, materials for biosensing, magnetic materials for data storage and processing, and composites for aerospace engineering and wind-energy applications.

College's Freshman Enrollment up 25 percent
(September 27, 2011) The UH Cullen College of Engineering has begun the 2011-2012 academic year with 603 freshman students, up from 477 a year earlier. Five of the college's six departments saw an increase in freshman enrollment of at least 28 percent. Those figures supported a rise in total undergraduate enrollment of approximately 330 students to 2,399. All classes – from freshman to senior – posted higher enrollment numbers in the current year than in 2010.

NSF-MRI Grant Bolsters Cullen College Failure Mechanics Research
(September 19, 2011) Researchers with the University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering have won a $400,000 grant from the National Science Foundation's Major Research Instrumentation Program to acquire one of the most advanced systems in the world for studying how steel and ductile materials deform before rupturing and how concrete and other quasi-brittle materials fail due to progressive cracking. The grant was awarded to 11 faculty in the college's departments of civil and environmental engineering and mechanical engineering. Civil engineering professor Kaspar Willam, a member of the National Academy of Engineering, serves as the grant's principal investigator.

Cullen College Welcomes Nine New Faculty Members
(September 16, 2011) The Cullen College of Engineering's strategic plan to achieve tier one status includes a significant increase in its faculty count. With nine new tenured or tenure-track faculty members joining the college for the 2011 fall semester, it is clearly making great progress toward that goal. These faculty members run the gamut from newly minted Ph.D.s to a highly respected member of the National Academy of Engineering.

KBR Makes Gift to Subsea Program
(September 16, 2011) Engineering, construction and services firm KBR has made a $50,000 donation to the UH Cullen College of Engineering's new Subsea Engineering Program. The program focuses on the design and installation of underwater infrastructure used in offshore petroleum exploration and retrieval. Offering the first and only dedicated subsea curriculum in the United States, UH has admitted roughly 40 people to the program since January, when the first course launched. The gift, made in partnership between KBR and its subsidiary Granherne, will support four industry professionals serving as adjunct faculty members in the program.

ECE Professor Shieh Retires after 40 Years
(September 14, 2011) Leang Shieh has had a busy 40 years. Just look at the numbers. A professor in the Cullen College's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, over that period he has advised more than 100 graduate students and published 301 papers and counting — an average of roughly one every six weeks for four decades. With that track record, it's no surprise that Shieh's colleagues wanted to do something special in honor his of retirement at the end of last month. On Friday, August 26, dozens of Shieh's colleagues, graduate students, friends and family members gathered at the University of Houston to celebrate his career.

UH Researcher Receives Grant to Develop New Oil Dispersants
(September 12, 2011) The extensive use of chemical dispersants on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico prompted concerns that they also may have damaged fragile ecosystems. As the debate continues over their use on oil spills, a University of Houston researcher has received a grant to develop safer, more efficient dispersants. Professor Ramanan Krishnamoorti's work is part of a major multi-institution grant project to study the effects of the 2010 oil spill, develop new tools and technology to respond to future spills and improve mitigation and restoration efforts.

Faculty Developing New "Platform" to Fight Malaria
(August 26, 2011) Malaria has been one of the world's biggest killers for as long as records have been kept. According to the World Health Organization, in 2008 alone the disease claimed approximately 881,000 lives, making it responsible for approximately 1.5% of all deaths worldwide. Jeffrey Rimer and Peter Vekilov, both faculty with the UH Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, have recently been awarded a two-year, $150,000 seed grant from the U.S. Department of Defense and administered by the Alliance for NanoHealth to create an entirely new platform for developing antimalarial drugs.

Professor Wins DHS Grant to Improve Port Security
(August 26, 2011) Christopher Chung, associate professor in the Cullen College's Department of Industrial Engineering, has received a grant to develop a system to identify marine vessels as they enter sensitive areas.The system will be based on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), a technology that allows for automatic communication between a small electronic tag and an RFID reader. RFID is commonly used in industrial applications. By placing a reader at a warehouse's loading doors, for example, a company can automatically track tagged good as they come and go.

Professor Developing Injection-Based Paralysis Treatment
(August 25, 2011) Individuals suffering from devastating spinal cord injuries may one day benefit from research being conducted at the University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering.Dong Liu, assistant professor with the college's Department of Mechanical Engineering, recently won a $390,000 collaborative research grant from the National Science Foundation to develop a new treatment. He is working with fellow Cullen College professor Li Sun and researchers at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston led by Associate Professor Qilin Cao.

Former President of India Visits UH Nanofab Facility
(August 24, 2011) The University of Houston welcomed former president of India A.P.J. Abdul Kalam to its campus this week. Kalam, who served as president from 2002 to 2007, met with officials and toured many of the university's top research facilities, including the UH Nanofabrication Facility.While there he spoke with Nanofabrication Facility Director Dmitri Litvinov, a professor in the Cullen College's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. "President Kalam himself is an educator and engineer, and he has a long history of supporting the sciences. It was an honor to welcome him to our lab and discuss our work with him," said Litvinov.

Engineering Students Perform Interdisciplinary Research
(August 12, 2011) Students from the University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering spent their summer conducting research as part of the 2011 Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program. The fellowship provides funding for sophomores, juniors and seniors in any major to experience hands-on research on a full-time basis for 10 weeks. "Undergraduate research really allows students to take the lead in their own education," says Karen Weber, director of the UH Office of Undergraduate Research.

College Wins Grant to Teach Nanotechnology to High School Educators
(August 12, 2011) Over the next three years, selected middle and high school science teachers from the Greater Houston area will spend the summer months exploring the world of nanotechnology at the University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering. The National Science Foundation awarded the college a $429,000 grant to fund "Innovations in Nanotechnology," a Research Experience for Teachers (RET) program. Such RET programs are designed to address the looming shortfall of science and engineering talent in the United States, said Debora Rodrigues, assistant professor of civil engineering and co-principal investigator on the grant.

UH Hurricane Conference Addresses Preparedness and Disaster Recovery
(August 10, 2011) With hurricane season entering its historically most active period, public officials, researchers and businesspeople from the gulf coast region met at the University of Houston last week to discuss disaster preparedness, rapid recovery and coastal protection options. The gathering, "Hurricanes, Major Disasters, Coastal Protection and Rapid Recovery in Texas and the Gulf Coast Region," was organized by the University of Houston's Texas Hurricane Center for
Innovative Technology.

IEEE Honors Chen for Electromagnetic Work
(July 26, 2011) Ji Chen, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering with the UH Cullen College of Engineering, has been honored with a 2011 Technical Achievement Award from the Electromagnetic Compatibility Society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. The Technical Achievement Award is given in recognition of "significant technical accomplishments in the field of electromagnetic compatibility." In announcing the honor, the EMC Society cited Chen's contributions to computational electromagnetics and biomedical applications of electromagnetics.

Donnelly Honored for Decades of Plasma Research
(July 20, 2011) Vincent Donnelly, professor in the UH Cullen College of Engineering's Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, has been honored by the American Vacuum Society for his 30-plus years of plasma research. The AVS named Donnelly the 2011 recipient of the John A. Thorton Memorial Award and Lecture. One of AVS' highest honors, the award is given every two years to an individual responsible for "outstanding research or technological innovation in areas of interest
to AVS."

Professor's Bacteria "Slingshot" Finding Published in PNAS
(July 19, 2011) One of the Cullen College of Engineering's newest professors has co-authored an article appearing in one of the nation's most prestigious scientific journals. The paper, co-written by Jacinta Conrad, assistant professor in the college's Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering since fall 2010, is set to appear in an upcoming issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science and is currently available online. The piece describes a newly found method of bacteria motility, or movement, using hair-like appendages called pili.

Acclaimed Member of the National Academy of Engineering joins UH Petroleum Engineering
(July 12, 2011) John Lee, a National Academy of Engineering member most recently noted for his work on oil and gas reserve regulations, has accepted a position as the first tenured faculty member in the University of Houston's growing petroleum engineering program.  He will hold the Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished University Chair. Lee, who has been a professor at Texas A&M University since 1977, is arguably the most widely known petroleum engineering academic in North America. He is highly respected within academia, the engineering community and the boardrooms of many publicly owned petroleum companies.

Summer Engineering Camps Challenge and Motivate High School Students
(July 12, 2011) High school students explored the world of engineering at two camps this summer, hosted by the UH Cullen College of Engineering. STEP Forward Camp, led by the Program for Mastery in Engineering Studies (PROMES), is a weeklong residential program that gives rising high school seniors an inside look at engineering. The Girls Reaching and Demonstrating Excellence (GRADE) Camp welcomed girls from grades eight-12 who are interested in science and engineering.

Cullen College Alum Aboard Atlantis
(July 8, 2011) The Space Shuttle Atlantis successfully began the program's final mission today, and Cullen College of Engineering alumnus Rex Walheim was onboard. Walheim earned his master's degree in industrial engineering from the college in 1989. He was selected as an astronaut in 1996 and went on his first space flight in 2002. As a mission specialist and one of only four crew members chosen for the STS-135 mission, Walheim will assist in the shuttle's task of delivering equipment and supplies to the International Space Station, as well as investigate a system for robotically refueling spacecraft.

UH Dedicates Petroleum Engineering Building
(July 1, 2011) The UH Cullen College of Engineering's Petroleum Engineering Program marked a major milestone this week with the official dedication of its new headquarters, the ConocoPhillips Petroleum Engineering Building. The building was made possible thanks in large part to a gift from Houston-based ConocoPhillips, which made a $1 million gift commitment to UH and the Energy Research Park in 2011 and intends to follow up with gifts of $1 million in both 2012 and 2013. Watch Video

Energy Professionals Give Feedback on Subsea Engineering Program
(June 30, 2011) Houston energy professionals gathered for Subsea Engineering Industry Day on Tuesday, hosted by the UH Cullen College of Engineering and McDermott International Inc. The event focused on the UH Subsea Engineering Program, and included presentations by Cullen College Dean Joseph Tedesco and Program Director Matthew Franchek. Participants from various companies shared their thoughts on what the program currently offers in relation to employee training and research needs of the subsea industry.

UH Hosts Dedication Ceremony for Petroleum Engineering Building
(June 23, 2011) University of Houston President Renu Khator will welcome energy industry leaders and others to a June 29 dedication ceremony for the new home of the university's nascent petroleum engineering program. The petroleum engineering program, which debuted an undergraduate degree program in fall 2009, relocated to Building 9A in the UH Energy Research Park (ERP) this spring semester. The renovated building houses several teaching laboratories, classrooms and offices. The popular bachelor's degree option already has grown to an estimated 100 students, with the first graduates planned for spring 2013.

Professor Creates Graphene-based Antimicrobial Film
(June 21, 2011) Debora Rodrigues, assistant professor civil and environmental engineering, has helped create a nanotechnology-based material that is extremely effective at killing E. coli and other pathogenic bacteria. She worked in collaboration with Rigoberto Advincula, professor of chemistry at the University of Houston, to develop the film, a nanocomposite consisting of a polymer mixed with nanosheets of graphene oxide.

Professor Honored for Imaging Research
(June 20, 2011) Wei-Chuan Shih, assistant professor in the Cullen College's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has been recognized for his efforts to develop a new method of imaging groups of living cells. Shih received the best poster award at the Advances in Optics for Biotechnology, Medicine and Surgery conference, held earlier this month in Naples, Fla., for his poster "High Throughput Chemical Imaging of Living Cells." The poster outlined research he conducted in collaboration with fellow ECE professor Jack Wolfe, graduate students Ji Qi and Pratik Motwani, as well as Professor Timothy Devarenne and graduate student Taylor Weiss from Texas A&M University.

Subsea Engineering Industry Day: June 28
(June 17, 2011) The UH Cullen College of Engineering and McDermott International Inc. invite members from Houston's petrochemical industry to Subsea Engineering Industry Day. The Cullen College of Engineering is looking for partners to provide ongoing industry feedback for the UH Subsea Engineering Program, the first program of its kind in the United States. The program is currently enrolling students for the fall 2011 certificate courses. Photo provided by Siemens.

ECE Hosts Graduate Research Conference
(June 14, 2011) For engineers to have successful careers as researchers, either in academia or industry, they need more than just skills in the laboratory. Almost as important is the ability to effectively, even compellingly, explain their work and why it matters. To help its graduate students develop this skill, the Cullen College's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering recently hosted its annual Graduate Research Conference.

Professor's Cognitive Radio Paper Earns IEEE Honor
(June 13, 2011) A proposal outlining cognitive radio providers, a new kind of wireless service provider utilizing underused networks to balance wireless traffic, has won Zhu Han, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, and his two co-authors the 2011 Fred Ellersick Prize Paper Award. Published in the April 2009 edition of IEEE Wireless Communication Magazine, the award honors them for the best paper in an IEEE communications magazine during the past three years. They accepted the award last week at the IEEE's International Conference on Communications in Kyoto, Japan.

UH Researchers' Graphene Development Published in Nature Materials
(June 2, 2011) University of Houston researchers have developed a method for creating single-crystal arrays of the material graphene, an advance that opens the possibility of a replacement for silicon in high-performance computers and electronics. The work by UH researchers and their collaborators is featured on the cover of the June issue of Nature Materials.Graphene is a one-atom-thick layer of carbon that was first fabricated in 2004. Single-crystal arrays of the material could be used to create a new class of high-speed transistors and integrated circuits that use less energy than silicon electronics because graphene conducts electricity with little resistance or heat generation.

Richardson Honored by Catalysis Society
(May 31, 2011) The Southwest Catalysis Society, the local chapter of the North American Catalysis Society, has honored one of its founders for a lifetime of work in catalysis research and practice. James Richardson, professor emeritus of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the UH Cullen College of Engineering, was one of three individuals honored with an Excellence in Applied Catalysis Award, a new award given by the society. Richardson co-founded the SWCS in 1967 alongside Rice University Professor Emeritus Joe Hightower and Texas A&M University Professor Jack Lunsford. The three were honored with the award at the 2011 Spring Symposium held at Rice University last month.

Dalton Retiring after 51 years
(May 25, 2011) In 1953, Charles Dalton began taking night classes part-time at the University of Houston. Now, nearly 60 years later, he's almost ready to leave. It's not that Dalton took decades to earn his bachelor's degree. In fact he completed his B.S. and then his M.S. in mechanical engineering at the Cullen College and then went on to earn a Ph.D. from The University of Texas at Austin in 1965. He spent a total of 51 years, a Cullen College record, as a faculty member in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He's retiring from this role at the end of this month.

Alumni, Professors to Be Honored at Alumni Awards Gala
(May 20, 2011) The University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering and the Engineering Alumni Association will honor seven college alumni and professors at its annual awards gala early next month.The event, underwritten by SpawGlass Construction Corp., is scheduled for Friday, June 3, at the Four Season Hotel in downtown Houston. The alumni awards program was established in 1987 to recognize alumni, faculty and friends of the Cullen College and the Engineering Alumni Association for significant contributions to society and the engineering profession.

ExxonMobil Donates More Than $500K to UH for Math, Science Initiatives
(May 18, 2011) ExxonMobil has donated $586,766 to the University of Houston (UH) through its educational matching gift program to support math and science initiatives. Alumni and friends of UH who are among ExxonMobil's employees and retirees contributed nearly $150,000 in 2010 to the university, which was matched three-to-one by the ExxonMobil Foundation. Up by $54,000 from the previous year, this year's matching gift represents 164 contributions. Through these funds, universities are encouraged to invest in math and science programs to increase and support student engagement and progress in these subjects, encouraging students to develop a keen interest in careers in these fields. Mirroring ExxonMobil's personnel, funds predominantly went to the Cullen College of Engineering, College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, Bauer College of Business and the UH Law Center.

Nearly 300 Walk in Spring Commencement Ceremony
(May 16, 2011) The UH Cullen College of Engineering held its Spring 2011 Commencement Ceremony on Friday, May 13, with nearly 300 candidates for graduation walking across the stage. Among those were 19 individuals who earned their doctoral degree in either chemical, civil, electrical, industrial or mechanical engineering. There were also roughly 130 candidates for master's degrees and 150 bachelor's candidates.

Lim Named New Chair of Industrial Engineering
(May 16, 2011) The UH Cullen College of Engineering has named Gino Lim the new chair of its Department of Industrial Engineering, effective May 16. Lim takes over the role from Fritz Claydon, the college's associate dean for administration and research, who led the department on an interim basis beginning in the summer of 2010. Lim, a Hari and Anjali Agrawal Faculty Fellow with the department, earned his Ph.D. in industrial engineering in 2002 from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. He then worked as a postdoctoral researcher in that university's computer science department before joining UH in 2004.

A Salute to Betty Barr
(May 12, 2011)When Betty Barr joined the college as an assistant professor 40 years ago, times were a little different. The women's movement had just opened up new opportunities for women professionally, though the field of engineering would take, and will still take, many years to achieve a better balance of females in the engineering workforce. She came to the Cullen College of Engineering in 1971 when a position for a linear algebra instructor opened up in the Department of Industrial Engineering. A triple graduate in Mathematics from the University of Houston, she decided to take the position because of her desire to remain in Houston, to teach mathematics, and "because the college needed a woman."

Two UH Engineering Graduates Separated by 70 Years
(May 11, 2011) A lifetime separates two special University of Houston engineering students who are graduating this spring. David Levy is receiving two bachelor's degrees, one in mechanical engineering and the other in mathematics. George Hall, meanwhile, is getting his master's degree in industrial engineering. Levy is 16 and Hall is 86, a 70-year age difference. The two extraordinary UH graduates credit hard work, family support and UH for their success and both plan to attend graduation ceremonies for the UH Cullen College of Engineering this Friday (May 13.)

Rifai Wins Grant to Study Galveston Bay Pollutants
(May 9, 2011) Cullen College Professor of Environmental Engineering Hanadi Rifai has received a grant to expand her research into toxic chemicals in the Houston area's major bodies of water.The grant from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) is an extension of an award Rifai received last fall and brings the TCEQ's support for this research to $500,000. The earlier round of funding went toward work focusing on the Houston Ship Channel. This extension will allow Rifai and her team to expand their research into the open areas of Galveston Bay.

College Faculty Recognized for Teaching, Research
(May 4, 2011) Dean Joseph Tedesco recognized UH Cullen College of Engineering faculty members for outstanding teaching and research during the 2010-2011 academic year at the college's Spring Faculty/Staff Meeting May 3. Demetre Economou, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, received the W.T. Kittinger Teaching Excellence Award, the college's most prestigious teaching honor. Betty Barr, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, received the Career Teaching Award for excellence in teaching and service to students over her 40-year career at the Cullen College.

Engineering Professors Among Those Honored for Faculty Excellence
(April 26, 2011) The University of Houston honors its faculty each year for their teaching, research and service contributions during the annual UH Faculty Excellence Awards ceremony. Held this year on April 20, five Cullen College of Engineering faculty received high honors for excellence in teaching, research and mentoring, while 17 faculty were recognized for years of service.

Professors Win Grant to Study Concrete Strengthening and Repair
(April 22, 2011) Professors Abdeldjelil "DJ" Belarbi and Ashraf Ayoub in the UH Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering have received a $300,000 National Science Foundation grant to research the interaction between concrete and carbon fiber reinforced polymer sheets in an effort to uncover the fundamental rules for these interactions.

PROMES Sponsors Out of Darkness Walk
(April 21, 2011) The Program for Mastery in Engineering Studies (PROMES), an engineering excellence program at the Cullen College of Engineering, sponsored the 2nd Annual Out of the Darkness Campus Walk held at the University of Houston last Saturday. The three-mile walk around the UH Campus is part of a larger, nationwide effort that benefits the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

UH IEEE Student Branch Earns Regional Recognition
(April 21, 2011) The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers student branch at the University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering received high honors this weekend at the 3rd Annual IEEE Green Technologies Conference in Baton Rough, La. For the fourth time in nine years, the UH IEEE student chapter received the 2011 Outstanding Large Student Branch Award for Region 5—a region home to 90 IEEE student chapters across 13 states. The UH IEEE student branch at the Cullen College has long been advised by Professor Ovidiu Crisan, who was honored as the IEEE Region 5 Outstanding Student Branch Counselor for the 5th time in 10 years. In fact, he was honored with this award for the second consecutive year.

Civil Professor Honored by ASCE for Lifetime Work
(April 20, 2011) Associate Professor of Civil Engineering Jerry Rogers will receive two honors this year from the American Society of Civil Engineers for a lifetime of work in the civil engineering profession and for his ongoing passion to raise awareness for civil engineering history. Rogers will be honored by the ASCE's Environmental & Water Resources Institute as one of three recipients of the 2011 Lifetime Achievement Award. For his outstanding service and "selfless efforts" to raise awareness about civil engineering history and for his participation at multiple U.K. engineering symposia, ASCE's History and Heritage Committee will be also honoring him with its 2011 Civil Engineering History and Heritage Award.

Plasma Reaction Paper Featured on Journal Cover
(April 20, 2011) The Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology featured an article by Cullen College Professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering Vince Donnelly on the cover of its January/February 2011 issue. The paper "Plasma-surface Reactions and the Spinning Wall Method," outlined a new way to determine the behavior of atoms and molecules on the interior walls plasma chambers. These chambers are used for many industrial processes, such etching silicon for integrated circuits

Akay Delivers Keynote Address at Middle East Conference on Biomedical Engineering
(April 19, 2011) Metin Akay, chair of the Cullen College's Department of Biomedical Engineering, recently served as a keynote speaker at the first Middle East Conference on Biomedical Engineering. Held in the emirate of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, the conference brought together professional engineers, scientists and academics engaged in biomedical engineering research and development.

Civil Professors, Students Honored at ACI Conference
(April 14, 2011) At the 2011 American Concrete Institute Annual Convention, Abdeldjelil "DJ" Belarbi, professor and chair of the UH Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, received the Joe W. Kelly Award, an international award given to distinguished individuals to recognize outstanding contributions in education relating to the broad field of concrete. In addition, longtime civil engineering professor and university supporter, Thomas Hsu, was recognized as a member of the institute for 50 years. The University of Houston's ACI student chapter also received recognition for capturing a third place finish in the international FRP Composites Competition.

Researcher Wins NIH Grant to Test Vaccines for Chikungunya Virus
(April 13, 2011) A UH Cullen College of Engineering professor has received a grant to develop a new method of testing potential vaccines, and will use this approach to fight a virus identified as an emerging bioterrorism threat.Navin Varadarajan, assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, won a two-year, $361,000 grant administered by the Western Regional Center of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases Research and funded by the National Institutes of Health to test potential vaccines for the chikungunya virus. While rarely fatal, chikungunya causes arthritic symptoms so severe that some victims cannot even walk. These effects can last for up to a year.

Cullen College Places Second in Chem-E Car Competition
(April 12, 2011) A team of undergraduates from the UH Cullen College of Engineering took second place at the regional Chem-E Car Competition held last month at Texas A&M University. The competition, which took place during the American Institute of Chemical Engineers' Southwest Regional Conference, calls on students to design and build a small vehicle powered by a chemical reaction. By placing in the top two in actual car performance, the Cullen College team earned the right to participate in the national Chem-E Car Competition, set for October in Minnesota.

Diesel Center Researching Marine Vehicle Emissions
(April 5, 2011) The Cullen College's Texas Diesel Research and Testing Center was founded, in part, to develop technologies that reduce emissions from diesel vehicles. Researchers at the center have worked to cut pollution from everything from school buses to garbage trucks to heavy construction equipment. Thanks to a recent $163,000 grant, it can now add one more vehicle to that list: commercial fishing boats.The grant to Rachel Muncrief, research assistant professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, comes from Anchorage, Alaska-based Versatile Energy Power Systems (VEPS), which itself was funded by the Port of Los Angeles.

Civil Engineering Grad Student Wins Fellowship
(April 5, 2011) For the second time in three years, a Cullen College graduate student has won the O.H. Ammann Research Fellowship from the American Society of Civil Engineers. Rachel Howser, a graduate student in the college's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, was honored with the award, which is presented by the ASCE's Structral Engineering Institute. Established in 1963, the Ammann Fellowship is intended to foster the creation of new knowledge in the field of structural design and construction.

Professor Creating Color-Coded MRIs
(March 30, 2011) Medical diagnoses from the state of an injured knee to the possible existence of a tumor can hinge on a readout from a magnetic resonance imaging machine (MRI). But these images don't always provide answers. In black and white and with sometimes-poor focus, they can often be too difficult for even an experienced physician to interpret. In a project recently funded by the National Science Foundation, Li Sun, associate professor in the Cullen College of Engineering's Department of Mechanical Engineering, is developing a new class of contrasting agent that will make MRI images easier to read. At the heart of this research are iron nanostructures that will provide something entirely new to MRIs: color.

Professor Developing Patch for Repairing Cracked Steel
(March 30, 2011) Mina Dawood, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering with the Cullen College of Engineering, recently received a three-year, $300,000 grant from National Science Foundation to develop a new method of repairing cracks in steel structures such as bridges.Most repairs on cracked steel structures involve welding or bolting new steel components near the crack or manipulating the tip of a crack (the point where its two sides meet) to prevent it from growing. These approaches, though, are frequently ineffective.

UH Chosen as One of America's Best Colleges for Undergraduates
(March 29, 2011) On the heels of gaining Tier One recognition from the prestigious Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, the University of Houston has been named one of the nation's best institutions for undergraduate education, according to The Princeton Review, the widely known education services company. The Princeton Review has chosen UH for inclusion in the forthcoming edition of its popular annual guidebook, "The Best 376 Colleges: 2012 Edition," which will be available in bookstores in early August 2011.

Diesel Center Researchers Earn $1M EPA Grant to Retrofit HISD School Buses
(March 21, 2011) Using a $1 million grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Texas Diesel Testing and Research Center at the University of Houston will retrofit Houston Independent School District school buses with a system that attempts to diminish the negative impact their diesel emissions can have on the environment. UH researchers will supervise the installation of Nett Technologies' BlueMAX Selective Catalytic Reduction System on buses. Then, over the course of the next two years, they will analyze the system's ability to reduce smog-causing Nitrogen Oxides (NOx) and sooty particles being released through emissions using a series of real-world tests.

Earthquake Research at UH Featured on Local News
(March 15, 2011) Earthquake research in the Thomas Hsu Structural Laboratory was featured on KPRC Channel 2 in Houston on March 14, 2011. Drs. Y.L. Mo and Abdeldjilil "DJ" Belarbi were featured discussing current earthquake-related research at the University of Houston in an effort to explain how structural materials react to earthquake-like conditions. Structural testing is performed on many instruments, primarily the Universal Element Tester, the only machine in the country that tests the tension, compression, bending, shear and torsion of wall panels.

Amundson Tribute Set for March 14
(March 8, 2011) Engineers from across the United States and Mexico are set to come to the University of Houston later this month for an event honoring the late Neal Amundson. Amundson, who passed away on Feb. 16 at the age of 95, was the Cullen Professor Emeritus of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Professor of Mathematics at the University of Houston. The gathering is set for the morning of March 14 at the Cullen College of Engineering. It features talks from more than 15 highly regarded engineers and scientists who worked with and/or studied under Amundson during his five decades as a teacher and researcher.

Delegation from Angola Visits Cullen College
(March 8, 2011) A delegation of educators and businesspeople from Angola visited Houston last week to discuss potential collaborations with the Cullen College of Engineering as well as the entire University of Houston. The meeting was part of a follow-up to a memorandum of understanding signed in November 2008 between UH and Agostinho Neto University, the largest public university in Angola.

Rockwell Lecture Covers Ocean Imaging and Exploration
(March 4, 2011) The University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering will host a talk from one of the world's leading experts on underwater imaging and robotics, Hanumant Singh of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). Singh will speak at UH on Friday, March 11, as the 2011 Rockwell Lecturer for the college. He is a researcher with WHOI's Deep Submergence Laboratory, a group founded by the scientist best know for finding the wreckage of the Titanic, Robert Ballard.

UH's Newest Tier One Research Facility Now in Full Swing
(March 2, 2011) The University of Houston has long been home to groundbreaking research in the sciences and engineering. Now it has a new research facility to match.On Friday, Feb. 25, the university hosted a dedication and open house for its state-of-the-art Nanofabrication Facility. Housed in UH's Science and Engineering Research Center, the facility boasts a clean room with strict control of temperature and humidity and extremely low dust particle count. The room is equipped with tools for nano- and micro-scale device prototyping and characterization.

Outstanding Students Named for 2010-11
(March 1, 2011) The University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering has named recent graduate Jennifer Ngo and junior Ethan Pedneau the Outstanding Students for the 2010-11 academic year. Ngo and Pedneau were chosen from a pool of 13 students selected from the college's seven undergraduate programs (not including petroleum). They were honored, along with other outstanding students from the area, at a recognition lunch during National Engineers Week (Feb. 13-19).

UT's Peppas to Speak at Friday's Payatakes Lecture
(February 28, 2011) The UH Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering will host a talk by one of the world's leading experts on biomaterials drug delivery and pharmaceutical bioengineering, Nicholas Peppas, on Friday, March 4. Peppas is the Fletcher Stuckey Pratt Chair in Engineering; professor of chemical engineering, biomedical engineering and pharmacy; and chairman of the department of Biomedical Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. He is serving as the invited speaker for the department's Payatakes Memorial Lecture.

Alumni Association Celebrates EWeek
(February 24, 2011) The University of Houston Engineering Alumni Association (EAA) celebrated 2011 Engineers Week with its annual Engineers Week Reception & Program, held on Tuesday, February 22, at the University of Houston Hilton. Roughly 215 engineering students, alumni, faculty, staff, and sponsors came out for the gathering. According to Cynthia Oliver Coleman (BSChE '71), founder and chair of the event, the evening was designed "to celebrate how engineers make a significant difference in our world and to support future engineers, specifically UH engineering students, so they can continue the legacy."

Alum Named Engineer of the Year
(February 24, 2011) The Houston EWeek Committee has named Cullen College alumnus Wayne Klotz (MSCE 1976) its 2011 Engineer of the Year. Klotz received the honor in recognition for his work with Klotz Associates, the civil engineering firm he co-founded, and for his service to the profession as national president of the American Society of Civil Engineers. He served as head of ASCE from November 2008 to November 2009.

UH Hosts Open House for High-Tech "Clean Room" on Feb. 25
(February 22, 2011) The University of Houston Nanofabrication Facility is a state-of-the-art clean room equipped with advanced tools to create micro- and nano-scale structures, most commonly on silicon waters, for integrated circuits, microelectromechanical systems, microfluidic devices and other systems. It is available to faculty and students from all UH departments as well as researchers and businesses outside the university.From 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Friday (Feb. 25), UH is hosting a free open house and dedication ceremony for the facility.

Alumni Association to Host EWeek Reception
(February 21, 2011) National Engineers Week, or EWeek, kicked off on Sunday, with events being held around the nation recognizing the contributions of engineers to society. The University of Houston Engineering Alumni Association is doing its part to commemorate the week, hosting its annual E-Week Reception and Program. The event is set for Tuesday, February 22, from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the University of Houston Hilton. It will feature an "Engineering Jeopardy" quiz contest, light hors d'oeuvres and beverages, and the finales of two engineering competitions.

"Father of Chemical Engineering" Neal Amundson Passes Away
(February 17, 2011) Neal Amundson, Cullen Professor Emeritus of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Professor of Mathematics, passed away yesterday at the age of 95. Widely regarded as one of the most prominent chemical engineering educators in the country, Amundson was a pioneer of chemical reaction engineering. His longstanding research contributions to the field of chemical reaction engineering included analyzing and modeling chemical reactors, separation systems, polymerization and coal combustion. He was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering in 1970 for his pioneering research into the fundamental analysis of chemical processes as well as for his role in engineering education.

Grad Student Wins AWIS Educational Award
(February 14, 2011) The Association for Women in Science has given one of its 2010 Educational Awards to Cullen College graduate student Mona Meisami-Azad. AWIS presents approximately 25 Educational Awards each year. Meisami-Azad is one of only three winners in the Predoctoral Award Category, which is reserved for students pursing an advanced degree in science or engineering. She is working toward a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering under the guidance of professors Karolos Grigoriadis and Matthew Franchek.

Civil Engineering Graduate Student Wins Paper Competition
(February 14, 2011) Taraka Ravi Shankar Mullapudi, a Ph.D. candidate in the Cullen College's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, won the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute's 2011 Student Paper Competition. The award was presented to Mullapudi during the group's 63rd Annual Meeting, held in La Jolla, Calif., last week. Mullapudi presented the winning paper, "Seismic Behavior of RC Structures Subjected to Combined Loading Including Torsion," at the gathering.

Team Hopes to Cut Years Off Development Time of New Antibiotics
(February 11, 2011) Eliminating tens of thousands of manual lab experiments, two University of Houston professors are working toward a method to cut the development time of new antibiotics. While current practices typically last for more than a decade, a computerized modeling system being developed at UH will speed up this process. Michael Nikolaou , professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, and Vincent Tam , associate professor of clinical sciences, and are focusing on dosing regimens to reveal which ones are most likely to be effective in combating infection and which are not worth pursuing. It is hoped that pharmaceutical companies can then focus their tests on the most promising regimens.

Professor Wins Grant from Semiconductor Giant
(February 9, 2011) National Semiconductor, the world's largest maker of analog circuits, has given $160,000 to a Cullen College of Engineering professor to develop new metal alloys for possible use in devices that require top-notch reliability. The grant to Stanko Brankovic, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, will be used to support two graduate students and to design and build an entirely new machine for testing the properties of these alloys.

College Launches Subsea Engineering Program
(January 26, 2011) The University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering has officially launched a Subsea Engineering Certificate Program, the first and only formal subsea curriculum in the United States.The program was established in response to requests from several companies in the petroleum sector. These firms indicated the need for engineers with the specialized skills to design and maintain the equipment and infrastructure used in underwater offshore drilling.

Carnegie Foundation Gives University of Houston its Highest Classification for Research Success, Elevating UH to Tier One Status
(January 18, 2011) In what promises to be a transformative moment in the history of the University of Houston, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching announced Tuesday that UH has been categorized as a research university with "very high research activity," the highest classification given to research universities and the equivalent of Tier One status.The Carnegie Foundation is a nationally recognized policy and research center that systematically evaluates and classifies colleges and universities based on empirical data. Universities are reclassified approximately every five years. UH, which previously was in the "high research activity" category, now becomes the third public university in Texas in the top-tier group, joining The University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University.

UH Professor Richard Willson Named 2010 AAAS Fellow
(January 14, 2011) University of Houston professor Richard C. Willson has been named a 2010 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which is the world's largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal Science. Willson is a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and biochemical and biophysical sciences. He was recognized by the AAAS for his "distinguished contributions to biomolecular recognition sciences and its applications and for development of technologies for rapid characterization of catalysts and nucleic acids."

Professor Named Fellow of the American Physical Society
(January 13, 2011) For pioneering research in the areas of crystallization and protein aggregation, Peter Vekilov, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, has been named a fellow of the American Physical Society. Vekilov's work has had a profound impact in the biological physics community.  He discovered the two-step nucleation mechanism, dubbed the Vekilov mechanism, whereby crystal nuclei form inside pre-existing dense liquid droplets. He has also been able to capture and document one of only three mechanisms ever discovered on how molecules attach themselves to crystals.

Professor Leading Multi-Institution Neural Implant Research Effort
(January 5, 2011) Badrinath Roysam, chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Cullen College of Engineering, is leading a multi-institution team to overcome one of the biggest obstacles to the real world use of prosthetics: the nearly inevitable failure of the neural implants over time. While prosthetics have been shown to work in laboratories around the world, making them last over a lifetime for individuals who have lost a limb is a very different proposition. The group has received a three-year, $5.4 million grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to explore this problem.

Honors Program Students Make First Excursion
(December 3, 2010) Students with the University of Houston's Honors Engineering Program recently got an in-person look at the world of professional engineering. On November 12, more than a dozen HEP students visited one of the Houston locations of Cameron, a maker of flow equipment for the oil, gas and processing industries.At Cameron they saw demonstrations of scale model flow products along with full-size units undergoing testing and debugging.

Vipulanandan Honored as "MVP" by Underground Construction Association
(December 1, 2010) A major underground construction technology association has honored UH civil engineering professor Cumaraswamy "Vipu" Vipulanandan for his outstanding contributions in education and research related to underground infrastructure construction and maintenance. The Underground Construction Technology Association, along with industry magazine Underground Construction, have named Vipulanandan winner of their 2011 Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award.

Cullen College Doctorate Programs Among the Best in Texas
(November 17, 2010) The National Research Council's recently published rankings of Ph.D. programs puts the University of Houston's Cullen College of Engineering well ahead of its counterparts at the state's six other emerging research universities –Texas Tech University, the University of North Texas, the University of Texas at Arlington, the University of Texas at Dallas, the University of Texas at El Paso and the University of Texas at San Antonio.

Long Named IEEE Life Fellow
(November 1, 2010) Stuart Long, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the Cullen College of Engineering, has been named a life fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, effective January 1, 2011. He became an IEEE fellow in 1991, a designation given to those with "an extraordinary record of accomplishments in any of the IEEE fields of interest." Many of Long's scientific achievements center around electromagnetics and the development of antennas now used in military and wireless communication applications.

Professor's Paper Included in Hoover Dam 75th Anniversary Symposium Proceedings
(October 31, 2010) Jerry Rogers, professor of civil engineering, served as one of three editors of the American Society of Civil Engineers' special symposium proceedings to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Hoover Dam project. Held during the organization's 140th Annual Civil Engineering Conference, the symposium commemorated what is considered to be one of the greatest dam design and construction projects of the 21st century. Rogers' paper titled "The New Town of Boulder City: City Planning and Infrastructure Engineering for Hoover Dam Workers" was one of 20 papers selected nationally for inclusion in the proceedings.

Federal Official Recruits at the Cullen College
(October 28, 2010) Michael Bromwich, director of the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, spoke to students about the internships and careers engineers can pursue with the agency. In the wake of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, he said, BOEMRE is growing its staff and expanding its enforcement activities. This, combined with the coming retirements of many members of the agency's existing enforcement team, will require BOEMRE to hire a significant number of engineers from multiple disciplines.

ECE Department "On the Move" in Latest NRC Rankings
(October 28, 2010) The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering made an impressive jump in the National Research Council's latest ranking of Ph.D. programs. sing the midpoint of scores derived from criteria set by members of the discipline (the report's survey-based ranking), the department's Ph.D. program placed 56th in the nation out of 136 ranked programs, plus approximately 120 more that were not ranked for various reasons. That represents a significant jump from the prior survey, released in 1995, in which the department ranked 89th out of 126 ranked programs.

Engineering Students Showcase Research at Undergraduate Research Day
(October 28, 2010) The University of Houston celebrated the work of more than a dozen of these students, along with many more from across UH, at the 6th Annual Undergraduate Research Day earlier this month. The event, which is hosted by the Office of Undergraduate Research and The Honors College, gives students the opportunity to showcase to the entire UH community their efforts to make real, substantive contributions to their disciplines.

UH Engineering Junior Wins Poster Competition for Biomedical Research
(October 20, 2010) An undergraduate research project at the University of Houston was recognized recently at the Society of Mexican American Engineers and Scientists (MAES) Symposium 2010 poster competition. Biomedical engineering junior Mohamed Mohamed captured first place in the competition by showcasing work performed in the Biomedical Optics Laboratory at the UH Cullen College of Engineering. Mohamed has been working to quantify the permeability rates of lipoproteins, or cholesterol transporters, and other biologically relevant molecules through carotid tissue, the aortic branch supplying blood to the head.

Professor Commissed as Naval Campus Liaison Officer
(October 18, 2010) A University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering professor last week was commissioned in the Naval active reserve as a Campus Liaison Officer (CLO). Lawrence Schulze, associate professor of industrial engineering, became the first CLO for the university since 2001, a post held by John Matthews, a manager for the Cullen College's PROMES program. He will be working with Commander Steven Friloux in the Navy Recruiting District office to fulfill the responsibilities of his assignment. In addition to UH, he will serve as campus liaison for Prairie View A&M, Rice, Texas A&M and Texas Southern University.

Professor Taking Next Step with "Nobel" Material
(October 18, 2010) The 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics went to the two scientists who first isolated graphene, one-atom-thick crystals of graphite. Qingkai Yu, assistant research professor of electrical and computer engineering, is finding success in his work to develop a method to mass-produce this revolutionary material. He is utilizing chemical vapor deposition (CVD), heating methane gas and breaking it down into its building blocks of carbon and hydrogen atoms, with the carbon attaching to a metallic surface to form graphene. Yu first demonstrated the viability of CVD for graphene creation two years ago in a paper in Applied Physics Letters. That paper has been the journal's seventh most cited article since 2008.

Cullen College Professor's Work on Cover of Science
(October 14, 2010) Research from a Cullen College of Engineering professor has made the cover of one of the world's most prestigious scientific journals. The work exploring two possible drug targets for combating a rare type of kidney stone conducted by Jeff Rimer, assistant professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, appears in the Oct. 15 issue of Science. As one of the college's newest faculty members, Rimer conducted this research as a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Michael Ward at New York University's Molecular Design Institute.

Researcher Uncovers 'Walking' Bacteria
(October 7, 2010) UH Cullen College of Engineering Assistant Professor Jacinta Conrad and her collaborators have uncovered a new method of bacteria motility that could have implications for everything from food production to military transport. Conrad started this work during postdoctoral research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and her findings appear in the Oct. 8 issue of Science. She is the paper's co-lead author along with Maxsim L. Gibiansky, a graduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her collaborators include Joshua Shrout, assistant professor of civil engineering at the University of Notre Dame; and the senior author, Gerard C. L. Wong, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Omron Gift Supports Senior Design, Scholarships
(October 5, 2010) The Omron Foundation has given $27,500 to the University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering to establish an endowed scholarship for students and to support Capstone Design, a course for senior engineering majors. The gift was made possible through the efforts of Houston-based Omron Oilfield and Marine, one of the Omron companies that funds the foundation. Omron Oilfield and Marine is a leading manufacturer of AC and DC drive systems and custom control systems for the international oil and gas industry. More specifically, they provide power distribution equipment and automated control systems for offshore and mobile drilling rigs.

Chemical Engineering Shines in National Rankings
(October 4, 2010) The University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering boasts one of the nation's top doctoral programs in chemical engineering. That's according to the most recent evaluation of Ph.D. programs released by The National Academies' National Research Council, widely considered the most sound and respected rankings in academia.Based on data from 2005, the chemical engineering Ph.D. program placed 18th in the country in the NRC's survey-based rating, which measures a program against standards set by members of its discipline. The department fared even better in the NRC's research activity evaluation, which factored in publications, citations, the percent of the faculty holding research grants, and recognition of scholarship as evidenced by honors and awards. In this category, the college's chemical engineering Ph.D. program ranked 13th in the country.

Researcher Working to Quantify Real-World Impact of Automobiles
(October 1, 2010) Shankar Chellam, professor of civil and environmental engineering, is working to identify the unique chemical makeup, or "fingerprints," of various sources of air pollution in the Houston area. While much of his previous research examined industrial sources of pollution such as petroleum refineries, Chellam recently received a grant from the Texas Air Research Center to find the pollution fingerprint of gasoline-driven vehicles. He will be sampling the air in Houston's Washburn Tunnel, the state's only operational underwater vehicle tunnel, where he can more accurately gauge pollution levels of non-diesel powered cars and trucks.

UH Researchers Developing Nanoscale Manufacturing Technique
(September 28, 2010) Researchers at the University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering have received a grant to develop a method for mass-producing devices less than 10 nanometers in size, addressing one of the most significant barriers to their widespread use. Vincent Donnelly and Demetre Economou, both professors with the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, received a three-year, $450,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to develop their nanopantography method of nanoscale fabrication.

Longtime ECE Professor William Schneider Passes Away
(September 28, 2010) William P. Schneider, a longtime professor in the Cullen College of Engineering's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering who retired in 2002, passed away on Friday, Sept. 24. He was 87. Schneider's ties to the University of Houston dated back to the 1940s, when he enrolled as a student after a serving as a flight instructor in the U.S. Air Force. Following graduation, he became the first UH alumnus to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned a master's degree in Mechanical Engineering.

Cullen College Adds Two More National Academy Members to Faculty
(September 23, 2010) Drawing top researchers to its already outstanding faculty roster is an ongoing effort at the University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering. These professors help grow the university's overall research expenditures and improve the success rates of its undergraduate and graduate students – both essential to UH's drive to earn recognition as a Tier One research university. This effort recently resulted in the successful recruitment two new faculty members—Kaspar Willam and Anestis Veletsos—who belong to the elite National Academy of Engineering, clearly marking them as among the very best in their fields. With these additions, the college now has 11 professors who belong to the NAE.

MAES Honors Student for Volunteer Efforts
(September 22, 2010) The Society for Mexican American Engineers, or MAES, has honored a Cullen College student for her efforts on behalf of the organization. Megan Planas, a junior biomedical engineering major, has been named the winner of MAES' 2010 President's Award. The recognition, part of MAES' Bravo awards program, goes to individuals "who have shown extraordinary dedication and exemplary work on a specific project having far-reaching implications to MAES." She developed the organization's newsletter; helped create a policy for the distribution of funding for events held by MAES' university chapters; and oversaw volunteers and onsite coordination for the group's 2009 Science Extravaganza.

Grad Student Wins Fellowship to Study Soil's Resistance to Bending
(September 20, 2010) Taraka Ravi Shankar Mullapudi, a Ph.D. candidate in the UH Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, won the American Society of Civil Engineers' Trent R. Dames and William W. Moore Fellowship. The award is available to graduate students, professors and practicing engineers, with winners selected based on the technical and social value of their research and its potential to advance the science and profession of engineering. While past awards have been in the $2,000 to $6,000 range, Mullapudi's fellowship award totals $10,000. Mullapudi, who is studying under the guidance of Professor Ashraf Ayoub, will use this funding to examine the interaction of soil with structures that distribute their weight not in a straight line, but on a bend or curve.

College Hosts Entrepreneur Boot Camp
(September 13, 2010) Faculty, graduate students and staff at the University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering spend thousands of hours each year researching and developing new technologies. The work isn't done when they meet success in the lab, though. These innovations still need to find a way to the people and businesses that can benefit from them.That's why the college has scheduled its first "Entrepreneur Boot Camp." Set for Sept. 21, the boot camp will provide researchers at the college with practical information on how to form a business based on their innovations.