By Stephen Greenwell
A look back at past Parameters stories and interview subjects,
and what those Cougars are up to now…
5 YEARS BACK...
Faith Malton
The cover story was a profile on Faith Malton, a civil engineering undergraduate. Malton was born without her right arm and shoulder, which challenged her to “engineer” her way through life. An extensive world traveler, Malton also rappelled 21 stories down Hotel Alessandra in downtown Houston for a charity event.
Malton started as a civil engineering intern for Walter P. Moore in May 2019, and after graduating in Spring 2020 from Cullen, she became a graduate civil engineer for the firm in August 2020. After five and a half years with WPM, she changed course and started as a full-time regulatory engineer for Aris Water Solutions.
10 YEARS BACK...
Olga Bannova
“Cosmic Trailblazers” was the theme of the issue, highlighting the role that Cullen College of Engineering graduates had played in space exploration and the efforts of the college to beef up this aspect of the curriculum. Six different UH graduates have been to space, with the most recent being Akihiko Hoshide on a SpaceX mission in 2021 for five months.
The aerospace industry — which includes outer space as well — remains a vital part of Cullen. The Department of Mechanical Engineering added Aerospace to its name to reflect its importance in 2024. Olga Bannova remains the director of the Space Architecture Graduate Program, which continues to produce important research and garners recognition among the field. See the feature story about their recent efforts.
15 YEARS BACK...
Ramesh Shrestha
The university continued its push toward securing Tier One status from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, with the Cullen College of Engineering at the forefront of that effort. Ramesh Shrestha, a Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, brought the National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping (NCALM) to UH from the University of Florida. Venkat “Selva” Selvamanickam, then M.D. Anderson Chair Professor of Mechanical Engineering, was spearheading the Texas Center for Superconductivity Applied Research Hub. Abdeldjelil “DJ” Belarbi, the new department chairman of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Metin Akay, founding department chairman of Biomedical Engineering, were also featured for their efforts in their respective areas.
All of these efforts bore fruit, as Carnegie first elevated UH to Tier One status in 2011 and reconfirmed that designation in 2016. UH has been categorized as an “R1” — highest research activity — institution, Carnegie’s top classification.
20 YEARS BACK...
Manmohan Kalsi
Manmohan Kalsi (1970 MSME, 1975 Ph.D. ME) was the subject of a long profile that explained how his artistic pursuits, especially painting and music, fed into the success of his company, Kalsi Engineering. Reflecting on his career, Kalsi told writer Brian Allen that some of his most successful innovations are the result of the workings of his intuition, of the “undisciplined” part of his brain that allows him to go beyond rigorous analysis and testing.
Kalsi Engineering remains active to this day, with a facility in Sugar Land, and Kalsi frequently gives back to the University of Houston. The Dr. Manmohan Singh Kalsi and Dr. Marie-Luise Schubert Kalsi Endowed Professorship was started in 2014 and honor the memory of Professor Gabriel Andrews Fazekas, who taught Kalsi at UH. At a 2015 alumni dinner in honors of the Kalsis, he said Fazekas had a profound influence on him and Kalsi taught with a passion that he hadn’t witnessed with many other professors. Today, the endowment funded by the Kalsis supports three professors in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department — Shailendra Joshi, Daniel Floryan and Kelly Huang.