Annual report 2010
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UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH SWANSON SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING Annual Report 2010 ADVANCING ENGINEERING EDUCATION ENHANCING RESEARCH COLLABORATIONS
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With the latest improvements to Benedum Hall, we’re truly progressing as a school. Our state-of-the-art labs with amenities such as clean rooms and incubators allow for improved faculty productivity and research collaboration. The next several months will see us open our bioengineering and nanoscience floors. The availability of space has made the Swanson School more competitive in the recruiting process for sustainability, bioengineering, nanoscience, energy, and manufacturing.
Transcript of Annual report 2010
University of PittsbUrghswanson school of engineering
Annual Report 2010
advancing engineering education
Enhancing rEsEarch collaborations
CONTENTS
5 Dean’s Welcome
6 Benedum Hall: Growing, Greener, Together
RESEaRCh FOCi
14 Bioengineering: Treating the Tiniest Tickers
16 Sustainability:
Gas Drilling Waste + Acid Mine Drainage = Clean Water?
18 Manufacturing: Novel Properties
at the Nanoscale
20 Nano: When It Rains, It Won’t Freeze
21 Energy: Running Cell Phones
and Laptops Using Their Own Heat
DEpaRTmENTS
24 Bioengineering
26 Chemical and Petroleum Engineering
28 Civil and Environmental Engineering
30 Electrical and Computer Engineering
32 Industrial Engineering
34 Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
36 Diversity
38 Student Profile
41 Development and Alumni RelationsPhotography:
Benedum Hall photos on cover and pages 2, 6, 10, and 11, taken by Ed Massery, © 2009
Distinguished Alumni, p. 42, taken by Johnny Bell Photography.
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Research Expenditures(miilions)
1997–98 1999–00 2001–02 2003–04 2005–06 2007–08 2009–10
GeRAld d. HoldeR
U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering Gerald D. holder
With the latest improvements to Benedum
Hall, we’re truly progressing as a school. Our
state-of-the-art labs with amenities such as
clean rooms and incubators allow for improved
faculty productivity and research collaboration.
The next several months will see us open our
bioengineering and nanoscience floors. The
availability of space has made the Swanson
School more competitive in the recruiting
process for sustainability, bioengineering,
nanoscience, energy, and manufacturing.
The new space for the Mascaro Center for
Sustainable Innovation was dedicated just a
year ago, and now is a time when the study
of sustainability is particularly important.
One of our faculty, di Gao, has developed a
technique for cleaning up the oil spill in the
Gulf of Mexico by separating oil from water
through a cotton filter coated in a polymer
that blocks oil. It’s been featured in numerous
media outlets, including Discovery News and
the Christian Science Monitor. Dr. Gao also
received the Carnegie Science Center’s 2010
Advanced Materials Award for his work on
“hard rain”—coatings that prevent icing of
freezing rain on a solid surface.
Also in the area of sustainability, Radisav Vidic and eric Beckman’s research
recognizes that Marcellus Shale gas is
important for Pennsylvania economically, but
that we must make sure we develop it in a
way that will not cause problems for ourselves
in the future. They will lead a three-year,
$1.06 million project to better manage the
wastewater generated by the extraction
process used on the Marcellus Shale.
Other standout faculty accomplishments in
the past year include Harvey Borovetz’ $5.6
million federal contract to develop PediaFlow,
an implanted ventricular assist heart pump for
infants and small children with heart disease.
(See Research Foci, p. 14)
Even with all the progress we’ve made in the
last year, we’re not resting on our laurels.
As Benedum Hall continues to change and
develop, the investments we are making
now will lead to heretofore undreamed-of
collaborations and productive combinations
in the future.
a mESSaGE FROm OuR DEaN
U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering,
in the new Mascaro Center for
Sustainable Innovation, part of
the $100 million in renovations
to Benedum Hall. 2026
34.5
45.553.6
6874.7
IDEAS FEED IDEAS7
Benedum Hall: GrowInG, GrEEnEr, ToGEThEr
The green roof on the plaza of Benedum Hall. Underneath are levels G, B, and SB.
The renovated facilities include not only special labs with clean rooms,
incubators, and imaging equipment, but they also incorporate sustainability
concepts like green roofs and energy-saving lights that are motion- and light-
sensitive. Sustainability is built into the edifice itself.
The MCSI was developed as a collaboration between alumnus Jack Mascaro,
Pitt Facilities Management, the building’s architects, and input from Swanson
School faculty. “Jack Mascaro had the vision for providing a tangible space for
the center so that faculty and students working in these areas could be housed
together,” says MCSI Codirector Gena Kovalcik.
The renovations in MCSI have been helpful in getting faculty from different
departments together. “We’re seeing collaborations develop that we wouldn’t
have seen if it weren’t for that space, to a great extent because these faculty and
their students are neighbors now,” says Kovalcik. For example, Melissa Bilec
and Amy landis of civil and environmental engineering, Alex Jones of electrical
and computer engineering, and MCSI Deputy Director laura Schaefer, who
holds an appointment in mechanical engineering, are conducting a project
to create a better lifecycle assessment for the building. This project spurred
collaboration to write a multimillion dollar proposal to NSF’s Emerging Frontiers
for Research and Innovation program, which was granted in August.
Changes are happening fast in Benedum Hall. Just a year ago, the Mascaro
Center for Sustainable Innovation (MCSI) opened the doors of its new space.
The bioengineering and nanoscience floors will be open and occupied within
the next several months. The energy floor, coming later, will bring together more
than 50 faculty and 150 students who do energy-based research. And the third
floor, devoted to computation and innovation, will include high-tech classrooms
for working on projects collaboratively.
Collaboration is the theme of many of the building’s redesigned facilities.
“We’ll bring faculty from different disciplines together so they might
enhance ideas and discussions that happen in the hallway and lounge,”
says Gerald Holder, U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering.
One of the immediate impacts of the renovations has been in the area of
recruiting. “It helps us to attract faculty when we have a new space that meets
their research needs immediately,” Holder says.
“While the reputation of the school is of course determined primarily by
scholarship, the Benedum renovations impact our reputation indirectly by
allowing the scholars to be better scholars,” he adds.
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IDEAS AnD DIScuSSIonS
Whiteboards in Benedum hallways allow students to collaborate on engineering problems.
BENEDum hall: GROwiNG, GREENER, TOGEThER
One of the two green roofs on Benedum Hall, this one atop the auditorium.
“I really believe that’s when innovation occurs—when different people bring
different perspectives to the table,” says Kovalcik. “In the long term, I think you’re
going to see a lot of innovations coming out of the center because you’re getting
all these separate backgrounds using their expertise toward a single goal.”
Bilec commented on the space for the graduate students, which prominently
makes use of open space and daylight: “I think it’s made our students more
productive and fostered a greater sense of community.”
“I go into the open space and I see our graduate students talking and mingling
and sharing information on their research, and it’s exciting,” says Kovalcik.
That translates to improved student recruitment, too. Today’s students are highly
conscious of sustainability when they look at colleges, notes Holder: When
other schools that evaluate institutions see the investment that Pitt is making in
facilities, student advisors will be aware of the school’s reputation as a place with
state-of-the-art research and a focus on sustainability. “The people who make
recommendations are conscious of the investment we have made,” he says.
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collAborATIon
Inside the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation building, which uses natural lighting as one energy-saving tactic.
One of Benedum’s new mixed-research labs which allow for greater faculty and researcher collaborations.
See more online at www.engr.pitt.edu/transformation/photos.html
13ReseaRch Foci ReseaRch Foci
Every year, almost 2,000 American babies
die because of congenital heart defects.
Another 350 develop severe cardiomyopathy
leading to heart failure. While older patients
have access to sophisticated technology
like left ventricular assist devices, no
such devices are approved for babies and
toddlers. The current technology for infants
requires that they be fully anesthetized, and
can only be used for a few weeks before
severe complications develop.
Harvey Borovetz, distinguished professor and
chair of the Department of Bioengineering,
and his collaborators were awarded a $5.6
million federal contract in January 2010 to
continue developing PediaFlow, an implanted
ventricular assist heart pump for infants and
small children with heart disease.
PediaFlow is made of a titanium alloy and is
about the size of a AA battery. Blood is drawn
through it by a high-speed rotor that floats
within its housing due to magnetic levitating
forces. It is one of four projects comprising
the Pumps for Kids, Infants, and Neonates
(PumpKIN) Preclinical Program, a $23.6
million effort sponsored by the National
Institutes of Health’s National Heart, Lung,
and Blood Institute (NHLBI).
Borovetz and colleagues began developing
PediaFlow more than five years ago. peter Wearden, a cardiothoracic surgeon at
Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC
leads the project’s clinical work. This latest
contract will give them the opportunity
to complete the necessary PediaFlow
development and testing to proceed to
clinical trials. Their goal is to prove that it
can pump to clinical specifications, that it
is gentle to the babies’ blood, and that it
performs reliably. The ultimate goal is to
develop the technology to the point that an
application can be submitted to the FDA
and be approved for clinical testing.
“With the knowledge that we’ve developed
over the past five years, we want to develop
a pediatric ventricular assist device that Dr.
Wearden would feel comfortable using with
his patients in Children’s,” says Borovetz.
The project reflects a partnership that has
existed for decades between Pitt’s Schools of
Engineering and Medicine. “It’s pretty special
when bioengineering can work so closely and
mesh so seamlessly with physicians,” says
Borovetz. “That’s what’s so unique about what
we do here at Pitt.”
Other collaborators on the project include
Carnegie Mellon University; Goleta, California-
based LaunchPoint Technologies; and Salt
Lake City-based WorldHeart Inc.
BiOENGiNEERiNG: TREaTiNG ThE TiNiEST TiCkERS
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knowlEDGE
Harvey Borovetz, distinguished professor and chair, will help lead a $5.6 million federal project to continue developing a pediatric ventricular assist heart pump. He will collaborate with Peter Wearden, a cardiothoracic surgeon at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC.
Learn more about PediaFlow research by visiting www.engr.pitt.edu/annualreport/pumpkiN.
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More than two-thirds of Pennsylvania sits
atop the Marcellus Shale formation, which
experts estimate contains up to 500 trillion
cubic feet of natural gas with about $500
billion worth of recoverable gas, an enormous
economic opportunity for the Commonwealth
of Pennsylvania.
The U.S. Department of Energy recently
selected the University of Pittsburgh as
one of nine national partners that will
develop techniques for curtailing the
possible environmental and health hazards
associated with tapping the massive natural
gas reserves lying beneath Pennsylvania and
surrounding states. Radisav Vidic, chair of
the Department of Civil and Environmental
Engineering and William Kepler Whiteford
Professor and eric Beckman, codirector
of Pitt’s Mascaro Center for Sustainable
Innovation and George M. Bevier Professor
of Engineering, will lead a three-year,
$1.06 million project to better manage the
wastewater generated by the extraction
process used in the Marcellus Shale.
“Some people think the Marcellus Shale can
do more for Pennsylvania than coal and steel
ever did, so we should do our best to develop
the resource,” says Vidic. “But we have to do
it in an environmentally responsible way so
we don’t end up with issues that are going to
come back and haunt us.”
About a year ago, Vidic began looking into the
Marcellus Shale’s environmental issues, and
quickly realized that water management was
an important one. The technique for mining
the Marcellus Shale is known as hydraulic
fracturing—hydrofracturing or “fracking.”
Hydrofracturing operations use a lot of water
and produce highly contaminated water as
a waste product. The current technology
for water treatment isn’t necessarily suited
to handle that level of contamination or
dissolved salts.
At the same time, Pennsylvania has a big
problem with acid mine drainage (AMD),
a waste product of coal mining operations.
Vidic wondered: What would happen if these
two waste waters were mixed?
“By reusing the acid mine drainage readily
available at many gas drilling locations,
we can manage acid mine drainage from
older mines and wastewater from current
drilling operations, both of which are serious
environmental concerns,” says Vidic.
This creates another technical challenge.
To reuse the high-salinity water, traditional
friction reducers that people are using in the
field won’t work.
“If the water has very high salinity, you can’t
pump it using traditional chemicals that have
been developed for river water or tap water,”
says Vidic. “You have to develop technical
solutions that will allow you to reuse these
salty waters.”
Because traditional friction-reducing agents
don’t work at high salinity, Vidic asked Eric
Beckman, a polymer chemist, to develop new
friction reducers that do.
To solve two of our commonwealth’s biggest
environmental problems with one method
would be a coup. “It’s a joint approach for
the holistic management of water, based on
solving two key technical issues,” says Vidic.
SuSTaiNaBiliTy: GaS DRilliNG waSTE + aCiD miNE DRaiNaGE = ClEaN waTER?
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Radisav Vidic, chair and William Kepler Whiteford Professor, and Eric Beckman, codirector of Pitt’s Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation and George M. Bevier Professor of Engineering, will lead a $1.06 million project to better manage the wastewater generated by the extraction process used in Marcellus Shale. Vidic is pictured here with post-doctoral researcher Elise Barbot.
Learn more about Vidic’s water reuse research at www.waterreuse.pitt.edu.
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At the smallest scales of measurement,
materials act differently. Some properties
can be enhanced in ways that wouldn’t be
possible with traditional manipulation.
But the challenge with that tiny scale is
mass manufacturing. “If you’re manipulating
materials at a very small scale, there’s always
a question of ‘Is that manufacturable?
What about mass production of materials
with nanoengineered structures?’” asks
Ravi Shankar, assistant professor of
industrial engineering. “To have a
technological impact, we need to find ways
of mass-manufacturing nanomaterials.”
Shankar has received grants from the
NSF, among others, to learn how to mass
manufacture nanomaterials with tailored
structures.
Nanograined metals are substantially stronger
than conventional metals. The problem is that
enhancing one set of properties, like strength,
seems to cause substantial deterioration
of other necessary properties, like ductility
and stability. Although you end up with an
exceptionally strong material, it is brittle.
Shankar is investigating how to achieve a
more optimal balance of properties, and
how to do it within a mass-manufacturable
paradigm.
One component of his research group is
focused on first determining how various
combinations of processing conditions result
in interesting nanograined materials which are
still extraordinarily strong, but also overcome
their brittleness and thermal instability.
Complementing this, Shankar’s team has
shown that a machining process involving
metal cutting offers a prototype that
realizes these processing conditions within
a convenient and scalable manufacturing
framework.
These ideas transfer to any other
manufacturing process. This research brings
elements from manufacturing engineering,
metallurgy, nanoengineering, and aspects of
electron microscopy.
An interesting spinoff from the machining
research is to investigate the surface that
is left behind, which also has nanograin
properties. “There’s a lot of interest in creating
components with nanograined surfaces to
enhance a range of functional properties
including resistance to wear, fatigue,
corrosion, and so on,” Shankar says.
In addition to the NSF, Shankar has received
support from the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, The Institute of Hazardous
Materials Management, and Pitt.
maNuFaCTuRiNG: NOvEl pROpERTiES aT ThE NaNOSCalE
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ThESE IDEAS TrAnSFEr
Ravi Shankar, assistant professor of industrial engineering, holds a modulated machining device that can be used to create particulates composed of nanograin structures. Shankar has received grants from the NSF, among others, to learn how to mass manufacture nanomaterials with tailored structures.
Want to know more about Ravi Shankar’s research? Visit www.engr.pitt.edu/industrial/faculty-staff/shankar
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di Gao, assistant professor of chemical and
petroleum engineering and William Kepler
Whiteford Faculty Fellow, has developed an
easily applied coating that repels water and
keeps ice from building up on solid surfaces.
A recent paper by Gao and Pitt doctoral
student liangliang Cao presents the
first evidence of anti-icing properties for
superhydrophobic coatings. They tested the
coating outdoors, overnight, in freezing rain to
determine its real-world potential. The treated
side had very little ice, while the untreated
side was completely covered.
“We could see the coated and uncoated sides
very clearly, like night and day,” says Gao.
The coating prevents supercooled water
from icing on contact with a solid. When
supercooled water hits the ground, it is called
freezing rain.
The immediate applications for the coating
include power lines and airplanes. Power
line icing can cause huge problems,
especially in places where homes are heated
with electricity.
It will take longer for the coating to be
approved for the aviation industry. Even
putting a new screw in an airplane is a
10-year approval process, says Gao.
Gao’s latest work, which could represent one
solution to cleaning up the oil in the Gulf of
Mexico, is receiving media attention from
places like Discovery News and the Christian Science Monitor. He has developed a polymer
that repels oil but not water. “With the oil
spill, we realized this is where we might make
some contribution,” he says. Stay tuned for
the latest news.
Sunlight is a well-known source of renewable
energy. The sun’s heat can be used for
power: After all, the only difference between
heat and light is wavelength. Devices to
capture thermal (heat) energy are called
thermophotovoltaics (TPV).
When something is hot, it gives off thermal
radiation. For example, those cameras in the
airport that screen for flu are measuring the
infrared radiation from your body.
The hotter the object, the more energy it
emits. The sun is about 10,000 degrees
Fahrenheit. But this is obviously too hot
for common use. “During most common
industrial processes, you can’t have such
a high temperature,” says Bong Jae lee,
assistant professor of mechanical engineering
and materials science.
To capture the energy from cooler items,
Lee realized it would be possible to use TPVs
positioned near a hot furnace, for example, to
capture that energy and generate electricity.
Because the energy generated by TPV is
much lower than that of a solar panel, Lee
uses nanoscale phenomena. “If we put the
device very, very close to the source, we can
enhance energy capture,” he says. “Even
though the temperature is low compared to
solar energy, for example, because of the
nanoscale phenomena we can extract a
considerable amount of energy from the
hot object.”
However, maintaining a 100-nm gap
between two flat surfaces is very challenging.
No one has yet succeeded in creating a
nanoscale TPV device. Lee and S.K. Cho,
NaNO: whEN iT RaiNS, iT wON’T FREEzE
ENERGy: RuNNiNG CEll phONES aND lapTOpS uSiNG ThEiR OwN hEaT
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Di Gao, assistant professor of chemical and petroleum engineering and William Kepler Whiteford Faculty Fellow, has developed a coating that repels water and keeps ice from accumulating on solid surfaces.
To learn more about Gao’s research, visit www.gao.pitt.edu
associate professor of mechanical
engineering and materials science, are using
microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) to
build a nanoscale TPV device for the first time
and measure its performance.
“Maintaining a distance of 100 nanometers
is one thing: The second challenge is that
we need to have a vacuum environment,”
says Lee. Without a vacuum, the TPV device
would eventually heat up and neither receive
thermal radiation nor generate electricity.
Cho’s background in vacuum packaging and
MEMS fabrication makes him a valuable
member of the research team.
A chip’s temperature gets close to 100
degrees Celsius. Lee’s long-term vision
is to take that heat and use it to generate
electricity. And he would like to see it happen
in every electronic device. “During fabrication,
you’d put it in the chip so that it would be in
the device itself, he says. “People wouldn’t
even know it’s there. That way we can save
some energy.”
“It could be a reality” in the future.
Lee and Cho’s work to develop the nearfield
TPV device has been supported by a grant
from the Swanson School’s Center for Energy.
DepaRtments 23DepaRtments
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Bong Jae Lee (left), assistant professor, and Sung Kwon Cho, associate professor, are using microelectromechanical systems to build a nanoscale thermophotovoltaic device for the first time.
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Could human thought someday control
computers? Assistant Professor tracy Cui’s
research on neural tissue-electrode interface
and neural tissue engineering aims to learn
how brain tissue responds to implanted
chips. Her team is developing biomimetic
approaches to seamlessly integrate the
man-made chips with neural tissue for long-
lasting performance. “I want our research
to contribute to improving the quality of
someone’s life,” said Cui. “Think about how
patients suffering from paralysis or who are
otherwise unable to use their arms or hands
might benefit from an innovation that allows
them to communicate with a computer
directly through their brain.”
Cui has more than $2 million in research
grants from the National Institutes of Health
(NIH), National Science Foundation,
Telemedicine & Advanced Technology
Research Center, and Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency. Her ongoing
NIH R01 research project, “Improving
Chronic Neural Recording Performance via
Biomaterial Strategies,” recently received an
administrative supplement from the American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Given the interdisciplinary nature of Cui’s
research, she closely collaborates with faculty
in Pitt’s School of Medicine and throughout
the Swanson School of Engineering’s
departments and research institutes.
She has played an instrumental role in
establishing Pitt’s neural engineering PhD
track, which has attracted many top graduate
students nationwide, and today serves as
co-coordinator of the program.
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
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DEpaRTmENT OF BiOENGiNEERiNG
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waNT mORE? Visit us online to
• readanupdateaboutthecollaborativeEngineeringResearchCenter(ERC),
“Revolutionizing Metallic Biomaterials”;
• watchvideocoverageofourresearchexchangewithNorthCarolinaA&T,during
which more than 60 middle and high school students learned about skin tissue
engineering as an outreach component of the ERC; and
• learnaboutourlatestNSFCAREERAwardwinner,Lance Davidson, whose
research spans the fields of biology, tissue engineering, and bioengineering, as he
seeks to learn how embryos use molecular-, cell-, and tissue-scale processes to
shape tissues and organs in order to aid in the construction of artificial tissues.
www.engr.pitt.edu/annualreport/bioengineering
Research expenditures* for 2010:
$40,847,847
Tracy Cui, assistant professor, researches neural tissue-electrode interface. She has more than $2 million in research grants and closely collaborates with engineering faculty in many departments and in Pitt’s School of Medicine.
*includes bioengineering faculty in the School of Medicine
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Ipsita Banerjee, assistant professor,
received a $2.2 million, five-year New
Innovator Award from the National Institutes
of Health to unravel how stem cells develop
into mature cells and possible techniques
for influencing their growth to suit specific
organs.
“I want to take a completely different
approach to addressing the complex process
of cell development, which will potentially
advance our understanding of regenerative
medicine and stem cell bioengineering as a
whole,” Banerjee said.
Banerjee will investigate the process through
which embryonic stem cells become mature,
organ-specific cells and how scientists can
control that development. Using a bottom-up
approach, Banerjee will cultivate stem
cells into pancreatic cells, noting molecular-
level information that could be integrated
into dictating cell development, such as the
influence of environmental factors and gene
and protein networks.
Banerjee is collaborating with faculty
across the Swanson School of Engineering
and the School of Medicine on research
projects such as identifying the effect of
mechanical cues on stem cell differentiation
and understanding the effect of cellular
patterning and spatial distribution on tissue
functionality. She is pictured here with
Keith task, chemical engineering graduate
student, and Maria Jaramillo, bioengineering
graduate student.
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DEpaRTmENT OF ChEmiCal aND pETROlEum ENGiNEERiNG
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waNT mORE? Visit us online to
• watchavideoofDi Gao’s technique for separating oil from water via a cotton
filter coated in a chemical polymer that blocks oil while allowing water to pass
through, developed in response to the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
• findoutmoreaboutAnna Balazs, who was named Fellow of the Royal Society
of Chemistry, guest editor with Soft Matter, and received an Energy Frontier
Research Center grant.
• readGötz Veser’s paper, “Exceptional high-temperature stability through
‘distillative’ self-stabilization in bimetallic nanoparticles,” published in Nature Materials.
• learnmoreaboutJoseph McCarthy’s presentation to the NAE educator’s
symposium in 2009.
www.engr.pitt.edu/annualreport/chemical
Pitt established the first petroleum engineering program in the world in 1910, which turned 100 this past year.
Ipsita Banerjee (left), assistant professor; Keith Task (middle), chemical engineering graduate student; and Maria Jaramillo (right), bioengineering graduate student.
By using laboratory investigations and
life-cycle assessment (LCA) tools, Pitt faculty
members Jason Monnell, Melissa Bilec,
Amy landis, and Willie Harper are
investigating sustainable energy alternatives
including oil and algae-based biofuels.
Faculty specializing in LCA (Bilec and Landis)
have partnered with experimentalists (Harper
and Monnell) to form a cross-disciplinary
investigation team that can create a model
for the different sustainability-related inputs
and outputs and calibrate the model using
the experimental results. This partnership
is synergistic because the outcomes from
Civil aND ENviRONmENTal ENGiNEERiNG
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waNT mORE? Visit us online to
• learnaboutthefirstcradle-to-graveLEDstreetlightstudyledbyPittfaculty
members Melissa Bilec and Joseph Marriott.
• readthemediacoverageofRonald Neufeld’s study about how green rooftops
help delay overflow of rainwater into sewage systems.
• learnmoreaboutAnthony Iannacchione, Pitt’s new director of mining
engineering, 2009 Krumb Lecturer, and recipient of the Syd S. Peng Ground
Control in Mining Award.
www.engr.pitt.edu/annualreport/civil
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CEE Research Expenditures(thousands of dollars)
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each side provide mutually beneficial
feedback and highlight the importance of
the outcomes. They are putting these tools to
use in assessing the bioremediation potential
of oil-based biofuels grown on reclaimed
marginal lands as well as the efficacy of
combining algae-based biofuel production
with wastewater treatment systems.
Faculty members Jason Monnell, Melissa Bilec, Amy Landis, and Willie Harper, with student researchers.
new faculty members hired in the last 5 years
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2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
ECE PhDs Awarded
12
10
8
6
4
2
65 5
6
4
87
6
4
8
11
Zhi-Hong Mao, assistant professor, is the
department’s latest recipient of a Faculty Early
Career Development (CAREER) Award from the
National Science Foundation. Mao’s research
will evaluate the capabilities of neural control
in human-machine interaction (HMI), aiming
to quantify rates of information exchange
between humans and machines by studying
physiological responses and noting human
constraints and limitations.
Mao hopes to use this research to inspire new
techniques for advanced control and to design
HMI interfaces that best use human control
commands. This research also will promote
the understanding of neural organization and
mechanisms for movement control, learning,
and information processing.
The educational component of this project will
create more opportunities for students and
working engineers to appreciate the importance
of human factors. They will learn techniques
to handle these factors in engineering
system design. A new student group of the
IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology
Society will be instituted to facilitate student
involvement in research and professional
activities related to human-centered design in
the real engineering world.
Mao’s other grants include another NSF-
funded project on dimensionality reduction
in the control of the human hand, which
requires regular collaboration with Mingui Sun, professor of neurological surgery in Pitt’s
School of Medicine.
Mao’s award is the third NSF Career Award the
department has received in the past four years.
DEpaRTmENT OF ElECTRiCal aND COmpuTER ENGiNEERiNG
of 2010’s PhD graduates and post-docs accepted tenure stream faculty appointments
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waNT mORE? Visit us online to
• readaboutandviewanimageoftherecentresearchfindingsthatSteven Levitan,
John A. Jurenko Professor, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences about artificial cells that communicate and cooperate like biological cells
and follow each other like ants. Levitan collaborated on this paper with Anna Balazs,
Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering, and post-doctoral researchers
German Kolmakov and Victor Yashin.
• viewthepresscoveragereceivedbyMarlin Mickle, Nickolas A. DeCecco Professor
and executive director of the RFID Center of Excellence, as an expert on antenna
technology during the release of the iPhone 4.
• learnmoreaboutJun Yang, associate professor, who published a paper with
colleagues in the Department of Computer Science in IEEE Micro that was selected as
among the top papers in 2009 in the area of computer architecture.
• learnmoreaboutLuis Chaparro, associate professor, and Steve Jacobs, assistant
professor, who, along with Juan Manfredi, vice provost for undergraduate studies and
professor, Department of Mathematics, were awarded a grant from The MathWorks,
Inc. for development of a course in software-defined radio.
www.engr.pitt.edu/annualreport/electrical
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Zhi-Hong Mao (left), assistant professor, with PhD student Mircea Lupu
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On August 1, 2007, the sudden collapse
of the I-35W Mississippi River Bridge in
Minneapolis, Minnesota resulted in thirteen
fatalities and nearly one hundred injuries.
Although the bridge had received poor safety
ratings in 2001 and 2005, tragically, it was
not replaced prior to its catastrophic failure.
In 2008, the new I-35W Saint Anthony
Falls Bridge – a state-of-the art structure
equipped with 323 sensors, was erected in
its place. Engineers have been advocating
the use of small sensors linked via a wireless
network to continuously monitor complex
systems with the goal of mitigating the risk of
catastrophic failures. However, small, low-cost
sensors have limited performance capabilities
and energy reserves, and are subject to
potentially harsh operating environments
that can cause them to fail, leading to
vulnerabilities when the information they
convey is time critical.
Jeffrey Kharoufeh, associate professor, is
evaluating the performance of large-scale,
query-based wireless sensor networks in
an effort to ensure the timely dissemination
of critical, sensed data. Funded by the
National Science Foundation, his research
will create mathematical models to evaluate
key network performance metrics such as
the overall energy expended by the network,
the expected network lifetime, latency,
and the proportion of queries (or requests
for data) that fail to be answered on time.
Ultimately, his research aims to answer a
few fundamental questions: How sensitive is
the query success rate to variability in data
expiration times? What is the impact of sensor
failures on overall network performance? And
how can the network operating parameters
be optimized and/or controlled to ensure
resilience in complex, uncertain operating
environments?
DEpaRTmENT OF iNDuSTRial ENGiNEERiNG
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waNT mORE? Visit us online to
• readaboutthe$3.6millionpartnershipAssociateProfessorAndrew Schaefer will
lead with the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System to establish a Veterans Engineering
Resource Center, with the goal of streamlining the delivery of health care services.
• learnmoreaboutAssociateProfessorMary Sacre’s presentation to the NAE
educators’ symposium, during which she and Associate Professor of Chemical
and Petroleum Engineering Joseph McCarthy discussed their novel approaches to
engineering education at the inaugural Frontiers of Engineering Education (FOEE)
symposium.
• learnmoreaboutRavi Shankar, assistant professor and author of more than 35
publications, who received a 2010 Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer
Award from the Society of Manufacturing Engineers.
www.engr.pitt.edu/annualreport/industrial
7.2:11.6:1
Jeffrey Kharoufeh (right), associate professor, with PhD student Guvenc Degirmenci.
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
IE Research Expenditures per Tenured/Tenure Stream IE Faculty
200
175
150
125
100
75
134,933
98,266112,933118,466
195,933
Publications: Tenure Stream Faculty
Current NSF Grants: Tenure Stream Faculty
Kharoufeh notes, “My research applies to a
broad spectrum of systems and can impact
many disciplines. Wireless sensor networks
are currently being deployed to monitor air
quality, ecosystems, the structural integrity
of bridges and roadways, manufacturing
processes, and for military surveillance.
I am interested in learning the fundamental
performance limits of these kinds of
sensor networks and finding computational
solutions to make communication more
efficient and reliable.”
Kharoufeh is pictured here with his PhD
student, Guvenc degirmenci.
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waNT mORE? Visit us online to
• learnmoreabouttheNRCFellowshipGrantsupportingKimberandWiezorek’sresearch.
• readaboutPeyman Givi, William Kepler Whiteford Professor, who was named Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, “For Pioneering Contributions in Mathematical Modeling and Computational Simulation of Turbulent Combustion.” Givi is the first faculty member at the University of Pittsburgh to receive this honor.
• learnmoreaboutthedistinguishedcareerofAnthony J. DeArdo, William Kepler Whiteford Professor and director of the Basic Metals Processing Research Institute (BAMPRI), who was named recipient of the 2010 Benjamin F. Fairless Award from the Association for Iron and Steel Technology (AIST).
• learnhowtheresearchofJung-Kun Lee, assistant professor, will produce advanced
versions of the technology used in solar panels and flat-panel displays and lead to more
efficient transport of electricity. His research is funded by an NSF CAREER Award.
www.engr.pitt.edu/annualreport/mems
Mark Kimber, assistant professor of
mechanical engineering, and Jorg Wiezorek,
associate professor of materials science, are
investigating ways to extend the lifetimes
of nuclear power plants, a critical step for
meeting the increasing needs for cleaner
electrical power. To understand this, the team
is learning more about the harsh conditions
experienced by key reactor components,
and then engineering the materials to
better withstand degradation under these
conditions. They then modify the surfaces
and microstructures of nuclear-grade steels
and nickel-base alloys by novel deformation
and laser processing followed by thermal
annealing treatments. This alters the
internal structure of the materials and leads
to enhanced performance in the extreme
environments seen by reactor components of
nuclear power plants. They also investigate
the internal structure of the materials
modified by exposures to in-service conditions
down to the atomic level using electron
microscopy to identify the details of the
mechanisms responsible for degradation and
the property improvements.
This research is currently funded in part by
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC),
and includes the collaboration of two graduate
students, engineers and scientists at the
Materials Center of Excellence at the Research
and Technology Unit of the Westinghouse
Electric Company also located in Pittsburgh,
and Ravi Shankar, assistant professor of
industrial engineering (read his story on p.18),
who is developing a quantitative understanding
of the mechanisms responsible for the
degradation of the properties and performance
of materials used in critical structural
components in nuclear power plant reactors.
The team also collaborates with Anirban Jana
of the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center to
computationally model the physics of turbulent
jets interacting at different temperatures.
mEChaNiCal ENGiNEERiNG aND maTERialS SCiENCE
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Publications : Tenured Stream Faculty
6.10:1
Mark Kimber (left), assistant professor, and Jorg Wiezorek, associate professor
2007 2008 2009 2010
Research Expenditures(millions)
7
6
5
4
3
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Engineering freshmen entering Pitt last fall
enjoyed a scavenger hunt that helped them to
become familiar with the University’s campus.
Organized by the Pitt EXCEL Program, the
scavenger hunt was part of the Summer
Engineering Academy (SEA). During two weeks
in August, SEA participants live on campus
and learn essential study skills to prepare them
for the transition from high school to college.
SEA, offered to incoming freshmen for six
years, is one of more than a dozen programs
offered to current students by the Engineering
Office of Diversity.
Samuel dickerson, a PhD student in the
Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering, won first place in the annual
Big Idea Competition sponsored by the
University of Pittsburgh Institute for
Entrepreneurial Excellence. Dickerson
won Best New Product Idea for his idea
of a low-cost, portable cytometer, a device
for counting the number of cells in a fluid
sample like blood.
The mobile nature of the product would
enable medical professionals in rural medical
clinics in developing countries to more
easily perform diagnostic tests for diseases
such as AIDS. This product idea stems
from Dickerson’s current research under
co-advisors Steven p. levitan, John A.
Jurenko Professor of Computer Engineering,
and Professor donald M. Chiarulli, in the
Department of Computer Science.
Although Dickerson is funded through
Levitan and Chiarulli’s research team, Pitt’s
Engineering Office of Diversity continues
to expand funding opportunities for
underrepresented graduate student groups.
This past year, Pitt became a participant
in the Educational Advancement Alliance’s
graduate fellowship program designed to
provide financial assistance to students who
have received an undergraduate degree from
Historically Black Colleges and Universities
(HBCU). Pitt will welcome aboard three
HBCU STEM Fellows this fall, each receiving
$72,000 toward a Master’s degree.
DivERSiTy www.engr.pitt.edu/annualreport/diversity
Want more? Visit us online at
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The Swanson School of Engineering Office of Diversity provides a continuous pipeline of support for students from traditionally underrepresented groups as they prepare for, enter, and graduate from the University of Pittsburgh as STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) majors.
INVESTING NOW activities are designed to support and reward the high academic performance of high school students who are underrepresented in STEM careers. Recruited in the spring of their eighth grade year, students participate in activities through the twelfth grade. Each year, about 175 students from the metropolitan Pittsburgh area participate. Data show that over the last decade, 100 percent of INVESTING NOW participants have enrolled in college, approximately half into a STEM major.
The University of Pittsburgh’s Swanson School of Engineering was
in North America by the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) for the percentage of doctoral degrees awarded to women in 2009.
RaNkED
2nd
Samuel Dickerson
Deitrick Franklin
100%
of pitt iNvESTiNG NOw participants enroll in college.
Visit www.engr.pitt.edu/annualreport/diversity
to learn more about deitrick Franklin, the
Swanson School’s inaugural scholarship
recipient of the Karl H. Lewis Impact Alumni
Endowment Fund.
chosen from 932 research proposals from
94 countries.
The Pitt group is led by PhD candidate
in civil and environmental engineering
Bhavna Sharma, who is also a recipient of an
Integrative Graduate Education and Research
Traineeship (IGERT) from the Swanson
School’s Mascaro Center for Sustainable
Innovation. Sharma is pictured here with
Kent Harries, William Kepler Whiteford
Faculty Fellow and associate professor of civil
and environmental engineering, who serves as
the project’s faculty advisor and leads student
trips to India for fieldwork.
An international engineering award and
a 10,000-euro prize went to a team of
students from the University of Pittsburgh
and the Indian Institute of Technology in
Kanpur (IITK) for their ongoing project
in the Indian Himalayas to design, build,
and popularize bamboo structures. The
team received an Engineering Silver Award
presented by Mondialogo, a global initiative
of German automaker Daimler and the
United Nations Educational, Scientific,
and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) that
encourages intercultural collaboration.
The Pitt-IITK team was among 30 teams
STuDENTS www.engr.pitt.edu/annualreport/students
Want more? Visit us online to read more about Bhavna Sharma’s
project and other student achievements and awards.
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InTErculTurAl collAborATIon
Kent Harries (left), William Kepler Whiteford Faculty Fellow and associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, and PhD candidate Bhavna Sharma
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Alumnus leonard Berenfield (BSME ‘64)
pledged $1.5 million to establish The
Berenfield Family Engineering Legacy Fund
for Bioengineering. His gift will support
research in the areas of pediatric cardiac
surgery and cardiopulmonary regenerative
medicine, fields in which the Department
of Bioengineering has earned national
recognition for research excellence.
Berenfield, whose son and grandson were
born with heart defects that required
surgery, is an avid supporter of pediatric
cardiovascular research and wishes to see
continued advancements in technology and
medicine in this field.
According to Harvey Borovetz, chair and
Distinguished Professor of Bioengineering
and the Robert L. Hardesty Professor in
the School of Medicine’s Department of
Surgery, the gift will help the Swanson
School and Department of Bioengineering
support, retain, and recruit outstanding
graduate student researchers, postdoctoral
fellows, and prominent faculty members, all
of whom will help further strengthen Pitt’s
position as a leading bioengineering research
institution. The opportunity to collaborate
across disciplines promotes translation of the
research from the laboratory to the clinic,
and, ultimately, to pediatric patients. The
research and gift are part of a collaboration
developed by Borovetz and peter Wearden,
assistant professor of cardiothoracic surgery
and director of mechanical circulatory support
at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC.
Borovetz is renowned for his research on
pediatric heart assist valves, which is currently
supported by a $5.6 million federal contract
(see “Treating the Tiniest Tickers,” p.14).
Berenfield is pictured here on a tour of the
McGowan Institute of Regenerative Medicine
with thomas Gilbert, research assistant
professor in the Departments of Surgery and
Bioengineering.
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alumNi
Leonard Berenfield (BSME ‘64) (left) with Thomas Gilbert, research assistant professor in the Departments of Surgery and Bioengineering.
Incoming Freshman SAT Scores (averages)
Undergraduate Enrollment
PhD Enrollment
1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010
1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
1400
1350
1300
1250
1200
1150
1100
1050
1000
2250
2150
2050
1950
1850
1750
1650
1550
1450
1350
360
340
320
300
280
260
240
220
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Francis J. Kramer
Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering, 1971
President and CEO II-VI Incorporated, Saxonburg, Pa.
DEpaRTmENT OF ChEmiCal aND pETROlEum ENGiNEERiNG
Anthony A. Massaro, Jr.
Bachelor of Science in Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, 1967
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (Retired) Lincoln Electric Holdings, Inc., Sarasota, Fla.
DEpaRTmENT OF Civil aND ENviRONmENTal ENGiNEERiNG
Wesley C. pickard
Bachelor of Science in Mining Engineering, 1961
Synergy, Inc. Chief Financial Officer (Retired), Washington, D.C.
DEpaRTmENT OF ElECTRiCal aND COmpuTER ENGiNEERiNG
John Choma, Jr.
Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering, 1964; Master of Science in Electrical Engineering, 1966; PhD, 1969
Professor of Electrical Engineering and Former Chair of the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering University of Southern California, Los Angeles, Calif.
DEpaRTmENT OF iNDuSTRial ENGiNEERiNG
Francis e. novak
Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering, 1966
President and Chief Executive Officer (Retired) Stellex Monitor Aerospace, Inc., and Stellex Precision Machining, Inc., Amityville, N.Y. and Wichita, Kan.
DEpaRTmENT OF mEChaNiCal ENGiNEERiNG aND maTERialS SCiENCE
paul e. Fischione
Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering, 1978
President E.A. Fischione Instruments, Inc., Export, Pa.
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2010 DiSTiNGuiShED alumNiThe Swanson School of Engineering has honored its top graduates through the Distinguished Alumni Awards since 1964.
waNT mORE? Visit us online to:
• learnmoreaboutBerenfieldandhisgenerousgift.
• viewphotosofalumnievents,includingHomecoming2009,theDistinguished
Alumni Banquet reception and awards ceremony, and our 2010 Golf Outing.
• readouralumnie-newsletterorrecentlyrenovatedaward-winningalumni
magazine, Pitt Engineer.
www.engr.pitt.edu/annualreport/alumni
Dean Holder (left) and William Stanchina (right), chair of the Department of Electrical and
Computer Engineering, presented John Choma (middle) with his Distinguished Alumni Award
during a special ceremony in Los Angeles.
Progress toward Campaign Goal required support
2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014
180
150
120
90
60
30
Goal: $179.000,000
Pictured left to right are Pickard, Fischione, Massaro, Dean Holder, Novak, and Kramer.
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www.engr.pitt.edu/annualreport2010
