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ALUMNI UP FRONT A Span Seven Decades Strong ............................................................................... 2 Made-to-Order for Maryland ................................................................................. 4 BACK ON CAMPUS Candid Answers from CEOs ........................................................................ 6 New Institute for Computational Medicine ........................................... 6 M.S. in Bioinformatics.................................................................................... 7 IN MEMORIUM APL ’s Legendary “Kossy”: Alexander Kossiakoff ’38 Ph.D. ....................... 7 Prolific Researcher, Gifted Professor: Charles S. ReVelle .......................... 7 FEATURE One Giant Step Reaches Out to Schools ..................................................... 8 CONNECTIONS Way Outside the Box ................................................................................... 10 FEATURE A New Gateway to Innovation.................................................................... 12 Charles Commons: Welcome to College Town......................................... 16 HISTORY FEATURE 90/25 Anniversary Album ............................................................. INSERT LAB NOTES Better Way to Biopsy ..............................................................................................18 What are the Chances............................................................................................20 HIGH PERFORMERS In the Driver’s Seat of a Single Cell ............................................................ 22 The Proof of Truth in Numbers ..........................................................................24 THE WIDER WORLD Circuit Completed ..................................................................................................26 “I Was Interested in Everything” ........................................................................27 MAKING WAVES A Shot in the Dark ....................................................................................... 29 Before It’s Too Late .............................................................................. 31 It Pays to Be Curious ........................................................................... 32 IN THIS ISSUE Fall 2005 Volume 3 No. 2 (Cover) In Machinery Hall, as part of Maryland Hall was known until the 1950s, young engineers in this 1938 photo are just as intent as these student researchers are today in the Corrsin Wind Tunnel (right). The insert in this issue offers more glimpses into nine decades of Engineering at Hopkins. WILL KIRK As we conclude the celebration of the 90th anniversary of Engineering at Johns Hopkins and the 25th anniversary of the G.W.C. Whiting School of Engineering, we look back on some of the defining individuals and ideas.

Transcript of Home | Johns Hopkins Whiting School of...

ALUMNI UP FRONT A Span Seven Decades Strong ...............................................................................2

Made-to-Order for Maryland .................................................................................4

BACK ON CAMPUS Candid Answers from CEOs ........................................................................6

New Institute for Computational Medicine ........................................... 6

M.S. in Bioinformatics ....................................................................................7

IN MEMORIUM APL’s Legendary “Kossy”: Alexander Kossiakoff ’38 Ph.D. .......................7

Prolific Researcher, Gifted Professor: Charles S. ReVelle ..........................7

FEATURE One Giant Step Reaches Out to Schools .....................................................8

CONNECTIONS Way Outside the Box ................................................................................... 10

FEATURE A New Gateway to Innovation .................................................................... 12

Charles Commons: Welcome to College Town ......................................... 16

HISTORY FEATURE 90/25 Anniversary Album ............................................................. INSERT

LAB NOTES Better Way to Biopsy ..............................................................................................18

What are the Chances ............................................................................................20

HIGH PERFORMERS In the Driver’s Seat of a Single Cell ............................................................ 22

The Proof of Truth in Numbers ..........................................................................24

THE WIDER WORLD Circuit Completed ..................................................................................................26

“I Was Interested in Everything” ........................................................................27

MAKING WAVES A Shot in the Dark .......................................................................................29

Before It’s Too Late .............................................................................. 31

It Pays to Be Curious ........................................................................... 32

IN THIS ISSUEFall 2005 Volume 3 No. 2

(Cover) In Machinery Hall, as part of Maryland Hall was known until the 1950s, young engineers

in this 1938 photo are just as intent as these

student researchers are today in the Corrsin

Wind Tunnel (right). The insert in this issue

offers more glimpses into nine decades of

Engineering at Hopkins.

WIL

L K

IRK

As we conclude the celebration of the 90th anniversary of Engineering at Johns Hopkins and the 25th anniversary of the G.W.C. Whiting School of Engineering, we look back on some of the defining individuals and ideas.

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alumni up front

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By Nora Koch

When 19-year-old Willard Hackerman set out for one of his

first engineering jobs, the entire staff of The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company—all three of them—packed up and moved from Baltimore to Cambridge, Maryland, to build an $187,000 drawbridge. “We were lucky to get it,” Hackerman says of the job.

It was 1938. Fresh out of the School of Engineering at The Johns Hopkins University, Hackerman was drawing a salary of $35 a week. Today, the alum-nus is the president, CEO, and sole stockholder of The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company, one of the nation’s largest building con-tracting companies with some 1,000 engineers in 23 offices around the country. Work is no longer scarce. These days, he says, the Maryland-based company has a $4 billion project backlog.

Over the past almost seven decades, five of them under Hackerman’s leadership, Whiting-Turner’s portfolio has expanded from bridges to include some of America’s most prominent shop-ping malls, elegant embassies, high-tech cleanrooms, and well-known landmarks. In Baltimore, these projects include the National

Aquarium, M&T Bank Stadium, the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, and Harborplace. At the Homewood campus, Whiting-Turner is manag-ing construction for the Decker Quadrangle (see page 12). The company also has erected the Bloomberg Center and the Ralph S. O’Connor Recreation Center, renovated Homewood Apartments, and has built or remodeled many other projects at Hopkins.

While Hackerman’s leadership extends beyond the business world, in his hometown, he also is known as a philanthropist dedi-cated to higher education and the arts. He traces it all back to his engineering background. “Engineers are problem solvers,” he says. “They have the attitude, the training, and the ability to solve problems.”

The only child of a homemaker and a factory manager, Hackerman grew up in Baltimore’s Forest Park neighborhood. At Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, a public high school known for its engineering program, Hackerman took the courses to enter a university engi-neering program at an advanced level. After graduating from Poly in 1935 at age 16, Hackerman enrolled at Hopkins, where he convinced the registrar to let him pay the $450 annual tuition in

monthly installments.At age 19, Hackerman had

a Hopkins degree in Civil Engi-neering. Soon Hopkins called, looking for Engineering graduates who could interview at Whiting-Turner. Hackerman was hired. For years, he worked under G.W.C. Whiting, the company’s co-found-er who had begun the business in 1909 with LeBaron Turner, a classmate from the Massachusetts

Institute of Technology. Whiting in 1910 bought out his partner and led the company until 1955, when he chose the 37-year-old Hackerman to succeed him.

Hackerman still beams as he talks about that bridge he built in Cambridge. Business was tough back then, he says. The company was small—just Hackerman,

Only two individuals have led The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company in its 96 years: Willard Hackerman ’38 and his mentor, G.W.C. Whiting (in the portrait), who died in 1974. Hackerman, to whom Johns Hopkins awarded an honorary degree in 1990, led the 1979 effort to re-establish the School of Engineering. The G.W.C. Whiting School of Engineering became the first Hopkins division named to honor an individual.

A Span Seven Decades StrongThrough his almost 70 years with the prominent building contracting company of Whiting-Turner, Willard Hackerman ’38 has been reinforcing a commitment to his alma mater.

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Whiting, and a third engineer. They handled one project at a time, when they could find work, all pitching in on-site. “I worked with my hands for the better part of 12 years,” Hackerman says.

These days, Hackerman, 87, still works directly on some of Whiting-Turner’s projects and also develops real estate. He is now involved in the Metro Center at Owings Mills, a $220-million mixed-use site that will include a community college building, public library, restaurants, retail and office space, apartments,

and a hotel.As Whiting-Turner continues

to grow and take on more high-profile projects, Hackerman still draws deeply from the lessons of his mentor, whose oil portrait is displayed near his desk in his spacious Towson office.

Hackerman credits the firm’s success to Whiting’s strategy of hiring engineers to fill as many company roles as possible, including project managers and supervisors. He believes Whiting-Turner employs more engineers than any other company of its

size, and was the first to use engineers in construction. “That is the main reason the company is what it is,” Hackerman says. “All the leaders are engineers.” Whiting-Turner’s staff includes many Hopkins engineers, says Hackerman.

Now a Hopkins trustee emeri-tus, he served the university for nearly 40 years and led the effort to re-establish the School of Engineering in 1979. Hackerman was instrumental in seeing that half of his mentor’s estate went to Engineering after Whiting died in 1974. The new school was named in Whiting’s memory. Margaret Whiting, after her husband’s death, also endowed the Willard and Lillian Hackerman Chair in Civil Engineering.

Since then, Hackerman has supported the Whiting School in many ways, most recently with a $5 million commitment, recognized in the naming of the Hackerman Scholars to bring more students from Poly to study at Hopkins. The gift “assures we’re attracting exceptional individuals who live right here in our city,” noted Nicholas P. Jones, dean of the Whiting School. In addition, undergraduate Engineering stu-dents benefit from the Hackerman Engineering Student Loan Fund that had been created by the couple.

At Hopkins, the Hackerman name is a familiar one across the institution. In the School of

“Engineers have the attitude, the training, and the ability to solve problems.” —Willard Hackerman ’38

Medicine, the couple endowed the Willard and Lillian Hackerman Chair in Radiation Oncology. Another gift helped create the Hackerman-Patz Patient and Family Pavilion at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, a 50-guest residence that serves patients undergoing cancer treat-ment and their families.

“Will’s vision and generosity have made an immeasurable contribution to the success of the Whiting School and to all of Johns Hopkins,” noted William R. Brody, University president. “We are tremendously grateful for all he has done for Hopkins, and especially proud to count him as one of our own.”

The construction executive’s wide-ranging civic endeavors extend well beyond Hopkins. Hackerman served on Maryland’s first economic development coun-cil and first higher education com-mission, and sits on the boards of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, the Maryland Science Center, and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. As dedi-cated patrons of the arts, the Hackermans purchased a 19th-century Mt. Vernon Place mansion for $800,000 in 1984 and promptly turned it over to the Walters Art Gallery. Now called the Hackerman House, it is home to the Walters Art Museum’s Asian art collection.

As he sits in his office, 67 years after that three-man firm built a drawbridge, Willard Hackerman is satisfied, but still forward-focused. “I’m working harder now than I ever did in my life,” he says with

At the Whiting School’s opening ceremonies 25 years ago, Hackerman (right) converses with F. Pierce Linaweaver ’55, ’65 PhD, who at the time was president of the Johns Hopkins Alumni Association.

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alumni up front

tiveness to all sectors, especially business, industry, research, technology, trade, film, the arts, and tourism.

“Maryland has everything!” Melissaratos says with a certain degree of pride. “We have the infrastructure, the skilled work-force, the research and education-al institutions, and the entrepre-neurial drive to complete in today’s global marketplace. Our

a year, and stands to add more than 10,000 new jobs through the recently announced national consolidation of military facilities.

One of Maryland’s greatest strengths, Melissaratos points out, is the state’s intellectual resources, among them more than 50 major federal research labs and an additional 150 research centers. “Maryland has so much intellectual brainpower!,” he says. “We are continually enhancing our image as a research state, a knowledge economy. And Johns Hopkins plays a significant role in that pic-ture.”

A review of his career suggests that Melissaratos might have been preparing for this position all his life.

At Johns Hopkins, he earned his bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering in 1966. “Hopkins gave me a good, sound, funda-mental education, strengthening my thought processes,” he relates. “It gave me the ability to make right assumptions and calculations so important in decision-making. This training was invaluable.”

He earned a master’s degree in engineering management from George Washington University, and later completed Harvard University’s Program for Manage-ment Development. He also has

By Billie Walker

“It’s the perfect job to cap my career,” said Aris Melissaratos ’66,

who since January 2003 has taken charge as secretary of Maryland’s Department of Business and Economic Development. He heads an impressive array of aggressive initiatives to strengthen the state’s economy and its attrac-

At the inaugural Johns Hopkins Government Forum in Washington, D.C., on July 19, Aris Melissaratos ’66 took part in the panel discussion on “Rekindling the Passion for Innovation: Why Research and Innovation Are Drivers for Economic Competitiveness and Whether the U.S. Is Losing its Edge.” Hopkins President William R. Brody moderated the event for alumni and friends, and Whiting School Dean Nicholas P. Jones (right) served as a panelist.

“We are continually enhancing our image as a research state, a knowledge economy. And Johns Hopkins plays a significant role in that picture.” –Aris Melissaratos ’66

strategy for a successful Maryland economy has focused on the transformation from the old manufacturing economy to the knowledge-based economy.”

This successful strategy is reflected in the economic growth and stability that Maryland has experienced over the last few years. During his tenure as secre-tary of Business Development, Maryland has added 50,000 jobs

Made-to-Order for MarylandFor Aris Melissaratos ’66, experience as a Westinghouse executive, an entrepreneur, and a community advocate have all helped prepare him for his latest role: leading the state’s economic development.

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finished coursework toward a doc-torate in international politics at the Catholic University of America.

In 1997, Melissaratos retired from Westinghouse, where in his 32 years he was instrumental in shaping its national leadership in defense electronics. While in Baltimore, he was vice president and general manager of the Design Engineering and Manufacturing Operations Divisions of the Balti-more Electronics Systems Group (now Northrop Grumman Elec-tronic Systems). At corporate head-quarters in Pittsburgh, he retired as vice president of science and tech-nology and chief technology officer.

Post-retirement, he’s been

equally energetic, beginning as corporate vice president for Thermo Electron Corporation in Waltham, Massachusetts, and president and CEO of Coleman Research Corporation and Thermo Coleman Corporation. To boost funding and strategic direction for high-tech start-ups, he founded Armel Private Equity Investments.

Throughout his corporate career, Melissaratos has been exceptionally active as a commu-nity advocate, which he says also prepared him well for his current role.

In Maryland, his service includes being a board member

of the Greater Baltimore Alliance, the Technology Council of Maryland, and Emerging Techno-logy Centers. He is founding co-chair of the Greater Baltimore Technology Council, past vice president of the Maryland Chamber of Commerce, past chair of the Maryland Manufac- turing Association, and past member of the Board of Visitors of the University of Maryland.

Melissaratos, who has been on the Whiting School’s National Advisory Council since 1996, is pleased with the direction the School has been taking. “Each dean has moved the School a step forward,” he notes. He especially

applauds Engineering’s interdisci-plinary initiatives, among them the Institute for NanoBioTechnology.

Biotechnology is a far cry from the blue-collar Baltimore where Melissaratos had worked in his father’s bakery while studying at Hopkins (the family emigrated from Romania and Greece when he was 13). To help make it pos-sible for today’s Baltimore stu-dents to study engineering, in 1999 he established the Melissaratos Family Scholarship Fund, honoring his parents. Helping students is one more way he strives to assure that Maryland’s future is a high-tech, global one.

Visit the state’s Department of Business and Economic Develop-ment at www.choosemaryland.org .

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Candid Answers from CEOs

What sets your firm apart from your competitors? What is your advice to an aspiring CEO? When students asked a group of corporate leaders questions like those, they received helpful answers at a well-attended session, “Inside the Mind of the CEO.”

Presented by Alpha Kappa Psi Business Fraternity (AKP), Rho Psi Chapter, the event took place on April 7 in Maryland Hall. It was co-sponsored by the Whiting School of Engineering’s Development Office and the W.P. Carey Program in Entrepreneurship & Management.

“The speakers were candid and were willing to speak to stu-dents individually after the event. All in all, it was a great networking event, connecting students with

back on campus

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New Institute for Computational Medicine

The wealth of data now available to biomedical researchers is increasing rapidly, due in large part to the development of new tech-nologies for high-throughput data acquisition. These technologies now make it possible to determine gene sequences; measure the complement of genes and proteins expressed in cells and/or tissues; map protein-protein interactions under a wide range of experimen-tal and disease conditions; and obtain functional imagery at the cell, tissue, and organ levels.

The challenge of the coming decade will be how best to use these multi-scale data to gain a quantitative understanding of the “systems” biology of human disease

and to enable the identification of biological markers correlating with different disease states and inter-individual differences in risk.

The new Institute for Computational Medicine (ICM) established at Johns Hopkins will address this challenge. Its mission is to develop quantitative approaches for understanding the mechanisms, diagnosis, and treatment of disease through applications of mathemat-ics, engineering, and computer science. The ICM will bring togeth-er researchers in such areas as:

• modeling of biological systems and disease mechanisms;

• characterization of changes in anatomic shape and function in health versus disease; and

• discovery of accurate, sensitive and specific disease biomarkers.

Announcing the SEA Online Forum.It’s free. It’s easy. It’s 24/7. It can link more than 24,000 Hopkins engineers. Now Whiting School alumni can network with each other and with students any time, from anywhere. Post a job opening in your company. Help a student with a project. Find an intern. Sign up today to be part of this new way to keep in touch with the Hopkins Engineering community.

Register at: engineering.jhu.edu/seaforum/

For more information, call (410) 516-8723.

At the “Inside the Mind of the CEO” event are (from left) Ashlyn Schniederjans, a senior who is president of Alpha Kappa Psi, and the speakers: John H. Beakes ’77 M.A., chairman, Next Century Corporation; Michael G. Stolarik ’73, president and COO, Analex Corporation; Prakash C. Bhatt, president of VF Factory Outlet (and father of Reena A. Phatt ’00); and Ronald L. Gue ’60, ’64 PhD, chair-man, Phoenix Health Systems.

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real-life CEOs,” said Ashlyn Schniederjans, a senior Economics major who is president of AKP.

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The ICM will be located in the Computational Sciences and Engineering Building, scheduled to open in spring 2007 (see page 12). Its faculty, including new research-ers who will be hired within the Whiting School of Engineering, will conduct research in each of these three areas. ICM’s director, Raimond L. Winslow, is also direc-tor of the Center for Cardiovascular Bioinformatics and Modeling as well as associate director of the Whitaker Biomedical Engineering Institute and professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering.Visit the Institute for Computational Medicine at www.icm.jhu.edu .

M.S. in Bioinformatics

Bioinformatics, which lies at the juncture of computer science and molecular biology, will play an increasingly important role in iden-tifying, characterizing, and selecting potential biological targets to devel-op and produce.

To help meet that demand, the Whiting School’s Engineering and Applied Science Programs for Professionals (EPP) and the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences’ Advanced Academic Programs together are offering an M.S. degree program in bioinformatics. This is the first joint master’s degree program between the two schools.For more information, visit ptesrv.apl.jhu.edu .

APL’s Legendary “Kossy”:Alexander Kossiakoff ’38 PhD

During his almost 60 years with the Johns Hopkins’ Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), Alexander Kossiakoff ’38 PhD, fondly known as “Kossy,” set an astounding pace. He was a pioneer of solid propel-lant rocket technology, a builder of satellites and radar systems, an academic innovator, a mentor, and APL director for 11 years.

Up until a few weeks before his death of congestive heart failure on August 6, the 91-year-old was still coming to work daily as APL’s chief scientist, a post he had held for the past 25 years. Kossiakoff also had still served as program chair for technical management and systems engineering in the Whiting School of Engineering’s Engineering and Applied Science Programs for Professionals (EPP). He also guided these part-time programs through their rapid growth.

After joining APL as a young missile scientist in 1946, Kossiakoff contributed “enormously to national security by developing—from drawing board to deploy-ment—the first fleet-wide naval guided missile systems,” noted Hopkins President William R.

Brody. Two years later, Kossiakoff became APL’s assistant director, and then its director (1969-80).

Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, Kossiakoff earned his undergradu-ate degree at CalTech and his doctorate at Hopkins, both in chemistry. He was “universally known as a man of great intelli-gence, skill, vision, and humanity,” noted Brody, who presented him with the Johns Hopkins President’s Metal in 2004. His numerous other honors included the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service, its highest honor for an individual from outside the government. APL named its Kossiakoff Conference and Education Center in his honor in 1983.

Survivors include his wife of 66 years, Arabelle; a daughter, a son, and five granddaughters.

APL plans to hold a memorial service this fall.

The family has requested that memorial donations be directed to the Whiting School’s Systems Engineering Programs, 144 New Engineering Building, 3400 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21218.

Prolific Researcher, Gifted Professor: Charles S. ReVelle

The field of location analysis— using mathematical modeling to determine the optimal and most environmentally-friendly sites for sewage-treatment plants, ware-houses, fire stations, reservoirs, and other facilities—is said to owe its origins to Charles S. “Chuck” ReVelle. A professor in the Whiting School of Engineering’s Depart-ment of Geography and Environ-mental Engineering (DoGEE), ReVelle died of lymphoma on August 10 at the age of 67.

ReVelle (above) published widely, had a broad interest in environmental subjects, and was known for his contributions to reservoir design. His many inter-ests included reservoir operation, designing nature reserves, and nuclear disarmament. He and his wife, Penelope, published five environmental science textbooks in the 1990s.

A chemical engineer who had evolved into an applied mathemati-cian, ReVelle joined the Engineering faculty in 1971 and was promoted to professor in 1975. He founded DoGEE’s program in Systems Analysis and Economics for Public Decision Making.

“Chuck was absolutely devoted to the research and careers of his students, dozens of whom now hold faculty positions around the world,” observed Nicholas P. Jones, dean of the Whiting School.

In addition to his wife, survivors include two daughters and a granddaughter.

Hopkins held a memorial ser-vice for ReVelle on September 11.

The family has requested that memorial donations be directed to the Charles S. ReVelle Scholarship Fund, 144 New Engineering Building, 3003 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21218.

MEMORIAL TRIBUTES

Our Apologies Melissa Travis’ name was incorrect in the article “At the Interface of Work and Play” in the Winter 2005 issue of the Johns Hopkins Engineer. She is now in her second year of the graduate program in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.

Also in that issue, in a caption on page 10, the title given for C. Reginald Robba, now deceased, was his title in 1991 at the Applied Physics Laboratory.

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To encourage young people to become more curious about science, technology, engineering, and math, Leigh R. Abts knows you have to let them tinker. He began by inviting their teachers into the Whiting School’s labs.

By Sarah Achenbach

Ninety slides detailing every step for skinning a deer. Not exactly the lesson plan that the Whiting School of Engineering graduate students expected during

orientation this past summer as Fellows for BIGSTEP. A new initiative by the Whiting School’s Center for Educational Outreach (CEO), BIGSTEP stands for the Broader Impact for Graduate Students Transferring Engineering Principles.

The slides were part of the standard middle school lesson plan for the Chippewa tribe in Minnesota. During this academic year, the eight Whiting School students selected as the inaugural BIGSTEP Fellows are working with underserved K-12 classrooms at the White Earth and Leech Lake Tribal Reservation schools in Minnesota, as well as in inner-city Baltimore and Baltimore County.

Each BIGSTEP Fellow is designing an environmentally themed classroom project based on his or her research and the school’s curriculum. The teaching fellows are all advanced graduate students in the Whiting School’s Department of Geography and Environ-mental Engineering. The lesson plan on skinning a deer happened to be exactly at the intersection of scien-tific innovation and cultural tradition that Leigh R. Abts had envisioned. “The deer slides were something none of our students were prepared for, and it made them aware that there are different cultures in this country,” says Abts, who is deputy director of the CEO. Abts also is principal research scientistwith the Whiting School’s Department of Computer Science.

With each CEO program or partnership, Abts sees its ultimate goal as engineering, math, and science literacy, not training. “Our idea is not to make every kid an engineer,” he notes. “If we’ve convinced kids to take one more math and science course, then we’ve succeeded.”

The idea behind BIGSTEP—and the new center itself—grew out of Abts’ previous role as executive director of the Whiting School’s Engineering Research Center, as well as his interest in enhancing the educational outreach component of its faculty grants

Fourth in a series on the centers that are bridging disciplines in the Whiting School and beyond.

funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). In summer 2001, after brainstorming with the NSF about better ways to reach K-12 students, Abts gathered 26 teachers to give them a chance to work in Hopkins labs with faculty from the Whiting School and eight other universities. The experiment was a hit: Teachers had leading-edge research to take back to the classroom, while faculty easily and meaningfully met NSF outreach requirements.

The NSF was impressed—so much so, that in 2002, it invited Abts to apply for approximately $500,000 to sponsor more teachers. Since then, the summer Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) initiative has provided hands-on training for 150 teachers regionally through its partnership with Howard Community College. Meanwhile, the Whiting School’s summer research model has been replicated nationally: Nearly 500 teachers and 150 researchers have

“If we’ve convinced kids to take one more math and science course, then we’ve succeeded.” —Leigh R. Abts, Deputy Director of the Whiting School’s Center for Educational Outreach

One Giant Step Reaches Out to Schools

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Fourth in a series on the centers that are bridging disciplines in the Whiting School and beyond.

participated in similar programs at universities across the country. In 2002, Abts and the Engineering Research Center developed a project to bring Native American teachers to campus.

By 2003, these outreach efforts had become so big that Abts—with Hopkins’ blessing and NSF funding—founded the CEO. In addition to working with Whiting School faculty to create outreach programs based on individual research grants, this new center sponsors a three-credit engineering course for Montgomery County high school students and a “What Is Engineering” fair for inner-city students.

A program Abts created for Hopkins and Carnegie Mellon University gave 26 Pittsburgh teachers hands-on experience in building robotics systems. Last spring in Baltimore, Darlene Malat, who has been teaching high school for 30 years, applied what she had learned in the Whiting School’s RET summer program to write a grant proposal. That gained her NSF funds to equip her classroom with computers and Probeware to gather and analyze data in sci-ence, math, and technology classes. “This equipment will allow our students to get back to what science is all about—discovery,” Malat noted in an article in The JHU Gazette.

This year, the CEO added a program in conjunction with the National Inventors Hall of Fame to mentor budding, underserved student inventors from Baltimore and Washington, D.C.

The CEO also manages the initiatives of Strategies for Engineering Education K-16 (SEEK-16), a grassroots, Baltimore-based initiative “to foster universal student literacy” in science, tech-nology, engineering, and mathematics (known as STEM education). Last February in Washington, D.C., SEEK-16 sponsored a national summit that attracted 200 cultural, scientific, educational, and industry leaders.

Among the STEM education initiatives, the Whiting School’s new center is leading a committee of experts in developing an Engineering Advanced Placement course for high-school students. These experts come from universities, among them Carnegie Mellon, Tufts, and Vanderbilt, and institutions such as the National Federation of the Blind. The Energy Bill, passed by Congress and signed into law in August, includes another important initiative: a SEEK-16 pilot program in science and engineering education.

Abts is perfectly suited to encouraging STEM education. He has a doctorate from Brown University in biomedical engineering and a career in company start-ups, including the Hopkins venture capital fund and FutureHealth, a patient risk management care company.

“This is more meaningful than any start-up I’ve ever done,” Abts says. “Children are the greatest return on our investment. We are going to become a Third-World country in science and math education in a few years if we don’t start addressing this. The CEO helps to provide national leadership and brings people together around ideas and themes. Plus, it’s Hopkins. We need to take a leadership role.”

That role takes Abts to Congress; he serves on the national STEMEd Caucus Steering Committee, which advises both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate.

Already, Abts and the Whiting School’s CEO are gaining atten-tion nationally. Mary F. Poats, program manager for the NSF’s Division of Engineering Education and Centers, noted that as other nations become more developed, “It is more important than ever for the U.S. to attract the best and brightest of our young people into engineering studies,” especially youngsters from underrepre-sented groups. The CEO “has been pursuing excellent and innova-tive K-16 programs aimed at doing just that,” Poats stated. Under Abts “strong leadership,” she added, this new center “is beginning to have a positive impact on bringing together the various learning communities to accomplish this goal.”

Contact Leigh R. Abts at [email protected] .

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In Baltimore’s Forest Park High School, Darlene Malet’s students unpack the new computers that she obtained with a grant after taking part in a summer program sponsored by the Whiting School’s Center for Educational Outreach. “This equipment will allow our students to get back to what science is all about—discovery,” noted Malet.

One Giant Step Reaches Out to Schools

The U.S. Navy gives a team of student entrepreneurs the exclusive rights to bring a piece of its military shipping technology to the commercial marketplace.

By Sarah Achenbach

A t the start of his senior year, Ben Gibbs ’05 (A&S) figured that after he graduated, he would work for a financial services company. It was a safe, expected

choice for someone with a B.S. in Economics and a minor in Entrepreneurship & Management.

Last fall, all that changed when Gibbs took Technology Commercialization, a class created and taught by Lawrence “Larry” Aronhime ’78 (A&S), ’80 M.A., full-time lecturer in the Whiting School of Engineering’s newly formed Center for Leadership Education (CLE). The course is offered as part of the Center’s W.P. Carey Program in Entrepreneurship & Management. In the course, Aronhime has student teams analyze the commercial viability of specific new technologies from various Johns Hopkins divisions and outside sources.

Gibbs did much more than that. Today, the new graduate is president of Baltimore Shipping Technologies, LLC, the corporation he and three other Hopkins stu-dents—all team members in Aronhime’s class—founded in February. Together, they are bringing to the commercial mar-ket a modular, reusable shipping container that the U. S. Navy had developed for military use.Gibbs also has been hired as budget analyst with the CLE.

Recalls Aronhime, “When I introduced the project we’d received from the Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) in Indian Head, Maryland, Ben and his team didn’t waste any time.”

Aronhime adds, “They did a superior job and the NSWC’s technology transfer office was very

impressed.” So impressed that when the students asked for the license to this intellectual property, they got it.

Joining Gibbs in the new company as treasurer is Soren Gandrud ’05 (A&S), an Economics major. The company’s vice president is Thomas Grogan ’05 (A&S), an International Studies major. Andrew Carrera ’06, who is enrolled in the B.S./M.S. Computer Engineering program, also is participating.

“It’s very unusual to give four undergraduates exclusive rights for a piece of technology,” says Aronhime. “How many 22-year-olds have negotiated with the military and military contractors, and are negotiating for technology and sales?”

“We are still flabbergasted,” admits Gibbs. “This is a full-bore immersion into the world of bringing a new technology to the marketplace.” That kind of hands-on, real-world experience is precisely Aronhime’s mission for his course—and the Carey Program. Nearly a decade ago, John C. Wierman founded and developed the program to provide Engineering students with a background in business. Wierman, a Whiting School professor of Applied Mathematics and Statistics, directs the CLE. In 1998 William Polk Carey, a Hopkins trustee and founder and chairman of W.P. Carey & Co., endowed the program with a gift of $2 million. Today, the popular Carey Program, which includes a minor in

10 JOHNS HOPKINS ENGINEER FALL 2005

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“...We can walk into a room with people twice our age and vastly more experienced, and they take us seriously.” —Ben Gibbs ’05 (A&S), President,

Baltimore Shipping Technologies, LLC

Way Outside the Box

Meanwhile, Gibbs’ company is busy readying its commercial product for the market, which is expected to take two to three years. The firm also is consulting with Charles J. “Chuck” Morton Jr., J.D., a partner at Venable LLP, who teaches the Intellectual Property course in the Carey Program.

Gibbs’ company is the first to come out of the three-year-old Technology Commercialization course.

“What’s most rewarding,” says Gibbs, “is that we can walk into a room with people twice our age and vastly more experienced, and they take us seriously. Even if we fall flat on our faces in the next six months, we’ve gained an incredible amount of real-world experience.”

For Aronhime, Hummel, and the Carey Program, that’s the bot-tom line. “Entrepreneurship is all about taking a chance,” Aronhime explains. “The Tech Commercialization class is as supportive a framework as we can possibly give to the students. What we are

providing is inspiration and experience to budding entrepreneurs that they are not going to get anywhere else.”

For more information about Baltimore Shipping Technologies, contact Ben Gibbs at [email protected] .

Entrepreneurship & Management, is one of two experiential learning programs offered through the CLE (see the Winter 2005 Johns Hopkins Engineer).

To find intellectual property for students to evaluate, Aronhime collaborates with Lani Hummel, director of the Whiting School’s Office of Industrial Initiatives. “We have so much intellectual prop-erty in Maryland—universities as well as several dozen federal labs,” says Hummel, who enjoys connecting Whiting School faculty to various Hopkins divisions and federal agencies. “It would be great to see more student-created companies in Maryland based on intel-lectual property coming out of Hopkins, other Maryland-based universities, and federal labs,” she believes.

Hummel and Aronhime were instrumental in helping Gibbs’ company apply for a $75,000 Technology Development Corpor-ation (TEDCO) grant from the state of Maryland, and the two con-tinue to mentor the burgeoning company in identifying additional sources of funding and manufacturing expertise. In August, Gibbs received word from TEDCO that Baltimore Shipping Technologies, LLC, had received the grant. “Ben is one of the youngest entrepre-neurs that TEDCO has funded. We’re pleased to provide him and his company with the vital seed funding that will help advance his innovative shipping technology,” said Phillip Singerman, TEDCO’s executive director.

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In a Whiting School course, Ben Gibbs ’05 A&S learned the entrepreneurial skills that led him to launch a company with three other classmates. Their company is marketing shipping containers (pictured in the small photos).

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12 JOHNS HOPKINS ENGINEER FALL 2005

A New Gateway to InnovationThe Decker Quadrangle project will open the portal for a potential revolution in interdisciplinary engineering research—and welcome visitors to campus.

By Dave Beaudouin

The Homewood campus Big Dig has begun—three stories straight down, to be exact. Within the next two years or so, this massive development project under

way will reconfigure the entire physical approach to the campus while providing an extraordinary new facility for the Whiting School of Engineering.

When fully completed in 2007, the Alonzo G. and Virginia G. Decker Quadrangle and its associated buildings will fulfill the latest major development of the Homewood campus. Decker Quadrangle, south of Garland Hall, will complete a chain of four quadrangles that runs from north to south on campus. In brief, the major features of the big dig include:

• The new Decker Quadrangle, providing an open space for informal student recreation and University events;

• the Computational Sciences and Engineering (CSE) Building, an innovative 79,000-square-foot facility that will foster collabora-tive research among faculty in several departments of the Whiting School, the School of Medicine, and other divisions;

• a 28,000 square-foot Johns Hopkins University Visitor Center, serving as the formal “front door” and point of orientation to the University, welcoming prospective students, alumni, and visitors;

• a 604-vehicle underground parking garage, located under the Decker Quadrangle, offering three levels of parking with convenient access for visitors, students, staff, and faculty.

The Decker Quadrangle was so named in June by the Univer-sity’s Board of Trustees to honor the Deckers. Alonzo Decker Jr., who died in 2002, was the longtime chairman and CEO of Black & Decker Corp. He was a Johns Hopkins trustee and presidential counselor for more than 30 years. Virginia G. Decker served on the Advisory Council of the School of Professional Studies in Business and Education. The couple generously had given Johns Hopkins their home and property on Maryland’s Eastern Shore; proceeds from the sale are funding the construction of the Decker Quadrangle.

According to William R. Brody, president of Johns Hopkins, “The development of this important new quadrangle as the south-ern gateway to Homewood is a perfect opportunity for us to honor the Deckers and their commitment to Johns Hopkins. Just as Al and Virginia have helped advance the university on so many fronts, the Decker Quadrangle will help build our future in undergraduate education, interdisciplinary research, service to the community and our alumni community, and areas as yet uncharted.”

A Launch Pad: the CSE Building For Marc Donohue, associate dean for research at the Whiting School, the new Computational Sciences and Engineering Building (CSE) is a groundbreaking concept that’s long overdue.

“The Whiting School has grown significantly over the last 25 years from a faculty of 44 to more than 115, along with another 100 permanent research staff,” he says, “Overall, we’ve almost tripled in size in 25 years. But with only two new buildings constructed during that same period, our physical plant has not kept pace, resulting in our departments being dispersed.”

This two-story, state-of-the-art Computational Sciences facility will provide an immediate solution to the Whiting School’s space crunch—and much more. It is ideally sited on the east side of the new Decker Quadrangle, opposite Clark Hall, the School’s Biomedical Engineering building. The CSE Building, a $36-million research and training facility, also marks a clear departure from the tradition of committing buildings to a single discipline. It is

JOHNS HOPKINS ENGINEER FALL 2005 13

A New Gateway to Innovation

designed to accommodate several research centers that, while having different missions, share computational methodologies in their work. The anticipated result will be a highly dynamic, inter-disciplinary environment in which researchers from a variety of backgrounds, both within the Whiting School and from other Hopkins divisions as well as industry, can work together to solve problems of common interest.

Nicholas P. Jones, dean of the Whiting School, sees an enor-mous potential for innovative leadership through this new research paradigm. “The new Computational Sciences and Engineering Building offers an exciting opportunity to strengthen our commit-

Housing centers for research in robotics, computer-integrated surgery, and computational medicine, the two-story Computational Sciences and Engineering (CSE) Building (artist’s rendering above and architectural model at left) is being built across from Clark Hall on the Decker Quadrangle, now under construction.

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As Burger notes about the Visitor Center, “I’ve worked here 12 years, and I’m still trying to figure out just what is 3400 North Charles Street. I think the ability to direct people to a starting point to begin their exploration of the University is a wonderful opportu-nity that we will gain.”

Scheduled to open in 2007, the Visitor Center will serve a variety of needs—and audiences. While housing admissions and other administrative offices, the Visitor Center also will provide the initial point of contact and information for prospective students and visitors alike. It will include a library stocked with books by Hopkins authors, a gallery space that can be used for receptions, an auditorium for group sessions and lectures, and a boardroom for alumni functions. Rick M. Carr ’78, president of the Johns Hopkins Alumni Association’s Alumni Council, notes, “The new boardroom is an important feature for our alumni committees, which have not had a formal meeting place up to this point.” Carr, who is manag-ing director and executive search consultant for Wachovia’s Corporate and Investment Bank, says the Visitor Center is a sure bet to become popular. “For alumni, the Visitor Center will take on a special meaning as it provides additional services,” he notes.

A good deal of attention has been given to the design of the Visitor Center’s exhibit space and how best to introduce the University to students, Burger points out. “We want to take advan-tage of all aspects of the experience to reinforce the message about how we would like to be perceived,” she says. Planned exhibits will tell the Hopkins story not just for recruitment purposes, but with the broader intention of introducing the University to those who are interested in learning more.

The sitting area will offer a “living room” feel, complete with fireplace, comfortable decor, and contemporary photos of Hopkins students and campus scenes. Visitors will be able to watch videos about various aspects of the University. The sitting area reflects a conscious decision to make the Visitor Center feel more home-like, says Burger. “With the advantage of being a relatively small research university, we want to underscore for prospective students how personalized a Hopkins education can be.”

Where the Next Revolution BeginsWhen that big dig is done and Decker Quadrangle’s facilities open their doors, what will be revealed is a remarkable portal— for visitors, students, alumni, and faculty. As the Web site for the CSE Building predicts, “A decade from now, this building will be looked upon as the place where the next revolution in interdisci-plinary research began.”

See the progress at the construction site via a live video-feed and learn more about this new Whiting School facility at engineering.jhu.edu/~cse-building .

14 JOHNS HOPKINS ENGINEER FALL 2005

ment to multidisciplinary research and education, as well as our already-strong ties to medicine and the life sciences,” Jones notes.

As Donohue observes, the CSE Building “is a new vision, but it reflects a reality that already is happening in the Whiting School. Today, half of our research is being done in collaborative centers and institutes, as opposed to 10 percent several years ago. In just the last seven years, research funding at the Whiting School has doubled, primarily because of this growth of our collaborative research efforts.”

Louis L. Whitcomb, professor of Mechanical Engineering with a joint appointment in Computer Science, is clearly excited by the building’s new Interdisciplinary Robotics Laboratory. “It will be the physical embodiment of interdepartmental collaboration that’s been at the core of robotics research at Hopkins for 10 years,” he says. “As a result, we’ll be able to take on much larger ‘big engineering’ projects that we haven’t been able to consider before.”

As director of the new Institute for Computational Medicine (see page 6), Raimond L. Winslow is looking forward to his research group’s presence in the new facility. “Our mission is to bring to bear methods from mathematics, engineering, and com-puter science to better understand the cause and treatment of human disease,” he says, “so mathematics and computation are the very underpinnings of what our group will do in the building. I see the CSE Building serving as a launch pad for our Institute’s explo-ration and growth.” Winslow also is a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and associate director of the Whitaker Biomedical Engineering Institute in Clark Hall.

A Front Door: the Visitor Center

“The Homewood campus is such a beautiful place, but what has been missing for so many years is a formal introduction for visitors. The new quad and Visitor Center will create a welcoming atmo-sphere for newcomers as well as those who are returning,” noted Mark E. Rubenstein ’62, ’67 M.S.E., who majored in Mechanical Engineering. A Hopkins trustee, he chairs the trustees’ Committee on Buildings and Grounds and also is a member of the Whiting School’s National Advisory Council.

The naming of Decker Quadrangle honors the late Alonzo Decker Jr. and his wife, Virginia, whose commitment has advanced Johns Hopkins on many fronts.

“The new quad and Visitor Center will create a welcoming atmosphere for newcomers as well as those who are returning.”

—Mark E. Rubenstein ’62, ’67 M.S.E.,Hopkins trustee and member of the

Whiting School’s National Advisory Council

JOHNS HOPKINS ENGINEER FALL 2005 15

This artist’s rendering of the Decker Quadrangle project shows the lawn for recreation and events, the Computational Sciences and Engineering (CSE) Building on the right, the Visitor Center across from Garland Hall, and the entrance to the underground parking garage on the left. The CSE Building will connect with Barton Hall and features a walk-through to the Decker Quadrangle. The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company is managing the construc-tion. The architects are with the Boston firm of Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson and Abbott, assisted by Baltimore engineers James Posey Associates, RKK Engineers, and Morabito Consultants.

“The new quad and Visitor Center will create a welcoming atmosphere for newcomers as well as those who are returning.”

—Mark E. Rubenstein ’62, ’67 M.S.E.,Hopkins trustee and member of the

Whiting School’s National Advisory Council

BALTIMORE MUSEUM

OF ART

AND ENGINEERING

BUILDING

16 JOHNS HOPKINS ENGINEER FALL 2005

Charles Commons: Welcome to College TownBy Donna Shoemaker

By next fall, the two-building Charles Commons, now under construction for the Homewood campus, will be providing campus housing to 30 percent more under-

graduates at the Johns Hopkins University.They’ll be sipping lattes in the Barnes & Noble bookstore, two

stories tall and three times as large as the one it replaces in Gilman Hall. They’ll be dining with great views of Charles Village. They’ll be trying to decide whether to pump iron, shoot pool, challenge friends to computer games, practice music, do laundry, cook for a group, or even study—all in special rooms. Student groups—from clubs and fraternities to cultural and volunteer groups—will be conferring in comfy lounges.

Charles Commons will house 615 undergraduates, extending the opportunity for on-campus housing—a safer option—past the sophomore year. Each suite will have a kitchenette. The four-bed-room suites and some of the two-bedroom ones will have a living room. No more than two students will need to share a bathroom. Nonresidential students, as well as faculty, will have full access to the dining and social spaces. In fact, there will be a “faculty-in-residence” apartment, and faculty are encouraged to join in the many opportunities for informal exchanges.

Thanks to Charles Commons, visitors who come to campus for

residential conferences will have much better facilities. Plus, the project will offer 28,000 square feet of retail space and a branch of the Johns Hopkins Federal Credit Union. A walkway/bridge over Lovegrove Street will link its 12-story Charles Street building to its 10-story St. Paul Street building.

The common thread behind Charles Commons and other recent campus additions is stretching the fabric of student life beyond the classroom where it begins. The Ralph S. O’Connor Recreation Center quickly became the place to stay fit. The Mattin Center encouraged students to express their artistic sides. Hodson Hall elegantly incorporated interactive technology into teaching. Create the right spaces, and a community grows stronger.

Located at the corner of North Charles and 33rd streets, Charles Commons will become the entryway to a college town within Charles Village. The project’s general contractor, Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse, is known for transforming urban neighborhoods. In a separate project, the firm is redeveloping both sides of the 3200 block of St. Paul Street. This non-Hopkins project, Village Commons, will feature ground-floor retail and restaurant space, 170 condominiums, and 500 parking spaces. It also comes with the cachet of NBA superstar Earvin “Magic” Johnson, who has invested in Village Commons and took part in its September groundbreaking.

If you love to peer through construction fences, the Homewood campus is the place to be. Stop by and watch the transformation take shape at the Decker Quadrangle big dig and the Charles Commons site.

Track the progress of Charles Commons at webapps.jhu.edu/fm /webcams/CCwebcam.html .

With the completion of the Charles Commons project, more student housing, a big Barnes & Noble bookstore, and plenty of retail space will create an inviting entrance to Charles Village. Of the project’s $62-million cost, Hopkins seeks to raise $10 million in private support.

“I never thought it could happen.”

“As a Baltimore native, I’d watch students cross Charles Street to the Homewood campus and wish I could be one of them. I never thought it could happen. But thanks to the Baxley Scholarship Fund, I now study Biomedical Engineering at the field’s top institution. As an upperclass leader in the Design Team course, I worked with students to design a marketable product. As president of the Hopkins’ College Democrats, I attempted to make students more politically aware. As social chair of my sorority, I maintained a healthy, enjoyable balance in my collegiate life. Through these activities, plus rigorous coursework, I came to understand how powerful a Hopkins Engineering education could be. I could never thank the donors enough for this incredible opportunity: to be crossing Charles Street on my way to class at Johns Hopkins.”

—Christine Krueger, senior Biomedical Engineering major

The William Brown Baxley Scholarship Fund aids deserving undergradu-ate, graduate, or part-time students from Maryland with financial need who are degree candidates in Engineering or science at The Johns Hopkins University. The fund was established in 1959 by C. Herbert Baxley ’19 in memory of his brother, W. Brown Baxley ’17, who lost his life while serving in France during World War I. The fund is also supported by Alice B. and Charles Anthony Jr., daughter and son-in-law of Herbert Baxley, and their family.

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Better Way to BiopsyGabor Fichtinger’s robot-assisted device offers a less-invasive way to detect and treat prostate disease.

By Dave Beaudouin

Using a simple robotic arm tipped with a needle, Gabor Fichtinger and his research team are hunting a killer that accounts for nearly 31,000 deaths a year in the

United States. The disease is prostate cancer, the country’s third leading cause of mortality among men.

Currently, early detection of this cancer involves a manual clinical procedure called a transrectal ultrasound (TRUS) guided needle biopsy. However, the male prostate gland, about the size of a walnut, has a delicate suspension system that can easily be damaged if a biopsy needle exerts too much squeezing or pushing, Fichtinger explains.

Despite its wide use, TRUS-guided biopsy has been shown to miss the presence of cancer in approximately 25 percent of cases. Given that approximately 65 million prostate biopsies are per-formed annually in the United States, revealing around 220,000 new cases a year, this 25 percent rate of failure is unacceptable to Fichtinger.

A Johns Hopkins University associate research professor, Fichtinger has joint appointments in the Whiting School of Engineering departments of Computer Science and Mechanical Engineering, and in Radiology at the School of Medicine. He also is the director of engineering at Hopkins’ Engineering Research Center for Computer-Integrated Surgical Systems and Technologies (ERC CISST), where he leads a team researching computer-assisted systems for inserting thin delivery devices though the skin to target locations.

“Using TRUS, if we are dealing with a cancer that’s the size of a sugar cube, there’s no guarantee that we can see it,” Fichtinger says. “And even if we can see it, the deformation and dislocation caused by using a handheld device gives us no assurance that we will hit the prostate accurately.”

A Sharper Focus for Diagnosis

Fichtinger earned his PhD in computer science in his native Hungary, at the University of Budapest. Drawing from his early background in computer graphics and biomedical visualization sys-tems, as well as his engineering expertise, Fichtinger began devising an alternative to TRUS after arriving at Hopkins. His goal was to have a sharper eye—and a steadier hand—to make prostate disease diagnosis and research more effective. Robotic assistance could pro-vide more precise and predictable movement and needle place-ment. But Fichtinger also wanted the system to provide enhanced imaging to enable a higher rate of disease detection. To do so, he needed a robotic device that could operate inside of a conventional closed MRI scanner.

The challenge of working with an MRI scanner was threefold, according to Fichtinger. First, such scanners do not allow access to the patient during imaging. That meant his device had to work within the extremely cramped space of the MRI’s core, where con-ventional medical robots and mechanical linkages cannot. Second, due to the MRI’s magnetic field, which is 300,000 times more intense than that of Earth, any ferromagnetic materials or electronic devices could heat up and become hazardous to the patient. And third, a real-time in-scanner guidance method was needed to oper-ate the device. “Therefore, our primary objective was to develop a prostate biopsy system that coupled superior imaging quality with accurate delivery hardware, inside a conventional MRI scanner,” says Fichtinger.

“This is a robot that doesn’t even

work like a robot, but still does a

procedure that nobody had been

able to do before.” —Gabor Fichtinger

During a six-week summer program for pre-college students, Gabor Fichtinger teaches the techniques used in computer-integrated surgery. These students taking part in Johns Hopkins’ Advanced Academic Programs are in the cadaver lab at the School of Medicine.

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Sophisticated Solution, Made Simple

Just two years after its conception, the prototype was ready. The In-MRI Prostate Robot is elegant in its simplicity yet remarkably sophisticated in its design. “That’s the beauty of it,” Fichtinger says with a laugh. “This is a robot that doesn’t even work like a robot, but still does a procedure that nobody had been able to do before. Although a lot of thinking went into its development, it is as simple as it needs to be to do the job.” Using actuation cables, the physician or technician controls the robot. Once its extendable arm is inserted rectally into the patient, the robot uses real-time MRI-based position sensors to calculate precisely the sequence of movements needed to bring its needle to an intended target point. The robot’s general-purpose needle delivery system not only can do biopsies but can also deliver capsules. These capsules could place markers to help target subsequent therapies, or deliver a genetically engineered virus or a radiation therapy seed.

The MRI scanner can con-stantly collect high-fidelity images and sends them immediately to the robot’s treatment monitoring com-puter. The resulting 3D repre-sentation of the device is superimposed on the anatom-ic images. This enables the physician to monitor and adjust the motion of the device toward its target.

Beyond its diagnostic and therapeutic uses, the new robot offers a significant application as a research vehicle, Fichtinger says. “We now can do long-term follow-ups with patients to take measurements, or do

biopsies to track any pathological changes. With an MRI, there are also endless possibilities for functional imaging,” he notes. “We can look at a number of indicators related to the prostate that we would have no way to see in ultrasound.”

Rapid Development with the Right Team

Spurred by a grant from the National Institutes of Health, the now-patented In-MRI Prostate Robot moved from concept to human trials in a remarkably short period—just 24 months. Fichtinger credits this rapid development to one critical factor. “This project could not have been done without the collaboration of other specialists in a wide range of disciplines,” he says. Among the principal contributors he cites Louis L. Whitcomb, professor of Mechanical Engineering; Ergin Atalar, professor of Radiology and of Biomedical Engineering; Axel Krieger, a PhD candidate in Mechanical Engineering; and Robert C. Susil ’97, an MD/PhD student in Biomedical Engineering. “It’s defi-nitely been a team accomplishment,” says Fichtinger.

To learn more about the ERC CISST, visit engineering.jhu.edu/~erc-cisst and to learn more about Gabor Fichtinger’s other projects, visit www.cisst.org/~gabor .

“This is a robot that doesn’t even

work like a robot, but still does a

procedure that nobody had been

able to do before.” —Gabor Fichtinger

“It was really an amazing, precise procedure...”—Bob Siblo

Bob Siblo never expected to encounter

a robot. Then again, he never expected

to have cancer. But when a screening

test in 2004 showed that he had high

levels of PSA (prostate specific antigen),

indicating the likelihood of prostate

cancer, Siblo began looking at treat-

ment options. At the National Institutes

of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, he

decided to become a test subject for

a novel procedure, one that employed

MRI scanning and targeted radiation

therapy using the Johns Hopkins In-MRI Prostate Robot.

“My entire treatment process only lasted from March to July,”

recalls Siblo. “It was really an amazing, precise procedure that made

me feel very comfortable. I never felt any discomfort or side effects.”

Since his treatment, Siblo, who lives in Annandale, Virginia, has

nothing but good news to report. “In just one year, my PSA levels

have gone from 9.1 down to 2.1,” he says. “So everything at this point

seems to be fine.”

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The In-MRI Prostate Robot can conduct a needle biopsy and deliver biodegrad-able capsules with maximum accuracy and minimal invasiveness. The primary design is by Axel Krieger, a PhD student in Mechanical Engineering.

From the Lab to the Patient

LAB NOTES

20 JOHNS HOPKINS ENGINEER FALL 2005

What Are the Chances......that a new composite building material will crumble? For Lori Graham-Brady, the answer involves building ways to define and test the risks in structural systems.

By Dave Beaudouin

We may look at a building and perceive solid slabs of concrete, but Lori Graham-Brady is seeing some-thing else. She’s weighing the possibility of it crack-

ing and failing. Just how many of our modern buildings pos-sess this element of risk? According to the associate professor in the Whiting School’s Department of Civil Engineering, all of them do, though most thankfully in very small degrees.

“Everybody knows that risk is there when you build a build-ing,” says Graham-Brady, “no matter how remote that risk is. There is no structure where there’s a 100 percent certainty of it never failing.” However, a greater problem, she warns, is the current climate regarding risk assessment. “If you ask somebody what an acceptable level of risk is, the answer is invariably zero,” she notes. “This is particularly true when a project is initiated by legislators who are very risk-adverse. This situation has been a real hindrance for civil engineers who want to measure risk more accurately in terms of the materials they use to build.”

Probability as a Tool

Graham-Brady began her professional career as a nuclear engineer-ing consultant analyzing pressure vessels in power plants. She then earned a civil engineering PhD at Princeton University (1996), taking her interest in structural engineering and mechanics into a new direction: probabilistic mechanics, a discipline employing the use of probability to model the behavior of building materials for their structural reliability. Using computer models, an engineer can

project the viability of a certain structural material, such as a steel I-beam, to withstand such variables as weight over time.

“Probability is a conceptual tool that tells us about how unknown and uncertain quantities can vary,” according to Graham-Brady. “Knowing that there’s uncertainty around our predictions, we assign a likelihood to different values around that prediction.”

In applying probability to structural engineering, a question might arise, for example, how likely is it that a certain type of steel is 10 percent weaker than the average? How can an engineer be certain if this is true? “The grade of steel that I’m using may have an assigned strength, but in reality that’s just an average value,” Graham-Brady explains. “If there’s some possibility of a flaw due to fabrication or human errors, that value could vary significantly. Probability theory simply is a way of assigning likelihoods to build-ing weaker or building stronger.”

Civil engineers have long known that certain building materials, like metals, are more stable and thus more predictable. Other mate-rials, concrete in particular, possess what Graham-Brady calls “sig-nificant random aspects.” Concrete has a wide range of variables contributing to its composition, from its mix of different aggregates (gravel materials) to the length of its curing time. As a result, she says, “The response in traditional engineering is to make the concrete-based structure a certain amount stronger than it has to be —or to assume an extra degree of loading, so we’re sure to cover any loads that we didn’t predict.”

Modeling Microstructural Stress

While such rules of thumb can apply with conventional materials, new composite building materials can prove challenging to use, even if they offer such obvious benefits as ease of use or lower cost. “Engineers are uncertain about them, because they haven’t built with them the way they’ve built with concrete,” says Graham-Brady. “They don’t know how variable these materials are, and then how to design structures using them.”

These images modeling graded materials were created by Lori Graham-Brady’s PhD students, who are using translation processes to computationally simulate microstructures in order to study their properties.

JOHNS HOPKINS ENGINEER FALL 2005 21

Graham-Brady’s current research focuses on providing a means to better understand the uncertainties of these newer random composite materials. Using computer models, her lab team is study-ing their microstructural properties by applying a load and then analyzing the resulting pattern of local stresses.

Through such modeling, Graham-Brady eventually hopes to develop a software application that is useful in answering structural reliability questions in the design of more complex structural sys-tems—from bridges to automobiles. “We want to create a product that solves real engineering problems involved with structural

The Day the Rows of Rivets Upzipped On April 28, 1988, at 24,000 feet above Earth, a large section of the upper fuselage of an aging 737 operated by Aloha Airlines peeled away in mid-flight. This classic example of fatigue cracking, notes Lori Graham-Brady, associate professor of Civil Engineering in the Whiting School, clearly showed the potential threat of small cracks that are difficult to detect in visual inspection. “This is a good example of how small-scale uncertainties (in this case flaws) can lead to large-scale catastrophic failure,” she says. While the pilot somehow landed the plane safely, a flight attendant lost her life as a result of the explosive decompression. Noted Air Safety Week (November 12, 2001), “That industry-changing accident set in motion a comprehensive effort of inspections and, where necessary, repairs, to assure the structural integrity of pressurized fuselages.”

“There is no structure where there’s a 100 percent certainty of it never failing.” —Lori Graham-Brady

behavior,” she says, as well as “any issue where they’re concerned about strength and the integrity of the materials used in enforcing that strength.”

While the current constraints of computer processing make such modeling difficult, Graham-Brady is confident that she will achieve her goal—and the value it provides. “Basically what I’m working on is risk management—assessing the risk of materials that may behave more poorly than expected, thus causing a negative impact within a structural system,” she says. “The insurance indus-try, for one, is very interested in this kind of issue from an under-writing standpoint. The outcome of this research will help define the probabilities that can cause structural systems to fail. We want to take that understanding of risk and do something good with it.”

To learn more about Lori Graham-Brady’s teaching and research, visit www.ce.jhu.edu/lori.

In June, Graham-Brady traveled to Rome to accept the Junior Research Prize from the International Association for Structural Safety and Reliability. The award recognized her outstanding work in micro-mechanical materials modeling.

Navigating via computer-based mathematical models, Pablo A. Iglesias aims to understand—and regulate—how cells move and divide.

By Dave Beaudouin

Call him a control freak, but Pablo A. Iglesias covers more ground than you can imagine in his efforts to direct the movement of cells. Iglesias is steering his

considerable knowledge of control engineering down a new path in cell biology that could well lead to extraordinary discoveries.

A professor in the Whiting School’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Iglesias has joint appointments in the departments of Biomedical Engineering and Applied Mathematics and Statistics. That’s a testament to his own flexibility in pursuing a path. The Venezuelan native earned his doctorate in control engi-neering at Cambridge University in 1991.

Control engineering is the study of automatic regulating sys-tems, which often take the form of small devices silently managing mechanisms and household appliances. From thermostats to cruise controls, these control systems perform surprisingly sophisticated and dynamic tasks. But they’re nothing new. To make that point, Iglesias turns the clock back to 1903 and the Wright Brothers. “In fact, their greatest contribution to flight wasn’t the aircraft itself,” he notes, “but the control system that allowed them to fly the craft, which is control engineering.”

Today’s control engineers employ not bike chains and canvas but computer-based mathematical modeling systems in order to test-drive controllers in theory before they are actually engineered. Employing the principles of control theory, the control engineer studies and adjusts a mathematical model to create a predictable set of variable responses within a dynamic system.

Pedaling on the Biological Signaling Pathways

For Iglesias and his team at the Cellular Signaling and Control Laboratory, the challenge is applying this discipline to the study of biological signaling pathways, the amazingly complex regulatory system within the human body. “At the simplest level, it’s everything that happens inside a single cell that regulates its well-being,” says Iglesias. From body temperature to cholesterol counts, “No matter the scale, all of the body’s processes are very tightly regulated along much the same lines as apply to control engineering.”

First fascinated by this parallel seven years ago, Iglesias now focuses on two aspects of biological signaling pathways at the cellu-lar level. The first investigation in his laboratory involves the study of chemotaxis, the movement of single cells, or even larger multicel-lular organisms, in response to the introduction of certain chemicals

into their environment. For example, human white blood cells will pursue and destroy invasive bacteria, but only because a bacterium secretes a particular chemical detected by certain sensors on the cell.

In particular, Iglesias seeks to understand a human cell’s bio-chemical “guidance system” in terms of how it regulates chemotaxis. “Right now, we’re specifically investigating the possibility of feed-back loops,” he says. “We have a mathematical model that shows that some of a cell’s observed behavior can be explained by these feedback loops, which measure an outside chemical concentration, produce a response, and then feed it back to the cell’s sensors.” The next step in this study, says Iglesias, will be to move from modeling a cell’s guidance mechanism to developing models of how the cell’s actual locomotion takes place.

Inside a Cellular Split

In a second study, Iglesias and his team are investigating the control dynamics of cell division—and the steps that must occur for a cell to divide successfully. Following division, the resulting two daughter cells must each contain an equal half of the chromosomes from the original cell. However, if these genetic materials are not distributed equally, a condition called aneuploidy occurs. Iglesias notes that aneuploidy is one of the leading causes of genetic disease and cancer.

To gain a greater insight into the control mechanisms governing

HIGH PERFORMERS

22 JOHNS HOPKINS ENGINEER FALL 2005

In the Driver’s Seat of a Single Cell

By creating computer models, Pablo A. Iglesias studies the control dynamics of Dictyostelium, a single-celled organism whose move-ments are similar to the human white blood cell. The illustration shows the theoretical prediction (top) and experimental result of simultaneous stimulation of the cells.

simulation simulation

experiment experiment

successful cell division, Iglesias and his colleagues are creating models to analyze cytokinesis, the final step in cellular division, where the two new daughter cells actually separate. To test for the presence of a feedback loop in the cell during this process, Iglesias collaborates with researchers at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine’s Department of Cell Biology. Together they are developing an apparatus to be used during cell division—a dual micropipette aspirator that can apply pressure to cells through a microneedle less than five microns wide. “When a cell is dividing, we will actually apply some force to it that works against its division,” says Iglesias. “What we think is going to happen is that the cell will then push harder to divide itself. Just like a thermostat that works harder when a window is left open, the cell’s feedback mechanism will kick in to correct the discrepancy.”

Down the Road: Controlling Disease

All of this research, while purely theoretical, has the potential for providing substantial results. For example, malignant tumors in the human body spread through chemotaxis, as do certain other diseases.

Short-circuiting the process of how these chemical cues work could effectively halt the progress of such diseases. And, as Iglesias points out, studying cell division shines the light on promising develop-ments in fighting cancer. “A number of the cancer treatments currently being tried are attempting to disrupt cell division in cancer cells,” he says. “So understanding the control system of cell division actually may lead to some treatment.”

The approach Iglesias takes has earned high praise from his col-leagues. “The work he is doing is simply fantastic,” says Gerard G. Meyer, professor and chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “The promise of his research is enormous, in terms of understand-ing those biological control mechanisms that govern the onset of disease—and its possible prevention.”

Typically, Iglesias’s response is modest. “I’m often asked why I look at cell biology problems if I’m in electrical engineering,” he says smiling. “My answer is that I find it interesting. The knowledge that I have in systems theory traditionally has not been used in biology. So there are a lot of open problems where I think I can make a contribution.”

For more on Pablo A. Iglesias’s laboratory, visit www.ece.jhu.edu .

“No matter the scale, all the body’s pro-cesses are very tightly regulated along much the same lines as apply to control engineering,” notes Iglesias. Liu Yang, a PhD student in Electrical and Computer Engineering, works with Iglesias.

24 JOHNS HOPKINS ENGINEER FALL 2005

HIGH PERFORMERS

Node by node in networks, mathematician Edward R. Scheinerman models the motion along direct routes.

By Bob Gray

The Internet...interstate highways...interpersonal rela-tions...e-mails...cell phones...cellular growth...Google. Welcome to a world composed entirely of networks.

Edward R. Scheinerman thinks that’s just fine. A profes-sor of mathematics in the Whiting School of Engineering’s Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics, Scheinerman loves to model and analyze networks—and he uses advanced mathematics to do just that across many engineering disciplines.

“Networks are everywhere,” Scheinerman explains, “from looking inside of a cell at how genes interact to finding your way from Baltimore to Colorado. My field is discrete mathe-matics, especially graph theory, partially ordered sets, random graphs, and combinatorics, with applications to robotics and networks. The explosion of networks in the world has also led to an explosion in discrete mathematics.

“MapQuest is a perfect example,” Scheinerman observes. “You want to get from point A to point B.” Instead of simply seeking the shortest distance, however, “you have to follow a network. When you come to a stoplight, you have to make a decision. There is no, ‘Well, maybe I’ll take a half left,’ because there is no road there.”

This fall, Scheinerman returned to campus after a year’s sabbati-cal, during which he completed the second edition of his popular textbook, Mathematics, a Discrete Introduction (now available from Brooks Cole). He also conducted applied mathematics research; began “and mostly completed,” he says, a new book on computer programming for mathematicians; and was a visitor at the Center for Computing Sciences in Bowie, Maryland.

The mathematician has served the Whiting School as chair of his department and recently as interim associate dean for academic affairs. He received his master’s (1981) and PhD (1984) degrees in mathematics from Princeton University, where he was first intro-duced to the charms of discrete mathematics and graph theory.

In his textbooks, Scheinerman provides a better understanding of discrete mathematics, graph theory, and ways that networks can explain human interaction systems. The first edition of his Mathematics: A Discrete Introduction was published in 2000. Invitation to Dynamical Systems (Prentice Hall) was released in 1996.

“When I started at Hopkins in the mid-’80s,” Scheinerman recalls, “there was no introductory-level course in discrete mathe-matics, and I thought it was important that there be one.” Much to his surprise, then-department chair Robert J. Serfling suggested he develop one. Out of this experience, Scheinerman produced Mathematics, A Discrete Introduction. “That’s one of the reasons I love

Hopkins,” he continues. “It has afforded me the opportunity to make changes, to have some influence, to make a difference.”

Another area where the mathematician is making a difference is in helping computer science more directly address the needs of mathematicians. In fact, the book Scheinerman has almost completed seeks to raise the profile of the programming language C++ among this group. “There has long been a great need” for such a resource, he notes. “C++ is widely used in the computer engineer-ing world, but it has not been widely embraced by the mathematics community.”

The mathematical problems that Scheinerman tackles are not merely abstract. “Some of my papers would perhaps be of interest

To get from I-495 to I-695, from blood cell to brain cell, from e-mail to server, the pathway is a network. In our digital era, the specific applications for discrete mathematics provide Edward R. Scheinerman with many routes for research.

The Proof of Truth in Numbers

JOHNS HOPKINS ENGINEER FALL 2005 25

only to mathematicians,” he says. “Others deal directly with specific application areas, such as robotics.” What does tie them all together is that they all draw on the relatively new field of mathematics known as “discrete.”

What Makes This Math “Discrete”?

“Most people study continuous mathematics,” Scheinerman explains. “Calculus, the study of things in motion, is one of the crowning achievements of continuous mathematics.” Calculus developed to answer such questions as, “How does the Moon move around the Earth, and why?” For this reason, he says, “for a very long time, there was no clear distinction between mathematics and physics. To ask whether Newton was a mathematician or a physicist would not have made any sense. In his time, the two things were intermixed.”

Fast-forward to the 20th century, and a world of finite (as opposed to continuous) mathematical problems. “We have invented everything from computers to MapQuest, and Google to the Rubik’s Cube. Not one of these is readily analyzed by continuous mathe-matics,” Scheinerman says. “Likewise with computers, everything is digital. In discrete mathematics, you’re either A or B. You are not something muddled in between.”

Much of mathematics is application-driven, and the need for a mathematics that can deal effectively with motion through networks—as opposed to smooth and continuous motion—has grown up with the computer era. Using discrete mathematics to model and understand networks finds applications in many fields. “One of my colleagues at Hopkins, Carey Priebe [professor of Applied Mathematics and Statistics], analyzed the e-mail communi-cations of Enron employees to better understand how the social networks differed from corporate networks,” Scheinerman explains. “Nothing happens in engineering these days that doesn’t have a mathematics connection.”

No network, it seems, can escape the discrete mathematician’s ability to capture it in a graph that can be studied to better under-stand the connections between individuals—human or otherwise.

“Graph” is really somewhat a misnomer, the mathematician says, because the graphs he makes bear little resemblance to a typi-cal pie or bar chart. Scheinerman’s graphs model discrete connec-tions between entities, or nodes. Depending on the network one hopes to graph, there can be hundreds—or thousands—of direct connections between various nodes. Consider for example, the e-mail communication paths within an organization, or the connec-tions represented by the growth and changes inside of a cell. The graphs reveal patterns, and Scheinerman tests theorems against these patterns, looking for mathematical proofs that can be used to discover the “truths” lying hidden in the complex interconnections.

We have a Johns Hopkins mathematician to thank for this specific use of the word “graph.” J. J. Sylvester, the legendary 19th-century British-born mathematician, coined the term “graph” for the kind of representation used by Scheinerman. (Perhaps contributing to Sylvester’s legendary status is the fact that in 1877, as a condition for accepting the position as the University’s first mathematics professor, he stipulated that his annual salary of $5,000 be paid in gold.)

Indeed, language and logic are exceedingly important to mathe-matics. As the chapter titles in Mathematics: A Discrete Introduction attest, mathematics seems more closely connected with philosophy than science, with which mathematics is often linked. Such chapter titles as “Why?” “The Nature of Truth,” and “If-then,” would sound right at home on a shelf next to Kierkegaard, Bonhoeffer, and Kant.

“The whole idea of ‘definition, theorem, proof’ is key,” Scheinerman explains. “This is universal to all of mathematics, to a mathematical way of knowing.” As it turns out, this is the exact opposite of the scientific method of discovering truth, which is to prove by empiricism. In science, “when you make a statement that has a one-in-a-million exception, no one is going to criticize you,” he says, “especially in a biological or social science.”

In mathematics, however, “truth means 100 percent. When we say a theorem is true, it is true without exceptions. Period. You can-not achieve that by empirical methods,” Scheinerman says with the certainty of a man who speaks mathematical truth. In all probability, he can produce a graph to prove it.

To learn more about Edward R. Scheinerman, visit www.mts.jhu.edu/~ers . To see a graph of how the Applied Mathematics and Statistics faculty members are networked in their research, visit www.ams.jhu.edu/ams/research/general.html .

“In discrete mathematics,you’re either A or B. You are not something muddled in between.” —Edward R. Scheinerman

26 JOHNS HOPKINS ENGINEER FALL 2005

the wider world

Circuit CompletedThe prototype fund in the Faculty Scholar Program embeds two goals of its creator, Vinod K. Agarwal ’77 PhD: to honor his mentor and to recognize the contributions of a junior faculty member in the Whiting School.

By Donna Shoemaker

One year shy of completing his electrical engineering doctorate at the University of Pittsburgh, Vinod K. Agarwal faced a difficult choice in 1975: whether or

not to follow his mentor, Gerald M. “Gerry” Masson, who was leaving Pitt for the Johns Hopkins University. Changing pro-grams at that point meant Agarwal would lose valuable time.

He decided to come to Baltimore with Masson. Ever since, from graduate student to academic researcher to global entrepreneur, Agarwal has more than caught up. After earning his PhD in 1977 at the Whiting School of Engineering, Agarwal has stayed in touch with Masson, the mentor who became a friend. Masson for many years chaired the Department of Computer Science at the Whiting School of Engineering, and now directs the Johns Hopkins University Information Security Institute.

The research that Agarwal began with Masson in semiconductor testing launched a lifelong dream and led to Agarwal’s founding of LogicVision, Inc. in 1992. Based in San José, California, LogicVision was the first and is still the largest commercial provider of embed-ded test technology, from initial design debug all through the life of a computer chip.

The dream Agarwal has lived, he notes, is the idea that from a cell phone to a satellite that isn’t working right, “you extend the concept so that everything becomes self-testing. The idea of self-testing will become so essential to future designs in the multi-trillion industry of electronics worldwide.”

As a young man studying electronics at India’s Birla Institute of Technology and Science in Pilani, Agarwal was fascinated with how innovation changed people’s lives. After coming to America to study at Pitt, he became the first graduate student Masson super-vised when Masson himself was a newly minted PhD.

Thinking about Masson, Agarwal says he realizes that one rea-son “why there is such a strong feeling of gratitude is that like most of us who come from foreign countries,” he found that a mentor could become an invaluable ally. Masson “taught me everything, including my English,” Agarwal recalls. “He’s just one of those amazing individuals, generous, with very little selfish motives.”

After earning his doctorate, Agarwal taught briefly at Wayne State University. Then as a researcher at McGill University in

Agarwal honored his mentor in establishing the Masson-Agarwal Faculty Scholar in the Whiting School of Engineering. Agarwal’s son, Atin (right), a senior at the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, has had a chance to meet his father’s mentor, Gerald M. “Gerry” Masson (left).

“Professors do a lot for us, and if we can recognize that, to me that’s an extremely positive step.” — Vinod K. Agarwal ’77 PhD

Following 16 years as an academic researcher in Montreal, Vinod K. Agarwal ’77 PhD went on to become the found-er of LogicVision, Inc.

The first Masson-Agarwal Faculty Scholar is Kostos Konstantopoulos, assistant professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.

JOHNS HOPKINS ENGINEER FALL 2005 27

Montreal, he was appointed as the Nortel/NSERC Industrial Research Chair Professor, an endowed position created for him. He published 100 technical papers and also consulted for major companies. Agarwal’s research would “put McGill on the global map as the top university for excellence in research and teaching in semiconductor testing,” according to siliconindia, which presented Agarwal with its leadership award for entrepreneurship in 2002. The tribute came a year after LogicVision went public, the first to do so in the unstable post-9/11 environment.

Without the endowment created to support his position at McGill, Agarwal observes, “I would have moved out,” lured by another university. “It’s a challenge for any academic environment with highly talented individuals,” he explains. “Everyone wants them. It’s a challenge to keep them continuously attracted to the institution, and the best way to do that is to keep offering them the environment that allows them to do the best they can, to make resources available, to recognize them for what they’re doing.”

To meet that challenge, and to provide junior faculty members with discretionary funds to invest in research, the Whiting School in June announced a new initiative, the Faculty Scholars Program, similar in purpose and structure to a professorship. Funded through private support, Faculty Scholars will be selected based on their research achievements and potential. The program will extend an incentive to stay even before tenure is granted.

Agarwal has given a gift to the Whiting School to honor his mentor. The gift establishes the first Faculty Scholar fund, the Masson-Agarwal Faculty Scholar. Agarwal encourages others to consider investing in a Faculty Scholar as a way to help junior faculty members “see Hopkins as a place to mature and grow their capabilities.” He adds, “Professors do a lot for us, and if we can recognize that, to me that’s an extremely positive step.”

Kostos Konstantopoulos has been named as the inaugural Masson-Agarwal Faculty Scholar. Konstantopoulos is assistant professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. His research seeks to develop molecular-targeted therapies to combat cancer metastasis, thrombosis, and inflammation/infection.

Agarwal hasn’t yet had a chance to meet Konstantopoulos, but says “I’ve heard great things about him from everybody,” including from his son, Atin. A senior Economics and Political Science major, Atin is president of the Student Council at the Homewood campus. Agarwal and his wife, Sujata, have two daughters as well.

Currently, Agarwal serves as executive chairman and chief strat-egist of LogicVision, a company that has been “global from day one,” he emphasizes. The entrepreneur’s travels take him to Europe, India, China, Korea, and Japan. “I believe in working together across cultures,” he notes. LogicVision’s success, he affirms, offers a symbol for America that “as long as you are able to create innova-tion, you can still stay in competition with the world.”

With the fruits of his successful career in finance and banking, George Elder ’51 has a history of making wise investments. He is continuing that tradition by investing in the Whiting School, while receiving benefits in return.

By Billie Walker

George Elder ’51 likes to say his career was “checkered.” Certainly it was somewhat unorthodox, and undoubt-edly it was successful. He was not one to squeeze into

a mold just because somebody else thought he should.Take, for instance, what his family had in mind. After he gradu-

ated from the Brunswick School in Connecticut, his family sent him to Williams College in Massachusetts, presumably to study science. With the Glee Club, he sang at all the area girls’ schools, but hit a sour note in academics. “I failed miserably,” he admits, and his family brought him home.

The next year, they tried another school for George (and please, call him George, he says). With his typical dry wit, George relates, “My family neglected to research the fact that Syracuse was coed.” He was very popular there, sang in the coed chorus, and loved to

“It just Makes Sense”

Collector of rocks and rare books. Student of civil engi-neering and physics. Retired vice president with Bank of America. Not to mention those choral talents. George Elder ’51 has applied his skills along many paths.

28 JOHNS HOPKINS ENGINEER FALL 2005

play the Hawaiian War Chant on the university’s chimes.George did well enough academically at Syracuse, but his folks

perhaps sensed he was having too much fun. Next they enrolled him in Columbia University’s summer chemistry lab, which he had to take before beginning classes there in the fall. However, his commute from Connecticut required train, trolley, and footwork. “On top of that, the class was hot, un-air-conditioned, and a drag,” he says, “so I enlisted.”

The military sent George to several schools as well. He ended up in the new Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP), geared to arming soldiers with a degree before deploying them. ASTP sent him to City College of New York to study civil engineering. When the Allies needed more infantry overseas, George, along with many others, was plucked from ASTP. Following basic training at Fort Carson, Colorado, he served in northern France, Belgium, Holland, and Germany as a rifleman with the 104th Infantry. Later, he taught in the Officer Candidate School at Fontainebleau until V-E Day.

Discharged in 1946, George joined his wife on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, where her father owned a farm. Each day before

sunup and sundown, George milked the cows. He was finally able to complete a degree: At Washington College in Chestertown, he earned a bachelor’s in physics in 1948.

By this time, George had taken classes at no fewer than 10 institutions of higher learning. There was one more to come. He enrolled at the Johns Hopkins University in 1948 and three years later received his second bachelor’s degree, this one in Civil Engineering. Living off-campus with his wife, and supported mainly by the G.I. Bill, George had little time for campus activities, although he did assist in putting out the Vector, an Engineering newsletter.

After graduation, George took a job at the State Highway Commission, where he had worked during the summers. “I advanced there as far as I could, politically,” he recalls, “and then went to a water company in suburban Wilmington, Delaware.” What kind of work was this Hopkins engineer doing? Finance and investments. “It was somewhat unusual for a civil engineer to be involved in the financial side,” George admits. “But I found that a technical background is valuable in anything that you do.”

George came back to Baltimore, where he was with the Bank of America and its predecessors through 30 years of mergers and acquisitions. He retired as vice president in 1994, at age 74. Today, George lives near the Homewood campus with his wife, Hazel, a nurse and a descendant of Francis Scott Key.

While George grew up with a mind of his own, he eagerly learned from everyone around him. “I was interested in everything,” he relates, “and I enjoyed a range of constructive influences.” George’s stepfather (a physician) and his mother pursued antiques. As a teenager, George went along on many of their hunts and began to collect old and rare books, purchasing nothing published later than 1850. An uncle had started him on a rock and mineral collec-tion around age 11, and after the war, he became interested in cutting and polishing the stones, as well as enlarging his collection.

A loyal friend to the Whiting School, George has been an annual donor for three decades. In 1993, he created a charitable gift annuity, which he has added to four times. He also has generously included the Whiting School, as well as Washington College, in his Will.

Asked about his philanthropy, George says, “It just makes sense. During my 30 years at the bank, I had lots of stock options and I took advantage of them. So I ended up with a good deal of stock worth far more than its original cost,” he explains. “By using this stock to create and increase the gift annuity, I avoided substantial capital gains tax. Also, the annuity provides me regular income at a favorable rate, and some of that income is tax-free. All this makes my giving sensible.”

the wider world

“I found that a technical background is valuable in anything that you do.”—George Elder ’51

JOHNS HOPKINS ENGINEER FALL 2005 29

A Shot in the DarkTeamwork by student inventors offers a way for the blind to play basketball.

By Phil Sneiderman

Using a prototype of an audible basketball and a sound emitter in the backboard, Mike Bullis, who is blind, could catch passes and sink buckets two out of three

times in one test session. The basketball system for the blind he was trying out was designed and built by three Whiting School of Engineering undergraduates, two of whom are starters on the Johns Hopkins University’s women’s basketball team.

“There are people all over the country who are waiting for something like this,” says Bullis. He is the business services develop-ment manager for the project’s sponsor, Blind Industries and Services of Maryland, a group that aids the visually impaired. “There are blind athletes who want an audible ball. And there are school-age children who can benefit from the hand coordination that comes from playing ball. Right now, blind kids can play with a ball, but only if someone is there to find it if it rolls away,” Bullis says.

The three students devised their system during a two-semester Engineering Design Project course in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. The project was particularly meaningful for Alissa Burkholder ’05 and Ashanna Randall ’05. Both played basketball for four years with the Blue Jays, a perennial Centennial Conference and NCAA Division III contender. As seniors, Burkholder, a shooting guard, and Randall, an All-Conference small forward, were major contributors to the team’s third straight season of 20-plus wins.

“I’ve been playing basketball so long, and it’s something I really enjoy. It’s nice to be able to share that with people who wouldn’t otherwise be able to play,” says Burkholder, who majored in

A shooting guard on the Blue Jays women’s basketball team, Alissa Burkholder ’05 wanted to share her passion for basketball with those who cannot see.

The battery-powered audi-ble basketball designed by Burkholder and two other Engineering students emits a pulse tone to tell blind players where the ball is. The airtight cylinder in a Spalding Infusion ball offered a way to insert the electronics.

MAKING WAVES

The system’s inventors are Whiting School students (from left) Steve Garber ’05, Burkholder, and Ashanna Randall ’05 (who is also at top right). They provided details on their prototype system to the project’s sponsor, Blind Industries and Services of Maryland, for possible further development.

30 JOHNS HOPKINS ENGINEER FALL 2005

MAKING WAVES

Engineering Mechanics. Randall and the third design team member, Steve Garber ’05, majored in Mechanical Engineering.

In their completed sys-tem, a large piezoelectric sound emitter—powered by a 9-volt battery and mounted behind the backboard—sends out low pulse tones to help players locate their shooting target. A remote control turns it on and off. A smaller sound

emitter—embedded in the basketball and powered by five 3-volt button batteries—sends out a higher continuous tone to tell players where the ball is.

Bullis cautions that this prototype is not yet perfect, noting that the basketball’s sound pitch needs to be lowered for the comfort of players and to avoid echoes. He hopes to persuade a company to install the system as well in soccer balls and volleyballs.

A key hurdle for the three seniors was how to create a cavity to hold the electronics while keeping the ball airtight. “Weight was a consideration,” Randall notes. “If the device was too heavy, the ball wouldn’t bounce or roll properly.”

In their research, however, the students discovered the Spalding Infusion basketball, equipped with an airtight cylinder housing a small pump. The company provided several Infusion balls for the students to cut open and study, and later five more with just the cylinder. The students could then insert a sounding device and bat-teries in the small opening. But that meant a relatively high-pitched sounder. However, the students also came up with an idea for an alternate mini-speaker system that should emit a lower pitch, and provided details on it to Bullis’ organization for possible further development.

The students found their senior design project course to be a valuable experience. “We learned how to interact with real-world companies,” Burkholder said, as well as how “to get different ideas to mesh.” Following their graduation in May, Garber and Randall headed for research-related jobs and Burkholder will begin a master’s degree in mechanical engineering at Stanford University.

Their project was one of nine completed this year in the course taught by Senior Lecturer Andrew F. Conn ’57, ’59 MSE, ’64 PhD. Each team usually works within a budget of up to $10,000 to design a device, purchase or fabricate the parts, and assemble the final product. Corporations, government agencies, and nonprofit groups provide the assignments and funding.

If your company or organization would like some help from Whiting School seniors in designing a product or solving an engineering problem, contact Andrew F. Conn at (410) 516-6752 or by e-mail ([email protected]).

A sound transmitter on the backboard and a

warning system on the court’s boundaries also

are part of the students’ audible basketball

system for the blind.

JOHNS HOPKINS ENGINEER FALL 2005 31

Before It’s Too LateThrough studying cardiac electrical abnormalities, Samuel Hahn ’05 analyzed the data that could improve the prognosis for patients with heart failure.

By Sarah Achenbach

Samuel Hahn ’05 is both philosopher and scientist when describing his role in a ground-breaking research study identifying the electrical changes that lead to heart failure.

As an undergraduate in the Whiting School of Engineering, the Biomedical Engineering major contributed to research that for the first time described the time-course and nature of the elec-trical abnormalities that are present long before a patient has any clinical signs of heart failure.

Some 5 million Americans suffer from heart failure, and more than 250,000 a year die. “Of the deaths in patients with heart fail-ure, up to 50 percent are sudden and unexpected, and the result of lethal arrhythmias,” Hahn notes. “By defining the early electrical changes,” he observes, “we hope to identify new targets for therapy that can either reverse, or at the very least, hinder the progression of the vicious cycle of events that ultimately leads to death.”

Hahn conducted his research under the guidance of Fadi G. Akar, a research assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Division of Cardiology. Hahn and Akar, who have submitted their research to a peer-reviewed journal, worked in the laboratory of Gordon F. Tomaselli, professor of Medicine and a cardiologist at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

“In the lab, we’re dealing with the big picture,” says Hahn, who is 21. Their goal is to understand the exact mechanisms underlying heart disease. “Our work with optical mapping doesn’t deal with the minute genes, but how they work together and what changes they produce,” Hahn explains. The technique of optical mapping involves staining heart tissue samples with voltage-sensitive dyes, shining light on the samples, collecting the emitted light in an opti-cal detection system, and then converting it to current for computer analysis. Hahn’s role came in analyzing the data and helping to per-form the experiments on the two phases of electrical disturbances that lead to lethal arrhythmia.

This fall, Hahn has taken his big-picture research experience to the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, where he is

“I love designing things and gettingthem to work, Being an engineer teaches you to think analytically.” —Samual Hahn ’05

“In the lab, we’re dealing with the big picture,” notes Samuel Hahn ’05. A Biomedical Engineering major, the undergraduate was part of a research team whose goal was to understand the exact mechanisms underlying heart disease.

32 JOHNS HOPKINS ENGINEER FALL 2005

pursuing an MD. Though he’s always wanted to be a physician, Hahn chose majoring in Biomedical Engineering over pre-med, and hopes to do further research. “I love designing things and getting them to work,” he explains. “Being an engineer teaches you to think analytically.”

Hahn’s father, Suk-kyun Hahn, MD, is an internist in private practice. His sister Sarah, a Hopkins sophomore, also has her sights set on medical school. It was their brother, David who, perhaps, has had the biggest influence on Hahn’s approach to his chosen career. In 2002, David, 15, who has Down syndrome, wanted to take part in Special Olympics. Hahn, who played intramural basketball at Hopkins, jumped at the chance to coach his brother in basketball, track, and soccer. He spent most weekends with David at the fami-ly’s home in Lutherville, Maryland. “By being with him and getting to know others in Special Olympics, I really developed a desire to help people,” Hahn says. “It’s rewarding to help him achieve his goals, however simple those goals are. I hope that I will have the same compassion and empathy when I practice medicine.”

When Hahn entered Hopkins in fall 2001, he was very interest-ed in genetics because of David and because it was “a field just wait-ing to be explored,” he says. A few months prior, he had worked as a paid technician in the genetics lab of Andrew P. Feinberg, professor

of Medical Genetics at Hopkins and Hahn’s next-door neighbor. Recalling his cardiology study in the Physiological Foundations course, a core Biomedical Engineering class, Hahn says, “I had seen EKGs before, but had never seen action potentials, which are electri-cal signals of how the ion channels in your heart work and produce contractions.” Feinberg mentioned to Hahn that Tomaselli was researching cardiac rhythms, and that led to Tomaselli’s offering the junior a for-credit position in his lab.

Akar also spotted Hahn’s talent right from the start. He recalls how Hahn “distinguished himself early on as a gifted, forward-thinking, and meticulous scientist. He learned how to approach scientific questions, identify gaps in knowledge, and design experi-mental procedures that would specifically answer those questions in the most effective manner.” Hahn politely deflects such compli-ments. Akar “gives me a lot more credit than I think I deserve. He put a lot of trust in me and trusted my work,” Hahn says. “The great thing about Hopkins is that you get to see the research aspect of medicine. I can say I was part of something bigger.”

Special thanks to Karen Blum for her contributions to this article. To learn more about the Department of Biomedical Engineering in the Whitaker Institute at Johns Hopkins, visit www.bme.jhu.edu .

It Pays to Be Curious

In March, Samuel Hahn ’05 presented his research on electri-cal changes in the heart as part of the 12th annual Provost’s Undergraduate Research Awards (PURA) program. PURA

grants of up to $3,000 are funded by a donation from the Hodson Trust. Last year PURA grants supported the original research of 45 Johns Hopkins undergraduates.

Among other PURA projects by Whiting School students were:

• Designing a flexible robotic antenna inspired by how a cockroach uses its antennae to navigate by touch. Owen Loh ’05 (left), a Mechanical Engineering major who enjoys combining biology and robotics, recently has been working on a more advanced version of the antenna, with six strain gauges embedded in cast urethane, then

encased in a clear plastic sheath. Now being tested, by graduate student Brett Kutscher (center), it could lead to a new generation of robots that could more easily move through dark and hazardous locations, such as smoke-filled rooms

strewn with debris. In April, Loh traveled to Barcelona, Spain, where Noah J. Cowan, (right), assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering, presented the team’s work at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation. Loh is listed as second author on the paper.

• Studying in detail 19th-century American iron truss bridges. The work required Christina Terpeluk ’05, a Civil Engineering major, to run 21st-century computer programs as well as pore through fragile 19th-century manuscripts trying to determine whether the bridges

can be considered structural art. She later compared them with bridges in the British Isles while interning in a London engineering firm. Sanjay R. Arwade, assistant professor of Civil Engineer- ing, is her faculty research sponsor. —Phil Sneiderman

For more on the PURA projects, visit www.jhu.edu/~gazette/2005/07mar /07pura01.html .

Hopkins rewards undergraduates with grants for research.

MAKING WAVES