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Dr. Veerle Keppens

DR. VEERLE KEPPENS NAMED ASSOCIATE DEAN

UT College of Engineering Dean Wayne T. Davis has appointed Dr. Veerle Keppens, associate professor and associate head of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) as the college’s new Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs. Keppens will be the first female senior academic administrator in the college’s history.
Read more >>

FACULTY NEWS

PROGRESS IN FUSION

Mechanical, aerospace, and biomedical engineering professors David Irick, Madhu Madhukar, and Masood Parang are involved in an international project known as ITER. The goal of the project is to build a fusion reactor that could produce ten times the amount of energy that it uses. The research team recently completed a critical step for the project by successfully testing technology that will insulate and stabilize the central solenoid—the reactor's backbone.
Read more >>

Dr. Belle Upadhyaya

DR. UPADHYAYA NAMED
ISA FELLOW

The International Society of Automation has elected Dr. Belle Upadhyaya, Nuclear Engineering, to the distinguished grade of ISA Fellow. Awards will be presented at the 50th Annual ISA Honors & Awards Gala on Monday, Sept. 24, at the Rosen Centre Hotel in Orlando, Fla.
Read more about ISA >>

Dr. Joseph Stainback

DR. STAINBACK: OFF TO THE RACES

Dr. Joseph Stainback, a research assistant professor with Industrial and Information Engineering, had an article published as the cover story in the June edition of Industrial Engineer, the member magazine of the Institute of Industrial Engineers. Dr. Stainback's article, "Off to the Races with Communications," discusses ineffective communications as a form of waste in the world of NASCAR and other industries.

Dr. David Icove

DR. ICOVE REAPPOINTED

City of Knoxville Mayor Madeline Roger recently reappointed Dr. David Icove, P.E., research professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, to serve on the Board of Adjustments and Appeals.

The Board hears and decides appeals from architects, engineers, and builders on design and fire protection issues.

STUDENT NEWS

From left are Andrew Godfrey, Dr. Ivan Maldonado, Nathan George, Cole Gentry, Dr. Jess Gehin,
and Dr. Kurt Terrani.

Nuclear Engineering students win for research

UT Nuclear Engineering Ph.D. students Cole Gentry and Nathan George have received the “Innovation in Fuel Cycle Research” award in the third annual Innovations in Fuel Cycle Research awards competition for students sponsored by the Office of Fuel Cycle Technologies of the U.S. Department of Energy. Each won an award for their research work in Fully Ceramic Micro-Encapsulated Fuel (FCM). Both are currently pursuing their doctorate degree under the supervision of Dr. G. Ivan Maldonado, associate professor in Nuclear Engineering. Their research is conducted under collaboration with Oak Ridge National Laboratory staff members Andrew Godfrey (also a UT NE distance education graduate student), Dr. Kurt Terrani, and Dr. Jess Gehin (Adjunct and Joint ORNL/UT Faculty).

In addition to cash prizes, the top-ranked prize winners will present in a special session of the 2012 American Nuclear Society Winter Meeting (Nov. 11-15, 2012, in San Diego, Calif.).

EVENTS AND MORE

Solar-powered house showcased at Smithsonian

Living Light, UT’s solar-powered house, is on display this summer at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The festival, which commemorates the 150th anniversary of the founding of land-grant universities and the US Department of Agriculture, will be June 27-July 1 and July 4-8.
Read more >>

Girls dig into science and engineering at Adventures in STEM Camp

Summertime typically means vacations, sleeping in, and lots of free time, but twenty-seven local middle school girls' summers kicked off with circuits, solar ovens, biodiversity, and mathematics instead. The group was on the University of Tennessee's campus recently for the Adventures in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) camp, a collaborative science program hosted by CURENT Engineering Research Center and the National Institute for Mathematical & Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS).
Read more >>

Lean Enterprise Summer Program

The Department of Industrial and Information Engineering, in partnership with international universities and corporate partners, presents the Lean Enterprise Summer Program July 2-27 on the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, campus. The program will offer more than ninety-one visiting international students the opportunity to learn lean enterprise, the practice of creating more value for consumers while using fewer resources and eliminating waste. More information and schedules are available at the Lean website. >>

Tickle Engineering Building progress

Construction continues at a brisk pace on the John Tickle Engineering Building on Neyland Drive. Visit the College of Engineering Facebook page to see the latest photos. >>

OUTREACH NEWS

Joseph Dorris explores London

Computer Engineering freshman Joseph Dorris, at left, is experiencing London, England, during June while taking Dr. Michael Berry's course "Celebration of the Life of Alan Turing."
Read Joseph's blog about his travels >>

William Flaherty in London

William Flaherty, a senior in Computer Science, is studying Theory of Computation and the history of Computer Science going back to the early twentieth century.
Read William's blog about London and his studies >>

STUDENT OPPORTUNITY

International Journal for Service Learning in Engineering

The Spring 2012 issue of the International Journal for Service Learning in Engineering: Humanitarian Engineering and Social Entrepreneurship (IJSLE) is available at www.ijsle.org. The Journal welcomes manuscripts based on the original work of students, faculty, and researchers with a specific focus on projects, programs, research, and pedagogy that involve humanitarian engineering, social entrepreneurship, and service learning in engineering.

Educational Advancement Program has seats available for Math 125

The UT Educational Advancement Program has space available for eligible students for a Fall 2012 Math 125 class that will meet 2:30 p.m.-3:20 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Tutorial assistance is available, plus weekly course monitoring and program study-skills support. For information on the course, contact Celeste Brooks at [log in to unmask] or via phone at 865-850-1960. To see eligibility requirements, visit http://web.utk.edu/~eap.

Scholarships available for Reliability and Maintainability studies

The Society for Maintenance and Reliability Professionals (SMRP) offers scholarships for the 2012-2013 school year. Deadline for application is Aug. 15, 2012, for both the Dorothy and Jack Nicholas Scholarship and the SMRP Higher Standards Scholarship. For information on the scholarships, visit the SMRP website. For information on the UT Reliability and Maintainability Center, visit www.rmc.utk.edu.

What else can you do with your major? You can now receive your degree and a secondary education teaching license with VolsTeach. The VolsTeach program is available to Math and Science majors who wish to expand their career options by earning a secondary education teaching license. Given the current economy VolsTeach offers one degree with two career paths which will make you more competitive in the future job market.

VolsTeach provides:

• early and frequent field experiences
• personal guidance by Master Teachers and program advisors
• the opportunity to have paid exclusive internships during regular and summer terms
• a comfortable learning environment that will further enhance your professional skill set

This is your opportunity to be a part of the program. VolsTeach is open to freshmen, sophomores and juniors who are ready to start a journey that will give them a chance to connect with the community. Become a part of this exciting venture by signing up for the Fall Step 1 course now.
Click on the flyer at right for registration information. For more information contact VolsTeach Coach, Jada Johnson at [log in to unmask] or visit the program's Facebook page, VolsTeach, for current events, and the program's website, http://volsteach.utk.edu.

Stay up-to-date with Engineering Professional Practice information and events by clicking the “Like” button on the program’s Facebook page, following the program on Twitter, visiting its website at www.coop.utk.edu or calling 865-974-5323.

Students, please note: If you receive a co-op or internship offer, please contact Engineering Professional Practice for help with paperwork and any preparations you may need – [log in to unmask], 865-974-5323 or 310 Perkins Hall.

Featured co-op student: Robert McArthur Booher

Our student this week is Rob Booher, an aerospace engineering major, who accepted a co-op at NASA/John F. Kennedy Space Center, Kennedy Space Center, Florida. He found plenty to keep him busy at the Space Center.

"My assignment was in NASA's Launch Services Program, Flight Analysis Division," said Booher. "Specifically, I worked in the Flight Dynamics Branch under the mentorship of a full-time engineer and developed computer models of two launch vehicles (rockets) used by NASA to launch spacecraft for NASA science missions. The models are used in an optimization program called POST II (Program to Optimize Simulated Trajectories II), which were used to optimize the ascent of the launch vehicle and spacecraft to its target. These models were developed in direct support of the upcoming OSIRIS-REx mission and will likely be implemented in support of future missions as well. At the same time I worked under a separate mentor to create a Matlab based GUI (Graphical User Interface) to build and run similar models in a streamlined, graphical process. Finally, I independently developed a Matlab function to display launch vehicle trajectories in three dimensions centered around an image of Earth. It will be used by the engineers in my branch to visually verify optimized trajectories, as well as help others outside the branch to visualize trajectories in meetings and the like."

The biggest challenge that Booher faced came in the use of trajectory optimization software.

"I spent weeks on weeks having the optimizer fail on me, partly because of my lack of experience, but also because for even very experience users, complicated optimizers take some time to become operational with a specific vehicle," he said. "Solving this problem simply required persistence and learning as much as I could about how the optimizer worked on a theoretical level, which allowed me to finally develop working models. This experience taught me that even when using computer software and advance optimizers, some things are still very long and very hard to do."

Booher found that the most valuable benefit he received was, "Gaining lots of experience and knowledge quickly in a field I want to work in full-time once graduated."

Students may read more about their peers’ co-op experiences by logging into their Engineering Professional Practice profile via www.coop.utk.edu, clicking “Resource Library” (on the left margin) and selecting “Students at Work – In Their Own Words.”
For information on engineering co-op and internships, contact [log in to unmask]
or 865-974-5323.