[Earnest-dist] earnest - 4/13/09

Mon Apr 13 11:11:02 EDT 2009

earnest
(events and research news in engineering and science today)
April 13, 2009

News and notes

CoES students receive Goldwater accolades
Each year Clemson University may nominate up to four students for the
Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship.  Of the four 2009 nominees, three won
scholarships and the fourth was named an Honorable Mention.  This is a
wonderful achievement for the College of Engineering and Science
students and the faculty members who worked with them on their research
and scholarship mentoring.

The four students are:

James (Jamie) Hodges (Junior) Polymer and Textile Chemistry.  Jamie has
researched with Julia Brumaghim and Igor Luzinov.

Michael Juang (Junior) Electrical Engineering.  Michael has researched
with Michael Pursley, Kuang-Ching Wang, and James Martin.

Jennifer Moffitt (Sophomore) Chemical Engineering.  Jennifer has worked
with Christopher Kitchens, Lisa Benson, and Scott Husson.

Kemper Talley (Honorable Mention) - Sophomore - Physics.  Kemper has
worked with Pu-Chun Ke and Emil Alexov.

Jamie, Jennifer, and Kemper each started their research at Clemson as
part of the EUREKA! Program of the Calhoun Honors College.

Members of the Clemson nominating committee include:  Martine LaBerge,
Kathleen Richardson, Scott Husson, David Tonkyn, Kerry Smith, Peter
Barnes, and Steve Wainscott.  These professors put in many hours, not
only reviewing the 13 applications and selecting the nominees, but
mentoring the four finalists, helping them revise, rethink, and polish
their applications.  These faculty members deserve a great amount of
credit and gratitude.

Goldwater Scholars were selected on the basis of academic merit from a
field of 1,097 mathematics, science, and engineering students who were
nominated by the faculties of colleges and universities nationwide. One
hundred sixty-three of the Scholars are men, 115 are women, and
virtually all intend to obtain a Ph.D. as their degree objective. Thirty
Scholars are mathematics majors, 190 are science and related majors, 51
are majoring in engineering, and 7 are computer science majors. Many of
the Scholars have dual majors in a variety of mathematics, science,
engineering, and computer disciplines.
The one and two year scholarships will cover the cost of tuition, fees,
books, and room and board up to a maximum of $7,500 per year.
Goldwater Scholars have very impressive academic qualifications that
have garnered the attention of prestigious post-graduate fellowship
programs. Recent Goldwater Scholars have been awarded 73 Rhodes
Scholarships, 102 Marshall Awards (7 of the 40 awarded in the United
States in 2009), and numerous other distinguished fellowships.
The Goldwater Foundation is a federally endowed agency established by
Public Law 99-661 on November 14, 1986. The Scholarship Program honoring
Senator Barry M. Goldwater was designed to foster and encourage
outstanding students to pursue careers in the fields of mathematics, the
natural sciences, and engineering. The Goldwater Scholarship is the
premier undergraduate award of its type in these fields.

Seminars and Presentations

Carroll A. Campbell Jr. Graduate Engineering Center
A seminar on "The Automobile of the Future: Options for Efficient
Individual Mobility " is taking place April 15, 2009 at 4:30 PM in the
Carroll A. Campbell Jr. Graduate Engineering Center located at 4
Research Drive, Greenville, SC. The seminar will feature Professor. Lino
Guzella, ETH Zurich, Switzerland.

Guzella abstract: Individual mobility is closely linked to the welfare
of any society. Not surprisingly, the number of automobiles has been
inexorably increasing and is likely to double over the next twenty to
thirty years. Clearly, this development creates many benefits and
economic opportunities, but also many problems, such as air pollution,
traffic fatalities, increased energy consumption and carbon dioxide
emission. In this talk the relevance of these problems will be
prioritized and some of the most likely technological solutions will be
presented. One key point is that in most - if not all - of these
approaches automatic control systems will be an enabling factor, without
which no true breakthroughs are possible.

Guzzella bio:  Lino Guzella has been a full professor at ETH Zurich,
Switzerland since 1999. After receiving his mechanical engineering
diploma in 1981 and his doctoral degree in 1986, both from ETH, he has
held several positions in industry and academia. With his research group
he focuses on novel approaches in system dynamics and in the control of
energy conversion systems. Control-oriented systems modeling, dynamic
optimization, and feedback control design methods are his main areas of
research. He places a particular emphasis on the minimization of fuel
consumption and pollutant emission of automotive propulsion systems. In
teaching, he has been successfully promoting project- and team-based
learning approaches. Among others he received the IEEE Control Systems
Magazine Outstanding Paper Award and the IEEE Industry Award for
Excellence in Translational Control Research, the SAE Arch T. Colwell
Merit Award and the SAE Ralph R. Teetor Educational Award, the IMechE
Thomas Hawksley Medal and the IMechE Crompton Lancaster Medal, and the
Energy Globe Award. He has published more than 100 research articles in
peer refereed journals and conferences as well as two research textbooks
(Introduction to Modeling and Control of IC Engine Systems, Springer
Verlag, 2004 and Vehicle Propulsion Systems - Modeling and Optimization,
Springer Verlag, 2005 and 2nd ed. 2007). He has been a keynote speaker
at many conferences worldwide. Prof. Guzzella is associate editor of the
IFAC Control Engineering Practice Journal and was associate editor of
several other journals. Prof. Guzzella is member of the Swiss Academy of
Engineering Sciences (SATW) and of several international and national
research committees, e.g. the Swiss CTI Committee on Engineering
Sciences and member of the board of governors of IFAC. He is a
consultant to several automotive companies and holds several patents in
that area.

Chemistry Department
Chemistry is sponsoring a seminar featuring Brian A. Johns, Ph.D. who is
from Research Triangle Park, NC.  Johns will discuss A journey from the
lab to the clinic: The design, discovery and development of the
naphthyridinone (NTD) HIV integrase inhibitor GSK364735. The
presentation is scheduled for Thursday, April 16 at  4:00 p.m. in Hunter
100 Auditorium.  

Johns Abstract: The discovery of diketo-acid inhibitors of the HIV
retroviral integration step ten years ago was a seminal contribution
that has served to foster the design and development of various
heterocyclic scaffolds with increased drug-like properties.  Among these
second generation scaffolds is a novel series of orally bioavailable
inhibitors of viral replication consisting of the naphthyridinone (NTD)
core.  This lecture will present the NTD discovery story and how
medicinal and synthetic chemistry drove efforts that culminated in the
clinical evaluation of GSK364735.

___

Department of Engineering and Science Education
Clemson's Dr. Gautam Bhattacharyya is speaking at a seminar on What
Happens When Representations Don't Represent Friday, April 17, 2009. The
seminar will take place from 9:00 to 10:00 a.m. in 302 Rhodes
Engineering Research Center

This seminar is part of a series sponsored by the Clemson University
Department of Engineering and Science, the Virginia Tech Department of
Engineering Education, and the SouthEast Alliance for Graduate Education
and the Professoriate (SEAGEP).

Bhattacharyya Abstract: Scientists and engineers use a diverse array of
external representations such as, diagrams, schemes, and graphs for a
wide variety of applications. These representations are a primary mode
of communication among practitioners, and are used in part to define
their community of practice. Of the different chemistry disciplines,
organic chemistry has a particularly rich collection of representational
systems. Prior research suggests that inadequate interpretations of
diagrams pose a significant barrier to the ability of students to
problem solve in organic chemistry. In the course of our research on how
students evolve into practicing scientists, we are studying the cues
that individuals derive from organic chemistry tasks and how they use
them to problem solve. 

We studied students' use of representations in the context of
arrow-pushing diagrams, which organic chemists frequently use to propose
the step-by-step pathway, or mechanism, of chemical reactions.
Arrow-pushing diagrams serve as an important tool by which practicing
organic chemists predict the outcome of reactions and modify reaction
conditions in the lab, among several other purposes. Due to their
overall importance to organic chemists, arrow-pushing diagrams represent
an appropriate context for studying representational competence. For
this study, we interviewed 12 graduate students while they worked on 3
tasks, each with multiple parts. This presentation will focus on the
design of the study, results from a preliminary data analysis, and some
possible implications for teaching.

Bhattacharyya Bio: Gautam Bhattacharyya is an Assistant Professor of
Chemistry at Clemson University. He received his Sc.B. in Chemistry in
1992 from Brown University and his A.M. in Organic Chemistry from
Harvard University in 1994 under the direction of Prof. E. J. Corey.
After stints as a Teaching Fellow in the Harvard Chemistry Department
and as a Research Fellow at the Joslin Diabetes Center, Gautam moved to
Purdue University in 2000 and earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry (Chemical
Education) under the direction of Dr. George M. Bodner. After completing
two years as an Instructor at the University of Oregon, he joined the
faculty at Clemson University in July, 2006. Gautam and his colleagues'
research focuses on understanding how students evolve into practicing
scientists. They have studied various aspects of this process including
problem-solving, conceptual development, professional identity, and
ethics.

___

Industrial Engineering
On Friday, April 17, the Department of Industrial Engineering will be
hosting Colonel Michael Phillips, Head of the Department of Mathematical
Sciences and a Professor at the United States Military Academy at West
Point. Col. Phillips' presentation, West Point - 208 Years of
Mathematics, will be held at 11:15 a.m. in 116 Freeman Hall. The seminar
is open to the public.

Phillips Abstract: Col. Phillips, who earned a Ph.D. in Industrial
Engineering in 1998, returns to Clemson University to speak on West
Point and the role that Mathematics has played in developing leaders in
Math, Science, and Engineering as well as the Humanities and Social
Sciences. His presentation will touch on his educational experience at
Clemson; how that led to his current position at West Point; and the
impact it has had on the current mathematics, operations research, and
applied statistics programs at the Military Academy. As an extension, he
will talk about West Point's efforts over the last 4 years in supporting
Afghanistan in the creation of a new university - The National Military
Academy of Afghanistan.

Phillips Bio: Col. Phillips graduated from Cameron University, Lawton,
Oklahoma in 1982 with a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics and was
commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army through the ROTC
Program. He has served in various leadership positions to include two
company commands. In 1989, he was selected by the Department of
Mathematical Sciences to attend the Naval Postgraduate School in
Monterey, California where he earned a Master of Science degree in
Applied Mathematics. In 1991, he was assigned to the Department of
Mathematical Sciences where he taught core math courses and was the
course director for the Advanced Engineering Mathematics Program.  In
1995, after attending the Command and General Staff College at Fort
Leavenworth, Kansas, he attended Clemson University where he earned a
Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering. He was later assigned to the Army
Research Laboratory as the Research and Development Coordinator to the
United States Military Academy(USMA). Two year later he was selected as
an Academy Professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences. He has
served in various leadership positions within the Department and was
selected as Professor USMA and Deputy Head in December of 2003
(confirmed by Congress on 28 April 2005). He has served in Afghanistan
providing support for the new National Military Academy of Afghanistan.
In May of 2006, he became the 21st Head of the Department of
Mathematical Sciences.

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and Science
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