Archived News 2008

December 2008

Professor Jane Davidson, and graduate students, Luke Venstrom and Julia Haltiwanger received the People's Choice Award for their poster, "A Two-Step Solar Thermochemical Process to Produce Hydrogen from Water" at the E3 2008 Conference, the midwest's premier energy, economic and environmental conference, held November 18 at the St. Paul River Center.

November 2008

The University Transportation Centers Program of the USDOT Research and Innovative Technologies Administration (RITA) decided to nationally publicize our work on reducing crashes and fatalities at rural unsignalized intersections in their October newsletter. This work on Cooperative Intersection Collision Avoidance Systems - Stop Sign Assist (CICAS-SSA) is funded by the USDOT through their ITS Joint Program Office, with the 20% required match provided by MnDOT.Our successful efforts on CICAS-SSA are due to the hard work of Craig Shankwitz and Mike Manser and their research staff.

October 2008

Professor Jane Davidson has been appointed to serve on a Task Force for Clean Energy Technology by Governor Tim Pawlenty. The mission of the Task Force is to identify the most promising research and development of clean energy.

September 2008

A paper by Professor Traian Dumitrica and graduate student Mayur Suri has been selected for Physical Review Focus. The article titled "Nanoparticles Stick a Perfect Landing" highlights new findings about high speed nanoparticles that Professor Steven Girshick and his team are using to design better coatings for machine tools.

August 2008

Professor David Kittelson's research on biofuels has been highlighted recently on WCCO and the University's News Service. See the video clip.

Shyam Sivaramakrishnan, a doctoral student working with Prof. Rajesh Rajamani, has been selected as one of five student semi-finalists for the 4th Annual Minnesota Cup. The Minnesota Cup is an annual statewide entrepreneur challenge with finalists presenting their business plans to leaders in the entrepreneurial business community. The selected business proposal aims to commercialize a new wireless carbon dioxide sensing technology for accurate low-cost carbon dioxide monitoring. The University's Office of Technology Commercialization has filed a provisional patent application on this technology.

June 2008

Professor Allison Hubel has been elected a Fellow of ASME, the highest grade membership, recognizing exceptional engineering achievements and contributions. Professor Hubel has made significant contributions to the cryopreservation of cellular therapies and engineered tissue. Her work has resulted in three patents and numerous publications.

The Medical Devices Center opened with core state-of-the-art facilities in Shepherd Labs. The facility includes labs for concept creation, surgeon interaction, fabrication, prototyping, and testing. For more information, see the Institute of Engineering in Medicine.

Professor Uwe Kortshagen has been appointed Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He starts his new duties July 1.

Professor Rajesh Rajamani and Prof. Bruce Johnson from Mayo Clinic have been awarded a research grant to develop "Carbon Nanotube Based Wireless Sensors for Respiratory Gas Exchange Analysis in Humans." This research grant from the Minnesota Partnership for Biotechnology and Medical Genomics provides $530,000 in funding over two years.

Professor Tianhong Cui has been awarded a research grant to develop "Layer-by-Layer Smart Coating for Surface Wetting Modification of Micro-Cooling Systems". This research grant from DARPA/MTO provides $823,000 in funding over the next four years.

May 2008

Professor Perry Li has been promoted from Associate to Full Professor. Professor Li as serves as Deputy Director of the NSF sponsored ERC for Compact and Efficient Fluid Power.

Post Doc Dr. Tareq Abu Hamed has won the Dan David Prize Scholarship, $15,000, for the Present Time Dimension in the field of Social Responsibility with Particular Emphasis on the Environment. He works with Professor Jane Davidson. The Dan David Prize recognizes and encourages innovative and interdisciplinary research that cuts across traditional boundaries and paradigms. It aims to foster universal values of excellence, creativity, justice, democracy and progress and to promote the scientific, technological and humanistic achievements that advance and improve our world.

Professor Caroline Hayes will be giving a keynote lecture, Friday May 2, 10-11 AM, for the department of Writing Studies Spring Coloquium at the Continuing Education and Conference Center in St. Paul. Abstract (pdf)

April 2008

Technologies developed at the university will be used by Rushford Hypersonic on products in the industrial tooling and coating applications industries. The company eventually expects to create 40 to 60 jobs at its facility in Rushford, Minnesota. The nanoparticle film deposition technologies developed over the past decade by professors Steven Girshick, Joachim Heberlein and Peter McMurry in the university's mechanical engineering department, William Gerberich in chemical engineering and materials science and Nagaraja Rao, formerly in mechanical engineering.

The agreement will be marked at an open house from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday, April 23 at the Rushford Hypersonic facility, 1000 Technology Drive in Rushford. Representatives from the university, Rushford Hypersonic, the city of Rushford and the state of Minnesota will be on hand.

"The University of Minnesota produces some of the world's best nanotechnology, and we are very pleased to sign this agreement with them," said Daniel Fox, Rushford Hypersonic's chief executive officer. "The university worked closely with us throughout the entire process and helped structure the agreement so that we can bring these technologies to market very quickly."

"The university aims to be an effective partner with industry," said Jay Schrankler, executive director at the university's Office for Technology Commercialization (OTC). "This agreement with Rushford Hypersonic is a great example of how we can make it easy for companies to find what they're looking for at the university and establish long-term partnerships."

Rushford Hypersonic will manufacture parts locally in Rushford and employ the area's skilled work force. They will use Web-based technology to market and sell their products, and will partner with a global distributor. Expansion into other markets will take place as new applications are developed for industrial and automotive surfaces (e.g., camshafts, valves, bearings) and medical applications, such as the ball and socket in an artificial hip. The company also will join forces with the university by providing funding for a graduate research assistantship in the nanotechnology research program.

Professor Susan Mantell has been selected as a recipient of The George Taylor Distinguished I.T. Alumni Society Teaching Award for 2008.

Professor Frank Kulacki is serving as Visiting Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Assistant Provost at the Petroleum Institute in Abu Dhabi, UAE. In his role as Assistant Provost, he has been responsible for overall strategic planning and formulation of faculty and administrative policies and procedures for the Institute. The Petroleum Institute is a new engineering school focusing on the needs of the oil and gas industries in the UAE, as well as the broad field of fossil and renewable energy resources. The PI was established in 2000.

The Center for Compact and Efficient Fluid Power, along with Twin Cities Public Television and the National Fluid Power Association, has produced a half-hour documentary on fluid power called "Discovering Fluid Power" that is set to air on Minnesota TPT channel 17 on Sunday, April 6, 8:00 p.m. and again on Saturday, May 10, 9:00 p.m.

In addition, a second half-hour documentary produced by TPT and NFPA, titled "Fluid Power - A Force for Change" will be aired one week after the first documentary on Sunday, April 13, 8:00 p.m. repeated on Saturday, May 17, 9:00 p.m. Channel 17.

The first program is an overview of fluid power, and the second is a more in-depth look at the fluid power industry. Faculty members and graduate students from the Center and local industry members were interviewed for both programs.

February 2008

Traian Dumitrica, a Nelson Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, has been awarded a 5-year National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) grant "Nanomechanics from First Principles" to develop a novel multiscale methodology that will derive practical continuum models for nano-objects directly from their first-principles atomistic description. In addition to providing a fresh perspective on the fundamental principles governing mechanics at the nano scale, Dumitrica's NSF-funded research will facilitate the incorporation of nanomechanics into the engineering curriculum. Research results will be incorporated into the courses he teaches, including ME 8253 Computational Nanomechanics.

Professor Alptekin Aksan has been awarded a McKnight land-grant professorship for 2008-2010.

Professor Caroline Hayes appears on the February 3 episode of the University's program "Tech Talk," to discuss how design affects technology. The program airs in the Twin Cities on Sundays at 9 PM on channel 17.

January 2008

Professor Jane Davidson appears on the January 13 episode of "Tech Talk", a program produced by the University that discusses the latest technologies that affect everyday lives, Sundays, 9 PM, on Twin Cities public television. This program discusses Technology and Renewable Energy.