From the Dean

Dear CoE Colleagues,

As temperatures finally begin to warm in Ann Arbor, the end of the semester is in sight! Soon, we will have a new set of graduates, adding to our 70,000 engineering alumni.

This week, I and others from CoE had the pleasure of meeting with many of our alumni in Seattle to celebrate the 100th anniversary of our Aero department, which was the first in the nation. The event was held at the Museum of Flight, which houses an impressive number of spectacular aircraft. Six of the planes, including an SR-71 Blackbird, were designed by our own Kelly Johnson (BSE Aero ’32, MSE ’33, DEng Hon. ’64), so we felt right at home.

It was wonderful to gather with so many supportive alums and hear their stories. Those in attendance ranged from recent graduates to officers of major corporations. Uniformly, they are impressed with the achievements of the College. I salute you for maintaining the Wolverine tradition of excellence, from generation to generation.

—Dave

Charles M. Vest Tribute

On Thursday, February 20, the National Academy of Engineering hosted a major Celebration of the Life of Charles Vest. His tribute is included below. Charles “Chuck” Vest (MSE ME ’64, PhD ’67, LLD Hon. ’10) was former University of Michigan provost and Michigan Engineering professor and dean. A video of the event is posted on the NAE website:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI37HOAkTJg&list=PLJ8uEbBRJZKfw-7TqybMDCKQRM-Npg5gs&feature=c4-overview-vl

CHARLES M. VEST
1941-2013

Elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1994
President of the National Academy of Engineering 2007-2013

BY JAMES J. DUDERSTADT AND PAUL E. GRAY

Charles Marstiller Vest, former President of the National Academy of Engineering, President Emeritus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and one of the nation’s leaders in higher education, engineering, and national science policy, died on December 12, 2013, at the age of 72.

Chuck Vest was born on September 9, 1941, in Morgantown, West Virginia. Throughout his life, Chuck credited much of his professional success to the simple values and emphasis on family that he learned as a boy growing up in Morgantown. While studying for his degree in mechanical engineering at West Virginia University, he met Rebecca McCue, on a blind date, who would go on to be his wife of 50 years.

After graduating in 1963, Chuck and Becky made their way to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where they lived, worked and raised their family for 27 years. Chuck earned his MSE in 1964 and his PhD degree from Michigan in 1967. He joined the faculty of Michigan’s Department of Mechanical Engineering as an assistant professor, teaching in the areas of heat transfer, thermodynamics, and fluid mechanics, and conducting research in heat transfer and engineering applications of laser optics and holography. He and his graduate students developed techniques for making quantitative measurements of various properties and motions from holographic interferograms, especially the measurement of three-dimensional temperature and density fields using computer tomography. He was promoted to associate professor in 1972 and a full professor in 1977.

In 1981, Chuck began a series of leadership appointments, first as the senior Associate Dean of Engineering where he played a major role in moving the entire College of Engineering from its Central Campus location into new facilities on the University’s North Campus. He later became Dean of Engineering (1986-1989) and then Provost and Vice-President for Academic Affairs at Michigan. His performance and visibility in this new role soon attracted the attention of other universities seeking leadership, and MIT put before him “a call to national service” as their president. As he was preparing to leave Michigan, he left important words of advice: “Above all, I hope that the University of Michigan will forever set its central agenda to be excellence in research, scholarship, and education. It is my belief that the nation needs a small number of universities truly committed to excellence and to the education of an elite. But I think of this elite in a somewhat Jeffersonian sense. That is, it must be accessible. Admission to it must be available to people from all segments of our society and earned through dedication, hard work, and talent, not through race or social position.”

In 1990, Chuck was elected the 15th President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he served with great distinction for nearly 14 years. His predecessor, Paul Gray, noted: “Chuck came to lead MIT at a difficult time for American higher education. In 1990, many in Washington had come to feel that the nation’s universities had not acted as wise stewards of their federal funding. He made frequent trips to Washington as an ambassador not only for MIT, but indeed, for academia as a whole — and he did so supremely well.”

Chuck rose rapidly to be an important national and international figure in higher education, helping to influence policy and to set the national agenda for science and technology at the very highest levels of government. As president of MIT, he was active in science, technology, and innovation policy; building partnerships among academia, government, and industry; and championing the importance of open, global scientific communication, travel, and sharing of intellectual resources. During his tenure, MIT launched its OpenCourseWare (OCW) initiative; cofounded the Alliance for Global Sustainability; enhanced the racial, gender, and cultural diversity of its students and faculty; established major new institutes in neuroscience and genomic medicine; and redeveloped much of its campus. Again quoting Paul Gray: “Chuck strengthened the Institute academically and financially, greatly expanded our facilities, and dramatically enhanced the stature and the image of the Institute with government, with industry and with the larger academic community. The life motto of Karl Taylor Compton, MIT’s ninth president, was: ‘Leave every campground better than you found it.’ Chuck did just that here, with style, with extraordinary energy and with integrity.”

As he stepped down from his MIT presidency, Chuck observed: “Serving as president of a major research university is not a sandbox ambition for any child — I remain frankly astonished at the road that led me here. But looking back at that road — the bends and dips, the forks and unintended shortcuts — I’m struck by how little one can predict at the journey’s outset and by how much of life comes down to how one handles the points where the roads cross. I am also overwhelmed with the sense of how much I owe to the insight, imagination, inspiration and judgment of the many, many gifted people I have been lucky enough to work with at MIT.”

In 2007, Chuck was elected to serve as president of the US National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Under his leadership, the NAE promoted the Grand Challenges for Engineering, a set of 14 critical challenges for engineers in the 21st century, which, if achieved, will improve the quality of life for humankind. This effort spawned a number of Grand Challenges Summits at universities around the United States and has contributed to improved public understanding of the value and importance of engineering advances to the well-being of the nation and the world.

In 2009, he launched the annual NAE Frontiers of Engineering Education symposium series, aimed at identifying and propagating innovative approaches to engineering teaching and learning. He presided over the international expansion of the NAE’s Frontiers of Engineering program in 2013 to include partnerships with China (CAE) and the European Union (RAE). He also initiated a major new NAE effort to understand and address changes in global manufacturing-design-innovation value chains and their implications for US employment, education, and competitiveness. And under his leadership, the NAE in 2011 undertook a novel partnership with the US Institute of Peace to consider how the application of technology and of knowledge and methods from engineering and science can serve the goals of conflict prevention, peacemaking, and peacekeeping.

In addition to strengthening and augmenting the strategic programs of the NAE, Chuck Vest exercised his visibility as NAE president to great effect during his tenure, playing a prominent role nationally and internationally in illuminating forces reshaping the landscape of engineering research, practice, and education, and in defining the attributes future engineers will require to compete and lead in the emerging global economy.

He served on the board of directors of DuPont for 14 years and of IBM for 13 years, as well as vice chair of the US Council on Competitiveness for 8 years. He also served on various federal committees and commissions, including the President’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) during the Clinton and Bush administrations, the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, the Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education, the Secretary of State’s Advisory Committee on Transformational Diplomacy, and the Rice-Chertoff Secure Borders and Open Doors Advisory Committee. He served on the boards of several nonprofit organizations and foundations devoted to education, science, and technology.

Chuck Vest received honorary doctoral degrees from 18 universities. He was awarded the 2006 National Medal of Technology by President Bush and received the 2011 Vannevar Bush Award from the National Science Board.

Perhaps the best way to understand Chuck’s remarkable character was to recall his comments at Michigan when his selection as president of MIT was announced: “Among the many notes of congratulations I have received on this appointment, one really sticks out in my mind. It was a brief note I had from Paul McCracken, one of the most distinguished members of our faculty. That letter said, almost in its entirety, “Boy from West Virginia becomes president of MIT: The American Dream.”

Chuck Vest will be remembered as one of the great leaders of higher education through his service to Michigan and MIT. His presidency of the National Academy of Engineering and his role as a leader of American science, engineering, and technology will be viewed as immensely important to both the prosperity and security of our nation.

New High-Tech Manufacturing Research Institute

The University of Michigan, along with nonprofit EWI and Ohio State University, and more than 50 other companies, universities and nonprofits from around the country, are part of a $148 million American Lightweight Materials Manufacturing Innovation Institute (ALMMII). The institute, set to open this spring in metro Detroit, is the newest part of the National Network of Manufacturing Innovation, a White House initiative to help U.S. manufacturers become more competitive. Professor Alan Taub (MSE) is the chief technology officer of the new institute, which is expected to bring 10,000 jobs to the region within the next five years. http://record.umich.edu/articles/high-tech-manufacturing-hub-could-create-10000-jobs

International Award

The University of Michigan-Shanghai Jiao Tong University Joint Institute has won the Andrew Heiskell Award, one of the highest honors in international education, in the category for best practices in international partnerships. http://record.umich.edu/articles/u-ms-partnership-china-wins-award-excellence-innovation.

Student and Educational Programs Updates

Student Performance

Jeffrey Noble performed recently in the School of Music, Theatre & Dance’s production, Moving Pictures. He is a sophomore studying Chemical Engineering and also Dance.

CRLT-Engin Celebrates 10-year Anniversary

This year marks the 10-year anniversary of the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching in Engineering (CRLT-Engin). To commemorate, CRLT-Engin scheduled an expanded day of programming with the annual Research and Scholarship in Engineering Education Poster Fair on March 17, 2014. Dr. Matt Ohland, professor of engineering education at Purdue University and co-founder of the CATME program in use by many U-M faculty, gave a hands-on workshop about his teamwork programs. Then, the poster fair featured nearly 20 projects underway at U-M.

Technical Communication Program

The Technical Communication program continues to expand its services to a variety of departments and other programs. During the past few months, Environmental Engineering, M-HEAL, BME graduate students, MSE, ME and nearly 30 Multidisciplinary Design teams have worked with Tech Comm. Well-attended seminars this past fall addressed poster presentations and writing disclosure agreements. Contact Tech Comm if you have ideas about them working with your department, program or student organization. http://techcom.engin.umich.edu/

Honor Council

The Honor Council is in the planning stages of a series of conversations around ethical behavior and the professional obligations of engineers. What does the Honor Code mean to you? Have you been faced with ethical dilemmas that you think might be good case studies for other students to consider? How can the Honor Code improve the lives of students, faculty and staff outside of the classroom? Please send any thoughts on these and related questions to the Honor Council at coe-honorcouncil@umich.edu.

Undergraduate Recruitment

In this year’s undergraduate recruitment efforts, the Office of Student Affairs, in partnership with faculty, staff and students across campus, has focused on expanding and enriching its current programs and developing innovative, high-contact recruitment models to attract a more diverse student body. Those efforts include:

Hometown Alumni Involvement Link (HAIL)

A new program this year, HAIL engages alumni in recruiting efforts across the country. 100+ alumni have interviewed 500 prospective students in 3 target cities (New York, Chicago and San Francisco). Alumni are now calling 1,000 of our admitted students. Approximately 100 alumni have volunteered to attend the admitted students’ receptions in the five top markets. Alumni also have been asked to refer prospective students to the College of Engineering. This “talent scout” approach is one we plan to broaden to personalize and expand our prospect pool.

On-Campus Experiences

On-campus experiences are essential to converting top talent. Again this year, the College has hosted 160 highly qualified admitted students for two-day visits targeted toward diversity, top scholars, and leadership. This proven recruiting model for these top students yields 70 percent of the attendees as new Michigan Engineering students.

Partnership Programs

The College’s partnerships with schools in urban centers are proving successful. A three-fold increase in applications from many of these schools and community colleges has resulted. Along with enhanced community-college efforts at the University level, further improvements should continue.

Atlanta University Center (AUC) Recruitment and Scholarship Efforts

The AUC effort has served as a pipeline for talent from Historically Black Colleges and Universities: Morehouse College, Clark Atlanta University, and Spelman College. Students who have come to campus through this partnership have had significant impact on the CoE community in their scholarly achievements, leadership, service and activism. We are excited by this year’s prospective students and the impact we know they will have on campus.

The Michigan Engineering Zone (MEZ)

The MEZ at the University of Michigan Detroit Center hosted its annual open house on February 6. Students from the 15 Detroit high schools working at the MEZ, their parents, teachers, mentors and community partners were in attendance. Speakers representing the College and University, Detroit Public Schools and the Michigan Economic Development Corporation discussed robotics, STEM education programs and the future of the city and the state.

Winter Engineering Career Fair

The Winter Engineering Career Fair took place January 29 and 30 with 218 companies, 850 recruiters and 4,000 students in attendance. Thousands of interviews followed the event and into February. This fair marked CoE’s first strides toward a paperless, more efficient career fair using RecPass technology for resume distribution and Career Fair Plus technology for company research/map distribution.

Graduate Education Updates

MS and PhD Programs in Robotics

Beginning this fall, the CoE will offer MS and PhD programs in robotics. These programs support an effort to bring together many disciplines that contribute to research on robotics. The three core technical areas will be: (l) sensing of the environment, external agents and internal body information to determine state information; (2) reasoning with that information to make decisions for guidance, control and localization; and (3) acting upon the body and environment to produce motion or other outputs that enable the robot to locomote or interact with the environment. Two new courses will be offered as part of the program. Robotics 550, Introduction to Robotic Systems, is a hands-on project course and will provide experience in each of the three core areas. Robotics 501, Math for Robotics, is a specialized mathematics course focused on the main topics of interest to robotics researchers. The goal of the programs is to train students to be independent researchers, engineers and future leaders in robotics.

Graduate School Rankings

The College moved up one spot into a tie for #8 in the U.S. News and World Report Best Graduate Schools rankings. Nearly every one of our graduate programs is among the top ten. The College’s nuclear engineering program tied for first. Rankings fluctuate for methodological and other reasons from year to year. These measures represent only one dimension of the quality of the College. http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-engineering-schools

Media Updates

Media highlights of the past three months include:

• During the Super Bowl, the CoE video about crash-testing concussion sensors was embedded on Gizmodo, one of the Internet’s top 10 blogs.
• The Wall Street Journal accepted an invitation to interview Aerospace Engineering’s Ella Atkins for a story about the Southwest Airlines plane that landed at the wrong airport. She is quoted in this story.
• The high-profile Space.com site quoted AOSS’s Mike Combi in a January story about the Rosetta spacecraft waking up. The reporter lifted the quote directly from the College’s news release. The piece was shared more than 1,000 times.

Also, high-profile alumni have been in the news in recent months:

• A minute into a TechCrunch video about Google’s acquisition of Nest, Tony Fadell (BSE CompE ’91) mentioned that he studied computer engineering here and cheered “Go Blue!” The piece was shared on social media more than 700 times. TechCrunch is the no. 2-ranked tech blog.
• Babak Parviz (MSE EE ’97, MS Physics ’01, PhD EE ’01) is the Google X team member who developed the company’s glucose-reading contact lenses. His connection here is highlighted in this story in Upstart Business Journal.

College faculty have been quoted or mentioned in more than 60 original stories during the past three months in news outlets including U.S. News & World Report, National Public Radio, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Buzzfeed, Forbes, NHL Live, MIT Technology Review, Reuters, The Atlantic and The New York Times.

A Social Media Milestone for the College

The Michigan Engineering Facebook community recently topped 20,000 fans. This number exceeds any other school or college at U-M and engineering peers at Stanford, MIT, Berkeley and Georgia Tech. Our Facebook community connects prospective and current students, along with alumni, to each other and the College. If you haven’t already, please join: www.facebook.com/Michigan.Engineering

Also, you can engage with Michigan Engineering on:

Twitter (https://twitter.com/UMengineering)
Instagram (http://instagram.com/michiganengineering)
And more (http://www.engin.umich.edu/college/about/social)

Advancement Updates

Tony Lembke (BSE ChE ’80) has given $2 million to establish the Anthony C. Lembke Chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering Fund, to be used at the chair's discretion to carry out the work of the department. An additional $800,000 of his gift (plus $200,000 in matching funds from the Michigan Matching Initiative for Student Support) will support the Anthony C. Lembke Scholarship Fund and the Anthony C. Lembke Student Global Experience Fund. The Scholarship Fund is a need-based scholarship for undergraduate students, endowed in 2007. The Global Experience Fund was established in 2010 to help CoE students take advantage of global learning experiences, whether study abroad, internships or service learning projects.

Mary Petrovich (BSE IOE ’85) has made a $1 million gift to establish the Mary L. Petrovich Endowed Scholarship Fund for Future Leaders and the Mary L. Petrovich Leadership Program Fund. The Petrovich Scholarship Fund will provide a scholarship to at least one incoming CoE student who participated in the Michigan Engineering Leadership Weekend and/or demonstrates exemplary leadership skills and an interest in programs such as Women in Science and Engineering or the Society of Women Engineers, with a preference for students who also demonstrate a financial need. The Petrovich Leadership Program Fund will provide support for programs that encourage and support women and girls pursuing degrees and careers in engineering.

Entrepreneurial Programs Updates

MCubed

Preparations are underway to launch the MCubed External Funding Program, an unprecedented opportunity for industry leaders, alumni, and friends to invest in research projects that align with their interests, from healthcare and technology to sustainability and big data. Funders set broad parameters for each project and post their ideas on the MCubed website. Faculty experts comment on projects and collaborate with other faculty to cube the project, as they did in the internal pilot phase of MCubed. The funder can watch this entire process unfold and receive real-time updates on the cube’s progress through the interactive MCubed website. If you have industry partners who would be interested in MCubed, contact MCubedExternalProgram@umich.edu.

Center for Entrepreneurship

The Center for Entrepreneurship (CFE) continues to make an impact on students and faculty in the College of Engineering and across campus while creating new programs to help faculty and students bring new innovations to market. Last semester, the CFE participated in several CoE student-focused efforts, including recruiting, outreach to incoming engineering students, Multidisciplinary Design and Living Arts. At the same time, the CFE has worked with partner units across campus, including School of Public Health; Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning; Stamps School of Art & Design; School of Kinesiology; School of Music, Theatre & Dance; and LSA to expose students to entrepreneurship. While CFE entrepreneurship-specific classes continue to reach hundreds of students per semester, including a new section of practicum specifically for engineering students, these additional interactions have broadened CFE’s reach to include an additional 1,000 students.

Davidson Foundation Awards $800,000 Grant to Fund MGoForward

The MGoForward program, funded by the Davidson Foundation, complements and extends the CFE’s educational and start-up incubation programs by providing strategic follow-on mentoring, training and technical support to graduating students whose start-ups show demonstrable market potential. “The Davidson Foundation’s support comes at an inflection point at the University of Michigan,” says U-M Special Counselor to the Provost on Entrepreneurial Education, Thomas Zurbuchen. “The entrepreneurial ecosystem within the University has never been stronger.”

MGoForward is one of the missing pieces in the entrepreneurial pipeline at the University. CFE executive director Tom Frank says “We needed the ability to invest more specifically in companies and teams whose start-ups are genuinely on the pathway to becoming self-sustaining. Thanks to the generosity of the Davidson Foundation we will be able to accelerate the ambitions of many young companies by providing a portfolio of new resources and expertise all focused on the specific needs of recent graduates who are already advancing through the entrepreneurial pipeline.”

Michigan is a Leader in Commercialization and Entrepreneurship Education

As the Midwest region’s I-Corps node, the CFE has been established as a central resource for best practices in entrepreneurship training. Since November, the CFE has helped the University of Iowa as well as Lawrence Tech University set up commercialization acceleration boot camps to serve their communities. The CFE will continue to support and promote entrepreneurship training programs throughout the Midwest.

New Initiative on Speeding the Commercialization of Breakthrough U-M Technologies

TechArb Re-Launch

M-TRAC Transportation Grants

MconneX

MconneX will host the second annual Xplore Engineering Camp for alumni and their children/grandchildren on June 26 and 27. Thanks to the support of departments, faculty and graduate students, this year Xplore Engineering will offer one- and two-day camp options; the two-day camp will have overnight stays in the Baits Residential Hall on North Campus. Click here to learn more about Xplore Engineering 2014 and to sign up to be notified when registration opens.

Faculty News

Dan Atkins and Wally Hopp Elected to the NAE

Election to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer. NAE membership honors those who have made outstanding and innovative contributions to engineering.

Newly elected to the NAE are:

Daniel Atkins — W.K. Kellogg Professor in Community Information, professor of information in the School of Information, professor of electrical engineering and computer science

Wallace Hopp (MSE IOE ’82, PhD ’84) — Herrick Professor of Business, senior associate dean for faculty and research, professor of technology and operations in the Ross School of Business, professor of industrial and operations engineering

Jamie Phillips and Michael Thouless Named Thurnau Professors

Jamie Phillips (ECE) and Michael Thouless (ME) have been named Arthur F. Thurnau Professors. These professorships recognize outstanding contributions to undergraduate education and are among the highest honors given to faculty members of the University.

Newly Appointed to Professorships

Satish Narayanasamy (CSE), Morris Wellman Faculty Development Assistant Professor
Edwin Olson (CSE), Morris Wellman Faculty Development Assistant Professor
Fei Wen (ChE), Dow Corning Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering

New Faculty Scholar Awards

Branko Kerkez (CEE), Berker and Gokyigit Faculty Scholar Award
SangHyun Lee (CEE), John L. Tishman Faculty Scholar Award
Carol Menassa (CEE), John L. Tishman Faculty Scholar Award
Krista Wigginton (CEE), Borchardt and Glysson Water Treatment Faculty Scholar Award

New Junior Faculty Awards

Kira Barton (ME), NSF CAREER Award
Prabal Dutta (CSE), NSF CAREER Award
Mirko Gamba (AERO), AFOSR Young Investigator Award
Emmanuelle Marquis (MSE), NSF CAREER Award
Carol Menassa (CEE), NSF CAREER Award
Chinedum Okwudire (ME), NSF CAREER Award

New Faculty

Biomedical Engineering

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Mechanical Engineering