UB Engineering Alumni Association's 2011
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
BUFFALOENGINEER FALL 2011 Faculty Nationally Recognized Bruneau Corso Reinhorn Singla Faculty Student • Bruneau (CSEE): ASCE Winter Award • Corso (CSE): Army Young Investigator Scholars Award • Reinhorn (CSEE): ASCE Newmark Bileschi Lochner Medal • Singla (MAE): NSF CAREER Award Students • CSE’s Bileschi: Goldwater Scholar • EE’s Lochner: NSF Fellowship Development • Davis Hall Spaces Named for Tak, Pilitsis, Boveja Generous Tak The Bovejas • Garman Gift Donors Alumni • Stevens: Dean’s Award Winner • Agrusa, Boyle, Hammond: Alumni Awards The Garmans Pilitsis Alumni Award Winners Stevens Agrusa Hammond Boyle I Acting Dean’s Message I 2 Greetings, on the occasion of my fi rst message as acting dean: In line with the university’s “Three E” for our School in the areas of faculty hiring, on to learn of the many ways in which our alumni, strategic objectives of Excellence in retention, and research; student quality and faculty, staff, and students have been recognized education and research; Engagement with retention; improving our metrics and rankings; and with academic, regional, and SUNY awards too community and partners; and Effi ciency in optimizing and improving our facilities. As the School numerous to name here. use of resources, I have outlined goals of Engineering moves forward with its objectives Strong support for the School continues to come from and its planned growth, I am looking forward to our generous alumni – Sharad K. Tak (MS CS ’69), meeting its updated and its existing goals. John V. Pilitsis (MS ’70 PhD ’75), Raj K. Boveja Congratulations to our faculty members whose (BS IE) and his wife Sonia, Joe Y. Chuang’s (PhD achievements have been recognized by the CBE ’72) Firefl y Foundations, and Don Donewirth academic community at large, with prestigious (BS ME ’50) – who have given gifts to name spaces national and international honors: CSEE Professor in Davis Hall. Patricia (MS Nursing ’79) and Richard Michel Bruneau won the American Society of Garman have also given generously to the School. Civil Engineers (ASCE) Winter Award, while CSEE’s Please read the Development section for details on Clifford C. Furnas Professor of Structural Engineering these and other gifts, and to learn how you too can Andre Reinhorn won ASCE’s Newmark Medal. contribute to our School’s success. CSE Assistant Professor Jason Corso earned a US Please visit my quarterly report online at: www.eng. Army Young Investigator Award, and MAE Assistant buffalo.edu/dean/quarterlyReports/ to learn more, Professor Puneet Singla earned the National and enjoy the remarkable output of our colleagues, Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award. students, and alumni detailed in this issue. We are also proud of our students who have earned Sincerely, top awards – CSE’s Max Bileschi (pursuing a dual major in Mathematics) is a Barry Goldwater Scholar, and EE’s Claire Lochner graduated and received an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. In addition to these impressive accomplishments, please read Acting Dean Rajan Batta Inside This Issue: Cover Stories 3 Alumni 4 Students 7 Education 13 Faculty & Staff 14 Research 18 Development 24 Pre-College 25 Class Notes 27 Abbreviations Used in the Buffalo Departmental Research Highlights: Engineer BME: Titus, TCIE, Assist on Dynamic Eye Patent, p. 18 Departments BME’s Kim Researching Photodynamic Therapy, p. 23 BME, Biomedical Engineering CBE, Chemical and Biological Engineering CBE: Takeuchi, Marschilok: Carbon Nanotube Substrate Electrodes for Lightweight, Long-life Rechargeable CSEE, Civil, Structural and Environmental Batteries, p. 21 Engineering Nitsche Models How Drugs and Chemicals Pass Through Skin, p. 19 CSE, Computer Science and Engineering CSE: Govindaraju, Jayaraman, Menon Develop Smart Tracking System, p. 21 EE, Electrical Engineering Kosar Researches New Computing Paradigm, p. 19 ISE, Industrial and Systems Engineering UB Engineering Team Researches Cyber Transportation Systems, p. 23 MAE, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Degrees CSEE: UB Engineering Team Researches Cyber Transportation Systems, p. 23 AE, Aerospace Engineering Earthquake Engineering Techniques for Resilience, p. 20 CE, Chemical Engineering EE: Gan Captures Rainbow, p. 22 CIE, Civil Engineering Signals, Communications, and Networking Group, p. 22 CompE, Computer Engineering CS, Computer Science ISE: Paquet Leads Industrial-Based Research, p. 22 EE, Electrical Engineering UB Engineering Team Researches Cyber Transportation Systems, p. 23 EnvE, Environmental Engineering MAE: UB Engineering Group Accepted as NSF e-Design Partner, p. 20 ES, Engineering Science MAE Team Shows Strength in Single Atom Bridges, p. 18 IE, Industrial Engineering Singla Earns CAREER Award for Uncertainty Analysis, p. 18 ME, Mechanical Engineering denotes dues-paying Alumni Association members Cover photos are courtesy of Doug Levere, Nancy J. Parisi, and of the individuals shown I Cover Stories I I www.eng.buffalo.edu I 3 Faculty Earn Top Awards CSEE Professor Michel Bruneau CSE Assistant Professor Jason Corso American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) 2011 US Army Research Offi ce Young Investigator Program George Winter Award (YIP) Award; Air Force Offi ce of Scientifi c Research The Winter award recognizes the achievements of an (AFOSR) Defense University Research Instrumentation active structural engineer embodying a humanistic Program (DURIP) approach and concern for matters technical and social, CSE’s Jason Corso earned the US Army YIP award through art, science, soul, and intellect. for his project entitled, “GBS: Guidance by Semantics Michel Bruneau’s groundbreaking research includes – Using High-Level Visual Inference to Improve Vision- work on steel plate shear walls and seismic evaluation based Mobile Robot Localization.” and retrofi t of steel truss bridges. His work has Corso’s multi-disciplinary project researches the Michel Bruneau resulted in updated seismic design requirements Jason Corso employment of robots, also known as unmanned Continued on page 17 Continued on page 17 CSEE’s Clifford C. Furnas Professor of MAE Assistant Professor Puneet Singla Structural Engineering, Andrei M. Reinhorn National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award ASCE 2011 Nathan M. Newmark Medal MAE’s Puneet Singla earned the NSF CAREER award The Newmark Medal recognizes an ASCE member for research project entitled, “Uncertainty Propagation whose contributions in structural mechanics have and Data Assimilation for Toxic Cloud Prediction,” substantially strengthened the scientifi c base of which seeks to develop new mathematical tools structural engineering. for accurate characterization and propagation of Andrei Reinhorn’s pioneering contributions uncertainty in mathematical models, and fusion of include experimental and analytical methods in model output with sparse, noisy data, to determine structural dynamics, design of response-control estimates of the actual physical phenomenon and Andrei Reinhorn systems for earthquake-resistant buildings, as well as Puneet Singla statistical measure of confi dence in those estimates. Continued on page 17 Continued on page 17 Alum’s Gifts Name Spaces in Davis Hall We are grateful to School of Engineering alumni and their families for their generous gifts, which will name spaces in Barbara and Jack Davis Hall in their honor. Sharad K. Tak Smart Room RKB Conference Room John V. Pilitsis Conference Room Sharad K. Tak (MS CS ’69), a UB Alumni Association’s Raj K. Boveja (BS IE) and his wife Sonia are co-founders John V. Pilitsis (MS ’70 PhD ’75 IE) is co-founder, Distinguished Alumni Award winner, attended UB on of OCR Services, Inc. Raj is OCR’s president and CEO, retired president, and CEO of Cyoptics, Inc., a global a fellowship and was among the fi rst to receive an and Sonia is chairperson. For over 20 years they have optoelectronics company. Prior to Cyoptics, Inc., Pilitsis MS degree in computer science here. Tak established been working through OCR to provide software and was an 18-year veteran of AT&T/Lucent Technologies, the System and Applied Sciences Corporation (later ST related services for international trade, supply chain and served as the president of Lucent Optoelectronics Systems Corporation, which sold to Hughes Aircraft compliance, and homeland security. OCR’s strategic for fi ve years. He is widely credited with leading the in 1991). He is now an entrepreneur with global direction was inspired by Raj Boveja’s work with the US turnaround of Optoelectronics and its global growth. ventures in infrastructure development, which he Departments of Commerce, State, and Treasury, where In addition to his gift to the building, Pilitsis, a Dean’s has consolidated under the aegis of ST Group. Tak he consulted on the integration of software solutions Advisory Council member, has long been a supporter was a key volunteer in the UB Engineering School’s for the international trade community. Before founding of the School at the Delta Society level, the School of feasibility study for a proposed fundraising campaign, OCR, Sonia Boveja was a business executive with a BS Engineering’s top circle of donors. much of which was designated for Davis Hall. from the University of Maryland. Continued on page 24 I Alumni I 4 Robert G. Whelen Alum Whelen a Champion of Change With their awards at the 2011 UB Alumni Association Achievement Awards ceremony (l to r): Russell L. Agrusa— Robert G. Whelen (BS ’85 CE) is Harris Clifford C. Furnas Award; Gina Bronkie Hammond—Distinguished Alumni Award; and James D. Boyle—Volunteer Corporation vice president of