DIMENSIONS Department of Mechanical Engineering Volume No. 24 | Issue No. 1 ISU now nation's largest Fall 2016 undergrad ME program page 3 One family, three generations of ISU alums page 15 ME students make a splash page 24 Dear alumni and friends, We are proud to share the achievements of not just the mechanical engineering department but also faculty, staff, and students, past and present. This fall, mechanical engineering at Iowa State University reached a new milestone by surpassing Georgia Tech University and becoming the largest undergraduate mechanical engineering program in the entire country! To serve the growing number of students, the department has made many changes since our last issue of Dimensions. Five new tenure-track faculty members have joined the department: Sarah Bentil, Chao Hu, Jaime Juarez, James Michael, and Juan Ren. The department has also hired four non-tenure track faculty members: Mirka Deza, Margaret Mathison, Michael Messman, and Paola Pittoni. Features on all can be found in this magazine. In addition to our growing faculty, our facilities have had major updates. The department has launched two educational facility clusters known as “The Hive” and “The Mine.” The Hive, located in Hoover Hall, is focused on design education and includes studio, fabrication, and computer facilities. The Mine, located in Black Engineering Building, consists of five teaching labs with much new equipment. The department has also worked closely with Des Moines-based PUSH Branding to provide a new look for our teaching labs, design studios, hallways, and other spaces in Black Engineering, The Hive, and The Mine. Among our faculty accomplishments highlighted in this newsletter, assistant professors Soumik Sarkar and Travis Sippel were recently awarded grant funding as part of the Air Force Office of Science Research’s Young Investigator Program. This honor was bestowed upon 58 scientists and researchers nationwide, so it’s quite remarkable that two professors in our department were selected! Our graduate and undergraduate students kept busy with their classes, research, teaching, and other responsibilities. Read about Angadbir Singh Sabherwal, an undergraduate student who was recognized for his achievements in academics and leadership; a team of undergraduate researchers studying and designing safer football helmets; and updates from various student clubs and organizations. Our alumni continue to achieve success and excellence in their careers and endeavors. This issue features stories about a family made up of three generations of ISU alums, two of whom studied mechanical engineering; an ME alum and Iraq War veteran who has implemented conservation practices on his Northern Iowa farm; and an alum who has found success with his geothermal drilling company in Colorado. Our alumni are vital to the growth and success of mechanical engineering and industry in the U.S. and abroad. We enjoy hearing about your accomplishments. Please feel free to reach out and share your story. You can contact us at [email protected]. Sincerely, Caroline Hayes Department Chair Lynn Gleason Professor of Interdisciplinary Engineering Volume No. 24 | Issue No. 1 Published by the Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering, 2025 Black Engineering, 2529 On the cover Union Drive, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011-2030; www.me.iastate.edu; [email protected] Mechanical Engineering freshman Kiera Prepared by Nick Fetty, ME Communications Specialist, [email protected] Fodor gives a farewell salute as her team's boat sank during the inagural ME Learning Iowa State University does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, age, ethnicity, religion, national origin, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, sex, marital status, disability, or status as Community Design Competition at Forker a U.S. veteran. Inquiries can be directed to the Office of Equal Opportunity and Compliance, 3280 Beardshear Pool on Nov. 17, 2016. Photo by Nick Fetty. Hall, (515) 294-7612. ISU surpasses Georgia Tech as nation's largest undergrad ME program Iowa State University’s Department of Mechanical Engineering (ME) recently surpassed Georgia Tech University as the largest undergraduate ME program in the country. According to data provided by each institution, ISU’s undergraduate ME program has 2185 students for the 2016-17 academic year, 28 students more than the Atlanta-based university. “When I learned of the news, I felt some pride and satisfaction. Not in the sense of winning a competition, but that we were able to get to this point without a great deal of sudden disruption to our program,” said Cris Schwartz, director of the undergraduate program. Schwartz, who also serves as an associate professor in the department, has led the undergraduate program since 2013. Over the past decade, overall enrollment at Iowa State has grown by 44 percent, while undergraduate enrollment in ME more than doubled between 2007 and 2015. Schwartz said that while the university as a whole experienced substantial growth during that time, a strong Mechanical Engineering senior lecturer Jim Heise works with focus on curriculum and logistical planning helped the ME department undergraduate students. Photo by Dan McClanahan. manage its incredible growth. Schwartz also pointed out that over the past six academic years, one out of “We were in a period of high growth but not yet facing the truly every ten new students on campus chose to study mechanical engineering explosive enrollment growth in ME that occurred in the two academic out of a field of about 150 undergraduate majors. years [after I took over the program in 2013],” he said. “Those times were challenging, but because of the wonderful curriculum and space Schwartz was an undergraduate at Iowa State himself in the 1990s and went planning teams in the department, we were able to grow our program on to also earn his MS and PhD degrees at ISU. He then spent about six capacity very quickly and in a way that has retained the fundamental years on the faculty at Texas A&M University before returning to Iowa State nature of the ISU ME degree.” as an associate professor in 2012. He said he thinks the department has retained the hands-on emphasis which he remembers as a student. Not only is ISU’s ME program the largest undergraduate program in the country but it’s also the largest undergraduate major on campus. “I think one of most amazing accomplishments of this program is that it Schwartz said he and his colleagues have developed planning tools still has the fundamental hands-on, get-the-job-done value system that it had and projections to help the department serve its many students in the back when I was a student here. The department was less than one-third the most effective way possible. size that it is now, but we have been able to keep a number of the resource- intensive laboratories that we had back then. It amazes to no end that we still “We have developed some fairly sophisticated models for predicting have a manufacturing laboratory as part of our curriculum,” Schwartz said. our program needs, and those tools give us some time to prepare the program for upcoming semesters. It is through these data-driven “One of the most memorable things about my undergraduate time was the methods, along with truly excellent and motivated staff and faculty, metal casting laboratory. I am delighted that we still have the resources and that becoming the largest ME program in the country is just another the ability to continue to teach that particular laboratory at a much larger step in our journey to achieve and maintain excellence as a program.” scale than when I was a student.” Schwartz also attributed the increase in undergraduate enrollment to In addition to a well-rounded curriculum, top-notch facilities, and dedicated the high job placement rate in the mechanical engineering field as a faculty, Schwartz said the strong support staff has also helped to make ISU’s whole nationally. mechanical engineering program one of the best in the country. “Without a doubt, ME enrollment has grown nationally and that “One of the greatest improvements that I observe now, and am lucky enough is largely dependent on the favorable job market for mechanical to be involved with, is our excellent staff of full-time academic advisers,” engineers. We see strong evidence of this immediately after the Schwartz said. “When I was a student, I was advised by a faculty member ISU Career Fair, when a number of engineering students request to about what courses to take. Now, students and parents are able to do quite a transfer to ME because that is the most sought after major among the bit of long-term degree planning and emergency action by working with our companies visiting,” said Schwartz. advising staff.” Iowa State’s increased enrollment can also be attributed to the ME Department Chair Caroline Hayes said she sees Iowa State’s position substantial increase it has seen in out-of-state students. as the nation’s largest undergraduate ME program as both an “honor” and a “responsibility.” “In the case of our program, I think enrollment growth also has a lot to do with ISU’s regional reputation coupled with our fairly reasonable “It is an honor that so many students and their families have chosen us for their costs of attending in comparison to peer institutions in neighboring education,” said Hayes. “It is a responsibility because no other Mechanical states,” said Schwartz. “In fact, the very largest segment of growth Engineering department in the country has such a large impact on the of our incoming freshmen class this year is students coming from mechanical engineering workforce. We have an ethical responsibility to Illinois.” provide our students with the very best education possible.” 3 Student design team updates Undergraduate student honors Taylor Geick, named Outstanding Senior for Spring 2015 Team PrISUm commencement.