or J
A, Sptit on
Chemical Engineering
Statistics
29% of ChE students are admitted into the
UF Honors Program
The ChE student body is diverse: 13%
Hispanic, 6% African American, 30% women
The average ChE student SAT score is 1310
ChE has 26 National Merit Scholars enrolled
ChE undergraduate programs are ranked
13th among public institutions and 21st of all
institutions by the 2005 US News & World
Report
ChE ranked 8th in number of BS degrees
granted in 2002-03 and 6th in number of
PhDs granted the same year, nationwide
Dean's Letter
Research
College
Students
Development Report
Alumni
Annual Report
Cover photo: Chemical Engineering chair Jennifer
Curtis works with Michael Leclair and Dr. Caner Yurteri
to measure droplet diameter and velocity using Laser
Doppler Anemometry.
2 The Florida Engineer
Dean's Letter
As I write this letter, Federal Reserve Bank Chairman
Alan Greenspan is delivering his assessment of the
US economy at his annual Jackson Hole, Wyo.,
conference.
Greenspan said, "... In recent years, the US economy has
prospered notably from the increase in productivity growth
that began in the mid-1990s and the enhanced competition
engendered by globalization. Innovation, spurred by
competition, has nurtured the continual scrapping of old
technologies to make way for the new. This difficulty is most
evident in the increased fear ofjob-skill obsolescence that
has induced significant numbers of our population to resist
the competitive pressures inherent in globalization from
workers in the major newly emerging market economies. It
is important that these understandable fears be addressed
through education and training ...."
Engineering research and education is intertwined with
the dynamic interplay between globalization, international
competition, rising living standards, and the long term
sustainability of worldwide industrialization. There is little
doubt that our faculty and students past, present, and
future will play an important role in shaping this evolving
world. Indeed, engineering innovations in information,
communication, manufacturing, and design technologies are
at the root of this latest phase of globalization.
Several recent books have brought into focus the issue of
globalization and its impact on the US science, technology,
and economy. For example, Tom Friedman's The World is Flat:
A BriefHistory of the 21st Century has made globalization a
household word. Of course, globalization is nothing new.
International trade has been going on for thousands of years.
And leadership in knowledge, science, technology, economy,
and social progress has changed among nations every few
centuries.
Innovation and its commercialization will be the key to
success and prosperity in this emerging world. It thus
becomes important to understand the fundamental sources
of innovation. History suggests that innovations come from
several factors. Research, fundamental and applied, creates
the knowledge which becomes the basis for innovation. At the
same time, there must be a deep understanding of business
and societal needs. An environment where conventional
wisdom is routinely challenged allows for innovative ideas
to take root and flourish. Infrastructure such as availability
of capital, experienced management, educated workers, and
facilities can transform innovations into major businesses.
This is the ecosystem that nourishes an innovation driven,
high productivity economy, and prosperous society.
It is abundantly clear
that the US is the world
leader in fostering
innovations and their
commercialization.
However, unless we
continue to focus on the
essential elements that
have been responsible
for our success,
our international
competitors may well
steal the lead. Research
universities and
engineering colleges can
help the US maintain
this lead through the fundamental and applied research
done by our faculty and students. We provide our students
opportunities to become exposed to entrepreneurship through
courses, competitions, projects, and experiential learning.
But there are some dark clouds on the horizon. Significant
levels of high level engineering design and manufacturing
continue to move overseas. This outflow is driven by disparity
in wages between US engineers and their counterparts abroad.
While it has existed for decades, the increasing competency
of foreign engineers makes the transfer of sophisticated work
overseas even more compelling. If design and manufacturing
activity in the US falls below a certain critical level, it can
seriously damage the ecosystem of innovation. In some
industries, this has already happened. For example, in
consumer electronics, the bulk of innovations have come from
Asia and Europe in the last two decades. (Apple's iPod is a
nice counterexample in this regard.)
In the College of Engineering at the University of Florida,
we are educating our students to become leaders in this
emerging world. They are getting a rigorous preparation for
lifelong productivity in rapidly changing circumstances. At
the same time, our faculty and students are working together
to discover nature's secrets and invent creative solutions to
societal problems. There are significant opportunities for cross
disciplinary collaborations, deep interactions with industry,
and exposure to entrepreneurship. We hope and expect
that our graduates will contribute significantly to important
innovations that are surely just around the corner.
In this issue of the Florida Engineer, you will get a glimpse of
the exciting research, education, and outreach activities of our
highly talented faculty, students, and staff. It is an amazingly
dynamic enterprise. We look forward to your continued
support of the college of engineering in the years to come.
Pramod P. Khargonekar
Dean
Gator Engineering 3
Research
Jennifer Curtis wants everyone to know
Chemical Engineering
Has Elements of
Greatness
"ChE also has 26 National
Merit Scholars enrolled in
its undergraduate program.
And we are 6th among ChE
departments nationally in
producing PhD students. We
need to talk about these things,"
Curtis says. (See the inside
front cover for more ChE marks
of distinction.)
Heightened visibility is key to
the plans Curtis has for the
department.
"Visibility, particularly among
our chemical engineering peers,
is important because that is how
our US News & World Report
engineering departmental
rankings are determined. When
US News does the poll for
chemical engineering graduate
program rankings, they don't
ask industry or alumni for
their opinions. The only people
polled are chemical engineering
department heads.
"Our ranking is very important
because a lot of faculty and PhD
graduate student candidates
look at it and take it seriously,"
Curtis says.
A related concern is
maintaining a strong connection
with ChE alumni.
"Alumni are very important,"
Curtis says. "Last April [2005]
we had our first alumni open
house. We will hold these twice
a year. We also had a reunion
this summer of the classes that
graduated around 1980. I'm also
committed to putting out our
departmental newsletter and
other alumni communications
regularly so we can reach as
many alumni as possible."
Curtis realized that
communication with industry
needs to be better, too, when she
found out that Dow Chemical
had been considering removing
ChE from their recruitment list.
"Fortunately, that decision is
being revisited," Curtis says, but
she knows that it's up to ChE
to keep industry well informed
about department activities. "It
will help us recruit graduate
students and present our case for
corporate donations," she says.
Getting the word out about the
department has already paid off
in ChE being able to hire four
new faculty, including two who
are working in bioengineering.
"I'm very pleased. Getting top
notch people is very important.
But, having new faculty raises a
fourth issue," Curtis says.
Chemical Engineering needs
more space. ChE has been
allocated some space in the
Nuclear Sciences Building, but
even before that was done, some
department faculty were obliged
to move their research to labs
outside the ChE building.
Research
"We are working on getting
a new wing on our existing
building," Curtis says. "We need
labs, of course. We also want
a state-of-the-art classroom
with a staging room where we
can prepare experiments for
hands-on demonstration during
lectures. The classroom will
need computer capabilities so we
can do interactive teaching."
Curtis believes the ChE faculty
have unique resources available
that help make the ChE
research programs successful,
including connections with
the Biomedical Engineering
and Materials Science &
Engineering departments, the
Particle Engineering Research
Center, and the UF College of
Medicine.
"Now," she says, "let's get the
word out."
Martha Dobson
www.che.ufl.edu
Learn more about Chemical
Engineering in this issue of The
Florida Engineer. We are featuring
the programs of senior faculty Anuj
Chauhan, Mark Orazem, and Fan
Ren; the innovative new research
of CAREER award winners Jason
Butler and Jason Weaver; and we
meet the four new ChE faculty who
joined the department this fall. A
special story celebrates the career
of Dinesh Shah, who retired in
2005.
Anuj Chauhan has
A Clear Path to
Better Vision
Special contact lenses that
contain drugs for treating
glaucoma will be safer
and more effective than the eye
drops that now deliver the same
drugs, says Anuj Chauhan,
the UF chemical engineering
assistant professor who invented
the medicated lenses.
The glaucoma drugs are
contained inside nanoparticles
that are embedded in the lens
material. When the lenses are
placed in the eye, the drugs
travel from the particles through
the eye cornea to treat the
disease directly. The eye receives
50 to 60 percent of the drug in
the lens, which is far better than
the 1 to 5 percent of the drug
that reaches the eye when drops
are used.
The need for a better treatment
option is acute. Glaucoma
causes fluid pressure to build
up in the eye, which damages
the optic nerve. Worldwide,
more than 66 million people
have impaired vision caused by
glaucoma; nearly 7 million are
blind. In the US, more than 2
million people have glaucoma,
with more blacks and Hispanics
affected than whites. With so
many patients suffering the
disease, interest in the contact
lenses has been intense.
"Our most exciting research
right now is on timolol, which
is a very important glaucoma
drug," says Chauhan. "The way
we put the drug inside the lens
has never been done anywhere
else in the world. First we
put the drug inside particles
which are a few nanometers in
size. Then we incorporate the
nanoparticles in the contact lens
material itself. Imagine wearing
a contact lens, and inside the
lens these tiny particles
are everywhere. The
particles are so tiny, you
really can't see them."
The particles slowly
release the drug into
the contact lens and
then into the eyes for
long periods of time.
Current studies indicate
that the lens can release
particles for as long as a
month.
The efficiency of using contact
lenses for treatment will be
welcome to everyone who is
familiar with how messy eye
drops can be. Usually the patient
puts too much of the solution in
the eye. About 15 to 20 percent
of the drug just rolls out of
the eye as a result. Most of the
remaining drug in the eye mixes
with normal tears and flows
away into a duct that connects
the eye to the nose. The drug
ends up in the nose and from
there enters the bloodstream
where it travels to other organs
of the body.
"So, 90 to 95 percent of the
drug doesn't go to the eyes. It
goes to other organs through
the blood," Chauhan says. "Eye
drops contain about 50 times
the amount of the drug that you
need because you lose so much."
"We are trying to reduce the
loss of drugs to other organs,"
Chauhan says, "so that instead
of 1 to 5 percent of the drug,
with the lenses maybe 50 to 60
percent goes to the eye. Our
mathematical models tell us that
it should be about 50 percent."
Drugs that do reach the body's
organs can cause side effects.
Some drugs which treat
glaucoma can have a negative
effect if they reach the heart.
Another drug that the
lenses could deliver more
safely is Restasis, which the
FDA recently approved for
treating dry eyes. Restasis
is a form of cyclosporin, an
immunosuppressant. The drug
is useful because it reduces the
inflammation associated with
dry eyes, but if it goes to other
organs, there could be side
effects.
An additional benefit of this
drug delivery approach would
be better compliance with
the treatment regimen by the
patient. If a treatment calls for
eye drops three times a day, a
patient might not always do
this. With a contact lens, all the
patient has to do is put it on and
leave it there for the prescribed
time.
So far, the team has worked
exclusively with traditional
HEMA-based soft contact
lenses. (HEMA stands for
continue p. 7
Research
Mighty Mite
Electronics Are the
Next Big Thing
Professor Fan Ren
works on tiny devices
that are changing
the world of electronics. A
chemical engineer, Ren uses
a semiconductor material, a
gallium and nitrogen compound
called gallium nitride (GaN),
and applies it to semiconductors
fabricated on the nanoscale.
These semiconductors have
extraordinary capabilities that
are revolutionizing electronics
by their use in transistors,
switches, and sensors.
In 1998, Ren joined UF and
teamed up with Professors Steve
Pearton and Cammy Abernathy
in the Materials Science &
Engineering department to
work on wide energy bandgap
semiconductor materials and
devices. "Wide energy bandgap"
means that the energy between
the valence band and the
conduction band in a GaN
semiconductor is 3.3 electron
volts (eV); in a conventional
silicon device, it is 1.12eV.
The technical definition of
an electron volt is the energy
transferred in moving a charge
equal to the charge on an
electron, through a potential
difference of 1 volt.
Thermal energy will generate
carriers in the semiconductors.
The lower the energy bandgap
of the semiconductor, the
more carriers will be created at
elevated temperatures. Since the
energy bandgap of silicon (Si)
is 1.12 eV, ambient temperature
has a significant effect on the
performance of Si chips. That is
why computers have fans to cool
down the silicon chips inside.
If the chips aren't cooled, then
the thermal energy generated
within the semiconductor can
cause the device to fail.
The wider the energy bandgap,
the higher the temperatures
the semiconductor can handle.
Because the energy bandgap for
gallium nitride is 3.3 electron
volts, Ren explains, a device
made of GaN can sustain a
temperature up to 700 degrees
C and still operate normally.
"There is no cooling needed
for this kind of material," Ren
says. "Even when our test
station became red hot, the
device still worked." Because of
their thermal resistance, GaN
semiconductors can be used as
sensors in high temperature
engine environments such as
automobiles, aircraft, and even
spacecraft.
Gallium nitride is not only
resistant to high temperatures,
it is one of the most chemically
stable materials known.
Aqua regia, a combination of
hydrochloric and nitric acid
that can etch even gold, cannot
attack GaN. The only known
chemical that can etch GaN is
molten sodium hydroxide, or
lye, at 400 degrees C, making
GaN devices useful in hot,
harsh chemical environments.
"The other beauty of these
materials is that we can do
energy bandgap engineering,"
Ren says. "We can add
aluminum (Al) or indium (In)
to make aluminum gallium
nitride (AlGaN) or indium
gallium nitride (InGaN). The
atoms of aluminum are smaller
than those of gallium, so the
bandgap goes even higher;
InGaN goes the other way.
These compounds are already
used in optical devices. By
adjusting the energy bandgap,
different color LEDs and lasers
can be fabricated. These LEDs
and lasers can be used for high
density information storage in
CDs, in full color displays and
medical technology.
The scientists found something
else interesting: If a very thin
layer of AlGaN is placed on a
layer of GaN, each layer just
a few tenths of a micrometer
thick, the difference in the
crystal lattice structure of
6 The Florida Engineer
Research
the layers generates a high
carrier concentration. There
are no impurities needed to
generate carriers, such as when
phosphorus is intentionally
introduced in Si to make
n-type Si. This leads to a
simpler process for realizing
high-power, high-temperature
transistors.
Electric companies are also
interested in making power
switches out of this material.
The companies now use
mechanical switches with poles.
When the poles make contact,
the power supply oscillates. To
avoid constant trip-outs on the
power line during switching,
the operating voltage has to be
raised, with a consequent waste
of 5 to 10 percent of the power.
Switches made of the new
material will eliminate
this problem. Ren and his
research colleagues Pearton
and Abernathy developed
and demonstrated an AlGaN
Schottky diode with a diameter
thin as a human hair, yet able to
hold 10,000 volts. The work was
carried out five years ago under
DARPA and EPRI contracts
led by Pearton, and still holds
the record for the highest
breakdown voltage for this kind
of device.
"With a switch made of our
material, the delay during the
switch is just a microsecond,"
says Ren. "It is almost
instantaneous and is expected
to be a part of advanced power
flow control circuits that will
be needed to avoid voltage
fluctuations that can trip-out
computers and other sensitive
electronics."
Another use for the layered
material is making sensors that
can measure within seconds
the presence of chemicals like
atmospheric pollutants down to
five parts-per-million. The team
has also made a sensor to test for
proteins and antibiotics, and one
to measure pH.
Ren's team is moving into
creating GaN nanorods,
which he says has been made
possible thanks to the new
nanofabrication facility in the
physics building at UF. With
these new developments, the
work is of increasing interest to
both industry and the military.
The research being done by Ren
and his colleagues is supported
by several government agencies,
including NASA, the Office of
Naval Research, the National
Science Foundation, and the
Air Force, and new grants will
enable them to continue on for
years to come.
Martha Dobson
Anuj Chauhan has A Clear Path to Better Vision
continued from page 5
hydroxyethyl methacrylate, a
polymer.) Chauhan wants to
expand the research to include
newer types of soft contact
lenses that are based on silicone
hydrogels.
"The HEMA lenses typically
are not worn overnight,"
Chauhan says. "Silicon lenses
can be worn 24/7. A patient
could put a silicon lens on, wear
it nonstop for 15 days, and then
throw it away."
Chauhan points out that work
needs to be done to find the
best lens for delivering different
kinds of drugs.
"The oxygen permeability of
silicon lenses is much higher
than the HEMA-based lenses,"
Chauhan says. "On other issues,
the mechanical properties of
HEMA are slightly superior."
There are differences in how
much drug can be put in each
type of lens, and differences in
which kind of drug can be put
in each lens. Silicon material
is much more hydrophobic
and HEMA is comparatively
hydrophilic, so the type of
nanoparticle that can be put in
each is different.
"It is important that we develop
both, because certain drugs may
work better with either HEMA
or silicon. We hope that these
lenses will also be able to treat
infections and allergies. And
perhaps some diseases of the
back of the eye, like macular
degeneration," Chauhan says.
Right now it is almost
impossible to deliver drugs to
the retina in the back of the eye.
Drugs can't be delivered to the
retina through blood because
of the blood-brain barrier that
protects the brain and the eyes
from toxins carried by blood.
"We are hopeful for contact
lenses, because we can keep
them in the eye for a long time
and some of the drug might get
to the retina. That is like a holy
grail," Chauhan says. "If you
can get drugs to the retina, then
there are just so many drugs you
could use. That is the final goal."
The National Science
Foundation provides funds for
the project, which has been
underway for less than four
years. Chauhan is pleased by the
rapid development of the lenses,
and while he doesn't know when
the lenses will be on the market,
he believes it can happen much
faster than he predicted at the
beginning of the project.
"We are working with one
of the biggest contact lens
companies in the world on this
project, and all of us are very
excited about this," he says.
"Three years ago, I said it might
take a decade. Now I think it
might take about four or five
years, or maybe even less."
Martha Dobson
Gator Engineering 7
Research
Dinesh Shah has spent his life
Working for the Greater
Cause with Gusto
professor Dinesh O. Shah
retired from the Chemical
Engineering and
Anesthesiology departments
in the summer of 2005 after
35 years of dedicated service
to his students, the University
of Florida, and the Gainesville
community at large.
To say that Shah is dedicated
is the simple truth. A native
of India, Shah lives by the
philosophy of Mahatma
Gandhi, to work selflessly
for the benefit of the larger
community.
"In that philosophical tradition,
you devote yourself to the
greater cause to help people
around you," explains Pramod
Khargonekar, dean of the UF
College of Engineering. "Dr.
Shah thinks of his work as how
he can make people around him
happier. He has been driven
by that, and I think his legacy
is going to be multifold, in
research, academic leadership,
mentoring, and in community
service."
Shah believes that his life
has also been shaped by his
eternal optimism and dogged
perseverance. "Having come up
the very hard way from high
school, to college, and to the
US, I always had the optimism
that there had to be a way,
that I could find a solution to a
problem," he says.
Shah needed to be inventive
to help his widowed mother
support her family and pay
his own way through school.
He stepped out of traditional
caste boundaries to do manual
work while in high school.
Although well qualified for the
University of Bombay, he soon
ran out of money to finance
his studies. He took a chance
and approached the family of
a well-known attorney who
had been prominent in India's
independence movement. The
attorney's daughter-in-law hired
Shah as a tutor for her servant's
children and paid him by
providing his tuition throughout
his undergraduate studies.
Although Shah's heart was in
the arts (he is a published poet
and a heartfelt poem about
his students and his guiding
philosophy as a teacher is on the
inside back cover), he studied
science, and in 1960 he applied
to Columbia University for
graduate study in biophysics.
He worked with Professor
J.H. Schulman, a pioneer in
surface and colloid science,
which would be Shah's focus
throughout his career.
At Columbia, Shah found
that he had a gift for teaching.
"I was deeply influenced by
Jack Schulman. He was such
an inspiring teacher that I
really felt I would like to be a
professor," he says.
Shah's focus on biophysics was
a little ahead of its time. He
found that there were very few
jobs available after he received
his PhD in 1965. However, he
had done half his PhD studies
in chemical engineering, so
he looked for opportunities in
that area. After working for
a while at the NASA Ames
Research Center doing research
on chemical evolution and the
origin of life, he applied to the
UF Chemical Engineering
department.
Chemical Engineering was
doing cooperative research with
the Anesthesiology department
in the UF College of Medicine
in 1970, so the decision was
made to hire Shah on a joint
appointment to work in both
areas. "My students always
say that my common phrase
is 'go with gusto'. So I joined
UF as an assistant professor
with enthusiasm, and in five
years they gave me a full
professorship," he says.
Shah quickly built his academic
reputation for innovative
research. Shah believes he has
made significant contributions
in four areas. The first was
an ocular lubricant for dry
eyes, marketed as NeoTears,
which he developed between
1970 and 1975. Second, he
designed and implemented a
multidisciplinary program in
enhanced oil recovery that was
the first academic program of
this type in the country. Shah
edited two books on enhanced
oil recovery that are still used in
the petroleum industry.
The third area Shah points to
is his work in nanoemulsions
and nanodroplets. He built
up a core of basic knowledge
on oil-water emulsions that
is used for applications from
flavors and fragrances to drug
delivery, petroleum production,
and lubrication. The last area
of significant work Shah
cites is the application of his
work in nanodroplets to the
detoxification of drug victims.
"If someone is unconscious with
a drug overdose you can inject
this nanodroplet emulsion into
the blood," he explains. "Then it
extracts all the drug molecules
into those tiny, tiny droplets."
Shah's research has not ended
with his retirement. He has a
new invention that he believes
will help a lot of people: a magic
8 The Florida Engineer
Research
chemical, as he calls it, which
will help washing machines spin
out more water from laundered
clothes.
"'That means laundry can be
dried in one-third less time
and use one-third less energy
doing it, "he says. "When you
extrapolate that saving to every
household, it is equivalent to a
$900 million energy cost saving
each year in the US alone."
Shah's research brought a lot
of visibility to the university
and to the department, and led
to Shah becoming, as Dean
Khargonekar describes him,
one of the most well-recognized
faculty members in all of
engineering at the University
of Florida, both nationally and
internationally.
The dean considers Shah's
work as Chemical Engineering
department chair from 1987 to
1991 to be equally important.
"He brought the department
vision, stature, and brought all
the stakeholders together to
build an outstanding advisory
board. He connected very, very
well with the alumni, a great
ambassador for the department,
college, and the university. I
think he was really instrumental
in moving the department
forward," the dean says.
But there is another aspect
of his career that is just as
important to Shah: mentoring
students with the kind of
care and concern that directly
reflects his life philosophy.
"In India, we have a traditional
saying that the whole world is
one family. I took that literally
in my interaction with students
in teaching and research, even
in helping in their personal
lives," Shah says. "It is
important for a professor to see
that students go out into the
world as well-rounded persons,
not just good in science. You fail
as a teacher if you do not inspire
them to become considerate,
thoughtful, sensitive human
beings." Over his 35 years,
he has always responded to
crises in the lives of colleagues,
students, or staff like a family
member.
"My students are making a
wonderful contribution to
humanity. And these students
will train more students and
influence a lot more people than
I can as an individual."
Dean Khargonekar believes that
Shah set an example for faculty
mentors that will be a lasting
legacy within the college. "It is
hard to think of anyone who has
done this better than he has."
One of Shah's proudest
accomplishments for students
was the construction of the
India Cultural and Education
Center in Gainesville. Shah
saw there was a need for a
social center for Indian students
after three Indian students at
UF committed suicide within
a two-month period in 1990.
Shah and his wife, Suvarna,
mobilized the community and
raised nearly one million dollars
to build the center.
"Without his vision and drive
and dedicated effort in the
face of very, very tough odds,
that facility wouldn't exist
as we know it," says Dean
Khargonekar. And it was Shah's
work to create the center that
was the deciding factor in his
selection for the Florida Blue
Key Distinguished Faculty
Award in 1992 and to be the
grand marshal of the 1992
homecoming parade.
That event brought the moment
that put his whole life into
focus, Shah says.
"There I was sitting in that
first car, me and my wife,
and waving at the spectators.
You feel a little awkward for
the first two blocks. But the
little kids on the sidewalk are
very friendly, and you feel like
waving at them and you get into
the swing of it.
"But when I came close to
where my mother, who was
84 years old, was sitting in
her wheelchair and waving at
me, this was the most poetic,
traumatic, moving experience
anyone can have. Here was my
mother, who became a widow at
age 40, raised the kids, and sold
all her jewelry to support the
education of the kids. She came
all the way here, and she was
about to see her son recognized
as a distinguished faculty
member at the university. It was
priceless," Shah says. "My joy
and her joy, it was boundless. I
felt that all the struggle of the
previous years was worth it."
The India cultural center opened
in 1998. Not long after, Suvarna
Shah was diagnosed with cancer
and died in 2000. Shah credits
her hard work and support for
his academic success. He looked
upon her loss in terms of his
life philosophy, as a challenge
to serve as a positive example
to others on how to stand tall
after a tragedy. So he carried on
his research and teaching, and
expanded his interests in the
arts. Shah organized the annual
Poetry Festival of India, which
is held in Florida every winter.
He also set up a Foundation
for Music and Poetry in India
to promote young artists.
He established the Suvarna
Shah scholarship fund and
is now working to establish
an endowed professorship in
surface science in the Chemical
Engineering department (see
story p. 17).
"My mother used to say
that when you enjoy mango,
remember that the mango tree
was planted by someone else.
Now in your lifetime, make sure
you plant some mango trees,
not for you but for others to
enjoy the fruits. My gift of this
endowed professorship is my
small effort to make sure that
there will always be a scholar
on this campus to provide
leadership in teaching, research,
and service at the national and
international level in the area of
surface science, because surface
science is key to solving many of
our problems in engineering and
biomedical systems," Shah says.
Shah knows his
accomplishments will be his
legacy, but he hopes that his
life story will carry a universal
message.
"People once asked Mahatma
Gandhi what was the message
he would like to give his people.
He said, my life is my message.
For me, I have lived my life in
such a way that if people follow
the same compass that I used to
guide me, it would be a better
world.
"I do feel that everyone should
look at a human being as a
human being. All of these
barriers that we see, race,
religion, caste, creed all of
those things are created by
men. In my eyes, all students,
wherever they are from, are all
my students. I don't differentiate
in how I speak with them. They
are all my children," Shah says.
"I would like my legacy to be
a new way of thinking where
we just try to see each other as
human beings belonging to one
large global family."
Martha Dobson
Gator Engineering 9
Research
2004 NSF CAREER Winners
Jason Weaver: Oxidation Catalysis
Assistant professor
Jason Weaver has
een studying surface
reactions since he arrived at UF
in 1999.
Weaver focuses on the study
of heterogeneous catalysis at
a molecular level, specifically
looking at oxidation catalysis.
Many industrial processes
utilize oxidation catalysts to
convert hydrocarbons into more
valuable chemicals. Even your
car uses this process to help
in pollution control. Through
his research, Weaver attempts
to better understand these
everyday reactions.
"To do that, we have to
investigate reactions in a very
well-controlled environment,
an ultra-high vacuum (UHV),
Jason Butler: Complex Fluid Motion
A assistant Professor Jason
Butler, studies complex
fluids. Butler's interest
in physical chemistry drew
him to complex fluids and how
particles move at a molecular
level.
His award-winning work
began when he looked at the
sedimentation process of large
rods suspended in fluids. After
writing codes that accounted
for the hydrodynamics of
such systems, he decided that
he needed to study the same
type of system at a molecular
level, where things can change
drastically.
Molecular models have to
account for Brownian motion
of particles and for surface
interactions not present with
large particles. Making his
research more difficult is the fact
that a lot of study has been done
in systems where the particles
are spheres, but not much has
and we work with well-defined
systems, a solid surface that
has well defined geometrical
structure, for example a single
crystal," Weaver said. "Then
we'll introduce specific types of
gases and study the interactions
at the solid surface. Another
advantage to working in UHV
is that we can use sensitive
spectroscopic tools to examine
changes in surface properties,
such as the chemical states and
composition. In addition, we
can study the surface reaction
kinetics in detail."
In real-world applications, the
chemistry occurs at atmospheric
pressure and uses materials
much more complex than a
single crystal.
been done on suspensions with
rods. Spheres are easier to study
because of their uniform shape.
Rod-shaped particles have
different physics than spheres.
Butler had to develop different
equations and different models
to explain their motion.
One aspect that posed a
problem to many scientists was
the rotational diffusivity, or
change in orientation, of rods
suspended in fluid. In the past,
scientists could not agree on the
relationship between rotational
diffusivity and concentration. It
was understood that more rods
added to the same fluid amount
decreased diffusivity; the
question was to what degree.
Butler's research settled the
long-standing argument. He
found that everyone involved
was actually right, they had just
studied the problem starting
at different points and using
different models.
To bridge the gap between the
ideal model and real-world
catalysts, Weaver uses metal
nanoclusters deposited on thin
film oxides to serve as model
catalysts. While these clusters
are not as complex as the
materials employed as industrial
catalysts, they replicate more of
the material complexities than
does a single crystal, and these
complexities may be controlled
to a large extent.
Using these nanoparticles, he
aims to study the intermediate
states or phases, each with
possible distinct chemical
properties, that are found
between dilute chemisorbed
oxygen and a bulk oxide.
continue on p. 15
"For this particular project,
I've had a lot of fun telling
people about the result because
it is so surprising, and it is
something that interests a great
amount of people in my general
community and others as well,"
he said.
The work, however, is not done
for Butler. There is another
aspect of motion he would like
to account for in his models
- hydrodynamic interactions.
How does a rod moving in
fluid affect the other rods, even
if they do not touch? Adding
this aspect will help further
characterize the systems which,
until now, have not been well
understood.
The goal of all his research
is to give scientists a deeper
understanding of the materials
they work with. Using rheology,
scientists can get a set of
numbers to describe a material,
continue on p. 15
10 The Florida Engineer
Mark
Orazem:
Helping to
Close the
Gaps in
Azerbaijan
I ne newly constructea central Azerl plarorm in me Lasplan sea will produce approximately 4su,uuu
barrels of oil per day. The pillars to the left will support a platform for gas and water re-injection.
Photograph courtesy of BP Azerbaijan.
he University of
Florida has established
a presence in
Azerbaijan, thanks to Chemical
Engineering professor Mark
Orazem.
"It is a fascinating country,"
says Orazem, who went there
to teach outreach courses to
local engineers for the past two
years. It also has the potential
to become a very wealthy nation
and a valuable western ally.
Azerbaijan, a former Soviet
Socialist Republic just south
of the Caucasus Mountains,
sits atop rich deposits of oil
and natural gas. Western oil
companies are working with
the people of Azerbaijan
(the Azeris) to develop their
resources.
One consortium led by British
Petroleum (BP) is developing an
oil field under the Caspian Sea
that is estimated to have seven
billion barrels of recoverable oil.
The consortium has built the
BTC pipeline, which goes from
Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan,
through Georgia into Turkey
and has the promise of
delivering one million barrels of
high quality crude a day. Several
other consortia are developing
undersea reserves as well.
..5 AZOV
Azerbi an
r t -
Azerbaijan and the BTC pipeline
In addition, Azerbaijan has
as much natural gas as Saudi
Arabia, so much that it comes
up naturally through the ground
and burns spontaneously,
but has never been used as a
resource. A pipeline to deliver
the natural gas to market is
being planned.
The economy of Azerbaijan,
a Muslim nation with a pro-
western government, desperately
needs the income from its oil
reserves, Orazem says. He
cites the example that an Azeri
college professor makes the
equivalent of $50 a month, but
a new Lada, a Russian-made
automobile available there, costs
$5-6,000.
Azeri engineers are eager to
work in the new oil industry,
but their training at the local
technical schools has left serious
gaps in their education. The
problem is that after the USSR
dissolved, the local soviet-style
education system, including
the institute that trained oil
engineers, deteriorated. The
oil companies are working
with several universities in the
west and in Turkey to provide
additional training for the Azeri
engineers so they can become
certified professional engineers
according to British standards.
Gator Engineering 11
C
I. 'C
The Ateshgyakh Fire-Worshippers' Temple is
located 15 km from Baku. The temple, built in
the 18th century and reconstructed in 1975,
was devoted to the religion of Zoroastrianism,
in which fire plays a central role. Flaming
torches of gas, escaping from under the ground
in many places on the Apsheron Peninsula,
were believed to have divine power. Note: the
extraction of oil from this region has altered the
subterranean pressures to the extent that the
gas no longer escapes from the ground in this
temple. The flames of natural gas seen in the
picture emanate from pipes.
Orazem became involved at
the request of an old friend,
BP engineer Kevin Kennelley,
who is managing BP's project in
Azerbaijan. As a result, Orazem
has been traveling to Baku
for the past two years to teach
fundamental courses to the
Azeri engineers.
"I didn't even know where Baku
or Azerbaijan was until I looked
on the map," Orazem says. "I
went out there in July 2003 and
taught a two-week short course
on transport phenomena."
Noting the difference between
American and Azari students,
he says, "I have been teaching
for many years, and students
often tell me that they just
want to know where to find the
equations in the book." Orazem
teaches them the science behind
the equations anyway. The Azari
engineers haven't been so lucky.
"The Azari engineers who
had been trained under the
Soviet system knew where the
equations were, but they didn't
understand where they came
from. So they were making big
mistakes. BP asked me to come
and teach them the theory,"
Orazem says.
Orazem began teaching two-
week short courses on transport
phenomena, fluid mechanics,
heat transfer, and mass transfer.
"The Azeri students are eager
to learn and talented," Orazem
says. "I have enjoyed working
with them. BP is definitely
getting a group of good workers
and they are putting a lot of
effort into training them."
Part of that effort now includes
on-campus degree studies at
UF for selected students. "We
realized the two-week courses
weren't going to do the job, so
we thought that it might be
possible for some of their best
engineers to come and take
classes at UF," Orazem says.
Four Azeri engineers have come
to study at UF. Two have taken
one year of undergraduate classes
in chemical engineering and are
now working toward master's
degrees. Two more students
began the undergraduate
training in May 2005.
Orazem is also working with
the UF EDGE distance
learning program to develop a
general engineering Master of
Science program appropriate
for Azeri engineers. Orazem
notes that many international
companies like BP are creating
local energy/manufacturing
companies in developing
countries. To do this properly
requires well-educated and
well-trained engineers. This is
a rapidly expanding market and
one where UF could establish a
competitive edge.
The UF EDGE program and
the college as a whole may
receive a further spin-off benefit
from the BP connection. A
general Master of Science
program for engineers
similar to that developed for
Azerbaizan would be of value
to the engineering community
here in the US. Such a degree
program could be set up for
each engineering discipline with
appropriate technical courses
as well as project management
courses.
The Chemical Engineering
department, too, is seeing
positive benefits from Orazem's
connection to BP. Kevin
Kennelley has agreed to be on
the department's advisory board
and BP is donating significant
financial resources to upgrade
the department's undergraduate
unit operations lab.
The future of the BP/UF/
Azerbaijan cooperation looks
hopeful. "Azerbaijan is pro-
American. People there are very
friendly, and they appreciate
what we are trying to do for
them," Orazem says.
Martha Dobson
12 The Florida Engineer
College
SEEKING FOOTHOLD IN FAST-GROWING CHINA,
UF OPENS BEIJING OFFICE
The University of
Florida is joining other
American schools
that, like corporations and
professionals, are putting down
roots in rapidly growing China.
The UF Center for International
Studies in Beijing opened in
June, joining a growing number
of US universities establishing
offices or otherwise ramping
up activities in China, home to
the world's second-largest and
fastest-growing economy.
UF and institutions such as the
University of Michigan and
the University of Maryland
have long had agreements or
collaborated with Chinese
universities on, for example,
international study programs
in Chinese or English. UF's
new China-based office seeks
to expand these kinds of
collaborations into a palette
of distance-learning classes
and other offerings. The goal:
to both entice top Chinese
students to pursue UF degrees
and help a growing number
of American students seeking
careers in China get a foothold
in the country.
"After 9/11, the number of
international students applying
to UF and other universities
basically dropped 30 percent, so
we have a need to increase our
efforts to recruit international
students," said Sherman
Bai, an associate professor
in the Industrial & Systems
Engineering department and
the center's director. "And
because of developments
in China, our students are
becoming more and more
interested in business and
careers there, and demand is
increasing for Chinese language
and cultural classes and
opportunities to visit China."
Peggy Blumenthal, vice
president for educational
services at the New York
City-based Institute of
International Education, said
Chinese students no longer
view the United States as the
must-have option for graduate
studies. Also, she said, more
and more American students
are opting to study in China
- in fact, according to Chinese
government figures, some 3,730
American students journeyed
there to study in 2003, she said.
"China is becoming one of the
leading host countries as well as
a leading sending country, and
that's quite new," she said.
Not only that, with increasing
funding from the Chinese
government, Chinese university
graduate research programs are
rapidly improving their quality
and capabilities, she said. The
result of all these trends is that
US universities increasingly see
opening China-based offices or
enhancing China activities as
key to their future success.
"I think the growth of graduate
programs in China is opening
opportunities for collaborative
research," she said. "And I think
there's a wide range of ways
where, if you have a presence on
the ground, you can explore a
lot of opportunities for academic
linkages, beyond just receiving
students."
Bai turned to UF's Office
for Distance Learning and
International Center for help
with funding. The office
of Distance, Continuing
and Executive Education
provided $129,000 and
UF's International Center
contributed $30,000 to launch
the project. With UF support,
Bai rented office space in the
China Agricultural University's
international conference center
in Beijing. The conference
center is located in the city's
Haidian district, an area known
as the university zone because
10 Chinese universities are
based there.
The center has several specific
functions, but its overall goal
is to boost UF programs and
interests through its official
presence, Bai said. "With a
permanent center, we can
constantly build relationships
with the Chinese government
and Chinese corporations,"
he said. "It's a much more
integrated and networked
effort."
That's important in part
because UF students are
already pursuing careers in
China, he said. This summer,
for example, a handful of
students participating in a UF
architecture summer program
received job offers from
Chinese firms seeking talent
in the design of skyscrapers, he
said. "Three or four students
are starting to learn Chinese
immediately and expect to go
back to China and get jobs after
they graduate," he said.
To meet this new demand,
the center will seek to support
current international study
programs and create new ones
focusing on Chinese language
and culture, Bai said. The center
also expects to serve growing
Chinese student interest in
earning credits and degrees
from US universities through
distance-learning programs. UF
colleges and schools that have
expressed an interest in offering
distance-learning classes in
China include engineering,
medicine, pharmacy, and
building construction, Bai said.
One day soon, it may be possible
to earn a UF degree without
leaving China, he added.
Bai said many challenges lie
ahead for the center, not the
least of which is coordinating
with the Chinese government.
"If you offer anything in
China, you need to get
government approval to do so,"
he said. "Another challenge is
networking. You need to build
up a network, and that takes
time. And setting up programs
takes time, too."
Aaron Hoover
bai@ise.ufl.edui
Gator Engineering 13
First International Engineering Course
in Energy Management
n summer 2005, for the
second year in a row, UF's
Industrial and Systems
Engineering (ISE) department
offered International Industrial
Energy Consulting CHILE,
a three-credit course open to
all College of Engineering
graduate and undergraduate
students. The course, EIN 4905
- ESI 6912, was created and
taught by Cristiin Cirdenas-
Lailhacar, an ISE faculty
member and technical manager
of the UF Industrial Assessment
Center.
The course begins on campus
by analyzing the economics
and energy situation of the
Latin American and Caribbean
region, with a special focus on
Chile as the fourth NAFTA
country. Then the class travels
to Santiago, Chile, to perform
an energy audit on a local
industrial manufacturing
facility, and write a report on
their findings for the client. The
course is sponsored in part by
the UF International Center,
the College of Engineering
Office of Development and
Alumni Affairs and Office
of Academic Programs, and
the ISE department through
Professor and Chair Donald
Hearn. This year, the class
formed a team of seven
undergraduates and five master's
degree students.
After a day of acclimatization in
Santiago, the team performed
a five-day visit to two chemical
plants of the Sociedad
Quimica y Minera de Chile
SOQUIMICH: the "Maria
Elena" and the "Coya Sur." The
plants manufacture saltpeter
(potassium nitrate a fertilizer).
To reach the plants, the team
flew for 2.5 hours from Santiago
to the northern city of Calama.
The plants are located in the
most arid area of the Atacama,
the world's most arid desert.
The students, directed by
Cirdenas-Lailhacar, separated
into two groups. They
thoroughly inspected the plants'
processes, and exchanged and
discussed energy usage and
technical issues with the plants'
engineers and CEOs. At the
end of the visit, the team made
a PowerPoint presentation
to top management showing
35 potential energy and
waste savings for the plants,
and offering productivity
enhancement recommendations.
The team estimated that the
waste savings and increase in
productivity would come to
about $7.5 million dollars. This
fall, the team is working on the
technical report.
In addition to all the work,
the team was exposed to the
Northern Chilean desert
culture. They visited the little
town of San Pedro de Atacama,
which has a great museum of
mummies (mostly with earlier
dates than those in Egypt); the
The team at the entrance of
SOQUIMICH (SQM) Coya Sur
Solar Evaporation Plant in the
Atacama desert. Left to right:
Ina Agaj, Andrew Mosseley,
Stephen Marsh, Brian Po-Feng,
John Lehman, Carlos Romero,
Tabitha Robinson, Dr. Cristian
Cardenas, Michael Johann,
Carolina Padilla, Yeh Kuang-
Hao, David Kelly, and Juan
Espinoza.
local site known as the Valley
of the Moon; volcanoes; and
the old, once-lost fortress/city
of Pucard de Quitor, which was
conquered by the Incas.
After returning to Santiago,
the team visited but did
not audit three additional
facilities: Vina Concha y Toro
and Vina Ventisquero, two
of Chile's largest and most
prestigious vineyards, and
Ladrillos Princesa, a clay
brick manufacturing facility.
Finally, the team exchanged
ideas with graduate students
and faculty at the Pontificia
Universidad Catolica (PUC) de
Chile College of Engineering,
an ABET certified college of
engineering and one of the most
prestigious universities in Chile
and Latin America.
The team had free time in
Santiago, a city of seven million
that is vastly different from
northern Chile, to learn some
history and stories about the
city, and visit museums, old
churches, and other sites. The
team also went to the beach
and tried typical Chilean
seafood, and enjoyed the snow
in a ski resort in the Andes.
14 The Florida Engineer
They also discovered some
country food when they visited
Pomaire, a typical Chilean
small town making pottery and
arts and crafts. The trip closed
with a celebration dinner at a
Polynesian restaurant.
The 2005 team included the
following students:
Undergraduates
Tabitha Robinson (ISE)
Michael Johann (ISE)
Andrew Mosseley (ISE)
Juan Espinoza (MAE)
Ina Agaj (ChE)
Stephen Marsh (ChE)
David Kelley (ChE)
Graduates (all ISE master's
degree students)
Carolina Padilla
Yeh Kuang-Hao
John Lehman
Brian Po-Feng
Carlos Romero
The course will be offered again
during the Summer C 2006 term.
Cristian Cardenas-Lailhacar
cardenas@ise.ufl.edu
Jason Weaver: Oxidation Catalysis from page 10
"At high pressure you can have different types of oxygen on the
surface of a noble metal," Weaver said. "If we want to learn about
the basic chemical properties of these oxygen phases, we must be
able to prepare such phases in the well-controlled high vacuum
environment, where we can characterize their properties in detail,
and that's what we've succeeded in doing. It's a powerful approach."
A novel aspect of his research is the use of a beam of oxygen atoms
rather than 0, molecules to oxidize noble metal surfaces in UHV.
At high pressure, 02 molecules can generate high concentrations
of atomic oxygen on noble metal surfaces, but under vacuum
conditions it is only possible to adsorb small concentrations
using 0,. Using a beam of oxygen atoms has allowed Weaver to
adsorb significantly higher concentrations of oxygen on noble
metal surfaces than can be obtained using 0, in the high vacuum
environment.
"We are ultimately trying to learn about the types of molecular
processes that govern catalytic behavior under realistic conditions,"
he said. "I think that the ability to prepare these high-concentration
oxygen phases, and looking at more realistic materials, these
nanoparticles, is a step in that direction."
Recently, he has been using a scanning tunneling microscope to
image reactions as they occur. "What we're starting to do is to study
surface chemical reactions in real time and real space," he said.
"So you can actually see changes in atomic-level structure as the
reactions occur.
Ultimately, we want to be able to describe catalytic reactions under
realistic conditions at a molecular level, incorporating what we learn
about atomic level processes," he said. "Will we ever be able to do
that? Probably not in my lifetime, but hopefully we can gain some
insights to help it along."
Reshelle Smith
College
A mummy, about 11,000 years
old, of a young adult of the San
Pedro culture from the Atacama
desert in northern Chile. These
habitants of the desert, the
Atacamefios, believed in the
life after death. They buried
their loved ones dressed and
with food for their trip to the
afterlife. They worshiped nature,
were peaceful, and were the
most developed pre-Columbian
culture in Chile.
Jason Butler: Complex Fluid
Motion from page 10
but they don't know how to
manipulate materials to get
the numbers they want. Butler
hopes to change that. "What our
work will offer people is a way to
characterize their materials more
than anything else."
Being able to characterize fluids
is essential in the understanding
of the motion of everything
from Kevlar to viruses to carbon
nanotubes. "We're trying to give
scientists a better idea of when
they go and do an experiment to
characterize their material, what
it is they are actually looking
at," Butler said.
The CAREER award was just
an added bonus for Butler. "I
was very pleased to get it. I was
walking around with a smile on
my face for about a month," he
said.
Reshelle Smith
Gator Engineering 15
Manuel Bermudez(R) discusses research and
international cooperation with Prof. Alfonso Perez
Gama, prominent Colombian artificial intelligence
researcher and past president of IEEE Colombia,
following a conference presentation on latest
trends in artificial intelligence.
UF, Latin American
Universities Establish
Distance Learning
Courses in Computer
Graphics
The University of Florida has
renewed a cooperative agreement
with the Universidad Militar
Nueva Granada (UMNG) in Bogoti,
Colombia, to establish distance learning
courses in computer graphics. The
agreement was negotiated by Manuel
Bermudez, associate professor and Latin
American Outreach Coordinator for
UF's Computer & Information Sciences
& Engineering department. Bermudez
is the lead contact between the two
universities.
The courses will focus on the latest
techniques and methods in computer
graphics and on incorporating them
into UMNG's existing multimedia
engineering program. The program, like
UF's Digital Arts and Sciences program,
synthesizes computer science, art, three-
dimensional design, and engineering.
The cooperative agreement will be
renewed in late 2005 and will last five
years.
Bermudez has fostered similar
collaborations with other Latin American
universities. He established a formal
academic cooperation agreement between
UF and the Universidad de los Andes
in M6rida, Venezuela, in 2003, and
provided guidance regarding the school's
master's degree program in systems
engineering. He continues to work with
the Venezuelan university to encourage
its graduates to pursue further studies in
the US.
Bermudez has also established an
academic cooperation agreement with
the Universidad Latina in San Jos6,
Costa Rica, which will host the 2007
Centro Latinoamericano de Educaci6n
en Informitica (CLEI) conference.
Bermudez will be the program committee
chairman for the CLEI conference, the
oldest and most prestigious computer
science conference in Latin America.
Bermudez traveled to Latin America
on sabbatical as a Fulbright Scholar in
2003-04, during which time he nurtured
ties between UF and his host institution
in M6rida, as well as universities in
Bogoti and San Jos6. His Fulbright
appointment was extended from ten to
fifteen months, with full support from
the Council on International Exchange of
Scholars, in 2004. He also taught several
undergraduate and graduate courses at
the Universidad de los Andes during that
time. His worked was highlighted in
the Fulbright Quarterly Newsletter Fall
2004:
http://exchanges.state.gov/education/
fulbright/newsletter/oct04/reports4.
htm
Danny Rigby
16 The Florida Engineer
Agricultural & Biological
Engineering
Wendy Graham. Ii' i .. I
., I 1, ... 1. \ ..... .. l i. ... I
.. I,,n. I... ,r, .I ,I .. ..I .. .I
..-I \ _,. ,,n III. k I I_, k. "
James W. Jones. ,limii,11,, I.,I
i .i.... ..., | ,,, I .\ \ 1I I ,. .
I, ,. rs. : .. I I,,. I\ .I ,I. ,
\,,,,.,,,,8I,.,I \ k11,\BF I'.., 11..
Fedro S. Zazueta. fi rle:.....
Il l I....... .. I ..... i I ,:11 ... Tih e
\' \1'I1
Michael Dukes, assistant
professor, was named the
ASABE Florida Section Young
Researcher for 2005.
Chemical Engineering
Mark Orazem, professor,
was elected vice president of
the International Society of
Electrochemistry for 2006
-2008.
Civil & Coastal
SEngineering
Robert Thieke, assistant
I'l. *- ....i. ....e of two
I ii,,-. .. ..I I'lorida faculty
i....i.. .... ...ed for the 2004-
21 ,1116 n.. u. Ily-wide Teacher of
the Year Award.
Computer & Information
Science & Engineering
Benjamin Lok, assistant
professor, was named the 2005
Association for Computing
Machinery (ACM) Teacher of
the Year.
Electrical & Computer
Engineering
Jian Li, professor, was named
as a Fellow of the Institute
of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers (IEEE) and of
the Institute of Electrical
Engineers.
Jose Principe, distinguished
professor, has received the 2005
IEEE Engineering in Medicine
and Biology Society's Career
Service Award
Fred Taylor, professor, has been
named a Fellow of the IEEE.
Professor Dinesh Shah has offered the University
of Florida a challenge gift of $200,000 to
establish an endowed professorship, a Chair in
Surface Science in the Chemical Engineering
department. Shah, who retired in 2005, is the
director of the Center for Surface Science and
Engineering in the College of Engineering.
Shah is encouraging matching corporate and
alumni donations of $400,000 to help fund the
chair. The State of Florida can then offer an
additional $400,000 in matching funds, for a total
of one million dollars to support the chair.
Shah's donation caps a distinguished 35-year
academic and humanitarian career. Shah came to
UF in 1970. He served as chairman of Chemical
Engineering from 1987 to 1991 and was
appointed the first Charles A. Stokes Professor
of Chemical Engineering in 1996. He organized
the International Symposium on Surfactants in
Solutions in 1990, a meeting that brings scientists
from around the world to UF every five years.
Shah has received many honors and awards.
Among them, he was UF's Teacher/Scholar of
the Year for 1984-85 and he received the Florida
Scientist of the Year Award in 1988. He was
named the Florida Blue Key Distinguished
Faculty Member in 1992, and served as the Grand
Marshal of the homecoming parade that year. In
1993, he received the Pride of India Award from
India's Ambassador to the United Nations, and
the Florida Academy of Science named him the
Distinguished Florida Scientist of the Year.
Shah hopes the creation of the endowed
professorship will further establish UF as a world-
class teaching and research facility in surface
science, and, as he says, "will allow me to leave my
invisible fingerprints on the university that I love
so dearly."
Donations may be directed through the College
of Engineering development office.
Gator Engineering 17
Professor
Dinesh Shah
Offers Gift
for Endowed
Professorship
Three Engineering
Faculty Named UF EricWa(
Research Foundation Professors
for 2005
Three College of
Engineering professors
were named by the
University of Florida Research
Foundation as UFRF Professors
for 2005-2008:
*Anthony J.C. Ladd, Chemical
Engineering
* Reynaldo Roque, Civil &
Coastal Engineering
* Eric Wachsman, Materials
Science & Engineering
UFRF Professors must have a
distinguished current record of
research and a strong research
agenda that is likely to lead
to continuing distinction.
Publications in scholarly
journals, external funding,
honors and awards, development
of intellectual property and
other measures appropriate
to their field of expertise are
considered when selecting the
UFRF Professors.
The three-year award carries
with it a $5,000 annual salary
supplement and a $3,000 grant.
The professorships are funded
from the university's share of
royalty and licensing income on
UF-generated products.
Keynalao Koque
The UF Research Foundation
provides a mechanism by which
research can be conducted
flexibly and efficiently and by
which intellectual property
can be transferred from the
laboratory to the marketplace.
Funds generated by licensing
such discoveries are used
to enhance research at the
university.
Information provided by
Joseph Kays
Vice President Phillips Honored by ASME
Win Phillips, UF vice president for research and
former College of Engineering dean, has received
the Ralph Coats Roe Medal from the American
Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).
The citation noted that Phillips received the honor
for "extraordinary achievements as an engineering
educator, and for leadership in several professional
societies to promote public understanding and
appreciation of engineers."
A Fellow of ASME, Phillips served on the Board
of Governors in 1994-98 and as president in 1998-
99. He is a trustee of the ASME Foundation and
serves on many ASME committees and councils.
Phillips was president of the Accreditation
Board of Engineering and Technology (ABET)
in 1995-96 and the American Society for
Engineering Education (ASEE) in 1996-97. He
is a Fellow of ABET and ASEE, the American
Association for the Advancement of Science, the
American Astronautical Society, the American
Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics, the
American Institute for Medical and Biological
Engineering, the New York Academy of Sciences,
and the Royal Society for Arts (England), and
is a member of several professional and scientific
societies.
18 The Florida Engineer
.a i -I
Assistant professor Oana Cazacu (r) teaches at REEF
Graduate Engineering Research
Center Now Called REEF
The College of Engineering's Graduate Engineering Research
Center (GERC) has a new name: The University of Florida
Emerald Coast Research and Engineering Education Facility
(REEF). The name change, announced formally at a ceremony August
11, reflects a new strategic direction for the center and identifies its
location in the Florida Panhandle, often referred to as the Emerald
Coast.
REEF is located adjacent to Eglin Air Force Base near Fort Walton
Beach, Fla. The REEF has a close working relationship with Eglin and
related industrial and commercial aerospace partners in the area. John
(Row) Rogacki, formerly of NASA and the Air Force Research Lab,
and a UF Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering faculty member, is the
REEF's director.
Research at the REEF includes laboratory studies of short duration
events, such as the impact of projectiles and shock waves, using
diagnostic tools such as lasers and high-speed imaging cameras. The
REEF recently received nearly $2 million in grants from the Air force
Office of Scientific Research for projects in vision-based control, rapid
prototyping, aerodynamic characterization, and hardware-in-the-loop
simulation.
The REEF is affiliated with the UF EDGE program, which offers
graduate studies to students who cannot come to campus. Currently, the
REEF has about 100 graduate students enrolled in master's, PhD, and
certificate programs with a focus on:
Agile autonomous flight
Micro-air vehicles
Computational mechanics
Probabilistic optimization
Microwave photonics
Systems engineering
Application of electromagnetic fields
www.gerc.eng.ufl.edu
College
Chemical Engineering New
Faculty 2005
Aravind Asthagiri
Assistant Professor
PhD Carnegie Mellon University, 2003
Aravind Asthagiri's research involves the simulation of
novel materials from an atomistic level. He uses a multi-
scale modeling approach to link atomic-level information to
observable macroscopic properties. The accurate simulation
of material properties is critical for insight on the underlying
phenomena and design of novel materials.
Yiider Tseng
Associate Professor
PhDJohns Hopkins University, 1999
Yiider Tseng exploits biophysical methods for novel aspects
ofbiomechanical signaling. Tseng introduced multiple-
particle tracking microrheology, and extended the method to
living cell mechanics as intracellular microrheology (ICM),
which can directly measure the viscoelasticity of living
cells in real time. Tseng is active in the development and
characterization of molecular biomechanics.
Sergey Vasenkov
Assistant Professor
PhD Institute of Chemical Kinetics and Combustion
(-. ', 1994
Sergey Vasenkov studies transport phenomena in
nanostructured materials on all relevant length scales. New
microscopic techniques allow direct studies of the relation
between structure and transport in molecular diffusion
in nano- and microscale materials. His recent work has
been on locating ways to use pulsed field gradient (PFG)
NMR, interference microscopy, and IR microscopy to study
molecular transport in nanoporous solids such as zeolites.
Kirk J. Ziegler
Assistant Professor
PhD University of Texas Austin, 1996
Kirk Ziegler has worked on processes to cut micron long
nanotubes into segments below 100 nm and sort them
by length. His interests include physical chemistry and
applications of complex fluids, colloids, and interfaces for
the synthesis of nanomaterials for use in microelectronics,
manufacturing, healthcare, biotechnology, energy, and
materials science.
Gator Engineering 19
.a i -I
Assistant professor Oana Cazacu (r) teaches at REEF
Graduate Engineering Research
Center Now Called REEF
The College of Engineering's Graduate Engineering Research
Center (GERC) has a new name: The University of Florida
Emerald Coast Research and Engineering Education Facility
(REEF). The name change, announced formally at a ceremony August
11, reflects a new strategic direction for the center and identifies its
location in the Florida Panhandle, often referred to as the Emerald
Coast.
REEF is located adjacent to Eglin Air Force Base near Fort Walton
Beach, Fla. The REEF has a close working relationship with Eglin and
related industrial and commercial aerospace partners in the area. John
(Row) Rogacki, formerly of NASA and the Air Force Research Lab,
and a UF Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering faculty member, is the
REEF's director.
Research at the REEF includes laboratory studies of short duration
events, such as the impact of projectiles and shock waves, using
diagnostic tools such as lasers and high-speed imaging cameras. The
REEF recently received nearly $2 million in grants from the Air force
Office of Scientific Research for projects in vision-based control, rapid
prototyping, aerodynamic characterization, and hardware-in-the-loop
simulation.
The REEF is affiliated with the UF EDGE program, which offers
graduate studies to students who cannot come to campus. Currently, the
REEF has about 100 graduate students enrolled in master's, PhD, and
certificate programs with a focus on:
Agile autonomous flight
Micro-air vehicles
Computational mechanics
Probabilistic optimization
Microwave photonics
Systems engineering
Application of electromagnetic fields
www.gerc.eng.ufl.edu
College
Chemical Engineering New
Faculty 2005
Aravind Asthagiri
Assistant Professor
PhD Carnegie Mellon University, 2003
Aravind Asthagiri's research involves the simulation of
novel materials from an atomistic level. He uses a multi-
scale modeling approach to link atomic-level information to
observable macroscopic properties. The accurate simulation
of material properties is critical for insight on the underlying
phenomena and design of novel materials.
Yiider Tseng
Associate Professor
PhDJohns Hopkins University, 1999
Yiider Tseng exploits biophysical methods for novel aspects
ofbiomechanical signaling. Tseng introduced multiple-
particle tracking microrheology, and extended the method to
living cell mechanics as intracellular microrheology (ICM),
which can directly measure the viscoelasticity of living
cells in real time. Tseng is active in the development and
characterization of molecular biomechanics.
Sergey Vasenkov
Assistant Professor
PhD Institute of Chemical Kinetics and Combustion
(-. ', 1994
Sergey Vasenkov studies transport phenomena in
nanostructured materials on all relevant length scales. New
microscopic techniques allow direct studies of the relation
between structure and transport in molecular diffusion
in nano- and microscale materials. His recent work has
been on locating ways to use pulsed field gradient (PFG)
NMR, interference microscopy, and IR microscopy to study
molecular transport in nanoporous solids such as zeolites.
Kirk J. Ziegler
Assistant Professor
PhD University of Texas Austin, 1996
Kirk Ziegler has worked on processes to cut micron long
nanotubes into segments below 100 nm and sort them
by length. His interests include physical chemistry and
applications of complex fluids, colloids, and interfaces for
the synthesis of nanomaterials for use in microelectronics,
manufacturing, healthcare, biotechnology, energy, and
materials science.
Gator Engineering 19
College
Robotics Labs Join Forces
hey have similar
missions but different
backgrounds. They've
worked together in the past, but
were never this close. Now in
the same building, they hope to
create a more complete, better
funded robotics program at UF.
After years of being housed
separately in the Mechanical
and Aerospace building and
in Benton Hall, the Center
for Intelligent Machines and
Robots (CIMAR) and the
Machine Intelligence Lab
(MIL) are now just a few steps
from each other.
"This is something we started
talking about three or four
years ago. When it became
possible again and Carl Crane,
the director of CIMAR, still
wanted it, it was a no-brainer,"
said Eric Schwartz, associate
director of MIL. "We definitely
said it would be a great thing."
MIL is a part of the Electrical
& Computer Engineering
department, while CIMAR
is part of the Mechanical
& Aerospace Engineering
department. That difference has
kept them apart, but it is now
what they hope will enable them
to build better machines.
"I think the main reason we
wanted to do it was because they
have certain expertise that really
we don't," said Crane, referring
to MIL. "It's not just duplicate,
where they do the same things
we do, but they've got different
strengths."
The move will give experts
more time to work on what
they know best, Schwartz
said. Doctorate students in
electrical engineering shouldn't
have to spend their time doing
mechanical design when a
master's student in mechanical
engineering could easily do it
faster. Similarly, mechanical
engineering doctorate students
shouldn't be doing what a
master's student in electrical
engineering could do.
It will also allow students in
electrical engineering to freely
mingle with those in mechanical
engineering, Crane said.
"If one of their students needs
help from us, it's a snap, and
vice versa," Schwartz said.
Before the move, there were a
few students who would cross
over from other departments to
work in MIL or CIMAR, but
the move makes it even easier
for students who wish to explore
all the aspects of the world of
robotics.
The result, Schwartz said, will
hopefully be better robots, with
better mechanical designs and
better electronics.
"We can put it all together,"
Schwartz said. "What's
necessary to build a robot, a real
robot, a good robot, a robust
robot, is theory and practice
of electrical, mechanical, and
computer engineering, and
that's what we bring together
that was never together in one
place on this campus before."
They hope to combine their
knowledge not just in the actual
building of robots, but also in
getting the funding for those
robots.
"The biggest reason to come
here is to help both of our
funding," Schwartz said.
According to Schwartz, both
labs will have input into most, if
not all, grant proposals, research
proposals, and papers. He said
he believes that this will bring
in more funding for both labs.
"I don't see any downside,"
Crane said. "There's no way
that the labs are going to come
together and things be worse
than they were, so I think
there's only a good side to it."
The move was just the first step.
Long-term goals of the labs
include a degree in robotics and
a robotics institute, something
few universities in the world
have, Schwartz said.
"I feel that the move is going
to give us a chance to be more
than we or CIMAR could have
ever been before, to be a robotic
institute at least in ideas," he
said.
Reshelle Smith
http://cimar.mae.ufl.edu/
http://www.mil.ufl.edu
20 The Florida Engineer
n the heels of the project. "These robotic subs
rescue of a Russian could serve as spy-bots or plant
mini-submarine by explosives. You don't always
a remotely operated sub, UF want to use humans because we
engineering students are leading value human lives and fighting
their compatriots in the design is risky."
of the next generation of robotic
underwater vehicles.
SubjuGator, built by eight
students in the Machine
Intelligence Laboratory, placed
first in a national competition
of 21 student-built robotic
submarines in August. The
sub points the way toward a
future of smart, compact robotic
submarines that could repair
underwater pipelines, guard
ports, and conduct military
offensive operations underwater.
"The military wants to have
a significant percentage of
its battle infrastructure done
without humans in 10 years
- by 2015, 30 percent of all
US military vehicles should
be capable of autonomous
navigation," said Eric Schwartz,
the Electrical & Computer
Engineering faculty
adviser for the SubjuGator
On Aug. 7, 2005, the remote-
controlled British "Scorpio"
underwater vehicle disentangled
a Russian mini-submarine
that had been trapped for days
beneath the Bering Sea, saving
the seven-member crew. The
rescue highlighted the capacity
of remotely operated subs to
lend assistance in situations that
are either too dangerous or too
deep for human divers in this
case, cutting the mini-sub free
of fishing nets and other debris
that had trapped it more than
600 feet below the surface.
The next step is to make
submarines autonomous, or
able to navigate and complete
tasks without human assistance.
UF teams have worked on that
thorny challenge since at least
1998, when they entered the
first Autonomous Underwater
Vehicle Competition. Although
the UF team placed among
the top three in four previous
competitions, the Aug. 3-7
competition at the Space and
Naval Warfare Systems Center
near San Diego was its first
victory. The competition is
sponsored by the Association
for Unmanned Vehicle Systems
International and the Office of
Naval Research.
Three teams achieved one of the
competition's main objectives:
Finding an underwater pinger,
or sound-generating device,
in a murky pond, and then
rising to the surface directly
above the pinger. UF took first
place because SubjuGator at 30
pounds was at least 40 pounds
lighter than the other finalists.
"We forced ourselves into a
small design by buying a small
shell," said team leader Jim
Greco, who earned his BS
degree in 2005 and began his
doctoral program this fall,
both in electrical and computer
engineering.
Student
"All of our electronics had to fit
within the shell. At UF, to save
money, we make a lot of our
electronics, whereas other teams
might buy it off the shelf."
Besides the electronics, the
SubjuGator has five thrusters
that give the computer complete
three-dimensional control,
said team member Jose Carlo
Francis. It is powered by lithium
polymer batteries that allow it
to operate for 90 minutes. The
design is completely new.
Greco said building the sub
was a good introduction to
collaboration and other skills of
professional engineering. "Our
classes are great, but it's mostly
just theory," he said. "There
aren't a whole lot of practical
applications, and this allows you
to get a leg up."
He added that one problem
with today's remotely operated
submarines is that they require
a cable or other communications
link to the operator at the
surface. "If you're going down
into the Marianna Trench, the
deepest spot on Earth, you can't
exactly drop a cable in there,"
he said.
Robotic subs remove this
impediment, but as Grego
noted, "They have their own
problems to work around." One
major challenge: programming
the subs to "see" and react
to objects or changes in the
terrain, a difficult task for land-
based robots made even harder
underwater by limited visibility
and difficulty of controlling the
vessel.
Aaron Hoover
www.mil.ufl.edu/
Gator Engineering 21
Student
Student Competition Roundup Graduate School Prospects
fGAt a WnrArm f'AllnrA \Amelromnrv
Micro Air Vehicle
Team Wins Again in
International Contest
The UF Micro Air Vehicle
(MAV) team won the
9th International MAV
Competition on May 21, 2005,
in Seoul, Korea. The team
finished first in the overall
competition for the seventh
consecutive year.
The teams compete in four
categories: surveillance,
endurance, ornithopter,
and design report. In the
surveillance mission, the
smallest possible MAVs must
navigate to a target located 600
meters from the launch site
and obtain a clear image of the
target. UF holds the record by
completing the mission with a
5.25 inch aircraft.
In the endurance mission, the
objective is to fly the smallest
aircraft as long as possible. UF
won with a 4.5 inch aircraft that
flew for 14:54 minutes.
UF Wins Tandem Bicycle
Competition Again
UF mechanical engineering
students took first place in
the tandem division of the
2005 ASME Human Powered
Vehicle Challenge. This is
the third year that UF has
won the tandem division in
the competition sponsored
by the American Society of
Mechanical Engineers. The
contest was hosted this year
April 22 24 at the University
of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.
iGL C VfCl III VII^GG V ,IIIIG
UF Aces ASCE Steel
Bridge and Concrete
Canoe Regional Contest;
Team Is Second in
Nationals
Students in the American
Society of Civil Engineers
(ASCE), under the guidance
of faculty adviser Thomas
Sputo, brought home regional
and national honors again for
the University of Florida, and
one team reclaimed a title
it previously held for eight
consecutive years.
The ASCE Concrete Canoe,
Steel Bridge, Tech Paper,
Visual Display and Concrete
Horseshoe teams placed first
over 20 universities in the
Southeast Region competition.
The Steel Bridge team reclaimed
first place after losing the title
in 2004, the first time in eight
years the team did not place first
in the regional competition.
The Steel Bridge team went on
to place second overall at the
ASCE national competition
held May 27-28, 2005, at the
University of Central Florida.
Formula SAE
The UF Society of Automotive
Engineers (SAE) competed
in the 2005 SAE Formula
Competition May 18-22, 2005,
at the Pontiac Silverdome
in Pontiac, Mich. The team
of Mechanical & Aerospace
Engineering students finished
53rd overall out of 140 schools,
and had their bright spots in
individual events. The team
placed 14th in the skidpad
event, 11th in the autocross
and scored more points in both
the cost event and the sales
presentation than the prior year.
www.eng.ufl.edu/elinks/news/
student/index.php
The College of Engineering is
aggressively working to increase
graduate student enrollment.
Part of the program is inviting
potential students to spend a
weekend visiting the college and
the campus during spring term.
The weekends are directed at
the best qualified of the students
who have applied to enter the
college's graduate programs, and
the effort has been successful.
Attendance at the annual affair
has risen from 126 students in
spring 2003 to 174 in 2004 and
193 in 2005, and the subsequent
enrollment numbers of new
students in the fall reflect this
increase.
"We show them the advantage
of coming to Florida, and they
come," says Tim Anderson,
the college's associate dean for
research and graduate programs.
Courting the best graduate
students is necessary because the
number of qualified prospects is
not large. The problem is faced
by colleges nationwide. The
number of bachelor's degrees in
engineering granted each year
fluctuates somewhat over time,
but has remained fairly constant.
It isn't growing enough to
meet the demand for graduate
students.
"Couple that with a good job
market pretty much everyone
is getting offers now and the
supply of students is squeezed,"
Anderson says. "What we really
need to do is increase our pool
of applicants. Bucking national
trends, we have been able to do
that fairly well on the domestic
side," Anderson says, referring
to students who are American
citizens. In 2003, the college
had 345 new American graduate
students; in 2005, there are 461.
22 The Florida Engineer
But recruiting international
students has become much more
difficult since the 9/11 attack
on the World Trade Center.
The perception by international
students is that it is harder to
get visas to study in the US now
than it was before 9/11.
"Actually, about the same
number of students have visa
problems as before 9/11,"
Anderson says. "The process
simply takes longer than it used
to."
The impact on international
admissions has been serious. In
2002, the last year not impacted
by the attack, the college had
4500 international applications.
In 2005, there were 2400.
Other factors that have
affected international student
applications are improved
graduate school offerings abroad
and stronger economies in Asia
and India, which supply most
of UF's engineering graduate
students, that are creating more
jobs and keeping graduates at
home.
One pool of applicants has
dramatically increased: Master's
degree students who are not
supported with financial aid. So
in a trial program, the college is
offering an achievement award
for students who do not have
other support. The award is a
partial waiver of their tuition.
"Our initial enrollment figures
this fall suggest the program
was very successful," Anderson
says.
Martha Dobson
www.eng.ufl.edu/students/
admissions/graduate/index.php
Student
Student Competition Roundup Graduate School Prospects
fGAt a WnrArm f'AllnrA \Amelromnrv
Micro Air Vehicle
Team Wins Again in
International Contest
The UF Micro Air Vehicle
(MAV) team won the
9th International MAV
Competition on May 21, 2005,
in Seoul, Korea. The team
finished first in the overall
competition for the seventh
consecutive year.
The teams compete in four
categories: surveillance,
endurance, ornithopter,
and design report. In the
surveillance mission, the
smallest possible MAVs must
navigate to a target located 600
meters from the launch site
and obtain a clear image of the
target. UF holds the record by
completing the mission with a
5.25 inch aircraft.
In the endurance mission, the
objective is to fly the smallest
aircraft as long as possible. UF
won with a 4.5 inch aircraft that
flew for 14:54 minutes.
UF Wins Tandem Bicycle
Competition Again
UF mechanical engineering
students took first place in
the tandem division of the
2005 ASME Human Powered
Vehicle Challenge. This is
the third year that UF has
won the tandem division in
the competition sponsored
by the American Society of
Mechanical Engineers. The
contest was hosted this year
April 22 24 at the University
of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.
iGL C VfCl III VII^GG V ,IIIIG
UF Aces ASCE Steel
Bridge and Concrete
Canoe Regional Contest;
Team Is Second in
Nationals
Students in the American
Society of Civil Engineers
(ASCE), under the guidance
of faculty adviser Thomas
Sputo, brought home regional
and national honors again for
the University of Florida, and
one team reclaimed a title
it previously held for eight
consecutive years.
The ASCE Concrete Canoe,
Steel Bridge, Tech Paper,
Visual Display and Concrete
Horseshoe teams placed first
over 20 universities in the
Southeast Region competition.
The Steel Bridge team reclaimed
first place after losing the title
in 2004, the first time in eight
years the team did not place first
in the regional competition.
The Steel Bridge team went on
to place second overall at the
ASCE national competition
held May 27-28, 2005, at the
University of Central Florida.
Formula SAE
The UF Society of Automotive
Engineers (SAE) competed
in the 2005 SAE Formula
Competition May 18-22, 2005,
at the Pontiac Silverdome
in Pontiac, Mich. The team
of Mechanical & Aerospace
Engineering students finished
53rd overall out of 140 schools,
and had their bright spots in
individual events. The team
placed 14th in the skidpad
event, 11th in the autocross
and scored more points in both
the cost event and the sales
presentation than the prior year.
www.eng.ufl.edu/elinks/news/
student/index.php
The College of Engineering is
aggressively working to increase
graduate student enrollment.
Part of the program is inviting
potential students to spend a
weekend visiting the college and
the campus during spring term.
The weekends are directed at
the best qualified of the students
who have applied to enter the
college's graduate programs, and
the effort has been successful.
Attendance at the annual affair
has risen from 126 students in
spring 2003 to 174 in 2004 and
193 in 2005, and the subsequent
enrollment numbers of new
students in the fall reflect this
increase.
"We show them the advantage
of coming to Florida, and they
come," says Tim Anderson,
the college's associate dean for
research and graduate programs.
Courting the best graduate
students is necessary because the
number of qualified prospects is
not large. The problem is faced
by colleges nationwide. The
number of bachelor's degrees in
engineering granted each year
fluctuates somewhat over time,
but has remained fairly constant.
It isn't growing enough to
meet the demand for graduate
students.
"Couple that with a good job
market pretty much everyone
is getting offers now and the
supply of students is squeezed,"
Anderson says. "What we really
need to do is increase our pool
of applicants. Bucking national
trends, we have been able to do
that fairly well on the domestic
side," Anderson says, referring
to students who are American
citizens. In 2003, the college
had 345 new American graduate
students; in 2005, there are 461.
22 The Florida Engineer
But recruiting international
students has become much more
difficult since the 9/11 attack
on the World Trade Center.
The perception by international
students is that it is harder to
get visas to study in the US now
than it was before 9/11.
"Actually, about the same
number of students have visa
problems as before 9/11,"
Anderson says. "The process
simply takes longer than it used
to."
The impact on international
admissions has been serious. In
2002, the last year not impacted
by the attack, the college had
4500 international applications.
In 2005, there were 2400.
Other factors that have
affected international student
applications are improved
graduate school offerings abroad
and stronger economies in Asia
and India, which supply most
of UF's engineering graduate
students, that are creating more
jobs and keeping graduates at
home.
One pool of applicants has
dramatically increased: Master's
degree students who are not
supported with financial aid. So
in a trial program, the college is
offering an achievement award
for students who do not have
other support. The award is a
partial waiver of their tuition.
"Our initial enrollment figures
this fall suggest the program
was very successful," Anderson
says.
Martha Dobson
www.eng.ufl.edu/students/
admissions/graduate/index.php
iALr A
A CISE Summer Workshop Shows
Computers Are a Girl Thing, Too
If you can catch them early, they
may be hooked for life.
That's the idea behind the
Women's Summer Workshop
presented by UF's Computer
& Information Science
& Engineering (CISE)
department. Now in its
second year, the workshop
is a four-day program that
introduces high school girls to
the world of computer science
and technology. It's an area
where women have been in the
minority since the late 1980s .
"Currently, the field has only
about 16 to 18 percent women,"
said workshop director Rory
De Simone, a CISE faculty
member.
"It appears that high school
women are reluctant to go into
computer science engineering
because they think that it is
cliffiiilt and that it consists
primarily of programming,"
she said. "Although the
work is difficult, women
have historically risen to the
challenge. However, over the
past 20 years, more women
have entered the softer sciences
such as biology and more
societal engineering areas such
as environmental or industrial
engineering. An excellent
example is that medical school
enrollments are now 51 percent
women. These fields require
the same high levels of math
and science skills, so there is no
question that women can do the
work."
It is also a misconception that
computer engineers only do
code, De Simone said. The
intention of the workshop is
to show girls the many diverse
opportunities available to CISE
graduates. "We hope the girls
will develop an understanding
of the importance of technology
to our future as we encourage
these talented young women
to be among the technical
innovators of their generation.
The computer industry needs
and is asking for women. They
need their ideas, influence,
creativity, and perspective."
Camp attendee Vicky Smith,
a sophomore a St. Petersburg
High School, said she now
realizes that more women
need to go into computer
engineering.
"I think a lot of women don't go
into it because girls just think
men are more into computers
and all that stuff, but I think
women need to go into it to help
bring in the creative side," she
said. "After all, anyone can do
well in math classes, not just
boys."
Gator Engineering 23
The problem, De Simone
believes, is a misconception that
girls are not as good as boys
at math and science. On July
18-21, 40 girls from different
Gainesville area high schools
and of different ethnicities came
together to help dispel that
idea. Most had no experience
in computer programming or
computer science, but on the
first day they were able to build
and program Lego robots.
"I was amazed at how quickly
they grasped things," De
Simone said.
The girls who attended helped
make the program what it
was, De Simone said. "They
were bright, curious, dynamic,
and polite," she said. "They
continually asked excellent
questions and were interested in
all they learned."
Vicky agreed, adding that being
one of the only girls from out of
town made no difference in her
experience. "All of the girls were
kind and intelligent," she said.
In addition to building the Lego
robots, the girls talked with
women in the computer science/
engineering industry and UF
researchers, explored the world
of virtual reality, toured UF's
Smart House, and visited
DisneyQuest for a customized
behind-the-scenes tour.
On day one, IBM executive
Julie Schunemen spoke about
her experience as a woman
in engineering and Denise
Atteberry explained the various
degrees offered by CISE. The
girls also built their robots and
programmed them for a variety
of functions.
The girls loved the robots. "I
wanted to take my robot home,"
Vicky said.
On the second day the girls
learned the basics of the object-
oriented programming language
Alice and the graphic program
Maya. They saw demonstrations
of DIANA, a virtual patient
used to train medical students,
and the NAV, a digital program
that illustrated a realistic virtual
tour of UF's campus, both
developed by CISE researchers.
On day three, the girls met a
panel of women from industry
and academia. They also toured
the Smart House designed
by UF researchers to provide
automated assistance to elderly
residents.
On the fourth day, the girls
traveled to Orlando for a
behind-the-scenes tour of
DisneyQuest. They met
technicians who work on
Disney's computer systems and
learned about the computer
processes that keep Disney
World running. The girls also
observed that few women
were working as engineers or
technicians at Disney, which
brought home the point that
computer science needs women.
In the afternoon, they explored
DisneyQuest on their own.
Vicky said the field trips to
DisneyQuest and the Smart
House were her favorite parts
of the workshop. "We got to see
computer engineering in action
and how it can be used in the
real world," she said.
The workshop was an
unqualified success, De
Simone said. "It exceeded my
expectation. I was very pleased."
Almost every girl indicated she
would like to return next year.
"I would love to come back,"
Vicky said. "It was a lot of
fun, and I learned a lot. At the
beginning I didn't think I would
be interested in computers at
all, but by the end of the camp
I realized that I should at least
take a few classes because
so many fields use computer
engineering, and it's actually
very interesting."
The increased interest means
the workshop will need to
expand. De Simone hopes to
eventually have 100 girls attend
and to have two sections, one
for the girls who have attended
before and one for new girls.
It's a major expansion for the
workshop which had only 12
girls in 2004.
"This year's workshop was the
blockbuster, next summer will
be the sequel," De Simone said.
The workshop was funded
through grants and support
from Lockheed Martin and
Progress Energy. Departing
gifts were donated by Microsoft
and IBM.
Teaching assistants Christian
Roberson, Alexandra Martinez,
James Nichols, and Kevin
Lawler, and academic advisor
Amy Landendorfwere all
instrumental to the workshop's
success.
Thanks also go to Mike Scott
of Disney Quest; Cammy
Abernathy, associate dean for
academic affairs; Jonathan
Earle, associate dean for student
affairs; Sartaj Sahni, CISE
chairman; and CISE faculty
Sumi Helal, Jorg Peters, and
Ben Lok.
Reshelle Smith
www.cise.ufl.edu/~rjd/
workshop.html
24 The Florida Engineer
New Senior
Development
Officer Named
Development Report
2004-2005
Dear Alumni and Friends,
It is a special pleasure to thank you for your continued
support during the 2004-2005 fiscal year. The Florida
Fund and your annual contributions to the College
of Engineering allow Dean Khargonekar and
the department chairs to provide extraordinary
opportunities for our faculty and students. Your gifts
provide direct support for:
laboratory and classroom exercises
equipment and materials not available through
state-appropriated funds
topical seminars and prominent guest lecturers
travel to attend competitions for our many student
organizations, and
academic and research opportunities for students,
faculty, and staff.
Your annual gifts provide the margin above basic state
funding that enables the College of Engineering to excel
over its peers and reach toward its goal of being a top-20
ranked engineering program.
The college is deeply appreciative of our Gator Engineering
family for your interest and investment in the ideas, beliefs, and
people who form this outstanding institution. The college is committed
to continue its strides toward excellence in order to enhance the quality
and reputation of the programs that you have come to respect at the University of
Florida.
The development team is available to assist you with any questions about gifts to
the College of Engineering to aid its quest to develop new processes, materials, and
knowledge.
On behalf of the college, departments, faculty, and students, we thank you sincerely for
your gifts.
With appreciation,
I ). I,, I ...... I II 1 I -.. .. II II,
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1. I ,I I .... .. II I... ..
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,2 4 I,n ..I .... ... ,,,.l '' **' -' *- ,
I' .l..- ,.... I..
Edward M. Kominowski
Director ofDevelopment
E-mail: ekominowski@eng.ufl.edu
Engineering Development Office
College of Engineering
University of Florida
P O Box 116575
Gainesville, FL 32611-6575
P: 352.392.6795
F: 352.846.0138
C. Ellis Pope
Director ofDevelopment
E-mail: epope@eng.ufl.edu
Gator Engineering 25
Development
t is my sincere pleasure to announce the
creation of a donor recognition wall. I believe
that as a college we must always show our
appreciation of the generous support you and
your families have given to the educational and
research mission of Gator Engineering.
The drawing above shows the donor recognition
space. It is important that all who enter the
College of Engineering will realize how many
strong supporters the college has had during its
many years.
The new space will be completed this fall. I
sincerely hope that you will have an opportunity
to visit so that we may express in this small
way our gratitude for your past and continued
investment in our tremendous faculty, students,
and staff.
The donor wall will provide space that we may
honor both past and future donors who have
accepted the goal of providing Gator Engineering
with the private support that gives the college its
margin for excellence.
We look forward to your visit and welcome the
opportunity to thank you in this significant
manner.
Sincerely,
Pramod P. Kharagonekar
Dean, C ..Ig, ofEngineering
UF Engineering Alumnus Named Head of Sandia Labs
Thomas 0. Hunter became president of the
Sandia Corporation and director of Sandia
National Laboratories on April 29, 2005. Hunter
most recently had served as Sandia's senior vice
president for defense programs, with oversight of
the US nuclear weapons programs.
Hunter joined Sandia in 1967 after he received
his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering
from the University of Florida in 1966. While
working at Sandia, he earned his PhD in nuclear
engineering from the University of Wisconsin.
Hunter has been recognized as a distinguished
alumnus by both UF and the University of
Wisconsin, and he serves on the Dean's Advisory
Board for the UF College of Engineering.
Sandia's laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico
and Livermore, California are funded primarily
by the US Department of Energy, with additional
funding by the Department of Homeland Security
and Department of Defense. Sandia's mission is to
develop technologies for national security, which
includes maintaining the nation's nuclear stockpile.
The laboratories are managed by the Lockheed
Martin Corporation.
Information Courtesy of Sandia Laboratories
26 The Florida Engineer
To the Gator
Engineering
Family:
College of Engineering
Spring Commencement Honors
Hyung-Knu Lim
Gator Engineers Named UF Distinguished
Alumni at Spring Commencement
The University of Florida has recognized Nils J. Diaz
and Hyung-Khu Lim for their accomplishments by
naming them UF Distinguished Alumni at the May 2005
commencement ceremony.
Diaz is the chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) and a professor emeritus in the Nuclear
& Radiological Engineering department. Lim is the
president of Corporate Technology Operations for Samsung
Electronics.
Diaz, a native of Cuba, received his MS and PhD degrees
in nuclear engineering from UF. He joined the UF faculty,
teaching nuclear engineering sciences and serving as
director of the Innovative Nuclear Space Power Institute, a
national consortium of industries, universities, and national
laboratories. In 1996, Diaz was named to the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission. In 2003, President George W.
Bush selected Diaz to be the NRC chairman. As chairman,
Diaz is responsible for NRC's administrative functions.
He also has authority for all NRC emergency functions
involving an NRC licensee.
Lim received his PhD in electrical engineering from UF.
He then returned to Samsung, where he had been employed
as a staff engineer, to work on memory semiconductor
products. He spearheaded the development of EEPROM,
Flash Memory, and SRAM and DRAM products. While
Lim was managing executive director and executive vice
president of Samsung's memory division, the company
became the leading manufacturer of DRAM chips, the
major memory components of PCs and laptop computers.
Venture Capitalist Robert
Cohn Addressed Spring
Commencement
UF alumnus Robert Cohn, an
independent investor and advisor
to growing companies, spoke to
graduating engineers at the spring
commencement ceremony. He
received a BS in mathematics and
computer science from UF and an
MBA from Stanford University.
Cohn became a venture capitalist
during his 2002-04 partnership
in Sequoia Capital, a high-
tech venture capital firm in
Silicon Valley. In 1982, Cohn
founded Octel Communications
Corporation, a manufacturer of
voice mail equipment. He was
chairman and CEO of Octel until
the company was purchased by
Lucent Technologies, Inc. in 1997.
He then served as an executive vice
president of Lucent and retired in
1999.
More information about Diaz,
Lim, and Cohn can be found at the
following Web site:
www.eng.ufl.edu/newsroom/
spotlights
Gator Engineering 27
NIIs J. uiaz
Hobert ohnn
Alumni Updates
Harold Dubon
Bill Bierbower, patent US 6,865,999 for the Monster Wakeboard Tower.
1959
Henry Katz, BS AeroE, retired after
31 years with the National Security
Agency. He now is a full-time lecturer
with the University of Maryland
Baltimore County (UMBC) Computer
Science department. As of this year, he
has finished 14 years of teaching part-
time at UMBC and eight years of full-
time teaching. Katz reports that UMBC
has many students with very high SAT
scores and a chess team that won the
national collegiate title in April 2005.
"Also, we are undefeated in football, as
we do not have a football team."
1963
Thomas C. Breske, BS ChE, has
retired from DuPont after more than
35 years with the company. He is
now a consultant in industrial water
treatment, including design, operation,
and troubleshooting. He resides in
Perryville, Md.
1978
Ronald E. Jarnagin, BS ME,
MS ME 80, is now vice president of
the American Society of Heating,
Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning
Engineers. He has also received
ASHRAE's Distinguished Service Award.
He is a staff scientist and program
manager at Battelle's Pacific Northwest
National Laboratory, Richland, Wash.
1987
Bill Bierbower, BS ME, has
received patent US 6,865,999 for
the Monster Wakeboard Tower. His
company, Monster Tower, was two
years old on April 16, 2005, and has
quickly become the most popular
aftermarket wakeboard tower with
distribution in more than thirty
countries.
1990
Harold Dubon, who pursued
distance learning graduate studies
during the 1990s through the
program now known as UF EDGE, is
the Jacksonville office manager of
the Florida-wide engineering firm
Nordarse & Associates. Dubon holds
bachelor's degrees in civil engineering
and architectural engineering from
the University of Miami. Dubon,
a Professional Engineer, formerly
worked with the Florida Department of
Transportation.
Marc O'Connor, BS ISE, has been
named president of Maxon Holdings.
Maxon is a Green Energy Development
Company in Atlanta, Ga., and is
developing the south's largest district
energy network in association with
the Atlantic Station development in
downtown Atlanta. He lives with his
wife Barbara O'Connor (UF 91 Finance)
and their young daughter, Megan, in
Atlanta, Ga.
2004
Bibo Zhang, MS CE, is a structural
engineer in the bridge department of
HNTB Corporation, Lake Mary office.
She will do analysis and design for
several Florida bridge projects.
Friends We Will Miss
1936 Drayton D. Bernhard, BS ME, of Lake City, Fla., died April 24, 1995.
Ray Tylander, BS IE, of Jupiter, Fla., died May 9, 2005.
1938 Clark B. Smith, BS CHE, died March 17, 2001.
1939 John M. Tubbs, BS IE, of Dutton, Va., died January 16, 2005.
1940 Robert G. Crosby, Jr., BS EE, Georgetown, Tex., died June 4, 2005.
Robert R. Godman, BS ME, of Cape Coral, Fla., died March 13, 2005.
1941 Charles Castellano, BS ME, of Minneapolis, Minn., died April 4, 2004.
1943 Daniel M. McCarthy, BS CHE, of Clewiston, Fla., died February 25, 2005.
William H. Mahoney, BS CE, of Jacksonville, Fla., died March 22, 2005.
1944 S.N. Finney, Jr., BS CHE, of Tallahassee, Fla., died July 25, 1996.
1948 Wayne D. Barton, BS EE, of Sacramento, Cal., died February 5, 2005.
Richard H. McCart, BS CE, of Mount Dora, Fla., died March 14, 2005.
Sydney E. Smith, BS EE, of North Fort Myers, Fla., died October 24, 2004.
1949 Alexander L. McLeod, Jr., BS IE, of Roanoke, Va., died May 11, 2005.
Richard C. Mills, BS CE, of Pompano Beach, Fla., died May 3, 2005.
1950 Bernard A. Parkin, Jr., BS CHE, of Pomona Park, Fla., died January 15, 2003.
James Yontz, Sr., BS EE, of Rockledge, Fla., died January 23, 2004.
1951 Robert R. Jones, BS ME, of Whittier, Cal., died April 4, 2005.
Hurdis E. Wise, BS ME, of Benton, Ark., died March 7, 2005.
1952 Milton J. Wood, BS CE, of Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., died October 23, 2004.
1954 Thomas E. Martin, BS ME, of Cary, N. Car., died February 24, 2005.
1957 Sherod E. Dewell, BS IE, of Tampa, Fla., died March 23, 2005.
Victor L. Fabry, BS CHE, of Bellaire, Ohio, died May 12, 2003.
1958 Donald E. Houston, BS EE, of Gainesville, Ga., died May 22, 2003.
1960 Raymond N. Summy, Jr., BS ME, of Rockledge, Fla., died April 11, 1999.
28 The Florida Engineer
1961 Reuben A. Keppel, MS CHE, of Gainesville, Fla., died July 14, 2004.
1964 Karol G. Brechka, BS EE, of Bacliff, Tex., died September 18, 1988.
Peter P. Pierce III, BS ME, of Tokyo, Japan, died April 8, 2001.
1966 Thomas R. Shaw, BS ME, of Dearborn, Mich., died February 23, 2005.
1969 Joseph J. Vick, ME ISE, of Gulf Breeze, Fla., died March 23, 2005.
1970 Harold C. Baker, ME, of Rockville, Md., died May 5, 1990.
1971 Charles D. Burnside, MS ISE, of Placentia, Cal., died September 17, 2004.
1972 Marvin E. Oakes, Jr., BS EE, of Lehigh Acres, Fla., died June 10, 2005.
1977 Douglas E. Meilahn, BS CE, of Boynton Beach, Fla., died May 14, 2005.
Richard E. Oakley Ill, BS CE, ME CE 78, of Houston, Tex., died
September 21, 2004.
1979 Patrick J. Cahill, MS ME, of Hollywood, Fla., died April 5, 2005.
1981 Chin-Ching Chang, ME EE, of Saratoga, Cal., died May 15, 1995.
1982 Wendy K. Cavallaro, BS ISE, of Ponte Vedra, Fla., died August 11, 2001.
1984 Patrick J. Cleary, BS CE, ME CE 86, of Ames, Iowa, died November 10, 2004.
1985 Mario J. Bassignani, BS ME, of Colorado Springs, Col., died February 6, 2001.
1987 Malcolm H. Curry, MS ISE, of Hamilton, Bermuda, died May 23, 2005.
1999 Christopher M. Plummer, BS CEN, died May 5, 2005.
2000 Misty R. Carroll, BS CEN, BS EE, of Raleigh, N. Car., died May 21, 2005.
2001 Julia M. Tyson, BS CE, of Bradenton, Fla., died March 13, 2005.
Information is provided by the University ofFlorida Foundation., Inc.
Academic major or hometown data may not be available.
'- z- 15, -
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Better than Ever
US News & World Report Rankings August 2005
Undergraduate Programs
18th (public)
31st (all institutions)
Undergraduate departments ranked in the
top 25 by specialties
Aerospace
Agricultural
Chemical
Civil
Environmental
Industrial
Materials
Mechanical
Nuclear
14th (public)
10th (public)
14th (public)
10th (public)
7th (public)
12th (public)
6th (public)
14th (public)
9th (public)
19th (all)
11th (all)
21st (all)
17th (all)
14th (all)
16th (all)
10th (all)
23rd (all)
10th (all)
Harris Corporation Gift to UF
Engineering Tops $1 Million
In a major show of support for the College of Engineering, the
Harris Corporation, an international communications equipment
company headquartered in Melbourne, Fla., has pledged
$1,025,000 that will be used to endow multiple professorships in
UF's engineering program.
Howard Lance, chairman, president, and chief executive officer
of Harris, made the presentation to UF President Bernie Machen
and Dean Pramod Khargonekar at a news conference in UF's New
Engineering Building on July 22, 2005. Machen announced that
the gift will be matched with $250,000 from a special fund set up
through his Faculty Challenge initiative.
"We are very excited about the direction Dean Khargonekar is
taking the UF engineering program," said Lance. "UF has created a
challenging and innovative engineering curriculum, and the quality
of graduating students is superb. The energy at UF clearly matches
the momentum at Harris, and we hope this gift provides the college
with some of the resources to take their programs up another level."
UF is also eligible to receive $768,750 in matching funds from
the State of Florida Major Gifts Trust Fund as a result of the gift,
bringing the potential cumulative value of the gift to more than $2
million.
UF has been the number one university recruiting source for Harris
for the past five years. Harris currently employs 460 UF graduates
and recently recruited an additional 22 from the spring graduating
class.
"The Harris Corp. has certainly demonstrated that they are tuned in
to our initiative to build on our world-class faculty," said Machen.
"The partnership represented by UF's relationship with Harris is
exactly the type of public-private partnership that makes public
research universities successful."
UF's Faculty Challenge initiative was launched by Machen in
August 2004, with a goal of raising $150 million to give faculty
the tools they need to enhance classroom instruction and conduct
world-class research. The Faculty Challenge is part of a plan to
make UF one of the nation's premier research universities.
In recognition of the gift, UF will name the rotunda, entry
hallways, and the teaching auditorium in the New Engineering
Building the Harris Corporation Rotunda and the Harris
Corporation Auditorium
"Harris is one of the major economic engines in the state and we're
very pleased to be part of their team," said Khargonekar. "Our
collaboration on research projects, and in being a source of talented
graduates, is the essence of a healthy and mutually beneficial
relationship."
Christopher Brazda
UF Foundation
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A Note from Dean Khargonekar
Our students, faculty, and staff
effected remarkable achievements
during the last academic year. Their
tremendous hard work coupled with their
enormous talents led to improved college
rankings, increased graduation rates, more
research publications in top-level journals,
many patent applications on novel and
useful technologies, and significant impact
on industry and society.
We are attracting extremely talented
students. The average SAT score for the
incoming freshman class in fall 2004 was
1310, an all-time record. By this metric, our
student community is among the best in the
nation's public universities and rivals some
of the most competitive private universities.
The quality of our graduate students
continues to improve as well. In 2004-05,
we graduated 974 students with BS, 528
with MS, and 145 with PhD degrees. We
note with much pride that the number of
doctoral degree recipients set an all-time
record. It is a result of our systematic
investment in improving the quality and
size of the doctoral program. It is also an
excellent indicator of the depth and breadth
of the research programs pursued by our
faculty. Demand for our graduates, always
very strong, has increased as the national
economy has improved, with our students
getting multiple job offers at nationally
competitive salaries.
We created a major new distance learning
initiative, UF EDGE, the University of
Florida Electronic Delivery of Graduate
Engineering. UF EDGE currently focuses
on eight specially targeted, complete master
of science degrees from six departments,
with plans to offer degrees from all of our
departments. These programs are identical
to our on-campus residential programs in
quality, rigor, and requirements. We hope
that these programs will serve working
professionals interested in increasing the
depth of their technical knowledge while
continuing to work and live at home with
their families. We strongly believe that
there is a large and growing latent need for
distance education for working engineers.
Initial response from potential students for
the UF EDGE program is very encouraging.
We are cautiously optimistic that it will be a
very successful program and have a long-
term positive impact on the state, the nation,
and the world.
The college's research enterprise remains
strong, vibrant, and robust. Our faculty
members are successful in competing for
grants and contracts from federal, state,
industry, and non-profit sources. New
research grants and contracts from external
sponsors increased modestly from $58M
to $63M. To assist our faculty in pursuing
novel research directions, we continue to
invest in state-of-the-art equipment and
laboratory infrastructure. The creative
work of our faculty and students is being
published in top-tier academic journals.
In recognition of their contributions, our
faculty continue to be named as fellows of
their professional societies and win major
awards from professional societies.
Our faculty are active in interdisciplinary
collaborations that are looking for solutions
to many pressing societal problems. They
collaborate within and across the college's
departments as well as with colleagues
throughout UF in Liberal Arts and
Sciences, Medicine, Agriculture and Life
Sciences, Fine Arts, Business, and other
colleges. Numerous examples of such
interdisciplinary research and education are
in this annual report.
Finally, we are pleased that the overall
reputation and quality of the College
of Engineering continues to grow. One
measure of this is our successful recruitment
of excellent new faculty members.
Another measure is the increasing quality
of academic records documented in the
dossiers of junior faculty members when
they apply for promotion and tenure. Our
young faculty continue to raise the standard
for successful promotion and tenure for their
successors.
We note with satisfaction that our graduate
programs are now ranked 25th overall and
15th among public universities by US News
& World Report. This is the highest ranking
we have achieved since the magazine started
to rank engineering graduate programs.
It is most gratifying to note that we have
moved up to 25th and 15th from 35th
overall and 20th among public universities
in 2001. Our undergraduate programs were
ranked 31st overall and 18th among public
universities, a remarkable improvement
from last year's rankings of 39th overall
and 23rd among public universities. All
things considered, we believe we have made
significant progress and we remain firmly
on course to continue to make important
strides in education, research, and public
service and outreach.
As Dean of the College of Engineering,
I take great pride in our students, faculty,
and staff, and I hope you will enjoy reading
about their work in this report. Our
graduates have the technical knowledge,
highly developed curiosity, excellent work
ethic, and strong civic sense to solve the
complex problems facing mankind. We are
also creating the fundamental and applied
knowledge that will help our society prosper
and our people lead much improved lives. I
close this letter with a quotation from the
famous futurist Alvin Toffler that seems to
capture the mood and the challenge at this
particular time in our history.
"All education springs from some image of
the future. If the image of the future held by
a society is grossly inaccurate, its education
system will betray its youth."
Engineering Scholars
Two engineering assistant
professors received highly
competitive National Science
Foundation (NSF) CAREER
awards in 2005. CAREER
awards support the early
career-development activities
of teacher-scholars who are
most likely to be academic
leaders in the 21st century.
Materials Science & Engineering
Juan C. Nino
Assistant Professor
Fundamental Structure-Dielectric Property
Relationships of Pyrochlore Ceramics
Dielectric ceramics are used in virtually
every electronic application for passive
components such as capacitors, filters and
resonators. This project focuses on developing
new and improved dielectric materials that
will make possible the reduced size and
increased functionality that are expected of
the next generation of handheld electronics
and wireless communications devices.
In particular, this research investigates
pyrochlore ceramics. Pyrochlores are oxide
compounds of great interest because their
crystalline structure accepts a broad range of
atomic substitutions, therefore allowing for
the tailoring of the physical properties towards
a diverse set of applications.
At a local and national level, the educational
component of the project focuses on increasing
Hispanic participation in the science and
engineering of ceramic materials. It also
provides exposure to ceramics research for
middle and high school teachers and students,
as well as undergraduate engineering students.
Juan C. Nino T his is achieved as part of Nino's participation in ongoing UF
programs such as the Junior Science, Engineering and Humanities
Symposium (JSEHS) and the K-12 program Materials Science and
Engineering for Teachers (MSE TEACH), and the National Science
Foundations' Research Experience for Undergraduates (NSF REU).
Internationally, a series of short workshops on electronic ceramics will
be organized at targeted universities in South America to foster Pan-
American collaboration in the field and identify potential candidates
for student/researcher exchange programs.
Alin Dobra
Computer & Information
Science & Engineering
Alin Dobra
Assistant Professor
New Technologies for Approximate
Query Processing
Due to the growing discrepancy
between the volume of information
that must be processed for applications
in science, engineering, and national
defense, and the computational
resources or communication
capabilities available there is a growing
need for tools that provide good
quality approximate results but require
significantly smaller resources.
The goal of this project is to develop
approximate query processing
algorithms that allow the efficient
processing of large volumes of data
under two different assumptions:
Data cannot be stored and has to be
processed as it is produced, and data
is stored or produced in multiple
locations and has to be processed
without moving it to a central location.
Both computational models are
required for realistic applications a
typical example is the processing of
sensor data produced by large sensor
networks. Some of the challenges
in this project are to find a unifying
theoretical framework that allows
the developing of methods that work
under both assumptions and to use the
developed theory to design efficient
algorithms.
adobra@cise.ufl.edu
jnino@mse.ufl.edu
Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering
Department Chair Named
S. (Bala) Balachandar,
professor of Mechanical and
Industrial Engineering at the
University of Illinois, Urbana-
Champaign, is the new chair
of the University of Florida
Mechanical & Aerospace
Engineering (MAE)
department. He will also
hold the William F. Powers
Professorship in Mechanical
& Aerospace Engineering. He
will join the department in
January 2006.
the associate head of the
Theoretical and Applied Mechanics department at the University
of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He is a key member of the multi-
million dollar Department of Energy-funded Center for Simulation
of Advanced Rockets (CSAR), where he is the co-leader of the
fluids group and a member of its core science steering committee.
Balachandar received his undergraduate degree in mechanical
engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, in
1983. He received master's degrees in engineering and in applied
mathematics and, in 1988, his PhD in engineering, all from Brown
University.
Balachandar first served as a postdoctoral research assistant at the
Center for Fluid Mechanics, Turbulence and Computations, then
worked with the NASA Langley Research Center.
He joined the University of Illinois in 1990 as an assistant professor,
was named a full professor in August 2001, and later became
associate head of the department. He was a visiting professor at the
Jawaharlal Nehru Center for Advanced Research, Bangalore, India,
and the University of Melbourne, Australia, in 2000-2001.
Balachandar won the Francoise Frankiel Award from the American
Physical Society for the best paper in physics of fluids. He won
the Arnold O. Beckman Award and was named the University
Scholar at the University of Illinois. He received the Alexander
von Humboldt Fellowship in 1991, but he was unable to hold the
fellowship due to visa difficulties.
Balachandar is the author or co-author of many papers in refereed
journals, conferences, and book chapters. He is an associate editor
of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Journal
ofFluids Engineering and a member of the editorial board of the
InternationalJournal ofMultiphase Flow.
Balachandar replaces Gene Hemp, a UF vice provost and professor
emeritus of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, who has served
as interim chair since January 2005. Previously, MAE was led
by Wei Shyy, who is now chair of the University of Michigan
Aerospace Engineering department.
Engineered Materials
and Intelligent
Infrastructure
Recent Research at Civil & Coastal Engineering
UF Develops Ductile Concrete
Conventional concrete suffers from a number of inherent
deficiencies. The primary drawbacks relate to its lack of ductility
and its susceptibility to long-term durability issues. Other
shortcomings include low tensile strength, poor impact resistance,
and a tendency to undergo significant shrinkage during curing.
To overcome some of these deficiencies, Associate Professor Bjorn
Birgisson, Civil & Coastal Engineering (CCE), and Professor
Charles Beatty, Materials Science & Engineering (MSE), have
developed a new process to make ductile concrete that shrinks less
than regular concrete.
The process used by the researchers is based on the
nanomodification of the structure of Portland cement paste. The
basic building block of hydrated cement paste, or concrete, is
calcium-silicate-hydrate, and is the spongy-looking material in the
background in Figure la. Calcium-silicate-hydrate takes the form
of very small crystals that are packed closely together to form a very
dense structure. The larger, layered plate-like crystals in Figure la
are calcium hydroxide. These crystal platelets are considered the
weak link in concrete because they do not pack well and tend to
exhibit weakness between layers due to poor bonding. The presence
of calcium hydroxide platelets is responsible for concrete being
permeable, brittle, and weak in tension.
The researchers modified the basic structure of the cement paste at
the nano-level by introducing a combination of chemically-treated
clay and a reactive polymer. The result is a completely modified
cement paste matrix shown in Figure lb. All of the calcium
hydroxide is used up in the chemical process, resulting in a much
more homogeneous structure. The resulting hydrated cement paste
and concrete are now ductile, due to the elimination of the calcium
hydroxide and the introduction of the polymer. In addition, the new
system does not shrink significantly upon curing when compared to
unmodified concrete. Given that shrinkage is responsible for most
cracks in concrete, the elimination of shrinkage promises much
longer lasting, more durable concrete.
Figure 2 shows a comparison plot of the stress-strain response
between unmodified cement paste and cement paste modified
with the new process. The modified cement illustrates a gradual
failure after reaching the peak of the stress-strain diagram. The
unmodified cement paste shows a sudden failure once the peak of its
stress-strain curve is reached.
continue"
Engineered Materials and Intelligent Infrastructure Recent Research at Civil & Coastal Engineering
3000
25M0
2000
Recent Wireless Sensor Research
0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02 0.025 0.03 Wireless instrumentation and radios are now being cast within
infrastructure elements during fabrication. These include systems
Figure 2 that monitor stresses and deformations that occur from the
construction period and after (health monitoring) as well as possible
extreme events (earthquake, vessel collision, or terrorist activity).
CCE Professor Michael C. McVay and his colleagues have
developed a wireless system to monitor construction pile driving.
Figure 4 shows the basic concept behind McVay's system, which
has been patented by UF. The system uses Bluetooth radio and
micro-electro-mechanical systems technology. The measured
signals are transmitted to a laptop via a wireless radio transmitter.
Antennae are mounted to the outside of construction members
- for radio transmission, and the system is powered by rechargeable
batteries or solar power. The system allows the energy occurring
during pile driving to be monitored in real time. This new
technology is low cost and versatile, and promises to replace existing
wired technology. The research has already led to a new start-up
- company in Florida that has licensed this technology and is actively
developing it for the large geotechnical market in Florida and
nationwide.
Another recent invention by CCE Associate Professor David
Bloomquist and McVay is a wireless highway beacon capable of
warning motorists about adverse travel conditions, including smoke,
ire 3 fog, and rain. The beacons can be placed in a row alongside the road.
When one beacon senses adverse travel conditions, it starts blinking.
The beacon uses Bluetooth radio to notify the next beacon in line
of the adverse conditions, and it starts blinking as well. Eventually,
the signal travels to all of the beacons in sequence so that they can
blink and warn motorists of impending adverse conditions ahead.
0 t '- S,--
ao0 0o010 0.02
Stain (Inhn)
la) Unmodified 1b) Modified. Scanning electron micrographs of
typical unmodified and modified hydrated cement paste (This
picture was obtained with the new environmental scanning
electron microscope in Civil & Coastal Engineering)
- Unmodified Cement Paste
- Modified Cement Paste
/I"
The Portland cement referred to in Figure 2 is termed Type 1
cement, which is coarsely ground. The use of the more finely ground
type 2 Portland cement results in an even more pronounced ductile
behavior, as shown in Figure 3. The researchers are now studying
the modification process in more detail with the aim of optimizing
the stress-strain response of concrete for various different structural
applications. The goal is to engineer concrete for a variety of
combinations of strength and ductility that can be defined by the
observed differences between the two curves shown in Figure 3.
Based on the work to date on nanomodification of concrete
and cementitious materials, Birgisson and CCE Professor
Reynaldo Roque, along with collaborators in Materials Science &
Engineering, will host an international NSF-sponsored workshop in
2006 on the Nanomodification of Cementitious Materials.
Figure 4
This invention, patented by UF, has led to a new start-up company
located in Gainesville, Fla. The focus of the start-up is to extend
the beacon communication technology to Ultra Wide Band Radio
(UWB), thus allowing detection of vehicles and automated traffic
control on roadways. The new technology has very high data
transfer rates in excess of 500 megabites per second, thus also
allowing for infrastructure monitoring and communication with
motorists.
The design, construction, and maintenance of the infrastructure
data is beginning to be shared. Significant savings in labor and
time occur in a seamless exchange of information. Format for the
data exchange is eXtended Markup Language (XML). McVay,
Marc Hoit, a CCE professor and UF's interim associate provost
for information technology, and their co-partners (the Federal
Highway Administration, state departments of transportation,
the Association of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental
Specialists, The Construction Industry Research and Information
Association, and Consortium of Organizations for Strong-Motion
Observation Systems) are developing international XML schemas
for transportation data, which are Geography Markup Language
compliant. The goal is the development of intelligent systems for
quality analysis and control during the construction and life of
infrastructure, such as the health monitoring of bridges and roads
(see Figure 5).
One issue with wireless sensors is providing enough power for
the sensors to operate. The wireless highway beacons currently
use solar power, but in collaboration with Assistant Professor
David Arnold and his colleagues in UF's Electrical & Computer
Engineering department, other battery-free power systems are
being investigated.
The Alliance for Engineered Materials and Intelligent
Infrastructure
In 2003, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)
estimated it would cost $1.3 trillion dollars to upgrade our national
infrastructure to acceptable levels. The Association of State and
Highway Transportation Officials (AASHTO) estimates that yearly
capital outlays by federal and state governments would have to
increase by 42 percent to maintain the current infrastructure. The
federal transportation bill for 2006 authorized only $56.8 billion per
year for the nation's highway and transit systems.
Figure 5
It seems clear that there are not enough funds available to keep up
with needed infrastructure upgrades. In order to meet current and
future demands on our infrastructure, UF is proposing a large,
new research center initiative entitled the Alliance for Engineered
Materials and Intelligent Infrastructure (AEMII) to develop the
advanced technologies needed to upgrade our infrastructure within
existing budget constraints. This new initiative is being headed
up by Birgisson, McVay, and Bloomquist and their colleagues in
Civil & Coastal Engineering. This new multi-disciplinary initiative
includes researchers from various UF College of Engineering
departments, as well as faculty from the UF Economics
department. The focus of AEMII will be to develop and integrate
new high performance engineered materials and intelligent wireless
sensor technologies into our infrastructure.
Contact
David Arnold
darnold@ufl.edu
Charles Beatty
cbeat@mse.ufl.edu
Bjorn Birgisson
bbirg@ce.ufl.edu
David Bloomquist
dave@ce.ufl.edu
Marc Hoit
mhoit@ufl.edu
Michael McVay
mcm@ce.ufl.edu
UF Computer Engineering Connects
Worlds Within and Without
Computer engineering research at the University of Florida is developing
interconnected systems that are global beyond the ordinary definition of the term.
The initial connection is across campus, with research done by teams drawn from
the departments of Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) and
Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE). Ultimately, the connections reach
from the far side of the world to the depths of the mind.
Some of the most exciting work is in:
High performance computing
Networking
Grid computing
Intelligent systems and image/signal processing
A few of these projects are outlined here.
High Performance Computing The
International Research Connection
Computers become more powerful every
year, with desktop units now more powerful
than supercomputers of the 1980s. However,
many applications need resources hundreds to
thousands time greater than a desktop provides.
For example, Wal-Mart routinely collects
terabytes of information that is mined to analyze
customer behavior and manage the supply chain
to meet customer needs. NASA's Earth-observing
system and climate models produce hundreds of
terabytes of data for weather prediction.
The UF High Performance Computing team
is developing a campus-wide, grid-based
infrastructure that will provide teraflops of
computing power. Grid computing provides
resource sharing among wide-spread individuals
and organizations, and creates a virtual computer
for solving massive problems too large for a single
computer. UF's major computational labs will be
connected with a ten gigabit-per-second network
to provide highly effective resource sharing.
Applications in a large-scale network need to
be broken into smaller portions and assigned
to different processors. Synchronizing the
smaller sections generates a large amount of
intercommunication. 'he latency and bandwidth
of the connections affect how many processors
can be effectively used. The main UF HPC
facility will use a state-of-the-art Infiniband
interconnect donated by Cisco to connect two
hundred nodes, resulting in more than two
teraflops of computing power.
An important aspect of HPC systems is the
amount of electrical power required to operate
them. These systems can use hundreds of
kilowatts of power. New multi-core processors
developed by Intel and AMD have more than
one CPU. Having more CPUs on a chip can
reduce the power consumption while effectively
providing the same computational power. The
distributed HPC facility is using these processors
for minimizing energy consumption.
The HPC campus grid will have a high-
performance computer backbone known as
CASTOR, which stands for Communication And
Storage. Sanjay Ranka (CISE) is the principal
investigator (PI). Co-PIs are Peter Sheng (Civil &
Coastal Engineering), Alan George (ECE), and
Paul Avery and Samuel Trickey from Physics. The
NSF has provided $600,000 in funds.
CASTOR will provide a 10 gigabit-per-second
network with 100 terabytes of data storage. It
will link research groups across campus. Further,
high bandwidth networks will make full-motion
videoconferencing, real-time international cable
TV, and full-motion video-on-demand practical
and inexpensive. CASTOR will also connect to
Florida Lambda Rail (FLR), a consortium of 10
Florida universities that is is part of the National
Lambda Rail, a national high-speed information
infrastructure for research universities and
technology companies.
UF has received NSF Information
Technology Research grants to develop
infrastructure, software, and applications
for the HPC infrastructure, as well as $2.5
million for its role in the Data Intensive
Science University Network, a multi-
university computer grid for advanced
research in high energy physics and cyber-
infrastructure.
Networking Connecting the Here and
Now with Everywhere
For several years, UF researchers have been
developing mechanisms to create secure,
stable cross-platform wireless networks for
advanced applications, particularly in the
area of multi-national defense operations.
Randy Chow, Michael Fang, and Richard
Newman are researching multipath routing
and forward error correction schemes
that enhance data delivery reliability and
security by dispersing information through
several systems. The research also has
applications in wireless sensor networks
and multimedia data streaming, which are
being studied by Fang and Jonathan Liu,
respectively.
Fang and Oliver Wu developed a light-
weight key-exchange protocol for mobile
networks and an anonymous medium access
control protocol for group communication.
Chow and Newman have developed a
hierarchical key-assignment scheme for
policy-based security, and are working on
a solution to information leakage in the
multi-network environment.
Data delivery through these networks in
real time requires auto-configurations
and reconfigurations. One problem is that
of sending urgent real-time video to a
central location. Fang and Wu's team have
investigated energy-efficient monitoring
so that energy can be directed either to
video monitoring or to compressing and
transmitting the video data, according to
need. To optimize multi-path routing for
congestion-free data delivery, Fang and
Shigang Chen developed a novel flow
control strategy.
Wireless multimedia services must deliver
data ranging from high-bandwidth video
to low-bandwidth voice signals, with
variable quality of service. In separate
studies, Jonathan Liu developed technology
to provide quality of service to real-time
video monitoring and Jenshan Lin created
a remote heartbeat sensing system. They
are integrating their technologies for
multimedia sensor data detection and
delivery. Fang, Wu, and Janise McNair are
investigating quality of service optimization
in layered multipath routing and handoff.
Fang, John Shea, and Tan Wong have
developed a framework which allows
multiple nodes to transmit and receive
information packets collaboratively.
Networks ultimately are intended to
facilitate information transmission for
collaborative decision-making. For
end users of wireless networks, the UF
Digital Worlds Institute has developed
collaborative systems in its REVE
(Research, Education, and Visualization
Environment) laboratory, led by James
Oliverio. The REVE has successfully
demonstrated cross-platform, cross-cultural,
and cross-continental immersive digital
media events. Also, Richard Newman has
developed a distributed conferencing system
that supports generic conference functions,
including group decision making through
secure weighted voting schemes.
A special class of peer-to-peer (P2P)
networks offer decentralized content-based
searches for information. Chow and Chen
are working P2P techniques to reduce
storage and time requirements for search
operations and allow the networks to evolve
with dynamic situations. They are also
investigating load sharing and methods of
preventing denial-of-service attacks.
Grid Computing Connecting the Parts
to Make a Stronger Whole
The Advanced Computing and
Information Systems (ACIS) Laboratory
at UF has become a leader of research
on grid-computing, transnational digital
government, and nanocomputing. Although
grid systems potentially offer large, diverse
capabilities, their design offers significant
security, management, and configuration
problems.
ACIS has pioneered an approach that
enables the safe deployment of grids for
scientific, government, enterprise, and
other business applications. The key is
software that makes each physical resource
appear as multiple distinct entities called
Jose Fortes
"virtual resources." ACIS has also developed
virtualization software for networks,
applications, and data. Additional software
developed by ACIS is then used to aggregate
all virtual resources into virtual grids on
which customer services are deployed.
The research was funded by the NSF, the
Army Research Office, the Southwest
Universities Research Association, with
equipment grants and donations from IBM,
Cyberguard and VMWare. ACIS software
has been packaged as In-VIGO, or In-
Virtual Information Grid Organizations.
In-VIGO users include the Network
for Computational Nanoelectronics,
the Southeastern University Research
Association Coastal Ocean Observing
Program, and the UF High Performance
Computing Initiative.
An important application of distributed
information processing is transnational
digital government, collaborations by
national governments that rely on authorized
information sharing to meet common goals.
Innovative information technology is needed
to eliminate barriers created by different
languages, policies, infrastructures, and
cultures. ACIS leads an NSF-funded, multi-
university effort to create a transnational
information system that enables countries
to query member databases and receive
timely information related to border control.
The project is in a test in two countries
of services for automatic translation
developed at Carnegie Mellon University,
conversational interfaces developed at the
University of Colorado, and distributed
queries and event notification software
developed at UF.
Gator Engineering 37
In contrast, nanocomputers will have sizes
comparable to the thickness of a human
hair. They will be built out of transistors and
memory cells that use only a few electrons,
making them susceptible to surrounding
electromagnetic noise and manufacturing
imperfections. ACIS is investigating fault-
tolerant models and techniques to minimize
the impact of device faults on nanosystems.
The research includes the design and
evaluation ofreconfigurable memories that
isolate and replace faulty cells, masking
logic that hides errors caused by faults, bio-
inspired intelligent sensors that try to mimic
fault-tolerance in brains, and codes that
recover from errors in quantum computers.
Funding is from the NSF, NASA, and the
Semiconductor Research Corporation.
ACIS faculty are Jos6 Fortes, Renato
Figueiredo, Oscar Boykin, Herman Lam,
and Tao Li. UF collaborators include Jos6
Principe, John Harris, Stanley Su, Peter
Sheng, andJianbo Gao.
Brain/Machine Interface Project The
Meta-Personal Connection
Jos6 Principe and John Harris lead the
Computational NeuroEngineering
Laboratory (CNEL) research team working
on brain/machine interfaces (BMIs).
CNEL has a long-term, DARPA-funded
collaboration with Duke, SUNY, and MIT
to develop an integrated sensor and actuator
system that responds to brain activity alone.
The research offers the possibility that in the
future quadriplegic will be able to remotely
control external devices such as robotic arms
using the intent of limb movement.
CNEL's role has been to model neural
signals and create ultra-low-power and
miniaturized advanced instrumentation
to relay those signals. In testing with
chimpanzees at Duke and rats at UF,
the team determined that the real-time
algorithms successfully predicted the
animals' hand motions.
Another advance has been the development
of a wireless, portable low-power digital
signal processing (DSP) board that
receives data directly from signal amplifiers
implanted in the test animals' brains. The
board computes in real time a prediction
Nerve fiber tracking
of the animal's hand position and then
transmits wireless commands expressing
that motion to a robot arm. The third
generation of these DSP boards has been
designed with Karl Gugel's help.
The team has a new understanding of
how the brain's motor cortex coordinates
motion commands, which means they must
redefine the paradigm to train the BMI to
effectively utilize the time-varying, spatial-
temporal patterns of motor cortex activity.
Two CNEL PhD students are looking at
alternate, nontraditional ways to train the
dynamical models in real time.
In another part of the project, Principe
and Harris are developing ultra low power
subdermal amplifiers and transmitters to
transfer the data to external DSP boards.
They have proposed a new method to
transfer the data from the amplifier to the
computer and applied for a patent on it.
The new methods and VLSI circuits to
encode sensory signals as pulse trains which
Harris and his graduate students developed
were inspired by how neurons in the brain
represent information. The integrate-
and-fire coding technique transforms a
continuous-time analog signal into a series
of asynchronous digital pulses whose timing
information completely encodes the signal.
The key advantage is that the front-end
circuits are simple, small, noise robust, and
extremely low-power.
PhD candidate Dazhi Wei used this
technique to create a 10-bit CMOS analog-
to-digital converter chip that uses less
power than commercial alternatives. The
chip is attractive for power-constrained
applications such as remote sensing and
hearing aids. PhD candidate Du Chen used
a similar method to design an integrated
neuro-amplifier with pulse-based output
for amplifying, coding, and transmitting
extracellular microelectrode recordings.
Chen's circuit will be used in the BMI
project as part of a low-power wireless
implant. The recorded signals will be
further processed to control a robotic arm
and other computer-based devices.
Other professors working in the BMI
project include Toshi Nishida, on
new electrodes; Rizwan Bashirullah,
on ultra-low power transmitters for
the wireless transmission of data; and
biomedical engineer Justin Sanchez, on the
experimental animal paradigm.
The work has been aided by an enhanced
animal testing lab CNEL helped create in
Paul Carney's lab at UF's Brain Institute.
Principe has applied for a NSF grant to
create a formal center for research and
teaching in brain/machine interfaces at
UF. Another proposal submitted to the
NSF with Jos6 Fortes would support a grid
computing, virtual reality environment to
test algorithmic models on quadriplegic.
Intelligent Systems and Image/Signal
Processing The Practical Connection
Computational neuroscience research blends
logically with intelligent systems. Intelligent
systems try to emulate human learning
and perception behavior. Applications are
very broad, from neural networks to data
warehousing and datamining and to image
and signal processing.
Gerhard Ritter and Arunava Banerjee
are modeling neural networks, emulating
neural connections in the brain to develop
computer models for intelligent systems.
Instead of the knowledge being explicitly
written down as statements, it is coded
38 Annual Report 2005
numerically within the artificial set of
neurons. A neural network can be shown
many variables of a single item. It studies
them mathematically and classifies the data.
Banerjee is looking directly modeling actual
neurons. Ritter is applying lattice algebra
to single neuron computation, research in
artificial neural networks that is inspired
by research in the biophysics of biological
cortical neurons.
Intelligent systems are used to query
and find relationships within aggregates
of electronic data. The aggregates, or
databases, collected by institutions are
immense. Much of the data is unstructured,
like genetic and other biological data.
Chris Jermaine is working to advance the
ability to use data repositories by developing
query technologies that give users quick,
approximate answers to questions. The
initial results give a high-quality estimate
of the ultimate answer, allowing the user to
kill or modify the query and try again.
Douglas Dankel has developed an
interactive query system that evaluates
and recommends therapies for stroke
patients. The system asks a series of
questions concerning the current status of
the patient's ability to move and speak and
about behavior patterns, then recommends
a therapy.
Intelligent systems are also well attuned
to linguistic analysis. Dankel began a
linguistics project while on Fulbright at
the University of Akureyri, Iceland, to aid
the teaching of Icelandic. He has a Web
site, www.icehead.net, which illustrates the
pronunciation of the various phonemes of
Icelandic.
Several faculty are working in aspects of
signal and image analysis, with medical
and defense applications the focus of many
projects. Paul Gader and Joseph Wilson are
applying intelligent systems methods to the
problems of landmine detection. They are
developing new concepts for airborne, hand-
held, and vehicle-mounted mine detection
that have resulted in dramatic improvements
in performance.
Finding mines from the air can be
particularly difficult. Signals that show
round spots may indicate where people have
dug holes to bury mines. But round spots
are everywhere, including trees. It's just a
variation in the color of the trees that makes
a spot that looks round. So the detector has
to be instructed how to do scene analysis,
providing it with a description of the object
sought and the correct context where it
should be found. The detector also has to
be taught how to differentiate between soil
types, ground water, vegetation, and buried
objects that are not mines.
It is a difficult problem for intelligent
systems, but Wilson and Gader and
colleagues from Duke University and the
University of Missouri have solved the
algorithmic aspects well enough to provide
algorithms for a hand-held detector and
two robot detectors that are being built by
private companies. The detector is in use
by the military and the robots are under
development.
Baba Vemuri and Anand Rangarajan at the
Center for Vision, Graphics and Medical
Imaging are developing algorithms for such
applications as 2D/3D image and motion
segmentation, image indexing for content-
based retrieval, visualization and nerve
fiber tracking, and automatic shape-based
classification of epileptic foci classes based
on MRI scans of the hippocampus area of
the brain.
The UF College of Medicine is interested
in nerve-fiber tracking as it reveals areas
of the brain that have been traumatized,
information useful in diagnosis and
treatment planning. Similarly, clinicians can
diagnose epilepsy and identify its locus in
the brain to 96 to 97 percent accuracy based
on the shape of the hippocampus as revealed
by MRI scans.
Jian Li developed and patented an enhanced
microwave imaging system for breast cancer
detection. The system can identify the
different water content in normal breast
tissue (high-fat, low-water, low-salt) versus
malignant tumors (low-fat, high-water,
high-salt). Microwave technologies can
exploit this difference for early detection,
when tumors are as small as 2 mm, as
treatment to kill breast cancer cells before
surgery, and to reduce unnecessary breast
biopsies.
Bringing it home literally and
metaphorically, Sumi Helal has combined
networking and signal processing in a
"smart house" for the elderly. The house has
sensors everywhere floor, bed, appliances,
door, windows, lights that locate the
occupants and transmit information about
their activities to caregivers not on the
scene. The system is interactive, so it can tell
the residents to take their medicine or how
long to leave something in the microwave,
and can watch out for fire or strangers at the
door.
Computer engineering connects us all. UF
computer engineers are vital to those links.
-. -...-. l.-
.. .. .. o t
Computer Engineering Faculty at the University of Florida
Faculty may be contacted at
their home departments:
Computer & Information
Science & Engineering (CISE)
www.cise.ufl.edu
Electrical & Computer
Engineering (ECE)
www.ece.ufl.edu
Computer Networking & Security
CISE
Shigang Chen, Assistant Professor
Randy Y.C. Chow, Professor
Abdelsalam Helal, Professor
Jonathan C.L. Liu, Associate Professor
Richard Newman, Assistant Professor
Sartaj Sahni, Distinguished Professor
and CISE Chair
Ye Xia, Assistant Professor
ECE
P. Oscar Boykin, Assistant Professor
Yuguang (Michael) Fang, Associate Professor
Alan George, Professor
Haniph Latchman, Professor
Janice McNair, Assistant Professor
Dapeng Oliver Wu, Assistant Professor
John Shea, Assistant Professor
Tan Wong, Associate Professor
Liuqing Yang, Assistant Professor
Computer Vision & Intelligent Systems
CISE
Arunava Banerjee, Assistant Professor
Douglas Dankel, Assistant Professor
Paul Gader, Professor
Jeffrey Ho, Assistant Professor
Richard Newman, Assistant Professor
Anand R:i ii iin i:,ii. j, ..-.. ', -. Professor
Gerhard Ritter, Professor
Baba Vemuri, Professor
Joseph Wilson, Assistant Professor
ECE
A. Antonio Arroyo, Associate Professor
Jian Li, Professor
Jos6 Principe, Distinguished Professor
Clint Slatton, Assistant Professor
Dapeng Oliver Wu, Assistant Professor
Computer Graphics & Modeling
CISE
Paul Fishwick, Professor
Benjamin Lok, Assistant Professor
Jorg Peters, Professor
Computer Systems
CISE
Manuel Bermudez, Associate Professor
Randy Y.C. Chow, Professor
Abdelsalam Helal, Professor
Prabhat Mishra, Assistant Professor
Richard Newman, Assistant Professor
Jih-Kwon Peir, Associate Professor
Beverly Sanders, Associate Professor
Stephen Thebaut, Assistant Professor
Databases and Information Systems
CISE
Su-Shing Chen, Professor
Alin Dobra, Assistant Professor
Joachim Hammer, Associate Professor
Chris Jermaine, Assistant Professor
Tamer Kahveci, Assistant Professor
Markus Schneider, Assistant Professor
Stanley Su, Distinguished Professor Emeritus
High Performance Computing
CISE
Timothy Davis, Associate Professor
Li Min Fu, Professor
Prabhat Mishra, Assistant Professor
Sanjay Ranka, Professor
Sartaj Sahni, Distinguished Professor
and CISE Chair
Meera Sitharam, Associate Professor
Alper Ungor, Assistant Professor
ECE
Jos6 Fortes, Professor, BellSouth Scholar
Renato Figueiredo, Assistant Professor
Alan George, Professor
Herman Lam, Associate Professor
Tao Li, Assistant Professor
Image/Signal Processing
ECE
John Harris, Associate Professor
Jian Li, Professor
Jos6 Principe, Distinguished Professor
K. Clint Slatton, Assistant Professor
Fred Taylor, Professor
Dapeng Oliver Wu, Assistant Professor
CISE
Image/signal processing faculty are part of the
intelligent systems group.
Administration
Cammy R. Abernathy
Dean Associate Dean for
Associate Vice President, Academic Affairs
Engineering & Industrial Professor of Materials
Experiment Station Science & Engineering
Eckis Professor ofElectrical & 310 Weil Hall
Computer Engineering 352.392.0943
300 Well Hall caber@mse.ufl.edu
352.392.6000
ppk@ufl.edu
Agricultural & Biological Engineering
TimothyJ. Anderson
Associate Dean for Research
and Graduate Programs
Professor of Chemical
Engineering
300 Well Hall
352.392.0946
tim@ufl.edu
Jonathan F. K. Earle
Associate Dean for
StudentAffairs
Associate Professor of
Agricultural & Biological
Engineering
312 Well Hall
352.392.2177
jearl@eng.ufl.edu
Wendy D. Graham
Professor and Chair
www.agen.ufl.edu
The retail food industry in the US generates more than $500 billion in sales
each year and employs about 3.5 million people. More than 50 percent of
annual sales are generated by perishables such as produce, meat, fish, and baked
goods. Retail stores rely on volume sales to maintain adequate revenue as the
average profit is only about 1 percent. One key factor for the industry is to limit
losses and continually innovate in order to keep or gain market share.
With support from major retail chains, food manufacturers and suppliers, equipment and packaging
manufacturers, and the USDA, faculty members Jean-Pierre Emond and Bruce Welt have established a
number of research projects to address the challenges of this industry.
Projects are under way to study how changes in supply chain and distribution techniques impact
overall efficiency, security, and final product quality. Techniques include smart packaging technologies
such as digital time-temperature integration (TTI). Foods and medicines are sensitive to thermal
exposure. Product shelf-lives tend to be longer at lower temperatures and very short at abusively high
temperatures. Traditional TTI's use specially formulated chemical reactions or physical transitions to
mimic rates of change observed in product quality or safety. Work is under way to build a prototype
digital TTI device that greatly extends flexibility and performance of such devices. Adoption of such
technologies should improve performance of supply chains as well as value of final goods.
Other projects include improved tracking technologies such as machine vision, barcoding, and radio
frequency identification (RFID), which will track products from the field to the shelf; operations
modeling; and application prototyping. This work will lead to supply chain operations that are more
secure and efficient while providing higher quality goods to retail consumers.
New Faculty
Reza Ehsani
Assistant Professor
PhD University of California,
Davis, 2000
GregoryA. Kiker
Assistant Professor
PhD Cornell University, 1998
Pratap C. Pullammanappallil
Assistant Professor
PhD University of Florida, 1993
Kati L. White
Assistant Professor
PhD University ofArkansas, 2005
2004-05 Degrees Granted
BS MS PhD Eng
24 7 1 1
2004-05 Fall Enrollment
BS MS PhD
157 12 33
Pramod P. Khargonekar
Biomedical Engineering
William Ditto
Professor and Chair
www.bme.ufl.edu
Professor Huabei Jiang is developing new techniques for breast cancer imaging.
I. The technology is promising because the process is painless for the patient
and the data is always comparable and often better than that of a traditional
mammogram. Supported by a five-year, $1.4 million grant from the National
Institutes of Health, Jiang's method uses an array of fiber optics to image the
tissue and gather functional information. He tracks where light is absorbed and
scattered, then analyzes the data. Researchers extract information regarding
cell densities and structures, hemoglobin, water content, and lipid concentration, which allows them to
establish a diagnosis. Tumors have a different structure than regular breast tissue, and the light draws
out the dissimilarities. Currently, doctors must use biopsies to investigate odd masses discovered in
mammograms, but Jiang's innovations may eliminate the need for such invasive and painful procedures.
BME research has led to several innovative technologies, and BME faculty and student researchers
have worked with the UF Office of Technology Licensing to pursue patents and collaborate with
industry. Professor William L. Ditto created Chaologix as a spin-off company to explore the field of
chaotic computing and ProfessorJ. Chris Sackellares licensed neonatal epilepsy monitoring technology
to Seattle-based NeuroBionics.
Chemical Engineering
Jennifer Curtis
Professor and Chair
www.che.ufl.edu
The erosion of fractured mineral formations by the flow of a weakly acidic
fluid, such as dissolved CO2, is a critical component of theoretical models
for geological systems. Understanding the interplay of fluid flow, reactant
transport, and chemical kinetics can lead to a fundamental understanding
of such geological mysteries as the formation of limestone caverns, and
can contribute to new technologies such as CO2 pt sequestration. The US
Department of Energy has invested in a major research program to investigate
the feasibility of storing large quantities of CO2 in underground formations, thereby reducing the
atmospheric excess. At present, models of fracture dissolution are largely phenomenological, relying
on average flows and effective mass transfer coefficients. However, such approaches are unreliable
due to the strongly non-linear feedback between transport and kinetics. The work of Professor Tony
Ladd and his research group is aimed at developing a microscopic and fundamental description of the
erosion process, which can then serve as a test bed for statistical theories that are necessary to connect
laboratory and geological scales.
Professor Ladd and his group have developed numerical simulations of fracture dissolution at the
laboratory scale, comparing erosion morphologies with experimental results for a specific initial
topography. The simulations include fluid flow in the specific fracture geometry, transport of reactants
and products, and chemical kinetics at the eroding surfaces. New algorithms have enabled them
to simulate systems of comparable scales to those studied in the laboratory, but with more detailed
information about the fluid flow and chemical transport.
New Faculty
Benjamin G. Keselowsky
Assistant Professor
PhD Georgia Institute of
Technology, 2004
William Ogle
Assistant Professor
PhD University of Chicago, 1998
Brian Sorg
Assistant Professor
PhD University of Texas atAustin,
2001
2004-05 Research Awards
$1,724,368
2004-05 Degrees Granted
BS MS PhD
0 19 2
2004 Fall Enrollment
BS MS PhD
0 18 35
New Faculty
Helena Hagelin-Weaver
Research Assistant Professor
PhD Royal Institute of Technology,
Stockholm, 2004
2004-05 Research Awards
$5,434,257
2004-05 Degrees Granted
BS MS PhD
76 8 18
2004 Fall Enrollment
BS MS PhD
354 24 70
Civil & Coastal Engineering
Joseph W. Tedesco
Professor and Chair
www.ce.ufl.edu
A multi-university consortium research team led by Professor Kurt Gurley has
developed portable weather stations to capture the true behavior of ground
level winds as hurricanes impact populated areas. The teams deploy the
instrumentation in the path oflandfalling storms to collect wind velocity data,
as well as dynamic uplift pressure on the roofs of residential structures. The
wind data is transmitted in real-time during the storm to a public access Web
site (www.ce.ufl.edu/~fcmp). Atmospheric scientists at NOAA's Hurricane
Research Division and the National Hurricane Center use the data to test their remote sensing
capabilities, and interact with the team to optimize deployment locations.
The consortium (UF, FIU, Clemson, FIT) captures this data to provide a direct measured link between
the turbulent ground level wind behavior, structural loading, observed damage, and cost effective
mitigation solutions. In 2004 the group's efforts resulted in the only known source of directly measured
full-scale loading of an occupied structure during sustained hurricane force winds. The data captured
from the roofs of the instrumented homes will be compared with wind tunnel studies of those houses
and ultimately with American Society of Civil Engineers wind load provisions. During spring 2005
the team also conducted a quantitative study of the performance of the Florida Building Code (FBC)
for the Florida Building Commission. More than 200 randomly selected homes were inspected in the
highest wind zones of hurricanes Charley, Frances, Jeanne, and Ivan. The Florida Building Commission
is currently considering a range of code improvements based in part on the study findings.
Computer & Information Science & Engineering
Sartaj Sahni
Distinguished Professor and Chair
www.cise.ufl.edu
CISE researchers Paul Gader, Joseph Wilson, Gerhard Ritter, and Mark
Schmalz are providing international leadership to help solve the landmine
problem. Landmines pose a serious threat to civilians as well as military
personnel throughout the world because they remain active long after conflicts
are over. Estimates of the numbers of buried landmines vary considerably,
ranging from 45 to 110 million. In 1998 it was estimated that someone was
injured or killed by a landmine every 20 minutes; by 2001 this figure was
reduced to every 50 minutes.
CISE researchers, sponsored by the US Army Humanitarian Demining and Countermine divisions,
are at the forefront of efforts to develop software algorithms for automated analysis of sensor data for
landmine detection. Traditionally, human operators with metal detectors searched for landmines.
However, most modern landmines are encased in plastic and very difficult to locate with metal
detectors. Therefore, sensors that can "look" underground, such as ground-penetrating radars, acoustic
devices, and hyper-spectral imaging spectrometers, are under investigation at laboratories around the
country. The CISE researchers are developing methods to automatically analyze the complex signals
produced by these sensors to discern the presence of landmines. The goal is a robotic system that can
detect and clear landmines automatically, thereby reducing the threat to human life.
The research team uses many tools including signal and image processing, statistical pattern recognition
and machine learning, artificial neural networks, and intelligent systems for decision-making. They
also apply knowledge of the physics of sensing processes (e.g. electro-magnetics, acoustics, imaging
spectroscopy, etc.).
The research is both theoretical and applied. Methods based on state-of-the-art theoretical techniques are
implemented on real systems and field tested. In the past four years, at least seven blind field tests have
proven the algorithms perform very well, sometimes reducing false alarm rates by orders of magnitude.
2004-05 Research Awards
$11,467,410
2004-05 Degrees Granted
BS MS PhD
110 64 16
2004 Fall Enrollment
BS MS PhD
600 93 92
2004-05 Research Awards
$4,286,410
2004-05 Degrees Granted
BS MS PhD
2181 872 8
includes 37 BA (CIS), 55 LS (CSC)
Includes 25 LS (CSC)
2004 Fall Enrollment*
BS MS PhD
897 142 154
*Includes computer science students
from the Liberal Arts & Sciences and
Business colleges.
Electrical & Computer Engineering
Mark E. Law
Professor and Chair
www.ece.ufl.edu
Professors Mike Fang and Oliver Wu are working on a new National
Science Foundation-sponsored project with colleagues at the University of
Missouri-Columbia. They are developing tools to track wildlife populations
with a wireless sensor network called DeerNet. The relationships between
wildlife and humans have never been tighter. Infectious disease outbreaks
among wildlife can spread to domesticated animals or humans and threaten
our health and economy. Tracking wildlife populations is a vital component of understanding
wildlife interactions with the environment.
The research will focus on providing video data from sensors in real-time over unreliable networks. It
will also focus on developing techniques for integrating data from animal mounted video sensors which
are obviously mobile. There will need to be a focus on energy scalable video encoding, resource control
and allocation, and routing for moving and unreliable network nodes. Work funded in this project will
extend our knowledge of wireless mobile sensor networks, energy-aware video processing, and wildlife
behavior.
Environmental Engineering Sciences
James P. Heaney
Professor and Chair
www.ees.ufl.edu
The safe collection, disposal, and recycling of solid wastes is a vital need
everywhere but especially in Florida where solid wastes are put in sanitary
landfills that are located just above the ground water that provides 90 percent
of our water supply. Professor Tim Townsend, working with the College of
Engineering's Florida Center for Solid and Hazardous Waste Management,
has developed a unique research and education program dealing with solid
waste management. During the past five years, his research has focused
on bioreactor landfills, construction and demolition debris, special waste management, and leach
testing of wastes. His research team works very closely with state and federal regulators and the waste
management industry.
Townsend is the lead investigator on the Florida Bioreactor Demonstration Project, a $6 million
research effort at an operating landfill about 35 miles north of the UF campus. The demonstration site
is the most heavily instrumented and monitored site of its kind in the US and probably the world. His
research group is also involved in bioreactor research at several other landfills in the state and is the
most active research group on this topic in the country.
Townsend has graduated numerous undergraduate, master's, and PhD students who are now leaders in
solid waste field in Florida and throughout the world. In recognition of his accomplishments, he was
named the inaugural recipient of the Jones, Edmunds and Associates Professorship in Environmental
Engineering Sciences in November 2004.
New Faculty
David Arnold
Assistant Professor
PhD Georgia Tech, 2004
2004-05 Research Awards
$7,716,399
2003-04 Degrees Granted
BS MS PhD
249 150 24
2004 Fall Enrollment
BS MS PhD
740 194 229
New Faculty
JohnJ. Sansalone
Associate Professor
PhD University of Cincinnati, 1983
2004-05 Research Awards
$2,604,122
2004-05 Degrees Granted
BS MS PhD
16 23 7
2004 Fall Enrollment
BS MS PhD
83 34 61
Industrial & Systems Engineering
Donald W. Hearn
Professor and Chair
www.ise.ufl.edu
Optimization modeling and computation is a common theme for much of
the current research in ISE. In 1992 the Center for Applied Optimization
was founded in collaboration with the Mathematics department, and faculty
from various engineering departments became affiliates. Now the ISE faculty
have broadened the scope of applications to many areas. The National Science
BFoundation-sponsored SCALE Center fosters research in supply chain
analysis and design and in methods for scheduling of complex airline and
rail systems. The Risk Management and Financial Engineering lab focuses on decision making in
uncertain environments such as financial markets, military tactical planning, and cooperative guidance
and control of aircraft and munitions. ISE faculty also work with health systems and other medical
researchers on models to improve all aspects of health care delivery including design of radiation
oncology treatment processes, design and data analysis in epileptic seizure prediction, and capacity
expansion of health systems that balance cost effectiveness with improved quality of treatment. ISE
research has also focused on decision modeling of Florida's future water supplies, congestion tolling
of urban traffic networks, new methods for lean manufacturing, and the design of remanufacturing
systems for major auto manufacturers.
Materials Science & Engineering
Kevin S. Jones
Professor and Chair
www.mse.uft.edu
We are pleased to congratulate Professor Reza Abbaschian on becoming Dean
of Engineering at the University of California, Riverside. His work in leading
MSE to become a top 10 program cannot be overstated.
Three outstanding faculty will join MSE in fall 2005. Henry Hess brings a
novel approach to biomaterials by developing bioactive transport systems which
offer the possibility of a truly unique method of assembling complex molecular
structures. Recognizing the rapid growth in organic electronics, MSE also welcomes Franky So and
Jiangeng Xue. So has spent the past 13 years as a leader in the organic light emitting display industry.
Xue's expertise is in organic photovoltaic devices. These outstanding scientists will strengthen MSE's
research activities in organic electronics, an area offering many exciting research opportunities to aid in
the development of cheap, flexible displays, circuits, and solar cells.
Our academic programs continue to excel. The graduate program is now 8th overall in the U.S. News
and World Report rankings. The department is very proud of the outstanding quality of the record 70-
plus graduate students enrolling this fall. This follows the graduation of a record 43 PhD students this
past year. Our undergraduate population continues to grow with the addition of a new biomaterials
specialty, undergrad lab, and the new Research Experience in Materials (REM) program aimed at
providing lab experience to freshmen and sophomores interested in materials science. Finally, MSE is
proud to announce that ASM International is helping sponsor MSE TEACH, a summer program that
invites high school and middle school science teachers for a week of hands on training in MSE. The
purpose is to provide those teachers with exciting examples to bring back to the classroom to share with
students.
New Faculty
Cole Smith
Associate Professor
PhD Virginia Tech, 2000
Amar Sapra
Assistant Professor
PhD Cornell University, 2004
2004-05 Research Awards
$1,021,945
2004-05 Degrees Granted
BS MS PhD
76 60 9
2004 Fall Enrollment
BS MS PhD
356 125 54
New Faculty
Henry Hess
Assistant Professor
PhD Free University Berlin, 1999
Franky So
Associate Professor
PhD University of Southern
California, 1991
Jiangeng Xue
Assistant Professor
Princeton University, 2005
2004-05 Research Awards
$11,059,053
2004-05 Degrees Granted
BS MS PhD
29 47 43
2004-05 Fall Enrollment
BS MS PhD
124 56 157
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Gene Hemp
Professor and Interim Chair
www.mae.ufl.edu
Professor Nagaraj Arakere, PhD candidate Erik Knudsen, and NASA
Marshall Space Flight Center researchers are investigating crack propagation
in the foam that insulates the Space Shuttle's external tank. In February 2003,
the catastrophic failure of Space Shuttle Columbia was caused by a piece of
foam striking the wing during liftoff. The Space Shuttle Discovery on its
takeoff in August 2005 was also struck by foam, leading NASA to postpone
further flights until 2006.
Small voids are created during the deposition of foam insulation on the tank exterior. These voids
become pressurized due to cryogenic temperatures at the surface exposed to the tank and aerodynamic
heating on the surface exposed to air as the shuttle is accelerating to low-earth orbit. With enough
pressure, the cracks can propagate toward the surface of the foam and large pieces can fall off the tank
surface. The investigation focuses on the propensity of the foam to fracture off the tank surface by a
combination of experimental testing of fracture specimens and finite element modeling. Additionally,
the foam is not an isotropic material. Calculations for the stresses, displacement fields, as well as the
stress intensity factors must include the effects of anisotropy.
Nuclear & Radiological Engineering
Alireza Haghighat
Professor and Chair
www.nre.ufl.edu
The Nuclear & Radiological Engineering (NRE) department offers a unique
curriculum in nuclear science and its applications in engineering and medicine.
Fields include power generation, space nuclear power and propulsion,
nuclear detection, nondestructive testing, medical diagnosis and therapy, and
dosimetry. NRE has MS and PhD programs in nuclear engineering, as well
as in medical physics and health physics with support from the Radiology and
Radiation Oncology departments at UF-Shands Healthcare.
The quality of NRE's faculty has earned the department high rankings in such national reviews and
magazines as US News & WorldReport. NRE graduates have built significant reputations in high
positions in government and industry.
NRE has several laboratories and facilities:
The Florida Institute of Nuclear Detection and Security (FINDS). FINDS designs and tests
innovative interrogation, detection, and assessment devices to monitor nuclear materials in ports,
on aircraft, in buildings, etc., using interrogation systems using radiation transport methods and
codes created by the UF Transport Theory Group; room temperature detectors; patented x-ray lateral
migration radiography methodologies; and neutron-based active interrogation techniques and devices.
The Advanced Nuclear Fuels Laboratory (Prof. James Tulenko)
The University of Florida Training Reactor UFTR (Dr. William Vernetson)
The Particle Transport and Distributed Computing (PTDC) Laboratory (Prof. Alireza Haghighat)
The Microimaging for Skeleton Dosimetry Laboratory (Prof. Wesley Bolch)
The Innovative Nuclear Space Power and Propulsion Institute INSPI (Prof. Samim Anghaie)
The Lateral Migration Radiography Laboratory (Prof. Edward Dugan)
NRE's medical physics program is CAMPEP accredited and has a close teaching and research
collaboration with UF's College of Medicine. The nuclear engineering curriculum is ABET accredited.
2004-05 Research Awards
$8,713,658
2004-05 Degrees Granted
BS MS PhD
163 57 12
2004 Fall Enrollment
BS MS PhD
1115 116 159
New Faculty
Sanjiv Samant
Associate Professor
PhD University of Western Ontario,
1988
2004-05 Research Awards
$2,126,485
2004-2005 Degrees Granted
BS MS PhD
11 6 5
2004 Fall Enrollment
BS MS PhD
73 33 40
New UF Provost Joins Biomedical
Engineering Faculty
Janie M. Fouke, who took up
duties as University of Florida
provost on August 15, 2005,
has also been named a member
of the Biomedical Engineering
department faculty.
Fouke, who was dean of
Michigan State University's
College of Engineering
W prior to joining UF, has
Shad a distinguished career
in biomedical engineering.
SShe received her master's
in biomedical mathematics
and engineering from the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill in 1980. During that time, she was a research
assistant in the division of pulmonary diseases. She earned
her doctorate in the same field from UNC in 1982.
From 1981 to 1999, Fouke rose through the faculty ranks
in the Biomedical Engineering department at Case Western
Reserve University in Cleveland with teaching and research
interests in medical instrument design and development.
She was the inaugural director of the newly created
division of bioengineering and environmental systems with
the National Science Foundation in Washington, D.C.,
from 1995 to 1999.
She serves on advisory boards for several universities
and federal agencies and is a Fellow in several professional
societies, including the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, the American Institute for
Medical and Biological Engineering, the Institute for
Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and the Biomedical
Engineering Society.
A Teacher's Tribute to Students
By Dinesh O. Shah
I searched many lands and skies
And I crossed many stormy oceans
I traveled through scorching deserts
But finally I found some jewels in the sand!
These jewels are colorful as the rainbow in the sky
They sparkle like rubies and diamonds
They are precious although they are not set in gold!
Nationality, race, or religion,
Nothing separates these jewels
No hardship can break them
As they are strong as diamonds!
When everyone saw a candle burning
They saw a flickering flame!
But I saw millions of lamps hiding in that flame
And that has been the secret of my life!
Translation from Parab Tara Pani
Published Bombay, India, August 1986
Mark Your Calendar for
Upcoming Events
November 3-5, 2005
Grand Guard Reunion
The Grand Guard Reunion, honoring the Class
of 1955 and all prior years, will be held November
3-5, 2005, by the University of Florida Alumni
Association. For additional information on this
festive weekend of events, please visit their Web site
at www.ufalumni.ufl.edu or call 352.846.3580.
NO-ROI ..* 0
US POSTAG
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