Maseeh College News and Events

Alex Bigazzi wins prestigious 2011 Milton Pikarsky Memorial Award 

Civil and Environmental Engineering graduate student Alex Bigazzi (advisor Dr. Miguel Figliozzi) has won the prestigious 2011 Milton Pikarsky Memorial Award in the Science & Technology-MS category. These national awards are given annually by the Council of University Transportation Centers (CUTC) to two graduate students in Transportation for the best PhD Dissertation and MS Thesis in Science and Technology. Alex’s thesis was titled, "Traffic Congestion Mitigation as an Emissions Reduction Strategy." His research analyzed the potential for long-term pollution emissions reductions through congestion mitigation, illuminating both the many drawbacks of this approach and the areas of greatest potential.  Alex was presented the award in Washington, DC, at the CUTC Awards Banquet on January 21, 2012, immediately preceding the 91st Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board.

National Engineers Month in February - Volunteers Needed

In partnership with the Business Education Compact (BEC), the Maseeh College is seeking faculty, students, and alumni volunteers to give classroom presentations during National Engineers Month in February.

All you need is a time commitment of a few hours and a willingness to represent the Maseeh College and share your excitement about science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) with Portland-area K-12 students. BEC provides all training, presentation materials, and placement in Portland-area schools. For more information and to register online: http://www.becpdx.org/nem/default.aspx. Once you have registered, please join us at the volunteer kick-off event on January 17 from 4:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. in the Engineering Building. The kick-off event will feature volunteer training, demonstrations, and refreshments. It will also be a great opportunity to network with other Portland-area STEM professionals!   

Maseeh Professor Lisa Zurk honored

Lisa M. Zurk, Maseeh Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, presented her inaugural Maseeh professorship lecture "Cracking the Code of Underwater Sound" on Thursday, September 22, 2011. Zurk’s talk addressed the impact of acoustic noise in underwater environments and presented some of the acoustic sensing techniques she uses to monitor and decipher sounds of marine/freshwater habitats in places as diverse as the Columbia River, Oregon and Ahihi-Kinau Bay, Maui.

Zurk is the founder and director of the Northwest Electromagnetic and Acoustics Research Lab (NEAR-Lab), a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America, and a Senior Member of the IEEE. Her research is in physics-based sensing of acoustic signal noise, with application to problems such as underwater habitat monitoring using acoustics, terahertz detection of explosives or bio-agents, and remote sensing of the earth’s surface.

The Maseeh professorship was awarded to Zurk in February 2011 by the The Massiah Foundation. The professorship as well as our college is named after Fariborz Maseeh, Sc.D., founder and president of the The Massiah Foundation, and a member of the Maseeh College Academy of Distinguished Alumni.

Experiments in Outer Space: The kick-off

Professor Mark Weislogel and a team of researchers are conducting experiments on the International Space Station (ISS) from a new ground station in the Surface Tension Laboratory at Maseeh College. On September 13, NASA astronaut Mike Fossum (see photo) successfully installed the hardware into the U.S. Lab Module’s Microgravity Science Glovebox. Since then, “all hands are on deck” conducting studies on the capillary flow of fluids in very low gravity. The goal is to improve the transportation, storage and handling of liquids such as fuels, cryogens  and water in microgravity.  The researchers are working “24/7” alongside teams in ground stations based in ZARM, University of Bremen, Germany and at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center Live video, telescience data, and realtime commanding will stream to and from ISS and the three ground stations for the next month.

Dean Su participates in White House forum

The President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness brought together academics, scientists, and industry leaders on August 31 at Portland State University for a "Listening and Action Session" on public and private-sector responses to a shortage of engineers in America. Intel CEO Paul Otellini and U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu first discussed topics such as why more students are not choosing engineering, followed by a panel discussion on steps to take in curbing our engineering shortage. In addition to Dean Su, panelists included Job Council members Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini, Permac Industries President and CEO Darlene Miller, and Don Graves as well as Georgia Tech engineering dean Gary May, Overbrooke Entertainment COO Guy Primus, UC Berkeley engineering dean Shankar Sastry, Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology President and CEO Telle Whitney, and Purdue engineering dean Leah Jamieson. The panel was moderated by USA Today technology writer Jon Swartz.

Aerospace president and CEO Wanda M. Austin to be inducted

into the Denice Dee Denton Women Engineers Hall of Fame 

The Denice Dee Denton Women Engineers Hall of Fame honors women in technology and engineering who have made significant impact on our lives through their dedication to the engineering profession. 

On November 10, 2011, Dr. Wanda M. Austin, president and chief executive officer of The Aerospace Corporation, and electrical engineering student Kjersten Criss will be inducted into the Denice Dee Denton Women Engineers Hall of Fame at Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science.  "Dr. Austin and Ms. Criss serve as important role models for others, particularly female students, who are pursuing careers in engineering," states Dr. Renjeng Su, dean of Maseeh College. "Recognizing their career accomplishments highlights the importance and success of women in engineering."

Read more.