The Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is highlighting three women engineers stories about how they got to BART and why they do what they do.

When Phoebe Cheng was little, she loved stories. She found that reading and storytelling could transport her to faraway places, help her stand in someone elses shoes and shed light on why things are the way they are. In school, Cheng discovered new passions this time for math, physics and computers. These three subjects, she found, could solve even the most inscrutable puzzles. And engineering combined all three of them.

Today, Cheng is the group manager of Civil, Structural, Track Engineering and Construction Engineering Services at BART, where shes worked for more than three years. Prior to joining BART, Cheng worked in private consulting, leaping from one large project bridges, tunnels, nuclear power plants to the next. As her career progressed, and Cheng found herself rising into management positions, she found her passion for storytelling was reignited.

Not only do you have to be good technically as an engineer, she said, but you have to communicate what youre doing.

An engineers ability to communicate effectively is essential to illustrate why certain things need to be certain ways, Cheng says. Its like an act of translation: taking complex information and data and transforming it into something digestible, something everyone can understand.

Engineering encompasses everything I like, Cheng said.

Cheng is one of the many women in engineering at BART. As Womens History Month comes to a close, the agency celebrates their contributions to BART and the transportation sector.

As a woman, coming to BART was incredible, Cheng said. I was encouraged when I started to see so many women in leadership roles. The diversity in this organization is really remarkable.

Danielle Kirchmeyer joined BART as an engineer in 2017 prior to transitioning to the mechanical engineering department where she works on emergency ventilation systems and fire life safety. She knew she wanted to be an engineer from a young age.

I really liked to solve problems, Kirchmeyer said. I remember things breaking down as a kid, like our VCR, and I really wanted to know how to fix it.

But the road to engineering wasnt an easy one. Kirchmeyer had trouble with math as a child. In elementary school, she signed up for math tutoring when multiplication proved especially difficult. Though the path was often challenging, she persisted.

I just wanted to keep doing it and reinforce my understanding, she said.

Kirchmeyer says engineering is an incredibly rewarding profession, especially working for a transit organization like BART. As an engineer, she says peoples lives can be literally on the line.

Theres a lot of risk in our hands, she said. And we have to be thoughtful stewards of that.

Kirchmeyer remembers one incident while working as a lifeguard in high school. Two young girls were drowning at the same time, and Kirchmeyer leapt into the pool to rescue them. She pulled them from the water in the nick of time. The life-saving experience made a lasting impression, underscoring the gravity of her stewardship.

It has to do with lives, she said. And I think that its neat that what I do as an engineer is related in a wayIm protecting peoples well-being.

Rachel Russell is in the big ideas business. As a project manager in BARTs Strategic Engineering department, Russell says her work revolves around bringing people together and shepherding a concept from ideation to completion to adoption.

Its about bringing the right players to the table, she said of project management.

If the general manager has an idea and it lands on Russells desk, she sees it through from start to finish. Often, that involves thinking outside the box, Russell says, and ensuring that every party involved has what it needs for success.

Russell didnt always know she wanted to be a project manager, especially in engineering. After studying at UC Berkeley, Russell worked in environmental management with a focus on environmental justice. At BART, where she has worked for 10 years, the work seemed like a natural continuation of her previous efforts.

Its all about creating access, she said. What we do is help people and try to make the system better for them. Thats what I do every day.

Because shes not an engineer but works in an engineering department, Russell thinks she brings a totally different perspective to the table, one that looks at the complete picture with dexterity and creativity.

Thinking holistically and not specifically at an engineering discipline thats something Ive been able to bring, she said.

The lack of female representation in engineering spaces has created some uncomfortable situations for the female BART engineers at times. Cheng remembers attending engineering conferences with her all-male team. Rather than addressing Cheng, fellow attendees would instead pose their questions to her employees.

Theyd go up to the men to ask questions even though Im the manager, she said with a laugh. My colleagues would all say, Shes the manager, go to her! Thats happened a few times

But Cheng has learned to take such missteps in stride. People have unconscious biases, she says, and I dont take it badlyI accept it as the way humans are.

At BART, the engineers work speaks for itself. Kirchmeyer said she doesnt focus on the differences so much, but gravitates to the knowledgeable folks, regardless of their genders.

Still, she always gets excited when women join the team. In the mechanical engineering group, for example, shes one of three women out of 14 people.

You have to let it go and not think about gender, she said. If you do, you might feel insecure or self-conscious.

Of course, being a female engineer also has its benefits. Women bring different perspectives, priorities and attitudes to their teams, which fosters creativity and agility, Cheng says.

Diversity generates more holistic solutions and results in better products, services and morale, Cheng said.

Russell agrees. Though people sometimes make assumptions about her, she tries not to let it overshadow her triumphs and successes.

People assume that because youre not an engineer, you shouldnt be doing this work, she said. But we all have opinions and voices that propel the work forward.

One of the biggest lessons Russell said shes learned in her career is to never sell yourself short.

Dont think you cant do it, she said. Always apply, always go through the process, and let them tell you no. You might be the perfect fit.

At the end of the day, being an engineer is simply so much fun, Cheng said. She encourages women of all ages and backgrounds to explore the field.

To any woman whos interested in engineering, I want to shout, Go for it! she said. The most important thing is to feel free to ask for help, even from people you dont know. People are surprisingly generous.

Read more from the original source:

'Don't think you can't do it': Women in engineering at BART on their triumphs and challenges - Mass Transit Magazine

University at Buffalo Dean of Engineering Kemper Lewis grew up in a suburb of Dallas never having heard of his future career.

There were no engineers in my family, so when my high school counselor noted that I was strong in math and science and said I should consider being an engineer, I knew I didnt want to drive a train, he said. Seriously, thats how much I didnt know about what engineers do.

Lewis now oversees a major expansion at UB's engineering school a $102 million project that could have a major impact on the Buffalo Niagara economy and UB.

The News' Buffalo Next team covers the changing Buffalo Niagara economy. Get the news in your inbox 5 days a week.

The new facility will give UB a new calling card in the intense competition to attract the best and the brightest engineering and science students a battle that pits UB against well-known and established engineering schools like Rensselaer Polytechnic Institution, Clarkson University and Cornell University.

Kemper Lewis, dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at UB, in his office in Davis Hall.

That could raise UB's profile in the engineering world and turn it into more of a magnet for those highly coveted science and math-oriented students.

And it comes at a time when UB's engineering and science school is expanding rapidly. The school's undergraduate enrollment is up 60% over the past decade, while the number of graduate students has more than doubled. Last fall, the engineering and science school enrolled close to 5,000 undergraduates a near record during Covid and a high of 2,621 graduate students.

This new building is not only about education, but about regional impact and talent retention, Lewis said.

The stakes are high for the Buffalo Niagara region.

Engineers are part of the lifeblood of any local economy and if UB succeeds in expanding and building its profile as an engineering school, it will give the region's businesses the first look at the next generation of engineering talent. And a ready supply of engineering talent is a big selling point for companies like Moog Inc., which relies on engineers to develop and design cutting-edge products.

Many of Buffalo's new startups also were founded by or employ engineers. As Buffalo startup guru John Gavigan notes, "If the startup community's job is attracting and building new companies, they wont continue to do it unless they know they can get the talent."

The demand for engineers will only increase. A March report by the Brookings Institute found that 14 of the 16 fastest-growing industries of the future are industries in the so-called STEM fields of science, technology, engineering and math. Every one of the top 25 degrees, ranked by pay and demand, are in the STEM subjects. And by 2025, Brookings predicts that there will be 3.5 million STEM jobs open in the United States.

Sophomore Sam Nelson works on his project for the Design, Build, Fly Club in a lab space in Furnas Hall.

Lewis, 52, has been imagining a student-centered building since becoming dean of UB's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences in 2020.

That wish became a plan on Jan. 5, when Gov. Kathy Hochul announced in her State of the State address that UB and Stony Brook would be designated as flagships of the SUNY system, with plans to build them into world-class research institutions positioned to bring in $1 billion each in research funding by 2030.

As a first step, Hochul said SUNY will strengthen both universities engineering schools, with new $100 million buildings at each, to meet rising demand for engineers and tech professionals nationally and across the Buffalo Niagara region.

SUNY will cover two-thirds of each project and the universities will need to come up with the other third. That amounts to state support of $68 million for UBs new building and $34 million for UB to raise.

Barbara and Jack Davis Hall on UB's North Campus in Amherst.

For Lewis, the governors backing means he gets to shape a new UB landmark that he envisions as a collaborative hub, an engineering think tank and the first building on campus dedicated to the student experience.

He views it as a building that will help the engineering school expand in more ways than square feet.

Constructing a beacon of technology and talent will help UB elevate itself as a prestigious engineering school, recruit more researchers from around the globe and apply that talent and those innovations into the region's workforce and tech development, Lewis said.

The new building, which UB hopes to open in time for the fall semester of 2025, will be a 140,000- to 150,000-square-foot addition to its North Campus engineering school, whose six existing halls are already serving new and expanded programs to meet the areas tech surge and the resulting enrollment bulges, Lewis said.

UB is expanding its aerospace engineering program the only one in the SUNY system and launched new masters degree programs in data science and artificial intelligence that are growing incredibly fast, Lewis said.

Two years ago, we had 96 students enrolled in data sciences and four in the new AI program," he noted. "This year, we have 360 masters students in data sciences and 40 in AI.

A series of parking lots west of Ketter Hall, lower right, one potential site for a new building dedicated to the growing School of Engineering and Applied Sciences on UB's North Campus in Amherst.

UB recently merged two institutes for these fields the Artificial Intelligence Institute and the Institute for Computational and Data Science to form the UB Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Data Science.

Lewis envisions the new building helping in other ways, too.

Research:The engineering and sciences school currently brings in 25% of UBs $426 million in research grants, mostly from the National Science Foundation. Thats expected to increase with early phase research projects poised to receive more funding in future phases, said UB Vice President for Research and Economic Development Venu Govindaraju.

Collaboration: The new digs will provide design and maker space and a home for the 40-plus engineering clubs now scattered as far as the South Campus. Currently, clubs that build everything from robotic vehicles to concrete canoes for national competitions have to find classroom space to work on their projects, Lewis said.

That will result in more team-building, ideas and successes in high-level competitions that put engineering schools on the map.

Education: The engineering schools newest department, the 4-year-old Department of Engineering Education, will also live in the new building along with classroom space for future engineering teachers.

Since many education professors also teach classes for first- and second-year students in core subjects like mechanical, electrical and civil engineering, supporting those students at the foundational level is critical to retention, Lewis said. Graduating top engineers means not just recruiting good students, but supporting them to succeed early on, he said.

Partnerships: Lewis and other UB leaders will be reaching out to industry partners that have a stake in the new building, including those that already support the school's professorships, programs and competitions as well as its startup and entrepreneurial assistance programs.

Barbara and Jack Davis Hall on UB's North Campus.

Lewis, who has served as the school's first Moog Professor of Innovation in a three-year, $1.3 million partnership with the motion-control systems giant, knows the value of higher education collaborating with industry.

We want to partner with our regional private and public stakeholders to expose our students to the incredible emerging opportunities they have to continue their influence on the world right here in Western New York, Lewis said.

Those partners include Moog, ACV Auctions, Safran, National Grid, ValueCentric, U&S Services, Unifrax, Tapecon, Linde, Tesla, Amazon, M&T, Curbell, SoPark and others.

Design and sustainability

While Lewis doesn't know what it will look like, since the design phase is just starting, he said the new HQ has to show a flair for design and sustainability, two important facets of engineering's future. All of the school's existing buildings except for Davis Hall were built prior to the early 1980s and look it.

Many of our buildings are pretty brutalistic in design, Lewis said. I want the new building to be beautiful and also inviting. I want there to be a level of activity all day, every day, going on in that building that sends a message to potential students coming in with their families to look at, What kinds of things will I be doing if I come to UB and study engineering or computer science?

In other words, the building Lewis gets to help build will answer the question he had in high school: What do engineers do?

Now I recognize that engineers solve problems and help people not only technical problems, but environmental, medical and societal, Lewis said. Im committed to making sure the next generation of engineers and computer scientists recognize early how much impact they can have on the world with their gifts and talents in math and the sciences."

A view through a lobby window as a researcher works inside a clean room in Barbara and Jack Davis Hall on UB's North Campus in Amherst.

A look back at UB's Engineering Buildings

Bell Hall (1974) 72,020 square feet Houses the departments of Computer Science & Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Industrial Engineering with research space for designing tools, objects and work environments. Lawrence D. Bell (1894-1956) developed the Bell Helicopter and founded Bell Aerosystems.

Furnas Hall (1977) 110,496 square feet Houses the departments of Chemical Engineering and Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering with space for systems design research and an interaction computation lab. Clifford C. Furnas (1900-1969) was a chemical engineer, metallurgist, aviation researcher and Olympic athlete as well as a former UB chancellor and president.

Jarvis Hall (1981) 59,614square feet Houses classrooms and academic research including an Electronics Tinkering Lab. Gregory Jarvis (1944-1986) was a 1967 graduate of UB's electrical engineering program who lost his life with six other crew members on the space shuttle Challenger. The Engineering East building was named for him in 1987.

Ketter Hall (1981) 44,716square feet Houses the Civil Engineering Department, including one of only 11 earthquake simulators in the world. Robert L. Ketter (1928-1989) became the first head of the department in 1958.

Bonner Hall (1982) 65,264square feet Houses SEAS administrative offices, classroom and lab/research space for all engineering departments. William R. Bonner (1899-1980) was an English professor at UB from 1922 until his retirement in 1968.

Davis Hall (2012) 146,824square feet Houses the departments of Computer Science and Engineering and Electrical Engineering as well as SEAS current Office of the Dean. Jack and Barbara Davis are the UB engineering alum and his wife who gave $5 million for the facility.

Future Hall, Name TBD (2025-ish) approximately 150,000 square feet Will be a home base and gathering place with research, design and maker space for SEAS 40-plus student engineering clubs; and house the SEAS Department of Engineering Education, the Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Data Science, the offices of undergraduate and graduate education and the new Office of the Dean.

Title: Dean, UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences since 2020

Education: Bachelors degree in mechanical engineering and math from Duke University; masters degree and doctorate in mechanical engineering from Georgia Tech. MBA from UB.

Career: Became UB professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering in 1996. Has been principal or co-principal investigator on research grants totaling $18 million-plus.

Why UB?There was something different about UB. I had never been to Buffalo, but I sensed from my first visit to campus during an interview, that there was something special happening here. I am a person of faith and I know my steps were being directed. I can look back now with enormous gratitude for the opportunity I have had to be part of the history making movement here at UB.

Must-read local business coverage that exposes the trends, connects the dots and contextualizes the impact to Buffalo's economy.

Link:

New York is pouring money into UB engineering. Will it drive WNY tech? - Buffalo News

Thursday, March 31, 2022

Five seniors from the College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology have been named 2021-2022 Outstanding Seniors by the Oklahoma State University Alumni Association.

The Outstanding Seniors award recognizes seniors who show excellence through academic achievement; campus and community involvement; academic, athletic or extracurricular honors or awards; scholarships; and work ethic during their time at OSU.

The College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology 2021-22 honorees are:

Alexis Vance, Overland Park, Kansas chemical, mechanical and aerospace engineering

Zachary Hall, Arlington, Texas fire protection and safety engineering technology

Aarushi Singh, Tulsa, Oklahoma computer engineering

Taylor Stoll, Woodward, Oklahoma mechanical engineering

Dawson Haworth, Fairview, Oklahoma mechanical and aerospace engineering

The OSU Alumni Association Student Awards Selection Committee met with 48 Seniors of Significance selected in the fall of 2021, choosing 19 as this years Oustanding Seniors.

Photos of this years recipients can be downloaded here: Outstanding Seniors 2021-2022.

A private, limited-capacity reception honoring the Outstanding Seniors will be held April 7 at the ConocoPhillips OSU Alumni Center in Stillwater.

For more information about the OSU Alumni Associations student awards program, visit ORANGECONNECTION.org/studentawards or contact Shelby Roberts.

The Oklahoma State University Alumni Association serves more than 260,000 alumni, students and friends with programs for Cowboys of all ages. Through the Alumni Association, Cowboys get involved with the OSU family, stay informed of alumni and campus news, give back to support university initiatives and show their pride in Americas Brightest Orange.

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Five College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology seniors receive top honors from the OSU Alumni Association - Oklahoma State University

Her professional experience in the nuclear area began soon after completing her studies, interning with Science Applications International Corporation, an engineering consulting company in her home state of Virginia in the United States. There, she worked on cleaning up large nuclear sites for decommissioning. These were very old sites that had been around for 50 years and they had radioactive contamination in the dirt and the water as well as stored radioactive waste that had to be gotten rid of, she says. And the work involved figuring out how to clean up these large sites, getting them back to what they used to be to let people use the sites again for their own purposes rather than leaving them as large industrial sites.

Recognizing the importance of this work in properly protecting workers, the local community and the environment, Bradford was further inspired to pursue and earn a masters degree in environmental engineering from Johns Hopkins University in 1995 while working. Protecting people and the environment has been an important element of my work, because I believe that we, living on this globe, have a responsibility to make sure that were not irreversibly damaging the environment, she says. I think that my work has helped contribute to that.

Bradford left the consulting firm in 2000 to join the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) as an environmental engineer in their decommissioning branch. The transition into this job from the consulting company seemed like the natural thing for me to do, she says, referring to her exposure to government service growing up with a mother who worked for an agency that mapped seismic faults and a father working in information technology at the Department of Defense. To me, my parents work always seemed to be very rewarding, she says. I would frequently visit their offices and could see the positive impact their work had on people. This inspired me to join government service myself.

Bradford spent 21 years working at the US NRC, starting as an environmental engineer and being promoted several times, finally to the position of Director of the Division of New and Renewed Licenses. I really enjoyed the technical challenges of the job for example, figuring out how to apply existing regulations to a new type of reactor design youre reviewing that youve never seen before, she says. I also really enjoyed the many interactions with the public that we had to hear their perspectives about what we were doing.

At the NRC Bradford was involved in many projects that dealt with new reactor licensing and took part in numerous international activities, many of which were with the IAEA, including a small modular reactors (SMRs) regulators forum of which she chaired for a period. In September last year, she joined the IAEA to head up the Agencys Division of Nuclear Installation Safety.

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From Mechanical Engineering to Nuclear Safety: A Career Focused on Protecting People and the Environment - International Atomic Energy Agency

More than 5 million people in the United States are affected by limb loss or paralysis. Technological devices that directly interact with the brain, known as brain-computer interfaces, offer the potential to decode an individuals thoughts and translate them into action using a robotic arm or a cursor on a screen. These neuroprosthetics can take the place of an amputated or paralyzed arm, for instance, helping the user take an action.

Much research in this field to date has focused on decoding brain signals what is it that the person wants to do?

But theres another equally important part of any real-world prosthetic system. It needs to be able to convey information in the other direction, too, back to the brain to provide feedback from the external world. Think about how challenging it would be to interact with the world in the absence of touch. Tasks such as lighting a match, picking up an egg and grasping a coffee cup become tremendously difficult.

At the University of Washingtons Center for Neurotechnology, our team is working out how best to engineer stimulation to the brain to restore tactile sensations that allow people to perform useful tasks. To this end, we are studying how people respond to sensation triggered by electrical stimulation of the brain. Our goal is to help devise a system that someday will allow someone who has lost the sense of touch to feel a loved ones hand again.

Collaborating with neurosurgeons Jeffrey Ojemann and Andrew Ko, we rely on patient volunteers who generously allow us to carry out research while they are undergoing treatment for epilepsy.

To help localize the origin of a patients seizures prior to removing brain tissue to potentially help their epilepsy, Ojemann and Ko temporarily implant small, metal electrodes on top of and within the patients brain. These electrodes monitor the brains epileptic seizures so the neurosurgeons know where and where not to operate.

Our experiments use those same electrodes in two ways. We can record the electrical activity of the brains neurons. And we are also able to inject small amounts of electric current into specific parts of the brain. When we send a small burst of electricity to the touch-processing areas of the brain, the person experiences tactile sensations. In other words, when we activate particular neurons with electricity, the volunteer experiences it as if we were touching a particular part of their body.

In one study, we wanted to understand which tactile sensation an individual would perceive faster artificial stimulation due to direct electrical stimulation of the brain via electrode, or natural tactile sensation due to a real touch on the patients hand?

We asked our subjects to press a button as quickly as possible using the hand opposite to where they felt the sensation. They were blindfolded to eliminate the potential for visual feedback that might confound our results.

What we discovered was surprising. Individuals responded more slowly to direct stimulation of their brains primary somatosensory cortex compared to a natural touch to their fingers. Even though an electric signal directly from the electrode in the brain bypassed all the peripheral nerves between the hand and head, the signal that traveled the longer journey up the ascending sensory nerves registered first.

This result held up even when we tested subjects again after a short break, suggesting that it cannot be explained solely as a novel sensation that the subjects needed time to learn.

[The Conversations science, health and technology editors pick their favorite stories. Weekly on Wednesdays.]

Previous studies in nonhuman primates have found similar delays in reaction time relative to natural touch when researchers delivered electrical stimulation to a single location within somatosensory cortex. On the other hand, more recent research using multiple electrodes to stimulate somatosensory cortex in nonhuman primates found that such electrical stimulation could elicit response times slightly faster than natural touch.

Together, these studies demonstrate the complexities of stimulating the brain to replace natural tactile feedback. Future technologies and engineering strategies will need to take into account variability in touch sensation depending on how electrical stimulation is targeted in the brain.

By discovering a delay in how people respond to direct electrical stimulation of their brains, we have revealed potential limitations in how current engineered solutions perform. The delay might limit how well future sensory neuroprosthetic devices using these clinical electrodes can work.

Designers may need to account for a significant lag in artificial sensation relative to natural touch. For instance, if a user doesnt receive feedback from touch sensors on a robotic hand quickly enough, and the overall system does not account for this delay in perception, someone attempting to pick up an egg with a robotic hand could apply too much pressure and crush it.

To improve reaction times and more broadly to enhance the utility of direct brain stimulation, we will need to take into account ongoing brain activity and tailor the electrical stimulation patterns for each persons brain and the task at hand.

To achieve this goal, we have recently proposed a new type of brain-computer interface called a brain co-processor, which uses artificial intelligence to compute the best stimulation patterns for a task given current brain activity. Such an approach allows multiple electrodes to be used, possibly targeting multiple regions, and relies on co-adaptation with the brain to better approximate natural sensations.

Can electrical stimulation meaningfully substitute for natural touch during a complex task in the real world? We believe so. It will require both understanding the intricacies of information processing in the brain and incorporating this knowledge into future brain co-processors and neuroprosthetic devices for restoring touch.

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Restoring touch through electrodes implanted in the human brain will require engineering around a sensory lag - The Conversation Indonesia