Category Archives: Engineering
An interview with Victoria Suber, Lexington native and civil engineer – Wicked Local
Sean Osborne| Association of Black Citizens of Lexington
To celebrate National Engineers Week and Womens History Month, Sean Osborne, President of the Association of Black Citizens of Lexington, interviewed Victoria Suber, LHS Class of 2013. Ms. Suber received her Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from Temple University in 2017. She has passed the Fundamentals in Engineering Exam, the first of two examinations that engineers must pass in order to be licensed as a Professional Engineer in the United States. PE licensure is the engineering profession's highest standard of competence, a symbol of achievement and assurance of quality.
Less than 2 percent of Black freshmen in the United States enter college engineering programs. According to the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), 3,500 African-Americans earned engineering bachelors degrees in 2014.
ABCL understands that it is important to nurture Black students and professionals interest and aptitude in engineering.Through this interview we hope to expand their professional horizons and to provide the inspiration to lead our nation to greater economic prosperity.
When did your family move to Lexington?
My family moved to Lexington in February 1999. I started kindergarten at Bowman Elementary, then moved on to Clarke Middle School and graduated from LexingtonHigh School.
In what activities did you participate while you were a LPS student?
In elementary school I was part of the before school math program with Ms. Kisler from third to fifthgrade, I believe. Outside of school my mom signed me up for a variety of classes at Hayden Recreation Center: swimming lessons, pottery, jewelry making, cooking, gymnastics, and ice skating. I also attended Hayden Day Camp from first to fifth grade. In middle school I played soccer on Clarke's junior varsity soccer team for a year and ran track and field from 6th to 8th grade. In high school I participated in outdoor track & field from 10th to 12th grade and did indoor track & field and cross country my senior year. From 6th grade to theend of high school I also played violin in orchestra after first taking lessons at Bowman in fourth and fifth grade.
How well did LPS prepare you for the academic and social aspects of college?
I think that all around, LPS prepared me very well for college. Something that I realized in college was that I had a new-found freedom and independence of living on my own. I had no one telling me what to do or when to do it (except my coach who made sure we stayed on top of our coursework). My experience at LPS taught me how to think critically, and the competitive atmosphere also taught me the focus and discipline to stay on top of my workload. I also will never forget in 8th grade when my US History teacher Mr. Romulus taught us how to take notes, and that really stuck with me to this day. I learned how to read and process information much more efficiently which became a key part of how I was able to thrive in futureclasses. The academic challenges that I experienced at LPS taught me the reward of success from hard work. Socially, LPS taught me howto master being able to put on many faces. I learned tobe comfortable with people based on emotional and intellectual connections because I was not usually in classes with people who looked like me, forcing myself to adapt socially. This actually led me to become more introverted and develop a lot of hobbies on my own and made friends through my interests.
What made you choose your undergraduate institution?
I wanted to live somewhere new, meet new people. While LPS was great to me, I acknowledge that I was living in a bubble, and I felt that I needed to leave my peers in order to grow into the person that I always imagined myself to be. In middle school I started in the sport of fencing as a winter extracurricular with my friend Juliet and fell in love with the sport. When I was deciding on which colleges to apply, I really narrowed down my options to places that offered a competitive fencing program. I also wanted to attend a school with a variety of degree programs because I had too many interests to decide on a major. When I was accepted to Temple University I was thrilled just by the fact that I had an option to attend college thatmet all of my wants. From the moment my mom and I crossed the Ben Franklin Bridge into Philadelphia on our first visit, I could not stop smiling. I immediately started taking pictures of every painted mural and interesting-looking building that we drove past. I fell in love with Temple's campus: the open campus, being located right in the middle of North Philadelphia, the diversity of students, and that Temple really felt like a brand-new place. It was perfect for the growth and life that I dreamed for myself, so I had my mind set that this was the place I wanted to go if my first choice for college didn't work out (and it didn't). While I had already been accepted as an undergraduate student, the icing on the cake for me was when I was also accepted as a walk-on to the Division I Fencing Team.
Why did you choose to become a civil engineer?
Originally, I wanted to go to art school. I had a summer drawing class teacher encourage me to apply to Rhode Island School of Design at his recommendation, but the cost of tuition would be too high. Additionally, I was not confident in my ability to turn my hobby into how I made a living. I wanted to pick a college major that still integrated the creative aspect of fine arts, so I thought about pursuing an architecture major. However, I really love the math and sciences and I didn't find any architecture programs that would challenge me in those areas. My parents saw my indecision and my dad suggested that I look into civil engineering. I had never thought of pursuing an engineering degree because I had not taken a single engineering class at any level during my time at LPS. When I looked into undergraduate civil engineering programs, I realized how diverse civil engineering was, that I would be working on projects with visibly tangible results and saw that it best integrated my math and science (particularly physics) interests. What really sold me on civil engineering, particularly consulting, was working at my first internship at OSD Engineering Consultants in Lexington. I had never imagined that engineering could be so tedious yet active. I really enjoyed the problem-solving aspect of servicing clients, helping contribute to the well-being of others on a large scale, and the field experience. Engineering consulting felt balanced socially,intellectually, and physically.
How did trailblazers like Hattie T. Scott Peterson affect your career choice and your career trajectory?
When I started in civil engineering, I started to receive a lot of encouragement from peers and strangers to keep at it because there are not many femaleAfrican American professional engineers. I didn't think much of this until I joined NSBE (National Society of Black Engineers). The majority of Temple's engineering program consisted of white men, so it was pretty cool that there was such a supportive close-knit network of Black engineers. I made lifelong friends in NSBE, and the organization gave me an incredible amount of support and guidance in my civil engineering studies (especially since I had nearly zero exposure to engineering before college so I did become overwhelmed at times). Every professional Black engineer that I have met has contributed to my network of support in my choice to become a civil engineer with their guidance on how to advance my engineering career asan African American woman. As I get older, I've realized more and more the importance of supporting my black coworkers, associates, and mentors inmy field, so I look to the trailblazers in my field as sort of role models to what kinds of success are possible.
Had you heard of Hattie T. Scott Peterson before The Black History Project of Lexington?
Nope! Not to my knowledge. When I looked her up after reading your first question, I figured I must have heard of her before but I couldn't think of when. I don't know if it would make a difference for myself as a black female engineer because I never had a true role model in my life whose footsteps inspired me to follow; I kind of learned and grew into this awe and inspiration as I went along. For other NSBE members, who may feel more strongly about the role of role models, I think it would make a huge difference. NSBE is an organization that members are extremely proud to represent, so I believe that having a black woman as the face of trailblazing women engineers as a whole is very empowering and would help inspire not just NSBE collegiate members, but also NSBE Jr. members who are our high school counterparts.
What advice would you give to a Black LPS student who wants to be an engineer?
Don't be afraid to excel, don't be afraid to get outside of your comfort zone, and support and collaborate with your peers. Being Black in a professional field will always have its struggles but being able to find a support system that encourages and challenges you to achieve your aspirations, I think, is a big key to success. It's important to not only be open to the help and support being given to you, but also to give back to encourage your Black peers that "they can do it too". Also, be vocal about what you want to do. You never know who or what people know, and these connections can help build your network which is important in the professional world.
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An interview with Victoria Suber, Lexington native and civil engineer - Wicked Local
What Do The Returns On Capital At Spirax-Sarco Engineering (LON:SPX) Tell Us? – Simply Wall St
Did you know there are some financial metrics that can provide clues of a potential multi-bagger? Amongst other things, we'll want to see two things; firstly, a growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and secondly, an expansion in the company's amount of capital employed. This shows us that it's a compounding machine, able to continually reinvest its earnings back into the business and generate higher returns. However, after investigating Spirax-Sarco Engineering (LON:SPX), we don't think it's current trends fit the mold of a multi-bagger.
For those that aren't sure what ROCE is, it measures the amount of pre-tax profits a company can generate from the capital employed in its business. Analysts use this formula to calculate it for Spirax-Sarco Engineering:
Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) (Total Assets - Current Liabilities)
0.16 = UK254m (UK1.9b - UK352m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2020).
Thus, Spirax-Sarco Engineering has an ROCE of 16%. On its own, that's a standard return, however it's much better than the 8.9% generated by the Machinery industry.
Check out our latest analysis for Spirax-Sarco Engineering
Above you can see how the current ROCE for Spirax-Sarco Engineering compares to its prior returns on capital, but there's only so much you can tell from the past. If you'd like, you can check out the forecasts from the analysts covering Spirax-Sarco Engineering here for free.
On the surface, the trend of ROCE at Spirax-Sarco Engineering doesn't inspire confidence. Over the last five years, returns on capital have decreased to 16% from 31% five years ago. Meanwhile, the business is utilizing more capital but this hasn't moved the needle much in terms of sales in the past 12 months, so this could reflect longer term investments. It's worth keeping an eye on the company's earnings from here on to see if these investments do end up contributing to the bottom line.
On a related note, Spirax-Sarco Engineering has decreased its current liabilities to 19% of total assets. So we could link some of this to the decrease in ROCE. What's more, this can reduce some aspects of risk to the business because now the company's suppliers or short-term creditors are funding less of its operations. Since the business is basically funding more of its operations with it's own money, you could argue this has made the business less efficient at generating ROCE.
In summary, Spirax-Sarco Engineering is reinvesting funds back into the business for growth but unfortunately it looks like sales haven't increased much just yet. Investors must think there's better things to come because the stock has knocked it out of the park, delivering a 245% gain to shareholders who have held over the last five years. But if the trajectory of these underlying trends continue, we think the likelihood of it being a multi-bagger from here isn't high.
If you want to continue researching Spirax-Sarco Engineering, you might be interested to know about the 1 warning sign that our analysis has discovered.
For those who like to invest in solid companies, check out this free list of companies with solid balance sheets and high returns on equity.
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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. *Interactive Brokers Rated Lowest Cost Broker by StockBrokers.com Annual Online Review 2020
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What Do The Returns On Capital At Spirax-Sarco Engineering (LON:SPX) Tell Us? - Simply Wall St
QS ranks VIT among top 12 institutions of India in engineering and technology – Hindustan Times
PUBLISHED ON MAR 10, 2021 09:44 AM IST
Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) is ranked one among the top 12 institutions of India in Engineering and Technology and within the top 450 Universities in the World as per QS subject ranking, 2021.
According to a press release, seven subjects of VIT are in the list published by QS this year. Four subjects namely Computer Science and Information Systems, Electrical and Electronics Engineering (EEE), Mechanical Engineering and Chemistry have moved up 50 positions as compared to last year.
Among them Computer Science and Information Systems and Electrical and Electronics Engineering (EEE) are ranked within the top 10 in India. Electrical and Electronics Engineering (EEE), is ranked within the top 300, both Computer Science and Information Systems and Mechanical Engineering are ranked within the top 400 in the world. VIT's Mathematics and Biological Sciences have entered in QS Subject Ranking for the first time and are ranked within the top 500 and 600 in the world respectively.
The QS World University Rankings by Subject 2021 cover a total of 51 disciplines, grouped into five broad subject areas. The QS World University Rankings by Subject are compiled every year to help prospective students to identify the leading universities in a particular subject. Research citations index along with the results of major global surveys of employers and academicians are used to rank universities.
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QS ranks VIT among top 12 institutions of India in engineering and technology - Hindustan Times
Tuolumne County Hosting Engineers and Scientists in Schools Week – MyMotherLode.com
By Nic PetersonPublished Mar 8, 2021 04:01 pmUpdated Mar 8, 2021 04:07 pm
Tuolumne County Superintendent Of Schools Office
Sonora, CA Professionals from dozens of companies will be instructing hundreds of local students via zoom as part of Engineers and Scientists In Schools week, taking place throughout this week. The Tuolumne County Superintendent of Schools office will be collaborating with the San Fransisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) to bring experts from a plethora of fields to help instruct students in a variety of topics. Twenty-nine classes at eight different schools totaling six-hundred and fifty students will be digitally instructed on subjects and activities such as how to solve engineering challenges to exploring shark teeth.
The Tuolumne County Superintendent of Schools office relays that they are grateful for the support from local and out of area firms in helping students see the impact of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) in their everyday lives.
The following firms and agencies will be participating in this scholastic event: Stantec Consulting, Joe Hill Consulting Engineers, Jacobs Engineering, GEI Consultants, SFPUC, Applied Technology and Science, Mott MacDonald, McMillen Jacobs Associates, and Dabri Inc.
Written by Nic Peterson
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Tuolumne County Hosting Engineers and Scientists in Schools Week - MyMotherLode.com
UTEP Civil Engineering Professor honored as El Paso Engineer of the Year – El Paso Herald-Post
Soheil Nazarian, Ph.D., professor of civil engineering at The University of Texas at El Paso, was named Engineer of the Year by the Texas Society of Professional Engineers (TSPE) El Paso Chapter for his vast academic, professional and community contributions.
I am so humbled to be selected for this recognition. It means a lot more when you are recognized by your local colleagues, Nazarian said. I am so proud to be part of the El Paso engineering community for the last 33 years.
Nazarian serves as director of the Universitys Center for Transportation Infrastructure Systems. He has more than 30 years of industry and academic experience in the area of transportation infrastructure, with an emphasis on structures materials, such as that of highways and bridges.
His academic experience includes research and teaching positions at UTEP and The University of Texas at Austin. He holds a patent for the moveable seismic pavement analyzer, a nondestructive testing device used in evaluation of transportation infrastructure.
Nazarian has contributed to more than 90 research projects focused on nondestructive materials testing and materials applications, and is the author of more than 300 industry-related articles and publications. He has directed more than 75 theses and dissertations during his tenure at UTEP.
The TSPE El Paso Engineer of the Year Award is the highest honor given to a professional engineer by the chapter. Chapters nominate eligible candidates for consideration at the state and local level.
Recipients of the award are engineers whose sustained and unusual contributions have improved the public welfare and the advancement of their profession.
Nazarian will be recognized during the TSPE Engineers Week virtual banquet February 26.
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UTEP Civil Engineering Professor honored as El Paso Engineer of the Year - El Paso Herald-Post
Who Are Tomorrow’s Engineers? Meet Five with Big Ideas – Tufts Now
Engineers Week, a nationwide event, runs this year Feb. 21-27, celebrating engineering and engaging the next generation of innovators. At Tufts School of Engineering, E-Week, as its best known, may be scaled back this year, but networking events and film discussions are still planned.
In keeping with this years theme Imagining Tomorrowencompassing role models, diversity, and what the future holdsTufts Now reached out to five students to learn more about what drew them to engineering, what they value about their Tufts experience, and how they hope to use what they are learning out in the worldand beyond.
Zharia Akeem, E24
Zharia Akeem, a Detroit native, is double majoring in computer science and biomedical engineering. Her passion for engineering was encouraged by a summer program at MITs Office of Engineering Outreach, and through the Bridge to Engineering Success at Tufts (BEST) program.
When I started taking engineering classes, I fell in love with the idea of making something out of nothing. For my first project in Introduction to Computational Design, I made something from scratch. I was able to see the entire process and then see how it worked at the end. At that moment, I knew that I was definitely going to stick with engineering.
My dream job is to be a trauma surgeon back in my community in Detroit. Im going to start by being a combat surgeon in the Army. I have family members, my brothers and uncles and cousins, who served in the military.
I also wanted a job that would enable me to go back to my community, because Detroit is a majority African-American city without a lot of African-American doctors, and certainly not a lot of Black trauma surgeons or woman trauma surgeons, which can create trust and communication barriers. My hope is to do bootcamp before medical school, and after school do my residency in a military-approved program, and then ultimately go back to Detroit after I have served.
One highlight of my time is studying with English lecturer Jennifer Minnen. She encouraged me to write papers on scientific research, which was a really good experience. She introduced me to other people on campus who know about research going on at the university, and was open to helping me do the things that I wanted to do.
Since Ive been here, the student body in the engineering department, as well as the professors and the TAs, have been so welcoming. Ive never felt more like a part of a community than I have at Tufts and at the engineering program.
Everyones trying to do something, everyones trying to create something and make a difference and break some type of barrier. They motivate me to try to do more, to learn more things.
Tyler Frasca, Ph.D. candidate
Tyler Frasca came to Tufts from Wentworth Institute of Technology to pursue graduate studies in human-robot interaction. He was the lead on the Tufts team for the 2017 NASA Space Robotics Challenge, in which Tufts was one of 20 finalists out of 93 competing teams.
What Ive always enjoyed is taking things apart and putting them back together, and being able to innovate on different ideas. Growing up I was always taking things apart. Once I built a little device mounted next to my bed; it had two strings wrapped around it that attached to the light switch on the wall. I was able to sit in bed and turn on and off the light without having to get up.
More recently, when at Wentworth, my friend and I designed and programmed a hexapodor six-leggedrobot. I was just like, Wow. I was able to build this awesome little robot and program it to walk on its own. It was fascinating that I could create things that could be self-sufficient.
So, solving problemsespecially that help other people, including yourself, to do things that you wouldnt normally be able to dothats what I love about engineering.
My highlight experiences at Tufts have been working with Professor Matthias Scheutz and the team in the Human-Interaction Lab. I remember the first time I taught one of our NAO robots how to dance, in the sense that raised its arms, squatted down, and then stood back up. It was a lot of fun, being able to see my work, to design a system that allows the robot to learn new tasks.
Our work on humanoid robot capacity for the NASA competition was a highlight, too. Ever since, Ive been working on teaching robots through natural languagebeing able to verbally explain a task to a robot instead of having to program it specifically.
What were trying to do is develop robots that learn new tasks or action sequences by equipping them with an initial vocabulary and understanding of phrases, so they learn words online through reasoning and inference.
My dream job would be to have my own robotics and artificial intelligence company. I have had some interest in assistive home care robots. Another side of me is also very interested in space exploration, so Im little bit torn between those two applications.
That said, a lot of the internal pieces in the robotic architectures can definitely be applicable to both, and thats something that I really like about these cognitive robotic architecturesthe widespread applications; theyre not necessarily specific to a single problem.
Yiwen Jiang, E21
Yiwen Jiang, majoring in computer engineering, is a student leader of the IEEE-HKN chapter at Tufts and involved with the Women in Technology (WiT) student group. She is also first author on a recent paper in Scientific Reports that describes an application of thread sensors to classify head motion in real time, with potential implications for tracking health and performance.
When I started taking engineering classes, I fell in love with the idea of how the knowledge we learned in class is so closely related to the real world. More importantly, we are given opportunities to see and understand the discrepancies between the theory and the real world and ways we have to account for them when we design.
The junior and senior design classes have been especially great. The class provides a gateway to the real-world work environment, from our usual school environment. We are constantly being reminded to do things that would provide efficient communications and get work done, rather than do things just to turn the homework in and get the grade. I really appreciated the emphasis on teamwork and collaboration too.
Another highlight has been the chance to be part of an exciting discovery with smart threads by working with Tufts Nanolab. When I decided to major in electrical engineering, I wasnt thinking of the medical field, but after I read how machine learning and image processing algorithms were being used in CT scans to diagnose COVID-19, it inspired me to look into electrical engineering applications in the medical field.
As a student of engineering, you have to learn to be willing to acknowledge your mistakes. I think one of the fastest ways to learn is through making mistakes, but you have to admit it to learn from it. It might not need to be a huge mistakemany times its just as simple as admitting that there is always room for improvement. If I have a strength as an engineer, its my ability to learn new things. I think as an engineer it is really important to not be intimidated by new things.
My dream job is to continue working on designing things that would improve peoples lives. I have interests in lots of areas, but there isnt a specific area or job that I want. Im planning on going to graduate school and would love to explore a bit more, so Im staying open-minded.
Myisha Majumder, E21
Myisha Majumder has been named one of 2021s 10 New Faces of Civil Engineering (collegiate edition) by the American Society of Civil Engineers. A double major in civil engineering and quantitative economics, she hasparticular interest inthe intersection of the environment, equity, and energy and has worked at theApplied Economics Clinicas a research assistant for more than two years. Last fall, she was editor-in-chief of theTufts Observer(the first engineering student in the position, she believes), and is also an executive board member for the student-run think tankSYNS, organized through Tisch College of Civic Life.
When I started engineering classes, I fell in love with the idea of thinking about problems and systems, not just at the level of one piece in a puzzle, but as a whole, with the idea of building things that in ways both tangible and intangible that better the world.
That way of thinking is very relevant especially now, when were thinking about things like systemic racism more critically. Nothing we do in engineering is really isolated; thats something that weve been taught from day one. Nothing is just moving by itself in one part; its connected to a broader system, and we have to think about our place in the world like that, too.
Im really grateful for how flexible and forward thinking the School of Engineering has been for me. I really appreciate the fact that I was given the opportunities to explore things other than very traditional engineering and to find support.
My advisor in the economics department, Professor Ujjayant Chakravorty, studied civil engineering as an undergrad, so it was cool finding him. And my engineering advisor, Assistant Professor Jonathan Lamontagne, was a political science major before he switched to engineering. So I found my people. They knew where I was coming from.
In the Hidden Figures movie, something that really stuck out to me was Mary Jackson telling her supervisor that she wants to study engineering and the supervisor encouraged her. She really struggled, both due to systemic barriers and personal issues, but she went on. That is emblematic of how I have seen engineering in my time at Tufts.
If professors see something in you that is innate, like the ability to solve problems and to push yourself, they will encourage you to stretch your boundaries so that you can prove that youre strong and you can tough it out.
The biggest thing is that you have to learn to be resilient and recover from your failures. I dont think engineering was ever designed to be easy. Failure is often seen as a bad thing, but in my opinion, a lot of the times, it is the only way we can grow.
Over time you realize that failures arent as important as what youre learning. Even the classes that Ive done the worst in, Ive learned the most, because Ive realized just how resilient I am and I can keep going. Overall, that growth mindset is extremely important for engineers.
Im hoping that there will be more diversity in engineering; thats something Ive advocated for and will continue to advocate for as a woman of color. I have definitely grown used to the feeling of being othered. I went to a very predominantly white public school system my entire life, and then came here.
So, it wasnt necessarily jarring by any means, but amplifying unique voices is really important in engineering. Once we recognize that all voices matter to us as a community, I think we can start to use our unique skills to progress society at a much deeper level than we have so far, and that means incorporating more diverse voices.
Eduardo Vargas Gutierrez, E22
Eduardo Vargas Gutierrez is a double major in mechanical engineering and mathematics, a STEM Ambassador (an outreach program run by the Center for STEM Diversity and open to students from the School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering), and member of the Tufts Society for Latinx Engineers and Scientists, as well as a mathematics tutor for the StAAR Center.
When I started taking engineering classes, I fell in love with the idea of product design. To sketch out an idea, make calculations for its performance, and then build, test, improveI absolutely love that process.
One of my Tufts highlights was from an engineering design class with Associate Teaching Professor Gary Leisk. We were given a structure thats shaped like the letter C, and using a 3D program, we had to design a new structure that would be able to bend to a certain degree and also suffer a certain amount of stress. My team went over more than 100 iterations to get what we wanted. Then our professor built it and tested it, and it performed exactly as we predicted. That was mind blowing.
To be a good engineer you have to think analytically, but also creatively. Even more important is to think of the impossible rather than just what is possible. I strongly believe that the work that Im doing here at Tufts is bringing a different definition to impossible.
People are often too quick to say No way, you cant do that. In most casesalmost alltheres always a solution. You also have to learn to be OK with a lot of failure. Something always goes wrong, but thats fine, because that allows for a lot of further thinking and reassessing and improving. At the end of the day, the good things, the meaningful things, are going to take time.
My dream job is to build either landers or rovers to support space exploration, whether it be to explore new planets, moons, whatever it is. A summer internship at Northrop Grumman in their aerospace systems division affirmed my goal to build rockets to go to Mars.
I just want to build things that are able to travel from Earth to somewhere thats millions of miles away and have it fulfill its purpose, whether its gather biological samples, or even crash into the surface, so we can explore whats out there in this insanely massive universe.
My job as a STEM ambassador is important to me too, as I think about the future of engineering. I know there are other kids who are in similar situations to methey have a lot of big ideas and so much potential, but they might not know that STEM is for them.
But once you realize that is a possibility, countless doors open, and you understand all the things you can do for the world and for yourself. I was fortunate that my family was always encouraging. I learned early on: Just keep getting educated and chase your crazy dreams.
Laura Ferguson can be reached at laura.ferguson@tufts.edu.
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Who Are Tomorrow's Engineers? Meet Five with Big Ideas - Tufts Now
UW partners in new postdoctoral program to diversify the science and engineering faculty at America’s research universities – UW News
News releases
February 19, 2021
Suzzallo Library at the University of WashingtonPamela Dore/University of Washington
At our nations research universities, including the University of Washington, underrepresented minorities make up less than 6% of the faculty across non-medical science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. This severe underrepresentation among faculty has persisted for decades and comes, in part, from a lack of diversity among the doctoral students and postdoctoral scholars in these fields who elect to pursue faculty positions.
In turn, the lack of diverse science and engineering faculty discourages students of color from pursuing degrees in these fields a negative feedback loop that has proven difficult to break.
With the help of new grants from the National Science Foundation and the Washington Research Foundation, UW is attempting to address this problem by combining efforts across an alliance of top research universities.
The time has come for change, said UW Provost Mark Richards. Not years from now, but in the immediate future.
The newly formed Research University Alliance joins UW with eight other leading research institutions, including University of California, Berkeley; California Institute of Technology; University of California, Los Angeles; Stanford University; University of Michigan; Harvard University; Georgia Institute of Technology and University of Texas at Austin.
Based on a well-tested precursor, the California Alliance, the larger Research University Alliance is working at many levels to redefine how doctoral students are mentored into the postdoctoral ranks, and how postdoctoral scholars are hired and mentored into faculty positions.
The Research University Alliance funds exchange visits across all of the nine partnering institutions, matching students and postdocs with faculty hosts in their area of research. Visits allow these early career scientists to share their work and ideas, learn new techniques and approaches, engage in collaborative discussions and innovation, and broaden their career opportunities. Annual retreats bringing all exchange participants together and professional development programming are also major components of the work of the alliance.
Mark Richards, Joy Williamson-Lott, Julia ParrishUniversity of Washington
A key component of this effort connecting underrepresented minority senior doctoral students with postdoctoral opportunities across the alliance will be led by UW, under the co-direction of College of Environment Associate Dean Julia Parrish, Graduate School Dean Joy Williamson-Lott and Provost Richards.
The statistics are concerning. Just 8.5% of doctoral students in these science and engineering departments identified as underrepresented minorities, significantly lower than the demographics of the U.S. But these numbers are halved at the postdoc and faculty levels to just 3.9% of postdoctoral researchers and faculty.
That loss is a crucial starting point, Parrish said.
Unlike the hiring process for faculty, which usually involves advertising open positions, the hiring of postdoctoral researchers has relied more on word-of-mouth networks among academics.
Put simply, we are looking to establish a new network at the graduate and postdoc level that doesnt depend on who you already know or are connected to, but is instead dependent on the excellent, interesting, edgy work that they do, said Parrish. This new system will vastly improve upon the old networks.
As part of the alliance, the UW is creating a web portal for postdocs and senior graduate students to showcase their work, and for participating university partners to post postdoctoral positions.
In many fields, postdocs are vital positions to hold before becoming faculty or before becoming an entrepreneur, said Williamson-Lott. Its an incredibly important space. And so we want to force that space open to allow more people to be able to enter it, and compete in it, and then benefit from it.
The Washington Research Foundation is dedicated to the diversification of science, Richards said, and the Washington state-based organizations funding, $50,000 per year for the next four years, will be paired with the NSF/AGEP funds and funds from the Colleges of Engineering, Arts & Sciences, and Environment, and the Applied Physics Laboratory to allow UW to join with other institutions and meet the goal to attract more diverse candidates to the postdoc ranks and the professoriate.
Im glad to be part of an institution that values diversity, pursues it aggressively and refuses to stand still, and wants to be part of the solution rather than the problem, Williamson-Lott said. It speaks very highly for our institution to participate in this.
For more information, contact Parrish at jparrish@uw.edu.
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This former Microsoft engineering exec is now working to fix bugs in the U.S. political system – GeekWire
Jon DeVaan, former Microsoft engineering leader and board member of Represent Us.
Jon DeVaan, a former Microsoft Windows engineering leader, knows a thing or two about addressing flaws in complex systems.
When there was a bug or a class of bugs, you didnt just go and fix them, he says, describing the systems perspective that he and his former colleagues used. You actually asked, how did this bug happen? What were the underlying conditions? How could we have structured the engineering process differently so that this bug wouldnt have happened?
In recent years, DeVaan has been applying the same type of thinking to his work in political reform. He has become deeply involved in political reform since retiring in 2013after 30 years at the company, including a role on the board of Represent Us, a bipartisan organization seeking to end corruption in politics.
Its not going to be enough just to beat a few politicians in a few elections, he says. We have to go back and examine things like the incentive structure. Why are politicians behaving the way that they behave?
DeVaan spoke about his work in political reform on a recent episode of the GeekWire Podcast. Continue reading for edited excerpts from his comments.
How he got involved in political reform: So, think back in time, its about the year 2000. Microsoft is in the throes of its antitrust trial. And Orrin Hatch, in veiled, but clear language tells Microsoft, If youd have been giving your political contributions, you wouldnt have any of this trouble now, which is a fantastically corrupt statement. And of course, we werent dummies at Microsoft. Not dummies now either, just to be clear. So we started giving our political contributions. Thats when the Microsoft PAC (Political Action Committee) was created.
And it was an insider seat that I had to see how ridiculous it was, and how wrong it was, but necessary if you wanted to have a seat at the table in government. When I left in 2014, I started investigating how we can fix this. And thats how I came to know Represent Us, which I like because of its execution ability, the way it talks about the political system as having been corrupted, and also the set of policies that we champion around the country to fix it, and make it not have to be a pay-to-play system anymore.
What about the impact of disinformation on the political system? We absolutely have to figure out what to do about disinformation. And whats interesting is that that duopoly structure and the incentives that it creates is why political parties dont push back on people foisting the disinformation. And just recently we had the president of the United States foisting the disinformation. If we can change the incentives, then the disinformation will settle down. But I agree that in the long run, we still have to do a lot of work to figure out how to make sure that the marketplace of ideas is really competitive.
What should companies do right now while were waiting for reform? First of all, all companies that have paused their donations, I think thats a very positive thing. And I hope that they join Microsoft at least in the embargo of donations to people who contributed to what happened on January 6. I think thats really a bare minimum.
What about the larger issue of campaign finance? Represent Us advocates a policy we call the American Anti-Corruption Act. And actually back in 2015, that Anti-Corruption Act was used as a starting point for what eventually became the Seattle Honest Elections Law. The way that public financing works in Seattle with the ethics board and the public vouchers, we see is the best way to do public financing of campaigns. And we believe that all campaigns should be publicly financed.
How is Seattles implementation of this concept working? I think its working pretty well. Youre seeing the amount of money that flows into elections becoming much more even. Its not just the high wealth zip codes that are contributing money to elections now. I think thats a really positive thing. Youre seeing a lot more people run, and I think thats a really positive thing. And that has to lead to better representation of people inside the city. And we have some tough issues inside the city now with homelessness and Amazon and other things. And as far as I can tell, the citizens arent necessarily super aligned on what should happen. I think that means we have to have more voices inside the political process trying to influence it so that we can figure it out.
Further steps: There is a historic opportunity right now to support the For the People Act, HR 1, in Congress. It gets positioned as a Democratic Party thing thats bad for Republicans, but its really not. If you have concerns about making sure that voter rolls are accurate, if you have concerns about that votes are secure and that you can do audits to make sure that the election results are correct, you want HR 1 to pass.
This notion of how politicians choose their voters instead of voters choosing their politicians through gerrymandering is probably the number-one cause that leads to polarization. If you dont like that, HR 1 will stop gerrymandering by drawing districts with a non-partisan commission. Really important.
If you dont like the way that that money and lobbying influence works in Congress, HR 1 helps that. And it has some beginnings on helping balance the powers so that the executive branch just cant ignore the oversight capabilities of Congress.
So those are all really positive things. They are not partisan in any way. They are just about making the system better, make it easier for citizens to express their will at the ballot box, and in a way that hopefully it will foster honest and reasonable debate going into the future.
See this post for Jon DeVaans list of recommended books, articles and other resources that have informed his understanding of these issues.
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State-of-the-art Engineering Innovation Hub to open on campus this spring – Observer Online
At the end of April, 10,000 square feet of construction space in Cushing Hall of Engineering will be unveiled to reveal the Engineering Innovation Hub (EIH) a project that has been in the works for 18 months.
The EIH is part of iNDustry Labs the Notre Dame partner under a larger network called LIFT, which aims to enhance regional industry in the larger South Bend-Elkhart area and has been in the works for four years.
Currently under construction in Cushing Hall, the Engineering Innovation Hub will offer 10,000 square feet of technologies when it opens in April.
In the spring of 2019, the LIFT network received a $42 million grant to create a structure for economic development in the region, professor of electrical engineering and iNDustry Labs faculty director Tom Fuja said.
The hubs emphasis on regional development expands its mission beyond education and research, Fuja noted.
It also is going to have an outreach mission, in that theres going to be some capabilities in this facility, some tools, some equipment that is going to be a potential interest value to regional companies, Fuja said.
Polymer 3D printers,3D metal and ceramic printing equipment, robotics equipment and Haas Computer Numeric Control (CNC) machines are some of the state-of-the-art equipment that will be provided in the hub.
This is absolutely going to be top quality tools, as good as or better than youre going to find in industry and its really going to help prepare students to go out and take leadership roles in the industry, Fuja said.
The installation of large windows will make the finished facility a showpiece, he added.
Its going to be a marquee facility, Fuja said. Its going to be something that we really want to show off to people, to show them what kinds of facilities that we have here, and how important this is to engineering at Notre Dame.
Professor of engineering David Go said individuals who wish to use the hubs technologies will be given specific training.
It is not a 24-hour, anyone can use anytime facility, but any student can use it as long as they go through the training process and follow all protocols, Go said.
Daryl Peterson was recently named the first managing director of the EIH and will bring with him a legacy of engineering experience, as well as the heart of a teacher, Fuja, chair of the hiring committee, said.
We wanted somebody who isnt just going to be a faculty member, who has spent their whole life in academia but brings that manufacturing, that industry experience, but at the same time, really loves teaching, really loves explaining things, Fuja said.
An Indiana native, Peterson earned his Bachelors of Science in mechanical engineering from Rose-Hulman and hopes to be able to share engineering and career advice with students he encounters in the EIH. He landed the job after spending 25 years in the manufacturing industry at Ford and John Deere.
I thought if I was going to give back to the students using my real-world, practical experience, this seemed like the perfect role, in my mind, Peterson said.
Peterson said his primary responsibilities as managing director will be to first get the hub up and running and then collaborate with faculty and local industry partners.
Although he is new to the South Bend and Notre Dame community, Peterson wants to help Notre Dame better achieve a status of world-class engineering in his new role, as well as encourage students to expand their knowledge and skillset while they are in college.
We have a lot of super smart engineers coming out of Notre Dame, and the question is: How do we get them to make that next step to get comfortable where they look across disciplines? Peterson said.
Phase two of the EIH will be the next step in upgrading the facility, and if the budget allows, Peterson said hehopes to see an emphasis on artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing in the additions.
As a class of 2001 Notre Dame College of Engineering graduate, Go said he hopes the EIH will give students a better understanding of how things are made than he had after his undergraduate years.
What I am most excited about is providing Notre Dame students with the tools and facilities they need to really understand how things are made what it means to take something on paper and fully realize it in three dimensions in a truly functional way, Go said. The best way they can learn that is to build things themselves.
The facility will showcase the skills and work of engineering students, but Go said he is most excited for the projects that will come out of individuals gravitating toward the lab to work on their passion projects, not necessarily for a course.
The ones by our many engineering clubs, the ones by students for start-ups that theyre doing through the IDEA Center, the ones which students are doing with local partners and collaborators and the ones I cant even think of because Im not as innovative as they are, Go said. Those are the projects that will really showcase Notre Dame engineers.
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State-of-the-art Engineering Innovation Hub to open on campus this spring - Observer Online
Gradventure | Graduate | Department of Geological Sciences and Engineering – Nevada Today
View the complete playlist in Google Slideshow
Here are links to a series of different video playlists that will introduce you to our faculty, staff, graduate students, laboratories and facilities, our building, as well as some of the local region. We also have videos that show some of the housing options that our current graduate students are in. Hopefully, these videos and the photos linked above will give you a sense of our Geoscience program, UNR, and the fun that can be had with living in northern Nevada, at the foothills of the Sierra Nevada and western edge of the Basin and Range.
Meet the Geological Sciences and Engineering Faculty and Staff
Meet some of the Geological Sciences and Engineering Graduate Students
Laboratory Tours
Tour of the Geology Building
Regional highlights
Examples of Housing in Reno
For more information about our Graduate Program, please read through our Graduate Handbook.
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Gradventure | Graduate | Department of Geological Sciences and Engineering - Nevada Today