News

Dauenhauer’s CAREER Award Attracting Coverage Far and Wide

The $400,000 grant from the prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER Program received by Paul Dauenhauer in the Chemical Engineering Department at the UMass Amherst is attracting media coverage from many scientific magazines and websites, including Biofuels Journal, Biofuels Digest, Azocleantech.com, Industrial Safety and Security Source, and Lab Manager magazine. Dauenhauer’s NSF project will resolve the top challenge for converting sustainable biomass such as trees, grasses, and non-food plants into green gasoline and hundreds of key products in the chemical industry. The NSF funding will support Dauenhauer’s groundbreaking research into his novel experimental technique known as “Pulsed-Film Pyrolysis.”

Grosse Named Fellow of American Society of Mechanical Engineers

Ian Grosse, the director of The Intelligent Modeling, Analysis, and Design Laboratory and a professor in the Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, has been named a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). According to ASME, “The Fellows Grade is the highest elected grade of membership within ASME, the attainment of which recognizes exceptional engineering achievements and contributions to the engineering profession.”

Climate Science Center Tackles the Big Job of Climate Change

The new campus-based Northeast Climate Science Center (NE CSC), part of a federal network of eight such Climate Science Centers, is hard at work meeting the considerable challenges of climate change in our region. The NE CSC, in operation for less than a year after being created witha $7.5-million federal grant from the Department of Interior, has selected its first director, Mary Ratnaswamy, is developing a sweeping Strategic Science Agenda to determine the research goals and priorities of the NE CSC, and is already deeply involved in critical research projects. The NE CSC mission is to “provide scientific information, tools, and techniques that managers and other parties interested in land, water, wildlife, and cultural resources can use to anticipate, monitor, and adapt to climate change in the Northeast region.”

New Dean Attracts National Publicity

The news that Tim Anderson, Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Florida, has been named our new dean at the College of Engineering is attracting media coverage from coast to coast. His appointment is effective March 1. Sources that have picked up the story include the Associated Press, Chronicle of Higher Education, the Boston Globe, Boston.com, the Boston Herald, Telegram & Gazette, WFXT-TV 25, WSHM-TV 3, San Francisco Chronicle, Times Union, Bradenton Herald, Palm Beach Post, Miami Herald, Inside Higher Ed, and Hampshire Gazette. A member of the University of Florida faculty since 1978, Anderson also directs the Florida Energy Systems Consortium, which was created by statute to promote collaboration among the state’s 11 public universities and conduct energy research, education, outreach, and technology commercialization.

Reckhow Takes Part in Massachusetts Water Innovation Mission to Israel

In mid-December, Professor David Reckhow of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department participated in the Massachusetts Water Innovation Mission to Israel. The trip provided an opportunity to learn more about some of the unique challenges the region faces in the area of water quality and water management. During his week in Israel, Professor Reckhow met with several groups of researchers and water professionals. His overall goal was to assist in developing new research opportunities for UMass Amherst, especially as it pertains to water in the Middle East. The delegation of nearly 50 people from Massachusetts made this special trip to Israel the week of December 16-19. The delegation included entrepreneurs, scientists, tech executives, venture capitalists, lawyers, and policy makers.

CASA Grant Promises to Save Lives and Property

The National Science Foundation (NSF), National Weather Service, and the City of Fort Worth have given the Engineering Research Center for Collaborative Adaptive Sensing of the Atmosphere (CASA), centered at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, a two-year, $1.34-million grant designed to accelerate the application of CASA’s revolutionary weather-tracking radar system, now being tested in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The CASA radars provide high-resolution, near-surface views of hazardous weather events such as tornadoes, thunderstorms, and flooding and allow emergency managers to broadcast faster, more accurate, more targeted storm warnings and forecasts to the public.

Engineering Team Uses Armstrong Fund for Science to Develop New Multi-rotor Offshore Wind Turbine

In May of 2012, a team of wind-power specialists from the College of Engineering was awarded a $30,000 grant from the Armstrong Fund for Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, which the engineers are now using to help design, analyze, and optimize a new, multi-rotor, offshore wind turbine. For six years now, the Armstrong Fund has annually issued grants of $30,000 apiece over two years to a pair of teams to encourage transformative research that introduces new ways of thinking about pressing scientific or technical challenges. The engineering team, composed of Matthew Lackner and James Manwell from the Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department and Sergio Breña of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, was chosen from among 22 proposals submitted last year.

Alumnus Creates Video Game Inspired by 1984

UMass Amherst alumnus Patrick Ascolese, who graduated from the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department in 2002, is currently working on République, an upcoming game for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, PC, and Mac. It is the first full-length project for Camouflaj, the new video game company he joined in 2011. In Republique players control a network of cameras, computers, and everything else electronic to keep a woman named Hope safe from pursuers. The idea for the game came from the increased surveillance people face on a daily basis, according to Ascolese. He said it is a “what if” look if legislation such as the Stop Online Piracy Act ever leads to an Orwellian state.

Engineering from the Earth to the Moon

What do the U.S. Air Force C5A transport plane, bomb shelters, Chicago’s 100-story Hancock Building, moon dust, the UMass Geotechnical Engineering Program, and the entire network of our country’s railroad beds all have in common? The answer is Ernest Selig. Selig, an emeritus professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, has worked on projects involving all the above, and he’s also done much, much more.

Anderson Named New Dean at College of Engineering

Tim Anderson, Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Florida, has been named dean of the College of Engineering. His appointment is effective March 1. Provost James V. Staros, who made the announcement, said, “I am delighted to welcome Professor Anderson to our campus. An elected fellow of both the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and the American Society of Engineering Education, he is an international leader in both engineering research and education.” A member of the University of Florida faculty since 1978, Anderson also directs the Florida Energy Systems Consortium, which was created by statute to promote collaboration among the state’s 11 public universities and conduct energy research, education, outreach, and technology commercialization.

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