READ MORE ABOUT

Letter from the Dean

New Research

New Programs

Student
Accomplishments

Faculty
Accomplishments

Alumni
Accomplishments

Technology
Entrepreneurship

STUDENTS

Graduate and Undergraduate

A team of Clark School students, advised by Professor Greg Jackson (mechanical engineering [ME]), won the grand prize in the 2012 U.S. Department of Energy Hydrogen Design Contest. The team's proposed power plant design would deliver a net output of 1.2 megawatts of power to the campus grid—the equivalent of taking 2,300 cars off the road—and utilize organic and municipal solid waste via gasification and anaerobic digestion technology. Photo courtesy of Jennie Moton.

Research Associate Professor Yunho Hwang (ME) led a mechanical engineering student design team to first place at the U.S. Department of Energy’s inaugural Max Tech and Beyond Design Competition. The team’s energy-efficient “Separate Sensible and Latent Cooling” residential air conditioning system has dedicated systems for sensible and latent cooling that could reduce energy consumption by as much as 30 percent.

Students on the Gamera human-powered helicopter team unofficially satisfied two of the three American Helicopter Society (AHS) Sikorsky Prize competition requirements with a flight that lasted 65 seconds, stayed within a 10 square meter area and hovered at two feet of altitude. This flight also established new U.S. flight duration record. World record status for the flight is pending.

Clark School undergraduate and graduate students were selected for six of the 19 prestigious Vertical Flight Foundation Scholarships awarded by AHS in 2012, besting Georgia Tech, University of Michigan, Penn State, University of Texas at Austin and Stanford in the award count. Our winners were:

• James Black, Evan A. Fradenburgh Scholarship
• Tejaswi Jarugumilli, Charles H. Kaman Scholarship
• Juergen Rauleder, Dr. Richard M. Carlson Scholarship
• Joseph Schmaus, John McLaughlin Scholarship
• William Staruk, Dr. Richard M. Carlson Scholarship
• Robert Vocke III, Evan A. Fradenburgh Scholarship

The Clark School chapter of Engineers Without Borders (EWB) received a $5,000 University Relations Grant from Bechtel for its Ethiopia team. EWB also received $1,500 from Boeing for an upcoming trip to Burkina Faso in January.

Graduate

Clark School aerospace engineering (AE) graduate students have won the AHS Student Design Competition for the 11th time in 14 competitions with Dart T690/E550, a lift and thrust compounded vertical take-off and landing aircraft. The team members were:

• Mathieu Amiraux
• Jonathan Elliot
• Joseph Schmaus
• Conor William Stahlhut
• Will Staruk
• Anish Sydney
• Nitin Sydney

Clark School Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) graduate students Jane Cornett (pictured) and Khim Karki are among only 15 from the U.S. to receive fellowships to attend the first Joint U.S.–Africa Materials Initiative Materials Research School in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Ryan Robinson, L-3 Communications Fellow and Ph.D. student in AE advised by department chair Norm Wereley, won first place in the Student Hardware Competition at the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Smart Materials, Adaptive Structures, and Materials Systems Conference for his technical paper and hardware demonstration of "Model-Based Feedforward Control of a Robotic Manipulator with Pneumatic Artificial Muscles."

AE Ph.D. student David Mayo received an L-3 Graduate Fellowship for the 2012-2013 academic year. The award includes a $25,000/year stipend, $1,000 travel budget, and $5,000 to fund an undergraduate research assistant.

Benjamin Berry is the 2012-2013 recipient of the Sikorsky Aircraft Fellowship. The recipient receives $10,000 toward educational expenses.

Mina Choi is the recipient of the 2012 Fischell Fellowship in Biomedical Engineering.

Civil and Environmental Engineering Ph.D. student James Jones received a $10K research stipend by the Graduate Research Award Program on Public-Sector Aviation Issues for the 2012-2013 academic year. The award will help to fund his research on “Algorithms for Dynamic Re-sequencing of En Route Flights.”

AE Ph.D. students Dan Waters and Robert Vocke III won Science, Mathematics And Research for Transformation Scholarships.

AE Ph.D. student Jared Grauer tied for first place in the 2012 Laurence J. Bement Young Professional Award Competition for his paper "Testing and System Identification of an Ornithopter in Longitudinal Flight" co-authored with fellow student Evan Ulrich, Ph.D. advisor James Hubbard, Jr., Clark School Dean Darryll Pines, and Professor Sean Humbert.

Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (ChBE) graduate student Paul Rueger, advised by Professor Richard V. Calabrese, won the 2012 North American Mixing Forum Student Award for a paper titled "Dilute Dispersion of Water into Oil in a Batch Rotor-Stator Mixer."

Bing Shi (computer engineering) won the 2012 Best Paper Award at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Computer Society Annual Symposium on VLSI for “Hybrid 3D-IC Cooling System Using Micro-Fluidic Cooling and Thermal TSVs.”

"DETC2012-71236: Using GPUs for Realtime Prediction of Optical Forces on Microsphere Ensembles," a paper by computer science (CS) graduate student Sujal Bista, ME graduate student Sagar Chowdhury, Professor S.K. Gupta (ME/Institute for Systems Research), and University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies Director Amitabh Varshney (CS), was one of two “best of conference” papers at the 2012 American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference.

MSE graduate student Khim Karki, advised by MSE associate professor John Cumings, received the Best Poster Award and the Best Oral Presentation Award at the annual Nanostructures for Electrical Energy Storage meeting.

Fischell Department of Engineering (BioE) graduate student Kimberly Ferlin, co-advised by Professor John Fisher (BioE) and David Kaplan (FDA), was elected to a three-year term as the communications officer for the Americas branch of the Student and Young Investigator Section of TERMIS, the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society.

MSE graduate student Amy Marquardt, advised by MSE professor Ray Phaneuf, has received the American Vacuum Society's Dorothy M. and Earl S. Hoffman Award.

ChBE graduate student Aaron Fisher, advised by BioE professor Peter Kofinas, received a travel award from the Electrochemical Society's Battery Division to help fund his trip to the 2012 Pacific Rim Meeting on Electrochemical and Solid-State Science. The award also included a one-year student membership in the society. Fisher also won first prize for his presentation, "Lithiated Block Copolymer Electrolytes with Ionic Liquids for Batteries," at the UMD Electrochemical Society Student Chapter’s first annual poster contest this summer.

MSE graduate student Chanel Tissot received a travel award from Tenth Meeting of the Ionizing Radiation and Polymers Symposium to present "The Extraction of Uranium from Seawater Using Advanced Radiation-Grafted Materials" at the event.

ME graduate students Sandip Haldar and Haijun Liu won travel grants to attend the 2012 ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition. Haldar presented the research paper, “Enhanced Damage Resistance in Sandwich Composite Structures through Fiber Reinforcement of Cores," and Liu’s poster presentation was “Mimicking how the Fly Hears: Fly-Ear Inspired MEMS Acoustic Sensors.”

ChBE graduate student Yiqing Wu, advised by ChBE assistant professor Dongxia Liu, was one of four first-place winners in the Catalysis Club of Philadelphia’s annual Student Poster Contest.

"Multi-Depth Microfluidic Biofilm Reactor Fabricated With ALD Passivaton of a Photoresist Mold," a poster presented by BioE graduate student Mariana Meyer won the Bioengineering division at the university's 2012 Bioscience Research & Technology Review Day.

BioE graduate students Eric Hoppmann and Sean Virgile won the October Pitch Dingman competition with their proposed sensor capable of detecting the smallest traces of pesticides, explosives, drugs and toxins in food and water that can be manufactured anywhere using a modified inkjet printer for a fraction of the cost of the currently available technology.

Top of page

Undergraduate

MSE seniors Ben Jones (pictured) and Komal Syed received National Institute of Standards and Technology–American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Measurement Science and Engineering Fellowships. The two undergraduates spent the fall semester at the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Material Measurement Laboratory.

AE student Cody Karcher won first place in the undergraduate category at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Region I Young Professionals Conference for his paper “Design and Manufacture of the Cockpit and Transmission for a Human Powered Helicopter.”

Three Clark School undergraduate students and their mentors were recognized by the Philip Merrill Presidential Scholars Program: Matthew Rich, his Clark School faculty mentor Mary Bowden (AE) and high school math teacher Thomas Sankey (Mt. Hebron High School); Joshua Thompson (BioE), his Clark School faculty mentor John Fisher (BioE) and his high school chemistry teacher Lakeisha O’Keiffe (Loyola High School); and Janina Vaitkus (BioE, pictured), her Clark School faculty mentor Helim Aranda-Espinoza (BioE) and her high school assistant principal Ryan Sackett (South River High School).

BioE junior Mian Khalid is the recipient of the College Park Scholars 2012 Tri-Star Award.

Peter Mariani of the Clark School and Minh Tam Nguyen of Montgomery College won a Maryland Engineering Research Internship Teams Biosystems Internships for Engineers program award for their project titled, “Active Mapping with a Bat Inspired Sonar System.”

Top of page