Engineering News 2008

NOTABLE NEWS

ALUMNI NOTES

STUDENT ACHIEVEMENTS

FACULTY ACHIEVEMENTS

NOTABLE NEWS

NOTABLE NEWS

Marc Edwards named 2007 MacArthur Fellow

Marc Edwards, the Charles P. Lunsford Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, was named a MacArthur Fellow for 2007 by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Edwards received a five-year grant--often called the "genius grant"--of $500,000 from the foundation to use in any way he chooses.

The 24 MacArthur Fellows were selected from among hundreds of nominees for their creativity, originality, and potential to make important contributions in the future.

"As a group, this new class of Fellows takes one’s breath away," said Daniel J. Socolow, Director of the MacArthur Fellows Program. "As individuals, each is an original. To the person, they confirm that the creative individual is alive and well, at the cutting edge, and at work singularly and powerfully to make our world a better place. They are people who will change and influence our times.

"Edwards was cited by the MacArthur Fellows program for "playing a vital role in ensuring the safety of drinking water and in exposing deteriorating water-delivery infrastructure in America’s largest cities. An expert in the chemistry and toxicity of urban water supplies in the U.S., he has made significant advancements in a number of areas, including arsenic removal, coagulation of natural organic material, and the causes and control of copper and lead corrosion in new and aging distribution systems."

While investigating the Washington, D.C. area’s water supply in 2003, Edwards and his graduate students discovered that the addition of chloramine disinfectant in tap water increased the incidence of lead leaching in residential and commercial aqueducts. This research linked several cases of lead poisoning, earlier thought to be caused by lead paint, to local tap water. The findings also revealed systemic weaknesses in the regional water testing program, prompting the Washington Area Water Authority to replace lead service lines throughout the district.

As a result of that research, Edwards was asked to testify before Congress about the corrosion problem and was interviewed on National Public Radio’s "Living on Earth." In 2004 Time magazine dubbed Edwards "The Plumbing Professor" and featured him as one of the nation’s leading scientific innovators.

He is expanding his research to other cities, defining better ways to test local water and predict the risk of chemical contamination in urban infrastructure. "Through his exhaustive research efforts," according to the MacArthur Fellows biography, "Edwards is making critical contributions to the health of individuals and communities throughout the U.S. in an often neglected area of domestic public safety."

Earlier this year he received the Virginia Outstanding Faculty Award, the Commonwealth’s highest honor for faculty, from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.

In 2003 Edwards received the Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize from the American Society of Civil Engineers and in 2004 he was appointed to the Lunsford Professorship at Virginia Tech. His research has been published extensively in professional journals and conference publications, and a number of CEE graduate and undergraduate students have won national research awards under his guidance.Edwards came to Virginia Tech in 1997 from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where, in 1996, the National Science Foundation (NSF) selected him as one of only 20 young engineering faculty in the nation to receive a Presidential Faculty Fellowship. He completed his master’s degree and Ph.D. in environmental engineering at the University of Washington and earned his bachelor’s degree in bio-physics from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Virginia Tech team takes third place$500,000 prize in DARPA Urban Challenge

VictorTango, a team of Virginia Tech engineering and geography students, won third place and a $500,000 cash prize in the DARPA Urban Challenge.

On Nov. 3, 2007, during the competition held on a former U.S. Air Force base in Victorville, Calif., the Virginia Tech autonomous vehicle, "Odin," completed the 60-mile course in under six hours.

Odin crossed the finish line just behind the entry from Carnegie Mellon University (Tartan Racing), which won first place and $2 million, and the vehicle from Stanford University (Stanford Racing), which came in second for a $1 million prize.

During Urban Challenge qualifying rounds that began in Victorville on Oct. 27, DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) narrowed an original field of 35 entries down to 11 finalists. In the final event, vehicles were required to operate entirely autonomously--with no human intervention allowed past the starting line--as they obeyed California traffic laws and performed maneuvers such as merging into moving traffic, navigating traffic circles, and avoiding obstacles.

The vehicles had to think like human drivers and continually make split-second decisions.

"The urban setting added considerable complexity to the conditions faced by the vehicles, and was significantly more difficult than the fixed desert courses featured in the first two Grand Challenges," said Norman Whitaker, Urban Challenge program manager. "Tartan Racing, Stanford Racing, and VictorTango all did a great job getting their vehicles to navigate the course quickly and safely despite the challenging conditions."

Only six of the eleven finalists finished the course. The other three were from Cornell University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a collaborative team from the University of Pennsylvania and Lehigh University.

VictorTango converted an Escape hybrid donated by Ford Motor Co. into an autonomous vehicle by outfitting it with a "drive-by-wire" system, a powerful computer system, laser scanners, cameras, and a GPS (global positioning system), said Patrick Currier, a mechanical engineering (ME) graduate student.

"The drive-by-wire system allows the computers to control the throttle, brake, steering, and shifting and to drive the vehicle," Currier said. "This system was custom developed by the team and is unique in that it is completely hidden from view, enabling Odin to retain full passenger capabilities."

TORC Technologies LLC, a company in Virginia Tech’s Corporate Research Center founded by alumni of the university’s robotics program, worked with VictorTango to develop the software for the vehicle’s computer system.

The team outfitted Odin with four computers that perform specialized sensor processing and hardware interface tasks and two powerful servers that provide the primary computing power.

Three laser scanners mounted on the vehicle’s bumpers can scan a combined 360-degree field of view 12.5 times per second to detect obstacles. "These scanners are capable of detecting and tracking cars at a distance of up to 100 meters and are Odin’s primary method of detecting other vehicles," Currier said.Four more laser scanners are mounted on Odin’s roof rack — two to detect small obstacles such as curbs and potholes and two to check the vehicle’s blind spots when it changes lanes or merges into traffic.

In addition, two cameras are mounted on the roof rack. "The cameras serve two purposes," Currier noted. They enable Odin to sense its location and identify its proper position in the traffic lane, and can also positively determine if an obstacle detected by the scanners is another vehicle.

Odin’s GPS is coupled with an inertial measurement unit and wheel speed sensors to measure movement in all directions. "This system provides Odin with accurate position, even if the GPS signal is temporarily lost," Currier said.

VictorTango and TORC developed Odin’s sophisticated navigational software, which is modeled on human behavior.

"To successfully navigate in an urban environment, Odin processes all of the sensor information, classifies the situation, and then chooses a behavior, such as passing another vehicle, staying in the lane, or parking," Currier said. "This ‘human-like’ system makes Odin capable of choosing the best course out of millions of possible courses."

Currier was one of 10 graduate students on the Virginia Tech team, which at times included as many as 50 undergraduates. The students were guided by four faculty advisers, three of them from Virginia Tech--professor Alfred Wicks and assistant professor Dennis Hong of ME, and professor Bill Carstensen, chair of the geography department in the College of Natural Resources.

The team’s founding adviser, Charles Reinholtz, a former Virginia Tech Alumni Distinguished Professor and now a department head at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida, continued to work with VictorTango throughout the Urban Challenge. To learn more about the Virginia Tech team and see videos of Odin in action, visit http://www.victortango.org.

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Phadke and Thorp receive Benjamin Franklin Medal

Arun Phadke, University Distinguished Professor emeritus, and James Thorp, head of the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), received the 2008 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Electrical Engineering for their combined contributions of more than 60 years to the power industry.

For their collaborative work on a number of improvements to the industry’s ability to prevent or lessen the severity of power grid blackouts, the Franklin Institute has added Phadke and Thorp to an international list of the greatest men and women of science, engineering, and technology. Past Franklin Medal recipients include Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Orville Wright, Marie and Pierre Curie, and Jane Goodall.

The institute has presented honors for achievements in science, engineering and technology for 182 years, making these recognitions among the oldest and most prestigious comprehensive science awards in the world.

"Professors Thorp and Phadke, both members of the National Academy of Engineering, are considered to be preeminent trailblazers in their fields of electric power," said Richard Benson, dean of Virginia Tech’s College of Engineering. "Their research has a direct impact on the daily lives of everyone around the world. In fact, both are also members of a prestigious Chinese funded research team directed to improve the protection and security of the worldwide, interconnected electric power grid."

Phadke joined Virginia Tech’s ECE department in 1982 and held the American Electric Power professorship. He is a specialist in electrical power systems and in the application of computers for protection and control of such systems. In the 1980s Phadke developed the world’s first synchronized phasor measurement unit (PMU), providing real-time measurement of specific voltages and currents at power system substations.

Among Phadke’s many honors are his appointment by the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors as a University Distinguished Professor and his election to the National Academy of Engineering.

Phadke received his bachelor’s degree in 1955 from Agra University of India and was distinguished by his top rank in the graduating class. He earned a similar honor at the Indian Institute of Technology of Khargpur, where he was named to the top rank of his graduating class of electrical engineers receiving their bachelor’s degrees. He completed his Ph.D. in 1964 at the University of Wisconsin and his master’s degree in 1961 at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Thorp came to Virginia Tech in 2004 as head of the Bradley Department and was appointed to the Hugh P. and Ethel C. Kelly Professorship in Electrical and Computer Engineering. Most of his professional career was spent at Cornell University, where he established a strong record of earning teaching awards, conducting research, and administering the School of Electrical Engineering.

Thorp’s contributions to electric power research have been recognized by his elections to the National Academy of Engineering and as a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering. Other honors include the 2001 Power Engineering Society Career Service Award and four teaching awards from Cornell, where he began his career as an assistant professor after completing his Ph.D. at the university in 1962. He also earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Cornell.For more information about the Franklin Institute awards and to see a video, visit http://www.fi.edu/franklinawards.

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A Message from the Dean

In March of 2008, the Virginia Press Association (VPA), representing the newspapers throughout the state of Virginia, honored the Hokie Nation as its “Virginian of the Year” for the manner in which it behaved itself following the April 16, 2007, campus tragedy. “The Hokie Nation conducted itself with dignity, compassion and grace,” said Ginger Stanley, executive director of the VPA.

Normally, this award is given to an individual, and past winners have included John Coli, one of our own chemical engineering alumni, award-winning author David Balducci, tennis great Arthur Ashe, and journalist Katherine Graham. So giving it to the Hokie Nation was an unusual step. It was the Hokies’ “rock-solid performance in the wake of great tragedy” that inspired the dozens of members of the VPA to bestow this honor on the Hokie Nation as a whole for 2008, Stanley noted.

As alumni of the college of engineering and members of the Hokie Nation, I wanted you to know what a huge role you played in our receipt of this special honor. Thank you.

As I think back on the past academic year, I draw motivation from these cited characteristics of the Hokie Nation. When I became dean in 2005, I spoke of my optimism for the College of Engineering. That optimism has strengthened significantly. Here are some of the reasons why.

For the 2007-08 academic year, an extraordinarily larger number of our engineering faculty received the very competitive National Science Foundation CAREER awards. These five-year awards, with a monetary value of approximately $400,000 each, are NSF’s most prestigious honor for creative junior faculty considered to be future leaders in their academic fields. Our five recipients are: Leigh McCue of aerospace and ocean engineering, Ali Butt of computer science, Masoud Agah and Jung-Min Park of electrical and computer engineering, and Mark Paul of mechanical engineering.

In the fall, Marc Edwards of civil and environmental engineering was notified he would receive a MacArthur “Genius” Grant. He was cited for “playing a vital role in ensuring the safety of drinking water and in exposing deteriorating water-delivery infrastructure in America’s largest cities.” The honor provides him with a five year grant of $500,000 to spend in any way he chooses.

In March, the Franklin Institute announced the recipients of its Benjamin Franklin Medal in Electrical Engineering. Virginia Tech’s electrical and computer engineers Arun Phadke and Jim Thorp earned this honor for their combined contributions to the electric power industry. These medals are awarded “to the greatest men and women of science, engineering, and technology.” Professors Phadke and Thorp are now among the list that includes Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Marie and Pierre Curie, and Jane Goodall.

The successes of our student design teams in international contests are no less impressive. Our honors in such competitions as the RoboCup 2007, the Smart Radio Challenge, and the DARPA Urban Challenge brought worldwide attention to our creativity and ingenuity.

Our many individual successes were countered with the unwelcome news that Virginia Tech would have to absorb a mid-year budget cut imposed by the Commonwealth. Fortunately, we are seeing gains in important financial areas. Our research spending rose by more than 20 percent between May 2006 and May 2007. The Campaign for Virginia Tech kicked off with great fanfare last October, and we are already 70 percent of the way toward our College goal of $155 million. This will generate much needed support for endowed chairs, developmental professorships, student fellowships, laboratory support, departmental operating funds, and new and renovated buildings. The recently enacted engineering fee is producing a welcome infusion of funds that can be used to support our instructional laboratories and the people that maintain those labs.

Another unpleasant surprise came in late 2007 when our proposed Signature Engineering Building was not included in the General Obligation Bond proposal submitted by the Office of the Governor. However, President Steger has taken the lead in impressing upon the General Assembly the value to the Commonwealth of constructing the building. On January 22, a delegation from our College Advisory Board joined me in a trip to Richmond to visit with key members of the General Assembly to discuss this priority. With their support, both the House and the Senate inserted planning money for the Signature Engineering Building in the capital proposals for the next biennium. At the time I am writing this message, the final legislative outcome remained uncertain, but I can say we are optimistic and grateful for the fact that the level of awareness of the need for the Signature Engineering Building was raised significantly throughout the state.

Furthermore, President Steger has instructed that we begin immediately on a full architectural and engineering plan for the Signature Engineering Building’s construction, demonstrating the university’s resolve to erect this building at the earliest possible date. We will use these plans in support of our efforts to raise private funds for the Signature Engineering Building.

On another topic related to Richmond, Governor Tim Kaine and the Virginia Economic Development Partnership (VEDP) were successful in attracting the aerospace giant Rolls-Royce to Virginia, a deal which could mean $500 million in economic development. In a speech to the 127th annual Petersburg Chamber of Commerce dinner on Jan. 10 the Governor said that “brainpower” was “key” to this economic development initiative. Calling it the “most precious asset in the world,” Governor Kaine went on to say that Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia were “going to be at the table at virtually every deal in the future.”

Specific to our college, the Rolls Royce decision to build a jet engine manufacturing plant in Virginia means we will receive three endowed chairs, $2 million in support from the state of Virginia for laboratory renovations, some graduate fellowships, and resources for specific international program efforts.

Also, Pratt & Whitney announced in March that it established a strategic university partnership with our College of Engineering, as well as with Georgia Tech and Penn State. In its press release, it said this partnership would further “strengthen the current relationships with these institutions and leverage their world-class engineering education and research capabilities.” The partnership is focused on the design and development of state-of-the-art gas turbine propulsions systems that support commercial, military, and emerging technology and environmental programs.

These two new liaisons expressing profound faith in our ability to perform world-class engineering research is indeed well-founded. According to the National Science Foundation, our research expenditures of $127.3 million in fiscal year 2006 (the last year for updated national figures) placed us 11th in the nation among the hundreds of engineering colleges. This ranking represents an improvement from our 13th ranking in 2003, 2004, and 2005, and our 14th ranking in 2002.

What better metaphor for the year just ended and the year just began--we absorbed a setback in 2007 but responded with resolve in 2008. I like where we are heading.

Richard C. Benson, Dean of Engineering
Paul and Dorothea Torgersen Chair

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Nuclear engineering courses offered

The College of Engineering is offering graduate coursework that will lead to a Master’s of Engineering degree in mechanical engineer-ing (ME) with a nuclear certificate. Courses are now available and approval for the certificate is expected for fall semester 2008.“With the critical demand for energy by our nation and the world, we are pleased to revive our concentration on nuclear engineering,” said Dean of Engineering Richard C. Benson. “We have strong relationships with a number of industrial and government entities — includ-ing AREVA, NP Inc., Dominion Resources, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the Commonwealth of Virginia, and the Department of Energy — that have shown support for our nuclear engi-neering program. I believe educating our very bright students in this area will be beneficial to them and to society.”“Our long-term vision is to create an interdisciplinary program in nuclear science and engineering,” said Ken Ball, head of the ME department, who has expertise in nuclear materials and engineering. “Our program would encompass the nuclear sciences and medicine as well as nuclear engineering and reach across three Virginia Tech colleges.”

Eugene Brown and Mark Pierson of the ME faculty are in charge of the initial planning of the nuclear engineering certificate program. The courses are also available to off-campus students through the Commonwealth Gradu-ate Engineering Program at sites in Lynchburg, Richmond, and Hampton Roads.

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Engineering education Ph.D. program second of its kind in nation

The College of Engineering’s new Ph.D. in Engineering Education is only the second program of its kind in the U.S. The research-based program, which officially opened in January, is designed for students with either a bachelor’s or master’s degree in engineering.

“The new cross-disciplinary doctoral program responds to the need — in Virginia and across the nation — for more research into engineering education and improved teaching of engineering at all levels,” said Hayden Griffin, head of the Department of Engineering Education (EngE). Created in 2004, EngE has one of the premiere first-year engineering programs in the nation and offers graduate courses and programs in the area of engineering pedagogy and education research.

In addition to studying advanced methods of conducting research and teaching engineering courses, students in the new Ph.D. program will learn to apply research to the development and assessment of engineering curricula and educational policies that promote curriculum integration and social relevance.

“This program will bring Virginia Tech into a leadership position in the emerging area of engineering education research,” Griffin said. “We expect that graduates will become engineering faculty members, leaders of corporate training programs, and educational policy makers--all serving as agents of change in a field that needs changing.”

ALUMNI NEWS

Smith, Spitzer honored for achievements

The College of Engineering recognized two alumni, Dr. Sid Smith and Kirk Spitzer, for their achievements and service in 2007.

Smith, a 1963 Virginia Tech chemical engineering graduate, received the college’s Distinguished Alumnus Award. He attended Yale Medical School and began his career as a cardiologist at the U.S. Naval Hospital in Norfolk, Va. In 1973 he became director of the University of Colorado’s Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory, and four years later he moved to San Diego, Calif., to head the Department of Cardiology at Sharp Memorial Hospital and to direct the San Diego Cardiac Center.

In 1993 Smith was named Physician of the Year by the American Heart Association (AHA) and the next year he became chief of the Cardiology Division at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He served as president of the AHA from 1995-1996 and became the first person to hold the title of AHA’s Chief Science Officer, from 2001-2003. He returned to Chapel Hill as Director of the Center for Cardiovascular Science and Medicine.

Also prominent in world health matters, Smith has served as chair of the World Heart and Stroke Forum and as a member of the Executive Committee of the World Heart Federation.Kirk Spitzer, a 1967 industrial engineering graduate, received the College of Engineering’s Distinguished Service Award for 2007.

After receiving his bachelor’s degree from Virginia Tech and a commission as a reserve officer in the U.S. Army in 1967, Spitzer entered the corporate engineering training program with Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. in Akron, Ohio. He then spent two years on active military duty, including a tour in Vietnam, and was awarded the Bronze Star for meritorious service.

In 1983, Spitzer became general manager of Alfa Laval Thermal Inc., the world’s largest supplier of heat exchangers and refrigeration equipment. He was instrumental in relocating the division from sites in New York and New Jersey to Glen Allen, Va. In 2000 he was appointed president of all of the Sweden-based company’s U.S. operations, a post he retired from in 2005.

Under Spitzer’s leadership, Alfa Laval Thermal began actively recruiting Virginia Tech mechanical engineering graduates, and in 1998 he spearheaded the endowment of the Alfa Laval Thermal Inc. Scholarships in Mechanical Engineering Fund to help support rising seniors. He also served as a member of the task force that helped establish Virginia Tech’s Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science.

Spitzer and his wife, Lilia, are members of Virginia Tech’s Ut Prosim Society.

In 2002, he was inducted into the Grado Department of Industrial and System Engineering’s Academy of Distinguished Alumni. Table of Contents

Virginia Tech alumnus Chris Edelen, a 1989 graduate of aerospace engineering, has been appointed by NASA as a flight director for Mission Control. Leading a team of flight controllers, support personnel and engineering experts, a flight director has the overall responsibility to manage and carry out shuttle flights and space station expeditions. Edelen began his work with NASA as an aerospace engineer for Rockwell Space Operations, and joined United Space Alliance when it formed in 1996. He has 13 years of experience as a Flight Dynamics Officer supporting space shuttle trajectory operations at Johnson Space Center.

Charles Camarda, who earned his Ph.D. in aerospace engineering at Virginia Tech in 1990 and flew aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery in 2005, received the university’s 2007 Graduate Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award. As a mission specialist aboard Discovery, Camarda inspected the shuttle’s thermal protection system and helped manage the orbiter docking system during the shuttle’s rendezvous and undocking with the International Space Station. During his career as a research scientist in the field of thermal structures, Camarda received more than 20 NASA awards for technical innovations. He is currently assigned to NASA’s Engineering and Safety Center Leadership Team at the Johnson Space Center.

Homer Hickam, best-selling bookauthor, former NASA engineer,and alumnus of Virginia Tech’sGrado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, received the 2007 University Distinguished Achievement Award. Hickam graduated from Virginia Tech with a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineeringin 1964. A member of the corps of cadets, his activities on campus included building the first “Skipper,” the Corps of Cadet’s famous cannon. During his career with NASA, he worked in spacecraft design and crew training and, until his retirement in 1998, was the Payload Training Manager for the International Space Station Program. His novel Rocket Boys, based on Hickam’s experiences growing up in Coalwood, W.Va., became a number-one New York Times bestseller and inspired the popular film “October Sky.” Also an avid amateur paleontologist, Hickam recently discovered two specimens of Tyrannosaurs Rex in Montana.

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Three named John R. Jones fellows in ME

Stefan Duma, Michael Ellis, and Michael Roan were appointed John R. Jones Faculty Fellows in Mechanical Engineering in November 2007.

John R. Jones, a 1967 mechanical engineering (ME) graduate and an active member of the department’s Alumni Advisory Board, provided an endowment for the faculty fellow program in 2006 to acknowledge and reward junior and mid-career faculty who have shown exceptional merit in research, teaching, and/or service. Jones retired as an executive of American Electric Power after a 36-year career with the electric utility, and he remains active as a consultant to the power industry.

Duma, a professor of ME, has served as assistant department head for research since 2006. He is a faculty member of the Virginia Tech-Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences and founding director of the Center for Injury Biomechanics. His research in the area of injury biomechanics has been applied in many sectors, including the automotive industry, the U.S. military, and sports medicine.

Ellis, an associate professor of ME, is co-director of the Graduate Automotive Technology Education Center for Automotive Fuel Cells and director of the Energy Systems Laboratory at Virginia Tech. He conducts research in the application of fuel cell systems for building cogeneration, modeling and analysis of building energy solutions, analysis of energy uses in industrial processes, heat pump modeling, and design of hybrid gas/electric chilled water systems.

Roan came to Virginia Tech as an associate professor of ME in 2005. He previously was head of the signal processing department at the Pennsylvania State University’s Applied Research Laboratory and a visiting fellow in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Princeton University. In 2004 he received a prestigious Young Investigator Award from the Office of Naval Research. At Virginia Tech he has established a successful research program in the areas of underwater acoustics and signal processing

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STUDENT ACHIEVEMENTS

Undergraduate engineering ranked 14th

In U.S. News & World Report’s most recent “America’s Best Colleges 2008” survey, Virginia Tech’s undergraduate engineering is ranked 14th in the nation and several specialty programs also achieved high ratings.

The Virginia Tech College of Engineering — traditionally ranked as one of the top 20 engineering schools in the U.S. that offer doctorates — shares the undergraduate program spot of 14th with Johns Hopkins University and Northwestern University. This places the three schools among the top three percent of the more than 580 institutions accredited by the Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology.

The Virginia Tech engineering program is ranked eighth among undergraduate programs at public universities.

In addition, six Virginia Tech undergraduate engineering specialties are ranked among the top 20 of their respective peer programs — aerospace engineering is ranked 14th; civil engineering, 11th; electrical engineering, 17th; engineering science and mechanics, 8th; environmental engineering, 14th; industrial engineering, 9th; and mechanical engineering, 14th.

Virginia Tech engineering also did well in the “America’s Best Graduate Schools 2009” survey released by U.S. News & World Report in March 2008. The College of Engineering’s overall graduate program moved up a few notches, from 33rd last year to 28th among all schools of engineering, and from 18th to 17th among engineering colleges at public institutions.

Eight graduate specialties are ranked in the top 25 among peer programs nationally: industrial engineering is ranked seventh; civil engineering, 10th; environmental engineering, 10th; aerospace engineering, 13th; electrical engineering, 18th; mechanical engineering, 18th; materials engineering, 22nd; and computer engineering, 25th.

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Challenge X goal: Reduce petroleum consumption

From the beginning of the Challenge X: Crossover to Sustainable Mobility competition, the goal of the Virginia Tech Hybrid Electric Vehicle Team (HEVT) has been to reduce the petroleum consumption of their Chevrolet Equinox by 80 percent.

As one of 17 university teams selected by Challenge X sponsors General Motors and U.S. Department of Energy to compete in the four-year competition, the HEVT re-engineered their Equinox into an ethanol-powered hybrid. They integrated a Saab 2-liter E85 engine--which runs on 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline--into the SUV with a split parallel hybrid electric drive. In addition to achieving the goal of reducing petroleum consumption, the E85 fuel mixture produces fewer overall greenhouse gas emissions. The Virginia Tech team won first-place honors during the second-year of the competition in 2006 and third place in 2007. The HEVT hopes to take top honors in the fourth and final competition event in June 2008.

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Reppert wins Fulbright and NSF grants

Thomas Reppert of Mechanicsville, Va., who graduated summa cum laude from the Virginia Tech College of Engineering in 2007 with a bachelor’s degree in aerospace and ocean engineering, was awarded grants for graduate studies from both the U.S. State Department’s Fulbright program and the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship program.

Reppert was a student in Virginia Tech’s University Honors Program, which nominated him for the Fulbright grant. As a Fulbright scholar, he is receiving travel and living expenses and tuition for graduate study and research during the 2007-2008 academic year at the University of Zaragoza in Spain.

At Zaragoza, Reppert is studying celestial mechanics and numerical analysis in the university’s Department of Applied Mathematics. He also is participating in the European Space Agency’s Student Space Exploration and Technology Initiative, which plans to launch the European Student Earth Orbiter in order to test hardware for future interplanetary missions.

After completing his studies at Zaragoza, Reppert plans to use his NSF fellowship to earn a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The fellowship will provide three years of funding for graduate school, including a tuition supplement and a stipend.

While at Virginia Tech, Reppert conducted research under the guidance of aerospace engineering professors Christopher Hall and Hanspeter Schaub. As a result of his research, Reppert had a paper published in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Student Journal and received a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship Honorable Mention. He also completed an internship at the Boeing Company’s Satellite Development Center in Southern California.

Upon completing his Ph.D., Reppert would like to pursue an academic career, conducting research in spacecraft dynamics and control and establishing an engineering student exchange program between the U.S. and Spain.

“Wherever I go and whatever I study, I will always consider myself a Hokie,” Reppert said after receiving his undergraduate diploma in May. “There really is no place like Virginia Tech.”

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Robotics students win awards around the world

Students from the College of Engineering’s Robotics & Mechanics Laboratory (RoMeLa) traveled throughout the U.S. and abroad this past year, winning a number of honors for robotics research and development.

Working under the guidance of RoMeLa director Dennis Hong, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering (ME), and graduate student Karl Muecke, a group of undergraduate students formed Team SPRInt (Soccer Playing Robot with Intelligence) and created the autonomous humanoid robot “DARwIN” (Dynamic Anthropomorphic Robot with Intelligence).

Developed by the team to operate without human intervention, DARwIn can stand up on its own and locate and kick a tiny soccer ball toward a goal. DARwIn was the only U.S. entry invited to compete in the Humanoid Division of the international RoboCup 2007, held in Atlanta.

The team’s undergraduate leader, Robert Mayo, completed his bachelor’s degree at Virginia Tech in 2007 and is currently a graduate student in ME working with Hong in RoMeLa.

The other ME undergraduates on team SPRInt were Abhijit Chakraborty, Marilyn Duncan, Andrew Lynch, Ryan Misjan, Laurence O’Neill, Bill Pannell, and Eric Steinberg. All of the students except Duncan were seniors who graduated in 2007. Steinberg is now working on his master’s degree in ME at Virginia Tech.

Although Team SPRInt and DARwIn won no Robotics students win awards around the worldprizes at RoboCup, they were invited by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence to the International Robot Competition and Exhibition in Vancouver, British Columbia, where they won the Technical Innovation Award.

SPRInt and DARwIn also were invited by National Instruments (NI) to present the keynote demonstration before an audience of 3,500 during NI Week in Austin, Texas, in August. While at the international virtual instrumentation conference, the Virginia Tech team won three awards, including the Most Outstanding Application of Virtual Instrumentation Award.

In addition, Hong and ME graduate students Derek Lahr, Ivette Morazzani, and Ping Ren won the Best Paper Award during the International Conference on Advanced Robotics, held in Jeju, Korea, in August.


Graduate student Ivette Morazzani shows off “STriDER,” a novel three-legged walking machine that she and other RoMeLa researchers created.

The group’s paper, “Novel Tripedal Mobile Robot and Considerations for Gait Planning Strategies Based on Kinematics,” describes their work on a novel three-legged robot — STriDER — that is designed to walk with high energy efficiency and stability and can change directions while walking. The paper will be published in the Journal of Intelligent Service Robotics.

In February, RoMeLa was invited to demonstrate DARwIn and the other robots at the National Science Foundation FY 2009 “Budget Roll Out and Open House” in Washington, D.C. The Virginia Tech group was one of only 14 science and engineering exhibits invited from among all the NSF-funded projects in the U.S. The day-long event was attended by members of Congress and congressional staff, media, and D.C.-area school children.

Hong and his students are developing several other types of robotic mechanisms in RoMeLa for both undergraduate competitions and graduate research. Earlier this year, Hong received a prestigious National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) Award for his work on a Whole Skin Locomotion (WSL) mechanism that works on much the same principle as the pseudopod — or cytoplasmic “foot” — of the amoeba.

To learn more about the exciting robotics research going on in RoMeLa, visit http://www.me.vt.edu/romela.

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Wireless communications students win top awards at competition


Students on the CWT team, with faculty adviser Charles Bostian (far left), won the grand prize at the Smart Radio Challenge.

Graduate students from the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering’s Center for Wireless Telecommunications (CWT) and Mobile & Portable Radio Research Group (MPRG) took top honors during the Smart Radio Challenge, an international competition held during the 2007 Software Defined Radio Forum conference in Denver, Colo.

Virginia Tech was the only school with two teams among the final 10 competitors in the challenge. Teams came from schools in France, Malaysia, and Sweden, as well as the United States.

Each team had to design, develop, and test a software defined radio (SDR) in a way that would solve one of three specific problems. SDR devices use software rather than traditional dedicated hardware to define and modify the way they perform signal processing for transmission and reception.

The Virginia Tech CWT team of eight graduate students won the competition’s grand prize by developing a software defined radio capable of finding available spectrum within a pre-defined band, rendezvousing with an intended receiver, and transmitting data with a pre-determined quality of service in urban conditions.

The CWT was selected by the Software Defined Radio Forum to send a team to the 2008 competition.

The nine graduate students on the Virginia Tech MPRG team won the Smart Radio Challenge award for best SDR design.

“Virginia Tech has a long tradition of excellence in wireless, and these young men and women are very much in that mold,” said Charles Bostian, Alumni Distinguished Professor of electrical and computer engineering and faculty adviser for the CWT team. “We graduate innovative engineers who can design and build real radios.”

The CWT and MPRG are both affiliate organizations of Wireless @ Virginia Tech, which is one of the largest university wireless technology research groups in the nation.

FACULTY ACHIEVEMENTS

  • Credits

    • Biomedical researchers use engineering technology in war on cancer

    Researchers Rafael Davalos and Ge Wang, both members of the Virginia Tech-Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Science, have developed new techniques that show great promise in the field of cancer research.

    Davalos, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Virginia Tech, and Boris Rubinsky, a bioengineering professor at the University of California-Berkeley, have developed a new minimally invasive method of treating cancer called irreversible electroporation (IRE).

    Electroporation is a method that has been used for some time to increase a cell’s permeability. If this permeability becomes irreversible, creating a permanent opening, the cell will die. Davalos and Rubinsky are using irreversible electroporation to target cancer cells.

    “IRE removes tumors by irreversibly opening tumor cells through a series of short intense electric pulses from small electrodes placed in or around the body,” said Davalos. “The permanent openings eventually lead to the death of the cells without the use of potentially harmful chemotherapeutic drugs.

    ”Oncologists already use a variety of methods, including heat and freezing processes, to destroy tumors, but these techniques can damage healthy tissue or leave malignant cells. Using IRE pulses, the researchers have successfully removed tissue in the livers of male Sprague-Dawley rats.

    “We did not use any drugs, the cells were destroyed, and the vessel architecture was preserved,” Davalos said. “The reliable killing of a targeted area with cellular scale resolution without affecting surrounding tissue or nearby blood vessels is key.” The IRE technique developed by Davalos and Rubinsky will be tested in clinical trials on individuals with prostate cancer.

    Using a new highly sensitive imaging process they have invented called bioluminescence tomography (BLT), Wang and his research team have identified two adrenaline tumors in a live mouse.

    “Adrenaline tumors are just one example of a tumor and our non-invasive technology can be used to study all types of tumors,” said Wang, the Samuel Reynolds Pritchard Professor of Engineering at Virginia Tech.

    BLT imaging uses luciferase enzymes for the in vivo mapping of specifically tagged cells in small animals, typically mice — while they are alive. After the substance luciferin is injected into an animal, the tagged cells emit photons in a spectral range around the infrared region, “quite like fireflies we see in the summer,” Wang said.

    These types of photons can penetrate biological tissues by a few centimeters and be detected by a cooled charge-coupled device (CCD)-based camera. BLT imaging represents an emerging concept for molecular imaging, and it has several unique advantages. For example, it produces much more sensitive, specific images of gene expressions than conventional methods, which include x-ray computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging.

    “Without BLT, bioluminescent imaging is basically qualitative,” Wang said. “With BLT, quantitative and three-dimensional analyses on bioluminescent molecular probes become feasible inside a living mouse.

    ”Wang and his research group invented BLT in 2002 and two years later they wrote the first paper on BLT. Today more than 10 groups worldwide are conducting research in this new area. Wang relocated from the University of Iowa to Virginia Tech in 2006 to lead the university’s biomedical imaging division.

    Wang’s group is currently developing a second-generation BLT system that can simultaneously collect diffused photons of different colors on the body surface of a mouse through customized optical paths. Also, the system may use the mechanism of temperature modulation to improve the BLT reconstruction.

    The Virginia Tech-Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering is a core member of the Virginia Tech Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science (ICTAS).

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    Sherali appointed University Distinguished Professor

    Sherali, who joined the Virginia Tech faculty in 1979 and held the W. Thomas Rice Chair of Engineering for several years until his appointment as a UDP, is one of the university’s most respected and sought-after teachers. He has received Virginia Tech’s Alumni Award for Excellence in Teaching and two College of Engineering Dean’s Awards for Excellence in Teaching. He is the only member of the engineering faculty to receive the Dean’s Award of Excellence in all three categories--teaching, research, and service.

    The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia has recognized Sherali’s contributions as an educator with the Outstanding Faculty Award, the Commonwealth’s highest honor for faculty. He also has received the Dan H. Pletta Award for Engineering Educator of the Year, presented by the Virginia chapters of national engineering societies; and the Albert G. Holzman Distinguished Educator Award, presented by the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE).

    Among Sherali’s contributions to engineering system design is the invention, in collaboration with graduate students, of the ground-breaking Reformulation-Linearization Technique.

    His research has resulted in the publication of seven books and more than 230 refereed articles in top-tier journals, as well as a number of honors, including the Virginia Tech Alumni Award for Research Excellence; the IIE Transactions Best Paper Award; the David F. Baker Distinguished Research Award, which is IIE’s highest research honor; the Operations Research Challenge Competition Prize from the National Institute of Justice; and the Computer Science Technical Section Research Award and Koopman Prize for military operations research from the Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences (INFORMS).

    Sherali co-founded and co-directs two of Virginia Tech’s premier research groups, the Simulation and Optimization Laboratory and the FAA National Center of Excellence in Aviation Operations Research. He has served on the editorial boards of eight top-tier journals and has helped organize and chair a number of national and international conferences.

    In recognition of this remarkable career, Sherali has been chosen by his peers from throughout the nation for three of the most prestigious honors in the field of engineering. He has been elected a Fellow of both IIE and INFORMS and, in 2000, he was elected to membership in the National Academy of Engineering, the highest professional distinction accorded an engineer.

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    Michigan State honors Baird

    Don Baird, the Harry C. Wyatt Professor of Chemical Engineering at Virginia Tech, received the 2008 Jack Breslin Life Achievement Award from the Michigan State University (MSU) Alumni Varsity Club.

    This award is presented annually to the Spartan varsity alumnus whose post college career “has brought great honor to himself and by reflection to MSU and its intercollegiate athletic programs.”

    As an undergraduate at MSU, Baird played football as an offensive guard and sometimes linebacker, and was a member of the team when it won the national championship in 1966.

    He also won Academic All American, Academic All Big Ten, and All Big Ten honors while he was a Spartan.

    He graduated from MSU with a bachelor’s degree in chemical and materials engineering in 1969 and stayed on to complete his master’s degree in materials and mechanics in 1971. He earned his Ph.D. in engineering science and mechanics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

    During his career at Virginia Tech, Baird has received the Alumni Research Award and the College of Engineering Dean’s Award for Excellence in both teaching and research. The Society of Plastics Engineers has honored him with both the International Award for Education and the Research Award.

    A member of the Virginia Tech Macromolecules and Interfaces Institute, Baird conducts research in polymer processing and rheology, composite materials and processing, and polymeric materials and properties

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    Shukla’s embedded computers research attracts national attention

    Sandeep Shukla’s work in designing, analyzing, and predicting the performance of electronic systems--particularly embedded computers--has drawn acclaim from the National Academies, the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the White House.

    In November 2007 Shukla, an associate professor in the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, was invited by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to participate in the 19th annual Kavli Frontiers of Science Symposium in Irvine, Cal.

    Shukla, who came to Virginia Tech in 2002, was among a group of about 100 scientists under the age of 45 selected by the NAS in recognition of their research achievements and honors. In 2005 he was invited by the National Academy of Engineering to attend the Frontiers of Engineering Symposium, an honor that parallels the NAS event.

    Shukla was invited to the White House in 2004 to receive a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) and in 2003 he received a NSF Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) Award. Both the PECASE and CAREER awards are among the nation’s highest honors accorded researchers in the early stages of their careers.

    Embedded computers are the “brains” behind many everyday mechanisms, such as wireless devices, cars, climate control systems, traffic signals, and washing machines, as well as complex systems, including space mission controls, avionics, and weapons systems.

    Among Shukla’s current research focuses is the development of embedded software code generation for space and aviation mission applications. “The makers of the Airbus 380 claim to have all control software automatically generated,” he said. “We should develop similar technology to increase productivity and safety of embedded software-based space- and air-borne systems.

    Another of his interests is nano-scale computer chips. “Because nano-scale devices are so small and the manufacturing process is affected by so much variation and inaccuracy, a significant percentage of computer chip devices manufactured at the nano-scale are defective,” he said. He is attempting to create novel tools and techniques to help solve these problems and he co-edited a book on the topic in 2004.

    Shukla began studying embedded computers while working as an engineer with Verizon and, later, Intel. Before coming to Virginia Tech, he was a member of the research faculty of the Center for Embedded Computer Systems at the University of California at Irvine.

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    Yoon elected to National Academy of Engineering

    Roe-Hoan Yoon, the Nicholas T. Camicia Professor of Engineering, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering, the highest honor accorded members of the profession.

    Yoon, who joined the Virginia Tech Department of Mining and Minerals Engineering (MinE) in 1978, is known internationally for his significant contributions to the technology and science of mineral processing. He directs the Center for Advanced Separation Technologies (CAST), a six-university consortium founded in 2001 by the U.S. Department of Energy. CAST researchers develop advanced separation technologies that can be used to produce clean fuels from domestic energy resources.

    In 1980, Yoon and his colleagues at Virginia Tech developed a technology that uses small air bubbles--known as microbubbles--to produce clean coal from the coal fines discarded in waste ponds. This DoE-funded project resulted in a commercially successful flotation technology currently marketed by Metso Minerals and Eriez Magnetics under the trade name Microcel. The basic concept of using small air bubbles for separating fine particles has now been widely adopted in the flotation industry worldwide.

    Yoon and his MinE colleagues Jerry Luttrell and Greg Adel have developed many other technologies, including the methods of removing water from fine coal and mineral fines, separating impurities from kaolin clay, and an optical sensor for coal analysis.

    Yoon’s other numerous honors include the Virginia Tech Alumni Award for Research Excellence; the Antoine M. Gaudin Award and the Robert H. Richards Award in Minerals Processing from the Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration; and honorary professorships from China’s Central South University and North East University. He holds appointments as an affiliated professor with the Virginia Tech departments of materials science and engineering and engineering science and mechanics.

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    Five young engineering faculty win NSF CAREER awards

    Five College of Engineering assistant professors have received 2008 National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) awards, each worth at least $400,000. These are the NSF’s most prestigious grants for creative junior faculty who are considered to be future leaders in their academic fields.


    Masoud Agah

    Developing a credit card-sized gas chromatography (GC) platform that can analyze volatile compounds within seconds is CAREER project goal of Masoud Agah of electrical and computer engineering.

    GC is the primary technique used in a number of scientific, medical, and industrial settings to separate and analyze volatile compounds in gases, liquids, and solids. Medical researchers, for example, can isolate volatile organic compounds in breath samples for early diagnosis or evaluation of certain metabolic conditions and diseases. Agah is attempting to develop a gas chromatographic architecture that will fit on a platform the size of a credit card and will separate and analyze a complex range of compounds in only a few seconds.

    Emergency workers, for example, could easily carry Agah’s GC instrument into areas devastated by floods to test water for toxic chemicals, and soldiers on the battlefield could test the air within seconds for signs of chemical warfare agents.


    Ali Butt

    Ali R. Butt of computer science will use his CAREER grant to address the increasing performance gap between computing power and storage technology, especially for high-performance computing (HPC) environments.

    Modern scientific computations often require analysis of information from a large number of devices, such as measurements from temperature and humidity sensors distributed across a region for monitoring the climate and forecasting environmental impacts. These complex applications require powerful computing resources and entail managing an ever-growing amount of data.

    Employing a Scalable Hierarchical Framework, which is designed to provide reliable high-performance storage, Butt is attempting to develop a data storage framework attuned to the ever-increasing demands of modern HPC environments. If he is successful, this framework will bridge the gap between modern computing power and storage, and will support efficient and reliable data management.


    Leigh McCue

    Leigh McCue of aerospace and ocean engineering is developing tools to help ship designers better understand ship motions and, thus, help prevent capsizing and other dangers resulting from vessel instabilities.

    “Each year, instabilities claim lives, cargo, and craft, often in vessels meeting or exceeding current safety regulations,” McCue said. One of the primary objectives of her CAREER project is to develop an understanding of large-amplitude ship motions. Another objective is to validate computer simulations of nonlinear large-amplitude ship motions, which can lead to instability.

    McCue also aims to develop on-board, real-time motion prediction tools. “The ultimate goal of this component of the research is to provide ship captains with warning of imminent dangers to their craft for a range of dynamic stability phenomena,” she said.


    Jung-Min Park

    Improving the security of cognitive radio technology is the goal of Jung-Min Park of electrical and computer engineering. “It is envisioned that cognitive radio technology will be used for two-way communications in a wide range of applications, such as communication systems for tactical military forces and emergency responders,” said Park. Because cognitive radio devices can sense and identify “white spaces” or vacant areas in the radio spectrum, they can help solve the problem of overcrowding in this limited natural resource.

    However, the advantages of this technology can be offset by new security threats that have not been considered previously. “My graduate students and I plan to conduct an in-depth investigation of critical security issues in cognitive radio systems and networks,” Park said.

    “We hope our findings will help service providers and manufacturers develop more secure technology, and also benefit regulators involved in the standardization of cognitive radio systems.”


    Mark Paul

    Understanding the dynamics of large, chaotic systems is the goal Mark Paul of mechanical engineering. “Despite their importance in many areas of engineering and science, nonequilibrium systems — systems driven out of equilibrium--remain difficult to analyze, control, design, and predict,” Paul said. Examples of nonequilibrium systems include weather and climate, the efficiency of combustion and chemical reactions, and heart dynamics.

    Paul will use Virginia Tech’s System X supercomputer to conduct large-scale numerical simulations of the chaotic fluid motion that occurs when a shallow fluid layer is heated uniformly from below. The results will be used to probe the origins and basic building blocks of spatiotemporal chaos. The fundamental insights gained through this research could lead to improvements in developing climate models, as well as a better understanding of matters such as energy production and consumption.



    Engineering Is a Contact Sport

    TAILGATE EVENTS FOR ALUMNI

    Another spectacular Hokie football season is coming our way. Before you know it, we’ll be back in Blacksburg for thrilling football in Lane Stadium and tasty food and tailgate parties.

    During the 2008 season the College of Engineering will host four pre-game tailgates for our alumni. Join us to visit and reminisce with old friends and find out what’s happening at your alma mater. Enjoy free food, beverages, and entertainment.

    Start times for the Saturday games have not been announced yet, so please mark your calendar that the tailgates will begin two hours before games (except on Nov. 22, as noted below) and will again be held at the Duck Pond end of the Drillfield.

    Due to recent events, the location for the tailgates will be determined later. Please check the College of Engineering web site for updates: http://www.eng.vt.edu. Since start times for the Saturday games have not been announced yet, mark your calendar that the tailgates will usually begin two hours before games.

    HERE’S THE SCHEDULE FOR THE FOUR TAILGATE EVENTS

    Saturday, Sept. 6
    Hokies vs. Furman Paladins
    The College of Engineering will host a tailgate two hours before kickoff. Come cheer on the Hokies as we meet the Furman Paladins for the first time since 1947.

    Saturday, Oct. 4
    VT Homecoming Game
    Hokies vs. Western Kentucky Hilltoppers
    The game will be preceded by the traditional Virginia Tech Homecoming with parades and floats in downtown Blacksburg. This marks the first football meeting between the Hokies and the Hilltoppers. Come out and show your team support and Hokie hos-pitality to our visitors from Western Kentucky.

    Thursday, Nov. 6
    Hokies vs. Maryland Terrapins
    This exciting Thursday night game will start at 7:30 and will be nationally televised on ESPN. Support Frank Beamer’s Hokies as he goes for his fourth win over the Terrapins.

    Saturday, Nov. 22
    College of Engineering Homecoming
    Hokies vs. Duke University Blue Devils

    For the College of Engineering Homecoming, we promise extra special activities, food, and fun at the Contact Sport Tent. The tailgate will begin three hours before kickoff. Unique student design-and-build projects will be on display, including the Human-Powered Submarine, Mini-Baja, ethanol-fueled Challenge X hybrid vehicle, DARPA Urban Challenge vehicle, and many more. Registration information and event details for Engineering Homecoming will be available at

    • Football tickets purchased as part of Engineering Homecoming registration are for registered participants.
    • Limit of one game ticket per paid registrant.
    • Game tickets are limited in quantity and are available
      • on a first-come, first-served basis. Register early and get yours before they run out.
    • Tickets will not be mailed: they will be available for pick-up the day of the game at the Engineering Homecoming Registration table. You must have a photo ID to pick up your tickets.
    • Everyone who enters Lane Stadium must have a game ticket, including infants.

    We don’t want to run out of food and drink, so please let us know if you’re coming and
    RSVP before game day to Lisa Young at lgyoung@vt.edu or call (800) 822-5146. Start times for the games will be announced over the summer and early fall on the Hokie Sports web site at www.hokiesports.com
    We look forward to seeing you on campus this fall.

    In addition to the College’s events, the student professional societies of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering will host three tailgates in front of Holden Hall two hours before each of the following games:

    • Sat., Sept 1 – Sat., Sept 13 – Hokies vs. Georgia Tech
    • Sat., Nov. 29 – Hokies vs. Virginia
    To RSVP for the MSE tailgates, contact Diane Folz at dfolz@vt.edu or (540) 231-3897.

    Credits

    Dean, College of Engineering: Richard Benson
    Editor / Writer: Elizabeth Crumbley
    Contributing Writers: Lynn Nystrom, Christina Daniilidi, Judy Hood
    Designer: David Simpkins
    Photographers: Rick Griffiths, John McCormick, Michael Kiernan, Josh Armstrong, Karen Gilbert

    Virginia Tech does not discriminate against employees, students, or applicants on the basis of race, color, sex, sexual orientation, disability, age, veteran status, national origin, religion, or political affiliation. Anyone having questions concerning discrimination should contact the Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Office.

    College of Engineering
    3046 Torgersen Hall (0217)
    Virginia Tech
    Blacksburg, VA 24061
    (540) 231-6641
    www.eng.vt.edu

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