Philippe Fauchet Named New Dean of School of Engineering

Fauchet

Philippe M. Fauchet, a recognized leader in research, teaching and innovation currently at the University of Rochester, will become dean of the Vanderbilt University School of Engineering on July 1.

Fauchet, Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and chair of Rochester’s electrical and computer engineering department, succeeds Dean Kenneth Galloway, who is returning to the faculty at the end of the current academic year after serving as dean since 1996.

Fauchet has 30 years of experience in nanotechnology and nanoscience, primarily in the areas of porous silicon and nanoscale silicon and their applications. His research explores the convergence of materials sciences, semiconductor and devices physics, physical chemistry and optics.

During his two decades at Rochester, he graduated 30 Ph.D. students from five departments and received the university’s award for excellence in graduate teaching in 2011.

He also brought three large multi-investigator grants to the institution and created the university’s multidisciplinary Center for Future Health, where engineers and physicians work to develop affordable technology that can be used in the home. He also established and ran the Femtosecond Laser Facility at Rochester’s Center for Optoelectronics and Imaging. Recently, he spearheaded the Energy Research Initiative, a university-wide effort to coordinate and expand the university’s research and educational activities in all areas related to energy.

Before moving to the University of Rochester, Fauchet was on the faculty at Princeton and Stanford universities and was one of the originators of Princeton University’s Center for Photonics and Optoelectronic Materials.

Fauchet earned his Ph.D. in applied physics from Stanford University in 1984. He graduated from Brown University in 1980 with a master’s in engineering.

Fauchet and his wife, Melanie, a nurse practitioner, have 13 adopted and biological children ranging in age from 2 to 22.

Alumnus By Water

Johnson

The almost 4.4 million passengers who use the Galveston-Port Bolivar ferries in Texas every year now can travel in Commodore style. The 265-foot long John W. Johnson honors alumnus John W. Johnson, BE’68, (right), a former member of the Texas Transportation Commission. The ferry, one of six in the fleet, is painted black and gold in honor of Johnson’s Vanderbilt ties. The free ferry service is the only way motorists can cross the waterway between Bolivar Peninsula and Galveston Island.

And By Air

Next time you travel through the main terminal building at Nashville International Airport, look for the bronze plaque naming the building after Robert C. H. Mathews Jr., BE’51. Mathews, who died in 2008, was an active civic leader in Nashville and chair of The Mathews Company. He served for 22 years as volunteer chair of the Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority, which owns and operates the Nashville airport.

Celebrating Four New Endowed Chairs

Four Vanderbilt School of Engineering faculty members were recognized with new endowed chairs in November, bringing the number of faculty holding chairs in the school to 12.

Kosson

Dawant

Benoit Dawant, professor of electrical engineering and computer science, and David S. Kosson, professor and chair of civil and environmental engineering, each received a Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair. Biomedical engineering professor Anita Mahadevan-Jansen was honored with the Orrin H. Ingram Chair in Engineering. Sankaran Mahadevan, professor of civil and environmental engineering, now holds the John R. Murray Sr. Chair.

The honors are significant not just for the recipients but also for the School of Engineering. “Endowed faculty chairs are essential to building a world-class faculty, and tremendously important for acknowledging faculty achievement and distinction,” Dean Kenneth F. Galloway said. Endowed chairs—sometimes known as named chairs or professorships—recognize a donor, support a professor’s research and are valuable in recruiting and retaining faculty.

Mahadevan-Jansen

Mahadevan

The Cornelius Vanderbilt Chairs are named for Vanderbilt’s founder and recognize faculty members doing groundbreaking research. The Orrin H. Ingram Chair in Engineering honors businessman, philanthropist and late Board of Trust member Orrin Henry “Hank” Ingram, founder of Ingram Barge Co., the foundation for Ingram Industries, one of the country’s largest privately owned companies. The John R. Murray Sr. Chair honors Murray, a successful oil industry engineer and son-in-law of longtime Vanderbilt benefactor H. Fort Flowers, BE’12, MS’15.

The new endowed chairs are recognized leaders in their fields. Dawant works at the interface of engineering and medicine, and develops techniques that permit the automatic analysis of medical images and their use for surgical guidance.

Kosson is an internationally known expert in safe and environmentally responsible management of large volume wastes and highly hazardous materials. He is the co-principal investigator of the Vanderbilt-led Consortium for Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation (CRESP), a multi-university program working with the Department of Energy, regulators and other stakeholders on cost-effective, risk-informed cleanup of the nation’s former nuclear weapons production sites and potential future used nuclear fuel storage and waste disposal sites.

Mahadevan-Jansen develops applications of optical techniques for diagnosis of pathology. Her primary research investigates the applications of optical spectroscopies and imaging for cancer diagnosis and guidance of therapy.

Mahadevan works on ways to increase the reliability and decrease the risks of complex structures and systems. His research on automotive, aircraft and spacecraft systems, civil infrastructure systems and nuclear waste storage has the potential to save human lives and millions of dollars. Mahadevan also directs the Vanderbilt Risk and Reliability Engineering and Management doctoral program, the largest and most prestigious of its kind in the world.

Jennings

The School of Engineering celebrated the promotion of three faculty members to professor and one to associate professor at the final faculty meeting of the 2010-2011 academic year. G. Kane Jennings was promoted to professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, Clare McCabe was promoted to professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, and Nilanjan Sarkar was promoted to professor of mechanical engineering. Sharon M. Weiss was promoted to associate professor of electrical engineering with tenure.

McCabe

Dean Kenneth Galloway also presented awards to graduate students, staff and faculty. The Excellence in Teaching Award was presented to Professor of Mechanical Engineering Nilanjan Sarkar. The 2011 Edward J. White Engineering Faculty Award for Excellence in Service was presented to Paul King, professor of biomedical engineering, emeritus. Linda Hurst, media technical supervisor, received the 2011 Judith A. Pachtman Staff Service Award. Galloway recognized mechanical engineering graduate student

Sarkar

D. Caleb Rucker as author of the best student research paper of 2010, published in IEEE Transactions on Robots.

No matter what their field of scholarly pursuit, engineers and researchers need a common tool: scientific computing. To assist psychologists, sociologists, economists, biologists and others in the social, life and natural sciences develop the computer skills they need, the School of Engineering and College of Arts and Science has launched a new minor in scientific computing.

The minor was created by faculty from both schools and will be available to students in all colleges. It is co-directed by Robert Bodenheimer, associate professor of computer science, Thomas Palmeri, associate professor of psychology, and David Weintraub, professor of astronomy.

“The computer science major and minor do a great job preparing engineers to understand the theoretical and practical foundations of computation, but they are not designed for people who want to use computers to solve computationally demanding scientific or engineering problems,” Bodenheimer says. “That’s where the scientific computing minor comes in.”

Bodenheimer says he and the other professors involved believe the minor will have broad appeal. “It will make computational methods and thinking more accessible to students interested in understanding its impact in modern science and engineering,” he says, adding that while faculty from computer science, psychology and physics led the way in the design of the minor, there was also input from mathematics, mechanical engineering, biomedical engineering, chemistry, biological sciences and other disciplines.

The new minor is offered for the first time this fall and was created with support from a National Science Foundation grant. The program also serves a bigger need, Bodenheimer adds. “By improving the computational skills of scientists and engineers, we can achieve the broader impact of improving science education in the United States.”

What do you do after you earn an award from NASA? If you’re the Vanderbilt University School of Engineering team, you do it again. For the second year, the Vanderbilt Aerospace Club won the PayloadDesign Award in the NASA University Student Launch Initiative. Teams from 29 universities were charged with the design, construction and launch of a reusable rocket with a scientific or engineering payload and its safe return. Vanderbilt’s rocket used compact onboard thermoelectric generators that captured electrical energy from waste heat of the exhaust as the rocket rose in altitude, eventually reaching 4,644 feet. NASA commended Vanderbilt for the most creative and innovative payload experiment while maximizing scientific value and safety.

Leslie Labruto, BE’11, has joined the Vanderbilt University Board of Trust as the 2011 Young Alumni Trustee. Young alumni trustees are elected by graduating and just-graduated seniors—engineering and nonengineering majors alike—to be their voice on the university’s governing board and serve as fully voting board members.

Leslie Labruto

Labruto majored in civil engineering and earned a double minor in engineering management and energy and environmental systems. As a junior, she was president of SPEAR (Students Promoting Environmental Awareness and Recycling) and led an initiative, in partnership with Vanderbilt Student Government, to establish Vanderbilt’s $75,000 Green Fund for sustainable student initiatives on campus. She also helped create Vanderbilt’s first Humanitarian Senior Design Project, which aims to bring renewable energy to a community in Guatemala, and participated in programs such as Engineers Without Borders. She is now a graduate student at the University of Cape Town in South Africa studying renewable energy.

Labruto joins recent engineering alumnus Ayotunde Ositelu, BE’09, as one of four young alumni trustees, providing student and young alumni perspectives to the Board of Trust.

John Gore

John C. Gore, Hertha Ramsey Cress Chair in Medicine and professor of biomedical engineering, has been elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering, one of the highest professional honors in engineering.

Gore was named to the academy for his contributions to the development and applications of magnetic resonance and other imaging techniques in medicine. He directs the Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science  and holds additional professorships in physics and molecular physiology and biophysics.

NAE members are peer-elected, senior professionals in business, academia and government and are among the world’s most accomplished engineers.

Christopher Rowe

Effective August 1, the school created the Division of General Engineering, which serves as an umbrella organization for the management of the engineering science major, engineering management minor and the first-year program.

Christopher J. Rowe, assistant professor of the practice of engineering management, is serving as interim director of the division. In addition to these duties, Rowe is senior aide to Dean Galloway and oversees engineering communications.

President of GM North America Mark Reuss, BE’86, and Chevrolet Volt director of design Bob Boniface, BA’87, pulled some strings to give engineering students a sneak peak at a preproduction Chevrolet Volt. Boniface, director of the E-Flex Design Studio at General Motors Corporation, drove the innovative extended-range electric vehicle from Detroit to Nashville in October. Boniface (pictured) charges the Volt behind Featheringill Hall before driving it onto Stevenson Center plaza where the 2011 Motor Trend Car of the Year charmed students, alumni and visitors. While Reuss attended the School of Engineering’s Committee of Visitors’ meetings, Boniface popped the Volt’s hood and chatted with interested students.

Read GM President Mark Reuss’ one-on-one interview with Vanderbilt Engineering.

Erin McManus in motion capture suit

The CRA award program recognizes undergraduate students in North American universities who show outstanding potential in an area of computing research.

Undergraduate Enrollment by Department, Fall 2009

Legend:

BME—Biomedical Engineering

CEE—Civil and Environmental Engineering

ChBE—Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

EECS—Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

ES—Engineering Science

ME—Mechanical Engineering

We’re still seeking the names of those pictured in the spring 2010 “A Look Back” article. Bob Smith, BE’63, identified one alumnus, but we still want to know the others. Email engineering.magazine@vanderbilt.edu if you can help. From left, they are Lewis E. Akin (BE’59, MS’60), Professor John Dunlap (BE’53, MS’56), unknown, Professor Waverly Graham, unknown, Bill Westerman (BE’59, MS’61), unknown.

William Robinson

Seven faculty members started the fall semester with new titles after being promoted to associate professor with tenure. They are Julie Adams, computer science and computer engineering; Eric Barth, mechanical engineering; Franz Baudenbacher, biomedical engineering; Aniruddha Gokhale, electrical engineering and computer science; Deyu Li, mechanical engineering; William Robinson, electrical engineering and computer engineering; and Florence Sanchez, civil and environmental engineering.

Two professors were honored with emeritus status by the Vanderbilt University Board of Trust. Bob Roselli is now professor of biomedical engineering, emeritus, and professor of chemical engineering, emeritus, and Steve Schach is now professor of computer science, emeritus, and professor of computer engineering, emeritus.

IDEAS grant recipient team of Rick Haselton, professor of biomedical engineering (right), and David Wright, associate professor of chemistry

Vanderbilt University believes its faculty produce breakthrough research that can advance society — and it’s backing them with its own money. A new program, Innovation and Discovery in Engineering And Science (IDEAS), will provide a one-time investment of more than $3 million in institutional funds to faculty researchers, 11 of whom are from the School of Engineering.

The program is designed to seed innovative, faculty-driven research initiatives. Strikingly, each approved project with an engineering aspect involves collaborations among several faculty members, both in and out of the School of Engineering.

Engineering faculty participating in the awarded projects are Yi Cui, Aniruddha Gokhale, Frederick Haselton, Clare McCabe, Kenneth Pence, Nilanjan Sarkar, Douglas Schmidt, Zhiao Shi, Greg Walker, Robert Weller and Jules White.

Janos Sztipanovits

A new national center established to secure the privacy of electronic health information will rely on experience and work from Vanderbilt engineers and medical researchers.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently announced the creation of a new center for health information and privacy. The SHARPS center will focus on three specific subjects: electronic health records, health information exchanges and telemedicine. The center will be housed at the University of Illinois, and experts from universities across the country will handle different areas of research.

Vanderbilt’s participation in the center shows that the university has become highly visible in the field of health care security and privacy, says Janos Sztipanovits, E. Bronson Ingram Distinguished Professor and director of the Institute for Software Integrated Systems (ISIS) at Vanderbilt’s School of Engineering.

Sztipanovits; Mark Frisse, Accenture Professor of Biomedical Informatics at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center; and Edward Shultz, MD, director of information technology integration at VUMC; head up the joint Vanderbilt team. William Stead, VUMC’s chief strategy and information officer, will serve as one of the center’s two chief scientists.

One of Vanderbilt’s unique contributions is the close partnership it has established between its engineers and clinical researchers. The Medical Center has a 15-year track record in the development of electronic health care records. ISIS contributes a structured approach to data security and extensive software tools that it developed to protect sensitive data for the Department of Defense.

The ability to combine engineering and medical skills and apply them to health care will assist Vanderbilt in identifying barriers to the adoption of information technology and in developing solutions for its use.

Professor of Biomedical Engineering Rick Haselton and Associate Professor of Chemistry David Wright have received a $100,000 Grand Challenges Explorations grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to research the development of a simple, low-cost diagnostic test for malaria. Haselton and Wright propose using nanoparticles and chemistry to develop a malaria infection test suitable for locations that lack electricity, refrigeration and highly trained technicians. The project is one of 76 grants announced by the Gates Foundation in the third funding round of Grand Challenges Explorations, a highly competitive initiative to help scientists around the world explore bold and largely unproven ways to improve health in developing countries.

Mary Jean Morris

Mary Jean Morris isn’t predicting how long it’ll take her to clean out her office. After all, she had a long time to settle into it.

Morris retired from her position as research associate with the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering on December 31, 2009, after just over 45 years at Vanderbilt—41 of those with environmental engineering.

She started at Vanderbilt on July 6, 1964, soon after earning her master’s from Tennessee Technological University. At VUSE, Morris worked in research, as a laboratory assistant and taught laboratory classes. Most recently, she served as laboratory manager and safety officer for civil and environmental engineering.

Over the years, Morris has been acknowledged in countless student dissertations for generously providing her time and for her consummate knowledge of laboratory proceedings.

“Mary Jean has an amazing talent for understanding and teaching laboratory protocol,” says colleague Lewis Saettel, manager of electrical engineering and computer science. “Her expertise is in the field of ‘how to do it right’.”

Morris’ institutional memory and stern, yet wry manner enthralled students and colleagues alike. “Students who took her lab courses wrote on their evaluations that they were well-informed and fortunate to have her as a safety manager,” says Senior Research Scientist Rossane DeLapp. “However, I think one of her greatest contributions to our department is her role as guardian of its colorful history.”

Associate Professor of Civil Engineering Bob Stammer, BE’72, says the department will miss her dependability and sense of humor. “Future students will miss getting to know a Vanderbilt legend. I do not want to imply that she had been here a long time,” he says, “but she was here when I was an undergraduate CE student … and I have been on the Vanderbilt payroll for 29 years now.”

Doug Schmidt

Douglas C. Schmidt, professor of computer science and associate chair of computer science and engineering, was one of three researchers invited to speak at a Capitol Hill briefing sponsored by the congressional R&D Caucus in Washington, D.C. Schmidt, also a senior research scientist at Vanderbilt’s Institute for Software Integrated Systems, discussed the complex issues involved in integrating multiple and diverse software-intensive systems in national defense operations. “There are very serious technical challenges, some obvious and some to be discovered, and the challenge of too many vendors, too many technologies and too many systems,” Schmidt reported. The briefing, Defense Basic Research: Critical to National Security and Economic Security, was held in conjunction with the Coalition for National Security Research.

From left, first-year mechanical engineering student Bailie Borchers, junior civil engineering majors Leslie Labruto and Jessica Canfora and senior mechanical engineering major John Barrere participated in an Engineers Without Borders project in Llanchama, Peru, over winter break. The students educated the villagers on the importance of clean water treatment and worked to survey and set up a new water pump.

Frank Parker

Frank Parker, Distinguished Professor of Environmental and Water Resources Engineering, traveled to the Vatican late in 2009 to discuss the role of science in furthering world peace.

Parker, an internationally recognized expert in remediation of radioactively contaminated soil and water and a member of the National Academy of Engineering, spoke at an exclusive meeting at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. In his talk, he discussed the benefits of expanding commercial nuclear power by extracting uranium from oceans.

“One of the ways we can improve the chances for peace is by providing almost limitless energy,” Parker said, noting that control of resources such as water and oil is widely recognized as a major cause of war. “There are an estimated 4.5 billion tons of uranium dissolved in the world’s oceans that could be extracted to provide a virtually inexhaustible supply of fuel for nuclear reactors.”

The conference was jointly sponsored by the academy, Ettore Majorana Foundation and Centre for Scientific Culture, and World Federation of Scientists.

Daniel Fleetwood

Daniel M. Fleetwood, professor of electrical engineering, has been named the Olin Henry Landreth Chair in Engineering by Vanderbilt University and the School of Engineering.

This is a new chair within the school, made possible by a gift from an anonymous donor. Landreth was Vanderbilt’s first professor of engineering and its first dean of engineering.

Fleetwood chairs the electrical engineering and computer science department. He has authored more than 335 publications on radiation effects in microelectronics, 10 of which have been recognized with outstanding paper awards. These papers have been cited more than 5,900 times.

“Dan is a highly valued colleague who has served his department, the school and Vanderbilt University with distinction,” says Dean Kenneth F. Galloway. “He has made significant contributions to a positive national perception of engineering at Vanderbilt.”

Fleetwood, who is also professor of physics, is a fellow of both the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the American Physical Society, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Pi Sigma. In 2009, he received the IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society’s Merit Award.

He earned bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees from Purdue University and joined Vanderbilt’s School of Engineering in 1999.

School of Engineering alumni are encouraged to go to http://www.vuconnect.com and follow the step-by-step instructions to register. Previously registered Dore2Dore users need to reregister with VUconnect (although biographical information from Dore2Dore will automatically transfer). Those alumni with an @alumni.vanderbilt.edu e-mail address will continue to have e-mail forwarding service.

VUconnect is only open to Vanderbilt alumni and students, as part of Vanderbilt’s commitment to the privacy of its alumni. For help or questions, e-mail vuconnect@vanderbilt.edu or call (615) 322-5578 weekdays 8:30 a.m.–5 p.m. Central time.

1025 16th Avenue South

Engineers from the School of Engineering’s Institute for Space and Defense Electronics (ISDE) and the Institute for Software Integrated Systems (ISIS) have just become the newest residents of Nashville’s famed Music Row.

The two institutes relocated their combined 130 personnel to new facilities at 1025 16th Avenue South, expanding to approximately 40,000 square feet of lab, office and conference space. ISIS and ISDE were formerly housed at 2015 Terrace Place and the Centre Building on Broadway, respectively, in facilities that were cramped and no longer met the institutes’ needs.

The new location will not only provide much-needed space but is also expected to assist the School of Engineering in attracting top faculty, researchers and graduate students. Formerly music industry-related offices, the red brick Music Row building was purchased by Vanderbilt for the School of Engineering in 2008.

Alexander Heard

Alexander Heard, who served as Vanderbilt’s fifth chancellor, and guided the university from 1963 to 1982, died July 24 after a long illness. The chancellor emeritus was 92.

Under Heard’s leadership, Vanderbilt grew and prospered, adding three schools to the seven it already contained, constructing three dozen new or enlarged buildings, conducting two highly successful fundraising campaigns, doubling its enrollment and increasing its annual budget tenfold. The university also recruited distinguished faculty, who achieved new levels of quality in both teaching and research.

Since 1982 Vanderbilt has awarded annually the Alexander Heard Distinguished Service Professor Award to a faculty member for contributions to the understanding of problems of contemporary society. Frank L. Parker, Distinguished Professor of Environmental and Water Resources Engineering and professor of engineering management, and Karl B. Schnelle Jr., professor of chemical and environmental engineering, emeritus, are two past recipients of the award.

By arrangement with the university, Heard’s ashes will be interred at Benton Chapel. Donations in his honor may be made to the Alexander Heard Memorial Fund at Vanderbilt.