Rotunda Image Created with Scheme

This image of the Rotunda was created by students in David Evans' computer science class using Scheme, a programming language originally developed for artificial intelligence.

Matt Green, a graduate CE student, was awarded a prestigious Eisenhower Fellowship by the U.S. Department of Transportation. Matt is conducting his research in the Smart Travel Laboratory with Professor Brian Smith.

Landon Shoop, a second-year student, was featured in a June Washington Post article as one of about 80 young volunteers with Arlington, Va.'s, CyberSeniors/Cyberteens Program. The program pairs teenagers and young adults with senior citizens to teach them basic computer skills and help them feel comfortable using technology.

Elizabeth Partridge won third place in the ACM Undergraduate Student Research Contest.

Zhijian Lu and Jason Hein won the best student paper award for the 2002 Workshop on Self-Healing, Adaptive, and Self-Managed Systems (SHAMAN).

Thirteen students attended the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) student conference in April. Erik Andrews, fourth-year Aero, won first place; and Zach Owen, fourth-year Aero, won second place in the undergraduate competition for papers they wrote. Phil Lemire, a master's student in MAE, won second place for his paper. Last year, Lemire won third place, and his research has been applied to research on artificial heart pumps.

A student team placed fourth in the 2002 IEEE Computer Society International Design Competition (CSIDC). U.Va. was the top-placed U.S. team. The project title was "Lifeline: Improved Communication & Infomatics for Fire & Rescue Workers." Team members were Daniel Ceperley (EE), Minh Duc Nguyen (CS), Andrew Perez-Lopez (Cognitive Science) and Arun Thomas (CpE). Faculty mentors were Mircea R. Stan and Ronald D. Williams.

A team of engineering students was among the top four winners in the NASA Means Business competition in May. The students competed against other schools to develop a business plan for customer out-reach for NASA's Mars missions over the next 20 years.

Alaris, designed by U.Va. MAE students who took 1st place in the NASA National General Aviation Design Competition

MAE students took first place in the NASA National General Aviation Design Competition for their design of "Alaris," an aircraft concept that produced outstanding performance by combining a lightweight wing and body with a powerful turbofan engine. The U.Va. team's design was featured in the October issue of Popular Science. For images of this year's winning designs, visit.

Kelly Shea, a second-year ChE student, designed a 10-minute prostate cancer test. She was a finalist last year in the Siemens Westinghouse Competition in Math, Science and Technology. Kelly recently was featured in a Washington Post Magazine article headlined: "Laboratory Protocol: Science Discovers Women, and Vice Versa."

15th Annual Undergraduate Research and Design Symposium Top Three Winners

Emily Quann, Suzanne Grove, Daniel Ceperley: winners of the 2002 Undergraduate Research and Design Symposium

First Place - Suzanne Groves (MAE)
Developing Wavelet-Based Diagnostics for Analyzing Transient Roll Motion of Ships
Technical Adviser: Don Jordan
TCC Adviser: Helen Benet-Goodman

Second Place - Emily Quann (ChE)
Functional Analysis of Protein Kinase C Isotypes During Differentiation from Mouse Embryonic Stem Cells into Cardiomyocytes
Technical Adviser: Roseanne Ford
TCC Adviser: Ingrid Townsend

Third Place - Daniel Ceperley (ECE)
Adaptive Beam-Forming in Medical Imaging
Technical Adviser: Seth Silverstein
TCC Adviser: Bryan Pfaffenberger

VEF Awards - 2002

Distinguished Faculty Award
Professor Nicholas Garber has been a faculty member in Civil Engineering since 1980. He is nationally and internationally known for his research in traf?c operations and safety. He served as chair of the Equal Opportunity / Affirmative Action Committee and was a member of the University Faculty Senate.

Professor Nicholas Garber, Ginger Moored, James Turner: VEF 2002 award winners.

Outstanding Student Award
Ginger Moored was a member of the solar airship team, an engineering school adviser, a member of Student Council and a participant in the D.C. Internship Program. She was a member of the Organization of Young Filipino-Americans and co-founder of GEMS, a mentoring organization for middle school girls. She was a member of the Women's Rights Committee of the American Civil Liberties Union and was elected to Tau Beta Pi, Golden Key, Omicron Delta Kappa, Sigma Gamma Tau and the National Society for Collegiate Scholars.

Service Award
James Turner is chief Democratic counsel on the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science. He is on the Dean's Advisory Council and the Advisory Board of TCC and has been instrumental in setting up and organizing the D.C. Internship Program.

ROTC Awards
Army Cadet Bryan Paladini
Navy Midshipman Jared Simsic
Air Force Cadet William Warren

U.Va. Chosen a Founding Member of National Institute of Aerospace

The University of Virginia was one of six universities chosen to be a founding member of the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA) at NASA Langley. Other university members of the consortium include Virginia Tech, the University of Maryland, Georgia Tech, North Carolina State, and North Carolina A&T. The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is also a team partner. Numerous faculty from Engineering and Arts & Sciences participated in the proposal. Key U.Va. contributors were James Groves (MSE), James McDaniel (MAE), David Emmitt (Environmental Science), Kathryn Thornton (Dean's Office), Alton Martin (General Counsel's Office), William Define (Office of Sponsored Programs), and Dean Richard Miksad.

The goals of the institute are to conduct research, provide graduate/continuing education via distance learning, commercialize technologies developed, and promote outreach in the region and throughout the United States. The initial five-year agreement could be renewed by NASA for as many as three additional five-year periods. Over the first five years of the agreement, U.Va. could receive up to $10 million for research activities.

Send Us Your Thoughts

Was there a professor who you thought was special while you were in school here? Was there a class you took that changed the course of your life? Write us at vef-info@virginia.edu to tell us your stories and send photos if you have some to share. We'll feature these stories in an upcoming issue of the magazine.

NSF Middleware Initiative

The University of Virginia is one of eight institutions chosen to participate in a closely coordinated effort to deploy and evaluate emerging technologies that will link otherwise unconnected applications or services across the Internet. The NSF Middleware Initiative (NMI) is developing these technologies, as well as the practical deployment and evaluation program NMI Integration Testbed, as part of NMI's overall effort to develop and disseminate software that allows scientists and educators to share applications, scientific instruments and data across the Internet.

Universities in the NMI Integration Testbed were selected competitively based on each institution's readiness for immediate testing of NMI releases and the potential for future project and enterprise integration activities.

Marty Humphrey (CS) is the project's PI.

Art on Display in MEC 205

Jamie Wyeth "Untitled",1965

MEC 205 was decorated with engineering art this summer, in an ongoing effort to display cultural works on engineering over the last century. The prints were selected from pieces NASA commissioned over the years to record significant events in space flight. Artists include Norman Rockwell, Andy Warhol and Jamie Wyeth. Emily Smith (Col '02) was curator.

Area resident examines projects featured during Open House 2002.

Center Designs Cars of the Future

Research done by the Center for Applied Biomechanics was referenced in the British Medical Journal article "Future Cars May Protect Pedestrians." The article discussed plans to design future cars that will offer greater safety to pedestrians and cyclists in accidents. Information on research conducted in the center can be seen at http://auto-safety.mech.virginia.edu/.

Representatives from Toyota present Center with keys to Toyota minivan.

The center recently received the gift of a minivan from Toyota to facilitate injury biomechanics research and study. Toyota also is funding a project with the center to examine the impact injury tolerance of the elderly torso in an effort to improve design of vehicle restraints.

Monitoring Device Offers Data on Bridges' Structural Health

Robert Kelly (MSE) was co-inventor of a device to provide information on the structural health of bridges. He invented the monitoring system with Robert Ross, president, and Kurt Hudson of Virginia Technologies Inc. of Charlottesville.

Graduate Fellowships Established

The Engineering School will be better able to attract more of the country's best graduate students, thanks to recent gifts totaling $200,000 that will be used to endow two new graduate student fellowships.

"Other great universities offer outstanding graduate student fellowships. In order to compete, we must, too," said Dean Richard Miksad. "Support for graduate research is one of our top funding priorities."

The endowed fellowships were established through a $100,000 unrestricted gift from the estate of John Bell McGaughy and through $100,000 in funds given by Engineering School alumni.

IBM Gift Granted to the Schools of Engineering and Medicine

An IBM gift of computer technology has been granted to the schools of Engineering and Medicine, with key applications in biomedical engineering for medical imaging. The value of the IBM and U.Va. matching gift totals $1.5 million.

The grant will allow the schools to collaborate on cardiac and ultrasound imaging, including MRI applications for the beating heart in real-time, world-class ultrasound imaging, optical imaging of the living cell interior and computational bioengineering of data to understand disease progression.

U.Va. Engineering Student's Invention Improves Allergic Response Options

Evan Edwards, a fourth-year MAE student, has invented the Epi-Card, a small device that will inject a dose of epinephrine through an easy-to-use, credit-card-sized device that is small enough to fit in a wallet. It also will contain a spring device to retract the needle after use, a safety precaution no other injection system offers.

Edwards' invention was featured at the Smithsonian Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., as part of "March Madness of the Mind," the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance's (NCIIA) fifth annual exhibition of student inventions.

Edwards first conceived of the Epi-Card idea in the spring of 2000, in a Technology, Culture and Communications course on invention and design.

After graduating this May, Edwards plans to further develop his invention while pursuing a master's degree in technology and ethics at U.Va.

Faculty Design a Government Portal for Hampton

The Computer Science Department recently completed a cooperative project with CNU to design and build an electronic portal for the city of Hampton. The project created a customer response system to improve citizen interaction with local government.

Professors Win NASA Research Award

Professors Kevin Sullivan (CS) and Joanne Bechta Dugan (ECE) received a two-year award of $1.6 million from NASA Langley, with options bringing the total to $2.6 million for five years. The award will fund the next stage of a recently completed first-stage project (funded at $750,000). NASA's aim is to transition innovative techniques for reliability modeling and analysis of complex systems for use by NASA engineers. The funding for this work will enable the two departments to support eight graduate students, several undergraduate researchers, a professional software developer and two faculty members at U.Va., as well as subcontracts with the University of Maryland, the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, and the College of William and Mary.

The project puts U.Va. at the forefront of research and development on techniques for the construction of sophisticated software tools for engineering modeling and analysis and in a leadership role as a partner with NASA headquarters on the implementation of probabilistic risk assessment and failure management methods for complex systems, including the International Space Station.

Engineering and Curry Students Create Teaching Kits

The Virginia Middle School Engineering Education Initiative (VMSEEI) has received an NSF Planning Grant from the Bridges for Engineering Education Program. The one-year, $100,000 grant and VMSEEI program involves faculty and students from the Engineering School and the Curry School of Education. The Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering also has initiated a new senior design course focused on developing Engineering Teaching Kits (ETKs). Larry Richards and Hilary Bart-Smith are the main instructors, and 24 students are enrolled. Five teams under the supervision of Richards, Bart-Smith, Gaby Laufer and Pepe Humphrey are working on ETKs on the topics: solar car design, design for sustainability, simple machines, gels and brain perfusion, and the Manta Ray submersible vehicle.

VMSEEI began several years ago with a grant from the Payne Family Foundation and Accenture, among others.

Faculty and Graduate Students Win Laptop Computers

The Engineering School gave away four wireless-enabled IBM laptop computers to winners of a schoolwide competition open to faculty and students. Proposals were reviewed by the Engineering School Computing Environment Committee. Winners were faculty members Sean Agnew (MSE), Maite Brandt-Pearce (ECE) and Mircea Stan (ECE), and graduate student Tian He (CS). IBM donated the computers, and the Engineering School, ITC and the University Library provided the peripherals.

Center for Biomechanics on Discovery

The research activities of the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Center for Applied Biomechanics were featured on the Discovery Channel documentary "Anatomy of a Crash," which aired in September.

Student News

The U.Va. solar house team won second place in the Department of Energy Solar Decathlon competition in Washington, D.C. See story, page 12.