[Faculty] Fall 2016 - College of Engineering Newsletter

[Monte Mehrabadi]

Dear Colleagues,

Please see the Fall 2016 Engineering Newsletter below to learn about the
recent accomplishments of the Engineering Faculty, Staff, Students and
Alumni.

Thank you,


Monte
-- 


--
Morteza Monte Mehrabadi
Dean
College of Engineering
San Diego State University
San Diego, CA  92182-1326
Email: mehrabadi at mail.sdsu.edu
Office:(619)594-6061
Fax:(619)594-6005
*http://www.engineering.sdsu.edu/engineering/
<http://www.engineering.sdsu.edu/engineering/>*
The College of Engineering Newsletter
Fall 2016

Message from the Dean

We began the Fall 2016 semester by welcoming 773 first-time freshmen and
250 new transfer students to the SDSU College of Engineering! This
represents an enrollment growth of 5.8% which brings the number of
Engineering students in Fall 2016 to over 4,100. We also welcomed six new
outstanding faculty, one of whom will begin his appointment in Fall 2017.

The College achieved a record in research funding in FY 2016, as the total
dollar amount of research proposals awarded to Engineering Faculty more
than doubled (202%) from FY 15 to FY 16.

The construction on the new Engineering Interdisciplinary Sciences (EIS)
Complex is moving quickly and less than a year after groundbreaking on
November 6, 2015, we celebrated with a Topping-Off Ceremony on October 27,
in which the last beam of the EIS Complex was placed.



The construction of the EIS Complex will be completed next Fall with
expected occupancy in early 2018. A live feed of the construction can be
viewed at: http://130.191.35.82/live.htm and for more information on the
EIS Complex, please visit http://eis.sdsu.edu.

It’s an exciting and busy time at the College and I hope you will take a
moment to read and catch up on all of our student, faculty and community
program accolades.

Dr. Morteza Monte Mehrabadi
Dean, College of Engineering
------------------------------

Welcome New Faculty
*Dr. Baris Aksanli, *Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer
Engineering. *Areas of Specialization: *Energy efficient large-scale cyber
physical systems, human behavior modeling in the Internet of Things, big
data for energy efficient  large-scale systems, cost and energy aware
automation of residential houses, and house/building/data center and
electric grid interaction.
*Dr. Joaquin Camacho*, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering. *Areas
of Specialization*: Combustion and particulate air pollution, nanomaterial
synthesis and characterization, renewable energy, carbon materials and
chemistry, heterogeneous reacting flow and aerosol dynamics and reacting
flow modeling.
*Dr. Ping Lu*, Professor and Chair of Aerospace Engineering. Areas of
Specialization: Advanced guidance of aerospace systems, autonomous
aerospace trajectory planning by convex optimization, nonlinear control
with applications in aerospace  systems, and flight mechanics.
*Dr. Duy Nyguyen*, Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer
Engineering. Areas of Specialization: Adaptive signal processing techniques
for communications, massive MIMO and mmWave communications, full duplex
radios, radio frequency energy harvesting, compressed sensing in
communications and optimization, game theory, and machine learning in
communications.
*Dr. Ying-Khai Teh*, Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer
Engineering. Areas of Specialization: Silicon-based low power CMOS analog
and mixed signal integrated circuit design, energy harvesting integration
using thermoelectric, piezoelectric and RF for self-powered Internet of
Things systems, and game theoretic analysis framework for multi-source
power management scheme.
*Dr. Matthew Verbyla*, Assistant Professor of Civil, Construction, and
Environmental Engineering (starting Fall 2017). Areas of Specialization:
Natural wastewater treatment, water reuse, pathogen fate and transport, and
microbial risk assessment.
------------------------------

Welcome New Senior Director of Development

Kim DuFour joined the College of Engineering in September 2016 as the
Senior Director of Development. Kim has worked in higher education for over
30 years with her last position serving as the Director of Academic
Advising at California State University Chico. Kim possesses seventeen
years of fundraising experience, including twelve years in higher
education, specifically in engineering and sciences at California State
University Chico. Prior to that, Kim worked in development for Sutter
Hospitals in Sacramento.

In addition, Kim is a former parent at SDSU and University of Oregon. Kim
graduated from California State University Chico in 1981 with a BA in
Social Work and Corrections. She continued her higher education at Chico
State and earned a Master of Public Administration in 1989.
------------------------------

Alumni Highlight

*Alan Dulgeroff* (’92, Electrical Engineering) is a busy man, especially
with regard to his involvement at San Diego State University. He is a
member of the University’s Career Services Advisory Board, sits on the
Electrical and Computer Engineering Curriculum Advisory Board, and for the
next year will serve as president of SDSU Alumni. In a June 15 ceremony at
the SDSU Alumni Advisory Board meeting, Dulgeroff was symbolically handed
the President’s gavel by Perette Godwin (’86), the Board’s immediate past
President. He will officially assume his new position July 1, 2016. "I want
to emphasize that I really appreciate the opportunity,” Dulgeroff said. “I
feel privileged to serve.”

Currently Director of Strategic planning for San Diego Gas and Electric
(SDG&E), the 47-year- old Dulgeroff is a lifetime member of the SDSU Alumni
Association. He has served on its Board in the past four years. One of
Dulgeroff’s passions is the Aztec Mentor Program (AMP). He has helped forge
a link between AMP and SDG&E. He also helps his company recruit on campus.
Dulgeroff estimates approximately 10 percent of SDG&E’s 4,000 or so
employees are Aztec alumni.




* Joe Kiani* (’85, ’87, Electrical Engineering) was featured both in the
SDSU 360 Magazine and SDSU Newscenter as one of four "Portraits of
Courage," a series featuring courageous Aztecs who fight to make the world
a better place for themselves, their families and their communities. To
read the full article, visit this link
<http://newscenter.sdsu.edu/sdsu_newscenter/news_story.aspx?sid=76383>.
------------------------------

Student Accolades
*Fei Lu* and *Hua Zhang*, Electrical and Computer Engineering doctoral
students, who work with Dr. Chris Mi , Professor and Chair, Department of
Electrical and Computer Engineering, have received the Prize Letter Award
for 2015 in the IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics for their paper: "A
Double-sided LCLC-Compensated Capacitive Power Transfer System for Electric
Vehicle Charging." The selection of this paper by IEEE is a high honor and
tribute to the fine research quality, presentation, and potential impact
that the research has to the field.
*Patrick Poon*, Civil Engineering Master’s student, advised by Dr. Alicia
Kinoshita, Assistant Professor, Department of Civil, Construction and
Environmental Engineering, was a recipient of the prestigious 2016 NASA
Earth and Space Science Fellowship (NESSF) for his research proposal
“Estimating Satellite-Based Evapotranspiration After Wildfire.” The NESSF
received a total of 425 applications in Earth Science Research with Mr.
Poon being one of only 73 students who were selected for the award.

*Michelle Powelson* and *Jose Calderon*, Civil, Construction, and
Environmental Engineering students, represented their ENV 363 class taught
by Dr. Natalie Mladenov, Assistant Professor, Department of Civil,
Construction, and Environmental Engineering, and presented a summary of
their storm water quality project to the entire council of the City of
Santee as a part of SDSU's Sage Project.

The *Baja SAE Team* competed in the May 2016 Baja Competition, in Gorman,
CA. The SDSU Baja team placed 2nd in the Acceleration Event. This was the
first time that SDSU placed top 3 in any event at the Baja SAE Competitions.

On October 22, 2016, the *SDSU Aztec Racing *and *Aztec Electric Racing
Teams* participated in the Southern California Society of Automotive
Engineers (SAE) mini-preliminary design review (PDR) at CSU Northridge. The
event provided industry feedback to all Southern California SAE teams on
their initial designs.

Nine SDSU Engineering students from *Aztec Racing, Aztec Electric Racing*
and *Aztec Baja*, attended the BMW Group Centennial celebration “The Next
100 Years” at the Barker Hanger of Santa Monica Airport, on October 16,
2016. The BMW Group hosted future transportation leaders for a special
program that included a networking reception viewing of multi-media
displays, and an exclusive preview of the four BMW Group’s vision vehicles
for the mobility of tomorrow.


------------------------------
Faculty Accolades

*Dr. Kaveh Akbari Hamed*, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering,
received $612,213 from NSF Directorate for Engineering for NRI:
Decentralized Feedback Control Design for Cooperative Robotic Walking with
Application to Powered Prosthetic Legs.

*Dr. Robert Dowell*, Associate Professor of Civil, Construction and
Environmental Engineering, received $147,495, from General Dynamics NASSCO,
for Full-Scale SWAGE Panel Structural Testing and Finite Element Modeling.

*Drs. Sahar Ghanipoor Machiani and Xianfeng Yang*, Assistant Professors of
Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering, along with Drs. Atsushi
Nara and Ming-Hisang Tsou, Department of Geography, received $449,202 from
NSF Directorate for Engineering Integrated Stage-Based Evacuation with
Social Perception Analysis and Dynamic Population Estimation.

*Dr. Gustaaf Jacobs*, Professor of Aerospace Engineering, received
$207,637, from NSF Directorate for Engineering Collaborative Research:
Shock Interaction with a Complex Hydrodynamic Medium; $315,992 for the
first year of a three-year award from the Air Force Office of Scientific
Research for Simulation of Particle-Laden Blast Waves with Inter-Scale
Coupling and Uncertainty Quantification; and $24,000, from California Space
Grant Consortium, STEM Research Academy and Outreach.

*Dr. Samuel Kassegne*, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, received
$501,914, from University of Washington, for Engineering Research Center
for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering.

*Drs. Alicia Kinoshita, Natalie Mladenov and Tom Zink*, Civil, Construction
and Environmental Engineering Faculty, received $543,500 from San Diego
River Conservancy for Restoration of Alvarado Creek Upper Reach 1.

*Dr. Ping Lu*, Professor and Chair of Aerospace Engineering, was on the
team that was given the Innovation Group Achievement Award by the Director
of NASA Johnson Space Center in September 2016, “for exceptional work in
pioneering the development of a fully numerical predictor-corrector entry
guidance algorithm for the atmospheric entry of space vehicles.”

*Drs. Karen May-Newman and George Youssef*, Mechanical Engineering Faculty,
received $75,000 from The San Diego Foundation for Bioengineering: a
pathway to interdisciplinary STEM at SDSU.

*Dr. Chris Mi*, Professor and Chair of Electrical & Computer Engineering,
received $200,000 from Nanjing Golden Dragon Bus Manufacturing Company Ltd,
for Joint Laboratory Development and Training; and $444,325 from the
University of Michigan, GATE Center for Electric Drive Transportation.

*Dr. Fletcher Miller*, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, received
$383,947, from University of San Diego for Hybrid Solar Converter with
Integrated Thermal Storage.

*Dr. Khaled Morsi*, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, received $344,517,
from NSF Directorate for Engineering, for Pressure "Unassisted" Processing
of Fully-Dense Nanocomposites through Novel Nano/Micro-Structural Design.

*Dr. Eugene Olevsky*, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, received
$337,824 from Matsys, Inc. for Modeling and Simulation for Manufacturing
Powder Metallurgy Structural Components.

*Dr. Victor Miguel Ponce*, Professor of Civil, Construction and
Environmental, received the SDSU Alumni Association Award for Outstanding
Faculty Contribution to the University for 2016-17.

*Dr. Mahasweta Sarkar*, Associate Professor of Electrical & Computer
Engineering, received $60,000, from ViaStat Inc. for Investigation Into a
High Quality Customer Experience on a WiFi Network on a Commercial Airliner
via ViaStat’s Ka-band High Throughput.

*Dr. Satish Sharma*, Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering,
received $469,555, from DOD Office of Naval Research for Quasi- Far-Field
System Upgrade for Millimeter Wave (mmw) Frequency Expansion; and $30,000
from Broadcom Corporation for Multi- Band GNSS Antenna Research Proposal.

*Dr. Satchi Venkataraman*, Professor of Aerospace Engineering, received
$199,800 from the N&R Engineering Uncertainty Quantification of Test
Derived Model Parameters for Life Prediction of Composite Bolted Joints in
an ICME Framework; and $68,681, from University of California at San Diego
for Baseline and Residual Strength Characterization of Composite Laminates
Under Bearing and Bypass Loading.
------------------------------

Community & Outreach

*Project Lead the Way (PTLW) California and the Society of Women Engineers
(SWE) SDSU Student Chapter* hosted 66 high school girls from 16 local high
schools and their parents to an afternoon focused on Women in STEM, on
Saturday, October 8, 2016. The event kicked off with an all-female Q&A
panel followed by students participating in 5 rotations of hands-on
activities hosted by The Physics Girl and 3 SDSU student organizations -
SWE SDSU, SDSU's Chemists Without Border, and SDSU's Aztec Electric Racing.
Parents attended several workshops to learn more about Project Lead the Way
courses and resources. The day wrapped up with awards and raffle prizes for
the students.

A select group of San Diego State University students proved they have what
it takes to be leaders in STEM careers during a special invitation-only
conference. *The 13th Annual Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement
(MESA) Student Leadership Conference*, themed “The New Face of STEM,” was
held October 14-15, 2016 at the Santa Clara Marriott. Students engaged in a
number of creative activities designed to sharpen their professional
skills. They competed in an elevator pitch challenge styled after the hit
show “The Voice.” Audience members voted by live polling during this PG&E
hosted competition. SoCalGas led a team- building Lego Challenge. And a
networking social event included improv games geared toward enhancing
social and emotional skills. Students also participated in mock interviews,
connected with industry representatives, listened to guest speakers and
attended workshops. This focus on so-called “soft skills” is a key to
shaping well-rounded STEM professionals.

*The Women’s Transportation Seminar (WTS) Student Chapter at SDSU*, was
featured in the online SDSU Daily Aztec on October 5, 2016. WTS, founded in
November 2014, by Professor Nensi Lakrori, Civil, Construction and
Environmental Engineering Department, focuses on the advancement of women
in the transportation industry. The goal of the chapter is to bridge the
gap between academia and working professionals and provide a support system
of mentors, advisors, and industry leaders to college students and recent
graduates. As the fourth official WTS Student Chapter, and the first one in
California, the Chapter has the goal of establishing a college based
student community focusing on advancing women in transportation through
professional workshops, networking, and community service.
------------------------------

Giving to the College of Engineering

Recognizing the importance of interdisciplinary research to advances in
engineering, San Diego State University (SDSU) is currently constructing a
new 85,000 square foot facility, the Engineering and Interdisciplinary
Sciences (EIS) Complex, a key initiative in the university's drive to
become a top-50 public research university. Not only will it enhance the
university's current teaching and research capacities, the EIS Complex will
also boost San Diego State University’s ability to attract the best and
brightest researchers and graduate students.

To learn more about giving to the College of Engineering, in particular,
about the naming opportunities available in the new Engineering and
Interdisciplinary (EIS) Complex, please contact: Kim DuFour, Senior
Director of Development, College of Engineering, kdufour at sdsu.edu or 619-594-
6416.

San Diego State University
5500 Campanile Drive
San Diego CA 92182
If you wish to be removed from this group's mailing list, click here
<http://www.sdsualumni.org?sid=997&gid=41&pgid=37&cid=51&seiid=0&ecatid=4&puid=ec9af980-52be-477f-be2b-89e207b02e53>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://engineering.sdsu.edu/pipermail/faculty/attachments/20161130/e50d6d54/attachment-0001.html>