2008 Annual Report
College of Engineering
hope begins here
1
The Vision
C
ollaborative innovation is
pervasive in the OSU College of
Engineering. Student teams thrive
in our culture, and they often bring
home trophies. Creative energy
crosses disciplines as the greatest
minds in the nation unite to take on
some of society’s biggest challenges:
today we are poised for tremendous
impact on multiple aspects of energy
independence and engineered
sustainability.
Collaborative innovation happens
easily here, but not without the
influence of leadership. Leadership
provided when a special person
comes along with an idea and a
vision, a person who just seems to
stand out above the rest. Someone
who sees what could be and devotes
the energy, the hope, the enthusiasm
and the leadership it takes to create
a new and better future. Martin
Kelley was such a person.
As much as we believe in the
power of collaborative innovation
to develop great engineers and
solve big problems, sometimes we
also need to stop and recognize
the leaders who can make such a
profound difference in our colleges,
our universities and our nation. In
this report, you’ll read more about
Martin and the impact his vision and
leadership have had on the College
of Engineering. Martin passed away
last summer, but he will always hold
a special place in our hearts.
Martin’s historic gift of $20 million
in 2000 was a tipping point in the
history of our college. It wasn’t just
the money. It was his vision of what
could be and his energy in helping
to bring others on board, to instill
the belief that we really will deliver
the impact of one of the nation’s top
engineering programs. That donation
has already helped to stimulate
another $100 million in private gifts
and led to many amazing results.
Our faculty has created significant
research programs, including the
National Tsunami Wave Basin,
the Oregon Nanoscience and
Microtechnologies Institute and
the Northwest National Marine
Renewable Energy Center. They’ve
launched 11 new companies based
on their research results, and those
companies have already attracted
another $85 million in private
investments.
College of Engineering research
on aging bridge structures helped
save Oregonians $500 million in
bridge repair work — and what
we’ve learned will aid crumbling
infrastructures all over the nation.
The total renovation of Apperson
Hall — soon to become Kearney
Hall — is nearing completion. The
number of top high school graduates
entering the college has nearly
tripled since Martin’s gift. Our
students are winning national design
competitions, such as the first-place
entry in the 2008 Mars Rover event.
The drive is gaining speed.
As you read this report, you’ll
find many examples of advanced
engineering research at OSU. Our
progress and building momentum
are a tribute to a great engineer and
a man with vision. A man who, like
many of us, was proud to call himself
an alumnus of the OSU College of
Engineering.
Ron Adams, Dean
Dean Ron Adams demonstrates
the dancing robotic beaver, one of
many TekBots designed and built by
College of Engineering students.
Martin
moments
I
n 2003, when work
began on the building
that would bear his name,
Martin Kelley treated it
like any other construction
project. Every three months,
he toured the site, met
Five things
“For a while, I was afraid we might
have the largest swimming pool
in Oregon,” he joked with guests
at the Kelley Engineering Center
grand opening in 2005. “But to say
that I am pleased with the results
would be a huge understatement.”
He had no idea, he added, when he
agreed in 2000 to contribute $20
million to the project, that it would
“be this nice of an institution for
group learning.”
with project engineers and
Gift sparks additional
investments
stand out about
Kelley may not have anticipated
something else: the enthusiasm
and sense of hope he sparked
among other College of Engineering
alumni. His vision and philanthropic
leadership became the tipping point
in the college’s success with the
center and the Campaign for OSU –
leading to more than $100 million in
private investments.
according to
Those funds have led to new student
scholarships, faculty endowments
and additional facility improvements,
stemming from the pride and
generosity spurred by Kelley’s
landmark gift.
received budget updates.
Martin Kelley,
OSU Foundation
Board chair
Darald W.
Callahan:
“his dedicated
leadership,
incredible
generosity,
humility, great
stories and
sense of humor
and of course,
that trademark
bow tie.”
The 2008 Annual Report is dedicated to
Martin Kelley (1928-2008), known for his
trademark bow tie and generosity to OSU
— including the $20 million lead gift to
build the Kelley Engineering Center.
2
“His vision and philanthropic leadership became the tipping point in the college’s success…”
3
— Ron Adams
“His trademark bow tie is
a clue that he would have
had a successful career as
a university professor.”
— Lee Kearney
“He launched the
transformation of the
College of Engineering.”
— Ron Adams
Martin
moments
Martin grew up
The “gospel of sound
practices”
It may not have been a surprise
to anyone who knew him well.
Rigorous education and training
are keystones, Kelley believed,
to keeping the public trust in
engineering. He loved to mentor
young engineers, and his direct,
easygoing manner, integrity and
commitment to principles made
a lasting impression on them,
according to Lee Kearney, former
colleague and 1963 OSU civil
engineering alum. “He preached
regularly the gospel of sound
estimating and engineering
practices. His trademark bow tie is
a clue that he would have had a
successful career as a university
professor,” Kearney added.
An accomplished career
After graduating from OSU with
a degree in civil engineering in
1950, Kelley played key roles in
some of the world’s most ambitious
construction projects: Quebec’s
James Bay hydropower dams, the
San Francisco Trans-Bay Tube, the
Danish Great Belt Crossing and New
York City’s 63rd Street Tube and
Tunnel Project. Today, millions rely
on his accomplishments in energy
and transportation systems that
light homes, run factories and speed
daily commutes.
4
Originally anonymous
Kelley retired in 1990 as the vice
president and chief engineer at
the Kiewit Company, one of the
nation’s largest construction firms.
His commitment to education
led him to serve with the Oregon
State University Foundation Board
of Trustees and the College of
Engineering Advisory Board.
After meeting with Ron Adams,
who became dean of the College of
Engineering in 1998, Kelley decided
to launch a renaissance at his alma
mater. “Ron talked about what
he thinks makes things work and
move is people, professors and more
students. I agreed with him, but I
said if you’re going to have more
professors and people, you’ll need a
place to put them,” Kelley said.
Former OSU president Paul Risser
remembers how Kelley arrived at
the decision to jump-start a new
building. “He and I had several
discussions about the importance of
engineering, especially in Oregon,”
Risser said. “When Martin came to
me to say that he wanted to make
a large gift for the engineering
building, he said it was to be totally
anonymous. In fact, he told me
that if it became known he was the
donor, he would take back the gift.
This was his humbleness.”
A legacy of leadership
“The Kelley Engineering Center says
to Oregon and the nation that OSU is
serious about its mission. It signals
that our aspirations are high and
realistic. Above all else, it announces
loud and clear that OSU is supported
by individuals of vision and
determination who care profoundly
about this nation and this state,”
OSU President Ed Ray said at the
grand opening.
Kelley earned OSU’s highest awards
for his leadership. Among them were
the Lifetime Trustee Award from the
OSU Foundation and the E.B. Lemon
Distinguished Alumni Award from
the OSU Alumni Association.
5
“I witnessed the sense of pride
that he had as he walked through
the building the first time,” says
Terri Fiez, head of the School of
Electrical Engineering and Computer
Science. “Last year, he came to the
engineering orientation and brought
some friends to see the building.
He then went out to the ice cream
social with all the new freshmen and
got his picture taken with students.
Again, very proud!”
in Pasadena,
His contribution was nothing less
than monumental, says Ron Adams.
“He launched the transformation of
the College of Engineering.”
he came to
Calif., in a family
that stressed
responsibility,
independence
and a strong
work ethic. This
emphasis on
independence
was one reason
Oregon State in
1945 to study
civil engineering.
Apperson to Kearney
Where the
past and
future meet
Lee and Connie Kearney
provided the lead gift for
the renovation of historic
Apperson Hall.
M
ore than 40 years ago, Lee
Kearney (’63) took classes like
dynamics and fluid mechanics in
Apperson Hall. Back then, the woodframe building was much like it
was before renovations started last
year, with creaky steps and support
columns in the middle of classrooms,
blocking students’ views.
In a few months, the cornerstone of
Engineering Row will emerge with a
new steel structure behind its historic
stone façade. And it will have a new
name: Kearney Hall, in recognition
of Lee and Connie Kearney’s lead gift
of $4 million toward the $12 million
renovation project.
Part of a strategic plan
A longtime member of the College of
Engineering’s Advisory Board, Kearney
knew better facilities — in addition
to scholarships, faculty and research
grants — were needed to move the
program forward. Renovating the
100+ year-old Apperson Hall was
part of the strategic plan adopted by
the board, Dean Ron Adams and the
department heads.
“We needed to expand our capacity
to produce more graduate engineers,
which are definitely in short supply
in Oregon and all over the nation,”
Kearney says. “This project matched
my interest, and I felt it would
allow the continuation of our overall
improvement program.”
6
A collaborative environment
Like the Kelley Engineering Center,
the new Kearney Hall will create an
environment for collaboration, with
multiple engineering disciplines
under one roof. Kearney believes this
“collegial atmosphere” has helped
the College of Engineering recruit
more top faculty. “When they see
how this group works together,
that’s the deciding factor that makes
it easy for them to come to Oregon
State,” Kearney says.
The nearly total reconstruction
of the building — with the steel
structure, those view-blocking
columns are gone — includes
interactive classrooms and a
computerized learning laboratory,
along with space where students and
faculty can collaborate on projects.
“It’s a huge improvement over what
was there,” Kearney says. Bringing a
21st-century learning environment
to one of the oldest buildings on
campus is a “nice compromise”
between the past and the future.
The new Kearney Hall
incorporates an entirely new
steel structure and interior
behind its historic stone façade.
7
OSU is a national and
international leader in
Innovative,
renewable and
sustainable
energy research
“There’s a
culture
shift going
on at OSU.”
Over the past five years, College of Engineering research has spun out 11 new companies and attracted more than $85
million in private investments. Joe Tanous joined the college two years ago to help commercialize OSU innovations.
Martin
moments
Martin was a
consummate
T
hat research is also
Ocean Energy – Oregon
fuel cells, OSU researchers
has become a national and
international leader in the
development of wave energy,
the result of pioneering
work under lead collaborator
Annette von Jouanne, a
professor of electrical
engineering. OSU is now home
to the Northwest National
Marine Energy Center, which is
working to make wave energy
production a reality. This
is a vast, largely untapped
energy source that’s clean,
environmentally benign, costeffective and perpetual.
and industry partners are
Biodiesel – Goran Jovanovic,
diverse, exploring
multiple pathways to
energy independence. From
harnessing the wind and
waves to highly efficient
solar cells and biodiesel
production, safe nuclear
reactors and hydrogen
finding new ways to power
the global economy.
a professor of chemical
engineering, is the lead
collaborator on developing
a working prototype of a
tiny chemical reactor for
manufacturing biodiesel –
one that is efficient, fast
and portable.
Solar – It wasn’t even
considered at first as one of
the likely uses, but College of
Engineering breakthroughs
in transparent electronics
may find some of their first
applications in new solar
energy devices that are up to
four times more cost-efficient
than existing approaches.
Hydrogen – Hong Liu,
an assistant professor of
biological engineering, has
created ways to produce both
electricity and hydrogen gas
from sewage in systems that
may significantly bring down
8
the cost of hydrogen for use
in fuel cells – often seen as
the fuel for automobiles of the
future. And the technology
cleans the water at the same
time.
Wind – OSU was an early
leader in wind energy research
and specializes in assessing
the wind-power potential for
private and public landowners.
Many of OSU’s energy research
initiatives are coordinated
through the Oregon Built
Environment and Sustainable
Technologies (Oregon BEST)
signature research cluster.
Among its goals, Oregon BEST
aims to make the state a leader
in clean energy, bio-based
products and green buildings.
The strong research programs in
the OSU College of Engineering
are increasingly going to work —
creating new products, establishing
new companies and attracting new
investments.
“There’s a culture shift going on
at OSU,” says Joe Tanous, who was
brought to the college two years ago
to serve as innovation liaison. “We’ve
had some great research programs
and accomplishments here for a long
time, but too often they just ended
up on the shelf.”
“We’re not going to let them fall
into that black hole any more,”
he says. “We’re going to get them
commercialized. It’s good for the
faculty, for the students, for the
university and for the public.”
Various tools are available now
to help with the task, Tanous
says, including venture grants,
the facilities of ONAMI and other
initiatives designed to get new
findings out of the laboratory and
into the commercial marketplace.
The results are starting to show:
Strands is all about “discovery,”
according to OSU computer
scientist Jon Herlocker, who
helped found the company
in 2004. Strands has created
a social recommender engine
that is able to provide real-time
recommendations of products
and services through computers,
mobile phones and other Internetconnected devices.
RedRover Software, a startup
built on 10 years of research by
OSU computer scientists including
Margaret Burnett and Martin
Erwig, provides pioneering new
tools to detect and fix errors in
computer spreadsheets, an issue
that costs billions for companies
around the world.
9
MTek Energy Solutions is
creating a credit-card sized biodiesel
device that combines vegetable
oil, alcohol and a catalyst in tiny
microreactors to produce biodiesel
fuel. The company is a spinout from
OSU’s leadership in microreactor
technology and original research
by OSU chemical engineer Goran
Jovanovic.
Nanobits is another spinout
from OSU microreactor technology
research. The company is creating
new devices for use in specialty
chemical and nanomaterial
manufacturing. Alex Chang, an
associate professor of chemical
engineering, is developing
microreactor technology to produce
nanoparticles for drug delivery.
teacher and
coach; his
colleagues
thought he
would have
made an
excellent college
professor had
he not gone into
engineering and
construction.
Jose Reyes has led breakthrough
research into small-scale nuclear
power plants that incorporate passivesafety design features.
scale
small
Converting economy of
into the economy of
“We wanted
something small,
really small, and
really safe.”
—Jose Reyes
When Jose Reyes was considering
different types of nuclear reactor
designs in the late 1990s, practically
all commercial power reactors were
big. Really big. They embraced the
concept of “economy of scale,” in
which large reactors that produced
more electricity were the most costeffective.
Reyes had a different vision: the
economy of small. So small, in
fact, that a reactor could be built
in a factory, mass produced with
tight quality control and shipped
easily to wherever it was needed.
And that vision ultimately became
the foundation of NuScale Power, a
startup firm that is already being
called a “company to watch” by the
Forbes/Wolfe Emerging Tech Report.
10
“At first, we were thinking primarily
of designs that could bring the
benefits of nuclear power to remote
locations or developing countries,”
says Reyes, professor and head
of OSU’s Department of Nuclear
Engineering and Radiation Health
Physics.
Really small – and really safe
“We wanted something small,
really small, and really safe,” he
says. “Then we had 9-11, and we
realized these same designs could
also be extremely low profile,
placed underground and much less
vulnerable to terrorist attack, even
addressing nuclear proliferation
concerns. All the pieces seemed to
come together.”
The idea of extremely small nuclear
reactors that could fit on a truck
or railroad car – incorporating the
latest passive safety concepts that
OSU helped pioneer during the
1990s – is now moving closer to a
commercial reality.
The plan is small, modular nuclear
reactor cores that would produce
45 megawatts of power each –
enough for about 45,000 homes –
which could be grouped to provide
whatever amount of power is needed.
They could be installed incrementally
to minimize up-front investment
costs, speed the completion of new
energy facilities and produce large
amounts of electricity with no
greenhouse gas emissions.
“We’re creating a design that will
answer many of the real obstacles
faced in the construction of new
nuclear plants, whether they
relate to safety, cost or ease of
construction,” says Reyes, who
is also the chief technical officer
of NuScale. “These reactors will
contribute to the renaissance of
nuclear energy all over the world.”
OSU innovation, plus industry
support
This work started as a collaboration
between OSU, Idaho National
Laboratory and Nexant/Bechtel, with
support in the early 2000s by the
U.S. Department of Energy. With a
partnership now in place with Kiewit
Construction, a major power plant
11
Martin
moments
Martin believed
he graduated
constructor, NuScale Power plans
to take the approach to a working
reality. OSU has three patents on
the technology, and the university
will help test the design. Final
certification may be possible within
five years.
“Cost is important, but safety
in every sense is the real key to
modular reactors,” says Reyes. “This
is a post 9-11 design in which the
reactor core will sit underground
inside a concrete container, with
resistance to air attack by terrorists
one of the considerations. All things
considered, it should be the safest
light water reactor ever built.”
“The progress we’ve already made
has been enormous,” he says. “The
future looks bright.”
with a solid
grounding in
the practical
applications of
engineering.
“I always felt
Oregon State
did a good job
of preparing me
for my career in
civil engineering
construction,”
he said.
The
Diatomic
Trio
Earning three degrees – with a little help from his friends
I
t’s been a long journey
“We all pull each other up.”
for Clayton Jeffries. He
“Guidance and mentoring are just
so important,” says Jeffries, who
always liked science, but didn’t
even start college until five years
after graduating from Redmond
High School. “Your professors help
lay out goals, you work closely with
your fellow students, and when you
get far enough along, you try to
give back, help younger students.
We all pull each other up.”
went from years of work
as a carpet cleaner for his
dad’s business in Bend to
earning three OSU degrees
– a bachelor’s, master’s and
soon a doctorate in chemical
engineering – while helping
to create breakthroughs in
using diatoms, a single-celled
marine life form, in devices
with electronic or biological
applications.
But he wouldn’t have gotten there
without a little help from his friends
– the professors who believed in his
talents, fellow students who shared
their knowledge and even younger
students whom he now tries to help
as a mentor in his own right.
Ph.D. student Clayton Jefferies (center), together
with his professors, Greg Rorrer (left) and Alex
Chang (right), are finding how diatoms — singlecell marine life forms — might be biologically
fabricated into solar cells to produce electricity.
12
Greg Rorrer, a professor of
chemical engineering, echoes those
sentiments.
“We create the concepts, help guide
our students and get the funding,
but we’d be nowhere without the
talents of people like Clayton,”
Rorrer says. “They have a strong
work ethic, youthful energy and the
ability to work with and learn from
their professors and peers. This is
really no place for a loner.”
Rorrer and associate professor
Alex Chang are making exciting
advances in the use of diatoms,
marine life forms that might
be biologically fabricated into
13
solar cells to produce electricity.
They show promise as unique
biological sensors to detect immune
disease. And their shells have been
incorporated into microelectronic
devices to manipulate broadspectrum light. With support of
a $1.3 million grant from the
National Science Foundation, their
research on diatoms has produced 11
publications – just in the past year.
“We need to scale up these systems
to larger applications and test their
reliability,” Chang says. “But some
projects, especially the biological
sensors, are getting pretty close.
And we wouldn’t be making these
advances without all of our students,
who have such a passion for their
work.”
Jeffries says he may move eventually
to the private sector or agency
research.
“This bridge between biology and
material science is very interesting,
and there’s still so much we need to
learn,” Jeffries says. “I may go into
private research, but I don’t ever
want to leave behind the type of
mentoring that exists at OSU. I want
to keep doing that.”
Martin
moments
Martin often
mentioned his
“bottleneck
theory of
management:
when there are
problems in an
organization,
the bottleneck
will be found at
the top.”
I
“
Kate HunterZaworski
opens the
world to
people with
disabilities.
Safe, seamless, dignified
used to backpack in the Mt.
Jefferson Wilderness,” reminisces
Marlene Massey of Corvallis. “Now,
it’s a challenge just to cross the
street.” Since the results of brain
surgery left her in a wheelchair 12
years ago, Massey has depended on
transportation services that can
safely accommodate her Breezy 600.
Making it easier for people like
Massey to get around is the mission
of OSU’s National Center for
Accessible Transportation (NCAT),
funded by the U.S. Department of
Education. Under the leadership of
engineer Katharine Hunter-Zaworski,
experts in biomechanics, ergonomics
and mechanical engineering design
equipment for mass transit systems
— everything from bus lifts to
boarding ramps and a wheelchairaccessible lavatory in the new Boeing
787 Dreamliner.
For people whose mobility is limited
by physical, sensory or cognitive
impairment, devices such as OSU’s
patented wheelchair “docking
system” that engages automatically
upon boarding can make the
difference between dependence
and self-reliance. Assistive gear lets
people move through the world at
will, come and go on their own terms
and escape solitude and isolation.
Honing the “trip chain”
Three words distill HunterZaworski’s vision of accessible
public transportation: safe,
seamless, dignified. “These words,
these ideas,” she says, “underlie
everything we do.” With partners
such as Boeing, Amtrak, Portland
International Airport, Eugene Transit
and Paralyzed Veterans of America,
her team is constantly honing the
“trip chain,” the series of movements
that take you from starting point to
destination. For a traveler to arrive
with both body and dignity intact,
each point along the way must be
free of hazards, barriers and clumsy
or awkward transfers from, say, a
wheelchair into an airplane seat.
Canadian by birth, Hunter-Zaworski
began her career nearly three
decades ago when she was the
first woman to earn a mechanical
engineering degree at the University
of British Columbia. Today, she and
her team, including colleague and
husband, OSU assistant professor
Joseph Zaworski, have relentlessly
pushed the principle of “universal
inclusive design.”
14
Easier access benefits
everybody
Examples abound: lever-style door
handles, which are easier to open
when your arms are full; automatic
garage-door openers, originally an
assistive device for a quadriplegic;
“curb cuts,” built for wheelchairs —
and handy for rolling suitcases and
baby strollers.
The advantages of easier access
aren’t just for the 50 million
Americans with disabilities, but
rather to the whole community,
Hunter-Zaworski explains.
The next generation of assistive
devices is already on the drawing
board at OSU. Among them are rearfacing wheelchair restraints, realtime speech translation, ergonomic
seat cushions and age-in-place
technologies for boomers heading for
retirement.
An ironclad promise
“Some of the battles I’ve fought
for accessibility have been hard,”
Hunter-Zaworski says, looking down
at the metal band encircling her
little finger. “But I wear the iron
ring. In Canada, this ring signifies a
professional engineer’s responsibility
to protect public safety. I take that
responsibility very seriously.”
Kate Hunter-Zaworski leads a team that’s
constantly honing the “trip chain” to
eliminate hazards, barriers and awkward
transfers — so disabled travelers arrive with
both body and dignity intact.
15
Student success
In search of a better battery
“My first term at OSU,
I struggled in math,”
says Anna Putnam,
a senior in chemical
engineering from
Clackamas. Pressed, she
admits the worst: “I got
a C in vector calculus.”
In OSU’s micro- and nanomaterials lab, Anna Putnam puts
a printed layer of lithium iron
phosphate precursor into a tube
furnace, where it decomposes
and forms nanosize gas bubbles.
The result is a nanoporous
material that is suitable for an
electrode in small, lightweight
batteries.
In the three years since that rude
awakening, nothing less than an
A has darkened Putnam’s grade
report. She has gone on to collect
scholarships like most students
collect songs on their iPods. The
American Electronics Association
Scholarship from Intel, OSU’s
Presidential Scholarship and the
OSU Research Office’s Undergraduate
Research Innovation Scholarship
Creativity grant are among them.
16
Where chemical engineering
meets nanoscience
Today, Putnam has advanced from
the front of the class to the front
edge of innovation, where chemical
engineering meets nanoscience
and “drop-on-demand” printing
technologies. As a research
assistant for associate professor
Alex Chang, Putnam is fabricating a
“nanostructured” electrode for a new
generation of lithium ion battery.
An initiative of the Oregon
Nanoscience and Microtechnologies
Institute (ONAMI) in collaboration
with Pacific Northwest National Labs
(PNNL), the project’s ultimate goal is
a revolutionary new battery: smaller,
lighter, faster, tougher.
Reaching the next generation
A star in the College of Engineering’s
K-12 outreach and mentoring
program, Putnam wows high school
girls with her “real and vibrant”
personality. She shows them that it’s
“OK to love math and chemistry, and
that it doesn’t make you a geek!”
says her first-year adviser, professor
Willie “Skip” Rochefort, who actively
recruited Putnam to OSU.
On the scent
When you think of computer science,
the first thing that pops into your
head probably isn’t a predator using
environmental cues to find food.
But College of Engineering Ph.D.
candidate Joey Lawrance is focusing
his research on an analogous
situation: programmers using natural
language as a “scent” to navigate
and debug code.
Research wins IBM
scholarship, internship
Lawrance’s dual interest in
computer science and psychology
provides a strong background for
his dissertation research, which
he is currently working on in
collaboration with researchers at
the IBM Watson Research Center in
Hawthorne, N.Y. IBM, recognizing
the significance of this work, chose
Lawrance for one of its prestigious
Ph.D. Scholarship Awards for the
2008-09 academic year. Besides the
$10,000 scholarship, it also landed
Lawrance an internship at the
Watson Center.
Bug reports help identify
the “scent”
Lawrance’s work involves creating
a model for navigating source
code that will take into account
the frequency with which words
in bug reports appear in source
code. The cues indicated by
these words, provide the “scent,”
Lawrance explains. His research is
investigating whether this scent is
like the cues predators use to find
food in the wild.
“There’s a lot of power
and simplicity in the
words that tell people
where to go,” Lawrance
says. “This model
can open the door to
new software tools
that quickly guide
programmers to the
code they need to fix.”
Together with his adviser, professor
Margaret Burnett, Lawrance has
been collaborating with IBM
researchers for two years. Four of
his eight refereed papers have been
co-authored with IBM collaborators,
and there are several more in the
pipeline.
17
Joey Lawrance won a $10,000
scholarship — and an internship at
IBM’s Watson Research Center —
for his research into navigating and
debugging source code.
Student success
ARCS scholars
S
An otherworldly
challenge
Two things above
all helped the OSU
Robotics Club win
the 2008 University
Rover Challenge:
teamwork and a
gasoline-powered
hydraulic engine. The
team’s talents, which
include programming,
mechanical design
and assembly — all
in just five months
— enabled them to
create a vehicle with a
powerful engine that
could handle the harsh,
rocky terrain at the
Mars Desert Research
Station in Utah.
cholarships can make all
the difference. For four OSU
engineering students, help has
come from the Achievement
Rewards for College Scientists
Foundation, Inc. (ARCS), a national
not-for-profit women’s organization.
Each received a $15,000 three-year
scholarship from the Portland ARCS
chapter.
ARCS began its support of OSU
students in 2008 and plans to
offer funds to more students in
future years, says Leslie Workman,
president of the Portland ARCS
chapter. This fall, ARCS is
supporting a total of 37 Ph.D.
students in science and engineering
fields at OSU and Oregon Health &
Science University.
Motivated by the launch of the
Russian satellite Sputnik, three
Southern California women formed
ARCS 50 years ago. Since then, ARCS
has given more than $61 million in
awards to institutions to support
recruitment of the best and brightest
students in engineering, science
and medicine. Students can use the
awards for any purpose.
Putting nuclear energy
on a diet
Graduate student Wade Marcum
is helping to put some of the
country’s most advanced nuclear
research reactors on a diet to reduce
proliferation risks. As a Ph.D.
student in OSU’s Department of
Nuclear Engineering and Radiation
Health Physics, he is working on an
initiative that will enable reactors
to function with low enriched
uranium (LEU) fuel.
Marcum grew up in Silverton and
came to OSU as an undergraduate
in mechanical engineering. During
his senior year, he decided to enter
the graduate program in nuclear
engineering. In his research with
assistant professor Brian Woods,
he is studying the performance
of a molybdenum-uranium alloy
that meets LEU standards and may
enable high-performance research
reactors to operate successfully.
Brian Woods and Wade Marcum
18
She felt welcome in the Complex
Engineered Systems Laboratory,
which Tumer directs. The lab
uses mathematical approaches to
understand and improve integrated
hardware-software systems in
aircraft, automobiles and spacecraft.
Sarah Oman and Irem Tumer
Marcum’s research is occurring in two
phases. In the first, he is addressing
hydromechanical forces that affect
the fuel. In the second, he will lead
the design and construction of a
test facility to examine the function
of high-performance reactor fuel in
detail. Someday, he would like to
teach and conduct research at the
university level.
How do you measure
creativity?
At OSU, Sarah Oman found the
rigorous challenge and friendly
atmosphere she was looking for in
a graduate program. After receiving
her bachelor’s from the University
of Idaho in May, 2008, she met
associate professor Irem Tumer in
the School of Mechanical, Industrial
and Manufacturing Engineering.
Oman is considering several areas for
her dissertation topic, such as how
visualization of early-stage design
decisions can affect outcomes. She
is also focusing on the intersection
of creativity and design, looking at
how creativity can be measured or
analyzed in the design process.
More powerful using
less power
Can the integrated circuits that
paved the way for the computer age
continue to do more with less? Jacob
Postman thinks so. The Philomath
native and Ph.D. student in the
School of Electrical and Computer
Engineering is collaborating with
a Princeton University group that
is building chips with improved
performance and reduced power
demand.
Postman works with assistant
professor Patrick Chiang in the
school’s well-known analog-mixed
signals group. The graduate
student is designing a 4-core test
chip and plans to produce a 64core network-on-a-chip prototype
next year.
After he achieves his goals and
earns a degree, Postman intends
to work abroad, possibly in
Germany or China. Still, the Pacific
Northwest remains home. He hopes
to continue doing research, to
create his own company and to
teach in Washington or Oregon.
Getting the lead out of
industrial materials
Finding a lead-free piezoelectric
material that performs well
in electronic sensors and
other devices would make Eric
Patterson’s day. Or maybe his
whole year. The Ankeny, Iowa,
native came to OSU to work on
alternatives to commonly used
electroceramics with professor
David Cann in the School of
Mechanical, Industrial and
Manufacturing Engineering.
Jacob Postman and Patrick Chiang
19
Martin
moments
Although his
Eric Patterson and David Cann
Getting the lead out of
industrial materials has been an
environmental goal for decades, but
no good alternatives currently exist
for piezoelectric materials, which
transform mechanical pressure into
a change in voltage. Ultrasound
devices, microphones, sonar and
ink jet printers are just some of
the technologies that depend on
piezoelectric materials.
In pursuit of his Ph.D., Patterson
is going to fundamentals, in this
case spelled “perovskite.” Materials
in this class of piezoelectrics
have unique electronic properties
that vary greatly with changes in
structure. One of their strengths
is resistance to fatigue, or the
failure of structure under repated
stress. Understanding exactly how
molecular structure affects material
properties such as fatigue is key to
Patterson’s research.
$20 million
gift for what
would become
the Kelley
Engineering
Center was
originally
anonymous,
Martin chose to
step forward in
the hope that
“others will be
inspired” to
follow his lead.
And they have.
Student success
Internships
sits on
Solar car hits
the road
Ph.D. students HaiYue Han and Kathy
Van Wormer led a
team of more than
two dozen students
who designed and
built a car powered by
more than 400 solar
cells, which produce
around 1.5 hp — less
power than found in
a hairdryer. They then
competed in a 2,400mile race from Dallas,
Texas to Calgary,
Alberta, Canada —
the longest solarpower competition in
the world.
Interns make an impact in the
workforce — and the world
Undeniable benefits for
students and industry
In a world where success is measured
in microns (one-millionth of a
meter), Mike Sabo took a giant leap
last summer. At Cascade Microtech’s
corporate headquarters in the Silicon
Forest, the senior in mechanical
engineering from Klamath Falls
helped to eliminate a manufacturing
step and slash production time. He
designed a device that holds circuit
boards securely during automated
soldering. He also helped to redesign
and test a vacuum chuck (clamp) to
specifications of 20 microns — less
than the width of a human hair
— to prevent tilting during huge
temperature changes.
Not every intern can claim to have
saved his or her employer money,
but the benefits for companies and
students are undeniable. Students
rub shoulders with working
engineers who often treat them
as colleagues, not masters of the
photocopy room. Companies expose
budding engineers to their products
and culture, building a skilled
workforce in the process.
“We’ve been able to grow in Oregon
because there is a technology base
here,” says Steve VanArsdale, a
1984 OSU graduate and operations
manager for Garmin AT, a division of
the international GPS company that
makes navigation tools for aviation.
“A good part of that base is fed by
the MECOP program. If we had to
attract all of our engineers from outof-state, it would be very difficult to
fill our positions.”
To outsiders, Sabo’s work on “process
optimization” might be as interesting
as last week’s news. But for Sabo, the
experience — through the Multiple
Engineering Cooperative Program
(MECOP) — was unforgettable. “It
gave me a whole different tilt on
the design process,” he says. “In
school, you get some exposure to the
manufacturing side, but it’s hard to
really completely understand it unless
you’ve worked on it. Companies can
really cut costs if things are designed
right the first time.”
Through his internships, Mike Sabo got to see how design decisions can
improve the manufacturing process.
20
VanArsdale has twice chaired the
board of MECOP, a 30-year-old
partnership between OSU, Portland
State University, the Oregon
Institute of Technology and Pacific
Northwest companies that need
skilled employees who can think
critically and solve problems.
Martin
moments
Broad and specialized
experience
Blake Giles, an OSU master’s
student in mechanical engineering,
knows the value of internships.
Last summer, pursuing his interest
in renewable energy (he had
previously helped build a solar
power demonstration trailer at
OSU), he worked as an intern for
the newly formed Oregon Wave
Energy Trust (OWET).
The Portland native is no stranger
to the sea. He has fished from
Desolation Bay, British Columbia,
to the crabbing grounds off the
Oregon coast. When he told OWET
Director Stephanie Thornton of
his engineering skills and passion
for renewable energy, he began
helping the fledgling organization
get its feet on the ground. He
organized posters for a professional
conference and made arrangements
for OWET committees to tackle
issues in wave energy development.
According to
Martin’s son
Steve, his
parents were
“remarkably
enthusiastic
As a student, Giles specializes in
conceptual designs for complex
systems. In plain English, he
combines expertise from different
fields — fluid dynamics, electrical
and chemical engineering and
robotics — to find solutions to
design problems. In contrast,
Giles used his OWET experience to
understand the project management
and research needs of an emerging
industry.
How to design wave energy buoys
for survivability and maximum
energy production are important
engineering issues being addressed
at OSU, he adds.
21
Blake Giles sits on the float that's part
of a wave-energy buoy. He used his
internship at the Oregon Wave Energy
Trust to gain project management
experience in the emerging renewable
energy industry.
about education
as a way
of creating
opportunity.
With education,
you then have
the ability to be
as successful as
you choose.”
Student success
Internships
Eunice Naswali hopes to use
her internship exerience with
wind-turbine manufacturer
Vestas to help bring more
reliable electric power to her
native Uganda.
A whole lot of
shaking going on
A team of civil
engineering students
— Jeremy Mikkelsen,
Beth McNair, Josh
Leher, Sarah Martin
and Joe Henry — won
first place at the 2007
Undergraduate Seismic
Design Competition
with their balsa wood,
scale-model skyscraper.
“Designing a building
to withstand an
earthquake taught us
about strength and
flexibility,” McNair says.
“Competing and winning
with our design taught
us how our knowledge
can be applied.”
Internship powers her future
For electrical engineering major
Eunice Naswali, an internship is
powering her future dreams. In her
native Uganda, most of its electricity
comes from hydropower. The problem
is, during the dry season, there’s not
enough water flow to meet electrical
demand, leading to widespread power
outages. Nor does Uganda have the
infrastructure to get electricity to
remote parts of the country.
MECOP internships are essentially
a lottery; the assignments are not
the students’ choice. So Naswali
was thrilled when her second
internship was assigned to Vestas,
the world’s largest manufacturer
22
of wind turbines. After completing
her undergraduate degree — and
with plans for graduate school after
that — Naswali hopes to return
to Uganda and take what she’s
learned about wind power and other
renewable energy sources to bring
more reliable electric power to her
homeland.
Building for Sustainability
T
ristan Wagner graduated from
Portland’s Lincoln High School
in 2004 and went immediately into
the manufacturing business. He
and a group of friends made and
sold Adirondack chairs. Even then,
engineering was on his radar. No
doubt his solar cell research at
Portland State University helped him
get accepted to MIT. It was OSU’s
College of Engineering, though, that
captured his spirit.
Martin
moments
Martin believed
strongly in
the College of
Engineering.
“Building a top
The senior in the School of
Mechanical, Industrial and
Manufacturing Engineering (MIME)
has turned academic opportunities
into a rich learning experience. He
studied in Beijing, China in 2005
and interned with Tektronix and
with Benchmark Electronics through
MECOP. As an OpportunityPLUS
student in the University Honors
College, he is on a fast track to
graduate school and conducting
research on economic replacement
models with associate professor
David Kim.
As for the future? “Eventually, I would
like to help make manufacturing
processes and companies more
sustainable, and I someday hope to
run my own manufacturing company,”
says Wagner.
engineering
program will not
only help Oregon
State, but it will
also help the
state of Oregon
and the world,”
he said. “It’s a
very worthwhile
goal because
engineering of all
kinds provides
solutions to some
of the world’s
Left to right: University Honors College associate dean Bill Bogley, retired dean Joe Hendricks,
Tristan Wagner and David Kim. An OpportunityPLUS student in the University Honors College,
Wagner hopes to run his own manufacturing company using sustainable processes.
23
most complex
problems.”
Continuing the story
Solving the real
problems
One of the things Julia
Petersen likes most about
her job as a validation
engineering manager
at Intel in Hillsboro is
communication. “What
interests me most about
my position is the
opportunity to work across different
departments to improve products and
processes,” Petersen says.
It takes teamwork
Petersen manages a group that
tests motherboards, which means
she needs to coordinate her team’s
efforts with several other teams.
For example, she works with the
developers of the Basic Input/Output
System (BIOS) software necessary
to run those motherboards to know
which features are available in each
BIOS and that the software will be
delivered to her team on time.
Balancing her team’s deadlines with
those of the BIOS team takes good
communication skills. “You’re forced
to confront any introversion you have
and put it behind you,” she says.
And Petersen is successful; her
interactions with teams in hardware
engineering, design validation,
materials and quality assurance
are key to running her own group
smoothly.
Internships established the
foundation
The 1988 graduate credits her
internship experiences with providing
a foundation for those skills. “It gave
me the initial experience necessary in
teamwork and relationship building,”
she says.
At her second internship, Petersen
wrote a program that helped
Weyerhaeuser track the use of a
processing chemical on wood chips
that had been sorted by size. Her
program helped Weyerhaeuser realize
how much money and resources it
saved by sorting the chips. Even as
an intern, she was the lead on all of
these projects.
Mentoring today’s interns
Recognizing the value of internship
experience, Petersen has served
on the MECOP board of directors,
and she’s also brought a number of
interns to Intel.
“MECOP interns are given real work.
They need to complete real projects,”
Petersen says. “This program is by far
Not only that, both of her internships
the best I’ve seen for giving students
gave her real-world engineering
experience in the workplace and
experience. At the food processing
expanding their education.”
company Lamb-Weston, Petersen
redesigned workstations for better
throughput, eliminating line waste
when it occurred, and discovering the
reason for a high nitrogen count in
wastewater.
24
Valuing versatility
Internship leads to job offer
Todd Ittershagen, vice
president of Precision
Castparts Corp., a
Fortune 500 company in
Portland, thinks one of
two things can make a
good manager: the kind
of curriculum offered
in OSU’s industrial and
manufacturing engineering program,
or the kind of person who decides
to major in it. Either way, flexibility
is key.
Ittershagen started at Precision
Castparts, which makes metal
forgings, fasteners and castings
primarily for the aerospace industry,
as a MECOP student in 1990. His first
tasks were performing efficiency and
productivity studies on the factory
floor, as well as doing design work
on facility expansion and equipment
placement. He was offered a job
even before he graduated with
an industrial and manufacturing
engineering degree in 1990.
“When we look for industrial and
manufacturing engineers, we’re
looking at people who understand
metallurgic, productivity and
financial issues,” says Ittershagen,
who is responsible for operations
at three smaller companies within
Precision Castparts. His engineers
need to understand how to do things
faster and which products to buy
that will cut down on costs. They
constantly need to be looking for
problems and solving them. And
on top of that, they need good
communication skills to tie all of
those tasks together.
A progressive career
Since then, Ittershagen has done
equipment work, direct supervision,
quality assurance work and design
casting. He’s moved to Michigan,
Virginia, Nevada and Ohio before
coming back to Oregon. “It’s been
quite a progression the past 18
25
years,” he says. “Precision is an
interesting, fast-paced, progressive
company. Every time I’ve thought of
moving on, they’ve offered me more
responsibility.”
In the future, Ittershagen plans on
working more with MECOP, which
he says not only prepared him for
his work at Precision Castparts, but
also marketed him and provided him
with a network of contacts that is
useful even today. “It’s an excellent
program,” he says. “We want to
work with them so we can create a
constant stream of new, fresh people
at our company.”
College of Engineering Advisory Board
Current (December 2008)
Ron Dilbeck
COO, RadiSys Corporation
James A. Johnson
Vice President and General Manager,
Visual Computing Group, Intel
Hal Pritchett
Retired, OSU Construction and
Engineering Management
Rod Ray
CEO, Bend Research
Scott R. Schroeder
President & CEO, Mega Tech of Oregon
David Skillern
VP of Customer Services, Isilon Systems
Lee Kearney
Retired, Kiewit Construction Group Inc.
Milton R. Smith
President, Smith Investments
Mark A. Lasswell
President, OMI Inc.
Randall L. Smith
Vice President, CH2M HILL
Sue Laszlo
Transportation Section Manager, HDR
Abhi Talwalkar
President & CEO, LSI Logic Corporation
Paul Lorenzini
CEO, NuScale Power
Michael VanBuskirk
Senior Vice President of Engineering
and Operations, Innovative Silicon Inc.
Jeff Manchester
Retired, Fort James Corp.
Tom McKinney
Associate Director, Project
Management Services, Bechtel
Fractals and Trees hangs in the central
atrium of the Kelley Engineering Center.
• Research Expenditures: $28.8 million
Mark Christensen
President, Global Capital Management,
LLC
• Total Undergraduate Scholarships: $4.9 million
Dwayne Foley
Retired, NW Natural
D. W. “Chuck” Halligan
Retired, Bechtel Power Corp.
Ed Hunt
Retired, HUNTAIR
650
138
560
501
Robert Johnson
Retired, National Semiconductor Japan
Ltd.
98
Jim Lake
Associate Lab Director, Idaho National
Laboratory
Ted Molinari
Retired, Praegitzer Industries Inc.
Robert L. Polvi
Retired, Bechtel Group Inc.
Jim Street
Retired, Shell Oil Company
152
150
150
35
26
26
39
2008 2008 2013
Actual Goal Goal
2008 2008 2013
Actual Goal Goal
2008 2008 2013
Actual Goal Goal
Undergraduate
Degrees
Masters
Degrees
Doctoral
Degrees
Research
Expenditures
Jean Watson
Retired, Chevron
Work is nearing completion on an entirely new
interior in Kearney Hall. The renovated, historic
cornerstone of Engineering Row will house the
School of Civil and Construction Engineering.
30
2008 2008 2013
Actual Goal Goal
Mike West
VP Technology, Pixelworks
Ted Wilson
Retired HP Fellow & Technology
Director, Imaging & Printing Group,
Hewlett-Packard
39
28.8
27
Millions of Dollars, Cumulative Goal
Steve Cook
Vice President, CH2M HILL
MECOP Representative
Rod Quinn
Director, Process Science & Engineering,
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Larry Chalfan
Executive Director, Zero Waste Alliance
Cumulative 2007
Kevin W. Clarke
Site Manager, Barco Medical Imaging
Systems
Jim Poirot
Retired, CH2M HILL
• Total Revenue: $53.7 million
Millions of Dollars
JJ Cadiz
Usability Engineer, Microsoft
Jeff Peace
Retired, Boeing
Emeritus Board Members
Number of Degrees
Fred Briggs
Executive Vice President, Verizon
Communications
Steve Nigro
Senior Vice President and General
Manager, Hewlett-Packard
Number of Degrees
Kay E. Altman
CFO, Altman Browning and Company
Oregon State University College of Engineering 2007-2008
Number of Degrees
James B. Johnson (Board Chair)
President and CEO, Tripwire
Operational summary
New University
Capital Campaign
(Engineering Share)
College of Engineering Leadership Team
Current (December 2008)
Ron Adams
Dean, College of Engineering
Brett McFarlane
Director, Undergraduate Programs
Scott Ashford
Head, School of Civil and Construction
Engineering
Luke McIlvenny
Business Manager, College of
Engineering
Belinda Batten
Head, School of Mechanical, Industrial
and Manufacturing Engineering
Ellen Momsen
Director, Women and Minorities in
Engineering Program
Chris Bell
Associate Dean, College of Engineering
Kathy Park
Senior Development Director,
OSU Foundation
John Bolte
Head, Department of Biological and
Ecological Engineering
Bella Bose
Associate Head, School of Electrical
Engineering and Computer Science
David Cann
Associate Head, School of Mechanical,
Industrial and Manufacturing
Engineering
Jennifer Hall
Executive Assistant for Administration,
College of Engineering
Kathryn Higley
Assistant Head, Department of Nuclear
Engineering and Radiation Health
Physics
Jim Lundy
Executive Associate Dean, College of
Engineering
Karti Mayaram*
Acting Head, School of Electrical
Engineering and Computer Science
The central atrium of the Kelley
Engineering Center is a popular
meeting and study location.
Gary Petersen
Director, MECOP
Jose Reyes
Head, Department of Nuclear
Engineering and Radiation Health
Physics
David Rogge
Assistant Head, School of Civil and
Construction Engineering
Todd Shechter
Director of IT, College of Engineering
Joe Tanous
Innovation Liaison, College of
Engineering
Steve Tesch
Professor, Forest Engineering and
College of Forestry Liason to College of
Engineering
Ken Williamson
Head, School of Chemical, Biological
and Environmental Engineering
*Terri Fiez
Head, School of Electrical Engineering
and Computer Science
On leave as CEO, Wi-Chi, Inc.
28
Renovation of Kearney
Hall retained its centuryold stone façade.
29
Outside back cover
College of Engineering
Oregon State University
101 Covell Hall
Corvallis, Oregon 97331-2409
Phone: 541-737-3101
Toll Free: 877-257-5182
E-mail: [email protected]
Web: engr.oregonstate.edu
The OSU College of Engineering Annual Report is published each fall.
Writing and Design: University Advancement
Photography: Jan Sonnenmair, Karl Maasdam, Nina Berman, Jim Folts,
Kelley James and Justin Smith
30