ETIC-funded faculty in the OSU College of Engineering has helped expand Oregon’s engineering workforce while educating, mentoring and creating opportunities for young Oregonians. Besides increasing the number of OSU engineering graduates, ETIC investments have also established a pipeline from elementary school to the Ph.D. level that ensures the world’s best engineering talent is available locally. This critical investment in engineering benefits the state’s economy — bringing in top faculty whose research grants and contracts have created new companies and high-paying jobs. ETIC funding also bolsters an already powerful public-private partnership, enabling the College of Engineering to generate a 10:1 return on the state’s investment.
Making an impact on people, planet, and economy
Engineering Dean named Daily Journal of Commerce 2011 Newsmaker
President Obama advocated industry-academic collaborations during Oregon visit
OSU students took home multiple awards from Construction Management Competition
OSU Engineering students won 2011 Seismic Design Competition
David Hamby and Abi Farsoni have invented a new type of radiation detection and measurement device that will be particularly useful for cleanup of sites with radioactive contamination, making the process faster, more accurate and less expensive.
David Hill and his research team have created a new type of “stereo vision” to study ocean waves as they pound against the shore. The approach, which uses two video cameras to feed data into an advanced computer system, can observe large areas of ocean waves in real time and help explain what they are doing and why. The system may be of particular value as climate change and rising sea levels pose additional challenges to vulnerable shorelines around the world, threatened by coastal erosion.
Gregory Rorrer and his research team have discovered a way to exploit the diatom’s solar-prowess through “bio-mineralization,” a process used by organisms to produce hard compounds such as silicates and carbonates, which they incorporate into their shells, bones, or other structures. This area of research may hold the key to a new generation of cheap, clean solar technology.
Cloudkick, a company launched two years ago in Silicon Valley by three Oregon State University alumni, was acquired last month by Rackspace, the second largest company in the world in the field of cloud computing. Alex Polvi, from rural Amity, and Dan Di Spaltro, from Bend, received bachelor’s degrees in computer science in 2007. Logan Welliver, from McMinnville, graduated in 2006 with a bachelor of fine arts in graphic design.
Ron Adams, Dean of the College of Engineering, was recognized as one of the Daily Journal of Commerce’s 2011 Newsmakers. Under his leadership, PhD program enrollment has doubled, research expenditures have nearly tripled, and the number of spin-offs has increased six-fold.
As a participant in the Intel Engineering Summer Scholars Program at Oregon State University, Marlon Mejia is the first in his family to attend college and got an opportunity recently to meet President Obama. The Intel-Oregon State partnership is just one of many programs that steer students toward careers in engineering. Others include the Intel Summer Bridge Program, the Women and Minorities in Engineering Program, the Science and Math Investigative Learning Experience, and the Ambassador Program.
The Associated Schools of Construction Construction Management Annual Student Competition took place on February 15-19, 2011. Seven OSU Construction Engineering Managment teams participated in the event with a total of 42 undergraduate students represented. Four teams brought home trophies and one student was awarded “Best Presenter.”
Engineering students from Oregon State University took first place in the Seismic Design Competition sponsored by the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute. The contest, held at the 63rd annual meeting of this professional organization in San Diego, included 28 teams from around the nation and three international teams. In the event, undergraduate students build model structures that are supposed to survive the ground motions presented by several historic earthquakes and one simulated earthquake that is especially damaging.