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Summary: Results of ETIC Investment

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.

Research creates jobs, attracts $85 million in private investment

Making an impact throughout Oregon

Internships power future careers

Engineering internship leads to job

Students compete at Mars Desert Research Station

Students win Seismic Design Competition

Student-built solar car in 2,400 mile-long race

Success Story 1:  Research creates jobs, attracts $85 million in private investment

At OSU, ETIC-funded faculty have won research grants and contracts resulting in 11 new companies and more than $85 million in private investment — generating high paying jobs for Oregonians. Examples include:

1. RedRover Software: Martin Erwig and Margaret Burnett developed error-checking software for spreadsheets that could save businesses and other organizations billions of dollars. RedRover Software has licensed the program for commercial distribution
2. NuScale Power: Brian Woods is a co-inventor of a small-scale nuclear power plant. Featuring a modular nuclear reactor core and the latest concepts in passive safety, each power plant would produce 45 megawatts of power — enough for about 45,000 homes — and could be transported via truck, railcar or barge to wherever it’s needed. NuScale Power is working on commercializing the technology and is also working with local companies on fabricating components for the power plant.
3. NanoBits: Alex Chang is collaborating with researchers from the Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute (ONAMI) on a new microreactor technology to produce nanoparticles for drug delivery. He is one of the founders of NanoBits, which is working on commercializing the technology.

4. Columbia Power Technologies: Research by Annette von Jouanne, Ted Brekken and their graduate students has resulted in a new buoy power generator that can turn the power of ocean waves into clean, renewable, low-impact electrical energy. Their work launched a partnership with Columbia Power Technologies, a wave energy company with R&D sites in Oregon and Virginia.

Success Story 2:  Making an impact throughout Oregon

ETIC-funded faculty and their research are making a positive difference across the state, from meeting the needs for sustainable transportation systems to preparing coastal communities for a possible tsunami. Examples include:

1. Dan Cox directs OSU’s $5 million Tsunami
   Research Basin, the largest of its kind in the world. Simulating tsunami waves is helping Cox and other OSU researchers better understand their forces and develop vertical shelters that could save thousands of lives.

 

 

 

2. While most Oregonians breeze over highways
   and bridges without a second thought, Chris Higgins and his team developed breakthrough methods to analyze and test Oregon’s highway bridges. His research on structural integrity and bridge repair technologies has already saved taxpayers $500 million.
3. Through ETIC-supported faculty and collaborative research clusters, OSU has increased Ph.D. enrollment by 50 percent. For example, Weng-Keen Wong has recruited three new Ph.D. students to join his research on the early detection of disease outbreaks, an important health and security issue.
4. Since 1999, nearly 1,200 OSU engineering and computer science graduates can be directly linked to ETIC funding. More than half reported finding high-paying jobs in Oregon immediately after graduation, earning more than $100M in annual salaries since 1999.

Success Story 3:  Internships power future careers

OSU partners with more than 100 Oregon companies under the Multiple Engineering Cooperative Program (MECOP) and Civil Engineering Cooperative Program (CECOP). ETIC funding gives participating companies access to more and better-prepared student interns. About 400 students complete six-month in ternships every year; many find full-time jobs at these same companies after graduation.

Eunice Naswali completed her first MECOP internship at Mentor Graphics in Wilsonville, where she worked on quality assurance and regression tests of custom integrated circuits. She began working at her second internship at Vestas Americas in Portland this summer. Vestas is one of the world’s largest wind-energy companies, and Naswali hopes the experience will help her in a future career back in her native Uganda, where she wants to tackle the country’s problems with power generation and distribution to remote areas.

 

 

Success Story 4: Engineering internship leads to job

Jaynie Schonbrod, a 2007 engineering graduate, led OSU’s Mini Baja team to the 2006 world championship with the car they designed, built and raced. Schonbrod credits OSU’s engineering program with giving her plenty of hands-on experience to “see how things work and to build stuff,” she says. Schonbrod continues her design and building projects at Hewlett-Packard, where an internship led to a full-time job.

 

 

 

Success Story 5: Students compete at Mars Desert Research Station

Two things above all helped the OSU Robotics Club win the recent 2008 University Rover Challenge: teamwork and a gasoline-powered hydraulic engine. The team’s talents, which include programming, mechanical design and assembly, enabled them to create a vehicle that could handle the harsh, rocky terrain at the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah. The hydraulic engine — the first of its kind used in the Rover Challenge — gave their vehicle far more power than the competition. “It’s amazing to compete and see how many ways there are to solve a problem,” says team leader Matt Shuman.

Success Story 6: Students win Seismic Design Competition

A team of civil engineering students — Jeremy Mikkelsen, Beth McNair, Josh Leher, Sarah Martin and Joe Henry — won first place overall at the 2007 Undergraduate Seismic Design Competition in Los Angeles. The team built a 29-story, scale-model skyscraper out of balsa wood that survived simulated earthquakes on a shake table. “Designing a building to withstand an earthquake taught us about strength and flexibility,” McNair says. “Putting our design into competition — and winning — taught us how our knowledge can be applied.”

Success Story 7:Student-built solar car in 2,400 mile-long race

Designing and building a solar-powered car to compete in the North American Solar Challenge took team captains and OSU graduate students Kathy Van Wormer (College of Science) and Hai-Yue Han (College of Engineering) three years of work, $50,000 and the help of a couple dozen friends. Their car, Rain Dancer, is powered by more than 400 solar cells, which produce around 1.5 hp during the brightest time of the day — less power than found in a hairdryer. The longest solar power competition in the world, the challenge is a 2,400-mile race from Dallas, Texas to Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It’s the first time OSU’s team entered, and they raced with teams from universities all over the United States, Canada and Europe.