Our faculty, staff and students are doing wonderful things to enhance all of our lives, as well as for Nebraska and beyond our state borders.
Below are highlights of recent accomplishments by our employees (from January - March 25, 2016).
Dr. Terri Norton, DSAEC, was awarded a six-month Fulbright Scholar grant to Japan to expand her research into disaster debris management.
Dr. Liyan Qu, ECE, earned a five-year, $500,000 Faculty Early Career Development Program Award from NSF to develop a next-generation power grid transformer.
Eleven college faculty were among the 190+ UNL employees honored in January with the Parents Recognition Award from the UNL Parents Association: Bruce Fischer and Wayne Jensen, DSAEC; Joshua Steelman, CIVE; Donald Costello, Charles Riedesel, Stephen Scott and Mehmet Can Vuran, CSE; Michael Hoffman and Jerry Hudgins, ECE; Eveline Baesu and Kevin Cole, MME
Dr. David Yuill, DSAEC, received the 2016 international ASHRAE New Investigator Award, including a $100,000 prize.
Jennifer Schmidt, MwRSF, and her team (Robert Bielenberg, John Reid, Scott Rosenbaugh, Ronald Faller, Tyler Schmidt) received the 2015 Best Paper Award from the Roadside Safety Design Committee at the 2016 Transportation Research Board’s annual meeting in Washington.
Eli Sutter, MME, has been chosen as co-chair of the Materials Research Society’s 2017 Spring Meeting. It is one of the world’s largest materials societies.
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OUR STUDENTS IN ACTION
At the Mechanical-Electrical Specialty Contracting (MESC) national student competition this month, the Durham School team won the overall event. This competition involved student chapters from across the United States and Canada. The winning team includes Peter Niechwiadowicz (CM), Kevin McIntyre (AE), Tim Drake (CM), Adam Crnkovich (CM), Rose Gensichen (CM), and Sarah Drummey (AE). This contest involved submitting a full proposal, including an estimate, schedule, safety program, constructibility review and value engineering, on a high-rise residential project located in San Jose, California. UNL last won the national championship in 2006.
The UNL MESC student chapter was also named the Student Chapter of the Year.
Kevin McIntyre was announced as the national winner of the Alan P. O'Shea Memorial Scholarship ($5,000) and Tim Drake won the Foster McCarl Jr. Memorial Scholarship ($5,000).
Patrick Davlin, computer engineering major in Omaha, was elected as UNO’s Student Body President for 2016-17.
The UNL student chapter for the American Water Works Association/Water Environment Foundation worked with 60 middle school students during the Feb. 24 Global Day of the Engineer as part of E-Week.
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ALUMNI CONNECTIONS
Greg Hyslop, ’80 ELEC and COE Advisory Board member, was promoted to senior vice president of Engineering, Test & Technology for The Boeing Company. He has worked for Boeing for 33 years.
Pam Dingman, ‘91 CIVE and COE Advisory Board member, was featured on CNN Money Feb. 26 celebrating women entrepreneurs in engineering.
Dr. Blake Wentz, a UNL College of Engineering alumnnus (M.S.), was named MCAA Educator of the Year. Blake is the son of Tim Wentz and is the chair of Civil Engineering, Architectural Engineering and Construction Management at the Milwaukee School of Engineering. He mentored the UNL Mechanical-Electrical Specialty Contracting (MESC) that placed first at its competition in March.