About Pratt // Research

Duke Engineering Research

Quick Facts

Annual Research Expenditures 

  • $59.8 million

Research expenditures per faculty member

  • $548.4K per faculty member

National ranking by specialty (Source: 2008 U.S. News & World Report)

  • #5 Biomedical Engineering

National ranking by productivity of faculty members (Source: 2008 Chronicle of Higher Education) 

  • #1 Biomedical engineering department
  • #7 electrical and computer engineering department
  • #8 mechanical engineering department

Major Centers:

  • Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center - Center for the Environmental Implications of NanoTechnology (CEINT) funded by NSF and EPA. Lead by Professor Mark Wiesner.
  • Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative - Transformational Optical Metamaterials funded by the Army Research Office. Led by Professor David Smith.
  • Multidisciplinary University Research initiative - Integrated Quantum Circuits, funded by the Army Research Office. Co-PI Assistant Professor Jungsang Kim.

Members of the National Academy of Engineering

  • Earl H. Dowell, William Holland Hall Professor and Dean Emeritus. Elected in 1993 for contributions to aeroelasticity and structural dynamics, which provide continuing insights into the behavior of complex structural systems.
  • Henry Petroski, Aleksandar S. Vesic Professor of Civil Engineering and Professor of History. Elected in 1997 for books, articles, and lectures on engineering and the profession that have reached and influenced a wide range of audiences.
  • Robert Plonsey, Pfizer-Pratt University Professor Emeritus of Engineering, Duke University. Elected in 1986 for the application of electromagnetic field theory to biology, and for distinguished leadership in the emerging profession of biomedical engineering.

 

PRATT Graduate News

  • November 20, 2009

    Sledgehammer Saturdays May Lead to New Educational Experience

    Pratt junior James Wu was covered in it from head to toe like a living dryer vent. Coloradoan Hillary Cavanaugh, with slight irony, called it the best powder she'd ever seen. Using a plastic garbage can, Kathy Kay filled an industrial dumpster with it. The "it" is decades-old tufts of insulation ripped out of the walls and ceilings of a home in a modest neighborhood in southern Durham. Five miles away, a second group of Pratt student volunteers ...
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  • September 11, 2009

    Smart Home Recognized for Innovations

    Once again, the Smart Home Program has received national attention for its contributions to making the world a greener place. This time, it was the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), who announced this week that the Duke program is one of the recipients of its Excellence in Green Building Curriculum Recognition Awards for 2009. Duke's Smart Home Program was one of five award winners in the category covering colleges and universities. The award recognizes innovative green building ...
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  • July 20, 2009

    Mechanical Engineer Lewis Digs Construction with Skanska

    A native of Baltimore, Maryland and a rising senior, Jordan Lewis is one of many Duke students to take on a summer internship this year. A mechanical engineering major who is also pursuing a markets and management study certificate, Lewis decided to put his skills to use working for Skanska USA Building. Skanska, an international construction management company based in Sweden, is a leader in environmental design and construction industries in Durham and has conducted ...
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  • May 13, 2009

    MEM Student Start-Up Sure to Be a Success

    When Baris Guzel, a Turkey native working in Germany, came to the US to get his MEM degree at Duke, he quickly discovered that America, among other things, is a country that uses technology efficiency. His in-box was quickly bombarded with emails asking him to complete surveys for anything from rating student services to registering for Fuqua courses. This was a new phenomenon for Baris, one that he had not experienced in Europe. He saw ...
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  • May 10, 2009

    Duke graduates 523 engineers in May 2009

    Duke University awarded degrees to 523 undergraduate and graduate engineering students on May 10 in ceremonies beginning with a university-wide commencement celebration in Wallace Wade Stadium and ending with a Pratt School of Engineering ceremony in Duke Chapel. Pratt Dean Tom Katsouleas Bachelor of Science in Engineering diplomas to 279 students, including 12 who completed their work in December and one last September, before a crowd of parents, relatives and friends in the Chapel. Pratt also awarded ...
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  • May 4, 2009

    MEM Student Brings Many Talents to the Entrepreneurial World

    Legions of genetically souped-up silkworms could someday produce a substance that more effectively protects troops in battle at less than half the weight of current body armor. It has been long known that the silk spun by spiders is remarkably strong and flexible. However, the main challenge to date in harnessing this natural wonder is the difficulty in lining enough spiders to produce high quantities of silk. That's where the silkworms come in. Scientists have developed a way ...
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  • April 22, 2009

    BME Doctoral Student Talks About Bionic Arm on 60 Minutes

    Jon Kuniholm lost part of his right arm as the result of a roadside bombing in Iraq in 2005. Since that time, the retired Marine Corps officer has been researching new designs for functional limb prostheses as a doctoral student in biomedical engineering at the Pratt School of Engineering. As a vet and as a researcher -- he's also co-founder of a company working on arm prostheses --  he was interviewed recently by the CBS program ...
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  • April 1, 2009

    Diverse Interests Drive Success for MEM Student Gautham Pandiyan

    As a young man growing up in Chennai, India and in England, Gautham Pandiyan has always sought out new experiences and opportunities. When he came to Duke to pursue a PhD in Molecular Cancer Biology he took advantage of Duke's interdisciplinary approach to education and tried a few Fuqua classes. Quickly realizing that he had a flare for business and innovation, Gautham completed his MS and made the switch to the MEM program where he ...
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  • January 9, 2009

    Winter MEMories

    The fall semester was extremely busy for MEM students. Somewhere between building a roller coaster for Dr. Fox's project management class, sampling the finest cuisine that the world has to offer at the International Food Fest, and sorting through page upon page of corporate finance cases for Professor Skender, the semester came and went. Many students who weren't leaving Durham for the winter break had a lot of free time on their hands after the dust ...
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  • January 9, 2009

    MEMP Student Makes the World Smaller, One Project at a Time

    Keddy Chandran is no stranger to travel. As a child he moved several times to various locations throughout the US and Canada, and in his adult life has traveled to just about any part of the globe you can think of. In fact, he was traveling across Europe last summer when his Blackberry alerted him to an email announcing the Stanford Technology Venture Programs Fellowship for the Roundtable on Entrepreneurship Education. The challenge caught his eye ...
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  • November 17, 2008

    Duke University Smart Home is a Cool Concept

    Visiting 'The Home Depot Smart Home' at Duke University is truly enlightening. Recently, MEM administrators had the opportunity to tour the house with Jim Gaston, Duke Smart Home Program Director. Designed and managed by the Pratt School of Engineering, Duke's Smart Home was completed in 2007 and earned a Platinum rating in LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) from the United States Green Building Council. LEED Platinum is the highest possible rating in green building. MEM ...
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  • November 15, 2008

    MEMP Student Helps Entrepreneurship and Technology Ideas "Hatch" at Duke and Beyond

    When Ali Habib made the decision to leave his home town of Karachi, Pakistan to come to Duke as a Master of Engineering Management student, he knew he was embarking on a journey that would change him forever. What he didn't know, was how much impact he would have on the Master of Engineering Management program, the Pratt School of Engineering, Duke at large, and really, the whole world. Ali is a Fulbright Scholar, so obviously ...
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  • November 13, 2008

    MEMP Recruiters Hit the Road

    The Fall of 2008 presented a busy recruiting schedule for MEM administrators and students. This year, not only did MEM focus on graduate school fairs, we also held informal Information Sessions throughout the country to attract students to our program. A highlight of these trips was the dedicated recruitment effort by many of our current students. September kicked off the fall recruiting schedule with a trip to Cornell and Syracuse by Student Services Officer Bridget Fletcher ...
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  • November 10, 2008

    Duke Engineering Contest Connects U.S. Students with National Problems

    DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering challenges college students in the U.S. to create a video and an essay in response to this question: Which of the 14 grand challenges identified by the National Academy of Engineering would you choose to address, and how would you do it? The National Academy of Engineering Grand Challenges (http://www.engineeringchallenges.org) has identified 14 critical barriers to a sustainable way of life. They represent problems that will require ...
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  • October 23, 2008

    Duke's Smart Home Wins Green Award

    Note to editors: Jim Gaston can be reached at (919) 660-5501 or at jim.gaston@duke.edu. DURHAM, N.C. --- The Duke Smart Home Program, a high-tech, 10-student residence for green living and learning, has been selected as the Green Nonprofit Program of the Year by the Triangle Business Journal. The 6,000-square-foot live-in laboratory, designed by students and advisers, opened in November 2007. From its roof of plants and solar cells to the rainwater cisterns and sophisticated electronics in the ...
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  • October 14, 2008

    Engineering Change – Uganda

    A knee injury kept Will Patrick from going to Uganda the summer of 2007. After all the work he put into preparing for it, nothing could have held him back this summer. That ill-fated summer he was supposed to join a small team of students from Smart Home and the Duke chapter of Engineers Without Borders in a trip to Uganda to help a community-based non-governmental organization in Nkokonjeru and assess the some of most pressing ...
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  • October 2, 2008

    My UNique Internship

    Written by Pranay Jinna, a Duke MEM student from Hyderabad, India. I spent an incredible two months interning at the United Nations headquarters in New York. My summer began with an orientation in the hallowed chambers of the Trusteeship council which is on the same floor as the Security Council and the General Assembly. After my orientation, we met our supervisors where we were given our tasks. My internship was in the Aviation Transport Section (ATS). The ...
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  • August 15, 2008

    Sen. Dole Aide Tours Photonics Institute

    Reggie Holley, seated, deputy state director for U.S. Senator Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., recently visited a number of laboratories at the Fitzpatrick Institute for Photonics to learn more about the scope of federally funded research at the Pratt School of Engineering. Postdoctoral fellow Yizheng Zhu, right, explains his optics research project in the lab of Adam Wax, associate professor for biomedical engineering. Looking on are, from left, Quincy Brown, postdoctoral fellow in the lab of ...
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  • July 17, 2008

    Business Savvy, Environmentally Conscious Degree Opportunity

    Each year, the Master of Engineering Management Program (MEMP) builds on the foundation that an undergraduate degree in engineering or science has established. The program uses a combination of core business and management courses and technical electives to develop a skill set that includes advanced technical knowledge along with a strong understanding of management and business. In recent years, the MEMP has seen an increasing number of students looking to add another component to the degree; ...
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  • July 17, 2008

    MEMP Student Gets Face Time with Warren Buffett

    by Bridget Fletcher When Pratik Shah, a Master of Engineering Management student from Aurangabad, India joined the Duke Investment Club, he expected to meet other students with a similar interest in investing and finance and to get some valuable networking opportunities. He did not expect a lunch meeting with Warren Buffett. More than 150 students from Duke, the University of Tennessee, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were extended an invitation to dine with Warren Buffett in ...
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  • May 22, 2008

    Gavin Awarded for Undergraduate Teaching

    By Richard Merritt Humor is often one of the telling characteristics of an effective and respected teacher, and from all accounts, Henri Gavin, associate professor of civil engineering, can be a pretty funny guy. "He always tries to crack jokes about things, especially when it seems the class isn't paying attention well enough," said Ian Cassidy, who took two Gavin classes and graduated this spring with a degree in civil engineering. "I remember in one class, most ...
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  • May 22, 2008

    Gavin Awarded for Undergraduate Teaching

    By Richard Merritt Humor is often one of the telling characteristics of an effective and respected teacher, and from all accounts, Henri Gavin, associate professor of civil engineering, can be a pretty funny guy. "He always tries to crack jokes about things, especially when it seems the class isn't paying attention well enough," said Ian Cassidy, who took two Gavin classes and graduated this spring with a degree in civil engineering. "I remember in one class, most ...
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  • May 19, 2008

    Lee Pearson Commencement Speech 2008

    Welcome mothers and happy Mother's Day, thank you for all that you do. Welcome fathers thanks for your part in making Mother's Day possible. Welcome Pratt Class of 2008. It has been a long road and we have reached the end of this journey in what seems like much less time than anticipated. Although our parents were certainly focused on getting to the destination on time and on budget, we were more focused on what interesting ...
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  • May 8, 2008

    Gift to Drive Better Understanding of Uncertainty Analysis

    DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering has received a gift of $5 million from an anonymous donor to establish a new undergraduate curriculum that will encourage students to think critically about problems that lack obvious solutions, like those they will encounter after graduation, President Richard H. Brodhead announced Wednesday. The planned curriculum will be open to undergraduates from all majors. "Duke's strategic plan, 'Making a Difference,' calls for investments in programs that help students ...
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  • April 30, 2008

    Fulbright Winners -- 2008

    Pratt Engineering Undergraduate Fellow Kerry Costello was named as a Fulbright Scholars for 2008-2009. The program supports one year of research at an institution outside the United States. Costello, a graduating senior and a native of Havertown, Penn., will be spending a year in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. She will be studying at Vrije Universiteit, a university with more than 2,000 faculty members and researchers and a student body of more than 18,000. While at Duke, she ...
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  • April 25, 2008

    Fernandez wins NDSEG Fellowship

    Christy Fernandez, a member of the Duke Imaging and Spectroscopy Group advised by ECE Professor David Brady. She is yet another Pratt winner of a 2007 National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship. Fernandez's application was selected by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research from over 3,400 applications. The fellowship covers her tuition and fees for three years plus annual stipends of more than $30,000.
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  • April 25, 2008

    Noia wins Intel Foundation/Semiconductor Research Corp. Education Alliance Master's Scholarship.

    Pratt senior Brandon Noia has been awarded an Intel Foundation/Semiconductor Research Corp. Education Alliance Master's Scholarship. The two-year award provides tuition and fees, a $2,060 monthly stipend and an annual gift of $2,000 to the ECE department. Noia will study under ECE Professor Krish Chakrabarty.
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  • April 21, 2008

    Clare Boothe Luce Fellows Two Years Later

    Two years after receiving prestigious fellowships designed to support women scientists, three Pratt graduate students are well into their research with such diverse projects as brain-computer interfaces, nanoparticle exposures and a new method for breast cancer screening. In 2006, Katie Hedlund, Christine Robichaud and Christina Shafer were named Clare Boothe Luce Fellows. The fellowship program is the largest such private program for women studying science, mathematics or engineering. More than 1,500 women scientists have received support ...
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  • April 9, 2008

    Justin Jaworski -- 2008 Student Dean's Mentoring Award Winnner

    Justin Jaworski exemplifies the common belief that music and mathematics are not as distinct as they might appear on the surface. The fourth-year graduate student whose interests lie in studying the phenomenon of flutter in flexible objects such as airplane wings or bridges is also a consummate singer, having spent his undergraduate and graduate years singing with Chapel Choir, the Vespers Choir and the Duke University Chorale. "Music is a great combination of math and creativity, the ...
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  • April 9, 2008

    Justin Jaworski -- 2008 Student Dean's Mentoring Award Winnner

    Justin Jaworski exemplifies the common belief that music and mathematics are not as distinct as they might appear on the surface. The fourth-year graduate student whose interests lie in studying the phenomenon of flutter in flexible objects such as airplane wings or bridges is also a consummate singer, having spent his undergraduate and graduate years singing with Chapel Choir, the Vespers Choir and the Duke University Chorale. "Music is a great combination of math and creativity, the ...
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  • April 9, 2008

    Justin Jaworski -- 2008 Student Dean's Mentoring Award Winnner

    Justin Jaworski exemplifies the common belief that music and mathematics are not as distinct as they might appear on the surface. The fourth-year graduate student whose interests lie in studying the phenomenon of flutter in flexible objects such as airplane wings or bridges is also a consummate singer, having spent his undergraduate and graduate years singing with Chapel Choir, the Vespers Choir and the Duke University Chorale. "Music is a great combination of math and creativity, the ...
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  • April 5, 2008

    Duke Establishes Fellowship in Memory of Slain Graduate Student Abhijit Mahato

    DURHAM, N.C. -- In a meeting in Cary Saturday with leaders of the local Indian community, Duke University President Richard H. Brodhead announced the school has established a fellowship in memory of slain Duke graduate student Abhijit Mahato. The Abhijit Mahato Memorial Fellowship will provide financial support to a Duke international graduate student who is studying engineering, with preference given to a student from Mahato's native country of India. In a letter to Mahato's parents, Brodhead noted ...
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  • April 2, 2008

    Three Duke Students Awarded Goldwater Scholarships

    DURHAM, N.C. -- Three Duke University students have been selected for Goldwater Scholarships in science, mathematics and engineering for the 2008-09 academic year.They were among 321 sophomores and juniors chosen on the basis of academic merit from a field of 1,035 mathematics, science and engineering students nationwide. Three of Duke's four nominees were selected. The award provides up to $7,500 toward annual tuition and expenses. Duke's Goldwater Scholars are Mark Hallen, Nicholas Patrick and engineering student Daniel ...
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  • March 25, 2008

    Living on $2 a Day

    When the severe drought in North Carolina precluded his scheduled monsoon rainwater project, Bob Malkin was forced to devise an alternative experience for his Design for the Developing World course. In an attempt to simulate on the personal level the experience of poverty, he asked his students to live on $2 a day, just as billions of people around the world do. While the costs of lodging, heat and other utilities were not included in the ...
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  • January 30, 2008

    Sebastian Liska, Pratt Fellow, Envisions Planes on Folded Wings

    Pratt Undergraduate Research Fellow Sebastian Liska imagines a day when airplane wings might fold themselves up during flight, not unlike the flexible wings of a bird. That quality would give planes the adaptability to complete complicated, multitask missions. "You might enhance fuel efficiency with extended wings and increase maneuverability with shorter wings," Liska said. "As you change configurations, the plane would become more stable and efficient for particular conditions." Liska is working in the laboratory of William ...
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  • January 28, 2008

    Focus on Engineering – Problems engineers solved

    For the second year in a row, Professor Ana Barros led a freshman year experience Focus course cluster called Engineering Frontiers. Open to both engineering and arts and sciences students, this year's cluster examines the planet earth as the life support system that sustains us. Taught by engineering professor David Needham, one course in the cluster, Engineering 32F is Mapping Engineering onto Biology. Focus students had the opportunity to join into Needham's ME/BME 265, Introduction to ...
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  • January 28, 2008

    Skee-ball and Pizza – the best way to end a semester

    Engineering students in Professor Linda Franzoni's Fall 2007 ME 141 Mechanical Design course indulged in pizza and a no-holds-barred demonstration of their engineering design skills in an end-of-semester skee-ball contest. The players, however, were robotic ball launchers designed by student teams during the course. For this skee ball competition, players had to launch small plastic balls into a nested series of rings set at an incline. (Normally, skee ball is a bit like bowling where a ...
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  • January 23, 2008

    President Addresses Duke Community on Death of Graduate Student

    Open forum to be held Jan. 23 in CIEMAS Monday, January 21, 2008 Dear Member of the Duke University Community, I write to share my great sadness over the sudden and senseless death of Abhijit Mahato, a graduate student in the Pratt School of Engineering, who was murdered in his off-campus apartment this weekend. Having spoken with Professor Tod Laursen, in whose lab Abhijit was making important contributions, I have a sense of his great promise and endearing ...
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  • January 22, 2008

    Pratt Fellow Aims for Quieter Flying Time

    As a Pratt Undergraduate Research Fellow, Chelsea He is working on a project designed to deliver more peace and quiet to people traveling by air in the future. She is examining the structural acoustics of airplanes and experimenting with materials that might dampen the racket that results from the vibration of the aircraft, the engine and the flow of air over planes. "I've always been interested in aerospace and aerodynamics and finding a way to achieve ...
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  • January 22, 2008

    Pratt Fellow Levy Develops Tools for Better Disease and Chemical Detection

    As a Pratt Undergraduate Research Fellow in the laboratory of J.A. Jones Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Nan Marie Jokerst, Melissa Levy is a member of a team designing a hand-held "lab on a chip" capable of detecting the parasite responsible for malaria in a single drop of blood, among other applications. Such a malaria detector would have particular advantages in the developing world countries where people are most at risk for ...
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  • January 22, 2008

    Pratt Fellow Amoozegar Aims for Better Detection of Early Cancer

    Cyrus Amoozegar, a Pratt Undergraduate Research Fellow in the laboratory of Biomedical Engineering Professor Adam Wax, is working to improve a new, light-based method of early cancer detection. The technology, known as "angle-resolved low coherence interferometry" (a/LCI), can distinguish between cancer and non-cancer by measuring features within the cells that cover the outer surfaces of organs, where most cancers get their start. "It's superior because it is completely non-invasive," Amoozegar said. "Now, doctors have to take ...
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  • January 22, 2008

    Pratt Fellow Crabtree Seeks Understanding of Flaws in 'Smart Gels'

    Liza Crabtree, a Pratt Undergraduate Research Fellow and civil and environmental engineering major, is working to understand the flaws that can develop in so-called stimulus-responsive hydrogels. These 'smart gels,' which look essentially like Jello, can be made to undergo dramatic transformation in response to changes in their surroundings, including pH and temperature. Thanks to those unique abilities, hydrogels are now poised to become integral mechanical components and sensors in the increasingly tiny devices of the ...
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  • January 22, 2008

    Pratt Fellow Yamanaka Aims for Gene Therapy in a Pill and Career in Global Health

    Yvonne Yamanaka, a biomedical engineering major and Pratt Undergraduate Research Fellow, is developing a method for incorporating the genes encoding insulin into cells of the intestine, a promising new method for the treatment of diabetes. Unlike earlier approaches to gene therapy, which rely on viruses to insert new genes into cells, her research in the laboratory of Biomedical Engineering Professor Kam Leong aims to make gene therapies as easy as popping a pill. Such oral ...
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  • January 19, 2008

    Shooting Victim Identified As Duke Grad Student

    Saturday, January 19, 2008 (Updated 3 p.m. Jan. 19) Durham, NC -- A man identified as a Duke University graduate student was found shot to death at an apartment complex in the 1600 block of Anderson Street, several blocks south of the Duke campus, at about 11:30 p.m. Friday. Friends and colleagues have identified the victim as Abhijit Mahato, 29, a Ph.D. engineering candidate from India, university officials said Saturday afternoon. Durham Police said they do not yet ...
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  • December 21, 2007

    Water Conservation Paying Off at Duke

    by Missy Baxter During recent tours of Duke's Home Depot Smart Home, visitors marveled at two 1,000-gallon rain barrels that collect water to flush toilets, wash clothes and irrigate landscaping at the home. "It's a smart way to save water and help the environment, especially since we're in a drought," said Alessandro Mangiafico, 9, as he toured the home with his parents Paula Mangiafico, a Duke University Libraries archivist, and Paolo Mangiafico, Duke IT-Web Services ...
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  • December 5, 2007

    Catching Rain in Uganda

    This article is part of Summer Stories, a special, online issue of Dukengineer Magazine, in which students wrote about their experiences in the Summer of 2007 during their time away from Duke. by Patrick Ye, BME '10 This past summer, I was one of six students on a Duke Engineers Without Borders team that traveled to Uganda. Our goal was to build a rainwater harvesting system to supply a community with a clean and reliable source of ...
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  • December 1, 2007

    Eleven Selected for Chambers Fellowships

    Eleven graduate students have been selected by the Fitzpatrick Institute for Photonics for two-year John T. Chambers Fellowships. They are Greg Nusz, Henry Fu and Robert Graf, all of BME; Jiefu Chen, Justin Migacz, Sabarni Palit, Samuel Drezdozon, See Hoon Lim, Thomas Hand, and Zhiya Zhao, all of ECE; and Joel Greenberg of physics.
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  • December 1, 2007

    Spiker Runs Marine Corps Marathon

    Meredith Spiker, a MEMS Ph.D. student, ran in the Marine Corps Marathon Oct. 28 in Washington, D.C. She was the 7,887th of 20,679 runners who finished.
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  • November 26, 2007

    Tumor Assessment Device Wins Seed Funding from The Carolinas Photonics Consortium

    The Carolinas Photonics Consortium (CPC) has selected biomedical engineering postdoctoral researcher Quincy Brown of Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering to receive $10,000 in seed funding for the development of a device aimed at dramatically decreasing the number of repeat surgeries for women with breast cancer. "In the U.S., more than 145,000 women with breast cancer have to undergo two or more invasive surgeries to completely remove their cancer," Brown said. "Those second surgeries impose a ...
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  • November 10, 2007

    Duke's Home Depot Smart Home Officially Opened

    Duke University's new Home Depot Smart Home, a high-tech dorm and research laboratory, was officially opened Nov. 9 by the university president, the current and former deans of the Pratt School of Engineering, and some of the 10 students who will live there. The $2.5 million, two-story building located on Duke's Central Campus is the centerpiece of the Duke Smart Home Program, a research-based approach to smart living sponsored by the Pratt School. Primarily focused on ...
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  • November 5, 2007

    Why Engineers Make Good Business People

    Note: The following represents a speech presented by Sy Sternberg, chairman and CEO of New York Life Insurance Co., at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering on Saturday, Nov. 3, during Parents Weekend. Sternberg is an engineer by education, with bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering. Download his power point slides. It's great to be here this week with so many other Duke parents. My son, Matthew, has just entered his senior year at ...
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  • November 1, 2007

    Fernandez wins NDSEG Fellowship

    Graduate student Christy Fernandez, a member of the Duke Imaging and Spectroscopy Group advised by ECE Professor David Brady, is yet another Pratt winner of a 2007 National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship. Fernandez's application was selected by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research from over 3,400 applications. The fellowship covers her tuition and fees for three years plus annual stipends of more than $30,000.
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  • October 3, 2007

    Why Women Succeed

    Note: The following article, written by Sally Hicks, first appeared in the Fall '07 issue of Gist from the Mill, a publication of the Social Science Research Institute at Duke University. When Nan Jokerst studied engineering in the 1980s, being a woman meant being surrounded by men. Not that there's anything wrong with that, says Jokerst, the J.A. Jones Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Duke. "I had more dates than anybody. If you want ...
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  • October 3, 2007

    MEM Program Led Tam to Start Non-Profit Aimed at Cervical Cancer's Prevention

    Theoderick Tam Master's of Engineering Management/ Class of 2007 ImaGyn Experience written by Theoderick Tam Imagine if you had a year to do whatever you wanted. What would you do? Well, I decided to spend my year in Durham, North Carolina, and I discovered adventure here. My name is Theo Tam and I am an engineer from California. Before beginning the Master of Engineering Management program at Pratt, I designed parts for Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company as ...
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  • October 1, 2007

    Shamji wins Physician Services Resident Research Award

    BME doctoral student Mohammed Shamji has been awarded a Resident Research Award from Physician Services Incorporated in Canada. Shamji will present his research at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada meeting in Winnipeg.
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  • October 1, 2007

    Wang wins dissertation award

    Dazhi Wang, PhD student of ECE Professor Kishor Trivedi, has won the Outstanding PhD dissertation award for 2006-2007 from the Computer Science department. Furthermore, Dazhi is being nominated for the Association for Computing Machinery Distinguished Dissertation Award.
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  • October 1, 2007

    Keller wins a ARL Symposium

    Fourth-year ECE PhD student Steven Keller took first prize in the graduate division of the Army Research Laboratory's First Summer Student Research Symposium in Adelphi, Md. in August. Nearly 100 undergraduate and graduate students participated as interns in ARL research programs during the summer. All students presented papers on their research, and the best 11 were selected for presentation at the symposium. Keller won $500 for taking first place.
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  • October 1, 2007

    Five Guilak Students Win Graduate Fellowships

    Five graduate students and post-docs in Professor Farshid Guilak's Orthopedic Bioengineering Laboratory have received individual fellowships. Brian Diekman and Rebecca Wilusz, both of whom were previous Pratt Undergraduate Fellows, have received graduate research fellowships from the National Science Foundation to pursue PhDs in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. Amy McNulty, a post-doctoral fellow, has received a three-year National Research Service Award from the NIH to study novel therapies for repair of the knee meniscus. Tim Griffin, a post-doctoral ...
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  • October 1, 2007

    Expert Advice: How to 'Pitch your Idea'

    At an interactive workshop sponsored by Women in Science and Engineering, Joseph Holmes, president and CEO of Acuity Edge and an adjunct professor in the Master's of Engineering Management program, offered his expertise to help refine the networking and communications skills of more than 30 graduate students on Sept. 26. Acuity Edge is a management consulting firm that offers strategic services for corporate, university, government and venture capital clients. The goal was for the participants to ...
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  • October 1, 2007

    Expert Advice: How to 'Pitch your Idea'

    At an interactive workshop sponsored by Women in Science and Engineering, Joseph Holmes, president and CEO of Acuity Edge and an adjunct professor in the Master's of Engineering Management program, offered his expertise to help refine the networking and communications skills of more than 30 graduate students on Sept. 26. Acuity Edge is a management consulting firm that offers strategic services for corporate, university, government and venture capital clients. The goal was for the participants to ...
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  • October 1, 2007

    Graduate Student Bogdan Popa Puts Exotic Metamaterials to Action

    Bogdan Popa with the metamaterial he created in Professor Steven Cummer's laboratory. When communism fell in Romania 20 years ago, it was as if the people had moved from jail to a jungle, according to Bogdan Popa, a Romanian citizen and recent graduate of Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering. Afterwards, he said the biggest change was that people "could leave the country and visit other countries. They had freedom to move, and you could say ...
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  • October 1, 2007

    Graduate Student Bogdan Popa Puts Exotic Metamaterials to Action

    Bogdan Popa with the metamaterial he created in Professor Steven Cummer's laboratory. When communism fell in Romania 20 years ago, it was as if the people had moved from jail to a jungle, according to Bogdan Popa, a Romanian citizen and recent graduate of Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering. Afterwards, he said the biggest change was that people "could leave the country and visit other countries. They had freedom to move, and you could say ...
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  • September 12, 2007

    Students Take Part in Climate-Decoding Mission

    Summer 2007 -- After taking CEE Professor Ana Barros' Focus program course in his freshman year, William Patrick took the initiative to ask if Barros might have anything he could do for the summer. He soon found himself as one of the only undergraduates participating in a massive, multi-aircraft mission aimed at decoding the climate. "It was interesting to see research actually taking place and to be a part of a team," Patrick said. "It helped ...
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  • September 1, 2007

    Eischeid wins NWRI Fellowship

    Graduate student Anne Eischeid has been selected to receive a National Water Research Institute (NWRI) fellowship worth $10,000 a year for her doctoral research. Eischeid is using molecular biology to investigate the effectiveness of traditional and new ultraviolet technologies on adenoviruses, which cause respiratory and gastrointestinal illness in humans.
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  • September 1, 2007

    Nusz Wins Best Poster Award

    Greg Nusz, a graduate student in the lab of BME Professor Ashutosh Chilkoti, won the best poster award at the European Science Foundation Symposium on Biological Surfaces and Interfaces held July 1-6 at Sant Feliu de Guixols, Spain. His poster was titled "Label-free Plasmonic Detection of Biomolecular Binding by a Single Gold Nanorod: Sensitivity and Detection Limits."
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  • September 1, 2007

    Klinger wins Nanoscience Ethics Essay contest

    Rebecca Klinger, a BME Ph.D. student working under the direction of Nenad Bursac, has taken the first place, $1,000 prize in the Nanoscience Ethics Essay contest sponsored by the Center for Biologically Inspired Materials and Material Systems. As an emerging technology, nanoscience presents a fertile ground for investigation into key questions of research ethics.
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  • September 1, 2007

    Liang wins Poster Award

    Yun Liang, a Ph.D. student in Morton Friedman's lab, won first prize in the Biofluids and Imaging category in the Ph.D. student paper competition for her poster, "Coronary Artery Wall Strain Estimation from Clinical IVUS Images."
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  • September 1, 2007

    CEE grads at elementary school Career Day

    CEE graduate students Amrika Deonarine and Jessica Sanders and a visiting undergraduate, Natalya Polishchuk, participated in the Career Day at Hope Valley Elementary School in Durham on June 7. They spoke to 4th and 5th grade students about what engineers do, what they look like, various engineering fields, and famous engineers and their accomplishments. They also led hands-on activities, such as building small towers with sheets of newspaper. Feedback from the children was extremely positive, ...
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  • September 1, 2007

    Bolch wins NASA ESS Fellowship

    CEE graduate student Michael Adam Bolch was awarded a NASA Earth System Science (ESS) fellowship. The fellowship is worth $24,000 annually and may be renewed for an additional two years. His research is entitled, "Evaluating the Effects of Land-Surface Heterogeneity at Various Scales on Atmospheric Boundary Layer Processes." The purpose of the space agency's program is to ensure continued training of interdisciplinary scientists to support the study of the Earth as a system. NASA says ...
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  • August 7, 2007

    MEM Program Led Lingamneni Straight to Career at Microsoft

    After traveling across the globe from his birthplace in Hyderabad, India to join Duke's Masters of Engineering Management Program, 21-year-old Nishanth Lingamneni found himself one of the youngest people in his class, having no prior full-time work experience. Nevertheless just one year later--he had his choice of two prime U.S. jobs: product manager for Microsoft Corp or senior marketing analyst for Alltel Communications. In July 2007, after a six-month hiatus rediscovering his home country and ...
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  • June 1, 2007

    Shrestha wins NASA ESS Fellowship

    Graduate student Prabhakar Shrestha in CEE Professor Ana Barros' laboratory has won a NASA Earth System Science Fellowship for his work on "Characterization of Aerosol-Cloud-Rainfall Interactions and Water Cycle Impacts in the Himalayas."
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  • June 1, 2007

    Futuristic Technology Reproduces Ancient Structure

    Students in Anathea Portier-Young's Old Testament class recently used some of the planet's most futuristic technology to study one of its most ancient biblical structures all within a few hundred yards of the Divinity School. With a grant of about $3,300 from Duke University's Center for Instructional Technology, Portier-Young led a project in which students in computer science and engineering adapted 3-D models to build a full-surround virtual reality experience of the reconstructed Temple ...
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  • June 1, 2007

    Futuristic Technology Reproduces Ancient Structure

    Students in Anathea Portier-Young's Old Testament class recently used some of the planet's most futuristic technology to study one of its most ancient biblical structures all within a few hundred yards of the Divinity School. With a grant of about $3,300 from Duke University's Center for Instructional Technology, Portier-Young led a project in which students in computer science and engineering adapted 3-D models to build a full-surround virtual reality experience of the reconstructed Temple ...
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  • May 22, 2007

    Lloyd Wins NSBE Paper Contest

    BME graduate student Andre Loyd won third place and $1,000 in the National Society of Black Engineers technical paper writing contest. His paper was entitled Thresholding Techniques for Developing Geometrically Accurate Pediatric Skull and Cervical Spine Models. Co-authors were BME graduate students Jason Luck and N. Buraglia, and Professors Donald Frush (pediatrics), Barry Myers (BME) and Roger Nightingale (BME).
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  • May 1, 2007

    Cornwell's Beer Launcher

    Pratt ECE graduate John W. Cornwell continues to receive attention for his beer launcher invention. Cornwell, who graduated last May, was recently on the Ellen DeGeneres TV show. He was on the Late Show with David Letterman last month. Check out his invention at http://www.duke.edu/~jwc13/beerlauncher.html
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  • May 1, 2007

    Weber wins NDSEG Fellowship

    Paul Weber, a first year graduate student in MEMS, has won a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship for which he will receive tuition and fees for three years and an average $31,000 annual stipend. Weber is working with Professor Laurens Howle on his project sponsored by the Office of Naval Research to develop better probability models for predicting whether scuba divers will experience decompression sickness.
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  • May 1, 2007

    Kahler, Saaem Elected to Graduate Student Government

    David Kahler, CEE graduate student, was elected to a second term as treasurer of the Graduate and Professional Student Council, and Ali Saaem, BME graduate student, was elected as 2007-2008 Community Affairs Coordinator. Kahler is the only member of the 2006-2007 executive board to remain on the executive board for the coming year. Other engineers who served on the executive board this year were Lara Oliver (ECE, attorney general), Elizabeth Irish (MEMS, student groups liaison), ...
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  • May 1, 2007

    Pedrotty and Miller win WiSE OWL Awards

    Two of three winners of the first WiSE OWL Award are from Pratt. The winners are Dawn Pedrotty, a graduate student in Professor Nenad Bursac's lab in BME; Molly Miller, a graduate student in Professor Anne Lazarides' lab in MEMS; and Audrey Chang, a graduate student in the biology department. The WiSE OWL Awards are sponsored by Women in Science and Engineering and co-sponsored by Graduate Student Affairs. They honor female graduate students, post-docs and ...
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  • May 1, 2007

    Royal Wins NDSEG Fellowship

    ECE graduate student Matthew Royal for winning a prestigious three-year National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship sponsored and funded by the Department of Defense. Royal was selected by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research from over 3,400 applications. The fellowship covers tuition and fees for three years and provides an average $31,000 annual stipend.
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  • May 1, 2007

    Deonarine Compete Well At NCWRRI

    CEE graduate student Amrika Deonarine was awarded 3rd place in the student poster competition at the annual conference of the North Carolina Water Resources Research Institute on March 27-28 in Raleigh. The title of her poster presentation was: "Assessment of Surface Water Mercury Concentrations in the Restored Upper Sandy Creek Riparian Ecosystem" and was authored by Deonarine and her adviser Helen Hsu-Kim, assistant CEE professor.
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  • May 1, 2007

    Garcia wins NRC Fellowship

    Michael Garcia, a postdoctoral researcher who works jointly with ECE Professors April Brown and Jeff Glass, has won a National Research Council Fellowship from the National Academy of Sciences. The fellowship will provide $56,000 of funding support for Garcia to conduct research at Duke through the Army Research Office over the next year, with the possibility of up to three years of funding. His research will aim to develop a novel nitric oxide sensor, with ...
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  • May 1, 2007

    Sixth-Graders Get a 'BOOST' in N.C. Science Fair Competition

    BME graduate student Dawn Pedrotty works with Maya Brown in the lab. Two local sixth-grade girls--both advised by a graduate student "coach" from the Pratt School of Engineering--advanced through local and regional science fair competitions to compete at the state level this year. "The girls are exceptionally bright and very motivated and their hard work was recognized, which was exciting," said Dawn Pedrotty, the biomedical engineering graduate student who coached both state competitors. The girls were two of ...
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  • May 1, 2007

    Sixth-Graders Get a 'BOOST' in N.C. Science Fair Competition

    BME graduate student Dawn Pedrotty works with Maya Brown in the lab. Two local sixth-grade girls--both advised by a graduate student "coach" from the Pratt School of Engineering--advanced through local and regional science fair competitions to compete at the state level this year. "The girls are exceptionally bright and very motivated and their hard work was recognized, which was exciting," said Dawn Pedrotty, the biomedical engineering graduate student who coached both state competitors. The girls were two of ...
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  • May 1, 2007

    CUREs Winner Tackles Cervical Cancer in Haiti and Around the World

    The winning CUREs team with EWH founder Robert Malkin. The winning team of the second annual Duke-Engineering World Health CUREs non-profit business competition has developed a device to help catch cervical cancer early in women of developing countries. The low-cost device called a cerviScope might also hold promise for use in industrialized countries, including the U.S., according to Duke physicians familiar with the new cancer-screening instrument. "Our ambition is to save the lives of 19,000 women in ...
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  • May 1, 2007

    CUREs Winner Tackles Cervical Cancer in Haiti and Around the World

    The winning CUREs team with EWH founder Robert Malkin. The winning team of the second annual Duke-Engineering World Health CUREs non-profit business competition has developed a device to help catch cervical cancer early in women of developing countries. The low-cost device called a cerviScope might also hold promise for use in industrialized countries, including the U.S., according to Duke physicians familiar with the new cancer-screening instrument. "Our ambition is to save the lives of 19,000 women in ...
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  • May 1, 2007

    Math Team Aces Contest with Airplane Boarding Model

    Duke University teams led a pair of international math competitions with four "outstanding" awards. Only 18 out of more than 1,200 teams participating received the highest designation of "outstanding" in the competitions, which were sponsored by the Consortium for Mathematics and Its Applications. Teams were given 96 hours to propose mathematically rigorous solutions to problems such as how to best divide up voting districts or how to most efficiently board passengers on an airplane. In ...
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  • May 1, 2007

    Math Team Aces Contest with Airplane Boarding Model

    Duke University teams led a pair of international math competitions with four "outstanding" awards. Only 18 out of more than 1,200 teams participating received the highest designation of "outstanding" in the competitions, which were sponsored by the Consortium for Mathematics and Its Applications. Teams were given 96 hours to propose mathematically rigorous solutions to problems such as how to best divide up voting districts or how to most efficiently board passengers on an airplane. In ...
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  • April 1, 2007

    Li wins presentation award at AGU

    Ph.D. student Jingbo Li, in Professor Steve Cummer's lab, won an Outstanding Student Presentation award at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in December. The AGU said his presentation on lightning processes in long delayed sprites was recognized as among the best of a strong group of student presenters.
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  • April 1, 2007

    2007 Senol Utku Award Winners

    CEE graduate students Stefano Manzoni, Darren Drewry and Gil Bohrer and their faculty advisers, professors Amilcare Porporato, Roni Avissar and John Albertson, won the Senol Utku Award for best pre-Ph.D. peer reviewed papers. This award is dedicated to Professor Senol Utku, now retired, for his exemplary academic achievements and service to the CEE department from 1970 2002.
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  • April 1, 2007

    From Aquifers to Goo, Event Encourages Girls' Interest in Science and Engineering

    Students build a model aquifer in an activity led by Pratt Professor Helen Hsu-Kim and Nicholas Professor Heather Stapleton. At the end of February, 160 local fourth through sixth grade girls spent their Saturdays at Duke exploring science with a creative twist, including topics ranging from the pollution of groundwater in underground aquifers to the chemistry of goo. The event marked the second annual Females Excelling More in Math, Engineering and Science (FEMMES) organized by Duke junior ...
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  • April 1, 2007

    From Aquifers to Goo, Event Encourages Girls' Interest in Science and Engineering

    Students build a model aquifer in an activity led by Pratt Professor Helen Hsu-Kim and Nicholas Professor Heather Stapleton. At the end of February, 160 local fourth through sixth grade girls spent their Saturdays at Duke exploring science with a creative twist, including topics ranging from the pollution of groundwater in underground aquifers to the chemistry of goo. The event marked the second annual Females Excelling More in Math, Engineering and Science (FEMMES) organized by Duke junior ...
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  • April 1, 2007

    Duke's First Engineers Week Draws a Crowd

    Duke's first campus-wide Engineers Week celebration, offering a week-long series of events for both Pratt and Trinity students, proved a big success. The week's grand finale, an E-social loaded with contests and competitions that pitted "Team Pratt" against "Team Trinity," drew more than 500 students to the engineering campus. Watch the video on YouTube. The festivities were kicked off with a week-long clothing drive competition between departments for the Durham Rescue Mission. Tuesday featured guest speaker ...
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  • April 1, 2007

    Duke's First Engineers Week Draws a Crowd

    Duke's first campus-wide Engineers Week celebration, offering a week-long series of events for both Pratt and Trinity students, proved a big success. The week's grand finale, an E-social loaded with contests and competitions that pitted "Team Pratt" against "Team Trinity," drew more than 500 students to the engineering campus. Watch the video on YouTube. The festivities were kicked off with a week-long clothing drive competition between departments for the Durham Rescue Mission. Tuesday featured guest speaker ...
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  • April 1, 2007

    China Outpacing Rivals in Producing Graduate-Level Engineers, Study Finds

    China is "racing ahead" of both the United States and India in producing graduates with advanced engineering and technology degrees and in its ability to perform basic research, according to new findings in a Duke University-authored article published in the online edition of Issues in Science and Technology. The trend is part of a complex picture that challenges popular wisdom and sheds new light on how the United States and its two emerging Asian rivals - ...
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  • April 1, 2007

    China Outpacing Rivals in Producing Graduate-Level Engineers, Study Finds

    China is "racing ahead" of both the United States and India in producing graduates with advanced engineering and technology degrees and in its ability to perform basic research, according to new findings in a Duke University-authored article published in the online edition of Issues in Science and Technology. The trend is part of a complex picture that challenges popular wisdom and sheds new light on how the United States and its two emerging Asian rivals - ...
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  • April 1, 2007

    Pratt Dean: The U.S. Needs More Women and Minorities in Engineering

    Dean Kristina M. Johnson of Duke's Pratt School of Engineering told an International Women's Day audience March 8 that the nation needs more women and minorities in engineering so they will be able to help solve some of the increasingly complex challenges she said the world will face in years ahead. "Simply put, unless we bring more women and minorities into science and engineering fields, we will not have the intellectual capital to address the global ...
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  • April 1, 2007

    Pratt Dean: The U.S. Needs More Women and Minorities in Engineering

    Dean Kristina M. Johnson of Duke's Pratt School of Engineering told an International Women's Day audience March 8 that the nation needs more women and minorities in engineering so they will be able to help solve some of the increasingly complex challenges she said the world will face in years ahead. "Simply put, unless we bring more women and minorities into science and engineering fields, we will not have the intellectual capital to address the global ...
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  • March 27, 2007

    Off-Road Wheelchair Pioneer and Designer to Speak April 2

    John Davis, off-road wheelchair racing champion and pioneer, and John Castelano, his wheelchair designer, will speak at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering on Monday, April 2. The talk begins at 4:00 p.m. in the Nello L. Teer Building, room 203, and is free and open to the public. Parking is available in the parking garage next to the Bryan Center. Davis is expected to discuss his experience as an outdoors enthusiast an avid surfer and mountain ...
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  • March 27, 2007

    Off-Road Wheelchair Pioneer and Designer to Speak April 2

    John Davis, off-road wheelchair racing champion and pioneer, and John Castelano, his wheelchair designer, will speak at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering on Monday, April 2. The talk begins at 4:00 p.m. in the Nello L. Teer Building, room 203, and is free and open to the public. Parking is available in the parking garage next to the Bryan Center. Davis is expected to discuss his experience as an outdoors enthusiast an avid surfer and mountain ...
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  • March 20, 2007

    'Graduate Student of the Year' Audrey Ellerbee Leads by Example

    Audrey Ellerbee, of Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering, has been selected by The National Society of Black Engineers as its "Graduate Student of the Year." Ellerbee will receive her 2007 Golden Torch Award at the society's 33rd national convention held in Columbus, Ohio, on Saturday, March 31. Ellerbee also will be discussing her path and future as a participant in the web-based Engineers Week Global Marathon on Thursday, March 22. The 24-hour Global Marathon, For, ...
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  • March 20, 2007

    'Graduate Student of the Year' Audrey Ellerbee Leads by Example

    Audrey Ellerbee, of Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering, has been selected by The National Society of Black Engineers as its "Graduate Student of the Year." Ellerbee will receive her 2007 Golden Torch Award at the society's 33rd national convention held in Columbus, Ohio, on Saturday, March 31. Ellerbee also will be discussing her path and future as a participant in the web-based Engineers Week Global Marathon on Thursday, March 22. The 24-hour Global Marathon, For, ...
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  • March 1, 2007

    Course Turned Students into 'Social Entrepreneurs'

    Emmett Nicholas was part of a team that designed a computer game for children in rural Guatemala in a course on IT and Social Entrepreneurship. Two software applications that grew out of projects initiated by students in a new IT and Social Entrepreneurship course last spring are now in the hands of the non-profit organizations that originally inspired them. One is a typing game designed for the educational outreach group Enlace Quiche, to help kids in ...
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  • March 1, 2007

    Course Turned Students into 'Social Entrepreneurs'

    Emmett Nicholas was part of a team that designed a computer game for children in rural Guatemala in a course on IT and Social Entrepreneurship. Two software applications that grew out of projects initiated by students in a new IT and Social Entrepreneurship course last spring are now in the hands of the non-profit organizations that originally inspired them. One is a typing game designed for the educational outreach group Enlace Quiche, to help kids in ...
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  • March 1, 2007

    Civic Engagement to Become Integral to a Duke Undergraduate Education

    A destroyed house in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans remained virtually untouched months after Katrina's devastation. A DukeEngage pilot program will send 20 students to the New Orleans area this summer to help in the ongoing rebuilding effort (see sidebar). In one of the most ambitious efforts of its kind in U.S. higher education, Duke University will make civic engagement an integral part of its undergraduate experience beginning in 2008, university president Richard H. Brodhead ...
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  • March 1, 2007

    Civic Engagement to Become Integral to a Duke Undergraduate Education

    A destroyed house in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans remained virtually untouched months after Katrina's devastation. A DukeEngage pilot program will send 20 students to the New Orleans area this summer to help in the ongoing rebuilding effort (see sidebar). In one of the most ambitious efforts of its kind in U.S. higher education, Duke University will make civic engagement an integral part of its undergraduate experience beginning in 2008, university president Richard H. Brodhead ...
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  • March 1, 2007

    Taking Advice from Alumni

    Natalie Wisniewski, a Pratt alumna and medical device consultant On Feb. 9, Pratt school alums offered advice to current students at two different forums. Natalie Wisniewski, a medical device consultant who obtained her doctorate in biomedical engineering in Professor Monte Reichert's lab, spoke at a Women in Science and Engineering (WiSE) event on enhancing personal innovation and problem solving. Later in the day, John Glushik, a venture capitalist who obtained his bachelor's in mechanical engineering from ...
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  • March 1, 2007

    Taking Advice from Alumni

    Natalie Wisniewski, a Pratt alumna and medical device consultant On Feb. 9, Pratt school alums offered advice to current students at two different forums. Natalie Wisniewski, a medical device consultant who obtained her doctorate in biomedical engineering in Professor Monte Reichert's lab, spoke at a Women in Science and Engineering (WiSE) event on enhancing personal innovation and problem solving. Later in the day, John Glushik, a venture capitalist who obtained his bachelor's in mechanical engineering from ...
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  • March 1, 2007

    How to Catch a Monsoon

    Using a fire hose, BME seniors test devices they built to catch monsoon rain. Duke undergraduates in the biomedical engineering capstone course "Design for the Developing World" tested devices they designed and built to catch monsoon rainwater. The devices, each built with no more than $20 worth of parts from The Home Depot, were tested Feb. 15 with simulated monsoon rains delivered by fire hose on the Engineering Quadrangle. "In some parts of the world, if a ...
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  • March 1, 2007

    How to Catch a Monsoon

    Using a fire hose, BME seniors test devices they built to catch monsoon rain. Duke undergraduates in the biomedical engineering capstone course "Design for the Developing World" tested devices they designed and built to catch monsoon rainwater. The devices, each built with no more than $20 worth of parts from The Home Depot, were tested Feb. 15 with simulated monsoon rains delivered by fire hose on the Engineering Quadrangle. "In some parts of the world, if a ...
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  • January 1, 2007

    Markey wins AMIA New Investigator Award

    Mia K. Markey, who received her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering at Pratt in 2002 and is now an assistant professor at the University of Texas in Austin, has won the 2006 American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) New Investigator Award. This award recognizes an individual for early informatics contributions and significant scholarly contributions on the basis of scientific merit and research excellence.
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  • January 1, 2007

    ME Students Designed Apple Processing Machines for 'Mrs. Smith'

    Joe Goo, Tiffany Hui, Mark Loughry and Edison Zhang demonstrate their apple slicer. Just how much force does it take to slice a Granny Smith? How about a Fuji? These are questions fall semester students in ME 141: Mechanical Design found themselves asking and answering in order to successfully complete their final projects: to develop a machine that would core and slice apples and place them in a container "for further processing." Their machines, commissioned by "Mrs. ...
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  • January 1, 2007

    ME Students Designed Apple Processing Machines for 'Mrs. Smith'

    Joe Goo, Tiffany Hui, Mark Loughry and Edison Zhang demonstrate their apple slicer. Just how much force does it take to slice a Granny Smith? How about a Fuji? These are questions fall semester students in ME 141: Mechanical Design found themselves asking and answering in order to successfully complete their final projects: to develop a machine that would core and slice apples and place them in a container "for further processing." Their machines, commissioned by "Mrs. ...
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  • January 1, 2007

    Immigrants Found One in Four Engineering and Technology Startups

    The Masters of Engineering Management Program's immigrant study team. Immigrant entrepreneurs founded 25.3 percent of the U.S. engineering and technology companies established in the past decade, according to a new study from Duke University. What's more, foreign nationals -- those living in the United States who are not citizens -- contributed to an estimated 24.2 percent of international patent applications in 2006. The study, conducted by a student research team at Duke's Master of Engineering Management Program, ...
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  • January 1, 2007

    Immigrants Found One in Four Engineering and Technology Startups

    The Masters of Engineering Management Program's immigrant study team. Immigrant entrepreneurs founded 25.3 percent of the U.S. engineering and technology companies established in the past decade, according to a new study from Duke University. What's more, foreign nationals -- those living in the United States who are not citizens -- contributed to an estimated 24.2 percent of international patent applications in 2006. The study, conducted by a student research team at Duke's Master of Engineering Management Program, ...
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  • January 1, 2007

    Internship at GE Launched Aviation Career for Wendy Young

    Pratt senior Wendy Young Mechanical engineering and materials science major Wendy Young started her senior year with a job in hand. After graduation, she will start on a career in aircraft design and testing as an Edison Scholar at GE Aviation in Cincinnati, Ohio. "It was nice to walk in to my senior year with a job," Young said. The Edison Engineering Development Program will offer her the opportunity to work as an engineer in four different ...
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  • January 1, 2007

    Internship at GE Launched Aviation Career for Wendy Young

    Pratt senior Wendy Young Mechanical engineering and materials science major Wendy Young started her senior year with a job in hand. After graduation, she will start on a career in aircraft design and testing as an Edison Scholar at GE Aviation in Cincinnati, Ohio. "It was nice to walk in to my senior year with a job," Young said. The Edison Engineering Development Program will offer her the opportunity to work as an engineer in four different ...
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  • January 1, 2007

    BME Students Built $40 Insulin Pump, Handsfree Computer Mouse

    Kelly Fitzgerald and Patrick Parish with $40 insulin pump. Biomedical engineering students in BME 264, the biomedical instrumentation course taught by Associate Professor Patrick Wolf, capped off another semester with poster presentations of their inventions on Dec. 12. Kelly Fitzgerald and Patrick Parish presented a $40 insulin pump. By stripping the pump down to its bare essentials, such a device could offer those with diabetes who are unable to afford a $6,000 commercially available pump the advantage ...
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  • January 1, 2007

    BME Students Built $40 Insulin Pump, Handsfree Computer Mouse

    Kelly Fitzgerald and Patrick Parish with $40 insulin pump. Biomedical engineering students in BME 264, the biomedical instrumentation course taught by Associate Professor Patrick Wolf, capped off another semester with poster presentations of their inventions on Dec. 12. Kelly Fitzgerald and Patrick Parish presented a $40 insulin pump. By stripping the pump down to its bare essentials, such a device could offer those with diabetes who are unable to afford a $6,000 commercially available pump the advantage ...
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  • December 6, 2006

    Santillan Explores Dynamics of Extremely Flexible Structures

    You might call mechanical engineering graduate student Sophia Santillan a non-linear thinker. In fact, the native of Amarillo, Texas, conducts cutting edge research on the non-linear behavior of structures whose strength paradoxically depends on being extremely flimsy. The buckled beams she studies--thin strips of flexible, bent plastic--might one day lead to the replacement of the metal springs more traditionally used as shock absorbers in some automobiles or other machinery, Santillan said. Her lightweight materials might have ...
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  • December 6, 2006

    Fluid Dynamics Led Conyers from Bioenvironmental Engineering to Aerodynamics Research

    As a boy growing up in rural Manning, S.C., Howard Conyers learned a love for the outdoors early. Rather than follow in the shadows of his older brother, who excelled as an athlete, the young Conyers also made the decision to put more of his focus on academics, particularly math and science. In his choice of colleges, Conyers found a way to combine his interest in the environment with his serious academic side. He enrolled at ...
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  • December 6, 2006

    Irish, a Mechanical Engineer, Part of Nanotech Revolution

    As a graduate student in Professor Anne Lazarides' lab, Elizabeth Irish is learning how to play with the tiniest of building blocks. Her ultimate goal: to assemble nanosize squares of gold or silver on silicon surrounded by soft matter made entirely of DNA molecules. Such diminutive objects ultimately aim to take advantage of the ability of some metal nanoparticles, including gold and silver, to emit light in the visible spectrum, a field known as plasmonics. Such ...
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  • December 6, 2006

    Deonarine, a Native of Trinidad, Sets out to Study Environmental Mercury

    In civil and environmental engineering graduate student Amrika Deonarine's home country of Trinidad and Tobago, a sunny two-island nation off the coast of Venezuela, education is a top priority. "Education is stressed a lot," Deonarine said. "Education and family." Deonarine was encouraged early in the sciences by her physicist father and her mother, who is a nurse. She quickly gained an interest in two science-related fields: astronomy and environmentalism. But it was her love for math and ...
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  • December 1, 2006

    Long & Darling Wins NIH Fellowships

    CBTE postdoctoral fellows David Long in Biomedical Engineering, and Eric Darling in the Department of Surgery for winning prestigious NIH National Research Service Award fellowships. Long will continue his work with BME Professor Mort Friedman to study the interactions of biomechanics and genomics in atherosclerosis. Darling will continue his work with professors Farshid Guilak and Stefan Zauscher studying the mechanical properties of living cells using atomic force microscopy. We also welcome three new postdocs to ...
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  • December 1, 2006

    Ellerbee wins NSBE Grad Student of the Year

    Audrey Ellerbee, Ph.D. candidate in biomedical engineering, was selected Graduate Student of the Year by the National Society of Black Engineers. She will receive her 2007 Golden Torch Award at the NSBE's national meeting in Columbus, Ohio, in March. This honor recognizes Ellerbee's academic and extracurricular contributions. She is president of the Duke Graduate and Professional Student Council, and is a member of Duke's Latin dance troupe. She also volunteers for the Volunteer Income Tax ...
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  • December 1, 2006

    Industry Internship Survey Results

    More than 330 Duke engineering students took part in a survey on summer internships earlier this fall. According to the survey results, more than 61% of students who completed an internship reported their experience as 'excellent' or 'good' and 82% received compensation for their time. At right are charts that provide detailed information on student majors, gender and types of internships. Internships give students a chance to network with role models and potential employers and see ...
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  • December 1, 2006

    Industry Internship Survey Results

    More than 330 Duke engineering students took part in a survey on summer internships earlier this fall. According to the survey results, more than 61% of students who completed an internship reported their experience as 'excellent' or 'good' and 82% received compensation for their time. At right are charts that provide detailed information on student majors, gender and types of internships. Internships give students a chance to network with role models and potential employers and see ...
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  • December 1, 2006

    Industry Internship Survey Results

    More than 330 Duke engineering students took part in a survey on summer internships earlier this fall. According to the survey results, more than 61% of students who completed an internship reported their experience as 'excellent' or 'good' and 82% received compensation for their time. At right are charts that provide detailed information on student majors, gender and types of internships. Internships give students a chance to network with role models and potential employers and see ...
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  • December 1, 2006

    Pratt Connection Led Two Undergrads to Internship in Sweden

    Mengju Wu and Ryan Pitera in front of a cathedral in Helsinki, Finland. Two Pratt sophomores were the first to benefit from a budding collaboration between Duke's Pratt School of Engineering and The Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. Also known as KTH (short for Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan), the institute is one of the largest engineering schools in Europe. Ryan Pitera, a mechanical engineering major from the Cape Cod area, and Mengju Wu, a biomedical engineering ...
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  • December 1, 2006

    Pratt Connection Led Two Undergrads to Internship in Sweden

    Mengju Wu and Ryan Pitera in front of a cathedral in Helsinki, Finland. Two Pratt sophomores were the first to benefit from a budding collaboration between Duke's Pratt School of Engineering and The Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. Also known as KTH (short for Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan), the institute is one of the largest engineering schools in Europe. Ryan Pitera, a mechanical engineering major from the Cape Cod area, and Mengju Wu, a biomedical engineering ...
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  • December 1, 2006

    BME Undergrads Make Skating Wheelchair for Hockey Fan, Other Devices for Disabled

    Kuppy Sampale, Eric Blatt and Keigo Kawaji demonstrate their ice skating wheelchair. A wheelchair on ice is just one of several novel prototypes that biomedical engineering undergraduates presented during a Nov. 2 demonstration of projects designed for the capstone course BME 260: Devices for People with Disabilities. "It really feels like you're gliding or ice skating when you are using the chair," said Kuppy Sampale, one of the wheelchair's engineers. A three-member student team created the adapted wheelchair--complete ...
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  • December 1, 2006

    BME Undergrads Make Skating Wheelchair for Hockey Fan, Other Devices for Disabled

    Kuppy Sampale, Eric Blatt and Keigo Kawaji demonstrate their ice skating wheelchair. A wheelchair on ice is just one of several novel prototypes that biomedical engineering undergraduates presented during a Nov. 2 demonstration of projects designed for the capstone course BME 260: Devices for People with Disabilities. "It really feels like you're gliding or ice skating when you are using the chair," said Kuppy Sampale, one of the wheelchair's engineers. A three-member student team created the adapted wheelchair--complete ...
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  • December 1, 2006

    Upper-Class E-Team Members Advise Freshmen Engineers on Course Loads

    First-year engineering students get advice about course registration from senior E-Teamer Toby Kraus. First-year engineering majors got some valuable advice on their spring semester course loads from upper-class members of the student mentoring group known as E-Team on Nov. 7. Freshmen gathered over slices of pizza to hash out their schedules with student representatives of each of the four engineering departments in the Fitzpatrick Center atrium. "Biomedical engineering is a difficult major," said senior Toby Kraus, a ...
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  • December 1, 2006

    Upper-Class E-Team Members Advise Freshmen Engineers on Course Loads

    First-year engineering students get advice about course registration from senior E-Teamer Toby Kraus. First-year engineering majors got some valuable advice on their spring semester course loads from upper-class members of the student mentoring group known as E-Team on Nov. 7. Freshmen gathered over slices of pizza to hash out their schedules with student representatives of each of the four engineering departments in the Fitzpatrick Center atrium. "Biomedical engineering is a difficult major," said senior Toby Kraus, a ...
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  • December 1, 2006

    Reassurance, Advice and Laughs at 2006 Engineering Parents' Weekend

    Brook Byers Brook Byers, a venture capitalist and Pratt parent, kicked off the 2006 Parents' Weekend seminar and barbeque by soothing parents' fears that their child wouldn't get a good job. He described five hot technology areas, and gave seniors advice on how to choose their first position. His presentation to the crowd of 600 parents and students Oct. 27 was followed by an interactive panel of four Duke engineering seniors who provided their own take on ...
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  • December 1, 2006

    Reassurance, Advice and Laughs at 2006 Engineering Parents' Weekend

    Brook Byers Brook Byers, a venture capitalist and Pratt parent, kicked off the 2006 Parents' Weekend seminar and barbeque by soothing parents' fears that their child wouldn't get a good job. He described five hot technology areas, and gave seniors advice on how to choose their first position. His presentation to the crowd of 600 parents and students Oct. 27 was followed by an interactive panel of four Duke engineering seniors who provided their own take on ...
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  • December 1, 2006

    Pratt's Engineering Management Program Attracts International Fulbright Scholars

    International Fulbrighters: Genoveva Wong (front left), Valerie Speth (front right), Adnan Haider (back left) and Erdem Sahillioglu (back right) Although they come from varied backgrounds hailing from Germany, Panama, Pakistan and Turkey four of this year's Masters of Engineering Management (MEM) class share a common bond: all have traveled from their home countries to the Duke University Pratt School of Engineering with the full support of a Fulbright Scholarship. "When I found out I got the Fulbright, ...
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  • December 1, 2006

    Pratt's Engineering Management Program Attracts International Fulbright Scholars

    International Fulbrighters: Genoveva Wong (front left), Valerie Speth (front right), Adnan Haider (back left) and Erdem Sahillioglu (back right) Although they come from varied backgrounds hailing from Germany, Panama, Pakistan and Turkey four of this year's Masters of Engineering Management (MEM) class share a common bond: all have traveled from their home countries to the Duke University Pratt School of Engineering with the full support of a Fulbright Scholarship. "When I found out I got the Fulbright, ...
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  • November 29, 2006

    Probing Hidden Chemistries with Light

    by Monte Basgall As part of a new computerized approach to chemical analysis, researchers at the Fitzpatrick Institute for Photonics are developing a way to use near-infrared laser beams as probes to measure levels of alcohol in a person's bloodstream. The method could prove to have a number of advantages over conventional breathalyzers, according to Scott McCain, a graduate student working on the project. "Unlike with breathalyzer examinations, with our sensors the subject doesn't have to be awake ...
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  • November 27, 2006

    Cancer Spinoff Company Bags Early Attention in Duke Start-Up Challenge

    A company founded in June 2006 by Assistant Biomedical Engineering (BME) Professor Adam Wax and (BME) Research Scientist William Brown has won the "Most Intriguing Idea" award in the healthcare category of the Phase 1 competition of the Duke Start-Up Challenge. The company is called Oncoscope and its goal is to build an accurate, quick and cost effective optical biopsy system for detecting pre-cancerous cells in epitheal tissues. The initial target is the esophagus. The Oncoscope ...
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  • November 7, 2006

    Common Interests Lured Four Fulbright Scholars to Pratt's Engineering Management Program

    Although they come from varied backgrounds hailing from Germany, Panama, Pakistan and Turkey four of this year's Masters of Engineering Management (MEM) class share a common bond: all have traveled from their home countries to the Duke University Pratt School of Engineering with the full support of a Fulbright Scholarship. "When I found out I got the Fulbright, I was ecstatic," said Adnan Haider from Pakistan, noting that the competitive program draws thousands of applicants in ...
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  • November 6, 2006

    Bohrer Relies on Virtual Forests to Elucidate Real Ones

    With the aid of time spent among simulated trees, Gil Bohrer, a graduate student in civil and environmental engineering from Israel, is getting a better handle on how wind flows through the forest. Inside his virtual world, trees can be moved around or made transparent and air currents of differing temperatures appear as brightly colored, undulating masses. A member of professor Roni Avissar's lab, Bohrer is one of the first at the Pratt School to capitalize ...
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  • November 1, 2006

    Cutler & Madhav win Training Grants

    Two BME graduate students recently received pre-doctoral training grants totaling $90,000 over a three-year period. Spencer J. Cutler received his grant for "Automation and Preclinical Evaluation of a Dedicated Emission Mammotomography System for Fully 3-D Molecular Breast Imaging." Priti Madhav received a grant for "Development and Optimization of a Dedicated, Hybrid Dual-Modality SPECT-CmT System for Improved Breast Lesion Diagnosis." Both are students of Martin Tornai, associate professor of radiology and BME.
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  • November 1, 2006

    Pratt In Focus - Recruitment Event

    More than 185 prospective high school students and family members hailing from Durham to California gathered on Saturday, Oct. 21, at the first "Pratt in Focus" to meet engineering professors and undergraduates and learn more about engineering at Duke. More than 60 Pratt students volunteered their time at the day-long engineering recruiting event by leading tours, staffing tables at the student activities fair, explaining their Pratt Fellows research projects and talking one on one with prospective ...
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  • November 1, 2006

    Pratt In Focus - Recruitment Event

    More than 185 prospective high school students and family members hailing from Durham to California gathered on Saturday, Oct. 21, at the first "Pratt in Focus" to meet engineering professors and undergraduates and learn more about engineering at Duke. More than 60 Pratt students volunteered their time at the day-long engineering recruiting event by leading tours, staffing tables at the student activities fair, explaining their Pratt Fellows research projects and talking one on one with prospective ...
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  • November 1, 2006

    Pratt Alums Took Fast Track to NASCAR

    Ben Atkins advises a driver at the Watkins Glen race track. College put Pratt mechanical engineering alumni Ben Atkins ('02) and Andy Hogg ('03) on the fast track to an engineering career with NASCAR. They are now two of seven engineers working for MB2 Motorsports, a NASCAR team based outside of Charlotte. Atkins, from Abington, Va., and Hogg, from York, Pa., first met through Duke University Motorsports, a student group that designs and builds open wheel, single ...
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  • November 1, 2006

    Pratt Alums Took Fast Track to NASCAR

    Ben Atkins advises a driver at the Watkins Glen race track. College put Pratt mechanical engineering alumni Ben Atkins ('02) and Andy Hogg ('03) on the fast track to an engineering career with NASCAR. They are now two of seven engineers working for MB2 Motorsports, a NASCAR team based outside of Charlotte. Atkins, from Abington, Va., and Hogg, from York, Pa., first met through Duke University Motorsports, a student group that designs and builds open wheel, single ...
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  • November 1, 2006

    The Home Depot Sponsors Duke Smart Home

    Imagine a college dormitory that touts more audiovisual equipment than most theaters, runs on electricity generated by solar panels and is protected with biometric security. This unique living experience will become a reality for 10 students of Duke's Pratt School of Engineering. The university and The Home Depot are partnering to create "The Home Depot smarthome," a residential laboratory where students will research and develop innovative solutions for the home in areas such as security and ...
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  • November 1, 2006

    The Home Depot Sponsors Duke Smart Home

    Imagine a college dormitory that touts more audiovisual equipment than most theaters, runs on electricity generated by solar panels and is protected with biometric security. This unique living experience will become a reality for 10 students of Duke's Pratt School of Engineering. The university and The Home Depot are partnering to create "The Home Depot smarthome," a residential laboratory where students will research and develop innovative solutions for the home in areas such as security and ...
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  • October 3, 2006

    MEMP Students Get Head Start on Career Development

    MEMP students get acquainted through a team-building exercise at an intensive two-day orientation. Students in the Masters of Engineering Management Program (MEMP) are getting a head start in their career development through a series of workshops led in part by Lee Hecht Harrison (LHH), the world's leading career services company. Before classes even started, the students were introduced to the program in an intensive two-day orientation. The new career development program was developed over several months by ...
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  • October 3, 2006

    MEMP Students Get Head Start on Career Development

    MEMP students get acquainted through a team-building exercise at an intensive two-day orientation. Students in the Masters of Engineering Management Program (MEMP) are getting a head start in their career development through a series of workshops led in part by Lee Hecht Harrison (LHH), the world's leading career services company. Before classes even started, the students were introduced to the program in an intensive two-day orientation. The new career development program was developed over several months by ...
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  • October 3, 2006

    BME Succeeds in Recruiting Underrepresented Minorities to Graduate School

    Audrey Ellerbee is a current doctoral student in biomedical engineering whose work aims to capture the 3D dynamics within single cells. The Pratt School of Engineering's biomedical engineering (BME) department has had success in solving one of the most persistent problems in math, science and engineering graduate education: the recruitment and retention of underrepresented minorities (URM) to doctoral programs. Prior to 1995, the school of engineering had granted only one Ph.D. to an African American. By 2006, ...
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  • October 3, 2006

    BME Succeeds in Recruiting Underrepresented Minorities to Graduate School

    Audrey Ellerbee is a current doctoral student in biomedical engineering whose work aims to capture the 3D dynamics within single cells. The Pratt School of Engineering's biomedical engineering (BME) department has had success in solving one of the most persistent problems in math, science and engineering graduate education: the recruitment and retention of underrepresented minorities (URM) to doctoral programs. Prior to 1995, the school of engineering had granted only one Ph.D. to an African American. By 2006, ...
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  • October 3, 2006

    Hip Hop Inspires Kids' Interest in Science

    Rachael Brady, Robi Roberts and Scott Lindroth On Sept. 28, middle school students in two states took part in an experiment combining an artist's images, a rapper's music and the students' movements. The joint interactive performance, called MiX TAPEStry, took place in Duke's Fitzpatrick CIEMAS studio and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Krannert Art Museum. The name of the project plays on the "mix tapes" of hip hop culture and is part of an effort to interest ...
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  • October 3, 2006

    Hip Hop Inspires Kids' Interest in Science

    Rachael Brady, Robi Roberts and Scott Lindroth On Sept. 28, middle school students in two states took part in an experiment combining an artist's images, a rapper's music and the students' movements. The joint interactive performance, called MiX TAPEStry, took place in Duke's Fitzpatrick CIEMAS studio and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Krannert Art Museum. The name of the project plays on the "mix tapes" of hip hop culture and is part of an effort to interest ...
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  • September 1, 2006

    Ness Selected ESPN Academic All-America Team

    Katie Ness, a 2006 graduate of Pratt and a standout swimmer for four years, has been selected to the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America second team. During her years on the Duke swimming and diving program, Ness set six individual school records and is the partial owner of five relay records. An electrical engineering major, Ness finished her career at Duke with a 3.92 grade point average and an ACC Weaver-James-Corrigan Postgraduate Scholarship.
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  • September 1, 2006

    Rising Startup Sets Sights on Diagnostics for Research Animals

    Advanced Liquid Logic's founders got their start in the lab of ECE professor Richard Fair (above). Advanced Liquid Logic, a startup company founded by two Ph.D. graduates from Duke electrical and computer engineering, is growing by leaps and bounds. The company aims to miniaturize and automate clinical and research laboratory tests by taking advantage of the natural surface tension of liquid drops. "Our vision is to make chemical processing as routine and simple as information processing is ...
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  • September 1, 2006

    Rising Startup Sets Sights on Diagnostics for Research Animals

    Advanced Liquid Logic's founders got their start in the lab of ECE professor Richard Fair (above). Advanced Liquid Logic, a startup company founded by two Ph.D. graduates from Duke electrical and computer engineering, is growing by leaps and bounds. The company aims to miniaturize and automate clinical and research laboratory tests by taking advantage of the natural surface tension of liquid drops. "Our vision is to make chemical processing as routine and simple as information processing is ...
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  • August 1, 2006

    Duke Engineering Alum Heads Purdue's Civil Engineering School

    WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. M. Katherine Banks, who received her Ph.D. in civil and environmental engineering from Duke University in 1989, has been named head of Purdue University's School of Civil Engineering. Banks, a Purdue civil engineering professor, assumed her new post on Aug. 1. "Kathy's vision, creativity and energy, combined with a stellar research record, set her apart from the rest of the candidates," said Leah Jamieson, interim dean for the Purdue College of Engineering and ...
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  • July 12, 2006

    Duke Engineering Graduate Student Drowns in New Jersey Swimming Pool

    Ranjith Vasireddy, a Pratt School of Engineering doctoral student from India, drowned July 10 in a swimming pool in Basking Ridge, N.J., where he had a summer internship. Vasireddy, who was 25, had just finished his first year as a Ph.D. student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He was a teaching assistant for Professor Kishor Trivedi. Vasireddy was working at Avaya Labs for the summer. Police in Bernards Township in New Jersey said Vasireddy ...
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  • June 1, 2006

    Students Aim for Smarter Fuel, Smarter Homes

    MEMP student finalists in the Graduate Student Licensing Competition With gasoline prices on the rise, graduate students in the Master of Engineering Management Program are working toward a solution. A business plan they wrote for a novel fuel additive meant to boost gasoline efficiency and reduce tailpipe emissions won them a spot in the final round of a national licensing competition. The glycerin-derived chemical "GTBE" could replace one recently phased out due to problems with water contamination. "We ...
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  • June 1, 2006

    Students Aim for Smarter Fuel, Smarter Homes

    MEMP student finalists in the Graduate Student Licensing Competition With gasoline prices on the rise, graduate students in the Master of Engineering Management Program are working toward a solution. A business plan they wrote for a novel fuel additive meant to boost gasoline efficiency and reduce tailpipe emissions won them a spot in the final round of a national licensing competition. The glycerin-derived chemical "GTBE" could replace one recently phased out due to problems with water contamination. "We ...
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  • June 1, 2006

    Presenting Energy Tech to Nicholas Students

    A new course taught by three mechanical engineers from Duke's Pratt School of Engineering offers graduate students at the Nicholas School of the Environment the chance to bone up on the realities of energy technologies and their environmental implications. The ENVIRON 298.23 course, Energy Technology: Impact on the Environment, covers topics ranging from thermodynamics to the fundamentals of nuclear reactors, solar energy, and hybrid cars. "We are aiming to inform our students people who are likely ...
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  • June 1, 2006

    Presenting Energy Tech to Nicholas Students

    A new course taught by three mechanical engineers from Duke's Pratt School of Engineering offers graduate students at the Nicholas School of the Environment the chance to bone up on the realities of energy technologies and their environmental implications. The ENVIRON 298.23 course, Energy Technology: Impact on the Environment, covers topics ranging from thermodynamics to the fundamentals of nuclear reactors, solar energy, and hybrid cars. "We are aiming to inform our students people who are likely ...
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  • May 1, 2006

    Bouchard & Byram win Whitaker Fellowships

    BME graduate students Richard Bouchard and Brett Byram received Whitaker International Fellowships. Bouchard will be conducting biomedical research in the Netherlands for the next full year while Byram will be conducting research in Denmark. The one-year fellowships include a stipend to cover anticipated living expenses, travel, health insurance, and tuition, if applicable. The goal of the program is to give young biomedical engineers an international outlook.
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  • May 1, 2006

    Sanders wins NDSEG Fellowship

    Jessica Sanders, a CEE graduate student in the Duke Computational Mechanics Laboratory, received a 2006 National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship. Sanders was selected by the DoD High Performance Computing Modernization Program Office from nearly 3,600 applications. The fellowship also covers tuition and fees for three years and provides a stipend totaling $93,000 for three years.
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  • May 1, 2006

    Rigby Wins NSF Fellowship

    CEE graduate student James Robert Rigby won a three-year National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship covering tuition and providing a stipend. Rigby is working with CEE Associate Professor Amilcare Porporato studying the dynamic link between climate and vegetation and what effects changes in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events will have on the productivity and stability of these ecosystems.
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  • May 1, 2006

    Woock wins NSF Fellowship

    John Woock, a biomedical engineering graduate student, has been awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Woock is working with BME Associate Professor Warren Grill on a bladder pacemaker to restore bladder emptying following neurological disease or injury. Specifically, Woock will characterize the bladder response elicited by electrical stimulation of pelvic peripheral nerves in hopes of developing a minimally invasive neural prosthesis capable of restoring urinary function. Grill has accepted an invitation to serve ...
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  • May 1, 2006

    Brown wins NIH NRSA Fellowship

    J. Quincy Brown, a postdoctoral associate working for Ramanujam, has been awarded an NIH NRSA postdoctoral fellowship from the National Cancer Institute for his project entitled "Multi-label molecular FLIM of breast cancer." Mark Dewhirst, professor of radiation oncology, is a co-mentor on the project. The objective of the research is to use fluorescence lifetime imaging as a tool for optical molecular imaging of receptor status and enzyme expression in breast carcinomas.
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  • April 7, 2006

    Corcuera, a Textron Fellow, Gets Taste of Corporate Engineering

    Mariella Corcuera may ultimately pursue a career in medicine or medical devices, but she'll always be an engineer at heart. Through Pratt's Master of Engineering Management Program at Duke, Corcuera got the chance to experience the life of a corporate engineer as a Textron Fellow. In 2004, Textron (http://www.textron.com/index.jsp), a $10 billion dollar multi-industry company, established a Textron Fellowship for Duke graduate women and minorities interested in engineering management. Textron offers the fellows both tuition and ...
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  • April 1, 2006

    BoHu Studies in Switzerland

    Liang BoHu, a graduate student of Tomasz Hueckel's, is currently spending a month at the Swiss Institute of Technology at Lausanne (EPFL) to jointly perform tests on damage to desiccating geomaterials. Hueckel and EPFL's Dr. Lyesse Laloui are engaged in collaborative research on that subject within coordinated projects funded by their respective National Science Foundations.
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  • April 1, 2006

    SEbba wins ACS Poster Prize

    David Sebba, a student in the lab of assistant professor Anne Lazarides, won the Colloid division student poster prize at the American Chemical Society meeting in Atlanta for his poster entitled "Core-satellite nanoassemblies with designed plasmonic properties."
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  • April 1, 2006

    Liu wins DOD Fellowship

    Yunbo Liu, a doctoral student in the lab of associate MEMS professor Pei Zhong received a Predoctoral Traineeship Award from the Department of Defense's Breast Cancer Research Program. The award is for $60,000 over a two-year period. His research project is entitled "A Novel Combination of Thermal Ablation and Heat-inducible Gene Therapy for Breast Cancer Treatment".
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  • April 1, 2006

    Lee wins Biophysical Society Research Award

    Gwangrog Lee, a graduate student in Associate Professor Piotr Marszalek's laboratory (MEMS/CBIMMS) received a Student Research Achievement Award at the 50th Biophysical Society Meeting in Salt Lake City last month. He was honored for his poster presentation entitled "Nanospring behavior of Ankyrin Repeats Studied with Single Molecule AFM."
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  • April 1, 2006

    MEMP Students Create Labs for Saudi Arabian Women Engineering Students

    The Duke MEM student team with Dean Kristina Johnson and Senior Associate Dean Tod Laursen. From left, Srikanth Chunduri, Bansi Kotecha, Rahul Raj Gogna, Anjana Bhagavan, Kristen Yoder, Johnson, Laursen. For college students, work study projects are typically a hum drum but necessary part of financing an education. But five Master of Engineering Management students working on interactive electrical engineering projects got a surprise trip of a lifetime to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from Feb. ...
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  • April 1, 2006

    MEMP Students Create Labs for Saudi Arabian Women Engineering Students

    The Duke MEM student team with Dean Kristina Johnson and Senior Associate Dean Tod Laursen. From left, Srikanth Chunduri, Bansi Kotecha, Rahul Raj Gogna, Anjana Bhagavan, Kristen Yoder, Johnson, Laursen. For college students, work study projects are typically a hum drum but necessary part of financing an education. But five Master of Engineering Management students working on interactive electrical engineering projects got a surprise trip of a lifetime to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from Feb. ...
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  • March 14, 2006

    Ellerbe Aims to Capture 3D Dynamics in Single Cells

    For most doctoral students, the path forward is clear: industry research career or academic research and teaching career. But Audrey Ellerbee, originally from New York, is considering a different path. And that's not at all unusual for her. Ellerbee earned her B.S.E. in electrical engineering from Princeton in 2001. She competed on Princeton's rugby team, and held local and regional leadership roles with the National Society of Black Engineers. After her undergraduate work, Ellerbee was accepted to ...
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  • March 14, 2006

    Far from Native China, Yunbo Liu Finds Focus in Ultrasound

    When Yunbo Liu's parents were growing up, most people in his native China -- his parents included -- did not go to college. Over the past 20 to 30 years, however, much has changed and the pursuit of a college education is now a popular option, said 27-year-old Liu, now in his fifth year as a graduate student in Mechanical Engineering and Materials Sciences at the Pratt School. For him, there was never any doubt about ...
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  • March 14, 2006

    With Creativity, Vincent Mao Advances on Ever Smaller, Faster Computers

    At his high school in Greenville, S.C., Vincent Mao spent his days performing piano concertos. He never expected, just five years after coming to Duke as an undergraduate, to be making strides toward the future of computing. But, now a first-year graduate student in Electrical & Computer Engineering, he says it is in research that he found the balance he had sought all along between his academic and artistic sides. "I had always shifted between academic ...
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  • March 14, 2006

    Scott McCain Aims for Better Blood Alcohol Sensor

    If third-year engineering graduate student Scott McCain gets his way, the fight against drunk driving may soon be waged with a new, non-invasive blood alcohol sensor that could make standard blood or breath sample tests obsolete. The St. Louis native's interdisciplinary research a combination of engineering, physics and computer science aims to build a small and inexpensive optical device capable of using harmless light to pass through skin and directly determine ...
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  • March 14, 2006

    David Williams Finds Solutions by Minding what's Missing

    Solving many real-world problems -- from land mine detection to medical diagnosis -- requires careful consideration of what's missing, according to Ph.D. candidate David Williams, who also completed his undergraduate work at Duke. "My research falls at the intersection of computer science and statistics," said the Shavertown, Pa. native, who works with William H. Younger professor Larry Carin in the electrical and computer engineering (ECE) department. "I focus on incomplete or missing data problems, where the ...
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  • March 1, 2006

    Invention 101

    Donna Cookmeyer, Brook Byers and Rob Valli Technology transfer experts at a panel discussion Feb. 17 urged Duke students and faculty members to speed their research to its potential applications by thinking more like entrepreneurs. Commercialization benefits society by making novel discoveries and technologies available to the public, the group said. The panel featured venture capital investor Brook Byers of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), of Menlo Park, Calif. KPCB partners have supported entrepreneurs in building hundreds ...
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  • March 1, 2006

    Invention 101

    Donna Cookmeyer, Brook Byers and Rob Valli Technology transfer experts at a panel discussion Feb. 17 urged Duke students and faculty members to speed their research to its potential applications by thinking more like entrepreneurs. Commercialization benefits society by making novel discoveries and technologies available to the public, the group said. The panel featured venture capital investor Brook Byers of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), of Menlo Park, Calif. KPCB partners have supported entrepreneurs in building hundreds ...
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  • March 1, 2006

    Students Take on International Outsourcing Debate

    After a slew of late-night phone calls overseas and hours spent slogging through numbers, an international group of Pratt students in the Master of Engineering Management Program has gathered evidence challenging the notion that the U.S. is losing its technological edge to developing nations like China and India. Faculty leader Vivek Wadhwa with the MEMP outsourcing study group. Led by MEMP student and Virginia native Ben Rissing, the group sought to offer a more refined analysis of ...
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  • March 1, 2006

    Students Take on International Outsourcing Debate

    After a slew of late-night phone calls overseas and hours spent slogging through numbers, an international group of Pratt students in the Master of Engineering Management Program has gathered evidence challenging the notion that the U.S. is losing its technological edge to developing nations like China and India. Faculty leader Vivek Wadhwa with the MEMP outsourcing study group. Led by MEMP student and Virginia native Ben Rissing, the group sought to offer a more refined analysis of ...
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  • January 18, 2006

    Finan Wins $10,000 and a Car in Motorola Essay Competition

    John Finan, a graduate student at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering, has won a $10,000 scholarship and new car from Motorola Inc. for an essay proposing a "Mood Phone" that may be able to interpret the mood of the people speaking by analyzing variations in tone and speech patterns. Finan was the grand prize winner Jan. 17 of Motorola's first "MOTOFWRD" competition. He was chosen from a pool of entries representing more than 500 students ...
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  • January 1, 2006

    Mood Phone Concept Wins Motorola Competition

    John Finan, creator of the winning mood phone concept "John Finan, a graduate student at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering, has won a $10,000 scholarship and new car from Motorola Inc. for an essay proposing a "Mood Phone" that may be able to interpret the mood of the people speaking by analyzing variations in tone and speech patterns. Finan was the grand prize winner Jan. 17 of Motorola's first "MOTOFWRD" competition. He was chosen from a ...
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  • January 1, 2006

    Mood Phone Concept Wins Motorola Competition

    John Finan, creator of the winning mood phone concept "John Finan, a graduate student at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering, has won a $10,000 scholarship and new car from Motorola Inc. for an essay proposing a "Mood Phone" that may be able to interpret the mood of the people speaking by analyzing variations in tone and speech patterns. Finan was the grand prize winner Jan. 17 of Motorola's first "MOTOFWRD" competition. He was chosen from a ...
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  • January 1, 2006

    Class Teaches the Engineering of Biology and Different Way to Learn

    Professor David Needham The students in the Pratt School of Engineering course, "Introduction to Biologically Inspired Materials and Materials Systems," seemed more like seasoned professionals than the undergraduates most of them were as they presented the results of their semester's exposure to the engineering of biology. Theirs was a sophisticated show-and-tell, spoken without the aid of notes, on topics as diverse as how the mineralization process creates bones but can also clog arteries, why DNA's structure gives ...
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  • January 1, 2006

    Class Teaches the Engineering of Biology and Different Way to Learn

    Professor David Needham The students in the Pratt School of Engineering course, "Introduction to Biologically Inspired Materials and Materials Systems," seemed more like seasoned professionals than the undergraduates most of them were as they presented the results of their semester's exposure to the engineering of biology. Theirs was a sophisticated show-and-tell, spoken without the aid of notes, on topics as diverse as how the mineralization process creates bones but can also clog arteries, why DNA's structure gives ...
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  • May 15, 2005

    Newly Minted Ph.D. Launches Computational Career

    Written May 2005 A first impression of the soft-spoken Huidi Ji might not immediately reveal the intellectual tenacity of this professional problem solver. Ji is drawn to complicated problems that can only be solved through patient application of complex calculations. Given Ji's heritage as a native of Shanghai, China, it seems fitting that after completing her doctorate in computational mechanics at Duke University, she chose a career as a developer at a company named ABAQUS where she ...
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  • April 15, 2005

    3D Doppler Ultrasound Could Make Diagnostics Safer

    Doctoral candidate Matt Fronheiser wants to lift a heavy weight from doctors' shoulders and cast off the collar around their necks. He's not campaigning for changes to Medicare or lobbying for reduced hospital shifts, however. He's focused on the lead vests and collars doctors wear during fluoroscopy procedures to protect themselves from x-ray exposure.Fluoroscopy, which creates a sort of x-ray movie, helps doctors position diagnostic and therapeutic treatment devices inside their patients. This technique is ...
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  • March 15, 2005

    Desire to Make a Global Impact Drives Lauren Matic

    Through the Master of Engineering Management (MEM) program, Lauren Matic, a native of Kenilworth, Illinois, is crafting a career where she can make a difference in the world.Matic graduated from Duke in May 2004 with a double major in biomedical/electrical engineering and a minor in French. She spent the summer evaluating projection technology to set up a new visualization laboratory and assessing the novelty of new head mounted optical microdisplay system, but her real love ...
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  • March 15, 2005

    Brandon Jones Crafts Career from Life Experiences, Personal Interests

    If he had the chance to give advice, Charlotte, North Carolina native Brandon Jones would tell fellow students to make the most of their time at Duke by getting involved."There is just so much to do here, and I love that you can be interested and involved in many different areas," said Jones, who graduated in 2004 with a B.S. double major in biomedical and electrical engineering, and then entered the Master of Engineering Management ...
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  • March 1, 2005

    Duke and Navy Agree on Master of Engineering Management Enrollment

    Pratt School of Engineering and the U.S. Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program have agreed to establish a partnership that will enable nuclear-trained Navy officers to enroll in Pratt's Master of Engineering Management degree program. The agreement signed Feb. 9 formalizes a cooperative effort that began last semester. Two Navy officers are now students in the Master of Engineering Program, which integrates engineering and business principles to develop future leaders of technology-based organizations. Under the agreement signed by Pratt ...
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  • March 1, 2005

    Duke and Navy Agree on Master of Engineering Management Enrollment

    Pratt School of Engineering and the U.S. Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program have agreed to establish a partnership that will enable nuclear-trained Navy officers to enroll in Pratt's Master of Engineering Management degree program. The agreement signed Feb. 9 formalizes a cooperative effort that began last semester. Two Navy officers are now students in the Master of Engineering Program, which integrates engineering and business principles to develop future leaders of technology-based organizations. Under the agreement signed by Pratt ...
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  • February 1, 2005

    Grad Students Take on Nature in Reality TV Series

    Chasing Nature contestants Matt Johannes and Sophia Santillan in Sydney, Australia. Four Pratt graduate students got a reality check this fall, in more ways than one. The mechanical engineers competed in three episodes of Animal Planet's new reality TV series Chasing Nature, which is set to premier on Dec. 4. Each week, the program challenges a team of four students to design and build a mechanical device that mimics what an animal can do naturally. Selected from ...
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  • February 1, 2005

    Grad Students Take on Nature in Reality TV Series

    Chasing Nature contestants Matt Johannes and Sophia Santillan in Sydney, Australia. Four Pratt graduate students got a reality check this fall, in more ways than one. The mechanical engineers competed in three episodes of Animal Planet's new reality TV series Chasing Nature, which is set to premier on Dec. 4. Each week, the program challenges a team of four students to design and build a mechanical device that mimics what an animal can do naturally. Selected from ...
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  • January 1, 2005

    Program Launched to Help Bring Research Products to Market

    The Pratt School of Engineering, in collaboration with RTI International, has launched a new program designed to identify, evaluate and bring research products to market. Unlike traditional technology transfer processes found at most universities today, the new program, named TechEval, pairs researchers with experienced business leaders and students from the Masters of Engineering Management (MEM) program at Pratt who then evaluate the technology in a practical, real-world environment. Qualified inventions are taken rapidly through the evaluation ...
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  • January 1, 2005

    Program Launched to Help Bring Research Products to Market

    The Pratt School of Engineering, in collaboration with RTI International, has launched a new program designed to identify, evaluate and bring research products to market. Unlike traditional technology transfer processes found at most universities today, the new program, named TechEval, pairs researchers with experienced business leaders and students from the Masters of Engineering Management (MEM) program at Pratt who then evaluate the technology in a practical, real-world environment. Qualified inventions are taken rapidly through the evaluation ...
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  • January 1, 2005

    Pratt Students Demonstrate Light and Optics for Cary Elementary School

    L to R: Cristina Fernandez, Scott McCain, Mohan Shankar, Andrew Portnoy, Evan Cull Five Pratt School of Engineering graduate students demonstrated light and optics for a third grade class during "Science Day" at Weatherstone Elementary School in Cary, N.C. on Jan. 26. It was part of the outreach program of the Duke Chapter of the Optical Society of America. The Duke students, all part of Professor David Brady's Computational Optical Sensor research group in the Fitzpatrick Center ...
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  • January 1, 2005

    Pratt Students Demonstrate Light and Optics for Cary Elementary School

    L to R: Cristina Fernandez, Scott McCain, Mohan Shankar, Andrew Portnoy, Evan Cull Five Pratt School of Engineering graduate students demonstrated light and optics for a third grade class during "Science Day" at Weatherstone Elementary School in Cary, N.C. on Jan. 26. It was part of the outreach program of the Duke Chapter of the Optical Society of America. The Duke students, all part of Professor David Brady's Computational Optical Sensor research group in the Fitzpatrick Center ...
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  • January 1, 2005

    Research Suggests 'Bladder Pacemaker' for Spinal Cord Injury

    Biomedical engineers at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering have demonstrated for the first time that stimulating a specific nerve in the pelvis triggers the process that causes urine to begin flowing out from the bladder, refuting conventional thinking that "bladder emptying" requires signals from the brain. Their research, carried out with animals, could lead to a "bladder pacemaker" to restore bladder control for the more than 200,000 Americans living with spinal cord injury (SCI) or disease-related ...
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  • January 1, 2005

    Research Suggests 'Bladder Pacemaker' for Spinal Cord Injury

    Biomedical engineers at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering have demonstrated for the first time that stimulating a specific nerve in the pelvis triggers the process that causes urine to begin flowing out from the bladder, refuting conventional thinking that "bladder emptying" requires signals from the brain. Their research, carried out with animals, could lead to a "bladder pacemaker" to restore bladder control for the more than 200,000 Americans living with spinal cord injury (SCI) or disease-related ...
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  • November 15, 2004

    Switch in Research Focus Inspires Mechanical Engineer Kurt Wulff

    By Claire Cusick You might think that graduate school is all about specialization continually narrowing your field to study a smaller subject in greater depth. Not so in engineering. Or, at least, not in the case of Kurt Wulff. Wulff, who earned a B.S. in electromechanical engineering from Loras College in Iowa, came to Duke interested in studying more about controls. Controls can be devices, design tweaks or programming that regulate activities keeping everything in balance ...
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  • November 15, 2004

    Rosenfeldt Tackles Water Quality

    By Gabriel Chen Something fishy is happening in the headwaters of one of the nation's most conspicuous rivers the South Branch of the Potomac River. Scientists have discovered that some male bass are producing eggs, which is a decidedly female reproductive function. 'Male fishes producing eggs in the Potomac River' may read like the Nebula prize-winning plot for a science fiction novel, but this phenomenon is becoming a growing cause of worry for environmentalists worldwide. Last year, ...
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  • October 15, 2004

    Cancer Drives Jason Smith's Choice of Research

    By Gabriel Chen Sometimes people come into your life and you know right away that they were meant to be there, to serve some sort of purpose, teach you a lesson or help figure out who you are or who you want to become.Mention the word "cancer" to Jason Smith, a Ph.D. candidate in biomedical engineering at Duke, and it invariably stirs in him this aura of deep reflection. Smith's chemistry teacher in college, mission president ...
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  • October 15, 2004

    Nanolithography Drives Johannes Towards Research Career

    By Claire Cusick When deciding where to go to undergrad, Matt Johannes chose Duke even though it was across the country from his home in Puyallup, Washington. He liked the atmosphere, and saw it as an opportunity to experience life on the east coast. He entered Duke as an undergraduate biomedical engineering major, because he had considered becoming a doctor. But he also thought he might want to design prosthetics, so he thought BME was ...
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  • October 15, 2004

    For Bohrer, Climate Modeling Like Forecasting Grocery Use

    By Claire Cusick Gil Bohrer is pursuing a doctorate in environmental engineering, and working on a climate modeling project in the Panamanian rainforest, but his job has as much to do with atmosphere physics as with ecology. He works on a research team that is studying wind dispersal of seeds in the Panamanian rainforest. He is creating a computer program that will enable a regional meteorological model one that covers hundreds of square kilometers -- ...
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  • September 15, 2004

    Solar Sail for Material Transport in Space

    By Claire Cusick, September 2004 "Imagine a huge kite." That's how Ilinca Stanciulescu starts the conversation about her doctoral research. Her research "focuses on the development and implementation of algorithms for nonlinear analyses in structural and solid mechanics". But let's hear more about that kite. It's actually called a solar sail, and one day it will be used to transport material in space, using for propulsion the photon energy from the sun. Building and testing a solar sail in the ...
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  • September 15, 2004

    Chancey Unravels Mechanics of Neck Muscles

    By Claire Cusick, September 2004 Even though Carol Chancey's field is called biomechanics, it's the mechanics that came first for her. "I'm a traditional mechanical engineer by training," she said, complete with a bachelor's and master's degree in the field from Auburn University. Like many engineers, Carol has always been fascinated by how things work. Growing up on a farm in Ozark, Ala., meant a childhood spent around large machinery that inevitably needed fixing. She watched both her ...
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  • August 15, 2004

    Chance To Build Inspires Kityee Au-Yeung

    By Claire Cusick, August 2004 The best part about graduate school for Kityee Au-Yeung? Building things from scratch."I like the part where you get to make a lot of your own decisions about what to try," she said. Au-Yeung is getting to do just that in her research. She is building a pacemaker-like implant that will help monitor and study atrial fibrillation, a common cardiac disorder. To build it, she has had to study existing literature on ...
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  • June 8, 2004

    Duke Graduate Student Dies in Weekend Car Accident

    DURHAM, N.C. - An electrical engineering graduate student at Duke University died early Monday from injuries sustained in a car accident late Sunday. Zhaochun Xu, 31, was a member of the Fitzpatrick Center for Photonics and Communications, where he worked with professor David Brady. He was scheduled to receive his Ph.D. in May 2005. "Zhaochun was a brilliant signal processor, working on mathematical data analysis for a new kind of optical biomedical sensor to enable in ...
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  • May 1, 2004

    New Photonics Certificate Program

    Engineers are harnessing light to perform useful tasks in ways that we could never have imagined just a few decades ago. Recognizing the limitless future of this new field of photonics, Duke's Graduate School has created a certificate program in photonics at the Pratt School of Engineering. The program is designed to pull together components in different departments and programs and give professional masters and Ph.D. students in the sciences and engineering a broad foundation in ...
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  • May 1, 2004

    New Photonics Certificate Program

    Engineers are harnessing light to perform useful tasks in ways that we could never have imagined just a few decades ago. Recognizing the limitless future of this new field of photonics, Duke's Graduate School has created a certificate program in photonics at the Pratt School of Engineering. The program is designed to pull together components in different departments and programs and give professional masters and Ph.D. students in the sciences and engineering a broad foundation in ...
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  • March 15, 2004

    Ryan Wallace Finds his Niche in Industry

    By David King Ryan Wallace strives to be a leader. As early as high school, Wallace remembers his aspirations to become a leader in the field of engineering. And now at DuPont Cyrel@, Wallace is a leader, with a bright future ahead of him.Wallace joined DuPont Cyrel@ as a part of their Field Engineering Program immediately after completing his Duke Masters of Engineering Management (MEM) degree in May 2002. DuPont's program, designed to shape talented engineers ...
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  • March 15, 2004

    MEMP Prep Launches Career in Automotive Industry for Gonce

    by David King What one word best sums up the results of Andrew Gonce's MEM degree? Acceleration. Not a bad choice for an engineer who spends much of his time working to improve the Ford Mustang. "What I learned in earning my MEM degree helped to accelerate the start of my career," Gonce said, and his achievements certainly support his statement. After completing the MEM degree at Duke, Gonce had several job offers from which to choose, ...
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  • March 15, 2004

    Chem-E to BME - Betre's Path to Graduate School

    For soft-spoken New Yorker Helawe Betre, biomedical engineering research offers just the right amount of predictability vs. surprise to keep him intrigued for a lifetime."Certainly there are frustrations with experiments that don't go as planned or that just puzzle me, but that's the challenge and why I'm in the field," said Helawe, who emigrated to the U.S. from Ethiopia as a teenager. "You think carefully designed experiments are going to produce certain results, and you ...
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  • January 1, 2004

    Engineering Management Masters Accelerates a Career

    By David King What one word best sums up the results of Andrew Gonce's MEM degree? Acceleration. Not a bad choice for an engineer who spends much of his time working to improve the Ford Mustang. "What I learned in earning my MEM degree helped to accelerate the start of my career," Gonce said, and his achievements certainly support his statement. After completing the MEM degree at Duke, Gonce had several job offers from which to choose, ...
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  • January 1, 2004

    Engineering Management Masters Accelerates a Career

    By David King What one word best sums up the results of Andrew Gonce's MEM degree? Acceleration. Not a bad choice for an engineer who spends much of his time working to improve the Ford Mustang. "What I learned in earning my MEM degree helped to accelerate the start of my career," Gonce said, and his achievements certainly support his statement. After completing the MEM degree at Duke, Gonce had several job offers from which to choose, ...
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  • November 1, 2003

    New Training Grant Combines Engineering and Life Sciences

    Engineers and life scientists at Duke University believe that by combining the strengths and insights of their specialties, they can train researchers uniquely qualified to manipulate molecules, cells and tissues to treat human diseases and disorders. "In recent years, there has been a surge in the application of biotechnology to clinical medicine through such fields as tissue engineering, drug delivery, biomaterials, biosenors, genomics and proteomics," said Duke's Farshid Guilak, Ph.D. "At Duke, we have created a ...
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  • October 15, 2003

    Entrepreneurialism Lures Annu Sood to Software Company

    By David King When asked what drew engineer Annu Sood to her job at a software company, she quickly responds, "the company's entrepreneurial spirit." Her answer is not surprising, as Sood herself embodies that spirit, with quick thoughts and a vivaciousness that keeps you scurrying to keep up. She enjoys the new opportunities and new people she encounters each day at her product management job. She doesn't use much of the engineering she learned in her undergraduate ...
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  • October 15, 2003

    Seasoned Engineer Marc Clay Gets Career Boost from MEMP

    By David King For Marc Clay, his MEM degree may have been a long time coming, but the dividends were immediate. "My perspective is a bit different than those graduates who went straight from undergrad to the MEM program," Clay said. Having worked for Los Alamos National Laboratory for twenty years before returning to earn his Masters of Engineering Management degree from Duke, Clay took nothing he learned for granted. "I was a person who had fought and ...
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  • January 16, 2003

    Grant to Pratt to Support New Approach to Understanding Biology Through Engineering

    DURHAM, N.C. -- A center at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering has received a $2.9 million National Science Foundation grant to start a two-year graduate research education curriculum that will teach students how to use engineering principles to explore natural materials and processes. Such research could lead to biologically-based products of societal benefit or to basic laboratory discoveries about living structures and systems. The interdisciplinary Center for Biologically Inspired Materials and Material Systems (CBIMMS) will develop the ...
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  • May 1, 2001

    Boyd Wins Graduate Student Mentoring Award

    BME graduate student Lawrence M. Boyd has been selected to receive one of three Dean's Awards for Excellence in Mentoring. This is the time first time graduate students have been honored for mentoring.
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