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Leading engineering research, education and innovation or your world

PERSPECTIVEVOL. 35, NO. 3 SPRING 2008

INSIDE:

Annual collegegift report

Global lea

dership in engineeringeducation, research, and innovation

SPRING 2009/ Vol. 35, No. 3

College of engineering University o Wisconsin-Madison

In early April, Adam Wilson posted a status update on the social

networking website Twitterjust by thinking about it.

Just 23 characters long, his message, using EEG to send tweet,

demonstrates a natural, manageable way in which locked-in

patients can couple brain-computer interace technologies with

modern communication tools.

Wilson, who earned his PhD in biomedical engineering in May,

is among a growing group o researchers worldwide who aim to

perect a communication system or users whose bodies do not

work, but whose brains unction normally. Among those are people

who have ALS, brainstem stroke or high spinal cord injury.

Some brain-computer interace systems employ an electrode-

studded cap wired to a computer. The electrodes detect electrical

signals in the brainessentially, thoughtsand translate them into

physical actions, such as a cursor motion on a computer screen.We started thinking that moving a cursor on a screen is a good

scientic exercise, says Biomedical Engineering Assistant Proessor

Justin Williams and Wilsons advisor. But when we talk to people

who have locked-in syndrome or a spinal cord injury, their No. 1 concern

is communication.

In collaboration with Research Scientist Gerwin Schalk and colleagues

at the Wadsworth Center in Albany, New York, Williams and Wilson

began developing a simple, elegant communication interace based

on brain activity related to changes in an object on screen.

The interace consists, essentially, o a keyboard displayed on a

computer screen. The way it works is that all the letters come up, and

each one o them fashes individually, says Williams. What your brain

does is, i youre looking at the R on the screen and all the other letters

are fashing, nothing happens. But when the R fashes, your brain says,

Hey, wait a minute. Somethings dierent about what I was just paying

attention to. And you see a momentary change in brain activity.

Wilson, who used the interace to post the Twitter update, likens

it to texting on a cell phone. You might have to press a button ourtimes to get the character you want, he says o texting. So, this can

be a slow process at rst . However, as with texting, users improve

as they practice using the interace. People are able to do up to

10 characters per minute, says Wilson.

A ree service, Twitter has been called a micro-blogging tool. User

updates, called tweets, have a 140-character limita manageable

message length that ts locked-in users capabilities, says Williams.

Tweets are displayed on the users prole page and delivered to

other Twitter users who have signed up to receive them. So, someone

could simply tell amily and riends how they re eeling today, says

Williams. People at the other end can be ollowing their thread and

never know that the person is disabled. That would really be an

enabling type o communication means or those peopleand I

think it would make them eel, in the online world, that theyre not

that much dierent rom everybody else.

Schalk agrees. This is one o the rstand perhaps most useul

integrations o brain-computer interace techniques with Internet

technologies to date, he says.

Implementation o brain-computer interace technologies is still

years down the road, but Wadsworth Center researchers, and others

in Germany, are starting in-home trials. Wilson will begin postdoctoral

research at Wadsworth and plans to include Twitter in the trials.

Williams hopes the Twitter application is the nudge researchers

need to rene development o the in-home technology. A lot o the

things that weve been doing are more scientic exercises, he says.

This is one o the rst examples where weve ound something that

would be immediately useul to a much larger community o people

with neurological decits.

Funding or the research comes rom the National Institutes o Health,

the UW-Madison Institute or Clinical & Translational Research, the UW-

Madison W.H. Coulter Translational Research Partnership in Biomedical

Engineering, and the W isconsin Alumni Research Foundation.

Leading engineering research, education and innovation

To understand riction on a very small scale, a team o UW-Madison engineers had to think big.

Friction is a orce that aects any application where moving parts come into contact; the more

surace contact there is, the stronger the orce. At the nanoscalemere billionths o a meter

riction can wreak havoc on tiny devices made rom only a small number o atoms or molecules. With

their high surace-to-volume ratio, nanomaterials are especially susceptible to the orces o riction.

Yet, researchers have trouble describing riction at such small scales because existing theories are not

consistent with how nanomaterials actually behave. Through computer simulations, the UW-Madison

group demonstrated that riction at the atomic level behaves similarly to riction generated between

large objects. Five hundred years ater Leonardo da Vinci discovered the basic riction laws or large

objects, the team has shown that similar laws apply at the nanoscale.

Models present anew view of

nanoscale friction

Atom-level view of the nanoscale interface between amorphous carbon and diamond.At such a small scale, the suraces are rough, although researchers have been treating them as smooth.

IN THIS ISSUE

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Innovation Day

pp. 6-7

Tweet, tweet: Look, no hands!Researchers use brain interface to post to Twitter

Student Leo Walton wearingthe electrode cap. Adam Wilson(seated in the oreground) andJustin Williams (standing).

Sleep improvementapplication wins at

innovation competition

Clean sweepor UW-Madisonsnowmobile team

Engineering EXPOsparks studentsinterest in science

College o EngineeringGIFT REPORT

(Continued on page 5)


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Setting and maintaining a strategic course is important or all

institutions, and especially or an institution as complex as the

University o Wisconsin-Madison. Given the global economic

turmoil and major societal challenges, UW-Madison must be

orward thinking in how it serves the greater public good.

In her rst year here, Chancellor Carolyn Biddy

Martin has led the university in setting strategic

priorities. A new strategic ramework completed

this spring, For Wisconsin and the World,outlines six core themes that will guide campus

decision-making or the near uture.

In the College o Engineering, this new

strategic plan gives us an opportunity to re-

examine our own priorities and assess the align-

ment with campus goals. I am pleased to report

that the college not only contributes greatly to the

six themes, but in selected places is demonstrating

leadership that is a model or the campus.

One o the top university priorities should come as no surprise:

Provide an exemplary undergraduate education.This has been an

area o intense ocus in the college over the past decade. We have

made major investments to give our students more hands-on,

technology-rich learning experiences. We are increasing the

scientic and engineering depth o the education we oer, while

providing more breadth, obtained by expanding interdisciplinarylearning experiences and oering new certicate programs in

business and the humanities. We are expanding the opportunities

or our students to develop their leadership skills and their innovation

and entrepreneurial capabilities.

These investments are producing a generation o engineers who

are critical thinkers, good communicators, uture leaders and global

citizens equipped to participate in a culturally interconnected world.

We also ground our students in meaningul real-world experience:

More than 800 students participate each year in our highly networked

cooperative and internship programs.

A Message from the Dean

Masters awarded nearly $1.7M from NIH

Biomedical Engineering Assistant Proessor Kristyn Masters has received $1.67 million over ve years rom the National Instituteso Health National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute or her project, Creating engineered models o valvular disease to study

anti-calcic therapies. With Mechanical Engineering Assistant Proessor Kevin Turner and University o Pitt sburgh BiomedicalEngineering Proessor Michael Sacks, Masters will use tissue-engineering techniques to pro duce physiologically relevant in vitromodels o diseased heart valves, and then use these disease models as platorms or testing t herapeutic treatments such asstatin drugs. The researchers hope that the tailored diseased valve environments will oer a controlled and readily availableculture system or studying the eects o various agents on valve unction and elucidating biological mechanisms that contributeto the progression o native valve disease.

Project HealthDesign funding continued

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has approved $5.3 million to continue unding or Project HealthDesign, an initiativedesigned to create a new generation o personal health record systems led by Lillian S. Moehlman-Bascom Proessor o Industrialand Systems Engineering and Nursing Patti Brennan. The grant, which brings total projec t unding to approximately $10 million,will support a program that engages our to six grantee teams to demonstrate how to improve peoples heath by enabling them

to record, interpret and act on health inormation that emerges in the course o their daily living. An import ant component othe new project will be to demonstrate how these observations o daily living can be integrated into the clinical practiceworkfow, helping patients and clinicians best manage chronic illness.

Engineers elected society fellows

Within the past ew months, several College o Engineering aculty were named ellows o societies in their elds:

The American Society o Civil Engineers chose Civil & Environmental Engineering Proessor Teresa Adams or election

to ellow. Adams research interests include inrastructure asset management, geographic inormation systems in trans-portation, location reerencing systems, spatial/temporal data modeling or transportation, and bridge management.

Steenbock Proessor o Chemical and Biological Engineering James Dumesic was among our UW-Madison scholars

elected to the American Academy o Ar ts and Sciences 2009 class o ellows. A member o the National Academyo Engineering, Dumesic is renowned or research in kinetics and catalysis, surace and solid-state chemistry.

Erwin W. Mueller Proessor and Bascom Proessor o Surace Science Max Lagally was elected ellow o theMaterials Research Society. Lagally has conducted groundbreaking research in both new and established areaso surace science.

Biomedical Engineering Proessor and Chair Robert Radwin (also industrial and systems engineering and orthopedicsand rehabilitation) was elected ellow o the American Industrial Hygiene Association. Radwin was re cognized orhis research in occupational biomechanics and ergonomics on musculoskeletal disorders in the workplace.

Engineering Proessional Development (EPD) and Mechanical Engineering Proessor Douglas Reindl was electedellow o the American Society o Heating, Rerigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers. Reindl has contributed to

industrial rerigeration education through a series o proessional practice courses he oers through EPD that ocuson industrial ammonia rerigeration systems.

Industrial and Systems Engineering Proessor Emeritus Stephen Robinson was elected ellow o the Society orIndustrial and Applied Mathematics. A member o the National Academy o Engineering, Robinson is a pioneer odecision science and stochastic optimization.

Engineering Physics and Mathematics Proessor Leslie Smith was named ellow o the American Physical Society.The honor recognizes her important contributions to the understanding o turbulence in engineering and geophysicalfows through theory and numerical simulations.

Paul S. Peercy, Dean

COLLEGE NEWS

PINPOINTOther examples o selected campus priorities where the College

o Engineering excels include:

Living the Wisconsin Idea.The college is home to 16 industrial

consortia that allow our aculty, sta and students to spur

innovation and share expertise with nearly 300 member

companies. These relationships with industry are

making Wisconsin companies more competitive

and helping the state become better prepared to

reap the benets o the knowledge economy.One o our newest corporate partners, Vestas,

illustrates the power and potential o these con-

sortium relationships. The worlds leading wind

energy company chose the college because o its

stellar research program in power electronics and

its network o more than 60 companies in the

Wisconsin Electric Machines & Power Electronics

Consortium. Through this partnership, our students and

aculty are positioned to become major contributors to a

rapidly growing energy generation source (ull story on back page).

Investing in areas o highest research potential.The College o

Engineering continues to strengthen its impressive research

programs and also has orged a strong public-interest research

agenda ocused on national priorities such as energy, healthcare,

transportation inrastructure, nanotechnology and environmental

sustainability. We are breaking down disciplinary boundaries in highereducation. For example, the UW Energy Institute brings together

more than 50 aculty and sta members rom multiple disciplines

to address challenges such as sustainable energy generation,

distribution, consumption, conservation, economics and policy.

The Materials Science Research and Engineering Center and the

Nanoscale Science Engineering Center have ormal research

relationships with more than 60 campus partners.

I am also pleased that UW-Madison is supportive o the

College o Engineering goals, achievements and strategic direction.

This mutual support serves our students, sta and aculty well.

Aligning agreat college

with a great

university

Vaccine-deliverytechnology licensed

FluGen Inc., an emerging leader in development, production and delivery o infuenza

vaccines and related products, announced in late March that it w ill license patentedvaccine-delivery technology developed by Biomedical Engineering ProessorDavid Beebe and colleagues. With unding rom the Department o BiomedicalEngineering W.H. Coulter Foundation Translational Research Partnership award,Beebes team developed the technology, a disposable, palm-sized patch that

adheres to the skin and combines a microfuidic pump and microneedle array todeliver drugs. Based on the technology, Beebe and colleagues ormed the medicaldevice spino company Ratio.

UW-Madison computer scientistelected to national academy

A UW-Madison proessor is among 65 engineers andnine oreign associates elected to the National Academyo Engineering (NAE) in 2009. Gurindar (Guri) Sohi,John P. Morgridge Proessor and E. David Cronon Proessor has been ranked

among the most distinguished engineers in the nation, peer-elected or theirexceptional contributions to engineering research, practice or education.

Sohi joined the UW-Madison aculty in 1985 ater receiving his PhD inelectrical and computer engineering rom the University o Illinois. AtUW-Madison, he holds appointments in both the computer sciences

department, which he chaired rom 2004 to 2008, and the electrical andcomputer engineering department.

His research on high-perormance computer system design has led topapers and patents that have infuenced both research and commercial

microprocessors. In 1987, he published a processor model that has servedas the basis or many commercial microprocessors designed and built since

the mid 1990s. Since then, his research group has made many innovativecontributions that have infuenced the design o commercial microprocessors.The NAE honors his contributions to the design o high-perormance, super-scalar computer architectures through his election to the academy.

I am proud to be a aculty member at Wisconsin, whose environment

allowed me to carry out the work or which this recognition is being given,Sohi says.

In addition to NAE, Sohi is a ellow o the Association or ComputingMachinery (ACM) and IEEE. He received the 1999 ACM SIGARCH Maurice Wilkesaward or seminal contributions in the areas o high issue rate processorsand instruction level parallelism. Founded in 1964, the NAE is a branch o the

National Academies, which also include the National Academy o Sciences,the Institute o Medicine, and the National Research Council. In addition to itsrole as advisor to the ederal government, the NAE also conducts independent

studies to examine important topics in engineering and technology.


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Think o it as the R&D lightning round: A rapid-re exchange o ideas

between University o Wisconsin-Madison researchers and 3M

Corporation R&D proessionals in April oered the chance to spark

new research collaborations.

During an April 22 technology exchange between UW-Madison

and the global technology company, nearly two-dozen UW-Madison

engineers and scientists spent the morning giving 10-minute elevator

pitches on a rich variety o research topics. Following lunch, members

o the 3M team then anned out across campus or individual lab visits,

gathering urther detail on promising research areas.

The novel event is part o a multi-year relationship between 3M and

the College o Engineering, which is one o the companys designated

key schools. About 20 scientists and engineers rom 3M participated

in the exchange.

There is just a antastic overlap between what

youre doing down here and our own research and

development interests at 3M, says Larry Wendling,

(pictured) vice president o 3M corporate research

labs based in St. Paul, Minnesota.Wendling also serves as the corporate liaison or

UW-Madison, which along with the University o

Minnesota is the companys most active academic

partner. Previous technology exchanges have resulted

in a signicant number o 3M Young Faculty Fellows being awarded to

assistant proessors at UWMadison, and sponsored research programs.

The partnership also thrives among 3M employees, where UW-Madison

has more than 320 alumni working within the 3M technical community

alone. Wendling says the success o 3M is driven by its commitment to

strong research and development. The company has developed more

than 55,000 products by ollowing a technology-driven rather than

market-driven innovation model: We develop solutions that are

looking or products that literally didnt exist beore, he says.

Name virtually any leading-edge technology pursuitdrug delivery,

sensors, fexible electronics, alternative energy, microbial detection,

nanoscale materialsand 3M has a research cluster assigned. That

diversity makes relationships with major research universities such as

UW-Madison important to 3M success.

The university oten has the gee-whiz, the eureka! advances,

Wendling said. But they may not have the understanding o what it

will take to turn that discovery into an economically viable commercial

product. You need both sides.

The April 22 presentations, mostly rom COE assistant proessors, had

gee-whiz as a pretty strong common denominator. Some examples:

Biomedical Engineering Assistant Professor Kristyn Masters is

working to move rom passive to bioactive with materials that

better incorporate drugs to treat chronic wounds;

Materials Science & Engineering Assistant Proessor Xudong Wang

described eorts to create nanoscale devices capable o harvesting

and storing energy;

Mechanical Engineering Assistant Professor Frank Pfefferkorn is

working on laser-assisted manuacturing, riction-stir welding andlaser polishing o microdevices;

Electrical & Computer Engineering Assistant Professor Sumar Banerjee

is working on cyber-physical systems, or mobile computer systems

that can interace with the physical world.

While the exchanges give 3M a window into boundary-pushing

science, UW-Madison also sees valuable benets. The exchanges

have led to 3M providing research grants to non-tenured aculty, an

investment during a critical time in a young proessors research career.

The grant winners are invited to 3M headquarters each year and are

assigned mentors with the company.

A 3M graduate ellowship program also supports a number o

graduate students each year. That ellowship program was renewed

again in 2009 or a hal-dozen graduate students.

This is really aimed at making connections between our sta

scientists and the proessors here, said Wendling. This may lead to

unded research projects, but the nice thing is the university approachesthis rom a mature perspective and we do, too. The No. 1 thing is to get

that proessional contact and see where it leads us.

Lawrence Casper, assistant dean or research and technology transer,

organized the campus event, which was the ourth such exchange with

3M this decade. He says the aculty members appreciate seeing where

their work is nding relevance in industry. They can also see the really

sticky problems the company is dealing with, which they might be able

to address with ederal research, he says.

Wendling said the 3M partnership with UW-Madison is about a lot

more than geographic proximity. When I think o UW-Madison, I think

o chemical and materials science and engineering as real strengths.

And that really ts into our sweet spot rom a technology perspective.

Theres also a good cultural match, he adds. The aculty here are

really open and there arent a lot o bureaucratic constraints. Maybe its a

Midwestern thing: We deal openly and honestly and try to nd a win-win.

On April 14, 2009, nearly 50 University o Wisconsin-Madison engineering aculty, sta, students, riendsand amily members gathered or a banquet at the University o Wisconsin Foundation. A celebrationo Grainger Power Engineering Award and Fellowship recipients, the event honored nine electrical andcomputer engineering students who already are making meaningul contributions in their feld.Sponsored by The Grainger Foundation, the awards recognize students or their academic success inthe feld o power engineering. Pictured (back row, rom let): College o Engineering Dean Paul Peercy,Marcus Hammonds, Robert Sandy, Andrew Redon, Adam Anders and Jonathan Lee; (ront row) AdamHughes, Zeb Breuckman, Brenton Smith and Jerey Gobeli.

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Congratulationsto 2009 recipients of prestigious Grainger awards

Faculty and staff receiveuniversity and UW Systemhonors

Electrical and Computer Engineering and Biomedical Engineering Proessor Susan Hagness was awardedthe 2009 Alliant Energy Underkofer Excellence in Teaching Award by the University o Wisconsin System.The award recognizes teaching o outstanding quality that leads to substantial intellectual grow th in

students and is given to instructor s who display an uncommon commitment to teaching and who employ especiallyeective teaching strategies.

The UW-Madison Graduate School and Vilas Trustees have awarded unding t o Biomedical Engineeringand Pharmacy Proessor Weiyuan John Kao through the Vilas Associates program. Kao and his studentswill study white blood cell signaling pathways and how they interact with di erent biomaterials, including

nanomaterials, scaolding materials or tissue regeneration, and material devices or implants such as a pacemaker orhip. They will methodically study the relationship between the material structure and t he mechanisms through which

the white blood cells are being activated. A s a Vilas Associate, Kao will receive some salary support during the summerin 2009 and 2010 and a $12,500 fexible research und each scal year.

College o Engineering Associate Dean or Research and Grainger Proessor o Nuclear Engineering GeraldKulcinski is one o our 2009 UW-Madison Hilldale Award recipients. The awards honor excellence inteaching, research and service. Kulcinski is a leader in studying the economic and environmental issues

o usion power, including examining the impact o usion on the energy marketplace, and his research has includedenergy applications, basic materials research and detailed conceptual design o usion power plants. Early in his career,Kulcinski perormed experiments on radiation damage to materials or the rst walls o usion reactors, which involvedinnovative research on neutron irradiation to steels and on pulsed-irradiation damage to usion rst-wall materials.He also helped initiate and still leads the UW-Madison Fusion Technology Institute eort on the conceptual design o

usion power plants.

Earning the Emil H. Steiger Award, Biomedical Engineering Assistant Proessor Kristyn Masters is among10 UW-Madison aculty to receive 2009 distinguished teaching awards. In 2004, her rst year on campus,Masters attended ve teaching-related workshops, initiated outreach collaboration with a loc al high school,

ormed a collaboration with the Delta Progr am in Research, Teaching and Learning, and developed two new courses.

She developed an interdisciplinary course, Political, Ethical, Social and Global Issues in BME, which oers an issues-basedapproach to learning technical concepts while training students how to be responsible scientists and science-literate

citizens. Masters is a aculty adviser or the Society o Women Engineers chapter and a member o the biomedicalengineering undergraduate curriculum committee.

Chemical and Biological Engineering Proessor Manos Mavrikakis was among nine UW-Madison aculty toreceive a Romnes Faculty Fellowship. Presented by the Graduate School and unded by the Wisconsin Alumni

Research Foundation, the ellowship recognizes recently tenured aculty and provides $50,000 in fexibleresearch unding. He is a world leader in the use o rst-principles electronic structure calculations or developing aundamental understanding o the surace reaction mechanisms and or designing catalytic materials at the atomic scale.

Engineering General Resources Assistant Dean Don Woolston received one o nine 2009 UW-Madison

academic sta excellence awards. Woolston received the Chancellors Award or Excellence in Ser vice to theUniversity or his contributions to the College o Engineering and to the UW-Madison campus. Woolston

leads the sta that provides advising, orientation, academic support, counseling and admissions services or under-graduate students in engineering. His contributions have extended to the broader campus through his role on theAthletic Board, SOAR planning team, Council on Academic Advising, A ssociated Academic Council, Wisconsin Allianceor Minority Progress, and the University Book Store board o trustees. He currently leads a UW System initiative to

enhance access to UW-Madison engineering transer students rom MATC.

College grad programs listed in latest U.S. NewsrankingsSeveral College o Engineering graduate programs are r anked among the nations best in the 2010 edition othe U.S. News and World ReportBest Graduate Schools. Not all programs are ranked every year. The College

o Engineering ranked 16th overall. Program rankings include chemical engineering (tied or th), computerengineering (tied or 12th), environmental engineering (tied or 13th), mechanical engineering (tied or 15th),biomedical/bioengineering (tied or 22nd), civil engineering (17th), electronic/electrical engineering (tied or15th), industrial engineering (10th), materials engineering (tied or 17th) and nuclear engineering (tied or third).

3M-UW technology exchangemines partnership opportunities


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AUW-Madison research team has developed a new method or

using nanoscale silicon that could improve devices that convert

thermal energy into electrical energy.

The team, led by Erwin W. Mueller Proessor and Bascom Proessor

o Surace Science Max Lagally, published its ndings in the March 24

issue o the journal ACS Nano.

Thermoelectric devices can use electricity to cool, or conversely

convert heat to electricity. To improve eciency in tiny thermoelectric

devices, called heterojunctions, researchers build superlattices

alternating thin layers o two dierent semiconductor materials.

Charges in multi-layer heterojunction wires travel through a periodic

electric eld that infuences their motion; however, it is dicult to

create modulation large enough to be eective with traditional

heterojunctions, Lagally says.

The UW-Madison team addressed the problem by creating a

superlattice rom a silicon nanomembrane and cutting it into ribbons.

The researchers can induce localized strain in the silicon, creating an

eective strain wave that causes charges the electric eld in the ribbon

to vary periodically. Essentially were making the equivalent o a

heterojunction superlattice with one material, says Lagally, whose

home department is materials science and engineering. Were

actually doing better with these strained regions than you can do

easily with multiple-chemical-component systems.The strained-silicon superlattices display greater electric eld

modulation than their heterojunction counterparts, so they may

improve silicon thermoelectrics near or above room temperature.

In addition, they are relatively easy to manuacture. Lagally and his

group theorize that their method could apply to any type o semi-

conductor nanomembrane. Its cool in several ways: Its a single

material, the modulation in the electric eld is bigger than what

others can make easily, and it s very straightorward, says Lagally.

Co-authors o the paper include Lagally, UW-Madison postdoctoral

associate Hing-Huang Huang, graduate students Clark Ritz and

Bozidar Novakovic, assistant scientist Frank Flack, associate scientist

Don Savage, Materials Science and Engineering Associate Proessor

Paul Evans, and Electrical and Computer Engineering Assistant

Professor Irena Knezevic, along with Decai Yu, Yu Zhang and

Proessor Feng Liu o the University o Ut ah.

The U.S. Department o Energy, the National Science Foundation

and the Air Force Oce o Scientic Research supported this work.

Silicon superlattices:New waves of thermoelectricity

New airport method takes fight66

Nowak and Parrish developed a new workfow or processing data

rom waveorm lidar, taking into account models or both distortion

and signal characteristics. The approach resulted in a robust, reliable

obstruction mapping method that addresses previous challenges

while simpliying workfow. Parrish applied the new methods to lidarsignals collected around the Madison area with great success. The

two published their results in the May 2009 issue o the Journal o

Surveying Engineering.

This is a huge advance, says Nowak. It totally revolutionizes how

well theyre able to do these automatic airborne surveys o airports.

Parrish estimates a 46-percent decrease in total obstruction survey

completion time and a 38-percent decrease in human labor time,

rom the most recent NGS lidar obstruction survey.

One o the things that makes this interesting is that its an

application, but the basic principles are part o a very important

area o signal processing rom highly distorted, incomplete or noisy

measurements. Lots o signals t this kind o rameworkMRI, or

example, says Nowak. This is a great example o how those ideas

can make a big dierence in practical application.

(Left to right): Photos, discrete lidar and waveorm lidar point-clouds ocommon airport obstructionsa tree(top)and tower(bottom)showingthe achievable point density increase using ull-waveorm data.

Rob Nowak

Max Lagally

Does a tower near an airport need a fashing beacon on top?

What sizes o planes can land on a given airstrip? Where can

a busy airport add a new runway? A new method developed by

UW-Madison engineers could quickly and eciently answer these

questions and others.

Airports need regular area surveys that map possible obstructions

to help plan construction, tree maintenance and runway approach

patterns. Typically, a surveying crew physically takes measurements

on the ground, an expensive and time-consuming process. For his

graduate studies in civil and environmental engineering, Christopher

Parrish chose to investigate another promising method o sur vey:

airborne light detection and ranging or lidar.

Lidar works similar to radar, but uses laser light as its signal. As

a surveying plane fies over the area that ocials want to map, it

sends out a laser pulse. Sensors on the plane detect the signal as the

laser refects o the suraces it encounters. Then, engineers collect

data rom all the beams that scanned a particular point in space and

map all the detected refections in a scatterplot. Ocials can use

the resulting point clouds to determine the shape, size and location

o obstructions.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations National

Geodetic Survey (NGS) has researched lidar or the past decade.

Traditionally, NGS has used discrete data, ocusing on only the initial

return o each laser pulse, or the ront edge o the return signal.Now, systems can digitally acquire and save the entire laser return,

a process known as waveorm lidarParrishs main interest.

Waveorm methods return much more inormation, creating

scatterplots with an average o 252 percent more data points.

However, in processing the ull return signal, traditional methods

require a trade o between resolution and noise. As ltering

methods try to sharpen the signal to pick out individual points o

refection, they also ampliy atmospheric noise, making it dicult

to distinguish genuine signals.

While wrestling with these issues, Parrish sought advice rom

McFarland-Bascom Proessor o Electrical & Computer Engineering

Rob Nowak. An expert in signal processing, Nowak suggested

Parrish try a dierent approach. Traditional methods ocus on what

happened to the signalthe process that distorts it, says Nowak,

but they ignore the physical characteristics o the signal itsel.

Top: A scanning electron microscopy view o ree-standingsilicon ribbons; attached at the ends, they are about 300 nanometers wide and about 20 nanometersthick. Lagallys group grew germanium quantum dots on both the top and bottom suraces o the siliconribbons. The dots organize into a regular lattice and, since they also act as stressors, they create a strain

lattice, as shown in the fnite-element analysis oa local region consisting o two neighboring dots.


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Sangtae Kim, director of the Morgridge Institute for Research, snaps a picture of construction work on the institute

rom the roo o the UW-Madison Computer Sciences and Statistics Building.

Lk m hs, S Km s luld k

sks. H ks h h h ss d, mpl, h

ks h s up.

The thing I remember about the corporate world, especially the

(industrial) pharmaceutical world, is high risk, high reward, says

Kim, the former UW-Madison chemical engineering professor who

was named in all 2008 to lead the Morgridge Institute or Research,

the private side o the Wisconsin Institutes or Discovery (WID). Isaw rsthand the enormous risks associated with drug discovery

and development. Many projects ail.

Kim will certainly draw on his experiences with the likes of Eli Lilly,

Pzer and Parke-Davis, where high-rolling on billion-dollar drugs

was the stu o everyday experience. His latest venture, to be sure,

is also a game o chance: sculpting a program or a private research

institute with aspirations o not just doing groundbreaking research,

but doing it on a continuum that transcends discovery by shepherding

the ruits o the laboratory to the commercial world.

Its a high-risk job, says Carl Gulbrandsen, managing director o

the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), the private,

not-or-prot organization that manages intellectual property on

behal o the university. WARF and alumni John and Tashia Morgridge

are providing the major private unding that makes the new institute

possible. An additional $50 million in state support is directed toward

the public hal o WID. Building something rom a blank slate is not

an easy task, Gulbrandsen notes. But it also is a position o greatopportunity. With the risk comes the potential or very high returns.

Many view KimSang to friends and acquaintancesas the

perect pilot or the Morgridge Institute. Amiable and sot-spoken,

Kim is known for his energy and intellect, his varied occupational

experiences, and vast network o contacts. In short, he seems to

have all the leadership qualities required to weave disparate

academic undertakingscomputational science, engineering and

biologyinto a seamless research tapestry under the Morgridge

Institute banner.

Universities are lled with really smart people. But every once in a

while you encounter someone who is head and shoulders above the

rest, observes Engineering Physics Proessor Greg

Moses, one o the people who recommended

Kim for the job. He brings together all the

dierent pieces. He walks in all these

elds. Any subject you bring up withSang, he seems to know more about it

than anyone else in the room.

Kim is indeed an accomplished

academic. Born in Korea and raised in

Canada, he received his bachelors and masters

degrees rom Caltech simultaneously. Ater obtaining

his PhD rom Princeton in 1983, he began his career at UW-Madison

as an assistant proessor and climbed the ranks to a named

proessorship and chair o what is now the Department o Chemical

and Biological Engineering. As a professor here, Kim became friends

with and established close working ties with ormer chancellor

John Wiley, who at the time was a College o Engineering

administrator and who is now the interim director o the public

Wisconsin Institute or Discovery.

Kim left UW-Madison in 1997 to work for major pharmaceutical

companies and joined the Purdue aculty in 2003. He is a member

o the National Academy o Engineering. His university pedigreegives him the street credentials hell need to engage the UW-Madison

community in ways that match the sweeping vision o the Morgridge

Institute and the larger Wisconsin Institutes or Discovery.

His experiences also include an 18-month stint at the National

Science Foundation, where he led the charge to transorm the

agencys national science and engineering inormation technology

network into an integrated system better suited to the modern

scientic enterprise.

I think were ortunate to have him, says Gulbrandsen. He

has great academic experience. He has government experience.

He has worked in industry.

5

For Kim, calculated riskis all in the game

The team, led by Materials Science & Engineering Assistant Proessor

Izabela Szluarska and including materials science & engineering graduate

student Yifei Mo and Mechanical Engineering Assistant Professor Kevin

Turner, published its ndings in the February 26 issue o the journal Nature.

Current nanoscale riction theories are based on the idea that nanoscale

suraces are smoothyet in reality, the suraces resemble a mountain

range, where each peak corresponds to an atom or a molecule.

The UW-Madison team perormed computer simulations that looked

at nanoscale materials as a collec tion o atoms, monitoring their positions

and interactions throughout the entire sliding process. For the rst time,

we modeled riction at length scales very similar to experiments, while

maintaining atomic resolution and realistic interactions between atoms, say Szluarska.

The team discovered simple laws o nanoscale riction. They ound that riction is proportional to the

number o atoms that interact between two nanoscale suraces. The researchers simulations showed

For now, it is Kims academic experience and his intimate knowledge

o the culture o the big research universityand o W isconsins

research landscape in particularthat may serve him best. Morgridge,

like its sister institute, the public Wisconsin Institute or Discovery,

is intended to be bigger than just a building or a research program.

The intent is to make both institutes integral parts o the abric o

the university.

The biggest challenge in the short term is managing the scientic

community. The institute appearing on the scene as a new opportunity

leads to a lot o expectations, and university and state budgets make

for a very challenging environment, says Kim.

On the opportunity side o the ledger is the

chance to build on an intellectual property

model that is the envy o universities

everywhere: Wisconsin and WARFare viewed as the gold standard or

technology transer. We have an

opportunity to take something thats

already been successul and take it to a

whole new level.

Art Ellis, a ormer UW-Madison chemistry proessor

who is now the vice president or research at the University o

California, San Diego, and who worked with Kim at the National

Science Foundation, says Kim has the background and moxie to

orge a new intellectual model in the Morgridge setting.

Sang has a deep understanding o intellectual property and

technology transer that will help him bridge the proound dier-

ences in academic, government and corporate cultures, Ellis says.

Kim believes the emerging programmatic structure of Morgridge

is the platorm that will help the institute, WARF and the university

more eectively capitalize on scientic discovery. Now, the plan

or Morgridge calls or a central theme o discovery to delivery.The discovery platorm will be built around two research strengths

o UW-Madison, regenerative medicine and virology. The element

of delivery, Kim explains, involves a chain of opportunity from the

point o discovery to application.

Throughout the discovery-to-delivery chain, there are multiple

research opportunities, he notes. The notion o using stem cells

as crucibles or drug discovery, or instance, is one that could be

supported by engineering new nanoscale suraces or culturing cells,

and bioinormatics research to help predict ecacy and saety.

According to Gulbrandsen, Kims six-year tour of duty in the

pharmaceutical industry lends itsel to the research delivery model

that, at the nanoscale, materials in contact behave more like largerough objects rubbing against each other, rather than as two

perectly smooth suraces, as was previously imagined. When

you look at it closely, the surace is made o atoms, so the contact

is actually rough, says Szluarska.

The teams simulation data correlates very well with recorded

experimental datasomething that previous models have ailed

to accomplish. Szluarska hopes to use the simulations as a tool to

understand what mechanisms contribute to riction on both the

nano and macroscale. Nobody is able to predict riction or design

materials with desired riction propertieswe measure a lot o

riction coecients or dierent materials, but its not really clear

how to relate them to the properties o the material, she explains.

The origin o riction is really an open and growing research eld.

The National Science Foundation and the American Chemical

Society Petroleum Research Fund supported the teams research.

envisaged or Morgridge:

Between the orphan drug and

the billion-dollar drug, there are

all these unmet needs, explains

Gulbrandsen. It could be that

universities, or philanthropies,

or new companies ll that void.

It may also be lled by new

kinds o research institutes, like

the Morgridge Institute, which

are led by polymaths like Kim.

Observers agree that Kim is

smart, energetic and creative,

oozing big ideas. They also note

that by nature he is a riendlyand charming individual,

disarming qualities in the

political cauldron o a research

university. He has a very good

manner, says Gulbrandsen.

He knows how to get where

he wants to go without

stepping all over you.

Izabela Szluarska

Nanoscale friction(Continued rom ront page)


6/15

6

6

Convincing people to wake up in the morning and play

a game on a sandy beach with palm trees seems like a

marketable idea, especially i the game helps people

sleep more eectively and stay alert throughout the day.

Thats exactly what student inventors Justin

Beck and Daniel Gartenberg hope is true,

and the judges at the 2009 Innovation Day

competition think theyre on to something.

In February, the pair won the top prizeand $10,000 at the 15th anniversary o the

Schoos Prize or Creativity, an annual UW- Madison

undergraduate invention competition that rewards

innovative and marketable ideas.

Their winning idea, called Proactive Sleep, is a sotware

application or the iPhone and the iPod touch that serves

as a sophisticated alarm clock, waking users during the light

sleep phase o their cycle. In the morning, users play an easy

gamewhich currently is depicted on a beach scenethat tests

alertness. The sotware automatically recongures as it learns the

users unique sleep cycle, ultimately

eliminating morning grogginess

and helping users stay more alert

all day. Beck and Gartenberg plan

to put Proactive Sleep on the

market in the next ew monthsvia the Apple application store.

Proactive Sleep was selected

rom eight inventions developed

by 10 students participating in

Innovation Day, an annual event

hosted on the engineering

campus. Innovation Day eatures

two competitions, the Schoos

Prize or Creativity and the Tong

Prototype Prize. Additionally,

participants can win money or the

best design notebook or delivering the best presentation.

Mechanical engineering student Michael Deau won the top

honor and $2,500 in the Tong Prototype Prize, as well as $1,000 or

the Younkle Best Presentation Award or a new type o sot-drink

vending machine. Dubbed EcoStream, the system will integrate

digital technology with environmental values, allowing people to

reuse plastic or steel bottles and pay or their drinks via Web-based

accounts. Since the competition, he has been speaking with patent

lawyers to move orward with his invention.

Richard Schoos (BSChE 53), the ounder and sponsor o the

Schoos Prize, thinks Proactive Sleep is an interesting idea. The price

theyve designed is low and the number o people who dont sleep

well happens to be high, he says. Well have couple o millionaires

assuming its approved by Apple or sale in the application store.

Based on an algorithm designed by Beck and Gartenberg,

Proactive Sleep calculates the number o sleep cycles a user will go

through during the night. The user tells the application what time

they will go to bed and Proactive Sleep uses the algorithm to gure

out when the user will be in a light sleep stage. The application then

oers a list o optimal wake-up times, and the user picks the time

they want.

In the morning, the alarm goes o and the user plays a simple

game o moving a colored dot onto another colored dot. This game,

which is a validated vigilance task, tests the users alertness and then

recalibrates the algorithm or the next night. Its not one o those

things that is immediate gratication, like eating candy, says Beck,

an electrical and computer engineering senior. Its more like eating

vegetablesit will pay o over time.

The idea or a sleep-related mobile application came to psychology

and neuroscience senior Gartenberg ater he took a neuroscienceclass about the mechanisms o sleep and learned that sleep disorders

are chronically under-diagnosed. Sleep is a growing problem in the

United States, he says. Every generation were sleeping less and less,

and its not healthy to get a poor nights sleep.

Gartenbergs next step was to nd a partner. He met Beck at the

2008 UW-Madison G. Steven Burrill Business Plan Competition, which

rewards student business plans. Both Gartenberg and Beck were

presenting separate proposals, and ater Gartenberg learned about

Becks background in developing mobile applications, he proposed

his idea about sleep and the multidisciplinary team was born.

No one knows how to sleep.

There is no class in college that

teaches you how to sleep, Beck

says. This was an opportunity to

educate people about sleep and

sleep disorders.Gartenberg says the pair, who

are both Innovation Day veterans

(this was Gartenbergs second

entry, while Beck has participated

three years), always kept the

competition in the back o their

minds as they developed Proactive

Sleep. They credit their past

experiences in the competition

or their condence this year.

The competition was an

incentive to put in hours upon hours o work, Gartenberg says. Its a

great experience that builds on itsel. You learn how to develop your

idea and meet people who can help you and have similar interests.

In addition to learning how to develop an idea or Innovation Day,

students also learn the process o building work able prototypes. Tong

Prize winner Deau spent more than 100 hours building his EcoStream

prototype, and he says the experience was very worthwhile.

Learning to prototype rom the ground up is extending what you

learn in school to real-world challenges, says Deau, who also took

ourth place in the Schoos Prize. Prototyping combines problem

solving with an element o creativity and extends your knowledge

base to areas that you never knew existed.

The three winners commitment to innovation and entrepreneurship

is exactly the kind o spirit Schoos hopes Innovation Day attracts.

Creative people in any eld in my opinion live an incredibly good

lie, he says. I youre creative and enjoy what youre doing, you

dont have to worry about nances because they seem to roll in.

His advice to students hoping to ollow in Becks, Gartenbergs and

Deaus ootsteps is to learn, like they did, to recognize opportunities

in solving everyday problems. Learn to be a ree spirit and to at least

partially abandon the ollow-the-herd instinct, he adds.

iPhone sleep improvement application

wins at 2009 innovation competition

6

forCreativity

The frst place winners o $10,000 inthe 2009 Schoos Prize or Creativityare (rom let) Justin Beck and Daniel

Gartenberg. Their winning invention,Proactive Sleepa software applicationor the iPhone and the iPod touchwill help people sleep and wake upmore eectively.

Benjamin ConradSplit Key(Third place/$700, Tong PrototypePrize; and the $1,000 Sorenson Design Notebook Award)

INNOVATION

IN

SPIR

ATION

TO INVENTION

THEUNIVERSITYOF WISCO

NSIN

-MADIS

ONINNOVATION


7/15

7

2009 ScHoofS Prize for creativity winnerS:

fs pl d $10,000Proactive Sleep: For users interested in

improving their sleep, a noninvasive method and device that can

assess and predict the stages o sleep cycles without the nuisance and

cost o directly measuring sleep characteristics when the subject is

asleep. Invented by electrical and computer engineering senior Justin

Beck and psychology and neurobiology senior Daniel Gartenberg.

Sd pl d $7,000Portable Reugee Shelter: A portable,weather-resistant, easily assembled modular emergency shelter that

is large enough to house an entire amily. Invented by electrical and

computer engineering junior Jason Lohr.

thd pl d $4,000EcoStream: A carbonated sot-drink

dispensing system or a vending machine that oers users multiple

payment options and enables them to ll their own reusable containers.

Invented by mechanical engineering senior Michael Deau.

fuh pl d $1,000One-Handed Canoe System: A set o

devices that enables people with disabilities or physical limitations to

paddle a canoe with one arm and carry the canoe more comortably

and easily during a portage. Invented by chemical and biological

engineering senior Andrew Burton.

2009tong PrototyPe Prize winnerS:

fs pl d $2,500EcoStream by Michael Deau.

Scd plc d $1,250Portable Reugee Shelter by Jason Lohr.

thd plc d $700Split Key, a two-piece removable laptop

keyboard that enables users to position right- and let-hand sections

individually or maximum typing comort. Invented by engineering

mechanics and astronautics junior Benjamin Conrad.

yoUnKLe BeSt PreSentation awarD winner:

$1,000Michael Deau (EcoStream).

SorenSon BeSt DeSign noteBooK awarDwinner:

$1,000Benjamin Conrad (Split Key).

7

PRIZE

TONGPROTOTYPE

Michael Deau won frst place and$2,500 in the 2009 Tong PrototypePrize or the prototype o his

invention, EcoStream. His inventionalso won third place and $4,000in the Schoos Prize or Creativityand the $1,000 Younkle BestPresentation Award.

Andrew BurtonOne-handedCanoe System(Fourth place/$1,000,Schoofs Prize for Creativity)

Jason LohrPortable Refugee Shelter(Second place/$2,500, Schoofs Prizefor Creativity; and second place/$1,250, Tong Prototype Prize)

The college would like to thank our distinguished panel o judges:

John Bollinger,proessor emeritus and retired dean; Harry Engstrom,retired partner in the Foley & Lardner LLP Madison ofce ;Jim Frater,

president and partner in Bjorksten/Bit7; andChad Sorenson, president

and co-ounder o Sologear. To read more about our judges, visit

studentservices.engr.wisc.edu/innovation/2009judges.html

Chemical engineering alumnus Richard Schoofs sponsors the Schoos Prize

or Creativity and electrical and computer engineering alumnus Peter P. Tong

sponsors the Tong Prototype Prize through the Tong Family Foundation.

Competition alumnus Matthew Younkle, president o Y Innovation LLC

and president and CTO o Laminar Technologies LLC, sponsors the Younkle

Best Presentation award.

Competition alumnus Chad Sorenson, ounding principal o Sologear

Corp. and ounder o Fluent Systems LLC, sponsors the Sorenson Best Design

Notebook Award.


8/15

8

There is nothing like a b olt o lightning to introduce the world o

engineering to elementary, middle and high school students

especially when the 6-kilowatt generator and Tesla coil that

produced it are controlled and explained by a charismatic electrical

and computer engineering graduate student.

The student, Dan Ludois, was

one o more than 300 university

volunteers or Engineering

EXPO 2009, a biennial eventthat draws thousands o local

students to the College o

Engineering campus. From

April 16-18, more than 5,000

students and community mem-

bers descended on the campus

to explore almost 90 exhibits,

presentations and competitions

by engineering students,

aculty and industry sponsors.

For Mitch Springer, a

mechanical engineering

undergraduate student who

co-organized EXPO along with

engineering mechanics student

Doug Knox, the experience was overwhelmingly exciting. The kidswere so interested, and it was inspiring to see their eyes light up

when you tell and show them about engineering, he says. You

can almost see the moment when they start thinking, Hey, this

engineering thingI think I want to do this!

EXPO organizers strategy or providing that spark o inspiration

was ensuring a broad diversity o exhibits. Every engineering

department was represented, and undergrad and graduate students

displayed research and inventions alongside exhibits rom many

engineering student organizations. Exhibits ranged rom a fight

simulator created by engineering mechanics students to an

autonomous robot that roamed Engineering

Mall as part o the IEEE Robot Team.

EXPO advisor Kathy Prem, senior student

services coordinator or Engineering Career

Services, also credits the volunteers who

ran the individual exhibits or the success o

EXPO. These student exhibitors dedicate anincredible amount o time and eort to EXPO,

during months o preparation, or the duration

o the three-day event, she says.

Civil and environmental engineering student

Samantha Reuter was one o the exhibitors or

the UW-Madison chapter o Engineers Without

Borders. Early in the morning o the rst day o

EXPO, she sat on the grass o Engineering Mall

and hammered holes into a metal grater to make

a potato chipper. She said she was looking

orward to teaching EXPO visitors about the

work her organization does or communities in

developing nations around the world. By the

end o EXPO, Reuters potato chipper created

an orange mound o grated yams, and a panel

8

o aculty and industry judges selected EWB as one o the top student

organization exhibits or their booth on wastewater treatment inEl Salvador. (The Biomedical Engineering Society took the top

organization prize and $800.)

Electrical and computer engineering student Adam Hughes

also won $800 as the best individual undergraduate exhibitor.

He presented his independent study project on vertical axis wind

turbines, which he says may be a low-cost source o energy or poor,

rural communities. He demonstrated a vertical axis turbine and

showed a video o the turbine undergoing tests in a giant wind

tunnel in Engineering Hall.

EXPO is a great event or engineering students not only

because it is a great chance to showcase their ongoing work, but

also because it is an incredible opportunity to interact with the

surrounding community coming rom outside o the walls o the

university, Hughes says, adding that he had the chance to interact

with representatives rom Vestas, the worlds largest wind turbine

manuacturer, as well as armers who host turbines on their land.Hughes was ortunate to have his booth located near one o the

most eye-catching displays. Engineering honor society Tau Beta Pi

constructed a model o the engineering campus entirely out o LEGOs,

and passersby especially enjoyed the LEGO Star Wars charac ters

dueling on top o the model Engineering Research Building.

Biomedical engineering student Emily Malinowski was responsible

or coordinating the student exhibits. She, along with Springer,

Knox and 13 other students on the planning team, spent two years

preparing or this years EXPO. In the end, The whole event held

me in awe, says Springer. All o the work was worth it.

EngineeringEXPO 2009sparks students interestin science

Pencils and paper comprise a student-built timer system that moves a marblerom top to bottom in one minute.

Engineering Mall served as a hub for EXPO activities.

Students play in a cornstarch mix called ooblekto learn about the dierent states o matter.

Students hop across Engineering Mallwith a variety o objects as part o theCross-the-Divide competition.


9/15

9

Clean sweepor UW-Madison snowmobile team

Two UW-Madison student-built snowmobiles swept the 2009

SAE Clean Snowmobile Challenge, winning both comp etition

divisions: the National Science Foundation Award or the

best sled in the zero-emissions division and the International

Snowmobile Manuacturers Association Award or rst place in

the internal-combustion division.

The annual event, hosted each

year by the Keweenaw Research

Center on the Michigan Tech

campus in Houghton, Michigan,

tests teams abilities to operate

a conventional snowmobile on

fex-uel, with varying ratios o

ethanol and gasoline. The sleds

compete or design, noise, emis-

sions, acceleration, handling,

weight, cost and uel e conomy.Although the weather turned

unseasonably warm during the

competition March 16-21, the

UW-Madison snowmobiles

excelled in the less-than-ideal

conditions. The teams plowed

through slush and splashed

through standing water during

the 70-mile endurance event.

With its fex-uel entry, the

Bucky 750 Clean Fuel Sled, the

team fexed its alternative-uels knowledge while posting a new

record or exhaust cleanlinessmore than 15 times cleaner than the

next competitor. The home-grown uel ormula included ethanol

rom United Wisconsin Grain Producers LLC (Friesland) and an exhaust

catalyst system rom W.C. Heraeus GmbH (Milwaukee). Using acontroller and sotware rom Woodwards Mototron Control Solutions

(Oshkosh), the students rened their sled to automatically adjust to

any blend o ethanol while producing virtually no exhaust emissions.

The Wisconsin team also repeated its 2008 victory with

its electric snowmobile, Bucky EV. Ater winning last years

competition, Bucky EV spent the summer at the National Science

Foundation Greenland Research Facility, Summit Station, pulling

equipment in environmentally sensitive areas. Bucky EV cut days

rom most experiments by

eliminating the need to

manually pull equipment

to distant locations.

In all 2008, Bucky EV

traveled to the Alaskan

Federation o Natives Annual

Convention, where it received

a very hospitable welcome.

The remote villages o Alaska

have no roads and use snow

machines as their major ormo transportationalthough

uel costs upwards o $12 a

gallon. On average, a Bucky

EV would save a villager

$50 per week in uel costs.

Weve got lots more miles

on the sled than last year, says

team captain Nick Rakovec.

Real-world testing is a major

part o engineering. You can

have the best design in the

world on a computer, but its a w hole dierent world on the trails.

For the 2009 competition, the team equipped Bucky EV with

a new battery pack and added traction enhancements. The sled

provides a whopping 100 horsepower during acceleration aster

than most o the combustion sleds. For the second year, Bucky EVwon the judges award or best subjective handling.

In addition to winning the overall compe titions, both sleds

earned numerous awards. Among the honors, the Bucky 750 won

The Bucky EV electric snowmobile.(Photos courtesy of Michigan Technological University)

the Land and Sea Award or Best

Perormance and the AVL Award

or Best Emissions, while Bucky

EV took both the Polaris Indus-

tries Award or Best Handling

and the DENSO Corporation

Award or Best Ride, unusual

accomplishments or a battery-

powered sled. In addition, UW-

Madison won the Society o

Automotive Engineers Award or

Best Design in both the internal-

combustion and zero-emissions

categories.

I almost had a heart attack

at the end, says Rakovec. Its

almost too good to be true.The team acknowledges its

major sponsorsPolaris Indus-

tries, United Wisconsin Grain

Producers, Weber Motor AG, and

Woodward-Mototron Control

Solutionswhich allow the

students to apply their engineer-

ing undamentals in a real-world

application.

30-plus medical inventions debut at BME undergrad design competition

O M 1, l 150

bmdl

suds shsd

34 l ds h ddss

md l-ld mdl

hlls. th suds

dlpd h dshuh BMe 201, 301 d

402 d d hm h

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Ds cmp.

Sponsored by electrical and

computer engineering alumnus

Peter Tong and the Tong Family

Foundation, the competition

recognizes the students' eorts

to design and create prototopes

and pursue business opportunities

in biomedical industries.

Award recipients include:

Tong BME R&D Award(ollow-on unding or continued research

and development)Development o a low-cost spirometer

(Jeremy Glynn, Andrew Diaz)

Sphm A phonetics-based augmentative communication

device or children with signicant communication disorders

(Brian Mogen, Erin Devine, Steve Wyche, Prachi Agarwal)

Sophomore honorable mentionA device to reliably collect

broncholaveolar lavage efuent during fexible bronchoscopy

(Laura Zeitler, Elise Larson, Kim Kramer, Ali Johnson)

Junior winnerMRI-compatible olactometer

(Steve Welch, Ryan Kimmel, Kaitlin Brendel, Joe Decker)

Junior honorable mentionHeated diagnostic radiology exam table

(Tyler Vovos, Joel Gaston, Joseph Labuz, Paul Schildgen)

Senior winnerFlow controlled endoscope irrigation pump

(Holly Liske, Claire Flanagan, Laura Piechura, Kellen Sheedy)

Senior honorable mentionDevelopment o an anatomical

model to demonstrate the correct use o emale barriers

(Karen Chen, Rexxi Prasasya, Chou Mai)

Electric Snowmobile Awards

KeweenawResearchCenterDrawBarPullAward

SAEAwardforBestDesign

DensoAwardforBestRide

BestElectricDesignPaper BestElectricOralPresentation

BestElectricAcceleration

BestHandling

NGKSparkPlugs/NTKSensorsColdStartAward

Flex-Fuel Snowmobile Awards

MichiganSnowmobileAssoc.EnduranceAward

PolarisIndustriesAwardforBestHandling

SAEAwardforBestDesign

AVLAwardforBestEmissions

LandandSeaAwardforBestPerformance

BestFlexFuelDesignPaper

BestFlexFuelOralPresentation

NGKSparkPlugs/NTKSensorsColdStartAward


10/15

10

Anderson, adding the project

oered exposure to mechanical,environmental, electrochemical,

construction, and materials

science engineering.

The students experimented

on a yellow 50-cc steel-body

Vespa moped provided at a sub-

stantial discount by Je Dunn,

the owner o Vespa Madison

at Dunns Import in Middleton.

While the bike already averages

90 miles to a gallon o gasoline,

Dunn says even Vespa needs

to do better environmentally,

and he was more than willing

to help the students.

I think what theyre doing is very exciting. I believe wholeheartedly

that its good or Vespa, he says.

The students divided their work into three components: the

electrolysis device, the battery and the engine. For the electrolysis

device, they designed rectangular electrodes to split the water

using carbon plates coated with a nanoparticle thin lm Anderson

developed. They set the plates inside a container called an

electrolyzer, which they positioned near the moped engine beneath

the drivers seat. The electrodes are powered by a charge rom the

mopeds alternator and separate the water into oxygen and hydrogen,

unneling the hydrogen directly to the engines cylinder via a stainless

steel tube.

Once in the engine, the hydrogen produces a more complete

combustion, according to Anderson, which means the engine more

eciently uses the uel.

The electrolyzer system could, in addition to reducing the amount

o gasoline necessary, also reduce mope d emissions. While the

students did not have time to test emissions levels their systemproduced, Anderson anticipates the more complete combustion

caused by hydrogen in the engine would make the moped run

cleaner. From here, the electrolyzer system may benet the

UW-Madison vehicle teams, which requently experiment with

hybrid vehicle technologies. In act, Mechanical Engineering

Faculty Associate Glenn Bower, who oversees the vehicle teams,

oered additional advice and support to the moped project.

Not all college reshmen delve into their majors via practical,

hands-on projects in their rst semester on campus, and the

experience has been valuable or mechanical engineering reshman

Steven Burbach. The project was very cutting-edgewe werent

building things that had already been done, and I really appreciate

Proessor Andersons willingness to trust us with this, he says.

Engineering isnt just sitting at a desk. Its getting out there, tackling

real-world problems.

*

Going green,one mopedat a time

Owning a home was my dream, Tina Bias tells the crowd

assembled in her new living room as she wipes away tears.

As she thanks the dozens o volunteers who made her dream a

reality, her youngest daughter waves enthusiastically at Bucky Badger.

The dedication ceremony on April 19, 2009, was an emotional day

or Bias and volunteers rom the UW-Madison chapter o Habitat

or Humanity, which partnered with Habitat or Humanity o Dane

County and UW Credit Union to build a home or Bias and her ve

children in a Madison suburb.

The rainy weather didnt prevent students and community members

rom gathering to celebrate the conclusion o 1,800 hours o labor

over the past year. The Bias home is a special milestone or Habitat

or Humanity; it is the 150th home built by the organization.

Its amazing to see that all the hard work came together or you

and your wonderul amily, campus chapter president Justin Gerstner,a medical student at UW-Madison, tells Bias. The house is the eighth

one completed by the UW-Madison campus chapter, which coordi-

nates individual volunteers as well as student organizations look ing

to get involved in projects both locally and around the country.

Among the campus chapter members are multiple engineering

students, including Patrick Kieliszewski, a UW-Madison civil and

environmental engineering student, who joined Habitat or Humanity

three years ago.

I think Habitat is a good opportunity to get involved with

something that has personal meaning, he says. Every amily is

really special and every house is a unique experience.

For Kieliszewski, Habitat for Humanity is also a way to use his

engineering education to make a dierence.

As engineers we talk about our responsibility to the community

around us, and this is a great way, a tangible way, or students to

work on something and see it have a direct eect on a real amily,

he says. The personal ace that goes with our work brings home

a lot o what were taught in class.

Thats exactly the kind o sentiment Civil and EnvironmentalEngineering Proessor Jerey Russell hopes students take away

rom their work with Habitat. Russell, who is the aculty adviser

or the campus chapter, says its important or students to learn

rom serving those who are less ortunate.

They get a chance to see rsthand how they can help others

while helping themselves grow and change, Russell says. Their

eorts build a better and more diverse community and society.

Students build 150thHabitat for Humanityhome in Dane County

Members of the UW-Madison Habitat for Humanity chapterpose with the Bias family (and Bucky Badger) in front of the 150th home built by Habitat for Humanity in Dane County.

**Source:vespawa

llpapers.com

AVespa scooter is a scooter with a historyits credited as the

aordable orm o mass transportation that reignited Italyspost-World War II economy. The scooters unique, timeless

design makes it the Rolls Royce o scooters, an heirloom that can

last 20 years in the care o a aithul owner.

Yet, even or a Vespa, theres room or improvement, and 16

UW-Madison engineering students spent all 2008 guring out how to

make the already environmentally riendly Vespa even more green.

While enrolled in Civil and Environmental Enginee ring Proessor

Marc Andersons section o Inter-Engineering 160, Introduction to

Engineering, the students designed, built and tested a hydrogen-

based system that ultimately reduced the amount o gasoline

necessary to run a Vespa moped by 10 percent. The system is

based on electrolysis, the process o splitting water into oxygen

and hydrogen via an electrical charge.

As reshmen, theyre just starting to get used to things, and I

usually pick out projects that are dicult so theyll learn a lot, says


11/15

11

ALUMNI NEWSMaterials Science and Engineering

In February, ty ghd (BS 72, MSEM 74, PhDEM 79) became

sta vice president o industrial technology and intellectual

property or Sonoco Products Co. Gerhardt, who has conducted

scientic research and technology development or 23 years with

Sonoco, will continue to lead the Sonoco industrial products

technology eorts. Additionally, he now manages the company

global intellectual property subsidiary.

Industrial and Systems Engineering

In April, the Sheboygan Press reported thatJulia Spankowski

(BS 05, MS 06) joined Johnsonville Sausage, Sheboygan Falls,

Wisconsin, as a continuous improvement specialist. She and her

husband live in Port Washington, Wisconsin.

focus

ona

lumni

Civil and Environmental Engineering

r Shh (BS 99) has joined KL Engineering, Green Bay,

Wisconsin, as construction manager. Schanhoer has more than

10 years o engineering experience in construction management

and transportation engineering. The Green Bay Press-Gazette

published an announcement o his new position.

Kyv ijd (BS 79), a senior engineer for Milpitas,

Caliornia, or 14 years, became Milpitas chie building ocial

in 2004. Irannejad lives in Danville, Caliornia.

Electrical and Computer Engineering

The Boldt Company, Appleton, Wisconsin, recently promoted

Dd K. Shs (BS 85) to vice president o design services.

Sachs earned a masters degree in mechanical engineering rom

the University o Minnesota in 1989. He has he ld a number o

positions within the Boldt organization since j oining the company

in 1994.

11

January 2009

Cecil Royce (BSEE 50)

Margaret Beman (BSChE 35)

Dean Darrow (BSME 47)

David Wilson (BSME 50)

Edgar Schoenike (BSEE 49)

Peter Zirbel (BSME 74)

Ralph Fredrickson (BSEE 33)

Victor Vacquier (BSEE 27)William Folts (BSCEE,

naval science 48)

Gerald Maechler (BSME 47)

Charles Guthrie (BSME 44)

Robert Ritchart Jr. (BSME 70)

Robert Bolz (BSME 44)

Lawrence Meyer (BSME 39)

James Flaherty (BSME 50)

Jerry Erzen (BSChE 64)

Milton Schroeter (BSCEE 49)

February 2009

Reinold Rickert (BSCEE 50)

Arthur Maas (BSME 39)

Arthur Gilmour (BSEE 41)

Clarence Riederer (BSEE 47)

Walter Wollering (BSMetE 44,

MSEM 60)

Joseph Spradling (BSME 47)

Theodore McLeod (BSEE 59)

Delmar Dhein (BSME 48)

Bernard Koetting (BSEE 51)

Jerey Rothmeier (BSEE 62)

John Keillor Jr. (MSCEE 74)William Lloyd (BSChE 56)

March 2009

James K. Wai (BSEM 94, MSME 98)

Bert Minshall (BSME 59, MSME 60)

Ernest Moldenhauer (BSEE 40)

Eugene Buhmann (BSEE 52)

Kenneth Mallon (BSME 50)

Michael Kolowski (BSME 64)

Harlo Scott (BSME 42)

Theodore Stephenson (BSCEE 59)

Michael Tierney (BSCEE 75)

Lloyd Turner (BSCEE 59)

Ralph Jacobsen (BSME 48)

Rahul Shah (PhDChE 00)

Russell Rill (BSME 48)

Alex Skover (BSME 51)

aPril 2009

Forest Clark (BSME 56)

Nile Sweet (BSME 47)

William Bush (BSCEE 35)

Ralph Toyama (BSChE 60)

Richard Kehr (BSCEE 53)William Kraske (BSChE 44,

MSChE 47)

John Crittenden (BSChE 51)

Wayne Mitchell (BSEE 38,

MSEE 46)

John Wilberg (BSChE 49)

Joseph Jacobs (BSME 41)

John Anderson (BSEE 50)

William Skatrud (BSCEE 74)

Robert Wilson (BSME 43)

James Church (BSEE 49)

Jerome Eggert (BSChE 48)

Daniel Peterson (BSEE 50)

IN MEMORIAM

SEND US YOUR NEWS! E-mail us at: [email protected]

Also, let us know i you and your alma mater are mentioned in the newswell highlight it here.

I youre being interviewed, dont orget to mention that youre a graduate o the

UW-Madison College o Engineering!

ALUMNI NEWS

A proessor emeritus o engineering mechanics

and mathematics, Millard W. Johnson Jr. died

February 20, 2009. He graduated rom Racine

Horlick High School as valedictorian o his class

and served in the U.S. Navy rom 1946 to 1948.

Ater an honorable discharge, he began his under-

graduate education at Carlton College, Northeld,

Minnesota, and earned a bachelors degree in 1952

rom UW-Madison in applied mathematics and mechanics.Johnson earned a PhD in mathematics rom the Massachusetts

Institute of Technology in 1957. He returned to UW- Madison as a

aculty member and spent his career at the university. He was an

expert in continuum mechanics, viscoelasticity, lubrication, theory o

thin bodies, and the mechanics of paper. Known for his expectations

o excellence rom his students, Johnson also took great pride in

their achievements and career accomplishments.

Johnson is survived by his wie o 55 years, Ruth Pugh Giord

Johnson, our children, seven grandchildren, and many other

relatives and riends.

Direct memorial gits to the Millard W. Johnson, Jr. Scholarship

Fund through the secure link at www.engr.wisc.edu/ep/giving

or mail a check(note und #12636553) to the University o Wisconsin

Foundation, U.S. Bank Lockbox, P.O. Box 78807, Milwaukee, WI

53278-0807.

On March 1, B

Mmll became

college assistant

dean or alumni and

corporate relations,

ater having served

as UW-Madison

news manager and

assistant director o University

Communications. I am delighted

to have the opportunity to help

build broader public awareness and

support or a great college, he says.

This is an especially exciting time to

be part o the College o Engineering,

which is transorming the under-

graduate curriculum and taking

new multidisciplinary approaches to

research challenges. I look orward

to nding new opportunities to get

our 40,000-plus alumni involved in

the present and uture direction o

the college.

Mattmiller also was UW-Whitewater

communications director, a science

writer at UW-Madison, and a reporter.

He is a 1986 graduate o the UW-

Madison School o Journalism.

New assistant dean to strengthenties with alumni and industry


12/15

12

focus

onalumni12

What do you most miss about campus?Diversity on campus. Drinking cofee at Union Southand Memorial Union. Enjoying the scenes by the lake.

What was your avorite class?ECE 511, Synchronous Machines with ProessorDonald Novotny. My discussions with him bothproessionally and socially were very enjoyable.

Ayman El-Reaie MSEE 02, PhDEE 05Lead Engineer, GE Global Research CenterNiskayuna, New York

i hs ds

What is one thing every UW student must do?Attend a o otball game and the commencement.Also, walk on the hiking trail by Lake Mendota.

What is the greatest beneft o a UW degree?World-class education as well as learning the truemeaning o diversity. Also the automatic respectyou get everywhere as a UW graduate.

What was your frst job?Lead engineer at GE Global Research Center.

Who or what inspires you?My parents. Hard work, high ethics, riendship.

What are you reading now?A book about psychology.

Whats your proudest UW achievement?Getting my PhD.

Whats your avorite quote?Necessity is the mother o all invention.

What occupies your ree time?My two daughters (ages 4 and 2).

At UW-Madison, I learnedthe true meaning of diversity

That diversity is what he misses most about the UW-Madison campus, along with drinking coee at

the student unions and walking along Lake Mendota.

El-Reaie lives in Niskayuna, New York, but still considers Madison a home. He tries to visit Wisconsin

whenever he can, but his ree time is now lled with the activities o his two daughters, ages 4 and 2.

He taps the university when its time to recruit interns and employees at GE, where Wisconsin graduates

have earned a great reputation. In El-Reaies experience: You get automatic respect everywhere as a

UW-Madison graduate.

What would you be i you hadnt chosenyour current career path?I would have chosen to become a physician.

Whats the best advice youve received?Always stay positive and look at the glass ashal ull.

When robots take over the worldor at least the World Cup

Dennis Hong is likely to be at least partly to blame.

An assistant proessor o mechanical engineering at Virginia

Tech, Hong is in charge o that universitys Robotics & Mechanisms

Lab (RoMeLa). There he advises the team o students who created

DARwIn, the Dynamic Anthropomorphic Robot with Intelligence

that was the United States entry into last years RoboCup, an inter-

national soccer competition or robots. For years, he and his students

have been working to inuse robots with articial intelligence in

ways that are un, challenging and useul. I still cannot orget the

mind-blowing sensation when I rst watched the movie Star Wars,

he says. I was ascinated by R2D2 and C-3PO. Since then, I decided

to become a robot scientist and never changed my mind.

Hongs interests, however, run ar beyond creating me chanical

athletes. Born in California and raised in Seoul, South Korea, Hong

came to UW-Madison to study robotics under Mechanical Engineering

What do you most miss about campus?Babcock ice cream! Orange Custard Chocolate Chip.

What was your avorite class?ME 451, Kinematics and Dynamics o Machine

Systems.I enjoyed it so much, now I teach it(an equivalent course) at Virginia Tech.

What is something every UW student must do?Check out a sailboat rom the Memorial Union ona clear day and sail on beautiul Lake Mendota!I you haven't sailed beore, take a lesson rom theHooer Sailing Club.

Proessor John Uicker. But college lie is about more than research

and academics, and in spite o Hongs American beginnings, he

ound the transition to Wisconsin to be ar rom easy.

When I rst arrived on campus, I had no riends, he says, and

the unexpected cultural dierences were quite a shock to me.

Madison oered a wide variety o activities to bring out previously

hidden acets o Hongs personality. Trips to the Dane County

Farmers Market inspired in him an interest in gourmet cooking,

and the Unions Hooer outdoor adventure group sparked an interest

in sailing, giving him both a physical outlet and a social network.

The Hooer Sailing Club not only helped me realize the joy o

sailing and the opportunity to enjoy the beautiul lakes on campus,

he says, but more than that, it helped me adjust to the new

environment and make a lot o riends.

Under Uickers guidance, Hongs expertise in robotics grew. He

went through graduate studies at Purdue University under one o

Rockem sockem roboticist

Dennis Hong BSME 94Associate Proessor,Virginia TechBlacksburg, Virginia Uickers ormer students, Ray

Cipra (BS 71, MS 72, PhD 78),

beore joining the aculty at

VirginiaTech. There he ounded

RoMeLa, where he guides a team

o 15 graduate students and 30

undergrads through a variety

o robotics research projects.

His lab developed not only thehuman-like DARwIn, but also an

autonomous vehicle called Odin

that took third prize in a Deense

Department competition, and a

three-legged walking robot called

STriDER. RoMeLa is also designing a

whole-skin locomotion mechanism

a robot that would move much

like an amoeba, a useul tool or

search-and-rescue operations as

it would be more capable o

crossing rough and broken

terrain than any current vehicle.

However, Hong says, the chal-

lenges o the lab are secondary

to the pleasures o mentoring

studentsa principle he learned

at UW-Madison. There is nothing

more rewarding than teaching

students to become leaders in

their elds and to become better

engineers to contribute to

society, he says. The Badger

spirit still lives inside me, and I

never orget to be proud as a

UW-Madison graduate.

i hs ds

What is the greatest beneft o a UW degree?The right to proudly put a UW Alumnus / BuckyBadger sticker on the rear window o your car.

What was your frst job?

Managing the network system at the MacintoshComputer Center at Korea University.

What are you reading now?I am reading two books simultaneously:The GodDelusion by Richard Dawkins andThe Languageo God: A Scientist Presents Evidence or Belieby Francis Collins.

Who is your hero? Who or what inspires you?My dad is my hero.

What's on your iPod?Mostly un movie clips o our robots playing

soccer. For music, I use Pandora on my iPhone.

What is your proudest UW achievement?Graduation (with honors).

What's your avorite quote?"The best way to predict the uture is to invent it."And that is wha

perspective spring 2009

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