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Gerald D. HolderU.S. Steel Dean of Engineering

Aaron ConleyExecutive Director of Development and Alumni Relations

Sonia BembicDirector of Marketing & Communications/Editor

Kelly KaufmanCommunications Manager/Editor

Don HendersonDesigner

Chuck Dinsmore Production Coordinator

Aviva SelekmanEditorial Assistant

Niki KapsambelisContributing Writer

Have a comment or story idea for Engineering News? Contact Sonia Bembic at 412-624-2460, or send an e-mail to sbembic@engr.pitt.eduVisit our Web site at: www.engr.pitt.edu

The University of Pittsburgh, as an educational institution and as an employer, values equality of opportunity, human dignity, and racial/ethnic and cultural diversity. Accordingly, the University prohibits and will not engage in discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, sex, age, marital status, familial status, sexual orientation, disability, or status as a disabled veteran or a veteran of the Vietnam era. Further, the University will continue to take affi rmative steps to support and advance these values consistent with the University’s mission. This policy applies to admissions, employment, and access to and treatment in University programs and activities. This is a commitment made by the University and is in accordance with federal, state, and/or local laws and regulations.

For information on University equal opportunity and affi rmative action programs and complaint/grievance procedures, please contact the University of Pittsburgh, Offi ce of Affi rmative Action, William A. Savage, Assistant to the Chancellor and Director of Affi rmative Action (and Title IX and 504, ADA Coordinator), 901 William Pitt Union, Pittsburgh, PA 15260; 412-648-7860.

Published in cooperation with the Department of University Marketing Communications. UMC5319-1205

The provisions of this document are subject to change at any time at the University’s sole discretion. It is intended to serve only as a general source of informa-tion about the University and is in no way intended to state contractual terms.

Features

Old School ........................................... 2

Pitt to Create New RFID Center ............. 5

Reaching our Own Tipping Point ............ 6

Departments

Around the School .............................. 7

Student News .................................. 13

Alumni Profi le Pages ......................... 16

Alumni News .................................... 19

Gerald D. Holder, U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering

On the CoverAdvanced computing technologies have allowed the faculty of the Department of Industrial Engineering to solve complex problems in computational optimization and e-product design. Frank Kremm, systems analyst, peers at one of the 12 servers the department main-tains for advanced computation. Not pictured is Jim Segneff, senior systems analyst, who also maintains the servers. 24

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ood news came to the University of Pittsburgh again this fall with the latest edition of the U.S. News & World Report rankings. Among the variety of lists in this annual report, U.S. News highlights the nation’s “Top 50 Public Universities,” where Pitt has continued a tremendous upward run.

Pitt’s ranking of 19th moves the University past venerable academic powers including Purdue University, Texas A&M University, Rutgers University, and Ohio State University. Schools just ahead of Pitt in this year’s ranking include University of Maryland, University of Texas, and University of Florida.

What’s most impressive is Pitt’s movement over the past fi ve years, leaping from 39th to 19th. While no ranking can fully survey the quality of an institution’s programs, U.S. News does use 10 specifi c criteria in its methodology. These fi gures include such measures as graduation rates, SAT scores, class sizes, acceptance rates for admission, and freshman retention rates. In the School of Engineering, we have shown strong positive gains in many of these cat-egories, which support Pitt’s overall position in the U.S. News rankings.

While the primary audience for U.S. News continues to be prospective students (and their nervous parents), I know alumni occasionally look up Pitt’s standing to see how it fares. The sustained upward momentum of Pitt’s overall institu-tional ranking means all alumni are benefi ting by holding a degree from a University that is becoming widely recog-nized as world class in all respects.

Moving further upward, however, will be a considerable challenge because there is one characteristic of the U.S. News rankings that engineers will understand—inertia. Unlike the weekly sports polls for college football or bas-ketball, one rarely sees many schools moving into or out of the upper reaches of the U.S. News rankings. This is what makes Pitt’s rise so impressive—but also challenging for the future.

A Degree of Value

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G One particular way alumni can have an impact on helping Pitt continue to move forward is simply through making an annual gift. U.S. News uses an “alumni giving rate” as one of the 10 criteria in determining an institution’s ranking. The rationale for using this measure is based on the con-cept of student satisfaction. Alumni who feel they received

a good education, it is believed, will be more inclined to be a donor to their institution. This measure does not consider any minimum gift level, so making an annual gift of any size positively impacts Pitt’s giving rate and, ultimately, its overall ranking.

Pitt’s alumni giving rate in this year’s ranking came in at 16 percent, meaning 84 percent of Pitt alumni did not make a gift to the University in the past year. While this may sound unimpressive, it is compara-ble to other major public universities in Pitt’s peer group. Only a handful (including our friends at Penn State) can boast rates of 20 percent or higher, while it is the private schools that excel in this category. The best overall performer last year was Princeton University, with a remark-able 61 percent alumni giving rate. While the School of Engineering has helped move Pitt’s overall ranking forward through many of the aca-demic measures used by U.S. News, our alumni giving rate is an area where we need to improve.

All Pitt alumni can take great pride in the continued success of their

alma mater while enjoying the benefi ts of holding a degree whose value continues to grow. In the years ahead, I’m hopeful more of our alumni will be active partners in our continued success by supporting the School of Engineering. More support, at any level, from our 25,000 engineering alumni will benefi t the School of Engineering while also helping continue to move Pitt higher in the national rankings and add further value to your degree from the University of Pittsburgh.

Gerald D. HolderU.S. Steel Dean of Engineering

Pitt’s Rank Among the Top 50 Public Universities2006 — 19th2005 — 26th2004 — 27th2003 — 31st2002 — 39th

Pitt’s Rank Among the Top 50 Public Universities2006 — 19th2005 — 26th2004 — 27th2003 — 31st2002 — 39th

Pitt’s Rank among the Top 50 Public Universities 2006 — 19th 2005 — 26th 2004 — 27th 2003 — 31st 2002 — 39th

www.engr.pitt.edu

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Glenn Foglio stands

in front of one of

Graciano’s Corp.

latest projects.

Graciano is the lead

restoration contractor

for the Armstrong

Cork Factory Lofts

in Pittsburgh’s

Strip District.

Glenn Foglio stands

in front of one of

Graciano’s Corp.

latest projects.

Graciano is the lead

restoration contractor

for the Armstrong

Cork Factory Lofts

in Pittsburgh’s

Strip District.

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uring steamy summer months between semesters at Pitt, Glenn Foglio spent eight hours a day jackhammering concrete in O’Hara Garage, gazing across the street at Benedum Hall and dreaming about the day he would return to the engineering classroom.

“I was probably one of the few students who couldn’t wait to get back to school,” laughs Foglio, who earned his undergraduate degree in industrial engineering in 1983 and a master’s degree in the same fi eld in 1990.

But then hard labor literally paved the road to his future occupation. By combining his construction background, contacts, and an education that was as much focused on management as it was on design and production, Foglio has fashioned a career even a highly skilled journeyman would appreciate.

From Jackhammer to BoardroomAs president of Graciano Corp. in O’Hara Township, Pa., Foglio oversees a company that has restored some of the most recognizable structures in the country. Among the projects in its portfolio are New York’s Queensboro Bridge, Rockefeller Center, Shea Stadium, and MetLife Building, not to mention Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Stadium, Carnegie museums, and Western Pennsylvania Hospital.

Founded in 1916, the fi rm has grown from a small fam-ily-owned business for which Italian immigrant Joseph Graciano kept handwritten accounts on a notepad tucked in his shirt pocket to a multimillion-dollar corporation that employs 350–400 people during peak season.

Not coincidentally, Graciano was the company that employed Foglio to work on the O’Hara Garage.

A self-described hometown boy from Avalon, Pa., Foglio grew up around construction. He eventually found summer work as a laborer and masonry mechanic through contacts cultivated by his uncle, a business agent for the local chapter of the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craft Workers.

When the time came for young Foglio to attend college, majoring in engineering was the logical next step.

“I always had an aptitude for math, but my father was in the furniture business for years,” Foglio recalls. “I was probably expected to go into the family business, but my senior year in high school I had a counselor who suggested engineering.”

Foglio entered the University of Pittsburgh with an eye toward pursuing civil engineering because he thought it was the closest match to construction work. But after

reading through the curriculum and asking around, he was drawn to industrial engineering and the way it melded business, computer, and systems skills with traditional engineering and mathematics.

“It was something I fell in love with as soon as I read the course descriptions,” Foglio says.

He particularly enjoyed his classes in operations analysis and project management. By the time he was ready to pur-sue a master’s degree, he considered an MBA, but decided to further his education in industrial engineering instead.

“I really felt when I read the curriculum of the MBA … that I had a lot of those courses as an undergraduate at the engineering school,” he says. “I felt that the IE program prepared you as well—or better, I think—to manage, especially in the construction industry. … The master’s program fi t where I was going—and what I wanted to perform at this company—perfectly.”

A Critical PathWhile Foglio was working summers for Graciano, he made an impression on his employer that would help determine the future path of his career, although he didn’t know it at the time.

“Through all my summers there, I would think to myself, ‘There is so much that I’m studying and so much that I’m learning that I could apply to a company like this,’ ” he says.

He later approached one of the company’s owners, Rick Graciano, who was conducting a worksite inspection at Three Rivers Stadium. Foglio proposed a student senior project that would create a computer program to calculate the critical path of a construction project, from developing a work schedule to completing each task.

Those were the days before prepackaged software, and the simple program impressed the owner. He agreed to let Foglio’s industrial engineering team create the program and jotted down his telephone number.

After graduation, Foglio took a job with the Babcock and Wilcox Tube Co. in Beaver Falls, Pa., before moving on to General Motors in Warren, Ohio. He was sitting at his desk one day when Rick Graciano called to offer him a job as an estimating project manager.

Foglio accepted, eager for a chance to return to his home-town. He eventually worked his way up to vice president and general manager before assuming the president’s position in 1991. As president, he develops the company’s mission and executes business strategies.

It’s a complicated job, having evolved signifi cantly in the more than 20 years since Foglio wrote the computer program.

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Glenn Foglio Engineers a Future for Masterpieces of the Past

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Glenn Foglio stands

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latest projects.

Graciano is the lead

restoration contractor

for the Armstrong

Cork Factory Lofts

in Pittsburgh’s

Strip District.

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Major Expansion of University’s Cutting-Edge RFID Research Could Have Worldwide Business Impact

On September 28, 2005, the School of Engineering formally announced the creation of a Radio Frequency Identifi cation (RFID) Center of Excellence, which will enable the University to expand its already-powerful capabilities in the RFID fi eld and remain a leader in directing RFID research. Pitt’s RFID research program has been identifi ed as among the top three such programs worldwide.

The center will be directed by Marlin H. Mickle, Nickolas A. DeCecco Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Telecommunications, and Industrial Engineering at Pitt.

University Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg, U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering Gerald D. Holder, Mickle, and representatives from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Del Monte Foods, and Supply Systems Inc. (SSI) spoke at the announcement event. Representatives from at least 30 other international, national, and local companies attended.

“The RFID Center, led by Professor Mickle, will be a powerhouse of creativity and technological innovation that should lead to signifi cant improvements in the economy and simplify the lives of consumers,” said Holder. “We’re excited about its huge potential.”

“We’re confi dent that this center will take us the fi nal mile down the road to the widespread use of RFID technology in business and industry,” said Mickle. “It’s not an overstatement to say that when the University of Pittsburgh perfects the technology, we may play a role in changing how the world does business.”

The RFID Center will be hosted in the John A. Swanson Institute for Technical Excellence (SITE) in the University’s School of Engineering. Pitt’s SITE com-prises the John A. Swanson Center for Micro and Nano Systems (SCMNS) and the John A. Swanson Center for Product Innovation (SCPI). The SCMNS, a collaboration between School of Engineering researchers and industry partners, offers opportunities for companies to work with faculty in developing intellectual property, while the SCPI gives companies access to the University’s state-of-the-art product development technology through the consulting services of its students, faculty, and staff.

Pitt to Create New RFID Center

This article originally ran in the October 3, 2005, issue of Pitt Chronicle.

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“I think the specialty construction business, since the early days, has become much more sophisticated as a result of much more complicated specifi cations, purchasing departments, and more careful, sophisticated project management,” Foglio says. “It takes a lot of resources, and a lot of devotion, and a lot of buy-in from the owners and top management to maintain the systems that we operate here.”

For example, Graciano keeps a database of production standards for every restoration work task the company has performed during the past decade. The information helps the company assess and estimate projects more accurately, eliminating much of the guesswork.

Foglio credits brothers David and Rick Graciano with affording him the freedom and fl exibility to lead the company and to implement and constantly improve systems and processes, resulting in continuous growth over the years. Equally valuable, he says, are the sales, project management, and administrative staff who consistently deliver quality services to Graciano’s customers.

Parapets and MarbleAs sophisticated as business is nowadays, good craftsmanship still counts for something. As in the days of Joseph Graciano, today’s restoration work can be a painstaking, delicate journey from start to fi nish. While refurbishing the massive marble-framed clock on Manhattan’s MetLife Tower, a scouting party traveled to Westchester County, N.Y., to search for Tuckahoe marble.

The Tuckahoe quarries had been closed for decades but the search party spotted a station wagon-sized chunk in front of a Texaco station. The boulder was purchased and sliced into segments for the project.

At the Brooklyn Academy of Music, one of Foglio’s favorite projects, Graciano crafts-men restored the landmark Beaux Arts building using nothing but old architectural drawings and photos. The award-winning project involved, among other intricate tasks, the restoration of an 11-foot-high parapet that had been ripped off the build-ing during the 1950s because it was deemed a safety hazard.

And at Rockefeller Center, a Graciano crew is cleaning city dirt and grime from all 12 buildings for the second time in eight years.

“It was a relatively simple project as far as scope of work, but the complexity of scheduling and scaffolding Radio City Music Hall and the GE Buildings, for example, was some of the most challenging work that we’ve done,” explains Foglio.

Real-World EducationBusiness has become infi nitely more sophisticated than Foglio might have imagined in the early 1980s, and he credits his Pitt engineering education with giving him the tools he needs to meet each challenge.

Even as he writes company mission statements, objectives, goals, and strategies, he remembers lessons in management and organization from his classroom days.

“I always felt the people who were teaching me were not just teaching me theory—that they had real-world experiences that they related to what we were learning,” he says. “I knew they knew what they were talking about because they were doing the work themselves.”

To help current School of Engineering students get real-world experience, Foglio is recruiting them to work with Graciano Corp. on their senior projects—the fi rst time the company has done so since he wrote his computer program in 1983.

In the meantime, he hopes his children might follow in his footsteps and attend the School of Engineering. Foglio and his wife, Carol, have three children. Sons Michael and Nicholas are 15 and 12, respectively, and the family recently welcomed Alexander Marcus, born October 19.

When talking to his sons about the future, “I push the IE curriculum real hard,” he laughs.

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Center, and

Waynesburg College.

Center, and Center, and

Waynesburg College.Waynesburg College.

Some of the many

Graciano projects

from top to bottom:

Two Mellon Bank,

Rhode Island State

House, Rockefeller

Center, and

Waynesburg College.

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Harvard 47%Princeton 61%Yale 46%Pennsylvania 40%Duke 45%Stanford 38%Cal Tech 32%MIT 37%Columbia 34%Dartmouth 49%

Source: U.S. News & World Report

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Around the School

Savio L-Y. Woo, William Kepler Whiteford Professor and professor of mechanical engineering, was a theme key-note speaker at the September 2005 IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society assembly in Shanghai, China. Additionally, in July 2005, he was the distinguished guest lecturer at The Herodicus Society, an elite society of only 98 members for orthopedic sports medicine. Woo was the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) Distinguished Lecturer at the 2005 Annual Fall Meeting of BMES in Baltimore, Md., September 28–October 1, and he received the 2005 Robert Henry Thurston Lecture Award from The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). This prestigious award was established in 1925 to honor Thurston, the fi rst ASME president, and is given annually to the person who best encourages stimulating thinking on a subject of broad technical interest to engineers. In November, Woo was honored at the ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition in Orlando, Fla., where he delivered a lecture titled “Going from In Vitro to In Vivo: The New Big Challenges for Ligament and Tendon Biomechanics Research.”

During the past year, Woo also received honorary member-ships to several organizations including the Arthroscopy Association of North America, Society for Tennis Medicine and Science—which named him its fi rst and only honorary member—and The Herodicus Society, which dubbed him “Godfather,” as he was the fi rst PhD to receive this honor.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Acquisition and Assistance Field Branch has approved assistant professor Richard Debski’s contract application Computer Model of the Knee for funding. Professors Woo and Mark Redfern are coinvestigators in this research.

During the joint meeting of the International Society of Biorheology and International Society for Clinical Hemorheology in Chongqing, China, Marina Kameneva was elected a member of the council and treasurer of the International Society for Clinical Hemorheology. Kameneva is research associate professor of surgery and bioengineering and director of the Artifi cial Blood Program at the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

BioengineeringMichael Sacks, William Kepler Whiteford Professor, was awarded a major training grant titled Biomechanics in Regenerative Medicine (BiRM). The goal of the grant is to provide students with a solid foundation for a produc-tive and independent career in biomechanics in regenerative medicine. It includes a highly coordinated and mentored inter-disciplinary training program with a combination of required and elective courses, research activities, and specialized training opportunities. The BiRM Training Program involves faculty from the Departments of Bioengineering, Mechanical Engineering, Orthopaedic Surgery, and Urology, the Division of Vascular Surgery, and the McGowan Institute for

Regenerative Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, as well as from the mechanical and biomedical engineering departments at Carnegie Mellon University. This combina-tion of faculty research interests and course work will pro-vide a rich educational experience as well as more training opportunities for the students than would be possible within the individual departments.

Additionally, Sacks was elected to the College of Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering in 2004 and received the School of Engineering Board of Visitors 2005 Faculty Award.

Associate professor David A. Vorp was also inducted to the College of Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. The major criterion for fellow nomination is a demonstrated record of indi-vidual achievement in research, development, education, manufacturing, public service, technological leadership, and/or clinical practice as they relate to medical and bio-logical engineering. Vorp served as cochair for the Second Frontiers in Biomechanics Symposium—sponsored by the U.S. National Committee on Biomechanics—in Vail, Colo., and was named an editorial consultant for the Journal of Biomechanics.

Postdoctoral research associate Alejandro Nieponice received an American Heart Association postdoctoral fel-lowship award for Development of a Novel Stem Cell-Based Vascular Graft.

Sacks

Woo

Debski

Redfern

hortly after I joined the School of Engineering in 2003, I read the bestselling book The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. Subtitled How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, this book explores a broad range of social movements, fads, and personalities, narrowly examining them all to learn just how these things grew in prominence or popularity. From low-budget movies that became overnight blockbusters to clothing has-beens that were suddenly the fashionable “it” thing again, and even modern outbreaks of disease in urban America, the author did a remarkable job illustrating how a little effort, along with the right combination of coincidence and seren-dipity, can combine to become an unstoppable force.

In many ways, the School of Engineering is seeking to reach its own tipping point. On the academic side, Dean Holder has illustrated in past issues of Engineering News and at many of our public alumni events that we are expe-riencing record performance in nearly every benchmark used to measure our success. Applications for admission have rocketed from 750 in 1996 to more than 2,100 last year. Also on the rise, average SAT scores of newly admitted students are approaching 1300, and more than half the incoming freshmen this year ranked in the top 10 percent of their high school classes. New faculty are being recruited from some of the nation’s most prestigious insti-tutions, and the performance of our faculty, measured by research expenditures they generate from external grants, is at an all-time high.

Reaching a tipping point doesn’t just mean showing improvements in simple benchmarks, however. As Gladwell explains, “Ideas and prod-ucts and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do.” When enough momentum has been generated, the equivalent of an epidemic occurs. And epidemics, as the author notes, “are strongly infl uenced by their situation—by the circumstances and conditions and particu-lars of the environment in which they operate.”

During the past three years, we have imple-mented a number of new initiatives aimed at better informing and engaging all our engi-neering alumni in hopes of starting our own “epidemic.” This effort, modeled heavily on the

activities so many elite private universities provide to their alumni, has included enhancing our Web site, restructur-ing Engineering News to include more personal profi les of alumni, and publishing a newsletter dedicated to informing

alumni about our progress in the capital campaign. We also have implemented new corporate activities includ-ing IntraFirm, which brings Dean Holder and other faculty to companies with large numbers of our alumni for an annual visit, and the Corporate Affi liates Program, which provides opportuni-ties for companies to enhance their visibility and to better recruit our graduates and collaborate with our faculty. We also have implemented more regional receptions in cities with large concentrations of engineering alumni including Houston; Detroit; Boston; Cleveland; Washington, D.C.; and Naples, Fla.

So how will we know when our efforts have helped us reach our own tipping point? Rather than simply measur-ing the total amount of philanthropic support we receive each year, I prefer to measure the proportion of our alumni population that supports the School of Engineering annu-ally, the same way U.S. News & World Report uses this as a criterion in its ranking methodology. During the past few years, this fi gure has held steady around just 10 percent, meaning about 2,500 engineering alumni out of our total population of 25,000 supported the School of Engineering with a gift of any size. When compared to alumni giving rates at elite private schools, including this year’s top 10 national universities ranked by U.S. News, we are clearly not experiencing a positive epidemic.

In The Tipping Point, the author also explains that every action has the potential to set into motion any number of other actions that can have an impact far beyond anyone’s expectation. Think of this in the context of your level of involvement as a graduate of the School of Engineering. If you haven’t been a regular donor and choose to become one this year, your gift, regardless of the amount, may help us meet a critical need that, in turn, propels us further upward in the national academic rankings. Your former classmates also may see your name listed in the annual honor roll of donors, which may convince them to begin supporting the school as well. Multiply this scenario many times to rep-resent the staggering potential of our 25,000 alumni, and you can understand why we’re working so hard to start this epidemic in hopes of reaching our own tipping point.

S hortly after I joined the School of Engineering S hortly after I joined the School of Engineering in 2003, I read the bestselling book S in 2003, I read the bestselling book PointS Point

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Aaron Conley

Reaching Our Own Tipping PointBy Aaron Conley, Executive Director of Development and Alumni Relations

Top 10 % of AlumniUniversities Who Give

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Professor Rory Cooper was chosen to receive the Maxwell J. Schleifer Distinguished Service Award from Exceptional Parent magazine. He was honored for his efforts on behalf of the special needs community at PNC Park on Disability Awareness Night, July 19.

NIH awarded Sanjeev G. Shroff, professor and Gerald McGinnis Chair in Bioengineering, a grant for a cardio-vascular bioengineering training program, a predoctoral program aimed at educating talented students from engineering and other quantitative sciences for careers in biomedical research in the cardiovascular area—a subject in which the University is at the forefront of education and research. The new program is interdisciplinary and interdepartmental in nature. Although the Department of Bioengineering forms the core, the training faculty is drawn from a number of departments: chemical engineering, cell biology and physiology, medicine (cardiology), critical care medicine, pediatrics (cardiology), surgery (cardiothoracic and vascular), and radiology.

Chemical and Petroleum Engineering

Anna C. Balazs was named a Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering by Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg. Balazs received the title for her extraordi-nary levels of achievement within her fi eld. Balazs’ research focuses on theoretical and computer modeling of the thermodynamic and kinetic behavior of polymer

blends and composites. She also investigates the proper-ties of polymers at surfaces and interfaces. Nordenberg made the appointment on the recommendations of School of Engineering Dean Gerald D. Holder and Pitt Provost James V. Maher.

In addition to distinguished professor, Balazs is also Robert Von der Luft Professor and a researcher in the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine and Institute of NanoScience and Engineering.

George E. Klinzing, William Kepler Whiteford Professor and vice provost for research, received the 2005 McAfee Award from the Pittsburgh Chapter of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. Klinzing’s research in the fi eld of solids processing spans the topics of coal cleaning, coal-water slurries, coal dewatering, combustion, and pneu-matic conveying of industrial bulk solids. His distinguished work in pneumatic transport has brought him international recognition and is evidenced by his 13 patents and more than 200 papers in reputable journals.

James Cobb, associate professor emeritus, was named chair of the Fundamentals of Engineering Examination Committee of the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying. This subcommittee pre-pares a portion of the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) Examination for chemical engineering. Many universi-ties are using the FE exam as an exit examination for their bachelor’s degree programs. Additionally, Cobb is serving as vice chair this year of the Career and Education Operating Council (CEOC) of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. CEOC, which is one of three councils reporting to the Board of Directors, has oversight over all the career and education activities of the institute. He will chair the council next year.

Civil and Environmental Engineering

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Offi ce of Fossil Energy awarded Radisav Vidic, professor, a three-year $400,000 grant titled Partitioning and Mechanism Studies for Mercury and Associated Trace Metals within Coal-Fired Processes. The grant is to study chemical reactions and mercury transformation in fl ue gases of coal-fi red

power plants and to develop and validate a mathematical model to predict mercury emissions.The researchers’ main focus is to understand fundamentals of the catalytic reactions that are promoted by solid surfaces pres-ent in coal combustion systems, which can be exploited to develop more effective and effi cient tech-nologies for controlling mercury emissions from coal-fi red power plants. The grant is part of the DOE’s University Coal Research Program, which supports research in clean coal technology.

Luis E. Vallejo, professor, was invited to present a lecture titled “A Network of Fractal Force Chains and Their Effect in Granular Materials under Compression” at Fractals in Engineering V, held in June 2005 in Tours, France. Vallejo’s paper—that he coauthored with PhD students Sebastian Lobo-Guerrero and Zamri Chik—was published as a chapter in Fractals in Engineering: New Trends in Theory and Applications.

Assistant professor Kent Harries was awarded a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Fellowship and spent four weeks in Japan researching performance-based seismic design. For 10 days, Harries and Jerome Lynch (University of Michigan) led the National Science Foundation Natural Hazards Mitigation in Japan Program, accompanying a group of 12 U.S. graduate students and three high school teachers on a whirlwind tour of many of Japan’s largest structural engineering research facilities and a number of signature bridge and building projects. For the remainder of the fellowship, Harries was a visiting researcher at the Earthquake Research Institute at the University of Tokyo. While in Japan, Harries also delivered a number of invited lectures.

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) has provided three separate grants to the department.The fi rst, in the amount of $300,000 is to study sources and remediation strategies for acid rock discharges. Ronald D. Neufeld, professor, will lead a team of graduate students and engineering consultants from GAI Consultants to evaluate low- and high-maintenance (passive and active) technologies for acid rock drainage remediation and propose engineering alternatives and best designs for application to the Jonathan Run area in central Pennsylvania.

The second, in the amount of $194,274, will enable Assistant Professor Julie Vandenbossche to conduct a “Smart Pavement” study.

The third, in the amount of $67,274, is for Harries to develop a testing protocol and test method for the evalua-tion of offset reinforcing bar splice systems.

The department will host the 2005 Landis-Epic Lecture “Bridge Forms and Aesthetics” at 4 p.m. December 1 in the Frick Fine Arts Auditorium and Cloister. Man-Chung Tang, chairman of the board and technical director of T.Y. Lin International in San Francisco, Calif., will deliver a lec-ture on the importance of aesthetics in bridge design and its impact on the environment. The Landis-Epic Lectureship was established in 1991 in honor of Donald H. Landis, president of Epic Metals Corp. and a 1952 civil engineer-ing graduate. An outstanding businessman and engineer, Landis is nationally recognized as a leader in the design and construction of cold-formed steel structures. This distinguished lectureship is possible because of Landis’ generous contribution.

Electrical and Computer Engineering

William E. Stanchina has joined the department as chair. Stanchina comes from HRL Laboratories in Malibu, Calif., where he had worked since 1984, most recently as director of the microelectronics laboratory. Prior to joining HRL, he was an associate professor with tenure in the Electrical Engineering Department at the University of Notre Dame. Stanchina holds a PhD and an MS in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California. He completed his undergraduate work in electri-cal engineering at Notre Dame. He holds 16 patents and has published 70 papers.

The American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) recognized Marwan Simaan, Bell Atlantic Professor, as a fellow during a special awards ceremony at its annual conference. Fellow status is reserved for those who have been members for at least 10 years and have made valu-able contributions to engineering education.

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Kent Harries (left) and

Harris Pradano of Kyoto

University inspect the

massive cables on the

Akashi Kaiko Bridge,

the longest suspension

bridge in the world.

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Radisav Vidic

(front row, left)

and students

Rory Cooper was honored during the July 19 Pittsburgh Pirates game at PNC Park.

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Marlin H. Mickle, Nickolas A. DeCecco Professor, was accepted into the AIDC 100, a nonprofit, self-sustaining, nonpolitical association of automatic identification/data capture (AIDC) professionals. AIDC 100 serves as a technical resource to the industry. Mickle also accepted an invitation to serve on the scientific advisory board of SmartWear Technologies Inc., a company that embeds radio frequency identification (RFID) technology into children’s clothing to help locate lost or kidnapped children. Mickle also has been named to the short list for the Environmental Protection Agency Science Advisory Board Ad Hoc All-Ages Lead Model Review Panel.

In addition, Mickle received a Carnegie Science Center 2005 Award for Excellence. ReedSmith LLP presented him with the Corporate Innovation Award for “empowering students to experience firsthand the process of develop-ing innovation.” Mickle joined Pitt engineering alumni Paul Arch and Keith LeJeune in receiving an Award for Excellence.

During his tenure as interim chair this past year, Patrick Loughlin, professor, recruited two outstanding faculty members who joined the department in the fall of 2005.

Zhi-Hong Mao, assistant professor, earned a PhD in electrical and medical engineering from the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology in 2005. While there, he was involved in research on human sensorimo-tor control and the development of a unified model of basal ganglionic function in both lower-level movement control and higher-level cognitive decision making. Mao also earned a Master of Science (MS) degree in aeronau-tics and astronautics from MIT in 2000 and a Master of Engineering (ME) degree in intelligent control, a Bachelor of Engineering (BE) degree in automatic control (1995), and a Bachelor of Science (BS) degree in mathematics (1995), all from Tsinghua University in China. His research interests include systems and control theory, signal processing, human sensorimotor control, neural plasticity and learning, and robotics.

Minhee Yun joins the department as an assistant pro-fessor after four years on the senior staff in the device application group at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. While at JPL, he led research efforts in the area of device fabrication based on micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) technologies, chemical and biochemical nanowire sensor arrays for life detection on Mars, and biosignature detection of emerging diseases.

He received the JPL Team Award and the JPL Spot Award for his outstanding performance. Yun’s current research interests include the development of nanoelectronic devices for biomedical applications for early detection of disease signatures using nanostructured materials. Yun earned PhD (1998) and MS (1996) degrees in chemi-cal, bio, and materials engineering from Arizona State University and a BS (1992) and MS (1994) in chemical engineering from Chon-buk National University in Korea.

Industrial Engineering In June, faculty from the department took first place in the ASEE Industrial Engineering Division Best Paper Awards. The paper, titled “A Conceptual Model for Integrating and Synthesizing the Industrial Engineering Curriculum,” was written by Bryan A. Norman, associate professor; Mary Besterfield-Sacre, assistant professor; Bopaya Bidanda, Ernest E. Roth Professor and chair; Kim LaScola Needy, associate professor and undergra-duate program director; and Jayant Rajgopal, associate professor and graduate program director. They presented the paper at the 2004 ASEE Annual Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Ming-En “Alex” Wang, assistant professor, participated in a fellowship through NASA Summer Faculty Research Opportunities (NSFRO) during summer 2005. He spent 10 weeks between June and August at the NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, helping to conduct research for the Satellite Networks & Architectures Branch. Wang’s main focus at NASA was to assist the agency with

planning and preflight assessment of Space Wireless Local Area Networks (SWLAN). NASA has been studying commer-cial wireless technologies to develop energy-efficient, reli-able, miniaturized, integrated SWLAN that would facilitate exploration missions on planetary surfaces. NASA’s goal for SWLAN is to address the specific need for short-range, low-power, low-cost, infrastructure-free wireless technolo-gies that can be used at exploration sites to support real-time video, voice, and data communications. During his 10 weeks at NASA, Wang completed a SWLAN architectural study and established a performance assessment meth-odology. Back on campus, he is continuing the SWLAN project and is seeking to secure research funding via the Glenn Research Center and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Materials Science and Engineering

Professors Frederick S. Pettit and Gerald H. Meier presented a two-day course, “Science and Technology of Advanced Metallic Systems for Applications in Intermediate Temperature Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFCs),” September 22–23 at the National Energy Technology Laboratory site in Morgantown, W.Va. Some 30 scientists and engineers attended the course, which was broadcast over the Internet to universities and national and industrial labora-tories across the country.

The course included an introduction to the requirements for materials in SOFCs and associated balance of plant, the metallurgy of Fe and Ni base alloys, oxidation and corrosion of alloys, advanced coatings, and materials selection and design.

Mechanical EngineeringSung Kwon Cho, assistant professor, received a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and a grant from the Swanson Center for Micro and Nano Systems. His paper “Microbubble Manipulation towards Single-Cell Handling Tool” with his student YueJun Zhao was selected in the final list for the best papers in the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics 2005 (RoBio 2005).

Anne M. Robertson, associate professor, gave a keynote lecture, “Multi-Scale Models of Arterial Flow,” at the 2nd International Symposium on Modelling of Physiological Flows in Sesimbra, Portugal. She also gave an invited lecture titled “One Dimensional and Director Theory Models of the Vasculature” at the Politecnico di Milano Technical University in Milano, Italy, on June 29. In addition, Robertson held a European Union Professorship at the Technical University of Lisbon (IST) in Portugal. The Center for Mathematics and Its Applications (CEMAT) and Luso American Foundation (FLAD) provided support for this visiting position.

Giovanni Galdi, professor, and Robertson, together with Professors Rolf Rannacher (University of Heidelberg, Germany) and Stefan Turek (University of Dortmund, Germany), co-organized the Oberwolfach Seminar “Hemodynamical Flows: Aspects of Modeling, Analysis, and Simulation,” which was held in Oberwolfach, Germany, November 20–26. Robertson lectured on modeling blood flow in the arterial system and Galdi delivered a series of lectures dedicated to fluid-particle and fluid-structure interaction. The European Union, the European Science Foundation, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, and the NSF sponsored the seminar.

Galdi also was on the organizing committee and gave a plenary presentation at the International Workshop on Current Topics in Mathematical Fluid Mechanics (MFM 05) in Lisbon, Portugal. The workshop included world leaders in mathematical fluid mechanics from 10 coun-tries and was sponsored by the Portuguese Science Foundation (FCT) and the Center of Applied Mathematics (CEMAF). Galdi also gave a plenary presentation at the Fourth Conference on Applied Mathematics and Scientific Computing held on the island of Brijuni, Croatia. Organized by the University of Zagreb and sponsored by, among others, the Croatian Ministry of Science, Education, and Sports, the conference featured speakers from 12 coun-tries. Galdi also held a European Union Professorship at the Technical University of Lisbon (IST) in Portugal.

Jeffrey S. Vipperman, an associate professor with a joint appointment in the Department of Bioengineering, and Laura A. Schaefer, assistant professor, were awarded an NSF grant for Microfabricated Thermoacoustic Refrigerators for Electronics Cooling Applications.

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Mao Besterfield-Sacre Needy

Robertson Cho

A depiction of NASA’s efforts with integrated Space Wireless Local Area Networks

Schaefer

Bopaya Bidanda and students

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The devices are a novel technology that may allow manufacturers to reliably provide higher levels of heat dissipation from commercial and military electronics.

The NSF recently awarded Qing-Ming Wang, assistant professor, and Minking Chyu, Leighton and Mary Orr Chair in Engineering, a three-year grant of $249,999 to carry out a research project titled Acoustic Wave Gas Sensors for Ultra-High Temperature Environments. The researchers will study the use of novel acoustic-wave devices for ultrahigh-temperature gas sensors and the fundamental issues related to the sensitivity, selectivity, and stability of the devices. The ultimate goal of this research is to develop a fast, simple, inexpensive, and reliable resonator-sensor-based instrument for detecting various gases, including oxygen and nitrogen oxides (NOx) in fossil-fuel power generation systems.

Peyman Givi, William Kepler Whiteford Professor, was awarded the NASA Public Service Medal, which recog-nizes exceptional contributions to NASA’s mission. He received the award “for the development of advanced modeling techniques for designing high-speed and hyper-sonic propulsion systems for aerospace vehicles.” NASA Langley Director Roy D. Bridges presented the medal to Givi in a private ceremony. He was among the fi rst 15 engineering faculty members nationwide to be honored at the White House for receiving the Presidential Faculty Fellowship from President George H.W. Bush.

Michael Lovell (BSME ’89, PhD ’94), associate professor and associate dean for research, received the 2005 Burt L. Newkirk Award for his “signifi -cant contributions to the fi eld of tribology, primarily through publi-cations and services, for nearly 15 years and as an expert in computational and manufac-turing tribology.” The award is given to an individual who has not passed his/her 40th birthday on July 1 of the year in which the award is conferred

and who is an American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) member at the time of nomination. Newkirk made notable achievements in the theory and application of tri-bology during his industrial career and was an outstanding teacher following his retirement from industry.

Institutes and CentersThe Mascaro Sustainability Initiative (MSI) has received a $3.2 million Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) grant from the NSF to train students in sustainable engineering in São Paulo, Brazil. The pro-gram—spearheaded by MSI, the School of Engineering, and the Center for Latin American Studies—will allow engineering doctoral students to journey to São Paulo for eight-month international research rotations at Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP), one of the top engineering schools in South America. “Sustainability is a global issue, and an appropriate technology for the U.S. may not be appropriate for another region,” noted principal investigator Eric Beckman, who is the Bayer Professor of Chemical Engineering at Pitt and codirector of MSI. “At UNICAMP, students will gain an international per-spective on technology and design, with an eye to learning about novel approaches to sustainability developed by our Brazilian colleagues.”

Radio frequency identifi cation (RFID) technology is trans-forming industry, and the University of Pittsburgh is at the cutting edge of its development. On June 28, the Swanson Institute for Technical Excellence hosted the conference RFID: Hype, Reality, and Hope. Leading RFID researcher Marlin H. Mickle, Nickolas A. DeCecco Professor of electri-cal and computer engineering, telecommunications, and industrial engineering at Pitt, was the featured speaker. The conference was presented in cooperation with Mobile Aspects, Inteligistics, FOX IV Technologies, Vocollect, Secure Symbology Inc., E-SOC, GlaxoSmithKline, Paxar Corp., and Del Monte Foods.

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Chyu LovellGivi

Marlin Mickle addresses the media

during a press conference announcing

the RFID Center of Excellence.

ESemester at Sea par-

ticipants (back row, left

to right) Andy Takach,

Kevin Dover, Jim Tarquinio

(Pitt engineering), Jayant

Rajgopal (Pitt industrial

engineering associate pro-

fessor and the program’s

director), Bob Gambino

(Pitt), (front row, l to r)

Amy Nagengast (University

of Wisconsin at Madison),

Stephanie Page (Pitt),

Kristen Landmann (Colo-

rado State University),

Marly Maskill (University

of Michigan), Erika Short

(University of Florida),

Chris Bobish (Pitt), and

Stephanie Carnes (Pitt)

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Student NewsEngineering students from Pitt and other universities took IE 1601: Global Manufacturing Systems Engineering onboard a ship as participants in the Semester at Sea program during the summer. The ship docked in eight countries in Northern Europe: Iceland, Norway, Russia, Poland, Belgium, France, Ireland, and Spain. IE 1601 covers manufacturing in a global context, addressing issues such as outsourcing and global supply chains in addition to tradi-tional manufacturing topics. As part of the class, students toured facilities in several of the countries they visited, including a Caterpillar factory outside of St. Petersburg, Russia; the famous shipyard in Gdansk, Poland; and the European Commission headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. Most of the students, including six business majors, also took IE 1602/BUSQOM 1603: Manufacturing Cultures, a joint engineering and business class. The program was led by Jayant Rajgopal, associate professor of industrial engineering.

Alexis Wickwire, a Musculoskeletal Research Center (MSRC) graduate student, received the Rita Schaffer Undergraduate Award from the University of Pittsburgh chapter of the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES). This award is in honor of her outstanding leadership and service to BMES.

Matt Fisher, also an MSRC graduate student, was appointed as a BiRM (Biomechanics in Regenerative

Medicine Training Program) Fellow. This is a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded fellowship that will sup-port him during his fi rst two years of graduate school. Fisher’s research will focus on using functional tissue engineering techniques to improve the healing of the patel-lar tendon after injury. Fisher earned a BS in biomedical engineering from Columbia University and plans to obtain his PhD in bioengineering at Pitt.

J. Scott VanEpps (BSChE ’01), a PhD candidate working in David Vorp’s lab in the Department of Bioengineering, was awarded a $5,000 postgraduate scholarship from the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). As an undergraduate, VanEpps was a member of the Pitt men’s swim team. He received the University of Pittsburgh Blue-Gold Award and was an NCAA Academic All-America selec-tion, a GTE All-Academic First Team selection, and Male Big East Scholar Athlete of the Year. Having earned dual BS degrees in molecular biology and chemical engineering, VanEpps is now pursuing both an MD and a PhD in bioengi-neering through Pitt’s Medical Scientist Training Program.

George Engelmayr was a fi nalist in the cells and tis-sue engineering category of the PhD Student Paper Competition and Poster Presentation at the 2005 Summer Bioengineering Conference in Vail, Colo. Engelmayr is com-pleting his PhD in bioengineering in Michael Sacks’ lab.

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Bioengineering graduate student Zhijie Ding attended the 2005 American Society of Cell Biology Summer Meeting in Seattle, Wash. He presented a paper titled “Effects of Silencing Profi lin on Endothelial Cytoskeleton and Migration.” Ding is conducting this work in Partha Roy’s lab.

Bioengineering PhD candidate David Merryman received an American Heart Association Predoctoral Fellowship for his project titled Effects of Local Stress on Aortic Valve Interstitial Cell Phenotype and Resulting Synthetic Function. His application scored a remarkable 0.63 percent. The percentile rank is based on a 0.01–99.99 percent ranking, with the most meritoriously ranked application corresponding to the lowest percentile rank. Merryman will conduct this project in Sacks’ lab.

Bioengineering graduate student Brooke Coley’s NIH F31 predoctoral fellowship application, titled Adaptive Postural Strategies—Impact of Aging, has been approved for funding effective immediately. She is the fi fth bioengineering graduate student at Pitt to receive a prestigious F31 award through the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Awards for Individual Predoctoral Fellows program. Rakié Cham is Coley’s academic advisor and research mentor.

The University of Pittsburgh was among 14 institutional award recipients nationwide for the Beckman Scholars Program. Bioengineering student Michael Anderson was named a Beckman Scholar and received funding for 2005–06. The program recognizes outstanding under-graduate students in chemistry and biological sciences research, and its purpose is to stimulate, encourage, and support research activities by these students.

Students in the Department of Industrial Engineering were credited with assisting MEDRAD, a Pittsburgh-based medical device manufacturer, in winning the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. The July 2005 issue of IIE Solutions featured MEDRAD and its successful

conversion to lean manufacturing, including how Pitt indus-trial engineering students and faculty were instrumental in the transition. The transition was a signifi cant factor in MEDRAD’s receiving the Malcolm Baldrige Award. For more information, read the full article in IIE Solutions or contact Bryan Norman, associate professor of industrial engineer-ing, by e-mail at banorman@engr.pitt.edu.

Industrial engineering students Christina Albertson, Randy Bunch, Andrew Franklin, and Blake Orlandi took second place in the 2004–05 Material Handling Student Design Competition sponsored by the College Industry Council on Material Handling Education (CICMHE) and Modern Materials Handling magazine. Gross & Associates developed the competition case based on an actual project. Five independent judges evaluated the submis-sions. Three of the judges are academic members of CICMHE who did not have teams participating in this year’s competition. The fourth and fi fth judges were industrial members of Material Handling Industry of America with experience in integrated systems design. Norman served as the team’s advisor.

Daniel Armanios, a dual major in mechanical engineering and political science, was the fi rst student to receive both a Harry S. Truman Scholarship and a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship. The Truman Scholarship is a prestigious national award that recognizes college juniors who have exceptional leadership potential and who are committed to pursuing a career in government, the nonprofi t or advocacy sectors, education, or public service. The award provides fi nancial support for graduate study, leadership training, and a fellowship with other students who are committed to making a difference through public service. In 2004–05, Armanios won a Goldwater Scholarship, which is consid-ered to be the premier national undergraduate award in mathematics, natural science, and engineering.

Paul Ohodnicki, a graduate student in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, received a 2005–06 National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). This national fellowship provides three years of funding (both tuition and a stipend) for science and engineering students who will pursue a doctoral degree in, or related to, an area of DoD interest. Out of approximately 3,700 applicants, 180 fellowships were awarded. Of the 180 fellows, 15 are in the fi eld of materials science.

Electrical and computer engineering senior Marcus Scott, 2005–06 president of the Pitt chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), was named to the National Convention Planning Committee for the 2006 NSBE National Convention to be held in Pittsburgh March 29–April 2.

Jacqueline Zaldana, a civil engineering student, has been named the regional student representative for the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers’ largest region, Region IV.

Armanios

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(L to r) Mike Buric, Chuck

Jewart, U.S. Representa-

tive John Murtha, Ben

McMillen, and

Zsolt Poole

E-Week 2005Teaching assistants

Pete Mandeville (top left)

and Andrew Jon Klimas

(bottom left) volunteered

to be part of the Pie a Professor

fundraiser during E-Week 2005.

(Top right, l to r) Steve Huynh,

Melanie Golembiewski,

Rebecca Vereb, and Aaron Ford

display their Engenuity project

during E-Week 2005. They had

one hour to construct the tall-

est tower possible that could

support an egg without col-

lapsing and were permitted to

use only the supplies provided,

which included items such as

straws, tongue depressors,

paper clips, and tape, and were

not permitted to use outside

resources for assistance.

(Bottom right, l to r)

Abbie Shoemaker, Aaron Ford,

Brian Venus, Rebecca Vereb,

and Hansen Brenkus at the

E-Week 2005 Olympics.

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Bioengineering graduate students Nicolas Perrusquia and Alexa Polk won predoctoral fellowships from the Provost’s Development Fund.

Michael Buric, Charles Jewart, Ben McMillen, and Zsolt Poole, master’s and doctoral degree students from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, attended the ARMTech Showcase of Industry & Technology,

an annual event held by the Armstrong County (Pa.) Regional Manufacturing Initiative (ARMTech). As the region’s premier event for next-generation technology, the showcase provides local, national, and international businesses the opportunity to network and develop business connections for the future. U.S. Representative John P. Murtha, of Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District, joined participants in the 2005 showcase to discuss programs, products, and services.

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Law school would come several years later, when he began taking part-time classes at the University of Houston while working full time for Shell Chemical. He soon moved to Washington, D.C., for a position with DuPont that allowed him to fi nish his JD degree at George Washington University. He was recruited to a Chicago law fi rm after graduation, and went on with several partners to found Niro, Scavone, Haller & Niro in 1976.

Bill followed his brother by just three years, and he also didn’t dive right into law immediately. After his initial job at U.S. Steel Clairton Works, Bill headed west to California where he shared an apartment with another Pitt engineer, Mike Neesham (BSEE ’68), who was working in the aero-space industry. Bill took a position with the Los Angeles County Air Pollution Control District, but was drawn back to the Midwest by his brother and the fi eld of law. He enrolled at DePaul University College of Law, where he received his JD degree, went on to receive a Master of Laws degree at George Washington University and then taught for six years at Northern Illinois University College of Law. He joined his brother at the fi rm in 1981.

In 1987, Bill was asked to represent the inventor and fi rst commissioner of a new professional indoor football league. “Those early years were a real struggle and took a lot of time away from my law practice,” Bill said. Nearly 20 years later, the Arena Football League (AFL) is enjoying tremen-dous success and continues to add franchises to the 18 cities where AFL teams already play.

According to Bill, his involvement in starting the AFL required his legal and business skills as well as his specialty in patent, trademark, and copyright law. “Arena

Football is the only professional sport in the world to have its rules of play patented. Every aspect of the game, including the size of the fi eld, goal posts, and scoring is patented.”

Bill is a member of the AFL Board of Directors and works with the league through Gridiron Enterprises, a company he runs along with longtime friend, Jerry Kurz, and the game’s inventor and league founder, Jim Foster. Bill is currently working with the Pitt Alumni Club of Chicago to organize an outing and reception at a Chicago Rush game during the upcoming season. Last year, another Pitt alumnus, NFL Hall of Famer Mike Ditka (CAS ’61), became a part owner of the Rush.

For these brothers, an engineering back-ground has proven invaluable to the suc-cess of their fi rm. As Ray explains, “When I went into patent law, it was common for the attorneys to have engineering backgrounds; in fact, it was easy to spot patent attorneys back then because we were the ones with slide rules on our belts.” Only after IP law started becoming lucrative did you fi nd attorneys without an engineering or technical back-ground, he adds. “Some IP attorneys today have never even seen the inside of an engineering lab.”

While their typical clients are individuals or smaller compa-nies, they do represent larger companies. In 1995, Niro, Scavone, Haller & Niro successfully won damage awards and three injunctions for Black & Decker against compa-nies that were producing identical fl ashlights to their highly popular SnakeLight fl exible fl ashlight. In another case, Ray successfully defended the Colorado inventor of an electric fuel injection system designed for snowmobiles that another company was using in its products. The judgment resulted in a $75.5 million award for the inventor, which was a record in that state and even eclipsed the combined total of all other Colorado jury awards that year, which totaled $68 million. In the 1990s, Ray and Bill teamed up to wage a successful nine-year battle against two giants in the meat and fast food industries on behalf of, who else, two entrepreneurial brothers who invented a unique sausage pizza topping.

As Niro, Scavone, Haller & Niro approaches the 30th anniversary of its founding, neither of the Niro brothers appears to be interested in slowing down.

“Between the law practice and Arena Football,” says Bill, “I’m having more fun than I ever could have imagined.” And Ray confi des it’s the thrill of winning that keeps him going. “The personal rewards of this work are indescrib-able, since many of the cases we have won literally changed the lives of my clients.”

Considering their determination and success, these sons of Italian immigrants have no doubt made their parents proud. .

Alumni Profi le PagesA Random Look at the Lives and Careers of Pitt Engineering Alumni

TTrying to keep up with Chicago brothers Bill (BSChE ’67) and Ray (BSChE ’65) Niro isn’t easy.

(After many attempts, they couldn’t even get together to pose in the same photo for this article.) As partners in the downtown Chicago law fi rm Niro, Scavone, Haller & Niro, Bill and Ray have carved a successful niche in intellectual property (IP) law, developing a national reputation for pro-tecting inventors and smaller companies from corporate goliaths who might claim a patented product or process as their own.

The road to the legal profession started for these Baldwin, Pa., natives at the urging of their mother and father, immigrants who left Italy as teenagers with little more than grade school educations. Their father earned a reputation in Pittsburgh as an accomplished stonemason who built some of the prominent homes in the Squirrel Hill section of the city.

According to Bill, their parents repeatedly urged them to go to college. “Dad never wanted to see us follow him into such a manual labor career. He was very proud of his work and great at what he did, but he wanted us all to have a better life.”

Ray recalls a familiar phrase their father used to tell them in the summer when he and Bill, along with oldest brother Joe, helped on construction projects. “He’d always tell us ‘You can make a lot more money using your brain than you can using your back.’ ” Their mother constantly urged them to get an education. “Youth is the preparation time,” she would say. And prepare they did.

Ray chose engineering partly because of the precedent set by his brother-in-law, Wayne DiBartola (BSME ’55), and he focused on chemical engineering simply because he did well in his high school chemistry course. During his junior year, he was convinced by fellow classmate and friend Al Dickerson (BSChE ’64) to take the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) with him “just for fun.” As Ray recalls, “I went into it with almost no preparation, and I spent most of the time being mad at Al because we were spending a fall Saturday afternoon taking this test and missing the big Pitt football game against visiting Notre Dame!”

WWith the fl ick of a switch, there is light. Press a button and—presto!—television. Want some popcorn with that TV show? Just go to the microwave and punch in the cook time. Are the lights too bright to see the TV screen? Slide the dimmer switch to take the lighting down a notch.

These are simple examples of everyday uses of electricity, which is available so quickly and easily that one rarely—if ever—stops to think about what it takes to provide this convenience.

However, Richard “Dick” Imler (BSME ’68) and Alan Metzler (BSMET ’82, University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown) think about it constantly. They have built their careers around generating electricity that is effi cient and inexpensive—and also safe for the environment.

Both Imler and Metzler started their careers in energy gen-eration fresh out of college when they joined Pennsylvania Electric Co., now Reliant Energy. Imler is the general manager and Metzler the technical manager of the Seward Station, the waste-coal power plant across the Conemaugh River from Seward, Pa., a small town near Johnstown. Although they haven’t always worked in the same division or location, Metzler started his career under Imler’s direction, and both have played a signifi cant role in transforming the plant into an award-winning site.

In 2004, Reliant received the Pennsylvania Governor’s Award for Environmental Excellence, recognizing its com-mitment to environmental stewardship. State government representatives were on hand to dedicate the Seward Station site in September 2004.

“Advanced energy projects like Reliant’s waste coal power station are helping to distinguish our commonwealth as a leader in technology development and creating excite-ment about Pennsylvania as an innovative, cutting-edge place to do business,” Environmental Protection Secretary

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Bill Niro (above) and

Ray Niro (below right)

Alan Metzler and

Richard Imler with

the Seward Station

in the background.

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Kathleen A. McGinty said at the groundbreaking ceremony. “The ability to deliver reliable, affordable, and clean energy is an investment in environmental quality, economic devel-opment, and homeland security.”

Both Imler and Metzler share this mission and were key players in the opening of a more environmentally friendly Seward power plant.

“It took a decade of planning and three years of construc-tion to upgrade our site with the new plant,” Imler says. His vision was to take the “next great step to a new gen-eration of power plants.” The Seward power plant is the largest waste coal-fi red generating plant in the world and the only merchant plant of its kind in the United States.

While Imler provided the leadership for the transition, Metzler directed the business-planning end. The Seward site was transformed from a straight coal burning plant to one that uses waste coal. Metzler says the $800 million cost made long-term fi nancial and environmental sense.

“This new plant produces two-and-a-half times more electricity than the old Seward plant—while signifi cantly decreasing emissions—and is one of the least expensive generators in the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland mar-ket,” he says. “This coal-waste technology is benefi cial for

business—it’s a good investment because waste coal is cheaper and it has positive economic impacts on the local community.” Imler continues, “During the building process, we had some 2,300 local workers on site daily.”

Waste coal is less expensive than run-off mine coal, Metzler explains. “The waste-coal combustion equipment … makes this plant unique from other coal plants. It allows us to burn poor-quality fuel at a very competitive price in an environmentally acceptable manner.”

Reliant employees can also boast about the positive impact the company has made on the environment, including cleaning up waste-coal sites and reducing acid mine drainage. Metzler adds, “Most people probably don’t think about all the thought and planning that actually go into energy generation. There are a lot of facets to the industry; it’s complex.”

Metzler and Imler recognize how much their Pitt engineer-ing degrees have helped them throughout their careers. Metzler believes his degree in mechanical engineering technology provided the hands-on knowledge he needed early on, and Imler says his theoretical foundation has helped him to translate knowledge into solutions.

“The fi eld of engineering in general requires problem-solv-ing skills, and the process of engineering education should be in tune with that,” Metzler says. There is a signifi cant need for engineers in the energy sector, says Imler, and he believes the time has come for prospective engineers to take a fresh look at the energy generation industry. .

After earning his BSEE in 1958, Ferber joined Westinghouse Research Laboratories, where he worked in semiconductor and nuclear research. At the time, the military was conducting extensive nuclear weapons test-ing, and Westinghouse was involved in developing radiation detectors for the underground tests. “This was exciting work,” Ferber recalls, “because it was such a new fi eld of science.” Developing the sensors was especially challeng-ing, he said. “The trick was to get the sensors to measure and transmit the radiation spectra and levels in a matter of microseconds, before being vaporized!”

Ferber also worked on Westinghouse electric power proj-ects and the development of photovoltaic cells designed to harness solar energy for powering satellites. He was able to arrange a leave of absence from his job to earn an MSEE and PhD from Carnegie Mellon University while still using the Westinghouse labs for his research. He completed his graduate work in 1967 and stayed with Westinghouse for another 10 years, where he continued his research in solar energy and developed an impressive reputation through numerous research publications, pat-ents, and conference presentations in the growing fi eld.

Robert Ferber alongside

a model of the Voyager

spacecraft, one of

JPL’s many successes,

launched in 1977

and still operating

Alumni NewsGreg Coticchia (BSIE ’82) was one of fi ve Pittsburgh executives to receive the CEO of the Year award in 2005 from the Pittsburgh Technology Council. His company, LogicLibrary, is a leading provider of software services that enable companies to manage and reuse software develop-ment assets.

Alex Ellenbogen (BSIE ’44) received an honorary lifetime membership to the American Institute of Certifi ed Public Accountants in appreciation and recognition of his 50 years

MMost aspiring engineers seem to realize at a young age that they are destined for a career in this fi eld, whether it’s an early interest in math or science classes, building toy models, or just tinkering with the family car. For Robert Ferber (BSEE ’58), it was the advent of television that caught his interest, leading him to start his own TV repair business when he was just 14 years old. The Overbrook, Pa., native and Carrick High School graduate built his hobby into a successful enterprise.

“I started out riding my bicycle to service calls but made enough money to buy a motorcycle and eventually a car,” Ferber recalls.

Even after enrolling in the electrical engineering degree program at Pitt, he continued working part time, moving into the radio business as an audio engineer with local sta-tion WWSW, where he helped with broadcasts of Pittsburgh Pirates and Steelers games. He also was part of the team that put WQED TV on the air in 1954. The nation’s fi rst educational television station also helped launch the career of Fred Rogers and the famous children’s program Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, something Ferber got to experience personally.

“I operated a camera for the show and still have a photo of all of us on the set during that fi rst year,” he says. “It was a great experience to be part of this and to see it go from just a local Pittsburgh program to a nationally televised audience.”

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Ferber’s work caught the attention of NASA’s famed Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., where he took a job as a semiconductor physicist in March of 1977 and remained there until retiring in November 2004. During his career with JPL, Ferber served in management roles for many projects including Earth-orbiting radiometer receivers to monitor upper atmosphere pollution and ozone depletion, space-borne imaging radar to produce highly accurate topographic maps of the Earth’s surface, and nuclear space power supply systems for satellites. His last project before retiring involved developing a series of solid-state power amplifi ers for the Herschel Space Observatory, to be launched in 2007.

Even though Ferber retired from JPL, he hasn’t retired from engineering and plans to continue working as a consultant while putting more time into another hobby he started at a young age. “I bought my fi rst plane, a Piper Cub, while I was a student at Pitt and have been fl ying ever since.” With his grandchildren just a short fl ight away in Idaho, he’s hoping they will catch the same interest in engineer-ing that he did at a young age. “Considering all the ways engineering impacts our lives, I think it’s a great career path for today’s kids to pursue.” .

in the profession. Formerly man-aging partner, Ellenbogen is of counsel for CrawfordEllenbogen LLC, the Pittsburgh accounting fi rm his father cofounded in 1941. Ellenbogen was an engi-neer before he entered the fi eld of accounting, and he earned a master’s degree in industrial engineering from Columbia University. He is also a life member of the Pennsylvania Institute of Certifi ed Public Accountants and is a published author of two murder mysteries.

Michael Fasolka (BSMSE ’94) was awarded one of 58 Presidential Early Career Awards in Science and Engineering for 2004—the nation’s highest honor for professionals who are at the outset of their independent research careers. Fasolka works for the U.S. Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Md. He was recognized for “experimental and theoretical studies of nanostructured polymer fi lms and for investigations further extending the power of

The September alumni reception at Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, Mich. also

served as an opportunity for Dean Holder to congratulate David Marinaro (BSME ’71)

on his retirement after more than 30 years at Ford. Holder presented Marinaro with

a special plaque recognizing his commitment to Pitt through his service to the school

as a lead recruiter, membership in the Department of Mechanical Engineering Visiting

Committee, and assistance with the Pitt racing team’s alumni receptions in Detroit

during the annual Formula SAE competition.

Ellenbogen

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next-generation scanned probe microscopy techniques with exquisitely designed structures providing quantitative measures of chemical, mechanical, and optoelectronic nanoscale material properties.” He credits the work he did as a Pitt undergraduate with Professor Anna C. Balazs as “the foundation for some of the work for which I was cited.”

Anu Gupta (BSMSE ’03), a PhD student at Clemson University, was awarded one of three South Carolina Space Grant Consortium Graduate Student Research Program (GSRP) grants. The program is designed to help meet the continuing needs of the aeronautics and space effort by increasing the number of highly trained scientists and engineers in aerospace, space science, space applica-tions, and space technology. The GSRP awards fellowships for graduate study leading to research-based master’s or doctoral degrees in the fields of science, mathematics, and engineering.

The Diversity Committee of the Engineers Week Steering Committee selected Enrique Bazán-Arias (BSCE ’95) as one of the New Faces of Engineering 2005. Sponsored by the National Engineers Week Foundation, New Faces recognizes 14 engineers age 30 or younger who have worked in the field from two to five years and have dem-onstrated outstanding abilities in their chosen disciplines. The recognition highlights Bazán-Arias’ accomplishments in the field of engineering as well as his contributions to the community. Bazán-Arias is a project engineer at Paul C. Rizzo Associates in Pittsburgh. According to a National Engineering Week Foundation press release, “Bazán-Arias is the very essence of engineering as a global force. Born in Mexico to Peruvian parents, Bazán-Arias has been responsible for the marketing, design, and execution of projects in a dozen countries. Among the most signifi-cant are transportation systems, such as the Pittsburgh International Airport’s underground train, and seismic upgrades, such as the Saluda Dam Remediation Project—the nation’s largest active dam project—in Columbia, South Carolina.”

Joseph Muscatello (BSIE ’87) was recently hired as vice president of business development in the public finance department of Arthurs Lestrange, a leading financial firm in Pittsburgh. Muscatello began his career in public finance in 1991 when he joined RRZ Public Markets as an asso-ciate. In 1997, Muscatello and four of his coworkers purchased RRZ. In 2003, he and his partners sold the business to JPMorgan Securities. Muscatello also holds a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Pittsburgh.

Two engineering alumni and one professor are winners of 2005 Carnegie Science Center Awards for Excellence. Pittsburgh Technology Council presented the Start-up Entrepreneur Award to Keith LeJeune (BSChE ’94, MSChE ’96), cofounder of Agentase LLC. LeJeune is conducting work on the discovery and creation of chemical sensors for detection of chemical weapons of mass destruction. Paul Arch (MSMSE ’98) received the Advanced Manufacturing Award for his consistent, proven leadership and facilitation of cutting-edge technologies. Arch is a research fellow in the styrenics technology group at NOVA Chemicals in Moon Township, Pa. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor Marlin H. Mickle also received an award (see Around the School, page 10). The Carnegie Science Center Awards for Excellence recognize and promote outstanding science and technology achievement in Western Pennsylvania.

Robert O. Agbede (BSE ’79, MSMIN ’81) was honored as a Torch Lighter at the 20th Annual Black Extravaganza & Trailblazer Awards gala in March at the Carnegie Museum. The gala, hosted by Pittsburgh’s Renaissance Publications, recognized local achievers with a Kennedy Center-style presentation followed by a soul and spice food reception. Agbede is president and CEO of ATS-Chester Engineers in Moon Township, Pa. He established the Robert O. Agbede Student Award and the Faculty Award for Diversity in the

School of Engineering to provide crucial financial support to gifted African American engineering students and recog-nize faculty members who demonstrate outstanding effort in promoting diversity by recruiting and retaining African American engineering students. In addition, the ATS-Chester Engineers Scholarship and Fellowship supports students as they further their studies in the field of engineering.

Fred Hoaglin (BSIE ’68) was named Man of the Year by the three Presbyterian churches on Hilton Head Island, S.C., for his extensive involvement in the community. He teaches a 7th grade Sunday school class, is a member of the Board of Directors for the Providence Children’s Center, and he recently helped form a Hispanic outreach program called Ministerio Evangelista Betesda. He and his wife, Jan, a 1964 Pitt School of Nursing graduate, have completed five mission trips to Honduras to administer medical services and assist with construction projects (putting his engineering degree to good use!). Additionally, Hoaglin serves on the board of the Beaufort County Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

The Association of Energy Engineers named Randolph L. Haines (BSIE ’76) the 2004 International Energy Manager of the Year. Haines, who serves as energy manager for Thomas Jefferson University and the Jefferson Health System in Philadelphia, was selected for his progressive energy management program, which advocates the importance of saving energy.

After completing his research in David Vorp’s lab in the Department of Bioengineering, Jonathan Vande Geest (PhD ’05) joined the faculty of the University of Arizona Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, where he is an assistant professor in the tenure stream.

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Michael Fasolka receives

the Presidential Early

Career Award from Acting

Deputy Secretary of Com-

merce David A. Sampson

(left) and Office of Science

and Technology Policy

Director John Marburger.

Sara Doll stands beside the medical equipment she assessed and repaired at a children’s hospital in Managua, Nicaragua, during a summer 2005 trip with Engineering World Health.

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During the summer of 2005, Sara Doll (BSBEG ’04) accompanied representatives of Engineering World Health on a trip to Nicaragua. She, along with 16 other bioengineers from around the world, assessed and helped repair facilities and equipment at a children’s hospital in Managua. Doll worked on devices such as ventilators, infant incubators, heating lamps, centrifuges, and cardiac monitors. She is currently a medical device reviewer at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

We’re sorry to announce the passing of…Michael A. Gross (BSCE ’30), at the age of 98. In recogni-tion of Mr. Gross’s 50-plus-year career as a civil engineer, the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering named him a distinguished alumnus in 1996. The meet-ing room of the student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) at Pitt was named for Mr. Gross and displays one of his oil paintings, an interest he took up after retirement. He worked for Blaw Knox Corp.; Richardson, Gordon and Associates; and the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad, was a lifetime member of ASCE and past president of the Pittsburgh chapter, and received the first ASCE meritorious service award, which was named in his honor.

Clarke Bigler (BSMEE ’50) of Reading, Pa., on July 30, 2005.

Robert L. Johnson (BSChE ’54) of Greenwich, Conn., on Dec 16, 2004.

John Koenig (BSEE ’48), of Canton, Ohio, on June 6, 2005.

Kenneth L. Landon (MSCHE ’47), of Springfield, Mass., on August 5, 2005.

Jim Hall (MSME ’58) poses in full Pitt gear next to the Pitt Panther he carved

out of a log using a chainsaw.

Dean Holder surprised

Joe Guthrie (BSMEE ‘59)

and his wife, Greta

(CAS ‘55), at the Houston

Alumni Reception this

summer. The Guthries

met at Pitt and were

celebrating their 50th

wedding anniversary.

Aaron Conley (right),

executive director of

development and alumni

relations, presented

the Guthries with a

commemorative plaque.

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A special thanks to our sponsors …

Blue & Gold Sponsors84 Lumber Co.American BridgeVocollect

Beverage Station SponsorThe IPR Group of Companies

Putting Green SponsorControls Link Inc.

Hole SponsorsAker KvaernerBridges and Company Inc.Michael Baker Corp.

Student Golf SponsorEllwood Quality Steel Co.Robert C. Yowan (BSME ’49) … and to our prize donors.Bravo! Cucina ItalianaDiamond Run Golf ClubImprov PittsburghMen’s WarehouseOlive Garden Italian RestaurantPanera BreadPittsburgh CLOPittsburgh PiratesQuaker Steak & LubeRock Bottom Restaurants Inc.SouthSide Works CinemaSouthwest AirlinesStarbucks CoffeeThe Pitt ShopThe Book CenterZenergy Consulting Inc.

Team Results

First Place, Gross ScoreDonald Zielinski (friend)Rick Reynolds (BSMET ’84, University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown) Rob D’Arrigo (friend)Al Varga (friend)

First Place, Net ScoreKevin Toth (BSCE ’01) Bill West (BSCE ’98) Jim Gruntz (BSME ’98) Ron Cortes (BSCE ’94)

Skills Results

Putting ContestKeith Malinoski putted a hole-in-one to qualify for the fi nal round. He came within inches of winning the $5,000 prize.

Closest to PinFrank Avbel (BSCE ’73) David Beachler (BSChE ’70)Minking Chyu (faculty)Rob D’Arrigo (friend)Mike Lovell (faculty)Bryan Morreale (BSChE ’99, MSChE ’02)

Longest DriveCraig Fraley (friend)

Longest PuttAl Varga (friend)

Straightest DriveMike Lovell (faculty)

Longest PuttLen Zapf (BSEE ’71)

Visit www.engr.pitt.edu/alumni for more photos!

Pex again hosted this year’s golf outing on July 18 at Diamond Run Golf Club in Sewickley, Pa. The sultry day didn’t keep you away—about 100 School of Engineering alumni, faculty, and friends attended!

Second PlaceKeith Malinoski (BSME ’82)Len Raffa (BSCE ’73) Len Zapf (BSEE ’71) Glenn Zaborowski (BSEE ’81)

Third PlaceDon Lazzari (friend)Andres Viduya (friend)Ryan Zoschg (BSEE ’95)Ken Kolenik (friend)

Last PlaceDavid Beachler (BSChE ’70)David Missenda (BSChE ’00)Ed King (BSME ’00)Heather Lenart Silver (BSChE ’01)

Fifth Annual Alumni Golf OutingFifth Annual Alumni Golf OutingFifth Annual Alumni Golf Outing

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Homecoming 2005Honoring the Classes of 1955, 1965, 1980, and 1995

1) Salisa L. Berrien (BSME ’91; fifth

from right) presented Dean Gerald

D. Holder with a plaque honoring

Karl Lewis’ work with diversity in

the school. Lewis (fifth from left)

founded the Engineering Impact

Program (Pitt IEP). Sponsored

through Pennsylvania’s Act 101, the

program recruits, retains, and helps

underrepresented and economically

disadvantaged students graduate.

2) Reunion Class of 1955 (l to r):

Dean Holder, John Dudash (BSCE),

Jim Hainley (BSCE), and

Bill Coogan (BSCE)

3) Jake Katz (BSEE ’49) meets with current Pex students and alumni. Katz is an original founder of the group started more than 55 years ago. The group chose as its name the elec-trical term used in trans-mission line calculations. Pex signifies “Pittsburgh Engineering Exponents,” as its identification for the future. In 1999, Dean Holder revived the group and the school has been inducting new members ever since.

4) Reunion Class of 1965 (l to r): F. Don Freeburn

(BSME), Tom Cain (BSEE), Ron Hoelzeman (BSEE),

and Roy Marangoni (MSME)

5) Reunion Class of 1980 (l to r): Frank Marx

(MSME), Meva M. Justice (BSEE), Karen Joll Dicks

(BSChE), Ted Batt (MSME), Ken Balkey (MSME),

Frank Bursic (BSEE), and Bob Enick (BSChE)

6) Reunion Class of 1995: Shawn Debski (BSME)

and Christina Debski (BSME)

7) The School of Engineering celebrated Homecom-

ing 2005 with a kickoff party honoring the Classes

of 1955, 1965, 1980, and 1995 at the Carnegie

Museum Hall of Architecture. Here, guests gather

with Dean Holder.

8) New Pex inductees

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The Office of Development and Alumni Relations has been growing. Recent additions include Sonia Bembic, director of marketing and communications; Kristen Bires, director of

On the morning of October 22,

before the Pitt vs. Syracuse

game, alumni and families

gathered for Breakfast at

Benedum. Despite the cold

and damp weather, nearly 60

people were in attendance

throughout the morning.

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Office of Development

and Alumni Relations staff

(back row, l to r): Donald

Shields, Jenn Welton, and

Aaron Conley; (front row)

Sarah Calugar, Sonia

Bembic, Peter-John Leone,

and Kristen Bires

alumni relations; and Donald Shields, director of corporate relations. Biographical information about the office’s entire staff is available online at www.engr.pitt.edu/alumni/odar.html.

More Homecoming 2005 photos are available online at www.engr.pitt.edu/alumni/PhotoGallery.

U N I V E R S I T Y O F P I T T S B U R G H

School of Engineering240 Benedum HallPittsburgh, PA 15261-2224

www.engr.pitt.edu

Corporate competitiveness requires your business to seek every possible advantage

in the marketplace. Successful businesses become successful by attracting and

retaining great people and by accessing new ideas and technologies to stay ahead of

the competition. The Corporate Affi liates Program (CAP) at the University of Pittsburgh

School of Engineering offers member companies the chance to recruit top students,

to interact with world-class faculty, and to develop a direct relationship with one of the

nation’s top engineering schools. Member companies also receive enhanced visibility

through the school’s publications and Web site. Current members include:

Westinghouse Electric Co. (Founding Member) itaas

Aker Kvaerner PPG Industries

Eaton Corp. H.B. Maynard and Co.

Ellwood Group Inc. Mitsubishi Electric Power Products Inc.

II-VI Inc.

For more information about CAP, visit the CAP Web site at www.engr.pitt.edu/industry/cap.html or call Don Shields, director of corporate relations, at 412-624-8120.

School of EngineeringCORPORATE AFFILIATES PROGRAM

Recruiting — Research — Recognition