Bright Named 2012 Outstanding Graduate Contributor to Engineering Education
Graduate student Alfram Bright was named a recipient of the award for Outstanding Graduate Contributor to Engineering Education. This award is focused on full-time graduate students who through TA work, voluntary service, and/or other activities have enhanced significantly the education programs of the department.

Guha Receives NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
Master's student Ingrid Guha received a 2012 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship award from the National Science Foundation. The National Science Foundation's Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) helps ensure the vitality of the human resource base of science and engineering in the United States and reinforces its diversity. The program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students who are pursuing research-based masters and doctoral degrees. Mechanical Engineering alumnus Tim Lannin, E11, also received a GRFP award this year to support his studies at Cornell University.

Partlow Receives 2012 NDSEG Fellowship
Ben Partlow, EG12, has been selected to receive a 2012 National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship. This highly competitive fellowship is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense. After graduating with an MS in Mechanical Engineering this summer, Ben will be pursuing a PhD in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Tufts.

Cunningham Wins HFES Best Presentation Award
Stacey Cunningham, EG12, won a best presentation award at the 2011 New England Human Factors and Ergonomic Society (HFES) student conference for her presentation entitled "Robotic-Assisted Minimally Invasive Surgery: Communication In A Complex Socio-Technical System." The conference was held at the NERD Center on the MIT campus on October 14, 2011. This is the third consecutive year a student from Tufts University has won this honor. Previous winners were James Won (2010) and Maureen Mulcare (2009).

Alumna Delivers Wentworth Commencement Address
Marianne Heer, E87, senior vice president of SAP North America Services Delivery, delivered the commencement address at Wentworth Institute of Technology on August 21, 2011. Ms. Heer was also awarded an honorary Doctor of Engineering Technology.

Krause Wins Second Award for Best Paper Award at ASA
For the second year in a row, doctoral student Joshua Krause received the best student paper award at the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) meeting in Seattle on May 23-27, 2011. Working with associate professor Rob White in the Tufts Micro and Nano Fabrication Facility, Krause received the award for his paper "Micromachined Reconfigurable Microphone Array for Wind Tunnel Testing".

Cassidy Accepted into Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program
Patrick Cassidy, E'12, was accepted into the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program. The Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program is considered to be the most technically challenging and academically rigorous program in the military. Upon graduation and commissioning in May 2012, Pat will start his Navy career at Nuclear Power School where he'll receive graduate-level instruction in nuclear engineering and reactor plant operations. This will be followed by qualification at a shore-based naval nuclear power plant followed by submarine school. After this nearly 18-month training pipeline, Pat will be assigned to his first nuclear submarine.

Miraglia Wins Tufts Distinction Award
Vinnie Miraglia, Mechanical Engineering Coordinator, has won a 2011 Tufts Distinction Award. Vinnie was given The Unsung Hero Award for accomplishing the extraordinary every day. He and other Distinction Award recipients were recognized at a ceremony on June 8, 2011 in the Jaharis Center (Behrakis Auditorium), on the Boston campus.

Cao Improves Colon Cancer Screening Technology
Scientists and engineers are continually researching new methods of screening to reduce patient discomfort while also ensuring the accuracy of a colonoscopy exam. Researchers at the School of Engineering led by Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering Caroline G.L. Cao, have developed a device that could potentially do both. Tufts endoscopic fiber optic shape tracker (EFOST) technology is a possible solution to the problem that occurs when the endoscope is inserted into the colon during routine screening.

Seniors Named Finalists in Design Competition
Mechanical engineers Eric Fournier, Rosario Friedman and Jessica Noble, were named finalists in a national design competition called the AbilityOne Network Design Challenge. The students developed an assistive device to benefit the clients of a non-profit agency called Work Inc. in Dorchester, Mass. that provides skills and supportive services needed to help people with disabilities achieve their career goals.  With the guidance Gary Leisk, senior lecturer and research assistant professor, the students designed the Smart Workspace—a customizable weighing device that will assist clients at Work Inc. to do various counting and weighing tasks.

Matthew Kelly Receives NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
Three Seniors Receive Honorable Mention
Senior mechanical engineer, Matt Kelly, E'11, received a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to pursue his graduate education at Cornell University. Fellows receive three years of support at an $30,000 annual stipend, a $10,500 cost-of-education allowance, international research and professional development opportunities, and access to the TeraGrid supercomputer.

Seniors Brendan Andrade, Bobby Berg, and Tim Lannin all received honorable mentions from the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program. At Tufts, all three students worked with Associate Professor Tom James on biomechanical research projects.

Manno Named Provost and Dean of Faculty at Olin College
Vincent P. Manno, associate provost and professor of mechanical engineering at Tufts University, has been appointed provost and dean of faculty at Olin College of Engineering, where he will also serve as professor of engineering. The appointment is effective July 1, 2011. Manno has served on the faculty at Tufts since 1984, and held appointments as chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, associate dean of engineering for graduate studies and dean ad interim of engineering. "I am very excited about the opportunity at Olin. It is a special place with a mission to radically transform engineering education into being the core of 21st-century liberal education," Manno said.

MEMS Research Featured in Aerospace America
Work on aerospace MEMS sensors from Assistant Professor Rob White's MEMS research group, including students Joshua Krause, Shuangqin Liu, and Zhengxin Zhao, appeared in the December 2010 issue of Aerospace America, a publication of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). Microscale sensor systems allow measurement of the turbulent boundary layer encountered in aerospace systems. In collaboration with Spirit AeroSystems, Tufts School of Engineering mechanical engineers have developed a surface pressure and shear sensor array-on-a-chip device for characterization of the pressure and shear spectrum in the turbulent boundary layer.

Tufts Students Design Medical Technology
Human Factors students in the Department of Mechanical Engineering are researching the design of medical devices fit for the elderly. With an elderly population expected to double in the next 20 years, the students are thinking about how the technology should look and work so the elderly population can use it easily, safely, and comfortably.

Graduate Student James Won Receives Best Presentation Award
Doctoral candidate James Won received one of two best presentation awards given out at the New England Chapter of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society's annual student conference on Friday, October 22, 2010. James presented work on the role of workload and situation awareness in team performance. His work was conducted this past summer while he worked at MIT Lincoln Labs and is part of his doctoral research that is focused the parameters that affect performance of temporary teams (i.e., teams that are put together for a limited time commitment, often to solve specific problems).

The Tufts Wind Project
The Tufts Wind Project is an initiative to get students involved with wind energy during their undergraduate studies. The project centers on the installation of four wind turbines in Boston and Ft. Lauderdale, Fl. The turbines are monitored by a group of students and the production data is used to evaluate the relative efficiencies of the different turbine designs. See our website for details on the project as well as live webcams and production data.

Krause Wins Best Paper Award at ASA Meeting
Joshua Krause, a Ph.D. student working with Professor Rob White, received the best student paper award in engineering acoustics for their paper "MEMS Microphone Array On a Chip" at the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, on April 19-23, 2010. Working in the Tufts Micro and Nano Fabrication Facility, Krause and his colleagues succeeded in building a hypersensitive microelectromechanical system (MEMS) array that packs 64 microphones on a chip measuring just one centimeter to a side. The array may give the most fine-grained look yet at the various forces encountered by a jet aircraft as it cuts through the atmosphere. Early results indicate the device may be among the most sensitive yet in measuring both the low-wavelength air flows most associated with structural rattling and cabin noise and the high-wavelength flows that pack the greatest energy -- and are potentially the most dangerous.

Valentin Wins Best Poster at Undergraduate Research & Scholarship Symposium
Tom Valentin, E'11, won the best poster award at the 2010 Undergraduate Research & Scholarship Symposium for his research on long-term stability and controlled release of drug delivery using silk substrates. His study, in collaboration with Professor David Kaplan, Chair of Biomedical Engineering, and Eleanor Pritchard, BME doctoral student, showed that a silk substrate could store and stabilize drugs for six months at temperatures as high as 37°C (body temperature) and deliver drugs continuously for up to three days. Valentin's research with Detlev Boison, senior scientist at R.S. Dow Neurobiology Laboratories, also explores silk fibroin scaffolds as vehicles for drug-producing human mesenchymal stem cells and embryonic stem cells for the application of seizure suppression for epileptic patients.

Will Langford founds the Tufts Robotics Club
Will Langford, ME'12, uses his passion for engineering to energize the do-it-yourself community. Langford founded the Tufts Robotics Club, which includes liberal arts students, as well as engineers. The Club hopes to bring together like-minded individuals to share experiences and have fund building robots.

Matt Thoms Wins Senior Award
Matthew Thoms, E10, has been awarded a Senior Award by the Tufts University Alumni Association. The Senior Awards, instituted in 1955, recognizes members of the Senior Class for academic achievement, participation in campus and community activities, and leadership. Thoms was the Tufts student leader of the Team Boston 2009 Solar Decathlon team, a partnership of the Boston Architectural College and Tufts University that culminated in display of “Curio house” on the National Mall in October 2009 as one of 20 university teams from the United States and abroad selected to design, build, and display a fully functional solar house. Thoms was also named a 2009 Morris K. Udall Scholar for his commitment to environmental research and issues.

Professor Chiesa Receives DOE Early Career Research Award in Fusion Energy
Research on big magnets used in devices such as MRI machines might be given a big boost with recent funding from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for engineer Luisa Chiesa at Tufts School of Engineering. Chiesa, as assistant professor in mechanical engineering, was one of 69 researchers nationally to receive an early career award from the DOE and only one of six grantees in the area of fusion energy sciences. With a five-year, $750,000 grant, Chiesa's research will provide valuable insight into the materials used to design the highly efficient, superconducting magnets used for everything from medical use to high-energy physics applications, including fusion devices that could produce safe, abundant amounts of energy.

Professor Cao Named Chair in Medical Robots
Associate Professor Caroline Cao has been named the Regional Chair for Foreign Researchers from the Region Pays de la Loire, France for research on medical robotics for interventional radiology. Professor Cao is collaborating with colleagues Cedric Dumas, professor at Ecole des Mines de Nantes, Isabelle Milleville professor at the Institut de Recherche en Communications et en Cybernetique de Nantes, and Benoit Dupas from Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Nantes.

Graduate Student Wins Best Presentation Award
HFES-NEC Conference | November 13, 2009
Maureen Mulcare, a graduate student in the Human Factors program, won a Best Presentation award at the 2009 Human Factors and Ergonomics Society - New England Chapter Student Conference sponsored by Charles River Analytics, Inc. and Aptima, Inc. Her paper "Uncovering barriers to implementing a surgical safety checklist from a joint cognitive systems perspective", outlined her current master's thesis project and presented data from her initial observations.

Theory Meets Practice
Tufts Home Page | March 16, 2009
The School of Engineering's professors of the practice, like Dan Hannon, mechanical engineering professor of the practice, bring real world experiences to the classroom. Read more about Prof. Hannon's "Human Factors" design class: "Factoring in the Human Element".

Flights of Fancy: Engineers Create Virtual Hang Time
Engineering eNews | Winter 2009
Mechanical engineering students Mike Stefaniak, Daniel Thayer and Rachel Yu, created a virtual hang gliding flight simulator for their senior design project. Check out a real-time flight here.