The American Society of Civil Engineers has announced the selection of Dr. Mohammad Najafi, assistant professor of civil engineering, as the founding editor-in-chief of the Journal of Pipeline Systems Engineering and Practice. The new quarterly pgublication will be a professional, authoritative technical resource reporting on a broad range of topics pertaining to the planning, engineering, design, construction, renewal, safety, operation and maintenance, asset management, environmental aspects and sustainability of pipeline systems. Volume 1, Issue 1 of the Journal of Pipeline Systems Engineering and Practice is scheduled to be published February 2010. More information is available at http://pubs.asce.org/journals/pipelines/.

A team of senior CSE students designed a computer-centered activity wall to entertain and stimulate a hydrochepalic boy with limited cognative and physical abilities. The Wall of Fun responds with lights and sounds to his inputs.
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A team led by Bioengineering Assistant Professor Jian Yang has developed fluorescent biopolymers that can illuminate cancerous regions and deliver needed drugs to cancerous areas of the body, build temporary stents in arteries and even regenerate tissue.
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Three projects have received product development funding from the University of Texas System. Texas Ignition Fund (TIF) grants to stimulate the development and maturation of research discoveries into marketable intellectual properties.
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Dragos-Stefan Dancila, Ph.D., formerly with the Georgia Institute of Technology, has joined the Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Department as an associate professor. At UT Arlington, his focus will be on engineering innovations in wind turbine technology.
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Dean of Engineering Dr. Bill Carroll has announced the selection of Professor Jonathan Bredow to lead the college’s Electrical Engineering Department. Dr. Bredow has served as interim chair of the department since August 2008.
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A poster created by graduate students Swati Goyal (bioengineering) and Mohammud Noor (electrical engineering) took third place at a Trieste, Italy conference hosted by the International Centre for Theoretical Physics. Their work, titled “Single-base Mutational Detection of DNA Using Bio-chips,” has also been accepted for publication in the journal Applied Physics Letters.

Edmunds.com, a provider of automotive information to magazines and Internet sites, listed UT Arlington tied for fifth place in its choice of “Top 10” institutions with automotive engineering programs. Success in national and international Formula SAE competitions was cited as the main factor in the selection.

A team of electrical engineering graduate students took first place in their category in a competition to design a device that would monitor existing distribution transformers operating in an electric utility power grid. The student-designed device alerts the electric utility of a potential failure before a complete failure occurs.
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Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering Dr. Yaling Liu has been selected to receive one of 30 Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Awards presented by the Oak Ridge Associated Universities, a consortium of major Ph.D.-granting academic institutions and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. There were 118 applicants for the awards, which provide seed money to enrich the research and professional growth of young faculty and result in new funding opportunities.

Three undergraduate electrical engineering students will be heading to Australia in July for the final events in an international competition to develop energy generation and storage devices. The team’s faculty advisor, Dr. Rasool Kenarangui, thinks they have come up with the winning device.
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Dr. John Matthys, P.E., has been appointed the Dr. Tseng Huang Endowed Professor in the Civil Engineering Department. The position, which becomes effective June 1, was established to honor the lifetime achievements of the late Professor Tseng Huang.
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Computer Science & Engineering Professor Sajal K. Das has been named the Outstanding Engineering Educator for 2008 for Region 5 of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Dr. Das was praised for his rich theoretical concepts and their innovative applications to complex real-life problems.
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Two aerospace engineering students captured prizes during the AIAA Region 4 Student Paper Conference held in San Antonio on April 16-18. Senior Ai Ueno won second place for her paper “Optimization of a Flapping Airfoil with Computational Fluid Dynamics.” Master’s student Manju Nag won second place for his paper “Characterization of Parametric Uncertainty for use in Queuing Model of National Airspace.”

Drew Casani, director of the Texas Manufacturing Assistance Center at UT Arlington, was named Manufacturing Extension Partnership Champion of the Year at the MEP national conference in Orlando. He has led TMAC, located in the Automation & Robotics Research Institute, since 1995. Casani received the award for his participation and influence in guiding the MEP system: He has mentored and been a constant resource for many other MEP center leaders. TMAC is the Texas affiliate for the U.S. Department of Commerce extension program and exists to enhance the competitive position of the state’s manufacturing sector.

Materials Science & Engineering master’s student Hansika Parekh took the Mars Fontana Third Place Award for her poster “Corrosion and Antifouling Behavior of Paints with Reduced Copper Oxide” at the National Association of Corrosion Engineers meeting in March. The Mars Fontana Award is one of the most prestigious awards in corrosion science.

Sally Thompson, an administrative assistant in Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, received an unexpected and unusual honor during the April 18 banquet concluding the 2009 ASME District E Student Professional Development Conference and Early Career Technical Conference held on the UT Arlington campus. Students recognized her “unwavering support, guidance, dedication and friendship” by establishing an annual Sally Thompson Scholarship Award. Nearly 300 representatives from ten states and Mexico attended the conference.

Dr. Samir Iqbal has received a prestigious CAREER grant to develop new methods of detecting and isolating certain proteins. His proposed “Proteonic Biochips” could detect specific disease biomarkers from their electronic properties, significantly helping early cancer and Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis while reducing costs and time of analysis.
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Mihirkumar Patel, a doctoral student in the Materials Science & Engineering Department, has received a prestigious scholarship to attend a leadership training program sponsored by the materials society ASM International. The LeaderShape Institute prepares students to meet the changing needs of a diverse world.
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