by Alyssa Patrick, College of Engineering and Architecture intern

When Adan Medina discovered he’d been selected for Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Summer Research Program (MSRP), he was ecstatic.

“I was in the lab when the program director called to say I was accepted. Let’s just say you could hear my excitement throughout the halls,” said Medina, a chemical engineering student in his final year.

This summer, Medina and 38 other students from various STEM majors around the country took part in this highly competitive undergraduate opportunity. Its goal is to prepare participants for graduate school through a focus on research. Medina said the three main pillars of the program were preparing for graduate school applications, networking, and conducting research with MIT professors.

The students all worked in research laboratories related to their fields and received a weekly stipend. Medina worked in the well-known Wittrup Lab that specializes in protein engineering, specifically focusing on anti-cancer drugs.

In particular, Medina focused on a different method of creating antibody-like reagents, or substances that help to bring about chemical reactions, for research. The goal of the project is to equip laboratories with efficient, low-cost methods to make antibodies. At the end of the 9-week program, all of the students presented posters about their research.

“I had to start my experiments over 3 or 4 times, which was stressful since I wanted to have data to show at the poster session. Not a second was ever lost, though, because each time I started over I knew a little bit more about the experiment,” Medina said.

Working in the WSU labs of Dr. Su Ha and Dr. John Alderete helped Medina gain the experience he needed to be accepted by MSRP. While his area of interest is biofuels, Medina’s passion for the research process gave him the desire to work in different fields.

“Adan is one of the most excitable, enthusiastic, dedicated undergraduates that my lab has had the pleasure to work with,” said Alderete.

As a result of MSRP, Medina is even more confident in his desire to pursue research through graduate school. He is applying to chemical engineering programs mostly on the West Coast that have strong bio-based alternative energy programs.

“This summer was my best experience by far. I am now confident in my ability to do research and in the huge difference that research can make,” Medina said.

Read more about the project at WSU News ↗

by Alyssa Patrick, WSU College of Engineering and Architecture intern

PULLMAN, Wash. – Chemical engineering PhD student Kevin Gray is headed to Japan in November to do a fellowship at a prestigious international school.

Gray will work under Dr. Fadel Samatey, a collaborator with Gray’s advisor Dr. Alla Kostyukova, at The Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University for four months. Samatey will give him training in protein crystallography and X-ray Diffraction.

“I am extremely fortunate to be working with Professor Kostyukova. She has a wide breadth of research techniques, and it is because of her connections that I even applied for this fellowship,” he said.

Currently he is preparing the Tropomodulin-2 (Tmod2) protein samples that are part of his graduate research to take with him to Japan. Tmod2 is a protein expressed in brain tissue. Altered amounts of the protein appear after strokes, after methamphetamine exposure and in Down’s Syndrome.

In addition to learning the crystallization process, he hopes to crystallize his protein samples and then gather structural data using X-ray Diffraction.

“We are currently doing fundamental science to better understand the protein,” he said. “Once we better understand it, that information may be used later down the road to suggest targeting Tmod2 regulation which could alleviate symptoms in conditions such as Down’s Syndrome,” he said. Originally from North Carolina, Gray grew up in Redmond, Wash. He earned his undergraduate degree at The Georgia Institute of Technology.

“While I am excited to continue my research and learn new techniques, I’m also looking forward to being somewhere new and meeting new people,” he said.

by Alyssa Patrick, WSU College of Engineering and Architecture intern

PULLMAN, Wash. – A WSU-Tri-Cities chemical engineering PhD student won third place in a student poster competition at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

Xiaohui Ju’s research is related to biofuels. She and her advisor, Xiao Zhang, are working to understand the deconstruction of cellulose in biofuels in hopes that their findings will lead to more efficient methods of biofuel production.

Ju presented her poster, Mechanism of Nanocrystalline Cellulose Decrystallization during Enzymatic Hydrolis, at PNNL’s Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) annual user meeting. Her research is supported by a National Science Foundation award.

“It is a very good opportunity for a brand new student to get to work with professional scientists, and getting recognized for my work makes me feel I’m doing something important for renewable energy,” Ju said.

Opportunities such as developing and presenting that research are part of what brought Ju to WSU. Originally from China, she earned her bachelor’s there, and then came to WSU because of its prestigious chemical engineering program and involvement in biofuels.

“My advisor is very helpful in giving me instruction, and I appreciate the chance to come here where there are many opportunities for career development,” she said.

Ju hopes to finish her doctoral degree within the next couple of years, and then plans to stay in the area and continue to work in the development of biofuels. Ju sees it as a promising industry, and would like to help make it commercially viable. Zhang is confident in her ability to pursue her goals.

“She is a very intelligent and hardworking woman,” he said.

PULLMAN, Wash. – Denny Davis, emeritus professor in the Gene and Linda Voiland School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering, recently received a best paper award for his paper, Integrated Design Engineering Assessment and Learning System (IDEALS): Piloting Teamwork and Professional Skills Development Instructional Materials.

Davis presented the paper at the annual conference of the American Society for Engineering Education that took place in San Antonio on June 10–13. The full paper is published in the conference proceedings and is available through the ASEE website (http://www.asee.org/).

In the paper, Davis and 11 other co-authors summarize 10 years of work in the development of research-based assessments and instructional materials for engineering design. Collaborators from across the country, representing several higher education institutions with diverse student populations, have developed and documented the effectiveness of their modules in capstone engineering design courses.

“With funding from the National Science Foundation, we have documented extraordinary professional skill development in our capstone design students using IDEALS modules. Students learn design and professional skills in an authentic professional environment, so they are ready to apply these skills in the professional world,” Davis said.

IDEALS modules give capstone design course instructors the materials they need to help students learn teamwork, professional responsibility, and professional development (self-directed learning) skills and to document the achievement of these skills. With the publication of the paper, instructors throughout the US and beyond are directed to the IDEALS website (http://ideals.tidee.org) where modules and instructor guides are available. Davis hopes that the work leads to more purposeful instruction and more useful assessment of students’ professional skills in design classes.

Davis is a leading expert in engineering design education, and the project leader for the IDEALS team. He and colleague Howard Davis have used many of the materials they developed in capstone courses at WSU.

The other researchers co-authoring the paper include Michael Trevisan, Howard Davis and Jennifer LeBeau from WSU, Steven Beyerlein and Jay McCormack from University of Idaho, Paul Leiffer from LeTourneau University, Phillip Thompson from Seattle University, Susannah Howe from Smith College, Robert Gerlick from Pittsburg State University, Patricia Brackin from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, and M. Javed Khan from Tuskegee University.

Read this article at WSU News ↗

Washington State Magazine

Nancy Ross Sutherland, MS Chemical Engineering, ‘84, was named a 2012 Fellow of TAPPI, the leading association for the worldwide pulp, paper, packaging, and converting industries. Fellow is an honorary title bestowed upon a small percentage of TAPPI’s membership and is given to individuals who have made extraordinary technical or service contributions to the industry and/or the association.

Sutherland is head of the Paper Test Lab, Forest Products Laboratory. She earned a B.S. in Wood and Fiber Utilization from Michigan Technological University, and a M.S. in Chemical Engineering from Washington State University. She has worked for the U.S. Forest Service since joining the Forest Products Laboratory in 1989 as a Forest Product Technologist for the Composites Unit. She has held leadership positions in the TAPPI Process and Product Quality Division, is currently a Member at Large on the P&PQ Division Steering Committee and is active in the Paper and Board Division as well. She’s served on the Fun Run committee at PaperCon for the last seven years and is currently Planning Committee Chair. Nancy is a member of American Society of Testing Materials Committee D06 on Paper and Paper Products, currently serving as vice-chair, and is also active in Technical Committee (TC 6) of the International Standards Organization (ISO).

Richard Zollars, professor in the Gene and Linda Voiland School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering has been named a Fellow of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). The award is given in recognition of outstanding contributions to engineering or engineering technology education, according to the ASEE website.

With WSU since 1978, Zollars served as department chair and then interim director of the school for 14 years. He has received several department teaching awards and has been involved in engineering education efforts.

In the area of K–12 teacher development, Zollars led the development of SWEET, or Summer at WSU Engineering Experiences for Teachers. The program, which has subsequently been established at a national level, invites middle and high school teachers to an intensive, six-week course that introduces them to engineering research and encourages development of curricula that they can bring back into their classrooms.

In the university engineering classroom, Zollars helped to develop a software environment called ChemProV (Chemical Process Visualizer). The software presents chemical engineering students with dynamically-generated feedback on their process flow diagrams and equations, guiding them toward correct solutions. Students using the program do a better job of problem-solving than those using traditional learning methods.

He has recently received support from the National Science Foundation’s Transforming Undergraduate Education in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (TUES) program on a project to use ChemProV to facilitate studio-based learning in chemical engineering classes. The idea is to develop a learning environment similar to what one finds in architecture design studios, so that students present solutions to their peers and instructor for critical review and discussion. Faculty at 10 institutions around the U.S. are experimenting with and documenting the software and the studio-based effort in their material/energy balance courses.

Zollars’ research areas include interfacial phenomena, polymer science and engineering, and surface and colloid science. He also serves as advisor for the WSU student chapter of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). Zollars and the student group several years ago developed the idea for the society’s national chemical car competition, in which student teams design, build, and race miniature cars that run off of a chemical reaction.

Zollars will be honored at the ASEE annual conference, to be held in San Antonio, Texas, in June.

by Tallie Mattson, WSU News intern

PULLMAN, Wash. – IPad and other tablet PC users increasingly report neck pain associated with use of the popular hand-held devices. Two Washington State University researchers have received funding to investigate how different tablet PC usage patterns potentially affect neck pain.

Anita Vasavada and David Lin, both bioengineering associate professors, were awarded $25,890 from the Office Ergonomics Research Committee. Ergonomics is the study of design of workplace equipment that fits the human body, its movements and abilities. The committee includes representatives from Apple, Microsoft, HP, Dell and many other companies.

Giving industry, consumers knowledge they need

Results from the study could help develop guidelines for consumers on how best to use the devices.

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration already has guidelines for computer monitors and their height adjustments, Lin said. Data from the WSU study will become part of the literature OSHA could use to make similar decisions concerning tablet PCs.

Tablet use on the rise

Within the last three years, tablet PCs have reached the hands of 11 percent of Americans, according to a report published in October 2011 by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.

By 2014, one in five Americans plan to own or purchase a tablet PC, according to Fuze Box, a provider of Internet and mobile based unified communications solutions. One-third of those owners plan to use the device for business.

Tablet PCs generally are used in business environments for emails, note taking, messaging, viewing and creating, Lin said.

Increasing sales and use of tablet PCs in the home and workplace have brought anecdotal association between neck pain, neck muscle fatigue and use of the devices.

“We can’t say definitively that chronic neck pain is caused by use of the devices,” Vasavada said. “However, it is likely that abnormal postures adopted while using tablet PCs increase mechanical loads in the neck; but no studies have examined the mechanical demands on neck muscles while using tablet PCs.”

Calculating muscle demand

Participants in the WSU study will use the tablet PCs in a workplace-like manner, completing reading and keyboarding tasks in different positions—handheld, on a table and in the lap—both with and without stands.

X-rays will be taken to document the neck posture during these tasks. The data will be used in a computer model to estimate how much muscle force is needed for participants to hold their necks in each posture, Vasavada said.

Excessive forward head positioning can lead to muscle fatigue and compression of joints and tissues, she said. Eventually, this can damage discs, nerve endings and joints.

Study participants sought

About 30 people, with an age range of 18–45, will take part in the study. The age is limited because older people tend to have a higher incidence of neck pain from other causes, Vasavada said.

The researchers are recruiting subjects who have at least one month experience using a tablet PC for the study. To participate, please contact them at vasavada@wsu.edu or 335-7533.

Contacts:
David Lin, associate professor/scientist, Chemical Engineering & Bioengineering, 509-335-7534, davidlin@wsu.edu
Anita Vasavada, associate professor/scientist, Chemical Engineering & Bioengineering, 509-335-7533, vasavada@wsu.edu

Read this article at WSU News ↗