Congratulations to Mike Borowczak, Computer Science, for accepting the duties of being the new ASEE Campus Representative. As the ASEE Representative Mike will play a crucial role in recruiting new ASEE members and keeping current and potential members informed of ASEE activities. Mike will play a vital role in getting information about membership opportunities to members as well as to potential new members on campus. The growth, stability, and effective operation of ASEE in accomplishing its mission of promoting excellence in engineering education directly depend on the Campus Representatives across our nation. Good luck to Mike in this new position.  

The Rocky Mountain Section of AAPG is pleased to announce the winners of its presentation awards for the 2019 Meeting in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Jeffrey W. Bader won the A.I. Levorsen Award for the best oral presentation with his paper titled, “Structural Inheritance and the Role of Basement Anisotropies in the Laramide Structural and Tectonic Evolutions of the North American Cordilleran Foreland, Wyoming: Towards a Unified Hypothesis.” This award is given by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists and emphasizes creative thinking toward new ideas in exploration. Bader is a geologist with the North Dakota Geological Survey.

Chris Perfili won the Runge Award for the best student presentation with his paper titled, “Sedimentology and Reservoir Potential of Allochthonous Upper Desert Creek Carbonates, Southern Margin of the Aneth Complex (Middle Pennsylvanian), Paradox Basin, Utah”. His co-authors for the paper include Scott Ritter and Bob Lindsay with Brigham Young University and Peter Neilsen with the Utah Geological Survey. Perfili was a student at Brigham Young University. The Runge Award is sponsored by the Wyoming Geological Association in memory of John S. Runge. It was established in 1975 and recognizes professional and scientific excellence in student papers.

Brian Toelle won the Steve Champlin Memorial Award for the best poster presentation with his presentation titled, “Potential Shale-Oil Reservoirs in the Eastern Bighorn Basin, Wyoming.” Co-authors of the paper include Marcin Pankau, Ranie Lynds and Pejman Tahmnasebi. Toelle is Professor of Practice at the University of Wyoming, Department of Petroleum Engineering. The Steve Champlin award was created in 1986 by the Wyoming Geological Association to encourage excellence in poster presentations, one-on-one discussions of geology and friendly cooperation for the exploration of natural resources.

The awards will be presented at the AAPG Rocky Mountain Section 2020 meeting in Grand Junction, Colorado. The meeting, 20/20 Vision – Turn Hindsight to Foresight, will be held September 13 -16, 2020 in the Two Rivers Convention Center and is co-hosted by the Grand Junction Geological Society and the Four Corners Geological Society.

Dr. Liping Wang, Assistant Professor in Civil & Architectural Engineering, has received the NSF CAREER award to support research on plants and the indoor environment. Her project is entitled: "Commercial Building Indoor Greenery Systems' Effects on Thermal Environment and Occupant Comfort under Climate Change." The CAREER Program offers the NSF’s most prestigious awards in support of junior faculty who demonstrate outstanding research and excellent education.

The Space Allocation Committee has been busy working on reassigning space in the Engineering building since the move to the EERB. The ultimate goal of the committer to get everyone the space they need. All space requests can be submitted by filling out and submitting the form found here. http://www.uwyo.edu/ceas/dean/_files/19-ceas-space-request-form-fillable.pdf

Seventeen CEAS students, along with three staff members, conducted company site visits in Rock Springs and Green River, WY January 29-31. The companies visited were J.R. Simplot, Infinity Power and Controls, Dominion Energy, Genesis Alkali, and Solvay Chemicals. "It's one thing to read about them (jobs available in different industries) and be told in a classroom what your job may be someday and, completely different being able to go and see it in action, even for just a few hours. I think the biggest thing I learned from this trip was the need for process control engineers in so many different industries" (John Chekan, Petroleum Engineering). Another student, Joe Klebba (Mechanical Engineering), stated "I very much enjoyed seeing so many cool things and hearing from those who work at these companies. The exposure to these places and the advice I received were sorely needed experiences for me and will undoubtedly help me to make stronger decisions, plan better for my future, and seek employment more effectively!" The student career experience was organized by the CEAS Center for Student Success office. With the assistance of UW Alum and CEAS Dean's Advisory Board member Amy Allen, a dinner with UW alumni (Jason Brown, Billie Lew, Brandt Lyman, Jim Sedey, and Lynn Sedey) was arranged for informal discussion and conversation about current and future career development. Thanks to our loyal companies for providing their time, lunches, and great experiences including going underground to explore the process of trona mining!

Dean Wright invited Staff members to share their perspectives at the first “Coffee with the Dean” session last month. Different from the previous Staff Council, Dean Wright envisions a platform where staff can meet with him on an informal basis to share ideas, concerns information, etc. He hopes staff will find a place to relax and just visit with him in a reciprocal manner. A call has gone out to staff members who are also interested in volunteering to serve in an advisory capacity. If you are interested and have not contacted Dean Wright, please do so at your earliest convenience. 

Engineers Week was last week with 3,863 third graders in 203 classrooms from 83 schools learned from 105 engineers representing 54 firms. Six CEAS K-12 ambassadors will also traveled to facilitate lessons on the reservation and around Laramie. I would like to thank the Wyoming Board of Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors for their support, Union Wireless for their sponsorship, all the engineers and teachers who make an impact in students’ lives, and everyone who supported the organization and facilitation of this outreach effort.

 

The Land Surveyor’s Outreach pilot is complete. This outreach effort has been a success thanks to a web based, interactive map created by GIS professionals and professional land surveyors who went into classrooms across Wyoming to facilitate Geo Inquiry lessons. Once the feedback data is gathered, the lessons and map will be revised, and the initiative will go live across Wyoming.

 

The state TEAMS competition will be held on February 24 ^th in the UW Union from 8:00-2:30. Eight teams will compete in a three part competition including an essay, a multiple choice test, and a design and build challenge. 

Computer Science graduate students Hui Hu, Sourin Dey, Mehdi Nourelahi, and Damir Pulatov attended the annual AAAI AI conference in New York this week, led by CS assistant professor Lars Kotthoff. The AAAI conference is one of the top events in the field, with 4,000 attendees from all over the world and a program featuring three Turing award winners (the Nobel Prize of Computer Science), one Nobel Prize winner, and chess grandmaster and human rights activist Gary Kasparov. The week-long program featured tutorials, workshops, plenary talks, and technical sessions showcasing the state of the art in AI technology and the future directions the leaders of the field consider most important. A job fair gave students the opportunity to look for jobs and internships.

Scott Morton is a Wyoming native who has retired from an extremely varied career as a rand hand, building contractor, mechanic, professional engineer, mechanical engineering senior design instructor, and inventor; being named inventor on ten patents covering an equally wide range of fields.

He has also experimented with novel small wind power systems, rebuilt an off-grid power system, and worked on the restoration of a Victorian home; a place he called “The Temple of Our Lady of Perpetual Construction.” Since retiring he has devoted his skills to “shopping” in his personal workshop, tinkering, restoring and displaying antique cars, building automated control systems, and writing creative instead of technical works.

Available on Amazon

Ripple a company that deals in real-time gross settlement system, currency exchange and remittance network created by Ripple Labs, Inc, visited the University of Wyoming campus on Friday, February 18th. The purpose of their visit was to highlight the blockchain classes, research, hackathon at UW and to discuss Ripple's University Blockchain Research Initiative.

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