Yesterday, President Fry presented the President's Awards, which recognize exceptional full- and part-time faculty and professional staff members. Among the winners were the College of Engineering Computing & Technical Services Team, who received the team Award for Excellence for Professional Staff.

Nominations are now open for the 2023 Drexel University College of Engineering Awards. Award categories, descriptions, and links can be found here. Nominations may be submitted by any College of Engineering faculty member (tenure-track, tenured, teaching, research, adjunct, Dean, Associate Deans, etc.) or professional staff member, and no self-nominations are permitted. Deadline for nominations is Tuesday, November 1, 2022.

The Drexel chapter of Tau Beta Pi, the national engineering honor society, needs a few more advisors. If you are a Tau Beta Pi member and are interested in serving as an advisor, or wish to become a member and serve, contact Baki Farouk, PhD, J. Harland Billings Professor in Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics, at farouk@drexel.edu.

In accordance with the college’s strategic plan, this program is focused on fostering interdisciplinary collaboration at the intersections of Drexel researchers’ existing expertise. Funds will be used to promote research projects that will lead to high quality scholarship, technology commercialization, submissions for extramural support, and ultimately awards from the NIH, DOD, NSF, and other governmental agencies and foundations. See full details and eligibility information here.

Sign up for the Office for Institutional Equity and Inclusive Culture (EIC) e-news! Learn about events EIC is hosting and resources for faculty, staff, and students. Sign up here.

Kevin Scoles, PhD, Associate Dean, Undergraduate Affairs, will join a group of faculty and staff that will be meeting with space auditors to discuss classroom spaces and A/V capabilities on October 18 and 19. If you are a faculty member and would like to give input, send short statements on what is your favorite classroom and why, what is your least favorite classroom and why, what your expectations are of a 2022+ classroom and how well we’re matching that to Scoles at scoleskj@drexel.edu. Other constructive comments are also welcome.

Drexel Libraries has recently added new ebooks & journals to our resource collection. From climate change to medicine to engineering, you'll find resources on a range of topics to help with your teaching, research & coursework. Check out the list on their website.

The following faculty have been named Dean’s Fellows for the 2022-23 academic year: 

Anup Das, PhD, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, received an award from Accenture National Security Services for his project “Software Framework for SNN on FPGA.” This project will develop a user-friendly open-source software interface which will be used to map machine learning workloads.

Yalcin Ertekin, PhD, clinical professor of engineering leadership and society, was selected by SME, “a nonprofit association of professionals, educators, and students committed to promoting and supporting the manufacturing industry,” as one of six Distinguished Faculty Advisors for 2022 in recognition of his service to the organization and their student chapters in advancing manufacturing knowledge. 

Yury Gogotsi, PhD, Distinguished University and Charles T. and Ruth M. Bach Professor of materials science and engineering and director of the A.J. Drexel Nanomaterials Institute, is working with Directed Vapor Technologies International and received an award from the U.S. Army for his project “Army MXene SBIR Phase II.” The goal of the project is to make “electronic invisibility cloaks” using MXene coated fabric that would be impermeable to electromagnetic waves. 

James Lo, PhD, associate professor of civil, architectural, and environmental engineering, received an award from the National Institute of Standards & Technology for his project “Machine Learning Based Approximation for Rapid indoor Environmental Quality Assessment.” The project aims to test the viability of using machine learning methods to approximate indoor conditions in real time for occupancy comfort and indoor air quality predictions.

Michael Waring, PhD, professor and department head of civil, architectural, and environmental engineering, is a co-PI on a DOE-funded grant led by Johns Hopkins University to establish an Urban Integrated Field Laboratory (IFL) in Baltimore, MD. This project specifically focuses on a metropolitan area facing interlinked challenges of aging infrastructure, increased heat and flood risk, and inequitable burdens of air and water pollution that are common to many other mid-sized industrial cities in the Eastern and Midwestern United States. 

Vibha Kalra, PhD, George B. Francis Chair Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, and Rahul Pai, a doctoral student in CBE, were quoted in an Oct. 6 Irish Times story about their research to stabilize sulfur in battery cathode material, which could lead to the development of lithium-sulfur batteries.

Annalena O'Reilly, BS civil engineering ’24 and women's soccer student-athlete, and Women's Soccer Head Coach Ray Goon were quoted in a Sept. 21 Philadelphia Inquirer story about the team getting off to the best start in program history — going undefeated through its first eight matches.

The ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit will be held from March 22-24, 2023 at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention in National Harbor, MD. The Summit is an annual conference and technology showcase that brings together energy experts from the forefront of different technical disciplines and professional communities to discuss how to overcome America's energy challenges in new and innovative ways. You can find more information on the Summit and how to register online.

NSF programs will stop accepting proposals via FastLane website in January 2023 with some programs stopping earlier. Please consult the tables linked here for additional information about the transition to Research.gov.