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Lawrence Casper appointed to SBDC
Assistant Dean for Research and Technology Transfer Lawrence Casper has been appointed to the Advisory Council for the Wisconsin Small Business Development Centers (SBDC). The UW-Extension program is located on UW campuses around the state, including Madison. SBDC provides assesssment and training for small businesses and entrepreneurs, and is part of a national program funded by the U.S. Small Business Administration. Casper also was recently given a part-time appointment in the Wisconsin Entrepreneurs Network (WEN), a program funded by the Wisconsin Department of Commerce to promote entrepreneurship and innovation in communities across the state. |
As part of a new National Science Foundation-funded network, UW-Madison engineering faculty, staff and students will work with some of the nation's top science museums to create hands-on exhibits about technology so small that even the tiniest human fingers can't touch it. The Museum of Science, Boston, the Science Museum of Minnesota, and the Exploratorium, San Francisco, are leading the $20 million Nanoscale Informal Science Education (NISE) Network, which aims to develop innovative materials and vehicles for increasing Americans' knowledge about and understanding of nanotechnology.
Associate Professor of Engineering Physics Wendy Crone, who is director of education and outreach for the university's NSF-funded Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) on Nanostructured Materials and Interfaces, will lead the effort. Building on ideas and topics from MRSEC research, Crone's group will work most closely with the Science Museum of Minnesota, which under the NSF grant will lead the Center for Exhibit and Program Production and Dissemination. “Each museum will draw on the technical expertise available in various partner institutions,” she says. “Our expertise is providing publicly accessible science for museum exhibits.”
The UW-Madison student chapter of the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE), led by its presidents Travis North (2003), Alex Bredemus (2004) and Thomas Best (2005) and advised by Associate Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering Darek Ceglarek, recently won a Gold Award in the 2005 IIE Chapters Rcognition Competition. The University Chapter Recognition Award recognizes chapter improvements and progress. Gold, silver and bronze awards are given based upon points scored in several diverse areas, including strategic planning, outreach activities and participation in regional events. IIE has 153 student chapters in more than a dozen countries on three continents. In addition to the United States, these countries include Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Costa Rica, Honduras, Panama, China, Korea, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore and Taiwan.
A fellowship program proposed by Engineering Physics Associate Professor Wendy Crone and University Communications Science Editor Terry devitt received funding from the 2006-2008 Ira and Ineva Reilly Baldwin Wisconsin Idea Endowment. “Nanotechnology Fellowships for Journalists, Policy Makers and Business People” will provide in-depth workshops on the scientific and public affairs implications of the burgeoning field of nanotechnology. The first year will provide fellowships for state and national reporters, while the second and third years offer training for policy makers and business people, respectively.
Juan Pablo Hernandez, a student from Medellín, Colombia, recently won the Ensinger Dissertation Prize for the best dissertation in the field of plastics technology during the last year. Hernandez's advisor is Mechanical Engineering Professor Tim A. Osswald and his dissertation is entitled, “Boundary Integral Equations for Viscous Flows: Non-Newtonian Behavior and Solid Inclusions.” The Ensinger Prize is awarded annually by the WAK (Scientific Alliance of Plastics Technology), a group of 25 German university professors in the area of plastics technology. ME's Polymer Engineering Center is the only U.S. center that is a member of the WAK, and therefore its theses, papers and other publications are considered by the WAK as part of the German plastics technology literature. Hernandez accepted the prize in Chemnitz, Germany, in November. The prize carries a 5,000 EUR award.
Stefan Gerhardt, a former student of Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor David Anderson and former member of the college's HSX Plasma Group, was recently awarded the 2005 Marshall N. Rosenbluth Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Award in Plasma Physics by the American Physical Society-Division of Plasma Physics (APS-DPP). Gerhardt accepted the award at the annual meeting of APS-DPP in Denver, Colorado, in late October. He now works at the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab.
Content by perspective@engr.wisc.edu
Date last modified: 03-Feb-2006
Date created: 03-Feb-2006
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