FACULTY NEWS
| VISITING
FACULTY |
Each year, the department hosts a number
of visiting faculty members. Here’s a brief introduction
to some
of our more recent guests.
Seung-Woon Yoo
is a professor of civil engineering at Kwandong University,
Korea. He is working with Associate Professor Mike
Oliva and Professor Larry
Bank on the application of fiber-reinforced polymer composites
to the infrastructure and development of steel-free concrete
bridge decks. He is in Madison through July 31, 2006.
Director of both the structures and MAST laboratories
at the University of Minnesota, Associate Professor of Civil
Engineering Carol Shield is here on
sabbatical. With Professor Larry
Bank, she is assessing the reliability
of proposed design equations for the use of pultruded fiber-reinforced
polymer profiles.
A native of Hubertus, Wisconsin, Andrew
Graettinger earned his PhD in geotechnical engineering
at Northwestern University. Currently, he is an associate professor
at the University of Alabama, working at UW-Madison with Professor
Craig
Benson. His research interests are in geotechnical applications
of unrecyclable plastics, quantitative site exploration techniques,
and geographic information systems applied to civil engineering.
He is extending his stay at UW-Madison to work on both research
and teaching.
|
The UW-Madison Graduate School selected Professor
Larry
Bank as a 2006 Vilas Associate. The award recognizes mid-career
faculty members and supports new directions in research and teaching
efforts. Bank will use his award to develop a load and resistance factor
design basis for pultruded fiber-reinforced polymer profiles.
The Wisconsin Water Association (WWA) research committee
named Professor Dan
Noguera recipient of its 2006 Research Award. The award honors Noguera’s
contributions to understanding microbiological processes that occur
in drinking water distribution systems when chloramine is used as the
disinfectant. He conducted this research in collaboration with Associate
Professor Greg
Harrington. Noguera will receive the award in September at the WWA
annual convention.
The Technical Organizing Committee of GeoCongress
2006 on Geotechnical Engineering in the Information Technology Age,
Feb. 26 through March 1, selected the paper, “The Use of Low-Cost
MEMS Accelerometers for the Near-Surface Monitoring of Geotechnical
Engineering Systems,” for special commendation in the sensing
methods and devices track, one of the four major conference tracks.
Assistant Professor Dante
Fratta; T. Keith Hoffman, Camp Dresser & McKee, Inc., Baton
Rouge, Louisiana; and Richard Varuso, USACE, New Orleans, Louisiana,
authored the paper.
Assistant Professor Joel
Pedersen received a National Science Foundation Faculty Early-Career
Development Award. He will use his five-year, $400,036 grant to develop
a highly sensitive quantitative method for measuring prion proteins—the
elusive proteins thought to cause chronic wasting disease—and
to quantitatively describe how prion proteins associate with surface-reactive
soil minerals. He will also examine factors that influence attachment
to and detachment from these particles. Pedersen’s method for
measuring prion proteins could also benefit medical and veterinary research
areas; improved understanding of prion attachment to soil components
could lead to engineering applications based on the findings.
In addition, he is among a group of researchers that
confirmed that prions latch on tightly to certain minerals in soil and
remain infectious. While many proteins can bind to soil, that binding
usually changes their shapes and activities. Prions, however, remain
deadly despite sticking to soil. In particular, prions bind tightly
to montmorillonite, a type of clay found in soil. The group published
its findings in the April 14 issue of the journal
PLoS Pathogens.
