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Regular Features
Faculty news
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Professor Vicki Bier and Engineering Physics Assistant Professor Paul Wilson are investigating nuclear fuel-cycle transparency for ways to confidently and assuredly detect nuclear proliferation under a $20,000 contract from Sandia National Laboratories. The two will study methods for best selecting process automation, surveillance and information-systems technologies to ensure that diversion of nuclear material for proliferation purposes is detected. One possible long-term outcome of this type of work is increased global deployment of nuclear power without compromising global security.
She also has received a one-year, $90,296 grant from UW-Madison's Midwest Regional University Transportation Center. With the funding, she will perform research on optimal and near-optimal resource allocation for protecting transportation infrastructure. Exploring applications of game theory, optimization and demonstrably near-optimal heuristics, she will model defense against security threats to networked transportation systems and help identify optimal strategies for allocating resources among possible defensive investments.
In addition, Bier's NSF proposal, "Optimal and Near-Optimal Resource Allocation for Information Security and Critical Infrastructure Protection," has been funded at $100,000 for two years and the book she co-authored, "Effects of Deregulation on Safety: Implications Drawn from the Aviation, Rail, and United Kingdom Nuclear Power Industries" (Kluwer Academic Press), has been published.
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The Industrial and Systems Engineering Department of the National University of Singapore has asked Professor Emeritus Don Ermer to be a three-year member of its visiting committee. The group evaluates the department's performance in teaching, research and its management, as well as assesses its undergraduate and graduate programs, and makes recommendations on the department's future direction. Ermer brings with him a long history of service in Singapore — in 1972, as the United Nations Industrial Development Organization expert on industrial quality, he helped the Singapore Institute of Standards and Industrial Research (SISIR) establish a national quality certification program — working intermittently for 27 years with the same agency, and serving as an expert in quality in various academic, industrial and governmental roles.
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Professor Jo Handelsman has been elected to fellowship in the American Academy of Microbiology (AAM). Handelsman, who joined the UW-Madison faculty in 1985, was recognized "for advancing our understanding of the functional diversity of uncultured microorganisms." Her accomplishments include helping to develop new techniques for accessing the genetic potential of previously untamable soil microbes and the discovery of a bacterium known as UW85 that produces novel antibiotics. Also a leader of the UW-Madison Women in Science and Engineering Leadership Institute, Handelsman is one of only 1,800 scientists elected to the AAM in its almost 50-year history. The AAM is an honorific leadership group within the American Society for Microbiology, the world's oldest and largest life-science organization.
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Assistant Professor Ben-Tzion Karsh is among several young engineers whose accomplishments were recognized as part of National Engineers Week. The "New Faces of Engineering" program highlights the unique and meaningful work of engineers two to five years out of school. The Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE) nominated Karsh, who researches in both health-care and occupational-safety settings and is a key investigator for the UW-Madison Developmental Center for Evaluation & Research in Patient Safety. Learn more about Karsh and other IIE nominees at www.eweek.org/site/Engineers/newfaces/IIE.shtml.
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The Wisconsin Manufacturing Extension Partnership and the Global E-Business Consortium (CGEC) recently announced the formation of an alliance to help Wisconsin manufacturers adopt e-business technologies. A pilot project with John Deere and Oshkosh Truck will develop approaches for collaborative product design between original equipment manufacturers and suppliers. The goal is to target at least 30 Wisconsin suppliers over the next year. In addition, the Wisconsin Technology Network's March 5 special profile, "University Consortium Enables Transformation and Survival for Wisconsin Businesses," featured CGEC. "If you're in business, you'd better start thinking about e-business," says CGEC Director and Professor Raj Veeramani in the story, which highlights the ways CGEC interacts with Wisconsin industry. Read the full story at www.wistechnology.com/CGECProfile.php.