Report - 2016 Fellow Reports, tbp.org

The past year at Purdue University has been both challenging and fulfilling in many regards. During the fall semester, I worked as a teaching assistant while looking for a professor to conduct research under. In the end my efforts were rewarded, and at the beginning of the spring semester I started work as a research assistant. 

By the end of the spring, I was approached by my research advisor to change direction and start working a project that would eventually lead to a Ph.D. I am now happily pursuing a Ph.D. in structural engineering focusing on the risk assessment and mitigation of concrete box beams commonly used in bridge structures all over the United States. 

Upon graduation, I hope to start consulting in structural forensics looking for solutions to our aging infrastructure while I continue learning as much as possible about structural engineering. It is my aspiration, as an engineer, to continue learning throughout my career to maintain an open mind to new and innovative solutions to the problems facing the structural engineering community. 

The funding provided by this fellowship gave me the opportunity to continue my education and without it I may not have had the opportunities that I have today.

Report - The Bent, Summer 2010

I have mainly used my fellowship funds to pay rent this past year. Paying for a place to live in the Phoenix metropolitan area has proved to be quite expensive. With this burden removed, I was able to focus on my studies and research; otherwise, I would have had to pick up a part-time job or take out a student loan. Because of the Tau Beta Pi Fellowship, I have been able to maintain a 4.0 G.P.A. in courses and to get a jump-start on my graduate research without increasing my financial debt. Now with a firm foothold on graduate school, I am confident I will be able to receive my doctorate without any doubt. Thank you ΤBΠ and all of those who contribute their time to such a great organization.

Report - The Bent, Summer 2007

This year, I began working on my master’s degree in architectural engineering at Kansas State University. Being a dual-degree program, my graduate study for the year focused on technical electives designed to assist with my upcoming research.

Due to the vital importance of indoor-air quality for occupants of healthcare facilities, the focus of my research will be evaluating the effectiveness of various air-cleaning techniques, advantages  and disadvantages, as well as the impact of each on the overall building systems. Particular emphasis will be placed on the implementation of ultraviolet germicidal irradiation lamps paired with HEPA filters in HVAC applications. My objective is to publish the research and educate engineers and owners of the opportunities and consequences of these infection-control techniques.

Furthermore, my graduate studies have given me the opportunity to pursue my interest in law and ethics. These diverse courses will truly benefit my success as a consulting engineer in the years ahead. Upon graduation, I plan to become a mechanical engineer designing building systems in the healthcare industry. It is my desire to return to Kansas State as a professor after earning my professional license and having a rewarding career.

I sincerely thank Tau Beta Pi for the continued support in pursuing my master’s degree! 

Report - The Bent, Summer 1993

With the help of the Tau Beta Pi Fellowship, I have just completed my first year of graduate study in chemical engineering at the University of Cambridge in England. It would be hard to say whether I’ve learned more technically or culturally in the last year. In terms of my research interests, I have been investigating applying nuclear magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to groundwater contamination treatment methods, including pump-and-treat and bioremediation. Designing laboratory scale experiments that have meaning when applied to field work is tricky, but physical constraints imposed by MRI compound the problem. The potential of MRI to non-intrusively resolve, in two or three dimensions, saturation of nonaqueous-phase liquids, contaminant concentrations, and aqueous flow rates makes it well worth the effort. I have spent the year learning MRI and surveying MRI and ground-water contamination literature.

I intend to complete my Ph.D. here and return to the U.S. to make practical application of my work in a field setting either as a consultant in the private sector or at a national laboratory.

Report - The Bent, Summer 1990

My first year as a graduate student has been quite an experience! It took a little time to adjust to the work habits of a graduate student, not to mention to the lifestyle at Berkeley. I spent most of first semester taking classes in the fundamentals of chemical engineering. 

By the second semester, I began my research in the area of silylation of photoresists. Silylation is a means of incorporating silicon into photoresists. Studies of this process are parts of the effort to improve photoresist development — increasing the resolution and simplifying the procedure. I am working on deducing the mechanism and kinetics of the silylation reaction. This project is especially interesting to me in that I am applying the familiar chemical engineering principles to microelectronic fabrication technology, an area entirely new to me.

All in all, it has been a great year for learning.

Report - The Bent, Summer 1989

Having delayed the use of my Fellowship until January 1989, I am now only halfway through my first semester of graduate work. I am pursuing a master’s degree in mechanical engineering at Kansas State University.

I have outlined a program of study that emphasizes robotics, dynamics, and control theory. Classes are enjoyable, and I am excited that many gaps in my undergraduate education are quickly filling. I have begun to define areas of possible thesis topics. There are several large controls projects just beginning here, and I hope to direct my thesis work toward one of them.

Early in this semester, four of us completed a three-axis robot for the mechanical engineering department. The team built and programmed all of the joint-control computers and wrote the path-generation software for the top-level computer, which is an IBM XT. The goal was to build a small robot, and students would have access to all of the software, allowing them to implement their own control algorithms on a real system. This is not usually possible with the college's commercial robots, as controller software is not available to the users. 

I am grateful to Tau Beta Pi for allowing me to work full time toward my degree. I hope to begin a career in industry during summer of 1990.

Report - The Bent, Summer 1975 

The atmosphere surrounding my graduate work at Purdue University has been non-rigid, yet guided enough to challenge me to develop the confidence and ability I sought in my continued education. There is a great deal of satisfaction in knowing that I learned what I desired to learn and feel that this years experience has been the perfect complement to my undergraduate work. 

Several factors were significant in my choice of graduate schools. I sought a strong automatic controls and instrumentation expertise along with a good, practical, design-oriented research project in the area of control and compensation. Purdue offered both. 

It is not surprising that I am a research assistant in the Automatic Controls Center within the mechanical engineering department. My research project deals with active chatter control for a lathe boring bar, beginning with machine tool chatter theory and progressing to design, construction, and finally testing of an active compensator of my own design. It bridges the theory-to-“real world” gap, something that I feel is vitally important at the graduate level.

Purdue is located in West Lafayette, IN, which is across the Wabash River from Lafayette. Around 28,000 students attend this campus, and it includes one of the largest engineering enrollments in the nation. The surrounding countryside is gentle and hilly with the rural element quite evident. Not surprising is Purdue’s strong agricultural curriculum. People here claim the Midwest, though it’s several hundred miles east of where I call Midwest. I have thoroughly enjoyed Purdue and recommend it highly.

My personal doubts for a doctoral candidacy which remained through the fall semester are finally settled. I am far too eager to use my education in industry to make anything past the master’s level a temptation presently. As I mentioned, my area is automatic controls. This actually includes dynamic systems, instrumentation, and modeling. I enjoy working with mechanical systems where original design and analysis are involved. I will complete my thesis some time this fall. My classwork ended with spring finals, and I see no reason for remorse at this fact. Now only serious research will occupy my time until graduation.

As I said earlier, my work has been a pleasant experience. I owe much to the support from my Tau Beta Pi Fellowship. When I joined Tau Beta Pi as a Kansas State charter member, I never dreamed that I would receive such an award. It enabled me to concentrate fully on school and has allowed me time to pursue interesting digressions that often present themselves within the course of graduate work. Consequently, I am grateful for the Tau Beta Pi-Industrial Nucleonics Fellowship, and I thank the Fellowship Committee for the honor and aid of this fellowship. I would also like to acknowledge the working of Robert Nagel for his very dependable attention in all the fellowship business and communications.