Tissue engineering is a transformative branch of regenerative medicine —a cutting-edge field that has the potential to revolutionize the future of healthcare.
School of Engineering's Founding Dean Leaves Behind a Legacy of Service
On January 17, 2019, the UAB School of Engineering lost a beloved and historic figure when Joseph Appleton, Ph.D., the school’s first dean, passed away at age 91.
Construction Engineering Management (CEM) welcomed 40 new graduate students this spring. Attendees came from as far as California, Connecticut, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and Wyoming for the two day event. CEM admits during the spring and fall terms and currently has 148 registered graduate students.
The SpaceX CRS-16 launched its resupply mission to the International Space Station on Dec. 4 and carried four Polars and the Rapid Freezer developed by UAB engineers from the Engineering and Innovative Technology Development (EITD) research group. This flight, combined with additional assets currently on-orbit, provided a record for UAB developed payloads on-orbit.
Read more: International Space Station now home to a record number of UAB payloads
Bond-Haggard Endowed Scholarship Opens a World of Potential
After a successful career in both industry and academia, Warren Haggard, Ph.D., has seen a lot of changes in biomedical engineering. Now retired, he says the thing that excites him most about the future of the field is the same thing that excited him as a student—the possibilities.
The UAB Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) recently was awarded a Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA Institutional Research Training Grant (T32) to support predoctoral students in UAB’s BME and Biomedical Sciences graduate programs.
Andy Curry, a biomedical engineering postdoctoral candidate, recently received the third-place, $1,000 prize in the Blazer Innovation Challenge. Curry won the award for his proposed business model for automotive repairs.
Read more: Postdoc earns third place in Blazer Innovation Challenge
When SpaceX launches its resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS) in early December, it will include a unique device created by UAB engineers. And scientific experiments conducted in space may never be the same.
Read more: Rapid-freeze device ready for upcoming space launch
Twelve exceptional engineering students were inducted into Tau Beta Pi, the engineering honor society, on Friday.
Philipp Steinmetz, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the department of Materials Science and Engineering, recently received the UAB Extraordinary First-Year Postdoc Award. Steinmetz was presented with the award at the annual Postdoctoral Scholar Appreciation Lunch and Award Ceremony, where he was also nominated for the Excellent Peer Award.
Read more: Steinmetz Named UAB's Extraordinary First-Year Postdoc
Two postdoctoral scholars from the School of Engineering were among eight UAB postdocs honored this fall with awards from UAB. Ossama Ramadan, Ph.D., in the Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering was named UAB’s Most-esteemed Postdoc, and Philipp Steinmetz, Ph.D., was recognized as the university’s Extraordinary First-Year Postdoc.
For years, safety in engineering relied on warnings, employee training and protective equipment. The School of Engineering has announced two endowed funds honoring Martha Bidez, Ph.D., that will provide support for students enrolled in the Advanced Safety and Engineering Management (ASEM) degree program.
Read more: Two new endowments focus on transforming safety in engineering
Biomedical Engineering Undergrads Featured in UAB Magazine Cover Story
Paige Severino and Ali El-Husari want to change the lives of people who wear ostomy bags. That may sound like an unusual pursuit for college students, but Severino and El-Husari aren't your typical undergraduates.
Beginning in 2019, UAB will offer a Master of Science in Engineering Management, a joint master’s degree program offered by the UAB School of Engineering and the Collat School of Business. The program will train engineers in the skills they need to move into positions of leadership within a variety of career fields.
Read more: UAB creates master of science degree program in Engineering Management
Construction Engineering Management (CEM) welcomed 59 new graduate students this fall, the largest cohort to date. Attendees came from as far as California, Colorado, New Jersey and New York for the two day event. CEM admits during the spring and fall terms and currently has 143 active graduate candidates.
A team of biomedical engineering students recently took second place at the World Congress on Biomechanics in Dublin, Ireland for their work on a mechanical umbrella for power wheelchairs.
Read more: BME senior design project awarded second place at World Congress on Biomechanics
A multi-year contract between NASA and the UAB Engineering Innovation and Technology Development (EITD) research group was recently doubled, giving the group a $50-million cap on work to provide and maintain cold-stowage units for the International Space Station (ISS).
Umbrella Design for a Power Wheelchair Will Be Presented at World Congress of Biomechanics in Ireland
Read more: Senior design project earns international recognition
Birmingham native and rising sophomore Mariam Massoud has been selected for the prestigious Fulbright US-UK Summer Institute Scholarship.
Read more: Civil Engineering major earns prestigious scholarship
For the second year in a row, the UAB Department of Biomedical Engineering, a joint department in the School of Medicine and School of Engineering, ranked fourth in the nation in the amount of funding it received from the National Institutes of Health.
Lee Moradi, Ph.D., is no stranger to dreaming big.
When he came to UAB in 1996, he came with an idea: to build an engineering organization that was among the best in the United States. In the past 22 years, that dream of Moradi’s came true with the creation and success of Engineering and Innovative Technology Development.
Read more: Moradi named UAB's Grand Challenge project manager
This spring, several School of Engineering faculty members received professional honors. Recipients included Timothy Wick, Ph.D., and Joel Berry, Ph.D., who each received awards from the UAB Office of the Provost, as well as Amber Genau, who received the TMS Young Leaders International Scholar Award.
Read more: Faculty honors and awards demonstrate sustained commitment to excellence
The SAFER Barrier has been saving lives for more than a decade at NASCAR and IndyCar circuits across the United States, as well as in the European circuit. On April 11, SAE International honored the team that created the Steel Foam Energy Reduction Barriers with the 2017 SAE John Melvin Motorsports Safety Award, which includes Dean Sicking, Ph.D.
In March, more than 200 cardiovascular scientists, biomedical engineers and physicians from around the world attended the Fourth Annual NIH Progenitor Cell Translational Consortium (PCTC) 2018 Cardiovascular Bioengineering (CVBE) Symposium at UAB. The event was held over two days at the UAB Hill Student Center.
Read more: 2018 CVBE Symposium Draws World's Leading Researchers to UAB
Alex Plazas, a sophomore in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, is one of four UAB students named University Innovation Fellows by Stanford University’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design.
Vladimir Vantsevich, a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, was recently appointed chair of the Technical Committee for Transportation Machinery in the International Federation for the Promotion of Mechanism and Machine Science (IFToMM).
Read more: Vantsevich appointed chair of TC Transportation Machinery Committee
Virginia Sisiopiku, Ph.D., was selected by the Engineering Council of Birmingham (ECOB) as the 2017 Educator of the Year. The award was presented at the 59th Annual Awards Banquet on February 20, 2018. Sisiopiku is the first UAB engineering faculty member to receive the ECOB Educator of the Year Award.
Read more: Engineering Council of Birmingham honors CCEE faculty member as educator of the year
Many aspiring scientists wonder how they’ll find the right lab to launch their research career. Retta El-Sayed was pulled right in by a giant magnet.
Read more: Force for good: BME senior contributes to cancer-fighting research
The Construction Engineering Management (CEM) track of study welcomed 39 new students to the graduate track of study. However, due to a blast of Canadian air that blanketed much of the east coast with ice, snow, and artic temperatures, only about 24 students were able to attend the January 5 and 6 boot camp. Students came from as far as Oregon, California, and Washington State for the two day event.
Large, human cardiac-muscle patches created in the lab have been tested, for the first time, on large animals in a heart attack model. This clinically relevant approach showed that the patches significantly improved recovery from heart attack injury.
Read more: Heart-muscle patches created from human cells improve recovery from heart attacks
Karim I. Budhwani will be honored in two commencement ceremonies this spring—once as a graduate from UAB’s Materials Engineering Ph.D. program, and then again on May 6 as the speaker at Coe College in Iowa.
Read more: UAB’s Karim Budhwani to Deliver Commencement Address at Alma Mater
A pair of Materials Science and Engineering students recently won first place in the Failure Analysis Competition at the 42nd Annual International Conference and Expo on Advanced Ceramics and Composites (ICACC) in Daytona Beach, Florida.
Read more: Team Blazer Earns Top Prize in ICACC Failure Analysis Competition
Aidan King, a senior materials engineering student, is the featured student in AFS Student Chapter Digest, a quarterly newsletter for AFS student members that was launched earlier this month.
Read more: Aidan King Featured in AFS Student Chapter Digest
Emily Shedlarski, a 2014 graduate from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, is featured in the "Industry Voices" feature of the October 2017 issue of Modern Casting.
Read more: MSE Alumna Emily Shedlarski Featured in 'Modern Casting'
Earlier this summer, more than 20 high school students got a taste of college and a strong dose of engineering knowledge during the 2017 UAB Materials Camp.
Read more: 2017 Materials Camp Draws Diverse Crowd of Aspiring Engineers
A recent brief in the Wall Street Journal points to a troubling trend in engineering. Even as the computer science and engineering fields are growing, the article states, “men continue to flock to those lucrative positions in significantly larger numbers than women.”
Overexpression of Cell-Cycle Activator Gene Enhances Repair of Dead Heart Muscle
Researchers in the Department of Biomedical Engineering report a significant advance in efforts to repair a damaged heart after a heart attack, using grafted heart-muscle cells to create a repair patch. The key was overexpressing a gene that activates the cell-cycle of the grafted muscle cells, so they grow and divide more than control grafted cells.
The UAB Engineering and Innovative Technology Development (EITD) research group was recently announced as a partner in a $500-million contract issued from NASA’s International Space Station (ISS) Program Office.
Read more: EITD included in $500-million contract for ISS work
SOE Professor Says Drones Have Potential to Find Flaws in Aging Bridges
Nasim Uddin, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering, is using a $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to explore ways to make America's bridges safer.
$2 Million Grant Seeks to Improve Care of Patients with Kidney Disease
A company cofounded by biomedical engineering professor Ho Wook Jun, Ph.D., is teaming up with UAB physicians and researchers to improve care for patients with end-stage kidney disease, thanks to a $2-million grant from the National institutes of Health.
Read more: BME professor collaborates on dialysis breakthrough
Mechanical Engineering Professor Vladimir Vantsevich, Ph.D., recently was awarded the Thar Energy Design Award by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). The award, presented by the Thar Energy Company, is given annually to honor significant contributions to energy engineering. The award was presented at the 2017 ASME IDETC/CIE Conference in Cleveland Ohio.
Read more: ME Professor Vantsevich earns ASME's Thar Energy Design Award
The National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) recently accepted three proposals as part of a national search for ideas to improve highway safety, including one from UAB mechanical engineering professor Dean Sicking, Ph.D.
Amber Genau, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, has been selected to receive the President's Award for Excellence in Teaching. She is one of 12 UAB faculty members who will be recognized during the annual Faculty Convocation to be held on Tuesday September 19 at 4 p.m. at the UAB Alumni House.
Read more: Genau receives President's Award for Excellence in Teaching
The Construction Engineering Management (CEM) track of study welcomed a record 54 new students to the graduate track of study. However, due to hurricane Harvey making landfall in the Gulf of Mexico, only about 42 students were able to attend the August 25-26 boot camp. Students came from as far as California and Washington State for the two day event.
Dominique T. Everett was awarded the NSF EPSCoR Scholarship for Ph.D. research, Sharon Uwanyuze presented a paper at AISTech, and Md Mehedi Hasan earned the AIST Training Award this spring.
The Leah McCraney Memorial Endowed Scholarship was established to provide funds to deserving students in the Advanced Safety Engineering and Management (ASEM) concentration. The 2017 award recipient is Nicholas Latham.
Rosalia N. Scripa, Ph.D., professor emerita in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, has been included in Marquis Who’s Who.
Read more: Scripa Honored by Marquis Who's Who for Excellence in Engineering
Kirsten Pittman and Zebediah Dahlke have received American Foundry Society – Birmingham Chapter Scholarship for the 2017 year.
Read more: Two Students Awarded American Foundry Society Scholarships for 2017
The Construction Engineering Management (CEM) track of study greeted a total of 42 new students during the January 6 boot camp. Due to winter weather advisories in Birmingham, the CEM team was forced to cancel the on-campus schedule and quickly implement a virtual online orientation event.
In a career that spanned more than 35 years, Dr. Martha Bidez helped make the world safer place. After earning multiple engineering degrees from UAB, Bidez led a distinguished career in both the academic and private sectors that established her as one of the nation’s foremost authorities in safety engineering.