Momentum - The Magazine for Virginia Tech Mechanical Engineering Vol. 1 No. 2 | Page 10

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Zuo, Davalos named fellows
Lei Zuo, associate professor,
was recently
named the
John R. Jones III
Faculty Fellow.
The fellowship,
established in
2006, acknowledges mid-career faculty who
have shown exceptional merit in
research, teaching, and/or service.
Jones received his bachelor of
science degree in mechanical engineering from Virginia Tech in 1967
and has been a member of the ME
Advisory Board since 1998.
The American
Society of
Mechanical Engineers (ASME)
has named
Rafael Davalos,
a professor
of biomedical
engineering
and an affiliate faculty member
of mechanical engineering, as a
Fellow of the ASME.

Fellowship is the highest elected
grade of the society’s membership
and can be conferred on people
with at least 10 years of active
engineering practice who have
made significant contributions to
the profession.
Davalos has published 84
peer-reviewed papers, book
chapters and review articles. His
scientific papers have been cited
over 4,200 times. He has received
multiple SBIR grants, and holds 14
patents.
His widely recognized work
in dielectrophoresis has led to
innovations in cellular isolation
and enrichment. Research led by
Davalos has led to revolutionary
developments in cancer treatment, early cancer detection and
regenerative medicine.
He received his doctoral and
master's degrees in mechanical
engineering in 2002 and 1995
respectively from the University
of California, Berkeley. He earned
a bachelor’s degree from Cornell
University in 1994.

ME student set to move on to Global
Student Entrepreneurship Challenge

David Hall of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
a junior majoring in
mechanical engineering, and his partner,
Jordan Klein of
Tarrytown, New York,
a senior majoring in
engineering science
and mechanics, were
the big winners in the
VT KnowledgeWorks

Global Entrepreneurship Challenge
semifinals earlier this
spring.
The pair's idea
of a revolutionary
pocket-sized bicycle
helmet earned them
$15,000 in scholarships and summer
workspace in the VT

Corporate Research
Center. They will also
represent Virginia
Tech at the Global
Student Entrepreneurship Challenge
in August where they
will compete for a
$25,000 grand prize.
Read the entire story
at VTNews.

BioactiVT
earns $5,000
as part of
Union
Innovation
Challenge
BioactiVT, a multidisciplinary
student design team focused
on medical device innovation,
took first place in fan voting
and second in a judged competition in the second annual
Union Innovation Challenge
April 14. The competition was
a partnership with Union Bank
& Trust, Carilion Clinic and the
Apex Systems Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
The awards were announced
after three days of voting via
web- and text-based poll.
BioactiVT won by an 8 percent
margin (almost 400 votes).
The group, made up largely
of mechanical engineering
undergraduate students, took
home a total of $5,000 from
the competition; money that
will help their current development efforts. Of the group's
three projects, the one seeing
the most direct impact from
this award will most likely be
Tempo, a low-cost oximeter
for operating rooms in developing countries. Calibration
and comparative testing of
the device is underway, and
funding for field testing is a
high priority for the group.