Momentum - The Magazine for Virginia Tech Mechanical Engineering Vol. 2 No. 2 Summer 2017 | Page 30

Mahajan in Taiwan
Lewis A. Hester
Chair Professor
Roop Mahajan
was in Taiwan
April 19-26
where he gave
talks and held
meetings with
the National Taiwan Ocean University,
National Chung Hsing University, and
National Chiao Tung University. At
NTOU he gave the talk, Physical-Neu-
ral Networks for Engineering and
Medical Applications. At NCTU the
talk focused on Microprobes as Smart
Biomedical Devices. While in Taiwan,
Mahajan identified opportunities for
collaboration in research and educa-
tion, and to enlist commitment to join
the newly established Energy Harvest-
ing Society.
Qiao in Nano Let-
ters
Associate Professor Rui
Qiao’s group recently
published a paper in
Nano Letters, Self Assembly: A Facile
Way of Forming Ultrathin, High-Perfor-
mance Graphene Oxide Membranes
for Water Purification.
Nain in MBoC
Journal
Associate Professor
Amrinder Nain was
recently published in
the MBoC Journal with
“Nanonet Force Microscopy for Mea-
suring Forces in Single Smooth Muscle
Cells of Human Aorta.”
Mueller in Physical Review
Letters
Associate Professor Rolf
Mueller was recently
published in Physical
Review Letters in April
with, "Dynamic Substrate
for the Physical Encoding of Sensory
Information in Bat Biosonar."
Scholars of the Week
Associate Professor John Ferris was
selected as Scholar of the Week for the
week of April 24. The award is given
by the Office of the Vice President for
Research.
Professor Corina Sandu
was Teacher of the Week
for April 17 from the Cen-
ter for Instructional Devel-
opment and Educational
Research. Read more here.
Student Nominees
Congratulations to students nominat-
ed for the following awards.
Outstanding PhD Student Award:
Prashant Sing, Yadong He, Yongjia
Wu, Yangkung Song, and Jonathan
Hodges.
Outstanding MS Student Award:
Aamir Khan, Xiaofan Li, and Huachen
Cui.
Outstanding PhD Dissertation Award:
Yangkung Song.
The following students have been
nominated by faculty across the
college for the ASME/VT Memorial
Scholarship: Nathaniel Blaesser, PhD
candidate, AOE, Emilio Jimenez, PhD
candidate, Katherine Mott, PhD stu-
dent, Sterling McBride, PhD student,
Eurydice Kanimba, PhD student, and
Ali Roghanizad, PhD student.
Ng joins Entrepreneur HoF
Wing Ng, the Christo-
pher C. Kraft Endowed
Professor of Engineer-
ing, has received the
2017 Entrepreneur
Hall of Fame Award.
Ng “has made significant contribu-
tions to the three primary missions
of our university system - teaching,
research, and the extension of his
technical expertise to the broader
engineering community,” wrote
Richard Claus, the Lewis A. Hester
Chair of Engineering Emeritus, in
a letter of nomination. Read the
whole story.
MOMENTUM SUMMER'17
PAGE 30
Torgersen Leadership Award
Christopher Selig, a rising senior,
received the Paul E. Torgersen Lead-
ership Scholarship at the SEC Awards
April 30. Selig is a five-year student
who is also a member of the Corps of
Cadets.
VTP Lab gets $350,000
DOT project award
The Virginia Tech Vehicle Terrain
Performance Laboratory (VTPL)
was awarded a two-year, $350,000
Department of Transportation project
May 16.
Called Calibration, Certification, and
Verification of Transverse Pavement
Profile Measurements, the project PI
is Associate Professor John Ferris and
Co-PI is Professor Gerardo Flintsch,
Director of the Center for Sustainable
Transportation Infrastructure.
The project is meant to provide trans-
portation agencies with information
to monitor and evaluate pavement
testing programs that include trans-
verse pavement profiles. Virginia Tech
researchers will develop calibration
and certification/verification methods
and procedures to evaluate the preci-
sion and accuracy of measurements
collected at speed limits