While the proposed Student Innovation Center promises excellent space and utilities for student organizations once it is completed, its construction plan is currently causing problems for the same organizations. The Student Innovation Center will be built on the plots where the Nuclear Engineering building and Old Sweeny currently stand, two building that are home to …Continue reading “Student Innovation Center displaces student organizations”
The first time AerE alum Elizabeth Bierman thought about engineering was when she saw the astronaut picture on her new lunch box in fourth grade. Bierman, who currently works for Honeywell as a principal systems engineer, found a flyer for NASA’s Young Astronaut program in that lunchbox and joined the program shortly after. Six months …Continue reading “I Became an Engineer: Because of a lunch box”
Mary Wickham has been named associate dean for operations and planning at the Iowa State University College of Engineering. Wickham spent 20 years in management and leadership positions at Caterpillar, Inc. before retiring in 2014. She joined Iowa State in 2015 as an adjunct associate professor in the department of aerospace engineering. She began her …Continue reading “Mary Wickham named associate dean for Iowa State University College of Engineering”
AerE alums lead ecoDemonstrator project at Boeing A degree from Iowa State in aerospace engineering has brought two alums to a big project in their field. Doug Christensen (AerE ’87) and Dean Hawkinson (AerE ’00) both currently work on the ecoDemonstrator program at Boeing. The program is an inventive and environmentally progressive way for engineers …Continue reading “Advancing aviation technology one recycled plane at a time”
New Iowa State professor makes nondestructive evaluation his life’s work. In 1987, the year after he received his ScD in Materials Engineering from the University Magdeburg, Norbert Meyendorf was offered a job at his alma mater teaching nondestructive evaluation. Since that day, he knew there was nothing else he’d rather be doing than exploring …Continue reading “Norbert Meyendorf: A Passion for NDE Testing”
New AerE assistant professor pushes for engaged education and student growth As a graduate student TA for an introductory engineering class at Purdue University, Benjamin Ahn observed something about the way students learn technical information through a bit of an informal experiment. The new assistant professor in AerE was teaching two classes, one in the …Continue reading “Benjamin Ahn: Enhancing engineering education”
Plans for the 2015 Jason Awards banquet to be held Tuesday, Nov. 17, are continuing to unfold. The event will be held at the Mid-America Center in Council Bluffs. The reception will begin at 6 p.m., with the dinner and program to follow.
Interspace travel requires the right tools. A group of ISU engineers has been working on a special tool for a trip to Mars. For the past three years, a group of engineers has been working on the Mars Analog Vehicle for Robotic Inspection for the annual Mars Society University Rover Challenge, and it’s almost mission accomplished.
The small robots in Ran Dai’s basement lab at Iowa State University look like fancy electronic toys. But they’re really very smart. And they’re getting smarter. Dai, an Iowa State assistant professor and Black and Veatch Faculty Fellow in aerospace engineering, is developing power-management technologies that would allow land- and air-based robots to monitor solar conditions so they can maximize operating efficiency and battery life.
It’s hard to get much of anything of value for $30, but an ISU club gets its members off to a flying start toward their pilot’s license with just that. The Flying Cyclones is a club for aviation enthusiasts of all kinds. Members, after paying yearly dues of only $30, have the chance to go on flights with the club’s pilots, attend fly-ins and go on trips.
Iowa State University civil engineering and aerospace engineering researchers partner to improve a structure’s resiliency to wind hazards. Iowa State recently received a 3-year, $400,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) grant that focuses on the development of high-performance structural control systems for wind response mitigation. The multidisciplinary research team comprises Simon Laflamme, the project’s principal investigator …Continue reading “Iowa State awarded multidisciplinary NSF project to improve response of structures to high wind”
Twelve undergraduates will learn lessons in operational thinking during the second Spaceflight Operations Workshop to be offered by Iowa State’s Department of Aerospace Engineering. The students will learn from Clayton Anderson, a workshop coordinator who retired from NASA’s astronaut corps in 2013. Anderson said the workshop’s goal isn’t to train the next generation of astronauts. It’s to help students think in new ways.
Iowa State University attracted a record $424.9 million in external funding during the fiscal year that ended June 30. The jump in external funding includes a $44 million increase over the previous year from the Iowa State University Foundation and a $14 million increase from federal agencies. The previous record was $388.2 million in fiscal year 2010.
The Boeing board of directors has elected Dennis A. Muilenburg the company’s 10th chief executive, succeeding W. James (Jim) McNerney, Jr., who held the position for the past 10 years. Muilenburg, who has served as Boeing president and chief operating officer since 2013, becomes president and CEO on July 1.
Throughout his career, Clayton Anderson has covered a lot of ground, both on and off this planet. Anderson, 56, served as a NASA astronaut and traveled twice to the International Space Station. Following his retirement from NASA in 2013, he began working as a distinguished faculty fellow in aerospace engineering at Iowa State University. And now, Anderson can also call himself an author.
