NTID receives grants
Rochester, NY - The Rochester Institute of Technology’s National Technical Institute for the Deaf (RIT/NTID) has received two recent grants, for lab upgrades and an innovative new transcription system.
The Industrial Science Technologies laboratories will receive an upgrade with state-of-the-art equipment, thanks to a $100,000 grant from the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, which has a long-term interest in supporting education in engineering, science and technology.
A separate grant, from the National Science Foundation, will support development of a remote transcription technology to assist deaf students in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields. The remote speech-to-text assistive technology allows individuals who are deaf or hard-of-hearing, including those with low vision, to view real-time transcription in remote/nontraditional settings in which it is currently difficult to provide access, such as field trips for science classes.
Researchers from three colleges of RIT will collaborate on the project, “Supporting deaf and hard-of-hearing undergraduate students in STEM field settings with remote speech-to-text services.”
RIT/NTID offers associate, bachelors and masters degrees to deaf and hard-of-hearing students, preparing them for technology-related careers. For more information, see www.ntid.rit.edu.
France Córdova is Purdue’s first woman president
West Lafayette, IN - France A. Córdova, an internationally recognized astrophysicist, is the new president of Purdue University. Córdova is the first woman to lead Purdue and the first Hispanic female president of a Big Ten university.
She started her career with a 1969 BA in English literature from Stanford University (Stanford, CA) and went on to a 1979 PhD in physics from the California Institute of Technology (Pasadena, CA). On graduation she worked at Los Alamos Labs as a member of the space astronomy and astrophysics group until 1989, when she left to head up Pennsylvania State University’s department of astronomy and astrophysics.
She moved to NASA in 1993 and was the youngest person to hold the position of chief scientist there. Her next move was to UC-Santa Barbara, where she was vice chancellor for research and a professor of physics. Then she joined the University of California-Riverside to teach astrobiology. She was named the school’s chancellor in 2002.
Córdova has published more than 150 scientific papers and reports on observational and experimental astrophysics, multi-spectral research on X-ray and gamma ray sources, and space-borne instrumentation. She is the award-winning author of a 1969 novel, The Women of Santo Domingo, based on anthropology field work she did in an Indian pueblo in Oaxaca, Mexico.
But anthropology soon gave way to astronomy. “I will never forget the day in 1969 when Purdue alumnus Neil Armstrong walked on the moon,” Córdova says. “It eventually drew me to Cal Tech, where I began exploring the mysteries of the universe.”
UGS GO PLM software donations benefit education
Plano, TX - UGS PLM Software is building the future technical workforce by providing product lifecycle management (PLM) software to educational institutions the world over through the GO PLM project. Some recent activities:
An in-kind grant to underserved schools in the Baton Rouge, LA area allowed approximately 50,000 students to get hands-on experience with PLM software.
The Hazelwood Central High School (Florissant, MO) Robohawks FIRST Robotics team used UGS PLM software to manage their project; the team won the St. Louis Regional Rookie All-Star award for their work. “We appreciate the outstanding software from UGS PLM Software that helped us in our first competition,” says Katherine Sylve of Hazelwood Central.
PLM training centers were established at leading universities across China. Training centers at South China University of Technology, Shanghai University Institute of Technology, Shanghai University, Dalian University of Technology (DUT) and the DUT school of automotive engineering will certify thousands of undergraduate and graduate students annually, supporting local manufacturers with quality engineers who are trained on the latest industry software.
A grant to Taxila Pakistan University of Engineering and Technology (Taxila, Pakistan) awarded 100 seats of UGS Solid Edge to the school’s electrical and mechanical engineering department CAD/CAM labs, giving undergrad students an introduction to cutting-edge CAD/CAM tools and post grads help with advanced research.
UGS, a division of Siemens Automation and Drives, is a provider of PLM software and services. For more information on in-kind donations, see www.ugs.com/partners/goplm.
L’Oréal USA presents fellowships for women in science
New York, NY - L’Oréal offers several programs to support women in the sciences. One is the L’Oréal USA fellowships for women in science, which recognize up-and-coming female techies who are conducting groundbreaking research in the sciences. The program offers $40,000 grants and networking and mentoring programs.
The 2007 fellowship awardees are Dr Kim Woodrow, Yale University (New Haven, CT), biomedical engineer; Dr Jaime D. Barnes, University of New Mexico, earth scientist and geochemist; Dr Sarah Clinton, University of Michigan Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience Research Institute, neuroscientist; Dr Julie Huber, Marine Biological Laboratory (Woods Hole, MA), oceanographer; and Dr Maria Krisch, University of California-Irvine, physical chemist.
The program is designed to recognize, reward and advance the role of women in research, to identify exceptional female researchers to serve as role models for young women and girls, and to raise awareness of the contributions of women to the sciences. It was launched in 2003 as the U.S. component of the UNESCO-L’Oréal International Fellowships program.
L’Oréal gives international fellowships for women in science to one prominent woman on each continent, and fifteen to young researchers in the life sciences.
The firm also sponsors the L’Oréal Ingenius contest for engineering students. Launched in China in 2001, the competition turned international in 2005. This year’s contest brings together students from France, Germany, Mexico, Canada, the U.S., Poland and China.
To learn more about L’Oréal’s support of the sciences, see www.loreal.com.
WEPAN presents 2007 awards
WEPAN presents 2007 awards
Denver, CO - Every year Women in Engineering Programs & Advocates Network (WEPAN) gives awards to individuals and institutions who do a particularly good job of advancing WEPAN goals.
Sherry Woods, director of special projects for the College of Engineering at UT-Austin, received the Founders award for her significant contributions to WEPAN since 1995. Woods has served as co-chair of the national conference, secretary of the board of directors and president of WEPAN.
Raytheon received the Breakthrough award for institutional structures and programs helping to foster diversity, especially for women employees.
The University of Wisconsin-Platte-ville’s Women in Engineering Program received the Women in Engineering Initiative award. The program’s recruitment and retention efforts have impacted thousands of girls and women.
Kansas State University’s Girls Researching Our World program received the Engineers Week award for significant contributions to Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day.
Barbara Bogue, associate professor of engineering science and mechanics and women in engineering at Penn State, and Dr Rose Marra, associate professor of learning technologies at University of Missouri, will share the 2007 WEPAN Betty Vetter Research award. The award recognizes significant contributions to women in engineering through the development of research-based instruments and practices.
WEPAN is dedicated to the success of all women in engineering. For more information see www.wepan.org.
NISH honors National Scholar Award winners
Washington, DC - NISH (formerly the National Institute for the Severely Handicapped) presented the National Scholar Award for Workplace Innovation and Design to three college student groups at its Grassroots Advocacy conference in June. Each award is given for an assistive technology device created by engineering students collaborating with nonprofit agencies in their communities.
This year’s top three award winners:
First place: Universal Box Taping Device (UBTD) designed by Nicole Gaffney, Clark Nelson, Angela Setera and Chris Setera from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in collaboration with BH Services of Rapid City, SD. The UBTD allows all employees at the Black Hills Workshop, including those with very limited range of motion, to seal boxes.
Second place: Improved Tape Cutting Process designed by Melissa Labrie of Western New England College, in collaboration with Goodwill of Springfield/Hartford, MA. This process assembles accordion-folded report covers. One of the tasks in assembly is cutting adhesive tape to a very specific length. Labrie’s design of an assistive technology device enables employees who have the use of only one hand or who have limited dexterity and mobility to cut the tape exactly to standard.
Third place: Sight N Sound Timer designed by Andres Afanador and Laura Malone of UNC (Chapel Hill, NC) in collaboration with Goodwill of Eastern North Carolina. The device prompts persons with cognitive disabilities to maintain focus on their work.
NISH established the award to encourage university-level students to reach out to people with severe disabilities in their communities, and to design creative technological solutions to barriers that prevent them from entering or advancing in the workplace. NISH assists nonprofit agencies employing people with severe disabilities in obtaining federal contracts under the AbilityOne Program (formerly known as the Javits-Wagner-O’Day program). See www.nish.org for more information.
Microsoft expands DigiGirlz program
Redmond, WA - This spring Microsoft held Florida’s first DigiGirlz day to let local eleventh-grade girls meet successful women working in the high-tech world. Microsoft has hosted DigiGirlz days since 2001, getting girls age thirteen and older excited about technology using games, projects, hands-on technology labs, information sessions and demonstrations of Microsoft products. Local Microsoft executives Monica Charnell and Linda Stachel addressed the group.
RIT team wins NASA moonbuggy race
Huntsville, AL - A team from Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT, Rochester, NY) won NASA’s 2007 Great Moonbuggy Race. The RIT team finished the course in four minutes and thirty-eight seconds, nine seconds ahead of the second-place team from the University of Puerto Rico-Humacao. Last year’s winner, Pittsburg State University (Pittsburg, KS), finished in third place and won the award for best design.
A special pit-crew award for ingenuity and persistence in overcoming problems during the race was won by Morningside College (Sioux City, IA). The University of Utah-Salt Lake City earned the rookie award for posting the fastest first-year time in the competition and also won a special safety systems award.
Carleton University (Ontario, Canada) was recognized for surviving the most spectacular, and fortunately non-lethal, crash.
In the high school division race, held on a separate course, the Huntsville Center for Technology (Huntsville, AL) outraced twenty-five teams with a time of three minutes and thirty-four seconds. It was ten seconds ahead of the second-place team, also from the Huntsville Center for Technology. Lafayette County C-1 (Higginsville, MO) finished in third place.
The Great Moonbuggy Race has inspired tomorrow’s engineers and designers since 1994, when the first Moonbuggy event was launched to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing.
STEM Initiative sponsors Summer Scholars Institute
Indianapolis, IN - A collaboration among two campuses of Indiana University (IU) and nine HBCUs will increase the number of minority students in STEM graduate programs. The STEM Initiative will also provide research opportunities for students and encourage the formation of other multi-institutional STEM research collaborations. Long-term goals include increasing the diversity of all partners through student and faculty exchanges.
STEM Initiative programs started in the summer of 2007, when selected juniors and seniors from IU and the HBCUs participated in an eight-week Summer Scholars Institute on the IU-Bloomington and IU-Purdue University Indianapolis campuses. Institute scholars spent three-quarters of their time working on STEM research teams with IU professors and students. During the rest of their stay they participated in colloquia with STEM academics and professionals and attended social and cultural activities. At the end of the summer the STEM scholars presented their research to IU and HBCU faculty, with whom they developed a year-round STEM research program. Each student received a $4,000 stipend, plus room and board.
The STEM Initiative partners are Alabama A&M University, Bennett College for Women, Clark Atlanta University, Hampton University, Indiana University-Bloomington, Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis, Jackson State University, Langston University, Morehouse College, Morgan State University and Xavier University of Louisiana. For more information see stem.indiana.edu.
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