from the lab

School of

MagazineWinter 2014BROWN

Inside this Issue:

BrainGate Team Wins $1 Million Prize

Engineering Alumna Manages Indomitable

Installation

Meet the New Faculty

Engineering

BROWN SchOOl Of ENgiNEERiNg 4 1 WiNTER 2014

i n s i d e t h i s i s s u e m e s s a g e f r o m t h e d e a n

Message from the Dean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

BrainGate Team Wins $1Million Prize . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Senator Reed Visits Brown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Brain Anatomy and Language in Young Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Gold Nanoparticles Give an Edge in Recycling C02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

More Intestinal Cells Can Absorb Larger Particles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8

Meet the New Faculty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

For This Student, It’s All in the Making . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Faculty News/Honors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Managing Indomitable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Brown/RISD/Erfurt Team Designs Techstyle Haus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Crash Course: Engineering After School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

A Summer in India with Rainwater for Humanity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Student Awards/Grants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Alumni News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Engineering Advisory Council (EAC)/Engineering Development Committee (EDC) . . . . . 26

Donor Honor Roll . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Campaign for Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

School of Engineering MagazineEditorialGordon Morton ’93Manager of CommunicationsSchool of Engineering

DesignAmy Simmons

PhotographyCathi Beattie, Mike Cohea, Jo-Ann Conklin, Sam Lee ’15, Isabelle Lubin ’16, Gordon Morton ’93, Kevin Stacey, Amy Simmons

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Make a Gift

Giving ThanksAs I write this, we are in the midst of the holiday sea-son. It is a time for giving and for giving thanks. Stu-dents have just returned from Thanksgiving break, and after a few intense weeks of studying, projects, and exams will return home for winter break. While this is a busy time for everyone, it is helpful to take a step back, reflect on the past year and give thanks. In that spirit, we are happy to include our inaugural list of donors in the magazine. We want to thank everyone who supported the School of Engineer-ing during the past fiscal year, particularly our most loyal donors who have continued to support us ev-ery year since the founding of the School in 2010.

In April, we announced a $160 Million Campaign for Engineering, including lead gifts totaling $44 million from Theresia Gouw ’90, Charles Giancarlo ’79 P’08 P’11 and Dianne G. Giancarlo P’08 P’11, and anonymous donors. We are grateful for their leadership and commitment to the future of Brown Engineering. I’m happy to report that we have now raised over $65 million.

During this time of giving, it is inspiring to look around and see the research of professors and students who want to make a difference and give back. The BrainGate team continues to amaze me. They recently won the $1-million Moshe Mirilashvili Memorial Fund B.R.A.I.N. Prize and were presented with the award by Israeli President Shimon Peres (see page 2). One of our undergraduate students, Sam Lee ’15, spent the summer in India, working with Rainwater for Humanity constructing rainwa-ter harvesting systems (see pages 22-23). Closer to home, a group of students from the Brown chapter of Engineers Without Borders (EWB) has formed the Brown Engineering After School Team (BEAST), and has been volunteering their time and providing af-ter school instruction in basic engineering concepts to local high school students (see pages 20-21).

While it is important to reflect back on the past year, the new year also holds great promise for the Brown School of Engineering. Our professors will continue to pursue grand challenges and conduct break-through research. Our students will continue to challenge themselves, in and out of the classroom.

We hope to continue to bring you these exciting stories, both in the magazine and on our website. Thank you for your continued support.

Ever True,Gordon Morton ’93 Editor

On the cover: The installation of Indomitable was managed by Perry Ashenfelter ’13, an Assistant Project Manager at Shawmut Design & Construction.

Larry Larson

Brown University’s School of Engineering educates future leaders in the fundamentals of engineering in an environment of world-class research. We stress an interdisciplinary approach and a broad understanding of underlying global issues. Collaborations across the campus and beyond strengthen our development of technological advances that address challenges of vital importance to us all.

In my experience, one of the most gratifying aspects of membership in the Brown community is the opportunity to watch our undergraduates create amazing projects outside the traditional classroom experience . The Greek word praxis is sometimes used to capture this process; the transformation of an idea, lesson or theory into practice or action is the essence of praxis . Although this concept is applied to a range of domains, it is widely embodied in the engineering ethos at Brown, where our students initiate high impact technically-based projects on an impressive scale . And these projects often exemplify the interdisciplinary approach – teaming with students from all parts of campus and from RISD – that is Brown’s hallmark .

A great example of this is the innovative solar house – highlighted in the article on page 18 – being designed for the summer 2014 Solar Decathlon in Versaille, France . The international competition pits 20 teams against each other in 10 challenges to see who can build the most energy-efficient, innovative, and livable solar house . The Brown-RISD team (which also includes our international partner at the University of Erfurt) was one of only two selected from the United States, after submitting a preliminary proposal last December . The “Techstyle Haus” should use 90 percent less energy than a typical house, and be liveable, flexible, durable, and lightweight enough to be shipped from Providence to France .

I believe the special strength of this project is the deep interaction between the RISD and Brown students - nearly 100 students from both institutions are heavily engaged in the project right now . The design has many really creative aspects that arose from the diverse backgrounds of the students . For example, the unusual choice of advanced textiles as the outer shell allows the structure to be light-weight, energy efficient and flexible for a variety of situations . The house will consume less energy than a standard hair dryer to heat and cool .

The overall project, is led by Professor Jonathan Knowles at RISD, and Professor Derek Stein in physics is the lead mentor at Brown . But every aspect of the project – from logistics to design to fundraising – is really run by the students themselves . As Stein says, “There are faculty advisers, but every team role is filled by a student . And our students have been handling those responsibilities wonderfully .”

Our students also lead the way in working with the local Providence community to make science and math more accessible for everyone . The Brown Engineering After School Team (BEAST) arose out of our local Engineer’s without Borders (EWB) Chapter, and began working with local schools in 2011 . Their activities are described on page 20 . The BEAST after-school class is part of a partnership between students in Brown’s

School of Engineering and the Providence After School Alliance (PASA), a public-private organization aimed at improving out-of-school learning opportunities for Providence youth .

Since the BEAST program began, over 42 high school students have taken engineering classes, with many students taking more than one class . Another 40 have participated in “design challenge” events related to the curricula held periodically throughout the year . These courses include a “Crash Course” where students build model cars to learn principles of physics, an “Android Apps” course, where the students learn the basics of programming mobile phones or a course where students built their own hand-launched gliders .

Lisa Sampson with the PASA says “I can’t say enough about this group . They’re one of our longest-standing, most reliable and high-quality partners .”

There are countless examples like this throughout the Brown engineering community . Our ambitious students are taking their classroom knowledge out into the world, and making a difference at the highest possible level . It’s exciting and exhilarating to imagine what they will do with these skills – combining theory and practice – when they graduate from Brown and take these ideas to the world beyond College Hill .

Transforming Ideas into Practice

Larry LarsonDean of Engineering

Brown School of Engineering Mission


F R o m T h e L A B F R o m T h e L A B

Israeli President Shimon Peres presented the prize, including a bronze brain statue, to John Donoghue and Arto Nurmikko, two Brown University researchers who repre-sented the BrainGate collaboration in the competition for the prize .

“We are deeply honored to receive this award,” said Donoghue, co-director of the BrainGate team, a researcher at the Provi-dence V .A . Medical Center and the Henry Merritt Wriston Professor at Brown, where he directs the Brown Institute for Brain Science . “It will support our continued re-search to help people with paralysis, some of whom cannot speak, to restore their con-nection to the world around them .”

The prize is awarded “for a recent break-through in the field of brain technology for the betterment of humanity,” according to a statement by Israel Brain Technologies (IBT), a nonprofit organization inspired by Peres that grants the award . The contest’s panel of judges — experts in neuroscience and technology, including two Nobel laureates — considered presentations from 10 final-ists before selecting BrainGate .

“The BrainGate team has worked tirelessly for years to develop an amazing technology with great promise for people with severe paralysis,” said Brown University President Christina Paxson . “I congratulate them on this important recognition .”

The investigational BrainGate system, ini-tially developed at Brown and now being studied in clinical trials with partners includ-ing Massachusetts General Hospital, Stan-ford University and Case Western Reserve University, employs a baby aspirin-size de-vice with a grid of 96 tiny electrodes that is

For their work to develop a brain-computer interface that could help restore independence for people with severe

paralysis, Brown University’s BrainGate team has won the $1-million Moshe Mirilashvili Memorial Fund B.R.A.I.N.

Prize. Israeli President Shimon Peres presented the prize in Tel Aviv Oct. 15, 2013.

implanted in the motor cortex — a part of the brain that is involved in voluntary move-ment of the hand and arm . The electrodes are close enough to individual neurons to record the neural activity associated with intended movement .

An external computer translates the pattern of impulses across a population of neurons into commands to operate assistive devices, including robotic arms .

As the team demonstrated in a paper in the journal Nature in May 2012, subjects can move robotic arms to perform reaching and grasping tasks — one subject used the sys-tem to drink coffee from a bottle – by think-ing about moving their own arm and hand .

More recently the team has advanced the work by developing and testing a novel broadband wireless, rechargeable, fully im-plantable version of the brain sensor . The prototype system, which has been tested in animal models, is designed to allow greater freedom for users of the BrainGate system, who currently must be connected to the system’s computers via a cable . Nurmikko, a neuroengineer, has led the effort to develop the wireless implant .

“The prize recognizes the collection of an extraordinary group of Brown University scientists across multiple disciplines which I have been privileged to be associated with,” Nurmikko said . “We work as a team unlike any other place I know .”

The co-leader of the BrainGate team, Dr . Leigh Hochberg, was not able to join Dono-hgue and Nurmikko in Israel, as he was in New Orleans to deliver a Presidential Sym-posium Lecture at the American Neurologi-cal Association . He said he shared the team’s excitement in winning the prize .

“All of us on the BrainGate research team are deeply honored to receive this award,” said Hochberg, associate professor of engineer-ing at Brown, a neurologist at Massachu-setts General Hospital, and a researcher at the Providence V .A . Medical Center’s Center of Excellence for Neurorestoration and Neu-rotechnology . “Our team of clinicians, scien-tists, engineers, and the extraordinary par-ticipants in our ongoing pilot clinical trial, continue to work every day toward develop-ing a technology that will restore commu-nication, mobility, and independence for people with neurologic disease or injury .”

- by David Orenstein

BrainGate Team Wins $1M Prize

BrainGate Team: John Donoghue, Arto Nurmikko, and Leigh Hochberg.

Senator Reed visits Brown

Less than three months after President Obama announced an initiative to advance brain science research,

Senator Jack Reed paid a visit to Brown to see examples of research at the forefront of the science, including

touring the lab of Professor Arto Nurmikko.

Sen . Jack Reed visited two labs at Brown University on Friday, July 26, 2013, to learn about projects at the frontiers of brain sci-ence research .

After meeting with John Donoghue, pro-fessor of neuroscience, and other faculty and leaders from the Brown Institute for Brain Science and the Norman Prince Neu-rosciences Institute, Reed visited the labs of Christopher Moore in neuroscience and Arto Nurmikko in engineering .

Moore studies how the dynamics of the brain allow it to perform computations that lead to perception, behavior and, when things go awry, disease . He briefed Reed on several projects using cutting-edge technologies such as optogenetics and the two-photon microscope . In one such inves-tigation, postdoctoral researcher Nathan Vi-erling-Claassen is conducting a fundamen-tal study of brain circuits believed relevant to Parkinson’s disease .

At Nurmikko’s lab . Reed viewed the next generation of wireless sensors and electron-ics that could be used in systems to allow pa-tients with severe paralysis to use brain sig-nals to control devices ranging from robotic arms to computers . Doctoral students Chris Heelan and Jacob Komar showed him fully implantable, rechargeable, wireless devices that can pick up neural activity for transla-tion into digital commands .

Reed said these kinds of advances fit well within the context of President Obama’s re-cently announced Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies Initiative .

“I think Brown is superbly positioned for leadership in this whole BRAIN Initiative because they are able integrate the basic research of how the brain works into clini-cal and commercial applications that will benefit thousands of people who are deal-ing with neurological diseases,” Reed said . “It will benefit the economy, too, and the health care system in terms of what we hope eventually will be the cost savings of more efficient and more effective treatment .”


BRAIN InitiativeDoctoral students Jacob Komar, above, and Christopher Heelan, below, showed Sen. Jack Reed an im-plantable, wireless, rechargeable device that detects brain activity and converts it into digital commands, allowing patients with severe paralysis to control a computer by thought.



Researchers from Brown University and King’s College London have gained surpris-ing new insights into how brain anatomy influences language acquisition in young children .

Their study, published in the Journal of Neu-roscience, found that the explosion of lan-guage acquisition that typically occurs in children between 2 and 4 years old is not re-flected in substantial changes in brain asym-metry . Structures that support language ability tend to be localized on the left side of the brain . For that reason, the research-ers expected to see more myelin — the fatty material that insulates nerve fibers and helps electrical signals zip around the brain — de-veloping on the left side in children entering the critical period of language acquisition . But that is not what the research showed .

“What we actually saw was that the asym-metry of myelin was there right from the be-ginning, even in the youngest children in the study, around the age of 1,” said the study’s lead author, Jonathan O’Muircheartaigh, the Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellow at King’s College London . “Rather than increas-ing, those asymmetries remained pretty constant over time .”

That finding, the researchers say, under-scores the importance of environment dur-ing this critical period for language .

O’Muircheartaigh is currently working in Brown University’s Advanced Baby Imag-ing Lab . The lab uses a specialized MRI tech-nique to look at the formation of myelin in babies and toddlers . Babies are born with little myelin, but its growth accelerates rap-idly in the first few years of life .

The researchers imaged the brains of 108 children between ages 1 and 6, looking for myelin growth in and around areas of the brain known to support language .

While asymmetry in myelin remained con-stant over time, the relationship between specific asymmetries and language ability did change, the study found . To investigate that relationship, the researchers compared the brain scans to a battery of language tests given to each child in the study . The comparison showed that asymmetries in different parts of the brain appear to predict language ability at different ages .

“Regions of the brain that weren’t important to successful

language in toddlers became more important in older children, about the time they start school,”

O’Muircheartaigh said.

“As language becomes more complex and children become more proficient, it seems as if they use different regions of the brain to support it .”

Interestingly, the association between asymmetry and language was generally weakest during the critical language period .

“We found that between the ages of 2 and 4, myelin asymmetry doesn’t predict lan-guage very well,” O’Muircheartaigh said . “So if it’s not a child’s brain anatomy predict-ing their language skills, it suggests their en-vironment might be more influential .”

The researchers hope this study will provide a helpful baseline for future research aimed at pinpointing brain structures that might predict developmental disorders .

“Disorders like autism, dyslexia, and ADHD all have specific deficits in language abil-ity,” O’Muircheartaigh said . “Before we do studies looking at abnormalities we need to know how typical children develop . That’s what this study is about .”

“This work is important, as it is the first to investigate the relationship between brain structure and language across early child-hood and demonstrate how this relation-ship changes with age,” said Sean Deoni, assistant professor of engineering, who oversees the Advanced Baby Imaging Lab . “The study highlights the advantage of col-laborative work, combining expertise in pediatric imaging at Brown and neuropsy-chology from the King’s College London In-stitute of Psychiatry, making this work pos-sible .”

Other authors on the paper include Douglas Dean, Holly Dirks, Nicole Waskiewicz, and Katie Lehman from Brown’s Baby Imaging Lab, and Beth Jerskey from Brown’s Alpert Medical School . The work was funded by the National Institutes of Mental Health and the Wellcome Trust .

- by Kevin Stacey

Language ability is usually located in the left side of the brain. Researchers studying brain development in young

children who were acquiring language expected to see increasing levels of myelin, a nerve fiber insulator, on the

left side. They didn’t: The larger myelin structure was already there. Their study underscores the importance of

environment in language development.

Brain Anatomy and Language in Young Children

Sean Deoni

Language acquisition and the child brainResearchers Sean Deoni, left, and Jonathan O’Muircheartaigh studied brain scans and tested language skills of 108 children aged 1 to 6 years. Development of language skills, it turns out, may be heavily influenced by the child’s environment.

Credit: Mike Cohea/Brown University

Regions of the brain that are asymmetric during typical development. Regions are shown on an transparent average brain. Leftward asymmetry in

the middle frontal region (red) and subcortical thalamus and caudate (green) were associated with developing language ability in the same children.



Gold Nanoparticles Give an Edge in Recycling CO2

By tuning gold nanoparticles to just the right size, researchers from Brown Universi-ty have developed a catalyst that selectively converts carbon dioxide to carbon monox-ide, an active carbon molecule that can be used to make alternative fuels and com-modity chemicals .

“Our study shows potential of carefully de-signed gold nanoparticles to recycle carbon dioxide into useful forms of carbon,” said Shouheng Sun, professor of chemistry and one of the study’s senior authors . “The work we’ve done here is preliminary, but we think there’s great potential for this technology to be scaled up for commercial applications .”

The findings are published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society .

The idea of recycling carbon dioxide — a greenhouse gas the planet current has in ex-cess — is enticing, but there are obstacles . Carbon dioxide is an extremely stable mole-cule that must be reduced to an active form like carbon monoxide to make it useful . Car-bon monoxide is used to make synthetic natural gas, methanol, and other alternative fuels .

Converting carbon dioxide to carbon mon-oxide isn’t easy . Prior research has shown that catalysts made of gold foil are active for this conversion, but they don’t do the job ef-ficiently . The gold tends to react both with the carbon dioxide and with the water in which the carbon dioxide is dissolved, cre-

It’s a 21st-century alchemist’s dream: turning Earth’s superabundance of carbon dioxide — a greenhouse gas —

into fuel or useful industrial chemicals. Researchers from Brown have shown that finely tuned gold nanoparticles

can do the job. The key is maximizing the particles’ long edges, which are the active sites for the reaction.

ating hydrogen byproduct rather than the desired carbon monoxide .

The Brown experimental group, led by Sun and Wenlei Zhu, a graduate student in Sun’s group, wanted to see if shrinking the gold down to nanoparticles might make it more selective for carbon dioxide . They found that the nanoparticles were indeed more selective, but that the exact size of those particles was important . Eight nanometer particles had the best selectivity, achieving a 90-percent rate of conversion from carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide . Other sizes the team tested — four, six, and 10 nanometers — didn’t perform nearly as well .

“At first, that result was confusing,” said An-drew Peterson, professor of engineering and also a senior author on the paper . “As we made the particles smaller we got more ac-tivity, but when we went smaller than eight nanometers, we got less activity .”

To understand what was happening, Pe-terson and postdoctoral researcher Ronald Michalsky used a modeling method called density functional theory . They were able to show that the shapes of the particles at dif-ferent sizes influenced their catalytic prop-erties .

“When you take a sphere and you reduce it to smaller and smaller sizes, you tend to get many more irregular features — flat surfac-es, edges and corners,” Peterson said . “What we were able to figure out is that the most

active sites for converting carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide are the edge sites, while the corner sites predominantly give the by-product, which is hydrogen . So as you shrink these particles down, you’ll hit a point where you start to optimize the activity be-cause you have a high number of these edge sites but still a low number of these corner sites . But if you go too small, the edges start to shrink and you’re left with just corners .”

Now that they understand exactly what part of the catalyst is active, the researchers are working to further optimize the particles . “There’s still a lot of room for improvement,” Peterson said . “We’re working on new par-ticles that maximize these active sites .”

The researchers believe these findings could be an important new avenue for recy-cling carbon dioxide on a commercial scale .

“Because we’re using nanoparticles, we’re using a lot less gold than in a bulk metal catalyst,” Sun said . “That lowers the cost for making such a catalyst and gives the poten-tial to scale up .”

The work was funded by a National Science Foundation grant to the Brown-Yale Center for Chemical Innovation (CCI), which looks for ways to use carbon dioxide as a sustain-able feedstock for large-scale commod-ity chemicals . Other authors on the paper were Önder Metin, Haifeng Lv, Shaojun Guo, Christopher Wright, and Xiaolian Sun .

- by Kevin Stacey

Andrew Peterson

Less is more ... to a point

Gold nanoparticles make better catalysts for carbon dioxide recycling than bulk gold metal. Size is crucial though, since edges produce more desired results than corners (red points, above). Nanoparticles of 8 nm ap-pear to have a better edge-to-corner ratio than 4 nm, 6 nm, or 10 nm nanoparticles.

Credit: Sun Lab, Peterson Lab/Brown University

In the Lab:

Pictured left: Wenlei Zhu, chemistry graduate student, and Assistant Professor Andrew Peterson, School of Engineering.



According to a new study, the small intes-tine employs more cells and mechanisms than scientists previously thought to absorb relatively large particles, such as those that could encapsulate protein-based thera-peutics like insulin . The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, open another window for drug makers to increase absorption of medicines taken by mouth .

Scientists at Brown University and Wayne State University worked with rats to quanti-fy the intestinal absorption and distribution around the body of polystyrene spheres ranging between 0 .5 and 5 micrometers in diameter . They found that a substantial por-tion of the absorption occurs via the process of endocytosis in cells called enterocytes . The conventional wisdom had long been that particles of that size would only be ab-sorbed by phagocytosis in “microfold,” or M, cells, which compose less than 1 percent of the absorptive intestinal lining .

“Data from these studies challenge current dogma in the area of oral drug delivery,” wrote the scientists including lead authors Joshua Reineke, a Brown graduate now a professor at Wayne State, and Daniel Cho, a student in the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University .

With this new insight — especially if it can be expanded, replicated, and shown in peo-ple — drug designers could consider target-ing future biodegradable drug-containing microspheres to reach enterocytes in addi-tion to M cells, said corresponding author Edith Mathiowitz, professor of medical sci-ence and engineering at Brown .

“You can design it so that it will be directed there,” Mathiowitz said . “This is basically what my future work probably will be .”

Mathiowitz’s research is focused on dis-covering a means by which protein-based drugs, which currently have to be injected, could be swallowed, survive the harsh envi-ronment of the stomach, become absorbed as much as possible in the intestine, and reach the tissues where they can release their therapeutic cargo . Earlier this summer Mathiowitz published a paper showing that a polymer coating that survives stomach acids also increases intestinal uptake of mi-crospheres . In 2011 she described a system for holding a capsule in place at desired lo-cations of the intestine using magnets .

The new research in PNAS helps explain where and how

microspheres are absorbed by the intestine.

Absorb and go seek

The researchers performed several experi-ments to track micropshere absorption in the rat models . For some rats they admin-istered the spheres by mouth . In other rats they injected them directly into one or the other of the intestine’s main sections: the il-eum and the jejunum . Among the rats they also varied the sphere sizes . After waiting an hour or five hours, they tracked down the

spheres to see how many were absorbed and what tissues they had reached .

Across the many combinations of size, lo-cation, means of administration and time, the intestines took up between 10 and 50 percent of spheres . Although by no means evenly, in each case the bloodstream dis-tributed absorbed spheres to a wide variety of tissues including the brain and lungs, and more commonly, the liver .

Enter the enterocytes

Via microscopes the researchers could see red-fluorescing microspheres passing through enterocytes . Further, more system-atic evidence for the role of enterocytes and their absorption via endocytosis came from another experiment where researchers used a variety of agents that block endocy-tosis .

When they did so, as for instance with 1-mi-crometer spheres in the ileum, where both M cells and enterocytes can be found, ab-sorption dropped to between 5 and 15 per-cent of spheres from more than 32 percent in rats where the process was not blocked (an agent that blocked both endocytosis and phagocytosis blocked the most) . Ab-sorption dropped even more dramatically in the jejunum, where there are no M cells, falling to a range between 3 and 10 percent, compared to more than 45 percent in rats with normal endocytosis . Enterocytes may therefore play not only an important role, but perhaps a bigger role than M cells .

“We need to know what the intestine is do-ing and where the particles go,” Mathiow-itz said . “This is the first time that we have

More Intestinal Cells Can Absorb Larger Particles

A new study reports that the small intestine uses more cells than scientists had realized to absorb microspheres large

enough to contain therapeutic protein drugs, such as insulin. The finding in rats, published in theProceedings of the

National Academy of Sciences, is potentially good news for developing a means for oral delivery of such drugs.

Edith Mathiowitz

quantified the process as well as docu-mented biodistribution to specific organs . In order to be able to consider and translate the technology to humans, we also need to verify the reproducibility of the process in different animal species .”

Advancing these studies might not only im-prove drug delivery, Mathiowitz noted, but could lead to ways to prevent absorption of harmful substances . It could at least aid toxi-cology research to know that more intes-tinal cells than just M cells can take up par-ticles greater than a micrometer in diameter .

In addition to Reineke, Cho, and Mathiowitz, other authors on the paper were Yu-Ting Dingle, A . Peter Morello III, Jules Jacob, and Christopher Thanos, all of Brown .


Safe passageMicrospheres (red) permeate the intestinal lining (green) on their way to the bloodstream in this image taken with a two-photon microscope. Eventually, microspheres could carry medication to targeted sites within the body.

Credit: Mathiowitz Lab/Brown University

Professor Edith Mathiowitz and grad student Yu-Ting Dingle.Credit: Mike Cohea/Brown University


S t u d e n t S i n t h e n e w SM E E T T H E N E W FA C U LT Y M E E T T H E N E W FA C U LT Y

David Henann isn’t averse to a little chaos . In fact, when it comes to his research in solid mechanics, chaos is his specialty .

Henann, assistant professor of engineering, studies amorphous or disordered solids — a category that includes materials ranging from glass to mayonnaise to mud . The con-nection between these materials might not be obvious, but what they share is some level of disorder at the building-block level . In the case of glass, the disorder lies in the structure of its atoms . In mud, it’s in the arrangement of the grains of dirt . Whatever the structural level of disorder, Henann is working to devel-op a theoretical understanding of how these kinds of materials work .

“The question,” Henann said, “is how do you take a material, which is random or disor-dered on the microscopic scale, and predict how it will behave on a larger scale .”

His work in amorphous materials started with metallic glass . Most metals have a crys-talline atomic structure, meaning atoms are arranged in an organized and repeating pat-tern . But metallic glasses lack that atomic order, which gives rise to unusual properties, such as remarkably high strength . Moreover, when heated, metallic glasses transition to a more fluid-like state . “You can do blow molding, extrusion — all kinds of low-force manufacturing processes,” Henann said . “But when you cool it back down, it gets re-ally strong again .”

Stronger, in fact, than most normal metals . That strength comes from the amorphous ar-rangement of the material’s atoms . Henann published several theoretical papers aimed at explaining how that disordered structure

translates into increased strength . He also published several papers on how metallic glasses could be used to create patterned surfaces . “We embossed small-scale features onto metallic glass surfaces, which could then be used as a tool to impart that pattern onto softer materials,” he said .

But Henann soon realized that the theories he was working on could be applied to other amorphous materials . Metallic glasses are made of expensive alloys, so they are not widely used . “At present, they’re niche mate-rials, but I realized how broad the underlying ideas were,” Henann said .

The same theoretical ideas that describe the disordered arrangement of atoms in metal-lic glass can also be used to describe the me-chanics of granular materials . Granular flows are everywhere — salt from a saltshaker, grains through a silo, or dirt in a landslide . The way in which these materials flow and deform is dependent upon the interactions of each grain, not so different from the inter-action of atoms in metallic glass .

During a recently completed joint post-doctoral appointment at MIT and Harvard, Henann developed a three-dimensional model for describing and predicting granu-lar flows . The applications of the model could be widespread . It could help with geo-technical problems in oil and gas drilling, as well as geological phenomena like land-slides and earthquakes . In agriculture, lives are lost each year trying to clear jams of grain from silos . A better theoretical understand-ing of how grains flow could help avoid such jams in the first place . Granular materials are also the most handled materials in industry

The study of amorphous materials “is critical,” David Henann says, but it

has a ways to go before it catches up with the better-understood crystalline

metals. There is much at stake. Granular materials are the most handled

materials in industry after water.

David Henann

besides water, so a better understanding of their behavior could facilitate any number of industrial processes .

Despite their ubiquity, Henann says, there’s a substantial gap in our knowledge about how amorphous materials work . “It’s com-ing along, but it’s not the same level of ro-bustness that the study of crystalline metals has achieved,” he said . “There are tools, but there are more open questions that need to be answered .”

Those are the questions Henann will contin-ue to work on at Brown .

And while Henann’s research focuses on the chaotic, his career path has been anything but . He’s known since his freshman year at SUNY Binghamton that he wanted to be an engineer . “It just seemed natural,” he said . He went on to study solid mechanics in grad-uate school at MIT, before his joint postdoc-toral appointment at MIT and Harvard . He says he’s very much looking forward to com-ing to Brown .

“Brown solid mechanics has a long and il-lustrious history,” Henann said . “You look at the major players in solid mechanics over the last 60 or so years, and so many of them spent time at Brown as either a faculty mem-ber or a grad student . It’s both exciting and humbling to be able to step into that tradi-tion .”

- by Kevin Stacey

A soldier wounded in combat faces more en-emies than the ones on the other side of the battle lines . For lacerating injuries, common on the battlefield, three of the most promi-nent enemies are bleeding, inflammation, and infection . Now imagine a bandage, easily ap-plied by a soldier, that could deliver the sepa-rate medications needed to deal with each of these conditions .

Anita Shukla, who joins the faculty of Brown’s School of Engineering as an assistant profes-sor, works to develop drug-delivering materi-als for just such applications . She worked spe-cifically on the problem of battlefield injuries while earning her Ph .D . in chemical engineer-ing at MIT .

Loading a material with drugs seems in con-cept fairly simple, but the reality is far from it . Many medications need to be released on a specific time scale to be effective . The material needs to be engineered to release the drug at just the right pace . And if that material is required to deliver multiple drugs, each drug could have its own optimal delivery timeframe .

This problem of delivery timing is illustrated by the three conditions that need to be ad-dressed in combat injuries .

“You can imagine that bleeding needs to be controlled right away,” Shukla said . “For infec-tion you have to deliver a drug over a couple days . And for inflammation, perhaps you’re looking at delivery over an even longer time scale . So the goal was to develop a coating for a bandage that could deliver various thera-peutics aimed at those three conditions in the timescales at which they’re necessary . The sci-ence behind it was trying to use polymers as well as naturally occurring macromolecules to control the release rate and loading of drugs in a biomaterial coating .”

The Army-sponsored project at MIT is ongo-ing; a new student took over after Shukla grad-uated in 2011 . But Shukla plans to continue exciting new work in the area of drug delivery at Brown .

Specifically, she’s interested in trying to devel-op coatings for medical devices and implants that can deliver multiple drugs . The coatings currently available for these devices generally deliver only one kind of drug . That’s often in-adequate and can cause problems of its own .

“In a hip implant, for example, where you want to deliver antimicrobials to treat potential infections, there are bone cements that con-tain a specific drug, but just one type and at a relatively low drug loading,” Shukla explained . “Different classes of therapeutics work on dif-ferent types of bacteria . Imagine if you flood the environment with one kind of therapeutic and get rid of one kind of bacteria, you create an opportunity for other kinds of bacteria to flourish — as well as resistant forms of bacte-ria . I think a great place to start in delivering multiple therapeutics is to look at drug deliv-ery from implants and catheters to alleviate potential infection .”

At Brown, Shukla plans to add a new compo-nent to her research program by including a more computational approach to the prob-lem .

“In the past all my research has been very ex-perimental,” she said . “I’m very interested in having our students collaborate with experts in other areas and gain the computational ex-pertise as well to look into modeling of these kinds of biomaterials and develop them in a more informed way . Brown is a great place for this because there are so many knowledge-able people in that area .”

In addition to her drug delivery work, Shukla also plans to continue research she started during a recently completed postdoctoral program at Rice University . There, she worked on micropatterned surfaces to direct the dif-ferentiation of stem cells, which are the pre-cursors of all the different cell types in the body . Scientists interested in regenerative therapies use cocktails of hormones and other chemicals to push stem cells to differentiate into specific cell types — bone, fat, skin, or any other types of cells . Increasingly, however, scientists are realizing that to get mature and healthy cells, the physical structure in which cells are cultured can be as important as the chemical cocktails that are applied .

At Rice, Shukla worked to develop materials with patterns that mimic the specific shapes of mature cells: To make a bone cell, it might help to culture it in a material that has the shape of a mature bone cell . The work shows promise .

“We noticed a lot of favorable results,” she said . “These biomimetic patterns do a good job of getting a stem cell to turn into the cell that the pattern was based on .”

Shukla’s arrival at Brown is also a homecom-ing . She’s a Rhode Island native who grew up in Wakefield . Her father is a professor of engi-neering at URI . “I think it’s great to be coming back,” she said . “My parents still live in Wake-field . They’re thrilled that I’m back in Rhode Island .”

- by Kevin Stacey

A variety of medical devices, from bandages to surgical implants, work

better with built-in medications. Timing the release of those medications,

particularly when medications have different timing requirements, is key to

success. Bioengineer Anita Shukla is working on the problem.

Anita Shukla

13 WiNTER 2014

s t u d e n t s i n t h e n e w s

BROWN SchOOl Of ENgiNEERiNg 12

M E E T T H E N E W FA C U LT Y M E E T T H E N E W FA C U LT Y

Three years ago, armed with a Ph .D . in mate-rials science and engineering from Stanford University, Ian Wong made a drastic career move .

He traveled across the country and started a postdoctoral appointment in the Depart-ment of Surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School . Wong became interested in the study of cancer, so he immersed himself in a clinical environ-ment with doctors and biomedical scien-tists . If he were to really begin to understand cancer, he thought, “It’s important to be at the front lines where the patients are .”

“My colleagues would tell me, ‘You’re not asking the right questions or you’re not do-ing the right experiments,’” Wong said . “So they taught me about cancer biology and I taught them a bit about engineering .”

The result of those interactions was a very clear research focus for Wong, who joins the faculty in the School of Engineering this fall . “I use an engineering approach to under-stand how cancer cells invade and how they resist drug treatments,” he said .

Cancer metastasis occurs when tumors spread throughout the body and colonize distant tissues . Metastasis is responsible for more than 90 percent of cancer deaths, ac-cording to the American Cancer Society . It is also extremely difficult to treat with exist-ing therapies . “It’s been hypothesized that there are certain types of cancer cells that invade very aggressively and are also drug resistant,” Wong said . “So the question is whether we can identify and specifically tar-get these cells .”

Doing that means understanding the cel-lular dynamics at play within the tumor and within the surrounding environment . Wong is developing new techniques to image cells within the tumor at a level of detail that isn’t possible in patients . “I want to look at what makes these tumors tick,” he said . “Are all these cells competing with each other? Are they cooperating with each other? How do they move? How do they divide? We’re go-ing to examine each of the individual cells that comprise a tumor and look for their strengths and weaknesses .”

One way Wong will study cancer is by draw-ing on his Ph .D . work to build 3-D architec-tures comprised of tumors and their sur-rounding scaffold . There’s a growing body of research suggesting that the environ-ment around the tumor has a profound in-fluence on whether tumors remain benign or become malignant . For instance, malig-nant cells are capable of tunneling through the membrane enclosing a tumor, rearrang-ing the scaffold into “highways” for easier escape . “It’s like breaking out of jail,” Wong said .

“People have seen this qualitatively, but the underlying mechanics and physics are not well established,” Wong said . “I’m very interested in understanding the engineer-ing design principles for cancer by building model tumor microenvironments using 3-D printing .”

Another of Wong’s devices is essentially “a miniature obstacle course for cells .” Using the device, Wong has shown that some cells tend to break away from their neighbors

Fighting cancer might require more than killing tumor cells, bioengineer

Ian Wong says. Paying more attention to repairing the structure of

surrounding tissue could be a significant step forward.

Ian Wong

and invade more aggressively . He hopes to use the device not only to learn more about how cells invade, but also to test new drugs aimed at combating malignant behaviors .

A better understanding of the interaction between a tumor and its surroundings could lead to new lines of treatment .

“Historically, clinicians have focused on just killing tumor cells, but maybe that’s not enough,” Wong said . “Maybe we also need to repair the surroundings so it looks more like healthy tissue, and that will suppress some malignant features of tumors .”

This kind of research is collaborative by na-ture, Wong said, and that makes Brown a great place for him to continue his work . Wong has already collaborated with Jeff Morgan, co-director of Brown’s Center for Biomedical Engineering, and he’s looking forward to more collaboration across cam-pus and across disciplines .

“It’s important to have this collaborative, in-terdisciplinary environment in the School of Engineering where everyone talks to each other, stimulating new ideas and research directions,” Wong said . “That’s something I’m very excited to be part of at Brown .”

- by Kevin Stacey

It’s not every high school girl who dreams of combining art, physics, and political philosophy . But Ramya Mahalingam ’14, born in Abu Dhabi to Indian parents and schooled in Dubai, has always had a clearer sense than most of what she wants: to use her scientific knowledge to make practical things, and her artistic sense to make them beautiful to use .

She also wanted a truly liberal education . Where else would she end up but at Brown?

“Here, I could take mechanical engineering along with a wide range of classes—and do industrial design classes at RISD on the side,” Ramya says . “That wasn’t a combina-tion I could get anywhere else .”

Ramya is currently president of Brown’s chapter of Tau Beta Pi, a national engineer-ing society, and is on track to get her degree in four years . She’s still following her own path: learning theory at Brown; and at RISD, turning ideas into concrete practice . It’s a dual life that Brown’s engineering students of the future won’t have to lead . The School of Engineering is planning an ambitious expansion that will include a new building on College Hill and transformed spaces in existing facilities, including a “makerspace” in Prince Lab .

“We know there’s an unmet demand for places where students can engage in proj-ect-based learning,” said Senior Lecturer Chris Bull ’79, Sc .M .’86, Ph .D . ’06, who is serv-ing as advisor for Ramya's independent study project this semester . “These kinds of projects can be transformative learning ex-periences .”

Bull explains that when Prince Lab was built, in 1962, “the way we thought about teach-ing and the way we did research were dif-ferent . We need to reshape the Lab so that it can play a much stronger role in our cur-rent and future teaching and research .” The new space will draw students from across

For This Student, It’s All In The Making

disciplines and encourage collaboration and peer learning, he predicts; it’s being designed to be accessible to students with a range of skill levels .

“We know there’s an unmet demand for places where students can engage in project-based learning.”

Senior Lecturer Christopher Bull

Once completed, the space will include equipment ranging from laser cutters and 3D printers to oscilloscopes and function generators, with a support team to help new users . New engineering classes will link theory with making and design . It’s just one piece of the School of Engineering’s plan to build a world-leading program that keeps pace with technological change .

“Brown students are deeply engaged with many of the contemporary challenges the world faces, and engineering will play a ma-jor role in how these challenges will be ad-dressed,” Bull added . “We hope to expand the opportunities for creativity at Brown and foster interdisciplinary approaches to problem solving .”

Ramya has already designed prototypes for a configurable lamp, a toy that illustrates a principle of physics, and a handheld music synthesizer, all displaying a sensibility that ranks form, and how humans will experi-ence these objects, as high as function . Her senior year will include a new tutoring pro-gram she is organizing and her plans for a spring “hackathon,” a competition to make a useful new object—the sort of concept made for makerspace . It’s not surprising, then, that she echoes her advisor’s enthusi-asm for learning through doing .

“Hands-on experience and interactions with other designers are crucial to refining your ideas,” Ramya says, “and sometimes to even having an idea in the first place .”

- by Pippa Jack

Ramya Mahalingam ‘14 with her advisor, Senior Lecturer Chris Bull ’79, Sc.M.’86, Ph.D. ’06.Credit: Cathi Beattie

S T U d E N T S i N T H E N E W S

13 WiNTER 2014


Fa c u lt y H o n o r s / n E W s Fa c u lt y H o n o r s / n E W s

Kenny Breuer, Senior Associate Dean for Academic Programs and Professor of Engineering at Brown University, has been elected an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aero-nautics and Astronautics (AIAA) .

AIAA Associate Fellows are “individuals who have accomplished or been in charge of im-portant engineering or scientific work, or have done original work of outstanding merit, or have otherwise made outstanding contributions to the arts, sciences, or technology of aeronautics or astronautics .”

Breuer received his Sc .B . from Brown and his M .Sc . and Ph .D . from M .I .T . He spent nine years on the faculty of M .I .T . in the department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, before returning to Brown in 1999 .

His research interests are in fluid mechanics covering a wide range of topics, including the physics of flows at micron and nanometer scales, bat flight, and the physics and control of turbulent flows .

He is author of over one hundred refereed technical publications, has edited and co-au-thored several books, including “Microscale Diagnostic Techniques,” “A Gallery of Fluid Mo-

tion,” and “Multimedia Fluid Mechanics .” Breuer was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) in 2010, and named a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) in 2013 .

Professor Robert Hurt has received the Charles E . Pettinos Award of the American Carbon So-ciety . The award is given every three years to honor “outstanding research accomplishment of an individual or group in the science and/or technology of carbon materials .” The work for which Hurt was honored focused on liquid-crystal-derived carbon materials, graphene-based materials, and on the biological and environmental implications of carbon nanomate-rials . Hurt accepted the award at the Carbon2013 conference in Rio de Janeiro . At the Carbon 2013 conference Professor Hurt presented his Pettinos Award Lecture titled “House of Cards – New Carbon Architectures through Graphene Self Assembly .”

Professor Hurt’s research focuses on carbon materials, the behavior of nanomaterials in liv-ing systems and the natural environment, safe material design, mesogenic materials, and the novel materials assembled from grapheme precursors .

Professor Hurt’s current research thrusts include the biological response to graphene-family nanomaterials, mechanisms of carbon nanotube uptake and toxicity, nano-silver and nano-copper transformations in the natural environment, safe material design, and the assembly

and folding of graphene to make three-dimensional architectures for barrier and encapsulation technologies, and as electrodes for battery and supercapacitor applications .

He received his B .S . from Michigan Technological University and a Ph .D . from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, both in chemical engineering . Before joining Brown University in 1994, Hurt held posts at Bayer AG in Leverkusen, Germany and Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, California . He served 2004-2010 as editor of Carbon and became Editor-in-Chief in January . 2013 . He has been Technical Pro-gram Chair for the International Carbon Conference and Graffin Lecturer of the American Carbon Society . He has received the Silver Medal of the Combustion Institute and the Tau Beta Pi teaching award at Brown University .

Carbon Society Honors Professor Robert Hurt

Professor Kenny Breuer Named Associate Fellow of AIAA

Thomas Powers, professor of engineering and physics at Brown University, has been select-ed as a Fellow of the American Physical Society – Division of Fluid Dynamics (APS-DFD) .

Powers is being honored for pioneering, rigorous and creative contributions to our under-standing of the dynamics of membranes and filaments in viscous flows, particularly regard-ing the theory of bacterial motility in viscous and viscoelastic media and the role of hydrody-namic interactions at low Reynolds number .

Professor Powers received an S .B . in physics and an S .B . in mathematics from the Massachu-setts Institute of Technology in 1989 . In 1995, he received his Ph .D . in physics from the Univer-sity of Pennsylvania . He joined the Brown University faculty in 2000 as the first holder of the James R . Rice Chair in Solid Mechanics . He was promoted to associate professor in 2006 and professor in 2012 . He is currently an associate editor of Reviews of Modern Physics .

Tom Powers Selected as a Fellow of the American Physical Society –Division of Fluid Dynamics

Brown University School of Engineering Professor Nitin Padture has been named director of the Institute for Molecular and Nanoscale Inno-vation (IMNI), effective January 1, 2014 . He succeeds Professor Robert Hurt, who served as director since the founding of IMNI in 2007 .

“IMNI’s mission is aligned with the proposed strategic initiative for the University focused on ‘using science and technology to improve lives .’ We are very fortunate to have identified a dedicated, talented leader for IMNI and look forward to building on its history of success,” said Da-vid Savitz, Vice President for Research .

IMNI serves as an umbrella organization to support centers and collaborative research teams in materials science, and in the molecular and nanosciences . IMNI is a “polydisciplinary” ven-ture with more than 60 faculty members, representing nine departments across campus . IMNI also serves as a focal point for interaction with industry, government, and affiliated hos-pitals . IMNI supports scientific team building, proposal preparation, block grant manage-ment, seminars, special functions, and nanoscience course offerings across campus . IMNI also manages major research instrumentation facilities, including Electron Microscopy, Mi-croelectronics, and NanoTools .

Padture, Professor of Engineering and Director of the Center for Advanced Materials Re-search at Brown, joined the Brown faculty in January of 2012 . Previously he was College of Engineering Distinguished Professor at The Ohio State University (OSU), and also the found-ing director of the NSF-funded Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at OSU .

Padture received B .Tech . in metallurgical engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (1985), M .S . in ceramic engineering from Alfred University (1987), and Ph .D . in mate-rials science and engineering from Lehigh University (1991) .

Padture has published over 130 journal papers, which have been cited about 6,000 times . Padture is a co-inventor of four patents, and he has delivered some 150 invited/keynote/plenary talks in the U .S . and abroad . A fellow of the American Ceramic Society, he has received that society’s Roland B . Snow, Robert L . Coble, and Richard M . Fulrath awards . Padture is also a recipient of the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award, and he is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science . He is the editor of Scripta Materialia, one of the leading journals in the field of materials science and engineering .

Professor Nitin Padture Named Director of IMNI

As an undergraduate I never imagined being involved in construction . I had minimal un-derstanding of what the industry entailed until I was lead by my interest in architecture to being involved with the new Fitness and Aquatics Center . The summer after my sophomore year I interned at Shawmut Design & Construction in Providence with their “Aquatics” Proj-ect Team . As a member of the Brown Women’s Swim Team I provided insight to the end use of the building and learned how architects, consultants, and construction managers cooper-ated to transform design intents into a built structure . I was enamored by how these designs were translated and learned the economic and constructability constraints that contributed to the final product .

After graduation, I returned to Shawmut as an Assistant Project Manager . In August, Brown approached the Shawmut team originally involved in the Aquatics Project to aid in site prep-aration for the newest statue on campus . The bear statue, named Indomitable by its creator Nick Bibby, is a bronze cast weighing over 5,000lbs and now towering almost 15’ tall on Ittle-son Quadrangle at the Fitness and Aquatics Center . My boss decided this would be a great side-project for me to get a taste of how to manage a project myself start-to-finish dealing with the design components, financials and contractor coordination .

Now here are some specific details that describe my experience with how Indomitable was installed from the site preparation to the final installation day .

The first step was determining what alterations to the desired site were required to allow for the construction of a foundation for the bear . During the Aquatics Project, the emergency blue phones (EBP) on Ittleson Quadrangle were installed on a fiber optic loop due to their respective positioning . Because Ethernet cables could not properly be used at the distance required to connect the devices on the quad to the control room inside the aquatics center, the fiber optic cables were used . The cost-effectiveness of utilizing a fiber loop rather than individual runs to each device determined the final loop configuration . The EBP that was in the desired location for the bear controlled the loop . Thus we could not simply take this single EBP offline without affecting all devices on the quad . This resulted in rerouting and re-pulling the fiber optic cables to maintain a completed loop while the original control EBP was relocated closer to Hope St .

The coordination to create the foundation and the engineered installation of the statue were the most fascinating components of this project . Because Indomitable was still in pieces be-ing welded at the foundry Pangolin Editions in London during this coordination, I had to collect general information that I felt would govern the constraints by which to design the footing .

Based on the total weight, the dimensions of the base, as well as several maximum dimen-sions of the bear’s general form, I generated the constraints to allow an engineer to perform calculations for sustained wind loads and overturning moments to generate the footing de-sign . I hired an engineer to design the details and at the same time I was also able to apply my understanding of how concrete footings were calculated to determine the information required from Nick Bibby .

Working with the site contractor’s foreman, we utilized the 1:5 scaled clay mockup to es-tablish the projected area of the base and determine the placement of the foundation . Al-though it lacked the overwhelming presence of the full sized statue, this mockup was an

Perry Ashenfelter ’13 graduated with a degree in structural engineering and is now an assistant

project manager at Shawmut Design & Construction in Providence. This fall she had the pleasure

of working with Brown to manage the installation of the new Brown Bear – Indomitable.

Managing Indomitable

ideal tool to plan the loca-tion of the foundation to ensure that Indomitable’s face was positioned ap-propriately to greet all onlookers .

Understanding the cal-culations that go into the design, I could appreci-ate the simplifications for construction purposes . If there were greater limita-tions at the site, such that the performance of the footing and transmission of the load to the ground were more contingent on the space available or soil conditions for example, then the necessary prep-aration and cost of the installation would reflect that . This was the first time I had been a part of creating a design from the engineering notepad to the field . Unlike the textbook drawings with perfectly formed edges on every surface, only the top foot of the footing was formed . The concrete below was simply poured into the oversized excavated hole .

After the foundation itself was in place, the connection between the footing and statue had to be resolved . Again, limited to sketches and discussions with Nick Bibby and the team at the foundry, we had to prepare for the connection ahead of time so when the bear arrived the installation would be seamless . The same was true for developing the rigging and outlin-ing the plan for the installation day .

Based on recommendations from the foundry and a template that mimicked the locations of the welded bolts on the statue’s interior steel frame, placements for four threaded bars were cored into the foundation . On installation day, these bars were screwed in and a chemical anchor was injected into the holes in the footing to secure the connection . This chemical an-chor, I learned, allows for a gradual failure mechanism that can be recognized ahead of time, preventing a more instantaneous failure from pull out between the statue and the footing .

Indomitable is a truly incredible figure that is a product of Bibby’s craftsmanship and detail-ing that equal the dedication of the Brown Community in each of their respective endeavors . His body language was thoughtfully planned and executed to exhibit the manner in which we strive to approach all our daily encounters: with intellectual curiosity and deliberate in-tention .

In this project I not only felt the rush of being responsible for all the coordination pieces but also was able to see how engineered designs are translated and how other factors influence the construction design . I found that having a personal connection to your work, as I did with the Aquatics Project and Indomitable, makes your efforts exciting and invites enthu-siasm into each task . This is the same passion I hope to incorporate in all my projects, as it allows for a greater sense of ownership and pride, which in turn engenders greater success .

- by Perry Ashenfelter ’13

Artist Nick Bibby and engineering alumna Perry Ashenfelther ’13 with “Indomitable”.Credit: Jo-Ann Conklin/Brown University

19 WiNTER 2014

F R O m T H E L A B



Brown/RISD/Erfurt Team Designs Techstyle Haus

For two weeks next July, the grounds of France’s Palace of Versailles will be trans-formed into a solar-powered village, show-casing sustainable homes built by college students from around the world . Among them will be a house like no other, with a roof and walls made not of wood or metal, but almost entirely of durable, highly insu-lated textiles .

Techstyle Haus is the brainchild of students from Brown, RISD, and the University of Er-furt in Germany and will be one of only two entries by a U .S .-based team in the 2014 Solar Decathlon Europe . The international competition pits 20 teams against each other in 10 challenges to see who can build the most energy-efficient, innovative, and livable solar house .

The Techstyle Haus team was accepted into the competition last December after submitting a preliminary proposal . Since then, the students have been hard at work refining their designs, choosing materials, and engineering the house’s key systems . Construction is set to begin in Providence in January . In the spring, the finished prod-uct will be partly dismantled and shipped to the competition site at Versailles — the for-mer home, appropriately enough for a solar competition, of France’s Sun King, Louis XIV

“This isn’t a competition about going through the existing standard of building a house,” said Eliza Brine, a team member and third-year student in the Brown School of Engineering . “This is about creating a new way to do it .”

First and foremost, the team wanted a house that met the highest standards of efficiency . But they also wanted a home that was flex-

Students at Brown, RISD, and the University of Erfurt are tackling a great challenge: Build a house that uses 90

percent less energy than a typical house, make it liveable, flexible, durable, and lightweight enough to be shipped

from Providence to France — and design it better than 19 other top teams from around the world. That’s the Solar

Decathlon. The Brown-RISD-Erfurt team calls its entry the “Techstyle Haus.”

ible and livable, with an interior that could be reconfigured to accommodate different uses — extra bed space for houseguests or more open space for a dinner party . Building with lightweight materials was an impor-tant consideration as well . All the construc-tion materials will need to be sent to the competition site in France, so identifying materials that could be shipped cheaply and sustainably was important . After all, sustain-ability is the point of the competition . “If we show up with ten flatbeds and all this heavy equipment, what statement are we making about sustainability?” said Gareth Rose, a second-year engineering student .

From the beginning, the team set out to push the envelope of

what was possible in sustainable construction.

The team’s solution was to build with tex-tiles .

Techstyle Haus’s outer shell will be made of a robust synthetic fabric — similar to the fabrics used on roofs of domed stadiums — supported by three structural ribs made of wood . Interior walls will also be made of fabrics, to make the space transformable . The house’s plumbing, heating, and air con-ditioning systems will be placed in a central hub, which makes for easy access and struc-tural efficiency .

But building a highly efficient solar home with textiles comes with a myriad of chal-

lenges, and the team members have set a high bar for themselves . They’re aiming to meet the standard for a passive house — one that uses 90 percent less energy than a standard house .

To reach that standard, the house’s textile walls require a design that combines highly efficient insulation with materials that resist fire and dampen sound . The heating and cooling system will need to be the picture of efficiency, running on less power than is required to run a hair dryer . The solar array will need to be flexible to cover the curved surfaces of the house’s textile roof .

Each of these challenges requires a novel solution, which the team will continue to re-fine over the next nine months . Ten Brown engineering students have made the Solar Decathlon project into an independent study course this semester and next . At RISD, nearly 40 students are engaged in the project in their coursework this semester . Derek Stein, associate professor of physics, and engineering lecturers Chris Bull and Kurt Teichert have incorporated aspects of the Solar Decathlon project in their classes .

Stein, one of the faculty mentors on the project, is impressed with the way the stu-dents have managed this project so far . “The contest states very clearly that this is a student-run project,” he said . “There are fac-ulty advisers, but every team role is filled by a student . And our students have been han-dling those responsibilities wonderfully .”

With all the challenges facing the team over the next nine months, they’ve already over-come what might have been the toughest one: convincing people that the project could be done in the first place .

“The first time we pitched the project to industry people was last spring in Germany, and they ripped us apart,” said Matthew Breuer, a fourth-year engineering student . “They initially didn’t think it was possible . But we refined our design and now they’re really excited . They’re part-nering with us .”

Those industry partners include Saint-Gobain, a green materials company; PVillion, a maker of solar panels; Veissmann, a heating system company; Taco, a Rhode Island-based maker of heat transfer systems; DPR Construction, an Atlanta-based contractor; and Shawmut Design and Construction, a Boston-based builder .

So far the team has raised more than $500,000 in cash, materials, and consulting ex-pertise . All told, they expect to raise over $700,000 to complete the project .

And while all of this work is being done for a good showing at the competition, the students are well aware of the bigger picture . The ultimate aim of the event is to spread the word about clean energy and sustainable living . Thousands of people are expected to attend the competition and tour the homes .

“We want our exhibition site to teach people about all the different parts of the house and what their functions are,” Brine said . “This is about educating people and moving the building industry in a direction we want it to be going .”

The competition begins June 27, 2014 . - by Kevin Stacey

Preparing for competitionBottom left clockwise: Zachary Futterrer (RISD) ’14, Gareth Rose (Brown) ’16, Matthew Breuer (Brown) ’14, Caterina Belardetti (RISD) ’14.

A preliminary wood and paper model of Techstyle Haus, displaying a flexible photovoltaic awning.

A rendering of Techstyle Haus in it’s final location, the Domaine de Boisbuchet (France).

WINTER 2014

F R O m T H E L A B



Not all high school students bolt for the door when the final afternoon bell rings . Each Thursday, students from a Providence high school stick around into the evening to earn class credit and learn engineering con-cepts from Brown University students .

The after school class is part of a partnership between students in Brown’s School of Engi-neering and the Providence After School Al-liance (PASA), a public-private organization aimed at improving out-of-school learning opportunities for Providence youth . The partnership started in 2011, when a group of engineering students was looking for a way to help out in the community . Through Brown’s chapter of Engineers Without Bor-ders, the students met with representatives from PASA, and the result was BEAST: the Brown Engineering After School Team .

The team designs curricula and teaches two-hour classes after school for students from Dr . Jorge Alvarez High School and the Juanita Sanchez Educational Complex . On Thursdays this semester at Alvarez, the team is teaching a class called “Crash Course,” in which the students build their own small model cars . Using a variety of materials — foam board, straws, rubber bands — the students make small, elastic powered cars . In the process, they learn basic scientific and engineering concepts like friction, torque, power-to-weight ratios, and others . Anoth-er class, taught in conjunction with students from Brown’s Computer Science Depart-ment, teaches the basics of developing apps for Android phones .

BEAST — Brown Engineering After School Team — is in its fourth semester of providing after-school instruction

for Providence High School students. In “Crash Course,” its current offering, students from the Brown School of

Engineering help high school students build small elastic-powered cars from readily available materials. It’s really

all about engineering: friction, torque, power-to-weight ratios, and so forth.

Crash Course: Engineering After School

The students earn credit for the classes on their high school transcript and a digital badge . Digital badges are a credentialing system that enables students to demon-strate to employers or college admissions officers specific skills that they’ve learned .

“I like teaching to high school students,” said Jie Ying Wu, a third-year engineering student and one of the group’s leaders . “I joined [BEAST] because I was looking for

an engineering outreach program, and this seemed fun . I like that we plan the lessons, so we have to learn how to do everything beforehand . And it’s engineering I wouldn’t otherwise get to do, which makes it fun .”

Crash Course is the fourth class the BEAST students have developed and taught . Their first, introduced in the spring of 2012, taught students to use an electronics platform called Arduino to build flashing LED cubes . In a class held in fall 2012, students designed and built fully functional bicycles . Last se-mester, students learned about the basics of flight by building and testing their own hand-launched gliders .

The classes have been incorporated into the HUB, PASA’s after school program for high schools . Each course is hands-on, interac-tive, and must meet Rhode Island Common Core standards for teaching scientific con-cepts .

Over the course of the BEAST program, 42 high school students have taken engineer-ing classes, with many students taking more than one class . Another 40 have participat-ed in “design challenge” events related to the curricula held periodically throughout the year .

Lisa Sampson, HUB coordinator with PASA, said she’s impressed with the Brown stu-dents’ efforts to become good teachers .

“The Brown group came with expertise in the content, but they didn’t necessarily come with much experience working with

kids,” Sampson said . “So what they did that was so impressive was put the time and ef-fort into going through baseline youth de-velopment training through PASA . Every step along the way they’ve seized the op-portunity to get professional development . They’ve taken our program quality assess-ment observations and used that feedback in their program .”

BEAST has been funded by Brown through an UTRA (Undergraduate Teaching and Re-search Award) . Rob Rome, associate dean in the School of Engineering, is impressed with the work the students have done so far

and will work with the students to expand their efforts .

“A large part of the growth of the School of Engineering involves working more closely with the Providence community,” Rome said . “These students are ambas-sadors of the school to local students and also fulfill the greater need of exposing kids to what engineering and science are all about . BEAST has the full support of the school to grow its activities .”

Christy Chao, a fourth-year engineering student who has been with BEAST from

“Crash Course” in engineeringAn elastic motor, low-friction ultra-narrow wheels ... Leann Albert and Moises Ferrer try to wring the most performance out of materials at hand. They’re learning engineering concepts along the way.

Credit: Kevin Stacey/Brown University

the beginning, said she’s excited to see how the group will grow .

“I think it’s a great program to be involved in because [we] learn just as much from the students as the students learn from our pro-gram,” Chao said . “Working with these stu-dents has really been a great experience and I can’t wait to see what they go on to do next .”

The group’s PASA partners are looking for-ward to it too .

“I can’t say enough about this group,” Samp-son said . “They’re one of our longest-stand-ing, most reliable and high-quality partners .”

- by Kevin Stacey

S T U d E N T S i N T H E N E W S

21 WiNTER 2014

The Indian state of Kerala, located in the southwest-most portion of the subcontinent, is known as “God’s Own Country .” The diverse plant and animal life and the amazing geography combine to make an absolutely beautiful state . In the span of eighty kilometers the landscape ranges from mountainous tea plantations to sub-sea-level wetlands . The people of Kerala live predominantly in rural communities and work agricultural or service jobs . They speak Malayalam—a member of the Dravidian language family spoken almost solely in Kerala—and prac-tice a balanced mix of Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity .

Despite receiving upwards of three meters of rain annually during India’s monsoon, many people in Kerala face a regular shortage of potable water . This issue is expected because of the seasonal distribution of rainfall, but is exacerbated by industrial, agricultural, and biological pol-lution, minimal public distribution systems, and salt intrusion from the Arabian Sea .

My name is Sam Lee ’15 . Here at Brown, I study civil engineering and environmental planning . Through my work with Rainwater for Humanity (R4H), I seek to address the issue of water scarcity in Kerala . R4H is a student-run social enterprise that constructs rainwater harvesting sys-tems and operates them under a business model . This past summer, I spent seven weeks in Kerala developing the R4H program . Our work is currently focused in Kuttanad—a coastal wetland known as “the Rice bowl of Kerala” and home to more than 800,000 people . Kuttanad is a sprawling expanse of rice paddies and backwaters—much of it is below sea level . Due to these conditions, the area is infiltrated by pollutants from all sides . Salt water from the adjacent Arabian Sea percolates through the soil to make wells brackish . Fecal and agricultural contami-nants are generated by local practices and added to by flows from the surrounding hills . Rainwater harvesting is a viable solution because it avoids these surface and ground water contaminations .

Despite being an effective method of supplying clean water during the dry season, rainwater harvesting tanks (RHTs) have seen limited implementation . This is because of their prohibitively high cost: the poorest and most severely affected households cannot afford installa-tion . We believe that the benefits to a family over the 20 year operating life of an RHT far outweigh these high installation costs . We have also learned during our fieldwork that most families would choose to install RHTs if the costs (like the benefits) were distributed over time . Conse-quently, we have developed a water vending structure that remedies the financing challenges that other rainwater harvesting projects face . We finance the construction of the RHT upfront . We then recoup this investment over the operating lifecycle of the RHT by selling the water on a pay-per-use basis .

R4H has built a total of thirteen tanks—six currently under this business model—and has provided water for sixty families in the pilot village of Achinakom . In the past, we worked with the local Mahatma Gandhi University’s School of Environmental Science (MGU SES) to implement this project as a research study . Now—encouraged by the success and community approval our model has seen—we are ready to scale our efforts to have regional impact . Our trip in the summer was in preparation for this .

A Summer in India with Rainwater for Humanity

Sam in front of the MSSRF regional office in Wayanad (northern Kerala). A shed roof at the home of one of the R4H beneficiaries being used to recharge a brackish well

We first worked in Achinakom with MGU SES to address a few remaining issues within the pilot project . We also met with other local organiza-tions to discuss their potential roles in a regional venture . The biggest accomplishment of the trip was forging a partnership with an estab-lished regional NGO: the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation . This group, which focuses on rural development in southern India, agreed to provide the organizational infrastructure (financial systems, administrative oversight, etc .) we need to transform from an academic re-search project into a full-fledged social enterprise . Now that we are back in the US, the next steps for R4H are to formalize this partnership and to complete the preparations for the installation of twenty new rainwater harvesting systems this spring .

To further improve R4H’s model and ensure long-term financial sustainability, I also worked on design research this summer to drive down construction costs . As a research fellow for the Obama-Singh 21st-Century Knowledge Initiative, I conducted materials research on incor-porating coconut husk fiber as a substitute for the steel reinforcement and sand in concrete . The goal of the research was to determine a cheaper, alternative cement-based composite for constructing rainwater harvesting tanks using locally abundant materials .

I worked with faculty and PhD scholars from MGU SES to design a research program to test optimal mix variations and pre-treatment pro-cesses for the coconut fibers as strategies for improving the material’s durability . This builds upon the results of a study I conducted in 2012 looking at relative strength performance of coconut-fiber-reinforced concrete with different types and ratios of partial substitutes for Port-land Cement . Together, we developed and commenced a yearlong study that examines the effect of various reinforcement strategies under different aging regimes . Additionally, I spent my last few days in Kerala with our mason conducting field tests of a few of the proposed re-search materials .

Perhaps the most memorable part of the trip was being a tourist on the weekends . At the end of every week of work, I visited different places in the state of Kerala . This is how I truly came to appreciate the culture and diversity of God’s Own Country . Whether it was taking a train south to the capital city of Thiruvananthapuram or a packed van to a wedding in the coastal town of Alappuzha, every weekend was a new adventure . My favorite excursion was a bus ride to high in the Western Ghats to visit a friend’s hometown . After a weekend of swimming in mountain ponds, exploring tea plantations, and trying new foods, I returned to MGU with a better sense of the cultural diversity in Kerala .

My experiences this summer in Kerala were a firsthand look into a society that is, in many ways, very different from our own . Whether it was working in the university, visiting RHTs in the field, or traveling the countryside I was doing things I wouldn’t ordinarily do and speaking with people I would never have gotten the chance to meet . However, it was clear within moments of meeting anyone that, despite coming from widely disparate backgrounds, we had a lot in common—from a shared concern over environmental issues to a mutual craving for spicy food . My trip to Kerala was irreplaceable because of the very real and profound effect on my interpretation of the global community . The perspective it provided will resonate in the work I will do in my last few years at Brown and beyond .

- by Sam Lee ’15

Preparing test panels of coire-reinforced concrete Sam and Sneha inspecting the interior of a rainwater harvesting tank

A l u m n i P e r s P e c t i v e



Carlos Bledt, a second year Ph .D . student in the electrical sciences and engineering group at the School of Engineering at Brown University, has won a three-year National Defense Science and Engineering (NDSEG) Fellowship .

The NDSEG Fellowship is sponsored and funded by the Department of Defense (DoD) . Bledt was selected by the DoD from over 3,000 applications that were received this year . The NDSEG Fellowship covers his full tuition and all mandatory fees for three years . In addition, the NDSEG Fellowship provides Bledt with a yearly stipend .

NDSEG selections are made by the Air Force Research Laboratory/Air Force Office of Scientific Re-search (AFRL/AFOSR), the Office of Naval Research (ONR), the Army Research Office (ARO), and the DoD High Performance Computing Modernization Program Office (HPCMO) . The American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) administers the NDSEG Fellowship Program .

Bledt is a 2012 graduate of Rutgers with a degree in materials science and engineering . At Brown, he is conducting research under the guidance of his thesis advisor Professor Jimmy Xu on the theoretical and experimental investigation of optical surface wave phenomena at specialized media interfaces . In particular, he is focusing on the appearance of a novel type of lossless surface waves capable of propagating at optically anisotropic media interfaces under stringent interface conditions . These highly localized, lossless surface waves, known as Dyakonov surface waves (DSWs), have tremendous potential in enabling next-generation technological capabilities, ranging from high-sensitivity bio-sensing to highly localized and miniaturized optical interconnect devices .

Carlos Bledt Wins Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship

Several Brown University engineering students attended the 2013 AIChE Annual Student Conference in early November in San Francisco . Four chemical engineering students returned to Providence with awards from the national poster competition . This year’s Brown AIChE team that at-tended the national meeting included: Helen Bergstrom ’15, Christy Chao ’14, Christopher Culin ’14, Cory Hargus ’14, and Tegan Tingley ’15 .

“It was another successful year from our local chapter students in AIChE national competition,” said faculty advisor Indrek Kulaots . “The students represented Brown well, and deserved to be congratulated on another great showing .”

Nearly 300 posters were presented, and the competition was divided into ten topic areas, and the topic areas were broken down further into sub-groups .

Brown Engineers Win Four Awards at AIChE National Poster Competition

AIChE National Poster Competition WinnersTegan Tingley ’15, Cory Hargus ’14, Helen Bergstrom ’15, and Christy Chao ’14 competed in the AIChE national poster competition in San Francisco as part of the 2013 AIChE Annual Student Conference.

Bergstrom and Tingley both presented in the environmental science and engineering category, which was divided into two subgroups, environ-mental remediation and environmental modeling . Bergstrom and Tingley each won first prize in their subgroup . Tingley presented a poster titled, “Heavy metal removal with iron-containing materials,” and won the environmental remediation subgroup . Her supervisors were postdoctoral re-search associate Liang Guo and Professor Joseph Calo . Bergstrom presented a poster titled, “Evaluation of watershed models for simulation of salt mass balance in seasonally managed wetlands,” and won the environmental modeling subgroup . Her work was a collaboration between Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Brown University, and she worked with faculty advisor Indrek Kulaots .

Chao presented her poster titled, “Improving nanoparticle biocompatibility through graphene encapsulation,” and won second place in her sub-group in the materials engineering and sciences group . She worked with Professor Robert Hurt .

Hargus presented his poster titled, “Looped oxide catalysis: the prospect of bio-oil deoxygenation over reduced metal oxides,” and won third place in his subgroup in the catalysis and reaction engineering category . Assistant Professor Andrew Peterson was his faculty supervisor .

Fazle Husain, is the newest member of the Engineering Advisory Council to Brown’s School of Engineering .

“Studying engineering at Brown was exciting and challenging . We were all in a discipline that was new to us—no one studies engineering in high school . It was very rigorous and structured, especially in the context of the freedom of a Brown education . But it was dynam-ic and exciting, too . We didn’t have TAs teaching classes and grading exams—the professors were fully engaged and always had time for us .

“When I was thinking about applying for an MBA at Harvard Business School, I asked Profes-sor Eric Suuberg, my engineering advisor during senior year, his opinion about getting a business degree after Brown . He told me to go for it, that engineering and business comple-mented each other . His encouragement meant a lot to me; he even wrote a letter of recom-mendation .

“That philosophy—it’s Brown’s philosophy, really—let me use my education to further what I wanted to do in life, not what others thought I should do . I think if I had gone to a lot of other universities, I may have been pigeonholed into following my major . But right after graduating in chemical engineering, I worked on Wall Street, gaining valuable business experience . That’s a testament to a truly broad-based education and forward-thinking academic advisors .

“I’m so pleased that the engineering program has grown into the School of Engineering at Brown . I’ve got to know Dean Larry Larson over the past 18 months and believe that he has a strong vision for engineering at Brown and has provided great leadership at an important time . The decision to locate the new engineering building on College Hill (and not the jewelry district) was a great decision . I was honored when Larry asked me to join the Engineering Advisory Council . I have recently become involved and there is a lot of good discussion on important topics like faculty recruiting, the new engineering building, and the growing biomedical engineering program . There is much to be done over the next four or five years, but it seems like engineering is a big part of Brown’s future .

“I recommend an engineering major to anyone who has an interest in math, sciences or research . The engineering discipline sharpens quan-titative and problem-solving skills, crucial in a wide variety of professions . And an engineering degree can lead to success in other profes-sions—like business, entrepreneurship, marketing, product development and life sciences—as well .”

M. Fazle Husain is managing director of Metalmark Capital. He and his wife Blair McClure Husain, a jewelry designer, live in New York City with their three children.

Fazle Husain ’87, Engineer Turned Private Equity Investor, on Pursuing Your Own Path

Angus Kingon, Eric Suuberg, Fazle Husain, and Larry Larson at the PRIME reception during Commencement Weekend.

A L U M N i P E R S P E C T i v E

25 WiNTER 2014

dan Leibholz ‘86 Sc.M.‘88VP, Embedded Systems Products and Tech GroupAnalog Devices, Inc .Norwood, MA

Tom Shannon ‘85Partner Bain & CompanyChicago, IL

Jeff Trauberman, Jd ‘76VP, Space, Intelligence and Missile Defense for Government OpsBoeingArlington, VA

Axel zur Loye, Ph.d. ‘81Chief Engineer (dual fuel engines)CumminsColumbus, IN

Joyce Mullen ‘84 P‘13 P‘13VP/GM, OEM Sales Solutions DellRound Rock, TX

Stephan Kolitz, Ph.d.Director of EducationDraper LaboratoryCambridge, MA

Paul Bechta ‘87 Sc.M.‘88Senior Director, Global ServicesEMCHopkinton, MA

Lou Hector, Jr., Ph.d.Technical Fellow, Research and Development General MotorsWarren, MI

H. B. Siegel ‘83Chief Technology OfficerIMDbSeattle, WA

Ryan Ross Distinguished Engineer (CAB Chair)Juniper NetworksWestford, MA

Tim denison, Ph.d.Director of Core Technology, Neuromodulation MedtronicMinneapolis, MN

Lou diPalma Sc.M. ‘89 P’08Engineering DirectorRaytheonPortsmouth, RI

Colin Mercer, Ph.d.VP Research & DevelopmentSimuliaProvidence, RI

Michael PereiraSenior Vice President, Technology & OperationsximedicaProvidence, R

CoRPoR ATE AFFiLiATES BoARd

Corporate Affiliates Board members with Brown University School of Engineering Dean Larry Larson.

Corporate Affiliates Board Members

The School of Engineering CAB was developed to ensure that the growth and evolution of the School accords with industry needs, and that the School will be guided and supported by robust industry involvement.A main purpose of the CAB is to mutually benefit industry partners and the School. This is accom-plished by developing relationships that enhance both student internship and employment op-portunities, and exploring ways for faculty to partner with industry in performing high-impact research. The CAB will provide the Dean with guidance on the School’s educational program – including its quality and relevance to state-of-the-art engineering challenges, together with the preparedness of its graduates.

Corporate Affiliates Board Mission

The School of Engineering’s Corporate Affiliates Program (CAP) has seen significant growth in activity in recent months, which has tapped into strong student interest in exploring op-portunities in industry .

Some highlights include:

• At the October meeting of the Corporate Affiliates Board (CAB), a career panel discus-sion led by several board members brought significant attendance and rave reviews from students . Panel members talked in detail both about their own personal career paths as well as trends within their specific industries . They gave extremely helpful in-sights to the undergraduate and graduate students in attendance .

• The October CAB meeting also established specific goals for internship/employment and sponsored research interactions from member companies . These will increase op-portunities for students and faculty to interact in positive ways with industrial partners . We thank the CAB for its significant contributions to the School!

• Utilidata, a local Providence technology company that is modernizing the delivery of electrical energy, has hired several Brown interns, financially sponsored an engineer-ing student organization, and is participating in both the Program for Innovation Man-agement and Entrepreneurship (PRIME) classes and Business, Entrepreneurship, and Organizations (BEO) capstone projects . We applaud and thank them for their positive involvement!

• Raytheon has participated in the PRIME program, donating latent Intellectual Property (IP) for use in PRIME projects, a major part of that master’s program . We are grateful to Raytheon for their help!

• Over 20 engineering-specific companies are planning to attend the School’s annual Ca-reer and Internship Fair on January 25 . We look forward to another great event this year!

Sangeeta N. Bhatia ’90Professor, Investigator, Director: Laboratory for Multiscale Regenerative TechnologiesMITCambridge, MA

John Bravman PresidentBucknell UniversityLewisburg, PA

Seth Coe-Sullivan ’99 Chief Technology Officer QD VisionLexington, MA

Rick Fleeter ’76 Ph.d.’81Author/Adjunct Professor Brown University Providence, RILa Sapienza /University of RomeRome, Italy

d. oscar Groomes ’82 P’15Metallurgical Engineer, Physicist and Materials Scientist Groomes Business SolutionsCharlotte, NC

deirdre Hanford ’83 - ChairSenior Vice President, Global Technical ServicesSynopsys, Inc .Mountain View, CA

david Hibbitt Ph.d.’72 PMAT’96Co-Founder ABAQUS, Inc .Providence, RI

Fazle Husain ’87Managing Director Metalmark CapitalNew York, NY

Mary Lou Jepsen ’87 Ph.d.’97Head of Display DivisionGoogle X LabMountain View, CA

Alejandro Knoepffler ’82PrincipalCipher Investment Management Co .Coral Gables, FL

Peter Lauro ’78 P’11PartnerSaul Ewing, LLPBoston, MA

Andrew Marcuvitz ’71 P’06Founder, ChairmanAlpond Capital, LLCLincoln, MA

deb Mills-Scofield ’82PartnerGlengary LLCBeachwood, Ohio

James R. Moody ’58 Sc.M.’65 P’97Co-FounderCo-Planar, Inc .Denville, NJ

venkatesh “venky” NarayanamurtiDirectorScience Technology /Public Policy ProgramHarvard Kennedy School Cambridge, MA

James B. RobertoAssociate Laboratory DirectorOak Ridge National LaboratoryOak Ridge, TN

John Sinnott ’80 P’16Vice PresidentGilbane Building CompanyProvidence, RI

Paul Sorensen ’71 Sc.M.’75 Ph.d.’77 P’06 P’06Co-FounderABAQUS, Inc .Providence, RI

donald L. Stanford ’72 Sc.M.’77Chief Innovation OfficerGTECHAdjunct ProfessorBrown UniversityProvidence, RI

Ted Tracy ’81 P’14Vice President of EngineeringBlue Jeans NetworkMountain View, CA

James E. Warne, iii ’78President WTI, Inc . Phoenix, AZ

Advisory Council Members

AdviSoRY CoUNCiL/dE vELoPMENT CoMMiT TEE

Engineering Advisory Council Mission

Provide support and advice in the develop-ment, execution, and attainment of the School of Engineering’s strategic goals.

Ensure the School of Engineering is providing the highest quality educational experience for its students, and is embark-ing on the highest impact, highest quality, research program.

Coordinate with the Engineering Develop-ment Committee to ensure that our strate-gic and financial initiatives are achieved.

Work with campus leadership to ensure their continued support of the School of Engineering, and recognition of the key role Engineering plays in the vitality of the entire Brown community.

Development Committee

Charlie Giancarlo ’79 P’08 P’11Managing DirectorSilver Lake PartnersMenlo Park, CA

Theresia Gouw ’90PartnerAccel PartnersPalo Alto, CA

Steven Price ’84Chairman and CEOTownsquare MediaGreenwich, CT

Joan Wernig Sorensen ’72 P’06 P’06Providence, RI

Paul Sorensen ’71 Sc.M.’75 Ph.d.’77 P’06 P’06Co-FounderABAQUS, Inc .Providence, RI

The EAC meets twice a year in October and February and provides critical support and advice on the School and provides important feedback to the Provost and the President .

Executive Advisory Council members with Brown University President Christina Paxson.

BROWN SchOOl Of ENgiNEERiNg 28 WINTER 2014


$100-$499

Nina Gross and Steve AsherBarbara Brown Bland ‘55 and George F. Bland ‘48Casey P. Brennan ‘93Laura C. Glick and Jayson L. Cohen ‘92Alison L. Errico ‘06 and Andrew M. deldonno ‘06Clyde K. Fisk ‘40, P’69, P’72 Sc.M.’73, GP’98

Sc.M.’00, GP’99, GP’02Richard d. Fleeter ‘76 Ph.d.’81Nicole and Steve FrankelFrank P. Fuerst ‘79, P’13Brendan J. Hargreaves ‘06 Sc.M.’07Michael W. Harrison ‘95 Ph.d.’07Charles J. Hinckley ‘73Anne and Aaron HoffnungEliot R. Horowitz ‘03Katherine Cheng Huang ‘99 and Eric K. Huang ‘94 Ph.d.’01Brian L. Hunt Sc.M.’65 Ph.d.’67Hao Jin P’12Stuart E. Kirtman Ph.d.’98*Kesorn Leartprapun P’14Cecile o. Trop and William E. Mattingly P’12Carol and Steven Miranda P’14Anthony d. Moschella ‘02Julia S. Mullen Sc.M.’92 Ph.d.’99Glenn d. Nelson Sc.M.’77Carl E. Nielsen Jr. ‘56Paula Petrica ‘05daniel E. Ratner ‘97victor M. Sanchez-Moya Ph.d.’75Harold SchneiderPeter E. Senkowski ‘69Hong-Shig Shim A.M.’95 Ph.d.’99Kim d. Sichel ‘77, P’11Kara and Andrew SiegelJudith and Marinos Stylianou P’15Ganapathy Subramanian Sc.M.’97Cord A. Thomas ‘93R. Jacob vogelstein ‘00Mark E. Walter ‘90*Michelle and Steven Walti P’13Beverly M. Xu ‘14

$1-$99

Anonymousdaniela M. Amores ‘05Marshall M. Bassick Jr. ‘61Edmund d. Borges ‘89Marina Z. Chaudhari and Jimshade A. Chaudhari ‘98Anne M. ChildsLisha Stewart Cole ‘83 and Leroy Cole Jr. ‘83James A. deBardelaben ‘91vivette El Fawal ‘09 Sc.M.’10Neil A. Fromer ‘96Chioke B. Harris ‘08Jennifer E. Harrisdebbie HeinAinsley v. MacLean ‘01 M.d’05 and igor Helman ‘01Tal itzkovich ‘06

di Jiang ‘06Anthony E. Johnson ‘08Mun Ju Kim Sc.M.’00 Ph.d.’04Elizabeth S. Livingstone ‘10Ayana Colbert Machen ‘94Katherine Mahan and Matthew M. Mahan ‘00Anuj N. Mankad ‘98Charlene A. Marini ‘97Henry H. Mattingly ‘12Paul H. Maysek ‘76Patrick M. McCarthy ‘71Susan C. Merriam ‘77Rita Caslowitz Michaelson ‘50, P’80, GP’16daniel P. MooreEugene B. Nelson ‘11Emir v. okan ‘12James M. Perkins ‘00Julia Kay Preis ‘06Mark S. Rapaport Sc.M.’93William M. Riedel ‘12Eric A. Robertson ‘13Arielle S. RothsteinStephen T. Sawyer ‘09Nathaniel J. Schub ‘13Chirona R. Silverstein ‘10 Sc.M.’11Michael E. Sunshine ‘11 Sc.M.’11Adrienne L. Trudeau ‘07dina i. Tsukrov ‘08vishal Patel ‘05Roger E. Wakefield ‘70Reid T. Westwood ‘12Charlie Yongpravat ‘07 Sc.M.’08

Corporations, Foundations, and Associations

Advanced Micro devices incAnalog devices*ArcelorMittaldassault SystemesEpilepsy FoundationGeneral Motors CorporationGoogleKorea institute of Machinery and Materials*Korea institute of Science and TechnologyMedtronic, inc.National Collegiate inventors and innovators

Allianceoracle

* These donors have given in each of the past three fiscal years since the formation of the School of Engineering on July 1, 2010.

$100,000+

AnonymousAnonymousdianne Giannetto Giancarlo and Charles H. Giancarlo ‘79, P’08, P’11david E. Gochman ‘87Susan Buck Hibbitt ‘70 and H. david Hibbitt Ph.d.’72, PMAT’96Joan Wernig Sorensen ‘72 and E. Paul Sorensen ‘71 Sc.M.’75 Ph.d.’77, P’06, P’06

$50,000 - $99,999

Anonymous*AnonymousSarah K. de Coizart Trust

$10,000-$49,999

Sharyn and Gary Greenstein P’13*Sheryl B. Robinson and Steven K. Jacobson P’14Joele Frank and Laurence F. Klurfeld P’13Christine d’vileskis Morgan ‘86 and david P. Morgan Sc.M.’85 Ph.d.’88*Patricia K. Petteruti and Steven F. Petteruti ‘83, P’14Michael E. Strem ‘58, P’97Alexander G. Weindling ‘84Nancy J. Freeman and Jeffrey A. Weiss P’12 M.d’16*

$1,000-$9,999

Luke N. Angelini ‘10 Sc.M.’11Frances E. Bivens ‘88Arthur Corvese Jr. ‘73Elinor Y. Fung ‘11Susanna B. Aaron and Gary L. Ginsberg ‘84dana Westreich Hirt ‘89, P’17Sandra Nusinoff Lehrman ‘69 M.d’76 and Stephen A. Lehrman ‘73*Susan M. Miller Sc.M.’85 Ph.d.’88*deborah J. Mills-Scofield ‘82Alfred J. Petteruti ‘54, P’81, P’83, P’84, P’86,

GP’13, GP’14, GP’17Susan Schaffer and Michael RoganJudith Sockut Silverman ‘67 Sc.M.’69 Sc.M.’85 and

Harvey F. Silverman Sc.M.’68 Ph.d.’71, P’94, P’00*Gary H. Sockut ‘72*

$500-$999

david S. Brown ‘11Beth and Ronald Cooper P’16James E. Costa ‘77Mark E. Fuller ‘09Adam J. Greenbaum ‘08 Sc.M.’09Lisa A. Rubin-Johnson ‘80 A.M.’81 and Glenn M. Johnsondana and William Keeth P’16James W. Phillips Sc.M.’66 Ph.d.’69Tõnu PihuRobert J. Rothstein ‘69Matthew Stein ‘01

Make a Gift

The School of Engineering is grateful for the support of all of its donors during the 2013 fiscal year. The Honor Roll is in appreciation and recognition of those individuals, corporations, foundations, and organizations whose support makes the continued commitment to excellence in teaching and research at the Brown School of Engineering possible. While every effort has been made to ensure accuracy, please notify us immediately if there are any errors or omissions.

Donor Honor Roll

These characteristics provide a unique opportunity to help transform the School of Engineering into a force for global technological and entrepreneurial innovation by:

þ Hiring and supporting transformational faculty in key areas of explosive technological growth and profound societal impact

þ Establishing a Center for Entrepreneurial Innovation þ Transforming undergraduate engineering education

The time to begin these initiatives is now. Philanthropic, visionary individuals are encouraged to seize this unique opportunity to make a difference in our community and in the world.

Giving OpportunitiesNew Engineering Facility School of Engineering Building Fund starting at $100,000 New and renovated space on College Hill for education, collaboration and research including classrooms, research labs, cleanrooms, etc.

Center for Entrepreneurial Innovation $20 million The focus of entrepreneurial research, collaboration and science

Brown Design Workshop in Prince Lab $10-15 million The focus of collaborative “making” and experiential learning

Faculty Support Endowed Professorships $5 million Dynamic teachers and researchers to lead and inspire students

Endowed Visiting Professorships $2 million Bringing new perspectives and real-world experience

Endowed Post-Doctoral Scholars $1 million Training the next generation of leading faculty

Graduate Student Support Endowed Graduate Fellowships in Engineering $750,000 Support for transformative research

Transforming Undergraduate Education Endowed First-Year Seminar Fund $500,000 Provides funding for one first-year seminar each year

First-Year Seminar Fund $50,000 Provides funding for one first-year seminar

Dean’s Fund for Engineering Excellence All amounts Support investment in novel research and curriculum innovations, and the creation of new educational ventures

C A M PA i G N F o R E N G i N E E R i N G“This plan is ambitious, but Brown has implemented equally ambitious plans in the last several years.

Aiming for excellence invigorates and inspires us all.”— Larry Larson, Dean, School of Engineering

For more than 160 years, Brown University’s engineering program has sustained an exciting and unique environment for learning, teaching, and research. What began in 1847 has grown into a distinguished School of Engineering characterized by global impact, innovation, multi-disciplinary pursuits, and outstanding faculty and students.

Brown’s School of Engineering is poised for a bold step forward. New teaching and research facilities are to be built on College Hill adjacent to Barus & Holley. Expanded faculty will en-sure that engineering continues to play its key role in multi-disciplinary education. Students will have opportunities to assimilate diverse disciplines required to address today’s global challenges as well as contribute to fundamen-tal scientific understanding.

Please join us in support of the Campaign for Engineering. Help us make sure that Brown students have the resources needed for in-depth scientific inquiry and the education that will prepare them for addressing key challenges fac-ing people across the globe.

Joan Wernig Sorensen ’72, P’06, P’06 E. Paul Sorensen ’71 Sc.M.’75 Ph.D.’77, P’06, P’06

Engineering Development Committee

Give to Brown Engineering For all School of Engineering gifts and contributions, please call Rick Marshall, Senior

development officer, at 401-863-9877, or email him at [email protected]

School of EngineeringBox D182 Hope StreetProvidence, RI 02912

E N G i N 0 030 d E S i G N PR oJ E C T S 2013

Caroline Manteiga, Kaitlin McGovern, Re-becca Handa, Megan Kelly, Chinedu Irofuala

Cynthia Hale-Phillips, Eleanor Kim, Ekaterina Knyazkova, Natalie Roe, Vikas Kasireddy

Sarah Dugan, Catherine LeBoeuf,

Rachel Murai, Kimberly Truong,

Madison Woo

Adrian Robin, Alexandria Karim, Aminah

Lawa, Ayse Sena Demir, Brian Williams,

Bryan Rippee, J. Conor Dunleavy, Khari

Goosby, Erick Munoz, Shababa Matin

Timothy Adam Hoff, Solomon Goldstein-Rose, Velat Kilic, Rohan Yuri Sanspeur, Siyi Zhang

Ben Snell, Lucas

Weiser, Robert Wyatt,

Warren Smith, Flavio Lopez

Bailey Layzer, Sarah Moody, Matthew Petersen, Bao-Han (Chelsea) Phan, James Verch

Roy Chen, Anthony Mai, Kevin Oh, Brad ThompsonLeanne Block, Gareth Chena, Jacob Feder, Katie Hsia, Michael Manning Yasmine Hassan

Zachary Atkins-Weltman, Nathan Hyde,

Gabriel Buchsbaum, Michael Lee, Nifemi

Madarikan

Johnathan Davis, Faisal Khurshid, Soham

Rege, Ankit Shah, Arun VarmaShannon Crowley, Chris Cubra, Kyle

Gion, Grant Gustafson, Daniel Kunin

Victor Dang, Gregory Hickey, Jacob Jaffe,Salina Moon, Jaekyung Song

from the lab

Documents