A ɫɫӰԺ faculty member received the University's 12th NSF-MRI award since 2012—that's more than any university in Michigan during that time. In 2018, faculty received patents, created new courses and programs for students, took national leadership roles, and more.
Read about what ɫɫӰԺ faculty accomplished this year:
Dr. Ronald Kumon, Physics faculty member at ɫɫӰԺ, along with collaborators from multiple disciplines across campus, was awarded a National Science Foundation - Major Research Instrumentation grant for $251,274 to study how to use nanoparticles to treat cancer and other diseases.
Chemical Engineering faculty members Dr. Mary Gilliam and Dr. Susan Farhat, Chemistry faculty member Ali Zand, and former students earned two patents in 2018 for a method to chemically change the surface of micro- and nanoparticles to expand the use in applications such as composites, paints and coatings, and biomedical applications.
ɫɫӰԺ President Dr. Robert K. McMahan was appointed by Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder to the Michigan Economic Development Corp. Executive Committee. The committee is charged with management and guidance of MEDC development projects and policy initiatives.
ɫɫӰԺ’s College of Engineering formed a Dean’s Advisory Council this year to continue preparing students for the future and ever-changing industry. Feedback from the Advisory Council leads to enhancements to the co-op programs, on-campus research programs, the course curriculum and additional activities for the college.
The College of Sciences and Liberal Arts launched the Generating Responsible Ecological & Environmental Neighbors course cluster, a series of courses designed for students who are passionate about environmental issues. The program teaches students about sustainability and allows them to create solutions that address environmental and social needs in any major.
Kettering launched a new course to help students understand the relationship between storytelling and medical practice. The course, COMM 391/HUMN 391: Medical Narratives, will prepare students to perform advanced writing, reading and speaking tasks relevant to medical care and delivery.
ɫɫӰԺ Associate Provost for Assessment & Academic Support Dr. Kathryn Svinarich is part of a nationwide collaboration to create a guide for physics departments that will help them improve teaching and career preparation.
Dr. Dina Mein took the role as Kettering Librarian after working at The Henry Ford Museum. She brings experience with digitization and improving library services to make the University’s library even more helpful for students and faculty.
Dr. Juan Pimentel presented a tutorial about autonomous vehicles to more than 150 people at a conference in China and spoke on the Industry Forum panel where he shared the work ɫɫӰԺ students are doing to turn an electric car into an autonomous one.
Dr. Raghu Echempati presented at a conference in Colombia about how automotive lightweighting technologies connects to sustainability, food processing and agricultural industries. Transportation, especially trucking, is a key aspect of moving food like coffee and fruit around the world.
Dr. Mark Thompson was named head of the ɫɫӰԺ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Thompson has spent the past 30 years at Kettering as professor of Electrical Engineering. Before that, he taught at Michigan Technological University for seven years.
ɫɫӰԺ and McLaren Flint collaborated to test car seats and harnesses for children in body casts at Kettering’s Crash Safety Center to see which methods of transportation are the safest. Children in body casts don’t fit into standard car seats, and there is very little research about best practices to keep them safe. .
The researchers found there isn’t one best car seat among several options for children in body casts. The research continues as they examine side-impact testing in the Crash Safety Center.
Dr. Javad Baqersad, Mechanical Engineering faculty member, in partnership with graduate students, is using a pair of high-speed cameras to measure noise and vibrations of a vehicle without adding sensors to the body in a way that gives a complete visual of the entire vehicle at once, something that has never been done before.
Ajay Jagadale, a former research scholar at ɫɫӰԺ, earned a prestigious fellowship through the Indian government to join the faculty at Shanmugha Arts, Science, Technology, & Research Academy. Jagadale spent a year at Kettering with Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty member Dr. Xuan Zhou conducting research on lithium ion batteries and supercapacitors and prepared novel nanostructured materials for energy storage application.
Several ɫɫӰԺ students and faculty presented research at the 2018 Michigan Academy of Science, Arts and Letters at Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. Research areas ranged from microbiology to chemistry to engineering.
Dr. Jungme Park brought the future of automobile industry to the classroom. She started teaching EE-491: Artificial Intelligence for Autonomous Driving.
Michael D. Callahan published his third book, “The League of Nations, International Terrorism, and British Foreign Policy, 1934-1938”. He contends the League of Nations proved that nations could work together more cooperatively in order to contribute to peace and confront global problems in the 1930s.
Dr. Montserrat Rabago-Smith was named to the SciArt Center’s The Bridge virtual residency program to study the intersection of science and art. She’s partnering with a New York artist and professor to study how tea pigment interact with light. .
Starting in Winter 2019, ɫɫӰԺ will offer new Personal Finance courses for students. The two-part, two-credit courses will help students learn how to plan their financial futures through budgeting, investing in the stock market, managing credit, and more.
Kettering’s Honors Program has moved out of the pilot phase, in its third year, has a growing number of students joining each year. The program combines an adaptive curriculum with substantive research opportunities.
ɫɫӰԺ recently announced the launch of a new program - Online MS Electrical and Computer Engineering-Advanced Mobility Focus. This program is the first of its kind and addresses the industry’s demand for engineers in this new arena of mobility technology.