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Following a bronze award from the American Society for Engineering Educations Diversity Recognition Program, the University of Iowas College of Engineering is ready to move forward when it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.

After five years at the University of Iowas College of Engineering, graduate student Martell Bell still feels isolated.

Being one of the few Black men in the college, Bell said he often feels underrepresented. He doesnt always see people with the same background or experiences as him in his college.

In most of my classes, Im the only Black male, he said. I was the only Black, American male in my graduating class and I feel like Im isolated a lot of the time. There are no Black professorsIts really tough.

Bell is one of four graduate students on the College of Engineerings Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council. Two years after the councils establishment, there are 25 faculty, students, and staff members on it.

The American Society for Engineering Education has recognized the UIs College of Engineering and its DEI Council as a part of its Diversity Recognition Program for the 2020-21 academic year.

The UI is one of 17 universities to receive the highest level of recognition in the program.

Infographic by Eleanor Hildebrandt/The Daily Iowan

Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering in the College of Engineering Kristan Worthington, who is also a member of the council, said she helped the college apply for the American Society of Engineering Educations Diversity Recognition Program.

She said the application included a pledge from the colleges dean; a diversity, equity, and inclusion plan with strategic goals; and a narrative elaborating on the plan.

She said the council and the college overall is taking a systematic approach to executing the goals outlined in the applications plans. This is the first year the college has received the distinction and the third year the American Society of Engineering Education gave out the recognitions.

RELATED: UI dental students, IFR call for improved diversity, equity, and inclusion in College of Dentistry

The three-part plan outlined in the application is focusing on designing and implementing equitable policies and practices that ensure students thrive, create and sustain an inclusive community that fosters a sense of belonging, and a goal of diversifying student, faculty, staff, and leadership populations in the college, Worthington said.

Were really being clear about not just setting goals and never thinking about them again but setting goals and creating a clear path to achieving those goals, she said. And [were] able to track whether or not were making progress on those goalsThe application process enabled us to coalesce things together and create a unified front.

Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering Sarah Vigmostad, who is a co-chair of the College of Engineerings Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council, said the application included a plan with levels of accountability, as well.

For each of the goals and the specific critical tasks we outline in the application, weve identified accountable parties within the college, she said. There are people we expect to oversee or play a role in achieving these goals.

Vigmostad said the application allowed the council to establish baseline information about how its doing with student retention and recruiting graduate students, as well as opportunities for growth.

Worthington said one of the most important initiatives of the plan is about creating and sustaining an inclusive environment and a collaborative community at the college.

A big part of the plan is ensuring that individuals who are not historically dominant players in fields of engineering are given an opportunity to thrive in our college, Worthington said. We have a number of student organizations that are already doing fantastic work to that end and one of our goals is to increase connection points between them and the DEI Council and departments to strengthen the work thats already happening.

Infographic by Eleanor Hildebrandt/The Daily Iowan

One of these student organizations is the Society of Hispanic Professionals (SHPE UIOWA). President of SHPE UIOWA Gabriela Moya, who is a senior studying chemical engineering, said this recognition solidifies what the student organizations and the university have been doing in recent years.

RELATED: Interim Associate Vice President Liz Tovar to assume permanent role as executive officer for diversity, equity, and inclusion

Moya added that shes proud of the progress that has been made by her university.

Winning this award shows me that my college and my department cares about diversity, and that theyre not only thinking about a male dominant field, Moya said. Its clear they want to broaden the engineering field. People like me, people who are underrepresented, might think that they arent capable of being a field thats so rigorous, and winning this award shows that we care about making sure we know we can. Were building a foundation.

Bell, who serves as the graduate representative for the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) at the UI, said this award establishes the universitys goals and commitment to diversity and inclusion, but they are far from done.

Moving forward, Bell said he wants more quantifiable goals regarding recruitment and retention of students based on where the College of Engineering currently is.

He added that he hopes more recognition will go to individual students and organizations who are doing work behind the scenes.

A lot of the DEI works falls on those marginalized communities having to do the work themselves, he said. Its a problem that theyre solving that they didnt create in the first place. That is work that often goes unpaidThe university does a good job of bringing people here, but they dont do a good job of tilling the soil and keeping us here.

With the ASEEs recognition of the College of Engineering, Vigmostad said it reinforced the council and the community that things are progressing and going well, but that there is still more to be done.

This is just the beginning, she said. Were committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion and we plan to continue to do the work to ensure we are creating a welcoming, inclusive environment.

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University of Iowa College of Engineering receives diversity recognition, but still has work to do - UI The Daily Iowan

PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) In 1960, admissions officers at the University of Pittsburg tried to talk him out of it, but Samuel J. Scott of Tampa, Florida, insisted on enrolling in the universitys aeronautical engineering program.

After graduation, he secured a job at the Naval Yard in Philadelphia.

Then in 1962, Scott took a leap and applied for a position at NASA Langley, which at the time desperately needed more engineers as the space race was well underway.

He was hired sight unseen. NASA packed and moved his family to Hampton, Virginia.

I applied and came here as one of the first Black male engineers. There were four of us: Jim Williams, Thomas Byrdsong, and Alphonso Smith, who was a physicist, he said.

What was the reaction when Scott showed up for duty?

One of the guys in the branch said I didnt know he was Black,' said Scott, with roaring laughter.

And, Scott didnt know Black people, or Negroes, as minorities were called at the time, were not allowed on nearby Buckroe Beach.

He found out the hard way while soaking up the sun with his family.

She [Ann Carol] was pregnant and was lying on the beach and guys were playing football all over top of her so I warned the guys Please dont do that. So the policeman came up and wanted to arrest me and I said What for? And he said You dont belong over here in the first place,' recalled Scott.

Scott and his Black engineering colleagues worked on the west side of the installation. A group of Black women known as the computers were hired in the late 1950s and worked on the east side of the installation. The computers had to walk blocks away from their office in order to use the restroom designated for colored women.

The 2017 movie Hidden Figures opens with a scene of three Black female NASA computers whose car was disabled along a rural highway. A police officer holding a baton is hostile when he questions the smartly dressed women, but once he learned they worked at NASA Langley, he escorted them to the installation.

In the critically acclaimed movie, actress Taraji P. Henson is cast as Katherine Johnson of Hampton, who died last year at the age of 101.

Scott says Hollywoods depiction of how Johnsons math skills were used to verify astronaut John Glenns landing for the Mercury project was accurate.

So John Glenn said Im not going up there until you let Katherine Johnson calculate this thing because I dont know about those computers. Glenn insisted that Katherine Johnson be the one to calculate the re-entry parabolic location where he would land, otherwise, he could have the ships [on standby] in the Atlantic and he could have [landed] in the Pacific, said Scott.

In July of 1969 when Astronaut Neil Armstrong uttered his famous words Thats one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind, the leap would not have happened without the engineering skills of Scott and other team members who created the heat shield system to protect the spacecraft.

We developed and proved a beehive just like you would see a beehive or a wasp nest and we could put that on the front of the spacecraft and then spray that. That held the material in place so that the astronauts would not burn up when they came back into the earths atmosphere, said Scott.

With the private sector taking off in space, Scott is now calling on minority parents to make sure children have the right stuff.

Scott borrows from a famous Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young song, Teach The Children Well, in describing the challenge.

Thats the thing we have to do; we have to teach our children well, he said.

There are many minority students starting at the first grade who can and will come along and become really significant contributors to technology in the United States of America, said Scott.

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Black former NASA engineer: We have to teach our children well - WFXRtv.com

by: WFXRtv.com Digital Desk

Caption: Ph.D. research fellow Tate Fonville (in red) and engineering student assistant William Dean (in blue) set up a model helmet for testing at the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment (NOCSAE) twin-wire drop tower at Libertys Center for Engineering Research & Education (CERE). (Courtesy: Ellie Richardson/Liberty University)

LYNCHBURG, Va. (WFXR) Dr. Mark Horstemeyer and his team of Ph.D. research peers and undergraduate students at Liberty University have developed afootballhelmetthat became one of four finalists in the NFLs sixth-annual 1st and Futurepitch competition.

According to the university, the winners were announcedon Tuesday, Feb. 2 on the NFL Network, as part of Super Bowl LV Week in Tampa, Florida, with $150,000 in awards and research grants on the line.

The entry submitted in the Innovations to Advance Player Health and Safety category of the competition by Liberty Universitys team was named the runner-up prize winner and awarded $25,000, which Horstemeyer says will be used to develop the project further in preparation for this summers NFLHelmetChallenge.

Using an approach trademarked at Liberty University that he calls Creationeering, Horstemeyer incorporated properties found in nature to design afootballhelmetthat is twice as effective at preventing concussions as those currently used by the NFL.

By analyzing shock absorptive properties found in the rack of a bighorn sheep and the beak of a woodpecker, the team has worked to design a saferhelmet, as well as potentially more protective car bumpers.

The team has developed a shock-wave-mitigatinghelmetthat better protects the brain from concussions and encephalitis, both of which have been career-enders for many professional footballplayers, resulting in life-altering consequences and, in some cases, death.

Ourhelmetfacemask is different in that the geometry was optimized to minimize damage in the brain, Tate Fonville said. Ourhelmetliner is different in that it uses a new proprietary patented auxetic foam that protects a player from a range of impacts, is superior at impact absorption, and offers longer life than conventional foams.

Horstemeyer says the same principles used in thefootballhelmetcan also be applied in other sports helmets, ranging from baseball and lacrosse to equestrian and hockey.

The team also plans to submit an updated version of itshelmetdesign by July 14 into the NFL HelmetChallenge, a $1 million competition to stimulate the development of a newhelmetthat outperforms all models currently available to NFL players, based onlaboratory testing.

Get breaking news, weather, and sports delivered to your smartphone with the WFXR News app available on Apple and Android.

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Liberty engineering teams helmet prototype earns second place in NFLs 1st and Future competition - WFXRtv.com

Image:Lt. Steve Smith/U.S. Navy via Getty Images

The U.S. Navy has patents on weird and little understood technology. According to patents filed by the Navy, it is working on a compact fusion reactor that could power cities, an engine that works using inertial mass reduction, and a hybrid aerospace-underwater craft. Dubbed the UFO patents, The War Zone has reported that the Navy had to build prototypes of some of the outlandish tech to prove it worked.

Dr. Salvatore Cezar Pais is the man behind the patents and The War Zone has proven the man exists, at least on paper. Pais has worked for a number of different departments in the Navy, including the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAVAIR/NAWCAD) and the Strategic Systems Programs. (SSP) The SSP mission, according to its website, is to provide credible and affordable strategic solutions to the warfighter. Its responsible for developing the technology behind the Trident class nuclear missiles launched from Submarines.

The patents all build on each other, but at their core is something Pais called the Pais Effect. This is the idea that, controlled motion of electrically charged matter via accelerated vibration and/or accelerated spin subjected to smooth yet rapid acceleration transients, in order to generate extremely high energy/high intensity electromagnetic fields.

Essentially, Pais is claiming to use properly spun electromagnetic fields to contain a fusion reaction. That plasma fusion reaction he claims to have invented will revolutionize power consumption. Experts theorize that a functioning fusion reactor would lead to cheap and ubiquitous energy.

One of Pais and the Navys patents described what the propulsion system and fusion drive would be used fora hybrid aerospace-underwater craft. According to the patent, the craft could travel land, sea, and outer space at incredible speeds. Other patents invented by Pais and filed by the Navy include a high temperature superconductor, a electromagnetic field generator, and a high frequency gravitational wave generator.

It all sounds like science fiction, and the Navy has been skeptical too. Navy authorities called bullshit on Pais inventions and his patents went through a lengthy internal review at NAVAIR. The War Zone obtained emails about the bureaucratic fight between Pais and the Navy through a Freedom of Information Act Request and revealed that the mad scientist won. According to the patents, some of the technology is operable. That means the Navy is claiming some of Pais wild tech works and has been demonstrated to Navy officials.

The physics of what Pais is claiming are beyond theoretical and beyond the ken of the layman or lowly science reporter. But a paper about his compaction fusion reactor was accepted by the peer reviewed Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Transactions on Plasma Science and published in its November 2019 issue. The fact that my work on the design of a Compact Fusion Reactor was accepted for publication in such a prestigious journal as IEEE TPS, should speak volumes as to its importance and credibility - and should eliminate (or at least alleviate) all misconceptions you (or any other person) may have in regard to the veracity (or possibility) of my advanced physics concepts, Pais told The War Zone in an email.

Pais continued to toot his own plasma horn. Do realize that my work culminates in the enablement of the Pais Effect (original physical concept), he said. Such high energy [electromagnetic] radiation can locally interact with the Vacuum Energy State (VES) - the VES being the Fifth State of Matter (Fifth Essence - Quintessence), in other words the fundamental structure (foundational framework), from which Everything else (Spacetime included) in our Quantum Reality, emerges. The Engineering of the Pais Effect can give rise to the Enablement of Macroscopic Quantum Coherence, which if you have closely been following my work, you understand the importance of.

If the email Pais sent sounds like the jargon filled ramblings of a mad scientist, you arent alone.

The Pais emails sound like the jargon filled ramblings of a mad scientist, but the Pentagon does have a history of successfully fostering cutting edge technology. More than 100 years ago, nuclear weapons were science fiction. GPS, the TOR network, and the internet itself all began life as Pentagon programs. Perhaps the Navy will soon revolutionize the way we think about energy and transportation.

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U.S. Navy Has Patents on Tech It Says Will Engineer the Fabric of Reality - VICE