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Ever since its construction in 1985, project manager Keith Westmoreland said the Chemical and Petroleum Engineering (CPE) building, while full of interconnected faculty and students, felt disjointed and separate with its dark isolated rooms. The construction of a new Engineering Discovery Building brings a fresh environment for collaborative learning and research.

Carried out by architecture firm CO Architects and construction company Vaughn Construction, the 210,000 square foot building will provide space for 32 faculty researchers and 335 graduate students who are part of the Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering and Chemical Engineering departments. The project aims to improve research and teaching through an open and integrated environment, said John Ekerdt, associate dean for research at the Cockrell School of Engineering. Construction is expected to finish in 2026.

Where (in the building) do you meet to work and talk? Eckerdt said. Where do you learn from others and network? Thats lacking because those spaces were all occupied as offices.

Ekerdt said the new building resembles a neighborhood, with offices and labs grouped together by research topic to increase teamwork. It also includes free teaching spaces for different departments across the University.

The project will demolish the Service Building, constructed in 1951. The project will take its spot next to the Engineering Education and Research Center (EER), Westmoreland said.

Petroleum engineering professor Eric van Oort said he worked in the CPE building before relocating to the Engineering Research Center. While originally focusing on petroleum, van Oort said he now researches geothermal wells and carbon capture.

There is a lot of diversification going on and a lot of new developments, van Oort said. What you need is really the flexibility to address that quickly.

Van Oort said the architects talked to the professors and researchers, giving them a chance to personalize their own labs and offices.

(The University) needs to continue to attract talent, and if (we) can offer these very high-tech lab environments, that is an additional selling point to attract talent, van Oort said.

Ekerdt said the CPE building feels dingy with the lack of windows and the secluded offices and labs. The new center will welcome more natural light with windows stretching from floor to ceiling throughout the building.

I dont know how you measure that, but you can feel it, Ekerdt said. Imagine sunshine behind every door and everyones got a smile. Thats (what) this building will do.

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Engineering Discovery Building begins construction, aims to ... - The Daily Texan

WCU Stories August 21, 2023

Basel Alsayyed Ahmad

By Brooklyn Brown

Basel Alsayyed Ahmad, assistant professor in Western Carolina Universitys College of Engineering and Technology, recently taught a series of courses on Lean Six Sigma to students in Palestine.

The students earned a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt certification. The course was administered through WCUs Educational Outreach.

I am originally from Palestine and from the same town as the students, Dura, Ahmad said. I had five students on the other side of the world where Im from.

Ahmad taught Lean Six Sigma, a process improvement strategy, to a group of professionals hoping to hone their skills. Lean Six Sigma is a strategy for continually improving on whatever we are doing in every aspect of our life in manufacturing, in teaching, in training, even in your personal life, he said. If something doesn't add value, you are wasting your resources for nothing, basically.

From left to right: Saed Dasa; Ihab Sharha; Akram Awawda; Fareed Sayyed; Mohammad Sayed Ahmed; Ali Abuznaid; Eng. Mariam Abu Atwan; Heba Sharha; Reem Abd Allatif; Eng. Rawan Alnajar.

The students completed a final project that will help hospitals in Palestine save money and provide medicine more efficiently.

In the project we did, the idea was very simple, Ahmad said. In a hospital, they looked at one of the medicines they use and it comes in sizes of 10 milligrams. They use part of it sometimes for the patient and they throw the rest away. In order to throw the rest away, because it was a controlled medicine, two nurses had to be in attendance and do the paperwork and dispose of it in a certain process that is time consuming.

The improvement was just to introduce five milligrams instead of 10. That one improvement will save about $300,000 a year.

Wes Stone, professor and director of the School of Engineering and Technology, is impressed with the outcome of the course.

Im very grateful to Dr. Callaghan and Educational Outreach for their support, and especially to Dr. Alsayyed for his time and commitment to delivering this very important topic around the globe, Stone said. Lean Six Sigma principles apply across all industries in all countries. Its comforting to know that Palestinian health care will be improved directly as a result of this training.

Ahmad sees this as a positive move forward not just for his students and himself, but for the campus community as a whole.

I felt like it was kind of a win-win-win situation. I'm very happy that we managed to establish this channel for Western, he said.

We managed to help people wherever they are. They will be better equipped professionals. They'll be better serving their community and humanity at large, which is our scope as engineers.

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Assistant professor in College of Engineering and Technology ... - Western Carolina University News

Good morning from Geneva.

Can aviation ever become sustainable?

Over the past few years, Boeing has had to answer this question at the same time as it tries to regain customers trust following the deadly crashes of two 737 MAX planes, which together killed 346 people.

That means Chris Raymond, the company's first-ever chief sustainability officer, has to keep an eye on safety as he deals with the sustainability question, he told me yesterday over the phone.

You cant have sustainable aerospace unless you have safe aerospace. Any solution that actually scales up, first, has to be technically possible," he said.

It's one reason why he believes that, if the aviation sector really is to reach its goal of hitting net-zero by 2050, so-called sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs) will be a major part of the solution.

If the objective is to radically reduce carbon emissions by 2050, there will be a lot of airplanes60% to 70%looking a lot like the ones we fly today, Raymond said. (Planes dont require significant re-engineering to switch from jet fuel to SAFs, which emit much less CO2).

Electric planes can only carry the "lower end" of passenger volume, Raymond said, as the size and weight of current batteries make larger planes unfeasible. He also doesn't see hydrogen-fueled planes as being the solution. "There won't be a lot," according to the Boeing CSO, due to incompatible infrastructure, design challenges, and the lack of abundant, cheap, and green hydrogen.

On hearing these sober predictions, I wondered whether Boeing and other incumbents weren't like car manufacturers before the arrival of Elon Musk's Tesla: lacking both an outside-the-box vision and stratospheric levels of ambition.

Raymond assured me that wasn't the case.

"You have to advocate for 2050 targets. You also have to look for Elon Musk engineers who explore different ways that are not technically possible yet. And thats what were trying to do," he explained.

Story continues

Raymond acknowledged that sustainability is always part of the conversation with the new generation of talent, with no room for sophistry.

[They] are educated on sustainability, whatever their discipline is. Theyre more aware, and a lot of them are minoring in environmental science, and they are going to work for a values-based, purpose-driven company, he said. "They sniff out" if youre not serious.

Separately, read the latest piece from my colleague Jessica Mathews, which explores what has quietly become one of the surest paths to an enviable job in Silicon Valley." The Stanford Review, a student newspaper founded by Peter Thiel, has become a talent factory for his and other Silicon Valley companies.

More news below.

Peter Vanhampeter.vanham@fortune.com@petervanham

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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August 23, 2023

By Eric Stann | MU News Bureau

A five-year, $3 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) is establishing a doctoral training program at the University of Missouri to help prepare the next generation of scientists and engineers to work in the emerging fields of materials science and data science and analytics. The aim of the program is to empower future workers to be proficient in both subjects a skillset that is highly desirable in todays global marketplace.

Were excited to train a new generation of materials scientists and engineers to be proficient with data science techniques, including machine learning and artificial intelligence, whether its to discover better materials for building batteries and computer chips, reconstructing technology from ancient civilizations, or harnessing the untapped potential of carbon nanotubes, said Matt Maschmann, co-principal investigator on the project and an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. Students will have the necessary skills to tackle some of the worlds most significant challenges in a wide variety of fields ranging from health care and medicine to energy.

The data science components of the program including artificial intelligence and machine learning will help guide students in conducting and analyzing experiments associated with this research.

Data science and analytics can accelerate materials research in various ways, Maschmann said. But these tools havent been taught to students who are primarily focused on materials-based programs. What we want to do is integrate emerging tools in data science like artificial intelligence and machine learning into a more traditional materials program. At the end of the program, well have students who have a deep understanding of materials, and who are also fluent in data science and analytics a skillset I think the marketplace is looking for right now.

In addition to placing an emphasis on integrating materials-based research with data science and analytics, the program also has a formal creativity training component to help students conceptualize new materials technologies.

With machine learning and artificial intelligence taking over a larger role in research, it means that many tasks arent being performed by humans as much anymore, Maschmann said. So, we see creativity training almost like a counterbalance to machine learning and artificial intelligence to engage students in the processes that cannot be outsourced to digital tools. Because as these tools become more pervasive, the role of human beings is going to shift more toward the creative and cognitive processes. The parameter space for materials is basically inexhaustible, and by utilizing the available digital tools in a more efficient way, a researcher can arrive at a desired outcome for material properties much quicker. Human creativity is imperative to guide research in innovative and meaningful application domains.

Students interested in participating in the program are encouraged to contact Maschmann for more information. Joining him on the project are co-principal investigators Derek Anderson, Grant Scott, Matthias Young and Reginald Rogers from Mizzou Engineering.

The program builds upon existing work by the MU Materials Science & Engineering Institute (MUMSEI), a partnership between the MU College of Engineering and the MU College of Arts & Science, by providing students with an opportunity to conduct materials-related research alongside MU faculty. Participants will also earn a data science and analytics graduate certificate with an emphasis in materials. MUMSEI is also supported by funding from the MU Research Reactor (MURR) and the MU Division of Research, Innovation and Impact.

This story originally appeared on Show Me Mizzou.

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NSF Research Traineeship program to prepare materials and data ... - University of Missouri College of Engineering