To encourage young people to become more curious about science, technology, engineering, and math, Leigh R. Abts knows you have to let them tinker. He began by inviting their teachers into the Whiting School’s labs. Ninety slides detailing every step for skinning a deer. Not exactly the lesson plan that the Whiting School of Engineering…
Archive
Fall 2005
Charles Commons: Welcome to College Town Features
By next fall, the two-building Charles Commons, now under construction for the Homewood campus, will be providing campus housing to 30 percent more undergraduates at the Johns Hopkins University. They’ll be sipping lattes in the Barnes & Noble bookstore, two stories tall and three times as large as the one it replaces in Gilman Hall….
A New Gateway to Innovation Features
The Decker Quadrangle project will open the portal for a potential revolution in interdisciplinary engineering research—and welcome visitors to campus. The Homewood campus Big Dig has begun—three stories straight down, to be exact. Within the next two years or so, this massive development project under way will reconfigure the entire physical approach to the campus…
90 YEARS OF ENGINEERING AT JOHNS HOPKINS Features
Anniversary Album FROM ENGINEERING’S NINE DECADES OF INNOVATION —a quarter-century of them at the Whiting School— we sample some of the defining moments, dedicated individuals, and influential ideas that shaped its history at Hopkins. (Left) The Mechanical and Electrical Engineering Building, shown during construction in 1915, would be named Maryland Hall in 1931 in appreciation…
It Pays to Be Curious: Hopkins rewards undergraduates with grants for research. Making Waves
In March, Samuel Hahn ’05 presented his research on electrical changes in the heart as part of the 12th annual Provost’s Undergraduate Research Awards (PURA) program. PURA grants of up to $3,000 are funded by a donation from the Hodson Trust. Last year PURA grants supported the original research of 45 Johns Hopkins undergraduates. Among…
Before It’s Too Late Making Waves
Through studying cardiac electrical abnormalities, Samuel Hahn ’05 analyzed the data that could improve the prognosis for patients with heart failure. Samuel Hahn ’05 is both philosopher and scientist when describing his role in a ground-breaking research study identifying the electrical changes that lead to heart failure. As an undergraduate in the Whiting School of…
A Shot in the Dark Making Waves
Teamwork by student inventors offers a way for the blind to play basketball. Using a prototype of an audible basketball and a sound emitter in the backboard, Mike Bullis, who is blind, could catch passes and sink buckets two out of three times in one test session. The basketball system for the blind he was…
A Span Seven Decades Strong Alumni up front
Through his almost 70 years with the prominent building contracting company of Whiting-Turner, Willard Hackerman ’38 has been reinforcing a commitment to his alma mater. When 19-year-old Willard Hackerman set out for one of his first engineering jobs, the entire staff of The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company—all three of them—packed up and moved from Baltimore to…
Made-to-Order for Maryland Alumni up front
For Aris Melissaratos ’66, experience as a Westinghouse executive, an entrepreneur, and a community advocate have all helped prepare him for his latest role: leading the state’s economic development. “We are continually enhancing our image as a research state, a knowledge economy. And Johns Hopkins plays a significant role in that picture.” –Aris Melissaratos ’66…
New Institute for Computational Medicine back on campus
The wealth of data now available to biomedical researchers is increasing rapidly, due in large part to the development of new technologies for high-throughput data acquisition. These technologies now make it possible to determine gene sequences; measure the complement of genes and proteins expressed in cells and/or tissues; map protein-protein interactions under a wide range…
M.S. in Bioinformatics back on campus
Bioinformatics, which lies at the juncture of computer science and molecular biology, will play an increasingly important role in identifying, characterizing, and selecting potential biological targets to develop and produce. To help meet that demand, the Whiting School’s Engineering and Applied Science Programs for Professionals (EPP) and the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences’ Advanced…
Candid Answers from CEOs back on campus
What sets your firm apart from your competitors? What is your advice to an aspiring CEO? When students asked a group of corporate leaders questions like those, they received helpful answers at a well-attended session, “Inside the Mind of the CEO.” Presented by Alpha Kappa Psi Business Fraternity (AKP), Rho Psi Chapter, the event took…
A Letter to Alumni and Friends From The Dean
This issue of the magazine celebrates our 90/25 anniversary, in recognition of 90 years of Engineering at Johns Hopkins and 25 years as the University’s first named division—the G.W.C. Whiting School of Engineering. Featured in the center section, this brief history highlights some of the amazing people and their achievements here at Hopkins. We are…
Circuit Completed the wider world
The prototype fund in the Faculty Scholar Program embeds two goals of its creator, Vinod K. Agarwal ’77 PhD: to honor his mentor and to recognize the contributions of a junior faculty member in the Whiting School. One year shy of completing his electrical engineering doctorate at the University of Pittsburgh, Vinod K. Agarwal faced…
“It just Makes Sense” the wider world
With the fruits of his successful career in finance and banking, George Elder ’51 has a history of making wise investments. He is continuing that tradition by investing in the Whiting School, while receiving benefits in return. George Elder ’51 likes to say his career was “checkered.” Certainly it was somewhat unorthodox, and undoubtedly it…
Way Outside the Box Connections
The U.S. Navy gives a team of student entrepreneurs the exclusive rights to bring a piece of its military shipping technology to the commercial marketplace. At the start of his senior year, Ben Gibbs ’05 (A&S) figured that after he graduated, he would work for a financial services company. It was a safe, expected choice…
What Are the Chances… Lab Notes
…that a new composite building material will crumble? For Lori Graham-Brady, the answer involves building ways to define and test the risks in structural systems. We may look at a building and perceive solid slabs of concrete, but Lori Graham-Brady is seeing something else. She’s weighing the possibility of it cracking and failing. Just how…
Better Way to Biopsy Lab Notes
Gabor Fichtinger’s robot-assisted device offers a less-invasive way to detect and treat prostate disease. Using a simple robotic arm tipped with a needle, Gabor Fichtinger and his research team are hunting a killer that accounts for nearly 31,000 deaths a year in the United States. The disease is prostate cancer, the country’s third leading cause…
Prolific Researcher, Gifted Professor: Charles S. ReVelle In Memoriam
The field of location analysis— using mathematical modeling to determine the optimal and most environmentally-friendly sites for sewage-treatment plants, warehouses, fire stations, reservoirs, and other facilities—is said to owe its origins to Charles S. “Chuck” ReVelle. A professor in the Whiting School of Engineering’s Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering (DoGEE), ReVelle died of lymphoma…
APL’s Legendary “Kossy”: Alexander Kossiakoff ’38 PhD In Memoriam
During his almost 60 years with the Johns Hopkins’ Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), Alexander Kossiakoff ’38 PhD, fondly known as “Kossy,” set an astounding pace. He was a pioneer of solid propellant rocket technology, a builder of satellites and radar systems, an academic innovator, a mentor, and APL director for 11 years. Up until a…
The Proof of Truth in Numbers High Performers
Node by node in networks, mathematician Edward R. Scheinerman models the motion along direct routes. The Internet…interstate highways…interpersonal relations… e-mails…cell phones…cellular growth…Google. Welcome to a world composed entirely of networks. Edward R. Scheinerman thinks that’s just fine. A professor of mathematics in the Whiting School of Engineering’s Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics, Scheinerman loves…
In the Driver’s Seat of a Single Cell High Performers
Navigating via computer-based mathematical models, Pablo A. Iglesias aims to understand—and regulate—how cells move and divide. Call him a control freak, but Pablo A. Iglesias covers more ground than you can imagine in his efforts to direct the movement of cells. Iglesias is steering his considerable knowledge of control engineering down a new path in…