Opinion: Philly’s poor waste management is environmental injustice

by Aliya Poblete and Gangadhar Andaluri
April 28
This weekend, students from the Temple University College of Engineering joined activist YaFav Trashman — former Streets Department employee Terrill Haigler — on his Earth Day trash pickup 5K event in Kensington. It is one thing to see the impact of trash and litter on neighborhoods through social media posts, but it is another experience entirely to glove up and grab a trash bag.While it was heartening to see the turnout of Philadelphians eager to pitch in, it also made us wonder: What if we weren't there? If we don't pick up trash, what does that mean for...

Robert Rashford, ENG, ‘82, to deliver alumni keynote at May graduation ceremony

by Eric Horvath
April 12
Aerospace leader Robert Rashford, ENG, '82, president and founder of Genesis Engineering Solutions, is scheduled to deliver the alumni keynote address to the Class of 2022 at the College of Engineering graduation ceremony on May 4th. Rashford began his career as a structural and test engineer for General Electric Space Division and Fairchild Space Company. He also served as Product Development Lead for the First Servicing Mission of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) at Lockheed Martin. He would go on to found GES in 1993 to provide engineering and product development support of...

Prof. Vallorie Peridier honored with Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching

by Eric Horvath
March 24
Dr. Peter Cavallo was also recognized with the Part-Time Excellence in Teaching and Instruction Award.This week, mechanical engineering professor Vallorie Peridier, PhD, was honored alongside other standout Temple faculty with the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching. As part of the program, Dean Keya Sadeghipour shared a story that came from Dr. Peridier to show just the kind of impact she has had on students over the years. After Dr. Peridier joined the faculty at the College of Engineering in 1989, she did so following seven years in industry and eager to impart that...

Flight planning: senior design team wants to widen the user base for drone usage

by Eric Horvath
March 17
One of the feats behind aerial photography—particularly drone photography—is the balance needed from both skills to capture a beautiful shot. In other words, half the trick of getting the shot is the piloting necessary to get to the shot. One senior design team, advised by Prof. Li Bai and Prof. Brian Thomson, is working on a solution to help lessen the burden on drone flight to help photographers chart a path for their drone ahead of time. Less pilot, more plotting, according to the team: Miguel Acosta Del Vecchio, Ahmed Hamza Alhusseini, Zenon Matychak and Paul...

Career preparation: Jack’s journey from career advising to Lockheed Martin  

by Bryn My-Le Gautieri
January 18
With the College of Engineering career fair approaching, many students are busy polishing their resumes and perfecting their elevator pitch. But for most, the process can still be daunting. Mechanical engineering student and Garnet Valley, Pennsylvania native Jack Markussen found himself in this exact predicament.  The summer between his sophomore and junior years, Jack landed an opportunity at Lockheed Martin as Combat Systems Integration Engineer, where he worked on the Aegis Combat System predominantly used in U.S. Naval destroyers. "I chose Lockheed Martin because I wanted...

Temple Ambler Library: a future of innovation

by James F. Duffy
January 13
The Temple University Ambler Library Building didn't escape the wrath of the EF2 tornado that ravaged campus on September 1, 2021. Ferocious winds and debris tore holes in the building's roof and blew out most of the large windows, threatening the collection of 130,000 books, periodicals, research material and historical archives inside."Our first concern was the care of the materials. That was paramount in our thinking — how to save what we had because we knew there was major damage to a number of books," said Sandi Thompson, Head of the Ambler Campus Library. "We...

Welcome to the spring semester

by Keya Sadeghipour
January 12
Owls,Welcome to the spring semester. We have all been through a tumultuous period in our history, so I hope you approach this new semester with an eye toward staying safe, healthy and taking time for yourself. That includes taking advantage of the college and university resources for time management, career services and counseling, should you need them. 2021 closed after celebrating more impressive news from students, faculty and alumni from the College of Engineering. Student groups found ways to complete impressive service projects. Faculty earned new research awards and ...

Opinion l Infrastructure bill helps put Philadelphia on solid ground.

by Ahmed Faheem & Xiaonan Lu
November 23
Now that President Biden has signed the $1 trillion dollar infrastructure package into law, much of the news coverage has been on the perceived enormity of the investment. While $1 trillion is substantial, continuing to ignore our infrastructure comes at a far greater cost. A report published earlier this year by the American Society of Civil Engineers estimated that our nation's aging infrastructure, coupled with continued disinvestment, would cause "the loss of $10 trillion in GDP and lead to a decline of more than $23 trillion in business productivity cumulatively over the...

Creating a cough to study pathogen transmission 

by Eric Horvath
November 17
Autumn is the season of the nagging cough. That stubborn tickle in the back of your throat that is often the sign of an incoming cold or flu. Then why on Earth would anyone want to create a cough simulator? One senior design team hopes to create one such device to help reproduce the human cough, focusing on pathogen transmission from patients to healthcare workers through droplet exposure—an issue that has become acutely more important in the age of COVID-19. "We hope to improve the efficacy of personal protective equipment (PPE) and provide a system that can be useful...

Making their mark: Temple engineering students win CARAS grant for antimicrobial coating research

by Eric Horvath
October 20
Two Temple undergraduate engineering students are putting their fingerprints on researching high-touch surfaces in their own way.Powered by a Creative Arts and Scholarship grant from Temple and working with mechanical engineering professor Dr. Dmitriy Dikin, Celine Miro and Patrick Case are investigating the mechanical properties of antimicrobial paints and coatings available for commercial applications. The primary focus is on products containing silver and graphene ions and coatings applied to high traffic surfaces and exposing them to common bacteria such as E. Coli,...

The green team: engineering students use campus to inform design for green roof

by Eric Horvath
October 12
As main campus has continued to transform in recent years, Temple outlined an ambitious but necessary goal as part of its updated Climate Action Plan released in 2019: becoming carbon neutral by 2050. A key component of this push? Retrofit current buildings and communal spaces to incorporate updated sustainability features, such as green roofs. Green roofs aim to provide better stormwater management and improve temperature efficiency within the building are coupled with lush greenery—equal parts form and function. Many Temple schools and colleges began work to support the...

Jordan Langston awarded prestigious NIH F31 Predoctoral Fellowship 

by Eric Horvath
October 08
The award will focus on Langston's work on developing novel computational and omic approaches to investigate endothelial cell dysfunction in sepsis. Ph.D. bioengineering student Jordan Langston was recently honored with the prestigious F31 National Research Service Award (NRSA) Predoctoral Fellowship from the National Institutes of Health. The three-year award will allow Langston to continue his work with Ph.D. advisor, Dr. Mohammad Kiani, on studying sepsis, a life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by the body's dysregulated host response to an infection. Langston plans to...

New interdisciplinary course aims to track & tame cyber threats 

by Eric Horvath
September 16
In the wake of Hurricane Ida—among the debates on climate change and disinvestment in infrastructure—lies another reminder: the fragility of critical systems is not confined to natural disasters. Threats can materialize from the digital space to impact many of the same systems. A recent partnership between faculty at the College of Engineering, College of Science...

Temple bioengineering professor Ruth Ochia named to IAspire Leadership Academy

by Eric Horvath
September 02
The national program aims to help STEM faculty from underrepresented backgrounds ascend to leadership roles Ruth Ochia, Professor of Instruction, was recently named a fellow in the third cohort of the IAspire Leadership Academy, a leadership program aimed at helping STEM faculty from underrepresented backgrounds ascend to leadership roles at colleges and universities. The academy is part of the Aspire Alliance's Institutional Change Initiative, which the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) and the University of Georgia lead. "Dr. Ochia has already...

Welcome back: let's get to work

by Dean Keya Sadeghipour
August 17
To the Temple Engineering community,As we prepare to welcome the newest class of Temple students this fall, I wanted to reiterate the university's recent message about keeping our communities safe. Whether you are a current student, faculty, staff, alumni or friend of the college, please refer to the latest university guidance when coming to campus. While there is much to look forward to, as all of us seek to nurture this fragile return to a robust on-campus experience, the pandemic is still present. However, this should also ground us in the importance of engineering. The...

Shifting the solar paradigm

by Eric Horvath
August 13
How one researcher's solar research seeks to support the power grid.To some, the phrase solar power is an oxymoron at worst or a big ask, at best. How can science expect to harness sunlight to become a key player in the global sustainability matrix, nudging past non-renewable energy sources such as fossil fuels? Sometimes, engineering can be aided by a sense of service with a healthy dash of audacity. Maybe that is necessary.When speaking with Dr. Xiaonan Lu and his student and postdoc researchers in his Advanced Power Electronics (APECS) group, the sense of purpose is...

The future of fat: Discussion with Dr. Evangelia Bellas on her NSF CAREER Award

by Caroline Stepchuk
July 30
Dr. Evangelia Bellas was recently awarded the prestigious NSF CAREER research award, which supports early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as an academic role model in research and education. She is the fourth College of Engineering faculty member since 2019—and the first bioengineering assistant professor—to win the NSF CAREER award. In this particular proposal, both for the research and educational portion, Dr. Bellas put the focus on fat. On the research side, Dr. Bellas proposed how blood and lymphatic vessels in fat tissue can support or hinder...