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Gerald D. HolderU.S. Steel Dean of Engineering

Aaron ConleyExecutive Director of Development and Alumni Relations

Sonia BembicDirector of Marketing & Communications/Editor

Kelly KaufmanCommunications Manager/Editor

Don HendersonDesigner

Chuck Dinsmore Production Coordinator

Sarah JordanEditorial Assistant

Niki KapsambelisContributing Writer Have a comment or story idea for Engineering News? Contact Sonia Bembic at 412-624-2640 or by e-mail at sbembic@engr.pitt.edu.

The University of Pittsburgh, as an educational institution and as an employer, values equality of opportunity, human dignity, and racial/ethnic and cultural diversity. Accordingly, the University prohibits and will not engage in discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, sex, age, marital status, familial status, sexual orientation, disability, or status as a disabled veteran or a veteran of the Vietnam era. Further, the University will continue to take affirmative steps to support and advance these values consistent with the University’s mission. This policy applies to admissions, employment, and access to and treatment in University programs and activities. This is a commitment made by the University and is in accordance with federal, state, and/or local laws and regulations.

For information on University equal opportunity and affirmative action programs and complaint/grievance procedures, please contact the University of Pittsburgh, Office of Affirmative Action, William A. Savage, Assistant to the Chancellor and Director of Affirmative Action (and Title IX and 504, ADA Coordinator), 901 William Pitt Union, Pittsburgh, PA 15260; 412-648-7860.

Published in cooperation with the Department of University Marketing Communications. UMC5531-0606

The provisions of this document are subject to change at any time at the University’s sole discretion. It is intended to serve only as a general source of informa-tion about the University and is in no way intended to state contractual terms.

2005 Western Pennsylvania Printing Industry Award, Best of Category

FeaturesStart to Finish ...................................... 2

Pitt Receives $3.2 Million IGERT Grant .. 11

IntraFirm Program ................................ 14

DepartmentsDevelopment News .............................. 5

Around the School .............................. 6

Student News .................................. 12

Pex News ......................................... 13

Alumni Profile Pages ......................... 16

Distinguished Alumni ........................ 19

Alumni Notes ................................... 22

Gerald D. Holder U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering

On the Cover

Collaborative research between Steven P. Levitan, John A. Jurenko Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Donald Chiarulli, professor of computer science in the School of Arts and Sciences, has resulted in the development of a new circuit design and coding system for high bandwidth communication links between integrated circuits on a printed circuit board. By increasing the amount of data that can be sent at one time, the design uses 40 percent fewer interconnections and 33 percent less power than equivalent links, which use simple differential encoding. Pictured here is a test integrated circuit chip built with funding from the Technology Collab-orative. The three microprobes are used to extract test data from the surface of the 3mm square chip.

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A Great Return on Investment

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O ne of the things alumni seem to remember most about their experience here is the exact amount of tuition they paid each semester, right down to the penny. They may not remember who was chancellor at the time or the quarterback of the football team. They may not remember the name of their roommate from freshman year or the professor who tortured them through calculus or thermodynamics. But I can almost always ask alumni from any generation how much their tuition was and get a precise answer.

Questions about today’s cost of a Pitt engineering educa-tion usually come from alumni whose children or grand-children are approaching college age, casting memories of alumni back to their own days at Pitt and the financial challenges they faced. During more than 25 years at Pitt, one of the great-est changes I’ve witnessed, second only to the impact of technology on the engineering curriculum, has been the increasing costs students face to achieve a college degree. While alumni who graduated between the 1940s and 1960s can likely remember paying tuition amounts in the hundreds of dol-lars, today’s students face total annual costs with a few more zeros on the end. (For the record, tuition for a full-time, in-state engineering student this year is $11,452.)

One key detail usually lost in all the hype and negative media coverage on rising college costs is the equally rising amount of aid available to help students. Students today may qualify for need-based aid because of their family’s limited resources, or merit-based aid because of their strong record of academic achievement. Many students qualify for both. Within the School of Engineering, we are able to annually offer more than $600,000 in total awards to our students through more than 75 funds created by generous donors who have established undergraduate scholarships or graduate fellowships. For many of the students receiving awards through these funds, their dreams of earning a Pitt engineering degree would not be possible without this invaluable source of donor support.

These resources also helped Pitt stand out in a new national ranking of public universities, which focused on both the academic quality of programs and resources

available to help students pay for college. The February 2006 issue of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine featured its annual “Best Values in Public Colleges,” taking data from more than 500 public four-year colleges and universities. Only the top 100 were ranked in the magazine, and Pitt placed in the top half of this exclusive group at 42nd.

All of us in higher education are sensitive to the costs of college today. We continuously work to improve efficiencies and hold down costs, while taking great care to ensure any sacrifices we make do not threaten the quality of our teaching effectiveness or our research efforts. Even though students today will still face the reality of higher tuition bills than alumni who preceded them, they are

also entering a world after graduation that compensates them at substantially higher levels than previous generations of Pitt engineers. Recent figures from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) show that new gradu-ates in engineering are among the most highly recruited—and highly paid—of all college graduates today. NACE publishes a regular Salary Survey of recent gradu-ates, and figures released earlier this spring show chemical engineers received an average starting salary of $55,900, while electrical engineers earned $52,899. Mechanical engineers had an average salary of $50,672 and new civil engineers had an average of $45,000.

As these figures show, there are few investments better than a college degree. Despite the cost, today’s engineer-ing graduates are likely earning in one year the combined tuition bill from all four years of their college education. The support provided through our alumni and friends, whether it is to support scholarships or simply unrestricted gifts to our annual fund, is helping give today’s Pitt engi-neering students one of the best values in the nation and positioning them to carry on the great tradition of the Pitt School of Engineering.

Gerald D. HolderU.S. Steel Dean of Engineering

www.engr.pitt.edu16

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“In engineering, you have to get problems done by a certain time, and the tests can be tough.”

cooperatively under some of the most demanding conditions propelled his development at each level. In 1981–82, he lived in Saudi Arabia, where he served as the lead process manager for a crude oil desalting facility in Safaniya. It would become the most memorable project of his career.

From start to finish, the project consumed nearly four years of his life, culminating with the yearlong stint overseas, when McGrath had to leave behind his wife, Christine. Because the company did not receive final pay-ment until the plant was awarded an acceptance certifi-cate, McGrath was committed to remaining in Saudi Arabia to see the project through.

“My bosses back in Pittsburgh were saying, ‘You don’t come home until we get that acceptance certificate,’ ”

he says. “I put a lot of sweat into that.”

The day before he left, McGrath walked through the enormous plant and listened to the sound of crude oil surging through the pipelines.

“I took one last walk through the plant, just by myself. And I had this certificate

in my hand, which I had worked so long and hard for. I had taken this thing from nothing. That’s what I love about this business,” McGrath says. “I was probably walking two feet off the ground. I felt that I had arrived in the engineering world, that I had accomplished something.”

From Pittsburgh to HoustonThe milestones in McGrath’s life can be measured in projects and the cities in which they took place. Near Bakersfield, Calif.—his first assignment stateside after returning from Saudi Arabia—he built a pilot plant for Getty Oil Co. to create synthetic fuels. His son, Joe, was born there. He also has renovated plants of various types in Detroit, Cleveland, and smaller towns in Michigan and Ohio.

In 1985, he returned to his native Pittsburgh where he stayed until 2003, focusing on project management before being promoted to run the Pittsburgh operation. Ultimately, he became president of Aker Kvaerner Metals, and served on the board of the American Iron and Steel Institute.

McGrath Builds Projects—and a Career—from Scratch

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ong before he rose through the executive ranks to become president of one of the largest units of multi-industry powerhouse Aker Kvaerner Inc., 2006 School of Engineering Distinguished Alumnus Jim McGrath knew what it meant to get his hands dirty.

As a rookie engineer fresh out of the University of Pitts-burgh, McGrath went to work for Koppers Industries in Follansbee, W.Va. Among his duties was inspecting a plant that processed tar from coke ovens. McGrath would don a protective “zoot suit” and fold his 6-foot, 6-inch frame into a drum at the tar distillery to check whether tubes were blocked with pitch.

Despite the precautions, McGrath would inevitably get doused in tar and lose a boot inside the drum. But for two years, he persevered.

“It was very practical; I learned a lot,” he says. “But it was the down-and- dirty side of chemical engineering, it really was.”

Now, his tar-inspection days long behind him, McGrath is busy steering Houston, Texas, based Aker Kvaerner Inc. through industries as diverse as oil and gas, chemicals and petrochemicals, mining and metals, and power generation. It’s a position he worked more than 30 years to attain, rising through the ranks of project and executive management until he landed in his current job.

Problem Solver, People PersonMcGrath credits his School of Engineering education—he earned a BS in chemical engineering in 1971—with help-ing him hone his time-management skills and giving him the technical know-how to function under pressure.

“The main thing in engineering was the problem solving. It was learning the thought process—how to attack a prob-lem, to approach it logically,” he says. “In engineering, you have to get problems done by a certain time, and the tests can be tough.”

It was McGrath’s people skills, however, that quickly became one of his greatest strengths. His ability to work

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hose of us whose work relies on the dedication of volunteers often quote the phrase “Volunteers are not paid … not because they are worthless, but because they are priceless.” While students, faculty, and staff may constitute the most visible aspects of the School of Engineering, volunteers make contributions that result in immeasurable benefits toward making ours a better school.

Some of our most visible volunteers are the alumni and corporate friends who serve on the Board of Visitors and in each of the Visiting Committees in our seven academic departments. The Board of Visitors and Visiting Committees are a long-standing tradition in the School of Engineering, and we have benefited greatly from the expertise shared by these groups on topics such as the always-changing technical needs of industry for new engineering graduates, collaboration between faculty and corporate research and development programs, and curriculum changes.

Nearly all the research centers and institutes in the School of Engineering benefit from volunteer advisory boards as well, including the Swanson Institute for Technical Excellence and the Mascaro Sustainability Initiative. Specialized programs, such as those offered through the Office of Diversity, benefit from outside feedback provided through alumni and company representatives who share in our goal to help students from underrepresented popula-tions pursue a college degree in engineering or science.

A dedicated group of alumni from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering have distinguished them-selves by operating the only departmental alumni associa-tion in the entire school. The Civil Engineering Alumni Club is entirely volunteer driven and holds regular lunch meetings in downtown Pittsburgh at the Engineers’ Society of Western Pennsylvania, in addition to occasional visits to major build-ing and transportation construction sites in the area.

Other volunteers occasionally step in during our many alumni events, such as the two groups who came together during homecoming in 2004. Alumni from the student organization Pex helped organize a special 55th reunion gathering, while alumni from the IMPACT Program who ben-efited from the guidance of Associate Professor Emeritus Karl Lewis gathered to announce an effort to endow a stu-dent support fund in his honor. Their efforts have already brought in more than 40 gifts totaling more than $20,000 toward a goal of raising $50,000 within five years.

Some volunteers have enjoyed helping so much, it’s now part of their normal routine. A good example is Robert Rumcik (BSMEE ’68), president of Ellwood Quality Steels Co. in New Castle, Pa. Every year, he gives a guided tour of his plant to undergraduate students from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. Another example is Greg Reed (PhD EE ’97) from Mitsubishi Electric Power

Products in Warrendale, Pa. He was a regular speaker in electrical engineering classes each semester and enjoyed it so much, he took on the teach-ing load for an entire class last fall as an adjunct professor. He also stepped up for his company by serving as the lead volunteer with the school’s new IntraFirm program (See related story, page 14).

Even alumni who live outside Pittsburgh and rarely get back to campus dedicate their time and efforts through the many regional Pitt alumni chapters. Some of these leaders include Ron Hornak (BSChE ’67) in New Jersey, Jim Coull (BSCE ’57) in Boston, David Toth (BSEE ’78) in San Francisco, Mike Mangan (BSEE ’64) in Houston, David Emanuel (BSChE ’89) in Chicago, David Silkroski (BSME ’71) in Seattle, and Tony Massoud (BSPET ’63) with the Cincinnati-Columbus-Dayton club. And just when I think I’ve counted up all the ways volunteers interact with us, more examples come to mind. I regularly meet alumni who volunteer to represent their company for annual recruiting fairs at Pitt, while my office also com-monly helps our faculty line up guest speakers in classes or departmental seminars.

In some way, the dedication of every one of the school’s countless volunteers holds the potential for unlocking even greater opportunities for our success. While the rewards may not be immediate, the col-lective impact of the time and expertise shared by our many volunteers has the potential to transform the School of Engineering and the lives of our students. As the noted scholar and anthropologist Margaret Mead is credited with saying, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

Dean Holder with Greg Reed (PhD EE ’97),

a dedicated volunteer on many levels from

Mitsubishi Electric Power Products.

Volunteers Give More Than TimeBy Aaron Conley, Executive Director of Development and Alumni Relations

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Aaron Conley

During this time, he also served as chair of the Visiting Committee for the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering at his alma mater.

In April 2003, McGrath relocated to San Ramon, Calif., where the company housed its met-als headquarters. He finally landed in Houston in 2004 and took over as president of the oil and gas division there in May 2005. Asked what he might do for Aker Kvaerner down the road, he answers with a laugh. “Good question. With this company, you never know. … I’ve been at my current job for less than a year, so by no means have I achieved all my goals.”

Throughout all those moves, his wife—a former schoolteacher and an alumna of Pitt’s School of Education—has been his favorite sounding board.

“My wife has been a fantastic supporter. I can’t say that enough,” McGrath says. “I know people who, when they go home, won’t talk about work. I’m the exact opposite. … She’s one of my best advisors.”

For her part, Chris McGrath has endured all the moves with equanimity, even when times got rough. When son Joe was born seven weeks prematurely, Bakersfield had no neonatal inten-sive care unit, so the baby was flown to Fresno a mere four hours after his birth. Chris then developed complications from the pregnancy, so, McGrath says, “I did what any red-blooded American man would do. I sent for Grandma.”

He mailed a plane ticket to his mother-in-law, and she came to help the young family. They not only survived, they thrived.

The Man with the AnswersMcGrath, who grew up on Pittsburgh’s North Side and later in its North Hills suburbs, had always excelled in math and science, especially chemistry. He enrolled at Pitt with plans to major in chemistry, but he quickly gravitated toward engineering, lured by its practical applications.

“At the time, I viewed chemistry as putting me in a more confined environment, more studious,” McGrath recalls. “And I saw engineering as getting involved in building things, in projects, and working more with people.”

Later in life, McGrath would return to the School of Engineering to serve as a guest lecturer in a senior-level class. He told students that the main difference between school and life is that “in school, you have all the data.” Students receive heat transfer codes, properties, and other data, and then figure out the technique needed to solve the problem. But in indus-try, the reverse is true. McGrath would know a technique, but he had to glean data by any means necessary. When information was unavailable, he had to estimate or improvise.

“The problems were never as black and white in industry as they were when you were taking exams,” he says.

Still, McGrath has always seemed to find the answers—and to prepare himself for the challenges that follow.

Jim McGrath outside

Houston, Texas, based

Aker Kvaerner Inc., a

leading global provider

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generation industries.

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Paul Bridges (BSCE ’59)

and Chuck Russell

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Sanjeev Shroff, professor and Gerald McGinnis Chair in Bioengineering; professor of medicine and senior investiga-tor, Magee-Womens Research Institute; and core faculty, McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, received a priority score of 145, or 9.5 percentile, for the competitive National Institutes of Health (NIH) RO1 renewal with Kirk Conrad titled “Endogenous Relaxin Regulates Vascular Function in Males and Nonpregnant Females.”

George Stetten, associate professor, is a 2006 Elected Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE).

David Vorp, associate professor, spoke at the New York Academy of Sciences 10th Anniversary Symposium, The Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm: Genetics, Pathophysiology, and Molecular Biology. His competitive NIH RO1 renewal application titled “Biomechanical Evaluation of Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm” received a priority score of 140 and percentile of 2.3.

Savio Woo, William Kepler Whiteford Professor of Bioengi-neering; professor of mechanical engineering; professor of rehabilitation science and technology; and vice chair for research, mentorship/internship program for bioengi-neering, has been invited to be a plenary speaker at the 5th World Congress of Biomechanics, July 29–August 4, 2006, in Munich, Germany. The title of his presentation will be “Biomechanics Research and Sports Medicine’s Future: Meeting the Challenges of Keeping Your Knee and Shoulder Healthy.” Woo was also the distinguished lecturer at the 2005 Biomedical Engineering Society Annual Fall Meeting in Baltimore, Md.

In addition, Woo received the 2005–06 School of Engineering Board of Visitors Faculty Award for his con-tributions to the development of the department and its graduate research programs, his national and international awards, his exceptional funding and publication records, and his overall leadership in the department and school. Woo is the third consecutive bioengineering faculty member to receive the award, following Sanjeev Shroff (2003–04) and Michael Sacks (2004–05).

Chemical and Petroleum Engineering

The department is planning a reunion for all alumni, faculty, and staff on May 12, 2007. More details about the reunion will be available on the depart-ment’s Web site, www.engr.pitt.edu/chemical/alumni/index.html.

Beginning in fall 2006, classes from the Master of Science in chemical engineering program will be offered online. Instructors will communicate via instant messenger, e-mail, and password-protected Web sites, and faculty members will be available via phone and in person for students who require more personal interaction. This nonthesis program takes three years to complete. For more details, please contact Allison Cricks at cricks@engr.pitt.edu or Rob Toplak at toplak@engr.pitt.edu.

Mohammad Ataai, William Kepler Whiteford Professor, received funding for two research proposals dur-ing the past four months. The first, “Enzyme-Based Capture of Carbon Dioxide,” was funded by the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL)-University Collaboration in the amount of $141,000.

The aim of this work is to develop a comprehensive research program to investigate use of an immobilized carbonic anhydrase (CA) vector for capturing CO

2 from

combustion flue gasses. Ataai’s second proposal, “Collaborative Research: Efficient Bioseparation by Intertwining Strain, Chromatography, and Affinity Tail Design,” received funding from the National Science Foundation. This collaborative research effort between Pitt (Ataai and Richard Koepsel) and the University of Arkansas (Robert Beitle) introduces a pow-erful concept by which recombinant proteins may be isolated when affinity tail technology is used to dictate purification.

Eric Beckman, Bayer Professor and codirec-tor of the Mascaro Sustainability Initiative, is the Engineers’ Society of Western Pennsylvania (ESWP) 2005 Engineer of the Year. The ESWP awards committee selected Beckman for his “outstanding leadership, innovative guidance, and service to the engineering profession and society.”

BioengineeringRakié Cham, assistant professor, received the School of Engineering’s Robert O. Agbede Award for Diversity for her mentoring work with female students.

Richard Debski was awarded a 2006 Chancellor’s Distinguished Research Award.

Johnny Huard was appointed editor for North America of the journal Current Genomics. Huard shares a joint appointment with bioengineering and the Stem Cell Research Center.

William Kepler Whiteford Professor Michael Sacks’ presentation was selected as one of the Top 5 Hot Talks/Cool Papers at the 2005 Materials Research Society Fall Meeting in Boston, Mass. He presented “Analysis and Design of Novel Electrospun PEUU Scaffolds for Soft Tissue Engineering,” which he coauthored. More than 5,000 scientists from around the world presented papers in materials research at the meeting.

In addition, Sacks has been invited to be a keynote speaker at the American Society of Biomechanics Annual Meeting at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, Va., September 6–9, 2006. He also presented at the 12th International Conference on Biomedical Engineering in Singapore, lectured as part of the Distinguished Speakers in Bioengineering 2005–06 series at the University of Toronto Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering, and was recently elected to the Canada Research Chair College of Reviewers.

The 22nd Annual International Pittsburgh Coal Conference (PCC) was held September 12–15, 2005, at the Westin Hotel Convention Center. PCC is a premier forum for in-depth exchange of technical information and policy issues among international representatives of industry, govern-ment, and academia. There were more than 400 attend-ees and exhibitors from 26 countries and nearly 300 tech-nical oral and poster papers were presented. Professor Badie Morsi (executive director) and Professor Emeritus Shiao-Hung Chiang (advisory board member) helped direct the conference.

The 23rd annual conference will be held September 25–28, 2006, at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in downtown Pittsburgh. It will focus on environmental issues and technologies surrounding the continued use of coal and the development of future coal-based energy plants to achieve near-zero emissions of pollutants, reduced costs, and high thermal efficiency while producing a suite of prod-ucts to meet future energy market requirements.

Organizers are seeking technical, business, and policy-related papers that focus on current and future use and sustainability for this year’s conference. More information is available at www.engr.pitt.edu/pcc or by contacting the PCC office at 412-624-7440 or pcc@engr.pitt.edu.

Around the School

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Eric Beckman was

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More than 400 people

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International Pittsburgh

Coal Conference.

Savio Woo received

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Visitors Faculty Award,

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Ataai

James T. Cobb Jr., associ-ate professor emeritus, has acceded to the position of chair of the Career and Education Operating Council (CEOC) of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) for 2006. CEOC is one of three operating councils reporting to the AIChE Board of Directors and is responsible for overseeing and facilitating activities

that focus on the career and educational needs of AIChE members. Leading up to this post, Cobb chaired two AIChE committees and served as AIChE’s representative to sev-eral committees of the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying.

In January 2006, Cobb served as an invited panelist at the Sixth Goddard Forum at Penn State University. The theme of this year’s forum was Renewable Portfolio Standard: Emerging Technologies, Regulations, and Institutions. Cobb’s presentation was on “Energy Crops and Their Use in Stoves, Boilers and Gasifiers.”

George Klinzing, William Kepler Whiteford Professor and vice provost for research, chaired the Fifth World Congress on Particle Technology, which was held in Orlando, Fla., in April. There were more than 650 oral presentations, 150 posters, and 14 tutorials during 12 sessions at the four-day conference.

Civil and Environmental EngineeringKarl Lewis, associate professor emeritus, received the 2006 Golden Torch Award for Lifetime Achievement in Academia from the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) at its national convention, held in Pittsburgh in

March. Journalist Ed Gordon, of 60 Minutes and National Public Radio, made the presentation as host of the ninth annual awards program, which recognizes community and technical excellence in leadership among institutions, companies, and individuals. Lewis has led diversity efforts within the school, having founded the Engineering IMPACT Program to assist with the recruitment and retention of underrepresented students.

John L. Richards, adjunct associate professor, has been named the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Pittsburgh Section Civil Engineer of the Year. Richards received the award for his work with the construction man-agement program.

The U.S. Department of Energy has funded Professor Radisav Vidic, in collaboration with David Dzombak at Carnegie Mellon University, to assess the potential of using three different impaired waters—secondary treated municipal wastewater, passively treated coal mine drain-age, and ash pond effluent—as cooling water in coal-based thermoelectric power generation. The research approach will combine pilot- and laboratory-scale studies with engi-neering and regulatory assessments and mathematical modeling efforts.

Electrical and Computer EngineeringPatrick Loughlin, William Kepler Whiteford Professor of Electrical and Computer Engi-neering, was awarded a major grant from the Office of Naval Research (ONR). The four-year, $410,000 grant will support Loughlin’s research in underwater acoustic signal process-ing and classification, particularly in shallow-water environments. Loughlin has been con-tinually funded by ONR since 1996, including receiving a Young Investigator Program Award in 1998. His research in applied nonstationary signal processing has also been supported by a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program award from the National Science

Foundation, by the National Institutes of Health, and by industry. In 1999, Loughlin was awarded the Chancellor’s Distinguished Research Award in recognition of his contri-butions to signal processing.

Additionally, Loughlin was named associate editor and member of the editorial board of IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is one of the largest profes-sional societies in the world, with more than 365,000 members from more than 150 countries.

William McGahey, systems analyst, received the 2006 Chancellor’s Award for Staff Excellence for his dedication to the department and his service to the University and the community.

Industrial Engineering Andrew Schaefer, assistant professor, Wellington C. Carl Faculty Fellow, and founder and director of the depart-ment’s Computational Optimization Laboratory, received a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation, its most prestigious honor for junior faculty members. In his project, titled “Next-Generation Research and Education in Therapeutic Optimization,” Schaefer will construct quantita-tive models of the progression of end-stage liver disease, one of the leading causes of death in the United States. He will then apply the technique of optimization to con-struct a particular set of therapies. The broader impacts of the research will be felt directly by thousands of end-stage liver disease patients, and indirectly by millions more through significant improvements in the field of therapeutic optimization.

Professors Emeritus Harvey Wolfe and Mainak Mazumdar retired at the end of the spring 2006 semester.

Wolfe had been a member of the faculty since 1964 and served as chair of the department from 1985 to 2000. Most recently, he was William Kepler Whiteford Professor of Industrial Engineering. He is a past president of the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE), having served as senior vice president at large for academics and president of the Society for Health Systems, and he was head of the Council of Industrial Engineering Academic Department Heads. He has been an accreditation evaluator for ABET for 12 years, and he was elected an IIE Fellow in 1993.

During his career, Wolfe was the principal or coprincipal investigator for more than 30 research grants, which totaled more than $5 million. He coauthored three books and numerous book chapters and journal articles and taught a variety of courses including Productivity Analysis, Engineering Ethics, Entrepreneurship for Engineers, Total Quality Management, Operations Research, and Statistics.

Mazumdar joined the department in 1981. Prior to that, he was a scientist for 15 years at what was then the Westinghouse R&D Center. His area of research was in the development of stochastic models for the evaluation of reliability and production costs of electric power systems. Mazumdar collaborated with Professor Jayant Rajgopal to develop the system-based component test plans for evaluating the reliability of complex systems. The National Science Foundation has funded Mazumdar’s research, and he served as associate editor of Naval Research Logistics.

Materials Science and Engineering

Anthony DeArdo, William Kepler Whiteford Professor, deliv-ered nine different lectures in 2005–06 that are awaiting publication, including at the Automotive Symposium and the International Conference on Linepipe Steels in Araxa, Brazil; the Materials Science and Technology Conference in Pittsburgh, Pa.; and the HSLA Steels 2005 and ISUGS 2005 joint conference in Sanya, China, as well as others in Rome, Italy, and Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Professor Gerald H. Meier, Professor Emeritus Frederick S. Pettit, and the late Neil Birks coauthored Introduction to the High Temperature Oxidation of Metals, the second edition of which was published in 2006 by Cambridge University Press. The book discusses the oxidation and corrosion of metals and alloys at elevated temperatures and is an expanded and updated edition of the original, published in 1983.

Judith C. Yang, associate professor, was invited to spend her spring 2006 sabbatical at Cambridge and Oxford Universities in the United Kingdom doing cutting-edge research at the forefront of electron microscopy. Yang’s hosts will be Paul Midgley, Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy (Cambridge) and David Cockayne, Department of Materials (Oxford). She will be researching topics ranging from nanoparticles used in heterogeneous catalysis to controlled-atmosphere electron microscopy and amorphous oxide thin films.

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Karl Lewis was honored

by NSBE with the 2006

Golden Torch Award.

William McGahey

Judith C. Yang

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Mechanical EngineeringMinking Chyu, department chair and Leighton Orr Professor of Engineering, was named an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).

Giovanni Galdi, professor, gave a plenary presentation at the ANCIF ’05 Workshop on Numerical Analysis and Control of Fluid-Structure Interactions on December 7 in Chillan, Chile. The French Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Auto-matique and the Chilean Ministry of Science and Education sponsored the event. Galdi also gave a plenary presentation on January 9 at the Kyoto Conference on the Navier-Stokes equations and their Applications in Kyoto, Japan. The conference gath-ered speakers from 25 countries and was organized by the Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences (RIMS) and sponsored by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).

William Kepler Whiteford Professor Peyman Givi’s paper, “Filtered Density Function for Subgrid Scale Modeling of Turbulent Combustion,” was published in AIAA Journal.

Michael Lovell (BSME ’89, MSME ’91, PhD ’94), associ-ate professor and associate dean for research, was one of three winners nationwide of the 2006 Olympus Innovation Award. The program recognizes individuals, nominated by their colleagues, who have fostered and demonstrated innovative thinking in education. He received his award—the Olympus Emerging Educational Leader Award—at the 10th Annual Meeting of the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA), March 23 in Portland, Ore. Lovell was honored for his work to foster innovation among student entrepreneurship teams during just five years at Pitt. As the founding director of the John A. Swanson Center for Product Innovation, he secured NCIIA funding to develop a novel curriculum in new product development for undergraduate business and engineering students that resulted in more than 70 NCIIA-supported E-Teams (E stands for excellence and entrepreneurship) which in turn formed seven companies and attracted additional NCIIA grants. Lovell also developed an E-Team Prototyping Service Center that led to the formation of RAPID, a net-work of 21 academic institutions that are committed to fostering innovation and entrepreneurship among E-Teams.

Scott Mao, professor, was awarded a 2006 Chancellor’s Distinguished Research Award.

Anne M. Robertson, associate professor and graduate coordinator, is coinvestigator on a $2,884,153 NIH R01 grant titled Improved Animal Modeling of Saccular Aneurysms. This research program—led by David Kallmes of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.—will use genomics and proteomics to determine which biological mechanisms are deranged within and around saccular aneurysms; evaluate the coupling between aneurysm geometry, hemodynamics, and vessel wall dysfunction; and explore the coupling between endovascular coil geom-etry, hemodynamics, biological response, and success of endovascular therapy.

Jeffrey S. Vipperman, associate professor, was selected by the National Academy of Sciences to serve on the National Research Council Committee to Review the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Mining Safety and Health Research Program. He was selected for his noted expertise in noise control and hearing loss prevention in the mining industry.

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Stephen S. Tang (far left), group vice president and general manager, Life Science, Olympus America, and Phil

Weilerstein (far right), executive director, NCIIA, present the 2006 Olympus Innovation Award to Michael Lovell and

Lehigh University’s John Ochs. Not pictured is the third winner, John Kleppe of the University of Nevada at Reno.

he got word that he had won. Only about 5 percent of applicants actually receive funding, a statistic Beckman says is indicative of what engineers encounter in seeking research dollars from private industry and government.

“Engineering has suffered terribly in this country over the past decade,” he says. “It’s perceived to be important, but

the perception is that somebody else will deal with it.”

IGERT students will receive intensive courses in Portuguese, will become immersed in Brazilian culture, and will have an unusually significant amount of input into what projects they will research.

But what really excites Beckman is the opportunity to get the students thinking outside the comfort zone of their disciplines to solve problems that impact the world around them.

Of the typical engineer, Beckman says, “You still get involved in these disciplinary silos. Scientists tend to define what they do very narrowly.”

But that won’t fly when they’re asked to find a more envi-ronmentally friendly substitute for PVC piping—an actual problem Beckman has explored with his students.

“You’re just working on a problem,” he says. “Nobody cares what somebody’s degree is in, they just care about solving the problem.”

Pitt’s IGERT program, the first led by the University, involves faculty from all seven engineering departments as well as the Center for Latin American Studies.

“ Engineering has suffered terribly in this country over the past decade. It’s perceived to be impor-tant, but the perception is that somebody else will deal with it.”

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Pitt Receives $3.2 Million IGERT Grant to Train Students in Sustainable Engineering in Brazil

IIf there’s one thing Eric Beckman can’t stand, it’s an engineer who doesn’t think outside the box.

That’s why Beckman, Bayer Professor of Chemical Engineering and codirector of the school’s Mascaro Sustainability Initiative, is so excited about the interdisci-plinary approach the School of Engineering is taking in its nascent program to research green construction and sustainable water use.

Beckman is the principal investigator for the University’s $3.2 million National Science Foundation Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training Program (IGERT) award. The program, which currently has enough funding to last five to six years, will train graduate engineering students before sending them on an eight-month research rotation in São Paulo, Brazil, through a partnership with the State University of Campinas (Unicamp). Four students will begin the first rotation in 2007.

“I’ve always been interested in using technology to prevent pollution, and one of the goals of sustainability is to avoid problems through design rather than deal with them after you’ve created them,” says Beckman.

IGERT grants have been available for about a decade, but are extremely competitive—so much so that

Beckman, thinking he had little chance of receiving the award on his first try, was already preparing the resubmission when

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Dean Holder presents the award to Pitt’s 2005 Co-Op Student of the Year,

Michael Fuerch, an electrical engineering student who worked at FedEx Ground.

Student NewsDaniel Armanios, a senior in mechanical engineering and political science, was named to the USA Today 2006 All-USA College Academic Second Team, in part for his involvement in founding Session: Middle East, a political simulation conference for college students that involves role reversal. Armanios was also the first student to be named both a Harry S. Truman Scholar (2005) and a Barry M. Goldwater Scholar (2004). See www.usatoday.com/news/education/2006-02-14-allstars-cover_x.htm for more information on the USA Today honor.

Michael Fuerch was named Pitt’s 2005 Co-Op Student of the Year during a reception for co-op participants on December 9 at the Pittsburgh Athletic Association in Oakland. Fuerch is a Fessenden Honors Engineering Program Scholar and National Dean’s List selection. He is also a member of the Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society and the Sigma Alpha Lambda National Leadership and Honors Organization. Fuerch was recognized for his research at FedEx Ground and his volunteer work as a resident assistant at Pitt and as a group coordinator with the Coro Center for Civic Leadership in Pittsburgh.

Approximately 150 people, including students, family members, friends, faculty, staff, and co-op employers, were present at the reception. The other nominees for the Co-Op Student of the Year award (and their employers) were Colleen Daley (Malcolm Pirnie), Aaron Huba (Verizon Wireless), David Corsello (National Security Agency), Lindsey Farrell (Curtiss-Wright), and Abbie Shoemaker (Verizon Wireless).

DuPont Chemical Solutions Enterprise was named 2005 Co-Op Outstanding Employer of the Year. Students Karen McCabe, Nathan Whitmoyer, and Caroline Klusek accepted the award for Hugh Wyles of DuPont Chemical Solutions Enterprise.

Bioengineering graduate student Ellen Brennan was one of two oral presentation award winners at the Society for Physical Regulation in Biology and Medicine’s 24th Scientific Conference in Cancun, Mexico. Brennan received the award for her presentation, “Antibacterial Activity within Degradation Products of Extracellular Matrix Scaffolds.” She is conducting this research in Stephen Badylak’s lab.

Bioengineering graduate student Erica Authier, along with mechanical engineering students Andrew Bowman and Jason Sellers, were one of the seven team winners of the University of Pittsburgh Entrepreneurs’ Society BIG IDEA competition for their project, “Wheelchair Mounted Pelvic Restraint.” The winners will work with a team of industry experts and entrepreneurs to build a strong and competi-tive business plan and see their idea become a reality. The BIG IDEA competition is sponsored by Pitt’s Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence at the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business.

Bioengineering MD/PhD student Ken Urish’s National Institutes of Health (NIH) F31 predoctoral fellowship appli-cation, titled “Inflammation and Stem Cell Transplantation,” received a priority score of 138, or ninth percentile. He is the sixth bioengineering graduate student to receive a prestigious F31 award through the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award for Individual Predoctoral Fellows program. Urish is completing his research in Johnny Huard’s lab.

Hasballah Zakaria, David Volcheck, and Mahzad Bastaninejad, graduate students from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, participated in the Oberwolfach Seminar, Hemodynamical Flows: Aspects of Modeling, Analysis and Simulation, November 20–26, 2005, in Oberwolfach, Germany. Giovanni P. Galdi and Anne M. Robertson were co-organizers of the seminar.

Co-op students Karen

McCabe, Nate Whitmoyer,

and Caroline Klusek

accept the 2005 Co-Op

Employer of the Year

award—for Hugh Wyles

of DuPont Chemical Solu-

tions Enterprise—from

Dean Gerald D. Holder

during the reception.

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Joseph M. Pasqualichio, an electrical and computer engi-neering senior, was the recipient of the 2006 Engineering Alumni Student Leadership Award. While attending classes full time, Pasqualichio also held student leadership posi-tions. During his senior year, he was elected president of the Student Government Board, a position that required overseeing a $2.3 million budget and managing an office of about 45 student leaders, in addition to being the voice of undergraduate students. He was also actively involved in leadership in the School of Engineering. He was a Freshman Engineering Leadership Team Mentor, as well as a member of Pex, Tau Beta Pi, and the national leadership society Omicron Delta Kappa. He worked as a supplemental instructor in chemistry and served as treasurer of the Sutherland Hall Resident Student Association. Pasqualichio, an honor student (top 2 percent of undergraduate students), received numerous honors and awards, including a Sons of Italy Foundation scholar-ship, the ISA International Award, and the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association General John A. Wickham Award.

This spring, the School of Engineering took its commitment to collaboration and global education initiatives to a new level. Partnering with Cheryl Matherly of Rice University, Larry Shuman, associate dean for academic affairs and professor of industrial engineering, taught an organiza-tional and preparatory course for INNOVATE 2006. The 10-day symposium was held in March in Shanghai, China, and Osaka, Japan. Student delegates spent five days each in China and Japan participating in meetings with key business, academic, and government leaders and making professional visits to companies to learn firsthand about how technology has driven globalization and business deci-sion making.

Topics included globalization, technology trends, history and politics, economics, contemporary culture and demographics, and specific analysis of different business sectors. In addition to the University of Pittsburgh and Rice University, INNOVATE 2006 student delegates were from North Carolina State University, the International Association for the Exchange of Students for Technical Experience (IAESTE) United States, IAESTE China, National University of Singapore, Keio University, Tokyo Institute of Technology, and International University Bremen.

Pex NewsPittsburgh Engineering Exponents (Pex)—named for the electrical term used in transmission line calculations— was founded by student engineers in 1949. In 1999, Dean Holder initiated a revitalization of the group with the induction of new students. Each fall, the tradition continues as more students, representative of the School of Engineering’s best and brightest, are inducted during homecoming festivities. Pex hosts various events through-out the year.

Awards, Recognition, and OfficesPex member Abbie Shoemaker is the corporate relations chair of the Pitt student chapter of the Society of Women Engineers. She was a nominee for Co-Op Student of the Year for her work with Verizon Wireless.

Pex member Joe Pasqualichio is the current president of Pitt’s Student Government Board. He also won a 2005 ISA International Award.

Another Pex tradition is the Pex 1949 Scholarship, which was endowed by the Class of 1949. The 2005–06 recipient is Zachary Smith.

Recent EventsPex inducted six new members at the Homecoming 2005 Reunion Gala in October: Oluseyi Adekanmbi, Adam Balawejder, Christine Gallagher, Julie Kleinman, Katelyn Lesk, and Ann Voltz.

Several Pex members have recently graduated. Pex would like to wish Colleen Daley, Lindsey Farrell, Michael Howell, Jason Woods, and Mary Zettl all the best in their future endeavors beyond the School of Engineering.

Giovanni Galdi with PhD

student David Volcheck

Larry Shuman (far right) with INNOVATE 2006 student delegates

in Shanghai, China

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IntraFirm Program Completes Successful First Year

2005 IntraFirm Awards Company % Donor Participation1 % New/Renewed Donors2

FedEx Ground 8% 33%

Ford Motor Co. 11% 17%

H.B. Maynard and Co. 35% 89%

Mitsubishi Electric Power Products 19% 60%

PPG Industries 9% 13%

Westinghouse Electric Co. 8% 50%

1 Measured by the percentage of alumni employed by the company who made a gift to the School of Engineering between 5/6/05 and 3/3/06

2 Measured by the percentage of alumni employed by the company who did not make a gift in the previous year but did during the current year

Pitt engineering alumni

at Mitsubishi Electric

Power Products

in Warrendale, Pa.,

welcome Dean Holder.

Industrial engineering chair Bopaya Bidanda joined the presentation at FedEx Ground in Moon Township, Pa.

100 alumni in all were reached through these IntraFirm meetings.

While the primary purpose of the IntraFirm pro-gram is to personally reconnect with alumni, a sec-ondary goal is to encourage greater participation in supporting the School of Engineering. All alumni in the participating companies receive a letter after their event from their company volunteer asking them to consider supporting the School of Engineering. To make this a little more competitive and fun, award categories were created to encour-age greater participation. This year’s winners are recognized below.

The School of Engineering would like to add more companies to the IntraFirm program in 2006. If you are interested and would like more information, please contact Kristen Bires Carothers, director of alumni relations, by e-mail (kmbcarothers@engr.pitt.edu) or phone at 412-624-9813.

Thanks to all our volunteers

FedEx Ground – Craig Molinaro (BSIE ’99)

Ford Motor Co. – Derek Knight (BSME ’05)

H.B. Maynard and Co. – Ken Smith (Friend)

Mitsubishi Electric Power Products – Greg Reed (PhDEE ’97)

PPG Industries – Russ Corsi (BSIE ’70)

Above: Ken Balkey (BSME ’72, MSME ’80) from Westinghouse Electric Co. receives the 2005 IntraFirm Volunteer

of the Year award, presented by Kristen Bires Carothers, director of alumni relations.

Below: Detroit alumni at Ford Motor Co. in Dearborn, Mich., hear from Dean Holder.

Connecting with alumni on a personal level is a priority for the School of Engineering. One of the new ways the school is doing this is through the Pitt engineering IntraFirm program. IntraFirm focuses on those companies where large numbers of Pitt engineering alumni are employed. Each participating company receives a personal visit and presentation by Dean Holder on recent accomplishments in the School of Engineering, including the latest national rankings of its programs, new laboratories and classroom facilities, faculty research, and the explosive growth in student enrollment. Discussions also take place on

opportunities for interaction that may benefit participating companies, including help with student recruiting for co-op, internship, and entry-level professional positions in addi-tion to collaborative research with faculty.

IntraFirm partners with companies where at least 20 Pitt engineering alumni are employed, and each visit is arranged with the help of an alumni volunteer at the company. Six companies participated in the first year of IntraFirm, and several department chairs and other faculty accompanied Dean Holder on many of these visits. Nearly

IntraFirm Program Completes Successful First Year

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Alumni Profile PagesA Random Look at the Lives and Careers of Pitt Engineering Alumni

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demilitarizes chemical weapons facilities, and supplies water to nuclear plants for cooling.

“It’s all the stuff we learned about in civics. It touches people profoundly,” she says. “I’m managing natural resources. I’m managing finite water pools. There’s absolutely no way you can please everyone. It’s your responsibility to balance the output of this incredibly delicate system.”

The youngest of four high-achieving children, Kate was known as “the last Jackson.” Her mother, Elinor, was “absolutely the smartest one in the family—really articu-late and well read,” her daughter recalls.

In many ways, Elinor and Curtiss were perfect foils for one another. She was a Democrat, he a Republican; she was an English major, he an “insecure engineer.” Both had powerful, independent personalities and served as equal but distinct role models for their children.

By the time she was ready for college, Jackson, like her brother, wanted to follow in her father’s footsteps as an engineer. But young Kate wound up backing her way into her chosen profession. As an undergraduate at Grove City College, she felt limited by the engineering curriculum, so she switched to physics.

“It was really kind of depressing,” Jackson recalls of her undergraduate engineering experience. “You filled your life with thermo and didn’t get to do anything else. I wanted to take oboe and Russian history.”

After graduating, she went to work designing reactor vessel shielding for Westinghouse Electric Co., but felt unfulfilled. In search of something more, she enrolled in Pitt’s engi-neering management program, from which she graduated in 1983 with a master’s degree in industrial engineering.

“To me, it was a much more technically grounded manage-rial education for an engineer than an MBA,” she says. “My

Fred Kocher

A

ing operation in Indianapolis, Ind. In 2001, he took on a brief role as an advisor and consultant to United Airlines in Chicago, but the terrorist attacks that took place later that year led to the termination of the projects he was involved with there.

The relationships he developed in Chicago during this time led to his current post retirement position, which may be his biggest challenge yet. AAR Corp., a Chicago-based global supplier of aviation services, purchased an expansive, 2-million-square-foot aircraft maintenance facil-ity at the Indianapolis International Airport that had been vacant for two years. Built between 1992 and 1994 by United Airlines, “it was at the time the most advanced and efficient heavy maintenance facility in the world,” according to Kocher. But cutbacks in the airline industry resulted in nearly every major airline sending their planes to private contractors for heavy maintenance.

AAR needed someone who knew how to build a major maintenance operation from the ground up, and for Kocher, the opportunity was too much to pass up. He became general manager of AAR Aircraft Services in Indianapolis. “I have many colleagues and friends from over the years at AAR,” Kocher says, “and I came out of my retirement for this position because they knew my reputation, that I could do this.”

With a state-of-the-art facility at his disposal, you might think Kocher had it easy attracting new business and hiring the highly skilled mechanics and engineers needed to work on some of the world’s largest passenger and commercial aircraft.

FFrom the earliest days of her childhood in Pittsburgh, Kathryn Jackson was cultured in the ways of the engineer.

Her father, Curtiss Jackson, worked for Duquesne Light Co. and was a born tinkerer—forever building, repairing, and wiring projects around the house. At Christmas, he created a miniature house display that drew crowds of schoolchildren. Among its many features: a tiny Civic Arena with a roof that could open.

Rarely would new toys remain intact for long, because Jackson’s father or her brother, Robert, borrowed tiny motors and other parts for other uses.

“Everything was about building things and being able to create things out of nothing,” she says.

In a sense, Jackson has not strayed far from her roots. As the executive vice president of river system operations and environment for the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), in Knoxville, Tenn., her job is something of a large-scale version of managing the Christmas village. And like her father before her, she is always looking for ways to improve her handiwork.

TVA walks a fine line between power supply and ecosystem management. As the largest government-owned power producer in the United States, TVA transmits electricity to 158 local distribution utilities, which in turn serve nearly 8.5 million customers. It also supplies power to industrial facilities and government agencies and manages the Tennessee River system for production and flood control.

Jackson must oversee issues as diverse as water quality, protection of endangered species, and preservation of historic artifacts, which are found in higher density in the Tennessee Valley than anywhere else in North America.

“You can’t swing a cat here without hitting an archaeological artifact,” she says. “I’ve held in my hand a 12,000-year-old spear point. It just gives me goose bumps.”

Under Jackson’s watchful eye, TVA tracks endangered species such as the snail darter —but also teaches best-practice farming,

view was that engineers would respect it more. … I think the Pitt education was a really nice foundation for me.”

One of Jackson’s Pitt professors, an Alcoa consultant, sent her résumé to the aluminum giant, where she won a job doing technology planning—a sort of strategic planning for research and development.

Realizing that “people in R&D don’t respect anybody who doesn’t have a PhD,” Jackson earned both a master’s degree and a doctorate in engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University and performed policy analy-sis as a postdoc at the National Academy of Engineering in Washington, D.C. It was there that Jackson worked with study committees composed of Nobel laureates and corporate executives to discuss policy questions that affected corporations.

In 1991, Jackson joined TVA to work on next-generation nuclear power issues. She helped establish a business practice that allowed various stakeholders to share poten-tial liabilities instead of placing all the risk solely on the backs of the utility or the stockholders. When that project ended, Jackson began managing all of TVA’s research and development.

She tackled such issues as generating power more effi-ciently, keeping assets in service longer, reducing environ-mental impact, and encouraging conservation. The variety in tasks suited her curious nature perfectly.

As for whether TVA will continue to challenge her creative impulses, only time will tell. But she shrugs: “Either there will be something cool for me to do, or I’ll find something else.”

After a successful career in the airline industry, Fred Kocher decided in 2002 to retire and enjoy more time with his family. Kocher earned his BSME from Pitt in 1977 and also holds a degree in aeronautics from Saint Louis University and an MS in engineering management from the University of Missouri. He spent nearly his entire career with USAirways, joining the airline in 1970 as a structures and power plant engineer and steadily moving up the corporate ladder over the next quarter century to his final position, senior vice president of maintenance operations, which he held from 1990 to 1994.

He served the next five years with engine maker Rolls-Royce North America as senior vice president of customer support, working out of the company’s major manufactur-

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Paul Gerrie

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E“The state of the industry today means every airline is watching how every penny is spent, so we have to be extremely competitive in our bids to work on their planes,” Kocher says. He’s been successful thus far, landing work with American Airlines, Northwest Airlines, ATA, and, ironically, United Airlines, his building’s former owner. He’s made progress on staffing as well, but it hasn’t been easy. “We started out with 50 employees and are now at 730. We’ve just celebrated our first oper-ating anniversary. If the orders keep coming in, we obvi-ously have the room to grow.”

Once the maintenance facility is fully operational and AAR feels comfortable, Kocher intends to step away and retire—this time for good. “I’ve had a very enjoyable career in a highly challenging industry, and I have great feelings for the preparation my Pitt engineering degree provided.”

Kocher was recognized for his accomplishments by the School of Engineering in 2004, when he was honored with the Distinguished Alumni Award by the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He has also served as a member of the school’s Board of Visitors since 1992.

Kocher adds that he and his wife, Gloria, have three daughters, the youngest of whom just earned a degree in aeronautical engineering from Purdue University in 2005, “so it looks like another generation of Kochers will be tak-ing to the skies.”

Ever since completing his degree in petro-leum engineering in 1968, Paul Gerrie has had two careers, both of which involved extracting something from the earth. For most of his working years, it was oil and gas, as he ran his own successful drilling company in Pittsburgh searching for natural resources far under the Western Pennsylvania ground.

After retiring in 1991, Gerrie set his sights on a second career in which he sought to extract a far more delicate bounty from the earth, this time from the soils of the Willamette Valley in western Oregon. He purchased 65 acres of sloping hillside near Salem and immediately went to work creating Cristom Vineyards, a clever play on words honoring his two children—a daughter, Cristine, and a son, Tom.

The honor does not stop with his progeny, however. He plotted his vineyard into eight distinct sections, six of which are named in honor of the family matriarchs, includ-ing his wife, Eileen, also a Pittsburgh native who works with her husband at the vineyard. The others serve in remembrance of his mother and mother-in-law, maternal and paternal grandmothers, and the maternal grandmother of his winemaker, Steve Doerner.

“Because of the elevation and soil variations of each of these sections,” Gerrie explains, “you can actually taste the difference in the grapes. They each have their own dis-

tinct and defining characteristics, much like the ladies they are named for.”

The Willamette Valley is renowned for out-standing Pinot Noir, which can be found in abundance at Cristom and represents the largest proportion of Gerrie’s annual produc-tion, along with Chardonnay and Pinot Gris. But ever the engineer, Gerrie experiments with varietals new to the region, including a Viognier, first released in 1996, and a Syrah just released in 2005.

“I may not be drilling for oil and gas any more,” Gerrie says, “but I still think like an engineer. I love to experiment, and wine making requires attention to detail, planning, testing, evaluating results, and, if necessary, going back to the drawing board. In a way, this isn’t much different from my engineering classes at Pitt.”

Gerrie goes on to note that he was prepared well by a beloved professor, Paul Fulton, then chair of petroleum engineering. “He was a tough professor as academics go, but he taught us well, because it’s tough out there in the real world. His preparation was useful.” It appears Gerrie’s preparation as a Pitt engi-neer is paying off again in his second career as an Oregon winemaker.

David W. WohlfarthDepartment of Chemical and Petroleum EngineeringBachelor of Science, 1968General ManagerPublic Service Electric and Gas Co.Newark, N.J.

David Wohlfarth is managing director of gas and fuel supply for PSEG Energy Resources & Trade, the trading arm of PSEG Power, which is a subsidiary of Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG). PSEG plans to merge with Exelon in 2006, resulting in the formation of Exelon Electric & Gas, the largest utility in the United States. Wohlfarth has been named vice president of the commercial gas business in the new entity.

Wohlfarth has spent his entire career with PSEG, a major energy generation company, and its subsidiaries. His experi-ence in the energy business spans 37 years and covers all segments—production, pipeline, marketing, and distribution. Under his direction, the company transitioned to a competitive gas market in New Jersey by transferring all its gas supply, transportation, and storage contracts to its unregulated energy subsidiary. The restructuring was unprecedented in this country’s gas industry.

Earlier in his career, Wohlfarth served as president of Energy Development Corp., PSEG’s oil and gas exploration company, and its interstate natural gas pipeline subsidiary, Gasdel Pipeline System.

Wohlfarth is a member of the Pitt Varsity Letter Club, the Panther Club, the Pitt Alumni Association, the Chancellor’s Circle, and the New Jersey Pitt Club. He previously served on the University’s Commission for the Third Century. Most recently, he was named to the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering Visiting Committee.

He completed his BS in petroleum engineering at Pitt and earned an MBA from Rutgers University.

Joseph A. Massaro Jr.Department of Civil and Environmental EngineeringBachelor of Science, 1958Chairman and CEOMassaro Corp.Pittsburgh, Pa.

Joseph Massaro is founder, chairman, and CEO of Massaro Corp., a full-service construction and real estate company that provides general contracting, construction management, and design-build services. Massaro began his construction business in 1967 after receiving his degree in civil engineering from the University of Pittsburgh. He remains active in all areas of the company, including marketing, estimating, and operations. He brings knowledge and expertise

gained from nearly four decades in the commercial construction arena to all of his company’s projects.

In addition to being a leader in the construction industry, Massaro is actively involved in community, charitable, and religious activities. He is currently on the board of directors for Central Catholic High School, the Allegheny District Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, and Pittsburgh Opera. He is a former member of the boards of Catholic Charities, Duquesne University, Family House, Girls Hope of Pittsburgh, La Roche College, the Master Builders’ Association of Western Pennsylvania, the Pittsburgh Athletic Association, and Catholic University of America. He also served as president of the Board of Trustees for St. Anthony School Programs.

Massaro has received numerous awards and honors, including the Italian Cultural Heritage Society Businessman of the Year Award, Pittsburgh Italian American Man of the Year Award, the University of Pittsburgh Medallion of Distinction, the Hope Chest Award from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, the Humanitarian Award from Operation Dig, the Italian American Sports Hall of Fame Frank Santamaria Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties Lifetime Achievement Award, the St. Anthony School Programs Opportunity Award, the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts Cultural Award, and the Jewish National Fund Tree of Life Award. He was also inducted into the Central Catholic High School Alumni Hall of Fame in 1982.

2006 Distinguished Alumni

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Dennis WisnoskyDepartment of Electrical and Computer EngineeringMaster of Science, 1968President and CEOWizdom Systems, Inc.Naperville, Ill.

Dennis Wisnosky’s contributions to government, industry, and education began in 1965, when he was a research assistant at what was then the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research in Pittsburgh. While there, he completed the requirements for a master’s degree in electrical engineering at Pitt.

After leaving Pittsburgh, Wisnosky worked for the U.S. Air Force (USAF) in Dayton, Ohio, where he founded the USAF Integrated Computer Aided Manufacturing program. Wisnosky left government to carry his ideas and knowledge into the private sector. He led GCA Corp.’s Industrial Systems Group to become the second-largest industrial robot company in the United States.

Wisnosky founded what is now Wizdom Systems in 1986. He considers Wizdom to be in the business of change management. The company consults corporations and governments around the world in many areas, including enterprise architecture, business process reengineering, logistics, healthcare services management, information technology, finance, and administration. In 1999, Wisnosky began to develop and deliver software to plan and manage the transition of special education students from high school to adult life as required by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Patents are pending in this critical area.

Wisnosky has received frequent recognition for his work, including the International Engineer of the Year Award, Crain’s Illinois Business High-Tech Entrepreneur Award, California State University’s Medallion of Distinction lifetime achievement award, and the USAF Meritorious Civilian Service Award. In May of 1997, Fortune magazine recognized Wisnosky as one of the Five Heroes of Manufacturing. Wisnosky has also testified before the U.S. Congress on productivity and quality of work-life issues.

Throughout his career, Wisnosky has taught various subjects professionally, at the college level, in high schools, and in elementary schools in many countries, including Australia, France, Japan, Malaysia, Poland, and Tanzania.

Glenn M. FoglioDepartment of Industrial EngineeringBachelor of Science, 1983 Master of Science, 1990PresidentGraciano Corp.Pittsburgh, Pa. As president of Graciano Corp., Glenn Foglio leads a unique and highly distinctive construction services company that focuses on masonry restoration, historic preservation, and new masonry construction. He joined the company in 1985, and after quickly rising through key management positions, he was named president in 1992. Foglio’s first experience with Graciano, however,

came during his student days when he spent his summers working there as a field mechanic. After completing his bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering, he joined the Babcock & Wilcox Co. in Beaver Falls, Pa., followed by General Motors Corp. in Warren, Ohio.

During the course of nearly 15 years of leading Graciano, Foglio has been responsible for growing the company to employ 350–400 people during peak construction season. It has landed some of the most prominent restoration projects on historic East Coast structures, including New York City landmarks like Rockefeller Center, The Cloisters, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Queensboro Bridge, and the marble-framed clock on the historic MetLife Tower. Graciano has also cared for many Pittsburgh landmarks, including Two Mellon Center (formerly the Union Trust Building), the Armstrong Cork Factory in the Strip District, and several buildings on Pitt’s Oakland campus.

Graciano’s numerous accolades include the Rehabilitation Project of the Year Award from New York Construction News, the International Masonry Institute’s Golden Trowel Award, and the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers’ Best Restoration Craft Award. In addition to leading Graciano, Foglio has dedicated time to advancing his profession as president of the Restoration Contractors Association of Western Pennsylvania and through other roles with the International Masonry Institute, the American Concrete Institute, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

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Jack B. AllenDepartment of Materials Science and EngineeringBachelor of Science, 1971Master of Science, 1980Senior Vice President, Operational ExcellenceWestinghouse Electric Co.Windsor, Conn.

With more than 35 years of experience in the nuclear fuel division of Westinghouse Electric Co., Jack B. Allen is now senior vice president, operational excellence and based out of the company’s Windsor, Conn., location. He is responsible for Westinghouse’s behavioral and operational trans-formation initiative, called Customer 1st.

Prior to his current position, Allen was senior vice president, nuclear power plants, where he was responsible for the new plant business unit—satisfying valued customers in Korea and Japan while pursuing and establishing new plant market opportunities in the United States, Japan, China, and Europe. He assumed this position in December 2003.

Beginning in March 2001, Allen was head of operations, mixed oxide fuel, for British Nuclear Fuels’ Sellafield facility in the United Kingdom. In this position, he led plant commissioning and start-up operations by providing valuable manufacturing and business expertise.

Before his position at Sellafield, Allen was vice president of U.S. manufacturing for Westinghouse Nuclear Fuel. He also served for three years as plant manager for the Nuclear Fuel Columbia plant where he was responsible for overall site management, including fuel operations, customer and regulator interfaces, and supplier management.

Earlier in his career, Allen successfully fulfilled management positions within Westinghouse’s Electro-Mechanical Division and the Nuclear Fuel Business Unit from 1977 through 1997, including engineering design and technology manager, mate-rials manager, manufacturing manager, welding engineering manager, and technical services manager.

Andy J. Benedict Department of Mechanical EngineeringBachelor of Science, 1971Executive Director, Global Facilities, Materials, and Services Purchasing (Ret.)Ford Motor Co.Dearborn, Mich.

From 2002 until his retirement on January 1, 2006, Andy Benedict was executive director for global facilities, materials, and services purchasing (FM&SP) at Ford Motor Co. He was respon-sible for procuring nonproduction commodities and services globally. Under Benedict’s leader-ship, FM&SP grew to become an international benchmark for nonproduction purchasing and for incorporating new commodities and processes such as Team Value Management, Accelerated

Revitalization, and Way Forward efforts into nonproduction. He also worked to create FM&SP’s pan-European organization and was appointed executive champion for its supplier diversity development organization.

Benedict started his career with Ford in 1971 as a chassis product engineer. He took on increasingly challenging assign-ments as chassis principal engineer, chassis suspension and shock absorber manager, body and chassis program timing and release manager, and body engineering program manager for the DN101 Taurus/Sable.

In 1994, he was appointed body engineering chief engineer and, just one year later, was appointed vehicle center quality director. He moved to the purchasing department in 1996 when he was appointed total cost management director.

In addition to his BS in mechanical engineering, Benedict holds an MBA from the University of Detroit.

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Distinguished Young Alumni AwardVibha RustagiDepartment of Electrical and Computer EngineeringBachelor of Science, 1987President and CEOitaas Inc.Duluth, Ga.

Vibha Rustagi is the founding partner, president, and chief executive officer of itaas, which provides an innovative and compelling suite of video-on-demand (VOD) products. The only provider of end-to-end iTV solutions in the digital video industry, itaas serves broadband operators, cellular providers, set-top manufacturers, application and content developers, and middleware and open-source providers.

From design and development to integration and support, combined with a robust lab facility and a VOD product suite, itaas is uniquely positioned in the broadband industry to help broadband operators deploy advanced iTV solutions on accelerated schedules. With an impressive list of more than 70 customers and with products deployed in 47 cable systems nationwide, itaas prides itself in understanding and addressing ongoing challenges for its customers by staying ahead of the technology curve.

Rustagi is responsible for expanding itaas’ leadership position in the industry and provides strategic direction and busi-ness development expertise. She holds seven patents and has more than 17 years of cable television experience, including strategic business development, marketing and product management, engineering, and sales for domestic and international markets.

Rustagi holds a BS in electrical engineering from the University of Pittsburgh and an MBA from Georgia State University. She is an active member of the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing and the Society of Cable Tele-communications Engineers, and serves on the Atlanta advisory board of the Women’s Leadership Exchange. She is also a mentor member of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE). Rustagi was featured among the Atlanta Business Chronicle is Up and Comers: Under 40 and Rising in 2004, and she was selected as one of the 2005 Top 100 Most Influential Minorities in Cable by CableWORLD magazine.

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During the summer of 2005, Benjamin A. Novak (BSBEG ’04) was a Christine Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Graduate Fellow at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., the research arm of the government on matters of science and engineering. Along with that of other fellows and academicians, Novak’s research is being published in the book Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future. President George W. Bush, in his 2006 State of the Union address, referenced the research to which Novak contributed, which focuses on recruiting more math and science teachers to enable U.S. students to compete in a 21st-century global economy.

Novak also holds a BA in political science from Pitt and was a member of the University Honors College.

Gwendolyn Hays (BSEE ’65), one of the first females to receive a degree in electrical engineering from Pitt, has retired. Her career included serving with the National Security Agency, Westinghouse Electric Co. and Westinghouse/Northrop Grumman, and the U.S. Department of Defense, working extensively as an electri-cal engineer and doing computer-aided design and radar research. Hays completed an MBA in 1974, after which she was part of the group that invented and developed the

first wind shear prediction radar at Westinghouse. Since her retirement, Hays and her husband have become full-time llama farmers in Rappahannock County, Va.

David Bikerman (BSMIN ’81) has been named to the advisory committee of East Delta Resources Corp. in Montréal, Québec. He is the president of Bikerman Engineering & Technology Associates, which offers expert services to the mining industry in finan-cial modeling, explora-tion and geologic model preparation, geostatistical and reserve analyses, environmental impact plans, project feasibility, and project design and management.

Robert Colwell (BSEE ’77), an independent consul-tant and former Intel Fellow from Portland, Ore., has published

Alumni Notes

a book based on his experience leading the computer architecture team that developed the Intel Pentium 6 (P6), the most successful microprocessor in history. Published in December 2005 by Wiley-IEEE Computer Society Press, The Pentium Chronicles: The People, Passion, and Politics Behind Intel’s Landmark Chips examines not just the technical aspects of producing the P6 chip, but also the internal struggles and successes within the company and the public controversies over intellectual property claims.

Colwell was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering in 2006. In June 2005, he was honored with the Eckert-Mauchly Award, the most prestigious award in the computer architecture community, at the 32nd Annual International Symposium on Computer Architecture in Madison, Wis. The award is presented jointly by the Association for Computing Machinery and the IEEE Computer Society.

Ronald DePace (BSMET ’86) has received another patent, titled Thermal Solder Wiring Eutectic Bonding Process and Apparatus, which was developed with a team of coworkers at Northrop Grumman Space Technology. DePace just cel-ebrated his 20th year of employment with Northrop, where he is a project manager in the production and sup-ply chain division.

Tim Palucka (MSMSE ’96) has coauthored a new book about the 125-year history of the Engineers’ Society of Western Pennsylvania (ESWP). More information about the ESWP Commemorative History Book is available online at www.eswp.com/ eswp/125th_anniversary.htm.

On October 20, 2005, Jack W. Shilling (PhD MET ’75) received one of the highest alumni awards conferred by the University of Pittsburgh when he was designated by Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg as a Legacy Laureate. He joined the 12 other honorees at a special dinner ceremony at the chancellor’s home and participated in a career networking seminar. Shilling is executive vice president of cor-porate development and chief technical officer at Allegheny Technologies in Pittsburgh.

Steve Tritch (BSME ’71) was honored as one of three 2006 Distinguished Alumni Fellows at the University’s 30th Honors Convocation in February. Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg and Pitt Alumni Association President Keith E. Schaefer presented the awards, which recognize outstanding professional achieve-ment and service to the community by Pitt alumni. Tritch is president and CEO of Westinghouse Electric Co. He helped start the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, a joint effort by Pitt, Carnegie Mellon University, and Westinghouse that is one of the world’s leading centers in implementing new high-performance computing technologies for science and engineering research. Through a gift to the school, Tritch established the Stephen R. and Tami A. Tritch Engineering Legacy Fund. He serves on the School of Engineering Board of Visitors and, in 2003, received the Department of Mechanical Engineering’s Distinguished Alumni Award.

Robert Colwell

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(Left to right) Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg, Suzanne Shilling, 2005 Legacy Laureate Jack W. Shilling,

U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering Gerald D. Holder, and Provost James V. Maher

Steve Tritch (left)

receives his 2006 Distin-

guished Alumni Fellow

award from Pitt Alumni

Association President

Keith E. Schaefer.

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Alumni in Huntsville, Ala., who gathered for a February breakfast visit with Executive Director of Development and Alumni Relations Aaron Conley got an extra surprise: a Pittsburgh Steelers Super Bowl XL Champions version of the Terrible Towel.

Guests included Robert Curtis (MSChE ’77) and his

wife Linda, Gus Manguso (MSIE ’80), Jim Edwards

(BSChE ’64), and John Jurenko (BSEE ’56).

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2006 Distinguished Alumni Award Banquet April 19, 2006

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(left) Joseph M. Pasqualichio (center), a graduat-ing senior in electrical engineering, received the Engineering Alumni Student Leadership Award for his academic and campus-wide leadership. He is shown here with Dean Gerald Holder (left) and Glenn Zaborowski (BSEE ’81), Student Leadership Award committee volunteer.

Vibha Rustagi received the Distinguished Young Alumni Award for her accom-plishments in the cable and telecommunications industry. Here, Executive Director of Development and Alumni Relations Aaron Conley and his wife Stefanie greet Rustagi and her brother Sandeep.

(left) Alumni, family, and friends gathered through-out the ballroom to con-gratulate and celebrate the awardees.

(below) The 2006 Distin-guished Alumni awardees gathered with Dean Gerald Holder outside Alumni Hall. (Left to right) Glenn M. Foglio (BSIE ’83, MSIE ’90), Dennis Wisnosky (MSEE ’68), Joseph A. Massaro Jr. (BSCE ’58), Vibha Rustagi (BSEE ’87), James J. McGrath (BSChE ’71), Jack B. Allen (BSMET ’71, MSMET ’80), Andy J. Benedict (BSME ’71), and David W. Wohlfarth (BSPET ’68)

Pitt engineers were among the more than 100 alumni and friends who

turned out for the Boston Pitt Club’s Passport to Pitt reception in

November 2005, hosted by Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg. Welcoming

Nordenberg to Boston were (left to right) Fred Becker (BSME ’67),

Ken Lipman (MSEE ’53), Jim Coull (BSCE ’57), Frank Engel (BSE ’38),

Alan Kivnik (BSEE ’68), and Joseph Ackerman (BSIE ’73).

(left) More than 200 guests attended the awards banquet in the J.W. Connolly Ballroom in Alumni Hall.

(below) Engineering students who partici-pated in an international technology and leader-ship symposium during the spring 2006 term attended the banquet to present posters about their experiences and research. Their posters demonstrated a com-parative analysis of lead-ership and technology within the United States, China, and Japan.

We are sorry to announce the passing of …

Jack Kaminsky (BSPET ’59), who passed away on December 18, 2005, at his residence in Alexandria, Va. Mr. Kaminsky had an outstanding professional career, both with the Federal Power Commission (now the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) and as a con-sultant with H. Zinder & Associates in Bethesda, Md.

Robert Crosky (BSPET ’52), who passed away at his home in Lower Burrell, Pa., on November 2, 2005. Mr. Crosky lived in Calgary, Alberta, Canada and then Anchorage, Alaska, for many years before returning to Western Pennsylvania. He served in World War II as a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army and worked as a petro-leum engineer at Atlantic Richfield Co. for 33 years. Mr. Crosky is survived by his wife of 53 years, four children, and six grandchildren.

Clarke A. Bigler (BSMEE ’50), a resident of Reading, Pa., who died July 30, 2005. He was a U.S. Navy veteran of World War II. After graduation, he worked

for eight years at the former Lukens Steel Co. and for 34 years at the Carpenter Steel Division of Carpenter Technology Corp. in Reading, Pa., and Bridgeport, Conn. After his retirement from Carpenter, he worked for an additional 10 years for Performance Review Institute—an affiliate of the Society of Automotive Engineers—as a certified quality engineer and as an auditor for the National Aerospace and Defense Contractor Accreditation Program before his retirement in 2003. He is survived by his wife, two sons, and three granddaughters.

Edward Quick (BSME ’48), who passed away on December 2, 2005, at his home in Mt. Lebanon, Pa. He was 81. Mr. Quick was CEO of the former Mesta Machine Co. in West Homestead, Pa. He served during World War II and was part of the force that liberated the Ohrdruf concentration camp in Germany. He is survived by his wife, Mary Jane; four children; 11 grandchildren; and one brother.

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School of Engineering240 Benedum Hall3700 O’Hara StreetPittsburgh, PA 15261-2224

www.engr.pitt.edu

UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH

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engineering s c h o o l o f

Sixth Annual Alumni Golf OutingPresented by the School of Engineering and Pex

Name: ________________________________________________

Graduation Year(s) _____________________________________

Department(s) _________________________________________

Home Address _________________________________________

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_____ I am registering as an individual. Please match me with other players.

_____ I am registering as a foursome. The other golfers are listed at right. (Confirmation will be sent to the player listed above).

Player 2

Name ________________________________________________

Address ______________________________________________

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Player 3

Name ________________________________________________

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Player 4

Name ________________________________________________

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City/State/Zip _________________________________________

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Monday, July 17, 2006 Montour Heights Country Club, Moon Township, Pa. Cost: $155 per person; $620 per foursome (includes greens fees, cart rental, lunch, and dinner)

Registration and lunch: 11:30 a.m.Shotgun start: 1 p.m.

Please fill out and return the registration form by July 5, 2006, to reserve your space.

For more information, visit www.engr.pitt.edu/alumni, or contact Kristen Bires Carothers by e-mail (kmbcarothers@engr.pitt.edu) or by phone at 412-624-9813.

Payment: Please make check payable to the University of Pittsburgh. Complete and return this form along with payment to University of Pittsburgh School of Engineering Kristen Bires Carothers 247 Benedum Hall 3700 O’Hara Street Pittsburgh, PA 15261

Registration Deadline: July 5, 2006Space is limited. Please register early.