Zhang wins STAR award

Lijie Zhang (PhD, 2009), was just selected as a Society for Biomaterials STAR award winner based on her research developing injectable tissue engineering materials to heal bone defects. Her certificate will read:

"Your paper entitled “Novel Osteogenic Peptide Modified Helical Rosette Nanotubes for Improving Orthopedic Applications” was nominated by the Orthopaedic Biomaterials SIG (Special Interest Group) as an outstanding contribution to the Society for Biomaterials 2009 Annual Meeting. The Education and Professional Development Committee of the Society has awarded you with a STAR award!"

This recognition will be announced from the podium during the opening ceremony at the Society for Biomaterials, Wednesday, April 22 at 6:00 p.m.

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Zia earns NSF Career Award

Assistant Professor Rashid Zia becomes one of a very distinguished group of young faculty members in the Division who have received National Science Foundation Career Awards.
More detail available here.

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Renaissance Engineer Series

Focus on: Leadership - Brown ENGINEERING PROFILES
How our Engineering Alumni are creating change through innovative leadership

Excerpt from Dean's Message:
"I want to use this issue to begin engaging our graduates and students in changing the perception of the roles that engineers can play in our society - and need to play if we are to address effectively the complex issues that we face in energy, environment, clean water, health care, climate change, and even the world economy. Engineers today need to be understood, not as merely workers with valuable technical training, but as highly-capable, broadly-prepared people who bring a deep understanding of science, math, and engineering know-how to the solution of problems that challenge our society....Preparing engineers for truly difference-making careers is Brown’s challenge - and its responsibility in view of the high potential of students who choose to study here."

Read more here:
http://www.engin.brown.edu/LeadershipBrownEngineering.pdf

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Prof. Powers appointed as editor

Thomas Powers, Associate Professor of Engineering, has recently been appointed Associate Editor for Biological Physics at the journal Reviews of Modern Physics.

The journal website is http://rmp.aps.org/

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Unraveling how bats fly

Reuters TV 2 February 2009
Unraveling how bats fly

Kenneth Breuer, professor of engineering, discusses how scientists are seeking to understand the flight of bats and hope one day to build flying machines that mimic bat flight. The program was carried worldwide, including television stations in Italy, Greece, Spain, Russia and China.

Full report online: www.euronews.net/en/article/02/02/2009/us-team-studies-secrets-of-bat-flight/

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eMotive: Out of Gas

RISD design students and engineering majors from Brown University combined their problem-solving resources in fall 2008 to tackle a growing global problem: the need for affordable, flexible transportation powered by renewable fuel sources. An outgrowth of the eMotive project – an ongoing collaboration between Industrial Design faculty Khipra Nichols BID ’78 and Michael Lye ’96 ID and Brown Engineering faculty Chris Bull – the Out of Gas! studio focused on the needs of urban commuters, using Providence as a test case.

Lye and Bull team-taught the studio, which brought together roughly 12 students from RISD and 12 from Brown to explore “where and how industrial design and engineering intersect” in the context of a real-world problem, Bull explains. In addition to reaping the benefits of complementary expertise, the students took full advantage of both institutions’ specialized facilities: the metal, wood and model shops at RISD, and the Prince Engineering Lab at Brown, which offers access to CNC and rapid prototyping technology.

More information:

http://www.brown.edu/Courses/Engineering/index.html

http://vehiclebrisd.blogspot.com/

http://www.whycoda.com/

http://www.risd.edu/student_projects_gas.htm?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=eviews011509

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Canadian Press article featuring nanoscience

Tiny particles lead medicine from science fiction to nanorobots fighting cancer
Jan 7, 2009

Article Excerpt:
Thomas Webster, an associate professor of engineering at Brown University in Providence, R.I., says that to peer at the intricacies of various tissues, such as bone or skin, through a super-powered microscope is to enter the nano world at a glance.

"What we're finding out is that nanomaterials make up our tissues," says Webster, editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Nanomedicine, who points as an example to enzymes and proteins that power the functions that give us life.

"So we are walking nano things. We are assembled from nanomaterials."

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