FSAE car team places 38th in Michigan

The Formula SAE team recently returned from Michigan where they competed in the annual May race.  FSAE is a student car design competition organized by the Society of Automotive Engineers.

You are welcome to stop by the Barus and Holley patio to congratulate the team on their hard work on Wednesday, May 19, 2010 from 12 to 2pm.

This year's Formula SAE car team placement was:
Overall 38th
Design: T-15th
Presentation: 46th
Cost: 23rd
Endurance: 35th
Fuel Economy: 2nd
(Note: Did not compete in autocross, accel, and skid pad)
For more info visit:http://www.sae.org/students/fsae2010results.pdf

(Click the photo to the right to see more photos)

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Professor Nurmikko collaborates on $14.9 million DARPA grant

Researchers at Brown University and Stanford University have launched a $14.9 million project geared to developing new brain micro-implants that can both sense the brain’s electrical signals and deliver optogenetic lightpulses to neural tissue.

The project, funded by a two-year Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) grant, is being led by Krishna Shenoy, a Stanford researcher, and Arto Nurmikko, a professor of electrical engineering and physics at Brown.

For more information visit the Providence Business News.

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Prof. Webster to participate in U.S. Biomaterials Research Delegation to China

Prof. Webster has been invited to be part of the U.S. Biomaterials Research Delegation to China in Octobet 2010. In conjuction with the People to People Citizen Ambassador Program (established by President Eisenhower in 1956), this U.S. delegation of well-established biomaterial researchers and educators will foster a one-on-one dialogue with China in the area of biomaterials research. China has rapidly increased its research efforts in the field of biomaterials and will continue to rise in importance as the field develops and expertise in China expands. The delegation will learn about academic programs leading biomaterials research efforts in China, meet with academic and intellectual leaders from the field and establish a clear understanding of the focus and trajectory of biomaterials research. Expected outcomes include a stronger collaboration between biomaterials research and education in the U.S. and China.

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EWB promotes hunger awareness through OXFAM hourglass project

Engineers Without Borders recently completed the task of creating an hourglass as part of an OXFAM collaboration to promote hunger awareness. The hourglass drops marbles at a 3 second interval - the same rate that a child dies of hunger throughout the world. To learn more about this project, check out the EWB student team in action:

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Present and Past: Rhode Island Business Plan Competition winners from Brown

Brown students enrolled in Entrepreneurship & New Ventures ENGN1930x course consistently do well in the Rhode Island Business Plan Competition. This year Speramus, which developed its business plan in the course last semester, won the student track. The company is creating an online fundraising platform that uses a proprietary ranking system to match donors with individual support opportunities. In addition, Bakodo which developed its business plan in the course last year was runner up in the entrepreneur track. The company is focused on developing a highly-targeted, contextual barcode ad-serving network that aims to optimize return on investment for advertisers. For more information on this year's winners, visit here.

Last year's winner, Runa, who also developed their business plan in the Entrepreneurship and New Ventures course continues to make excellent progress. They have successfully raised funds from angel investors, successfully built out their vertically integrated supply chain in Ecuador, and begun selling their initial tea products in both loose leaf pouches and single serve bags. If you are interested in trying Runa, feel free to buy a cup at Blue State in Providence which now proudly serves it! You can read more at www.drinkruna.com

In addition the runner-up from last year, Eulie has also grown from the intial business plan they developed in the Entrepreneurship and New Ventures course. Both founders raised capital to work full-time on Eulie, developed and successfully tested a novel patent-pending fabric combination that is leak proof, and designed products that will be used to approach retail buyers later this year. You can read more at www.eulieintimates.com

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Richardson elected Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians

Professor Peter Richardson, has been elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, founded in London in 1518 with a Charter from King Henry VIII.

“I am deeply honored,” he said, “William Harvey was not even born when the College was founded, but he was a leading light of the Royal College of Physicians and a devoted supporter of it, as have been many other famous contributors to the science and practice of medicine before and since. It is known I have been interested in some aspects of the circulation of blood in the conduct of research for four decades, and the College is very generous in inviting me into its ranks, a very rare honor indeed.”

Peter Richardson has been Professor of Engineering and Physiology at Brown University since 1983. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society, and a Fellow of the City and Guilds of London Institute, as well as Life Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, a Founding Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, an Inaugural Fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society, and a Laureate in Medicine of the Ernst Jung Foundation (Germany).

With one of his doctoral students, Leigh Abts, and some colleagues Richardson helped found MicroPure, a Rhode Island company which started from technology developed for operating room use during cardiac surgery and spun it off into uses for microprocessor manufacture and secondary oil recovery; the company was sold later to a large process-industries company. “Technology transfer can work both ways between medicine and engineering,” Richardson notes.

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Nurmikko elected to Finnish Academy of Science and Letters

Professor Arto Nurmikko was recently elected to the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters. The Finnish Academy of Science and Letters is the largest general scientific and academic society in Finland. It is a learned society covering the full range of academic disciplines which is devoted to the promotion of scientific and scholarly research and serves as a bond uniting researchers engaged in these activities at the highest level. It functions as a traditional learned society in the sense that its membership is limited and it selects its new members on their academic and scientific merits. For more information on the Academy: http://www.acadsci.fi/frontpage.htm

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