George Cahen's lasting impact

From SEAS E-News: Engineers learn by doing. That is the reason Professor George Cahen often gives for championing experiential learning at UVA Engineering—and it is a lesson Cahen, now retiring after 40 years at UVA, himself learned as a boy growing up in Baltimore. 

 “The value I place on experiential learning goes back to my time with my dad. He gave me a real sense of the power of engineering. I wanted to pass that on to our students.”

Together with his father, an aerospace engineer for the Glenn L. Martin Company (now Lockheed Martin), Cahen tackled a number of projects that gave him his first inkling of the satisfaction to be had from bridging the gap between idea and realization. Together, they installed central air conditioning, a rarity at the time, flew model airplanes and built go-carts and motorized bicycles. When he was 12, Cahen and his dad built a cart and wagon that he used to tow his friends around their neighborhood.

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Robert Kelly named 2016 recipient of the H. H. Uhlig Award from ECS

Materials Science and Engineering Professor Robert Kelly has been named the 2016 recipient of the H. H. Uhlig Award from the Electrochemical Society’s Corrosion Division, another indicator of the exceptional quality of the corrosion research at the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science.

BY SEAS NEWS

 “We have a 30-year history of excellence in corrosion research,” said Scully, who is co-director with Kelly of the Center for Electrochemical Science and Engineering. “Rob exemplifies all the qualities that have helped build and sustain this achievement.” 

The award, recognizing excellence in corrosion research and outstanding contributions to the field, was established in 1973 and, in 1985, named for Prof. H. H. Uhlig, the founder of the field in the United States and a president of the society. Since that time, UVA Engineering has won the Uhlig Award twice, the first time in 2009 when the society presented the award to Professor John R. Scully, interim chair of the Materials Science and Engineering Department.

Although corrosion lacks the visibility of such high-profile fields as computer science or medical research, it is a major challenge for the 21st century. A recent report from NACE International, a worldwide corrosion authority, cited the cost of corrosion to the U.S. economy at approximately $451 billion a year, a figure that has grown significantly as our infrastructure ages and as we require alloys for highly demanding environments.
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