Elodie Leveugle Wins the Award for Excellence in Scholarship

February 15, 2007 - UVA Research News by Melissa Maki

The Office of the Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies announces the 2007 recipients of its awards for excellence in scholarship. The fellowships are available to advanced doctoral candidates in the sciences, engineering, humanities, and social sciences who have earned distinction in their respective fields and have brought recognition to U.Va.’s graduate programs as a result of their intellect, hard work, creativity, and passion. 

This year’s fellowship winners have some extraordinary scholarly accomplishments, including: attracting accolades from the National Science Foundation and National Aeronautic and Space Administration; presenting research at national and international conferences; being invited to speak at major conferences; and having work featured in highly esteemed national and international publications such as the Journal of American History and Organised Sound.  In addition, Erwin Gianchandani’s research was not only published in a respected journal--PloS Computational Biology--but was featured on its cover. Likewise, Greg Riddick’s research was highlighted on the cover of the Journal of Cell Biology.

Elizabeth Fenton, doctoral candidate in philosophy and fellowship awardee, focuses on the theme of human rights in bioethics.  Fenton has already had three papers published in top bioethics journals, including the Hastings Center Report, Bioethics, and the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy.  “For a graduate student to place papers in all three of these excellent journals before she has done substantial work on her dissertation is quite an amazing feat,” says John D. Arras, professor of bioethics and philosophy, and Fenton’s mentor and advisor.  “We can, in short, expect great things from this outstanding and already highly accomplished graduate student.”  Fenton will use the fellowship to fund research and writing time over the summer and for conference travel in the next academic year. 

Michael Nelson, a Ph.D. student in neuroscience and fellowship recipient, is conducting research that shows great promise for the development of new pharmacotherapies to treat unresponsive pain.  Nelson has been published in the Journal of Neuroscience and has received a National Research Service Award from the National Institutes of Health.  Nelson’s mentor, Slobodan Todorovic, associate professor of anesthesiology and neuroscience, notes that Nelson’s work has already made a big impact in his field.  “I believe that his most valuable trait that puts him above the rest is his enormous level of energy and passion for science,” says Todorovic.  “Indeed, he went a step ahead of what we normally expect from graduate students.”   Nelson will use the fellowship funding for travel purposes, such as attending and presenting at scientific meetings, and visiting labs to evaluate postdoctoral opportunities.

Award for Excellence in Scholarship in the Sciences and Engineering fellows:

• Ricardo Muñoz, astronomy
• Greg Riddick, biochemistry, molecular biology & genetics
• Erwin Gianchandani, biomedical engineering
• Drake Guenther, biomedical engineering
• Scott Bingham, computer engineering
• Ryan Emanuel, environmental sciences
• Sujith Ravi, environmental sciences
• Elodie Leveugle, materials science & engineering
• Patrick Hopkins, mechanical & aerospace engineering
• Jason Kerrigan, mechanical & aerospace engineering
• Catherine Christian, neuroscience
• Michael Nelson, neuroscience
• Jane Mendle, psychology
• Justin Storbeck, psychology

Prof. John Dorning elected to membership into the National Academy of Engineering

February 9, 2007 - National Academies

National Academy of Engineering Elects 64 Members and Nine Foreign Associates

WASHINGTON -- The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) has elected 64 new members and nine foreign associates, NAE President Wm. A. Wulf announced today. This brings the total U.S. membership to 2,217 and the number of foreign associates to 188.

Election to the National Academy of Engineering is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer. Academy membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to "engineering research, practice, or education, including, where appropriate, significant contributions to the engineering literature," and to the "pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education."

A list of newly elected members and foreign associates follows, with their primary affiliations at the time of election and a brief statement of their principal engineering accomplishments.

New Member - John Dorning
John J. Dorning, Whitney Stone Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering, professor of engineering physics, and professor of applied mathematics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville. For the development of advanced computational methods for nuclear reactor analysis

Nicole Tailleart, MSE Ph.D candidate, Wins First Place at the 2007 Tri-service Conference.

The theme of this year's Tri -service conference was "Integrating Corrosion Prevention and Control in Policy, Planning, and Programming." Nicole Tailleart won first place with her poster on multi-functional corrosion properties of pulse thermal sprayed (PTS) Al-Co-Ce Alloys. Taillheart's work on PTS metal coatings is valuable in aerospace applications and corrosion inhibition.

Advised by John Scully, she is part of the CESE group of students who are ever adding to their long list of accomplishments. Again, congratulations to Nicole on finishing in first place.

Beth Kehler Wins A.B. Campbell Award

Beth Kehler (PH.D. candidate, MSE) recieves A.B. Campbell Award for the best technical paper in Corrosion Journal

Crevice corrosion is one of the main performance limiting factors for the engineered barrier at the proposed Yucca Mountain repository. This topic is timely and important since the successful establishment of this repository will likely determine the long term fate of nuclear power generation in the United States .Beth's winning paper covered crevice corrosion of a nickel-base superalloy for the nuclear waster storage canisters. The paper was co-authored with her advisor, John R. Scully.

It is also worth noting that 3 CESE/MSE students (Kehler - 07, Marta Jakab - 06 [Ph.D. 2006], and Dave Enos - 1998 [Ph.D. 1997], one former CESE/MSE student (Michelle Gaudett-Koul, [Ph.D 1996]), as well as two faculty in CESE/MSE (Kelly, 1997, and Scully, 1985) have earned this award in the years indicated. This technical achievement is unprecedented in the corrosion field since its development as a sub-specialty of MSE. No other organization including the world famous Fontana Corrosion Center at Ohio State
University, the corrosion center at Cambridge, UK, as well as the one at UMIST, UK, can claim this achievement.

Again, congratulations to Beth for the award this year as well as the past CESE students for their achievements.

University of Virginia Professor Robert Kelly’s Rust Research Proves Valuable to Pentagon 9/11 Memorial

June 15, 2006 — UVA Top News

Today in Arlington, Va., there will be a formal groundbreaking for the memorial to commemorate the 184 people killed when hijackers slammed an airplane into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. Among the 150 family members and other guests invited to attend the event is Robert Kelly, professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Virginia, who has lent his expertise to the project.

Designed by two young architects from New York, Julie Beckman and Keith Kaseman, who won a

Robert Kelly

worldwide competition that attracted 1,126 entries, the memorial will consist of 184 simple, streamlined metal benches — one for each of the people killed during the terrorist attack — cantilevered over lighted reflecting pools. The benches will be oriented differently, depending on whether the victim was in the building or on the plane. Behind the benches of those killed in the building, visitors will see the Pentagon; behind the benches of those killed in the plane, visitors will see the sky.

Soon after winning the design competition, the architects contacted Kelly and Edgar A. Starke Jr., former dean of U.Va.’s engineering school and professor of materials science and engineering. Starke is a well-known authority on aluminum alloys. The architects sought advice on the best material to use for their benches.

“They wanted to use aluminum for the memorial units for each of the victims,” Kelly said. “But aluminum alloys are not the best materials to use because they’re not particularly resistant to corrosion.”

The environment surrounding the memorial has more than its share of corrosive elements — deicing salts from nearby highways, gases from vehicle emissions and a saltwater tidal basin. Also, the memorial design calls for a highly reflective surface on the metal benches, which is difficult to achieve and maintain with aluminum.

Kelly, whose expertise is in corrosion, began to look for a stainless steel alloy that would meet the needs of the architects — corrosion resistance, high reflectivity — while remaining affordable and easy to work with.

After five castings of sample benches using different steel alloys at a foundry in St. Louis, Mo., Kelly believes the project team is closing in on a stainless steel alloy that will work. A commercially available product — SS 316LN, an austenitic stainless steel — is a likely candidate. It is a stainless steel that, along with iron, is composed of chromium (18 percent), nickel (12 percent), molybdenum (2.5 percent) and nitrogen (0.13 percent).

“The steel is about two and a half times more expensive than aluminum, but it will resist corrosion much better and cost less to maintain,” Kelly said. “The design goal for the memorial is to last 100 years.”

About $10 million has been raised for the memorial, which is expected to cost about $22 million. Organizers plan to raise an additional $10 million to ensure the memorial’s maintenance. The federal government has contributed about $1 million to the project, which is being funded primarily by private donors. Kelly provided his services on a pro-bono basis.