McKelvey School of Engineering

Mechanical engineering students maneuver BattleBots during a Battle Royale held Tuesday, Dec. 14. The battle was the final assignment in a freshman mechanical engineering class taught by Pat Harkins, a technical lab technician in the School of Engineering & Applied Science.

The following are among the new faculty members at Washington University: Mark Anastasio, PhD; John Fortner, PhD; Paul Ramírez, PhD; Matthew Kerr, PhD; and Brent Williams, PhD.

Washington University is starting a Nanotechnology Undergraduate Education (NUE) program. The NUE program, which will take applicants in the fall of 2011, has two components. The first is a new minor in nanotechnology open to any undergraduate pursuing a major in engineering, biology, physics or chemistry. The second is a summer fellowship open to undergraduates to develop nanotechnology teaching modules for K-12 students.

Competing against 130 teams from across the world, a team of six undergraduates from the School of Engineering & Applied Science at Washington University in St. Louis took silver in the foundational advance category of the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition this year. The  WUSTL team built a genetic sequence that once inserted in a yeast cell would signal whether the cell was growing with or without the sugar galactose by fluorescing either yellow or cyan.

Should weather conditions create potentially hazardous travel conditions, Washington University will evaluate the situation and take into consideration the safety of the faculty, staff and students as well as the services that must be provided despite the inclement weather.

The Advanced Coal and Energy Research Facility, an experimental combustion facility on the Danforth Campus of Washington University in St. Louis, was dedicated in October 2010. At the time, the combuster was cold and the bioreactors empty. Now that the facility is up and running, Richard Axelbaum, PhD, professor of energy, environmental & chemical Engineering in the School of Engineering & Applied Science and director of the new facility, gives a video tour of the new laboratory.  

On Nov. 18, Paul C. Paris, PhD, professor emeritus of mechanics in the School of Engineering & Applied Science at Washington University in St. Louis, received an honorary doctorate from the University of Paris West, one of many awards to cap his career in fracture mechanics.

Before Google became a household word, engineers like Anna Patterson (EN ’87, EN ’87) were figuring out how to search the Internet and find the most relevant answers to random queries. The director of Google Research returns to campus at 8 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 18, as guest speaker co-sponsored by Olin Business School and the School of Engineering & Applied Science. She will talk about her experience in Silicon Valley as an entrepreneur and member of the Google team.

Astronaut Walt Cunningham will share his experiences as Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo mission, during a 3 p.m. talk Thursday, Oct. 7, in Washington University’s Brookings Hall, Room 300. He also will present Washington University in St. Louis senior Kaitlin E. Burlingame with a $10,000 scholarship from the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation during a public presentation and ceremony.

Stephen F. & Camilla T. Brauer Hall, the second building in a new engineering complex at Washington University in St. Louis, was dedicated in a ceremony held on Friday, Oct. 1. Brauer Hall includes state-of-the-art laboratories, a distance-learning classroom, instrumentation and imaging facilities, and electronically equipped collaboration points in the halls near the labs. The three-story building, which includes many other innovative features, has received LEED Gold certification.