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One of the advantages o attending

an engineering school at a national

research university like U.Va. is that you

are exposed to the latest developments

in the feld. When you take courses rom

proessors who are actively involved

in cutting-edge research, you have a

ront-row seat at the discoveries that

will defne the century.

At the School o Engineering and

Applied Science, we go a step urther. We

encourage undergraduates to leave the

audience and take their place on center

stage, working closely with aculty

members and graduate students to

make their own contributions.

Too Hot to Handle

Fourth-year student Eugene Ottos work with computer

science proessor Kevin Skadron is a case in point. As

computer chips become more compact and more powerul,

the intensity o the heat they generate has increased

dramatically. To prevent overheating, operating systems

use a technique called thermal throttling, which places the

processor in a sleep state whenever heat levels approach the

upper limits o its sae thermal envelope. While this uctuation

might not be noticeable or browsing, it can interere with

DVD and MP3 playback.

One o Skadrons specialties is architectures or

temperature-aware and power-aware computing. Hes

enlisted Ottos assistance to adjust Linux operating system

scheduling so that thermal throttling is less likely to disrupt

high-priority or interactive tasks. There is already a large

saety margin,notes Skadron, so you can delay throttling

until it becomes absolutely critical.Ottos work has been

unded by a Research Experience or Undergraduates grant

rom the National Science Foundation.

To accomplish this goal, Otto had to decompile an

Advanced Confguration and Power Interace table written or

Windows and recompile it and set it up to run on Linux. This

experience brings together knowledge rom a lot o areas,

rom traditional computer architecture, operating systems,

real-time systems, thermodynamics, and programming,Otto

The fundamentalunderlyingprinciples

o engineering transcend national borders, but

the practice o engineering oten changes

dramatically at the rontier. As the twenty-frst

century progresses and industry becomes

increasingly global, engineers must learn to

acclimate themselves to national

dierences and unction in a

variety o environments.

As one o two

American partners

in the U.S.-Brazil

Cognitive Systems

Engineering

Exchange Program,

the Department

o Systems and

Inormation Engineering

is oering U.Va.

students a unique

opportunity to

understand cross-

cultural issues

while conducting

hands-on research.

According to Associate Proessor Stephanie

Guerlain, the programs U.Va. coordinator,

students spend six months in Brazil immersing

themselves in the language, getting to know

their Brazilian counterparts, attending university,

and researching issues related to the intersection

o people and computers. At the end o the

six months, the entire group, Brazilians as well

as Americans, returns to the United States to

complete their projects.

Working side-by-side in Brazil with students

rom the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro,

the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul,

and the Ohio State University, U.Va. students

have taken on a number o projects. One group

is developing a program to assist dispatching

o truckers delivering oil and gas throughout

southeast Brazil, another is creating an analysis

toolkit to help Petrobas, the Brazilian state

oil company, pull critical inormation rom

its incident-reporting system, while a third is

identiying specifc improvements or a training

simulator used by Brazils Nuclear Energy Institute.

To say the least, all the students, Brazilian

and American, ound the exchange eye opening.

I saw this as an opportunity to throw mysel

a curve ball,said U.Va. student Alex Rixey.

I gained confdence as well as knowledge. I think

challenges in the uture will appear much more

manageable to me.

The exchange program is currently

supported by a our-year seed grant rom the

Fund or the Improvement o Postsecondary

Education, a U.S. government initiative. The

university partners are seeking unding to

continue the program. For more inormation,

visitwww.sys.virginia.edu/hci/us-brazil.asp.

Collaboration

The Brazilian Connection

Ater Graduation

Adriane Randolph

ADRIANE RANDOLPHSLIFE has been

shaped by her interest in helping people make

connections that can enrich their lives. As a

student at U.Va., this interest led Randolph (Sys

99) to human-computer interaction and the

potential unleashed when people use technology

eectively. It caused her to leave a promising

career at Accenture or graduate school at

Georgia State University and to choose a project

helping people or whom technology represents

not just a connection, but a lieline. These are

people who are locked inully conscious, but

whose voluntary muscles are totally paralyzed.

Engineers have devised a variety o biometric

systems or locked-in syndrome that connect

patients with computers and allow them to exert

neural control to browse the I nternet, control

robotic arms, and answer questions about their

health. Randolph is developing an assessment

tool to match patients with the biometric system

that would work best or them.

Randolph credits the School o Engineering

and Applied Science or helping her fnd her way.

Randy Pauschs class sparked my chie interest

in HCI work, my projects i n systems engineering

ueled my passion to work on design-related

work, and Ingrid Soudek opened my eyes to a

uture in academia,she says. I have a ond p lace

in my heart or U.Va. and always will.Factoid: Founded in 1920, the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro is the largest federal university in Brazil.

Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul is located in Prto Alegre, as one of the chief industrial and

commercial centers in Brazil.

In this issue:

Thermal Research

Spanning Two

Worlds

Honor and

Engineering

Brazil Exchange

Making Connectio

Take Part in

Discovery

Office of the Dean

University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science

P.O. Box 400246

Charlottesville, VA 22904-4246

434.924.3072

seas.virginia.edu/impact/spr06

Give to Engineering:

www.virginia.edu/supportuva/give.php3

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See Discovery , page 2

U N I V E R S I T Y O F V I R G I N I A

U N I V E R S I T Y O F V I R G I N I A

www.seas.virginia

Fromleft: ChristopherSalvatoreCutrona(Universityof Virginia),

CamilaValcarengh(UniversidadeFederal do Rio GrandedoSul),Anelise FaleiroWelter

(UniversidadeFederal do RioGrandedo Sul) andCraigPratsch(Universityof Virgina)

Undergraduates KaraParsons (left) andJasonNaramore(right) areconducting interdisciplinaryresearchwith

biomedicalengineeringprofessor BrettBlackmanand civilengineeringprofessor Edward Berger.

Summer Opportunities

Jiahui Li had been working with biomedical engineering

proessors Brian Helmke and William Guilord to write

a computer algorithm to track structural movement o

cytoskeletal flaments o cells lini ng the blood vessels. Its

essentially a plug-in or the Image J analysis sotware,she

says. Her successul application to the Summer Science and

Engineering Scholars Research Program enabled her to take

the next step and purchase a micromanipulator probe that

will help her reach a better understanding o the mechanical

properties o cells. The unding also enabled her to attend

the annual biomedical engineering conerence in Baltimore.

It was a wonderul opportunity to fnd out about the latest

work in the feld even beore it gets published,she said.

SummerScienceand EngineeringScholarJiahuiLi

February 2006 | Volume 6 | Number 3 University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science

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Fourth-year student Meg Olson clearly likes a

challenge. Shes double majoring in mechanical engineering

and Russian and Eastern European studies and minoring in

materials science, a eat that, she admits, has entailed some

21-credit-hour semesters. When I came here, I wasnt sure

about staying in the Engineering School because Ive never

been that confdent about my abilities in math and science,

she says. Ultimately, I decided to stay because succeeding

in engineering would be a real accomplishment or me.

In the process, Olson gained a deeper appreciation or engineering.

You come out o engineering with practical skills that really make

a dierence,she says. For her thesis project, she is working with

mechanical engineering proessor Pradip Sheth to create biomechanical

modeling programs to optimize braces or children with cerebral palsy.

Olson is also drawn to events around the world. She

speaks conversational German and Russian and has been

ascinated by the mass democracy movements that have

reshaped the ormer Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and

the linkage between politics, social change, and the arts. A

course on trademarks oered by Associate Proessor Bryan

Pafenberger in the Department o Science, Technology,

and Society suggested a way or Olson to combine these

interests. She has interned at the U.Va. Patent Foundation

and will be workin g at the United Sta tes Patent and Trademark O ce

ater graduation, reviewing patent applications and eventually attending

law school. She hopes to work in oreign countries to set up systems o

intellectual property protection. My goal is to combine my interests and

apply my engineering knowledge in a policy context,she says.

Shes unequivocal. Mechanical engineering

proessor Pamela Norris is an enthusiastic

advocate o involving undergraduates in her

research. From my point o view, theyre just great,

she says. Theyre bright, theyre independent, and

theyre eager to learn. And i they decide to stay

on ater they receive their diplomas, I end up with

superb graduate students.

The benefts or undergraduates are

equally clear-cut. They can develop a visceral

understanding o the theoretical material covered

in their classes, and they can put together an

impressive rsum o accomplishments that

gives them a competitive edge ater graduation.

Norris recruits undergraduate students or a

number o her projects. A specialist in microscale

heat transer, she is developing a design that

incorporates heat pipes in next-generation jet

blast deectors used on aircrat carriers. Working

on a much smaller scale, she is studying thermal

boundary resistance in thin flm metals, an

investigation that will help clear the way or

smaller semiconductor devices.

Patrick Hopkinss experience provides the

perect illustration o the benefts o Norriss

approach. Hopkins (MAE, 04) began working in

Norriss Microscale Heat Transer Lab as a third-year

undergraduate. Using this experience as a credential,

he won a coveted Harrison Undergraduate Research

Award to und his own research project. The Harrison

says. It showed me what computer science is all

about.

Skadron has several reasons or

encouraging undergraduates like Otto to get

involved in research. The frst is the high quality

o their work, which is both useul and, quite

oten, publishable. But he also sees it as a

transormative experience. I got involved with

research as an undergrad, and it motivated me

to go on to a career in academia,Skadron notes.

I want to provide my undergraduates with

similar exposure.

Storm Warnings

Everyone talks about the weather, but Proessor

Roman Krzysztoowicz and undergraduate

William Evans are doing something about it.

Krzysztoowicz, a proessor o systems and

inormation engineering, has unding rom the

National Science Foundation to develop

advanced techniques or orecasting

meteorological variables like precipitation that

quantiy and adjust or uncertainty.

Evans has helped to develop sotware

that creates orecasts using Krzysztoowiczs

technique and compares these results to

traditional ones. Evans, now in his ourth year, is

fnishing a verifcation o precipitation orecasts

or 28 weather stations, with nine lead times,

every day or a two-year period.

I like working with a lot o data and

having the independence that doing this type

o research involves,says Evans. Over the two

years Ive worked with Proessor Krzysztoowicz,

Getting Involved

DISCOVERY, continued rom page 1

Turning Up the Heat on Undergraduate Research

Ive been motivated to take higher-level classes

because the inormation I would gain there

would help me with my research.

At the Intersection of Cholesterol and

Heart Disease

Increasingly, cutting-edge research requires

collaboration across disciplines. In the case o

biomedical engineering majors Jason Naramore

and Kara Parsons, this work combines techniques

rom civil and biomedical engineering. Working

with Associate Proessor Edward Berger, a civil

engineer, and Assistant Proessor Brett Blackman,

a biomedical engineer, they are using an atomic

orce microscopeBergers expertiseto

understand the three-dimensional structure and

mechanical properties o lipid domains on the

cell plasma membrane, the subject o Blackmans

research. Changes in these structures, which

are governed by cholesterol, can change cell

signaling events and lead to disease.

The Department o Biomedical Engineering,

like other departments in the Engineering School,

actively encourages undergraduate research.

Undergraduates can shadow graduate students

in the lab, and the department has a third-year,

two-semester lab sequence, jointly taught by

a team o aculty members, that introduces

students to dierent biomedical engineering

concepts used in many o the departments

laboratories. All students must complete a

capstone project involving research to graduate.

Both students ound the exposure to

research to be revealing. There is a lot o

autonomy,Kara says. Its up to us to fnd the

inormation we need to be successul.

Award is distributed by the Faculty Senate

to the most promising undergraduate

research projects at the University.

Hopkins enjoyed his research so much

that he decided to continue on with Norris

as a graduate student. His undergraduate

experience proved instrumental in his winning

a prestigious NSF graduate ellowship,

which provides a $30,000-a-year stipend or

each o three years o graduate school.

My undergraduate research was

absolutely crucial or me,Hopkins said. It

broadened my interests and set the stage

or everything that ollowed.

Jessica Sheehan is ollowing in

Hopkinss ootsteps. A transer student rom

Old Dominion University, she ound a home in

Norriss laboratory and won a Harrison Award or

research on the jet blast deector project. She

and Hopkins also teamed up to win a Double

Hoo Award to study energy transer in thin flm

metals. The Double Hoo Award is an innovative

University-wide initiative that pairs graduate

and undergraduate students on a research

project. As part o their project, they are using an

ultraast experimental laser capable o providing

inormation on a picosecond time scale.

This whole experience has been eye-

opening,says Sheehan. Ive had the reedom

in Pams lab to think o a project and go ater it

using state-o-the-art equipment. Ive also had

the opportunity to attend conerences and get

a frsthand look at developments in the feld as

they are happening. Its really very exciting.

Mechanical engineeringprofessorPamela Norris inher labwithstudents Patrick Hopkins and Jessica Sheehan.

Bridging Engineering and Eastern Europe

Theres no doubt about it. Engineering at

U.Va. is rigorous and exacting. But theres much

more to student lie than problem sets and

exams, and plenty o opportunity to explore

personal interests and discover what the

University o Virginia has to oer.

The experience o third-year student

Alison Tramba is a case in point. One o

the frst things I did at U.Va. was go to the

activities air,she says. I liked the idea that

extracurricular activities are run by students.

While completing requirements or a

double major in systems and inormation

engineering and American studies, Tramba

has stayed involved. She is currently one o

two Engineering School representatives to

the Universitys Honor Committee, where

she is responsible or saeguarding the

community o trust that is central to student

sel-governance at U.Va. One o Trambas

responsibilities to is help committee members

balance the collaborative nature o engineering

assignments with the injunction, expressed in

the honor pledge, against giving or receiving

aid on schoolwork.

Community involvement has also

shaped Trambas approach to her studies. My

interest in engineering has always had a

social dimension,she says. She worked with

visiting proessor Robert Marquez to design a

demonstration version o his innovative kiln,

which can help people in the developing world

make bricks cheaper, aster, stronger, more

easily, and with ewer toxic emissions.

Getting involved with the Engineering

Schools Washington Internship Program was

a natural extension o her interests. As part o

this program, she spent most o last summer

working on an energy-e cient housing project

or the Federation o American Scientists. On

returning to U.Va., she joined the EcoMod

project, a modular housing venture organized

by the Engineering School and the School

o Architecture that is exploring alternative,

low-cost approaches to conserving energy and

natural resources.

The University has given me the

opportunity to grow as a person and as an

engineer, enabling me to place engineering in

a broad-based humanitarian context,she says.

Its very ulflling.

EngineeringSchool HonorRepresentativeAlisonTramba