News Article

College of Engineering awards 2050 Challenge Fellowships

Contacts:
Nancy Knight, Graduate Enrollment Management, 515 294-3421, nknightiastate.edu
Mary Jo Glanville, Engineering Communications and Marketing, 515 294-8787, mglanviliastate.edu

Ames, Iowa—The College of Engineering has awarded its first 2050 Challenge Fellowships to support PhD students whose research addresses engineering issues related to sustainability and quality of life over the next four decades. The fellowships were established this year to attract greater numbers of students who have the potential to become the world’s next generation of insightful thinkers and problem solvers.

“Graduate fellowships are critical for us to succeed in our research and education mission as we take on the tough societal and technological challenges that lie ahead,” said Balaji Narasimhan, associate dean for research and economic development. “We have no choice but to succeed if we want to leave behind a prosperous society for future generations.”

The fellowships are supported through private donations and the College of Engineering general fund. Jim Waters, vice president of Caterpillar Production Systems Division and a 1981 graduate in electrical engineering, and his wife Karleen recently donated funds to assist the college in meeting its priorities. A portion is being used for the fellowships.

Two College of Engineering and two Jim and Karleen Waters 2050 Challenge Fellowships, totaling more than $40,000, have been awarded for fall 2008. The recipients are Keenan L. Deutsch, Cara J. Dienes, Eduardo Ibáñez-Sopeña, and Zhonghua Xu.

Deutsch holds a BS in chemical engineering from Iowa State. As a graduate student in chemical and biological engineering, Deutsch’s research involves the development of a catalyst system for the conversion of biorenewable-derived furfural to dimethylfuran (DMF). DMF is a potential second-generation biofuel with properties that are much more compatible with the existing gasoline infrastructure than ethanol is. The research is being conducted as part of a National Science Foundation Partnership in International Research and Education grant and is in collaboration with the Universities of Wisconsin, Virginia, and New Mexico. Deutsch’s major professor is Brent Shanks.

Dienes earned a BS in industrial engineering at Purdue University and expects to receive her MS in operations research at the Georgia Institute of Technology in August. Her PhD work at Iowa State will be in industrial manufacturing and systems engineering with Lizhi Wang as her major professor. For her research, Dienes plans to apply operations research techniques to address sustainability and extreme event preparedness issues in the tourism industry. She will study the tradeoffs between economical benefits and sustainable practices in a tourism firm’s expansion plans and strategies for creating optimal responses to extreme events such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricanes.

Ibáñez-Sopeña earned his undergraduate degree in industrial engineering at the Universidad Publica de Navarra in Spain. As a graduate student in electrical engineering, Ibáñez-Sopeña’s research is to characterize interdependencies between energy resources and energy/vehicular transportation systems. His focus is to identify optimal infrastructure designs in terms of future power generation technologies, energy transport and storage, and hybrid-electric transportation systems to achieve a desirable balance between costs, sustainability, and resiliency. The work is part of an NSF project, “Decision models for bulk energy transportation systems.” Ibáñez Sopeña’s major professor is James McCalley.

Xu earned a BE in mechanical engineering at China’s Chongqing University. He is pursing a graduate degree in mechanical engineering with Qingze Zou as his major professor. Xu’s research is part of an NSF Grant Opportunities for Academic Liaison with Industry project. He is working to develop novel control techniques to achieve rapid mapping of nanoscale broadband viscoelasticity (NBVS) spectroscopy using the scanning probe microscope. Rapid NBVS mapping has applications to cellular biology, helping scientists gain a better understanding of such things as the cell healing process.

The College of Engineering is dedicated to meeting the critical challenges that will occur over the next four decades. By 2050, more than nine billion people will face the challenges of diminishing resources and rising environmental threats. The College of Engineering is taking the lead in Iowa and throughout the global community to help meet these challenges by performing cutting-edge research and educating tomorrow’s innovators and leaders.

For more information about the 2050 Challenge Fellowships, contact Nancy Knight, director, Graduate Enrollment Management, College of Engineering, 515 294-3421, nknightiastate.edu.