cuaengineer - the School of Engineering - The Catholic University of ...

Table of Contents
New Faculty and Staff.............................inside front cover
Dean’s Message ...............................................................1
Original “Wireless” Communicators
Key Kilic Research .......................................................2
Inspired by the Past
Professor Aims for the Future .....................................3
CUA Engineers Use Robotic Technology
to Help Stroke Patients ................................................4
Research Provides Basis for
More Efficient Rehabilitation.......................................5
Sloan Scholar Faculty Mentors Connect in Tampa.........6
Showing How It’s Done....................................................6
Diet Coke and Mentos Takes Off as Yearly Event ...........7
Celebrating Engineering CUA Style .................................7
Steel Bridge Competition Tests Students’ Mettle ...........8
Wall of Fame Unveiled......................................................9
Reinstituting NSBE at CUA...............................................9
International Programs Going Strong ...........................10
First Graduate Students from Vietnam Join CUA..........11
Engineers Without Borders Returns to El Salvador ......12
Biomedical Engineering Spearheads
New Collaborations with FDA....................................14
Electrical Engineering to Offer New Concentration
on Alternative and Renewable Energy......................14
School of Engineering Hosts
Metropolitan Biophotonics Seminar ........................15
Engineering Establishes Collaborative Agreements
with Local Community Colleges................................15
Alumna Works on Earth so
Others Can Work in the Heavens...............................16
CUA Engineering Dean Recognized for
Achievements in Robotics .........................................16
2009–2010 Nagel Scholars:
A List of Who’s Who in CUA Engineering ..................17
CUA Biomedical Engineering Major Awarded
Prestigious Goldwater Scholarship...........................17
Sixteen Hennessy
Distinguished Scholars Named .................................17
Faculty Awardees Honored at
School’s Year-End Luncheon .....................................18
Alumni Career Updates ..................................................18
Faculty Scholarly Activity ..............................................20
Student Awards..............................................................27
Pao Retires After 45 Years of
Service at CUA.....................................inside back cover
Strategic Plan 2012:
Engineering Exceeding Targets..........inside back cover
Congratulations to the
Class of 2009.................................................back cover
Ph.D. Dissertations and Advisers .....................back cover
School of Engineering
Administration...............................................back cover
New Faculty and Staff
Rene D. Gabbai, Ph.D.
Rene D. Gabbai, Ph.D., comes to CUA as an assistant professor of
mechanical engineering from a position as an engineer with 2H
Offshore, Inc. of Houston, Texas. Gabbai earned his doctoral degree in
2005 in mechanical and aerospace engineering at Rutgers, The State
University of New Jersey, Piscataway. He received his B.S. and M.S.
degrees in biomedical engineering from the University of Miami.
Before joining 2H Offshore in 2007, Gabbai was a National Research Council postdoctoral
research associate in Wind Engineering at the Building and Fire Research Laboratory of
the National Institute of Standards and Technology. His research interests include reducedorder
models that capture structural response to vortex shedding, structural response to
extreme environmental events and wind energy.
Tobias Nef, Ph.D.
Tobias Nef, Ph.D., joined the Department of Biomedical Engineering
as an assistant professor in January 2009. He is also currently a
senior research scientist at the National Rehabilitation Hospital. Nef
received his Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the Swiss Federal
Institute of Technology Zurich and University of Zurich, Switzerland,
in 2007, and M.S. in electrical engineering, from the Swiss Federal
Institute of Technology Lausanne, Switzerland, in 2002. His research interests are robotaided
neurorehabilitation of the upper and lower extremities, and robot-supported training
of activities of daily living and patient-cooperative control strategies. He is internationally
well-known for the development of the arm therapy robot ARMin.
Class of 2009 at E-Week Engineering Ball.