Fall 2011 - College of Engineering - The University of Tennessee ...

Nuclear Engineering
Faculty Member is
Chancellor’s Professor
Dr. Larry Townsend
In April 2011, Chancellor Jimmy Cheek
named Dr. Larry Townsend, Robert M.
Condra Professor in the Department of
Nuclear Engineering (NE), as one of the
five senior faculty members who make up
the new class of Chancellor’s Professors.
This is the university’s highest permanent
academic honor.
Townsend’s work in space radiation
protection and transport codes has been
used by NASA’s Cosmic Ray Telescope for
the Effects of Radiation (CRaTER) project
team, part of the Lunar Reconnaissance
Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft and by the
NASA Space Radiation Analysis Group,
which handles radiation exposure
monitoring for astronauts on manned space
missions. Townsend was a senior research
scientist and radiation expert at NASA
before coming to UT and recently has been
an expert source for the media on radiation
sickness symptoms in light of the nuclear
crisis in Japan.
The Chancellor’s Professors program began
in 2008 and provides honorees with a onetime
research stipend of $20,000. For more
information on the program, please visit
http://chancellor.utk.edu/professors/.
COE Faculty Members Receive NSF CAREER Awards
Dr. Christopher Cherry
Dr. Veerle Keppens
Dr. Wei He
Dr. Christopher Cherry, an assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental
Engineering (CEE), and Dr. Wei He, an assistant professor in both the Department of Materials
Science and Engineering (MSE) and the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Biomedical
Engineering (MABE), have received National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career
Development (CAREER) awards.
Cherry’s award, which he received for his project, “Sustainability Implications of Transportation
Choice in China,” is effective from April 1, 2011, until March 31, 2016.
He’s award, which she received for her project, “Immunologically Responsive Therapeutic Biomaterials
to Modulate Wound Healing in the Nervous Systems: An Integrated Research and Education Plan,” is
effective from Aug. 1, 2011, until July 31, 2016.
The CAREER award is one of the NSF’s most prestigious, supporting junior faculty who exemplify
the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of
education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations.
Dr. Veerle Keppens Elected ASA Fellow
Dr. Veerle Keppens, associate professor in
the Department of Materials Science and
Engineering (MSE), has been elected a Fellow
of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA)
“for the application of ultrasonics to condensed
matter physics.”
Keppens’ research focuses on using ultrasound
to understand fundamental properties of
materials. She has co-organized special sessions
at the ASA meetings and given lectures at the
Physical Acoustics Summer School (PASS) the
past few years.
Keppens will be featured in the Journal of the
Acoustical Society of America and honored at a
meeting in San Diego in November of this year.
The ASA is dedicated to increasing and
diffusing the knowledge of acoustics and its
practical applications.
Dr. Benjamin Blalock, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Dr. Benjamin Blalock, associate professor in
the Department of Electrical Engineering and
Computer Science (EECS) said it was the
“twinkle” in his father’s eye that contributed to his
passion for engineering.
Blalock’s father was a University of Tennessee
(UT) engineering professor, so he remembers the
stories his dad would share at the dinner table after
Blalock’s mother asked about his day at work.
“His enthusiasm was contagious,” Blalock said.
“His eyes would light up, and he would describe
his latest research progress or something significant
one of his students had recently achieved.”
His father’s excitement for engineering, coupled
with the enjoyment Blalock received as a teaching
assistant in the undergraduate electronics lab as
a senior electrical engineering student at UT,
opened his eyes to the possibility of becoming an
engineering professor.
“This made me realize that I would truly enjoy
teaching electronics and working with students,”
Blalock said. “Ultimately it confirmed my decision
to pursue a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and a
career in academia.”
Blalock received his B.S. degree in electrical
engineering from UT in 1991, and his M.S. and
Ph.D. degrees, also in electrical engineering, from
the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1993 and
1996, respectively. He then joined the faculty
at Mississippi State University as an assistant
professor in electrical engineering.
What attracted him to UT was its strong legacy in
analog electronics.
“Coming to UT represented a unique challenge
to perpetuate that legacy,” Blalock said. “I was
attracted to the strengths of the EECS department,
both in teaching and research. You always want
to surround yourself with strong individuals, as
they will challenge you to keep growing. And
admittedly, as a UT undergraduate alumnus, I have
a soft spot for UT. I have always appreciated the
foundation my teachers at UT provided.”
Blalock is the director for the Integrated Circuits
and Systems Laboratory (ICASL), where much of
his research takes place.
“My research focus is primarily analog/mixed-signal
integrated circuit design for extreme environments
(both wide temperature and radiation) on CMOS,
SOI CMOS and SiGe BiCMOS technology
platforms; high-temperature/high-voltage gate
drive circuits for power electronics; multi-channel
monolithic instrumentation systems; mixed-signal/
mixed-voltage circuit design for systems-on-a-chip;
and analog circuit techniques for sub 100-nm
CMOS,” Blalock said.
One of the ICASL’s recent accomplishments is
its quad op amp microchip for the NASA and
Dr. Ben Blalock (left) works with students Matt Laurence (center) and Austin Womac (right) in his ICASL laboratory.
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Mars Science
Laboratory (MSL) Rover. This analog chip has
been flight qualified by the JPL. More than 200
copies of the chip are used throughout the MSL
Rover.
“This long-range rover is due to be launched to
Mars in the near future,” Blalock said. “Developed
within the ICASL, the quad op amp microchip is
capable of enduring daily extreme temperatures
cycling from minus 140 degrees Celsius to 120
degrees Celsius for at least 500 days, which is the
MSL Rover’s mission life target.”
To meet this challenge, two of Blalock’s ICASL
research students, Stephen Terry and Robert
Greenwell, developed new analog design
techniques and strategies to ensure long-term
reliability within extreme environments.
In the classroom, Blalock says he hopes to instill
a strong understanding of fundamental concepts
and principles and sufficient self-confidence in
applying them toward problem solving.
“I hope my students will have the tools they need
to tackle new analytical challenges throughout
their careers,” Blalock said. “This is part of the
reason why my electronics colleagues and I believe
strongly in a project-oriented curriculum with
open labs for specification-driven hardware design,
development and testing, rather than curriculum
with cookbook recipe-style laboratory exercises.”
Blalock says working with students remains at the
top of his list when it comes to his job.
“I genuinely think it is fun to teach electronics
and enjoy an interactive classroom,” Blalock said.
“A colleague of mine once said, ‘I teach for free,
but they must pay me to grade.’ I wholeheartedly
agree with that statement.”
Blalock enjoys working with students through
research, too.
“For me, most of ‘academic freedom’ is the freedom
to pursue research you find exciting and/or
beneficial to the students on your research team,”
Blalock said. “I have been fortunate that most of
the research my team has conducted has provided
valuable experience for the students prior to
graduation. Research is an important aspect of the
educational process, both for students and faculty.”
The students and faculty will soon continue
that research in the new Min H. Kao Electrical
Engineering and Computer Science Building,
which is projected to be finished and turned
over to the university in September. The EECS
department is scheduled to migrate its offices and
labs into the building after the start of 2012.
“The new building will help us expand our
research efforts,” Blalock said. “And our teaching
efforts should benefit from the new classrooms.
The new building certainly represents an
unprecedented opportunity for our department and
college. My hope for the EECS department is that
we would fully capitalize on this new opportunity
toward providing a world-class program for our
students.”
Blalock has received many awards while at UT,
including his recent 2011 College of Engineering
Teaching Fellow Award. In 2009, he received
the Gonzales Family Award for Excellence in
Teaching, and in 2007, he received both the Moses
E. and Mayme Brooks Distinguished Professor
Award and the Chancellor’s Research and
Creative Achievement Award.
When he’s not in the lab or the classroom, Blalock
enjoys spending time with his wife and two sons.
As an assistant scoutmaster for Boy Scout Troop
179, he recently completed a 10-night, 68-mile
backpacking trek at Philmont Scout Ranch in
northeastern New Mexico.
4 THE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE KNOXVILLE, COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING • www.engr.utk.edu TENNESSEE engineer • Fall 2011 • www.engr.utk.edu
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