BME,graduate News

May 10, 2009

Duke graduates 523 engineers in May 2009

Duke University awarded degrees to 523 undergraduate and graduate engineering students on May 10 in ceremonies beginning with a university-wide commencement celebration in Wallace Wade Stadium and ending with a Pratt School of Engineering ceremony in Duke Chapel. Pratt Dean Tom Katsouleas Bachelor of Science in Engineering diplomas to 279 students, including 12 who completed their work in December and one last September, before a crowd of parents, relatives and friends in the Chapel. Pratt also awarded ...

April 22, 2009

BME Doctoral Student Talks About Bionic Arm on 60 Minutes

Jon Kuniholm lost part of his right arm as the result of a roadside bombing in Iraq in 2005. Since that time, the retired Marine Corps officer has been researching new designs for functional limb prostheses as a doctoral student in biomedical engineering at the Pratt School of Engineering. As a vet and as a researcher -- he’s also co-founder of a company working on arm prostheses -- he was interviewed recently by the CBS program ...

November 10, 2008

Duke Engineering Contest Connects U.S. Students with National Problems

DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering challenges college students in the U.S. to create a video and an essay in response to this question: Which of the 14 grand challenges identified by the National Academy of Engineering would you choose to address, and how would you do it? The National Academy of Engineering Grand Challenges (http://www.engineeringchallenges.org) has identified 14 critical barriers to a sustainable way of life. They represent problems that will require ...

May 19, 2008

Lee Pearson Commencement Speech 2008

Welcome mothers and happy Mother's Day, thank you for all that you do. Welcome fathers thanks for your part in making Mother's Day possible. Welcome Pratt Class of 2008. It has been a long road and we have reached the end of this journey in what seems like much less time than anticipated. Although our parents were certainly focused on getting to the destination on time and on budget, we were more focused on what interesting ...

May 8, 2008

Gift to Drive Better Understanding of Uncertainty Analysis

DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering has received a gift of $5 million from an anonymous donor to establish a new undergraduate curriculum that will encourage students to think critically about problems that lack obvious solutions, like those they will encounter after graduation, President Richard H. Brodhead announced Wednesday. The planned curriculum will be open to undergraduates from all majors. “Duke’s strategic plan, ‘Making a Difference,’ calls for investments in programs that help students ...

April 21, 2008

Clare Boothe Luce Fellows Two Years Later

Two years after receiving prestigious fellowships designed to support women scientists, three Pratt graduate students are well into their research with such diverse projects as brain-computer interfaces, nanoparticle exposures and a new method for breast cancer screening. In 2006, Katie Hedlund, Christine Robichaud and Christina Shafer were named Clare Boothe Luce Fellows. The fellowship program is the largest such private program for women studying science, mathematics or engineering. More than 1,500 women scientists have received support ...

April 2, 2008

Three Duke Students Awarded Goldwater Scholarships

DURHAM, N.C. -- Three Duke University students have been selected for Goldwater Scholarships in science, mathematics and engineering for the 2008-09 academic year.They were among 321 sophomores and juniors chosen on the basis of academic merit from a field of 1,035 mathematics, science and engineering students nationwide. Three of Duke’s four nominees were selected. The award provides up to $7,500 toward annual tuition and expenses. Duke’s Goldwater Scholars are Mark Hallen, Nicholas Patrick and engineering student Daniel ...

March 25, 2008

Living on $2 a Day

When the severe drought in North Carolina precluded his scheduled monsoon rainwater project, Bob Malkin was forced to devise an alternative experience for his Design for the Developing World course. In an attempt to simulate on the personal level the experience of poverty, he asked his students to live on $2 a day, just as billions of people around the world do. While the costs of lodging, heat and other utilities were not included in the ...

November 26, 2007

Tumor Assessment Device Wins Seed Funding from The Carolinas Photonics Consortium

The Carolinas Photonics Consortium (CPC) has selected biomedical engineering postdoctoral researcher Quincy Brown of Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering to receive $10,000 in seed funding for the development of a device aimed at dramatically decreasing the number of repeat surgeries for women with breast cancer. "In the U.S., more than 145,000 women with breast cancer have to undergo two or more invasive surgeries to completely remove their cancer," Brown said. "Those second surgeries impose a ...

November 5, 2007

Why Engineers Make Good Business People

Note: The following represents a speech presented by Sy Sternberg, chairman and CEO of New York Life Insurance Co., at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering on Saturday, Nov. 3, during Parents Weekend. Sternberg is an engineer by education, with bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering. Download his power point slides. It’s great to be here this week with so many other Duke parents. My son, Matthew, has just entered his senior year at ...

October 3, 2007

Why Women Succeed

Note: The following article, written by Sally Hicks, first appeared in the Fall '07 issue of Gist from the Mill, a publication of the Social Science Research Institute at Duke University. When Nan Jokerst studied engineering in the 1980s, being a woman meant being surrounded by men. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, says Jokerst, the J.A. Jones Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Duke. “I had more dates than anybody. If you want ...

May 1, 2007

CUREs Winner Tackles Cervical Cancer in Haiti and Around the World

The winning CUREs team with EWH founder Robert Malkin. The winning team of the second annual Duke-Engineering World Health CUREs non-profit business competition has developed a device to help catch cervical cancer early in women of developing countries. The low-cost device called a cerviScope might also hold promise for use in industrialized countries, including the U.S., according to Duke physicians familiar with the new cancer-screening instrument. "Our ambition is to save the lives of 19,000 women in ...

April 1, 2007

From Aquifers to Goo, Event Encourages Girls’ Interest in Science and Engineering

Students build a model aquifer in an activity led by Pratt Professor Helen Hsu-Kim and Nicholas Professor Heather Stapleton. At the end of February, 160 local fourth through sixth grade girls spent their Saturdays at Duke exploring science with a creative twist, including topics ranging from the pollution of groundwater in underground aquifers to the chemistry of goo. The event marked the second annual Females Excelling More in Math, Engineering and Science (FEMMES) organized by Duke junior ...

April 1, 2007

Duke's First Engineers Week Draws a Crowd

Duke's first campus-wide Engineers Week celebration, offering a week-long series of events for both Pratt and Trinity students, proved a big success. The week's grand finale, an E-social loaded with contests and competitions that pitted "Team Pratt" against "Team Trinity," drew more than 500 students to the engineering campus. Watch the video on YouTube. The festivities were kicked off with a week-long clothing drive competition between departments for the Durham Rescue Mission. Tuesday featured guest speaker ...

April 1, 2007

Pratt Dean: The U.S. Needs More Women and Minorities in Engineering

Dean Kristina M. Johnson of Duke's Pratt School of Engineering told an International Women’s Day audience March 8 that the nation needs more women and minorities in engineering so they will be able to help solve some of the increasingly complex challenges she said the world will face in years ahead. “Simply put, unless we bring more women and minorities into science and engineering fields, we will not have the intellectual capital to address the global ...

March 27, 2007

Off-Road Wheelchair Pioneer and Designer to Speak April 2

John Davis, off-road wheelchair racing champion and pioneer, and John Castelano, his wheelchair designer, will speak at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering on Monday, April 2. The talk begins at 4:00 p.m. in the Nello L. Teer Building, room 203, and is free and open to the public. Parking is available in the parking garage next to the Bryan Center. Davis is expected to discuss his experience as an outdoors enthusiast—an avid surfer and mountain biker—who ...

March 27, 2007

Off-Road Wheelchair Pioneer and Designer to Speak April 2

March 20, 2007

‘Graduate Student of the Year’ Audrey Ellerbee Leads by Example

Audrey Ellerbee, of Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering, has been selected by The National Society of Black Engineers as its “Graduate Student of the Year.” Ellerbee will receive her 2007 Golden Torch Award at the society’s 33rd national convention held in Columbus, Ohio, on Saturday, March 31. Ellerbee also will be discussing her path and future as a participant in the web-based Engineers Week Global Marathon on Thursday, March 22. The 24-hour Global Marathon, For, ...

March 1, 2007

Civic Engagement to Become Integral to a Duke Undergraduate Education

A destroyed house in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans remained virtually untouched months after Katrina's devastation. A DukeEngage pilot program will send 20 students to the New Orleans area this summer to help in the ongoing rebuilding effort (see sidebar). In one of the most ambitious efforts of its kind in U.S. higher education, Duke University will make civic engagement an integral part of its undergraduate experience beginning in 2008, university president Richard H. Brodhead ...

March 1, 2007

Taking Advice from Alumni

Natalie Wisniewski, a Pratt alumna and medical device consultant On Feb. 9, Pratt school alums offered advice to current students at two different forums. Natalie Wisniewski, a medical device consultant who obtained her doctorate in biomedical engineering in Professor Monte Reichert's lab, spoke at a Women in Science and Engineering (WiSE) event on enhancing personal innovation and problem solving. Later in the day, John Glushik, a venture capitalist who obtained his bachelor's in mechanical engineering from ...

March 1, 2007

How to Catch a Monsoon

Using a fire hose, BME seniors test devices they built to catch monsoon rain. Duke undergraduates in the biomedical engineering capstone course "Design for the Developing World" tested devices they designed and built to catch monsoon rainwater. The devices, each built with no more than $20 worth of parts from The Home Depot, were tested Feb. 15 with simulated monsoon rains delivered by fire hose on the Engineering Quadrangle. “In some parts of the world, if a ...

January 1, 2007

BME Students Built $40 Insulin Pump, Handsfree Computer Mouse

Kelly Fitzgerald and Patrick Parish with $40 insulin pump. Biomedical engineering students in BME 264, the biomedical instrumentation course taught by Associate Professor Patrick Wolf, capped off another semester with poster presentations of their inventions on Dec. 12. Kelly Fitzgerald and Patrick Parish presented a $40 insulin pump. By stripping the pump down to its bare essentials, such a device could offer those with diabetes who are unable to afford a $6,000 commercially available pump the advantage ...

December 1, 2006

Industry Internship Survey Results

More than 330 Duke engineering students took part in a survey on summer internships earlier this fall. According to the survey results, more than 61% of students who completed an internship reported their experience as 'excellent' or 'good' and 82% received compensation for their time. At right are charts that provide detailed information on student majors, gender and types of internships. Internships give students a chance to network with role models and potential employers and see ...

December 1, 2006

BME Undergrads Make Skating Wheelchair for Hockey Fan, Other Devices for Disabled

Kuppy Sampale, Eric Blatt and Keigo Kawaji demonstrate their ice skating wheelchair. A wheelchair on ice is just one of several novel prototypes that biomedical engineering undergraduates presented during a Nov. 2 demonstration of projects designed for the capstone course BME 260: Devices for People with Disabilities. “It really feels like you’re gliding or ice skating when you are using the chair,” said Kuppy Sampale, one of the wheelchair’s engineers. A three-member student team created the adapted wheelchair--complete ...

December 1, 2006

Upper-Class E-Team Members Advise Freshmen Engineers on Course Loads

First-year engineering students get advice about course registration from senior E-Teamer Toby Kraus. First-year engineering majors got some valuable advice on their spring semester course loads from upper-class members of the student mentoring group known as E-Team on Nov. 7. Freshmen gathered over slices of pizza to hash out their schedules with student representatives of each of the four engineering departments in the Fitzpatrick Center atrium. “Biomedical engineering is a difficult major,” said senior Toby Kraus, a ...

December 1, 2006

Reassurance, Advice and Laughs at 2006 Engineering Parents’ Weekend

Brook Byers Brook Byers, a venture capitalist and Pratt parent, kicked off the 2006 Parents' Weekend seminar and barbeque by soothing parents’ fears that their child wouldn't get a good job. He described five hot technology areas, and gave seniors advice on how to choose their first position. His presentation to the crowd of 600 parents and students Oct. 27 was followed by an interactive panel of four Duke engineering seniors who provided their own take on ...

November 1, 2006

Pratt In Focus - Recruitment Event

More than 185 prospective high school students and family members hailing from Durham to California gathered on Saturday, Oct. 21, at the first "Pratt in Focus" to meet engineering professors and undergraduates and learn more about engineering at Duke. More than 60 Pratt students volunteered their time at the day-long engineering recruiting event by leading tours, staffing tables at the student activities fair, explaining their Pratt Fellows research projects and talking one on one with prospective ...

November 1, 2006

The Home Depot Sponsors Duke Smart Home

Imagine a college dormitory that touts more audiovisual equipment than most theaters, runs on electricity generated by solar panels and is protected with biometric security. This unique living experience will become a reality for 10 students of Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering. The university and The Home Depot are partnering to create “The Home Depot smarthome,” a residential laboratory where students will research and develop innovative solutions for the home in areas such as security and ...

January 18, 2006

Finan Wins $10,000 and a Car in Motorola Essay Competition

John Finan, a graduate student at Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering, has won a $10,000 scholarship and new car from Motorola Inc. for an essay proposing a “Mood Phone” that may be able to interpret the mood of the people speaking by analyzing variations in tone and speech patterns. Finan was the grand prize winner Jan. 17 of Motorola's first “MOTOFWRD” competition. He was chosen from a pool of entries representing more than 500 students ...

January 1, 2006

Mood Phone Concept Wins Motorola Competition

John Finan, creator of the winning mood phone concept “John Finan, a graduate student at Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering, has won a $10,000 scholarship and new car from Motorola Inc. for an essay proposing a “Mood Phone” that may be able to interpret the mood of the people speaking by analyzing variations in tone and speech patterns. Finan was the grand prize winner Jan. 17 of Motorola's first “MOTOFWRD” competition. He was chosen from a ...

January 1, 2005

Research Suggests 'Bladder Pacemaker' for Spinal Cord Injury

Biomedical engineers at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering have demonstrated for the first time that stimulating a specific nerve in the pelvis triggers the process that causes urine to begin flowing out from the bladder, refuting conventional thinking that "bladder emptying" requires signals from the brain. Their research, carried out with animals, could lead to a "bladder pacemaker" to restore bladder control for the more than 200,000 Americans living with spinal cord injury (SCI) or disease-related ...

November 1, 2003

New Training Grant Combines Engineering and Life Sciences

Engineers and life scientists at Duke University believe that by combining the strengths and insights of their specialties, they can train researchers uniquely qualified to manipulate molecules, cells and tissues to treat human diseases and disorders. "In recent years, there has been a surge in the application of biotechnology to clinical medicine through such fields as tissue engineering, drug delivery, biomaterials, biosenors, genomics and proteomics," said Duke's Farshid Guilak, Ph.D. "At Duke, we have created a ...