Friday 29 May 2020

Constructing the future for engineering – finding the right model where one size does not fit all

As Britain approached the end of its second month of how much do computer scientists make and social distancing, prime minister Boris Johnson pinpointed manufacturing and construction as the particular industries that he felt could support a safe return to work for employees. The rest of the country, he said, should continue, if they could, to work from home, making use of the many collaboration and networking tools that have made teleworking an essential reality for millions.

The irony to all this is that collaboration and networking have been utterly intrinsic to manufacturing for over two decades now. The extended engineering teams of the 1990s, who would crowd around whiteboards or use, if they were lucky, 3D collaboration software on desktop PCs to mark up annotations on CAD/CAM engineering models generated on workstations and even mini-computers, are now fully fledged engineering enterprises with virtually every networked desktop and handheld device available.

Thursday 28 May 2020

Paul Ronney to Chair the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering

Paul Ronney has been appointed Chair of the USC Viterbi Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering (AME). His three-year term will begin on July 1, 2020.

Currently a professor in the AME department, computer engineer salary after a position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University. He was also a Payload Specialist Astronaut (Alternate) for Space Shuttle Missions STS-83 and STS-94 in 1997.

Ronney received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley, an M.S. in Aeronautics from Caltech and a Sc.D. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT. He held postdoctoral appointments at the NASA Lewis Research Center and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. He was an Assistant Professor at Princeton University before joining USC.

Professor Ronney’s research focuses on topics including micro-scale combustion, turbulent combustion, internal combustion engines, microgravity combustion, and fire spread. He has had experiments flown on three Space Shuttle missions. Ronney has published over 80 technical papers in peer-reviewed journals, made over 250 technical presentations, and holds seven U.S. patents.

Wednesday 27 May 2020

Missouri S&T alumnus named chair of mechanical and aerospace engineering

Dr. David Bayless returns to Missouri S&T on Jan. 1, 2021, as the new chair of mechanical and aerospace engineering. A 1987 Missouri S&T mechanical engineering graduate, Bayless is the graduate chair of mechanical engineering and Gerald Loehr Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.

“Dr. Bayless is a dynamic leader with strong ties to Rolla,” says Dr. Richard Wlezien, vice provost and dean of Missouri S&T’s College of Engineering and Computing. “His research in energy and waste management will benefit not only S&T, but also our world. We are excited to welcome him back to Rolla.”

An expert in the connections among energy, water and waste, Bayless’ research focuses on carbon recycling and wastewater remediation, enhancing hydrocarbon recovery from hydraulically fractured (fracked) shale formations, and developing photobioreactors to grow algae for commercial use. He has been principal investigator in more than $17 million in externally funded research. Bayless holds 13 patents.

In addition, Bayless is director of the Ohio Coal Research Center and the Robe Leadership Institute. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. The Ohio Society of Professional Engineers named him Outstanding Engineering Educator in 2016, and he is a five-time Ohio University Top Faculty computer science vs computer engineering salary. Bayless is a registered professional engineer in both Missouri and Ohio and is a U.S. Navy veteran.

Bayless comes by his engineering and leadership capabilities naturally. His father, the late Jerry Bayless, was an associate professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering and an influential part of Missouri S&T for more than 60 years, from 1955 when he enrolled as a student at what was then Missouri School of Mines until his retirement in 2017. Jerry Bayless, known as “Mr. Miner,” died in 2019.


Tuesday 26 May 2020

Payment Modernization - an Engineering hurdle to overcome

Payment is no longer a protected territory of few large financial institutions (FI) and intermediaries. An evolving eco-system with technology players in the mix, and their rapid innovation, are continuously disrupting ways of making payments, ease of accepting cashless payments and the experience around it.

Regulatory moves from financial bodies are increasingly lowering entry barriers for Fintechs – be it democratization of customer data thru PSD2 directive in the UK or UPI (Unified Payment interface) based Payments in India. A regulation in the like of PSD2 shifts the control of customer data from FI to customer herself, and, necessitates building a new market place of API based Open Banking system; legacy players are not left with choices but to be part of the eco-system to stay relevant.

UPI platform by NPCI (National Payments corporation of India) is enabling road-side tea-sellers or small vegetable vendors to accept computer science and engineering payments and bringing banking service, like money transfer, to a wider audience. A low-cost UPI based payment with no MDR (merchant discount rate) imposed, that saw a hopping growth rate of 55% last year, questions existence of the costly 4-party payment system and challenges the legacy payment industry to revisit its revenue model.

Friday 22 May 2020

Navigating Contemporary Woman-In-Engineering-Hood

It’s hard — and maybe impossible — to define what it means to be a woman. As an engineer, I have understood womanhood in terms of what has been reflected back to me by the men who surround me. I don’t just let who I am flow freely. I act always in response to how I believe I will be perceived. I am playing a game where I put myself in the mind of a sexist and then try to tailor my behavior to rebuke whatever could be expected of me.

I’ve been sexually harassed (computer engineering definition) in professional settings by men who were my colleagues and superiors, but those harrowing moments actually did not play a role in defining my identity. They were awful and traumatic, but I would argue that the more impactful sexism within engineering, the kind that has eaten away at me for years and molded me, is more difficult to identify and eliminate. My entire understanding of womanhood has been shaped by a more insidious type of sexism that would go unnoticed by anyone who doesn’t see their own gender.

My earliest memory that I can recall where I experienced the toxicity of a male-dominated environment was my physics class in high school. I was the only girl in a room of twenty students. We had a class clown who would say vulgar things every day, and one day he shouted, “Want to hear a joke? Women’s rights!” The class burst into laughter. The teacher (a man) did not correct him.

Thursday 21 May 2020

On Engineering in Crisis from India: Breaking It Down

I was supposed to be graduating in a month from now and traveling across the globe for the amazing fellowships that I was selected for. So stress levels right now could not get any higher! However, self-preservation is the key right now. Every day I tell myself to be grateful for my family, the resources I have access to and ensure that I pray as much as possible. Oh yes, social media is a wonderful tool. May it be watching a show on Netflix, doing pointless Instagram challenges, or reconnecting with old friends via Facebook. Most importantly, spending time with those around and constantly encouraging and motivating my dear ones on the computer science degree jobs of this crisis.

 Compartmentalize and aim only for what is reasonable. Although one may have all kinds of resources available, if your productivity is not 200%, don’t beat yourself up about it. I prefer making a checklist every day before I begin and only do what I can, with my best efforts. Breaking down any given task into small fractions and target only what is possible. Try to have an organized approach, remember to seek help and give yourself a big pat on the back when you achieve something!

Mails and WhatsApp, mainly. I am so grateful to have built a network of some lovely women across the continents through SWE. Chiming in with Hello’s, Howdy’s and some memes as well. 

Wednesday 20 May 2020

Civil Engineering Department Honors Grads with Virtual Commencement

There was a processional, complete with "Pomp and Circumstance." There was a keynote speaker. And, there were cheers from family members as graduates' names were called.

The only thing different about the 2020 commencement in the Department of Civil Engineering was that, for the first time in history, it was hosted totally virtually to keep participants safe in the era of COVID-19.

Rod Williams, clinical assistant professor of civil engineering, stood in for the ceremony's normal national anthem performer.

More than 120 participants took part in the virtual ceremony, during which graduates heard from Engineering Dean John English and departmental faculty members, as well as a keynote address from 1989 civil engineering alumnus Brock Hoskins, who is now the President and how to become a computer engineer.

Hoskins shared his personal journey through a civil engineering career with graduates, as well as encouraging them to look for the opportunities in the midst of the pandemic.

"For the first time in 100 years, you are the people completing a college journey in the midst of a global pandemic," said Hoskins. "So, use that to your advantage in whatever lies ahead. Your resiliency will help define you as a person … and in your professional careers."

Tuesday 19 May 2020

Physical inspection of engineering colleges, B-schools stopped

The technical education regulator says some 10,500 institutions, including business schools and engineering colleges, won’t be physically inspected for any approval, whether academic, infrastructure, or in allied areas, from this year onward.

The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has told institutions to opt for self-disclosure instead of depending on education invigilators. The move, authorities and institutions believe, will improve mutual trust and make education regulation ‘light but tight’. It is also likely to improve accountability at the institutional level and help education players enjoy more freedom.

“Like the labour reforms that ended inspector computer engineering jobs, this reform will end red-tape in the professional education regulation space. There will be virtual scrutiny instead and it will end harassment and build trust," said an official familiar with the development requesting anonymity.

Monday 18 May 2020

What is Chaos Monkey? Chaos engineering explained

Pioneered out of the halls of Netflix during its shift from distributing DVDs to building distributed cloud systems for streaming video, Chaos Monkey introduced an engineering principle that has been embraced by software development organisations of all shapes and sizes: namely, that by intentionally breaking systems you can learn to make them more resilient.

According to the original Netflix blog post on the topic, published in July 2011 by Yury Izrailevsky, then director of cloud and systems infrastructure, and Ariel Tseitlin, director of cloud solutions at the streaming company, Chaos Monkey was designed to randomly disable production instances on its Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure, thus exposing weaknesses that Netflix engineers could eliminate by building better automatic recovery mechanisms.

The catchy name came from “the idea of unleashing a wild monkey with a weapon in your data center (what jobs can you get with a computer science degree) to randomly shoot down instances and chew through cables — all the while we continue serving our customers without interruption,” the blog post states.

Friday 15 May 2020

First-generation student and dad of three earns computer science degree, credits family with helping him succeed

There may be no walk across the stage on May 15, 2020, but Alexander Reyes’ wife and three children will be by his side, as always, when USC holds its online graduation ceremony on Friday.

On that day, Reyes, who is originally from Bogota in Colombia, will become the first person in his family to graduate from college. But he likely won’t be the last. His three kids, aged 3, 7, and 9, are already excited about the gadgets he builds for them at home.

“It’s beautiful—I’ve realized, without knowing it, you can inspire other people through your actions and determination,” how much do computer engineers make.

“My kids see the effort I’m putting in, they see the kinds of things I’m able to build using my skills, and that pushes them in the right direction.”

Alexander Reyes transferred to USC after earning an associate degree from community college and several years working in the IT field. He wanted to “push his brain to a new level,” he said, and fulfill his dream of earning his bachelor’s degree in computer science.

Thursday 14 May 2020

Goddard adds electrical engineering capabilities to its team with critical hire

Goddard Inc., a leading provider of product development services, has hired John-Paul Perron as Principal Electrical Engineer. He will lead the company’s new electrical engineering division, broadening Goddard’s capabilities and enabling the company to more effectively meet the needs of its clients.

For the past twenty-three years, Goddard has provided expertise to help its clients address an array of mechanical engineering challenges. With John-Paul leading Goddard’s new electrical engineering division, the company’s core competencies have evolved to include crucial skills such as computer science vs computer engineering systems development and sensor integration.

John-Paul joins Goddard with a decade of experience in electrical engineering, having worked for Stanley Black & Decker, Amazon, IBM and other leading companies.

“We are so excited to welcome John-Paul to the team. His experience and skill-set enable us to expand our offerings and work on an even wider range of product development challenges,” said founder & CEO Andrew Goddard.


About Goddard: Goddard Inc. is a full-service engineering and industrial design firm specializing in the development of medical technology, life science and industrial products. Drawing from the collective expertise of its experienced designers and engineers, Goddard’s mission is to deliver outstanding solutions that positively impact lives.

Wednesday 13 May 2020

AICTE directs private engineering colleges, tech institutes to pay salaries to faculty on time

The All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) has directed private engineering colleges and other technical institutions to pay salaries to their faculty and staff on time during the entry level computer science jobsThe directive by the technical education regulator comes after it received complaints about certain institutions not paying salaries for even the months of February and March.

“We have been receiving complaints that some of the institutions have not paid the salary to teaching and non-teaching staff for the month of March and in some cases even February. Kindly note that this is a national emergency as whole country is under lockdown due to COVID-19 and non-payment of salaries to staff will lead to great stress and even starvation of families,” AICTE Chairman Anil Sahasrabudhe said in a letter to all approved colleges.

Universities and schools across the country have been closed since March 16 when the central government announced a countrywide classroom shutdown as one of the measures to contain the COVID-19 outbreak. Later, a nationwide lockdown was announced on March 24, which was extended till May 17.

The AICTE had last month warned engineering colleges and other technical institutions against forcing students to pay fees and non payment of salaries to staff during the lockdown and directed withdrawal of any terminations made during the period.

Tuesday 12 May 2020

The Engineers Taking on the Ventilator Shortage

research engineer and machinist who builds scientific equipment for the University of Vermont, in Burlington, came into work fired up. Approaching another engineer, Carl Silver, he said, “We gotta build a ventilator.”

“That sounds great,” Silver replied. “What do we know about ventilators?”

Neither had ever seen one. But the computer science vs engineering, once an abstraction, had recently made itself felt in Seattle, New York, and other American cities, and doctors had warned that a shortage of ventilators could hasten the deaths of thousands. “You feel like you want to do something,” Silver recalled. The next week, Kittell e-mailed another professor at the university, Jason Bates, with whom they had worked in the past, and whom they knew to be a lung expert. We have a shop, he wrote. Can we build a ventilator?

Well, sure, Bates thought. He’d been working on the same problem for the previous four days.

Bates has wispy white hair and speaks with lucid, cheery confidence. Originally from England, he is a professor of medicine and of biomedical engineering, and teaches in both the university’s engineering department and its medical school. The author of “Lung Mechanics: An Inverse Modeling Approach,” he is one of the world’s foremost experts on ventilator-induced lung injury, or vili. Earlier in his career, at McGill University, in Montreal, Bates and his team invented a computer-controlled ventilator for mice that is still used by researchers. By tuning the machine’s settings and seeing how a mouse’s lungs react under pressure, scientists can study the physiology of lung disease. They can also explore how different styles of ventilation—in which air is moved into and out of the lungs at various volumes, pressures, and rhythms—can help or hurt a damaged lung.

Monday 11 May 2020

Connecting engineering and geo-science for a geothermal heating future at RUB

With the loss of coal and natural gas combustion, district heating needs a new energy source [in Germany and beyond]. Herefore geothermal energy is a suitable replacement, in former mining regions even with the heat of mine water as a suitable option.

How to optimally utilise the potential s the focus of the work of Prof. Dr. Rolf Bracke. On May 1, 2020, he was appointed to the new chair for geothermal energy systems at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the Ruhr University Bochum (RUB). He is also head of the new Fraunhofer Institute for Energy Infrastructures and Geothermal Energy, IEG for short, which started work in early 2020 and into which the Bochum International Geothermal Center was integrated.

“With the joint appointment of jobs with computer science degree, the RUB not only consolidates the association with non-university partners,” said Prof. Dr. Andreas Ostendorf, Vice-Rector for Research, Transfer and Young Researchers at RUB. But “we are also increasing the visibility and attractiveness of Bochum as a research location.”

Friday 8 May 2020

4 Inspiring Engineering Projects During the COVID-19 Lockdown

We all know that it is impossible to open a news application or email these days without hearing about COVID-19. Unfortunately, the news is a constant stream of grim, depressing and often conflicting facts that can easily take the wind out of any readers sails if they aren’t careful. I think engineers in particular struggle because our brains want to solve problems and many of us reading this are software or hardware engineers which makes biological problem solving outside our area of expertise. This doesn’t mean that our computer engineering vs computer science can’t be applied to this crisis. In fact, as I’ve been browsing the web looking for uplifting and inspiring engineering stories, I’ve found five interesting projects that show just how creative engineers can be at solving the various challenges that we now face.

As we all know by now, ventilators are an important tool to help patients who are struggling to breath on their own. Modern ventilators are fairly sophisticated devices especially from a software standpoint, but at their heart, they are relatively simple mechanical devices. While there are several modes these devices can operate in, their end goal is to deliver a given amount of air to the patient and attempt to generate an ideal pressure and airflow curve. For a pandemic ventilator, the software required to generate these curves, measure airflow and oxygen can be done in less than 5,000 lines of code.

Wednesday 6 May 2020

How can we get more younger people into engineering?

In today’s rapidly changing world, engineers play an essential role in creating the solutions to key social, environmental and economic challenges. This has become especially apparent amidst the current coronavirus pandemic, which has seen some of the leading engineering companies come together to utilise their expertise to create more respirators, build new hospitals and produce more hand sanitisers as part of the national effort.

It is clear that we need good-quality engineers more than ever before, however they are in short supply. A recent report from EngineeringUK predicted an annual shortfall of up to 59,000 engineering graduates and technicians in Britain who are needed to fill core engineering roles. Diversity is another issue for the sector. The same report found that just eight per cent of the engineering workforce come from black and minority ethnic (BME) backgrounds, and only 12 per cent are women. We need to do more to encourage these people to take an interest in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).

What are the obstacles to engagement?

This is not to say that young people are not interested in building aircrafts, inventing new medicines or engineering skyscrapers. In fact, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (iMechE) found that 42 per cent of people aged 11-19 felt that making a difference and having a positive impact on the world is important when choosing a career.

So, what is missing? Part of the issue is a lack of understanding about what engineers do; something which is compounded by negative stereotypes and misconceptions of engineering as ‘too academic’, ‘dirty’ or a ‘what jobs can you get with a computer science degree’. As a result of this, engineering is perceived by certain groups as inaccessible. For young girls and those from BME or disadvantaged backgrounds, a lack of relatab

Tuesday 5 May 2020

Nikita Kozak named spring 2020 College of Engineering student marshal

 Iowa State Division 1 hockey goaltender, Computational fluid-structure interaction laboratory working, multidisciplinary research with Ivy College of Business, University Research Ambassador, Iowa’s Rising Scholar Research Outreach Program founder and president

Awards and honors: Barry E. Goldwater Scholar, Stanford Knight-Hennessy Fellowship finalist, ISU Rhodes Scholar nominee, ISUAA Wallace E. Barron All-University Senior Award, ISU Cardinal Leadership Scholar, ISU Academic Recognition Scholar, ISU James Krist Volunteer Scholar and Jim Blackburn Commit to Excellence Award.

First place in several highly competitive research events: 2019 Army Research Laboratory Symposium, 2019 Army Computational and Information Science Research Symposium, how much do computer engineers make Research Conference, 2018 Army Research Laboratory Symposium, 2018 U.S. Army Vehicle Technology Research Symposium.

Published first author on Journal of Mechanics and AIAA Energy and Propulsion publications. Invited presenter to the 2020 National Collegiate Research Conference at Harvard University, 2019 AIAA Energy and Propulsion Forum, 2018 Research in the Capitol and 2019 Posters on the Hill, where he received an honorable mention award.

Monday 4 May 2020

This week's top picks for digital academic resources

With students out of school for the next several months, LPB and the Department of Education have developed dozens of academic resources for kids of all ages. These tools are designed to help students and parents navigate the new learning landscape and ensure that students return to school ready to go next fall.

The Advocate, The Times-Picayune | New Orleans Advocate and The Acadiana Advocate are pleased to partner with LPB to help reach Louisiana parents with the amazing resources available to learn from home during the computer science vs computer engineering.

Each week, our websites and social media channels will feature a top five list of resources for students in all grade levels, plus tips for parents and educators. Just click on the grade level and program name to go directly to that resource.

Why it's the ideal opportunity for telecoms to zero in on clients

 Brought together computerized stages can help telecoms players incorporate siloed frameworks, robotize basic administrations and improve cl...