Congratulations to Adam Thornton, the recipient of the 2012-2013 Featured Engineering Student Award for Christian Brothers University. Adam was awarded at the Engineers Week Banquet on February 19, 2013.

Adam is a member of the 2012-13 SAE Mini-Baja Team, the ASME student chapter, and Tau Beta Pi, the engineering honor society. His academic achievements earned him a spot on the Dean’s List in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, and Fall 2012. He’s been a Calculus and Chemistry Tutor for the Living Learning Community since Fall 2011 and was on the CBU men’s soccer team from 2009-2012. Adam earned industry experience during his 3 month internship at the Entergy Nuclear Corporate Headquarters in Jackson, MS. Currently, he serves as a Resident Advisor in the Living Learning Community and interns at the new KROC Center across the street.

The School of Engineering at the University of Mississippi will host the MAESC 2013 Conference in Oxford, MS, on September 12 – 13, 2013.  Call for Papers can be found at http://www.maesc.org.  MAESC or Mid-South Annual Engineering and Sciences Conference was first hosted by CBU in 1999.  Since then, most conferences have been held on the CBU campus in May.  Proceedings of past conferences can be found at the conference website above.

Dr. Divya Choudhary (ECE, pictured right) received a grant from ExxonMobil and Society of Women Engineers to conduct three workshops for elementary, middle and high school girls. Twenty-two girls (grades 3-5)  from Memphis area schools participated in her workshop on January 31. They designed and built an environmentally-friendly can holder for six 11.5 fl. oz juice cans. They also learned about the 3 R’s (Reduce, Reuse ,Recycle) and about environmentally-friendly materials.

A piece of Healthcare Packaging Consortium’s research work entitled “Estimating Tote Drop Height & Impact Acceleration from a Transportation Recorder” has been recently published in the IoPP Journal of Packaging (January 2013), the official peer-reviewed online journal of the Institute of Packaging Professionals.  It is authored by Dr. Pong Malasri (Packaging), Wei Siow (Chemical Engineering & Packaging Minor), Mallory Harvey (Civil Engineering & Packaging Minor), Phyo Thoon Aung (Civil Engineering & Packaging Minor), Rhett Jordan (Chemical Engineering & Packaging Minor), Dr. Paul Shiue (Mechanical Engineering), and Dr. Ray Brown (Mechanical Engineering). The project was sponsored by Merck Consumer Care.  The work was also partially funded by a $1,000 faculty development grant provided by Mr. Richard T. Gadomski to the School of Engineering. For CBU community, a copy of the article can be downloaded at: http://facstaff.cbu.edu/~pong/Packaging/IoPPJP-Jan2013-EstimatingToteDropHeight.pdf

CBU’s TAPPI Student Chapter officers and faculty advisor, Dr. Pong Malasri, attended the TAPPI (Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry) Student Summit in Raleigh, NC on January 19-21. The meeting activities included a job fair, job interview, paper-related lectures, and a plant tour.  Pictured above (from left): Phyo Thoon Aung (Civil Engineering Major/Packaging Minor & Chapter Secretary), Alvin Siow (Chemical Engineering Major/Packaging Minor & Chapter President), Mallory Harvey (Civil Engineering Major/Packaging Minor & Chapter Vice President, and Rhett Jordan (Chemical Engineering Major/Packaging Minor & Chapter Treasurer). The trip was partially supported by a $500 travel grant from TAPPI (tappi.org).  More trip pictures can be found at this School of Engineering Facebook photo album. Also, news of the October 22 TAPPI-CBU Scholarship Fundraising Golf appears in the January-February 2013 issue of Paper 360 magazine, page 28.

A piece of the CBU Healthcare Packaging Consortium Pallet Study entitled “Effect of Water Content on Compressive Strength and Impact Properties of New Softwood Pallets” appears in Vol. 1, No. 1 of the International Journal of Advanced Packaging Technology, which is a new open-access peer-reviewed journal.  The article was authored by Dr. Pong Malasri (Packaging Department), Dr. James Aflaki (Mechanical Engineering Department), Dr. Ali Pourhashemi (Chemical/Biochemical Engineering), Bob Moats (SoE Lab Technician), Mallory Harvey (BSCE & Packaging Minor); Phyo Thoon Aung (BSCE & Packaging Minor), Katie Godwin (BSCE’12), Wei Siow (BSChE and Packaging Minor), Rhett Jordan (BSChE and Packaging Minor), James Laney (BSCE & Packaging Minor), Nathan Sampson (BSEM Packaging Concentration), Luis Garcia (BSEM Packaging Concentration), and Ryne Stevens (BSEM Packaging Concentration). The pallet study is sponsored by FedEx with specimens provided by The Pallet Factory, Inc. The article can be downloaded at the journal website at:  http://technical.cloud-journals.com/index.php/IJAPT/issue/view/9

Dr. L. Yu Lin (Civil & Environmental Engineering) provided a 1.5-Professional-Development-Hour (PDHs) seminar entitled “Stormwater Monitoring System Seminar” to City of Memphis engineers on January 11. At the seminar, Dr. Lin also reported on the results of the stormwater monitor system and stormwater quality on CBU’s soccer field in 2012, which is a part of grant that Dr. Lin received from the City of Memphis.

High school students are invited to attend any of the following seminars. There will be pizza, drinks, & door prizes!

• Packaging Printing & Labeling Seminar – Barbara Enright, WS Packaging,  Friday, February 15, 2013, 4:00 – 5:00 p.m., Room N241, Nolan Engineering Center, Christian Brothers University
• Corrugated Packaging Seminar – Kelly Doherty, International Paper, Friday, March 22, 2013, 4:00 – 5:00 p.m., Room N241, Nolan Engineering Center, Christian Brothers University
• Plastic Containers Seminar – Doug Dygert, Ring Container Technologies Friday, April 12, 2013, 4:00 – 5:00 p.m., Room N241, Nolan Engineering Center, Christian Brothers University

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
If you plan to attend, please email pong@cbu.edu or text (901) 652-0113 with your name, school, and grade level.

Jay Morgan, Vice President for R&D of Merck Consumer Care, will give a one-hour seminar entitled “Breakthrough Thinking & Innovation” on Monday, January 28, from 4:00 – 5:00 p.m. in N241, Nolan Engineering Center.  The seminar is hosted by the CBU unofficial R&D Forum. There will be pizza & drinks sponsored by the CBU Packaging Department.  CBU faculty/staff/students are invited to this free seminar.  RSVP on the forum website or email pong@cbu.edu.

Olympus Surgical Technologies America, a division of Olympus, has joined the CBU Healthcare Packaging Consortium. Olympus has four major divisions; Cameras & Audio, Medical & Surgical, Life Science Imaging Systems, and Industrial Solutions. Olympus Surgical Technologies America is a manufacturing arm of Olympus, with a facility on Appling Road in Bartlett. Its mission is to design, develop and manufacture world-class, innovative solutions to make surgery safer, easier and more efficient. This addition brings the Consortium membership to nine members: Evergreen Packaging, FedEx, Medtronic, Merck Consumer Care, Olympus Surgical Technologies, Plastic Ingenuity, Smith & Newphew, The Pallet Factory, and Wright Medical.