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Faculty Notes For the second year, Professor Arvind Atreya will be the 1998-99 U-M representative for the Illinois Institute of Technology American Power Conference. Assistant Research Scientist Dariusz Ceglarek (PhD '94) presented "Sensor Placement Optimization for In-Process Quality Improvement in Multi-Fixture Assembly Systems" at the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) Spring 1998 Conference in Montreal. He also spoke on different research aspects of dimensional problems during assembly of compliant parts at an Assembly, Joining, and Material Handling Workshop sponsored by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, MD in June, and was invited to attend a NSF-sponsored Axiomatic Design Workshop at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, MA, in June. Professor Emeritus Walter R. Debler (BSE ME '50, PhD '59) informs us that he is "retired but not yet asleep! Since hanging up my spikes three years ago, wanderlust seems to have enveloped me. This has led to eating sauerkraut in Berlin and Dresden for nine months, chasing kangaroos in Oz for five months, and being chased by lionesses while teaching in South Africa." While in Durban, he served as a visiting lecturer, teaching a course in heat and mass transfer and developing a non-technical but engineering-related elective course, "The Power of a Machine--the Influence on History and Society of Post-Eighteenth Century Inventions." Assistant Professor Karl Grosh received a grant from the U-M Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (CRLT) to develop laboratory experiments in his undergraduate acoustics class. Associate Professor Gregory M. Hulbert was named a new member of the CoE Curriculum Committee. He spent the W98 semester on sabbatical at the Instituto Superior Tecnico in Lisbon, Portugal where he collaborated with Professors Jorge A.C. Ambrosio and Manuel S. Pereira on flexible multibody dynamics research. Professor Noboru Kikuchi was featured in the Spring/ Summer 1998 issue of the Michigan Engineer for his work on image-based computer-aided engineering (CAE)--the first to employ image-processing technology rather than geometric representations. This facility will enable researchers to analyze designs and optimize their structural configuration without any modeling difficulty. U-M MEAM CPO / Rodney Hill A panel of experts discussed "Critical Technologies for Modeling and Simulation of Ground Vehicles" at the annual Automotive Research Center (ARC) conference in May. l.-r.: Roger McCarthy, CEO, Failure Analysis Associates; Kenneth Baker, Vice President, Global R&D Operations, General Motors Corp.; and J.C. Williams, Vice President, TASC, Inc. Dwight Cendrowski U.S. Senator Spencer Abraham was a featured speaker at the dedication of MEAM's Integrated Manufacturing Systems Laboratory (IMSL) in H.H.Dow in May. U-M MEAM CPO / Shekinah Errington Associate Research Scientist Johann Borenstein's AGV robot took center stage, cutting the ribbon for the new facility. MEAM Mobile Robotics Associate Research Scientist Johann Borenstein and his award-winning GuideCane--read more about it in the "Faculty Notes" section. Associate Professor Sridhar Kota presented "Complaint Mechanism Applications to Smart Structures" at the University of Maryland Department of Aerospace Engineering and "Design of Compliant MEMS" at the Sandia National Labs in Albuquerque, NM, both in June. Robert H. Lurie Professor of Engineering Jyotirmoy Mazumder reports that MEAM's Center for Laser Aided Intelligent Manufacturing (CLAIM) is in the process of installing a "Diode Pumped YAG" laser as a part of its Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) technology reinvestment program on Precision Laser Machining. CLAIM is a national beta site for the program, which includes 16 major U.S. industries. CLAIM's charter is to understand the interaction physics and develop fundamental understanding and new processes using this laser in cooperation with industrial partners. Associate Professor and Undergraduate Program Chair Michael Thouless was invited to give a lecture at the inaugural Gordon Conference on "Thin Film Mechanical Properties" in Plymouth, NH, in July. Professor Gretar Tryggvason presented a series of three invited lectures at the von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics in Belgium in February as part of the 29th Computational Fluid Dynamics Lecture Series. William Clay Ford Professor of Engineering A. Galip Ulsoy was appointed to a five-year term as technical editor of the American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME) Journal of Dynamic Systems Measurement and Control, beginning January 1999. This marks the first time in recent years that a MEAM faculty member has served as a technical editor of an ASME transactions journal. Ulsoy also serves on several editorial boards, and as a technical editor of the IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics. Ulsoy also gave invited seminars at the University of Connecticut in March and Georgia Technology Institute in April. He presented a paper co-authored with Dr.Tom Pilutti (MSE '89, PhD '97), a researcher at the Ford Scientific Research Labs in Dearborn, MI, at the American Control Conference in Philadelphia in June. Congratulations to: Associate Research Scientist Johann Borenstein, who won the 1998 Discover Magazine Award for Technological Innovation in the robotics category for his GuideCane at the award ceremony was in June at the Epcot Center in Disney World, Orlando, FL. Information about the awards, winners, and finalists were featured in the July issue of Discover Magazine. See photo, page four. Associate Professor Claus Borgnakke, who was named the first Tau Beta Pi Professor of the Year by the Michigan Gamma Chapter of Tau Beta Pi. Associate Professor David E. Cole (BSE IM, BSE ME '60, MSE '61, PhD '66) received the 1998 Rene Dubos Environmental Award. Assistant Professor William J. Endres, who was recognized as an "Outstanding Reviewer of the Year" by the ASME Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering. Professor Rida Farouki, who was named Professor of the Term at Pi Tau Sigma's (PTS) Winter Term Banquet. S. Jack Hu (MSE '86, PhD '90) and Michael Thouless, who recently received promotions to the rank of associate professor with tenure. Scott J. Hollister, joint appointment with Orthopaedic Surgery in the U-M Medical School, was promoted to associate professor of surgery with tenure in the Department of Surgery, associate professor of mechanical engineering and applied mechanics without tenure in MEAM, and associate professor of biomedical engineering without tenure in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. Dr. Frank Kuepper, MEAM adjunct assistant research scientist, who recently became president of Stiefelmayer Limited Partnership in Ypsilanti, MI. Assistant Professor Ann Marie Sastry, her husband, Christian Lastoskie, an assistant professor of chemical engineering at Michigan State University, and daughter Katie, were recently featured in a full-page story in Techne, the publication of their alma mater, the University of Delaware's College of Engineering.