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College of Engineering Awards and Recognition 2020

On Thursday, May 14, 2020, the college recognized students, staff and faculty for their scholarships, being presidents of student organizations, on winning prizes for senior design competitions, teaching, scholarship and service. Congratulations to all the winners!!. Please click on the following links for details.

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FRANK H. DOTTERWEICH COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

SENIOR DESIGN CONFERENCE

UPDATE: The presentations by eleven of the seventeen teams of students from Civil Engineering department for senior design conference have been advanced to Friday, April 24, 2020. Presentations will be made in two sessions; first from 9:00 AM to noon, and the second from 1:00 PM to 3:30 PM. The teams that will make presentation on April 20, 2020 will be:

CE1, CE2, CE3, CE7, CE8, CE9, CE11, CE13, CE14 and CE17.

For the remaining six civil engineering teams (CE4, CE5, CE10. CE11. CE15 and CE16) and rest of the teams from College of Engineering, the earlier schedule as outlined below will follow.

Friday May 1, 2020

10:00 am - 3:00 pm

The 2020 Senior Design Conference will be held on Friday, May 1, 2020 from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm in the Engineering Complex, and McNeil building. The Senior Design Conference showcases student capstone projects in Architectural, Chemical, Civil, Environmental, Electrical, Mechanical, and Natural Gas Engineering. It also includes projects in Computer Science as well.

There will be 9 parallel sessions. Each session will have a moderator and staff or PhD student to ensure that the presentations are on schedule. There will be several judges to evaluate the oral presentation and the technical merits of the senior design project using a standard rubric. The scores assigned by judges will be used to select the best projects for cash awards.

Conference registration, the schedule, and other helpful information can be found at the link below.

2020 College of Engineering Design Conference

College of Engineering celebrates E-Week (February 17-21, 2020)!

On February 21, 2020, the College of Engineering hosted the annual Engineers Week (E-Week) competition at the Student Recreation Center located on the Texas A&M University-Kingsville Campus. We had 17 schools from the Coastal Bend area who brought both middle and high school students. Students worked on complete an electromagnetic catapult using a variety of materials provided for them. The College of Engineering hosts this annual competition to engage students in the science, technology and engineering fields.

Media Coverage

Analyssa Hernandez, a senior environmental engineer major, and Dr. Cynthia Alvarado-Stinson our Outreach Coordinator for the College of Engineering were on the 3News First Edition on February 18, 2020. Analyssa spoke about her research as an undergraduate student and Dr. Alvarado-Stinson informed the news about the upcoming Engineers Week (E-Week) events. They are as follows:

Monday (2/17/2020): E-Week Kick off in ENG Complex 1st floor with cake & punch (12:30 pm-2 pm)

Tuesday (2/18/2020): Showcase of Engineering Organizations in ENG Complex 1st floor (9 am-12 pm)

Wednesday (2/19/2020): Community Open House in ENG Complex 1st floor (5:30 pm-7 pm)

Thursday (2/20/2020): Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day – Guest speaker: Amanda Estrada, Kiewit Offshore Services – Project Quality Manager Kleberg room 149 (1:30 pm-3:30 pm)

Friday (2/21/2020): Electromagnetic Competition at TAMUK Recreational Center (9 am-3 pm)

https://www.kristv.com/news/local-news/local-students-show-off-skills-at-tamuk-engineering-contest

https://www.kiiitv.com/article/news/education/tamuk-hosting-engineering-week-for-students/503-3e91e39e-59da-4c49-8ef7-e86d4333295e

https://www.kiiitv.com/article/news/local/javelina-highlights-engineering-at-tamuk/503-e666e9c3-c0cf-40c9-bd73-4c071085a0dd

https://spark.adobe.com/page/N9xOQv8QJH4nc/

https://spark.adobe.com/page/jR9uVUP3laiCY/

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Department of Education (DoEd) awards College of Engineering $749,196

Texas A&M University-Kingsville recently received a three-year award from the U.S. Department of Education with a total amount of $749,196. The project title is Research, Education and Financial Literacy EXcellence for Minority-focused Engagement (REFLEX-ME), and the project team including Dr. Hua Li (PI, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering), Dr. Jaya Goswami (AVP for Academic Affairs), Dr. Kai Jin (Mechanical and Industrial Engineering). The REFLEX-ME project aims to enhance TAMUK STEM students’ interest and performance in their curricula and career preparedness through professional development and financial literacy. The various components of the project will help TAMUK minority students become informed, thoughtful, and productive individuals.

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National Science Foundation Awards College of Engineering $5M to Establish CREST-Center for Sustainable Water Use (CREST-SWU)

Frank H. Dotterweich College of Engineering was recently awarded $5M to establish the Center for Sustainable Water Use from the National Science Foundation CREST program. Dr. Lee Clapp, Professor of Environmental Engineering will serve as the Principal Investigator and Center Director. Other lead personnel include Co-PIs: Dr. Chad Nelson, Dean of the Dick and Mary Lewis Kleberg College of Agriculture and Natural Resources; Dr. Benjamin Turner, Assistant Professor, Department of Agriculture, Agribusiness, and Environmental Sciences; Dr. Selahattin Ozcelik, Professor and Interim Chair, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Dr. Tushar Sinha, Assistant Professor, Department of Environmental Engineering; and Dr. Mahesh Hosur, Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Affairs, College of Engineering. Additional researchers include Dr. Matthew Alexander, Dr. Joseph Amaya, Dr. Juan Bezares-Cruz, and Dr. Noore Yilmazer from the College of Engineering, and Dr. Veronica Ancona and Dr. Greta Schuster from the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Dr. Michael Preuss, Executive Director of the West Texas Office of Evaluation and Research, will serve as an external evaluator for the Center.

The Center will facilitate regional multidisciplinary research, education, and stakeholder collaborations to advance the understanding of sustainable water use in the context of complex physical, climatic, regulatory, and social-economical settings. The team will develop and assess water monitoring networks, models, and management tools to promote sustainable water use in South Texas. The overall goal for CREST-SWU is to integrate academic researchers, regional stakeholders, and regulatory policy experts to develop management strategies for attaining sustainable water use in semi-arid regions, particularly from the perspective of the water, energy, and food security nexus. The Center’s five-year program of research, education, and outreach is related to three overarching focus areas: 1) Monitoring and Information Systems, 2) Modeling and Dynamic Forecasting, and 3) Decision Support Systems.

____________________________________________________ Zaira Resendez to Present 2019 Summer Commencement Address

Ms. Zaira Resendez, a senior civil engineering major will present the 2019 Summer Commencement Address on August 9, 2019. It is a great honor for the college and we are very proud of Zaira on her selection to be the speaker.

Click here for more details on Summer Commencement

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College of Engineering received ~$2.4M award from the National Science Foundation

The Frank H. Dotterweich College of Engineering has received a five-year award amounting to $2,392,470 from the National Science Foundation. Dr. Mohammad Alam, Dean of the college will serve as the principal investigator. Co-principal investigators for the project are Dr. Mahesh Hosur, Associate Dean for graduate affairs and research; Dr. Hua Li, Associate Professor in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering; Dr. Matthew Alexander, Associate Professor in Chemical and Natural Gas Engineering; and Dr. Afzel Noore, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Affairs. Drs. Breanna Bailey, Shannon Baker, Ulan Dakeev, David Hicks, Kai Jin, and Soyoung Kwon will serve as senior personnel.

It is the largest grant to promote diversity in STEM that the university has received in nearly a decade. The grant will fund the Pathways of Excellence to Promote Seamless Transitions in the Engineering Major (PEP-STEM) program. This project will create a model in engineering education that integrates mentoring, academic coaching, summer research experiences, and outside classroom opportunities to improve learning, retention and preparation of engineering students from diverse cultural backgrounds.

Media Coverage

https://www.caller.com/story/news/education/2019/07/23/tamu-Kingsville-wins-grant-promote-diversity-engineering/1807638001/

https://www.tamuk.edu/news/2019/07/Texas-AM-Kingsville-awarded-nearly-2.4-million-from-NSF-to-promote-STEM-diversity.html#.XTm_VOhKjcs

https://www.kztv10.com/news/local-news/tamu-k-receives-millions-in-grant-money-and-engineering-students-will-reap-the-benefits

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Congratulation to Dr. Kim on the award from the Institute for Information and Communications Technology Promotion In Korean Government (IITP-Soongsil) for your project, entitled “Development of Cloud-Based Health Monitoring Platform for Battery Energy Storage Systems” in the amount of $67,680.38.
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Congratulations to Dr. Brian McFall on his selection to receive the Rising Star Award from the Javelina Alumni Association

College of Engineering congratulates Dr. Bian McFall on his selection to receive the Rising Star Award from the Javelina Alumni Association. The Award established in 2004 recognizes alumni within 15 years of their graduation from Texas A&M-Kingsville who have achieved professional success and brought special honor to the university.

Dr. McFall earned his Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering from Texas A&M-Kingsville in 2005, graduating Summa Cum Laude. He also earned his Master of Science degree in civil engineering from Texas A&M-Kingsville in 2008. In 2014, he earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree in civil engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Dr. McFall currently serves as a research civil engineer within the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers – Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory. His research has been widely published and he has received many awards including the CHL Innovation Achievement Award in 2018; U.S. Army Achievement Medal for Civilian Service in 2017; ERDC Award for Outstanding Achievement in Student Outreach Post-Secondary in 2017; and the NEES Community Award for Publications in 2012.

Click here for more details on Distinguished Alumni Award recipients

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The TAMUK student chapter of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) recently had 10 students attend the Southwest Regional Conference of AIChE hosted by Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas on March 30, 2019. They participated in various competitions between students chapters from UT-Austin, Texas A&M-College Station, the University of Houston, Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon, Monterrey Institute of Technology, and Lamar University. One of the competitions was the ChemE car in which they had to build a car that was powered from chemical reactions and also had to stop at a certain distance of 15.2 meters while carrying a load of 370 mL (water). The TAMUK chapter placed fifth out of nine ChemE Car teams.

In addition, the TAMUK AIChE student chapter earned an award for hosting the best regional conference of all the AIChE regions in the United States in 2018. Congratulations on a job well done!

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Congratulation to Dr. Afzel Noore for receiving an award from the West Virginia University Research Corporation/Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for a project, entitled “Illumination-Invariant Iris Presentation Attack Detection in Unconstrained Outdoor Environment" in the amount of $269,880.
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Congratulation to Drs. Li, Shen, Liu, and Mr. Glusing on the award from the USDA-Rural Energy for America Program(REAP) for the project, entitled “Renewable Energy Development Assistant: Promoting Solar, Wind, and Biomass in Texas (REDA-PSWB)” in the amount of $33,433.
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Congratulating to Drs. Hosur and Peel for receiving an award from Thermal Wave Imaging, Inc. (Department of Air Force) for a project, entitled “Fabrication of T-joints with Simulated Defects for Thermal Imaging” in the amount of $45,000.