Week of November 29, 2004

Humanitarian engineering. The College of Engineering and the Hewlett Designing Our Community Program offer two evenings of food, presentations, and discussions with engineering students and faculty involved in the Humanitarian Engineering Program at Colorado School of Mines. Students and faculty are invited to attend the social event, 5-7 p.m., Tuesday, Nov. 30, in the SUB Northwest Lounge. Students enrolled in the humanitarian engineering minor option in the engineering program at Colorado School of Mines will be presenting their senior design projects that improved water and sanitation in villages in developing countries. Joan Gosink, professor and director of engineering division, and Kathy Skokan, engineering faculty at the Colorado School of Mines, will present details about the humanitarian engineering minor of their engineering curriculum at a fully-catered dinner 5:30-7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 1, in the computer science conference room, 347 EPS Building. The benefits to the engineering program, university community, and curriculum development will be highlighted during their discussion. RSVP to swatson@coe.montana.edu or call 994-7474 for details.

Fall 2004 Engineering Design Fair. The College of Engineering, and the departments of Electrical & Computer Engineering and Mechanical & Industrial Engineering, present the Fall 2004 Engineering Design Fair. Seniors from electrical, computer, chemical and biological, mechanical, mechanical engineering technology, and industrial engineering will display posters and equipment exhibits showing engineering design projects. The fair is noon-6 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 8, in SUB Ballroom A. For more information, call 994-2505 or e-mail ecedept@ece.montana.edu.

Bill Costerton and Patrick Norris, Center for Biofilm Engineering, presented, "New Methods for the Control of the Biofilms that Cause Device-Related Infections," at the 7th New Jersey Symposium on Biomaterials Science, in October in New Brunswick, N.J. Costerton also presented, "Biofilms: Historical Perspectives and Overview," at the Association of Bone and Joint Surgeons, Carl T. Brighton Annual Workshop, in November in Tampa, Fla.

Bill Nicholson joins the Montana Manufacturing Extension Center as field engineer for the Kalispell/Northwest Montana region and will be stationed in the Flathead Regional Business Center at Depot Park in Kalispell. He is an MSU alum with a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering Technology ('87). A Lean Manufacturing expert from Honeywell Electronic Materials in Spokane, he also has extensive experience at Boeing Commercial Airplanes and is a licensed professional engineer in mechanical engineering.

Joseph Seymour, Sarah Codd and Robin Gerlach, chemical and biological engineering and the Center for Biofilm Engineering, were published in Physical Review Letters, the world's top physics publication, on the impact of biofilms in porous media. Their article, "Anomalous fluid transport in porous media induced by biofilm growth," revealed through magnetic resonance measurements of fluid dynamics that bioactivity increases porous media complexity. The results have important implications for modeling biobarriers for subsurface contaminant remediation and designing biomedical filtration devices to resist biofouling.

- From the Staff Bulletin November 29, 2004 - Vol. 21, No. 13 and No. 14