COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON

PERSPECTIVE
PERSPECTIVE For alumni and friends of the
UW-Madison College of Engineering

SPRING 2010

Fruitful creativity
At UW-Madison, student entrepreneurs win BIG
1
 A coil experiment built by Ludois and electrical and computer engineering grad student Justin Reed.

Built by electrical and computer engineering graduate student Dan Ludois, this Tesla coil is driven
with a solid state converter and can play music. View more of Ludois’ creations at www.ludoislabs.com.

2
 PERSPECTIVE Volume 37, Issue 1
The magazine for alumni and friends of the UW-Madison College of Engineering SPRING 2010

FEATURESg

David Nevala
12 INSTITUTION FOR INNOVATION
Over the last decade, UW-Madison has built up a suite
of opportunities for students to develop their creativity
and expand their business savvy.
By Renee Meiller ON THE COVER

16 THE CHEMISTRY OF MEMORY

Chemical and Biological Engineering Professor Regina Murphy has dedicated her career
to studying the chemical processes that underlie debilitating brain ailments, including
Alzheimer’s disease.
By Sandra Knisely

DEPARTMENTS

4 In Depth
By Dean Paul Peercy

5 From the Lab

College research news

11 Who Knew?
Five questions …
with Mechanical Engineering Associate Professor Nicola Ferrier

20 The Next Generation

Engineering students take on local and global challenges,
have fun, and learn a lot in the process

24 Engineering Beyond Boundaries

Rethinking engineering education: Integrating engineering and biology

Wisconsin Ideas
26
Quick-response manufacturing:
Custom solutions keep manufacturers competitive

28 Badger Engineers
Two alumni you should meet:
• Miller Park Executive Director Michael Duckett
• Qualcomm CDMA Technology VP Jim Thompson

Photos by Tim Obermann

30 A New Perspective
Haiti: From helpers to helpless
By Eyleen Chou

3
 In Depth

Dean Paul S. Peercy

A
fall 2009 survey of UW-Madison College of Engineering
alumni revealed some valuable information about your
communication preferences.
PERSPECTIVE
The magazine for alumni and friends of the UW-Madison College of Engineering

More than 1,500 alumni completed the September 2009 SPRING 2010 • Volume 37, Issue 1
survey, which focused on communication, alumni engagement
Editor
and philanthropy. One of the strongest messages to come through Renee Meiller
is that PERSPECTIVE remains valued as the primary vehicle for Writer
keeping alumni informed about the college. Of the general survey Sandra Knisely
group, more than two-thirds of respondents labeled PERSPECTIVE Design
as either “very important” or “important” to staying in touch with Phil Biebl
college news. Photography
When asked for their preference for receiving information Jeff Miller, David Nevala,
Tim Obermann, Bryce Richter
through print vs. electronic formats, the result was a virtual 50-50
split. This might seem surprising, given the explosive growth of COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
David Nevala

online and social media platforms, but the enduring appreciation www.engr.wisc.edu
for print publications gave us a useful reality check. Paul S. Peercy, Dean
Steven Cramer, Associate Dean
for Academic Affairs
Brian Mattmiller, Assistant Dean
Redesigned from top to bottom, the new PERSPECTIVE magazine for Alumni and Corporate Relations
James C. Beal, Director,
will provide more of the news and features alumni value in a modern Engineering External Relations
and visually compelling format. Contact the college:
Alumni relations
Brian Mattmiller
It’s one of the reasons we are very excited about the publication you hold in your hands.
608/890-3004
Redesigned from top to bottom, the new PERSPECTIVE magazine will provide more of the bsmattmi@engr.wisc.edu
news and features alumni value in a modern and visually compelling format. Prospective students:
One significant change is that all future issues will have a lead cover story that represents a Nancy Hansen
significant trend or issue in the college. This issue explores the growth in student opportunities 608/262-2473
to build skills in innovation, from hands-on competitions to academic certificates. We also are EGRadvisor@engr.wisc.edu
incorporating new voices into the magazine, beginning with a moving piece from student Industry, R&D:
Eyleen Chou about the Engineers Without Borders student members’ experience in Haiti. Lawrence Casper
608/265-4104
We also reorganized our core content to emphasize your highest priorities. Survey casper@engr.wisc.edu
respondents gave either high or medium importance to research news (91 percent) and
Professional education:
educational quality and improvement (91 percent). Respondents also placed high value Department of
on news about economic impact and industry outreach (87 percent). The new PERSPECTIVE Engineering Professional Development
has sections dedicated to those topics. 608/262-2061
800/462-0876
With this change, we also recognize a much greater need for more avenues of online custserv@epd.engr.wisc.edu
communication with alumni. Beginning this summer, we will debut a monthly online
Make a gift to the college:
magazine that will highlight alumni success stories, upcoming events and a “news you
Deb Holt
can use” feature on how to take advantage of college services. 608/263-0779
Our challenge is balancing traditional and emerging communication platforms to reach deb.holt@uwfoundation.wisc.edu
the broadest possible audience of alumni and friends. We view it as a responsibility to inform Story ideas or feedback about PERSPECTIVE:
alumni of the impact we are making in the world—one that builds on the prestige of Renee Meiller
your degree. 608/262-2481
perspective@engr.wisc.edu
Please let us know what you think of the new issue, or other ideas about our communication
efforts, by E-mailing perspective@engr.wisc.edu.

4
 From the Lab

research news

GOING WITH THE GRAIN

Novel approach to a new superconducting material

S uperconductors are powerful materials that conduct electricity with no resistance,

meaning no loss of electricity. Recently, scientists have discovered a new class of
superconducting materials called pnictides, which are based on iron and arsenide.
Pnictides are promising because they can operate at relatively high temperatures and
have other ideal properties.
A team led by Materials Science and Engineering Professor Chang-Beom Eom has
demonstrated a breakthrough approach in fabricating pnictide thin films with promising
Chang-Beom Eom
results. Until now, no one has been able to study the intrinsic properties of pnictides because
it has been impossible to fabricate a single crystal of it with all of the material grains pointing in the same direction.
Eom, who is collaborating with teams from the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory and the University
of Michigan, hypothesized that the pnictide thin films couldn’t grow properly because the substrate used most
commonly by researchers is oxide-based. Thin films like to grow in the same way as the material beneath them.
Hence, the metallic-based pnictides couldn’t thrive on the oxide substrate.
The researchers then engineered a thin template to place on top of the oxide substrate. This template has
both metallic and oxide elements, meaning it can interface with both the substrate and the thin film. With the
template, the film grows in a more ideal arrangement. The template also acts as barrier between the conducting
thin film and the non-conducting substrate.
Previously, researchers were only able to measure 10,000 amps of electricity per .06 cubic inch, which is a
relatively useless amount. With the template, which is made of barium titanate or strontium titanate, Eom’s team
has demonstrated that pnictide thin films are capable of producing 5 million amps per .06 cubic inch—a 500-fold
increase that brings pnictide current capacity into the usable range.
The team’s research will help other researchers learn more about pnictides and expand basic knowledge
about superconductivity in general. Beyond superconductors, the template approach can be applied whenever
a researcher wants to grow a metallic film on an oxide substrate.
The research appeared online in the journal Nature Materials on February 28, along with a second paper by
Eom about a new approach to help researchers “couple” the electric and magnetic mechanisms in a special class
of materials. This could lead to a wide range of magnetoelectric devices, such as new integrated circuits or tiny
electronic devices with the information storage capacity of hard drives.

A superconductor makes a magnet levitate.

Mai-Linh Doan

5
 From the Lab

research news

Casting industry goes nano

plants + process = fuel
T he National Institute of Standards and
Technology has awarded a $10.1 million,
five-year grant to a team led by Mechanical A team of chemical engineers has developed a highly efficient, environmentally
friendly process that selectively converts gamma-valerolactone, a biomass
Engineering Professor Xiaochun Li. The derivative, into the chemical equivalent of jet fuel. The simple process preserves
researchers are studying a process that could about 95 percent of the energy from the original biomass, requires little hydrogen
yield new technologies for commercial-scale input, and captures carbon dioxide under high pressure for future beneficial use.
Li production of aluminum and magnesium With Steenbock Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering James Dumesic,
matrix nanocomposites postdoctoral researchers Jesse Bond and David Martin Alonso and graduate students
in the traditional Dong Wang and Ryan West published details of the advance in the February 26, 2010,
casting industry within edition of the journal Science.
the next five years. Much of the Dumesic group’s previous research of cellulosic biomass has focused on
“If successful, the processes that convert abundant plant-based sugars into transportation fuels.
production of these
metal nanocomposites
will enable transforma-
tive changes in multiple
industries and directly
address the critical
national needs of
reducing oil dependency,
lowering greenhouse
gas emissions and main-
taining U.S. leadership in
A magnesium nanocomposite cast sample manufacturing,” says Li. HERE’S A TIP:
Most molten metals Technique yields durable diamond probes
have a large surface-to-volume ratio and are
unable to maintain contact with the solid
nanoparticle surfaces, meaning the nanopar-
ticles clump together. Li’s lab has developed
W hen a university-industry team of researchers tried a novel,
foundry-style mold-filling technique to make nanoscale devices,
they realized they had discovered a gem: They used their process to fabricate
an experimental technique that uses high- ultra-hard, wear-resistant nanoprobes out of a material much like diamond.
intensity ultrasonic waves to disperse the
nanoparticles through the melts. The waves
cause the formation, growth and collapse of
microbubbles, which produce
microscopic “hot spots” that reach temperatures
On a larger scale, materials that look smooth still abrade because of slight
above 9,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Li and his
team have shown that the violent micro-shock irregularities and defects on their surfaces. Now, zoom in: At the nanoscale,
waves from the hot spots disperse nano- atoms rub off one at a time, challenging researchers who build devices just
particles evenly through the molten metals. tens of atoms wide. Silicon-containing diamondlike carbon, or Si-DLC, could
Li’s collaborators include Kuo K. and Cindy F. solve this problem.
Wang Professor of Mechanical Engineering Engineering Physics Distinguished Research Professor Kumar Sridharan
Tim Osswald, Industrial & Systems Engineering developed the “nano foundry” technique. He started with an IBM silicon-
Associate Professor Shiyu Zhou, Eck Industries on-insulator wafer previously etched with sharp, pyramid-shaped “molds.”
Inc., the Oshkosh Corporation, Nanostructured Then, he used plasma immersion ion implantation and deposition, a room-
and Amorphous Materials Inc. and the temperature deposition process, to fill the molds.
IBM-Zurich

Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.

6
 However, in previously studied herbal food and perfume additive. “The product we make is ready for the jet
conversion methods, sugar mol- Using laboratory-scale equipment fuel application and can be added to existing
ecules frequently degrade to form and stable, inexpensive catalysts, hydrocarbon blends, as needed, to meet specs,”
levulinic acid and formic acid— Dumesic’s group converts aqueous says Alonso.
two products the previous methods solutions of GVL into jet fuel. Now that they have demonstrated the process
couldn’t readily transform into high- “With very minimal processing, for converting GVL to transportation fuel,
Dumesic
energy liquid fuels. we can produce a pure stream Dumesic and his students are developing more
With levulinic and formic acid as the starting of jet-fuel-range alkenes and a fairly pure efficient, cost-effective methods for making
points, the team’s new method exploits sugar’s stream of carbon dioxide,” says Bond, of the GVL from biomass sources such as wood, corn
tendency to degrade. In the presence of two-step catalytic process. stover, switchgrass and others. “Once the GVL
metal catalysts, the two acids react to form The hydrocarbons produced from GVL in is made effectively, I think this is an excellent
gamma-valerolactone, or GVL, which now this new process are chemically equivalent way to convert it to jet fuel,” says Dumesic.
is manufactured in small quantities as an to those used in the present infrastructure.

New laser structure is a bright idea

The technique
works somewhat
T wo electrical and computer engineering professors—Philip Dunham Reed Professor
Dan Botez and Professor Luke Mawst—have created a nanoscale laser structure to
produce more efficient, reliable and stable semiconductor lasers emitting in the mid-infrared
like the way in within the next two years.
which a snowfall The structure all but eliminates the temperature sensitivity for lasers operating in continuous-
blankets the wave mode, meaning the laser emits uninterrupted, coherent light. These lasers could benefit
ground. In this a wide range of industries, including biomedical devices, environmental monitoring devices,
Sridharan
case, the “snow” is missile avoidance systems and food packaging processes.
ionized hexamethyl Botez and Mawst created the structure via metalorganic chemical vapor deposition, a scalable
disiloxane, a liquid process that involves exposing a substrate to high heat and chemicals, causing the layers with
precursor to Si-DLC varying compositions to form on the substrate in an
that gasifies in the atomic-lattice configuration.
plasma chamber and packs neatly into Varied layer composition prevents electrons from
the molds. Fabricated on standard escaping the laser structure, a process called carrier
Botez and Mawst
silicon microcantilivers, the ultrasharp leakage. The result will be continuous-wave lasers that
tips in wear tests were 3,000 times the researchers expect to achieve at least 20 percent
more wear-resistant than silicon tips. wall-plug efficiency (the electrical-to-optical power
The team, which included researchers efficiency of a laser system), which would be roughly
from the University of Pennsylvania and double the current world record for practical, continuous-
IBM Research-Zurich, published its work wave quantum cascade lasers. Botez and Mawst are
interested in commercializing the technology, which is
January 31 in the advance online edition
covered by two issued and one pending U.S. patents.
of Nature Nanotechnology.
For a more detailed story about the structure Botez
and Mawst have created, visit www.engr.wisc.edu/
news/headlines/ 2009/Dec07.html.

7
From the Lab
research news
Chemical & biological
engineer elected to
national academy
In February, the National Academy of
Engineering included Milton J. and
A. Maude Shoemaker Professor of
Chemical and Biological Engineering
Tom Kuech among its 68 newest
members. Election to the academy
is among the highest professional
distinctions for engineers. The academy
recognized Kuech for his contributions
in developing and characterizing
compound semiconductors.
In particular, Kuech and his students
study methods for forming these nano-
scale structures, which drive high-power
devices such as those used for wireless
and optical telecommunications. He
has made fundamental contributions
to the understanding of chemical vapor
deposition, a method for developing
semiconductors with controlled
electronic and optical properties.
In addition, Kuech and his students
are developing ways to increase the func-
tionality of compound semiconductors
for use in applications ranging from
solar cells to biological sensors.
A fellow of the American Physical
Society, he came to UW-Madison in 1990.
He earned his PhD in applied physics from
the California Institute of Technology.
8
T
he National Science Foundation recognized these five promising
young faculty members with prestigious CAREER awards. Funding
from the awards supports their leading-edge research in hydro-
ecology, biomedicine, computing technology, and decision theory.
Low-power computers could benefit
environment and U.S. economy
Electrical and Computer Engineering Assistant Professor
Nam Sung Kim is designing low-power computing
systems that, if implemented on a broad
scale, could have significant environ-
mental and economic benefits. He is
developing algorithms to program
machines to process computations more efficiently
and reduce wasted energy during computations. His
work includes trying to identify which circuit blocks can be
turned off during certain functions to reduce the overall power
consumption of the processor. “We have to perform computations
for almost every aspect of our lives now, and by reducing the cost for
doing these computations, our national economy could gain a competitive edge,” Kim says.
Reconfigurable hardware for
boosting computer performance
Electrical and Computer Engineering Assistant
Professor Katherine Compton is studying how
to use reconfigurable hardware, which is a form
of special-purpose hardware, to implement a
wide range of computer accelerators that boost
performance and increase energy efficiency.
The hardware is flexible enough to allow developers to customize the
accelerators to execute multiple applications. The CAREER award will
allow Compton to expand to study the entire computer system and
schedule multiple computing resources to work in tandem with the
reconfigurable hardware. She is working to demonstrate to hardware
companies that reconfigurable hardware provides enough of a boost
to warrant adding it to everyday computing devices. “We’re looking at
having potentially the same or faster processing speed, but with lower
energy consumption,” she says.
 Exploring how estrogen-mimics affect cells
In everything from children’s toys and plastic bottles to food, agricultural land
and our own lawns, humans daily encounter hundreds of natural and synthetic
chemicals. Some of these compounds can interfere with the endocrine system
and contribute to such adverse health effects as reproductive problems,
hormonal changes, brain and behavior problems, impaired immune functions,
and various cancers, among others. Biomedical Engineering Assistant Professor
Pam Kreeger is developing methods for testing how endocrine disrupters affect cells. In particular,
Kreeger is interested in endocrine-disrupting chemicals that mimic estrogen, the primary female
sex hormone. These chemicals act like estrogen, bind to the estrogen receptors in normal cells,
and trigger some—but not necessarily all—of the functions in cells that true estrogen initiates.
Cellular responses to the mimics vary. “Our interest is in how they differ,” says Kreeger. “Can we pre-
dict a little better what parts of the cellular network will be affected by these different chemicals?”

River provides scientific basis
for future restoration projects
Environmental groups annually spend more than
$1 billion on projects aimed at restoring streams and
former wetland ecosystems to their native states. Yet,
says Civil and Environmental Engineering Assistant
Professor Steven Loheide, there is little solid science
to guide these efforts. Loheide and graduate students
Eric Booth and Arlen Striegl are developing and implementing a new
technology for monitoring soil moisture in a restored site along the East
Branch Pecatonica River in southwestern Wisconsin. They also are creating
a modeling framework through which they can study groundwater and
soil moisture changes and how they relate to vegetation composition and
patterns. “We would like to be able to improve the practice of restoration by
allowing people who are designing restoration projects to be able to predict
what the hydrologic change will be and how that will affect the distribution
of vegetation across the flood plain,” says Loheide.
Restoration in progress at the
East Branch Pecatonica River.
?
Models for making good decisions
Current computational approaches to
decision-making suggest solutions for
the best outcome on average. For ex-
ample, standard tools could produce
a call center workforce schedule that
results in a small number of unhappy
customers on an average day. However, the
schedule may not help the center be equipped
to deal with days that have an abnormally high
number of calls, and therefore an abnormally
high number of unhappy customers. This may
be an unacceptable risk for the manager.
Industrial and Systems Engineering
Assistant Professor James Luedtke is working
to develop new algorithms in a field known as
stochastic programming to specifically address
uncertainty in decision-making settings, while allowing for
individual preferences for risk. These new algorithms, which will
address constraints that limit the probability of bad outcomes,
will offer alternative solutions to the best-on-average solutions
produced by current models. “When you aren’t making a decision
thousands of times, being best on average doesn’t matter to you,”
explains Luedtke. “If a decision-maker has just one shot, she may
be willing to give up making a choice that is best on average to
reduce the risk of being one of the bad outcomes.”
Luedtke’s methods could have a broad range of applications in
fields such as medicine, business and finance.

9
From the Lab
research news
Back in circulation: Why certain
polymers improve blood flow
With funding from the National Science Foundation,
Harvey D. Spangler Professor of Chemical and Biological
Engineering Michael Graham is using computational and theoretical
tools to study whether “drag-reducing” polymer molecules enhance
flow through some of the tiniest blood vessels in the human body.
Smaller than the diameter of a human hair, capillaries are embedded
within the body’s organs and are important for distributing blood
throughout the tissues. Drag-reducing polymers show particular promise
for improving circulation in situations that involve blood loss. “One of the polishing a shoe or sanding a piece of wood. Technicians maybe could
issues is making sure that, under situations where there’s a disease or
injury, blood is still able to get to where it needs to be,” says Graham.
‘Magnet’ materials to
Stimulus-funded
attract growth factors
Within the body,
growth factors
RE$EARCH
are important
molecules in a
wide range of
cellular processes. They can pro-
mote cell survival, proliferation, In 2009, the American Recovery & Reinvestment (Stimulus) Act
and differentiation. Sequestering provided UW-Madison researchers 294 awards totalling nearly
these growth factors on a surface $120 million. Among them, more than 30 engineers received
enables researchers to locally funding for their research. Here, we highlight a few projects.
modulate the processes.
With a portion of his $2 million
grant from the National Institutes
of Health, Biomedical Engineering Assistant Professor Bill Murphy,
and grad students, including Greg Hudalla, are designing materials
that act like magnets for growth factors. These “smart” materials can
deliver signals that affect cell behavior. “So, it’s possible to use the ma- National Science Foundation to identify an effective,
terial as an active platform to affect cell behavior,” he says. “You could
envision designing implant surfaces that are capable of doing this, or
designing custom cell culture substrates that are capable of doing this.”
A scaffold for stem cells
Materials Science and Engineering Assistant Professor
Padma Gopalan and Biomedical Engineering Assistant
Professor Bill Murphy have received a three-year,
$325,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to develop a
biomaterial platform for studying human mesenchymal stem cells,
which are stem cells derived from adult human bone marrow. These
cells can differentiate into several mature cell types, including bone,
cartilage, fat and muscle cells.
Most stem cell types need to adhere to their surrounding “matrix”
in order to survive, grow and form tissues, and Gopalan and Murphy
are developing engineered materials to control this adhesion. This also
10
could lead to some level of control over other stem cell behaviors,
such as new tissue formation.
“The long-term culture of mesenchymal stem cells on well-defined,
controllable substrates may enable us to optimize stem cell growth and
differentiation,” says Murphy. “In turn, these studies could lead to clinical
strategies for optimal stem cell expansion and differentiation, and
could have a significant impact on regenerative medicine strategies.”
How to polish a nano part
Polishing the parts of a micro-device isn’t as simple as, for example,
polish a micro-part by hand—if they had a big enough
magnifying glass—but it is impossible to selectively polish par-
ticular areas of the tiny
components. In addition,
tiny parts can’t handle as
much heat as can their
macro-sized counterparts,
meaning that too much
friction could actually
melt the part.
These barriers to
micro polishing, which
likely will become more
important as nanotech-
nology advances push
the development of
ever-smaller components,
are the subject of a new
partnership between a
team of mechanical engineering professors and a Minnesota-based
laser processing company.
The partnership has received funding from the
laser-based micro polishing system. The NSF award,
formally called a Grant Opportunity for Academic
Liaison with Industry, comes with a three-year grant
of almost $500,000.
Mechanical Engineering Professors Neil Duffie
(top) and Xiaochun Li (middle) and Associate
Professor Frank Pfefferkorn (bottom) are collabo-
rating with William Dinauer (MSMSE ’90)and other
engineers at LasX Industries Inc., a company in
St. Paul, Minnesota, that provides high-performance
industrial laser systems and contract laser materials
processing services. The team is working to identify
a laser-based system that can polish three-dimensional, metal
parts measuring approximately .16 inches or less. The system could
also polish select areas of those parts or the metallic molds used to
fabricate plastic microcomponents, and the new system could apply to
the electromechanical and medical device industries.
Q
Who Knew?
fiveFive questions
questions with Nicola Ferrier
Professor teaches mechanical devices how to ‘see’
In her Robotics and Intelligent Systems
Laboratory, Mechanical Engineering
Associate Professor Nicola Ferrier is
helping design the next generation
of robots. They may not look like the
anthropomorphic machines depicted
in the movies, but these mechanical
arms and manipulators are learning
how to “see.”
Working at the interface between
robotics and computer-aided vision,
Ferrier trains robots to extract the
most important information from a
visual scene with the goal of using
images to control the devices.
Her focus on computational image
analysis has also led her into several
projects on machine vision, with
applications ranging from medicine
to manufacturing, navigation and
even traffic control.
Bryce Richter
Q
1
What about your field do you think surprises people the most?
Most people have a “Hollywood” perspective on robots and the reality is not yet on
par with these dreams. I think people are often surprised (more likely disappointed)
when they see the reality of my work on robot manipulators. Everyone envisions more “sexy”
research—little mobile robots running around—instead of industrial manipulators.
Q
2
How did you first get interested in robotics?
I found robotics when I was looking for a research project that combined math,
computer science and engineering. There was something exciting about working at a
computer, solving mathematics and seeing a robot move as a result of my calculations and program.
Q
3
What’s the research question most on your mind right now?
It isn’t really a research question, but I spend a lot of time contemplating what is
the bottleneck or hindrance that limits the application of much of robotics research.
I keep asking, “What still needs to be done to take this work outside the lab?”
Q
4
What outcomes do you see from your work for society?
Images are everywhere now—for example, microscopes, electron tomograms,
scanning electron microscopes and various medical imaging techniques—and
their uses for scientific discovery, medical intervention, and more traditional robotic settings
such as manufacturing will be huge.
Q
5
What inspires you in your work?
It is an adventure. I sometimes feel scientific and engineering research is the
modern-day version of being an explorer.
—Jill Sakai
11
 An institution
for innovation
By Renee Meiller • Photography by David Nevala

12

Nate Cira and Alex Rio invented the
PolyForm Pack, which combines a
sleeping pad, backpack, sleeping
shelter and chair into a waterproof
pack that weighs less than five pounds.
Over the last decade, UW-Madison has built a
suite of opportunities for students to develop
their creativity and expand their business savvy.
I
“ want to be independent, work on major problems, and have
more meaningful work,” says Sean Kelly.
A freshman biomedical engineering student, Kelly calls himself a
“big-ideas person.” In less than a year on campus, he has pitched an idea to
a group of angel investors, built a breathalyzer lamp for a 100-hour campus
challenge, and entered ideas in two UW-Madison invention competitions.
Kelly lives in a university dorm for entrepreneurs and daily seeks to rub
elbows with like-minded innovative faculty, staff and students.
He’s not alone. Many of today’s students aim to be
entrepreneurs, to start their own companies, and to solve
problems that are both personally relevant and socially
important. “They recognize that maybe careers aren’t as
“You’re going to see more
steady as they used to be in a lot of the disciplines, and that job creation come out of new
they may need to make their own way,” says John Surdyk, companies, small companies
a faculty associate in the Wisconsin School of Business.
At UW-Madison, this trend has not gone unnoticed.
and growing companies.
Beginning more than a decade ago, university leaders began We will also see economic
establishing a vast array of classroom and extracurricular benefits and improvements
opportunities that feed students’ desire to immerse
themselves in innovation and entrepreneurship.
in the quality of life come
There are entrepreneurial student organizations, chat from new, creative ideas.”
groups, peer-mentoring networks, lecture series, and small- —College of Engineering Dean Paul Peercy
business and patenting advice resources. Undergraduates
can major in entrepreneurship, while graduate students can
choose it as a minor. In the works are cross-campus certificate
programs in both technology innovation and entrepreneurship. More than a dozen campus
departments offer courses on topics as diverse as product design and development,
intellectual property, marketing, entrepreneurial finance, managing startup ventures, and
e-commerce, among others. In Sellery Hall, there is an entrepreneurial residential learning
community for undergraduates, while grad students can participate in a weeklong, high-
intensity entrepreneurial boot camp.
Myriad competitions reward students at all levels for creative ideas, outstanding proto-
types, innovative product designs, best business plans, environmental solutions, computer
software, and novel arts ventures.
13
 More than 430 students
have entered ideas in the The first such competition at UW- founded in 2008 to develop Parallel Kingdom. People play the mas-
Schoofs Prize for Creativity Madison is the Schoofs Prize for Creativity. sively multiplayer role-playing game via GPS-enabled mobile phones.
since the competition began Sixteen years ago, chemical engineering In February 2010, it logged more than 100,000 user accounts.
alumnus Richard Schoofs funded the com- Beck credits Innovation Days for informing his role as PerBlue CEO. “I
in 1994. petition, which provides substantial cash don’t think I would have had the experience and the exposure to business
prizes to novel, marketable student ideas. and innovation necessary to start PerBlue without the Innovation Days
A few years later, electrical engineering competition,” he says.
alumnus Peter Tong and the Tong Family Foundation established the Mechanical engi-
Tong Prototype Prize to encourage students to build their ideas. Now neering and business
both are part of Innovation Days, held annually in mid-February. alum Chad Sorenson Wisconsin School of
“The competitions are a great way to challenge your creativity is among several Business Faculty Associate
in ways you don’t do with your schoolwork, and push your ideas Innovation Days John Surdyk maintains an
forward to production,” says electrical and participants to found
computer engineering senior Jason Lohr. companies based on extensive list of campus
Lohr is a two-time, award-winning their winning inven- entrepreneurship resources
Innovation Days participant, and the kind of tions. “It was really at www.bus.wisc.edu/insite.
student who’s not necessarily into creativity my start to pursuing
for the money. In 2010, he and mechanical an entrepreneurial
engineering senior Eyleen Chou and career,” he says.
biomedical engineering senior Tyler Sorenson eventually sold his company, Fluent Systems LLC, and
Lark entered—and earned cash with a couple of partners, founded Sologear Corp., which counts
prizes for—a cooking stove among its products the FlameDisk, an environmentally friendly
that burns plant oils, rather than alternative to charcoal grilling.
wood charcoal, for use in devas- Now, with wealth of business experience under his belt,
tated or developing countries. Sorenson also serves as a mentor for UW-Madison
Their business plan includes students who want to try entrepreneurship. In fall
sharing the idea with residents of 2009, his weekly seminar series for Innovation Days
rural Haiti, who can manufacture, participants covered everything it takes to transform
generate income, and cook with a creative idea into a commercially viable product. The
the coconut-based stove. series was so successful that Sorenson transformed it into a for-
CEO of his own company, three-year credit course, now offered in fall.
Innovation Days participant Justin Serial entrepreneur Matt Ogle says business knowledge helps
Beck says the competition gave him scientists gain credibility in the business world. He should know:
a venue to pursue his passion for An engineer by training, Ogle worked in the medical device
inventing things. “We were always industry before founding Lumen Biomedical in 2002. His latest
thinking, ‘Could we use this for startup is Vatrix Medical, a company that develops technology to
Innovation Days?’” says Beck, who diagnose and treat aneurisms.
earned BS degrees in computer engi- On campus, Ogle teaches Business for Engineers, a course for
neering and computer sciences in 2009. undergraduate and grad students from multiple engineering
He and teammate Daniel Gartenberg disciplines that debuted in fall 2008. From Ogle and guest lecturers,
earned $10,000 in the 2009 competition students learn everything from how to generate, protect and
for their iPhone application, Proactive market their ideas to how to structure a company and navigate
Sleep Alarm Clock, now available for regulatory hurdles. “There has to be a marriage of understanding
download via the Apple App Store. the technology and understanding the business,” he says.
These days, however, Beck and fellow Based on a real technological idea, student teams ultimately
computer engineering and computer write a business plan and present it to venture investors.
sciences alum Andrew Hanson spend their One group from the inaugural course turned its business
time growing PerBlue, the company they Justin Beck plan into Respicure, a startup company.

14

IRA
• INSP
TH E U
NIV
Chemical and biological engineering postdoc-
toral researcher Ankit Agarwal also aims to start
a company. “Having witnessed many innovative
technologies never flying out of the university
patent offices, I decided to advocate my inven-
tions all the way to commercialization,” he says.
Agarwal, whose goal is to translate bio-
medical research from the lab to the clinic,
is one of 13 Kauffman Postdoctoral Fellows
nationwide who received the honor to help
commercialize their scientific advances. A 2009
Wisconsin Entrepreneurial Bootcamp graduate,
Agarwal developed a unique method for using
silver in antibacterial wound dressings that aid
healing without damaging cells.
Translational research also is a theme in the
Department of Biomedical Engineering. The
department weaves design courses throughout
its undergraduate curriculum, enabling student
teams to collaborate with clinicians on solutions
to real-world problems. From these solutions,
the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation has
received more than 40 patent disclosures.
Similarly, the college has enhanced design
opportunities for students in all departments,
says Dean Paul Peercy. “Even before I came,
freshman design was put in place to help
students think about design,” he says. “But if
you look now at the level of sophistication of
our capstone design courses, where we bring
together students from multiple disciplines to
come up with ideas for new products, design
those products, and build prototypes of those
products—that’s an area of increasing strength
in the college.”
Peercy calls this college culture shift toward
entrepreneurship critically important in today’s
high-tech, highly competitive global economy.
“You’re going to see more job creation come out
of new companies, small companies and growing
companies,” he says. “We will also see economic
benefits and improvements in the quality of life
come from new, creative ideas. And this will be
innovative and entrepreneurial, whether the
students who graduate and do this are working
in a big company or whether they’re working in
their own startup company, or whether they’re
working in a small company.”
N T O I N V E N TI O N
TIO
•
INNOVATION WINNERS 2010
Days
N
DIS O
ER
MA
SIT N-
Y O F WIS C O N SI First place Schoofs Prize for Creativity ($10,000) and second
place Tong Prototype Prize ($1,250)—Automated Pest
Elimination System (APEL), an automated, self-contained
system to spray fruit trees while minimizing pesticide
overspraying. Invented by mechanical engineering junior
Tom Gerold and finance sophomore Kara Anderson.
First place Tong Prototype Prize ($2,500) and second place
Schoofs Prize for Creativity ($7,000 )—PolyForm Pack,
which combines a sleeping pad, backpack, sleeping shelter
and chair into a lightweight, waterproof piece of backpacking
equipment. Invented by biomedical engineering junior
Nate Cira and chemical engineering senior Alex Rio.
Third place Schoofs Prize for Creativity ($4,000)—
TriCrimp, a lightweight, pneumatic crimping tool for steel
fastening that replaces tedious hand-crimping tools and
bulky mechanical crimpers. Invented by mechanical
engineering junior Scott Johanek.
Fourth place Schoofs Prize for Creativity ($1,000) and Younkle
Best Presentation Award ($1,000)—Plant Oil Burning Stove,
an inexpensive cooking stove that burns plant oils, creating a
new industry in rural Haiti. Invented by electrical engineering
senior Jason Lohr, mechanical engineering senior Eyleen
Chou and biomedical engineering senior Tyler Lark.
Third place Tong Prototype Prize ($700 )—BreezeDry, a
specialized towel bar with fans designed to dry clothes via
efficient air flow. Invented by chemical engineering senior
Andrew Burton.
Sorenson Design Notebook Award ($1,000 )—Solar Panel
Snow Removal System, a motor-powered system to “squeegee”
snow or debris off without damaging the panels. Invented by
mechanical engineering senior Adam Strutz and industrial
and systems engineering graduate Elizabeth Konkol.
15
 The Chemistry
of Memory
New strategies for battling brain disease

I
t has taken more than a decade for Regina Murphy amyloid find each other, they bind into links called oligomers. These
and her colleagues to determine that sometimes it’s oligomers, or intermediates, grow as they find more and more beta
actually better to rush things. amyloid copies, eventually forming a clump called a fibril that can
At least that’s the case when those things are protein measure around 1 micron long, which is visible in the brain tissue.
processes in the brain that can lead to devastating
neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s. Rethinking the disease process
Murphy, the Smith-Bascom
Professor of Chemical and Patients with Alzheimer’s have
Biological Engineering, is study- these beta amyloid fibrils, and
ing the kinetics of proteins and for years, researchers and drug
peptides that aggregate in the companies assumed that the
brain. Her work has helped to fibrils were causing cell death
dramatically change the research and disease. However, in the late
paradigms that guide neurologi- 1990s, Murphy and UW-Madison
cal drug development, creating Chemistry Professor Laura Kiessling
new possibilities for therapies showed that in the case of
that could treat not only the Alzheimer’s disease, the fibrils
symptoms of these diseases, themselves aren’t the problem.
but perhaps the actual causes. Rather oligomer “clumping” is
Alzheimer’s, the most the toxic part of the process. And,
common form of dementia, is speeding up this intermediate
a progressive and fatal brain dis- aggregation into fully formed
ease that currently has no cure. fibrils actually reduces overall
Characterized by severe memory toxicity in the brain.
loss and confusion, the disease Murphy, who has been a mem-
affects as many as 5.3 million ber of the UW-Madison faculty for
people in the United States, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. more than 20 years, recalls visits to pharmaceutical companies where
A new patient develops the disease every 70 seconds, and while the she met researchers trying to develop drugs intended to prevent
majority of patients are over age 65, as many as 200,000 people in fibrils from forming. “They weren’t looking at whether they were just
their 30s, 40s and 50s are living with the disease. pushing everything back to the intermediate phase, which would have
Doctors do not fully understand the cause of Alzheimer’s, though been worse since that’s the most toxic stage, because it just wasn’t
age, family history, and serious head injuries appear to be risk factors. accepted wisdom that the intermediates were bad,” she says.
Similarly, scientists do not know exactly what causes Alzheimer’s Murphy believes beta amyloid is still the main culprit in Alzheimer’s
at the cellular level, but they have linked the disease to a particular since the intermediates appear to have a physical effect on the cell
protein in the brain. membrane of neurons, which is where the cell most actively transmits and
Imagine the protein, called the beta amyloid precursor protein receives signals. Neurons make up around 10 percent of all brain cells and
(APP), as a chain. A few links of this chain make up an amino acid are, says Murphy, the racehorses of our bodies. “They’re fast and great,
called beta amyloid. Enzymes work like a saw to “cut out” the beta but they’re touchy,” she says, adding that neurons appear to be particularly
amyloid section from the rest of the protein. When cut pieces of beta sensitive to changes in their physical properties, resulting in cell death.

By Sandra Knisely
Photography by David Nevala
16
17
photos.com
 While some scientists have yet to believe that fibrils are not “bad
actors” in and of themselves, the Alzheimer’s research community has
experienced what Murphy describes as a “sea change in how we think
about the whole problem with these proteins.” The new emphasis on
beta amyloid intermediates has led to research into alternatives to
therapies that prevent or target the fully formed fibrils.
Turning humans into mice
One alternative Murphy is studying in collaboration with UW-Madison
Pharmacy Professor Jeffrey Johnson is another protein in the brain that
could be used to protect neural cells from beta amyloid—and perhaps
even prevent the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.
In 2002, Johnson’s lab published the results of experiments that
injected mice with mutated forms of human APP. As in humans, the
transgenic mice produced the damaging beta amyloid deposits in their
brain tissues. Unlike in humans, the mice did not develop other signs of
Alzheimer’s, such as neurofibrillary tangles (aggregates of a different
protein inside neurons) that lead to cell death. Instead, the mice pro-
duced an excess amount of another protein, called transthyretin (TTR),
which appears to interact with beta amyloid and reduce its toxicity.
18
Murphy and Johnson have received almost $413,000 in federal
stimulus funding from the National Institutes of Health to study how
exactly TTR affects beta amyloid and how researchers can induce this
interaction to perhaps prevent Alzheimer’s from ever developing in
brain tissue. “We want to find out how to turn a human into a mouse,
basically,” Johnson says.
While the experimental mice produced more TTR, human patients
with Alzheimer’s have decreased levels of the protein. High levels
of TTR can either force—or totally prevent—aggregation of beta
amyloid. While Murphy and Johnson don’t understand fully why this
happens, they are working on strategies to increase TTR levels to
learn more.
Their many research questions include whether they can develop
small molecules that can facilitate TTR and beta amyloid interaction
and how much they should increase TTR levels to reduce beta amyloid
toxicity. The answers to these questions could lead to the development
of drug therapies to treat the actual Alzheimer’s disease process,
instead of only alleviating symptoms.
This highly innovative Alzheimer’s disease research is likely to
lead to an effective therapy for the disease, says Sanjay Asthana,
the UW-Madison Duncan G. and Lottie H. Ballantine Chair in Geriatrics
and director of the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Institute and Wisconsin
Comprehensive Memory Program. “Such a therapy will favorably alter
the basic pathology of Alzheimer’s, which could potentially slow the
progression of the disease and, hopefully, one day prevent the disease
from developing,” he says. 
In research that has the potential to make such a significant difference,
Johnson says collaboration is key. “Combining expertise with those
outside of your area is going to be the nature of science in the future,”
he says. “We have to cross those disciplinary bridges in order to move
forward faster than we have been. The whole of our research is going
to be greater than the sum of our individual parts.”
Going beyond Alzheimer’s
In addition to her work with Johnson, Murphy has received almost
$300,000 from the National Science Foundation to study protein
folding and aggregation in a set of rare neurological diseases, such
as Huntington’s disease. The Huntington’s Disease Society of America
estimates more than 250,000 people in the United States have it or
have a significant risk of inheriting the devastating genetic brain
disease, which gradually shuts down the neurons that control muscles
and eventually destroys cognitive abilities as well.
Like Alzheimer’s disease, Huntington’s and related diseases are
caused by sections of proteins in the brain that misbehave. The
specific proteins and amino acids at work are different—the protein is
huntingtin and the amino acid is glutamine—but despite the distinct
Age or Alzheimer’s?
TYPICAL AGE-RELATED CHANGES
• Making a bad decision once in a while
• Missing a monthly payment
• Forgetting which day it is and remembering later
• Sometimes forgetting which word to use
• Losing things from time to time
SIGNS OF ALZHEIMER’S
• Poor judgment and decision-making
• Inability to manage a budget
• Losing track of the date or the season
• Difficulty having a conversation
• Misplacing things and being unable to retrace
steps to find them
(Source: Alzheimer’s Association)
challenges in her separate lines of research, Murphy approaches all of
the proteins she studies like a chemist would approach any molecule
or polymer. “These are biological problems, but some basic physical
chemistry comes into play,” she says. “I think this perspective allows
me to bring a different dimension than a classically trained biochemist
brings to these questions.”
Ultimately, Murphy is driven by the fact that the basic behaviors
of proteins have a direct, widespread effect on human health. “We’re
dealing with the fundamental physical chemistry of how these
proteins—these molecules—behave, and why,” she says. “And the
biological consequences of these behaviors—disease—give us
reasons to investigate beyond pure curiosity.”
19
 The Next
Generation
student news

Master Sgt. Jeremy Lock, USAF

Hacking for Haitian relief

“I have this bumper sticker that says, ‘Python will Hacker members tackled a request management system that
save the world. I don’t know how, but it will,’” adds pleas for aid, as well as the locations of those requests, to a
says postdoctoral researcher Nicholas Preston. database so that aid organizations can respond.
Programmers worldwide contributed Python code to eight

O n January 14, 2010, Preston got his chance to use the powerful
programming language to help earthquake victims in Haiti. He
and fellow members of student computing organization The Hacker
Sahana modules. In Madison, about seven students worked virtually
around the clock for a week to finish writing the majority of the
request management system.
Within, and staff of the UW-Madison The students used real-time
Healthscapes project, worked day and Internet text messaging, called
night to help convert Sahana, an estab- Internet Relay Chat, or IRC, to guide
lished web-based disaster management Students use their work. “Because of the open-
tool, from the web scripting language computing skills source nature of this, we went on IRC
PHP into Python. to hasten and we were instantly in contact with
Haiti aid efforts the lead developer of Sahana and the
president of the Sahana Foundation,”
Sahana launched in response to the says Milad Fatenejad, an engineering
December 2004 Asian tsunami. Now physics PhD student who co-founded
the free, open-source system enables aid The Hacker Within. “We were chatting
organizations to coordinate the logistics with them on IRC, and it was only
of disaster response and management, because of this process and these
including tracking missing people, managing open-source tools that we were
volunteers, mapping, and communicating among various groups. within two days actually contributing code into Sahana. And that
When the Haiti earthquake occurred, Sahana developers were in the for me was really amazing.”
midst of converting the tool from PHP into Python. Since text messages Even though Haiti earthquake rescue efforts have become
pleading for assistance were pouring in from Haiti, Sahana developers long-term relief initiatives, the UW-Madison students are still
needed help—fast—so that earthquake victims and aid organizations writing code for Sahana—an endeavor they find both personally
could use the tool in rescue and recovery efforts. “We were able to and professionally rewarding.
add this functionality that was specific to this disaster,” says Preston, “At one point, I was on the chat room, and I commented to some-
who works as a programmer for Healthscapes under Jonathan Patz, one, ‘I’m learning so much, I feel like I should be paying you tuition,’”
a professor in the Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies says Fatenejad. “I got an education, and we got to help people.”
and Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment.

20
 UW-Madison chapter of
F or much of the year, the Saint-Cyr River in northern Haiti is a
docile trickle 1 foot deep. Yet when the late spring rains bear
down on the Saint-Cyr, the river swells in some points to be more
Engineers Without Borders
than 30 feet across and 10 feet deep. This volatility left a sinking
feeling in the student members of the UW-Madison chapter of
wins United Nations award
Engineers Without Borders when they realized the extent of the
flooding during a June 2009 trip to Haiti: The site for the hydroelectric
power generator they planned to start building was in one of the
areas where the water raised the most.
The students rallied and found a safer site to continue their work
on a mini-hydroelectric power generator that will provide 3 to 5
kilowatt hours of electricity to a school, library and church in
Bayonnais, Haiti. The generator will serve as a pilot project for a
larger, 15 to 25 kilowatt generator the group may build for a
community clinic currently in design.
A bridge project in Haiti was one of the earliest initiatives started
by the group of University of Colorado-Boulder students who founded
the first chapter of Engineers
Without Borders in 2000. governmental organization in Haiti, and a church in North Carolina. In
Graduate student Scott Hamel This is the second addition to finishing and repairing the bridge after Hurricane Hannah,
was with the project from time the Engineers the EWB-UW group is repairing a 10-mile pipe that carries fresh water
the beginning, and when he Without Borders through Bayonnais.
came to UW-Madison in 2002 The project attracted international attention when it was awarded
UW group has won
to pursue a PhD in civil and $22,400 and a gold medal Mondialogo Engineering Award in November
environmental engineering, a Mondialogo award. 2009. The award is part of a UNESCO (United Nations Educational,
he encouraged the new EWB- In 2005, the Rwanda Scientific and Cultural Organization) and Daimler initiative to recognize
UW group to get involved. project won a bronze intercultural engineering achievements related to development.
“It’s the poorest country award and $7,000. Civil and environmental engineering student Kyle Ankenbauer and
in the western hemisphere,” mechanical engineering student Eyleen Chou traveled to Stuttgart,
Hamel says. “I feel a sense of Germany, to receive the award, which the UW-Madison group shares
responsibility toward people who haven’t had the same opportunities with Quisqueya University in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
I’ve had, and the people I’ve met in Haiti are now my friends.” “This is a huge honor, and it feels really good to have the project
In 2006, EWB-UW did get involved. Members continued work recognized at such a high level,” says Ankenbauer. “The award will help
on the bridge project in collaboration with the EWB San Francisco generate a lot of momentum behind this project.”
professional chapter (which currently is designing the clinic), a non-

21
 The Next
Generation
student news

Students strive to improve medical care around the world

H oping to convey a more positive impression of

healthcare, biomedical engineering student
members of the UW-Madison Engineering World
Health chapter spearhead initiatives that could
benefit residents in countries around the world,
yet inspire students and teachers in Wisconsin.
The group offers workshops for middle- and high-
school students that help them relate math and science
to careers in medicine and engineering. Several biomedical
engineering students fix broken medical equipment, test and
calibrate it, and write a user-friendly operations manual that
travels with the equipment to remote areas of the world.
Others serve on medical missions trips or design simple,
low-cost medical equipment for developing nations.
Amit Nimunkar (PhD ‘09), who is among the
UW-Madison chapter founding members, stresses
that global engineering starts with developing interest
in and raising awareness of global medical needs at
home. “It is work at all these different levels,” he says.
“It‘s more like a ‘drop by drop makes a whole ocean’ effort.”

Inspiring elementary students

UW-Madison engineering students at all levels participate in many
outreach opportunities. Recently, student members of the engineering
fraternity Triangle shared their passion for engineering with third- through
sixth-grade students at Rusch Elementary School in Portage, Wisconsin.
In addition, they helped fourth-graders build “capsules” they hoped would
cushion raw eggs dropped from the gym balcony. “Having these engineer-
ing students come in, explain what engineering is, tell students how they
can do it and have fun with it was the ‘hook’ my students needed to get
motivated,” said a fifth-grade teacher. “The seed was planted. Awesome!”

UW-Madison and Beloit partnership produce water-run scooter

UW-Madison and Beloit partnership produces water-run scooter

A t first glance, a 50-cc Vespa scooter

and a squad car may not appear
to have much in common; however,
the two connected in a partnership
between a class of UW-Madison fresh-
man engineering students and officials
from Beloit, Wisconsin. The partnership
made progress toward technologies
that could eventually run a variety of
vehicles on nothing but water.
During the fall 2009 semester, a section of
InterEGR 160: Introduction to Engineering,
led by Civil and Environmental Engineering
Professor Marc Anderson and Beloit Public
Works fleet manager Dan Lutz, demonstrated
a new hydrogen-assisted system that can run
a Vespa on a hydrogen-gasoline fuel mix. The
students were able to run the Vespa entirely
on hydrogen both at idling and high-throttle
The electrolyzer “splits” water into hydrogen and oxygen.
speeds. Since hydrogen creates more complete engine combustion,
the class scooter produced fewer emissions than factory Vespas.
In spring 2009, Anderson’s freshman engineering class developed
a wet-cell system that ran water through a container called an
electrolyzer, which contained fuel cells to split water via electrolysis
into oxygen and hydrogen. The fuel cells, powered by the scooter’s
alternator, funneled the hydrogen directly to
the engine via a stainless steel tube. This year,
the class altered the system to be a dry-cell
system. Unlike a wet-cell design, which sub-
merges the electrical components in water, the
dry-cell system keeps the electrical connections
above water. This combined with Lutz’s unique
designs has created an efficient system that
powers the scooter with hydrogen and oxygen,
which are produced on demand in the fuel cell.
Future classes may be able to run the scooter
entirely on water by using the battery to start
the electrolyzer. Anderson also anticipates
students will work on a system that works with
tap water, rather than the distilled water with
sodium hydroxide used in the current system.
“It’s exciting to be working with hydrogen-
based technologies, and I really want to see
this go further,” says Lutz. “We’ve got a long

22
 Tight-knit steel bridge team

Jeff Miller
aims for the top
Purdue University), having hovered among
N early as long as a football field, the expansive Engineering Centers Building atrium offers
ample space for many university events and expositions held throughout the year.
On spring Saturdays, it also serves as a training ground for a unique athletic endeavor that
the nation’s best steel bridge builders for a
decade. The team has earned second-, third-,
marries basic civil engineering with agility, speed, precision—and of course, teamwork. fourth-, sixth- and 12th-place finishes in six
The challenge? Build a strong steel bridge across a pretend river using hundreds of parts of the last seven years.
and pieces set up in delivery “yards” on either end. Time is of the essence, as is accuracy. An offshoot of the student chapter of the
Construction team members—and the bridge itself—must hold up well under pressure. American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE),
In 2010, there’s an added layer of complexity—one that members of the UW-Madison Steel the Steel Bridge Team generally boasts a
Bridge Team have imposed upon themselves. “If we’re going to do it, we’re going to go all the couple of dozen members. About five students
way. We’re going to try to win nationals,” says civil and environmental engineering student make up the competition construction team,
Tyler Hoehn, who co-chairs the team with fellow while other members help shape the bridge
students Ed Sippel and Edson Rosenberg. design, spearhead fund-raising efforts (the
Team members are hungry for a national team has many sponsors), fabricate key parts,
championship (nationals are May 28-29 at mentor new members, or serve as crew for
the construction team.
Bridge design begins in September when
major competition sponsors ASCE and the
American Institute of Steel Construction
release rules for the upcoming competition.
plating with a proprietary surface coating For a week during the university winter break,
developed by Anderson that improves the students work with professional welders
way to go, but by running a Vespa entirely on performance and efficiency. A U.S. patent and machinists, whom Waunakee, Wisconsin-
hydrogen, we’ve proved it can be done.” on this coating is pending through the based Endres Manufacturing Co. supplies to
Lutz hopes to eventually implement a Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. help fabricate major portions of the bridge.
fine-tuned version of the system in a variety of The partnership between UW-Madison Then there are the spring-semester
Beloit vehicles, including squad cars and city and Beloit Public Works was mutually construction practices, which are a mixture
pick-up trucks. Beloit Public Works has been beneficial. Lutz was able to leverage of silly and serious. “Even if they’re not the
testing hydrogen-based systems in city fleet university resources, including laboratories people doing the run, there’ll be a couple of
vehicles since the spring of 2008, and Lutz, and faculty expertise, to advance hydrogen people standing around, helping take the
who oversees the more than 300-vehicle fleet, technologies and eventually enable bridge apart in between,” says Sippel. “And
has worked to meet the city’s sustainability suppliers to build systems for him to it gets to be a lot of fun, just joking around,
goals by testing hydrogen-on-demand systems implement in the Beloit fleet vehicles. being together for a while, taking a break
to save fuel and help the environment. The engineering students also benefited from homework.”
Lutz was put in contact with Anderson from Lutz’s presence on campus, says And, says Hoehn, membership on the Steel
through various public works and UW-Madison Anderson, and took full advantage of their Bridge Team is a good time with a reasonable
contacts. Throughout the semester, Lutz opportunity to learn from both instructors. time commitment: “I haven’t had a sleepless
traveled to Madison every Wednesday evening “We cancelled class the Wednesday night yet,” he says.
to help teach the students about hydrogen- before Thanksgiving, and several students
based technologies. During class, the students still came into the lab because they didn’t
tested fuel cell designs and coated the fuel cell want to miss a week,” says Lutz.

23
 Beyond
Boundaries
education innovation

Intergrating engineering and biology

F
or students studying a discipline strongly rooted in the physical
sciences, it might seem contradictory that biology could appear
alongside math, chemistry and physics as a course most
engineering undergraduates should take.
Yet, says Tom Keenan, as multidisciplinary teams seek to solve
global challenges in health, medicine and the environment, this
natural science is integral to many engineering disciplines. As a
postdoctoral researcher in Biomedical Engineering Professor David
Beebe’s lab, Keenan began brainstorming ideas for a biology course
that would appeal to all College of Engineering undergraduates. In
2007, he and Beebe received funding through the college Engineering
Beyond Boundaries (EB2) initiative to
develop InterEGR 301: Engineering and University of Wisconsin-Madison
Biology: Technological Symbiosis.
“There was a lot of interest from our
students in community-level engineering,
as well as global engineering,” says Keenan,
who now is an assistant scientist in neurology
in the UW-Madison School of Medicine and
ENGINEERING
In each of the modules, students apply what they’ve learned
about biology and engineering as participants on interdisciplinary
teams. They also share their knowledge, in “lay” language, through
a community outreach project of their choosing. Keenan and Beebe
added the outreach component to the four-credit course to encourage
students to think about how to communicate science and technology
to public audiences. “You can’t say, ‘It’s really complicated,’ because
that’s dismissive,” says Keenan. “You have to make it uncomplicated,
and that’s your job.”
Students in the class have given talks to groups ranging from
elementary and high school students to visitors at a senior center.
One recent outreach presentation had ties to
computing: Students explored silicon-based
memory and processors and how they might
integrate such technologies with the human
brain to improve their ability to think and store
information. “That’s the kind of ‘out-there’
thinking we’re hoping they’ll do,” says Keenan.

Public Health.
Keenan and Beebe crafted three modules
that are both meaningful to students and demonstrate the connection As part of the outreach effort, student teams research their topic and
between biology and engineering. (Now, the course counts as an give an in-class presentation that solidifies their technical knowledge
elective in most College of Engineering departments.) “We introduce of the subject. Then, they redevelop their talk for a general audience,
them to biology, with a specific application in mind—and in a way also considering such factors as ethics and context.
that employs their engineering training,” says Keenan. Former student Emily Maslonkowski and her group presented a
In the superhuman bionics module, students in the class study how talk about stem cells to about 25 senior center residents. “I think that
to make prosthetic devices that exceed human function. A module that getting the students at the university to share their knowledge with
debuted initially as an exercise in using personal waste to generate the surrounding community is a great way to thank them for their
electricity now engages students in discussions about how to manage support,” she says.
agricultural and municipal solid waste and use it for energy. For the third The students discussed what stem cells are, how they are made,
module, students learn how to adapt “Western” HIV/AIDS diagnostic what political issues surround stem cell research, and how stem cells
tools for use in countries with limited access to electricity or water. could replace damaged cardiac tissue. “We got so many questions from
Keenan and Beebe deliver Engineering and Biology online, and EB2 the people there that you could really tell that they were interested
funding in 2009 enabled them to improve their content. They have and wanted to learn,” says Maslonkowski, who earned her bachelor’s
coupled their own web-based narrated PowerPoints with multimedia degree in biomedical engineering in May 2009 and now works for GE
content in the public domain. For example, students better understand Healthcare in its operations management leadership program. “It was
the limitations of prosthetic devices after they watch YouTube videos also really great to see how they didn’t just want the ‘watered-down’
created by people who use prosthetics. In addition to viewing the version of science that they see on the news, but they wanted to know
lectures, students also take required web-based quizzes. how it really worked and what it meant for them.”
Students like the format and flexibility of the online lectures and, The course is open to any engineering undergraduate. “They can
when they come to class, they’re prepared to tackle the challenge come together with a project that really makes sense from all the
at hand, says Keenan. “They’ve watched those presentations and the engineering disciplines—and work on a team that probably is a lot
professor who’s leading that module—or the special lecturers, which like what they’ll work on when they go to industry,” Keenan says.
we have a series of for each module—can then sit down and have Former student Kenny Kearney agrees. “I think the most important
a really in-depth discussion or analysis,” he says. “We take them far thing that I learned from the class was how different fields of engineer-
beyond the course material they’ve learned and really maximize the ing can be combined to help solve problems that would be difficult for
efficiency of the learning process.” the individual fields to solve on their own,” he says.
—Renee Meiller

24
As multidisciplinary teams seek to solve global challenges
in health, medicine and the environment, biology is integral
to many engineering disciplines.

25
 Wisconsin Ideas

at work in the world

E
very weeknight when the lights came
up on the set of “The Tonight Show
with Conan O’Brien,” the staff at
Electronic Theatre Controls (ETC) could point
to the television screen and say, “We did that.”
As a global company, ETC produces lighting
fixtures for many countries, each with different
voltage and connector standards. To find a
way to efficiently produce a variety of fixtures,
the company turned to the UW-Madison
Center for Quick Response Manufacturing
(QRM). The center is a partnership between
UW-Madison and more than 50 member
companies dedicated to researching and
implementing quick-response manufacturing
(QRM) principles, methods and tools.
The QRM philosophy was originally
developed by Industrial and Systems
Engineering Professor Emeritus Rajan Suri.
QRM focuses on reducing lead time (the
amount of time needed to develop and
deliver a product) by evaluating the entire
manufacturing process. This includes order
processing, purchasing, design, the shop
floor, shipping and after-market service.
Faculty and students at the center work with
manufacturers to develop new principles to
create tailored solutions for businesses that
help them dramatically reduce lead times.
Industrial and Systems Engineering
Custom solutions keep
Professor Ananth Krishnamurthy took over as
director of the QRM center in January 2008 manufacturers
when Suri retired.
Krishnamurthy completed his PhD in industrial engineering under the center helps transfer university research to industry, resulting in
Suri’s mentorship and has been affiliated with the center for more than tangible benefits to their bottom lines. In the 16 years since its founding,
a decade. He supervised industry projects, led research activities the center has completed more than 400 projects with more than 200
and spoke at numerous QRM workshops and conferences. company partners, most of which are based in the Midwest and range
Connecting with the Krishnamurthy is also the director of the UW-Madison from small, local manufacturers to large, national corporations.
Manufacturing Systems Engineering (MSE) program, An example is P&H Mining of Milwaukee, which manufactures
College of Engineering an interdisciplinary master’s program that custom mining equipment, including shovels, draglines and drilling
The college welcomes inquiries from combines engineering and business courses. products. The company designs and engineers each product to meet
business and industry about solving The QRM center provides extensive support its customers’ specific needs. As a result, each P&H customer order
technical problems, tapping into specialized to the MSE program. varies in quantity and manufacturing complexity; QRM offers specific
expertise or serving professional training needs. The center conducts cutting-edge principles to address this complexity.
research on strategies to improve manu- “We were visiting lean manufacturing factories, but the philosophy
• Lawrence Casper, assistant dean
facturing competitiveness and works wasn’t the best match,” says P&H plant manager Bob Mueller. Lean
for research and technology transfer,
in partnership with several businesses manufacturing is a traditional approach that establishes production flow
608/265-4104, casper@engr.wisc.edu
operating in low-volume, high-mix in high-volume, low-variety environments. Mueller and project manager
• Philip O’Leary, chair, Department of manufacturing environments. Through Kathy Pelto led the efforts to implement QRM principles at P&H Mining,
Engineering Professional Development, graduate student-led projects, confer- while QRM center faculty conducted employee-training sessions. When
608/262-2061, oleary@engr.wisc.edu ences and employee training sessions, the company purchased new shop equipment, the P&H team ensured

26
Ananth Krishnamurthy (wearing tie) and three
of his students tour the production facility of the
RenewAire factory in Madison with company
representative Chuck Gates (right).
Bryce Richter
producer of energy-efficient ventilation systems. RenewAire became
a QRM partner in 2002, when the company was experiencing rapid
growth. Like P&H Mining, RenewAire didn’t find lean manufacturing
to be a good fit for its variable environment.
“We struggled mightily with variable customer demand, and it
was a huge relief to find a central methodology we could build plans
around,” says RenewAire president Chuck Gates. “QRM allowed us to
move from bunker mentality to a mindset of empowerment.”
With help from the QRM center, RenewAire established two
focused target markets: residential and commercial customers. The
company then created teams to directly serve both customer groups
from order to delivery, so instead of specializing in one production
task, employees specialized on their particular customer.
The results were tremendous. “Between 2003 and 2008, revenue
has increased 130 percent,” says Gates. “Lead time for residential
products has been reduced from 10 days to one. Lead time for
commercial sector products was 25 days and now is 10 days.”
Such results challenge the misconception that manufacturing is
too expensive in the United States and must be outsourced to other
countries. According to Krishnamurthy, labor costs generally make up
only 10 to 20 percent of total manufacturing costs,
so reducing labor costs by outsourcing
overseas may save only 5 or 6 percent
customer what they want, when they want it.
This gives U.S. companies an advantage.”
The partnerships between manufacturers
and the QRM center are mutually beneficial.
Several partners have hired QRM students,
including P&H Mining, which has hired two
graduates full time and others as interns to
continue their academic-year projects into
the summer. “Every year the students are
really high caliber,” says Mueller.
ETC hired Alex Stoltz 11 years ago after he
graduated from the MSE program and worked
on a QRM center student project.
“I really understood the philosophy of lead
time reduction, and ETC was just getting into it
when I started here,” he says. “We’ve hired an-
other engineer from the program and another
is currently enrolled. It’s really been a win-win
relationship for ETC, MSE and the QRM center.”
ETC regularly participates in student proj-
ects. After each one, the company implements
some of the project recommendations.
Overall, ETC has reduced lead times

of total costs. These meager savings by more than 30 percent and has
also come at a price: time. “QRM methodology seen cost savings by reducing
“When you ship from makes it possible to offer a scrap, handling and rework.
overseas, the products sit wide variety of products delivered In addition to the student
on a boat for three to four projects, the QRM center
in a short amount of time—in effect
months, so you have to hosts international
machine months worth of giving the customer what they want, conferences and seminars
competitive inventory ahead of time,
which may be obsolete by
when they want it. This gives U.S.
companies an advantage.”
to introduce a wide range
of businesses to the benefits
the time it gets here,” says and possibilities of QRM.
the equipment was set up according to a QRM Krishnamurthy. “Sourcing from —Chuck Gates Krishnamurthy is looking
workflow, which groups employees working on overseas also limits your ability to forward to expanding the center’s
a particular product into a cluster, or cell. adapt to demand changes and introduce national presence as he and his team
QRM principles helped reduce P&H Mining the latest designs into your product. This continue to help businesses embrace QRM.
lead times by 66 percent, resulting in significant could lead to loss of potential business opportunities.” “We recognize that in the future, more and
cost savings. According to Mueller and Pelto, These are valuable openings for manufacturers that would like more manufacturers will be required to offer
key to this success is how well P&H Mining to compete based on their ability to manufacture custom products a high variety of customized products at short
employees embraced QRM. quickly —the QRM center is helping companies take advantage of lead times,” Krishnamurthy says.
“Workers plan their own work, which these opportunities. “At the QRM center, we are at the forefront
leads to more fulfillment after a day on the “The strength of American manufacturing is in small- and medium- of identifying theories that would define
job,” Mueller says. Pelto adds that the shop sized manufacturers. That’s where the innovation really takes place, manufacturing competitiveness in the
workers, who are unionized, feel a sense of and by supporting these companies we provide a valuable service,” future and helping businesses implement
ownership for the products since they are says Krishnamurthy. these theories. As we pull out of these tough
part of the process almost from start to finish, Gates appreciates the help. “Small to medium manufacturers economic times, companies that are well
rather than seeing a product only at one point make up the majority of manufacturing output in the United States,” equipped to meet these challenges will
in the production process. He says. “So this sector is absolutely vital to our economic health as succeed and the QRM center is proud to help
QRM principles also are making a difference a nation. QRM methodology makes it possible to offer a wide variety them chart their success.”
for Madison-based RenewAire, a leading of products delivered in a short amount of time—in effect giving the —Sandra Knisely

27
Badger Engineers

meet two alumni

Making a mark
on Miller Park

W hile your typical Milwaukee Brewers fan might have a favorite

moment to share about a game at Miller Park, Mike Duckett
can narrow it down to his favorite time of day.
sports good for the local economy and worth
the public investment? “I’ve always said,
being a good Wisconsin boy, that it’s a good
Duckett, the executive director of the Miller Park Stadium District, barstool argument,” he says. “You can argue
says he is enamored with that intersection between the end of his long and hard about the benefits and/or costs
workday and the start of a night game, when he can watch thousands of professional sports, with valid points
of fans thread into the sprawling ballpark. “I’ll often wait until about supporting either side of the argument.”
7 p.m. to leave work, and just watch the building load with people,” From a numbers perspective, economists
he says. “My favorite time is when you see the families bringing kids often fall on both sides of the question. But
in, some for the very first time, and they’re holding their mom or dad’s in the case on the Milwaukee Brewers, the
hand, looking up and just going, ‘Wow.’ That’s really fun to see them economic benefits to Milwaukee are measur-
soaking it all in.” able, with more than 50 percent of all ticket
This inside-looking-out perspective perfectly suits Duckett, a 1974 sales coming from outside the five-county
bachelor’s and 1975 master’s degree graduate of the Department region, Duckett says. The fact that Miller Park
of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Since Miller Park opened
M D
ike uckett
attracts millions of visitors each year to south-
in 2001, Duckett has served as Executive Director of the Southeast eastern Wisconsin is an indisputable economic
Wisconsin Professional Baseball Park District and represents the benefit of the ballpark.
interests of southeastern Wisconsin taxpayers, who own 70 percent of Miller Park. The open concourse design— Then there’s the less measurable quality-
the stadium. He oversees about $2 million per year in capital projects allowing a 360-degree ring of unobstructed of-life perspective. “We are a major league city
and improvements. views from the concourse— thanks to the Brewers,” Duckett says. “Every
But the satisfaction with helping “My favorite time is when you was a first and is now one of the night, in every city in America, you can turn
create a great major league experi- hottest trends in professional on the evening news and hear reports about
ence in Milwaukee goes deeper for
see the families bringing kids stadium design. the Brewers, or the Milwaukee Bucks or the
Duckett, who was associated with in, some for the very first time, He pointed to ways the park Green Bay Packers. This puts Milwaukee and
Miller Park before a single blueprint and they’re holding their mom continues to offer a fresh experi- Wisconsin on a more respected major league
was drafted. As an engineer with ence. At the right field foul pole level nationally.”
HNTB Associates in the mid-1980s,
or dad’s hand, looking up and is the new AirTran Landing If there is a common theme to Duckett’s
he participated in a study on the just going, ‘Wow.’ ” Zone, an enclosed bullpen engineering career, it would be, simply put,
future of the former County Stadium. sports bar that seats 75 people. “big-league construction.” His work with Miller
That pivotal report concluded it would cost nearly as much to give the And next to the sausage race entrance, a new Park led to him being tapped as a construction
deteriorating County Stadium a modern facelift as it would to build a kids’ play area includes batting cages, speed consultant for the Lambeau Field renovation
new one. pitching, photo booths and a bicycle-powered project five years ago, and most recently,
He remained a key consultant with the stadium development sausage race. Miller Park has also added he provided assistance on the massive new
through the 1990s, a time of political strife for the project. Things several group and party areas, including new stadium project for the Minnesota Twins. He
looked rosy in 1994, when state polls showed 70-percent support for party skyboxes and the Gehl Club, a unique, has also served as an engineering manage-
a new stadium and the Legislature was poised to create a new sports upscale group area on the club level with ment consultant on the recently completed
lottery for its construction. Only one problem: The summer of 1994 seating for 240 people. Marquette Interchange ($810 million), and
brought the major league baseball strike, and with it the fury of fans. In 2005, Sports Illustrated named Miller the current Highway 41 ($1.5 billion) and
“The referendum went down in flames,” he recalls. “There was so much Park the No. 1 baseball stadium in America in Interstate 94 ($1.9 billion) artery overhauls.
animosity over the strike and the rich millionaires who can’t get along.” terms of value for the money. Duckett says it’s Still, the Miller Park work is easily
Following a rocky political road, stadium backers ultimately no accident. “The Milwaukee market is a little classified as a “dream job,” Duckett says.
succeeded in creating a 0.1 percent sales tax in the five adjacent different,” he says. “The old joke was that out of “There’s something special about baseball.
counties to build Miller Park. Duckett was hired in late 1996, prior 30 major league baseball markets, Milwaukee Parents and grandparents teach their
to the groundbreaking for Miller Park, to manage the complex ranks No. 32 in market size. They tried to create youngsters how to play the game, and usually
construction project on behalf of the Southeast Wisconsin Professional a more level playing field for fans, so they enjoy taking them to their first game,” he
Baseball Park District as its executive director, the position he still fills don’t need a lot of money to come to Miller says. “In the 1940s, the top three spectator
today. Miller Park is now one of the great iconic sights while driving Park and have a good time.” During the 2009 sports in America were baseball, boxing and
into Milwaukee, with its trademark retractable dome roof arcing like season, 60 of the 81 home games had some horse racing. Today it’s baseball, basketball
wings over the red brick structure. sort of special discount or promotion. and football. Something about baseball has
Over a club sandwich lunch at Friday’s, the in-stadium restaurant Duckett still encounters the million-dollar consistently transcended generations.”
overlooking the field, Duckett pointed out some his favorite features of question about Miller Park: Are professional —Brian Mattmiller

28

D riving through San Diego’s Sorrento
Valley, where rolling hills are populated
with dozens of gleaming buildings bearing
the Qualcomm Inc. logo, it’s hard to imagine
a time when Qualcomm would have been
considered a corporate underdog.
But that time was just two decades ago,
when the era of digital cellular technology
was beginning to take shape. Jim Thompson,
a three-degree graduate of the Department
of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
joined Qualcomm during those pivotal early
days, when a high-stakes technology gamble
fueled the company’s meteoric rise.
Thompson, vice president of Qualcomm
CDMA Technology (QCT), today leads
engineering efforts in the Qualcomm chipset
division. CDMA—short for code division
multiple access—is the heart and soul of
Qualcomm, and the platform technology
that enabled the explosion in “smart phone”
capability that the world enjoys today.
But CDMA was viewed as a longshot in
those early days, Thompson says. At the time,
the cellular phone industry was searching for
the best answer to moving from “the scratchy
analog days” of wireless (Remember the
2-pound brick phone?) into the tremendous
promise of digital wireless. The core question:
Which technology will support the broadest
consumer usage and the fastest and most
dependable cellular transmission?
This is a tale of two competing approaches.
The majority of the industry backed a system
known as TDMA—time division multiple
access—as the best solution, Thompson says.
Both CDMA and TDMA aim to accomplish the
same thing—essentially, to enable multiple
users to share the same frequency or channel
on the radio spectrum—but with fundamen-
tally different approaches.
One metaphor about the technologies
imagines conversations at a cocktail party.
The TDMA approach would require having
each person at a party take turns speaking
in a round-robin fashion to complete a
conversation. CDMA, on the other hand,
would have all conversations taking place
at once, but each one in a different language.
“One of our lead engineers did a study and
found that he could improve the capacity of
Building a
wireless world
“I feel so lucky to be part of this industry, starting at Qualcomm
when I did,” Thompson says. “We started out with a relatively small
group of people working on this new technology. We felt like we were
going to change the world with it, and I think we did. The dramatic
growth of the company forced young guys like me—who were barely
shaving—to take on big leadership roles.”
The big-picture impact of the cellular industry also inspires Thompson.
“Four billion people now own a cell phone. And close to a billion people
use a 3G phone, a very data-capable device. When you think about
Internet access today,” he adds, “more of it will come through cell
phones than through a desktop or laptop computer.”
As the head of engineering, Thompson now works with a new
generation of engineers and a new set of challenges. Foremost is
reducing power consumption in cellular phones, he says. With a tiny
J Tim hompson
battery and little surface area to dissipate heat, the growth of cell
phone capability rests with packing more and better features into a
day’s supply of battery power.
the cellular network using CDMA by a factor One way Qualcomm is answering the challenge to increase battery
of 40,” Thompson says. “TDMA was expected life is with mirasol display technology. Qualcomm has developed a
to improve it by a factor of three. That’s when reflective color display that doesn’t require power-hungry backlighting.
you could say that we really bet the company Thompson says a display pixel made from thin-film optics using
on this technology.” interferometric modulation reflects color in natural light. He likens it
Facing industry skepticism, Qualcomm to the physical phenomenon that produces vivid colors found in multi-
forged on with CDMA development, using layered butterfly wings.
profits from a satellite tracking system it had Thompson earned a bachelor’s (1985), master’s (1987) and PhD
developed in the (1991) in electrical
1980s for the truck- and computer engi-
ing industry. When “We started out with a relatively small group of neering, and studied
the company started people working on this new technology. We felt under ECE Professor
demonstrating like we were going to change the world with it, Jim Beyer. He credits
success, Thompson his success to getting
says the competition and I think we did. The dramatic growth of the a mix of engineering
became fierce. company forced young guys like me—who were fundamentals and
“Things got really barely shaving—to take on big leadership roles.” a broad education
heated over time,” outside the field.
Thompson says. (His father, Howard
“There were stories about how CDMA couldn’t Thompson, is a professor emeritus of business at UW-Madison.)
possibly work because it defied the laws of Says Thompson: “Graduate school was about developing an
physics. There were big technical and legal independence—being able to think for myself, manage my own time,
battles over CDMA, as well as battles in the pursue my own ideas and gain the confidence that you can actually
press. In the end, we prevailed simply because accomplish something without a professor assigning you homework.”
the technology was so much better.” Thompson says he remembers stumbling across a Forbes magazine
The rewards of that risk have been great. article in graduate school titled “Over the Hill at Forty,” and at the time
As the largest fabless semiconductor producer the concept seemed ridiculous. But after 20 years in the technology
in the world, Qualcomm sells more than a business, he says it now makes perfect sense.
billion chips a year, all for the cellular “The only way to avoid becoming obsolete in the technology world
industry. Fortune magazine this year ranked is to keep learning and relearning,” he says. “What’s important is always
Qualcomm No. 9 in the list of the top-100 changing. The broad education I received at Wisconsin is instrumental
companies to work for. in allowing me to keep up with changes and branch into areas outside
For Thompson, it has been an incredibly my expertise.”
rewarding ride. —Brian Mattmiller
29
 A New
Perspective
BY EYLEEN CHOU
Senior, mechanical engineering; president, From helpers
to helpless
UW-Madison Engineers Without Borders
T
he January 2010 Engineers Without Borders
Haiti Project trip was supposed to be a simple
assessment trip. However, it happened to be
scheduled from January 8-14, 2010. The catastrophic
earthquake occurred during our trip and it was a
What it was like to be in Haiti
life-changing event. when the earthquake struck
There were six travelers from UW-Madison who
went on this trip: five engineering students, and one
professional mentor. We had prepared all semester
for a final assessment on a waterpipeline that served Bayonnais, a
community of 10,000 people, clean drinking water. One section of
pipe had been destroyed in June 2009 by flood damage. Our job was
to design and build a new pipe crossing that would stretch the pipe
across a small river.
The first few days of our trip were quite normal for an EWB Haiti trip.
We had an smooth, stress-free pick-up at the Port-au-Prince airport on
Saturday with Moses driving the bright yellow ICB school bus, church
on Sunday, scouting and surveying on the first two work days, and
continual meetings with community members and community leaders.
However, Tuesday, January 12 is a day all of us will remember
vividly. It was particularly windy. Very late in the afternoon, John
Lee, Tyler Lark and I sat on a concrete retaining wall and watched as
Michael Hoeger, Randi Schieber and Alysen Kohlnhofer finished
surveying the area. Theanaud, a student teacher at the local school,
had joined us that afternoon; he was done teaching his seventh-
graders at the school for the day. We were talking about what kind
of math he had been teaching.
All of a sudden, there was a strong gust of wind, but it felt mightier
than the other ones that day. The retaining wall felt like it was reso-
nating from the force of the wind. It felt like how little ball bearings
look on a manufacturing line, vibrating along the conveyor, shifting,
bouncing and trembling. It was only for a few seconds. The kids
nearby seemed to scream with delight. “Tremble terre! Tremble terre!”
Michael had fallen over from his perch with the graduated rod.
Alysen and Randi were yelling back and forth. For the four of us on
the retaining wall, all of our eyes seemed to widen with curiosity.
Theanaud said with a grin, “C’est un tremblement de terre. Vous avez
jamais senti les tremblements de terre?”
Of course we’d never felt an earthquake before! It was exhilarat-
ing. We come from one of the most stable areas on a tectonic plate. I
quickly asked him in French if there are earthquakes regularly in Haiti.
He said that they probably occur once a year, but never this strong.
We hopped off our once subtly trembling retaining wall and joined
the others surveying. Everyone was still talking excitedly. It seemed our
work was done for the day, as the bubble in the level of the theodolite
was still moving back and forth in the same rhythm as the vibrations.
We had no choice but to pack up and head back to the guesthouse.
30
After dinner, I checked my E-mail and the subject lines and
message previews screamed at me:
Are you ok?
HAITI EARTHQUAKE
Status
Hope you’re safe
You are OK, right??
Are you alive?
I quickly Googled “earthquake Haiti.” At the next moment,
John came striding through the common room with his laptop open.
An article from the New York Times showing a map of Haiti: “Haitian
earthquake causes hospital collapse.” The words seemed to glare
with the black, powerful font. We all fell silent and could do nothing
but keep reading.
The rest of the trip progressed much faster than we could have ever
anticipated. The 7.0-magnitude earthquake had brutally severed the
main artery of Haiti. Port-au-Prince was flattened. Actionnel Fleurisma,
the main community leader, kept coming in and out of the guesthouse
with reports from the radio that was playing in his truck outside. “The
National Palace collapsed.” “Government buildings collapsed.” “Schools
collapsed.” “Hospitals collapsed.” We Americans searched the internet
for stories, each one seeming more horrific than the last.
On Wednesday, we decided the best thing to do was to continue
with our project work. We were 70 miles away from Port-au-Prince;
there was nothing we could do. None of us had any experience in aid
work; we were only engineering students. On the way to our surveying
site, we saw that the temporarily repaired pipe crossing had broken
due to the earthquake.
After the post-earthquake pipe break, we and the Haitian sub-
contractors decided that we would work together to fix the pipe that
day. From noon to 5 p.m., a fantastic collaboration occurred, Haitians
and Americans working side by side: We discussed possible solutions,
took measurements, lined up the steel pipe, removed the cemented
threads from the broken pieces, lifted the 20-foot length of pipe into
the support brackets, cut the 4-inch pipe with only a hack saw,
adjusted the coupling to the new steel pipe, attached the pieces of
pipe, tightened the gaskets on coupling, and waited anxiously to hear
the air flow through the air release valve.
 We, Haitians and Americans alike, were elated when we saw the
project come together. Bayonnais would be getting fresh drinking
water from the spring source once again. Everyone was congratulating
each other. Warm, energetic handshakes were being shared; we
couldn’t help but smile.
Our success, exhaustion and hunger from not having lunch created
an interesting exhilaration. How quickly that feeling would fade.
We walked back to the OFCB Ministries church and school grounds
and soon saw that Actionnel’s white truck had returned. Actionnel
had left early that morning with three other OFCB representatives to
go to Port-au-Prince to find students from Bayonnais who had been
studying at the university-level in the capital city. Everyone had heard
the night before of the extent of the damage to the buildings in
Port-au-Prince; these students’ lives had never been so uncertain.
Three of us saw the truck pull up and decided it was best to let
the community have its time to hear the news that Actionnel had
to bring. We rounded the corner of the guesthouse and distracted
ourselves with checking the spigots fed by the water main we had
fixed earlier that day. Night was slowly falling. We continued to walk
the loop to the driveway leading to the church. All of a sudden, we
were hearing cries. We could not tell whether they were cries of joy
or of severe sorrow. As we walked up to the church, the confusion
and chaos only grew. I could not tell if people were saying li pa vene
or li vene. That word “pa” was the difference in “they came back” or
“they did not come back.” Then, it was clear: A woman had collapsed,
sprawled across the church steps, screaming and sobbing. It was as
if all of her muscles had failed her. The students had not returned
from Port-au-Prince.
Perhaps the most difficult thing about the trip to Haiti was leaving.
It was not all that difficult to physically leave the country—but
rather, it was heartbreaking to leave so quickly and helplessly. All
of us wished we could have helped in the relief process. All of us
wanted to stay. But it was best for us to leave and not be a burden
on the community.
Our role and contribution will be for years to come. Engineers
Without Borders strives to create long-term, sustainable projects. Our
future projects for Bayonnais, Haiti, will help the community recover
long-term. It may be a clinic that provides jobs and healthcare for
people in the community, it may be a small-scale hydroelectric
generator that provides electricity to students who need light to study,
it may be a drastic reforestation project to restore nutrients to the soil.
We have many projects coming up, but no matter which ones we
work on, we will always be working to improve the quality of life
in Bayonnais.
Contact Chou at eyleenchou@uwalumni.com for more information
about the Haiti project or about Engineers Without Borders.
31
 College of Engineering
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON

1415 Engineering Dr., Madison, WI 53706

David Nevala

Thanks to recent funding from government and industry, UW-Madison is emerging as a powerhouse
in wind-energy research, technology transfer, and education. In spring 2009, the College of Engineering
began a partnership with world-leading wind-turbine manufacturer Vestas that will support initiatives in
education, research and development. And, grants from the U.S. Department of Energy have enabled faculty
in three engineering departments to add to the existing curriculum several new wind-energy courses,
including a suite of courses for professionals working in the industry.

32