T H E U N I V ER S I T Y O F T E X A S AT A R L I N G T O N / CO L L EG E O F EN G I N EER IN G

UTA ENGINEER
VOLUME VII / 2018

Medical
Maintenance
UTA researchers are applying
insights from engineering
to improve medical training,
increase patient safety, and
ensure quality of care for all.
 The newly opened
Science & Engineering
C ON T E N T S
Innovation & Research
building on the UTA
campus creates a Volume VII / 2018
collaborative space
where researchers
from the colleges of
engineering, science,
and nursing and
health innovation can
push the boundaries
of knowledge.

After the Storm

12
UTA civil
engineering
professors were
there before and after
Hurricane Harvey to
help cities weather the
storm—and prepare
for the next one.

DE PA R T M E N T S

02 Dispatch Engineering
03 Lab Notes Health Care

16
04 Faculty Researchers from
06 Research the Department
of Industrial,
08 Classroom Manufacturing, and
20 Beyond the Lab Systems Engineering
22 Class Notes are helping make
health care safer and
24 Re-Engineered 10 In Depth more efficient.

ii THE UNI V ERSIT Y OF TE X A S AT A RLINGTON COVER ILLUSTRATION BY ROY SCOTT/SCIENCE SOURCE COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING 1
 DISPATcH
COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
dean
LAB
NOTES
Peter E. Crouch
s e n i o r a s s o c i at e d e a n
f o r a c a d e m i c a f fa i r s
Lynn Peterson

Encouraging a s s o c i at e d e a n f o r
g r a d u at e a f fa i r s
Erick Jones

Innovation a s s o c i at e d e a n f o r r e s e a r c h
Anand Puppala

C
a s s i s ta n t d e a n f o r
reativity and innovation are prized s t u d e n t a f fa i r s
J. Carter Tiernan
concepts in the field of engineering.
senior direc tor
Many of our students—and indeed, o f c o m m u n i c at i o n s
and marketing
many of you—are engineers because they Jeremy Agor
have a natural curiosity and desire to find direc tor of
New
solutions to problems, make life easier, or marketing services Endowed
just experiment and analyze the results.
Tracey Faulkinbury Chair
Through a gift from
As a College of Engineering, an integral DIVISION OF INSTITUTIONAL local couple Mike

part of our mission is to help our students ADVANCEMENT and Sunny Dolabi,
UTA has established
vice president the Mike and Sunny
learn how to be innovators and encourage Deborah (Dee) J. Robinson Dolabi Endowed
their creativity. Many of our faculty, stu- editorial direc tor Chair to promote
research, innovation,
dents, and alumni are entrepreneurs, and we Jessica Bridges
and the development
are putting in place mechanisms to encour- designer of best practices in
Brody Price the areas of business
age more to make that leap. logistics, supply
contributor chain management,
The College hosted its inaugural Innovation Day in April. More than 160 Herb Booth systems engineer- UTA's Formula
ing, and operations SAE team
graduate and undergraduate students presented over 90 projects throughout raced its 1998
management. The
the day, including 42 Research Experience for Undergraduates projects fund- endowed chair will competition car at
be used to recruit a an international
ed by the College, 15 senior design projects, and dozens by graduate students. renowned professor event in England.

I also had the pleasure of attending several departments’ senior design who will strengthen
UTA Engineer is published

Revisiting the Past

multidisciplinary
showcases at the end of the spring semester, and I was duly impressed and annually by the Division of research efforts at
Institutional Advancement. UTA.
inspired by our students. These events make powerful statements about the

T
Reproduction in whole or part “As local business
without written permission owners, we are
quality of our students and the education they receive at UTA. is prohibited. The comments always looking for wenty years after winning its first inter- they split with two wins apiece. Despite its age, the
From a University standpoint, the new Science & Engineering Innovation and opinions expressed in this ways to enhance our
magazine do not necessarily business operations, national championship, UTA’s Formu- car also registered several head-turning runs on the
& Research building is bringing with it opportunities for faculty pursuing represent those of The Univer- and UTA’s contin- la SAE team returned to the site of the track, and alumnus driver Ken Hassler won the Most
sity of Texas at Arlington or the ued excellence in
interdisciplinary research in the health care field, including several from en- staff of UTA Engineer. Copyright victory, England. The milestone, which Entertaining Driver award. The 2018 car finished
both business and
gineering, to collaborate in making advancements in the fight against cancer, 2018, The University of Texas at fell in July, coincided eighth of 100 teams.
“The organizers were
engineering makes
Arlington. UTA does not dis- it an ideal place to with the 20th anniversary of the Being invited back to drive the
heart disease, and other public health issues. criminate on the basis of race,
stunned that we had
combine fields that Formula Student United Kingdom 1998 car was an experience of a
color, national origin, religion, will have a far-reach-
In this issue of UTA Engineer, you’ll read about innovations by faculty in age, gender, sexual orientation, competition. lifetime, Hassler says. “The ’98
the original car. We
ing impact,” says Mike
the Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering Department, as well disabilities, genetic information, Dolabi, who studied The event’s previous 20 win- car is very special because it’s
and/or veteran status in the edu-
gave them a taste of
electrical engineering ners were invited to the anniver- one of the first where we were
as how faculty from the Civil Engineering Department took leadership roles cational programs or activities at UTA and is now the
it operates. For more info, visit sary celebration at Silverstone starting to master handling and
what the technology
in helping communities plan for and respond to Hurricane Harvey. Our inno- president and owner
uta.edu/eos. For info regarding of National Autobody Circuit racetrack. UTA brought it had a unique 4-cylinder engine
vative spirit exemplifies outside-the-box thinking! Title IX, visit uta.edu/titleix.
was like back then.”
Parts Warehouse. the 1998 competition car, three package that could hit 19,000
College of Engineering “We are confident this
UTA Box 19019 chair-holder will not members from that team, and rpm. Unlike the European teams,
Arlington, TX 76019 only change the way the 2018 car and team for several days of racing and we actually keep our cars every year and drive them.
we do business, but
Peter E. Crouch 817-272-3682 memories. The organizers were stunned that we had the original
will also revolution-
agor@uta.edu ize how we look at The 1998 car participated in four drag races car. We gave them a taste of what the technology was
DE A N, C OL L E G E OF E N GI N E E R I N G uta.edu/engineering industry.” against last year’s winner, Cardiff University, which like back then.”

2 THE UNI V ERSIT Y OF TE X A S AT A RLINGTON COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING 3

 FACU LT Y FOCU S

Professor
Elected
President
Civil engineering Professor Jim
Williams is the new president of
Chi Epsilon, the national civil en-
gineering honor society. The or-
ganization has 141 chapters across
the country and has inducted
more than 132,000 members.
Dr. Williams, who will serve a
two-year term, was elected at the
biennial Chi Epsilon Convention,
which was held at UTA in March.
“I’m honored and a little bit
surprised,” says Williams, who
joined UTA in 1986. “Our goals
are to strengthen existing chap-
ters, develop new chapters, and
expand leadership opportunities
for our members. We also plan to
sharpen our focus on engineer-
ing ethics. We have to remember
our responsibility to the public in
everything we do.”
“Dr. Williams truly cares about
our students and tries to make
them exemplary in every respect,”
says Ali Abolmaali, chair of the
Civil Engineering Department and
a Chi Epsilon member. “His elec-
SPOTLIGHT tion to this national post helps
accomplish his goals for those
Women in Tech Awards
students.”
H
anli liu, an expert in brain imaging and professor in the Bio- 
engineering Department, was among 26 women selected by the Outstanding
Dallas Business Journal as winners of the 5th annual Women in Teaching
Technology Awards. The awards celebrate and honor female tech maver-
icks who are forging the way for both women and future tech leaders in
Awarded
David Hullender, a longtime
Dallas-Fort Worth. “I am honored and humbled to be recognized at the professor of mechanical and
aerospace engineering, has been
Women in Technology Awards,” Dr. Liu says. “I am proud to be included named a 2018 Piper Professor by
alongside these brilliant women as an example of the influence that the San Antonio–based Minnie
Stevens Piper Foundation.
women in the Dallas-Fort Worth area have on their organizations and the “I’m honored and humbled
greater community.” to receive this award,” says Dr.
4 THE UNI V ERSIT Y OF TE X A S AT A RLINGTON
LAB NOTES
Hullender, who started at UTA in brings the number of NAI fellows
1970. “It’s never seemed like a at UTA to 12, the highest number
job. I enjoy teaching students and
often I learn from them as well.” NUMBER WISE
of any university in Texas.
“Dereje Agonafer is a passion-
The award, established in 1958
to recognize outstanding col-
ate contributor and dedicated
teacher in his field who has been
lege professors across Texas, is
given annually to 15 educators to
at the forefront of new technolo-
gies around thermal engineering,
honor their dedication to teaching many of which are now routinely
and their outstanding academic practiced in the industry, reduc-
achievement. Hullender is the ing product development lead
11th UTA professor to receive the times and costs,” says Chandra-
award. kant Patel, chief engineer of HP
National
“Instilling self-confidence to be Inc. and HP senior fellow.
Academy of
a lifelong learner starting in the Election as an NAI fellow is a
classroom is Professor Hullen- high honor bestowed upon aca-
Inventors
der’s mantra as teacher and men- demic innovators and inventors
fellows from
tor,” says Erian Armanios, chair who, according to the academy,
of the Department of Mechanical have demonstrated a “prolific
the College of
and Aerospace Engineering. “To spirit of innovation in creating or
Engineering
quote one of his former students: facilitating outstanding inven- Dereje Agonafer
Dr. Hullender’s teaching is a life tions and innovations that have is the newest UTA
faculty member
experience both through in-depth made a tangible impact on quality
named a National
view of the course material and of life, economic development, Academy of
real engineering problems.” and the welfare of society.” Inventors fellow.
In 2014, Hullender won the de-
partment’s Most Valuable Faculty
award. He also received the 2008
Lockheed Martin Excellence in
Teaching Award, the 1983 Out-
standing Teacher in the College of
Engineering, and the 1972 Young
Engineer of the Year sponsored
by the Fort Worth Chapter of the
Texas Society of Professional
Engineers.
He earned his doctorate at the
Massachusetts Institute of Tech-
nology and his bachelor’s and
master’s degrees from Oklahoma
State University.

Agonafer
Named NAI
Fellow
The election of Dereje Agonafer,
Jenkins Garrett Professor in the
Mechanical and Aerospace Engi-
neering Department, to the Na-
tional Academy of Inventors (NAI)
COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING 5
 R ESE A RCH N E WS
Juhyun Lee, seated, 
is developing a
microscope to
capture motion Constructing
a Beating
and construct a
4D beating heart.
Heart in 4D
Juhyun Lee, an assistant professor
in the Bioengineering Depart-
ment, is working to determine
how blood flow and cardiac
muscle contraction affect gene
development that leads to ven-
tricular chamber development in
the heart.
He is using a two-year,
$154,000 Institutional Research
Grant from the American Heart
Association to develop a new mi-
croscope that can capture 3D mo-
tion, then add time to construct
a 4D beating heart using optical
imaging techniques with fluores-
cent nanoparticles in a zebrafish.
6 THE UNI V ERSIT Y OF TE X A S AT A RLINGTON
Victoria Messerschmidt and Zach
Bailey, two doctoral students, and
Richard Bryant, who is seeking
his master’s degree, are assisting
on the project.
“We are trying to understand
biological forces through en-
gineering,” says Dr. Lee. “This
research is still in its basic
stages, but what we learn now
could someday allow doctors to
pre-identify heart abnormalities
12
NUMBER WISE
U.S. patents
issued to College
faculty in 2017
and diagnose congenital heart
conditions that could then be
treated with gene therapy.”

Preparing
for Robot
Co-Workers
As automation becomes a sta-
ple of the manufacturing sector,
vocational training for people
who work alongside robots will be
increasingly important.
Fillia Makedon, a professor
in the Department of Computer
Science and Engineering, and
her team are developing iWork, a
smart, robot-based system that
assesses workers’ skills while
they perform simulated manufac-
turing tasks.
Dr. Makedon’s Heracleia
Human Centered Computing
Laboratory conducts experiments
to study how best to train and
prepare workers, both with and
without disabilities, for the in-
dustry of the future, where work-
ers must safely and efficiently
collaborate with advanced robots.
iWork will assess in real-time
cognitive skills, including at-
tention and task awareness; the
physical and collaborative abili-
ties of a person to work with a ro-
bot; weaknesses; and the special
needs required for personalized
training and/or rehabilitation.
The research is closely con-
nected to manufacturing indus-
LAB NOTES
tries using robots that wish to re- SPOTLIGHT
Higher-Speed Internet
duce the time of on-site training
or retraining of workers, as well
as prevent workplace accidents.
A
“iWork will produce personal-
ized, low-cost vocational training n article published by electrical engineering Professor
solutions that have huge econom-
Michael Vasilyev in Nature Communications detailed an exper-
ic and societal impacts,” Make-
don says. “It could impact mil-
lions of people seeking to retrain
imental demonstration of an optical medium in which multiple
beams of light can autocorrect their own shapes without affecting one
for a manufacturing job, includ-
ing those facing a type of learning another. The project, funded by the National Science Foundation, enables
or aging disability or returning
simultaneous nonlinear-optical processing of multiple light beams by
from military service with some
health issues.” a single device without converting them to electrical form, opening the
way for this technology to reach its full multi-Terabit per second potential,
 which would result in cheaper and more energy-efficient high-speed inter-
Monitoring net communications. Dr. Vasilyev collaborated on the project with Taras I.
Concrete Lakoba, a mathematics professor at the University of Vermont.
Bridges
Texas has hundreds of bridg-
es, most of which are concrete.
Civil engineering Professor Nur
Yazdani is working with the Texas
Department of Transportation to
ensure that the vital infrastruc-
ture remains safe for years to
come.
He and his team will inspect
and evaluate new and existing
concrete bridge components using
non-destructive methods and will
determine the true load capac-
ity of bridges to ensure that the
posted weights represent what
the bridges can actually support.
They will also test the perfor-
mance of a carbon-fiber-rein-
forced polymer wrapping that
is less than one-half millimeter
thick and stronger than steel for
possible future bridge repairs.
“Making safer structures makes
transportation safer and benefits
the community,” Dr. Yazdani
says. “If a bridge suffers a cat-
astrophic failure, there’s a huge
cost in terms of social, financial,
and time losses, so anything we
can do to make it easier to inspect
bridges and quickly address is-
sues beforehand is important.”
COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING 7
 CL A SSROO M

Designed to
Help with
Disabilities
Assistive technologies, including
those based on artificial intel-
ligence, can shape how people
with disabilities navigate daily
tasks. However, what seems like
a good idea to an engineer in a
lab doesn’t always translate to
the real world when a person
with a disability tries to use the
technology.
UTA computer scientists
and faculty associated with the
disability studies minor in the
College of Liberal Arts were
awarded a grant from the Nation-
al Science Foundation to create a
campuswide assistive technology
program that will teach under-
graduate students—especially
minorities, women, and students
with disabilities—how to design
assistive technology to help re-
duce barriers faced by people with
disabilities.
“We’re excited about this grant
because it will give students re-
search experience while they gain
SPOTLIGHT a deeper understanding of the
Dreams Come True
barriers encountered by people
with disabilities and the value of
S
universal design, or designing for
a wide range of bodies and abili-
enior Justin Hawthorne isn’t your average engineering student. ties,” says Sarah Rose, director of
He is a motivational speaker, runs a clothing drive in Dallas called the disability studies minor.
Computer science and engi-
Clothing the Homeless, and spent last year in a professional neering Professor Ishfaq Ahmad
internship with the Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing, and Engineering is principal investigator on the
grant.
Services teams at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida—all while pursuing
dual majors in mechanical and aerospace engineering. “I contributed to

several projects at Disney World, including installing domestic water lines
Student’s
so cast members could easily access drinking water,” Hawthorne says. “I
was hired in part because of my experience using SolidWorks and Auto- Commitment
CAD, which I learned in MAE 1351. I made the most of this opportunity, and Rewarded
I can’t thank Carole Coleman in the College’s Internship and Co-Op Office Ever since she was a preteen in
enough for helping me realize this dream.” middle school, Maria Frias knew
8 THE UNI V ERSIT Y OF TE X A S AT A RLINGTON
she wanted to study civil engi-
neering. This passion recently
was rewarded when she was NUMBER WISE
named one of 10 “New Faces
of Civil Engineering, Collegiate
Edition” for 2018 by the American
Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).
The program recognizes civil
engineering students for their
academic accomplishments and
commitment to serving others.
As an undergrad, Frias was
foreign
involved in several student countries
organizations, including UTA’s
ASCE Student Chapter, where
represented
she served as president, concrete by current
canoe design sub-captain, and
historian. She was also a member
engineering
of the Engineering Student Coun- students
cil and was named the College’s
Ms. Engineer in 2017. Now, she
LAB NOTES
is pursuing a master’s degree at
UTA.
“I feel like UTA has prepared
me well for my future in this
field,” Frias says. “The classes
and electives reflect what em-
ployers in the field are looking
for, and I really like the profes-
sors here. They do a great job and
put a lot of effort into making
sure we learn what we need to be
successful. That really makes a
difference.”
At the College 
of Engineering's
Innovation Celebrating
Day, students
displayed and
Inaugural
explained their
research to guests
and judges. Innovation Day
More than 160 graduate and
undergraduate students present-
ed their research at the College’s
inaugural Innovation Day, show-
casing the transformative re-
search being performed in UTA’s
engineering laboratories.
“Our inaugural College of
Engineering Innovation Day was
a successful display of our stu-
dents’ work,” says Peter Crouch,
dean of the College of Engineer-
ing. “It was wonderful to see so
many students showing their
research, and I was impressed by
the quality of their work. It was
also gratifying to see the excite-
ment with which they present-
ed their research to guests and
judges. The support of our many
sponsors—both financially and
in their presence at the event—
was very much appreciated. I
hope that these interactions will
further strengthen our ties to
industry in the future.”
Judges rated the posters and
projects throughout the day and
chose winners in each category,
plus L3/Link Innovation Awards
for one undergraduate and one
graduate project. The awards for
the inaugural Dean’s Freshman
Challenge were also presented.
COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING 9
 I N D E PTH
LAB NOTES

Making
Health Care
Smarter
R
adio frequency iden-
tification (RFID) was
Smart Scarf
originally conceived
RFID sensors in a
for use in supply chain
scarf or hat allow
management to allow doctors to monitor
companies to inventory warehouses Embedded EEGs unobtrusively
more efficiently. But the technolo- Microchip and determine
Patients could be if women’s post-
gy has subsequently proven useful
responsible for Smart Sheet
in hundreds of applications. Now, partum sleep
their own health Hospital bedsheets
patterns are harmful.
UTA’s RAID (RFID and AutoID) Lab are embedded with
records by using RFID
is applying it to health care. technology to scan a RFID sensors to
Erick Jones, RAID Lab director, microchip embedded ensure that they are
associate dean in the College of in their body. clean and to monitor
how often nurses
Engineering, and a professor in the
turn the patient.
Industrial, Manufacturing, and Sys-
tems Engineering Department, has
explored using the technology to
prevent surgeons from accidentally
leaving medical sponges and med-
ical devices inside patients, to track
patient movement and medication
usage, and to perform brain scans
unobtrusively. He is also investigat-
ing how to use electrical impulses Detection &
from RFID sensors to stimulate Tracking of
tissue growth. Patients
RFID is often preferable to build- RFID chips could be
ing unique, traditional sensors for embedded into a
each product because economies patient’s clothing or
a hospital wristband
of scale make it difficult to broadly
to track movement
implement the latter without cost
in a room, such Smart Surgical
becoming an issue. In contrast, Smart Pill as falling out of Glove & Smart
RFID allows engineers to get their Pills are equipped bed or walking to Sponge
products to the market and helping with RFID technology the bathroom. An RFID sensor in
patients faster. to track whether the sponge is easily
and when patients detected by RFID
“We have created a wide range
are taking their sensors in the glove,
of products with health care ap-
medications. making it simple to
plications,” Dr. Jones says. “This
locate and remove
technology is a good fit for use in the sponge without
health care because it can be incor- unnecessarily
porated into items that will be used moving organs.
inside the body or to ensure higher
standards of patient care.”

10 THE UNI V ERSIT Y OF TE X A S AT A RLINGTON COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING 11

 After
the
Storm
When Hurricane Harvey finished
wreaking havoc on the Texas
Engineers from The University of
Texas at Arlington were there before,
during, and after the storm.
Civil engineering Assistant Professor
Nick Fang helped emergency officials in
Houston’s medical district—the larg-
coast, UTA engineers were there est medical center in the world—plan
how to proceed before and during the
to help cities recover—and hurricane, while Associate Dean Anand
prepare for the next disaster. Puppala swept into Beaumont to help
with the recovery by mapping the re-
sulting trash, debris, and street disrepair
A UTA team with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
used UAVs to Both men and their teams played critical
capture aerial
images of roles in preserving life and property and
debris piles helping communities deal with Harvey
in Beaumont and its aftermath.
after Hurricane
Harvey to help
the city assess Preparing for a Disaster
the scope of While earning his doctorate at Rice
the cleanup.
University in the mid-2000s, Dr. Fang

O
n August 25, 2017, Hurricane Harvey made
landfall on the Texas coast. The Category 4
storm swirled above South Texas, moving
inland and dropping more than 4 feet of rain. When
the skies finally cleared and the water receded, the
region was left with $125 billion in damage and a
long recovery.
began developing a radar-based flood
warning system for the university and
Houston’s Texas Medical Center. In
the decade since, he has expanded and
refined his system, in part by collecting
data on Brays Bayou during the state’s
previous worst flooding events.
As Hurricane Harvey approached
Houston, officials from Rice and Texas
Medical Center called on Fang and his
radar to provide inundation updates for
Brays Bayou, the Rice campus, and Texas
Medical Center based on the estimat-

12 THE UNI V ERSIT Y OF TE X A S AT A RLINGTON COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING 13


ed rainfall—between 7 and 20 inches,
according to the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration—so they
could better prepare and initiate effec-
tive emergency plans.
In addition, the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers, the State Operations Center,
and the Texas Division of Emergency
Management for state emergency opera-
tions incorporated Fang’s data into their
plans. He held daily conference calls
with emergency personnel to coordinate
the mapping for 22 watersheds in Harris
County until the storm dissipated.
“We provided information that en-
abled them to better understand the im-
pact and consequences of a most power-
ful natural disaster—Hurricane Harvey—
and plan effective measures properly,”
Fang says. “The impact from Harvey
was just unprecedented in Texas.”
UTA partnered with Rice and Texas
14 THE UNI V ERSIT Y OF TE X A S AT A RLINGTON
A&M University at Galveston to under-
stand how such a devastating weather
event affects coastal ecological systems
and coastal erosion.
“We used our MavAir fleet of UAVs
to collect coastal terrain and vegeta-
tion data,” Fang says. “The UAVs are
equipped with several state-of-the-art
sensors that can collect imagery in the
visible, near-infrared and longwave
near-infrared, or thermal spectrums,
which enabled us to classify different
coastal vegetation types efficiently and
effectively.”
He and his team have been working
with the Severe Storm Prediction, Edu-
cation, and Evacuation from Disasters,
or SSPEED, Center to study the impact of
natural hazards on coastal communities
in Texas and to develop flood mitigation
and warning systems for the region. The
SSPEED Center is a multiparty research
Clockwise from
top left: Nick Fang
describes his
Houston bayou
flood data to a group
of water experts;
Hurricane Harvey
as seen from space;
Anand Puppala
(left) and his team
map debris left by
Harvey in Beaumont.
collaborative located at Rice. In addi-
tion to Fang and Rice professors, its
researchers hail from the University
of Houston, UT Austin, UT Rio Grande
Valley, Texas A&M University, Texas
Southern University, Louisiana State
University, and Vieux Inc.
Pre-disaster flights were conduct-
ed in Brazoria and Galveston counties,
along Galveston and Follett’s islands.
“We believe that we were the first and
maybe the only group collecting data
near the landfall location before Hurri-
cane Harvey hit,” Fang notes.
After the storm, the researchers
returned to the shoreline to see how it
changed. They found that there wasn’t
much damage from storm surge, al-
though the surge had carried a lot of
sand with it.
“The data we collected can be used in
the future to prepare for major storms,”
Fang says. “We’re also looking at the
vegetation along the shoreline. We can
already see that the wash has changed
the vegetation distribution, which is
important data for future research in
coastal resiliency.”
Back in Arlington, he is working with
leaders in Grand Prairie and Carrollton
to develop inundation maps for several
low-water crossings so the cities can
develop more effective flood warning
capabilities.
“City officials need to know how rain
events will affect runoff so they can
decide whether and when to close roads
and dispatch emergency personnel to
keep people safe,” Fang explains. “They
need to know what’s next, and we
can help them better understand how
weather will affect their cities.”
Cleaning up the Aftermath
After Hurricane Harvey was finished
pummeling Beaumont last September,
residents began the process of restoring
their neighborhoods. Soon, construction
debris, trash, and other items began
lining the streets in growing piles.
Anand Puppala, associate dean for
research in the College of Engineering
and a professor in the Civil Engineering
Department, led a team to help map
trash, debris, and street disrepair in the
city. The researchers used UAVs to create
highly accurate 3D and profile maps of
the detritus so the city would know the
full extent of what it needed to remove.
This work was funded by a National
Science Foundation RAPID grant. RAPID
stands for Rapid Response Research and
is a funding mechanism for research
proposals that are submitted in response
to an event or action. Dr. Puppala’s team
included Junzhou Huang, an associate
professor in the Department of Comput-
er Science and Engineering, and a group
of LSU researchers led by Navid Jaffari.
Surya Sarat Chandra Congress, a civil
engineering doctoral student, and Cody
Lundberg, a research engineer at the
UTA Research Institute, also participat-
ed in the project. They piloted the UAV,
created flight paths and waypoints, and
geotagged the images using a high-pre-
cision global navigation satellite system.
The UAV was flown over 15 stockpiles in
the Beaumont area, which took about 15
minutes per stockpile. The team then
built 3D computer models and ortho-
photos, which it used to estimate the
volume and area of the stockpiles to
centimeter-grade accuracy.
“After a disaster such as this, there are
a hundred things happening at once and
it’s hard to understand the scope of the
cleanup,” Congress says. “We gave the
city of Beaumont the tools and the data
it needed to make it easier to manage
costs and allow people’s
lives to return to normal.
We also provided an ac- “We believe that
curate representation of we were the first
the debris so officials had
a better idea of the ac-
and maybe the
tual situation and could only group
budget for and prioritize collecting data
areas in their response
planning.”
near the landfall
Since their return location before
from Beaumont, Puppala
Hurricane
and his team have taken
the UAV surveys, cali- Harvey hit.”
brated the volumes of the
debris stockpiles, and compared them
with landfill volumes. They are devel-
oping an algorithm to help agencies and
community managers quickly determine
how many trucks to order to remove
debris after storms in the future so they
can better predict cleanup costs. They
will also work with their counterparts
at LSU to compare their data with data
collected by cellphones on the ground
and make both methodologies available
to users.
“Collecting data with a cellphone is
less expensive, but using a UAV can
be done quickly and is more accurate,”
Puppala says. “Combining data will
After the Storm
give a better picture of the scope of the
problem. Being able to accurately assess
how much debris needs to be removed
and make accurate cost estimates is im-
portant because it allows agencies to be
more prudent with how taxpayer mon-
ey is spent, and it also helps safeguard
against trucking firms that may over-
charge for their services based on low
estimates of the number of truckloads it
will take to complete the job.”
In addition to debris piles, Puppala’s
team also applied techniques learned
through a separate TxDOT contract
to assess the condition of roads and
highways in Beaumont. Some roadways
showed signs of rutting and cracking
that indicated that they might have sus-
tained damage that wasn’t immediately
visible. Since UAVs can give a view of an
area that may be inaccessible due to road
conditions or remote locations, collect-
ing this data along with the primary
project data is important for agencies
making repairs to infrastructure after a
major storm. (The city had earlier used
its own UAV to find
where chemicals
were leaking from
local factories dam-
aged in the storm.)
Ali Abolmaali,
the Tseng Huang
Chair of the Civil
Engineering De-
partment, believes
Fang’s and Pup-
pala’s projects are
examples of how
UTA researchers can
be agile and posi-
tively affect the wellbeing of the state in
the area of Global Environmental Impact,
a theme in UTA’s Strategic Plan 2020:
Bold Solutions | Global Impact.
“The use of unmanned vehicles has
opened new opportunities for civil en-
gineers to make a difference in disaster
recovery efforts,” he says. “Drs. Puppala
and Fang and their teams were able to
respond quickly and develop procedures
to provide accurate inundation maps and
information about debris volumes that
helped Houston and Beaumont in their
preparations and recovery efforts. Their
findings will be useful in future efforts
in similar hazard events.” ₪
COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING 15
 rin g W
e
ith the opening of the Science &

e r
Engineering Innovation & Research

e
building this fall, The University of

a
Texas at Arlington is embarking on a new era in

n C
health science research. Faculty from the College

i
of Engineering are helping lead the way.

g
In addition to making headline-grabbing

h
breakthroughs in cancer, brain trauma, and car-

n t
dio-pulmonary disease, College of Engineering

E eal
researchers are looking at the health care indus-
try itself, analyzing the delivery of care, moni-
toring of patients, and training of professionals
to increase quality and efficiency of treatment for
everyone.
ity,

H
ial, al
str eq
u Training Medical Students
indu ve th ers. Department of Industrial, Manufacturing, and
om ro id
ht s fr o imp p rov Systems Engineering (IMSE) Chair Paul Com-
ig t d
ing nts an
ponation and Associate Professor Susan Ferreira
g ins e r have worked with UT Southwestern (UTSW)
yin ine tie
appl s eng or pa Medical Center since 2015 to present a patient

rs are stem care f safety and quality improvement “boot camp” for

a rche nd sy ealth medical, nursing, and engineering students. The

ese ing, a y of h boot camp has developed into a partnership be-
TAr ur et
act d saf
tween UTA’s College of Engineering and College
U f
nu n of Nursing and Health Innovation and UTSW’s
ma ncy, a Department of Quality, Safety, and Outcomes
cie Education.
effi The camp is a focused, one-week, 40-hour
course, followed by an 11-week application-ori-
ented project in UTSW clinics and labs. It was
created in response to a change in regulations
that required health care professionals to be
trained in continuous quality improvement with
an eye on cost efficiency and patient safety. While
some classes presented introductions to the topic,
none delivered the focused classroom training
and application-oriented practicum needed.
The boot camp delivers classroom instruction
on quality improvement methodology through
daily participation in team activities and simula-
tions. The students are also given a health system
case study with a detailed database of relevant
quality issues, patient safety issues, and medical
data. To successfully complete the course and
solve the case study, they must combine their
individual discipline skills with their new quality
improvement tools. Additionally, the course has
the teams work with UTSW/UTA researchers on
health care-focused projects over the summer.
Recent examples of these projects include im-
proving transfer care for cardiothoracic surgery
patients and evaluating EMR (electronic medical
records) opioid interventions.
“The UTSW/UTA partnership is helping us pre-
pare our next generation of health care providers

16 THE UNI V ERSIT Y OF TE X A S AT A RLINGTON COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING 17


(Top) Chen Kan is by educating them on teaming and continuous
developing math
models to detect process improvement,” Dr. Componation says.
cardiac anomalies; “The summer projects let them put their new
Yuan Zhou is
researching the
skills to work right away, reinforcing learning
and improving operations at UTSW.
spread of disease
in public places. “The boot camp focuses on problem-solving
techniques and approaches that will allow doc-
tors, nurses, and engineers to be part of longterm
improvements to health care delivery, including
patient safety and cost,” he continues. “It also
allows students to better understand the health
care system and see firsthand how the concepts
they are recommending fit into it.”
Dr. Ferreira has worked with UTSW on stan-
dardizing a health care procedure across mul-
tiple departments. Her team was responsible
for creating educator curriculum and training
modules for students in UTSW’s new simulation
center, which provides state-of-the-art devices
medical students can practice on before seeing
live patients.
“We helped the team put together a standard-
ized process and training curriculum. This is
18 THE UNI V ERSIT Y OF TE X A S AT A RLINGTON
intended to reduce patient harm and improve
patient outcomes in the future as physicians
and the rest of the health care team perform the
standardized procedure,” she says. “The UTSW/
UTA collaboration has already paid dividends,
with other projects branching off from the boot
camp, including a study on chronic disease con-
trol in Dallas County. In this project, researchers
from both universities are looking at incidences
of chronic disease and how they are influenced by
factors such as access to healthy food, communi-
ty support, transportation, and education.”
From Manufacturing to Cardiac Care
Heart disease is the No. 1 killer in the world, ac-
cording to the World Health Organization. At UTA,
IMSE Assistant Professor Chen Kan is developing
new techniques to detect anomalies in cardiac
electrical activity that would help physicians
identify potential problems and begin treatment
at an early stage to save lives.
Dr. Kan has research interests in both ad-
vanced manufacturing and smart health. For
cardiac care in particular, he is developing
mathematical models to extract key biomarkers
from sensory data like EKGs, then use process
monitoring techniques such as control charts to
identify abnormal cardiac activity and provide
the results to cardiologists. The doctors can then
decide what actions to take.
Kan is now expanding his work to incorporate
the new technology of the Internet of Things
(IoT). Combining IoT sensing, wireless commu-
nication, and cloud-computing makes it possible
to continuously monitor patients’ cardiac condi-
tions and identify potential problems anywhere,
anytime.
“This is the future of the health care industry,”
Kan says. “People will be able to wear sensors
24/7, and instead of having to make appoint-
ments with their doctor, their doctor will contact
them if they need to come in.”
In recent years, the National Science Foun-
dation and National Institutes of Health have
increasingly focused on personalized medicine.
Kan believes that if researchers have data on pa-
tients over an extended period, they can develop
a baseline for what is normal for each patient,
allowing them to quickly detect anomalies and
provide personalized therapies.
“There are many challenges related to IoT-
based cardiac care and I focus on addressing
the challenge of big data analytics,” he says.
“Longterm monitoring of a single patient gener-
ates large amounts of data, and IoT aims to con-
nect tens of thousands of people. The question
is how can we efficiently and effectively extract
useful information from the data for disease
diagnosis?”
Next, Kan hopes to use heterogeneous sen-
sor fusion to incorporate other bio-signals and
images to give a much more in-depth look at
everything that a cardiac patient is experiencing.
For example, if an anomaly were detected, the
doctor could bring the patient in for an MRI, then
use the image and EKG data together to detect
damage from a cardiac infarction or other event,
giving the cardiologist multiple sources of infor-
mation on which to base a diagnosis.
In the future, he would like to take his process
to the microscale and look at ion channels that
regulate cardiac processes to detect distress in
the earliest stage.
Applying Systems Modeling to
Health Care
Yuan Zhou, an assistant professor in the IMSE
Department, is applying modeling techniques to
research involving the spread of disease in public
places. She’s also investigating whether a nega-
tive outcome in one surgery affects a surgeon’s
performance in successive ones.
Using an agent-based simulation model,
Dr. Zhou is looking at micro-level behavior of
students, faculty, and staff on the UTA campus
to determine how the flu spreads through inter-
actions in public areas. Her model allows her to
take individuals’ characteristics—such as vul-
nerability, infectivity, and whether the individual
is exposed, infectious, or recovered—and use
algorithms to determine how those characteris-
tics, combined with in-
“How can we
dividuals’ heterogeneous
behaviors in mobility and
interaction, affect the
spread of disease from
efficiently and
person to person. effectively
“Agent-based simula-
tion allows us to derive extract useful
information
the average behavior of
such a complex system
from the behaviors of in-
dividuals at a micro-lev-
from the data
el,” Zhou explains. “The for disease
information we collect is
very rich and enables us diagnosis?”
to create a high-fidelity
representation of the underlying system in reality.
We will be able to design computer experiments
to simulate how the disease is introduced and
propagated, and then use the model to detect,
monitor, and report incidences of influenza.”
Zhou is also working with colleagues in UTA’s
College of Business to use data analytics to deter-
mine how a negative event in surgery can affect a
cardiac surgeon’s performance in the future.
Because cardiac patients have assorted risk
factors, each surgery differs in complexity. If a
surgeon has a psychological shock from losing a
patient during a procedure, it could affect his or
her next surgery. Zhou hopes to lessen this risk
to patients by using control factors—for example,
patients’ predicted risk factors based on clinical
indices and a surgeon’s past performances—to
predict the surgeon’s performance on his or her
subsequent surgeries and create better manage- Yuan Zhou tracked
ment processes to improve patient safety. how the flu spreads on
To do this, Zhou and her colleagues will first the UTA campus. The
boxes represent (from
look at any mortality cases that a surgeon has ex- left) a single classroom,
perienced in the past at a given time, then at his the University Center,
or her performance during the following surger- and the Library. The
dots in the figures
ies, measuring the times in between. above represent
“We expect that the longer a surgeon waits students, faculty,
after experiencing a loss during surgery, the less and staff; the lines
represent interactions
the psychological shock will affect the next sur- between people.
gery,” she says. “If we can determine a threshold
of the time period as the ‘safety net,’ surgeries at
risk could be delayed or swapped with other sur-
geons to increase the chances of a good outcome
for the next patient. It’s really about
patient safety. We don’t want to
harm patients because of unintended
consequences from an event that they
weren’t part of.”
Zhou hopes to expand her research
to test how this information could
be applied beyond mortality cases
to readmission rates, where patients
might have reoccurrences of the
issues they had surgery for in the first
place. Additionally, it could poten-
tially be used on a doctor’s social
network: He or she might practice
at multiple hospitals, and the nature
of the affiliation and the resources
available could affect his or her performance.
Although Zhou is focusing on cardiac surgeons,
her research could also be generalized to emer-
gency room trauma surgeons or military doctors
in war zones who deal with catastrophic inju-
ries on a regular basis and might be negatively
affected. ₪
COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING 19
 BEYOND THE LAB A LU M N I

 devices such as Fitbit—to make

Recognized for
Achievement
James Narey (’00 B.S., Electri-
cal Engineering; ’10 M.B.A.) was
honored with the Professional
Technical Achievement award at
the Hispanic Engineer National
Achievement Awards Conference
Alumna Monica in October 2017. The award rec-
Hew studied
altitude sickness at ognizes his experience in research,
the German Space management, and community
Center in Cologne. outreach with Lockheed Martin
Aeronautics in Fort Worth.
Narey is a technical sub-
ject matter expert on a product
development team that designs,
develops, and tests electric power
generation, conversion, distri-
bution, and advanced battery
it easier to continuously monitor
aging individuals’ health regard-
less of which system they use. He
will then improve the design of
adaptive interventions for elderly
people and their caregivers.
“When I was a student work-
ing until the wee hours of the
morning in my research lab, the
GTA office, or the computer lab, I
never imagined that I might win
a CAREER Award one day,” Roy
says. “Loving research, making
work the first priority, aiming for
high-quality publications, and
above all being a good student,
friend, colleague, and adviser paid
off!”

Get Involved
in Alumni
Chapters
Alumni involvement is crucial
to the College of Engineering for
industry relationships, mentor-
ing, networking, and many other
reasons.
The Fort Worth alumni chapter
has been meeting since late 2017
and members have participated
in events like E-Week and Inno-
vation Day and passed out alum-
ni license plate frames to new
graduates at commencement. The
chapter has also hosted several
get-togethers with speakers and
networking opportunities.
The Dallas alumni chapter held

technologies for use on the F-22,
F-16, T-50, and F-35 aircraft
programs.
“It is an honor to have received
this award,” he says. “Diversity
powers the innovation engine.
Embrace it and encourage some-
one new to pursue their own
destiny through a future STEM
career based on accountability,
trust, and happiness.”

Alum Wins
SPOTLIGHT
Feghali
Cultivates
Burning Desire
Andrew Feghali (’12 B.S., Mechan-
ical Engineering; ’16 M.B.A.) be-
came an entrepreneur at a young
age—in middle school, he started
a lawn service and hired neigh-
borhood children to work for him.
Over the years he has honed that
innovative spirit and, after gradu-
ating from UTA, built a successful
fire testing company.
an organizational meeting in
February and is seeking members
who wish to be involved.
If you are interested in becom-
ing involved with the Dallas or
Fort Worth College of Engineering
alumni chapters, or if you’d like to
start a chapter in your city, please
contact J. G. McLaughlin, director
of development, at 817-272-5216
or MJGM@uta.edu.
James Narey (top)
and Nirmalya
Roy were both
recently honored
NUMBER WISE for their work.

Space Swelling Prestigious

His company, Aeroblaze, is
one of only about 10 in the United

A
s an undergraduate, Monica Hew (’13 B.S., Aerospace Engi-
Award
Nirmalya Roy (’08 Ph.D., ’04
neering) focused on her goal of someday flying in space. Now as M.S., Computer Science and En-
gineering), an assistant professor
a doctoral student at Stanford University, she recently spent six of information systems at the
months at the German Space Center in Cologne studying tissue swelling University of Maryland–Baltimore
County, earned a prestigious
developed in oxygen-deprived environments. She designed and built a National Science Foundation Early
machine to handle an ultrasound probe, hiked 15,000 feet up a moun- Career Development Program
(CAREER) Award.
tain to run experiments on altitude sickness, then developed a software Dr. Roy will work to design,
program to analyze the results. “Engineering is very enabling,” Hew says. implement, and evaluate smart
home sensor systems such as
“UTA gave me a good set of skills, which I used to build equipment, design Amazon Echo or Google Home—
software, and run experiments in an extreme environment.” along with Internet of Things
States that performs burn tests on
interior components for aircraft.
“I wanted to be in business
for myself, but I really enjoy the
engineering side,” Feghali says.
“I’m using the engineering skills I
developed at UTA daily as I build
my company.”
Last spring, he worked with undergraduate students
a UTA mechanical engineering
senior design team to help him
were named to the
develop and design equipment to spring 2018 Dean’s List
simulate aircraft panels in flight
for burn testing.

20 THE UNI V ERSIT Y OF TE X A S AT A RLINGTON COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING 21

 A LU M N I
CLASS NOTES
In
1964 George Nnanna (M.S., Community College 2012 Energy Leaders pro-
Memoriam
Coy Garrett (B.S., ’69 ’02 Ph.D., Mechanical En- District’s STEM Institute. Hua Wang (Ph.D., gram. He is a mentor
M.S., Mechanical En- gineering) was selected After leaving UTA, he Computer Science and at the Houston Tech-
gineering) has been as dean of the College earned his doctorate in Engineering) earned a nology Center, a busi-
1970s
William Springer (’74 B.S., ’79
working on the redevel- of Engineering at the structural engineering National Science Foun- ness accelerator that
M.S.,’82 Ph.D., Mechanical Engi-
opment of the former University of Texas of from Imperial College dation CAREER Award assists Houston-based
neering), 71, Nov. 27, 2017, in Little
Six Flags Mall and its the Permian Basin in London, then returned in 2017 for a research emerging technology
Rock, Ark. Dr. Springer taught
interface with Arling- April 2018. He is the first to Dallas and was lead project to create a new companies by provid-
mechanical engineering for
ton’s General Motors engineering dean since educator for applied machine-learning model ing in-depth business
more than 40 years, including
plant. He has enjoyed a the university split the science at the Perot for mining various kinds guidance, access to
25 years on the faculty of the
successful career as a colleges of business and Museum of Nature and of data that could lead capital and professional
University of Arkansas. He was a
commercial real estate engineering in August Science and, from 2014 to easier, earlier, and services, and education.
Fellow of the American Society
investor, developer, and 2017. He previously until taking his new less-costly detection of
of Mechanical Engineers and a
broker and was honored led the mechanical post, director of edu- neurological diseases Shivani Patel (B.S.,
member of the Arkansas Acade-
in 2017 with the Texas and civil engineering cation for the Frontiers such as Alzheimer’s or Aerospace Engineering),
my of Mechanical Engineering.
Association of Real- departments at Purdue of Flight Museum. Parkinson’s. Dr. Wang an engineering man-
tors’ William Jennings University and was was recently promoted ager at Houston-based
Award for outstanding director of its Northwest 2007 to associate profes- GoEngineer, explained
2010s
Michael Ho (’16 M.S., Software
commercial transac- Water Institute for more Tim Wallace (B.S., Civil sor at the Colorado in Design News how a
Engineering), 28, Feb. 12, 2018,
tion and the National than 10 years. Engineering) was named School of Mines. light saber was ripped
in Arlington. He was a doctoral
Association of Realtors an associate at civil apart and what caused
student in the Computer Science
award for outstanding 2000 engineering firm Wier 2013 an explosion in the most
and Engineering Department.
commercial transaction. Tom Le (M.S., Electri- & Associates in 2017. Deval Pandya (M.S., recent Star Wars movie.
cal Engineering) runs He began his career at Aerospace Engineering;
1990 Luraco Massage Chairs the firm as an intern in ’13 Ph.D., Mechanical 2015 Faculty, Staff,
Pamela Holland Obio- with fellow alum Kevin 2007 and has worked Engineering), a data Hoger Villegas Gaona and Supporters
mon (B.S., Electrical En- Le. He also helped as a design engineer scientist in advanced (B.S., Aerospace Engi- Jack Fitzer, 91, Jan. 3, 2018, in
gineering), a professor invent Magna Jet, which on projects including analytics at Shell, has neering), an airman first Eugene, Ore. Dr. Fitzer was profes-
of electrical and micro- circulates water in public infrastructure been selected to join class, was accepted into sor emeritus of electrical engi-
electronic engineering pedicure basins via air. and the design of the prestigious World the Air Force’s officer neering. He retired in 2004 after
at Prairie View A&M natural gas pipelines. Energy Council’s Future training school and 38 years at the University and
University, was named 2001 pilot training program. served in multiple roles during
dean of the Roy G. Perry Sushil Sharma (M.S., his tenure, including department
College of Engineering Computer Science chair, acting chair, associate
at that university. and Engineering) was chair, and graduate adviser.
named chief product NUMBER WISE
SPOTLIGHT
1997 officer at LendingTree. Wen Chan, 72, Sept. 15, 2017, in
The college added
Supporting Innovation
Sajeeb Wazed Joy (B.S., Colleyville. Dr. Chan was a pro-
Computer Engineer- 2003 fessor in the Mechanical and

T
ing) is the information Anurag P. Lakhlani (M.S., Aerospace Engineering Depart-
and communications Electrical Engineering) ment and director of the Center hrough a gift from entrepreneur and businessman Paul
technology adviser made his publishing for Composite Materials. He
to Bangladesh Presi- debut with the release worked at UTA since 1988, serving E. Andrews Jr., UTA has established the Dr. Bob Woods Chair in
dent Sheikh Hasina. of Manage Your Mind, as associate chair of the depart- Automotive Engineering to promote research, innovation, and
a self-help book that ment from 2002-03, followed by
1999 teaches readers how a year as interim chair. He was a the development of best practices in automotive engineering and
Kevin Le (B.S., ’01 they can develop ef- Fellow of the American Society design, mechanical engineering, and the Formula SAE racing team.
M.A., ’05 Ph.D., Electri- fective skills to manage of Mechanical Engineers and the
cal Engineering) runs stress in everyday life. new tenure or American Society for Composites. The chair honors longtime FSAE adviser and Professor Bob Woods.
tenure-track faculty
Luraco Massage Chairs
“Bob has always encouraged innovation and ingenuity,” says Andrews.
with fellow alum Tom 2004 Have an item for Class Notes?
Le. He also helped Jason Treadway (M.S., since 2016 Email agor@uta.edu for possible
inclusion in the next issue.
“UTA’s Formula SAE team is the gold standard of collegiate racing, and
invent Magna Jet, which Materials Science and
Bob has been the heart and soul of the program for more than 30
circulates water in Engineering) was named
pedicure basins via air. director of the Dallas years. I am happy to recognize him by endowing a chair in his honor.”

22 THE UNI V ERSIT Y OF TE X A S AT A RLINGTON COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING 23

 REENGINEERED
From Farm to Fruit Tray
T
oday, when most people want
fruits or vegetables, all they have
to do is run to the grocery store.
But what if they only want to buy
from a seller who knows where and
how that produce was grown? Alter-
natives can often be hard to find.
Local farmers markets or road-
side food stands may be a solution,
but—despite earning better profit
margins—the small farmers who
24 THE UNI V ERSIT Y OF TE X A S AT A RLINGTON
sell from them face difficulties in
expanding their businesses, which
can negate those earnings.
“Knowing where your food
comes from matters to ensure that
food production and distribution
systems are safe, equitable, and
healthy,” says Assistant Professor
Caroline Krejci, who is applying
industrial engineering and logis-
tics techniques to help farmers
deliver their products to consum-
ers more efficiently through food
hubs, which are values-based
organizations that are concerned
MAVERICKS
about sustainability and social
responsibility.
Food hubs are small-scale,
Achieve
B E A M AV E R I C K .
socially minded aggregators that
benefit both farmers and con-
sumers. Some try to bring the
most benefit to farmers and focus
on high-end markets like restau-
rants and specialty stores, while Students in the College of Engineering
others try to benefit low-resource
are gaining the skills and knowledge they
consumers. Successfully serving
both these stakeholder groups is a need to change the world. Your gift can
major challenge, and in the last 10
years, many food hubs have failed help support them along the way.
or are barely hanging on because
they lack logistics expertise.
“There are many ways that
industrial engineering can be
applied to small-scale distribu-
tion, such as backhauling, vehicle
routing, quality management,
and scheduling,” Dr. Krejci says.
“For example, we have helped
develop an inventory tracking app
for farmers and food-hub man-
agers that facilitates collabora-
tion and information-sharing for
greater logistics efficiency. To be
a responsible citizen, it’s import-
ant to be aware of how your food
choices can promote longterm
sustainability, where everyone in giving.uta.edu
the supply chain benefits.”
 COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
Box 19019
Arlington, TX 76019-0019
C A M P U S U P DAT E
H
ands-on learning is a valuable part of
an engineering education. When students
are trained to build their own prototypes
for testing and production, they are better pre-
pared to understand how to design for manufac-
turing, thus saving time and money. That’s why the
College of Engineering has created three maker
spaces on campus to give students access to tools
Non-profit Org.
U.S. Postage
PAID
Burlington, VT 05401
Permit No. 19
and manufacturing equipment and teach them
to use it. “I hope having these spaces gets more
students involved in hands-on projects,” says Rob
Taylor, a professor-in-practice in the Mechanical
and Aerospace Engineering Department. “In addi-
tion to building useful skills, using this equipment
enables students to apply principles learned in the
classroom to help them become better engineers.”