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Workshop targets high school teachers to increase interest in computing

TechPurdue — Tue, 21 May 2013 15:09:19 +0000

A new summer workshop at Purdue hopes to strengthen the pipeline of students interested in a college degree in computing.

Coordinated by the Department of Computer and Information Technology, the Tapestry Workshop invites high school computing teachers to campus to help them with strategies to get students interested in computing courses.

“The program is aimed at increasing the number of high school students who take some computing classes and leave high school knowing that information technology and computer science are options for them,” said Dawn Laux, clinical assistant professor of computer and information technology. “We want them to gain appreciation for the subject and like it.” Laux and Angie Murphy, assistant to the department head, are organizing the workshop.

Participants will learn strategies, research-based practices, and field-tested good ideas for teaching computer science in a way that reaches all students regardless of sex or ethnicity.

“We will address how they advertise and attract students and how they can use after-school activities and competitions to their benefit,” said Fatma Mili, professor and head of the Department of Computer and Information Technology.

The workshop will also serve as a showcase for Purdue’s programs. Organizers hope to strengthen relationships with the teachers and their programs to increase awareness with their students.

Funding for the program was provided by the National Science Foundation, the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT), and Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA). The Tapestry workshop is free to participants, and they receive a small stipend after completing it. Five Tapestry workshops are being offered across the country this summer.

Two students win college leadership awards

TechPurdue — Fri, 17 May 2013 19:53:30 +0000

As part of its mission, the College of Technology strives to develop future managers and leaders in technology. To foster and recognize this, the college awards leadership awards: one award for an outstanding undergraduate leader and one for an outstanding graduate leader. Any student who is a major in any of the College of Technology’s graduate or undergraduate programs is eligible.

The 2013 student leadership honors were awarded to Erika Healy and Jennifer Kirschner.

Outstanding Undergraduate Student Leadership award

Associate Dean Jamie Mohler congratulates Erika Healy on receiving the Outstanding Undergraduate Student Leadership Award.

Erika Healy, a junior from Hammond, Ind., is majoring in manufacturing engineering technology. She has been a member of the CoT Ambassadors, vice president of the Minority Technology Association and a member of the Dean’s Undergraduate Advisory Council. She served as a tutor in the BEST program and was mentor chair for Women in Technology. Outside of Purdue, Erika volunteers at the YWCA.

Outstanding Graduate Student Leadership award

Associate Dean Jamie Mohler congratulates Jennifer Kirschner on receiving the Outstanding Graduate Student Leadership Award.

During her time as a Purdue graduate student in the Department of Aviation Technology, Jennifer Kirschner, from Windsor, Conn., has established herself as an effective teacher and researcher. She has produced high quality publications and presentations, taught classes that have received very favorable end of course critiques, and provided leadership for a wide variety of student, university and professional organizations. Jennifer is focused on a tenure-track academic career with an active research agenda.

Student researchers gain first-hand look at German manufacturing

TechPurdue — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 19:38:47 +0000

Isaiah Butler and Hector Mena took in something extra during their spring break trip to Germany: behind-the-scenes tours at Germany manufacturers.

They combined their undergraduate research as part of the LSAMP undergraduate research program and the course MFET 49900 (Technology Innovation and Culture in Bavaria) during the weeklong trip to Germany over the spring break.

Butler and Mena are researching differences in the manufacturing practices in the United States and in Germany. Butler is conducting a comparison of each country’s manufacturing histories and best practices, from Henry Ford to the practices of Mercedes-Benz and BMW. Mena is focusing on the modeling programs automotive manufacturers use, such as IronCAD or CATIA.

“I’m studying logistics and how they manage logistics sequence and production,” Butler said.

This semester’s project is Butler’s second LSAMP undergraduate research project. “I got so much out of the first one,” he said, “ I decided to see how I could take it further.”

Mena gained good insights during the tours.

“I learned that larger companies like BMW tend to stick to CATIA for their models, as it is one of the leading CAD packages,” he said. “It isn’t a standard though. While visiting KUKA robotics, I noticed that they used their own private software. It was a great experience to go from handling KUKA robot models, to seeing them built, to finally seeing them on the assembly line at MAN automotive and BMW.”

Butler will graduate in May with a degree in industrial technology and organizational leadership and supervision. Mena is a sophomore majoring in mechanical engineering technology.

The students’ research mentor is Henry Kraebber, Ph.D., professor of mechanical engineering technology. Kraebber has led 10 student trips to Germany, exposing 138 students to international manufacturing.

(Photo: Prior to their trip to Germany, Hector Mena and Isaiah Butler show off models of the Kuka robots they hoped to see in action during manufacturing plant tours in Germany.)

2nd annual Paint Purdue Pink event reaches out to high school girls

TechPurdue — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 16:59:56 +0000

A special one-day event for high school girls will make the connection between technology-focused degrees and solutions to a variety of social challenges.

Purdue’s College of Technology at Richmond will host the second annual Paint Purdue Pink this month. The event is being organized to show high school girls how they can make a difference with each of the degrees offered at the location.

“We wanted not only to introduce what they would study, but also how that would translate into a career,” said Michael Swain, director of the Richmond location. “We’ll give them an opportunity to meet women from the community in those careers and make sure they understand how those careers could be socially meaningful.”

At the end of the day, the participants should have more knowledge about their opportunities, which can help them make their college selections, Swain said.

“If we are successful, some of the girls will be interested enough to enroll while they are still in high school or consider a technology degree once they’ve graduated,” he said.

The Paint Purdue Pink event will be April 19 in Richmond. High school girls must be nominated by a high school administrator, teacher or counselor by April 12.

Contact the location for more information: College of Technology at Richmond: (765) 973-8228, techrichmond@purdue.edu.

College collects 250 dreams during MLK Day observance

TechPurdue — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 16:56:40 +0000

Members of the Minority Technology Association (MTA) helped collect 250 dreams of students, faculty and staff as part of the college’s observance of Martin Luther King day in January. Here is a small sample of the collection. The full collection will be placed online later this spring.

“I have a dream”:

To be a racecar engineer and work for an Indy car team
Work towards not needing “Globalization and Diversity related efforts
Take the world over
Ace all my classes
For all my students to pass their classes
Collect up to date knowledge to educate future engineering students
To change someone’s life for the better
To be the best that I can be
Live like Christ
To have a family and make a lot of money with MET degree
To bet a B.S. in CGT and an M.B.A.
A free world void of hunger
Make a million dollars
Get a job
Be rich
Live in Colorado
To make a living doing what I love
Lead a design team at an automobile company
Find true happiness
Be a billionaire
Weather above 30 degrees so I can ride my Harley Davidson
Graduate on time, get a dream job, get married, and have kids
Get a fun job
To be the person my mom would have wanted me to be
Graduate and win the lottery
Not to freeze to death
Graduate from Purdue and have a successful career
To be the richest and most known man in the world
Go into space
Don’t ever give up
To travel the world
Graduate and get a job
Be happy
Star in a sitcom on Fox
To fly
Find personal peace and redesign all the bad sites on the internet
Graduate
Work on ESPN
Leave this planet
Invent an everyday house hold appliance
That everybody who deserves a 2nd chance gets one
Own a business and have a good family
Live the life I’ve always wanted and for my family to be happy forever
To influence others and give back to the world
Live happy
Make some kind of difference in the world, big or small
To be a Ninja Warrior
That college will become more affordable to everyone
To graduate and be able to provide for my family
To get an internship
To strive, to seek, to find, to never yield
Travel around the world
Spread my passion of fitness to all
To own my own company
To achieve success and define what true happiness is
To become successful and be able to raise a family and achieve all my goals
Develop optical computer
Be the change the world wants to see
To be creative and make things. To die happy
To enjoy what I do in life everyday
To graduate
To live in a foreign country for at least a year
Graduate
Graduate
Have college affordable for all students
Cure depression
Graduate with a job
Graduate and find a job
To live a happy life
Graduate
Build cabins in the mountains
To work at Kimberly Clark
Graduate and go on active duty as a US Air Force Officer
Graduate on time in December
To own my own Engineering firm one day
Everyone approached life thinking about “what I can do for you” instead of “what can you do for me”
Graduate with a job
To have happiness
Help under developed countries in health and technology around the world
World peace and prosperity
To actually finish what I start
To be a movie director
Graduate and get a job with the government
World Peace
To be a wife, mother, and a game producer
To work for Blizzard
To become a lead expert in aerospace defense
A world where all children are safe and free to dream big
Travel the world
Run a marathon on my 100th birthday
To graduate in 4 years
Win the lottery
For everyone to find true love
Peace on Earth
That all the people of the world finds that education opens the door of understanding and acceptance
To see all of time and space
Own my own business and become a successful black woman
To work for Microsoft
To be Batman’s girl
To be Batman
To be a construction project manager
To help people put their lives back together after tragedy strikes
To work for Mastercraft Boat Company
Have a GPA of 4.0
That people realize being yourself isn’t an insignificant action
To one day raise kids of my own
To be a monster truck driver
To make a difference
To work at Pixar
Graduate, get a job, and visit Greece and Rome
To never forget who I am
Make a pretty girlfriend
Design my own building
Graduate and find a job
To find Big Foot
To die happy
To find my live path in this world
Live Saved and be like Jesus Christ
To create jobs to sustain myself, my sees, parents, and others in need
To build my own rocket and fly to the moon
To enter World Bank and help people in poverty
To sail around the world
To not just survive college but to thrive on it
Live forever
To be give a 2nd chance at friendship
A good career
Graduate
Affordable tuition for all students preschool through college
To won a corvette
To be a dinosaur
Help others
Graduate
Restore my car
No one in the US will ever need food or shelter
Travel the world
To get a good job after college
To make a positive global impact using technology
To make an impact in technology
To be an animator or VFX artist
To work for Pixar as a character animator
To serve this country
To fly a plane with my wife and children in Ireland
To travel the world
To have fun
Get a job
That all my kids graduate college and get jobs
To be content with what I have
Have a nice house by a beach in Brazil
Make an animated movie
That it will be warm again
To be remembered for something big
Graduate with a 4.0 GPA
Fly a F22-Raptor
To help others live better
Graduate and be my own boss
Enlightenment
To own my own company one day
Manage a Fortune 500 Health Care Tech Firm
To visit each continent at least once
To be Batman’s partner (but not Robin)
To stop judging people
To help my community
To see all Cot majors be successful in their chosen field
See my children graduate from college
To run a marathon in every state
Become an artist
To marry my soul mate
Pass ECET 307
To get a job
Graduate and get a job
To have a daughter…a big family that I am able to support
Live in Europe and work for an European Airline
To own my own business
To live and let others live-world peace
To make millions and live forever
Work on Wall Street
To produce my web series this semester
I want to have an internship in summer
That someone will find a cure for cancer so that no one else will leave this world before their time
To offer a smile and to lift a spirit
To play second base for the Cubs
To be successful
For the return of the King of Kings
That there will be total equality in this world
Graduate
Graduate then sleep all day
To make a difference
To help people as a whole and to be the person that would guide me when I was younger, get rich, and change the world
To speak multi languages
To design a spacecraft propulsion system
Live a beautiful life
To be debt free
To own my own business
Dream of a world where logic and compassion outweigh ideology
To get a good job
To be happy and healthy with Alex and have a family
Graduate
To have funding
To be a CEO
Graduate on time with employment
To settle down in security
Graduate
To impact someone’s life for the better
To be a Super Hero
To fly hover cars
To manage my time
To live in New York City
Graduate
To speak English fluently and get a good job
To make a difference
To be happy
For the Lakers to trade Paugasol today
To live my life and never change
To be the best IT company CEO
To survive this week
To get rich
To be warm
That we all rise to exceed our expectations
That we can see each person as valuable
Have 8 hours of sleep daily
To get my MBA and become a Certified Industrial Hygienist
To graduate Purdue alive
To travel around the world and have peace and harmony
To own a startup company
To get out of the struggle
That one day the amount of graduating minorities will increase by 80% and the amount of minorities attending Purdue will reach 15%
That we would all learn to love each other
Peace, love and the pursuit of happiness
To get a good job
To have 48 hour days
To have faith
To have my own horse farm
To work for NASA
That all people are fair and respectful of each other
To own a video company
To own a big company
To work at Riot Games
Olympic Gold
To get a job
For world peace and a stronger economy
To give my little girl a chance to survive in a world of peace and love
That abuse in the home will stop
To go 200 mph
To graduate on time
To know more than 4 foreign languages well
To transform the College of Technology and put students first
To be an Engineer
To party on a yacht
To be successful
That every undocumented child will have the same opportunity for higher education as all resident children do

Mendez featured as one of five Purdue ‘transformation makers’

TechPurdue — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 14:38:23 +0000

Diego Mendez has seen firsthand the proverbial light-bulb moments when younger students realize the enormous possibilities of the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) disciplines.

A master’s student in computer and information technology (CIT), Mendez is certain that the path to a better life has direct links to technology. So certain, in fact, that on a trip home to Ecuador, he and his wife, Mayari Serrano, a fall 2013 CIT prospective student, shared their conviction. They visited a school there to encourage the students — many of whom don’t go beyond seventh grade — to pursue STEM studies. For Diego, who will begin work after his May graduation at Zimmer Corp. in Warsaw, Ind., that one effort at engagement with young students promises to be a lifelong commitment.

Read Mendez’s full story on Purdue’s “5 Students Who” site.

Women in Technology sit to take a stand

TechPurdue — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 14:51:29 +0000

An empty red chair will beckon to students, faculty and staff in Knoy Hall March 5, urging them to reflect on the role of women in technology.

As part of the national Sit With Me campaign, Purdue’s Women in Technology student organization will embrace the slogan “sometimes you have to sit to take a stand” and invite others to offer insights about women in technology.

Women and men are invited to share their thoughts between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., Tuesday, March 5 in the Knoy Hall lobby.

Participants in the Red Chair Event will write their thoughts on a white board and be photographed in the red chair. A slide show of all participants and their sentiments will be shared online.

“We’re asking students, faculty and staff to write about why they think having women in technology is important, or, if they are female, why they are in a technology field,” said Kelli Tynan, WIT president.

The red chair is a symbol used across the country for the Sit With Me campaign started by the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT), a non-profit coalition that works to increase diversity in computing and information technology.

Read more about the Sit With Me campaign.

College joins national effort to increase number of women in technology, computing

TechPurdue — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 13:49:39 +0000

Purdue’s College of Technology has joined NCWIT Pacesetters, a fast-track program that seeks to radically increase the number of women in technology and computing.

Alka Harriger and Dawn Laux, both professors in the Department of Computer and Information Technology, serve as the change agents for the initiative. Working with Toni Munguia, director of diversity programs, and with support from Dean Gary Bertoline, they have set a goal of increasing the number of undergraduate women in the college’s two computing departments by nearly 70 students to reach 25 percent.

To reach the goal of 45 percent women in the graduate program, these two departments plan to add six more students.

The new cohort of NCWIT Pacesetters kicks off its two-year commitment with a meeting at the University of California at Santa Cruz February 25, 2013. The 2013 Pacesetters cohort of 20 universities and 14 companies was announced Feb. 19.

Learn more about NCWIT.

Administrative appointments, Feb. 2013

TechPurdue — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 03:53:46 +0000

James Mohler, Ph.D., has been appointed associate dean for academic affairs and diversity for the College of Technology. He had been serving in the position on an interim basis since the fall of 2011. He is also a professor of computer graphics technology. He earned his bachelor’s degree in technical graphics, his master of science in technology and his doctorate in education, all from Purdue University.

Robert Cox, Ph.D., has been appointed associate dean for globalization and engagement in the College of Technology. He had been serving as interim associate dean for globalization since the fall of 2011 and head of the Department of Building Construction Management since 2006. He earned his bachelor’s degree in building construction, his master’s degree in construction management, and his doctorate in civil engineering, all from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

Zarjon Baha, Ph.D., has been appointed interim head of the Department of Building Construction Management.

Craig Miller, Ph.D., professor of computer graphics technology, has been appointed co-director of the Technology Professional Practice Programs. The half-time appointment will allow him to promote the program, collaborate with all involved parties, and oversee the college’s Co-Op coordinators.

King thankful for STEM Academic Boot Camp experience

TechPurdue — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 18:17:28 +0000

Mel’Dre King of Indianapolis, Ind., is a first-year student in the industrial technology program. He attended the five-week STEM Academic Boot Camp (ABC) during the summer of 2012. He was joined by 25 other Technology students as well as students from the colleges of Engineering, Science and Agriculture. The experience is designed to provide a realistic college experience to prepare students for the expectations and rigor they’ll face. King is a member of the Minority Technology Association and hopes to serve as a College of Technology Ambassador.

How has STEM ABC applied to your first year in the College of Technology?
The math and English courses that I took during ABC were very similar to the courses that I’m taking now. Also, we were required to go to study tables every night for 3-4 hours. Although I don’t consistently study that many hours straight, I definitely do spend that amount of time doing classwork most days.

In addition to academic assistance, how did ABC assist with your transition to Purdue and the College of Technology?
I met so many good friends who I still talk to. Knowing people on campus helped me feel more at home because most students only know a few people when they start college.

What was the biggest surprise about your experiences at ABC?
My biggest surprise was that it was very realistic to what college really was; it taught me time management and trained me to be away from my family for an extended period of time. First-year students should consider attending the STEM Academic Boot Camp because it really helps you recognize the difference between high school and college.