Newsletter
December 2011
Editor: Denise McKahn
dmckahn@smith.edu
Associate Editor: Melody Baglione
melody@cooper.edu
We b s i t e D eve l o p m e n t
In this issue:
(compiled from Sharon Liu's 2011 Summer report)
Chair: Sharon Liu (sharon.2.liu@gm.com), General Motors
Cochair: Hosam K. Fathy (hkf2@engr.psu.edu), Pennsylvania State University
New chair: Venkat N. Krovi (vkrovi@eng.buffalo.edu, State University of New
York at Buffalo
Our division now has a unique ASME website, thanks to the many efforts of the
executive committee, and the major contributors Sharon Liu, Hosam K. Fathy,
and Venkat N. Krovi. As of March 2011, ASME approved the current level of
DSCD content editing, whose content approval protocol is structured from
author contributions to editor contributions and to administrator level approvals.
This website, which enables a user friendly interface through which division
website can be effectively updated, has also been developed to be consistent in
navigation architecture set by ASME, and utilizes the proprietary of Strategy
Studies in managing the web content.
DSCC 2011 Report
2-4
Recognitions/Awards
2
Calls
4-7
Scholarships
4
Educational Corner
4
Did You Know?
4
Open Positions
8
It is anticipated that within the next two years ASME will be transitioning all
ASME websites into a new content management system. The DSCD website at
that time will also be converted to this content management system. As a
(continued on pg. 2)
E d i t o r ’s N o t e
We greet all our members through this newsletter,
which we have been planning and preparing over
the past year. We hope that this newsletter will
strengthen our community, enable easier
communications, make information flow among us
more efficient, and serve as means to display our
division's activities in many areas, including
scholarship, research, teaching, education, and
service to the society and to the engineering
profession.
This newsletter is structured in a way to present
information as it arrives. The editorial board will
continuously update the newsletter, especially
when the information is time-sensitive. The
newsletter updates will be communicated to the
members and archived only twice a year, while the
members will be encouraged to check the updates
here whenever they would like.
We would like to solicit ideas and proposals for
newsletter content. It is our intent that this
newsletter be informative and we rely on you for
contributions.
With best regards,
Rifat Sipahi (prior editor),
Denise McKahn (editor)
Melody Baglione (associate editor)
(continued from pg. 1, Website Development)
division, we are in a unique position to put to test
the content management system, and provide
feedback to ASME based on our experiences. ASME
is especially interested to see the ease of use by non
-authoring members, whether this website
management can prove to attract membership to
the division, and how it provides utility to the
division in handling its functions effectively,
especially when communicating with its members as
well as other professionals around the world.
We invite all authors and editors authorized to edit
content on DSCD website to take this wonderful
opportunity to organize our division's website. If you
have any questions, concerns, suggestions, please
feel free to contact the website development
Recognitions/Awards
Throughout the past year several of our DSCD members have received special recognition for contributions to our community through scholarship and service. We would like to take this time to recognize
these efforts.
Congratulations to DSCD members Won-jong Kim
(Texas A&M), John Wagner (Clemson University),
Jordan Berg (Texas Tech), and Tsu-Chin Tsao (UCLA)
who have been elevated to ASME Fellow.
Congratulations to DSCD members who have been
elected Fellows of IFAC.
Congratulations to DSCD member George Chiu
(Purdue) who has been elected Society for Imaging
Science and Technology (IS&T) Fellow.
DSCD member George Chiu (Purdue) co-authored an
article that received the 2010 IEEE Transactions on
Control Systems Technology Outstanding Paper
Award. [C.-L. Chen and G.T.-C. Chiu, "Closed Loop
Banding Artifact Reduction for a Class of Color Electrophotographic Printers with Underactuated Motor/Gear Configuration," IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 577-588,
July 2008.]
DSCC 2011 Report
This year, the DSC Conference was held in Arlington
VA on October 30-November 2. Special thanks go
to Eduardo Misawa and Marcia O’Malley, and the
rest of the Organizing Committee, in helping to
make this year’s DSCC a great success!
Engineering Education Panel
(Contributed by Galip Ulsoy)
A special session entitled Transforming
Engineering Education: A Panel Discussion was
held at the 2011 ASME Dynamic Systems and
Control Conference in Arlington, VA. The panel
was designed to provided a forum for further indepth discussion on engineering education
following the Plenary Talk on engineering
education by Chuck Vest, President of the National
Academy of Engineering, on October 31, 2011.
The panel was organized by Eduardo Misawa,
and Galip Ulsoy. The panelists included Chuck
Vest, Bill Wepfer (Georgia Tech), Will Durfee
(University of Minnesota), Andrew Alleyne
(University of Illinois) and Galip Ulsoy (University
of Michigan). Each panelist, except Chuck Vest
who had just given the Plenary Talk, provided a
brief (10 minute) presentation. The rest of the
time was devoted to questions to the panelists
from the audience. The session was well
attended, and the discussions were lively.
Some of the topics of discussion included:
the global context for engineering education, and
the status of the USA; new education approaches,
such as On-Campus Personalized Learning;
changing demographics in the USA, and their
impact on engineering education; the changing
conversation about the role of engineering in
meeting the grand challenges facing our society;
the need for professional education, at both the BS
and MS level; the role of project-based, hands-on,
experiences in engineering education; the financial
pressures on higher education, and how
transformative changes can be implemented,
including incubation and evaluation of new
ideas; and the ongoing activities at ASME and
ABET.
(DSCC 2011 Report continued on next page)
DSCC 2011 Report
Hats Off to the Best Student Paper Recipients
Best Student Paper Finalists of the 2011 ASME Dynamic Systems and Control Division have been
announced! We thank Prof. Hosam Fathy who handled the difficult mission of selecting the finalists with the
help of a group of judges. Here's the list of this year's finalists:
Nicole Abaid (advisor: Maurizio Porfiri)
“Influence of Leaders on Mean-Square Consentability in Biologically-Inspired Stochastic Networks”
Xinfan Lin (advisor: Anna Stefanopoulou),
“State of Charge Estimator Error due to Model Parameter Mismatch”
Hamidreza Marvi (advisor: David Hu),
“Scalybot: A Snake-Inspired Robot with Active Frictional Anisotropy”
Ryder Winck (advisor: Wayne Book),
“A Control Loop Structure Based on Singular Value Decomposition for Input-Coupled Systems”
Yunfei Xu (advisor: Jongeun Choi),
“Spatial Prediction with Mobile Sensor Networks using Gaussian Process Regression Based on Gaussian
Markov Random Field”
Let’s get to know the finalists a little bit more:
Nicole Abaid earned a B.S. and
M.A. in Mathematics from UNC
-Chapel Hill in 2003 and University of Kansas in 2008, respectively. She is a fourth-year
Ph.D. student working with Dr.
Maurizio Porfiri at Polytechnic
Institute of New York University
Hamidreza Marvi earned an M.S.
degree in Biomedical Engineering
from Sharif University with the
focus on micro-robotics and another M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Clemson University
with special focus on light-weight
engineering. He is currently a
in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Her
research interests are biological applications of dynamical systems and network theory. She is affiliated
with the ASME DSCD, IEEE, SIAM, and SWE professional societies. Her career goals are to continue doing research while exploring the complexity of nature.
She would like to study the impact of social networks
on behavioral phenomena in marine mammals, such
as cooperative hunting, migration, and stranding.
When she is not in the lab, she enjoys being outdoors.
Ph.D. candidate at the School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology. His Ph.D.
advisor is Dr. David Hu, and his research interests
include bio-inspired design and robotics. Specifically,
he studies snake locomotion and builds snake-like
robots. Working with snakes is fun unless it is during
their lunchtime, when you might get a couple of
bites! He aspires to stay in academia after graduation and become a faculty member at a researchoriented school. He has presented his work at several conferences and for different audiences including
physicists, biologists, and engineers. However, this is
his first time attending ASME-DSCC!
(continued on next page)
Repor ts from the DSCC 2011
(continued from pg. 4, Hats Off to the Best Student Paper Recipients)
Ryder Winck received a B.S. degree in mechanical engineering
and B.A. degree in Visual Arts
from Rice University in 2007. He
received a M.S. degree in mechanical engineering in 2009
from Georgia Institute of Technology. He is currently a Ph.D.
candidate at Georgia Tech, ad-
Yunfei Xu received his M.S.
and B.S. degrees in Automotive Engineering from
Tsinghua University, Beijing,China, in 2004 and
2007, respectively. Currently, he is working toward the Ph.D. degree in
vised by Professor Wayne Book. His research focuses
on controlling large sets of independent systems
with a limited number of inputs. His broader research interests are in the areas of controls and automation, haptics, and human-machine interfaces.
He is hoping to pursue a career in academia after
graduating in December 2012. Ryder is a member of
ASME.
the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Michigan State University. His advisor is Prof. Jongeun
Choi. His current research interests include environmental adaptive sampling algorithms, Gaussian processes and statistical learning algorithms with applications to robotics and mobile sensor networks. He
is a student member of IEEE and ASME.
Calls
Scholarships
CALL FOR PAPERS: 2012 International Symposium
on Flexible Automation http://
www.asmeconferences.org/ISFA2012/
Two $10,000 academic scholarships are available
with the Force and Motion Foundation, which "exists
to support students in fields related to multi-axis
force measurement and testing. The foundation
awards travel and academic scholarships to aid
promising graduate students on their paths to becoming the scientific leaders of tomorrow." Online
applications are due February 1, 2012.
CALL FOR PAPERS: 2012 IEEE/ASME International
Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics,
July 11-14, 2012, KaoHsiung, Taiwan.
CALL FOR SESSIONS: Energy Systems Subcommittee of the ASME DSCD Mechatronics Committee invites contributions for invited technical
sessions on Renewable Energy Systems for the upcoming 2012 American Control Conference.
Educational Corner
Associate Editor, Melody Baglione (Cooper Union),
is currently undertaking a tremendous effort to
provide our members with a centralized depository
for sharing educational resources. She is currently
soliciting ideas and feedback to help make this
effort a great success. Many of you have requested
these resources, so please take the time to get involved. Melody can be contacted at:
melody@cooper.edu
D i d y o u K n ow ?
Professor Galip Ulsoy is leading efforts in creating
Dynamic Systems and Control Magazine. Keep a
watch on this exciting new initiative.
The DSC Division is a 1/3 co-sponsor of 2012 IEEE /
ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (AIM) along with IEEE Robotics
and Automation Society (RAS) and IEEE Industrial
Electronics Society (IES).
Automotive and Transportation Systems (ATS) technical committee will be begin a Best Paper Award
this year. Now there is even more reason to participate in the technical committees!
O p e n Po s i t i o n s
Tenure-track Faculty Position at the University of Washington in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. The application deadline is February 15, 2012.
Tenure-track Faculty Position in Energy and Health at the University of Washington in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. The application deadline is January 31st , 2012.
Tenure-track Faculty Position in Thermal-Fluids, Controls, Dynamics, Design, or related areas within the Mechanical Engineering Department at Texas A&M.
The Baylor College of Medicine Alliance Department of PM&R has post-doctoral fellowships (1--2 years) available in spinal cord or traumatic brain injury research tracts.
Yale University’s Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science invites applications for a faculty
position with a specialization in robotics and mechatronics.
Tenured and Tenure Track Faculty are being sought in Automotive Engineering, Mechatronics, Biorobotics and
Biomechanics for Rehabilitation, as well as Energy within the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Michigan.
The Department of Mechanical, Materials and Aerospace Engineering (MMAE) of the University of Central Florida (UCF), Orlando, Florida, invites applications for three (3) Full Time Lecturer positions to start January 2012.
A postdoctoral position is available at the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Northeastern
University, Boston.
A postdoctoral position is available in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Texas at Dallas.
Two doctoral positions are available at the Mechanical Engineering Department, University of Connecticut, CT.
The Dynamic Systems and
Control Division provides a national and international forum to
evaluate, discuss, analyze, and publish new technical results in the
field; stimulate and encourage research and education innovations;
enhance manpower in research and
engineering education in dynamic
systems and control; and lead in
setting directions for the field in the
future. It encompasses all aspects of
the modeling, design, and control of
physical systems involving forces,
motions, the dynamics and control
of mechanical, chemical, biological,
and human-related systems, plus
transportation, energy, robotics,
manufacturing, processing, environmental, computational, and manmachine systems.
Division Chair:
Division Vice Chair:
Dawn Tilbury
tilbury@umich.edu
Huei Peng
hpeng@umich.edu
We’re on the Web!
http://www.asme-dscd.org/division-interests/news---information