Student Honors and Activities

STUDENT HONORS
Congratulations to AE doctoral candidate Kelly Salyards for being the 2005 recipient of the Kling Engineering Graduate Scholarship. This scholarship was established to provide recognition and financial assistance to outstanding graduate students who aspire to advance the state-of-the-art in building design and systems integration.

The following students graduated in December 2005 with graduate degrees. Kellie P. Bleecker (M.Eng.) will head to Kamapala, Uganda, for six months to work with the non-profit organization, Engineering Ministries International, which provides free design work in developing nations. Upon her return to the U.S., she will seek employment with an AE firm. Chuan “Victor” Chen (Ph.D.) has accepted an appointment as an assistant professor at The Institute of International Project Management within the School of Civil Engineering at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China.  Nevienne G. Harding (M.S.) currently works for Southland Industries in Sterling, VA. Christopher S. Magent (Ph.D.) has accepted a job as director of business development for Alexander Building Construction, LLC in State College, PA.  He is also currently teaching AE 472. Frederick W. Peters (M.S.) now works as an architectural designer with NVR in Maryland. Vladimir Vukovic (M.S.) will stay on in AE, working towards his Ph.D. Other December 2005 graduates were Kent M. Hulet (M.S.), Noah D. Shaltes (M.Eng.), and Piotr Sobiewski (M.Eng.).

A REAL LIFE LESSON
This past fall, students in AE 309, under the instruction of Professor Moses Ling, were given the opportunity to serve the community while learning about architectural acoustics.

The Harris Township Lions Hall, housed in a small renovated church, presented a group of students with an acoustical problem in their existing facility. The room was too acoustically lively for the functions served, which included lectures and Boy Scout meetings. AE students visited the site, documented the conditions, performed the analysis, and presented their conclusions to the client. Approximately ten Lions Club members attended the poster session, and within a month, the recommendations were implemented. The president of the club, Jerry Duck, wrote: “Before we had all the ceiling panels in place, we could see a remarkable improvement in the acoustics. The club is exceedingly pleased with the finished results.”

A second group of students were also presented with a noise reduction problem – this time in the woodshop of the new School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture building. The students studied methods of reducing equipment noise and air noise, in addition to providing reverberation control. The proposals are currently being evaluated by the Penn State Office of Physical Plant.

CH2M HILL SCHOLARSHIP WINNERS
Two AE undergraduate students Tony Nicastro (right) and Kevin Danna (left) were the recipients of the 2005 CH2M Hill Foundation Scholarships.  The awards were presented to the students at the 2005 Career Fair on Nov. 10, 2005, by Mr. Mike Synnott, a representative from IDC in Moon Township, PA, a subsidiary of CH2MHill.

PSU AE WINS ASHRAE COMPETITION
Penn State AE students Jesse Fisher (now with James Posey Associates, Baltimore, MD) and Amy Pastor (currently employed at GRG, Inc., Orlando, FL) took first place in the “HVAC System Selection” section of the 2005 ASHRAE Student Design Project Competition.  They evaluated HVAC system options for the Brewery Blocks, a five-building residential, retail, and office development in Portland, OR, that also houses a high load density data center.  AE students have taken first place in this category for the past three years and placed no lower than second since the competition began in 1997.  The students were advised by Dr. William Bahnfleth.

STUDENT TRIP TO DC
Dr. John Messner and Professor Moses Ling led students on a tour of various jobsites in the Washington, DC, area. They visited the following project:  915 E Street, Washington, DC, The Department of Transportation, The Westin Hotel, Comstock Potomac Yard Landbay F, the Solar Decathlon, the National Building Museum, Washington Cathedral, and various monuments. Special thanks to Clark Construction Group, L.L.C. for their generous support for the trip and for hosting visits along with the Centex Construction Group and Summer Consultants. 

AE SENIOR IS SMOKE-FREE
AE senior (mechanical option) and Schreyer Honors College scholar, Patrick Murphy, took his campaign for smoke-free bars and restaurants all the way to the Pennsylvania state capital on Sept. 27, 2005. Murphy, the co-leader of Penn State Students for Tobacco Awareness (PSSTA), testified before the Pennsylvania Senate's Health and Welfare Committee in support of the Clean Indoor Air Act (SB 602) in order to stress the negative health impact of second-hand smoke on the student employees in Pennsylvania bars and restaurants. He also highlighted the results from an October 2004 Penn State Pulse survey focusing on student smoking, which shows overwhelming student support for smoke-free environments. "Given the nature of the bill, we wanted to focus on the health of these workers who have to endure up to eight-hour shifts in smoky workplaces," he said. PSSTA has been leading a highly visible smoke-free bar initiative on campus and throughout the downtown State College area, providing "I support smoke-free bars" stickers and buttons to passer-bys who are in support of clean indoor air. The visibility of this campaign, as well as the strength of the data captured in the Pulse survey, recently influenced four establishments in State College to offer smoke-free nights. For more information, please visit www.sa.psu.edu/uhs/ohpe/smokefree.cfm.

COMMENCEMENT
Commencement for the College of Engineering was held on Dec. 17, 2005. Architectural Engineering was pleased to confer 12 B.A.E., 12 B.A.E./M.A.E., 4 M.S., 3 M. Eng., and 2 Ph.D. degrees. Congratulations to everyone!