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12.10.2007 Awards from DMJM Harris, Caltech and CSULB Foundation
11.15.2007 Regional Programming Contest
10.15.2007 NSF-CREATE Grant and LSAMP Grant
09.28.2007 Northrop Grumman Design Clinic, NCIIA Grant
08.31.2007 NSF Grants, IEEE Students, Students' success
07.27.2007 CSUN FSAE team placed 7th overall at the Formula SAE West competition
06.29.2007 IGV Team, Strategic Planning council, 2006 ASEE Profiles
05.25.2007 Micromouse, Student paper contest and Faculty Grants
04.26.2007 Aero Design competition, Steel Bridge Competition, Distinguished Alumni
03.30.2007 Faculty Grants and Awards
02.25.2007 San Fernando Valley Engineers Council recognized 3 CECS faculty
01.12.2007 January 2007 College News


December 2007 College News back to top

Congratulations to:

  • Bob Ryan, DMJM Harris, Fume Hood Expansion for Science 3 & 4, $19,856
  • Dale Conner, "Cellular Metallic Amorphous Structures for Energy Absorption", Caltech, $ 14,999
  • Nhut Ho, "Metrics for Operator Situation Awareness, Workload and Performance in Automated Separation Assurance System", CSU Long Beach Foundation, $75,000.00
  • Amine Ghanem, CSUN Probationary Faculty Reassigned Time Grant, CIELO, 3 units, Fall 2008

November 2007 College News back to top

  • 11th place in Regional Programming Contest (out of 60+ teams), Riverside Community College, November 10, 2007 (see results)
  • 2nd place out of 20 CSU teams
  • Congratulations Steven Barnett, Daniel Frankel, and Matthew Jenks, Advisor: Prof. John Noga


October 2007 College News back to top

Congratulations to Prof. Sharlene Katz, who has received continued funding in the amount of $ 54,791 for the NSF-CREATE Grant (The California Consortium for Engineering Advances in Technological Education), administered through the College of the Canyons. Prof. Katz is presently serving as the PI for this very successful grant project coordinating the activities of 7 community colleges in Advanced Technical Education (ATE).

Congratulations also to Dr. Karla Johnson-Majedi, Director of the CECS Student Services Center for her recent grant in the amount of $ 102,156 for Phase III of the CSU-Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation. The Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) program at California State University Northridge (CSUN) is part of a state and national effort to help students succeed. The program is a joint project between the National Science Foundation and the California State University System. LSAMP's goal is to increase participation in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) especially for those underrepresented in these majors.

Also receiving CSUN reassigned time from external research grants are Prof. Somnath Chattopadhyay, (3 units) and Prof. Nhut Ho, (6 units).

September 2007 College News back to top

Northrop Grumman Design Clinic
Prof. Ramin Roosta has been awarded a design clinic for a project entitled " Power-aware design planning and physical implementation for effective power reduction". The two-semester design clinic grant award is for $ 20K and will be conducted during the fall 07-spring 08 semesters.

NCIIA grant
 Prof. Nhut Ho's project "Infusing a Culture of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the CSUN College of Engineering and Computer Science to Address Community Needs" was awarded a $ 23,500 NCIIA grant.


August 2007 College News back to top

NSF Grant
Profs. Ashley Geng (PI) and Profs. C.T. Lin and Tim Fox (Co-PI's) have been awarded a $ 106,429 grant from the National Science Foundation under the Major Research Instrument Program for a 1 year project on the "Development of Unmanned Vehicle Systems as a Research Platform for Autonomous Intelligence".
This project cuts across disciplinary boundaries and is a good example of the types of collaborative activities in our college. Please join me in congratulating Ashley, CT, and Tim for their successful grant award and wish them the very best in this project.

IEEE Student Branch
Our IEEE Student Branch has been recognized for the second year in a row as the Outstanding Student Branch within Region 6. This region covers the 12 western states in the US and is home to 72 student branches. The award will be presented in San Diego on September 14th.
This outstanding achievement is testament to the dedication and commitment of our students and their leadership. Congratulations

Celebrating our students' success
The 2006-07 academic year saw a number of our student teams perform admirably in regional and national contests. The College held a reception to acknowledge the contributions and successes of our student s following the college meeting on August 22. The event was attended by several of our supporters from industry and the community. Mr. John Bwarie, District Director, for City Councilman Greig Smith, attended the event and presented special certificates and a proclamation recognizing each student team for their outstanding performance.
Outreach: The college's ACCESS program - Accelerated Coursework in Computer science and Engineering for Student Success is off to a great start with 8 participating high schools including San Fernando HS, Granada Hills HS, Fulton College Preparatory HS, Monroe HS, El Camino HS, Chaminade HS, Northridge Academy HS, and Frazier Park HS.
71 high school students are enrolled in MSE 101 &L (Introduction to Engineering Lecture and Lab) in Fall 2007. The program is expected to expand in the coming academic year to include additional schools and other introductory courses from CECS departments.


July 2007 College News back to top

Alumni, Faculty, and Team,

I am very happy to report that the 2007 CSUN FSAE team placed 7th overall at the Formula SAE West competition. This is the best we have ever placed in this prestigious competition going up against teams who competed a month ago at Formula SAE East. This truly is one of the best cars CSUN has ever built.

Our car was very fast doing exceptionally well in all of the dynamic events including an overall win in the skid pad event.

Acceleration - 3rd place
Skid-Pad - 1st place
Auto-X - 7th place
Endurance - 9th place

Many of the team members received numerous requests for resumes from companies like Toyota, Honda, Goodyear, Honeywell, Mazdaspeed, Del West, Boeing, and GM.

Overall, the project this year was a great success and could not have been possible without the support of the Alumni and Faculty.
Thank you for your support.

--
Pablo Olmedo
2006-2007 CSUN FSAE
Project Manager
www.ecs.csun.edu/sae


June 2007 College News back to top

IGV team tastes success at National Competition
The CSUN team under the guidance of Prof. C.T. Lin had an impressive outing at the 15th IGVC (intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition). Our team placed 5th in Design Challenge with $700 award in the competition, and the CSUN entry " LinBot" placed the 7th overall for the grand award---just shy of receiving the grand award trophy by one place.

Selected to serve on CSUPERB Strategic Planning Council
 Dean Ramesh has been selected to serve on the Strategic Planning Council for CSUPERB (California State University Program for Education and Research in biotechnology). During this three year term Dean Ramesh will represent the Engineering Deans in the CSU system on the SPC.

News from 2006 ASEE Profiles
 The 2006 Edition of the "Profiles of Engineering & Engineering Technology Colleges" published in 2007 by the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). Per ASEE data, CSUN ranked 9th of 63 recognized U.S. institutions in the number of MS Engineering Management degrees awarded in 2005-2006, awarding about twice as many as the average (i.e., CSUN=56 and average # = 28.8).

It should be noted that the institutions ranked 1 through 8 are all PhD-granting. Those in 1-8 are Old Dominion, George Washington, U of Missouri Rolla, USC, Duke, U of Michigan Dearborn, Santa Clara U, and New Jersey Inst of Tech.

Bachelor's degrees in Engineering from ASEE 2006 profiles
ASEE also reports that CSUN ranked 14th for the number of engineering bachelor's degrees awarded to Hispanics in 2005-2006.


May 2007 College News back to top

Students from the ECE department performed exceptionally well at the IEEE Region 6 Southern Area competition capturing the following awards:

  • First place, Micromouse competition
  • Third place, Student paper contest

Faculty grants and awards include:

Nhut Ho, Fulbright Grant for spring 2008, "Benchmarking Vietnam's IT-Engineering Programs for Curriculum Design.", Hosted by the Ho Chi Minh City University of Economics; and The American Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City Chapter.

Dale Conner, YAG Matrix Development Program, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, $ 40,000

Sharlene Katz, NSF-ATE Create grant, College of the Canyons, $ 17,510
Judge Julian Beck Grants/University Corporation
Ahmad Sarfaraz, Using Relevance Concept to Enhance Student Learning for an Engineering Course: Engineering Economy Class, $4,516
Ashley Geng, Development of Innovative Teaching Strategies for Systems and Controls, $4,516
Nhut Ho, Engineering Mechanical Engineering Freshmen: Revamping ME 101, $ 5,000


April 2007 College News back to top

Students from the ME department under Prof. Tim Fox's supervision did very well at the Texas Aero Design Competition, April 2007 - First place in written design report section with a score of 48.7/50

Our CEAM students had a grand showing at the Pacific Southwest Regional Competition, securing the overall second place in the regional contest covering 17 schools. Honors included:

  • First place, Steel Bridge competition
  • Second place in seismic design
  • Second place in water resources
  • Third place in impromptu design
  • Third place in concrete frisbee

The Steel Bridge Competition

The Cal State Northridge student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) placed first overall in the regional steel bridge competition held April 12-14 at the University of California, San Diego. The win marks the sixth time the team has qualified for the National Student Steel Bridge Competition (NSSBC), this year to be hosted by CSUN on May 25 and 26. Co-sponsored by the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC), the regional competition consisted of designing and building a 20-foot long single-span steel bridge capable of supporting a 2,500-pound load. The judged categories included construction speed, aesthetics, construction economy, lightness, stiffness and structural efficiency. Overall performance is based on cumulative scores in all six categories. Among CSUN's scores were second place in construction time (13.68 minutes with penalties), and first place in construction economy, using only four assemblers. These combined with other scores for the first overall recognition. Northridge's team belongs to the 17-member Pacific Southwest Regional Student Conference (PSWRC), one of 18 regional conferences in the nation. The top two or three teams from each regional compete in the national competition. Out of nearly 220 universities from across the nation, only 40 to 45 invitations to the national competition are given.CSUN civil engineering and applied mechanics part-time lecturer Edward Larson worked with the student teams in preparation for the competition.

Dean S.K. Ramesh was honored by his alma mater, the National Institute of Technology Tiruchirappalli (NITT), as one of 23 Distinguished Alumni award recipients saluted for excellence in their fields. He was recognized on "Alumni Day" for his contributions as faculty member, department chair and dean in a 20-year career, as well as for his leadership in professional societies such as the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., and Sigma Xi (the Scientific Research Society). The dean also was cited for developing and offering engineering education workshops for high school teachers. The award was presented by Surjit Singh Barnala, Governor of the State of Tamilnadu where NITT is located. The Institute is one of the premier engineering educational institutions in India and serves over 4,000 students.

March 2007 College News back to top

Recent faculty grants and awards include:

Ahmad Sarfaraz, Uncoupling Credits, Seat Time and Learning Objectives in a Required University Undergraduate course, Learning Centered University mini-grant, $14,134.00

Sharlene Katz, NSF-ATE Create grant (additional funding), College of the Canyons, $ 3,591

February 2007 College News back to top

The 52nd annual San Fernando Valley Engineers Council banquet recognized three outstanding CECS faculty members for their contributions:

"John J. Guarrera Engineering Educator of the Year Award"
Dr. Diane Schwartz

"Outstanding Engineering Achievement Merit Award"
Dr. Nazaret Dermendjian

"Outstanding Engineering Achievement Merit Award"
Dr. Nhut Ho

January 2007 College News back to top

The San Fernando Valley Engineers Council will honor three CECS faculty during their 52nd annual awards banquet on February 24, 2007. Faculty who are being recognized include:

Dr. Diane Schwartz, "John Guarrera Memorial Engineering Educator of the Year Award for 2006"

Dr. Nhut Ho, "Outstanding Engineering Merit Achievement Award" for extensive contributions to systems engineering research and the development of practical curricula for students at California State University, Northridge,

Dr. Nazaret Dermendjian, "Outstanding Engineering Merit Achievement Award" for outstanding contributions that enhance student learning in Civil Engineering and for support and leadership of the Fundamentals of Engineering Review course

Grants received by faculty and staff in the College during January 2007 include:

Hamid Johari, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Performance of Hydrofoils with Leading Edge Protuberances $22,180.00

Somnath Chattopadhyay, CSUN Reassigned Time, 3 units

Sharlene Katz, CSUN, Reassigned Time, 3 units