Engineering Out Loud

Is it possible to revolutionize nuclear power in the United States? Oregon State Nuclear Engineering Professor Jose Reyes co-founded NuScale Power to do just that. He's joined by fellow Oregon State Nuclear Engineering Professors Qiao Wu and Todd Palmer to discuss NuScale's revolutionary reactor design and its test facility here on campus.

Are faster networks with more users and devices possible? Researchers at Oregon State with help from Tektronix are advancing technologies to push the boundaries of speed in data collection and transmission. Matt Johnston, Arun Natarajan, and Tejasvi Anand explain their research that spans the networking chain from sensors to wireless and wired transmission.

Goran Jovanovic, professor of chemical engineering at Oregon State, was interested in finding ways to convert carbon dioxide into useful products using renewable energy. When the U.S. Department of Energy rejected a proposal in 2005, Jovanovic sent out an email to former Ph.D. students around the world, looking for potential collaborators. A copy of that email landed in the inbox of Thana Sornchamni, leading to an enduring and mutually beneficial partnership with PTT, Thailand's biggest industrial giant.

What are magnetic nanoparticles and how can they be used in medicine? Oregon State Associate Professor Pallavi Dhagat and graduate student Phil Lenox explain the very sensitive techniques they are developing using magnetic nanoparticles to detect a biomarker for disease in just a drop of blood or look deep inside the human body.

• Oregon State Applied Magnetics Laboratory
• Micro-scale Magnetic Particle Imaging Scanner video

https://engineering.oregonstate.edu/season-3-environmental-and-human-health/magnetic-materials-medicine-s3e4

Biosensor technology is used to detect a wide variety of substances — from drugs, to cancer biomarkers, to chemical contaminants in our food and drinking water. Diatoms — tiny, single-celled plants found in water all over the planet — are playing a big role in a new type of biosensor being developed by Alan Wang at Oregon State. The new technology has a high selectivity and sensitivity, and is much less expensive than traditional methods of detection.

How do you prove someone tested a nuclear weapon? Researchers, Steven Czyz, Lily Ranjbar, and Salam Alhawsawi from the Radiation Detection Group at Oregon State are developing devices smaller than Pop-Tarts that use the metallic alloy CZT to detect radioactive isotopes of the noble gas xenon. This helps prove if someone tested a weapon, supporting the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) that's been signed by 183 nation states.

Advances in 3D graphics have made movies and video games more realistic, but can also have an impact on science. Associate Professor Eugene Zhang and Assistant Professor Yue Zhang describe their research to help medical doctors better target cancerous tumors by using 3D modeling and simulation.

• Associate Professor Eugene Zhang's website.
• Associate Professor (Senior Research) Yue Zhang's website.

https://engineering.oregonstate.edu/season-3-environmental-and-human-health/toy-story-tumors-s3e1

It's no secret that women and minorities have historically been underrepresented in science and engineering and have faced a lot of bias upon entering those fields. But what is Oregon State University doing to change that? To find out, we talk to Joe McGuire, one of the College of Engineering's associate deans, and Anne Gillies, the search advocate program director at Oregon State about how they are building an inclusive environment.

To learn about the efforts to recruit and retain more students of underrepresented groups we talk to Ellen Momsen, director of the Women and Minorities in Engineering program and Kameron Kadooka, the coordinator of the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation program. We also hear from alumni, Patricia Walsh, Janice Levenhagen-Seeley and Justin Conner about their experiences at Oregon State. Janice describes ChickTech, the non-profit she founded to recruit and retain more girls and women in technology fields.

• Women and Minorities in Engineering
• Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation
• Video about Patricia Walsh
• Video about Nadia Payet
• Feature story on Janice Levenhagen-Seeley
• ChickTech
• Video about Janice Levenhagen-Seeley and ChickTech

https://engineering.oregonstate.edu/season-2-engineering-inclusivity/change-and-chicktech-s2e6

In this week's episode, we feature two stories from the Oregon State Robotics Group.

Ravi Balasubramanian, mechanical engineering assistant professor, is designing robo-inspired implantable mechanisms to improve orthopedic surgeries of all types--with a specific focus on tendon transfer surgery related to restoring function of the hand. We talk with him in part 1.

In part 2, we explore Project Chiron, a kit that turns a mechanized wheelchair into a self-driving wheelchair to help those with ALS. It's being developed by Bill Smart, mechanical engineering associate professor, and his graduate student Benjamin Narin.

• See pictures/diagrams of Ravi Balasubramanian's implantable mechanisms for orthopedic surgery.
• Check out a picture of the Project Chiron kit.
• Find out more about the open-source Robot Operating System (ROS) hosted at Oregon State.
• Learn more about Bill Smart and Benjamin Narin's work in the Personal Robotics Group.
• Contact Bill Smart to help fund Project Chiron.

https://engineering.oregonstate.edu/season-2-engineering-inclusivity/inside-and-outside-s2e5

In this episode, we hear from Greg Herman, professor of chemical engineering, about a sensor he's developed that has the potential to monitor glucose levels via a contact lens.

In Part 2, we explore the research of John Mathews, professor and head of the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer science, whose goal is to enable people with serious spinal cord injuries to regain the use of paralyzed limbs.

• Click here to see a picture of the Utah Slanted Electrode Array

https://engineering.oregonstate.edu/season-2-engineering-inclusivity/lenses-and-limbs-s2e4