Grants Roundup

January 28, 2015 | UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS

Between July and October 2014, The University of Texas at El Paso received research grants to study a range of topics. The following is a sampling of grant research in the College of Engineering starting during that four-month period.

Carlos M. Chang, Ph.D., associate professor of civil engineering, is leading a multidisciplinary team to evaluate how a road's condition affects vehicle emissions. The research project includes participation from Texas Southern University (TSU) and is funded by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT). By the end of the study, Chang's UTEP-TSU team will provide TxDOT with a detailed guide of road maintenance strategies that could help mitigate emissions.

The U.S. Department of Education has funded Roger V. Gonzalez, Ph.D., director of Engineering Leadership and professor of mechanical and biomedical engineering, and co-principal investigator Peter Golding, Ph.D., professor of metallurgical and materials engineering, to establish a partnership with the nationally recognized Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering. The grant will create novel classroom pedagogical paradigms in the new Engineering Leadership program. By working with and learning from the college, UTEP also hopes to increase the number of Hispanic engineering students, particularly women, resulting in higher graduation rates.

Professor of civil engineering Austin Marshall, J.D., and co-principal investigator Adeeba Raheem, Ph.D., assistant professor of civil engineering, received a grant from the U.S. Department of Labor to provide local, non-English-speaking construction workers and employers with training on fall protection. Sessions will be conducted in classroom settings and on work sites, educating workers on how to recognize fall hazards and how to properly inspect and wear equipment that can prevent accidents.

Raymond C. Rumpf, Ph.D., associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, will use funding from the Naval Postgraduate School to develop all-dielectric, or non-metallic, antennas. Avoiding metal will allow the antennas to operate at a higher power, survive in chemically hostile environments and be integrated into plastic enclosures more easily.

Calvin M. Stewart, Ph.D., assistant professor of mechanical engineering, received funding from Sandia National Laboratories to create a novel modeling and characterization approach for the multiaxial response of energetic materials. Current characterization techniques are highly complex, requiring expensive instrumentation, but Stewart's new system aims to be simpler, relying on 3-D imaging to determine the surface deformation of energetic materials.