Dukengineer2012

Edmund T. Pratt Jr. School of Engineering at Duke University 2011-2012 dukeng
FCIEMAS
A Catalyst for Pratt’s
Architectural, Technological
and Social Transformation
Engineering Opportunities at the
Marine Lab: Duke’s True East Campus
Life after The Grand Challenges
Engineering and Music at Duke
www.pratt.duke.edu | www.dukengineer.pratt.duke.edu

dukengineer Edmund T. Pratt Jr. School of Engineering at Duke University 2011-2012
on the lighter side
Crossword Challange | The Life of an Engineer
www.pratt.duke.edu
letters
2 From the Editor
3 From the Dean
4 From the ESG President
5 From the EGSC President
education
6 Engineering & Music at Duke
8 CE 185: Design Project
10 Engineering Student Government
features
12 Life After The Grand Challenges
16 Duke’s True East Campus
20 Engineering Preception Changes
Year-Year
22 COVER
FCIEMAS: A Catalyst for Pratt's
Architectural, Technological and
Social Transformation
research
26 BME: Soft Matter
28 BME: Synthetic Biology
30 ECE: Fluid Cloaking
32 SMiF Center
profiles
36 Motorsports
38 Smart Home
summer stories
40 Building Bridges to Form Connections
42 Pratt Fellows
44 RTI Biologics Internship
alumni news
46 Alumni Profile: J. Michael Pearson
47 Class Notes
50 In Memory
development
54 Letter from EAC President
55 Annual Fund Statistics
58 Honor Roll
Editor
Tejen Shah
Associate Editors
Anirudh Mohan
Cameron McKay
Jimmy Zhong
Lauren Shwisberg
Tom Mercer
Wyatt Shields
DukEngineer Writers
Jade Brown
Hersh Desai
Ajeet Hansra
Jennifer Hewitt
Nooshin Kiarashi
Rachel Lance
Nathan Li
Cameron McKay
Anirudh Mohan
James Mullally
Katy Riccione
Tejen Shah
Wyatt Shields
Lauren Shwisberg
Emily Sloan
Visakha Suresh
Suzana Vallejo-Heligon
Justin Yu
Jimmy Zhong
Consulting Editor
Richard Merritt
Webmaster
Meng Kang
Designer
Lacey Chylack
phasefivecreative,inc
Technical Support
Mandy Ferguson
Photographer: Becca Bau p.72

letters From the Editor
We are proud to bring you the 2011-12 issue of the DukEngineer Magazine, which features the
2 dukengineer 2012
experiences and accomplishments of Pratt School of Engineering students, faculty and alumni.
The cover story this year focuses on Fitzpatrick Center for Interdisciplinary Engineering, Medicine
and Applied Sciences (FCIEMAS). It has been operational for about seven years, and we wanted to
reflect on the impact it has had on the Duke community and to explore the architectural innovations incorpo-rated
in the building that often go unnoticed by passersby.
We have decided to cover some stories, such as the Grand Challenge Scholar (GCS) program, Smart Home,
Shared Material’s Instrumentation Facility (SMiF) and the Motorsports club, that we have covered in the past
but from a slightly different perspective. Over the past two years, the GCS program was mainly written from a
programming perspective. This year we take a look at the life after the GCS program and see how the program
has helped recently graduated GC scholars succeed professionally. We also look at the progress and invalu-able
contributions Smart Home, SMiF and Motorsports have made to different aspects of Pratt community.
We continue to cover the cutting-edge research of our faculty and graduate students. We profile Gabriel
Lopez’s research on soft matter that could potentially help develop coating that would prevent bacteria from
sticking to solid surfaces. We also showcase Yaroslav Urzhumov and David Smith’s research on a fluid cloak
that helps hide an object from a flowing fluid. Finally, we profile Lingchong You’s research in synthetic biology
that has wide-ranging applications from diagnosing new cancers to finding new ways of fabricating materials.
Pratt has evolved significantly over the past few years, and there are exciting new opportunities available to
engineers who want to dabble in liberal arts. Some of these interdisciplinary opportunities are not as visible on
campus, and we have two articles in this year’s magazine that showcase these opportunities. The first article
is related to interesting research opportunities available for engineers at the Duke Marine Lab in Beaufort. The
second article highlights how music is intertwined with the Pratt curriculum and there are ample opportunities
for engineers to pursue their passion for music.
Furthermore, we have continued the recent tradition of featuring students summer experiences related to
internships, Pratt Fellows research and international services trips. This year we have writers at different
phases in their careers: from freshmen to seniors, to grad school and beyond. Therefore, we
have an interesting piece on how perspective of being an engineer changes from year to
year. The last page of the publication features “The Lighter Side” article that we hope
will make this issue of DukEngineer magazine entertaining.
We would like to thank our writers, Pratt faculty, architects at Zimmer Gunsul
Frasca and all the other members of the Pratt community who helped us throughout
the process of publishing this magazine. We would also like to thank our advisor,
Richard Merritt with the Pratt Communications Department for his patience and
invaluable support. We hope that you will share comments, questions and concerns
with us through our website at: http://www.dukengineer.pratt.duke.edu.
Enjoy!
Tejen Shah
Editor, DukEngineer Magazine 2011-12
B.S.E in Biomedical Engineering ‘13

2012 dukengineer 3
Last spring I had the great pleasure to experience an
impressive example of engineering in action. One of our
students, Katrina Wisdom, combined her knowledge of
the laws of physics with her passion for dance. In her
presentation, and performance, entitled “Fouette Turns and
Fourier Series,” she explained and demonstrated the subtle inter-sections
of engineering and dance.
At one point, three volunteer dancers were asked perform
turns in a synchronized fashion. I’m sure you’ve seen these turns.
On one leg, with eyes fixated on one spot, they spun until their
heads whipped around to gaze the same spot. Over and over
again. As they spun faster and faster, a “resonance” made it
appear that they were spinning even faster and with less effort
than if they had been dancing alone. Katrina cleverly used art to
provide an insight into an underlying scientific phenomenon –
namely oscillations — that an average person could grasp.
As I think back to that day, I sense a similar metaphorical res-onance
taking place here at Pratt – instead of three dancers
working together cooperatively, I see faculty, students and staff
providing a certain “resonance” that makes this a great place to
be. Every day, I feel a palpable momentum driving all aspects of
our mission forward.
By just about any measure, Pratt is a growing, thriving envi-ronment
to live, learn and teach. And with the way the future
looks, I don’t foresee that momentum slowing down.
Research expenditures have increased dramatically. For U.S.
News and World Reporting rankings, we reported an increase
from $74 million to $87.5 million in research expenditures. Our
actual number is closer to $94 million when we include subcon-tracts.
This is very close to our longstanding goal of reaching
$100 million in research, in the league of engineering research
powerhouses.
Pratt landed a $20 million endowment for the Duke Coulter
Translation Partnership and a $13.6 million to fund a regional
center for soft matter research.
But what we are really all about here at Pratt is people. What
the research growth enables us to do is offer richer learning
opportunities and to more students.
For example, we graduated 62 new Ph.D.s in the spring, an
increase of 10 more students than the previous year.
We launched our new master of engineering program last fall
with seven distinct degree concentrations spanning all four of
our departments. The goal is to provide an alternative to the tra-ditional,
research-focused master of science curriculum and give
students a competitive edge in their industry careers. Students
gain business acumen to help them navigate corporate environ-ments
and better prepare for project management while gaining
real world, practical research skills. The new degree is driving
masters growth at Pratt, which rose from 360 to 418 students.
In another sign that the Duke-Pratt brand is hot, masters appli-cations
are up nearly 70 percent for next fall.
This fall, a new bachelors of science degree in energy engi-neering
is set to launch. It will give students an opportunity to
pursue a second major in an exciting interdisciplinary subject
matter that spans all four Pratt departments. We expect to add
to the Pratt faculty two professors of the practice with industry
experience in the energy sector. These individuals will support
both the energy engineering second major, and the energy and
environment certificate we jointly administer with the Nicholas
School of the Environment.
Together with the Trinity College of Arts and Sciences, we are
developing a Duke-wide undergraduate entrepreneurship pro-gram
that will include both curricular and extracurricular ele-ments
such as practicums, startup opportunities, and intern-ships.
We hope to launch this fall.
The list goes go on and on.
As you read the informative and creative stories in this issue
– all written by Pratt students – I’m sure you’ll get a clear pic-ture
of how amazingly diverse, creative and dedicated are the
people who make up the Pratt community.
Where else could I kick up my heels at a student presentation
like Katrina’s or the annual E-Ball? Or build Ritz Cracker-Cheez
Whiz towers, toss bean bags or race in sacks on a gorgeous sum-mer
day in front of Hudson Hall? We all know it is an awe-some
responsibility to train – or become — the next generation
of problem-solvers, but it’s also great to have fun.
What a great place to be!
Tom Katsouleas
Dean, Pratt School of Engineering
Dear Friends of Pratt,
From the Dean

From the ESG President
4 dukengineer 2012
Greetings from Engineering Student Government,
2011 has been an outstanding year for Engineering Student Government, thanks
to the incredible efforts of each one of our members, and the enthusiasm of
the engineering students. We have seen productive growth of the organization
and further enhancements to the Pratt student experience. With new leader-ship
being elected in January, we look forward to another year of serving the
student body. Be sure to check out information on our events and projects,
and leave feedback at: http://esg.pratt.duke.edu/.
In March, ESG hosted the annual E-Ball
at the top floor of the University
Tower – the first time in several years that
it has been off campus. The event saw
huge demand and all who attended
enjoyed an unforgettable night bonding
with classmates and friends alike. E-Social,
the staple E-Quad happy hour of
sorts also saw a change from the usual this
year with the addition of “Super-E-Socials”
once a month. With plentiful
food and an emphasis on planned pro-gramming,
these events brought together
several engineering clubs and students
from many all class years. We hope to
continue to see many underclassmen at
these events, so as to further solidify the
Pratt bond that transcends class year. Our
other E-events, including E-Picnics, E-Oktoberfest,
and E-Kickball, have been
hits as always, especially the E-Shirts this
year: Pratt Bracket and Cheat Shirt.
A year ago, ESG created the
Academic Action Committee. This
group of extremely active students is
charged with creating positive change in
the academic environment in Pratt in a
rapid timeframe. They delivered in a big
way this year in creating an engineering
skills course that took place for the first
time this fall. The fall course is broken
into four modules each teaching an
applied engineering skill, and has
received rave reviews.
Finally, we have spent some time to
revise our decades-old constitution to
bring it up to date with our current goals
and operations. In this revision, we have
added a new position on ESG, the indus-try
relations chair. This ESG member,
the first of whom will be elected in
January, will continue our already strong
efforts in bringing companies to E-Socials
to provide networking opportunities to
students.
ESG looks forward to continuing a
tradition of making Pratt life in some
regards more bearable, but in most
regards flat-out awesome. We invite any
and all feedback and if you are particular-ly
interested, run for election for one of
our positions. I hope to see you at our
next event!
Sincerely,
David Piech
President, Engineering Student Government

2012 dukengineer 5
t Duke, we find ourselves surrounded
by an illustrious faculty whose history of
groundbreaking research inspires us to
both follow in their footsteps and blaze
new trails forward. This sense of ambi-tion
and drive is reinforced by our peers
-- hardworking, creative individuals
truly committed to pursuing their
goals. We find ourselves in awe of the
accomplishments of those graduating
and amazed at how bright each incom-ing
class is.
While it is easy to get caught up in
our academics, whether studying for a
midterm or submitting a paper to a jour-nal,
Duke’s Engineering Graduate
Student Council (EGSC) believes that
there is more to graduate school than just
our individual bodies of academic work.
This principle guides the council’s
efforts, as we aim to foster positive rela-tionships
between graduate students, and
help each other maintain a healthy work-life
balance during our time in Pratt.
This year, EGSC has taken on co-sponsorship
of E-socials, working with
the undergrads to continue to improve
Pratt’s popular weekly happy hour and
make sure it appeals to our graduate
community. We’re excited to bring offi-cial
graduate student involvement to the
Pratt tradition, and believe that events
like E-Socials give us opportunities to
interact and get to know one another
outside of the laboratory and classroom.
Our goal is to ensure that each social
event we are involved with brings
unique value to all members of Pratt,
whether it is networking with potential
employers at E-Social or Halloween-themed
bowling with other graduate
departments. We believe that the con-nections,
whether made over beer and
pizza or a couple of frames, can build
lasting relationships, and that those
relationships will make up a valuable
network down the road. We think that
leaving campus should not mean leaving
the Duke community, and that being a
Blue Devil comes with a lifetime mem-bership.
The biggest event that EGSC hosted
this fall was the
Mahato Memorial
“Envisioning the
Invisible” event.
Held in memory of
former graduate
student Abhijit
Mahato, the event
included a photog-raphy
contest to
celebrate Abhijit’s
interest in combin-ing
science and
visualization, as
well as a lecture by
Nickolay Hristov,
entitled “Pixels,
Frames and 3D
Models: Visual
Storytelling for the Modern Naturalist.”
The event was a big success, and EGSC
hopes to continue the program in perpe-tuity.
The best entries from the contest
are on display all year in the CIEMAS
atrium, highlighting the cross-discipli-nary
interests of our students and faculty.
EGSC also seeks to help students
prepare themselves for careers beyond
graduation, and to give them perspec-tive
on the work going on across engi-neering.
For students from all programs
seeking careers in all fields (industry,
academia, entrepreneurship, government
and otherwise), EGSC wants to make
sure that they have interesting and use-ful
exposure to as many future opportu-nities
as possible. This has included
seminars, bringing industry representa-tives
to campus to meet with students
and keeping students informed about
career fairs and other important events.
This year, we are also working with the
faculty and administration to develop a
vision of the future of Pratt and the
kind of programming that build our
already-strong reputation.
EGSC cannot achieve its goals with-out
the help of volunteers. Membership
in EGSC is open, and all students are
encouraged to attend our monthly meet-ings
to help us improve the graduate
experience and to pull off the events
themselves. Creative thinking enables us
to stretch our budget and fund new
activities and all ideas are welcome.
Peter Hollender (E’09) is a third-year
graduate student pursuing a Ph.D. in bio-medical
engineering and the president of
the Engineering Graduate Student Council.
From the EGSC President A
We believe
that the
connections,
whether made
over beer and
pizza or a
couple of
frames, can
build lasting
relationships,
and that those
relationships
will make up
a valuable
network down
the road.

Education
A Few Things You May Not Have Known About
Engineering and Music at Duke
As freshmen in Engineering 53 with
Michael Gustafson, assistant professor of
the practice in electrical and computer
engineering, students are given the
opportunity to combine their knowledge
of Matlab with their interest in music.
In lab, students’ iPods are connected to
circuit boards that are wired to the com-puters.
Students then choose 10 seconds
of their favorite song to manipulate in
various ways. Students adjust the fre-quency
ranges with different Matlab
algorithms.
After playing back each adjustment
to the clip, sophomore Lauren Morrison
remembered, “how exciting it was after
each modification, to listen to how the
song was affected.” Eventually, the song
was altered beyond recognition. Lauren
said “after repeating the same 10 seconds
of my favorite song over and over for the
whole lab period, I no longer wanted to
hear it again!” Each student brings their
own style of music to the lab, personaliz-ing
their learning experience of Matlab.
When Clark Bray, assistant professor
of the practice of mathematics, lectures
his students on linear differential equa-tions,
he uses music to help his students
better understand the beat frequency
when there are multiple frequencies. He
explains why certain notes played on a
piano are more pleasing to hear than
others because of sine and cosine waves.
When listening to music, we usually
hear multiple frequencies simultaneous-ly.
Bray explained that when you hit a
Every day as we walk to and from class listening to music on our
iPods, attend engineering lectures, and participate in labs and
independent projects, engineering and music are united. In Pratt,
from the first freshman courses to senior design projects, music
is intertwined with our curriculum.
When C and C# are played simultaneous they
create a harsh dissonant sound because the
frequencies are very close together.

2012 dukengineer 7
middle C and C# note on the piano at
once the noise is unpleasant because the
frequencies of the two notes are very
close together, specifically C: 261 Hz
and C#: 277 Hz. Because the difference
between the two notes is small, the beat
frequency is also small and thus the
notes are dissonant, creating a
harsh rattling noise. In contrast,
playing middle C and C an
octave higher, the beat frequen-cy
will be larger and the notes
will be consonant.
In BME 153, biomedical
engineering juniors are charged
with the unusual task of build-ing
and designing an electric
guitar. The class focuses on the basic prin-ciples
of electronic instrumentation with
biomedical examples. Although not
obvious at first, there are many connec-tions
between biomedical engineering and
designing and building electric guitars.
Medical devices to aid those who have a
hearing impediment or are
deaf have similar electronics
to electric guitars.
Two Pratt seniors,
Lindsay Johnson and Corey
Weiner, combined their pas-sion
for music with their
knowledge of engineering to
design a custom electronic
musical device for a para-lyzed
musician. In 1985, the musician
was paralyzed from the chest down in a
diving accident, impeding his ability to
play the electric bass guitar, one of his
greatest passions in life. The “hammered
bass guitar” was built for biomedial
engineering instructor Laurence Bohs’
class for biomedical engineering seniors.
This course challenges students to design
devices that will improve handicapped
people’s lives. The custom electric
device has round sensor pads that, when
struck with wooden hammers, produce
electric guitar sounds. Inside the ham-mered
bass are three musical instrument
digital interfaces (MIDI,) that convert
each hammer hit on each pad into a
note. The pads have “piezoelectric”
material that translates pressure into a
signal. This device can be plugged into
any keyboard or other synthesizer.
From learning about Matlab and fre-quencies,
to studying differential equa-tions
and sound waves, to building
musical instruments for class assign-ments,
the influence of music in engi-neering
is all around us at Duke.
Jade Brown is a sophomore majoring in
mechanical engineering.
Ipods are used in Egr53 lab to graph and analyze frequencies in Matlab
Although not
obvious at first,
there are many
connections
between
biomedical
engineering
and designing
and building
electric guitars.

T
From Idea to Implementation
One student’s experience with CE 185: Engineering Sustainable Design and Construction he Engineering
properly repair the bridge, locals desper-ately
Sustainable Design and
needed assistance.
Construction course (CE
Kathryn Latham, a junior civil engineer,
185) offers students a
was one of the students who worked on
unique experience not typically found in
this culvert bridge design and offered her
other courses at Duke. According to
perspective. “In most other engineering
Associate Professor of the Practice David
classes, you’re just doing problem sets.
Schaad, the course is focused on the
But with this course, you have the oppor-tunity
design and testing of solutions to com-plex
to create and implement your
interdisciplinary design products in a
design. You learn what it’s like to work
service-learning context. Design projects
for a real client.”
from last semester ranged from stream
Schaad structured the class so that
restoration in Beaufort, North Carolina,
students would have the opportunity to
to rice-farming in Libya.
learn about the social and environmental
One of the projects that attracted the
impacts of the design projects.
most attention was a culvert bridge reha-bilitation
Occasionally, guest speakers would stop
project in El Salvador. Nine of
in to lecture on sustainable design. “It
the 24 students enrolled in CE 185 spent
was a good balance,” said Latham.
the semester working on this design. The
“[Schaad] would float around and help us
original culvert bridge is 37 years old and
when we needed it. He would give us
was used by farmers and other locals to
advice when we were stuck.”
transport crops and to reach vital
While everyone in the class worked
resources in the rural El Salvador commu-nity.
on a design for a real-world problem, only
Due to frequent flooding, the bridge
about a third of the students went on to
was in a severely dilapidated state.
implement the designs they completed in
Without the means or knowledge to
class. For Latham, traveling to El Salvador
to apply the design was the
best part of the experience.
However, upon arriving in El
Salvador, she quickly realized
that the challenges did not end
with the completion of the
design at the end of the course.
During the semester, effec-tively
communicating with
people in such a rural, under-developed
area proved to be a
great obstacle for Latham and
the other students. As a result,
the students had to make sev-eral
assumptions during the
The culvert bridge
during a minor flood.
These floods, which
occur nearly daily
during the rainy
season, are the main
contributor to the
erosion and dilapida-tion
on the bridge
8 dukengineer 2012 education

design process. These assumptions includ-ed
things like the velocity of the water,
precise dimensions of the bridge, and
what the bridge was made of. “It was a
little frustrating because we had done all
of this work during the semester, but
once arriving at the site, we had to redo a
lot of the design,” Latham said.
While these challenges were tiring,
they did not go unappreciated. “The
implementation was a lot more interest-ing
when we hit those speed bumps
because once we were at the site, I felt I
was able to use those design and problem
solving skills that we learned in class,”
said Latham.
CE 185 also allows students to see
that the application of skills learned in
the classroom may not always be what
they expect. “Another thing we experi-enced
is that sometimes what we learn—
the technical stuff, really specific ways to
do stuff—that’s not always the best way
to get something done,” Latham said.
“We found that the locals would have
much better solutions to problems than
we could ever come up with. It was inter-esting
to let that go and
realize that our technical
education might need to
be augmented a little
bit.”
When asked if she would recommend
this course to another student, Latham
responded without the slightest hint of
hesitation: “Definitely. For many engi-neering
students, especially underclass-men,
it’s difficult to find an opportunity
Duke University students
and local community mem-bers
collaborate on pouring
a new reinforced concrete
slab on the existing culvert
bridge. The new slab was
one of the main components
of the design worked on in
the CE 185 course.
to participate in this type of design. It’s
very rewarding to be involved from start
to finish on a project like this.”
Jennifer Hewitt is a sophomore biomedical
engineer who assisted with the implementa-tion
of the culvert bridge design.
The culvert bridge during a minor flood. These floods, which occur nearly daily during the
rainy season, are the main contributor to the erosion and dilapidation on the bridge

The Many Facesof Pratt
The Engineering Student Government (ESG) is an administrative
organization run by students to make the four-year Pratt expe-rience
all the more worthwhile. ESG takes a three-pronged
approach to changing Pratt life for the better: planning events
that bring the engineering student body closer together, making
student-oriented academic policy changes, organizing service
and outreach initiatives for the Durham community.
10 dukengineer 2012
ESG is made up of 11 students, head-ed
by executive president David Piech, a
senior. Sitting in a conference room on
the third floor of CIEMAS, spoke ani-matedly
about the role of ESG and the
effect it has both on its members and the
student body it governs.
“ESG is really to make the lives of stu-dents
and their experience here at Pratt
all the better. We make it fun … we
help solve some of the problems,” he
explained. He went on to elaborate
about the society’s dogma. “We’re a laid-back
organization … but at the same
time, we focus on getting things done.
We want our members to be trained as
leaders, to set up their own initiatives
and to get things done.”
ESG officers are encouraged to take on
pet projects in areas that interest them,
from fostering a sense of belonging with-in
each graduating class to performing
service in the local community. For
Left: An ice sculpture from the E-Ball

education
;
Left: E-social
example, last year, the 2014 class presi-dent
Nathan Li had foam fingers with the
ESG logo emblazoned on them made for
Pratt students to take to the Duke-
Michigan men’s basketball game.
For engineering students, it is often
quipped that life is all work and no play.
The ESG goes to great lengths to ensure
that this is most definitely not the case.
Weekly E-Socials held on E-Quad bring
freshmen to faculty members together to
mingle over free food. The E-Picnic,
held once each semester, is on a much
grander scale, with a live band, geeky
games and competitions, and of course,
the iconic (not to mention, free) Pratt
tee-shirts that make Trinity students
green with envy. The annual E-Ball
serves as a more formal social gathering,
giving students the opportunity to dress
up, put on their dancing shoes, and
enjoy a night of elegance in the company
of the fellow Pratt classmates (and a few
of their Trinity dates).
In terms of policy, for a while, ESG
dealt with matters on an ad hoc basis.
All this changed August 2010 with the
creation of the Academic Advising
Committee (AAC), an undergraduate
panel aimed at influencing administra-tive
policy. Members are chosen using an
application and interview process to
screen for students who are truly inter-ested
in making a lasting difference in
Pratt. Although a nascent organization,
it has already made an impact on the
Pratt community.
Dianna Liu, a senior who is the vice
president of ESG and a member of the
AAC, explained some of the major
accomplishments of the committee. This
past year alone, the AAC managed to
prevent the Hudson computer cluster
from being converted into office space.
Using the overwhelmingly negative stu-dent
response to the idea, the AAC con-vinced
Pratt administration to keep the
cluster and the two groups are now
working together to redesign Hudson to
reflect the growing needs of the faculty
and students.
Another major accomplishment under
AAC’s belt is the establishment of a new
skills course: EGR 165, created in
response to the complaints of Pratt BME
graduates who, upon entering the world
of industrial engineering, realized that
there were some gaps in their technical
knowledge. Duke BME students now
have the opportunity to learn to use
tools like Maple and SolidWorks before
going into industry. The AAC has really
grown into its own and is currently tack-ling
issues concerning student-advisor
compatibility, overall student-faculty
interaction, and freshman transitioning
into the Pratt community.
ESG has also extended its resources to
giving back to the local community. The
community chair, Emily Sloan, has
spearheaded an effort to
make the world of sci-ence
more interesting
to local schoolchildren.
She has worked to set
up a program for Pratt
students to act as
Science Olympiad
coaches in a local mid-dle
school. Previously
the school lacked the
resources or faculty
interest to actively pur-sue
the idea, but Pratt
students have stepped
in to fill the void. The
volunteers visit the
school on a regular
basis and help the stu-dents
prepare for com-petitions,
providing
these children the
opportunity to pursue
scientific knowledge in an extracurricu-lar
setting.
The ESG and the AAC both serve as
influential groups in the Pratt communi-ty,
focusing on everything from social
activities to policy changes to communi-ty
service. The life of Pratt students is
made all the more multidimensional by
the efforts of these two student-run
organizations.
Visakha Suresh is a sophomore double
majoring in biomedical engineering and
biology.
Engineers at the 2011 Duke-Michigan men’s basketball game

Features
Life After
The Grand Challenges
The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) Grand Challenge Scholars Program (GCSP)
had its roots in 2008, when the NAE selected 14 Grand Challenges for Engineering that are of
utmost importance to secure a viable future for society. For the past 100 years, the greatest engi-neering
achievements are mainly defined by inventions such as the airplane or lasers. However,
when an NAE committee was selecting the new engineering grand challenges, a paradigm shift
came to light. Almost all of the challenges require technological innovation, but more importantly, they
require engineers to span across multiple fields such as public policy and other humanities to tackle the
problem from a systems approach. The challenges address problems from the basic necessities of life such
as how we will feed ourselves with how to Manage the nitrogen cycle or Provide energy from fusion to the issues
of the modern era with how to Secure cyberspace and Enhance virtual reality.
12 dukengineer 2012
“We created the national program to
encourage students to develop the skillset
and mindset to address the grand chal-lenges
of engineering over the course of
their careers,” said Tom Katsouleas, dean
of the Pratt School of Engineering. “The
thought was that if we could create a
cadre of a couple thousand graduates a
year nationwide, we could make a differ-ence
in the world. With the growth of
the program to over 40 peer schools, I
am optimistic we will do just that.”
The Grand Challenge Scholars Program at
Duke has graduated two classes of schol-ars—
Simon Scholars and Stavros
Niarchos Foundation Scholars—and the
inaugural class graduated in 2010. As a
part of the Duke GCSP, every student
must complete a portfolio satisfying five
requirements: a research-based
practicum, interdisciplinary curriculum,
entrepreneurial component, global com-ponent,
and a service-learning compo-nent.
The Grand Challenge Scholars have
taken these varied experiences beyond
Duke and continue to do great things in
industry, academia, and the public/non-profit
sector.
The first class NAE Grand Challenge
Simon Scholars included a Fulbright
Scholar who is now attending graduate
school in aerospace engineering in
England; a M.D./Ph.D. student at the
University of California, Los Angeles; an
associate manager at Google working in a
rotational program before heading to

2012 dukengineer 13
Harvard Business School for a Masters of
Business Adminsitration; and a volunteer
working in India who has now taken a
position in environmental engineering,
among many others.
The second class to graduate, called
NAE Grand Challenge Stavros Niarchos
Foundation Scholars, continued achieving
greatness in the fields of their respective
challenges. Among their ranks is a Ph.D.
candidate in biomedical engineering at
Duke, a business analyst for Capital One,
a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, and a mas-ter’s
student at Stanford studying civil
and environmental engineering.
Niru Maheswaranathan, a 2011 GCSP
graduate, chose the Reverse-engineer the
brain grand challenge as his focus while
at Duke. Maheswaranathan felt that
understanding how the brain works from
a fundamental engineering point of view
would allow us to develop better thera-pies
for neurological diseases as well as
build more intelligent machines. While
an undergraduate, he used the GCSP to
study neuroscience from both the scien-tific
and engineering point of view.
Maheswaranathan says the research com-ponent
of the program was very impact-ful
in that it gave him the opportunity to
dive into the field that he had become
very passionate about. The GCSP first
got Maheswaranathan interested in neu-roscience-
related questions, and he has
continued along that path and is now a
Ph.D. candidate in the neurosciences
graduate program at Stanford University.
Anna Brown, also a 2011 Niarchos
Foundation Scholar, chose to work on the
Engineer better medicines challenge. She
pursued a wide range of activities from
working in radiation biologist Professor
Mark Dewhirst’s lab as a Pratt
Undergraduate Research Fellow with the
goal of improving endoscopic imaging
Niru Maheswaranathan, currently a Ph.D. candidate in neurosciences at Stanford University

14 dukengineer 2012
technology in order to better characterize
the boundaries of tumors. She travelled
multiple times across international bor-ders
with Project HEAL (Health
Education and Awareness in Latin
America) to provide health education ini-tiatives
to women and children in
Honduras.
One powerful sentiment that Brown
and other scholars have echoed was that
the GCSP was complementary to the
things that they were already doing and
helped unify two very different interests
such as intensive academic research and
developing world humanitarian work.
The GCSP Program integrated well with
other programs already established at
Duke such as the Pratt Fellows Program,
DukeEngage, and Engineers with
Borders.
Brown discovered that she enjoyed the
intellectual environment found in the lab
due to her GCSP and Pratt Fellows expe-rience
and is now pursuing a research-based
masters of philosophy in oncology
at Cambridge, with funding from Cancer
Research UK. When she’s done, she
plans on returning to Duke to attend
medical school. When Brown attended
the Grand Challenges Summit conference
as a student, she noted that people were
addressing the same grand challenges
from very different fields and hopes to
apply this approach towards her work in
radiation oncology in the future.
Undergraduate Jared Dunnmon, a
Niarchos Foundation Scholar, worked on
a multitude of projects that actually tar-geted
two of the grand challenges: Restore
and improve urban infrastructure and Make
solar energy economical. He combined these
efforts into a project to make alternative
energy economical. During his GCSP
experience, he worked on projects rang-ing
from developing a novel method of
mass public transportation in conjunc-tion
with NASA scientists, to working as
an unpaid intern with the Director of
Climate Protection Initiatives for the
City of San Francisco, through
DukeEngage. There he spearheaded a
project to use new technology involving
algae to help treat the city’s wastewater.
Dunnmon said “being a Grand
Challenge Scholar allowed me to themat-ically
combine a great number of my dif-ferent
interests into a cohesive package,
which I would imagine made my scholar-ship
application stand out a bit.” He is
now a Rhodes Scholar and is at Oxford
University studying applied mathematics
after which he intends to return to the
U.S. to pursue his doctorate in engineer-
Jared Dunnmon, current Rhodes
Scholar, tackled two energy-themed
challenges

Anna Brown, currently pursuing an oncology degree at Cambridge, worked with Project HEAL in Honduras
2012 dukengineer 15
ing with a focus on non-fossil energy
technologies.
In addition to those who are continu-ing
their education, some of the GCSP
graduates are making their mark in
industry. Eric Thorne, a Stavros Niarchos
Foundation Scholar, is currently working
as a business transformation consultant
for IBM as a part of the Consulting by
Degrees Program. Thorne chose to
address how to Make solar energy economical
challenge. As a component of his GCSP
experience, Thorne used his GCSP fund-ing
to travel to Uganda to work with a
solar start-up, Village Energy, where he
got to work hands-on developing an
actual product.
Thorne said, “The Grand Challenge
Scholars Program was a nice way to
bridge the divide between the pure serv-ice
aspect of community-minded work
and the pure engineering aspects of the
Pratt Fellows Program. It allows you to
gain a wide array of experiences and see
how they intersect to make a real
impact.”
GCSP graduate Ben Gagne is working
in industry. He is a Duke MEMS gradu-ate
with a certificate in aerospace engi-neering
and is currently working for GE
Aviation in the Edison Engineering
Development Program designing jet
engines. Gagne felt that placing your
work within the larger context of the
challenge gave it more meaning. Gagne
also notes that the GCSP allows students
to showcase a wide variety of skills such
as entrepreneurship, teamwork, and a
global mindset that are highly valued by
employers.
It seems apparent that the Duke GCSP
graduates are leading successful and ful-filling
lives, partially due to the knowl-edge
and experiences gained from their
GCSP experience at Duke. Whether still
addressing their Grand Challenge or
being involved in a more tangential man-ner,
the GCSP has graduated a group of
engineers who are a great boon to society.
To learn more about joining the Grand
Challenge Scholars Program, contact
Assistant Dean of Education and
Outreach Programs Martha Absher at
mabsher@duke.edu or visit the Duke GCSP
website at http://www.pratt.duke.edu/ grand-challengescholars.
Hersh Desai is a sophomore majoring in
biomedical engineering and minoring in
finance who hopes to make a lasting
impact on the world for the better.
features

Duke’s True
East Campus
FGenerally, engineering
homework and lounging
on the beach aren’t com-patible.
At the Duke
University Marine Lab,
however, there is ample opportunity for
Pratt students to earn credits and enjoy
beautiful, coastal North Carolina.
Located on Pivers Island, the Duke
University Marine Lab is a fully operable
satellite campus with classrooms, labora-tory
space, a library, a dining hall, com-munal
student spaces, and dormitories. In
addition to these traditional facilities, the
Marine Lab has some more unique ameni-ties:
kayaks and canoes for student use, a
“So if you find a cool science question
that you want to address, you have to make the tool. Some people shy
away from that, but I thought that was part of the fun.”
16 dukengineer 2012
swim dock, and two research vessels.
While the Marine Lab curriculum has
historically catered to students studying
environmental science, biology, or earth
and ocean sciences, there are many oppor-tunities
for engineers.
Dr. Cindy Van Dover, the current
Director of the Marine Lab, strongly
believes in the application of technology
to the ocean sciences. After receiving her
Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology and Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institution Joint
Program, Van Dover piloted the deep-sea
submersible ALVIN, which enabled her
to make groundbreaking discoveries
related to deep-sea hydrothermal vent
communities.
“Innovation in research,” Van Dover
notes, ”often comes about both by under-standing
what the next set of key ques-tions
are and by designing and building
the instrument…that can help deliver the
answers.”
Another strong proponent of the neces-sity
of technological innovation in marine
science is joint Pratt-Nicholas School
Professor Doug Nowacek. Also a graduate
of the MIT and Woods Hole PhD pro-gram,
Nowacek’s research focuses on bioa-coustics
and signal processing. As a result
of his faculty appointment in the
Electrical and Computer Engineering
(ECE) Department, he frequently visits
main campus to interact with students
and faculty. He became interested in
the technology-development side of
oceanography when a mentor at Woods
features

The Susan Hudson is one of the research vessels at the Duke University Marine Lab
2012 dukengineer 17
Hole explained to him that oceanography
was still a very young field, and that
many of the tools necessary to answer
research questions they were pursuing did
not yet exist.
“So if you find a cool science question
that you want to address,” he explains,
“you have to make the tool, and some peo-ple
shy away from that but I thought that
was part of the fun.”
This belief in technology inspired the
idea of an ‘Engineering Semester’ at the
Marine Lab, designed with courses to
attract engineers, and provide at least one
engineering area elective credit. Courses
include: Marine Molecular Microbiology,
Marine Molecular Ecology, Introduction to
Bioacoustics, Introduction to Physical
Oceanography, and Independent Study.
Nowacek’s bioacoustics course and inde-pendent
study are offered in the ECE
department as ECE182L and ECE 191,
respectively. The other courses may be of
interest to engineering students due to
their quantitative nature.
One of the most important considera-tions
for engineering students interested
in spending time at the Marine Lab is
advance schedule planning. Graduation
requirements such as courses in the
Natural Sciences and Social Science cate-gories
can easily be fulfilled in a semester
at the Marine Lab, and there are certainly
advantages to doing so. During both
semesters, the Marine Lab offers signature
Travel Courses where students go on field-study
trips to locations such as Puerto
Rico, Singapore, Costa Rica. Courses at
the Marine Lab also take many field trips;
students in summer marine science classes
often spend a few hours per day collecting
critters and taking excursions to surround-ing
islands.
Martin Steren, ME ’12, had a strong
interest in ocean science before studying at
the Marine Lab, and arranged his schedule
to spend fall semester of junior year in
Beaufort. “As long as I can remember I
have had an interest in marine biology, “
Martin explained, “and I would love to use
my engineering background to help devel-op
devices to study marine animals.”
Martin spent his semester taking classes
and assisting an ECE student with his
Students collect critters as part of Marine
Invertebrate Zoology class

project in antenna design for whale track-ing
devices.
Pratt students have the opportunity to
perform research within the intimate,
supportive Marine Lab environment. In
addition to Nowacek’s electrical engi-neering
projects, many other Marine Lab
faculty have engineering-related research
interests.
Upon arrival at the Marine Lab, Van
Dover says engineering students would
find faculty members who are “keen to
put their design and analytical skills to
work to consider a marine research prob-lem
in a new light.”
Jim Hench’s research lab in physical
oceanography has hosted students inter-ested
in fluid dynamics and complex
modeling, and features an operable salt-water
flume for experiments. In addi-tion,
students with interest in program-ming
and software development may
want to look to Dave Johnston. He has
been a pioneer in digital learning, work-ing
with the computer science depart-ment
to develop interactive iPad appli-cations
to replace textbooks in his
Marine Mammals and Marine
Megafauna classes.
On top of these faculty, Van Dover
says, “there’s scope for field testing of
ocean instruments developed on cam-pus.”
She also mentions the updated
teleconference capabilities at the Marine
Lab, noting that it would be easy for
students on campus to stay connected to
mentors on Piver’s Island.
With these mentors, Pratt students
have been able to earn independent
study credit, participate in Marine Lab
research scholarship summer programs,
and even do research for Pratt Fellows.
The administration and faculty at the
Marine Lab is willing to work with stu-dents
18 dukengineer 2012
A saltwater flume is available for student use for fluid dynamics experiments
to meet their needs. Nowacek is
happy to report that he has now worked
with students in all four engineering
disciplines, “I sit in the ECE but I’ve
always wanted it to be something that
we could offer opportunities to any
department in Pratt.”
Even if students cannot spend a
semester away from Durham, the Marine
Lab offers a variety of summer courses
and research scholarship programs. Ross
Taggart, CEE ’12, spent a summer at the
Marine Lab as a participant in the
Bookhout Research Scholarship program.
The Bookhout Scholarship funds stu-dents
to take a class during first summer
session and perform an independent
study project during the second summer
session, both related to marine inverte-brates.
For his research project, Ross
studied the response of blue crabs to
acoustic signals.
In addition to the more obvious perks
of proximity to the beach, small class
sizes, transportation and admission to
Cameron Indoor during basketball sea-son,
and Chef Sly’s delicious cooking,
spending time at the Marine Lab may be
a rewarding intellectual experience for
engineers. Both Van Dover and Nowacek
site the potential draw for engineers to
ocean science. “The oceans are an engi-neer’s
dream world, I should think,” Van
Dover stated. Most notably, ocean engi-neering
forces engineers to face a whole
new set of design challenges due to fac-tors
such as high salinity and pressure.
“Its using what you’ve already learned
and what you’re learning and applying
it in a novel context, “ Nowacek
explained, “between what we don’t
know about the oceans as well as the
environment for which you have to
engineer, to me, should be a really fun
“Cross-trainingis always a powerful way
to prepare for a career, and engineering and marine
science and oceanography are natural partners.”

2012 dukengineer 19
challenge for any young engineer.”
After graduation, engineers with
marine experience have many education
options. Van Dover notes that, “cross-training
Students can relax on the porch of the Repass Center
is always a powerful way to pre-pare
for a career, and engineering and
marine science and oceanography are nat-ural
partners.” In addition, she notes that
they may even have an advantage.
“Students with an undergraduate back-ground
in engineering who choose to pur-sue
a graduate degree in marine science or
oceanography are going to be in demand,
especially since the future of oceanogra-phy
is in advanced technologies.”
Likewise, both Nowacek and Van
Dover express that industry, especially
the energy sector, would employ engi-neers
with marine backgrounds. More
importantly, the ocean needs motivated
engineers, in the interest of conservation.
Nowacek explains, “if we have better
engineered things, well, we don’t have
Deepwater Horizon. There’s always
going to be the push to get into ever
more difficult and tricky situations, and
the only way we’re going to guarantee,
or at least minimize the risk of that is
to have really well-engineered compo-nents
and tools.”
Aside from the energy sector, there are
companies that design and build ocean
equipment. The Marine Lab has a con-nection
with iRobot’s maritime division,
based in Durham; they bring their new
equipment for testing in Beaufort. One
of Nowacek’s ECE students worked on a
project integrating an acoustic detector
with a Seaglider to collect continuous
sound data, participating in a summer
internship with iRobot, and supple-menting
with independent study credit.
Both Ross and Martin note that they
will continue to pursue their interest in
marine science after graduation, and
they believe their time spent in
Beaufort will help them achieve these
goals. Martin says that his dream job
would be to work as an engineer devel-oping
tools at Woods Hole. He believes
that the relationships he has developed
at the Marine Lab will, “prove invalu-able
to [his] future job search.”
For students still searching for post-graduation
options, the Marine Lab may
expose engineers to a whole new set of
opportunities. During his summer at the
Marine Lab, Ross discovered a new pas-sion.
“My research and studies at the
Marine Lab sparked my interest in the
marine environment and aquatic chem-istry
which will definitely influence my
choice of career.”
Interestingly, Nowacek started to seri-ously
consider marine science after par-ticipating
in a summer research experi-ence
in college which gave students
from small liberal arts colleges the
opportunity to do research at Duke and
Davidson. The project he was assigned
to was in Beaufort at the Marine Lab.
Pratt students who have spent time at
the Marine Lab enthusiastically reflect
on their experiences. In addition to
interesting research opportunities and
unique classroom experiences, students
say that that spending time on the
island is a lot of fun. Ross speaks posi-tively
saying, “the Marine Lab was one
of [his] most memorable experiences at
Duke”, and encouraging everyone to
spend at least a summer session there
because “the Marine Lab has something
for everyone.”
Martin echoes this sentiment remi-niscing
that his semester there was
“without a doubt [his] favorite semester
at Duke. I loved all the classes I was in
and the people there were great.” Even
after years of working in the field,
Nowacek expresses content and excite-ment.
“I love this, you work great
places. It’s a work hard, play hard thing.
You work your tail off, and then you
walk outside and you’re in the ocean.”
So, the next time your problem sets
are getting you down, think about plan-ning
to spend some time at the beach.
Lauren Shwisberg is senior studying Civil
and Environmental Engineering with a cer-tificate
in Marine Science and Conservation
Leadership. She spent two summers at the
Duke University Marine Lab.
features

Engineering Perception
Changes Year to Year
Before you can determine how a perspective has
changed, first you must determine what exactly you
are looking at. What is constant, but seen from a
different angle for the first time. In engineering,
it’s the work. The high workload has been the only
constant throughout the years.
As a child, stealthily disassembling the kitchen appliances was
far more work than playing with Barbies; as an undergrad, calcu-lus
was far more work than sociology; as a working engineer,
repeatedly building and testing prototypes was
far more work than filing papers or answering
phones. Yet, for some reason, we all still do it.
Something pushes us toward engineering
despite the all-nighters and partial differential
equations. Having fought through undergrad
and a master’s degree without fully grasping
the role of an engineer, I am returning to grad-uate
school for the second time with a com-pletely
new perspective on the point, the func-tion,
and the ultimate goal of all this work.
As undergraduates, students are mainly fol-lowing
the paths laid out for them. The
homework assignments are taxing, and while
calculus and physics are interesting enough, at
those levels they’re still far too vague to be
practically usable. It’s not until the upper-level
courses that these theories actually become specific enough
to have a place and a purpose in the world. So why do it? Why
not switch to something simpler? For me, it was because of
those rare moments when phenomena that seemed mysterious
suddenly became understandable. When I combined gravity and
inertia and predicted where that ball would land. When I
learned about muscle structure, and how contractile force was
determined. Solving these little mysteries just wasn’t going to
happen in any other major, and finally understanding these
answers was more than worth the long nights at the library.
In graduate school, the perspective shifts dramatically. Yes,
there are still classes with structured learning regimens and end-less
theories, but in graduate school there is also research.
Graduate school was the first place I was ever asked to take a the-ory
I had learned from a class and apply it to explain something
new. The work of all that memorization and all those proofs
suddenly makes sense when, for the first time, you can draw con-clusions
not found in any textbook. It’s a scary moment, the first
time you realize there are no more answers in the back of the
20 dukengineer 2012
book. The knowledge you have suddenly becomes a lot more
valuable.
The working world makes the point of all this effort even
clearer still. As an engineer for the Navy, I designed and built
underwater breathing systems. The four other people on the
project team and I laboriously and painstaking designed,
machined, tested, and redesigned every single part of something
that would eventually keep a human being alive. And every sin-gle
part required some skill I worked hard to learn in engineer-ing
school. How do you configure the oxygen
sensors? Circuits class. How do you ensure
that the gases are properly mixed in the
breathing loop? Fluid mechanics. Because I
survived the workload, because I managed to
power through all the math and the science, I
made something that lets a person survive
underwater. The theory, the studying, and
the homework assignments all come to
fruition because as an engineer you are able to
physically create something useful. There is
nothing more satisfying.
The first time I went through graduate
school, I got sick. Instead of completing my
Ph.D. as planned, I ended up dropping with a
master’s degree to deal with my illness. It
was one of the greatest regrets of my life,
until the Navy offered me the chance to go back. For me gradu-ate
school, and Duke are the fulfillment of a very long-standing
dream.
With a Ph.D., I’ll be able to lead my own research, to decide
what questions I want to try to answer next. Still, sometimes it
is tempting to lose the perspective I’ve gained over the past few
years. Today my brain was utterly masticated by a math exam,
but it is important to remember that there is a purpose to all the
trauma. There is a model of pulmonary hemodynamics I would
like to solve, and this class has shown me how. Hopefully, this
model will be used to create a device that can save lives. While
all the work and the tedious assignments are difficult, they are
what will ultimately enable all of us engineers to create some-thing
amazing. That urge to create is what drives us to become
engineers in the first place. Perspectives on why we do it may
change from year to year, but the work is always worth it.
Rachel Lance is a Ph.D. student in Prof. Craig Henriquez’s lab in
biomedical engineering.

The theory, the studying,
and the homework assignments
all come to fruition because
as an engineer you are able to physically
create something useful.
features caption

COVERSTORY
FCIEMAS
A Catalyst for Pratt's Architectural, Technological and Social Transformation
Seven years later, FCIEMAS has devel-oped
into a foundation of learning and
research for both Pratt and the greater sci-ence
community at Duke University. But
in addition to the project laboratories,
research facilities, state-of-the-art clean
rooms, and “intellectual collision spaces”,
most passersby have little idea of the
extensive mechanical systems and architec-tural
innovations housed within the unas-suming
Duke stone and brick exterior.
In this article, we will talk about how
FCIEMAS as a new facility was integrat-ed
into Duke’s existing campus aesthetic,
reflect on the impact FCIEMAS has had
on the greater Duke community after
seven years of operation and explore its
salient features that often go unnoticed.
The exterior façade of the FCIEMAS
building incorporates both Duke stone,
the primary material of West Campus,
and brick, the material used in Hudson
Hall. This creates a modern aesthetic,
sympathetic to both historic West
Campus and the existing engineering
buildings.
D. Bartley Guthrie, AIA, a principal
22 dukengineer 2012
at ZGF who served as principal-in-charge
for the FCIEMAS project
explained that, “unlike the monochro-matic
red brick used in Hudson Hall,
the brick used in the FCIEMAS building
is a complex palette of different colors
that is meant to be complementary to
the native or indigenous stone that was
quarried in the Duke Forest.”
This ‘Duke brick’ blend was devel-oped
after an intense analysis of the
color palette present in Duke stone.
Originally developed by the University
Architect John Pearce, Duke Executive
Vice President Tallman Trask III, and
architect César Pelli for another campus
project, the architects at ZGF made
minor alterations to the mix for the
FCIEMAS façade. In addition to materi-al
similarity, the FCIEMAS building
structure mimics gothic West Campus
with tower elements at each corner.
“The inclusion of tower elements
marking the corners of the building
blocks is derivative of the [campus] core
and careful attention was paid to make
the tower elements Duke tower ele-ments,”
Guthrie said.
Furthermore, Guthrie described that
The architects at Zimmer Gunsul Frasca (ZGF) in Washington, D.C.
were faced with a complex task when they were hired to design a
building to represent the future of Duke’s engineering program.
Their goal was to create a building that would not only serve as a center
for advanced technological development, but also as a collaborative
space for the engineering and scientific community at Duke. In August
of 2004, when the Fitzpatrick Center for Interdisciplinary Engineering,
Medicine, and Applied Science (FCIEMAS) was first unveiled it was
hailed as an environment that would serve as a melting pot for scien-tists
and students of different backgrounds to collide and collaborate.
Smart Bridge
TIMOTHY HURSLEY, ZGF ARCHITECTS LLP

2012 dukengineer 23
the main challenge in the development
of the conceptual design for FCIEMAS
was, “to build the project in such a way
that it creates a bridge between the his-toric
core of campus, and what was con-sidered
the engineering and research
domain of campus.”
This design goal is clearly realized in
the finished structure; en-route to the
engineering quadrangle from historic
West Campus, pedestrians now descend
down the steps and pass under the
bridges connecting the east and west
complexes of the FCIEMAS facility.
These two bridges are actually “smart
bridges.” They house an optical fiber sen-sor
system that can detect microscale
dimensional changes in the building
structure, including information on
stress, strain, and temperature. Fifteen
separate optical fiber sensors make up the
optical fiber sensor array. Spaced about a
meter apart from one another, the sensors
are capable of detecting changes on the
order of 1/10,000th percent. A display
monitor on the third floor bridge allows
passerby to view the effects of wind, tem-perature,
and pedestrians. The bridges
are not the only place where optical fiber
arrays are installed. One can also find
them running underneath the main hall-way
floor, where sensors under certain
marked tiles feed information to the con-trol
room, which then wirelessly controls
a video camera. Using the information
from the optical sensors, a smart camera
shifts and focuses to remain gazed on the
moving pedestrian.
In addition to the aesthetic and aca-demic
integration, FCIEMAS completely
transformed the social landscape of the
engineering and research section of cam-pus.
Prior to the construction of
FCIEMAS, Teer and Hudson Hall stood
alone on Science Drive, which connected
all the way through to Research Drive.
Eliminating the road in front of Hudson
Hall and terminating it in a roundabout
in front of the physics building led to the
creation of a communal outdoor space for
the Pratt School of Engineering. This
communal space is now known as ‘e-quad’
and is host to many student events
throughout the year.
Chris Brasier, AIA, director of the
architectural engineering certificate pro-gram
stressed the importance of outdoor
spaces to a college campus. He said, “on
most college campuses the outdoor
space, in terms of the social life on cam-pus,
is the ‘connective tissue’ that brings
the buildings together and gives them
some sort of common identity.” This
concept was instrumental in uniting the
stylistically different buildings that
house most of the Pratt School of
Engineering on the e-quad.
Apart from the outdoor communal
space, the FCIEMAS building contains
Engineering Quad
In addition to the aesthetic and academic integration, FCIEMAS
completely transformed the social landscape of the engineering
and research section of campus.

many unique architectural spaces and
features, many of which are intended to
provide space for students and faculty to
interact. The centerpiece, and most fre-quented
space of the FCIEMAS building,
is the three-story atrium. Guthrie and
his team chose to direct focus to the atri-um
because he believes that space is rep-resentative
of the goals of the building:
“to contribute to student faculty interac-tion
in a positive way, not only for them
to work, but to meet and share ideas.”
With its iconic suspended staircases,
abundance of natural light, and varied
interior material palette, the atrium has
become a popular space for Pratt to hold
large events. Hilary Cavanaugh, CEE’12
and architectural engineering certificate
student, frequently studies in the atrium
of the FCIEMAS building. Some of the
attraction of spending time in the atri-um,
she noted, is the interesting architec-ture.
“I like the natural light, the open-ness,
and the mix of materials,” Hilary
said. “For example, the second floor is
slate, and the upstairs floor is wood.”
Some of the other unique interior
interactive spaces include Twinnie’s
Café, and the beautiful Mumma faculty
commons. Even the bathrooms in
FCIEMAS reflect the sense of collabora-tion
between engineering and sciences.
The tiles in the women’s restrooms are
patterned in the shape of the BRCA1, a
breast cancer type 1 susceptibility pro-tein
that is associated with tumor sup-pression
and cancer. The bone morpho-genetic
protein (BMP1), a protein that
induces bone and cartilage development,
graces the tiles of the men’s restrooms.
The optical fiber sensors on the smart
bridge and protein tiles in the bathroom
are just two examples of the way the
architects’ integrated work from the
FCIEMAS departments into the archi-tecture
of the building itself. Another
example is the etched flit designs drawn
on the Fitzpatrick windows. During the
construction phase of the building, the
dean of Pratt challenged all professors to
submit pieces of art, which substantiat-ed
the link between engineering and the
FCIEMAS Atrium and Twinnies Cafe
PETER WILSON, ZGF ARCHITECTS LLP TIMOTHY HURSLEY, ZGF ARCHITECTS LLP

2012 dukengineer 25
life sciences. The two
winning submissions
were Leonardo Da
Vinci’s “Spectra” and
Adrian Bejan’s
“Constructal Tree.”
Bejan is a mechanical
engineering professor
at Duke and the pio-neer
of a field called
BRCA1 diagram used in tiling pattern for women’s restrooms
constructal theory.
According to this
theory, all systems, both
biological and inanimate,
evolve in a way that increas-es
access to flow.
Bejan described the flow
of the students and faculty
of the Fitzpatrick center. “I
think the design works. It is
about geometry… a draw-ing
on a map… it’s about
what you see from above
which is the space in which
all of us flow, in which we
bounce off ideas.”
In explaining the con-structal
tree and its rele-vance
to the Fitzpatrick
Center goals, Bejan said that
“the tree is a facsimile of the
human design in the same
way that the wrench is a fac-simile
of the human hand.”
He referred to a picture
hanging on his office door
taken by Sylvie Lorente,
coauthor of his book on con-structal
theory and Pratt
adjunct professor. The pic-ture
shows the constructal
tree on a Fitzpatrick win-dow,
Leonardo Da Vinci's ‘Spectra’ pattern on glass walls
the branches of a natu-ral
tree visible in the reflec-tion.
“There is a double meaning here…
the constructal tree and the real one, the
superposition of the drawing and the
natural tree,” Bejan said. “These ideas
are inscribed into the building through
which we flow during our life as profes-sors
and students. This kind of stuff is
very good for the soul of the institution.
There are plenty of ideas being created
here. Duke University has a presence
and a signature in the world of ideas.”
In addition to the etched flit window
designs and other integrative features,
FCIEMAS has several unique lab spaces
like the Duke Immersive Virtual
Environment (DiVE) and the Shared
Material
Instrumentation
Facility (SMiF).
Then-Pratt Dean
Christina Johnson
hired Rachael Brady,
who was a research
programmer for the
first Cave Automated
Virtual Environment
(CAVE) at the
University of Illinois,
to develop a similar system in
the newest engineering build-ing
at Duke. Brady heads the
Pratt Visualization Technology
Group, which designed, built,
and runs the DiVE.
The DiVE received funding
from the National Science
Foundation (NSF) and went
online in 2005. It consists of a
six 3-meter square panels,
including the floor and ceil-ing.
David Bullock, the gener-al
contractor for the DiVE,
chose screens for the side pan-els,
but Plexiglas for the floor
and ceiling for added durabili-ty.
The ceiling panel is sup-ported
from the roof of the
room that encloses the DiVE
so that the side panels can be
replaced easily. These panels
are rear-projected with high-resolution
stereographic
images, much in the same way
a movie projector casts images
on a screen. Additionally, the
DiVE is equipped with head
and hand tracking software, a
more accurate and advanced
version of the technology
widely available in Nintendo’s
Wii video game system.
The DiVE is Duke’s only multi-disci-plinary
full immersion technology and
the first installation of a six-sided CAVE
system. The DiVE represents a unique
opportunity to interact with three-dimen-sional
data in an active way, Brady said.
Not only is the virtual reality visible to features

the observer on all sides, but the special
stereo glasses also provide depth to the
flat images. To further engage active
interactions with the virtual environ-ment,
a motion-sensing “wand” can be
used to control navigation and move-ment
of objects, which is then projected
in real time. These features have attract-ed
attention from around the Duke
research community, leading to many
interdisciplinary projects utilizing the
DiVE from Pratt, Trinity College of Arts
and Sciences, and even Duke University
Hospital.
One department that has utilized the
DiVE for cutting-edge research has been
Duke’s Center for Cognitive
Neuroscience. One exciting paper pub-lished
in the Journal of Cognitive
Neuroscience by Kevin LaBar explored the
concepts of fear and fear retention.
LaBar’s experiments took place in the
DiVE to understand how humans extin-guish
fear and anxiety with the help of
contextual location tools.
The DiVE is also home to a myriad of
student-led projects and instructional
tools. Civil engineering students can uti-lize
the virtual reality technology to
“tour” structures they have modeled in
one of their design courses; doing so
allows these students to tweak their
designs after experiencing their work in
a way that would otherwise be impossi-ble
with small, physical models. Also,
the DiVE is equipped with software that
can present a model of the human brain,
which is implemented in neurobiology
and medical school courses. Even
Divinity School students can gain travel
through time and space to experience a
The DiVE is Duke’s only multi-disciplinary full immersion technology
and the first installation of a six-sided CAVE system.
computer model of Solomon’s Temple
right here in Durham.
Currently, programmers are working
to update the DiVE to accept MATLAB
commands, meaning that Duke students
26 dukengineer 2012
can physically experience the graphical
outputs of their code in this common
coding language. Also, the Fitzpatrick
Institute for Photonics, a department
housed in FCIEMAS, has recently
accepted its first postdoctoral candidate
whose work will focus on using the
DiVE to study display fidelity and inter-action
fidelity in the context of a fully
immersed environment.

2012 dukengineer 27
With advances in the realm of virtual
reality also comes the need to promote
the DiVE as a medium for more studies,
both in and out of Pratt. Students from
every department at Duke are encour-aged
to apply to use the DiVE for their
projects. Those interested in learning
more about Duke’s innovative virtual
reality and visualization research and
experiencing this technology firsthand
are encouraged to visit vis.duke.edu or
attend one of the weekly open houses on
Thursdays at 4:30 pm.
In addition to these unique lab spaces,
the Fitzpatrick Center was also one of
the first buildings on Duke’s campus to
achieve LEED (Leadership in Energy and
Environmental Design) certification,
awarded by the United States Green
Building Council. Isabelle Arnold,
LEED AP BD+C, is an associate at ZGF
and served as the LEED coordinator on
the project. While designed with sus-tainability
in mind, Arnold explained,
“We did not start the project thinking
we were going to pursue LEED; LEED
was a very young system at the time.”
The decision was made to pursue LEED
Certification later in the design process.
However, Arnold noted that there were
very few changes to the design itself
once the goal of LEED Certification was
solidified stating “the pieces were in
place.”
To achieve its LEED silver certifica-tion,
a variety of environmental features
were implemented. The Fitzpatrick
Center earned points in five major LEED
categories: site selection, water efficiency,
energy and atmosphere, indoor environ-mental
quality, and materials and
resources. The most innovative environ-mental
measure implemented, Arnold
said, is the economic organization of the
building program. Laboratory spaces
with unique air quality or water needs
were ‘blocked’ together, significantly
reducing energy consumption. Similarly,
offices were placed all along the perime-ter
of the building to receive as much
daylight as possible.
Guthrie said that the final product,
“[FCIEMAS] is really a unique assem-blage
of different types of program and
hopefully it’s creating a really exciting
mix of research and student life.”
When Bejan was asked if he believed
that the Fitzpatrick Center had success-fully
accomplished its goal of creating an
interactive collision and interaction space
between intellectuals of different disci-plines,
Bejan offered a guarded yes, but
stressed that a great idea transcends bor-ders.
“I think that people work together,
as creators of ideas, because they are
attracted to the idea,” he explained.
“Collaboration is lot like a lightning
bolt from the cloud to the church
steeple. Completely unknown before it
happens, but striking when it does, and
memorable when there is impact on the
ground.”
Cameron McKay, Jimmy Zhong, Lauren
Shwisberg and Tejen Shah
PETER WILSON, ZGF ARCHITECTS LLP

Research
Cutting Edge Soft Matter
A look into the field of soft materials research
28 dukengineer 2012
Recently, the National Science Foundation funded a massive $13.6 million under-taking
to establish the Triangle Materials Research Science and Engineering
Center (MRSEC) in North Carolina. The MRSEC — an intercollegiate collab-oration
between the schools in the Research Triangle area, namely Duke
University, North Carolina State University, University of North
Carolina – Chapel Hill, and North Carolina Central University — will
focus on advancing the current knowledge in the field of “soft matter” research. A
team of 20 faculty members from across these four schools has assembled in an effort
to develop intricate new types of soft matter that exhibit unique functional properties.
Leading this team of MRSEC investigators is Gabriel Lopez, Ph.D., Pratt professor of
biomedical engineering and mechanical engineering and materials science. Lopez
received his Ph.D. from the University of Washington by developing a method for
changing the surface properties of different materials by coating them with ultrathin
polymer layers. He continued his research as a postdoc-toral
fellow at Harvard University, where he studied
how to control cell growth using micropatterns in sur-face
chemistry of culture substrates. Lopez came to
Duke in January 2010 after establishing a biomedical
engineering program at the University of New Mexico.
At Duke, Lopez has been focused on conducting
research in the area of soft matter. “Soft matter,” Lopez
said “is basically a designation for a class of condensed
matter that is based on the energy required to deform it.
If the matter in question deforms easily at ambient con-ditions,
then it is considered soft matter.”
Some basic examples of soft matter include rubber,
polymers, gels, liquid crystals, and suspensions of fine
particles, many of which we use every day in the form
of tires, plastic containers, cosmetic supplies, deter-gents,
and foods. However, it has also become apparent
that scientists can take advantage of many more of the
unique properties of soft matter. Lopez believes that “a
Prof. Gabriel Lopez analyzing new soft materials for the MRSEC

frontier with regard to these materials is
how we can take advantage of the fact
that it is possible to design them to
undergo programmed deformation on
their own.”
For example, Lopez seeks to capitalize
on the fact that many of these materials
are responsive to small environmental
changes.
Recently, Lopez and his research team
published a paper concerning the cre-ation
of a soft material coating that is
able to change its structure with regard
to slight fluctuations in tempera-ture.
The premise of his work,
which was funded by the Office of
Naval Research, was to develop a
type of coating that would be able
to prevent bacteria from sticking
to solid surfaces, an important
goal with implications in many
naval operations. When bacteria
began to grow on these surfaces,
slight variations in temperature
would cause the coating to change
its chemical structure, and in turn
the bacteria would no longer be
able to cling onto that surface.
This method was shown to be very
effective for the removal of bacte-ria
from solid surfaces.
In collaboration with Xuanhe
Zhao, assistant professor of mechanical
engineering and materials science, the
group is now working on developing a
new type of soft material coating that
can change their surface properties in
response to the applied voltage, instead
of a change in temperature. Current test-ing
is taking place at the Duke Marine
Lab, where the team is hoping that
applying electric fields to their soft
material will be able to eliminate
colonies of bacteria as well as settlements
of larger organisms such as barnacles.
(From left to right) Phanindhar Shivapooja,
Prof. Xuanhe Zhao, and Qiming Wang holding
a sheet of Kapton for biofilm release
In another research initiative under
the MRSEC umbrella, members of the
Lopez group are synthesizing new
microparticles from different polymeric
materials. These particles are known as
colloids when they are suspended in liq-uids
and like other colloidal suspensions
(including milk) they exhibit a milky
appearance because of the way they scat-ter
room light. The group is studying
how these new materials respond to the
application of acoustic fields with an eye
toward developing new particulate
materials for drug delivery,
ultrasound imaging, medical
diagnostic tests and three-dimensional
colloidal assemblies.
Continued research will only
provide more insight and more
knowledge about the properties
and applications of soft materials,
and scientists are only beginning
to discover the benefits and uses
that the wondrous world of soft
matter can provide. The efforts of
Lopez and the MRSEC show that
inquiries into the field of soft
matter are able to produce hard,
tangible results.
Justin Yu is a freshman majoring in
Biomedical Engineering.
Leah Johnson showing a sample
of colliodal suspensions.

A Natural Analog for
Synthetic Biology
L
ingchong You, Ph.D., joined Duke University
six years ago as a jointly-appointed assistant professor in
the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Institute
for Genome Sciences and Policy, launching his lab in
synthetic biology research. Synthetic biology is a rela-tively
30 dukengineer 2012
new field that combines elements from biology
and engineering to design and construct new biological
systems that carry out a desired function. You’s group
engineers gene regulatory networks and uses such syn-thetic
systems as tools to quantitatively analyze dynamic
properties of cellular networks.
Synthetic biology began as a field largely focused on
employing the tools of genetic engineering to reconfigure
metabolic pathways of cells to perform new functions, such
as the production of therapeutic compounds or the micro-bial
breakdown of toxins. Synthetic biologists use recombi-nant
DNA technology to piece together gene networks that
produce proteins of interest or confer a desired function, in
the same way that electrical engineers use resistors and
capacitors to piece together electrical circuits to generate
desired outputs.
Over the last ten years, synthetic biology has expanded
its reach to encompass the use of engineered gene circuits to
analyze questions in biology. In line with this notion, the
You group employs the approach of synthetic biology, cou-pled
with mathematical modeling, to engineer bacterial
population dynamics, quantify interactions in cellular net-works,
and address unresolved questions in biology.
Researchers in the You group have successfully constructed
a synthetic predator-prey ecosystem consisting of two bacteri-al
populations. The predator population kills the prey by
causing production of a killer protein in the prey, while the
prey population rescues the predators by inducing the pro-duction
of an antidote protein in the predator.
Along these same lines, researchers in the You lab have
also engineered bacterial populations
that exhibit other ecological characteris-tics,
including altruistic death, wherein
the death of some individuals aids in the
overall survival of the population, and
the Allee effect wherein a population
cannot survive below a critical popula-tion
density. These engineered ecosys-tems
enable the study of population
dynamics, within such contexts as
Katy Riccione
Over the last ten years,
synthetic biology
has expanded its reach to
encompass the use of
engineered gene circuits
to analyze questions in biology.

A microbial swarmbot is a small population of bacterial cells that are autonomously regulated
by synthetic gene circuits and are encapsulated in microcapsules built from synthetic or natu-ral
2012 dukengineer 31
antibiotic resistance and species invasion,
under a level of control that is not possi-ble
in natural ecosystems.
In addition to engineering synthetic
gene circuits, the You group develops
mathematical models that function as a
simplified lens through which one can
characterize biological networks. Such
models, coupled with experimental vali-dation,
are used extensively in the You
lab to analyze a number of cellular net-works,
including the aforementioned
synthetic ecosystems, as well as networks
that govern cell cycle entry and self-organized
pattern formation. The group
has used such an approach to elucidate a
mode of gene regulation of potential
importance in mitigating abnormal cell
growth. They have found that expression
of E2F, a protein family that controls
genes essential for cell cycle entry, is
highest under normal levels of growth
factors but decreases in the presence of
higher levels of growth factors (a charac-teristic
of tumor cells), pointing to a
potential mechanism that may play a
role in modulating the development of
cancer.
In addition, other members of the You
lab apply modeling towards studying a
synthetic circuit that programs self-induced
pattern formation as a potential
means of understanding similar processes
in nature, such as limb bud outgrowth
and tissue stratification.
Through their work in engineering
and analyzing synthetic gene circuits,
researchers in the You lab have also
stumbled upon phenomena that chal-lenge
common notions and assumptions
in synthetic biology. In designing sys-tems,
synthetic biologists generally
polymers.
assume a simple well-defined interface
between the gene circuit and the host
organism. The You group, however, has
revealed that underlying and frequently
overlooked parameters within the engi-neered
system, such as the physical
amount of the genes in the circuit
(termed copy number) and how the
engineered gene circuits affect growth of
the host organism, can fundamentally
change the predicted output of the sys-tem.
Such findings have vast implica-tions
for the field of synthetic biology, as
they highlight the importance of under-standing
how “hidden interactions”
affect the behavior of the engineered
gene networks.
A central theme of the You lab is
making use of synthetic biological sys-tems
as analogs of natural systems in
order to address biological questions and
better understand the dynamics of cellu-lar
networks.
Ongoing projects could lead to new
ways of fabricating materials, diagnosing
and treating cancers, and fighting bacte-rial
infections. In addition to such prac-tical
applications, You envisions synthet-ic
biology “likely transforming how
future students learn biology.”
It is not too far-fetched to conceive of
students in an introductory biology
course fiddling with gene circuits to bet-ter
understand cells in the same way that
students in an introductory physics
course fool around with resistors and
capacitors to better understand electron-ics,
You said. On an even grander scale,
bioengineers like to think of a world
where organisms are designed to mass-produce
therapeutic compounds, materi-als,
and biofuels, making such products
potentially cheaper and more accessible.
Katy Riccione is a biomedical engineering
Ph.D. candidate at Duke University.
research

Fluid Cloaking
When most people hear the word cloaking, they
think of Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak. Real-world
cloaking, however, is defined as hiding
an object from a detector or a probe. The idea
of fluid cloaking was first conceived last year
by Research Professor Yaroslav Urzhumov and David Smith, the
William Bejan Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
A fluid cloak hides an object from a flowing fluid, allowing it to
flow as if that object didn’t exist. Reversing the perspective, the
object can move without disturbing the fluid.
An object moving through a fluid normally
interacts with it in two different ways. First,
there is a drag force, which is essentially fric-tion
in fluids. Second, the object physically
pushes the fluid as it moves, leaving a void
An example of an isotropically
permeable metamaterial.
which the fluid rushes into. Fluid cloaking eliminates these
interactions. A submarine that can move without any drag
essentially shoots through the water like a rocket in free space,
potentially saving energy and also eliminating wake. Without
any wake, a submarine can roam completely undetected.
Cloaking works by taking advantage of artificially engineered
structures called metamaterials. The metamaterials act like a
porous mesh case that can alter the flow of fluid.
“In layman terms, the structure sucks in the water in front
of it, reroutes the water around it, and
ejects the water at carefully engineered
positions,” Urzhumov explains. The fluid
must be accelerated at key areas so that the
momentum and pressure of the fluid will
be preserved as it passes through the cloak.
32 dukengineer 2012
In layman terms, the
structure sucks in the
water in front of it,
reroutes the water around
it, and ejects the water
at carefully engineered
positions.

A computer demonstration of a fluid
cloak redirecting streamlines
around an object
2012 dukengineer 33
Urzhumov continues, “Because
the streamlines have the same
velocity in magnitude and direc-tion,
it’s as if nothing really hap-pened.”
The idea is similar in theory to
other forms of cloaking such as
electromagnetic and acoustic
cloaking. However, cloaking of
the fluid flow is revolutionary in
certain aspects. In the other forms
of cloaking, handling waves
comes with innate limitations.
“The need for wave velocities
of particles inside that exceed
the wave velocity outside is
what limits the operation of
optical and electromagnetic
cloaks to only certain wave-lengths.
It is not possible to
cover the entire spectrum
because that would violate
causality,” Urzhumov says.
In addition, optical cloaking
metamaterials are typically reso-nant
at selected frequencies,
which leads to unwanted attenu-ation.
Fluid cloaking has noth-ing
to do with waves, resonances
or frequencies; therefore it oper-ates
with any fluid and any
structural composition of the
metamaterial. On the other
hand, fluid flow cloaking
requires physically moving a
tangible substance. This factor
leads to various complications concerning pressure drop, which
can be compensated using micropump arrays. These microp-umps
Urzhumov showing a machine that analyzes
metamaterial properties
must use energy; therefore, the question of whether such
cloaks will be energy efficient remains unclear.
The properties of cloaks comes from both the metamaterial
composition and structure. In the case of fluid cloaking, the com-position
is virtually irrelevant, and only the structure of the meta-material
unit cell matters. The challenge comes from designing a
structure that has anisotropic permeability with a gradient. An
anisotropically permeable, graded structure would allow the cloak
to work regardless of the fluid’s direction. A gradient is necessary
because some fluid molecules must travel longer distances than
the others, which forces acceleration to vary throughout the struc-ture.
Currently, there is no rigorous mathematical theory for fluid research
cloaking, so the research focuses
on computer simulation and
optimization.
Urzhumov says, “The way I
see this, the simplest structure
would be a unit cell containing
metal blades oriented perpendi-cular
to each other so that you
can independently control the
permeability in all three direc-tions.”
By rotating a blade to a
certain angle with a flow direc-tion,
the fluid is allowed to flow
easily in that direction. This will
allow the structure to be
anisotropically permeable.
Urzhumov adds, “Then, different
thickness of the blades would
allow different permeability
magnitudes and create the neces-sary
gradient… Micropumps
will be added to ensure pressure
loss compensation.”
Conceived earlier this year,
this innovative technology has
already attracted a lot of atten-tion
from the experts. “I don’t
know if I can see this approach
scaled up for large ships, but
realistically I can see this tech-nology
for highly maneuver-able,
stealthy unmanned sub-marines,”
Urzhumov says.
The defense organizations
could theoretically use this
technology to let eavesdropping
devices roam free in the territorial waters of any country. Also,
marine experts can use fluid cloaking to observe underwater life
without disturbing it.
Urzhumov optimistically predicts, “This technology can be
applied to small enough objects of any shape and kind. Seeing
these micropumps as distributed propulsion systems, one can
also envision aircrafts, ships and submarines doing arbitrary
maneuvers in water, almost like UFOs in sci-fi movies. Unlike
conventional aircrafts and ships, they do not have to rely on
external streams of fluid. Such systems create the desired flow
themselves.”
Nathan Li is a Pratt sophomore majoring in biomedical and
electrical engineering.

SMiF
Propelling World Class Research at Duke University
In 2000, a university strategic planning
committee, which was a collection of top
administrators working to create initia-tives
for the university’s future, formed
the “Materials Working Group” to help
catalyze nanostructured and bio-inspired
materials and device research. The group
realized that there was a lack of equip-ment
necessary to perform high-level
research for the fabrication and characteri-zation
of materials, devices, and nanos-tructures.
Their solution to the problem
was the creation of SMIF, Duke’s resource
for advanced characterization and clean-room
fabrication, which is available to
34 dukengineer 2012
undergraduates, graduate students, facul-ty,
and non-university researchers alike.
By 2002, SMIF obtained X-ray diffrac-tion
and atomic force microscopy capabil-ities,
originally located in the basement of
the Levine Science Research Center. A
year later, a scanning electron microscope
in the physics building and a small clean-room
in Hudson Hall were added to the
SMIF arsenal. However, it was not until
2007 that SMIF moved into the 12,000
square foot facility where it currently
operates. SMIF now has more than 65
instruments serving the needs of more
than 500 users across the Pratt School of
Above: A Duke University researcher using a
fluorescent microscope in the cleanroom “Bio Bay”
Engineering, Trinity School of Arts &
Sciences, the School of Medicine, neigh-boring
universities, and companies across
the Research Triangle Park.
With the constant bustle in SMIF from
its many users and projects, safety has
always been an important consideration.
SMIF director Mark Walters, Ph.D. explains,
“The safety of students and researchers
using our facility is our top priority, which
is evidenced by the safety training and
safety systems in the facility.”
For instance, the toxic gas monitoring
system in SMIF is a $1 million state-of-the-
art system that can detect the type,
amount, and location of any gas leak or
chemical spill and immediately notify
SMIF staff by wireless communication to
any locality. There have been no incidents
of injury since SMIF first opened.
SMIF now not only offers its capabili-ties
as a research facility, but also as an
educational tool. The staff allows profes-sors
to illustrate concepts from class at no
charge. Further, several funding agencies,
such as the LORD Foundation and the
Donald M. Alstadt Fund, have enabled
The culture of research at the Pratt School of Engineering
serves as a model to many research institutions and
industries across the globe. The high level of innova-tion,
productivity, and advancement reflects a vibrant
community of students, faculty and researchers across
a range of disciplines in science and engineering. However, pioneer-ing
research requires access to the most advanced equipment.
That’s where the idea for the Shared Materials Instrumentation
Facility (SMIF) began.
Left: A Duke University Post-Doc analyzes an
image of a microelectromechanical device
collected on SMIF’s 3D Optical Profiler

Duke University students performing photolithography processing in the SMIF cleanroom
2012 dukengineer 35
undergraduates to use the equipment for
research projects by covering the hourly
access fees typically billed to its users for
operational costs. Headlining this idea is
the SMIF Undergraduate User Program,
or SUUP, which encourages undergradu-ate
research and innovation by supplying
students up to $500 a month. There are
currently 23 undergraduates participating
in this program.
There are many reasons why SMIF
stands out among other noteworthy
shared facilities. SMIF owns the only elec-tron
beam lithography system in North
Carolina, which is capable of producing
structures at the nanoscale. It also has a
$1 million dollar transmission electron
microscope capable of cryogenic sample
imaging and 3-D tomography. The SMIF
cleanroom, which was the first such facili-ty
in the nation to use a “Bio Bay” for the
integration of biological materials,
enabling the creation of novel sensors and
biomedical devices.
However, since the user fees of the
facility only cover operational costs, the
SMIF relies on external funding for new
equipment and capabilities. Currently, the
staff is looking into purchasing atomic
layer deposition and dip pen lithography
instruments for the cleanroom and
focused ion beam and thermogravimetric
analyzer instruments for characterization
purposes. Together this equipment carries
a heavy price tag of well over $1 million.
Hired in 2002, Walters oversees many
of the projects inside the facility. Walters
works closely with a specialized team of
talented engineers to keep the facility
operational: Kirk Bryson, Jay Dalton,
Michelle Gignac, and Tamika Craige. The
Executive Director of SMIF, Nan Marie
Jokerst, Ph.D., J.A. Jones Professor of
Electrical and Computer Engineering,
along with the advisory committee, leads
the group by keeping the facility ahead of
the technological curve.
“The capabilities of SMIF and its staff
are here to enable cutting edge research
for the faculty and students of the Pratt
School of Engineering and beyond,”
Walters said. The SMIF staff assists
researchers by conducting training cours-es,
providing technical support, and keep-ing
the facility stocked with chemicals
and materials.
Wyatt Shields is a Ph.D. student in Prof.
Gabriel Lopez’s lab in biomedical
engineering.
research

Dukengineer2012

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