News and Events

Alka Harriger, professor of computer and information technology, and Brad Harriger, professor of mechanical engineering technology, partnered with other faculty in the creation of professional development programs in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) for middle school teachers and new research into the development of computational thinking among middle school students across three learning contexts.

Professionalization, the process of achieving widespread recognition and higher socioeconomic status for emerging occupations, used to take decades. Yubo Kou, a postdoctoral research associate in computer graphics technology, is researching how social media and online communities are changing the speed with which professionalization takes place.

Xingtao Liu, graduate teaching assistant in engineering technology, conducts research with Xiaoming Wang, assistant professor of engineering technology, on how grain refinement occurs in aluminum. With this information, the aluminum casting industry may create fewer defects, improve product quality and reduce energy usage during manufacturing.

To improve food safety and quality, Sangjun Eom, graduate research assistant in engineering technology, and Richard Voyles, professor of robotics engineering technology, are looking to add leftover containers in the fridge to the list of smart technologies available in smart homes of the near future.

Todd Kelley, associate professor of engineering technology teacher education, works with groups of science and technology teacher pairs from the same K-12 schools to demonstrate how integrating STEM topics improves student understanding, specifically using biomimicry to illustrate engineering design concepts.

Sabine Brunswicker, associate professor of technology leadership & innovation, and her research team examine the structure and culture of open source communities to help them be more productive. The team analyzes millions of lines of code to find collaborative patterns, examines the stability of underlying code over time, models the evolution of a group’s code, and compares how its technology compares to other products.

Eric Matson, associate professor of computer and information technology, collaborates with a research team to develop drones that are capable of gauging the threat of an unknown gaseous plume. This technology will be able to measure densities, detect the plume gases, and map the shape and location of the plume, then send information to first responders.