Chapter Activities in 2003
December 1-5, 2003-Xuezheng Wei, Chandrasekhar Kothapalli and Burç Misirlioglu attended and presented talks and posters about their research projects at the Materials Research Society (MRS) Fall Meeting in Boston, MA.
November 19-21, 2003-Department Visitation Days for undecided engineering students – This event was designed to give undecided engineering students a full insight view of our major and department by touring our facilities with them and addressing questions and concerns specific to our program. Faculty members as well as many of our student members, such as Xiaotong Wang, Jie Wu, Xuezheng Wei, Elizabeth Jordan, Zachary Stone, Jason Tresback, to name a few, volunteered their time and effort to make this event possible.
November 5, 2003-Our chapter held a joint dinner at our favorite local restaurant with the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE) Student Chapter. A nice social event aimed at increasing interaction among students of various research paths within the Institute of Materials Science at the University of Connecticut, in a very relaxed atmosphere.
October 16, 2003-A significant number of student members attended the Connecticut Nanotechnology Initiative Fall Symposium, held at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, as a part of the Nanotechnology Week in the State of Connecticut.
October 13-15-Juan Villegas attended and presented a talk about his research topic at the ASM Materials Solutions 2003 Conference, in Pittsburgh, PA.
October 2003-ASM International awarded a $500 travel grant to our chapter in order to send students to ASM Materials Solutions 2003 Conference, held on October 13-15, in Pittsburgh, PA.
October 6, 2003-We have just been notified that we have won the AMS Chapter of Excellence award for Promotion in the Field! This award is $500 cash and a plaque. More importantly, this award carries with it great recognition. People from all over the world will see our chapter name next to this award and know that we worked very hard to promote the field of materials science to students everywhere. This award is considered the highest honor for an ASM/TMS Student Chapter so please join me in congratulating yourselves for a job well done. Let's do it again for next year!
September 14, 2003-We have just found out that we placed first in the TMS World Materials Day Outreach Contest! The award is $1000 and a trophy. Hundreds of chapters applied for this award but our tremendous focus on materials outreach last year put us over the top. Congratulations to all of the officers, members, and to Dr. Shaw for helping to make this happen. Keep your eyes out for the trophy!
September 13, 2003-The department has, once again, had a successful open house for high school seniors interested in Materials Engineering as a major. Many chapter members participated in this event and are acknowledged as follows: Chris Gatto, Juan Villegas, Sofia Iddir, Neal Magdefrau, Chandra Kothapalli, Kai Song, Rachna Prasad
September 5, 2003-Our student chapter held our annual welcoming pizza party with great success! We welcomed six new undergraduate students as well as eight new graduate students into the department. We also acknowledged the chapter members that received degrees over the summer. This party also celebrated the retirement of Chapter President Mike Pasquariello who, after three years as President, has decided to step down and focus solely on his research with hopes to graduate very soon. Chapter members voted for their new officer Neal Magdefrau during this party as well. Congratulations Neal!
August 13, 2003-Mike Pasquariello and Dan Goberman performed our Outreach Road Show for about 25 high school teachers as part of the Galileo Program. This program is similar to the DaVinci Program in that it allows high school teachers to explore the field of engineering and to learn some hands on demonstrations that they can take back to their classrooms in order to show the practical applications of Materials Engineering
August 8, 2003-Sofia Iddir performed our Outreach Road Show for high school science and math teachers as part of the DaVinci Program. The program is designed to inform the teachers of the various aspects and areas of study within the engineering discipline. Our responsibility was to show these teachers demonstrations that they could take back to their classroom in order to teach their own students about engineering
July 27-29, 2003-Chris Gatto and Mike Pasquariello participated in the MMAT 100 1 credit course for incoming freshmen who are undecided in the field of engineering. This three day course is designed to cover a wide array of topics in the field of Materials Engineering, in order to spark their interest in our field, thereby convincing them to join our department. This is an extremely successful event
July 10, 2003-15 chapter members participated in our first annual Whirly Ball Night. The two hour competition was very fun and exciting for all 15 of the new players to the game. (Pictures)
June 24-25, 2003-Neal Magdefrau, Mike Pasquariello, Zoe Weber, Hongwei Yang, Zachary Stone, Ravi Angal, Juan Villegas, Chris Gatto, Annie Wu, Dave Horspool, and Jeffrey Tacy all volunteered to help make this year's Engineering 2003 a huge success! 80 high school students attended the talks, lab tours, and demonstrations to learn about the field of Materials Engineering. A more concentrated group of 12 students took part in six two hour lab sessions dedicated in taking a closer look into the field. The students spoke of the event with great enthusiasm and excitement and seemed to take a great deal of knowledge from it. We hope this program will help aid them in their future decisions for choosing a major and university. (Pictures)