A N N U A L R E P O R T 2 0 1 3

C O N T E N T S

Welcome from the Dean 1 Establishing the Sichuan University Pittsburgh Institute 2 Bioengineering 5 Chemical & Petroleum Engineering 8 Civil & Environmental Engineering 10 Electrical & Computer Engineering 12 Industrial Engineering 14 Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science 16 Diversity 18 International 21 Distinguished Alumni Awards 22 Statistics 27

WELCOMEFROMTHEDEAN

As U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering, one of my most important duties is to strategically plan for the continued growth and success of the Swanson School. Department chairs, faculty and staff contribute greatly toward this process as we not only examine our academics and research, but also industry needs, engineering pedagogy, student demographics, and so much more. Our planning also must reflect and resonate with the University’s strategic priorities to establish a strong future for Pitt.

But sometimes I ask, What more? What else at the Swanson School elevates our stature as an engineering school and can contribute to the success of our students, and potentially have an impact on the global community?

The answer to that question never takes long to reveal itself. Our faculty and students are engaging in research that continues to attract attention among our colleagues and peers, as well as with national and international media. You’ll read about some of the groundbreaking research in this year’s annual report, and I encourage you to bookmark the Swanson School website to keep up to date on the latest news and announcements.

Likewise, there are other endeavors that help to strengthen our international bona fides. This past year marked another major announcement for the Swanson School and Pitt as we formalized a new joint engineering institute with Sichuan University in China. This partnership has been several years in the making and will firmly establish our academic credentials at one of China’s best engineering schools.

The largest and most expansive international endeavor undertaken thus far at the Swanson School, the Sichuan University Pittsburgh Institute will greatly benefit students and faculties at both institutions. The next generation of engineers must have an academic experience that will make them more competitive in a global marketplace, and programs like this as well as other limited programs in Europe,

Asia and South America will provide Pitt Engineers with that advantage. I especially want to thank my engineering colleagues Bopaya Bidanda, Minking Chyu, Larry Shuman, Qing-Ming Wang, and Larry Feick, former senior director of international programs, as well as Chancellor Mark Nordenberg and Provost Patty Beeson for making this new Institute a success.

While our partners at Sichuan University build our new facilities there, our Pittsburgh-based faculty and students once again have been recognized for their academics and research. In 2013, eight students received National Science Foundation Fellowships; three received Goldwater Scholarships; two were named Whitaker Scholars; and one elected as National Chairperson of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE). Our 2013 faculty honors were just as numerous

and included a newly named IEEE Fellow (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), a DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) Young Faculty Award, and four Carnegie Science Awards, to name a few. Also, our 2013 faculty contributions to the academy were outstanding in both quantity and quantity, with several recognized as best papers in their respective fields.

As enrollment continues to grow, I’m pleased to report that the quality of our students, especially our first-years, is excellent. SAT scores are at their highest level in our history, and greater numbers of our students are moving on to advanced degree programs both at Pitt and at prestigious universities around the world.

This past year could not have been so remarkable without the contributions of our faculty, staff and students, as well as those from our alumni, peers and colleagues. We all should be proud of what the Swanson School accomplished in 2013, and I hope you will join me in celebrating a tremendous year. Thank you as always for your contribution to securing a strong future of engineering excellence at the Swanson School.

Sincerely,

Gerald D. Holder U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering

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establishing the

In April 2013 the University of Pittsburgh and Sichuan University in China announced a partnership establishing

an innovative joint engineering program to educate undergraduate students and foster collaborative research. The Sichuan University Pittsburgh Institute, as it will be named, expects to enroll its first class in fall 2015.

Approximately three years in planning, the partnership was envisioned and shepherded by the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and its chair, Minking Chyu, PhD. Sichuan University is one of the oldest national universities in China and is ranked No. 8 among Chinese universities in Shanghai Jiaotong University’s Academic Ranking of World Universities. It is a research university with more than 40,000 undergraduate

students, 20,000 master’s degree and PhD candidates, and 1,000 foreign students, and students from Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan.

“Sichuan presented a unique opportunity for our Department, the Swanson School and Pitt to partner with one of Asia’s top engineering programs,” Dr. Chyu said. “This enables us to provide our exemplary engineering programs to some of China’s best engineering students, as well as to give our own faculty the opportunity to teach at Sichuan.”

Pitt is one of only five U.S. universities to have entered into a large-scale partnership agreement with a university in China; the others are Carnegie Mellon University, Duke University, New York University, and the University of Michigan. Sichuan University is the premier university in

SICHUANUNIVERSITY

3A N N U A L R E P O R T 2 0 1 3

PITTSBURGHINSTITUTEwestern China, located in Chengdu within Sichuan Province, and it is consistently ranked among the top ten universities in China. Sichuan University will initially invest nearly $40 million to support the construction and equipping of a new 100,000-square-foot building to house the institute on its campus.

“This extraordinary partnership marks a milestone in the history of the University of Pittsburgh, expanding the University’s influence as a force for educational and research innovation while allowing Pitt to benefit from an alliance with Sichuan University, one of China’s preeminent institutions of higher education,” said University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg. “We at Pitt are fortunate to partner with such an esteemed university, are grateful for the strong commitment it has

made to this joint endeavor, and look forward to what we expect will be an enduring and fruitful relationship between our two leading research universities.”

“This partnership will enable our students to be much better prepared for practicing their profession globally,” said Gerald D. Holder, PhD, U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering. “The large number of American companies that do work in China or sell products there will benefit from the intercultural education that the joint institute provides. I hope the program will open many doors for future opportunities with Sichuan University.”

With emphases on advanced sustainable manufacturing and educational innovation, the institute will initially offer three undergraduate degree programs: industrial engineer-ing, mechanical engineering, and materials science and

Rendering courtesy Sichuan University.

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engineering. Students in the institute will be recruited from the United States, China, and possibly other countries, with the first class in fall 2015 expected to comprise 100 students. Within seven years, enrollment is projected to grow to a final total of 1,600.

Students will spend the first two years of the program immersed in the Pitt curriculum in China with the option of transferring to Pitt’s main campus during their third year in the program. Students who transfer to Pitt directly after their sophomore year will earn a bachelor’s degree from both Sichuan University and Pitt, and all students will receive an institute certificate upon completion of their studies. Qualified students will also be able to continue their graduate studies at Pitt.

Faculty from around the world will be recruited to teach at the institute, with 20 in 2015 and an expected total of 80 by 2018. All faculty will undergo rigorous training to ensure that they will provide appropriate course content in an active learning format. Pitt faculty interested in a semester or yearlong sabbatical to teach in the institute will be considered. All Pitt-curriculum-based courses will be taught in the English language. Sichuan University will cover not only the institute’s operating costs, but also faculty start-up funds.

Members from both universities comprise the project team responsible for spearheading this partnership. Led by Dean Holder, key contributing members from Pitt’s Swanson School of Engineering are Bopaya Bidanda, PhD, chair and Ernest E. Roth Professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering; Dr. Chyu; Larry Shuman, PhD, Distinguished Service Professor and senior associate dean for academic affairs; and Qing-Ming Wang, PhD, director of the mechanical engineering graduate program and professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science.

Provost Beeson played an instrumental role in moving the partnership forward and will continue to provide her leadership as the partnership develops. In addition, Lawrence Feick, PhD, former senior director of international programs, director of the University Center for International Studies, acting codirector of the Asian Studies Center, and currently professor of business administration in the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business, has played and will continue to play a significant role in coordinating various entities within Pitt and the connection between Pitt and Sichuan University.

The project team members from Sichuan University are Heping Xie, president; Guangxian Li, executive vice president; Shijing Yan, vice president of the International Affairs; Ping Guan, deputy director of the International Office; and Liying Yao, director of major projects in the International Office.

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Starfish can regrow arms and salamanders can regenerate a tail, but why can’t humans grow a

new finger or eye or limb after injury? Bioengineers at the Swanson School of Engineering introduce these challenges to the next generation of scientists through the annual Tissue Engineering Summer Camp for middle and high school students.

Presented by the Swanson School’s Department of Bioengineering and the Pittsburgh Tissue Engineering Initiative (PTEI), the Tissue Engineering Summer Camp was held July 2013 for middle and high school students. The Camp, which enrolls students from diverse socioeco-nomic levels, was co-founded by Steven Abramowitch, PhD, assistant professor of bioengineering, obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at Pitt, and colleagues from the North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University (NCAT) through an NSF Engineering Research Center for Revolutionizing Metallic Biomaterials (ERC-RMB).

“Every day at the Swanson School and McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, bioengineers are engaging in research to develop new treatments for people with compromised tissue function, whether it’s a damaged liver or a severed limb,” Dr. Abramowitch says. “We have developed a program to encourage middle and high school students to learn how this research is helping to change lives.”

“We teach the students to work in teams to develop strategies and technologies to address these problems, and also to make them think about the ethical implica-tions of scientific research. Our goal is to engage more young people in science, technology, engineering and math, and help them understand how bioengineering is helping to improve the human condition.”

ENGINEERINGthe futureBIOENGINEERING

Engineering intern Caitlyn McCann (right)

assists student Brianna Blackwell with a pipette.

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BIOENGINEERING

“That’s what I think makes us unique – this interaction and mentorship that many of these students wouldn’t have anywhere else.”

The camp has grown in size and popularity, Dr. Abramowitch says, thanks in great part to the dedication of its undergraduate interns. “This year’s mentor/camper ratio was an all-time high, with one intern for every two to four students. What’s great about this is that each young participant is receiving instruction at the lab table from someone who is only a few years ahead of them with respect to their education. For many of these students, this promotes a better learning environment than someone lecturing in a classroom and giving a demon-stration and then saying “Ok now you do it.”

From the undergraduate intern’s perspec-tive, Dr. Abramowitch says that his students are exposed to delivering scientific content to younger students, which is a critical part of their own learning experience. “I think it’s important for undergraduates to understand how children learn and what motivates them,

especially since they themselves are just a few years removed from their own grade school days. It’s an educational internship so they are learning how to develop and deliver content, and the latter is the more challenging.”

Also challenging for the children who participate is embracing science within a social setting. In some ways Dr. Abramowitch and his colleagues are counselors as well as instructors. “All too often students don’t want to be perceived as a geek or nerd, especially at this age level. When you’re thrown in with a group of students first impressions are impor-tant and so trying to get them to collaborate openly and willingly is a challenge,” he says. “If we can break down that wall and encourage them to not only enjoy science but express it, it helps them to become science ambassadors when they return to school.”

Once again the undergraduate interns play an important role by serving as peer mentors. “They have navigated the path that most of these students will soon experience. For the campers, being able to interact with under-grads is important. That’s what I think makes us unique – this interaction and mentorship that many of these students wouldn’t have anywhere else.”

Even with the camp’s success, two of Dr. Abramowitch’s challenges are funding and recruitment. To provide the camp with hands-on mentorship requires financial support for undergraduate interns – approximately half of his budget. “Without the interns the camp would be just another uninteresting, didactic classroom style camp. But our goals go beyond that – making camp more accessible to lower-income families and underrepresented students and really make a push for that.”

Dr. Steven Abramowitch (center)

with students at the Tissue

Engineering Summer Camp.

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Sanjeev Shroff, PhD, Distinguished Professor and

Gerald E. McGinnis Chair of Bioengineering, was

named Chair of the Department of Bioengineering,

effective September 1, 2013. He succeeds Harvey S.

Borovetz, PhD, Distinguished Professor of

Bioengineering, who decided to step down in

April 2013 after an eleven-year tenure as chair.

Dr. Borovetz will continue to be a faculty member in

the Department of Bioengineering, Swanson School

of Engineering. Dr. Shroff is the third chair of the

Department of Bioengineering, which was founded

in 1998.

While Dr. Abramowitch says that offering the camp every other year would be more economical, he believes it would negatively impact enrollment. “For something like this, which truly is a grass-roots effort, you don’t want to take a year off and lose momentum. So much of our new enrollment comes from word of mouth.”

Dr. Abramowitch is keen to this because of the number of underrepresented students that are attracted to the program from low-income neighborhoods and school districts, as well as students with disabilities.

“We sometimes don’t realize or ignore that young children with disabilities are often told “you can’t do that” like a physically-abled person could,” he says. “Students will sometimes be told “well this microscope table isn’t wheelchair accessible” or “since you lack fine motor skills you can’t pour from one test tube to another, you should just sit this one out.” I don’t believe those things should be a barrier, and so we find ways to adapt the science to the student.”

Helping underrepresented and physically disabled students as part of the Camp’s mission inspired Dr. Abramowitch during the camp’s first year, and has motivated him since.

“I’ve always felt that family income or race or disability should not be obstacles to learning science,” he says. “During our first year at North Carolina there was a student that you would never think would be interested in science let alone want to finish the camp. But through that first week

we watched him break through his shell and reveal tremendous scientific curiosity.”

“But when I worked with him one-on-one I learned that he just graduated high school yet couldn’t add simple fractions. Here you have this kid asking incredible questions with this thirst for knowledge yet he graduated without basic skills. Not only that, he was living in a homeless shelter, turning 18, and only now realizing that he had the potential to do something. Not only had the educational system failed him, life had failed him.

“He showed me why I was doing what I was doing and that continues to motivate me to this day. Each time those students now come through the door, I know we can make a difference.”

In addition to the NSF Engineering Research Center for Revolutionizing Metallic Biomaterials (ERC-RMB), a partnership between the North Carolina A&T State University (Lead), University of Pittsburgh, University of Cincinnati and Hannover Medical School, regional key partners have included The Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children, Thermo Fisher, Carnegie Science Center, Achieving Student Success through Excellence in Teaching (ASSET), University of Pittsburgh Learning Research and Development Center, Cheyney University, Lincoln University, and The McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

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POLYMER GEL,HEALTHYSELF

CHEMICAL AND PETROLEUM ENGINEERING

When a chair leg breaks or a cell phone shatters, either must be repaired or replaced. But what if these materials could be programmed to regenerate-themselves, replenishing the damaged or missing components, and thereby extend their lifetime and reduce the need for costly repairs? 

That potential is now possible according to researchers in the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, who

have developed computational models to design a new polymer gel that would enable complex materials to regenerate themselves. The article, “Harnessing Interfacially-Active Nanorods to Regenerate Severed Polymer Gels” (DOI: 10.1021/nl403855k), was published November 19 in the American Chemical Society journal Nano Letters.

Principal investigator is Anna C. Balazs, PhD, the Swanson School’s Distinguished Professor and Robert v. d. Luft Professor of chemical and petroleum engineering. Co-authors are Xin Yong, PhD, postdoctoral associate, who is the article’s lead author; Olga Kuksenok, PhD, research associate professor; and Krzysztof Matyjaszewski, PhD, the J.C. Warner University Professor of Natural Sciences, department of chemistry at Carnegie Mellon University.

“This is one of the holy grails of materials science,” noted Dr. Balazs. “While others have developed materials that can mend small defects, there is no published research regarding systems that can regenerate bulk sections of a severed material. This has a tremendous impact on sustainability because you could potentially extend the lifetime of a material by giving it the ability to regrow when damaged.”

The research team was inspired by biological processes in species such as amphibians, which can regenerate severed limbs. This type of tissue regeneration is guided by three critical instruction sets – initiation, propagation, and termination – which Dr. Balazs describes as a “beautiful dynamic cascade” of biological events.

“When we looked at the biological processes behind tissue regen-eration in amphibians, we considered how we would replicate that dynamic cascade within a synthetic material,” Dr. Balazs said. “We needed to develop a system that first would sense the removal of material and initiate regrowth, then propagate that growth until the material reached the desired size and then, self-terminate the process.”

“Our biggest challenge was to address the transport issue within a synthetic material,” Dr. Balazs said. “Biological organisms have circulatory systems to achieve mass transport of materials like blood cells, nutrients and genetic material. Synthetic materials don’t inherently possess such a system, so we needed something that acted like a sensor to initiate and control the process.”

The team developed a hybrid material of nanorods embedded in a polymer gel, which is surrounded by a solution containing mono-mers and cross-linkers (molecules that link one polymer chain to another) in order to replicate the dynamic cascade. When part of the gel is severed, the nanorods near the cut act as sensors and migrate to the new interface. The functionalized chains or “skirts”

on one end of these nanorods keeps them localized at the interface and the sites (or “initiators”) along the rod’s surface trigger a polymerization reaction with the monomer and cross-linkers in the outer solution. Drs. Yong and Kuksenok devel-oped the computational models, and thereby established guidelines to control the process so that the new gel behaves and appears like the gel it replaced, and to terminate the reaction so that the material would not grow out of control.

Drs. Balazs, Kuksenok and Yong also credit Krzysztof Matyjaszewski, who contribut-ed toward the understanding of the chemistry behind the polymerization process. “Our collaboration with Prof. Matyjaszewski was exceptionally valuable in allowing us to accurately account for all the complex chemical reactions involved in the regeneration processes” said Dr. Kuksenok.

“The most beautiful yet challenging part was designing the nanorods to serve multiple roles,” Dr. Yong said. “In effect, they provide the perfect vehicle to trigger a synthetic dynamic cascade.” The nanorods are approximately ten nanometers in thickness, about 10,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair.

In the future, the researchers plan to improve the process and strengthen the bonds between the old and newly formed gels, and for this they were inspired by another nature metaphor, the giant sequoia tree. “One sequoia tree will have a shallow root system, but when they grow in numbers, the root systems intertwine to provide support and contribute to their tremendous growth,” Dr. Balazs explains. Similarly, the skirts on the nanorods can provide additional strength to the regenerated material.

The next generation of research would further optimize the process to grow multiple layers, creating more complex materials with multiple functions.

Dr. Balazs was awarded the national

2013 Mines Medal by the South Dakota

School of Mines & Technology. The award

recognizes scientists and engineers

who have demonstrated exceptional

leadership and innovation.

A research article by Judith C. Yang, PhD, the Nickolas

A. DeCecco Professor of Chemical and Petroleum

Engineering within Pitt’s Swanson School of

Engineering, was selected as an Editor’s Choice in

the Aug. 9 issue of Science, a peer-reviewed journal

dedicated to showcasing scientific research. Editors

chose Yang’s article, “Non-Crystalline-to-Crystalline

Transformations in Pt Nanoparticles,” from the

July 19 edition of the Journal of the American

Chemical Society.

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What to do with Marcellus Shale wastewater is one of the biggest

concerns in Pennsylvania, and few pub-lished studies have evaluated wastewater effects on regional groundwater, according to a review coauthored by professors at the University of Pittsburgh and the Pennsylvania State University.

Published in the peer-reviewed journal Science, the review stresses the need for scientific data on water pollution caused by hydraulic fracturing and cites a lack of monitoring stations and confidentiality requirements for documentation as potential causes. The review is titled “Impact of Shale Gas Development on Regional Water Quality.”

“Since the advent of hydraulic fracturing, more than one million treatments have been conducted with perhaps only one documented case of direct groundwater pollution resulting from the injection of chemicals,” said Radisav Vidic, PhD, lead

author of the review and William Kepler Whiteford Professor and Chair of the Swanson School’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. “There is no evidence of groundwater contamination – even if it does exist.”

Dr. Vidic cites state regulations as a possible cause.

“This gaping hole is likely there because Pennsylvania is one of only two states in the entire United States that doesn’t require monitoring for water quality in individual well supplies,” he said.

Intensive gas extraction from the Marcellus Shale began in the eastern United States in 2005, which has quickly become one of the top five unconventional gas reservoirs in the country. Previous studies have estimated this area could yield 489 trillion cubic feet of natural gas – an amount requiring high volumes of water use for what is often re-ferred to as “slickwater fracturing.” In this

DRILLINGFOR

GREATER DATA

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CIVIL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING

Marcellus Shale wells in Pennsylvania (image

from Science 17 May 2013: Vol. 340 no. 6134,

DOI: 10.1126/science.1235009).

Jeen-Shang Lin, Sc.D., P.E., F.ASCE, associate

professor of civil and environmental engineering,

was elected a Fellow of the American Society of Civil

Engineers (ASCE). ASCE fellows are legally registered

professional engineers or land surveyors who

have made significant technical or professional

contributions and have demonstrated notable

achievement in responsible charge of engineering

activity for at least ten years following election to

the ASCE grade of member.

method, no viscosity modifiers (thickening agents) are added to the water before being injected into wells.

“It is likely that the water needs will change from these initial projections as the industry continues to improve and implement water reuse,” said Dr. Vidic. “However, it is still necessary to develop specific policies regarding when and where water can be taken from streams to be used for fracturing.”

Vidic notes that it is well known that a large portion – nearly 90 percent – of slickwater is not recovered during the flow-back period, indicating the importance of documenting potential transport pathways and the ultimate disposition of the water. In addition, “stray gas” or gas leakage is a concern for the region.

“While stray gas can be minor and easily remedied, there has been one case attributed to Marcellus shale drillings in which gas accumulation caused a private well water explosion in Pennsylvania,” said Susan Brantley, coauthor of the

review and Distinguished Professor of Geosciences at the Pennsylvania State University. “However, there is no evidence for widespread increase in methane con-centration in Pennsylvania groundwater where levels are similar to those recorded in New York, which has a moratorium on large-volume hydraulic fracturing.”

“As these well fields mature and the opportunities for wastewater reuse diminishes, the need to find alternative management strategies for this waste-water will likely intensify. Now is the time to work on these issues in order to avoid an adverse environmental legacy similar to that from abandoned coal mine discharges in Pennsylvania,” Dr. Vidic said.

Coauthors of the review include, from Pitt, Jorge Abad, assistant professor of engineering, and Julie Vandenbossche, research associate professor of engineering. Collaborators from the Pennsylvania State University include Brantley and Dave Yoxtheimer, extension associate at Penn State’s Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research.

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In 2013, Dr. Vidic and his research colleague David A. Dzombak at Carnegie Mellon University were recognized by the American Academy

of Environmental Scientists and Engineers (AAEES) for helping to address the global water shortage for use in power plant cooling

systems. Drs. Dzombak and Vidic received the 2013 Grand Prize in the University Research category of the AAEES Excellence in Environmental

Engineering and Science competition for a project titled “Use of Treated Municipal Wastewater as Power Plant Cooling System Makeup Water.” Dr. Dzomak is the Walter J. Blenko Sr. University Professor and

Department Head, Civil and Environmental Engineering at CMU.

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ELECTRICAL AND COMPUTER ENGINEERING

DISSECTING THE DISTINCTIVE WALKOFDISEASE

Older adults diagnosed with brain disorders such as Parkinson’s disease often feel a loss of indepen-

dence because of their lack of mobility and difficulty walking. To better understand and improve these mobility issues – and detect them sooner – a Pitt multidisciplinary research team is working toward building a more advanced motion test that addresses a wider range of walking patterns and movements.

In the IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, researchers from the Swanson School’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Pitt’s School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, and School of Medicine propose a mathematical model that can examine multiple walking, or gait-related, features in healthy and clinical populations. To date, no study has brought together such a team to examine such a high number of move-ment features comparing healthy and clinical older adults. Previous studies have typically only measured one or two types of movement features in just one population. 

“Right away, you can tell whether an older individual has difficulties walking by conducting a simple gait test,” said Ervin Sejdić, PhD, lead author of the paper and an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineer-ing. “But can we quantify these changes and document them earlier? That’s the biggest issue here and what we’re trying to model.”

Thirty-five adults older than 65 were recruited for the study, including 14 healthy participants, ten individuals with Parkinson’s disease, and 11 adults who had impaired feeling in their legs owing to peripheral neuropathy (nerve damage). Walking trials were performed using a computer-controlled treadmill, and participants wore an accelerometer – a small box attached with a belt –and a set of reflective markers on their lower body that allowed for tracking of the participants’ movements through a camera-based, motion-analysis system. These

Pictured is Dr. Ervin Sejdić.

two systems allowed the team to examine the torso and lower body movements of patients as they walked. Participants completed three walking trials on the treadmill – one at a usual walking pace, another while walking slowly, and another that included working on a task while walking (i.e. pushing a button in response to a sound). 

The accelerometer signals were used to examine three aspects of movement: participants moving forward and backward, side to side, and up and down. The researchers then used advanced mathematical computations to extract data from these signals. 

The results – integrated into the mathematical models – showed significant differences between the healthy and clinical populations. These metrics were able to discriminate between the three groups, identifying critical features in how the participants walked. 

The Pitt team is now looking to conduct this type of study on a larger scale – evalu-ating the gait patterns of older adults residing within independent living facilities. 

“Our results indicate that we can potentially develop these mathematical models as biomarkers to predict changes in walking due to diseases like Parkinson’s disease,” said Dr. Sejdić. “Now, we want to take it further. We’re especially hoping to help those individuals in independent living facilities by predicting the declines in their walking even earlier.”

“What also makes this study unique is the multidisciplinary team approach we used,” said Jennifer S. Brach (SHRS ’94G, ’00G) coprincipal investigator of the study and associate professor in Pitt’s Department of Physical Therapy. “Here we brought together a research team that included engineers, physical therapists, and experts in geriatrics to work on an important problem in older adults – changes in mobility.” 

Members of the Pitt research team also include coprincipal investigator Mark S. Redfern, PhD, vice provost for research and William Kepler Whiteford Professor of Bioengineering; alumnus Kristin A. Lowry (SHRS ’87, ’02G), a postdoctoral scholar in the School of Medicine’s Geriatric Fellowship Training Program; and alumnus Jennica Bellanca (ENGR ’09, ’11G), now an engineer at the Office of Mine Safety and Health Research in the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

The paper, originally published June 6, 2013, is titled “A Comprehensive Assessment of Gait Accelerometry Signals in Time, Frequency, and Time- Frequency Domains.” The research was supported by the Pittsburgh Older Americans Independence Center. 

Hai (Helen) Li, PhD, assistant professor of electrical

and computer engineering, was named the 2013

recipient of the DARPA Young Faculty Award. Dr. Li’s

winning proposal was “An Adaptive Information

Processing System Resilient to Device Variations

and Noises.”

DARPA’s Young Faculty Award (YFA) program

identifies and engages rising research stars in junior

faculty positions at U.S. academic institutions and

expose them to Defense Department needs and

DARPA’s program development process. This is Dr. Li’s

second national recognition in as many years. In 2012

she received a CAREER Award, the National Science

Foundation’s top accolade for junior faculty who stand

to assume significant leadership roles in their fields.

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INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING

14 SWA N SON SC H O OL OF ENG INEER ING

“I like to compare this action to that of

a Venus flytrap.”

SNAP TO ATTENTION

Bopaya Bidanda, PhD, Ernest E. Roth Professor and

Chair of Industrial Engineering, was honored at the

Institute of Industrial Engineers’ annual conference in

San Juan, Puerto Rico, with one of the organization’s

top awards. Dr. Bidanda was named the 2013 recipient

of the Albert G. Holzman Distinguished Educator

Award, which recognizes educators who contributed

significantly to the profession through teaching,

research and publication, extension, innovation

or administration.

The award is especially significant to the Swanson

School because it is named after the late Dr. Holzman,

a Pitt alumnus who received his bachelor’s and

master’s degrees in industrial engineering and PhD

in economics from the University of Pittsburgh. He

was also past chair of the Department of Industrial

Engineering and the first industrial engineer elected

to the National Academy of Engineering.

15A N N U A L R E P O R T 2 0 1 3

Pictured at left is Dr. M. Ravi Shankar.

Microvehicles and other devices that can change shape or move with no power source other than a beam of light may be possible through research led by

the Department of Industrial Engineering. The researchers are investigating polymers that “snap” when triggered by light, thereby converting light energy into mechanical work and potentially eliminating the need for traditional machine components such as switches and power sources.

The research, performed by M. Ravi Shankar, PhD, associate professor of industrial engineering at Pitt in collaboration with Timothy J. White, PhD, Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and Matthew Smith, PhD, assistant professor of engineering at Hope College in Holland, Mich., was published in November 2013 in the Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the official journal of the United States National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Shankar’s research was enabled through an eight-week Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) Summer Faculty Fellowship.

“I like to compare this action to that of a Venus flytrap,” says Shankar, whose research focuses on innovative nanomaterials. “The underlying mechanism that allows the Venus Fly Trap to capture prey is slow. But because its internal structure is coupled to use elastic instability, a snapping action occurs, and this delivers the power to shut the trap quickly. A similar mechanism acts in the beak of the Hummingbird to help snap-up insects”

Focusing on this elastic instability, Dr. Shankar examined polymeric materials, prepared by researchers at the Air Force Research Laboratory, which demonstrated unprecedented actuation rates and output powers. With light from a hand-held laser pointer, the polymers generate high amounts of power to convert the light into mechanical work without any onboard power source or wiring. Specific functions would be pre-programmed into the material so that the device would function once exposed to a light source and controlled by changing the character of the light.

“As we look to real-world applications, you could activate a switch simply by shining light on it,” Dr. Shankar says. “For example, you could develop soft machines such as stents or other biomedical devices that can be more adaptive and easily controlled. In a more complex mechanism, we could imagine a light-driven robotic or morphing structure, or micro-vehicles that would be more compact because you eliminate the need for an on-board power system. The work potential is built into the polymer itself and is triggered with light.”

16 SWA N SON SC H O OL OF ENG INEER ING

MECHANICAL ENGINEERING AND MATERIALS SCIENCE

ENGAGINGUNDERGRADUATES

IN GRADUATE-LEVEL RESEARCH

Inset: Pictured from left to right are students David Uber and Jared Liebowitz.

17A N N U A L R E P O R T 2 0 1 3

The transformation of Benedum Hall continues apace, but one area off the beaten path – in the building’s sub-basement – has experienced not only a physical but also

a pedagogical transformation as well.

Rooms SB 23 and SB 27 are homes to the MEMS Teaching Lab and lab courses 1041 and 1042 – Mechanical Measurements. For nearly the past four years the Mechanical Engineering program and Assistant Professor Mark Kimber, PhD have reimagined how to create a more hands-on approach within an undergraduate lab setting, and better prepare students for future academic and professional careers.

“The Mechanical Measurements courses have always presented themselves as an opportunity to provide graduate-level research opportunities to our juniors and seniors,” Dr. Kimber says. “Shortly after my arrival at Pitt, the Department, also with the input of our visiting committee, had wanted to improve the lab experience, and the Benedum Hall renovations provided the opportunity for us to review not only the physical space, but also how we delivered the courses.”

To determine how the courses could be improved, Dr. Kimber and staff surveyed graduating seniors and recent alumni in the workforce. While the course was designed to expose students to the fundamentals of mechanical measurements and later to the design and performance of complex mechanical systems, surveys indicated that greater focus on hands-on, research-focused course work would better prepare future graduates.

“Too often we’re wiring the brains of students to view life and work as a series of home-work problems to be solved, rather than approaching experiments from multiple points of view,” Dr. Kimber explains. “I believed that we could provide the students with greater challenges by engaging them in research that interested them, rather than assigning a problem, collecting answers and assigning grades.”

With input from Dr. Kimber, the Department and the Swanson School invested approxi-mately $800,000 in the dual lab space, and purchased research-grade and turn-key equipment with two dozen different applications. The tools vary from solar and wind energy research and vibrational dampers, to an advanced full field optical stress and strain measurement system (pictured at left) that Dr. Kimber says would usually be found in a faculty research lab, rather than an undergraduate course.

Once the students begin, they are encouraged to select the research system that interests them and then experience a typical engineering scenario they might encounter. “I like to think of this part of the lab as a “Choose your own adventure” experience,” Dr. Kimber says. “Because of the breadth of the equipment we now have, students can engage in an experi-ment that they might have wanted to explore, but couldn’t because of a fixed curriculum.

“By tying the lab work back to the principles and practical nature of solving problems in a research format, we’re teaching them earlier in their education to find solutions as you would in professional life”

With the redeveloped course now entering its first full year, Dr. Kimber is looking forward to evaluating how undergraduates adapt to a new paradigm, as well as how it impacts them after graduating from Pitt.

“What I find exciting about this lab concept is that it helps students develop thought processes that become a natural part of their problem-solving nature,” he says. “Ultimately, when they are many years into their research or professional careers I’d like them to be able to look back and say that this lab course taught them how to be a better, more intuitive engineer.”

MEMS Researchers were awarded an $800,000

grant from the through the DOE’s Nuclear Energy

University Programs (NEUP) to develop advanced

instrumentation and control systems for small

modular reactors (SMRs). The team’s research will

lead to more effective staffing at these advanced

reactors, which generate less than 300 megawatts of

electricity but allow for multiple reactors at one site.

Principle investigator is Daniel G. Cole, PhD, associate

professor of mechanical engineering and materials

science and interim director of the Swanson School

of Engineering’s nuclear engineering program. Co-PI

is Daniel Mossé, PhD, chair of the Department of

Computer Science.

18 SWA N SON SC H O OL OF ENG INEER ING

“I’ve always had an

entrepreneurial side,

and Pitt enabled me to

combine that with my

research and take it

to a new level that

would positively

impact others.”

Pictured is Sam Dickerson.

19A N N U A L R E P O R T 2 0 1 3

Engineering alumnus Samuel J. “Sam” Dickerson has always been big on sci-

ence. And now, his academic background and research in electrical and computer engineering may have a profound impact on the health and well-being of hospital patients around the country.

A Pittsburgh native, Sam is a triple-alumnus and earned his bachelor’s in computer engineering in 2003, his master’s in electri-cal engineering in 2007, and his PhD in 2012 from Pitt. This past year has been one of the most significant in his young career, and which has exemplified his credentials as a researcher and entrepreneur – not to mention as an educator who teaches part-time in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE).

But Sam is the first to admit that none of his academic and entrepreneurial success would have occurred without a visit to his high school from a certain Pitt representative.

“To be honest, while I was in high school I gave little thought about college,” Sam says matter-of-factly. “But one day Maureen Barcic (the Swanson School Director of Cooperative Education) came to my high school and talked about engineering and the Pitt Co-op program. The thought of being able to get real-world experience while in school was very appealing to me and motivated me to apply. I was accepted to Pitt, entered into the Co-op program, and had a very successful undergraduate career. The undergraduate faculty were amazing with

great teachers like Marlin Mickle, Steve Jacobs, and Ron Hoelzeman who made me enjoy what I was learning rather than letting me think of it as burdensome work I need to do to just get a job.”

Sam’s academic interest at the under-graduate level also propelled him toward graduate school – and the foundation for his future entrepreneurial career.

“I truly had no intention of going to gradu-ate school once I received my bachelor’s degree,” he says, “but [Associate Dean of Diversity] Dr. Sylvanus Wosu and his staff identified me as someone with poten-tial and encouraged me to apply.” Sam was accepted into the ECE program and provided with supplemental funding as a teaching assistant for Steven P. Levitan, PhD, the John A. Jurenko Professor of Computer Engineering at the Swanson School and, in the near future, someone who would impact his business career.

“Dr. Levitan took notice of my perfor-mance as a graduate student and invited me to join his research group, co-advised by Dr. Don Chiarulli [Professor of Computer Engineering and Computer Science in Pitt’s Department of Computer Science]. They each saw my potential, and had me author many papers, present at confer-ences, and even participate in writing grant applications to provide training as a researcher.

“They did more than just help me finish my PhD. They taught me how to be an independent researcher who can come up with my own new ideas.”

Sam’s new idea would interestingly be based on a century-old process. His dissertation research involved dielectro-phoresis – utilizing electric fields to control particles in a fluid. In particular he was utilizing it to separate biological particles such as cells and bacteria. But Sam will be the first to admit that his passion for research is equal only to his zeal for entrepreneurship.

“I’ve always had an entrepreneurial side, and Pitt enabled me to combine that with my research and take it to a new level that would positively impact others,” he says. In 2009 while working on his PhD, Sam entered the Randall Family Big Idea Competition, presented by the Katz Graduate School of Business and the Office of Technology Management/Office of Enterprise Development. Sam devel-oped a low-cost, portable cytometer, a device for counting the number of cells in a fluid sample such as blood. The mobile nature of the product would enable diagnostic tests, such as for HIV, to occur more easily in rural medical clinics. His research captured first place in the New Product Idea category – one of four other winners from the Swanson School that year – and would later lead to the forma-tion of his startup, Nanophoretics.

His research would later win him awards from the Provost’s Office and from the Pennsylvania Assistive Technologies Commercialization Initiative. But his research would carry him further in its potential healthcare applications.

DIVERSITY

ENGINEERING SUCCESS

20 SWA N SON SC H O OL OF ENG INEER ING

“One day I was in the lab working and received a phone call from Jennifer Welton, manager of corporate relations at the Swanson School, about a local company called Compunetix, which was looking for collaborations with engineer-ing students,” he recalls. She was familiar with my research because of my business awards, and asked if I might be interested.”

So Sam invited Compunetix representa-tives to a presentation of his research. They soon asked him to join in their collaborations, specifically with Stefano P. Coraluppi, PhD, principal research engineer.

“Stefano’s expertise is in video tracking and detection, specifically multi-target tracking,” Sam explains. “We didn’t have any specific idea in mind at first; we just began to chat and discuss whether we could combine Stefano’s expertise with my research in particle movement to identify substances in a mixture by the movements they make when stimulated by an electric field.”

They pitched the concept to Innovation Works, part of a statewide network that brings together the best of Pennsylvania’s talent, ideas and technologies to serve as a catalyst for advancing the state’s knowledge-based economy. Innovation works invests capital, business expertise and other resources into high-potential companies with the greatest likelihood for regional economic impact, and chose to fund the concept through its Technology Commercialization Initiative (TCI). “TCI is a highly competitive program and includes both new and established startups,” Sam says. “The award from TCI was the seed

money I needed to get Nanophoretics off the ground and operating.”

And because part of the research for his new company originated at Pitt, Sam was able to secure Nanophoretics as a university-licensed startup.

“Our goal is to develop a new device that will use dielectrophoresis to cause different particle types to move in unique ways, and then utilize algorithms that Compunetix designed for military appli-cations to track cells as the electric field parameters change, thereby allowing us to identify the particles thanks to classification software written by Steve and Don.” Sam notes that the software is critical because of the hundreds or thousands of targets within one sample, and the ability to narrow such large amounts of data to identify a single cell.”

Because of the vast number of potential applications, Sam admits that developing the end-use was the most difficult chal-lenge. “The potential applications of this technology are so broad. I could use this anywhere from identifying viruses or cells in a mixture to classifying the particles used in paints and other chemicals, but if it does everything, from a commercial product standpoint, it’s useless. So we decided that the best first product would target the rapid diagnosis of diseases caused by bacteria in a hospital setting.”

The current method, according to Sam, is “exceedingly slow.” A culture is taken and then grown in a lab over a period of two to three days. The culture is then analyzed to determine whether bacteria are present. During that time, however, the

bacteria (such as those that cause staph infection) could also be multiplying within the patient or transmitted to others. “Our idea is that from the original sample we can cause a bacterium to move through dielectrophoresis. By tracking the resulting movement, and classifying the resulting motion patterns, we can carry out the same diagnosis within a matter of hours or eventually minutes, with low-powered, portable technology that’s not anchored in an off-site lab.” Specifically Nanophoretics will focus on identification of methicillin- resistant Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA, a bacterium responsible for several difficult-to-treat infections in humans resistant to traditional antibiotics.

Nanophoretics recently completed initial verification using yeast cells, and currently is continuing to verify and further developing the hardware/software using non-pathogenic bacteria strains (E. coli and Staphylococcus Epidermis). Next, Sam hopes to have attracted enough investment to carry the company through verification using pathogenic strains (i.e. MRSA) and the FDA approval process. Sam and his team ended the year on another high note when Nanophoretics captured one of the University’s Pitt Innovator awards, which recognizes startups which succeeded in having tech-nologies licensed or optioned to industry and start-up companies in FY2013.

All in all, tremendous accomplishments for an individual who almost didn’t even consider graduate school – let alone a college career – before receiving inspiration from Pitt.

Sam holds a dielectrophoresis electrode chip (DEPTrackTM), a glass substrate or slide that

contains an array of gold microelectrodes.

DIVERSITY

Engineering of the Renaissance

21A N N U A L R E P O R T 2 0 1 3

Pictured is civil and environmental engineering student, Jacob Presken.

Since 2010, Pitt students have had the opportunity to experience one of the most important cities in engineering history – Florence,

Italy. The capital of the Italian region of Tuscany, Florence has long been considered the birthplace of the Renaissance and is noted for the important principles of engineering and physics developed during that time.

Taught by Giovanni P. Galdi, PhD, the Leighton and Mary N. Orr Professor of Mechanical Engineering, and Anne M. Robertson, PhD, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Bioengineering, the program focuses on the impact of Florence in transforming Western Civilization through the minds of means of individuals like Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and the Medicis.

“The entire program is an adventure for our students, who participate in a completely different way of learning engineering,” Professor Galdi, a native of Naples, Italy, said. “By visiting the museums and historic sites where so many of our modern engineering principles were formed, it gives them a unique perspective on their education and their chosen profession. Even students who have previously visited find the course fantastic.”

Professors Galdi and Robertson imbue the course with liberal arts as much as engineering, teaching students about why Florence had such a tremendous impact on engineering history.

“After the Black Death had ravaged Europe in the 14th century, people began to question everything, including their faith,” Professor Galdi explains. “People wanted to return to life, and

began to question the world around them. Curiosity for how the world works would engender a new way of thinking.”

For example, one of the sites that students visit is the Pozzo di San Patrizio, or St. Patrick’s Well in Orvieto. Built by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger for Pope Clement VII in the 16th century, the well was designed to provide water to the town in the event of a siege during the sack of Rome by Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.

“What’s astounding is that this is not a well as we traditionally imagine, with a bucket on a rope and winch,” Professor Galdi says. “It’s almost 200 feet deep and almost 50 feet wide, and is accessed by two spiral ramps, which allowed animals to carry water unimpeded in either direction. And walking into it is like stepping back in time 500 years – it is a remarkable work of engineering.”

Most importantly, Professor Galdi wants his students to understand that the engineering in Florence arose primarily through the minds of artists. “da Vinci could draw images with photographic detail,” he says. “One of my specialties is turbulence, and da Vinci really was the first to study it, and his drawings of turbulence were both scientifically accurate and artistically beautiful.

“I think that if our students, regardless of their discipline, see engineering as an art, they can build upon the transformative leap happened in Florence in the 15th and 16th centuries, and take engineering to new heights in the 21st century.”

INTERNATIONAL

22 SWA N SON SC H O OL OF ENG INEER ING

GEORGEW.WHETSELL(BSIE ’72, MSIE ’73, MPH ’75)

Although George Whetsell would describe his success as often the result of serendipitous events and being

in the right place at the right time, he acknowledges that his success in healthcare systems management owes as much to taking advantage of an opportunity when it presents itself.

George, who received the Swanson School’s 2013 Distinguished Alumni Award, explains that the combination of a strong industrial engineering program and dedicated faculty with a nearby health care system and industry-focused research helped to set his career on such a trajectory.

Born in the Pittsburgh area, he grew up in Florida after his family relocated when he was three. He still had many family members living in the Pittsburgh region when he attended North Miami Senior High School and began his college search.

“Pitt was one of several universities I applied to, including Cornell, Purdue and the University of Florida,” he recalls. “But Pitt seemed interested in building its out-of-state student population, and offered me a scholarship that was too good to pass up.” George says that a number of his extended family were engineers, includ-ing three uncles who were industrial engineers and a cousin who was an electrical engineer, so the engineering path was easy to follow. Although his original interest was in electrical engineering, by his junior year he had migrated to industrial engineering, and would soon be shaped by two dynamic professors – Larry Shuman, PhD and Harvey Wolfe, PhD.

“My class was one of the largest industrial engineering cohorts in some time, yet it was small enough that everyone knew everyone else, and that included student-faculty relationships,” he says. “Harvey and Larry were both very engaged with students and served as mentors, coaches and teachers. They were concerned that we received a great education and made good career choices.”

George recalls that the national economy was experiencing one of its periodic downturns when he graduated in spring 1972, so initial career opportunities were slim. Corporate recruiters were

2013 DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI AWARDS

23A N N U A L R E P O R T 2 0 1 3

rare on campus, so like many of his classmates he decided to enroll in graduate school. “Some of us enrolled in Pitt’s IE program and others in the MBA program. At that time there were great amounts of graduate student aid available for the IE program, and so thanks to graduate student assistantships I could earn a master’s degree with no investment and wait out the economy.”

Because of a wealth of federal research grants also available at the time, IE students had the opportunity to engage in distinctive faculty research projects. Once again, professors Wolfe and Shuman would engage George in projects that would focus his career trajectory.

“Harvey and Larry were directors of research for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Western PA, and were engaged in interesting research for the health care industry,” he recalls. “Between my junior and senior year, they helped me to get a job at Blue Cross, and I worked there for the four or five months between earning my bachelor’s and entering grad school.”

As his graduate program began, Drs. Shuman and Wolfe would involve George in their health care research grants, at a time when the federal government was interested in operational research for health care, including cost accounting in hospitals and emergency medical system operations.

“In those days, some of these grants were unique to both industry and academia. I consider it being in the right place at right time, because Pitt’s Graduate School of Public Health offered a joint master’s degree program with industrial engineering, and I was able to earn two degrees – a master’s in industrial engineering in 1973 and a master’s of public health in 1975.”

Continuing his academic career, George says he was “pretty far along” in his PhD program when he was offered a position in Ernst & Ernst’s consulting group in Chicago in 1976. “Although I enjoyed my studies, having a job and cash flow was definitely an interesting alternative and so was the opportunity to work with the Ernst & Ernst healthcare consulting practice. I could begin to apply what I had learned at Pitt as well as my research experience.”

During his 14-year career at Ernst & Ernst (and Ernst & Whinney) George says that because of the size of the consulting group, he was able to enjoy a great deal of

Pictured from left to right are

Gerald D. Holder and George W. Whetsell.

24 SWA N SON SC H O OL OF ENG INEER ING

hands-on experience on “not esoteric” projects including hospital finance and accounting, and how to apply industrial style cost accounting to hospital projects. George would also work in the firm’s Milwaukee and Baltimore offices where there were no shortages of opportunities, including becoming a partner in 1983. Later, he would join KPMG Peat Marwick as Partner and National Director of Healthcare Operations Improvement Consulting.

George’s success in the corporate world eventually would inspire him to set out on his own, and in 1994 he established Whetsell and Associates. “We were based in Pittsburgh and did very well for five years. “There’s a big difference between working for a firm and working for yourself and making all of your own decisions, and I truly enjoyed the transition.”

A few years later, George says that his history of being in the right place at the right time would one day lead to a phone call. “In late 1999 a couple of my former Ernst & Whinney partners contacted me about starting our own healthcare consulting firm, based on our years of experience. We formed Wellspring Partners, which we built into a very successful healthcare consulting firm and by 2006 was very well known around the country.”

George explains that one of the reasons for Wellspring’s success was the eco-nomic impact of the healthcare industry, which impacts not only doctors and hospitals but also device manufacturers, suppliers and researchers. Leveraging their expertise in performance improve-ment, turnarounds, physician practice management and governance, Well-spring completed engagements for hundreds of hospitals and health systems throughout the U.S.

Eventually, he says, “We were made an offer we couldn’t turn down.” Huron Consulting Group acquired Wellspring in 2007, which he describes as a great deal for him, his partners and their employees, and for Huron. Wellspring became part of Huron but continued to operate as Wellspring for a few more years. Over time his partners moved on to other positions or retired. Retirement, however, just didn’t fit for George.

“I attempted to retire,” he says bluntly. “My contract ran through 2011 with a non-compete clause through 2012. In my opinion, retirement’s not all it’s cracked up to be. I played a lot of golf but as time passed I felt I was too young to retire and couldn’t see myself playing golf for the rest of my life.” But once again, his former associates would inter-cede as the nation’s health care industry would soon face significant change with the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2010. In 2013, he and his former partners formed Prism Healthcare Partners LTD, with a focus on workforce management, revenue optimization, non-labor cost reduction, physician operations, and clinical transformation..

“When we began Wellspring, the eco-nomics of America’s health care system were already getting tighter and tighter,” he says. “As the baby boom generation becomes eligible for Medicare, the amount of money the government has to spend goes off the charts. The government has been trying to find ways to control the money it has to spend on Medicare and Medicaid, and so this impacts a hospital’s bottom line. If hospitals make a margin of 2-5%, that’s good for a hospital. Starting in 2000 and throughout the last decade, a number of hospitals were having problems and the ACA was another ripple that would seriously impact them,

and so they needed to manage their costs more effectively if they were to continue to provide quality care.”

George’s acumen for better healthcare management has been recognized by the Healthcare Information and Manage-ment Systems Society and the American College of Healthcare Executives, where he serves as a fellow. He later served as one of ACHE’s faculty in its extensive continuing education program, teaching a course in healthcare reengineering from 1994 – 2000, as well as mini- courses at the ACHE annual congress. During that period he also served on the IE visiting committee and helped Dr. Wolfe develop a class on total quality management, based upon his work with hospitals. Dr. Wolfe also drafted George to serve as chair of one of IIE’s Society for Health Systems conferences and eventually become the Society’s president, which he credits in great part to Dr. Wolfe.

Yet even with his accomplishments, receiving the Swanson School’s Distinguished Alumni Award would come as a great surprise and honor. “I have to admit, it was pretty cool,” he says. “It literally came out of the blue. One day I answered the phone and it’s Dean Holder asking if I would accept. At the banquet I met the other recipients, all of whom had done tremendous things, and so I was extremely honored to be in their company.”

George especially credits his family for his success. “My wife Dianna has been extremely supportive. In consulting you travel a lot. To be successful you have to sacrifice, and there were many times I was away four or five nights a week. I couldn’t have done it without her.” And I have to give Pitt and the IE program some credit – I met Dianna while I was a graduate student and

she was working in the IE Department. George also says his twin sons Benjamin and Nathan are following in his entre-preneurial footsteps. “I had an office at home and not in an office tower, so while others were commuting, my sons often did their homework in my office. I think that has helped to fuel their entrepreneurial spirit.” Both sons attended the University of Michigan; Nathan is a computer engineer with a master’s degree from Stanford University, and Benjamin is a lawyer with a law degree from Columbia Law School.

Ultimately, George believes that although serendipity played a great role in his and his family’s success, the choices one makes when opportunities present themselves is what makes the greatest difference.

“I view Pitt as a very solid, respected university and academic institution,” he

says. “It’s a major academic research center that presents unique opportuni-ties for students. As an engineer I was able to collaborate with the Graduate School of Public Health and what were then independent hospitals like Presbyterian University Hospital, and that was something that few under-graduates could experience elsewhere. Today’s students have even greater opportunities with Pitt’s well-known medical school and with UPMC. Today when people hear I graduated from Pitt, they recognize it as a brand- name university.”

He also believes that Pitt and the Swanson School should engender tremendous pride among his fellow engineering alumni.

“As I look back on my time at Pitt, the University in general and the engineer-ing school in particular have continually

developed a strong national reputation,” he says. “Chancellor Nordenberg and Dean Holder, as well as Larry, Harvey and now Bopaya Bidanda, the current department chair, have truly advanced the stature of the school, the reputa-tion of the faculty and the quality of the students. My fellow engineering alumni should be proud to have graduated from such a high-profile and well-respected engineering program.

“In hindsight, as a young high school student I can say I made the right deci-sion at the right time to join Pitt. And I think students today can say the same thing. If I hadn’t attended Pitt I might never have built a successful career in healthcare management. But sometimes I think that maybe Pitt chose me as much as I chose Pitt. At the very least, Pitt presented the opportunities that helped me to create a wonderful career.”

2013 DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI AWARDS

25A N N U A L R E P O R T 2 0 1 3

Pictured from left to right are Ben, Dianna, George and Nate Whetsell at the Distinguished

Alumni Banquet.

26 SWA N SON SC H O OL OF ENG INEER ING

Pictured from left to right are:

Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering Distinguished Alumnus Nai-Chiu “Joseph” Lai, PhD CHE ’73 Chairman and Co-founder, Fastgen Corporation

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Distinguished Alumnus Alvin L. Hillegass, BSEE ’49 Retired President and Chief Executive Officer, Camp Hill Corporation and Retired Group Vice President-Steel, U.S. Steel

Department of Bioengineering Distinguished Alumna Gina E. Bertocci, BSME ’83, MSME ’91, PhD BioE ’97 Endowed Chair of Biomechanics and Professor, Bioengineering Department, University of Louisville

Swanson School U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering Gerald D. Holder, PhD

Swanson School of Engineering Distinguished Alumnus George W. Whetsell, BSIE ’72, MSIE ’73, MPH ’75 Managing Partner, Prism Healthcare Partners LTD

Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science Distinguished Alumnus Tony Treser Jr., BSMEE ’61 Retired President, Beaver Steel Services, Inc.

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Distinguished Alumnus Tamas S. Tanto, BSCE ’67 President, Tanto International Golf

Department of Industrial Engineering Distinguished Alumnus Venkatesh “Venki” Padmanabhan, MSIE ’87, PhD IE ’91 Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, English Indian Clays Limited

2013 DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI AWARDS

27A N N U A L R E P O R T 2 0 1 3

STATISTICS

SAT SCORES, INCOMING FIRST-YEARS, SWANSON SCHOOL

GRADUATE ENROLLMENT IN THE SWANSON SCHOOL

UNDERGRADUATE ENROLLMENT IN THE SWANSON SCHOOL

2006 2008 2010 2012 2013

2,7002,6002,5002,4002,3002,2002,1002,0001,9001,8001,7001,6001,5001,4001,3001,200

1,000

900

800

700

600

500

4002006 2008 2010 2012 2013

2006 2008 2010 2012 2013

1,400

1,350

1,300

1,250

1,200

1,150

1,100

1,050

1,000

28 SWA N SON SC H O OL OF ENG INEER ING

ENGINEERING ENDOWMENT: BOOK AND MARKET VALUE INCREASES

GOAL: $100 MILLION

RESEARCH PRODUCTIVITY IN THE SWANSON SCHOOL

RESEARCH EXPENDITURES ($ MILLIONS)

$175,000,000

$150,000,000

$125,000,000

$100,000,000

$75,000,000

$50,000,000

$25,000,000

$02009 2010 2011 2012 2013

Market Value

Book Value

Interdisciplinary

School

STATISTICS

$100

$90

$80

$70

$60

$50

$40

$30

$20

$10

$02005-06 2007-08 2009-10 2011-12 2012-13

10%

post-

consumer waste content

Executive Editor

PaulA.Kovach

Director of Marketing and Communications

Managing Editor

MatthewA.Weinstein,PhD

Senior Executive Director of Development and Alumni Relations

Contributing Writer

B.RoseHuber

Senior News Representative, University of Pittsburgh

Senior Graphic Designer

LeslieKaron-Oswalt

Photography

JohnAltdorfer

RicEvans

AlyssaFlorentine,ANSYS Inc. – Pg. 1

GiovanniGaldi&AnneRobertson – Pg. 21

JuelSmith&HannahSmith – Pgs. 4-6

AmyC.Wright,South Dakota School of Mines and Technology – Pg. 8

The University of Pittsburgh is an affirmative action, equal opportunity institution.

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