College of Engineering & Science News

Andrew Brown, Jr.

Charles R. Hermes, M.D.

The College of Engineering & Science (CES) awarded Andrew Brown Jr. '78, vice president & chief technologist at Delphi Automotive Systems, with the Engineering Alumnus of the Year; and Charles R. Hermes, M.D. '52, retired plant medical director at General Motors Company, with the Science Alumnus of the Year at the 81st Annual Slide Rule Dinner on March 23. See photos from the event

Students of the University of Detroit Mercy Engineering and Nursing programs collaborated this past semester to develop devices to specifically meet the needs of three disabled veterans. On Wednesday, May 15^th at 11 a.m. in the Engineering High Bay of the College of Engineering & Science, the students will present their devices to local clients and show them how they were designed to meet their daily needs.

Six UDM nursing students, 12 UDM engineering students and 12 engineering students from Baylor University split into four teams, three of which worked with disabled veterans. The devices designed for the specific veteran clients include a pressure-sensing cushion that would alert a paraplegic person to change positions to prevent decubitus ulcers, an innovative bed mattress with an automatic bedpan, and a walker for a man who is unable to use current walker structures. The fourth team is currently developing a car seat that will help disabled mothers remove their children easier.

The University’s joint engineering and nursing projects began four years ago and have worked specifically for veteran clients for the past two. The clients will be at the presentations and may take the devices home that day.

Several of the students plan to continue working on their projects after the presentations. Engineering student, Nick Schenduk was part of a team that received a grant for the device they developed and will present at an NCIIA conference in August. Hussein Bazzi, a nursing student, is working to develop his walker project into a business.

Engineering students got involved in this worthwhile endeavor by taking a required course titled Prototype Design, while nursing students took a voluntary independent study course with Assisting Nursing Professor Molly McClelland, PhD, MSN, CMSRN, RN.

CES is pleased to announce its new bachelor’s degree program in Robotics and Mechatronic Systems Engineering, launched last fall.  This unique degree directly addresses the nation’s interests in defense and security, customized manufacturing, elder care and assistive technology, and the automation of household tasks. It combines the College’s historical strengths in Electrical and Mechanical engineering and Information Science with its expertise in the development of practical hardware and software systems.

Flexible and multi-technological, the program reinforces key concepts via hands-on projects in every semester throughout the four-year degree. A fully integrated cooperative program provides students with a full year of engineering employment and ensures a practical and relevant degree.  

In the coming decades, the design and development of intelligent and flexible products will play an increasingly critical role in maintaining the economic vitality of the nation. Focusing on robotics and with exposure to the broader class of mechatronic systems, UDM students will have highly marketable skills valued by employers in automotive, aerospace, healthcare, manufacturing, and defense industries. This new degree program, one of the first of its kind in the nation, continues the University of Detroit Mercy’s tradition of educational leadership.

UDM's undergraduate engineering program placed in the top 100 undergraduate engineering non-doctorate programs in the 2013 edition of U.S.News & World Report's Best Colleges.

A group of Mathematics students led by Heifai Cheng, have provided financial workshops to a cohort of Detroit residents under the guidance of Associate Professor of Mathematics & Computer Science Xiaohui Zhong. These workshops are part of service-learning projects that help residents make good decisions on common financial transactions. 

Andrew Niedert, an Electrical and Computer Engineering  major, co-authored a paper with Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering Nassif Rayess, and Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering Richard Hill, entitled “Modeling, Control and Simulation of an Omni-directional Robotic Ground Vehicle” in the Proceedings of the 2012 ASME Dynamics Systems and Controls Conference in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. last October.

The College’s pre-college program is offering a number of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Math) summer camp programs for 8th-12th graders from the Detroit metropolitan area to explore careers in science and engineering, including the Product Development Innovation Camp, the Ford-UDM/GT CATIA V6 Innovation Summer Program and Camp INFINITY.  For more information, visit the program website.  eng-sci.udmercy.edu/pre-college/summer/index.htm or call 313-993-1435. 

Mancelona Project

Professor Alan Hoback and Associate Professor Alexa Rihana-Abdallah, (Civil, Architectural, Environmental Engineering) are involved in an exciting environmental research project to remediate a trichloroethylene plume in Mancelona, Mich. with other researchers from Michigan Technological University, Freshwater Future, and Dow Chemical. This plume extends 5.4 miles and pollutes nearly 13 trillion gallons of groundwater and threatens drinking water for this rural community.  While efforts are under way to address this problem, the plume continues to vent into Cedar River with eventual discharge into Lake Michigan. The collaboration will model the extent of the plume and assess the detrimental environment, health and economic impacts. It will also investigate innovative technology to remedy the situation through implementation with the help of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.

Co-op changes to all summer format in summer 2013

CES is switching
to an all-summer co-op program for nearly all engineering students starting with
a phase-in period in the summer of 2013. This will increase the number of
opportunities for students to work with a greater diversity of companies while permitting them to return to a company for subsequent co-op assignments. It will also allow students to become more engaged in campus activities including student organizations (e.g. student chapters in engineering societies), intercollegiate sports, the Honors program and others, while allowing most engineering students to graduate in May in line with employment opportunities and the practice at other similar educational institutions.   

Transit Research

Professor of Mechanical Engineering Leo Hanifin is leading a group of faculty from engineering, math, architecture and law on six transit projects. These include three research projects, a K-12 outreach project, a workshop and a graduate course. All of these projects will contribute substantively to the understanding and development of effective regional transit by the public transit leaders and future transit professionals. The total funding for these projects exceeds $900,000. Projects include:

— A study of the factors that enable and inhibit the development and operation of effective regional transportation systems in southeast Michigan A team of 13 faculty and student investigators is conducting this study between June 2012 and Sept. 2013.  To learn from other regions that have faced and overcome similar challenges, the team has selected four peer regions to study in depth, Atlanta, Cleveland, Denver and St. Louis.  Lead investigators are UDM faculty from across several of the seven schools and colleges.

— A study of public opinion regarding transit and a public education program in collaboration with Transportation Riders United (TRU), a Detroit transit advocacy group.

— Transit as a critical element for community development: a graduate course for transportation and community development professionals. This course will develop an in-depth understanding of the interdependencies and mutual support of good community development and good transit development, and competencies to contribute to the development of transit systems.

— TRANSIT Smart Moves is a one-week summer commuter camp for high school students, currently in the 9th-11th grades, who want to learn about the world of transportation through LEGO NXT Robotics, a field of study within Civil Engineering. The TRANSIT camp is made up of labs and discussions lead by University professors and high school science teachers; presentations by MDOT, Ford Motor Company and SEMCOG; activities from MDOT's TRAC program.  A modified version of Transit Smart Moves is also offered as Saturday classes in the Fall and Spring DAPCEP program at UDM.

— The Metro Detroit Transit Workshop:  Fashioned after the biennial Transit Initiatives and Communities Conference sponsored by the American Public Transit Association and the Center for Transportation Excellence (CFTE), attendees learned how to get transit planning and campaigns right. The goal of the workshop was to illustrate transit development as a process that begins with a good plan that enjoys deep support, has good governance and oversight, a funding mechanism that pays for construction and operation, and a broad and diverse coalition of people who are enabled and energized to advocate for transit, in advance of a ballot initiative, from a position of knowledge and strength.