Advance Electric Vehicle Program grows enrollment

With the successful launch of its Advanced Electric Vehicle (AEV) graduate certificate program last January, University of Detroit Mercy's College of Engineering & Science is now preparing to expand the program.

Offered at two sites, at Ford and the Engineering Society of Detroit (ESD), the program was designed to educate and retrain traditional automotive engineers, providing them with the skills and expertise to develop the next generation of advanced electric and hybrid vehicles.

The curriculum emphasizes core electric and hybrid vehicle engineering expertise, such as power electronics, power flow, energy storage and management, and system architecture. The seven courses are taught at the Ford Training and Development Center, on Hubbard Drive in Dearborn, and at ESD Headquarters, 20700 Civic Center Drive in Southfield.

The certificate program launched with 30 Ford Motor employees in the first cohort as an extension of UDM's partnership with Ford Motor Company to retrain Ford engineers to develop advanced electric and hybrid vehicles.  The first cohort is scheduled to graduate in December 2010. For the group beginning next January, Ford Motor has increased its commitment to the program with an enrollment of 45 employees.

"Ford seems inordinately pleased with the program outcomes," says Dave Cameron, director of the Advance Electric Vehicle Program. "In addition, UDM is committed to AEV courses being available in distance learning format in 2011 to stay competitive in the market place."

The AEV program provides engineers with the technical and systems knowledge needed to be effective contributors to the development of world-class advanced electric vehicles.

For more information about UDM's AEV graduate certificate program, contact Dave Cameron at 313-993-1128 or visit the AEV web site.

Seven options now available for pre-med/pre-dental studies

UDM's College of Engineering & Science now offers seven tracks to students interested in a pre-med/pre-dental foundation for medical or dental school. Options are available in the traditional science tracks (Biology, Biochemistry, Chemistry) and also technical tracks (Mechanical/Electrical Engineering) and information tracks (Computer Science and Mathematics) to provide pre-med/pre-dent students with a wide variety of foundation for their studies as health professionals.

The practice of medicine employs increasingly advanced technology for a wide variety of functions, including robotic surgery, advanced diagnostic and imaging systems, informatics for evidence-based diagnosis and treatment, prosthetics and artificial organs, automated monitoring and drug dispensing, etc. No one person, and no one physician, can be an expert in all of these.

Pre-medical education should provide future doctors the opportunity to concentrate on the area(s) of science, technology and/or information systems that is most interesting to them and most valuable to the area of medicine that they plan to practice.

For many years, UDM has offered pre-medical and pre-dental tracks in the Bachelor of Science degrees in Biology, Biochemistry and Chemistry. The admission rates to medical schools for graduates of these programs are typically well above the national average.

With the additional pre-medical tracks in engineering, computer science and mathematics, students can focus on areas of most interest for their future career as health professionals. All of these tracks include strong concentrations in the biology and chemistry topics that are needed to gain admission to and be successful in medical school.

For more details on the seven tracks, visit the Pre-Medical / Pre-Dental web site.