2011-2012 Annual Report
Department Highlights
The 2011-2012 year saw an increase in the Mechanical and Materials Engineering (MME) department’s FTEs by 7.75%, and a 5.5% increase in the department’s FSCHs. The department’s student headcount also saw an increase of 7.8% from last year. The department’s graduation rate saw an increase of 3.7% at the undergraduate level and a 37% increase at the graduate level.
Our faculty members were recognized with multiple awards and recognitions, and our students won several awards. The department has gained three new faculty members: Drs. Lin and Bilal El-Zahab in the energy/renewable energy areas and Dr. Boesl in the materials characterization/design/manufacturing area. One associate professor (Dr. Jiuhua Chen) was promoted to full professor.
The MME department won two RUGS internal grants to enhance the graduate student experience through seminars, and, to enhance our graduate student recruitment ability to include modernization of our department website, having a meet and greet with outside companies, creating updated brochures to send to prospective students, and faculty travel to foreign countries to speak to prospective students.
The department held its third U2B event in March 2012 highlighting the department’s capabilities vis-à-vis industrial needs. Overall, the department has made some modest gains towards its target goals.
Faculty Highlights
The department maintained its strong publications record of last year. This year, faculty published 12 book chapters, 5 books, 93 conference proceedings, 91 journal papers, 2 monograph, and 8 technical reports. This does not include Dr. Cesar Levy’s and Dr. Wu’s publications. Last year the department reported 13 book chapters, 4 books, 109 conference proceedings, 92 journal papers, 3 monographs, and 13 technical reports (reported in individual EOY accomplishment reports).
This year, MME department’s research expenditures reached $1.75 million—a 20.6% increase from last year’s expenditures of $1.45 million. The total number of new proposals awarded to faculty members of MME was 8, with an average amount of $172,000 per award. At the same time last year, MME faculty members had 14 new awards with an average of $27,500 per award. Though the number of new awards has decreased by 43%, the amount per award has increased by a factor of over 6.
Dr. Arvind Agarwal of MME was named “FIU Outstanding Professor”. Dr. Wonbong Choi was named “Outstanding Faculty Scholar” for 2011-2012, and Dr. Chen won the “FIU Excellence in Research Award”.
Student Highlights
Indranil Lahiri won GEMS Sapphire Award for Best Paper of the MS&T annual conference. Mr. Juan Guzman won a NASA Graduate Fellowship to support his graduate studies. Janet Reyes, ME undergraduate won the Student Life Leadership Award. Five ME undergraduate and graduate students won internships with Beckman-Coulter. Mr. Arvind Parsan won the best paper award at the ASME ECTC Conference.
The Materials Advantage student chapter at MME won another World Materials Day award for outreach.
Fall Term Enrollment
Degrees Awarded
Sponsored Research Awards ($Millions)
