DewGood. MSU College of Engineering Student Research Symposium Awards

April 21, 2015

On Thursday, April 9, Michigan State University held its annual College of Engineering Student Research Symposium.  Over 60 teams of graduate students presented posters on active research projects conducted within the College of Engineering.  As a sponsor of the event, Dewpoint funded the first DewGood Award for Public Service in Technology. 

Chris Weiss from Dewpoint and an MSU alum, Amanda Herzog, an MSU engineering faculty member, and Brian Kent, an industry expert and MSU alum, reviewed all of the student posters against the following five criteria:

1. The impact to quality of life for all people
2. The impact to possible reduction of poverty in developing areas
3. The potential to save lives
4. The positive impact to the environment as a whole – not just people
5. The ability of the poster to communicate complex ideas in a way the general public can understand

There were several excellent candidates and the judging amounted to splitting hairs. 

The runner up was a project team from Mechanical Engineering with a poster entitled “Experimental Methods to Quantify Residual Limb Displacement within a Prosthetic Socket.”  The student team of Amy Lenz, Katie Johnson, and Tamara Reid Bush explored ways to help prevent life threatening and potentially crippling side effects of prosthetic limb use such as sores and infections.  Their research was focused on identifying pressure points for each specific patient to prevent complications from prosthetics. View the poster entry here.  More about this research group here: http://researchgroups.msu.edu/reidtama 

The first prize award was a project team from Civil Engineering with a poster entitled “Water Quality Improvement through Proper Design and Construction of Wastewater Collection Systems and Sanitation Facilities in Dar Es Salam, Tanzania.”  The student team of Tula Ngasala and Susan Masten studied the health and social impacts of improper waste water management, including the economic impact on a water starved population.  The project team spent time on the ground at great risk and personal sacrifice, and they plan to return this summer to fully implement many of the improvements they initiated last summer, incorporating data collected last year and further design refinements.  View the poster entry here.

Dewpoint is pleased to partner with MSU through its DewGood. program.

ADDITIONAL WINNERS & HONORABLE MENTIONS

First Place:

• Association Mapping in the Presence of Complex Sample Structure

Second Place Tie:

• Model-Reduced Variational Fluid Simulation
• Continuous Authentication of Mobile User: Fusion of Face Image and Inertial Measurement Unit Data

Honorable Mentions:

• Automatic In Vivo Cell Detection in MRI
• An Efficient Structural Diversity Technique for Genetic Programming
• Spatial Reward Heterogeneity Promotes Useful Diversity in Evolutionary Computation
• Attribute Preserved Face De-Identification
• Live Face Video Vs. Spoof Face Video: Use of Moire Patterns to Detect Replay Video Attacks