Academic literature on the topic 'Western Kentucky University doctoral faculty'
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Journal articles on the topic "Western Kentucky University doctoral faculty"
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DEMARCO, PAUL, and ELIZABETH LEMERISE. "A tribute to Joe Bilotta." Visual Neuroscience 24, no. 3 (2007): 233. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0952523807070125.
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Dr. Joseph Bilotta, an eminent scientist in the field of fish visual neurophysiology and psychophysics, died suddenly and unexpectedly on January 2, 2006. A native of Niagara Falls, NY, Joe was born October 21, 1955. His passion for learning took him on a journey from an Associate Degree in Mathematics in 1975 from Niagara County Community College to a Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology conferred by the City University of New York in 1987 under the mentorship of Dr. Israel Abramov. Joe continued his training at Vanderbilt University, working as a post-doctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Maureen Powers. In 1991, Joe joined the faculty of Western Kentucky University as an assistant professor of Psychology, and quickly moved through the ranks, becoming full professor in 2001.
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Burch, Barbara, Sam Evans, and David Lee. "TRG/Western Kentucky University." Educational Renaissance 1, no. 2 (2013): 97–102. http://dx.doi.org/10.33499/edren.v1i2.53.
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As an institution built on the foundation of a Normal School, collaboration among faculty members and across program areas and academic units have been part of Western Kentucky University’s (WKU) heritage since 1906. In addition to the various collaborative initiatives across campus, there are a variety of initiatives that involve various agencies across the community, including ongoing partnerships with local and area school districts, P-16 Councils, and the Green River Region Educational Cooperative. These collaborations have been enhanced, especially since the court decision resulting in Kentucky’s Educational Reform Act (KERA) in 1990 (Rose v. Council, 1989). In the early 1990s the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences created the Task Force on Education Reform – High Schools and the Task Force on Research-Based Instructional Strategies to facilitate institutional work relative to KERA. Both Task Forces involved faculty from what is now the Ogden College of Science and Engineering and the Potter College of Arts and Letters.
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Hill, Robert D., Linda G. Castillo, Le Quyen Ngu, and Ken Pepion. "Mentoring Ethnic Minority Students for Careers in Academia." Counseling Psychologist 27, no. 6 (1999): 827–45. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0011000099276007.
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The need for academic mentoring of ethnic minority doctoral students in counseling psychology has resulted in a call for training programs to build environments that not only provide financial assistance, but also work toward enhancing qualitative aspects of training that may be important in the students’preparations for future academic careers. This article describes the Western Interstate Commission of Higher Education’s (WICHE) Doctoral Scholars Program that provides both external funding and strategies designed to encourage faculty-student mentoring. The extent to which WICHE has influenced doctoral training in the counseling psychology program at the University of Utah is described from the perspective of the WICHE director, a WICHE faculty mentor, and two WICHE doctoral scholars. The importance of the faculty mentor as a facilitative agent in the training of ethnic minority students and in helping them to prepare for careers in academia is highlighted.
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M Welsh, Emily, and Alexis R Abramson. "A Measure of Intra-University Collaboration: Faculty Gender Imbalance on Doctoral Dissertation Committees in Engineering Disciplines." International Journal of Doctoral Studies 13 (2018): 457–69. http://dx.doi.org/10.28945/4141.
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Aim/Purpose: This article presents an analysis of female faculty representation on dissertation committees in comparison to the percentage of women faculty in departments of engineering in 2013 and 2014. Background: Collaboration is an indication of a robust research program, and the consequences of collaboration may benefit one’s academic career in numerous ways. Gender bias, however, may impede the development of intra-university collaborations, thereby inhibiting professional success. Methodology: Nine universities were examined (Carnegie Mellon University, Case Western Reserve University, Cornell University, Duke University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northwestern University, Rice University, University of Pittsburgh, and Vanderbilt University) across six different engineering departments (civil, chemical, mechanical, materials, biomedical, and electrical). Contribution: This paper reveals how an analysis of gender balance of faculty representation on doctoral committees can help advance an institution's understanding of the level to which collaboration with female colleagues may be occurring, thereby providing insight to the climate for women. Findings: A potential gender imbalance does exist in select cases. In aggregate, the percentage of female engineering faculty on dissertation committees compared to within each university revealed a disparity of less than 6% points. Recommendations for Practitioners: Examining how well represented female engineering faculty are on dissertation committees can be an important measure of levels of collaboration within an institution and of how well women are being integrated into the existing culture. Recommendation for Researchers: More in-depth research, including a study of correlation with other relevant indicators, may reveal additional insight to why gender bias exists on doctoral committees and how to lessen its occurrence. Impact on Society: The results of this study may increase awareness of gender bias and encourage faculty to be more inclusive and collaborative, particularly with their female colleagues, and as a result may help improve the climate for women faculty in engineering. Future Research: This study opens a discussion about the potential for gender imbalance and bias within an institution, particularly with respect to collaboration and inclusion. Future work may explore other indicators beyond doctoral committee representation.
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Gan, Bing Siang. "The pyramids of Gizeh, reductionist research-based progress, unintended consequences and the complexity of medicine." Clinical and Investigative Medicine 41 (November 3, 2018): 29–31. http://dx.doi.org/10.25011/cim.v41i2.31434.
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Bing graduated from the Medical Faculty at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, The Netherlands in 1988. He then completed a PhD in Medical Sciences (University of Calgary), internship (University of Regina) and surgical residency (University of Western Ontario) and post-residency clinical fellowships (University of Toronto and Harvard University) followed by a research post-doctoral fellowship (Department of Cell Biology, University of Toronto). Bing has been with the Roth | McFarlane Hand and Upper Limb Centre at St. Joseph’s Health Centre since 1998. He is a Professor of Surgery and Medical Biophysics at Western University. His clinical practice focuses on hand and wrist surgery, microsurgical reconstruction and complex wound reconstruction, with a particular clinical and research interest in patients with Dupuytren’s contracture. He is also interested in other fibrosing conditions, such as hypertrophic scarring. Bing was a Canadian Society for Clinical Investigation (CSCI) Member of Council 2004-2011and CSCI President 2009-2011.
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Boyer, Patricia G., Lorna Holtman, Carole H. Murphy, and Beverley Thaver. "A partnership across the ocean between the University of the Western Cape and the University of Missouri-St. Louis: Facilitating a global research programme for doctoral students." Learning and Teaching 7, no. 2 (2014): 58–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/latiss.2014.070204.
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The downturn of the global economy requires universities worldwide to do more with fewer resources. These conditions have presented an opportunity for two universities, the University of the Western Cape and the University of Missouri-St. Louis, to collaborate on a research course offered to postgraduate students. The purpose of this article is to outline the overall administration, management and structure of an innovative research programme between two countries. The aim is also to share the experiences and challenges of this research partnership, to explain how the parties involved navigated policies, to demonstrate what expertise the two educational institutions gained from the collaboration and to recount the benefits received by students and faculty from working internationally.
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Collins, Todd A., Christopher A. Cooper, and H. Gibbs Knotts. "Scholarly Productivity in Non-Ph.D. Departments." PS: Political Science & Politics 43, no. 03 (2010): 509–14. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1049096510000740.
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AbstractPolitical scientists hail from large, research-intensive universities like the Ohio State University, regional comprehensive schools like Western Kentucky University, and small teaching-intensive institutions like Mars Hill College. Despite this diversity, most studies of the political science discipline overlook the contributions of individuals from non-Ph.D. departments. To address this oversight, we compare the publishing rates of scholars with four types of affiliations: non-Ph.D. departments, Ph.D. departments, non-U.S. departments, and nonacademic institutions. We focus particularly on whether faculty from non-Ph.D. departments publish in different types of journals than faculty from other departments, and whether the institutional affiliations of editorial board members corresponds to the institutional affiliations of published authors. We find that people from non-Ph.D. departments represent 16% of the authors in our sample of political science journals, and their contributions are particularly noteworthy in certain types of journals. We also demonstrate that the institutions represented on editorial boards generally do not reflect the institutional affiliations of the authors who publish in these journals.
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Kirchner, Stefan, and Sebastian Recker. "Risk in Law – Law in Risk: The 50th Annual Meeting of Public Law Assistants in Greifswald, 23–26 February 2010." German Law Journal 11, no. 5 (2010): 551–67. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s2071832200018708.
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The 50th Assistententagung, the annual meeting of public law assistants, convened this year in Greifswald. Greifswald is not only home to academic institutions, but also has a long legal history and is the host city of both the State Constitutional Court and the Highest Court of Administrative Law in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The meeting's aim was to facilitate an exchange between postdoctoral and doctoral candidates on questions relating to public law. Until 1959, the assistants in public law, who are usually conducting doctoral or post-doctoral studies, had been admitted to the annual meeting of public law professors. Assistants could benefit from professors' wealth of experience, including how to structure lectures and how to answer difficult questions, through participation in the Public Law Professors' Meeting. With the exclusion of non-professors from the annual Staatsrechtslehrertagung in the 1950s, assistants no longer had a forum to learn how to perform as academics. This exclusion resulted in the beginning of the annual meeting of German-speaking public law assistants in 1961 in Hamburg, to which not only postdoctoral candidates, but also doctoral candidates were welcomed. The meeting served as both a training course and an opportunity for academic exchange. And it was therefore in accordance with tradition that Jörg Scharrer, who hosted the first panel, had to ask the dean of the law faculty at Greifswald University, Prof. Dr. Axel Beater, to leave the building before opening the first session.
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Cronan, Terry A., Charles Van Liew, Julia Stal, et al. "In the Eye of the Beholder: Students’ Views of Mentors in Psychology." Teaching of Psychology 47, no. 1 (2019): 15–23. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0098628319888067.
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The purpose of the present study was to determine whether students’ views of mentors have changed as a function of the increased number of faculty members conducting research and the inclusion of undergraduate students in faculty mentors’ research teams, using reports from current students. The participants were 227 undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral students at two large, Western public universities located in the United States. One institution was a research-intensive university and the other was not. Students were asked to complete a questionnaire about whether they had a mentor, the characteristics of their mentors, and their perceptions of their mentors. The findings indicated that 28.5% of undergraduates and 95% of graduate students had mentors. Undergraduate students were significantly more likely to choose mentors for being inspiring instructors, and graduate students were significantly more likely to choose mentors because of interest in their research. The most important characteristic of both good and bad mentors was personality. Students at all levels perceived their mentors as very interested in their futures. Mentor satisfaction was high among students at all levels. The findings are encouraging, and they provide evidence that psychology has adapted well to the increased number of faculty conducting research and to the inclusion of undergraduate students in research.
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Bøgelund, Pia, and Erik de Graaff. "The Road to Become a Legitimate Scholar: A Case Study of International PhD Students in Science and Engineering." International Journal of Doctoral Studies 10 (2015): 519–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.28945/2325.
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The purpose of the doctoral education process is to create and legitimize scholarly researchers. This transformation, from student to scholar, is widely discussed in the literature. However, recent rapid changes in university culture have resulted in less time for supervision, stricter completion deadlines, and a greater focus on efficiency and productivity. This has had an impact on this transition process, and this impact has not been widely studied. The aim of this article is to understand the consequences of the current trends for PhD students and the education of PhD students in general. The article is based on interviews with 14 international students from two different research programs at the Faculty of Engineering and Science at Aalborg University in Denmark. The case of international PhD students in a western setting is singled out as a challenging case for becoming a legitimate scholar, since they face the additional challenge of becoming socialised into their new foreign setting. Overall, the study concludes that the transition process of doctoral students is affected by the way different supervisors deal with current university trends and how PhD students fit or do not fit into their knowledge production practices. The study identifies matches or mismatches in a knowledge production perspective, quality of contact, and degree of independence of the PhD student as factors that influence whether a transition process can be marked as sound, troublesome, or lacking. Finally, the study identifies an overall risk of neglecting the more interdependent types of international PhD students. Suggestions are given as how to address this risk.
Dissertations / Theses on the topic "Western Kentucky University doctoral faculty"
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Yanul, Travis. "Evaluating Faculty Performance: A Comparison of Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales Developed for Western Kentucky University Psychology Department Faculty." TopSCHOLAR®, 2008. http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/1037.
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The current study consisted of a comparison of Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales (BARS) developed in 2001 and 2008 for the evaluation of the performance of faculty in the Western Kentucky University Psychology Department. BARS generally are less susceptible to various types of rating error than are other rating formats, and are highly relevant to the target job because they utilize behavioral examples of performance. Furthermore, BARS development requires the participation of job incumbents. In both 2001 and 2008, Psychology Department faculty members were involved in every phase of the development process of the BARS instruments addressed in the current study. The new BARS format contains five broad categories of performance with 12 redefined performance dimensions within these categories. The faculty identified a number of new behavioral exemplars for each performance dimension. The new BARS offers several benefits over the previous BARS. Faculty, particularly newer faculty not involved in developing the 2001 format, should be more satisfied with the new instrument; faculty should perceive both the development process and the resulting instrument to be fair; and faculty should consider the instrument to be more valid because of their direct involvement in providing the content. Future research should be conducted to directly assess faculty perceptions of the BARS instrument and development process.
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Vesey, Reed. "Does Sex Discrimination Exist in Faculty Salaries at Western Kentucky University? An Empirical Examination of the Wage Gap." TopSCHOLAR®, 1992. http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/1841.
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This thesis examines wage differentials between male and female faculty salaries at Western Kentucky University. A human capital model of salary determination is examined by using regression analysis on relevant personal and job characteristics of faculty members. A large portion of the wage gap between men and women is explained through differences in the personal and job characteristics. A portion of the wage gap remains unexplained, however, the probability of discrimination playing a substantial role in salary is very small.
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Purdy, Meghan K. "Faculty Perceptions of Campus Diversity." TopSCHOLAR®, 2012. http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/1140.
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The primary purpose of this study was to assess faculty perceptions of campus diversity at Western Kentucky University. A Diversity Survey was developed and administered to faculty at Western Kentucky University. Responses from the 378 fulltime faculty members who completed the survey were used in this study. Composites including campus diversity climate, satisfaction with diversity effects, race, gender, and religion were formed from the survey items for use in the analyses. Results indicated that minority and women faculty perceive campus diversity less favorably than do majority and men faculty.
Book chapters on the topic "Western Kentucky University doctoral faculty"
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Monaghan, James M. "Design of an Online Community of Practice to Support an Emerging Doctoral Culture." In Cases on Online Tutoring, Mentoring, and Educational Services. IGI Global, 2010. http://dx.doi.org/10.4018/978-1-60566-876-5.ch009.
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During the initial accreditation process for California State University, San Bernardino (CSUSB)’s new doctorate in educational leadership, the accrediting body, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), presented the institution with a serious concern. Reviewers of CSUSB’s proposal to offer their first doctorate indicated that the institution did not have a history of a doctoral culture. The challenge was how to acculturate students into a doctoral culture in the absence of an established doctoral culture? The university proposed to leverage their track record creating and nurturing departmental online communities of practice by creating and nurturing a similar community of practice for scholars in the doctoral program. This online community of practice was intended to provide scaffolding which was similar to that which occurs in full-time doctoral programs where faculty and students regularly interact in both formal and informal settings. In designing the online community of practice, the Office of Distributed Learning built upon the expertise developed in the successful implementation of similar communities of practice for numerous departments across the campus.
Conference papers on the topic "Western Kentucky University doctoral faculty"
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Schmaltz, Kevin. "Design of Experiments Plan With a Capstone Experimentation Course." In ASME 2004 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition. ASMEDC, 2004. http://dx.doi.org/10.1115/imece2004-60831.
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The Mechanical Engineering faculty at Western Kentucky University have developed and implemented a Design of Experiments Plan to assure that graduates of the program have acquired the skills necessary to design and conduct experiments and analyze experimental results. The ME faculty have defined the components of design of experiments, agreed to levels of competence that are expected as a student progresses through the program, and developed assessment tools to quantify student achievement. Instruction is integrated over a dozen courses, and students finally demonstrate the ability to select experimental tools and methods, and apply them to analyze less-defined experimental problems in a senior capstone experimentation class. This class requires student teams to complete three different experiences—mechanical, materials and thermal. The Design of Experiments Plan provides a framework for building upon previous lab work, assessing student progress, and adjusting lab coverage based on prior assessments to assure that graduates of the program are capable experimental practitioners upon graduation.
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Schmaltz, Kevin, Christopher Moore, and Joel Lenoir. "Professional Tools Instruction Within an Overall ME Design Curriculum." In ASME 2009 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition. ASMEDC, 2009. http://dx.doi.org/10.1115/imece2009-11150.
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The Mechanical Engineering faculty at Western Kentucky University have developed and implemented a Professional Plan to assure that graduates of the program have experienced key areas of the engineering profession and demonstrated their abilities to perform in a professional manner. The Professional Components within the plan include Engineering Design, Professional Communications, Professional Tools and Engineering Ethics; students receive instruction in at least one course per academic year and are expected to develop within each component. This paper will detail the Professional Tools component, which provides students with computational design tools and prototype realization skills supporting the Engineering Design demands placed on them. Computational tools include software for traditional communication and data processing, solid modeling and analysis, engineering computation and project management. Prototype realization skills encompass the typical metal machining operations necessary to create a functioning reciprocating air-powered engine and activities required for electro-mechanical device construction and testing. Higher level prototyping skills, such as rapid prototyping and CNC machining, are presented to students who can choose to become proficient with these activities or can engage other trained students to assist with their design project needs. The foundation of the four-year Professional Plan is centered on engineering design and problem solving. By exposing freshmen to hands-on projects, sophomores to design-analyze-and-build internal projects, and juniors to team-based prototype realization and external projects, a meaningful senior capstone design sequence involving external customers can validate and refine professional competencies of graduates, rather than introducing students to project activities. Professional tools instruction is interwoven with the other Professional Component instruction. While prototyping training is structured to provide a safe and efficient environment for the students at all times, computational tools are sometimes introduced as required for a project, and at other times well before needed for projects. Refinement to the Professional Plan has been guided by ongoing assessment, which is performed at course level at the end of a semester, and through program outcome assessment reviewed on an annual basis. The paper will detail the Western Kentucky University Professional Tools component of the overall Professional Plan, which provides a framework developing necessary student competencies, building upon previous coursework, assessing student progress, and adjusting course coverage based on prior assessments to assure that departing graduates will be capable of immediately contribute in their professional careers.
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Lenoir, Joel. "Rapid, Traditional, and Virtual: Prototypes in the Undergraduate Curriculum." In ASME 2006 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition. ASMEDC, 2006. http://dx.doi.org/10.1115/imece2006-14651.
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The Mechanical Engineering (ME) faculty at Western Kentucky University (WKU) has developed a curricular plan to balance the strengths and weaknesses of three types of design prototyping: rapid, traditional, and virtual. Rapid prototyping refers to any of the modern 3D printing tools, such as Fused Deposition Modeling. Traditional prototyping has been defined as primarily machined parts, ranging from simple fabricated parts to CNC machined components. Virtual prototyping is used to describe designs that exist only in the digital domain as parts and assemblies in a 3D drawing program. Over the entire four years of the WKU ME curriculum, students work on a range of projects that allow them to utilize all three types of prototypes. The ME Freshman Experience allows students to blend the study of design methodologies with basic instruction in machine tools. Each student designs, builds, and tests their own air-powered steam engine. Sophomore Design finds the students working not only on a virtual design project, but also a more extended design-build-test project focused on experimentation. Junior design blends an externally sponsored virtual design along with the ASME Regional Student Competition (RSC). As with the RSC, Capstone Design in the senior year allows students to use a balance of all three types of prototyping as they judge appropriate and/or requested by their external sponsor. Design projects utilizing rapid and traditional prototyping resources require a large commitment by faculty and staff for support. A balance between time, resources, and level of student effort must be maintained, but careful planning can lead to improved student design performance. Virtual prototyping can appear to be easier to manage, but student expertise in creating fidelity between digital drawings and the desired physical parts varies widely. The deficiencies can show up when creating assemblies, but students can often mask the errors. The most important aspect of all these prototyping activities is the need for continual interaction between students, faculty, and staff. Students do not usually possess an innate project management ability, but experience has shown that strong project management skills are necessary for successful prototyping activities. All persons involved in the efforts must understand the prototyping facilities available, the time and resources necessary to utilize them effectively, and the reasonable expectations of the course effort. Students can gain understanding through repeated course exposure, but faculty must present a consistent voice with respect to the technologies available.
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Choate, Robert, and Kevin Schmaltz. "The ASME Student Design Contest as a Transitional Design Experience." In ASME 2005 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition. ASMEDC, 2005. http://dx.doi.org/10.1115/imece2005-81337.
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Teams of Mechanical Engineering students at Western Kentucky University (WKU) participate in the ASME Student Design Contest (SDC) as a component of a Junior Design course. The required course activities include a design review, a mock contest at WKU, and project documentation. Students are also given the option of attending the Regional Conference SDC. Over the past two years, every team has participated at the Regional SDC, with 19 of 27 students attending. Both the 2004 and 2005 WKU teams won the regional competition. The Junior Design course uses the SDC as an intermediate component of a Professional Plan developed and implemented by the WKU ME faculty to assure that program graduates have experienced key areas of the engineering profession and demonstrated the ability to perform in a professional manner. The Professional Component consists of Engineering Design, Professional Communications, Professional Tools, and Ethics. Students receive instruction and practice in all four areas at least once per academic year. With the Engineering Design sequence, freshmen individually build an artifact, sophomores function in design teams, and juniors extend the design experience to an external audience. Technical rigor and faculty expectations obviously rise at each level. The goal is for seniors to be prepared to implement an industry-based project subject to realistic constraints and customer needs. As one of the two design projects in the Junior Design course, the SDC provides a structured design experience with an external flavor. Student teams must demonstrate both problem solving under constraints as well as creativity. To reinforce the economic aspects of design, teams are given a budget, and must fund over expenditures themselves. In addition to the design component of the SDC, the project also includes Professional Communications in the form of design reviews and design notebooks, and Professional Tools such as software for communication, CAD and analytical calculations. The 2005 class has been effective producing rapid prototype components of their designs from CAD models. The Junior Design implementation of the SDC has evolved over the past three years guided by ongoing assessment of both the course and the Professional Component program outcomes. The milestones and associated requirements in the ASME SDC project provides a definitive set of deliverables throughout the progression of the semester long experience. Individual and team performance can be monitored and evaluated with timely feedback, and course outcomes map well into program level assessment. This is a strength of the Professional Component framework that allows for building upon previous coursework, assessing student progress, and adjusting course coverage based on prior assessments to assure that graduating ME students are capable of practicing as engineers.
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Jernigan, Johnathan, Christopher Moore, Ron Rizzo, and Kevin Schmaltz. "Design and Build of a Portable Instrumentation Elevation Tower." In ASME 2008 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition. ASMEDC, 2008. http://dx.doi.org/10.1115/imece2008-67365.
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The Western Kentucky University (WKU) Department of Engineering is collaborating with National Park Service – Inventory and Monitoring scientists to support National Park Service (NPS) cave environment and ecosystems research. The NPS, together with the United States Geological Survey, provided the funding that has allowed WKU Engineering students, working with WKU faculty and staff and NPS scientists, to design, build, test and deliver two transportable instrumentation lift systems. Each lift tower has a stationary top platform and a secondary platform capable of continuously raising and lowering instrumentation over extended, unattended periods. NPS-owned instrumentation on the platforms collects air temperature, relative humidity and air velocity data, storing results to NPS-owned devices located on or below the tower. NPS scientists will use the system to gather more accurate data on the quality and movement of air within cave passages and develop predictive models of the environment. The new system will allow measurements as high as 30 feet and make long-term data collection feasible. A variety of design challenges were met by the students working on the project. Portability, flexibility and weight reduction were achieved through a collapsible aluminum base securing the tower, with three-foot PVC sections to build varying tower heights. Stability was accomplished with a tensioning cable system and a gripping mechanism integrated into the base to secure the incomplete tower. Cable spool design and data collection programming achieved positioning accuracy of the moving platform. In addition to satisfying functional needs, the towers were also designed to avoid damage to cave surfaces and meet challenging operating requirements. Tower components are reasonably lightweight and durable, components are shock-resistant, moisture-resistant, easy to dry and clean, and non-corroding. The design modularity facilitates transport by two NPS personnel using duffle bags, and is easy to set up and move. The towers support multiple instruments weighing as much as 10 pounds, can be modified to support instruments in varied configurations, and can be repaired in-house by NPS personnel. The towers were designed and tested to assure user friendly, reliable operation. Tower stability, ease of tower construction, accuracy of platform movement, and required battery life issues were solved by the students.
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Schmaltz, Kevin. "ASME Open Source Project: Prototype Re-Design and Conclusion of a Human Powered Water Purification Device." In ASME 2009 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition. ASMEDC, 2009. http://dx.doi.org/10.1115/imece2009-11293.
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The Western Kentucky University Mechanical Engineering program partnered with ASME to host an Open Source student design project to develop a prototype water purification device in 2008. The project was funded by an ASME grant and is part of a continuing initiative by ASME to extend the relevance of their annual Student Design Competitions (SDC) and link student projects to societal concerns. The Open Source Project extended the 2007 SDC which required students to design and construct human-powered devices to purify water. The design challenge was inspired by Hurricane Katrina-like temporary disasters, but also addresses one of the National Academy of Engineering’s Grand Challenges for Engineering: provide access to clean water. Affordable and practical solutions are needed to provide drinkable water to people who do not have the equipment, power or other resources necessary to assure safe water supplies. During the spring and early summer of 2008, five students from various SDC teams qualifying for the 2007 SDC finals used their competition experience to develop a new design for a human powered water purification system. Team members were distributed at universities from Sweden to Venezuela to New Mexico, and therefore interacted via internet and teleconferences to refine the design. Ongoing work was posted to the ASME website, allowing people external to the team a chance to critique or contribute to the design. The team met at WKU in May to construct and test a prototype of the design. The initial prototype was able to purify water at 10 times the rate of any SDC devices, using a combination of passive sand filtration, solar heat collection and mechanical friction heating. While this was a marked improvement, the reality is that the human effort to purify this water is still excessive. The second generation prototype was completed by faculty, staff and students at WKU during the 2009 summer with the information learned and experiences gained from the initial prototype of the distributed team. This paper will discuss the evolution of the project design from the SDC to through the second prototype and the impact of the open source approach to the design process. The project represents ASME’s first attempt at executing an “Open Source” project, providing a forum for mechanical engineers around the world to contribute to solutions of critical social, economic and environmental problems. If the final design proves technically feasible, the Open Source team will seek support from the ASME Center for Engineering Entrepreneurship and Innovation to commercialize the design.