OU Engineering

Moises Martinez has been named the 2011-2012 Outstanding Senior for the College of Engineering. Moises is a mechanical engineering major from Mustang, Okla. He will serve as a representative of the College of Engineering Class of 2012 at Commencement and Convocation ceremonies in May. Moises has contributed his time and leadership to a variety of campus and community organizations including the Multicultural Engineering Program, Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, Deans Leadership Class, and The Big Event. Among his awards he was cited as a National Hispanic Scholar, ConocoPhillips Spirit Scholar, Outstanding Junior in Mechanical Engineering, and was awarded the Deans Advisory Board on Diversity Wayne Steen Scholarship.

By Karen Kelly Norman, Okla. – A University of Oklahoma engineering graduate student has been selected to serve as the first Department of Energy Student Ambassador from OU. Christella Chavez, a doctoral student in the OU School of Electrical and Computer Engineering’s Telecommunications program in Tulsa, will work to expand the DOE’s presence on campus and connect student jobseekers with DOE job and internship opportunities. Chavez was encouraged to apply as a Student Ambassador last summer while working at the DOE’s Los Alamos National Laboratory, where she was involved in building a computational model for assessing and rebuilding the telecommunications infrastructure after a major disaster interrupts operations. Chavez considers the experience in Los Alamos “not just a career changer but a life changer.” She was impressed by the level of the DOE’s expertise, facilities and knowledge coupled with their pursuit of qualified individuals with diverse backgrounds that include not...

President and CEO of Williams Rachel Anderson Hill Alan Armstrong took over as president and CEO of Williams in January 2011, having served the company in a variety of capacities since 1986, when he started at the Tulsa-based company as an engineer. When a young engineer started with a Tulsa-based energy company in 1986, he didn’t know he would one day serve as the Fortune 500 company’s top officer. But then, one doesn’t often hear of someone who spends his entire professional career at one company. Today, that is unusual in and of itself. Alan Armstrong is not exactly a household name, but his bio can be found in the likes of Forbes and Businessweek. Why? Armstrong assumed the role of president and CEO of Williams in January 2011. As the successor to Steven Malcolm, who led Williams for eight years, his first seven months at the helm have been, well, pretty busy. Armstrong is leading Williams at a time when there are many opportunities for growth. He serves on a mile-long list...

Written by John J. Dwyer Friday, 14 October 2011 Published in The New American It is a classic story of Americana, with all the excitement, dreams, struggle, disappointment, ingenuity, resilience, triumph, love, loss, and enduring lessons common to the most memorable of such tales. Also common to such sagas — particularly those of the Christian sort — the most enduring impact is still uncoiling with the long passage of years and the generations. Those who knew Garman O. Kimmell, founder and builder of Oklahoma City-based Kimray, Inc., remember him best as a brilliant design engineer and a devout Christian man. He revolutionized the field of oil and gas production and made significant personal contributions to the field of heart treatment. But the technical nature of his inventions, coupled with a humble personality that eschewed personal glory, has consigned him to anonymity in previous American and even Oklahoman histories. That is the problem with history books — most of the...

Ceara Parks is a junior civil engineering major from Monroeville, Pennsylvania. Students active in the OU Society of Women Engineers traveled to Chicago to participate in the annual National conference Oct. 13-15. Three students placed in the Schlumberger Stilettos to Steeltoes essay competition: Ceara Parks, first place; Lauren Haynie, second place; and Carly Young, third place. The students were awarded $1,000, $500 and $250 each, respectively. Following is the first place essay entered by Ceara Parks: From my cubicle, I hope to be securely suspended from the top of the world. Instead of having a small window to peak out of from time to time, I will be observing my team’s designs from a 360 degree panorama. Below me, the floor will cease to exist; instead, the only force saving me from plummeting to the ground is the tension of the cables holding my body in place. No one told me that the road towards becoming a bridge inspector would be easy. However, it’s the sensation of p...

October 12, 2011 By James S. Tyree, The Norman Transcript NORMAN — An Australian environmental health engineer will be honored this month at the University of Oklahoma for his 30 years of trying to provide access to clean water for people in developing countries. University of Queensland professor Ben Fawcett was chosen to receive the OU International Water Prize during the 2011 OU International WaTER Conference. The event is scheduled for Oct. 24-26 and will be hosted by the OU College of Engineering’s Water Technologies for Emerging Regions (WaTER). Fawcett also plans to speak and deliver a presentation during the conference. “I hope to focus the minds of delegates at the conference on the sanitation and hygiene needs of at least a billion people living in slums in the towns and cities of the developing world — a number that is expected to double by 2030 and that will probably triple, to one third of the global population, by the middle of this century,” Fawcett said. He a...

Yacoub Najjar, professor of civil engineering, received the Thomas and Connie Paulson Civil Engineering Outstanding Faculty Award for up to two years. In addition to being a Thomas and Connie Paulson Civil Engineering Outstanding Faculty Member, Najjar has sat on the editorial boards of both the Computers and Geotechnics journal and the American Society of Civil Engineers' International Journal of Geomechanics. Najjar's research focuses on the application of artificial neural networks and computational mechanics to advance the civil infrastructure. He also conducts research on the interaction of soil and civil structures, transportation, geo-mechanics, geo-synthetics and geo-environmental systems. He has been published in many journals, teaches several courses at K-State and has received several awards and honors, including the Midwest Section Outstanding Teaching Award from the American Society of Engineering Education in 2006. Najjar received his bachelor's degree in ...