OU Engineering

AT&T announced a $1 million contribution to the University of Oklahoma Foundation to support a program aimed at enhancing the educational experience of new engineering students, many of whom are minorities. Don Cain, president of AT&T Oklahoma, and Tom Landers, dean of the OU College of Engineering, made the announcement on campus on February 13th. "To continue to prosper and succeed, Oklahoma needs more Oklahomans to attend college, earn a degree and choose to live and work in our great state," Cain said. "We hope this program will help more students persevere with their course work, graduate and then use their talents and knowledge to make Oklahoma an even better place to live and work."  The AT&T contribution establishes an endowment for the newly named AT&T Summer Bridge Program. The program offers a group of freshman engineering students a three-week summer program before the start of the fall semester. Participants will be given intensive acade...

 Thomas L. Landers, Ph.D., P.E. Dean Look at Oklahoma’s leading and emerging industries and you’ll see the need for growing a strong engineering workforce. Campus career fairs attract diverse companies, all competing to hire engineers. The Oklahoma Employment Security Commission forecasts average annual engineering job openings will approach 500 per year through 2014 across all sectors, with biomedical, environmental and software engineering cited among Oklahoma’s top growth occupations. A recent survey of Oklahoma’s aerospace sector by the Governor’s Council for Workforce and Economic Development projected a shortage of over 600 engineers. We sometimes hear claims that America’s engineering workforce demands will be met by immigration and deferred retirements. These claims overlook some important realities. Many of our engineering jobs relate to national security and require U.S. citizenship. Retirement-eligible engineers offer valuable experience, but industry also requires entry...

 Oklahomans nervously awaited the release of the BCS standings on Dec. 2. OU still had a shot at the BCS title game. Unfortunately for Oklahoma, the Sooners were shipped out to the Fiesta Bowl, while Louisiana State went on to defeat the Ohio State Buckeyes in the title game. What few knew was that an invitation to the BCS title game had arrived in Norman. It came without fanfare or revelry. It was accepted humbly and quietly. Kevin Blake and Tyler Lane, the tech team of OU’s instant replay program, received their profession’s top honor when the Big 12 conference sent them to work the BCS title game, according to conference officials. “They have demonstrated the utmost level of professionalism,” said Walt Anderson, coordinator of Football Officials for the Big 12 Conference. “When we were awarded the National Championship, we knew we had to have our best people when that much is on the line.” Prior to receiving the invitation for the big dance this year, Lane said the OU crew succe...

 Three Dimensional Projected Images a Step Closer 3DIcon Corporation, a development-stage technology company, today announced that its primary research team at the University of Oklahoma (OU) has reached two critical milestones in the development of its CSpace™ (static volume display) technology. CSpace™ uses a clear, non-moving, volumetric projection medium into which light-emitting up-conversion nano-materials have been suspended. The ultimate goal of the CSpace™ research is to create a three-dimensional image by projecting precisely coordinated laser beams into the medium containing nano-materials, exciting the nano-materials to display the three primary colors of red, green, and blue and to create a full-color volumetric image. The materials development team, led by Dr. Gerard Newman, co-principal investigator of the 3DIcon Sponsored Research Agreement (SRA) and head of the materials research team for CSpace™, has achieved two critical technical milestones: (1) synthesized uniq...

 Daniel Resasco donned protective eyeglasses and walked into the laboratory of SouthWest NanoTechnologies on Monday morning to show off the process by which carbon nanotubes are made. Technicians were monitoring "reactors" in which the company's patented catalytic process creates tiny carbon nanotubes that are finding their way into a multitude of consumer and medical products. Carbon nanotubes are expected to be widely used in various composite applications because of their strength and light weight, as well as their ability to conduct electricity. Resasco invented the process that creates the single-wall carbon nanotubes that sell for $500 per gram. He was honored earlier this month by Small Times magazine as one of five finalists for its Innovator of the Year award. As his "CoMoCAT" catalytic process created nanotubes in nearby reactors, Resasco provided a glimpse into how the tiny technology will be used in the future. "They will be used in thin film tr...