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About the College

Accomplishments 2007-2008

  • BCET's enrollment in Fall 2007 was 2,683 majors (head count) who registered for a record credit hour (SCH) count of 17,262.  As compared to Fall 2003, this constituted 17% more students and 19% more credit hours.
  • BCET topped the US News & World Report survey (Jan. 21, 2008) that ranked engineering schools by SCH enrollments of their graduate distance learning programs.
  • BCET topped an ASEE Prism survey (March 2008) that ranked engineering management programs by the number of master's degrees awarded.
  • In 2006-2007, ODU awarded 335 bachelor's degrees in engineering and engineering technology, 247 master's and 22 Ph.D. degrees in engineering.
  • Five of the BCET's programs ranked among the nation's Top 100 in the National Science Foundation's 2006 research and development expenditure categories.  According to NSF, the university is ranked 69th in the nation in federal R&D funding in engineering and 81st for overall engineering R&D expenditures.
    • In total expenditures, aerospace engineering ranked 19th, electrical engineering 39th, mechanical engineering 85th and civil engineering at 85th. 
  • Initiated five new industrial research and development partnerships:
    • Lone Star Wind Alliance, Houston, TX.
    • Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding, Newport News, VA.
    • Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems, Philadelphia, PA.
    • Sentara Healthcare, Norfolk, VA.
    • MagneMotion, Inc., Boston, MA.
  • In 2007, BCET faculty produced 425 technical publications: 105 journal articles, 17 book chapters, 4 books, 221 papers in conference proceedings, and 77 reports.
  • BCET developed new academic programs that are at various stages of their implementation:
    • Five graduate programs, all leading to the new Doctorate of Engineering degree
    • For New College Institute in Martinsville, VA, a Motorsports engineering technology option in our general engineering technology program
    • New B.S. degree program in modeling and simulation engineering (SCHEV application in progress)
    • Minor in Marine Engineering was developed and approved
  • The Master of Engineering Management Program was re-certified by American Society of Engineering Management.
  • Completed the development of motorsports laboratories at Virginia International Raceway and held a much publicized ribbon cutting ceremony.
  • A new endowed chair professorship was developed in biomedical engineering.  The search is ongoing to fill this position. 
  • In 2007-2008, searches were conducted for sixteen teaching faculty and one faculty professional, including a department chair and an endowed chair professor.
  • Since August 2005, BCET recruited over 40 new people into faculty positions, including several endowed chairs.  Some of the most recent hires include:
    • Gon Namkoong, Assistant Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
    • Steven R. Walk, Assistant Professor, Electrical Engineering Technology
    • Uduzei Edgal, Assistant Professor, Electrical Engineering Technology
    • Guido Lopez, Lecturer, Engineering Technology
    • Rani Muhdi, Assistant Professor, Engineering Management & Systems Eng.
    • Patrick Hester, Assistant Professor, Engineering Mgmt & Systems Eng.
    • Kevin Adams, Assistant Professor, Engineering Mgmt & Systems Eng.
    • Stella Bondi, Assistant Professor, Civil Engineering Technology
    • Scott Riechle, Assistant Professor, Civil Engineering Technology
  • As a result, BCET is expected to possibly double its women faculty within just 3 years.  In the same period, by hiring new faculty who are African Americans, Asians, and Hispanics, BCET broadened its already diverse population.
  • Six faculty members were recommended for tenure, promotion or recognitions:
    • Isaac Flory and Ghaith Rabadi for tenure and to the rank of associate professor
    • Mounir Laroussi and Cheng Lin to the rank of full professor
    • Ravi Joshi and Duc Nguyen for Eminent Scholarship
  • BCET recruited five additional Turkish Air Force officers as graduate students (4 PhDs and 1 master's) who started in August 2007.  The total number of students through this partnership exceeded 40.
  • Alok Verma was named the President of International Society of Agile Manufacturing and the Chief Editor of its journal, Int'l. J. of Agile Manufacturing.
  • Ravindra Joshi was named one of four Doctoral Mentorship award recipients of the University.
  • Karl Schoenbach and Muhammad Arif Malik received a U.S. patent for a plasma reactor that could be attached to the exhaust system of motor vehicles to dramatically reduce harmful emissions.
  • Ghaith Rabadi received the NASA Board Invention Award for the invention of "A Generic Simulation Environment for Modeling Future Launch Operations."
  • Researchers from VMASC and Engineering Management and Systems Engineering won two of the top five Euro SIWzie awards given to papers presented at the 2007 Euro Simulation Interoperability Workshop in Genoa, Italy.
  • The research of Ahmed Noor was spotlighted in the November 2007 issue of Mechanical Engineering magazine, a publication of ASME, in an article titled, "Re-Engineering Healthcare."
  • Center for Advanced Engineering Environments (CAEE) was featured in both the August 2007 issue of Mechanical Engineering magazine of ASME and the June 2007 issue of Aerospace America magazine of AIAA.
  • Adrian Gheorghe and Asad Khattak led a large grant for the State-funded project that focused on the vulnerability and the resilience of Hampton Roads in the aftermath of a possible disaster.
  • Andreas Tolk received certificate of appreciation for his "valuable contribution and outstanding support to the Advanced Information Systems Technology program and the NASA Earth Science Division."
  • Karl Schoenbach received the 2007 Peter Haas Pulsed Power Award at the International Pulsed Power and Plasma Science Conference.
  • Karl Schoenbach received international exposure when a figure from one of his publications was selected for the cover of the DNA and Cell Biology magazine.
  • Colin Britcher was appointed as the Secretary and the Treasurer of the National Aerospace Department Chairs Association.
  • Oktay Baysal served as the Executive Committee Chair, Virginia Microelectronics Consortium.  This is the first year that the all six institutions completed hiring their VMEC endowed professors.  They were introduced to the members of JCOTS and two Virginia Secretaries at a breakfast event in Richmond sponsored by the semiconductor industry.
  • Oktay Baysal led an interest group in microelectronics, MEMS and nanotechnology to produce a promotional booklet on the research and capabilities at ODU in these fields.  The group is also preparing several proposal targeting funding from the Commonwealth Technology Research Fund.
  • During the year the College and its faculty/staff were featured in local news media over thirty times.  For example, Vijayan Asari, professor of electrical and computer engineering and director of BCET's Vision Lab was featured in The Virginian-Pilot and Inside Business.
  • Adrian Gheorghe, professor of engineering management and systems engineering, named Section Editor for Energy Security at Wiley Handbook Science and Technology for Homeland Security.
  • Guoqing Zhou was appointed Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions of Geoscience and Remote Sensing, the leading international journal in this field.
  • Min Song won the Early Career Development award from the National Science Foundation.
  • Mounir Laroussi and Richard Nuccitelli's Bioelectric research was featured on The History Channel's documentary "Star Trek Tech".
  • Karl Schoenbach's article "Microplasmas and Applications" was selected one of the leading articles published in the Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics.
  • Nevan Shearer, an Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Ph.D. student, was awarded a scholarship from the National Defense Industrial Association.
  • Mounir Laroussi's paper "Plasma Interaction with Microbes" was selected by the New Journal of Physics (NJP) as one of the most significant articles of the decade.
  • Robert Ash was appointed by Governor Tim Kaine to the Aerospace Advisory Council.
  • Mike McGinnis was selected as a Fellow for the Military Operations Research Society.
  • Mounir Laroussi was named Distinguished Lecturer for 2008 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
  • The Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) successfully launched two rockets and expected to have a significant partnership in the new $171M space station re-supply project of the Orbital Sciences Corp.
  • 5 PhD students, 2 master's students and 5 undergraduates were selected for the Marine Engineering scholarships and assistantships.
  • BCET initiated its Alumni Lecture Series and held its inaugural lecture in April 2008.
  • Jennifer Grimsley, a BCET mechanical engineering Ph.D. student, received two awards:
    • Rosenblatt Young Engineer Award of the Navy
    • Rear Admiral George W. Melville Award
  • The College's student chapter of the American Society of Naval Engineers was reactivated.
  • Second Lt. Emma Christine Taylor, a 2007 BCET graduate was one of fifty-eight ROTC cadets and midshipmen to participate in a commissioning ceremony hosted by the President of the United States.
  • George Richardson, a marine engineering technology student, was selected for the Naval Research Enterprise Internship Program at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren VA.