Engineering Senior Design Projects Receive Industry Sponsorships
Saturday's annual Fasenmyer conference, keynote open to the public
The School of Engineering at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, will welcome 20 regional and national sponsors to its annual Richard J. Fasenmyer Engineering Design Conference this Saturday, May 3, beginning at 8 a.m., in the Research and Economic Development Center (REDC).
This year’s conference will feature 156 senior engineering students who will present their capstone projects, the final requirement for many before graduating on May 17. The half-day event includes 58 technical presentations. The conference is free to attend; all but two presentations are open to the public. Parking is available in the Junker Center parking lot and the REDC parking deck.
Completion of a year-long applied design project is a graduation requirement for all engineering and engineering technology students at Penn State Behrend. More than half of this year’s presentations are sponsored by 20 corporations that “subcontracted” research to students because their organization lacks the time or technology to undertake the project. They include GE – Transportation, Nuvo Surgical, Eriez Magnetics, Corry Rubber, Dr. Gertrude A. Barber National Institute, JTM Bakery, Spinworks, Volt Vision, DNS Software, Impact Technology, Penn State Behrend’s School of Science, the college’s nursing program, and its RFID Center of Excellence, as well as Northrop Grumman, Dresser-Rand, Honda of America Manufacturing, Cummins Engine Company, Inc., Pittsburgh Plastics Manufacturing, Society of Automotive Engineers, and Truck-lite Company Incorporated.
The keynote speaker for the conference will be H. Allan Kidd, director of emerging technologies and worldwide engineering services for Dresser-Rand. He will speak beginning at 12:15 p.m. in the REDC’s Clark Café. His talk is also free and open to the public.
Kidd is responsible for technology acquisitions, launching emerging technologies with a five- to 10-year horizon, and supporting university programs. Kidd joined Dresser-Rand in 1978 and previously served as a design engineer and director of engineering development. He has authored numerous publications and contributed to a number of white papers and articles. Kidd earned a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering from Northeastern University and took graduate courses at Northeastern and Penn State.
Penn State Behrend’s annual senior design conference was renamed in 2005 to honor the late entrepreneur Richard J. Fasenmyer ’69, founder of RJF International Corp., a world leader in the manufacture and distribution of interior wallcoverings, industrial matting products, and specialty films. Fasenmyer was the college’s 1991 Alumni Fellow, was named a Penn State Distinguished Alumnus in 2000, and was the first individual to donate $1 million to the college.
Click here for a full program of this year’s conference.
The School of Engineering at Penn State Behrend offers three associate and seven baccalaureate degree programs, as well as one minor. Each program is accredited by either the Engineering Accreditation Commission (EAC) or the Technology Accreditation Commission (TAC) of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET). Students have access to 11 student chapters of honorary and professional organizations, such as the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE), Society of Women Engineers (SWE) and National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE). The School of Engineering and the Sam and Irene Black School of Business are co-located in the college’s $30 million, 160,000-square-foot Research and Economic Development Center, making Penn State Behrend one of the first institutions of higher education in the country to house its engineering and business schools together in the same facility. For more information, visit behrend.psu.edu.