SPSU students collect three NSBE research awards
SPSU made a splash at the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) Fall Regional Conference in Jackson, Miss. last month, with two students bringing home three awards.

Caleb Burke, a senior electrical engineering technology major, won first place for his poster presentation and second place for an oral presentation of his research on "Exploring Effective Techniques to Fabricate Thin Film Cells Composed of CZTS (Cu2ZnSnS4).”

Nekeshia Griffin, a senior biology major, won third place for her oral presentation, “The Examination of the Population Growth Rates of the Redbreast and Bluegill Sunfish in Nickajack Creek.”

She was selected afterward to work as an apprentice researcher with Dr. Robert L. Howard of NASA’s Johnson Space Center on a project of her choice next summer at NASA’s Mars Desert Research Station. This is a facility in Utah that simulates a human outpost on the planet Mars. Teams of scientists, engineers and students routinely conduct two-week expeditions to the facility to study various aspects of life on Mars, work that is intended to help prepare the U.S. for eventual manned missions to Mars, the moon and other planets.

SPSU professor emeritus to address GSPE
Dr. Walt Thomas, SPSU professor emeritus, will give a presentation on business, engineering and research ethics at the monthly meeting of the Georgia Society of Professional Engineers (GSPE) on Mon., Dec. 12 in Tucker.

Dr. Thomas has over 35 years of experience teaching textile engineering and technology and more than 20 years teaching professional ethics at SPSU and Georgia Tech. He currently teaches apparel and textile technology, industrial engineering technology and management as a part-time professor in the Industrial Engineering Technology Department. Formerly, he was the head of the Apparel and Textile Engineering Technology Department.

The GSPE meeting will take place at 6 p.m. at Piccadilly Cafeteria Northlake in Tucker and is open to engineering professionals, students and anyone interested in engineering. Those who wish to attend are asked to RSVP to 404-919-3640 or ronscinta@hotmail.com.

SPSU Hornets make first appearance in NAIA soccer quarterfinals

The SPSU Hornets made it further than they ever have in the NAIA Men’s Soccer National Championship this year, but they fell to Lindsey Wilson College (Ky.) in the quarterfinals on Nov. 30 in a game that ended 3-2 in overtime.

Led by head coach Kom Momeni, this was the Hornets’ third appearance in the NAIA Championship, and SPSU was the No. 10 seed in the tournament, held in Orange Beach, Ala. After capturing its first SSAC Tournament Championship in mid-November, the team triumphed in the first two rounds of the NAIA Championships and advanced for the first time in SPSU history to the quarterfinals.

The Hornets end the 2011 season with a record of 17-3-2. Congratulations on a great season to all involved!

Student-designed projects on display Dec. 12
Students in Prof. Scott Tippens’ challenging Electrical and Computer Engineering Technology (ECET) Digital III course will display some of their technological creations, ranging from a solar-powered lawn mower to an automatic plant-watering system, from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Mon., Dec. 12.

Also among the items to be shown off in the gallery of the Engineering Technology Center are a remote-controlled blimp, a wireless power meter, an autonomous submarine motor control and an oven, security system and military tent that all make use of the sun rather than electricity.

Recent faculty activities
• Dr. Chih-Cheng Hung, a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, recently had a paper published in the journal Decision Support Systems entitled “Multiple Costs Based Decision Making with Back-Propagation Neural Networks.” The paper investigated the merging and weighting of accuracy and misclassification costs. The journal is published by Elsevier, a company that publishes thousands of books and magazines and is the world’s leading provider of science and health information.

• Dr. M. A. Karim, an assistant professor in the Division of Engineering, was recently invited to visit the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) Waterways Experiment Station (WES) Environmental Laboratory in Vicksburg, Miss. While there, he presented a seminar titled “CEHIXM Extraction of Metals from Soils and Sediments.” During his visit, he also discussed potential opportunities for future collaboration with SPSU on sediment remediation research.

• Dr. Omar Zia, a professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Technology Department and a 2010 Fulbright Scholar who taught in Tajikistan, has been selected to serve as a member of the committee that awards Fulbright grants to U.S. scholars doing research in South and Central Asia. Dr. Zia has also been invited to serve as the keynote speaker at a seminar this month on the exploitation and application of wind energy at the North China University of Technology in Beijing, China.

New hire in Registrar’s Office
Maralee Clarke is a recent hire in the Registrar’s Office as a DegreeWorks specialist and degree requirements coordinator. She has been working in the office as a temporary employee and was recently selected to fill the full-time position. She also worked in the SPSU business office from 2004-10.

Clarke has 15 years of experience working in education at the high school and university levels.

She can be reached at ext. 3203 or at mclarke@spsu.edu.

Upcoming holiday schedule
The fall semester is winding down. Finals began today and will run through Tues., Dec. 13. The university will be closed for winter break from Mon., Dec. 26, until Tues., Jan 3, 2012.

SPSU’s dining facilities will close for the winter break on Sat., Dec. 17, and will remain closed until Mon., Jan. 9, the day spring semester classes begin.

Have news to share?
If your department has an upcoming event or other news to share with the campus community, please send an e-mail with all the pertinent information to Diane Payne (dpayne@spsu.edu). To be considered for use in a specific issue of the SPSU Hornet’s Nest, a news item must be submitted no less than four weeks before the date of the issue.

Volume 4, Issue 46
Dec. 7, 2011