Posts Tagged ‘engineering’
New U-Mich joint biomedical department holds promise for better healthcare technologies
Bringing engineers and physicians together under new structure will accelerate discovery and improve training
ANN ARBOR, Mich.– In an effort to develop more technologies that improve health care, the University of Michigan will established a Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) with footholds in its top-ranked College of Engineering and Medical School, in an action approved by the U-M Board of Regents today. The change takes effect Sept. 1, 2012.
The department is currently housed in engineering, though its researchers regularly collaborate with medical doctors and a number of Medical School faculty hold joint appointments there. The change in academic structure is designed to bring biomedical engineering researchers closer to the patients their technologies aim to benefit, say leaders in both schools.
“As engineers, one of our goals is to invent and develop technologies that make a difference in society,” said Douglas Noll, the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Professor of Biomedical Engineering and current department chair. “By linking ourselves in the Medical School, we will establish closer connections for our faculty and students to practicing clinicians and the health care system, which will allow us to better identify and translate our discoveries to medical care and to offer new educational opportunities for our students.”
As part of this plan, BME will expand over the next five years from approximately 20 primary faculty members to 35 Most of the new hires will be Medical School appointments. The department will retain its space on North Campus in engineering and in the North Campus Research Complex. It will also open a space at the Medical School in the future. Already at the NCRC, a new biointerfaces laboratory has opened that allows medical, engineering and physics researchers to collaborate on projects.
“Patients everywhere already benefit from the work of engineers and physicians working together, but closer cooperation will bring even greater potential to develop new devices and technologies to improve human health, while training students in a collaborative environment that maximizes exposure to both fields,” said James O. Woolliscroft, M.D., dean of the Medical School and Lyle C. Roll Professor of Medicine.
U-M provost Phil Hanlon notes, “The new department will enhance partnerships between educational programs, laboratory research and clinical medicine, leveraging the strengths of both schools and accelerating technology development.”
Noll said U-M joins about 10 other institutions across the country with similar joint set-ups, though each case is unique. In some instances, two universities collaborate to form a joint department. At Michigan, the schools are across the road from one another, and they are both ranked in U.S. News & World Report’s top ten, as is the Biomedical Engineering Department.
For more information:
Department of Biomedical Engineering: http://www.bme.umich.edu/
College of Engineering: http://www.engin.umich.edu/
Medical School: http://www.med.umich.edu/medschool/
Contacts: Kara Gavin, 734-764-2220, kevagin@umich.edu
Nicole Casal Moore, 734-647-7087, ncmoore@umich.edu
Tags: BME, engineering, Joint Department, Medical School, Top-ranked
Posted in All News, Faculty News, Spotlight
Michigan Engineering moves up in US News rankings
by Kate McAlpine
Science Writer & Web Content Specialist
College of Engineering
kmca@umich.edu
The U-M College of Engineering has maintained its edge on a national level according to the latest rankings from US News and World Report. Collectively, Michigan Engineering’s graduate programs come in at #8 overall, up from #9 last year.
Of the 11 specialties assessed, 10 College of Engineering graduate programs made the top 10. Seven programs retained their rankings from last year: notably, the Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences (NERS) program held on to the top spot. The department’s strong reputation helps it continue to draw the best in the field. “In addition to our outstanding faculty, the quality of our students is very high,” said department chair Ronald Gilgenbach. “With strong support from gifts, federal funding and the College of Engineering, NERS has developed some of the finest experimental facilities in the world.”
Industrial and Operations Engineering remains at #2, with Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering coming in at #5, Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at #7, and Civil Engineering at #8. Materials Science and Engineering ranks #8 as well, while Environmental Engineering is up to #5 from #6.
The most marked rise comes from Biomedical Engineering (BME), up from #12 to #7, and Professor Douglas C. Noll, department chair, said the department made a concerted effort to improve opportunities for graduate students. They attracted five “very talented” new faculty over the past four years, Noll said, “with several more faculty members starting in the coming year.”
In addition, he cited success in the department’s research programs, which brought in $20 million for the Coulter Translation Research Program. “Lastly, we have created an environment for great student successes. For example, student groups from our graduate innovation and design courses have successfully competed in national competitions, taking first place in the BME-IDEA competition last year,” said Noll.
“Once again it is wonderful to see the quality of our many graduate programs recognized, with nearly all ranked in the top ten and many in the top 5. This excellence across breadth is a hallmark of the University of Michigan,” said Robert J. Vlasic Dean of Engineering David Munson. “This year, I was especially pleased to see our Biomedical Engineering Program move up five spots in the rankings. BME will continue to grow in both size and stature, facilitated by our close partnership with the outstanding School of Medicine at the University of Michigan.”
While US News and World Report ranks U-M 28th among US universities, it maintains a strong global reputation, coming in at #12 in a survey of 17,554 academics around the world by the Times Higher Education. Many US universities saw their reputation rankings decrease this year, which the Times Higher Education connects with the budget cuts faced by most public institutions, but U-M is up from #13.
Link to original CoE article: http://www.engin.umich.edu/newscenter/feature/rankings
Tags: CoE, engineering, Rankings
Posted in All News, Faculty News, Spotlight
New U-M entrepreneurship program names co-directors
ANN ARBOR, Mich.—Aileen Huang-Saad of the College of Engineering and Bill Lovejoy of the Ross School of Business have been named co-directors of the University of Michigan’s new master’s degree in entrepreneurship.
The joint program, which will train students to turn ideas into inventions and inventions into successful businesses, begins in fall 2012, pending approval by the Presidents Council, State Universities of Michigan in October.
Huang-Saad, assistant director for academic programs at the College of Engineering Center for Entrepreneurship and faculty member in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, developed and taught the department’s first graduate design course, taking students through the innovation value chain in the classroom environment. Students in the course work with physicians to develop innovative solutions to medical challenges and are responsible for manufacturing prototypes and developing commercialization plans. Students in the class have gained national recognition for their work.
Prior to joining the College of Engineering, Huang-Saad worked in industry gaining experience in biotech, defense and medical device testing. She has a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, an MBA from Michigan’s Ross School of Business and a doctorate from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
“Aileen is an award-winning teacher who brings a unique combination of academic research and startup experience to this task. She has been the driving force in the creation of this master’s program and we are excited that she will be contributing her leadership to its implementation,” said David Munson, the Robert J. Vlasic Dean of Engineering.
Lovejoy, the Raymond T. Perring Family Professor of Business Administration and a professor of operations and management science at the Ross School, is an expert on managing across functional boundaries, innovation, health care, and capacity and supply chain management. He has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering from Cornell University and a doctorate in operations research from the University of Delaware.
For nearly two decades, Lovejoy has taught an experiential, interdisciplinary product design and development course called Integrated Product Development. The award-winning course—Businessweek magazine dubs it one of the top design courses in the world—involves teams of students from business, engineering and the U-M School of Art and Design, who design and build fully functional products and compete with other teams in simulated web-based and physical trade show markets.
“Bill Lovejoy’s vast knowledge of operations and management science and long experience in multidisciplinary settings as a faculty member at Ross and in the private and public sectors, make him the ideal person to help lead the new program,” said Alison Davis-Blake, the Edward J. Frey Dean and Leon Festinger Collegiate Professor of Management at the Ross School of Business.
The U-M joint master’s degree in entrepreneurship is a one-year, 36-credit-hour program. Students will participate in science- and engineering-focused courses in parallel with business-focused courses. The program will provide students with the tools and confidence necessary to become business-savvy technology innovators.
The program will cultivate the thriving entrepreneurial culture at U-M. In 2010 alone, nearly 300 discoveries from across the University went through the Office of Technology Transfer, leading to 153 patent applications and 10 spinoff companies. And 50 student-run companies have utilized the TechArb student business accelerator, which is managed by the Center for Entrepreneurship at the College of Engineering and the Zell Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies at the Ross School of Business.
Through popular business plan and idea competitions such as the Michigan Business Challenge and 1,000 Pitches, and student entrepreneurship organizations such as MPowered, the spirit of innovation is spreading from the grassroots level. In 2010-11, nearly 50 teams from across campus participated in the 28th annual Michigan Business Challenge and a record 3,000 took part in 1,000 Pitches.
SOURCE: http://ns.umich.edu/htdocs/releases/story.php?id=8517
Tags: business, engineering, entrepreneurship, programs
Posted in All News, Faculty News