August 11, 2020

Joan Schumaker-Chadde’s 25-year history of serving teachers and students across the state of Michigan with original and impactful outreach has been recognized with the 2020 Michigan Tech Diversity Award.

“We are so lucky to have Joan Schumaker-Chadde, a passionate and successful STEM outreach professional. In 2019, her programs reached more than 10,000 K-12 students, teachers and community members,” said Audrey Mayer, Interim VP for Diversity and Inclusion and Diversity Council Chair.

Schumaker-Chadde, director of Michigan Tech’s Center for Science & Environmental Outreach and the 2020 Michigan Science Teachers Association (MSTA) Informal Science Educator of the Year, began increasing the focus on reaching underrepresented students in 2008 and said it’s grown to be a large part of her work. “In the past 12 years, we have delivered programs to Native American students in the Upper Peninsula, and Black and Hispanic students in downstate urban areas where there are more people and a great need. We’ve provided dozens of programs for students and teachers in Detroit,” she said. “It’s essential that students can see themselves in engineering and natural resource careers, and feel welcome.”

Read the Q&A on Michigan Tech News to learn more about Schumaker-Chadde’s impact and her thoughts on how the University can take action to strengthen diversity, inclusion, and equity initiatives.

The Waino Wahtera Center for Student Success is seeking faculty, staff, and student volunteers for Move-in Weekend, Friday and Saturday, Aug. 21/22. The energy of campus elevates when we welcome our new students and their families to campus each year.

This is the 13th year of the Move-In Volunteers initiative and once again, we invite faculty and staff to help welcome our new students to campus in August during move-in. You can help our students and their families by moving a couple crates, giving directions, or being that welcoming face.

Volunteer shifts for faculty, staff, and students are available on Friday, Aug. 21 and Saturday, Aug. 22. This year, we ask our volunteers to take extra precautions to keep everyone safe, including symptom tracking, a short training, and some additional steps for sanitizing and social distancing. COVID-19 related restrictions will make our volunteers more important than ever, as we are limiting the number of guest helpers in the move-in process and relying on trained volunteers to keep the process running smoothly. We are also extending the check-in and move-in process to include Friday afternoon from 2-6 p.m. and ask all students to check-in at an assigned time to help keep numbers evenly spread out through the expanded time.

Please register by Aug. 17 to volunteer. You will be asked when you would like to volunteer, whether you would like to be a move-in helper or greeter, your contact information, and your t-shirt size. Note that you may volunteer for more than one shift. In keeping with the University's sustainability efforts, we will have a similar Welcome Crew shirt design as past move-ins, so you may wear a previous year’s shirt if you already have one.

Additional information about your move-in volunteer shift will be provided by email the week of Aug. 17. If you have any questions please contact the Waino Wahtera Center for Student Success at success@mtu.edu or 7-3558.

Show your support as a dedicated and caring member of the Michigan Tech community by welcoming our newest members. Thank you in advance for your support of this initiative.

Backyard composting and recycling are the topics of an online webinar offered by the Copper County Recycling Initiative (CCRI). The webinar will take place from 7 to 8 p.m. Wednesday (Aug. 12).

Alan Albee, president of Eagle Waste & Recycling in Eagle River, Wisconsin, will present on recycling and the Houghton County Transfer Station.

Rebecca Kranz, MSU Extension, will describe how to compost food scraps and yard waste in your backyard.

Rose Turner, MTU graduate student, will explain the compost and recycling set-up at the MTU Sustainability House.

Backyard composting is a way to create soil from organic food and yard wastes which would otherwise end up in and shorten the life of landfills.

You can join the webinar on Zoom or by telephone, 1-312-626-6799 (Meeting ID: 941 7629 9571).

You can also find this link on the CCRI website or on Facebook.

There will be a biomedical engineering seminar at 1 p.m. Monday (Aug. 17) via Zoom. Bardia Yousefi will present "Medical AI: A Path Forward to Precision Medicine."

Yousefi is a postdoctoral research faculty at the University of Pennsylvania.

The application of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning in medical imaging defines a hierarchy of algorithms and methods used to provide precise decisions assisting medical professionals and patients. Nowadays, many biomedical tasks, such as detection, diagnosis/prognosis of diseases, and organ segmentation are solved with machine learning algorithms.

In this talk, Yousefi will discuss learning-based frameworks in different medical data used for such tasks. He will talk about the detection and early diagnosis of diseases involving imaging biomarkers supported by conventional machine learning algorithms and deep learning techniques, such as convolutional neural networks, and modified autoencoder (UNet) model employed to segment brain ventricles for early detection of Ventriculomegaly and dynamic evaluation of treatments in these patients.

One of the recent challenges in machine learning analyses is the high-dimensional throughput of clinical data and multi-parametric information, polyomics, which leads the system to another limitation termed curse of dimensionality. This problem results in unrealistically optimistic outcomes by overfitting the learning models. This issue is discussed in his research using different unsupervised algorithms to reduce the dimensionality of data and alleviate the collinearity among covariates for early detection of cancer and treatment effectiveness during the course of therapy. A further extension of quantitative imaging biomarker analyses highlights the need for assessing the effect of interobserver variability and contrast-enhanced applications for the AI-based Radiology for Precision Oncology. While many applications are using AI in the field of medicine, the potential to perform well at the patient level cannot be reached with the small size of datasets. Multi-institutional big data analysis and deep learning methods are potential solutions to overcome this challenge.

There will be a biomedical engineering seminar at 2 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 18, via Zoom. Woo-Sik Jang will present "Self-Motile Synthetic Protocells." Sik is a research scientist at Solvay Specialty Polymers

Cell motility is central to biological processes such as wound healing, immune cell surveillance, and embryonic development. Thus, the integration of self-motility into synthetic protocells is an active research field. In this vein, I propose to develop novel protocell structures made from protein-polymer hybrid materials. The polymer amphiphiles will enhance the mechanical stability of the capsule. On the other hand, the protein amphiphiles will serve as a hosting domain for various cellular functions.

In this context, Jang will pursue three specific research aims:

1. Investigate the phase behavior of protein-polymer hybrid materials
2. Investigate enzymatic power generation mechanism
3. Create self-motile synthetic protocells

The first and second research aims will be fundamental studies to accomplish the third research aim. Through the success of the proposed study, humanity will take a step closer to the development of synthetic immune cells.

 Amlan Mukherjee (CEE/MTTI) is the principal investigator on a project that has received a $49,999 research and development Contract-FFP from National Asphalt Paving Association.

The project is entitled, "PCR for Asphalt Mixtures and the Emerald Eco-Label EPD Program." This is a one year project.

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Issei Nakamura (Physics/CQP) is the principal investigator on a project that has received a $196,000 research and development grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

The project is entitled, "CAREER: Coarse-Grained Theory and Simulation of Ion-Containing Liquids: Study of Ion Solvation by Polymers and Ionic Liquids and Between Nanoparticles." This is a five-year project that has the potential of receiving a total of $490,000.

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Classroom Tech Training Session

August 11, 2:00 p.m–3:30 p.m

mtu.libcal.com/event/6923164This event has a video call.Join: meet.google.com/zao-ockz-ogn(US) +1 559-817-1606 PIN: 185179207#

Master's Defense: Shu Zhao

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Women's League Play-Off Finals

August 11, 4:00 p.m

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APS Virtual Poster Showcase

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