May 31, 2023

Michigan Tech track and field's Jesse Jacobusse wrapped up her career as a Husky at the NCAA Division II Outdoor Track & Field Championships in Pueblo, Colorado, on Friday (May 26).

Jacobousse placed seventh in the first heat of the preliminary round of the women's 800 meters, clocking in at 2:17.83. Jacobusse went through the first 400 meters in 1:03.98, holding sixth-place before falling to seventh over the final 400 meters. Overall, Jacobusse placed 18th in the event.

"I didn't have the race I wanted today, but my season goal was to make it to the national meet and to achieve a school record, and I met those goals," said Jacobousse. "Getting to compete on the national stage has been a dream of mine since I got to Tech, and I was grateful to finally do that while having a great support system with me today, certainly making it more special."

Read more about Jacobousse's record-breaking track and field career at the Michigan Tech Athletics website.

MTU's Society of Women Engineers (SWE) Section participated in the global SWE Outreach Competition, where they presented on Engineering Day!, a K-5 outreach program.

Undergraduates Skyler Brawley (computer engineering) and Carsyn Boggio (environmental engineering) described the program developed and hosted jointly by the SWE section and Engineering Ambassadors, which reached over 600 K-5 students and Girl Scouts last year. MTU's SWE section partnered with the SWE Professional Section in Grand Rapids to host an event for Daisies, Brownies and Juniors scouts. We hosted another at Michigan Tech for Northern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula Girl Scouts. Locally, Engineering Day! was held at Lake Linden-Hubbell Elementary, Barkell Elementary and Dollar Bay-Tamarack City Elementary. We were especially thrilled for the first- and second-place sections, both of whom were from Africa and had developed innovative ways to connect with girls and help youth learn about STEM careers and engineering.

The SWE section and Engineering Ambassadors will continue to host Engineering Day! in local schools and with Girl Scouts. We have already begun planning for the Fall and are looking forward to another fun and exciting year of outreach.

The section thanks SWE, Michigan Tech and our industry sponsors for their outreach support.

ChemStores will be closed June 27 through June 30 for our annual inventory. Except for liquid nitrogen or other critical needs, no transactions will be made during this time. Any noncritical orders will be held for processing until the following week.

Please plan accordingly to make your purchases ahead of time and have all your items picked up by June 26.

Contact us at chemstores@mtu.edu if you have any questions or concerns.

A team including Department of Chemistry Ph.D. graduate Shobhit Chaturvedi and Ph.D. student Simahudeen Bathir Jaber Sathik Rifayee (both leading authors), led by Associate Professor Christo Christov, has published an article in the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) journal Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics.

The article is titled “Can an External Electric Field Switch between Ethylene Formation and L-Arginine Hydroxylation in the Ethylene Forming Enzyme?”

Robert Hausinger, Jian Hu and Joel Rankin from Michigan State University, and Rajeev Ramanan from NIT Rourkela, India (a former postdoctoral researcher in Christov’s group), are also co-authors of the article.

This research was supported by the National Science Foundation grants 1904215 and 2203630.

The study reveals that by applying an external electric field along the reaction coordinate the non-heme Fe(II)/2Oxoglutarate Dependent Ethylene Forming Enzyme (EFE) switches between the two competitive mechanisms, L-arginine hydroxylation and ethylene synthesis, thus providing novel tools to increase the ethylene production by the EFE.

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Samantha Smith (CLS) is the co-author of a journal article recently published in Applied Ergonomics.

The article is titled "Dual-task effects between tone counting and mathematical calculations," and can be viewed and/or downloaded online.

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Shelly Galliah (GC) is the author of a chapter included in the book "Teaching Comedy," published by the Modern Language Association of America. 

The title of the chapter is "Learning Through Failure: Workplace Comedy in the Professional and Technical Communication Classroom."

Galliah focuses on one episode of TV show "The Office," titled "Fire Drill," arguing that by analyzing various exaggerated technical communication mishaps and instructional design failures, students can better learn, apply and interact with course concepts.

Alicia Sendrowski (MTRI) was quoted by the Washington Post and MSN in a story about a colossal logjam in Nunavut, Canada, which stores more than 3 million tons of carbon. The logjam was the subject of a research study led by Sendrowski while at Colorado State University.

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Michigan Tech alums Jacob Smith ‘19 (mechanical engineering) and Hailey Bondy ‘19 (environmental engineering) were profiled in a story by the Daily Mining Gazette. The pair used their engineering backgrounds and other skills to convert a 1996 Chevy G30 bus into a moving home, which they’ve used to travel the country since September 2022 while on an extended honeymoon. 

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The Daily Mining Gazette ran a story about the performance of Michigan Tech track and field student-athletes Clayton Sayen and Jesse Jacobusse at the 2023 NCAA Division II Outdoor Track & Field National Championships in Pueblo, Colorado. Sayen placed 15th in the men’s 1,500-meter preliminary race with a time of 3:53.60. Jacobusse placed 18th in the women’s 800-meter with a time of 2:17.83.

Sayen was also quoted in a Daily Mining Gazette story about a community track night he and others will host at 7 p.m. on June 7 at the Houghton High School track.

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Michigan Tech was mentioned by Northern Express as a popular college choice among high school graduates in the Traverse City area. 

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Michigan Tech’s student newspaper, The Lode, was mentioned in a Daily Mining Gazette opinion piece about the importance of local news media in a functioning democracy. 

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The Center Square mentioned Michigan Tech in a story about estimates by the U.S. Geological Survey that the western Upper Peninsula could be home to substantial undiscovered nickel deposits. The University is cited as a partner with the Michigan Geological Survey on a three-year project to map the Upper Peninsula and collect mineral samples. The story was picked up in 7 regional outlets nationwide. 

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Michigan Tech was mentioned in a Daily Mining Gazette story about the inaugural Keweenaw Disc Golf Tour, which will take place this summer. The second stop on the tour was held at the Michigan Tech disc golf course on Saturday, May 27.

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The University of North Georgia mentioned Michigan Tech in a story about the CyberSEED cybersecurity competition held virtually on March 4. The Michigan Tech team placed 3nd out of 118 teams in the national competition. 

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Final Oral Exam: Sai Teja Mummadi, CS Master of Science

Wednesday, May 31, 1 p.m. | Rekhi Hall, 214

Computer Science Master of Science student Sai Teja Mummadi will present their final oral examination (“defense”) on Wednesday, May 31, 2023, at 1:00 p.m. in Rekhi Hall, Room...

Master's Defense: Sai Teja Mummadi

Wednesday, May 31, 1 p.m.–2 p.m. | Rekhi Hall, 214

Computer Science Advisor: Hairong Wei Machine Learning and Deep Learning Approaches for Gene Regulatory Network Inference in Plant Species Attend Virtually:...