Mechanical engineering associate professors Stefan Zauscher and Pei Zhong garnered a bronze metal from the Deputy Assistant Director of the Army for their paper titled “Biomechanical and Biochemical Cellular Response Due to Shock Waves.” The research paper ranked third overall for the entire Army Science Conference and also won the best paper award in the Force Protection /Survivability session. They share honors with Duke collaborators: James Barthel, Samidha Konkar, Georgy Sankin, Eric Darling and Farshid.

Richard Fair, professor of electrical and computer engineering, recently spoke to a full house during a symposium at Harvard Medical School focusing on microfluidics technology in biomedical research. His talk was entitled “The $1,000 Genome -- Sequencing DNA One Drop at a Time.” The symposium was part of Harvard’s celebration of its opening its first dedicated microfluidics core facility on campus.

A Pratt start-up has further distinguished itself in a national business plan competition. Cerene Biomedics, a company that hopes to commercialize a new technology using the power of cold to treat epileptic seizures, won first place honors and $100,000 at a business plan competition sponsored by Southeast BIO. Please join me in congratulating team members Christina Li, Heidi Koschwanez, John Stroncek and Carolyn Nohejl. The team plans to use the winnings to further the development of their prototype device and to initiate studies in animal models. To read more about this exciting new technology, go to http://www.pratt.duke.edu/news/?id=1368.

Duke recently completed a major financial aid initiative designed to make a Duke education possible for students from all economic backgrounds. Pratt’s Development team of Judge Carr, Chris Clarke, Pam Hanson and Kim Davis raised an amazing $30,186,568 in donor pledges and matching university funds for Pratt students.

Earl Dowell, the William Holland Hall professor of mechanical engineering, has been chosen as the inaugural speaker for the Virginia Tech Engineering Science and Mechanics Department’s new Liviu Librescu Memorial Lecture Series this spring at Virginia Tech. Liviu sacrificed his life during the tragic shooting on April 16, 2007 to save the lives of students in the class he was teaching. The new lecture series honors both Liviu and engineering Professor Kevin Granata, who was also killed during the shooting while safeguarding his students.

Adrian Bejan, the J. A. Jones Professor of mechanical engineering spoke on the constructal law of design in nature at Le Grand Palais, on Les Champs Elysees in Paris, France last month. The event was a two-day "show" of speakers on "Speed limits," featuring physicists to philosophers.

Mechanical engineering professor Kenneth Hall ran his first marathon race earlier this month at the 2009 Walt Disney World Marathon, finishing . He finished 2,756 out of 14,956 runners with an enviable time of 4 hours, 11 minutes and 45 seconds.