The 2013 National Women in Mining conference will be held at the Hotel Roanoke on April 25-27. Hosted by the Virginia Tech Chapter of Women in Mining, the conference will include hazard training and a tour of Lhoist Kimballton underground limestone mine in Giles County. Registration prices before March 25 start at $125 for WIM members, $75 for students,spouses and guests, $150 for nonmembers. For more information, visit the Virginia Tech Mining website.
Here is the press release from Virginia Tech.

BLACKSBURG, Va., March 6, 2013 – The Virginia Tech Chapter of Women in Mining will host the national group’s 2013 meeting, beginning on April 25 at the Hotel Roanoke & Conference Center, Roanoke, Va.

Two Virginia Tech Department of Mining and Minerals Engineering faculty members, KrayLuxbacher and Emily Sarver, are hosting the national meeting. Read more »

Deb Young-Corbett, Myers-Lawson School of Construction

The Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech has received a gran from the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health. A $470,703 grant will be used by principle faculty members  Maury Nussbaum and Deborah Young-Corbett to  expand education that will address construction-related occupational safety and health.

Here is the press release from Virginia Tech.

BLACKSBURG, Va., Feb. 15, 2013 – Virginia Tech’s Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering has received a five-year $470,703 grant from the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health to expand its graduate education to address construction-related occupational safety and health.

The Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering and the Center for Innovation in Construction Safety and Health, now a part of the Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science, have engaged in occupational safety and health research and education for the past 35 years, and have been supported by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to provide graduate training in safety and ergonomics since 1992. Read more »

Left to right, are: Virginia Tech’s Wenjing Lou of computer science, Hanif Sherali of industrial and systems engineering, and Thomas Hou of electrical and computer engineering.

Three Virginia Tech engineers have been given a grant to research proposed solutions on cognitive radio spectrum sharing that may avoid interferences from other frequencies. Thomas Hou, professor of electrical and computer engineering in the College of Engineering, Wenjing Lou, of computer science, and Hanif Sherali, of industrial and systems engineering have received two grants totaling $800,000  from the National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research for this project.

Here is the press release from Virginia Tech.

BLACKSBURG, Va., Jan. 16, 2013 – Cognitive radios, the “intelligent” cell phones or police radios that help determine the best way to operate in any given situation, are becoming the “radio platform” of the next generation of wireless communications. They are also expected to play a major role in tactical communications for the U.S. Navy and for the Department of Defense,” said Thomas Hou, professor of electrical and computer engineering in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech. Read more »

William Devenport, left, and Aurelien Borgoltz, right, stand inside the wind tunnel.

Virginia Tech engineers are teaming up with GE on a project that could make wind turbines more efficient at a lower cost. Virginia Tech’s William Devenport, professor of aerospace and ocean engineering, and Aurelien Borgoltz, research scientist are collaborating on the wind turbine project along with GE and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. This project’s goal is make turbine blades out of fabric stretched across a frame. Parts of these wind turbines could be manufactured in separate sections and assembled on site. The Advanced Research Project Agency has donated $3.7 million toward this project’s development.

Here is the press release from Virginia Tech.

BLACKSBURG, Va., Dec. 18, 2012 – A new method of manufacturing wind turbine blades, used in the capturing of energy that produces power, is expected to enable the construction of much larger wind turbines with higher efficiency and lower costs. Read more »

The Virginia Tech Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences hopes a new minor undergraduate program, to launch in January 2013, will help boost enrollment of women into the College of Engineering.

A biomedical engineering minor program for undergraduate students is going to be offered through the Virginia Tech College of Engineering starting in the spring 2013 semester. Sophomore students and higher will be considered for the program. Applications for this new program will be accepted until Friday. Students will be notified of their acceptance status by Dec. 28. For more information, visit http://www.sbes.vt.edu/admissions.php.

Here is the press release from Virginia Tech.

BLACKSBURG, Va., Dec. 11, 2012 – The Virginia Tech College of Engineering will launch a new biomedical engineering minor program for its undergraduate students starting with the upcoming spring 2013 semester, after meeting recent approval from the university’s Registrar’s Office. Read more »

Wu Feng and the Hokiespeed supercomputer.

Virginia Tech is among the recipients of a $2 million grant to develop tools to get and use information from large sets of data. The grant comes from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

Other recipients of the $2 million are Iowa State and Stanford University. The three-collegiate team will be working together to create high-performance computing methods on massive parallel computing resources for large-scale data analytics. The Hokiespeed supercomputer will be involved in the project.

According to the press release, the team will develop techniques that would enable researchers to use high-performance computing to analyze the data deluge of high-throughput DNA sequencing, or next generation sequencing.

Tech is receiving funding as part of nearly $15 million worth of grants in big data fundamental research projects from the NSF and NIH.

Here is the press release from Virginia Tech.

BLACKSBURG, Va., Oct. 5, 2012 – The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) today announced nearly $15 million in new big data fundamental research projects. These awards aim to develop new tools and methods to extract and use knowledge from collections of large data sets to accelerate progress in science and engineering research. Read more »

The Council of Graduate Schools has awarded funding to Virginia Tech. The school was granted funds to combine research ethics education into international collaborations in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

A grant of $398,000 from the National Science Foundation will be used prepare future scientists and engineers for ethical challenges they may encounter during global research.

Tech is one of five universities to receive funding from the council. Emory University, Northern Arizona University, University of Puerto Rico-Reo Piedras, the University of Oklahoma and Virginia Tech will work to develop  practice guidelines and  tools to measure the impact of the CGS project.

Here is the press release from Virginia Tech.

BLACKSBURG, Va., Sept. 25, 2012 – Virginia Tech is one of five universities to be awarded funding by the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) to integrate research ethics education into international collaborations in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.

Supported by a $398,000, three-year grant from the National Science Foundation, the CGS project will enhance the preparation of future scientists and engineers for the ethical challenges that often arise in global research. Read more »

A Virginia Tech Vecellio Distinguished Lecture will take place Oct. 5 in Torgersen Hall at 4 p.ml. Editor-in-chief of the Engineering News Record, Janice L. Tuchman will give the lecture “Five Critical issues and Five Good Ideas for the Next Ten Years of Construction.” This event is free and open the public.

Here is the press release from Virginia Tech.

BLACKSBURG, Va., Sept. 25, 2012 – Janice L. Tuchman, editor-in-chief of the Engineering News Record, will discuss on Friday, Oct. 5, at 4 p.m. in 2150 Torgersen Hall at Virginia Tech.

The event, which is open and free to the public, is part of the university’s Vecellio Distinguished Lecture series.

Under Tuckman’s leadership, the Engineering News Record team won two prestigious Jesse H. Neal awards in March 2012. The awards were for the best website and for the best technical article for a feature that used mixed media to bring readers video and Web components as well as a story to print. Read more »

Virginia Tech is included in the U.S. News and World Report’s survey of America’s Best Colleges 2013. The university is listed in the top 100 of the nation’s best universities. Its College of Engineering ranks 16th in the U.S. and the Pamplin College of Business ranks 40th. Tech also ranked 28 in the top 30 public national universities and is ranked among the 33 universities named as having outstanding undergraduate  research and creative project programs.

Here is the press release from Virginia Tech.

BLACKSBURG, Va., Sept. 12, 2012 – Virginia Tech ranks 72nd among the nation’s best universities in the U.S. News and World Report’s survey of undergraduate programs – “America’s Best Colleges 2013” — released today. The university’s College of Engineering ranks 16th in the United States, and its Pamplin College of Business ranks 40th.

Overall, Virginia Tech again ranks 28 among the Top 30 public national universities as it did in 2012, one of three institutions to do so in Virginia, with the University of Virginia at No. 3 and College of William & Mary at No. 6. Other than California, Virginia is the only state with three or more schools in the Top 30 Public Universities. At No. 72 overall, the university ties with Michigan State University and University of Iowa. Read more »

Thousands of Virginia Tech engineering students met with more than 200 companies, including Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co., at the 2011 Engineering Expo. This year, thousands of students are again expected to attend Expo, with more than 270 companies, firms, and agencies on hand.

An Engineering Expo will take place Sept. 18-19 at Virginia Tech’s Squires Student Center. Students can check out more than 270  engineering firms and government agencies during this walk-through expo. The event is hosted by the Student Engineers’ Council at Virginia Tech. Click here for a list of companies attending the VT Engineering Expo.

Here is the press release from Virginia Tech.

BLACKSBURG, Va., Sept. 10, 2012 – Thousands of engineering students seeking industry internships and jobs are expected to attend this year’s Engineering Expo, again hosted by the Student Engineers’ Council at Virginia Tech. More than 270 firms and government agencies will be on hand for the Sept. 18-19 event at the Squires Student Center.

The SEC, a self-funded student organization, expects more than 5,000 students to exchange information with company representatives. For the first time since 2008, the event has sold out with 274 firms coming to campus, said Ben Drew, of Hudson, Ohio, chairman of the Expo committee and a mechanical engineering major. Read more »