Awardees for Tennessee Tech Engineers Week announced

Tennessee Tech University will recognize top engineering faculty, staff and alumni during Engineers Week, Feb. 23 Feb. 26.

There is no better way to celebrate the engineering profession than to bring in alumni who can communicate to our students the importance of becoming Renaissance engineers, said Joseph Rencis, dean of the College of Engineering. We re working to develop the mentality across engineering disciplines that engineers first responsibility is to positively impact society.

That concept is something our faculty and successful alumni demonstrate on a daily basis.

The college will honor eight individuals at a banquet Thursday, Feb. 26.

The college will honor five faculty members for their achievements. Syed Hasan, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, and Ying Zhang, mechanical engineering professor, will each receive the College of Engineering s Kinslow Faculty Research Award. Mechanical engineering professor Jiahong Zhu will receive the college s Sissom Award.

Mechanical engineering professor Steven Canfield received the T.S. McCord Faculty Fellow in Innovation and Techno-EntrepreneurshipAwardand Ismail Fidan, professor of manufacturing and engineering technology, received the Faculty Fellow in Innovation and Techno-Entrepreneurship Award.

Brian Bates, research and development engineer with Tennessee Tech s Center for Manufacturing Research, will receive the Outstanding Staff Award.

TTU alumni Andy Pardue and Paul Degges will each receive this year s Engineer of Distinction award.

Hasan received his doctorate from Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, in 2009, where he also served as an adjunct electrical and computer engineering faculty member from 2006-2009. He came to Tennessee Tech in 2011 after working as a research associate at Canada s Ecole Montreal.

Hasan has published seven peer-reviewed journal papers, 24 peer-reviewed conference papers and several technical reports. He has also served as session chairman and on technical program committees of several international conferences on microelectronics, circuits and systems.

Hasan is a regularly reviews the academic journals IEEE Transaction on Circuits and Systems and Integration, the VLSI journal. He is also a member of IEEE, Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society and the Order of the Engineer. He has received a Sigma Xi outstanding research award and a post-doctoral fellowship award from Regroupment Strategique en Microsystemes du Quebec.

His research interests include digital system design reliability and security, and VLSI circuits and systems.

Before coming to Tennessee Tech, Zhang worked as a coating engineer at Walbar Metals in Peabody, Massachusetts. Her doctoral degree is in materials science and engineering from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Her master s degree is from Shanghai University in China.

Her research focuses on high-temperature protective coatings for aircraft propulsion and power generation applications.

Zhang has secured more than $2.3 million in external research grants, including from the federal Department of Energy, National Science Foundation and the U.S. Office of Naval Research. She has written more than 65 journal and conference publications. Zhang s recent awards include the Most Distinguished Mechanical Engineering Researcher, Tennessee Tech s Caplenor Faculty Research Award, the Tennessee Tech College of Engineering s Kinslow Award and its teacher-scholar award.

The Sissom Award recipient, Zhu earned his doctoral degree in materials science and engineering from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in 1998, and his master s degree from Shanghai University in 1991.

He came to Tennessee Tech in 2000 and is engaged in research about solid oxide fuel cells, rechargeable metal-air batteries, alloy design and coating development for energy-related applications.

Zhu has received about $3.3 million dollars in research funding from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense. He has published more than 60 refereed papers. His recent awards include UTK s department of materials science and engineering Outstanding Alumnus Award, Tennessee Tech s Kinslow Award and Tennessee Tech s Caplenor Faculty Research Award.

Canfield, who earned his bachelor s degree in 1992 from Gannon University and his doctorate from Virginia Tech in 1997, will receive the College of Engineering s T.S. McCord Faculty Fellow in Innovation and Techno-Entrepreneurship Award.

Canfield came to Tennessee Tech in 1997 and has been instrumental in building TTU s early intervention and mechanical engineering project, in which students design, test and build assistive devices for children with disabilities across the Upper Cumberland.

Canfield is the founder of Robotic Technologies of Tennessee, a startup company that develops industrial robots for specialized tasks and applications. He holds the patent on the Canfield joint, a design used by NASA and private spacecraft companies. He has received numerous awards from the Tennessee Board of Regents and Tennessee Tech.

Ismail Fidan, recipient of the Faculty Fellow in Innovation and Techno-Entrepreneurship Award, has a bachelor s degree from Anadolu University and a master s degree from Istanbul Technical University, both in Turkey, and a doctoral degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York.

His research interests include electronics manufacturing, additive manufacturing, knowledge-based systems and automation. He has published articles in several peer-reviewed journals, including the Rapid Prototyping Journal, and has served as technical reviewer on more than 2,000 articles.

Fidan organized a service learning exchange between Tennessee Tech and Turkey s Celal Bayar University in 2012, which gave business and engineering students a chance to develop packaging and plan a market launch of Turkish products in the U.S.

The college s Outstanding Staff Award recipient, Bates earned his bachelor s degree from Tennessee Tech in 2002 after a stint with the Army. During his studies, he completed a co-op assignment at Alcoa Howmet Corporation.

Before his deployment to Iraq as a member of the Tennessee National Guard, Bates worked at Oak Ridge National Laboratory on an amorphous magnetostrictive alloys research project. He returned to Tennessee Tech in 2006 and earned his master s in 2010.

At the Center for Manufacturing Research, Bates works in materials science including coatings, corrosion and high-temperature materials. He is the primary support for the center s X-ray diffraction machine and other lab equipment, and oversees several graduate-level research labs in the fields of batteries, fuel cells, coatings and thin film development.

Pardue, of Cookeville, earned his mechanical engineering doctorate from Tennessee Tech in 1994. He also holds an engineering management certification from the California Institute of Technology.

Pardue was director for research and product development at Cummins Filtration from 1994 to 2005. After his time at Cummins, he became president and owner of PAR3 Technology, a consulting group specializing in product design. Today, he works as vice president of product development and analysis with Industrial Electric Manufacturing.

Degges received his bachelor s degree in civil engineering and is a licensed engineer. In his role as the Tennessee Department of Transportation s chief engineer, he oversees the design and implementation of all of TDOT s engineering projects on Tennessee s nearly 15,000 miles of state highway. He also manages 11 divisions and four regional offices.

Degges is active with the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials; he is the vice chair of the standing committee on highways and is active on other association committees. He is a member of TTU s Advisory Council for Engineering and the College of Engineering strategic planning team.

Degges and his wife, Saundra, have two children and two grandchildren.

In addition to the awards reception, engineering students will host a series of events, including a cardboard canoe race, an egg launch and an obstacle course to introduce the rest of the student body to real-world applications of engineering. Dozens of employers will also be on campus for an engineering job fair for students to look for jobs, internships and cooperative education assignments, as well as to allow them to network with professional engineers and engineering companies.