***Please see Archives (in menu at left) for information prior to summer 2010.
Biosensor may improve disease detection, water monitoring. Professor Dan Luo and his graduate student Songming Peng collaborated on this project with Professor Amit Lal, ECE. [ChronicleONLINE, Dec. 8, 2011]
Professor Dan Luo was a plenary speaker at the Second Nano Today Conference in Waikoloa, Hawaii. His talk was entitled "Engineering DNA as Both Genetic and Generic Materials". [December 2011].
Graduate Student Janet Barclay, who works in Professor Todd Walter's research group, has been chosen as a 2012 IGERT fellow with the Cross Scale Biogeochemistry and Climate (CSBC) IGERT program. Congratulations, Janet!
BEE students receive Global Fellows certificates: Rohiverth Guarecuco (Honduras, Volunteer), Allison Jagoe (Denmark, Study), Kelly McBride (UK, Study), Caitlin Anderson (Tanzania, Volunteer), Lawrence Withers (Kenya, Volunteer), and Charles Coombs (Germany, Study). [Nov. 15, 2011]
Gifted 14-year-old scientist conducts research at Cornell. Lauren Hodge, a winner of Google's Global Science Fair, worked with graduate student Kyle Delwiche in Professor Todd Walter's lab to determine how pulverized pumpkin reacts to water contaminated with hard metals. [ChronicleONLINE, Nov. 15, 2011]
Alyssa Henning, BE'11, is now the AlumniGEM president. Her team won gold at the America's regional jamboree as well as the track award for the Best Manufacturing Project IN THE WORLD at the iGEM Championship Jamboree. [Nov. 7, 2011]
Artificial intestine could treat children's bowel condition. Professor John March and Professor David Hackam (Univ. of Pittsburgh) have been given a 2011 Hartwell Collaboration Award for their proposal "Generation of an Artificial Intestine for the Treatment of Short Bowel Syndrome in Children". [Nov., 2011]
Kiln to make rural Kenyan village energy self-sufficient with agricultural boon. Professor Lars Angenent and his researcher Hanno Richter are working with an interdisciplinary team working on a slow pyrolysis unit that will be used to harness the power of organic material to fuel an entire village in Kenya. The project is funded by the David R. Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future. The Angenent Lab has made progress in harnessing microbes to produce liquid fuel from the gases produced by slow pyrolysis. [Oct. 18, 2011]
Professor Lars Angenent is the founding member of the North American International Society for Microbial Electrochemical Technologies. The group's first meeting will be held at Cornell University, October 9-10, 2012.
Four Cornell faculty win PECASE awards. Professor John March is a recipient of a Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers, which is the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on early-career science and engineering professionals.
U.S. News & World Report ranks four Cornell undergraduate programs in the top 10. Including BEE's Biological Engineering, #4, and Environmental Engineering, #9! [Chronicleonline, Sept. 13, 2011]
ABET accreditation received. Seven College of Engineering undergraduate programs, including BEE's Biological Engineering and Environmental Engineering, have received ABET accreditation. This finding is the result of a review and inspection by ABET completed in Fall 2010. More information on accreditation. [August 2011]
Professor Norm Scott, after 49 years of service to our department, has retired and been honored with Professor Emeritus status. [August 2011]
2011 Teaching and Advising Excellence Award Winners. Professor Lindsay Anderson received the Mr. & Mrs. Richard F. Tucker Award, and Professor Antje Baeumner received the Sonny Yau '72 Award from the College of Engineering. Congratulations!
Congratulations to BEE Professor John March for his promotion to Associate Professor with tenure! [July 2011]
The Cornell University Iota Chapter of Alpha Epsilon has been awarded the New Project Seed Money Award and the Most Improved Chapter Award. Congratulations to Graduate Students Elliot Friedman, Sheila Saia, Marie Donnelly and the group as a whole for all their work! See the ASABE announcement.
Understanding synergy between two bacteria could improve fuel cells. See the Cornell Chronicle story on Angenent Lab Grad Student Arvind Venkataraman's work published in Energy and Environmental Science, "Metabolite-based mutualism between Pseudomonas aeruginosa PA14 and Enterobacter aerogenes enhances current generation in bioelectrochemical systems". From the Chronicle article, "Like mutual back-scratching, two common bacteria involved in what was thought to be only a marginally important relationship actually help each other thrive when grown together in bioreactors". [Chronicleonline, June 9, 2011]
Building plasmonic nanostructures with DNA. This article, by Professor Dan Luo's group, has been published in the May edition of Nature Nanotechnology. Picture caption: A vast library of plasmonic atoms can be synthesized using wet-chemistry approaches; various DNA motifs can be created using DNA nanotechnology; the plasmonic atoms and DNA can then be used to rationally design and synthesize a range of plasmonic nanostructures. [June 2011]
Three-dimensional root phenotyping with a novel imaging and software platform. This article, by Randy Clark, a PhD student with Dan Aneshansley, et. al., has been published in the journal Plant Physiology, June 2011, vol. 156 no.2 455-465. The cover image for the magazine is from Randy's research. [June 2011]
Atkinson Center announces 10 new venture fund awards. 10 interdisciplinary projects have been chosen for funding from the Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future. The awardees include David de Villiers, BEE Research Associate, with colleagues Miguel Gomez (AEM) and Huaizhu Gao (CEE) for their project, "Developing a Soil-Based, Sustainable Specialty Crop Greenhouse Industry in the Northeast". More information can be found here. [Chronicleonline, June 1, 2011]
Merrill Awards salute top students' high school and Cornell teachers. Bernard Cammarata, BE'11, and Matthew Giambrone, BE'11, have been honored as 2011 Merrill Scholars. Both award winners have picked BEE Professor Kifle Gebremedhin as the "Cornell faculty member who most contributed to their university experience". The student's writeups honoring their high school teachers and Prof. Gebremedhin are available in the Event Program. [May 2011]
May 2011 BE and EnvE Graduates win recognition. Bernard Cammarata and Matthew Giambrone, BE'11, have received 2011 Merrill Scholars Awards. Andrew Chen, BE'11, is a Class of 2011 Banner Bearer and has received a CALS Academic Excellence award. Matthew Giambrone, BE'11, and Anthony Terrizzi, EnvE'11, have also received CALS Academic Excellence awards. Patrick Nadeau, EnvE'11, has received a CALS Academic Excellence in a Double Major award, (EnvE and SNES). Christine Pitner, BE'11, has received a Cornell Tradition Senior Recognition award. Allison Truhlar, EnvE'11, has received a Gates-Cambridge Fellowship, http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/March11/Gates2011.html, and an NSF Fellowship. Congratulations to all our 2011 graduates!
Researchers develop portable, quick and cheap test to detect deadly virus. See the Cornell Chronicle story on Christine Pitner, BE'11, who is doing her undergraduate research with Professor Antje Baeumner and Research Associate Katie Edwards on a highly sensitive antibody-recognition system, similar to a home pregnancy test, that yields a visible line when rotavirus is present in a fecal sample. [Chronicleonline, May 9, 2011]
Changing climate makes cell phones easier to come by than drinking water in South Asia. Professor Mike Walter was a panelist for the Cornell conference, "Water in South Asia: Challenges in a Changing Environment". [Chronicleonline, April 22, 2011]
'DNAsomes' can deliver multiple drugs or genetic therapy. Professor Dan Luo and colleagues are using synthetic DNA to make nanoparticles, dubbed DNAsomes, that can deliver drugs and genetic therapy to the insides of cells. The work was reported in the Jan. 3rd issue of the journal Small [Chronicleonline, April 21, 2011]
Roanna Ruiz receives Defense Department fellowship. Roanna Ruiz, a second year Ph.D. student in BME, has received a 2011 National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship. She is advised by Professor Dan Luo, and hopes to enhance point-of-care medical devices. [Chronicleonline, April 20, 2011]
Congratulations to Lauren Matlock-Colangelo, a PhD student in Professor Baeumner's Bioanalytical Microsystems & Biosensors lab, for her selection to a 2011 CALS Outstanding TA Award. Lauren is head TA for BEE2600. [April 2011]
Taking out the ouch. Professor Antje Baeumner, with visiting graduate students Christian Willrodt and Vanessa Kurth, is collaborating with SensiVida Medical Technologies, Inc., West Henrietta, N.Y., on a painless glucose biosensor that provides more accurate results than currently available tests. [Cornell Engineering Magazine, Spring 11]
Guy in the middle who picks apart roots, genes and software. Randy Clark, BE'04, currently a graduate student with Professor Dan Aneshansley, has developed a 3-D imaging system for rice seedling roots. [Spring 2011 EZRA Magazine]
Congratulations to Kyle Delwiche and Lauren McPhillips for being awarded prestigious NSF Graduate Research Fellowships. Kyle's research interest is pollutant transport and Lauren's research interest is ecohydrology. Both are PhD students in the Soil and Water Lab working with Professor Todd Walter. S&W PhD student Sheila Saia, who works with Professor Tammo Steenhuis, earned an honorable mention for her NSF fellowship proposal. [April 2011]
Two juniors named Goldwater scholars. Randall Meyer, BE'12, and Rachel Perlman, SNES'12, have been named 2011 Goldwater Scholars. Randall, a Rawlings Cornell Presidential Research Scholar, investigates the pathology of viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus in zebra fish. Rachel works in the Soil and Water lab. [April 2011]
Miniaturized isothermal nucleic acid amplification, a review. This article, Peter J. Asiello and Antje J. Baeumner, Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 1420-1430, Is the #1 most downloaded article for the Journal Lab-on-a-Chip (impact factor 6.306) for March, 2011.
Bacteria-based AND logic gate: a decision-making and self-powered biosensor. This article by Zhongjian Li, a Visiting Graduate Student in Professor Lars Angenent's Lab, et. al. has been published in the journal Chemical Communications, 2011, 47, 3060-3062. The cover image is from Professor Angenent's Lab. [March 2011]Best Biological / Agricultural Engineering Graduate Schools. BEE has maintained its #4 spot on the US News and World Report graduate school ranking. Cornell's College of Engineering is ranked #10 overall. [March 2011]
Professor John March listens as Graduate Student Brian Buchanan explains his research on the hydrologic impact of roadside ditch networks at the 2011 BEE Graduate Research Symposium. [March 2011]
Graduate Student Lauren Matlock, Baeumner Lab, won 1st Place in the graduate poster competition at the 2011 Annual IBE Conference for her poster entitled "Investigation of functional electrospun nanofibers as bioseparators in microfluidic channels". Congratulations, Lauren! [March 2011]
The 9th Annual IBE BioExpo was held Wednesday, March 2nd in the Duffield Hall Atrium. Congratulations to the poster award winners: The 1st Place Zuckerman Prize for Excellence in Biological Engineering went to Brian Kwee, ChemE'12, for his poster, "Effect of Dimensionality, Integrin Engagement, and Oxygen Concentration of Tumor Gene Expression". 2nd place went to Kathy Chou, BE'11, for her poster, "The Effects of Vitamin D Deficiency on Histomorphometry and Strength of Rat Vertebrae". 3rd place went to Alyssa Henning, BE'11, for her poster, "In Vivo Imaging of Avian Embryos via Micro-Computed Tomography".
Students to design and build school in South Africa. Professor Kifle Gebremedhin is a faculty advisor for this group. [Chronicleonline, Feb. 22, 2011]
Comparative constraint-based model development for thermophilic hydrogen production. This article by Sarah Munro, Ph.D.'10, Professor Larry Walker's Biofuels Research Lab, et. al., has been printed in the Peer Review: Original Research section of Industrial Biotechnology, Volume 7, Number 1, February 2011. The cover image is from Sarah's graduate research, "Metabolic network model. Image of the Thermotoga neapolitana metabolic network model generated with the biological network visualization program Cytoscape".
Scientists devise artificial intestine to help engineer disease-fighting gut bacteria. See the Cornell Chronicle story on the research ongoing in BEE Professor John March's lab, creating a biological model of a human colon. Carcinoma cells from a colon cover fabricated fingerlike structures mimicking the intestinal villi. In a human small intestine, villi cover the surface of the lumen and are locations where fluids and nutrients are absorbed. This method will allow construction of in vitro tissue models with physiologically realistic geometries at microscale resolutions and will change the way drug delivery and other small scale physiological processes can be studied. See also Making a better artificial intestine, in the Los Angeles Times HEALTH section. Postdoc Jong Hwan Sung is the first author of their publication, Microscale 3-D hydrogel scaffold for biomimetic gastrointestinal (GI) tract model, Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 389-392. [February, 2011]
Brewery waste is scientific fodder for producing liquid biofuels. See the Cornell Chronicle story on the research ongoing in BEE Professor Lars Angenent's lab studying how the microbes in large bioreactors produce methane from brewery waste. They hope to "use their new knowledge to shape these microbial communities so they will produce liquid biofuels and other useful products". Research Associate Jeffrey Werner is the first author of their publication, Bacterial community structures are unique and resilient in full-scale bioenergy systems, 10.1073/PNAS.1015676108, published online before print. [February, 2011]
Educators will be trained in ways to teach about biofuels, thanks to $5 million grant. See the Cornell Chronicle story on the 5-year professional development grant awarded to BEE Senior Research Associate Corey Rutzke. Dr. Rutzke is the director of the Northeast Bioenergy and Bioproducts Education Program and will host workshops at Cornell to train science teachers so they in turn can incorporate lessons and hands-on activities about bioenergy and products made from algae, willow, switchgrass, soybean oil and other feedstocks into their middle school, high school and college classrooms. [February, 2011]
Congratulations to Professor Lars Angenent who has been selected to serve on the editorial board of the Microbial Biotechnology journal. MBT, launched in 2008, was created to publish papers of original research reporting significant advances in any aspect of microbial applications. Prior to the launch of this journal, the field of microbial biotechnology had no dedicated high profile vehicle to disseminate the top research and promote the field. [February, 2011]
On the road - 'Complete Streets' seminar teaches New Paltz conveyance skills. See the New Paltz Times story on the workshop given by Extension Associate Lois Chaplin. A 'complete street' would have access for all users, including pedestrians, bicyclists, transit vehicles and motorists of all ages and abilities. It would have a comprehensive, integrated network. [February, 2011]
Professor Emeritus David Ludington '56 dies at 76. It is with sadness but with many great memories that BEE says goodbye to Professor Emeritus David Ludington. Dave's distinguished 35+ year career is legendary, he joined our faculty in1959 in what was then our Department of Agricultural Engineering, until his retirement as professor emeritus in 1995. Dave will be especially remembered as a loyal and dedicated colleague and for his early work in studying poultry waste disposal. Dave worked for many years on a wide variety of energy conservation and dairy engineering projects. Dave was regarded with the greatest admiration and affection by countless friends and former students and colleagues. [February 2011]
Congratulations to Professor Dan Luo on his promotion to Full Professor! [January 2011]
Professor Lou Albright, after 37 years of service to our department, has retired and been honored with Professor Emeritus status [December 2010]
Landscape architecture and planning students take part in new exchange with China. The exchange program is the result of efforts since the early 1990's to build relationships between CALS and its leading counterparts in China by Professor Norm Scott. [Chronicleonline, Dec. 8, 2010]
Cornell takes the plunge into algal biofuels. Professor Beth Ahner is part of a consortium of researchers led by Cellana, an algal biofuel research company based in Kailua Kona, Hawaii. Professor Ahner's focus is researching lipid biosynthesis and algal physiology to develop diagnostic tools to monitor algal cultures. [December 2010]
Entrepreneurship@Cornell honors 15 faculty with grants. Professor Mike Timmons is one of the awardees, receiving funds to add a teaching assistant to help with the Entrepreneurial Management for Engineers class, supporting student teams as they develop business plans. [Chronicleonline, Nov. 9, 2010]
Focus on Bioanalysis. Professor Antje Baeumner is a Guest Editor for the Analytical & Bioanalytical Chemistry Special Review Issue, Volume 398, No. 6, November 2010.
Cuomo transition team member to speak at Environment Conference. The Business Council of New York State is sponsoring the 33rd Annual Industry-Environment Conference, bringing together experts from both the private and public sectors to interact and share the latest information relevant to environmental issues in New York State. Jim Malatras, Deputy Policy Advisor to Governor-elect Andrew Cuomo is the featured speaker. The conference will also feature BEE's Professor Larry Walker as the keynote speaker at the Thursday, November 18th luncheon. Dr. Walker will "share his thoughts on the developments in the field of biotechnology and how business is impacted by its growth. He will also talk about innovative solutions to the energy and environmental challenges facing the country". [November 2010]
Congratulations to BEE Associate Professor Lars Angenent for receiving tenure! Granted November 2010.
CALS faculty, staff honored for outstanding achievements. Ten members of the PRO-DAIRY program in the Department of Animal Science received awards for Outstanding Accomplishments in Extension/Outreach, including Curt Gooch, BEE. [November 2010]
Professor Michael B. Timmons, our world renowned expert in recirculation aquaculture, will be an invited speaker at "The 12th Aquaculture Insurance & Risk Management Conference", 31st March – 1st April 2011, held in Cork, Republic of Ireland. Delegates come from the small but growing insurance market for aquaculture stock. Professor Timmons will address recirculation aquaculture and risk management. The area of RISK is one in which Professor Timmons is very much involved particularly with respect to design and distribution of risk for land-based recirculating systems. He brings extensive and rich instructional and research experience to this topic and a strong outreach program including work with freshwater tilapia and in-land saltwater shrimp operations. He has also had personal involvement with his family's 500 ton/year tilapia farm over a 12 year period.
Three regional companies receive grants through Cornell. Professor Antje Baeumner will partner with SensiVida Medical Technologies with a JumpStart award through the Cornell Center for Materials Research (CCMR). [September 27, 2010]
Three grad students get Department of Energy fellowships. Professor Dan Luo's student, Jason Kahn, will be continuing his studies on exploring the evolution of synergistic enzyme systems using enhanced cell-free protein production with the help of this fellowship. [Chronicleonline, Aug. 23, 2010]
Minority student researchers present summer work. Dustin M. Gallegos, a Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation research scholar, worked in Professor Antje Baeumner's lab on developing an improved version of a device called the MiniEC. [Chronicleonline, Aug. 11, 2010]
Lauren Matlock, a PhD student with Professor Antje Baeumner, has been selected as a 2010-2012 Fellow in the Sustainable Materials IGERT Program of the CCMR. Congratulations, Lauren! [August 2010]
Wang to help lead Tang Cornell-China Scholars Program. Ping will join founding director Professor Norm Scott in the leadership of this program. [Chronicleonline, July 19, 2010]