Greetings from the East Village and welcome to the latest Shoop’s Stoop!

Our students and faculty continue to do amazing things! I encourage you to take the time to read all the articles in this newsletter. They include student activities and successes, faculty contributions and accomplishments, curricular initiatives, and alumni activities.

Our Summer Study Abroad Program has returned to pre-COVID levels. This summer we will send 11 engineering students abroad. This includes: Technische Universitat Dresden and Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences, both in Germany, LaTrobe University in Australia with applications in Bosnia, Reykjavik University in Iceland, the National University of Singapore, Universidad Pontificia Comillas, Madrid in Spain, the Barbara Ford Peace Building Center in Guatemala, and the Monteverdi Field School in Italy. Additionally, we recently hosted Professor Saurabh Sinha, Deputy Vice Chancellor of Research and Internationalization at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa and we are in negotiations to add South Africa to our Summer Study Abroad portfolio!

Through the very generous donation of John Manuck ChE’69, we are excited to announce a new endowed distinguished professor: the John and Mary Manuck Distinguished Professor of Design. The John Manuck Distinguished Professor of Design will raise the visibility of design as a unifying element in interdisciplinary approaches at the intersection of art, architecture, engineering, and the humanities and social sciences, and collaborate across disciplinary boundaries to create innovative solutions to societal challenges. This newly created faculty endowment will catalyze pioneering work in engineering, art, architecture, and related fields by supporting a distinguished faculty member to pursue interdisciplinary design and innovation in their teaching, research, creative practice, and most importantly, student engagement. In doing so, it will help deepen approaches to innovation and utilization of design principles to generate breakthrough ideas, practices, and outcomes. Through a competitive selection process, the John and Mary Manuck Distinguished Professor of Design will complete a three-year tenure that will rotate among the three professional schools at The Cooper Union.

Finally, on Tuesday, March 28, we notified next year’s first-year applicants of our admissions decisions. This year’s applications were very strong. We had a 20% year-over-year increase in the total number of applicants with a 32% increase in female applications and a 15% increase in underrepresented minorities. Including early decision, regular decision, and deferrals, we have admitted a total of 245 students to the School of Engineering. Even though we continue to be test optional, 70% of the admitted class submitted standardized test scores, and the average SAT score for Math is 766 and 728 for Reading. Of this year’s admitted students, we held the total number of women at 44% and slightly increased the number of underrepresented minorities to 16%. By all accounts, this admitted student class is very strong!

Thank you again for sharing your valuable time with me on Shoop’s Stoop! It continues to be an exciting time to be part of the Albert Nerken School of Engineering. I look forward to sharing additional updates in future editions.

Barry L. Shoop, Ph.D., P.E.  |  Dean of Engineering  |  Albert Nerken School of Engineering

Greetings again from Shoop’s Stoop. As we quickly approach the end of fall semester and anticipate a much-needed winter break, let me begin by wishing you a joyous holiday season and a peaceful and prosperous New Year!

Since arriving at Cooper, I have offered an Educational Innovation Grant program each year to advance the Albert Nerken School of Engineering’s 2025 Strategic Plan, Sustaining a Legacy of Innovation. The 2022 Educational Innovation Grant RFP included additional preferences for initiatives, programs, and activities that (1) foster an environment supporting student success, (2) promote community, celebrate diversity, and advance racial equity, (3) advance interdisciplinary approaches across math, sciences, and engineering, and (4) advance interdisciplinary approaches at the intersection of art, architecture, engineering, and the humanities and social sciences. This year, we received 17 proposals from faculty, students, and staff and selected 9 proposals to be funded, accounting for nearly $40k in grant funding. Among the funded proposals were projects that developed new courses at the intersection of disciplines, supported an inaugural student-led undergraduate research symposium, supported student outreach workshops, and more. These innovation grants are made possible through the generous donation of Victor and Eleanor DiFranco. A summary of all the funded projects and the faculty, students and staff associated with each project can be found here.

Within the School of Engineering, our faculty research efforts continue to grow, with many positive consequences. Research is the engine that stimulates intellectual curiosity, fuels new inquiries, advances disciplinary and interdisciplinary fields, and produces new knowledge or uses existing knowledge in new and creative ways. Research experiences enhance student’s intellectual skills such as inquiry, analytical and critical thinking, quantitative reasoning, reading, and understanding of primary literature, communication, and often teamwork. For undergraduates, research is considered a high-impact educational practice, deepening their understanding of disciplinary foundations, exposing them to emerging areas in their chosen field, and ultimately honing important communication skills. During this semester, our students have been increasingly engaged in research and have been traveling to professional conferences in higher numbers, presenting their research results, and even receiving awards. Nearly 20 undergraduate students from across the School of Engineering have presented at conferences this semester, with another 40 participating in workshops, career fairs, networking opportunities, and other activities. These student professional development experiences are made possible through the generous donations of Alan Fortier ChE’79. You can read about several of our student award recipients in this newsletter.

We continue to innovate and improve our curriculum, add offerings to recognize student achievement, and improve their disciplinary experience. On Thursday, October 6, 2022, the School of Engineering Curriculum Committee met to consider several curricular revisions, including a new Chemistry Minor which will be open to all undergraduate engineering students, across all majors. This proposal was approved by the Curriculum Committee at that meeting and subsequently on Tuesday, November 8, the Chemistry Minor was presented to the faculty for consideration and was approved unanimously. The Chemistry Minor will be offered beginning of the Fall Semester of 2023 but will also be awarded to students graduating in May of 2023 who satisfy the requirements of the minor. Additionally, in the October newsletter, I shared some details of an interdisciplinary capstone course that is being piloted this academic year. On December 13, there will be an Interdisciplinary Capstone Showcase at 41 Cooper Square in The Frederick P. Rose Auditorium and the Gelman Foyer for students to present and celebrate fall semester achievements in this course.

Finally, I encourage you to take some time to read the articles included in this newsletter.

Thank you again for sharing your valuable time with me on Shoop’s Stoop! It continues to be an exciting time to be part of the Albert Nerken School of Engineering! I look forward to sharing additional updates in future editions.

Barry L. Shoop, Ph.D., P.E.  |  Dean of Engineering  |  Albert Nerken School of Engineering

THANK YOU TO OUR SUPPORTERS!

Welcome back to Shoop’s Stoop! The start of a new academic year marks a renewal, a continuation of a journey of learning, exploration, and growth. I want to share some of the things that happened over the summer in the Albert Nerken School of Engineering since our last update in June.

On Monday, September 5, I had the sad duty to inform our engineering faculty, staff, and students that Professor Vito Guido had suddenly passed away. Vito was a larger-than-life presence in the School of Engineering since joining Cooper as an assistant professor in 1979. In addition to his research and teaching, most recently, he served as the George Fox Chair of Civil Engineering leading the Department of Civil Engineering. This past year, he was instrumental in re-imagining course scheduling to allow for block scheduling which has facilitated more interdisciplinary learning. For the first time last year, one of the Civil Engineering capstone projects included students from The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture. Vito was respected by colleagues and revered by his students. He was a gentle giant – his stature equally matched by the size of his heart. While an exceptional Civil Engineer by discipline and training, he was truly a “civil” engineer in every sense of the word. He was a staunch advocate for students, a valued colleague to faculty and staff across The Cooper Union, and a friend. He will be deeply missed.

Our Summer Study Abroad Program continues to grow. This summer we sent 12 engineering students to five different countries including Guatemala, Singapore, Germany, Iceland, and Spain.

An important focus for Academic Year 2023 is on student success and support. The week of August 15th was the inaugural launch of Cooper’s Help for Engineering Student Success (CHESS). This was a week-long, online course taught by Cooper Engineering tutors covering foundational disciplinary topics in math, chemistry, physics, and computer science. CHESS also included course topics such as study skills, time management, and mental health. This journey began in the fall semester of 2021 during a faculty open forum, Nathaniel Kingsbury EE’22, a math tutor, asked if there could be more done to support students struggling in math. His comment was insightful, “It isn’t that they don’t understand calculus, it’s that they don’t have the necessary foundational skills in algebra, geometry, and trigonometry that they should have gotten in high school.” In March of the spring semester, Associate Dean Savizky, Associate Dean Shay, and I assembled a group of our best tutors including Nathaniel Kingsbury EE’22, Sanjna Rao ChE ’22, Brandon Ho EE ’22, and Jonathan Lam EE ’22, and began meeting regularly to discuss challenges that the tutors had identified in foundational high school preparation and developed topical coverage and a curriculum for this summer course. The final lineup of instructors included Nathaniel Kingsbury EE’22 and Catherine Van West EE’24 reviewing math, Nada Shetewi ChE’24 reviewing chemistry, Abduhla Ali EE’25 and Emma Cohen BSE ’24 reviewing physics, and Catherine Van West EE’24 and Jacob Koziej EE’25 reviewing computer science. With 52 first-year registrants (42% of the incoming class), the students were assigned to one of two groups. The schedule for the course is shown here.
 
In preparation for teaching, each of the facilitators taught a class that was observed and critiqued by their peers and deans. We conducted a pre-CHESS survey that asked the students to self-assess their familiarity and preparedness with topics covered in the course and followed with a post-CHESS survey to solicit feedback on the content and conduct of the course. We will also be following-up with these students later in the fall semester after they have had some actual experience with the rigors of the Cooper curriculum to ask if they have any additional insights or thoughts on the CHESS Program.

In late June, we had five faculty members attend the 2022 Institute on Project-Based Learning at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. The Cooper Union team comprised of Professors David Wootton, Michelle Rosen, J.B. Koo, Sven Haverkamp, and Michael Giglia. I will note that this is the first time we have included adjunct faculty in our summer professional development.

In addition, this summer we had seven full-time faculty members representing each of our four ABET degree-granting majors collaborate on a project to reimage the interdisciplinary capstone experience. This group investigated the possibility of developing interdisciplinary capstone projects that incorporate students and faculty from more than one engineering discipline. This approach more closely models industry where engineers are expected to work collaboratively with experts in several different technical and non-technical domains. Topics addressed during this summer effort included benchmarking of best practices of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary capstone design and implementation; the practical extent of the interdisciplinarity; faculty participation model that ensures faculty engagement from the multiple disciplines participating; integration of project management, ethics, teamwork, group dynamics, and other professional skills; course objectives; course scheduling; assessment; and possible industry engagement. The faculty team developed a prototype for an interdisciplinary capstone course that is being piloted this academic year. Early indicators are promising – in the mechanical engineering capstone course, there are a total of 13 project teams of which 9 are interdisciplinary and include students and faculty from electrical engineering, civil engineering, and architecture.

We also have some changes in departmental leadership this academic year. Professor Mili Shah is now Professor and Chair of the Department of Mathematics, Professor Ben Davis is Professor and Ensinger Chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering, and Professor Cosmas Tzavelis is now Professor and George Fox Chair of Civil Engineering.

At the start of the Fall Semester, Brittany Corn-Agostini joined the Department of Physics as a tenure-track Assistant Professor. She holds a Ph.D. in physics from Stevens Institute of Technology, has 10 years of industry experience in the financial sector and her area of specialization is in quantum mechanics. With Brittany’s addition, we will have now added eight new tenure-track faculty members to the full-time faculty in the School of Engineering. In 2018, our tenure-track faculty was 18% female and, with the addition of Brittany, our on-hand tenure-track faculty is now 38% female. We are now gearing up to conduct a search for two civil engineering tenure-track faculty members.

On September 12, the 2022-2023 U.S. News & World Report rankings were released. The school has sustained its overall ranking of #9 in Best Undergraduate Engineering Programs where a doctorate is not offered. In the Regional Colleges North category, Cooper continues to be #1 Best Value Schools, #2 in Regional Colleges North, tied for #1 Most Innovative Schools, tied #6 for Best Undergraduate Teaching. To identify colleges where students are most likely to encounter undergraduates from racial or ethnic groups different from their own, U.S. News also conducts demographic analysis to produce a diversity index ranging from 0 to 1. The closer a school's number is to 1, the more diverse the student population. Among Regional Colleges North, Cooper Union’s index was 0.68 placing it in a tie for #5 where the top score was 0.74.

In other exciting news, Professor JB Koo, our newest Electrical Engineering faculty member who joined us in August 2021 from Intel Corporation, has negotiated with NYDesign. The facility supports microelectronic circuit fabrication for universities through industry partners like Google, IBM, SkyWater and efabless, among others. NYDesign has agreed to provide three tape-outs of 130 nm CMOS technology, one each in January, February, and April of 2023. Each of these individually would cost roughly $10k so this amounts to nearly $30k worth of industry-based microelectronic circuit fabrication experience for our electrical engineering students.

Recently, I have focused on securing the necessary funding to launch the new Computer Science Program and several months ago, with the help of Lou Manzione one of our trustees, I began an engagement with Bell Labs. Part of that engagement resulted in their donation of a stereo microscope, several high-performance oscilloscopes, a spectrum analyzer, and a function generator. In addition, the President of Bell Labs, Peter Vetter, will come to Cooper Union on October 27th to engage with faculty and students and give a lecture to the IEEE Student Branch. Additionally, I have had very promising meetings with the Director of the Simons Foundation Flatiron Institute Center for Computational Mathematics and the new head of the machine learning group to discuss the possibility of a joint Computer Science faculty appointment, similar to the one Professor Alice Pisani holds with the Center for Computational Astrophysics at Flatiron.

Finally, I encourage you to take some time to read the articles included in this newsletter. This is by far the largest newsletter to date, an indication of the vibrancy of all that is going on in the School of Engineering.

Thank you again for sharing your valuable time with me on Shoop’s Stoop! It’s an exciting time to be part of the Albert Nerken School of Engineering. I look forward to sharing additional updates in future editions.

Barry L. Shoop, Ph.D., P.E.  |  Dean of Engineering  |  Albert Nerken School of Engineering

Welcome back to Shoop’s Stoop! We successfully completed yet another academic year and I want to share some of the exciting things that happened in the Albert Nerken School of Engineering since our last update.

This year we had a total of 92 undergraduate and 42 graduate students graduate from the School of Engineering. For our undergraduates, this included 23 Chemical Engineers, 18 Civil Engineers, 31 Electrical Engineers, 16 Mechanical Engineers, and 4 General Engineers. In addition to the undergraduate degrees, members of this graduating class were awarded a total of 45 minors: 6 Math Minors, 22 Computer Science Minors, 11 Bioengineering Minors, and 6 HSS Minors.

Our fall 2022 incoming first-year class is again very strong. We admitted 123 students into the Class of 2026. There will be 27 students majoring in Chemical Engineering, 31 in Civil, 31 in Electrical, 25 in Mechanical, and 9 in General Engineering. Women comprise 50% of this class … let me say that again … WOMEN COMPRISE 50% OF THIS CLASS! Additionally, 11% of this class identify as underrepresented minorities, 22% self-identified as the first in their family to attend college and 7% of the class is international. Qualitatively, this class includes students who have conducted research in quantum computing and bioengineering, filed a patent at the NIH, and performed at Carnegie Hall. They are builders, inventors, and problem-solvers: from designing a guitar that changes colors depending on the sound waves' frequency to building a bike-powered washing machine to designing a prosthetic arm. They are competitors in chess, debate, badminton, soccer, e-sports, and robotics. This class is community-driven and seeks to make an impact by volunteering as EMTs and junior firefighters, interning for city and state representatives, working in nursing homes, and making PPE for frontline workers during the pandemic. In their applications, students shared deep discussions around clean energy and sustainability, the pandemic, and thoughtful conversations around diversity, equity, and inclusion, particularly related to STEM.

Our students continue to be amazing. Our students Naomi Akiyama ChE’23 and Caitlin Noonan ChE’25 took 1st Place at the AlChE Mid-Atlantic Regional Undergraduate Research Competition, our Solar Decathlon Team won the Excellence in Industry Engagement Award at the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2022 Design Challenge Competition, Faith Lin EE’24 was selected for State Department Information Technology Fellowship, Lionel Gilliar-Schoenenberger CE’23 and Qasim Akhlaq CE’23 Awarded Moles Scholarship, and our Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition (IGVC) Team received the Rookie of the Year award and placed 4th for Self-Drive performance and 5th for Self-Drive design in the 29th Annual IGVC Competition. Read more about each of these in this newsletter.

In fall 2022, we will add another new tenure-track faculty member to our ranks. Brittany Corn-Agostini will join the Department of Physics as an Assistant Professor. She holds a Ph.D. in physics from Stevens Institute of Technology, has 10-years of industry experience in the financial sector and her area of specialization is in quantum mechanics. With Brittany’s addition, we will have added eight new tenure-track faculty to the full-time faculty in the School of Engineering. In September, we will begin a search for a civil engineering tenure-track faculty member.

This summer we will have five faculty members attend the 2022 Institute on Project-Based Learning, June 21-24, 2022 at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Professors David Wootton, Michelle Rosen, J.B. Koo, Sven Haverkamp, and Michael Giglia comprise the Cooper Union team.

In addition, this summer we have seven full-time faculty members representing each of our four ABET degree-granting majors collaborating on a project to reimage the interdisciplinary capstone experience. This group is investigating the possibility of developing interdisciplinary capstone projects that incorporate students and faculty from more than one engineering discipline. This approach more closely models industry where engineers are expected to work collaboratively with experts in several different technical and non-technical domains. The faculty team are investigating the feasibility of introducing interdisciplinary capstone projects at the Cooper Union and are developing a prototype for an interdisciplinary capstone course that can be piloted during Academic Year 2023. Topics to be addressed during this summer’s effort include but are not limited to benchmarking of best practices of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary capstone design and implementation; the practical extent of the interdisciplinarity; faculty participation model that ensures faculty engagement from the multiple disciplines participating; integration of project management, ethics, teamwork, group dynamics, and other professional skills; course objectives; course scheduling; assessment; and possible industry engagement.

Thank you again for sharing your valuable time with me on Shoop’s Stoop! You should know that these are just a few of the highlights – the tips of the waves – of activities in the School of Engineering. It’s an exciting time to be part of the Albert Nerken School of Engineering. I look forward to sharing additional updates in future editions of Shoop’s Stoop!
 

 
Barry L. Shoop, Ph.D., P.E.  |  Dean of Engineering  |  Albert Nerken School of Engineering