Dr. Stephanie Farrell

Professor, Chemical Engineering

Before Dr. Stephanie Farrell worked with feeding tubes as an engineer, she first had to do it as a mother.

Farrell's daughter Phoebe spent two years on a feeding tube. Although Phoebe now is a healthy child who "enjoys her vegetables," Farrell, a Rowan University associate professor of chemical engineering, originally had a lot of trouble weaning Phoebe from the feeding tube and spent nights waking because her daughter's tube had clogged.

Now, working in conjunction with the medical researchers at the Medical University of Graz in Austria, Farrell is putting her engineering skills to work and researching factors that cause clogging in feeding tubes. Ultimately she hopes it will be possible to reduce the occurrence of clogging by improving tube design or feeding protocols.

Dr. Robi Polikar

Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering

Alzheimer's is an incurable disease whose definitive diagnosis is only possible post-mortem via an autopsy. Yet, in order for the new treatments to slow the progression of the disease to be effective, early diagnosis is critical. That's why it's so important that community clinics and hospitals have the right tools for the early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease.

Dr. Robi Polikar, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Rowan University, is collaborating with colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania; Drexel University; and Neuronetrix, Inc., Louisville, Ky., to develop new ways to more accurately identify the early stages of Alzheimer's.

By creating an automated computer program that analyzes electroencephalograms (EEG), a measurement of the electrical activity of the brain, Polikar is working on developing a non-invasive, cost-effective and accurate method for early diagnosis of this neurological disorder.

These methods of early detection, Polikar said, are intended as a first screening tool for primary care physicians at local and community clinics and hospitals that do not have access to dementia-specific expertise. Since many patients are often out of reach of major research hospitals--either geographically or financially--Polikar's work will hopefully give community clinics, hospitals and doctors a new tool to fight Alzheimer's.

To learn more, please visit Polikar's website at http://users.rowan.edu/~polikar/RESEARCH/.

Dr. Beena Sukumaran

Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering

Some folks ride bikes for exercise. Others simply ride to get from one place to another. Dr. Beena Sukumaran rides a bike to change people's lives.

Sukumaran, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rowan University, recently traveled to India to pitch her and her students' invention--an aluminum grain crusher that attaches to a simple bicycle--to the Dhan Foundation, an organization which helps find local partners to develop projects like this to benefit the poor in India.

This invention's simplicity is what gives it the potential to revolutionize the way communities can process food. As a person pedals the bike--which is stationary during the process--the back wheel moves a contact element that turns a pulley. That pulley moves plates in the grain crusher to process food like corn and barley from large to fine pieces. The grain crusher could even allow people to generate income as they ride from village to village, helping others process foodstuff.

You can learn more about the grain crusher and its potential applications by visiting Sukumaran's website at http://users.rowan.edu/~sukumaran/personal/index.html.

Dr. Thomas Merrill

Professor, Mechanical Engineering

For a heart attack victim, the difference between life and death often comes down to timing.

Dr. Tom Merrill, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering in Rowan University's College of Engineering, is developing a new catheter that may be able to save heart attack victims. The goal of the "CoolGuide Catheter" is to cool heart tissue and reduce the amount of tissue which dies during a heart attack.

This new technology, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other investors, can lower the temperature of a human heart about 10 times faster than existing technology. It cools blood entering the heart, rather than cooling the entire body as other current medical devices do. Merrill's team intends to broaden the application of this device to treat stroke and traumatic brain injury patients.

For more information on FocalCool, please visit the website http://www.focalcool.com.

Dr. Peter Jansson

Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering

When people look at a refrigerator, they think food. When Dr. Peter Jansson looks at a refrigerator, he thinks electricity.

Jansson, a Rowan University associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, is committed to renewable energy research and clean technologies like wind and solar power, specifically helping New Jersey and Pennsylvania municipalities cut down on energy consumption and save money.

From computers to cooling and heating systems, refrigerators to cell phone chargers, Jansson and his student clinic teams create exhaustive inventories of a building's energy consumption of electricity and natural gas and make recommendations as to where a municipality can cut the proverbial fat.

So how much can this type of energy audit really save an organization? Well, Jansson and his A Team of engineering students are estimated to have saved Lower Makefield Township in Pennsylvania 18 percent of its annual energy expenses. That's almost $26,000 in savings.

To read more about Jansson's Clean Energy Program, visit www.rowan.edu/cleanenergy.

Dr. C. Stewart Slater

Professor, Chemical Engineering

The work Dr. C. Stewart Slater is doing in the lab today may impact the drugs you need to take tomorrow.

Among his many projects, Dr. Slater has been working with College of Engineering professors and students under a $200,000+ U.S. Environmental Protection Agency grant on "green engineering" efforts with several regional pharmaceutical giants, including Bristol-Myers Squibb and Pfizer. Their goal, in part, is to reduce waste and increase efficiency in the drug production process.

Dr. Shreekanth Mandayam

Chair, Electrical & Computer Engineering

Forget the proverbial ivory tower. Come January, Dr. Shreekanth Mandayam will be spending a good portion of his time in a CAVE.

That's CAVE: as in Cave Automated Virtual Environment, a fully immersive, navigable and interactive virtual reality system. The National Science Foundation recently awarded Dr. Mandayam and other College of Engineering professors a $392,000 Major Research Instrumentation Grant to purchase the 10x10x10 foot CAVE. There they'll work with students and outside organizations on a wide range of research, including that related to the new Constellation rocket systems that will be launched for Moon and Mars missions for the NASA-Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, which also has funded the project for $160,000.

The Rowan CAVE, the only such device in South Jersey, will be housed in the Virtual Reality Applications Center at the South Jersey Technology Park.

Dr. Kauser Jahan

Civil & Environmental Engineering

Dr. Kauser Jahan knows there's a secret to cultivating exceptional engineers: Catch 'em young.

Jahan, chair of the Civil & Environmental Engineering program at Rowan University, has been working with colleagues to do just that for 10 years.

Among the many programs she has either initiated or collaborated on at Rowan are Attracting Women Into Engineering, which brings middle school girls to campus for a taste of engineering fundamentals, and Rowan University's Introduction for Students to Engineering, which teaches high school students about the world of engineering.

Her latest endeavor: Developing the University's Engineers on Wheels program, funded with $420,000 from the Edison Venture Funds. Engineers on Wheels will bring educators and engineers to K-12 students in their own schools in South Jersey starting in the summer of 2009.