General News

Mechanical engineering doctoral student Taylor Barrett-Crvich – a blues/rock performer who plays guitar, ukulele, mandolin and piano – understands the unique melding of mathematics, music and engineering.

EPIC Executive Director and the Duke Energy Distinguished Chair in Power Engineering Systems Mike Mazzola, answers questions about damage to electrical substations and the measures communities can take to withstand widespread power outages.

Badrul Chowdhury, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering with joint appointment in Systems Engineering & Engineering Management, was awarded a $4 million research grant entitled “Resilient Community Microgrids with Dynamic Reconfiguration to Serve Critical Loads in the Aftermath of Severe Events” from the Department of Energy (DoE)

Three engineering graduate students are researching impactful projects by leveraging the highly competitive and prestigious Graduate Research Fellowship award from the National Science Foundation. Chris Neff, Electrical Engineering, Patrick Bounds and Marc Duemmler, both Mechanical Engineering, are graduate students in the William States Lee College of Engineering and Fellows in the NSF program. These three students are among only 2,000 students selected nationwide to receive the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship from more than 16,000 applicants.

Engineering students from UNC Charlotte recently tackled the challenge of developing a system capable of measuring freeform optical mirrors with a vertical resolution of around 1 micrometer, which corresponds to approximately 1/100th of the width of a human hair.

Angel Rodriguez, Marine Veteran and M.S. in Fire Protection and Safety Management student, is leading efforts that support campus experiences for student veterans.

UNC Charlotte, the city of Charlotte and Duke Energy have been named the recipient of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Cleantech award by the Research Triangle Cleantech Cluster. The organizations were selected for the award based on their collaborative initiative PoleVolt™, which uses existing streetlights to provide curbside electric vehicle charging.

Dr. Ahmed Arafa, Assistant Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering, was awarded the Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) award from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Women in STEM, more specificaly alumnae from William States Lee College of Engineering, are making an impact on campus and in the workplace. Today, the number of women enrolled in the W.S. Lee College of Engineering has grown 50% in the last decade, but still represents only 15% of overall college enrollment. Work needs to be done – and our alumnae are leading the way.

On October 27, 2022, William States Lee College of Engineering was pleased to honor its leading research faculty during the inaugural Research Awards Ceremony. The ceremony recognizes 2021-2022 faculty for their research excellence as they forge the future of discovery and new knowledge for engineering.