General News

At the end of every fall and spring term, seniors at the William States Lee College of Engineering attend an expo to present their senior design projects. Senior design projects are spread across two semesters; students spend the first semester learning about a problem and planning for how to solve it with their design and the second semester building, testing, and delivering their solution.

The William States Lee College of Engineering welcomed to campus Dr. Paul Cherukuri to present a seminar on smart helmet sensor integrated personalized defense system.

Mechanical engineering graduate student Michael Brancato is designing boats to be autonomous surface vessels that can navigate between GPS waypoints and coordinate in teams to optimally collect environmental data all on their own.

For Dr. Alain Miatudila, an alumnus and former faculty member of the W.S. Lee College of Engineering, the support, mentoring and encouragement provided by professors, colleagues and friends has made all the difference in his life. Coming to America from the Democratic Republic of the Congo speaking no English, Dr. Miatudila studied, worked and persevered to become an associate dean of engineering himself. As an educator, Dr. Miatudila now does all he can to provide this same assistance and inspiration to his students.

Successfully completing wave tank testing during the spring and summer, the WATER BROS team that includes UNC Charlotte faculty, alumni and students, has moved to the final stage of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Waves to Water competition. The team will now begin using an additional $100,000 in funding to fabricate and test its prototype for converting seawater to potable drinking water using only wave energy. The prototype will be demonstrated during final open-ocean trials at the North Carolina Coastal Studies Institute in April 2022.

The William States Lee College of Engineering welcomes five new faculty members to the fall 2021 semester.

The Charlotte Business Journal has named Dr. Jun Xu, an assistant professor in the Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Science Department, as one of its 40-Under-40 Young Professionals for 2021.

WE Engage!, the college’s program focused on creating community and confidence in our female engineering, engineering technology and construction management students, started the fall semester with a continental breakfast for our new and continuing students.

A freezing-weather problem that results in billions of dollars in road maintenance costs across the entire United State is now being studied in a laboratory in North Carolina. A team of researchers from the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at UNC Charlotte is bringing its expertise in the use of organo-silanes (water-repellent additives) to create hydrophobic soil to solve the problem of frost heaving. The team members have a variety of experience and skills directly related to the issue, even though a number of the them have never seen frost or snow.

As part of a military veterans STEM program between The William States Lee College of Engineering at UNC Charlotte and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, three undergraduate engineering students from Tennessee have come to Charlotte this summer to gain a first-hand experience with engineering research.