UPbeat

News for and about University of Portland faculty and staff.

Shiley School of Engineering

2024 Fall Pillers Lecture (Oct. 24)

It’s that time of year again! You are cordially invited to join us at this fall’s Pillers Lecture, with guest lecturer Dan Patla PE ’06.

Patla is a Senior Mechanical Engineer with over 20 years of experience in hydropower engineering, with expertise in hydraulic turbines; he serves as a National and International Technical Expert for USACE. The Hydroelectric Design Center (HDC) is the Center of Expertise for all 75 USACE owned and operated powerhouses. He graduated from UP in 2006, cum laude, with a BSME with a Theology major.

Thursday, October 24, 2024

Shiley Hall room 301

Lecture begins at 5 pm with reception to follow at 6 pm.

RSVPs are required, please register at the link below:

Register for the Pillers Lecture

The Lauritz (Larry) Pillers (’82) Memorial Lecture Series has been created by the Pillers Family to honor his brilliance and innovation in the field of engineering, specifically fluid dynamics. This lecture series has been established to provide support to the University of Portland’s Shiley School of Engineering for maintaining a vigorous exchange of experience and ideas with its accomplished alumni.

CISGO and Shiley School of Engineering, Computer Science Program

Anne Santiago, Maraina Montgomery, and Mike Pelley are working with Professor Ben Tribelhorn and two student teams from CS 341 to develop a map widget for CISGO’s website.  

Using an easily accessible visual tool, the UP community will be able to identify global engagements past, present and future, and to find like-minded community members for collaboration.  

We are encouraging all UP faculty and staff to fill out this Qualtrics Form. It will generate the initial database used to create the tool. Not only will filling out the survey help CISGO, it also helps the wonderful student teams creating the widget! 

Questions? Contact Anne Santiago (santiago@up.edu). 

Vehicles on The Bluff (Apr. 1)

Join us at our Vehicles on The Bluff display, highlighting vehicle-related engineering projects at the Donald P. Shiley School of Engineering! 

Located between Shiley Hall and Bauccio Commons, the display will include a Ferrari GT3 from the Baek Motorsports Racing Team, as well as student projects supported by our industry partners Daimler Trucks of North America and Hyster-Yale. Additional projects from our student competition teams Electric Vehicle Grand Prix, Formula SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) Electric, SAE Aero, Robotics, and Vertical Lift Drones will also be included. 

Vehicles on The Bluff will be open between 11 a.m.–1 p.m. on Saturday, April 1, during UP’s Weekend on The Bluff event. 

Groundbreaking for the Shiley-Marcos Center for Design & Innovation (Oct. 26) 

Faculty and staff are invited to join UP benefactors, leadership, alumni, and friends at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Shiley-Marcos Center for Design & Innovation. 

Wednesday, October 26, 2022, at 4 p.m.  

At the former UP Physical Plant location (between Mehling Hall and the L-P Tennis Center). 

Made possible by a generous lead gift from Darlene Marcos Shiley, in memory of the late Donald P. Shiley ’51, the Shiley-Marcos Center for Design & Innovation will welcome curious learners from all over campus to intermingle, overlap, and relate in new ways. As an inclusive hub for creativity and collaboration, students from many disciplines will use the space to engage in hands-on, experiential learning. It will include resources for ideation, prototyping, testing, digital design and technology, virtual and augmented reality, fabrication, machining, and industry partner projects. 

New to The Bluff: Rebecca Neal, Academic Program Counselor, Shiley School of Engineering

The Donald P. Shiley School of Engineering is happy to announce that Rebecca Neal joined our team in January 2022 as an Academic Program Counselor. Rebecca was most recently an academic advisor at Missouri State University in Springfield, MO. She has a lot of experience to draw from serving as an academic advisor in Georgia and Missouri before joining us. Rebecca is originally from the South and completed her Master of Science in Student Affairs in Higher Education degree from Missouri State University.

Remembering Donald P. Shiley: Happy 101st Birthday!

Despite being inundated with quote requests by numerous local, national, and international news agencies regarding the remarkable amount of palindrome dates in 2021 (including Inauguration Day on 1-20-21), Shiley School of Engineering professor Aziz Inan constructed the following birthday curiosities to celebrate Donald Pearce Shiley’s 101st birthday, which occurred on January 19:

  1. Shiley turned 101 this month on 01/19. Interestingly, if 01/19 is split into 01 and 19, the sum of the reverses of these two numbers equals 101.
  2. Further, 101 is the 26th prime number and twice the sum of 26 and its reverse (62) equals 176, the sum of the letter numbers of Donald Pearce Shiley.
  3. If 2021 is split as 20 and 21, the reverse of the sum of these two numbers equals 14 and 14=1+7+6.
  4. Every year, the sum of the digits of Shiley’s birthday and the sum of the digits of the anniversary day of his death are equal since 1+1+9=7+3+1.
  5. If Shiley’s 101st birthday, 01/19/2021, is split as 01, 19, and 2021, the prime factors of 2021 are 43 and 47, and interestingly, the difference of the squares of 43 and 47 and the difference of the squares of 01 and 19 are equal.
  6. Lastly, 43+47=90, the age Shiley was when he passed on 7/31/2010.

Happy 101st birthday, with great respect, admiration, and affection, to Donald Pearce Shiley!

New Shiley School of Engineering Dean: Brian Fabien

Following a comprehensive search, the University of Portland has named Dr. Brian Fabien as the new dean of the Donald P. Shiley School of Engineering, effective July 1. Fabien joins UP from the University of Washington in Seattle, where he was most recently associate dean of academic affairs for the College of Engineering and professor of mechanical engineering.
“I am thrilled that Brian will be joining the University of Portland,” said Fr. Poorman.  “His sharp intellect, extraordinary leadership acumen, and steadfast commitment to UP’s Catholic and Holy Cross missions will not only benefit the Donald P. Shiley School of Engineering, but indeed our entire University community.”

Fabien is now the permanent successor to former engineering dean Sharon Jones, who left UP in June 2019 for the University of Washington’s Bothell campus. Matthew Kuhn has served as interim dean at the Shiley School for the past nine months.

“I am delighted and honored to be a member of the University of Portland community,” said Dr. Fabien. “It’s clear to me that everyone at UP is committed to educating the whole student, not just the mind and the hands, but also the heart.”

Fabien holds a Ph.D., master of philosophy, and master of science degree in mechanical engineering from Columbia University in New York; and a bachelor of engineering with honors degree from the City College of New York. Prior to his arrival in the University of Washington system in 1993, Fabien held prior professorships at the University of the West Indies and Ohio University. A corporate career in engineering preceded academia, highlighted by his role as the lead mechanical engineer overseeing the guidance sensors for the famed Hubble Space Telescope. Other industry posts include Xerox Corporation, PerkinElmer, and Textron, Inc. (Lycoming Engines Division).

For more information contact the provost’s office at x7105 or staten@up.edu.

 

Happy 100th Birthday, Donald Shiley!

January 19, 2020 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Donald Pearce Shiley (pictured at left with his wife, regent Darlene Shiley), namesake and benefactor of the Shiley School of Engineering. Donald Shiley was a 1951 University of Portland alumnus who studied mechanical engineering. He went on to great success as the inventor of the Bjork-Shiley tilting-disk artificial heart valve. In his honor, Aziz Inan, Shiley School of Egineering, has prepared the following mathematical curiosities to celebrate Shiley’s life and to express appreciation for his genius and generosity:

  1. If Donald Shiley’s 100th birthday expressed as 1/19/20 is split as 1, 19, and 20, 1 plus 19 equals 20.
  2. Half of 100 equals the sum of the letter numbers of Donald.
  3. The prime factors of the reverse of Mr. Shiley’s birth year, namely 0291, add up to 3+97=100.
  4. The sum of the letter numbers of Donald Pearce Shiley equals 174. The number of days in any leap year (e.g., 2020) from Mr. Shiley’s birthday onwards equals twice 174.
  5. Additionally, Mr. Shiley’s 100th birthday expressed as 01/19/2020 is split as 01, 19, and 2020, the sum of 01 and 19 multiplied by the sum of the reverses of 01 and 19, namely 10 and 91, equals 2020.
  6. Moreover, if Mr. Shiley’s 100th birthday expressed as 01/19/2020 is split as 0119 and 2020, one third of their sum yields 713 and the reverse of 713 is 317. Note that 317 interpreted in the day/month format as 31 July is the day Mr. Shiley died in 2010.
  7. The sum of the prime factors of July 31 expressed as 731 equals 17+43=60 and 60 equals the sum of the letter numbers of Donald Shiley’s wife Darlene Shiley’s maiden name, Loran.
  8. Lastly, if 01/19/2020 is split as 01, 19, 20, and 20, the sum of these numbers yields 60 too.

New NSF Grant for Lulay, Shiley School

The Shiley School of Engineering is pleased to announce that Kenneth Lulay, Margaret and Vincent Aquino Endowed Associate Professor in Engineering, has been awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant of $55,358. “Collaborative Research: Bridging the Writing Transfer Gap in Early Engineering Laboratory Courses,” was awarded under NSF’s Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) initiative and represents a team of three universities: UP, Washington State University Vancouver, and Oregon Institute of Technology.

The collaborative will study how engineering students apply their existing knowledge of writing when they write technical engineering reports. Each of the three universities has different requirements in their core curriculum, ranging from literature classes to technical writing courses, allowing the research team to study students with diverse writing knowledge and experiences. Modules will be developed to help students transfer their existing knowledge to help them write professional quality technical reports regardless of their previous writing background.

For more information contact the Shiley School of Engineering at x7292 or engineering@up.edu.

Fulbright Canada Appoints Heather Dillon Research Chair in STEM Education

Shiley School of Engineering mechanical engineering professor Heather Dillon has been named Fulbright Canada Research Chair in STEM Education by Fulbright Canada. Dillon will test a STEM faculty peer observation protocol at the University of Calgary from August to December 2019.

The goal of the Fulbright project is to significantly increase the use of highly effective, evidence-based STEM teaching methods at the University of Calgary using faculty peer observation. The peer observation framework has been developed by a research team at the University of Portland to help STEM faculty adopt new evidence-based instructional practices. The research development team includes University faculty Stephanie Salomone, Carolyn James, Tara Prestholdt, Valerie Peterson, and Eric Anctil.

At the University of Portland, Dillon teaches thermodynamics, numerical methods, and heat transfer courses. Her research team is currently working on renewable energy systems, solid-state lighting, energy efficiency in buildings, fundamental heat transfer studies and engineering education.

This program is supported by Fulbright Canada, a joint, bi-national, treaty-based organization created to encourage mutual understanding between Canada and the United States of America through academic and cultural exchange.