Featured A&S Students and Graduates

          *   Karen Liska (BS Humanities, '03)
          *   Brandy Shuler (BS Mathematics & Computer Science, '04)
          *   Amy Mioduszewski (BS Physics, '91)
          *   Wei-WenChang (MS Computer Science, '01)

Humanities Graduate Wins Law School Writing Award

Karen Liska, a 2003 Lawrence Tech Humanities graduate, now attends Wayne State University’s law school.  In her second year of law, Karen won the school’s Best Appellate Brief Award, an important writing award.  She feels that majoring in the humanities at LTU prepared her well for law school and is a significant factor in her success so far.    Karen was recently interviewed by Dr. Gonzalo Munévar to find out more. When asked to compare her preparation with that of graduates from other institutions, Karen pointed out that the content of many of her undergraduate classes is very similar to that of courses taken by her University of Michigan peers.  The advantage she had, she believes, is that she was able to go into the subject in greater depth, in part due to LTU’s small classes, in part from the interactions with her professors and classmates, and in part from the demands placed upon our students, particularly writing and presentation requirements.  She also spoke approvingly of being in a program, and a school, where people know you.

According to Karen, her major courses, particularly her literature and history courses, prepared her to read well and efficiently, an invaluable skill in law school.   The demanding writing requirements of her humanities courses were also significant in her preparation.  The knowledge she acquired in her American history courses has proved useful in her law courses.  Another important course was speech.  Her most valuable course, though, was her senior thesis.  This opportunity was very helpful, first because of all the independent research she had to do, and then because of having to give a formal presentation to the whole department.  First-year law students spend much time acquiring the skills she gained doing her senior thesis.  Karen also valued her elective classes in which she explored topics such as mythology, the holocaust, and the bible as literature. 

Overall, Karen feels that the quality of the program should make it more of an asset to the university that it is at present.  She wishes the university would find more successful ways of promoting the humanities program.  When asked what she would change in the program itself, her response was encouraging:  “Nothing.  No changes.”Overall, Karen feels that the quality of the program should make it more of an asset to the university that it is at present.  She wishes the university would find more successful ways of promoting the humanities program.  When asked what she would change in the program itself, her response was encouraging:  “Nothing.  No changes.”

(posted 03/22/05)

MCS senior receives the     2004 Donley Distinguished     Graduate Award

Brandy Shuler, a graduating senior in Mathematics and Computer Science and LTU honor's scholarship student, was one of two students to receive the LTU Alumni Association's 2004 Donley Distinguished Graduate Award.  The presentation was made before a packed house at the alumni reunion and dinner/ance on the evening of April 24.  Brandy shared the spotlight with the Jonathan Kade, an Electrical and Computer Engineering senior.  Each recipient was awarded a 14kt Artcarved Class Ring.  Brandy and Jonathan are pictured above receiving their awards from Mr. Ronald Muccioli, LTU Alumni Association president, and LTU president Dr. Charles Chambers.

Brandy is a member of Lambda Iota Tau Honors Society, and the Math Club where she has participated in the Lower Michigan Math Competition.  She has been a community leader for University Housing and is responsible for starting a campus-wide student housing recycling program.  Brandy was also responsible for initiating a food collection drive by housing residents, assuring that two truckloads of food were donated to the Detroit Rescue Mission for two consecutive years.   She is a leader in Campus Crusade for Christ, a founding member of the Student Planning Activities Monthly Board, and served as secretary of Student Government Council.  In addition to her campus involvement, Ms. Shuler has volunteered in each of the last two years to work with low-income families as a financial coordinator for the Appalachia Service Project in Dickenson County, Virginia.  Currently, Brandy is a software sngineering co-op student with the Lear Corporation, working as a member of the Ford Driver Seat Module/Door Zone Module software team.  Through all this, Brandy has maintained a perfect 4.0 GPA. 

Jonathan was always destined to come to Lawrence Tech to complete his B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering even at an early age.  Jon wrote his first computer program, a screen saver, on an old Tandy computer when he was six years old.  He was a member of countless science clubs as a child and throughout high school.  As a student at Lawrence Tech, Jonathan has led Student Government Council in many new initiatives and greatly increased participation by student organizations.  During his tenure as President of Student Government Council, six new student organizations have been formalized.  He is a founding member of the LTU Artist’s Guild, and served as editor of its Prism Arts & Literature Annual for the fourth consecutive year.  He served as student sovernment representative on the founding executive board of the College Entrepeneurial Organization.   He is also involved with Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers and its Communication Society; Math Club; Tau Beta Pi (Engineering Honors Society) and Eta Kappa Nu (Electrical Engineering Honors Society).  In addition to pursuing his studies and leadership activities, Jon worked part-time in the library and as a lead product developer at RIIS LLC, an internet infrastructure company in Royal Oak.  He developed a commercial software code watermarking program for Microsoft.net framework and his work was published in the book, “Decompling Java” by Godfrey Nolan.   Through all this, Jon maintained a 3.8 GPA.

(posted 05/01/04)

Movie-Making From   Beyond The Stars!

Amy Mioduszewski, Ph.D., a physics alumna of Lawrence Tech (third from the right in the photo above), led a team of Radio Astronomers from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) at Socorro, New Mexico to produce a movie showing the moving jets emitted from a binary star system (SS433).  This first-of-its-kind movie used images captured by the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), ten radio telescopes acting in unison and placed from Hawaii to St. Croix, Virgin Islands.  The Socorro observatory is the operations center for the VLBA and the Very Large Array (VLA), a companion system of 27 radio telescopes in New Mexico.  The very long baseline between these telescopes produces radio images with resolution seven times better than that of the Hubble Space telescope. 

The movie shows the jets, and flares within the jets, moving away from the star.  It also shows the axis of the jet precessing (that is, wobbling like a toy-top) through one quarter of its cycle.  The movie was made with 39 successive daily two-hour observations.  Enhanced versions of the movie contain more than 39 frames, where the extra frames represent interpolations between data taken during the daily observations.  The movie also features false color enhancements designed to display the different intensities of radio emissions from the jet.  Links to various forms of the movie can be seen along with the press release at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory website.

Amy and her team presented the movie along with its scientific interpretation at the American Astronomical Society meeting on January 5, 2004.  This was presented along with other observations of this now famous binary star, the study of which has led to a greater understanding of objects of similar nature. 

Amy first proposed that this movie be made in response to a strong desire within the astronomy community for a tangible demonstration of the capabilities of the new VLBA.  Her proposal was accepted and represents the first movie ever produced showing the emissions from a star.  Links to the news reports about the presentations about SS433 are present at the American Astronomical Society website .

The jets are being emitted by a dark companion of a Blue-Giant star.  The dark companion is believed to be a black hole, but could also be a neutron star.  Jets are produced when material from the Blue-Giant star falls toward its dark companion and forms a disk around it. As the material from the disk gets close to the dark companion, jets of ionized particles are emitted along the axis of rotation.  These ionized particles emit radio waves, often at microwave frequencies, as they spiral along the strong magnetic field lines coming from the poles of the dark star.  This dark star behaves like the active nuclei of galaxies (including Quasars).  This dark star, which is in our galaxy, is sometimes called a Micro-Quasar. 

Amy’s Ph.D. research involved the study of jets of active galactic nuclei (AGC’s).  While it takes years to observe any changes in AGC’s, this groundbreaking movie clearly illustrates the day to day changes in SS433. Observing SS433 continues to supply important information for the understanding of the physical processes governing similar binary star systems.

(posted 02/10/04)

World Class Computer    Science Alumnus Presents    Paper "Down Under"

In December 2003, Wei-WenChang, MSCS’2001, went to Canberra, Australia to present a paper at the 2003 Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC). The title of the paper was “Target Shape Design Optimization with Evolutionary Computation”. It was co-authored by his advisor Dr. Chan-Jin Chung, associate professor of mathematics and computer science at Lawrence Technological University, and Dr. Bernhard Sendhoff from Honda Research Institute in Germany. This paperwas the culmination of results Wei-Wen developed as class projects while earning his Master of Science in Computer Science degree at LTU two years earlier.

Many people attended the CEC conference presentation.   This problem is of great interest to computer scientists familiar with this field of computing, particularly since the solution outlined in the paper is considered perfect!  The above photograph of Wei-Wen with co-author Dr. Sendhoff was taken immediately following his presentation.

Needless to say, Wei-Wen enjoyed the Christmas holiday in the summery climate of Australia.  He thanks his current employer, Detroit Edison Credit Union, for allowing him to attend the conference.

(posted 01/15/04)