Update: Back to school!

After four years writing for the UW-Madison College of Engineering, I’m headed to the other side of campus to become a graduate student in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication this fall. While my research interests aren’t yet set in stone, I plan to participate in digital media and political communication projects and will look for ways to incorporate my interest in environmental/sustainability outreach. I’ll also serve as a teaching assistant for an intro level journalism skills class.

During this time, I don’t anticipate having many journalistic writing opportunities, but I’ll continue to update this blog with my various projects. We’ll just have to see where the next two years take me.

The transition from research observer to actual researcher is going to be a fascinating process, and I’m very excited for the opportunity. So keep checking back!

Looking back at the 1960 Rose Bowl

Published December 27, 2010 and as part of UW Gobal Big Red series
Follow-up piece by WMTV Channel 15 on December 28

Among the millions who will be watching the University of Wisconsin-Madison Badgers take on Texas Christian University in the 2011 Rose Bowl will be the handful of men who know what it’s like to play for the Badgers in the “granddaddy” of bowl games.

One of those football veterans is College of Engineering Associate Dean for Research and Grainger Professor of Nuclear Engineering Gerald Kulcinski. Kulcinski played in the 1960 Rose Bowl against the University of Washington—Wisconsin’s second appearance ever at the bowl.

Though the final score of 44-8 didn’t go the Badgers’ way, the experience of the game, and the football team in general, is something Kulcinski has always kept with him.

Originally from La Crosse, Wisconsin, Kulcinski was the first in his family to go beyond high school. He had just enough money for part of his freshman year as a chemical engineering student at UW-Madison and received a football scholarship after walking on as a right guard and linebacker.

Kulcinski says there are many differences between today’s football team and the 1960 team. The current team includes almost double the number of players and coaches, and those players are significantly larger than the athletes in Kulcinski’s era. Linemen in 2010 average 110 pounds heavier and five inches taller than linemen in 1960. Players in 1960 held both defensive and offensive positions, meaning many of them played for up to a full hour each game, much longer than today’s players.

Dinner with Marina

Fall 2010, I’m taking a digital storytelling (i.e. basic video production) at Madison College. This is absolutely my first time editing video. Here’s one of my first assignments: an interview. The subject is a great friend and a really good sport.

College of Engineering Social Media

During the summer of 2010, I spearheaded the initiative to establish a College of Engineering presence on various social media outlets, including:

• @UWMadEngr on Twitter (co-maintained with Andrea Parins)
• UW-Madison College of Engineering on Facebook
• EngineeringUW on Youtube (expanded and re-organized the pre-existing channel)
• Mad Engineer on WordPress (established the original blog concept and serve as editor)

These projects have been keeping me busy, but  hey, no complaints about legitimately having to check Twitter and Facebook periodically throughout the day!

Discovery.com: 10 Questions the LHC May Answer

During my last semester of college, I wrote an article titled “10 Questions the LHC May Answer” as part of a science journalism class. The article was accepted for publication on Discovery.com, and it appeared online in conjunction with the Large Hadron Collider’s return to operations after a year off-line.

The article is designed essentially as a photo essay. Do take a look–the photos of the machine and illustrations of the research are, to me, really stellar (ha).

The article was originally posted to the site on November 24, 2009.

Wisconsin Idea

An ongoing series at UW-Madison provides in-depth looks at professors and projects that are making an impact beyond the university. I’ve provided two engineering-related stories to the series.

Custom solutions keep manufacturers competitive
Rethinking disaster management by focusing on development

Engineers’ Day Profiles

Published October 12, 2009

Each October, the UW-Madison College of Engineering recognizes a group of distinguished alumni who have accomplished notable success in their respective industries. The group comes to campus for a two-day event that includes banquets, speakers and the Badger homecoming football game. As part of the promotional materials for this event, called Engineers’ Day, I wrote profiles about five of the eight award recipients.

In these profiles, I strove for a balance between explaining their professional accolades and illustrating their individual personalities–a challenge, considering I had only brief phone conversations and their resumes to work with!

Illumination

From 2008-2009, I served as editor-in-chief for the University of Wisconsin-Madison undergraduate humanities journal, Illumination. I managed a staff of 40 undergraduates, and each semester we produced a fresh issue containing art, essays and literature by UW-Madison students.

We produced 3,000 copies of each issue, which is supported by a significant endowment from the estate of a UW-Madison alumnus. To browse the journal, click here.

I eventually will post PDFs of the journals I oversaw as editor-in-chief. (I was with the journal for four years and participated in seven issues.)

Series: UW-Madison connections to NASA

The UW-Madison College of Engineering has connections to NASA in several ways, from a student organization whose members conduct experiments in zero gravity and a co-op student who builds lunar rovers to a recent alumnus who works on space suits and a faculty member who offers advice on some of NASA’s toughest problems.

NASA has been busy. In the week of July 7, 2008, alone, the Phoenix Mars Lander picked up soil samples and International Space Station astronauts walked in space.

Though these missions may seem light years away, the people who help make them happen aren’t quite so distant. The UW-Madison College of Engineering has connections to NASA in several ways from a student organization whose members conduct experiments in zero gravity and a co-op student who builds lunar rovers to a recent alumnus who works on space suits and a faculty member who offers advice on some of NASA’s toughest problems.

• Post 1—
  ZeroG team finds
  spray cooling works in space
  Posted July 11, 2008.
• Post 2—
  Associate dean advises NASA
  on human challenges
  in space programs
  Posted July 15, 2008.
• Post 3—
  NASA co-op pushes student
  to a new frontier
  of vehicle design
  Posted July 22, 2008.
• Post 4—
  Engineering mechanics alum
  bridges the NASA
  generation gap
  Posted July 23, 2008.

Souvenirs

Three of my photos from a trip to Cape Town, South Africa, were published in spring 2008 in the inaugural issue of Souvenirs, a University of Wisconsin-Madison travel journal.

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