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PennApps
eat.
sleep.

code.
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UNIVERSITY OFPENNSYLVANIA
Fall 2012
CONTENT
Penn Engineering / Fall 2012
Innovation is guided by instinct, and leading scholars learn to trust their

instincts, turning curiosity into a driving passion.
2
Future Vision
George Pappas takes the
reins as the newly minted Chair
of Electrical and Systems
Engineering.
Penn Engineering Board of Overseers
13
A Sweet Solution for

Regenerative Medicine
Penn bioengineers adapt
confectionery-making techniques
to create precision-designed
vasculature using molds made
of sugar.
24
Helping Engineers
Bring Ideas to Market
More than 3,200 students have
benefited from Penn Engineerings
Entrepreneurship Program and
immersion into the realities
of innovation.
cover
The sixth PennApps
hackathon invades the
Hall of Flags, where
over 300 students
engage in a 48-hour
stretch of nonstop
coding. Little time
is spent on frivolous
things like sleeping,
and teams from across
the country line up
to win top honors and
bragging rights.
18
The nearly complete Singh Center
boasts numerous state-of-the-art
scientific tools and architectural
elements.
Applying Math
to Materials
Renaissance Man
Overseer Harlan Stone, C80,
leverages his experience, gifts and
service to bring Penn Engineering
students multiple interdisciplinary
learning opportunities.
20
On and Off the Mat
10
Internet of Things
A world in which every object
is tagged with chips that can
interact with networks, dubbed
the Internet of Things, is the
futuristic vision of Davor Sutija,
M&T83.
Mike Steltenkamp, mechanical

engineering scholar and Division I
athlete, applies disciplined
training to scholarly pursuits.
The Honorable Harold Berger,

EE48, L51
Managing Partner
Berger and Montague, P.C.
Philadelphia, PA
Mr. David J. Berkman, W83
Managing Partner
Liberty Associated Partners, L.P.
Bala Cynwyd, PA
Dr. Katherine D. Crothall, EE71

Principal
Liberty Venture Partners, Inc.
Philadelphia, PA
28
Understanding how the structure

of materials deforms under
different conditions is the
fascination of preeminent
materials scientist and engineer
David Srolovitz.
Mr. Andrew Africk, L92, WG92

Senior Partner
Apollo Management, L.P.
New York, NY
Mr. Dennis Chip Brady, C94, W94

Partner
LSN Partners, LLC
Miami, FL
Singh Center for

Nanotechnology
Mr. Andrew S. Rachleff, W80

[Board Chair]
Partner
Benchmark Capital
Menlo Park, CA
There are limitless ways

to learn, create and
explore to establish a
common enterprise.
31
The (R)evolution of Code

PennApps challenges teams of
programmers to create something
new using nothing more than
imagination and computer code.
Penn Engineering
Magazine
alumni@seas.upenn.edu
215-898-6564
www.seas.upenn.edu
Eduardo D. Glandt
Dean
George W. Hain III
Vice Dean, External Affairs
Development and
Alumni Relations
Joan S. Gocke
Director of Communications
Editor
Dr. George H. Heilmeier, EE58

Chairman Emeritus
Telcordia Technologies, Inc.
Dallas, TX
Mr. Allie P. Rogers, ENG87, W87

Co-Founder
Triple Point Technology, Inc.
Westport, CT
Mr. Alex T. Krueger, ENG96, W96

President
First Reserve Corporation
London, UK
Dr. Jeffrey M. Rosenbluth, ENG84

Private Investor
Sands Point, NY
Dr. John F. Lehman, Jr., GR74

Chairman and Founding Partner
J. F. Lehman & Company
New York, NY
Mr. Ryan D. Limaye, ENG93,
W93, WG93
Managing Director & Head
Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.
San Francisco, CA
Dr. David M. Magerman, C90, ENG90
President and Founder
Kohelet Foundation
Gladwyne, PA
Mr. Sean C. McDonald, ChE82
President and CEO
Precision Therapeutics
Pittsburgh, PA
Mr. Peter N. Detkin, Esq., EE82, L85

Co-Founder, Vice-Chairman
Intellectual Ventures
Palo Alto, CA
Mr. Hital R. Meswani, ENG90, W90

Executive Director and
Member of the Board
Reliance Industries Limited
Mumbai, India
Mr. Richard D. Forman, EE87, W87

Managing Partner
Health Venture Group
New York, NY
Mr. Rajeev Misra, ME85, GEN86

Global Head of Credit
UBS Investment Bank
London, UK
Mr. C. Michael Gooden, GEE78

Chairman and CEO
Integrated Systems Analysts Inc.
Alexandria, VA
Mr. Ofer Nemirovsky, EE79, W79

Managing Director
HarbourVest Partners, LLC
Boston, MA
Mr. Paul S. Greenberg, EE83, WG87

Principal
Trilogy Capital LLC
Greenwich, CT
Ms. Alison Newman, C83

Partner
Alston & Bird LLP
New York, NY
Mr. Alex Haidas, C93, ENG93, WG98

Portfolio Manager
Credaris (CPM Advisers Limited)
London, UK
Mr. Mitchell I. Quain, EE73, parent

[Board Chair Emeritus]
Partner
One Equity Partners
New York, NY
Ms. Suzanne B. Rowland, ChE83

VP Business Excellence
Tyco Flow Control
Princeton, NJ
Mr. Theodore E. Schlein, C86
Managing Partner
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
Menlo Park, CA
Dr. Krishna P. Singh, MS69, Ph.D.72
President and CEO
Holtec International
Marlton, NJ
Dr. Rajendra Singh, parent
Chairman and CEO
Telcom Ventures LLC
Alexandria, VA
Ms. Juliet Sjborg, EE85 WG92
Director
Plena Group
London, UK
Mr. Robert M. Stavis, EAS84, W84
Partner
Bessemer Venture Partners
Larchmont, NY
Mr. Harlan M. Stone, C80
President and Chief Operating Officer
Halstead International
Norwalk, CT
Mr. Frederick J. Warren, ME60, WG61
Founder
Sage Venture Partners, LLC
Winter Park, FL
Ms. Sarah Keil Wolf, EE86, W86
Retired Investment Banker
Bear Stearns and Company
Scarsdale, NY
Dr. Michael D. Zisman, GEE73, GR77
Managing Director, Operations
Internet Capital Group
Wayne, PA
University of Pennsylvania Nondiscrimination Statement
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FROM THE DEAN
Eduardo D. Glandt/Nemirovsky Family Dean
Its PennApps!
PennApps comes around twice a year. It is one of the
largest hackathons in the country and is a sight to
behold. A cloud of coders, a congregation of creators, a
pack of programmers, a 48-hour non-stop gathering of
hundreds of college students pounding furiously at their
laptops. Noon-on-Friday til noon-on-Sunday. We provide
the power outlets; they order the pizzas. The majority
are Penn students, every one of them infected with a
passion for innovation, but scores join us from Harvard,
MIT, Rutgers, CMU, Hopkins, and an occasional
busload from Ann Arbor.
Every article in this issue of Penn Engineering magazine
is testimony to the gratifying vibrancy of our School,
but the feature about PennApps bears particular
significance because it is an activity organized and
run by students. It is a large community held together
by a shared appreciation of innovation. It is engineering
at its best: a team effort toward a well-defined
technological objective. It is a perfect complement to
lectures and scholarly projects; one glance and you
immediately know that the participants will remember
this event forever.
We foster and celebrate learning outside the classroom.

It is a hallmark of American higher education.
PennApps, PennVention, Rube Goldberg events, our
departmental and School-wide Senior Design competitions and countless other such activities are not mere
games. They are the crucial instances where rigorous
engineering science becomes translated into a product,
into a contribution for a better world, where young
students become young professionals.
We do our part by providing the needed resources and
appropriate venues, but the bulk of the credit goes to
our students, and to those who ensure that this cohort
is surrounded by a crowd of talented and stimulating
peers. Dean of Admissions Eric Furda and his highly
insightful staff know how to read through countless
applications and assemble an engineering class
populated by interesting individuals. We take it from
there. We are privileged to be the very first witnesses
to the results. Yes, it is hard work for everybody, and
also a shared joy.
Penn Engineering n 1
www.seas.upenn.edu
George Pappas
FALL 2012 n 2
Future Vision
George Pappas Ushers in New Era for ESE
By Elisa Ludwig
Innovation is guided by instinct, and leading scholars

learn to trust their own, turning curiosity into a driving
passion. You follow your noseyou do well at what
you enjoy and you enjoy what you do well, says George
Pappas, the newly named Chair of the Department of
Electrical and Systems Engineering (ESE).
Pappas has parlayed his own talents into a highly
accomplished academic and research career, focusing
on embedding intelligence into systems, including cars,
airplanes and buildings. It was an Apple II personal
computer that first piqued Pappas interest as a young
student in Greece. I wanted to know not just how it
worked for the user, but what was happening inside
the box. When I started taking classes in engineering,
I learned that computers were useful, not just for word
processing and sending emails and playing games, but
as a way of changing or impacting the world.
Inspiration and Collaboration

With early encouragement from his professors, Pappas
earned undergraduate and masters degrees from
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. One professor said,
You have two options. You can pursue your interest in
controls and systems or you can open a Greek diner.
The choice for Pappas was clear, and he went on to earn

a Ph.D. and completed a postdoctoral appointment at
the University of California at Berkeley.
Pappas came to Penn in 2000, and quickly distinguished
himself as a top scholar. Two years later, he won a
coveted National Science Foundation Presidential Early
Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE).
Pappas also won the Ruberti Young Researcher Prize
and has been named an IEEE Fellow. In 2008, Pappas
was named the Joseph Moore Professor of Electrical and
Systems Engineering.
Penn has been a wonderful place for me, he says. As a
professor, Ive had the luxury of working with wonderful
students on both the undergraduate and graduate
levels, many of whom have gone on to amazing careers.
Doctoral candidate Chinwendu Enyioha chose Penn for
his graduate education so he could work with Pappas.
Every time George opens up a new course offering he
gets more students than he anticipated, and thats
a testament to his talents as a teacher, Enyioha
says. Hes also very good at letting students do their
work independently. He gives them sound ideas
and direction and then allows them to arrive at their
own conclusions.
www.seas.upenn.edu
FALL 2012 n 4
Penn has been a wonderful place for me, notes Pappas. As a professor, Ive
had the luxury of working with wonderful students on both the undergraduate
and graduate levels, many of whom have gone on to amazing careers.
Pappas believes that one of the unique advantages

of Penn is its size. Intellectually, there are not many
people who do exactly what you do here so it forces you
to collaborate across disciplines and that is a good
thing for both students and faculty.
Previously Pappas served as Penn Engineerings
Deputy Dean for Research, focusing on developing
those interdisciplinary connections. I tend to think
broadly about engineering, and enjoy the interplay of
ideas, for instance, in robotics, where you bring together
mechanical engineers with systems engineers and
computer science programmers.
Charting New Territory

As Chair, Pappas focus will be on continuing to foster
those interactions as well as identifying areas for
growth and new directions for investment, such as
nanodevices and the recently added major in Networked
and Social Systems Engineering. My other priorities
will be hiring, cultivating and retaining top-notch
faculty to train the next generation of engineers, and
working to translate whats happening on the research
front into better educational programs at all levels,
down to the freshman experience.
A pilot course for freshmen, ESE 111, will cover
the scope and possibilities of electrical and systems
engineering, from the foundations of how information is
connected to physics through basic circuits, up through
nanoscale devices and informational systems for energy,
health and transportation. The breadth of electrical
system engineering is unparalleled, and we want our
students to understand all of the opportunities in front
of them and feel empowered. Pappas is also hoping to
get undergraduate students involved in research earlier
in their educational careers.
Today, the strength of its faculty and the diversity

of its research activities make ESE an intellectual
hub of the School. It is home to about 25 percent of
our doctoral students and is responsible for about 25
percent of the Schools research funding. With George
Pappas as Chair, the Department is clearly poised for
great success and even greater stature, says Eduardo
D. Glandt, Nemirovsky Family Dean of the School of
Engineering and Applied Science.
21st Century Solutions

Pappas will continue to focus on his own research
in three areas, including his work with the Greater
Philadelphia Innovation Cluster for Energy Efficient
Buildings, a Federal Government-funded green building
initiative at the Navy Yard; improving security in
electronic systems in cars; and developing real-time
traffic reports without infringing on individual privacy.
You might not think of energy or security as electrical
systems problems but we have solutions for them, and
this is the type of vision we want to see going forward,
using our foundation and applying it in novel domains
to address the modern needs of society.
Pappas example continues to galvanize students not
only in their research but in forging their own career
paths. When you first start out as a graduate student,
you can only focus on a small problem, but you dont
have a clue about how it fits into the bigger picture,
says Miroslav Pajic, a doctoral candidate who has
co-authored a paper with Pappas on wireless control
networks. George has helped me understand how
this research can be used in the real world, and
watching him work has inspired me to pursue a career
in academia.
www.seas.upenn.edu
Understanding how the structure of materials deforms under different conditions is crucial for a
range of applications, from building jet engines that are less likely to fracture when stressed to
precisely controlling the properties of hair mousse.
Applying Math
to Materials
Materials Scientist and Engineer David Srolovitz Joins Penn Faculty
By Janelle Weaver
The frothy foam that rises on top of beer as you pour

it into a glass, the bubbles that build up in the sink
after you dump dish soap into it, the smooth texture of
shaving cream smeared on your facethese physical
phenomena are entrancing enough on the macroscopic
scale, but David Srolovitz has an entirely different
perspective. Srolovitz, the inaugural Joseph Bordogna
Professor of Engineering and Applied Science in the
departments of Mechanical Engineering and Applied
Mechanics (MEAM) and Materials Science and
Engineering (MSE), is fascinated by the microscopic
properties of these materials. For years, he has used
computer simulations to understand mechanical deformations affecting the microstructure of a variety of
materials, from crystals to foams. Using mathematical
principles, he has developed intricate theories that
describe how crystal grains and other structures grow
in three dimensions, laying a strong foundation for the
entire field of materials science.
FALL 2012 n 6
We are very excited that Srolovitz has joined the

Penn faculty, because he is one of the worlds most
preeminent computational materials engineers and
influential materials scientists and mechanicians of
his generation, says Eduardo D. Glandt, Nemirovsky
Family Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied
Science. Penn has also recruited Vivek Shenoy,
Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, another
leading expert in computational science who focuses
on modeling the fabrication, performance and physical
properties of nanoscale devices and structures.
Small-scale Simulations
By studying mechanical properties at the nanoscale,
Srolovitz gains unique insights into how materials
behave when theyre deformed. A wire, for instance,
behaves very differently at the macroscopic scale than
it does on the nanoscale when it is stretched. Using
David J. Srolovitz
www.seas.upenn.edu
molecular dynamics simulations, Srolovitz tracks the

position of individual atoms at every moment in time
to gain a more complete quantitative picture of their
behavior than is possible with experiments. The
central goal of materials science is to control the microstructure of materials, and our work provides really
precise descriptions of how microstructures evolve,
he says.
These simulations provide a glimpse of how materials
behave, making it easier to develop theories. Without
simulations, you can make macroscopic observations
from experiments, but then its a big leap to try to
understand whats going on at the microscopic level and
to develop theories, Srolovitz says.
Understanding how the structure of materials deforms
under different conditions is crucial for a range of
applications, from building jet engines that are less
likely to fracture when stressed to precisely controlling
the properties of hair mousse. We walk on the edge
between things that are technologically interesting and
good scientific questions that can be applied broadly,
Srolovitz notes.
FALL 2012 n 8
For the past several years, Srolovitz was the Executive

Director of the Institute of High Performance
Computing at Singapores Agency for Science,
Technology and Research (A*STAR), and prior to that
position, he was on the faculties at Yeshiva University,
Princeton University and the University of Michigan.
The decision to join the Penn faculty was easy for
him because it meant returning to the place where he
got his start. Srolovitz earned masters and doctoral
degrees from Penns Department of Materials Science
and Engineering. Since then, he has maintained
his ties with MSE, returning to give seminars every
few years. Ive spent a lot of time in this part of the
country, and it feels like coming home, he says.
Collaboration Is Key
As a member of the Penn faculty, Srolovitz will bridge
macroscopic observations with theoretical predictions by collaborating with experimentalists in the
Departments of Physics and Chemistry, among
others. I enjoy working with people from a lot of
different disciplines because each discipline brings its
own perspective, and its important to bring to bear
whatever approach you need to solve a problem.
Penns relatively small size makes it easy to forge

collaborations, but at the same time its large enough to
achieve a critical mass of experts in various specialties,
Srolovitz notes. Penn strikes the right balance in
terms of size, and because its a world-class institution,
it will allow me to collaborate with high-quality
researchers on both the engineering side of the
discipline as well as the basic science side.
One Penn scientist Srolovitz plans to collaborate with
is Randall Kamien, professor of Physics and Astronomy,
who develops precise mathematical theories to describe
at the molecular level how materials fold. Srolovitz
has the intellectual range and expertise to take an
abstract mathematical idea and know how to make a
real material out of it, Kamien says. Because of his
remarkable breadth and eagerness to collaborate, he
epitomizes what our campus is about.
Penn PICS Up the Pace

The Penn Institute for Computational Science (PICS) is a new
center that will act as a central hub for computational
modeling research. The premier institute will bring together
faculty across Penn who are working on a diverse set of
projects involving high-speed computing. Unlike many
other institutes for computational science, PICS will have a
broad focus, welcoming scientists from a variety of research
areas, including engineering, chemistry, biology, applied
mathematics, computer science and physics. PICS will also
host a regular seminar series and provide technical training
to students and postdoctoral fellows to allow them to take
advantage of rapidly evolving computing technology. With
the launch of PICS, we are trying to make sure that Penn plays
a leadership role in computational science and engineering
at the national level, says Director David Srolovitz.
www.seas.upenn.edu
FALL 2012 n 10
Entrepreneurs Corner
Internet of Things
The Promise of Printed Electronics
By Janelle Weaver
Imagine being able to test the freshness of your produce

or the potency of your medicine simply by scanning it
with your smartphone. A world in which every object
is tagged with chips that can interact with networks,
dubbed the Internet of Things, is the futuristic
vision held by Davor Sutija, M&T83, Chief Executive
Officer of Thin Film Electronics ASA. This Oslo-based
company, launched in the mid-90s, has pioneered the
development of flexible, wafer-thin printed tags that
store electronic information in rewritable memory.
Less expensive and more amenable to mass production
than standard silicon microelectronics, this non-toxic,
low-power, polymer-based technology is also ideal
for personalized toys and games, allowing children
to program characters to have specific names and
features. For businesses, the technology means
protecting their brands with printed radiofrequency
identification tags and tracking customers behaviors
and preferences for interactive marketing campaigns.
The printed electronics company demonstrated its first

prototype of an integrated printed system last October
together with PARC, a Xerox company that manufactures transistors used to construct the circuits. And this
summer, Thinfilm announced that it will partner with
the Fortune 500 Wisconsin-based packaging company
Bemis, paving the way for introducing freshness
indicators into grocery stores and pharmacies by 2014.
By monitoring individual packages to ensure that their
contents have been kept at a safe temperature over
time, the printed sensor systems can alert consumers if
their milk or medicine is past its prime.
This technology will allow consumers to check the
quality of perishable goods inside packages, as well as
companies to check the environmental conditions that
packages are exposed to during transport, so that they
know when and where the quality of the material they
ship is compromised, Sutija says. Its a significant
www.seas.upenn.edu
In 2011, Thinfilms manufacturing partner InkTec opened a dedicated printing line to produce
Thinfilm rewritable memory. In the photo, InkTec CEO K.C. Chung and Davor Sutija hold the first
roll of fully printed memories from the new line.
step in the direction toward an ocean of smart tags

that I believe will form the basis for the long-heralded
Internet of Things.
Launching Success
Among the first batch of graduates from Penns Jerome
Fisher Program in Management and Technology, Sutija
credits this unique interdisciplinary programand his
past Chemical Engineering advisor Eduardo Glandt,
now the Nemirovsky Family Dean of the School of
Engineering and Applied Sciencefor fostering his
sense of entrepreneurship. Dr. Glandt was adamant
in his view that a degree in engineering was not a
hindrance to participating in technology management,
rather quite the oppositethat it would give me a
unique perspective and credibility in leading technically
entrepreneurial teams and organizations, Sutija says.
Its rare to combine a top-notch engineering education
and business education into one program, and this
interdisciplinary education was critical for launching
my career.
FALL 2012 n 12
After receiving his Penn degree, Sutija studied

History and Philosophy of Science at the University
of Cambridge and then earned a Ph.D. in Chemical
Engineering from the University of California at
Berkeley. Based in Norway for the past 20 years, Sutija
co-founded SiNOR AS (now REC-SiTech), a producer
of photovoltaic ingots, was on the management team
of FAST, an enterprise software company bought
by Microsoft in 2008, and joined Thinfilm in 2010.
Through these diverse entrepreneurial experiences, he
has focused his efforts on making energy consumption
more environmentally friendly, improving the way we
search for information, and developing smart tags that
can lead to a better quality of life. Im excited about
being at the forefront of creating technology that affects
the way we live, Sutija says.
A Sweet Solution
for Regenerative
Medicine
Using Sugar to Create 3D Vascular Networks
By Jessica Stein Diamond
Lollipops that dissolve at an ideal pace. Intricate sugar

lattices that garnish restaurant desserts. The candy
layer that coats M&MS and Skittles.
Borrowing concepts from such unlikely realms as
candy manufacturing and an open source hackerinventor community, Christopher S. Chen, Professor
of Bioengineering, leads a scientific collaboration that
recently advanced the science of tissue engineering. In
a lab often suffused with the scent of fresh cotton candy,
his postdoctoral fellow Jordan Miller worked with
collaborators at MIT to adapt confectionery-making
techniques to create precision-designed vasculature
using molds made of sugar.
Their breakthrough keeps liver cells alive within
engineered 3D tissues that can be created rapidly
and inexpensively, and was published in July in
Nature Materials.
Candy-makers & Hackers

This innovation fills an important scientific need:
we can now readily design and create 3D tissues to
study human biology, says Chen, M.D., Ph.D., and
Skirkanich Professor of Innovation. This powerful
model for vascular biology mimics the environment of
human tissues and will help us understand how things
get plumbed and vascularized, what controls how blood
www.seas.upenn.edu
Miller checks 3D printed sugar templates for defects before using them in tissue engineering research.
The sugar serves as a temporary template for casting fluidic networks to keep cells alive.
vessels grow or dont grow, and what happens to tissues

when they get re-vascularized or have too few or too
many blood vessels.
Adapting lost wax casting techniques used by sculptors
and jewelers for thousands of years, the research team
uses an open source printer to cast molds made of a
laboratory-grade sugar formulation that dissolves in a
gel pre-polymer moments after that gel solidifies. The
result: a precise architecture of blood vessels between
150 to 750 microns in diameter that supply nutrients
and remove waste for living cells in a gel. The vasculature forms its own capillary sprouts and so far has
FALL 2012 n 14
nurtured liver cells, fibroblasts and myocyte progenitors

within 3D tissues.
Over the past decade, scientists have refined techniques
for creating thin tissues such as engineered skin,
cornea, bladder and trachea. But their efforts to create
thicker tissues such as in the liver, heart, kidneys
or muscles were stymied because cells in the core of
thicker structures would starve without blood vessels
that would feed them. Bio-printing layer-by-layer didnt
work due to seams and structural weaknesses in the
vasculature, and also because primary cells such as
liver cells are too fragile to survive that process. Prior
http://youtu.be/9VHFlwJQIkE
molding techniques also used organic solvents that

killed living cells.
make this piping. This is a powerful research tool for

a broad spectrum of tissue types and diseases.
This discovery is the next step in liver tissue

engineeringhow to go from thinner tissues fed by
diffusion to a thicker tissue that will require networks
of blood flow within it, says Sangeeta Bhatia, M.D.,
Ph.D., and Wilson Professor at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, and Chens collaborator.
All tissues thicker than a millimeter need vascular
networks, the piping that brings nutrients close enough
to the cells. Chris and his team came up with a way to
Odd Combination
Inspiration for this breakthrough came from two
improbable topics: dead bodies and desserts. Shortly
after coming to Penn, Miller saw the Franklin
Institutes Body Worlds exhibit featuring plasticized casts of human organs and bodies. He realized
this reverse-mold technique could work better than
bio-printing to create engineered vasculature.
www.seas.upenn.edu
Jordan Miller (left) and Chris Chen in the Tabas Lab, testing recent upgrades to the open
source 3D printer system, which has been modified to extrude molten sugar.
Later, at a restaurant, Miller had an epiphany. A sugar

lattice garnished his dessert. It looked like vasculature.
I immediately realized sugar would be the best material
for the mold because its nontoxic for cells, says Miller,
who began creating sugar lattices at home, using
cookbooks and a candy thermometer.
As he pondered ways to precision-print sugar, Miller
drew on his interests outside the scientific community.
He came across the RepRap printer, an inexpensive
device often used by hobbyists to print figurines or
replacement parts for appliances or toys. He began
working with a group of inventors and artists at Hive
76, a Philadelphia-area hacker space, to learn how
to build a RepRap. He tweaked the device, replacing
a plastic frosting extruder with a glass syringe head
wrapped with toaster wire that keeps the sugar
solution molten until printed.
FALL 2012 n 16
It took two years to optimize those sugars. First, they

tested recipes from a 19th century German candymaking textbook that strengthened sugar with a starch
additive. But that made the sugar too cloudy, disrupting
photo-polymerization. Another additive, glycerol,
weakened the sugar. Ultimately, a blend of sucrose and
glucose plus dextran (a sugar polymer similar to starch
used in blood perfusion in human patients to stabilize
blood pressure) kept the sugars clear and strong.
Next, they needed to protect the printed sugar filaments
so the mold would dissolve at the right moment.
Studying lollipops, M&MS and Skittles, they decided
to coat the sugar template with a layer of corn-derived
polymer that would allow the sugar to dissolve moments
after the gel cross-links. That thin coating gives us
time and control over everything, says Miller. That
allows the sugar to flow out of the gel instead of through
the gel, which protects living cells from sugar at a

concentration thats toxic.
Future Challenges
The next goals involve designing thicker and more
complex vascularized tissues. Creating capillaries is
not a problem, says Chen. Weve been able to print
vessels that are the size of what would feed the stem of
a maple leaf and all the little vessels inside that leaf.
Now we need to be able to print vessels that would feed
a branch with 100 leaves on it.
Too many or not enough blood vessels are central to
the ischemic diseases that are a major aspect of
mortality and morbidity, says Chen. The question of
how a tissue gets the right amount of vascularity or not
is critical, for instance, in cardiac ischemia, peripheral
artery disease, chronic wound healing for individuals

with diabetes, and revascularization of the brain
after stroke.
Bhatia, whose postdoc Kelly Stevens worked closely
with Miller, says, Together, we have created two
important building blocks: we have learned how to
support cells in artificial environments and how to
make tissues thicker. Until now the field of microcirculation has been largely observational. With these
tools, well be able to recreate the architecture of
vasculature in thicker tissues. This is an important
step for regenerative medicine as we advance the
translational science of creating replacement parts
for aging, injured and diseased tissues.
www.seas.upenn.edu
FALL 2012 n 18
Singh Center
for Nanotechnology
The curtain wall is composed of a patterned etched
glass layer, a reflective insulating layer and an interior
coating of translucent patterned glass.
The clean room areas will achieve a rating of 10,000

particles per cubic meter.
The temperature and humidity in the imaging

labs will vary less than one degree year round.
The facility will feature the artwork of Tony Smith,

Jaume Plensa, Hilla Rebay and Casey Reas.
The length of the cantilever is 65 feet.
The building will have two green roof areas,

both featuring local vegetation.
Each lab area above grade has access to views and

natural daylight. Labs with sensitive imaging equipment
are below grade.
The building captures and stores all rainwater

that falls on the site, much of which will be
stored and reused for irrigation.
The glass patterns have varying degrees of

transparency and opacity in six different panel
types, which maximize views in key locations.
www.seas.upenn.edu
On and Off the Mat

With Scholar-Athlete Mike Steltenkamp
By Patricia Hutchings
Once you have wrestled, everything else in life is

easy, or so said legendary Olympic gold medalist and
Iowa University wrestling coach, Dan Gable. Does
this include working toward a degree in Mechanical
Engineering at Penn?
174-pound weight class, his sensible approach to

weight management is, understandably, a point of
pride with him.
Mike Steltenkamp, a Penn Engineering senior and

Penn wrestler, recently considered the quote and found
a good deal of truth in it. But even as the sport, for
him, consumes body, mind and spirit, it has rewarded
him with myriad skills and lessons he can apply to the
game of life. Along with extreme attention to detail
while looking at the larger strategy, Steltenkamp has
developed the quality of self-discipline.
Penns wrestling practice schedule is most definitely

not for everyone: six days a week, with two practice
sessions a day on four of those days during the season.
At the gym at least 10 times a week for weightlifting,
conditioning and wrestling drills while attending
engineering classes as a masters submatriculant,
putting in hours as a Teaching Assistant and serving
as president of the Alpha Tau Omega (ATO) fraternity
adds up to an arduous schedule. As Steltenkamp puts
it, its all about drive: nine to five.
In wrestling, the known rigors of serious athletic

training are complicated by the ongoing challenges of
making weight for each match. Wrestlers of all levels
traditionally compete at a lower weight class, theoretically gaining advantage over their opponents. This
often necessitates cutting weight to qualify.
Although aware of the dangers of dehydration and
caloric self-deprivation before a match, it is the
cultivation of a disciplined lifestyle that seems to be
Steltenkamps guiding principle. A competitor in the
FALL 2012 n 20
Not for the Faint of Heart
Driven, yes he is, but others also describe him as

dedicated. As a high school wrestler in Bloomfield Hills,
MI, Steltenkamp was twice awarded the Coaches Medal
for dedication. When asked for his thoughts on having
won the award, Steltenkamp expressed his belief that
he was being recognized for his efforts in bringing new
or inexperienced team members into the fold and
teaching them what there was to know. In other words,
he not only embodied but also passed along the spirit
of the team.
Mike Steltenkamp
www.seas.upenn.edu
Perhaps it was having acted as a mentor during those

years that made him a natural for the SEAS Freshman
Alumni Mentoring Program as a mentee. Whatever
the attraction, Steltenkamp is glad he signed on. The
program, (www.seas.upenn.edu/alumni/mentoring.php),
pairs an alumni mentor with a first-year engineering
student for one year.
Power of Penn Networks

Steltenkamps experience in the Mentoring Program
illustrates the success of the program and the power
of Penn connections to provide guidance and inspiration.
His network originated with his assigned mentor, Guido
Gaeffke, ME82, who put him in touch with Bruce
Tassone, ME82, WG86. The introduction resulted in his
working for Tassones engineering firm, Engine Cleaning
FALL 2012 n 22
Technology, Inc., in Bridgeport, PA, over the summer

of his freshman year.
The experience, according to both, was 100 percent
win-win. As Tassone sums up that summer, It turned
out to be a great success story. Mike showed an
immediate commitment to our business and positively
contributed by developing a number of value engineering
processes. We only wish he could have stayed a while
longer, but he had to get back to the Towne Building
for classes!
Steltenkamps most recent summer was spent in an
environment quite different from Tassones company:
Ford Motor Company. Even with his family home just an
hour or so from Detroit and his grandfather a lifetime
career GMer, Steltenkamp had never given much
thought to eventually taking his mechanical engineering
skills to Detroit. After completing his product development internship, during which he analyzed the
Lincoln Continental in terms of customer experience,
Motor City is now on his radar.
Definition of a Scholar-Athlete
While the future seems to hold much promise for him,
Steltenkamp is very much a man who lives intensely
in the moment. A GPA of 3.91 in his major attests to
his mental agility when facing the competing demands
of school and sport. An article in his high school
newspaper, in fact, once described him as having put
the scholar back in scholar-athlete. How does he do it?
His wrestling teammates, who immediately became his
25 best friends on his very first day at Penn, provide
a robust support system. His professors, if not exactly
wrestling fans, seem to be on his side, cognizant of his

heavy course load and his travel and workout schedules.
Steltenkamps academic advisor, Katherine
Kuchenbecker, Skirkanich Assistant Professor of
Innovation, and a national championship volleyball
player while at Stanford, is especially mindful of his
double life. He notes that Kuchenbecker even now
forms her MEAM design classes into teams.
Also in Steltenkamps corner are his parents, both
teachers, who instilled in him the importance of taking
his education seriously. At the same time, his father, a
discus thrower at Michigan State, never questioned his
sons consuming involvement with athletics.
With a personal team like that, nine-to-five drive and
the gift of passionate dedication, perhaps everything else
in life is easy because of wrestling.
www.seas.upenn.edu
Helping Engineers
Its Not Enough to Just Build It
By Jon Hurdle
Avi Berkowitz recalls discovering that even the best

engineering ideas are unlikely to achieve commercial
success unless they are inspired by a solid sense of what
the market wants.
Berkowitz, a 2005 graduate from Penn Engineering,
acquired an early understanding of the realities of
innovation when he took Professor Thomas Cassels
introductory Engineering Entrepreneurship course in
the spring of his senior year. The course, one of three in
Penns Engineering Entrepreneurship Program, equips
students with the tools to turn technologies into business
startups. It showed Berkowitz and his classmates that
entrepreneurial expertise is a critical component in any
plan to capitalize on an engineering idea.
Its 10 percent about the technology and 90 percent
about the business model, says Berkowitz, now an
entrepreneur working on his latest startup. The idea
that If you build it they will come is a non-starter.
Student interest in intellectual property, venture capital,
operations strategy and other aspects of starting a
technology business helps to explain the popularity of the
12-year-old program that has attracted more than 3,200
students and garnered a series of awards. These awards
include the prestigious Provosts Award for Distinguished
Teaching in 2007 for Cassel, who is the Director of the
Engineering Entrepreneurship Program and a Professor
of Practice. The program immerses students in the world
FALL 2012 n 24
of high-tech startups, using case studies to demonstrate

how to write a business plan, marketing and sales
forecasts, patent protection, and team leadership.
Real-world Wisdom
The program, also offered as a minor to juniors and
seniors who mostly but not exclusively come from Penn
Engineering, is peppered with prominent guest speakers
from industries ranging from medical devices and
pharmaceuticals to defense systems contracting
and venture finance.
The real-world emphasis has its roots in the business
career of Cassel, a Penn graduate, who co-founded
Reading Energy Holdings, an owner and operator of
waste-fueled power plants that began in 1978 as an
engineering and economic consulting firm, and evolved
to become a pioneer in the then-nascent independent
electric power industry. Cassel and his team developed
three large power plants in California, Pennsylvania
and Illinois, which were eventually sold in the 1990s.
With a successful business career behind him, Cassel
then briefly considered retirement but was persuaded in
1999 by Dean Eduardo Glandt to start an engineering
entrepreneurship course at Penn. After discussions with
both practitioners and educators on the West and East
Coasts, Cassel designed a program whose mission was,
and remains, to help engineers develop their products in
response to real market demands.
The Engineering Entrepreneurship Program

immerses students in the world of high-tech
startups, using case studies to demonstrate
how to write a business plan, marketing and
sales forecasts, patent protection, and
team leadership.
Tom Cassel, Jeffrey Babin and Elliot Menschik

www.seas.upenn.edu
Cassel designed a program whose mission was, and
Tom Cassel
FALL 2012 n 26
remains, to help engineers develop their products i.
The 12-year-old Engineering Entrepreneurship Program has attracted more than 3,200 students and
garnered a series of awards, including the prestigious Provosts Award for Distinguished Teaching in
2007 for Tom Cassel, who is the Director and Professor of Practice.
While aiming to give young engineers the business

savvy to make their ideas work, the program leaves
them with no illusion that it will be an easy task,
says Jeffrey Babin, the programs Senior Lecturer
and Associate Director. One of the things the course
teaches is how difficult it is to become a successful
entrepreneur, he notes. Thats shown by the experience
of J.R. Cromer, who took two of the Engineering
Entrepreneurship classes, EAS 545 and 546, in 2004
and 2006, respectively. After leaving Penn, Cromer
tried and failed at an Internet startup, and then
launched a business providing construction and
education for the solar industry.
Startup Redesign
Cromers solar business initially did well but struggled
when subsidies declined. He ended up closing the
construction side of the business, and redesigning the
company as a solar education service for architects and
engineers, with just one employeehimselfwho now
crisscrosses the country to provide solar training to his
clients. Cromer credits Cassels program with helping
him to be flexible without losing sight of his vision.
Thats what engineering entrepreneurship taught us,
to adapt to market opportunity.
Niranjan Kameswaran, another former student, said
he took the course because he wanted to learn about
real-world applications of technologies that he had only
encountered in the classroom. The class looked like a
great opportunity for me to understand just what the
world outside of research was, he says. I wanted to
know how to take something out of the lab and make
something useful out of it.
Kameswaran, a bioengineer whose Ph.D. research was
focused on repairing nerve damage, became a teaching
assistant for one of the courses. He now applies his
entrepreneurial skills in a healthcare consulting firm,
advising clients such as pharmaceutical companies on

how to identify market opportunities for new drugs.
The programs real-world relevance helps to explain
the flood of students who regularly oversubscribe the
courses and submit glowing course evaluations. This
course was so inspiring to me, wrote one student.
It has paved my path into the entrepreneurial world
with no fear and immense confidence. The program
continues to attract more students, whose numbers rose
to a record 500 this year.
To meet the growing demand, Penn Engineering hired
Elliot Menschik as Adjunct Associate Professor in
August 2012. Menschik, a physician, neuroscientist,
engineer and successful entrepreneur who has lectured
in the Department of Bioengineering, is the recent
founder of Venturef0rth, a Philadelphia company
providing strategic and operational support for startups
and early-stage technology businesses.
Broader Context
For his part, Babin attributes the programs popularity
to student interest in how technology companies work
in the marketplace, and to the fact that it focuses
on high-profile technologies and the companies that
use them. It gives them a broader context for their
engineering education, he notes.
While the program has encouraged startups by
students like Berkowitz and Cromer, most have not
(yet) done so, and thats fine with Babin and Cassel.
The pair is more focused on giving students the skills
they will need when and if they choose to launch a
high-tech venture than they are with unleashing a flood
of technology startups. Its not a metric for success,
Cassel says, referring to the number of startups by
program participants. We want them to be prepared so
that whenever the opportunity crosses their path they
will be ready to seize it.
www.seas.upenn.edu
Harlan Stone
FALL 2012 n 28
Considered an advocate for melding science with humanities, Harlan Stone

leverages his experience, gifts and service to bring Penn Engineering
students multiple interdisciplinary learning opportunities.
Renaissance Man
Harlan Stone Brings Creative Passion to Engineering
By Amy Biemiller
For those who see engineering and the arts as dichotomies, Harlan Stone, C80, would like to have a moment
of their time. This is the age of a potential renaissance,
when the creative process and human expression come
together with scientific inquiry to produce innovative
outcomes, he says.
Considered an advocate for melding science with
humanities, Stone leverages his experience, gifts and
service to bring Penn Engineering students multiple
interdisciplinary learning opportunities. He is a member
of the Schools Board of Overseers and sponsors student
internships. He has also funded the Digital Media
Design (DMD) programs animation studio and a newly
endowed professorship, both created to build strong and
successful linkages between computer and information
science, visual culture and art history.
We can use todays technology to gain better understanding of cultures and past eras, and create synergies
between art and science, he says. There are limitless
ways to learn, create and explore and by helping to

establish a common enterprise, I hope to encourage
Penn Engineering students to look at things through
different lenses to gain better understanding.
Visual Art and Engineering

While some may find it anomalous that an art history
major would have such an affinity for engineering, Stone
finds it relevant. I love the cross-disciplinary aspects of
the engineering program and that intellectual pursuit is
encouraged, he says. I am able to contribute by being
the voice of visual creativity within the engineering
environment. For me, that is a real privilege.
Stones dedication to advancing the study of visual art
as fuel for innovative science is an outgrowth of his own
academic experience at Penn. In the 1970s he studied
with Leo Steinberg, one of the countrys most distinguished art historians; with Adrian Malone, BBC
www.seas.upenn.edu
What I learned has served me well in business says Stone. Thats why I strongly advocate
for students to follow their passions and seek knowledge to try to understand things. This will
benefit them and our communities.
director and producer; and was influenced by Vartan

Gregorian, the founding Dean of Penns Faculty of Arts
and Sciences.
These men were great voices for the importance of
investing in humanities in higher education, at a time
when most universities were struggling to justify the
relevancy of those studies, he says. They helped shape
my vision and influenced me greatly. Another whose
influence continues to inspire him today is Stones
father, who graduated from Penn with a degree in
accounting.
While my dad studied accounting at Penn, he
encouraged me to follow my passions academically and
personally, says Stone, who earned his degree in art
history and has applied that knowledge to running the
family decorative building materials businesses. Stone
is President and CEO of Halstead International, CFO of
Metroflor Corporation and Managing Director of Vertex
Group. What I learned has served me well in business.
Thats why I strongly advocate for students to follow
their passions and seek knowledge to try to understand
things. This will benefit them and our communities.
FALL 2012 n 30
Encouraging Students to Follow

Their Passions
Stone also feels strongly about applying his knowledge
and resources to support the next generation of
scholars. As an Overseer for the School, he fully
supports the strategic planning process and initiatives
that help prepare students to be responsible, creative
leaders in a high-tech world.
Being an Overseer allows me to work with great
visionaries like Dean Eduardo Glandt and professor
Norm Badler, the real founder of digital media, he
says. It also gives me the opportunity to stretch
intellectually, translating my passion for humanities
in a way that resonates with a technically oriented
school environment.
Perhaps what Stone enjoys most about his involvement
with the School is the opportunity to interact with the
students. These are bright kids with a passion to work
hard and be creative, he says, and every time Im
around them, I come away uplifted and inspired.
The (R)evolution
of Code
By Amy Calhoun
The buzz can be heard all over campus. Do you have

a team for PennApps yet? I heard they ordered an
entire truckload of Red Bull.
luminaries as Facebook, Yahoo!, Google and Twitter, as

well as the venture capital and software companies that
support and embrace emerging startups.
PennApps, the largest student-run hackathon in the

U.S., is about to begin. By nightfall, students will
swarm the campus from as far away as Ann Arbor and
Montreal, cramming into Houston Hall for the opening
ceremonies. Now in its fifth year, this highly respected
event elicits major sponsorship from such tech-based
Hacking Is Power
In 48 hours, teams of programmers are challenged to
create something entirely new out of thin air using
nothing more than their imaginations and computer
code. The payoff is a grand prize of $4,000, a trip to
www.seas.upenn.edu
In 48 hours, teams of programmers are challenged to create something entirely new out of thin air using
nothing more than their imaginations and computer code.
Google NYC to demo their creation, and entry into

Facebooks college hackathon finals, where they will
repeat the process all over again. Bragging rights
are gratis.
The Dining Philosophers, Penns undergraduate
computer science club, organizes many events, but
PennApps is the largest and most complex. Computer
science undergraduates Pulak Mittal, Amalia Hawkins,
Ayaka Nonaka, Jonathan Leung and Trisha Kothari,
with support from Ware College House and sponsors,
organize and run the hackathon. Hawkins notes,
Keeping three or four hundred people fed, energized
and entertained for 48 hours is challenging. Finding
space and sponsors and estimating needs takes a lot of
time, but all of that pales in comparison to the hectic
energy of the weekend.
It may be hard to grasp the allure of competing with
hundreds of other programmers while sleeping on
floors and pounding caffeine for two days straight,
but PennApps is synonymous with hacker culture and
the groundswell movement of startups. For some, the
word hacker conjures images of criminals breaking
into Pentagon databases, but the term has evolved to
describe many forms of creative reimplementation.
In the computer science domain, hacking represents
a creative retaliation against a prefabricated world.
Technological gadgets now come in highly designed,
FALL 2012 n 32
self-contained packages that thwart all attempts to

tinker. Try taking your smartphone apart to see what
you can do and all youll end up with is a broken phone.
The desire to manipulate and fiddle with objects is
persistent though, and if you know how to write code,
you can access a whole new world of creativity while
re-asserting your individuality.
Training Ground for the

Inner Entrepreneur
A great hack creates something useful, fun and often
totally unintended by the mega-corporation that
built the device. Great hacks can also give birth to
new business opportunities, which is the honey that
draws companies such as Andreessen Horowitz and
Bain Capital Ventures to this event. Many people
come to hackathons, explains Mittal, hoping to build
something fun and cool, which is a great goal, but for
some students, PennApps is a training ground for their
inner entrepreneur. In just two days, a programmer
can transform an idea into a preliminary prototype
while gathering support from mentors and peers.
And nothing beats the validation that students get
from the judges and a packed audience at the final
demo session. PennApps has been the birthplace for
a number of startups, and I hope to see that number
continue to grow!
http://2012f.pennapps.com/
www.seas.upenn.edu
2012 PennApps winners Ana Mei (left), a junior in Digital Media Design (DMD); Angela Yu, a junior
in the Applied Science Computational Biology program; and Jocelin Lee, also a junior in DMD.
Validation From the Judges

As more than 300 students from 29 schools will attest,
the competition at PennApps is fierce, and by Sunday
morning, the wear and tear is evident. Recycling bins
spew empty pizza boxes and soda cans, while crumpled
bodies snooze in corners. But the competition produces
great hacks, 91 of them in total. One application uses
fingerprint recognition to create a unique identifier
system that frees the user from carrying credit cards.
Simply touch the screen and payment choices open,
providing a safe way to make purchases. Another
creation, Silencr, syncs a phone with Google calendar,
ensuring that the user wont be a social misfit with a
ringing phone in the midst of a movie or lecture.
Fall 2012 n 34
At midday the hackers reassemble in front of a roaring

crowd and Team J.A.M. takes first place. The name,
explains team member Jocelin Lee, stands for Java
Auto Music, and we designed it to help with our
musical creations. The application is able to read a .wav
file or a recording and produce sheet music. Members
of Team J.A.M. harnessed the triple threat of brains,
ingenuity and coding for the win. Hacking is power, and
though this battle may be over, the next PennApps is
already being planned for spring.
Summer Academy in
Applied Science & Technology

For Rising High School Sophomores,
Juniors and Seniors
Six Courses Offered: Biotechnology, Computer
Graphics, Computer Science, Nanotechnology, Robotics,
Engineering Complex Networks
Three weeks long, intensive, exhilarating,
and lots of fun and camaraderie!
July 7 27, 2013

Application Deadline: May 15
For more information and online application:
www.seas.upenn.edu/saast
Share Your Insights

Mentor an Engineering Student
Do you want to make a real difference in an
undergraduates life? The Penn Engineering Mentoring
Program seeks alumni who are interested in mentoring
first-year undergraduate engineering students to:
Provide exposure to and expand students
perceptions of a career field.
Offer personal and professional career guidance.
The time commitment is minimal, but the rewards can be
enormous. For more information and to register, visit
www.seas.upenn.edu/alumni/mentoring.php
Other ways to get involved
The Engineering Alumni Society offers alumni many other

great opportunities for getting involved with the School and the
University at large. For more information, visit our website at
www.seas.upenn.edu/alumni/alumni-society/index.php
www.seas.upenn.edu
SCHOOL NEWS
New Faculty
Brian Chow
Assistant Professor of Bioengineering
Victor Preciado
Assistant Professor of Electrical and Systems Engineering
Ph.D. in Media Arts and Sciences,

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science,

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Postdoctoral Associate, The Media Laboratory, Department of

Biological Engineering, and Department of Brain & Cognitive
Sciences, MIT
Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania
Dr. Chows research is in the area of optogenetics, a field

that combines optical control with genetic techniques to
manipulate biological systems. His laboratory aims to create
technological innovations to enhance therapeutic interventions in central nervous system disorders, and to this end,
focuses on engineering tools to elucidate, diagnose and treat
the diseased brain. The lab constructs these tools by integrating a broad range of disciplines: optogenetics, synthetic
biology, genomics, neurophysiology, microfabrication and
nanotechnology. Recently, Dr. Chow and collaborators utilized
next-generation sequencing technologies to discover many
widely employed optogenetic reagents for cell type-specific
perturbation of neural circuits.
FALL 2012 n 36
Dr. Preciados research focuses on modeling, analysis and

optimization of dynamical processes and strategic interactions
in large-scale complex networks, with applications in social
networks, multi-agent systems, electrical and biological
networks. His current research is devoted to building a
rigorous theoretical foundation to analyze massive networks
of dynamical elements using tools and techniques at
the intersection of dynamical systems, control theory,
probability, optimization, and graph theory. His work is an
excellent match for the new Networked and Social
Systems Engineering program.
Vivek Shenoy
Professor of Materials Science and Engineering
Ph.D. in Physics,
The Ohio State University
Dr. Shenoy is a world leader in the mechanics and physics
of nanostructure formation. He has used rigorous analytical
methods and multiscale modeling techniques, ranging from
atomistic density functional theory to continuum methods, to
gain deep physical insight into myriad important problems in
materials science and mechanics.
Dr. Shenoys current research focuses on developing
theoretical concepts and numerical methods to understand
the basic principles that control the behavior of both
engineering and biological systems. A significant challenge in
modeling these systems is that important processes involve
coupling of both small-scale (atomic or single molecule)
phenomena and long-range (elastic, electromagnetic)
interactions over length scales of hundreds of nanometers.
The goal of his groups work is to address these issues by
combining atomic scale simulation methods with continuum
or mesoscale theories and by adapting insights from
condensed matter physics, solid mechanics, chemistry,
materials science and applied mathematics.
David J. Srolovitz
Joseph Bordogna Professor of Engineering and Applied Science
Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and
Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics
Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering,
Dr. Srolovitz is the inaugural Joseph Bordogna Professor
of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of
Pennsylvania, and holds a joint appointment in the Departments of Materials Science and Engineering and Mechanical
Engineering and Applied Mechanics. He has also been named
the Founding Director of the Penn Institute of Computational
Science. He joins Penn Engineering following a post in
Singapore where he served as the Executive Director of
the Institute of High Performance Computing, and
Scientific Director of A*STARs Science and Engineering
Research Council.
Dr. Srolovitz is a leading scholar in theoretical and
computational materials science and related disciplines,
especially as they apply to understanding defects in materials,
microstructure, morphology and their temporal evolution.
He is particularly well known for his work on surface
stability, grain growth and film growth.
www.seas.upenn.edu
SCHOOL NEWS
Honors and Awards
Jason Burdick, Associate Professor of Bioengineering,

was named a 2012 American Institute for Medical and
Biological Engineering (AIMBE) Fellow for seminal
contributions in understanding the formation and structure
of biodegradable materials toward tissue regeneration
therapies and drug delivery applications.
Andrew Jackson, Professor of Practice in Mechanical

Engineering and Applied Mechanics, has been named a Fellow
of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) for his outstanding contributions in the field of tribology and lubrication
science. Fellows of the SAE are long-term members who
have made a significant impact on societys mobility
technology through leadership, research and innovation.
Russell J. Composto, Professor of Materials Science and

Engineering, is the recipient of a National Science Foundation
(NSF) Special Creativity Award from the Division of
Materials Research in recognition of excellent research
on dispersion and assembly of gold nanorods confined to
polymer nanolayers. This award offers the most creative
investigators an extension on a current NSF project to attack
adventurous, high-risk research opportunities.
Ali Jadbabaie, Professor of Electrical and Systems

Engineering, is the recipient of a prestigious 2012
Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI)
Award. His project, Evolution of Cultural Norms and
Dynamics of Socio-Political Change, will include
collaborations with researchers at Cornell, MIT, Stanford
and Georgia Tech. Funding is $7.5 million over five years.
Daniel Gianola, Skirkanich Assistant Professor in the

Department of Materials Science and Engineering, received a
2012 Department of Energy (DOE) Early Career Award. His
proposal, Modulating Thermal Transport Phenomena
in Nanostructures via Elastic Strain at Extreme Limits of
Strength, was one of the very few selected for the award.
Michael Kearns, National Center Professor of Management

& Technology in the Department of Computer and Information
Science, was elected to the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences, one of the nations most prestigious honorary
societies. The Academy is also a leading center for
independent policy research.
FALL 2012 n 38
in memoriam
Harry J. Gray, professor emeritus in Electrical Engineering in
the School of Engineering and Applied Science, died July 27
at age 88.
Dr. Gray earned each of his degrees from the University of
Pennsylvania, including his bachelors in 1944 and masters in
1947, both in Electrical Engineering. Dr. Gray was appointed to
the faculty after earning his Ph.D. in 1953. He retired in 1989.
Vijay Kumar, UPS Foundation Professor of Mechanical

Engineering and Applied Mechanics, has received a 2012 World
Technology Award for his research in quadrotor robotics.
These awards represent the innovative work of researchers
with the greatest likely long-term significance in their fields.
As one of 30 computer pioneers involved with ENIAC, the first

electronic general-purpose computer, Dr. Gray was honored
with a medal by Penns Moore School of Electrical Engineering
during a 40-year anniversary celebration of computer science
and engineering at Penn. From 1943 to 1946, Dr. Gray was a
radio specialist officer in the United States Navy.
In addition to teaching, Dr. Gray was a consultant for various
electrical and technical companies, including the Philco
Corporation. Dr. Gray was involved in many professional
organizations including the Institute of Radio Engineers, the
Professional Group of Electronic Computers, the Professional
Group on Antennas and Propagation and the Association for
Computer Machinery.
Rahul Mangharam, Stephen J. Angello Term Assistant Professor

in the Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering, is a
recipient of the 2012 Intel Early Career Faculty Honor Program
Award. In this program, Intel provides financial and networking support for 20 faculty members who show great promise
as academic leaders in disruptive computing technologies.
The aim is to promote careers of promising young faculty
members and to foster long-term collaborative relationships
with senior technical leaders at Intel.
Dr. Gray is survived by his wife Cecilia M.; children, Margaret

Meg, Dr. David Roeltgen, Cecilia A.; Mary Ellen Gilligan;
six grandchildren; three great grand-children; and his sister,
Patricia Gray. His daughter, Kathleen, was a Penn freshman
when she died in 1973.
Beth Winkelstein, Professor of Bioengineering and Associate

Dean for Undergraduate Education, has been named Editor of
the ASME Journal of Biomechanical Engineering.
www.seas.upenn.edu
POP QUIZ
Rosette Pyne
Rosette Pyne, Senior Associate Director in the
Universitys Career Services Office, has been working
with engineering students and alumni for more than
25 years in the exciting and often arduous process of
career exploration.
Many college graduates have found the current
job market challenging. How do you help
students find jobs in 2012? I work with students to help
them strengthen and identify skills, prepare resumes and cover
letters, practice and hone interview Q&A, and negotiate job
offers. I also interact closely with employers to help them
develop an effective recruiting strategy at Penn, and to
familiarize them with our academic programs and the
accomplishments of our students. Our engineering students
are among the best prepared in the country. Employers are
aggressively competing to recruit Penn Engineering students
for positions across all industries and sectors.
What distinguishes engineering students at

Penn? While my career has included working with students
and alumni from nearly all the schools at Penn, the engineers
have been the most special to me. I love their enthusiasm,
admire their intellect and their appreciation of the high-quality,
interdisciplinary education offered at Penn. I am in awe of their
educational and research accomplishments.
How do you interact with alumni? Our alumni

pursue their careers with unabashed enthusiasm, and they love
to mentor our students. Im especially proud of the Freshman
Mentoring Program started in cooperation with the Penn
Engineering Alumni Society nearly 10 years ago. We match
freshmen with alumni for one year. A few years ago, we
began to combine social media technology and advice from
alumni who tweet their activitiesa Day in the Life of a
Penn alum entrepreneur, chemical engineer, consultant,
software engineeran exhaustive list. In 2010, we launched
PennCareerDay,* and I am delighted that our alumni are very
active in the program. Its especially rewarding for me when
alumni return to recruit for the organizations where they work
or for the company that they started.
What do you do for fun? I enjoy time at the beach with

family and friends and restoring classic cars. After all, I am an
engineer at heart.
*In June, Rosette Pyne and Shannon Kelly received the National
Association of Colleges & Employers 2012 Innovation Excellence
Award for PennCareerDay.
FALL 2012 n 40
CONTENT
Penn Engineering / Fall 2012
Innovation is guided by instinct, and leading scholars learn to trust their

instincts, turning curiosity into a driving passion.
2
Future Vision
George Pappas takes the
reins as the newly minted Chair
of Electrical and Systems
Engineering.
Penn Engineering Board of Overseers
13
A Sweet Solution for

Regenerative Medicine
Penn bioengineers adapt
confectionery-making techniques
to create precision-designed
vasculature using molds made
of sugar.
24
Helping Engineers
More than 3,200 students have
benefited from Penn Engineerings
Entrepreneurship Program and
immersion into the realities
of innovation.
cover
The sixth PennApps
hackathon invades the
Hall of Flags, where
over 300 students
engage in a 48-hour
stretch of nonstop
coding. Little time
is spent on frivolous
things like sleeping,
and teams from across
the country line up
to win top honors and
bragging rights.
18
The nearly complete Singh Center
boasts numerous state-of-the-art
scientific tools and architectural
elements.
Applying Math
to Materials
Renaissance Man
Overseer Harlan Stone, C80,
leverages his experience, gifts and
service to bring Penn Engineering
students multiple interdisciplinary
learning opportunities.
20
On and Off the Mat
10
Internet of Things
A world in which every object
is tagged with chips that can
interact with networks, dubbed
the Internet of Things, is the
futuristic vision of Davor Sutija,
M&T83.
Mike Steltenkamp, mechanical

engineering scholar and Division I
athlete, applies disciplined
training to scholarly pursuits.
The Honorable Harold Berger,

EE48, L51
Managing Partner
Berger and Montague, P.C.
Philadelphia, PA
Mr. David J. Berkman, W83
Managing Partner
Liberty Associated Partners, L.P.
Bala Cynwyd, PA
Dr. Katherine D. Crothall, EE71

Principal
Liberty Venture Partners, Inc.
Philadelphia, PA
28
Understanding how the structure

of materials deforms under
different conditions is the
fascination of preeminent
materials scientist and engineer
David Srolovitz.
Mr. Andrew Africk, L92, WG92

Senior Partner
Apollo Management, L.P.
New York, NY
Mr. Dennis Chip Brady, C94, W94

Partner
LSN Partners, LLC
Miami, FL
Singh Center for

Nanotechnology
Mr. Andrew S. Rachleff, W80

[Board Chair]
Partner
Benchmark Capital
Menlo Park, CA
There are limitless ways

to learn, create and
explore to establish a
common enterprise.
31
The (R)evolution of Code

PennApps challenges teams of
programmers to create something
new using nothing more than
imagination and computer code.
Penn Engineering
Magazine
alumni@seas.upenn.edu
215-898-6564
www.seas.upenn.edu
Eduardo D. Glandt
Dean
George W. Hain III
Vice Dean, External Affairs
Development and
Alumni Relations
Joan S. Gocke
Director of Communications
Editor
Dr. George H. Heilmeier, EE58

Chairman Emeritus
Telcordia Technologies, Inc.
Dallas, TX
Mr. Allie P. Rogers, ENG87, W87

Co-Founder
Triple Point Technology, Inc.
Westport, CT
Mr. Alex T. Krueger, ENG96, W96

President
First Reserve Corporation
London, UK
Dr. Jeffrey M. Rosenbluth, ENG84

Private Investor
Sands Point, NY
Dr. John F. Lehman, Jr., GR74

Chairman and Founding Partner
J. F. Lehman & Company
New York, NY
Mr. Ryan D. Limaye, ENG93,
W93, WG93
Managing Director & Head
Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.
San Francisco, CA
Dr. David M. Magerman, C90, ENG90
President and Founder
Kohelet Foundation
Gladwyne, PA
Mr. Sean C. McDonald, ChE82
President and CEO
Precision Therapeutics
Pittsburgh, PA
Mr. Peter N. Detkin, Esq., EE82, L85

Co-Founder, Vice-Chairman
Intellectual Ventures
Palo Alto, CA
Mr. Hital R. Meswani, ENG90, W90

Executive Director and
Member of the Board
Reliance Industries Limited
Mumbai, India
Mr. Richard D. Forman, EE87, W87

Managing Partner
Health Venture Group
New York, NY
Mr. Rajeev Misra, ME85, GEN86

Global Head of Credit
UBS Investment Bank
London, UK
Mr. C. Michael Gooden, GEE78

Chairman and CEO
Integrated Systems Analysts Inc.
Alexandria, VA
Mr. Ofer Nemirovsky, EE79, W79

Managing Director
HarbourVest Partners, LLC
Boston, MA
Mr. Paul S. Greenberg, EE83, WG87

Principal
Trilogy Capital LLC
Greenwich, CT
Ms. Alison Newman, C83

Partner
Alston & Bird LLP
New York, NY
Mr. Alex Haidas, C93, ENG93, WG98

Portfolio Manager
Credaris (CPM Advisers Limited)
London, UK
Mr. Mitchell I. Quain, EE73, parent

[Board Chair Emeritus]
Partner
One Equity Partners
New York, NY
Ms. Suzanne B. Rowland, ChE83

VP Business Excellence
Tyco Flow Control
Princeton, NJ
Mr. Theodore E. Schlein, C86
Managing Partner
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
Menlo Park, CA
Dr. Krishna P. Singh, MS69, Ph.D.72
President and CEO
Holtec International
Marlton, NJ
Dr. Rajendra Singh, parent
Chairman and CEO
Telcom Ventures LLC
Alexandria, VA
Ms. Juliet Sjborg, EE85 WG92
Director
Plena Group
London, UK
Mr. Robert M. Stavis, EAS84, W84
Partner
Bessemer Venture Partners
Larchmont, NY
Mr. Harlan M. Stone, C80
President and Chief Operating Officer
Halstead International
Norwalk, CT
Mr. Frederick J. Warren, ME60, WG61
Founder
Sage Venture Partners, LLC
Winter Park, FL
Ms. Sarah Keil Wolf, EE86, W86
Retired Investment Banker
Bear Stearns and Company
Scarsdale, NY
Dr. Michael D. Zisman, GEE73, GR77
Managing Director, Operations
Internet Capital Group
Wayne, PA
University of Pennsylvania Nondiscrimination Statement
Design
Kelsh Wilson Design
The University of Pennsylvania values diversity and seeks talented students, faculty and staff from diverse backgrounds. The University of Pennsylvania does not discriminate on
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Kelsh Wilson Design
John Carlano
Steven Lowy
the administration of educational policies, programs or activities; admissions policies; scholarship and loan awards; athletic, or other University administered programs or
the basis of race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, color, national or ethnic origin, age, disability, or status as a Vietnam Era Veteran or disabled veteran in
employment. Questions or complaints regarding this policy should be directed to: Executive Director, Office of Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Programs, Sansom
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eat.
sleep.

code.
www.seas.upenn.edu
UNIVERSITY OFPENNSYLVANIA
Fall 2012

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School of Engineering and Applied Science

Penn Engineering / Fall 2012

Innovation is guided by instinct, and leading scholars learn to trust their

Penn Engineering Board of Overseers

A Sweet Solution for

On and Off the Mat

Mike Steltenkamp, mechanical

The Honorable Harold Berger,

Dr. Katherine D. Crothall, EE71

Understanding how the structure

Mr. Andrew Africk, L92, WG92

Mr. Dennis Chip Brady, C94, W94

Singh Center for

Mr. Andrew S. Rachleff, W80

There are limitless ways

The (R)evolution of Code

Dr. George H. Heilmeier, EE58

Mr. Allie P. Rogers, ENG87, W87

Mr. Alex T. Krueger, ENG96, W96

Dr. Jeffrey M. Rosenbluth, ENG84

Dr. John F. Lehman, Jr., GR74

Mr. Peter N. Detkin, Esq., EE82, L85

Mr. Hital R. Meswani, ENG90, W90

Mr. Richard D. Forman, EE87, W87

Mr. Rajeev Misra, ME85, GEN86

Mr. C. Michael Gooden, GEE78

Mr. Ofer Nemirovsky, EE79, W79

Mr. Paul S. Greenberg, EE83, WG87

Ms. Alison Newman, C83

Mr. Alex Haidas, C93, ENG93, WG98

Mr. Mitchell I. Quain, EE73, parent

Ms. Suzanne B. Rowland, ChE83

University of Pennsylvania Nondiscrimination Statement

FROM THE DEAN

Eduardo D. Glandt/Nemirovsky Family Dean

We foster and celebrate learning outside the classroom.

Innovation is guided by instinct, and leading scholars

Inspiration and Collaboration

The choice for Pappas was clear, and he went on to earn

Pappas believes that one of the unique advantages

Charting New Territory

Today, the strength of its faculty and the diversity

21st Century Solutions

Materials Scientist and Engineer David Srolovitz Joins Penn Faculty

The frothy foam that rises on top of beer as you pour

We are very excited that Srolovitz has joined the

molecular dynamics simulations, Srolovitz tracks the

For the past several years, Srolovitz was the Executive

Penns relatively small size makes it easy to forge

Penn PICS Up the Pace

Imagine being able to test the freshness of your produce

The printed electronics company demonstrated its first

step in the direction toward an ocean of smart tags

After receiving his Penn degree, Sutija studied

By Jessica Stein Diamond

Lollipops that dissolve at an ideal pace. Intricate sugar

Candy-makers & Hackers

vessels grow or dont grow, and what happens to tissues

nurtured liver cells, fibroblasts and myocyte progenitors

molding techniques also used organic solvents that

make this piping. This is a powerful research tool for

This discovery is the next step in liver tissue

Innovation is guided by instinct, and leading scholars learn to trust their

There are limitless ways