College of Engineering News

Dr. Jerry Keska, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, was awarded the 2009 DELOS Best Paper Award at the 116th Annual American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Conference and Exposition at the Austin Convention Center, June 14-17 in Austin, Texas. Dr. Keska attended the Annual Conference to present his paper (No. 2461 AC 2009-2461: Computer-Aided Physical Experimentation for Instrumentation and Measurements Classes in an Undergraduate Mechanical Engineering Program). The award was presented at the Conference.

Dr. Keska’s paper reported the results of the development and implementation of hands-on laboratory experiments in a newly developed laboratory for a two-semester undergraduate course sequence in Instrumentation and Measurements in Mechanical Engineering. The approach could be easily modified, however, for use at all levels of the engineering curriculum. An important component of the process involves the utilization of a two-semester long, open-ended project (OEP) which requires the students to come up with creative approaches to problem solving. Dr. Keska’s class utilizes an Educational Laboratory Virtual Instrumentation Suite (ELVIS) which has been primarily an instructional tool in electrical engineering laboratories, requiring the implementation of an extensive process to adapt it to the needs of mechanical engineering laboratories. This included the development of completely new experiments that involved newly-designed hardware and instructions which were all developed and built in-house with student participation.

DELOS (Division of Experimentation and Laboratory Oriented Studies) is a division of ASEE. In notifying Dr. Keska of his selection, Dr. Ahmed Rubaai, 2009 ASEE DELOS Program Chair, wrote, “Congratulations! …the reviewers have finalized their decision and you are to be congratulated for your outstanding work. You will receive the “2009 DELOS Best Paper Award”…comprised of a prestigious plaque and a $150 check.” In the same correspondence, Dr. Keska was urged to consider serving as an executive member of DELOS and requested to attend the DELOS Business Meeting where nominations were made approved. Dr. Keska accepted this invitation and is now an executive member of DELOS.

Dr. Keska’s paper has generated international interest. He recently was invited by Wayne Davis, Program & Smooth Paper Manager from the American Society for Engineering Education, to present his work as a contributing paper at the 8th ASEE Global Colloquium on Engineering Education in Budapest, Hungary, on October 12-15, 2009.

Dr. Terry Chambers, Associate Dean congratulates Dr. Keska on behalf of the College of Engineering for receiving the 2009 DELOS Best Paper Award, on his appointment as an executive member of DELOS, and for being invited to present his work as a contributing paper at the 8th ASEE Global Colloquium on Engineering Education in Budapest.