November 13, 2025

In October, the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) section at Michigan Tech traveled with 17 students to WE25, SWE’s national conference in New Orleans, Louisiana. The annual conference is the world’s largest conference dedicated to women in engineering and technology. The event also includes the largest career fair for women in any field, where MTU students received 10 interviews and one full-time offer.

“SWE conferences are always my favorite!” said Meredith Makowski, a junior environmental engineering student and president of Michigan Tech’s SWE section. “Getting to grow personally and professionally, while also being able to explore a new city is an incredible experience.”

Hear MTU SWE members reflect on their conference experiences on the College of Engineering Blog.

Michigan Tech’s Vice President for Research Office (VPR), Research Advisory Council, and Research Development office would like to thank the campus community for your valuable participation in the Research Services Survey conducted this past spring. Your feedback is essential for establishing an annual baseline to track and inform continuous improvements within VPR.

2025 Survey Key Takeaways

• Participation: We had a strong response, with 144 completed surveys out of 705 distributed, resulting in a 24% completion rate. Respondents primarily self-identified as faculty (60%) and research staff (21%).

• Overall Satisfaction: 50% of respondents reported being somewhat or extremely satisfied with the overall research environment at Michigan Tech. 47% reported being somewhat or extremely satisfied with the services of the units within VPR.

The survey, commissioned by the Research Advisory Council and administered by Research Development, consisted of 32 total questions, including satisfaction scales and 17 open-ended questions. All quantitative data and written comments have been reviewed by the council and VPR leadership.

The survey results, including unit-level satisfaction measures and verbatim comments, will be used as a primary tool to continuously monitor and improve services offered by VPR.

2025 Survey Report

We invite you to view the overview report on our new Research Services Survey webpage.

If you have any questions about the survey or its results, please contact Research Development at rd-l@mtu.edu.

The Office of Continuous Improvement (OCI) is pleased to announce new members joining the Lean Community Development Advisory Board. This board provides leadership and advisory support for the Lean program and all practitioners at Michigan Technological University. OCI is resuming its practice of rotating board members to bring fresh perspectives to the program.

We extend our heartfelt gratitude to outgoing board members Gina LeMay, director of sponsored operations and information systems, and Lorraine Thoune, associate director for gift and estate administration, for their dedicated service since late 2019, helping to steer Michigan Tech’s continuous improvement efforts through unprecedented challenges.

We’re excited to welcome our new board members: Theresa Coleman-Kaiser, associate vice president for auxiliary and business services; Annelise Doll, scholarly communications librarian; and Polly Schaefer, assistant to the vice president for student affairs. Their diverse expertise will help guide OCI’s mission to transform the University through Lean principles and expand our community of practice, which currently includes 98 certified practitioners across all belt levels.

The advisory board plays a vital role in OCI’s work to equip faculty, staff, students and community partners with the tools to create exceptional value in operational delivery, financial position, quality and engagement.

Stack your skills. Power your career in ME. Are your mechanical engineering skills future-ready?

From electrified mobility to cleaner internal combustion engines to robotics and energy systems, today’s projects demand versatile, skilled mechanical engineers who can keep leveling up without pausing their careers. That’s why Michigan Tech designed online mechanical engineering programs.

Join Michigan Tech Global Campus and representatives from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE) next Thursday, Nov. 20, at 11:30 a.m. ET. In our final webinar for 2025, you’ll learn about the customizable mechanical engineering master's degree and some of the stackable certificates that you can earn alone or ladder into an M.S. degree.

Get valuable information about admissions requirements, accelerated options and career trends. Have your questions answered in real time.

Register for the Online MAE Programs Webinar.

The Department of Psychology and Human Factors will host faculty candidate Kimberly Williams, Ph.D., on Monday, Nov. 17, from 3-4 p.m. in the M&M Third Floor Coworking Space. 

Williams, lead consultant and owner of Monarch Innovations LLC, will present "Human Factors at Play in Healthcare: Linking System Safety and Game-Based Learning."

From the abstract:
Medical errors remain a major obstacle to achieving optimal patient outcomes. Although such errors are often attributed to individual providers, human factors and system safety analyses frequently reveal deeper system weaknesses that increase their potential for error. This talk presents two research studies that illustrate how principles from human factors and applied cognitive psychology can be used to reveal system vulnerabilities and promote safer, more resilient healthcare systems. The first study (Williams et al., 2023) applied the Systems Engineering Initiative for Patient Safety (SEIPS) 3.0 framework to the highly publicized RaDonda L. Vaught v. Tennessee litigation, in which a nurse was criminally prosecuted for a medication error. The case analysis highlights cognitive factors that contributed to the event, as well as system-level influences that shaped these interactions. These investigations are essential for generating insights that reduce errors across the healthcare system, but their quality depends on timely and accurate error reporting. Providers’ psychological safety (defined as the perception that the environment is safe to take interpersonal risks) is integral to this reporting process. Thus, the second study (Williams et al., under review) examines a game-based escape room intervention aimed at strengthening psychological safety within healthcare teams. The presentation concludes with future directions for human factors research in healthcare, including applications in competency-based medical education, interprofessional training, and team science.

The Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) is hosting a seminar presented by James Chapman of the Materials Informatics Lab at Boston University tomorrow, Nov. 14, from 3-4 p.m. in M&M 610.

Chapman will present “Decoding atomic-scale structure-property relationships using graph-based machine learning.”

From the abstract:
Materials behavior begins and ends at the atomic scale, making the understanding of how atomic systems behave of vital importance. Computational techniques such as molecular dynamics and density functional theory have become instrumental in quantifying how the properties of atomic-level materials systems propagate to larger length and time scales and dictate observed materials behavior. However, understanding the exact reasons for this behavior is often non-trivial, as the geometric and chemical complexity of these atomic systems creates a near limitless number of configurations that drive the underlying materials properties. Therefore, explicitly mapping which structural and chemical features of a material are more important than others is critical to understanding why materials behave the way they do. In this talk I will discuss how graph neural networks can be used to learn properties such as the enthalpy of mixing for multi principal component alloy phase decompositions in an interpretable manner. This will be followed by an extensive discussion of how global and local atomic information can be captured and propagated between the scales to provide intuitive characterization of atomistic structures in complex and dynamic environments. I will also discuss the future of these techniques and how they can solve some of the most pressing challenges in materials science.

Chapman is an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and is the principal investigator for the Materials Informatics Lab at Boston University. He obtained his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2020 and completed his postdoctoral work at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab in 2022. His research expertise is on the fusion of data science/machine learning with atomistic/mesoscale simulations to better understand how materials properties change under extreme conditions. His current work emphasizes graph-based approaches to alleviate the small data and interpretability challenges of inverse design problems with a focus on materials synthesis and catalyst design. He has served as a co-organizer for several symposia for the Materials Research Society and is active in communities in both MRS, TMS and APS.

Please join the Department of Mathematical Sciences for a Careers in Mathematics Seminar presented by guest speaker Susan Janiszewski (Ph.D. in Mathematics, M.S. in Computer Science) today, Nov. 13, at 1 p.m. in Fisher 133.

Janiszewski will present “From Graph Theory to Remote Sensing and Beyond — How Mathematics Uniquely Prepares You For Applied Research Careers.” Refreshments will be provided.

Janiszewski started her math journey at Michigan Tech, where she fell in love with graph theory, combinatorics, and discrete math. After grad school, with the job market for newly minted Ph.D.s looking bleak at that moment in time, she took her first job outside of academia. It was there that her first boss gave her the mantra that has defined her career, saying: "I hired you for how you think, not what you know."

Along the way, Janiszewski has transformed from a pure mathematician into an applied researcher, eventually becoming executive director of the Michigan Tech Research Institute, where she manages a team of more than 100 research staff. This talk will highlight some of the non-academic career paths available to mathematics graduates in applied research, and will also give a bit of insight into Janiszewski's current research portfolio and how graph theory still applies.

AutoEvolution mentioned Michigan Tech in a story about General Motors’ veteran workforce development efforts, highlighting GM’s partnership with Michigan Tech and Chevrolet to build custom handcycles for the Achilles Freedom Team of Wounded Veterans.

The Daily Mining Gazette mentioned Michigan Tech in a story about the VFW Copper Ingot Post 4624’s 80th annual Veterans Day Buffet. Huskies in Tech’s Arnold Air Society and Young Americans for Freedom and Turning Point USA student organizations assisted with the event. MTU student Michaela Bouchet (mechanical engineering) was quoted.

Singletracks mentioned the Michigan Tech Trails in its Nov. 11 podcast episode, “Why Mountain Bikers Keep Returning to This Remote Michigan Trail System,” which spotlights Copper Harbor and Keweenaw riding.

My UP Now covered Michigan Tech hockey players Stiven Sardarian and Owen Bartoszkiewicz being named CCHA Players of the Week. Sardarian earned Forward of the Week honors, while Bartoszkiewicz was recognized as Goaltender of the Week.

WLUC TV6, WZMQ 19 News and the Iron Mountain Daily News featured Michigan Tech volleyball first-year student-athlete Madelynn Kreider, who was named GLIAC Setter of the Week.

Upcoming Sessions: Learn About Digital Measures at Michigan Tech

Did you know that Digital Measures at Michigan Tech (DM) is about more than just entering your individual data and running the Faculty Activity Reports (FARs)?

While it is true that DM and the FARs are a crucial part of the promotion, tenure, review and merit processes, DM data can be helpful in many other ways. Data collected in DM is currently in wide use across campus for accreditation reporting, annual report publications, unit metrics and much more. Individual faculty are using the data in their accounts to create their own datasets and documents. Understanding the reporting options could be very useful for anyone seeking quick access to categorized activity data, be it on the individual or unit level.

Two sessions will be offered via Zoom to learn more about DM reporting:

• Basic Reporting Session — Tuesday, Nov. 18, from 3-4 p.m.
  This session, targeted toward unit leaders and their support staff, will best serve individuals who have little or no experience with DM. Topics to be covered include logging in, navigating the site, running Faculty Activity Reports (FARs), understanding FARs, and basics on how to assist faculty. Users already familiar with these topics will be ready to take the Advanced Reporting session.

• Advanced Reporting Session — Wednesday, Nov. 19, from 3-4 p.m.
  This session, targeted toward faculty, unit leaders and their support staff, will best serve individuals who would like to learn more about reporting capabilities in DM. The main focus of the session will be exporting and handling bulk data on an individual and unitwide basis. Even if you might not be performing these tasks yourself, the session would still be useful to understand the available reporting options.

To register for one or both sessions, please fill out our DM Reporting Sessions Registration Form. A calendar invitation and additional information will follow.

Please contact the DM administrator at dm-admin@mtu.edu if you have any questions or would like help determining which session(s) to attend.

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Physics Colloquium with Dan Brandt

Daniel Brandt from the Michigan Tech Research Institute (MTRI) in Ann Arbor will present at this week's Physics Colloquium.

Brandt's presentation is titled "Space Weather: Majesties of the Near-Earth Space Environment."

The seminar will be presented at 4 p.m. today, Nov. 13, in Fisher 139. The coffee hour will be held at 3:30 p.m. in the Fisher Lobby.

Read Brandt’s abstract and bio on the University Events Calendar.

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University Senate Meeting 725

The University Senate will convene Meeting 725 at 12:30 p.m. today, Nov. 13, in Chem Sci 102. 

Those within the University community unable to attend in person have the option to attend the University Senate meeting via Zoom. Please note: You will need to log in to your MTU Zoom account to join the virtual meeting. 

Senators are responsible for making their constituents aware of the agenda for this meeting. Senators who are unable to attend should arrange for their alternates to attend in their place. 

View the Meeting 725 Agenda.

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MAE Graduate Seminar Speaker: Andrew Oliva

The next Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE) Graduate Seminar speaker will present at 2 p.m. today, Nov. 13, in Fisher 329.

Andrew Oliva will present "Entropy-Constrained Closure for Steady, Quasi-One-Dimensional Compressible Flow of Ideal Gases."

In this talk, Oliva will go over how entropy-constrained closure is developed for steady, quasi-one-dimensional internal compressible flow of calorically perfect gases by combining the integral mass and energy balances with Gibbs' relation expressed via stagnation pressure and stagnation temperature changes.

To have your event automatically appear, please submit them to the University Events Calendar.

Keyence Brunch and Learn

Thursday, November 13, 9–11 a.m. | Chemical Sciences and Engineering Building, 310

MCFF is pleased to extend an invitation to the MTU research community for a Lunch and Learn session with Keyence on Thursday, November 13th, 2025. The event will be held from...

Entropy-Constrained Closure for Steady, Quasi-One-Dimensional Compressible Flow of Ideal Gases

Thursday, November 13, 2 p.m. | Fisher Hall, 329

MAE Graduate Seminar Speaker Series proudly presents Andrew Oliva, PhD Assistant Professor, MAE at MTU Abstract An entropy-constrained closure is developed for steady,...

Physics Colloquium with Daniel Brandt

Thursday, November 13, 3:30–5:00 p.m. | Fisher Hall, 139

Daniel Brandt from Michigan Tech Research Institute (MTRI) in Ann Arbor will present at this week's Physics Colloquium. Dr.Brandt's presentation is titled "Space Weather:...

Financial Wellness - Husky Hour

Thursday, November 13, 4–5 p.m. | Chem Sci 104

College life comes with new freedoms—and new financial decisions. Join us for our Financial Wellness Husky Hour, an interactive workshop where you’ll learn practical...

Getting Hired as an International Student

Thursday, November 13, 5–6 p.m. | Administration and Student Services Building (Admin, Building 1), 220 Career Services

Navigating the job market as an international student can be challenging, but you're not alone. This session covers strategies for job searching, understanding work...

HuskyGOLD Information Session

Thursday, November 13, 5–6 p.m. | MUB Alumni Lounge

Learn about Michigan Tech’s new HuskyGOLD program, designed to prepare students for lifelong engagement in their communities. With a variety of options, you can shape your own...

Questions About Christianity with Rick Mattson

Thursday, November 13, 7–8 p.m. | DHH Ballroom

Join InterVarsity Christian Fellowship as we host a guest speaker: Rick Mattson. We will be hosting discussion on a variety of topics focused on general questions about...