Undergraduate mechanical engineering students Tam Nguyen, a senior, and Serrae Reed, a junior, focus on their studies with the precision of the engineers they are becoming. Upon graduation, Nguyen has an engineering job nailed down at Shell, and Reed is conducting research on solar cells and the efficiency in which light is harvested for energy production.

Every year, as a marketing activity, the leadership board of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers at UH, recently named outstanding large chapter of the year by the national organization, brainstorms to create the next slogan that typifies their mission.

Computer simulation software allows engineers to predict how certain materials will perform under specific – and often extreme – conditions. For instance, major advances in aerospace and flight were made possible due to engineering simulation based on computational solid mechanics, leading to pioneering work conducted by the company Boeing.

A recent article published by Forbes.com lauds the University of Houston as an epicenter of energy and engineering education and research, calling the school “increasingly a rival to places like MIT in advancing not just cleaner, safer and more efficient ways of

Houston’s leaders in industry, academia and government who make up the UH Cullen College’s Engineering Leadership Board (ELB) gathered for the annual ELB Dinner at The Houston Club on Nov. 11.

Take a car trip from Houston and you’ll likely drive over one of the 50,000 bridges that span the great state of Texas. During your drive you probably never wondered if the weight limits on the bridges were accurate. But then, that’s why we have Mina Dawood, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering in the Cullen College.

Once upon a time you got your best action and science fiction fix from the movies.

“2001: A Space Odyssey” showed us how pedestrian structures on the moon might seem; Walt Disney brought us tiny robots called microbots in “Big Hero 6”; Robert Zemeckis convinced us we wouldn’t need roads when he created Marty McFly’s hoverboard in “Back to the Future II”; and, “The Fast and The Furious” showed us what it would be like to fly like the wind while staying on track.

Anyone who has purchased an airline ticket knows that it can feel like navigating a maze full of twists and turns in the form of price hikes and drops. CNN provides a behind-the-scenes insight into the “method behind the madness” that is airfare pricing in its article and video segment titled, “Seating secrets: How airlines decide what fare you pay.”

The National Science Foundation isn’t asking too much – just present potentially transformative research that might improve people’s lives and they might be eager to give you money through their Early-concept Grant for Exploratory Research (EAGER) program.