The College of Engineering at Oregon State University is a proven leader in research, expanding knowledge and creating new engineering solutions in fields such as artificial intelligence, robotics, advanced manufacturing, clean water, materials science, sustainable energy, computing, resilient infrastructure, and health care.
Growing up, Elaine Gething Davis, ’49, would hear an airplane soaring above her family’s coastal Oregon farm and rush outside with everyone else to watch it. Later, living near a military base during World War II, she was amazed by the variety of airborne machines leaping into the sky. After the war, her father bought a surplus airplane and gave the whole family flying lessons. Thus began a lifelong fascination with things that fly.
When she arrived at Oregon State College in 1945, she was the sole woman in her mechanical engineering class.
Yue Cao, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering in the Energy Systems research group, has received a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation. The award includes a grant of nearly $500,000 over five years.
Ravonne Byrd’s school and work are both in Corvallis, although her home is much closer to Albany — not the one just up the road, but that other Albany — about 3,000 miles away, in New York.
A student in the popular postbaccalaureate computer science online degree program offered through Oregon State Ecampus, Byrd also telecommutes to her job with the College of Engineering’s Center for Applied Systems and Software.
Barbara Simpson, assistant professor of structural engineering, has received a Faculty Early Career Development, or CAREER, award from the National Science Foundation. The award includes a grant of nearly $600,000 over five years.
Since she began studying materials science as a graduate student at Oregon State University in 2015, Kenya Hazell, a GEM Fellow and recent environmental technology researcher and development intern at Corning, has sought to discover ways to sustainably create and apply polymer composites — unique materials with synergistic properties, formed by combining reinforcement materials with polymer matrices.
At Intel Labs in Hillsboro, research scientist Soumya Bose, Ph.D. electrical and computer engineering ’19, develops circuits to speed up optical data communications while reducing the amount of power they need.
After obtaining his Ph.D. from Oregon State University’s College of Engineering in 2021, Kingsley Chukwu has transitioned to a successful career as an electronic design automation tools software engineer at Intel. However, Chukwu is not your typical software engineer; while he has a minor in computer science, his degree is in chemical engineering with a focus on computational chemistry.
“I use computer quantum software to understand how atoms and molecules will behave on catalyst surfaces,” Chukwu said.
Oregon State researchers, led by Yelda Turkan, assistant professor of civil and construction engineering, are using deep learning algorithms to discover better, faster way for architects and engineers to design, construct and manage buildings.
Computer science and ecology may seem like an unlikely combination at first, but it’s exactly the niche Oregon State University assistant professor, Rebecca Hutchinson, envisioned. Her research uses machine learning and statistical modeling to help scientists answer questions like: What will happen to monarch butterflies under climate change? What are the habitat requirements of olive-sided flycatchers?
