Fellows

Mike Borowczak is a 3rd year PhD student in Computer Engineering and Computer Science. Mike completed his BS in Computer Engineering in June 2007 at the University of Cincinnati. His primary research interests include the design of Computer Aided Design tools for Very Large Scale Integration (computer chip design). In particular his interests are in developing secure methods for implementing cryptographic algorithms in hardware. While an undergraduate student Mike held co-op positions at Texas Instruments - a large semiconductor corporation, International Techne Group Inc – a local software company and Clifton Labs – a proof of concept and computer engineering consulting firm.

Mike has also been greatly involved in Engineering Ambassadors, Society of Women Engineer’s (outreach), and within his department as Vice President of the graduate student association. In the past seven years at UC, Mike has had countless opportunities to share his engineering knowledge and experiences with middle school, high school and college level students. Finally, while Mike’s strengths are in mathematics, electronics, and physics he also has an affinity to strengthen other core areas such as natural sciences, chemistry and biology.

I have worked on multiple research projects while attending the University of Cincinnati. A fairly new project I have started working on involves applying Neuro-Fuzzy Dynamic Programming for real-time resource allocation and decision making in emergency situations. The idea is to maximize the advantages of each control method (neural nets, fuzzy logic, and dynamic programming) to approach the problem at hand. This algorithm may be applied to emergency events such as wild-land fires. Wild-land fires are dynamic in nature and the algorithm would be used to maximize the effectiveness of our resources (aerial vehicles, satellites, ground crews) while minimizing the damage caused by the fire. Another interesting project is applying fuzzy logic control to adjust tire pressure under dynamic road conditions to improve vehicle fuel efficiency while maintaining vehicle safety.

I have worked as a systems developer for a pharmaceutical company developing an in-house proprietary enterprise computer system. As a small-sized organization, I have experienced both sides of the IT programmer world: operations and development. Additionally, I have worked in all facets of the software development life cycle including gathering user requirements, software and database design, code development, testing, validation, implementation, training, and maintenance. During this experience, I was able to work with a diverse group of individuals, each with their own unique skill set to add to the team.

My name is Christopher Korte and I am one of the STEP Fellows. I am currently working on my Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering with Dr. Bruce Walker. My current research deals with morphing aircrafts. My previous research was 2-Dimensional POSE estimation, which is taking an image and a model of a specific target and estimating its position and orientation in 3-dimensional space. I will be working at Oak Hill High School this year, with Mr. Daniel Boles, Mr. Andy Schroeder, Ms. Michele Taylor, and Ms. Elizabeth Ludwig. I was a teaching assistant for two freshman labs and twice for Mechanics I. I also had an opportunity to teach a class on Reliability for my advisor in his Probabilistic Engineering class.
After I graduate I plan to get a job in industry for a few years so I can get some “real life” experience in my field. Eventually I would like to end up as a professor at a university teaching engineering. I hope to get some good teaching experience from this program, which will help me later on in my career as a professor. I really enjoy teaching and I plan to have a great year teaching with the teachers at Oak Hills this year.

I am a graduate student at the University of Cincinnati where I focus on intelligent control in Aerospace Engineering. I completed my undergraduate work at the University of Wisconsin – Madison with a B.S. in Engineering Mechanics with an Astronautics option. I will complete my Master’s in the area of path planning using fuzzy logic this summer (2009) and will be continuing on to get my Ph.D. on intelligent control of tensegrity structures for space applications. I have also had proposals about my research accepted for presentation and spoken at the 47th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting in Orlando and the 34th AIAA Dayton-Cincinnati Aerospace Sciences Symposium.
I have served as a graduate assistant during my two years at UC, where my main focus is research, but I have also worked as a teaching assistant for several courses. As a researcher I developed a two-dimensional fire-growth simulation and developed control algorithms for path planning of a wildland fire-fighting aircraft using fuzzy logic. As a teaching assistant, I developed the final project for the Fundamental Control course which included an experiment in the “Intelligent Aerospace Systems” lab and created and graded assignments related to final project. I also supported the final projects for the Intelligent Systems course and prepared and taught lectures. My previous job before this has been as a camp counselor for Camp Badger at the University of Wisconsin. This was an engineering camp for students going into the 8th grade, and I worked for two summers as both a day and night counselor and also gave demonstrations at the wind tunnel.
Because my studies have led me to the field of intelligent control, I have applied and been accepted as an Associate Member of the AIAA “Intelligent Systems Technical Committee.” Within the ISTC, I serve in the sub-committee for enhancing outreach programs to K-12. In the area of outreach, I am initiating a “Science Night” for local high school students to learn about intelligent systems and am hoping to eventually make this material available to other AIAA groups nationwide. This will hopefully help to increase knowledge and interest in the field of intelligent systems. In addition to this, I have volunteered to do outreach in various ways. Through AIAA, I have been a judge at the Wisconsin Science Olympiad, given a presentation on women in aerospace at a Girl Scouts badge day, lead a presentation and activity on the egg drop for a 4-H night, and spoken to incoming freshman about engineering and AIAA.