Tag Archives: Innovation
Alumnus gives back by advancing Wisconsin innovation
Posted on 10. Dec, 2012 by perspective.
When Frederick Mancheski spent 35 years building Echlin Inc. into one of the world’s largest automobile parts companies, he would frequently employ a secret weapon in his quest for new technology: The engine experts at the UW-Madison. As Echlin CEO, the 1948 mechanical engineering alumnus oversaw the Connecticut-based company’s growth from $10 million in annual [...]
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College of Engineering student achievements
Posted on 30. Aug, 2012 by perspective.
Engineering Professional Development impact In 2011, students who participated in EPD continuing-education courses came from 50 U.S. states, Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, and 82 countries around the world. 7–Distance-delivered master’s degrees 11–Certificate series 25–Technical and professional subject areas ranging from the basics to high-level topics 75–Faculty and support staff 800–Course instructors 3,000–Short courses per year [...]
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For alum, innovation is a full-time hobby
Posted on 27. Aug, 2012 by perspective.
Although he grew up on a dairy farm in a tiny, central-Wisconsin community—rather than a small coal-mining town in West Virginia—Dennis Bahr sees elements of his childhood in the movie October Sky, a film based on the true story of Homer Hickam, a coal-miner’s son who ultimately became a NASA engineer. Hickam’s passion was rocketry; [...]
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Innovation: Forward thinking
Posted on 27. Aug, 2012 by perspective.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison will formally recognize 2012-13 as the Year of Innovation. As the engineering dean at a major research university, I recognize the importance of innovation in moving research discoveries into society to improve our quality of life and the economy. Innovation is where great ideas and discoveries are put to work for [...]
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Insights on innovation
Posted on 27. Aug, 2012 by perspective.
UW-Madison is recognizing 2012-13 as the Year of Innovation, offering a chance to reflect on what this concept means to the university and to society. With $136 million in research and more than 100 patent disclosures annually, the College of Engineering has worked to cultivate innovation as standard operating procedure in our classrooms and labs. [...]
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Tom Gerold: Passionate innovation—pesticide, nitinol and a broken leg
Posted on 20. Apr, 2012 by perspective.
“Innovation. The very word evokes mental images of complex turbo-machinery, nanoscale robots and iPads. Our brains are tuned to think of people like Thomas Edison, Steve Jobs and the Wright Brothers when the word reaches our ears. Something innovative is something desired—celebrated even—in our society. Imagine a world where the common cold is a life-threatening [...]
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Better health by design
Posted on 19. Apr, 2012 by perspective.
Biomedical engineering undergrads expect to spend a large chunk of their education working on products that solve real-world medical problems. From admission to the department all the way through to graduation, they take a series of design courses that help them apply a suite of skills and knowledge necessary for devising solutions to challenges that [...]
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Who knew? Five questions with Bill Murphy about biotech innovation
Posted on 19. Apr, 2012 by perspective.
Bill Murphy is an associate professor of biomedical engineering, materials science and engineering, and orthopedics and rehabilitation. Murphy and his students develop new biomaterials and uses for biomaterials, as well as new approaches for drug delivery and gene therapy. He and various collaborators have founded two spin-off companies, collaborated with several other established companies, and [...]
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College of Engineering by the numbers
Posted on 06. Oct, 2011 by perspective.
Facts and Figures The UW-Madison College of Engineering is among the most innovative and consistently highly ranked U.S. colleges of engineering. We are internationally renowned for our leading-edge research and widely recognized for our ability to transfer technological advances into real-world applications via myriad partnerships with industry. Through our world-class undergraduate, graduate- and professional-level educational [...]
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Electronic stent deployment system wins top prize at 2011 Innovation Days
Posted on 22. Jun, 2011 by perspective.
A system that could widely expand stent treatments for patients with diseased arteries won the top prize in the Schoofs Prize for Creativity, one of a pair of competitions that make up Innovation Days. The event, which offers more than $28,000 in total prizes, rewards UW-Madison students for innovative and marketable ideas. For the first [...]
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Matthew Kirk: From cutting class … to cutting-edge entrepreneur
Posted on 22. Jun, 2011 by perspective.
Matthew Kirk graduated high school with a 1.0 grade point average and assumed his career destiny was in retail or manual labor. Almost 10 years later, Kirk is now an accomplished UW-Madison electrical and computer engineering student with a different credential to his name: award-winning environmental entrepreneur. Kirk was part of an undergrad student team [...]
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Runner tracking app wins inaugural wireless competition
Posted on 22. Jun, 2011 by perspective.
The Qualcomm Wireless Innovation Prize, sponsored by the San Diego, California-based mobile technology company, rewards students who present creative wireless technology products and well-developed business plans to make those products profitable. The inaugural competition was held April 28, 2011, in Union South. “We have a lot of outstanding UW-Madison graduates at Qualcomm, and we felt [...]
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UW-Madison economic impact statewide hits $12.4 billion
Posted on 21. Jun, 2011 by perspective.
UW-Madison’s profound impact on Wisconsin’s economy—one that totals $12.4 billion annually—is detailed in a late-March report that underscores the importance of the university to the state’s economic well being. The findings indicate that UW-Madison, along with its affiliated organizations and startup companies, supports 128,146 Wisconsin jobs and generates $614 million in state tax revenue. The [...]
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Competition invites students to invent the future of wireless technology
Posted on 19. Nov, 2010 by perspective.
A new competition at UW-Madison will challenge students to discover and build the next big idea in wireless technology, a field that continues to transform the way the world communicates. The Qualcomm Wireless Innovation Prize, slated for April 28, 2011, will have student teams develop and prototype new wireless hardware and software ideas and combine [...]
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Profile: Carl Marschke
Posted on 19. Nov, 2010 by perspective.
A prolific northwoods inventor looks to inspire tomorrow’s engineers. For as long as Carl Marschke can remember, he’s kept five trusty pens in his shirt pocket, in black, blue, green, red and purple ink. When inspiration strikes for some kind of useful new machine, Marschke uses the color combinations to sketch out the concept in [...]
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An institution for innovation
Posted on 18. Oct, 2010 by perspective.
Over the last decade, UW-Madison has built a suite of opportunities for students to develop their creativity and expand their business savvy. “I want to be independent, work on major problems, and have more meaningful work,” says Sean Kelly. A freshman biomedical engineering student, Kelly calls himself a “big-ideas person.” In less than a year [...]
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Mentor for innovators
Posted on 01. Sep, 2010 by perspective.
Erwin W. Mueller Professor and Bascom Materials Science and Engineering Professor of Surface Science Max Lagally serves as a bridgebetween the UW-Madison laboratories where cutting-edge technologies are developed and the companies taking those devices to market. “When I was in graduate school during the Sputnik era, the motivation in academia was to create more academics,” [...]
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Less pain, more gain
Posted on 01. Sep, 2010 by perspective.
Silver-lined bandages prevent infection and promote healing A scientist trained for eight years in the medical field and a native of developing India, Ankit Agarwal has seen his fair share of pain. Shadowing numerous doctors, Agarwal has witnessed firsthand patient pain and discomfort, especially in those suffering from chronic wounds—burns or ulcers that could take [...]
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Breathing room
Posted on 01. Sep, 2010 by perspective.
Technology idea will treat lung ailments Teaching his first course in spring 2008 on biomedical engineering entrepreneurship, Matt Ogle quickly learned the downside of scheduling a class for three hours on a Friday afternoon. Competing against an early weekend, Ogle’s class began with six students and eventually settled into the semester with a die-hard roster [...]
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Improving the cutting edge
Posted on 01. Sep, 2010 by perspective.
Tiny tools—small enough to poke an individual lens on a ladybug’s eye—are getting more durable, thanks to ultrathin nanocrystalline diamond coatings developed by materials science graduate Patrick Heaney (MS ‘07, PhD ‘09) and his new company, NCD Technologies. Heaney is refining techniques he developed and patented as a graduate student to enhance the performance of [...]
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Building a culture of innovation
Posted on 01. Sep, 2010 by perspective.
Looking through recent patent disclosures from the UW-Madison College of Engineering provides a lesson in intellectual potential. Consider a few examples: Electrical and computer engineers Robert Blick and Minrui Yu developed a laser-drilling technique capable of drilling precise holes at the nanometer scale. Mechanical engineers Rolf Reitz and Reed Hanson created a “clean compression” process [...]
