Good morning dear readers and welcome back to kenbaxter.com! I am Ken Baxter of Las Vegas and today is Wednesday, June 18th, 2014. Happy belated Flag Day and Father’s Day to all! As you may be aware, Made In America vigorously promotes and defends many symbols of this great country; the American flag being one of its most recognized and honored. As American citizens, we salute all those who work so hard to preserve our rights as well as protect all the symbols of our free nation. We are forever grateful to the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces for their continued efforts here and overseas to keep us from harm’s way. In this light, Made In America vows to always protect and serve the interests of America and her people in the best possible manner. We are always seeking new ways to invigorate our economy and renew our focus on educational standards here in the U.S. in order to bring positive change and new employment opportunities to American citizens.
Speaking of new jobs, we were lucky enough to meet the new Dean of the Howard R. Hughes College of Engineering over at UNLV – Dr. Rama Venkat! Dr. Venkat has been instrumental in developing and conducting the College of Engineering Senior Design Competition and, together with Lee Business School faculty, spearheading enhanced collaboration between the two schools. His research areas of interest include solid state sensors, devices, physics, and modeling of devices and photonics.
Dr. Venkat first came to UNLV in 1989, becoming a full professor in 1998, and serving as Chair of the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering from 2000-2006. While with the College of Engineering, he has authored or co-authored 43 journal publications, supervised and graduated nearly 30 graduate students, won a variety of teaching awards, and brought in more than $2,000,000 in research funds.
The newly inducted Dean had this to say about his new position: “I am grateful for the opportunity to continue to lead the College of Engineering on its rise toward top-tier status. I’ve dedicated the past 25 years of my career to UNLV as a faculty member, teacher, researcher, and administrator, and I’m proud to be at the helm of a college that plays such an integral role in both the educational and economic development aspiration of our university and community.”
In addition to all of his accolades and numerous accomplishments, Rama Venkat is also a very kind gentleman! He gave us a complete behind-the-scenes tour of the Engineering Department and invited us to attend the most recent incarnation of the bi-annual event he founded back in 1999. The Fred and Harriet Cox Senior Design Competition and Awards Dinner was established to give students in their senior year of college the chance to showcase their plans, designs, and prototypes of practical, real-world solutions to any engineering or computer science challenge.
A highlight of the year-long senior design project, the Senior Design Competition takes place the week before finals each semester and helps focus the senior students on increasing the quality and potential for commercial application for their projects. Judges from local industry evaluate the projects on innovation, potential, sustainability, and quality and at the annual dinner held during Spring Semester, monetary and commemorative awards are presented to winners of the competition.
Awards have gone to countless innovative, revolutionary projects; one of the most notable being the UNLV Desert Sol, a student designed and built net-zero energy house, which also won first place in the U.S. competition and second place internationally! What a wonderful achievement for the students and staff of UNLV!
We applaud Dr. Rama Venkat on his many accomplishments and noteworthy achievements! We are honored to have met such a capable and talented leader and wish him much success in his future endeavors. We look forward to maintaining a dear friendship and strong ties within the engineering and manufacturing community at UNLV!
Made In America unremittingly works to preserve and resurrect the manufacturing industry in the USA and be the driving force for the new Industrial Revolution in the USA. We hope you will join us in our mission! Please visit our website http://www.mianv.org/ for more information about this and to learn all about our latest events and featured news!
To learn more about our parent non-profit organization, K & L Baxter Family Foundation, dedicated to Education Reform and Climate Change Reversal, please visit http://klbff.org/.
Have a great Wednesday!
