Trine students, professor honored at engineering educators event

A team of Trine University engineering students and a Trine faculty member received honors at a regional meeting of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE).

The Illinois-Indiana section of the ASEE held its annual conference April 7 at Purdue University in West Lafayette. About 200 students and faculty attended.

Trine students traveled with Tim Jenkins, Ph.D., associate professor of design engineering technology, and Melanie G. Watson, Ph.D., associate professor of biomedical engineering, to the conference to present research posters.

A team of two biomedical engineering majors, Erika Kasen, a senior from Hudsonville, Michigan, and Allison McCrady, a senior from Lancaster, Ohio, received third place in the Outstanding Poster Award category for their poster titled, “Achilles Tendon Maximum Strain and Thickness is Subject-Dependent.”

“We were given the opportunity to share and present our research,” said Watson. “It was exciting to have our students recognized for an outstanding poster presentation.”

Other students participating included:

• design engineering technology majors Jalen Grier, a senior from Wabash, Indiana, and Cydney Huey, a senior from Portland, Indiana, who presented on “Integrated Conduit Strap and Installation Tool,” a senior design project sponsored by Halex Corporation;
• biomedical engineering majors Rebecca Flora, a senior from Greenfield, Indiana, and Alexandra Kartje, a junior from Valparaiso, Indiana, who presented on “The Physical Effects of the Osgood-Schlatter Infrapatellar Band on the Patellar Tendon”; and,
• biomedical engineering majors Jessa Crites, a senior from Westfield, Indiana, Jensyn Garrow, a senior from Archbold, Ohio, and Sarah Stewart, a senior from Mason, Michigan, presenting on “Study of Platelet Adhesion using a Dynamic Layer-By-Layer Collagen Biointerface under Poiseuille Flow and Von Karman Flow.”

Thomas Trusty, recently named associate dean of engineering technology at Trine, was honored as Outstanding Campus Representative, an award he previously received in 2011 and 2014. The award recognizes ASEE campus representatives who achieve excellence in their roles by demonstrating staunch support for ASEE on their campuses.  

Trusty came to Trine in 2007 and has been a campus liaison for the ASEE since 2009. He has served as the Illinois-Indiana section webmaster since 2012, and served as section chair from 2015-2017 and section vice-chair from 2013-2015. He was the organization’s Zone 2 Conference technical chair for 2017.