Standardization News

Engineering Standards Workshop

In early September, Case Western Reserve University hosted its first-ever Engineering Standards Workshop to raise the level of awareness of standardization within the campus community. The event drew over 150 attendees and provided an interactive forum for a wide variety of majors to learn about standards and ask questions about the impact of standards in their education and daily lives.

The workshop included presentations on the role of standards organizations and the development of standards documents from a variety of national and international standards organizations as well as presentations from CWRU faculty, staff and students on the incorporation of standards in curricula and research activities. Guest panelists included Jeffrey Adkins, an ASTM staff manager, as well as representatives from the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation, the American National Standards Institute's Committee on Education, the CSA Group, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and Underwriters Laboratories.

Speakers at the Engineering Standards Workshop at Case Western Reserve University included Janet Gbur (third from left), a winner of a 2015 ASTM Graduate Scholarship and an organizer of the workshop, and Jeffrey Adkins, ASTM (seventh from right).

New Professor's Tool Kit Available

The ASTM Professor's Tool Kit has been updated. Available as electronic downloads, the kit includes videos, education modules, handouts, case studies, helpful articles and more. Many materials are available in Spanish, Chinese and Brazilian Portuguese. You can order a free hard copy kit.

Two Students Receive Mather Scholarship

Micheal Anwar Assad and James T. Locum are the recipients of the 2015 Katharine and Bryant Mather Scholarship, which is sponsored by ASTM Committee C09 on Concrete and Concrete Aggregates. Each student received $2,500 toward their educational expenses.

The scholarship is named for influential researchers and Committee C09 members Katharine and Bryant Mather. It is presented to undergraduate students specializing in cement or concrete materials technology, or concrete construction.

Assad is a Ph.D. student in construction engineering at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln in Omaha. Having pursued his undergraduate work at Assiut University in Egypt, Asaad is now focusing on research in self-consolidating concrete.

Locum is a post-graduate student of transportation materials engineering at Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, where he also got his master's degree. Locum has been studying concrete permeability.

The scholarships will be officially presented at the December meeting of Committee C09 in Tampa, Florida. Learn more about ASTM student awards.

Professor of the Year

Ellen Lackey, Ph.D., professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Mississippi, has won the 2015 ASTM Professor of the Year Award.

The award recognizes and rewards the contributions of educators in developing students' understanding of standards. Lackey was nominated by several of her colleagues from academia and industry.

Lackey incorporates standards into her curriculum, using her experience as a member of ASTM Committee D20 on Plastics to stress the importance of engineering standards. Research by her graduate and undergraduate students has helped Subcommittee D20.18 on Reinforced Thermosetting Plastics with standards development. An active ASTM member since 2010, Lackey's contributions to the committee have resulted in new industry standards.

She is an Ole Miss graduate herself, earning a bachelor's in engineering, a master's in mechanical engineering and a Ph.D. in materials science and engineering from the university. She joined the faculty in the Department of Mechanical Engineering in 1995 and was promoted to full professor in 2010. Lackey has received several teaching awards, including the University of Mississippi ASME Student Section Outstanding Mechanical Engineering Teacher Award seven times.

Engineering Internship Opportunity

Engineering Students – Apply Now for 2016 WISE Internship

Undergraduate engineering students are invited to apply to be part of the Washington Internships for Students of Engineering - ranked as one of the best internship opportunities in the U.S. by the Princeton Review.

ASTM sponsors an intern in the WISE program, a nine-week summer session in Washington, D.C., for 12 to 15 engineering students entering their third or fourth year of undergraduate work. WISE interns learn how government decisions are made on technological issues as well as how engineers can contribute to legislative and public policy decisions.

The deadline for applications for the 2016 program is Dec. 31, 2015.

Select "How to Apply" on the WISE Program website.

For more information, contact James Olshefsky, ASTM (tel +1.610.832.9714).

ASTM Executive Vice President Katharine Morgan led a student roundtable at The Pennsylvania State University on Oct. 7. She heard from students about how ASTM standards are becoming part of their studies and their interests in fields such as construction, energy, amusement rides and more. The roundtable was held on the same day that ASTM co-sponsored Penn State's technical exchange on additive manufacturing standards, where Morgan gave kickoff remarks. Pictured next to Morgan is Hunter Jones, president of the Engineering Leadership Society at Penn State.

On Oct. 8, architectural students from the New York Institute of Technology visited ASTM headquarters and heard talks from ASTM staff about the U.S. standardization system as well as our history, standards development process and presence in Europe. The students were accompanied by Nader Vossoughian, Ph.D., an associate professor of architecture at NYIT (far right). In addition, Andrew Dunlap of SmithGroup JJR, Detroit, Michigan, gave a brief webinar on standards and sustainable construction.