ME Department News

John R. Ryan, Chancellor of the State University of New York, recently honored two Mechanical Engineering seniors with the 2006 Chancellor’s Award for Student Excellence: Andrew Gardner of Brockport, and David Henann of Wind Gap, Pa.. The Chancellor's Award is the highest award for student excellence given by the State. Both were honored at a ceremony in Albany in April. Recipients must be seniors with a minimum 3.8 GPA and significant community or University service.

Mechanical Engineering senior Jordan Peck was selected as the Student Speaker for the Professional Schools Graduation Ceremony on May 20 at 9:00 AM. Jordan Peck, of New City, is graduating with a dual major in physics and mechanical engineering and has been accepted into a master’s program in technology and policy at MIT. He has served as a physics tutor and a teaching assistant in addition to his many leadership activities on campus. Starting as a Student Assembly representative for Roosevelt Hall, he moved on to become president of Hinman College Council, then Student Association president. Most recently, he has served as representative of the university centers to the New York State Student Assembly, treasurer for the same organization and facilitator for Off Campus College Meeting, representing off-campus students.

Mechanical Engineering Professor DC Sun was named as a Fellow of the Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers. He received the award at the Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers annual meeting in May.

Fighting Cancer in a University Lab:
Dan Jordy at SUNY Binghamton
(From Education Update Online)

A college undergraduate getting an opportunity to work in a lab with scientists developing a device to detect and monitor cancer is exciting stuff. The stakes are even higher and the experience more meaningful when the student has himself been a victim of the disease. Dan Jordy, a senior at the State University of New York in Binghamton, was diagnosed with testicular cancer on Christmas Eve day in 2003. The cancer, one of the rarest overall, is the most common form of the disease in young men. An athlete, he consulted a physician when he recognized symptoms similar to those he had read about on the sports pages concerning Lance Armstrong, the well known cyclist. Surgery and four rounds of chemotherapy forced Jordy to drop out of school for a semester, but during that time he managed to complete two courses over the Internet and now has just about caught up with his classmates.

A mechanical engineering major, Jordy explains that engineering is often used to solve biological problems. Machinery as well as pills is critical in the health field, examples being dialysis units and hearing aids. In fact, Binghamton recently began offering a degree in the subspecialty of bio-engineering.

In the lab, Jordy worked with mechanical engineering professors Harold Ackler and Timothy Singler of Binghamton’s Thomas J. Watson School of Engineering and Applied Science, who are attempting to create a small device that would separate out cancer cells in the blood for immediate analysis, making diagnosis and treatment quicker and easier. The mechanism would be portable, making blood work possible at a patient’s bedside rather than in a distant laboratory. Much of the technology is already known; the challenge is integrating many separate functions into one system. A finished product is still in drawing board stage and Jordy quickly learned that research is “interesting, lots of hard work and results do not come quickly.” Besides his intelligence (Jordy will be graduating with a 4.0 GPA), the young student believes his illness encouraged the professors to have faith in him, “Knowing I’d gone through it helped. They knew I’d be committed to the task.” To him, the project “felt more meaningful. I know how people feel going through the treatment. It was nice to know if this worked out, I’d be helping someone.”

Jordy is a runner and is on the cross-country and track teams. Similar to academic adjustments necessitated by the drop out for treatment, he had to restart his athletic training and slowly rebuild strength. A well-spoken, focused young man, he is tenacious, courageous, modest, and mature. The strong support of professors, coaches, teammates, and classmates has undoubtedly helped him through his ordeal. He cites the relative small size of the engineering school and the camaraderie that characterizes the teams and class as having been important contributors to his recovery