Three MIT graduate students in engineering are among 12 winners selected by the National Research Council in the first predoctoral fellowship program in integrated manufacturing.
The 1993 MIT fellows are Mitchell H. Burman in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Jeffrey D. Nystrom in Materials Science and Engineering and Gokaraju K. Raju in Chemical Engineering.
The program, established last year by the U.S. Department of Energy, has the threefold objective of creating a pool of PhDs trained in the integrated approach to manufacturing, promoting academic interest in the field and attracting talented professionals to a challenging area of engineering. A key goal is to have a broad impact on the foundations of manufacturing technology, resulting in the creation of new manufacturing methods that contribute to improved energy efficiency, better utilization of scarce resources, and less degradation of the environment.
Each award carries an annual stipend of $20,000 and an education allowance of up to $15,000 per year for three years. A similar competition is planned for 1994.
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Charles A. Primmerman, leader of the Laser and Sensor Application Group at Lincoln Laboratory, is one of four persons to share the 1993 Technology Achievement Award of The International Society for Optical Engineering.
The award recognized their work in "the development, demonstration and reduction to practice of laser-produced `guidestar' techniques." Guidestar technology has revolutionized ground-based astronomy by correcting time-varying phase distortions caused by atmospheric turbulence, providing observatories with the means for near-diffraction limited resolution performance.
In its announcement, SPIE said, "Dr. Primmerman has played a key role in the practical development of adaptive optics technology at Lincoln Laboratory. He supervised a demonstration of outgoing laser beam compensation in 1982 and the first atmospheric measurement using sodium layer beacons at White Sands, NM, in 1984. His team's subsequent `stitching' of atmospheric data obtained with two artificial beacons in 1990 demonstrated the basic techniques needed for the use of laser guidestars in astronomy.
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Dominic J. Sartorio, a senior in electrical engineering and computer science, has been awarded a $500 scholarship by the US Reserve Officers Association. He was one of 100 students nationwide to get the Henry J. Reilly Memorial Scholarship in honor of the late Army Reserve brigadier general.
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Dr. Robert C. O'Handley, a senior research scientist in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, was recently given the Information Storage Materials Award by the International Union of Materials Research Societies. The award was presented at a reception during the International Conference on Advbanced Materials in Tokyo, Japan. The award recognized Dr. O'Handley's contributions to the understanding of magnetism and magneto-elastic effects in amorphous alloys.
A version of this article appeared in the October 6, 1993 issue of MIT Tech Talk (Volume 38, Number 9).
