U.S. audience introduced to 'New Faces of Engineering'

John Varrasi
ASME Public Information

A young engineer nominated by ASME is one of 16 "new faces" who will be featured this month in a National Engineers Week program to recognize engineers as role models.

Corrine Lengsfeld, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Denver and an accomplished researcher, is one of the "New Faces of Engineering," a recognition program that will be featured in a full-page ad later this month in USA Today, which has a daily circulation of 1.8 million.

The goal of "New Faces of Engineering" is to present the bright young stars of the engineering profession as diverse, talented role models for high school and college students.

Lengsfeld and the other young engineers were nominated by National Engineers Week, sponsoring organizations and other supporters.

The New Faces ad will also appear on the EWeek Web site, www.eweek.org, and that of USA Today, www.usatoday.com, which receives between one million and two million hits daily.

"I am extremely proud to be a part of a program that is designed to improve the image of engineering and promote careers in the field," Lengsfeld said. "I hope I can make a difference."

New Faces of Engineering received a total of 108 nominations from the Diversity Subcommittee of the National Engineers Week Steering Committee. The 16 who will appear in USA Today were chosen by an Engineers Week subcommittee that considered diversity and the nominees' work on unique or high-profile projects and/or engineering achievements in the past two to five years.

Lockheed Martin, the corporate sponsor of E-Week 2003, will pay for the ad in USA Today. It is scheduled to appear on Feb. 17 or Feb. 18 during National Engineers Week, which runs from Feb. 16-22.

Lengsfeld, an ASME member since 1988, is the chief judge for the Society's Human Powered Vehicle Contest. She studied mechanical engineering at the University of California, Irvine, earning a Ph.D. in 1997.

Her current research is in biotechnology. Lengsfeld and her colleagues are investigating the role of hydrodynamic shear stress in the large-scale production as well as purification of therapeutic DNA, which often degrades and loses biological capabilities when processed and delivered. The goal of the research is to establish guidelines for the cost-effective design and manufacturing of equipment used to process DNA while maintaining its essential physical properties.

The National Science Foundation is funding this research, which is a strongly interdisciplinary activity involving mechanical engineers, chemical engineers, physicians and pharmaceutical scientists.

In an earlier research program, Lengsfeld investigated the behavior of nano- and microparticle properties when carbon dioxide was used to release drugs from miniature therapeutic devices implanted in the body. The research plays a role in cancer treatments, in which medicinal drugs must attack only specific tumors, and new gene/medicine agents, in which the cost of the drug is prohibitive if not applied to a targeted site. She is an expert in fluid dynamics and atomization physics, and continues to contribute to the classic mechanical engineering discipline of combustion science.

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