Pratt School of Engineering

www.pratt.duke.edu

By the numbers

1,100 undergraduates
445 graduate students
97 tenure track faculty
5 professors of the practice
13 research professors

Major highlights

Duke engineers and biologists discovered that a component of many proteins is one of the most powerful and resilient molecular “springs” in nature. The discovery could lead to potent nanoscale “shock absorbers” or “gate-opening springs” in tiny nanomachines. Full story.

Using a new design theory, Duke engineers and colleagues at the Imperial College London have developed the blueprint for an invisibility cloak that could have numerous uses, from defense applications to wireless communications. Full story.

Special programs or achievements

The European Union awarded associate professor David R. Smith the Descartes Research Prize for developing artificial composites called metamaterials that reverse the usual properties of light. Full story.

Professor Henry Petroski won the prestigious 2006 Washington Award, for making engineering theory and practice understandable to the public. Full story.

Bursac

Assistant professor Nenad Bursac used cultured heart cells to gain new insight into the mechanisms that spawn irregular heart rhythms. Studies of the engineered cardiac tissue revealed that while electric shocks such as those delivered by defibrillators usually stopped aberrant rhythms, in some cases they cause rhythms to accelerate and multiply. Full story.

Awards and recognition

Assistant professor Sylvia Ferrari won a Presidential Early Career Award.

Assistant professors of electrical and computer engineering Adrienne Stiff-Roberts, Jungsang Kim, and Sule Ozev won NSF Early CAREER Awards. Full story.

Assistant professor Jingdong Tian was named a Beckman Young Investigator by the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation.

Assistant professor Stefan Zauscher received a Young Investigator Award from the American Academy of Nanomedicine.

Faculty and staff appointments

Photonics pioneer Tuan Vo-Dinh, of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is now a professor of biomedical engineering at Duke. He directs the Fitzpatrick Institute for Photonics and leads the school’s Photonics Initiative.

Drug and gene delivery pioneer Kam Leong, of Johns Hopkins University, is now a professor of biomedical engineering and directs the school’s Bioengineering Initiative.

Nanomaterials scientist Mark R. Wiesner, former director of the Environmental and Energy Systems Institute at Rice University, is now a professor of civil and environmental engineering.

University of Illinois graduate Romit Roy Choudhury is now an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering.

Top photo: Gil Bohrer, a civil and environmental engineering doctoral student, developed a visualization model of the tree canopy in a forest for his dissertation. The visualization is used in the Duke Immersive Virtual Environment (DiVE) facility, one of only seven such facilities in the world.