News from Chemical Engineering

OSU faculty member receives White House honor

Adam Huffer, OSU Office of Public Information , July 28, 2006

 An Oklahoma State University faculty member has received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the U.S. government’s highest recognition of the nation’s most promising young scientists and engineers.

Dr. Jim Smay, an assistant professor of chemical engineering at OSU, was among 20 PECASE recipients honored by President Bush at the White House July 26. Recognized for extensive research accomplishments and noteworthy educational contributions, the 2005 winners of the National Science Foundation-sponsored awards bring the total number to 200 since the program began in 1996.

Awardees are chosen from the 350 to 400 assistant professors who have received grants from NSF’s Faculty Early Career Program (CAREER) in the same year of their nomination for the president’s award. Only the top proposals funded by NSF are submitted to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy which ultimately determines the PECASE winners.

“The PECASE recognizes the most outstanding of the small pool of faculty members who receive CAREER Awards, and the CAREER Awards are given to only a few, exceptional faculty members who have outstanding ideas for both research and instruction,” said Dr. R. Russell Rhinehart, Bartlett Chair and head of OSU’s School of Chemical Engineering. “We are very proud that Jim is bringing this exceptional honor to OSU.”

Smay, one of six engineers among the PECASE winners, received a five-year, $400,000 NSF-CAREER grant in 2005. He is using it to fund the development of an innovative technology as well as an outreach program to Native American high school students in Tahlequah.

The technology, a solid freeform fabrication process, may best be described as three-dimensional printing.

“The ink is materials such as polymers, ceramics and metals, and we deposit them to build up layers and print dental crowns, electro-ceramics, photonic materials and a wide range of other things,” Smay said. “One of my students is building tissue scaffolds out of polymers.”

 “This technology allows us to build things you can’t make with traditional machining and molding processes,” Smay said. “We also call it rapid prototyping because it allows you to design something on a computer and simply hit ‘print’ rather than send it off to a machinist.”

            The concept is rooted in Smay’s experiences as a Ph.D. intern at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque. While completing his doctorate in materials science and engineering at the University of Illinois, he worked on the lab’s development of robocasting, specializing in colloid science, the interaction between water and small particles.

            “We are doing something slightly different here,” Smay said. “We are focused on understanding the science of the printing technology and looking at developing printer inks by blending different ratios of the compositions.

            “One of my graduate students came up with ‘4-D printing’ to describe it because you’ve got the three spatial dimensions as well as the composition that is the fourth,” he said.

            According to Smay, the visual nature of the process and its combination of science and engineering fundamentals make the solid freeform fabrication technology an ideal centerpiece for youth outreach.

            “We are working on setting up video cameras in my lab to webcast the process to Sequoyah High School physics, chemistry or math classrooms,” Smay said. “By the end of this year, students there will be able to design something in their classroom, hit ‘print’ and see it print out in Stillwater on a three-dimensional printer.”

            “Simultaneously, I want them to learn about applied science and math and understand that through vector algebra, fluid mechanics and solid mechanics, we’re able to develop the 3-D printer and get it to work,” he said. “That’s a little above the high school level, but at least they can see why they’re studying algebra.”

            The outreach component of Smay’s CAREER grant is a personal endeavor. Born in Tulsa and raised in Stilwell, he is a member of the Cherokee Nation. He believes a technologically advanced Native American community can overcome its socioeconomic problems.

            “There are a lot of impediments in minority communities to higher education, much less going to college to become an engineer or scientist, but the Cherokee Nation must move toward high technology,” Smay said. “I think, in terms of moving the tribe forward, there needs to be a movement of young people toward becoming technologists, engineers, chemists and physicists and moving into high tech industries.

            “That’s where the rest of America is going, and the Native American community needs to move in the same direction,” he said.

Smay says parents and local teachers have the greatest influence, but successful professionals who share students’ backgrounds and are willing to serve as mentors can help them understand the benefits of going to college. Already, he has made an impact at Sequoyah High School. After he began to visit the school, some of its students for the first time attended the annual High School Weekend hosted by OSU’s student chapter of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society.

Smay, who earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering at OSU, hopes more will literally follow in his footsteps.

“I try to interact with the students by telling them, ‘look, I’m a member of the tribe, too. I grew up over here in eastern Oklahoma, 30 miles from the seat of the Cherokee Nation,’” Smay said. “And there’s also a very good success story about OSU to tell. I’m not sure people in the Cherokee Nation are necessarily aware of how good this university’s record is in producing Native Americans graduates.

 “I tell them, ‘not only can you make it, but OSU is a great place to do it.’”

The NSF News Release includes: “James E. Smay of Oklahoma State University studies the use of colloidal inks in a solid freeform fabrication process. Through the use of colloidal inks, it is possible to print two and three-dimensional structures, including complex geometries and those with varying material properties. These advantages enable a range of applications, from electronic packages to scaffolds for tissue engineering. His education plan includes, as its centerpiece, mentoring and educational activities involving students and young people of the Cherokee Nation.”