Author: Amber Padgett

Sonoco, one of the largest global diversified packaging companies, has partnered with Clemson to establish the Sonoco FRESH (Food Research Excellence for Safety and Health) innovation hub, which seeks to develop new technologies and new forms of packaging to optimize the fresh food lifecycle. Sonoco FRESH will be housed in the Sonoco Institute of Packaging Design and Graphics, and Sonoco has invested a gift of $1.725 million and research support of $1 million to establish the Sonoco FRESH hub.

To celebrate this new partnership, key stakeholders from Clemson and Sonoco gathered for a luncheon at the Madren Center on February 20. Guests were welcomed by Dr. George Askew, Dean of the College of Agriculture, Forestry, and Life Sciences and listened to remarks by Dr. Jim Clements, President of Clemson University and Rob Tiede, CEO Elect of Sonoco. After lunch, Dr. Askew led a panel discussion featuring perspectives from agribusiness, industry, and academia. Panelists included Chalmers Carr, President and CEO of Titan Farms; Kay Cooksey, PhD, Cryovac Endowed Chair and Professor of Food, Nutrition and Packaging Science; Jeff Rhodehamel, PhD, Department Chair and Professor of Food, Nutrition and Packaging Science; Ryan Ramey, graduate student in Food, Nutrition and Packaging Science; Jeff Schuetz, Staff Vice President of Global Technology for Sonoco; and Hugh Weathers, South Carolina’s Commissioner of Agriculture. Topics of discussion ranged from packaging innovations to reduce food waste to new technologies that will optimize the fresh food lifecycle to how this private-public sector partnership will uniquely position Sonoco FRESH as a leader in tackling the global issue of food waste.

For more information, visit: http://newsstand.clemson.edu/mediarelations/sonoco-announces-5-year-2-725-million-fresh-packaging-initiative-with-clemson. 

On February 3, Charleston hosted the 2018 Charleston STEM Festival, presented by Bosch. The one-day festival featured 80 exhibitors that provided hands-on activities, live performances, interactive demonstrations, and family-oriented STEM entertainment. The free event brought guests of all ages to participate in interactive presentations like “Ask a Meteorologist,” a Career Concourse featuring job training and educational opportunities from STEM companies and institutions, and hands-on STEM activities at exhibits.

The 2018 Festival was made possible through Clemson’s partnerships with top STEM corporations including Google, Nucor, Boeing, Dominion Energy, Cummins, SPAWAR Systems Atlantic, Berkeley Electric Cooperative, Mercedes-Benz Vans, and Home Telecom.

The Charleston STEM Festival’s purpose is to increase awareness of the role of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in society, promoting responsible science in the region, and conveying the joy of STEM to South Carolina. The Charleston STEM Festival is an initiative of the Lowcountry STEM Collaborative and is managed by South Carolina’s Coalition for Mathematics and Science and Clemson University.

For more information, visit: http://charlestonstemfest.org.

The CFR team is beginning a new series of faculty and staff feature stories to highlight partnerships with the academy that have increased corporate support of Clemson. Our first feature highlights Dr. Todd Marek, Executive Director of Clemson’s Watt Family Innovation Center.

Dr. Marek works closely with the Corporate and Foundation Relations team to establish strategic partnerships with corporations to support the needs of the Watt Center and the many students, faculty, and staff who engage with the Center each semester.

Throughout graduate school, Dr. Marek was very interested in medical instrumentation and imaging. His research at that time was in the area of highly parallel computer architectures and processing. After he graduated, he had the opportunity to work at MIT Lincoln Laboratory developing satellite communications systems for military requirements. He spent 6 years at Lincoln Laboratory and then transitioned into private industry for a company that provides engineering services for the US government. He spent 18 years with Scientific Research Corporation working in engineering, project leadership, and technical director roles. During much of this time, he led the Communications, Networks, and Electronics division and supported numerous projects for the US Air Force, the US Army, and several other clients.

As for his work with the Watt Center, Dr. Marek says, “The innovation cycle at the Watt Center depends on ideas and creativity originating from interactions between students, faculty, and industry partners. Industry input helps clarify the problem definition, and also helps establish boundary conditions that define acceptable or commercially meaningful solutions. Many of our industry partners have contributed their advanced products and tools to the Watt Center, giving students access to technology that would otherwise be unavailable to them.”

Currently, The Watt Center is actively engaged with about 30 companies. “Corporate and Foundation Relations team members have provided great support to our interactions with these companies. It is a true partnership with CFR where we each have elements of the company relationship that we lead and other elements where we provide support.”

As an alumnus of Clemson, Dr. Marek shares the same devotion to Clemson as current students. He notes, “There are so many amazing things happening at Clemson – it is a very exciting time to be a part of it all.” If Dr. Marek had to choose his favorite thing about working at Clemson it would be that he loves the energy, creativity, and optimism that he sees in Clemson students.

He is particularly excited about two major initiatives that are developing at the Watt Center: first, they are expanding their offerings that invite innovation at the intersection of art and technology; second, they are looking into ways the Watt Center can lead multidisciplinary activity at the convergence of analytics, visualization, cybersecurity, emergency management, and public administration.

The Watt Center is so much more than just a great place to study or have a class. There are always great opportunities for multidisciplinary interaction and involvement. You can get involved with the Watt Center by following them on Twitter @WattCenter.

Recent gifts from corporate and foundation partners will strengthen several Clemson STEM education programs for K-12 students.

iMAGINE Upstate 2018

– AFL, a South Carolina-based manufacturer of fiber optic products and equipment, and Robert Bosch LLC, multinational engineering and electronics company, have supported the 2018 iMAGINE Upstate festival that will be held in Greenville, SC in April.

– An initiative of South Carolina’s Coalition of Math and Science (SCCMS), iMAGINE Upstate seeks to create meaningful experiences that promote a culture of lifelong learning and career readiness with an emphasis on science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM), innovation, and entrepreneurial activity in Upstate South Carolina.

Charleston STEM Festival

– The Charleston STEM Festival, another initiative of SCCMS, is a celebration of science, technology, engineering and math in the Lowcountry of South Carolina and will be held in February 2018.

– Robert Bosch LLC recently pledged to support the Charleston STEM Festival for the next three years as the festival’s presenting sponsor.

Clemson University Women in Numbers (CU-WIN)

– The Engineering Information Foundation, based in New York, NY, has awarded Clemson a $15,000 grant for a new summer program focused on strengthening middle school girls’ math skills. The CU-WIN program will be held in North Charleston, SC at the Clemson University Restoration Institute (CURI) and will allow participants to visit industry facilities and engage with female role models working in STEM fields while also building math skills through hands-on lessons.

Six Clemson marketing students presented the findings of their undergraduate research project to Siemens executives during the fall 2017 semester.

Through a Creative Inquiry sponsored by Siemens, students were asked to find solutions on how to best transfer knowledge between new and old employees as baby boomers start to retire. Their research resulted in a list of actionable items for Siemens to incorporate to help the company grow even as they lose their most senior employees.

Kevin Yates, leader of the energy management division for Siemens in the U.S. and Canada and a 1994 Clemson graduate, said, “They absolutely delivered and hit the mark. The value they created, given their limited experience, was outstanding. The research they have provided has been very insightful. There were several ‘a-ha’ moments from our staff during the presentation.”

This Creative Inquiry project will continue over the next two years with students elaborating on the prior work each semester.

For more information, visit: http://newsstand.clemson.edu/mediarelations/siemens-taps-clemson-students-to-mitigate-baby-boomer-exodus-from-its-work-force.

Honda R&D Americas is the primary sponsor of the new Deep Orange 9 (DO9) concept vehicle project, which tasks graduate automotive engineering students with building a next generation rallycross vehicle. The car will be the first of its kind: a high-performance, ultra-tough motorsports vehicle with a clean, fuel-efficient hybrid powertrain, advanced technical features, and highly dynamic handling and acceleration.

Deep Orange 9 is also supported by Aisin Group and JTEKT Corporation as Leadership Sponsors, BFGoodrich as Track Sponsor, and Red Bull and the Specialty Equipment Market Association as Marketing Sponsors. Students are also incorporating unique concussion research into DO9 in collaboration with the Spartanburg Regional Healthcare system.

The DO9 project will also present new ways to market vehicles to motorsports fans. In a collaboration with the Robert H. Brooks Sports Science Institute, undergraduate students studying consumer behavior, sports marketing, and marketing research will leverage consumer research to segment and target customers for DO9.

Deep Orange 9 is an extremely unique innovative, project-based learning program that produces highly capable automotive engineers by immersing them in the world of vehicle manufacturers and suppliers.

“The extreme engineering behind motorsports has often been used as a test bed that pushes the boundaries of consumer vehicle technology,” said Robert Prucka, Kulwicki Endowed Professor in Motor Sports Engineering at CU-ICAR, who leads the program. “Deep Orange 9 students are tasked not only with developing an innovative vehicle with the power and handling requirements of an emerging motorsport, but with finding new ways to improve driver safety, fuel efficiency and vehicle emissions in these highly dynamic driving situations.”

For more information, visit: http://newsstand.clemson.edu/mediarelations/clemson-university-prototype-program-announces-next-generation-rallycross-vehicle.

Through a Bosch Community Fund great, Clemson’s graduate students and faculty in Automotive Engineering were given the opportunity to study the challenges In developing small scale autonomous boats with an eye toward removing micro-plastics from the ocean.

The 71 students divided into groups and created 18 different boats that were capable of cruise control, boundary tracking, and collision avoidance using the sensing signal processing, filtering techniques, and advanced control methods they learned in class.

After the competition, students were tasked to develop a report describing how they would design a boat for ocean conservation (inspired by Bosch) and to identify and address current challenges and gaps for creating future autonomous boats.

CU-ICAR held its annual Automotive Engineering Fellowship Awards Ceremony on November 17 to honor the graduate students who received fellowship awards for the 2017-2018 academic year, as well as the generous corporate donors who created these awards.

Bill Post, PhD, Division Director, Integrated Controls at Honda R&D Americas, Inc. was the keynote speaker at this year’s ceremony. Dr. Post is a three-time graduate of Clemson and shared about the importance of his Clemson education in his career path with the awards ceremony honorees and attendees.

Burzis Taraporevala, Secretary and Chief Financial Officer for the Sir Ratan Tata Trust and Allied Trusts, also shared remarks at the ceremony, remarking on the legacy of philanthropy that inspired the founding of Clemson University and the importance of continuing to pay that generosity forward.

Twenty-nine automotive engineering graduate students received fellowship awards this year from companies and other funders including Tata Trust, BMW, Bosch, Bridgestone, Cooper Standard, Draexlmaier, Firestone Fibers & Textiles, JTEKT, National Science Foundation, Plastic Omnium, Sage Automotive Interiors, Sonoco, and Staubli.

Deep Orange 9 industry partners gathered at CU-ICAR on November 17 to learn about the progress of the DO9 concept vehicle project, meet the graduate student and faculty project leadership, and discuss next steps for the vehicle’s design and production.

Industry partners represented at Deep Orange 9 Day included: Aisin Technical Center of America, BF Goodrich, Honda R&D Americas, Inc., JTEKT, and Red Bull.

The Deep Orange 9 project will develop and demonstrate a “next-generation rallycross” motorsports vehicle, with the goal of creating a safe, clean, and fuel efficient vehicle that provides highly dynamic handling and acceleration. The Deep Orange program is Clemson’s unique framework that immerses graduate students into the world of a future OEM and/or supplier, allows automotive engineering students, multi-disciplinary faculty, and participating industry partners to produce a new vehicle prototype each year.

Thank you, Deep Orange 9 partners, for your commitment to our students’ success!

Clemson welcomed Oregon-based forest product company, Roseburg to Clemson this month to tour the campus and attend the Clemson vs. Citadel football game. Roseburg Forest Products is expanding its operations with construction of a new engineered wood products plant in South Carolina. Executives from Roseburg, a leader in the forestry industry, spent their visit learning about how programs at Clemson help bridge the gap among education, workforce development and industry trends. These programs included the Wood Utilization + Design Institute, the Community Research + Design Center, and the Construction Science and Management program.

Roseburg spent time learning more about the capabilities of the Structural Engineering Research Lab, the Ag Mechanization Labs, and the Clemson Experimental Forest. On Saturday, Roseburg attendees participated in the CAFLS Tailgate, and watched Clemson beat the Citadel.