Clemson University Corporate and Foundation Relations

Ford Motor Company will sponsor the 10th generation Deep Orange vehicle prototype designed and conceived by automotive engineering students at the Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research (CU-ICAR).

Deep Orange is hands-on project-based learning focused on systems integration and innovation. The project showcases advanced technology and provides students an opportunity to work directly with automotive industry partners to develop innovative ideas and concepts.

For the tenth iteration of Deep Orange, students will develop a clean slate, purpose-built, electric autonomous mobility concept for 2030 Smart City life. Automotive engineering students will gain real-world experience by developing an ingenious vehicle design, open autonomous vehicle architecture and disruptive innovations. As part of the educational experience, students will explore innovations in user experience, such as ride comfort, voice and gesture control, and integration of passenger biometric and pose information with vehicle functions.

“We look forward to the fresh insights and the energy that the Clemson students will bring to the vehicle development process,” said James Forbes, technical leader UX Implementation for Ford Motor Company. “This collaboration will provide us a new perspective on the opportunities presented by cutting-edge technologies now available to us.”

For more information, visit: http://newsstand.clemson.edu/mediarelations/ford-motor-company-to-sponsor-clemson-deep-orange-10-autonomous-vehicle-prototype. 

The Lettie Pate Whitehead Foundation in Atlanta, Georgia has awarded Clemson’s School of Nursing a $94,000 grant to provide scholarships for undergraduate women. This year, the scholarships have been expanded to include Accelerated Second Degree nursing students.

The Foundation’s scholarship program awards annual grants for the education of deserving female students with financial need at more than 200 accredited educational institutions in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. Most of the scholarship grants support undergraduate higher education, though the Foundation maintains a special interest in health education. A significant number of their grants target education in the medical, nursing, and allied health fields.

“We have been impressed with the quality of the nursing program at Clemson and are pleased to help its students achieve their education dreams,” said Carrie Conway, Senior Program Officer for the Foundation.  “We know that Clemson nursing graduates will touch countless lives, and we hope they will be guided by the same generosity of spirit that characterized Mrs. Whitehead’s life and work.”

Since 1994, the Lettie Pate Whitehead Foundation has supported Clemson’s School of Nursing with gifts totaling $964,000.

Kathleen Valentine, the School of Nursing Director, said she is grateful for the foundation’s gift which she said makes a huge difference in the lives of students.

“We are so grateful to the Lettie Pate Whitehead Foundation for their continuous support since 1994. Total gifts of nearly $1 million makes a difference in the lives of students,” Valentine said. “This gives them the opportunity for them to focus more on their studies, and patients will ultimately benefit from well prepared and committed nurses.”

For more information, visit: http://newsstand.clemson.edu/lettie-pate-whitehead-foundation-helps-nursing-students-through-scholarship-funding-increased-this-year

The Bosch Community Fund has awarded Clemson a $40,000 grant to develop and execute a STEM outreach program focused on autonomous boat technologies for students across the Upstate.

This award builds on a September 2017 grant from the Bosch Community Fund that supported the development of an autonomous boat “road map” using the AB developed by Bosch Rexroth apprentices as a springboard. The outcome of the first grant period was a roadmap outlining the full scope of the AB platform and its potential integration into education and outreach, integration of the AB into a Clemson Automotive Electronics course (71 students), and an autonomous boat competition by students

In the summer of 2018, Drs. Srikanth Pilla and Yunyi Jia in Automotive Engineering will engage approximately 20-40 students from Clemson, a technical college (e.g. Greenville Technical College), and local middle and high schools (e.g. Phinnize J. Fisher Middle School, the South Carolina’s Governor School for Mathematics and Sciences) in sustainability, advanced materials, and autonomous technologies training using the Bosch autonomous boat concept and the platform that Drs. Jia and Pilla co-developed using prior grant support.

In the fall of 2018, they will engage a multi-disciplinary team of approximately 80-100 Clemson graduate students in a design competition. Dr. Pilla’s students will participate in a sustainable boat design and sustainability analysis course, and Dr. Jia’s students will participate in a sensing and autonomy design course. Students from both courses will combine their skills and knowledge to design sustainable and autonomous boats for an end-of-semester competition.

Thank you, Bosch Community Fund, for supporting STEM outreach and education at Clemson!

On April 12-13, Clemson University hosted the second annual National Men of Color Summit at the TD Convention Center in Greenville, South Carolina. The sold-out summit was attended by two thousand people and had over 45 sessions designed to encourage students to evaluate and discover their full potential. The two-day event was sponsored by a variety of corporate partners including BB&T, Michelin, Hubbell Lighting, BMW, ScanSource, Duke Energy, Bon Secours, Synnex, Boeing, Milliken and Fluor.

Keynote speakers included:

– President James E. Clark, South Carolina State University
– Brian Heat, Educator and Entrepreneur
– President Chris Howard, Robert Morris University
– Tom Joyner, radio host of “The Tom Joyner Morning Show”
– Roland Martin, journalist
– Wes Moore, CEO and founder of BridgeEdu
– Commissioner Carlos Santiago, Massachusetts Department of Higher Education
– Damon Williams, chief catalyst, Center for Strategic Diversity Leadership and Social Innovation
– Juan Williams, FOX News political analyst and commentator

“We intentionally identify speakers and presenters who can identify with the challenges and issues these students face,” Lee Gill, Clemson’s chief diversity officer, said. “We want these students to see themselves in the successes of our speakers.”

The goal of the summit was to engage and develop relationships among the participants, expose them to the college environment, provide positive male role models, connect students to campus resources, and help attendees take ownership of their own success.

Clemson University has been awarded a $5,000 grant by AFL, an international company focused on manufacturing, engineering, and installing fiber optic products and equipment, for the Charles H. Townes Optical Science and Engineering Summer Program. The Townes Program is an undergraduate student experience where students from diverse backgrounds in materials science and engineering come to Clemson University for a 10-week summer program to work in laboratories at Clemson’s Center for Optical Materials Science and Engineering Technologies (COMSET). Between 8 and 12 students are accepted into the program every year and are immersed in a campus residency where they gain hands-on research experience and participate in training programs and workshops. Each participant in the Townes program spends 28 hours per week in the lab working on group projects, which they present to faculty, staff, and industry at a poster session at the end of the 10-week program.

Funding from AFL will support a summer scholarship for a student, mystery bag engineering design competition supplies, weekly professional development lunch & learns, student research project supplies, and a student research poster session. Clemson University is one of six Upstate organizations to receive community grants from AFL. These grants, made possible by AFL’s Community Outreach Program, were given to programs that align with AFL’s focus on STEM education and social service outreach.

Dr. Ballato received his undergraduate and PhD degrees from Rutgers University in 1993 and 1997, respectively, and then joined the Ceramic Engineering faculty at Clemson. He has been at Clemson for 21 years. During his time here, he has worked to establish the COMSET research center, which includes the nation’s premier academic laboratory for optical fiber development. Optical fiber is involved whenever and wherever someone sends or receives data, such as email, websites, social media, or e-commerce.

At COMSET, Dr. Ballato studies new materials and methods for making novel optical fibers used for communications and lasers for manufacturing and defense. Companies are situated at every step of this value chain, so industrial partnerships are critical to the transition of his lab’s concepts into the market.

Dr. Ballato notes, “Collaboration with Corporate and Foundation Relations started many years ago when we were first developing our optical fiber capabilities and several companies valued that effort. For the eight years that I was in the research and economic development leadership team at Clemson, industrial partnerships were central to our efforts, and CFR was a great partner.”

The COMSET laboratory has worked with over 150 global partners and their approach to making novel optical fibers is now used in more than 40 countries. Dr. Ballato is graduating two PhD students this year and is excited to search for and recruit a new cohort of students who will help Clemson chart the future for optical fiber.

Clemson University associate professor of English, Rhondda Robinson Thomas has received a $50,000 Whiting Public Engagement Fellowship to share the university’s history through a museum exhibition called “Black Clemson: From Enslavement to Integration.”

This fellowship will help the exhibit travel to 10 sites across South Carolina for two years. Thomas is also partnering with local organizations to create a series of public events that further illuminate the history of Clemson, as not only a university, but also a town. “Black Clemson” is an extension of Thomas’ earlier initiative, “Call My Name: African Americans in Early Clemson University History.” This initiative has digitized over 2,000 documents related to Clemson history, including slave inventories, prison records, labor contracts, photographs, and correspondence.

Thomas is one of seven individuals to receive the 2018-19 Whiting Public Engagement Fellowship for work in the humanities disciplines of history, literature, philosophy, anthropology, and gender studies. “I am honored to be a member of the cohort of Whiting Public Engagement Fellows for the 2018-2019 academic year,” Thomas said. “This fellowship will enable me to increase the visibility and impact of my ‘Black Clemson: From Enslavement to Integration’ traveling museum exhibition project in South Carolina and the nation.”

On Monday, Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) joined representatives from Clemson’s College of Science and College of Engineering, Computing and Applied Sciences to celebrate the eighteen recipients of the SRNL University Scholarship. President Jim Clements and College of Science Founding Dean Cynthia Young spoke on the partnership between SRNL and Clemson University and the value that it brings to students. “When I asked [the scholars] why a scholarship like this was so impactful, they gave me two big answers: one, that they can afford to work in a research lab or take a summer internship instead of working other jobs to help defray student loan debt; and two, they felt that having this scholarship opens doors to great opportunities.”

SRNL donated $144,000 to Clemson to establish the SRNL University Scholars program to award scholarships to qualified students in STEM majors. “Through this agreement, the board of directors of Savannah River Nuclear Solutions is making a significant investment in the future of the region’s workforce. Not only does this program financially support STEM students, it also connects them with the scientists and technologists at Savannah River National Laboratory that can help them build challenging and rewarding careers right here in our region,” said Dr. Terry A. Michalske, Laboratory Director of SRNL, who also spoke at the event.

This 2017-2018 SRNL University Scholarship recipients include:
Luna Bozeman, Mathematical Sciences
Michael Calfe, Biosystems Engineering
Matthew Case, Chemistry
Bryce DeChamplain, Biological Sciences
Rebecca Jones, Genetics
Erik Kropilak, Mechanical Engineering
Sloan Nietert, Mathematical Sciences
Polly Payne, Mathematical Sciences
Scott Pope, Materials Science and Engineering
Andrew Randazza, Civil Engineering
Andrew Shore, Physics
Ryan Stoyko, Industrial Engineering
Nicholas Szwast, Environmental Engineering
Jacob Thompson, Electrical Engineering
Andrea Vera Martinez, Bioengineering
Sarah Waldvogel, Biochemistry
Nick Whitesides, Microbiology
Kristen Wong, Genetics

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.