CSU ASME Celebrated 100 Years

The Colorado State University chapter of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers celebrated 100 years of excellence on Oct. 9, 2014 with a banquet at the Hilton Fort Collins. The momentous evening was attended by more than 100 students, faculty, alumni, and industry professionals. Professor Emeritus Fred Smith, and Professor Allan Kirkpatrick kicked off the evening with a speech dedicated to the history of ASME followed by student presentations.

After graduate students Kevin Westhoff and Tyler Schott continued the tradition of poking fun at civil engineers (the civil engineers in the audience laughed the hardest), they inspired the group with their senior design project; a composite airwave sponsored by Woodward. Graduate student Jennifer Vaughn talked about what inspired her to study mechanical engineering and described her engine-testing research to determine exhaust constituents; more specifically, EPA-regulated emissions. Undergraduate student Ian May outlined his exciting research with Assistant Professor Lakshmi Prasad Dasi – studying the small scales of turbulence with the use of a local Reynold’s Number – a novel statistical approach to modeling fluid dynamics.

However, undergraduate student and ASME president, Jeff Fisher, stole the show as he reflected on the journey that led him to mechanical engineering, looking to both the past and future societal contributions of mechanical engineers. The evening concluded with a message from Department Head Sue James, when she shared how proud and honored she is to be a part of the department. She asked the audience to attend the bicentennial celebration, complements of a senior design team’s time machine. She also predicted that 5-D printers would have printed all event décor and the best faculty would’ve been cloned to celebrate ASME, 100 years from now.