A young man poses for a photo in front of a gray building.

Alumnus tackles young alumni engagement with grassroots efforts

Erica Corder Photo, Video, Writing Leave a Comment

Dan Surber is a problem solver. But the Virginia Tech alumnus, who graduated in 2010 with a bachelor’s degree in industrial and systems engineering, saw a problem he alone couldn’t fix: he thought more young alumni should be engaged with the university. So when Eileen Van Aken, interim department head of the Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, approached …

A man wearing a yellow hard hat flashes a smile for a photo taken inside a rock quarry.

One engineering alumnus’ 36-year giving streak helps transform a university department — and an industry

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Bryan Smith stands at the edge of the high ground at mining company Luck Stone’s flagship location just outside Richmond, Virginia. He’s looking out at a massive quarry — one that’s about 37 stories deep and more than a half-mile wide. “So this is our Boscobel Plant. It was begun about 1879,” Smith begins, sweeping his arm across the panoramic …

A man sits at a computer and works, wearing a maroon polo shirt that bears a logo from the Virginia Tech College of Engineering.

From structural engineering to software, this Hokie’s career success compels his giving

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The very building in which Bruce Bates’ structural engineering software company was located was designed — entirely by chance — by the same software the company created. That’s an example of the ubiquitousness of software by RISA technologies, which was founded, owned, and operated by Bates, an alumnus of Virginia Tech’s College of Engineering. “We’ve been in this building since …

A woman smiles for a photograph in front of a house.

How one engineering alumna keeps the door open for future Hokies

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Every year in the small agricultural town of Walkersville, Maryland, the high school’s graduating class writes their post-graduation plans next to their name on a wall. Susan Kolbay, who’d lived in Walkersville all her life, took a pen to the wall and filled in “Virginia Tech.” In 1997, she packed up and headed to a town with a population about …

A couple embraces and smiles at each other while standing in front of their white house with blue shutters.

Alumni couple whose wedding reception started with ‘Enter Sandman’ still show their alma mater love

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When Damien and Krystal McCants entered their wedding reception to “Enter Sandman,” the other Hokies in the chapel knew what to do: they just started jumping. At the May 2008 reception, the newly married couple cut a cake embellished with a sugary Virginia Tech athletic logo, drank from embossed Virginia Tech champagne flutes, and danced in a room filled with …

Screenshot of a cover image for a story in a digital magazine. In the old photo, Joe Ware gives a speech at a podium while wearing a hat that reads "Ware Lab."

The little-known backstory of one of Virginia Tech’s most popular labs (VT Engineer Magazine)

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Ask any Virginia Tech engineering student about the Joseph F. Ware Jr. Advanced Engineering Laboratory, and odds are they’ve stepped foot in it. Arguably the most popular lab on campus and hallmark of the Virginia Tech undergraduate engineering experience, the Ware Lab is a 10,000-square-foot facility, split into nearly a dozen bays full of tools, materials, and student design projects. It’s …

Screenshot of a cover image for a story in a digital magazine. In the photo, a young man tries on a black cloth glove, which is connected to wires. It's a close up shot, focused only on the lower torso and the black suit.

Alumnus propels research with donation of 16 motion capture suits (VT News, College of Engineering, VT Engineer Magazine)

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Studying balance and fall prevention. Developing more human-like robotic motion. Understanding human performance in simulated health care tasks. These are just a few of the ways Virginia Tech researchers plan to use 16 donated motion capture suits to study body motion and injury prevention, thanks to Jamie Marraccini (electrical engineering ’93), founder, CEO, and president of Inertial Labs. The suits …

Screenshot of a cover image for a story in a digital magazine. In the photo, several members of the Hyperloop team are pulling and pushing along a pod on the sidewalk.

From Reddit to racing with Elon Musk

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On a Sunday night 15 minutes before midnight in early November, a group of undergraduate engineers is still wide awake. They’re stationed at TechPad, a local coworking space, trying to figure out how to not catch their Hyperloop pod on fire. “So, could we find a more efficient way in a triangle configuration?” asks Bobby Smyth, a senior from Yorktown, …

Two students look to the sky, colored purple and light blue by the sunset, as they watch their drone fly overhead.

Autonomous robots in the desert (VT Engineer Magazine)

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Last winter, a team of engineering graduate students regularly ventured out to Virginia Tech’s Kentland Farm. They’d drive past fields of cows and farmland until they reached a small garage and strip of asphalt. It’s here they’d unload a set of autonomous vehicles: several drones and a ground vehicle. They’d place markers made of tape and tarps on the concrete …