Six faculty members have been selected for the California State University, Northridge Research Fellows Program for the 2014-2015 academic year in support of their research and academic development in their fields of study. Top (left to right): Brian Burkhart, J’aime Morrison and Ani Nahapetian. Bottom (feft to right): Carrie Rothstein-Fisch, Hélène Rougier and Cristina Rubino.

Examining morals and ethics from an indigenous philosophy, cellphone security and how culture impacts problem-solving and learning are all topics under investigation by faculty selected for California State University, Northridge’s Research Fellows Program for the 2014-2015 academic year.

The program, founded in 2007, was created and is funded by the Office of the Provost — and administered by the university’s colleges and the Delmar T. Oviatt Library — to offer faculty an opportunity to pursue compelling research or a creative activity.

“The Research Fellows program’s significance is that it allows the selected faculty the time to expand their existing work or begin new creative projects both on their own and with colleagues across the research space,” said Marianne Afifi, former associate dean of the Oviatt Library and the program administrator. “CSUN, as well as the research community at large, benefit from these endeavors as they shed light on the exciting work that these faculty members embark on.”

Six research fellowships were awarded last year, based on the extent that the proposed activity explores creative or original concepts; the likelihood of achievement of the stated outcomes in the proposed time frame; the benefits of the research or creative activity to society; the organization of the proposal; the ability to disseminate the results widely to advance understanding; and the contribution to the field of study or across other fields.

Research fellows are required to present their findings at a colloquium in the fall. The selected research fellows and their respective projects are:

Brian Burkhart (College of Humanities) – Burkhart, faculty in the American Indian Studies program, will focus his research on the “American Indian/Indigenous Philosophy and Environmental Ethics.” His goal is to reshape the way society thinks about the environment and create a different context for how human beings think about what is moral in environmental ethics, animal ethics and the like. In presenting an indigenous philosophy of the environment, he must counter the deeply held stereotypes of native people’s relationship to the environment as something animalistic and magical, and not rational and reasonable. He has been teaching at CSUN since 2010.

J’aime Morrison (Mike Curb College of Arts, Media, and Communication) – Morrison, faculty in the Department of Theatre, will develop a theater piece based on the history of Los Angeles. Her research will involve “performative research,” a way of engaging with history, landscape and memory that includes texts, documents and images but also involves site visits to downtown Los Angeles and other historic areas. She has been teaching at CSUN since 2001.

Ani Nahapetian (College of Engineering and Computer Science) – Faculty in the Department of Computer Science, Nahapetian’s research will focus on “Mobile Sensing-Based Stealth Computer Monitoring.” She will examine mobile system security and use sensors, readily available on most mobile devices — namely accelerometers, microphones and ambient light sensors — for the recovery of users’ computer usage activity with keyboard, mouse and screen emanation sensing. She has been teaching at CSUN since 2011.

Carrie Rothstein-Fisch (Michael D. Eisner College of Education) – Rothstein-Fisch, a professor in the Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling, will focus on “Connecting Cultures: Problem-solving in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM).” It will examine the framework of individualism and collectivism in exploring how teachers can use knowledge of students’ home culture to shape their curricula. She will be using an ethnographic approach. She has been teaching at CSUN since 1986.

Hélène Rougier (College of Social and Behavioral Sciences) – Faculty in the Department of Anthropology, Rougier’s research is titled, “Saint-Césaire (France): Reassessment of a Prominent Neanderthal Site.” She plans to re-examine and sort the faunal collections from the site of Saint-Césaire, in southwest France, to check for the presence of Neanderthal remains that may have been overlooked. Her project has the potential to shed new light on the disappearance of Neanderthals and their replacement by early modern humans, our direct ancestors. She has been teaching at CSUN since 2009.

Cristina Rubino (David Nazarian College of Business and Economics) – Department of Management professor Rubino will focus her research on “What Do You Bring to the Table? Examining the Role of Personal Resources in Various Work Contexts.” Her goal is to expand employee well-being and diversity research by investigating how individual factors help employees manage stressful situations that can contribute to strain, burnout and turnover. She has been teaching at CSUN since 2011.

There are countless tales from engineers and computer scientists about burning the midnight oil to find the right configuration of a puzzle only they can see. One degree too hot, and a chemical engineer’s product is unusable; one line of code with the wrong sequence of numbers and letters, and the coder’s end result fails.

It’s tireless work, which is why S.K. Ramesh, dean of California State University, Northridge’s 
College of Engineering and Computer Science (and professor of electrical and computer engineering) is a leader in the field.

If you send him an email on any given Wednesday, he might not get back to you until the next morning — because he might be halfway around the world attending seminars and spreading the word about the caliber of CSUN’s programs. For the past nine years under his direction, the college has gained worldwide acclaim through agreements with schools such as Kumaraguru College of Technology in India to help foster research collaboration and the exchange of expertise in such areas as assistive technology engineering.

“Assistive technology engineering is at the core of what we do as engineers,” said Ramesh. “We are designing products and processes to help improve and sustain the quality of living for all of us in this world.”

It’s this open access to the wonders of engineering and computer science that makes Ramesh a hit with his staff and students.

“Thanks to his support, new faculty like me can get external funding right after we arrive at CSUN,” said electrical and computer engineering (ECE) professor Ruting Jia. “He is also very supportive to send students and faculty to attend conferences and meet the peers in our fields.”

Jia added that one master’s-level student, Ammar Surti, was awarded third place for a 2015 ASEE-GSW ​(American Society for Engineering Education-Gulf Southwest) Graduate Research Paper, and Surti made it a point to show his gratitude to Ramesh and the ECE department for their support.

It’s that level of dedication to his position that has made the college a hub of innovation and growth. Since taking over as dean in 2006, Ramesh’s vision for the college has brought in millions of dollars in grant funding. Along with that, the college has grown, adding new programs such as Master’s of Science degrees in Software Engineering, Assistive Technology Engineering and Computer Engineering. These new programs have brought in eight new faculty members.

Ramesh is hands-on in the development of programs to ensure they are more inclusive. Under his watch, the college established an outreach program, ACCESS (Accelerated Coursework in Computer Science and Engineering for Student Success), which enables students from area high schools to enroll in the introduction to engineering course at CSUN.

He also has been a strong ally in the fight to attract and support more underrepresented groups into the STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) fields. After a recent call from the White House to recruit these students for STEM programs, Ramesh and the college focused on efforts to improve student success and graduation across the college’s diverse student population. They teamed with Glendale Community College and College of the Canyons to establish the AIMS2 (Attract, Inspire, Mentor and Support Students) program with the help of a $5.5 million Hispanic Serving Institution STEM grant from the U.S. Department of Education. It features special mentoring and advisement by faculty, tutoring and peer mentoring, along with social activities and opportunities to participate in summer research projects. It has been a great success thus far, even garnering recognition from the White House.

“The AIMS2 program garnered national recognition from Excelencia in Education for its efforts to support and enhance the graduation of underrepresented minorities in engineering and computer science,” Ramesh said. “CSUN was selected to host one of the four White House STEM workshops, thanks in large measure to these successful ongoing programs.”

“I had the pleasure to travel with Dean Ramesh and other faculty members to celebrate the recognition of our AIMS program as a successful example for serving underrepresented minorities in the engineering and computer science fields,” said civil engineering and applied mechanics faculty member Anwar Alroomi. “I still remember Congressman [Tony] Cardenas’ speech at this event, admiring Dean Ramesh’s professional and personal qualities, and how our education systems are in need of such leaders to improve our educational programs.”

Ramesh also has been a strong advocate for building a diverse team of faculty in the college.

“When I joined CSUN in fall 2014, I was one of five female engineering faculty members hired into four departments in [the college],” said mechanical engineering professor Vidya Nandikolla. “From the beginning, Dean Ramesh took time and individually helped all of us to start on good ground. He acted like a mentor, helping and advising, caring and sharing the opportunities. He knew our strengths and showed us the gateways of how to grow in research and also academically.”

Along with accolades from the White House, booming enrollment and worldwide recognition for the program he helped create, Ramesh is being honored by the STEM community. He was named a fellow of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), one of the most respected associations of technical professionals — and the world’s largest, with more than 400,000 members in chapters around the world, and was recently elected to serve as the 2016 President of IEEE-HKN, the Electrical Engineering Honor Society – which was established in 1904. Even with the recognition, Dean Ramesh would be the first person to tell you that there is work to be done and that it’s all to serve the greater good: the future of STEM.

“It is extremely gratifying to know that your work is valued by your peers,” he said, “and I am very grateful for all the opportunities that the IEEE has provided me to serve our profession.”

Erik Wagner held his breath as El Toro entered the outdoor obstacle course. A California State University, Northridge mechanical engineering senior, Wagner and 17 other students were representing CSUN at the 23rd annual Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition (IGVC) held at Michigan’s Oakland University earlier this month.

They nervously waited for El Toro — an autonomous robot that the team built from scratch for more than two semesters, and named for its bulky body, laser range finder mounts and its CSUN pride — to round its first turn. So many things could happen — Would it veer off course? Would it do everything that they programmed so tirelessly?

Then, without a hitch, El Toro successfully turned and went on to perfectly navigate hills and ramps, correctly identifying colors and lines on the ground, and took first in the overall competition.

Mechanical engineering senior, Erik Wagner, holds the first place trophy at the 2015 International Ground Vehicle Competition at Oakland University in Michigan. Photo courtesy of C.T. Lin

“It was pretty incredible,” said Wagner, student project manager for the team. “You don’t know what your robot will think at times. We saw many teams who would start their robot, but it would turn off of the course, even though generally it worked. Once you see it do that first turn, you are hoping that means everything is working like you hoped. It’s very nerve-racking.”

To win the overall title, the robot had to master a basic course, an advanced course, vehicle design, and the portion for Joint Architecture for Unmanned Systems (JAUS). The JAUS competition requires a vehicle to meet the JAUS standards by receiving and responding wirelessly to a list of commands to and from the judges. Though CSUN placed second for the basic and advanced courses, behind the University of New South Wales’ team, El Toro won the JAUS competition by a landslide, contributing to CSUN’s overall win.

CSUN has competed in the IGVC since 2006, and took home the first-place title in 2011, again in 2012, and placed second subsequently until this year. The team was comprised mostly of mechanical engineering and some electrical engineering students who choose the unmanned vehicle project for their senior capstone.

Mechanical engineering professor C. T. Lin, who has advised the project since it first formed in 2005, said the project is unique because of its unmanned nature. The students working on this project are required to explore and develop cutting-edge autonomous technology.

“With this type of technology, a lot of real-time decision making has to be on board,” Lin said. “All these unmanned vehicles require intelligence, without it there’s no decision making. The intelligence on board has to cope with the constantly changing environments and conditions as the vehicle is operating. That would require intelligence to be developed in the software… [it] is what really makes this project different.”

Lin also noted that with three women on the team, CSUN’s team represented the most female students of any school in the entire competition.

Wagner was excited to be part of such a current trend in technological innovation. “One of the unique things about this opportunity is that autonomous navigation is something that still hasn’t developed fully, so it was an interesting experience to be solving a problem that hasn’t been solved already,” Wagner said.

To build such an advanced vehicle requires a lot of elbow grease, but also necessitates significant financial investment. According to Lin, El Toro is worth about $25,000 in laser sensors, a GPS navigation system, cameras and drive trains of the robot, although some of the parts are reusable. The project is financed by funding from the CSUN instructionally related activities committee and is sponsored by both the mechanical engineering and electrical engineering departments. The team won a total of $9,000 from the competition.

Lin said that students gain tremendous skills from this project due to its multidisciplinary nature involving physics, computer programming, and electrical and mechanical engineering. To build the robot, the team split into six groups, specializing in vision, cognition, navigation, power, mechanical design and JAUS. The year-long effort emphasized how to effectively work as a team.

“If the mechanical design team wanted to use a certain type of structural material or add another mechanical component, what happens is that you increase the weight. As a result, the battery capacity would need to be increased because the charged life of battery would run shorter,” Lin said. “This example shows that they have to have a constant dialogue. One team cannot just change the design without notifying the other teams.”

Lin said the College of Engineering and Computer Science provides hands-on training, so the students are very prepared for their professional careers.

“Employers often mention that CSUN students are ready on day one because of this training and experience,” Lin said.

Wagner said he enjoyed the individual freedom that the IGVC project allowed because it was more like the reality in the field.

“In the workforce… you don’t have somebody on you all the time, you’re just given a task that you are expected to complete,” Wagner said. “Nobody’s going to come and babysit you along the way, you just have to know to do your work.”

According to a recent poll by Best-Engineering-College.com, California State University, Northridge’s Master of Science in Engineering Management earned a top ranking in the comprehensive education category.

This measurement took into account universities like CSUN that primarily offer master’s degrees as the highest degree offered. There were universities that offer doctorates or serve as research I and II universities. But among comprehensive universities, CSUN was ranked tops — demonstrating the continuing evolution of the college.

“The Master of Science in Engineering Management program at CSUN has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years, and the faculty has been working hard to keep it contemporary and relevant to help graduates meet emerging workforce needs,” said S.K. Ramesh, dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Science.

The College of Engineering and Computer Science as a whole was ranked 135 among all 1,871 engineering colleges in the United States.

“According to the ranking, among the top 100 universities, 98 of them are doctoral institutions,” said Mark Rajai, a faculty member in the College of Engineering and Computer Science. “For the ranking of colleges, we have to compare [ourselves] with our peers — not doctoral universities, which of course have more resources and funding. With that being said, I am fairly confident that we are ranked among the top 10 engineering colleges amongst our peers.”

The college is also ranked 14th overall in California and 29th in the West — which includes 375 schools in Alaska, Colorado, Montana, Oregon, Wyoming, Arizona, Hawaii, Nevada, Utah, California, Idaho, New Mexico and Washington state.

Other national rankings for CSUN engineering included: the engineering management program ranked No. 20, the construction engineering program ranked No. 34, the engineering technology program ranked No. 70, the general engineering program ranked No. 78 and the industrial engineering program ranked No. 99.

“It is truly a great honor to be ranked with some of the best universities nationally,” Rajai said.

To view a complete listing of CSUN’s rankings, visit http://best-engineering-colleges.com/california-state-university-northridge. The rankings are based on information from the U.S. Department of Education, U.S. News and World Report and Princeton Review.

(NORTHRIDGE, Calif., Aug. 4, 2015) California State University, Northridge is one of more than 100 universities nationwide who are lauded for their efforts in diversity in engineering education in an American Society for Engineering Education letter released today during the White House’s inaugural Demo Day.

The ASEE letter lists the deans from all 102 universities nationwide, including CSUN’s College of Engineering and Computer Science Dean S.K. Ramesh, and the document calls out the gains in participation in engineering by women, Latinos, African-Americans and Native Americans throughout the most recent decades, but that there is more work to be done.

Ramesh has long sought increased inclusion for underrepresented groups into the STEM fields since he came to CSUN in 2006, and touts the university’s previous involvement in the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation program, and the Minority Engineering Program model that was established at CSUN in 1968 before it spread nationally. One recent success story is the Teaching to Increase Diversity in STEM initiative, funded by the Helmsley Trust under the auspices of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, and the California Career Pathways Trust grant to introduce K-14 students to high-wage, high-growth career fields. Another triumph comes from a partnership with Glendale Community College and College of the Canyons in the Attract, Inspire, Mentor and Support Students program that is a part of a $5.5 million Hispanic Serving Institution STEM grant from the U.S. Department of Education. AIMS² features faculty and peer mentoring, tutoring and advisement, along with social activities and participation in summer research projects.

“The AIMS² program received national recognition from Excelencia in Education in 2014 and has served a total of 187 students to date in five cohorts (approximately 67 percent Latina/o),” Ramesh said. “This includes 100 first-time transfer students at CSUN, 45 students at GCC and 42 students at COC. Students in this program are supported with stipends to motivate and inspire them to succeed and have access to special mentoring and advisement by faculty, tutoring and peer mentoring, social activities, field trips and opportunities to take part in undergraduate research projects. Students in the cohorts have recorded higher per-term units completed, per-term and cumulative GPAs and next-term persistence rates compared to their non-participant student counterparts. As a result program completion rates continue to improve and have exceeded targets for every year of the grant.

“I am confident that CSUN’s efforts through these collaborative programs will lead to larger, more inclusive pool of STEM graduates.”

For more information, please visit about the White House Demo Day.

Latino students in STEM majors graduate from CSUN.

The White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics named California State University, Northridge as one of more than 230 Bright Spots in Hispanic Education, recognizing CSUN’s Attract, Inspire, Mentor and Support Students (AIMS2) program for its leadership and dedication to helping Latina/o students achieve their goals of attaining a STEM education.

This is the 25th anniversary of the WHIEEH, though it is the first time it has released its Bright Spots in Hispanic Education National Online Catalog. The catalog connects participating institutions and enables the exchange of innovative approaches and new practices, as well as the establishing effective partnerships to benefit the Latino community.

“There has been notable progress in Hispanic educational achievement, and it is due to the efforts of these Bright Spots in Hispanic Education, programs and organizations working throughout the country to help Hispanic students reach their full potential,” said Alejandra Ceja, executive director of the Initiative.

AIMS2 is a partnership between CSUN, Glendale Community College and College of the Canyons, and it is supported by a five-year, $5.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education for Latinos in STEM. The program provides students with special peer and faculty mentoring, tutoring, hands-on research and project-based learning, and eventually leads to career counseling and transition to the workforce or graduate-level education.

So far, AIMS2 has helped 187 students to achieve their academic goals, of which 67 percent of students were Latina/o. This Bright Spot focused on retention and improved graduation rates for Latina/o students and underrepresented minorities.

“The AIMS2 program has had a tremendous, positive impact on the lives and careers of our transfer students, many of whom are the first in their families to attend college,” said S.K. Ramesh, dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Science. “Students in our cohorts are role models, taking on leadership roles in professional student societies, mentoring and supporting one another, and serve the community by volunteering in elementary and middle schools to inspire future engineers and computer scientists.

“I am really proud of the students and the entire project team of faculty and staff across Glendale Community College, College of the Canyons and CSUN for their outstanding contributions that makes AIMS2 one of the 230 Bright Spots in Hispanic Education across the nation and just one of the two selected from across the CSU system.”

Illustration provided by Ryan Holbrook.

Entrepreneurship is not the first word that comes to mind for, say, a kinesiology student hoping to better the lives of future athletes. At California State University, Northridge, entrepreneurship is the driving force for all career paths at the upcoming third-annual “Art of Innovation” Conference.

The event, hosted by CSUN’s College of Engineering and Computer Science and David Nazarian College of Business and Economics, will be held from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 30, in the University Student Union’s Grand Salon, located on the east side of campus at 18111 Nordhoff St., Northridge.

Ryan Holbrook, entrepreneurship program director in the David Nazarian College of Business and Economics and co-organizer of the event with Jimmy Gandhi, director of the Ernie Schaeffer Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, said the conference is one of many examples of increasing collaboration among the various colleges at CSUN, with the goal of highlighting entrepreneurship.

“There is a renewed focus on entrepreneurship at CSUN,” Holbrook said. “I see this conference as a way of promoting a more connected relationship between the colleges and supporting a unified effort cross-campus. ”

The series will consist of three panel discussions — innovation technology, business process innovation and social innovation. Each panel will feature speakers with expertise in innovation fields.

Collaborators in the series include the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI) and local community groups such as the Valley Economic Alliance, the Rocky Peak Leadership Center, the Valley Economic Development Center and the Small Business Development Center (SBDC). Organizers hope to create networking opportunities for attendees.

The most important goal of the event, however, is to encourage the entrepreneurial spirit by fostering a culture of innovation and creativity, Holbrook said.

“I like to see this as the rising tide of entrepreneurship at CSUN,” he said. “There is so much momentum and tailwind right now, and we want to capitalize on it by creating resources that truly benefit not only our students, but also our alumni and the greater San Fernando Valley community.”

The Art of Innovation is free to the first 75 students who sign up. Early registration for faculty and alumni is $69 and general early registration is $99. Space is limited. Campus parking is $6 in Lot G3, south of the University Student Union. To reserve a seat, visit www.ecs.csun.edu/aoi.

Reza Sayed and Robert Ryan of College of Engineering and Computer Science received $35,000 from CSU Sacramento in continuing support of project, “CO Supplement to NSF Subaward- CSU Louis Stokes-Alliance for Minority Participation (CSU-LSAMP) Senior Alliance (2013-2018).”

Left to right, CSUN engineering professor Bingbing Li sits with University Innovation Fellows Arman Aivazian and Alec Le Doux in the META+LAB. Photo by David J. Hawkins

How often do you see computer science, art and marketing majors meeting to work together on a class project? At California State University, Northridge, this soon will be the norm — thanks to the work of two new University Innovation Fellow students.

CSUN marketing majors Arman Aivazian and Alec Le Doux are joining forces with ​​spring 2015 fellows and senior engineering students Daniel Aguiar and Diego Vilchez to create an entrepreneurial environment for students of all disciplines at the university to collaborate on innovative ventures. The four CSUN students are among 289 students from 114 schools across the country who were named as University Innovation Fellows by the National Center for Engineering Pathways to Innovation (Epicenter).

Aivazian explained that as part of a collaboration, CSUN students from different fields will be able to work together on innovative projects and learn from each other’s expertise.

“I talk to a lot of business students, but we don’t really talk to anyone else at all,” Aivazian said. “That [includes] media majors, English majors. We just don’t have the opportunity to collaborate with other majors on campus. That’s the primary goal we will be working on with Diego and Daniel — beginning that collaboration with others on campus.”

CSUN’s University Innovation Fellow adviser and engineering professor Bingbing Li said that the UIF program’s annual meetup at Google headquarters and Stanford University on March 17-20 will provide Le Doux and Aivazian with some excellent experience in project-based learning. This experience can be applied to CSUN’s future goals of interdisciplinary academia.

“When you have a real project, you are facing more problems, you consider different parameters and then you are marketing it,” Li said. “You are training the students to apply the knowledge.”

Project-based learning gives students a better understanding and more applicable skills for the workforce after college, Le Doux agreed.

“The way students learn now is just different,” he said. “Project-based learning tests your problem-solving skills. In real life, you are not going to always be working on formulaic, structured problems. That is what makes a project learning experience more realistic. The questions and problems evolve.”

Left to right, CSUN engineering professor Bing Bing Li works with the spring 2016 University Innovation Fellows Alec Le Doux and Arman Aivazian at the META+LAB. Photo by David J. Hawkins.

Aivazian noted that CSUN alumni site the successes of the university’s practices as an entrepreneurially spirited institution, because many of the students are the first in their families to go to university.

“There is a tremendous amount of potential in CSUN students,” he said. “The evidence is in the alumni. [They say] what they admire most about CSUN is that the students bring a different perspective, a survival.”

Two recent CSUN alumni success stories are Travis Smith, who graduated in 2008 with a bachelor’s degree in graphic design, and Joe Notaro, who graduated in 2007 with a bachelor’s degree in marketing. Their business, Reflex Sales Group, won the 2015 Young Entrepreneur of the Year award, given by the United States Small Business Administration and the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce. In 2013, they also won the Exporter of the Year award from the small business administration and the chamber. The duo attributed their business success to the networking and interdisciplinary approach they acquired while attending CSUN.

Le Doux said he hopes creating an interdisciplinary environment on campus also will give students another outlet to share memories at CSUN in a more academic setting.

“A lot of people just go straight home after finishing classes at CSUN,” Le Doux said. “Beside clubs, an entrepreneurial program is really coming out at CSUN. It’s an entire movement — students can be inspired and hopefully, they can look at these [alumni] as an example of what they can do themselves.”

Three influential California State University, Northridge alumni took the stage separately at the Four Seasons Hotel Westlake Village on April 16 to give acceptance speeches after receiving one of the university’s highest honors — the Distinguished Alumni Award. Each speech delivered its own distinctive feel.

Opera singer and educator Shigemi Matsumoto’s speech was inspirational. Urban developer and philanthropist James Ring’s was emotional. And financial industry leader and social justice advocate Robert D. Taylor’s was powerful.

CSUN’s 18th-annual Distinguished Alumni Awards was a celebration of achievement and recognition of three Matadors who have brought honor to the university through their work, service and dedication.

The first honoree of the evening was Matsumoto ’68 (Music), who acknowledged her mother in her speech. Matsumoto wore a gold coat that her mother made for her some 40 years ago.

The opera singer, who performed in front of thousands throughout the world and has impacted numerous students as an educator at CSU Long Beach, USC and through private lessons at her home in Northridge, detailed her life story to the nearly 500 people in attendance at the event. She spoke of how her parents, survivors of a Japanese internment camp, adopted her at three months old and helped lift her to great heights through their own sacrifices.

“You cannot imagine how proud I am, as you’ll hear in my speech,” she said earlier in the day. “Nothing makes me more proud than to be able to give. That’s the proudest moment of my life of accomplishment — giving back.”

Ring ’70 (Psychology), ’72 (Urban Studies), who has been one of the most successful urban developers in the greater Los Angeles area and a hero to many — including those in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at CSUN — brought tears to many eyes with his speech and determination. Ring, who was in the hospital battling an illness a week prior to the event, needed the assistance of a walker to get to the podium to deliver his address. He said he wasn’t going to miss this event.

When Ring reached the microphone, he spoke with great strength and pride.

“My love of this university is tremendous,” Ring said. “I must tell you, it gives me great pride to reach out and help my fellow students. I guess I feel like I’m always a student.”

Ring, who created the James H. Ring Professorship in Urban Studies and Planning and the James H. Ring Urban Studies Scholarship through a generous gift, announced at the ceremony that he also would create a scholarship for graduate students.

When he left the stage, Ring’s family walked over and embraced him, tears flowing from his youngest daughter’s eyes. It prompted the night’s emcee, former CSUN Distinguished Alumni Award honoree and CNBC anchor Bill Griffeth, to say, “How’s that for perseverance?”

Then, Griffeth commented that Taylor had a tough act to follow. But Taylor, who has been a leader throughout his career as a private equity investor, financial leader and champion for social justice, spoke with such conviction that Griffeth suggested afterward that Taylor should run for office and that he would vote for him.

Taylor ’82 (Engineering), who was a central figure in restoring ravaged communities after the 1992 LA riots — through his leadership in then-Mayor Tom Bradley’s Rebuild LA initiative — credited his mother, among others, for motivating him to become the person he is.

“Work hard,” Taylor began, relaying the message his mother gave him. “Be graceful. Believe in yourself. Stick together. Don’t complain. Don’t quit. And don’t embarrass me by wasting the sacrifice I made for you.”

He later said: “My life is the American Dream. But CSUN played a vital role in my American Dream.”

On this night, all three honorees were celebrated for living their dreams — and helping so many live theirs as well.

Unmanned aerial vehicles, a steel bridge, a social networking website for gamers, a concrete canoe and a human-powered tricycle — all these incredible creations and more were on display at the Seventh Annual Senior Design Project Showcase at California State University, Northridge on April 15.

Students from every department of the College of Engineering and Computer Science had worked tirelessly on these projects, some since the beginning of the spring 2016 semester and some as part of a three-year plan, while others worked to improve the projects that had been constructed in 2015, such as the CSUN Human-Powered Vehicle Challenge team.

“Last year, the rider actually crashed the bike when we went to competition,” said Rachel Foreman, a mechanical engineering senior. “So, the first thing we looked at when we started work on this tricycle was how we could make it easier for the rider to use, and how we could make sure the brakes would work efficiently. We also looked into the general health and fitness of our riders, as that played a big part in the competition last year as well.”

The event began with teams giving a 10-minute oral presentation on their research to a panel of judges. The panels consisted of professional engineers, who evaluated the teams’ clarity, methodology, project completeness, ability to articulate points and ease with handling the question-and-answer portion of the presentation. The teams that scored the highest overall in these categories were honored at a ceremony at the end of the event.

The second part of the showcase was a gallery, where the teams presented their designs in a more general setting. One group, the CSUN Concrete Canoe Team, already had taken its finished product to a competition, but that didn’t stop them from pulling out all the stops for their booth. They were given a Game of Thrones theme by CSUN on which to base their floor presentation, and not a single detail was overlooked, whether it was the canoe painted with dragon artwork or the rustic jars containing the different materials that made up the canoe. The display was a fantastic opportunity for members of the team to use their creativity to demonstrate how much effort had gone into constructing the canoe.

The CSUN Steel Bridge Team also made an appearance at the showcase. Only weeks away from a competition that will determine if the hard work the team members had dedicated toward the project will pay off, Luis Molina, a civil engineering senior, was hopeful about the team’s chances of winning.

“Last year there were some hiccups with the design, but this year we pulled out all the stops to make sure those same flaws didn’t appear again,” Molina said. “Working on this project and the experience you get from it is great. It really takes the lessons you learn in a class and applies them to a real-life setting. I used to sit in class and say, ‘Oh, that’s just a number or a part of a design.’ But now I get to see where it fits in and how different parts of a design work.”

The end of the day brought an awards ceremony that exemplified the respect that the students and faculty shared for one another. Walking out to the ’80s hit Eye of the Tiger, Dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Science S.K. Ramesh spoke about how proud he was to see students undertake these kinds of projects, and how grateful he was to everyone who participated. He recognized the teams and individual judges for their commitment to the event.

“It was no accident that this event occurred today,” Ramesh said. “It is the culmination of a lot of hard work from everybody — from students to faculty, to our wonderful judges — and we can all take pride in the work we see today.”

Here is a summary of all the winners from the showcase, with students and faculty advisors from each team listed:

Grand Prize

CSUNSat1: Armen Arslanian, Rosy Davis, Sandra Dheming Lemus (CS), Timothy Friedman (CS), Gary Gamble, Cesar Garcia (CS), Nereida Herrera, Matthew Ingram, Phuoc Ma, Priya Malavia (CS) (Captain), Jobeth Palacio, Clifford Williams

Faculty Advisors: Sharlene Katz, James Flynn, Adam Kaplan, David Schwartz

Oral Presentation First-Place Winners

Civil Engineering & Construction Management Department

ADA-Compliant Accessory Dwelling Unit David Boyajian, Sami Maalouf, Tadeh Zirakian, Michele Glidden (Captain), Razan Khalil, Kevin Liu, Andrew Slusser, Anthony Talebian

Faculty Advisors: David Boyajian, Sami Maalouf, Tadeh Zirakian

Computer Science Department

Learning, Classifying and Recognizing Bot (LCAR Bot): Steve Delgado, Jake Hanvey, Thomas Jentis, Karanvir Panesar (Captain), Edwin Portillo, Hovig Shahbazian, Nathaniel Wilson, Bryan Wong

Faculty Advisor: Nhut Ho

Electrical & Computer Engineering Department

Modular Solar Powered Water Pump System Jose Baez (Captain), Joel Fischetti, Jireh Christine Imperial, Brian Lee, Jong Jin Lee, Edwin Rebollo

Faculty Advisor: George Law

Manufacturing Systems Engineering & Management Department

CSUN Cloudponics Hyunjin Kim, Michael Mora (Captain), Navjeevan Sandhu, Rodrigo Soltero

Faculty Advisor: Bingbing Li

Mechanical Engineering Department

2016 Human-Powered Vehicle Challenge: Brian Albarracin, Alan Alcocer, Benjamin Bell, Daniel Cabrera, Eric Figueroa, Rachel Foreman, Mihran Kechichian, John Kok, Armando Lagunas, Jonathan Lo, Alexis Marquez, Cassandra Mathison, Kevin Matsuno, Steven Molumby, Nancy Nodal, Angel Sevilladiaz, Mark Shipman, William Steed, Nami Taghavi, Robert Timm, Robert Vallet (Captain)

Faculty Advisor: Aram G. Khachatourians

Project Display First-Place Winners Per Department

Civil Engineering & Construction Management Department

Concrete Canoe: Catherine Adrover, Daniel Akmakjian, Gabriel Bonilla, Dannick Castaneda, Phat Duong (Captain), Cristian Duran, Julio Iglesia, Sara Lopez, Joe Medina, Valeria Padilla, Ernesto Pedroza, Jecsan Perez, Joel Plascencia, Sam Potts, Claris Rivera, Paul Rivera, Hani Salhab, Miguel Sanchez, Jose Sanchez, Nicole Thompson, Soledad Tlamasico, Francisco Villalobos, Julie Yin, Nikki Zulueta

Faculty Advisors: Rais Ahmad, David Boyajian, Sami Maalouf, Tadeh Zirakian

Computer Science Department

PartyQ: Frank Addelia, Stefan Eng, Marco Jonker (Captain), Alex Kolesnik, Andrew Maynard, Narbeh Movsesian

Faculty Advisor: Steve Fitzgerald

Electrical & Computer Engineering Department

CSUN SAT1: Armen Arslanian, Rosy Davis, Sandra Dheming Lemus (CS), Timothy Friedman (CS), Gary Gamble, Cesar Garcia (CS), Nereida Herrera, Matthew Ingram, Phuoc Ma, Priya Malavia (CS) (Captain), Jobeth Palacio, Clifford Williams

Faculty Advisors: Sharlene Katz, James Flynn, Adam Kaplan, David Schwartz

Manufacturing Systems Engineering & Management Department

CSUN Cloudponics: Hyunjin Kim, Michael Mora (Captain), Navjeevan Sandhu, Rodrigo Soltero

Faculty Advisor: Bingbing Li

Mechanical Engineering Department

2016 Human-Powered Vehicle Challenge: Brian Albarracin, Alan Alcocer, Benjamin Bell, Daniel Cabrera, Eric Figueroa, Rachel Foreman, Mihran Kechichian, John Kok, Armando Lagunas, Jonathan Lo, Alexis Marquez, Cassandra Mathison, Kevin Matsuno, Steven Molumby, Nancy Nodal, Angel Sevilladiaz, Mark Shipman, William Steed, Nami Taghavi, Robert Timm, Robert Vallet (Captain)

Faculty Advisor: Aram G. Khachatourians

The encyclopedia salesman knocked on the door, and Geneva Williams answered. He gave his pitch, and then Geneva looked to her 8-year-old son, Robert D. Taylor, for advice.

Not a good investment, the little boy told his mother. But for some reason, she decided to go through with the purchase, despite being cash-strapped.

At some point soon after, Taylor decided what he would become when he grew up — a scientist. So, he looked it up in the new encyclopedia, and it prompted him to keep digging until he read about engineering.

“At that age, I knew I wanted to be an engineer,” Taylor said.

Forty-five years later, Taylor insists that at age 8, he made his life plan: earn an engineering degree, go to law school, create jobs and opportunities for African-Americans and make a difference in society. He met all of those aims. And something he didn’t plan or ask for happened on April 16: California State University, Northridge honored Taylor with one of the university’s highest accolades — a Distinguished Alumni Award.

Taylor ’82 (Engineering) admitted being slightly uncomfortable with the honor. He often uses the example of Capt. Chesley Sullenberger, who safely landed a disabled plane carrying 155 people on the Hudson River in New York in 2009. Sullenberger struggled with the word “hero” and said on many occasions that the safe landing was simply the result of a job done well.

“I have lived my life the way I think my mother would be proud, the way that Captain Sullenberger recommended,” Taylor said. “He inspired me to continue to labor without concern about whether or not anybody notices. That’s what I [have said] to my team: ‘The most important thing is what we do when no one will notice.’”

Taylor is one of the most impactful African-American financial industry leaders in California. He is a private equity investor and partner at holding company 3.5.7.11. Taylor began his career at McKinsey & Company, one of the world’s most-recognized management consulting firms, where he helped improve the performance of large, complex for-profit and nonprofit enterprises. He also has been a difference maker in the community, serving as an instrumental figure in the rebuilding of Los Angeles after the 1992 riots and as a leader in the National Urban League and Los Angeles Urban League (LAUL). He also has served on the CSUN Foundation board and the CSUN Task Force on Engagement.

Taylor’s Mission

Taylor’s connection with CSUN began when he was drawn to the school’s engineering program. Professor and later Dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Science Raymond Landis founded the Minority Engineering Program at CSUN — the first such program in the state. Landis and the program’s associate director, Rick Ainsworth, became mentors to Taylor and helped support his work.

“Right from the beginning, he was a standout,” Landis said. “It was almost like he didn’t need the program, the program needed him. He was such an outstanding young man — bright, motivated, caring. He set an example and was a role model for others.”

After earning his degree in engineering from CSUN, Taylor went to Stanford, where he earned an MBA and a law degree. That led him to McKinsey, where he quickly climbed the ladder.

His teams’ work often featured pioneering solutions to pivotal business challenges ranging from broad-based, physician-led innovation in the practice and management of medicine, to re-engineering the investigation and resolution of property casualty claims. In the process, Taylor rose to become the firm’s only black partner.

Charles Schetter, a former senior partner at McKinsey, began working with Taylor in 1986, shortly after Taylor graduated from Stanford Law School. He said Taylor was the glue of the company.

“I entrusted to Robert the people processes for the several hundred people we had in the practice,” Schetter said. “Robert is a man of great empathy and an inspiring leader, and he is the person I wanted to be in charge of the care and feeding of our people.”

Schetter also called Taylor a crusader. In 1992, in the aftermath of the Los Angeles/Rodney King riots that ravaged the inner city, Taylor told people close to him — Schetter and his wife, Joy, primarily — that he felt a calling to help. Mayor Tom Bradley started the Rebuild L.A. initiative and placed 1984 Time Magazine Man of the Year and former Major League Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth in charge of the effort. Taylor reached out and offered his assistance.

“I reached out to all kinds of communities. We needed thousands of people to help us, but we needed some really key leaders — and Robert was one of the first to step forward,” Ueberroth said. “He showed a calmness and a skillset that was very unusual, and it was key to our success.”

McKinsey volunteered early on to help organize the rebuilding effort, with Taylor playing a significant leadership role.

“He was not afraid,” Ueberroth said. “It’s a nasty assignment. He wasn’t looking to be a hero. He wasn’t looking to be in the newspapers. He was working to make the city better. He knew as a citizen, he’d make the city better. … It was totally unselfish. It was a case where he wanted to give back. Not a lot of people do that, but those were the kinds of people we attracted, and he was a superstar.”

It was through Taylor’s work with Rebuild L.A. that he caught the eye of the National Urban League.

Taylor became a longtime volunteer for the Urban League, whose mission is to enable African-Americans to secure economic self-reliance, parity, power and civil rights.

On two occasions, Taylor led the effort to fundamentally reset the Urban League’s strategy, as well as assisting with the design and execution of key programs and chairing several board committees during his tenure. The highlight of Taylor’s service was being entrusted with the position of senior vice chair (the most senior volunteer role) from 2005-12.

“[Taylor] possesses a really strong passion and commitment and compassion for making a difference in this community and beyond this community,” said civic leader and former LAUL president John Mack. “[He applied] his knowledge, his expertise for creating a level playing field for people of color … to educate their children, to live in a safe community and provide for them … and narrow the gap of the inequities. He really has a passion in that regard. It wasn’t just about doing his professional thing. There was the compassion, the human spirit that Robert possessed and brought to the table.”

Creating Opportunity

Taylor did all that while maintaining a strong passion for his professional work. His objective from an early age was to become an entrepreneur and bring his skills and resources back to his community to create opportunities. He has done that at many steps along the path.

Taylor co-founded two private equity firms, including Centinela Capital Partners, LLC. That firm has backed 46 new and emerging investment teams who have created an estimated $5 billion in value and unprecedented levels of diversity among their general partners, according to Taylor.

CSUN recognized how vital Taylor has been to his field and his community. On the night he received the Distinguished Alumni Award, Taylor seemed to find more comfort in accepting the honor and expressed excitement.

When he got on stage, Taylor thanked his wife and children, CSUN mentors Landis and Ainsworth, friends and colleagues, his alma mater, and most importantly he reflected on what his mother did for him.

“I’ve had help and guidance from a lot of people,” he said. “Mom, through her sacrifice.”

Then, Taylor shared her advice to him:

“Work hard. Be graceful. Believe in yourself. Stick together. Don’t complain. Don’t quit. And don’t embarrass me by wasting the sacrifice I made for you.”

CSUN manufacturing systems engineering professor Shereazad Jimmy Gandhi and his students work on the efficiency of New Horizons’ manufacturing systems. Photo courtesy of Roschell Ashley.

This spring, students in professor Shereazad Jimmy Gandhi’s manufacturing systems engineering class MSE507 benefitted from a special partnership between the nonprofit organization New Horizons and California State University, Northridge’s College of Engineering and Computer Science.

New Horizons is a local organization that helps people with special needs and disabilities to acquire significant skills for different work environments. The organization provides vocational training, work placements and supportive housing. New Horizons reached out to CSUN for help implementing lean manufacturing practices and processes within the organization, which supports the training of people who aim to work in manufacturing and assembly processes.

“As a nonprofit, we are always challenged with finding resources to assist us to remain innovative and grow our services, in order to fulfill our mission of empowering individuals with special needs to fulfill their dreams,” said Roschell Ashley, chief operating officer at New Horizons.

Over the years, New Horizons has developed partnerships with several departments and colleges at CSUN, such as the Department of Social Work, the David Nazarian College of Business and Economics and the College of Health and Human Development. After collaborating with the College of Engineering and Computer Science in spring 2014, when CSUN students worked to improve New Horizons’ warehouse and production operations, the organization turned to CSUN again.

“We were so impressed with the level of sophistication and recommendations from the students that we reached out to CSUN again to provide an opportunity for students to work on other sub-divisions,” Ashley said. “It was without hesitation that we turned to CSUN — a university with great expertise in business and teaching lean principles in manufacturing — to assist us to rebuild this division.”

Gandhi’s service-learning class is targeted at undergraduate seniors and graduate students in the Manufacturing Systems Engineering Department. The course is only an elective, but it is one of the most popular classes because of its hands-on opportunities, said Gandhi.

“The collaborative project is very well organized and developed under the leadership and guidance of professor Gandhi,” Ashley said. “The students display a high level of professionalism and are eager to assess and provide recommendations for challenges that can make or break your business.”

According to the professor, the hands-on approach to real-world issues helps students develop better problem-solving skills and builds an understanding of lean manufacturing implementations. Students identify current processes and evaluate them to understand constraints and make recommendations for improvement.

Esteban Estrada, New Horizons’ director of work services, talks to CSUN engineering students about manufacturing processes. Photo courtesy of Roschell Ashley.

“If recommendations are implemented, they can help [New Horizons] to have a better-flowing process, which can help them to reduce their costs,” Gandhi said. “We would love to help more nonprofits in the area to achieve similar efforts.”

Esteban Estrada, director of work services at New Horizons, said that two CSUN students who participated in the 2014 collaboration became volunteers with the organization. They worked on improving inventory processes in the warehouse and created a cleaner and more organized warehouse environment.

“CSUN is a great partner for New Horizons, a true win-win, positive community relationship,” said Erik Sjogren, New Horizons’ director of business services.

“The teams come equipped with the latest tools and knowledge of best practices,” Ashley added. “They display compassion and creativity while solving issues that involve a workforce of individuals with and without disabilities.”

California State University, Northridge mechanical engineering students dominated the field at the 2016 American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ (ASME) Human Powered Vehicle Challenge last month in San Jose, Calif.

CSUN’s Human Powered Vehicle team. Photo courtesy of Aram Khachatourians.

More than 30 student teams from universities from the United States, Mexico, Egypt and India participated in the competition on April 22-24. Each team brought an originally designed human-powered vehicle, which were judged for design, workmanship and innovation, among other categories. They then showed off what their vehicles could do in drag races and endurance races that tested the vehicles’ speed and construction.

The CSUN team of 21 undergraduates won several challenges, enough to take the overall first-place title. While other teams brought non-engineering student athletes to compete as riders, the CSUN engineering students trained for the race.

The CSUN vehicle, called “The Khach,” has been in production for the past year as part of a two-semester senior design class. The team spent the first semester researching and designing the vehicle, and the second semester building and testing it.

“The Khach” is akin to a recumbent bicycle, though it has two wheels in the front and one in back. It leans back, sits low to the ground and can travel up to 35 miles per hour just by pedaling. It can be used as a clean-energy, alternative means of transportation for short trips, such as going to the grocery market.

Mechanical engineering professor and faculty advisor Aram Khachatourians — the vehicle’s namesake — said space in the senior design class is competitive because he carefully selects those who have the right attitude to work on a team.

“Not anyone can just sign up,” Khachatourians said. “I have to go through a selection process. I ask, ‘What do you bring to the table?’ because this is about teamwork.”

Khachatourians said the students worked hard throughout the semesters and were challenged to learn new things, sometimes beyond their own expertise. He said about 70 percent of the innovation was electrical, and as mechanical engineering students, they had to use a multidisciplinary strategy. This hands-on experience was a taste of what the professional field of engineering is like, he said.

The team was divided into five subgroups, focusing on components, faring, frame, innovation and systems. The goal was to optimize the vehicle and improve on the model from the previous year’s team.

To achieve maximum speed, they designed the vehicle to be as light as possible, weighing only 62 pounds — compared to the 100-plus-pound vehicles of other teams. They designed the faring to be aerodynamic and figured out the right combination of gears for the wheels to travel up to six feet in one revolution of the pedals.

The CSUN team also added a new feature to their vehicle that was influenced by the previous year’s challenge, where a vehicle from a competing school lost control and collided with one of the ASME judges while traveling at 38 miles per hour. The judge ended up needing surgery.

This year, the CSUN team added an Autonomous Brake Assist System (ABAS) to “The Khach.” The ABAS continuously senses objects in front of the vehicle and analyzes the live data and distance from the object. If the object moves away or distance increases, there is no action taken, but if the object is approaching, the brake system is automatically engaged without any input from the rider, bringing the vehicle to a safe stop and preventing an accident.

Senior mechanical engineering student Rachel Foreman, who served as the systems team lead and participated in the challenge as a rider, said working with her team and building the vehicle over the past year has been an exciting, gratifying and enjoyable learning experience.

“While it has certainly had its ups and downs, [the experience] has definitely improved my motivation and teamwork as an engineer and generally as a person,” Foreman said. “I have found that I have become more patient, which I am sure will be invaluable to me in my future career. I have also made some great friends on the team and enjoyed an incredibly fun year with them.”

Foreman said the Department of Mechanical Engineering is very supportive of its students.

“CSUN’s mechanical engineering department has been wonderful — the professors are really great and care a lot about the students’ success,” Foreman said. “Professor Khachatourians is a perfect example, as I am positive every student who has ever taken him would attest to [his excellence as a professor]. There is a lot of industry experience in the department, which is something that you might miss out on at a more theoretical school. We get plenty of hands-on practice, along with the background knowledge and practical advice.”

Since earning her bachelor’s degree in 1979. CSUN alumna Terry Jester has been a star and a pioneer in the solar industry.

Terry Jester is a rarity.

And she has been since she attended California State University, Northridge in the late 1970s.

Jester ’79 (Mechanical Engineering) was one of very few female mechanical engineering students during her time at the university, and since earning her degree, she has been part of the small group of women working in the solar industry.

She is considered a pioneer, today serving as an executive in the industry. Jester has earned high praise for her work and received multiple honors — including the 2015 Women in Solar Energy Award from the American Solar Energy Society.

The Solar Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., releases an annual job census and reports that in 2015 women made jus only 24 percent of those working ion the solar industry, up 2 percent from the year before. Despite the increase, it’s still a small number.

Jester is an inspiring figure in the industry — proof that women can thrive and become leaders in solar and science.

She is the chairman and chief executive officer of Silicor Materials, a San Jose-based company that produces solar silicon — the preeminent semiconductor in solar cells. Before working for Silicor, she managed large solar operations and held engineering positions at SoloPower, SunPower, SolarWorld, Siemens, Arco and Shell.

Jester has maintained close ties to CSUN since graduation. She served on the College of Engineering and Computer Science Industrial Advisory Board as its chair and on the President’s Associates Executive Council.

“I really feel so strongly about being an inspiration for women,” Jester said. “I will talk anywhere I am asked. I just spoke at my older daughter’s company and last year at my younger daughter’s school, and speak usually at two to three conferences a year. I never miss a chance to do those talks, which are usually technical in nature but are meant to encourage young engineers and young female engineers to get into this industry — and young professionals to consider the industry. The future of the world has a lot of problems, not only energy, but certainly one of them will be to make sure the world gets powered in a responsible manner. So, I don’t only feel like it’s an inspiration, but a duty.”

The National Science Foundation has a data page on its website that shows just how wide a gap there is between men and women working in and studying science. Its most recent figures on undergraduate enrollment in engineering programs come from 2011 and show that only 18.6 percent of engineering undergraduate students that year were female.

During her years at CSUN, “it was probably 5 percent,” Jester said of the number of women in engineering classes. Despite the scarcity of women in her classes, Jester said she received a lot of encouragement and support while studying at the university.

“I don’t know if it’s still there today, but there was this wonderful women’s and engineering group, and we had a great study room,” Jester said. “Bonita Campbell (the first woman in engineering at CSUN to hold a tenured faculty position and to serve as a department chair) helped set it up. It really was extremely helpful to have a networking opportunity with the other women that were there, and frankly, a lot of the men that went to school with us were part of that organization and would study in there, too. It was a really great opportunity to get to know the other women in the College of Engineering and Computer Science, because there really weren’t that many — that’s for sure.

“I really appreciated not only the education I got at Cal State Northridge, but I think the school has a real insight to how to graduate people that know how to work and know how to go out into whatever industry they’re preparing to go to,” she continued.

Jester pointed to professor Timothy Fox as another educator who helped inspire her during her time at CSUN. Though it was more than 35 years ago, Jester still stands out in Fox’s mind.

“I think her success that she had in the industry probably mirrored her success here at CSUN,” Fox said. “She got involved and was a very easy person to work with, to converse with — and yet she had both feet solid on the ground. … Terry rolled her sleeves up. I don’t think she ever thought of herself as a woman in engineering. It was, ‘Hey, I’m an engineer. I can do what anyone else does.’ And she did, and that’s why she succeeded. She wasn’t intimidated.”

Jester said she had little trepidation about entering the field. Whether it was in the classroom, joining the workforce or leading in a predominantly male industry, she never let being the minority affect her.

“It’s been a real interesting career,” she said. “I would say every single day I learned something, and every single day I’m proud that I’ve been in this industry. … And you know, there were times that I didn’t know I would make it.”

During the 1980s, she said it was difficult to convince the world that solar was a viable source of energy and not a fad.

“We thought, if we roll up our sleeves a little further and dig in, we can do it,” she said. “There was a lot of camaraderie [and belief in the industry].”

Jester credits CSUN for helping her rise and boosting her confidence.

“I kind of tip my hat to CSUN,” she said. “I was incredibly prepared and stood shoulder to shoulder with everybody there.”

The number of women working in the technology industry is far below the national average in other fields. While women held 57 percent of professional occupations in the United States workforce in 2015, they held only 25 percent of the occupations in professional computing, according to the National Center for Women & Information Technology. With this startling statistic in mind, companies are making a number of moves to create a more equal workforce.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) Security division is leading this charge, and in collaboration with Applied Computer Security Associates and the Computing Research Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research, created the Scholarship for Women Studying Information Security. Now in its third year of funding by HPE, the scholarship program has supported 46 collegiate women working to join the industry.

One of these women is California State University, Northridge student Carrick Bartle. This is something of a new venture for Bartle, who graduated with a degree in English from the University of California, Berkeley in 2008 and worked as a legal assistant for a major studio.

However, Bartle awoke one day to find she had lost the desire to work in such a demanding industry, and she decided to pursue a career in computing. A San Fernando Valley native, Bartle returned home and began computer science classes at CSUN. She is extremely grateful for the opportunities that are now available to her thanks to the scholarship and thanks to CSUN.

“This scholarship supports women,” Bartle said. “It’s really tough to take on student loans, and scholarships like this really ease that burden. This career change for me, it’s a massive investment of time and money, and so this scholarship just really helps this whole process.”

Now armed with a wealth of knowledge from CSUN, Bartle will attend the University of California, San Diego in the fall to get her master’s degree in computer science, with a focus in applied cryptography. She hopes this will help her achieve her goal of eventually working as a security software engineer. Bartle also has some words of encouragement for anyone who is thinking about a career in computer technology.

“If they’re interested in doing it, they definitely should,” she said. “There are a lot of opportunities in this field, and it’s a fascinating one, too. It really has everything.”

S.K. Ramesh and Robert Ryan (College of Engineering and Computer Science) have received $1,199,483 from the U.S. Department of Education in support of a project entitled “Bridging the Gap: Enhancing AIMS2 for Student Success.”

Reza Sayed and Robert Ryan (College of Engineering and Computer Science) have received $20,000 from CSU Sacramento in continuing support of a project entitled “CSU Louis Stokes-Alliance for Minority Participation (CSU-LSAMP) Senior Alliance (2013-2018).”

Asad Mandi

California State University, Northridge’s College of Engineering and Computer Science and David Nazarian College of Business and Economics are co-hosting the Art of Innovation Conference (AOI), which takes place from 8 a.m. to 3:30 pm. on Friday, Oct. 14, in the Grand Salon of the University Student Union.

          “The conference is a great way for attendees to build their networks while also learning from various leaders in their respective industries,” said Ryan Holbrook, entrepreneurship program director in the Nazarian College. “Our keynote and subsequent panels will highlight opportunities that lie ahead for current and aspiring innovators and entrepreneurs.”

           This year’s keynote speaker is Asad Madni, former president, chief operating officer and chief technology officer of BEI Technologies Inc. Madni is currently an independent consultant and an adjunct professor of engineering at UCLA. He also worked for Systron Donner Corporation, where he played a critical role in the development of radio frequency and microwave systems and instrumentation. Madni has published and received credit for more than 100 research reports.

          The conference will be divided into three focus areas: “Intrapreneurship and Entrepreneurship,” “The Future of Technology” and “Social Entrepreneurship.”  

          “In 2015, we introduced a panel on social entrepreneurship, which was very well-received by the students — they saw it as something truly unique, even for innovation conferences,” said Jimmy Gandhi, director of the Ernie Schaeffer Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the College of Engineering and Computer Science. “Hence, we decided to keep it as a focus of AOI 2016 to create a paradigm shift around social entrepreneurship.”

         The event’s panels will feature professionals from industries including manufacturing, virtual reality, sustainability, health care, education, aerospace and new media.

         CSUN students, faculty and staff can attend the conference for free and the cost for alumni and community members is $40 if they by Oct. 7. Space is limited; register online at www.csunaoi.com. Breakfast and lunch is included with registration. For more information, call Ryan Holbrook at (818) 677-4510 or ryan.holbrook@csun.edu.