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scientists and engineers every year, and we are very much interested in developing the next generation. This partnership with Cal State LA, and this particular program, will help us achieve our goal.”
He says the program is in an early stage and that he and his colleagues hope it will provide an opportunity for students at Cal State LA to become familiar with Navy work and consider the Navy as an employer offering an exciting and rewarding career.
At the college, the future of the program looks promising.
“We’ve made progress with the RoboSub student organization, a new group that will eventually compete in an annual underwater autonomous vehicle competition in San Diego that is sponsored by the ONR,” says Tufenkjian. “About 30 electrical engineering, mechanical engineering and computer science students attended the third meeting. They have mapped out short- and long-term goals, and it’s exciting to watch their enthusiasm develop.”
He Shen, assistant professor of mechanical engineering,
is the RoboSub faculty adviser. He and Tufenkjian hope to incorporate RoboSub into a senior design project next year.
Starting this fall, the college now offers a new course for freshmen, Introduction to Engineering and Technology. Student teams will build simple remote-operated vehicles (ROVs) and test them in the campus swimming pool for the course’s capstone.
“This will expose freshmen to Navy-related STEM content and practices,” explains Tufenkjian.
“The Navy seeks graduates with awareness and skills
in technical areas, decreasing the need for training and increasing the likelihood of retention,” says Tufenkjian. “The Navy is especially interested in providing opportunities to underrepresented groups so they can hire a diverse workforce, which is perfect for us since about 53 percent of our students are from these groups.”
Conducting Cutting-Edge Research
Tufenkjian’s relationship with the U.S. Navy began in 1999 when he was a faculty fellow working summers in Washington, D.C., with the Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC). In 2003, he initiated seafloor engineering research at Cal State LA with a grant from ONR and has been funded by ONR and the DOD ever since.
“We have completed several research projects in our seafloor engineering research lab, primarily with the seafloor engineering group at NAVFAC in Port Hueneme,” he says. “In 2013, I received an instrumentation grant from the DOD that allowed me to purchase laboratory equipment to test many different types of soil on a sophisticated level, as well as field test equipment, including cone penetrometers capable of measuring shear wave velocity and resistivity
of soils in situ.”
The new DOD grant allows the college to study how geophysical measurements can help predict near-surface seafloor soil properties accurately and reliably in near-shore and deep- water environments. The grant also allows Tufenkjian to hire additional undergraduate and graduate students.
“We’re looking to develop correlations relating geophysical properties to engineering properties of a variety of near-surface sediments through controlled laboratory and field trials,” explains Tufenkjian. “This is important because non-contact methods can be used to collect important mission-specific information autonomously if adapted, for example, to unmanned undersea vehicle platforms.”
Graduate student Joshua Kulas, who is pursuing a master’s degree in civil engineering with a focus on geotechnical engineering, is working with Tufenkjian on the set up and use of the cone penetrometer.
“It’s been a great experience working with Dr. Tufenkjian,” says Kulas. “He has a hands-off style that requires me to take initiative and work without supervision, enabling me to develop a deeper understanding of the instrument.”
Faculty from civil, mechanical and electrical engineering, as well as computer science, are modifying their labs to incorporate Navy-related experiments and are working with local Navy system commands to design activities and interaction opportunities.
”I hope to spark their interest with the ROV exercise and inspire participation in the RoboSub group. Our goal is to create repeated engagement opportunities throughout students’ academic careers.” – Mark Tufenkjian, Professor of Civil Engineering
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