Photo courtesy: College of Arts and Sciences

On March 14, Drexel University professors from eleven different fields of study were pitted against each other to determine what is more essential to human survival– science, humanity or social science. In this annual event, known as the College of Arts and Sciences Raft Debate, the participating professors (one from each academic category) operated under the pretense that they were all stranded on a desert island with only one available life raft. Using their quick wit and extensive knowledge of their respective subject areas, each professor argued as to why they and their discipline should be the one saved. The winner was chosen by the audience.

Joel Oestreich, representing Global Studies & Modern Languages, was randomly selected to offer his opening statement first, and offered a rousing poem in defense of his discipline’s importance. Second up was Criminology & Justice Studies, represented by Jordan Hyatt, who took an equally comedic approach by informing the audience that either the person to their left or to their right was a psychopath whom they would no doubt need protection against. Politics’ representative Zoltan Buzas argued that without him, Donald Trump may in fact become president, and claimed that political scientists are fond of cuddling stuffed animals.

“If you like puppies, stuffed or otherwise, save the political scientists,” Buzas advised.

Robert Immordino, representing mathematics explained that Biology would be unable to count daisy petals without mathematics, and that aliens are no doubt using radians instead of degrees. Nancy Raitano Lee with the Psychology department wowed the audience with an actual preserved brain in a jar that she brought along with her as a prop. Biodiversity, Earth & Environmental Science (BEES) defender Ted Daeschler, claimed that only he and his discipline could “Make Earth Great Again.”

“Where would we be without advances with yeast? Would you have beer? Probably not,” Katy Gonder, representing Biology, pointed out in her study’s defense. Lloyd Ackert then took the stage along with his alternative persona, a pirate, in order to defend the importance of history.

“You’ve probably already been saved by chemistry and may not know about it,” Craig McClure claimed on the side of chemistry.

Frank Ferrone raised the stakes by spitting the hot fire of physics through rap: mirrored sunglasses, beanie and gold chain included.

English and Philosophy, represented by the eleventh contender Stacey Ake, concluded the opening round by arguing that all the other disciplines on the stage were born of philosophy, which in her opinion was the obvious winner.

The rebuttal period that followed was no less intense. “If you don’t let me off this island, I will shiv every last one of you,” Hyatt threatened on behalf of Criminology and Justice Studies.

“I will make sure you have beer forever,” Gondor of Biology offered.

“If you want to be good lovers, you want to save philosophy,” Ake offered, just before informing the audience of her intention to drink hemlock should she not be voted to survive. Buzas of Political Science informed the audience he’d rig the rules and win regardless.

“You will need to know which warlord to pledge your allegiance to in a world without chemistry,” McClure warned, suggesting that in that case he hoped political science would be the one to make it out.

True to expectations, Ferrone followed up his original physics rap with a rebuttal rap. Ackert brought back the Dread Pirate himself in order to convince the audience of the need for History.

The final four contenders, determined by volume of audience applause, were Criminology & Justice Studies, Global Studies & Modern Languages, Physics, and BEES. In the end, hip-hoppin’ physics professor Ferrone took the crown, claiming the one raft that would secure his safe passage off the metaphorical island.

Next year will see a new round of arguments from the eleven disciplines, where the proverbial raft will be earned once more by the wittiest and most convincing representative.

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Photo courtesy: 51st and Fire

A team of Drexel University students took home first prize at the University Games Showcase competition of the Intel Game Developers Conference (GDC) for their self-designed video game on March 17. The game, called Mirrors of Grimaldi, also earned the team $10,000.

The Intel GDC is an annual event, widely regarded as one of the largest game development conferences in the world. The University Showcase portion chooses its contestants from Princeton Review’s list of top ten collegiate game design programs, which includes both undergraduate and graduate programs. Drexel’s program has graced this list in years past, but this year marks the first time a Drexel team has won the competition.

The game itself is designated as a local multiplayer game, which means that the four players must all be sitting in the same place. The players each create their own unique “town peasant” which serves as their character in the game. When gameplay commences, the screen divides into four quadrants (one for each player) as the four characters are placed in a carnival riddled with demons. As the players battle these computer-generated demons, they are able to hit them straight across the screen boundaries into the quadrants of their fellow players.

Photo courtesy: 51st and Fire

In a unique twist, the divided screens do not remain constant in size. As a player finds themselves in the presence of more and more demons, the size of their screen compresses accordingly, freeing up more room for the other three players. The game ends for a player when their portion of the screen shrinks entirely. The last player to remain on the screen when the others have been edged out is crowned the winner.

“The idea started as a simple comment when we were at a bar, brainstorming. One of our members asked ‘what if we made a splitscreen game where the screen moved.’ We didn’t really think much about it until we sat down at a later date and talked about how the game would actually work,” producer Andrew Lichtsinn explained in an email interview.

“When we presented the idea to our advisor she immediately got very excited and we realized that the idea was a lot better than we eventually gave it credit for. That was when we knew that was the idea to run with,” Lichtsinn continued.

Photo courtesy: 51st and Fire

There are eight minds that led to the creation and ultimate victory of Mirrors of Grimaldi. Producer Andrew Lichtsinn, lead programmer Thomas Trahey, programmer Boyd Fox, art director Evan Freed and artists Patrick Bastian and Steven Yaffee all hail from Westphal College’s undergraduate Game Design & Production program. Organic modeler/rigger Alison Friedlander is an animation and visual effects major, and programmer Alexander Hollander is an undergraduate computer science major. The group created the game as their collective senior design project, which was overseen by digital media professor Jichen Zhu.

The Mirrors of Grimaldi team edged out games from schools like Carnegie Mellon University, New York University, and the Rochester Institute of Technology to claim their unprecedented victory.

“Honestly it just feels great to have people confirm that our game idea is as cool as we thought. From the beginning we knew the idea was a bit experimental and we were not sure for the longest time that it would actually be any fun. Being recognized just makes all the long hours we poured into this project that much more worth it; and makes us all excited for the future of the project,” Lichtsinn enthused.

Photo courtesy: 51st and Fire

As far as anyone looking to gain insight on the team’s success, Lichtsinn offered his opinion on what the process has taught the eight students.

“I think the biggest thing we learned is to spend a ton of time [brainstorming] many ideas until you find one that’s special. We worked as a group from the very beginning and can’t honestly credit a specific person with the entire design of game and I believe that was important in making sure everyone on the team was 100 percent invested in this game,” he explained.

Photo courtesy: 51st and Fire

“I’m very proud of every single student in the team. From the inception of the project last summer, to winning the internal competition to represent Drexel, to winning the first prize among the 10 best gaming university programs, they have put a tremendous amount of work and shown incredible team spirit. In this journey that started last summer, I witnessed personal and professional development in each one of them,” Jichen Zhu, Director of the Procedural Expression Lab and faculty advisor to the Mirrors of Grimaldi team, said in an email interview.

The Mirrors of Grimaldi octet is now focusing on preparing the game for an official launch, with hopes of publishing on itch.io at the end of spring and after that maybe even Steam Greenlight and Xbox One. The game, still officially in the alpha stage of the development process, is available for Mac and PC download at http://51standfire.com/play-now/.

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Imagine a material that can serve as a lubricant for artificial joints, mechanical elements in vehicles, and a bacteria deterrent for surfaces like eyeglass lenses— or medical devices. Versatile in use and innovative at its foundations, professor of materials science and engineering Christopher Li published his research in Nature Communications on March 24, describing new nanobrush technology that may be able to be used for such functions.

Operating in the Drexel Soft Materials Lab, Li’s research team includes visiting scholar Qiwei Pan, six PhD candidates, three BS/MS students and eight undergraduate students.

“Our interests focused on understanding [the] structure-morphology-property relationship of complex, polymer-based heterogeneous materials. By exploring the fundamentals of these systems, the end goal is to achieve advanced functional materials for energy to biomedical applications,” Li explained.

Li’s research began after observing a soccer field. In the same way that sod is used to protect a soccer field, Li is developing nano-scale polymers which protect various surfaces. Until now, polymer brushes have been made in two ways. One method is the “grafting-from,” which is analogous to sprinkling seeds on soil and waiting for grass to take root. The other method, called “grafting-to,” is like transplanting individual blades of grass. Li’s research however, has developed a novel method, one which he refers to as the “grass carpet.” The novelty in Li’s idea involves putting together a functional two-dimensional sheet of polymer crystals. “[It acts] similar to a nanoscale piece of double-sided tape,” Li explained. When the sheet is stuck to an existing substrate and the crystals are dissolved, the remaining polymer chains spring up, forming the bristles of the brush.

“[The goal is to] prevent bacteria from adsorbing onto the surfaces,” Li explained. Therefore, depending on the materials being treated, Li’s nanobrushes will extend the usage life of the object.

“We believe that our discovery of a new way to make polymer brushes is a significant advance in the field and will enable use of the brushes in exciting new ways,” Li stated. “What this all means is that one day engineers will be able to tailor-make incredibly durable polymer brush coatings to extend the usage lives of all kinds of uniquely shaped joints and couplings,” he continued.

Li has extensively contributed to the fundamentals and applications of complex heterogeneous materials by developing two research platforms during his time at Drexel. These include crystalline polymer-based complex systems for advanced materials as well as hierarchical nanomanufacturing using holographic polymerization.

The recently published paper detailing the full content of Li’s research on nanobrushes can be found in the journal Nature Communications. and is available in full online at http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2016/160324/ncomms11119/full/ncomms11119.html.

Photo courtesy: Drexel University

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In February 2016, Lawrence Wu donated a check of $2,500 to Drexel’s Food lab. The check was for the Hope Lodge Program of Cook For Your Life nonprofit organization which collaborates with the food lab. The money is coming from Wu’s kickstarter campaign, which he has used to fund his new start-up company to sell hot sauce.

“For every $10,000 I raise through my WUJU Kickstarter, I will donate $500 to Drexel to go toward the University’s partnership with Hope Lodge in Philadelphia,” Wu stated.

Wu’s personal life has been incorporated to the design of the hot sauce from the start. The label and slogan “From Sunrise, to Sunset” serve as tribute to his friend Cody, who passed away in 2014 from cancer, and Wu’s mother, who has been battling cancer for more than 8 years.

“The label is [an] homage to everybody battling with the terrible illness and representative of their determination and ability to stay true to themselves despite their adversity,” Wu stated.

Cook for your Life (CFYL) is a nonprofit organization which teaches people affected by cancer how to prepare healthy meals. Wu’s connection to this nonprofit was initiated through Drexel’s interdisciplinary program instructed by Jonathan Deutsch, Ph.D., professor and director of Drexel University’s Center for Hospitality & Sport Management. Deutsch was also a former board member of CFYL.

Through this cooperative program, Wu learned how to combine his passion for cooking and his personal connection with cancer. Even before coming up with the idea for his company, Wu already knew that cancer was a cause he cared about and wanted to address in some way. Once he recognized that he could support those suffering from cancer through his brand, the purpose of Wuju took on a whole new dimension.

The path that led Wu to his recent successes was punctuated with ups and downs. Growing up, Wu knew he always wanted to work in the food business and be his own boss. When his friend’s father introduced him to his own homemade hot sauce, he was struck with a realization. Wu thought he could use it as base to craft his own product. This event happened a little while after graduating from Drexel in 2014.

Graduating from Drexel as a Marketing and Entrepreneurship major and with the experience of three co-ops behind him, he was offered a full time job in a pharmaceutical company. However, his mind was preoccupied with his new project. In Nov. 2014, Wu set in motion his idea of Wuju, a new “sweet” hot sauce, which would eventually become a complement to the notorious Sriracha sauce. July 31, 2015, his dream became a reality. Wu started working full time on his hot sauce and initiated his Kickstarter campaign, which included a crowdsourcing campaign, a commercial video produced by Drexel students and other public relations activities.

The uniqueness of Wu’s hot sauce is attributed to the numerous untraditional ingredients that are brought to the table. The sauce is made with a mustard base and includes several exotic ingredients (including fruits) which aim to give the hot sauce an international profile. This aspect also echoes Wu’s multicultural identity.

Wu conveyed during a private interview that any student seeking to follow a similar path of success should aim to be resilient, passionate, and hardworking. Unpredictability was emphasized as an essential quality in today’s competitive labor market.

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The average net price of attendance for low-income students of Drexel University is $26,588, according to a new study. The study, titled “Undermining Pell: Volume III,” was released in March 2016 and follows two similar studies released in previous years, Undermining Pell: Volumes I & II. The aim of the most recent report was to examine the amount of financial aid given by four-year colleges in the United States to low-income students. For the purposes of the study, low-income students were defined as those whose families earned an annual income of $30,000 or less.

The study was based on two criteria: the percentage of students classified as Pell Grant recipients that were enrolled by these colleges, and the average net price of attendance paid by low-income students yearly. The data from the study was taken from the 2013-14 academic year, and was reported directly from the colleges to the U.S. Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS).

Schools included in the study were grouped into two categories: private nonprofit colleges and public colleges. Public colleges were placed into two subcategories: High Net Price and Low Net Price. Private nonprofit colleges were further broken down into four subcategories: High Pell/Low Net Price, Low Pell/Low Net Price, Low Pell/High Net Price, and High Pell/High Net Price. High or low Pell refers to the fraction of students enrolled by the colleges who are classified as Pell Grant recipients, with High Pell being classified as 15% or more of the student body and Low Pell being classified as less than 15%. Low Net Price was any net annual cost of attendance for low-income students which amounted to less than $10,000, with High Net Price classified as any amount greater than $10,000.

Drexel University, classified as a private nonprofit college with an endowment of over $500 million, fell under the category of High Pell/High Net Price. Specifically, 21% of students enrolled at the university in the 2013-14 academic year were Pell Grant recipients, and the average net price for low-income students was $26,588.

The study commented that “Most of these colleges [private nonprofit colleges with endowments greater than $500 million in the category of High Pell/High Net Price] are very active in the financial aid arms race – doling out substantial amounts of merit aid to compete for top students.”

Randall C. Deike, Senior Vice President for Enrollment Management and Student Success, offered some additional information on categorizing universities based on their endowment.

“Selecting institutions based on total endowment is extremely problematic,” Deike explained. “The better metric is endowment per student. The reason it’s a better metric is because you basically take total endowment and divide by total students enrolled,” he continued.

Essentially, endowment per student takes into account not only the amount of money a university has been endowed, but also the size of their student body. A university with a greater amount of capital and fewer students will likely have more money available to dedicate to student aid.

Drexel’s endowment per student, according to Deike’s estimate, is roughly $35,000. New York University, which was listed under the same category as Drexel with a slightly lower net price, has an endowment per student of approximately $62,000. Ivy League universities, by comparison, have been known to have significantly higher endowments per student. University of Pennsylvania, for example, comes in at just under $470,000 per student, which is over ten times that of Drexel.

“One of, if not the highest priority for Drexel University, is recruiting and enrolling right-fit students, who know and understand Drexel, and supporting them to be successful. Our goal is to increase retention rates and graduation rates. Incorporating a greater need-based component into how we award financial aid would obviously be the most beneficial,” Deike stated.

Deike also noted that the data used in this study comes from the 2013-2014 academic year, and that as of fall 2015 Drexel has undergone significant change in their financial aid distribution process. The university now offers the solely need-based Drexel Grant to students who qualify.

As the study suggests, Drexel also offers a significant amount of merit aid, offering a variety of achievement-based scholarships such as the A.J. Drexel Scholarship and the Westphal Portfolio Scholarship.

Other colleges in the University City region of Philadelphia were also included in the study. The University of Pennsylvania, also classified as a private nonprofit college, fell under the category of Low Pell/Low Net Price. Swarthmore College and Haverford College, just outside of Philadelphia, also shared this classification.

“This group [private nonprofit colleges in the category of Low Pell/Low Net Price] includes five Ivy League institutions: Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, and Yale. These colleges are so rich that they can afford to be need-blind in admissions and to meet the full financial need of students with grant aid. Yet, they have long been bastions of privilege, enrolling only a small share of low-income students,” the study stated.

Saint Joseph’s University and Villanova University, both private colleges in or near the Philadelphia region, fell under the classification of Low Pell/High Net Price. Temple University, a public university, was classified under the category High Net Price.

The conclusion of the study claimed that “A college’s commitment to helping low-income students can’t be measured along a single dimension. It matters how many low-income students they enroll and how much these students are asked to pay.”

The report goes on to warn that some individuals will, as they have in the past, continue to evaluate colleges only by the proportion of their enrolled Pell Grant recipients, and not on any net price data.

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On March 28, Drexel University’s non-commercial radio station WKDU debuted its first episode of an original bi-weekly series warmly titled “Good Morning, Neighbors.” The series, which will see a five-episode pilot run in the coming weeks, consists of interviews with leaders of nonprofit organizations in the local Philadelphia region.

“These interviews will give airtime to nonprofits in Philadelphia neighborhoods, especially those with modest budgets, whose voices are muted because they are often understaffed and not equipped to mount effective campaigns to reach their target audiences,” the “Good Morning, Neighbors” website explains.

The idea for the project originated from WKDU’s status as a nonprofit radio station. Essentially, in the time where for-profit radio stations air advertisements, WKDU airs Public Service Announcements (PSAs). The radio station recently recorded 16 PSAs from 13 nonprofits, which play at regular intervals in place of advertisements. Lawrence Souder, the host of the new series, claims that these PSAs led to a conversation between WKDU, Drexel Edits and the Lindy Center about how WKDU could further dedicate time to helping nonprofit organizations. From this conversation, “Good Morning, Neighbors” was born.

Photo courtesy: Lawrence Souder

“[Souder] contacted me and Chris Burrell, the electronic director at WKDU as well as a professor in the Lebow College of Business, with his ideas for a radio program involving Philadelphia nonprofit organizations,” junior Electrical Engineering major Esmail Hamidi, General Manager of WKDU, said in an email interview. Hamidi and Souder then came together to finalize the details before recording the series itself.

“We hope ‘Good Morning, Neighbors’ will provide a voice for the nonprofit organizations in [their] neighborhood and raise awareness of the city’s nonprofit sector in general,” Souder, who is also an associate teaching professor and the director of Drexel Edits, said in an email interview.

“For a lot of busy Drexel students, myself included, it’s hard to find time to get involved in the community. But it’s very rewarding and a great opportunity to meet people you wouldn’t otherwise encounter in school or at work,” Hamidi added.

The pilot run of the series, which aired its first episode March 28 at 9 a.m., will include interviews with representatives from the Wright Recreation Center, ACHIEVEability, Habitat for Humanity Philadelphia, Urban Tree Connection, and Action for Higher Learning.

“I am gearing up to invite interested parties to support an ongoing and more frequent series of broadcast interviews for the fall of 2016,” Souder replied when asked if the series would continue following its five-episode pilot run. He also suggested the possibility of replacing his position as host with a co-op student if the project should continue. In the future, Souder hopes to hold several episodes either as live broadcasts or in the presence of real audiences composed of community members.

The next episode will feature ACHIEVEability, a West Philadelphia nonprofit looking to help ease the cycle of poverty. It is slated to air April 11 at 9 a.m. exclusively on WKDU.

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The Emily and Yvonne Selke Memorial Fund will host the Third Planet Festival at The World Cafe Life March 19. Emily, a 2013 Drexel alumnus, and her mother, Yvonne, were aboard Germanwings Flight 9525 on March 24, 2015 when the plane crashed in the French Alps, leaving no survivors. On the one year anniversary of the crash, Emily and Yvonne’s friends and family are presenting this musical festival to honor their memories and celebrate their lives.

Emily majored in music industry at Drexel’s Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts and Design. She served as the membership vice president for her sorority, Gamma Sigma Sigma Zeta Chapter, and graduated with honors in 2013. Her love of music and traveling sparked the idea for the festival.

Photo courtesy: Julie Kimelman

“Emily was dedicated and hardworking. You could talk to her for a minute and feel like you’ve known her forever. She was so understanding and easy to get along with. She was always smiling,” Alex Tyler, a sister in Gamma Sigma Sigma and an organizer for the Third Planet Festival, said in an email interview.

“I feel like when you hear about people who passed away, you never hear the bad. With Emily, I can’t really think of any character flaw that people are overlooking. She was this genuine, kind person who loved helping others. She loved dogs and music and was the kind of person you could count on when you needed something,” Tyler continued.

Emily’s mother Yvonne, who served as a contractor for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, will also be remembered. “The festival is honoring both Emily and her mom, Yvonne. It’s hard to speak about Yvonne when I didn’t know her but she isn’t forgotten. Emily and her mom were close and from what I can gather, Emily got a lot of her character from her mom,” Tyler said.

During her time at Drexel, Emily was heavily involved with music. Shortly following her graduation, she aided in the organization of the Pittsburgh Fringe Festival, and she had plans to do similar work in the future.

“Emily had incredible dreams and aspirations. She wanted to produce professional music festivals, and as a graduate of Drexel’s music industry program she was well on her way to making that dream a reality,” Julie Kimelman, a friend of Emily’s and an organizer for the Third Planet Festival, wrote in an email.

Because festival planning was such a passion of hers, several of Emily’s friends decided that a festival in Emily and her mother’s honor would be the best way to celebrate their lives. Thus, the Third Planet Festival was conceived. The primary festival organizers include Kimelman and Tyler as well as music industry major Ashley Kuhn and Gamma Sigma Sigma members Meredith Perry and Alyssa Stump.

While the festival itself serves as a tribute to Emily and Yvonne, the proceeds from ticket sales will be put toward helping Drexel students studying music industry who wish to study or intern abroad during their time at Drexel.

“The Emily and Yvonne Selke Memorial Fund will assist Drexel students who share Emily’s passions of live music, traveling, and helping others to study or intern abroad. It is our goal to award financial assistance to a student each year,” Kimelman said.

The organizers aspire to make the festival an annual occurrence. They hope that eventually the event will be able to feature Emily’s favorite band, Modest Mouse. In the end, though, it is all about bringing people together to honor Emily and her mother’s memories.

“It is our goal to make this festival what Emily would have wanted – a celebration of everything she cherished most, with the end goal of helping others,” Kimelman said.

“Emily isn’t here to do what she wanted in life like plan festivals. I hope we can honor her in this small way and see the festival grow because it’s a way to keep Emily’s spirit and love of music alive,” Tyler shared Kimelman’s sentiment.

The Third Planet Festival will take place at World Cafe Live Philadelphia at 2 p.m. March 19. Tickets are $20 and featured bands include Bombadil, Oxymorrons and Kodiak. Proceeds from the festival will benefit the Emily & Yvonne Selke Memorial Fund.

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The Public Safety Department hosted “Public Safety & U,” an event tailored to give students and faculty a stronger sense of control in “fight or flight” situations, March 1. The program was organized by communication accreditation manager Colin Quinn and police officer Kim McClay.

“Many members of the community were not aware of the many services offered by public safety,” Eileen Behr, vice president of public safety, said. This lack of awareness led the public safety department to design a program that aims to promote awareness and train students, faculty and staff within the Drexel community in situations that may threaten their personal safety. According to Behr, many people are reluctant to use public safety resources because they do not think they need extra safety precautions. Moreover, they often miscalculate what is worth being reported to the police.

“We want people to think about each situation they encounter and think about self-protection or escape,” Behr explained. In other words, people believe emergencies like that will never happen to them, which is why they see preparing for them as a waste of time.

The training session, held March 1, walked the audience through the different steps of analyzing a threatening situation. The steps included being aware of the present environment and any suspicious behavior, knowing how to remain calm and understanding what counts as disruptive or irrational behavior. McClay argued that people often do not know how to identify different verbal and nonverbal elements which could indicate a person’s aggressivity. What was essential to bear in mind was the awareness of one’s environment and how it changed depending on one’s immediate surroundings.

The program has reached out to various departments, including the College of Nursing and the LeBow School of Business, to encourage students and staff to sign up for the training. The main skill the program hopes to develop in the participants is a “survival mindset” that will help trainees judge when and how to react in dangerous situations.

Furthermore, in light of the increasing shooting incidents in the Philadelphia area, the session discussed effective response practices to an active shooter or active shooting incident. Although active shootings have been on the rise, McClay said that the odds of being involved in one remain slim. Yet, it is still important to have a prepared prevention plan. When in an active shooting area, silencing cell phones, knowing exits, hiding areas, emergency contacts and self-defense tactics could make one safer.

In the presentation, the leaders emphasized that an important element of becoming trained to handle emergency situations is acknowledging the importance of using Drexel’s public safety resources. These include the shuttle services, walking escorts and all-gender self defense classes.

An important takeaway of the Public Safety & U program is the training of members of the Drexel community in distress situations, who will have a rehearsed plan in mind as opposed to those not trained for these situations. The program encourages participants to feel more secure and confident in an urban environment and discourage against the common reaction of panic and passivity.

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As of Feb. 11, the head of Drexel University’s Physics Department, Stephen McMillan, has officially helped facilitate one of the biggest scientific breakthroughs in decades. On this day the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory published a paper confirming a discovery 1.3 billion years in the making: the first detection of gravitational waves. A paper that McMillan co-wrote in 2000 regarding the frequency of black hole collisions was among those cited by LIGO in this monumental publication.

LIGO was founded in 1992 with the mission of using laser interferometry to detect gravitational waves. LIGO possesses two detectors in the United States, each of which span multiple kilometers. The responsibilities for operating the equipment are shared by the California Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but researchers involved in the project hail from over 80 institutions from around the world.

“Ever since the first plans were announced to build gravitational wave detectors, people like me have been trying to predict what sorts of things they would see,” McMillan said.

The concept of gravitational waves was first proposed by Albert Einstein as a component of his general theory of relativity. His theory was that when two massive objects collide, the collision produces a sort of ripple through space-time. These ripples, which were purely theoretical before LIGO’s discovery, are gravitational waves.

“Einstein wrote down a set of equations that describe waves in his theory, and he predicted that the waves should exist,” McMillan explained.

In order for these waves to even occur, two extremely massive objects must collide. In the case of LIGO’s observation of gravitational waves, those two objects were black holes that merged approximately 1.3 billion years ago. In order to measure these types of waves, though, one must have a general idea about how often they are going to occur. In this aspect of the experiment, McMillan’s work played an essential role.

In 2000, McMillan co-authored a research paper with long-time colleague Simon F. Portegies Zwart in the Astrophysical Journal Letters titled “Black Hole Mergers in the Universe.” This paper was cited by LIGO in their Feb. 11 publication announcing the discovery.

In the paper written by McMillan and his colleagues, they devised a key calculation that proved to be useful. “We tried to do a calculation of … how often black hole binaries were formed, how long it should take for them to merge, and if you do that calculation for enough different clusters in the universe … you can begin to put that together and make a prediction of how many of these things would occur close enough and frequently enough for LIGO to be able to see them,” McMillan explained about the cited research.

Photo courtesy: LIGO

Even with an estimate of when these gravitational waves could be detected, the matter remained of how they could be detected. Despite being the products of very notable collisions, these waves are incredibly small. Einstein himself was fairly certain they could never be detected by instrumentation.

“The detector itself is a fairly major feat of engineering. To be able to detect motion that is smaller than an atomic nucleus is a remarkable thing … A lot of miracles had to happen for the detector to work,” McMillan said.

McMillan explained the significance of LIGO’s discovery of gravitational waves by saying, “LIGO didn’t just demonstrate the existence of gravitational waves, I think it also demonstrated that there really are massive black hole binaries in the universe and that they really do merge on a reasonable time scale.”

Photo courtesy: LIGO

“This is a whole new window in the universe,” he enthused. “If the other windows are any guide, then you can expect completely unexpected things.”

McMillan proposed the researchers at LIGO may encounter gravitational waves originating from the Big Bang, which is as of now a theoretical event that is speculated to have been the starting point for the universe. Whether or not LIGO’s detector will be able to answer humanity’s oldest question, he couldn’t say, but McMillan did suggest that LIGO will certainly be creating another channel through which scientists can observe the universe.

“They’re expecting to see gravitational waves from other types of stars…now that they have a detection, I think you’re going to see a lot of effort being expanded into new detectors and new technology,” McMillan said.

There is no telling what lies ahead in LIGO’s continued pursuit of astrophysical knowledge. All that is known for certain is that this discovery will go down in history as a major breakthrough in the scientific community’s understanding of space-time. Thanks to the stellar work of Steve McMillan, Drexel University was able to be a part of it.

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In the age of digital glory, every aspect of life is tracked. Thanks to the gadgets borne of the silicon revolution, a person can record every step they take, every calorie they consume, every inch they travel and every heartbeat — but that’s not nearly all. Two Drexel University students, Mohamed Zerban and Connor White, are confident that they can use silicon technology to save the world, one drop of water at a time.

In the fall of 2014, Zerban and White founded Tern, a company that helps households monitor their water usage.

“The idea [surrounding the company] was to improve the efficiency of water management inside your home, through the installation of modular smart products,” Zerban wrote in an email to The Triangle.

The mission statement on company’s website, elaborates on this sentiment. “Every human being has the right to clean and renewable water. To achieve this belief, Tern strives to create sustainable and modular products, both affordable and accessible, to all users,” the website boasts.

From this overarching goal, the two founders came up with the company’s flagship product: the Smart Faucet. This product, which is in the later stages of development, will not only purify tap water, but also store data regarding water output. The hardware is described by Zerban as a “simple, elegant attachment to the user’s kitchen faucet.” The water usage data from each faucet is transferred wirelessly to an app on the owner’s smartphone. When the filter in the faucet nears expiration, the app sends a notification to Tern headquarters to ship a new filter to the user’s home.

“The Smart Faucet … will give the user real time data of consumption of their water, allowing them to be more aware of their water usage,” Zerban said.

Zerban and White surmise that if individuals are more conscious of the amount of water they use, they will be more cautious about avoiding unnecessary usage. They recently presented this idea, along with a 3-D printed prototype, at Drexel’s Startup Day Nov. 11. The Baiada Institute for Entrepreneurship hosted Startup Day as an opportunity for Drexel student entrepreneurs to pitch their products and compete for funding and recognition. This is one of several competitions that the institute hosts annually to promote entrepreneurship and encourage innovation among students. Tern ultimately earned the chance to work with some individuals from Baiada, as a result of their performance in the competition. They’ve also collaborated with Drexel’s Close School of Entrepreneurship.

“The Baiada [Institute] is great as it’s close to everything and allows us to get a lot more work done. Also, working with the faculty members of the Close School has been very helpful,” Zerban wrote.

Tern is currently raising a seed round of funding to support the production of the Smart Faucet and to potentially facilitate the design of new products as well. The Smart Faucet is projected to be available for pre-order as early as spring of 2016.

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