09.30.06

Chicago, IL. -  Eleven students, accompanied by Mr. Gilbert Haynes, Dr. Fred Wilson, and Mr. Marvin Todd Martin, attended the National Technical Association (NTA) conference from July 26 thru July 29 in Chicago, Illinois.  NTA is dedicated to encouraging minority youth and women to choose careers in science and technology.  The conference is an annual activity that brings together students, professors, and practitioners with engineering, and technical expertise from around the nation. 

Gilbert Hayes, Managing Director of the Chesapeake Information Based Aeronautics Consortium (CIBAC) and former President of NTA, encouraged MSU undergraduate and graduate students as well as students from W.E.B. Dubois High School to participate so they would have an opportunity to gain experience by presenting their research to a professional organization.

 Dr. Fred Wilson, Research Scientist/Lecturer, and other MSU faculty, evaluated student research papers and selected six students from W.E.B. Dubois High School in Baltimore, MD. and five students from the MSU School of Engineering to present research at the NTA conference.

Students selected from W.E.B. Dubois High School are part of the CIBAC outreach program in which Mr. Marvin Todd Martin, W.E.B. Dubois HS science teacher, is an advisor. His students constructed and operated the robot pictured to the right >>>.

The W.E.B. Dubois High School participants were:

Christian Anderson 
Asley Brunson
Jasmin Carhoon 
Joseph Logrande
Glen Maxey
Akkriti Pun

MSU/CIBAC participants, and their research topics, were:

• Ladawn Biddle - "Implementation of an IIFD Testbed For Improvement of Aviation Safety"
  
  
• Dalia Christopher - "Using Real-Time, Optimally Adapting Meshes to Enforce RTCA SC-0193 Requirements for IIFD Applications"
  
  
• Judy Jackson-Pringle – "Utilizing Spectral Signatures from High Resolution Images to Extract Features for Enhancing Safe Flight 21 Geospatial Database"
  
  
• Kenneth Kimari – "Development of a Shadow Length and Width Computation Design for SHADE"
  
  
• Schinnel Small; Ph.D. Graduate Student majoring in Electrical Engineering – "Investigation of Jitter on Optical Tracking For Integrated Intelligent Flight Deck Technologies"

Judy Jackson-Pringle and Schinnel Small were selected for second prizes.  
           
During the conference, MSU students pictured below disseminated information about educational opportunities and programs at MSU.