{"id":912,"date":"2014-06-03T22:31:56","date_gmt":"2014-06-03T22:31:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/?p=912"},"modified":"2016-01-25T23:19:24","modified_gmt":"2016-01-25T23:19:24","slug":"taking-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/2014\/06\/03\/taking-flight\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking Flight"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are times when Deb Pence, professor of mechanical engineering at Oregon State University and 2013 Honors College Eminent Professor, has to remind herself that Corey Juarez is still an undergraduate. \u201cHe says something,\u201d she says, \u201cand we all say, \u2018Good point! Are you sure you\u2019re not a Ph.D. student?\u2019 He is exceptionally sharp.\u201d She then pauses briefly, looking around her sunlit office, leans back in her chair, and continues: \u201cHe is just awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n

Juarez, a mechanical engineering major in the Honors College (HC), connected with Pence when he was enrolled in her Honors heat transfer course (ME 332H) in fall term, 2013. Pence works with Honors students regularly, teaching classes in the HC at least once a year, \u201ctwice a year if I\u2019m really lucky.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was inspired by her teaching methods,\u201d Juarez says, \u201cso I asked her what she was doing in her lab.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Before coming to Oregon State as a transfer student from Portland Community College in 2012, Juarez worked in avionics retrofitting older aircrafts with newer systems. \u201cThat got my wheels spinning,\u201d he says. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to be a technician. I knew I wanted to go back to school, and it was a no-brainer that would be the area to focus in.\u201d He will graduate from Oregon State in March, 2015, and he plans to apply to aerospace engineering graduate programs in the Boston area, where his partner will also be attending graduate school.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou always hear this story,\u201d Juarez says, smiling, \u201cbut ever since I was a kid I really was interested in how things worked.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Pence\u2019s lab, Juarez is using that interest to look at more efficient ways to cool electronics, particularly in zero-gravity environments.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur defense and space applications all require computers. Things will completely shut down if the computers shut down,\u201d Pence says, \u201cso we need to keep them cool. Problem is, in outer space, if a vapor bubble forms because it gets hot enough, it boils\u2026.With no gravity to allow [the bubble] to get off the surface, it acts like a little bit of insulation and gets really hot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Juarez is looking at this problem by pulling vapor bubbles through porous material. \u201cHe wants to look at what happens to the bubble,\u201d Pence says, \u201ccan we predict the bubble size and bubble frequency, how big will the bubbles get under this extraction condition, how frequently they will occur, and can we regulate that with this extraction technique.\u201d<\/p>\n

Right now, Juarez is focused on bringing the work to NASA\u2019s commercial parabolic aircraft, known colloquially as the \u201cvomit comet,\u201d Pence says; the aircraft provides \u201cbrief periods of weightlessness\u201d to test technologies before they encounter the \u201charsh environment of space,\u201d according to a NASA press release.<\/p>\n

Researchers are advised to have experience with a drop tower \u2014 which provides environments close to zero-gravity \u2014 before hopping on the free-falling aircraft. So, to prepare, Juarez hopes to spend some time with his heat transfer research over the summer at Portland State University\u2019s Dryden Drop Tower. Then, Juarez just needs NASA to approve his proposal.\"\"<\/p>\n

Pence is optimistic. Since arriving at Oregon State, Juarez has never submitted an unsuccessful funding proposal. He\u2019s received HC Excellence and Grandma Honors funds and was awarded a grant through Oregon State\u2019s Undergraduate Research, Innovation, Scholarship, & Creativity (URISC) program.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said [to him], \u2018You do realize I don\u2019t know anyone who has ever hit 100% rate for funding, right?\u2019\u201d Pence says, laughing.<\/p>\n

Though Juarez is excited about his future, Pence is disappointed he won\u2019t be staying at Oregon State for his graduate studies. \u201cHe\u2019s just phenomenal,\u201d she says. \u201cI am one lucky person.\u201d<\/p>\n

By Jessica Kibler<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are times when Deb Pence, professor of mechanical engineering at Oregon State University and 2013 Honors College Eminent Professor, has to remind herself that Corey Juarez is still an undergraduate. \u201cHe says something,\u201d she says, \u201cand we all say, \u2018Good point! Are you sure you\u2019re not a Ph.D. student?\u2019 He is exceptionally sharp.\u201d She […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5647,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1205,82],"tags":[95230,523,911],"class_list":["post-912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stories","category-features","tag-feature","tag-research","tag-students"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5647"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=912"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2231,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912\/revisions\/2231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}