Turning a university research project into a for-profit company typically takes a veteran of the startup ecosystem, someone familiar with defining market opportunity and figuring out how to find customers in that market and make them pay for what you have. That was true for Cardiosound LLC, which formally launched in August. The company grew from efforts by Gaurav Kapur, a physician and associate professor of pediatrics at Wayne State, to find a better way to measure blood pressure, particularly in infants, where current methods are notoriously inaccurate. Kapur reached out to some colleagues at WSU — Sean Wu, a professor of mechanical engineering; Yong Xu, a professor of electrical and computer engineering; and William Lyman, a professor of pediatrics.

As a graduate of the Wayne State University’s College of Engineering, Avinash Rachmale has had an ongoing relationship with the school. He started a business locally, hires Wayne State graduates and sits on the college’s Board of Visitors. That relationship grew Thursday with the university announcing that Rachmale and his wife, Hema, have donated $5 million to the College of Engineering for scholarships and a new testing laboratory.

A research team at Wayne State University recently received a four-year, $1.57 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for its project, “Water and Health Infrastructure Resilience and Learning.” The award is part of a multi-institutional $2 million collaborative project funded under NSF’s Critical Resilient Interdependent Infrastructure Systems and Processes program.

Turkey's first vice president Fuat Oktay was sworn into office in the parliament on Tuesday. Oktay, born in 1964 in Turkey's central Anatolian Yozgat province, served as the head of the Prime Ministry's Disaster and Emergency Management Agency from January 2012 to June 2016. From June 2016 until now, he has served as undersecretary in the Prime Ministry. Oktay earned a bachelor's degree in business studies from Cukurova University in 1985. He finished his master's degree in manufacturing engineering and business studies in 1990 at Wayne State University in the U.S.

Carol Miller, professor of civil and environmental engineering and the Director of Healthy Urban Waters at Wayne State University, talked about the ways our health is tied to the condition of the Great Lakes. According to Miller, the overall health of the Great Lakes is “threatened,” but the lakes are currently in good condition. 

The founder of the Detroit-based engineering firm LGC Global has gifted Wayne State University's College of Engineering $1 million for an endowment to provide full tuition scholarships to Detroit Public Schools Community District students.

Pai-Yen Chen, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering recently received a National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award, the organization’s most prestigious accolade for up-and-coming researchers in science and engineering. 

A handful of water utilities around the Great Lakes have been competing over the last year to reduce pollution by controlling the electricity they consume from the power grid. 

“This project really has the heart of Wayne State in it, and it builds on the best of what our faculty and staff across campus are doing to promote the success of our students,” said Jeffrey Potoff, principal investigator on the ACCESS project and associate dean for academic and student affairs in the Wayne State University College of Engineering.

There is probably no human endeavor more complex, involving more people and companies, or more expensive than an automotive vehicle program. Billions are invested in creating a new body and powertrain. Hundreds of millions are invested in even minor upgrades. The bulk of that is in the manufacturing plant and machinery—stampings, tooling, robots, fixtures. 

The Wayne State University’s EcoCAR3 team is not only composed of engineering students and a faculty advisor, but also sponsors who contribute to their competition efforts.