A team of four 草莓社区 students, with principal investigator Professor Stefano Colafranceschi, are contributing to the design and implementation of new particle physics detector technology. 

The funding for the project comes from a $100,000 , one of 15 awarded in fall 2020 to researchers at colleges and universities in Virginia. Jeffress Grants fund one-year pilot studies in chemical, medical or other scientific fields, and must include 鈥渄evelopment of innovative interdisciplinary strategies that integrate computational and quantitative methods across a broad range of scientific disciplines.鈥� 

 Colafranceschi鈥檚 project 鈥� focused on the application of 3D printing to technology to physics instrumentation 鈥� combines engineering, chemistry/material science, computer science, and physics, and links to his current and past research collaborations at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Switzerland and Fermi National Laboratory. 

The long-term goal is to develop a new and more efficient generation of particle detectors, with implications for similar technologies such as cargo imaging, general-purpose scanners and tomography machines used in the healthcare field.

Seniors Reuben Peachey-Stoner and Douglas Nester, junior Jacob Horsley and first-year Levi Peachey-Stoner have been working on one of the first objectives: to create 鈥�3D printed materials that are mechanically more resistant/resilient and electrically more stable,鈥� Colafrancheschi explains. 

The Peachey-Stoner brothers mixed different concentrations of graphite and polylactic acid polymer, also known as PLA. 

鈥淧LA is a type of thermoplastic that is more environmentally friendly,鈥� said Reuben Peachey-Stoner. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a popular 3D printer material, but we are modifying it by doping it with graphene. Then the batches would go into this 3Devo filament extruder, which melts beads of plastic into a strand of a consistent diameter.鈥� 

The filament spools were then passed to Horsley and Nester, who used the Makerbot 3D printer to manufacture sheets of material. 鈥淒ouglas and I were essentially printing out the same area of plastic every time, but trying to get it as consistent with the technique and the configuration settings for temperature and speed and how fast the printer moves, that sort of thing. Eventually, we were dealing with the limitations of the machine to try to get a more precise print every time to be exact for what we need to move on to with the rest of the project.鈥�

A new and more advanced Fusion3 printer, funded by the grant, arrived last week, which will allow the experiment to move forward. 鈥淲e鈥檝e pretty much maxed out all the settings and combinations on this printer,鈥� Horsley said, 鈥渟o we鈥檙e pretty excited about the new one.鈥�

The group would have shared the results of their research at several conferences this spring, which were cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nester, who plans on working as a software engineer next year, says this is just one of several research projects he鈥檚 worked on while studying computer science at EMU (he was also involved in the fall 2020 weather balloon experiment).

鈥淎s an engineer, a lot of the job requirements are to bring in your wider knowledge and use it to solve various problems, so I think this job has given me a lot of practice with problem-solving,鈥� Nester said.

Horsley switched his major from engineering to peace and development, and is interested in community organizing or aid work. But he sees great value in how his skill with technology and problem-solving may be beneficial in the future. 

Reuben Peachey-Stoner, a chemistry major hoping to be employed in pharmaceuticals, says the opportunity to work with a researcher like Colafranceschi has been a special opportunity. Enjoying the collaboration was part of the fun.

鈥淗e knows what he鈥檚 doing and he鈥檚 very personable,鈥� said Horsley. 鈥淗e鈥檚 really understanding if you don鈥檛 quite understand to the level that he does and he鈥檚 willing to explain and assist…I鈥檝e always thought of it as he [worked at CERN] and now he鈥檚 here teaching me how to do these simple things. And it all starts with those simple things. There is a path to doing something similar and it starts with the basic stuff.鈥�

The radish, turnip, and oregano seeds sit nestled in dark soil. Their cells pull oxygen from tiny pockets of air in the dirt around them 鈥� Martian air. The scientists watch camera footage of the soil from afar, waiting for the first earthly plant to sprout, breaking the ground of an extraterrestrial world.

What sounds like a science fiction film is actually an experiment being conducted by three 草莓社区 (EMU) students. Laura Troyer, Jonas Beachy, and Andrew Schunn, with Professor Stefano Colafranceschi, built a capsule 鈥� sort of like a tiny greenhouse 鈥� that contains both regular soil and a soil mixture based on that found on Mars. Into the sealed chamber, they pump a blend of gases that mimics the atmosphere of Mars: 96% carbon dioxide and a smattering of nitrogen, oxygen, and argon. 

Their hope is to prove that plants could, theoretically, be grown on Mars.

“We started with an idea and a bag of iron oxide, and with a little help from Stefano and a couple of biology and chemistry professors, created a fully autonomous Martian capsule that runs over the internet!” said Beachy. 

He said that one of the most difficult parts of building the capsule was engineering the software that would measure the temperature and regulate the water and carbon dioxide in the capsule, as well as regularly photograph the soil surface and upload those photos to the internet.

“The RaspberryPi, or mini computers, we use run on Linux, which is a much different operating system than Windows 10 or Mac OS. Linux gives the user much more freedom at the cost of a simple experience for the user,” Beachy explained. Luckily, “Stefano is well versed in Linux and was always willing to help us figure out the issue.”

“As learning any coding language, it just takes time and lots of time in the lab until we got it working,” added Troyer. “We spent a lot of late nights in the lab working on the programming pieces – bouncing ideas off each other and chiming in with ideas when we got stuck.”

鈥淩unning an experiment is always a rewarding experience,” Colafranceschi said. “It鈥檚 a way to talk to nature and decrypt the answer.鈥�

The experiment was informed by NASA research that indicated Martian soil has the necessary nutrients for plants to grow. But, of course, there are other considerations 鈥� Earth’s atmosphere is approximately 100 times denser than that of Mars, but the trio found that its high concentration of carbon dioxide should compensate for that. 

Then, there’s sunlight to think about. “According to sunlight intensity measurements, the intensity of light is on average less than Earth, but similar to sunlight intensity around the 40th parallel over the winter months, and enough light for almost all plants,” the team wrote. 

Next, temperature: the average temperature on Earth is 57 degrees Fahrenheit, whereas on Mars, it’s 81 below zero, so the experiment assumes you’d be farming inside a greenhouse on the red planet.

So far, they haven’t had any Martian veggies sprout. But the young scientists take pride in the fact that they did, in fact, build a Mars capsule.

“The most rewarding thing about the project was the last few weeks seeing everything come together,” Troyer said. “Once we got the box put together and the soil mixed, we were at the point where we were putting the finishing touches on a lot of the coding pieces. It was exciting to see it all come together and to see that what we designed actually worked.”

Austin Engle ’20 and Ben Stutzman ’20 recently became inventors, successfully patenting the “Garbage Grader” they created while still students at 草莓社区 (EMU). 

The invention analyzes plates of food as they’re thrown out, and grades the diner on how much they wasted. Instead of capitalizing monetarily on the invention, Stutzman and Engle published on an open-access repository so that others can make their own Garbage Graders.

The project was the culminating requirement for their engineering degree. The duo are among the first graduates of the EMU engineering program. Engle is now pursuing a doctorate in computer science at the University of Virginia, and Stutzman is a software engineering intern with the company WebstaurantStore in Lancaster, Pa.

Professor Esther Tian called the experience of working with the duo 鈥渇ulfilling.鈥�

“It was definitely an extended learning opportunity for our students conducting patent search and reading patents in related fields,” said Tian. “The writing of a patent application is a lot different from that of a technical paper.鈥�

Inspiration, design, and assembly

Engle and Stutzman were first inspired by a United Nations study which claimed that one-third of the world’s food is wasted. 

“And that made us so angry that we decided we were going to attack that problem at its source 鈥� a small liberal arts college that’s already really good at not wasting: EMU’s cafeteria,” Engle joked.

They “considered” a few different ways they could convince cafeteria diners to waste less, like building a robot that eats those who don’t finish their food, or starting a pandemic to evacuate campus.

“Or we could build a Garbage Grader,” Engle said.

The system they built under the guidance of engineering professors Tian and Stefano Colafranceschi had several interdependent components. First, a camera mounted above the trashcan was constantly taking photos. A scale underneath, triggered by additional weight as food was dumped in, signaled to the camera to save the previous four photos, to capture an image of the plate just before it was cleared. Then, an artificial intelligence system they trained gave that photo a letter grade.

“And then, a few seconds later, a picture of their plate will appear on the TV screen over here along with a letter grade that tells them how wasteful their plate was,” Stutzman explained. 

Training that artificial intelligence, or neural network, was the most challenging part of building the garbage grader. Engle and Stutzman recruited a team of 15 students and staff to process 15,000 photos of dirty plates, assigning letter grades to teach the network how to evaluate the plates itself.

“This was fun for the first 1,500 or so,” Engle quipped.

“It was a pleasure to brainstorm and work with Ben and Austin,” Colafranceschi said. “Machine learning is hot-topic and it was rewarding to see an original idea become an engineering prototype in just one year.”

But just when it was going so well 鈥� 

After months of work planning, designing, and building this system, they installed the final piece 鈥� the television to show consumers their garbage grade 鈥� on March 8. 

“We had a ton of fun sitting in a corner of the cafeteria and observing people from afar as they reacted to pictures and grades of their own plates,” Stutzman said.

Engle agreed. “It was magical watching everything that we had worked on for the entire year click and start working for the first time,” he said.

They had hoped to see whether being evaluated would make consumers change their behavior, and waste less over time. But of course, just days after they got the television up and running, EMU closed its campus and asked students to return home as the pandemic hit Virginia.

As a result, they didn’t gather enough data to see if diners’ behaviors actually changed.

“It was especially frustrating that the situation was out of our control, so we couldn鈥檛 just engineer our way out,” Stutzman said.

Even with that setback, they had still made a fully functioning invention. Now they hope other innovators will develop the tool and use it further to educate consumers. 

As the young innovators have moved on to post-graduate work and studies, Stutzman said, “we鈥檙e trusting EMU students to eat responsibly without supervision!”

One master codebreaker and Appalachian Trail hiker, one supercomputer builder and high school soccer coach, one student organization leader headed to doctoral studies, one environmental designer bound for data analysis, and one cross-country athlete and eco-marathon mechanic.

Austin Engle, Juan Vazquez, Collin Longenecker, James Paetkau and Ben Stutzman comprise the first graduating class of Eastern Mennoninte University鈥檚 engineering program.

The program, which was started four years ago, is led by professors Esther Tian, Daniel King, and Stefano Colafranceschi. 

鈥淚t鈥檚 such a mixture of emotions鈥� to see this first class graduate, King said. 鈥淕ratefulness to them because of their hard work and dedication to the program over these years, pride over their accomplishments so far, sorrow over the way their final semester came to such an abbreviated end, and excitement to see where they all will end up over the next few years.鈥�

The next few years will see some of these graduates leave the country, while others plan to stay in Harrisonburg. Some have their sights set on graduate school. For others, the workforce or service assignments beckon.

鈥淓ngineering is a special form of art, it takes not just technical knowledge and scientifically sound ideas, but also creativity, fantasy, and the ability to think out of the box,鈥� said Colafranceschi, who guided the students through their capstone projects. 鈥淲e train engineers to serve and lead the way to a better world.鈥�

Tian has many fond memories with this cohort. 鈥淲e have had a lot of laughs together during the last four years, which I truly appreciate. They will be sorely missed,鈥� she says. 鈥淚t is such a fabulous class and I am privileged to work with them in the last four years.鈥�

Austin Engle

Engle is a double major in engineering and computer science from Harrisonburg. He鈥檚 participated in and led student organizations Engineers for a Sustainable World, the Astral Society, the Math Club, and the Association for Computing Machinery. He鈥檚 most proud of 鈥渁ll the friends I’ve made and all the projects I’ve accomplished with them鈥� while at EMU.

Engle鈥檚 engineering capstone, the 鈥淕arbage Grader,鈥� was a collaborative project with fellow graduate Ben Stutzman. 鈥淲e created a device to observe food waste at the EMU cafeteria in order to generate more sustainable eat-not-waste habits. We are thinking about applying for a patent for it,鈥� Engle says.

Tian says that Engle 鈥渉as always been freely and willingly to help his fellow students on their assignments and projects.鈥�

He plans to attend the University of Virginia to pursue a doctorate in computer science.

Juan Vazquez 

Vazquez is a computer engineering major who was born in El Pocito de la Virgen, Guanajuato, Mexico, and calls Waynesboro, Virginia his 鈥渟econd home.鈥� He played on EMU鈥檚 soccer team for four years, was active in the Latino Student Alliance, and was an assistant junior varsity soccer coach at Harrisonburg High School for two years. One of his favorite memories from college is 鈥渕y first goal my junior year against Ferrum.鈥�

For Vazquez鈥檚 capstone project, he built a 鈥渟upercomputer鈥� 鈥� a cluster of 19 computers that can 鈥渉ost web applications, other technology applications, and complete parallel computation.鈥� 

鈥淛uan has been a hardworking student. I appreciate his can-do spirit. He has also done much good work in the IS department throughout these years,鈥� Tian recalls.

He has accepted a job at WF in Charlotte, North Carolina, as a production support analyst.

Collin Longenecker

Longenecker is an engineering major from Harrisonburg. He ran track and cross-country for all four years, helped lead Engineers for a Sustainable World for three, and was involved in the honors council, EMU Explore club, and building a super-efficient eco-marathon vehicle. He was also an embedded tutor in engineering classes.

Among his collegiate accomplishments are recovering from a major surgery in running, organizing hikes to Old Rag, and 鈥渕eeting a ton of incredible people.鈥� One of his favorite memories as a student was traveling to New Orleans with friends for spring break before the pandemic hit.

For his capstone project, Longenecker partnered with James Paetkau and Karissa Sauder to build a website advocating for climate action at EMU. The web pages, based on EMU鈥檚 2015 climate action plan, includes a map of the energy use of different buildings on campus, information about sustainability projects that have been implemented, and an interactive modeling tool that projects EMU鈥檚 future carbon emissions.

Tian calls Longenecker an outstanding student, saying, 鈥渉e has been a wonderful tutor to many students in many classes. His calm manner has benefited us all.鈥�

Longenecker is still determining his future plans, but intends to stay in Harrisonburg for the time being.

James Paetkau

Paetkau is an engineering major from Goshen, Indiana. He served as the president of Engineers for a Sustainable World for two years and was involved with the Sustainable Food Initiative and intramural sports on campus. He counts his greatest collegiate accomplishment as traveling to Guatemala, the U.S.-Mexico border, and Cuba for cross-cultural, and 鈥渞eturning with a solid conversational level of Spanish.鈥�

Paetkau鈥檚 capstone project, which was interrupted by the pandemic, was a design for a rainwater harvesting system to be installed at the Suter House, a rental property on EMU鈥檚 campus. 鈥淭his system would be used to provide water for toilet flushing and irrigate a forest garden that was going to be planted in the adjacent yard,鈥� Paetkau says.

One of his favorite memories from college is 鈥渟targazing on top of the EMU hill both as a first year and as a senior, being able to look out over the twinkling lights of Harrisonburg and take a moment to breathe and reflect on the past week, month, or four years.鈥� 

鈥淛ames has been a brilliant student,鈥� Tian says. He has been insightful in his studies as well as in research.鈥�

He plans to move to Washington, D.C. to work in data analysis and public policy, with the long-term goal of pursuing a graduate degree in those fields.

Ben Stutzman

Stutzman is an engineering major and environmental sustainability minor from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He helped restart the Astral Society, an amateur astronomy club on campus; competed in multiple codebreaking and computer programming competitions; and participated in Engineers for a Sustainable World. He also ran one year of cross-country, and recalls his junior cross-cultural trip to the Middle East as 鈥渇antastic.鈥� 

Stutzman鈥檚 engineering capstone, a collaboration with Austin Engle, was the 鈥淕arbage Grader.鈥� His favorite memories of college are 鈥渞andom dinner conversations with all kinds of people鈥� in the cafeteria and with close friends.

A 鈥渟uperb student,鈥� Stutzman 鈥渉as been inspirational for us,鈥� Tian says, citing the times he ran the Boston marathon and his summer through-hike of the Appalachian Trail.

He plans to join the Peace Corps in Mozambique this fall to teach high school math.

Stefano Colafranceschi, PhD, assistant professor of computer science and engineering at 草莓社区 (EMU), will give a Suter Science Seminar on Wednesday, Jan. 22, at 4 p.m. in room 106 in the EMU science center. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Colafranceschi will speak on 鈥淎 Journey through Engineering and Physics: Trying to Recreate Primordial Universe Conditions.鈥� Without getting too technical on quantum physics, Colafranceschi will explain how modern technologies can be used to 鈥渞ecreate鈥� the conditions of the universe that occurred a few billionths of a second after the Big Bang. Colafranceschi, who by self-profession is 鈥渋nspired by exploring the nature of the Universe,鈥漜ontributed to a number of projects towards creating these obscure conditions.

Colafranceschi became a member of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in 2006 and has worked on the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) Experiment. He joined EMU鈥檚 faculty last year.

The next seminar is on cardiology, to be given by Brian L. Stauffer, MD, on Wednesday, Feb. 12.

The seminars are made possible by the sponsorship of the Daniel B. Suter Endowment in Biology and the co-sponsorship of supporting programs. Named in honor of long-time EMU biology professor, Daniel B. Suter (1920-2006), the Endowment in Biology was established in 1986 through the generous donations of alumni and friends and currently consists of over $1 million of invested funds. EMU hopes to double the Suter Endowment in order to more adequately support distinguished faculty and to increase scholarship aid to deserving students.

Would it fly? Where would it go? Would the data collection devices work and the transponders transmit? How would they find it?

Despite the uncertainty, the class emailed invitations to the community and shared about the project on . And on Launch Day, with about 100 onlookers watching, they breathed a collective sigh of relief as the helium-filled balloon ascended into the sky and drifted away.

The balloon carried a styrofoam box packed with equipment to take atmospheric measurements, including an ozone meter and thermometer, as well as a camera and multiple transponders. The students lost track of the balloon for a period of time because of freezing temperatures at altitude, but communication resumed later in time to find out where it landed.

It wasn鈥檛 quite where they thought it would be. The students had plugged NOAA data into a simulation that predicted the balloon would travel northwest and land near Parkersburg, West Virginia. Instead, it travelled approximately 165 miles to Vienna, Maryland, dropping into an Eastern Shore cornfield where it was recovered by the local police department.

鈥淲e think we may have missed a negative somewhere in the simulation, because it ended up being almost exactly opposite to where it was expected to land,鈥� said Karissa Sauder, who along with classmate Douglas Nester acted as spokespersons for the project.

Their colleagues on the project included Aaron Zimmerman, Ethan Beiler, Blake Sargent, Josh Schlabach and Professor Stefano Colafranceschi.

Inspired by a visit to a NASA research facility three years ago, 草莓社区 engineering student Dylan Grove 鈥�19 dedicated his senior engineering capstone project to building a wind tunnel for his alma mater.

Grove, who is from Dickerson, Maryland, began research for the tunnel last August, and designed and constructed it this spring and summer. The 14 feet-long structure includes a series of component systems 鈥� intake manifold, test chamber, diffuser, blower 鈥� that are precisely designed and mounted on a black metal frame to create 100 mile-per-hour winds.

The EMU engineering department will use the tunnel in its fluid mechanics class to model air flow and study lift, drag and other forces on models such as an airplane with an eight-inch wingspan. 

The project鈥檚 roots go back to 2016, when then-sophomore Grove and classmates in EMU鈥檚 newly christened engineering program saw large-scale wind tunnels during a visit to NASA鈥檚 Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

EMU, Grove learned, was planning to buy a wind tunnel for its own use. 鈥淲hy?鈥� he recalls asking. 鈥淲e can probably just build one. That sounds like a great senior project.鈥�

(Engineering professor Esther Tian, in a subsequent broadcast on the Shenandoah Valley鈥檚 NPR station, commented that the visit had inspired students to brainstorm about this.)

In pursuing that goal, Grove was supported by Venture Products in Orrville, Ohio, where as an engineering intern last summer he learned a lot that he put to hands-on use in this project.

The company donated sheet metal, some of which they cut and bent for creating the intake. Grove was proud and appreciative of the finished product, which he designed and made with help from Venture Product鈥檚 Roscoe Lehman: a complex work of engineering art whose 鈥渧ariable radius curve鈥� required that they 鈥渂uild the fabrication process into the design,鈥� he said.

He also found many collaborators right on campus. Professors Tian and Stefano Colafranceschi advised him on the project, and engineering classmates helped with design plans; computer science students with programming the control system; mathematical sciences lab tech Buddy Wilkins with processing ideas; and Facilities Management fleet and equipment coordinator Henry Bowser with welding the frame.

鈥淚t鈥檚 not just out of my brain, that鈥檚 for sure,鈥� Grove said.

Donated materials greatly reduced the cost of the potentially expensive project. In addition to Venture Products鈥� contributions, the New York Blower Company in Willowbrook, Illinois, donated the blower, and Glass and Metals in Harrisonburg donated the plexiglass.

Throughout, Grove maintained a healthy skepticism, on at least one occasion this summer looking at the various components spread across his workspace and commenting, 鈥淚f it works, I鈥檒l be really pleased.鈥�

But then two parts would fit together really well, such as when the 450-pound blower was lowered by tractor onto the frame and the six holes for the anchor bolts aligned perfectly. 鈥淥h! Wow!鈥� he remembers thinking. 鈥淭his is incredible!鈥�

The wind tunnel, stationed in Suter Science Center Room 003, works like this: From the tail end of the tunnel, the blower draws air into a wide-mouthed, fifth-order polynomial-shaped funnel fronted with a honeycomb mesh that breaks up incoming turbulence and straightens the air flow. As air enters the narrowing funnel, it is compressed, accelerating until it reaches and travels through the test chamber, which is walled with plexiglass to allow observation from any direction. On its exit from the chamber, the air is then pulled through the diffuser, a slowly expanding cone, which allows it to decelerate smoothly into the blower.

Open to students, staff and 鈥渁nybody curious to see what鈥檚 under the hood of one of the most advanced operating systems,鈥� the August 26 event in the Suter Science Center offered participants hands-on practice, installation media and 鈥渁 ton of help and support,鈥� said computer science and engineering Professor Stefano Colafranceschi, who organized the event. 

鈥淎lthough the Unix heritage is important and the key of several modern systems, young students are not much aware of it,鈥� Colafranceschi said. 鈥淭he Linux operating system is the key of many modern technologies and systems, but it鈥檚 also an inspiring story of a very large and complex project accomplished 鈥榯ogether鈥� for the human kind.鈥�

Expert researchers with whom Colafranceschi has collaborated provided presentations via Zoom on topics including:

• 鈥淪egmentation FAULT! How to configure a Linux kernel鈥� by Marco Randazzo of the ;
• 鈥淩ole of Linux in the quest for big data鈥� by Giuseppe lo Presti, senior software engineer at CERN IT;
• 鈥淟inux for Science: Data Acquisition Systems (DAQ) and large analysis frameworks鈥� by Vallary Bhopatkar of the ; and
• 鈥淎dvanced Bash scripting鈥� by Stephen Butalla of the Florida Institute of Technology.

Based on the Unix platform, Linux was created in the early 1990s. Freely distributable, it is 鈥渁uthored and maintained by a group of several thousand (if not more) developers loosely collaborating across the Internet,鈥� . 

Soil Cycles HVA 鈥� 鈥淐ompost Collection on Two Wheels鈥� 鈥� offers food scrap pick-up services to residential and business subscribers. Collected compostables are delivered to bins placed in the city by Black Bear Composting, which composts them. The returned soil matter can be used by subscribers or donated to community gardens or local farms.

Since its first pickup on May 3, has biked 529 miles to collect 1,461 pounds of compost, preventing 2,749 kg of carbon emissions, according to its website. Residents pay $25 a month for weekly pickup and supplies, and businesses pay according to their volume. 聽

Similar services are underway in 27 other states, all working to curb the more than 50 million tons of food sent to landfills each year in the United States, Vinod said.

But Soil Cycles is about more than simply preventing waste. It seeks to 鈥渓ift our local economy鈥� with subscriber reward cards offering monthly discounts and deals such as free coffee at Shenandoah Joe鈥檚 鈥� a perk for subscribers and an advertising boost for the vendors 鈥� and, eventually, by growing to become an employer, one that pays its workers livable wages.

鈥淲e鈥檙e able to hit so many points, like fossil fuels, regeneration, restoration of land, having more trees and plants and community gardens, and providing services for our community members and more money for local economy,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t ties together all things.鈥�

Vinod, who grew up in Bengaluru (formerly Bangalore), India, has traveled for two and a half years to Central and South America, Japan, Nepal, Indonesia, Malaysia and elsewhere. The experience left her with an increased appreciation for the sustainability efforts of her grandparents, who on their farm in India grew their own food and planted coconut trees for oil.

The travels also instilled in her a need to learn more about the world鈥檚 problems, in order to solve them 鈥� for example by biking, she said, noting the famed assertion that it is 鈥渁 silent protest against fossil fuels.鈥�

As a sophomore, she transferred from James Madison University 鈥� where art history professor Charles Maddox still encourages her in her environmental activism 鈥� to EMU after learning about its sustainability program鈥檚 鈥渞eally good reputation鈥� in the city and campus efforts such as the Sustainable Food Initiative and bicycle-powered recycling collection.

鈥淥nce I looked at the campus and met some of the professors, I felt really inspired to be here and learn more in terms of peace and justice,鈥� she said.

In 2017 she began laying the groundwork for Soil Cycles, along with JMU student Amelia Morrison and sustainability activist Taylor Evans, and she found EMU professors to be 鈥渧ery supportive.鈥� A discrete math class taught by Professor Daniel Showalter devised efficient collection routes that avoided steep climbs and dangerous streets, and in a Python coding class taught by Showalter, and with input from Professor Stefano Colafranceschi, Vinod created a tool for looking up what is or isn鈥檛 compostable.

Vinod plans to remain in Harrisonburg following her graduation and to continue with Soil Cycles along with the team that has developed, which includes Kristen Grimshaw, Brian Nixon and Nolan and Quintin Peters.

The H2020 STRATOFLY academy, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (known popularly as CERN) and the European Space Agency have invited input from university teams through a massive open online platform, said Professor Stefano Colafranceschi. Its goal is 鈥渉igh-speed civil passenger transport along antipodal routes in the stratosphere鈥� by 2030-35, .

The EMU team 鈥� Isaac Andreas, Duncan Ferency-Viars, Ethan Herman, Jacob Horsley, Philip Park and Graham Stauffer 鈥� will focus on remote sensing with fiber optics to provide the plane鈥檚 pilots and computers with real-time monitoring of plane conditions, and on advanced programmable computer architecture, said Colafranceschi.

Stauffer, a senior computer science major, said he joined the cross-discipline team to gain hands-on, real-world programming and testing experience.

鈥淚鈥檓 looking forward to being able to work with new people I haven鈥檛 yet gotten to take classes with,鈥� he said, 鈥渁s well as being able to work on a project that combines my field of study (computer science) with my personal interests in aviation and engineering.鈥�

The European Union-funded STRATOFLY project 鈥渋s highly multidisciplinary and combines technological and operative issues,鈥� its states. In addition to economic, public safety and other issues, a new hypersonic jet must integrate 鈥渋nnovative propulsion systems, unconventional structural configurations and systems for the thermal and energy management鈥� with reduced emissions and noise, among other attributes.

International connections 鈥� specifically 鈥済etting to learn from and connect with people from all over鈥� 鈥� drew Andreas, a sophomore math and computer science major, to the project, as did the more immediate experience of being part of the team.

鈥淐ertainly learning collaboration skills will be helpful in the future,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 hope we can add something substantial from EMU.鈥�

Ultimately, Colafranceschi told the team, any contributions to such a project face a tricky test: integration with all other aspects of the plane鈥檚 design. That will take research and trial and error.

鈥淒on鈥檛 expect that whatever you will do will be successful,鈥� he said. 鈥淭here are many things that will go wrong. Satisfaction is when you see that your component is happily integrated into the larger project.鈥�

Students, if you’d like to get onboard, email聽highspeededucation@emu.edu