How can my phone make my boat safer?

March 23, 2013
An interactive session led by Dr. Leigh McCue-Weil

KTU Booklet
Associate Professor in Virginia Tech's Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering, an affiliate to the VT Department of Engineering Education, and a core faculty member of the Virginia Center for Autonomous Systems 

 These days it seems everyone is carrying around a smart phone. But just how smart is that phone? It can give you directions, recommend a restaurant, even let your parents keep an eye on where you are. In this talk we will take that a step further to see how our phones can help us make boating safer. If you have seen popular crabbing TV shows, you have seen how dangerous commercial fishing can be. We will discuss the ins and outs of writing an app to try to alleviate some of that risk.

Leigh McCue is an Associate Professor in Virginia Tech's Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering, an affiliate to the VT Department of Engineering Education, and a core faculty member of the Virginia Center for Autonomous Systems (I like robots.). Her research interests are in nonlinear and chaotic vessel dynamics including capsize, parametric rolling, and sea-based aviation operations largely involving analytical and numerical approaches including computational fluid dynamics. This work has been supported by ONR, NSF, CSC, and QinetiQ. Additionally, Dr. McCue has twice participated in the ASEE-ONR Summer Faculty Research Program to continue her work in collaboration with researchers at the Carderock Division of the Naval Surface Warfare Center and is currently on sabbatical for the 2011-2012 academic year with the Combatant Craft Division of the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock.

Dr. McCue received her BSE degree in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering in 2000 from Princeton University. She earned her graduate degrees from the University of Michigan in Aerospace Engineering (MSE 2001) and Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering (MSE 2002, PhD 2004). At the 2007 Virginia Tech College of Engineering Dean's Awards she received an 'Outstanding New Assistant Professor' award; at the 2010 Dean's Awards she was named a 'Faculty Fellow'. In 2008 Dr. McCue received both an NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) grant and an ONR Young Investigator Program (YIP) grant. McCue is the recipient of a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE).

March 23, 2013 - Hands-On Exhibits

After the interactive session the students will be escorted by their parents to have lunch and then to the hands-on portion of the event. There the students will enjoy the experience of interacting with various exhibits from the Virginia Tech community.