Home > About BNE > Press Room > 2011 Archive > May > UB becomes e-Design Center site

UB becomes e-Design Center site

By David Robinson
NEWS BUSINESS REPORTER
May 19, 2011, 12:00 AM

The University at Buffalo has been accepted as a full university member research site by the National Science Foundation’s e-Design Center.

Harvey G. Stenger, UB’s interim provost, said the designation is “a big win” for UB and local companies, which can form partnerships with the school’s New York State Center for Engineering Design and Industrial Innovation for help on engineering design projects.

The program is designed to help companies gain access to university research at UB and other schools that they might not otherwise be able to tap into, said Kemper Lewis, a UB professor and the engineering design center’s director.

The center “has been working with industry all along. This allows us to take that partnership to the next level,” Stenger said.

UB becomes one of eight universities that belong to the e-Design Center, joining the University of Massachusetts, the University of Central Florida, Carnegie Mellon University, Virginia Tech, Brigham Young University, Wayne State University and the University of Puerto Rico.

The center has provided engineering design services to nearly 40 companies in the Buffalo Niagara region since it was formed in 2001.

As a requirement for joining the e-Design Center, UB also formed partnerships with five local industrial firms, ranging from motion-control equipment maker Moog Inc. to medical device start-up TheraSyn Sensors.

Jerome Schentag, a UB professor who founded TheraSyn, said its collaboration with the center is helping the start-up with virtual design work that he believes will be important in showcasing the firm’s products to potential investors before they are available in prototype form.