Portland State Magazine Fall 2013

6 PORTLAND STATE MAGAZINE FALL 2013 PA R K B L O C K S Russian exposure EMPLOYERS around the world need professionals with advanced Russian skills, and Professor Sandra Freels is filling those jobs with Portland State graduates. She founded PSU’s Russian Flagship Program to help students from any major achieve near-native Russian fluency in four years. Students take intensive Russian language classes, conduct research in their major in Russian, and spend a year working, studying, and living with a host family in St. Petersburg, Russia. When they graduate, they are ready for government and business careers with a Russian focus anywhere in the world. Future students will benefit from a new scholarship honoring Freels, who will retire in June. To contribute, contact Meghan Milinski, 503-725-8118, milinski@pdx.edu . SEEING DESIGN on a computer screen is no match for touching and testing a prototype, but prototypes can take time. The University’s newest 3D printer in the Electronic Prototyping Lab gives students quicker results, but not too quick. “I like to say, students can walk in with a CAD file and walk out 24 hours and 15 cups of coffee later with a prototype, says Andrew Greenberg ’98, MS ’05. Greenberg, adjunct faculty, is advisor for the student-run lab, where students like Chris Andrews ’13, seen here, use the lab’s soldering station. They build circuit board controlled motors and parts for projects such as small copters or hand-held video games. Even home 3D printers are not beyond the lab’s capabilities. “It’s all about bits to atoms,” says Greenberg. Building is believing