Mary Paz Alvarez and Yu Yang Huang graduated this semester with their Master's degrees

The Center for Packaging and Unit Load Design congratulates Mary Paz Alvarez and Yu Yang Huang for passing their Master’s defenses earlier this semester!

Mary’s research was titled “Investigation of the interactions between the components of palletized drums and pails throughout storage and distribution.” Her research was featured in a previous CPULD News article, which showed that wooden pallets should be designed for the specific type of packages they will be carrying in order to optimize the cost of the pallet and reduce the amount of raw materials used to manufacture wooden pallets.

After graduating in August, Mary stayed on here at CPULD as a Ph.D. student, where she is now focusing on building a Finite Element model to predict the effect of pallet stiffness on plastic pails strength. The results of her new project will be built into the Pallet Design System computer software, which will allow pallet designers to further optimize the pallets supporting plastic pails.  

Yu Yang’s research had focused on the “Evaluation of the maximum pallet deflection that occurs under forklift handling.” His work was also featured in a previous CPULD News article, with results showing that an increase in forklift speed increases vibration intensity, while an increase in the forklift load weight decreases vibration intensity.

Yu Yang accepted a position as a Logistics Engineer with Alstom in Hornell, NY, and moved there a few months ago. CPULD misses him, but we know that he’s a great addition to their team!

“I had a privilege to work with these exceptional students,” said Laszlo Horvath, CPULD director and an advisor to both students, “and I am looking forward to see the difference that they will make in the packaging industry.”