NEWS BYTES FACULTY › Professor Enrico Bellotti’s (ECE, MSE) Computational Electronics Group received a $336,000 grant from the NSF for research that could improve utility pole efficiency and reduce developmental costs of electric trains. The group also received a $150,000 grant from the Army Research Office to evaluate heterogeneous computer architectures to simulate advanced materials and devices.
› The American Cancer Society
granted Assistant Professor Darren Roblyer (BME) a Research Scholar Award of $776,000 over four years to develop a noninvasive, wearable imaging device he invented that promises to ensure that cancer patients receive chemotherapy drugs that work effectively throughout the course of treatment.
› The Department of Energy awarded
$800,000 to an ENG team—Associate Professor Srikanth Gopalan, Professors Soumendra Basu and Uday Pal, and Assistant Professor Emily Ryan (all ME, MSE)—and industry partner, Fuel Cell Energy, to extend the lifetimes of solid oxide fuel cells, which are suitable for applications ranging from electric power stations to longhaul transportation.
› Assistant Professor Xue Han (BME) received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers at the White House in April.
A prototype system the Roblyer Lab plans to clinically test to improve cancer treatment (Photo by Connor Gleason)
› Professor Barbara Shinn-
Cunningham (BME) was elected as vice president of the Acoustical Society of America.
Professor Barbara Shinn-Cunningham (BME) with outgoing Vice President Peter Dahl at the Acoustical Society of America conference.
› Associate Professor Muhammad Zaman (BME, MSE) addressed the “Showcasing the Bioeconomy—The Future Is Now” conference at the US State Department in March.
STUDENTS & ALUMNI › Three BU students—Winston Chen (ECE’16), Dean Shi (ECE’16) and Huy Le (CAS’16)—and a UMass Lowell student, Corey Prak (’15) were named the winners of HackBostonStrong, a 26.2hour event organized by mobile app development firm Intrepid Pursuits to encourage technological advancements to solve marathon-related issues. Winning $2,000 for their efforts, the team developed the “Echo Can,” a green bin that sorts recyclable and unrecyclable waste. › Competing with about 500 other
student groups, ENG’s Global App Initiative received two student group awards from BU’s Student Activities Office: Best in Category: Service and Justice; and Excellence in Individual Programming, for its GAI App Fair.
› Andrew Kelley (CE’14), who has started his career at SpaceX, received the BU Center for Space Physics Undergraduate Research Award. Kelley was selected for his contribution to the BU Satellite Program and the BU Rocket Propulsion Group.
started 17 websites or mobile apps from scratch within 24 hours. BU clubs BUILDS, Digital Media Club and Open Web also helped plan the event.
› A $1,000 prototype of AutoScan, a vehicle-mounted pothole detection system developed by graduating EE students Austen Schmidt, Nandheesh Prasad, Charlie Vincent, Vinny DeGenova and Stuart Minshull as part of their senior design project, won first prize in a video contest organized by GizmoSphere. Coupled with tracking and scheduling software and incorporating a low-cost, embedded technology development platform called a Gizmo board, the system could provide a comprehensive and economical road repair solution. › A team of MSE grad students (PhD
students Shizhao Su, Yihong Jiang and Yiwen Gong, and MEng student Xiao Han) from Professor Uday Pal’s (ME, MSE) research group won the silver medal and an $8,000 cash prize at the TECO Green Tech Contest in Taiwan in August for their project, “Innovative Green Technology for CostEffective Metals Production.” The BU team placed second among 19 teams representing universities from China, Japan, Russia, Singapore and the US.
› A paper by Assistant Professor President Barack Obama talks with PECASE recipients in the East Room of the White House, April 14, 2014 (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza). Han is in the second row (from top), fourth from left.
› Professor Yannis Paschalidis (ECE, SE) is editor-in-chief of the new IEEE journal Transactions on Control of Network Systems, which released its inaugural issue in April on the IEEE Xplore site.
Yannis Paschalidis
Matthias Schneider (ME) and Research Associate Shamit Shrivastava that appeared in June in Journal of the Royal Society Interface provides new evidence suggesting that cells can signal each other via sound waves, and potentially leading to fundamentally new drug targets and approaches for treating neurological disease and engineering artificial organs.
› An interdisciplinary team consisting
of Professor Sandor Vajda (BME, SE), Research Assistant Professor Dima Kozakov (BME), Professor Yannis Paschalidis (ECE, SE) and Associate Professor Pirooz Vakili (ME, SE) has discovered new computational methods to boost the speed and accuracy of software that predicts the structures of complexes that form when two proteins bind together. Described in the journal eLife, these new methods could help researchers quickly discover both healthy protein pairs and disease-causing pairs that may serve as drug targets.
Associate Professor Joshua Semeter (ECE), Andrew Kelley (CE’14) and ECE Department Chair Professor David Castañón (ECE, SE). Photo by Chitose Suzuki
› Annie Lane and Maya Saint Germain (both CE’16) and Kathleen Lewis and Rebecca Thompson (both BME) received Clare Boothe Luce Scholar Awards, which support undergraduate summer research projects undertaken by female US citizens. › Connor McEwen (ECE’14) and a planning team called Make_BU organized the first overnight hackathon, or collaborative computer programming event, at BU’s Engineering Product Innovation Center. In groups of two to four people, more than 120 hackers
Yihong Jiang, Shizhao Su and Yiwen Gong with their silver medal at the Green Tech Contest. (Xiao Han was unable to attend.)
› Senior design teammates Poling Yeung, Michaelina Dupnik and William Moik (all BME’14) took second place in the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering’s Design by Undergraduate Biomedical Engineering Teams (DEBUT) competition. The team, which created a high-tech glove to enhance the capabilities of the traditional white cane used by people with visual impairments, will receive $15,000 at a ceremony at the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) conference in October. —Mark Dwortzan, Gabriella McNevin, Chelsea Hermond (SMG’15) and Paloma Parikh (COM’15)
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