Illinois Tech Research 2023 (External)

Illinois Tech

Research

2023

Denser, Safer, Thinner, Better Designing A Dream Green Battery

Planes, Trains, and Cyber Defense

An Algorithmic Boost to the Energy Grid

An AI Bests the Bar Exam

What an exciting time to be facing societal challenges! There are new problems, but faculty, students, and staff at Illinois Tech are bringing new ideas to bear.

We are making transportation and built environments cleaner, safer, and more efficient. As digital capabilities grow exponentially, we are taking advantage of new opportunities while protecting against new threats. We are improving quality of life, and we are leveraging our capabilities to make a greater impact through partnerships with other organizations.

Let me invite you to explore the latest in Illinois Tech research, which spans all of our disciplines, and to please return to research.iit.edu throughout the year to find out what is new.

Sincerely, Fred Hickernell Vice Provost for Research Professor of Applied Mathematics 2

Illinois Tech Research

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Illinois Tech Features

Research

2023

Briefs 4 Treating Wounds That Won’t Heal 5 Visualizing an Optimal Portfolio 6 Taking the Bet out of Bitcoin 7 Studying Relationship ‘Jet Lag’ 8 A Philosophical Study of Policing 10 A Cyber Seminar in Kosovo 11 Keeping Our Water Clean

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Tackling Transportation Safety

Illinois Tech’s Center for Assured and Resilient Navigation in Advanced Transportation Systems (CARNATIONS) will receive a $10 million grant.

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11 ‘Jurors are Made Not Found’

An Algorithmic Boost to the Energy Grid

14 Measuring Amid the Stars

Professor Sonja Petrović has joined a team at Argonne National Laboratory to help optimize the national energy grid using probabilistic algorithms.

Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering Mohammad Asadi, pictured in one of his labs at Illinois Tech, has a new lithium-air battery design with the potential for reaching ultra-high power densities far beyond current technology.

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Helping Older Adults Detect Online Scams

Professor Carly Kocurek is part of a $5 million National Science Foundation project that aims to create digital tools to help older adults better recognize and protect themselves from online deceptions.

22

The Bar Exam?

There’s an AI for That

Professor Daniel Katz’s prediction that the large-language model ChatGPT-4 would eventually pass the multiple-choice portion of the bar exam came true, and his research explains how AI did it. .

Research Spotlights 26 A Solid Center 27 Knowing Turbulent Flows 28 An Intersection of Research and Athletics 29 The Institute for Food Safety and Health Turns 35 30 Steering Without a Tail

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Novel Green Battery Design

The chemistry behind Assistant Professor Mohammad Asadi’s novel lithium-air battery design, as described in Science, could allow for ultra-high power densities far beyond current lithium-ion technology.

31 Fresh Partnerships in Growing Fields 32 Influit Energy Enters Next Stage 33 A New Path to Hardware Virtualization

Illinois Tech Research is published annually by the Office of Marketing and Communications and the Office of Research.

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For further information about Illinois Tech’s resources, contact the Illinois Tech Center for Disability Resources at disabilities@iit.edu.

Illinois Tech Research 2023 HEALTH AND WELLNESS / URBAN FUTURES

A Window into Sustainability at Willis Tower Automated insulating window shades can provide energy savings in buildings by making sure that shades stay closed when they are not in use, reducing the amount of heat passing in or out of the building through the window.

According to a ComEd-funded study, led by Illinois Institute of Technology Assistant Professor of Architectural Engineering Mohammad Heidarinejad, and conducted at Willis Tower in Chicago, in some buildings, the energy savings of heating and cooling as a result of automated shades are high enough to provide cost-effective payback.

Windows (with insulating shades)

Temperature regulation typically accounts for 30–40 percent of the energy used by buildings in climates similar to Chicago.

“If you’re designing a new building, you have a lot of freedom to look at new technologies that save on energy consumption, but for existing buildings, you have limited options,” says Heidarinejad.

Heidarinejad and his colleagues realized that insulating window shades could provide significant energy savings if connected to a system that provided greater control over when shades are opened or closed.

—Simon Morrow

February 18, 2022 Temperature in Fahrenheit FLIR Infrared

62˚

49˚

HEALTH AND WELLNESS

Reducing Police Prejudice Without Backlash As protesters marched in the summer of 2020, Illinois Tech associate professors of psychology Nicole Legate and Arlen Moller, and alum Maya Al-Khouja (PSYC ’16), part of a team with colleagues at the University of Reading, Durham University, and the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom, conducted a study published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology hoping to find solutions to reducing prejudice within police forces in the United States and abroad.

“One of the foundations of (our self-determination theory) is that human beings have evolved to have a psychological need for autonomy,” says Moller.

The study found that police officers who felt their autonomy was more supported by supervisors ultimately reported less antagonism toward the diversity initiatives, suggesting autonomy-supporting techniques may be more effective than simple coercion or pressure.

—Tom Linder

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Illinois Tech Research

Windows (with no treatment)

URBAN FUTURES

Busting the Congestion Professor of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering Zongzhi Li has co-authored a book that lays out the urgency of addressing transportation problems in our largest cities.

Megacity Mobility, published in December 2021 by CRC Press, addresses transportation policy, planning, management, and decision-making in a multimodal context.

According to a United Nations report, the world’s urban population grew more than 550 percent between 1950 and 2018, even faster than the rate of global population growth during that time. As such, the number of megacities—cities with populations

that are approaching or have exceeded 10 million inhabitants or more—has been increasing.

But much like how a city of one million people would not survive on the type of transportation system used in a village of 100 residents, the transportation paradigms of megacities require some fundamental rethinking.

Megacity Mobility aims to provide a framework for this rethinking, with lessons for policymakers and stakeholders of urban transportation.

“It describes how I think the transportation system should be developed and managed in the long run,” says Li. —Simon Morrow

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Illinois Tech Research 2023

HEALTH AND WELLNESS

Treating Wounds That Won’t Heal Georgia Papavasiliou, professor of biomedical engineering at Illinois Institute of Technology, received a second round of funding from the Pilot and Feasibility Award program at University of Chicago’s Diabetes Research and Training Center.

The program aims to promote new research discoveries and enhance scientific progress by supporting cutting-edge basic and clinical research on the causes of diabetes and its complications.

Papavasiliou and co-investigator Fouad Teymour, S.C. Johnson Professor of Chemical Engineering from the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, aim to develop a novel ointment to

treat chronically infected diabetic wounds that fail to heal.

“The complications of unhealed diabetic wounds that remain infected are actually devastating,” says Papavasiliou. “I think having a product that can actually deliver therapeutics together in a very, very precise way, using one ointment, in combination with wound dressings currently on the market, is the way to go.”

Shadi Motamed (M.S. BME Candidate) is a contributor to this research.

—Simon Morrow

COMPUTATION AND DATA

Argonne Scientists Bring Opportunities to Illinois Tech Three scientists from Argonne National Laboratory have accepted joint appointments in the Department of Computer Science at Illinois Institute of Technology, a collaboration that will open research opportunities for students and faculty.

Valerie Taylor has accepted an appointment as a research professor, while Xingfu Wu and Michael Kruse have been named research associate professors through Argonne and Illinois Tech’s joint appointment program. The program’s goal is to maximize the intellectual and physical resources of both Argonne and Illinois Tech in order to promote research and collaboration. The appointees may serve as co-advisers to Ph.D. candidates at Illinois Tech, exposing them to the cutting-edge research projects, as well as open networking pathways and full-time internships at a U.S. Department of Energy lab.

“We are delighted to announce these new appointments, which 4

Illinois Tech Research

will bring a wealth of opportunity to our faculty and students, including additional funding, more diverse research, and increased collaboration,” says Shlomo Argamon, a professor and former chair of Illinois Tech’s Department of Computer Science.

—Casey Moffitt

COMPUTATION AND DATA

Visualizing an Optimal Portfolio Yong Zheng, assistant professor of information technology and management at Illinois Institute of Technology, has earned a grant from Morningstar, Inc. to develop a visualization tool that will help the Chicago-based financial technology outfit’s clients make informed decisions about their investment portfolios.

Zheng’s goal is to build an interactive visualization platform that will allow Morningstar clients to interact with a user interface and visualize the pros and cons of portfolio options. This tool will ensure that clients are aware of the impacts on their assets based

on risk/returns changes and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) scores. This should result in more transparency and trust in Morningstar’s financial portfolios.

This is the second phase of a Morningstar grant that Zheng received in 2022 to develop intelligent and effective solutions for financial portfolio optimization, which was realized through algorithm development, coding, and evaluations.

—Casey Moffitt

COMPUTATION AND DATA

Computational ACTion Five Illinois Institute of Technology research teams have received seed grants from the university’s Active Computational Thinking (ACT) Center to promote interdisciplinary computing methods.

The ACT Center’s Computational Interdisciplinary Seed Funding (CISF) program bestows grants up to $20,000 to initiate innovative research programs that integrate computational methods and thinking with other disciplines. The goal of the projects is to incubate interdisciplinary teams and ideas to develop innovative research projects.

Shlomo Argamon, ACT Center interim director and professor of computer science at Illinois Tech, says each project shows particular strength in four areas:



A strong integration of research in computation and another disciplinary area, likely to lead to transformational results



Methodologically solid work on an important scientific problem



Likely impact beyond the specific research, whether in scholarship, industrial application, or social impact



A strong plan for obtaining external follow-up funding, to ensure that these seed grants have long-term impact

—Casey Moffitt

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Illinois Tech Research 2023 HEALTH AND WELLNESS

‘That’s the Goal’: Turning Research Into Real-World Impact Pulkita Jain (CHE ’22) came to Illinois Institute of Technology with a simple plan: to work in a laboratory and do research, though she hadn’t nailed down the specifics.

But there was one big question: did she have what it takes to step into the post-doctorate world of testing, analysis, and academia.

“Can I work in a lab for an extended number of hours? When my experiment fails to work, will I give up?”

Jain found a passion that would drive her research goal by helping people control diabetes. “We wanted to build an algorithm, build a system, build a model, that can predict what your hyperglycemia levels would be in, let’s say, the next 30 minutes.”

Making this goal a reality would change her perspective on academic research.

“

I’m happy to be contributing to something that actually makes a difference.”

See video

—Pulkita Jain (CHE ’22)

“I’m happy to be contributing to something that actually makes a difference.

Working in a lab is nice and all, but if I can take it and make it industrialized, make it

public, make it available—that’s really it.

That’s the goal, right there.”

—Thaddeus Mast

COMPUTATION AND DATA

Taking the Bet Out of Bitcoin Since launching in 2009 as the first cryptocurrency, Bitcoin has taken investors on a financial roller coaster ride. Faced with such volatility, investment professionals, economists, and academic researchers have asked the question since its launch: what drives Bitcoin returns?

Now there are answers, thanks to research by Associate Professor of Finance Sang Baum Kang at Illinois Institute of Technology’s

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Illinois Tech Research

Stuart School of Business and two of his former students—Yao Xie (M.S. Finance ’15, Ph.D. MSC ’21) at Morningstar Inc. and Jialin Zhao (Ph.D. MSC ’17) at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio.

“What Information Variables Predict Bitcoin Returns? A DimensionReduction Approach,” published in The Journal of Alternative Investments, details how they used cutting-edge predictive analytics techniques and dimension-reduction models to analyze data covering January 2011 to January 2020 and to identify factors that impact bitcoin returns.

“We find that blockchain technology, investor sentiment, and stress level have predictive power for bitcoin returns,” Kang says. “Similar to traditional assets, bitcoin shows higher return predictability with longer return horizons.”

In addition, he notes, “Bitcoin returns are largely detached from economic fundamentals, [so] we caution against using Bitcoin as a diversifier or safe-haven asset within an investment portfolio.”

—Scott Lewis

COMPUTATION AND DATA

Student Researchers Develop Stablecoin to Earn Grainger Prize A team of student researchers at Illinois Institute of Technology took home the $15,000 first prize in a finals event for the second annual Grainger Computing Innovation Prize by developing a cross-compatible, simple-to-use stablecoin solution to help solve the financial access gap for millions of Mexico’s unbanked.

The winning team, StarPay, built a stablecoin, a form of cryptocurrency that is pegged to a reference asset, which they hope becomes “the go-to payment solution for the future of the country’s CDBC infrastructure.”

The StarPay team includes André Guardia (PHYS 4th Year), Jorge Plascencia (AE 2nd Year), Rishabh Tyagi (CS 4th Year), and David Singer (ITM 4th Year). They say that in Mexico 90 percent of all transactions are conducted in cash, there are fragmented smartphone capabilities, and inconsistent internet coverage, instigating a need for a simple, cross-compatible payment network.

—Thaddeus Mast

The winning team of the Grainger Computing Innovation Prize, StarPay, wearing their first-place medallions beside Grainger Vice President and Chief Technology Officer Jonny LeRoy, far left; College of Computing Dean Lance Fortnow, second from left; and Illinois Tech Provost Ken Christensen, far right.

URBAN FUTURES

Studying Relationship ‘Jet Lag’ When couples are forced to geographically separate, how well do they handle it? If they’re in long-distance relationships, do they “transition” better than those who live near each other? How about right after a reunion—is there an emotional “jet lag” as they adapt to the new state of the relationship?

All of these questions were explored in a new paper co-authored

by Steff Du Bois, an associate professor of psychology at Illinois Institute of Technology. Du Bois also runs the Du Bois Health Psychology Laboratory at Illinois Tech.

The study, titled “Relationship ‘Jet Lag’ in Long-Distance and Geographically Close Relationships: The Impact of Relationship Transitions on Emotional Functioning,” was published this year in Couple and Family Psychology: Research and Practice. The research was primarily carried out by the paper’s co-authors at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, while Du Bois contributed to conceptualizing the study and developing its methodology. Du Bois’s research has long focused on the association between physical health and mental health in romantic relationships. In particular, he looks at relationships in LGBTQ+ and long-distance relationships.

—Tad Vezner 7

Illinois Tech Research 2023 URBAN FUTURES

A Philosophical Study of Policing Associate Professor Raff Donelson, along with scholars at Pennsylvania State University, was awarded a grant of $5,000 from the American Philosophical Association (APA) to fund their Policing, Policy, and Philosophy Initiative (3PI). According to Donelson, this is one of the first projects that is dedicated to policing that the APA has funded.

The aim of the project is to “foster collaboration among philosophers and ethicists who study policing, with the goal of connecting their work to ongoing policy debates,” according to the 3PI website. The APA grant acts as seed money to help get the work off the ground.

“Dozens of people of color are killed by police every year. Now because there is a national narrative about it, each one of these is going to be looked at with scrutiny, and we’re going to revisit these questions,” Donelson says. “Questions that used to be what only radicals were thinking, now are mainstream.”

—Kayla Molander

HEALTH AND WELLNESS

A Heartfelt Study on Muscle Contraction Illinois Institute of Technology professors Weikang Ma and Thomas Irving—working in collaboration with a team from the University of Washington—have published a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences making the case for a second, newly discovered aspect to muscle contraction, hoping to change the way biology understands the action.

Ma and Irving argue the relationship between the thin and thick filaments that comprise muscle tissue is not as straightforward as previously believed, as motor proteins that make up

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Illinois Tech Research

thick filaments do not automatically find their way to thin filaments to generate force and contract the muscle.

“The motor proteins have to be woken up and released before they can [generate force and contract the muscle]” says Irving.

A better understanding of this relationship between thick and thin filaments is leading to emerging drugs to treat genetic cardiac conditions, including dilated and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

—Tom Linder

HEALTH AND WELLNESS

Chip-Sized Device a Mighty Tool in Colon Cancer Fight Illinois Institute of Technology Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering Abhinav Bhushan is making new use of his groundbreaking microfluidic device that mimics the colon environment by using it to test the effectiveness of bacteria that have been engineered to detect and kill colon cancer.

The research team, led by Associate Professor at University of California, San Diego Amir Zarrinpar, received funding from the National Institutes of Health.

“Even though our ability to diagnose colorectal cancer is improving, it’s really hard to treat,” says Bhushan.

The colon environment presents unique challenges for laboratory testing because it is made up of two types of cells in close proximity with very different needs: The cells that make up the colon walls require oxygen to survive, while bacteria that live in the colon can’t survive in the presence of oxygen.

As such, a laboratory test that captures the full complexity of this environment requires more than just a petri dish. Bhushan’s innovative microfluidic device is the first device of its kind to provide this ability.

—Simon Morrow

“

Even though our ability to diagnose colorectal cancer is improving, it’s really hard to treat.”

— Associate Professor Abhinav Bhushan

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Illinois Tech Research 2023 HEALTH AND WELLNESS

Machine Learning to Automate Insulin Delivery Hyosung S. R. Cho Endowed Chair in Engineering Ali Cinar is leading a project that is receiving $1.2 million from the National Institutes of Health over the next four years to develop a machine learning system that can be integrated into his artificial pancreas system.

The typical person with Type 1 diabetes has to make between 100 and 200 decisions every day just to keep their glucose levels stable.

“Part of the function of their pancreas is turned over to their brain,” says Cinar, who is also a professor of chemical engineering at Illinois Institute of Technology.

Cinar has been on the leading edge of this technology for many years. His research group was the first to incorporate data about physical activity received through the sensors of wearable systems such as a sports wristband into the control system of the insulin-dispensing artificial pancreas.

This project goes beyond that, analyzing a person’s past behavior by using machine learning and personalizing the device’s decision-making algorithm to improve its predictive ability.

—Simon Morrow

COMPUTATION AND DATA

Fulbright Scholar Hosts Cybersecurity Seminar in Kosovo Maurice Dawson, assistant professor of information technology and management, hosted a two-week seminar in cybersecurity at AAB College in Pristina, Kosovo, through his fifth award from the United States Fulbright Scholar program that is granted

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Illinois Tech Research

by the U.S. Department of State.

Dawson was able to develop meaningful connections and relationships that will benefit students at Illinois Tech through a new study away program in Kosovo, a Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT)

Kosovo faculty member visit to Illinois Tech, and connecting with officials at KOS-CERT— Kosovo’s national Computer Incident Response Team.

Dawson says his main goal was to raise students’ awareness, knowledge, and abilities for new cybersecurity threats through workshops and lectures. Objectives included addressing modern cybersecurity challenges, threats and attacks, and how cybersecurity policies and procedures protect against cyberattacks, as well as increasing internet safety and cybersecurity awareness.

“Cybersecurity education is relatively new, so even developing that talent is an uphill battle,” Dawson says.

—Casey Moffitt

HEALTH AND WELLNESS

Keeping Our Water Clean David Lampert, an assistant professor at Illinois Institute of Technology, recently received funding to tackle two different threats to water quality.

“I’m trying to understand what processes are happening in our water systems and trying to figure out how we can do better from an ecology point of view, a human health point of view, and sustainability point of view,” says Lampert.

Lampert was recently awarded competitive phase two funding in the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) People, Prosperity, and the Planet (P3) Student Design Competition, through which he’s leading students in a project aimed at stopping a class of compounds that can't be broken down in the environment from moving into waterways. He’s also received additional funding from the United States Department of the Interior to lead a study of the chemicals, known as polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) or “forever chemicals.”

Also, in a project funded by the U.S. Geological Survey, Lampert is working with Oklahoma State University to look at how algal blooms form and how to prevent them.

—Simon Morrow

“

It’s hard to know which of those strategies will be the right approach.

One of the challenges is that every place is a little bit different. But hopefully, we would have a better idea by the end of this project.”

— Assistant Professor David Lampert

URBAN FUTURES

Book Argues ‘Jurors are Made, Not Found’ Chicago-Kent College of Law Professor Nancy S. Marder has put her extensive knowledge of the jury process into words, with her new book, The Power of the Jury: Transforming Citizens into Jurors, published in September 2022 by Cambridge University Press.

During her years in academia, Marder has published numerous articles on juries and the jury process; founded the Justice John Paul Stevens Jury Center at Chicago-Kent; and has recently spent months studying the Canadian jury system in person as it acclimates to new rules.

In her new book, she elaborates on a simple concept: that “jurors are made not found.” In short, she pushes back on the traditional idea that attorneys must— through the jury questioning and selection process known as “voir

dire”—unearth a perfect jury as if digging for gold.

Instead, Marder argues, each step of the jury process— from the day jurors get their summons in the mail, to the questions they answer, their instructions, deliberations, and post-verdict interviews with their judges—is designed to craft a jury, molding everyday citizens into responsible jurors. In short, she takes what she calls a “transformative view” of the jury process.

—Tad Vezner 11

Illinois Tech Research 2023 COMPUTATION AND DATA

Less Energy, More Results Illinois Tech Associate Professor of Physics Bryce Littlejohn’s team wants to prove low-energy interactions are the next big thing in particle physics.

Part of the MicroBooNE experiment at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory searching for the sterile neutrino, the team—comprised of Illinois Tech graduate students Miguel Hernandez-Morquecho (Ph.D. PHYS Student) and Diego Andrade-Aldana (Ph.D. PHYS Student), postdocs Ryan Dorrill and Will Foreman, along with former graduate student Rui An (Ph.D. PHYS ’20)— was recently awarded a three-year, $1.2 million grant by the United States Department

of Energy to prove that detectors designed to find the remnants of high-energy neutrino interactions can also be used to detect low-energy interactions.

Proving this could accelerate the already intense search for dark matter, possibly observe neutrinoless double beta decay, and create detectors measuring neutrinos emitted from nuclear reactors.

“The community wasn’t thinking that we would be able to use these detectors for this purpose,” Littlejohn says. “My group is focused on proving that we can.”

—Tom Linder

URBAN FUTURES

Illinois Tech Selected to Compete in EcoCAR Electric Vehicle Challenge Illinois Institute of Technology has earned a spot as one of only 13 teams to participate in the prestigious EcoCAR EV Challenge sponsored by the United States Department of Energy (DOE), General Motors, and MathWorks.

Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Mahesh Krishnamurthy, Associate Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Members of Illinois Tech’s EcoCar Challenge team with its Cadillac LYRIC.

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Illinois Tech Research

Engineering Carrie Hall, and Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Matthew Spenko will lead students in a four-year project to design, build, refine, and demonstrate the potential of their advanced propulsion system implemented in a 2023 Cadillac LYRIQ. The Armour College of Engineering team will be tasked with complex, real-world technical challenges including enhancing the propulsion system of their LYRIQ to optimize energy efficiency while maintaining consumer expectations for performance and driving experience.

The team will have four years to engineer a next-generation fully electric vehicle that deploys connected and autonomous vehicle features to implement energy-efficient and customer-pleasing features while meeting the decarbonization needs of the automotive industry.

—Simon Morrow

STUDENT RESEARCH

New Hands-On Learning Program Propels Student Success Illinois Tech students are stepping outside the classroom and into hands-on experiences as part of the school’s unique Elevate program, and students are jumping at the chance to work with industry leaders.

A student organization represented the university at the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition, and Jonte Williams (ASPY, PHYS 4th Year) jumped at the opportunity.

You know, when you’re “ a kid, you start dreaming

about, like, what you want to do in the future. Hyperloop, for me, was like the first step into that.

“You know, when you’re a kid, you start dreaming about, like, what you want to do in the future. Hyperloop, for me, was like the first step into that. You get to see a project get developed from start to finish. It’s great on, like, a personal level and also on like a childhood dream level.”

—Thaddeus Mast

See video

—Jonte Williams (ASPY, PHYS 4th Year)

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Illinois Tech Research 2023 URBAN FUTURES

Funding Anti-Racism for Teachers in Training Placing special emphasis on anti-racist training for ninth through 12th grade teachers, a $1.1 million grant from the National Science Foundation funds scholarships for undergraduate students enrolled in Illinois Tech’s joint Bachelor of Science and Master of Arts in Teaching program with National Louis University.

Associate Professor of Biology and Physics Andrew Howard, who helped launch the joint degree program and is serving as co-principal investigator for the NSF grant, is leading a project with NLU’s Eun Kyung Ko and Vishodana Thamotharan titled “Project ENACTS: Engaging Noyce Scholars in Anti-Racist Community-Based Teaching in Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics, and Physics,” that has specific goals related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. The first MAT graduate from the program will be teaching in fall 2023, and three other students have been accepted into the program.

“The priority of this program is getting students into [teaching jobs in schools in] disadvantaged neighborhoods,” Howard says.

—Tom Linder

HEALTH AND WELLNESS

Measuring Amid the Stars A project by Illinois Institute of Technology Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Seebany Datta-Barua, the Near Earth Magnetometer Instrument in a Small Integrated System (NEMISIS), was one of five scientific instruments competitively selected for an upcoming National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) mission.

The goal of NASA’s Geospace Dynamics Constellation (GDC) mission, Datta Barua explains, is to gain a better understanding of a region of the Earth’s atmospheric environment in low Earth orbit, where many of the satellites used for critical communications and imaging systems and commercial internet services are located.

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Illinois Tech Research

The limited ability to forecast weather in this region can have major impacts, such as when 40 out of 49 new Starlink low Earth orbit satellites were lost shortly after launch in February 2022 as a result of a coinciding geomagnetic storm.

The GDC mission is a group of satellites that will make unprecedented measurements of the region’s environment. NEMISIS will play a critical role in allowing the GDC mission to study how electromagnetic energy flows from the magnetosphere into the ionosphere-thermosphere system, an important factor in space weather dynamics.

—Simon Morrow

By Simon Morrow

g n n o i i l t k a c t Ta spor n a Tr ty e f Sa

Boris Pervan 15

Spoofing vehicles can be “ very dangerous,” says Pervan.

“If you spoof one car and that information gets passed on to others, it’s infecting the whole system.”

—Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Boris Pervan

T

he Center for Assured and Resilient Navigation in Advanced Transportation Systems (CARNATIONS) at Illinois Institute of Technology was named a new Tier 1 University Transportation Center (UTC) by the United States Department of Transportation. As a Tier 1 UTC, CARNATIONS willreceive a $10 million grant for improving transportation navigation systems by making them more resilient to cyber attacks, such as spoofing and jamming.

Led by Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Boris Pervan, CARNATIONS brings together a consortium of universities to perform transformative research in the area of resilient transportation systems, facilitate technology transfer to public agencies and industry, and advance workforce and educational development.

Signal interference such as jamming and spoofing that targets critical infrastructure has the potential to cause widespread delays and cascading failures across multiple modes of transportation including ships, trains, trucks, and cars—and the problem is only getting worse.

A major aircraft manufacturer reported more than 10,000 global navigation satellite system (GNSS) interference events in 2021 alone, and repeated spoofing has impacted a range of military operations internationally.

Transportation systems, especially those designed for moving products and goods, are often highly interconnected, and Pervan says interruptions in one part of the system can lead to a “chain reaction of problems.”

“Whether it’s innovating ways to identify cybersecurity threats to our transportation systems or removing those potential risks, I’m confident that the bright minds at Illinois Institute of Technology and Chicago State University will be working on infrastructure breakthroughs to help protect working families across America, all while creating jobs for the diverse transportation

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Illinois Tech Research

and tech leaders of tomorrow,” says United States Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-Illinois). “I’m proud to have advocated for this project and look forward to this federal investment helping prioritize the advanced transportation that will drive our nation’s future.”

With a broad coalition of university collaborators and industry advisers, Pervan and his team plan to approach the problem from several angles, including developing sophisticated algorithms that can tell the difference between authentic or spoofed GPS signals and improving GPS receivers by combining them with other types of sensors that are immune to jamming and spoofing.

Addressing these problems is essential to intelligent transportation systems that rely on GPS not just for navigation but for control, such as in self-driving cars, which Pervan has experience researching.

“If you’re using GPS to find a restaurant and you get there and there is no restaurant, that sucks, time for plan B. But as soon as you couple that into the control system of the vehicle, that’s totally different. It could be taking you into a wall or off a bridge. The technology is not there yet, especially for navigating in the city,” says Pervan. “In a previous project we tried to navigate along a section of State Street, between 35th Street and North Avenue. Even using four GNSS satellite constellations coupled with really good inertial

False GPS Signals

by Spoofer

systems and vehicle constraints, we couldn’t do it.”

CARNATIONS will be looking to the future at the possibility of a fully connected system, where self-driving cars share information with each other and with smart infrastructure such as traffic signals.

“Spoofing vehicles can be very dangerous,” says Pervan. “If you spoof one car and that information gets passed on to others, it’s infecting the whole system. On the other hand, the information from the other vehicles could be of some use to tell you that you’re being spoofed, so right now we have no idea how that trade-off will play out.”

Through CARNATIONS, researchers will create a map of recorded spoofing incidents to identify global regions where spoofing is most common and recommend an action plan for spoofing hot spots.

CARNATIONS will also develop controlled reception pattern antennas, which provide focused signal beams without the need for large antenna dishes, making this technology available for a wider range of applications as a tool for GNSS resiliency.

CARNATIONS will create workforce development programs, develop certificates, and prioritize educating the next group of transportation professionals.

In addition to Pervan, Illinois Tech Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Matthew Spenko and Research

An autonomous vehicle guided by satellite navigation requires secure systems to avoid cyber attacks, such as being directed off course by a false GPS signal.

Associate Professor Samer Khanafseh will conduct research through CARNATIONS. Chicago State University, Stanford University, University of California Riverside, and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University are also CARNATIONS consortium members.

“Our nation’s infrastructure increasingly relies on connected and automated technologies, with significant potential cybersecurity risks,” says U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-Illinois). “Illinois Institute of Technology will help develop innovative solutions to protect our nation’s transportation infrastructure from cybersecurity risks. This partnership with Chicago State University will train the next generation of engineers on innovative technology to identify, mitigate, and remove cybersecurity risks from our transportation infrastructure.” R

MORE INFORMATION CONTACT

Boris Pervan Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

iit.edu/directory/people/ boris-pervan

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OPTIMIZING THE

By Casey Moffitt

O Sonja Petrović

ptimizing a massive system such as an energy grid presents complex mathematical issues, and a researcher from Illinois Institute of Technology has joined a team at Argonne National Laboratory to help solve this question.

Sonja Petrović, associate professor of applied mathematics at Illinois Tech, will provide her expertise and continue her ongoing work in Markov chain Monte Carlo methods and probabilistic algorithms for symbolic computation to assist the Argonne team in the United States Department of Energy-funded research in “High-Performance Algorithms Research for Complex Energy Systems and Processes.” The team received $2.8 million of the $8.5 million grant program that is designed to advance randomized algorithms for scientific computing.

“We met to discuss the problem and quickly realized there are ways to translate the algorithmic need to something I understand how to formulate,” Petrović says. “Better yet, I did not have a handy solution ready for them, and realized more work was necessary instead. In fact, the types of problems we are going to work on align closely with problems I was already interested in solving.”

Petrović joins Argonne mathematicians Sven Leyffer, Kibaek Kim, and Matt Menickelly to find optimization solutions for energy grids. It’s a complex problem because the number of variables

18

Illinois Tech Research

to overcome are too numerous for conventional algorithms to compute, primarily because of combinatorial problems in topology and an integrated structural system.

The topological issues include the design of microstructures and metamaterials, the design of nanophotonic structures, and the design of lattice structures in the additive manufacturing of the grid. Petrović says the team’s work could result in the development of new materials to be used in an energy grid.

The integrated system of a power grid includes combining the design of building energy systems, the design of co-generation and dispatch models, the scheduling of black-start generators, the design and layout of concentrating solar plants, attacker-defender models, and the protection of cyber infrastructure.

This creates a massive number of variables, which requires a new kind of algorithm.

“Conventional algorithms of any type for any application hit a scalability wall, as I like to call it, when they are attempted on massively sized problems,” Petrović says. “The massive size often comes because of some combinatorial explosion: too many constraints, too many feasible solutions, etc....It is impossible to get the exact answer in the way that can be done for ‘small’ and moderately sized problems.”

Petrović says she and the rest of the research team are answering the DOE’s call to develop randomized algorithms. The research team says it believes that randomized algorithms could

The Argonne team is working on “ problems different from the ones I work on, but we’ve found a new intersection point.”

GRID

hold the key to answer the energy grid optimization problem.

“Randomized algorithm use allows for re-framing of the problems in the ways that scale,” Petrović says. “They provide solutions to massive problems much faster, with guarantees that quantify the uncertainty of the answer, or that verify correctness of the answer.”

Petrović, along with other researchers, has submitted three papers developing methods that can be applied toward the energy grid research project.

She, along with Shahrzad Jamshidi, developed a method that relies on cleverly biased random sampling in their paper, “The Spark Randomizer: A Learned Randomized Framework for Computing Gröbner Bases.” This method uses the output of a machine learning algorithm, and combines the prediction of the size of a minimal Gröbner basis of an ideal with the Clarkson-style biased random sampling method to compute a Gröbner basis in expected runtime linear in the size of the violator space.

Petrović and Jamshidi team up again, this time with Eric Kang, to use ansatz neural network models to predict key metrics of complexity for Gröbner bases of binomial ideals in “Predicting the Cardinality of a Reduced Gröbner Bases.” The work illustrates why predictions with neural networks from Gröbner computations are not a straightforward process. Two probabilistic models for random binomial ideals are used to generate a large data set that is able to capture sufficient variability in Gröbner complexity. This

—Associate Professor of Applied Mathematics Sonja Petrović

data set is used to train neural networks and predict the cardinality of a reduced Gröbner basis and the maximum total degree of its elements.

“Markov Bases: A 25 Year Update,” written with Felix AlmendraHernandez and Jesus A. De Loera, proves three new results on the complexity of Markov bases in hierarchical models, relaxations of the fibers in log-linear models, and limitations of partial sets of moves in providing an irreducible Markov chain.

Petrović says she is excited to test her skills and knowledge with researchers at Argonne.

“The Argonne team is working on problems different from the ones I work on, but we’ve found a new intersection point,” she says. “To me this is the essence of research, growth, and advancement of mathematics—to build new connections, expand the reach of standard methods, and blend areas to propose new creative ideas to solve problems that cannot be solved using any single method or by mathematics alone.” R MORE INFORMATION CONTACT

Sonja Petrović Associate Professor of Applied Mathematics

iit.edu/directory/people/ sonja-petrovic

19

ScamProofing Older Adults

By Tom Linder

Carly Kocurek

20

Illinois Tech Research

I

llinois Institute of Technology Professor of Digital Humanities and Media Studies Carly Kocurek is part of a two-year, $5 million National Science Foundation project that is being led by the University at Buffalo to create digital tools that can help older adults better recognize and protect themselves from online deceptions and other forms of disinformation.

Last year more than 92,000 United States adults aged 60 and older reported being the victims of online scams, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, with losses totaling roughly $1.7 billion.

The project, called Deception Awareness and Resilience Training (DART), pulls together a multidisciplinary team of experts to create a suite of digital literacy tools, including digital games, that older adults can use to help recognize, resist, and spread awareness of online deceptions and disinformation.

“It’s really exciting to work on projects related to games that are focused on demographics that aren’t who people immediately think of as gamers,” says Kocurek, a faculty member in Illinois Tech’s Lewis College of Science and Letters. “Investment in this area of research really speaks to how our understanding of games and play has developed and matured—you get innovative projects by trying to reach specific audiences and solve real problems through what they want and are already interested in.”

Kocurek is contributing user research to the project to ensure that the DART platform is effective and targeted at the population it’s trying to reach. “User research—market research—is woven in throughout the process, because it’s important if you’re trying to make something, whether it’s a commercial product or a product in a more abstract sense, to make sure that it’s actually relevant and useful for your audience,” Kocurek explains.

DART builds upon a $750,000 NSF phase 1 grant that the team received last year, when it began meeting with older adults in Western New York and South Carolina to better understand why they fall victim to online deceptions. The DART platform takes into account these lessons, and it uses digital games—including engaging and realistic social media situations—to make learning fun. The aim is to make DART easy to use, so older adults can learn on their own, in communal settings such as adult homes or libraries, or with the aid of a caregiver.

There are many digital literacy tools available, but few are tailored to older adults, which limits their effectiveness. DART aims to address this limitation by including a wide range of online

It’s really exciting to work on projects “ related to games that are focused on demographics that aren’t who people immediately think of as gamers.”

— Professor of Digital Humanities and Media Studies Carly Kocurek

schemes that older adults encounter. The team will update the learning materials as schemes evolve.

“We know that people tend to play certain types of casual games in an ongoing and routine way, like crossword puzzles and word jumbles in the daily newspaper, and so games are part of daily life even for people you wouldn’t traditionally think of as interested in gaming,” Kocurek says. “I think addressing the problem in creative and playful ways is useful, especially when we’re trying to get to people who maybe aren’t in the workforce or aren’t in school, so they’re not necessarily getting this information in other ways.”

While focused on older adults, the DART platform is being designed so that it can be adapted for use by teenagers and other groups that are vulnerable to online deceptions.

Gamification is important not just because it engages and entertains hard-to-reach audiences, according to Kocurek. It’s also vital to keep the learning process going as information and online threats change. “A game might reach people who are difficult to reach otherwise, but it also provides a forum or an outlet to regularly provide updated information,” Kocurek says. “It’s not just a case of, ‘I took the class once. I’m done.’ Fraud and online deception tactics online are constantly changing, so it’s important to keep people engaged with the latest defenses.”

DART is funded by the NSF’s Convergence Accelerator, a program launched in 2019 to support “basic research and discovery to accelerate solutions toward societal impact.” NSF selected the DART team for the second phase of the accelerator’s 2021 cohort. It is one of six teams funded under the accelerator’s Track F: Trust and Authenticity in Communication Systems. R

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Carly Kocurek Professor, Digital Humanities and Media Studies

iit.edu/directory/people/ carly-kocurek

21

The Bar Exam?

There’s an AI for That

By Kayla Molander

Daniel Martin Katz 22

Illinois Tech Research

I

t has been just a few months since the release of ChatGPT, version of GPT, the software didn’t pass the multiple-choice one of the fastest-growing artificial intelligence consumer portion, but it got reasonably close. He says the ensuing GPT applications in history. In a paper released in December versions have improved significantly in a short period of time.

2022, Chicago-Kent College of Law Professor Daniel Martin “Four years ago, GPT-2 couldn’t even consistently process the Katz evaluated GPT-3.5 (a close analog to ChatGPT) and its questions. Up until GPT-3, which was two years ago, it’s barely ability to take the multiple choice portion of the bar exam. beating statistical chance on the multiple choice,” he says.

Although that version of the GPT program did not pass the Katz wasn’t surprised to see the model pass the multiexam, Katz made a prediction: it would be quite possible that a ple-choice section, but even he was shocked to see it pass the large-language model would pass the multiple-choice portion of performance section (MPT), in which test takers complete legal the bar exam within the next 18 months. tasks within the confines of fictional laws established for the Soon thereafter, Katz began to work on a project testing the question, not actual legal framework. next generation of AI: GPT-4. The results of this research were “It is difficult for people, too, to separate the law in the released on March 14, 2023, as part of the GPT-4 launch event. question from the broader law as folks might understand it— The paper titled “GPT-4 Passes the Bar Exam”—co-authored the test designers make you stay within the four corners of the with Michael Bommarito (Stanford CodeX/273 Ventures), Shang problem as presented,” says Katz. “This shows that the software is Gao (Casetext), and Pablo David Arredondo (Stanford CodeX/ able to, at a minimum, produce something akin to but not really Casetext)—demonstrates that GPT-4 can not only pass the fully the same as actual reasoning.” multiple choice portion of the exam, but it can pass all parts of After his original paper was published, Katz was approached to the Uniform Bar Exam (UBE), including the essay portion and the help test GPT-4 before it was released. He was excited to take part performance test. the opportunity.

Progresson of GPT Models on the MBE “After we wrote our other In his tests, Katz used a paper in December, people pre-release version of the GPT-4 would tell me that they model. believed AI would eventu“I feel very thankful to be ally pass the multiple-choice a part of it. In the history of portion. But lots of folks said, AI, GPT-4 is one of the most ‘Well it is never going be able to important systems that’s ever do the essays,’” Katz says. been developed,” he says.

Katz and his co-authors “We are excited to report the graded the essay and perforresults, but the bigger picture mance portions. Katz says that here in not the exam, per se; they did their best to try to it is highlighting the nature of grade it fairly, but the computer the capabilities that are coming scored so well on the multionline here. The bar exam Data from “GPT-4 Passes the Bar Exam” ple-choice portion that there analysis is just a way of demonwas a lot of room for error in the essay and performance sections. strating what is possible.”

The program’s performance on the essay section was notable.

In the legal realm, GPT-4 is already on the market. One of Katz’s In fact, he says that there was only one clear indicator that the co-authors on the paper, Arredondo, is the co-founder and chief essay was, in fact, written by a computer. innovation officer at CaseText, a company offering CoCounsel—an “There were basically no typos. The grammar is near perfect,” AI tool for lawyers that is powered by GPT-4. he says. “In the real bar exam, folks are working quickly and so As AI-powered tools make their way into law offices across the there are likely to be typos and grammar mistakes, even on exams country, Katz hopes their influence will reach beyond that. He that otherwise receive quite high scores.” believes AI could be a “force multiplier” that will allow more people Previous models would “hallucinate,” or confidently provide to access legal services that may have been too expensive before. answers that were clearly incorrect, giving away that they were “People have certain rights, but they don’t know how to not human. Katz says that’s less common with GPT-4. In many enforce them,” he says. “As a result, they don’t pursue the things other ways, the writing seemed like it could have been written that they could. They give up. They feel disempowered. I’m not by a student. He says it even drifted from the main topic in a very saying this is going to solve all those problems, but it can help.” R human way.

“In several of the problems, ChatGPT and, to a much lesser extent, GPT-4 will talk about a topic that’s related, but not really MORE INFORMATION CONTACT relevant, for the question as it was posed. That’s kind of what a student would do,” he says. “When I was a student, it’s what I would Daniel Martin Katz kentlaw.iit.edu/law/facultyhave done if I didn’t totally know the answer. I’d write the closest Chicago-Kent College of Law scholarship/faculty-directory/ Professor daniel-martin-katz thing possible and go with it and hope it worked. It’s a pattern I see all the time in real essay exams I grade as a professor.”

Less than three months ago, when Katz tested an earlier 23

A GREEN BATTERY BREAKTHROUGH

By Simon Morrow

Mohammad Asadi 24

Illinois Tech Research

M

ohammad Asadi, assistant professor of chemical engineering at Illinois Institute of Technology, has published a paper in Science describing the chemistry behind his novel lithium-air battery design.

The insights will allow him to further optimize the battery design, with the potential for reaching ultra-high power densities far beyond current lithium-ion technology.

“This is a breakthrough, and it has opened up a big window of possibility for taking these technologies to the market,” says Asadi.

Asadi says the battery design has the potential to store one kilowatt-hour per kilogram or higher, four times greater than lithium-ion battery technology, which would be transformative for electrifying transportation, especially heavy-duty vehicles such as airplanes, trains, and submarines.

“This will open up a new window for decarbonizing the transportation sector of the economy,” says Asadi.

Asadi wanted to make a battery with a solid electrolyte, which provides safety and energy density benefits compared

enables the battery to function—lithium-dioxide formation and decomposition—to occur at high rates at room temperature, the first demonstration of this in a lithium-air battery.

As described in the Science paper, Asadi has conducted a range of experiments that demonstrate the science behind how this reaction occurs, providing a fundamental understanding of the process that reveals ways to further optimize the battery.

“We found that the solid-state electrolyte contributes around 75 percent of the total energy density. That tells us there is a lot of room for improvement because we believe we can minimize that thickness without compromising performance, and that would allow us to achieve a very, very high energy density,” says Asadi.

The paper also demonstrates that the battery can be charged and discharged many times with minimal reduction in performance.

With all the safety and performance benefits of the technology, Asadi has high hopes.

“This battery technology can really replace gasoline for transportation because you can get the same energy density

to liquid electrolyte batteries. He was looking for an option that would be compatible with the cathode and anode technologies that he has been developing for use in lithium-air batteries.

The most common solid electrolytes are made of either polymer or ceramic, but both options have downsides. Asadi found that he could create an electrolyte that combined both materials to utilize the best features of each.

Many solid electrolytes run into an interfacial connection issue, where there is difficulty getting sufficient surface area connection between the electrolyte and other solid components such as the cathode and anode. But polymer electrolytes fare well on this front and also tend to be highly stable.

The main downside to polymer electrolytes is low ionic conductivity, meaning the battery takes a long time to charge and discharge.

Fortunately, ceramic has excellent ionic conductivity, with the added benefit of good mechanical stability, and Asadi has shown the polymer-ceramic composite electrolyte takes advantage of the benefits of both materials.

The result allows for the critical reversible reaction that

with the battery technology eventually,” he says.

While Asadi is currently focused on his lithium-air battery system, he says the electrolyte’s beneficial properties would enable it to be used to improve other lithium battery technologies too.

These experiments were conducted in collaboration with University of Illinois Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory. R — Research reported in this publication was supported by the United States Department of Energy under Award Number DE-AC0206CH11357. This content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the U.S. Department of Energy.

MORE INFORMATION CONTACT

Mohammad Asadi Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering

iit.edu/directory/people/ mohammad-asadi

25

By Simon Morrow

THE BATTERY OF THE FUTURE IS

ALL SOLID

L

eon Shaw has received a three-year, $1.5 million award from the National Science Foundation to establish the Center of All-Solid-State Batteries, the first center of its kind in the United States, at Illinois Institute of Technology.

“Our project team will advance the fundamental science of all-solid-state batteries and aims to design the first commercially viable all-solid-state battery. If we can accomplish this, we will completely change the battery paradigm,” says Shaw, who is the Rowe Family Chair Professor in Sustainable Energy and a professor of materials science and engineering.

Shaw says the success of electrified transportation and sustainable energy generation depends on battery development.

Currently, the most commonly used battery type is lithium-ion.

“The problem with lithium-ion batteries is they use a liquid electrolyte inside, and liquid electrolytes actually can catch fire,” says Shaw. “This project tries to replace the liquid electrolyte with a solid electrolyte.”

A solid electrolyte also frees up space, as you no longer need the bulky thermal protection systems attached to lithium-ion batteries to keep them safe. That alone provides a cost decrease and a roughly 30 percent weight decrease.

“If our new charging-discharging mechanism works, then we’ll have a 150 percent increase in specific energy,” says Shaw.

Carlo Segre, Duchossois Leadership Professor, professor of physics, and professor of materials science and engineering, and Jonghyun Park, an associate professor at the Missouri University of Science and Technology, are co-principal investigators on the project.

This project team will work with 10 research groups from eight European institutions to achieve a breakthrough in all-solid-state batteries, which is expected to have major cost, safety, battery life, and energy density improvements over lithium-ion batteries.

Shaw and his team will be working with a newly invented 26

Illinois Tech Research

electrolyte by collaborator Helena Braga, an associate professor at University of Porto in Portugal.

Unlike previous attempts at all-solid-state batteries, which take a long time to charge, Shaw expects that the high ionic conductivity of Braga’s electrolyte will allow them to create a battery with a charging rate comparable to lithium-ion batteries.

The project also includes industry collaborators to make sure their design meets the requirements for future commercial use.

Shaw says he expects this new battery to be capable of being used in most technology that currently uses lithium-ion batteries, but the biggest benefits will be for electric vehicles, airplanes, and drones or large battery storage power stations connected to the grid.

As part of the project, Shaw will partner with the City of Chicago to provide workforce development workshops in areas such as electric vehicle manufacturing and maintenance, battery manufacturing and recycling, and grid energy storage, to accelerate transition of the workforce into green collar jobs. R — Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Science Foundation’s Office of International Science and Engineering through the Partnerships for International Research and Education program under Award Number 2230770. This content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Science Foundation.”

Leon Shaw, “Center of All-Solid-State Batteries for a Clean Energy Society,” National Science Foundation; Award Number 2230770.

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Leon Shaw Rowe Family Chair Professor in Sustainable Energy

iit.edu/directory/people/ leon-shaw

A Fluid

Understanding

By Simon Morrow

A

ssistant Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Scott T. M. Dawson received a National Science Foundation CAREER award to develop methods to significantly reduce the computing time needed to model turbulent flow in fluids.

His model could be used in a range of applications from reducing air drag on airplanes and cars to understanding blood flow.

In an airplane, for example, the turbulence that develops near the surface of a wing creates friction or drag that the plane must overcome to take off and fly.

“A lot of the fuel costs associated with getting a plane from A to B are directly associated with overcoming the drag forces that are substantially larger than they would be otherwise because the flow is turbulent. If we can understand more about such turbulent flows, then we can perhaps have a way to either delay the onset of turbulence or modify the properties of the turbulence to reduce the drag by some portion,” says Dawson.

The movement of fluids is fairly well described by established fluid dynamics theories and calculations, but the equations are complicated and can take a lot of computational power to solve, even when the answer turns out to be simple.

“I have some ideas that will attempt to bypass some of that computational complexity that should let us make this analysis both computationally cheaper and also perhaps more insightful,” says Dawson.

Dawson says his approach to that simplification will provide a better way to understand, predict, and control turbulent systems with the hope of improving designs.

He plans to take advantage of the fact that, despite their tendency to be complex and chaotic, turbulent flows have some consistent structures and repeated patterns that they follow.

Dawson says his approach aims to leverage recent advances in numerical methods and machine learning to automatically

detect which terms within the fluid dynamics equations are important for the generation of certain turbulent features and then single them out for a given problem that is being solved.

Dawson says he will be starting with simple systems and gradually introducing complexity as he gains confidence in his methods, building toward modeling flows that feature compressibility and more complex geometries, which are relevant to a wide range of real-world applications.

“We’re at a point where we have a confluence of knowledge about turbulent flows because we have a lot more data and computational power that enables us to perform different analysis methods,” he says. “I think it’s an exciting time to be in the field.”

As part of this project, Dawson will also be conducting outreach to inform the community about engineering in general, fluid dynamics, and his project specifically. R — Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Science Foundation under Award Number 2238770. This content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Science Foundation.

Scott Dawson, “CAREER: Automated Physics-Based Distillation of Coherent Structures and Mechanisms in Unsteady and Turbulent Flows,” National Science Foundation; Award Number 2238770.

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Scott T. M. Dawson Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

iit.edu/directory/people/ scott-dawson

27

Researching the Playing Field

By Tad Vezner

F

ormer Illinois Institute of Technology Athletics Director Joe Hakes had a dream.

Hakes led an energetic athletics department, part of a tech-focused university on the cutting edge of numerous emerging fields. And he saw opportunity, in the labs and playing fields around him.

Those immersed in athletic competition are always looking for a competitive edge. Why not rigorously test for one, using all those on-campus labs?

In short, Hakes suggested, why not use the university’s resources to search for “effective and successful systems to achieve the highest potential results, optimal nutritional and strength preparation, and safer protective equipment.”

“From data analytics to sports medicine to sports architecture to ‘smart apparel,’ there is a wide range of opportunity to build upon what has already been done or imagined, as well as what is yet to be imagined,” Hakes wrote in a 2017 vision statement.

“It was a labor of love for Joe, and he just didn’t stop with it.

He recognized a sleeping giant, as he referred to it, taking advantage of Chicago and Illinois Tech being a hub of sports innovation and technology,” says Illinois Tech Senior Associate Director of Athletics Marc Colwell, who knew and worked with Hakes.

And yet, Hakes noted in his statement that at Illinois Tech “there is a lack of an independent, centralized center for research and development of technology aspects that drive the industry forward.”

Until now. In February 2023 the university’s research council and interim provost approved the formulation of the Center for Sports Innovation to “serve as a hub for research and development of a wide variety of technologically related subjects, systems, and businesses that impact the world of sports.”

Hakes passed away in January 2023, but his vision is in full 28

Illinois Tech Research

swing. Over a dozen core faculty members from Illinois Tech have partnered with the Illinois Tech athletics department, and some are already partnering on projects with sports industry leaders.

“It’s a double win for us. It allows us to really leverage our unique talents in both sports and research,” says Professor of Practice Bo Rodda, one of the core faculty members.

Rodda, who is also the faculty director of the Ed Kaplan Family Institute for Innovation and Tech Entrepreneurship’s Interprofessional Projects (IPRO) Program labs, has partnered with Wilson Sporting Goods to build better sporting gear through the IPRO program. The partnership started during the COVID19 pandemic, when his students were tasked with envisioning automated ways for people to get fitted for golf clubs.

Now they’re identifying new product development ideas with Wilson advisers, including “interactive or wearable technologies, health and safety products, virtual reality technology for indoor exercise or how we watch sporting events,” Rodda says.

“For me the center is a way to bring together an interdisciplinary group of faculty to address something most people have some connection to, which is sports,” says Coleman Foundation Clinical Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship Nik Rokop, the center’s director. “Rather than talking about research in a technical way, this is an applied way.” R

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Center for Sports Innovation Stuart School of Business 10 West 35th Street Chicago, IL 60616 Phone: 312.567.3030

iit.edu/csi

History Still in the Making

[From left] Institute for Food Safety and Health Excecutive Director Brian Schaneberg and Darsh Wasan

By Casey Halas

O

n April 12, 2023, the Institute for Food Safety and Health (IFSH) celebrated 35 years of success and its impact on improving food safety and nutrition for all.

In 1988 Darsh Wasan—then the interim dean for Armour College of Engineering, and later director of National Center for Food Safety and Technology— acquired research facilities in Bedford Park, Illinois to expand research efforts of the university and the FDA. Later that year, the FDA awarded Illinois Tech a $3.7 million grant to establish the NCFST—now known as IFSH. IFSH is the only FDA center of excellence in the country that houses FDA, IFSH researchers, and industry partners in the same building.

Executive Director Brian Schaneberg says IFSH will continue to address and resolve important food safety and health challenges.

“The research consortium between FDA, Illinois Tech, and the food industry is a proven collaborative model for improving

public health and reducing disease risk through science,” says Schaneberg, who was appointed to his position in September 2022 after Wasan’s retirement.

The institution’s decades of advancement will continue, Schaneberg says, with additional opportunities to implement sustainable practices and expand collaboration. R

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Brian Schaneberg Executive Director Institute for Food Safety and Health (IFSH)

iit.edu/directory/people/ brian-schaneberg

29

Tailless Jet Flies Free

By Simon Morrow

David Williams

D

avid Williams and his team have demonstrated the first use of a novel control method in an aircraft with no tail.

While conventional aircraft rely on protruding fins to enable steering, a tailless design makes the body as smooth and sleek as possible, making it safer to fly in dangerous areas where radar scans the sky for sharp edges.

Eventually, this technology could be employed to make commercial airplanes more fuel-efficient by removing existing steering parts that create a lot of drag.

This design is possible because of an innovative system, active flow control, that steers the aircraft by blowing jets of air onto different surfaces of the aircraft body that correspond to which direction the aircraft is turning.

Williams, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Illinois Institute of Technology, led a team of Illinois Tech students and collaborators in the construction of a jet that houses both conventional steering controls and a novel implementation of active flow control.

In October 2022 the group launched the jet from the Pendleton Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Range in Oregon for two nine-minute flights that demonstrated the success of the system.

For each flight, one pilot launched the jet using conventional flight controls. Then, midflight, they switched control to a second pilot who operated the active flow control system.

In the first test, the team found that the active flow control system actually provided more power than had been predicted from wind tunnel tests.

“In engineering, it never works that way, you almost always get less than you were hoping for,” says Williams. “The first day was very dramatic. It was very strong and very scary. If the jet

30

Illinois Tech Research

gets too far over on its side, it could spin out of control. In fact, it did go over to 90 degrees, but it recovered.”

The pilot executed roll and pitch maneuvers to test the active flow control’s ability to steer the jet at steep angles, a first step toward testing advanced maneuvers that aren’t possible with conventional controls.

For their second flight, Williams reduced the power to the active flow control system, allowing them to collect more data about how the active flow control was operating.

The active flow control is implemented using a patent-pending Coanda valve designed by Williams and his students, and this was their first chance to show the design’s success on an aircraft.

“We’ve made the breakthrough that I was looking for,” says Williams. “Now future tests will start adding to the accomplishments and confidence in the airplane’s design.” R — Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under Award Number 19-SG2020-2-0046 and the Office of Naval Research under Award Number N00014-22-1-2552. This content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration or the Office of Naval Research.

MORE INFORMATION CONTACT

David Williams Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

iit.edu/directory/people/ david-williams

FORGING A NEW WORKFORCE

I

llinois Institute of Technology has entered into several research partnerships with academic and industry leaders to further cutting-edge advancements in growing or needed fields, particularly those with strong workforce demands.

In December 2022 DMG MORI and Illinois Tech announced their intention to establish the National Institute for Advanced Manufacturing, which aims to be one of the nation’s first joint university and industry academies to train and develop advanced manufacturing workforces in future-focused technologies.

The institute is intended to play a critical role in the nation’s goal of preparing the millions of workers needed to revive the advanced manufacturing industry in the United States, including the semiconductor industry. It will specifically establish the Chicago region as a growth hub for high-paying, high-tech manufacturing jobs, and will seek a wide array of industry and higher education partners across Illinois and the region to ensure the greatest possible economic and workforce development impact.

Located at Illinois Tech’s historic Bronzeville campus on the South Side of Chicago, the institute’s academy will provide in-person and online curricula that are aligned with burgeoning industry workforce needs and important economic and national security priorities. The launch of the national institute is timed to help Illinois capitalize on the new programs and investments in the CHIPS Act by utilizing its industry and educational expertise to expand U.S. manufacturing.

Additionally, in November 2022, Illinois Tech joined the Midwest Regional Network to Address National Needs in Semiconductor

and Microelectronics—a partnership of 20 colleges and universities in Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan, all committed to developing innovative solutions in higher education to best support the onshoring of the advanced semiconductor and microelectronics industry.

“As the impacts of a global shortage of semiconductors reverberate throughout the supply chain, now is the time to collaborate on cutting-edge technological advancements in microelectronics,” said Illinois Tech Provost Kenneth T. Christensen.

Partner institutions will leverage existing research and curricular and experiential learning assets within the region and grow the collective capacity to support the domestic growth of semiconductor and microelectronics innovation and supply chain ecosystems.

Also in November 2022, Illinois Tech joined a multistate, public-private coalition of 70 members dedicated to combating climate change with clean hydrogen technology.

The Midwest Alliance for Clean Hydrogen (MachH2) has been selected by the United States Department of Energy’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED) to develop a regional clean hydrogen production and distribution hub (H2Hub). This is part of a $7 billion initiative funded under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act aimed at launching seven Regional Clean Hydrogen Hubs (H2Hubs) across the nation.

Funded by President Joe Biden’s Investing in America agenda, the H2Hubs will accelerate the commercial-scale deployment of clean hydrogen—helping to generate clean, dispatchable power, create a new form of energy storage, and decarbonize heavy industry and transportation. R

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CHARGED UP

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By Linsey Maughan t was only a matter of time—before Influit Energy would need to hire more scientists, before the 2,100-square-foot lab space that the company occupies would need to grow to its current 20,000-square-foot space, and before the three co-founders of the startup whose history is inextricably linked to Illinois Institute of Technology would be ready to publicly disclose what they have created: the world’s first rechargeable, safe, electric fuel.

“We have created a new type of flow battery that is predicated upon a composite material that we invented, which is a nanofluid where the nanoparticles are battery-active materials, which we called nanoelectrofuel, or NEF,” says John Katsoudas (M.S. PHYS ’03), co-founder and CEO of Influit Energy.

To put it simply: it’s a liquid-based electric battery to replace petroleum. It’s not flammable, not explosive, safer and easier to implement than the lithium-ion model, and doesn’t require drivers to wait longer than the several minutes they currently do to fill their tanks.

Katsoudas calls Influit Energy a “spinout” of Illinois Tech.

Leading the company alongside him are two co-founders: Elena Timofeeva, chief operating officer, director of research and development, and a research associate professor of chemistry at Illinois Tech, and Carlo Segre, chief technology officer, chief financial officer, and a professor of physics at Illinois Tech.

The United States government has also played a critical role in Influit Energy’s growth, awarding the company more than $20 million in contracts.

“The unique high-energy density liquid format of the NEF flow batteries allows use of the same fluids in different devices,

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meaning fluid, charged at the recharging station from renewable energy sources or a grid, can be used to rapidly refuel vehicles, or for stationary storage and other large portable applications,” Timofeeva says.

The company’s current client roster includes heavy hitters such as NASA, Air Force, Army Applications Laboratory, Defense Innovation Unit and the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA).

Multiple projects funded by the government have been strategically designed by Influit Energy to work together as components of a closed loop energy ecosystem that soon will be able to be commercialized more broadly.

“Everything we’re doing right now is geared toward the specific goal of developing what we call the closed-loop energy cycle, whereby your batteries are not solid materials, they are liquids.

You can treat the battery as a fuel that gets pumped in to mobility devices—cars, trucks, airplanes, anything that needs to be electrified,” Katsoudas says.

The fuel utilized by this new system can be charged using either renewable energy or an electrical grid.

Influit Energy’s projects’ goal is reducing the mass and volume of the batteries.

“The fifth project is related to the development of [second-generation nanoelectrofuel] and funded by AFRL SBIR funding,” Timofeeva says. “This new second generation of NEF chemistry in our unique and proprietary nanofluid format will ultimately provide a four-to-five-times increase in energy density compared to state-of-the art [lithium-ion] batteries.” R

Software Frameworks Made Easy

By Casey Moffitt

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team of student researchers guided by Kyle Hale, assistant professor of computer science at Illinois Institute of Technology, earned the Gilles Muller Best Artifact Award at the European Conference on Computer Systems (EuroSys ’22) for their work on a software framework that enables easy isolation of functions within applications.

“Isolating Functions at the Hardware Limit with Virtines” questions the idea that hardware virtualization is slow and impractical. The Virtines software approach does not require the use of specialized hardware and applies easy-to-use language extensions to make hardware virtualization more practical to use.

There has been some prior work in the community pointing out that lightweight operating systems, like Unikernels, can drastically lower virtualization costs. The team’s key insight was to apply this idea to the increasingly important domain of function isolation.

By working with existing hardware and developing language extensions that require changing just a handful of words in code, the Virtines platform executes virtualized functions while reducing the overhead of traditional environments. This allows users to isolate their applications in cloud computing, databases, third-party libraries, and serverless computing with ease— meaning that programmers can establish their applications within these platforms without worry that outside users will break into their applications and poach their data.

Hale credits his team of student researchers for conducting the

“

We decided to build our own platform.”

— Kirtankumar Shetty, CS/M.S. CS 5th Year

bulk of the work. Nicholas Wanninger (CS ’21), Joshua Bowden (CS/M.S. CS ’21), Kirtankumar Shetty (CS/M.S. CS 5th Year), and Ayush Garg (CS/M.S. CS 5th Year) all worked on the Virtines project as undergraduate students in Hale’s Laboratory for High-Performance Experimental Systems and Architecture (HExSA).

Wanninger traveled to the conference in Rennes, France, to present the paper and represent the research team. He says he enjoyed the experience of traveling abroad and networking with other researchers.

Garg and Shetty both say this research experience introduced them to the world of serverless computing, and conducting research in this unfamiliar area was challenging. However, through their coursework, by reading research papers, and by having weekly meetings with Hale and the HExSA lab team, they were able to successfully carry out the project and get their work published.

Shetty and Garg were assigned to test Virtines on open-source serverless platforms, and after discovering that the Virtines framework was not compatible, they developed a new platform, Vespid, to support the serverless use case.

“We concluded that the existing open-source serverless platforms are very tightly integrated with containers, and re-engineering them to spawn Virtines would be a big challenge,” Shetty says. “So we decided to build our own platform.”

Although the research team has demonstrated that Virtines can function as a virtualization solution, more research will be conducted to automatically synthesize lightweight runtime environments, to understand the security implications, and to support more high-level languages.

“I believe that Virtines is the way forward to providing function as a service, but there is a lot of research that needs to be done to overcome the engineering challenges,” Shetty says. R MORE INFORMATION CONTACT

Kyle Hale Assistant Professor of Computer Science

iit.edu/directory/people/ kyle-hale

Office of Research 10 West 35th Street Michael Paul Galvin Tower Seventh Floor Chicago, IL 60616 More Information Contact: Fred Hickernell Vice Provost for Research Professor of Applied Mathematics hickernell@iit.edu

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