University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering Research Milestones 2019

RESEARCH

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Letter from the Dean The University of Houston’s Cullen College of Engineering is currently in the midst of the greatest transformation in its history. The upward momentum shines through in all aspects — from facilities to student success. The Cullen College was recently ranked #69 by U.S. News & World Report, the highest it has ever been, with the promise of climbing even higher. Additionally, our sixyear graduation rate reached a record high and we opened the doors of the brand-new University of Houston at Katy.

None of these successes would have been possible without our outstanding faculty and students. They are the driving forces of quality, strength and ingenuity so widely seen at the Cullen College. Boosted by Houston’s enerRESEARCH MILESTONES

NEW FACILITY FEATURING 80,000

gy, medical and tech industries, Cullen College faculty continue to make remarkable research breakthroughs while providing top-notch education to our students.

It is my pleasure to share some of our college’s most exciting research breakthroughs from 2019. These amazing professors and students have all made tremendous strides in improving the world of tomorrow.

Joseph W. Tedesco Elizabeth D. Rockwell Professor & Dean Cullen College of Engineering University of Houston

UH ENGINEERING

BY THE NUMBERS

SQUARE FEET OF LAB, STUDIO AND CLASSROOM SPACE NOW OPEN

$30M+ annual research expenditures

#69

Best Engineering School in the Nation

139

17

National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Awards since 2008

total faculty

996

Graduate Students

+

2,869

Undergraduate Students

=

3,865

Total Students

14

National Academy of Engineering faculty University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering

Testing New Treatment For

EPILEPSY PATIENTS University of Houston associate professor of biomedical engineering Nuri Ince, who pioneered a dramatic decrease in the time it takes to detect the seizure onset zone (SOZ) in the brain, has been awarded $2.3 million by the National Institutes of Health to expand his testing in a large number of adult and pediatric epilepsy cases. Current treatment protocols for detecting the actual part of the brain that causes seizures, the SOZ, require prolonged monitoring of intracranial EEGs (iEEG) for days or weeks following surgical insertion of electrodes. Using his newly-created machine learning algorithms, Ince observed that high frequency oscillations (HFO) in the seizure onset zone form repetitive waveform patterns that identify their location. Ince’s method not only saves weeks of hospitalization, but reduces side effects and costs associated with what has traditionally been an arduous, and often painful, procedure.

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Brain Stimulation For

PTSD PATIENTS For 8 million adults who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder in any given year, medication and cognitive therapy have been the treatment protocol.

Now, University of Houston assistant professor of electrical engineering Rose T. Faghih is reporting in Frontiers in Neuroscience that a closed-loop brain stimulator, based on sweat response, can be developed not only for PTSD patients, but also for those who suffer an array of neuropsychiatric disorders.

The ultimate goal will be to develop closed-loop prototypes that can be used for treating patients in a variety of neuropsychiatric disorders. Faghih’s graduate researchers Dilranjan Wickramasuriya and Md. Rafiul Amin were first and second authors, respectively, of the article. This project was supported, in part, by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering

Researchers Developing Early Detection, Home Monitoring Tests for

LUPUS NEPHRITIS With $5 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), two University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering biomedical researchers are moving the needle on early detection and monitoring of kidney nephritis, or inflammation, in patients who have Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, known simply as lupus.

Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Endowed Professor of biomedical engineering, Chandra Mohan, one of the nation’s leading lupus researchers, is working on disease diagnostics with his $3 million portion.

Tianfu Wu, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, is leading a $2 million project, developing a system that tests multiple samples for multiple biomarkers at once and a smartphone-based analysis and reporting system for disease monitoring and home care. The app-based program would allow patients to read their own diagnosis, which could be particularly helpful for elderly patients who often cannot be transported to an office for a test. The home tests may not only be able to predict flares but also guide individualized treatment.

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University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering

Targeting New Treatments for Concussions

BY TRANSFORMING BRAIN PATHOLOGY Badri Roysam, chairman of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the UH Cullen College of Engineering, is leading a $3.19 million project to create new technology that could provide an unprecedented look at the injured brain. The technology is a marriage, as Roysam calls it, between a new generation of “super microscopes,” that deliver detailed multi-spectral images of brain tissue, and the UH supercomputer at the HPE Data Science Institute, which interprets the data. Funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), the project will help researcher’s understand the body’s complicated natural processes coupled with drug treaments and side effects following a brain injury. Untangling these processes will allow the team to develop new medication “cocktails” of two or more drugs. Once validated, the new technology can also be applied to strokes, brain cancer and other degenerative diseases of the brain.

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CULLEN COLLEGE PROFESSORS WIN WELCH AWARDS To Explore Fundamental Chemical Ideas Two UH Cullen College of Engineering professors received funding from the Welch Foundation for their contributions to basic chemical research that benefits humankind. These three-year grants extend from 2019 to 2022. Jiming Bao, professor of electrical and computer engineering, earned a $240,000 award – his fourth Welch award – to continue studying cobalt oxides as viable catalysts for energy generation. Debora Rodrigues, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, won a $195,000 grant so she can investigate the effects of drug delivery in the emergence of antibiotic resistance. The awards bring in $435,000 in research funding. The Houston-based Welch Foundation is one of the largest private funding sources for chemistry research in America. Since its inception in 1954, the Foundation has given more than $66.5 million to the University of Houston.

University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering

Imaging Technology Will Offer

NEW CLUES TO EMBRYONIC DEVELOPMENT Soon after conception, an embryo’s circulatory system connects to that of its mother.

Complications that occur at this critical time can result in miscarriage or birth defects with long-term chronic conditions. Unfortunately, limitations in imaging technologies prevent researchers from fully understanding the cellular-level events leading up to this crucial point.

Researchers from the University of Houston’s Cullen College of Engineering and Baylor College of Medicine are developing a new technology to allow simultaneous imaging of both embryonic structural development and the molecular underpinnings that occur in the developing circulatory system. David Mayerich, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at UH, is leading the $3.7 million project funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, with Kirill Larin, professor of biomedical engineering at UH. Ultimately, they hope to identify biomarkers correlated with certain birth defects, improving early detection and potentially leading to treatments that could help avoid miscarriage and fetal death.

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University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering

UH Cullen College of Engineering Recognized For

ACHIEVEMENTS IN DIVERSITY BY ASEE The American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) honored the UH Cullen College of Engineering with an award recognizing its commitment to diversity and inclusiveness.

The college is one of 74 engineering programs around the country that received a bronze-level designation as part of ASEE’s national Diversity Recognition Program, which launched this year. Bronze was the only level designated during this inaugural award cycle.

Founded in 1893, ASEE is a nonprofit organization committed to furthering education in engineering and engineering technology. Its new program is the first national effort to publicly recognize engineering schools for their contributions to building a diverse workforce.

“This award from the ASEE is a great honor and it signifies that the Cullen College of Engineering is among the nation’s leaders in inclusive excellence,” said Joseph Tedesco, Elizabeth D. Rockwell Dean of the college. “We have a well-established tradition of encouraging diversity and inclusion at the college and our goal is to keep building our successes.”

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University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering

Houston Universities Team Up To

BOOST MINORITIES IN ACADEMIA Despite how much progress has been made over the years, the percentage of underrepresented minorities in engineering faculty is still nowhere near where it could be. However, the UH Cullen College of Engineering is aiming to change that.

The University of Houston is teaming up with Rice University and Texas Southern University (TSU) on a multimillion-dollar project to help increase the number of underrepresented minorities pursuing academic careers in engineering and science.

The project is funded by a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant of $2.66 million for five years. The grant is part of the NSF’s Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) program, which seeks to “advance knowledge about models to improve pathways to the professoriate and success” for historically underrepresented minorities in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) disciplines. This award is specifically for those in data engineering and data science disciplines. The UH/Rice/TSU project is called AGEP STRIDES (Strengthening Training and Resources for Inclusion in Data Engineering and Sciences). Principal investigators on the project from the Cullen College include Hanadi Rifai, professor of civil and environmental engineering and associate dean of research and facilities, and Pradeep Sharma, M.D. Anderson professor and chairman of the mechanical engineering department.

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The University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering The University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering addresses key challenges in energy, healthcare, infrastructure and the environment by conducting cutting-edge research and graduating hundreds of worldclass engineers each year. With research expenditures topping $30 million and increasing each year, we continue to follow our tradition of excellence in spearheading research that has real, direct impact in the Houston region and beyond.

University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering

UH Cullen College of Engineering Office of Communications Cullen College of Engineering Building 2 4722 Calhoun Road, Suite E311 Houston, Texas 77204-4009

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Research MILESTONES