October 7, 2019
Dear members of the Hajim School community,
Thomas Howard, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, is one of nine faculty members nationwide to be selected in the latest round of NASA Early Career Faculty awards. The grants allow outstanding assistant professors, still early in their careers, “to lend their expertise and help identify and mature capabilities of interest to NASA,” the agency says. Tom, who was selected for an award in the “Human-Robot Teams for Space Exploration” category, will develop and test new algorithms and models that let robots understand and use language in the context of relevant space situations such as habitat construction, surface exploration and sample collection. Well done, Tom!
Continuing our look at other recent grants our faculty have received for cutting edge research:
Advancements in computational power over the past fifty years have mostly relied on shrinking the size of the transistor, the fundamental constituent element of the integrated circuits that make up computers. As we reach the physical limits of how small transistors can be, further progress depends on exploring new concepts. One of these concepts is quantum computing, in which the quantum state of individual quantum bits (qubits) is manipulated to achieve exponential speedup of computational performance. A critical challenge to quantum computing lies in the stability and manipulation of qubits, which are highly sensitive and easily perturbed by the environment.
Stephen Wu, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering and physics, recently received a $1.5 million NSF Quantum Leap grant to combat this decoherence by designing a topological qubit that is protected from external perturbation by the topological nature of its constituent elements. Using a transistor-like device his lab created, mechanical strain is applied to layers of 2D materials that are as thin as a single atom to control and utilize the topological and superconducting nature of these materials to construct protected quantum bits. The topology of the materials provide greater stability for the highly sensitive qubits, mitigating the decoherence that poses a major obstacle to quantum computing. Hesam Askari, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, and John Nichol, assistant professor of physics, are co-principal investigators.
Congratulations to the WetWare BioSystems team, including Bradley Smith ’20 of neursocience, Andrew Kaseman ’20 of microbiology, Scott McKinney ’21 of computer science, and biomedical engineering alumnus Nicholas Drogo ’19. The team won the inaugural Swarm Starter, a shark tank-inspired pitch competition, hosted Saturday by the Ain Center for Entrepreneurship as part of our Meliora Weekend celebration. The team received a $20,000 cash prize and a passport valued at $1,200 in startup services from GSVlabs for their novel biotechnology to preemptively mitigate neurotrauma resulting from athletic, civilian, and defense-related traumatic brain injuries. After quick pitches and a rapid-fire Q&A with the judges, the winner was determined by audience text message votes in real time. You can hear the presentations here.
Four of our engineering and computer science alumni were honored during the weekend.
Andrew Wunder ’04 (MS ’05) was announced as the first-ever recipient of the Department of Chemical Engineering’s new Young Alumni Achievement Award, which will be given annually to recognize graduates within the last 15 years for their service to society, their professional and technical accomplishments, and their demonstrated leadership. Andrew, currently the director of operations at Henkel in Lyons, NY, has also been a compounding manager at Zotos International, R&D process engineer at Ferro Corporation, and process engineer for Kodak. Andrew has also served on the department’s Advisory Board, providing key insight into the current industry and how the department can improve its undergraduate program.
Three other alumni were inducted into the University’s Athletic Hall of Fame. They are:
- Rachel Cahan ’08 of mechanical engineering, one of the most decorated goaltenders in Rochester field hockey history, now a mechanical design engineer for SRAM, a manufacturer of bicycle components.
- Jenny Rogers Green ’02, who graduated with dual degrees in computer science and brain and cognitive science. She was a star offensive player for the women’s lacrosse team and is now a transit service planner for GoTriangle, the regional public transportation authority serving Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, NC.
- John Paul Moran ’89 of optics, a long distance runner who earned All-America honors and later founded Blue Wave Marketing, a digital firm. Read more here.
And thanks to Catherine Kuo, associate professor of biomedical engineering, who participated in the Inauguration Academic Symposium: The Rochester Effect, and responded to a perception she often encounters that scientists aren’t creative people. While incremental discoveries that build on previous work are frequent and important, “creativity is very important when we’re stuck,” she said. That’s when the creative scientist asks: Why are our customary approaches no longer effective? What new questions should we be asking? Learning to think like a scientist, she added, “isn’t just about getting the right answer . . I ask my students about all their data, even the ‘bad’ data. ‘What could it mean?’ is just as important a question as ‘What’s the answer?'” Well done, Catherine. Those are important messages to convey.
Congratulations to Tyler Godat, an optics PhD student working with David Williams, the William G. Allyn Professor of Medical Optics. Tyler received the Optical Society of America Fall Vision Meeting Young Investigator Award for his recent presentation in Washington DC on “In vivo classification of macaque foveal ganglion cells through optical recording of responses to chromatic and luminance flicker.”
Have a great week!
Your dean,
Wendi Heinzelman
(Do you know someone who might like to receive Hajim Highlights? Encourage them to contact Bob Marcotte at bmarcotte@ur.rochester.edu)
