Professor David Cooper Honored at CVPR Conference

David Cooper, Professor Emeritus of Engineering and Professor of Engineering (Research), was honored at the 25th International IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) which was held in Providence from June 18-20. This is the major annual meeting on CVPR. Professor Cooper was honored “In appreciation of his outstanding and pioneering contributions to Unsupervised Learning and Bayesian Inference in Computer Vision.” The international conference was held this year at the Convention Center with over 1800 attendees. Brown University Professor Benjamin Kimia served as one of three general co-chairs of the conference.

Ben Kimia, David Cooper, Rama Chellappa

Professor Cooper’s current research focuses on the development and application of new geometric, algebraic, and probabilistic approaches, models, and algorithms for recognizing and estimating 2D and 3D geometric information and functioning in 3D scenes from images, video, and range data.

Professor Cooper received both his Sc.B. and Sc.M. degrees from MIT in electrical engineering, and his Ph.D. from Columbia University in applied mathematics. After graduation, he joined the Brown faculty in September of 1966 as an assistant professor. He became an associate professor in 1969, and was promoted to full professor in 1978. During his more than 45 years at Brown, Cooper has also served as cofounder and associate director of the Laboratory for Engineering Man/Machine Systems (LEMS) for more than 15 years, and the head of electrical engineering for two years. He is a fellow of the IEEE and has published roughly 140 papers in refereed journals or as book chapters.

For more information on the CVPR awards, please go to: http://www.cvpr2012.org/program-details/awards

Fei Guo Ph.D. ’12 Receives Brian Kelly Award

Brown University School of Engineering postdoctoral researcher Fei Guo Ph.D. ’12 was presented the Brian Kelly Award at Carbon 2012, the annual world conference on carbon in Krakow, Poland, on June 21. Guo, who was advised by Professor Bob Hurt at Brown, delivered a 30-minute award lecture, “Graphene-Based Environmental Barriers,” to the conference participants.

In his presentation, Guo demonstrated the potential for graphene oxide films to act as high-performance barriers for environmental toxicants. Applying elemental mercury (considered a neurotoxic) as a model, he showed that just 20 nm graphene oxide films, which were deposited onto surface treated polymers, reduced mercury permeability by 90%.

This prestigious annual award was established in 1996 by the British Carbon Group in memory of Brian Kelly, a leading authority on the physics of graphite to reward excellence in carbon science and technology. The award is currently five hundred pounds sterling (£500) and was presented at the time of the conference with a certificate. The award is intended as a travel grant for students and early career researchers with up to ten years postdoctoral experience to attend the annual World Carbon Conference.

Andrew Peterson named Young Investigator

Andrew Peterson, assistant professor of engineering, has won a Young Investigator Award from the U.S. Navy. Peterson, one of only 26 young faculty nationwide to be selected, was recognized for scientific pursuits that show exceptional promise for the Navy and Marine Corps. The award is intended to promote the researcher’s professional development; Peterson will receive three years’ funding for research that could advance naval technology, the Navy announced Tuesday, March 27.

Peterson joined the Brown faculty in January. His primary research is devoted to figuring out how to produce carbon-based fuels from renewable sources. A key to such a breakthrough lies in overcoming the steep energy threshold needed to split carbon dioxide molecules into hydrocarbons. Peterson’s approach is to rely on quantum mechanics calculations to design catalysts to make those reactions more efficient and less costly.

Brown Graduate Student Lucy Weng ScB'08 Wins Award at the Northeast Bioengineering Conference

Brown University biomedical engineering graduate student Lucy Weng ScB'08 recently won the Master's Student Competition at the 2012 Northeast Bioengineering Conference hosted by Temple University in Philadelphia. Overall, there were more than 200 papers accepted, and awards were given for best paper to two master's student and two Ph.D. students. Weng received a certificate and a $250 prize.

Her paper, “Nanophase Magnesium for Orthopedic Applications” discusses the use of magnesium as a biomaterial for orthopedic applications because of its biocompatibility, biodegradability, and positive effect on bone formation. Likewise, studies have shown nanophase material increase osteoblast (bone-forming cell) function compared to conventional materials, but the two have not been studied together. The purpose of this study was to determine if altering magnesium surface features into the nanometer scale promotes greater osteoblast functions.

Nanorough magnesium surfaces were created by a novel treatment with sodium hydroxide at 1N, 5N, and 10N concentrations for 10, 20, and 30 minutes. Material characterization by scanning electron microscopy showed increased roughness on all treated samples compared to the control magnesium. Contact angle measurements indicated greater hydrophilicity on treated magnesium and no significant effect of ultraviolet sterilization on the surface energy of the material. Osteoblasts were seeded onto treated and untreated surfaces and adhesion at 4hrs were assessed through the MTT assay.

Results indicated increased osteoblast adhesion on nano-treated samples compared to untreated samples. These findings support previous studies indicating the promise of magnesium as a biomaterial for orthopedic applications and suggest further experiments examining the long-term effects of nanophase magnesium on osteoblast proliferation and function.

Three Biomedical Engineering Graduate Students Win Award

Brown biomedical engineering graduate students Gozde Durmus, Kim Kummer '11, and Erik Taylor were one of ten graduate student teams to win the Prize for Primary Healthcare Award (Phase I) from the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology (CIMIT). The title of their project is "Using Nano-material Science to Inhibit Medical Device Infections".

Each winning team received $10,000, and they will now be able to use these funds to develop a final proposal over the next few months as they compete for the top three spots and a total of $300,000 in additional funds against teams from other top schools such as MIT, Johns Hopkins, and Yale.

“This is an outstanding achievement,” said Associate Professor Thomas Webster, “and places Brown among the top biomedical programs in the country.” Webster serves as the advisor to the three students on the research.

The award is for innovative technology ideas to improve the quality and efficiency of primary care in medicine. The Brown team was selected out of 76 applicants from 38 of the top engineering programs in the country. The goal of the competition is to stimulate the development of innovative technology to serve the needs of the frontlines of healthcare.

Assistant Professor Petia Vlahovska Wins Salomon Award

Assistant Professor of Engineering Petia Vlahovska was one of 15 faculty researchers who were honored on March 14 with a Salomon Award. The competitive grants come courtesy of the Richard B. Salomon Faculty Research Awards administered by the Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR).

Clyde Briant, vice president for research, said the awards are primarily to stimulate new research projects by faculty. “We know oftentimes it’s hard to get (federal) funding” to begin major research projects, Briant said. “These funds are in place to help you do that.”

“We are the entity in modern society that’s charged with discovery,” said Provost Mark Schlissel, congratulating the award recipients. “This is what we thrive on, this is what we’re here for.” Schlissel, like Briant, noted that these awards are important for jump-starting complex research projects by getting preliminary data. “These awards help get research projects off the ground and get them competitive for further funding,” Schlissel said.

The Salomon Awards were established to support excellence in scholarly work by providing funding for selected faculty research projects of exceptional merit. Recipients receive as much as $15,000. The Salomon Awards have been administered by OVPR since 2003, and a total of about $2 million has been awarded to 132 faculty.

Vlahovska won a $15,000 award for her proposal, “Tension regulated phase separation in biomimetic multicomponent membranes.” Cells and cellular organelles are encapsulated by membranes composed of hundreds of lipids. This lipid diversity is essential for cell functions such as signaling: lipid mixtures organize into rafts, which serve as platforms for molecular-binding events at the membrane interface. Raft dynamics is regulated by physio-chemical variables like composition, temperature, and tension.

Vlahovska’s proposed research centers on the effects of tension on raft evolution and stability, which is virtually unexplored due to difficulties in tension control and quantification. Vlahovska proposes the use of electric fields and microfluidic flows to create well-defined tension conditions that will allow her to experimentally investigate lipid demixing and domain evolution in tense membranes. This knowledge will benefit bioengineering applications that exploit cell signaling machinery, such as targeted drug delivery.

Professor Huajian Gao to Receive Rodney Hill Prize from IUTAM

Huajian Gao, Walter H. Annenberg Professor of Engineering at Brown University, will receive the 2012 Rodney Hill Prize from the International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (IUTAM). The prize, which consists of a plaque and a check for $25,000, is awarded in recognition of outstanding research in the field of solid mechanics and is awarded only once every four years in conjunction with the International Congress of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (ICTAM). The initial prize was awarded at ICTAM 2008 in Adelaide, Australia. Professor Gao will receive his award during ICTAM 2012 which will be held in Beijing, China, from August 19-24, 2012.

Professor Gao receives the prize for his deep and broad scientific achievements in basic solid mechanics and its bridge to other fields, which has re-defined the modern frontiers of mechanics research. His work includes fundamental theory as well as applications to materials science, nanotechnology, and bioengineering. His highly cited publications appear not only in the major solid mechanics journals but also in many high-profile, cross-disciplinary journals.

"I want to warmly congratulate Professor Gao on this prestigious and well deserved award," said Dean Larry Larson. "His groundbreaking work shows how the field of solid mechanics - an area of historic national leadership at Brown - can have an impact on fields as diverse as health care, the environment and information technology."

Professor Gao received his B.S. degree from Xian Jiaotong University of China in 1982, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in engineering science from Harvard University in 1984 and 1988, respectively. He served on the faculty of Stanford University between 1988 and 2002, where he was promoted to associate professor with tenure in 1994 and to full professor in 2000. He was appointed as Director and Professor at the Max Planck Institute for Metals Research in Stuttgart, Germany between 2001 and 2006. He joined Brown University in 2006. Professor Gao has a background in applied mechanics and engineering science. He has more than 25 years of research experience and more than 300 publications to his credit.

Professor Gao’s research group is generally interested in understanding the basic principles that control mechanical properties and behaviors of both engineering and biological systems. His current research includes studies of how metallic and semiconductor materials behave in thin film and nanocrystalline forms, and how biological materials such as bones, geckos, and cells achieve their mechanical robustness through structural hierarchy.

About IUTAM and its Congress
The International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (IUTAM) is an international non-governmental scientific organization belonging to the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU), which was formed in 1946 and founded in 1948, with the objectives to form a link between persons and organizations engaged in scientific work in mechanics and related fields, and to promote the development of mechanics, both theoretical and applied, as a scientific discipline.

IUTAM achieves this aim mainly by organizing international meetings to deal with scientific problems. An International Congress on Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (ICTAM), including mini-symposia and pre-nominated sessions, is held every four years. It is organized by the Congress Committee, established by the IUTAM General Assembly.

Ares Rosakis Receives Eringen Medal from Society of Engineering Science

Ares Rosakis Sc.M.’80 Ph.D.’83 was awarded the 2011 A. Cermal Eringen Medal of the Society of Engineering Science (SES) in recognition of his sustained contributions to dynamic fracture mechanics and methods to determine stresses in thin film structures. Medalists for 2011 were announced at the recent 48th Annual Technical Meeting of SES at Northwestern University. 

Rosakis is the Theodore von Kármán Professor of Aeronautics and Professor of Mechanical Engineering at California Institute of Technology. He is presently Chair of the Division of Engineering and Applied Science at Caltech, where he previously served as Director of the Graduate Aerospace Laboratories between 2004 and 2009. He is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering and American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received his BA and MA degrees in engineering science from Oxford University, and his Sc.M. and Ph.D. degrees in solid mechanics from Brown University.  

Rosakis has received numerous honors  including the Hetényi Award (1991, 2008), the B.L. Lazan Award (1996), the Frocht Award (2003), the Murray Medal and Lecture (2005) and the Harting Award (2007) from the Society of Experimental Mechanics, the Brown University Engineering Alumni Medal and the Robert Henry Thurston Lecture Award from ASME (2010).

Erik Taylor Wins BMES Graduate Student Award

At the annual meeting of the Biomedical Engineering Society, Brown University graduate student Erik Taylor won the Graduate Student Extended Abstract Award for outstanding research. His submission, “Superparamagnetic Iron Oxide Nanoparticles Could Be Better than Antibiotics at Reducing Biofilm Produced by Staphylococcus Aureus” was considered by the committee strong enough to be only one of ten such awards presented.

This award consists of a certificate, a stipend of $500, and complimentary registration for the 2011 BMES Annual Meeting. The certificate was presented at the awards ceremony at the BMES Business Meeting on Thursday, October 13, 2011, in Hartford, Conn. The award has been presented each year since 1992 in recognition of outstanding biomedical engineering research.

Taylor, who was selected for a Fulbright Fellowship, will be leaving for India next semester to work on biofilm research and anti-infection strategies at IIT-Bombay in Mumbai for nine months. He will be working with Dr. Rinti Banerjee from IIT-Bombay through the Indo-U.S. Center for Biomaterials for Healthcare, co-directed by professors Bikram Basu and Thomas Webster.

Brown Engineering Alumnus Michael Escuti wins Presidential Award for Young Scientists and Engineers

Dr. Michael Escuti ScM '99 PhD '03, who received both his master's degree and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Brown University and is now a North Carolina State University engineering professor has won the U.S. government's top award for early-career scientists and engineers.

Escuti, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State, will receive the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers later this fall, the White House announced. The awards program, established by President Bill Clinton in 1996, honors researchers for working at the frontiers of science and technology and serving the community through scientific leadership, public education or outreach.

Winners receive research grants of up to five years to support their work.

Escuti was honored for his pioneering development of liquid crystal "polarization gratings," which consist of a thin layer of liquid crystal material on a glass plate. The White House also recognized him for educating students through collaborations with international academic teams and industries, as well as for outreach work in underserved communities.

Escuti's research has shown how polarization gratings, as well as devices and applications based on them, can solve problems in optics that had been previously thought unsolvable. One result of the work is a very energy-efficient way of steering laser beams that is precise and relatively inexpensive. The research has potential applications in laser radar and free space communication, which uses lasers to transfer data between platforms – such as between satellites or between aircraft and soldiers on the battlefield. Escuti's team, consisting of NC State students along with partner Boulder Nonlinear Systems Inc., has already delivered prototypes of the technology to the U.S. Air Force and is working on other applications.

Another result is a low-loss light switch, which inherently acts on all components of light rather than just the correctly polarized half, meaning that it is very transparent when it is open and very dark when closed. Other results include high-resolution spectral/polarization cameras, which enable compact and low-cost imaging beyond what our eyes can see for platforms such as aerial vehicles, satellites and biomedical imaging.

Escuti is commercializing his research through several industrial partnerships, including his own start-up company, ImagineOptix Corp., that has already prototyped a tiny, highly efficient projection display that could revolutionize displays on hand-held and mobile devices.

His work has resulted in a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award, three awarded patents and nine pending patents. He has also received $4.3 million in external research funding from NSF, and many other federal, state, and private sources.

After receiving his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Brown University in 2003, Escuti joined the NC State faculty in 2004.

Portions of this release courtesy of North Carolina State University.

Brown’s Lei Yang ScM ’11 PhD ’11 Named a Sigma Xi Fresh Face as part of 125th Anniversary Celebration

Brown University engineering alumnus Lei Yang ScM ’11 PhD ’11 has been selected by the 125th Anniversary Planning Committee as a Sigma Xi Fresh Face. Sigma Xi, as part of its anniversary celebration, is recognizing select “students and early-career members who have shown promise in their respective fields of study and dedication to Sigma Xi.”

Yang who was elected to full membership in Sigma Xi in 2011, received the Sigma Xi Outstanding Graduate Student Award at Brown in 2011. At the 2010 Sigma Xi Northeast Regional Research Poster Conference, Dr. Yang won the first place award.

Brian Sheldon, Lei Yang, Thomas Webster

Yang worked with Professors Thomas Webster and Brian Sheldon while obtaining his Ph.D. at Brown. His doctoral dissertation was on “Nanocrystaline Diamond for Orthopedic Implant Coating Applications”. His work was recognized with the outstanding thesis award from the Brown School of Engineering in 2011. He is currently working as a postdoctoral research associate under Sheldon on “Electrical Field Induced Stress Evolution in Anodic Tantalum Oxide Films”.

Yang is already an accomplished researcher with three patents and one pending patent to his credit. He has published more than 15 refereed journal papers, and two book chapters.

He is the founding editor of Nano Bulletin, and has reviewed manuscripts or proposals for 13 research journals. He has given 25 conference presentations and five invited talks.

Brown alumnus Glenn Donovan ScM'09 Wins Arthur S. Flemming Award

Brown engineering alumnus Glenn Donovan ScM '09 won a prestigious award for creating a cutting-edge navigation system for autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). 

BRISTOL, R.I.—Three torpedo-like vessels lay in sections on wheeled carts inside a security-tight warehouse in Newport, tagged with the words “Property of the Naval Undersea Warfare Center — if found please return,” in case the vessels get lost during underwater trials. But, if the navigation system developed by NUWC engineer Glenn T. Donovan of Bristol continues to perform as it has, these vessels will become property of the U.S. Navy.

In engineering circles, Mr. Donovan has developed a technology so cutting-edge he received the 2010 Arthur S. Flemming Award for Applied Science, Engineering and Mathematics, presented for excellence in the federal service by the Arthur S. Flemming Awards Commission and George Washington University.

For NUWC, which has been developing military weapons and systems for 140 years, Mr. Donovan is the first employee to receive the award. It’s an achievement he accepts with honor and humility, placing the importance of his work on how it will help the soldiers who use it.

“I was caught off-guard,” Mr. Donovan said of the award. “I didn’t expect it.”

Mr. Donovan holds a bachelor’s in electrical engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and a master’s in engineering from Brown University. During his graduate studies, he worked in robotics, using technology similar to autonomous systems used in military applications.

He began working in the Autonomous and Defensive System Department at NUWC, on autonomous underwater vehicles (unmanned AUVs) used by the military to collect data or complete other missions. First, he worked in systems maintenance for NUWC’s Manta program, an earlier version of the Navy’s unmanned vehicle efforts, terminated due to its size and difficulty to transport. Then he began work in 2002 on efforts to make AUVs more autonomous and undetectable. His new navigational tool would replace the reliance on a global positioning system (GPS).

“Once the vehicle is underwater, the signal can’t reach the satellite,” said Mr. Donovan. In order to communicate, it has to surface, making it susceptible to discovery and interception. “The big challenge is to be unseen.” The problem he faced, he said was, “How could it find its way without surfacing?”

In order to accomplish this, the AUVs need two things: an adequate power supply to keep them moving, and the ability to keep them on course over greater distances.

Using mathematics and map-matching, Mr. Donovan assembled a new system. With maps of the sea floor, he converted the terrain into mathematical data points and programmed it into an on-board computer. Sensors that measure the speed of the AUV, along with its elevation and direction, provide additional data to calculate bearings as it moves through the water. Comparing algorithmic equations against data collected from sensors, the technology developed by Mr. Donovan pinpoints the AUV through its last-known location and where it thinks it is based on sensory data. If the system’s algorithms and sensor calculations cannot agree on the vehicle’s coordinates and location, it is designed to shut itself down. The AUV will rise to the surface and activate the GPS backup to validate its location, before plunging back under and resuming its mission.

“New information is collected and calculated every 5 or 10 seconds,” said Mr. Donovan, depending on the speed of the AUV.

The navigation system developed by Mr. Donovan, called Inertial Navigation System Position Error Correction (INSPEC), will allow AUVs to stay underwater for longer periods without getting lost. He’s spent the last eight years developing the system. AUVs equipped with his INSPEC design have completed test missions, some lasting 24 hours, and everything is looking good. “We haven’t lost any so far,” he said.

“The real goal of the AUVs is they can go into areas where submarines can’t,” he said.

At 12 feet long, the AUVs tested with the INSPEC system can easily slip into shallow waters, where manned vehicles can’t go or might be easily detected because of their size. While the AUV being used in the testing is about twice the length of a man, the INSPEC navigation system is small enough to fit into the slot of a toaster and can be used on AUVs of varying sizes, simply by adjusting some calculations. The INSPEC system can be used on a variety of unmanned vehicles that have all sorts of purposes, Mr. Donovan said.

“AUVs are huge right now,” according to John H. Woodhouse Jr., a NUWC communications specialist, referring to the popularity of the unmanned concept. “Anything we do is going to have a huge interest.” Recognizing the potential impact the INSPEC system will have on AUVs, Mr. Woodhouse said the navigation tool may also have commercial and academic interest.

Mr. Donovan sees his civilian efforts as a bridge to the enlisted men and women who will benefit from his work.

“I view what I do as working for them,” he said. While INSPEC is still considered a prototype, the testing success has promise that “it is something that they can actually use,” he said.

As he continues work on the prototype design, his objective is to expand an AUV’s capability to navigate for days or weeks — work that military officials are watching closely.

Mr. Donovan received his award, along with other 2010 recipients recognized for their service in a variety of disciplines, at a ceremony on June 6 in Washington, D.C.


- by Eric Dickervitz/East Bay Newspapers