The Grainger College of Engineering

Illinois researchers believe they are getting close to producing food anywhere on the planet — using only air, water and electricity. Join Lauren Laws as she sits down with principal investigator Ting Lu, and co-PIs Mohan Sankaran, Keith Cadwallader to learn more about this DARPA-funded project.

A shared love of physics, music and education outreach has been sparking a creative partnership between Maggie and Fahad Mahmood for the last 14 years. The couple is continuing their musical journey in the Physics Department at The Grainger College of Engineering by writing song parodies, which celebrate and teach all things physics.

On this episode of Illinois Innovators we're joined by Founder Professor of Bioengineering Rohit Bhargava. In March 2005, Professor Rohit Bhargava was the first external hire to join the Department of Bioengineering as it launched. Now he is an established researcher in chemical imaging and digital pathology techniques and has led the Cancer Center at Illinois since it was formed in 2011. As the Cancer Center at Illinois enters its second decade, he reflects on its unusual approach to cancer research and its impact on people's health and well-being.

On this episode of the Illinois Innovators Podcast, we explore hypersonics. When a vehicle travels faster than the speed of sound, its exterior surface becomes extremely hot — risking the safety of the people and cargo inside. Molecules in the flow around the vehicle collide and change, creating a shockwave. This hypersonic environment is difficult to understand and even more difficult to study. We asked Marco Panesi to clarify some of the mysteries of hypersonics and tell us what he and his colleagues are working on to better understand the phenomenon. He is a professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering, a Caterpillar Faculty Scholar, and director of the Center for Hypersonics and Entry Systems Studies.

Vilas Dhar is President of the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation, a $1.5 billion global philanthropy advancing artificial intelligence and data solutions to create a thriving, equitable, and sustainable future for all. He earned bioengineering and computer science degrees from The Grainger College of Engineering in 2004, followed by a JD from New York University School of Law and a Masters in Public Administration from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. He spoke to us in June, sharing his vision for empowering nonprofits and change-makers with technology, encouraging technologists and engineers to pursue careers in public interest technology, and building a better future with people from all backgrounds doing the work. Transcript: https://grainger.illinois.edu/40773

Conversation with Prof. Girish Chowdhary from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and his team at EarthSense. They share about their work in AI robotics, sustainable agriculture, and how to address labor shortages in ag.

Optimizing wind turbine efficiency can save millions and reduce reliance on fossil fuels. Grainger Engineering doctoral student, Lucas Buccafusca, is helping make it happen.

Ever wondered where the food on your plate came from? While it is much easier at Farmer’s Markets or Farm-to-table restaurants for the consumer to know its origination, supermarkets and restaurants are a little more complicated. A group led by Megan Konar, an assistant professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has created the first comprehensive map detailing the food chain within the United States. The team cites 132 Freight analysis framework locations to the 3,142 counties in the US. Those combine form 9.5 million links. Professor Konar joins the program to talk about the enormous project and more of her work. Her research focuses on the intersection of water, food, and trade.

As the world assesses how they can support projects in non-industrialized countries, a new study brought to light just how important cultural and environmental factors are when providing humanitarian engineering aid in these regions. Ann Perry Witmer, a lecturer of Agricultural and Biological Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, joins the program to discuss her study on how contextual engineering improves the success of projects in non-industrial societies. It takes an in-depth look at some of the perspectives that may determine its effectiveness. She has created and supported a number of organizations that have provided engineering assistance to communities in Central America, the Caribbean, South America, and Africa and was a past faculty advisor for Illinois’ chapter of Engineers Without Borders.

Nenad Miljkovic's research group, collaborating with colleagues at Kyushu University of in Japan, discovered a method to de-ice surfaces in a matter of seconds. The method does so by using 1% of the energy and point 0.01 percent of the time. Professor Miljkovic talks about the discovery and how it could impact a number of industries. His is the principal investigator of the Energy Transport Research Laboratory, the associate director of Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Center and an associate professor of mechanical science and engineering at at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Among the emphases of the lab is the interaction between liquids and a solid surface.

If modifications of Einstein’s general relativity do exist in nature, could they leave observable imprints in astrophysical systems and in gravitational wave observations? Hector Silva, a postdoctoral research associate with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Department of Physics discusses his observations specifically as it relates to black holes and neutron stars. A native of Brazil with a PhD from the University of Mississippi, Silva earned the Gravitational Wave International Committee-Braccini Thesis Prize for his thesis “Compact Objects in Relatavistic Theories of Gravity."

In 2017, the U.S. Army began outlining plans for the Internet of Battlefield Things, allowing military to be connected on the battlefield the same we are connected in our homes. It includes not only common consumer items like smartphones, wearable devices, cameras, etc., but provides analytics to help predict and perceive the enemy’s movement, for instance or to give machines the autonomy to carry out a course of action based on the programmed intent. The $25 million Army Research Project leans on six institutions, including the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Tarek Abdelzaher, a professor of computer science, is the academic lead of the Army Research Lab’s Alliance for IoBT Research on Evolving Intelligent Goal-Driven Networks (REIGN). He joins the program to talk about its progress.

The is world’s leading expert in spectroscopic imaging and the Director of the Cancer Center at Illinois, Rohit Bhargava joins the show to talk about several ways engineering is playing a role in solving diagnosis and treatment of a variety of cancers. His group has developed a 3D printer that makes highly precise scaffolds of living organs such as the heart.

Inventables is a 3D carving company that is helping ignite a revolution in digital fabrication. They are helping others start companies using their products, which include powerful machines, software, and materials. Zach Kaplan, the company's CEO discusses the unique technology, the Inventables business model, and his active role within the Chicago VC community.

Professor Krein talks about how he is helping shape the future of advanced energy applications, specifically in electric vehicles and solar power. A recent article in the IEEE Spectrum Krein, a research professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Illinois, detailed the ways the Colleges are prepping the next generation of manufacturers, which includes training in artificial intelligence and robotics. The past chair of the IEEE Transportation Electrification Community, he is a leading expert in power and energy systems, including power electronics, machines, drives, transportation electrification, and electrical energy, with emphasis on nonlinear control approaches.

Get to know Nancy Amato, the first woman to lead the Department of Computer Science at Illinois. In addition to some interesting personal background, she discusses her research in robotics, how the computer science field has become even more interdisciplinary, the success of the CS + X degree, and the upcoming Rising Stars Workshop, a gathering of top female CS PhD students.

On April 10, astronomers announced that they had captured the first images of a black hole through the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) – a planet scale array of eight ground based radio telescopes forged through international collaboration. University of Illinois Physics Professor Charles Gammie, is a member of the EHT Science Council and co-led a group which provided the theoretical analysis. The team developed sophisticated computer code to make running and analyzing the simulations as efficient as possible. Professor Gammie joins Illinois Innovators to discuss the significance of the discovery, the role the Illinois team played in the project, and what’s next.

The Illinois College of Engineering and what was then the Department of Military Science have similar beginnings, dating back to the 1870s. Those ties strengthened following the world wars. Today science and technology are intertwined with the United States military. Of note is that 55 Illinois engineering students are enrolled in the ROTC program at Illinois. On the latest Illinois Innovators, host Mike Koon talks about those ties with Joe Rank, a Vietnam Veteran, two-time University of Illinois graduate, a retired U.S. Navy Commander and former Naval Instructor for the Navy ROTC program at Illinois.

Continued advances in various fabrication processes and technologies have led to rapid developments in both top-down and bottom-up approaches to nanomanufacturing (nanoMFG). The nanomanufacturing (nanoMFG) node at Illinois presented its first two-day workshop on focusing on data-science enabled advances in nanomanufacturing and nanotechnology to explore future opportunities in nanomanufacturing. The Director of the Nanomanufacturing Node, Kimani Touissant joins the program. He is an associate Professor in the Departments of Mechanical Science and Engineering, and Bioengineering, and an Affiliate Faculty in the Departments of Electrical and Computer Engineering, as well as the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois

Gul Agha, professor of computer science and Director of the Open Systems Laboratory at the University of Illinois, joins the program. His widely cited work, "Actors: A Model of Concurrent Computing in Distributed Systems," provided a basis for a number of research projects in concurrent programming. Actor frameworks have been used to program Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook Chat, the British National Health Service Portal, and hundreds of commercial cloud applications. Together with Professor Bill Spencer, he co-directs the Illinois Structural Health Monitoring Group. The project pioneered research applying wireless sensor networks and distributed computing to continuously monitor the structural health of civil infrastructure such as bridges.

Lav Varshney, who leads the Information and Intelligence Group at the University of Illinois, talks about a number of topics related to artificial intelligence. Earlier this year, Professor Varshney led a session on Blockchain and the Scientific Method at the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences annual meeting in Washington. The chief scientist for Ensaras, Inc., he and the company began working with the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago to develop a solution to odor complaints near their reservoir system. In 2017, Professor Varshney and his team of researchers received a $50,000 Siebel Energy Institutes seed grant to develop their project “Incentives, Choices and Analytics for Electric Vehicle Fleets in jointly managing Urban Traffic and Smart Grid.”

Quantum information science has been called the next technological “space race.” And the University of Illinois is positioning itself to be at the forefront of that race. In November, the U of I pledged $15 million for the formation of the Illinois Quantum Information Science and Technology Center (or IQUIST). Two of the leading experts in the field, Illinois physics professors Brian DeMarco and Paul Kwiat join the show to discuss its vast future applications. Both professors represented the University of Illinois at the first ever Chicago Quantum Summit in November. DeMarco was invited to the Advancing American Leadership in Quantum Information Science Summit at the White House last fall.

A native of India, Sakshi Srivastava came to Illinois to study engineering, earning a bachelor of science degree in 2015 and a master of science in 2017. She has served as a research assistant under associate dean and ECE professor Jennifer Bernhard on investigating the role of antenna parameters in reducing interference. She has also worked as an intern at Microsoft. Most recently, she is featured in a chapter of a book co-authored by Illinois engineering’s Laura Hahn and Angie Wolters titled Women and Ideas in Engineering: Twelve stories from Illinois. The chapter is titled “Inspiring the Future Generation” and talks about her role in the creation a woman engineer statue on the Illinois campus.

MakerGirl, a non-profit founded at the University of Illinois in 2014, has a mission to inspire the next generations through educational STEM sessions led by college mentors and instructors. In less than four years, they have impacted 3,000 girls in 18 states. This year they are expanding to Northwestern University and have hired their first CEO in Stephanie Hein, who joins us to talk about the organization.

The University of Illinois hosted the 5th Health Care Engineering Systems Symposium, which brought experts to discuss simulation/virtual reality/augmented reality in health care and education, wearable computing, voice user interface, artificial intelligence in health care, medical and social robotics, and assistive living technologies. The program includes interviews with Darrin D’Agostino, Executive Dean, College of Osteopathic Medicine and Vice President for Health Affairs at Kansas City University; Citali Lopez Ortiz, professor of kinesiology and community health at Illinois; Stephen Boppart, Director of the Biophotonics Imaging Laboratory at Illinois' Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology; Scott Barrows, Director of Medical Visualization at Jump Simulation Peoria; Judy Rowen, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the Carle Illinois College of Medicine, John Vozenilek, Vice President & Chief Medical Officer for the Jump Simulation Center Illinois; and Kesh Kesavadas, Director of the Healthcare Engineering Systems Center at Illinois.

Almost a year ago to the day of this recording, the University of Illinois announced the opening of the $15.6 million NSF-funded Illinois Materials Research Science and Engineering Center and Professor Nadya Mason as the center’s director. The goal of the center is to build highly interdisciplinary teams of researchers and students. One of the rock star physicists on the Illinois campus, she specializes in condensed matter physics.

In this episode, we talk alternative fuels with our guest Deepak Kumar, a research assistant professor in the department of agricultural and biological engineering with a focus on sustainable production of biofuels and biomaterials. He is a part of several projects, one of which is called PETROSS (Plants engineered to replace oil in sugcane and sweet sorgum). He is also leading a project developing fermentation technology for high solid use in the corn ethanol process.

If you live in a metropolitan area, then you are no doubt familiar with gridlock on the highways and roadways. An even greater percentage of those vehicles creating that gridlock are making deliveries, whether it be lunch from a favorite eatery, important B-to-B documents, or simply a package purchased through Amazon. What could delivery service look like in the future. University of Illinois Professor of Mechanical Science and Engineering Naira Hovakiyman and her team has received an NSF proposal for a study titled Synergetic Drone Delivery Network in Metropolis.

Alison Dunn discusses her NSF Faculty Early Career award to study how hydrogels interact with biological tissues. Her work also has the potential to further develop general rules for designing hydrogels with specified surface requirements.The assistant professor of mechanical science and engineering at the University of Illinois specializes in "non-traditional" tribology. For more on the project visit https://bit.ly/2NySVHr.

When you think cybersecurity, you’re probably thinking about measures to keep hackers out of your network. Adam Bates, is focused on next steps after an attack begins. The assistant professor of computer science at the University of Illinois was granted a National Science Foundation CAREER AWARD to advance the use of data provenance, the goal of which is to identify the attacker, figure out their grand plan and prevent them achieving that plan. His work has attracted interest from VISA and the MIT Lincoln Laboratory.

Kyle Chandler, the founder and CEO of Chief Technologies, a Pennsylvania based manufacturer and engineering firm of specialized hazard control systems, discusses engineering behind modern fire equipment. Chief Technologies builds a variety of fluids handling (large pumping and fire retardant proportioning systems) and delivery devices (systems used to target and flow water streams on fires), primarily used in large-scale petrochemical facilities.

One of today’s major concerns is the deterioration of bridges. Most recently a pedestrian bridge under construction on the campus of Florida International University collapsed killing six people. Neil Hawkins is an expert in reinforced and prestressed concrete and prestressed concrete structures subject to static and dynamic loadings. He is past Director of the American Concrete Institute, the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute and the Post-Tensioning Institute.

The United States has set an ambitious goal of sending a manned mission to Mars during the first half of this century. This will likely mean several more trips to the moon, something we haven’t done in nearly 50 years. Combine that with other potential space missions, and logistics will be a big issue. Koki Ho, an assistant professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and his team have been exploring how these missions can be completed efficiently.

It is estimated that about 30 percent of consumable food products are wasted, but that number is much higher in the United States. Conversely about 13 percent of Americans are food insecure. Kathleen Hu, a senior in Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering at the University of Illinois, is providing a solution through a startup called Dibbs, a technology platform and organization to connect excess food at grocery stores to local food pantries. They’re on a mission to reduce food waste while fighting hunger. For her efforts, Kathleen claimed the $20,000 Illinois Innovation prize, while Dibbs was a finalist on the Cozad New Venture Competition.

The show tackles the topic of how data analytics has an ever-growing presence in the future of healthcare. The guest is George Heintz, the senior program manager for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Healthcare Engineering System Center’s Health Data Analytics initiative. He serves as a liaison between HCESC and healthcare providers, the health care industry and other healthcare researchers.

Revolutions in big data analysis are shaping healthcare delivery worldwide—technologies that can analyze, classify, and manage patient data and outcomes. To foster collaboration and to shape the future of Medical Informatics and Health Data Analytics, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign—in collaboration with healthcare providers, industry representatives, and academic researchers held a one-day summit. We caught up with several of the presenters after their talks to get their take on where the field is heading. Those interviewed include Michael Sutter, Chief Innovation Officer and Enterprise Clinical Solutions Architect at Carle Foundation Hospital; Justin Starren, Chief of the Division of Health and Biomedical Informatics at Northwestern University; Khan Siddiqui, co-founder and Chief Technology Officer with Higi; Rich Caruana, Principal Researcher at Microsoft; David Liebovitz, Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine at the University of Chicago; and Jay Duhig, Director of Patient Integration at AbbVie.

Tarek Abdelzaher, a professor of computer science with an emphasis on cyberphysical systems at the University of Illinois, leads a group of researchers studying how information spreads through social media and the effects that information has on people’s beliefs as it moves. The project began as part a $4 million Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) grant.

Klara Nahrstedt, a professor of computer science and director of the Coordinated Science Laboratory at the University of Illinois, discusses her involvement in several National Science Foundation and Department of Energy cyber infrastructure projects. Those include building advanced real-time security in cyber-physical systems (smart grid and electric vehicles) and secure sensor networks monitoring of oil and gas cyber-physical infrastructure. She also touches on quality of service management in multimedia networks and its implications on Net Neutrality.

Laura Hahn, the Director of the Academy for Excellence in Engineering Education (or AE3), joins Illinois Innovators to talk about AE3 initiatives like the Strategic Instructional Innovations Program (SIIP) and the Illinois Engineering First Year Experience, which guides freshmen to people and resources they will need in their College experience. She also talks about the book, Women and Ideas in Engineering: Twelve Stories from Illinois, in which Laura is the co-author. The book, which highlights women of influence within the College of Engineering, will be published soon.

The startup Lumos has developed a safe renewable system, which not only stores and cools nuclear waste, but uses it for electricity. Its CEO, Aries Loumis, a graduate of Illinois' Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering program, stops by to not only talk about their technology, but advocate for the future of nuclear as a continued energy source.

While much of the rhetoric around climate change centers on extreme events such as floods or droughts, today’s guest Praveen Kumar, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Illinois, contends frequency and intensity of non-extreme or everyday precipitation events are changing and having a noticeable effect on the ecosystem.

Continuing the series on "Why Cancer Research Needs Engineering," Kesh Kesavadas, Director of the Health Care Engineering Systems Center and professor of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign discusses robotic surgery and its impact on treating cancer patients.

What will the doctor's office of the future look like? In our continuing series on Why Cancer Research Needs Engineering, Stephen Boppart, Abel Bliss Professor of Engineering and Director of Imaging at Illinois, foresees more engineering and technology integrated into the doctor-patient relationship.

This year alone in this country 600,000 people will die from the disease and 1.6 million will be newly diagnosed. In the fight to win, a new generation of researchers will use engineering to advance prevention, diagnosis and treatment. Rohit Bhargava, a pioneer in the field of digital molecular biology, a professor in bionengineering at the University of Illinois and a founding director of the Cancer Center of Illinois joins the program.

Creating a vaccine typically takes a lot of trial and error and testing. However, with machine learning and data-driven modeling, physicians can have a leg up in targeting specific vaccines. Since 2010, Andrew Ferguson, now an assistant professor of materials, science, and engineering at the University of Illinois, has applied statistical mechanical tools to develop data-driven models of HIV viral fitness landscapes for computational vaccine design. This is another way that technology is making health care more personalized.

The anti-infammatory drugs of tomorrow may look a lot different than the ones we are used to as Professor Aditi Das explains. Her research focuses on understanding how fatty acids, in particular Omega 3 fatty acids, get converted into anti-inflammatory lipids signaling molecules by epoxygenases. Through a grant from the National Institute of Health, she is leading a research team on a discovery of novel endocannabinoid epoxides that are anti-inflammatory.

Natural disasters put a strain on the infrastructure of those areas affected, from power, to water, to utilities. As victims seek emergency assistance and friends and family reach out to their loved ones, cell towers and 911 lines reach capacity and beyond, leaving it difficult to call for help. Chao Zhang introduces listeners to TrioVecEvent, which is demonstrating how geo-tagged Tweet streams can help locate those in most need of help.

Startup Autonomic Energy Systems, winner of the 2017 Cozad New Venture Competition, has developed technology which would extend the life of your cellphone battery while preventing fires from those lithium ion batteries. Co-founder Tony Griffin shares details on the technology and talks about the future of cellphone batteries.

As graphene's popularity grows as an advanced "wonder" material, the speed and quality at which it can be manufactured will be paramount. Sung Woo Nam and his team of researchers have developed a cleaner and more environmentally friendly method to manufacture the material using using carbonated water. He shares his findings and discusses the promising future of graphene.

Professor Deming Chen and his team of researchers are developing technology which allows security cameras to detect sounds of distress (such as gun shots, screaming, cry for help)and immediately notify law enforcement.

If you are all familiar with the Egyptian Pyramids, then you are no doubt aware of what an engineering marvel they are. Consider that they were built around 2500 BC, the largest stands 449 feet tall, weighs 6.5 million tons and covers 13 acres. But exactly how were they built? University of Illinois alumnus Stephen Blakely has studied its construction extensively and has formed a theory, the use of an Egyptian pulley