Research-related news stories, this category will appear on the College of Engineering’s Research website
Houssou, senior in civil engineering, is conducting research with associate professor Alice Alipour on how to make Iowa’s power infrastructure more resilient to climate change. Due to climate change, natural disasters are becoming more common and severe. Following suit, infrastructure all around Iowa needs to be able to account for more of these dangerous and frequent storms.
Josh Peschel, assistant professor in agricultural and biosystems engineering, is linking agriculture and technology together in a nationwide research project funded by the National Science Foundation. The team, led by Hongwei Zhang, a professor in electrical and computer engineering, is launching a test bed for experimentation to develop new, wireless networking tools that would serve remote areas – especially ones here in Iowa.
For the Fall 2022 semester, four graduate students in the Department of Aerospace Engineering have been honored with Teaching Excellence (TEX) and Research Excellence (REX) Awards from Iowa State University’s graduate college. The awards are presented to graduate students who demonstrate excellence in their scientific research or their teaching performance.
Department of Aerospace Engineering assistant professor Ping He has been named a Michael and Denise Mack 2050 Challenge Scholar. The program was established to support the Iowa State University College of Engineering’s 2050 vision. It supports one junior faculty member with fellowship funding.
Shanna Fellows, junior in civil engineering, wants people all around Iowa and the United States to know that it’s not too late to reduce the impacts of climate change.
Senathiraja is working with Chris Cornelius, the Dr. Thomas D. McGee and Dr. Ick-Jhin Rick Yoon Department Chair in Materials Science and Engineering/Wilkinson Chair in Materials Science and Engineering and Professor of Chemical Engineering, by courtesy, to promote green energy by optimizing and increasing the performance and durability of hydrogen fuel cell membranes. Her research and leadership have resulted in her receiving several awards, including the local Guiding Start Award from the Graduate Society of Women Engineers.
Associate professor Alice Alipour (CCEE), associate professor Behrouz Shafei (CCEE) and professor Partha Sarkar (aerospace engineering) received a grant from the NSF in 2018 to study what they call a Smorphacade (short for a Smart Morphing Façade), a type of building exterior that is what some could consider alive. Recently, they received another project from NSF to conduct technology transfer on this fundamentally transformative idea.
Research led by Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering assistant professor Ratul Chowdhury has landed firmly on the cutting edge of new computational technology in protein research – and on the cover of a recent issue of Nature Biotechnology, one of the highest ranked journals in this field.
The spirit of giving isn’t just limited to the Christmas holiday season! That’s what Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering (CBE) Professor of Practice John Kaiser has experienced recently with the help of generous benefactors at his former employer, Mars Wrigley Confections. They’ve supplied more than $750,000 worth of lab equipment to the department.
Civil engineering sophomore Liam Lenahan and assistant professor Roy Sturgill are working together to bring the third dimension into structural design. The two are bringing 3D projects into the classroom through a very ‘construction-style’ medium: hard hats.
How much pressure can a road withstand? Of all the roads and highways we drive on – when will they crack? That’s what Yongsung Koh, a doctoral student in the Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering, is working hard to figure out.
The Department of Defense has recently awarded Cyclone Engineers Reza Montazami and Nicole Hashemi a project exploring a novel approach to investigate cells’ bioelectric activities.
By working together, the Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering and the Department of Natural Resource Ecology Management are studying the process behind weeding out certain species of trees in forests to help other trees grow, and using those weeded-out trees for water quality practices. The underutilized trees will be chopped into woodchips, a common media for water quality improvements.
The application period for the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering’s 2023 BioMaP REU program is now open. The program will be held from May 30 – August 4.
Growing up, Efraín Rodríguez-Ocasio did not foresee himself pursuing a Ph.D. in chemical engineering in a state he thought of as the “corn place.”
But after discovering the opportunity to work with Laura Jarboe, Cargill Professor of Chemical Engineering, Rodríguez-Ocasio has found Iowa State fertile ground to grow a career in bioplastics research.
