Significant 
       Accomplishments
   
February 2014

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Letter from the Dean

New Research

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Student
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Faculty
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NEW RESEARCH

Research ImageMaryland, New Jersey, and Virginia To Collaborate on FAA Unmanned Aircraft Systems Research
The three mid-Atlantic states of Maryland, New Jersey, and Virginia and their leading research universities will collaborate on research related to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) efforts aimed at integrating unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) into the national airspace system. The Mid-Atlantic Aviation Partnership (MAAP) was selected as one of six national FAA UAS test sites, and will include a research partnership between the University of Maryland, Virginia Tech, and Rutgers University.

Inaugural Mpact Week Showcases UMD Innovations, Robotics, Bioengineering
The Clark School hosted its first Mpact WeekMpact week to showcase its research, education, innovation, and entrepreneurial ecosystem. The four-day event drew in more than 1,000 attendees for the Student Startup Showcase, Fischell Bioengineering Festival, Gamera Human-Powered Helicopter Team Celebration, and Maryland Robotics Day, which attracted hundreds of K-12 students, and footage from the event was aired on ESPN during the Maryland homecoming football game vs. Clemson.

UMD Faculty Publish Research That Provides Insights on Brain Injuries
Mechanical Engineering research faculty member Dr. Henry Haslach and graduate student Lauren Leahy have collaborated with colleagues Peter Riley, a mechanical engineering alumnus and third-year medical student at the University of Maryland Medical School, Adam H. Hsieh from the University of Maryland’s Fischell Department of Bioengineering and Rao Gullapalli and Su Xu from the University of Maryland School of Medicine’s Department of Diagnostic Radiology and Nuclear Medicine to publish new research in the Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials that could shed light on the mechanical cause underlying mild traumatic brain injuries (mTBI) on their paper, “Solid-extracellular fluid interaction and damage in the mechanical response of rat brain tissue under confined compression.”

UMD Researchers Awarded Two ARPA-E Grants for Electric Vehicle Energy Storage Systems
Two research teams from the University of Maryland Energy Research Center (UMERC) were awarded grants from the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) to develop transformational electric vehicle (EV) energy storage systems using innovative chemistries, architectures and designs. The first project, led by Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Chunsheng Wang in partnership with Kan Xu at the Army Research Laboratory, is titled “Multiple-Electron Aqueous Battery,” and seeks to develop a hybridized ions aqueous battery that could cut the Li-ion battery system cost in half and would enable an EV to travel two times as long per charge. The second project, led by UMERC Director Eric Wachsman, is titled “Solid-State Lithium-Ion Battery with Ceramic Electrolyte,” and will develop an intrinsically safe, robust, low-cost, high-energy-density all-solid-state Li-ion batteries.

UMD Awarded Three Department of Defense MURI Grants
The University of Maryland is part of three research teams that have been awarded Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) grants by the Department of Defense.
UMD will leadg one of the projects, titled “A New Paradigm in Sources and Physics of High-Power Ionospheric Modification.” The award is sponsored by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and includes collaborators from Texas Tech University and the University of California at Los Angeles. Clark School Professor Thomas Antonsen will be the principal investigator of the group.  Antonsen currently holds a joint academic appointment as Professor of Physics and Professor of Electrical Engineering, and his research is based in the Institute of Research for Electronics and Applied Physics (IREAP)John Rodgers, Associate Research Scientist of IREAP; Dennis Papadopoulos, Professor of Physics and Astronomy; and Gennady Milikh, Senior Research Scientist in the Astronomy Department, will serve as co-principal investigators on the project. UMD will receive $1.2 million for their involvement in a second project, titled “Topological Decompositions and Spectral Sampling Algorithms for Element Substitution in Critical Technologies.”  Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) professor Ichiro Takeuchi is serving as a co-principal investigator in the group. The five-year project is led by Duke University and includes the University of North Texas, Brigham Young University, and Central Michigan University. Professor P. S. Krishnaprasad (ECE/ISR) and Professor Christopher Jarzynski (Chem-Biochem/IPST) are part of a project called "Information Engines: Nanoscale Control, Computing and Communication out of Equilibrium." The project will investigate fundamental principles and algorithms for the creation of synthetic nanosystems that are able to gather, store and manipulate information while immersed in a thermally noisy environment. The research team is led by the University of California, Davis and includes the University of California, Berkeley, Columbia University and the University of Maryland.

UMD Leads New National Center for Strategic Transportation Policies, Investments, and Decisions
The University of Maryland was selected in a national competition to lead a two-year, $11.3 million new National Center for Strategic Transportation Policies, Investments and Decisions focusing on research, education, and technology transfer activities that can lead to: 1) freight efficiency for domestic shipping and for our international land, air, and sea ports; 2) highway congestion mitigation with multi-modal strategies; and 3) smart investments in intercity passenger travel facilities, such as high speed rail.

UMD Team Received Keck Foundation Grant to Design and Build New Photonic Spectrometer
The University of Maryland, College Park received a $1M grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation to support new advances in astronomical instrumentation for ground and space telescopes. The only project of this type in the U.S., the “Keck Photonic Spectrometer” is the world’s first fully integrated photonic spectrograph.

Desai's Neurosurgical Robot Designed for Brain Surgery Featured by NPR, NIH
A University of Maryland research collaboration led by Prof. Jaydev Desai was featured in a story on National Public Radio regarding a Minimally Invasive Neurosurgical Intracranial Robot that can be used while a patient is inside an MRI scanner, allowing the surgeon to look inside a patient's brain without having to open it wide. The research was also
featured in an article from the National Institute of Health's (NIH) National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) for his work in neurosurgical robotics. The story, "Robots Could One Day Help Surgeons Remove Hard to Reach Brain Tumors," highlighted work being done by Desai and Drs. J. Marc Simard and Rao Gullapalli of the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore (UMB) to create a minimally invasive neurosurgical robot that could be used to remove hard to reach brain tumors.

UMD Propulsion Technology Offers New Possibilities for Satellite Positioning, Space Exploration
RINGS photoNew University of Maryland electromagnetic propulsion technology being tested on the International Space Station could revolutionize the capabilities of satellites and future spacecraft by reducing reliance on propellants and extending the lifecycle of satellites through the use of a renewable power source. Prof. Ray Sedwick and his research team have been developing technology that could enable electromagnetic formation flight, which uses locally generated electromagnetic forces to position satellites or spacecraft without relying on propellants. Their research project is titled Resonant Inductive Near-field Generation System, or RINGS.

NSF-Funded Project Provides Insight into Animal Behavior
The University of Maryland, in collaboration with the National Geographic Society and Princeton University, has completed its first trial of a new data gathering system aimed at protecting endangered species. The project, “Remote Imaging of Community Ecology via Animal-borne Wireless Networks,” is funded by a $1.8M grant from the National Science Foundation. Led by Clark School Associate Professor Nuno Martins, the goals of the project are to learn how to design and optimize algorithms for devices that monitor animal behavior, and to better understand and model the mechanisms of social interaction.

Delivering Drugs to Inner Ear, Eyes, and Brain Made Easier with "Magnetic Syringe"
A “magnetic syringe” developed by Otomagnetics, a startup with roots in the Clark School, has won the Advanced Medical Technology Association's (AdvaMed) inaugural Virginia Shimer Rybski Memorial Award, which recognizes the potential of a promising entrepreneur or entrepreneurial company in the medical technology industry. Otomagnetics, led by Fischell Department of Bioengineering (BioE) and Institute for Systems Research (ISR) Professor Benjamin Shapiro, also includes co-founders Didier Depireux (ISR), David Beylin, and Irving Weinberg, M.D., who hope to move their magnetic delivery technology to the market in order to best help patients.

Researcher Bioengineers Bacteria to Prowl for Pathogen Prey
A strain of E. coli that seeks and destroys the antibiotic-resistant bacterium P. aeruginosa, a leading cause of hospital-acquired infections, was bioengineered by Clark School Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (ChBE) alumnus Matthew Wook Chang (Ph.D. '03), and has been featured in Nature, one of the world's most prominent international journals.

UMD Energy Innovations Featured Prominently in the News
Energy innovations created by researchers in the University of Maryland Energy Research Center (UMERC) have been featured prominently across a variety of mainstream media outlets, including MIT Technology Review, The Washington Post, NPR, Forbes, WUSA TV 9, and the Baltimore Sun, among others.

Hubbard Chosen for HistoryMakers Oral History Collection
Department of Aerospace Engineering Samuel P. Langley Distinguished Professor James E. Hubbard, Jr. was selected for inclusion in the HistoryMakers' archive of oral histories which houses the nation's largest records of African American life, history, and culture to educate and archive the diversity of American history.

UMD Chasing and Flocking Research Offers Implications for Engineered Networks of Robots
"Symmetry and reduction in collectives: cyclic pursuit strategies" was written by two Clark School of Engineering alumni, Commander Kevin Galloway (EE Ph.D. 2011), an assistant professor in electrical and computer engineering at the U.S. Naval Academy; and Eric Justh (EE Ph.D. 1998), an electronics engineer at the Naval Research Laboratory; and P. S. Krishnaprasad, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Institute for Systems Research to explore how strategies, feedback laws and attentional graph structure influence the space-time evolution of collective dynamics.

Championing Our Nation's Water Resource Infrastructure
GallowayDepartment of Civil and Environmental Engineering Glenn L. Martin Institute Professor Dr. Gerald Galloway testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on the "Aging US Water Infrastructure: A Badly Neglected National Problem,” discussing the current state of our country's water infrastructure, the extent to which it supports our society, and how it is consistently underfunded and overlooked. He identified the primary areas of concern facing our water resources, including an aging infrastructure, a changing climate, increasing energy demands, a lack of funding, and a short sighted view on the importance and cost of repairs.

Exploring Offshore Wind Energy for Maryland
Clark School professors Aris Christou (Departments of Materials Science and Engineering [MSE] and Mechanical Engineering [ME]) and F. Patrick McCluskey (ME) will complete a new study funded by Maryland’s Higher Education Commission, the Maryland Energy Administration, and the Exelon Corporation. The project, "Reliability and Failure Mechanisms of Offshore Wind Energy Systems (ROES)," received a two-year, $215,398 Maryland Offshore Wind Energy Challenge Grant (MOWER) to support their teams conducting research that will determine the reliability of grid interconnected wind energy conversion systems (WECS) and the impact of the marine environment on their mechanical and electronic equipment.

NSF Grants for Graphene Research Awarded to Hu, Rubloff
Two new grants from the National Science Foundation will allow University of Maryland engineers to develop new uses for graphene to improve batteries, solar cells and computer displays. Liangbing Hu, of the Clark School’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering, the University of Maryland Energy Research Center, and the Maryland NanoCenter, will lead the research.

Agilent Gift Funds Exploration of Enhanced Sensor Technology
Clark School Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) associate professor Oded Rabin has received a $50,000 research gift from Agilent Technologies' University Relations Program to support his exploration of engineered nanoparticle arrays used to boost the capabilities of surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS), a powerful sensing technique that determines the presence, amount and identity of chemicals in a sample by the way light from a laser scatters when shined on it. Rabin will collaborate with MSE Chair Robert M. Briber and Agilent scientist Dr. Miao Zhu.

Robo Raven III Harnesses Solar Power
Professors S.K. Gupta (ME/ISR) and Hugh Bruck (ME) and their students in the Maryland Robotics Center have developed and demonstrated a new version of the Robo Raven micro air vehicle (MAV) that incorporates solar panels in its wings.

"Gentle Delivery" Kits Could Help Bring Gene Therapies to Market
Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (ChBE) graduate students Chanda Arya and Kevin Diehn, advised by ChBE professor Srinivasa Raghavan, want to commercialize a non-cytotoxic, "gentle" siRNA delivery technique developed at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Birich Technologies, a Clark School-based startup has exclusively licensed the technology, which is based around a modified protein called a chemokine that could lead to a potential gene therapy called RNA interference (RNAi) that could "turn off" the genes that instruct cells to grow into tumors or tell your immune system to attack your own body, or tell immune cells to fight a disease they're ignoring.

UMD "Energy 101" Course Featured on DOE Blog
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has featured a University of Maryland (UMD) course on its blog. The course, titled Designing a Sustainable World (BioE 289A), was designed by Clark School Professor Leigh Abts (Fischell Department of Bioengineering/College of Education) and is part of an interdisciplinary curriculum called “Energy 101.” The curriculum was developed by UMD, the DOE, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, and the Environment and Energy Study Institute, and it serves as a national model that universities can use to teach students fundamental energy principles and help them address current challenges.

UMD Hosts NSF-Funded Cybersecurity Undergraduate Research Program
This summer, the University of Maryland (UMD) hosted six undergraduate students for a nine-week research program in cybersecurity designed to advance discovery, understanding, and promote learning in the field of cybersecurity.



DEPARTMENT ACRONYMS KEY:

AE:
BioE:
ChBE:
CEE:
ECE:
FPE:
MSE:
ME:
ISR:
IREAP:

Aerospace Engineering
Bioengineering
Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Civil and Environmental Engineering
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Fire Protection Engineering
Materials and Science Engineering
Mechanical Engineering

Institute for Systems Research
Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics

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