Research Highlights

The School of Engineering is pioneering a number of important research innovations.

Computer Science and Engineering

As part of our mission, we perform research in many diverse areas within the Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) disciplines. However, to better serve our local constituents, we view the following research and education areas to be the major areas within which the department will grow within the next few years.

• Computer Architecture and CAD - computer arithmetic, re-configurable architecture, VLSI, CAD
  
• Knowledge Engineering and Management - database, data mining, mobility issues in transaction processing
• Software Engineering - object orientation, reliability, testing, safety, metrics
  
• Trusted & High Performance Network Computing - fault tolerance, mobile computing, Network Security and Reliability, parallel processing, wireless networks.

Electrical Engineering

The Department of Electrical Engineering is building peaks of excellence in the research areas of communications and signal processing, and micro/opto-electronics.

• Signal applications to wireless communications
• Mobile software agents: security and network applications
• Low-cost electronically beam-steering micro-strip array antenna for mobile satellite communication
• Key frame selection and error resilient coding for scaleable video
• High-speed network traffic modeling and prediction with artificial neural networks
• Intelligent systems for power system load and price forecasting in deregulated markets
• Grating outcoupled lasers for telecommunications
• High-power coherent arrays of vertical cavity surface-emitting semiconductor
  lasers
• Multichannel VLSI system for sensing and stimulating neurons
• Temporal models for human visual acuity
• Subspace-based enhancement of speech in colored noise

Biomedical research is conducted by faculty from a variety of our departments:

• Three-dimensional monolithic Microsystems for biochemical analysis
• Fluctuations and noise in biomedical systems
• Smart skin
• Environmental health engineering
• Objective measurement of visual acuity in infants
• Enhancement of A-mode ultrasound scans
• High-resolution medical ultrasonic imaging via blind deconvolution
• Modeling of transport processes
• Modeling of laser applications in medicine
• Measurement of thermophysical properties of biomaterial
• Devices that have applications in biomedicine
• Informatics, software engineering, software development, information engineering and management

Engineering Management, Information, and Systems

The Department of Engineering Management, Information, and Systems (EMIS) research thrusts include:

• Operations planning and management: resource allocation, personnel assignment, location, routing and scheduling, military targeting and target systems
• Optical telecommunications network design: minimum-cost high-bandwidth network design, all-optical and WDM network design and optimization, capacity planning, multi-period implementation, quality-of-service considerations
• Logistics, supply-chain, and supply-web: systems design and management
• Benchmarking systems: methods for measuring and improving the performance and efficiency of an enterprise, including advanced Balanced-Scorecard models
• Network management: circuit and wavelength optimization, automated provisioning, and dynamic re-configuration of telecommunications networks
• Telecommunication network grooming and reliability models
• Yield management models for telecommunications network engineering and management
• Data mining: Machine-learning and parallel processing approaches to knowledge discovery in large datasets
• Microdata and micro-simulation modeling: dataset construction for policy models, data quality control
• Scoring systems: discriminant models, clustering, data envelopment analysis, and organizational failure-prediction

Environmental and Civil Engineering

The Environmental and Civil Engineering department focuses on a diverse set of issues including health, pollution prevention and treatment, atmospheric emissions, structural design, and geotechnical engineering.

• Air pollution control engineering
• Design of particulate and greenhouse gas emissions controls
• Process modeling and design of physical, chemical, and biological waste treatment systems
• Hydrologic and hydraulic modeling of water resource systems
• Fate and transport of environmental contaminants, including pathogenic microorganisms
• Human and environmental health effects of endocrine disruptors
• Earthquake engineering
• Structural dynamics

Mechanical Engineering

The Department of Mechanical Engineering research thrusts include advanced manufacturing, nonlinear dynamics and controls, solid mechanics, thermal science, and fluid mechanics. Activities include:

• Modeling of transport phenomena in porous media
• Cooling of high heat flux electronics
• Measurement and prediction of thermal transport in thin electronic films
• Numerical modeling of free surface fluid flows, Tsunami mitigation, and fluid-solid interactions.
• Heat transfer, phase change, and fluid flow on short time and spatial scales, with applications to laser micromachining
• Vortex dynamics, pulsed jet propulsion, and aquatic propulsion · Nonlinear modeling and stability analysis of heavy trucks during cornering and braking
• Analysis, design and fabrication of a prototype red laser light delivery system for use in photodynamic therapy of Barrett's esophagus
• Optoelectronic packaging · Haptic interfaces · Analysis of human motion
• Impact mechanics
• Abrasive waterjet machining technology
• Friction stir welding studies, including modeling of heat transfer and fluid flow, as well as on-line monitoring
• Modeling of surface modification by laser beam
• Modeling, sensing and control of laser-based and welding-based additive manufacturing
• Solid freeform fabrication processes
• Sensing and control of welding processes