The National Science Foundation and the Environmental Protection Agency recently awarded coveted funding for emerging scholars and educators at the College of Engineering.
NSF CAREER awards winners are:
Patrick Chiang, assistant professor in electrical and computer engineering, will use the funding to explore robust, low-voltage computing by using mixed-signal sensing and self-healing that will allow significant improvements in power, area, and throughput. Chiang holds a doctoral degree from Stanford University. He investigates circuit and system-level techniques to improve the energy efficiency of CMOS electronics, for power-constrained applications ranging from exascale datacenters to micro-powered wearable sensors that can provide continuous monitoring of healthy aging.
Brady Gibbons, assistant professor in materials science and mechanical engineering, will apply the award toward developing new environmentally benign piezoelectric materials, which can be used for a variety of sensing and actuation applications including sonar, ultrasound, energy harvesting, and microelectromechanical systems. Gibbons holds a doctoral degree from the Pennsylvania State University. His current research interests include structure, processing, and property relationships in thin film materials. Other advanced materials Gibbons examines include electrocaloric materials for novel cooling devices and dielectric materials for energy storage.
Adam Higgins, assistant professor in bioengineering, will use the grant to develop microfluidic technologies for cryopreservation of cell-based therapeutics, which will potentially allow for the improved treatment of a wide variety of illnesses from neurodegenerative diseases to cancer. Higgins holds a doctoral degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology. His research focuses on long-term preservation of biological materials using technologies such as cryopreservation and freeze drying, as well as chemical processing of blood using microfluidics.
The EPA CAREER award winner is:
Arturo Leon, assistant professor in civil and construction engineering, received a 2012 EPA Early Career Award for Extreme Event Impacts on Air Quality and Water Quality with a Changing Global Climate. The goal of the award winning proposal is to develop a model to predict and quantify combined sewer overflows, a major water pollution source for more than 700 U.S. cities. Leon holds a doctoral degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana – Champaign. He investigates and models real-time control of complex hydraulic systems, stormwater management, flow dynamics, and numerous other areas in hydraulic engineering.
