RECENT RESEARCH GRANTS

Dr. Ko Nishino (PI - CS) received the National Science Foundation CAREER Award for his project entitled, “CAREER: Scale Variability of 3D Geometry for Computer Vision.”

The goal of this research program is to establish a rigorous theoretical and computational foundation for analyzing and exploiting the hidden dimension of 3D geometry -- the geometric scale variability.  At the heart of the research program are the derivation of a formal scale-space representation of surface geometry, novel local and global geometric representations that faithfully encode the scale variability, and novel computational methods for leveraging the extra scale-related information in a number of fundamental applications. Due to the ubiquitous use of geometric data, the results are expected to have a significant impact across a broad range of disciplines: finer analysis of anomalous geometric structures of human organs, such as those recovered with 3D endoscopy, leading to more accurate medical diagnosis; leveraging rich discriminative information for sorting, matching, and reconstructing a large collection of geometric data as often encountered in digital preservation; and serving as an integral component of any 3D sensing-based navigation, recognition, or surveillance application.  The budget for this 5-year project is $450K

Dr. Ken Lau (PI, CBE) recently received a grant from the National Science Foundation entitled, “SGER: Initiated Chemical Vapor Deposition Synthesis and Design
of Polymers for Alternative Energies.”  This exploratory project aims to create conjugated polymers using iCVD that would have viable properties as solar cell materials. iCVD is expected to enable the synthesis, design and deposition of polymers on solar cell structures directly from the vapor phase, removing the need for liquid phase processing and providing the tight integration of solution-intractable polymers in nanostructured phases and devices.  The budget for this one-year project is $100K. 

Dr. Alexander Fridman (PI, MEM), in partnership with Ceramatec Corporation (Salt Lake City, UT), recently received funding from the US Department of Defense to develop a plasma system on board of military vehicle that will generate hydrogen from the production of JP-8 fuel.  The Drexel portion of this $2.3M two-year project is $700K. 

Dr. Moshe Kam (PI - ECE) in partnership with Dr. Thomas Hewett (Co-PI, CoAS) recently received funding from the U.S. Army for a project entitled, “Forensic Documentation Analysis.” This project focuses on the analysis of documents that are produced in the course of planning or executing certain illegal activities.  It quantifies the ability of existing forensic identification methods to associate these documents with machines (such as scanners and fax machines) that were used in creating or transmitting the documents.  Methods of disguise, substitution, alteration and re-routing will be examined against current forensic practices, and error rates of these practices would be quantified.  The objective is to assist courts of law in assessing expert testimony about the origin of questioned documents and about the circumstances under which these documents were created and communicated. The total budget for this two-year project is $388,000.

Dr. Moses Noh (PI, MEM) and Mun Choi (Co-PI, MEM) were recently awarded funding from the National Science Foundation for their project entitled, “Micro-Fluidics Laboratory (MFL) Modules and Kits for Undergraduate Education.” The objective of this project is to develop and test a set of laboratory modules and kits that will allow engineering and science undergraduate students to explore microscale fluid behaviors and microfluidic devices. This will also be one of many ways Mun will continue his interactions with our college after assuming his new role as the Dean of Engineering at UConn. This grant is a 2-year project with a budget of $150K.

Dr. Moses Noh (PI - MEM) received the National Science Foundation CAREER Award for his project entitled, “Engineering a Liver Sinusoid Functional Unit.” The objective of this project is to generate an innovative human liver model (bioreactor) that closely mimics the liver sinusoid functional unit. Microfabrication and microfluidics technologies will be combined with cell culture technology in collaboration with Dr. Michael Bouchard (BioChem, DUCOM) to create an authentic human liver model. The total budget for this project is $458,846.

Dr. Moses Noh (PI, MEM) in collaboration with Dr. Francis Kralick (Neurosurgery) recently received funding from National Institute of Health for their project entitled “Implantable Microdevice for the Treatment of Hydrocephalus.” The objective of this project is to develop an implantable microdevice analogous to the native biological valve that diverts excessive cerebrospinal fluid from the subarachnoid space to the sagittal sinus. If successful, the project will open a new era in the treatment of hydrocephalus, which is one of the most frequently encountered problems in neurosurgery. The budget for this two-year R21 program is $387,297.

Dr. MinJun Kim, Assistant Professor in our Mechanical Engineering & Mechanics department (MEM), received the National Science Foundation CAREER Award for his project entitled, "CAREER: The Integration of Biomolecular Motors for Bacterial Actuation, Sensing, and Transport (BAST) at Micro/Nanoscale." The objective of this program is to demonstrate the use of flagellated bacteria as controllable, reconfigurable elements in a microfluidic network of microengineered systems and to adapt polymeric protein nanostructures such as bacterial flagellar filaments for use in nanoscale devices. The budget for this project will be $400K for 5 years.

Dr. Jonathan E. Spanier of MSE, (PI) received an award from the NSF under the Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) program for the project entitled "System for Integrating Optical Spectroscopy with Electron and Ion-Beam Microscopies and with Nano-fabrication for Research and Education." Drs. Caroline L. Schauer (MSE), Yury Gogotsi (MSE), Zhorro Nikolov (MSE), and Elisabeth S. Papazoglou (BioMED) are Co-PIs on this award. The award will support the acquisition of a system for metrology and nano-fabrication that will integrate scanning electron and focused-ion beam (FIB) imaging and processing with local optical excitation, emission, and scattering spectroscopies. The budget for this project is $498,073.

Dr. Paul Oh (PI, MEM) in partnership with researchers from Virginia Tech, UPenn, Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr College, and international partner Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KASIT) were recently awarded the NSF-PIRE: Partnerships for International Education and Research award for their project entitled “PIRE: Humanoids - Universally Accessible Infrastructures to Advance Capabilities.”

This international partnership with KAIST will bring leading roboticists from the US and Korea together to advance state-of-the-art humanoid robotics. The project will result in infrastructures that will produce far-reaching broader impacts and will enable humanoids to work and socially interact with people. The outreach plan includes collaborations with industry partners, exhibitions at the Philadelphia Please Touch Museum (400,000 visitors annually), and K-12 activities that serve to inspire and motivate students to pursue science and engineering careers. The budget for this five-year project is $2.5M.

Drs. Patrick Gurian (PI, CAEE), Charles Haas (Co-PI, CAEE) and Hernando Perez, assistant professor in environmental and occupational health, recently received funding from the Department of Homeland Security to develop a joint program between Drexel University and Michigan State University that will create an interdisciplinary graduate program in Microbial Risk Assessment and Public Health. The program will integrate academic coursework and research with two professional internships at a Homeland Security Science Technology Engineering Mathematics site. The budget for this three-year project is $490,000.

Dr. John Walsh (PI, ECE), in collaboration with Dr. Phillip Regalia of the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C. recently received an NSF sponsored grant entitled, “Collaborative Research: Distributed Estimation in Wireless Sensor Networks via Expectation Propagation.”

This collaborative research project brings together researchers in statistical inference and wireless communications to (i) rephrase random sensor network deployment strategies as a sparse dependency structure among parameters; (ii) advance expectation propagation as a distributed algorithm to harmonize many sensor network tasks; (iii) extend convergence results from iterative decoding to inference in sensor networks; and (iv) open novel design and optimization tools in sensor networks as by-products of the work. The budget for this three-year project is $249,936.

Michel Barsoum (PI, MSE), and Peter Finkel (MSE) received a grant from the Army Research Office (ARO) entitled, “Kinking Nonlinear Elastic Solids for Load Bearing, Damping & Strain Sensing Applications.” The budget for this three-year grant is $300K. The goal of this project is the development of solids with extraordinary combinations of damping, stiffness, yield points and machinability for use at ambient and elevated temperatures as both structural components and strain sensors, in particular, based on kinking nonlinear elasticity (KNE). By monitoring the stress related ultrasound propagation in KNE, the health of a structural component (made with a KNE solid - or if a KNE solid is affixed to a structural component) can be easily predicted as a function of time. This self-stress monitoring capability can be useful over extended temperature regimes and/or corrosive environments.

Dr. Yury Gogotsi (MSE) recently received a grant from the NanoTechnology Institute/ Ben Franklin Technology Partners entitled, “Nanoscale Cellular Probes.”  The goal is to develop nanotube-based cellular probes, in collaboration with scientists from Penn and Temple, and test their biological sensing capability.  The budget for this one-year project is $135,000.

Dr. Yury Gogotsi (MSE) recently received an award from the Office of Naval Research/NAVSEA for his project entitled, “Filling Carbon Nanotubes with Metal Nanoparticles.”  In this program, methods for filling carbon nanotubes will be developed with a variety of metal nanoparticles with the size ranging from 2 to 30 nm. This work will be performed in collaboration with the Indian Head Division of the Naval Surface Warfare Center.  The budget for this one-year project is $100,000. 

Mun Choi (PI, MEM), Moshe Kam (ECE), and Kapil Dandekar (ECE) received a grant from the National Security Agency for graduate fellowships and infrastructure capacity building for the Drexel Anechoic Chamber. The budget for this one-year renewable grant is $171K. This year, Richard Higgins (ischool) and Mark LeVan (ECE) were as NSA IASP Graduate Fellows. There were only 22 students selected from 325 applicants from across the U.S.

Dr. Mira S. Olson (CAEE) and Dr. Brian Berkowitz of Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, recently received a Louis and Bessie Stein Family Fellowships award for a project entitled "Quantifying Bacterial Transport in Fractured and Heterogeneous Media".  In addition to establishing a new connection between the two University's. This project's aim is to help improve remediation of contaminated ground-water aquifers by better characterizing pollutant mass transfer and bacterial migration in complex geological settings. The goal is to develop a combined experimental and modeling approach for quantifying complex bacterial transport behavior in porous media. The grant for this project is $20,000.  

Drs. Dario Salvucci (Co-PI, CS) and Maria Schultheis (PI, Biomed & Psychology) have recently received a grant from the National Institute of Health (NIH) for the project entitled, “Defining Virtual Reality Driving in Traumatic Brain Injury.”  This project, in collaboration with the University of Iowa, involves the development of a virtual reality driving simulator used for evaluating driving performance among persons with neurological compromise. The grant is a 3.5-year project with a total budget of $991,769.

Dr. Yury Gogotsi (MSE) was recently awarded a renewal for his National Science Foundation Research Experience for Teachers grant in Nanotechnology (RET-Nano).  This grant will renew a successful collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania.  The RET-Nano program will fund 18 teachers from regional high schools and community colleges for six-week summer research experiences each year.  With help from faculty and graduate student advisors and program staff, RET participants will design web sites, technical posters, and classroom activities based on their research topics.  Nanotechnology spans a wide variety of traditional science and engineering disciplines; thus it has many possibilities for integration into high school science and mathematics classes.  This program will expose hundreds of prospective students to the outstanding work done in our College. Holly Burnside and Joanne Ferroni have contributed to the management of the RET programs and to the preparation of this proposal.  The budget for this three-year project is $500,000. 

Drs. Surya Kalidindi (PI, MSE) and David Fullwood (Co-PI, MSE) recently received a grant from NSF entitled “AHSS: Development of novel finite element simulation tools that implement crystal plasticity constitutive theories using an efficient spectral framework.” The goal of this project is to develop spectral crystal plasticity based finite element tools for simulating deformation processing operations and mechanical performance of Advanced High Strength Steels (AHSS). These new tools will provide significantly better predictions of microstructure evolution and anisotropic mechanical response of steels while keeping the computational times involved comparable to the tools currently used by the industry that are generally based on a phenomenological description of plasticity.  The budget for this four-year project is $430K.

Dr. Yury Gogotsi (MSE) with co-PIs Gary Friedman (ECE), Bradley Layton (MEM), Jane Clifford (College of Medicine), and Elisabeth Papazoglou (School of Biomedical Engineering) have been selected for funding by the W.M. Keck Foundation.  This $1,000,000 award will support the project entitled Keck Institute of Attofluidic Nanotube-Based Probes.  The goal of this 2-year initiative is to design and build nanotube-tipped probes that are able to interrogate single organelles inside living cells.  The resulting tools are expected to produce major advances in cell biology, drug discovery and medicine, and have far-reaching broader impacts.

The extremely competitive Keck Foundation awards focus on cutting-edge, high-impact research and also serve as an important endorsement of intellectual and organizational capacity of an institution and its people. Hence, this recognition is an important milestone in our progress towards becoming one of the leading research universities in the world.  In addition to technical investigators, a major institutional support led by President Papadakis and Provost Director as well as the Office of Institutional Advancement helps to add Drexel University to the prestigious list of Keck Foundation grantees.

Dr. Michel Barsoum (PI, MSE) recently received the National Science Foundation - Small Grant for Exploratory Research (SGER) award for his project entitled, “SGER: Incipient Kink Bands, Damping, Micro- and Macroyielding in Hexagonal Metals.”  In this grant, Dr. Barsoum and his colleagues will study the early deformation of hexagonal metals that they have shown to be kinking nonlinear elastic solids.  The ultimate goal is to develop strong, lightweight alloys that can also dampen or absorb sound and vibrations.  The budget for this two-year project is $141,081.

Drs. Surya Kalidindi (PI, MSE), David Fullwood (Co-PI, MSE) and Raj Mishra of General Motors Research and Development Center (GM) have received the National Science Foundation: Grant Opportunities for Academic Liaison with Industry (GOALI) award for their project entitled, “GOALI: Process Design Solutions for Textured Polycrystalline Cubic and Hexagonal Metals: Inverse Solution Methodologies and Experimental Validation.” In partnership with GM, this research will build and validate a novel spectral framework for delivering process design solutions. The new framework for process design, also known as Microstructure Sensitive Design (MSD), will build on recent advances made in Dr. Kalidindi’s research group in efficient spectral representations of microstructure-property-processing linkages. The budget for this three-year project is $350,000.

Dr. Antonios Zavaliangos (PI, MSE) in collaboration with Drs. Surya Kalidindi (MSE), David Fullwood (MSE), Mun Choi (MEM), Stephen Cox (Director of Regional AMP), Cameron Abrams (CBE), David Breen (CS), Richard Cairncross (CBE), Franco Capaldi (MEM), Bakhtier Farouk (MEM), Athina Petropulu (ECE), Karl Sohlberg (CoAS), and Bahrad A. Sokhansanj (Biomed), as well as MSE program coordinator Dorilona Rose who contributed to the writing and submission process, and will administer the program, recently received the Department of Education - Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need (GAANN) for their project entitled, “Computational Materials Science and Engineering GAANN.” This need-based fellowship will fund Ph.D. students who will receive exceptional training in research and education in the field of computational materials science and engineering in the critical areas of novel materials and nanotechnology; defense applications; manufacturing, design, and optimization; digital signal processing in materials characterization; and bioengineering and bioinformatics.  The budget for this three-year project is $511,524.  This is the second GAANN awarded to MSE, bringing the total number of current GAANN site programs for Drexel to five – which is the largest number in the country! 

Dr. Joe Elabd (CBE) in conjunction with other scientists from lead institution Virginia Tech and partner universities including University of Pennsylvania and The Pennsylvania State University.  The project, “Ionic Liquids in Electro-Active Devices (ILEAD),” will focus on developing electromechanical devices and high-performance membranes using ionic liquids.  This research will have an impact on applications, such as fuel cells, smart fabrics, and artificial muscles.  Industrial collaborators include DuPont, IBM Almaden, Kraton Polymers, NexGen Aeronautics, BASF, and Discover Technologies.  This grant is a five-year project with Drexel’s funding totaling $950K.

Dr. Joe Elabd (PI, CBE) was recently awarded funding from the Army Research Office (ARO) for his project entitled, “Highly Selective Ionic Block Copolymer Membranes.” The aim of this project is to synthesize and investigate new highly selective membranes for both fuel cells for portable electronic devices and protective clothing for chemical and biological defense. This grant is a 3-year project with a budget of $325K.

Dr. Patricia Gallagher (PI, CAEE) in collaboration with Drs. Chuck Haas, Patrick Gurian, Frank Moon, Rich Weggel, Mira Olson, Joe Wartman (CAEE) and Scott Knowles (CoAS) recently received the Department of Education - Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need (GAANN) for the project entitled, “Drexel University GAANN Fellowships in Urban Hazard Mitigation: Creating Sustainability and Resilience.” The goal of the awarded GAANN program is to foster the development of engineers to meet the emerging and diverse challenges associated with modern society’s demands for resilient cities, renewable urban infrastructure, sustainable growth and environmental quality.  With this program, the CAEE Department will educate the next generation of civil, architectural and environmental engineers to incorporate the principles of resilient planning and design into the profession.  The budget for this three-year program is $511,524.

Drs. Jack Zhou (PI, MEM), and Peter I. Lelkes (Co-PI, BioMed) have received a grant from the National Science Foundation for their project entitled, “Collaborative Research: Electrowetting Micro Array Printing System for Bioactive Tissue Construct Manufacturing.”
Drexel is the leading institution in this collaborative research project with Duke University and Cooper Union.  The objective of the project is to investigate the process of electrowetting on dielectric as an advanced manufacturing technology for tissue engineering. An electrowetting-based microfluidics array printing system is proposed to rapidly print chitosan hydrogel and other biomaterials to build micro porous scaffolds with predefined structures, cells, and growth factors in high resolution (< 10 micrometer).  The budget for this 3-year project is $534,611 with Drexel receiving $284,980.

Drs. Jaudelice de Oliveira (PI, ECE), Fernand S. Cohen (Co-PI, ECE) and Fredricka K. Reisman (Co-PI, Goodwin) have received a grant from the National Science Foundation for their project entitled, “Integrating Sensor Networks in Undergraduate Curriculum: A Marriage between Theory and Practice.”  The primary goal of this proposal is the integration of a practical (hands on) approach to complement the learning and understanding of wireless sensor networking concepts and embedded programming methodologies into the undergraduate Drexel engineering curriculum and learning process across other STEM disciplines. This will be achieved through the creation of a new sensor networks teaching laboratory and its modular experiments that can be easily imported into a variety of courses, such as networking, DSP, stochastic and biomedical imaging, etc. The new laboratory will also be used for freshman and senior design projects. A new course in sensor networks, a mini-conference, and a new seminar series are also planned. The project includes a detailed plan of outreach to K-12 students and teachers.  The budget for this 2-year project is $149,997.

Drs. Athina P. Petropulu (PI, ECE), Jaudelice de Oliveira (Co-PI, ECE) and Steve Weber (Co-PI, ECE) have received a grant from the Office of Naval Research for their project entitled, “Multicluster ALLIANCES - A High Throughput Cross-Layer Approach for Wireless Sensor Networks.”  A wireless sensor network consists of small battery powered devices that gather information and report it to a sink node in a wireless fashion. It is important that the sensor readings are communicated in a fast, energy efficient, and reliable way. A significant amount of energy in a sensor network is expended during the communication phase, which can cause wireless channel fading, and collisions among nodes that can render the transmitted data unreadable; in which case retransmissions are required. This project proposes Multicluster ALLIANCES, a new cross-layer (Physical/MAC) protocol that capitalizes on node cooperation to resolve collisions in a way that achieves high throughput, energy savings, and at the same time combats channel fading.  The budget for this 3-year project is $600,328.

Drs. Yury Gogotsi (PI, MSE), and Gleb Yushin (Co-PI, MSE) have received an award from Global Protection, LLC for a project entitled, “Advanced Filtration Systems.” The project is aimed at studying applications of nanoparticles and nanofibers in masks and filters for improved antimicrobial efficiency and filtration capability.  The period of this award is one year from December 2006 to December 2007, with a budget of $104,610.  

Dr. Masoud Soroush (CBE), in partnership with Dr. Michael Grady (Co-PI) of DuPont, have received the National Science Foundation GOALI award for the project entitled, “GOALI: New Generation of Acrylic Resins Produced through Spontaneous Thermal Polymerization.” Alkyl acrylates undergo significant, sustained, reproducible, spontaneous homo- and co-polymerization at temperatures above 140◦C. The project is aimed at identifying (a) the trace species that initiate the spontaneous polymerization of alkyl acrylates and (b) the mechanism of the initiation process. The quantitative understanding of the reactions will then be used to design safer and environmentally- friendlier polymerization plants that produce a new generation of higher quality, solvent-borne resins.  This grant is a 2-year project with a budget of $613,253K.

Dr. Youngmoo Kim (ECE) has received the National Science Foundation CAREER Award for his project entitled, “Exploring Creative Expression through Music and Audio Technology.”  The appeal of music is universal because it provides expression to our own emotions, and it follows that individuals would want some creative input to that expression. Though recent digital audio technologies have had a tremendous impact on the world of recorded music, its fundamental nature remains unchanged: once a recording is made, that single performance is forever fixed, preventing any true interaction with the listener.  This project integrates research in digital audio technology with educational activities with a common vision of transforming the passive act of listening to "recorded" music into an interactive experience in which the performance responds to the creative input of the listener.  This grant is a 5-year project with a budget of $500K.

Dr. Jay Modi (CS) has received the National Science Foundation CAREER Award for his project entitled, "Coordinating Autonomous Agents via Distributed Constraint Reasoning."  This purpose of this project is to develop representations and reasoning algorithms to support the coordination of autonomous agents operating in real-time, open and large-scale real-world environments.  As today's robotic platforms and portable computing and communication devices become more powerful and capable, there is a critical need for distributed intelligent systems that can support coordinated decision-making in such environments.  The project's related education and outreach plan aims to build connections between Artificial Intelligence and traditional engineering through an Agents and Multiagent Systems focused curriculum at Drexel University. This grant is a 5-year project with a budget of $441,175.

Dr. Naga Kandasamy (ECE) has received the National Science Foundation CAREER Award for his project entitled, "Decentralized Control and Optimization Techniques for Autonomic Performance Management of Distributed Computing Systems."  This project aims to develop a scalable online control and optimization framework for designing autonomic computing systems. Given high-level performance objectives by users, these systems manage themselves under dynamic operating conditions, and promise to substantially reduce the manual effort involved in operating large-scale computing systems.  This grant is a 5-year project with a budget of $400K.

Drs. Richard Cairncross (PI, CBE), Joe Elabd (Co-PI, CBE) Giuseppe Palmese (Co-PI, CBE), in partnership with the University of Minnesota have received an award from the Biomass Research & Development Initiative of the USDA/US Department of Energy– funding comes from the USDA Rural Development Program, for his project entitled, " Moisture Management in Polylactide and Polylactide Copolymers.”  PLA (polylactide or polylactic acid) is a biodegradable polymer produced from renewable resources which is being used in an increasing number of consumer plastics applications.  The main objective of this project is to improve the moisture barrier properties of PLA using chemical modification, copolymerization and composite processing while maintaining the thermal mechanical, degradation and optical properties of pure PLA.  The collaboration between Drexel University and the University of Minnesota combines the multi-disciplinary expertise in polymer processing, polymer synthesis, polymer property characterization, composites processing, and mathematical modeling.  The project will contribute to more efficient and more environmentally benign production of bio-based polymeric products.  This grant is a 3-year project with a budget of $1,312,389.

Dr. Yossef A. Elabd (CBE) has received the National Science Foundation CAREER Award for his project entitled, “CAREER: Multicomponent Transport in Polymer Electrolyte Membranes.” The aim of this project is to investigate multicomponent transport phenomena in polymer electrolyte membranes used in fuel cells. The outcomes will result in a fundamental understanding of multicomponent transport mechanisms that will be used to develop new membranes that improve fuel cell performance. Prof. Elabd will also develop two new programs that integrate education with research on the topics of fuel cells and chemical engineering at both the K-12 and undergraduate level. This grant is a 5-year project with a budget of $400K.

Dr. Alex Fridman (PI, MEM) recently received two research grants.  On the first grant, Dr. Gary Fridman (ECE) serves as the Co-PI on the research project entitle “Non-Thermal Atmospheric Pressure Electrical Discharge Plasma for Non-Surgical Treatment of Skin Diseases,” awarded by DARPA with a budget of $150K.  Dr. Alex Gutsol (MEM) serves as the Co-PI on the second project awarded by Air Products.  The title of this research is “Application of NF3 Plasma in Electronics” with a budget of approximately $80K.

Robust Cantilever Sensors for Detecting Pathogens in Drinking Water
Dr. Raj Mutharasan, of the department of chemical and biological engineering, was awarded $562,215 from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to research the detection of pathogens in drinking water without the need of a filtration step. Dr. Mutharasan and his research group will the use of the piezoelectric-excited millimeter-sized mechanically robust cantilever sensor to test samples of water spiked with various concentrations of pathogens. This will help characterize sensor response to the levels of pathogens in the water.

CAEE Professor Receives Grant for Chesapeake Bay Environmental Observatory
Dr. Michael Piasecki (CAEE), with partners at the Chesapeake Bay Research Consortium, JHU, U. of Maryland, San Diego Supercomputer Center, U. of Delaware, and Hampton University have been awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation to support the project “Chesapeake Bay Environmental Observatory.” This projects aims at developing the CyberInfrastructure for an environmental observatory for the Chesapeake Bay by integrating the information from various local information systems like the CB Observatory System. This project brings together IT and domain experts to develop an information system for the Chesapeake bay with main focus on the Hypoxia problem and target audiences in the marine, environmental engineering, hydrology, and ecology communities. This proposal is one of four funded nationwide from a pool of over 50 submissions. The total budget for this three-year project is $2.2M.

ECE Faculty Members Receive NSF Grant
Drs. Timothy P. Kurzweg (PI ECE), Adam K. Fontecchio (co-PI ECE), and Bahram Nabet (co-PI ECE) have been awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation to support the project "On-Chip Spectrometer for Pre-Cancerous Detection Applications.” This proposal focuses on the development of an on-chip optical spectrometer for the detection of pre-cancerous epithelial cells using novel technologies that surpass current endoscopic systems. The budget for this three-year project is $240K.

NSF Grant Awarded to Professor Weber
Steve Weber (PI, ECE), Jeffrey G. Andrews (Co-PI, UT-Austin), and Nihar Jindal (Co-PI, U-Minnesota) were recently awarded an NSF grant for the program Theoretical Foundations of Communication entitled, “Collaborative Research: Cognitive Ad Hoc Networks: Capacity Optimization through Local Adaption.” The aim is to identify the value of local information and coordination in seeking to maximize information flow in an ad hoc network, as well as identify the relative values of adaptation in time, space, frequency, and code.  The budget for this three year project is $350,000.

NSA Grant Awarded to Professors
Prof. Mun Choi (MEM), Prof. Moshe Kam (ECE), and Prof. Kapil Dandekar (ECE) were recently awarded a NSA grant entitled, “Information Assurance Scholarship Program and Institutional Capacity Building.”  This program will support two graduate students (ECE and IST) and provide funds to develop an anechoic chamber for telecommunications and networking research.  The budget for this one year project is $214K.

NSF Grant Awarded for Sensor Research
Steve Weber (PI, ECE), Harish Sethu (Co-PI, ECE), and Jaudelice de Oliveira (Co-PI, ECE) were recently awarded an NSF grant for the program NeTS Networks of Sensor Systems (NOSS) entitled, “Analysis and Design for Heterogeneous Sensor Networks.”  This project focuses on the design, control, and performance of sensor fields consisting of nodes equipped with a suite of dynamically controllable transducers; the project is motivated by open questions regarding implications of transducer heterogeneity in sensor networks, specifically on placement and topology control algorithms, data gathering and dissemination strategies, and data fusion methods.  The budget for this three year project is $325,000.

DOD/ONR Grant Awarded
Peter Herczfeld (PI, ECE), Yifei Li (Co-PI, ECE), and Arye Rosen (Co-PI, ECE) were recently awarded a Dept. of Defense, Office of Naval Research DARPA grant entitled “Coherent Fiber-optic Link.” The purpose of this research is to design components for and demonstrate high dynamic range analog fiber-optic link for radar and communications. The budget for this 1-year project is $1,036,000.

DARPA Grant Awarded
Spiros Mancoridis (CS) and Moshe Kam (ECE)  were awarded a DARPA grant entitled "Situation-Aware Protocols in Edge Network Technologies, Phase 2." The purpose of this research is to improve the performance of defense computer applications that degrade due to constantly changing network conditions, and increase by an order of magnitude the availability of those applications to the warfighter.  Drexel is performing this project as a subcontractor for Lockheed Martin, and the amount of the contract for Phase 2 (18 months) is $818K.

PA Education Grant Awarded
Prof. Mun Choi (MEM), Prof. Mary Jo Grdina (School of Ed), and Joanne Ferroni (MEM) were recently awarded a State of PA education grant entitled, “Math and Science Partnerships with the School District of Philadelphia.”  Through this program, middle school teachers are trained in the topics of Solar Energy and Landforms through experiential learning.  This activity is also an excellent example of our involvement with the community and local school districts. The budget for this one year project is $95K.

Jaydev P. Desai (PI) and Alan Lau of the MEM Department were recently awarded an NIH grant entitled “Data-Driven Real Time Surgical Simulation from Reality-Based Soft Tissue Models”.  This project, which is funded through the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and BioEngineering, holds tremendous promise for advancing medical robotics.  The budget for this 4-year project is $1,225,602.

Young Cho (PI), Alex Fridman, and Alex Gutsol (all of MEM Department) were recently awarded a Dept. of Energy grant entitled “Application of Electrical Field and Plasma for Advanced Cooling and Water Recovery”.  The application of electrical fields and plasmas can enhance the efficiency of heat exchangers through the reduction of scale buildup.  This technology can also be used as an effective and inexpensive means to provide clean drinking water in developing countries.  The budget for this 3-year project is $450K. 

Drs. Mun Choi (MEM), Yury Gogotsi (MSE), Bradley Layton (MEM), Athina Petropulu (ECE), and Fredericka Reisman (Provost Office) were recently awarded an NSF grant entitled “Research Experiences for Teachers in Emerging Technologies”. In this project, 20 teachers per year from the Philadelphia region will be trained in experiential learning through laboratory discovery. This represents another element of our initiatives in working with the School District of Philadelphia for teacher professional development and improvements in K-12 STEM education. The budget for this 3-year project is $450K.

Chika Nwankpa (PI, ECE), Jeremy Johnson (Co-PI, CS), Karen Miu (Co-PI, ECE), and Prawat Nagvajara (Co-PI, ECE) were recently awarded an NSF grant “Computation of Power System Dynamics Through Mixed-Signal VLSI Emulation”. This project involves the study into developing computing techniques for large-scale power system dynamics based on current mixed-signal VLSI emulation technology. The budget for this 3-year project is $239.914.  This work will further enhance ongoing work with DOE started by this investigation team.

Drexel University College of Engineering was awarded a US Army Materials Center of Excellence for research on polymers by the US Army Research Laboratory. This is a cooperative program for $6.75M over a period of nine years headed by Giuseppe Palmese Professor & Head of the Chemical & Biological Engineering Department. Co-PIs of this effort are Drs. Cameron Abrams (CBE), Joe Elabd (CBE), and Chris Li (MSE). The Center proposal focused on multiscale synthesis, modeling, and design of advanced polymer systems and included projects on nanopore-filled systems, encapsulated nano- and meso-fiber mesh composites, hyperbranched polymers for segmented polyurethanes, ionically self-healing polymer systems, and computational modeling.

The college of engineering received three new site programs from the Department of Education for the Graduate Assistantships in Areas of National Need (GAANN).  These programs provide fellowship support for Ph.D. students for stipend and tuition.  Brief descriptions of the awards are as follows:

GAANN in the area of Designer Materials (Surya Kalidindi, PI).  Co-PIs: Drs. Antonios Zavaliangos (MSE), Caroline Schauer (MSE), Jonathan Spanier (MSE), Sheila Vaidya (SoE), Freddie Reisman (Goodwin), Mun Choi (MEM).  Amount of award: $630,000

GAANN Fellowships to Develop Renaissance Engineers (Charles Haas, PI). Co-PIs: Drs. Franklin Moon (CAEE) Jin Wen (CAEE), Agami Reddy (CAEE), Emin Aktan (CAEE), Tony Hu (IST), Mun Choi (MEM).  Amount of award: $504,000

GAANN Fellowships in Biomedical Applications in Engineering (Mun Choi, PI). Co-PIs: Drs. Yury Gogotsi (MSE), Michele Marcolongo (MSE), Jaydev Desai (MEM), Kimberly Cook (MEM), Franco Capaldi (MEM), Tiffany Miller (MEM), Moses Noh (MEM), Bradley Layton (MEM), Freddie Reisman (Goodwin).  Amount of award: $400.000

Tein-Min Tan (PI), Alan Lau (Co-PI), Jonathan Awerbuch (Co-PI), all of Mechanical Engineering & Mechanics Department were recently awarded an FAA contract “An Analytical and Experimental Study of Widespread Fatigue Damage in Aircraft Fuselage”. This project involves experimental and computational investigations of crack propagation and methods to mitigate damage. The budget for this 3-year project is $644,000.  This work will further enhance our collaboration with FAA that had started by this investigation team.

A.J. Drexel Plasma Institute has just received two new grants on Hydrogen production which is one of the important research directions of the Institute. One of the grants is from the Florida Institute of Phosphate Research and entitled, “Hydrogen Production by H2S Decomposition in Plasma” and the second one is from W2 Company entitled, “Hydrogen Production by Plasma Conversion of Biomass”. The combined budget for these grants is $360K for 1.5 years. Prof. Alex Fridman (MEM) will serve as the PI and Dr. Alex Gutsol as the co-PI.

Dr. Cameron Abrams, assistant professor of Chemical & Biological Engineering has been awarded a CAREER grant from NSF. The title of the project is "Multiscale Simulation of Solute Transport in Hydrogels", with a total funding  of $400,000 over four years. The project aims to develop molecular simulation methods that will allow investigation of the links between molecular structure and macroscopic transport properties of large proteins in engineered polymer matrices, with a preliminary focus on insulin in poly(acrylic acid) gels. Educational initiatives are devoted to developing and deploying computer-based chemistry teaching applications to a selection of high schools in the Philadelphia public school system

Profs. Eli Fromm and Adam Fontecchio received the National Science Foundation GK-12 grant of $615,523 for FY 2006 with a total of $1,847,998 expected by the end of FY 2008 for the project entitled, "Track 1, GK-12: Engineering as a Contextual Vehicle for Science and Mathematics Education."   This project will be under the direction of Eli Fromm (ECE), Adam K. Fontecchio (ECE), Mary Jo Grdina ( School of Education ), Mun Young Choi (MEM) and William F. Lynch ( School of Education ).  This program will provide fellowships for outstanding graduate students who are interested in broadening their educational experiences while pursuing their engineering degrees at Drexel University . 

Profs. Joseph Wartman (PI, CAEE) and Patricia Gallagher (co-PI, CAEE) were awarded a $395,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for the Research Experience for Undergraduate (REU) site "Engineering Cities."   The multidisciplinary REU site will be led by the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering, and include participation of faculty from other departments in COE, as well as the  College of Arts and Sciences and the Lebow College of Business.  The site will focus on research and education in five overlapping areas: (i) Analysis and Mitigation of Natural and Anthropogenic Hazards, (ii) Environmental Quality and Sustainability, (iii) Civil Infrastructure Assessment, (iv) Risk Analysis and Management, and (v) Application of Advanced Technologies for Urban Engineering.

Profs. Caroline Schauer (PI), assistant professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE), and Jin Wen (co-PI), assistant professor in the Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering, (CAEE) are the recipient of a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Site grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF).  The grant entitled, “SENSORS:  From Design to Implementation,” will provide a quality ten-week summer experience in hands-on sensor research from science to application for 10 rising seniors from colleges and universities around the country. SENSORS is a three-year grant with a $300,000 budget.  

Alex Fridman (PI), Alex Gutsol (Co-PI), NASA , 3 years, $500,000, “Sterilization with Atmospheric Pressure Plasma”.  In this project, Dr. Fridman and Dr. Gutsol, will develop techniques to provide sterilization to be used by astronauts in future missions to the Moon and Mars.

Alex Fridman (PI), Alex Gutsol (Co-PI), Alidan H2 , 3 years, $160,000, “Dissociation of H2S in Non-Equilibrium Plasma of Gliding Arc Tornado Discharge”.  In this project, Dr. Fridman and Dr. Gutsol, will develop techniques of breakdown of harmful gases encountered in industrial applications.

Tein-Min Tan (PI), Alan Lau (Co-PI), Jonathan Awerbuch (Co-PI), FAA , 3 year, $644,000, “An Analytical and Experimental Study of Widespread Fatigue Damage in Aircraft Fuselage”.  This project involves experimental and computational investigations of crack propagation and methods to mitigate damage.

Dr. Karen Miu (ECE) has been selected to receive the 2005 Eta Kappa Nu Outstanding Young Electrical and Computer Engineer (OYECE) Award. Previously this award was referred to as the Outstanding Young Electrical Engineer (OYEE) Award. Since 1936, 68 young electrical engineers have received the award and 143 have received honorable mentions. This national award is not only given based on outstanding professional accomplishments, but also for what they have done to broaden themselves culturally and to serve others.

Dr. Antonios Zavaliangos (MSE) received a $349,267 Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) grant from the National Science Foundation for the Acquisition of a High Resolution X-ray Tomography Unit.  This instrument will provide unprecedented non-destructive capability for examination of the internal structure of specimens with a resolution that approaches 1 micron.  It is the best of its kind in the Delaware Valley and one of three comparable instruments available in academic institutions in the U.S. (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Amherst College being the others).  This instrument will become part of the Drexel University Centralized Materials Characterization Facility (MCF).

Co-PIs and Senior Personnel include Dr. Haviva M. Goldman, assistant professor in the Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy, Dr. Joseph Wartman (CAEE), Dr. Surya R. Kalidindi (MSE), and Dr. Wei Sun (MEM).  Senior investigators include Dr. Richard Cairncross (CBE), Dr. Grace Hsuan (CAEE), Dr. Patricia Gallagher (CAEE), Dr. Chang Chang, assistant professor in the School of Biomedical Engineering, Science, and Health Systems, Dr. Frank Ko (MSE), and Dr. David Breen (CS). 

Dr. Peter Herczfeld (ECE) has been selected to receive the 2006 Microwave Pioneer Award of the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (MTT-S).  This award is given in recognition of a major, lasting contribution, through publication in an archival journal, in the field of interest of the MTT-S, at least twenty years prior to the year of the award. "For pioneering work in microwave photonics."  The award consists of a recognition plaque and an honorarium of $2,500.  The award will be conferred at the annual Society Awards Banquet to be held during the International Microwave Symposium the week of June 10 - 16, 2006 in San Francisco , CA . This highly prestigious national IEEE award that recognizes and honors Dr. Herczfeld's lasting and pioneering contributions to microwave photonics. 

Dr. Kapil Dandekar (PI-ECE) and Dr. Timothy Kurzweg (ECE) have been awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation to support the project "Multiple-Input Multiple-Output Diffuse Optical Local Area Networks" . The objective of this project is to develop next generation wireless local area networks that make use of both high data rate infrared communication links as well as simultaneous, coordinated use of radio frequency and infrared communication modalities. A "testbed" will be constructed at Drexel to demonstrate the potential of these techniques. The budget for this three-year project is $240K .

US EPA and the Department of Homeland Security has set up its newest cooperative university center -- the Center for Advancing Microbial Risk Assessment (CAMRA) . Charles Haas , LD Betz Professor of Environmental Engineering and Head - Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering, is overall center co-PI. The Center, which is headquartered at Michigan State University, will develop scientific knowledge on the fate and risk of bioterrorist and other high priority infectious agents. Other universities in the consortium are the University of California-Berkeley, the University of Arizona, Northern Arizona University, the University of Michigan and Carnegie Mellon University. The overall center is funded for a total of $10 million over the next five years, with the Drexel share being $2.2 million . Also participating as principal investigators from Drexel are Patrick Gurian , Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Rosina Weber , Assistant Professor of Information Science and Technology.

Drs. Adam Fontecchio (PI-ECE), Eli Fromm (ECE), John Dinardo (Physics), Elizabeth Papazoglou (Biomed), and Caroline Schauer (MSE) received funding from NSF for their project on Nano-Enlightenment. This project involves freshman/sophomore educational enhancement program that integrates short modules about nanotechnology within the existing freshman and sophomore courses. The modules will be organized in themes that address issues in current activities and provide a broad interdisciplinary understanding of nanotechnology in a two year stream. The duration of the project is for 2 years with a budget of $200,000 .

Dr. William Regli (PI), Assoc. Professor in CS, and Dr. Michael Piasecki (Co-PI), Assoc. Professor in Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering were selected for award through the NSF CI-Teams program. This program is the first of NSF's new flagship "Cyber Infrastructure" initiative and comes on the heels of the successful 3rd NSF-ENG workshop on Cyber Infrastructure organized by Michael Piasecki.
Through this project, Drexel University will lead a consortium of universities including the University of Maryland (College Park), University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill), and the University of Wisconsin (Madison). The project will investigate the "Creation and Use of Multi-Disciplinary Engineering Models". The project will be for one year and has a budget of $250,000

Dr. Patricia Gallagher , assistant professor in Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering Department, received a grant from the NSF Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation Research . This is a $3.6M project for a consortium of universities including Drexel, UT Austin, GA Tech, UC Davis, and MIT. Drexel portion of the award is $360,000 . The goal of the project is to investigate remediate soils in port structures such as wharves and piers. Dr. Gallagher will be conducting field testing, centrifuge modeling, and numerical computations to ascertain the most cost effective way to improve the soils.

Dr. Paul Oh (Mechanical Engineering) has received a new award from DoD for his project "Networked Control of Airborne and Ground Robots for Battlefield Medical Assistance". This one-year project is budgeted at $325,130 .  The objective is to design, test and evaluate a reliable, robust and re-configurable system suitable for robotically delivering medical treatment in battlefields or disaster zones. Towards this, manned and unmanned airborne and terrestrial vehicles, miniature wireless sensor nodes, imaging and ultra-wideband radar will be networked and controlled.

Michel Barsoum (PI) and Jonathan Spanier (Co-I) of the Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering and their collaborators at Rowan University entitled "MAX Phase Solid Solutions: Unique Opportunities at Engineering Bulk and Surface Properties," has just been selected for award by the Division of Materials Research (DMR) as an NSF Focused Research Group (FRG). The amount of the award is $800,000 and is for four years. The work will encompass a broad range of experimental and theoretical simulation tools to investigate the properties of this emerging class of inorganic, nano-laminate engineering compounds. The linking of undergraduate and graduate student researchers, faculty and resources from both institutions resulting from this partnership will enable students to benefit from broad, interdisciplinary research experiences.

Dr. Mun Choi (MEM), Dr. Moshe Kam (ECE), and Mr. Stephen Cox (Provost's Office) has been awarded the Information Assurance Fellowship grant by the National Security Agency. The purpose of this grant is to provide support for research and training in information assurance. The grant will be used to support both undergraduate and graduate students. The budget for the one year renewable project is $209K.

Dr. Paul Oh (MEM) has been awarded a contract by the US Army to develop sensors and collision avoidance for Class II Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV). This work is in collaboration with Piasecki Aircraft, Boeing, and SAIC. The 10-month Phase 1 effort will perform test and evaluation trade studies in the Drexel Micro-Air-Vehicle Test Rig (located on the first floor of Bossone). The 24 month Phase 2 effort will deliver a prototype sensor suite suitable for flying in near-Earth environments. The UAV is to fly autonomously day or night, in adverse weather and in the presence of obscurants like fog, dust and smoke. Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the project is for three years with Drexel's portion of the award at $820K .

Dr. Jonathan Spanier of our Materials Engineering & Science department and his colleagues:
The first proposal entitled, "Electron-Beam Nanolithography " with Jonathan Spanier serving as PI and Bahram Nabet (ECE) as Co-PI has been selected for award under DURIP (Defense University Research Instrumentation Program). The award amount is approximately $132K and is for one year. The award brings an important nanotechnology capability to Drexel that does not exist elsewhere as a centralized resource in the greater Philadelphia area and will serve as an important addition to the Materials Characterization Facility in the Bossone Center.
The second proposal entitled "Nanowire-Enabled Scanning Probes" with Jonathan Spanier serving as PI has been selected for funding under the Innovation Grant Program within the NSF Nano-Bio Interface Center (NBIC), a Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center (NSEC) hosted at the University of Pennsylvania. The award amount is for approximately $105K and will be for two years.

Lockheed Martin awarded Drexel $464,000 as a subcontract to a DARPA project under the SAPIENT program (Situation-Aware Protocols In Edge Network Technologies).  The Drexel Faculty leading the project are Prof. Spiros Mancoridis (CS) and Prof. Moshe Kam (ECE).  This is a spin-off activity from our ACIN project and is a further endorsement of our ever-growing leadership in information assurance and security.

Drexel Plasma Institute has been awarded a $920K NASA Planetary Protection Grant entitled “Sterilization with Atmospheric Pressure Plasma”. Dr Alexander Fridman , the Nyheim Chair Professor of Mechanical Engineering and the Institute Director is the PI of this 4-year project. Dr. Alex Gutsol is going to serve as the Co-PI. Drexel is the "Prime" contractor for the project and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is also going to participate on this project through a subcontract from Drexel.

Dr. Surya Kalidindi , Department Head and Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, has received a  5-year $650K grant for his proposal entitled, “Computational tools for digital representation and prediction of microstructure and its incorporation in designer's knowledge base.”   This grant is a sub contract to Drexel University from Ohio State University, and is a part of a large grant from the Office of Naval Research (ONR) including Carnegie Mellon University.

Dr. Tony Lowman (associate professor in Chemical & Biological Engineering - Associate Dean) and Dr. Michele Marcolongo (associate professor in Materials Science & Engineering) were awarded $1,500,000 grant from Synthes Corp.   This evenly-split project  will cover a period of 3 years and will focus on their work involving the new hydrogel structures as well as modeling and establishing the biomechanical testing strategies for use in spinal applications.  These are follow-up studies on their well-known work of utilizing "hydrogels" in fixing up our body parts when needed!

"Digital Engineering Archives" submitted to the NSF Digital Archiving and Long-Term Preservation (DIGARCH) Program (NSF 04-592) under the leadership of Bill Regli, associate professor of Computer Science has been selected for funding. The proposed funding level is $478,146 over three years.
This proposal leverages and extends the current work being done under several of our projects including ACIN in the area of Web Services and use of the Semantic Web and W3C standards to represent engineering knowledge. The team includes Dr. Ali Shokoufandeh , Dr. Wenfei Fan and Dr. Steve Brooks.

Tony Lowman, associate dean for undergraduate affairs and associate professor in our Chemical & Biological Engineering Department received a grant from NIH entitled "pH Sensitive Complex Hydrogels for Protein Drug Release". This is a collaborative effort between Drexel, Thomas Jefferson and the University of Texas. Tony's laboratory --i.e. Drexel's portion-- will receive $900,000 over the next 4 years for this effort.

The Office of Naval Research has informed us of awarding $303,000 for the project " DURIP : Large Scale Instrumentation Facility for Simulation and Design of Distributed Control Plants." The project will be led by Prof. Moshe Kam (ECE) with the objective of building a full scale instrumented distributed control network capable of duplicating and analyzing control architectures for current and future US Navy ships.