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Panel, Symposium Celebrate 20 Years of PhD Programs

May 25th, 2012 in Alumni, Events, Faculty, Graduate Programs, Graduate Students, News-CE, News-EP, News-ISS, Recognition, Students

Boston University President Robert A. Brown makes a point during the panel discussion, which also featured Dean Kenneth Lutchen and MIT Lincoln Laboratory CTO Bernadette Johnson. (Photo by BU Photo Services)

The College of Engineering marked the first 20 years of its doctoral programs with a panel discussion and symposium on Saturday, May 19, shortly before this year’s PhD Hooding Ceremony.

“Today, we celebrate making it to 20 years,” said Dean Kenneth R. Lutchen, “But we did far more than just make it. Twenty years ago, we were not rank-able by US News & World Report in graduate programs because we had no PhD programs. Five years ago, we were ranked in the 50s. Today, we are at number 38, ahead of schools that have been around five times as long as we have.”

Lutchen was joined by University President Robert A. Brown and MIT Lincoln Laboratory Chief Technology Officer Bernadette Johnson in a panel discussion moderated by former Dean Charles DeLisi. The panel focused on the challenges and opportunities higher education faces as technology plays an increasingly large global role. All agreed on the critical importance of maintaining America’s lead in innovation as the key to continued economic strength and that strong technology-oriented PhD programs are critical to producing leaders in that area.

Brown cautioned against falling into the “success trap” created by a post-war economic boom that was fueled by an American manufacturing base that has since largely moved overseas.

“For the last 50 or 60 years,” he said, “we have been an incredible engine for the world economy. That success traps us into thinking the way forward is the way we did it before, but it will be different.”

He noted that America maintains a strong advantage in the quality of its engineering PhD programs, which continue to attract the best students from around the world. American universities, he said, need to graduate PhDs who see the world from global perspective, create products the world needs and take creative risks in the innovation process.

Lutchen and Brown both noted that America’s success in building and maintaining unparalleled research universities is made possible by the infrastructure that supports them. Lutchen discussed the “technology ecosystem” that produces commercial products that result from university research that was, in turn, made possible by government support.

“The most important investment government can make is in education,” Lutchen said. The public policy that enables that ecosystem, he said, is challenged by a nation that does not fully appreciate the link between technology and the economy, or even accept some well-established scientific principles.

“We cannot tolerate politicians who reject science just because they want to,” he said. “They are dangerous.”

Johnson added that technology development goes beyond economics and has long been responsible for societal advances. Just as agricultural development led to stable food supplies and enabled societies to advance, producing enough clean water for the world’s population will free people to make advances in other areas.

“Solving basic problems will advance us as a civilization every bit as much as in the past,” she said.

The panel discussion was followed by a symposium featuring four faculty members who discussed their research and its potential impact on society.

Professor James J. Collins (BME, MSE, SE) discussed the state of systems and synthetic biology, fields he and his PhD students have helped pioneer over the last dozen years. He described how he takes an engineering approach to molecular biology, developing synthetic gene networks that can be programmed to perform specific tasks, and switched on and off. His present focus, he said, is on crippling bacteria’s defense mechanisms so existing antibiotics can function more effectively.

Professor Thomas Little (ECE, SE) noted that the world stands to save about a billion gallons of oil per year—about 50 days’ worth—by replacing the 30 billion incandescent light bulbs now in use with LED lighting. He described how the Smart Lighting Engineering Research Center is working to piggy back on this conversion to include data transmission capabilities in LEDs. The vision, he said, is to make every LED an Internet access point that could supplement existing wireless technology in indoor settings.

Materials Science & Engineering Division Head Professor David Bishop (ECE, MSE) outlined the numerous research efforts in the division. Researchers from Engineering and other schools at BU are working on materials for energy conservation and health care, as well as exploring nano-materials and designing materials digitally. Efforts at BU include basic research aimed at understanding and predicting the properties of novel materials, as well as applications in water purification, MEMs, dental repair, medical diagnostics and a host of other areas, he said.

In the final presentation, Professor Thomas Bifano (ME, MSE) detailed his research that produced micro-scale deformable mirrors. Light waves, he explained, are distorted as they pass through the atmosphere and biological media, producing blurred images in telescopes and medical optics. The mirrors compensate for these distortions, vastly improving the images’ resolution. He noted the technology is already impacting the field of diabetic medicine, where the mirrors are used on optical imaging machines to detect eye disease at a much earlier stage than ever before possible.

The day concluded with the PhD Hooding Ceremony. Forty-three graduates, including nine from the Bioinformatics program, received their doctorates at the ceremony. The featured speaker was Kimani C. Toussaint, Jr., who received his PhD in from BU in 2004 and is now an assistant professor of mechanical science and engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

-Michael G Seele

Congratulations to our ECE Graduates

May 24th, 2012 in Alumni, Awards, Events, Faculty, Graduate Programs, Graduate Students, News-CE, News-EP, News-ISS, Recognition, Students, Undergraduate Programs, Undergraduate Students

The Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering would like to congratulate all of our May 2012 graduates.

Taking the Hard Road

May 24th, 2012 in Awards, Events, Faculty, Graduate Programs, Graduate Students, News-CE, News-EP, News-ISS, Recognition, Students, Undergraduate Students

ENG Community Celebrates Program’s Rigors and Rewards at 59th Commencement

On May 14, students and faculty gathered in the Trustee's Ballroom for the first-ever Senior Class Luncheon, where Dean Kenneth R. Lutchen announced the ENG student and keynote Commencement speakers and the ENG faculty awards. (Photo by BU Photo Services)

Reflections on years of hard work, aspirations to better the world, and a vibrant community spirit predominated at the College of Engineering’s 59^th annual Commencement. Held on May 20 at the Track & Tennis Center, the event celebrated the accomplishments of 39 master of engineering, 177 master of science and 289 bachelor of science candidates.

In his opening remarks, Dean Kenneth R. Lutchen congratulated graduating seniors for completing “unquestionably the most difficult undergraduate degree program at Boston University” and urged them to continue taking on hard challenges to positively transform society. Quoting Tom Hanks’ character in A League of Their Own, he said “’It’s supposed to be hard. The hard is what makes it great. If it wasn’t hard, anyone could do it,’” and then added, “Anyone can’t do it; you can.”

Lutchen invoked a moment of silence to remember three outstanding BU students, Austin Brashears (ME ’13), Roch Jauberty (CAS ’14), and Daniela Lekhno (SMG ’13), who died a week earlier when a van they were traveling in overturned on its way to a popular New Zealand tourist destination.

“The university lost some spectacular individuals; the College of Engineering lost one of the most incredible students that this College has ever had,” said Lutchen. “He was totally devoted to enhancing the College of Engineering experience for all the other students and to a life of impacting society with his engineering background.”

In a talk centered on service to fellow students and the world at large, undergraduate student speaker Yasmin M. Atefi (ME) stressed how the College’s strong sense of community enabled her and her fellow graduates to meet the many academic and other challenges they faced over the past four years.

“You’ve gone through the hard work. You’re about to receive your engineering degree and that puts you in a unique position to make the world we live in a better place,” said Atefi, adding, “Remember, you will not change the world alone; rely on your support networks to pull you through, just as you did in your senior projects.”

Recounting the rigors and rewards of the College of Engineering program in between bites of vegetables and dip during a lively reception for students and their guests preceding the Commencement ceremony, graduating seniors frequently described their past four years and future plans in “we” language indicative of a strong identification with the Engineering Class of 2012 community.

“It’s really nice to see all the hard work we put in come to fruition,” said Benjamin Duong (CE), who, among other things, learned “how to work well with people, how to keep trying different angles to solve a problem when your first approach doesn’t work, and how to manage time” while at the College. Duong plans to return to BU this fall to pursue a Master of Engineering in Computer Engineering degree after a summer internship with VMware, a global leader in cloud computing.

“We all worked really hard for this,” said Lisa Cervia (BME), who intends to focus on cancer research this fall as a PhD student at Duke University. “It’s a very good feeling.”

Inspired by the College’s emphasis on the Societal Engineer, Cervia devoted countless hours to her studies, including a senior project that improved a low-cost, portable, battery-operated, optical device that could be used to rapidly and non-invasively diagnose cancer in developing countries.

The Commencement speaker, Dr. Norman Augustine, a leading architect of the space program and a former CEO of Lockheed Martin, explored how students could build on their undergraduate experience to impact society.

“The education each of you has received has prepared you not only to survive in this changing world but also to serve and to shape it,” said Augustine, who received an honorary doctorate at the BU Commencement earlier in the day. “Yet shaping the world will require more than simply the world-class education you’ve received.”

Toward that end, he advised graduates to maintain a good reputation, pursue work that motivates them, seize opportunities as they present themselves, focus on current responsibilities rather than obsess about getting ahead, engage in selfless pursuits and lifelong learning, set big goals and take calculated risks.

Before presenting a diploma to each graduate, Lutchen announced several student awards for academic excellence and service, including the first-ever Societal Impact Capstone Project Awards, which recognized three projects deemed likely to have the biggest impact on society. Caitlin M. Monahan and Dayana Rojas (BME) won first place for “Robust Dissolution System for the Detection of Counterfeit Drugs in Resource-Limited Settings;” Kholood Al Tabash, Donald N. Dougherty, Eric A. Hsiao, Kenneth Zhong and Gregory A. Zoeller (ECE) won second place for iMedix—Patient-Nurse Communciation System;” and Rachel N. Deraney, Kaitlin C. Gargiulo and Chelsea Saniel (BME) won third place for “System for Nucleic Acid Preparation for TB Diagnostics (SNAP-TB).”

Lutchen also announced the Department Awards for Teaching Excellence: Professor H. Steven Colburn (BME); Assistant Professor Douglas Densmore (ECE); and Lecturer Caleb Farny (ME). The Outstanding Professor of the Year Award was presented to Professor Mark Horenstein (ECE) and the Faculty Service Award went to Associate Professor Hua Wang (ME, MSE).

-Mark Dwortzan

Dean’s Catalyst Awards to Fund Innovative Research

May 22nd, 2012 in Awards, Faculty, Grants, News-CE, News-EP, Recognition, Research, Research-CE, Research-EP

The College of Engineering has funded five new projects through the Dean’s Catalyst Award (DCA) grant program, each focused on disruptive technologies ranging from biologically-based computers to the genetic modification of brain cells. The projects will receive a total of $160,000 to develop novel techniques to advance these technologies.

Topology of Bio-Fluidic Programmable Logic Array (BFPLA) proposed by Assistant Professors Douglas Densmore and Ahmed "Mo" Khalil, who received one of five 2012 Dean's Catalyst Awards. Inspired by electronic programmable logic arrays, the BFPLA consists of 10 different logic circuits, which will be constructed in living bacteria cells using synthetic biology approaches. A microfluidic system will serve as the embedded hardware, within which the biological circuits will be housed and wired together via the controlled flow of signaling molecules in the liquid media.

Established by Dean Kenneth R. Lutchen in 2007 and organized by a faculty committee, the annual DCA program encourages early-stage, innovative, interdisciplinary projects that could spark new advances in a variety of engineering fields. By providing each project with seed funding, the awards give full-time faculty the opportunity to generate initial proof-of-concept results that could help secure external funding.

This year’s DCA-winning projects could yield new applications in healthcare, energy, computation, communications and defense.

Assistant Professors Douglas Densmore (ECE) and Ahmad “Mo” Khalil (BME) plan to combine microfluidics and synthetic biology approaches to construct reconfigurable, multicellular genetic circuits, such as a “Bio‐Fluidic Programmable Logic Array” that enables selected biological organisms to perform multiple computational operations. Built from off-the-shelf biological parts, this programmable device may ultimately be used in bioremediation, biosensing and other applications.

Combining their expertise in wave sensing and biomedicine, Associate Professors J. Gregory McDaniel (ME) and Joyce Wong (BME, MSE) propose a novel approach for measuring material properties of human tissue in vivo using the vibrations of tiny microspheres attached to the tissue surface that are set in motion by an ultrasound pulse. By illustrating the potential to measure the resonance frequency of the microspheres and relate it to material properties, the researchers expect to create an entirely new and significant avenue of exploration and discovery that could lead to improved diagnosis and therapy for tumors and coronary heart disease.

An operational modified chemical vapor deposition (MCVD) lathe at the BU Photonics Center. Dean's Catalyst Award recipients Professor Soumendra Basu (ME, MSE) and Associate Professor Siddharth Ramachandran (ECE) plan to use MCVD, one of two principal industrial fabrication techniques used in the manufacture of optical fibers, in their proposed research project.

Despite high expectations for their use in many energy and lab-on-a-chip applications, today’s nanochannel devices, which rely on nanoscale conduits to transport fluids, display very low rates of fluid transport due to hydrophilic, or water-absorbent, components. Aiming to significantly boost fluid flow through these channels, Professor Xin Zhang (ME, MSE) and Assistant Professors Chuanhua Duan (ME) and Xi Lin (ME) plan to use a new fabrication process to develop the first-ever hydrophobic, or water-resistant, graphene nanochannel device and investigate its use in novel energy harvesting applications.

Professor Soumendra Basu (ME, MSE) and Associate Professor Siddharth Ramachandran (ECE) will attempt to design novel semiconductor core optical fibers that can guide mid-infrared (IR) light over tens of meters, the order of fiber-lengths needed for non-telecommunications applications such as jamming heat-seeking missiles or detecting bioterror threats. Their ultimate goal is to develop alternatives to conventional silica optical fibers, in which transmission losses increase dramatically at wavelengths in the mid-IR part of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Genetic modification of brain cells for correcting brain disorders remains a major challenge, but Professor Mark Grinstaff (BME, MSE) and Assistant Professor Xue Han (BME) propose to develop a novel method to achieve this efficiently in vivo by introducing DNA to a broad spectrum of brain cells with a new generation of lipids. Their method could open up new frontiers in targeted gene expression in specific cells in animal models for basic neuroscience research and eventually in human gene therapies.

-Mark Dwortzan

Schuyler Eldridge Awarded a NASA Fellowship

May 21st, 2012 in Alumni, Awards, Graduate Programs, Graduate Student Opportunities, Graduate Students, News-CE, Recognition, Research, Research-CE, Students

Schuyler Eldridge (ECE ’09, ECE ’15) has received a NASA Space Technology Research Fellowship.

So many kids grow up learning about space and wanting to work for NASA, but for Schuyler Eldridge (ECE ’09, ECE ’15), that dream is now a reality.

He was recently granted a NASA Space Technology Research Fellowship for his work on the project, “Biologically-Inspired Hardware for Land/Aerial Robots,” which aims to design a new type of computer that can sense, learn, and adapt – just like a living brain.

This fellowship, renewable for up to 3 years, provides $70,000 per year for tuition, a stipend, and compensation for other expenses. It also allows Eldridge a chance to work with a NASA mentor remotely and at multiple NASA locations over the next few years.

Eldridge works in the Integrated Circuits & Systems group and the Neuromorphics Lab where he conducts research focusing on what he describes as “leveraging the efficiency and faulty tolerance of the brain to design hardware that solves difficult engineering problems in the areas of robotics and VLSI.”

“Receiving this fellowship gives me a sense of security and direction for the rest of my program of study and more importantly, gives me a sense of pride as I know this reflects favorably on the ECE department, the Neuromorphics Lab, and Boston University as a whole,” said Eldridge.

Eldridge uses biological models to design hardware for enhancing the ability of autonomous robots to process sensor data, specifically visual data, and learn obstacle avoidance techniques as they navigate unknown environments. He also investigates the use of biological networks to improve the faulty tolerance of CMOS devices and works closely with his advisor, Assistant Professor Ajay Joshi (ECE).

“Schuyler is a highly motivated, hard-working, and well-organized individual. He is not afraid to work across multiple disciplines and is always willing to help others,” said Joshi.

Joshi said that Eldridge has found a nice balance in his work at Boston University, where the Ph.D. candidate mixes engineering and neuroscience into his studies.

“We hope this fellowship will allow him to work closely with NASA on their next mission and really give him a chance to make an impact,” said Joshi.

While Eldridge knows his goals are very large, he’s planning on working diligently to accomplish even more than he already has.

He added: “I would like to see the biological hardware that I design wind up in the next interplanetary rover or help solve reliability issues associated with CMOS scaling.”

To see a complete list of Space Technology Research Fellows, view NASA’s press release.

-Samantha Gordon (COM ’12) and Rachel Harrington

Altug Promoted to Associate Professor

May 17th, 2012 in Faculty, News-EP, Recognition

Assistant Professor Hatice Altug (ECE, MSE)

ECE Assistant Professor Hatice Altug was recently promoted to the rank of Associate Professor and awarded full tenure status by Boston University’s Board of Trustees.

“I am thrilled to have tenure and honored to be a part of BU,” Altug said. “I have been very lucky to work with extremely talented graduate students and researchers in my team. In achieving this important milestone in my career, I also would like to acknowledge my colleagues in BU, my dean, and my chair, David Castañón.”

Altug, who received her Ph.D. from Stanford University in 2006, has won multiple awards as a member of BU’s faculty, including the Boston University College of Engineering Dean’s Catalyst Award, NSF CAREER Award, and Photonics Society Young Investigator Award. In 2010, Popular Science magazine named her one of the top ten young scientists and engineers, and last year, President Barack Obama awarded her a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.

Most recently, the Optical Society of America (OSA) presented her with its Adolph Lomb Medal. This award is presented to early career researchers who have made a significant contribution to the field of optics.

Additionally, she was profiled by the IEEE not only for being an accomplished researcher but also for her work as a mentor to current and prospective engineering students.

Since 2007, Altug has worked on a research team to develop a portable biosensor that has the potential to diagnose diseases rapidly and introduce ultrasensitive spectroscopy methods that can analyze important biomolecules such as proteins.

Her research interests include nanoscale photonic materials and devices, nano-plasmonics: optics of metallic nanostructures; nano-photonics: photonic crystals; bio-photonics: optical biosensors and spectroscopy; and opto-fluidics and lab-on-a-chip integration.

-Rachel Harrington (rachelah@bu.edu)

Office of Naval Research Awards Densmore for Synthetic Biology Research

May 15th, 2012 in Awards, Faculty, Grants, News-CE, Recognition, Research, Research-CE

Assistant Professor Douglas Densmore (ECE, BME)

Synthetic biology is a newer area of science and engineering that focuses on creating innovative biological systems in hopes of finding out how life works and ultimately providing societal benefits such as improved disease diagnosis and treatment.

Boston University Assistant Professor Douglas Densmore (ECE) focuses on the engineering side of this cutting-edge field and researches how to better collect and manage data about synthetic biological systems.

Progress in synthetic biology research is, in part, dependent on obtaining data quickly and accurately. One of the hindrances of progress, Densmore said, has been obtaining characterization data, or information about the behavior over time of DNA and protein in biological systems.

“The work has not only begun to slow in the wet lab as time is wasted on making constructs that do not function as predicted; it’s also slowed in our computational lab as our software tools are used to integrate characterization data into a shared database,” said Densmore.

To help with this problem, the Office of Naval Research recently announced that they will award Densmore $419,220 to purchase flow cytometry machinery. The funding is part of $54.7 million that the Department of Defense is giving to academic institutions to support the purchase of new research equipment under the Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP).

“Our efforts and those of our collaborators have begun stalling due to lack of characterization data,” Densmore said. “Having flow cytometry machinery available for our research projects will alleviate this situation.”

To view a complete list of winning proposals, view the U.S. Department of Defense press release.

-Rachel Harrington (rachelah@bu.edu)

Team MINSensory Takes Top Prize at ECE Day ’12

May 14th, 2012 in Alumni, Awards, Courses, Events, Faculty, Graduate Students, News-CE, News-EP, News-ISS, Recognition, Research, Research-CE, Research-EP, Research-ISS, Senior Design, Students, Undergraduate Programs, Undergraduate Student Opportunities, Undergraduate Students

Winners of one of two Design Excellence Awards pose with their self-cleaning solar panel. Pictured from left are Kshitiz Kohli (ECE '12); Syed Naufal Bin Veqar (ECE '12); Sarah Griesse-Nascimento (ECE '12); Alex Chan (ECE '12); and Christopher Petrik (ECE '12).

On May 4, the ninth floor of Boston University’s Photonics Center was transformed as Electrical & Computer Engineering students displayed their end-of-the-year projects – designs that included a tracking program that follows a speaker’s movements during a lecture, an iPad application designed to improve hospital efficiency, and even a ping pong ball retriever.

The projects may be challenging in scope, but that didn’t stop ECE seniors from tackling the research and developing real-life solutions to engineering problems.

On ECE Day, 59 seniors finally had a chance to show off their senior design projects or honors theses – the result of two semesters of work.

View photos from ECE Day ’12.

View videos of the student presentations.

Fifty-five of those students made up 12 teams that worked to design and prototype a product, electronic device, or software system. They worked with customers ranging from industry figures to faculty in an effort to improve everything from solar panel functionality to UAV collision avoidance.

The four remaining seniors wrote honors theses about topics ranging from geosensing to human-computer interfaces.

Kholood Al Tabash (ECE '12) demonstrates her team's iMedix application to Professor Ronald Knepper.

“The students’ accomplishments surpassed even my expectations this year,” said Professor Alan Pisano (ECE), the senior design advisor. “Their hard work and diligence – including several ‘all-nighters’ in the Senior Design Lab – really paid off in producing some of the best projects in recent years. I am very proud of this year’s class.”

Five alumni judges – Bradley Rufleth, Chris Maloof, David Mabius, Francine Lalooses, and David Lancia – returned to their alma mater to watch the seniors present and weigh in on their final designs. Ultimately, they selected System for Sensing Neural Response, also known as Team MINSensory, as the winner of the top prize, the P. T. Hsu Memorial Award for Outstanding Senior Design Project. Benjamin Duong, Nima Haghighi-Mood, Michael Kasparian, and Parth P. Patel (BME), members of the winning team, worked with Professor Ronald Knepper (ECE) to develop a system that senses neural responses.

“If neuroscientists are going to be using our product, we have to make something that’s helpful for them,” said Kasparian.

The team decided to design a complete interface suite that allows for real-time collection, analysis, and visualization of neural signals.

“A suite for collecting and visualizing this kind of data did not exist prior to this project,” explained Duong.

Ultimately, the MINSensory design will provide researchers with unprecedented control and depth in their neural experiments and also help expand neural research.

The day largely focused on the seniors’ accomplishments, but two teachers were awarded as well. David Castañón, ECE professor and department chair, presented Douglas Densmore with the ECE Award for Excellence in Teaching and John Gancarz was named the GTF of the Year.

Other awards announced at this year’s ECE Day included:

Michael F. Ruane Award for Excellence in Senior Capstone Design
Michael Kasparian

Senior Honors Thesis Award
Automated Detection of Colon Pre-Cancer Based on in vivo Endomicroscopy Images: Evgeni Aizenberg

Entrepreneurial Award
iMedix Patient-Nurse Communication System: Kholood Al Tabash, Donald Dougherty, Eric Hsiao, Kenneth Zhong, and Gregory Zoeller

Design Excellence Awards
Self-Cleaning Solar Panels: Alex Chan, Sarah Griesse-Nascimento, Kshitiz Kohli, Syed Naufal Bin Veqar and Christopher Petrik

Sailboat Bailer: Andrew Francis, Srilalitha Kumaresan, Henry Lok, Mason Tan, and Alexander Whittemore

-Rachel Harrington (rachelah@bu.edu)

Technology Entrepreneurship Night Spotlights Potential Startups

May 8th, 2012 in Awards, Events, Graduate Student Opportunities, Graduate Students, News-CE, News-EP, News-ISS, Recognition, Research, Research-CE, Research-EP, Research-ISS, Students, Undergraduate Student Opportunities, Undergraduate Students

The $15K Competition winning team GreenWake's Alex Migel, Price Williams and Adam Taylor (all GSM '13); $15K judges Vinit Nijhawan, managing director of the BU Office of Technology Development, Peter Russo, ITEC director of Entrepreneurship Programs, and Gregg Adkin (ENG '86), Engineering Leadership Advisory Board Member and senior director of Business Development at EMC, Inc; and TEC officers Mikhail Gurevich (EE '07, GSM '12), Ghassan Kara (BME '13) and Stefano Tasso (EE '13).

Gathered in the Photonics Center Colloquium Room on April 20, three teams comprised primarily of graduate students and alumni from the College of Engineering (ENG) and Graduate School of Management (GSM) vied for top honors in the $15K Business Plan Competition, the main attraction at the ninth annual Boston University Technology Entrepreneurship Night. Organized by the Technology Entrepreneurship Club, the evening event drew students from across the campus to explore opportunities to develop businesses that leverage leading-edge technology research at BU.

Sponsored by ENG, GSM’s Institute for Technology Entrepreneurship & Commercialization, the BU Student Association of Graduate Engineers, the intellectual property law firm Sunstein, Kann, Murphy & Timbers LLP, and Dominion Capital, this year’s Technology Entrepreneurship Night featured a panel discussion on life sciences technologies presented by entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, attorneys and other professionals with firsthand expertise on how to develop products and apply technology to target specific needs. The panel discussion was followed by final round presentations of the $15K competition and a networking dinner.

Selected earlier from 109 teams representing every BU school and college, as well as some entrants from MIT and Northeastern University, the three $15K finalists were judged on the quality and feasibility of their engineering designs, marketing plans and teamwork.

The winning team, GreenWake, aims to help firms in the trucking industry to save money on fuel expenses through a rear attachment that promises to significantly improve fuel consumption. GreenWake’s founders, Price Williams, Alex Migel and Adam Taylor—all first-year GSM students with engineering backgrounds—plan to incorporate their company, raise additional funds and grow the idea into a real and profitable business.

The other two finalists were NexGen Arrays (ENG postdocs Carlos Lopez (PhD ’07), David Freedman (PhD ’10) and Philip Spuhler (PhD ’12); and 2013 ENG PhD candidates Sunmin Ahn, Margo Monroe, Alex Reddington and George Daaboul), which is developing protein microarrays to boost the efficiency of clinical diagnostic devices; and TR Aeronautics (Ryan Hunter (CSE ’11), Northeastern University alum Brent Sarcone, Dante Leone (SMG ’11), Dane Sarcone (Aero ’11) and Gozde Guckaya (MS, EE ’13)), which plans to develop a “vertical axis” wind turbine that boosts power generation and operates in a wide range of wind conditions.

“The idea behind the $15K Competition and Technology and Entrepreneurship Night is to not only give students an opportunity to get funding and advice to get their idea off the ground but more importantly to create a framework where they can learn how do it from industry experts and other entrepreneurs,”said Mikhail Gurvich (EE ’07, GSM ’12), vice president of fundraising for the Technology Entrepreneurship Club (TEC) and the $15K Competition. Founder and CIO of ClickFact Inc., a web security and analytics firm, and co-founder of ZepInvest.com, one of the largest aggregators of paid financial content, Gurvich organized the event with TEC and $15K Competition co-presidents Ghassan Kara (BME ’13) and Stefano Tasso (EE ’13).

“For students passionate about advancing an engineering idea into the commercial marketplace, the resources here at BU, from the Singh Imagineering Lab to ITEC, are plentiful,” Gurvich added.

-Mark Dwortzan

Four ECE Students Win at BU’s Science & Engineering Research Symposium

May 8th, 2012 in Awards, Events, Faculty, Graduate Programs, Graduate Student Opportunities, Graduate Students, News-CE, News-EP, News-ISS, Recognition, Research, Research-CE, Research-EP, Research-ISS, Students

Science Day On March 21, four graduate students from the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE) were chosen as winners at Boston University’s Science & Engineering Research Symposium.

Each year, Science & Engineering Day gives graduate students a chance to display their research at the university-wide event. The best presentations are honored and matching awards go to the recipients’ respective laboratories.

Science & Engineering Day is open to all graduate students currently engaged in scientific research in a degree-granting program at Boston University.

Winners from the ECE Department included:

College of Engineering Dean’s Award
Student: Alp Artar
Project: Multispectral Fano Resonances in Hybridized Metamaterials
Advisor: Hatice Altug

Center for Information and Systems Engineering Award
Student: Yushan Chen
Project: LTL Robot Motion Control based on Automata Learning of Environmental Dynamics
Advisor: Calin Belta

Center for Nanoscience and Nanobiotechnology Award
Student: Arif Cetin
Project: Plasmon Induced Transparency with Asymmetric Ï€-Shaped Metamaterials
Advisor: Hatice Altug

CELEST/CompNet Computational Neuroscience Award
Student: Schuyler Eldridge
Project: Biologically-Inspired Hardware for Autonomous Robots
Advisor: Ajay Joshi

-Rachel Harrington (rachelah@bu.edu)

Panel, Symposium Celebrate 20 Years of PhD Programs

Congratulations to our ECE Graduates

Taking the Hard Road

Dean’s Catalyst Awards to Fund Innovative Research

Schuyler Eldridge Awarded a NASA Fellowship

Altug Promoted to Associate Professor

Office of Naval Research Awards Densmore for Synthetic Biology Research

Team MINSensory Takes Top Prize at ECE Day ’12

Technology Entrepreneurship Night Spotlights Potential Startups

Four ECE Students Win at BU’s Science & Engineering Research Symposium

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