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How Can Synthetic Biology Combat Climate Change?

On December 3 and 4, the College of Engineering, along with the graduate program in Bioinformatics and systems biology, hosted the workshop, The Role of Synthetic Biology in Atmospheric Greenhouse Gas Reduction. The workshop is supported in part by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. More

Speeding Up MRI Scans to Save Lives

BU researchers design an “intelligent” magnetic metamaterial that could make MRI more affordable and accessible By Art Jahnke | Via The Brink Boston University researchers have developed... More

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Twisting Light

Professor Siddharth Ramachandran and his team have discovered a new method, and along with it, a new fiber, that can transmit 24 times the amount of data of any previous single optical fiber. More

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Multiplication by Divisions

Fuel cell use could be one of the best ways to mitigate climate change—fuel cells work like batteries, provide efficient power and don’t emit air pollutants. But there are multiple barriers in research and development before they will be available to a commercial market. Professor Soumendra Basu (ME, MSE) has been working on fuel cells, but, along with everyone else, was stymied by one of those barriers: the material used on the cell’s cathode was unstable and subject to decomposition. For help, he reached out to Professor Karl Ludwig in the Physics Department. More

The College of Engineering Announces Three Distinguished Faculty Fellows

Associate Professor James C. Bird (ME, MSE) will be the inaugural holder of the Theo de Winter Distinguished Faculty Fellow, Associate Professor Ahmad ‘Mo’ Khalil (BME) will be the next holder of the Dorf-Ebner Distinguished Faculty Fellow and Associate Professor Bobak Nazer (ECE, SE) will be the next holder of the College of Engineering Distinguished Faculty Fellow. More

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Light as Fuel for Space Travel with Harry Atwater

Professor Harry Atwater is on a hot pursuit to harness light as fuel for space travel. With fundamental properties like speed and ubiquity, light is a natural resource with vast potential. On May 7, materials scientists, chemists and physicists from BU and other local universities attended the Saint-Gobain Materials Science Lecture on this topic. More

Four ENG Professors Receive CAREER Awards

Assistant Professors Brian Walsh, Michelle Sander, Sahar Sharifzadeh and Lei Tian have all received Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) awards from the National Science Foundation. More

Ramachandran named 2019 Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellow by DoD

Ramachandran received the Department of Defense’s most prestigious award for a single investigator and will explore an optical phenomena: the existence of light beams that, instead of streaming in a straight line, swirl downward like a spiral staircase. More

Professor Christopher Chen Presents DeLisi Distinguished Lecture

Professor Christopher S. Chen (BME, MSE), recipient of the 2019 Charles DeLisi Award and Distinguished Lecture, presented “How Complex is Simple Enough? Engineering 3D Culture Models of Physiology and Disease” on April 1. The award recognizes faculty members with extraordinary records of well-cited scholarship and outstanding alumni who have invented and mentored transformative technologies that impact quality of life. More

A Step Forward for High-Power Fiber Optics

Professor Siddharth Ramachandran (ECE, MSE) and his lab have observed a new effect within fiber optics that opens up a stable and effective way to develop and use a fiber-optic cable to create a laser that can produce high-power light at desired colors. More

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How Light Turns Ordinary Hydrogen Peroxide into a MRSA Treatment

ENG researchers invent blue light therapy that kills MRSA without antibiotics. Perhaps what’s most promising is that blue light phototherapy doesn’t affect healthy cells of the body, so the technique could be used to treat MRSA infections without harming any surrounding tissue or skin. More

Ramachandran Elected SPIE Fellow

Professor Siddharth Ramachandran has been elected a Fellow of the SPIE for his work in structured and singular light beams, and their applications to quantum and atom optics, sensors, telecom and biophotonics; optical fibers and guided wave nonlinear optics; and photonic crystals. More

MSE Alex Seaboe MSE PhD Candidate

MSE PhD candidate to advance healthcare

Alexander Saeboe is a MSE PhD candidate and BUnano fellow. Professor Allison Dennis (BME, MSE) is his research advisor, while he also works closely with Professor Sam Thiagalingam (MED). In the Dennis Lab, Saeboe is working to improve nanomaterials for healthcare.  More

Innovation through Bio-inspired Metamaterials

Professor Xin Zhang is known for her pioneering work in building metamaterials, artificially designed materials that have properties not found in nature. Now, Aobo Li, a doctoral student in Zhang’s lab, has flipped that idea around to study the properties and functions of a natural material to improve on metamaterial designs. More

Ji-Xin Cheng Honored by the Optical Society of America

Professor Ji-Xin Cheng has been presented with the Ellis R. Lippincott Award from the Optical Society of America. Named after a pioneer in vibrational spectroscopy, the award recognizes those who continue to advance the field in innovative and creative ways. More

Boston University Ph. D. candidate Reza Ghaffarivardavagh poses with his research team. Reza holds the noise cancellation devices his team developed over his ears while his teammates make noise banging a pot, playing a trumpet, and a boombox in the background

Making the World a Lot Quieter

What sounds would you mute if you could? A pair of Boston University mechanical engineers are asking that question, with the ever-increasing din of drone propellers, airplane turbines, MRI machines, and urban noise pollution blaring in the mind’s ear. More

A New Way to Count

With a new method developed by Professor M. Selim Ünlü’s lab, researchers can determine a much more exact measurement by continually observing molecular reactions throughout the test. Their work has been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. More

David Bishop Elected to the National Academy of Engineering

When Professor David Bishop checked his phone last Thursday afternoon, he was stunned by what he saw. After a 50-year research career, Bishop received the news that he had just been elected to the National Academy of Engineering, the premiere professional society for engineers. More

Christopher Chen to Deliver DeLisi Lecture

To recognize their contributions to engineering and society, Professor Christopher Chen (BME, MSE) is the recipient of this year’s Charles DeLisi Award and Lecture, and Assistant Professor Sahar Sharifzadeh (ECE, MSE, Physics) has received the Early Career Excellence Award. More

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Q&A with Masha Kamenetska

BU assistant professor of physics, chemistry, and materials science and engineering wins prestigious $450,000 grant from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research   The Air Force... More

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Three ENG Professors Named IEEE Fellows

Professors David Castañón (ECE, SE), Siddharth Ramachandran (ECE, MSE) and Venkatesh Saligrama (ECE, SE) have been named Fellows of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the world’s leading professional association for advancing technology. More

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MSE PHD Student Receives ALS Doctoral Fellowship

An interview with Emma Anquillare about her Advanced Light Source Doctoral Fellowship at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California. As a selected participant, she gains hands-on scientific training at a DOE synchrotron research facility. More

Metamaterials Offer Communications Breakthroughs

Professor Xin Zhang (ME, ECE, BME, MSE) is an expert in the field of metamaterials and recently her lab has developed two new structures that can manipulate sound and electromagnetic waves. Although they are different, both offer two forms of wave control in their own spectrums, performance yet seen in other devices. More

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Searching for a Better Battery

Prof. Ryan uses computational models to improve the capacity of lithium and metal batteries by breaking up dendrite growth. Such potential improvements will help power green and personal technology. More

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US News Lists BU among Most Innovative Universities

BU was named one of the most innovative national universities for the first time in the 2019 US News & World Report Best Colleges rankings, out today. “I think there’s a general understanding that the world of higher education is changing rapidly,” says Gerald Fine (MSE, ME). “The leadership of the University has created an environment where experimentation in better ways to educate students is encouraged.” More

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Duan Wins DARPA Young Faculty Award

Duan’s award will help fund his research into replicating cell-to-cell communication. He is one of the 35 YFA awardees this year and will receive close to $500,000 from DARPA over the next two years to pursue his project and he could receive an additional $500,000 based on the progress of the project. More