{"id":162948,"date":"2025-05-13T13:04:04","date_gmt":"2025-05-13T17:04:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/?p=162948"},"modified":"2025-07-03T11:04:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T15:04:10","slug":"building-the-future-ask-us-how","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/2025\/05\/13\/building-the-future-ask-us-how\/","title":{"rendered":"Building The Future \u2013 Ask Us How!"},"content":{"rendered":"

How five BU ECE researchers teamed up with Boston\u2019s Museum of Science to share their scientific expertise with the next generation.<\/h3>\n

by A.J. Kleber<\/em><\/p>\n

The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering is dedicated to looking forward and building a brighter future for all of society, so it\u2019s no wonder that when the opportunity comes to share their love of science with a younger-than-usual crowd, faculty researchers jumped at the chance. Earlier this spring, BU ECE teamed up with Boston\u2019s celebrated Museum of Science to bring five experts face-to-face with an all-ages audience during an exhilarating week of short, engaging presentations designed to encourage the enthusiasm and interest of a new generation of budding scientists and engineers!<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Professor<\/p>\n

Five intrepid professors participated in the museum\u2019s \u201c<\/span>Meet the Scientist<\/span><\/a>\u201d series over the course of a week, each presenting on a subject chosen to fit under the umbrella of the museum\u2019s topic of the year: \u201c<\/span>Being Human<\/span><\/a>.\u201d Broadly speaking, each presentation was connected to human health and wellbeing.<\/span><\/p>\n

AI to understand epilepsy<\/h3>\n

\"Professor<\/span><\/p>\n

Professor Archana Venkataraman, who also facilitated the collaboration with the museum and led the BU ECE team, shared her work on <\/span>using AI to understand the progression of epileptic seizures<\/span><\/a> by physically locating them in the brain. <\/span>Professor Venkataraman<\/span><\/a>\u2019s Neural Systems Analysis Laboratory focuses on research at the <\/span>intersection of medical imaging, artificial intelligence, and clinical neuroscience. She is a Senior Member of IEEE and the recipient of many best paper awards, as well as a 2019 NSF CAREER Award.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Side<\/span><\/p>\n

Treating blindness with sound and light<\/h3>\n

\"ViewThe following day, Professor Chen Yang\u2019s presentation focused on her <\/span>ongoing research<\/span><\/a> into photoacoustic neuromodulation; that is, using sound and light to directly stimulate the diseased retina to restore vision. <\/span>Professor Yang<\/span><\/a>\u2019s research interests include <\/span>nanomaterial-based photonics and electronics for neuromodulation. She is an AIMBE Fellow and a member of the ACS, MRS & SPIE; accolades include a 2009 NSF CAREER Award, and a 2024 NIH Trailblazer Award for her work on photoacoustic retina stimulation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Seeing around corners with math<\/h3>\n

Professor Vivek Goyal, who has pioneered <\/span>non-line-of-sight techniques<\/span><\/a> for sensing and other optical technologies, gave a presentation carefully tailored to his audience, framing a talk about computational imaging with the catchy phrase \u201cmath is your superpower!\u201d <\/span>Professor Goyal <\/span><\/a>works with computational imaging, information representation and signal processing. He is a Fellow of the AAAS, IEEE and Optica, and the recipient of a 2024 <\/span>John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, several best paper awards, a 2009 NSF CAREER Award, and a 2023 Frontiers of Science Award in Computational Optics, among other accolades.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/p>\n

Doctors and AI: a powerful partnership<\/h3>\n

\"\"Then, on Thursday, Professor Kayhan Batmanghelich spoke on \u201cdoctors and AI,\u201d discussing how healthcare providers and AI technologies can collaborate to improve human health, which is a key focus of <\/span>his research<\/span><\/a>. <\/span>Professor Batmanghelich<\/span><\/a>\u2019s work encompasses AI\/ML, bioinformatics, and medical vision, leveraging the <\/span>algorithmic analysis of medical data for broad clinical applications. His research has earned support from the NIH and NSF, and recently, one of Google\u2019s inaugural Academic Research Awards for a study aimed at enhancing breast cancer risk prediction models by addressing biological and demographic biases in AI.<\/span><\/p>\n

Illuminating the microscopic world<\/h3>\n

\"Split<\/p>\n

Professor M. Selim \u00dcnl\u00fc wrapped up the week with a bang with a presentation on \u201cWonders of Light: from Soap Bubbles to Counting Tiny Microbes,\u201d leveraging<\/span> his work on disease detection<\/span><\/a> to share how advanced optical technologies allow researchers to detect organisms \u201ctoo small to\u00a0 be seen under a conventional light microscope.\u201d (The talk also emphasized the importance of washing your hands to remove such miniscule microbes.) <\/span>Professor \u00dcnl\u00fc<\/span><\/a>\u2019s research is grounded in biophotonics and nanophotonics, and features a strong bent towards practical and commercial applications. He is a Fellow of AIMBE, Optica and IEEE, served a 3-year term as <\/span>Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE <\/span>Journal of Quantum Electronics<\/span><\/i>, and was Boston University\u2019s 2021 Innovator of the Year.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"AProfessor \u00dcnl\u00fc\u2019s preparatory efforts to \u201cfigure out how to talk about our virus technology to kids\u201d gained the enthusiastic advocacy of his son, who collaborated on a promotional card which he then distributed to his sixth grade classmates.<\/span><\/p>\n

Stepping out of the Ivory Tower<\/h3>\n

Turnout at the talks was abundant and eager, with school vacation week crowds gathering to take in each day\u2019s offering. \u201cWhat a great event it was!\u201d enthused one attendee on LinkedIn after Professor Batmanghelich\u2019s presentation. \u201cThank you, Museum of Science and Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, for an inspiring afternoon filled with AI and health science. We all enjoyed it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The faculty presenters themselves were full of appreciation for the experience. \u201cI had such a great time today meeting budding scientists and engineers,\u201d gushed Professor Goyal. Professor \u00dcnl\u00fc thanked \u201call the kids\u201d for their \u201cvery interesting and tough questions.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s very much in the spirit of societal engineering for our experts to leave their labs and classrooms to engage with the general public, especially its younger members; the department looks forward to future opportunities for this kind of outreach!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How five BU ECE researchers teamed up with Boston\u2019s Museum of Science to share their scientific expertise with the next generation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18241,"featured_media":162945,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[236,1115,1062,325,287,385,317,977,907,1137,1059,1067],"tags":[947,464,1341,948,1342,1311,778,414],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162948"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18241"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162948"}],"version-history":[{"count":32,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":164659,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162948\/revisions\/164659"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}