(IST) Director Carolina Cruz-Neira’s career in virtual reality (VR) began as a backup plan.

She spent her childhood training as a ballet dancer. When a knee injury at 21 ended her professional dance aspirations, she leaned on the engineering degree her father had encouraged her to pursue.

While earning her doctoral degree in electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Illinois Chicago, she discovered the Electronic Visualization Laboratory — and with it, a way to merge art and technology.

“My philosophy as a researcher has always been to take on projects that are a little risky.”

In 1992, she unveiled the Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE), an immersive VR system that transforms a room-sized cube into an interactive 3D digital world. Unlike early VR headsets that isolated users, the CAVE allows multiple people to step inside the same digital environment, fostering shared exploration and real-time collaboration.

Today, CAVE systems are used worldwide, from gaming and art installations to military training and automotive design, helping industries visualize complex problems, improve safety and refine products before building them in the real world.

Powering the Future of Simulation

Over nearly four decades, Cruz-Neira has made significant contributions to the fields of VR, interactive visualization, high-performance computing and digital twins, which are dynamic virtual replicas of real-world objects used for simulation and testing across industries. Her innovations have influenced training and research for NASA, the U.S. military and U.S. National Laboratories.

By the Numbers: A Lasting Impact

• Secured more than $200 million in research funding
• Authored more than 100 publications
• Elected to the National Academy of Engineering — one of the highest professional distinctions for engineers in the U.S.
• Named an IEEE fellow and Forbes’ 50 Over 50 honoree for innovation
• Inducted into the inaugural Augmented World Expo XR Hall of Fame and the Orlando Tech Community Hall of Fame for her contributions to Central Florida’s tech ecosystem
• Recognized in the U.S. Congressional Record for the national impact of her work

“My philosophy as a researcher has always been to take on projects that are a little risky,â€� says Cruz-Neira, Â鶹ԭ´´â€™s Agere Chair Professor of computer science. “I tell my students that we do research with a purpose. And yes, it’s challenging. But if we have that vision of where this thing is going, our talent and creativity have a terrific playground.â€�

That bold spirit of exploration drew her to Â鶹ԭ´´ in 2020 — a university recognized for its strength in computer science and deep partnerships and collaborators across several sectors, including space, defense, entertainment and healthcare.

“There’s a whole community of researchers, faculty and students here who are passionate about this kind of work.”

Since arriving, she says she has found something even more powerful: a culture that pairs high-level excellence with a nurturing environment — where ambitious ideas are energized, challenged and brought to life through collaboration.

“There’s a whole community of researchers, faculty and students here who are passionate about this kind of work. That has allowed us to expand our ideas tremendously,� Cruz-Neira says. “We’re now collaborating with teams across the College of Engineering and Computer Science, the College of Medicine, the College of Arts and Humanities and the , which broadens what we’re able to do. It’s nice to have a tribe around you, where everyone helps each other and works together.�

Among those collaborators is longtime colleague and IEEE VGTC Virtual Reality Service awardee, Gregory Welch. Cruz-Neira says they first met as “Ph.D. babies,â€� beginning a collaboration that has now spanned nearly 38 years. Since joining Â鶹ԭ´´, she has continued working closely with Welch and his team on several joint research projects and publications.

What’s Next: Blending Physical and Virtual Worlds

As IST director, Cruz-Neira is helping broaden Â鶹ԭ´´â€™s modeling and simulation legacy while leading several cutting-edge research projects in collaboration with talented students and faculty. One such project explores humanoid robots as extensions of the human body, allowing a person to navigate remote or inaccessible locations in real time. Using artificial intelligence, the robot captures its surroundings and transmits a live digital replica into the CAVE, where a human operator’s movements control the robot, creating a seamless exchange between physical and virtual worlds.

“This project opens a lot of possibilities and aligns with where we want to go at IST and Â鶹ԭ´´,â€� Cruz-Neira says. “We do a lot of work with defense, first responders and healthcare professionals, and in many cases, we see the need for a human [presence in locations] that aren’t feasible. By combining mature technologies available in the commercial world with some of our more advanced algorithms and system designs at Â鶹ԭ´´, we’ve finally been able to come together to make this prototype and showcase it in December 2025 at [the Interservice/Industry Training Simulation and Education Conference], a major defense training environment.â€�

Cruz-Neira continues to push boundaries, bringing people together and asking questions like, “What can we create next?� and “How far can we take this?�

And despite a lifetime achievement award, she’s clear about one thing: “I’m not done yet.�

Fang, who is an assistant professor in within the College of Sciences, is using the CAREER award to study the precise movement of electrons induced by light and to help educate others in her field.

Yao is an assistant professor in within the College of Engineering and Computer Science and a member of the Cyber Security and Privacy faculty cluster. He’ll use his CAREER award to identify lapses in computer processing security at the micro level and find ways to defend against them.

The annual award supports an estimated 500 early-career STEM faculty from either institutes of higher education or academic nonprofit organizations who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization.

Through their NSF CAREER awards, both Fang and Yao are continuing to build upon their research and contribute to key components of their respective fields.

Capturing Energy in a Fraction of a Second

Li Fang
Department of Physics
Title: Photo-induced Ultrafast Electron-nuclear Dynamics in Molecules
Award: $813,981 over five years

Li Fang is examining some of the smallest components of matter in some of the shortest amounts of time.

She studies how electrons move after their initial absorption of photo-energy as they attempt to interact, break or form a bond with other molecular components. The purpose of examining these molecular dynamics is crucial in better understanding physics and energy, Fang says.

“The dynamics of these charged particles will provide fundamental knowledge about energy absorption, dissipation and rearrangement in building blocks of materials and therefore is relevant to energy storage and harvest,� Fang says. “We implement spectroscopic tools to track the extremely fast motion of these charges. An electron’s motion is the first step in all chemical and photo reactions and ions are the subjects of chemical bonds that exist basically in all materials.�

Fang measures these movements in attoseconds and femtoseconds, which are one billion billionths of a second and one million billionths of a second, respectively.

Attoseconds are the natural time scale for electrons moving inside an atom while femtoseconds are the natural time scale for measuring nuclei moving within a molecule.

Fang’s NSF CAREER project will help her further uncover and measure how light can instigate changes at the molecular level and then share her research with the greater scientific community.

“The goal is to understand the ultrafast electron motion induced by intense laser beams and its correlation with the motion of the nuclei in a molecule,� she says. “An equally important part of my NSF CAREER award is the educational subproject, the goal of which is to introduce my research field ‘ultrafast science’ to a broader audience through media and local events.�

Fang came to Â鶹ԭ´´ in 2020 from the Ohio State University.

Since arriving, she has garnered significant funding and support for her projects. In 2020, Fang was one of 76 recipients – and the only recipient from Florida – to be awarded an early career research program grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.

She also was instrumental in securing NSF funding of nearly $2 million for a powerful laser in 2021, aiming to build a user facility at Â鶹ԭ´´ to continue studying electrons and molecular bonds using precise measurements in attoseconds.

Fang says it was extremely gratifying to earn her NSF CAREER award, and it represents a culmination of her previous scientific endeavors.

“It definitely fit into my career and will help me fulfill my goals as a researcher and an educator,� she says.

Fang is thankful for the assistance of her peers and collaborators in cultivating her studies and developing her NSF CAREER proposal.

“The NSF CAREER program at Â鶹ԭ´´ organized by Saiful Khondaker is very helpful with improving the writing of the educational subproject, which is crucial to the NSF CAREER project,â€� she says.

Â鶹ԭ´´ has provided Fang with the opportunity to excel in her research, and she anticipates many more impactful discoveries to come.

“I am looking forward to carrying out real scientific experiments and discovering new findings with the state-of-the-art lasers and the spectroscopy systems we have,� Fang says. “Getting a prestigious CAREER award is just the start.�

Fan Yao
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Title: Understanding and Ensuring Secure-by-design Microarchitecture in Modern Era of Computing
Award: $556,875

Effective computer system security requires searching high and low within its infrastructure to address vulnerabilities that could be overlooked and exploited.

Fan Yao has dedicated his research to thoroughly poring through potential weaknesses within the architectural and microarchitectural designs of computing and memory units to see how they can be safeguarded against malicious hacks and data breaches.

“In today’s interconnected digital landscape, we depend on computing devices to store and process our sensitive and personal data,â€� he says. “Given that hardware forms the foundational bedrock of all computing systems, its security is paramount. A computer with compromised hardware security is akin to a skyscraper built on shaky ground.â€�

Specifically, Yao is using his NSF CAREER project to examine computer processors and analyze side channel leakage, which is compromised access to information or infrastructure through indirect means.

“Through the automation of microarchitectural security analysis, we aim to uncover hidden hardware-level states prone to leakage, as well as to develop software-level patterns that can exploit these vulnerabilities to quantify their leakage potential,� he says. “Subsequently, the project will focus on designing robust defense strategies to prevent microarchitectural information leakage, thereby ensuring stronger protection for future generations of processors.�

The awarded funds will continue to catalyze Yao’s research and allow him to further challenge the limits of computer security. He is hopeful that the results will serve as an educational cornerstone to both aspiring students and his peers, he says.

“This grant allows us to explore innovative security solutions more deeply and to train the next generation of researchers in this critical field,� Yao says.  “This award fits perfectly into my career goals, as it enables me to establish a sustainable research program that can make meaningful contributions to both academia and industry.�

Yao arrived at Â鶹ԭ´´ in the fall of 2018 after receiving his doctoral degree in computer engineering from the George Washington University.

The support and mentorship from Â鶹ԭ´´â€™s academic community and administration at Â鶹ԭ´´ has been crucial to helping him achieve his research aspirations, he says.

“Â鶹ԭ´´ has been extremely supportive in junior faculty career development,â€� Yao says. “Many of the preliminary results for this project were achieved through experiments facilitated by this support. I am also profoundly grateful for the comprehensive assistance received during the development of this proposal. This includes invaluable guidance from the Â鶹ԭ´´ CAREER mentoring program and the insightful feedback on my proposal provided by senior faculty members in our department.â€�

Yao is proud to have been awarded an NSF CAREER grant, and says he is excited to further his research.

“Receiving the NSF CAREER grant is an incredible honor and a pivotal moment in my career,� he says. “It not only validates the importance and potential impact of our work on microarchitecture security, but also provides a substantial platform to expand our research efforts.�

The worldwide rankings, , place Â鶹ԭ´´ in a tie with Yale University (57) and ahead of U.S. institutions such as Vanderbilt (56), Princeton (44) and Florida State University (38).

The NAI rankings may be further adjusted as patent corrections are submitted by universities.

This is the 11^th year that Â鶹ԭ´´ has ranked in the top 100 universities in the world for patents.

“Innovation is at the heart of our mission at Â鶹ԭ´´, and these latest patent rankings reaffirm our commitment to pushing boundaries and making impactful advancements,” says Winston V. Schoenfeld, Â鶹ԭ´´â€™s interim vice president for research and innovation. “The range of inventions reflects the dedication and ingenuity of our researchers across the research enterprise, and their efforts continue to position Â鶹ԭ´´ as a leader in innovation, both nationally and globally.”

The patents were secured by Â鶹ԭ´´â€™s , which brings discoveries to the marketplace and connects Â鶹ԭ´´ researchers with companies and entrepreneurs to transform innovative ideas into successful products.

Svetlana ShtromÌý’08MBA, director of Â鶹ԭ´´â€™s Technology Transfer Office, says university patents are a valuable asset for universities, industry and society.

“Patents facilitate transfer of technology from universities and foster collaboration between academia and the private sector,� Shtrom says. “Through collaboration with industry, university technologies provide solutions to pressing problems and create new products and services that benefit the public.�

She says the patents also reflect the commitment of the university’s researchers to innovation, and they serve as a beacon to attract more students and faculty who are interested in cutting-edge research and entrepreneurship.

Here are a few of the Â鶹ԭ´´ inventions that led to patents in 2023:

Passive Insect Surveillance Sensor Device
Lead researcher: Bradley Willenberg, assistant professor, Â鶹ԭ´´

Â鶹ԭ´´ researchers have developed a low-cost, easy-to-use device for detection of mosquitos and other insects that also indicates whether an insect carries a specific infectious disease. Through simple color-based tests (colorimetric assays) and biomolecular tools for detection (DNA aptamers conjugated to nanoparticles), a user can monitor viral presence in insect saliva samples. By doing so, various mosquito-borne emerging pathogens, including Zika, Dengue, and Chikunguya, can be detected.  The easily deployable technology can potentially help in the global fight and prevention against these deadly diseases. The .

Antiplasmodial Compounds
Lead researcher: Debopam Chakrabarti, professor and head,

This technology is a method of treatment for malaria by administration of specific fungus-derived compounds. Annually, malaria affects more than 200 million people and kills more than 600,000. Caused by Plasmodium parasites carried in mosquitos, an effective treatment is desperately needed. Â鶹ԭ´´ researchers used a  library of fungi found in habitats and ecological niches across the U.S. to find potential antimalarial compounds. The unique chemicals they identified provide starting points for developing lead compounds of new drugs against malaria. The research team is .

Coating for Capturing and Killing Viruses on Surfaces
Lead researcher: Suditpa Seal, Pegasus Professor and chair,

This technology is a nano-coating designed to capture, hold and kill viruses on a surface, such as on personal protective equipment and clothing, using natural light sources to protect against infections.

The COVID-killing coating is made with a nanomaterial that activates under white light, such as sunlight or LED light. As long as the nanomaterial is exposed to a continuous light source, it can regenerate its antiviral properties, creating a self-cleaning effect.

The efficacy of the disinfectant was shown through a study that was published in ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces this past year. The study found that the coating can not only destroy the COVID-19 virus, but it can also combat the spread of Zika virus, SARS, parainfluenza, rhinovirus and vesicular stomatitis.

Production of Nanoporous Films
Lead researcher: Yang Yang, associate professor,

Â鶹ԭ´´ researchers have created , such as for fuel cells, hydrogen production, photocatalysts, sensing and energy storage, and electrodes in supercapacitors. The method improves performance and versatility and does not require use of costly precious metals, such as gold. Instead, the Â鶹ԭ´´ technology uses low-cost, earth-abundant resources such as iron, cobalt and nickel. The nanoporous thin films are designed to help meet today’s challenges in renewable energy production and conversion applications.

Method of Forming High-Throughput 3d Printed Microelectrode Array
Lead researcher: Swaminathan Rajaraman, associate professor, NanoScience Technology Center

This invention is a . The device has small channels and chambers that guide liquids, like samples or chemicals, to a central area where there are special electrodes. These electrodes can send and record electrical signals from tiny groups of cells called spheroids. Scientists can use this to see how cells react to different conditions and substances. The innovation offers an easy way to study biological cells, tissues and electrophysiological responses. The technology can help lead to advancements in disease modeling, toxicity assessments and drug discovery.

Adaptive Visual Overlay for Anatomical Simulation
Lead researcher: Greg Welch, Pegasus Professor, AdventHealth Endowed Chair in Healthcare Simulation,

This anatomical simulation allows users to wear a head-mounted display that presents an anatomical scenario onto a patient to allow for medical training, surgical training or other instruction. Users who experience the simulation will see a real body part or other anatomical items projected through an augmented reality system. The innovative, and provides constant, dynamic feedback to medical trainees as they treat wounds. Almost like a video game in real-life, the Tactile-Visual Wound Simulation Unit portrays the look, feel, and even the smell of different types of human wounds (such as a puncture, stab, slice or tear). It also tracks and analyzes a trainee’s treatment responses and provides corrective instructions.

System for Extracting Water from Lunar Regolith and Associated Method
Lead researcher: Phil Metzger ’00MS’05PhD, associate scientist,

This invention is and help to establish the industry. The process consists of robot mining of the regolith (loose, heterogeneous superficial deposits covering solid rock), transferring the mined material to a conveyer, and passing the soil through grinding and crushing stages. Included are mechanisms to sort the material into ice, metals, and other minerals, and final transport and cleanup. This technology allows mining water on the moon, which supports NASA missions, enables further commercial operations in space, and supports Space Force activities.

Inorganic Paint Pigment with Plasmonic Aluminum Reflector Layers and Related Methods
Lead researcher: Debashis Chanda, professor, NanoScience Technology Center

This invention, a plasmonic paint, draws inspiration from butterflies to create the first environmentally friendly, large-scale and multicolor alternative to pigment-based colorants, which can contribute to energy-saving efforts and help reduce impacts on climate.

The plasmonic paint uses nanoscale structural arrangement of colorless materials — aluminum and aluminum oxide — instead of pigments to create colors.

While pigment colorants control light absorption based on the electronic property of the pigment material, hence every color needs a new molecule, structural colorants control the way light is reflected, scattered or absorbed based on the geometrical arrangement of nanostructures.

Such structural colors are environmentally friendly as they only use metals and oxides, unlike pigment-based colors that use artificially synthesized molecules.

The researchers have combined their structural color flakes with a commercial binder to form long-lasting paints of all colors. And because plasmonic paint reflects the entire infrared spectrum, less heat is absorbed by the paint, resulting in the underneath surface staying 25 to 30 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than it would if it were covered with standard commercial paint.

Plasmonic paint is also lightweight, a result of the paint’s large area-to-thickness ratio, with full coloration achieved at a paint thickness of only 150 nanometers, making it the lightest paint in the world.

System and Method for Radio Frequency Power Sensing and Scavenging Based on Phonon-electron Coupling in Acoustic Waveguides
Lead researcher: Hakhamanesh Mansoorzare ’21, postdoctoral researcher,

To meet the growing energy needs of the internet of things (IoT) and wireless communication systems, this new technology is .

The invention harvests ambient energy, specifically radio frequency electromagnetic waves, the most abundant form of communication among IoT nodes and hubs.

The technology can reduce the electronic industry’s reliance on batteries and broaden the expansion of the IoT and its energy needs.

Through this project, Resilience, Education and Advocacy Center for Hazard preparedness (REACH) hubs will be developed thanks to a recently announced $50,000 grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Civic Innovation Challenge program. They could be deployed any time a disaster — whether natural or human-made — strikes.

Leading the project is a team of Â鶹ԭ´´ faculty, including Assistant Professor Kelly Stevens and Associate Professor Yue “Gurtâ€� Ge, Assistant Professor L. Trenton Marsh, and College of Engineering and Computer Science professor Liqiang Wang and Pegasus Professor Zhihua Qu.

The REACH hubs will be able to serve two primary roles. Following disasters or local emergencies, the hubs will provide critical services such as cooling, broadband internet and reliable electricity to areas whose access to those needs may already be unstable. The hubs also will serve as hazard-preparedness and hands-on STEM education centers.

“Different types of hubs are being developed and used across the U.S., but ours is unique in that it has an equally important use during non-emergency times,� Stevens says. “Making a solar-powered, portable hub is technically challenging, but the benefits it can provide to communities whose access to standard services may already be restricted without an external shock make it well worth it.�

Stevens says that the grant also paves the way for partnership opportunities.

“The NSF CIVIC program is unique because it focuses on civic partnerships that can be quickly implemented and ultimately sustained long-term by participating local partners,� she says. “We will host a local stakeholder meeting next month with our partners and two public input meetings in December to really get feedback from the whole community.�

She says the community meetings will help determine factors ranging from what services the hubs will provide and where they will be deployed after a disaster to which educational topics should be covered during non-emergency events.

Beyond the external partnerships, Stevens says this project opens the door for new cooperation with other Â鶹ԭ´´ colleagues across different disciplines.

“The research we are doing builds on interdisciplinary coordination from public administration, computer science and engineering across Â鶹ԭ´´,â€� she says.

The research team will have six months to prepare a plan for the REACH hub and submit it to the NSF, after which they are eligible for up to $1 million in awarded funds to execute the project.

About the Research Team

Stevens received her doctorate in public administration from Syracuse University and joined Â鶹ԭ´´â€™s School of Public Administration, part of Â鶹ԭ´´â€™s College of Community Innovation and Education, in 2017.  She is a member of Â鶹ԭ´´â€™s Resilient, Intelligent, and Sustainable Energy Systems (RISES) Cluster and

After joining Â鶹ԭ´´ in 2018, Ge has since been appointed co-lead of the Urban Resilience Initiative based at Â鶹ԭ´´ Downtown. He has also served on the RISES faculty research cluster since 2021. He holds a doctorate in urban and regional science from Texas A&M University.

Marsh earned his doctorate in urban education from New York University and joined Â鶹ԭ´´â€™s College of Community Innovation and Education in 2019.

Qu arrived at Â鶹ԭ´´ in 1990 after earning a doctorate in electrical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Currently the Thomas J. Riordan and Herbert C. Towle Chair of Â鶹ԭ´´â€™s , he is also the founding director of both the RISES, a university research center on energy systems, and the multi-institutional (FEEDER).

Wang earned his doctorate in computer science from Stony Brook University in 2006 and joined the Â鶹ԭ´´ in 2015.

James Hickman — professor of chemistry, biomolecular sciences and electrical engineering — recently published some of his latest findings in the journals Stem Cell Reports and Advanced Therapeutics.

These studies explain advancements in his research group’s efforts to develop the functional neural model otherwise known as a “brain-on-a-chip.� Such a model could revolutionize neurological research by replicating the pathologies of neurological disorders and rare autoimmune neuropathies, without the need for testing on human or animal subjects.

The Stem Cell Reports paper demonstrated the capability to grow and differentiate cortical neurons — known to be responsible for a majority of higher brain function — into fully mature and functional cells.

These neurons were then incorporated into a circuit functioning as a simulated system, where the researchers were able to induce long-term potentiation (LTP). LTP — which allows for memory formation — is a key phenomenon in the study of cognition, and one that has mostly evaded direct observation in human models.

The World Health Organization estimates that about 55 million people worldwide suffer from Alzheimer’s and related dementias affecting cognition.

Studies performed on immature stem cells or mature primary cells cannot show the impact of these disorders before they escalate to full-blown cell death.

Simulated models like Hickman’s, however, could get ahead of the disease — allowing researchers to test whether a drug is capable of lessening early-stage effects or preventing symptoms entirely.

Hickman’s project uses pluripotent stem cells — derived from somatic cells, and capable of self-renewing and developing into any type of cell in the human body — as a starting material.

“We can take pluripotent stem cells and differentiate them into mature cortical neurons,� Hickman says. “So, now, there are two ways of doing drug discovery: targeting a protein within a certain biochemical pathway, which is how the majority of pharmaceutical companies do it, and what we do — taking the complex system and creating a phenotypic model.�

“If we can test the phenotypic disease model and bring it to the same function as the non-disease model with a therapeutic, then the FDA will likely accept that as data that proves efficacy, allowing a drug to go forward if there is acceptable safety data,� he says.

In this way, the phenotypic model — created as part of Hickman’s Hybrid Systems Lab’s goal of “engineering the interface between biological and non-biological systems to construct next-generation systems for toxicology, drug discovery and basic biology research� — could also provide an alternative to animal testing.

Â鶹ԭ´´ has licensed many of the patents on which Hickman is an inventor to Hesperos, a company he helped launch. At both Hesperos and the Hybrid Systems Lab, researchers work to advance neural modeling to the point where neurological disorders — and especially rare diseases — are no longer treated as unmanageable.

In the Advanced Therapeutics study, the researchers demonstrated that a model similar to the one used in the Stem Cell Reports study could be used to recreate the pathology of two rare autoimmune neuropathies: chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy and multifocal motor neuropathy. Then, the research group tested how a Sanofi compound affected the modeled pathologies. They were able to establish efficacy with their platform, allowing the drug to move to Phase II clinical trials — thus bringing it one step closer to helping patients suffering from these diseases.

Hickman says these recent discoveries indicate the researchers “potentially have a screen where we can look at therapeutics before the cells start dying, which would tell us if one could reverse the effects of a disorder.�

Hickman received his Ph.D. in chemistry from MIT in 1990 and has worked at Â鶹ԭ´´ since 2004.

This means technology ranging from natural language processing programs, like Siri or Alexa to robots and other advanced applications, could work in remote regions of the globe or even on other planets.

The researchers’ latest findings, which demonstrated a new technique to create the advanced devices, were published in a new study in the journal ACS Nano.

Currently AI depends on connections to remote servers to perform the heavy computing and complex calculations needed to run AI processing or perform unsupervised learning, says study principal investigator Tania Roy, an assistant professor in Â鶹ԭ´´â€™s .

“Our goal is to make the artificial intelligence circuitry very small and compact,â€� Roy says. “That way technology like portable, handheld devices can have the circuitry on them and don’t need an internet connection. They can operate in remote areas, and have all of those functionalities, like image search or voice understanding, from any place on Earth.â€�

And while smart phone voice assistants are current technology that could benefit from having brain-like computing power as part of their hardware, robots are another.

“If somebody is stuck in a remote area, then the robots now will have the capacity of functioning and going to that remote area and rescuing the human being,� Roy says. “Or if we have elderly parents living alone in their homes, we can have devices that can monitor their health conditions all the time and give them some triage if something goes wrong. We would feel much more at peace if there is something to take care of them.�

For space exploration, this means robots, such as rovers, wouldn’t need a person telling them what to do.

“What happens now is that because the devices are not capable of doing unsupervised learning there is a supervisor,� Roy says. “We have to tell them what to do in the environment. But after years in space, rovers will need the power of unsupervised learning to adapt to changing environments.�

The complex, neuromorphic — or brain-like —devices the researchers have created are placed upon small, rectangular chips, about an inch wide.

Although other researchers have worked to develop this type of technology, the Â鶹ԭ´´-developed devices are more reliable due to the unique engineering and nanoscale materials they used, says the study’s lead author, Adithi Krishnaprasad ’18MS, a doctoral student in Â鶹ԭ´´â€™s .

“We grew the material in a different way compared to how other labs grow it,� Krishnaprasad says.

“We did not grow it on some other substrate and then transfer it, rather, we grew it on the main chip itself,� she says. “We fabricated within the same platform, so that reduced the anomalies brought in by the chemistry when transfer is used. So, we completely avoided that. By using this different technique, we have changed the way the current moves through the device. This provides better reliability by reducing variability within the device.�

The team’s advancements allow for parallelism and in-memory computing, similar to the brain, that’s required for AI and unsupervised learning, the researchers say.

The critical task of growing, or synthesizing, the nanoscale material on the chip was performed by Â鶹ԭ´´ researcher Eric Jung’s group. Jung is a study co-author and an assistant professor with Â鶹ԭ´´ , NanoScience Technology Center, and Electrical & Computer Engineering.

For their next steps, the researchers will work to further advance the technology, including building networks with the devices to enable new applications, such as image recognition.

The chips could appear in modern technology in the next 10 years, the researchers say.

Study co-authors also included Durjoy Dev ’21PhD, a graduate of Â鶹ԭ´´â€™s doctoral program in electrical engineering; Sang Sub Han and Changhyeon Yoo, both postdoctoral associates in the Jung Research Group at Â鶹ԭ´´; Yaqing Shen, with the Institute of Functional Nano & Soft Materials, Soochow University, Suzhou, China; Hee-Suk Chung and Tae-Sung Bae, both with the Analytical Research Division, Korea Basic Science Institute; and Mario Lanza, with the Department of Material Science and Engineering, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia.

Roy joined Â鶹ԭ´´ in 2016 and is a part of the NanoScience Technology Center with a joint appointment in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the . Her recent  focuses on the development of devices for artificial intelligence applications. Roy was a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, Berkeley prior to joining Â鶹ԭ´´. She received her doctorate in electrical engineering from Vanderbilt University.

That’s why researchers are exploring alternative methods, such as neural stimulation, in which tiny electrical pulses are sent to a specific brain region to alleviate symptoms of neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders.

In a new study appearing in Nature Biomedical Engineering, researchers showed they can predict the effect of these stimulations across multiple brain regions, thus paving the way for personalized treatments.

Electrical neural stimulation, also known as deep brain stimulation, is an established treatment method that uses electrodes implanted in the brain to send therapeutic, electrical impulses that affect brain activity. It is a commonly performed surgical treatment for Parkinson’s disease and has been researched as a treatment for depression, chronic pain and addiction.

However, the understanding of how multi-regional brain activity responds to electrical stimulation has been limited, says the study’s lead author, Yuxiao Yang, an assistant professor in Â鶹ԭ´´â€™s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and a member of Â鶹ԭ´´â€™s Disability, Aging and Technology faculty research cluster.

The researchers worked to overcome this limitation by designing a new electrical stimulation wave that maps brain activity. They also created machine-learning techniques that can track the effects of the stimulations on the pattern of brain activity.

The study is the first to predict multi-regional brain response to ongoing electrical stimulation and will help illuminate ways to improve and understand the effects of neural-stimulation treatments, Yang says.

“Our data-driven approach was able to resolve two standing challenges: first, predicting brain response to ongoing electrical stimulation, and second, doing so for brain activity collected from multiple brain regions,� the researcher says.

“Bringing the two features together has implication of developing personalized treatments that automatically adjust the electrical stimulation by the right amount through monitoring the real-time multi-regional brain response,� he says.

The next steps for the researchers will be to further validate their findings.

Study co-authors were Maryam M. Shanechi and Omid G. Sani with the University of Southern California, and Bijan Pesaran, Shaoyu Qiao, J. Isaac Sedillo and Breonna Ferrentino with New York University.

Yang received his doctorate in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California and joined Â鶹ԭ´´â€™s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, part of Â鶹ԭ´´â€™s College of Engineering and Computer Science, in 2020. He also directs the NeuroControl Lab at Â鶹ԭ´´.

The selection, which was , is part of a year-long initiative known as the Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-changing (BIG) Idea Challenge, in which undergraduate and graduate students have the opportunity to design, build and test new technologies that mitigate dust or are dust tolerant, based on proposals they submitted to NASA.

The Â鶹ԭ´´ team’s proposal is a design for a new type of material to cover the exterior of spacesuits.

The material’s nanostructure design is based on how honeybees and other pollinators can manipulate tiny pollen using both microstructures and electric fields. The researchers are also incorporating techniques from the Japanese art of paper-folding, origami, to increase the material’s range of motion and also longevity by reducing the stress the material would face through repetitive movements.

“This research is trying to tackle one of the unsolved problems from the Apollo missions —  lunar dust,â€� says David Fox, a doctoral candidate in Â鶹ԭ´´â€™s who is helping lead the Â鶹ԭ´´ team.

“This tiny dust clings to everything through static electricity and ends up coating the astronaut’s spacesuits and equipment,â€� he says. “The health dangers of this dust, and the damage to astronauts, their spacesuits and their equipment, could be detrimental to the upcoming Artemis missions.â€�

Fox says that since the Artemis lunar missions will be longer than the Apollo missions, they will involve astronauts living and working on the moon.

“Our research aims to remove dust from spacesuits easily and before it has a chance to enter the lunar habitats where they will be stationed,� he says.

The researchers got their idea for the pollinator-inspired design by thinking about how nature deals with small particles. They began looking at origami designs when considering how to decrease the amount of stress the material would face from repeated movements and the cold temperatures of the moon.

The seven selected teams, which includes the California Institute of Technology, the Colorado School of Mines and the Georgia Institute of Technology, will receive funding from NASA to develop their designs and will work through 2021 to build, test, and present them to NASA.

The Â鶹ԭ´´ team’s proposal is titled Lunar Dust Mitigating Electrostatic micro-Textured Overlay, or LETO. The team includes Nilab Azim ’20MS, doctoral candidate in the Department of Chemistry; Yuen Yee Li Sip ’17 ’19MS, doctoral student in the Alex Burnstine-Townley ’16, doctoral student in the Department of Chemistry; Trisha Joseph ’20, a recent graduate with her bachelor’s in physics; Adam Rozman, an undergraduate researcher in the ; Nicholas Alban, undergraduate researcher in the ; and Lei Zhai, director of Â鶹ԭ´´â€™s and a Â鶹ԭ´´ Department of Chemistry professor, as the team’s advisor.

They are also working with leading Dutch nanoimprint and microreplication technology company to help produce the material and get the innovation, if successful, rolled out to industrial-scale manufacturing.

The challenge is supported by NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate’s Game Changing Development Program’s efforts to mature innovative and high-impact capabilities and technologies for use in future NASA missions.

The team’s next steps will be to assemble and test its designs after further consultation with NASA’s BIG Idea Challenge team.

Zhai received his doctorate in chemistry from Carnegie Mellon University. He joined Â鶹ԭ´´â€™s NanoScience Technology Center and Department of Chemistry, part of Â鶹ԭ´´â€™s , in 2005.

“The new rankings reflect our focus on student success and faculty excellence and puts us one step closer to reaching our goal of becoming a 21st-century university committed to fueling the talent, ideas and innovation that will drive our community and state forward.�

The list shows the university’s upward trajectory in the number of programs on the top 100 list; there were 18 programs ranked in 2017. The rankings measure the quality of 800 schools’ faculty, research and students, and are based on peer and expert opinions.

“From our growing academic reputation to our successful athletic programs, the Â鶹ԭ´´ has made impressive gains over the last decade,â€� says Elizabeth A. Dooley, provost and vice president for academic affairs. “The new rankings reflect our focus on student success and faculty excellence and puts us one step closer to reaching our goal of becoming a 21st-century university committed to fueling the talent, ideas and innovation that will drive our community and state forward.â€�

Â鶹ԭ´´â€™s top-ranked program this year, Emergency and Crisis Management, tied for No. 7, above programs at Texas A&M University, American University and George Washington University. The program is under the direction of Associate Professor Claire Connolly Knox, who says the course builds on the strength of the faculty, advisory board and alumni who mentor students.

“Effective emergency and crisis management is vital for every community,� Knox says. “Since 2016, four hurricanes — Matthew, Irma, Maria and Michael — and three mass casualty events — Pulse nightclub, Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School and Fort Lauderdale Airport — have greatly impacted Florida communities. There is an increasing need for emergency management specialists to expand their knowledge, skills and abilities through an advanced degree so they can more ethically manage emergencies and crises.�

The next highest Â鶹ԭ´´ rankings are the Nonprofit Management at No. 8 (moving up from 12) and Counselor Education at No. 9 (moving up from 10).

Other programs ranked in the top 50 are: Optics and Photonics (No. 12), Elementary Education (No. 22), Public Administration (No. 23), Criminal Justice (No. 26), Industrial Engineering (No. 36) and Health Administration (No. 46).

Â鶹ԭ´´ programs with the biggest point-gain improvements this year were in nursing. Â鶹ԭ´´â€™s master’s nursing school ranked No. 61 overall, moving up 26 points, and the Doctor of Nursing Practice ranked No. 72, improving by 29 points.

Other programs in the top 100 are:
Computer Engineering (No. 52)
Communication Sciences and Disorders (No. 53)
Electrical Engineering (No. 53)
Overall best public administration graduate school (No. 53)
Materials Science and Engineering (No. 57)
Physics (No. 61)
Environmental Engineering (No. 63)
Civil Engineering (No. 65)
Mechanical Engineering (No. 65)
Social Work (No. 70)
Overall best graduate engineering school (No. 75)
Overall best graduate education school (No. 78)
Computer Science (No. 82)
Overall medical research school (No. 88)
Part-time MBA (No. 89)

This was the first time in the top 100 for the part-time MBA, which includes both the Â鶹ԭ´´ Evening MBA and the Â鶹ԭ´´ Part-time Professional MBA.

Repeating from last year, the Counselor Education program earned Â鶹ԭ´´â€™s highest ranking, moving up a notch to No. 9 nationally. The program prepares students for careers as counselors and practitioners in schools, community mental health agencies, hospitals, institutions and private practice.

“This ranking exemplifies the hard work of our Counselor Education faculty and staff and the progress we have achieved,� said Pamela S. Carroll, dean of the College of Education and Human Performance. “What an honor to be listed in the top 10 in the nation in this field.�

The next highest Â鶹ԭ´´ rankings were No. 14 for the atomic, molecular and optical sciences programs in the College of Optics & Photonics, and No. 17 for the Nonprofit Management program in the College of Health and Public Affairs, a jump of eight places.

Two more programs in the College of Health and Public Affairs were ranked in the top 50 – Criminal Justice (26) and Healthcare Management (38) – and Industrial Engineering was ranked at No. 39.

Others in the top 100 were: Communication Sciences and Disorders (53), Public Administration (63), Computer Engineering (64), Materials Science and Engineering (65), Electrical Engineering (66), Civil Engineering (75), Environmental Engineering (75), Social Work (78), College of Engineering & Computer Science (82), Physics (85), Medical Research (88), Computer Science (90), College of Education & Human Performance (91), and Doctor of Nursing Practice (100).

The Best Graduate Schools 2017 edition will be available on newsstands April 5.

The U.S. News rankings were announced one day after The Princeton Review and PC Gamer magazine named Â鶹ԭ´´â€™s Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy the best video game graduate school in North America.