When artificial intelligence was in its early stages of development, its creators were not envisioning technology that interacts with humans in the same way humans interact with each other. But as AI has advanced and been stirring our imaginations with its possibilities, the idea of human-compatible AI is gaining traction, says Subbarao Kambhampati, a Fulton Schools professor of computer science and a past president of the international Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. Reaching that goal will require overcoming big challenges, he says. AI must develop social intelligence and be capable of adopting the kinds of mental states that guide human interactions, and be able to understand human emotions and values. To see a future in which AI agents work successfully with us, Kambhampati says, there must be close collaborations between AI experts and those in other fields, particularly behavioral psychology, sociology and the humanities.

Deployment of U.S. military airmen into the new U.S. Space Force continues to get off the ground. A contingent of 17 new members recently transitioned into the Space Force at Yokota Air Base in Japan, where they are expected to work with Japan’s space defense operations to protect the two countries’ satellites and deter potential national security threats. Fulton Schools Professor Brad Allenby, whose expertise includes military technology, provides some details on the technological and geopolitical aspects of what those space defense operations will entail.

Effects of the extraordinarily severe cold weather that recently hit Texas were made worse by the failure of the state’s electrical power systems. Fulton Schools Professor Vijay Vittal, a power systems engineer, says such a scenario in which extreme weather conditions leave millions of residents without power is unlikely to occur in Arizona. Vittal says power delivery systems in Arizona are interconnected and those in Texas are not, which left electricity providers there without sufficient backup capabilities when the big freeze crippled their facilities. Arizona’s interconnected systems proved their value last summer during a period when power utilities were able to avoid outages and meet demand during extended periods of record heat. The news was also reported by KTAR News in Phoenix. U.S. News and World Report, the Arizona Daily Sun and the Kenosha News (Wisconsin).

As the number of children with autism spectrum disorder increases, researchers continue to explore possibilities for new and better treatments for the development disorder. Fulton Schools Professors Rosa Krajmalnik-Brown (pictured), director of ASU’s Biodesign Center for Health Through Microbiomes and James Adams, director of the Autism/Asperger’s Research Program, talk about progress being made in easing symptoms of autism. They have found bacteria-based treatments that improve the health of the microbial environment in the human gut are showing effectiveness in producing a positive change in the behavior of people with autism. Parents are saying those treatments are helping improve the lives of their children with autism more than any previous treatments.

Through a microbial growth process known as chain elongation, the metabolic processes of certain bacteria can convert chemicals into useful products such as aviation fuels, lubricants, solvents, food additives and plastics. Anca Delgado (at left in photo), a Fulton Schools assistant professor of environmental and sustainable engineering, is exploring new possibilities for productive uses of this process. Research being conducted at ASU’s Biodesign Swette Center for Environmental Biotechnology is demonstrating that advanced chemical conversion techniques might be able to minimize environmental waste and contaminants while producing biochemicals, biofuels and similarly valuable resources. These processes potentially could also enable producing energy from various forms of organic waste. Research findings by Delgado and ASU colleagues are detailed in the current issue of the International Society of Microbial Ecology journal. News about the research is also reported in Science Daily, Biotech World and Posibl.

Data derived from research led by Ying-Cheng Lai, a Fulton Schools professor of electrical engineering and physics, reveals that COVID-19 first arrived in the U.S. significantly earlier than first thought. That time discrepancy significantly affected the ability to identify the speed at which the COVID-19 virus spread and the effectiveness of actions taken in attempts to reduce its spread. The predictive modeling framework developed by Lai and his colleagues for their research contributes to mathematical and computational epidemiology that offers a template for advances to more effectively battle the spread of not only COVID-19 but also future pandemics.

A George Washington University professor’s research team will use artificial intelligence technologies to enable development of an app that automobile drivers can use to detect signs of their oncoming symptoms of health problems. The project will explore development of autonomous driving technology that would take control of vehicles when drivers show signs of debilitating health conditions such as epilepsy or stroke. Transportation engineer and Fulton Schools Professor Ram Pendyala says the research could give confidence to drivers with such health conditions. Drivers would know they could rely on autonomous vehicles to do the driving if their poor health conditions affected their ability to operate their automobiles safely. Today’s advanced AI technologies are capable of understanding driver behavior in a variety of scenarios, Pendyala says, which raises the chances of success for the GWU professor’s research project.

With cyberattacks on the rise, there’s an increasingly critical need for more cybersecurity experts. To help respond to the challenge, Fulton Schools Assistant Professor Yan Shoshitaishvili has founded an education platform to provide students hands-on training in the core concepts, skills and practices needed by the cybersecurity industry and the U.S. government. Students will learn to mount defenses against dozens of cyberthreats. Fulton Schools Associate Professor Adam Doupé, director of ASU’s Center for Cybersecurity and Digital Forensics, says only highly trained and innovative cyber defense practitioners will be able to thwart the adroit and crafty hackers who are becoming more prevalent.

Artificial intelligence technologies promise to make a lot of valuable contributions across a broad spectrum of endeavors in science, engineering, education, computing, security and more. But at the same time, some uses of A.I., and questionable claims about what it can do, are raising questions about ethics and the validity of the purposes for which some industries and companies are promoting and applying A.I. Experts such as Subbarao Kambhampati, a Fulton Schools profess of computer science and a past president of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, have concerns that misleading claims and other misinformation could undermine the credibility of the A.I. research community. Another issue is how to effectively prevent or call attention to misrepresentation of the abilities of the technology.

Ridding ecosystems of the dangerous chemical trichloroethene, or TCE, is one of the toughest environmental decontamination challenges. A research paper that details a formula for using specialized bacteria to reduce harmful TCE has earned an award from the American Society of Civil Engineers for the best paper published during 2020 in the Journal of Environmental Engineering. The team that authored the paper includes Fulton Schools Professor Bruce Rittman (pictured), director of the Biodesign Swette Center for Environmental Biotechnology, Professor Rosa Krajmalnik-Brown and environmental engineering doctoral student Yihao Luo.

When Fulton Schools Professor Rosa Krajmalnik-Brown (pictured) and her research team discovered that certain microbes are consistently absent from children with autism, they emptied the guts of several autistic infants and inoculated them with fecal enemas taken from healthy children. They found the resulting diversity of microbes in the guts of the children with autism increased during a 10-week period of treatment, leading to positive effects that remained in some of the children for two years after the treatment — their gastrointestinal symptoms subsided and their behavior improved as well. Krajmalnik-Brown gave a session about the research at the recent annual meeting of American Association for the Advancement of Science, which was conducted virtually and hosted by ASU. It was one of several sessions on research focusing on the link between microbial ecosystems and various illnesses and other health disorders. (Subscribing or creating an account to access The Economist is necessary to view the full article.)

See Also: AAAS lecture: microbes and autism, ASU Biodesign Institute, February 7

Fulton Schools students Colin Killeen and Sophia Balasubramanian are among those who have been challenged by COVID-19 to keep their musical pursuits on track as the pandemic has squelched live performances and jam sessions over the past year. Bass guitar and keyboard player Killeen, an aerospace engineering student, has turned to online collaborations and digital resources to connect and play with fellow musicians. Guitar player Balasubramanian, a biomedical engineering student, says she has begun to focus more on songwriting and developing her own sound and style as a musician, but hopes to eventually perform. Until then she is trying to contribute to the music scene by supporting her favorite local music artists on social media and Instagram.

Rising social, political and economic equality is hindering the nation’s progress. A new ASU center will focus on providing ideas and tools to reverse that trend. The center will develop new designs, systems and perspectives to push back against the things that are hampering the quest for equality, says ASU President Michael Crow. The Fulton Schools — one of a group of ASU schools and colleges working together to launch the center — are committed to contributing solutions-oriented approaches to innovations to aid the pursuit of societal advancement, says Kyle Squires, the dean of the engineering schools.

See Also: New center launches to combat inequality in community, The State Press, February 11

Cybersecurity must become a high priority focus for managers of public infrastructure systems, experts say. The need for that precaution was exhibited by the recent hack of a water treatment plant in Florida, which put lives at risk by increasing amounts of lye (sodium hydroxide) in the water supply. The incident emphasizes that civil and environmental engineers must also learn what they can do to prevent such cyber threats, says Fulton Schools Professor Brad Allenby, a sustainable engineering expert. Fulton Schools Associate Professor Paulo Shakarian, a cybersecurity expert, describes details about the cyber attack on the Florida facility and talks about what defenses could be mounted to protect critical infrastructure from such security breaches.

Block chain technology makes possible the digital forms of money known as cryptocurrency, which enables transactions to be made without any physical forms of payment — coins, dollar bills, checks or credit cards, for instance. That makes many people and businesses hesitant to embrace digital currency. But some businesses and organizations are giving it a try. Fulton Schools Research Professor Dragan Boscovic, director of ASU Blockchain Research Lab, says the many different kinds of digital money — there are thousands — make it difficult for businesses to decide which kind to use, and that the inability of cryptocurrency to process large numbers of transactions quickly is a drawback. Boscovic still expects to see increasing use of digital currency, but doesn’t foresee it becoming mainstream any time soon.

Mastery of HTML and CSS is an essential step to success in pursuing website development career opportunities in both high tech and low tech industries. For advice on where to learn these web content and style languages, U.S. News & World Report turned to Christina Carrasquilla, a senior lecturer in the Fulton Schools graphic information technology program. Carrasquilla provides guidance on which kinds of HTML and CSS courses are good options for everyone from novices to those with varying levels of experience. She also recommends studying code-editing to learn additional skills and getting involved in coding communities to put that learning into action in hackathons and similar events that provide hands-on experience in coding and website development.

The effectiveness of treatments for many diseases could be improved as a result of revelations from recent synthetic biology research at ASU. Xiaojun Tian, a Fulton Schools assistant professor of biomedical engineering, is the lead author of a report on research describing a new process for inserting synthetic gene chains into body cells. The links in those chains are designed to perform various functions, Tian says, but those links have to compete with each other for the limited cellular resources they need to perform their specific roles. The researchers have devised a way to insert individual gene chains into multiple host cells to enable the chains to work together without depleting the cells’ resources. The discovery has the potential to make cancer treatment more effective, researchers say.

See Also: Winner-take-all synthetic gene circuit opens new pathways to disease treatment, ASU News and SciTechDaily, February 8

New synthetic biology approach may improve delivery of programmable medicines, The Science Advisory Board, February 8

Among the biggest attractions drawing major employers to Arizona are the exceptionally skilled graduates of universities in the state, says Chris Camacho, the president and CEO of the Greater Phoenix Economic Council. He points in particular to ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, noting the large numbers of well-educated students it is graduating each year from numerous degree programs. Camacho notes that those programs are producing students trained in areas of engineering that are increasingly critical to bringing innovation to companies in a wide range of industries — and to sustaining and strengthening Arizona’s knowledge-based economy.

Although health experts have stressed the importance of wearing face masks as the most effective way to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 disease, many have disregarded the advice. But creative efforts by some university students might convince more people to follow that advice by providing masks with new designs and features. A team of students working in ASU’s Luminosity Lab recently won an international prize for its prototype of a mask that team members — most of whom are Fulton Schools students — say is more comfortable, affordable, stylish and effective than most current face masks. The team designed the FloeMask, which has a bifurcated chamber that separates air exhaled from the nose from air exhaled from the mouth. The team’s prize provides funding to further develop its prototype and offers opportunities to manufacture the new mask. The article is also published in the Santa Fe New Mexican   and AZ Big Media.

Arizona-based Zero Electric Vehicles Inc., or ZEV, an is automotive design, electrical vehicle technology and manufacturing company that aspires to produce the most efficient, high-scaled production all-electric vehicle — and to develop the infrastructure to bring those sustainable energy vehicles to the world. ZEV recently appointed three of its members to the company’s leadership team, including Arunachala Mada Kannan (at left in photo), a Fulton Schools professor who has been working to advance fuel cells, solar cells and large-scale energy storage in batteries for more than three decades. Kannan will work as a battery consultant for ZEV. He will play a key role in developing a highly efficient battery package system to extend the driving range and life span of the company’s Trident automobile.

For all the promising capabilities of artificial intelligence technologies, there are reasons to tread carefully in fully placing our faith in their power to learn and act accordingly in performing the many critical  tasks we are increasingly assigning to them. There’s a risk that AI may not always make the wisest of decisions, writes Subbarao Kambhampati in the online magazine of the Association of Computing Machinery, the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society. The Fulton Schools professor of computer science and past president of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence explains the difference between tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge.  Kambhampati says that while AI has mastered acquisition of tacit knowledge, it has significant shortcomings in acquiring explicit knowledge. He warns of potentially troublesome consequences if we rely only on AI technology without the benefit of explicit knowledge to guide its reasoning.

Climate experts agree on the environmental threat posed by growing accumulations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. They also agree on the need for carbon capture technology to help reduce that threat. But economics and other factors present challenges to the development and deployment of the technology. The stalemate between competing interests on this matter must be overcome, says Fulton Schools Professor Klaus Lackner. He directs the ASU’s Center for Negative Carbon Emissions, where some of the more promising carbon capture systems have been designed. Lackner says failing to remove atmospheric carbon dioxide will undoubtedly heighten an already serious risk of dire consequences for the Earth’s habitability.

Arizona’s largest public universities offer online degree programs — both undergraduate and graduate programs — that were recently ranked about the best in the nation by the U.S. News & World Report. Among those programs offering remote technology-enhanced, interactive learning, ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering is ranked 10^th overall in the nation — rising three places on the list over last year’s rankings. The online electrical engineering master’s degree program is ranked at number 2, while the sustainable engineering master’s program at number 5 and the engineering management master’s program is number 6. Read more. The Phoenix Business Journal news story is subscriber access only.

More than 20 research labs at ASU are involved in some facet of robotics research. Pursuits in robot-aided physical rehabilitation, robotic exoskeletons, human-robot collaboration and brain-machine interfaces are among the projects led by the university’s scientists and engineers. Among them are Fulton Schools faculty members Heni Ben Amor, who directs the Interactive Robotics Lab, Wenlong Zhang, director of the Robotics and Intelligent Systems Laboratory, Siddharth Srivastava, who runs the Autonomous Agents and Intelligent Robots Lab, Tom Sugar (at left in photo), director of the Human Machine Integration Lab, and Subbarao Kambhampati, an expert in the application of artificial intelligence technology to advance human-robot collaboration.

Fulton Schools faculty members are among researchers putting  ASU on the map of institutions leading the way in advancing an array of innovative robotics technologies. Spring Berman (pictured) is making progress in the control and optimization of multi-robot systems. Tom Sugar is creating exoskeletons to enhance human physical capabilities. Dan Aukes is combining robotics and machine learning technology to develop devices that help people overcome physical limitations. James Abbas is using robotics in biomedical engineering endeavors to make a Neural-Enabled Prosthetic Hand system to aid people who have had hand amputations, while Hyunglae Lee is also working on robotic-aided rehabilitation systems.

Thousands of the world’s animal species are considered endangered and many others are categorized as vulnerable to becoming endangered. Meanwhile, ecologists still lack reliable tools to predict when species may become at risk of decline. One step toward progress in that area, however, is a mathematical modeling process developed by Ying-Cheng Lai, a Fulton Schools professor of electrical engineering and physics. That process could reveal how interspecies relationships and interactions are impacting the status of various kinds of animals in specific environments. The information the mathematical modeling might reveal could guide scientists in developing methods to sustain ecosystems in ways that benefit potentially endangered or vulnerable species. See original article in ASU NOW.

The documentary film “Picture a Scientist” focuses on a biologist, a chemist and a geologist and their experiences with harassment, discrimination and more subtle affronts — and on how each of the women overcame that inappropriate treatment to improve the culture in the STEM professions. A virtual screening of the film hosted by ASU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences was followed by a livestream discussion of these problems and the solutions needed to rectify them. Members of the panels driving the discussion included Fulton Schools Dean Kyle Squires, Professor and Vice Dean of Strategic Advancement Ann McKenna and Assistant Professor Brooke Coley.

In an emerging domain of science called evolutionary computation, Stephanie Forrest, a Fulton Schools professor of computer science, is working with colleagues to use new technologies to replicate the process of evolution in nature. They have recently announced some of their latest findings in the research journal Nature Machine Intelligence. Forrest, director of ASU’s Biodesign Center for Biocomputing, Security and Society says that in addition to providing deeper insight into biological evolution, this form of computation could also help spark advances in artificial intelligence, engineering design, robotics, medicine, software development and even gaming strategy.

A recent major study that found mothers of children with autism spectrum disorder had several distinctly different metabolite levels two to five years after they gave birth compared to mothers of normally developing children. Researchers say this result could provide a starting point for further research that might help medical science close in on more definitive knowledge about the causes and characteristics of the disorder. James Adams, a Fulton Schools professor of materials science and engineering, played a leading role in the research that produced the latest findings. Adams, director of the Autism/Asperger’s Research Program, says these results are already leading to another investigation into metabolite levels and their connection to autism. See more coverage about the research in Science Daily and Study Finds.

Arizona government leaders have allotted funds to the three state universities to expand research on ways to help communities slow the spread of COVID-19. Some of that support is going to work led by Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden and his team at ASU’s Biodesign Center for Environmental Health Engineering.  The center’s researchers have been developing a wastewater testing technique that can effectively track the spread of the coronavirus that causes the disease. That effort — along with similar research endeavors at other Arizona universities and others around the country — has evolved into a budding field called wastewater-based epidemiology that is being used across the United States, Europe, Australia and several other countries.

A sea sponge that has fascinated biologists for almost two centuries makes its own glass skeleton by using acid extracted from seawater. It’s only one of the interesting properties exhibited by the creature — nicknamed the Venus’ flower basket — that Fulton Schools Associate Professor Dhruv Bhate calls “the holy grail of engineering design.” A team of Harvard materials scientists and engineers is making new discoveries about the animal’s capabilities, including details about the makeup and structure of its almost uncrushable skeleton. In separate investigations, Bhate’s team is looking at how the sponge’s skeleton can maintain flexibility while also remaining so strong. If the capabilities of this sea sponge can be fully understood and replicated, it could lead to new ideas for designs of biology-inspired technology.

Fluidity and grace have not been among words frequently used to describe the movements of robots. But technological advances are enabling humanoid robots to do some complex and funky dance choreography. Fulton Schools Assistant Professor Heni Ben Amor says four robots made by an engineering and robotics design spin-off from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology foreshadow a future in which robots that are human in size and shape are capable of mimicking intricate and rhythmic human motions. Amor, an expert in human-robot interactions and machine learning, predicts the day will come when humans and robots team up to give ballet performances.

The ASU Alumni Association’s Legacy Scholarship provides financial support for family relatives of ASU graduates to pursue a college education. Scholarship recipient Nicole Evans spent her time at ASU earning a degree in construction engineering through the Fulton Schools and holding leadership positions with the Student Alumni Association, including a term as its president. She credits her education at ASU and in the Fulton Schools with her career success — first as project engineer for five years with a construction company specializing in the gaming and hospitality industries, and now as a senior project engineer for a major full-service general construction contracting company.

How strong will our commitment be to reversing the detrimental impacts of climate change? Will we abandon those efforts when they get expensive, or when we simply tire of the endeavors if they require prolonged and arduous work? A writer asks the question of Fulton Schools Professor Klaus Lackner, who directs ASU Center for Negative Carbon Emissions. Lackner and his research team are developing some of the more promising technologies to reduce the amount of harmful carbon dioxide in the atmosphere — a major cause of global warming. Lackner and others are a bit skeptical that our communal resolve will overcome the obstacles to long-term actions to pull back on the causes of climate change, but they see increasing agreement about the need to take action.

Forty experts from around the world share their ideas about what our cities might look like in the future in a new anthology co-authored and co-edited by Mikhail Chester, a Fulton Schools associate professor of civil, environmental and sustainable engineering. Today’s cities were designed and built on old industrial era models, Chester says. Those models no longer provide a sound framework for responding to the sociological and technological changes to which our large metro areas are being challenged to adapt. In fact, the experts say it is change itself — how rapidly and dramatically it can happen in the modern world — that will test our ability to adjust to new realities.

While the 3D materials have made possible some of our most significant technological leaps forward, 2D materials are now poised to enable even more progress, says Sefaattin Tongay (second from right in photo), a Fulton Schools associate professor of materials science and engineering. Tongay has been working for almost 20 years with the crystalline materials made of single layers atoms. He says the materials can enable advances in computing, energy generation, information security and more. The National Science Foundation has supported five of his research projects to explore the use of 2D materials to open the way to applications in many more devices and systems in promising areas such as quantum technologies. Tongay is also using his research to educate the next generation of materials scientists and engineers.

Removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere would help diminish some of the more threatening global impacts of climate change. Among the innovative carbon capture and removal technologies are the mechanical trees (pictured) being developed in ASU’s Center for Negative Carbon Emissions directed by Fulton Schools Professor Klaus Lackner. Lackner says a forest of these mechanical trees could efficiently take the dangerous greenhouse gas out of the air and store it underground or use it to make products such as fuels and cement. The technology offers an opportunity to not only stabilize the Earth’s warming climate but also become the foundation for a new revenue-generating industry that can provide numerous jobs.

See Also: Mining the sky for CO2 with metal trees, towers and pumps, E&E News, January 5

Carbon Engineering’s Tech Will Suck Carbon From the Sky, IEEE Spectrum, January 6

A new kind of public memorial — made possible by today’s advanced visualization technologies — will be created by a group of ASU faculty members to honor children killed by the use of firearms. The team includes Robert LiKamWa, a Fulton Schools assistant professor of electrical, computer and energy engineering, as well as arts, media and engineering. The project will involve designing and making virtual monuments to place at locations where children died. The work will apply the expertise provided through LiKamWa’s research lab to produce software and hardware for augmented reality and virtual reality systems. One purpose of the endeavor is to give momentum to efforts to publicly address the issue of gun violence and its consequences.

The recent far-reaching cyberattack against U.S. government agencies and corporations may be one of the most consequential hacks in history to date, says Paulo Shakarian, a Fulton Schools professor of computer science. He sees the potential for it to cause significant harm over a long period time. Amid uncertainties about the attack, some of things seem clear, Shakarian says. The hack was very likely the work of a nation, not a group of criminals. The hackers were able to break down the defenses of agencies and companies with extensive cybersecurity practices. And while the extent of the damage is not fully known, it almost certainly will result in troublesome consequences for the victims and possibly the country as well. Shakarian’s commentary has also been published in more the 40 newspapers and other news outlets, including the San Francisco Times, the Houston Chronicle, Seattle PI, Snopes.com, Arizona Daily Star, St. Louis Today and Yahoo News.

Technical Sergeant Vincent Boven, a 12-year U.S. Air Force veteran, will be able to stay on active duty while completing studies for his electrical engineering degree in the Fulton Schools. Boven has been selected for the Senior Leader Enlisted Commission Program, which supports “highly skilled and exceptionally motivated” enlisted members of the Air Force in earning college degrees. Boven’s commanders cited his exemplary performance in guiding and mentoring dozens of Air Force and Space Force cadets to graduation to earn positions as officers.

Fulton Schools students are three of the five members of an ASU Luminosity Lab team that has won the Next-Gen Mask Challenge. The competition tasked teams from around the world with developing new designs to produce more functional, affordable and comfortable face masks to fight the spread of COVID-19. The team’s Floemask — described as “the latest in respirator technology” — features bifurcated chamber design in which air exhaled from the nose is kept in a separate chamber from the face and mouth. It earned the team $500,00 of the overall $1 million in prize money. The ASU team and two other winning teams will be set up with rapid manufacturing opportunities to accelerate production of their new mask designs.

See Also: ASU Luminosity Lab team wins face mask challenge and $500,000 prize, The State Press, December 22

ASU student team’s fog-free mask design wins $1 million international competition, News 4 Tucson KVOA.com, December 22

See Also: ASU team wins international competition with anti-fog coronavirus mask design, ABC News 15-Phoenix, December 23

ASU Team Wins $500K XPRIZE For COVID-19 Mask Design, KJZZ (NPR), December 23

ASU student team wins coronavirus face mask design challenge, KTAR News, December 23

ASU students win international COVID-19 mask competition for fog-free design, get $500,000, Arizona Republic, December 24

Students win $550K XPrize for face mask design, Medical Design & Outsourcing. December 24

Researchers at Arizona State University develop breakthrough face covering amid COVID-19 pandemic, Fox 10 News-Phoenix, December 26

Knowledge that guided development of a COVID-19 vaccine came in part from data gathered through wastewater analysis techniques being used to assesses the prevalence and the rate of the spread of the coronavirus infection in communities. Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden (pictured) had been among the first to develop those techniques — at first using the findings to determine how extensively various toxins and pharmaceuticals were impacting specific populations. He turned his attention to detection of COVID-19 as the disease reached pandemic proportions. Now a company that has emerged from the research in ASU’s Biodesign Center for Environmental Health Engineering, which Halden directs, will be expanding these wastewater studies to help the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services combat the disease.

Hackers sponsored by the Russian government are the most likely culprits in a recent hack of the U.S. Treasury and Commerce departments, says Paulo Shakarian, a Fulton Schools associate professor and cybersecurity expert. Shakarian is also CEO and co-founder of ASU spinout CYR3CON, a company that is using machine learning technology to predict malicious hacking exploits before hackers use them. He describes these hacks as very sophisticated attacks against agencies whose defenses are difficult to breach — showing that sensitive government and industry information remains vulnerable to the machinations of the skillful “bad actors” of the cyber world.

Microplastic particles (pictured) that may have harmful health consequences could be entering your body through the coffee you drink — depending on the type of cup from which you’re drinking. A study published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials reports that people are ingesting these tiny bits of plastic by drinking hot beverages from paper cups with linings containing thin plastic films. Heat can quickly degrade cup linings, says the study’s lead author. The study follows similar warnings about microplastics, including findings by Fulton Schools researchers. Nonbiodegradable plastics “are present everywhere,” and some pose serious health threats, says Varun Kelkar, a graduate research assistant in the Biodesign Center for Environmental Health Engineering directed by Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden.

A team of ASU students under the direction of Assistant Professor Robert LiKamWa produced an augmented reality presentation that connected viewers to the recent remotely conducted ASU fall graduation ceremonies. The production enabled using an Android or Apple device to place a virtual podium on the screen from wherever the users were to watch and listen to featured speakers and the rest of graduation event. LiKamWa is a faculty member in the School of Arts, Media and Engineering, a collaborative of the Fulton Schools and ASUs Herberger Center for Design and the Arts. LiKamWA directs the Meteor Studio, which explores research and design of software and hardware for mobile augmented reality, virtual reality, mixed reality, and visual computing systems.

See Also: An augmented reality graduation brings President Crow to your home, The State Press, December 16

A year dominated by a global pandemic and claims of irregularities in a presidential election have provided fertile ground for a minefield of dangerous misinformation, including a growing tide of conspiracy theories and disinformation campaigns. Nadya Bliss offers ways to navigate these turbulent information wars. Bliss is executive director of the ASU Global Security Initiative and a professor of practice in the School of Computing, Informatics, and Decision Systems Engineering, one of the six Fulton Schools. Bliss recently wrote about ways to detect and address the disinformation strategies being used to manipulate public opinion. She says there’s a need for efforts to promote media literacy education and critical analysis skills  to give us defenses against these manipulative endeavors.

Daunting but not insurmountable. That’s one way the effort by federal agencies and private industries called Operation Warp Speed is being described. The goal is to produce and deliver about 300 million doses of COVID-10 vaccine in coming months. Fulton Schools Associate Professor Kristen Parrish says the task presents an array of logistics challenges — especially because of the ultra-cold temperatures at which the vaccine must be stored and distributed to ensure it is effective. Parrish, who has expertise in industrial refrigeration technology, also says there are limited numbers of both the high-tech freezers suitable for storage of the vaccine and of the highly skilled technicians who know how to best maintain and repair the freezers.

See Also: Staying chill: How Arizona is preparing to store vaccines at freezing temps, Arizona Republic, December 14

Researchers recently demonstrated the possibility of squeezing a powerful artificial vision algorithm onto a simple, low-power computer chip that can run for months on a battery. This could lead to more advanced and energy-efficient AI capabilities such as image and voice recognition for home appliances, wearable devices and medical technologies, and to improvements in data security systems. Jae-sun Seo, a Fulton Schools associate professor of electrical engineering, says the advancements could also be used to enhance augmented reality technology — as well as open the way to significant progress in efforts to expand the performance capabilities of machine learning, one of Seo’s areas of expertise.

Systems being developed to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere are very expensive, but may also become very necessary if we are to maintain a livable environment on Earth. Every year, human activity is releasing much of the more than 35 gigatons of carbon dioxide going into the air, resulting in more massive accumulations of greenhouse gasses that are ratcheting up globing warming and its potentially dire consequences for the planet. Among emerging solutions are carbon capture systems such as those be created by ASU’s Center for Negative Carbon Emissions, directed by Fulton Schools Professor Klaus Lackner. Progress by his research team is increasing the viability of technologies designed to clean the skies of the threatening gasses.

A phenomenon called the “oasis effect” is turning nighttime irrigation at some larger Phoenix parks into a potential environmental problem. Fulton Schools and School of Earth and Space Exploration Professor Enrique Vivoni (center in photo), a hydrologist, and his research team have found that irrigation systems in those parks that are intended to save water are also creating a lot of evaporation, resulting in the release of high levels of troublesome carbon emissions into the atmosphere. Heavy watered sports fields, residential communities and other properties with large areas of turf may also be a source of such emissions. The Phoenix Parks and Recreation Department promises to take a close look at Vivoni’s research findings and seek solutions, if necessary.

The Science Museum in London is home to a world-class collection that provides a record of significant scientific, technological and medical advancement from around the globe. One of museum’s upcoming featured exhibits, “Our Future Planet,” focuses on cutting-edge technologies and nature-based solutions being developed to help prevent or reduce some of the most threatening impacts of climate change by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The exhibit will include one of the Mechanical Trees created by Fulton Schools Professor Klaus Lackner and his research team at ASU’s Center for Negative Carbon Emissions. Progress is being made on optimizing the system’s carbon capturing effectiveness, building prototypes and commercializing the invention.

There’s a new tool to enable measuring the performance of solar energy panels as they are functioning in the field — not only in a laboratory. Fulton Schools electrical engineering doctoral student and graduate research assistant Alexander Killam developed the performance assessment technique, which record’s a solar panel’s voltage as a function of light intensity outdoors. Stuart Bowden, an associate research professor who leads the silicon section of ASU’s Solar Power Laboratory, says the method provides a data stream to show how solar panels degrade over time and in different environments. That could help the industry extend the lifespan of panels beyond 25 years. The method can track the performance of individual panels or an array of 20 up to 100 modules. See more news coverage in PV Magazine, Es De Latino, CitizenSide, California New Times, List Solar, Power Info Today, Novergy Solar

Along with the threats of wildfire, communities on hilly terrain can also be plagued by widespread mudslides and related dangers long after heavy downpours of rain. Fulton Schools Associate Professor Mikhail Chester, an environmental engineer, say intense rains can trigger wet flows of land 10 times greater in areas recently burned by fire. That can happen as much as five years after the fires. Communities need to take stronger proactive measures to defend against such potential calamities, particularly extensive erosion control measures.

Electrical engineering graduate student John Patterson (pictured) and other Fulton Schools students are among members of a ASU Luminosity Lab team that is a finalist for the XPRIZE Next-Gen Mask Challenge that could win some of the competitors a combined $1 million. The contest asked people ages 15 to 24 around the world to design next-generation surgical masks that would “shift the cultural perspective” about wearing masks to help prevent transmission of COVID 19. The goal is for masks to be more comfortable, functional and stylish. The ASU team’s “Flosemask” will be judged along with the masks of other contest finalists by a panel of judges and industry experts.

ASU graduate students will have opportunities for hands-on experience in developing sustainable agriculture through a new program led by Fulton Schools Professor Enrique Vivoni. The collaborative project involving the Instituto Tecnológico de Sonora in Mexico will study agricultural regions in Arizona and Sonora to assess possibilities for sustainable farming in those areas. The program will put research-based learning into action to improve agriculture environments in those communities, says Vivoni, who is also on the faculty ASU’s School of Earth and Space Exploration. The project is supported by a 100,000 Strong in the Americas Innovation Award from the U.S. Department of State.

AquaVitas, a company spun off from research in ASU’s Biodesign Center for Environmental Health Engineering, directed by Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden (members of his lab team pictured here), has been awarded a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services  contract to test water treatment plants across the country for signs of COVID-19. Halden and his team have developed wastewater analytics over the past several years that enable assessment of COVID-19 trends in communities. Data collected by Aquavitas will provide municipalities information that can be used to guide public health decisions in responding to COVID-19 outbreaks.

After a Supreme Court ruling this week against the ending of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security began accepting new applications for the program that shields hundreds of thousands young people from deportation. Those affected by the court decision responded with a mixture of hope and concern that their futures are still uncertain. Fulton Schools aerospace engineering student Maria Garcia, who plans to apply for the reinstated program, says many students who are undocumented citizens don’t qualify for DACA protection, so a better solution must be found. The story is also reported in the Washington Post and the San Francisco Chronicle.

ASU researchers have achieved a breakthrough in photovoltaics technology that can reduce the cost and extend the longevity of interconnected power delivery. Fulton Schools electrical engineering doctoral student and graduate researcher Alexander Killam is on the team that has produced the advance. Killam says the Sun-Voc system the researchers developed will give manufacturers of photovoltaics systems and large power utility installations the kinds of data needed to adjust system designs to increase energy efficiency and the lifespans of the delivery systems.

The news is also reported in Solar Energy International, TechXplore and AZO Cleantech

New York City communities are looking into the contents of their wastewater facilities for clues about the spread of the COVID-19 virus and how to stop it. They’re using water testing methods developed by Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden and his research team at the Center for Environmental Health Engineering at the ASU Biodesign Institute. Halden encouraged New York officials to increase the frequency of its sewage testing efforts and to do that testing at multiple locations. Halden is a co-author of a cost-benefit analysis that found using wastewater-based epidemiology in combination with clinical testing is much less expensive than using traditional methods that focus on testing individuals for the coronavirus infection. The article was also published in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

Designs of curved structure based on the art of origami have been shown to improve the flexibility of robotics technologies. Through “tunable adaptability” robots can adjust their stiffness to effectively perform specific tasks — a function that until now has been difficult for robots to perform. The research leading to the advancement was led by Hanqing Jiang, a Fulton Schools professor of mechanical engineering. The design of the curved creases and each curved crease, corresponds to a particular flexibility,” Jiang says. His team’s paper on the research, titled “In Situ Stiffness Manipulation Using Elegant Curved Origami,” has been published in the journal Science Advances.

A report entitled “Assured Autonomy: Path Toward Living With Autonomous Systems We Can Trust” says that the future development of autonomous technologies and systems — including vehicles — should to be guided by a broad range of stakeholders throughout society. The report was commissioned by a group of members of the Computing Community Consortium, including Nancy Cooke, a Fulton Schools Professor of human systems engineering, and Nadya Bliss, executive director of ASU’s Global Security Initiative and a Fulton Schools professor of practice. They and their colleagues call for a strategy to ensure stakeholders in government, academia, industry and society at large can share ideas and concerns about the safety, security and regulation of autonomous systems.

See Also: AI is too powerful for engineers to handle alone, Electronics Weekly, December 3

A challenge for health professionals who will be in charge of COVID-19 vaccine distribution will be access to freezers that can keep the vaccines in the extremely cold temperatures required for effective storage, says Fulton Schools Associate Professor Kristen Parrish (pictured). Another hurdle may be finding experienced refrigeration service professionals who can properly maintain and repair the freezers, Parrish says. Another problem could arise next spring as temperatures begin to rise in the greater Phoenix metro area, which will require freezers to run continuously for many hours and make it more difficult for them to maintain the necessary ultra-cold temperatures.

See Also: Can the US Cold Storage Sector Handle the Strain of Covid Vaccines? Globe St.com

Fulton Schools electrical engineering student Collin Schairer, mechanical engineering student Gowan Rowland and materials science and engineering student Julia Greteman are members of the ASU Luminosity Lab team designing a probe and launcher system capable of expanding exploration of the moon. The project has made the team one of eight university teams to be named finalists in a NASA space technology competition. The exploration targets are craters on the moon’s poles that never get sunlight and thus are difficult to probe. The ASU team is doing its work in the Fulton Schools new indoor motion-capture Drone Studio. In addition to the engineering involved, the project is challenging students to hone their skills in computer programming, industrial design and robotics.

Cell phones are used by almost everyone today, but few understand how these versatile, multi-functional communications devices sparked a still ongoing evolution of evermore sophisticated and far-reaching cellular networks. Dan Bliss, a Fulton Schools professor of electrical engineering and director of the Center for Wireless Information Systems and Computational Architecture, talks about the ideas that led to the first cellular networks and what the future generations of those networks will look like — and the additional functionalities that advances in the technology will make possible. The article also appeared in My San Antonio Express, Yahoo! News, Seattle PI, Stuff (Gadget Magazine), Beaumont Enterprise (Texas), Mesh Magazine, TechXplore, New Canaan Advertiser (Connecticut), Houston Chronicle (paywall).

The ASU Graduate College’s first-ever Knowledge Mobilization Spotlight Grants have been awarded. The program selected winners from among graduate students and postdoctoral fellows who have developed innovative solutions to challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Among  10 winners from more than 70 applicants is Medha Dalal, a Fulton Schools postdoctoral scholar in engineering education. Dalal found a way to move forward with her work by providing hands-on engineering design experiences to high school counselors using mail-in design kits and a virtual workshop she created.  In one area of her research, Dalal examines ways of thinking that address complex challenges in engineering education.

In ASU’s “Thought Huddle” podcast, Fulton Schools Professor Brad Allenby discusses the proliferation of disinformation sources in an age that is seeing the rise of antagonistic “tribal political structures.” Allenby discusses how the growth and pervasiveness of today’s fractured communications environment has provided ground work for the growing influence of conspiracy theorists and targeted misinformation campaigns that have divisive impacts on societies. Allenby is a professor of civil, environmental and sustainable engineering, as well as a professor of technology and ethics and a co-founder of ASU’s Weaponized Narrative Initiative.

Inspired by the art of paper folding called origami, Fulton Schools Professor Hanqing Jiang and doctoral student Zirui Zhai, both mechanical engineers, have developed designs for curved folding patterns that can enable robotic devices to change the stiffness and flexibility of their gripping capabilities. Shaping flexible materials into these patterns makes it possible to produce simple and inexpensive robotic grippers, swimming robots and other mechanical devices. Today’s adjustable stiffness systems are often bulky and can’t be used in soft robotics or micro-robots. Next, Jiang and Zhai plan to add more remote-control functions to trigger the folding of materials into origami structures. That will enable applying the technique to fields beyond robotics. The discovery is also reported by the Associated Press and tech news outets Manufacturing Business Technology, Gizmodo, Nanowerk and   Science Daily

Perchlorate and TCE are two chlorinated chemicals that case pose threats to human and environmental health. Research in ASU’s Biodesign Center for Environmental Biotechnology is demonstrating that a form of microbial life can be effective in cleaning up the areas known as Superfund sites that are contaminated by those chlorinated chemicals. Among leaders of the research are Anca Delgado, a Fulton Schools assistant professor of civil, environmental and sustainable engineering, and Srivatsan Mohana Rangan, a Fulton Schools graduate research assistant in the same field. Rangan is lead author of the study on the project published in the current issue of the research journal Environmental Science & Technology. The news is also reported on News-Medical.Net.

ASU researchers are aiding the city of Phoenix in its efforts to reduce the impacts of extreme heat by using a new kind of pavement materials designed to reduce the urban heat island effect. Ariane Middel, a Fulton Schools assistant professor and urban climatologist, is leading the research team. Middel and fellow researchers have begun testing the impacts of the so-called cool pavements that have been applied to some Phoenix streets. The team expects to have results in a year from now on the long-term performance of the pavement material. Preliminary studies are showing some cooling effects and residents on the newly paved streets said road temperatures seem cooler.

Fulton Schools graduates are among the ASU alumni who are helping thousands of people around the world though dozens of nonprofits organizations the university’s former students have started. The entrepreneurs include Fulton Schools biomedical engineering graduate Mark Huerta mechanical engineering graduate Paul Strong and biomedical/medical engineering graduate Swaroon Sridhar. Their 33 Buckets venture has evolved into an operation that is providing clean water to small rural communities in underdeveloped countries. The endeavor started as a project for the Engineering Projects in Community Service program, or EPICS, through which student teams help communities solve engineering-based problems.

Some potentially significant revelations about the impacts of irrigation used to make public spaces greener and cooler — especially in hotter locales such as the Phoenix area — have been discovered by hydrologist Enrique Vivoni, a professor in the Fulton Schools and the School of Earth and Space Exploration. Aided by graduate students   Mercedes Kindler, Zhaocheng and Eli Pérez-Ruiz, Vivoni used an array of sensing technologies to measure the effects of irrigating one of Phoenix’s urban golf courses. Their year-long study showed a connection between the evaporation of water on the course and the resulting amounts of carbon dioxide emissions, which could contribute to global warming. The story is also reported in Science Daily and Phys.Org.

The expertise of a group of Fulton Schools faculty members is the driving force behind a new collaborative venture with one of the largest developers and suppliers in the semiconductor industry, Applied Materials.  Professor Michael Kozicki, Associate Professor Zachary Holman and Assistant Professor Heather Emady are on the team formed to carry our research projects over the next five years at the MacroTechnology Works laboratories in the ASU Research Park. The work will involve the tools used to make the semiconductor chips that go into many technologies, Kozicki says. Emady says the goal is to establish an even longer-term relationship with Applied Materials. Holman says students will be involved in the research.

See Also: Semiconductor equipment maker leases ‘substantial’ lab space at ASU, Phoenix Business Journal, November 3 (Subscriber access only)

Despite technological advances in self-driving vehicles, many people say they would not purchase one. In a survey that gathered responses in five major U. S. metro areas — including Phoenix — on 5% percent of respondents said they would be early adopters of autonomous automobiles and about 50% said they would have to gain more confidence in the safety of the vehicles. But 40 percent didn’t see themselves ever being comfortable with autonomous transport.  The survey was part of research by Fulton Schools Assistant Research Professor Sara Khoeini and colleagues in Teaching Old Models New Tricks, or TOMNET, a Fulton Schools Tier 1 University Transportation Center sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation. Khoeini talks about how such vehicles might find more acceptance by the public. Read more.

The number of children born with autism spectrum disorder — a cause of lifelong developmental disorders — is growing, and there is no effective FDA-approved treatment. But research by Fulton Schools Professors Rosa Krajmalnik-Brown and James Adams is showing promise for progress toward a viable treatment. They have discovered that those with autism have abnormal microbial conditions, and that adjusting the microbiota using healthy bacteria can help ease the gastrointestinal and behavioral symptoms of the disease. Krajmalnik-Brown and Adams are leading research to advance microbial transfer therapy and microbiome transplants in efforts to manage the disease.

Recent Fulton Schools chemical engineering graduate Maeve Kennedy (pictured) and current chemical engineering student Alexis Hocken are nominees for one of the most prestigious graduate fellowships. Kennedy and Hocken will find out in December if they are among those awarded a Churchill Scholarship, enabling them to do postgraduate studies in science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, fields at the renowned Cambridge University in England. Nominees for the Churchill Scholarship are selected in part for their potential to become leaders in their fields. Kennedy and Hocken are former recipients of the Goldwater Scholarship, one of the most prestigious scholarship programs for U.S. undergraduates studying engineering, natural sciences and math.

Despite strong education in the technological aspects of engineering provided at ASU, a columnist says more is needed to  ensure students in the field are better prepared for a competitive job market. Along with technical proficiency, students need soft skills — communication, teamwork, customer relations, conflict management and leadership skills, among others — to achieve career success, the commentator says. He points to Fulton Schools Professor Keith Hjelmstad, who has integrated soft skills workshops into some of the courses he teaches. Others should follow Hjelmstad’s example, the columnist writes, also suggesting incorporating studies in the humanities into STEM courses to give students in science, technology, engineering and math programs training in creative thinking and workplace social skills.

For their senior year capstone engineering design project, three Fulton Schools students are helping the managers Scottsdale’s 30,500-acre McDowell Sonoran Preserve monitor the health of long-time residents of the scenic area: bats. Computer science students Ryan Kemmer, Jerimiah Kent and Michael Umholtz are using machine learning algorithms and artificial intelligence technology to track the movements the bats in and out of a gated mine on the preserve. The students hope to develop a software program for the McDowell Sonoran Conservancy to help the organization continue the bat monitoring operation once the capstone project in complete.

The Fulton Schools Laboratory for Energy and Power Solutions, or LEAPS, designs and develops technologies to bring energy sources to underserved communities and underdeveloped countries, often in remote locations. One of the lab team’s latest and most challenging ventures is a project to bring electrical power resources to a region of Sierra Leone in West Africa. The project focuses on the benefits of electrification for women and girls. LEAPS Director Nathan Johnson, a Fulton Schools assistant professor, says the goal is to find ways to provide reliable power while reducing time and expense in planning and design — and to see the system empower women by providing them electricity that expands their options for creating viable businesses.

Job market watchers say engineering is among career paths offering high salaries along with opportunities to do work that’s valuable to society. There’s also a broad spectrum of engineering fields to choose from to fulfill a variety of professional interests and aspirations. Plus, there’s are a range of options for earning degrees online in almost every branch of engineering. Robin Hammond, Fulton Schools director of career services, has advice on how prospective students can determine if engineering is a good fit for them, and how to shop for the online programs that would best serve their particular needs. Also important: Check out what companies are recruiting graduates of those schools and their engineering programs and how alumni are faring in their careers.

Electrical and mechanical engineers, materials scientists, physicists and chemists are combining efforts through Fulton Schools Associate Professor Zack Holman’s research group to both boost the efficiency of renewable energy technology and make it more affordable. The team is making advances with photovoltaic cells that can convert a larger percentage of solar power into electrical energy than previous cells. Through the operations of two startup companies, the researchers have also developed a foil solar panel that enables more cost-effective energy conversion and a surface coating for solar panels that helps keep them operating a maximum efficiency. Those products are seen as steps to making solar energy systems more commercially viable.

It’s less than six months since Sethuraman Panchanathan began a six-year appointment as U.S. National Science Foundation director — taking a hiatus from his roles as a Fulton Schools professor and the leader of ASU’s Knowledge Enterprise — but he is moving quickly to pursue his vision for the NSF’s evolving mission. In an interview with the news outlet of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, one of the world’s largest organizations of professional engineers, Panchanathan says this is a defining moment for engineering and science. He sees progress in research to address the world’s growing challenges, increasing inclusiveness and U.S. global leadership in science and engineering, along with expanding STEM education and COVID-19 research, as critical to a better future.

Phishing —surreptitious attempts to fraudulently obtain sensitive information or data, such as usernames, passwords and credit card details in electronic communications — is more widespread than ever, and more malicious, faster and smarter. But new defenses against such cyber crime are being mounted. One effort involves cybersecurity researchers at Google, PayPal, Samsung and Arizona State University. ASU’s contribution draws on work by Fulton Schools Associate Professor Adam Doupé, Professor Gail-Joon Ahn and some of their colleagues in the Fulton Schools Center for Cybersecurity and Digital Forensics. Detailed reports on the projects are in a recent ASU NOW article and a recent Internet Defense Prize-winning research paper titled  “Sunrise to Sunset: Analyzing the End-to-end Life Cycle and Effectiveness of Phishing Attacks at Scale.”

A leading producer of semiconductor equipment, Applied Materials, has signed a long-term agreement with four Fulton Schools research groups to pursue innovations in manufacturing and processing technologies used to make semiconductor chips and displays. Collaborative efforts with the company — to be based at ASU’s MacroTechnologyWorks facilities (pictured) — will be led by Fulton Schools Professor Michael Kozicki, Associate Professors Zachary Holman and Sefaattin Tongay, and Assistant Professor Heather Emady. In addition to enabling ASU researchers to employ their exceptional skills in developing new device technologies, Kozicki says the work with Applied Materials can provide students with experiences in engineering endeavors that align with the needs of the high-tech marketplace. (Subscriber access only) Read more.

Narayanan Neithalath, a Fulton Schools professor of civil, environmental and sustainable engineering, is getting an opportunity to expand his achiecements in construction materials innovation. The National Science Foundation recently announced support for Neithalath and four colleagues in his field to create a 3D printing network, called 3D Concrete, with collaborators in more than a dozen countries. Neithalath says the goal is to realize the potential for 3D concrete printing techniques to be faster, safer and more efficient than the production of conventional concrete, to reduce materials waste during production processes and to make concrete that can be used create unconventional structures.

Since earning a geology degree from ASU, Kyla Iacovino has become a prominent in her field of petrology and volcanology, mostly through her work at NASA’S Johnson Space Center. She appears in a recent documentary series developed by the national radio show “Science Friday” about women making their mark in STEM fields. In the series, Iacovino talks about the challenges for women who want to succeed in science, engineering and technology while also raising children. Career and family issues are also on the minds of Fulton Schools students, including software engineering student Jen Vesper and mechanical engineering student Jasmine Ponty. Fulton Schools chemical engineering student Maren Frohlick, chair of the Women in Chemical Engineering organization, has thoughts on how such issues can be addressed as part of the movement to help women achieve equality in their professions.

Fulton Schools Associate Professor Rob Gray applies his expertise in human systems engineering and perceptual-motor control to devising ways people can develop and hone athletic skills and similar physical abilities. Research that Gray conducts in his Perception & Action Lab involves studies to improve the effectiveness of sports training to achieve proficiency in various pursuits and professions requiring vigorous activity. He is also the host and producer of the The Perception & Action Podcast, which explores how psychological research can be applied to efforts to achieve sports performance goals. On another podcast, Gray is interviewed on these subjects as they apply to baseball training.

Tesla, the prominent electric vehicle and clean energy company, is being scrutinized for claims it is producing fully self-driving automobiles. Industry competitors contend Tesla’s technology doesn’t fulfill all the requirements for enabling cars to operate completely autonomously. Ted Pavlic, a Fulton Schools assistant professor of computing, informatics, and decision systems engineering, and an expert in robotics and autonomous systems, advises consumers to educate themselves about new driving technologies such as Tesla’s Autopilot system to better understand what current autonomous vehicles are actually capable of doing — and what they’re not.

An unconventional path brought Benjamin Bartelle to the job he began this year as an assistant professor in the Fulton Schools biomedical engineering program. Studies in neuroscience and molecular biophysics have been part of the trip, but so have a variety of sometimes out-of-the-mainstream artistic pursuits that have shaped his approach to both professional and personal endeavors. Bartelle brings a “spirit of creativity and chaos” to his work in both the classroom and the research lab. It’s a reflection of a free-spiritedness that has led him to work with a machine-based performance art collective, start his own circus company and choreograph fire dances, as well as gain expertise in molecular resonance imaging and strive to advance knowledge of neurodegenerative diseases.

Arizona is reportedly one of the states in which military police units are preparing to respond to civil unrest — especially any incidents that threaten to erupt into violent confrontations — during the upcoming national election day. Fulton Schools Professor Braden Allenby, whose research includes study of the use of force in military and police operations and the technologies and strategies employed in those cases, comments about the probabilities for a law enforcement response to any election day incidents at polling locations and what such responses might entail. Allenby says that with many people voting early or voting by mail, there may be less of flashpoint for potential conflict on election day — despite the contentious atmosphere during this election season.

A sizable contingent of Fulton Schools students — most in either the mechanical, aerospace or electrical engineering program — has contributed to development of technology to help NASA expand its exploration of the moon. The technology will aid a mission to detect water ice on the moon. Hydrogen contained in the water ice could be used to provide fuel for astronauts on a manned mission to the moon planned for 2024. Many students involved in the project in the past few years have graduated and now work for major technology companies or government science programs. More students are being sought to work on the ASU project.

Effective treatments of the symptoms of autism have long eluded researchers. But studies on bacteria in the human gut in recent years have yielded new knowledge about autism and led to development of a fecal transplant treatment that has shown promise in alleviating some debilitating effects of the developmental disorder. Fulton Schools Professors James Adams and Rosa Krajmalnik-Brown are among engineers and scientists who have contributed to detailed analysis of the human gut microbiome of autism patients and conducted trials that raise hope for deeper discoveries about the causes of autism and how to improve the lives of people afflicted by it.

The advanced technology company Galileo Group reported it has demonstrated the destruction of a live virus and bacteria in a lab setting using key ingredients of its patented smartphone LED system. Paul Westerhoff (pictured) and Morteza Abbaszadegan, Fulton Schools professors of civil, environmental and sustainable engineering, performed the testing on the bacteria and viruses in preparation for demonstrating the effectiveness of surface-based bacteria and virus deactivation process. The new disinfection approach uses Galileo sensors and technology integrated or attached to an average computer tablet or smartphone.

ASU is helping lead the way into “the fourth realm of teaching and learning,” an intertwining of physical and digital worlds that blends virtual and augmented reality to form “extended reality,” or XR. Assistant Professor Robert LiKamWa directs research and design work to advance XR@ASU, aided by students exploring both the technical and creative aspects of bringing ideas for XR-based learning experiences to fruition. Efforts are based at LiKamwa’s Meteor Studio, which draws on resources of the School of Arts, Media and Engineering, a collaborative of the Fulton Schools and ASU’s Herberger Institute of Design and the Arts, as well as the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, one of the six Fulton Schools.

Moleaer, a company that collaborates with ASU researchers in efforts to develop sustainable solutions for the aquaculture industry, announced its discovery that a mixture of oxygen nanobubbles and ultrasound can reduce levels of harmful bacteria in recirculating aquaculture systems. The process can eliminate or reduce waterborne pathogens, biofilms and bacteria, helping to protect aquatic food sources, restore aquatic health and improve water quality. The company credits researchers at ASU with the National Science Foundation Nanosystems Engineering Research Center for Nanotechnology Enabled Water Treatment, or NEWT, for confirming the effectiveness of the new process. Fulton Schools Professor Paul Westerhoff is NEWT’s deputy director and several other Fulton Schools faculty members are involved in the consortium’s work.

The resilience of the internet is being tested daily by the millions of people working or being schooled at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many are finding their internet connections regularly interrupted as a result of the consistently heavy traffic. Fulton Schools Professor Daniel Bliss, director of Center for Wireless Information Systems and Computational Architectures, talks about why and how this is happening, what we can expect to happen as the situation continues, and steps to improve our internet connectivity that may prevent frustrating interruptions in service.

See Also: How to troubleshoot and improve your home Wi-Fi signal,

Christian Armanti says the calming effect of singing along to mariachi music has helped him cope with the stresses of schoolwork. He has, in fact, excelled in his academic pursuits in nothing less than remarkable fashion. This semester, at age 12, he began studies at ASU in the Fulton Schools biomedical engineering program, having already earned an associate’s degree in science in community college, where he met a member of a mariachi band and joined the group. He also plays piano and trumpet, and dances and acts. As the son of parents from Colombia and Venezuela, U.S.-born Armanti has goals beyond becoming a neurosurgeon. He wants to help break down stereotypes of immigrants that can hinder them from striving to achieve educational and career aspirations.

The  International Energy Agency says the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power can’t be accomplished soon enough to meet goals to reduce the threat of  harmful greenhouse gases saturating the Earth’s atmosphere. So, to hit targets to capture and store emissions of dangerous gases such as carbon dioxide from power plants, factories and transportation, efforts are turning to still-developing carbon capture systems. Fulton Schools Professor Klaus Lackner is among the leading inventors of carbon capture technology. He says carbon capture can help achieve a significant drop in the buildup of air pollution caused by trucks, aviation and shipping, but a long-term solution still depends on further development and widespread use of clean and renewable energy.

See also: Radiative Cooling and Carbon Capture: New Technologies For An Overheated World, Clean Technica, October 8

Some engineering classes are among those being taught in person this semester at ASU due the nature of particular courses. But faculty and students are being diligent in adapting to the limitations of gathering in groups in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Students are participating in person twice a week, for a total of six hours, in the chemical engineering lab being taught by Fulton Schools Associate Professor David Nielsen because of the necessity for hands-on lab instruction — which involves use of equipment available only in campus facilities. Nielsen is making adjustments to maintain social distancing and doing some lab experiments virtually when possible. He credits his students for creating a safe environment by being “100% compliant” with precautions like wearing masks and following other guidelines to prevent spread of the coronavirus.

Jean Andino not only exceeded expectations by simply going to college, she earned engineering degrees at two of the leading U.S. universities. The Fulton Schools associate professor of chemical engineering, who is Puerto Rican, is today currently one of  only 15 mainland U.S.-born Hispanic women to earn a tenure or tenure-track engineering faculty position. Andino’s accomplishments have won her prestigious national honors, including a National Science Foundation CAREER Award and a Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers STAR Educator of the Year award. She is especially enthusiastic about her role in ASU’s Hispanic Research Center, which gives her opportunities to spread awareness of the significant contributions of the Hispanic culture.

Use of air-conditioning is increasing as temperatures rise due to climate change, leading to growing demand for energy. Changes in demand in Los Angeles are reported in a study led by ASU researchers, including Mikhail Chester, a Fulton Schools associate professor of civil, environmental and sustainable engineering, and Janet Reyna, a Fulton Schools doctoral graduate now at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. A potential remedy to the problem was addressed by Chester and Reyna in an earlier study in which they recommended “aggressive” energy efficiency measures to offset the impact of growing energy demand for both electricity and natural gas use. Solutions to such challenges are the focus of work at ASU’s Metis Center for Infrastructure and Sustainable Engineering, which is directed by Chester. The MIT Technology Review article that draws on results of these research efforts is updated from its original version published September 1.

The McDowell Sonoran Conservancy tries to keep a close watch on the biological and wildlife activity in the more than 35,000-acre Sonoran Desert open-space preserve it manages within the boundaries of Scottsdale, Arizona. Fulton Schools computer science students Ryan Kemmer, Jerimiah Kent and Michael Umholtz are bringing scientific methodology, artificial intelligence and computer vision technology to that effort. They are exploring ways to accurately monitor the movement of bats from a gated mine on the preserve. That will help them develop a user interface for biologists to keep track of the behavior of the very small and very fast flying mammals. The students’ work is seen as having potential to establish a useful application of computer science to the field of animal biology.

Fulton Schools biomedical engineering student Angel Palazuelos has a long list of career aspirations. Beyond work as an engineer, the first-year student wants to go to law school, start a scholarship program and become a community advocate for higher education opportunities for others. Palazuelos has faced his own challenges in pursuing a college education as an undocumented student, having to overcome a lack of support and resources for those in his situation. But Palazuelos says the experience is making him more resilient and reinforcing his determination to help other students confronted by similar obstacles. 

Our ingrained “seeing is believing” mindset needs to change in this age of the ever-expanding capabilities of artificial intelligence technology. Visual images of all kinds can today be created and manipulated by AI, making it difficult to discern with the naked eye what is real and what is not, says Subbarao Kambhampati, a Fulton Schools professor of computer science and an AI researcher. AI advances are enabling computers to depict people and scenarios that don’t exist or are heavily altered from reality — the so-called “deep fakes” that can be used to perpetrate consumer scams or produce misleading political propaganda. On the positive aide, Kambhampati says, new AI tech itself could help us better detect fake images. For example, the AI Foundation is developing the Reality Defender project to respond to the impact of deep fakes on democracy. Read more.

Two new science and engineering centers at ASU’s Biodesign Institute, along with a new lab, are expanding the university’s range of research pursuits. Among them is the Biodesign Center for Health Through Microbiomes, directed by Rosa Krajmalnik-Brown, a Fulton Schools Professor of environmental engineering. The center will explore potential microbial-based therapies for diseases such as colon cancer, autism, diabetes, obesity, irritable bowel syndrome and others. Working with fellow Fulton Schools Professor James Adams, Krajmalnik-Brown has already advanced research on the management of symptoms of autism and gastrointestinal disorders through microbiota transplant therapy.

With the COVID-19 pandemic keeping many people at home to work, participate in virtual schooling and socialize via the internet, maintaining a strong Wi-Fi signal is critical. Fulton Schools Professor Daniel Bliss (at left in photo), director of ASU’s Center for Wireless Information Systems and Computational Architectures, gives instruction on how to keep your Wi-Fi signal strong. He offers directions for how to prevent losing Wi-Fi connections, how to solve common problems and extending the reach of wireless networks.

The School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, one of the six Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at ASU, was given more than $376,000 to continue their water efficiency project that began in 2018. Assistant research professor Mackenzie Boyer says when a company wants to switch out one flavored product for another they want to know how much water is needed to efficiently and effectively wash out the tank. “If you have a strong coffee in a coffee cup, and you try to wash it out, there will be more of that residual flavor left in your somewhat washed out coffee cup. But if you had a weak tea, then it’s a lot easier to get rid of that flavor,” Boyer said.

Following a successful FedEx Cessna 208 Caravan test flight with no pilot aboard in late June, FedEx CEO Fred Smith announced to shareholders that the company is working with Reliable Robotics to use small, fully automated, self-flying cargo planes to deliver cargo to remote areas. The technology will likely take decades to replace humans in large freighters. Daniel Bliss, an electrical engineering professor at ASU whose areas of expertise include increasing computational efficiency and advanced communications and navigation systems, is currently working with Europe’s Airbus to design a navigation and positioning system designed to ultimately be used for autonomous flight.

ASU researchers produced one of the first FDA-approved saliva tests to detect infection by the COVID-19 virus. They have followed up that achievement by developing a portable device that produces test results in as few as 20 minutes. The research team includes Jennifer Blain Christen, a Fulton Schools associate professor of electrical, computer and energy engineering. Christen specializes in handheld systems for thermal control and rapid optical readouts of test results. She says the team’s goal was to not only make the diagnostic tool as effective as possible but also to ensure the test is affordable.

Silicone hydrogel enables contact lenses to be softer and provide more comfort for wearers. Soft contacts are also a popular choice because shorter wear times help reduce infection and other related health risks. But the large amounts of soft contacts that are disposed of by being flushed down drains are adding dramatically to plastics pollution that threatens the environment. Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden, director of ASU’s Biodesign Center for Environmental Health Engineering, postdoctoral researcher scholar Charles Rolsky and graduate research assistant Varun Kelkar did one of the first studies to confirm the scope of the problem and its significantly detrimental consequences.

In USA Today’s Homeland Security Special Edition, Fulton Schools Assistant Professor Adam Doupé (center in photo) points to ASU’s Center for Cybersecurity and Digital Forensics, based in the Fulton Schools, for training students not only in highly technical computer science but also in the legal, economic and psychological aspects of cybersecurity. Doupé, the center’s associate director, says students get a broad, cross-disciplinary education — helping the center fulfill its role as one of the National Centers of Academic Excellence designated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the National Security Agency. The article begins on page 73 of the special edition.

 The Research For Inclusive STEM Education Center, a new ASU research center created this year to help forge a more inclusive STEM education for students, aims to achieve that goal through the undergraduate experience within science, technology, engineering and math. The center examines inequities within classrooms, research labs and learning environments to create interventions. RISE looks at identities beyond race and gender within STEM education. Kristen Parrish, an associate professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment in the Fulton Schools and the associate director of the center, said creating change in STEM leads to change in the university.

Temperatures in Phoenix are around 102 degrees outside, and pool water temperature can be 80 degrees, but for some, it feels too cold to go swimming. Thermal perception is the temperature “felt” by the body, regardless of what the thermometer reads, said Robert Wang, an associate professor in Arizona State University’s School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy. It varies from person to person, which explains why couples argue about where to set the thermostat.

A second-year student in the Fulton Schools has created a contact-prevention multitool to slow the spread of COVID-19. The Coronavirus Multitool, created by mechanical engineering student Benjamin Voller-Brown, helps reduce indirect transmission by limiting the amount of public surfaces people touch. Each tool is 3D printed from polylactic acid.

The opening of new rail lines in the Denver metro area marks the latest expansion of a major commuter transit system — a project well over a decade in the making. Opening new lines during a decrease in ridership due to the COVID-19 pandemic is presenting challenges for the system. But Fulton Schools Professor Ram Pendyala is among transportation engineers and public transit experts who say Denver’s project will prove its value over time. Despite other forms a mobility arising and a growing work-from-home trend, there are plenty of workers and others who will benefit from the rail line, says Pendyala, who is director of the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, one of the six Fulton Schools.

In a recent survey by the talent company SHL, Arizona State University ranked No. 6 out of 10 public and private universities in the U.S. in technology-sector hires, with 8,320 graduates now working at some of the largest tech companies across the country, including Amazon and Apple. ASU outranked Carnegie Mellon University; Georgia Institute of Technology; University of California, Los Angeles; and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

DNA is like a molecular vault that stores the intricate design blueprints for life on Earth. A group of ASU researchers whose combined expertise encompasses biology, chemistry, physics, materials science and engineering are exploring DNA’s capacity to carry information as a model for developing microscopic forms that can encrypt, store and retrieve information as effectively as the most advanced silicon-based semiconductor computer memories. A key member of the team is Chao Wang (pictured), a Fulton Schools assistant professor of electrical, computer and energy engineering whose research focuses on bridging nanoscience and biotechnology.

Cities should provide more “engineered shade” to improve the livability of their neighborhoods and public spaces, says Ariane Middel, a Fulton Schools assistant professor and urban climate researcher. With mobile heat-sensing and measuring technology Middel designed and built, she recently compared ambient temperatures in diverse areas of Phoenix. In places where homeless people tend to camp or working-class people live there is a significant lack of shade compared to affluent neighborhoods where there are often tree-lined streets and much better shaded surroundings. Those contrasts can make a big difference in temperatures and comfort levels of the local climate, Middel says. As part of its community sustainability efforts, the city of Phoenix has been prioritizing tree planting in vulnerable areas.

See Also: ‘Shadow hunter’: ASU climatologist helps others find shade from Arizona sun, 3TV/CBS 5 News-Phoenix

Work on a project funded by a NASA science education program has Fulton Schools mechanical engineering student Jessica Frantz setting her sights on contributing to space exploration missions in the future. Frantz says she’s gotten valuable experience as a part of team that has built instruments that have been attached to a high-altitude balloon to evaluate the health of Arizona’s desert vegetation. The project has brought challenges, but also given Frantz and her research team members confidence in their abilities to solve problems. She plans to pursue a career in aerospace.

Wearable robotics are becoming more of a normal part of the work environment in a variety of businesses and industries. At construction sites, in manufacturing operations and industrial plants, wearable robotics are helping workers do heavy lifting, reduce the impact of repetitive motions and improve worker safety. So-called robotic “industrial exoskeletons” are especially popular, says Fulton School Professor Tom Sugar, who is director of science and technology for the Wearable Robotics Association. Most importantly, Sugar adds, robotics are enabling people do their work with less physically strenuous efforts and thereby reducing risks of pain, injury and other debilitating health problems.

It’s estimated that tens of millions of contact lenses wearers are disposing of their old lenses by flushing them down drains. That adds up to about 90,000 pounds of contact lenses each year, which is adding significantly to growing amounts of microplastics pollution. Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden and two researchers in his lab, doctoral student Varun Kelkar and postdoctoral researcher Charles Rolsky, say the lenses break down to become part of the many tons of plastics finding their way into the environment and posing potential health risks to people and animal life.

Rosa Krajmalnik-Brown’s research is helping to produce renewable bioenergy, develop ways to improve human health, advance treatment for children with autism and eliminate environmental contaminants. The Fulton Schools professor’s accomplishments have earned her the Arizona Bioscience Researcher or the Year Award from AZBio, an organization that works to build Arizona’s bioscience industry. Krajmalnik-Brown, who directs ASU’s new Biodesign Center for Health Through Microbiomes, is contributing potential solutions to some of the most challenging problems in environmental engineering and science, says AZBIO’s president and CEO.

Plastics pollution has become a major global problem, with plastics waste spread throughout vast swaths of the planet, especially oceans. Recent research shows small bits of plastics are even finding their way into humans, with possible detrimental effects on the body’s organs and tissues. ASU’s Center for Environmental Heath Engineering, directed by Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden, has been at the forefront of studies of plastics pollution and its impacts. In a recent interview, Halden, joined by Fulton Schools environmental engineering doctoral student Varun Kelkar and postdoctoral research Charles Rolsky — who also is the director of science in North America for Plastic Oceans International — provide details on what we know about the scope of the problem, what more we need to learn and what we can do to reduce the risks it poses.

Advances in fiber-reinforced pavement materials are expected from an expanded collaboration between a leading pavements industry company and Fulton Schools researchers. Professor Kamil Kaloush will have a key role in the effort through his role in the newly established FORTA Professorship position at ASU. Kaloush and other ASU researchers have worked with the FORTA Corporation for more than decade to develop more durable and versatile pavements. That success has spurred further investment by FORTA to fund the professorship and conduct more research at ASU. Kaloush, the chair of the International Road Federation Committee on Sustainable Pavements, will continue his work bringing together researchers, industry and government leaders to make road travel safer and roadways more resilient. Read more.

See Also: IRF members partner on asphalt pavement engineering research, World Highways, October 16

Fulton Schools electrical engineering graduate student John Patterson (pictured) and undergraduate mechanical engineering undergraduate Katie Pascavis are among members of an ASU Luminosity Lab team developing methods of sterilizing personal protective equipment people are using to avoid the health risks posed by the COVID-19 disease. The project is producing protective face masks that remain effective for longer periods of time than standard surgical face coverings, Patterson says. Pascavis says the masks can be especially helpful in schools and for businesses that don’t have access to large supplies of protective equipment. The lab team has developed an ozone system designed to be used in dormitories and other communal spaces for sanitizing various materials.

Blue hydrogen, produced from natural gas through the process of steam methane reformation, is one of only a few methods that help make the industrial production of hydrogen a little cleaner — though it still falls short of the zero-emission or “green” hydrogen made using renewable power and electrolyzers. But a startup company claims to have made a technical breakthrough that enables making blue hydrogen less expensively and with significantly fewer carbon emissions. Ryan Milcarek, a Fulton Schools assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, has examined the technology. He deems it a promising technique for providing an alternative pathway to generating hydrogen in a less environmentally detrimental way than existing technologies. The technology has been tested at ASU and is now undergoing testing by the U. S. Department of Energy.

Engineering and construction educators are stepping up to challenges raised by the COVID-19 pandemic — specifically the closing down of many in-person classes. They are devising multiple ways to create productive learning environments through use of online, virtual and hybrid remote instruction resources. Anthony Lamanna, program chair in the Fulton Schools Del E. Webb School of Construction, says these alternative educational paths are well-suited to preparing students for careers in a range of construction and related engineering industries. Many of the tech-based teaching scenarios that have been developed in response to COVID-19 seem likely to be continued even after the pandemic subsides, Lamanna says.

With a heat-sensing robot she designed and built, Ariane Middel gathers data to gain detailed knowledge about the impacts of heat on the urban environment. Middel, a climate scientist and assistant professor in the Fulton Schools, is working with communities to fight off the extreme heat that is becoming a more frequent condition in many densely urbanized regions. Middel has focused in part on ways cities can create shade to maintain comfort levels for people. But she and other experts say more intense engineered heat mitigation efforts will be needed as climate change continues to turn up the heat in more places around the world.

See Also: Facing killer heat during a pandemic, ASU NOW, September 3

ASU is adding a significant number of new undergraduate and graduate degree programs to its educational offerings, including new majors, minors and certification programs. Many are concentrating on the STEM fields — science, technology, engineering and math. They include a Fulton Schools master of science degree program in modern energy production and sustainable use. Another is an interdisciplinary master’s of science degree program in innovation and venture development, a joint effort involving the Fulton Schools, ASU’s Herberger Institute of Design and the Arts and W. P. Carey School of Business. The program will focus on giving students experience-based learning in creating business ventures.

See Also: New graduate programs unveiled at ASU’s Innovation Open launch begin, The State Press, September 8

Extreme heat this summer is putting stress on electrical powers grids in some regions of the United States. But the bigger problem is increasing long-term impacts of global warming. Fulton Schools Associate Professor Mikhail Chester points out that many electrical grids were built decades ago and are not designed to cope with the environment we have today. That means both energy generation and distribution are likely to be hampered by the changing climate. Chester and other experts in his field say there’s an urgent need to figure out how to re-engineer the grid to be more resilient even as the climate becomes more unstable.

In a look at recent technological advances that could help the world implement more practices to sustain a healthy environment and clean up those that are threatened by the results of unsustainable human actions. The potential solutions include the carbon capture systems like those being developed by ASU’s Center for Negative Carbon Emissions, directed by Fulton Schools Professor Klaus Lackner. Those systems are able to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which would help reduce the accumulations of greenhouse gases that contribute to the environmental harm done by global warming.

Research led by Trevor Thornton, a Fulton Schools professor of electrical, computer and energy engineering, gave rise to the National Nanotechnology Collaborative Infrastructure Southwest to explore the frontiers of nanoscience and engineering. The endeavor is now expanding with a recent National Science Foundation grant enabling ASU researchers to team with colleagues at Northern Arizona University. The next-generation initiative brings world-class expertise in theoretical and experimental quantum and soft/biological nanomaterials to the collaborative’s pursuit of nanotechnology innovations.

A serious health risk may be growing in water inside pipes in buildings that have been closed as businesses were shut down because of the COVID-19 pandemic — especially restaurants, bars and gyms. Disease-causing microorganisms could be breeding in such stagnant water, says Kerry Hamilton, a Fulton Schools assistant professor who does research in ASU’s Center for Environmental Health Engineering. Hamilton has coauthored a report with colleagues at Purdue University, a project funded by the National Science Foundation, to address challenges assessing water conditions in buildings that have been vacant for long periods and recommending best practices to restore water quality.

See Also: Buildings Reopening After Coronavirus May Face Tainted Water Systems, KJZZ (NPR), September 1

Higher than normal summer temperatures in much of Arizona are a key factor in the recent rise in demand for electrical power. So far, utility companies are able to keep up, primarily because electricity in the state is generated through a mix of sources — nuclear and hydroelectric power, coal, natural gas and some solar power. Fulton Schools Professor Vijay Vittal, a power systems expert, explains how the array of power systems are managed to help prevent shortages and potential blackouts. Generation, transmission and distribution of electricity is closely coordinated to help maintain an adequate supply of power. Still, Vittal points out, events such as wildfires and a surge in the use of residential power because of the COVID-19 pandemic can put stresses on the systems and threaten the smooth functioning of power grids.

ASU’s Center for Environmental Health Engineering, directed by Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden, is among the research groups leading the way in developing wastewater analysis techniques that are helping communities around the world to detect the spread of COVID-19. The detection method has particularly aided the United States, where COVID-19 testing and test results have lagged behind some other countries.

Read more: ASU scientists searching sewers for traces of COVID-19

Previous studies have found microplastics in the oceans and the air, on land, in food and in marine animals. But a new study from ASU’s Center for Environmental Health Engineering, directed by Fulton Schools Professor Ralph Halden, indicates human organs and tissues can also absorb microplastics and nanoplastics. Halden says the center’s researchers intend to develop a plastics exposure database as a tool for further studies to compare exposures to these plastics in groups of people over time and in different places. Graduate research assistant and co-author of the study Varun Kelkar says the next step is to conduct epidemiology studies to assess if there are any significant health risks posed by accumulations of the non-biodegradable plastics in human body’s tissues.

See Also: Scientists Can Now Detect Microplastics in Human Organs & Tissues, Green Queen, August 27

Oh Great, Scientists Are Now Finding Traces of Plastic in Human Flesh, Vice News, August 25

Microplastics Found in Human Organs for First Time, EcoWatch, August 18

Plastic Component Found In Human Organs, Forbes, August 18

Microplastic particles now discoverable in human organs, The Guardian, August 17

Scientists find microplastics inside human organs, Futurism, August 17

Study of human tissues finds plastic particles in every sample, New Altas, August 17

Tiny particles of plastic have been found inside human organs, METRO (United Kingdom), August 18

As the use of plastics has proliferated in the modern world of manufactured materials, tens of thousands of tiny particles called microplastics often find their way into our bodies each year. So, scientists are trying to find out how much microplastic stays in our vital organs and what long-term health impacts that might potentially have. To do that, they’ve created a tool to accurately measure the mass and volume of plastic particles in human tissue — providing a standard metric that researchers can use to compare findings, says Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden, director of ASU’s Center for Environmental Health Engineering. In related work, two graduate students working under Halden have presented their findings on how nano and microplastics can be recovered from the body.

See Also: Researchers Discover Microplastic Trapped in Human Organs: Liver, Lungs, and Spleen, Tech Times, August 17

Microplastic pollution is found in human organs and scientists fear the tiny particles could increase the risk of infertility and cancer, Daily Mail, August 17

Researchers find microplastics in every human tissue studied, Science Focus (BBC Focus Magazine), August 17

Autopsies Show Microplastics in All Major Human Organs, MedicineNet and Health Today, August 17

Two climate researchers provide a guide to the hottest and coolest places on ASU’s Tempe campus as the fall semester opens amid a late summer heat wave. Ariane Middel (pictured) and Scott Krayenhoff, affiliates of ASU’s Urban Climate Research Center, did a three-year study to determine where the campus environment offers the most respite from the heat. It’s all about the shade, says Middel, whose research is aided by a mobile weather station she created to measure radiant heat outdoors. She found the formula for coolness on campus terrain is grassy areas well-shaded by trees. Middel is an assistant professor in the Fulton Schools with a joint appointment in the School of Arts, Media and Engineering. Krayenhoff is an assistant professor of environmental sciences at the University of Guelph in Canada. (The report is a recent update of an article originally published in 2019.)

Solar panel technology will have an important role as a renewable energy source that can help prevent bigger waves of climate change. But one drawback already beginning to arise is the electronic waste produced when those panels exceed their productive lifespans. Meng Tao, a Fulton Schools professor of electrical, computer and energy engineering, says those used-up panels will someday become close to 80 million metric tons of solar energy tech waste. A vast recycling plan for solar panels is imperative to prevent having to dispose of them in already overloaded landfills, Tao says. He recently co-authored a research journal review paper about recycling of silicon solar modules. The article is also published in WIRED and Mother Jones.

Debilitating symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease can be eased through inserting electrodes into an area of the brain that plays a central role in enabling the body’s movement. The discovery results from research by Bradley Greger, a neuroscientist and Full Schools associate professor of biomedical engineering, in collaboration with Francisco Ponce, a neurosurgeon with the Barrow Neurological Institute. The patient involved in the research project and his family are sharing their experiences as he goes through the procedure to provide information about the value of the medical procedure and the research to others with Parkinson’s Disease.

Lack of basic safeguards for storing hazardous materials appears to have been the major contributing factor in the recent explosive blasts resulting in death and destruction in Beirut, Lebanon. Professor Kiril Hristovski, chair of the Fulton Schools Environmental and Resources Management program and a hazardous materials management expert, gives his assessment of conditions that likely led to triggering the ammonium nitrate explosion. Hristovsky says the United States has thorough regulations to guide safe practices in storing and managing explosives materials — rules that it seems apparent were not followed in Beirut.

Only several years after graduating from ASU with a degree in electrical engineering, Melinda Tam started an electrical, instrumentation and controls engineering firm. Fifteen years later, the company had more than 100 employees and four offices across the United States. She has been focusing on helping clients develop technology to transform field data into intelligent information for utility operations, maintenance and management in the water industry. That work involves making advances in the digital transformation field to help clients overcome security challenges brought on by the rapid growth in digital technology. In an interview, she delves into details about the acceleration of digital transformation endeavors and the race to secure them against cyber threats.

A fast-changing climate is poised to become a significant problem plaguing public infrastructure in the United States — including a big threat to make our driving experiences more aggravating. Mikhail Chester, Fulton Schools associate professor of civil, environmental and sustainable engineering and co-leader of the Urban Resilience to Extremes Sustainability Research Network, says many of the country’s roadways are not designed to recover from the environmental stresses that a changing climate and its extreme weather events can inflict. Power lines, bridges, sewers and dams are also in danger of being damaged by the frequency and intensity of such events likely to be driven by new normal in our climate situation.

As COVID-19 spread around the world, health organizations, governments and disease experts encouraged frequent and vigorous hand washing to protect against the coronavirus infection. Demand shot up for antibacterial soaps, sanitizers and disinfectants. But some have raised concerns about the possible negative effects of that preventative action — particularly skin irritation and sensitivity, as well as developing a resistance to antibacterial products. Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden, an environmental health engineer, points to risks posed by some antimicrobial chemicals used in disinfectants, cleaning and personal care products that could do harm to people and the environment.

As ASU prepares to begin fall semester classes in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, logistics are being worked out to enable students, faculty and staff to maintain social distancing on campus to prevent the spread of the coronavirus infection. A Fulton Schools summer session chemical engineering lab that has made the transition back to in-person instruction is providing an example of putting those plans into action. Fulton Schools Lecturer Michael Machas, who is teaching the lab course, says the many precautions put in place in the lab space have eased his initial concerns about the in-person course presenting a health risk. Given all the protective measures being taken, some students say the lab environment might be one of the safest places they could be during the pandemic.

Arizona’s hot summer temperatures cause liquid materials to evaporate quickly, says Fulton Schools Associate Professor Kiril Hristovski. That could help reduce the risk from combustible chemicals that spilled from train cars in a recent train derailment and bridge collapse at Tempe Town Lake near ASU, says Hristovski, chair of the Fulton Schools Environmental and Resource Management program. He also notes that these chemicals are biodegradable, which would enable microorganisms that live in soil to use the chemicals as a food source. The spilled substances however, are toxic in water, he adds.

See Also: Overall Number Of Train Accidents Down In Arizona And The U.S., KJZZ (NPR), August 7

The death of Fulton Schools Professor Junseok Chae — recently confirmed to have been the victim of a homicide — has inspired tributes and a memorial fund to honor the memory of an admired teacher and accomplished researcher. A professor of electrical engineering, computer and energy engineering who for a time served as the Fulton Schools associate dean of research, Chae’s work involved collaborations with many ASU faculty members and administrators, as well as students involved in research. The university plans to use contributions to Chae’s memorial fund to benefit students through tuition and training assistance, support to attend conferences and providing research equipment.

Researchers at leading universities in Mexico are among those around the world adopting methods of detecting the spread of COVID-19 that have become a major focus of work in ASU’s Biodesign Center for Environmental Health Engineering. Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden (center in photo), the center’s director, and Associate Research Scientist Erin Driver (at right) are leaders in wastewater epidemiology, which involves analyzing wastewater to detect signs of community health risks, including levels of COVID-19 infection. A related technique, called sewage metrology is also being used to reveal the genetic indicators of the coronavirus in the materials found in wastewater. (Note: Using the Google Chrome browser gives readers the option to see a version of this article translated into English.)

Two of the train cars involved in a recent bridge collapse, train derailment and fire on a railway bridge over Tempe Town Lake contained toxic chemicals. In the wake of the accident, Kiril Hristovski, a Fulton Schools associate professor and chair of the Environmental and Resource Management program, talks about challenges involved in hazardous materials transport and handling of toxic materials. First responders to the railway destruction in Tempe did a professional job, keeping a dangerous situation from becoming more serious, Hristovski says. But he adds that the potential for such situations to quickly become more threatening to people and property make it imperative for all possible precautionary measures to be put into effect to prevent such incidents from happening.

A multi-university research enterprise being established by the U.S. Department of Energy to develop and more sustainable and resilient electricity grids will be based at ASU. The Energy Frontier Research Center will be led by Stephen Goodnick, a Fulton Schools professor electrical engineering and Robert Nemanich, an ASU Regents Professor of physics. They will coordinate work with colleagues at seven other major research universities to take on some of the toughest scientific and engineering challenges that are impeding progress in advancing energy technologies. Goodnick and Nemanich say one major focus will be on the use of next-generation materials to improve the performance of semiconductors systems.

One major college guide publication ranks Arizona State University as one of the best of the more affordable leading public universities. The Fisk Guide to College cites ASU for its innovative approaches to higher education and research, identifying several particularly strong academic programs — including the Fulton Schools engineering degree programs — among the offerings in the university’s 16 colleges and schools. ASU overall is touted for being a “national model of how to navigate the emerging demographics of U.S. higher education.”

Beyond determining precisely what led to the recent train derailment, bridge collapse and resulting fire on the Union Pacific Salt River Bridge over Tempe Town Lake near ASU, other questions must be answered about the impacts of the incident to adequately assess how to effectively repair and rebuild the damaged sections of the bridge and the rail line. Fulton Schools engineers point to many technical considerations that must be taken into account to guide restoration of the structure, particularly the replacement of steel, concrete and other construction materials that will be necessary. One thing is certain, the engineers say, railway bridges are critical links in the country’s freight transportation network and any prolonged delay in their repair is disruptive to businesses and communities that rely on what railways deliver.

See Also: ASU engineers look at possible reasons for Tempe rail bridge collapse, 3TV/CBS News 5-Phoenix, July 31

Tempe Fire: Workers injured during train derailment cleanup effort over Tempe Town Lake, Fox 10 News-Phoenix, July 31

Train derails, causing fire and partial Tempe Town Lake bridge collapse, ABC 15 News-Phoenix, July 29

NBC News 12-Phoenix

Carbon capture technology is a promising tool for efforts to reduce the buildup of environmentally harmful carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere. One leading example of the technology is the Mechanical Tree developed by Fulton Schools Professor Klaus Lackner and his team at ASU’s Center for Negative Carbon Emissions. His recent research has revealed how sorbent materials can capture and release carbon, which is a key capability of all air capture systems. In a new research paper, he and three colleagues explain precisely how sorbent materials ­capture and release carbon. That discovery could lead to better designs for carbon capturing sorbent materials and be used to improve the performance of Lackner’s Mechanical Tree systems.

Flames and thick black smoke billowed into sky at Tempe Town Lake near ASU when a freight train derailment and bridge collapse ignited a fire on a section of the railway bridge over the lake. Some of the train cars contained toxic and flammable material. For comment about the impacts and aftermath of the damage, reporters sought out Anthony Lamanna, associate professor and undergraduate program chair for construction management in the Fulton Schools Del E. Webb School of Construction. Lamanna commented on factors that are likely to be examined in an investigation of the derailment and the fire. Lamanna, whose expertise includes bridge assessment, strengthening and repair, said it must be determined if the train derailment caused the bridge collapse or a bridge collapse caused the derailment.

See Also: Investigators working to find cause of train derailment, bridge collapse in Tempe, 3 TV/CBS 5 News-Phoenix, July 29

Scientists say monitoring of urban wastewater could improve surveillance systems for detecting COVID-19 and other pathogens —disease-causing bacteria, viruses or other microorganisms. Various studies around the world are showing that genetic traces of the SARS-CoV-2 pathogen in wastewater indicate trends in the spread of COVID-19. Among those carrying out significant wastewater monitoring projects is Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden and his research team at ASU’s Center for Environmental Health Engineering. The team is leading a wastewater surveillance program for the city of Tempe. Halden says the monitoring can’t reveal precise numbers of infected individuals within a specific geographical area, but can provide general assessments of whether disease rates in particular areas are falling or rising.

With much of its ground surface covered in concrete, asphalt and similar pavement materials, Phoenix offers a prime example of the urban heat island effect — which produces persistent and uncomfortably high temperatures in the metropolitan area, especially in summer. The city is now embarking on a Cool Pavement Pilot Program to attempt to prevent the heat buildup on streets and other paved expanses. Experts in ASU’s Urban Climate Research Center, including Fulton Schools Assistance Professor Ariane Middel, are among engineering and science consultants for the project. Reducing the heat buildup would also help to save money on electric bills and cut down on air pollution from greenhouse gas emissions, Middel says. The articles was also published in the Daily Independent.

See Also: How Reflective Paint Can Combat The Urban Heat Island Effect, KJZZ News (NPR), July 24 (an interviewwith Ariane Middel)

ASU’s Skysong Innovations team is helping many of the university’s leading researchers to put their creativity and technological skills to work helping to solve some of the world’s most pressing challenges. Among them are Fulton Schools faculty members. Cody Friesen, associate professor of materials science and engineering, is helping to bring clean water to communities around the world through his Zero Mass Water startup. Jennifer Blain Christen, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, is working with a multidisciplinary team of ASU researchers to develop a novel diagnostic for the COVID-19 disease. Klaus Lackner, a physicist and professor of civil, environmental and sustainable engineering, is leading research at his Center for Negative Carbon Emissions to develop carbon-capture technologies to remove dangerous greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

Researchers conjecture that a strong immune system may provide individuals some defense against COVID-19 — and one way to maintain a healthy immune system is by avoiding a vitamin D deficiency. James Adams, a Fulton Schools professor of materials science and engineering, is among those who are leading research to discover if vitamin D supplements can help prevent infection by the novel coronavirus or even help in recovery from the disease. Adams is heading a preliminary study of vitamin D in COVID-19 patients in conjunction with the Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine. It’s not clear if vitamin D deficiency causes severe COVID-19 symptoms, or if the deficiency is another symptom of the disease, Adams says. But he is hoping research reveals whether vitamin D has a potential as supplemental treatment for COVID in conjunction with drugs or vaccines.

In his new job as director of the National Science Foundation, Fulton Schools Professor Sethuraman Panchanathan foresees the agency putting multiple goals on its list of priorities under his leadership. More medical and health research, helping to boost breakthroughs in technologies such as artificial intelligence, and supporting advances in quantum information science, wireless communications and synthetic biology are on that list. There’s also strengthening productive scientific relationships with other countries and with industry. Panchanathan sees the United States continuing to make investment in science innovation one of its most important national priorities. Panchathan is on leave from his education and research leadership positions at ASU while serving as the NSF’s director.

A sewage-testing program in Tempe, Arizona, led by Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden and his research team at ASU’s Center for Environmental Health Engineering is drawing interest from communities around the United States. The testing program is revealing information about the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in Tempe and helping guide city officials in taking steps to control outbreaks of the coronavirus infection. After several months of testing, the results show the monitoring program is effective. Halden says the same kind of effort could be implemented in more tan 100,000 wastewater treatment facilities worldwide if sufficient resources are invested in testing.

See Also: Testing wastewater could be next clue in fighting coronavirus, Fox17 News (Nashville), July 16

Mary Sue Coleman, president of the Association of American Universities, says the United States faces formidable national security, economic and social justice challenges. Coleman writes in an editorial that aiding progress in those areas should be a priority for Sethuraman Panchanathan (pictured), the Fulton Schools professor who is on leave from his ASU leadership roles to serve as the director of the National Science Foundation. The country can benefit from a deeper public understanding of the value of science and engineering, more diversity in the science and engineering workforce, and ways to more efficiently move innovative research advances into the marketplace, Coleman says. She urges Panchanathan to become one of the nation’s leading advocates for such causes.

Mix the expanding capabilities of powerful technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning with increasing access to far-reaching communications platforms. Combine those factors with a lot of people persistently and craftily working to create and control the political and social narratives that shape public viewpoints. That’s a recipe for “fake news” to proliferate and thrive. Huan Liu, a Fulton Schools professor of computer science and engineering, and computer science doctoral student Kai Shu, are among experts working to develop defenses against the growing pervasiveness of false narratives that are sowing divisiveness into today’s world. In an interview, they discuss the complexities of the fake news environment and the challenges of helping people discern what’s real from what’s not.

See Also: Fake news spotter under development at ASU, EdScoop, July 17

New research is revealing data that can provide early warning signals of potentially catastrophic weather events and climate trends, particularly severe heat waves and global warming. The methods to detect and track the warning signs to enable such predictive capabilities are the work of Zhihua Wang, a Fulton Schools associate professor whose expertise includes climate modeling and land-atmospheric interactions, and Chenghao Wang, a former ASU research scientist now at the Department of Earth System Science at Stanford University. The researchers say the methods are applicable for predicting extreme weather events within the next few days or weeks and also forecasting meteorological and climate trends over coming decades or even longer. The article also appears in the Eurasia Review, TDnews and Phys.org.

See Also: Climate change: Scientists look at 20th century data, heat extremes for early-warning signals, Down To Earth, July 16 

Food cooked with microwave radiation generally poses little risk to people’s health. But microwaving food in plastic containers might lead to significant problems. Some research has shown that some foods will lose a good portion of their nutritional value and their antioxidant benefits. Other studies suggest certain risks from cooking starchy foods in microwaves.  The big threat, however, appears to be what could happen when the food is cooked in plastic containers, says Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden, director of ASU’s Center for Environmental Health Engineering. Certain chemicals from the containers have been shown to seep into the food — chemicals that might disrupt the healthy functioning of the body’s hormones and overall metabolism.

The Arabian Desert might be one of the last places to come to mind as a potential source for drinking water. But Zero Mass Water, a startup founded by Cody Friesen, a Fulton Schools associate professor of materials science and engineering, may change that notion. The company plans to put its renewable energy based system into operation in the United Arab Emirates. The system powered by solar energy draws moisture from the air to produce clean water. The facility the company is building near the city of Dubai could offer a model for other dry desert regions to produce drinking water in sustainable ways. Friesen also wants to start using Zero Mass Water’s capabilities to provide water for agricultural uses. (The article was also published in The Economic Times and the Bangkok Post.)

Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden is interviewed about the work of his research team at ASU Biodesign Institute‘s Center for Environmental Health Engineering that is giving communities an assessment of the levels of infection from the COVID-19 virus among the local populace. Researchers are doing this by chemical monitoring of the contents of wastewater, which Halden calls an “information super highway” that is providing accurate and valuable data about the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Wastewater samples contain all the bodily fluids and other substances physicians examine to diagnose individuals’ health, Halden says, so “the sewage doesn’t lie.”

See Also: Tempe using wastewater data to increase outreach, COVID-19 testing in parts of north Tempe, Arizona Republic, July 13

A team of ASU faculty members will conduct a year-long research project to assess the thermal impacts of new “cool pavements” on reducing the urban heat island effect in Phoenix. Fulton Schools Assistant Professor Ariane Middel and Professor Kamil Kaloush are on the team. Common pavement materials absorb heat in the daytime and release it at night. In Phoenix’s desert climate that can boost night-time temperatures more than 20 degrees, making paved areas especially uncomfortable. The researchers will help Phoenix officials measure the performance of the cool pavements in reducing that heat-radiating effect. School of Sustainability Assistant Professor Jennifer Vanos and School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning Professor David Sailor and Assistant Professor David Hondula are also on the research team.

See Also: ‘Cool Pavement’ Coming Soon To Some Phoenix Neighborhoods, KJZZ (NPR), July 19

The world wide web and the internet have often been touted as impartial appraisers of information — and therefore reliable sources on which to base informed, objective decision making. But problems have arisen with the use of artificial intelligence systems used to gather and assess information from the web and the internet. Often, what AI provides reflects many ingrained societal biases, writes Fulton Schools Professor Subbarao Kambhampati, a leader of major AI organizations and one of the experts who started the Conference on AI, Ethics and Society. Today, reining in such harmful biases is among the most urgent tasks in managing the risks of data-driven AI technology, Kambhampati says. One the positive side, many research institutions, corporations and governments are aware of the problem and appear willing to help solve it.

Among academic programs that made substantial gains in the recent Global Ranking of Academic Subjects was the Fulton Schools environmental science and engineering program, which finished 10^th — up from 39^th in 2019. Cutting-edge research that is contributing to public health, protecting the environment and development of solutions to the impacts of climate change have elevated the reputation of the program, says Professor Ram Pendyala, director of the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, one of the six Fulton Schools. The Global Ranking rates more than 4,000 universities on 54 areas study.

Beyond its life-threatening physical toll, the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting the mental health of many people. The National Science Foundation is supporting ASU researchers in exploring how the disease is affecting individuals’ emotional well-being and impacting their behavior. Among the research team members is D. Vaughan Becker, a Fulton Schools associate professor human systems engineering. Becker will join his colleagues to investigate how the pandemic might be spawning different societal prejudices, ideologies and viewpoints on public policies. The hope is that the research will help government leaders, corporations, institutions and the general populace learn how to better respond to and cope with psychological ramifications of the COVID-19 crises.

One of the engineering world’s most valuable contributions to clothing design and innovation could be the kinds of attire being conceived through research led by Konrad Rykaczewski, a Fulton Schools associate professor of mechanical engineering. The water-absorbing cooling vests he is developing show promise for leading to clothes that will enable wearers to better withstand the hot summer temperatures in places such as Phoenix and the surrounding desert environs in southern Arizona. Rykaczewski hopes to produce clothing that will especially protect people who work outdoors. At right is one of Rykaczewski’s vests shown in an infrared photograph that demonstrates its evaporative cooling capability.

As it prepares to reopen schools in the midst of the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, the city of Palm Coast is turning to Aquavitas, a company that has spun off from research at the ASU Biodesign Institute‘s Center for Environmental Health Engineering led by Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden. The Florida city is partnering with the state’s health department for a wastewater epidemiology project to determine where in the community the threat of COVID-19 infection is highest. Aquavitas specializes in developing data-driven environmental diagnoses in efforts to protect public health. Along with Halden, AquaVitas is led by chief executive Adam Gushgari, who earned a doctoral degree in civil, environmental and sustainable engineering from the Fulton Schools, and chief technical officer Erin Driver, an ASU assistant research scientist.

Images and videos generated by artificial intelligence technology became known as deepfakes, due to the intent of many creators of the imagery to deceive people. Now use of such manipulated images is moving into the mainstream. Major corporations are now using AI-synthesized imagery to enhance their marketing and advertisement — especially as COVID-19 restrictions make conventional videos more difficult to produce. Digitally made models are among the first AI-produced imagery in ads. Subbarao Kambhampati, a Fulton Schools professor of computer science, AI researcher and a former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, says using synthetic models instead of real people might lead to a false sense of accomplishment that people from a wide range of groups are being represented in mass media when that is not actually the reality.

There are challenges aplenty for the agency that oversees the United States government’s support for scientific endeavors. Not everyone in the country’s leadership institutions agrees on what priorities should be set for the National Science Foundation or on a vision for its future. But the NSF’s new director, Sethuraman Panchanathan, a Fulton Schools professor of computer science and engineering, is positive about the outlook for the agency and the important strides it can make. Panchanathan is on leave from his position as ASU’s executive vice president and chief research and innovation officer to take the helm of the NSF. With his experience helping ASU evolve into a leading research university, he is confident he can help keep the agency on an upward trajectory.

See Also: Indo-American Scientist Appointed Head Of America’s Top Science Funding Body, South Asian Link, July 5

With his experience analyzing wastewater to detect signs of public health problems, Rolf Halden (pictured), a Fulton Schools professor of environmental engineering, wasn’t surprised to see a spike in cases of COVID-19 in Arizona after the state ended the lockdown of certain types of businesses and lifted restrictions on public gatherings. Most of those measures have been reinstated as the number of cases have since risen sharply. But Halden says reducing the spread of COVID-19 infections will also require more conscientious actions by individuals to follow health guidelines to protect themselves from contracting the disease.

Sethuraman Panchanathan is the new director of the National Science Foundation, the U.S. government’s top science agency. He will take an extended leave from his positions as ASU’s executive vice president and chief research and innovation officer — and as a Fulton Schools professor of computer science and engineering — to take on his new duties helping set the course for the nation’s science endeavors. He is the second American of Indian origin to take the job. See more news coverage from around the world of Panchanathan’s appointment as NSF director: Daily Excelsior, American Bazaar, Nextgov, Hindustan Times, Outlook India, Business Today, New India Times, ExecutiveGov, HPC Wire, Deccan Herald, TechGenyz, The Siatat Journal.

A company founded by Cody Friesen, a Fulton Schools associate professor of materials science and engineering, appears to be the verge of a major expansion in the use of its system that employs solar energy technology to produce drinking water by capturing moisture from the air. The venture called Zero Mass Water has attracted a substantial amount of new funding from major business investment sources. Friesen says the company’s ultimate mission is to contribute to ensuring the safe drinking water is available around the world. (Subscriber access only)

Funding development and use of so-called mechanical trees designed to clean carbon dioxide from the atmosphere should be funded by tax revenues, says the CEO of an Irish company that produces the structures. The mechanical trees are among technologies developed through research led by Fulton Schools Profess Klaus Lackner, director of the Center for Negative Carbon Emissions at ASU. The trees are among the tools the center has devised for capturing carbon dioxide to reduce the environmental threat posed by greenhouse gases building up in the atmosphere. The work is contributing to the emergence of a carbon disposal industry.

The possibility of fecal transmission of the coronavirus responsible for the COVD-19 pandemic is being suggested by some medical and research sources. But Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden, director of ASU’s Center for Environmental Health Engineering, says that while such a transmission route should be investigated, it is certainly not the primary way the disease is being spread. Others point to a report by the Centers for Disease Control demonstrating the virus could live in feces. Bottom line: People should take steps to ensure their use of restrooms follows guidelines to protect themselves from contact with fecal material.

See Also: Tempe first to combine strategies to learn how water sources can affect our public health, Wrangler News, June 20

Monitoring and analyzing the contents of communities’ wastewater streams is revealing useful information for tracking the spread of the COVID-19 disease. Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden and his research team at ASU’s Center for Environmental Health Engineering have been undertaking similar studies to assess public health conditions for many years. Now, with the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic, the value of that work is being widely recognized and the expansion of “wastewater epidemiology” on a global scale is seen as critical to future efforts to protect against widespread health threats.

Wearing of protective face masks is seen as providing a significant defense against exposure to the type of coronavirus responsible for the COBID-19 pandemic. But does sterilization of the masks make them more or less effective in shielding users from airborne particles and vaporous droplets that can spread the infection? Fulton Schools Professor Paul Westerhoff and fellow researcher Pierre Herckes, a professor in ASU’s School of Molecular Sciences, are leading work funded by the National Science Foundation to answer the question. For now, they say, wearing a mask, whether it’s been disinfected recently or not, is the wise choice — along with washing your hands.

A first-of-its-kind Masters of Innovation and Venture Development is being launched by the Fulton Schools, along with ASU’s W. P. Carey School of Business and the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. To graduate from the program, students must  launch a new product or service — specifically one that contributes solutions to societal problems and/or addresses related business community issues and challenges. Faculty from each of the three schools will co-teach courses and guide student teams in a real-world business start-up environment. Brent Sebold, a Fulton Schools Academic and Student Affairs lecturer and a university-based entrepreneurship and innovation programs administrator, is among the new degree program’s founding faculty members.

See Also: ASU launching yearlong innovation, venture development master’s program, KTAR, June 22

Damage we are doing to the natural environment is a growing threat to human health. That’s the urgent warning Rolf Halden gives in his new book. The idea that there is a barrier between people and nature is a mistaken perception that makes us think we can degrade the environment without similarly negative consequences for society, says Halden, a Fulton Schools professor of environmental engineering. His research includes analyzing wastewater in public facilities to identify toxins, viruses and other indications of biohazards to which communities are being exposed. Such studies reflect the fact that if land, water and air around us are polluted, then we essentially become polluted as well. But Halden says he sees signs of an awakening to the reality that protecting the ecological health of our surroundings is essential to quality of life.

See Also: Yale Scientists Use The Sewer System To Track And Predict Changes In Coronavirus Outbreak, WNPR-Connecticut Pubic Radio, June 10 (Rolf Halden is quoted)

The “digital footprints” we produce of ourselves through use of the internet and other online activity can enable artificial intelligence technologies to compose behavioral portraits of people and communities. Those depictions can be used to formulate predictions about the future actions and choices of individuals and groups. While such forecasting capabilities may sound disturbing to many, Subbarao Kambhampati (pictured), a Fulton Schools professor of computer science, says such footprint data can also contribute to revealing significant information and identifying trends that can be employed in the cause of such efforts as combating major public threats like the COVID-19 pandemic.

Studying the digging skills of razor clams is helping researchers such as Fulton Schools Associate Professor Junliang Tao design technologies to explore subsurface environments. Tao, a geotechnical engineer, is developing robots that can mimic the way clams “swim” through soil. The multidirectional motions they use to move underground can provide a blueprint for mobile devices equipped with sensors, power and communication components. With such capabilities, small burrowing robots could work collectively to perform studies of potential building or agricultural sites, or aid search and rescue operations. Read more about Tao’s work: Burrowing Sensor Robots Could Unearth Nature’s Subterranean Secrets, Mimicking Nature To Enhance Search For Knowledge Underground.

The modern work culture is changing rapidly as more people are doing their jobs remotely — at home or elsewhere — instead in company offices. Then there’s the emerging 5G network infrastructure that is enabling more robust communications and connectivity possibilities. But those expanding technological capabilities also present tougher cybersecurity challenges, says Brad Allenby, a Fulton Schools professor and a professor of engineering and ethics with ASU’s Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics. More network devices and bigger volumes of data mean an increasing need for more effective ways to protect the privacy of data and other corporate and personal information, Allenby says.

Work is beginning on a new university building in Germany claimed to be the first in the world that will be constructed entirely of carbon fiber reinforced concrete. Advocates for use of the material say it offers more durability and is better for the environment than the standard mix of building materials. Barzin Mobasher, a Fulton Schools professor of civil, environmental and sustainable engineering, has been researching and working with structure-reinforcing materials for decades. Mobasher says the carbon-reinforced material provides more resistance to cracking and erosion than conventional steel and concrete building components. The use of the new alternative, however, still faces some regulatory and economic hurdles.

See also: Carbonhaus is the World’s First Building Made of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Concrete, Composites Manufacturing, June 12

Climate change and related environmental factors mean that the kinds of civil infrastructure built in the past no longer provide a reliable guide for designing, building or replacing electrical power lines, roads, dams, railways, reservoirs, sewage systems, pipelines and other essential public amenities. Engineers such as Mikhail Chester, a Fulton Schools associate professor of civil, environmental and sustainable engineering, warn that using the old models will produce infrastructure that is likely to fail when facing the array of changes in water flow, temperatures, storm severity and similar climatological trends already affecting much of world. As never before, Chester says, we must design for uncertainty and extremes.

A tool called Mayhem has proved to be a prolific prober of software to unmask security flaws. The software bug finder earned the team that made it the top prize in a major cybersecurity technology challenge. Mayhem has since been used successfully by U.S. military forces and has found flaws in software that controls networking devices and automotive and aerospace systems. Ruoyu Wang, a Fulton Schools assistant professor of computer science and engineering, says the next step is for bots like Mayhem to become capable of collaborating with humans. Wang is working on more powerful bug-finding software that relies on help from humans, whom he says are able to understand the intent and functioning of computer software programs in ways Mayhem can’t.

Officials and researchers in Utah are looking at what is in wastewater to attempt getting an indication of the prevalence of COVID-19 infections in various communities in the state. They’re hoping that more localized data gathered from analyzing the contents of wastewater treatment plants will provide more details about infection rates than testing thousands of people for the disease. The diagnostic wastewater testing method has been developed over more than 15 years in work led by Rolf Halden, a Fulton Schools professor of environmental engineering. The ongoing project has since expanded its studies to include wastewater samples from more than 300 cities around the world to help assess local public health conditions.

See Also: COVID-19 in wastewater can show the virus’s spread, hotspots, UA researchers find, Arizona Daily Star, May 30

Hot days in places like the desert Southwest can feel even hotter in cities as a result of the urban heat island effect — brought on by heat radiating from concrete building surfaces and pavements. Ariane Middel, an assistant professor in the School of Arts, Media and Engineering, is measuring the impact of heat on people with her one-of-a-kind mobile weather station. The technology takes temperature and climatological factors into consideration, helping Middel explore ways cities can keep their outdoor environments cooler despite the high temperatures. One potential solution? Cityscapes that feature buildings and public infrastructure designed to provide more shaded areas.

Exposure to droplets from our mouths might not be the only way we are transmitting the coronavirus virus to others. The Centers for Disease Control reports findings indicating feces could be a source of transmission. That possibility should change how people use restrooms, health experts say. Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden, founder of ASU’s Human Health Observatory, says that particular path of transmission has not been strongly confirmed, but he still encourages caution in staying clear of poop particles. Halden and his research team are already examining the contents of wastewater for signs of the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus infection. He advocates nationwide wastewater tracking to get a more accurate estimate of the spread of the infection from the virus.

See Also: Flinn Foundation extends grantmaking response to COVID-19 in Arizona, May 19
The Flinn Foundation’s grant to ASU will fund a COVID-19 environmental surveillance project led by Professor Rolf Halden that will use wastewater epidemiology to identify hot spots of COVID-19 infections.

With the coronavirus crisis came the cancellation of many college student summer internships. But thanks to technologies that enable working remotely, many companies are offering online internship options. Fulton Schools student Ananay Arora is among those who have landed a position. He’s working with a software engineering team at the California-based Apple technology company from his apartment near ASU’s main campus. Arora has also joined two fellow Fulton Schools students to start a website to help students find remote summer internship opportunities. Other websites and job services operations are helping students get intern work in a tough job market. Related article: ASU students enable peers worldwide to navigate internship uncertainty.

There is plenty of clothing to protect humans from exposure in frigid climates, but not much to keep people safe from the heat of summertime in especially hot environments like the desert Southwest. Konrad Rykaczewski, a Fulton Schools associate professor of mechanical engineering is helping to remedy that imbalance. He is developing designs for ventilated clothing with materials that reflect solar radiation and also keep wearers cooler by slowing evaporation, trapping moisture, increasing air flow around the body and providing small shade elements. Rykaczewski intends to keep developing and testing the clothing with an eye toward commercialization in few years.

Combining the capabilities of nanolasers and semiconductors has the potential for enabling advances in electronics and related technologies. Fulton Schools professor of electrical engineering Cun-Zheng Ning and his research collaborators have unlocked some of the workings of physics that promise to yield a significant advancement. They’ve discovered a process for producing low-power nanolasers in 2D semiconductor materials. The achievement could lead to improvements in high-speed communication channels for supercomputers and data centers. Read more: Researchers shed new light on creating nanolasers using 2D materials.

Bradley Greger (pictured), a Fulton Schools associate professor of biomedical engineering, is among researchers whose efforts are aiding advances in the combining of cortical vision prostheses and brain-machine interfaces to help people with blindness. Specialists in the field are implanting the medical device in those with profound blindness in a way that provides visual information directly to the brain. Greger says the same technology could potentially restore other senses, such as loss of touch due to spinal cord injury and improve treatment of people with neurological disorders such a Parkinson’s disease.

Fulton Schools biomedical engineering student Nekiyah Draper is one of three ASU students among the recent winners of the Udall Undergraduate Scholarship. The awards recognize outstanding Native American undergraduates who are pursuing careers in public policy, health or environmental fields. After earning her undergraduate degree, Draper plans to pursue a graduate degree while working at a prosthetics manufacturing lab. She aspires to become a certified prosthetist and eventually operate prosthetics labs on the Navajo Nation.

In reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic, passenger numbers on U.S. airlines so far this year are down by 95% over last year. Few, if any,  industry observers say they’re certain what this means in the long term for commercial passenger aviation. But many agree things won’t revert to the way they before COVID-19. Tim Takahashi, a Fulton Schools professor of practice in aerospace engineering, expects airlines to take steps to provide space between passengers, plus take other measures to protect air travelers’ health. The best solution will come only when a COVID-19 vaccine is developed, says Marc O’Brien, chair of the Fulton Schools aviation program.

Michael Kozicki (pictured) is using his years of experience in micro contamination management to provide a useful service for health care workers in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Kozicki, a Fulton Schools electrical engineering professor, has built a laboratory in his home to perform studies of ozone reconditioning of surgical masks and related medical gear. The reconditioning helps health care professionals keep their work and personal materials safe, as well as enabling reuse of critical medical items that are in short supply. This work became part of a program spearheaded by students at ASU’s Luminosity Lab who are now making and deploying sterilization systems to Arizona health care facilities.

One way in which cities in warmer regions are trying the reduce the impact of heat on residents is by the use of reflective coatings on street pavements. The coatings reflect sunlight rather than storing it and converting it into heat. Ariane Middel (pictured), an assistant professor in the School of Arts, Media and Engineering, and a colleague who is an urban planning researcher at UCLA are finding that the effectiveness of using reflective coatings and “cool pavements” can vary in different situations and are not a one-size-fits-all solution to heat mitigation. Middel says a combination of strategies, including urban infrastructure designed to provide more shading and development of heat-reducing technologies, will be needed to keep desert regions livable.

Researchers from ASU, the University of California, Riverside, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture report a surprising discovery about the impact of a change in vegetation on desert range lands in the Southwest. It has been thought that when woody shrubs replace grasses on the desert terrain, it results in less water entering streams and groundwater aquifers. A new study finds encroachment of shrubs on sloping landscape can instead increase the amount of water going into groundwater storage. One of the researchers, Enrique Vivoni, a professor in the Fulton Schools and ASU’s School of Earth and Space Exploration, says the study verifies that land topography plays a big role in redistributing available water in deserts.

The fast-growing company Zoom Video Communications plans to locate one of two new research and development centers in the Phoenix area and hire hundreds of engineers to work at the facilities in the next few years. The CEO of the leading video-conferencing venture said the decision to expand into Arizona was influenced by an “incredibly well-educated, skilled and diverse talent pool” provided by the state’s universities. ASU President Michael Crow cited the 4,500 engineering graduates coming out of ASU each year, plus the high caliber of the university’s engineering faculty as a draw for companies looking for innovators in technological fields.

See also: Zoom To Expand With Engineering Center In Phoenix, Patch, May 14

Zoom to hire hundreds in Phoenix for R&D facility, Phoenix Business Journal, May 14 (subscriber access only)

Behind the deal: how ASU’s engineering growth attracted Zoom to Arizona, May 17 (subsriber access only)

Zoom expanding to Phoenix, hiring for hundreds of tech jobs, May 14, Fox10 New-Phoenix

Zoom to launch new research and development center near ASU, The State Press, May 14

Zoom to open research and development center in Phoenix, create hundreds of jobs, 3TV/CBS 5 News-Phoenix, May 15

Vancouver, Washington, is among an increasing number of cities to use methods for testing wastewater to reveal clues to the prevalence of the COVID-19 virus in communities. Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden is among researchers pioneering wastewater-based epidemiology to mine sewage for indicators of human health. Halden, director of ASU’s  Center for Environmental Health Engineering, and his lab team use a process called polymerase chain reaction testing to identify fragments of virus-associated RNA, the ribonucleic acid that carries the virus’s genetic information. Halden says the process provides a more accurate way to assess the spread of the coronavirus than individual medical testing.

See Also: Sewage may help map virus spread, Boston Globe

ASU’s first all-virtual hackathon aimed to provide COVID-19 patients technology to connect them with family members and other loved ones while they are in medical isolation. For the Devil’s Invent Hackathon, students worked with Banner Health’s Innovation Group to devise technical solutions for families of hospitalized COVID-19 patients when hospitals visits are restricted. More than 100 ASU students and faculty members joined the effort directed by Anthony Kuhn, a Fulton Schools lecturer. Two winning solutions were selected from more than a dozen presentations. Members of those teams included Fulton Schools students Bodhi England, Xueqi Li, Kashish Patel, Dhrasti Dalai, Krishna Koparde and Thanzima Rahman.

What public recreational activities are safe to participate in as Arizona allows some businesses to reopen while the state is still trying to prevent spread of the COVID-19 pandemic? Arizona’s governor says plans for gyms and swimming pools to open are coming soon. Morteza Abbaszadegan, a Fulton Schools professor of environmental microbiology and director of the National Science Foundation Water and Environmental Technology Center, says it is unlikely people would contract the COVID-19 virus in a well-maintained swimming pool because the chlorine used in pool water inactivates the virus. But Abbaszadegan cautions people to be careful not to come into contact with railings or similar frequently touched surfaces around pools that might harbor the virus.

To support medical researchers seeking ways to treat people infected by COVID-19, computer scientists are applying their skills in artificial intelligence. They’re using AI to compile and correlate relevant data to help track the spread of the pandemic and identify people at high risk of infection, says Fulton Schools Professor Subbarao Kambhampati, former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence.  In addition, Kambhampati says AI experts are combing through large volumes of research findings to provide new insights that could help researchers target their work to develop a vaccine or provide more effective health care options to help patients.  

Wastewater testing by ASU’s Center for Environmental Health Engineering, directed by Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden, has helped the City of Tempe learn that the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic is on the decline in the community. The center’s researchers have been looking at the average traces of the coronavirus in the wastewater over 24-hour periods. Halden says such testing provides a more accurate assessment of the rate of infection in an area than simply counting the people who come to hospitals with COVD-19 symptoms. Now the neighboring cities of Guadalupe and Gilbert will have the center’s researchers conduct analysis of their wastewater to gauge the levels of coronavirus presence among the local populations.

See Also: Breakthrough in efforts by ASU researchers to track COVID-19 through wastewater, Fox 10 News-Phoenix, May 8

Researchers test wastewater to identify Covid-19 hotspots, Water Technology, May 8

Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden has been among the first researchers to promote testing of wastewater for the abundance of information it can provide about human health. He has gotten good results using wastewater monitoring techniques to test for levels of opioid use in local communities and to track the spread of seasonal flu outbreaks. Now his lab team’s attention has been turned to assessing the levels of outbreaks of COVID-19 infection in urban areas. That testing offers a much more accurate picture of the spread of the coronavirus pandemic than results of testing individuals for the infection, Halden says. He is hoping his team’s success will motivate more wastewater-based testing throughout the U.S.

See Also: As Indiana Reopens, One City Scans Sewage for Guidance, MedPageToday, May 7

How far has the coronavirus spread? The answer may be in the sewers, MSN.com, May 5

Rhinelander Spread Tons Of Sludge Near Site Of Contaminated Wells, WPRX Public Radio (Wisconsin), May 5

Contact lenses flushed in toilets or washed down sinks each year in the United States add up to between six to 10 million tons of plastic, eventually adding to the troubling amounts of plastic waste in the world’s waterways and oceans. Those plastics and the chemicals in them can have detrimental effects on the food chain among aquatic organisms, animals and humans, says Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden, an environmental engineer who presented his lab’s research on plastics pollution at a meeting of the American Chemical Society. Without widespread efforts to safely recycle plastics and reduce their use overall, the threat of increasingly significant environmental damage will grow.

A “street-smart” robot named MaRTy, the creation of Ariane Middel, an assistant professor in the School of Arts, Media and Engineering, is playing a role in strategies to keep Los Angeles cool as climate change is making things warmer — especially in major metropolitan areas. MaRTy, an assemblage of meteorological sensors, is one of the tools aiding researchers from ASU and UCLA in assessing what will and won’t work to diminish the impact from rising heat in the Los Angeles area. MaRTy is being used to evaluate the effectiveness of the city’s Cool Street program. Middel says efforts to reduce the urban heat island effect in cities, along with other climate change impacts, must be tackled not only on a technical level but approached as public health and community building efforts.

Solar reflective coatings are being used on city streets to keep surrounding temperatures lower during summer months. Radiant temperatures from road pavement have a big impact on how a people experience heat in dense urban environments. But the reflective street coatings aren’t actually cooling those temperatures enough to make a dramatic difference to pedestrians, says Adrianne Middel and other ASU researchers. Middel, an assistant professor in the School of Arts, Media and Engineering, is director of Sensable HeatScapes and Digital Environments, or the SHaDE Lab. Her studies of roadway heat mitigation efforts are showing city planners need to focus additionally on planting trees and providing shade structures to take the heat off people.

ASU researchers are partnering with three cities in the Phoenix metropolitan area to monitor the cities’ wastewater to gauge the levels of COVID-19 infections in those communities. The effort could help establish an early warning system to help detect potential threats to public health before those threats turn into disease outbreaks, says Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden, director of the ASU’s Center for Environmental Health Engineering. Researchers are capable of monitoring in real time data gathered from wastewater that indicates traces of coronavirus and other information critical to protecting people’s health, Halden says. This approach might also have economic benefits by reducing the need to spend public funds to perform clinical coronavirus tests.

See Also: Scientists Turn to Sewage as Indicator of Coronavirus Spread in Population, News 18 India, May 1

The true number of coronavirus cases might be found in raw sewage, South Florida Sun Sentinel, May 1

Testing insufficient, researchers analyze sewage to check spread of coronavirus, Microbiz India, May 1

Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden (pictured) and his team at ASU’s Center for Environmental Health Engineering are planning to soon release a report on their studies of wastewater in Tempe that’s expected to provide real-time data about the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in the city. It should enable residents to see information on the city’s website about the levels of COVID-19 infection in specific neighborhoods. Halden says what the contents of Tempe’s wastewater reveal will have implications for Arizona and the country. The analytical techniques used to test the water and the results those tests produce can guide other places in efforts to assess the presence of coronavirus infection in their areas. The findings will help Tempe officials in deciding whether to loosen or tighten public restrictions depending on the prevalence of infection.

See Also: ASU researchers believe sewage gives them a way to track the coronavirus, Fox10 News-Phoenix, April 28

There are numerous cases of coronavirus infection cases in Arizona and the numbers continue to rise. But the spread of COVID-19 in the state does appear to be leveling off, according to an Arizona Department of Health Services report. The number of cases seems to be manageable at this point, says Fulton Schools Associate Professor Esma Gel, who contributed to the report. The studies behind the findings don’t conclude what strategies — such as school closures and social distancing — are having a significant impact on the slowing numbers of infections. Projections about the pandemic are based on a disease transmission model developed by the team of ASU researchers that is still “a work in progress,” Gel says, but can provide officials a guide for making decisions about how and when to lift public restrictions.

Air quality is playing a role in how communities are being most impacted by the COVID-19 disease. Higher air pollution can exacerbate the spread of infection from the virus. Darshan Karwat, an assistant professor of aerospace engineering in the Fulton Schools and ASU’s School for the Future of Science and Innovation, is doing research to assess environmental factors in Phoenix neighborhoods heighten the risk of residents to exposure to COVID-19. He sees a correlation between higher poverty and pollution levels and higher rates of illness. Karwat is working with ASU colleague Jennifer Vanos on a project to help determine what policy changes could help reduce disparities in pollution levels among Phoenix neighborhoods.

See Also: What will traffic and pollution look like post-coronavirus? The Week, April 23
Fulton Schools Professor Ram Pendyala, director of the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, is quoted.

Studying the contents of wastewater is an especially accurate way to track the spread of the coronavirus that’s causing the COVID-19 pandemic. A single sample of wastewater can provide information that can’t be revealed through any other method, says Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden, director of ASU’s Center for Environmental Health Engineering. Halden is one of the leading practitioners of wastewater-epidemiology and is hoping to work with colleagues in the field to assess the reach of COVID-19 into communities around the country. He and fellow researchers estimate their collective work could potentially test for the rate of COVID-19 infections among as much as 70 percent of the population.

See Also: Wastewater Monitoring Gives Vital Clues About SARS-CoV-2 Spread, Technology Networks, April 24

New Coronavirus detected, monitored in wastewater, Science Daily, April 23

Fulton Schools alumnus Young Koprowski says she will bring her background as a transportation engineer to her new post with the town council in Gilbert, east of Phoenix. Her experience as a business owner and employer will also serve her well in the position. Gilbert leaders are interested in employing technologies to improve traffic efficiency and minimize traffic problems. Koprowski’s certifications as a traffic operations engineer and a road safety professional also made her an attractive candidate for the council appointment. Read more about Koprowski’s accomplishments: Fulton Engineers Stand Out Among Phoenix Young Professionals.

Can a sprawling metropolis such as Los Angeles maintain precautions to keep public activity from increasing the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic — especially if outdoor construction activity continues at a robust pace? While some states have limited construction activity, California categorizes it as essential work that should continue. The decision is drawing criticism, but Professor Edward George Gibson, chair of the Fulton Schools construction management program, says he trusts the construction industry to make safety and protection of people’s health a priority.

What researchers find — or don’t find — in wastewater could be critical to the success of any plans to ease restrictions on public activity in response the coronavirus pandemic. Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden, who directs ASU’s Center for Environmental Health Engineering, says a recent study that  found the genetic material of the virus in treated wastewater validates the value of analyzing wastewater in helping to protect people from infection by the virus. Halden has coauthored a study in the journal Science of The Total Environment that explores the advantages and challenges of such wastewater-based epidemiology.

See Also: Cost-effective wastewater-based epidemiology can extract vital health information, ASU NOW, April 23

Waste water tests could monitor 2 billion people for the coronavirus, New Scientist, April 23 (subscriber access only)

To learn how to respond to public crises like the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s useful to look at such potential catastrophes as an engineering problem that needs engineering solutions, say Fulton Schools Professor Brad Allenby and Associate Professor Mikhail Chester. The two civil, environmental, and sustainable engineering experts assert that the formulas and practices necessary to ensure public infrastructure systems are efficient and resilient could be applied to public health challenges such as the rapid spread of contagious diseases. From resource management, financial planning, coordination of government response efforts, public leadership strategies and the application of logistics, using engineering principles as a problem-solving model could help countries better cope with many serious threats to societal stability.

A major impediment to the efficiency of solar cells has been overcome through a collaboration of physicists and engineers, including David K. Ferry, a Fulton Schools emeritus professor of electrical, computer and energy engineering. Together they have developed a new approach to producing what’s called a hot carrier solar cell and combining it with ultrahigh-efficiency single junction semiconductor devices, which could raise solar cell efficiency by 20 percent —and possibly “revolutionize” the field of photovoltaics and renewable energy generation.

Christopher Muhich, a Fulton Schools professor of chemical engineering, is among a multi-university team of engineers and scientists to develop a new 2D catalyst that can improve water purification using the disinfection capability of hydrogen peroxide. While the project is still in early stages, researchers foresee providing an environmentally friendly process that increases the efficiency of the water decontamination without the need for additional chemical treatment. The nanotechnology-based effort is being carried out through the Nanosystems Engineering Research Center for Nanotechnology-Enabled Water Treatment, or NEWT, a National Science Foundation center in which ASU is a partner. Read about Muhich’s contribution to the project.

Ahmed Alkhateeb, a Fulton Schools assistant professor of electrical, computer and energy engineering, is leading a team of students in using machine learning to speed up the availability of data by increasing the capability of millimeter wave communication systems. This type of electromagnetic wave works at a high frequency, making it optimal for enabling emerging 5G networks to transmit large data packets with minimal interruptions. Millimeter waves could allow carriers to transmit data speeds faster than ever, including downloading high capacity items such as movies within seconds. Alkhateeb’s team is hoping to combine machine learning and artificial intelligence to achieve significant advances in wireless communication and in overcoming other major related technological challenges.

Fulton Schools students such as biomedical engineering student Tarun Suresh (pictured) are involved in a community networking effort organized in response to the spread of the coronavirus that is connecting hospitals in need of supplies with ASU and community resources. Materials science and engineering student Julia Greteman leads one of the student production groups in ASU Luminosity Lab. She is using 3d printing technology to make protective face masks for health care workers. Two of the Fulton Schools, the School for the Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy and The Polytechnic School, are part of the response network’s ASU contingent.

ASU researchers are learning more about how organic systems evolve and function by studying ant colonies. Biologists, physicists and engineers, including Fulton Schools Assistant Professor Ted Pavlic. By exploring the collective behavior of ants — how they communicate, organize labor and make decisions without central control — they are revealing an intriguing network in which all the parts work effectively by following their natural individual instincts. Pavlic, the associate director of The Biomimicry Center at ASU, is contributing his expertise in understanding adaptive decision-making strategies in autonomous systems.

How much should Earth’s environment be manipulated by technologies to reduce the risks of global warming and other impacts of climate change? Geoengineering efforts like the carbon capture system developed Fulton Schools Professor Klaus Lackner (pictured) and his research team are raising the question. Lackner’s Center for Negative Carbon Emissions has developed “mechanical trees” that can absorb and sequester the detrimental greenhouse gas. Some argue such systems won’t stop activities like burning fossil fuels that cause the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. But others contend we can’t afford to dismiss technologies that can help put nature back on course.

A contact tracing mobile app the Australian government plans to introduce to help reduce the spread of COVID-19 has the potential to provide critical information. But it also raises concerns. Fulton Schools Professor Katina Michael and a colleague at the University of Wollongong in Australia describe the proposed TraceTogether app that will use Bluetooth technology to sense whether users who have voluntarily opted-in have come within nine meters of one another. The surveillance could help respond to the coronavirus crisis by proactively placing confirmed and suspected cases in quarantine. The downside is that it could lead to infringement on users’ privacy and civil liberties.

Before Fulton Schools Associate Professor Cody Friesen developed solar panels that harvest water from the air, he achieved another technological advance: rechargeable high-energy batteries —zinc-air batteries — that are eco-friendly and affordable. Those breakthroughs propelled his Zero Mass Water startup, which is helping to provide clean water in locales with a range of climate conditions in more than 35 countries. As the venture has expanded, Friesen has applied for 88 patents in related technologies and won the 2019 Lemelson-MIT Prize for inventions that shoe strong potential for improving the world.

The strengths and weakness of critical infrastructure systems throughout the United States are being revealed during the upheavals caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, say Fulton Schools faculty members Brad Allenby, Mikhail Chester and Thaddeus Miller. The situation is putting a spotlight on challenges the nation faces in ensuring the resiliency of its infrastructure systems and their ability to adapt in times of crisis. A key lesson, say the three engineers, is that in addition to prioritizing better design, engineering and construction practices in updating existing systems or building new infrastructure, it will also require good governance and effective education to achieve lasting solutions.

Two years ago, Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden and his team at ASU’s Center for Environmental Health Engineering began testing Tempe’s wastewater to find indications of the prevalence of opioid use in the city. Now the researchers are planning to examine the wastewater systems to give Tempe officials an idea of the breadth of the spread of the coronavirus infection in the area. The water testing approach can reveal more about the reach of the COVID-19 pandemic into the city than individual testing at medical facilities, Rolf says.

Fulton Schools Professor Paul Westerhoff, has refocused his research team’s efforts from sanitizing water to sanitizing medical equipment to help combat the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. The team is developing a device that uses a type of ultraviolet light capable of providing a level of radiation sufficient to kill the COVID-19 virus. Applied in the right dosage, the UV light can disinfect medical equipment without damaging it — including protective face masks, says Westerhoff, an environmental engineer. ASU is working to provide the devices, which researchers are called the “UV-BBQ,” (as in barbecue) to facilities across Arizona that have a critical need for them.

Construction has been deemed as essential labor during the social-distancing period mandated in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite continuing activity on building projects, some construction companies report the situation is still causing drops in revenue that might last for months. But Fulton Schools Professor Edd Gibson, a construction management expert, says the construction industry’s characteristic resilience should enable business to bounce back after the crises subsides. While the building process is being slowed by social distancing, Gibson says projects appear to be getting done safely and at good pace.

With multiple efforts underway to get accurate data on the spread of COVID-19, scientists and medical specialists are turning to wastewater-focused epidemiology. Examining the chemical content of wastewater systems is providing researchers a “package of genetic material” that can be used to estimate the prevalence of COVID-19  in various communities or regions, says Rolf Halden, a Fulton Schools professor who directs ASU’s Center for Environmental Health Engineering. Halden and other experts in wastewater research say if this method of investigation can be improved, it can aid not only monitoring of the presence of the coronavirus but also provide strategies to combat future pandemics.

The continued threat posed by the coronavirus pandemic has prompted the U.S. Army to offer to pay manufacturers who can produce low-cost ventilators to care for people who have the contracted the COVID-19 disease. Through a Teach Search competition, businesses are submitting ideas for solutions in hope of obtaining Defense Department research contracts to develop new ventilator prototypes. Fulton Schools Professor Brad Allenby, founding chair of the Consortium for Emerging Technologies, Military Operations and National Security, comments that such technology development programs are becoming critical in light of the possibilities for widespread health crises.

Researchers are trying to devise and conduct testing to help provide accurate estimations of the spread of the COVID-19 disease. Some are focusing on examining wastewater for indications of the reach of the pandemic. Wastewater is a good indicator of the chemistry inside us, so coronavirus tracking efforts at water treatment plants should yield valuable information, says Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden, an environmental health engineer. Wastewater-based monitoring is likely to reveal about more about how widely the virus is circulating than testing individuals, Halden says.

Tempe city officials are attempting to gauge how widespread outbreaks of the coronavirus are in the municipality. They are relying on a research team led by Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden, director of ASU’s Center for Environmental Health Engineering. The team is using the methods it has employed in the past in cities across the United States to detect other viruses to develop early warning systems for flu and other outbreaks. Tests are being conducted to determine if the method will detect the COVID-19 disease. Halden says the test won’t track a virus outbreak back to any individual but could provide a look at the level of the presence of COVID-19 in the area.

Health agencies and experts are reaching out to the public with information about what will or will not help protect people from the coronavirus contagion. For instance, some sanitizing products are better than others as disinfectants to control the spread of the virus. Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden, director of ASU’s Center for Environmental Health Engineering, provides details about what products are best to use and how to best use them effectively. But social distancing, avoiding stress and taking other steps to protecting one’s health are equally important ways to help prevent being vulnerable to the coronavirus, say Halden and other experts.

Business leaders are viewing the Innovation Zone project as a catalyst for solidifying Arizona’s stature as a leading hotspot for technology and engineering startups, as well as existing front-runners in those industries. The key starting point for the Innovation Zone’s creation is ASU’s Polytechnic Campus, more specifically The Polytechnic School, one of the six Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at ASU. The schools give tech companies convenient access to engineering students being trained for careers in growing fields such as aerospace, alternative energy, human-technology integration, robotics and digital manufacturing, and to university faculty doing research in those areas and more.

A strain of bacteria that can degrade harmful chemical compounds in polyurethane has been discovered. It could lead to at least a partial solution to reducing the amount of plastic pollution that’s threatening the health of both environments and communities around the world. Polyurethane foam is used in many things with which people come into frequent contact. The material is covered in flame retardant that can disrupt the human endocrine system, says Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden, director of ASU’s Center for Environmental Health Engineering. The bacteria strain could be a useful tool in destroying polyurethane, Halden says, but more research and resources are needed to take significant steps to clean up plastics pollution.

See Also: Scientists Discover Plastic-Munching Microbe in Waste Site, Smithsonian Magazine, March 31

Researchers have identified bacteria that can degrade plastic, Press Stories, March 30

Some Bacteria Can Eat Plastics, The Midland Weekly, March 3o

Fulton Schools Associate Professor Cody Friesen s drawing attention as an “impact inventor” for the work being done by Zero Mass Water, his startup venture based on technology that harvests clean drinking water from moisture in the atmosphere. The system is demonstrating the potential to improve access to safe water for communities around the world. His company’s Hydro panels are basically solar panels that produce water instead of electrical power. In dry climates like that of Arizona’s desert regions and overcast places like the Pacific Northwest, the system operates reliably. The technology has so far been installed in more than 35 countries.

Artificial intelligence technologies may not be able to discover a vaccine to stem the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, but they can be an effective tool for other efforts to cope with the crisis. Subbarao Kambhampati, a Fulton Schools professor of computer science and chief AI officer of the AI Foundation, says AI can help trace infection clusters around the world and help the public distinguish between reliable and unreliable information about the virus on the internet and elsewhere. AI could also assist with vital communications and collaborations between medical professionals. Still, there could be some potential societal downsides to broadening the use of AI to track and influence public behavior.

Along with the other significant societal impacts of the spread of the coronavirus, the pandemic might even affect the urban transportation environment. Fulton Schools Professor Ram Pendyala, whose expertise includes transportation systems planning and travel behavior, says the public may recognize the advantages of the reduction in traffic congestion resulting from the public reaction to the virus. Or it could make people more wary of shared modes of transportation, such as buses and ride-share services. But more likely, Pendyala says, traffic will bounce back to its normal levels when the pandemic wanes.

Ying-Cheng Lai, a Fulton Schools professor of electrical engineering and physics, is leading research that’s enabling machine learning technology to make longer-term predictions about interruptions, failures or other significant changes and trends in the workings of various systems and processes. His team’s use of artificial recurrent neural networks to increase predictability might eventually make it possible to forecast something like the spread of COVID-19 and other viruses and illnesses.

Experts in many fields at ASU say it’s critical that the U.S. Census gets as accurate a count as possible of the number of people in the country. The count is used to apportion seats in Congress among the states and determine how almost $700 billion in federal funds are spent. It’s especially essential for guiding the nation’s transportation planning, says Fulton Schools Professor Ram Pendyala, director of the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment. Pendyala says census data is used to gather socio-demographic information that helps government leaders forecast what will be needed to best serve the future transportation needs of the communities they serve. Ultimately, he emphasizes, good transportation systems are essential to maintaining strong local, regional and national economies.

Solar energy cells on the market today are more efficient than a decade ago, but the current level of cells’ efficiency in converting energy from the Sun into electricity is being significantly exceeded by a new cell developed by Zachary Holman, a Fulton Schools associate professor of electrical, computer and energy engineering, and his research collaborators. Chris Jones, an ASU associate professor of history and an expert in the history of the world’s energy transitions, says the progress by Holman and his colleagues definitely qualifies a big leap in energy technology advancement.

In an article that’s part of a Fortune magazine special report, “Business Faces the Climate Crisis,” the focus is on carbon capturing artificial trees developed in the Center for Negative Carbon Emissions led by Fulton Schools Professor Klaus Lackner. There’s debate about the ramifications of using the technology to help clear the atmosphere of the carbon dioxide that is leading to detrimental climate change. Lackner’s system is seen as part of a number of proposed geoengineering solutions to climate change problems. But critics contend these remedial technologies would make industries complacent about taking steps to reduce pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in the first place.

Women are underrepresented in the research world, especially in STEM research — science, technology, engineering and math — and in medical research. Three ASU researchers are leading efforts to remedy the imbalance. Among them is Erin Chiou, a Fulton Schools assistant professor of human systems engineering.  Chiou is the editor of the new book “Advancing Diversity, Inclusion, and Social Justice Through Human Systems Engineering,” in which she examines, for instance, how the lack of women participants in product testing and design has led to a world ill-fitted to the needs of women that, in turn, intensifies broader gender disparities that already exist in society.

Participants from 24 countries gathered recently at ASU for the 2020 American Society of Civil Engineers Construction Research Congress to explore what the construction industry — including civil, industrial, building and cyber infrastructure engineers — must do to provide the world with resilient communities. Hosted by the Fulton Schools Del E. Webb School of Construction, the event’s leadership committee of Fulton Schools faculty members Mounir El Asmar, Kristen Parrish, Samuel Ariaratnam, G. Edward Gibson Jr., Anthony Lamanna, Pingbo Tang, David Grau, Steven Ayer and Wanda Dalla Costa planned presentations focusing on identifying and solving challenges faced by cities trying to shape built environments to ensure a sustainable futures.

One way some rattlesnakes species have adapted to survive in hot, dry desert climates is though an ability to absorb or “harvest” rain, sleet and even snow. Researchers, including Konrad Rykaczewski, a Fulton Schools associate professor of mechanical engineering, have found the snakes coil themselves in ways that most effectively expose their skins to precipitation. Through nanoscale-sized features of the texture of their skins, these rattlers are able to capture water in a labyrinthine network of tiny channels from which they can imbibe the moisture. The ability enables the snakes to take advantage of a source of water with minimal use of energy or risk. The report on the study is published in the American Chemical Society’s ACS Omega research journal.

The promise of environmentally friendly bioplastics that degrade naturally and can then be recycled and reused for productive purposes is largely unfulfilled. Most makers of bioplastics are not following through on what needs to done to ensure bioplastics don’t end up adding to the growing amount of plastics waste that is harming ecosystems in oceans and rivers and across landscapes. Fulton Schools Assistant Professor Taylor Weiss, who is developing algae-based plastics, says bioplastics need to processed at facilities specifically designed to do proper recycling so they don’t become just more greenhouse gas emitting garbage.

Insects’ brains may be tiny, but their complexity and cognitive processing abilities fascinate scientists and engineers. What can be learned from studying and mimicking the capabilities of some insect brains has been used used to model technologies such as control systems for autonomous airplanes and search-and-rescue “roach-bots.” At ASU, Fulton Schools Professor Yu Cao and Assistant Professor Ted Pavlic are teaming with colleagues on research for a U. S. Department of Defense research agency aimed at advancing computational abilities to do things like scaling down artificial intelligence devices. In pursuit of that goal, they’ll be using knowledge gained from examining the mental capacities of certain species of bees.

A solar cell with one of the highest power-conversion efficiencies yet achieved is the work of two Fulton Schools faculty members and research collaborators at the University of Colorado, Boulder. With those colleagues, Fulton Schools Associate Professor Zachary Holman and Assistant Professor Zhengshan (Jason) Yu, both of whom teach in the electrical, computer and energy engineering program, coauthored a paper about the accomplishment recently published in Science magazine. The paper describes the team’s breakthrough with a new technique for layering a cell made of perovskite — a crystal structure designed to harvest high energy photons — with a silicon solar cell. The result is a cell that boosts conversion of the sun’s energy into electricity by about a third more than previous cells. The advance could also make the cost of solar energy more affordable.

Researchers have developed a biointegrated prosthetic device that works through a regenerative peripheral nerve interface. The system uses muscle grafts connected to the remaining peripheral nerves of people who have lost a hand or an arm. When amputees think of moving hands and fingers — just the way they did when they hand real hands— the grafts amplify signals that are then conveyed through wires to a robotic prosthesis. The device represents a significant technological advance in prosthetics, says Bradley Gregor, a Fulton Schools associate professor of biomedical engineering, who does research in areas related to work of the neuroscientists and others who’ve made the new prosthetic technology.  

How severe will the impacts of the next monsoon storm be when it hits monsoon-prone places such as Arizona? “The answer is in the ground,” says Giuseppe Mascaro, a Fulton Schools assistant professor of civil, environmental and sustainable engineering. Mascaro and his research team are finding ways to predict the effects of weather events in particular regions by examining the levels of soil moisture in those areas. By monitoring satellite data from NASA, Mascaro’s team can get detailed information about ground and soil conditions that reveal what is likely to happen when heavy monsoon rainstorms shower specific terrain. Read about related hydrological forecasting research Mascaro is doing with fellow ASU engineer Enrique Vivoni.

See Also: Family files lawsuit against U.S. government after deadly 2017 Payson floods, ABC News-Northern Arizona, February 29
Mascaro is quoted in the article reporting on a lawsuit related to the fatal results of a 2017 flash flood near Payson, Arizona.

Fulton Schools engineers teamed with U.S. airmen at Luke Air Force Base near Phoenix for an Air Force innovation challenge. Together they developed the Dynamic Unmanned Threat Emitter, designed to help train military pilots to identify and react effectively to threats such as surface-to-air missiles and antiaircraft artillery. Dan Bliss (at far left in photo), a Fulton Schools associate professor of electrical engineering, and doctoral student Wylie Standage-Beier (second from left) put together a software defined radio communications system that can be operated from a computer. The system can help pilots and their aircraft perform intelligence, surveillance and defense missions. Bliss foresees the possibility of future collaborations to provide more high-tech support for Luke Air Force base.

See Also: Luke AFB, ASU idea is co-winner in annual Air Force competition, Goodyear Independent, March 2

As robots and related artificial intelligence technologies become more prevalent in manufacturing, health care and many other industries — as well as in the military — questions are arising about how to best develop effective working relationships between humans and robots. Nancy Cooke, a Fulton Schools professor of cognitive science and chair of the human systems engineering graduate program, says robot coworkers can be as cooperative or as frustrating to work with as humans. She and other experts point to potential solutions that can avoid friction and generate constructive relations between people and their robot colleagues on the job.

Therapeutic radiation treatment has to be done with extreme precision to be fully medically beneficial. Overdosing or underdosing in the use of high-energy radiation beams can each present serious risks to patients. Too much healthy body tissue can he destroyed by overdosing, while underdosing can do too little to remove a dangerous tumor. Kaushal Rege, a Fulton Schools professor of chemical engineering, along with research collaborators at a Banner MD Anderson Cancer Center in Arizona, are developing a hydrogel of gold salts and amino acids that can carefully measure doses of radiation by being applied directly to a patient’s skin.

A small satellite designed to study the formation and impacts of urban heat islands in seven cities throughout the United States — including Phoenix — has successfully launched from the International Space Station. The satellite was built over the past several years by the Phoenix CubeSat project team through the work of about 100 ASU students, including many Fulton Schools students. The project’s mission is to gain a better understanding of the factors that lead to urban heat islands and to collaborate with communities in efforts to plan development of urban infrastructure in ways that help to alleviate buildup of excessive heat in densely developed cities.

See also: ASU’s Phoenix CubeSat Satellite launched into orbit, The State Press, February 24

State and local agencies in Arizona embark on an average of about a dozen search and rescue missions throughout the state each week — often on large expanses of land where people may be lost in remote areas, without resources and in need of medical aid. Research being led by Fulton Schools Assistant Professor Stephanie Gil may soon provide advanced technology to help rescuers locate and provide resources to missing persons. She and her student team are developing specially equipped drones capable of finding people and delivering water, basic medical equipment and communications devices to them. The researchers are collaborating on the project with the Arizona Department of Emergency and Military affairs.

Some major airline companies are committing to dramatically reducing the prodigious amounts of heat-trapping carbon dioxide the industry emits into the atmosphere. Meeting that goal will be expensive and technologically challenging, but it’s still achievable, says Timothy Takahashi, a Fulton Schools aerospace engineering professor of practice. Huge batteries or hydrogen fuel cells are too heavy for larger planes to be feasible alternatives to CO2-emitting liquid fuels, he notes, but biofuels might do the trick if their production is increased significantly. The answer might be combining alternative fuels with flying planes higher in the atmosphere and making flights shorter, both of which would be more fuel-efficient, Takahashi says.

The threatening accumulation of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere — due in large part to industrial activity — is fundamentally a big “waste-management problem,” says Fulton Schools Professor Klaus Lackner, emphasizing that it’s the responsibility of those who put the CO2 into the air to take it out. Some of the major corporations among those whose operations contribute to CO2 buildup are now looking at ways they can help deal with the problem. One potential fix is carbon-capture technology that Lackner and his colleagues at ASU’s Center for Negative Carbon Emissions are developing. The center’s “mechanical trees” are able to filter CO2 from ambient air.

See Also: ASU professor’s “mechanical trees” pull tons of CO2 from air, Chamber Business News, February 24

So-called ‘negative emissions’ might actually work, at least in California, Grist, February 11

Can negative emission technologies overcome climate catastrophe? Chemical World, February 7

Arizona state legislators and other visitors to ASU Day at the Arizona State Capitol grounds in Phoenix got a look at what Kyle Squires, dean of the Fulton Schools, described as “the ways our students and faculty put to practice their creativity in designing solutions to real-world problems that impact the world.” Among featured exhibits was one on the ASU Blockchain Research Lab. Fulton Schools computer engineering master’s degree student Manish Vishnoi (gesturing in photo) explained the nature of the lab’s work. Visitors also got introductions to the innovations being developed by Fulton Schools faculty members and students at the Center for Bio-mediated and Bio-inspired Geotechnics and the Biodesign Institute’s Center for Environmental Heath Engineering.

Growing up in Brazil, Mariana Lanzarini-Lopes became aware of communities in which many people suffered from a lack of access to clean water. Today she is working to find solutions to that widespread hardship. As a Fulton Schools environmental engineering doctoral student, Lanzarini-Lopes is involved in research to apply the ability of LED light to trigger a water-purification process — using flexible optical fibers woven into a fabric to disinfect water at a close range. Her research is supported by NASA, which is looking at the system for potential use on the International Space Station, and by the ARCS Foundation, which supports outstanding students seeking degrees in science, engineering and medical research.

ASU’s Helios Rocketry team of about 50 students, many of them Fulton Schools students, are competing in the Base 11 Space Challenge to build a liquid-fueled rocket capable of traveling to the deep reaches of outer space. In pursuit of its goal, the team is learning lessons not only in the development of space-flight technologies and systems but also in the skills it takes to recruit and work with industry partners. Helios Rocketry is collaborating with aerospace, aviation and engineering companies in the Phoenix and Mesa areas to access the facilities and tools it needs to design and construct its rocket. Next, the team plans put together a business team to expand partnerships and manage fundraising.

Much of the billions of tons of concrete used each year in construction projects around the world could be made more durable by an advanced fiber-reinforced concrete, says Fulton Schools Professor Barzin Mobasher. He is leading research to develop high-performance synthetic, glass, polymeric and nylon fibers that could not only increase the resilience of buildings, roads and infrastructure but also could speed up construction projects and save costs over time by making concrete structures and facilities less prone to corrosion and cracking. Read more on the ASU NOW and Modern Contractor Solutions news sites.

The U.S. President’s federal budget proposal is heavy on funding to pursue advances in artificial intelligence and quantum technologies, but short on support for more basic science and engineering work. Researchers and policy analysts say that support is critical to spurring innovations in a range of critical areas. Fulton Schools Professor Subbarao Kambhampati, an AI expert, says such funding cuts will risk undermining promising progress in many fields — including those that potentially can boost the capabilities of AI and quantum technologies.

“The Greater Phoenix Tech Story,” a recent report by the Greater Phoenix Economic Council and a local commercial real estate business group, concludes that the Phoenix area is one of the country’s fastest-growing technology hubs — citing ASU as one of the key factors leading to that growth. Tech companies are building a talented workforce by hiring many of the university’s graduates, especially Fulton Schools graduates, according to report. Engineering is critical to the success of many of the companies, and in the Fulton Schools those businesses find students with an “entrepreneurial mindset” and a focus on being innovators, says James Collofello, Fulton Schools vice dean of Academic and Student Affairs. Students are encouraged to become “intrapreneurs,” and to gain the skills necessary to create new startup companies or join existing startups, Collofello says.

Confused by the “sell by” and “used by” labels found on food packaging? Experts say most people are, and the confusion is causing a significant amount of food waste. One study found that close to half the produce, meat and dairy products some people buy is getting thrown out because of those labels. Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden, director of ASU’s Center for Environmental Health Engineering, says much of the food that has passed its “sell by” date is safe to eat. Humans have an innate ability to sense a lack of freshness with food through visual and tactile clues, along with our sense of smell, Halden says. But a practical remedy, he advises, is to buy no more food than you will realistically eat before its gets old and freeze foods to preserve them for longer periods of time.

See Also: To toss or not? Knowing when ‘expired’ really means expired, ASU NOW, February 24

Knowing when ‘expired’ label dates really means expired, AZ Big Media, February 25

Hopes for future space exploration could be dampened if effective solutions aren’t found for breathing problems astronauts have experienced during long periods of time spent inside spacecraft. One of the engineers working on a remedy is Phoebe Henson, a Fulton Schools alumnus who earned an electrical engineering degree in 2015. Henson is a member of the Human Space Group at the Honeywell Aerospace facility near Phoenix. The team has already helped NASA by developing a system that removes excess carbon dioxide from the air inside the International Space Station. Now Henson and her colleagues are at work on advanced materials to capture and filter out the carbon dioxide from air supplies — and possibly even recycle the CO2 and turn it back into oxygen. That kind of work helped Henson become one of only several Arizonans named to Forbes magazine’s 2019 list of 30 Under 30 rising stars. (Subscriber access only)

Successful efforts to leverage investments and create partnerships to grow the Fulton Schools engineering programs is one example of what needs to done to boost Arizona’s economy, says ASU President Michael Crow. A special investment the Arizona Board of Regents is now requesting from the state government builds on that example, Crow says. That new funding would be used to spur more breakthroughs in engineering and science — advances that would in turn create a top-tier, concentrated environment of technology and talent in the greater Phoenix area to provide the state a key strategic economic development asset for the future.

See also: Arizona’s 3 university presidents promote research as economic driver — ASU NOW, February 6 (article cites research advances led by Fulton Schools faculty members Klaus Lackner and Cody Friesen)

Presidents of Arizona’s state universities embrace new economy initiative, KJZZ (NPR)

Carbon dioxide emissions are a big part of the growing greenhouse gas problem contributing to climate change impacts and air pollution. Scientists are in a race to find ways to reduce those emissions. One team of researchers is working on ways to trap CO2 emissions from industrial operations in cement, including emissions released from the production of concrete. But Allen Wright, executive director of ASU’s Center for Negative Carbon Emissions, led by Fulton Schools Professor Klaus Lackner, says to significantly curb those emissions, efforts need to go much further. Policymakers must enable research aimed at developing advanced carbon management technologies at a large scale. The article is also published on the AZ Big Media news site.

The promise of improving human health with use of the gene-editing tool called CRISPR has been limited because its editing capabilities are often imprecise. But David Brafman, a Fulton Schools assistant professor of biomedical engineering, is at work on developing ways to improve CRISPR’s efficiency. Results of his efforts published in the research journal Stem Cell Reports details how Brafman’s lab team has developed a new approach to enriching DNA base-edited cell populations. The genetic modification of stem cells enabled by this method looks as if it will be useful for disease modeling, drug screening and tissue engineering, and for revealing the causes of Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases. The article has also been published on Phys.Org, Science Codex and Technology Networks.

See Also: Gene-editing taken to advanced levels in human stem cells, News-Medical.net, January 20

Some of the Navy’s most advanced high-tech ships are being supplied energy by equally advanced power plants. Some of those ships sport state-of-the-art electric propulsion systems and stealth design among their innovative features. The ships use gas turbines to produce electricity that is then used to power electric motors for propulsion, explains Fulton Schools Professor Brad Allenby. The electricity generated can also be used to power weapons systems, he adds. Allenby is the author of the book “Future Conflict & Emerging Technologies,” and editor of “The Applied Ethics of Military and Security Technologies.” He is a former Stockdale Fellow at the U.S Naval Academy and an associate faculty member with ASU’s Center for the Future of War.

In the second of a three-part series, ASU President Michael Crow points to the Fulton Schools as one of the university’s more prolific catalysts of innovation and technological advances that fuel economic growth in Arizona and beyond. But Crow says more investment will be needed to give engineering education and research the tools needed to fulfill their potential as the “backbone of a range of industries” for a New Economy being driven by smart technologies and systems that combine the physical, digital and biological worlds that are changing the way we live.

High-tech advancements are promising to help make search and rescue operations more effective. One example is work to develop software and design algorithms to enable flying drones and ground robots to more quickly locate missing or stranded persons. Those efforts are underway in the lab of Stephanie Gil (at far right in photo), a Fulton Schools assistant professor of computer science. Along with her student research assistants, Gil is exploring how drones can not only locate those who are lost, but also deliver water, medical supplies and communication devices to them. Read more about the lab’s work.

Among ASU faculty members named as outstanding mentors of the university’s graduate students for the 2019-2020 academic years is Yang Weng (at far right in photo), a Fulton Schools assistant professor in the electrical, computer and energy engineering program. The awards recognize mentors who not only guide students through their studies but also help them in successfully pursuing long-term career goals. This year’s nominees for the award “are the strongest we’ve had yet,” says Zachary Reeves-Burton, program manager of mentoring initiatives and professional development for the Graduate College.

Arizona’s economic health has been on the upswing, so now offers the perfect opportunity to make investments to ensure the economy keeps moving in that direction, says ASU President Michael Crow. One way to do that is taking steps to elevate the state’s stature as a hub of innovation — especially in education, research, discovery and entrepreneurship. A big part of ASU’s contribution to the goal, Crow says, should be to build “the greatest engineering school in the world, the largest, the most creative, the most innovative,” as well as to create new science and technology centers that push advances in engineering and science fields into the marketplace.

New research indicates a critical link between the health of the human gut and cognitive function. Fulton Schools researchers such as Professor Rosa Krajmalnik-Brown are among those showing a new gut microbiome therapy could lead to better treatments for neurodevelopment disorders, including autism. An ASU research team completed a study of 18 children who received Microbiota Transfer Therapy, also known as fecal transplant, which is producing improvements in autism-related symptoms. The study shows the gut-brain connection is real, Krajmalnik-Brown says, and that the new treatment that is providing greater gut microbiota diversity raises hope for long-term improvements in the health of people living with autism.

A new ASU campus, located at the Mesa City Center, will focus on training students in high-tech media production, including digital and sensory technology, experiential design, media arts and related subjects. Among the first educational attractions at the campus will be ASU’s METEOR Studio, directed by Robert LiKamWa, an assistant professor of electrical engineering in the Fulton Schools and the School of Arts, Media and Engineering in ASU’s Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. The studio works on mobile software and hardware systems for computer vision and augmented reality. Read more about recent work at METEOR Studio

Several Fulton Schools faculty members will be involved in the research to be done by the new WearTEch Applied Research Center, a collaboration between ASU and local government, along with healthcare and economic organizations. The effort to establish Arizona as a hub of MedTech innovation will focus on wearable technologies, wearable robotics, bioelectronics medicine and neurotechnology development. The center will enable leading university researchers to partner with industry to quicken the pace of moving fundamental research from the lab to the marketplace and “make ASU’s backyard the competitive home of wearable medical technology,” says Kyle Squires, dean of the Fulton Schools.

The Robotics, Embedded Autonomy and Communications Theory Lab, or REACT, led by Stephanie Gil (at left in photo), a Fulton Schools assistant professor of computer science, gives ASU students opportunities to work on real-world projects. The latest is a collaboration with the Arizona Search and Rescue Coordinators Association and the Arizona Department of Emergency and Military Affairs. The project aims to deploy robotic drones developed by the lab on search and rescue operations throughout the state. The software and intelligence technology Gil’s team will build into the autonomous robotic systems enables drones to gather environmental information and use it to work as a team, and to use that capability to perform more effectively in searches in remote and hazardous areas.

Ross Maciejewski (pictured), a Fulton Schools assistant professor of computer science and engineering, has a leading role in a major computational research endeavor expected to produce advances in social network analysis, neural science, intelligent transportation systems, critical infrastructures, blockchain networks and related areas — and to develop useful open-source tools and publicly available datasets. Maciejewski is teaming with Hanghang Tong, a computer science professor at the University of Illinois, on the project that’s part of the National Science Foundation’s Fairness in Artificial Intelligence program, aimed at creating trustworthy AI systems to devise solutions to some of society’s biggest challenges.

By combining solar power, air and electricity to ignite a condensation process that draws water from the atmosphere, Cody Friesen (pictured), Fulton Schools professor or materials science and engineering, founded the startup Zero Mass Water, which is making big waves as a promising source for renewal water. With large-scale solar hydropanels that produce enough water for businesses and small communities, the system is being used in locales in almost 40 countries around the world. More versions of the Zero Mass Water system are in development, Friesen says. That progress promises to enable bigger and better systems that can provide water to larger and larger areas.

“Beautiful nano-labyrinths” are the secret to rattlesnakes’ ability to quench their thirst in dry climates where water is scarce, says Konrad Rykaczewski, a Fulton Schools associate professor of mechanical engineering. A team of biologists and engineers, including Rykaczewski, has discovered how the snakes become “living rain buckets.” The researchers found western diamondback rattlesnakes in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert can collect water when rain or snow is falling because water droplets stay pinned to the snakes’ skin and their scales form a network of tiny channels that capture the water.  It’s suspected that the snakes evolved the precipitation harvesting anatomical trait as a survival mechanism in response to the desert environment.

See also: How rattlesnakes collect water in the desert, ABC News, January 17

Rattlesnakes have skin that’s sticky for raindrops so they can sip from their scales, CBC Radio (Canada), January 17

A naturopath practitioner claims to have achieved dramatic improvement in treating the symptoms of autism spectrum disorder in children with fecal transplants. But physicians and scientists are skeptical, including Fulton Schools Professor Rosa Krajmalnik-Brown, whose research has helped to develop the fecal transplant method the naturopath says he is using. Krajmalnik-Brown joins medical professionals and other researchers who warn it is too early in the testing of the procedure to verify its effectiveness and safety. While some results are encouraging, she adds, for now there is too much potential risk involved and more research is needed to confirm the treatment as a viable option.

Students in ASU’s School of Arts, Media and Engineering apply the latest technologies, research methods and knowledge from diverse disciplines to answer big-picture questions revolving around human endeavors in science, engineering, culture and society. The school’s new interim director is Associate Professor Pavan Turaga, who also teaches in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, one of the six Fulton Schools. He sees the fusion of pursuits intertwining arts and humanities with, for instance, the hard sciences and engineering methodologies leading to valuable discoveries and solutions that won’t be achieved without such unconventional cross-disciplinary collaborations.

To prevent the spread of false information on its website, the large social media network Facebook plans to ban videos extensively altered by artificial intelligence technology. The company’s vice president of global policy management, Monica Bickert (at left in photo), announced that such videos, called deepfakes, would be banned when they are either in user’s posts or in advertisements. Subbarao Kambhampati, a Fulton Schools professor of computer science and leading artificial intelligence researcher, says automated systems for detecting deepfakes will likely have limited effectiveness and provide incentives for users to attempt to fool Facebook’s detection systems. Kambhampati is also quoted in the related articles: Fake Trump video? How to spot deepfakes on Facebook and YouTube ahead of the presidential election, USA Today, January 8, and in Is seeing still believing? The deepfake challenge to truth in politics, Brookings Institution/Center for Technology Innovation, January 8.

Humans’ relationships with computers are going to evolve significantly — particularly because of advances in artificial intelligence technology, says Subbarao Kambhampati, Fulton Schools professor of computer science. Advances in “natural interaction modalities” mean human-computer and human-robot connections will have a big role in shaping modern reality, writes Kambhampati, the chief AI officer of the AI Foundation, which focuses on responsible development of AI technologies. He says the next decade will be a test of how we learn to balance the positive aspects of that new reality with its potentially negative impacts.

With the rate at which carbon dioxide is being emitted into the atmosphere, it will take much more than gradually reducing those emissions to keep the greenhouse gas from reaching more threatening levels. Among the more promising solutions to the problem is technology coming out of ASU’s Center for Negative Carbon Emissions, directed by Fulton Schools Professor Klaus Lackner. His lab’s “artificial trees” (one of them is pictured here) are able to capture carbon dioxide and remove it from the air. An investment group is financing deployment of clusters of the devices at carbon-capture “farms” in various locations.

Rates of illness and death increase for commuters in cities when the weather is extremely hot or extremely cold, according to a study published in Science Advances reporting on research by Chenghao Wang, a recent graduate of the Fulton Schools doctoral program in civil, environmental and sustainable engineering. Phoenix is among cities included in the research. Wang’s study found people working in areas in which the urban heat island effect is strongest appear to be more at risk when temperatures climb significantly.

Research finds politics — more than race, religion, gender or age differences — is forging the deepest divide between Americans. Stephanie Forrest, a Fulton School professor computer science and engineering and director of ASU’s Biodesign Center for Biocomputing, Security and Society, explores the sources reshaping public discourse and how they exacerbate political partisanship. Her research involves inquiries similar to work of others who are examining the trend and seeking ways to quell polarizing forces. Two leading researchers in this area will give talks at ASU on January 6 as part of a lecture series established by ASU and Princeton University.

With a degree in graphics information technology, 2019 Fulton Schools graduate Rebecca Sjorup says she’s ready to start her own business. Beyond a technical education, her experience at ASU taught her “that quitting isn’t for me’” and that “persistence and discipline can take you far and even with the countless all-nighters it is so worth it.” Read more: Mother, student, designer — now graduate

New Fulton Schools mechanical graduate Jun Sasaki had a similar experience. “From various soft skills to time management, everything I’ve learned at ASU will be valuable for my personal development,” he says. His recommendation to college students: “Make connections and lifelong friends because these are the people that you will keep around in your life forever.” Read more: ASU mechanical engineering graduate encourages students to get involved

Graduate Jose Guerrero will be seeking a career with the skills he has gained while earning a graphic information technology degree with a minor in film studies. His message: “Don’t be afraid to do what you want to do in life. You only have one life to live and you’re the person living it.” And when you make mistakes, “don’t take them seriously, just learn from them.” Read more: ASU grad sets sights on impacting design and film industries

As part of a “New Economy Initiative,” the Arizona Board of Regents is proposing a large investment by the state government to increase the number of engineering graduates from ASU. The plan includes adding faculty and establishing science and technology centers to foster partnerships between private industry, government and the university. ASU has been able to “catalyze the tech ecosystem” in Arizona, says Kyle Squires, dean of the Fulton Schools, but the need for new engineers continues to grow at a steady pace. The investment could also enable students to do research for startup companies and other tech-oriented businesses. The chair of the Arizona Technology Association says the initiative plan is critical to ensuring the growth of the state’s tech industries. (Subscriber access only)

Esther Sim recalls hearing about college engineering courses with a ratio of male to female students of more than 10 to 1. Learning in an environment not so one-sided was an important factor in her decision to go to ASU. The senior biomedical engineering major says she found a support system in the Fulton Schools that allayed some of her concerns about such imbalances.  Sim (at right in photo, with Fulton Schools computer science major Haley Harelson) still sees a need for more gender diversity in most branches of engineering. Kyle Squires, dean of the Ira A. Fulton Schools, and Jeremy Helm, senior director of academic and student affairs, say they share her perspective and that recruitment of more women into the profession remains a major priority.

Desert WAVE, an all-female robotics team of Fulton Schools students, joined members of Degrees of Freedom, an all-female robotics team of high school students, to apply their technical know-how to “hack” toys to make them accessible to children who face challenges manipulating interactive toys. The toys were modified to help the children playing with them develop problem-solving and socialization skills — as well as have fun. The teams developed and built push-button activators for the toys, which will be distributed during the holiday season by a nonprofit group serving members or the local community with disabilities.

Shandiin Yessilth, the Fulton Schools’ Outstanding Fall 2019 Graduate in Construction Management, is among Diné women bringing construction, architecture, design and community planning skills to Native American communities. She is currently gaining experience in an internship with Kitchell Corporation, a major construction contractor in the Southwest. Yesslith is being mentored by a fellow Diné, Kim Kanuho, a planner and president of a Native-owned design company, and also is managing construction labor on a project led by Diné architect Tamarah Begay. Yessilth plans to return to ASU in the fall of 2020 to pursue a master’s degree in sustainable engineering. Read about other exceptional Fulton Schools fall 2019 graduates.

By mixing fibers made of steel or comparable composites of materials into concrete, Fulton Schools professor Barzin Mobasher says building concrete structures and using it as a pavement could be more cost-efficient, reduce the carbon footprint of construction projects and provide significantly higher resiliency to everything from normal wear and tear over time to earthquakes. Mobasher has been leading research to develop this fiber-reinforced concrete for more than a decade and is starting to see it attract contractors’ interest. The material was recently used on a section of the Phoenix metro area light rail line.

ASU has become a leader in making technological advances in additive manufacturing, says Kyle Squires, dean of the Fulton Schools. Progress being made in that area has led to a NASA grant to support work by researchers at ASU, Phoenix Analysis and Design Technologies Inc. and Kennesaw State University in Georgia to develop new technologies that will boost innovation in aerospace engineering. Efforts will include development and production of new tools to enable engineers to design components lighter and strong enough to withstand the stresses of launching and landing spacecraft. (Subscriber access only)

See also: NASA awards Tempe engineers, ASU researchers $755K in grant money, KTAR News, December 12

Most Americans are aware the Internal Revenue Services does not make telephone calls to people to tell them they owe the federal tax agency money. But that knowledge is far less prevalent among particular populations. That’s why robocalls by phone scammers are targeting immigrants and foreign students at universities in the United States, says Fulton Schools Assistant Professor Adam Doupé (in red shirt, with students in photo). That’s one reason Arizona is among the places where perpetrators of such scams most frequently target their efforts, says Doupé, whose expertise includes vulnerability analysis, web security, mobile security and network security.

See also: Report reveals Arizona is fifth worst state for robocalls, The State Press, December 4 article quotes Fulton Schools Professor Katina Michael

 “We are trying to blur the line between society, the marketplace and the classroom every day,” says Brent Sebold (pictured in photo), director of Entrepreneurship + Innovation in the Fulton Schools of Engineering. The statement encapsulates a guiding mission of ASU that has led to the university being named No. 1 in innovation among the country’s institutions of higher education for five straight years by the U.S. News and World Report. Sebold is among faculty who focus on teaching the importance of entrepreneurship and value creation to ASU students to shape them into innovators. Student endeavors such as the all-female Desert WAVE robotics team — composed of Fulton Schools students —is one of the endeavors that have brought ASU wide recognition for its innovative ways.

See also: Fighting stereotypes ASU Robotics Team shows women can excel in stem fields, College Times, December 6

New wearable robotics technologies developed by exoskeleton experts such as Fulton Schools Professor Thomas Sugar (at left in photo) were in the spotlight at a recent international conference. The event included hands-on testing demonstrations of new exoskeleton devices, some of which are designed for medical, industrial and military applications. The next Wearable Robotics Association conference is scheduled to be in Phoenix in early 2020.

The trend toward hotter temperatures in much of the world is more intense in densely developed cities where the urban heat island effect is spreading — especially where there are large expanses of concrete and asphalt paving. A team of ASU students, including many Fulton Schools students, is hoping to find ways to reduce the effect through data they will collect from a small satellite the team built and recently sent into orbit. Aerospace engineering major Jaime Sanchez de la Vega talks about the making of the specially designed “cube sat” named Phoenix.

Energy engineering pursuits by Fulton Schools Associate Professor Zachary Holman (at right in photo) are being enhanced by research and education collaborations developed through the U.S.-Pakistan Centers for Advanced Studies in Energy. Fulton Schools Professor Sayfe Kiaei is the USPCAS-E project director at ASU. The organization is fostering projects aimed at modernizing energy infrastructure, improving energy engineering education, providing academic exchange programs, establishing effective public policy on energy matters, and promoting entrepreneurship in the field — among many other related endeavors. Holman has traveled to Pakistan to lead technical training for faculty and students, and hosted exchange scholars in his ASU laboratory.

Mechanical “trees” offer an effective way to counteract the dangerous buildup of greenhouse gases — specifically carbon dioxide — in the atmosphere, which is exacerbating the detrimental impacts of climate change. A “forest” of these trees designed by a tech investment startup company and ASU researchers led by Fulton Schools Professor Klaus Lackner, director of  the university’s Center for Negative Carbon Emissions, promises to remove more carbon dioxide from the air than any other similar endeavor to date. The pilot project the company is planning to install in California could capture emissions each day equivalent to those produced by more than 1,800 households. Read more.

See also: Popular Science picks ASU professor’s ‘MechanicalTree’ as a 2019 top technology, ASU NOW, December 5

Using a simulator to test reactions of drivers, students in the Fulton Schools human systems engineering program are exploring ways to prevent people from ignoring the “wrong way” signs and driving their vehicles down ramps and onto freeways — and heading into oncoming traffic. Officials in Arizona have reported almost 3,500 instances of such wrong-way driving in the state during a recent two-and-half-year period. Fulton Schools graduate students Mathew Dusharm and John Falluca hope to provide answers for why there is so much wrong-way driving and how to stop motorists from making those errors.

Recent doctoral graduates from the Fulton Schools civil, environmental and sustainable engineering program Aashay Arora and Matthew Aguayo are among innovators “figuring out how to make new materials do amazing things.” They’ve developed coatings embedded with phase-change materials that insulate buildings — reducing energy use while keeping building interiors cool in hot weather and warm in cold weather. Arora and Aguayo’s startup, EnKoat, uses special paints, plaster and stucco that release heat at specific temperatures to achieve the insulating effect. Their company’s products are getting their first large-scale testing on a building on ASU’s Polytechnic campus. Read more.

A good indicator of researchers’ impact is the number of times their work is cited by peers as useful in enabling further research advances. ASU recently had 10 of its faculty members ranked among the most frequently cited researchers in the world. The list includes Paul Westerhoff, an ASU Regents’ Professor in the Fulton Schools and Sefaattin Tongay, an assistant professor in the Fulton Schools. Westerhoff has become a leading exert in water treatment, contaminants in lakes, river and streams and the application of artificial intelligence in solving global water challenges. Tongay focuses on understanding the optical, electrical, mechanical and magnetic properties of nanomaterials and developing ways to use the abilities of nanomaterials in applications of quantum materials.

Technologies that can create fake videos are getting more sophisticated. Some even use cutting-edge artificial intelligence. Such tools — which reduce the time, expense and skill needed to doctor digital images — are making it easier to spread disinformation through what are called “deepfakes.” Though internet companies are trying to mount defenses against the the image manipulations, Fulton Schools professor and AI expert Subbarao Kambhampati says the new technology makes it difficult even for trained viewers to tell real from fake images and may eventually make it all but impossible.

Arizona State University had more than $617 million in research expenditures in the most recent fiscal year, raising it to No. 7 on the National Science Foundation rankings. That success is due to researchers such as Fulton Schools assistant professor Zachary Holman (pictured in photo), whose team set a world record for the efficiency of particular kinds of solar cells in generating energy. In the rankings, ASU moved up to No. 8 in electrical, electronic and communications engineering, ahead of MIT and Stanford.

A cube-shaped satellite named Phoenix now in orbit on the International Space Station is only the size of a loaf of bread. But the ASU students who built it — including Fulton Schools students — hope to see the so-called CubeSat have a big impact on deepening knowledge about the urban heat Island effect that poses challenges to the livability of growing cities such as Phoenix. If the thermal images the satellite produces achieve that goal, says aerospace engineering senior Jaime Sanchez De La Vega, the project’s chief engineer, “that would be amazing.” Read more on the Phoenix CubeSat website.

A recent symposium to discuss how Arizona can best adapt to the use of autonomous vehicles on its roadways explored potential issues that could arise from a proliferation of self-driving automobiles. One concern is about computer systems in such cars being hacked. Professor Ram Pendyala, a transportation engineer (and director of School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, one of the six Fulton Schools) thinks such hacking could present an ethical dilemma for the autonomous car industry. It’s unclear who would bear responsibility if the data the vehicles’ computer systems are constantly gathering is accessed and used in detrimental ways, Pendyala says.

Researchers have found that human speech abilities — or the lack of them — can be an accurate early indicator of neurological disorders, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and similar health problems. Fulton Schools Associate Professor Visar Berisha (at right in photo) has teamed with Julie Liss, a professor in ASU’s College of Health Solutions (where Berisha has a joint appointment) to start Aural Analytics, a company that uses new technology developed at ASU to detect changes in speech patterns that appear at the earliest stages of such disease and disorders. A recently awarded National Science Foundation research grant is helping the venture make progress. Aural Analytics’ technology is now being used in clinical trials at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix.

Relief from cancer and other serious diseases can be provided by radiation treatments. But those treatments pose risks because too much exposure to radiation can trigger other medical problems. Kaushal Rege, a Fulton Schools professor of chemical engineering (second from left in photo) is part of a research team testing a new device that could prevent such complications by providing more exact measurements of radiation dosages. Rege is partnering with the Banner MD Anderson Cancer Center in Gilbert, Arizona, to develop a device that uses a gold nanogel to reveal dosage amounts to enable medical practitioners to keep radiation exposure at healthy and effective levels.

A team of Fulton Schools students won the $5,000 first prize in the first-ever ASU Robo Hackathon involving competitors from universities and colleges throughout Arizona. Using artificial intelligence robot kits, teams had to assemble and program their AI machines to perform five challenging tasks. Yinong Chen, a Fultons Schools computer science and engineering principle lecturer, helped to design the competition tasks. The event was organized by ASU’s University Technology Office to provide an opportunity for students to test their skills with new technologies, to connect with potential employers and learn about challenges they will face in the workplace or as tech entrepreneurs. Read more.

Computer-aided telepathy is beginning to become a real thing, potentially enabling communication between people by transmitting their thoughts through devices connected to their brains. Bioengineer and neuroscientist Bradley Greger, a Fulton Schools associate professor of biomedical and health systems engineering, says questions still need to be answered about how much information can actually be gathered from the brain using such devices. But some experts are already speculating that the new telepathic technologies might someday give rise to brain-to-brain communication services.

Fulton Schools computer science and engineering student Valarie Adams and mechanical engineering student Cameron Carver are among ASU students being trained in the science of sound so they can explore acoustic ecologies to help find solutions to environmental challenges — in both natural and built environments. ASU students are being introduced to the field through the Acoustic Ecology Lab in the School of Arts, Media and Engineering, a collaborative of the Fulton Schools and the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. Much of the lab’s work involves applying virtual reality technologies to research in various science and engineering fields.

Some of the most obvious problems with self-driving cars when it comes to road safety are not being sufficiently addressed by the industry, says Katina Michaels, a Fulton Schools professor of computer science and engineering. She and other experts say more rigorous engineering is needed in designing autonomous vehicles, including better programming of artificial intelligence systems that are more capable of recognizing scenarios that present potentially dangerous driving hazards.

The detrimental effects of climate change brought on by heavy accumulations of greenhouse gasses might be alleviated to a significant degree with new technology that could turn atmospheric carbon dioxide into a source of alternative fuel. The system uses an “artificial leaf” is similar in nature to the “artificial tree” technology developed by Fulton Schools Professor Klaus Lackner, director of ASU’s Center for Negative Carbon Emissions. His “trees” have resin-coated plastic leaves could possibly remove 100 times more carbon dioxide from the air as nature trees — and use the gas to create biofuels.

Technology that once existed only in science fiction is today rapidly evolving and broadening its reach and its power throughout the real world. The trend is evident in increasingly sophisticated uses of cyberwarfare techniques, say Fulton Schools Professor Brad Allenby and Associate Professor Mikhail Chester, writing in the American Society of Civil Engineers News. They contend the capabilities of cyber tech make it perhaps a more effective weapon in geopolitical conflict than conventional weapons of war. Allenby and Chester say it raises a critical challenge to ensure our country’s engineers gain sufficient expertise in cybersecurity to know how to protect the infrastructure and technologies engineers design, build and use from cyber threats. (Illustration at right courtesy of Pixabay)

As Zero Mass Water’s technology is being used in more places around the work to help communities prevent water scarcity, the company is also involved in education outreach to teach younger generations about society’s water challenges. The company emerged from research led by Fulton Schools Associate Professor Cody Friesen, who developed a system to produce water by capturing moisture from atmosphere. Students at a Phoenix elementary school recently got an introduction to the science and engineering involved in Zero Mass Water’s system, along with a lesson about the importance of developing renewable water resources for the future.

See also: Engineer discovers how to extract water from air and sunlight, The Hill/Changing America, November 8

From thin air: Partnership brings clean water-bottling technology to Flint, Crain’s Detroit Business, November 10

A team of scientists and engineers have designed solar panels that can increase the amounts of energy they can produce by mimicking the ability of sunflowers to take advantage of daylight hours to absorb more energy. Their system — called SunBot, for sunflower-like biomimetic omnidirectional tracker — uses temperature-sensitive materials to make tiny ‘stems’ that bend toward a bright light source. The system could be used to improve a variety of solar technologies. Fulton Schools Professor Hanqing Jiang, Associate Professor Xu Wang and doctoral student Hamsini Gopalakrishna are members of the research team.

See Also: Sunflowers inspire light-tracking solar material (video), Chemical & Engineering News, November 13

Fake Sunflowers that Easily Bend Towards the Sun Could Generate Efficient Solar Energy, News18 (India) November 13

A group of ASU engineers and scientists is among the research teams the National Science Foundation has assembled for its Quantum Leap Challenge Institute to develop new technologies using the latest knowledge about quantum mechanics. The ASU team includes Fulton Schools faculty members Nongjian Tao, Sefaattin Tongay, Qing Hua Wang and Stephen Goodnick. Their work will contribute to the increasing sophistication and miniaturization of electronics through the expanding ability to manipulate and control matter at the level of individual atoms and molecules. The endeavor has the potential to revolutionize computing and sensing technologies.

The lure of new cures promised by marketers of stem cell-based medical therapies should be approached with a buyer-beware attitude, say physicians and researchers, including David Brafman and Emma Frow, assistant professors in the Fulton Schools biomedical engineering program. The stem cell therapy industry is still largely unregulated and its claims mostly unproven, the experts warn. Brafman and Frow recently completed studies of services offered by stem cell clinics in the Southwest and found reasons to question the effectiveness of many of the treatments the clinics provide.

Fulton Schools engineering education and systems design doctoral student Michael Sheppard is a former Navy combat medic with a military service-connected disability. Sheppard is doing research on the psychological and emotional disabilities that often affect armed forces veterans. Now he is beginning work to help develop resources for veterans to transition into their postmilitary lives and turn their disabilities into productive assets.

ASU students worked for four years to complete a small cube-shaped satellite equipped with technology for studying the urban heat island effect in seven U.S. cities. A small group from among members of the project team — many of them Fulton Schools engineering students — recently watched the satellite blast off into space from a NASA launch site. Project manager Sarah Rogers, an aerospace engineering graduate student, said the spacecraft has provided an “incredible experience” for the 100 or so students who learned valuable lessons from the endeavor.

See Also: Satellite built by students soars to space on mission to map heat in Phoenix, other cities, Arizona Republic, November 8

ASU Students Launch NASA-Funded CubeSat To Study Urban Heat Island, KJZZ News, November 11

ASU student-led team sends “Phoenix” satellite to space, The State Press, Nov 11

Fulton Schools alumni Eric Goodchild and Jake Slatnick earned a deal for a big investment in their startup company, Aira, on the popular television program “Shark Tank.” The company’s founders have developed a wireless charger that uses technology — called “Qi” —that is capable of charging several electronic devices simultaneously and is compatible with a large variety of devices. Goodchild and Slatnick, both of whom graduated from ASU in 2015, plan to bring their new technology to the market with Nomad, the major tech accessory company. They attribute some of their success to the entrepreneurial mindset fostered by many ASU programs and initiatives.

More than a decade ago, Cody Friesen developed technology that used the power of sunlight and moisture in the atmosphere to produce pure drinking water. Today, Zero Mass Water, the company founded by Friesen, a Fulton Schools associate professor of materials science and engineering, is seeing its system being employed in 30 countries. The venture is promising to have a significant impact on preventing water scarcity in an increasing number of communities around the world.

One of the biggest cybersecurity challenges is blocking the efforts of potential hackers before they can trigger their malicious malware programs. CYR3CON, a venture that emerged from research led by Fulton Schools Assistant Professor Paulo Shakarian, recently filed its first patent for software designed to predict where hackers are likely to strike. Shakarian, CYR3CON’s CEO and co-founder, developed the framework of his new cybersecurity system as an analyst in the Army focusing on predicting the actions of terrorists and insurgents on the battlefield. The system is still being refined in Shakarian’s Cyber-Socio Intelligent Systems Laboratory at ASU. The goal is to make the system the standard of quality in predictive cybersecurity.

While there is some indication that cell-based therapies might help treat symptoms and control some urological conditions, researchers says there is a lack of scientific evidence to verify that stem cells are truly effective in these areas and do not cause any unintended harm. In a recent broad study of services offered by stem cell clinics, researchers including Emma Frow, a Fulton Schools assistant professor of biomedical engineering, point out that few of the clinics are using cell treatments for urological problems and that there are no Federal Drug Administration-approved stem cell products for use in urology.

ASU researchers are among those who have been discovering that certain environmental conditions can accelerate the corrosion of metallic materials, which poses a threat to materials used in the construction of airplanes, bridges and power plants. The new insight into parallel actions of materials stress and corrosion can help in designing new alloys the deter stress corrosion-induced materials failures, as well as point to better ways to assess the stability of metal alloys that are part of existing structures and technologies. Among leaders in this research is Karl Sieradzki, a Fulton Schools professor of materials science and engineering. Read more.

A biosensing system that reveals the ripeness of fruit earned a research group a $100,000 prize at the third annual ASU Innovation Open presented by the Fulton Schools of Engineering and Avnet, one of the world’s largest electronics components companies. The funds will enable Strella Biotechnology, led by a University of Pennsylvania researcher, to advance its work. The group’s system will help fruit growers to reduce the amount of waste created by its production processes and improve the quality of its products.

Fulton Schools Associate Professor Zachary Holman joined KJZZ’s The Show to talk about a new project to increase the use, and kinds of uses, of solar power. Holman and the ASU research team lead the project. They are working with MIT and schools in Ireland in this multi-year project, which focuses on manufacturing, materials and other aspects of photovoltaic devices. 

James Abbas, a Fulton Schools associate professor of biomedical engineering, is on the team of researchers that has developed a pioneering prosthetic hand system that enables amputees to regain a sense of feeling objects. Now the researchers are moving into a new stage of testing the technology, using military veterans who are amputees and others who have had hand amputations. Abbas, who has been a key partner in evaluating the “neural-enabled” prosthetic hand system, says its sensory feedback capability promises to have dramatic impacts on the lives of its users.

Carbon dioxide emissions are up by almost 300 percent in the Phoenix metro area over the past three decades. It’s the result of population growth, says Mikhail Chester, a Fulton Schools associate professor of civil, environmental and sustainable engineering. In addition to the air pollution concerns raised by those increasing emissions, the city will be further challenged by the impacts of climate change, Chester says. The combination of smoggy brown haze over the city and the expected rise in heat in urban environments is certain to raise more public health issues for the Phoenix area.

A large recently completed mural painted with a surface-cooling coating on a building in Los Angeles may be a sign of things to come as cities face the challenges of a warming climate. Artists, community activists, urban planners and climate experts collaborated on the project. One of them was Ariane Middel, an assistant professor and urban climatologist in the Fulton Schools and the School of Arts, Media and Engineering. Using a thermal camera and a temperature-sensing robot, Middel measured the heat signature of the mural to demonstrate the cooling effects of the coating on the surrounding environment.

ASU’s Center for Bio-mediated and Bio-inspired Geotechnics, directed by Fulton Schools Professor Edward Kavaznajian, is at the forefront of developing solutions to protect natural and built environments from the potentially devastating impacts of earthquakes — including the powerful tsunamis they’ve triggered. One of the center’s researchers, Associate Professor Leon van Paassen, explains the techniques being developed to sufficiently stabilize soils to enable them to withstand shocks from earthquakes. One method involves injecting nutrients into the ground to be consumed by microbes. That causes the microbes to generate nitrogen gas bubbles that could significantly dampen ground vibrations during earthquakes, and thus prevent damage to structures standing on those soils — especially cities built on loosely compacted soils that can liquefy during a strong quakes.

Work led by Fulton Schools Professor Barzin Mobasher is showing how using fiber-reinforced concrete can save time, effort and costs in construction projects. His research team has come up with a series of equations, calculations and procedures for using just the right amount of fiber in concrete mixes to build structures that are more crack-resistant and durable over time and easier and less expensive to repair. The fiber and concrete formula could also provide environmental benefits by producing less of a carbon footprint than conventional concrete materials. Mobasher’s methodology also includes various sets of calculations for concrete mixes using different types of high-performance fibers, including synthetic, glass, polymeric and nylon fibers.

National Academy of Sciences member Alexandra Navrotsky (holding sign in photo) has returned to ASU to the lead the Navrotsky Eyring Center for Materials of the Universe. Her job is to oversee interdisciplinary explorations of newly discovered materials, including those found elsewhere in our solar system. That research thrust will enhance materials science and engineering pursuits aimed at developing new detectors and spacecraft materials needed to enable discoveries beyond our planet. Navrotsky rejoins ASU as a professor in the Fulton Schools, as well as the School of Molecular Sciences and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

A serious spinal cord injury Daniel Campbell sustained in 2012 led him to design a devise to aid his own physical rehabilitation therapy. He called it “The Spartan” and found that therapists and patients wanted to use it. A few years later, as a Fulton Schools undergraduate studying engineering with a focus on robotics, Campbell was refining the rehabilitative tool and entering competitions to raise funding to provide the device to others with similar injuries. Today he has a degree and is seeing The Spartan being used in rehab facilities in Arizona and California.

Rosalind Sadleir and her research team are work on more accurate and less invasive ways to measure electrical activities in the human brain and body. The Fulton Schools associate professor of biomedical engineering is hoping that deeper knowledge of these electrical activities will reveal ways to more quickly diagnose neurological problems like Parkinson’s Disease and related health disorders. The team is developing a new imaging technique that more closely pinpoints where the electrical activity is occurring in the brain. The project involves a collaboration between ASU and experts at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix.

Research is showing possible links between certain chemicals called endocrine disruptors and the onset of breast cancer — and that research points to our modern diet being largely responsible for the slow accumulation of these disruptors in our bodies. The researchers, Fulton Schools professor Rolf Halden, director of ASU’s Center for Environmental Health Engineering, and Devin Bowes, a graduate student in the Fulton Schools biological design program, also say there are measures we can take to reduce ingesting endocrine disruptors and other chemicals we are exposed to through some processed foods and some of the materials in which they are packaged.

See Also: National Geographic, October 10

Fast food increases exposure to a ‘forever chemical’ called PFAS

Long-lasting chemicals used in food packaging can seep into the food and then build up within our bodies, according to data from a new study. It looks at packaging containing a toxic chemical known as PFAS, which has been linked to cancer, thyroid disorders, weight gain and hormonal changes. Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden says PFAS is among the chemicals to which people are often exposed that do not degrade, and thus pose risks to the health of both humans and the natural environment.

It’s called liquefaction, the intense soil-displacing shaking brought on by earthquakes that turn solid ground mushy and dangerous. ASU’s Center for Bio-mediated and Bio-inspired Geotechnics, directed by Fulton Schools Professor Edward Kavazanjian, has developed technology to prevent of liquefaction by injecting nutrients deep into soil. Micro-organisms ingest the nutrients, producing gas that in turn prevents the pressure that leads to liquefaction. ASU engineers are teaming with colleagues at other universities to test the method in parts or Portland, Oregon that could be prone to liquefaction. They’re using tools such as the truck called T-Rex (see picture), which can simulate earthquake action by shaking small areas of the ground.

See Also: Where solid ground could turn into ‘soup’ KGW8 News, Portland, October 11

Even with one of the driest monsoon seasons on record this year, Arizona still saw rains that led to flash flooding and emergency rescues of people swept away in swift waters running through desert washes. Such persistent threats to public safety could be reduced by FloodAware, a warning system being developed by engineers and scientists at ASU, Northern Arizona University and the University of Arizona. Fulton Schools Assistant Professor Margaret Garcia, a leader of the FloodAware research, explains how a mobile hydrology app, image-processing technology and water resource engineering can help provide real-time flood monitoring to give public safety officials timely alerts about potentially dangerous flooding at specific locations.

The world’s infrastructure systems can’t be adapted fast enough to handle growing challenges being brought on by climate change, says Mikhail Chester, a Fulton Schools associate professor of civil, environmental and sustainable engineering. The threatening climatic conditions and extreme weather events that are interrupting power grid operations in California are an example of what is beginning to happen across the country. Chester and other experts warn that infrastructure designed and built for the more stable and predictable climate of the past will become more prone to instability that poses risks to public safety. (Image by H. Hach from Pixabay )

See Also: You can expect more blackouts as the country heats up, Popular Science, October 11

ASU’s Quantum Energy and Sustainable Solar Technologies Engineering Research Center, known as QESST, will lead a collaboration involving five universities in three countries to make advances in solar cell technology and explore new applications for photovoltaic devices. QESST is directed by Christiana Honsberg, a Fulton Schools professor of electrical, computer and energy engineering. Among results the research project is expected to produce are technologies that are more efficient at converting sunlight into electricity, integration of solar cells into indoor “internet of things” sensors and wearable technology and low-cost solar cell manufacturing. News of the project is also posted on the Solar Novus Today, Solar Builder magazine and Phys.org websites.

Coal miners typically descend thousands of feet into the earth to their work sites. Risks they face in underground environments can be dangerous if safety measures are not followed diligently. Miners can be exposed to extremely heavy air pressure and to dangerous gases like carbon monoxide and methane. Proper ventilation will prevent harmful conditions, says Fulton Schools Professor Edward Kavazanjian, a geotechnical engineer, but mine operators must follow established procedures that make practices to protect workers’ health a priority. Kavazanjian also commented about the issue in a 2010 article in The New York Times.

A new body tissue sealing technique being developed by Fulton Schools Professor Kaushal Rege’s research team uses a laser to heat up gold nanorods to gently melt silk fibers. Those fibers then fuse with collagen — a protein within the body’s various connective tissues — to bond tissues and aid in healing of wounds and incisions, while also possibly preventing infections. The method can be applied to reinforcing the use of stitches to seal tissues or to potentially provide a resilient alternative to conventional stitching. Read more.

Many cities trying to cool down ambient outdoor temperatures for the public’s comfort have been using so-called “cool pavements,” especially on their streets. But researcher Ariane Middel is finding these typically white pavement materials that are supposed to lower temperatures, by reflecting energy from sunlight, are actually causing a rise in heat. Middel is an urban climatologist and an assistant professor in the Fulton Schools and the School of Arts, Media. She and fellow researchers have recently been studying the impact of measures to keep urban heat down in Los Angeles. But she has discovered temperatures are being boosted by the solar radiation that is reflecting off of the white paving materials.

See Also: ASU researcher finds white ‘cool pavements’ actually make you hotter, 3TV/CBS 5 News – Phoenix, October 11

Horizontal direction drilling, or HDD, has been transforming the way power lines, gas lines and fiber optic cables are installed underground. Fulton Schools Professor Sam Ariaratnam, chair of the construction engineering program, has been at the forefront of research leading to HDD advances that have and made the technique standard practice in the underground construction industry over the past two decades. In an article reporting on how HDD is reshaping modern urban landscapes in Canada, Ariaratnam talks about the technical and environmental benefits being demonstrated by this minimally invasive drilling method.

It’s not just Zero Mass Water’s technological achievement in developing fully solar-powered hydropanels that can produce water by absorbing water vapor from the air. It’s how the company has made it a priority to bring its system to underserved communities around the world. “As inventors, we have a responsibility to ensure our technology serves all of humanity, not simply the elite” says the company’s founder, Cody Friesen, a Fulton Schools associate professor of materials science and engineering. That guiding principle recently helped Friesen and Zero Mass Water win the Lemelson-MIT Prize given annually to “honor outstanding mid-career inventors dedicated to improving our world through technological invention.” (Read more in a September 19 post on this page.)

ASU’s Autism/Aspergers Research Program, directed by Fulton Schools Professor James Adams, is partnering with a research foundation to do the first clinical trial of a new therapy developed by Adams and his research team to treat some of the ailments associated with autism. The trial will focus on the potential for the Microbiota Transfer Therapy to combat the effects of Pitt-Hopkins syndrome, a rare genetic disorder often classified on the autism spectrum. The hope is for the treatment to alleviate or reduce constipation and other gastrointestinal and gut problems that often plague children with Pitt-Hopkins syndrome.

Fulton Schools faculty members have key roles in a new wearable technology center in Phoenix. The WearTech Center is a public-private partnership between the Partnership for Economic Innovation, ASU and the state government. Gregory Raupp, professor of chemical engineering and the Fulton Schools’ director of Partnerships and Innovation, is the center’s research director. Thomas Sugar (pictured at right), graduate program chair and professor in the Fulton School’s engineering and manufacturing engineering program, is part of GoX Labs, a tenant at the WearTech center. The venture’s mission is to partner with industry to develop wearable technology solutions. Current devices include smartwatches, fitness trackers, augmented and virtual reality headsets and wearable cameras, and health- assessment devices. (Subscriber access only)

See Also: WearTech Center — focused on R&D — opens at Park Central, AZ Big Media, October 1

With the proliferation of artificial intelligence technology, human interactions with AI-equipped robots are expected to become an increasing part of daily life. So, scientists and engineers are exploring paths to better human-robot relationships. Fulton Schools Assistant Professor Heni Ben Amor has led research using a humanoid remote-controlled robot to give hundreds of hugs to humans wearing sensors to collect data on their hugging experiences. The result is a human-robot hugging interaction data set that could aid efforts to train companion robots and have applications in robots used for assembly tasks, therapy and even entertainment. Details are reported in a recent research paper authored by Ben Amor and Fulton Schools doctoral students Kunal Bagewadi and Joseph Campbell, who work in Ben Amor’s Interactive Robotics Lab.

Using infrared technology to take photographic images with traffic cameras, and then using algorithms to process those images, a group of Fulton Schools engineers says they will be able to help urban motorists avoid streets that are flooded or likely to soon be underwater. Margaret Garcia, an assistant professor in ASU’s School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, says the system could even help to determine if there’s flooding in areas without the infrared cameras.

Fulton Schools and Mesa Community College students are teaming with a U.S. Department of Agriculture research center to promote education in sustainable agriculture. They’re aiding in development of agricultural research techniques that can be applied in the lab and in hands-on field work. An undergraduate course to be offered as part of the project is expected to begin in the 2020 spring semester. The venture may provide impetus for developing more concentrated studies of food systems and related agricultural subjects at ASU, says Rebecca Muenich, an assistant professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment.

The Lemelson-MIT Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology awarded Cody Friesen its annual $500,000 prize for inventions that can improve the quality of life for people around the world. Friesen, a Fulton Schools associate professor of materials science and engineering, founded Fluidic Energy and Zero Mass Water, companies that provide rechargeable batteries to power electric grids in emergency situations and solar energy panels that can produce drinkable water by absorbing water molecules from the air. So far, the technology has helped to deliver water to communities in more than 30 countries.

See Also: MIT honors alumnus for innovations in drinking water, battery technologies, Boston Globe, September 18

Arizona engineer, inventor wins $500,000 prize for water-air tech, KTAR News, September 19

Cody Friesen PhD ’04 awarded $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize, MIT News, September 18

ASU professor, startup founder wins $500,000 for panels that create water from air, sunlight, Phoenix Business Journal, September 18 (Subscriber access only)

Ensuring Arizona can avoid water scarcity in a future that’s predicted to be drier throughout the Southwest will take foresight and concerted endeavors by public officials, scientists, industry, community leaders and the public to find solutions to water supply challenges. Fulton Schools Professor Paul Westerhoff was one of the water experts who spoke at a recent conference sponsored by ASU’s offices of Knowledge Enterprise Development and Government and Community Engagement. Westerhoff, the Fulton Chair of Environmental Engineering, stressed the need for industries and businesses to engage in efforts to develop best practices in their management and use of water resources.

Continuing urbanization is resulting in cities with more heat-absorbent surfaces — concrete sidewalks, parking lots and roads paved with asphalt, for instance — that are intensifying the urban heat island effect. With her robot that measures how heat impacts the human body, Ariane Middel is studying ways for cities that face hotter futures to help keep people cool and shielded from the sources of higher temperatures. Middel. an assistant professor in the Fulton Schools and the School of Arts, Media and Engineering, is working with Phoenix and Tempe to create more shade in urban environs.

There is little about large accumulations of plastics in the world’s oceans that isn’t problematic, scientists and engineers report. The pollution is posing a growing risk to sea life, with animals up and down the food chain being threatened by the effects of plastics in their environments, says Charles Rolsky, an ASU doctoral student who conducts research with Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden in the Center for Environmental Health Engineering. Halden says early research indicates microplastics that are also finding their way into human’s bodies could pose serious health threats to people. The growing plastics waste situation even has serious economic implications for many large industries.

The large swaths of concrete and asphalt that cover much the urban environment’s surfaces are a major factor in the ongoing rise in temperatures that are making life more uncomfortable — and even unhealthy — in big cities. A team of ASU students, many of them Fulton Schools students, hope to gather valuable new information to help address the problem. They’re building and preparing a small satellite designed to help study the impacts of the urban heat island effect as it flies over several major cities, including Phoenix. A grant from NASA is supporting the CubeSat venture. Aerospace engineering student Sarah Rogers is the project manager.

It’s getting way beyond facial recognition. New ways researchers are developing technologies to find, detect and monitor people are expanding rapidly and becoming more effective. Tracking people by their heartbeat, microbial cells and scent are just some of the expanded capabilities. Such advances make it urgent to restrict use of such surveillance tools when it could violate democratic principles, says Katina Michael, a Fulton Schools professor of computer science and engineering, who is also on the faculty of the ASU’s School for the Future of Innovation in Society. The impacts of these technologies need to be revealed and controlled to maintain public trust in the governments and other institutions that might use them.

Engineers and scientists are experimenting with using microbes to re-engineer soils underground in a way that prevents soil from liquefying. In collaboration with two other universities, ASU’s Center for Bio-mediated and Bio-inspired Geotechnics, directed by Fulton Schools Professor Edward Kavazanjian, is developing a technique researchers hope can eventually be applied to liquefaction-prone locales around the world. That would fortify soil and help to keep liquids from saturating the ground during earthquakes and preventing damage to buildings, roadways and other vital structures. Trillions of dollars’ worth of infrastructure is at risk until solutions are found that will stop liquefaction on a large scale, Kavazanjian says.

As social media in particular rapidly spreads information and misinformation about the more than 100,000 separate fires that have erupted in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, ASU researchers are helping separate fact from fiction about the blazes and their potential environmental impacts. Among them is Kai Shu, a Fulton Schools computer science and engineering doctoral student who authored the book “Detecting Fake News on Social Media” with his academic adviser, Fulton Schools Professor Huan Liu. The flurry of photos, reporting and misreporting spreading about the Amazon fires demonstrate the challenge of getting the straight story on such dramatic events.

Trees, awnings, shade sails, umbrellas, landscaping and urban environmental design — all of those and more are becoming vital to coping with a growing need to cool things down in locales where temperatures continue to climb. Ariane Middel is using technology she designed — a mobile biometeorological instrument platform named “MaRTy” —   in her work with colleagues to find the most effective methods of protecting the populace from the rising heat. Middel is an assistant professor in the Fulton Schools and the School of Arts, Media and Engineering.

See Also: Keeping Pedestrians Cool Focus of First-Ever U of G Research, University of Guelph, September 3

Arizona researchers say shade is not all created equal, KTAR News, September 1

In some countries, fines for traffic violations that are many times higher than fines in Arizona and throughout the United States seem to have a deterrent effect on inattentive driving that leads to serious vehicle crashes. But transportation engineer and Fulton Schools Professor Ram Pendyala says raising fines probably would not by itself result in making driving safer on Phoenix streets and highways. Pendyala recommends that better roadway design and public awareness and education efforts need to be part of a solution to the rising numbers of auto collisions.

A rookie team of ASU engineering students — most of them Fulton Schools students — put in the surprise performance of a recent international underwater robotics competition. The team named Desert WAVE (Women in Autonomous Vehicle Engineering) took third place over all at the RoboSub international event. The team was formed in collaboration with an Arizona-based organization that provides opportunities to youngsters in underserved communities. Another version of the story was posted on the website of the national morning news show Good Morning America.

See Also: ASU’s all female robotics team is #1 in the country, 3TV/CBS 5 News – Phoenix, September 6

The billions of contact lenses being disposed of by flushing them down drains and toilets is exacerbating the plastics pollution problem that is threatening the health of the environment as well as the human food chain. Contact lenses can survive the filtering processes of water treatment systems, says Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden, director of the ASU Center for Environmental Health Engineering. That means old contact lenses end up adding to the increasing accumulations of toxic pollutants on land and in the ocean, where they are ingested by land animals and sea creatures — including those that are sources of food for people.

A vision physiologist and a nanoparticle expert have injected nanoparticles that convert infrared light into visible light into the eyes of mice. The injections gave the mice the ability to see in the dark for as long as 10 weeks. The researchers say the technique could work safely in humans, and be especially useful for troops in nighttime military operations. Brad Allenby, a Fulton Schools professor of engineering and ethics, and founding chair of the Consortium for Emerging Technologies, Military Operations and National Security, says more studies would be needed to ensure such injections have no negative effects in humans, but that enhanced visual capability would give troops and security personnel a significant advantage.

Fake Facebook pages are being used to trick users of the social media network to click on a video embedded in a message that appears to be from a Facebook friend. Clicking on the video can give hackers access to much of your personal information, warns cybersecurity expert Partha Dasgupta, a Fulton Schools associate professor of computer science and engineering. Dasgupta says such so-called phishing scams have lured social media users into becoming victims of identity theft.

With a long-range forecast for higher summer temperatures in the Phoenix metro area, communities are taking steps to provide more shade in the urban environment. Ariane Middel (at left in photo) is among ASU researchers leading biometeorological studies to determine more effective ways to use landscaping, buildings, canopies and other structures to offer people some respite from the heat by shielding them from sunlight. Middel is an assistant professor in the Fulton Schools, as well as the School of Arts, Media and Engineering and the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning.

The damage wrought by Hurricane Katrina slamming New Orleans in 2005 could be a picture of what’s to come from extreme climate events driven by warming temperatures throughout the world, says Fulton Schools Associate Professor Mikhail Chester, who directs the Metis Center for Infrastructure and Sustainable Engineering at ASU. Chester’s fellow engineers and their climate science colleagues point to more than heat affecting the severity of weather events, but also how constant high temperatures can trigger social and psychological stresses. They say re-engineering cities like Phoenix to mitigate and withstand the heat is becoming imperative to quality of life.

Fulton Schools students are among more than 100 ASU students, faculty members and researchers who teamed up to design and build the Phoenix spacecraft. The small “cubesat” is set to be launched in October to the international Space Station for a two-year mission. The spacecraft will to take thermal images of several American cities (including Phoenix) to help determine the effects of their urban heat islands. The goal is to give local governments and communities data to help them confront their heat-related environmental challenges.

See Also: Starry-eyed ASU students create satellite to better understand climate change, The State Press, September 16

The longer it takes to launch efforts to reduce the levels of carbon emissions into the Earth’s atmosphere, the bigger and more expensive a feat of geoengineering it will require to evade the dangers of a rapidly warming planet. The carbon-capture technology capable of helping to fine-tune the climate is being developed in research led by Fulton Schools Professor Klaus Lackner in ASU’s Center for Negative Carbon Emissions. But the solution is going to also require resolving some political and social conflicts.

Promising indications that the gene-editing tool called CRISPR can be used to effectively fight cancer and other serious health disorders and diseases is about to put to the test in clinical trials. Samira Kiana, a Fulton Schools assistant professor of biomedical engineering and an expert in gene therapy, describes the complex obstacles and challenges involved in verifying CRISPR’s curative powers.

With a robot she calls “a mean radiant temperature cart,” ASU urban climatologist Ariane Middel is gathering data that can be used to develop “thermal comfort maps.” The robot and the maps can help calculate routes that provide the most shade for those seeking refuge from Arizona’s searing summer sun. The system could also be adapted to aid architects and planners in designing structures and spaces to provide more shade. Middel is an assistant professor in the Fulton Schools and the School of Arts, Media and Engineering, and an affiliate faculty member with the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning. Read more.

Doctoral student Andrew Burchill has one of the most painstaking jobs in science. His work with ASU’s Social Insect Research Group includes “mass animal christening,” that so far has been requiring him to identify and keep track of vast multitudes of ants by painting tags on them with a human eyelash taped to a toothpick. But Fulton Schools Assistant Professor Ted Pavlic has come to Burchill’s rescue. Pavlic combined his skills in electrical and computer engineering, computer science and life sciences — and expertise in telecommunications and the behavior of complex systems — to solve a problem Burchill says has long been frustrating biologists.

Perpetrators of phone scams are using social engineering to exploit their victims’ vulnerabilities. Scammers employ sophisticated methods such as visual cues, altered caller IDs and alarming voice content to fraudulently obtain people’s sensitive personal information. Adam Dumpé, a Fulton Schools assistant professor computer engineering, is working with a research team to explore development of effective countermeasures to safeguard against the scams.

Phoenix is already one of the hottest cities in the United States, with well over 100 days a year seeing temperatures at or above 100 degrees Fahrenheit. And it’s getting hotter — along with some other large urban areas around the country — due to global climate change and the urban heat island effect. Ariane Middel, an assistant professor in the Fulton Schools and the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, is among urban climate researchers using the city as a living laboratory to explore strategies for warming cities to adapt to the meteorological changes and reduce the impacts of the rising heat.

For many years, harmful chemicals were dumped on the ground around industrial plants in Phoenix. The groundwater polluted by those health-threatening solvents remains at the center of governmental, financial and legal disputes that have been delaying cleanup of the contaminated water that stretches for 15 miles. Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden, director of ASU’s Center for Environmental Health Engineering, says the risk of public exposure to the chemicals can be alleviated only by an aggressive cleanup effort.

Misconceptions and misperceptions about artificial intelligence technology cloud some of the public’s understanding of AI technology and its potential societal impacts. It’s instructive to look at the evolution of AI’s capabilities to get a more revealing grasp of how it might change the world, says Subbarao Kambhampati, a Fulton Schools professor of computer science and chief AI officer for the AI Foundation. In the first of a series of columns on the subject, Kambhampati examines how AI has progressed in gaining abilities in particular kinds of intelligence in ways comparable to — and different than — human intellectual development.

Among more than 50 teams from 12 countries, the all-female Desert Wave team of Fulton Schools students finished third in the recent 2019 International RoboSub competition. That made Desert Wave the highest-placing team from the United States. Robots entered in the competition were designed to help gather knowledge in underwater environments that could pose dangers for people. The team composed largely of freshman students plans to return to the RoboSub event next year. Read more.

A recent edition of the science and technology program “Details” reports on how artificial intelligence technology was used to enhance TV viewers’ experience of this summer’s Wimbledon tennis championships. Journalist Andrey Derkach turned to Fulton Schools Professor Subbarao Kamphampati for AI expertise. Kamphampati explained how an AI-powered system implemented by IBM analyzed video footage to produce a highlights report for various media platforms. He says the way the system selected what to feature exhibited a bias due to the quirks of crowd reactions influenced by the popularity of certain players. The report begins several seconds past the 12:30 mark in the video. The program was first aired on July 1 and then archived on its website.

A joint ASU-U.S. Army project is providing valuable information to aid the country’s military in its missions around the world. Each semester, ASU students are assigned to research densely populated urban regions in other countries. The goal is to help U.S. military forces better understand the cultural, demographic, social and economic environments of those regions before U.S. troops deploy to those areas. Fulton Schools biomedical engineering student Nathan Hui is among those who have participated. Hui says his extensive information-gathering for the Army on Algiers, Algeria, provided excellent training in conducting research.

Firefighters were injured in an explosion earlier this year resulting from a fire at an Arizona Public Service utility company storage facility west of Phoenix. The incident has prompted a member of the state commission that regulates public utilities to recommend APS consider using sources of power other than the lithium ion batteries used at the facility. Fulton Schools Professor Hanqing Jiang, whose research involves developing advances in lithium ion batteries, says they are the best kind of batteries for power storage applications and can be prevented from catching on fire with proper safety precautions.

See Also: 4 months later, investigators still looking for cause in APS battery facility explosion, Fox 10 News-Phoenix, August 8

Five incidences within five days involving people driving automobiles in the wrong direction on freeways in the Phoenix area raised questions about the cause of such mishaps. Some voiced concerns that local freeway designs could be contributing to the problem. But Fulton Schools Associate Professor Yingyan Lou, an expert in intelligent transportation systems and the modeling and optimization of those systems, says Arizona’s freeways — particularly busy Interstate 10 — adhere to the some of the best design codes. Better visibility of road signage might help reduce wrong-way driving, Lou says, but studies show driver impairment remains the biggest cause of such incidents.

Clinics offering direct-to-consumer stem cell treatments can vary significantly in their practices and the expertise of clinicians. That is among key findings of a study published in the journal Stem Cell Reports of almost 170 stem cell businesses in six states in the U.S. Southwest. David Brafman and Emma Frow, Fulton Schools assistant professors of biomedical engineering, led the survey work. Brafman, Frow and their colleagues hope to bring more transparency to the stem cell marketplace, raise consumer awareness and provide insights to guide federal and state agencies in properly regulating the marketplace.

See Also: Google bans ads for unproven stem cell therapies, Breitbart News, September 6

More ‘Buyer Beware’ Warnings for Unregulated Stem Cell Clinics, HealthDay News report in U.S. News & World Report, DoctorsLounge and United Press International (Unregulated stem cell clinics can be dangerous, study finds), August 1

Assessing direct-to-consumer stem cell clinics, Science Daily, August 1

ASU research reviews unregulated stem cell clinics in six southwestern states, ASU NOW, August 1

Study examines direct-to-consumer stem cell clinics in 6 Southwestern states, August 1, Science Codex (Cell Press) and Global Health News Wire

Investigation Into 170 U.S. Stem Cell Clinics Finds Some Scary Trends, Gizmodo, August 2

ASU Study Describes Fragmented, Unregulated Stem Cell Businesses In Arizona, Southwest, KJZZ (NPR), August 6

Deep dive into US stem cell clinics gives reason to worry about ‘unsafe or useless treatments, Genetic Literacy Project, August 7

When summer monsoon rains and big storms cross each other’s paths, the result can wreak a lot of damage, especially in busy Southwestern urban areas such as Phoenix. Early warning systems are one way to reduce the chance of such occurrences putting people— particularly those driving in heavy traffic — in danger. Fulton Schools faculty members Margaret Garcia, Mikhail Chester and Giuseppe Mascaro are at work on Flood Aware, a system employing traffic cameras, image processing algorithms and hydraulic models of storm water systems to provide timely warnings about impending urban flooding.

See Also: Researchers turn to technology to help detect when storms will flood Valley streets, ABC15 News-Phoenix, August 22

ASU engineers working on warning system for urban flooding, Fox 10 News-Phoenix, August 1

Engineers Working to Predict Flooding, 3TV/CBS News 5 – Phoenix, July 31

Artificial intelligence systems can be as beneficial or as detrimental as the data fed into them, according Fulton Schools Professor Subbarao Kambhampati, a recent former president of the international Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. In a talk presented by the Manthan Forum for Public Discourse in India, Kambhampati said the challenges posed by increasing reliance on AI technology stem from biased data being put into AI systems that skews the outcomes those systems produce.  

The mineral perovskite oxide is being used to develop a new chemical-materials compound to produce a form of semiconductor that promises to enable more efficient application of solar energy cells. Researchers involved are from Washington University, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and ASU, where Shalinee Kavadiya, a Fulton Schools postdoctoral research scholar, perfected the compound. It could also possibly be used for semiconductor applications in liquid crystal displays.

Scientists and engineers, along with health and environmental organizations, are become increasingly concerned about the amount of plastics around the world. That’s not only because plastics waste is adding significantly to the growing amount of refuse in landfills and is polluting oceans. It’s also because of the growing potential for negative impacts on the health of humans and wildlife. Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden, director of ASU’s Center for Center for Environmental Health Engineering, say it’s now almost impossible to find humans and animals who haven’t been exposed to plastics and possibly also to toxic additives used in manufacturing them.

Samira Kiani, a Fulton Schools assistant professor of biomedical engineering, is among 10 scientists and engineers selected for the 2019–2020 Alan I. Leshner Leadership Institute for Public Engagement project in conjunction with the Science magazine fellows program at the AAAS Center for Public Engagement with Science and Technology. The Fellows are undertaking public outreach projects to explore issues involving emerging human augmentation capabilities. Kiani (second from left in photo) is co-producing a documentary film about the potential benefits of genetic engineering and societal concerns about altering human DNA through “gene editing.”

Five years ago, Laura Hosman challenged her engineering students to develop a solar-powered library that would fit in a backpack. That was the beginning of SolarSPELL, which has evolved into a tool for a global humanitarian mission that is bringing education and health care information to people in remote communities. Hosman (second from left in photo), an associate professor in the Fulton Schools and ASU’s School for the Future of Innovation in Society, is continuing to get more ASU students involved in the endeavor through internships and engineering capstone design projects.

Researchers at ASU’s Biodesign Institute hope to produce better ways to predict viral outbreaks — starting with flu outbreaks. The National Library of Medicine is funding the project involving several ASU research labs and centers. Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden, director of Biodesign’s Center for Environmental Health Engineering, says the capabilities of new advanced technologies promise to provide information revealing how to detect earlier warnings of such outbreaks. Halden and his team will use their expertise in wastewater analysis to improve methods for identifying biohazards in communities.

A new ASU academic program is combining studies of technology creation — primarily artificial technology — with sociology and literature. A grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities will fund development of a new curriculum for a concentration within an undergraduate digital culture degree program in the School of Arts, Media and Engineering, a collaborative of the Fulton Schools and the Herberger Institute of Design and the Arts. Suren Jayasuriya, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, is the new program’s project director.

Leaders of both ASU’s Graduate and Undergraduate Student Government bestow the Centennial Professorship Award on faculty members to recognize their leadership in classroom learning and innovative practices in their fields. Among recent recipients of the award is Javier Gonzalez-Sanchez, a Fulton Schools lecturer with expertise in software engineering and human-computer interaction. He plans to use the monetary prize that comes with the Centennial Professorship Award to bring more smart objects — such as sensors and embedded and autonomous devices — into classroom projects.

ASU researchers will develop new technology to meet demands of modern warfare and national security in a project funded by a major grant from a U.S. Department of Defense research agency. The goal is to build a device capable of detecting if people have been exposed to substances associated with weapons of mass destruction. The device will be a point-of-care device to aid in the treatment of individuals exposed to biological agents, radiation, chemicals and explosives. Jennifer Blain Christen, a Fulton Schools assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, will serve on an advisory group for the research team.

See Also: ASU lands $39M grant to detect soldiers’ exposure to weapons of mass destruction, ABC15 News-Phoenix, July 23

ASU lands $39M grant to detect soldiers’ exposure to weapons of mass destruction, Phoenix Business Journal, July 23

Most plastic containers release only tiny, harmless amounts of chemicals into the food or liquids they hold. But those amounts increase when the plastic containers are exposed to hot temperatures, and that raises concerns about possible negative health impacts that could result over time, warns Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden, director of ASU’s Center for Environmental Health Engineering. All the more reason to be aware of — and take steps to prevent — the potential problems of living in a world where we are surrounded by plastics, Halden says.

What are the causes of a rise in fatal roadway accidents involving pedestrians — particularly in cities such as Phoenix? Fulton Schools Professor Ram Pendyala, a transportation engineering expert, says multiple factors are involved. Urban growth, driving speeds, multilane streets, larger automobiles and road designs all appear to be contributing factors. Pendyala gives more details about what research is revealing in a radio interview with KTAR News in Phoenix. Studies are indicating that better street illumination at nighttime and more signs cautioning drivers to watch for pedestrians might be among effective remedies to the problem.

In the new review, lead author Olga Hart, a doctoral candidate in the lab of Professor Rolf Halden at Arizona State University, looked at drought, water supply and demand, climate change and flooding guidances used by every state. She mapped preparedness for each of those factors and how severe climate change risks are anticipated to be for each state.

A team of online students in the Fulton Schools electrical engineering program — including a father of three children — worked remotely to design and build a hospital bed to prevent people with limited mobility from developing pressure ulcers often caused by long periods of being bed-ridden. The team’s Personal Care E-Assistant bed helps stimulate blood flow and includes a passive motion system to reposition patients. The bed also has remote control, monitoring and communication capabilities. The invention won the Fulton Schools Palais Senior Design Prize for its potential to have a widespread positive impact on society.

Social media has the ability expose users to a myriad of misinformation, including fake news — news stories with intentionally false information. Numerous deep learning methods currently exist to detect fake news, but these methods are unable to explain why it is recognized as such. Now, a team of researchers from Penn State University and Arizona State University, including Fulton Schools computer science doctoral student Kai Shu and Professor Huan Liu, is working to help explain why any piece of fake news is detected as being false.

Pedestrian fatalities have been increasing on roadways in busy urban areas — including in Phoenix. Substance abuse, distracted or speeding drivers and bigger, heavier vehicles are seen as sources of the rising roadway dangers. But transportation engineering experts such as Fulton Schools Professor Ram Pendyala say the problem can be remedied to a significant degree by better road design that prioritizes pedestrian safety. An investigation has revealed that many of the most dangerous streets for pedestrians have not been redesigned in decades.

See Also: Why are the streets of Phoenix so deadly for pedestrians?, KTAR News (Phoenix), July 17

The Arizona Department of Transportation and the U.S. Geological Survey’s Arizona Water Science group made the Laguna Creek Bridge on the Navajo Nation a pilot site to test next-generation monitoring technologies. The bridge is equipped with sensors and gauges to provide surface flow data during and after storms. Drones, video cameras, laser-aided surveying and 3D surface modeling are also among the innovative features. The bridge won one of the first Sustainable Infrastructure Awards recently given by ASU’s Metis Center for Infrastructure and Sustainable Engineering, directed by Fulton Schools Associate Professor Mikhail Chester.

See Also: ADOT Bridge Project Near Kayenta Wins Prestigious Award, KNAU News (Flagstaff), July 9

Arizona bridge project wins infrastructure award, Transportation Today, July 10

ADOT Bridge Project on US 160 Receives ASU Sustainable Infrastructure Award, SignalsAZ.com, July 14

ADOT Project Receives Sustainable Infrastructure Award, Construction Equipment Guide, July 16

A power outrage in the downtown Phoenix business district caused by an explosion in underground electrical power facilities resulted in the death of an Arizona Public Service utility company employee. Barzin Mobasher, a Fulton Schools Professor of civil engineering and a structural engineering expert, explains the necessity for underground water, sewer, electrical and cable systems in busy urban areas, but points to the potential dangers that come with working in subterranean structures.

Urban planners have seemed to often operate under the impression that you can never have enough parking for automobiles. Researchers, however, are discovering that there is such a thing as too much space allotted for parking — and it’s costing cities a considerable amount of money. Not to mention that all of those heavily paved surfaces that come with such parking lot sprawl intensify the urban heat island effect. Mikhail Chester, a Fulton Schools associate professor of civil, environmental and sustainable engineering, is among researchers making important findings about the impact of parking infrastructure. Read more about it in ScienceDirect and on Full Circle.

Overuse of the chemical triclosan in consumer products — particularly antimicrobial soap and the like — may be increasing the risk of bone density loss, especially in women. Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden, director of the Biodesign Center for Environmental Health Engineering at ASU, comments on a new study published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism that offers more findings pointing to the potential for triclosan to present a health threat. Halden recommends people limit their exposure to the risk by not using products containing the chemical.

Despite Arizona’s mostly dry desert climate, materials still rust like they do in the wetter and more humid regions elsewhere. Karl Sieradzki, a Fulton Schools professor of materials science and engineering, explains that iron and its alloys, like steel, still oxidize in desert climates. The difference is they do so considerably more slowly in places with low moisture — such as the desert Southwest. But a stainless-steel tool coated in a thin layer of chromium can remain rust-free.

Re-engineering clothing is one way people might be able to live more comfortably in hotter climates. Konrad Rykaczewski, a Fulton Schools assistant professor of mechanical engineering, develops microelectronics for cooling systems. He is applying approaches he uses in that work to developing clothing designed to keep wearers cool in high temperatures. Rykaczewski is also experimenting with materials and simple tech devices embedded in clothing that will also minimize the heat-producing energy people generate by moving — another way for clothing to keep the wearer cool.

Eleven ASU engineering students recently joined in the launch of Global EPICS (Engineering Projects in Community Service) by collaborating with Vietnamese engineering students and a sustainable farming organization to develop smart technology to boost agricultural efficiency. Working remotely at first and then at the ASU-supported Maker Innovation Space in Da Nang, ASU students helped to produce a soil humidity sensor to provide farmers data they can use to make decisions about raising their crops. Fulton Schools aerospace engineering students Karryn Baca and Tommy Montero and computer science student Merin Jacob were among members of the project team.

Fulton Schools biomedical engineering students Mariam El Sheikha and Kelsey Boos will debut their device to aid upper limb function recovery for stroke patients at an international showcase in London as part of the PLuS Engineering Summer School. El Sheika and Boos — members of one of three ASU engineering teams bringing projects to the summer school in England — were on an interdisciplinary bioengineering product development team for a class on the fundamentals of developing and bringing a biomedical device to the market. Both students are planning to enter medical school.

Fulton Schools researchers are at the forefront of research to reveal the secrets surrounding the nature of autism and hot to treat the condition. Professors James Adams and Rosa Krajmalnik-Brown have teamed up on investigations that have led to increasing evidence showing bacteria in the human gut may have a strong connection to behavioral symptoms of autism spectrum disorder. Their continuing collaborative studies are bearing out initial suppositions that treatments to correct dysfunction in the collection of bacteria, fungi, viruses and the like in the gut (called the microbiome) could alleviate some debilitating effects of autism.

NASA’s University Leadership Initiative (ULI) is breaking the mold in the way academic and industry partners shape their collaborative research projects. The program lets students propose the focus of research they want to conduct for the national space agency. Yongming Liu, a Fulton Schools professor who has students involved in ULI research, says the new approach gives students valuable experience in how research to solve real-world technological problems is formulated, solved and implemented. The photograph shows students in an aviation program at The Polytechnic School, one of the Fulton Schools, working with a flight simulator used in research related to an ASU/NASA ULI project.

A consortium of engineers has proposed an extensive array of ventures along the United State-Mexico border that would focus on innovative development of energy and water resources and include industrial parks, research and education centers and agriculture enterprises. ASU Regents’ Professor Ron Adrian, a Fulton Schools professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, is among co-authors of the proposal. In an interview, Adrian talks about the consortium members’ hope that these various facilities and businesses  would bring economic prosperity to the border region that would help to ease border security problems. Read more about the vision for the border innovation zone.

Klaus Lackner began thinking about technology to make air safer to breathe almost three decades ago. Now startup businesses and other commercial enterprises are pursuing ventures based on carbon-capture systems similar to those Lackner has been developing in the ASU Center for Negative Carbon Emissions. The Fulton Schools professor’s atmosphere-cleansing techniques are about to be deployed through a new partnership between ASU and an Ireland-based company. Using a passive energy- and cost-saving approach, the technology relies on wind to pull air into a carbon-storage system. Lackner’s systems and others have been shown to work, but the challenge now is scaling up operations enough to make a significant difference on a global scale.

See Also: University researchers behind new push for “mechanical trees” to help capture CO2, ABC Channel 7 News (Denver), July 11

Direct action: Carbon capture gears up for climate battle, The Engineer, June 12

A consortium of engineers has proposed an extensive array of water and renewable energy infrastructure developments along the United States-Mexico border to put the region on a path to prosperity. They see the plan helping to improve border security by bringing economic stability to depressed areas. Ron Adrian, an ASU Regents’ Professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering in the Fulton Schools, is among the engineers who authored the proposal. Read more about the proposal in an earlier post on this page dated March 6.

The executive director of ASU Gammage, Colleen Jennings-Roggensack, will walk down the red carpet at the annual Tony Awards on June 9 attired in a custom-made gown created by Loren Aragon, a 2004 Fulton Schools mechanical engineering graduate. The gown is an example of the “culturally fueled” aesthetic Aragon brings to his job as a designer and artist for a Native American owned and operated couture fashion brand based in Phoenix. Aragon, whose previous designs have been featured at Disney World, is helping Native American fashion and culture make its mark in the larger fashion industry.

See Also: Native American designer dresses head of Gammage for Tony Awards, KTAR News (Phoenix), June 10

Climate change, autonomous technologies and major shifts in economic and societal landscapes are among factors accelerating a fundamental reshaping of the world — a world in which the rigid blueprint for civil infrastructure design that has been in place for many decades won’t serve us well in the future, says Fulton Schools Associate Profess Mikhail Chester. With his team at ASU’s Metis Center for Infrastructure and Sustainable Engineering, Chester is working on approaches to infrastructure development that have the agility and flexibility to respond to the changing needs of society into the next century. 

Medical researchers believe they are making valuable discoveries toward a deeper understanding of autism and how to treat it — particularly through recent studies of how microbes in the human gut play a significant role in development of the condition. The Economist article begins with a report on recent research by Fulton Schools Professors Rosa Krajmalnik-Brown James Adams and their collaborators showing that a process called microbiota transfer therapy helped to reduce the symptoms of autism in children. Their findings are detailed in a report on the website of the research journal Scientific Reports-Nature.

The Economist article also cites work by researchers at Caltech in collaboration with Krajmalnik-Brown to further explore the gut-brain connection as it relates to autism. The team’s findings are published online in the journal Cell: “Human Gut Microbiota from Autism Spectrum Disorder Promote Behavioral Symptoms in Mice.” More on the latest research is also reported in The Guardian article “Autism symptoms replicated in mice after faecal transplants” and in “Gut Bacteria Influence Autism-like Behaviors in Mice” (ASU Biodesign Institute)

The self-driving vehicle venture Waymo is set to test its trucks in Arizona, starting with trips on freeways in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Fulton Schools Professor Lina Karam, who has participated on a public outreach panel on automated mobility with Waymo’s chief external officer and helped to establish the Institute for Automated Mobility, says Arizona offers a good testing ground for self-driving vehicles. Those vehicles can potentially be driven much more safely by automated systems than those driven by humans, Karam says, but it will require Waymo and other companies to set high quality standards for their industry and share knowledge on how to improve self-driving technology. (Phoenix Business Journal subscriber access required.)

New internet of things technologies being invented and developed by ASU researchers are providing new devices to improve human health, increase our safety and security, and generally enhance our quality of life. Fulton Schools Professor Hanqing Jiang, Professor N.J. Tao, Associate Professor Erica Forzani and Professor Junshan Zhang are among the innovators in these smart technologies — from edible electronics that monitor gastric acid levels and a mobile diagnostic device to measure metabolic data to a computing startup offering better network connectivity and artificial intelligence for internet of things devices.

Engineering is about much more than mastering the skills necessary to do successful research and technology development. It’s also about learning the customer-centric design process, effective communication and translating tech talk into the language of business. Fulton Schools sophomores are getting immersed in lessons on these additional skills through experiences in the Engineering Futures Technology and Entrepreneurial Mindset Skills Boot Camp. Presented with the help of corporate partners, the boot camp is geared toward getting students prepared to succeed in student internships during their undergraduate years.

Fulton Schools students participated in a collaboration of researchers from ASU and Tecnológico de Monterrey university in Mexico in a water solutions workshop focused on ideas for improving the management of natural resources in the neighboring deserts regions of southern Arizona and northern Mexico. Enrique Vivoni (at left in photo), a professor in the Fulton Schools and ASU’s School of Earth and Space Exploration, said the meeting could result in future joint research, education and public engagement efforts involving the two universities.

Four of the six ASU faculty members spending the summer working with Mayo Clinic researchers through the ASU Alliance for Health Care are on the Fulton Schools faculty. They will help take on some of the biggest medical and health challenges. Assistant Research Professor Ayan Banerjee will focus on diabetes research. Associate Professor Erica Forzani will help to explore ways to prevent brain damage in people with urea cycle and liver disorder. Assistant Professor Julianne Holloway will aid work to regenerate the tendon-to-bone interface on the rotator cuff. Assistant Professor Feng Ju will pursue innovations in MRI technology.

Forests of carbon-capturing mechanical trees could play a big role in helping reverse much of the unhealthy impacts of the massive amounts of carbon dioxide that power plants, industrial processes and automobiles have emitted into the atmosphere since the first industrial age. The tree technology being developed by ASU’s Center for Negative Carbon Emissions, led by Fulton Schools Professor Klaus Lackner, faces challenges to successful deployment. But progress is being made toward optimizing the carbon capturing effectiveness of the system and building prototypes to do advanced testing.

See Also: Changing the atmosphere, The Business Post (Ireland) May 26

A research paper co-authored by Fulton Schools Professor Stephanie Forrest will be recognized with an award for the Ten-Year Most Influential Paper at the upcoming International Conference on Software Engineering. Forrest, who teaches in the School of Computing, Informatics, and Decisions Systems Engineering in the Fulton Schools, directs ASU’s Biodesign Center for Biocomputing, Security and Society. With her co-authors, she explored biological processes like evolution to generate ideas for how to automate locating and fixing computer software bugs.

Pancreatic cancer is one of the cancers that remain the most lethal. But new research is producing an innovative technique for early detection of the first signs of pancreatic cancer. With an early diagnosis, medical interventions could be made to arrest the disease. The research is described in the Nano Research journal by Tony Hu, an associate professor of biomedical engineering in the Fulton Schools and his collaborators in a new field of research called peptidomics that is revealing important clues about effective cancer prognosis. The article was also posted on AZ BIO, the Arizona Bio Industry Association news site.

The amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted into the atmosphere by industry, automobiles and other technologies and human activities is a major culprit in climate change that is warming the planet, acidifying the oceans and intensifying dangerous weather events. Fulton Schools Professor Klaus Lackner has been involved over the past 25 years in seeking ways to remove much of that threatening buildup of CO2. In an interview, he talks about the synthetic mechanical “trees” that have been developed in his lab — and are being moved toward commercialization — and what they could do to help clear the air of CO2 and impede the acceleration of climate change.  

A research team for a project to devise long-range strategies for management of the water in Colorado River Basin will be led by Enrique Vivoni, an associate professor in the Fulton Schools and ASU’s School of Earth and Space Exploration. The team has received a grant of $1 million from NASA’s Earth Science Division for the project, which will include helping government officials developing a drought contingency plan. The Colorado River Basin holds most the Arizona’s current renewable water supply. Vivoni and his team will obtain data for their research from Earth-observing satellites and data from the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Activated sludge microbiomes are likely to aid the world’s growing population in efforts to keep up with the demand for clean water. The Global Water Microbiome Consortium has released results of a study that yields new insights into how microbiome engineering can be applied to development of next-generation wastewater treatment and water reuse systems. ASU’s Swette Center for Environmental Biotechnology, directed by Fulton Schools Professor Bruce Rittmann, participated in the project. Researchers completed an “unprecedented global sampling” that provides significant new knowledge about the microbiology of activated sludge, Rittmann says.

See Also: Bacterial communities for wastewater treatment system, Science Daily, May 13, and a report on ASU NOW

Fulton Schools students were members of ASU teams that recently launched small space vehicles carrying payloads with equipment for conducting research beyond Earth’s atmosphere. The teams’ successes in that Blue Origin New Shepard project sponsored by Amazon has helped to open the door for ASU students and faculty researchers to put payloads on Amazon’s Blue Moon space craft for a future trip to do research on the Moon.

See Also: ASU And Blue Origin Team Up To Conquer The Moon, Patch, May 10

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin Plans To Carry ASU Payloads To The Moon, KJZZ (NPR), May 10

Jeff Bezos has unveiled Blue Origin’s lunar lander, MIT Technology Review, May 9

Winners of the Goldwater Scholarships are selected from among the highest-achieving undergraduates in the nation who are making notable contributions to research in science and engineering. Two of the three new Goldwater Scholars at ASU are Fulton Schools students Madeleine Howell and Maeve Kennedy. Both began their research endeavors in the labs of Fulton Schools faculty members in the School of Biomedical and Health Systems Engineering. Howell, a chemistry major who is minoring in materials science and engineering and mathematics, worked in the lab of Assistant Professor Barbara Smith. Kennedy, a chemical engineering major and Fulton Schools Grand Challenge Scholar got her introduction to research in the Bioinspired Complex Adaptive Systems Laboratory directed by Associate Professor Vincent Pizziconi.

ASU researchers have turned a 40-foot-long shipping container into a rapidly deployable mobile medical clinic equipped with solar power and water treatment systems. The clinic will be taken later this summer to Uganda to aid communities in need of additional health and medical care. Fulton Schools Assistant Professor Nathan Johnson led the project team. Engineering doctoral student Cody Van Cleve coordinated work to equip the clinic with a 10-kilowatt power systems and technology capable of cleaning more than 1,000 galleon of water per hour. Reports about the project have been broadcast on almost 100 network-affiliated local TV news programs throughout the United States. See an April 6 post below on this page for previous news media coverage of the project.

A number of commercial tech enterprises are emerging to help meet challenges posed by climate change. Fulton School Professor Klaus Lackner says it will probably be necessary for governments to help support these ventures at first. But he foresees “a brand-new industry at a huge scale” eventually taking shape because of the increasingly critical need to deal with the environmental impacts of a changing climate. As director of ASU’s Center for Negative Carbon Emissions, Lackner has been leading work to develop carbon-capture technology to help halt the progression of global warming. Read more about Lackner’s project in the April 29 post below: “Lackner’s carbon-capture technology moves to commercialization”

One of the next big challenges in artificial intelligence technology is finding ways to miniaturize it. Such an advance would enable AI systems to become significantly more energy efficient. Fulton Schools professor Yu Cao and assistant professor Ted Pavlic are teaming with professors in ASU’s School of Life Sciences and at the University of California San Diego to look at the brain powers of some of the smallest species of bees. They hope to gain insights that might provide ideas for effective methods of scaling down AI devices. Part of the research will involve Cao and Pavlic working on engineering a robotic bee brain.

The 15 Fulton Schools students one the Desert Women in Autonomous Vehicle Engineering team — aka Desert WAVE — are gearing up for this summer’s Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International RoboSub competition in San Diego. They’re at work on the electrical engineering, computer programming and 3D printing tasks involved in preparing their robot, named Phoenix, to maneuver through an obstacle course. Equipped with two cameras and using passive and active acoustics to ping its location off of its surroundings,  the robot can “see, hear and think on its own” as it navigates the course, said team member and software engineering major Andrea Schoonover, a junior majoring in software engineering.

Fulton Schools computer science students Muhammed Kilig and Raida Khan were among undergraduates selected to attend one of the most prominent gatherings of cybersecurity experts. Kilig and Khan were eligible for invitations to the RSA Conference because they had also won spots in the RSAC Scholars program.  because they were also selected to join the RSA Scholars Program, which is administered through ASU’s Cybersecurity Education Consortium. The conference gave Kiling and Khan opportunities to network with representatives of more than 600 companies.

Three astronautical rocketry teams — composed of students in the Fulton Schools and ASU’s School of Earth and Space Exploration — recently launched their payloads into space as part of the Blue Origin space exploration program. The payloads are the first designed and built by ASU students to be launched into outer space. Teams were challenged to develop payloads that would provide an answer to a science question (such as how planets form), test technologies under development (such as remote acoustic sensors) or collect data on the how the five human senses — smell, taste, sight, hearing and touch — work in space.

See Also: Blue Origin reaches space again on latest New Shepard test flight, Space News, May 2

Could sensing technology used in driverless cars help protect wildlife habitat along U.S.-Mexico borderlands — while also aiding border security efforts? Georgios Trichopoulos (pictured), a Fulton Schools assistant professor of electrical engineering, says that the light-detection and ranging technology called LIDAR could be an effective tool in creating a “virtual wall” that protects both the environment and the borderline.

The accumulation of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere — a leading factor in the acceleration of detrimental climate change — is something we must address now and not later, says Fulton Schools Professor Klaus Lackner. Fortunately, ASU’s Center for Negative Carbon Emissions, which Lackner directs, is ready to deploy its carbon-capture technology to help reduce the buildup of the gas. A “mechanical tree” produced by some innovative geometry is being commercialized. It will help capture the carbon so it can be sold or sequestered for uses such as producing synthetic fuels, oil recovery, or uses in the food, beverage and agriculture industries.

See Also: New ‘Mechanical Trees’ Offer Cure for Climate Change, EDGY, May 8

‘Mechanical trees’ to help capture CO2′ ABC17News-KMIZ/Fox 22 KQFX (Columbia, Missouri), May 5

Arizona State University behind new push for ‘mechanical trees’ to help capture CO2, CNN, May 4, Fox43 News/KNXV (Phoenix), ABCNews15 (Phoenix)

Startups looking to suck CO₂ from the air are suddenly luring big bucks, MIT Technology Review, May 2

ASU Partners To Launch World’s First Commercially Viable Carbon Capture Technology, KJZZ (NPR) News, May 1

Do ‘Mechanical Trees’ Offer the Cure for Climate Change? Reuters, April 29 & Voice of America, April 30

Will these ‘mechanical trees’ really suck CO2 from air? The Hindu BusinessLine, April 30

Unique carbon capture technology to be trialled, Gasworld, April 29

Combining clothing styles of the past and technology of the future, Konrad Rykaczewski, a Fulton Schools professor of mechanical engineering, is developing designs for attire to help us live relatively comfortably in hot desert regions. He envisions clothes with embedded cooling devices that would effectively create “heat shields.” Using his expertise in thermal engineering, Rykaczewski is designing materials for clothing that would be made of temperature-regulating fabric containing tubes filled with circulating liquid. One possibility: Materials containing liquid metal that can conduct heat but feel as soft as skin.

See Also: Cool future fashion: Personal cooling as part of social adaptation to hotter climates, by Konrad Rykaczewski, in the journal Temperature

ASU is enlisting several of its researchers in efforts to meet the growing challenges of caring for an aging population through the launch of the Center for Innovation in Healthy and Resilient Aging. At least three Fulton Schools faculty members will have leading roles in the center’s first research endeavors. Assistant Professors Wenlong Zhang (at right in photo) and Erin Chiou will be involved in the project “Understanding fall risks and mobility independence in older adults with smart shoes.” Associate Professor Pavan Turaga will collaborate on the project “Towards real-time fall risk assessment in Parkinson’s disease by continuous monitoring of free-living activities.”

Fulton Schools alumnus and U.S. Marine Corps veteran Reid Buckley, who graduated from ASU in spring 2018 with a degree in chemical engineering, is working with leading science and engineering researchers at the prominent Los Alamos National Laboratory. Buckley is considered by his chief mentor in the lab’s High Explosives and Technology group to be one of the next generation of leaders in the field that is important to national defense missions, particularly efforts to combat terrorists. Buckley says he is getting the equivalent of a masterclass in explosives of the past, present and future, and the chemistry involved in advancing the technology.

Hundreds of high school students in the Phoenix metropolitan area are getting an introduction to the world of engineering through a new program designed to encourage more young women to explore the field. Weekly workshops at three of Arizona State University campuses are providing lessons in various branches of engineering. Other program events are connecting the young women with college student mentors and giving them opportunities to meet and network with professional engineers.

A road intersection at which traffic accidents are occurring more frequently has local government leaders of the town of Fountain Hills considering converting the intersection into a roundabout traffic circle to reduce the numbers of automobile collisions. For research on the impacts of roundabouts, the officials are turning to extensive studies by Michael Mamlouk, a Fulton Schools civil engineering professor. Mamlouk has studied numerous roundabouts in Arizona to assess their effectiveness in preventing or reducing automobile accidents. Read more about the research.

Rapid pursuit of technological innovations can be dangerous when not done responsibly. That’s been shown by serious problems with automated aircraft flight systems and autonomous automobiles, say Thaddeus Miller and Adam Gabriele. Miller, an assistant professor in The Polytechnic School in the Fulton Schools and ASU’s School for the Future of Innovation in Society, and Gabriele, a doctoral student in that school, make the case that without more corporate transparency about new technologies, more rigorous testing and more thorough oversight, public trust and public safety will be at risk.

Artificial Intelligence technology is able to outperform humans in an array of specialized tasks, but AI systems would have to advance significantly to fully match human intellectual capabilities, Subbarao Kambhampati told a large audience at Singapore Management University. Kambhampati, former president of the international Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, delivered an address titled “Rise of AI and The Challenges of Human-Aware AI Systems.” He said the next big step toward enabling humans to work effectively with AI systems is to find ways of giving the technology more sophisticated social and emotional intelligence.

See Also: Artificial Intelligence: The Rise of AI and Its Challenges, Channel NewsAsia/AsiaNow (Video)

National Academy of Sciences member Alexandra Navrotsky is joining the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy in the Fulton Schools in her return to ASU to lead the university’s new Center for Materials of the Universe. The Center will expand ASU’s research linking solid state science, Earth science and planetary sciences to answer more questions about the constitution of the universe. Professor Navrotsky will also hold a position in the School of Molecular Sciences in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Bio-plastics being developed at the  Arizona Center for Algae Technology and Innovation hold promise for someday replacing many of the synthetic plastics that are a large part of the world’s growing waste and pollution problems. Taylor Weiss, a Fulton Schools assistant professor of environmental and resource management, is among the center’s researchers making the new biodegradable plastics. Synthetic plastics break down into microplastics waste that is finding its way further into the food chain. Weiss explains how the use of more bio-plastics would help alleviate that threat.

Researchers and scholars at ASU and universities in the northern Mexico state of Sonora are collaborating on projects aimed at improving the quality of life in regions along the U.S.-Mexico border. Among them is Enrique Vivoni, a professor in the Fulton Schools and ASU’s School of Earth and Space Exploration. Vivoni is partnering with colleagues at the Instituto Tecnologico de Sonora and El Colegio de Sonora to explore solutions to urban sustainability challenges, using Phoenix and Hermosillo, Mexico, as test cases. Both cities are facing harsh climatic conditions, particularly rising urban heat, Vivoni says.

Social media is becoming an effective tool in alerting the public to natural disasters and tracking what’s happening in communities and regions impacted by hurricanes, floods, earthquakes and similarly threatening events. That is due in part to work being done in research facilities such as ASU’s Data Mining and Machine Learning Lab. Lab member Tahora Nazer, a Fulton Schools computer science doctoral student, explains how social media outlets are being used to provide communications from the sites of natural disasters and aiding the work of emergency response and rescue operations. Manuel Aviles-Santiago, an ASU professor of communications and culture, tells how social media connected family members in the aftermath of one major hurricane.   

Much about the “robocall ecosystem” remains a mystery, says Adam Doupe, a Fulton Schools assistant professor of computer science and engineering. Many scammers doing the robocalling are now able to circumvent efforts to stop them — often by using the latest artificial intelligence techniques. A few new technologies promise to add authentication to caller ID to help thwart robocalls, but a victory over the scams will require support from public agencies and research funding sources such as Federal Communications Commission and the National Science Foundation, Doupe says.

A new technique called Microbiota Transfer Therapy appears to be effective in alleviating one of the frequent symptoms of autism spectrum disorder — called ASD. A recent study by Fulton Schools Professors Rosa-Krajmalnick-Brown and James Adams, along with Dae-Wook Kang, a research collaborator with ASU’s Swette Center for Environmental Biotechnology, shows the fecal transplant method can produce long-term beneficial effects for children diagnosed with ASD. Many children with autism have gastrointestinal problems. The three researchers have demonstrated that by transplanting healthy fecal microbiota into individuals lacking certain kinds of gut bacteria it’s possible to improve their gut health, which significantly relieves the chronic gastrointestinal discomfort that afflicts many people with autism. The article was also published by Science Daily.

See Also: Fecal transplants could hold clues to curing autism, ABC15 News (Phoenix), April 29

Microbiota transfer therapy offers hope for those with autism, (video), Yahoo News/KGUN News (Tuscon)

Researchers: Fecal transplant helps improve behavior in kids with autism, Newsday, April 16

Fecal Transplant Reduces Nearly 50 Percent Of Autism Symptoms In Children, Tech Times, April 13

Fecal Transplants Reduce Symptoms of Autism Long Term, Futurism, April 13

Fecal transplant drastically reduced autism symptoms in children, SlashGear, April 12,

Could Treating Gut Bacteria Help Ease Autism Symptoms? US. News & World Report, April 12

Fecal transplants result in massive long-term reduction in autism symptoms, New Atlas, April 12

Researchers look at the link between gut bacteria and autism, Medical News Today, April 11

ASU researchers see hope for autism symptoms with fecal transplants, Arizona Republic, April 11

Pilot Study: Autism Improvements From Fecal Transplant Persist For 2 Years, KJZZ (NPR) News, April 10

Autism Treatment: Fecal Transplant Cuts Symptoms By Nearly 50% Medical Daily, April 10

Radical Fecal Transplant Therapy in Kids Has Reduced Their Autism Severity by 47% Science Alert, April 10

ASU gut treatment lessens autism symptoms, study says, 3TV/CBS 5 News (Phoenix), April 10

Children’s Autism Symptoms Down 45% Two Years After Experimental Fecal Transplant, IFLScience, April 10

‘Faecal transplant may help children with autism,’ study suggests, National Health Service (UK), April 10

Autism symptoms can be reduced 50% in children who received fecal transplants, study finds, Daily Mail (UK), April 9

A 40-foot-long mobile medical clinic equipped to be self-sufficient in remote, off-the-grid areas should be serving people in the African country of Uganda later this year — thanks to ASU engineering researchers.The clinic in a shipping container comes with solar power and water purification systems, battery storage and a backup electrical power generator. The Office of Naval Research is funding the project that can be a model for future mobile health care units for disaster relief and humanitarian missions, says Fulton Schools engineering graduate research assistant Cody Van Cleve.

See also: 9 and 10 News (Michigan), WCAX News (Vermont), CBS17 News (North Carolina)

The internationally prominent Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix is joining ASU to pursue innovations in technology and therapies to improve brain and spinal cord function for people with neurological disorders. The Fulton Schools will be a key participant in the endeavor. Professor Kyle Squires, dean of the Fulton Schools, says the partnership offers an opportunity to achieve a unique convergence of engineering and neuroscience that could have dramatic impacts on medical advances. Squires says the goals include “reverse-engineering” of the brain, which could reveal information to guide development of improved rehabilitation strategies.

During more than three decades at ASU, Charles Backus taught electrical engineering, helped boost the university’s stature as a research institution and shaped the foundations of ASU’s Polytechnic campus. At the same time, he was building and running a cattle ranch on the rough terrain of the high desert on the far outskirts of the Phoenix metro area. Today, Backus’ success as a rancher is drawing attention for his application of science and engineering to the care and management of his growing cattle herd. Using genetic selection, artificial insemination, non-hormone, non-antibiotic feeding programs and humane treatment of his animals, the ranch is producing beef of exceptional quality. Backus is paving the way for an advanced approach to ranching that is especially suited to the Southwest’s desert environment.

See Also: Arizona rancher uses science to raise healthy beef, Tucson.com, March 24

For decades researchers have looked at photocatalysis as a promising method for purifying water, though the excitement it once sparked has waned over the years. But a recent workshop to reassess potential real-world applications of the process was organized by the National Science Foundation Nanosystems Engineering Research Center for Nanotechnology Enabled Water Treatment. ASU is member of the center and Fulton Schools Professor Paul Westerhoff is its deputy director. Researchers focused on areas in which photocatalytic technology might still be valuable, such as in remote communities with small populations that lack energy infrastructures. The article about the workshop was also published on the technology news website Nanowerk.

See Also: The Technology Horizon for Photocatalytic Water Treatment: Sunrise or Sunset? Environmental Science & Technology

Lithium batteries show big promise as a versatile, dependable and resilient source of power. But one impediment to their performance are dendrites, spiky crystalline formations that can set batteries on fire. Fulton Schools Professor Hanqing Jiang is leading research on the use of silicone to prevent those dendrite formations. Jiang is finding that a process that causes the silicone to take on a pattern of wrinkles — giving it a three-dimensional, sponge-like form — is inhibiting dendrite growth. His lab team’s findings have been published in a recent issue of research journal Nature Energy.

Upon retirement from General Motors’ after 35 years with the major automaker, Jim Contes was asked in 2008 to teach automotive engineering classes part-time at The Polytechnic School, one of the Fulton Schools. Soon he was offered a full-time job. Now, more than a decade later, he is a senior lecturer who has seen at least 150 of his students go on to jobs in the auto industry. Today he says his focus as a teacher is preparing students for an automotive world that has changed dramatically from the past and will continue to change from the present.

With modeling tools developed by his research team, Timothy Takahashi makes a case against pilot error being the cause of the recent deadly crash of a Boeing 737 passenger jet in Ethiopia. The Fulton Schools professor of practice in aerospace engineering created a hypothetical flight profile of the aircraft’s actions to determine that its autopilot system had put functions of most key components of the of plane under computer control. From that point on, the plane began to lose altitude and gain speed — while also preventing pilots from taking control. Figuring out how to prevent reoccurrence of such situations presents a big challenge for airlines. The article has also been published in MarketWatch, the San Francisco Chronicle, AlterNet and Citizen Truth.

ASU and the Fulton Schools helped to organize the recent international Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math Conference in Vietnam. The event focused on strategies to boost STEM education in Vietnam as part of efforts to develop a future contingent of skilled workers for the growing digital economy in the Southeast Asian country. Through the work of the Fulton Schools’ Global Outreach and Extended Education program — known as GOEE — ASU became one of the founding members of the High Engineering Education Alliance Program, which seeks to boost the quality of education in engineering and other STEM subjects in Vietnam and, more broadly, to aid the U.S. Agency for International Development in fostering productive relationships between industries and educational institutions in Vietnam and the United States.