Illinois Engineering

Lav Varshney, who leads the Information and Intelligence Group at the University of Illinois, talks about a number of topics related to artificial intelligence. Earlier this year, Professor Varshney led a session on Blockchain and the Scientific Method at the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences annual meeting in Washington. The chief scientist for Ensaras, Inc., he and the company began working with the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago to develop a solution to odor complaints near their reservoir system. In 2017, Professor Varshney and his team of researchers received a $50,000 Siebel Energy Institutes seed grant to develop their project “Incentives, Choices and Analytics for Electric Vehicle Fleets in jointly managing Urban Traffic and Smart Grid.”

Quantum information science has been called the next technological “space race.” And the University of Illinois is positioning itself to be at the forefront of that race. In November, the U of I pledged $15 million for the formation of the Illinois Quantum Information Science and Technology Center (or IQUIST). Two of the leading experts in the field, Illinois physics professors Brian DeMarco and Paul Kwiat join the show to discuss its vast future applications. Both professors represented the University of Illinois at the first ever Chicago Quantum Summit in November. DeMarco was invited to the Advancing American Leadership in Quantum Information Science Summit at the White House last fall.

A native of India, Sakshi Srivastava came to Illinois to study engineering, earning a bachelor of science degree in 2015 and a master of science in 2017. She has served as a research assistant under associate dean and ECE professor Jennifer Bernhard on investigating the role of antenna parameters in reducing interference. She has also worked as an intern at Microsoft. Most recently, she is featured in a chapter of a book co-authored by Illinois engineering’s Laura Hahn and Angie Wolters titled Women and Ideas in Engineering: Twelve stories from Illinois. The chapter is titled “Inspiring the Future Generation” and talks about her role in the creation a woman engineer statue on the Illinois campus.

MakerGirl, a non-profit founded at the University of Illinois in 2014, has a mission to inspire the next generations through educational STEM sessions led by college mentors and instructors. In less than four years, they have impacted 3,000 girls in 18 states. This year they are expanding to Northwestern University and have hired their first CEO in Stephanie Hein, who joins us to talk about the organization.

The University of Illinois hosted the 5th Health Care Engineering Systems Symposium, which brought experts to discuss simulation/virtual reality/augmented reality in health care and education, wearable computing, voice user interface, artificial intelligence in health care, medical and social robotics, and assistive living technologies. The program includes interviews with Darrin D’Agostino, Executive Dean, College of Osteopathic Medicine and Vice President for Health Affairs at Kansas City University; Citali Lopez Ortiz, professor of kinesiology and community health at Illinois; Stephen Boppart, Director of the Biophotonics Imaging Laboratory at Illinois' Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology; Scott Barrows, Director of Medical Visualization at Jump Simulation Peoria; Judy Rowen, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the Carle Illinois College of Medicine, John Vozenilek, Vice President & Chief Medical Officer for the Jump Simulation Center Illinois; and Kesh Kesavadas, Director of the Healt

Almost a year ago to the day of this recording, the University of Illinois announced the opening of the $15.6 million NSF-funded Illinois Materials Research Science and Engineering Center and Professor Nadya Mason as the center’s director. The goal of the center is to build highly interdisciplinary teams of researchers and students. One of the rock star physicists on the Illinois campus, she specializes in condensed matter physics.

In this episode, we talk alternative fuels with our guest Deepak Kumar, a research assistant professor in the department of agricultural and biological engineering with a focus on sustainable production of biofuels and biomaterials. He is a part of several projects, one of which is called PETROSS (Plants engineered to replace oil in sugcane and sweet sorgum). He is also leading a project developing fermentation technology for high solid use in the corn ethanol process.

If you live in a metropolitan area, then you are no doubt familiar with gridlock on the highways and roadways. An even greater percentage of those vehicles creating that gridlock are making deliveries, whether it be lunch from a favorite eatery, important B-to-B documents, or simply a package purchased through Amazon. What could delivery service look like in the future. University of Illinois Professor of Mechanical Science and Engineering Naira Hovakiyman and her team has received an NSF proposal for a study titled Synergetic Drone Delivery Network in Metropolis.

Alison Dunn discusses her NSF Faculty Early Career award to study how hydrogels interact with biological tissues. Her work also has the potential to further develop general rules for designing hydrogels with specified surface requirements.The assistant professor of mechanical science and engineering at the University of Illinois specializes in "non-traditional" tribology. For more on the project visit https://bit.ly/2NySVHr.

When you think cybersecurity, you’re probably thinking about measures to keep hackers out of your network. Adam Bates, is focused on next steps after an attack begins. The assistant professor of computer science at the University of Illinois was granted a National Science Foundation CAREER AWARD to advance the use of data provenance, the goal of which is to identify the attacker, figure out their grand plan and prevent them achieving that plan. His work has attracted interest from VISA and the MIT Lincoln Laboratory.

Kyle Chandler, the founder and CEO of Chief Technologies, a Pennsylvania based manufacturer and engineering firm of specialized hazard control systems, discusses engineering behind modern fire equipment. Chief Technologies builds a variety of fluids handling (large pumping and fire retardant proportioning systems) and delivery devices (systems used to target and flow water streams on fires), primarily used in large-scale petrochemical facilities.

One of today’s major concerns is the deterioration of bridges. Most recently a pedestrian bridge under construction on the campus of Florida International University collapsed killing six people. Neil Hawkins is an expert in reinforced and prestressed concrete and prestressed concrete structures subject to static and dynamic loadings. He is past Director of the American Concrete Institute, the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute and the Post-Tensioning Institute.

The United States has set an ambitious goal of sending a manned mission to Mars during the first half of this century. This will likely mean several more trips to the moon, something we haven’t done in nearly 50 years. Combine that with other potential space missions, and logistics will be a big issue. Koki Ho, an assistant professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and his team have been exploring how these missions can be completed efficiently.

It is estimated that about 30 percent of consumable food products are wasted, but that number is much higher in the United States. Conversely about 13 percent of Americans are food insecure. Kathleen Hu, a senior in Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering at the University of Illinois, is providing a solution through a startup called Dibbs, a technology platform and organization to connect excess food at grocery stores to local food pantries. They’re on a mission to reduce food waste while fighting hunger. For her efforts, Kathleen claimed the $20,000 Illinois Innovation prize, while Dibbs was a finalist on the Cozad New Venture Competition.

The show tackles the topic of how data analytics has an ever-growing presence in the future of healthcare. The guest is George Heintz, the senior program manager for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Healthcare Engineering System Center’s Health Data Analytics initiative. He serves as a liaison between HCESC and healthcare providers, the health care industry and other healthcare researchers.

Revolutions in big data analysis are shaping healthcare delivery worldwide—technologies that can analyze, classify, and manage patient data and outcomes. To foster collaboration and to shape the future of Medical Informatics and Health Data Analytics, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign—in collaboration with healthcare providers, industry representatives, and academic researchers held a one-day summit. We caught up with several of the presenters after their talks to get their take on where the field is heading. Those interviewed include Michael Sutter, Chief Innovation Officer and Enterprise Clinical Solutions Architect at Carle Foundation Hospital; Justin Starren, Chief of the Division of Health and Biomedical Informatics at Northwestern University; Khan Siddiqui, co-founder and Chief Technology Officer with Higi; Rich Caruana, Principal Researcher at Microsoft; David Liebovitz, Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine at the University of Chicago; and Jay Duhig, Director of Patient Integration at

Tarek Abdelzaher, a professor of computer science with an emphasis on cyberphysical systems at the University of Illinois, leads a group of researchers studying how information spreads through social media and the effects that information has on people’s beliefs as it moves. The project began as part a $4 million Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) grant.

Klara Nahrstedt, a professor of computer science and director of the Coordinated Science Laboratory at the University of Illinois, discusses her involvement in several National Science Foundation and Department of Energy cyber infrastructure projects. Those include building advanced real-time security in cyber-physical systems (smart grid and electric vehicles) and secure sensor networks monitoring of oil and gas cyber-physical infrastructure. She also touches on quality of service management in multimedia networks and its implications on Net Neutrality.

Laura Hahn, the Director of the Academy for Excellence in Engineering Education (or AE3), joins Illinois Innovators to talk about AE3 initiatives like the Strategic Instructional Innovations Program (SIIP) and the Illinois Engineering First Year Experience, which guides freshmen to people and resources they will need in their College experience. She also talks about the book, Women and Ideas in Engineering: Twelve Stories from Illinois, in which Laura is the co-author. The book, which highlights women of influence within the College of Engineering, will be published soon.

The startup Lumos has developed a safe renewable system, which not only stores and cools nuclear waste, but uses it for electricity. Its CEO, Aries Loumis, a graduate of Illinois' Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering program, stops by to not only talk about their technology, but advocate for the future of nuclear as a continued energy source.