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Pigman College of Engineering researchers among top 2% of world’s most-cited

143 current UK scientists and scholars were included on the list compiled by Stanford University in a partnership with Elsevier, and 22 of those included are UK Pigman College of Engineering faculty. 

Yaser Chulaee, PhD student, is shown on the left in the photo taken after the awards ceremony during this year‘s ECCE edition, together with co-authors Donovin D. Lewis, PhD student, and Dr. Dan M., Ionel, PhD advisor, ECE Professor, L Stanley Pigman Chai

PEIK and SPARK Researchers Receive IEEE EMC ECCE Paper Award

Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky (PEIK) and SPARK Lab researchers received from the IEEE Industry Applications Society Electric Machines Committee (EMC) the Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition (ECCE) Second Prize Paper Award for the article: “Winding Losses in Coreless Axial Flux PM Machines with Wave and Spiral PCB Stator Topologies”.

The NSF will support Yang Xiao with $300,000 over four years for his research on anonymous mobile access architecture. Jeremy Blackburn | Research Communications.

UK Researcher Developing Anti-tracking and Robocall-free Architecture

Assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science Yang Xiao and his team are tackling a long-standing privacy challenge faced by many people who use cell phones — mobile tracking and automatic voice calls, commonly known as robocalls.

College of engineering courtyard with concrete sign saying Stanley and Karen Pigman College of Engineering

Pigman College of Engineering researchers among top 2% of world’s most-cited

143 current UK scientists and scholars were included on the list compiled by Stanford University in a partnership with Elsevier, and 22 of those included are UK Pigman College of Engineering faculty. 

Caigang Zhu, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, develops new optical technology to provide personalized radiotherapy for head and neck cancer and breast cancer.

Biomedical Engineering

UK Bioengineer Designs Tools to Improve Treatment for Head and Neck Cancer

Caigang Zhu, assistant professor in the F. Joseph Halcomb III, M.D. Department of Biomedical Engineering, is working to develop new techniques for radiation treatment to improve survival rates of patients with a specific type of cancer.

Herculaneum scroll with red laser lines being scanned at Institut de France by Brent Seales and his team. Photo Credit: EduceLab.

Artificial Intelligence

BREAKTHROUGH: Discovery made from within 2,000 year-old Herculaneum scrolls

The Herculaneum scrolls are among the most iconic and inaccessible of the world’s vast collection of damaged manuscripts, but since being burned and carbonized by the catastrophic eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 CE, they’ve been deemed “unreadable.” 

Until now. 

Celebrating 25 years: 25 facts about UK's Engineering Paducah Campus

As they celebrate their 25th year, here are 25 things to know about the UK College of Engineering Extended Campus at Paducah.

Unveiling of sign reading Stanley and Karen Pigman College of Engineering

Dedication held to celebrate renaming of Stanley and Karen Pigman College of Engineering

On Sept. 8, a dedication ceremony was held to celebrate the renaming of the College of Engineering in honor of Stanley and Karen Pigman and to recognize their indelible impact.

Peng “Edward” Wang and research student looking at innovative machinery.

Artificial Intelligence

NSF CAREER Award advancing UK researcher’s work integrating AI in manufacturing

Peng “Edward” Wang, Robley D. Evans Faculty Fellow and an assistant professor with a joint appointment in the Electrical and Computer Engineering and Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering departments, has received the a prestigious NSF CAREER award for his research on AI in manufacturing.

Aerospace

Research in Their Own Words: Jesse Hoagg on Control Theory

Jesse Hoagg, Donald and Gertrude Lester Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, has advanced controls research at UK since arriving in 2010. In this piece, he explains how his research in control systems and control theory can advance a wide array of applications in science, engineering, and technology.

(From left) James Keppeler, Daniel Benitez, Marcus Rodriguez, Leah Blair, Bruno Athie Teruel and Hugo Reyes-Centeno, assistant professor of anthropology, examine artifacts from his human fossil record research. Photo Courtesy: UK Research.

Artificial Intelligence

University of Kentucky Receives $14 Million NSF Grant to Construct World-Class Cultural Heritage Lab

Using NSF funding, Brent Seales has gathered a team of experts from UK's College of Engineering and the College of Arts and Sciences to build EduceLab — UK’s vision for next-generation heritage science. The collaborative facility will focus on developing innovative artificial intelligence solutions for the unique challenges presented by cultural heritage objects.

Professor Jeff Seay conducts a training session on the Trash-to-Tank Processor for the staff of Upcycle Africa in Mpigi, Uganda.

Sustainable and Humanitarian Engineering

UK Engineering at Paducah Collaboration Aims to Reduce Plastic, Produce Safe, Inexpensive Cooking Fuel

Jeff Seay's research has resulted in a device capable of converting waste plastic into clean fuel oil.

Racecourse grading in process. Photo by Katie Pratt.

Equine Surfaces

Racecourse Managers Learn Ways to Make Their Tracks Safer During UK Grading School

In horse racing, safety of the horse and rider is paramount. A University of Kentucky professor and leading racecourse managers recently showed racetrack employees how to improve safety by properly grading the surface.  

Aerospace

UK Partners With NASA to Help Launch $15 Million Space Technology Research Institute

Researchers at the University of Kentucky are working with NASA to advance key technologies for exploring the moon, Mars and beyond.

Aerospace

UK Hosts 1st Event at New WAARP Flight Facility

Researchers from the University of Kentucky Department of Mechanical Engineering hosted collaborators from Virginia Tech and Oklahoma State University for a series of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) flight experiments June 21-24 at the new Wildcat Agricultural and Atmospheric Research Pavilion (WAARP) flight facility. WAARP is located at North Farm off Ironworks Pike, a 971-hectare agricultural research facility operated by the University of Kentucky.

Sustainable Manufacturing

UK, UT-Knoxville, Army Collaborating on $50 Million Project to Advance US Manufacturing

The University of Kentucky, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UT) and the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command’s Army Research Laboratory (DEVCOM ARL) have announced a five-year, $50 million collaboration directed toward improving manufacturing capabilities in the United States.

Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning/Data Science

National Endowment for the Humanities to Help UK Build One-of-a-Kind Lab for Imaging, Restoring Ancient Artifacts

Brent Seales is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant to create EduceLab — a cultural heritage imaging and analysis laboratory.

Biomechanics

Martha Grady Receives NSF CAREER Award

Martha Grady, assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering with a joint appointment in the F. Joseph Halcomb III, M.D. Department of Biomedical Engineering, has received a National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award. Grady's project is titled, "Mechanical mechanisms of biofilm survival on implant surfaces" and will be funded in the amount of $599,796 over five years. 

Polymers and Soft Materials

Jonathan Pham Receives NSF CAREER Award

Jonathan Pham, assistant professor in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, has received a National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award. The award will fund his project "Wetting and dynamics on soft and swollen polymeric surfaces" in the amount of $570,000 over five years. 

Metals and Alloys

Brazing Aluminum Alloys in Space with Dusan Sekulic

Since 2017, Dusan P. Sekulic, Secat J. G. Morris Aluminum Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, has been leading an estimated $1 million international research project funded by NASA and the Roscosmos State Corporation for Space Activities in Russia. 

Networking

Reimagining the Internet on a Global Scale

A new $3 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) will expand FABRIC, a project to build the nation’s largest cyberinfrastructure testbed, to four distinguished scientific institutions in Asia and Europe. Jim Griffioen, a professor in the Department of Computer Science is a co-principal investigator on the NSF project.

Studying Sulfur Variability in Biofuel Feedstocks with Jian Shi

Through a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, the research team led by Jian Shi, an assistant professor in the UK College of Agriculture, Food and Environment, will work to identify the reasons behind the sulfur variability in pine feedstocks by studying byproducts collected from across the nation. With the DOE grant and cost-share dollars from universities and the industry, the project will total more than $2 million.

Engineering Better Mental Health Solutions with Sarah Wilson

Engineers are often tasked with solving complex problems, and one of their most important tools in finding a solution is their own creativity.

Ingenuity — that’s exactly what Sarah Wilson would need when confronted with a public health issue in her field.

Medical Imaging

Guoqiang Yu's Novel Noncontact Imaging Device Could Change Healthcare

In 2020, his team has been awarded four grants from the National Institutes of Health that total nearly $5.7 million. 

Microfluidics

Developing a Mask that Captures and Deactivates COVID-19 with Dibakar Bhattacharyya

University of Kentucky engineering professor Dibakar Bhattacharyya recently announced he had the concept and the means to develop a medical face mask that would capture and deactivate COVID-19 on contact. Now, the director of UK’s Center of Membrane Sciences, along with collaborators from two different disciplines, has received a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to make these masks a reality.

Software Engineering

Software Engineering with Tingting Yu

In August 2019, computer science assistant professor Tingting Yu received a three-year grant from the National Science Foundation in the amount of approximately $500,000. The project involves collaboration between University of Kentucky and Stevens Institute of Technology, and the goal is to improve the quality of modern software systems. Yu researches the broad field of software engineering, which largely boils down to creating better software. The goal of her research is to engineer techniques that help developers create more dependable, secure and user-friendly software systems. 

Nanobiotechnology with Sheng Tong

Associate professor Sheng Tong joined the F. Joseph Halcomb III, M.D., Department of Biomedical Engineering this past fall. Prior to arriving in Lexington, Tong was a research associate professor in the Department of Bioengineering at Rice University.

Tong’s research synergistically combines nanobiotechnology, drug and gene delivery, and cancer therapy. He is currently focusing on developing genome editing approaches for cancer immune checkpoint blockade therapies. 

Autonomy, Robotics and Controls

Preventing Cattle Loss with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles with Jesse Hoagg

It's a staggering statistic — every year nearly 3 million cows in the U.S. die from health problems. And it's costing the cattle industry more than $1 billion.

Combating this economic loss starts at the producer level. Ultimately, improved observation of cows in the pasture is proven to reduce herd loss. Sounds simple enough — right? But beef cattle spend a significant amount of time outside, which makes constant monitoring problematic.

Could eyes in the sky be the answer?

Jesse Hoagg, the Donald and Gertrude Lester Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Kentucky, thinks so.

Fluid Mechanics

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for Measuring Atmospheric Turbulence with Sean Bailey

Sean Bailey, associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, joined the UK College of Engineering faculty in 2010 after receiving his Ph.D. From the University of Ottawa and subsequently completing his postdoctoral work at Princeton University. In this interview, he discusses the advantages of using unmanned aerial vehicles to measure atmospheric conditions, his various projects that use UAVs and how UAVs may prove vital in the event of an airborne disaster. 

Construction Engineering & Project Management

Disruptive Technology in Construction Management with Hala Nassereddine

Civil engineering assistant professor Hala Nassereddine joined the UK College of Engineering faculty this past fall as the newest member of the Construction Engineering and Project Management Program. Nassereddine teaches the introduction to construction management course and will teach a new course on lean systems in construction management in the spring. She is also involved with the Kentucky Transportation Center on multiple highway research projects.

Last summer, Nassereddine won the 2019 Construction Industry Institute (CII) Academic Showcase at the CII Annual Conference in San Diego, California. The project for which Nassereddine won the showcase is detailed below in a recent conversation we had about her research focus. 

Reading the Invisible Library with W. Brent Seales

 “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
  
 – Mark Twain 

UK Researchers Studying Better Ways to Detect Worms in Apples

UK researchers are working to develop ways to keep healthy U.S. apples in the supply chain.

Toxoplasmosis Research with Abhijit Patwardhan

A unique partnership between an engineer and a scientist at the University of Kentucky has produced data that is challenging prevailing wisdom about a potentially life-threatening parasite's behavior and revealing possible targets for treatment.

Bioengineering & Biomechanics

The Connector: Mark Suckow

When Mark Suckow (pronounced SOO-koh) interviewed with University of Kentucky vice president for research Lisa Cassis for the position of attending veterinarian, he posed a simple question: could he do more? 

Artificial Intelligence

Explainable Artificial Intelligence Systems with Brent Harrison

"I think it’s essential that we bring technology up to human standards, rather than forcing humans to adapt their ways of thinking to fit the AI system." - Brent Harrison 

Transportation

Understanding the Impacts of Transportation Network Companies with Greg Erhardt

Transportation Network Companies like Uber and Lyft promised to solve traffic congestion in major cities. Greg Erhardt, assistant professor of civil engineering at UK, says not so fast.

Surfaces and Interfaces

Soft Materials and Interfaces with Jonathan Pham

Last summer, materials engineering assistant professor Jonathan Pham received two National Science Foundation grants totaling $525,000. Pham, who joined the UK College of Engineering faculty in 2017, researches soft materials and interfaces and liquid-surface interactions, among other interests. Basically, he explores how solid materials…well, sometimes liquids…depending on the size, of course…well, probably better if he explains it.

Brehm Receives Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award

Brehm’s project, “Numerical Investigations of Particle Interactions with Navy Relevant High-Speed Flows,” addresses the significant gap in knowledge for particulate-laden, high-speed flows, employing one-of-a-kind numerical investigations to study the interaction of particulates with high-speed flows for geometries and flow conditions relevant to the Navy.

Multidisciplinary Smart Structures with Mariantonieta Gutierrez Soto

On October 10, 2018, Hurricane Michael made landfall on Mexico Beach, Florida with 155 mph winds, becoming the fourth-strongest hurricane to make landfall and just shy of a Category 5 hurricane. Thus far, it is estimated that 54 people lost their lives due to Michael and insurance claims have topped $1.5 billion with deaths as far away as Virginia and flooding as far as Maryland.

Bioengineering & Biomechanics

Computer Modeling for Heart Health with Jonathan Wenk and Kenneth Campbell

Combining physiology and engineering, UK’s Jonathan Wenk and Kenneth Campbell are developing computer software to deliver better therapies for patients with life-threatening heart failure. The National Institutes of Health recently awarded the team a $3 million five-year grant to create a computer model of the heart that can be customized to individual patients and predict long-term results.

Yu Receives Two-Year NIH Grant for Neonatal Intensive Care Device

“This device will be put to test in the neonatal intensive care unit for continuous monitoring of cerebral hemodynamic and metabolic variations in pre-term infants with patent ductus arteriosus undergoing indomethacin treatment. This pilot research will provide key information to validate the DSCFO device for clinical use and demonstrate its potential to provide prompt biomarkers for evaluating neuronal brain health and subsequent management of critically ill infants, who are at highest risk for developing neurological morbidities.”

Cui Awarded Two Grants Totaling over $650,000

Licong Cui, assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science, has received two grants amounting to over $650,000 that will further her work in debugging large ontologies and customizing data collection systems. The grants were awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Agioutantis Receives New Alpha Foundation Grant

Mining Engineering Foundation Professor Zach Agioutantis has received a new grant from the Alpha Foundation for the Improvement of Mine Safety and Health. The $223,000 award will support Agioutantis’ investigation into pillar design and stability with integrated pillar load and opening convergence in mines.

Berron Receives Grants from American Heart Association and National Science Foundation

University of Kentucky Bryan Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering Brad Berron has received two grants: one from the American Heart Association and the other from the National Science Foundation.

UK Researchers Receive $500,000 Grant for Next-Generation Batteries

A new study by University of Kentucky researchers is examining whether peach pits and walnut shells can be used to create cheaper, longer lasting lithium ion batteries.