UC sees record federal investment in engineering

UC sees record federal investment in engineering

Projects tackle digital security, medical innovations, aerospace technology and more

The College of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Cincinnati received a record $50.1 million in federal grant awards in the last fiscal year.

"What that money allows us to do is hire graduate students to do research. And they're working on important problems that matter," UC Interim Provost John Weidner said.

Weidner is the former dean of the college who was appointed to his new role in April.

"That leads to good-paying jobs and brings more talent to UC and to local companies," Weidner said.

Many students come to UC to take advantage of its nationally acclaimed cooperative education or co-op program in which they divide the year between classroom instruction and full-time employment with a company in their chosen field. This system is ingrained in the college's bachelor's degree programs in which students typically complete five co-op rotations.

But students also get the chance to work in state-of-the-art labs, where they get to pursue their own ideas and collaborate with leading engineers in academia, government and business.

"Students learn as they're doing research, which is the co-op mindset," Weidner said.

Professor Munir Nazzal is working on xxx.

Among UC's top federal sponsors are the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Defense.

"This level of funding signifies we're doing research for the right reasons," Associate Dean of Research Gautam Pillay said.

"We're expanding knowledge in all areas of engineering and increasing opportunities for student experiential learning," he said. "Students are seeing the forefront of these technologies while they're at UC."

The college's research interests range from medicine and aerospace to construction and transportation. New technology figures largely in everything.

Here are just a few of the projects:

Business collaborations

The Procter & Gamble Digital Accelerator at UC's 1819 Innovation Hub provides resources for UC undergraduates, graduate students and postdoctoral researchers to pursue advances in a variety of fields such as simulation, modeling, data analytics and supply chain optimization.

"At the P&G Digital Accelerator at UC, we embody a new kind of partnership between academia and industry, one that enables us to turn shared dreams into reality while growing students' and innovators' skills to create solutions for consumers' toughest challenges." said Alison Main, R&D vice president of corporate research for the Cincinnati-based consumer goods giant.

Frank Gerner, interim vice president for research at UC, said this partnership has been mutually beneficial for both the company and students since 2008.

"The College of Engineering greatly appreciates the continuing support of P&G," Gerner said. "This year the P&G Digital Accelerator will have supported the 500th UC student to work on a project that is of scientific interest and is valuable to P&G."

Engineering and medicine

Assistant Professor Olga Liaudanskaya received a grant of $1 million from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to study brain injuries caused by blunt force trauma.

In her biomedical engineering lab in UC's Bioscience Center, Liaudanskaya studies severe injuries sustained by soldiers, professional athletes and accident victims along with milder brain injuries that are harder to detect, including the swelling associated with head trauma.

"Mild injuries remain undiagnosed because we don't know the biomarkers," she said. "This grant looks at mitochondria malfunction so we can understand the molecular mechanisms that are activated from blast injuries."

Assistant Professor Olga Liaudanskaya is studying brain injuries at the molecular level in her biomedical engineering lab. Photo/Corrie Mayer/CEAS Marketing

Civil engineering and road repairs

Professor Munir Nazzal, director of UC's Center for Smart, Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure, received $1.2 million to study innovations in road repairs for the Federal Highway Administration.

"We're introducing new technologies for evaluating and maintaining roadways. And that makes the roadways safer," he said.

Microchips training investment

Professor Marc Cahay received nearly $1 million from the National Institute of Standards and Technology to continue training students on new pieces of equipment available in the Mantei Center Cleanroom to meet the demand in workforce development for semiconductor manufacturing.

UC is part of a collaboration of 15 institutions sponsored in part by Intel Corp. to provide students with STEM backgrounds with fundamental skills to pursue careers in the semiconductor industry.

With the grant, UC purchased new state-of-the-art equipment for its cleanroom, where students learn about microchip manufacturing and the protocols for working in these specialized manufacturing spaces.

"Over the last three years, we've trained 1,200 students who took rapid, stackable microcredentials in cleanroom methods and fabrication technology for semiconductors," Dean Pillay said.

Featured image at top: Students learn the fundamentals of microchip manufacturing in UC's Mantei Center Clean Room. Photo/Andrew Higley/UC

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