51ÁÔĆć

Ten faculty recognized with named professorships, fellowships

10 head shots

Congratulations to the following 10 faculty members, each of whom was honored with a named professorship or named fellowship, backed by three donor funds: Richard and Joanne Grigg, Lawrence E. Sivak and Alan D. Kulwicki.

Through these gifts, the college is providing a third year of philanthropic support to faculty.

The named professorships and fellowships support the growth of some of the college’s key research areas and honor recipients’ research, teaching and scholarship. Named professorships, which are for a three-year period, provide a salary supplement, in addition to the funding award. Named fellowship awards are for one year.

Named Professorships

Rob Cuzner, Richard and Joanne Grigg Professorship
Cuzner is an expert in electric grid compatibility and extreme power conversion.

Roshan D’Souza, Richard and Joanne Grigg Professorship
D’Souza’s research using advanced processing of images from scans such as MRIs and deep learning methods to better understand the impact of hemodynamics (blood flow) on cardiovascular diseases.

Junjie Niu, Richard and Joanne Grigg Professorship
Niu is designing next-generation batteries for electronic devices and electronic vehicles. He also is addressing drinking water and groundwater decontamination.

Xiao Qin, Lawrence E. Sivak ’71 Professorship
Qin, a nationally renowned expert in transportation data analytics and highway safety, is working to solve both local and national transportation issues.

M. Habib Rahman, Richard and Joanne Grigg Professorship
Rahman is an expert in bio-robotics, including human-assist robots, mobile robots, rehabilitation robotics, and exoskeleton robots for rehabilitation and daily living assistance.

Brooke Slavens, Richard and Joanne Grigg Professorship
Slavens is an expert in rehabilitation engineering, orthopaedic biomechanics, and musculoskeletal imaging.

Yin Wang, Lawrence E. Sivak ’71 Professorship
Wang is developing advanced and sustainable materials and technologies for water purification that aim to rid water of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and other contaminants.

Named Fellowships

Ryo Amano, Alan D. Kulwicki ’77 Faculty Fellowship
Amano researches energy and power areas, including wind, hydro, biomass, gas turbines and combustion. He also is funded through the U.S. Department of Energy to help manufacturers improve their energy efficiency and decarbonization.

Konstantin Sobolev, Lawrence E. Sivak ’71 Faculty Fellowship
Sobolev’s research includes hydrophobic and ice-phobic coatings for porous materials including concrete, and cost-saving, environmentally friendly ways to make concrete stronger, smart and longer-lasting.

Xiaoli Ma, Lawrence E. Sivak ’71 Faculty Fellowship
Ma focuses on the design and development of advanced materials, such as adsorbents and membranes, for use in water purification. He also works on materials for gas separation and sensor technologies.

The Donors

Richard and Joanne Grigg
Richard “Dick” Grigg (’04, ’75, ’70 engineering) devoted his career to advancing new energy technologies. After earning his degrees from 51ÁÔĆć, he went on to become the president and CEO of We Generation, the electric-generation arm of We Energies. In 2004, he joined FirstEnergy Corp., in Ohio and retired as executive vice president and president of FirstEnergy Utilities in 2010. Richard Grigg and his wife, Joanne Grigg, died in 2018 and 2016, respectively.

Lawrence E. Sivak
Sivak (’71 BS, civil engineering) has held many key positions in during his 40-year career and experienced many unique projects, including harbor maintenance and flood control with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and participating in the Milwaukee Water Pollution Abatement Program.

Alan D. Kulwicki
Kulwicki (’77, BS mechanical engineering) applied his degree to his skill in racecar driving to achieve success on the track. He was on the cutting edge of an increasing emphasis on technology in the sport. Despite his death in a plane crash in 1993, Kulwicki’s name and legacy live on. He was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2019.

Narasimhan joins college as a visiting assistant professor of biomedical engineering

Welcome Ashwin Kumar Narasimhan, a new visiting assistant professor in biomedical engineering.

Narasimhan comes to 51ÁÔĆć from Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada, where he was a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering.

Narasimhan

Narasimhan holds a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology- Madras, where he focused on the development of multimodal theranostic nanoparticles for biomedical imaging used to determine cancer staging.

His research interests include nano-theranostics, cancer diagnostics, and microfluidics, with a strong focus on developing affordable healthcare solutions.

Narasimhan has secured several research grants from both public and private funding agencies like the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Indian Council of Medical Research and BIG-Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council, India. He has published 20 peer-reviewed journal articles, authored multiple book chapters and holds four patents.

51ÁÔĆć Research Foundation awards $200,000 in Catalyst Grants to college researchers

Zhen Zeng, assistant professor of computer science doing work at a computer

Identifying proteins for new drugs to treat triple-negative breast cancer. Creating a threat-modeling system to enhance cybersecurity in manufacturing. Developing an improved material for solar cells. These are among the projects from the College of Engineering & Applied Science funded through the latest round of 51ÁÔĆć Research Foundation’s Catalyst Grants.

The Catalyst Grant program is designed to seed-fund research in areas where 51ÁÔĆć has the greatest potential to impact the regional economy through commercialization. The  has provided continued support for the program since 2007. New this year,  has provided support specifically for clean energy research.

Since its inception, the Catalyst Grant program has provided $6 million for projects that have led to 18 51ÁÔĆć startup companies campuswide. The investment has yielded 66 issued patents, 50 pending patents, 30 license/option agreements and more than $40.7 million in follow-on funding to date.

In addition to the Bradley Foundation support, other donors over the years include the Rockwell Automation Charitable Corporation, the Richard and Ethel Herzfeld Foundation, GE HealthCare and Clarios.

This round of grants went to:

Identifying breast cancer-fighting proteins from healthy cells

Qingsu Cheng, biomedical engineering

Cheng is investigating proteins naturally secreted by human cells that inhibit the growth of triple-negative breast cancer cells. Using organoids derived from real patient tumors, he aims to identify proteins that can be developed into small-molecule drugs, offering a cost-effective treatment for this aggressive cancer.

Improving cybersecurity for advanced manufacturing

Zhen Zeng, computer science

Zeng plans to create a threat-modeling system to enhance cybersecurity in complex advanced manufacturing systems. By automating repetitive tasks and integrating threat intelligence, this large language model-assisted tool seeks to significantly reduce the time and effort required for threat modeling.

Developing low-cost materials for better solar panels

Nikolai Kouklin, materials science & engineering, and Konstantin Sobolev, civil & environmental engineering

The researchers aim to develop a cost-effective and scalable alternative material for solar cells and other optoelectronic devices. They are using zinc oxide phosphate films to enhance efficiency and environmental sustainability, overcoming the challenges of the current material.

A device to safely test anchors in concrete structures

Jian Zhao, civil & environmental engineering, and Nathan Salowitz, mechanical engineering

Joining a steel structure with concrete requires drilling a hole in the hardened concrete and inserting a metal anchor with an adhesive that forms a chemical bond with the surfaces. But improper installation or aging can lead to defects in the adhesive-concrete interface. This research team is developing a “smart cap nut” that generates and measures micro-vibrations to detect such defects that often are not visible.

For some freshmen, college began in a research lab rather than the classroom

two young male industrial engineering majors work on a project at the 51ÁÔĆć test bed on campus

At 51ÁÔĆć’s Connected Systems Institute a steady stream of vials filled with colored water zip around a “testbed” production line. It’s a mini-factory floor for researching automated manufacturing technologies and developing a workforce that can use those innovations.

But just like in real-world factories, the CSI production line may turn out “fails” – vials that are the wrong color, for example, or don’t contain the right amount of water. Or equipment may malfunction, bringing the process to a costly stand still.

Technologies, such as artificial intelligence, have the potential to find and fix such problems by tracking reams of data that a production line produces, said Shamar Webster, who has been working on AI and Cloud development at CSI for the past two years, while finishing his master’s degree in computer science.

Over the summer, Webster, now a program manager at CSI, enlisted two assistants to use Microsoft Power BI, software that can visualize the data.  

Even more impressive is that Moreno and Anderson began participating in this engineering research before they had even stepped foot in a 51ÁÔĆć classroom.

Tops in undergraduate research

Twenty-two intrepid incoming freshmen, including five from the College of Engineering & Applied Science, accepted the challenge, offered by UR@51ÁÔĆć program, part of the Office of Undergraduate Research.

The recent high school grads interviewed for the available positions and then worked on a project with a faculty member or research associate in an area related to their intended majors, said Kyla Esguerra, deputy director of the Office of Undergraduate Research.

Besides Moreno and Anderson, the three other incoming freshmen researchers were:

  • Tyler Klute and David Alonso, worked with Pradeep Rohatgi, professor, materials science & engineering.
  • John “Noah” Weishan, worked with Jerald Thomas, assistant professor, computer science.

Fighting fear of the unknown

Though interested in engineering, both Moreno and Anderson worried that they had too vague an idea of what college and a career would be like. So, they decided to leap in.

“I felt like I was behind in what I should know coming to college,” said Moreno, a recent graduate of Lake Mills High School. “I didn’t know what it would be like. So, when I got this email, I jumped at the opportunity.”

Lorenzo Moreno and Peyton Anderson, incoming freshmen in mechanical engineering, built and maintained a dashboard that can give the testbed operators an at-a-glance status.

Anderson (left) and Moreno presented their research poster, “Modeling industrial manufacturing efficiency using Microsoft Power Business Intelligence.”

Anderson, who recently graduated from MPS’s Ronald Reagan High School, said he was eager to start learning and investigating his career options in engineering.

“This opportunity was kind of a blessing.” Anderson said. “I was able to just come along with no experience and they’re teaching me all these things.”

Real engineering problems

To begin, Webster had the interns spend time with him, operating and troubleshooting the CSI manufacturing line. Later, when they learned why curating performance data is so important for automation, it made sense to them.

For Anderson, figuring out a way to log the exported data more quickly, was his top achievement because he wasn’t just using the software, he was figuring out how to get the most from it.

“You don’t just want to collect data and create visuals,” he said. “You want to learn what’s going on from the data. If the only information shows a 40% fail rate – that’s a fact with no context. It was a good lesson for us.”

Toward self-assurance

Along with the industry connections they made, Webster said, the first-year student interns gained more than hands-on experience. They learned to manage the fear of failure.

“My main goal was to make sure that they are confident in themselves,” he said. “It’s important for when they ultimately go into the working world.”

And that’s what Moreno considered his summer’s highlight. When a group of professionals from Microsoft and the Wisconsin venture capital firm TitleTown Tech visited, the interns presented their project in person.

“Definitely it was presenting the work that we did to really important people,” Moreno said. “It was just really cool to feel that pride of accomplishment.”

College welcomes new cohort of 24 students from Taiwan exchange programs

two asian students

On Aug. 26, the College welcomed 24 new students who are participating in an academic exchange program between 51ÁÔĆć engineering and Chung Yuan Christian University (CYCU) in Taiwan.

The college and CYCU have operated a dual master’s degree program since fall of 2017. But last year, the partnership grew to include CYCU undergraduates who come here for their final two undergraduate years. In both programs, the credits students earn are transferrable to their home institution and students receive their degrees from both institutions.

This year’s second cohort includes 17 juniors in the “2+2 program” in three departments: computer science, computer engineering and electrical engineering. There also are seven new dual master’s students in the departments of electrical engineering and industrial & manufacturing engineering.

“This year we’re going to see stronger integration between the students who are coming from CYCU and our current students,” said Dean Brett Peters. “We’re also getting a lot of visibility from the companies that are looking to employ the students in internships and other opportunities. So, I think we’re going to see that grow and develop as well.”

They join another 17 “2+2” seniors and eight dual master’s students completing their degrees at 51ÁÔĆć this year. 

Graduate student awarded funding to develop semi-autonomous robotic devices for the disabled

Md Tanzil Shahria, a doctoral student, computer science, has been awarded a $2,500 stipend to support his research in designing robotic devices to assist mobility-challenged people.

Shahria is designing a vision-based assistive robot control system that allows users with disabilities to identify and locate objects, use the robotic grippers to manipulate them, and perform pick-and-place tasks by speaking commands rather than manually manipulating the robot.

Shahria, a member of Professor Habib Rahman’s mechanical engineering lab, is creating a deep learning-based model that also uses a depth camera and mapping function to detect and interact with items.

The support is part of the Fall 2024 “Student Scholars Program” of the Northwestern Mutual Data Science Institute (NMDSI).

This is Shahria’s third consecutive award from NMDSI, and the support has allowed him to develop different components of this system over several semesters.

The  is a partnership among the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Marquette University and Northwestern Mutual that aims to make southeastern Wisconsin a national hub for data science technology, research, business and talent development.

Amano’s $5.7 million DOE grant gets coverage from several media outlets

man in energy lab

Multiple media outlets published reports of the recent $5.7 million federal grant awarded to Professor Ryo Amano, mechanical engineering, by the U.S. Department of Energy. The funding supports training programs to increase a workforce with “green” skills needed in the manufacturing sector.

The grant establishes Industrial Training Assessment Centers in the Midwest that will provide instruction in energy assessment. Amano will direct the initiative and work with nine community college partners across Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Milwaukee Business Journal, “Federal grant powers 51ÁÔĆć’s training for clean energy jobs”

Two new lecturers in computer science begin this fall

2 individual headshots, a man and a woman in blue headscarf

Welcome Rohit Singh and Ayesha Siddika Nipu, both lecturers in the computer science department.

Singh works at the intersection of mathematics and computer science.  His work involves designing computationally efficient algorithms to derive meaningful information from big datasets. This semester, he is teaching “Algorithm Design & Analysis,” “Fundamentals of Computer Graphics,” “Data Structure and Algorithms,” and “Scientific Data Visualization.”

He holds a master’s degree from the University of Florida and a PhD from the University of Cincinnati.

Nipu comes from UW-Platteville, where she taught undergraduate courses. At the College of Engineering & Applied Science, she is teaching a variety of programming and software engineering courses, from sophomore to graduate levels, with a strong focus on C++ and Java.

Her research interest includes the use of artificial intelligence for natural language processing in healthcare applications. She earned her master’s degree in computer science at Missouri State University with a graduate certificate in data science. Before moving to the U.S., she was a software developer in Bangladesh.

Cheng receives $649,000 from USDA to develop a process to monitor and treat pathogens in polluted wastewater

Globally, more than 70% of fresh water is used to produce crops.

Qingsu Cheng, assistant professor, biomedical engineering, is the principal investigator on a three-year, $649,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to develop and test a technology that assures the quality of reclaimed water and agricultural wastewater so that more can be used in irrigating crops. The project will aid in improving food and water security.

Currently, these alternative water sources are poorly monitored and can transmit waterborne diseases that are passed on to people who eat the crops, Cheng said. 

Using biospecimens from farms and water treatment plants, he will create probes using nanoparticles to identify the presence of bacteria and microchip screening to allow nanoparticles to target different kinds of bacteria through position coding.

This proposed technology will be able to cost-effectively profile multiple pathogens simultaneously in 15 minutes.

“After validation in the lab, we will test the product with wastewater and irrigation water to determine the efficiency of our product,” he said.

The research is conducted in collaboration with Troy Skwor, 51ÁÔĆć associate professor of biomedical sciences, and partners at the University of Cincinnati. Skwor is responsible for developing high-efficiency, non-antibiotic sterilization treatment that is not toxic to plants and animals.

Grad student awarded AEE scholarship for top female U.S. student pursuing energy career

Congratulations to Asma Khasawneh, who was awarded the Ruth Whitlock CWEEL Scholarship by the Council of Women in Energy & Environmental Leadership, a division of the Association of Energy Engineers.

The award honors the top U.S. female student pursuing a career in the energy or environmental fields. Khasawneh’s advisor is Professor Ryo Amano, mechanical engineering.

The $2,500 scholarship recognizes academic excellence, leadership potential, and a commitment to advancing women’s careers in energy.

The scholarship is named after Ruth Whitlock, a notable advocate for women in the sector and former executive administrator for AEE members.

AEE will present the winners of its four scholarships at the AEE World Conference on Sept. 25-27 in Nashville, Tenn.