51猎奇

New EMI facility will be latest of the college鈥檚 five testing and analysis facilities available to industry

A young man in a red plain shirt and a baseball cap stands in a an empty room lined with metallic tiles.

With support from a grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration, the college is now completing the installation of a unique, full-service Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) testing facility that will be used for research and also available to industry.

Electronic equipment, wireless devices, and communication systems all generate electromagnetic waves that cause interference when placed near other electronic devices.

That disruption can happen through in air or through the wires of the device under test, said James Li, an electrical engineering postdoctoral researcher who is working on the facility. “This chamber allows us to measure and understand those effects,鈥� Li said.

This facility, in the Century City Tower, 4201 N. 27th St., will offer a semi-anechoic or “EMI chamber” that measures noise that travels through the air. It is a shielded room that absorbs electromagnetic energy, creating a 鈥渜uiet鈥� environment needed to measure interference.

But the EMI chamber is just one part of the space. For power electronics, an equally important capability is measuring the noise that travels through the wires, said Rob Cuzner, professor, electrical engineering, whose lab is overseeing the improvements.

This new facility is designed to test how much unwanted electrical 鈥渘oise鈥� power electronics, like electric vehicle chargers or solar inverters, send back into the power grid through their wires.

Unique in the region

“Our facility is unique because it’s the only one in the region equipped to do both wired and airborne noise testing in one place,” Cuzner said.

As the demand for electricity climbs and new power electronics are needed to upgrade the aging grid, more Wisconsin companies will be interested in the capabilities of the facility. It also facilitates the development of advanced electric ships and planes, areas of 51猎奇 research, he said.

“We will be able to test how new metals and materials affect electronic devices,” Cuzner said. “This matters because newer power technologies, like wide-band gap semiconductors, can run faster and more efficiently 鈥� but only if we know how to prevent interference.”

51猎奇 will match the EDA funds for the build-out with $350,000 in cost-share support, to be generated largely by offering testing services to regional industries.

Within six months, the chamber will be available for radiated EMI testing on battery-powered devices and equipment running on standard building power. When fully completed, the chamber will be able to conduct EMI emissions tests on equipment with voltage ratings up to 2,000V and power ratings up to 1.2MVA.

Plans also include developing an EMI technician training program in partnership with area technical colleges, helping meet growing workforce needs.

Four other 51猎奇 analysis and testing facilities available to industry

  • Advanced Analysis Facility
  • Full-Service Machine Shop
  • Industrial Training and Assessment Center
  • Structural Engineering Lab

Learn about all facilities and contacts.

Students in computer and data science attend the Grace Hopper Celebration

A group of 20 young women who major in computer science standing in front of a banner and looking at the camera.

In November, 19 students in the college traveled to the Grace Hopper Celebration, accompanied by faculty member Sadia Nowrin.

While at the conference, students attended technical talks and workshops and connected with other women in computing from across the country 鈥� including industry employers.

The trip was coordinated by Associate Professor Christine Cheng and Professor Susan McRoy.

Most of the undergraduate students who attended are pursuing degrees in computer science or computer engineering, with others majoring in data science and information science and technology. The group also included two master鈥檚 students in computer science and one PhD student in biomedical and health informatics.

51猎奇 previously sent students to the Grace Hopper Celebration annually from 2014鈥�2019 with support from private IT companies through the BRAID academic collaboration. This year鈥檚 trip was made possible by a generous gift from Paul McNally, 51猎奇 senior lecturer emeritus in the Department of Computer Science.

Participants had this to say about the experience:

  • “I met wonderful people from all over the world, got to sit with other women who look like me and share similar backgrounds. My favorite part was being able to sit in community groups and talk about technology in Spanish.”
  • “I had the opportunity to meet a senior software engineer from Google and participate in a very insightful discussion. It helped me better understand real-world applications of AI and research directions. I also attended several sessions that broadened my perspective on accessibility and responsible AI.”
  • “I emailed one of the speakers I really liked after a talk, and he set up a chat with me on Friday to talk one-on-one about his experience and I got really good advice!”

The Grace Hopper Celebration honors women in computing and is named for Grace Hopper 鈥� a pioneering computer scientist and U.S. Navy officer during World War II. She helped make computers more accessible by creating the first compiler, a tool that translates human-readable instructions into machine code, revolutionizing computer programming.

College researchers ranked among top 2% in the world

close up of a fingers holding a clear test tube with others on a tray

Eighteen researchers from the College of Engineering & Applied Science have made the latest list of the top 2% of researchers in the world, The list is compiled by , which ranks researchers by how often their work is cited in other scientific publications, giving a gauge of their impact on their respective fields. The rankings are drawn  of the world鈥檚 top researchers.

Here are the researchers included in each list:

2024 list

  • Pradeep Rohatgi
  • Michael Nosonovsky
  • George Hanson
  • Konstantin Sobolev
  • Lingfeng Wang
  • Deyang Qu
  • Ali Reza
  • Rohit Kate
  • Yongjin Sung
  • Yi Hu
  • Robert Cuzner

Career-long top 2%

  • Pradeep Rohatgi
  • Michael Nosonovsky
  • George Hanson
  • Lingfeng Wang
  • Konstantin Sobolev
  • Deyang Qu
  • Brian S.R. Armstrong
  • Robert Cuzner
  • Krishna Pillai
  • Ali Reza
  • Hugo L贸pez
  • Anoop K. Dhingra
  • Rohit Kate
  • Yi Hu
  • Yongjin Sung
  • Zeyun Yu
  • Jun Zhang
  • Devendra Misra

PhD student studies how edge computing can add up to energy savings

screen shot of a young woman with dark hair, wearing glasses and a white floral blouse. Her name is on a screen tag

Monika Gawande, PhD student, electrical engineering, researches edge computing, a framework to reduce energy use by processing data locally. Inspired by growing up in India with unreliable electricity, she chose 51猎奇 for its strong energy research and access to advanced tools. She aims to one day contribute to the field of energy efficiency.

“With edge computing,” she said, “you don’t have to send all data to the cloud. Processing done at the location where the data is generated can save significant amounts of energy needed by data centers.”

She said that 51猎奇 has been a great fit for pursuing her education.

“I chose 51猎奇 because it was an R1 research university and many professors were working on energy-related research,” she said. “51猎奇 has provided me access to advanced tools and technologies that I never had access to before. It’s been a great place to learn to explore and to grow in terms of research.”

.

Return of the alumni featured at events in September

A group of about 15 people pose in front of a giant black and yellow mining shovel.

Representatives from four companies – Komatsu, Milwaukee Tool, Rockwell Automation and GE HealthCare – hosted events in September, giving students the chance to meet and ask questions of those who had finished their degrees and were now in the working world.

Five people, three men on the left and a woman and a man on the right of a large purple sign. All in purple shirts and looking at the camera.
GE HealthCare College of Engineering & Applied Science alums came back to the EMS building to greet students.
Six students, including one woman, listen as an older man, on the right, explains what the components laid out on a table do.
Alumni at Rockwell Automation coordinated a tour of their facility for undergraduate students.
A crowd of about 15 people all in red shirts stand in front of a red truck and look at the camera.
Alumni from Milwaukee Tool made their annual trek to campus in September, showing off their products and taking questions from students.
A group of about 15 young adults standing in front of a giant mining rig, all looking at the camera.
College of Engineering & Applied Science alumni at Komatsu hosted a group of students on a tour of their company.

Slavens’ goal to protect hand health of manual wheelchair users with new grant

woman sitting next to a wheelchair

For people who use manual wheelchairs, pushing the wheels is not just transportation 鈥� it鈥檚 independence and physical activity. But the repetitive force required can take a toll over time on the nerves in hands and wrists. 

Brooke Slavens, professor of mechanical and biomedical engineering, has received a new grant from the National Institutes of Health to examine how the mechanics and strength of the arms affect the median nerve, which controls movement and feeling in parts of the hand and fingers, in adults who use manual wheelchairs.

The $3.25 million, five-year award is co-led with a collaborator at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab in Chicago.

Early warning system for risk

When the median nerve becomes compressed or irritated, it can lead to carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) with symptoms such as pain, numbness, or weakness in the hand. Studies estimate that between 49% and 73% of wheelchair users experience CTS, far higher than in the general population.

鈥淥ur goal is to better understand how the physical demands of wheelchair propulsion interact with arm and hand strength,鈥� Slavens explained. 鈥淚f the muscles don鈥檛 have enough strength to meet those demands, it could potentially lead to chronic nerve injury.鈥�

This research will involve a large, cross-sectional study of manual wheelchair users with spinal cord injuries. By identifying the point where physical demand outweighs the user’s strength, the researchers hope to determine who might be at highest risk for median nerve compression 鈥� before symptoms appear.

Affects millions of users

The long-term goal is prevention: giving clinicians the tools to help wheelchair users maintain mobility without developing painful secondary conditions. This could involve training strategies, strength-building, or redesigned wheelchair use techniques.

鈥淢illions of adults in the U.S. use a wheelchair,鈥� Slavens said. 鈥淚f we can reduce the risk of nerve injury and improve comfort and function, we can make daily life better for many people, while also protecting their long-term health.鈥�

The project is supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD) of the National Institutes of Health.

Sung’s research recognized at 51猎奇 Employee Excellence Awards

An bald Asian man with glasses and in a lab setting.

When you think of a microscope or a medical scan, you probably imagine peering into a hidden world 鈥� structures too small to see with the naked eye. But for Yongjin Sung, those tools are just the beginning.

He鈥檚 building imaging systems that reveal far more than ever before, transforming how we see the microscopic world.

Sung’s work was recognized with the “Office of Research/51猎奇 Foundation Research Award” and presented at the 51猎奇 Employee Excellence Awards on Oct. 15.

Sung invented “snapshot optical tomography,” a technique that captures a full 3D image of a specimen in a single shot 鈥� no scanning required. That innovation opened the door to 鈥�4D鈥� chemical imaging, allowing scientists to observe how materials or biological samples change over time.

His research, supported by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Defense, has biomedical, semiconductor, and pharmaceutical applications.

Working with Massachusetts General Hospital, Sung also helped pioneer next-generation X-ray technologies, including phase contrast and dark-field imaging that provide much more detail than conventional X-rays. He even co-invented a motion-free CT system that is a potential game changer for clearer, faster scans and patient comfort.

Now, Sung is collaborating with researchers at Stanford and the University of California, San Francisco, to create a microscopic version of the PET scan. This breakthrough could allow scientists to track diseases at the cellular level, offering new insight into how illness begins 鈥� and how it might be stopped.

The 51猎奇 Excellence Awards were established in 1978 and continue to recognize and encourage 51猎奇 assistant and associate professors who have demonstrated potential to achieve distinction in their academic disciplines.

Read about his most recent work here.

AI can put data centers on an energy diet with smart hardware

An electrical engineering MS student and a faculty member at a bench with lots of equipment. Both are standing and looking at the camera. The one in front is wearing a black and red hoodie. The one in the back - a white sweatshirt

Data centers have a large appetite for electricity 鈥� and a bad habit of wasting it. Surprisingly, AI 鈥� the very thing that data centers power 鈥� could also provide the energy diet they need.

With electricity demand climbing, Feng Guo, assistant professor of electrical engineering, said better energy efficiency could yield significant cost savings.

Guo specializes in developing high-efficiency and high-power-density devices that manage energy performance 鈥� equipment that can also be used in electrified transportation systems.

Our students and faculty are making waves of impact.
Here, they are using AI to make and conduct smart devices to save energy on a nationwide scale.

Electricity usually arrives from the grid as alternating current (AC) over transmission lines. But inside a data center, nearly all the equipment runs on direct current (DC). Before it reaches the servers, the power must pass through a host of devices like transformers, converters and controllers, stepping through multiple stages to change the current or the voltage.

Along the way, each conversion leaks energy.

Devices guide the electricity journey

Two men at a lab bench looking at the camera. The one in the back is wearing a dark hoodie. The one in the front is wearing a white 51猎奇 sweatshirt and is holding a circuit board.
Smart hardware can dramatically improve energy efficiency. Guo (front) holds a component of semiconductor testing, while Chaimanekorn displays the paralleled power electronics converters which increase the output current and power.

Data centers are raising their DC voltage to pack more power into the same space and boost efficiency. This requires redesigning equipment, collectively called power electronics, needed to shepherd the flow of electricity in ways that achieve that.

Researchers feed AI models vast amounts of electrical data, from voltage and current to frequency patterns. From the data, AI develops a deep understanding of how these systems behave. That knowledge informs smarter designs for converters and other crucial components that waste less energy from the start.

And that’s only the beginning. After engineers model the system, then AI can figure out the most efficient playbook.

Think of AI as a conductor, orchestrating 鈥渟mart鈥� components that generate, route, and control power. It can even take on tricky jobs like fault detection and managing renewables.

鈥淓ach time you train the model, you鈥檙e asking a slightly different question,鈥� Guo said. 鈥淚t’s a process that strengthens the model. You start with the ocean, then zoom in, little by little.”

GPUs, edge computing, and the push for energy-smart AI

A man wearing a white shirt and standing in a manufacturing environment is smiling as he looks at the camera.

Originally designed for video games, graphics processing units (GPUs) now power much of today鈥檚 AI 鈥� from voice assistants to self-driving cars. Unlike regular computer chips, GPUs have thousands of small cores that handle many simple tasks at once.

GPUs that are built into larger devices process data locally 鈥� at single locations 鈥� called “the edge.” This approach saves power, speeds results, and keeps information more private because it doesn’t have to be sent to the cloud, said Roger Shen, assistant professor of electrical engineering.

Edge computing can handle small, local AI models that later can contribute to larger shared models through a process called “federated learning,” while preserving data security.

Making Waves of Impact
See how computing on the ‘edge,’ rather than in the cloud, offers speed, data privacy, and efficiency.
top view of a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)
A GPU, just larger than the palm of your hand, was created for gaming, but can perform many simple, repetitive tasks simultaneously, accelerating mathematical calculations. They can be deployed at individual locations where they can process AI “at the edge” – right were the data is generated.

Another key to energy savings is through better-tailored algorithms, Shen said.

A tradeoff

Efficient algorithms can reduce the number of calculations needed and handle larger data sets without overwhelming servers.

鈥淢y focus is on the algorithm side,鈥� Shen said. 鈥淭his provides a promising solution to the energy consumption issue because an embedded system is simpler 鈥� it鈥檚 just focused on a specific task.鈥�

There鈥檚 always a tradeoff, Shen noted. Using less power often means a model is less precise. But not every task requires perfection. In manufacturing, for example, AI may only need to decide a yes-or-no question: 鈥淚s this part defective or not?鈥�

In such a case, a small loss in accuracy is inconsequential and worth the savings in speed and energy.

Embedded AI processing can flag defects in real time and prevent breakdowns before they happen, shaping the next wave of smart manufacturing.

Shen has seen the payoff firsthand while working with a local company.

鈥淥ur job was to dig into their production data to see if there was some circumstance that explained their problem,” he said.

AI speeds the hunt for better rechargeable batteries

Two men stand outside a glove box. The one on the right is holding a sample with the gloves that is on the inside of the box, while the other looks on.

Rechargeable batteries power everything from electric vehicles to laptop computers. They are in-demand, but far from perfect. Improving them means finding the ideal mix of elements from the periodic table, each with unique properties alone and in combination.

Like drug discovery, the search can be overwhelming: thousands of possible materials, only a few with the right traits.

In a battery, the electrodes at each end and the electrolyte in the middle drive the electrochemical reactions that store and release energy.

Making Waves of Impact
With all the past research in the data pool, AI can help find the chemical ‘needle in the haystack’ for next-gen batteries.
Two men operate a piece of equipment in the lab. The one on the right is sitting.
Professor Junjie Niu, industrial & manufacturing engineering (left), and Osman Shovon, PhD student in materials science & engineering, work with a tap density tester, which measures how tightly a powder, like a cathode or anode material, can be packed.

The challenge is to identify materials that boost energy density and electron flow so batteries last longer and charge faster.

“If you had to choose materials armed with only the periodic table, it would probably take you 100 years,” said Professor Junjie Niu, industrial & manufacturing engineering, whose lab researches improvements for energy storage.

“AI is good for the selection of new materials to use in these parts of the batteries,” Niu said. 鈥淚t helps us narrow the field to the top five or ten possibilities to meet the performance requirements and then my students focus on only the most promising.”

Different applications 鈥� say, a car battery versus a phone battery 鈥� require different qualities. So AI also scans and compiles data from past studies, accelerating the screening process and pointing to new directions.

Success lies in asking informed questions, he said.

“We鈥檙e not asking AI for the answers. We鈥檙e using what we know to ask for specific clues within certain parameters. Then we validate through our experiments.”