Engineering – Arizona State University is positioned as a global leader in engineering by Arizona State University

Engineering Arizona State University is positioned as a global leader in engineering

Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering Welcome About the Fulton Schools Degrees, minors and certificates

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Arizona impact

Fulton Schools Arizona impact by the numbers In the media Partnering in research and economic growth Microelectronics powerhouse Building technology of the future Biomedical engineering Redesigning engineering education Expanding our impact

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National impact

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Fulton Schools national impact by the numbers In the media Robotics and cybersecurity Materials and construction Humans and technology Transportation

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World impact 465 Fulton Schools world impact by the numbers Global programs and partnerships In the media Increasing access to education Protecting and managing our environment Humans and technology Computing and semiconductors

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About ASU ASU’s Arizona, national and world impact

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“Evolving a leading engineering school is a critical accelerant to making the jump to a firsttier high-tech state. ASU is committed to advancing the global position of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering in order to make that jump and preparing the workforce for the future.” – M I C H A E L M . C R O W, ASU PRESIDENT

Now is the time to build the new Our world continues to change in new, dynamic and exciting ways. We are able to make things at lightning speed, think faster and solve problems more quickly, opening up new economic opportunities. We are making a transition to a bio-driven economy emerging from a physically driven one, creating a new economy to benefit more Americans. We are building new knowledge enterprises that affect everything — food, water, work, travel, cars, medicine, our health and more. Those industries are being impacted by new knowledge-driven technologies. We are making certain that Arizona is at the absolute leading edge of driving our nation and our world toward a brighter future. Right now, Arizona is in the second of five tiers of technologically advanced states. We have a lot of high-tech manufacturing here now and moving here every day. We have a new resurgence of biotech companies, including those locating in downtown Phoenix for the synergy happening between the state’s three universities and business clusters in the Phoenix Bioscience Core. First-tier technology states are accelerating even more rapidly. They are starting more companies and attracting more companies and creating more highwage jobs. And we can be competitive with them. Evolving a leading engineering school is a critical accelerant to making the jump to a first-tier high-tech state. ASU is committed to advancing the global position of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering in order to make that jump and preparing the workforce for the future In this book, we reflect on the progress made in establishing the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering as the largest, most comprehensive engineering school in the nation. Numbers, rankings and statistics are included of course—they provide the definitive evidence that we have made progress like no other in the nation. But the true power of this exercise lies within the stories of the people who make ASU’s progress possible. This book gives you a glimpse into the lives of our faculty, students, alumni and partners, who are garnering global media coverage and driving ASU forward. Michael M. Crow President, Arizona State University michaelcrow

michaelmcrow instagram asuprescrow

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WelcomC Ira A Schools Enginee

me Chapter to the A.opener Fulton s of ering The Fulton Schools of Engineering offer 26 undergraduate programs in eight schools and an additional 49 graduate programs. Fifteen of the programs are repeatedly highly ranked, in the top 25, by U. S. News & World Report.

“We attract students because we’re so broad. We’ve got most engineering disciplines and related disciplines covered — everything from students designing airplanes to students flying airplanes,” says Jim Collofello, in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, which is part of the Fulton Schools. Beyond that are the opportunities afforded to those attending a college located in metropolitan Phoenix, where the tech industry is booming. The school has partnerships with Intel, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, Honeywell, General Dynamics, Northrup Grumman and many others. ENGINEERING

About the Fulton Schools Engineers from day 1

At the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, we believe that engineering is more than a discipline—it’s a mindset, a way of looking at the world to determine how challenges can be met most efficiently, sustainably, safely, and in cost-effective ways that maximize impact and benefit those we serve. As a part of the largest engineering school in the country, our diverse faculty and students are passionate about finding innovative and entrepreneurial solutions to our most pressing challenges.

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Joining ASU starts with E2, our interactive orientation for first-year students prior to the start of school. We provide support through a culture of peer mentoring, direct faculty engagement, and undergraduate teaching assistants. We boost hands-on learning with faculty who are dedicated to teaching first-year students, innovative learning spaces and undergraduate research experiences, tackling real-world problems with faculty, industry, nonprofits and alumni.

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From around the state of Arizona and the world, incoming students from all colleges gather together to start the year at Fall Welcome.

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In the Fulton Schools of Engineering, simply put, we build engineers and innovators. The demand for wellprepared engineers, builders, makers, designers and innovators continues to grow. Our highly regarded graduates are actively recruited by top companies; many go on to pursue graduate studies in medicine, law, engineering and science; and still others make their mark through servicebased experiences, such as the Peace Corps or Teach for America.

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We give students the individual attention they need to succeed so we can graduate the engineers — and problem solvers — who advance the well-being of our communities, state, and nation. Our vision of engineering is “the Fulton Difference,” and it encapsulates these principles:

We think outside the classroom and focus on student success. E2, our innovative program to welcome new freshmen — together with personalized advising, residential communities, engineering tutoring services, and our dedicated career center—is just the beginning of our commitment to student success. We motivate our students to take advantage of the many opportunities available to develop their unique talents for research, curiosity for global understanding, and development of an entrepreneurial mindset.

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ASU research continues to rise ASU research has quintupled since 2002, making it one of the fastest-growing research universities in the U.S. ASU reported $617.7 million in research expenditures for FY18. According to National Science Foundation Higher Education Research and Development rankings, ASU is No. 44 in the country, ahead of the California Institute of Technology and the University of Chicago, and No. 8 among institutions without a medical school.

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Programs in the Generator Labs are designed to empower and develop socially embedded, entrepreneurially minded student leaders who can take concepts from idea to impact efficiently and effectively. 14

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Innovative spaces and programs

Generator Labs ASU’s Generator Labs is a space occupied by both the Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) program and the eSeed Challenge + Accelerator program. Gen Labs provides support and resources for students’ entrepreneurial endeavors by way of courses, workshops, competitions and events. Both programs show students how entrepreneurship and engineering can affect the world and are instrumental in helping students build “soft skills” that are not often learned in the classroom, such as planning, pitching, budgeting and funding a project while interfacing with the community, investors or a client. Generator Labs also hosts events, including Live @ Generator Labs, a speaker series in which CEOs and entrepreneurs share their tips and tricks and connect with like-minded students. They also host Devils Invent, a weekend-long hackathon to design, build and implement innovative solutions to challenging problems.

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In Esteban Barboza’s FURI research on thermal properties of adobe for reducing housing energy costs in Arizona, he conducted research on earthen material to bring attention to its sustainable properties in both energy efficiency and as a building material. He is now a Senior Engineering Associate for the City of San Antonio, Texas. 16

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FURI Undergraduate research Thanks to programs like the Fulton Undergraduate Research Initiative (FURI), eProjects, and senior design capstone courses, more than 1,000 Fulton Schools undergraduate students are conducting research, long before they would at many peer institutions. These programs are funded partially or completely by private gifts and industry support. As FURI researchers, students solve realworld problems, investigate possible career paths, build a mentoring relationship with a faculty member outside of class, gain a competitive advantage for graduate school or jobs and internships, and gain essential skills for career success. Through this paid opportunity, participants conduct research with a faculty mentor and present their findings at a semiannual FURI Symposium.

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“Their persistence through adversity, commitment to delivering, and desire to make a difference have been incredible to watch. The team has learned so much about what it takes to be real engineers and change makers.” – S C OT T S H R A K E , E P I C S D I R E C TO R

Six ASU students spent three years designing, building, and delivering a mobile dental clinic for use in developing countries as well as in underserved Native American communities. The project, which started in Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS), took the students from Phoenix to El Salvador and pushed them outside their comfort zones. 18

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EPICS Engineering Projects in Community Service The Engineering Projects in Community Service program is an award-winning community service and social entrepreneurship program. Teams design, build and deploy systems to solve engineering-based problems for charities, schools and other not-for-profit organizations. Our students aren’t waiting to graduate to make a difference—they are tackling real-world problems today. Projects focus on four themes: community development, education, health and sustainability. EPICS also engages with high schools and community colleges, pairing students with local partners in need of engineering design solutions. EPICS@ASU is supported by ASU in the Chandler, Mesa, Phoenix and Tolleson school districts.

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“ What if students don’t even know what an engineer does? What if you don’t know that people like you are engineers, and you, too, can aspire to become one?” —T I R U PA L AVA N A M G A N E S H , A S U A S S I S TA N T D E A N O F E N G I N E E R I N G E D U C AT I O N

Supporting awareness of engineering as career path HERMANAS is a community college event that promotes STEM educational pathways to encourage Latinas to explore attending college. YOUNG ENGINEERS SHAPE THE WORLD

This program serves high school girls, with mentors guiding planned exploratory activities, stereotype confrontation, industry mentorship and ASU site visits.

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ENGINEERING FUTURES supports firstgeneration students navigating the university, from the beginning of their studies through student cohorts, support systems with first-generation junior and senior counselors aiding in the development of engineering identity, as well as retention advisers to monitor progress.

Reaching out to a new generation Engineering has a bit of an invisibility problem, says ASU education researcher Tirupalavanam Ganesh. “Engineers do things that impact a lot of everyday life, but you don’t see engineers portrayed in movies, video games or on TV and the other things that are shaping youngsters’ views of the world,” says Ganesh, an associate research professor and the assistant dean of engineering education.

A result is that many bright and motivated young students — and their parents — aren’t including engineering on the list of potential careers. Ganesh’s mission is to change that, especially for those within groups whose young adults have not pursued higher education or careers in the field in significant numbers — a largely untapped talent pool, he says. Since 2011, enrollment of first-generation engineering students at ASU has grown more than 150 percent, bringing new ideas, perspectives and experiences into engineering education. ASU Assistant Dean of Engineering Education Tirupalavanam Ganesh (second from left) works with students (from left) Judicael Tombo, Nikki Lopez, Romonte Moore, Lovepreet Singh, Evelyn Holguin and Emanuel Garcia.

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“Learning you can actually take an idea and start a company and hire people and bring in revenue and have an impact in your community, is such a significant empowerment. ” — J I M I C H O I , A S U A S S O C I AT E V I C E PRESIDENT OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP + I N N O VAT I O N

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Power of the pitch Every semester, in classes and extracurricular activities, students have the opportunity to learn entrepreneurial skills like evidence-based pitching. They pitch their ideas in competitions such as ASU Launch Days and biannual Demo Day challenges. Competitors won a total of $150,000 in seed money at the most recent Demo Day in December. Some of these winners go on to the ASU Innovation Open, held every January, which draws entrepreneurs from around the globe. This year’s participants competed for more than $300,000 in cash prizes and other funding to support their ventures.

ASU students across disciplines learn how to pitch a business idea and gain the skills and know-how to start a successful business.

Alumni and community members can apply to be part of ASU Venture Devils to receive entrepreneurship and pitch training, mentorship and access to funding opportunities. Every year, ASU awards, with Edson endowment dollars and other philanthropic gifts, more than $1 million for promising business ideas. Learn more at entrepreneurship.asu.edu.

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Collaborators in entrepreneurship from across ASU with the Fulton Schools of Engineering J. Orin Edson Entrepreneurship + Innovation Institute Knowledge Enterprise Development Shared Resources Skysong Innovations ASU Foundation Changemaker Central MKR Services Center for Entrepreneurship @ W.P. Carey School of Business Enterprise + Entrepreneurship Programs @ Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts Health Entrepreneurship Accelerator Lab – HEALab Cronkite New Media Innovation and Entrepreneurship Lab Luminosity Lab

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SkySong, The ASU Scottsdale Innovation Center is one of the premier economic engines in the Phoenix metro area. Its focus on innovation and technology attracts companies ranging from some of the world’s best known brands to small startups. Hundreds of ASU students work in labs and startups there and many ASU startups have their offices in the center.

E+I at the Fulton Schools Entrepreneurship + Innovation at the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering empowers all undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, staff, and alumni to leverage an entrepreneurial mindset to advance their ideas for the benefit of our economy and society. More than 300 student teams and 1,000 student entrepreneurs are supported by the Edson Student Entrepreneur Initiative.

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Hundreds of ASU startups, including those from engineering, have done some or all of their development at SkySong and many are located there today, like SOURCE and Neolight. A joint venture among ASU, the City of Scottsdale, ASU Enterprise Partners and the Plaza Companies, SkySong is three miles from ASU’s research-intensive Tempe campus and 15 minutes from the airport.

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PUBLISHED

SkySong news release, January 19, 2021

SkySong and the ASU startups based there to generate $58.2 billion in impact over next 30 years SkySong, the ASU Scottsdale Innovation Center, “is a job creator with outsized ripple effects” on economic development in the region. The estimate is part of a comprehensive new study conducted by Elliott D. Pollack and Company to gauge the project’s effect on regional economic growth. The SkySong public-private-university partnership was a catalyst in making SkySong a major part of Arizona’s economic development picture. Companies located at SkySong enjoy a special relationship with ASU, the country’s largest and most innovative university with over 98,000 students. As the cornerstone of SkySong, the ASU Scottsdale Innovation Center, ASU SkySong occupies 135,566 square feet of space related to corporate engagement, entrepreneurship, education, technology, and innovation. ASU SkySong is an innovation center designed to help companies grow by providing business services and programs offered or facilitated by ASU. These services support entrepreneurial ventures and established businesses.

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SkySong, the ASU Scottsdale Innovation Center, is home to a diverse business community that links technology, research, education and entrepreneurship to position ASU and Greater This is a caption. Phoenix as global leaders in the knowledge economy.

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SkySong specifically generates an estimated annual impact of 9,350 total jobs, $584.4 million in wages and $1.3 billion in economic activity. SkySong also generates significant revenues for state and local governments. In addition to thousands of local high-wage jobs, to date, the impacts of SkySong have returned $27.1 million in revenue to Scottsdale. Over the next 30 years, Scottsdale is expected to receive more than $362.3 million. Revenues to the state, county and city will be $1.4 billion during that timeframe. SkySong has been a catalyst for redevelopment. The economic impact of construction activity alone will be over $2.0 billion. ENGINEERING

Hoolest Performance Technologies, made up of three ASU engineering students, won the grand prize at the entrepreneurial competition, beating out four other student-led ventures. The $100,000 investment will go toward creating more of the earbud devices, which block stress by stimulating the vagus nerve.

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ASU Innovation Open Breakout ideas at the ASUio Bold ideas that change the world require inspiration — and perseverance. The ASU Innovation Open, or ASUio, demands both. Collegiate entrepreneurs must demonstrate hustle and a breakout idea in this intense competition with $200,000 up for grabs for startup teams. The competition is designed to challenge and advance university student innovators who aim to develop hard tech ventures. It provides critical venture mentorship and funding for student competitors who are launching a hardware enterprise within a wide variety of cutting-edge marketplaces including but not limited to hardware solutions, IoT and social enterprises with a focus on conscious capitalism. The open is sponsored by Intel, Avnet and SOURCE. Learn more about the ASU Innovation Open at asu.io

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The Fulton Schools Career Center is a resource for engineering and technology students from their first day at ASU through graduation and beyond. ASU is one of only a few universities that offers a career center dedicated to engineering and technology students.

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Companies recruiting tomorrow’s top engineers today Hire the best candidates

Share your expertise

Your company’s next employee of the year might be sitting in an ASU classroom right now. The Fall Career Fair connects employers and students and alumni. Companies are also invited to join the Fulton Schools' Corporate Affiliates Program and host events on campus.

Throughout the year, industry reps have the chance to meet with targeted groups of students in informal settings, such as Engineering Career Exploration Night, where more than 3,000 incoming students have the opportunity to talk to more than 300 engineering professionals from more than 100 companies, government agencies and industry.

Meet students early in their career Get to know top student talent early through programs like job shadowing, mentoring, internships, co-ops, site visits and summer internships.

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ASU is the nation’s largest producer of future engineers – B U S I N E S S I N S I D E R A N D H I R I N G S O LV E D S U R V E Y

Graduate highlights

6,793

graduates across all programs in 2022–23

3,364

bachelors graduates

3,260

masters graduates

169

doctoral graduates

The number of graduates for all degree levels continues to grow year over year.

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Advancing transportation system operations and mobility of people and goods Ram Pendyala

Harvesting clean drinking water from air Cody Friesen Assoc Professor, in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy Senior Global Futures Scientist, Global Futures Scientists and Scholars PhD. Materials Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology B.S. Materials Science and Engineering, Arizona State University He cofounded Fluidic Energy in 2007 to commercialize a rechargeable metal-air battery, which could ultimately hold 10 times as much energy as lithium-ion devices at a much lower cost. For his innovation, Friesen was named among the “TR35” by Technology Review magazine in 2009. Friesen is also the founder and CEO of SOURCE Global (formerly Zero Mass Water), which makes SOURCE hydropanels. He earned the John P. McNulty Prize, the 2019 $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize and other honors.

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School Director and Professor, School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment Director, TOMNET University Transportation Center Senior Global Futures Scientist Ph.D. Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California-Davis 1992 M.S. Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California-Davis 1990 Pendyala teaches and conducts research in transportation systems engineering, design, modeling and simulation, travel behavior analysis, multimodal transport policy analysis, freight and passenger

travel demand forecasting, travel survey methods and transportation economics and finance. He directs TOMNET (Teaching Old Models New Tricks), a Tier 1 University Transportation Center sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Atmospheric chemistry and air pollution control Jean Andino Assoc Professor, School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy and Senior Global Futures Scholar, Global Futures Scientists and Scholars Ph.D. Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology S.B. Engineering Sciences, Harvard University Andino’s research focuses on chemical kinetics and mechanisms as applied to air quality (atmospheric chemistry and air pollution control) and energy themes. She worked at Ford Motor Company characterizing the reactions taking place on novel materials to be used in catalytic converters and determining the ambient air quality impacts of fuels and alternative fuels.

She has earned prestigious national and local awards, including a Fulbright Scholar Award, three NASA Space Act Awards, a National Science Foundation CAREER Award and Faculty of the Year Award from the National Society of Black Engineers, among others. In 2017, Prof. Andino was awarded the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers STAR Educator of the Year award (a national award).

Decarbonization by managing emissions from industrial processes Vice Dean for Research and Innovation, Fulton Schools of Engineering PhD, Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Bergsingenior, Metallurgy, KTH Royal Institute of Technology Seetharaman’s overall research expertise is in materials development, particularly metals and ceramics for clean energy and harsh environments. In 2023, the U.S. Department of Energy selected ASU to receive up to $70 million to establish a new Clean Energy Manufacturing

Innovation Institute devoted to the challenge of fighting greenhouse gas emissions from industrial process heating. ASU will lead the multi-institution effort known as Electrified Processes for Industry Without Carbon, or EPIXC, directed by Seetharaman.

Faculty excellence The Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering faculty are world-class engineers, teachers, scientists, inventors, and entrepreneurs. Many of our 350+ faculty members have been honored with the highest awards in their fields.

Closing the carbon cycle by capturing CO2

Identification of injury mechanisms associated with aging and neurological disorders on fall accidents Thurmon Lockhart Professor, School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering Ph.D. Industrial and Systems Engineering, Texas Tech-Lubbock Lockhart is the Inaugural MORE Foundation Professor of Life in Motion Professor in the Biomedical Engineering program in the School of Biological Health and Systems Engineering at Arizona State University. He also serves as a Research Affiliate Faculty at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Division of Endocrinology. Previously (2000-2014), Lockhart was a Professor at Virginia Tech, Industrial and Systems Engineering Department and, Virginia Tech/Wake Forest School of Biomedical Engineering and Science.

Klaus Lackner Professor, School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment and Senior Global Futures Scientist, Global Futures Scientists and Scholars PhD, Physics, Heidelberg University Lackner is the founding director of Center for Negative Carbon Emissions and professor at the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment of the Fulton Schools of Engineering, Arizona State University. Lackner’s research interests include closing the carbon

cycle by capturing carbon dioxide from the air, carbon sequestration, carbon footprinting, innovative energy and infrastructure systems and their scaling properties, the role of automation, robotics and mass-manufacturing in downscaling infrastructure systems, and energy and environmental policy. His interest in self-replicating machine systems has been recognized by Discover Magazine as one of seven ideas that could change the world.

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High-tech entrepreneurship, strategic business planning, business model innovation, global marketing, business-tobusiness markets Joy Griffin Assistant Teaching Professor in The Polytechnic School MBA, California State University, Dominguez Hills Griffin was previously a strategic business consultant and adjunct faculty at California State University, Northridge, in the David Nazarian College of Business and Economics. Griffin co-founded a large-scale, engineeringbased company where she oversaw operations and implemented a growth strategy to achieve revenues exceeding $100 million annually.

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Probabilistic reasoning and learning and trustworthy artificial intelligence YooJung Choi Assistant Professor in School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence PhD, University of California, Los Angeles When it comes to probabilistic reasoning and learning or trustworthy artificial intelligence, YooJung Choi is an industry expert. “The focus of my research within artificial intelligence includes developing expressive probabilistic models and efficient inference techniques to support automated decision making,” she says.

Natural language grounding, robot learning, planning, reinforcement learning Nakul Gopalan Assistant Professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence PhD, Brown University Nakul Gopalan has a fascination for human minds, especially how they learn novel functions and the potential for translating that power into robotics Although much progress has been made in this field, Gopalan believes we are only scratching the surface. “I want to bridge the gap for robots by enabling them to learn high- and low-level representations and skills to solve novel tasks.”

Domain-specific computing, computer systems and architecture, VLSI chip design Jeff (Jun) Zhang Assistant Professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering PhD, New York University; postdoc at Harvard University Jeff (Jun) Zhang received his first personal computer as a gift for his 10th birthday. From the moment he turned on that Intel 486-based machine, he fell in love with the technology and wanted to know everything he could about hardware and software. Zhang says this experience motivated him to learn a programming language at very young age, then study computer and information science in college and eventually conduct research in computer engineering. He says artificial intelligence and machine learning enable us to enjoy better lives, but they also pose practical challenges in technology and engineering, especially in computing.

Nano-bioelectronics, biosensors, physical electronics, nanomaterials

New faculty members

Josh Hihath Professor and Director, Biodesign Center for Bioelectronics and Biosensors in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering PhD, Arizona State University “I have continued to enjoy expanding what’s possible ... especially imagining, designing and then building new devices and systems that can help solve the myriad of problems facing society today,” says Hihath. After five years at ASU as a master’s and then doctoral student, he continued his journey at ASU as a postdoctoral scholar, followed by positions as a research

lab manager and a research professor until 2011. Then, Hihath spent 11 years as a faculty member at the University of California, Davis, where he also became a senior member in the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Now, he returns to ASU as director of the Biodesign Center for Bioelectronics and Biosensors — an research center that develops sensors for biomedical and environmental purposes.

Nanosensors, probes for chemical imaging in the body Heather Clark School Director and Professor in the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering PhD, University of Michigan Heather Clark was drawn to ASU due to the enthusiasm and commitment of the faculty to their research and teaching. Her vision for the school is to work together to make real impacts. “I hope to empower the faculty to take risks in their research, entrepreneurship and teaching that result in impact in those areas,” Clark says, “for example, translating prominent research to the clinic or starting a company while engaging our innovative students in the process as a real-world teaching opportunity.”

Full-stack software development, finance, data analytics, systems engineering and human systems engineering Mark Naufel Professor of Practice Luminosity Lab PhD, Arizona State University Mark Naufel grew up admiring his father, who devoted much of his career to work as an engineer for Motorola. “He provided me with a personal computer at an early age and taught me to use it as a tool,” Naufel says. When Naufel completed graduate school, he was asked to join ASU to build a new model of student-led

The Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering continues to expand its teaching and research enterprise in new and emerging areas and broadening educational programs to meet the needs of a diverse and growing student body. We are happy to welcome some of the best and brightest teachers and researchers from around the world.

discovery and innovation. His novel effort became the Luminosity Lab, now part of ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering. “In the past two years, our student-led teams have won an XPRIZE and first place in the Red Bull Basement global innovation challenge. They also have twice become finalists in NASA’s BIG Idea Challenge.” ENGINEERING

“I am excited to join the strong group of artificial intelligence researchers at ASU. I am also looking forward to collaborating on interdisciplinary projects, for instance, for applications in health and social sciences.” – Y O O J U N G C H O I , A S S I S TA N T PROFESSOR IN SCHOOL OF COMPUTING AND AUGMENTED INTELLIGENCE W H O C O M P L E T E D H E R P H D AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CA LI FO R N I A , LO S A N G EL ES

“ASU is one of the best places to be for research in artificial intelligence and has faculty members doing cutting-edge work in robotics, planning and learning. The School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence has a strong student body which is critical in doing good research.” – N A K U L G O PA L A N , A S S I S TA N T P R O F E S S O R I N T H E S C H O O L O F COMPUTING AND AUGMENTED INTELLIGENCE, WHO COMPLETED H I S P H D AT B R O W N U N I V E R S I T Y

“I had the benefit of seeing the program’s student outcomes firsthand as a member of the TEM industry advisory board. I’m looking forward to contributing to student success.” – J O Y G R I F F I N , A S S I S TA N T T E A C H I N G P R O F E S S O R I N T H E P O LY T E C H N I C S C H O O L , W H O C O M E S T O A S U F R O M C A L I F O R N I A S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y, N O R T H R I D G E A N D W H O P R E V I O U S LY C O - F O U N D E D A L A R G E - S C A L E , E N G I N E E R I N G - B A S E D C O M PA N Y T H AT A C H I E V E D R E V E N U E S E X C E E D I N G $ 1 0 0 M I L L I O N A N N U A L LY

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Griffin says she was drawn to ASU’s technological entrepreneurship and management program, due to what she calls a cuttingedge curriculum and outstanding faculty.

“ASU has an expansive, dynamic and highly interdisciplinary research environment that spans across engineering and the physical, chemical and health sciences with countless new opportunities for impactful fundamental and translational research.” – J O S H H I H AT H , P R O F E S S O R A N D D I R E C T O R , B I O D E S I G N C E N T E R FOR BIOELECTRONICS AND BIOSENSORS IN THE SCHOOL OF EL ECT R I CA L , C O M P U T ER A N D EN ER GY EN G I N EER I N G , W H O

Thoughts from new faculty With a goal to “empower the faculty to take risks in their research, entrepreneurship and teaching that result in impact in those areas,” Clark says, “for example, translating prominent research to the clinic or starting a company while engaging our innovative students in the process.” – H E AT H E R C L A R K , S C H O O L D I R E C T O R A N D P R O F E S S O R I N

R E T U R N S T O A S U A F T E R A N A P P O I N T M E N T AT U N I V E R S I T Y O F

T H E S C H O O L O F B I O L O G I C A L A N D H E A LT H S Y S T E M S

C A L I F O R N I A , D AV I S

EN G I N EER I N G , W H O C O M ES TO AS U FR O M A N A PP O I NTM ENT I N B I O E N G I N E E R I N G AT N O R T H E A S T E R N U N I V E R S I T Y

“The Phoenix metro area is a future hub of the semiconductor industry and it’s already attracting young talent who create huge opportunities for future research. For that reason, I look forward to working with my amazing colleagues and students at ASU to build novel circuits, architectures and systems for next-generation applications.” – J E F F ( J U N ) Z H A N G , A S S I S TA N T P R O F E S S O R I N T H E S C H O O L O F

“We intend to cultivate the world’s largest and most diverse global talent network that works collectively to solve society’s wicked challenges.” – MARK NAU FEL, PROFESSOR OF PR ACTICE,

EL ECT R I CA L , C O M P U T ER A N D EN ER GY EN G I N EER I N G , W H O C O M ES TO

LU M I N O S IT Y L A B , W H O LED TH E L A B TO M A J O R

A S U F R O M A P O S T D O C T O R A L A P P O I N T M E N T AT H A R VA R D U N I V E R S I T Y

WORLDWIDE WINS AND PL ACEMENTS IN THE

Zhang says he was drawn to ASU because of the strong reputation of its engineering programs and the caliber of the people with whom he can collaborate.

X P R IZE, T H E R ED B U L L B AS EM EN T G LO B A L I N N O VAT I O N C H A L L E N G E A N D N A S A’ S B I G I D E A CHALLENGE

ENGINEERING

Overall undergraduate engineering program

#19 in the U.S. among public universities – U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT

Nationally ranked programs by U.S. News & World Report National ranking

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Undergraduate degrees offered Aeronautical Management Technology (Air Traffic Management) Bachelor of Science Polytechnic Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Aeronautical Management Technology (Air Transportation Management) Bachelor of Science Polytechnic Western Undergraduate Exchange Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Aeronautical Management Technology (Professional Flight) Bachelor of Science Polytechnic Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Aeronautical Management Technology (Unmanned Aerial Systems) Bachelor of Science Polytechnic Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Aerospace Engineering (Aeronautics) BSE Tempe Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Aerospace Engineering

Biomedical Engineering

(Astronautics) BSE Tempe Bachelor’s + Master’s —

BSE Tempe Bachelor’s + Master’s —

(Sustainable Engineering) BSE Tempe Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Biomedical Engineering

Bachelor of Science

Aerospace Engineering (Autonomous Vehicle Systems) BSE Tempe Bachelor’s + Master’s —

(Biological Devices) BSE Tempe Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Applied Science

Biomedical Engineering

(Aviation) BAS Polytechnic Western Undergraduate Exchange —

(Biomedical Devices) BSE Tempe Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Applied Science (Graphic Information Technology) BAS Polytechnic Western Undergraduate Exchange, Online, ASU Local Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Applied Science (Internet and Web Development) BAS Polytechnic Western Undergraduate Exchange, Online, ASU Local Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Applied Science (Operations Management) BAS Polytechnic Western Undergraduate Exchange, Online, ASU Local —

Chemical Engineering BSE Tempe Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Civil Engineering BSE Tempe Bachelor’s + Master’s

#18 in the U.S., ahead of Columbia University, North Carolina State, Northwestern University and University of Maryland. —

Civil Engineering

Computer Science Tempe, Online, ASU Local Bachelor’s + Master’s

#46 in the U.S. —

Computer Science (Cybersecurity) Bachelor of Science Tempe Bachelor’s + Master’s

#20 in the U.S, in the Top 20 along with MIT, Stanford, Purdue and Columbia University. —

Computer Science (Software Engineering) Bachelor of Science Tempe Bachelor’s + Master’s

#46 in the U.S. , tied with Rutgers University, New Brunswick; University of Florida and Notre Dame University —

ENGINEERING

Undergraduate degrees (continued) Computer Systems Engineering

Electrical Engineering

BSE Tempe Bachelor’s + Master’s

BSE Tempe, Online, ASU Local Bachelor’s + Master’s

#23 in the U.S. , ahead of Northwestern University, Duke University and Penn State

#20 in the U.S., ahead of University of Maryland, Johns Hopkins University, Penn State and Duke University. —

Computer Systems Engineering (Cybersecurity)

Electrical Engineering (Electric Power and Energy Systems)

BSE Tempe Bachelor’s + Master’s —

BSE Tempe, Online, ASU Local Bachelor’s + Master’s —

—

Construction Engineering BSE Tempe Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Construction Management and Technology Bachelor of Science Tempe Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Engineering BSE Polytechnic Western Undergraduate Exchange —

Engineering (Automotive Systems) BSE Polytechnic Western Undergraduate Exchange Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Engineering (Electrical Systems) BSE Polytechnic Western Undergraduate Exchange Bachelor’s + Master’s —

A S U A R I ZO N A I M PACT

Engineering (Mechanical Engineering Systems) BSE Polytechnic Western Undergraduate Exchange Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Engineering (Robotics) BSE Polytechnic Western Undergraduate Exchange Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Engineering Management BSE Tempe, Online, ASU Local Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Environmental Engineering BSE Tempe Bachelor’s + Master’s

#21 in the U.S., ahead of UCLA, NC State and Northwestern University —

Environmental and Resource Management Bachelor of Science Polytechnic Western Undergraduate Exchange Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Graphic Information Technology Bachelor of Science Polytechnic Western Undergraduate Exchange, Online, ASU Local Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Graphic Information Technology (Full-Stack Web Development) Bachelor of Science Polytechnic, Online, ASU Local Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Graphic Information Technology (User Experience) Bachelor of Science Polytechnic, Online, ASU Local Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Human Systems Engineering Bachelor of Science Polytechnic, Online, ASU Local Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Human Systems Engineering (User Experience) Bachelor of Science Polytechnic, Online, ASU Local Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Industrial Engineering BSE Tempe Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Informatics Bachelor of Science Tempe Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Information Technology Bachelor of Science Polytechnic Western Undergraduate Exchange, Online, ASU Local Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Manufacturing Engineering Bachelor of Science Polytechnic Western Undergraduate Exchange Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Materials Science and Engineering BSE Tempe Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Mechanical Engineering BSE Tempe, Online, ASU Local Bachelor’s + Master’s

#23 in the U.S., ahead of University of California, San Diego; Columbia University and Harvard University

Mechanical Engineering (Computational Mechanics) BSE Tempe Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Mechanical Engineering (Energy and Environment) BSE Tempe Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Software Engineering Bachelor of Science Polytechnic Western Undergraduate Exchange, Online, ASU Local Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Technological Entrepreneurship and Management Bachelor of Science Polytechnic Western Undergraduate Exchange, Online, ASU Local Bachelor’s + Master’s

—

ENGINEERING

Nationally ranked programs by U.S. News & World Report National ranking

A S U A R I ZO N A I M PACT

Graduate degrees offered Aerospace Engineering, MS

Biomedical Engineering, PhD

MS Tempe Bachelor’s + Master’s #25 in the U.S.

PHD Tempe

Aerospace Engineering, PhD

—

PHD Tempe

#25 in the U.S. —

Applied Ethics (Ethics and Emerging Technologies), MA MA Tempe —

Biological Design, MS MS Tempe —

Biological Design, PhD PHD Tempe —

Biomedical Engineering, MS MS Tempe Bachelor’s + Master’s

#50 in the U.S. —

#50 in the U.S. Chemical Engineering, MS MS Tempe Bachelor’s + Master’s #47 in the U.S. Chemical Engineering, PhD PHD Tempe

#47 in the U.S. —

Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering, MS MS Tempe Bachelor’s + Master’s

#25 in the U.S. —

Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering, PhD PHD Tempe

Computer Engineering (Computer Systems), MS MS Tempe Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Computer Engineering (Computer Systems), PhD PHD Tempe —

Computer Engineering (Electrical Engineering), MS MS Tempe Bachelor’s + Master’s

#36 in the U.S. —

Computer Engineering (Electrical Engineering), PhD PHD Tempe

#36 in the U.S. —

#25 in the U.S. —

Computer Science (Art, Media and Engineering), MS

Computer Science (Art, Media and Engineering), PhD PHD Tempe —

Computer Science (Big Data Systems), MCS MCS Tempe, Online Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Computer Science (Big Data Systems), MS MS Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Computer Science (Biomedical Informatics), MS MS Tempe Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Computer Science (Cybersecurity), MCS MCS Tempe, Online Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Computer Science (Cybersecurity), MS MS Tempe Bachelor’s + Master’s —

MS Tempe Bachelor’s + Master’s ENGINEERING

Graduate degrees (continued) Computer Science (Cybersecurity), PhD

Construction Management, PhD

PHD Tempe —

Computer Science, MCS

Data Science, Analytics and Engineering (Bayesian Machine Learning), MS (new program)

MCS Tempe, Online Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Computer Science, MS MS Tempe Bachelor’s + Master’s

#46 in the U.S. —

Computer Science, PhD PHD Tempe

#46 in the U.S. —

Construction Engineering, MSE MSE Tempe Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Construction Management and Technology, MS MS Tempe, Online Bachelor’s + Master’s —

A S U A R I ZO N A I M PACT

MS Tempe —

Data Science, Analytics and Engineering (Computational Models and Data), MS (new program) MS Tempe —

Data Science, Analytics and Engineering (Computing and Decision Analytics), MS MS Tempe —

Data Science, Analytics and Engineering (Electrical Engineering), MS MS Tempe —

Data Science, Analytics and Engineering (Human-Centered Applications), MS (new program) MS Polytechnic —

Data Science, Analytics and Engineering (Materials Science and Engineering), MS MS Tempe —

Data Science, Analytics and Engineering (Sustainable Engineering and Built Environment), MS MS Tempe —

Data Science, Analytics and Engineering, MS MS —

Data Science, Analytics and Engineering, PhD PHD Tempe —

Electrical Engineering (Art, Media and Eng), MS MS Tempe —

Electrical Engineering (Art, Media and Eng), PhD PHD Tempe —

Electrical Engineering, MS MS Tempe Bachelor’s + Master’s #36 in the U.S. Electrical Engineering, MSE MSE Tempe Concurrent —

Electrical Engineering, MSE MSE Online Concurrent

#2 in the U.S., ahead of Georgia Tech, Johns Hopkins University, UCLA and Columbia University. —

Electrical Engineering, PhD PHD Tempe

Engineering Education Systems and Design, PhD PHD Polytechnic —

Engineering Science (Software Engineering), MSE MSE Online —

Engineering, MS M Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Environmental Engineering, MS MS Tempe

#17 in the U.S., ahead of Caltech, Penn State, Johns Hopkins University and Columbia University. —

Environmental and Resource Management (Water Management), MS MS Polytechnic Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Environmental and Resource Management, MS MS Polytechnic Bachelor’s + Master’s

Graphic Information Technology, MS

Human Systems Engineering, PhD

Manufacturing Engineering, PhD

MS Polytechnic, Online Bachelor’s + Master’s —

PHD Polytechnic —

Industrial Engineering, MS

Master of Engineering, MEng

MS Online Concurrent, Bachelor’s + Master’s #6 in the U.S., ahead of NC State, Cornell University and University of Illinois —

MEng Online

Human Systems Engineering (Aviation Human Factors), MS MS Polytechnic —

Human Systems Engineering (Health Systems), MS MS Polytechnic —

Human Systems Engineering (Intelligent Systems), MS MS Polytechnic —

Human Systems Engineering (User Experience Research), MS MS Polytechnic —

Human Systems Engineering, MS MS Polytechnic Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Industrial Engineering, MS, PhD MS Tempe Concurrent, Bachelor’s + Master’s #19 in the U.S., ahead of UT Austin, Rutgers University and University of Washington. —

Information Technology, MS MS Polytechnic, Online Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Innovation and Venture Development, MS MS Tempe —

Manufacturing Engineering, MS MS Polytechnic Bachelor’s + Master’s

#15 Masters of Engineering Online, in the top 15 along with UCLA, Purdue, Columbia University and USC. —

Materials Science and Engineering, MS MS Online Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Materials Science and Engineering, MS MS Tempe Bachelor’s + Master’s

#37 in the U.S. —

Materials Science and Engineering, PhD PHD Tempe

#37 in the U.S. —

ENGINEERING

Mechanical Engineering, MS MS Tempe Bachelor’s + Master’s

#38 in the U.S. —

Mechanical Engineering, PhD PHD Tempe

#38 in the U.S. —

Modern Energy Production and Sustainable Use, MS MS Tempe Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Robotics and Autonomous Systems (Artificial Intelligence), MS MS Tempe Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Robotics and Autonomous Systems (Biomedical Engineering), MS MS Polytechnic, Tempe —

A S U A R I ZO N A I M PACT

Robotics and Autonomous Systems (Electrical Engineering), MS

Technology (Aviation Management and Human Factors), MSTech

MS Tempe Bachelor’s + Master’s —

MSTech Polytechnic Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Robotics and Autonomous Systems (Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering), MS

Technology (Management of Technology), MSTech

MS Tempe Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Robotics and Autonomous Systems (Systems Engineering), MS MS Polytechnic Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Software Engineering, MS MS Polytechnic Bachelor’s + Master’s —

Sustainable Engineering, MSE MSE Online —

Systems Engineering, PhD PHD Polytechnic —

MSTech Polytechnic Bachelor’s + Master’s —

User Experience, MS MS Polytechnic, Online Bachelor’s + Master’s

Undergraduate Minors and Certificates Computer gaming Certificate Tempe

Graduate Certificates Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Certificate Tempe, Online

Construction management

Molecular, Cellular, Tissue and Biomaterials Engineering

Minor Tempe

Certificate Tempe, Online

Engineering management

Neural Engineering

Minor Tempe, Online

Environmental and resource management Minor Polytechnic

Hazardous materials and waste management Certificate Polytechnic

Human systems engineering Minor Polytechnic, Online

Certificate Online

Nuclear Power Generation Certificate Tempe, Online

Semiconductor Processing Certificate Tempe, Online

Sensor Signal and Information Processing Certificate Tempe

Informatics Certificate Tempe

Materials science and engineering Minor Tempe

Technological entrepreneurship and management Minor Polytechnic, Online

ENGINEERING

A S U A R I ZO N A I M PACT

Arizona impact The Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering not only provides a worldclass education but also creates transformative changes that positively impact individuals, the economy and Arizona’s future. Our faculty nurtures students through innovative programs, focusing on creativity, critical thinking and problem-solving. By promoting the importance of a community of inclusive excellence, the Fulton Schools invites all voices to drive innovative solutions to complex societal issues. Economically, the Schools propel Arizona forward with a stream of highly trained and capable engineering graduates who are ready to contribute to key state industries such as technology, energy and health care. Our research breakthroughs fuel entrepreneurial ventures, stimulating investment and job creation. As Arizona continues to build a diverse, resilient economy, its future will be based on embracing advanced technologies, sustainable energy and critical infrastructure, and the Fulton Schools of Engineering will always be an important partner on that journey.

ENGINEERING

Fulton Schools Arizona impact by the numbers

The Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering is built as the engineering college of the future – simultaneously increasing access to advance student success and achieving excellence in use-inspired research. In Arizona, we are training for the engineering jobs that companies need, for the entrepreneurial ventures being founded and for the jobs of the future. 100+ industry partners from local entrepreneurs to Fortune 100 companies

A S U A R I ZO N A I M PACT

$145 million in research expenditures led by Fulton schools faculty in FY22

Intel’s largest supplier of talent in Arizona and worldwide, ahead of MIT, Stanford and UC Berkeley

26% of Barrett, the

Honors College students are Fulton Schools students.

Driving 21st century industry growth in Arizona

30,000+ current students

First in the U.S.

4,798 firstgeneration students

to create a fully online accredited electrical engineering undergraduate degree

ASU’s Science and Technology Centers are providing the expertise, facilities and infrastructure to enable the innovative breakthroughs that will position Arizona as a global leader in emerging industries.

7,275 female students

STCs help nurture the collaborations necessary to take big ideas from the lab to market. Through industry-relevant research, STCs are catalyzing job creation, entrepreneurship and workforce development across the state.

4,814 Hispanic students 11,366 Arizona residents

6,793

grads from bachelors, masters and doctoral programs in 2022–23

$292.6M economic impact

2-year economic impact on Arizona from ASU startups and affiliated businesses for the fiscal years 2019 and 2020

$52M raised to date in external funding for ASU’s entrepreneurial programs

$69,000 Median full-time starting salary for a Fulton Schools graduate with a bachelor’s degree in engineering

#2 in nation for NSF awards ASU faculty earned 14 National Science Foundation early-career awards in 2017, ranking second in the U.S. among all universities and among the top three for engineering schools, ahead of Stanford, UC Berkeley and Carnegie Mellon.

Top 5 in the U.S. interdisciplinary science total research expenditures ahead of MIT, UCLA and Carnegie Mellon

60% of the Phoenix metro area workforce is employed in advanced industries such as manufacturing, business and financial services, technology, biosciences and health care, up from 48% before the 2007 recession. – FORBES

ENGINEERING

We are building new enterprises that affe food, water, work, tr our health and more are being impacted driven technologies make certain that A absolute leading ed 56

A S U A R I ZO N A I M PACT

w knowledge ect everything — ravel, cars, medicine, e. Those industries d by new knowledges. We are trying to Arizona is at the dge.” – M I C H A E L M . C R OW, A S U P R ES I D E N T

ENGINEERING

A S U A R I ZO N A I M PACT

PUBLISHED

ASU Convergence Magazine, 2019

America needs more engineers It’s arguable that many of the critical problems facing our world today will be placed at the feet of engineers, and to respond to today’s pressing concerns and tomorrow’s opportunities, we are going to need many more of them. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, economic projections point to a need for approximately 1 million more STEM professionals than the U.S. will produce at the current rate by 2025. This is a critically important challenge, especially if we’re to retain the nation’s historical preeminence in science and technology. Meanwhile, it’s a vital and vibrant time in engineering – from challenges, to discovery, to application, the opportunities to transform society and improve quality of life have never been clearer. Engineers and computer scientists are at the forefront of advancing the basic discoveries that will enable tomorrow’s technological breakthroughs.

So with all of these questions and opportunities at our feet, how do we make sure we’re inspiring the next generation of engineers at a never before seen scale to meet the challenge?

ENGINEERING

Then In the early 2000s, engineering students in the Simulator Building prototyped parts designed in CAD (computer-aided design) and CAM (computeraided manufacturing) software to cut materials into parts for use in a wide variety of products.

Now Today’s students work with international companies on advanced technologies like “digital-twinning” to replicate machinery using the Internet of Things to increase efficiency, advance operations and reduce risk, offering a test before application in the real world.

A S U A R I ZO N A I M PACT

“The toughest questions to answer often do not neatly slip into a single discipline but lie at the seams of multiple disciplines, requiring communication and collaboration across fields.” – K YLE D SQUIRES, DEAN AND PROFESSOR, I R A A . F U LTO N S C H O O L S O F E N G I N E E R I N G

At Arizona State University’s Fulton Schools of Engineering, the largest and one of the most comprehensive engineering schools in the nation, we are constantly thinking about how to address this challenge in a comprehensive way, and I think it comes back to a few core ideas: Adopting a mission grounded in student access. Increased access, not exclusivity or elitism, is perhaps the key factor for addressing the shortage of engineers in the U.S. To solve our toughest challenges, we need more minds, not fewer. Higher education has been slow to evolve and needs to do a better job of producing engineering graduates across the socioeconomic spectrum. And, as we are proving every day, advancing access does not come at the cost of sacrificing excellence and impact. An authentic emphasis on improving inclusion in STEM fields. If we continue to tap into the same populations and demographics, we will keep asking the same questions, giving the same answers and, ultimately, getting the same results. At ASU, 61.4% of enrolled engineering students are from minority groups, female or from outside the U.S. and we’re working at every opportunity to ensure our student makeup is representative of the communities where we live and work.

Embracing interdisciplinary approaches to solve real-world challenges. How do we educate young engineers in a way that encourages them to ask “why?” and “why not?”. One answer is coupling traditional engineering curricula with an emphasis on other fields of study or exposure to research practices early in a student’s academic career. The toughest questions to answer often do not neatly slip into a single discipline but lie at the seams of multiple disciplines, requiring communication and collaboration across fields. As engineers and educators, if we’re to make a sincere effort to address the shortage in American STEM talent, we need to commit to and adopt these ideas at a scale that speaks to the urgency of the challenges we face. The more diverse young minds we have solving tomorrow’s STEM challenges, the better we’ll be.

—K Y LE SQ U I R ES , D E A N , I R A A . F U LTO N S C H O O L S OF ENGINEERING

ENGINEERING

A S U A R I ZO N A I M PACT

In the media ENGINEERING

PUBLISHED

azcentral, July 11, 2023

A S U A R I ZO N A I M PACT

PUBLISHED

Power Electronic News, July 12, 2023

ENGINEERING

PUBLISHED

azcentral, June 3, 2022

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PUBLISHED

Phoenix Business Journal, April 3, 2023

ENGINEERING

Phase contrast image of migration of cancer cell—SUM159 (red) into the stromal region within the tumor-onchip model. Courtesy of Kalpana Ravi and Mehdi Nikkhah

Z-projection of cytoskeletal staining of invading cancer cells within the tumor-onchip model (F-actin = green, DAPI = blue). Courtesy of Kalpana Ravi and Mehdi Nikkhah.

A S U A R I ZO N A I M PACT

PUBLISHED

Today’s Clinical Lab, Jun 12, 2023

clinicallab.com/trends/organ-on-a-chip/improving-cancer-therapieswith-organ-on-a-chip-technologies-27278 ENGINEERING

PUBLISHED

AZ Big Media, February 23, 2023

A S U A R I ZO N A I M PACT

PUBLISHED

Phoenix Business Journal, May 26, 2022

ENGINEERING

A S U A R I ZO N A I M PACT

PUBLISHED

KTAR News on 92.3FM, Apr 28, 2022

Learn more at popularmechanics.com/technology/robots/a39679656/physics-of-not-spilling-coffee/ ENGINEERING

PUBLISHED

azcentral, May 4, 2022

A S U A R I ZO N A I M PACT

PUBLISHED

Arizona’s Family, December 13, 2022

Learn more at azfamily.com/2022/12/14/asu-researchers-turning-tempe-wastewater-track-communitys-health/ ENGINEERING

PUBLISHED

ABC15 Arizona, June 1, 2020

A S U A R I ZO N A I M PACT

PUBLISHED

The Milken Institute, April 20, 2017

ASU ranked as one of the nation’s top universities for commercializing technology The Milken Institute lists ASU as one of the fastest-growing and one of the top universities in the country for tech transfer. ASU surges 20 spots in the rankings, vaulting ahead of Harvard, JohnsHopkins, Duke, USC and UC Berkeley. Technology transfer success is measured by patents, licenses issued, licensing income and startups formed.

ENGINEERING

Partn resea ec 78

A S U A R I ZO N A I M PACT

nering in arch and conomic growth ENGINEERING

A S U A R I ZO N A I M PACT

Advancing industries of the future ASU has launched six Science and Technology Centers (STCs) that provide the expertise, facilities and infrastructure to collaborate with industry and develop future-focused technologies and science-based solutions with the support of funding from the state of Arizona The Fulton Schools are part of a statewide effort to bring high-paying jobs to Arizona and increase economic output through the New Economy Initiative. Part of this initiative is the establishment of Science and Technology Centers, or STCs, which bring together innovative research and industry for technology transfer in key areas of economic development in Arizona. Industry leaders and local lawmakers had the opportunity to find ways to collaborate with STCs on state issues during ASU Proposers Day. STCs enable breakthroughs in innovation in areas key to Arizona’s thriving as a tech hub, positioning our state for global leadership in the emerging industries of the new knowledge and technology-driven economy. Through deep connections with industry and informed by market needs, STCs are helping accelerate discovery, grow and attract new enterprises to the state, build the workforce through training and skill-building and drive entrepreneurship through knowledge translation, technology transfer and support for startups. STCs bring together faculty and student researchers, industry professionals and entrepreneurs to take big ideas from the lab to market across six key clusters of future science applications and technologies. neweconomy.asu.edu/science-and-technology-centers ENGINEERING

ASU’s ecosystem in Arizona and beyond is generative and vibrant.

WearTech Center

Regher Solar

Hoolest Performance Technologies NeoLight MedTech Accelerator Arizona Health Solutions Corridor

Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering

Here is a sample of key assets.

Zoom R&D Center OncoMyx Therapeutics

Biodesign Institute

SkySong, the ASU Scottsdale Innovation Center

Skysong Innovations Phoenix Biomedical Campus ASU Research Park

ASU Polytechnic campus

Human Machine Integration Lab wearable robots

Luminosity Lab PPE Response Network 82

A S U A R I ZO N A I M PACT

Drone Studio

PUBLISHED

ASU Thrive, Spring 2021

MAKING ARIZONA S H AT T E R P R O O F “Antifragile” describes something that “ thrives and grows when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and loves adventures, risk, and uncertainty.” — N A S S I M N I C H O L A S TA L E B , E C O N O M I S T W H O S E R E S E A R C H INCLUDES RISK AND PROBABILIT Y

ENGINEERING

“ASU continues to bring together faculty and industry leaders, identifying specific workforce needs, developing training programs and creating longterm partnerships. We look forward to partnering to achieve the antifragile economy we are capable of creating.” – M I C H A E L M . C R O W, P R E S I D E N T, A S U

A S U A R I ZO N A I M PACT

What it will take to build an antifragile economy in Arizona Story by SARA CLEMENCE

Sunny. Sprawling. Rugged. Many words come to mind to describe the Phoenix metropolitan area. “Fragile” often isn’t one of them. But a decade ago, the Valley was the poster child for an easily upended economy. Between 2000 and 2007, the area’s economy boomed. Housing prices doubled. Unemployment dropped to 3.1%. Then the real estate bubble burst, seriously damaging the state’s economy. “The Great Recession showed us that the gravy train that existed then was an unhealthy, unsustainable growth model,” says Chris Camacho, president and CEO of the Greater Phoenix Economic Council. ASU has been at the forefront of creating a very different model for the Valley — one that isn’t just resilient in the face of change, but “antifragile.” According to economist Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the opposite of fragile is something that thrives in response to shocks and disorder. Examples include parts of Colorado and Washington state where amid the turmoil of the COVID-19 pandemic, some communities continue to flourish. An antifragile economy doesn’t just benefit people at the top. The focus on all levels of the economy can mean more educational opportunities, higher wages and more stability for everyone.

ENGINEERING

$1.3 billion in annual economic activity generated by companies at SkySong. In the next 30 years, the impact is expected to total $58.2 billion. — 2 0 2 0 S T U DY B Y E L L I O T T D . P O L L A C K A N D C O M PA N Y

#6 in the U.S.

160+ startup

businesses based on ASU-owned or coowned intellectual property. Entrepreneurship + Innovation’s Venture Devils development program includes 702 startups. – S K Y S O N G I N N O VAT I O N S , E+I

for total research expenditures among universities without a medical school – N AT I O N A L S C I E N C E F O U N D AT I O N

Learn more about ASU’s impact on the Arizona economy at impactarizona.asu.edu

A S U A R I ZO N A I M PACT

25,000+ students in engineering and technology programs at ASU, up from 8,000 12 years ago – I R A A . F U LT O N S C H O O L S OF ENGINEERING

But what does it take to create an antifragile economy? For starters, an educational system that serves people of all backgrounds and ages, from preschool through continuing education. A workforce that, as a result, is technically skilled, adaptable and creative — not to mention homegrown. An antifragile economy can’t rely on importing brainpower while locals settle for lower-wage jobs. Inclusion is key — in all forms, from ideas to the student population to industries. “It’s not antifragile if you have a small number of people with the wealth and power and a large number of people with very little,” says Neal Woodbury, chief science and technology officer at ASU. “There has to be a mechanism by which a diversity of thought can come to the forefront. Otherwise, you don’t have that breadth of capability to rise to the occasion.”

Eric Yuan, Zoom’s CEO, credited a “well-educated, skilled and diverse talent pool” and ASU’s engineering program when the company announced last year that it would open an R&D center in Phoenix.

But an antifragile economy doesn’t depend on attracting existing companies — it generates its own, giving birth to entirely new fields by providing antifragile skills. One example is the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering’s new master’s degree in modern energy production and sustainable use developed to help students from other fields get skilled in engineering-related industries. That’s what brought graduate student Martin Flores to the program. “I look forward to a wellrounded experience that will allow me to choose from among many different directions,” Flores says. This is all part of the approach that ASU is taking: championing

ENGINEERING

Research centers launch startups Startup Regher Solar launched out of the Quantum Energy and Sustainable Solar Technologies (QESST) Engineering Research Center by Stanislau Herasimenka, an assistant research professor in electrical engineering. Regher recently received a $1.8 million award from the U.S. Department of Energy, to develop a facility that will let academics work with industry partners to test solar ideas.

A S U A R I ZO N A I M PACT

entrepreneurship and risk-taking, as well as educational inclusion, to reinvent the Valley’s economy, on multiple fronts. Inclusive education The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted how different life can be for people with — and without — college degrees. Last April, as restaurants, stores and other businesses shrank or shuttered, the U.S. unemployment rate shot up to 14.7%. But people who didn’t graduate from college were more than twice as likely to lose their jobs than workers with a college degree. By September, when businesses were rehiring, just 4% of college-educated people were still jobless, compared to 8% of high school-educated workers. Lack of education doesn’t just impact individuals and families, but entire communities. Companies gravitate to places with plenty of skilled workers; those jobs help create other jobs. More knowledge means more potential for startups. “As you produce people, you produce ideas, which turn into companies,” Camacho says.

ASU startup Regher Solar’s flexible solar cells for satellites are cheaper and faster to make than traditional cells (shown here) and more resistant to radiation damage in space.

“Those turn into job catalysts, which turn into revenue for our state and our county.” Arizona lags behind — 20% of high school freshmen in the state finish college, compared to 40% across the U.S. Unlike the many colleges that take pride in their exclusivity, part of ASU’s mission is to make higher education accessible. On the K–12 front, the university has partnered with local school districts to ensure that kids are ready for the challenges of college and to boost college-going rates. Examples are an outreach program to encourage first-generation

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students to attend college and a program that helps foster kids succeed at the university. Community college partnerships let students attending two-year schools easily transfer to ASU and take classes in their home community. ASU’s efforts aren’t just about volume, but inclusion. The Hispanic community is the fastestgrowing in Arizona, yet lags behind in college attendance. “That’s probably the most economic potential to be unlocked,” Camacho says. Overall, Hispanic enrollment at ASU has doubled over the past 12 years, and inclusion has increased dramatically at the Fulton Schools. A centerpiece of the university, the engineering program has expanded from about 8,000 to 25,000 students in the last decade. Kyle Squires, dean of the engineering schools, says that the percentage of Hispanic students is higher than national averages. That’s not enough: “We want to become the go-to destination for Hispanic students,” he says. “Their premier choice.” ASU also has been a leader in serving nontraditional students who can be left out of higher education. In engineering, more than 30 online programs, including undergraduate and graduate degrees, are available.

“As you produce people, you produce ideas, which turn into companies. Those turn into job catalysts, which turn into revenue for our state and our county.” — CHRIS CAMACHO, PRESIDENT AND C E O , G R E AT E R P H O E N I X ECONOMIC COUNCIL

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Mariana Bertoni’s company, Crystal Sonic, uses sound waves to cut the expensive crystal wafers that microchips are built on, preventing waste and saving money.

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A culture of entrepreneurship Mariana Bertoni, an expert in multiple engineering fields and an associate professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, credits a monthlong training program at ASU for helping her develop her ideas into a viable business.

The program, the National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps Site, is an entrepreneurship boot camp for researchers. It’s just one of many ASU initiatives designed to ensure that smart ideas don’t die on whiteboards or inside labs. Bertoni’s company, Crystal Sonic, uses sound waves to cut the expensive crystal wafers that microchips are built on, preventing waste and saving money. With assistance from a $200,000 fellowship from the Fulton Schools and participation in Venture Devils, she’s raised $2 million in seed capital to pay for dedicated space and hire staff. The J. Orin Edson Entrepreneurship + Innovation Institute, which administers the NSF I-Corps, has created many programs like Venture Devils, and provides fellowships, workshops, mentorships, a makerspace and venture capital. It supports more

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From research insight to market deliverable Mariana Bertoni leads the lab DEfECT (Defect Engineering for Energy Conversion Technologies) focusing on how defects can affect electrical and optical properties of material. She also is chief technical officer at Crystal Sonic, an ASU startup that uses a process she invented in which sound waves are used to cut the expensive crystal wafers that microchips are built on, preventing waste and saving money.

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DEANNA DENT/ASU

than 700 entrepreneur teams, and has raised more than $34.4 million in external funding for ASU’s entrepreneurial programs.

Fostering a risktaking entrepreneurial culture is as crucial to establishing an antifragile economy as running a robust engineering program and educating future technologists, Squires says.

“We bring together a variety of different companies and other kinds of entities to work with each other. It’s not random — the intention is to create a community that is greater than the sum of its parts.”

“We want to drive that with talent, and ideas that translate from the lab out into the community,” Squires says. “Tech companies are probably the core of future economic expansion, company formation, and supporting the non-tech sector in some cases.” Early support from ASU can lay the foundation for outside grants and investments. Swift Coat, which specializes in spraying nanoparticle coatings onto surfaces to protect them from dirt, sun and other hazards, was born out of the Fulton Schools. Since then it has raised $180,000 in business plan competitions and $1 million from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technologies Office, among other funds.

– N E A L W O O D B U R Y, C H I E F S C I E N C E A N D T E C H N O L O G Y O F F I C E R AT A S U

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Entrepreneurship is such a cornerstone of an antifragile economy that ASU continually reinforces it, including with a new Master of Science in innovation and venture development degree, a transdisciplinary partnership among the Fulton Schools, the W. P. Carey School of Business and the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts.

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The program is led by Cheryl Heller, a business strategist and design world icon. Serial entrepreneur of D3 Designs and other companies and industrial designer Travis Arden (’10 MS in engineering) has come back to Arizona for the program to learn “what I don’t know” to help him build better businesses. “My experience and time in industry was fruitful, but I wanted to do things that had a more positive impact,” Arden says. Innovating with industry Cities around the country have been trying to breathe new life into their economies by better utilizing local universities, observes Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum, a center-right advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. The strategy gets mixed grades, Holtz-Eakin says, in part because typically universities don’t listen well, especially to the business

community. At ASU, collaborating with outside stakeholders, including big companies, startups, small businesses, Native American tribes, schools and nonprofits is part of the ethos. These partnerships are vital not only to building an antifragile economy, but to fulfilling ASU’s educational mission.

“We want our industry partners engaged with our students before they even start their first year of engineering school,” Squires says. “We refer to it as the ’Fulton difference.’” The university has developed or is working on seven innovation corridors, facilities that bring together students, faculty, startups, established companies and support infrastructure. The Arizona Health Solutions Corridor expands on the university’s partnership with Mayo Clinic. ASU Research Park focuses on wearable technology, flexible

The Valley needs to take advantage of the current situation to drive investment and policy decisions, so the economy emerges more dynamic and competitive, or it will be left behind. – CHRIS CAMACHO, PRESIDENT AND CEO OF THE G R E AT E R P H O E N I X E C O N O M I C C O U N C I L

displays, and other cutting-edge technologies. The others also provide interdisciplinary resources to accelerate innovation in other industries. Stanislau Herasimenka, an assistant research professor in electrical engineering, launched his startup out of the Quantum Energy and Sustainable Solar Technologies (QESST) Engineering Research Center. He and his partner in Regher Solar are developing solar cells for satellites — the super-thin cells are cheaper to make than traditional cells, and more resistant to space’s radiation damage. He was able to leverage an ecosystem of resources at QESST. Regher recently received a $1.8 million award from the U.S. Department of Energy, to develop a facility that will let academics work with industry partners to test solar ideas. Skysong Innovations helps

bring technologies developed at ASU to market, supporting tech transfer, licensing, startup launch and major investments. SkySong, the ASU Scottsdale Innovation Center, has generated more than $130 million in state tax revenues and launched 160-plus startups, says Neal Woodbury, chief science and technology officer at ASU. It is expected to provide an economic impact to Arizona of nearly $58.2 billion over the next 30 years. “We bring together a variety of different companies and other kinds of entities to work with each other,” Woodbury says. “It’s not random — the intention is to create a community that is greater than the sum of its parts.” Partnering with industry is a win-win for everyone, including mature companies, which benefit from a direct pipeline to research and to coveted engineering graduates.

“From a company perspective, it’s competitive,” Squires says. Engineering undergraduates are often hired before they’ve started their senior year. Preparing for the future Amid the good news, challenges remain. Arizona’s economy remains stubbornly fragile, with too much income disparity and declining GDP. The state has only recovered two-thirds of pandemic job losses. The coming years will be crucial, says Camacho of the Greater Phoenix Economic Council. The Valley needs to take advantage of the current situation to drive investment and policy decisions, so the economy emerges more dynamic and competitive, or it will be left behind, he says.

“The next decade sets the trajectory for the next 50 years.” Square-Full

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ASU West campus

High-potential development opportunities tapping into research and technology on the campus. Deer Valley Municipal Airport

Industry highlights

1 Intel established a Glendale Instrument that became fully Municipal G LisE N D A L E presence in Arizona in 1979 Airport independent in 1989 and that has grown into the headquartered in Chandler. Total employment: 1,953 company’s second largest site in the U.S. Each year, 5 ON Semiconductor Intel spends more than $500 headquartered in Phoenix, million to support areas was spun out of Motorola such as packaging and in 1999. It has been at its autonomous vehicles. Phoenix campus since 1952, Total employment: 11,405 both as a part of Motorola and 2 Taiwan Semiconductor as its own company. Total employment: 1,038 Manufacturing Company is building a fabrication plant, 6 Benchmark Electronics with the first phase expected relocated its headquarters to produce computer and opened an Internet of chips by 2024. Things Design Center for Estimated first wave sensor design and wireless employment: 2,000 infrastructure. It also does 3 NXP entered Greater manufacturing for circuit Phoenix when it merged with design and precision a Motorola spinoff in 2015. Its machining. Total employment: 670 facility in Chandler is a wafer fab, one of three operated by 7 Amkor Technology moved the company in the U.S. its headquarters to the Total employment: 1,696 Valley in 2005 and leads in 4 Microchip Technology packaging and testing. Total employment: 332 is a spinoff of General

Map Sources: Maricopa Association of Governments, GPEC, ASU MAP BY ASU KNOWLEDGE ENTERPRISE AND ASU THRIVE

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Light Rail

Greater Phoenix is one of America’s longest standing semiconductor hubs. Motorola kicked off the region’s microelectronics boom when it opened a research and development facility in Phoenix in 1949. Now we have a thriving and diverse ecosystem that is home to research and development, manufacturing and headquarters facilities.

ASU Downtown Phoenix campus

PHOENIX

In the heart of the state’s capital, provides connections for students across the health care spectrum; in law, government and public service; with nonprofit and public social service providers; and in arts and sciences, journalism, media and the corporate sector.

PHOENIX

Phoenix Biomedical campus Vibrant community built on a foundation of research, discovery, innovation and entrepreneurial activity.

Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport

Key ASU Innovation Zones High-tech manufacturing and development Size of circle indicates number of employees.

Airport Light rail Interstate Federal highway State highway Mapping is approximate, not to scale.

See more companies in the ecosystem at gpec.

org/ecosystemsemiconductor.

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Scottsdale Airport

Health Futures Center Biomedical discovery hub offering opportunities for premier academic and clinical collaborations, including at the new Health Futures Center adjacent to Mayo Clinic Hospital in Phoenix.

Magnetic centers Research and business alignments lure (and spur) jobs creators

SCOTTSDALE

Generating high-paying clusters of jobs in the Greater Phoenix region takes planning — sometimes over decades. ASU; the Greater Phoenix Economic Council; city councils, chambers of commerce and mayors; the legislature; homegrown industries and local startups all make it happen.

SkySong High-growth community for technology-based companies.

Novus Innovation Corridor New development opportunity includes prime locations for large-scale regional offices or headquarters.

MESA

ASU at Mesa City Center Studios and programs for entrepreneurship, media arts, gaming and film production.

TEMPE Light Rail

ASU Tempe campus Historic campus offers hundreds of majors that engage undergraduates and graduates in multidisciplinary research and exploration in first-rate facilities.

GILBERT

More than 2,800 Arizona-based advanced manufacturers directly create more than 138,000 high-paying jobs, according to GPEC, with many more businesses and jobs generated in downstream industries. Bringing together vibrant economic ecosystems requires prime conditions purposefully designed. Big multinational companies and research universities like ASU act as magnetic centers, producing and attracting skilled workers that create conditions for companies — big and small — to thrive. Learn more at innovationzones.asu.edu.

ASU Research Park

7 4

Home to ASU's MacroTechnology Works, a state-of-the-art research center with office space, labs and equipment to support collaboration with commercial partners such as Applied Materials, which leads in materials engineering for almost every new chip in the world.

ASU Polytechnic campus and ASU Polytechnic Innovation Zone Lab and major specialties include engineering and other technical expertise, this campus is ideal for advanced manufacturing, aviation and alternative energy.

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1 Chandler Municipal Airport

Phoenix – Mesa Gateway Airport

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In the past three years, engineering faculty members at ASU have brought research to market in powerful ways, including:

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startups innovating in the areas of sustainability, personal health diagnostics and more

ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering is the largest and most comprehensive engineering program in the U.S. Prestigious engineering faculty in national academies

38 IEEE Fellows 8 N ational Academy of Engineering members 4 N ational Academy of Construction members 5 N ational Academy of Inventors members 135 N SF CAREER awardees since 1995

“We want to help companies think about how they can drive workforce development for their companies ... and plug in throughout the university in the best possible way.” — D AV I D W A H L S , S E N I O R D I R E C T O R O F D E V E L O P M E N T F O R T H E F U LT O N S C H O O L S O F E N G I N E E R I N G

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faculty members conduct research and entrepreneurial ventures to bring research to market. Their research includes solar cells, computer science, transportation, robotics, construction, aerospace and more.

Wearable tech is a major growth area with multiple startups at ASU, including Hoolest Performance Technologies, made up of three ASU engineering students. They won the $100,000 grand prize at the ASU Innovation Open and are now creating their earbud devices which block stress by stimulating the vagus nerve.

Connecting research to business Engineering schools at ASU further industry partnerships to support Arizona’s growth

“Some companies want to know how new discoveries will apply to their businesses or may be looking for the next big idea they could take to market.” — J O S EPH H UA N G , E X EC U TI V E D I R ECTO R O F T H E B U S I N E S S E N G A G E M E N T C ATA LY S T

In the past year, engineering Dean Kyle Squires has built new working groups that make partnerships easier for companies and investors to work with the schools. The new Industry Engagement Catalyst includes 30 top senior executives from major national corporations who are helping the schools shape and direct future growth. The Catalyst includes cross-sector leaders such as executives at Intel, American Express, Starbucks, the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, Arizona Commerce Authority, Fulton Homes, Sunbelt Holdings, Honeywell, Motorola and more. Another recent launch, the Business Engagement Catalyst, helps companies navigate the complex university environment to identify and activate new connections with faculty and research. The team has experience in the academic world as well as in business, understanding the needs and culture of both sides, and helping them facilitate successful partnerships. Learn more at engineering.asu.edu/engage.

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Building resilience in the silicon desert ENGINEERING

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ASU faculty and students are working with industry partners to solve problems, such as helping to make the electrical grid safer and more robust, advancing the 3D printing of metals, improving solar tech, driving new manufacturing technologies — and more.

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ASU, together with industry partners, venture capital and government backing, is helping Arizona transform the economy Story by C R A I G G U I L LOT

Long before IBM, Apple and Google set up shop in Silicon Valley, the area was home to government-funded research operations that developed electronics and communications devices. While it is now known as a global epicenter of technology, only some of the economic development came about through the muscle of venture capital; the rest came from government funding. Several U.S. cities, from Denver and Seattle to Washington, D.C., have similarly built upon government investment in universities to build thriving economies. The Phoenix metro area has emerged as a global hotbed of innovation that can become a new type of Silicon Valley — with continued investment, analysts say. A key part of creating a resilient economy relies on the current ASU partnerships with industry in areas such as medical tech, wearables, advanced manufacturing, sustainability and

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Students participate in Devils Invent, where they design and build solutions to real-world problems submitted by the community and industry.

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communications. Through innovation centers, the university is supporting research, helping to bring new products to market and driving entrepreneurship and industries that benefit the entire state. Arizona is home to thousands of tech companies, and a report by the National Academy of Inventors ranked ASU in the top 10 universities for patents awarded worldwide in 2018, the most recent year for which rankings have been released. With a top engineering talent base, an established tech sector and a thriving startup scene, economic developers and analysts say it’s now time for the region to double down and create a future in new disruptive industries. While Phoenix has many key components to develop a new innovation economy, it also needs state government investment, in addition to incoming federal government grants and private funding, to create in a “big and thoughtful way,” says Inc. columnist Dustin McKissen. To that end, the Arizona Board of Regents is requesting state funding for a new economy initiative, including $46 million for ASU in fiscal year 2021 to enable the state’s transformation by preparing the workforce and making metro Phoenix the leading U.S. producer of engineering talent. Part of the plan is to better fund K-12, and to increase access to higher education across the state, including in rural areas, as well as to improve high school completion and college attendance rates. Another focus

Real-world impact

ASU named one of the nation’s top universities for tech commercialization ASU ranks ahead of Harvard, Duke, Johns Hopkins, USC and UC Berkeley — M I L K E N I N S T I T U T E

is the creation of additional innovation centers that leverage university expertise to solve industry-identified problems. In Silicon Valley, it was ultimately government funding and public policy that fueled development, says Margaret O’Mara, author of “The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America” and history professor at the University of Washington. Until the 1940s, the California valley was largely agricultural. With an influx of federal funds to support Cold War electronics, Stanford University focused its curriculum on sciences and engineering to support federal research labs developing new communication devices, O’Mara says. Such government backing eventually helped to pave the way for Intel, AMD, NVIDIA and an entire new economy. In 1971, a journalist dubbed it “Silicon Valley USA.” Government support can often provide the boost that industry and ENGINEERING

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Avnet CEO Bill Amelio presents awards at the ASU Innovation Open.

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researchers need to bring distant ideas to market. “[These] are things that the market is not going to do by itself,” O’Mara says. O’Mara writes that government investment “flowed ... in ways that gave the men and women of the tech world remarkable freedom to define what the future might look like, to push the boundaries of the technologically possible, and to make money in the process.” That, coupled with tech-friendly tax regulations and business-friendly policies, all helped Silicon Valley grow large, writes O’Mara. Creating a resilient economy With an already established legacy of mainstay semiconductor companies and talent and business-friendly laws, Phoenix metro and Arizona are thriving in areas like medical tech, the internet of things (IoT), sensor-enabled technologies and manufacturing and are poised for additional growth, says Chris Camacho, president and CEO of the Greater Phoenix Economic Council. “By fostering an environment that promotes entrepreneurial thinking and innovation at scale, we have made significant progress in areas that include additive manufacturing, solar energy and wearable technologies, among others,” says Kyle Squires, dean of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at ASU. “With an investment to help establish science and technology centers where faculty, students and industry collaborators can grow ideas, share resources and provide advanced training, the Fulton Schools will be primed to

“Hubs of innovation and talent generation will feed the local companies and draw others in. This in turn drives the economy and spurs further reinvestment.” — H A N S STO R K , S EN I O R V P O F R&D, O N S EM I C O N D U CTO R

catalyze the tech ecosystem in the Phoenix metropolitan area and help launch companies that will drive future industries.” Public-private partnerships Using a mix of private money, grants from the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and other national government agencies, along with venture capital, ASU is participating in the establishment of various public-private partnership centers that help local companies get new products onto the market faster. These centers, and the new economy they can help create, not only benefit engineers but can also lead to a diverse range of jobs to benefit all Arizonans. “Hubs of innovation and talent generation will feed the local companies and draw others in,” explains industry partner Hans Stork, senior vice president of research and development at ENGINEERING

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“A big role the state can play is in providing the funding that creates an ecosystem where [industry and academia] bring something to the table and we work on relevant problems.” — DHRUV BHATE, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR

ON Semiconductor, a global semiconductor supplier based in Phoenix. “This in turn drives the economy and spurs further reinvestment.” The best prospects are those areas where there is an opportunity to build something new, and where industry partners are willing to participate, says Gregory Raupp, director of the MacroTechnology Works Initiative and research director of the WearTech Applied Research Center. In September 2019, the WearTech Applied Research Center opened as a joint venture between the Fulton Schools and the Partnership for Economic Innovation, a collective dedicated to expanding economic potential in Phoenix. (Learn more about medical wearables on page 44.) Another promising area is in communications. Dan Bliss, ASU associate professor and director of the Center for Wireless Information Systems and Computational Architectures, his team and industry partners are striving to improve wireless communications for personal, machine and IoT systems by creating more sophisticated protocols and computation engines. “We are actively pursuing the commercialization of multiple pieces of this technology,” Bliss says. While many of us are still using mobile phones on the 4G

network and anticipating 5G, George Trichopolous and Ahmed Alkhateeb, assistant professors of electrical engineering in the Fulton Schools, are preparing for the implementation of 6G by 2030. By exploring the capabilities of wireless signals in the unused range above 100 GHz, they believe they can demonstrate innovative 6G use cases, such as better enabling IoT devices. At the Manufacturing Research and Innovation Hub at The Polytechnic School, Dhruv Bhate conducts research on additive manufacturing, including how 3D-printed metal parts may be used in aircraft to save space, time and money. Through America Makes, a collaborative organization that supports additive manufacturing technology, the lab is testing how such parts may be able to withstand extreme loads and temperatures for NASA and the Department of Defense. “There are many questions that have to be answered before that technology can be inserted in the product,” Bhate says. “A big role the state can play is in providing the funding that creates an ecosystem where [industry and academia] bring something to the table and we work on relevant problems.” With a $1.75 million grant from the NSF, ASU engineers and other experts are striving to make electrical grids smarter and safer by reducing data losses, outages ENGINEERING

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Students at ASU work with mentors, faculty members and industry partners to solve problems.

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and cybersecurity threats. “We need electric power systems to have as much accurate real-time data analytics as possible,” says Lalitha Sankar, associate professor of electrical, computer and energy engineering in the Fulton Schools. “We don’t want to be doing forensics that determine the cause of problems only from gathering evidence after the fact. We want to see patterns in the data that help predict what’s starting to happen on a grid. We also need to visualize these patterns to the operator succinctly and meaningfully to further aid the operator in distinguishing between normal and abnormal operations.” Instead of trying to compete in a market of ordinary, massproduced electronics, working hand-in-hand with industry can help identify new high-value technologies that researchers can bring to market, Raupp says. “If we can focus around the idea of a versatile, agile manufacturing with rapid technology development and platforms that can be built on quickly creating the next version of whatever we need … that’s the kind of idea we want to create,” Raupp says. Funding and fueling the silicon desert Continued growth of the Phoenix area’s innovation economy depends on the ability to maintain a highly educated and trained workforce. In addition to technology jobs, these new industries will also help to create mid-level jobs in sales, retail and production, along with

professional, managerial and cybersecurity jobs.

It’s important to continue building, Bliss says, because disruptive technologies and groundbreaking innovation can take years of R&D before coming to market. And while ASU graduates more than 4,500 engineers and technologists per year, that isn’t enough to support existing companies, and not enough to help build the new emerging economy. “People underestimate how long it takes to move technology to market, because they only see the last 2%. If you open up your phone, there are 50 years of research that went into that,” Bliss says. Such long-term investments can yield an impressive return for the state. If new business opportunities increase by as little as 10%, the 10-year state and local fiscal impact will grow by another $700 million with 25,000 new jobs created, according to the Arizona Board of Regents. In addition to training the workforce for tomorrow’s opportunities, many of ASU’s students, graduate students and postdoctorates will likely go on to form new startups. Raupp is personally working with seven ENGINEERING

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Partnering with industry on research Collaborate with expert faculty and staff at ASU Core Research Facilities. Get access to numerous technologies, such as electron microscopes, prototyping, DNA sequencing and more. Connect with an ASU business concierge: concierge.asu.edu. Use tools at a public makerspace. ASU and the City of Chandler created the ASU Chandler Innovation Center (ACIC) + Hub249 Makerspace. The space offers tools and equipment, from 3D printers to woodsaws to pottery kilns, design software, classes and more. Go to entrepreneurship. asu.edu/asu-chandlerinnovation-center-acic.

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“People underestimate how long it takes to move technology to market … Open up your phone, there are 50 years of research that went into that.” — D A N B L I S S , A S S O C I AT E PROFESSOR

startups around medical technology, half of which were based upon ASU technology and spinoffs. “We’re providing the talent that can go into these startups, but we’re also teaching and training people to be entrepreneurs,” Raupp says. Camacho believes the state is in the midst of a historic economic transition that will not only attract new capital in these sectors but also give birth to more homegrown companies and potentially make Phoenix the next Silicon Valley.

“Just in the past decade we’ve seen massive amounts of entrepreneurial activity and that will continue to compound over the next 20 years.” “I am extraordinarily optimistic about the future of our region and state,” Camacho says. Square-Full

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Outside map area

North Mountain Park

ASU West campus

Glendale

Phoenix Mountains Preserve

Corridors of innovation A map of the Valley of the Sun shows growing clusters of engineeringrelated employment centered around ASU incubation spaces, labs and campuses. Collaborative research between the university and private sector is fueling the growth of these innovation hot spots.

Phoenix

ASU Downtown Phoenix campus

SOURCE: MARICOPA ASSOCIATION OF GOVERNMENTS EMPLOYMENT MAPS

Engineering-related employment

in aerospace, information security, high-tech manufacturing, manufacturing, transportation and distribution

Light Rail

ASU Downtown Phoenix campus

ASU Tempe campus

At the center of a new frontier in commerce, sports, recreation, arts and lifelong learning opportunities, ASU’s West campus serves a diverse student body of nearly 4,000 students.

Located in Arizona’s capital, this campus provides academic and professional connections for students preparing for careers across the health care spectrum; in law, government and other public service; with nonprofit and public social service providers; and in arts and sciences, journalism, media and the corporate sector.

The historic Tempe campus offers hundreds of majors that engage undergraduate and graduate students in multidisciplinary research and exploration in first-rate laboratories and facilities.

South Mountain Park

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Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport

ASU West campus

5 miles

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Health Solutions Corridor

Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community

Health Solutions Corridor Poised to become one of the nation’s largest biomedical ecosystems, this location combines sites and facilities controlled by ASU and Mayo Clinic. Proximity to research facilities, world-class clinical care, award-winning academic programs and private industry players results in unprecedented innovation opportunities.

Novus Innovation Corridor

SkySong SkySong, the ASU Scottsdale Innovation Center, is a high-growth community of more than 60 established and new companies in technologydriven markets, including information technology, education and health care, and a nationally leading center for the support of entrepreneurship and innovation.

This corridor is a prime location for established companies in need of facilities on a regional office or headquarters scale that will benefit strategically and culturally from direct and integrated connection with the ASU Tempe campus and surrounding community assets.

ASU Research Park

Scottsdale

The park currently houses more than 47 companies and employs 4,600 people. Research Park corporations have access to university services, including an ASU MBA program on site, cooperative research opportunities and patentable proprietary research contracts.

SkySong Papago Park

Novus Innovation Corridor

Biodesign Institute

Tempe Mesa

ASU Tempe campus

ASU Polytechnic campus

ASU Research Park

This prime location for research collaboration opportunities offers students, researchers and industry partners access to additive and digital manufacturing, advanced energy systems, aviation and robotics research facilities.

Gilbert

ASU Polytechnic campus

Chandler

Phoenix–Mesa Gateway Airport

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mart ideas that ople, places nd that will orld, today w. ENGINEERING

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5 growth areas for Phoenix and the engineers who are making it happen

Story by S C O T T S E C K E L

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PUBLISHED

ASU Thrive magazine, Spring 2018

Engineering created modern Phoenix.

More than 500 years ago, the Hohokam excavated about 500 miles of canals so crops could be grown in the desert. The current 131-mile-long canal system is almost entirely laid out on top of the ancient network. Roosevelt Dam was built to hold spring runoff and control the Salt River so it didn’t whip around the Valley floor like a snake in a shoebox. And, although not invented in Arizona or by a Phoenician, Willis Carrier’s air conditioning made the area attractive to millions after World War II. ENGINEERING

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“ Even broader than talent, it’s now about university alignment on research, and ensuring that we have technology road maps that are embedded within companies.” —C H R I S CAM AC H O, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER OF THE G R E AT E R P H O E N I X ECONOMIC COUNCIL

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Engineering turned one of the most inhospitable places on Earth into the fifth-biggest metropolitan area in the country, and engineering research — when it’s paired with industry — will continue to transform the Valley of the Sun’s future. As human knowledge doubles every 13 months, change happens faster and faster. Greater Phoenix is uniquely positioned to seize upon discoveries that are happening at Arizona State University, especially at the nation’s largest engineering school with more than 450 faculty and researchers in six multidisciplinary schools. Companies can benefit from a relationship with the university as innovations and advancements move outward. “Unsurprisingly, where there’s a hot research field, there’s also a serious interest to an industry,” says Kyle Squires, dean of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering. Academia and industry have different strengths. They complement each other, but they also cancel out each other’s weaknesses. ENGINEERING

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Nation’s largest producer of future engineers A huge part of science is poking around in the dark, seeing what works and what doesn’t. Businesses simply can’t afford to run into too many dead ends before the money runs out. “We’re allowed to go try things which are probably going to work, but often don’t, and that’s OK,” says ASU Associate Professor Dan Bliss, director of the Center for Wireless Information Systems and Computational Architectures. “Certainly in industry some startups do this, but it is problematic because you invest a fair amount of money and you make a mistake, and you don’t get to do that too many times. “You have to explore lots of ideas before you find the right ideas to work, so academia and ASU in particular is well-suited to doing these sorts of research tasks. Cooperation and teaming between ASU and various industrial entities would provide just the right combination of skills to complement each other,” adds Bliss. From basic research to developing an idea for a solution all the way through to commercialization and delivery to the market is a huge space. On one end you have academics trying to identify early solutions. At the other end are companies. Because of time and budget constraints, industry can impart its innate sense of urgency to academia. “What industry can provide academia is more than capital and a conduit to deliver solutions,” says William Tyler, associate professor of biological and health systems engineering. Besides ideas and research, industry gains other advantages by working with a university. Benchmark Electronics designs and manufactures electronics. When they began

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178% increase in student enrollment over the past 10 years 21,206 students in fall 2017 #10 most technology graduates hired by top 25 technology companies – Business Insider and HiringSolved Survey, 2017

Growth and research strength

Top 1% of world’s most prestigious universities —Times Higher Education, 2018

The Times rankings of the top universities places ASU in the top 1 percent of some 20,000 higher education institutions across the globe. The only universal measure of its kind, it recognizes excellence across research, teaching, knowledge transfer and international outlook.

Top 10%

A ‘Best’ global university #1 in the U.S. for innovation For the third straight year, U.S. News & World Report ranks ASU No. 1 on its “Most Innovative Schools” list, ahead of No. 2 Stanford and No. 3 MIT. ASU again tops the peer-reviewed survey of college presidents, provosts and admissions deans around the country, each choosing up to 10 colleges or universities making the most innovative improvements.

According to U.S. News & World Report, ASU is among the top 10 percent of more than 1,200 universities across 60 countries that have been specifically recognized for their “Global Research Reputation.” Among those joining ASU in the top 10 percent are MIT, Stanford and Harvard.

Fastestgrowing ASU is one of the country’s fastestgrowing research universities over the last 10 years among those with $100 million+ in annual research expenditures.

ASU is in the top 10 in the U.S. for total research expenditures among institutions without a medical school, ahead of Caltech, Carnegie Mellon and Princeton.

1 of 2 in the U.S. ASU is one of two universities in the U.S. to lead two NSF Engineering Research Centers.

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“ Our ability to be close to a research institution that allowed us to advance, as well as the potential to get faculty to work with us ... we found that to be very beneficial.” — PA U L T U FA N O , P R E S I D E N T O F BENCHMARK ELECTRONICS

Assistant Professor Zachary Holman (right) and Professor Yong-Hang Zhang (not shown) have created a monocrystalline cadmium telluride solar cell that could result in more efficient solar panels worldwide.

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the search for a new home, the organization had a number of criteria. An affordable cost of living, solid infrastructure and a world-class airport were all important, but the company moved to the Phoenix area specifically to be near ASU. Company leaders wanted proximity to a major university that was willing to collaborate and work with them. Chief Executive Officer and President Paul Tufano says of the benefits: “ASU surpassed our expectations. What does that mean? When I think about that, I think about it on three different levels. Clearly having a student population that is obviously well-educated and trained and will be a pipeline for our engineering development needs is critical. We established two new design centers, one in high-speed circuit design and (radio frequency) and another in (internet of things) integration, and so our ability to be close to a research institution that allowed us to advance those things, as well as the potential to get faculty to work with us and/ or some of their grad students, we found that to be very beneficial.” Right now there are 318 companies looking at the metro Phoenix market. What all have in common is a craving for bright minds, says Chris Camacho, president and chief executive officer of the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, the region’s leading economic development organization. The nonprofit assists businesses interested in coming to the Valley. Tech companies need the university talent pipeline to drive research and development outcomes. They “want to be more engaged with our post-secondary system so we can drive more commercializable (intellectual property) here in greater Phoenix,” Camacho says. “Industry relies on higher education more than ever. Camacho continues, “Even broader than talent, it’s now about university alignment on research, and

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Research leading to business outcomes Economic development

$8.9 billion

wages paid to ASU graduates in Arizona as of 2015. Commercialization

ASU named one of the nation’s top universities for commercializing tech –The Milken Institute lists ASU as one of the fastest-growing and one of the top universities for tech transfer, ahead of Harvard, Duke, Johns-Hopkins, USC and UC Berkeley.

Major NSF research centers: Quantum Energy and Sustainable Solar Technologies (QESST)* Center for Bio-mediated and Bio-inspired Geotechnics (CBBG)* Building Reliable Advances and Innovation in Neurotechnology (BRAIN) Center Nanotechnology Enabled Water Treatment Systems (NEWT) *ASU is the lead institution

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The Novus Innovation Corridor encompasses 330 acres adjacent to Tempe Town Lake and ASU's Tempe campus.

ensuring that we have technology road maps that are embedded within companies. We need universities that are nimble enough and value-add enough to drive existing research capabilities to the next stage to ultimately help companies grow and scale research development.” Brains and visions of the technologies that will exist decades in the future are what industry wants and what ASU can provide in spades. “We’re an engineering college,” Squires says. “Our most valuable commodity that we produce for people outside are graduates who can go in and do things. They’ll go into Honeywell, Intel, Raytheon, Medtronics — you can go down the list — but increasingly into small startups, the new companies that are attracted here and you have young talent with the right skill set to take a nascent, really interesting, beginning-to-thrive entrepreneurial culture and get it to the next level. I think that’s important for our future here.” Ideas, via research, are the other valuable commodity produced on campus. “We need to not only think about the technologies that drive near-term innovation but also look 15 to 20 years into the future,” says Squires. “As I love to point out, if you don’t have faculty advancing the foundational research ideas that identify where a given field is going to be 20 years from now, you’re never going to get there. Impact occurs across the entire spectrum — from blue-sky thinking that takes the long view to technology advances over the near-term that are critical to enhancing competitiveness.” John Graham has a bird’s-eye view of the Valley. The president and CEO of Sunbelt Holdings — a real estate development and investment company — Graham chairs the Partnership for Economic Innovation, a collective of community leaders dedicated to fulfilling regional economic opportunities. He also sits on the boards of a number of Valley institutions. He says ASU’s efforts to partner with industry are paying off, but unheralded.

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“ ASU nurtures students, bringing out their incredible talent and inspiring them to reach their goals.” —B ILL AM ELIO, PR ESIDENT A N D C E O , AV N E T

Hoolest Performance Technologies, with three ASU engineering students, won the $100,000 investment prize at the ASU Innovation Open, beating a pair of finalist ventures from MIT and a pair of ASU entries as well. Avnet sponsors the event.

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“What I’ve seen, especially under the leadership of Dean Squires, is really a strong effort to reach out to the business community and to the technology infrastructure that’s in our community to find more collaborative ways to work together, not only with the impressive growth of the engineering school online and in the classroom, but the fact that through his efforts he has reached out so intentionally and effectively to the rest of the community,” Graham says. “I think a lot of people, for whatever reason, don’t know that this is going on or that it’s available. ASU is making it much more user-friendly for the outside to reach in and figure out both how to access important things at ASU and work with the school, so I think it’s something that the more it’s talked about, the more specific relationships that are talked about, the better it is for everybody.” With some 350 tenured/tenure-track faculty, the Fulton Schools of Engineering covers a very broad area of research strengths. Here are the five areas with significant growth potential for ASU and for the Valley.

Growth area 1: Wearable technologies Health care is beginning to look to engineering as heavily as it has looked to organic chemistry. In the future, health care will involve something you put on as much as it will swallowing a pill. That may take the form of a blood-pressure monitor you wear on your wrist or a necklace to conquer insomnia, the latter being one of Tyler’s inventions. Tyler explains the idea of wearable tech: “You have the choice as a consumer — Do you want to try this (external device) to relieve pain and anxiety, or do you want to go have your back cut open and have some electrodes put in? You have the choice. This one costs $200, and the other $30,000.” Getting from concept to market — what Tyler calls the Valley of Death — with wearable technologies can take as long as 48 months. Pharma has a really big Valley of Death, because of all the testing and the safety and the unknowns and the targets. “Because (wearables) are safe, you can iterate really quickly on testing cycles,” Tyler says. “It’s like, ‘Hey look, ENGINEERING

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Associate Professor Dan Bliss, along with students and other researchers, is working on making tech in our devices less expensive, more energy efficient and more powerful.

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we developed this solution.’ We’re going to test it in 10-15 people, hint of the concept, develop that through proof of concept, and then you can start to span that Valley of Death much quicker. That’s really where wearables have an advantage, because you can deliver solutions to the market much faster.”

Growth area 2: Internet of things “When you take a look at the explosion of radios with which we interact every day, this is going to be a big deal for industry,” Bliss says. “Currently on my body I have eight radio systems on me. Every device we interact with has multiple radio systems that interact with everything else.” This is a significant opportunity for industry, because of the sheer number of devices that will exist. “The telecom industry now exceeds $1.6 trillion. If you take a look at the number of human users, we’re over a billion now,” Bliss says. “When you take a look at the path to expansion, it’s going to be mostly nonhuman users. These are all the internet of things devices. Those in industry that figure out how to provide the capabilities we want are going to be the winners. And financially it’s going to be a big deal.”

Growth area 3: Automation and robotics Spring Berman is an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering who studies the modeling, analysis, control and optimization of robotic swarms. “Automation and robotics promises to increase productivity and efficiency for a lot of industries,” Berman says. “Another advantage is that the robots can be used for tasks that are repetitive or dangerous or could be hazardous for a person to do. “There’s a lot of effort not only in developing the robots themselves and the technologies, but also

understanding how they can interact with human operators to get the best of both worlds, so the uniquely human capabilities of supervision and decision-making and the fact the robot can do repetitive tasks can increase productivity and human comfort.”

Growth area 4: Water innovation In a 2017 survey of 1,500 companies, 95 percent said water is important — and they were not getting any help with it, says Paul Westerhoff, an ASU Regents’ Professor and vice dean for research and innovation for the Fulton Schools. “None of the companies had a really good idea actually how much water affected the bottom line of the product,” says Westerhoff. “One of the needs is to clearly understand the value of water in manufacturing, to quantify that for different sectors — how much they rely upon it — and what is their vulnerability to water disruption.” Almost all these companies treat water onsite because tap water isn’t of high enough quality for those such as hospitals, restaurants and semiconductor manufacturers. They face the same problems consumers do at home: scaling due to hardness, high salt content and unpleasant tastes and odors. Cooling towers use more water than necessary and sensors become fouled, for example. “If these companies can come to an area where there are other companies going through similar experiences — 95 percent of these respondents said they wish they had a forum to exchange ideas at a professional level across different sectors,” Westerhoff continues. “We can create that forum at ASU, and that will attract companies who care about water conservation and industrial water purification. I think we can expand the types of companies that are located in Arizona ... we are already recognized as being pretty forward leaders in Arizona around water management.”

Growth area 5: Renewable energy

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“ ASU is making it much more user-friendly for the outside to reach in and figure out both how to access important things at ASU and work with the school.” —J O H N G R A H A M , PRESIDENT AND C E O O F S U N B E LT HOLDINGS

ASU has the largest solar research facility in the country. It is the only university in the U.S. where you can make a full-size, commercial solar cell. Solar companies send their researchers to work with faculty in the labs. “Solar in particular is an excellent growth area because there is suitable local expertise (in the form of the semiconductor industry) for solar module manufacturing; a unique solar research center (the Quantum Energy and Sustainable Solar Technologies center, or QESST, at ASU) producing the best-trained graduates in the country; and intense sunlight in Arizona that drives local demand,” says Zachary Holman, an assistant professor of electrical engineering. Christiana Honsberg, director and principal investigator at QESST, says collaboration is key. “Photovoltaics is the poster child for how technology should be done — collaboratively, working with industry and in concert with educators,” she says. “We have an opportunity to demonstrate that solar is beneficial to society. It’s not about having the next paper published in Nature.”

Aligning the economy, university ASU has been innately entrepreneurial over the last decade. Now, regional economic development and the university need to align more closely, GPEC’s Camacho says. “What I see on the horizon is we need to have economic development and the university aligned to induce more Arizona-based (intellectual property) to be generated,” he says. “That’s having public resources to support industry-led innovation centers and technology dispositions for things like wearable technologies, health sciences, personalized medicine and even advanced electronics playing to our legacy industry strengths of microelectronics. “That’s where I see the intersection of applied research between universities and economic development, and then, by supporting ideation and the commercialization of those ideas, we will successfully ENGINEERING

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“ What I see on the horizon is we need to have economic development and the university aligned to induce more Arizona-based (intellectual property) to be generated.” — C H R I S C A M AC H O , P R E S I D E N T A N D C EO OF GPEC

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drive our future generation of companies.” These industry/academia partnerships are working, and they’re working successfully, Graham says. “I think the best economic development story in the state — for sure the city — has been ASU under the regime of Dr. (ASU President Michael) Crow,” he says. “I think part of why that’s the case is that he’s done a brilliant job of reaching out to the community, in his words ‘embedding’ ASU into the community. (A partnership between industry and the engineering schools) is front and center of that type of relationship and part of the reason that ASU and the community have been so successful in those areas.” It has been successful for Benchmark Electronics, and Tufano expects it to continue. “The partnership with ASU, the interaction with ASU, has been pretty phenomenal in terms of the engagement, the energy level, the desire on the part of all levels of the administration and faculty to participate,” says the company president. “It’s surpassed my expectations.” Avnet, a full-service electronic component manufacturer, has a significant number of partnerships with ASU and sees great potential as a result. CEO Bill Amelio explains why: “ASU nurtures students, bringing out their incredible talent, and inspiring them to reach their goals. Our partnership with ASU through the ASU Innovation Open and the Avnet Innovation Lab provides a special opportunity to work side by side with students and early-stage entrepreneurs in advancing new and innovative technologies from idea to design to production.”

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1,000

More than 1,000 undergraduate students participate in research annually.

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Sparking student entrepreneurship The game-changing entrepreneurial efforts of our students are seeded within the Fulton Schools of Engineering from students’ first year through graduation and include such programs as Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS), the eSeed Challenge, FSE 100 Introduction to Engineering labs, the Grand Challenge Scholars Program, the Polytechnic School’s Technological Entrepreneurship and Management program, and applied learning/ project courses and capstone classes—all of which depend on external funding support. Students envision the innovative solutions, but support programs provide the education, skills, experience, and entrepreneurial mind-set needed for them to succeed. As a part of our commitment to student success, we recently launched the Fulton Schools Startup Center to empower all undergraduate and graduate students to advance their entrepreneurial ideas. With endowed funds of $10 million for our entrepreneurial programs, the Fulton Schools can reach the university’s goal of having 10 percent of engineering students engaged in entrepreneurial efforts.

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We accelerate real-world impact, assuming a fundamental responsibility for advancing the economic, social, and cultural health of our region and our planet Beyond programmatic investment, the Fulton Schools partner with private donors to provide seed funding to advance student solutions and entrepreneurial activities. In just one example, a donor has invested annual seed funding of $100,000, with funds going directly toward student companies. With endowed funds of $5 million, donors have the opportunity to support the center’s annual needs for advancing student entrepreneurs and their ideas.

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From idea to prototype to pitch to launch –Demo Day ASU electrical engineering graduates Ryan Brown (left) and Ahmed Ahmed, with Trestle Automation, unload their automated skateboard security rack to display at the Venture Devils Demo Day. The top ASU-affiliated ventures across a variety of verticals and industries deliver investor-style pitches as they compete for nearly $365,000 in funding and support. Community supporters are invited to attend both the pitch portion of the event as well as the Demo Day Awards Ceremony, where funding decisions are made and winners are announced.

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We engage our corporate partn Pullquote XX and region in ad Indent thin be for connecting o style.”a broad s across through career our students to projects for our 144

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stakeholders, ners, alumni, XL, Bold No dvancing ideas elow character our engineers spectrum, opportunities for industry-driven r faculty. Caption, Regular (8/12) Headline/Pullquote S, thin under.

– P U L LQ U OT E BY L I N E X L , CA P S (18/24)

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Tom Prescott

Pegging the needle in entrepreneurship Alum’s support helps students launch business ventures

“You ought to prize your failures. Those are the seeds Tom Prescott ’83 believes that all ASU for the great lessons students are capable of becoming you learn that can impactful innovators. And he’s backed up wire you for the rest that belief with a gift to fund the eSeed of your life.” Challenge, a program that identifies and supports early-stage student ventures that may be well-suited to compete for and win other entrepreneurship competitions.

–TO M P R E S C OT T ’ 8 3 , FORMER CEO AND P R E S I D E N T, A L I G N T E C H N O LO GY I N C .

The eSeed Challenge features three highly competitive phases. First, challenge teams have to validate or reject their key business model hypotheses. Then they present the status of their ventures and compete for admission into the eSeed Accelerator, where they increase traction within their target markets. Finally, they pitch their ventures to a panel of industry judges. Top teams earn Prescott Fellow status and travel with Prescott to Silicon Valley to meet with top-level professionals, tour startup companies and enjoy the opportunity to pitch to successful entrepreneurs.

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Engineering alumni chapter Teresa Clement (right) volunteers for the FIRST Lego League state meet with middle school students.

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“ASU taught me all about communication. Every group has its own style of communication and requires a unique way of delivering information.” — T E R E S A C L E M E N T, O U T G O I N G P R E S I D E N T, A S U A L U M N I A S S O C I AT I O N E N G I N E E R I N G C H A P T E R

Teresa Clement

Lead, live, pay it forward In 10 years at Raytheon Missile Systems, ASU double-degree alumna Teresa Clement knows a thing or two, because she’s seen a thing or two. Strategic technology manager for tech development at the Tucsonbased company, she joined the company in 2007 upon receiving her PhD in materials science engineering, which fit hand in glove with her 2002 BSE. She has prospered at Raytheon, and she pays it forward outside the office: She is a member of a handful of professional associations and chairs the America Makes Roadmap Advisory Group, earning its 2015 Distinguished Collaborator Award. She is also outgoing president of the Fulton Schools of Engineering alumni chapter and is an ASU Alumni Association board member. On her missile-like trajectory: “Motivation is different for everybody,” she says. “I have three prizes in my life: work success, family joy, community impact. The sum of these makes me feel like a whole person.” Her motivation to give back, to pay it forward to her communities is reflected in her role with the engineering alumni chapter. She owns a unique perspective on the connection between alum and university. “Staying connected to your alma mater doesn’t mean you’re living in the past,” she says. “You continue to look forward while valuing the education, friendships, connections and advancements made possible by your time at ASU. “By maintaining the connection and paying it forward, continuing to invest in your education as an alumni member, you will see the returns many times over.” She counts among those returns a direct link to her professional success: “Connections to the engineering school have benefited Raytheon and also me as a technical contributor within the company. The huge breadth of technical knowledge and expertise among graduates of the Fulton Schools provides a very strong business case to working with ASU and the engineering schools.”

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“Everything starts and ends with people. It is the right team that will win in the end. ” — J EFF COX , C O - FO U N D ER AN D E XEC UTIVE CHAIRMAN OF R ADIUSAI, WHO WORKS OUT OF INDUSTRIOUS COWORKING S PA C E I N T E M P E

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Changing IP video surveillance — for the better, with the help of ASU engineers Jeff Cox, ’94 BS in marketing, co-founded RadiusAI in 2017 with the goal of using artificial intelligence to help save jobs and improve employee and business efficiency — without collecting personally identifiable information or using facial recognition. Cox partnered with ASU’s School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence to hire ASU doctoral students to help bring the product into the marketplace. One of the many uses is that RadiusAI can analyze real-time analytics to help businesses optimize decisions and improve sales.

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Celebrating the entrepreneurial spirit at ASU Sun Devil 100 annually celebrates the outstanding achievements of ASU alumni around the world who own or lead businesses that best exemplify the innovation and entrepreneurship of the university. They are CEOs, presidents and co-founders. They are leading entrepreneurs, engineers and visionaries. Their businesses range from small startups with bright futures to growing enterprises employing hundreds of thinkers and doers. Like those before them, and like those who will come in future years, the Fulton Schools of Engineering alumni who are members of this year’s Sun Devil 100 are making a difference and introducing new ideas and new ways of solving longstanding challenges. Our congratulations to these engineering alumni who are celebrated as the newest members of the Sun Devil 100.

Michael E. Johnson Jr. ’95 MS, civil engineering; Wilson Engineers, principal Michael P.W. Kyle ’93 BS, industrial technology; Nova 42, co-founder/CEO Clarence McAllister ’91 BSE, electrical engineering, ’97 MS electrical engineering; Fortis, CEO

Ibrahim Mesbah ’00 BS, computer systems engineering; ’04 MS, computer science; RevolutionParts, CEO Phillip J. Noonan IV ’96 BS, civil engineering; Wilson Engineers, principal Cynthia A. Pulte-Barutha ’95 BS, chemical engineering; CFM Mechanical, owner and vice president

Andreas Ronneseth ’04 BSE, computer system engineering, ’06 MS, computer science; RevolutionParts, co-founder/CTO Stephen Todd ’90 BS, chemical engineering; Wilson Engineers, principal David Yauchzee ’94 BS, mechanical engineering; Exhibit Marketing Group, owner

“ People make all the difference. If you put together the right set of people and give them the freedom to succeed, fail and grow, you will get the best results possible.” — A N D R E A S R O N N E S E T H , C O - F O U N D E R /C T O , R E V O L U T I O N PA R T S

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The new engineering design hub will leverage talent in the metro Phoenix area, housing approximately 150 professional positions — 95% of which will be employees new to Raytheon.

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PUBLISHED

ASU News, July 28, 2023

Raytheon to open engineering design hub at ASU’s SkySong Leading aerospace and defense company Raytheon has announced that it will be opening a new facility at SkySong, the Arizona State University Scottsdale Innovation Center, adding 28,000 square feet of digital design space to the company’s footprint just minutes away from the university’s Tempe campus. The new engineering design hub will leverage talent in the metro Phoenix area, housing approximately 150 professional positions — 95% of which will be employees new to Raytheon. The location will focus primarily on digital design products that support the rapid growth and demand for the company’s defense portfolio, which, to date, has mostly been concentrated in southern Arizona. “We’ve been working for years to expand our presence in the greater Phoenix area to take advantage of a talent pool that is uniquely qualified to drive this type of innovation,” said Wes Kremer, president of Raytheon. “This expansion will also provide greater opportunities to collaborate with other tech companies and suppliers in the region.” In addition to expanding its presence to the Valley, the move strengthens Raytheon’s partnership with ASU and its Ira A. Fulton

Schools of Engineering, the largest engineering university in the country, to create a steady pipeline of talent for the future and further many research and development projects. “ASU has a deep commitment to expanding its engagement with defense primes, and co-locating with Raytheon at the ASU’s SkySong Innovation Center will enable us to advance our work with one of the strongest companies in the world,” ASU President Michael Crow said. “We welcome Raytheon to greater Phoenix and look forward to a new chapter in our relationship.”

Benefit to both students and companies Grace O’Sullivan, vice president of corporate engagement and strategic partnerships for ASU’s Knowledge Enterprise, highlights the circular benefits of such collaborations. In addition to the Fulton Schools helping provide a pipeline of engineering talent, companies such as Raytheon provide guidance on ASU’s curriculum to ensure those engineers are gaining skills in demand in the industry today. Industry leaders will sometimes co-teach courses, O’Sullivan said, giving students a real-world view into what it’s like to work in that field. ENGINEERING

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Rafi Islam, CEO and CTO of Cactus Materials Inc. in Tempe networks with others at the Southwest Advanced Prototyping Hub Workshop on July 21 at SkySong, the ASU Scottsdale Innovation Center. The objective of the daylong conference was to prepare ASU and its partners to rapidly develop projects related to the DoD Microelectronics Commons for execution under the SWAP Hub, in cooperation with other regional hubs. ASU also announced an offer of four $50,000 grants in seed funding to kick-start SWAP Hub-related projects.

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PUBLISHED

ASU News, July 27, 2023

Workshop brings academic, industry partners together to collaborate on CHIPS Act projects ASU’s SWAP Hub aims to position Southwest as a semiconductor epicenter In the global race to lead on microchip manufacturing, research and development, Arizona State University — in anticipation of opportunities that will come from its CHIPS and Science Act proposals and partnerships — is already beginning to plan, collaborate and produce. Last week, the university held a workshop with more than 30 partners from academia, industry, national laboratories and nonprofits to discuss four quick-turn projects that will showcase the team’s readiness for national defense programs funded by the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act. ASU has been preparing for years for the influx of work necessary to boost national security technology. In February, ASU submitted a proposal for a strategic public-private partnership on cutting-edge research and development to speed the transformation of ideas generated in the lab into practical solutions. That collaborative effort, known as the Southwest Advanced Prototyping Hub, or the SWAP Hub, is led by ASU and has more than 60 leading corporate, startup, academic and national lab partners from the semiconductor and defense sectors in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and beyond. The SWAP Hub was proposed for consideration as part of the Microelectronics Commons, a $1.63 billion Department of Defense program funded by the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act. Sally Morton, executive vice president of ASU’s Knowledge Enterprise, told partners ENGINEERING

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Tim Olson (left), founder and CEO of DECA in Tempe, chats with Vish Viswanathan of NXP Semiconductors during a break at the Southwest Advanced Prototyping Hub workshop.

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assembled at the workshop that the Department of Defense is now evaluating the hub proposals and is expected to announce the funding awards before the end of federal fiscal year at the end of September. “But we have not waited idly for their response. Just the opposite,” she told the workshop participants. “The Southwest is already one of the nation’s key centers for microelectronics activity. It’s home to some of the leading semiconductor producers and suppliers, major defense contractors, world-class universities and research institutes, and a vibrant startup community,” she said. Zachary Holman, associate professor in the School of Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering at ASU, told the SWAP Hub collaborators that ASU is funding four seed projects at $50,000 each, with the expectation that partners on the projects will match that funding. “We want to get projects going within the SWAP Hub even before the government decides whether the SWAP Hub should exist,” said Holman, who also is director of faculty entrepreneurship within the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering. “We would like teams comprising folks in this room, and folks not in this room, to have already been working together for months to have initial results that can parlay into much larger projects.” ASU is accepting proposals with an Aug. 11 deadline for the projects, which will be six months in duration and will provide proof-of-concept that the SWAP Hub is ready to move quickly on much larger-scale work. The projects will fall within three specific areas: 5G/6G technology; artificial intelligence hardware; or “commercial leap-ahead technology,” which includes new materials and other technologies that can quickly move the U.S. military beyond traditional weapon platforms like tanks, helicopters and gunships. Each team that proposes a project must have at least one ASU principal investigator and at least one SWAP Hub member. Each project must show how it can be scaled up. There are two main goals of the hub program, according to Kevin McGinnis, managing director of strategic technology initiatives at ASU: improve the “lab-to-fab” pathway – the ability to take an idea in the lab and transition it to a usable outcome — and develop

a prepared workforce. “We have the opportunity with this team to move ideas through university labs and startup companies and, with the help of our defense partners, place them onto defense platforms,” he said. “We want to take ideas that happen here in the Southwest from a prototype stage all the way through to commercial fabrication and ideally onto a national defense platform that has high impact.” The SWAP Hub also will provide access to cuttingedge technology to students, even undergraduates. “We hear about workforce development needs every day,” McGinnis said. “It seems that especially in the Department of Defense, where there are special requirements related to U.S. citizenship, that their pool of qualified workers is small and diminishing, so we need to offer a number of pathways to move people into the DoD microelectronics ecosystem, whether that’s at a national lab, a defense contractor, or the DoD itself.” Several ASU students are part of a pilot internship program at Sandia National Laboratories, according to Ken Dean, senior manager of Advanced Semiconductor Technologies at Sandia. As a Department of Energy National Laboratory, Sandia performs fundamental research and basic science, and develops national security technology for the U.S. This includes operating a production-rigor semiconductor fabrication facility. “Students can work with our semiconductor equipment and get exposure to both research topics and high-rigor production processes,” Dean told the gathering on Friday.

“The benefit to having interns here is we can start security clearances for them while they’re in the intern program, thereby creating a national security workforce that is ready to go.” – K E N D E A N , S E N I O R M A N A G E R O F A D VA N C E D S E M I C O N D U C T O R T E C H N O L O G I E S AT S A N D I A

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The new cutting-edge prototyping facility announced recently by ASU and Applied Materials Inc. will be located at MacroTechnology Works and will allow students to get hands-on experience to become part of the new microelectronics workforce.

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ASU News, July 27, 2023

Prototyping facility will give students, startups access to semiconductor space $270M Materialsto-Fab Center to be built at ASU’s MacroTechnology Works The new cutting-edge prototyping facility announced recently by Arizona State University and Applied Materials Inc. will not only speed the time it takes for lab innovations to become real-life solutions, it also will allow ASU’s students to get the hands-on experience they need to become part of the new microelectronics workforce. The $270 million Materials-to-Fab Center, aided by the Arizona Commerce Authority, will bring Applied Materials’ semiconductor-manufacturing equipment to the university’s MacroTechnology Works building at ASU Research Park. Preparing students for the technology jobs of the future is critical – and a major goal of the New Economy Initiative, according to Sally Morton, executive vice president of ASU’s Knowledge Enterprise. “When you sit with industry leaders and say, ‘What is keeping you up at night?’ they say, ‘people’ — the number of people and the diversity and inclusion of people,” she said. “They see ASU at the forefront of providing an excellent workforce.” Another important aspect of the new facility is finding a way to speed the

time from lab innovation to prototype to commercial production. “Things are slow. We do something at the university and it might take awhile to get into production,” Morton said. “We need to speed up. The industry is moving so quickly and we have to get these ideas more quickly into production.” That time lag is referred to as the “Valley of Death.” “I think of this center as a physical space, intellectual space, educational space — all of those things working as a bridge across that Valley of Death,” she said. “And it’s a bridge that students can walk on and faculty can walk on and industry can walk on together — that’s what makes it so important.” Kyle Squires, vice provost of engineering, computing and technology at ASU, said that Applied Materials’ equipment is world class. “The university was very strategic about ensuring that our ASU faculty and students, properly trained, can have access, and that’s a major advantage. They’re going to do better research and be skilled users,” he said. And that access will have ripple effects in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, said Squires, who also is dean of the Fulton Schools. “It creates capability, and that draws faculty to come here and motivates faculty who are already here to direct research

that utilizes those tools,” he said. “That, in turn, increases our reputation and our ability to recruit students and it starts to create a more robust pipeline of going from ideas in the lab to making prototypes and training students, and that’s a very unique ecosystem,” he said. And ASU’s partners will benefit too. “This is a resource for the entire state,” Morton said. “Startups don’t have the money to buy this equipment. If they have an idea for a semiconductor wafer and want to produce it, they will now have that access.” Morton said the machines or tools in the Materials-to-Fab Center test different materials and etchings on silicon wafers, a key component of electronic applications. “One interesting thing to me is that the facility will be open 24/7,” she said. “These are expensive machines and they want them running all the time. That doesn’t mean we’ll be taking students at 3 a.m., but we’ll be staffing the MacroTechnology Works to keep it open ‘round the clock.” The new project is an expansion of an existing partnership between ASU and Applied Materials. “They’ve worked with ASU and have been impressed with our innovation and our commitment to inclusion,” Morton said. “We’re a tested partner with them. This is an enhancement of that partnership. It’s been earned.” ENGINEERING

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Applied Materials’ Centura, a reactive ion etcher, sits in the MacroTechnology Works facility at the ASU Research Park in Tempe. Reactive ion etching is generally used to transfer a pattern into a thin film. The new Materials-to-Fab Center, announced today and expected to be operational within two years, will bring Applied Materials’ state-of-the-art semiconductor manufacturing equipment into a collaborative environment where ASU and Applied Materials can work with industry partners, startups, government entities and academic institutions.

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ASU News, July 11, 2023

ASU, Applied Materials to create Materials-to-Fab Center at ASU Research Park

More than $270M in corporate, state investment will help advance Arizona’s semiconductor industry

“Applied Materials is excited to build upon our successful track record of collaboration with Arizona State University by adding the Materials-to-Fab Center to our university innovation network. – G A R Y D I C K E R S O N , A P P L I E D M AT E R I A L S PRESIDENT AND CEO

Arizona State University and Applied Materials Inc. today announced an alliance, aided by the Arizona Commerce Authority, that brings more than $270 million to create a world-class shared research, development and prototyping facility — the Materials-to-Fab (MTF) Center — in the university’s MacroTechnology Works building at ASU Research Park. The MTF Center will be designed to accelerate the transfer of innovations from ideation to fab prototype by bringing Applied Materials’ state-of-the-art semiconductor manufacturing equipment into a collaborative environment where ASU and Applied Materials can work with industry partners, startups, government entities and academic institutions. The MTF Center will provide students and faculty with opportunities for hands-on learning and research on the same 300mm equipment used in leading-edge production fabs. Applied Materials is the world’s largest provider of semiconductor manufacturing equipment. The company in May announced plans to build the Equipment and Process Innovation and Commercialization (EPIC) Center in California’s Silicon Valley. The EPIC Center is planned as the heart of a high-velocity innovation platform that includes a network of hubs at leading universities, each focused on materials and process innovation. The new MTF Center at ASU will be home to Applied’s Center of Excellence in materials deposition technology. “Applied Materials and Arizona State University already enjoy a close partnership, and this new alliance around the Materials-to-Fab Center will take things to a new level,” ASU President Michael Crow said. “But what is more important than the partnership is what it will do for the industry and the country. This is the beginning of a reconfiguration of the way to accelerate discovery and translational research outcomes in response to real-world challenges and the development of next-generational processes, materials, equipment and workforce.” ENGINEERING

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Applied Materials, Inc. is the leader in materials engineering solutions used to produce virtually every new chip and advanced display in the world.

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Applied Materials news release, May 22, 2023

Applied Materials Launches MultibillionDollar R&D Platform in Silicon Valley to Accelerate Semiconductor Innovation New approach is designed to build upon Applied’s existing relationships with top engineering schools, such as Arizona State University, where Applied has been conducting research in materials science and semiconductor technology alongside faculty and students SANTA CLARA, Calif., May 22, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Applied Materials, Inc. today announced a landmark investment to build the world’s largest and most advanced facility for collaborative semiconductor process technology and manufacturing equipment research and development (R&D). The new Equipment and Process Innovation and Commercialization (EPIC) Center is planned as the heart of a highvelocity innovation platform designed to accelerate development and commercialization of the foundational technologies needed by the global semiconductor and computing industries. To be located at an Applied campus in Silicon Valley,

the multibillion-dollar facility is designed to provide a breadth and scale of capabilities that is unique in the industry, including more than 180,000 square feet – more than three American football fields – of state-of-the-art cleanroom for collaborative innovation with chipmakers, universities and ecosystem partners. Designed from the ground up to accelerate the pace of introducing new manufacturing innovations, the new EPIC Center is expected to reduce the time it takes the industry to bring a technology from concept to commercialization by several years, while simultaneously increasing the commercial success rate of new innovations and the return on R&D investments ENGINEERING

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The new EPIC Center includes collaborators from leading semiconductor and computing companies like IBM, AMD, Intel, Micron, Nvidia, Samsung, TSMC and Western Digital. ASU is one of the university partners, along with MIT, SUNY, UC Berkeley and UT Austin.

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for the entire semiconductor ecosystem. “While semiconductors are more critical to the global economy than ever before, the technology challenges our industry faces are becoming more complex,” said Gary Dickerson, President and CEO of Applied Materials. “This investment presents a golden opportunity to re-engineer the way the global industry collaborates to deliver the foundational semiconductor process and manufacturing technologies needed to sustain rapid improvements in energy-efficient, highperformance computing.”

Strengthening University Pipelines The platform is also expected to be a catalyst for accelerating the commercialization of academic research and strengthening the pipeline of future semiconductor industry talent. Universities are uniquely skilled at ideating new concepts, but they often lack access to state-of-the-art industrial labs and hardware which can impede their ability to turn ideas into commercial reality. Applied’s new platform can provide university researchers access to the full range of industrial-scale capabilities to validate their ideas, increasing the success rate

of innovations and reducing the time and cost of commercializing new technologies. This would be achieved with a two-pronged approach. University researchers can perform research alongside industry professionals in the new EPIC Center, and Applied can collaborate with academic partners to build a network of industrial-quality satellite labs at university facilities. The new approach is designed to build upon Applied’s existing relationships with top engineering schools, such as Arizona State University, where Applied has been conducting research in materials science and semiconductor technology alongside faculty and students. “We’re all-in as an asset to industry and to the nation as we seek to regain global pre-eminence in semiconductor manufacturing, research and development,” said ASU President Michael Crow. “Applied Materials is providing extraordinary leadership to accelerate innovation and commercialization of foundational manufacturing technologies that will define the future of how chips are made. And as we continue to innovate in that process, ASU will bring research expertise and help create the future innovation and manufacturing talent pipeline that will be critical over the long term.”

“University researchers can perform research alongside industry professionals in the new EPIC Center, and Applied can collaborate with academic partners to build a network of industrial-quality satellite labs at university facilities.” – A P P L I E D M AT E R I A L S N E W S R E L E A S E

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ASU’s MacroTechnology Works is a state-of-the-art research center with office space, labs and equipment to support collaboration with commercial partners such as Applied Materials. 170

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Fulton Schools news, Oct 29, 2020

ASU engineering begins major industry collaboration Applied Materials, a California-based materials engineering company, is leasing substantial lab space at ASU’s MacroTechnology Works to support research and development work ASU has entered a new collaboration to further advance the Phoenix metropolitan area as an important hub of the global semiconductor industry. Applied Materials, has agreed to fund at least five years of research with faculty members and students in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering. “A key part of our innovation network is engagement with leading universities like ASU, where we are conducting research in materials science and semiconductor technology,” says Mohith Verghese, managing director of engineering management at Applied Materials. The new collaboration represents a significant validation of ASU’s science and engineering capabilities, since Applied Materials’ manufacturing equipment and solutions are used to produce virtually every new computer chip and advanced display in the world. “There are very few universities with a state-of-the art research center offering ready-to-go office space, labs and equipment for commercial partners,” says Zachary Holman, associate professor of electrical engineering in the Fulton Schools and one of the faculty members conducting research for the company. ENGINEERING

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“This facility is an incredible testament to global collaboration, to TSMC’s ingenuity, and it is an important milestone for advanced manufacturing in America.” – TIM COOK , CEO OF APPLE, T S M C C U S TO M E R

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Made in Arizona to power the world’s devices Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company announced that in addition to its first Arizona fabrication facility, which drivers can see in North Phoenix off the I-17, it has also started the construction of a second fab. The first is scheduled to begin production in 2024, the second in 2026. The overall investment for the two fabs will be approximately $40 billion, representing the largest foreign direct investment in Arizona history and one of the largest in the history of the U.S. “ASU will work to provide the talent to support the workforce that TSMC needs and research that is of value,” says Michael M. Crow, president of ASU, which is an education partner of TSMC. Learn more about ASU’s work in semiconductors and with local partners at neweconomy.asu.edu.

Near zero liquid discharge. All water used will be recycled, recovered and reused. SOURCE: TSMC

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TSMC

Going up Peek into the building of the massive new $12 billion Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company fabrication foundry in north Phoenix Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company is one of the world’s 10 most valuable companies. Its $12 billion plant in Arizona will be TSMC’s first factory in the U.S. in two decades and is the largest foreign direct investment in Arizona history. The site uses the large red crane at right. The last two projects the crane worked on were major league sports stadiums. Learn about ASU’s work on semiconductors at impactarizona.asu.edu.

5x multiplier effect Each microelectronics job creates five additional jobs for suppliers and vendors

2,000 jobs TSMC is directly hiring high-tech roles for its new foundry

SOURCES: TSMC, ASU, L. WILLIAM SEIDMAN RESEARCH INSTITUTE AT T H E W . P. C A R E Y S C H O O L OF BUSINESS

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Microelectronics portfolio of specialized trainings Given the high demand for semiconductor professionals created by the federal CHIPS and Science Act and Arizona’s New Economy Initiative, ASU is launching a comprehensive microelectronics portfolio designed to provide the technical skills critical for success in the semiconductor field. Developed by the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering in collaboration with the ASU CareerCatalyst team, the portfolio is available through the Coursera online platform. Upon completion, the program will roll out nine specializations emphasizing materials, tools, design, applications, manufacturing processes and packaging. Each 35- to 45-hour interactive specialization will be led by university engineering faculty and industry experts.

links.asu.edu/microelectronics Online Employers

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10,000+ jobs roles, including 4,500 direct TSMC jobs SOURCE: TSMC

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From class to fab TSMC recruiter Alexandra Moulinet and early talent manager Roxanna Vega meet with students outside the Engineering Center building G, as they and another representative from TSMC visited ASU to speak with students. The company held information sessions about employment opportunities now and in the future. TSMC is the world’s largest contract chipmaker and is constructing two major chip fabrication plants in the northwest Valley. To learn more about engineering careers visit career.engineering.asu.edu.

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Semiconductor companies must squeeze more performance out of chips — and constantly optimize production processes. Through early stage research that translates into real-world applications, ASU researchers like Wahab Alasfour help the industry do both.

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ASU Thrive magazine, Fall 2021

Silic n

Valley IN THE

ASU is fueling a semiconductor revolution that benefits Arizonans Story by DANIEL OBERHAUS, ’15 BA ENGLISH, BA PHILOSOPHY

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Semiconductors power modern devices. You rely

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on them every single day. We all do. They’re in phones, computers, smart appliances, cars, solar panels and more. These electronics depend on circuits etched on razor-thin wafers of silicon.

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Silicon is an example of a semiconductor, materials that have the characteristics of both a conductor, such as copper, and an insulator, like glass, allowing engineers to precisely dial in exact electricity flow under specific conditions. This makes semiconductors well-suited for building the microscopic circuits at the heart of the computers in our devices. Every year, more than a trillion semiconductors roll off assembly lines to meet an insatiable appetite for microelectronics that are faster, smarter, cheaper; demand is growing. The U.S., birthplace of semiconductors, was once the global manufacturing leader. But over the past few decades, competition drove many manufacturers abroad. According to the Semiconductor Industry Association, today, the U.S. manufactures about 12% of the world’s semiconductors. The coronavirus pandemic exposed the risks of relying on an international supply chain for a critical product. As the virus circled the globe, worldwide semiconductor manufacturing facilities — called fabs — came to a standstill. Suddenly, no one could get their hands on the chips that power the modern world. The shortage has held up production for cars, televisions, washing machines and even smart toasters. Politicians in Washington, D.C., realized that semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S. is a matter of national security.

“Building up the semiconductor ecosystem in this state will bring industry and jobs. This is an economic opportunity that improves our well-being.” — S A L LY C . M O R TO N , E XECUTIVE VICE P R E S I D E N T, A S U KNOWLEDGE ENTERPRISE

When President Joe Biden announced his administration’s $2 trillion infrastructure bill, he held a semiconductor chip aloft to underscore the industry’s prominent place in the bill. “This is infrastructure,” Biden said. “We’ve been falling behind on research and development and manufacturing, and, to put it bluntly, we have to step up our game.” Sally C. Morton, executive vice president of ASU’s Knowledge Enterprise, agrees. She highlights the fundamental importance of semiconductor chips in our daily lives and in national security.

Engineering grad student Zachary Leuty adjusts a Nest device.

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A computer chip’s journey Prefab

ASU researchers and others help improve semiconductor processes and materials to give U.S. companies an edge.

Design and mask ops

Engineers build digital blueprints, then make mask templates. Fabrication

“Techs use photolithography machines to shine light through masks on the wafer surface to create chips,” Intel explains.

Die and sort

Machines cut wafers into dies (chips).

Test and assembly

Techs test each chip, then assemble them to make a package.

Shipping

The semiconductor manufacturer ships chips to end-user manufacturers. COURTESY INTEL COURTESY OF OF INTEL

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“Everyone is impacted by semiconductors, but we don’t always see all the ways that microchips support the lives we lead,” Morton says. “We need to have autonomy in this space for both production and distribution.” Arizona’s chip investment Because of strong historical roots and rapid expansion, Arizona is poised to be at the epicenter of the American semiconductor revolution, with ASU playing a starring role. Last spring, two of the world’s largest chipmakers, Intel and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, announced plans to spend a combined $32 billion building three semiconductor fabs in the Phoenix region, with TSMC purchasing enough land to possibly build five more fabs, which would invest billions of dollars more. Around the same time, Samsung shortlisted Phoenix as a possible factory site. The interest in Phoenix makes sense. For decades, city officials, business leaders and ASU cultivated the infrastructure, regulatory environment and human talent the industry needs. And their timing couldn’t have been better. Worldwide semiconductor industry sales hit $439 billion in 2020, according to the SIA, with the industry projected to reach $803.15 billion by 2028. “Building up the semiconductor ecosystem in this state will bring industry and jobs,” Morton says. “This is an economic opportunity that improves our well-being.”

Local partnerships, global impact When Michael Kozicki, a professor of electrical engineering and director of the Center for Applied Nanoionics, first arrived at ASU in 1985, semiconductor manufacturing had already established a foothold in the area. Intel and Motorola anchored it, building a foundation that includes NXP, ON Semiconductor, Microchip Technology, Medtronic and others. Kozicki’s ability to straddle the divide between industry and academia has proved invaluable for preparing generations of Sun Devils for careers at the world’s largest chipmakers. Today, he leads courses covering everything from working in the planet’s cleanest laboratories to designing next-gen chips, a heady mixture of practical and experimental knowledge that students need to drive nonstop innovation in microelectronic engineering. “There are not many universities that do courses in semiconductor fabrication where you get a hands-on, industry-relevant education,” Kozicki says. “It’s all part of getting people ready to be productive professionals within the semiconductor industry. We’re a major supplier of talent.” ASU’s emphasis on industryrelevant research has forged mutually beneficial partnerships with local semiconductor firms. In 2017, for example, the university partnered with ON Semiconductor, a Phoenix-based supplier to the global industry, to establish a $2 million, five-year

award to support two ASU professors working on the leading engineering and supply chain issues faced by manufacturers. One of the award recipients is Bertan Bakkaloglu, a professor of electrical engineering. His research focuses on analog circuit design. It’s foundational for the emerging Internet of Things, connecting machines to the web to monitor and control them remotely. To turn off lightbulbs while away, a conventional copper switch isn’t going to cut it. Bakkaloglu says the ON Semiconductor professorship critically supports his students’ research efforts. Manufacturing small batches of experimental semiconductor chips can cost tens of thousands of dollars. Still, the process of taking a chip from concept to fabrication is a critical experience that prepares students for the industry’s challenges.

“There are not many universities that do courses in semiconductor fabrication where you get a hands-on, industry-relevant education. We’re a major supplier of talent.” — M I C H A EL KOZI C K I , P R O FES S O R O F ELECT R I CA L EN G I N EER I N G A N D D I R ECTO R O F T H E C EN T ER FO R A P P LI ED NANOIONICS

Fabricating a chip Worldwide semiconductor manufacturing facilities — called fabs — came to a standstill during the coronavirus pandemic, creating ripple effects now being felt throughout the economy. The shortage has held up production for devices across commercial and residential uses from industrial machinery to cars to home appliances. Each delay in the steps in the process makes delivery of final goods more difficult to predict. Adding capacity with new fabrication lines in Arizona is expected to impact the availabilty of goods in the years to come.

Semiconductor fab production time scales required to increase fab utilization Yield and volume ramp-up 24 WEEKS

Production (cycle time)

Assembly, test and package

12-20 WEEKS

6 WEEKS

Sales and distribution

COURTESY OF SEMICONDUCTOR INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION

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Through a partnership, Zachary Holman and his research group help semiconductor giant Applied Materials improve processes and materials.

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“Our students gain experience in areas that almost every semiconductor company in town requires,” Bakkaloglu says. “My PhDs don’t go to the Bay Area or Texas. They stay in Arizona. So it’s a fundamental win-win because there’s a shortage of qualified semiconductor designers, and these companies get graduates who hit the ground running.”

“The more of those kinds of interactions with prominent industry people in the semiconductor space, the better ideas faculty develop.” — K Y L E S Q U I R E S , D E A N O F A S U ’ S I R A A . F U LT O N SCHOOLS OF ENGINEERING

Last year, the university struck an agreement with Applied Materials, a California-based company that builds the precision machinery used in most of the world’s chip fabs. As part of the partnership, Applied Materials funds at least five years of research with selected faculty members, including Kozicki, and their students, and leases lab space at ASU’s MacroTechnology Works in Tempe. MTW, formerly a fabrication facility, came equipped with specialized infrastructure

to handle semiconductor research. It already housed two semiconductor research powerhouses — ASU’s Flexible Electronics and Display Center and the Solar Power Laboratory. “Faculty connecting with industry leaders not only speeds the process of translating university research discoveries and innovations to practice but can also provide a critical pathway for industry to de-risk some of their early ideas,” says Kyle Squires, dean of ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering. “Promoting interactions with industry leaders matters. It helps our faculty sharpen their research ideas, substantially benefits our students, and leads to genuine impact. Unique infrastructure in locations such as MTW has given Arizona a competitive advantage.” The Fulton Schools will further boost Phoenix’s reputation as semiconductor central with the recent launch of the School of Manufacturing Systems and Networks, which focuses on the research and education needed to drive the ideas critical to technology development for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. ASU’s newest engineering school will prepare students to meet the challenges of industry 4.0, with semiconductor-related engineering and research a core component. “Without a doubt, the school will play a role in helping industry leaders think about what the fab facility of the future looks like,” Squires says. “How can you neglect that, given what’s

Semiconductors by the numbers

contributor to labor productivity growth The U.S. semiconductor industry has made virtually all sectors of the U.S. economy, from farming to manufacturing, more efficient.

277,000 Number of people employed in the U.S. by the semiconductor industry

1.6 million Additional U.S. jobs

the semiconductor industry supports

~1 trillion Number of semiconductors sold in 2020

$440 billion Worldwide semiconductor industry sales in 2020 Source: Semiconductor Industry Association

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happening in the Valley with semiconductor manufacturing?” ASU science and engineering driving innovation Advanced research and development is the name of the game in the semiconductor industry, and those who can’t innovate don’t last long. Throughout Kozicki’s time at ASU, he’s seen the industry undergo massive changes. When he first started, “We thought we were cool for making chips on the micron-scale,” he says. These days, semiconductor companies manufacture chips hundreds of times smaller. The complex process involves stacking layers of silicon and other materials that are just a few atoms thick and etching microscopic circuit patterns into them by exposing them to chemicals and intense UV light. While these processes have enabled chips with circuits just a

“Every electronics manufacturing job accounts for another five or so jobs in vendors and suppliers. It’s a valuable asset for the state’s economy.” — D E N N I S H O F F M A N , PROFESSOR OF ECONOMIC S AND D I R E C TO R O F T H E L. WILLIAM SEIDMAN RESE ARCH INSTITUTE AT T H E W. P. C A R E Y SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

Entrepreneurship at ASU

#4 in startups

launched

#4 in patents Source: Skysong Innovations

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#1 in U.S. for innovation for six straight years

140 patents issued in 2020: ASU ahead of MIT and Stanford

dozen atoms wide, manufacturers constantly look for ways to achieve more performance. Cun-Zheng Ning is a professor of electrical engineering whose research shows just how far semiconductor fabrication techniques have come. Ning joined ASU in 2006 from NASA’s Center for Nanotechnology, and his work focuses on using semiconductors to create optical devices such as nanolasers. These tiny lasers are made by growing semiconductor wires only a few nanometers in diameter — thousands of times smaller than a human hair — but their exact mechanisms aren’t fully understood. The goal of Ning’s research group is to probe the limits of nanolaser size and performance. He hopes to lay the foundation for a “supercomputer on a chip” that would allow small electronic devices to crunch data at speeds that today would require a room-sized computer. Historically, the primary driver of performance increases in semiconductor devices has been size. For decades, the industry has been locked in a race to make ever smaller circuits. But as semiconductor companies approach the physical limits of circuit miniaturization, to improve chips, they’re looking to advanced manufacturing processes that use tools such as 3D printing or artificial intelligence. Bruno Azeredo, an assistant professor of manufacturing engineering, recently won a $500,000 award from the National Science Foundation to

continue his work on Mac-Imprint, a new way of mass manufacturing 3D chips. Today, most chips are made by stacking films, but this creates performance issues. Building circuits in three dimensions can solve this problem and open new applications. But existing 3D nanoscale fabrication processes are ill-suited for mass manufacturing. Azeredo’s technique uses electrochemistry carving to make 3D structures in silicon at unfathomably small scales. These days, he’s working with Honeywell to develop optical interconnects that allow data to flow from a chip into an optical fiber without losing information. The semiconductor lenses can focus the light pulses from the chip and cross the barrier into the optical fiber so it can be routed to another location. “The companies that are coming here are doing more advanced work,” says Azeredo. “The semiconductor industry wants to have an edge, they want to know what’s coming next, and I can get the technology from readiness level 0 to readiness level 1.” These represent some of ASU’s many faculty members engaging in semiconductor research. A few others include additional Applied Materials funding awardees Sefaattin Tongay, associate professor of materials science, for new semiconductor base material for advanced transistors; Heather Emady, assistant professor of chemical engineering, for

material flow and heat transfer in semiconductor materials and processes; and Zachary Holman, associate professor of electrical engineering, for new materials and device designs for highefficiency silicon. Benefiting Arizonans Dennis Hoffman, a professor of economics and director of the L. William Seidman Research Institute at the W. P. Carey School of Business, says semiconductor manufacturers making a home in the Grand Canyon State support Arizonans. “Every electronics manufacturing job accounts for another five or so jobs in vendors and suppliers,” Hoffman says. “It’s a valuable asset for the state’s economy.” Earlier this year, the Senate passed the United States Innovation and Competition Act, which includes $52 billion to boost semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S. Hoffman sees this, and other national and state funding, as prudent investments that will deliver benefits to Arizonans. For Morton, the growth of the semiconductor industry in Phoenix underscores the importance of collaboration between the university and industry driven by organizations such as ASU’s Knowledge Enterprise. It’s critical that the R&D Sun Devils do in the lab makes its way into the real world so that new technologies don’t get trapped in the so-called “valley of death,” the gap between academic innovation and commercial application. “We don’t want to just do

Supplying the supply chain Global supply chains matter. Disruptions lead to decreased output — and product shortages. Each year, the W. P. Carey School of Business graduates talent to keep supply chains functioning better.

3,431 Number of ASU supply chain management grads from 2011–21 Source: W. P. Carey School of Business

research, we want to disseminate research and implement it to have an impact on the world,” Morton says. “This is at the heart of the mission of ASU: research of public value and service to our communities. This is what we do. This is primary.”

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Electrical engineering Professor Sule Ozev, left, shows test circuitry developed for the EEE 522 Radio Frequency Test class to partners from NXP Semiconductors and Advantest. The class, which was developed by Ozev in collaboration with Advantest and NXP, teaches students skills needed to be a test engineer for the semiconductor industry.

“ASU, which has one of the most renowned engineering schools in the country, is right in our backyard and a natural collaborator to further develop engineering talent.” – R A G H U M A D D A L I , S E N I O R D I R E C TO R O F T E S T E N G I N E E R I N G AT N X P. 190

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Putting microelectronics to the test ASU Professor Sule Ozev collaborates with NXP Semiconductors and Advantest to offer a course in microelectronics testing purred by the CHIPS and Science Act and a thriving S microelectronics ecosystem in Arizona supported by Arizona State University, the semiconductor manufacturing renaissance in the U.S. is sparking a rapidly growing need for semiconductor test engineers. Test engineers ensure that semiconductor chips operate properly under a variety of conditions by testing them for defects and out-of-tolerance process deviations. While a chip may seem to function well for most of its uses, it takes only a missed operating condition in testing to cause a small number of users to experience significant failures in electronic systems. “During testing, all defects, including the stealthy ones, need to be detected,” says Sule Ozev, a professor of electrical engineering in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at ASU. “A test engineer’s job is to work like a detective and find the correct test patterns, similar to interrogating a suspect, so that all possible defects are activated during testing to ensure that no defective part is shipped to the customer.” To help meet the increasing demand for semiconductor test engineers, microelectronics testing equipment company Advantest and chip manufacturer NXP® Semiconductors approached ASU to address their need for training in the field. “ASU, which has one of the most renowned engineering schools in the country, is right in our backyard and a natural collaborator to further develop engineering talent,” says Raghu Maddali, a senior director of test engineering at NXP. The request resulted in EEE 522 Radio Frequency Test, a graduatelevel electrical engineering class also open to undergraduate students, developed by Ozev in collaboration with Advantest and NXP, which debuted in the Spring 2023 semester.

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ASU electrical engineering major Humberto Delgado works with electronic components that could help data centers save energy as part of a research project with the Fulton Undergraduate Research Initiative. Delgado is one of many student researchers in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at ASU helping to solve real-world problems through hands-on research.

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Student researchers advancing microelectronics, additive manufacturing and energy Exploring brain-inspired computing, creating 3D printing materials for biomedical sensors, predicting additive manufacturing success and making data centers more energy efficient are just some of the ways Arizona State University students are solving real-world problems through hands-on research. Students in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at ASU can apply their classroom knowledge in a range of research pursuits. Their work delivers innovation that matters for challenges in data science, education, energy, health, security, semiconductor manufacturing and sustainability. The Fulton Undergraduate Research Initiative, or FURI, and the Master’s Opportunity for Research in Engineering, or MORE, programs give students valuable experiences in which they spend a semester conceptualizing an idea, developing a plan and investigating their research question with a faculty mentor. Students in the Grand Challenges Scholars Program, or GCSP, have the option to conduct research as part of the program’s rigorous competency requirements that prepare them to solve complex global societal challenges. These three programs enhance students’ ability to innovate, think independently and solve problems in their communities. They also benefit from the technical and soft skills they gain, which prepare them for their careers and pursuit of advanced degrees. ENGINEERING

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Hailey Warner (left), an electrical engineering junior, works on semiconductor-related research projects in the FURI program under the mentorship of Ivan Sanchez Esqueda (middle), an This is a caption. assistant professor of electrical engineering.

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Hailey Warner

Exploring the Physics of Resistive-Switching Behavior in Emerging Two-Dimensional Hexagonal Boron Nitride (2D h-BN) Memristors Electrical engineering junior Hailey Warner is pursuing a FURI research project centered around the new semiconductor manufacturing research theme to explore the physics of memristor devices for neuromorphic or “brain-inspired” computing. Under the mentorship of Ivan Sanchez Esqueda, an assistant professor of electrical engineering, she is characterizing the switching behavior of 2D hexagonal boride nitride memristors, which could improve the efficiency and capabilities of machine learning hardware and neural networks. How will your research project impact the world? Neuromorphic computing revolutionizes how we view computer architecture by embedding memory within the processing unit, just like the human brain. The devices that make this possible? Memristors! Think of memristors like a neuron. Not only can they store information, but when arranged

together in certain ways, they can perform impressive computations with extreme haste and efficiency. Memristors are an incredibly promising technology but they need to become more reliable. Through carefully testing and modeling these devices’ behavior, we can refine the manufacturing process and embed them in increasingly complex systems.

Project is sponsored by TSMC. TSMC is a global leader in the semiconductor foundry business. The company’s industry-leading process technologies and portfolio of design enablement solutions help its customers and partners unleash semiconductor innovation. With its recent expansion into Phoenix, TSMC sees the benefit of a strong partnership with ASU faculty and student researchers. TSMC supports the FURI program by providing additional funding for exceptional research projects related to the semiconductor industry. FURI student researchers who pursue a project related to the Semiconductor Manufacturing research theme are eligible for this sponsorship. TSMC-supported FURI students receive a $2,600 stipend and $400 to use for materials. Exceptional research proposals that align with the research theme of Semiconductor Manufacturing will be considered for this additional funding.

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Electrical engineering senior Priyanka Ravindran seeks to improve machine learning through hardware to help improve device speed and This is a caption. efficiency with a semiconductor FURI research project sponsored by TSMC.

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Priyanka Ravindran

Exploring the Physics of Resistive-Switching Behavior in Emerging Two-Dimensional Hexagonal Boron Nitride (2D h-BN) Memristors Electrical engineering senior Priyanka Ravindran seeks to improve machine learning through hardware to help improve device speed and efficiency with a semiconductor FURI research project sponsored by TSMC. By exploring stacked layers of 2D materials in neuromorphic or “braininspired” computing with her faculty mentor, Ivan Sanchez Esqueda, an assistant professor of electrical engineering, she hopes to further the effort of increasing computational efficiency in modern-day technology. How will your research project impact the world? Neuromorphic computing, or bio-inspired computing, is now being popularly researched to discover a new computer architecture. The current and widely used computer architecture involves data computed from memory to the processor and from the processor back to memory. Neuromorphic computing, which is the architecture that mimics the brain’s way of processing information, involves

larger quantities of data that are being parallelly processed and placed into memory locations. There is no single processing unit or memory location in the brain. If a computer could mimic the brain’s computational ability, it would be able to perform complex computations with much-improved efficiency.

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This research focuses on the rapid 3D printing of functionalized piezoelectric materials to achieve better characterization, which can This is a caption. further help in the applications of sensors and actuators in the biomedical industry.

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Chayaank Bangalore Ravishankar

3D Printing of Functionalized Piezoelectric Materials for Sensor Applications Chayaank Bangalore Ravishankar, a manufacturing engineering graduate student, is exploring how piezoelectric materials can improve biomedical sensors and actuators. Piezoelectricity uses tiny crystals to convert physical motion into electric signals, and piezoelectric materials are sensitive enough to detect motion in objects as small as cells. By exploring the use of 3D printing to create piezoelectric materials with his MORE project faculty mentor Xiangfan Chen, an assistant professor of manufacturing engineering, Ravishankar hopes to contribute to their promising future in the biomedical industry.

What made you want to get involved in MORE and the research project you’re working on? 3D printing has always fascinated me by its vast applications in the real world. Getting involved in this program would help me in gaining more knowledge in this field. I chose this project because it was a great opportunity to help the medical industry in getting better results by its complex but fast-paced product outcomes. It would also help me in getting more information about additive manufacturing processes and their benefits.

How will your research project impact the world? Piezoelectric 3D-printed parts have the potential to play a critical role in sensors where they can pick up slight changes and report them. This is very much needed in the medical industry. They are environmentally friendly and also have many applications for biomedical structures. They are both biocompatible and biodegradable, and have a promising future in the field of sensors and actuators.

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Caption Chen is working on this project with faculty mentor Andi Wang, an assistant professor of manufacturing engineering, which will help reduce waste and make the additive manufacturing process easier for all.

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Zhengbin Chen

Data Analysis and Modeling for Additive Manufacturing Zhengbin Chen combines his interest in data analytics and his engineering skills for his FURI project to build a model that will estimate the probability of a successful build with additive manufacturing techniques. Chen is working on this project with faculty mentor Andi Wang, an assistant professor of manufacturing engineering, which will help reduce waste and make the additive manufacturing process easier for all. How will your research project impact the world? I hope this model can have an influence on making the world of 3D printing better. Everyone can use our model to predict the success rate of 3D printing. No widely used 3D printing prediction success rate model exists today, and our model can be used to address this immediate need for people who often use 3D printing machines or companies that produce 3D printers. Those who are interested in 3D printers can know the success rate of the manufacturing before printing their favorite models to avoid waste of materials, and companies that produce 3D printers can further amplify this advantage. If the model is added to the 3D printer itself and delivered to the customer together with the 3D printer, not only can the customer enjoy the benefit of this model, but the company can also use it to increase sales.

Have there been any surprises in your research? There were many surprising moments. For example, I was very excited when my supervisor and I analyzed the data and we got a stable model. After obtaining the model, we found that its accuracy is very high, which means that people can use this model to accurately predict the manufacturing success rate of their 3D printing input.

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Caption As our online presence continues to grow, miniaturizing power electronics and making them more efficient can better meet the energy needs of data centers more sustainably. 202

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Humberto Uriel Delgado

Gate Driver Optimization for a Miniaturized Data Center Power Supply Data centers are becoming a critical electronic load as our online presence continues to grow. The power supplies used to enable these data centers take up valuable space inside the server racks that comprise them and also burn electrical energy, and this is counter to the objective of maximizing the storage and processing capability of the servers. Thus, miniaturization of the power supplies along with increased efficiency is desired. This project seeks to miniaturize a 380V-12V, 1kW power converter for data centers. The successful miniaturization of this converter can provide a pathway for other power electronic converters to be improved via the developed principles, including power converters for other important applications such as vehicle electrification.

How will your research project impact the world? I hope this project can impact the world by showing how small power converters can get using Dr. Ranjram’s new transformer layout. Hopefully this will open the doors to research in optimizing power electronics, especially as we face a new era with large amounts of renewable energy.

What’s the best advice you’ve gotten from your faculty mentor? The best advice from Dr. Ranjram has been that research is an iterative task that requires you to search your engineering toolbox for solutions.

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The Automated Heat Sink Fastener team demonstrates their project at the Capstone Showcase. The team worked with industry sponsor Intel Caption on a prototype to improve a step in the semiconductor manufacturing process. Their efforts won them one of two School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy Best in Showcase awards.

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Automating semiconductor manufacturing processes Mechanical engineering seniors Daniel Adamo, Sameer Naguib, Kelly Tolman, Kayla Johnson and Adam Griffith also collaborated with an industry sponsor for their capstone project. The team worked with Intel to improve a step in their circuit board manufacturing process, developing a prototype to automate the fastening of the heatsink to the board. This crucial step is typically done manually with a torque driver. Automating the process increases the step’s accuracy during manufacturing. The heatsink is a vital component in hardware, helping cool circuit boards as they generate heat during operation. Managing their temperature achieves optimal performance.

Sponsored by Intel “When Intel approached us with this project, they had an automatic tool to help with this step, but it only used a single motor. It was facing an issue where it was not torquing all the individual screws the same amount,” Naguib says. “Our prototype has four separate drivers that allow us to determine programmatically if all the screws are torqued to the right specifications.” Adamo says his team contributed improvements beyond adding more motors. “We also included a proximity sensor, which can sense metal within five millimeters and is the most pivotal part of our design,” Adamo says. “A separate motor raises the boards up to the drivers, and the proximity sensor sees the Intel product, communicates to the motor to stop, delays a couple of seconds and then activates the main drivers to operate once it has identified the correct position.” As former Intel interns, Naguib and Adamo have experience working closely with the company and understand throughput is a top priority. “They want to make sure products are moving as fast as possible while maintaining the same level of quality,” Adamo says. “This prototype can help simplify the microelectronics manufacturing process while making it faster and more precise.”

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We’ve come a and we are ex what we see a

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a long way xcited about ahead of us.” —K Y L E S Q U I R ES , D E A N , I R A A . F U LTO N S C H O O L S O F E N G I N E E R I N G

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Associate Research Professor Govindasamy Tamizhmani (with a student at his Photovoltaic Reliability Laboratory at the Polytechnic campus) studies the feasibility of using backsheets to boost performance and reliability of solar modules.

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Engineering is the backbone of technology, the built environment and human progress We are an engineering school focused on student success and serving the needs of society. We are global leaders in engineering education, measured not by whom we exclude but by whom we include and how our community succeeds. We advance scientific discovery and innovation. We accelerate real-world solutions from conception to impact, advancing the economic, social and cultural health of our region and planet. Ranked as the most innovative university in the country by U.S. News & World Report eight years in a row, ASU and the Fulton Schools of Engineering are working to build a robust pipeline of professionals through advances in education platforms.

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Assistant Research Professor Zhengshan “Jason” Yu’s research focuses on siliconbased tandem solar cells to exceed the theoretical efficiency limit of single-junction silicon solar cells.

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ASU engineers break solar efficiency record ASU researchers continue to break solar cell efficiency records in an effort to harness the sun’s energy more economically as a renewable source for electricity. In 2017, Associate Professor Zachary Holman and Assistant Research Professor Zhengshan “Jason” Yu in ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering set a world record of 23.6 percent efficiency for a tandem solar cell stacked with perovskite and silicon. The number was a few percentage points shy of the theoretical efficiency limit for silicon solar cells alone. Now, the team has improved upon the record by nearly two percentage points, to 25.4 percent, in a joint project with researchers at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, predicting they’ll be nearing 30 percent tandem efficiency within two years.

Solar cell detail.

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“This material is remarkable and has such high potential. ” – Y U J I Z H A O , S P E A K I N G A B O U T G A L L I U M N I T R I D E , W H I C H COULD BE USED IN LEDS, L ASERS AND HIGH-POWER A N D H I G H - FR EQ U EN CY D E VI C ES

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Solar research

Improving next-gen materials for solar cells Gallium nitride might just be the key to creating highperformance solar cells capable of operating under extremely high temperatures. Electrical engineering Assistant Professor Yuji Zhao is exploring and employing the properties of gallium that make it an excellent candidate for use in LEDs, lasers and highpower and high-frequency devices.

Prof. Yuji Zhao received the a degree in Microelectronics from Fudan University, China in 2008, and his Ph.D degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) in 2012, after Nobel Laureate Professor Shuji Nakamura.

Zhao notes that some have called gallium nitride the next silicon — the ubiquitous material that serves as an integral component of many of our electronics, from computer chips and solar cells to transistors and integrated circuits. Gallium nitride could prove to be superior to silicon, and Zhao’s work is paving the way toward faster, more efficient and higher-powered devices of all kinds.

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Mariana Bertoni, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at ASU, is an early-career leader in energy research.

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Solar and wind

At the frontier of grids, renewables and charging Highlighting data analytics and machine learning in the design of next-generation solar materials. Mariana Bertoni, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at ASU, is an earlycareer leader in energy research. Her work and insights on different aspects of the energy sphere — including the future of the power grid, wind and solar energy, and wireless charging — landed her in a select group of 100 young researchers in the Frontiers of Engineering, a National Academy of Engineering program. Her contribution is focused on “the progress of solar energy in the last decade, and where photovoltaics is going in terms of widespread implementation and integration,” Bertoni says. She highlights the use of data analytics and machine learning in the design of nextgeneration solar materials.

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Workforce development

“The microgrid boot camp is an intensive oneweek period that provides student veterans with experiences in designing, modeling, integrating, operating and maintaining microgrids.” — N AT H A N J O H N S O N , A S U A S S I S TA N T P R O F E S S O R OF ENGINEERING AND M A N U FA C T U R I N G E N G I N E E R I N G , P O LY T E C H N I C SC H O O L; D I R ECTO R , L A B O R AT O R Y F O R E N E R G Y AND POWER SOLUTIONS

A group of 20 students spent spring break learning about microgrids — small groups of electricity sources that provide power and operate independently from the existing grid.

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The large impact of microgrids

ASU engineer makes strides in technologies that promise to make electrical power more accessible almost anywhere on the planet Nathan Johnson’s research is playing a significant role in the quest to overcome energy poverty throughout the world. As many as 1.3 billion people lack access to electrical power, said Johnson, who directs the Laboratory for Energy And Power Solutions, called LEAPS, at ASU. The primary focus of his lab’s research and industry collaborations is advancing technologies for electrical-grid modernization and off-grid electrification. One of his solutions is microgrids, which provide independent power generation and storage systems capable of operating as mobile or standalone systems or as a supplemental part

of larger conventional power grids. “Advances in microgrid technology can bring stable power resources to even the most remote and poor communities,” said Johnson, an assistant professor in ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering’s Polytechnic School and senior sustainability scientist with ASU’s Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability. Better microgrid technology would also vastly improve energysupply scenarios for military and disaster-relief operations, hospitals and data centers, as well as for industries such as mining or oil exploration and drilling that often need mobile, off-grid power generation. Large public infrastructure operations, critical emergency services and aviation operations would also benefit.

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“ Manufacturing systems developed by this project can potentially eliminate barriers in the electronics, photonics and defense industries, all of which are strongly present in Arizona.” — B R U N O A Z E R E D O , A S U A S S I S TA N T P R O F E S S O R O F M A N U FA C T U R I N G ENGINEERING

Assistant Professor Bruno Azeredo’s nanomanufacturing research focuses on the fabrication of silicon because of its potential use in 3-D microscale optical elements, such as the optical gratings used in microscopes and spectrophotometers.

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Economic growth

Eliminating barriers in nanomanufacturing Across Arizona and the United States, advanced manufacturing propels economic growth. Arizona houses more than 150,000 manufacturing jobs and exports more than $20 billion in manufactured goods from defense, aerospace, electronics and optics companies, according to the Arizona Commerce Authority. “Arizona is a key player in the manufacturing scene,” says Bruno Azeredo, ASU assistant professor of manufacturing engineering. With support from a $200,000 Science Foundation Arizona Bisgrove Scholar Award, Azeredo is leading a research project that aims to eliminate technical barriers that impose limitations on the productivity of manufacturing industries across the state. In particular, he is addressing a major limitation in nanomanufacturing: the inability to pattern — or etch — 3-D features directly into silicon at the nanoscale level. Azeredo is interested in the fabrication of silicon because of its potential use in 3-D microscale optical elements, such as lenses with unprecedented anti-reflective properties and diffraction gratings — for use in spectroscopic, telecommunications and laser applications. But the cost of fabrication is a big inhibitor to the large-scale production and usage of these devices. “Silicon 3-D patterning is currently very expensive and inaccessible for several commercial applications. If turned inexpensive, we could manufacture a novel set of optics materials with improved performance to be used in biosensing, silicon photonics and defense imagining systems,” says Azeredo.

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“ We are rethinking how a robot’s ‘mind’ should work in order to make it more amenable to providing on-thejob training and collaborating with humans.” — S I D D H A R T H S R I VA S TAVA , A S S I S TA N T P R O F E S S O R , SCHOOL OF COMPUTING, I N F O R M AT I C S , A N D D EC I S IO N SYSTEM S ENGINEERING

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ASU News, November 8, 2019

Changing the mind of a robot Research and big thinking on how AI will impact the future of work in Arizona and beyond What happens when technology advancements threaten to automate people’s jobs? The question is on the minds of many as research and development in artificial intelligence and machine learning rapidly grows. A new project led by Siddharth Srivastava, an assistant professor in the School of Computing, Informatics, and Decision Systems Engineering at Arizona State University, aims to help alleviate this concern. Srivastava and his multidisciplinary team are creating autonomous systems that are not only more adaptable and efficient in manufacturing environments, but also have built-in intelligent tutoring systems that will cooperate with factory workers and retrain them to use AI technology so they are not displaced from their jobs. Funded by a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation as one of its Convergence Accelerator awards, the project is highly focused on using AI to augment the workplace rather than replace workers. “Suppose you have this new robot, it’s very efficient,

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When Raytheon had a problem with a $350,000 robotic arm, the industrial corporation joined ASU’s eProjects program, bringing students and industry together to solve real-world problems. The arm was shipped from Tucson to the innovation lab on ASU’s Polytechnic campus in Mesa where ASU students repaired and tested it. Then they returned the robot ready to work.

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but you need to hire five computer science graduates to operate and maintain it instead of five current factory workers,” Srivastava says. “That’s not feasible, first of all because we don’t have that many computer science graduates in society. Our idea is that instead of getting people to enroll in a new college program again, what we can do instead is design our AI systems, our robots, in a way that will help people to come on board.” Srivastava is collaborating with ASU faculty members in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering and the School for the Future of Innovation in Society to bring the project to life. “We have 10 team members, including experts in robot control, tutoring systems and human systems engineering — a field that involves thinking about how the robot and the human would interact and how you would build a situation where the human trusts the robot,” Srivastava says. “We also have experts in law to help solve the sociotechnical aspects of the problem.” How artificial intelligence can preserve jobs Traditionally, AI has mostly been developed with a mind to automate human-performed tasks — that is, to perform tasks in place of a human. For example, machines play chess better than humans do and are also faster at distinguishing patterns and performing calculations. One example of AI working to augment human-performed tasks rather than replace them can be found in intelligent tutoring systems. The ASU team is focusing on this interaction, particularly in

“ Training is where we need to invest more money in order to have a successful integration of workers and autonomous systems so we can minimize safety risks.” — K AT I N A M I C H A E L , PROFESSOR, SCHOOL FOR T H E F U T U R E O F I N N O VAT I O N IN SOCIETY AND THE SCHOOL OF COMPUTING, I N F O R M AT I C S , A N D DECISION SYSTEM S ENGINEERING

implementing the intelligent training systems for factory workers. This eliminates the concern about driving up the demand for highly educated workers to unsustainable levels and also empowers human workers to incorporate AI into their work. “We are now considering scenarios in which the AI system teaches humans on the job,” Subbarao Kambhampati, a professor of computer science, says. “If you are using one machine, and there is a big technological advancement, then the question is what is the best way to get people to come up to speed in using these new machines?” This retraining process is essential to helping factory workers in the evolving manufacturing industry keep their jobs. It’s a necessary transition into a future when machines can augment human activities without replacing the people who have traditionally performed them. In that scenario, workers would be able to assign robots a wider ENGINEERING

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“Ultimately, it’s getting that multidisciplinary conversation going between people who actually build the machines and people who think very critically about job design and human workers.” — E R I N C H I O U , P I C T U R E D B E L O W , A S S I S TA N T P R O F E S S O R O F H U M A N S Y S T E M S E N G I N E E R I N G , P O LY T E C H N I C S C H O O L

variety of tasks while the robots teach workers how to use the robots and why robots are making the decisions they do. “[Robots] are more adaptable in that their behavior adapts to the changes in their environment, they adapt to the tasks that you give them and at the same time they can answer your questions,” Srivastava says. “A worker who doesn’t know the internals of the robot can ask it, ‘Why did you go along this path when I think you should have just gone straight?’ And the robot can answer, ‘If I go this way then my hand might collide with that table.’ So, in that process, the worker learns about the robot’s constraints and how to operate it.” Moving toward a more robotic future Could machines ever replace humans? Is it cheaper to have an all-robotic workforce? The answer is complicated, says Katina Michael, a professor jointly appointed in the School for the Future of Innovation in Society and the School of Computing, Informatics, and Decision Systems Engineering, one of the six Fulton Schools.

“At face value, initially it seems that robots would do better than the operational expenditure of the human labor force,” she says, “but when you look at this quite clinically, you’re almost shifting costs from the human labor force to the robotic labor force. It’s quite debatable as to whether costs will be reduced.” While robots can operate 24/7, people need breaks, time off, insurance coverage and compensation. However, robots must be updated and maintained, and they also need power to operate — human workers are still extremely necessary in the workplace. Although the research project is focused on AI development, it is ultimately centered around training human workers and ensuring job security. The team wants to enhance communication between both humans and robots to obtain the best of both worlds in the manufacturing industry. “Many corporations are trying to save money somewhere, but training is where we need to invest more money in order to have a successful integration of workers and autonomous systems so we can minimize safety risks. If we don’t have adequate training, we

don’t have adequate responses to reducing the incidence of on-the-job disasters,” Michael says. An interdisciplinary interaction “We’re interested primarily in how humans and robots work together,” Michael says. “With the humans doing their bit and the robots doing their bit, we want to see if there is any incongruousness or congruousness that can be observed.” Erin Chiou, an assistant professor of human systems engineering at The Polytechnic School, one of the six Fulton Schools, is studying the interactions of humans and machines for data to guide the design of systems that prioritize the collaboration of humans and robots. “Ultimately, it’s getting that multidisciplinary conversation going between people who actually build the machines and people who think very critically about job design and human workers,” Chiou says. The ASU team also has experts looking at the legal, social and economic implications of implementing such technology in the workplace, all of which will be considered when designing the new systems. “It’s not about changing the hardware, it’s about how to change the software,” Srivastava says. “We’re thinking about how it should act and what it should do. We are rethinking how a robot’s ‘mind’ should work in order to make it more amenable to providing on-the-job training and collaborating with humans.” ENGINEERING

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ASU Thrive magazine, Fall 2017

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ASU team among top-10 finalists in international SpaceX competition for hyperloop, a form of high-speed rail transit The future is coming at us fast — 750 mph, to be exact. An ASU-led team of students spent months constructing a pod for SpaceX’s competition for hyperloop, a form of high-speed rail transit. The breakthrough would make the trip from Phoenix to San Diego possible in about 30 minutes. After a final development push that included predawn testing at the Polytechnic campus, the AZLoop team placed in the top eight at the contest in California — and are supercharged with ideas for next year’s competition.

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Mechanical engineering junior Himanshu Dave lines up a couple of layers for the front of the pod in the AZLoop studio on Polytechnic campus, Wednesday, July 5, 2017. The team is nearly finished cutting the wooden layers for the pod model. Soon, they’ll start sanding, adding Bondo filler and other treatments before wrapping it in the carbon fiber that will be attached to the vehicle the AZLoop team will take to the August SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition in California next month (Aug. 2017).

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Desert WAVE member Jessica Dirks works on the vehicle during competition in top photo. In group photo, from back row left: team members Samantha Ehrle, Rebekkah Wagen, Whitney Foster, Bridget Koehl and Maria Espinoza. Front row: Samantha Nieto, Paulina Garibay Jaquez, sponsor Shebbie Jacques, Diana Lee Guzman and Andrea Schoonover.

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ASU Thrive magazine, Spring 2020

First in the U.S., third in the world Desert WAVE all-women robotics team builds robots — and community In its second year, the all-women robotics team Desert WAVE, which placed third in the world and first in the country in the 2019 RoboSub competition, is off to an active start. They are building a second robot to communicate with Phoenix, their original underwater vehicle. The team is also working with the Chandler-based all-female high school team Degrees of Freedom. In December, both teams helped make the holidays more accessible for local children who face challenges operating interactive toys.

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The team of students developed an algorithm to manage traffic at an intersection through which autonomous vehicles using a time-sensitive programming paradigm are passing.

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ASU News, July 16, 2021

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Connected autonomous vehicles make intersections safer Autonomous vehicles are becoming increasingly common across the United States and with them come safety concerns and mixed public perceptions about the self-driving automobiles. One of the major worries focuses on the places where the majority of traffic accidents occur — roadway intersections. According to the Federal Highway Administration, more than 50% of the combined total of automobile crashes that result in fatalities and injuries occur at or near intersections. A study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety determined that self-driving cars could eliminate around 40% of crashes, but the goal is to devise an even safer solution. A project by researchers in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University and Carnegie Mellon University is working to improve intersection safety among connected autonomous vehicles, or CAVs, and distributed real-time systems. Distributed real-time systems are a collection of autonomous computers

connected through a communication network that sends messages back and forth in real time. A common example of this type of system is the one that enables online seat selection for a movie theater. “Normally autonomous vehicles are ‘isolated’ in the sense that they do not exchange information with other autonomous vehicles,” said Aviral Shrivastava, an associate professor of computer science and engineering in the School of Computing, Informatics, and Decision Systems Engineering, one of the six schools in the Fulton Schools. “They just sense their surroundings all by themselves and make their driving decisions independently. All existing autonomous vehicles are isolated AVs.” Shrivastava explains that CAVs can exchange information with each other, allowing them to know much more about their surroundings and to travel with greater confidence. As a result of communication between vehicles, CAVs can potentially drive faster and be safer than current AVs.

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Mehdi Nikkhah, an associate professor of biomedical engineering in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at ASU, was recognized as a rising star in his field by being named a senior member of the National Academy of Inventors, thanks to his disease-fighting tissueon-a-chip technology. 238

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ASU News, March 10, 2023

‘Tissue-on-a-chip’ tech nets honor for ASU researcher Mehdi Nikkhah’s disease-fighting technology leads to National Academy of Inventors Senior Membership Mehdi Nikkhah, an associate professor of biomedical engineering in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University, is one of 95 inventors to be named a 2023 senior member of the National Academy of Inventors, or NAI, in February. These senior members represent the people the NAI annually recognizes as rising stars among the faculty, scientists and administrators in its member institutions. They are successful in the areas of patents, licensing and commercialization, and they have produced technologies that could benefit or have benefitted the welfare of society. The 2023 class of NAI Senior Members represents 50 research universities, governmental entities and nonprofit institutions worldwide. The senior members are named inventors on more than 1,200 issued U.S. patents. Nikkhah’s nomination for the honor came from Michael Kozicki, an electrical engineering professor in the Fulton Schools and fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. Nikkhah says Kozicki’s work is an inspiration and that he appreciates his support. Nikkhah, who is also a faculty member in the Biodesign Virginia G. Piper Center for Personalized Diagnostics, holds five issued U.S. patents and has five invention disclosures under review. His research

interests focus on the integration of micro- and nanoscale technologies, innovative biomaterials and biology to better understand the mechanisms of disease progression in humans. He also develops regenerative medicine strategies to treat organ and tissue failure. Heather Clark, director of the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools, says, “Professor Nikkhah’s entrepreneurial work has elevated tissue-on-a-chip technology from a lab-based device to a screening tool that has uncovered new knowledge about cancer and other diseases. This honor demonstrates both the pioneering nature of his work as well as the potential for making a significant impact on medicine.” Curiosity and creativity lead Nikkhah to think outside the box in his work. “My passion is to establish an entrepreneurship vision to create innovative technology platforms to solve complex biomedical engineering problems,” says Nikkhah, who is also an associated faculty member in the ASU Biodesign Virginia G. Piper Center for Personalized Diagnostics. His contributions have resulted in a better understanding of the biological mechanisms of complicated diseases such as cancer and cardiovascular abnormalities. His work is centered on tissue-on-a-chip technology involving engineered microsystems that represent human tissue and organs in both structure and function. ENGINEERING

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Photograph of microfluidic tumor-on-chip next to a US penny. Tumor cells embedded with extracellular matrix forms the central tumor region (blue). The stromal region (red) surrounding the tumor region is injected with other cells of the tumor microenvironment. Courtesy of Kalpana Ravi and Mehdi Nikkhah.

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ASU News, July 9, 2019

ASU researchers chip away the mysteries of cancer metastasis One of the current paradigms in cancer treatment is not to treat a tumor itself. Rather, therapeutics can focus on a tumor’s microenvironment — the area where tumor cells and a patient’s healthy tissues collide. Mehdi Nikkhah, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University, has been working for the past five years on bioengineering a way to study the tumor microenvironment. In a project led by recent ASU biomedical engineering doctoral graduate Danh Truong, a multidisciplinary team made a discovery of a new role that fibroblast cells play in the spread of breast cancer tumors using microfluidic tumor models. The results were recently published in a highly influential research journal, Cancer Research, after rigorous peer review. Truong, who is now conducting postdoctoral research at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, says he is proud to have published in the American Association for Cancer Research’s reputable journal. “Many of the researchers that I admire have all published in this journal,” Truong said. “It is definitely a proud moment when I realize our research stands alongside theirs.”

specially designed channels to deposit live cells — to replicate disease states or organs in an easily controlled environment. Depending on the biological feature being studied, these microfluidic chips are often called “organ on a chip” or “disease on a chip.” For this project, Nikkhah and the research team created breast cancer on a chip. “We can replicate a patient’s specific tumor on this chip and manipulate and control the environment precisely,” said Nikkhah, a faculty member in the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering, one of the six Fulton Schools. Such chips can one day replace animal models, such as mice, which scientists have historically used as hosts to study cancerous tumors. However, animal biology is different than human biology, and many complicating factors arise when trying to study cancer cells in these environments. These on-chip models also replace 2D methods of culturing tumor cells on plate assays, which do not accurately replicate a human’s surrounding tissues. By using the 3D design of a chip that in part replicates a human’s tumor microenvironment, Nikkhah and the research team are able to examine exactly what fibroblast cells — which make up the connective tissue that assists in wound healing — do to promote tumor progression. “(This model) can mimic, to an extent, the same interaction that happens in the human body, where cancer-associated fibroblasts have been shown to enhance cancer invasion,” Truong said.

Isolating the tumor microenvironment on a chip Nikkhah, Truong’s primary doctoral studies adviser, uses microengineered microfluidic chips — rectangular pieces of plastic about the size of a long fingernail with ENGINEERING

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Qualitative representation of A2 acute injury-specific TBI biomarker HCDR3 (green) and cell nuclei (blue) in 1-dpi tissue. Region of interest (ROI) represented in white box. Scale bars, 200 μm. 242

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ASU News, July 26, 2022

ASU scientists find molecular clues behind traumatic brain injury New research led by scientists at ASU has revealed some of the first detailed molecular clues associated with one of the leading causes of death and disability, a condition known as traumatic brain injury (TBI). TBI is a growing public health concern, affecting more than 1.7 million Americans at an estimated annual cost of $76.5 billion dollars. It is a leading cause of death and disability for children and young adults in industrialized countries, and people who experience TBI are more likely to develop severe, long-term cognitive and behavioral deficits. “Unfortunately, the molecular and cellular mechanisms of TBI injury progression are multifaceted and have yet to be fully elucidated,” said Sarah Stabenfeldt, an ASU associate professor and the leader and corresponding author of the study, which appears in the journal Science Advances. “Consequently, this complexity affects the development of diagnostic and treatment options for TBI; the goal of our research was to address these current limitations.” Their research approach was to perform a “biopanning” search to reveal several key molecular signatures, called biomarkers, identified directly, immediately after the injury event (the acute phase), and also the long-term consequences (the chronic phase) of TBI. “For TBI, the pathology evolves and changes over time, meaning that a single protein or receptor may be upregulated at one phase of the injury, but not two weeks later,” Stabenfeldt said. “This dynamic

“Our study leverages the sensitivity and specificity of phage to discover novel targeting motifs. The combination of phage and NGS (next-generation sequencing) has been used previously, thereby leveraging bioinformatic analysis. The unique contribution of our study is putting all of these tools together specifically for an in vivo model of TBI.” — S A R A H S TA B E N F E L D T, A N A S U A S S O C I AT E P R O F E S S O R A N D T H E L E A D ER A N D C O R R ES P O N D I N G AU T H O R O F T H E ST U DY

environment makes developing a successful targeting strategy complicated.” To overcome these limitations, the ASU scientists utilized a mouse model for their study to uncover the root causes of TBI by identifying biomarkers — unique molecular fingerprints found with a given injury or disease. “The neurotrauma research community is a wellestablished field that has developed and characterized preclinical animal models to better understand TBI pathology and assess the efficacy of therapeutic interventions,” Stabenfeldt said. “Using the established mouse model enabled us to conduct biomarker discovery where the complexity and evolution of the injury pathology was progressing.”

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Thurmon Lockhart has been named the first Musculoskeletal Orthopedic Research and Education, or MORE, Foundation Professor of Life in Motion. Lockhart’s innovative biomechanics research and device development at the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering will accelerate through collaboration with the MORE Foundation and work with patients at The Core Institute.

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ASU News, July 12, 2021

New collaboration advances the science of fall prevention Lockhart named Musculoskeletal Orthopedic Research and Education Foundation Professor of Life in Motion Walking is just one foot in front of the other for almost everyone. But even that simple process can prove precarious for people suffering from conditions ranging from joint damage to dementia. “Most people don’t really think about walking,” said Thurmon Lockhart, a professor of biomechanics in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University. “They don’t consider the fact that each step is actually the beginning of a fall, and that they catch themselves from falling only by taking another step. “This is particularly the case for older adults, who represent an expanding share of our population. And as their numbers increase, so does the societal incidence of falls and injuries from falling,” said Lockhart, a faculty member in the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering, one of the six Fulton Schools. “This growing issue inspired me to develop technology that can predict falls and help prevent them from happening.” Confirming the value of Lockhart’s innovative work, the Musculoskeletal Orthopedic Research and Education, or MORE, Foundation has designated Lockhart as the first MORE Foundation Professor of Life in Motion. The professorship includes five years of financial support, as well as testing access to patients at The Core Institute, one of the nation’s largest orthopedic and neurological clinical care providers.

“Applying Professor Lockhart’s technology to our patient population can save a lot of pain, suffering and cost by reducing falls,” said Marc Jacofsky, the chief scientific officer for The Core Institute and executive director of the affiliated nonprofit MORE Foundation. “As orthopedic surgeons, we treat the fractured shoulders, hips and spines that people experience when they fall. So, in a way, we want to apply this technology to keep people out of our clinics in the first place.” Lockhart’s focus on falling began more than 20 years ago as a graduate student of industrial and systems engineering, and specifically the area of human factors and ergonomics, at Texas Tech University. His biomechanics research continued as a professor at Virginia Tech, and the impact of his work accelerated after he joined ASU in 2014. That was when the Fulton Schools facilitated Lockhart’s entrepreneurial training through the National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps program. Equipped with new insights on how to move his discoveries from the lab to the marketplace, Lockhart shifted his focus from a wristwatch design to a smartphone application now called the Lockhart Monitor. The system works with a phone’s internal accelerometer and gyroscope to gather parameters like walking speed and step length. It also applies a branch of physics called nonlinear dynamics in relation to muscle motor control. “That lattermost element is where we excel,” Lockhart said. “Nonlinear dynamics and chaos theory permit our system to predict how a person will react to a perturbation, which is an unexpected event that creates instability. This prediction enables an accurate assessment of their fall risk.” ENGINEERING

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Researchers are pairing ANDI with MaRTy, ASU’s biometeorological heat robot, to work together and better understand human sweating mechanisms, like changing skin temperature and changing core temperature, and identify how specific environments may enhance heat risk.

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ASU News, May 25, 2023

Meet the world’s first outdoor sweating, breathing and walking manikin ASU researchers to use ANDI and heat chamber to better understand human body’s response to extreme heat) Behind a 4-inch-thick metal door with a small glass window in the far northeast corner of Arizona State University’s Tempe Campus lives ANDI, the world’s first indoor-outdoor breathing, sweating and walking thermal manikin. ANDI is funded by an NSF Major Research Instrumentation Grant and is custom-built for ASU by the company Thermetrics. He can mimic the thermal functions of the human body and has 35 different surface areas that are all individually controlled with temperature sensors, heat flux sensors and pores that bead sweat. “ANDI sweats; he generates heat, shivers, walks and breathes,” said Konrad Rykaczewski, associate professor in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy and principal investigator for a new ASU research project aimed to measure the effects of extreme heat on human health. “There’s a lot of great work out there for extreme heat, but there’s also a lot missing. We’re trying to develop a very good understanding (of how heat impacts the human body) so we can quantitatively design things to address it.” Around the globe, 10 ANDI manikins currently exist,

mostly owned and used by athletic clothing companies for garment testing, but ASU’s ANDI is only one of two used by research institutions and it’s the first thermal manikin in existence that can be used outdoors, enabled by a unique internal cooling channel. In the coming decades, every region in the U.S. is expected to experience higher temperatures and more intense heat waves. Thousands of people around the country die from heat-related illnesses each year, and in Maricopa County alone in 2022 there were 425 heatrelated fatalities, a 25% increase from the previous year. ASU researchers aim to better understand heat stress on the human body and what makes hot weather so deadly. Using both ANDI and a heat chamber in which ANDI lives, Rykaczewski, Jenni Vanos, associate professor in the School of Sustainability, and Ariane Middel, assistant professor in the School of Arts, Media and Engineering, are working together to better understand how our human bodies are impacted by heat stress and quantify the risk different environments pose to health. “You can’t put humans in dangerous extreme heat situations and test what would happen,” said Vanos, whose research connects extreme heat to human health, specifically for active populations, like children, outdoor workers and athletes. “But there are situations we know of in the Valley where people are dying of heat and we still don’t fully understand what happened. ANDI can help us figure that out.”

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MedTech teamwork ASU and Mayo Clinic join forces to create startup accelerator

hen Steven Lester suggested Mayo Clinic create a program in Arizona to help startup companies take their businesses to the next level, he quickly determined ASU would be the ideal partner. Now the two innovative institutions are harnessing their resources and venture expertise with the Mayo Clinic-ASU MedTech Accelerator. The program, launching this year, is designed for medical device and digital healthcare companies with applications that 24 8

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could serve businesses nationwide. “Beyond our great weather and low cost of living, we have access to top-tier research faculty, worldclass physicians and a pipeline of talent coming out of our academic programs,” says Rick Hall, director of health innovation at ASU’s College of Nursing and Health Innovation and the accelerator’s co-managing partner. “The Mayo-ASU alliance uniquely positions Arizona as an attractive location for companies to accelerate growth.”

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ASU Thrive magazine, Spring 2019

“The Mayo-ASU relationship uniquely positions Arizona as an attractive location for companies to accelerate growth.” — R I C K H A L L , D I R E C TO R O F H E A LT H I N N OVAT I O N AT A S U ’ S C O L L E G E O F N U R S I N G A N D H E A LT H I N N OVAT I O N

The operating team jointly responsible for developing and delivering the program comes from Mayo Clinic Ventures, led by co-managing partner Timmeko Love. MCV is a top-tier commercialization office and ranks in the top five of U.S. technology transfer offices in revenue and licensed technologies. MCV has a long-standing history of successfully collaborating with established and emerging health care companies, and has provided strategic funding to support these

collaborations. Dr. Lester, chief medical officer and physician leader of the accelerator, explains the goal is helping startups bridge the development gap. “We can help the participants to enhance the clinical and commercial interest and viability of their health care solution,” he says. “We want to truly translate idealism into action and help to invent the health care of tomorrow.” Participants can expect to personalize business development plans in collaboration with Mayo Clinic and ASU, as well as accelerate go-to-market and investment opportunities. Hall says this concept provides businesses rare access to the university’s well-established startup network. ASU has established a reputation as a patent powerhouse. University researchers submitted a record 285 inventions to Skysong Innovations in 2018, and the university ranks 17th worldwide for U.S. patents awarded, according to the U.S. National Academy of Inventors and the Intellectual Property Owners Association. “The number of patents and amount of funding going to startups

through the vehicles of ASU’s Entrepreneurship + Innovation and Skysong Innovations are significant,” Hall says. “This accelerator will allow outside health technology companies to benefit from the ASU support network, while also leveraging the extraordinary business development and research opportunities of Mayo Clinic.” Learn more about the accelerator at medtechaccel.com. — Amanda Goodman

Participants start with an accelerator immersion at Mayo Clinic’s Scottsdale campus and will be offered incentives to stay and work in Arizona. ENGINEERING

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ASU Thrive magazine, Spring 2021

A unique new startup accelerator with Mayo Clinic and ASU is supporting breakthrough innovation in the health care industry Story by MAKEDA EASTER

Connections between medicine and tech are being reimagined and redesigned to help both patients and medical professionals.

The pain of a lingering sore throat is in many cases, not just physical. On top of feeling unwell, people often have to enter the health care system to get relief. This often looks like: making a request to take time off work, finding an open appointment, sitting in traffic, filling out paperwork, enduring a throat swab, and finally, paying the bill. Treating common illnesses — strep throat, urinary tract infections, influenza, and now, COVID-19 — could be more accessible and affordable, giving power to the consumer and reducing wasted spending in health care, argues Ken Mayer, founder of health technology company, Safe Health Systems. Based in Los Angeles, Safe Health Systems is working to disrupt the traditional approach for treating low-complexity illnesses by offering remote diagnostic and digital care services. In 2020, the company formed a venture offering digital provider services, AI-based care and remote and rapid diagnostic testing, with Mayo Clinic through the Mayo Clinic and ASU MedTech Accelerator. ENGINEERING

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In the case of someone suffering from strep throat, the Safe platform would allow that person to find care, take a rapid diagnostic test, and receive trusted results, from home. When Safe Health Systems launched in 2016, its scope was narrowly defined, focused exclusively on the rising sexually transmitted disease epidemic. The company created an app, Safely, that allows users to import STD test results and show their verified status privately on their phones. Looking to scale the technology, Safe Health Systems turned to the Mayo Clinic and ASU MedTech

Accelerator, an immersive two-week program followed by six to 12 months of continued mentoring, that began in 2019. The program helps early stage medical device and health care technology companies level up through personalized feedback from clinicians and business leaders. Six companies, including Safe Health Systems, were part of the inaugural cohort. As a participant in the Mayo Clinic and ASU MedTech Accelerator, Mayer was able to spend invaluable time with subject matter experts, including Dr. Steven Lester, the program’s founder and medical director, and a Mayo Clinic cardiologist. Inspiration for the accelerator came to Lester and colleagues at ASU about four years ago, after Lester took on a new role in Mayo Clinic’s department of business development. One of the first people Lester connected with was Charlie Lewis, the accelerator’s co-founder and vice president of venture development and physical sciences at SkySong Innovations, an ASU spin-off that helps bring university inventions to the marketplace. The two began discussing ways to make health care technology companies visible to the venture

Safe Health Systems’ digital care and remote diagnostic technology is currently deployed at several universities amid the pandemic, including ASU as the Daily Health Check app.

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capital community, “to potentially fund some of these things, as well as getting in front of potential entrepreneurs that might be able to take these ideas and run with them in the form of launching a new startup,” Lewis says. Lester and Lewis brought in other experts from ASU to help build this unique accelerator that combines access to Mayo Clinic’s world-class physicians and ASU’s entrepreneurial resources. The program includes individuals such as Ji Mi Choi, vice president, Knowledge Enterprise and founding executive director, the J. Orin Edson Entrepreneurship + Innovation Institute; Michael Harris, senior director of corporate development at Mayo Clinic and accelerator co-managing partner; Rick Hall, senior director of health innovation at ASU’s Edson College of Nursing and Health Innovation and accelerator co-managing partner; and Amy Woof, who serves as clinical operations program manager of Mayo Clinic and Arizona State University Alliance for Health Care. The unique program will “help these companies to advance in the marketplace,” says Lewis, who is the program’s chief venture development officer. The program is designed to help innovators navigate notoriously complex governmental medical regulations, while gaining support from established and sometimes reluctant-to-change health institutions.

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Touch points with Mayo Clinic and ASU experts Another startup from the inaugural cohort, Securisyn Medical, used the experience to improve its interlocking breathing tube securement technology. Securisyn co-founder Dr. Arthur Kanowitz, who spent many years as a medical director for ambulance and fire departments, is dedicated to solving a serious and preventable problem in medicine — tragedies related to unplanned extubations. Smooth, plastic breathing tubes are typically secured by an adhesive tape that sticks to the patient’s face or a device that grips to the tube. But after encountering heat and moisture in the human body, the tubes can become slippery and unexpectedly slide out of an airway, potentially causing pneumonia, brain damage and even death. In 2019, approximately 121,000 people experienced unplanned extubations, resulting in 33,000 deaths in the U.S. alone. These are also complications “that lead to over $4 billion a year in unnecessary health care costs to the system,” co-founder,

With the expertise of Mayo Clinic, along with venture capital investment, Securisyn is developing a family of standalone breathing securement devices, including an ICU device for hospitals.

CFO and COO, Elyse Blazevich, says. Securisyn was still pre-revenue and pre-FDA clearance when it entered the accelerator with its original design — a series of ribs on the smooth, slippery surface of the breathing tube, allowing it to interlock with the securement device, creating a strong barrier against movement. While participating in the accelerator, Blazevich estimates the company had more than 100 touch points with emergency room and critical care physicians, respiratory therapists, and health

care administrators, in addition to experts in supply chain issues and innovation, among others. These are connections that continue today, even as the product has evolved into a bolt-on accessory, where securement can be added to any endotracheal tube, regardless of where it’s placed or which manufacturer made it. Participating in the program helped Securisyn evolve from a single invention, a device to better secure breathing tubes, to an expanded portfolio of products in various areas

Mayo Clinic and ASU Alliance for Health Care The Mayo Clinic and ASU Alliance for Health Care is the university’s most transformative collaboration. Formalized by a signed memorandum of understanding in 2016, the Alliance continues to develop comprehensive improvements in the science of health care delivery and practice, all toward one goal: continually advancing patient care. Together the recognized world leader in patient care, education and

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research, and the nation’s No. 1 ranked university for innovation are combining expertise from every corner of health care – doctors to bioengineers to business experts – for an adaptive approach to preparing the next generation of health care pioneers and practitioners in our communities. Learn more: mayo.asu.edu/ medtechaccelerator

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of health care. This spring, Securisyn will begin clinical builds and is planning to move into full production next year. Broadening the scope of its product brings the company closer to its overarching goal — eliminating unplanned extubation and attaining zero preventable deaths. Mayo Clinic’s decision to invest in Safe and Securisyn was motivated by its goal of helping companies transition to the next level, while also improving the health care system. Venture capitalists are typically driven by financial returns, Lester says. “When Mayo Clinic is investing, they’re fundamentally motivated by one thing — is this going to favorably

impact the care of our patients and patients worldwide?” Credibility with the industry For Gyant, a health care technology company that was also part of the inaugural cohort, the Mayo Clinic and ASU MedTech Accelerator was essential in tackling one of the first hurdles as a startup: getting initial buy-in from the health care industry. “You also participate in a way that gives you access to that first potential customer ... and that creates a level of institution trust that is really important to break into the industry,” says co-founder and CEO Stefan Behrens. New to health care, Behrens and co-founder Pascal Zuta used

their experience in the video game industry to develop an AI-based platform that works as a connective tissue between patients and their health system. The platform and virtual health care assistant appears on a hospital system’s website or app to chat with patients 24/7, guiding them to the proper care. It keeps track of health histories and records, creating a personalized experience to perform basic tasks in the early stages of the patient journey. “It reduces the staff hours needed to do mundane things,” Behrens says. “There’s such a shortage of qualified staff, everyone is burned out and worn thin, so if there’s anything we can do to reduce some of that burden and let a

Because of participation in the Mayo Clinic and ASU MedTech Accelerator, in a single week, the Gyant team was able to figure out what solutions to pursue for success.

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computer handle it, that’s a win for the health system.” In the first week and a half of the accelerator, the Gyant team met with about 12 Mayo department heads of gastroenterology, radiology, emergency medicine and other disciplines, along with ASU professors in biomedical informatics and engineering. They also spent time with health care workers on the ground, such as nurses and technicians who could provide a different perspective on the product. In a single week, they figured out the type of solutions to pursue that would have normally taken months, Behrens says. The accelerator was invaluable and forced Gyant to consider “how does [the platform] fit into the patient journey in a major health system and where does it create value for the health system, so that they would be willing to adopt something like this,” Behrens says. Solving pressing needs Nearly two years after participating in the Mayo Clinic and ASU MedTech Accelerator, Safe Health Systems, Securisyn and Gyant are making a significant impact on patient and health care workers’ lives. Securisyn spent 2020 testing its core breathing tube securement device with several institutions that gave the company validation of the product’s usefulness. Gyant is handling 60,000 patient interactions every day at hospitals. Gyant’s COVID-19 Screener and Emergency Response Assistant, which offers educational content on coronavirus and virtual screenings via chatbots, has been used by 25 payer and

health system customers and 500,000 patients. Safe Health’s digital care and remote diagnostic technology is currently deployed at several universities amid the pandemic, including ASU as the Daily Health Check app, for daily self-assessment and health status verification. Its vaccine care tool will support distribution and verification in the coming months. As the Mayo Clinic and ASU MedTech Accelerator prepares for its second cohort in the spring, the team looks forward to working with even more companies that have original solutions to health care’s most challenging needs. Addressing these pressing issues is about originality, creativity and thinking of new ways to provide better care to patients, Lester says. “It’s about finding people that want to continue to move forward and embrace the unknown and uncertain, and have that optimistic belief that there are really always solutions, just as long as one searches for opportunities to achieve them,” Lester says. Square-Full

By the numbers

#1 in patient care Mayo Clinic is the #1 hospital in the U.S., #1 in Arizona, and #1 in more specialties than any other hospital.

Intellectual property strength Mayo Clinic’s intellectual property provides competitive advantages for more than 100 technology startups.

8,000+ human research studies underway at any given time at Mayo Clinic. ASU is one of the fastest-growing research universities in the country, among those with $100 million+ in annual research expenditures.

$750M+ See how the accelerator works Watch a video from the first cohort: mayo.asu.edu/ medtechaccelerator

total funding raised by ASU-linked startups S O U R C E S : M AY O C L I N I C , A S U

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The future of health care is W

TouchPoint Solution CEO and co-founder Vicki Mayo wears the company’s device that helps users

cope with stress; it was named best in health and wellness at the 2019 Consumer Electronics Show.

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Alumni, students and researchers are creating devices that revolutionize the medical field Story by DANIEL OBERHAUS Photos by JEFF NEWTON

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It’s a feeling familiar to us all. We sense it when we’re waiting for the results of a medical exam, preparing to ask our boss for a raise, or rehearsing to ask our crush on a date. It’s called stress, and it’s the body’s natural reaction to a tense, uncertain situation.

Grad student Chris Lue Sang wearing a device by FlexBioTech, co-founded by Jennifer Blain Christen, Karen Anderson and Joseph Smith, that makes electronics to help diagnose disease.

Nick Hool, a current graduate student in engineering who in 2016 completed his BSE in bioengineering, knows all about it. Hool has been an avid golfer for most of his life, but he still feels the rush of nerves when he steps onto the green to tee off. But after years of research, he believes he may finally have a solution — no pills or weeklong meditation retreats required. Hool’s solution, developed with two other ASU engineering students, is a small pair of earbuds he calls the P57 ONE. Instead of piping in music, the earbuds deliver a weak electric current to the inner ear to stimulate the nerve that regulates our fight-or-flight response. As Hool discovered, the earbuds produce a rapid decline in the wearer’s stress levels, which he hopes may one day include professional athletes, soldiers and anyone who wants to bring a little more calm to their life. Hool is currently conducting clinical trials under the auspices of his company, Hoolest Technologies, which got a big boost when it won $100,000 in the ASU Innovation Open in 2018. Hoolest is one of the first to take up residence at the new WearTech Applied Research Center, which is plotting the future of wearable technology at Park Central in midtown Phoenix. A collaboration between the Partnership for Economic Innovation and the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, WearTech opened its doors last September to ASU students, faculty and local companies. ASU has long been in the forefront of medical technology, and the center aims to accelerate the transition of these technologies from the lab to the market by forging links between industry and academia. “We’ve come to a point in time where you can take the rich functionality of microelectronics and put it in new forms, fits and functions,” says Gregory Raupp, ENGINEERING

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“We’ve come to a point in time where you can take the rich functionality of microelectronics and put it in new forms, fits and functions.” — G R E G O R Y R A U P P, P R O F E S S O R O F C H EM I CA L EN G I N EER I N G A N D R ES E A R C H D I R ECTO R O F TH E WEARTECH APPLIED RESEARCH CENTER

a professor of chemical engineering and research director of the WearTech Applied Research Center. “It’s as simple as putting on your clothes to adapt to this new technology.”

Wearable tech goes mainstream Until a few years ago, wearable tech was rarely seen outside a lab or a clinic, where doctors used the devices to gather critical patient data or help with recovery. Some of these devices tracked the mundane ebb and flow of brain waves or glucose levels. Others, like the sophisticated robotic exoskeletons developed by Tom Sugar, a professor of engineering, had more esoteric medical applications like helping the recovery of stroke victims. These technologies improved countless lives, but it took the arrival of wearables like the Apple Watch and Fitbit to truly catapult wearable tech into the mainstream. Not only could these consumer devices monitor various vital statistics like sleep patterns and heart rhythms, they were fashionable and affordable to boot. People became obsessed with tracking their health, and the so-called “quantified self” movement was born. Consumer wearables quickly grew beyond mere tracking technology, and devices for a host of therapeutic and performance-enhancing uses began to hit the market. Today, wearable tech is estimated by industry analyst CCS Insight to be a $25 billion global industry expected to double in size within five years.

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Wearable health care devices by the numbers

$200B 1.3 M saved lives saved

by wearables by 2020 — S W I S S F I R M SOREON RESEARCH

Estimated global health cost savings from wearable tech over the next 25 years

— D E LO I T T E

50%

reductionin hospitalvisits Projected reduction in hospitalizations through use of home monitoring devices of chronic diseases — C A L I F O R N I A T E L E H E A LT H R E S O U R C E C E N T E R

$56.8B market value market projection for wearable tech by 2025 — M A R K E T S A N D M A R K E T S

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Student researcher Brandon Martin (pictured) and Tom Sugar, a professor in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, designed an exoskeleton that can help warehouse workers beat fatigue.

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Taking wearables from the lab to the market With the WearTech Applied Research Center joint venture, ASU is helping to ensure that Phoenix is at the forefront of the wearables revolution. The center provides a space for Sun Devils and local industry partners working on wearables to host meetings and do testing as they prepare their products for the market. Raupp and his colleagues at WearTech also help the center’s partners navigate the legal hurdles associated with launching new medical devices, and the team helps industry partners find novel commercial applications for their technologies. Some of the tenants, like Hool, are relative newcomers to wearable tech. Others, like Jennifer Blain Christen, an assistant professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, have been researching digital health technology for decades. In 2016, Christen, along with Mayo Clinic medical oncologist and immunologist Karen Anderson, MD, PhD, associate professor at the Biodesign Institute, and Joseph Smith, ’14 PhD in electrical and electronics engineering, co-founded FlexBioTech, a company that makes flexible, bio-safe electronics for disease diagnostics. The company grew out of Christen’s National Science Foundation-funded research on smart patches that could sense the presence of biomarkers that might indicate health problems in users’ sweat and provide data analytics to smartphones. Christen has spent most of her career delving into the tricky material problems associated with wearable devices — how to make the electronics smaller, faster and cheaper without sacrificing the quality of the data or the user experience. For decades, hardware limitations were the major bottleneck preventing the widespread adoption of wearable tech. No one wants to look like they’re wearing a computer. In this sense, Christen says that the WearTech center came along at an ideal time. “We’re finally able to make small wearable devices, and the cost has become so much more accessible,” Christen says. “It doesn’t take $10,000 to get started making something; for $30 you can go get a microprocessor that’s small enough to wear on the body.” ENGINEERING

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Christen and her colleagues were able to surmount the technical challenges involved with creating a device no thicker than a bandage that could detect the concentration of particular molecules and wirelessly relay that data to a computer. Yet, finding a commercial application proved challenging. WearTech helped Christen form a partnership between FlexBioTech and True Mobile Health, a Phoenix-based medical services provider. True Mobile Health was looking for a way to monitor alcohol and illicit substances in patients just released from addiction treatment centers, a possible use case that Christen hadn’t previously considered. In the future, she says the smart patch might also be used as a diagnostic tool for common diseases like the flu or mono, monitoring stress and keeping tabs on infection. As a neuropsychologist and founder of Phoenixbased Serin Center, Amy Serin, ’96 BS in psychology, appreciates the challenges of bringing a new device to the market. As part of her clinical practice, Serin developed TouchPoint Solution, which makes a wearable technology that helps users cope with debilitating stress by using two devices that alternate vibrations. The alternating vibrations essentially tell the brain to turn down its stress response. According to Serin, it’s the high-tech equivalent of listening to some calming music, but exerts a much more rapid and powerful effect on the brain. When Serin was studying psychology at ASU as an undergrad in the mid-’90s, the first flip phone, the Motorola StarTAC, was the hottest mobile device on the market, so no one was talking about wearable digital devices that are also mini-computers. Today, mental health professionals are abuzz about her device, which has proven effective for reducing stress in autistic children, those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, and those dealing with the routine anxieties of daily life. It recently was named the best in health and wellness at the 2019 Consumer Electronics Show by Digital Trends, a commercial success that Serin attributes to the device’s effectiveness and the fact that it was the first of its kind to hit the market. Serin co-founded TouchPoint Solution in 2015 and began selling the devices in 2017. Last year, she says the device was used more than 1 million times by people around the world. Serin says she was able

“I live in the world of a lot of digital economy stuff that is flashy, but does it solve real-world problems? You folks are solving real-world problems .” — L E N L A N Z I , M A N A G I N G D I R E C T O R O F T H E P R E C C E L E R AT O R , AT T H E 2 0 2 0 A S U I N N O VAT I O N O P E N C O M P E T I T I O N

to get TouchPoints in front of customers quickly by marketing it as a general purpose wearable rather than a medical device. Claiming that a device has medical benefits requires the tech to undergo rigorous FDA clinical trials, which can take years. Many of the wearables being tested at the WearTech center, such as Hool’s earbuds and Christen’s smart patches, are being developed as medical devices, which opens them up to markets inaccessible to nonmedical technologies. The lengthy process of getting FDA approval makes the support of WearTech all the more important for getting these medical products out of the lab and into the real world. But the wearables revolution doesn’t stop at the doors of the WearTech center. In April, the first cohort of the MedTech Accelerator, a collaboration between ASU and Mayo Clinic to foster the development of early stage medical technologies, began a six-to-12-month program. Lukas-Karim Merhi is the co-founder and CEO of BioInteractive Technologies, one of six companies that is part of the first MedTech Accelerator cohort. He is using his time with the MedTech Accelerator to develop TENZR, a digital wristband that monitors hand, wrist and elbow movements to help patients recover from a variety of injuries, ranging from carpal tunnel syndrome to golfer’s elbow. Merhi expects TENZR to enter the market later this year, and says the MedTech Accelerator is helping him further refine the device. “We’ve had unparalleled access to stakeholders in the Mayo system,” Merhi says. “We’ve learned ENGINEERING

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Mayo Clinic and Arizona State University reveal 6 startups in new MedTech Accelerator Early-stage medical device and health care technology companies join the accelerator as they tackle issues like hand injuries, remote patient monitoring and sexual health. The companies get support and expertise as they develop or optimize new products, license intellectual property and sponsor research and clinical studies.

mayo.asu.edu

The TENZR wearable sensor measures movement to rehabilitate injured wrists and elbows. Its creators participated in the MedTech Accelerator.

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HemaPorter is a smart cold storage container for securely transporting blood and organs in environments that lack access to electricity.

“We’ve had unparalleled access to stakeholders in the Mayo system. We’ve learned a lot through our conversations with surgeons, administrators, therapists and clinicians, and intend to run a trial at Mayo Clinic for the different indications we assist with.” – LUK AS-K ARIM MERHI IS THE CO -FOUNDER AND C E O O F B I O I N T E R A C T I V E T E C H N O LO G I E S , O N E O F S I X C O M PA N I E S T H AT I S PA R T O F T H E F I R S T M E D T E C H A C C E L E R ATO R C O H O R T.

a lot through our conversations with surgeons, administrators, therapists and clinicians, and intend to run a trial at Mayo Clinic for the different indications we assist with.” Like many entrepreneurs, Army veteran Travis Witzke, ’11 BS in management and ’15 MBA, invented a product because of the need he saw in his everyday life. He parlayed his harrowing experiences on the battlefield into Desert Valley Tech to develop the HemaPorter. It’s a smart cold storage container for securely transporting blood and organs in war zones and other environments lacking access to electricity or reliable medical facilities. Witzke recently won $10,000 in the Ashton Family Venture Challenge and was one of six firms to receive a $30,000 grant from the Flinn Foundation last year to further develop the device. Institutional support from the WearTech Applied Research Center and the MedTech Accelerator, combined with the enterprising spirit of ASU alumni like Witzke, are rapidly turning Phoenix into a wearable tech capital. It’s only a matter of time until more of these devices will be coming to a wrist near you. Square-Full

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Varsha Iyengar completed her Master’s degree in computer science in 2016 and landed a job at Google, thanks to her thesis at ASU.

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Varsha Iyengar

The Google analyst Iyengar landed a position at one of the top companies in the world, thanks to her thesis work at ASU. She works at Google doing motion-capture analysis for Project Soli, a radar chip that analyzes hand gestures and movement. The project, which is still in the research phase, could eventually be used for wearable devices, with phones or in cars. How she got to Silicon Valley: “I was in the Arts, Media and Engineering program at ASU, and my thesis was on human movement with a concentration in arts media. During my job search, I messaged anyone who had the slightest interest in the field. “I had been very close to moving to Singapore for a research position. It was two weeks from when I was going to book my ticket. Then I found someone on LinkedIn and I sent her my thesis work, and I got my job through my thesis.” On the Silicon Valley culture: “As a new graduate, it was a huge learning curve. The pace here is definitely different. Every week is something new to work on, so I’m constantly on my toes.” What it takes to get there: “It takes perseverance to hunt for a job that you like. The interview process is very different from programming in school, where you don’t really know what you’ll face in this environment. This particular job is a contractor job, and it’s very rigorous. “The interview was a lot about my research work and higher-level thinking. When you get the interview, if you can show that you’re interested and you want to hear more, it goes a long way.” On what she learned at ASU: “There was a direct relationship between my research work at ASU and what I’m doing now, and I’m lucky to have that. Not everyone does. The professors taught us to think very differently. For this job and this team, that’s exactly what they were looking for.”

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The NeoLight story

Founded in Arizona, saving lives around the world and thriving today

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TheNeolight.com, January 22, 2015

ASU graduates create medical device to cure jaundice Jaundice is a common condition that occurs in approximately 60 percent of newborn babies. If left untreated, it can be lifethreatening, especially in underdeveloped countries where health care and technology are limited. NeoLight, an Arizona State University student startup, aims to solve that problem with a portable and costeffective medical incubator. NeoLight constructed two devices, one designed for the United States and a second, called NeoLight Freedom, that was designed for underdeveloped countries where power supply is scarce. Both devices are lightweight, portable, solar powered and utilize LED lighting, which lasts for more than 20,000 hours and consumes only five watts of electricity.

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The Neolight team built prototypes for early technology in ASU labs and maker spaces.

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Technology and business challenges were tackled in lab and business development collaboration spaces at ASU.

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The Neolight team at SkySong, The ASU Scottsdale Innovation Center. From left to right: Chiaomay Lee, Andrew Hatcher, Saranya Muniswamy, Nithin Jacob, Andrew Hatcher, Ryan Giudice, Patrick Gong, Rushi Dev, Vivek Kopparthi, Chase Garrett, Sivakumar Palaniswamy, Kirstin Jeffreys, Aditi Mitkar, Coleen Fox, Sandy Seto, Ashleigh Foltz, Candice Chen, Hannah Horezcko and Naomi Welch. 278

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The FDA-approved NeoLight, shown here under the baby, treats newborns for jaundice in homes or hospitals. The founders won a $25,000 grant from ASU’s Edson Student Entrepreneur Initiative and parlayed that into an additional $600,000 seed investment.

“Siva saw a problem and it struck a chord in his heart.” — V I V E K K O P PA R T H I , ’ 1 4 M S I N M A N A G E M E N T, N E O L I G H T C E O , O N T H E I N S P I R AT I O N F O R N E O L I G H T

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SAVING LIVES

Using LED lights, NeoLight aims to help tens of thousands of newborns every year Each year, about 60% of newborns are born with jaundice, too much bilirubin that manifests as a yellowing of the baby’s skin. It is usually treated with phototherapy — exposing the newborn to blue light for a few days after birth. But in parts of the developing world that lack access to electricity, tens of thousands of infants die or develop brain damage every year from untreated jaundice. Sivakumar Palaniswamy and three fellow ASU alumni founded NeoLight to provide phototherapy with LEDs that use 98% less electricity than a standard incubator, so the device can be used in more places.

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The co-founders of Neolight (L-R): Sivakumar Palaniswamy, Deepak Krishnaraju, Chase Garrett and Vivek Kopparthi in their days as ASU students. 282

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Started at ASU, NeoLight is now a thriving innovation company in medical technology based at SkySong in Scottsdale.

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Dylan Lang ‘s idea for his venture, EqualComm, was created in ASU classrooms. EqualComm is focused on eliminating barriers to information by revolutionizing communication technology for the deaf. His goal is to improve communication for people with hearing loss; he is shown here against a green screen capturing movements for an avatar.

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Dylan Lang

Computer science grad develops communication technology for the deaf community in ASU classrooms Dylan Lang lost nearly 90% of his hearing because of a condition called profound bilateral hearing loss, and he has personally experienced how the lack of resources impact the deaf community. He was drawn to ASU for its entrepreneurial mindset, and it changed his thinking throughout his undergraduate career to find solutions to various real-world problems. The venture he developed while at ASU, EqualComm, is an app geared toward empowering deaf individuals to bridge communication gaps. Lang graduates this May with a bachelor of science in computer science through the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, plus a certificate in entrepreneurship and innovation. He has won a number of awards through the Venture Devils program run by the J. Orin Edson Entrepreneurship + Innovation Institute, including $25,000 through the Edson Student Entrepreneurship Initiative and $10,000 through the Amazon Alexa Venture Challenge. In 2021, he was a semifinalist for the ASU Innovation Open.

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ASU to launch medical school New school highlights comprehensive new effort to help improve health outcomes across Arizona

ASU President Michael Crow (left) and Fred DuVal, chair elect of the Arizona Board of Regents — in conjunction with the rest of the Arizona Board of Regents — announce the creation of ASU School of Medicine and Advanced Medical Engineering on Thursday on the Tempe campus. The new School, part of the new ASU Health, will integrate clinical medicine, biomedical science and engineering.

The Arizona Board of Regents has asked Arizona State University to expand medical education in Arizona by launching a new medical school, one charged with addressing the significant and growing health care needs of the state. The new ASU School of Medicine and Advanced Medical Engineering will integrate clinical medicine, biomedical science and engineering, joining universities such as Texas A&M and the University of Illinois, among others, that have opened a different kind of medical school. Fred DuVal, chair elect of the Arizona Board of Regents, said the move is an important step in the evolution of ASU and is part of a charge to the state’s entire university system to grow the state’s health care workforce. “This is part of the most aggressive and comprehensive health care plan in Arizona’s history,” DuVal said. “It will include major growth and new investments by all three of our state universities, significant partnerships with the private sector, and the support of our government partners.” Added ASU President Michael Crow, “We are focusing our full energy and ENGINEERING

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The state ranks near or in the bottom quartile of many health system performance indicators, and Arizona has fewer hospital beds per 1,000 people than the national average. The steadily growing population only aggravates the problem, experts say, and Arizona faces a shortage in almost every health care profession.

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innovation on improving Arizona’s health outcomes. “We must generate knowledge at a scale that will impact society. Our university charter drives us to assume fundamental responsibility for the overall health of the communities we serve. This is an extension of that core belief.” The new medical school headlines ASU Health, a “learning health ecosystem” being created by the university to accelerate and focus its health-related efforts to tackle the state’s urgent health care needs, now and into the future. Unlike traditional medical schools, ASU’s new medical school will take a different approach. Clinical partnerships will support both research and academic programs, delivering solutions that improve patient and health care outcomes. “An interdisciplinary approach will bring together health sciences from across the university to prepare students to address complex health care problems,” said Nancy Gonzales, executive vice president and university provost.

A state in need The need in Arizona is staggering. The state ranks near or in the bottom quartile of many health system performance indicators, including No. 32 overall, No. 44 in access and affordability and No. 41 in prevention and treatment. The state’s steadily growing population only aggravates the problem, experts say, and Arizona faces a shortage in almost every health care profession. The

state needs to add an estimated 14,000 more nurses — enough to nearly fill the Phoenix Suns basketball arena — just to reach the national average. Public health funding is 50% below the national average, and Arizona has fewer hospital beds per 1,000 people than the national average. There already is significant turnover in health care professions, and experts say turnover rates for physicians and nurses will be impacted by approaching retirements in the next decade. “We have an opportunity for change,” Crow said. “And over the past 20 years, ASU has shown that we know how to create transformative change, at scale.”

One part of a focused approach More details will be discussed in coming months, but the new ASU Health effort will involve more than just the new medical school. ASU will continue to work closely with health care partners across Maricopa County and across the country to bring top talent, technology and research to the effort to improve health outcomes in Arizona. And ASU’s long-standing relationship with Mayo Clinic, known as the Mayo Clinic and Arizona State University Alliance for Health Care, will continue to expand through the ASU Health Futures Center next to Mayo Clinic’s north Phoenix campus and the continued development of the Discovery Oasis innovation zone next to the Mayo Clinic Phoenix Hospital.

“It is our shared vision that Arizona should play a leading role in advancing health care through the development of a collaborative biotech ecosystem. – D R . R I C H A R D G R AY, C E O O F M AYO C L I N I C .

“As two organizations committed to innovation, Mayo Clinic and Arizona State University have enjoyed strong and authentic collaborations for more than two decades, including the Mayo Clinic and ASU Alliance for Health Care,” said Dr. Richard Gray, CEO of Mayo Clinic. “Biomedical education students at Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine have benefited from dual-degree graduate education opportunities at ASU and we have many joint research initiatives. “It is our shared vision that Arizona should play a leading role in advancing health care through the development of a collaborative biotech ecosystem. We support and commend ASU for its leadership in medical bioengineering and look forward to growth in medical education within our state. Arizonans will benefit from the addition of more physicians.” Learn more at health.asu.edu. ENGINEERING

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New faculty member Michel Kinsy, at right, joined ASU in 2012-22 as an associate professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence and the director of the Secure, Trusted, and Assured Microelectronics Center. He focuses his research on microelectronics security, secure processors and systems design, hardware security, and efficient hardware design and implementation of postquantum cryptography systems. He is an MIT Presidential Fellow and a CRA-WP Inaugural Skip Ellis Career Award recipient. His PhD is from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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Full Circle, August 23, 2022

Elevating the academic enterprise New faculty from across the nation and around the world build ASU’s expertise in key strengths and emerging fields The Fulton Schools of Engineering welcomed more than 160 new faculty members in the past five years with 50 new faculty members during the 2022–23 academic year. These talented professionals bring skills and insights from top universities, leading laboratories and innovative industry sectors across the nation and around the world. As they help to grow America’s largest university engineering program, they also enhance the scope and impact of the educational and research enterprise at the Fulton Schools. These experts in biomedical, chemical, computer, electrical, manufacturing, mechanical and other engineering disciplines will augment an already remarkable community of students, researchers and entrepreneurs. Simultaneously, they will advance ASU’s collective efforts to address the great challenges of our time and transform society for the better. “Academic and research excellence by our faculty is a central goal, and one that is effectively a journey requiring tremendous dedication by the faculty and support by FSE,” says Kyle Squires, dean of the Fulton Schools and ASU’s vice provost for engineering, computing and technology.

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“Our faculty not only make an impact within their disciplines but also foster an environment and a culture that promotes excellence. We always benefit from more gifted minds and articulate voices to broaden the impacts that we have all come to expect from the Fulton Schools.” –K YLE SQUIRES, DEAN

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Redesigning engineering curricula “ By empowering and rewarding risktaking, making and additive innovation among faculty and students, we create a culture of change agents. ” — A N N M C K E N N A , A S U P R O F E S S O R A N D D I R E C T O R O F T H E P O LY T E C H N I C S C H O O L

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ASU Thrive Magazine, Spring 2018

ASU is doing for education what engineers do on projects — assessing the context, embracing complexity and building a robust future. The Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at ASU is redesigning engineering education, transforming department structures and faculty reward systems to stimulate comprehensive change in policies, practices and curricula. These changes, in turn, are creating a learning environment that values risktaking, making, innovation and creativity among its students and faculty. As part of the National Science Foundation’s Revolutionizing Engineering Departments program, the team is building a foundation to expand upon proven innovations in the projectbased sequence. The premise is that students learn complex theories better when they are actively engaged in applying the concepts to solve real-life problems. “Engineering schools have done a great job introducing students to project-based learning in first-year courses and implementing it in senior projects, but teaching of the core curriculum has remained relatively unchanged,” says Ann McKenna, ASU professor and director of the Polytechnic School, one of the six Fulton Schools of Engineering. The research team uses lean startup business practices, the mapping of existing systems and

community engagement to gather input to revolutionize undergraduate engineering education. ASU is reshaping what the university engineering experience looks like in person and around the world, from the intentional inclusion and support of underrepresented groups to the deep study of classroom reinvention and cloud computer labs. “ASU is one of the unique places in the world of academia where a school of engineering, as one of its main research themes, focuses on education and education improvement,” says Jim Middleton, professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering. Improving education requires knowing a whole lot about the various people you are endeavoring to motivate and educate — a core challenge being tackled by the new engineering education systems and design doctoral program. The program focuses on deep exploration and analysis of “education ecosystems” in all of their multifaceted complexity. Such ecosystems encompass the many intertwined factors that shape various individuals, groups, communities and societies, explains Associate Professor Jennifer Bekki, chair of the program based at the Polytechnic School.

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ng on g and then earning f students to tive, inclusive y satisfying.” — J I M M I D D L E TO N , P R O F ES S O R O F A E R O S PAC E A N D M EC H A N I CA L E N G I N E E R I N G

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Human systems engineering “involves not only strong technical knowledge and skills, but a good understanding of the ‘people side’ of realworld challenges.” —R O D R O S C O E , A S S I S TA N T P R O F E S S O R O F H U M A N SYSTEM S ENG IN EERING

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ASU News, July 25, 2017

Psychology

Better engineering for humans, by humans Rod Roscoe awarded prestigious Tooker Professorship to advance work in developing engaging human systems engineering curriculum at ASU Engineers create the devices, software, chemicals, materials, machines, buildings, airplanes and other systems that make our daily lives better. However, to successfully design for the diversity of the human experience, engineers must understand people — their clients as well as themselves — in addition to technology. Enter the Human Systems Engineering program in ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering. This recently added program seeks to prepare students to consider both the human and technology sides of engineering by combining psychology and technical coursework. Introduced as a major and minor in fall 2016, the program is being developed out of the applied psychology-focused courses offered in the former College of Technology and Innovation, which became the Polytechnic School in 2014. The merge became a unique opportunity for faculty members with backgrounds in psychology and an interest in education, such as Rod Roscoe, assistant professor of human systems engineering. Roscoe will leverage his Tooker Professorship to develop an engaging human systems engineering curriculum. He seeks to identify the needs, gaps and opportunities to introduce students to human systems engineering principles in ways that strengthen their engineering and how they conceptualize as well as solve engineering problems.

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Dijiang Huang received funding from the NSF and Department of Defense, then commercialized the solution he had built.

ThoTh Lab is entirely browserbased. Instructors can create any configuration of computer network and monitor student progress and performance.

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ASU News, September 19, 2016

Cybersecurity researcher to entrepreneur ASU professor launches virtual lab platform for computing research and education, supported by funding from the National Science Foundation and Dept. of Defense What started as a way for an Arizona State University professor to help enhance lab access for his students has launched into an entrepreneurial venture to improve hands-on computer science education and research capabilities worldwide. When associate professor Dijiang Huang first joined the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering in 2005, a physical laboratory with 20 computers was a workable solution for hands-on computer networking and cybersecurity coursework for around 20 students. As enrollment rapidly increased over the next few years and cybersecurity interest grew among computer science and engineering students, a physical lab was no longer feasible. There was no way for an instructor to schedule lab time for more than 100 students in one class each working on five lab projects per semester, nor was there a way to keep a large enough lab maintained. This got Huang thinking about creating a cloud-based virtual lab, where the physical computers and network connections could be emulated on a server to form any computer network configuration needed. Students would be able to explore real-world cybersecurity problems and solutions on networks that mirrored real-world implementations in a hands-on platform — the most effective way to train students for today’s job market — and it’d relieve a lot of logistical headaches of building a physical lab. Over the next several years, Huang attracted funding from the National Science Foundation and Department of Defense that allowed him to grow his virtual lab infrastructure from a small set of servers in his office to clusters of high-performance cloud servers at the ASU Data Center that run a versatile cloud-based virtual lab. Huang’s success with his own students encouraged him to think about commercializing his platform to benefit a wider range of instructors and students, so he began working on the commercializing the effort in a startup. ENGINEERING

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From left: Qi Wang of Xian, China; 16-year-old pre-med student Ty Muhammad of Phoenix; and industrial engineering student Jeanbat Busisi of the Democratic Republic of Congo laugh as they work on Gabby, an app designed to monitor the health of seniors by tracking their motion and heart rate and contact emergency help if needed.

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PUBLISHED

ASU Thrive magazine, Winter 2018

Hacks

for Humanity Sometimes changing the world involves fun and games — and innovative thinking. For the 36-hour hackathon called Hacks for Humanity, participants from all over the world gathered, utilizing their technology and teamwork skills to create apps and websites to better the community.

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Left: Jacob Robinson, Julia Cannon, Mohitn Doshi and Anthony Nicholas gather around team member Summer Gautier, a 16-year-old high school student.

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Hacks for Humanity: Hacking for the Social Good hosted by Project Humanities at ASU is a 36-hour entrepreneurial marathon that challenges participants to create technical solutions that challenges participants to create technological solutions and initiatives to address local and global issues by implementing these seven Humanity 101 principles: compassion, empathy, forgiveness, integrity, kindness, respect, and self-reflection. This annual event draws some 150-200 students, faculty, staff and community members, each with their individual talents and backgrounds of expertise.

Left: TJ Cuddy and Mohammad Aldaaja work on their team's application, "RecognizeWe," while relaxing on chairs made of balloons and masking tape. The team was awarded third place at the hackathon.

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Above: After a long day of hacking, teams take a break and participate in a “silent disco.” Each participant wore wireless headphones and danced to synchronized music.

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Above: Participants at the Hacks for Humanity event on Oct. 7 gather into groups and disperse throughout the Stauffer Building at ASU.

Left: Eddie Lai, a chemical engineering major, lies on a table to rest his eyes while his long-time friend and teammate, Gaurav Deshpande, works beside him.

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EmergenTech: Hack ASU

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Synthesis Center workshop

Breaking through the silos

PUBLISHED

ASU Thrive magazine, Spring 2018

To discover something new, sometimes you have to go beyond the walls of the familiar. Fulton Schools’ engineers collaborate with innovative thinkers in — among others — ASU’s School of Life Sciences, the School for the Future of Innovation in Society and the School of Sustainability to find fresh inspiration and new ways of looking at challenges. Its faculty and students even reach across disciplines to explore the intersection of arts and engineering in the School of Arts, Media and Engineering, a collaborative initiative with the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. One of the research centers to come out of that initiative is the Synthesis Center, where researchers draw from diverse disciplines in the humanities, engineering and the arts to blend knowledge and know-how to find meaningful ways of animating the worlds in which we live and play (one of its workshops is pictured near left). In particular, Synthesis uses techniques from responsive environments, time-based media, experiential science and non-anthropocentric design theory. Elsewhere at ASU, the Luminosity Lab is a student-run venture that works on a portfolio of projects that utilize emerging technology to have an impact on society. Luminosity involves engineers from a variety of fields, as well as students who study graphic design, finance, data science and more. The group organized EmergenTech: Hack ASU, a hackathon (pictured on the left page) where students of all majors had 36 hours to form teams and develop a prototype and business concept, finishing with a pitch competition. “What could be better than bringing together students from various disciplines to apply their creativity and critical thinking skills?” says Sethuraman Panchanathan, executive vice president of Knowledge Enterprise Development at ASU. “They will build solutions that may revolutionize public and private industries.” ENGINEERING

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ASU Thrive magazine, Spring 2018

Robot rumble Competition brings students and mentors together for hands-on STEM fun Children ages 9 to 14 are introduced to basic principles of science, technology, engineering and math Crowded with hundreds of middle school students, the Ventana Ballroom in the Memorial Union at ASU should have been chaotic, but it wasn’t. The low roar was the sound of excitement as teams huddled around prototypes of water-related innovations and tinkered with miniature robots made of Lego blocks. The Arizona FIRST Lego League 2018 state championship was held Jan. 13-14, with 92 teams and more than 750 young learners qualifying. Sponsored by the ASU Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering since 2008, the program exposes children ages 9 to 14 to basic principles of science, technology, engineering and math. The kids work as teams building robots, solving problems and learning teamwork. “We’re proud to partner with FLL,” says James Collofello, vice dean of academic and student affairs at the Fulton Schools. “We recognize that participation in engaging and fun STEM programs like FLL sparks further student interest in STEM topics and eventual ENGINEERING

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STEM career choices.” The Mogollon Mechanics from Heber, whose base camp was in the middle of the ballroom, were busy testing the programming of their robot as they waited for their turn in the obstacle course trials. “It’s really fun, but at the same time it’s scary — this is a real competition,” says fifth-grader Trevor Western, competing for the first time this year. Veteran Morgon Martineau, a sixth-grader, was sanguine. “The best part is having fun while learning,” he says.

Jeff Andersen, who coached the Mogollon Mechanics, is a dentist who had no programming experience before getting involved in FLL. He and wife Brooke first learned about the league when their high school daughter went to the world championships of the FIRST Robotics Competition in St. Louis. They saw 312

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an opportunity for kids to get involved, so last year they decided to coach a team. It was such a good experience they formed two teams this year, with Brooke coaching the Mechanical Mustangs. And once the word about the program got out, a third team formed in the Arizona White Mountain communities of Heber and in Show Low/ Snowflake.

Andersen says small towns like Heber don’t offer many nonsports after-school activities. FLL gives them academic challenges, leadership skills and opportunities to develop character.

The students “ experience real-life research and the design process.” — T I G E R YA N G , ASU FRESHMAN MECHANICAL ENGINEERING STUDENT

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Collegiate Scholars Academy For high achieving high school students 10th–12th grades

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Business Scholars Institute

Summer C.S.I. Experience

Digital Culture Summer Institute

High school juniors

9th–12th grades

7th–12th grades

PUBLISHED

ASU Thrive magazine, Spring 2018

Ready, Set, K! For children entering kindergarten

Lego Leagues Kindergarten– 6th grades

Summer camps for makers, builders and coders S’mores? Been there. Campfire songs? Done that. Building robots and coding games? Now we’re talking.

Sun Devil Kids’ Camp 1st–5th grade

Thousands of young learners from across the nation experience college life and learn from worldrenowned experts through ASU Summer Programs. Students in grades K-12 can choose from a variety of topics including engineering, leadership, math and the arts. Programs are offered on four ASU campuses and formats range from day camps to residential programs, where students have the opportunity to live on campus. Here’s a sampling of the many camps at ASU. Learn more

Information is available at

eoss.asu.edu/summerenrichment

Chain-Reaction STEAM Machines 6th–9th grades

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“Manufacturing of the future is going to involve pushing the edge of what has come before and taking it into new territory to provide new services and new products. Completely new materials and systems are needed to enable that.” – A S S O C I AT E P R O F E S S O R D H R U V B H AT E , S C H O O L O F M A N U FA C T U R I N G S Y S T E M S A N D N E T W O R K S

This year, ground will break on a new 180,000-square-foot facility on the Polytechnic campus to further support the university’s educational and research mission and further explore semiconductor manufacturing, nondestructive evaluation, materials characterization and testing, and new process development, among many other new and existing initiatives. 318

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ASU News, January 6, 2023

ASU debuts manufacturing engineering doctoral program As the first school in the United States to offer three degrees in manufacturing engineering — a bachelor’s degree, master’s degree and newly launched doctoral degree — the School of Manufacturing Systems and Networks, part of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University, is becoming a premier destination for manufacturing engineering. “We have completed the trifecta in manufacturing engineering education at ASU,” says Binil Starly, professor and director in the school. Enrollment in the manufacturing engineering doctoral degree is now open for the fall 2023 semester. Students in the program can expect to be at the leading edge of manufacturing research, learning from research-active faculty and leveraging the ongoing and future investments in manufacturing education and research, including more than $2 million in shared equipment and $5 million in faculty lab resources. Students will gain deep, domain-specific manufacturing knowledge, contribute to the field in impactful ways and have opportunities to collaborate with key industry partners through research that will take a direct pathway to industry. Manufacturing engineering doctoral graduates will drive research and

development agendas for the advanced manufacturing economies of the 2030s, 2040s and beyond.

Leading the country in manufacturing education Dhruv Bhate, an associate professor and program chair for the new manufacturing engineering doctoral program, believes American manufacturing is at an inflection point and that amplified education in this field is a critical piece in supporting the overall manufacturing landscape. Bhate says that there’s a confluence of factors that have brought American manufacturing to the limelight. First, the increased use of artificial intelligence, or AI, and robotics; second, the new materials and processing technologies available; third, national security and supply chain interests; and fourth, a greater focus on energy, sustainability and the environment. ENGINEERING

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New buildings at West campus will include a fourstory, 55,000-square-foot academic facility that will house student gallery space, computer labs, faculty offices and future growth spaces, and is expected to be finished in spring 2025.

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ASU News, Mar 29, 2023

ASU debuts new School of Integrated Engineering at West campus

School will provide STEM opportunities in the underserved West Valley. Degrees will include a Bachelor of Science in engineering science — a flexible, multidisciplinary program that integrates a foundation in math, science and engineering, with a specialization in a chosen engineering concentration. Graduates will be prepared for careers in engineering or science as well as business professions that interact with technical specialists. With the Fulton Schools having a presence in the West Valley, the region’s schools, nonprofits and businesses will benefit from its Fulton Difference Programs, which include engineering projects in community service, student organizations, K–12 programs and the Grand Challenge Scholars Program. The two new buildings will include a four-story, 55,000-square-foot academic facility that will house student gallery space, computer labs, faculty offices and future growth spaces, and is expected to be finished in spring 2025. A 500-bed, 134,264-square-foot residence hall is scheduled to open for the fall 2024 semester. Currently, about 800 students live at the West campus. Both buildings are expected to be LEED Silver certified.

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University, political and community leaders perform the ceremonial groundbreaking of the West Campus’ new residential hall on Wednesday, March 29.

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ASU News, March 29, 2023

ASU’s West campus expanding to serve the West Valley Governor, other policymakers among hundreds at event celebrating launch of new schools in forensics, business and engineering; 2 new buildings

Arizona State University celebrated its West campus on Wednesday by kicking off a large-scale project that will add three new academic schools and two new buildings. The event, on the lawn in front of the Sun Devil Fitness Complex, was called “West Valley Forward” and highlighted ASU’s commitment to meeting the educational and economic growth needs of the booming West Valley. ASU, which offers more than 120 degree programs at the West campus, is planning to grow enrollment at that campus from the current 5,000 students to about 15,000. Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs told the crowd that ASU’s West campus will produce graduates to fuel the dynamic growth of industry in the West Valley, which has expanded to include semiconductors and solar power. “Word is getting out about what Arizona and the West Valley have to offer, and I couldn’t be more excited, and we couldn’t realize this economic growth without ASU West,” she said. ASU Executive Vice President and University Provost Nancy Gonzales noted that the West campus is nearly 40 years old, established in 1984. “The Valley was a very different place in those days — much of the land west of the I-17 was agricultural and sparsely populated,” she said. In the decades that followed, the West Valley grew from 700,000 to 1.8 million residents while ASU transformed into a research and innovation powerhouse that’s a resource for the communities it serves, she said. “This shared history brings us to a moment where ASU’s commitment to the citizens and communities of the West Valley requires a new level of engagement, resources and vision, and that’s why we’re here today,” Gonzales said at the event Wednesday, which included a picnic centered on the newest design aspiration, Principled Innovation; speeches; a panel discussion; and a ceremonial groundbreaking for the two new buildings. The complex will include physical space that will be flexible, organic and open, allowing shifts into classrooms, educational demonstration spaces or lab sites. Mobile spaces will also be created that can be transported into the community. Expanding the West campus will have a positive impact on the broader community, according to Todd Sandrin, vice provost of ASU’s West campus ENGINEERING

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Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, who has a Master of Social Work from ASU, said at Wednesday’s celebration: “Days like today make me proud to be a Sun Devil.”

and dean of the New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences. “By providing higher education opportunities for more students, we advance social and economic mobility and contribute to the development of a more diverse and educated workforce,” Sandrin said ahead of Wednesday’s festivities. “This has direct benefits not only for individual students and their families, but for our wider community, including increased innovation, creativity and economic growth by providing employers a significant workforce critical to their success.”

Building on a strong history The West campus was approved by the state Legislature and signed into law by then-Gov. Bruce Babbitt on April 18, 1984. Arizona had a population of just over 3 million then, compared with 7.5 million now. The campus, in the northwest corner of Phoenix, borders the city of Glendale. When it was established in the 1980s, the land west of Interstate 17 was agricultural and sparsely populated. Decades of rapid growth followed. The West Valley now encompasses 15 communities, is home

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to nearly 1.8 million Arizonans and will capture more than half of Maricopa County’s future growth. Rich in transportation, rail, water and technology investments with large employers in health care, advanced business, manufacturing, information technology, aerospace, defense and logistics, the West Valley is also a hub for technology entreprenseurship and innovation. Technology startups increased 38% from 2021 to 2022. Over the years, the West campus has grown to become a hub for learners of all ages, supporting K–12 learners through ASU Prep Local, the Herberger Young Scholars Academy, campus-based youth programs, and local school and community partnerships. The West campus is also one of four sites for ASU’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, which offers short, highlevel, non-credit courses for adults over 50. It’s all part of the evolving mission of the university.

‘A people’s university’ ASU President Michael Crow said Wednesday that he’s often asked why a university that’s so large would continue to expand. More than 20 years ago, before he took over as president of ASU in 2002, he sat down and

After the initial speeches, a panel discussed the West Valley from the viewpoints of K–12, military, business and policymaking. Panelists included (from left) Lupita Hightower, superintendent of the Tolleson Elementary School District; Sintra Hoffman, president and CEO of WESTMARC; Phoenix City Councilwoman Ann O’Brien; and Paul Smiley, founder and president of Sonoran Technology and Professional Services, listen to President Michael Crow speak.

studied the Arizona Constitutional Convention. “In 1910, a bunch of people got together and decided how they would design Arizona, which had been a territory until that point,” he said. “They wrote down all the words they said, so I read them. “Here was the inspiration I came away with, which deeply impressed me and influenced what we’ve been able to do here: Essentially, they said, ‘We’ll have a university, and it’ll be a people’s university. People will have access to it.’ ” That concept is now embodied in ASU, the University of Arizona and Northern Arizona University. In 1958, Phoenix was outgrowing the original teachers college. “With a view to the future, we said, ‘Let’s have a new university.’ The Legislature said no. The governor said no. The Board of Regents said no,” Crow said Wednesday. “The people, by referendum, said yes. No other university was voted into existence by the people.” That concept has powered ASU’s drive to reach as many learners in as many places and in as many ways as possible, Crow said.

“If you’re not ready for college, we’ll get you ready for college,” he said. “If you never finished college, we’ll help you finish college. “What we’re doing on the ASU West campus is related to our design as the people’s university. We’re going to find a way for jobs for everyone and a path to dignity for everyone, in every possible way.”

Policymakers share their goals Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego said that the area west of I-17 is leading the country in technology, especially with the $40 billion Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company project in northwest Phoenix. “We’re taking it to the next level today with these new programs that will take us into the decades to come and show that we are a leader in advanced thinking,” she said. Gallego said that TSMC looked at many places before deciding on Arizona, and the company was impressed by ASU. “They told me what sealed the deal were the people and the programs at ASU that let students learn the most advanced technology so they can go into the

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The crowd moved to a field on the West campus for a ceremonial groundbreaking of a new four-story, 55,000-square-foot academic facility and a 500-bed, 134,264-squarefoot residence hall. Construction is underway.

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“As the West Valley grows to 2 million or 3 million people, how do we avoid the stresses and strains of other places — the clogged arteries of interstates with massive pollution and people traveling 60 to 80 minutes to get to a job that pays $45,000 a year or less?” – M I C H A E L M . C R O W, A S U P R E S I D E N T

most advanced jobs,” she said. The West campus is critical for increasing educational attainment in the West Valley, according to Larry Penley, a member of the Arizona Board of Regents. In 2015, the state set a goal — called Achieve 60 AZ — of having 60% of adults have postsecondary attainment by 2030, such as technical training, community college, bachelor’s degree or advanced degree. “Today we stand at about 46%. We’re a long way from getting where we need to go,” he told the crowd Wednesday. Penley said that only 19% of Arizona’s ninth-graders end up getting a college degree within six years of graduating from high school, and it will take more investment by the state to improve that. Florida offers a billion dollars in scholarship money for high school graduates to attend state universities while Arizona offers $20 million, he said. “We would need to be at nearly $400 million to be equal to what Florida is doing today,” he said. The event included a panel discussion on the future of the West Valley. Among the comments: Sintra Hoffman, president and CEO of WESTMARC: She said the West Valley has a large talent pool — 38% of the metro Phoenix area’s health care workers and 28% of its workers in finance, insurance and banking

live there. However, 70% of workers in the West Valley commute east for work. “What we need from ASU are specific programs to have employable graduates who can live here and work here and contribute to the community and to meet the needs of the companies we’re trying to attract.” Ann O’Brien, Phoenix City Council member: She praised the collaboration and partnerships among businesses and government entities in the West Valley. “After the recession, they said, ‘We’re not going to do this again. We’re going to make Phoenix and the whole Valley a better place and bring different jobs and careers to our citizens.’ ” She also urged the West Valley to embrace multifamily housing for new graduates of ASU West. “They need the opportunity not just to rent but to be first-time home buyers,” she said. Crow said that as a growing area with a diverse population, the West Valley could be an incubator for solving urban problems. “As the West Valley grows to 2 million or 3 million people, how do we avoid the stresses and strains of other places — the clogged arteries of interstates with massive pollution and people traveling 60 to 80 minutes to get to a job that pays $45,000 a year or less? “How do you do that? The West Valley could be a place where a lot of these things are figured out.”

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The Luminosity Lab student teams apply novel perspectives to solve pressing societal issues. Teams pitch solutions in international competitions and have won the Red Bull Basement program and the XPRIZE Next-Gen Mask Challenge.

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PUBLISHED

Fulton Schools news, May 3, 2022

Renowned Luminosity Lab joins Fulton Schools of Engineering Alignment centered on solving real-world challenges across disciplines Story by LANELLE STRAWDER

“While figuring out my college plans, I hoped to participate in research. But I honestly had no idea how to get involved. So I was both surprised and honored when I found out that I was selected for this award.” — J U L I S S A B R U N K , W H O G R A D U AT E D F R O M G I L B ER T H I G H S C H O O L A N D I S ST U DY I N G

A study tool to help students excel in the classroom. A prototype for NASA to help explore the permanently shaded regions of the moon. A coordinated response network to produce and deliver personal protective gear to Arizona health care providers. These are all solutions developed by a team of pioneering students in the Luminosity Lab at Arizona State University. Strategic design, systems thinking and rapid product realization drive innovation in the Luminosity Lab and have earned the group more than $20 million in grants, endowments and sponsored research funding.

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Third-year computer science student and Luminosity Lab member Elizabeth Arnold works at the soldering table in the Goldwater Engineering Building on the ASU Tempe campus. The Luminosity Lab, a space created for students to solve problems with a large variety of available tools

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Now, with a proven model of discovery and development, the Luminosity Lab’s next big move is to leverage the resources and support of the nation’s largest engineering school — the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at ASU. “The Luminosity Lab is a microcosm of what we do every day and has become part of the fabric of what we call the ‘Fulton Difference,’” says Kyle Squires, dean of the Fulton Schools of Engineering and ASU’s vice provost for engineering, computing and technology.

“Like Luminosity, we embrace agile methodologies and thrive on solving complex problems that make large-scale societal impact. We share a similar mindset.” As one of the most comprehensive engineering enterprises in the nation, the Fulton Schools of Engineering leverages its unique structure — seven schools promoting transdisciplinary learning and research focused on real-world applications. That structure enables big moves. Today, the Fulton Schools is a significant player in one of the greatest technological expansions in the U.S. as Arizona leads the nation’s semiconductor innovation and manufacturing revolution. As part of the Fulton Schools, the Luminosity Lab is joining an enthusiastic community of researchers and learners eager to support engineering and technology solutions and promote opportunities for growth and collaboration, all geared toward making the broadest possible impact. The student-driven, skunkworks-style research and development lab launched in 2015 as part of the ASU Knowledge Enterprise, the university’s center for research, innovation, strategic partnerships, entrepreneurship and international development. “Knowledge Enterprise is an exemplary incubator for innovative initiatives, and we are excited that Luminosity has advanced into its permanent academic home as it continues to contribute to the ASU and Knowledge Enterprise goal of changing the way the world solves problems,” says Sally Morton, executive vice president of the ASU Knowledge Enterprise.

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IMPROVING THE FLOW

Student team’s fog-free mask design wins top prize in $1 million worldwide competition A student team from ASU’s Luminosity Lab has won $500,000 of the million-dollar XPRIZE Next-Gen Mask Challenge to redesign the face masks used to prevent the spread of COVID-19 by making them more comfortable, functional and affordable. The contest invited young adults ages 15 to 24 from around the world to shift the cultural perspective around maskwearing behavior by developing the next generation of surgical-grade consumer masks. It drew nearly 1,000 entries in more than 70 countries. The biggest problem the ASU team cracked was masks fogging up eyeglasses. The mask is now moving into the early phases of production.

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The Luminosity Lab’s vision is to establish a new model of discovery, development and innovation for the 21st century. Students in the lab bring an array of talents and perspectives to address challenges in areas like health care, energy, education and global climate. Enabling students to lead their own projects — from design and conceptualization to development and deployment — is a departure from facultydriven paradigms that are typical in most learning environments. It was also a key part of Mark Naufel’s design aspiration when ASU President Michael Crow challenged him to develop a new approach to projectbased learning. “Traditionally, universities have been designed to be led by the faculty through a mentor-apprentice-type model,” says Naufel, the executive director of the ASU Luminosity Lab. “We reimagined that model, where we give our students the agency to conceptualize, design and lead the development of their own large-scale R&D projects. Luminosity is a chance for students to learn and refine their skill sets by working on real-world projects while tapping into ASU’s network of faculty experts as partners in this process. Yet, as the complexity of the engineering and technological challenges increases, so does the level of technical expertise required to resolve them. As part of the Fulton Schools, Luminosity Lab members will have direct access to more than 370 faculty members with whom they can consult and call on for guidance if they reach a roadblock or want to discuss ideas. Scaling for the Luminosity Lab also means more strategic connections with industry and more opportunities to engage in next-generation challenges. Being part of the Fulton Schools of Engineering will allow members to significantly engage with its strong community of industry partners. “We are excited to continue to support and connect Luminosity Lab with our industry partners as their work is impactful, solving real-world problems through innovative designs from the best students from across ENGINEERING

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“ We went through several design iterations, but trying to create something that doesn’t fog your glasses and doesn’t leave hot air on the face is not an easy task.” – N I K H I L D AV E , U N D E R G R A D U AT E E A R N I N G A D O U B L E M A J O R I N N E U R O S C I E N C E A N D I N N O VAT I O N I N S O C I E T Y, S T U D E N T R EG EN T O N T H E A R I ZO N A B OA R D O F R EG EN T S A N D T E A M L E A D FO R T H E FLO EM AS K P R O J ECT

The Floemask design above features a bifurcated chamber design in which air exhaled from the nose is kept in a separate chamber from the face and mouth. Your face stays cooler, the air you breathe is fresher, and the flow of air stays away from glasses where it would otherwise cause fogging.

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Tarun Suresh, a member of the Luminosity Lab Floemask team, demonstrates the challenge of foggy glasses that the team set out to solve.

the institution,” says David Wahls, the executive director of development for the Fulton Schools of Engineering. The Luminosity Lab’s track record of developing and prototyping award-winning solutions continues to earn recognition, with teams winning global competitions and getting requests to partner with major corporations. In late 2020, a Luminosity Lab team earned the $1 million XPRIZE for designing a cooling facemask with technology that prevents fogging for eyeglass wearers. Lab members won $1.2 million from NASA to design a rover that adeptly maneuvers rocky terrain and deep slopes on the moon. And in March, two freshmen members of the Luminosity Lab represented the United States and won the top prize at the Red Bull Basement Global Final in Turkey for their automated note-taking tool, Jotted. To date, the Luminosity Lab portfolio includes corporate-sponsored research and development projects to advance tech solutions for adidas, Starbucks, Kimberly-Clark, Bank of the West, Axon and Phoenix Children’s Hospital, to name a few. By partnering with the Fulton Schools of Engineering, those opportunities will only continue to expand.

Interdisciplinary by design The Luminosity Lab also hopes to not only serve as a model but to generate more collaborative opportunities for students. “Even if you’re studying biology or English, it doesn’t matter what background you have,” Naufel says. “There is a set of tools that are relevant to innovating for the 21st century that we encourage everyone to learn, even if they don’t become an expert in them.” The enterprising group that began with only 15 members today has grown to more than 100 students from across the university. The Luminosity Lab has also launched new labs at Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston; at Lane College, a historically Black college in Jackson, Tennessee; and is also piloting a high school version called Astralis at Hamilton High School in Chandler, Arizona. The Luminosity Lab has also gone global with the

recent launch of its newest venture at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, also called KNUST, in Ghana. Moving forward, Naufel wants to bring more highachieving ASU students into research and development cohorts and teach them skills like machine learning and data analytics, which will soon be required for most technology roles. The move to the Fulton Schools of Engineering opens new doors for access to faculty expertise and opportunities for meaningful work with strategic partners, but the Luminosity Lab will stay true to the model that has gotten it this far — being a place where students from all academic disciplines can learn to thrive. “When we look for students, we’re looking for curious minds and those interested in positively impacting society,” says Naufel. “There’s a certain type of student that comes in hungry to learn new things and apply what they’ve learned. They want to be on a team where they’re staying up all night pursuing something that will make a difference. Those sleepless nights become worth it on demo day when the students finally get to launch and test their solutions. Our students live for those moments where they get to see the potential impact their work will have on real lives. These are the moments we are eager to scale as we continue to grow Luminosity within the Fulton Schools of Engineering.”

“When we look for students, we’re looking for curious minds and those interested in positively impacting society.” – MARK NAUFEL, LUMINOSIT Y L AB

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ASU Thrive, Spring 2019

INSIDE TOOKER HOUSE ASU’s Tooker House is more than a dorm. It’s a focal point for the student experience, integrating living and learning environments. The seven-story, 1,600-person coed residential community includes classrooms, makerspaces, seven social lounges, seven study lounges, six academic success centers and technology-enabled features — like finding out when the laundry room is free via Bluetooth. Its design allows students concentrating on their work to look up and make an immediate connection. Or just chat with a teacher between classes or over a meal.

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Tooker House brings innovation to engineering residential experience Engineering students moving into the new Tooker House at ASU are part of the first voice-enabled residential community on a university campus. Amazon donates 1,600 Amazon Echo Dots to ASU, and students use the devices to immerse themselves in the growing field of voice-technology development.

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“ Everything in here is built with the mindset of engineers . If you look at the ceilings, they look like they’re unfinished, but this is the finished product. They know engineers want to see not just the surface, but what’s beyond the surface.” —B R A D L E Y B O L I N , A S S I S TA N T D I R E C T O R , A S U RESIDENTIAL LIFE

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Take the virtual tour engineering.asu.edu/tookerhouse

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“ Tooker House is a community , from the open plan to the way peer mentors engage with residents.” – D A N I E L L E S O S I A S , F I R S T-Y E A R P R O G R A M S S R . C O O R D I N AT O R

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Diane Tooker, far right, is an alumnus of ASU’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College and a former business owner and elementary school teacher. Gary Tooker, to her left, is an alumnus of the Fulton Schools of Engineering and a former CEO of Motorola.

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ASU News, August 11, 2017

ASU’s new Tooker House brings engineering education home The new residence hall is named for Diane and Gary Tooker. Diane Tooker is an alumnus of ASU’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College and a former business owner and elementary school teacher. Gary Tooker is an alumnus of the Fulton Schools of Engineering and a former CEO of Motorola. Together, the couple has made contributions to ASU through the ASU Foundation for more than 30 years, including support for the university’s teaching and engineering programs and the endowed Diane and Gary Tooker Chair for Effective Education in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. Gary Tooker’s contributions to fostering Arizona’s tech sector were recognized with a lifetime achievement award presented at the 2012 Governor’s Celebration of Innovation. “Diane and Gary Tooker are not only longtime supporters of ASU, but of innovation and education. Tooker House epitomizes the best of both,” said Gretchen Buhlig, CEO of ASU Foundation. “We are grateful to them, and for the opportunity to bring new spaces and modes of learning to our Fulton Schools of Engineering students.”

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nnovation ntinuing, ing.” – M I C H A E L M . C R OW, A S U P R ES I D E N T

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“ The biggest thing I enjoy is my engineering students. To come on campus and tell them how much I appreciate them— I enjoy doing it. I want them to know that I was there once.” — I R A A . F U LTO N

Investing for the future Ira A. Fulton is the self-made homebuilder whose endowment gift created the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering and sparked the Fulton Difference. He’s also the man who makes a point of attending campus events, meeting students, and asking about their studies and research. “The biggest thing I enjoy is my engineering students,” he says. “To come on campus and tell them how much I appreciate them—I enjoy doing it. I want them to know that I was there once.” Born in Tempe, Fulton grew up defining his own work ethic. At age 6, he became a dishwasher in his mother’s café. He acquired his first “real” job as a newspaper courier at age 11, eventually becoming the number-one carrier for the Arizona Republic. After attending Arizona State University on a football scholarship, he became National Salesman of the Year for National Cash Register and then formed his own companies—he has built retail outlets, wholesale buying groups, and numerous other businesses, culminating in Tempe-based Fulton Homes. As a leading national philanthropist, when Fulton set out to become an agent of change in education and the Phoenix community, he found an equally dedicated partner in Arizona State University. Thanks to Fulton’s investment, the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering have been able to advance disciplines, create innovative programs, and build enrollment. “I am so proud to be involved with Michael Crow and the New American University, what he’s trying to accomplish, and where we’re going,” Fulton says.

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Ira A.Fulton, shown here second from left with son Doug, daughter Lori and late wife Mary Lou, at a Fulton Undergraduate Research Initiative luncheon at ASU.

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The Fulton family

Lasting impact The generosity of the Fulton family inspires students, alumni and friends Ira A. Fulton and his family are being honored as the 2018 Founders’ Day Philanthropists of the Year for their vision, leadership and commitment to advance Arizona State University and the New American University. As catalysts for the acceleration of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering and the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College — along with numerous investments across the university, from athletics to performing arts — the Fulton family inspires students, alumni and friends around the world. The family’s investments have created a living legacy of engagement, support and mentoring. Beyond their contributions of more than $160 million to ASU, the Fulton family devotes time and energy to the advancement of students, faculty and leadership on the campus and in the community. From their first moments at ASU, students are welcomed by Ira and his family, encouraging young learners to take

advantage of ASU’s resources for success, and sharing their wisdom: “College is not a time to find yourself but, rather, to create yourself.” With a smile and a selfie, Ira reassures students he looks forward to seeing them at graduation; he has not missed a ceremony since 2003. “The biggest thing our family enjoys is our engineering students,” Ira says. “To come on campus and tell them how much we appreciate them — we enjoy doing it. We want them to know that we were there.” Ira and son Doug are ASU Trustees, and Ira provides additional support by serving on the ASU Foundation Board of Directors, the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering Campaign Board, the ASU President’s Club and the ASU Sun Devil Club. The family brings its support to campus, providing lasting evidence that investments change lives through connection and the direct inspiration of individuals. As leading national philanthropists, the Fultons have found an equally dedicated partner in ASU. Visitors need only walk through campus to realize the transformative family’s impact.

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National impact As the most comprehensive and largest engineering program in the United States, the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering has earned its reputation not just by producing highly qualified engineers, but by inspiring them to be pathfinders, innovators and change makers. There’s a sense of dynamism and agility here that is the hallmark of the New American University in the 21st century. An unwavering dedication to student success, faculty excellence, and the creation of an environment where inclusion is woven into a rich mosaic, forming the very fabric of this vibrant institution. With over 25 undergraduate degrees, we are creating the future workforce for America’s foundation to support and improve the complex web of our national infrastructure. Our graduates will fill critically important jobs througout the country to keep our economy growing and thriving for generations to come.

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Fulton Schools national positioning

The Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering is at the cutting edge of use-inspired research and is leading several national initiatives. The Fulton Schools leads two NSF Engineering Research Centers, a $70M DOE Clean Energy Manufacturing Innovation Institute and is pioneering advances in microelectronics, geotechnical engineering, photovoltaics and clean water. #6 graduates hired into top tech companies ahead of Carnegie Mellon, Georgia Tech and UCLA

#15 in the U.S. online master’s in engineering, in the top 15, along with UCLA, Purdue, Columbia and USC

#19 in the U.S. undergraduate engineering*, ahead of UT Austin, University of Washington and UC Irvine

– S H L A S P I R AT I O N A L

– U.S. NEWS & WORLD

ACADEMIC S, 2020

R E P O R T, 2 0 2 3

R E P O R T, 2 0 2 3 *among public universities

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Largest in the U.S. The Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering is the largest and most comprehensive engineering program in the United States. Fulton Schools has incredible scale. The Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering offers 25 undergraduate programs and 50+ graduate programs in its eight schools, with many ranked nationally in their disciplines.

30,000+ current students

from all 50 states, Washington, D.C., Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands and 135 countries

#6 in the U.S.

in awarding bachelor’s degrees to underrepresented minorities

105

National Hispanic Scholars

46%

of faculty from diverse backgrounds

4,800

first-generation students

85 Members of National Academies and distinguished societies 30 CAREER awards to young faculty members from the National Science Foundation in the last three years positioning Fulton Schools as a national leader in quality for the future.

295 patents

led by Fulton Schools in the past three years

31 startups led by Fulton Schools in the past three years Over the last 10 years, ASU has become one of the nation’s leading producers of elite scholars. 1,840 National Merit Scholars 1,296 National Hispanic Scholars 23

Goldwater Scholars

185

Fulbright Scholars

Rhodes Scholar

Churchill Scholar

Marshall Scholars

Truman Scholars

Prestigious engineering faculty memberships in national academies

42 I EEE Fellows 10 National Academy of Engineering members 3 National Academy of Construction members 6 National Academy of Inventors members 135 NSF CAREER awardees since 1995

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CNBC, August 24, 2021

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The New York Times, February 22, 2023

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WorkingNation, February 23, 2023

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Forbes, February 24, 2022

Learn more at forbes.com/sites/jefffromm/2022/02/24/arizona-state-and-carbon-collect-bring-innovation-to-sustainability/?sh=8725ec551daa ENGINEERING

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Wired, February 17, 2022

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Popular Mechanics, May 2, 2022

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Fast Company, January 23, 2022

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The Washington Post, January 3, 2022

Learn more at washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2022/01/03/solar-energy-roof-shingles-climate/ ENGINEERING

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Scientific American, October 3, 2021

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NBC News, October 3, 2021

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Forbes, June 7, 2021

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Scientific American, June 1, 2020

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Popular Science, December 3, 2019

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CNN Business, April 10, 2019

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ASU News, November 3, 2016

Nothing but net The robot started from scratch,

with no idea what kind of movement would allow it to get the ball into the hoop.

It tried out different movements,

bit by bit figuring out how to improve its movements to get the ball closer and closer to the hoop.

(and one really smart algorithm)

It discovered that sinking the ball actually required a dynamic motion — and it did all of this with minimal trials.

Plenty of robots can shoot hoops. It wouldn’t be news that an ASU robotics expert created a robot that can sink a basketball. What’s news is that the robot taught itself to shoot a basketball in a matter of hours, something it would take even an expert programmer days to accomplish. “We pose the task to a robot, and through trial and error, the robot learns the task on its own, ideally in a limited amount of time,” says Heni Ben Amor, who leads ASU’s Interactive Robotics Laboratory. “You go for lunch, and by the time you come back, it’s done.” That’s the key to why his team’s algorithm is so impressive. “Many of these algorithms require hundreds of thousands of trials before you actually learn something,” he says. Score one for Ben Amor’s team — and their hoopssmart robot!

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Are robots helping or hurting us? “We are not all going to die because of robots,” says Aaron Ames, mechanical and civil engineering professor at the California Institute of Technology. Speaking at the recent ASU-hosted Southwest Robotics Symposium, he noted, “Let’s keep these [types of] comments in context. [People who say this] need to learn more about AI and robotics. “There’s tremendous potential to bring AI and control together on robotic systems that will make our lives better, such as improve mobility for the impaired, aid in disaster response and enable space exploration,” he said during the symposium. Adds Panagiotis Artemiadis, associate professor in ASU’s Fulton Schools of Engineering, “We are developing ways to talk about our research in the context of helping humans. The majority of the work we do is about enriching lives.”

Heni Ben Amor (left), ASU assistant professor of computer science, and Kevin Sebastian Luck, doctoral student, watch their robot toss a ball. ENGINEERING

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Security tips Ways to protect your data.

Tip Protect your email and other accounts with two-factor authentication.

Tip Prior to travel, remove any sensitive data from mobile devices.

Tip Turn off Bluetooth when not using your computer.

Tip Back up your computer to an encrypted external hard drive or an online backup service ... or both.

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Tip Practice good internet hygiene when using public Wi-Fi by avoiding sites requiring you to enter sensitive information.

Marcus Jones, a finance student, is a co-founder of Blockchain Innovation Society, a student-led organization focused on four primary pillars: education, development, investing/trading and consulting.

PUBLISHED

ASU Thrive magazine, Spring 2018

The

We’ve all got information coming out of our ears — and our phones, our social accounts and our wallets — and ASU researchers are working to protect it.

data defenders Story by BOB YOUNG

Photos by BRANDON SULLIVAN

In today’s fast-moving, high-tech world, we leave digital

footprints nearly everywhere we go, our sensitive personal information is under attack from those who want to track our habits or steal our identities, and there are those seeking to influence our thinking through misinformation such as “fake news” on social media platforms.

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Fact ASU biosecurity researchers are using brainwaves and signals from the heart to create cryptographic keys.

Tip Changing default security settings on routers is a first step to protecting smart home devices.

Tip Secure smart security systems with WPA2 and by encrypting admin tools.

Tip Scrutinize permissions (like location) requested by apps installed on each mobile device.

Tip Locking your mobile device by enabling biometrics and activating remote wipe options provides an added layer of protection.

Fact Bitcoin, the original cryptocurrency, launched in 2009.

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Jeremy Liu, who studies computational mathematical sciences, is a co-founder of Blockchain Innovation Society and part of the Blockchain Education Network.

Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, are exploring a wide range of cybersecurity issues, including social media analysis, data security on the web and mobile devices, data forensics and the use of blockchain technology — the technology that underlies digital currencies such as Bitcoin and Dash. “Everything electronic that we touch, even physical objects we touch like our cars, any of our transactions, our searches, even our use of a GPS device, leaves a digital footprint,” says Sandeep Gupta, director of the School of Computing, Informatics, and Decision Systems Engineering. “Computing is embedded in microwave ovens, refrigerators and other appliances — even toys. “Everything is connected through the Internet of Things. And for every device that is connected, somebody is collecting data from it, applying machine learning and doing analysis on the data. That’s how they make money — by collecting your data. “Mining for data is like mining for oil. Data is the oil. People want to sell you things. They want to understand you — how you work, how you vote. They can learn a lot of things about you.” Ghazaleh Beigi, a fourth-year doctoral student in ASU’s Data Mining and Machine Learning Lab, points out that President Donald Trump signed a measure in April 2017 that repealed internet privacy rules, allowing internet service providers to sell the personal data of people without their explicit consent. “We’re working on a defense which could manipulate the browsing history so we can help users protect themselves,” says Beigi. “If the data does get published, we know it can’t be mapped to the real identity of the users.”

“ Mining for data is like mining for oil. Data is the oil. People want to sell you things. They want to understand you — how you work, how you vote. They can learn a lot of things about you.” — S A N D E E P G U P TA , D I R E C TO R O F T H E SCHOOL OF COMPUTING, I N F O R M AT I C S , A N D D EC I S I O N SYSTEM S E N G I N E E R I N G AT A S U

It’s the kind of research that Gupta says has made ASU “a powerhouse in cybersecurity research and education.” Not surprisingly, there is a robust job market for cybersecurity analysts like the ones ASU’s Fulton Schools is turning out. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that demand for cybersecurity analysts will increase by 28 percent through 2026, and lists the median annual salary for cybersecurity analysts in Arizona at $93,975. The unemployment rate in the cybersecurity field? Zero. “Students who graduate from our programs are hired by the top companies in this area,” Gupta says. “They are in high demand.”

Using biosignatures to secure data Securing data and authenticating the identity of users is a challenge, according to Gupta. “Think about the autonomous

cars that you see everywhere nowadays,” he says. “We’re going to have software-controlled driving with multiple chips. If somebody launches a bug, it could cause an accident.” The focus of Gupta’s research is on biosecurity — using signals from the human body, such as brain waves and the electrocardiographic signals from the heart — to create cryptographic keys to secure data. “Like a fingerprint is unique, heart signals are unique,” he says. “And from these signals you can generate unique cryptographic keys that can be used for authentication within a network as well as to encrypt data in a way that it can be secure. “We have also developed a technique for compressing this data for lifelong storage. Everybody’s body generates a lot of data, and some people might like to store it for later if trouble arises.” But like those autonomous automobiles, Gupta says an electronic device embedded in the body can also be susceptible to a computer attack, so part of his research is aimed at protecting systems for embedded devices. “It has to be secure, right?” he says, adding, “People want more functionality and flexibility, and it has to be programmable. We want to have remote access, which is good, but it can be exploited.”

Fighting misinformation on social networks Students in Professor Huan Liu’s Data Mining and Machine Learning Lab are delving into areas that are as fresh as today’s headlines — including the detection of “fake news” on social media. Kai Shu, a doctoral candidate in the lab, is researching methods for detecting fake news and tracking it. ENGINEERING

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To learn more about ASU’s work on digital security, please visit the School of Computing, Informatics, and Decision Systems Engineering at cidse.engineering.asu.edu.

Fake news is just the latest entry in the larger misinformation game that includes spreading rumors, bias, urban legend and spam — always with an agenda. “It has become widespread because people can initiate it and amplify it on social media,” Shu says. “It’s challenging because the spreaders of misinformation try to behave like something they’re not,” says Liang Wu, another doctoral student in the lab. “They disguise themselves and make friends with regular users. Our statistics show that all of the [fake news] spreaders have at least one regular user friend and for more than 90 percent, the majority of the friends are regular users. They spread legitimate content until you trust them, then they spread misinformation.” Their hope, he explains, is for regular users to amplify the spread of misinformation. To accelerate the amplification, spreaders often utilize “bots” — software programs that mimic social media users. One study conducted by ASU students determined that almost 10 percent of active users in a topic were actually bots. And those bots generated nearly 40 percent of the content. “Our goal is to suspend all the bot accounts, and we devised a learning algorithm to improve bot detection,” Wu says. “We keep patching the algorithm by adding another classifier until all the bots are detected.”

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Blockchain to the rescue One of the latest innovations in cybersecurity is blockchain technology, which produces a ledger that anyone involved in a computer ecosystem can access. It is the technology that underlies digital currency, allowing transactions that are transparent and trackable without the use of a third party, such as a bank. But Dragan Boscovic, director of ASU’s Blockchain Research Laboratory, says emerging blockchain technology has the potential for many more applications. “Think of blockchain as just a distributed database which does not necessarily need a central authority to be managed and secured,” Boscovic says. “So in that context, it is really good for any application that has a need for sharing data across different entities; for instance, a supply chain. You can track where goods are, the sources of those goods and their status. “Every participant in a transaction is a check on everyone else in that ecosystem. So it is very difficult to cheat because everybody else can see it.” He says ASU’s research — much of which is being funded by Dash, the digital currency company that was launched in the Phoenix metro area — includes “applications in law, in civil engineering, managing water rights, tracking data records. “We have partners in a wide range of industries,” he says. “We have partners in supply chain, in manufacturing, financial businesses, data-hosting businesses, insurance businesses, even in the semiconductor business.” Whenever he speaks to potential partners these days, Boscovic says, the talk invariably focuses on blockchain.

“They would like to understand what we’re doing and how they can get involved.”

Putting on the detective hat Inevitably, despite the best efforts to secure data, breaches occur. That’s where forensic analysis comes into play. “We’re building systems that are more secure and improving defenses, but at the end of the day you’re going to be attacked and your data will be compromised,” says Adam Doupé, associate director of ASU’s Center for Cybersecurity and Digital Forensics. “So what do you do after that? “You need a detection system to know you’ve been attacked or that your data has been compromised. If you don’t have that, you don’t even know you need to start the forensic process.” Once a breach is detected, analyzing how it occurred is still a challenge, especially with evolving technology such as the cloud. “One thing we’re really interested about is the forensic process when data isn’t on a hard drive of a laptop or desktop,” Doupé says. To give students hands-on experience, the program has about 80 laptops loaded with top-of-theline forensic software, which they can use to solve challenges. “It is very easy to espouse the theory of such and such vulnerabilities,” Doupé says. “But when you actually do it, and put fingers to keyboard and see that you can actually do it and how it works, it opens their minds and improves their skills.” A good offense is only as good as a solid defense. “You can’t be a good defender if you don’t know the possible capabilities of the attacker. You have to think like an attacker,” he says.

Nakul Chawla is a computer science major and a self-proclaimed blockchain enthusiast.

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Engineers at ASU are tackling research to aid the performance and safety of the U.S. Navy’s aging fleets. Assistant Professor Kiran Solanki and his collaborators champion an approach that doesn’t look at corrosion in isolation, instead studying both the effects of corrosion and the microstructural influence of fatigue and fracture. “When you have material deformation, such as during fatigue, and corrosion happening simultaneously in structural materials, you have the worst-case scenario,” says Solanki.

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PUBLISHED

ASU News, February 4, 2014

Defense

Keeping U.S. defense systems in shape and mission-ready Aerospace tech weathers the harshest of environments as each mission necessitates. Researchers at ASU are advancing the ability to provide reliable estimates of the structural health and predict potential wear and tear in aerospace systems. Aditi Chattopadhyay, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and director of ASU’s Adaptive Intelligent Materials and Systems Center, is leading the project.

$5.7 billion

combined cost of corrosion for Navy and Marine Corps ships and aviation between 2010 and 2012

Her team is using advanced sensor data, information management, computer modeling and algorithms to develop damage diagnosis and prognosis techniques. The project’s co-leaders are Antonia Papandreou-Suppappola, a professor of electrical engineering, and Pedro Peralta, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. “Our team has specific expertise in material, structural, mechanical, electrical and systems engineering, and extensive experience in collaborative research projects under Department of Defense sponsorship,” Chattopadhyay says.

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Renewable Energy World, Jan. 1, 2019

ASU researchers break solar-cell efficiency record at 25.4% ASU researchers have set a new world record for solar efficiency, breaking their own previous record set in 2017. The cost of solar electricity is largely driven by the efficiency of the panels and the improvements could drive down the long-term cost of solar energy.

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“ Typically, the day we ship a new machine, we know more about it than anyone else in the world. Six months later you’re doing things with it we couldn’t possibly do. And if we don’t stay collaborative with you, we’ll go out of business.” — J I M S H A R P, P R E S I D E N T, Z E I S S M I C R O S C O P Y

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Full Circle, Jan 30, 2017

Nanotechnology

Academia, industry and government align efforts in 4-D materials science The foundation of materials science and engineering is the understanding of a material’s structure and how that affects properties and performance. The Center for 4D Materials Science aims to build on that foundation by enabling researchers to observe those properties and performance in real time. Headed by Fulton Professor of Materials Science and Engineering Nik Chawla and funded by a collaboration among ASU, Zeiss Microscopy and the Office of Naval Research, the center houses state-of-the-art equipment that can achieve resolution at the nanometer scale. These tools allow researchers to model and characterize materials’ changes under different stimuli, such as mechanical, thermal and electrical. Chawla says, “Our work in the 4-D area has been quite timely because, for the first time, we can visualize, study and quantify the changes in structure in a material in real time.”

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It’s all about you Customization is king. Medical exoskeletons are being 3-D printed, and the majority of hearing aids are now manufactured the same way. You want Kevlar in this color but not that color? You can do that.

Nature paves the path What conditions are right for a 3-D-printed part? Nature dictates a lot of designs, such as honeycomb structures, which can absorb energy. Traditionally, they are hard to manufacture.

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ASU News, October 10, 2017

Building tomorrow: 3 things to know about 3-D printing 3

New materials Before additive manufacturing, people were able to design materials, but not make them. Now we can — Kevlar and nylon can be combined, for instance.

Samples of 3-D polymer printing, with the honeycomb composed of nylon and carbon fiber and the fan made of ABS plastic.

Ski boots made expressly for you. Whitewater oars that cannot break. Featherweight motorcycle helmets inspired by nature. Hot new jobs. These are a few of the things additive manufacturing — usually called 3-D printing — is going to bring. Here are three things to know about additive manufacturing.

“We can create structures we couldn’t before and study their properties.” – D H R U V B H AT E , A S U P O LY T E C H N I C S C H O O L A S S O C I AT E P R O F E S S O R

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Additive manufacturing is the process of creating a 3-D-printed object layer-bylayer via computer control.

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Full Circle, Jan 7, 2016

Additive manufacturing

Adding new strengths The largest additive manufacturing research facility in the Southwest is taking shape at the Polytechnic campus, thanks to a partnership between ASU, Honeywell Aerospace, Concept Laser Inc., PADT Inc. and Stratasys Ltd. The center is home to cutting-edge plastic, polymer and metal 3-D printing equipment, along with advanced processing and analysis capabilities that will allow students, faculty and industry partners to stay on the forefront of the rapidly growing additive manufacturing sector.

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McCarthy project superintendent Daniel Steddum and Professor Barzin Mobasher go up in a lift to inspect the installation of the concrete panels May 7. Some of the panels cover more of the windows than others, depending on the side of the building, to cut down on as much of the solar gain as possible while still allowing a view.

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ASU News, March 10, 2022

Concrete innovations in new home for Global Futures

ASU engineering Professor Barzin Mobasher (pointing, with McCarthy project superintendent Daniel Steddum at the construction site gave input during the building’s design phase on the choice of the glass-fiberreinforced concrete used in the panels that form the shell of the new ISTB7 building. The concrete absorbs and stores less heat.

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Detail of the glassfiber-reinforced concrete panels. It absorbs and stores less heat.

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Mobasher (left) and Steddum examine a piece of fiber-reinforced concrete that makes up the panels.

The panels are based on biomimicry of a saguaro’s orientation to the sun. The commanding cactuses shield themselves from the heat with the deep pleats of their skins. South-, east- and westfacing windows are heavily shaded by the angled concrete panels, while the north-facing windows are barely covered.

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The skin The building is on track for LEED V4 Platinum-certification and clad in a shell of glass fiberreinforced concrete panels that absorb and store less heat. The panels’ design is inspired by a saguaro’s orientation to the sun. South-, east- and west-facing windows are heavily shaded by the angled concrete panels, while the north-facing windows are barely covered.

Professor Barzin Mobasher in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering says that the building’s reinforced concrete uses small glass fibers (picture right) to save materials without sacrificing strength, cutting the building’s need for concrete by 35%.

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ASU Thrive, March 13, 2023

Outside

A building bridging our ancient past to our thriving future The desert is a place that tells stories. Petroglyphs. Tire tracks. Paw prints. Who was here. What they did. And so it is with the Rob and Melani Walton Center for Planetary Health, a building of the desert. The building is home to the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory, the Global Futures Laboratory, the Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation, the Rob and Melani Walton Sustainability Solutions Service, the College of Global Futures, the School of Sustainability and the Institute of Human Origins.

The area near the corner of University Drive and Rural Road, where the Rob and Melani Walton Center for Planetary Health now stands, has been a crossroads for the region since ancient times. SABIRA MADADY/ASU

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A gathering place The site has long been a meeting place. Today, it’s one of the busiest intersections in the state at the corner of East University Drive and South Rural Road in Tempe. A thousand years ago, the Akimel O’Odham and the Piipaash people brought foods like mesquite pods here. There was a foot path and, later, a stagecoach route. Waters flowing through here once powered the Hayden Flour Mill.

The original canal still runs through the courtyard. Below is the Center for Negative Carbon Emissions, which advances technology to capture carbon from the air.

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Climb the steps and traverse history from the ancient to a thriving future. After the Ancient Technology Lab on the first floor, on the second floor, the Lucy skeleton comes into view — one of the oldest known human ancestors, discovered in 1974 by ASU paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson. Going up takes you into interactions with scientists across disciplines working to create solutions to climate challenges.

Students learn about the ancient past by working with raw materials in the lab, like stone, to make tools.

The Institute of Human Origins studies the science of our place in the world and how we came to occupy it.

Learn more about the building and the work of ASU’s Global Futures Laboratory at globalfutures. asu.edu.

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Workers from KiewitMcCarthy Joint Venture, Arizona Materials, Fleming and Sons Concrete Pumping and Valley Metro prepare to pour the last section of the northern spur extension of the Phoenix Valley Metro light rail line north of Dunlap Avenue on 25th Avenue on May 5.

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ASU News, May 22, 2023

ASU-designed fiber-reinforced concrete speeds up rapid transit construction Removing rebar from Valley Metro light rail cuts construction time, costs; increases worker safety Using fiber-reinforced concrete instead of rebar-supported slabs for constructing Metro Phoenix light rail extensions is giving new meaning to rapid transit. Months of construction time are being reduced to weeks, adding cost savings, sustainability and worker safety to the mix. A collaboration between Arizona State University, the Phoenix Valley Metro Regional Transportation Authority and Kiewit-McCarthy, the project’s construction firm, began with a materials upgrade proposal from Barzin Mobasher, an ASU professor of structural engineering in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment. The project, which extended the light rail by 1.5 miles, incorporated the fiber-reinforced concrete design and was completed in early May. Reinforcing bar, or rebar, is made of steel and embedded in concrete to strengthen structures. According to Mobasher, more than 60% of the volume of concrete used throughout the world has zero tensile efficiency and is unable to carry load. This makes concrete used in load-bearing structures like the light rail susceptible to cracks, which begin very small and grow unhindered until there is a fault in the structure. Incorporating rebar provides the loadbearing strength required for most concrete-based construction. However, laying rebar is costly, leaves a dramatic carbon footprint, presents worker safety risks and above all, takes a great deal of time. As the inevitable concrete cracking escalates and the rebar corrodes, additional maintenance, repair and rehabilitation are required, further adding to costs and neighborhood disruption. ENGINEERING

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Thin fibers of steel and polypropylene are being used in in the concrete mixture for Phoenix Valley Metro’s light rail extension. Using the fibers instead of rebar cuts costs and construction time as well as decreasing the carbon footprint and increasing sustainability.

Mobasher’s proposal simplified challenges for the light rail extension project and delivered a successful new system “just by making one change in the design criteria – using fibers in the concrete mix instead of reinforcing with rebar,” he said. Instead of using two layers of rebar in cross directions to support the light rail’s electrified track in the extensions, Mobasher’s design and validation approach considered both steel and polymeric fibers added directly into the concrete, completely eliminating the need for rebar reinforcement. Finally, steel fibers were chosen by Valley Metro for the northwest extension project. To validate the proposal, a series of serviceability 422

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tests were conducted in ASU’s Structural and Materials Lab. Testing involved creating full-size mock-ups for both rebar-reinforced concrete and fiber-reinforced concrete, in the same ratios as full-size sections. Sideby-side testing allowed comparisons of strength and flexibility as well as documentation of concrete cracking and fatigue susceptibility.

The testing process also projected cost and construction time savings. For example,

the per mile construction of the extension using rebar was projected at 231 days, while using fiberreinforced concrete reduced it to 121 days, with a cost savings of more than $12 million. “The idea of taking several long rebars that are half an inch in diameter, separated by 12 to 18 inches and built into a cage that is 12 inches above ground and replacing them with a fiber material, which is 2 inches long and only 1/32nd of an inch in diameter and mixed in with the concrete, might seem on scale non-competitive,” Mobasher said. “But if you have thousands of those small fibers distributed in there, they become much more effective in arresting the cracks — working as small Band-Aids to keep the cracks closed and transfer the load. (Fiberreinforced concrete) can be designed to bear up to an unprecedented 40% of the tensile load capacity of concrete.” “We did the fatigue tests to simulate conditions for up to 45 years of service at much higher expected loads as proof of concept, and they accepted the proposed approach,” said Mobasher of the approvals from Valley Metro and the city of Phoenix. “It’s been a tremendous experience for them to save the amount of materials used and, at the same time, to be able to meet the project at costs much lower than the original budget and in a much faster time frame.” The Valley Metro project is expected serve as a prototype for similar light rail upgrades nationally and will be presented at an international Fiber-Reinforced Concrete Workshop hosted by ASU in September.

Construction time A major obstacle for community approval of light rail transit is months of neighborhood disruption during construction. Using fiber-reinforced concrete instead of rebar-supported designs significantly reduces disruption to weeks or, in some cases, days. Andrew Haines, project manager for Jacobs Engineering in Tempe, attributed the success of the materials change to “challenging the accepted.” “There’s an accepted way of doing reinforced concrete in the United States, especially with regard to light rail,” Haines said. “I think engineers get into this track of just, ‘We’ve got to do it a certain way, that’s how it’s always been done,’ and it’s been very difficult to change that — to accept something new. “The placement of the concrete with the fibers has been very simple,” Haines said. “There’s no reinforcement — there’s no bars in the track slab for workers to try to walk on and perhaps slip on. So, it’s just the prepared earth and the rails are in place and the concrete gets placed around it — the reinforcement is integral with the concrete.” The ability to develop material samples and test them in the ASU labs was a major component of implementing the change, according to Haines. “We did all the right things to get this implemented in the field,” he said. “And the result seems to be phenomenal.” According to Mobasher, the fibers are added into the concrete mix at the plant before being transported by the ready-mix trucks to the construction site. The entire mix is then discharged and self-consolidates, leaving a smooth, finished concrete surface. “The work that used to take weeks to be done is finished in a matter of hours because we don’t need a crew laying up the steel rebars, connecting them, making sure they are all adequately welded together and that the components are all grounded,” Mobasher said.

Construction and materials costs In addition to cutting worker and equipment costs, there are savings associated with shorter security requirements at construction sites and lower shipping and concrete production costs. Also, the traffic delays and lost productivity due to lane closures are significantly reduced. ENGINEERING

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A construction worker pours premixed fibrous concrete for the last section of the northern spur of the Phoenix Valley Metro light rail line extension.

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And while there are significant cost savings due to switching from rebar to steel fibers, additional savings are realized by the different types of fibers as well. “With steel versus polymetric fiber there’s a tremendous difference in weight,” Haines said. With rebar, “we’re using 65 pounds of steel,” Haines said. “The production of steel produces a lot of greenhouse gasses — and a lot of energy to produce steel. There’s a lot less energy in using polymeric and synthetic fibers. We’re only using 12 pounds of polypropylene fibers vs. 65 pounds of steel, so there’s a savings there.” The project also uses thinner sections of concrete than required to support and protect rebar. “We’re using about 20% less concrete, which means we’re using 20% less cement,” Haines said. A not-insignificant side benefit of eliminating rebar is a reduction of associated potential corrosion from the stray currents in an electrified transit system.

Worker safety Walking on unstable rebars buried in fresh concrete is a challenging task. “Imagine walking on shredded glass in a dark room while shoveling wet mud that weighs about 80 pounds. That is how the previous 25 miles or so was built,” Mobasher said. “All we did was take out the rebar cage out so workers are finishing the slab without tripping as they navigate rebar in a 12-inch layer that can’t support their weight. Now, they are standing on solid ground as they pour the concrete around the rails.” “The type of concrete we are using here is fiberreinforced concrete,” said Farhad Rahimi, quality assurance manager for the city of Phoenix. “There is no rebar in this. It’s fiber inside the concrete, which makes the constructability much easier than rebar, and much faster. As for the quality, we get the same quality as we get from (standard) concrete. And, we got the tensile strength we need.” Laying the concrete is “still very hard, labor-intensive work,” Mobasher said, “but definitely more humane. I have so much respect for these construction workers. “The mission of sustainable engineering is to focus on long-lasting improvements of the human conditions, which includes both worker and environmental safety,” he said.

Sustainability benefits “What we have learned in the last 50 years in materials science is that the closer we look at a microstructure, the better we can understand materials at a macro level,” Mobasher said. The whole purpose of sustainable engineering is to design the material at a different level that may not sound intuitive, but that has load-bearing qualities that enhance longevity while reducing the carbon footprint. “When we look at the carbon footprint of the construction materials, when we consider concrete and steel, we realize that we use about 30 billion tons of concrete every year throughout the world,” Mobasher said. “We also use about 500 million tons of rebar for reinforcing that concrete to carry the load. That is a significant amount of carbon footprint because of just these two ingredients, because you cannot use concrete without providing reinforcement for it.” Additionally, the testing validates stability for more than 45 years, with a likely service life under Phoenix climate conditions of more than 100 years, according to Mobasher. One of Mobasher’s missions is to make these sustainable concrete technologies available to other cities and communities. Similar concrete formulas have been employed around the world, but they often come with proprietary constraints. “In our laboratory, we provide a scientific basis for the design validation of structural components by combining the design codes, analytical and computer simulation design tools,” Mobasher said. “Then we go a step further to verify the results with full-scale tests under the same loads the designers are concerned about. This approach gives us the ability to dial in the level of over-strength and conservativeness the engineers are comfortable with for the service life.” ASU structural research labs have been involved with many such challenges and have been an ongoing resource for testing new technologies in for both industry and communities. “We want to show that the (fiber-reinforced concrete) construction process can be a do-it-yourself project for local communities working with local construction companies,” Mobasher said. “We can show that collaboration between municipalities, industry, government agencies and universities can come together to share resources, cut costs and increase sustainability.” ENGINEERING

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ASU Professor Narayanan Neithalath and four colleagues have been granted $2 million from the National Science Foundation to foster collaboration around 3D concrete printing research across more than a dozen countries. 3D concrete printing generated these examples shown with Sooraj Nair, a doctoral student in Neithalath’s lab group. 426

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Engineering news, Oct 15, 2020

$2 million award to recast concrete construction Construction is a traditional industry. Fundamental work is performed in much the same way it has been for generations. Story by GARY WERNER

Consider the creation of concrete. Crews build a formwork or frame on-site. Cement and other materials are measured and mixed. Then the concrete is poured, compacted and cured or hardened over several weeks. This reliable process has been enacted around the world for decades, but the methods of concrete construction may be changing. Recent advances in materials science, robotics and other fields are permitting concrete to be 3D printed at building sites. Projects in Europe and Asia have already printed entire houses. “3D printing has several advantages over conventional concrete construction,” says Narayanan Neithalath, a professor of civil engineering in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University. “For example, the method is much more efficient. We can reduce material wastage by half, and we also can create unconventional structures. But realizing the advantages requires a community to research and develop the tools, techniques and standards to make this innovation into a more broad-based reality.” With a vision to establish that community, Neithalath and four colleagues at other universities have been awarded a $2 million, five-year grant from the National Science Foundation’s AccelNet program supporting

the establishment of collaborative links to address challenges in science and engineering. Neithalath and his co-principal investigators on the grant are creating a “network of networks” called 3DConcrete to share knowledge and opportunities across 13 countries. “Every country or region has its own professional network related to concrete,” Neithalath says. “But we’re trying to establish broader collaboration for the research and development of 3D printed concrete and allied topics to help advance the capabilities of industry.” Shiho Kawashima, an associate professor of civil engineering at Columbia University ENGINEERING

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The 3d printing technique to build with concrete offers the potential to change the nature of construction.

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and a member of the 3DConcrete grant project team, says more direct interaction is crucial to this effort. Many academics in this field are familiar with the work of their peers, but they are not necessarily collaborating. “Consequently, we plan to host workshops and other events among our partner institutions to better connect people,” Kawashima says. “We also hope to engage with organizations such as the American Concrete Institute to conduct meetings alongside their conventions and involve much larger groups.” In addition to faculty peer relations, 3DConcete will support student exchanges among member institutions. Participants may spend eight weeks at another university domestically or abroad to see what and how others are working in the field, including engaging with companies that are affiliated with those universities. “This effort extends across disciplines, too,” Kawashima says. “We are cement and concrete materials people, but we need to extend outreach to those in architecture, robotics and structural engineering. Through these exchanges, we hope to connect all of the means that are important in terms of bringing research advances into practice.” Raissa Ferron, an associate professor in the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin and another member of the grant project team, says the cross-disciplinary nature of 3D concrete printing demands not

only professional collaboration but also a review of educational models. “Civil engineers typically understand the materials science and engineering of concrete and steel. We are not immersed in programming and robotics,” she says. “But innovation of this order requires that we evaluate how we train our students. What information and skills will they need as technical advances change the nature of our field? This is a question we should consider in conversation with everyone.” Ferron also says broader changes represented by 3D concrete printing offer a means to bring more women and minorities into construction. “Construction is one of the largest sectors in the economy, but certain groups of people have been barred from full participation,” Ferron says. “3D concrete printing presents an opportunity to reinvent the field. For example, if this innovation means workers will not necessarily need to pick up heavy equipment, we can disassociate construction from being a masculine arena.” Gaurav Sant, a professor of civil engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles and another member of the grant project team, says there is a lot of excitement about the potential for concrete printing to catalyze change in construction. But he also says their new network of networks has a great deal of work to do regarding fundamental advances in science. “For example, the 3D concrete printing solutions we are developing now are based on the cement we

“Real innovation requires consideration of alternate mechanisms and processes. Not all conventional methods are the best of what is possible.” – N A R AYA N A N N E I T H A L AT H , A P R O F E S S O R O F C I V I L E N G I N E E R I N G I N T H E I R A A . F U LT O N S C H O O L S O F E N G I N E E R I N G AT A S U

currently use to make concrete,” Sant says. “But this implicitly assumes that cement is the best material we have for the purpose. Why is that? The cement used to produce concrete is responsible for up to 10% of global CO2 emissions. So, maybe we can be more expansive in our thinking and in the questions we ask. These are the kinds of tasks that this new network of networks will be able to consider.” Neithalath concurs that fundamental change to the science and practice of construction is long overdue, and that this requires new thinking on fundamental levels. “We’re not saying that every construction project needs to be 3D-printed concrete. But real innovation requires consideration of alternate mechanisms and processes. Not all conventional methods are the best of what is possible,” he says. “So, this project is intended to create a shared platform that can germinate new ideas to take us toward what is possible.” ENGINEERING

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Forbes, Dec. 3, 2020

Obsessed with efficiency: The 2020 Forbes 30 Under 30 in energy Startup venture EnKoat (a shorthand for energy saving coatings) emerges from ASU engineering research, poised to make big energy and environmental conservation impact. The product could help maintain comfortable temperatures in the interiors of houses and other structures. Founders Aashay Arora, ’18, and Matthew Aguayo,’18, received their doctoral degrees in civil, environmental and sustainable engineering. Their early pitches at ASU’s Change the World Competition and ASU Venture Devils Demo Day provide early support and funding.

Aashay Arora and Matthew Aguayo, EnKoat’s Awards • “50 To Watch” Companies (Recognized By The Cleantech Group), 2020 • Forbes 30 Under 30 - Energy, 2020 • Runner’s Up In EarthX Climate-Tech Pitch Competition, 2020 • NSF SBIR Phase I Awardee, 2019 • Semi-Finalist At The Arizona Innovation Challenge, 2019

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Workers apply a coating to the roof of a classroom building at Arizona State University’s Polytechnic campus to conduct a test of the new material’s effectiveness. The coating developed by two recent graduates of ASU’s engineering doctoral program is designed to reduce the amount of energy needed maintain cool or warm temperatures inside buildings.

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ASU News, October 22, 2019

New building coatings beat the heat Startup venture emerging from ASU engineering research could make big energy and environmental conservation impact Aashay Arora and Matthew Aguayo’s promising new technique to make buildings more energy efficient emerged from a project to produce a more resilient concrete for roads. As Arizona State University engineering doctoral students, Arora and Aguayo had worked with Narayanan Neithalath, a professor of civil, environmental and sustainable engineering in ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, to develop a concrete pavement that would be highly resistant to cracking under thermal stress.

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Matthew Aguayo (left) and Aashay Arora atop the Agribusiness Center building on Arizona State University’s Polytechnic campus. They are the founders of EnKoat, a startup venture based on their development of coating materials that reduce energy consumption by insulating building interiors from much of the impacts of outside heat or cold.

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What they came up with was a pavement mixture that makes use of phasechange materials, which can transform from solid to liquid and from liquid to solid and be used to store or release heat. They found the physical and chemical properties of the phasechange materials kept the concrete significantly cooler, and thus much less likely to crack. That successful experiment made Neithalath wonder if using the same technology could work to keep buildings cooler. He provided research funding to Arora and Aguayo to investigate if embedding phase-change materials into paint, plaster and stucco — three of the most commonly used coatings for buildings — could maintain comfortable temperatures in the interiors of houses and other structures. The result of that project is the startup venture EnKoat (Arora and Aguayo’s shorthand for energy saving coatings), which they and Neithalath see as a potential game changer in the energy-efficiency technology industry.

Startup’s aim to produce benefits for environment Arora and Aguayo are currently conducting more extensive testing of their coatings on the roof of the Agribusiness Center building on ASU’s Polytechnic campus. Until now, they have been able to test coatings only in the lab and on two “mini houses” on Aguayo’s

parents’ property in Casa Grande, south of the Phoenix area. Although those tests have produced positive results, Arora says coatings applied recently to the Polytechnic campus building will provide the large-scale performance results he and Aguayo hope will attract industry attention. More than making EnKoat a successful business, Arora and Aguayo aspire to see their venture eventually make a positive and widespread environmental impact. By reducing the need for electrical power to run conventional heating and air conditioning units, EnKoat’s founders say if their venture can go global it would help keep millions of metric tons of harmful carbon emissions from entering the atmosphere every year. ASU Director of University Sustainability Practices Mick Dalrymple says there was no hesitation about using Polytechnic campus facilities for EnKoat’s testing project because the startup’s goals align with one of ASU’s key missions: to help communities solve their challenges. “Climate change is the most critical issue our communities face,” Dalrymple said. “So, providing an environment in which young innovators can test solutions to positively impact all of our futures is not only one of our goals, but our responsibility.”

Phase-change materials are driving force in the coating system To understand the phase-change process and how it is employed in EnKoat’s building coatings, think

“Climate change is the most critical issue our communities fac. So, providing an environment in which young innovators can test solutions to positively impact all of our futures is not only one of our goals, but our responsibility.” – A S U D I R E C T O R O F U N I V E R S I T Y S U S TA I N A B I L I T Y PR ACTICES MICK DALRYMPLE

of an ice chest full of ice, Arora and Aguayo say. When external temperatures rise and start to enter the ice chest, the ice begins to melt as it absorbs the heat. Even though the ice is melting, they explain, it is still trying to maintain the temperature inside the ice chest at 32 degrees Fahrenheit — thus activating a solid-to-liquid phase-change process. So, think of a house as the ice chest. As the temperature rises outside, the coatings begin to absorb the heat rather than letting it go into the building, and thus maintain a cooler temperature inside the house. The coatings — which are a patent-pending technology developed at ASU — can be customized to achieve maximum energy savings under varying climatic conditions. Instead of the 32 degrees Fahrenheit being maintained in the ice chest example, the target temperatures for their coatings to maintain inside buildings are between 72 and 78 degrees — what homeowners would normally ENGINEERING

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“Our target is to fine-tune our business model with the help of industry mentors and get full utility patents issued for our products. ” – A A S H AY A R O R A , E N K O AT C O - F O U N D E R

set on their homes’ thermostats. The coatings can also incorporate different types of organic, or bio-based, phasechange materials, such as agricultural feedstock. Use of such renewable resources make the EnKoat coating systems more environmentally sustainable. The phase-change materials do their work inside the coatings at a microscopic scale, while the surface texture of the coating on walls and roofs remains unchanged.

Next: Fine-tuning the business model Gerald DaRosa, ASU’s director of energy innovations, calls the system “one of the more exciting energyefficiency tools” being developed. “What is unique compared to other phase-change substances we’ve examined is that this material can be infused within construction material, such as stucco or concrete,” DaRosa said. “This could make it easier to apply the material and might also reduce the stress on the construction material caused by 436

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temperature swings.” EnKoat now has three products — stucco for exterior walls, plaster for interior walls and paint for interior walls, exterior walls and roofs. For maximum effectiveness, buildings need to be coated on all surfaces, Arora says, and the amount of coating necessary will vary with the environmental surroundings outside each building. Beyond getting the results of the large-scale testing, he says, “Our target is to fine-tune our business model with the help of industry mentors and get full utility patents issued for our products. We will also seek help from local utility companies to further validate the effectiveness of our coatings and figure out rebates for early adopters.”

Challenges of moving into the marketplace Arora and Aguayo received their doctoral degrees in civil, environmental and sustainable engineering, with a concentration

in structural and materials engineering, at the end of the fall 2018 semester. In addition to his efforts for EnKoat, Arora is now working with Neithalath as a research specialist and as a faculty associate teaching in the Del E. Webb School of Construction, which is part of the Fulton Schools. Aguayo is making a full-time commitment to EnKoat’s endeavors. Big challenges still lie ahead for the two young entrepreneurs, says Neithalath, who teaches in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment. On the technical side, it’s critical that EnKoat’s coatings be adapted to be effective on more kinds of building surfaces, especially brick and wood, Neithalath says. The startup now needs to boost its business prospects by winning additional grants to fund further research and development necessary to move the coating products from the lab to the marketplace. In addition, experienced industry

Matthew Aguayo (left) and Aashay Arora in the lab where they have engineered the coatings at the core of their business.

advisory board members and seed investors must be found, and EnKoat must get its new systems and technologies licensed and then complete agreements with manufacturers. The end goal, Neithalath says, “is that people should just be able to go to a store and buy the coatings and not need an engineer to tell them how to use it. It must be as simple as possible. Contractors should be given a product they can apply just like stucco, without needing to get special training.”

Winning support from investors in innovation The success of Arora and Aguayo’s efforts over the past two years encouraged them to seek support

to further develop and scale up their Enkoat entrepreneurial enterprise. Last spring, Aguayo’s business pitch won a sustainability award at ASU’s Change the World Showcase and Competition, while EnKoat also took the top prize at an ASU Venture Devils Demo Day, which provided $15,000 in funding from ASU’s Edson Student Entrepreneur Initiative. EnKoat’s founders have also participated in both regional and national sessions of the National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps training program, which prepares young scientists and engineers to commercialize technological advances being made through their university research projects. EnKoat placed in the top 42

student-led startups of 2019 at the Rice University’s Business Plan Competition, earning the best elevator pitch and third prize overall at the TYE University Pitchfest Global Competition, which is organized by IndUS Entrepreneurs, a Silicon Valley nonprofit that supports new tech ventures. Arora and Aguayo also won the first prize of $50,000 in the New Venture Challenge graduate course in ASU’s W. P. Carey School of Business. To top it off, they earned a grant from ASU’s Sustainability Initiatives Revolving Fund, which invests in projects that both foster sustainability efforts and provide an economic return on investment.

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ASU News, July 8, 2016

Controlling drones with the mind A researcher at ASU is working with increasing complexity to control multiple robotic drones using the human brain. A controller wears a skull cap (at left) outfitted with 128 electrodes wired to a computer. The device records electrical brain activity. If the controller moves a hand or thinks of something, certain areas light up. “I can see that activity from outside,” says Panagiotis Artemiadis, director of the HumanOriented Robotics and Control Lab and an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. If the user is thinking about decreasing cohesion between the drones — spreading them out, in other words — “we know what part of the brain controls that thought,” he says. His work on controlling multiple machines wirelessly is part of a trend in robotics and space exploration.

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ASU News, May 24, 2021

2-D batteries

Higherperforming and wearable, too? Batteries for the future of tech and wearables Compared to the first silicon-based transistors of the 1950s, the extraordinary capabilities of today’s consumer electronics seem like the stuff of science fiction. But new research at Arizona State University is developing the foundation of quantum-based technologies that could transform our reality beyond what we’ve imagined. Sefaattin Tongay, an associate professor of materials science and engineering in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at ASU, is leading one of the first research teams to demonstrate new, highquality manufacturing techniques for a unique type of 2D substance called Janus materials. “We are coming up with an entirely new chemistry of Janus materials that has never been reported before. And with the manufacturing technique (we are developing), we are able to get high-quality Janus layers for completely new types of light-emitting materials and entirely new quantum domains that have never been explored before,” said Tongay, who is also the materials science and engineering undergraduate program chair in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, one of the six Fulton Schools. “No one has stepped into this unknown territory,” he said. Tongay’s research will set the foundation for new information technologies, efficient energy generation and energy storage based on hydrogen and other applications.

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Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business of 2019, May 22, 2019

This nanoscience researcher is building DNA origami to fight cancerous tumors In a major advancement in nanomedicine, ASU scientists, in collaboration with researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, successfully programmed nanorobots to shrink tumors by cutting off their blood supply. For his work, ASU’s Hao Yan was named one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business of 2019.

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ASU professor named to Fast Company’s ‘Most Creative People in Business 2019’ Arizona State University Biodesign Institute researcher Hao Yan has been named to Fast Company’s list of “Most Creative People in Business 2019” for his work using nanobots to fight cancerous tumors by choking off their blood supply.Hao Yan is the ASU Milton D. Glick Distinguished Professor and director of the Center for Molecular Design and Biomimetics and professor in the School of Molecular Sciences. Download Full Image Fast Company recognized Yan’s work using nanorobots to treat cancer at the molecular level. A pioneer in the field of DNA origami, Yan and his team in the Biodesign Center for Molecular Design and Biomimetics draw their inspiration from nature, seeking to solve complex human problems. The magazine’s annual list seeks to highlight individuals across a wide range of fields who “have accomplished something over the past year that has moved an entire industry forward in an unprecedented way.” Yan is among a highly diverse group of people recognized, including actress Michelle Pfeiffer, late night talk show host Seth Meyers, athletes, activists and artists. “I’m very honored to be included on this list,” said Yan, the Milton D. Glick Distinguished Professor in the School of Molecular Sciences. “I am a scientist. I don’t think of myself as a businessperson.” Despite his science-first focus, Yan’s entrepreneurial spirit led him to launch Nanobot Biosciences, an early stage startup that is poised to move his technology into commercial use. Yan hopes to begin to be able to treat human cancer patients within the next five years. Fast Company focused on Yan’s work in building robots that are “one-thousandth the width of a strand of hair — and “constructed from DNA folded into 3D shapes.” The nanorobots are programmed to shrink tumors by finding the source of blood supply to the tumor and stopping that supply. Highly significant in this advance is that it does not affect the healthy cells — a 446

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conundrum in the world of cancer care with treatments like chemotherapy and radiation therapy. According to Fast Company, this “unique form of nanostructure technology has shown promise in initial tests, doubling the survival rate of mice with cancer.” Fast Company focused on Yan’s work in building nanorobots programmed to shrink tumors by finding the source of blood supply to the tumor and stopping that supply. Yan attributes his ability to think creatively to nature, ASU President Michael Crow and being housed in a highly interdisciplinary research environment at ASU’s Biodesign Institute. “President Crow is someone I truly admire. He is always thinking outside the box,” said Yan. Yan explains that being at ASU means he is unconstrained by traditional boundaries and has freedom to take risks. Yan believes that perfection can sometimes be the enemy of creativity. “The world comes with a lot of perfectionism,” said Yan. “While I have a habit to think deep and dig deeper, I can’t be creative if I am always trying to find the perfect answer. Looking around, it is simply not a perfect world, we need to find creative solutions for unmet challenges and be willing to take risks”.

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ASU News, May 23, 2019

Fast Company focused on Yan’s work in building nanorobots programmed to shrink tumors by finding the source of blood supply to the tumor and stopping that supply.

“Professor Yan is an outstanding researcher who is constantly innovating to address grand challenges in health through an interdisciplinary approach,” said Sethuraman Panchanathan, executive vice president, ASU Knowledge Enterprise and chief research and innovation officer. “His work exemplifies the spirit of creativity that has the potential for global impact. He richly deserves this recognition.” “Can a robot fight cancer? Yes, but it needs to be really, really tiny, which is why Hao Yan and researchers at ASU and China’s National Center for Nanoscience and Technology are building nanobots that are one-thousandth the width of a strand of hair.” (Fast Company) Yan also takes pride in creating an atmosphere where up-and-coming scientists can thrive. “I throw them in the pond and let them swim. I don’t want to produce a technician. I want to produce a creative thinker and a scientist who can come up with their own ideas and solve problems on their own.” Testament to that approach is the fact that Yan’s lab boasts three researchers who have been named “New Innovator” by the National Institutes of Health. He considers identifying promising scientists as one of his most creative acts.

“Creativity and courage are at the crux of good science,” said Joshua LaBaer, Biodesign Institute executive director. “Hao’s work inspires us all. He is representative of the intellectual curiosity that drives our organization – and most certainly, the spirit of innovation that is fostered and encouraged throughout Arizona State University.” “The environment at Biodesign Institute really provides a space for people to easily reach out to so many different disciplines,” said Yan. He appreciates the ability to keep learning from others. “I didn’t know about tumor biology or cancer immunotherapy before, but now due to my colleagues here, I can merge my knowledge with theirs. I am always learning.” Asked what he would do if he wasn’t a scientist, he said, “I would be a rock star, playing electric guitar and singing on stage.” China’s National Center for Nanoscience and Technology is a partner in Yan’s work. Yan’s honor comes a few years after another ASU luminary, Charles Arntzen, was named to the magazine’s 2015 Most Creative People. Arntzen, a co-founder of the Biodesign Institute, was recognized for his leadership role in developing ZMapp, a therapeutic to fight Ebola, produced in tobacco plants. ENGINEERING

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“We’re trying to build robotic devices to help people, to assist people... to make the work less fatiguing, easier.” — T O M S U G A R , A S S O C I AT E D E A N , B A R R E T T, T H E H O N O R S C O L L E G E AT T H E P O LY T E C H N I C CAMPUS, AND ENGINEERING PROFESSOR

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ASU News, January 22, 2021

Great strides

On the cutting edge of robotics Twenty-five faculty members at ASU are researching the cutting edge of robotics. Seven of them have won the NSF CAREER award, the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious award in support of early career faculty members. It’s safe to say, ASU is poised to make great strides in the field. “We have talent,” exoskeleton roboticist Tom Sugar said. Some of their research has gone out into the world and become reality, like a prosthetic hand that can feel. Some of it, like a flying swarm of tiny robots, is a long way off. Learn more at robotics.asu.edu

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ASU Thrive magazine, Spring 2018

The future is fast! No, this jet pack won’t help you fly — but it will help you run faster In fact, in tests, a waist-mounted version helped a bicyclist increase top speed from 39 to 53 mph, and a skateboarder got up to 32 mph. The jet pack was created at Professor Thomas Sugar’s lab on ASU’s Polytechnic campus, where Sugar and his team build devices to help people overcome a physical disability or enhance performance. The devices run the gamut, from a refrigerated suit that can help soldiers stay cool in a desert environment to an exoskeleton that can help a warehouse worker beat fatigue. One of Sugar’s latest projects is an all-terrain prosthetic ankle for amputees. Though many of the projects are funded through the military, he says the future of wearable robotics may be commercial. “My belief is that the younger baby-boom generation will want to stay active, and they like technology,” Sugar says. “So instead of a walker or a cane that assists, they might want to wear one of these devices.”

According to Sugar, assistive devices are moving into the mainstream. “Sitting is the new smoking,” he said. “It increases the chances of heart disease, which is now killing more people than communicable diseases.” In answer, assistive devices offer a boost to humans: Wearable exoskeletons support hips and knees to enable standing at a workstation, and locomotion systems are designed to assist warehouse workers to travel from one end of the facility to another. Mechatronic technologies are being combined with soft robotics to create delicate, user-friendly devices for people with muscle-impairment diseases like muscular dystrophy, giving them the ability to grip and move items they otherwise could not manipulate. Also in the assistive-device category is an anklebot (a robotic device that provides stability for patients whose gait has been impaired by stroke or diseases like Parkinson’s), rehabilitation treadmills that use a functioning limb to mirror muscle control in the impaired limb to restore normal mobility, and a variety of sensor-monitoring technologies that use treadmills or other therapeutic devices.

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ASU research aims to develop advanced prosthetic hands that function and feel natural in use.

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ASU News, August 15, 2017

Brain-machine systems

Striving for big steps in prosthetic-hand technology Professor Marco Santello and his research colleagues want to break through the functionality barriers that still burden people with artificial hands. Santello is the director of the ASU School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering and a neurophysiologist who directs the Neural Control of Movement Laboratory at the university. Working with researchers at Mayo Clinic, the Italian Institute of Technology and Florida International University, Santello and ASU colleagues Qiushi Fu and James Abbas are applying some of the latest advances in bioengineering, robotics and brain-machine interface systems to develop prosthetic hands that enable users to feel sensations by which they can judge how much or how little force to exert in gripping, lifting, moving and holding particular objects. With new technologies that directly connect with the body’s nervous system, they hope to give artificial-hand users the ability to perform a wider range of normal daily living activities. The challenge is to construct a seamless integration of the nervous system with a myoelectric prosthetic hand, which requires teams of researchers with a broad range of complementary expertise in various branches of engineering, neuroscience and medical science.

“ This team’s Imagine Cup project is at the forefront of research aimed at augmenting productivity by making machines work seamlessly with humans. ” – S U B B A R A O K A M B H A M PAT I , A S U P R O F E S S O R O F C O M P U T E R S C I E N C E A N D E N G I N E E R I N G , O N T H E Æ F F E C T I V E R O B O T I C S T E A M ' S W O R K

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Improving Airport Checkpoint Performance Outcomes include reduced average wait time, improved customer service, and quicker responses to unplanned events without compromising security.

Pivoting To Respond To A Pandemic CAOE shifted the focus of an ongoing project on natural disaster preparedness to address expected supply chain challenges around medical equipment and vaccines.

Improving Detection Of Border Threats CAOE projects identify potential “hot paths” of illegal smuggling and trafficking activity, allowing for better resource allocation to improve capacity and return-on-investment of tactical and surveillance infrastructure.

Developing CrossDisciplinary Education Resources For The Future Workforce CAOE works to support workforce and professional development through a multiinstitutional approach to developing a diverse and inclusive homeland security workforce. A key component of the Center’s program has been the establishment of crossdisciplinary modules and programs that span traditional disciplinary boundaries while being agile to support existing and emerging mission needs. SOURCE: U.S. Department of Homeland Security 456

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The Department of Homeland Security has turned to ASU researchers for help developing advanced tools that will improve operations in DHS organizations, including the TSA, U.S. Coast Guard, Federal Emergency Management Agency and Customs and Border Protection. The center is developing models to improve efficiency and other factors in airport security.

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ASU News, Sep 14, 2017, updated June 2023

Homeland security

ASU tapped to lead Center for Excellence Going through screenings at the airport can be unpredictable, frustrating and time-consuming. What many passengers don’t realize, though, is that Transportation Security Administration screenings also are quite expensive. Finding cost-effective ways to keep airports and flights safe is one of the many challenges the U.S. Department of Homeland Security faces daily. To that end, DHS has turned to ASU researchers for help developing advanced tools that will improve operations in DHS organizations, including the TSA, U.S. Coast Guard, Federal Emergency Management Agency and Customs and Border Protection. DHS has selected only a small number of universities across the country to lead research efforts in its Centers of Excellence.

The Center for Accelerating Operational Efficiency is a nationwide consortium of more than 25 university, private industry and national laboratory partners. The center conducts predictive analyses, screens for threat assessment and resource allocation, supports risk detection and mitigation and helps train the current and future homeland security workforce. caoe.asu.edu

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Washington Post, August 11, 2020

Chester comments on climate change and our alreadytaxed infrastructure Sustainability scientist Mikhail Chester is interviewed in the August 8 Washington Post article, Why climate change is about to make your bad commute worse. According to the article, while most motorists are familiar with many reasons for bad traffic, such as construction, inadequate mass transit and crashes, a culprit that must increasingly be considered is climate change. “We need to fundamentally reassess what our systems need to be able to deliver, and under what conditions,” said Mikhail Chester, associate professor of civil, environmental and sustainable engineering at Arizona State University and co-leader of the Urban Resilience to Extremes Sustainability Research Network. “And those conditions, it looks like, are going to be changing faster and faster in the future.” “Climate change is an additional stressor on already taxed infrastructure,” Chester said. The situation’s silver lining, he added, is consensus: “Everyone is in agreement that we should do something about infrastructure.”

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Real-world examples of individual travels and collective movements. A brighter line indicates a stronger flux.

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Full Circle magazine, Nov 21, 2017

Travel

New mapping of how we move – worldwide A new method to predict human mobility – which can be used to chart the potential spread of disease or determine rush hour bottlenecks – has been developed by a team of researchers, including one from Arizona State University. The research, Universal model of individual and population mobility on diverse spatial scales, was published in the Nov. 21 issue of Nature Communications. The research was conducted by Ying-Cheng Lai, a professor of electrical, computer and energy engineering at the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering. He worked with Xio-Yong Yan and Zi-You Gao from the Institute of Transportation System Science and Engineering at Beijing Jiaotong University and Wen Xu Wang from the School of Systems Science and Center for Complexity Research at Beijing Normal University. The researchers found that, based on empirical data from cell phones and GPS records, people are most inclined to travel to “attractive” locations they’ve visited before, and these movements are independent of the size of a region. The new mobility method uses mathematical calculations based on

that data, providing insights that can be discerned regardless of size of the region being tracked. “The new mobility prediction method is important because it works at both individual and population scales, regardless of region size,” explained Arizona State University Professor YingCheng Lai. “Until now, different models were necessary for predicting movement in large countries versus small countries or cities. You could not use the same prediction methods for countries like the U.S. or China that you’d use for Belgium or France.” Information gathered using the new process will be valuable for a variety of prediction tasks, such as charting potential spread of disease, urban transportation planning, and location planning for services and businesses like restaurants, hospitals and police and fire stations.

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“Our aim is to help policymakers and regional agencies enhance their transportation system planning and development processes through human-centric travel forecasting that will be more accurate in its ability to predict traveler behavior under a wide variety of alternative futures. ” – R A M P E N DYA L A , A S U P R O F E S S O R O F T R A N S P O R TAT I O N S Y S T E M S

The ASU research center TOMNET works to aid U.S. Department of Transportation efforts to improve how the nation’s local and regional transportation systems serve their communities.

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ASU News, January 5, 2017

Predicting our future needs University heads federally funded research consortium, seeks to make “quantum leap” in analytics and behavior modeling to improve travel demand forecasting Arizona State University researchers are poised to help boost innovation in the planning and design of future enhancements to the nation’s transportation systems. ASU has been named the lead institution for a new U.S. Department of Transportation Tier 1 University Transportation Center that will focus on improving regional travel demand forecasting. The center’s work is part of a larger program to develop new systems and technologies that provide better surface transportation mobility and accessibility across the country. The new center, called the Center for Teaching Old Models New Tricks — or TOMNET for short — puts ASU in charge of a consortium that includes researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Washington and the University of South Florida. It’s one of 20 Tier 1 centers recently awarded to universities around the country — selected from more than 200 proposals — and the first and only one to be led by an Arizona university since the inception of the University Transportation Centers program two decades ago. The new awards provide each of the Tier 1 centers $7 million over five years. tomnet-utc.engineering.asu.edu ENGINEERING

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Chapter World opener impact Our student body, a vibrant tapestry made up of individuals from all 50 states, Washington, D.C., Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and an astonishing 135 countries, testifies to the universal appeal of the “Fulton Difference.” The “Fulton Difference” is rooted in principles that nurture success in and beyond the classroom. It champions use-inspired research and promotes an entrepreneurial spirit. It honors the fact that our faculty’s dedication extends beyond transformational research and exemplary engineering education to building bridges that span cultures, industries and communities around the world. We don’t end our mission with local or national impact - we aspire to make lasting global change. In the Fulton Schools, we are not just shaping the next generation of engineers, we’re developing the visionaries who will create tomorrow’s world.

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Fulton Schools world positioning

The Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering is built as the engineering college of the future – simultaneously increasing access to advance student success and achieving excellence in use-inspired research. Across the world, the Fulton Schools’ global impact is immense and growing as learners worldwide access ASU’s renowned faculty through innovative distance education formats. #15 in environmental science and engineering, ahead of Univ. of Copenhagen, Delft University of Technology and UC Berkeley –ACADEMIC R ANKING OF WORLD UNIVERSITIES, 2022

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Co-founding partner of TEDI-London, an innovative engineering and design institute in the United Kingdom with Kings College London and UNSW Sydney

Globallyconnected The Fulton Schools benefit from a globally diverse undergraduate student body that brings different perspectives and ideas to solving the world’s great problems through engineering and technology. Our next stage of evolution is underway through a globallyconnected network of higher education institutes and government entities providing greater access to engineering education to transform society and improve our quality of life.

Engineering current international footprint With a presence in London through TEDI: The Engineering & Design Institute London and programs on the ground in Egypt, Pakistan and Vietnam, the Fulton Schools are truly global in reach as well as impact. The Global School serves as the engineering-focused manifestation of the ASU charter on an international scale.

30,000+

18,712

135 countries

168 countries

current students from and all 50 states, Washington, D.C., Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands

5,998 international undergraduate students

5,217 international masters students

781 international doctoral students in 2022–23

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alumni from

The Fulton Schools offers convenient “anytime, anyplace” online delivery for global learners.

Online undergraduate degree offerings

19 Online graduate degree offerings

5 Online graduate certificates, including semiconductor processing, nuclear power generation and biomimicry

international faculty

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Global programs

Overview North America United States • Advancing Modern Power through Utility Partnerships (AmpUp)

Mexico • Bi-National Laboratory on Smart Sustainable Energy Management and Technology Training • CEMEX

Europe United Kingdom • TEDI-London

Ireland • Dublin City University (DCU) & Biodesign Europe at DCU • SKHL Framework Agreement

Netherlands • AURA Project: Airbus Connectivity Demonstrator

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Asia • US-ASEAN Science, Technology and Innovation Cooperation (STIC) Program

Pakistan • USPCAS-E program

Vietnam • Higher Engineering Education Alliance program (HEEAP) • Vocational and University Leadership and Innovation Institute (VULII) • Building University-Industry Learning and Development through Innovation and Technology (BUILD-IT)

Middle East Egypt • Center of Excellence for Energy (COE) • ASU-Cintana partnership with Galala University

Saudi Arabia • Analysis Design Simulation Measurement and Training of EM Scattering and Antenna Technology

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Global programs

International programs IADP Format 3+1+1

Pakistan

Egypt

• Biomedical Engineering, MS • Chemical Engineering, MS • Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering, MS • Computer Engineering, MS • Computer Science, MS • Construction Management, MS • Electrical Engineering, MSE • Engineering, MS • Environmental and Resource Management, MS • Industrial Engineering, MS • Information Technology, MS • Materials Science and Engineering, MS • Mechanical Engineering, MS • Software Engineering, MS • Solar Energy Engineering and Commercialization, PSM • Five-year, $15M project funded by USAID BRIDGE-Train program (June 2020 to June 2025)

USPCAS-E program

Center of Excellence for Energy (COE)

• Partnership between ASU and two leading Pakistani universities: the National University of Sciences and Technology and the University of Engineering and Technology Peshawar • Focus on applied research relevant to Pakistan’s energy needs to produce skilled graduates in the energy field

Vietnam Higher Engineering Education Alliance program (HEEAP) • Partnership with five major universities in Vietnam to prepare faculty to excel in teaching students to attain technical expertise, English, and the soft skills and competencies to succeed on a global engineering stage

Vocational and University Leadership and Innovation Institute (VULII) • Educational capacity-building and training workshops and support for the Vietnamese educational system

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• USAID-funded partnership between ASU and three Egyptian universities: Ain Shams University (ASU-EG), Aswan University (AU), and Mansoura University (MU) • Overall goal of the COE is to substantially improve the capacity of Egypt’s higher education institutions to drive public and private sector innovation, modernization, and competitiveness; strengthen government policy that stimulates economic growth; and contribute solutions to Egypt’s development challenges in the energy sector

Galala University • ASU-Cintana partnership with Galala University • Dual degrees in computer information systems, software engineering and electrical engineering

Global partnerships

The Global School • Globally-connected network of higher education institutes and government entities • Platform for cities, countries and regions seeking engineering education as a solution to meet real-world challenges • Offers faculty and students opportunities for global engagement through shared courseware, project-based learning opportunities and interactions with globallyconnected research teams

Snapshot of strategic partnerships Mexico

Europe

CEMEX

Dublin City University (DCU) & Biodesign Europe at DCU

• Partnership with leading vertically-integrated heavy building materials company • Develop new technologies, tested and evaluated in test beds, and implemented by industrial partners will change the landscape of US cement manufacturing

• Partnership through NSF IRES grant – sensor information processing and machine learning for wearable devices

TEDI-London • PLuS Alliance partnership

United Kingdom TEDI-London • Founded by Arizona State University, King’s College London and UNSW Sydney • Addresses the international engineering skills and inclusion gap with an innovative approach to curriculum delivery, industry partnerships and student recruitment

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Funded international research projects

Research funding from outside the USA FY22

FY21

FY20

Country

Total Award Amount

Country

Total Award Amount

Country

Total Award Amount

Vietnam

$13,999,250

Ireland

$3,634,898

Ireland

$2,500,000

Netherlands

$4,595,222

Saudi Arabia

$1,945,552

Korea, South

$2,241,139

Korea, South

$3,741,338

Japan

$1,902,362

Japan

$1,123,436

Mexico

$3,456,470

$1,458,714

Switzerland

$835,992

Bermuda

$2,154,504

Morocco

$1,285,497

Morocco

$614,000

United States

$2,135,420

Korea, South

$400,002

Canada

$578,170

China

$1,113,426

Israel

$328,000

Qatar

$498,558

Australia

$952,481

China

$315,552

India

$363,726

Japan

$859,066

$200,000

Germany

$316,204

Belgium

$493,760

France

$78,056

China

$300,000

Canada

$448,654

Finland

$51,440

Italy

$123,400

Germany

$407,494

Costa Rica

$32,722

Marshall Islands

$112,200

Bangladesh

$249,150

Total

$11,632,795

Saudi Arabia

$80,000

Italy

$218,000

Finland

$53,190

Total

$34,824,235

Total

$9,740,015

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Canada

United States

HEEAP 2.0 - Higher Engineering Education Excellence Alliance Program Partnership with Intel Products Vietnam Co., Ltd., Vietnam

PI Jeff Goss, Associate Vice Provost/SE Asia, Executive Director for the Office of Global Outreach and Extended Education, Assistant Dean in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering - ~$14M investment starting in FY2020 Through the Higher Engineering Education Alliance Program (HEEAP), the team is expanding industry consortia and is collaborating to transform and modernize top engineering and technical vocational universities in Vietnam by introducing applied and hands-on instructional approaches

SKHL Framework Agreement Partnership with industry Carbon Collect, Ireland

PI Klaus S. Lackner, Professor, SSEBE: Civil and Environmental Engineering - Invested $3M+ for both investment and research projects Arizona State University’s Center for Negative Carbon Emissions (CNCE), with commercial partner, Carbon Collect, is testing a prototype technology that would remove CO2 from the air through the use of MechanicalTrees™. The research is advancing carbon management technologies that can capture carbon dioxide (CO2) directly from ambient air in an outdoor operating environment.

Bi-National Laboratory on Smart Sustainable Energy Management and Technology Training Sponsored by Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología, Mexico City, Mexico

Deputy Director Stephen Goodnick, Professor, ECEE: Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering and Senior Global Futures Scientist, Global Futures Scientists and Scholars - $3.5M Monterrey Tech received resources from Mexico’s National Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT) and the Ministry of Energy (SENER) through the CONACYT-SENER Energy Sustainability Fund to implement this Binational Lab to further prepare human capital on energy topics and strengthen their research capabilities.

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Funded international research projects AURA Project: Airbus Connectivity Demonstrator Sponsored by Airbus Group, Netherlands

PI Daniel Bliss, Professor, ECEE: Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering Co-PI Chaitali Chakrabarti, Professor, ECEE: Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering - $4.5M ASU research is progressing on navigation and positioning systems for air vehicles with European aeronautical giant Airbus. Faculty and students in the Center for Wireless Information Systems and Computational Architectures are combining different technologies such as radio frequency convergence, distributed coherence and multiple antennae systems to identify technologies that work in a self-flying plane.

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Analysis Design Simulation Measurement and Training of EM Scattering and Antenna Technology Partnership with King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST), Saudi Arabia

PI Constantine A. Balanis, Professor, ECEE: Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering - $1.9M The research partnership aims to develop and advance basic research in electromagnetic artificial magnetic conductors (AMCs) surfaces. AMCs, a type of surface that doesn’t exist naturally and exhibits unique electromagnetic properties, provide a possible way to overcome antenna and electromagnetic scattering issues.

US-ASEAN Science, Technology and Innovation Cooperation (STIC) Program Partnership with U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs (EAP)

PI Jeff Goss, Associate Vice Provost/SE Asia, Executive Director for the Office of Global Outreach and Extended Education, Assistant Dean in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering - $2.8M The overarching objectives of this program are to (1) strengthen and increase national and regional cooperation of ASEAN Member States and the US government on federal, local, private sector and academic levels and (2) to develop and implement policies to foster science, technology, and innovation through increased funing mechanisms, data sharing, intellectual property generation, commercialization, and academic research partnership. Target core themes are Microelectronics & IT; Biotechnology; and Materials Science & Technology.

Advancing Modern Power through Utility Partnerships (AmpUp) Partnership with United States Energy Association (USEA)

USAID award to USEA; Nate Johnson, Assistant Professor, TPS: The Polytechnic School, USEA Board of Directors - $39M ASU and three partner organizations formed the consortium, Advancing Modern Power through Utility Partnerships (AmpUp), to coordinate with USAID mission offices and electric utilities in participating countries. The consortium member organizations will work alongside relevant stakeholders in a given nation-state to conduct a gap analysis of their energy sector and then deploy a tailored set of assistance programs to fit local need.

Building UniversityIndustry Learning and Development through Innovation and Technology (BUILD-IT) Partnership with USAID and the Vietnamese government

PI Jeff Goss, Associate Vice Provost/SE Asia, Executive Director for the Office of Global Outreach and Extended Education, Assistant Dean in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering - $8.7M Launched in 2015 on the pillars of institutional policy, quality, curriculum, faculty innovation, and technology, BUILD-IT leverages deep and diverse government-industry-academic partners that share a goal of tightly linking STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) instruction in Vietnamese higher education institutions to the needs and capabilities of industry partners to produce graduates who can lead inclusive, technologybased growth.

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By deconstructing and documenting details of existing products, students develop understanding of some of the most This is a caption. fundamental aspects of engineering.

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TEDI-London is redesigning engineering learning by making it more inviting, more inclusive and better able to generate relevant solutions Story by GARY WERNER Photos by CHRIS O’DONOVAN

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engineered Imagine a new way of teaching engineering that brings in more people — learners who never thought they would have the opportunity to pursue an engineering degree — and that designs learning around hands-on, project-based approaches, around learning by doing. That’s what a new program does, with the help of ASU. ENGINEERING

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A creative and nontraditional approach to engineering education began in fall 2021 when The Engineering & Design Institute in London, or TEDI-London, launched its project-based degree program in global design engineering. It’s now going strong into its second year. TEDI-London is an initiative of the PLuS Alliance, a partnership that combines the resources of ASU, King’s College London and UNSW Sydney to solve an array of pressing global challenges. “One of those challenges is the acute need for more diverse engineering talent in the workforce,” says Ann McKenna, the vice dean of strategic advancement for the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at ASU. “Addressing that lack of talent requires more than expanding the capacity of current educational

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“Addressing that lack of talent … also means tackling a persistent gap in engineering, so we have designed TEDI-London to help expand perceptions of who should be an engineer. ” — A N N M C K E N N A , VICE DE AN, IR A A . F U LTO N S C H O O L S OF ENGINEERING

systems. It also means tackling a persistent gap in engineering, so we have designed TEDI-London to help expand perceptions of who should be an engineer.”

Designing instruction based on learner feedback TEDI-London’s first cohort of 24 undergraduate students is almost equally male and female, which is a significant contrast with typical engineering programs in which women represent less than a quarter of students. The cohort also includes many students without extensive secondary school math and science credentials. In the U.K., students often must choose their postsecondary education focus as early as the first or second year of high school — and then prepare extensively for admittance tests called A-Levels. Part of the way TEDI-London has been designed is to help U.K. and international students who didn’t make those early decisions still gain the opportunity to move into an engineering career. “We conducted focus groups with potential students who are not from traditional STEM backgrounds, and we asked what would excite them about involvement in engineering,” McKenna says. After those discussions, ASU and TEDI-London developed curriculum that supports real-world impact. “We found that they really want to know they can make a practical difference, meaning that their work will be important to the lives of others. So, the new program is conceptualized around societal impact, as opposed to just developing technology.” This orientation means TEDILondon’s educational content is organized by functional themes such as smart cities and user-centered design rather than according to disciplinary categories such as FRANCESCO MONTAGUTI

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The TEDI-London campus includes makerspaces with 3D printers, along with small and large prototyping equipment.

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chemical or mechanical engineering. Other key elements are meant to develop professional competencies related to social responsibility, commercial acumen and ecological sustainability. “We are not discarding math, science and other traditional aspects of engineering. This is an accredited degree program, so it needs to cover those fundamentals,” McKenna says. “However, the student narrative is about broader aptitude, personal attitude and overall ability. TEDI-London’s focus goes to tackling societal challenges such as environmental sustainability and health care provision. These cultural considerations can make engineering education more inviting, more inclusive and better able to generate more globally relevant solutions.” It’s an innovative approach, and it took significant support from ASU’s Fulton Schools and PLuS Alliance peers in London and Sydney to develop the curriculum. Testing the operation of the new TEDI-London curriculum involved short-term summer school sessions with students from the three PLuS Alliance institutions in 2019, 2020 and 2021. The initial round revealed how to best structure support for learners within an atypical, globally oriented curriculum. By the final round, students were piloting the actual systems used by the degree program that launched in September 2021. Students found success with this project-based approach. For instance, Sofia Colaco, a mechanical engineering student from Portugal, feels that the project-based approach of starting with a question 510

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“Industry relationships are important from the start. The co-creation of curriculum will enhance graduate employability and can solve problems.” — J U DY R A P E R , D E A N A N D C EO , T E D I - LO N D O N first is key, as it made her think more deeply about knowledge and learning. “If someone just tells you something, you will often forget it the next day. Whereas if they ask a question first, you think about it more,” Colaco says. “Then, if they give you the answer, you’re a lot more likely to memorize it. Project-based learning builds your curiosity — you’re the one trying to get to an answer and come up with the quickest or most creative way to do so.” Other students appreciate the collaboration inherent in TEDILondon’s approach. “One of the key benefits is that you are placed with different people with a lot of different skills,” says Zemzem Sonmez, who has a non-engineering background and holds a master’s degree in chemistry. “When tackling a project together you are pulling resources from people with very different talents, and you then gain those skills from working that way.” This prepares students for tackling today’s complex problems as a team and how many

TEDI-London Dean and CEO Judy Raper (right) working on a hands-on project with a student.

organizations work on tasks in the real world.

Helping bring engineering education to the wider world McKenna says ASU’s experience with digital content delivery for online engineering degrees represented a key source of assets for the development of the TEDI-London curriculum. Trevor Thornton, a professor of electrical engineering in the Fulton Schools and an early collaborator with TEDI-London leadership, for example, helped to adapt current undergraduate course material from the School of

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Collaborating with industry to transform education

Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools, for different modules. Fulton Schools faculty members also supported workshops to determine how and when to introduce specific core concepts of engineering science, and how projects should be paced for teams of students to effectively apply their course experience together and progress through the curriculum. The benefits of this innovative work extend beyond the new institute in the U.K. McKenna says Fulton Schools leaders are evaluating how insights gained from

creating TEDI-London can inform development of ASU’s newest engineering school, the School of Manufacturing Systems and Networks, as well as the reimagining of The Polytechnic School. “Additionally, we now have a model for a fully adaptable and transportable engineering degree program, so we could launch others,” McKenna says. “It’s TEDI-London today, but it may be TEDI in another location tomorrow. There is a lot of opportunity to accelerate ASU’s engineering expertise across multiple global academic partnerships.” Square-Full

Industry experts from construction, cybersecurity, transport, tech manufacturing, electronic engineering and design joined TEDILondon academics for an innovative workshop on engineering education. The workshop explored what skills engineering graduates will need to solve 21st-century problems. Co-designing the curriculum with industry is a key element of the institute’s proposition — ensuring the learning and teaching equips students with the skills and attributes industry seeks. “Industry relationships are important from the start,” says TEDI-London Dean and CEO Judy Raper. “The co-creation of curriculum will enhance graduate employability and can solve problems.” To get involved and find out more about TEDI-London as an industry partner, visit tedi-london.ac.uk/collaborate/industry.

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Arizona State University alumna Victoria Serrano conducts outreach activities in Panama with LEGO MINDSTORMS robotic kits to introduce children to the possibilities of engineering. Her outreach work earned her the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers 2019 Meritorious Achievement Award in Outreach and Informal Education, which honors IEEE members who teach STEM skills outside of the classroom.

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Engineering outreach across borders From one to many, de uno a muchos Victoria Serrano realized at an early age education would be the key to a bright future. Growing up in David, Panama, she watched how her mother struggled to raise her and her sister without a college degree. She knew she wanted to pursue higher education — but her journey at Arizona State University inspired her to make an impact beyond her own success. As an electrical engineering graduate student in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at ASU, Serrano learned the importance of giving back through her involvement in student organization outreach activities. Now she works as a full-time faculty member at the Universidad Tecnológica de Panamá, where she had earned her bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. Her outreach experiences have stayed with her and now she spends her time introducing young people to engineering whenever she’s not teaching undergraduate classes or conducting interdisciplinary research. Serrano’s extensive efforts to bring science, technology, engineering and math education to school-aged kids will be recognized with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers 2019 Meritorious Achievement Award in Outreach and Informal Education in November. The award honors IEEE members who take the time to teach STEM skills outside of a classroom setting. “It requires a lot of work and a lot of time to prepare everything, but having somebody recognize this effort, this sacrifice we make, is very rewarding,” Serrano says.

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Discovering the delight of engineering outreach Serrano got her first taste of how valuable outreach is when she joined the ASU chapter of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers and the MechanicalAutonomous Vehicles, or MAV club, in which she served as outreach director and vice president. MAV club advisor and Professor Armando Rodriguez was a big influence on Serrano getting involved in outreach. Serrano related to Rodriguez’s story of having a difficult childhood and using that as motivation to pursue education despite adversity. Rodriguez’s subsequent success and influence as a faculty member inspired her. “If you really want kids to get a better education in their future, you should get involved in outreach,” Serrano says. The MAV club brought K-12 students onto the ASU Tempe campus on the weekends to learn mathematical concepts and design mechanical birds. 514

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With SHPE, Serrano visited Phoenix-area schools to lead activities with students and talk to parents about how to prepare their kids for college. “You can see how they change their minds,” Serrano says. “At the beginning, they didn’t know what engineering was. But after a few sessions, some of them wanted to pursue an engineering degree in the future.” She also wanted to teach other engineering concepts by showing students how to program robots to move around obstacles. “I loved seeing the kids when they were learning something new,” Serrano says. “That’s very fascinating because you can actually see it in their faces, how happy they get.” Hope Parker, associate director of engineering K-12 outreach in the Fulton Schools, remembers Serrano would bring her LEGO robotic snake to share with groups of students at MAV club outreach events. “It was super engaging and

interactive, which had the students asking so many questions and wanting to learn more,” Parker says. “She was great at meeting students at their level and connecting with them.” Serrano also participated in the Engineering Projects in Community Service program, known as EPICS, which usually tasks students with working on a solution to a community service project. But Serrano proposed her own project instead: STEM Beyond the Borders, which had the support of EPICS in IEEE and the IEEE Control Systems Society Outreach Fund. As part of the project, she took time off from her studies in Tempe to spent two weeks in her hometown of David, Panama, teaching high school students. She drew from her MAV club experience and the help of fellow students at ASU to design an engineering curriculum. The students used MATLAB and Simulink computer programming tools to control robots to avoid obstacles.

Victoria Serrano teaches young students engineering concepts through an Engineering Projects in Community Service, or EPICS, project she oversees called STEM Beyond the Borders. The project started while she was a graduate student at Arizona State University, and she has continued it in Panama as a faculty member at the Universidad Tecnológica de Panamá.

“We wanted to show them that engineering is a path, a promising path in many senses, not only because it’s fun,” Serrano says. “They can solve problems for the community and it’s also a wellpaid career.” The activities Serrano and the MAV team created truly embody ASU’s principles of social embeddedness and global engagement, Parker says. “They reached out to the community to see what their needs were, built programming around that and, in doing so, ‘increased individual success through personalized learning pathways,’ ” says Parker, quoting ASU’s mission. “Not only did they do this in Arizona, but Victoria took her passion and commitment to students to Panama.”

Practicing what she preaches in Panama Serrano jumped right into conducting more outreach activities with school children when she returned home to Panama after

graduation in 2016. Wherever young people were — public markets, churches or schools — she conducted STEM learning programs. “I realized how [outreach] was changing the lives of many high school students and I really wanted to do this back home and I’m still doing it,” Serrano says. “I could also see that many technologies and things that I learned in the U.S., many students [in Panama] wouldn’t get the opportunity to get exposed to. So that’s another reason I feel so motivated [to do outreach].” To help expand her outreach activities, Serrano created the CIATEC mobile center. The acronym comes from an abbreviation of the Spanish words for science (ciencia), art (arte) and technology (tecnología). The CIATEC mobile center provides STEM-related programs to children and teenagers in the community. “When alumni engage younger students, they bring another dimension to outreach — true life experience, knowledge, skills needed, new trends happening and

a different level of mentorship,” Parker says. “It really is so beneficial for younger students to have role models from college students through professionals in their careers.” While she spends a considerable amount of time introducing engineering concepts to kids preparing for college, Serrano is also making strides to empower college students to conduct research. She’s inspired by the support she received from her ASU doctoral research advisor, Professor Konstantinos Tsakalis. “We have a research competition every year at my university and I always advise groups of students who want to work on research projects,” Serrano says. As an IEEE member and professor, she also advises college student groups working on engineering service projects. “This year I have served as a committee member of EPICS in IEEE,” Serrano says. “I have been able to give feedback to proposals and I am trying to promote the program not only in Panama, but also in other regions.” While it’s hard work, Serrano knows she isn’t alone. “When you’re willing to make a positive change in the community,” Serrano says, “there will always be people ready to join you.” ENGINEERING

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Breath of fresh air Research from the Center for Negative Carbon Emissions is being commercialized with a new installation Photos by CHARLIE LEIGHT

This spring, Carbon Collect Ltd. installed the first commercial-scale MechanicalTree based on Klaus Lackner’s research and developed by the company. It rises 33 feet high and can pull carbon from the air 1,000 times faster than a same-size tree. It was assembled and installed on the Tempe campus. Carbon Collect plans to scale the technology worldwide. Check out the MechanicalTree in Tempe between ISTB7 and

Biodesign C next to the University Drive/Rural light rail station. Learn more at carboncollect.com.

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“These investments represent some of the largest venture funding rounds in Arizona in recent years. Within the next few years, if economic conditions stabilize, we expect ASU-connected startups to approach or surpass $1 billion in all-time funding raised.” – A U G I E C H E N G , S K Y S O N G I N N O VAT I O N S C E O , S P E A K I N G A B O U T S I L I C O N K I N G D O M H O L D I N G S ’ C O M M I T M E N T T O S P O N S O R R E S E A R C H AT A S U

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SUSTAINABLE INVENTION

Creating a healthier world Silicon Kingdom Holdings is aiming to deploy the carboncapture technology developed at ASU by Klaus Lackner, director of the Center for Negative Carbon Emissions, on a global scale. These “mechanical trees” passively remove carbon dioxide from the air.

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The MechanicalTree is the world’s first passive direct air capture technology. One device accomplishes the equivalent carbon capture of 1,000 natural trees.

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Popular Science picks MechanicalTree as top technology Popular Science magazine has given one of its highest accolades to a device developed by ASU researchers that can pull carbon gas from ambient air. The device, developed by ASU Professor Klaus Lackner and his colleagues and commercialized by Silicon Kingdom Holdings in Dublin, is called MechanicalTree. It is the world’s first passive direct air capture technology — it does not draw air through with energy-intensive devices but allows the wind to blow air through the system. According to the description by Popular Science: “A forest of 1,200 mechanical ‘trees’ ... is poised to pull more carbon dioxide out of the air than any human-made endeavor before it. ... A cluster of 12 can suck a metric ton of the gas out of the atmosphere every day; a full lot, like the pilot one SKH is planning to install ... can remove up to 36,500 metric tons annually. That’s nearly 1,844 American households’ worth of emissions.”

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Klaus Lackner, a pioneer in carbon capture, views a greenhouse that will be fed carbon dioxide from his prototype materials at his lab in ASU’s Center for Negative Carbon Emissions. Companies are building on his ideas to achieve climate goals.

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Saving the world from thin air Envisioning a new approach to an old problem — removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere Story by M AU R E E N O ’ H AG A N Photos by I N T I S T. C L A I R

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In the 1990s, theoretical physicist Klaus Lackner had an idea. Was it possible to build a contraption that physically sucked greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere?

At the time, the idea was radical. Some people thought it was nuts. Two decades later, many of the experts have come around to Lackner’s view. Pulling carbon from the air is now seen as crucial, and Lackner has created such a machine. ASU has supported the vision, naming Lackner director of the Center for Negative Carbon Emissions at the university’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, where he’s honing the technology. But so far, there are only a handful of other efforts to build carbonsucking machines. Which gave a group of ASU grads another idea. Instead of building the new technology, how about creating a marketplace that would incentivize carbon removal, whether by Lacknerian machines or some other method? Sure, it’s still pretty radical, considering no one has done this before. But nuts? Hardly. In 2018, the grads — Paul Gambill, Jaycen Horton and Ross Kenyon, along with Christophe Jospe, who worked for Lackner at CNCE — founded Nori. The Seattlebased company is flipping some basic ideas about climate change mitigation on their head. Instead of aiming at lowering CO2 emissions, Nori focuses instead on Lackner’s notion of pulling out the carbon that’s already in the atmosphere. Instead of, say, taxing those who put CO2 into the air, they want to pay those who remove it. “It’s a way of using markets to drive change,” Jospe explains. “We’re able to monetize what hasn’t previously been monetized.”

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We conduct use-inspired research, taking on the great challenges of our time, advancing fundamental discovery, and addressing engineering challenges over a vast array of critical applications. Our faculty and students understand and value the important impact their research has on the discovery of solutions and the promotion of the economic, social, and cultural health of our planet.

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They like to call themselves “used-carbon salesmen” and they’re finding ways to do what seems unthinkable: making CO2 a valuable commodity.

Carbon farming Carbon dioxide is a colorless, odorless gas that’s a byproduct of burning fossil fuels, among other things. Humans put more than 36 billion metric tons [MO2] of the stuff into the atmosphere each year, trapping heat and causing Earth’s temperature to rise. “Even if we turned off all emissions worldwide tomorrow, we’d still have far too much CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the 530

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atmosphere, and we’d still get some of the catastrophic effects,” Gambill says. “We have to take action as soon as possible.” In fact, the deployment of carbon capture and storage technology to absorb remaining fossil fuel emissions was one recommendation last year by scientists convened by the United Nations to avoid catastrophic damage from climate change by 2050. The way the team at Nori views it, CO2 is a waste product, and it should be treated like other waste products. We don’t throw our trash out the window, and we shouldn’t simply fling our greenhouse gas into

the atmosphere, either. We need a system to pick it up, just like our system of trash collection, and a market so that those who do the removal get paid for it. That’s where Nori comes in. “We’re building a marketplace that makes it as simple as possible,” Gambill says. He wants to create a kind of commodity market for carbon, where the price is driven by market demand. Lackner liked the concept so much, he signed on as an adviser. “In a way, it democratizes the problem,” Lackner says, by allowing everyone to take responsibility for greenhouse gases. Through the Nori interface,

people who are able to remove carbon from the atmosphere can easily connect with people who are willing to pay for it. “Nori is trying to create a new model for exchange,” says Michael Dalrymple, ASU’s director of University Sustainability Practices. In traditional carbon markets, companies and organizations indirectly purchase offsets. ASU does this with a community impact twist. For example, Dalrymple explained ASU collects an $8 carbon fee on every round trip of air travel by faculty and staff. ASU then buys “community bundle” offsets from Urban Offsets, consisting partly of carbon offsets purchased

from projects listed on offset registries. Urban Offsets directs some funds to the cities of Phoenix and Tempe to help defray the costs of planting urban trees — increasing shade, reducing heat islands and cleaning the air. In return, ASU gets additional offsets over time for carbon sequestered by those trees. The Nori team decided to take a direct approach with some unlikely allies: farmers. The excess CO2 in the atmosphere was originally in the ground, bound up in oil, coal or natural gas. Also, plants — whether they’re grass or vegetables or trees — pull CO2 out of the air through photosynthesis. To

“It’s a way of using markets to drive change. We’re able to monetize what hasn’t previously been monetized.” — C H R I S TO P H E J O S P E , C H I E F D E V E LO P M E N T OFFICER, NORI

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Gambill, all this makes the problem straightforward: “We should just take (the greenhouse gases) out of the atmosphere and put them back into the earth.” In recent years, farmers and scientists have learned that certain farming methods can help ensure that CO2 pulled in by plants goes back into the ground and stays there. It requires forgoing tilling, planting cover crops, liberal use of compost and more. The soil gets healthier through this process, which means over time, the plants get healthier, too, and that means more money for the farmer. It’s called regenerative agriculture, or even “carbon farming,” and some farmers have already made the transition. The problem is, the soil improvements take time, and upfront costs can be significant. Which brings us back to Nori. Through its marketplace, farmers using these methods can get credit for each ton of carbon they sequester in the soil. They then place those credits for sale in the Nori marketplace. When the marketplace opens for business later this year, they aim to have enrolled enough farmers to sequester a million metric tons of carbon per year, Gambill says. 532

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“Even if we turned off all emissions worldwide tomorrow, we’d still have far too much CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and we’d still get some of the catastrophic effects. We have to take action as soon as possible.” — PAU L G A M B I L L , CEO, NORI

That’s equivalent to more than 112 million gallons of consumed gasoline. “The potential,” Jospe believes, “is vast.”

Carbon gold rush There are bound to be skeptics. They say it’s hard to measure carbon that’s been isolated in the ground. True. Besides, there’s only so much farmers can put there. And there are hurdles to making it stay there. But Gambill, Jospe, Horton and Kenyon are pulling every thread, working with the experts to ensure public acceptance of the marketplace. Also, they’re envisioning something much bigger than farmers. It requires the kind of thinking he developed at ASU. Gambill studied computer systems engineering. It taught him to think in terms of solving problems, to “look at large, complex

systems, trying to understand the boundaries, the potential inputs and outputs.” Climate change is an environmental problem, but it’s also an economic problem, a social problem and an engineering problem. Gambill and Horton both worked at ASU’s Decision Theater, which let them watch how societal questions play out in real life. Jospe

got quite the education working for Lackner. “It’s not a coincidence this idea came from people who consider themselves Sun Devils,” says Jospe. The team is confident it will go beyond farming. Gambill likens it to Apple, when it opened the first app store. There wasn’t much for sale then, but Apple was certain that people would start dreaming up apps to fill the shelves. We all know how

that turned out. Similarly, the Nori team believes if there’s money to be made, people will be motivated to making more carbon-sucking solutions. “We’re creating a space where creativity can flourish,” Gambill says. “It’s going to be a gold rush to monetize carbon removal. We think people are going to do some really cool things.” Square-Full ENGINEERING

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From soil into the air and back

Managing the carbon cycle Carbon emissions have been increasing since the Industrial Revolution. Today, humans produce more than 36 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide each year, a byproduct of burning fossil fuels, among other things, trapping heat in the atmosphere. About half of these emissions are removed by the carbon cycle, including trees and the oceans. But the rest remain in the atmosphere, causing Earth’s temperature to rise. The natural carbon cycle The main reservoirs of carbon are the atmosphere, oceans, biosphere (animals and plants), soils and underground fossil reservoirs. Various processes transfer carbon between these reservoirs, including photosynthesis, respiration and ocean atmosphere gas exchange. The carbon circulates, creating a balanced equilibrium.

The unbalanced carbon cycle: climate change Industrial processes use the carbon stored in fossil reservoirs (in the form of crude oil, natural gas and coal), and then expel it into the atmosphere, where it accumulates. The natural carbon cycle is unable to recycle all that excess carbon. Humans have released into the atmosphere more than 880 billion tons of CO2 to date.

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An example of a carbon scrubber capturing CO2 from the air.

The carbon catcher developed by Klaus Lackner captures carbon dioxide from the air at rates much faster than trees and plants. The technology could be mass produced and deployed worldwide.

How does it work?

Store

Trap The tree is made of thin strips of plastic laced with negatively charged hydroxide ions. Wind blows air through the material and, through a chemical reaction, the CO2 molecules stick to the hydroxides and form bicarbonate ions.

The CO2 is now bound to the plastic strips as a bicarbonate — similar to baking soda. The air flowing through the filter has much less CO2 .

3 Clean and reuse When the filters are saturated with CO2 they are rinsed with moist air, which lowers the affinity for CO2 , causing the filters to release captured carbon dioxide. The CO2 is compressed into a liquid that can be stored underground or used in industrial processes. The filters are reused to capture more CO2 from the air.

The inventor Klaus Lackner, director of ASU’s Center for Negative Carbon Emissions, has been thinking about how to manage carbon since the 1990s. He pioneered direct air capture and compares carbon removal to waste management — both are necessary for a healthy environment. “In the end,” he says, “it’s like your garbage. You’re not allowed to dump it in the gutter. You have to put it away.”

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Researcher Jason Kmon shows a small crosssection of the carbon capture materials that will go into making a largescale prototype that will be tested this summer.

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Can we remove carbon dioxide from our air faster than we make it? With carbon dioxide levels at an all-time high of 400 parts-per-billion in the Earth’s atmosphere, ASU researchers Klaus Lackner and Bruce Rittmann’s carbon capture technology work is addressing a critical environmental need. They are leading a project to aid U.S. Department of Energy efforts to create renewable biofuels that recycle carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

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Scalable hydrogen reactors

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A critical part of the energy transition is bringing everyone along, and that vision drives technology development, such as improvements to solar panels, microalgae grown from the sun for a biofuel and clean hydrogen.

ASU Thrive magazine, Fall 2022

n neutral As the sunniest city in the U.S., Phoenix has long been at the forefront of the solar revolution. Today, more than 190,000 solar installations, many of them in the Valley, provide nearly 10% of the state’s electricity. The energy from these solar panels coupled with the electricity from nuclear, hydropower and wind installations generate more than 50% of Arizona’s electricity. This is promising, and for Arizonans, furthering this clean-energy transition in partnership with numerous stakeholders

A path to decarbonization to benefit all Arizonans Story by DANIEL OBERHAUS, ’15 BA

presents a historic opportunity to remake the economy in a way that benefits everyone, including businesses, residents, rural areas and the most vulnerable communities. “There’s virtually no disagreement in Arizona that we need to decarbonize,” says Gary Dirks, senior director of the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory. “The issue is how to go about doing it. As we’re making this transformation toward renewable energy and phasing out fossil fuels, we have to get it right.” ENGINEERING

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Building an energy supergroup Dirks directs LightWorks, a multidisciplinary effort within the Global Futures Laboratory to solve energy challenges. He helps orchestrate programs at ASU that bring together researchers across multiple disciplines including the social sciences, policymakers, business leaders and community leaders to address pressing climate issues. These collaborations, Dirks says, are absolutely key. “This energy transformation is going to take deep relationship building,” Dirks says. “We also need to be more purposeful about including all sectors and disciplines, especially social scientists who can help think about how we can evolve our political and societal will to change policies and our behavior. This framework is crucial for creating a successful transition.” He points to the urgent need for an “us” mindset in order to make the transition to a carbon-neutral economy equitable, to bring along people who are most vulnerable to energy shortages, and to bring along those whose jobs will change during the transition. That’s why LightWorks “assembles teams that can approach these problems and challenges in a more comprehensive way than they are frequently addressed,” Dirks says. This includes emphasizing policy and social justice. For instance, Dirks says, “We cannot leave people behind as we transform the energy system. We need to be especially attentive to communities hard hit by plant closures, and rural and Indigenous communities.” 540

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“We need to be especially attentive to communities hard hit by plant closures, and rural and Indigenous communities.” —G A RY D I R KS , S EN I O R D I R ECTO R , AS U G LO B A L F U T U R ES L A B O R AT O R Y

It also requires creating strategically designed technologies to overcome some of the biggest challenges with current renewable energies. Those technology challenges are among other key areas of LightWorks’ focus.

Solving energy gaps Clean hydrogen is a promising solution to two of renewable energy’s challenges. Those challenges are that solar power is naturally intermittent — and currently available storage technologies such as batteries are ill-equipped to store energy at large scales for more than a few hours. A second challenge is that achieving deep decarbonization will require an alternative source of fuel to displace the natural gas and oil that power many vehicles and industrial processes. Batteries will get better, but we need the hydrogen option in our toolkit, Dirks says. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe and a fuel source that produces no carbon emissions. While the clean hydrogen economy has been promised for decades, it has failed to materialize due to

several technological and economic hurdles. But Ellen B. Stechel, the co-director of LightWorks, a senior global futures scientist and a professor of practice in the School of Molecular Sciences, believes hydrogen’s time has come. Stechel is the director of the recently established Center for an Arizona Carbon-Neutral Economy, a coalition founded by Arizona Public Service, Salt River Project, Tucson Electric Power, Southwest Gas, ASU, The University of Arizona and Northern Arizona University. AzCaNE, which is housed within the Global Futures Laboratory, is joined by the Arizona Commerce Authority and many other stakeholders, including businesses and cities, and is in conversation with tribal communities. “Our goal is to reach a carbonneutral economy, but since there will be support from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, our first focus is clean hydrogen,” Stechel says. Stechel’s vision for the future is one where Arizona produces more than enough clean hydrogen to meet its own needs, which would shift the state’s energy balance and turn it into a net energy exporter. This revolutionary shift would simultaneously decrease the state’s carbon emissions, foster technological innovation and save nearly $1 billion annually that Arizona spends importing fossil fuels from other states. While this vision would have seemed outlandish only a few years ago, the work of Stechel and her collaborators at AzCaNE is bolstered by the U.S. Department of Energy’s $8 billion initiative to

Ivan Ermanoski, research professor at LightWorks, has created the Labryrinth reactor, which uses solar energy to separate hydrogen out of water. Hydrogen can be used as a cleanburning fuel to help phase out fossil fuel use.

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Clean hydrogen technology While hydrogen can provide long-term, safe storage of energy, the idea is to reduce the cost of producing clean hydrogen to such an extent it can be readily used to replace fossil fuels in current processes and many we haven’t even thought about, says Ivan Ermanoski, a research professor at LightWorks and the School of Sustainability. Examples where hydrogen could replace fossil fuels, decreasing greenhouse gas emissions and decreasing fossil fuels usage, include: • The chemical industry, cement and steel production, copper mining and refining. • Ocean shipping, which currently runs on dirty fuel. • Long-distance, heavy transportation. • Perhaps air travel, which uses lots of fossil fuels per person either directly or to make sustainable aviation fuel. • Many other uses as the cost of producing clean hydrogen goes down. At scale, the use of hydrogen would be an entirely sustainable cycle of using the sun and other clean energy resources to make hydrogen from water, then using the hydrogen as fuel, which then turns back into water to repeat the process.

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“When you don’t have renewable power, you have to get energy from somewhere else, and right now, that’s almost always coal or natural gas. The promise here is that hydrogen will have more uses in the future as a longterm energy storage solution.” — I VA N E R M A N O S K I , R E S E A R C H

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establish a network of regional clean hydrogen hubs across the country. If Stechel gets her way, one of those hydrogen hubs will be based in Arizona or established through a partnership with a neighboring state.

“These kinds of transitions aren’t easy,” Stechel says. “Arizona is a leader in the way we’re starting to pull everybody together behind this cause because unprecedented levels of cooperation will be necessary to succeed.” A major part of AzCaNE’s work is collaborating with researchers, utilities and other stakeholders to find ways to dramatically lower the cost of hydrogen production to make it cost competitive with fossil fuels. For Stechel, this means creating future-forward technologies that scale. One of the more notable examples of this kind

Ivan Ermanoski and Natalie Figueroa, an engineering and physics student, are excited about helping make clean hydrogen a reality. When hydrogen is burned as a fuel, it becomes water.

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5 ways to help with the energy transition • Continue your education about the climate crisis and energy transition. Take free courses through asuforyou.asu.edu like Sustainable Earth and read the ASU report “Pathways to a Carbon-Neutral Arizona Economy.” • Get familiar with how energy decisions are made in your community. Advocate for the energy transition in your homeowner association, your company, your city, your circles and community organizations, and with politicians. Vote for what is important to you on energy. • Weatherize your home to lower your energy use. Learn more at energy.gov/ energysaver/weatherize. • Consider rooftop or community solar. Visit your utility’s website to learn more. • If you’re looking to upgrade your vehicle, run the numbers on an electric car. It’s being adopted by many Phoenix residents, who own 42,000 electric vehicles, often powered by rooftop solar or Phoenix’s 570 public EV charging stations, according to a 2021 report by AZ Big Media.

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of technology is being developed by Ivan Ermanoski, a research professor at LightWorks and the School of Sustainability, and a senior global futures scientist, in a highly collaborative project for which Stechel serves as the principal investigator. Today, the U.S. produces an enormous amount of hydrogen, but nearly all of this hydrogen is created by using high-temperature steam to separate it from natural gas, and much of it is then used in refining fossil fuels. To break this cycle,

“Our goal is to propel this technology out of the lab and power the world.” —Z H E N G S H A N Y U , A S S I S TA N T RESEARCH PROFESSOR, THE SCHOOL OF ELECTRICAL, C O M P U T ER A N D EN ER GY ENGINEERING

Ermanoski and his colleagues have built a reactor that can use heat from the sun — collected, for example, by arrays of mirrors that concentrate sunlight onto a small area — to produce clean hydrogen. A grant from the U.S. Department of Energy is sponsoring the development of Ermanoski’s functioning tabletop thermochemical hydrogen reactor, and it points to a future where a large-scale version of the device could be used to produce hydrogen that can provide Arizona residents and others in the U.S. with a clean and reliable source of energy on demand.

“When you don’t have renewable power, you have to get energy from somewhere else, and right now, that’s almost always coal or natural gas. The promise here is that hydrogen will have more uses in the future as a long-term energy storage solution,” Ermanoski says, “as well as to power numerous processes instead of fossil fuels.”

Better solar cells The work being done at ASU on hydrogen technologies will play a vital role in the energy transition. Yet, although the costs of solar photovoltaics energy production fell by 82% from 2010 to 2019, there is still more innovation needed to make solar power technologies even cheaper and more efficient. A pioneer in improving solar energy conversion efficiency is Zhengshan Yu, an assistant research professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering and founder of the startup Beyond Silicon. Yu’s work focuses on improving conventional solar silicon panels by adding other semiconductor materials. Today’s silicon panels make up about 95% of the market and are about 20% efficient. So far, Yu and his team have created solar cells that are 28.6% efficient by using perovskite — which consists of materials that use the same crystal structure as calcium titanium oxide — on top of the silicon, which enables more efficient use of different colors of light, Yu says. The company won $200,000 in the DOE Perovskite Startup Prize to commercialize these new, innovative perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells that can eventually be manufactured

Zhengshan Yu’s team has improved solar panel efficiency from 20% to 28.6% by adding other semiconductor materials on top of the silicon.

in the United States. “Our goal is to propel this technology out of the lab and power the world,” Yu says. Another leader in boosting solar efficiency and reducing costs is Arthur Onno, an assistant research professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering. He is working on a DOE-funded project that could revolutionize solar panels by using cadmium telluride, which proves significantly cheaper than silicon panels. Still, because of their lower efficiency, these “CadTel” panels only represent about 5% of the global market. If more efficient, CadTel panels could capture a larger market share and significantly drive down the

cost of solar energy. However, while researchers have known that CadTel has a relatively high theoretical efficiency, achieving this in practice has been challenging. A big hurdle is that solar cell manufacturers and researchers lacked a robust way to conduct tests of CadTel solar cells, which are around 50 times thinner than silicon cells. “If you look at the basic physics, CadTel should be more efficient,” Onno says. “We just haven’t understood how to unlock the material’s potential.” To overcome this problem, Onno and his colleagues developed a new type of solar cell probe that uses lasers rather than electricity to explore the performance of

CadTel cells to tease out causes of inefficiency. Over the past year, the ASU researchers have delivered a handful of these devices to two U.S. solar manufacturers, which have begun using them in their industrial ENGINEERING

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Scaling the use of the sun to grow microalgae for a biofuel could help fill in energy gaps.

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labs to work on improving CadTel solar panel efficiency. “From the feedback we’ve received, our tools have been heavily used by the manufacturers,” Onno says.

Microalgae with a big impact Another approach to deep decarbonization is underway in the most unlikely of places — the city of Mesa’s wastewater treatment plant. For the past year, Bruce Rittmann, director of the Biodesign Swette Center for Environmental Biotechnology and a distinguished global futures scientist, has led a research project at Mesa’s wastewater plant focused on finding more effective ways to feed carbon dioxide to microalgae. These photosynthetic microorganisms thrive on CO2 and sunlight, and when they’re harvested, they can be cooked down into a carbon-neutral biofuel comparable to natural gas. Treating wastewater in “anaerobic digesters” generates a substantial amount of greenhouse gas emissions in the form of CO2 and methane, which Rittmann realized could be harnessed to grow large amounts of microalgae. This process would, in effect, use microalgae to turn sunlight into a sustainable biofuel, but this requires the ability to separate the CO2 and methane efficiently. To solve this problem, Rittmann and his

team developed a material made of tiny hollow fibers that can be placed in nearby pools to selectively deliver CO2 to microalgae growing in the ponds and capture a relatively pure source of methane to be used in a variety of industrial processes. “If treatment plants harvest the methane and turn it into electricity, they can become energy neutral, and Arizona could produce enough methane to become an energy exporter,” Rittmann says. “This would have a huge impact on treatment plants, cities in Arizona, and the world.”

Decarbonization for a healthier planet In addition to these technologies and while working on the social and behavioral aspects of the transition, ASU is developing and scaling other technological solutions toward a carbon-neutral economy, including carbon capture, water conservation, better battery storage, more resilient electrical grids, ways of approaching agriculture that improve soil and lower carbon emissions — and many more. The goal is to build a carbonneutral economy that benefits all Arizonans. “We have to come together with an inclusive mindset, not an us vs. them approach, to pave the path toward the economy and planet we all want to see,” Dirks says. Square-Full

“If treatment plants harvest the methane and turn it into electricity, they can become energy neutral, and Arizona could produce enough methane to become an energy exporter.” — BRUCE RITTMANN, REGENTS PROFESSOR OF E N V I R O N M E N TA L E N G I N E E R I N G

Get involved globalfutures.asu.edu

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Solving the world’s water crisis

drop An X-ray view of Zero Mass Water’s SOURCE Hydropanel, which emerged from research at ASU, uses solar power and a small battery to generate drinking water from sunlight and air.

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ASU Thrive magazine, Spring 2020

Startup’s award-winning technology creates sustainable drinking water Story by LORNET TURNBULL

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The bead of an idea hit Cody Friesen as a teenager hiking mountain trails in Arizona’s sunbaked Sonoran Desert. He grew up in the hot, arid region but near an area of lush cotton fields and citrus orchards fed by irrigation canals Native Americans built thousands of years ago. He was keenly aware of the incongruous reality — how inhospitable that same desert can be to the landscape and wildlife within it. “Here we lived in this very water abundant area, yet, really, we’re in the middle of the desert,” he says. A similar juxtaposition struck Friesen years later when visiting countries with abundant annual rainfall, “and yet there’s nothing to drink.” The experiences became the engine for his award-winning technology that absorbs moisture from thin air and converts it into clean drinking water. The founder of Scottsdalebased Zero Mass Water and an associate professor of materials science and engineering at Arizona State University, Friesen developed SOURCE Hydropanels to address one of the globe’s most pressing challenges: water scarcity.

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The creation contributed to Friesen earning the 2019 $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize, the largest cash prize for invention in the U.S. It honors outstanding inventors who translate their ideas into technological inventions that have been adopted and bring significant value to society. “Cody Friesen embodies what it means to be an impact inventor,” says Carol Dahl, executive director at the Lemelson Foundation. “His inventions are truly improving lives, take into account environmental considerations and have become the basis for companies that impact millions of people around the world each year.” Friesen donated the prize to a Zero Mass Water project with Conservation International to provide Hydropanels to the Bahía Hondita community in Colombia. “Cody’s inventive spirit, fueled by his strong desire to help improve the lives of people everywhere, is an inspiring role model for future generations,” says Michael Cima, faculty director for the Lemelson-MIT Program.

A global problem SOURCE Hydropanels are essentially solar panels that produce water instead of electricity and require no additional power source to do it. Hydrophilic membranes inside the panels trap water vapor from air blown across them by a solar-powered fan. The vapor-turned-water then flows through mineral cartridges, giving the water an ideal taste. Even in arid desert regions like Arizona and soggy, overcast areas like the Pacific Northwest, each Hydropanel can reliably deliver an average of 5 liters of water a day. Five years after Friesen launched Zero Mass Water, his Hydropanels have been installed in more than 35 countries and across dozens of applications in hospitals, farms and homes — including two at Friesen’s home in Scottsdale. They provide the family of four humans and two dogs with water for drinking and cooking. The Hydropanels also can be found in aboriginal communities in Australia and an orphanage for Syrian refugees in northern Lebanon; in desert regions in the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa, where concerns over a global water shortage grow more intense; and someday in Flint, Michigan, where residents are still grappling with a five-year-old water crisis. “Those are not vacation hotspots, but rather places where there’s a tremendous amount of human capacity limited by all the challenges that we know exist,” Friesen says. “So whether we’re talking about Flint, Michigan, 194 schools in Arizona with lead in their

pipes, the 750 water main breaks a day across the United States, the one person who dies every 10 seconds from waterborne illness — this is a truly global problem.” Water, the essence of life, covers more than two-thirds of the earth’s surface, but barely 3% of it is drinkable. Nearly 1.7 billion people — one-quarter of the world’s population — currently live in areas of high water stress, including Arizona, California, Colorado and New Mexico. The United Nations projects that by 2050 more than 5 billion people could suffer water shortages due to climate change, increased demand and polluted supplies. Friesen loves to talk about big solutions to these kinds of global problems. His voice grows excited as he describes the “leapfrog” technology that allows people in developing countries with access to smartphones to easily connect via the internet to the rest of the world. And about how solar energy is generating electricity in many of those areas without the need for bulky, expensive infrastructure. “If we could do for water what solar does for electricity,” he says, “we could fundamentally shift the axis of the planet and improve the human condition with respect to water.”

‘Perfect water’ for schools Across the U.S., SOURCE Hydropanels have been installed in schools where aging pipes have leached unsafe levels of lead into drinking water, forcing administrators to shut off water fountains. A July 2018 report from the General Accounting Office

At Copper King Elementary School in Phoenix, an array of SOURCE Hydropanels (top) delivers quality drinking water to students.

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Fulton Schools Associate Professor Cody Friesen’s company Zero Mass Water now employs 91 people.

(GAO) found that 43% of schools test for lead in drinking water and 37% of those that tested showed elevated lead levels, a known neurotoxin particularly harmful to young children. It’s a major focus for Friesen and his company. “We want to ensure that the kids have perfect water — independent of whatever their surroundings are,” he says. “And that’s been a big, big thing for us as we continue to scale the business. It’s probably one of the most impactful spaces that we operate in — education.” In Phoenix, for example, the Pendergast Elementary School District’s partnership with Zero Mass Water is part of the district’s commitment to sustainability programs as well as expansion 552

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“We want to ensure that the kids have perfect water — independent of whatever their surroundings are.” — C O DY F R I ES EN , I N V ENTO R A N D C EO, Z E R O M A S S W AT E R

of a robust science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics (STEAM) curriculum. At Copper King Elementary School, where about 10 panels were installed two years ago, students use their own reusable containers to get water from a SOURCE-fed dispenser outside the STEAM lab.

Principal Janine Ambrose says students get to see real-world engineering up close through the partnership. They get a kick knowing their water is being drawn from thin air — a new source of fascination with each new school year’s cohort of students. “It’s definitely a learning experience for our kids here, who get to learn about and see these panels work,” Ambrose says. “We’re always looking for ways to expand the curriculum and how we can educate our kids about the environment and the sustainability of the environment, especially here in Arizona with water.” The Hydropanels are all connected to the cloud allowing the Zero Mass Water team to monitor their performance. A typical ZERO MASS WATER

“The most valuable water on the planet is the water you put inside your body.” — C O DY F R I ES EN

two-panel array, which costs $4,500 including installation, will produce about 10 liters of water a day. But hundreds or even thousands of them have the capacity to supply drinking water for entire communities — much like an array of solar panels can produce enough electricity to power a city.

Culture of innovation Friesen developed the technology with the backing of an 11-member team of researchers at ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering. He lauds a culture that continues to build and flourish under ASU President Michael M. Crow, advancing high-impact translatable research, taking what engineers and innovators imagine, and creating and developing “from the JAROD OPPERMAN/ASU

lab bench to the marketplace” to engender global change. It’s the reason Friesen returned to ASU 15 years ago, after earning his BS in engineering and materials science here in 2000 and a PhD in the same discipline from MIT in 2004. It’s also, he says, why he stays. With one of the largest engineering schools in the country, ASU is the No. 1 school for innovation in America according to U.S. News & World Report, with an environment that inspires inventions like his. Within that nurturing culture, Friesen developed the world’s first rechargeable metal-air battery, able to withstand almost limitless discharges. He sold the company, Fluidic Energy Inc., in 2018. “Most universities think about how great they are because of

who they exclude,” Friesen says, borrowing a line from Crow. “ASU is very focused on how they create greatness and prominence by who they include.” It’s similar, Friesen says, to how he’s developing technologies in his research group, focused “not on how to create a technology for the elite, but rather, how do you take creative technology that is inclusive of broader humanity, and use it to solve fundamental problems?” The next step, what he calls Renewables 2.0, must involve developing and deploying technology for the cause of social equity across the globe. That, he says, “is the fundamental underpinning of why I founded this company.” Square-Full ENGINEERING

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Today, SOURCE, which began its business as Zero Mass Water, is a thriving international company based at SkySong in Scottsdale.

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Anthonio Moawad (center), project manager at the René Moawad Foundation, and ASU professor Rhett Larson (right) discuss the waterquality details of a well under consideration in Qubbe, Lebanon, with a local utility expert (left). This site was being considered as the first for implementation and would provide purified water to people in Bab El Tebbeneh, one of the poorest communities in Lebanon. 556

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ASU Thrive magazine, Spring 2018

Clean water

Bringing sustainable water and enterprise to the Middle East Clean water — and having enough of it — is a worldwide problem. For residents in Lebanon and Jordan, a lack of clean, drinkable water is the most pressing resource problem as the region faces severe water shortages. For refugees living in informal encampments or urban host communities, it’s an even bigger challenge. To compound the issue, the electrical grid is often unreliable or nonexistent in communities that lack clean water access — meaning water purification is unreliable, expensive or out of reach for local populations. ASU is leading an international consortium to research and develop affordable, portable clean water solutions and business for the Middle East. The university brings expertise in engineering, sustainability and law to the project, which is sponsored by the USAID Middle East Water Security Initiative.

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Fresh water pumps through the newly installed solar lift irrigation system.

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ASU Thrive magazine, Spring 2018

Students help farmers solve irrigation problem In the Hindu Kush Himalaya region, approximately 210 million smallholder farmers engage in a practice known as rain-fed agriculture. However, 80 percent of the annual rainfall in the area occurs during the annual four-month monsoon, so costly infrastructure is required to transport water from distant sources during the rest of the year. A group of ASU students implemented solutions-based projects to help local farmers support their farms beyond the monsoon, including a solar-powered lift irrigation system.

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Sky Kurtz, founder and CEO of Pure Harvest Smart Farms in Abu Dhabi.

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ASU News, March 15, 2019

Making the most of water through hydroponic farming Sky Kurtz, founder and CEO of Pure Harvest Smart Farms in Abu Dhabi and a 2004 graduate in finance, is the “farmer” of one of the first hydroponic-growing enterprises in the Middle East. The technology he and his team use has been demonstrated around the world in extreme climates, including Arizona, Texas, Northern Mexico and Australia, and in freezing climates like Russia, Finland and Norway.

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Daniel Hoop has been involved with 33 Buckets since 2017 when he was a student. He's now executive director of the nonprofit that has helped 15 communities build clean water systems.

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ASU Thrive magazine, Winter 2023

Water matters From the classroom to the villages of Peru, students put their engineering skills to work to build clean water systems Story by JENNIFER KITE-POWELL Photos by COURTNEY LIVELY, ’07 BIS IN INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES Adam Westmoreland stepped out of the vehicle into the dramatic landscape of Peru. And he took a deep breath in the thin air at 10,000 feet in elevation. For the next three months, he and other student interns for the nonprofit 33 Buckets would collaborate with the people of Cusco, Peru, to improve water treatment setups. The nonprofit partners with small, rural communities to engineer a customized plan for access to clean water. In 2015, three then-ASU students started 33 Buckets: Mark Huerta, ’13 BS and ’15 MS in bioengineering, ’19 PhD in engineering education; Swaroon Sridhar, ’17 BS in bioengineering; and Paul Strong, ’13 BS and ’14 MS in mechanical engineering, ’18 MBA. Now directed by a different mix of alums with the help of ASU students and Engineering Projects in Community Service, the nonprofit continues to help address clean-water access issues in Peru ENGINEERING

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in collaboration with local communities.

The collaborator: Erin Burgard When Erin Burgard was 14, she attended a summer camp at the Barrett Summer Scholars program and heard Huerta talk about 33 Buckets’ work. “I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life before listening to Mark talk,” Burgard says. “I remember feeling passionate about how they worked side by side with communities to make change.” Seven years later, Burgard, now an environmental engineering junior at Barrett, The Honors College, was the 33 Buckets aquaculture project and development intern on the ground in Cusco this past summer. It was a role she prepared for throughout the 2021–22 school year ahead of the trip. Burgard says she came away with a new awareness of what it takes to create long-term

Daniel Hoop with environmental engineering junior Erin Burgard.

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“You can’t build anything lasting until you understand the impact of those changes on the community. It has to be something they can manage without an organization when you leave.” — E R I N B U R G A R D , E N V I R O N M E N TA L E N G I N E E R I N G J U N I O R AT B A R R E T T, T H E H O N O R S C O L L E G E

sustainable water infrastructure. “It takes a lot of collaboration,” Burgard says. “It takes mayors to accept the project, water managers to agree to meet, people to coordinate transportation, translators to help with Indigenous languages, time, planning and faith that it will all work out.” Burgard says a typical day in her life as an intern was the team working on their laptops at a local restaurant going over interviews with the community, setting up new meetings and creating outlines for future interviews. She and the interns also conducted technical assessments on systems, such as residual chlorine levels, flow rate and reservoir measurement. How did she use her engineering skills? “I took data samples of the chlorine levels by filling a test tube with the water, adding a reactant and putting it into a chlorine checker and forming conclusions about how to proceed to further the system’s success,” Burgard explains. It’s the memories of the people

Daniel Hoop and interns carrying out a technical assessment in Collana. COURTESY OF 33 BUCKETS

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and the places that most stick with her. “One of my best experiences was working in the community; a family would serve us a lunch of potatoes while we sat on a bench in their backyard in the middle of the Andes Mountains,” she says. “Everything in Peru is very colorful — the woven work, jewelry, clothing and even the Cusco flag is rainbow. The city of Cusco is like a maze with cobblestone streets and walls made of large rocks. It often smelled like burning palo santo wood and a classic Peruvian taste jugo de maracuyá, which is passion fruit juice. “But something that influenced my thoughts when I was in Peru was how much the communities expressed gratitude for us being

From top left: Intern Erin Burgard being embraced by Ruth Milagro after a WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) workshop in Totora. 33 Buckets team members and water managers in Antaccasa. 33 Buckets SICLOP waterpurifying system.

there. You can’t know who will remember the information you gave them, but maybe one person will remember and decide to become an environmental engineer, get a degree and come back to the community to continue the process and make change.” She also understands now what solutions in collaboration with the community mean: “The idea that you can’t build anything lasting until you understand the impact of those changes on the community. It has to be something they can manage without an organization when you leave,” she says.

The director: Daniel Hoop Daniel Hoop, ’20 BS in environmental engineering, has been involved with 33 Buckets since 2017, first as a student intern through ASU’s EPICS program. He’s now the 33 Buckets executive director and says each community they work with is unique, and communities in a shared region like Cusco often face similar issues in scope. “The contaminant of concern in many of these communities is Escherichia coli, more commonly referred to as E. coli. It’s the primary bacteria that chlorine treatment systems address,” Hoop says. Hoop says they most commonly see communitywide chlorine drip systems. For communities without clean water systems, 33 Buckets helps them set them up. For others, the nonprofit helps improve the current system to make the water taste better and the design work better with less maintenance. And for yet others, Hoop says ENGINEERING

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that 33 Buckets has developed a novel system called Sistema de Cloro Peruano. But first, the team listens to the community through formal interviews to hear about challenges, limitations and needs, which is fundamental to humancentered design.

The humanist: Adam Westmoreland In the summer of 2021, Westmoreland, now a chemical engineering junior at Barrett, The Honors College, traveled to Peru under pandemic conditions with Hoop. During his first trip, he focused on physically prototyping a new water treatment system, known as SICLOP, versus improving the existing chlorine disinfection system. “The SICLOP addresses shortcomings of the previously used chlorine drip systems,” Westmoreland explains. “It has a much lower demand for adjustments to maintain consistency and automatic

“The contaminant of concern in many of these communities is Escherichia coli, more commonly referred to as E. coli. It’s the primary bacteria that chlorine treatment systems address.” — D A N I E L H O O P, 3 3 B U C K E T S E X EC U TI V E D I R ECTO R , ’20 B S I N E N V I R O N M E N TA L E N G I N E E R I N G

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Student intern Risa Fish, executive director Daniel Hoop, and student interns Erin Burgard and Adam Westmoreland. They spent the summer helping communities in Peru build safe water systems.

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response to different water flow rates into the community’s reservoir to match the amount of chlorine needed for disinfection.” In the summer of 2022, Westmoreland continued his work from that village and processed data from Siclop to ensure it was still effective. He also began assessments with other communities. Westmoreland says he felt prepared for his work in Peru despite not knowing what that work would be. Through ASU’s community service course, he learned the process of humancentered design. “The first step in this process is to gather key insight from stakeholders. And that is what I did during my first summer in Peru. “My first day, we were taking community assessments of a community in the Cusco region called Totora to understand better what was and wasn’t working with the communitywide chlorine drip system,” Westmoreland explains. “This feedback shaped our work on the prototype, and that feedback guided the requirements we held ourselves to as we designed the system. Once we agreed on a suitable design, I was part of the physical construction of the system, which only took about three days between securing necessary parts and putting it all together.” Westmoreland says his 33 Buckets experience profoundly changed him. The most significant change that stands out for him after two trips to Peru is how much more open he has become. “The power of working very closely with those you are trying to help and 570

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serve greatly impacts you.” Pragmatically, Westmoreland says 33 Buckets does a great job listening to people’s needs. “The main job of the people in these communities is agricultural work. They don’t get paid to manage the water system; it is all voluntary,” Westmoreland explains. “The priority for any new water treatment system [there] needs passive management where possible with the least amount of adjustments made to the system per day, week or month.”

The advocate: Risa Fish Risa Fish is a senior at Barrett, The Honors College. She is working on her public service and public policy degree in sustainability. Her thesis, “The Integration of Human-Centered Design into Policy Systems to Create Long-Lasting Sustainable Change,” grew from her time with 33 Buckets on the ground at ASU and in Peru. She didn’t start that way. “I’ve always been interested in sustainability, but I changed my major five times, including a shift from political science and law, before I ended up where I am today,” Fish says. Fish is one of the 33 Buckets interns who is not an engineering student, as the nonprofit also relies on marketing and fundraising in addition to engineering and chemistry. Fish worked with 33 Buckets as a social media intern, starting first through a remote internship on campus during the pandemic in 2020. Fish had previously worked on social media campaigns, but none with a mission

like 33 Buckets. “On the ground in Peru, I focused on getting to know the people and to see how they would interact with us and each other so that I could better understand them and the importance of the work we were doing,” Fish says. “Getting the opportunity to sit with the community members, even with the language barrier, I could tell how compassionate they all are and how much they care for the people in their community.” Fish says that process gave her a chance to understand the mission better. “I needed to use that experience to promote 33 Buckets and be a global advocate for water policy and sustainability.” Fish was in Peru for three weeks. “We arrived there at night, so it was interesting to see the lights flying into Cusco — the city of Cusco is set up to look like a puma, which is a spiritual animal for them,” Fish says. “One of the days I felt the most hands-on was on our visit to Totora when we had the opportunity to host a WASH [water, sanitation and hygiene] education seminar for the children in the community,” Fish says. Fish says she realized they were educating the future leaders of this community and carving a path for them to one day take over as the water managers of their communities. “This made me feel very thankful and lucky to be there working with people, and it made me realize that we are making an impact at all levels of the community.” One of Fish’s biggest surprises

Engineering Projects in Community Service Director Jared Schoepf teaches students about human-centered design.

Impact and scale Students across ASU make a difference through the Engineering Projects in Community Service. With mentoring and guidance, student teams design, build and deploy systems to solve engineering-based problems for charities, schools and other not-for-profit organizations. Last academic year, more than 500 students worked on 65 projects in Arizona in the Valley and rural towns like Clarkdale and around the world. “EPICS challenges students to think differently about problems through human-centered design thinking,” says Jared Schoepf, EPICS director. “They are not waiting until graduation to make a difference, they are making a difference for our community partners today.” Schoepf himself was part of EPICS and in 2013, SafeSIPP, which he co-founded, was named a top five finalist in the College Entrepreneur of the Year competition run by Entrepreneur Magazine. Learn more about EPICS at epics.engineering.asu.edu.

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Get involved Learn more about 33 Buckets at 33buckets.org or facebook.com/33Buckets

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was how appreciative and willing the community was to work with them. “They have so much compassion for people inside and outside their community,” Fish says. “Before I went to Peru, I said the words I needed to say to advocate for clean water. But after working in the communities and seeing the engineering work we did, I felt the words I was saying. It changes the course of their lives to have easy access to clean water.”

Continuing to help With 5 million Peruvian citizens lacking clean drinking water, improving access continues to be 33 Buckets’ mission. The experiences created through the nonprofit are invaluable both for communities and for the numerous students involved over the years, Hoop says. Students get to take the wide-angle view to explore what’s out there and what’s possible. “Trying to answer questions like how can I do something meaningful? Or how can complex, expensive solutions be available in rural, impoverished areas? And questions like what should the future look like and how do we get there — and putting those solutions into practice is the best way to articulate why I work with 33 Buckets,” Hoop says. Square-Full Students Adam Westmoreland and Risa Fish dispense water for testing.

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Daniel Hoop, who currently serves as the executive director of nonprofit organization 33 Buckets, spoke to current Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering students in the Engineering Projects in Community Service program about his own EPICS journey at the 2021 EPICS Generator Awards event. The 2020 Fulton Schools graduate started his career with 33 Buckets while pursuing his undergraduate degree in environmental engineering.

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ASU Full Circle, Jun 7, 2021

EPICS Generator Awards honor projects serving global communities The Engineering Projects in Community Service program, known as EPICS, is a national, award-winning, social entrepreneurship program. About 400 students in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University participate each semester through more than 60 ongoing EPICS@ASU projects. Those students work together in teams to design, build and deploy systems to solve engineering-based problems for charities, schools and other not-for-profit organizations. Currently, EPICS@ASU is working with over 50 community partners on projects that span four different themes: community development, education, health and sustainability. At the end of each academic year, the EPICS Generator Awards provide the opportunity for students, faculty members, industry mentors and community partners to celebrate the success of the teams and individuals involved in EPICS. For the 2020–2021 academic year, three EPICS teams were recognized along with 22 individual student awardees in different categories. Additionally, an industry mentor and community partner were recognized for their contributions to EPICS@ASU. Daniel Hoop, executive director of clean water access nonprofit organization 33 Buckets and a Fulton Schools environmental engineering alumnus, gave the keynote address during the EPICS Generator Awards ENGINEERING

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Water in Peru team members (from left to right) Samantha Stone, Daniel Hoop and Brett Goldsmith examine water quality. This EPICS team, which is working to solve the global problem of water purification monitoring, earned first place and $1,500 at the first EPICS Elite Pitch Competition.

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event where he talked about his own EPICS journey and how he was able to leverage his experiences into a full-time career after graduation. “I think that most importantly EPICS is a program that you’re going to get out what you put in, especially during the struggles,” says Hoop. “Ambiguity and unexpected obstacles come up. That’s the first step in really becoming a great engineer and one who can solve real-world problems and work on impact-based projects.” Hoop ended his presentation with a bit of inspiration for the current EPICS students. “You rise to the level of your highest aspirations,” says Hoop. “While your goals are important, your system will determine your success and achieving them. So always focus on that system.”

RECOGNIZING EPIC TEAMS The Impact Award is given to teams that have the potential for significant impact on local or global communities and have shown meaningful understanding of the populations they serve. This year’s Impact Award was presented to three teams that all worked closely together for the integrated project known as 33 Buckets. The winning teams were the Sensor Development team, the Internet of Things team and the Rainwater Harvesting team. Water shortages are common all across the world. Vast numbers of people suffer due to this challenge, ENGINEERING

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so 33 Buckets is working to provide improved water harvesting solutions. The EPICS teams worked to find methods that would fit the daily lifestyle of a given community and would not inconvenience people’s lives. “This solution is going to help a lot in automating chlorine disinfection systems in Peru,” says Mark Huerta, a lecturer in the Fulton Schools and co-founder of 33 Buckets. “There are so many communities 33 Buckets is working with near Cusco, Peru. The new system is going to be piloted this summer, and it has tremendous scalability potential to provide clean water to a lot of people in these communities.” Huerta began 33 Buckets as an undergraduate student in the Fulton Schools and has worked with many engineering students over the years to continue developing multiple aspects of the project that began while he was an EPICS student. This year Huerta was given an Outstanding Service Award for his work with the group. “I specifically chose to work on the human-centered design side of the project because the problem was just so relatable to me,” says Tina Sindwani, a first-year computer systems engineering major who worked on the rainwater harvesting team. “When I used to live in India, we had water outages often. However, it rains tremendously during the monsoons there, and water could easily be collected. We just need a system in place. It is amazing to know that I could design a system to solve a problem I knew firsthand.” 578

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The Innovation Award is given to a team that has developed an inventive solution for their project. These solutions involve conceptualizing, prototyping and implementing a unique design that has widespread opportunities to help those who need specific help. This year’s Innovation Award was given to the Memory Glass team, which developed a digital smart glasses attachment that offers memory assistance to patients with Alzheimer’s disease. The Memory Glass team has been working on their solution for several years now. It started as a very rough prototype and went through multiple iterations get to the current attachment for eyeglasses. Over the course of their project, the Memory Glass team has made significant progress and embraced valuable feedback from their mentors while taking advantage of the many different resources at ASU. They were able to expand their idea by learning how to go about complete the necessary steps to implement their solution to providing their product to everyone who needs it. The Catalyst Award, given to a team that has progressed exponentially in their design and implementation process, was given to the Waste Audit team. The Waste Audit team evaluates the process of identifying the particular types of waste entering local landfills. The team is working to solve the problem through capturing information to aid local businesses with opportunities to divert some waste to create valuable products.

RECOGNIZING EPIC COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT In addition to recognizing students who are making an impact in communities around the world, the EPICS Generator Awards also acknowledge community partners and mentors who help the students reach their goals. The Community Catalyst Award is given to a community partner that displays an exceptional level of involvement and goes above and beyond to support their EPICS project and student team. The community partners are the reason EPICS students become passionate about their projects as they are the principal customers of the program. This year the award was given to ASU Project Cities, a team that over the last two years has worked with ASU students on five different EPICS projects. The award is shared by Steven Russell, program manager of Project Cities, and Tracie Hlavinka, town manager of Clarkdale, Arizona. Russell collaborates with ASU faculty working with EPICS programs and provides numerous resources. The student teams that work with Project Cities ultimately get their project written up in an ASU Project Cities report that is published and presented to town managers, city managers and city leaders throughout the state for consideration for implementation. Hlavinka and her staff meet with the students on Clarkdale teams on a regular basis. “One of the Project Cities teams has researched and analyzed

the lack of broadband [internet access] in Clarkdale,” says Hlavinka. “Because of their work, we are able to give good reliable information to our Regional Broadband Action team to apply for state and federal funding for broadband infrastructure.” One of the biggest accomplishments that the ASU students have had so far in Clarkdale is their work in the downtown business district. “The Project Cities students have drafted design standards for the downtown area of Clarkdale,” says Hlavinka. “These standards were developed after the ASU students held a thorough public input meeting. The document was so well written that the design standards will be included in the Town of Clarkdale’s upcoming 2022 general plan. The Town of Clarkdale values the work and time that each of the facilitators, faculty members and students contribute to the program and the success of Clarkdale.” The Navigator Award is given to an academic associate who consistently provides guidance, mentorship and support to teams while helping them to challenge assumptions, pivot when necessary and arrive at innovative solutions. The 2021 Navigator Award was given to Tom Zender, a mentor to CEOs, business coach and leadership developer. He has also been an EPICS mentor for several semesters and brings both engineering expertise as well as business acumen to his guidance for EPICS students. For example, Zender has been able to help teams

with interpersonal communications. Many EPICS projects involve working with overseas partners and Zender has been able to help them overcome the challenges of connecting cross-culturally.

RECOGNIZING EPIC INDIVIDUALS EPICS projects rely on student-led teams, and the Outstanding Team Leader Award is given to students who go above and beyond. These students are organized, motivate their team and keep their projects moving forward. This year, a total of 10 students were awarded the honor. These leaders are often described as driven and hardworking; they motivate others and create an inclusive environment where their collaborators can share ideas. They also display enthusiasm that matches their technical knowledge. These leaders also do a great job of seeking feedback and input in their projects. Finally, the Rising Star Award is given to EPICS students in either their first or second semester who are making significant contributions to their team and bring enthusiasm, passion and dedication to EPICS. Rising Star Award students are relatively new to EPICS and are still learning how to best be successful with their projects. They take it upon themselves to try to achieve as much as they possibly can. This year, 12 rising stars were recognized for their contributions and program leaders look forward to seeing what these inspiring students have in store on their epic journeys.

“These standards were developed after the ASU students held a thorough public input meeting. The document was so well written that the design standards will be included in the Town of Clarkdale’s upcoming 2022 general plan.” — T R A C I E H L AV I N K A , T O W N M A N A G E R O F C L A R K DA L E , A R I ZO N A

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because ange the world. ver ... expected world would me.” — M A R K H U E R TA , ‘ 19 P H D I N E N G I N E E R I N G E D U CAT I O N , FO U N D I N G C EO O F 3 3 B U C K E T S

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Mark Huerta, right, and Paul Strong of 33 Buckets test water samples near Cusco, Peru.

Global clean water Solution to global clean water crisis has ASU flavor By BRIAN SODOMA Republished from The Arizona Republic Photographs by JOSH SOSKIN

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ASU Thrive magazine, Spring 2017

Einstein once said: “Try not to become a person of success, but rather try to become a person of value.” A growing number of today’s college students embrace this message. They go to school to gain skills and insights with the idea of using them to better the world. Many of these social entrepreneurs come to the table with big ideas; some make a huge impact. Mark Huerta is one of them.

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The design of the filtration systems depends on the contaminants found.

Today, Huerta, 25, is an ASU engineering education doctoral student, and he’s also the CEO of nonprofit 33 Buckets, which helps communities in underdeveloped countries gain access to clean drinking water. About 1.8 billion people globally do not have access to safe, potable water, and each year millions die by drinking from contaminated sources. It’s a problem Huerta and fellow ASU students and graduates are now tackling. “To see those kids drink clean water for the first time, it’s the most rewarding feeling you can ever have,” he said. “I went to ASU because I wanted to change the world. The thing I never would have expected was how the world would have changed me.”

A challenge shapes a man In 2011 – when Huerta was an undergraduate biomedical engineering student – Enamul Hoque, founder of the Hoque Girls’ College in rural Bangladesh, had a problem. His school’s water supply was contaminated by arsenic. He approached ASU’s Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) program for a solution. 584

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The situation was perfectly suited for an engineering student like Huerta who was hungry to use his skills to better the world. So, he, along with peers Swaroon Sridhar, Varendra Silva, Paul Strong and Vid Micevic, immediately set out to create water filter prototypes. The team brought with it a go-big-or-go-home mindset. If they could engineer one solution, why not develop more? This thinking was further encouraged by ASU, which brought helpful resources to the table. Engineering professors helped refine filter designs. Mentorship from ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering Startup Center is helping Huerta and his team shape a sustainable nonprofit. And seed capital— from dozens of private donors—was channeled through ASU’s crowdfunding website, PitchFunder. “It’s that idea that you can do well and do good,” said Brent Sebold, director of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering Startup Center and director for venture development for ASU E+I (Entrepreneurship+Innovation). “It’s why we value entrepreneurship at ASU. It’s not just capitalism, but endeavors to change the world for the better.” LAB: ARIZONA BOARD OF REGENTS

Mark Huerta, left, and Paul Strong of 33 Buckets finish a modular, gravity-fed filtration system near Cusco, Peru.

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Half of the proceeds from the water sales in Huillcapata are invested back into the local school.

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A critical pivot With the encouragement and mentorship of EPICS program leaders, the team developed an effective prototype involving two five-gallon buckets, a sand filter, oxidation tanks and carbon steel shavings to filter arsenic. Thirty-three is arsenic’s atomic number, so the name “33 Buckets” for the organization was born. However, the group’s Bangladesh trip in the summer of 2012 brought valuable and somewhat painful lessons. Arsenic wasn’t the true contaminant after all; it was E. coli. Even more, these bright young engineering minds learned quickly that the technology to filter many different water contaminants already existed. Getting clean water to communities in need meant setting up the right system for the situation and, more importantly, putting a plan in place to sustain that system for years to come. “As an engineer, you want a lot of times to create innovative technology, but that’s not what’s really needed here,” Huerta added. “It was a matter of getting the right technology to the places that needed it [and] … putting someone in a position to operate and manage it.” 33 Buckets learned that a suitable technology was available in the nearby capital of Dhaka, and through local university contacts, an entrepreneur was found to help maintain and run a filtration system on the school site. Finding all the right pieces and implementing the plan took considerable time; but after three years, in the winter of 2015, 33 Buckets finally installed a system that now produces 2,000 to 4,000 gallons of clean water per day. The clean water is then sold well below market rate, and the funds are used to maintain the filtration system, develop new one and fund school programs as well. Beyond the 900 girls at the school, clean water now reaches more than 12,000 people in the area. After Bangladesh, the group pressed on. In 2016, 33 Buckets developed successful filtration systems in villages in the Dominican Republic and Peru,

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“To see those kids drink clean water for the first time, it’s the most rewarding feeling you can ever have. I went to ASU because I wanted to change the world. The thing I never would have expected was how the world would have changed me.” — Mark Huerta, CEO of 33 Buckets

some of whose water supply saw more than 200 times the acceptable E. coli levels (according to World Health Organization standards). Each village poses unique challenges that drive, instead of discourage, Huerta. “We learned so much implementing that first project (in Bangladesh). … We were a lot more efficient in terms of how fast we could complete the next two,” he added. These early experiences also helped to establish a valuable relationship with Peruvian government leaders, who may hire the team as consultants to help more villages. If this happens, the team could market itself as global water consultants to governments around the world.

Keeping the momentum Along the way, ASU business and entrepreneurship professors taught Huerta and other team members to effectively pitch the 33 Buckets concept. These skills have helped them earn tens of thousands of dollars in seed money through crowdfunding, partnerships with private companies, and entrepreneurship contests. Now, Huerta and his team must also focus on a more sustainable financial plan for 33 Buckets. “It’s difficult for students to wrap their heads around a nonprofit needing a viable business model,” Sebold said, while also noting how impressed he is with the group’s flexibility and willingness to learn about how a business mindset is needed for some aspects of running a nonprofit. And a contract with the Peruvian government, Huerta understands, would be that first critical piece of business that propels 33 Buckets from a great idea with a lot of heart to a long-term clean water solution that helps millions of people.

See the video: asu.edu/33buckets and share on social media 33buckets.org @ASU   @ Arizona State University

Learn more about how the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering Startup Center, 33 Buckets and other ASU research efforts are making local and global impacts at asu.edu/cleanwater.

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Some 1,500 people in the Huillcapata community now get clean water from their own local business, run by the local school principal in Peru.

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New research can help ecosystem managers identify species vulnerabilities and prevent populations from becoming at risk, like the endangered Mexican gray wolf.

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PUBLISHED

ASU News, January 18, 2021

New tool can help predict species at risk of vulnerability or extinction

Better risk identification will give ecologists more management options More than 3,000 animal species in the world today are considered endangered, with hundreds more categorized as vulnerable. Currently, ecologists don’t have reliable tools to predict when a species may become at risk. A new paper published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, “Management implications of long transients in ecological systems,” focuses on the transient nature of species and ecosystem stability and illustrates how management practices can be adjusted to better prepare for possible system flips. Some helpful modeling approaches are also offered, including one tool that may help identify potentially endangered populations. Ying-Cheng Lai, a professor of electrical engineering and physics at Arizona State University, focused on the mathematical modeling process of the research. The team, with sponsorship from the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS) through the University of Tennessee, has been working together as a study group named “NIMBioS Working Group: Long Transients and Ecological Forecasting.” The group has produced a number of papers focused on developing mathematical models to understand long transients in ecosystems.

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magine Cup he forefront imed at productivity achines work with humans. ” – S U B B A R AO K A M B H A M PAT I , A S U P R O F ES S O R O F C O M P U T E R S C I E N C E A N D E N G I N E E R I N G , O N T H E Æ F F ECT I V E R O B OT I C S T E A M ’ S WO R K

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PUBLISHED

Forbes, Sept. 9, 2021

The MindBending Physics Of Walking With Coffee May Save Humanity, For Now By ERIC MACK, FORBES

“If you’ve found your fear of the robot apocalypse building lately, new research suggests humans will remain in charge as long as we’re the best around at one simple activity: walking with a cup of coffee in hand. Keeping that hot liquid below the brim (at least most of the time) as we traverse kitchens, living rooms, coffee shops and sidewalks is something that most of us manage with little to no thought or effort whatsoever. But the physics behind this feat is so complex it might as well be quantum mechanics.

“While humans possess a natural, or gifted, ability to interact with complex objects, our understanding of those interactions—especially at a quantitative level, is next to zero,” said Arizona State University electrical engineering professor Ying-Cheng Lai.”

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PUBLISHED

ASU News, October 25, 2017

Researchers use a smartphone to diagnose disease Biodesign researchers shrinks cost of device to diagnose tuberculosis in the field

ASU Biodesign Institute researcher Tony Hu and postdoctoral researcher Dali Sun have developed a simple mobile technology for clinics and health organizations on the front lines of triaging outbreaks of infectious disease around the world. The two have taken a $60,000 state-of-the-art technology and reduced the cost to $2,000 in hopes of making diagnostics more affordable to limited-resource areas, particularly in the developing world. Using 3-D printing, Sun custom-fabricated their first prototype, which contains an easy-to-use mobile phone attachment that slides on like a smartphone case, and a condenser to help focus light onto a sample. The test is sensitive enough to give a result from just a single drop of liquid prepared from a patient’s blood sample using a custom, patented sample prep kit that Hu’s lab has developed.

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ASU News, July 19, 2017

Neurotechnology

Two brains are better than one New partnership brings brain tech to market

ASU and the University of Houston have joined forces to form BRAIN (Building Reliable Advancements in Neurotechnology), an Industry-University Cooperative Research Center dedicated to bringing new neurotechnologies and treatments to market. According to the World Health Organization, eight out of 10 disorders in the three highest disability classes are linked to neurological problems, a figure likely to increase, as the global elderly population is expected to double by 2050. Eric Maass of Medtronic, one of BRAIN’s industry partners, says his company was drawn to the immense talent pool contained within BRAIN. “This partnership not only benefits Medtronic, but the world,” says Maass.

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“We don’t tell it what to do. If we use tricks from nature, it learns much faster.” – H E N I B E N A M O R , A S S I S TA N T P R O F E S S O R I N T H E S C H O O L O F C O M P U T I N G , I N F O R M AT I C S A N D D EC I S I O N SYSTEM S EN G I N EER I N G

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ASU News, May 25, 2017

A robot teaches itself to navigate the world Technology comes from collaboration between computer science, mechanical engineering and biology Machine learning met and fell in love with biologyinspired design in the creation of C-Turtle, a developmental robot created by ASU doctoral students and faculty with backgrounds in computer science, mechanical engineering and biology. Produced with just $70 of materials, the robot took about one hour of crawling to learn how to successfully navigate a desert landscape. Future applications of these types of robots could include actively monitoring conditions in challenging environments such as minefields or other planets.

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Experimental setup and identification of QMBS states via quantum state tomography.

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ASU News, October 21, 2022

ASU, Zhejiang University reach qubit computing breakthrough Researchers from Arizona State University and Zhejiang University in China, along with two theorists from the United Kingdom, have been able to demonstrate for the first time that large numbers of quantum bits, or qubits, can be tuned to interact with each other while maintaining coherence for an unprecedentedly long time, in a programmable, solid state superconducting processor. Previously, this was only possible in Rydberg atom systems. In a paper that was published on Thursday, Oct. 13, in Nature Physics, ASU Regents Professor Ying-Cheng Lai, his former ASU doctoral student Lei Ying and experimentalist Haohua Wang, both professors at Zhejiang University in China, have demonstrated a “first look” at the emergence of quantum many-body scarring (QMBS) states as a robust mechanism for maintaining coherence among interacting qubits. Such exotic quantum states offer the appealing possibility of realizing extensive multipartite entanglement for a variety of applications in quantum information science and technology to achieve high processing speed and low power consumption. “QMBS states possess the intrinsic and generic capability of multipartite entanglement, making them extremely appealing to applications such as quantum sensing and metrology,” Ying said. Classical, or binary, computing relies on transistors – which can represent only the “1” or the “0” at a single time. In quantum computing, qubits can represent both 0 and 1 simultaneously, which can exponentially accelerate computing processes. “In quantum information science and technology, it is often necessary to assemble a large number of fundamental information-processing units – qubits – together,” Lai said. “For applications such as quantum computing, maintaining a high degree of coherence or quantum entanglement among the qubits is essential. “However, the inevitable interactions among the qubits and environmental noise can ruin the coherence in a very short time — within about 10 nanoseconds. This is because many interacting qubits constitute a manybody system.” ENGINEERING

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Aliaksandr “Sasha” Sharstniou (right) and Bruno Azeredo, an assistant professor of manufacturing engineering in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering.

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FROM BEL A R U S TO FULTO N S C H O O LS OF ENGIN E E R IN G TO INTEL

Full Circle, Dec. 14, 2022

“ I never thought I would have this opportunity. Aliaksandr “Sasha” Sharstniou patented a scalable fabrication process while at ASU — and now works at Intel Story by MONIQUE CLEMENT, Photography by ERIKA GRONEK

You never know where you will end up.” ENGINEERING

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As a materials science undergraduate in Belarus, Aliaksandr “Sasha” Sharstniou liked physics, chemistry and making things with his hands. Bored with an extensive lesson on old bipolar transistors in one of his laboratory classes, he spoke up about wanting to move on and talk about newer, more advanced semiconductor technologies. His lab instructor there said, “It’s not like you’re going to be working at Intel.” Ten years later, that’s exactly where he is. Sharstniou, ’22 PhD in materials science and engineering, has started a position as a

process for optoelectronic semiconductor devices called metal-assisted electrochemical nanoimprinting, or Mac-Imprint. Sharstniou’s innovative technique, for which he holds a U.S. patent, could contribute to industrial advances in semiconductor manufacturing processes in the next five or 10 years. Bruno Azeredo, assistant professor of manufacturing engineering and Sharstniou’s doctoral advisor for more than five years, says Sharstniou’s work is helping to overcome a major hurdle in the semiconductor industry’s quest to develop microelectronics

“It’s not like you’re going to be working at Intel.”

His lab instructor in Belarus said,

Ten years later, that’s exactly where he is. packaging R&D engineer at the Intel advanced packaging research and development facilities in Arizona, a position he was hired for as he was finishing his doctorate from the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering. “I never thought I would have this opportunity,” Sharstniou says. “You never know where you will end up.” His doctoral research focused on creating a scalable fabrication 610

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that use optics, or signals made of light, instead of electrical signals. “Miniaturizing fiber optics has been a gigantic challenge both from a design standpoint, because the devices have to be designed in novel ways, and in manufacturing because it involves heterogeneous materials and novel manufacturing processes,” says Azeredo, a faculty member in the

School of Manufacturing Systems and Networks, part of the Fulton Schools. “Sasha’s contribution is developing a way to make these optical materials with silicon and delivering metrics in resolution, 3D structuring and scalability that are so relevant.”

A difficult start Raised by a single mother and his grandparents in Vitebsk, Belarus, Sharstniou and his family struggled financially. “My mom is a doctor, but in Belarus, doctors are not paid very well, so she had to work several shifts to make a living,” Sharstniou says. “Now I realize how much she was doing to make things work and I was lucky to have what I had back then.” Sharstniou had books on physics and chemistry, and later, a computer and dial-up internet. After high school, his family helped him attend the Belarusian State University of Informatics and Radioelectronics. As part of a research group, he explored the fabrication of porous silicon and deposition of zinc oxide nanostructures onto it. Research, Sharstniou says, “definitely taught me about critical thinking, the careful design of experiments and about thoroughness.”

Serendipity in Spain Sharstniou and his friend and classmate, Stanislau “Stas” Niauzorau, ’22 PhD in materials science and engineering, attended a semiconductor conference in Spain where they met Azeredo. Azeredo remembers meeting the two young researchers who were

Sasha Sharstniou’s patented technique for optical metasurfaces involves pressing a 3D stamp coated in a noble metal like gold against a silicon lens while immersed in a chemical solution. Once “imprinted,” onto the lens, the lens diffracts a rainbow of colors.

knowledgeable about his work. He invited them to join his new lab at ASU. He was just beginning his faculty position at ASU. “Your first PhD students are the people who build everything you see in the lab,” Azeredo says. Sharstniou was thrilled by the invitation, but getting to ASU would be difficult. It meant leaving behind his wife, Aksana Atrashkevich, who was pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Belarus. And it required the help of his family to pay for a plane ticket and the move far from home. Sharstniou says he was grateful to have Niauzorau with him as they built Azeredo’s lab. “Being able to participate in the discussions of what we need, what is the future direction of the lab and how it will be developed — it was a very unique experience that I will cherish,” Sharstniou says. “It led to several months of overnight work, but I also liked it because I was working with my friend.”

Achieving results at ASU One of Sharstniou’s most rewarding moments was when he finally held something he made — a successful product of his innovative fabrication technique. Optical metasurfaces require the creation of tiny 3D structures that interact with light in a unique way. Sharstniou was tasked with fabricating those structures on a silicon lens to demonstrate the versatility of the Mac-Imprint process. The technique involves pressing a 3D stamp coated in a noble metal like gold against a silicon lens while immersed in a chemical solution. Using an ENGINEERING

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New Economy Initiative impact on Arizona electrochemical corrosion process, 3D features of the stamp are then etched, or “imprinted,” onto the lens. “It was kind of a crazy idea. We took flexible, stretchable nanosponges that are typically meant to filter water and inflated them like a balloon to conform to the surface of the lens,” Azeredo says. “As a graduate student, I didn’t think of doing some of the things he did, so I’m proud of him.” Azeredo and Sharstniou remember the first time the process was successful after years of work. Seeing the etched surface of the silicon lens diffract a rainbow of colors created a huge moment of joy. Earlier parts of this work provided a significant amount of the preliminary results that led to Azeredo earning a prestigious 2020 National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) Award. Sharstniou’s major contributions to this research over the past few years also led to his being the first author of research papers published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and Advanced Materials, two of the top journals for science and engineering. With the help of Azeredo, his other collaborators and the resources at ASU — lab facilities including the Eyring Materials Center and access to the latest 612

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40K

New high-wage jobs by 2041

$6.9B 100+ Economic Industry output by 2032 partners

Learn more at neweconomy.asu.edu

30K students enrolled in STEM from all U.S. states and 156 countries, making ASU a premier, international technology and engineering powerhouse

research literature, things he only dreamed about in Belarus — Sharstniou has had an amazing journey, and it’s still in progress.

Onward to Intel Azeredo says Sharstniou had multiple offers of postdoctoral research positions from top 10 universities. His skills in a variety of fields — electrochemistry, electrical and mechanical engineering, materials science and more — are in high demand. But meeting his prospective manager at Intel made Sharstniou sure about his choice to start his industry career. Sharstniou looks forward to a highly research-oriented position

ASU is #4 in the U.S. for undergrad STEM degrees ahead of UCLA, University of Michigan and UC San Diego

3 ASU engineering programs in top 10 for remote learners

requiring him to establish a state-of-the-art lab and develop new technologies, processes and equipment for semiconductor chip interconnects. He’s excited about those professional opportunities, but also for what they mean for his family. His wife joined him in the U.S. in 2018 and was accepted into ASU’s environmental engineering doctoral program under Fulton Schools Assistant Professor Sergi Garcia-Segura. “Understanding that your efforts are actually used to make people’s lives better, that is important to me,” Sharstniou says. “I hope my future work will do that.” Square-Full

Sasha Sharstniou and Aksana Atrashkevich, who was pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Belarus and later joined her husband at ASU.

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ASU alumnus Robert Moody’s international engineering career has given him the opportunity to explore the high summits of Europe. Here, he is pictured on the Haute Route Skitour, which traverses the mountains from Chamonix, France, to Zermatt, Switzerland. Photo courtesy of Robert Moody

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ASU Engineering Full Circle, Apr 21, 2023

Greetings from Switzerland ASU alumnus Robert Moody reflects on his Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering experience and his international industry career by HAYLEY HILBORN

After coming across one of his articles online, spending more than thirty years working in industry, Arizona State University alumnus and Hitachi Energy Failure Analysis Engineer Robert Moody reached out to Terry Alford to thank him for being a role model as a Black engineer. Moody has spent more than 30 years working in industry and never forgot the lessons he learned as a ASU engineering student. Alford, a professor of materials science and engineering in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at ASU, mentored Moody more than 20 years ago while he worked to earn his master’s degree in semiconductor manufacturing from the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, and currently serves the school’s interim director.

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Moody shares his engineering journey and inspiration for budding engineers at ASU.

What inspired you to become an engineer? M: First, I should provide some background in order to give a good answer. I am an African American and the first person in my family to attend a university. In many ways, my journey to become an engineer was improbable, considering that my mother was one of 11 children raised in extreme poverty. In fact, she was placed in foster care for many years when my grandmother could not afford to provide for all of her children. I never met my grandfather and only know that he wasn’t present. My grandmother was a domestic worker for most of her adult working life, and as a youngster, she did sharecropping with her siblings. Even though my family history was difficult, there seemed to be a striver mentality that was passed down to my sister and me. As a youth, I was expected to succeed in academics and obtain employment. Engineering was naturally a major that provided a secure path to my goal of a good, financially stable job.

Why did you come to ASU? How did you select your major? M: After my military service in the U.S. Army and finishing my undergraduate BSE in electrical engineering degree at California State University, Los Angeles, I was fortunate to start my 616

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engineering career with Motorola’s Semiconductor Products Sector, which brought me to Phoenix. After working for a few years, I wanted to further my education and obtain a master’s degree. ASU had a great program where I could continue to work full time and pursue my degree part time. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the time flexibility support I received at my job from my managers so I could attend courses during work hours. ASU also initiated a program where classes were delivered via video link at the downtown Phoenix campus, which was convenient to avoid the parking situation on the Tempe campus.

Was there a particular “aha!” moment when you knew you were on the right path? M: I felt like an advanced degree was necessary for job security and to provide an advantage when seeking new opportunities I wanted to pursue. Even though my undergraduate degree was significant, I felt that a graduate degree was necessary for continued success.

How was Terry Alford instrumental in helping you grow as a student and in what ways did he impact your success? M: Dr. Alford was a huge source of inspiration for me as I worked toward my graduate degree at ASU. Dr. Alford was a professor in one of my initial graduate courses,

Material Science in Semiconductor Processing. Having an African American professor absolutely inspired me to work hard and believe that my goal of graduating was possible. This may sound a bit dramatic, but it gave me a belief that the Divine placed Dr. Alford in my path to internalize that I would succeed with enough dedication to my goal. When I was at ASU more than 20 years ago, I remember only one other African American student in all my courses. Naturally, that can bring about feelings of isolation and doubt as to whether I could successfully meet my goals and pass each of my courses. I’m not sure if [Alford] knows it, but just his presence on campus, as well as his encouragement, were key components in my success. I salute you, Dr. Alford!

How did the Fulton Schools prepare you for your career at Hitachi Energy? M: The Fulton Schools definitely prepared me for my career as a failure analysis engineer at Hitachi Energy. Here at Hitachi Energy, we primarily fabricate products for industrial high-voltage and electromobility applications. My duties involve analyzing new products, production defects and process development for the factories. The background I obtained from my studies, especially in semiconductor processing, provided me with enhanced insight into potential root causes of failures and ways that various fabrication processes affect materials.

“The Fulton Schools definitely prepared me for my career as a failure analysis engineer at Hitachi Energy. The background I obtained from my studies, especially in semiconductor processing, provided me with enhanced insight into potential root causes of failures and ways that various fabrication processes affect materials.” – R O B E R T M O O DY, ’ 0 0 M S I N E L E C T R I C A L E N G I N E E R I N G W I T H A N E M P H A S I S I N S E M I C O N D U C TO R T H E O R Y A N D P R O C E S S I N G

In your professional career, you’ve had the opportunity to work with a wide variety of companies. Do you have any insight to offer students about how to find a field that best suits them? M: I’ve been fortunate to have the opportunities I’ve received in my career over the years. I feel like the highlight is occurring now, even as I head into my upcoming retirement in a couple of years. I’m lucky that my career in engineering allowed me to live and work in Switzerland

for most of the last 10 years. None of this would have happened if I didn’t have an inspirational person like Dr. Alford as a shining example that my career can be limitless. I’ve had such super cool experiences here in Switzerland and central Europe, including mountaineering and summiting Mont Blanc, completing the hut-to-hut Haute Route Skitour in the Alps, enjoying an opera performance at Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Italy with my wife, strolling on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France and a host of other amazing memories. I guess I can offer insight to students by stating, “Don’t put limits on your desired career.”

At least in my experience, engineering can provide worldwide opportunities.

Any other advice you would give to current Fulton Schools students? M: I am a pretty humble guy and don’t know if I am qualified to give advice. However, one ideal I stuck to during my studies was to work hard. I wasn’t gifted with a strong scientific background, but I knew if I could work hard enough and put in the hours I would succeed in my courses. This state of mind was one of my personal keys to success. ENGINEERING

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Noha Labani, a PhdD student in English from Mecca, Saudi Arabia, writes “geography,” “mountains” and “maps” in Arabic on a white board, signifying the features on the home page of the SolarSPELL devices heading to the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria. Labani provided translation during a recent visit of education officials from the autonomous region.

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ASU News, April 21, 2023

Solar-powered libraries help Syrian communities rebuild from war Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria educators visit ASU to meet with SolarSPELL team Devastated by years of civil war in Syria, a group of people establishing their own country is working with ASU’s SolarSPELL team to create an education system from scratch. The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, a selfgoverning community that formed in 2012, is highly diverse, with residents who are from many different ethnic and religious groups. As they work to create a new K–12 school system based on their region’s commitment to democratic principles, tolerance and gender equality, they have turned to SolarSPELL for help. SolarSPELL is a solar-powered portable library device that was created by Laura Hosman, an associate professor in the School for the Future of Innovation in Society at Arizona State University. She is director of the SolarSPELL initiative, also based at ASU. The SolarSPELL devices work without electricity or internet connection. Each case includes a small solar panel, a microcomputer and a micro digital memory card, which contains all of the library content and some code that allows it to be accessed by any type of browser. The device creates a Wi-Fi hot spot, and users connect any Wi-Fi-capable device, such as smartphones, tablets or laptops, to access and download the content. Nearly 500 devices are being used in 15 countries, many in remote areas with little or no electricity or internet. The libraries are filled with content that is customized to the local community’s needs. Typically, Hosman and a SolarSPELL team travel to countries to train local people on the devices. In the train-the-trainer model, those people then go to the remote areas and teach others how to use SolarSPELL. But the ASU team was unable to travel to the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria because the situation in Syria is still unstable. So three educators from the independent region visited ASU for several days in April for training.

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ASU News, Sep 12, 2016

No internet, no power, no problem: ASU solar library is the answer Portable, solar-powered, Wi-Fi-ready digital library devices called SolarSPELL — Solar Powered Educational Learning Library — are helping expand access to education and technology in remote places around the world. Laura Hosman, an ASU assistant professor with a joint appointment in the Fulton Schools and the School for the Future of Innovation in Society, has created a way to deliver a digital library that doesn’t depend on existing internet connectivity — rather, it comes with its own Wi-Fi hotspot. With her innovative SolarSPELL device, all that is needed to access the information is an internet-capable device, such as an iPad, laptop or smartphone. Basically, it’s a self-powered plug-andplay kit, portable enough to fit into a ruggedized, weatherproof backpack serving up an offline library in the form of a website that is already being used in the Pacific Islands in an ASU partnership with the U.S. Peace Corps. Hosman has traveled with ASU students to the Pacific Islands (including Vanuatu, pictured), where they worked with Peace Corps volunteers.

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Arizona , onal and Arizona’s strength in advanced industries, including semiconductors and electronics, navigational instruments and sensors, aerospace and defense, and health and biomedical advances contributes significantly to the state’s competitiveness in the global marketplace. It is clear that in order to secure prosperity for the state’s citizens, our region must transition from a growthdependent economy to one that is agile, flexible and driven by technological innovation. Our knowledge-based national economy depends on well-educated and highly trained professionals who will maintain our country’s competitive edge. As learners around the world seek paths to innovation and transformation, we are partnering in new ways and sharing our offerings in the global learning sphere. ASU is rising to the challenges of the state, the nation and the world to deliver learning at all levels for anyone, wherever they are.

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from

Serving our state, our nation Maintain the fundamental principle of accessibility to all students qualified to study at a research university

ASU enrolls undergraduates from 88% of Arizona high schools. Maintaining the fundamental principle of accessibility to all students qualified to study at a research university. 570 Arizona high schools represented in the undergraduate student population from Fall 2022 and Spring 2023.

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ASU serves learners in all 50 states plus Washington D.C., Guam, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.

n and our world.

A complete university experience, from anywhere learners are. Transforming the landscape of education one global initiative at a time. A R I Z O N A S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y

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Cintana Affiliate Institutions

ASU Cintana Alliance and powered by ASU

Cintana Affiliate Institutions

14 universities

115,000+ students in Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Montenegro, Philippines, Turkey and Ukraine.

50 universities will be in the expanded network

by 2030 .

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with Cinta We areInASUpartnership is building a global to increase access to qu building a with academic collaborat global and research and trainin university Fourteen universities wit students in Colombia, Co network to Egypt, India, Indonesia, K Montenegro, Philippines, fuel impact are part of the ASU-Cinta Engage learners of all socioeconomic, geographic and demographic backgrounds powered by ASU. In partnership with Cintana Education, ASU is building a global network of universities to increase access to quality higher education, with academic collaborations, student mobility and research and training projects.

The network will expand universities by 2030.

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Members of AAU, including stalwart private universities like Harvard, Stanford, MIT and Johns Hopkins and leading public universities like UCLA ... collectively help shape policy for higher education, science and innovation. 628

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We are now a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities Association comprises 71 elite research universities, including Harvard, Stanford, MIT and UCLA Arizona State University on June 1 was selected to join the prestigious Association of American Universities, which comprises the nation’s elite research universities. The AAU added Arizona State into its membership, applauding the university’s academic and research strength and acknowledging its place as a leader in higher education. There now are 71 universities — including two from Canada — in the association, which was established in 1900. “From deep space to deep in the oceans, we are a university designed for discovery,

interdisciplinary research and innovation,” ASU President Michael Crow said. “As one of the fastest-growing research enterprises in the United States, we are focused on solving society’s greatest challenges, and we are excited to become part of the AAU.” Members of AAU, including stalwart private universities like Harvard, Stanford, MIT and Johns Hopkins and leading public universities like UCLA, the University of Washington, the University of WisconsinMadison and the University of Michigan, collectively help shape policy for higher education, science and innovation; promote best practices in undergraduate and graduate education; and strengthen the contributions of leading research universities to American society. As a group they earn a majority of competitively awarded federal funding for research that improves public health, addresses national challenges and contributes significantly to the nation’s economic strength, while educating and training visionary leaders and innovators.

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‘Top producing’ university of elite scholars for 10 consecutive years For the past 10 years, ASU has been a top-producing university for elite scholars. This impressive list includes 312 Gilman Scholars, 180 Fulbright Scholars, 40 Boren Scholars, 35 Killam Fellows, 21 Goldwater Scholars, 13 Udall Scholars, 8 Gates Cambridge Scholars, 4 Marshall Scholars, 4 Truman Scholars and 2 Rhodes Scholars.

3,500+ faculty mentors

from 17 colleges and schools, including Nobel laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners and MacArthur fellows

#1 public university in the U.S. chosen by international students ahead of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, UCLA and UC Berkeley — I N S T I T U T E O F I N T E R N AT I O N A L E D U C AT I O N , 2 0 2 2

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ASU is achieving excellence Top 10 in the world for employerstudent connections

A top university worldwide for academic reputation ASU is named to the top 100 in the world for academic reputation by Times Higher Education. The ranking is based on the world’s largest invitation-only academic opinion survey, which uses United Nations data as a guide to ensure that the results are representative of world scholarship, and targets only experienced, published scholars.

One of the fastestgrowing research universities Over the last 10 years, ASU has emerged as one of the country’s fastest-growing research universities among those with $100 million+ in annual research expenditures — ahead of Harvard, Yale, Duke and others.

— QS World University Rankings 2022

#6 in the U.S.

for total research expenditures ASU ahead of University of Chicago, Princeton and Caltech among universities without a medical school. – N AT I O N A L S C I E N C E F O U N D AT I O N H E R D S U R V E Y, 2 0 2 2

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International students

TSMC

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Starbucks

public university chosen by international students

ASU is an international destination Institute of International Education, 2021

Top 10 Countries India

Taiwan

China

Vietnam

Attracting faculty, students Saudi Arabia Mexicoand partners from around the globe, ASU’s Canada Egypt reputation for innovation and excellence Arab Emirates hasRepublic createdofaKorea center ofUnited gravity that continues to grow. Faculty 5 Nobel Laureates 8 MacArthur Award winners 10 Pulitzer Prize winners 21 National Academy of Sciences members

#1 public university in the U.S. chosen by international students ahead of University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign, UCLA and UC Berkeley —IN STITUTE OF I N T E R N AT I O N A L E D U C AT I O N , 2 0 2 2

Industry giants like Mayo Clinic, Starbucks, Intel, TSMC, adidas, Dreamscape Learn, Uber, Amazon, Infosys, Labcorp, NBA G League, Peloton, Phoenix Children’s and more understand the importance of responding to the changing needs of business and work with ASU to meet their goals. A R I Z O N A S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y

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ASU is engaged and serving learners on both coasts

Los Angeles, California

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Engage learners of all socioeconomic, geogra demographic backgrou

ASU is engaged on both coasts in the U.S.

Washington, D.C.

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ASU is a global hub for microelectronics activity

ASU catalyzes a future of sustained prosperity for Arizona

U.S. President Biden

at TSMC President Biden attended the TSMC Phoenix plant celebration and spoke with President Crow.

ASU plays a key role in Arizona’s New Economy Initiative, which will:

Ambassador Esteban Moctezuma Barragan Co-develop solutions to the

bal hub for Create 40,000 new nics activity

Ambassador Moctezuma critical social, technical, cultural andASU environmental issues facing visited to sign an MOU 21st-century Arizona, ensuring to boost semiconductor sustainability and resilience production in North America.

high wage jobs by 2041.

U.S. President Biden

Increase economic at TSMC output to $6.9 billion. President Biden attended theDouble TSMC Phoenix plant the return on celebration and spoke with the state’s investment President Crow. by 2032. The New Economy Initiative builds on ASU’s role as Ambassador Esteban a catalyst for economic Moctezuma Barragan growth and resilience and two decades of enabling Ambassador Moctezuma accessible, high quality visited ASU to an MOU education and sign innovative to research boost semiconductor that meets production America. the needs in of North the market and society.

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U.S. Commerce Secretary

Gina Raimondo Secretary Raimondo joined U.S Senator Mark Kelly on a tour of ASU MacroTechnology Works.

U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Heidi Shyu Undersecretary Shyu visited ASU MacroTechnology Works.

ASU is a global hub for microelectronics Attracting researchers, industry partners, students and community partners in high-tech growth.

5x multiplier effect 2,000 jobs TSMC is directly hiring high-tech roles for its new foundry

Each microelectronics job creates five additional jobs for suppliers and vendors SOURCES: TSMC, ASU, L. WILLIAM SEIDMAN RESEARCH INSTITUTE AT T H E W . P. C A R E Y S C H O O L OF BUSINESS

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Arizona ASU’s MacroTechnology Works is accelerating semiconductor, advanced materials and energy device research in the United States. The world-class caliber of these facilities makes MacroTechnology Works central to the photovoltaics, batteries and power-electronics work of ASU’s new Advanced Materials, Processes and Energy Devices (AMPED) Science and Technology Center.

California Applied Materials is making a landmark investment to build the world’s largest and most advanced facility for collaborative semiconductor process technology and manufacturing equipment R&D (rendering at right). ASU is collaborating with the company to bring research expertise and help create the future innovation and manufacturing talent pipeline that will be critical over the long term.

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ASU builds and partners on lab-to-fab pipelines

Focusing research on impact and connecting insights directly to industry where they can scale and deliver “We’re all-in as an asset to industry and to the nation as we seek to regain global pre-eminence in semiconductor manufacturing, research and development,” said ASU President Michael Crow. “Applied Materials is providing extraordinary leadership to accelerate innovation and commercialization of foundational manufacturing technologies that will define the future of how chips are made. And as we continue to innovate in that process, ASU will bring research expertise and help create the future innovation and manufacturing talent pipeline that will be critical over the long term.” A R I Z O N A S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y

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Innovation Zones

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ASU cultivates an ecosystem of innovation Drive regional economic competitiveness through research, discovery and socioeconomically integrated programs

Supporting business growth and economic impact from large companies to family-owned small businesses across the Phoenix metro region Innovation Zones provide an opportunity to work in close proximity with ASU staff, students and faculty, as well as with other high-profile industry leaders. Just like urban neighborhoods, each Innovation Zone has its own distinct personality, characteristics and amenities. We designed our Zones this way to ensure we can offer tenants a wide range of customizable options appropriate to size, industry and need.

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“State Farm invests in communities where we live and work, it’s part of being a good neighbor. We are proud to team up with ASU and excited to have our Marina Heights facility located in the Novus Innovation Corridor. As a leader in innovation, ASU is ... committed to building the workforce of the future. Our employees also benefit from the proximity to ASU for continuing education, personal development and volunteer opportunities.” — I N E S H A L LO R A N , S TAT E FA R M V P E N T E R P R I S E T EC H N O LO GY 642

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ASU creates spaces for research, work and life to mix

With prime locations, smart city infrastructure, Class A office space and build-to-suit options combined with the ASU difference — the opportunity to tap into research, programs, initiatives, faculty and student resources.

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Inspiring, cultivating and achieving innovation at every level Arizona State University was founded in 1885 with a pioneer spirit and a vision for the future. This vision makes ASU one of the fastest-growing and most agile research universities in the nation. ASU has been recognized for eight years in a row as the country’s “most innovative” school, ahead of Stanford and MIT (U.S. News & World Report). Nine design aspirations guide ASU’s ongoing evolution as the New American University, a new paradigm for the public research university that is transforming higher education. The university integrates these institutional objectives in innovative ways to advance excellence and impact, with an emphasis on inclusion and student success. ASU’s pace of innovation — intellectual, cultural, social — is not just continuing, it’s accelerating.

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Liz Lerman, a MacArthur Fellow and Guggenheim Fellow, works with students in the Herberger Institute for the Arts and across boundaries with students and community members from all parts of ASU.

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Making a difference Some of the world’s brightest minds empower ASU’s master learners. Nobel laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners and MacArthur fellows inspire new ways of thinking and solving social, cultural and economic challenges in the Southwest, national and international communities. ASU students can study with more than 3,500 faculty mentors from 17 colleges and schools that embrace an inclusive, collaborative and entrepreneurial environment. ASU is home to the top honors college in the nation and the first School of Sustainability in the world, and outpaces Duke, Yale, Georgetown and Dartmouth in the number of patents granted to universities worldwide. The diverse experience of students and faculty, nationally ranked programs and stateof-the-art facilities creates fertile ground for the best-qualified graduates in the U.S.

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Students connect with the people who are changing the world

World leaders

Extraordinary entrepreneurs. Renowned professionals. National heroes. Distinguished thought leaders. These are the types of people ASU collaborates with, either through partnerships that benefit students or by offering opportunities for students to meet with, ask questions of and learn from them. Here are some notable names who have visited ASU and shared their knowledge.

Students

Cultural influencers

Revolutionary artist James Turrell partnered with ASU to inspire transdisciplinary approaches to creativity for students.

CNN journalist Anderson Cooper met with journalism students to talk about the passion that will be key to their careers.

Journalist David Brooks addressed students at an ASU undergraduate commencement.

Choreographer, performer and MacArthur Genius Liz Lerman was named Institute Professor at ASU’s Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts.

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U.S. poet laureate Joy Harjo talked to students about her groundbreaking journey through the American literary landscape.

NPR journalist Mara Liasson connected with students about the role of citizens and journalists in national elections.

Oscar-winning filmmaker Spike Lee spoke with students about the film industry through a program that connects students to entertainment industry jobs.

NBC News anchor Lester Holt was the recipient of the Cronkite School’s Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism.

Author and Arizona poet laureate Alberto Ríos is a Regents Professor at ASU, where he has taught since 1982.

While he was president, Barack Obama addressed new graduates at an ASU commencement and inspired a new ASU scholarship.

The late senator John McCain and Cindy McCain partnered with ASU to form an institute to promote character-driven leadership.

First female U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor inspired ASU to name its law school after her.

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice held a discussion with students about being involved at the highest level of international affairs. Hong Kong dignitary and social justice leader Anson Chan interacted with students on the topics of international politics and democracy.

Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton hosted the Clinton Global Initiative University at ASU, celebrating student-led changemaking.

Students learned about cybersecurity and privacy at a forum with former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff.

Former Intel CEO Craig Barrett and former Secretary of the U.S. Air Force Barbara Barrett have created opportunities for students to interact with international leaders in Arizona and at the ASU D.C. center.

Former South Africa President F.W. de Klerk met with students about solving important social, economic and political problems through civil discussion.

Prince Alfred Mbinglo of Cameroon's Nso Kingdom worked with students on solutions to migration and human trafficking.

Industry leaders

Former White House physician and Mayo Clinic doctor Connie Mariano spoke about overcoming obstacles to achieve success.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates was a guest lecturer at a forum on expanding higher education access.

Students heard from former Google CEO Eric Schmidt about the power of science, technology and hard work. MasterCard Foundation CEO Reeta Roy shared her journey to a successful career with MasterCard Foundation Scholars from Africa. Student athletes met with Jack Ma, co-founder of Alibaba, one of the most successful businesses in the world, to learn about managing a global business.

Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz participated in an ASU town hall event on how business can be a partner in expanding education opportunities.

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Jid’dah Ado-Ibrahimis studies in ASU’s online biological sciences degree program which includes an intense on-campus lab week.

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Removing boundaries to build excellence By redefining the 21st-century university as a knowledge enterprise, Arizona State University has inspired its faculty and students to lead discovery, most notably space exploration, electron microscopy, sustainability and human origins. ASU’s interdisciplinary, solutions-focused approach to research, entrepreneurship and economic development is centered on discovery that matters and the fusion of intellectual disciplines in order to solve complex problems. Integrating perspectives, concepts and theories from multiple disciplines and home to 25 transdisciplinary units, ASU has rapidly risen to rank No. 3 in the United States for total interdisciplinary science research expenditures — ahead of Harvard; University of California, Berkeley; and Johns Hopkins University, among others.

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How does ASU build leaders? We don’t. They do. ASU graduates more than 20,000 thinkers, innovators and master learners every year dedicated to the betterment of American society and democracy. ASU’s “students-first” approach creates groundbreaking opportunities designed to help students learn and thrive in personalized ways. Studying at an innovation powerhouse delivers access to use-inspired technology, the vast resources of a Research I university and programs that are unique to students’ needs. ASU educators and mentors believe that leaders come from diverse backgrounds and perspectives. In the last 10 years, more than 3,135 National Merit Scholars and National Hispanic Scholars have built their futures at ASU. More than 500,000 alumni serve their communities and countries as international government leaders; U.S. governors, congressmen and senators; founders of companies; militaryservice pioneers; researchers in medicine, technology, engineering and sustainability; groundbreaking entrepreneurs, pioneering educators; entertainers, pro athletes and more.

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20,000+ graduates every year dedicated to the betterment of American society and democracy.

3,135+ National Merit Scholars and National Hispanic Scholars in the last 10 years

1/2 million+ alumni leading and serving in Arizona and around the world as international government leaders, groundbreaking entrepreneurs, military-service pioneers; medical researchers, technologists in engineering and sustainability, pioneering educators, entertainers, pro athletes and more.

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ASU Charter ASU is a comprehensive public research university, measured not by whom it excludes, but by whom it includes and how they succeed; advancing research and discovery of public value; and assuming fundamental responsibility for the economic, social, cultural and overall health of the communities it serves.

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In order to achieve its charter, ASU has reorganized its internal structures to an enterprise model.

hree pillars anchor the ASU Public Enterprise

Advances research, innovation, strategic partnerships, entrepreneurship and international development. ASU Public Enterprise Office Units

ASU Public Enterprise Office Units

Advances academic excellence through the faculty and growing the quality, scope and scale of campus immersion and online programs.

EdPlus@ASU ASU Enterprise Partners ASU Enterprise Technology Office EdPlus@ASU ASU Enterprise Marketing Hub ASU Enterprise Partners ASU Preparatory Academy ASU Enterprise Technology Office ASU Enterprise Marketing Hub ASU Preparatory Academy

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Serves learners across their entire lifespan, from kindergarten to high school to midcareer to post-retirement.

ASU has remade itself into a

New American University Nine design aspirations guide the ongoing evolution of ASU as a New American University. These institutional objectives are integrated in innovative ways throughout the university to achieve excellence, access and impact.

Leverage Our Place ASU embraces its cultural, socioeconomic and physical setting.

Fuse Intellectual Disciplines ASU creates knowledge by transcending academic disciplines.

Transform Society ASU catalyzes social change by being connected to social needs.

Be Socially Embedded ASU connects with communities through mutually beneficial partnerships.

Value Entrepreneurship ASU uses its knowledge and encourages innovation.

Engage Globally ASU engages with people and issues locally, nationally and internationally.

Conduct Use-Inspired Research ASU research has purpose and impact.

Practice Principled Innovation ASU places character and values at the center of decisions and actions.

Enable Student Success ASU is committed to the success of each unique student.

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tions are those attempting to gh the design on that aid our mplish the of the charter.” – M I C H A E L M . C R OW, A S U P R ES I D E N T

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Phoenix Bioscience Core

“Our faculty and students are working together with our surrounding populations ... in research that rapidly moves from the lab to the community to have a real impact for better health.” — DEBORAH HELITZER, PROFESSOR AND DEAN OF THE COLLEGE OF H E A LT H S O L U T I O N S

Fastest growth in life sciences employment the Phoenix metro area topped the nation, ahead of Seattle, Denver, Boston and other major metro areas in growth

22,000+

jobs in life sciences in metro Phoenix at the end of 2020

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The area includes a new 227,000-square-foot building, called 850 PBC, provides key biomedical facilities and resources that most startups and many researchers previously were not able to access. These include clinical trial areas, dry labs with high-tech equipment for crunching numbers, a wet lab with resources for complex analytical chemistry and molecular biology analyses, a cardiovascular and exercise physiology laboratory, and a rehabilitation and motor control lab.

Leverage our place ASU embraces its cultural, socioeconomic and physical setting. By partnering with bioscience experts at other local universities and businesses in the local market, ASU is working to catalyze a bioscience and innovation core in downtown Phoenix. The core is poised to revolutionize health and drive economic growth to benefit Arizona and beyond. ASU scientists are working on a vaccine that could prevent people and dogs from developing multiple types of cancer. It would be a groundbreaking innovation protecting countless lives every year. It’s one of several lifesaving interventions researchers are striving to make a reality at the Phoenix Bioscience Core. Research like this is quickly elevating Phoenix’s profile as a hotbed for life sciences innovation, says Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego. Years of investments, planning and development are now bearing fruit as life science companies and university researchers improve health while bringing new opportunities to Arizona.

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100+

top-ranked online bachelor’s degrees in the Starbucks College Achievement Plan

7,500+

Starbucks partners have graduated from ASU *As of December 2021

60+

companies partnering with ASU in innovative ways to bring education to their teams, including Starbucks, adidas, Uber, Desert Financial Credit Union and others

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To Be Welcoming, addressing bias through understanding the human experience Public spaces and third places are more welcoming to all when we celebrate our shared humanity. By understanding each other, we deepen connections. To encourage more meaningful conversations on this topic, leaders at Starbucks reached out to the experts at ASU to create this 15-course curriculum.

Transform society ASU catalyzes social change by being connected to social needs. What started as a conversation between former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz and Arizona State University President Michael M. Crow led to a shared philosophy and the idea of providing access to lifelong learning worldwide. And they decided to do just that, starting with Starbucks employees (“partners”). The ASU + Starbucks partnership makes this possible for eligible U.S. partners. to choose from 100+ bachelor’s degree programs offered 100% online. Learn more at starbucks.asu.edu.

“The Starbucks College Achievement Plan has really armed me with the tools to go out and be someone I’ve always aspired to be. I just maybe didn’t know how.” R O B E R T L . , A S U G R A D U AT E T H R O U G H S C A P

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$1 billion+ in external funding for ASU’s Skysong Innovations startups ASU passed the milestone in its portfolio at Skysong Innovations, the entity that brings ASU research into the marketplace.

$1B

Sustainability

$347.4M

$800M

$600M

Devices

$198.3M

$400M

Energy

$182.2M

Diagnostics

$143.9M

Therapeutics

$79.1M

$200M

Tools, reagents

$37.5M

Vaccines $24.4M Software, networking $18.8M Materials, nanotech $6.0M SOURCE: Skysong Innovations

180+

companies have launched based on ASU innovations More than 1,500 people are now employed at ASU-linked startups.

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SOURCE Global, an ASU startup now at SkySong in Scottsdale, was founded by Cody Friesen, an engineering professor. The company creates clean water using solar power to pull it from the air. Friesen now mentors other startups.

Value entrepreneurship ASU uses its knowledge and encourages innovation. Students, alumni and community members tap into the startup ecosystem, funding sources and supportive networks. With the support of its entrepreneurial arm at Skysong Innovations, ASU has become one of the top-performing U.S. universities in terms of intellectual property inputs (inventions disclosed by ASU researchers) and outputs (licensing deals and startups). Mentorship, funding and collaborative spaces are critical to the success of launching new venture concepts. ASU’s J. Orin Edson Entrepreneurship + Innovation Institute maintains a directory of networks that can provide not only the financial support startups need, but also the training, mentorship, capital and communities to help turn big ideas into a reality.

The Venture Devils program guides student, faculty and community-based entrepreneurs through the process of launching a venture by providing dedicated mentorship as well as access to funding opportunities and venture development work spaces. Learn more at skysonginnovations.com and entrepreneurship.asu.edu.

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1,200+

U.S. patents issued since 2003

University for patents granted. ASU in the top 10 along with MIT, Stanford and Harvard — U . S . N AT I O N A L A C A D E M Y O F I N V ENTO R S A N D TH E INTELLECTUAL PROPERT Y O W N E R S A S S O C I AT I O N

4,400+

invention disclosures since 2003

1 MechanicalTree™ = 1,000 trees Popular Science picks ASU professor’s MechanicalTree as a 2019 top technology. The device was developed by Professor Klaus Lackner and his colleagues at ASU and commercialized by Carbon Collect. Over the next decade, Carbon Collect plans to deploy MechanicalTree farms globally to mitigate carbon emissions.

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$677.3M estimated total research expenditures ASU is one of the fastest-growing research enterprises in the U.S. It was named #6 in the U.S. for total research expenditures among universities without a medical school — ASU Knowledge Enterprise and National Science Foundation Higher Education Research and Development Survey, 2020

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K c w p A E h

Conduct use-inspired research ASU research has purpose and impact.

Center for Negative Carbon Emissions

By redefining the 21st-century university as a knowledge enterprise, ASU has inspired its faculty and students to lead discoveries from the behavior of nanoparticles to the birth of galaxies, unveiling answers about our ancient past, our global future and everything in between. Our interdisciplinary, solutionsfocused approach to research, entrepreneurship and economic development is centered on discovery that matters and the fusion of intellectual disciplines in order to solve complex problems. With $677.3M in total research expenditures in FY20, ASU is one of the fastest growing research enterprises in the United States. Learn more at research.asu.edu.

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Mentorship Students can find mentors through ASU’s mentor network, or connecting with a professor on a research project. Tutoring ASU offers free tutoring and writing help to catch up or get ahead in classes. Academic advising Advisors help ensure students are taking the right classes and are on the most efficient path to graduation. eAdvisor™ Students can see what classes they need to take, in which semester and receive alerts if they fall off track. First-year success coaching Students get support in their transition to college life with a peer mentor who can offer tips and advice. ASU mobile app Allows students to easily access grades, schedule and financial aid information. They can also find ASU events, maps, library resources and more, all on their phones. Counseling services To support emotional wellbeing, ASU offers professional counseling services as well as confidential 24-hour support. Family support Families are part of the college journey, too. ASU offers resources and information to keep them connected.

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Enable student success ASU is committed to the success of each unique student. Quality higher education should be available to any student capable of performing university-level work, regardless of socioeconomic status or geographic constraints. This objective is central to the ASU Charter and organizational design. The university is dedicated to providing all learners with accessible and valuable pathways to knowledge, and preparing Universal Learners® capable of lifelong adaptation.

Coaching and support Paula Guzman, an academic advisor from the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College on the West campus, meets with a student to make sure they are taking the right classes to graduate on time.

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73,762

student engagements across all socially embedded activities

21,295,811 hours of student engagement

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engaged courses

300+

study abroad programs

514

community-engaged programs that involve students

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on-site community-based learning opportunities

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Community partnerships At the Pause + Play installation in Mesa, design and architecture students designed and built an installation for the first Prototyping Festival for the City of Mesa. Unlike most projects that often apply a top-down approach, the professor and students proposed to prototype the process rather than the object. They partnered with Porter Elementary, a Title I school in the city of Mesa school district, collaborating with 75 sixth graders to design the installation.

Be socially embedded ASU connects with communities through mutually beneficial partnerships. For ASU, partnering with our communities is not an afterthought. It is a fundamental part of our institutional identity. Tethering our success to the success of our communities has inspired us to achieve more and continually recommit to the public purposes of higher education. Embeddedness allows us to expand our reach into communities that are often forgotten, increase efficiency, prepare and strengthen a capable 21st-century workforce and amplify mutually desired outcomes.

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interdisciplinary schools

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interdisciplinary institutes and centers

Biodesign Institute We deliver the future of natureinspired scientific innovation today for the betterment of human health, community safety and global sustainability.

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Fuse intellectual disciplines ASU creates knowledge by transcending academic disciplines. What is the outcome? A new learning setting that primes ASU’s students to become master learners who, with the support of exemplary faculty and staff, are capable of tackling society’s most complex and important challenges. We have torn down the walls between disciplines, finding connection points between the seemingly unrelated research of different departments. We have created entirely new academic units, centers and institutes devoted to the study of emerging fields that encompass many disciplines.

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In the ASU Enterprise

International locations

225+

Academic partnerships

453

Research and sponsored projects globally

13,800+ International students

Study abroad locations In Global Futures Laboratory

740+

scientists and scholars in GFL

1,300+

students in the College of Global Futures

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Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory ASU has convened some of the world’s best scientists, scholars and innovators to launch the Global Futures Laboratory, a leading-edge effort to help create a habitable future that facilitates wellbeing for all. Learn more at globalfutures.asu.edu.

Engage globally ASU engages with people and issues locally, nationally and internationally. Through formal and emergent partnerships and collaborations, ASU grows its innovation infrastructure to maximize impact. The scale and complexity of today’s global challenges are significant, but not insurmountable. Expanding knowledge and developing new solutions for these topics calls for diversity of expertise, perspective and international collaboration. ASU has made global engagement a core design aspiration, motivating our establishment of global partnerships that enable us to increase the breadth and depth of our initiatives. These relationships take us beyond our borders, stretch our minds, enhance our capacities, and help build a safer, more secure world.

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Dimensions of character Moral • Identify and acknowledge fundamental values. • Utilize moral and ethical decision-making.

Civic • Understand culture and context. • Engage multiple diverse perspectives.

Intellectual • Develop habits of an informed systems thinker. • Reflect critically and compassionately.

Performance • Design creative solutions. • Navigate uncertainty and mitigate consequences.

When individuals practice Principled Innovation, their actions exhibit the empathy, honesty and humility inherent in moral character; the desire to serve others that is part of civic character; the truth-seeking impulse of intellectual character; and the problem-solving commitment of performance character.

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Practice principled innovation ASU places character and values at the center of decisions and actions. This powerful approach helps ensure we are not just innovating for the sake of change but to fulfill our values. When using Principled Innovation, we start with a basic question about any prospective change or course of action: We can, but should we? Principled Innovation is a practice that offers reflective approach to change that centers the well-being of humanity, communities and society as a whole. It is a framework for ethical decision-making that can be embraced by individuals, organizations and systems. It informs simple, everyday decisions and complex actions at all levels.

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a, the nation we are now versity om anywhere artners are.

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