million mile mark

AU signs memorandum of understanding with Los Alamos National Laboratory

A five-year memorandum of understanding (MOU) executed in June by Auburn University and Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is expected to provide enhanced collaboration in research, education and workforce development.

Together, Auburn and LANL personnel will:

• Work together to identify opportunities for collaboration on joint research proposals. • Enhance Auburn University’s curricula and educational opportunities by leveraging LANL expertise. • Improve LANL workforce-building, revitalization and retention through student recruitment, research collaborations, LANL staff interacting with Auburn faculty and students, LANL scientists offering seminars at Auburn, Auburn faculty offering seminars at LANL and exchange visits/ sabbaticals.

With a focus on cyber and critical infrastructure security, artificial intelligence and data analytics, the MOU will primarily involve the Auburn Cyber Research Center and the McCrary Institute for Cyber and Critical Infrastructure Security, along with other relevant faculty from the college.

Aerospace engineering professor authors book on mission to asteroid Ryugu

Japanese space craft Hayabasa2 spent about 18 months collecting samples on asteroid Ryugu, a 900-meter sand castle as it hurtled through space. What challenges were faced? What was the purpose of the mission? What lessons were learned that could be applied to future expeditions?

Masatoshi Hirabayashi, assistant professor in aerospace engineering, answers these questions in his book, “Hayabusa2 Asteroid Sample Return Mission: Technological Innovation and Advances.”

The book covers technologies necessary for space exploration missions, provides a unique focus on small body exploration missions and covers landing and impact experiments during the proximity operations of Hayabusa2.

“Asteroid sample missions have become popular over the past decade and will be more in the next decades,” said Hirabayashi, who directs Auburn University’s Space Technology and Application Research Lab. He recently teamed with NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) to smash the binary near-Earth asteroid Didymous and NASA’s Artemis rover mission (VIPER) to explore samples on the lunar South Pole.

“Before this book, there was no documented collection of engineering technologies, particularly for asteroid missions. Summarizing what we learned from the mission — the advances, challenges and how we solve those — this can be vital information for future generations … those who want to send spacecraft to asteroids,” he said.

Masatoshi Hirabayashi

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Auburn Engineering joins program to contribute to DoD workforce development

The Samuel Ginn College of Engineering continues to expand its growing list of industry partnerships through a recent agreement with Defense Acquisition University (DAU).

DAU delivers continuing education and support tailored to the needs of the defense acquisition workforce. These professionals are responsible for establishing agreements with defense contractors for U.S. armed forces’ equipment and technology. Through the DAU Strategic Partnership Program, these professionals now have the opportunity to apply their eligible DAU coursework toward an Auburn Engineering graduate degree or certificate.

Auburn Engineering officially joined the College of Education in the partnership program in June.

Once a DAU student is enrolled in an Auburn Engineering graduate program that complements their specific workforce role and previous education, departments will review the student’s previous coursework and apply the credits that align with the graduate program. Students can transfer up to six eligible DAU credits and complete their degree online.

Recent Auburn Engineering graduates participate on a panel.

Inaugural Huntsville Employer Summit highlights engineering students, alumni potential

With a goal of increasing recruitment of Auburn Engineering students, the Engineering Office of Career Development and Corporate Relations (CDCR) descended upon the Auburn University Huntsville Research and Innovation Campus to host the inaugural Employer Summit in August. More than 60 representatives from 35 companies were in attendance to engage with college representatives, including current students, young alumni, CDCR staff and select faculty.

“The summit was designed to help Huntsville employers engage with Auburn University through recruitment, capstone projects and research,” said Apryl Mullins, CDCR assistant director for corporate relations. “In talking with employers since our office was created, we have noticed that it is often difficult for employers, especially smaller employers with not much name recognition, to know where to begin in navigating a large university and how to engage for recruitment and collaborating through projects and research.

“Our goal with this program was to facilitate relationships and open the door of Auburn University to these employers,” she added. “It is important to our office to work with companies to create the best opportunities for our students to receive valuable, high-impact experiences throughout college and employment options upon graduation.”

ICAMS hosts first Additive Manufacturing Competition

The Interdisciplinary Center for Advanced Manufacturing Systems (ICAMS) at Auburn University challenged area college students to an Additive Manufacturing (AM) Competition in which the teams would design and build a propeller for a submarine. This competition, which took place in August, is one of the educational and workforce training activities at ICAMS, partnered with the Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment program through the Department of Defense.

Ten teams, including 31 Auburn Engineering undergraduate students and a team from Central Alabama Community College led by faculty members Pat Murphy and Josh Nelson, participated in the competition, which was held in Auburn University’s Design and Innovation Center located inside the Brown-Kopel Center. The competition objective required that the blades of the submarine propeller rotate on a shaft and that the propeller assembly must be fabricated entirely using one of the most prevalent additive manufacturing processes, fused filament fabrication, using a Prusa 3D printer.

Peter Liu, assistant professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering and a member of the ICAMS leadership team, led the planning of the competition. “The ICAMS Additive Manufacturing Competition is a new effort in the education and research initiatives of ICAMS, aiming to foster creativity and improve the skills of future engineers by leveraging AM research capability at ICAMS,” Liu said. “Through this competition, students learned computeraided design and operated 3D printers obtaining highly valued skills in advanced manufacturing.”

ICAMS Additive Manufacturing Competition winners were:

First place:

James Shepherd — Senior, Mechanical

Engineering Wilson Tynes — Junior, Mechanical

Engineering

Students compete in the inaugural ICAMS Additive Manufacturing Competition.

Second place:

Central Alabama Community College

Going back to school has never been easier or more convenient.

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Shiva Nageswaran, center

ISE student wins 10th Graduate Engineering Research Showcase

More than 40,000 individuals are killed in motor vehicle accidents in the U.S. each year. While fastening seat belts reduces risk of injury or death, it is not foolproof.

“Despite various technological advancements over the years, thousands are found dead with their seat belts on every year,” said Shiva Nageswaran, a fifth-year doctoral student in industrial and systems engineering. “I’m trying to investigate what is happening and how we can change it. Seat belts are definitely the safest equipment protecting an occupant in a vehicle right now, but they need to be designed safer. We need to prevent as many fatalities as possible.”

Nageswaran’s study, “Significance of Seat Belt Buckled Release Force After a Rollover Accident,” made an impression on more than 70 faculty and industry professional judges, winning the 10th annual Graduate Engineering Research Showcase, sponsored by the college’s Council of Engineering Graduate Students on Oct. 20 in the Brown-Kopel Center Grand Hall.

A record 177 students — representing all departments within the college — participated in poster presentations, allowing them the opportunity to exchange ideas among peers and compete for cash prizes.

Auburn Engineering, Air University reach educational partnership agreement

Auburn Engineering professors will soon have access to new and exciting research opportunities. The U.S. Air Force will soon have access to Auburn Engineering’s brainpower.

A recently-signed, five-year educational partnership agreement provides Auburn Engineering students and faculty an opportunity to collaborate scientifically with Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery — an arm of the U.S. Air Force — to expand and create knowledge, solve engineering-related problems and optimize existing modes of operation.

“The reputation of Auburn University and the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering transcends state and regional borders,” said Steve Taylor, interim dean of engineering. “Entities such as the U.S. Air Force recognize we produce some of the nation’s most gifted engineers and worldclass researchers, and our experience working with our nation’s defense sector makes this a perfect fit.”

4 Auburn Engineering studentathletes named to 2022 Spring SEC Honor Roll

The Southeastern Conference has released its 2022 Spring Academic Honor Roll and of the 88 Auburn student-athletes who earned a selection, four are enrolled in the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering.

The 2022 Spring SEC Academic Honor Roll includes the sports of baseball, golf, track and field, softball and tennis. It is based on grades from the 2021 Summer, 2021 Fall and 2022 Spring terms.

Listed below are Auburn Engineering’s student-athletes that earned recognition from the SEC, along with their majors:

MEN’S GOLF

Max Johnson – Mechanical Engineering

MEN’S TRACK & FIELD

James Courson — Computer Science David Edmondson — Mechanical

Engineering John Murray — Aerospace Engineering

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Mechanical engineering students Clay Vinson, Julia Hancock, Lucas Veil, Shannon Minnich and Joel Eidson

Five students in mechanical engineering among winners at NASA Rover Challenge

Five Auburn mechanical engineering students were among the winners at the recent NASA Human Exploration Challenge.

Clay Vinson, Julia Hancock, Lucas Vail, Shannon Minnich and Joel Eidson earned the challenge’s Project Review Award in a contest that asked students from 58 universities to design, develop, build and test human-powered rovers capable of traversing challenging rocky terrains found in the solar system. The challenge also tasked teams with performing mission assignments while negotiating a rocky course, including sample retrievals and spectrographic analysis.

“This year, students were asked to design a course that would mimic obstacles as if they were competing in Huntsville,” said Aundra Brooks-Davenport, activity lead for the challenge at Marshall Space Flight Center. “Ensuring team safety was a major factor in developing the design of their own obstacles. We are excited about the virtual competition and the opportunity it provided our teams.”

Three Auburn engineers named to Auburn Alumni Association’s 20 Under 40

Three graduates from the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering have been named to the Auburn Alumni Association’s 20 Under 40 Class of 2022.

The 20 Under 40 recognition was established to recognize members of the Auburn Family for extraordinary accomplishments, professional achievements or distinguished service to others. A total of 20 individuals were selected for the recognition. The three Auburn Engineering graduates recognized this year were: Emily Traylor, ’10 wireless software engineering; Ashley Gann, ’05 aerospace engineering; and Brandon Young, ’10 electrical engineering.

Auburn Engineering ranked among nation’s Top 35 undergraduate programs for 12th consecutive year

The Samuel Ginn College of Engineering was again recognized as a national leader in higher education, ranking among the nation’s Top 35 public institutions in U.S. News & World Report’s 2023 Best Undergraduate Engineering Programs for the 12th-consecutive year. The publication, which ranks undergraduate programs throughout the nation each fall, ranked Auburn Engineering No. 33.

“The Samuel Ginn College of Engineering is committed to providing the best student-centered engineering experience in America. We have invested significant resources into hiring renowned faculty, producing cutting-edge research that impacts lives, developing exceptional student-support programs, building and maintaining unrivaled facilities and providing new opportunities for experiential learning opportunities,” said Steve Taylor, interim dean of engineering. “This ranking is a testament to our continued commitment to excellence. It’s an honor to be consistently regarded as one the nation’s top engineering programs.”

Engineering Communications and Marketing earns three PRCA awards

The Auburn Engineering Office of Communications and Marketing took home two medallion awards and an award of excellence at the recent annual meeting of the Public Relations Council of Alabama (PRCA). PRCA is a statewide organization committed to promoting the professional and ethical practice of public relations in Alabama.

“These awards are a reflection of the amazing students, faculty, staff and alumni we represent,” said Austin Phillips, director of engineering communications and marketing. “It is an honor and a privilege to share the success stories of the college’s students, the cutting-edge research being conducted by the faculty, the hard work of the staff and the distinguished careers of our alumni. They truly epitomize the Auburn spirit.”

Listen to our podcast with Emily Traylor at eng.auburn.edu/ginning

Multidisciplinary faculty team to study link between colorectal cancer and obesity with major NIH award

There is an established link between colorectal cancer diagnosis and obesity, but understanding why that link is present and how best to treat such a dual diagnosis is still not fully understood by doctors and researchers.

Thanks to a nearly $2.5 million R01 research award from the National Institutes of Health, an interdisciplinary team from three universities led by Elizabeth Lipke, the Mary and John H. Sanders Professor in Auburn Engineering’s Department of Chemical Engineering, and Michael Greene, associate professor in Auburn’s Department of Nutritional Sciences in the College of Human Sciences, will examine this link and aim to understand how best to treat these patients to improve clinical outcomes. Colorectal cancer is the third most common non-skin-related cancer and the third leading cause of cancer-related mortality in the United States. Obesity is directly linked to an increased risk of death from colorectal cancer. Although overall colorectal cancer incidence rates declined from 1991-2011, they have risen recently in younger age groups and remain high in states with a high incidence of obesity.

“This is a very collaborative approach working both on the engineering side and on the biological side to make paired models of colorectal cancer,” Lipke said.

Through their combined expertise, the team aims to develop a toolset for explaining a pathological link between obesity and colorectal cancer tumor progression.

“The physiology is different between people with obesity and those without. Not only is there a physical difference, but there’s a physiological difference and so maybe we can treat obese patients better if we better understood the link between obesity and the cancer,” said Greene. “What we want to do is build new models that are better for drug testing, but also new models that can give us insight into the mechanisms between the link. We’re really trying to understand, mechanistically, why is obesity linked to colorectal cancer?”

Michael Greene and Elizabeth Lipke

ISE professors named to Amazon, National Safety Council advisory council

In 2021, Amazon and the National Safety Council launched a partnership and nationwide effort to reduce the incidence of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) in industry, and two Auburn Engineering professors have been named to the advisory council to support the initiative.

Sean Gallagher, the Hal N. and Peggy S. Pennington Professor, and Richard Sesek, the Tim Cook Associate Professor, both from the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, were named to the advisory council as safety experts. Both are professors in Auburn University’s Center for Occupational Safety, Ergonomics and Injury Prevention.

“It shouldn’t hurt to go to work, but for the millions of employees worldwide impacted by MSDs — the most common workplace injury — the chronic pain experienced from these ailments persists long after clocking out. That’s precisely why we launched the MSD Solutions Lab, a groundbreaking initiative of the National Safety Council, with the goal of preventing these injuries before they start,” said Corinne Towler, director of MSD Solutions Lab, National Safety Council. “In collaboration with an ever-expanding community of safety leaders, committed organizations of all sizes and academic experts, we’re already starting to move the needle in reducing global MSD risk and creating safer outcomes for workers, so they can live their fullest lives.”

Listen to our podcast with Elizabeth Lipke at eng.auburn.edu/ginning

Richard Sesek and Sean Gallagher

Shiqiang (Nick) Zou

CEE assistant professor receives grant to tackle selenium pollution in water

Shiqiang (Nick) Zou, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, and his research team recently received a $533,000 share of a $2.5 million grant from the National Alliance for Water Innovation, a Department of Energy water research hub.

The three-year project, “Direct Electrochemical Reduction of Selenium to Achieve A-PRIME Water Treatment,” is led by the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in California, with three universities receiving subcontracts: Auburn University, Rice University and Stanford University. A-PRIME stands for Autonomous, Precise, Resilient, Intensified, Modular and Electrified water treatment.

The team’s focus will be on harnessing electric power for the purpose of eliminating selenium pollutants from industrial wastewaters and agriculture runoffs. Selenium, in excess, can lead to chronic health problems, which is why it needs to be eliminated from water to meet U.S. EPA and World Health Organization regulations, according to Zou.

Currently, he said, there is no reliable and affordable solution to selenium pollution. The limited understanding of the health risks involved with high selenium intake and toxicity has led selenium to be inadequately regulated for over a decade.

“As an environmental engineer, I genuinely want to tackle this emerging environmental issue and help secure clean and safe water for our community,” Zou said.

Emmanuel Winful

Health and safety manager receives NSC Diversity in Safety Scholarship

“Safety should be a mindset.”

Emmanuel Winful has carried this belief since growing up in a Ghana gold mining town and it has shaped the way he practices safety.

As a health and safety manager in Auburn Engineering’s Office of Safety, Winful is dedicated to developing, organizing and implementing safety management system initiatives that foster a safer work and research environment for the college’s faculty and students. For his efforts, Winful was recently among the first recipients of the National Safety Council’s Diversity in Safety Scholarship.

Common safety hazards within an engineering college often stem from laboratory research, including chemicals, lasers, electrical devices and mechanical tools.

“Engineering pretty much has all of the hazards,” Winful said.

That’s why great consideration needs to be given to each experimental activity and the hazards involved. But finding that balance of developing trust from student and faculty researchers, and implementing safety guidelines without slowing research is delicate, Winful said.

Cheryl Seals

CSSE professor one of 30 to earn fellowship in Drexel’s ELATES program

Cheryl Seals, the Charles W. Barkley Professor in computer science and software engineering, was among the 30 academicians selected to Drexel University’s Executive Leadership in Academic Technology, Engineering and Science (ELATES) Fellowship program for 2022-23.

ELATES is a national leadership development program designed to promote women in academic STEM fields, and faculty allies of all genders, into institutional leadership roles. The cohort represents more than 25 institutions of higher education across the U.S. and Canada. ELATES Fellows include experts in engineering, mathematics and science, all of whom have significant administrative experience in addition to their scholarly accomplishments.

Seals was nominated by senior leadership for this intensive, yearlong program, which includes eight to 10 hours per week of personal and leadership development work as well as three series of on-site work in Philadelphia, home of Drexel University.

Listen to our podcasts with Emmanuel Winful and Cheryl Seals at eng.auburn.edu/ginning

Yin Sun, third from left

Researchers use machine learning to assist state food pantries with inventory

Food distribution centers across Alabama have questions. Yin Sun, assistant professor in electrical and computer engineering, and a team of colleagues are searching for answers.

What food and supplies are most needed, where are they most needed – and when? Excessive foods – including perishables – might be wasted if supplies are too great. On the other hand, thin supplies could run out quickly and people depending on this service from their local food pantry might receive nothing. As the fifth-poorest state in the nation, 17% of adults and 23% of children in Alabama struggle with food insecurity, according to the Alabama Department of Public Health.

Sun is part of a multi-disciplinary research project, “Strengthening the Alabama Emergency Food Distribution System Using Machine Learning: Impact on Household & Community Food and Nutrition Security During Disasters,” across two Alabama universities aimed at solving this problem for the state.

“Many distribution centers don’t know how many people are coming to collect food,” said Sun, who is joined on the project by Rui Chen, Robert Zabawa, Eunice Bonsi, and Souleymane Fall, each from Tuskegee University. “Sometimes they have a high number of people come to collect food. Sometimes they have a low number. This matters greatly when you prepare boxes for people to come pick up.”

Auburn University part of $20 million statewide collaboration to boost plasma science, engineering

Auburn University is part of a $20 million collaboration among nine Alabama universities and one private firm to develop transformative technologies in plasma science and engineering, or PSE.

The five-year effort — which is being led by the University of Alabama in Huntsville — is funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation’s Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research. The goals of the Future Technologies enabled by Plasma Processes initiative are to develop new technologies using plasma — the most abundant form of matter in the observable universe — in hard and soft biomaterials, food safety and sterilization and space weather prediction.

“This research directly impacts two of the largest industries in the state of Alabama, space and agriculture,” said Ed Thomas Jr., interim dean of Auburn University’s College of Sciences and Mathematics and project lead. “For more than three decades, Auburn has been a leader in plasma research, and we have one of the highest ratios of plasma physicists in our faculty in the entire nation.”

Auburn’s team includes: Saikat Chakraborty Thakur, Uwe Konopka, Evdokiya (Eva) Kostadinova, Yu Lin, Stuart Loch, David Maurer, Joseph Perez from the Department of Physics, Mary Lou Ewald, director of COSAM Outreach, Virginia Davis from the Department of Chemical Engineering and Amit Morey from the Department of Poultry Science.

From left, collaborators Nima Shamsaei, Shuai Shao and Peter Liu

NIST awards Auburn nearly $1M to lead NDE-based AM qualification via data analytics

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recently awarded Auburn University’s National Center for Additive Manufacturing Excellence (NCAME) and the ASTM Additive Manufacturing Center of Excellence nearly $1 million to establish through computer vision and machine learning a datadriven framework for the non-destructive qualification of additively manufactured materials and parts for mission critical applications.

The framework will allow for the rapid identification of critical defects and the prediction of fatigue performance with non-destructive evaluation (NDE) data.

“Additive manufacturing (AM) has gained significant attention from key industrial sectors including aerospace, defense, automotive and medical due to its unique capability of fabricating customized parts with complex geometries on demand,” said NCAME director Nima Shamsaei, PhilpottWestPoint Stevens Distinguished Professor of mechanical engineering. “However, current AM platforms are still prone to producing parts with varying degrees of defects detrimental to the parts’ structural integrity, specifically in fatigue critical applications.”

NDE-based and prediction-based qualifications are key to expedited adoption of AM, said Shuai Shao, associate mechanical engineering professor.

Listen to our podcast with Nima Shamsaei at eng.auburn.edu/ginning

Yaeji Kim

Graduate student in aerospace engineering selected for prestigious fellowship

Yaeji Kim, a fifth-year graduate student in aerospace engineering, had the opportunity to learn essential skills for dealing with big data in astronomy-related fields, where she can apply this knowledge toward creating surface color maps of asteroids.

Kim was selected to attend the LSSTC Data Science Fellowship Program at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois in September.

“One of my current research projects is to understand surface alterations of near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) driven by their close encounters with Earth,” said Kim, a student in assistant professor Masatoshi Hirabayashi’s Space Technology Application Research (STAR) lab. “As an advanced research topic, I am interested in generating surface color maps of main-belt asteroids that include NEAs and non-NEAs to visually show how the surface will be affected by close planetary encounters. Comparing surface color maps can show surface differences between non-NEAs and NEAs and provides insight into the correlation between close interplanetary encounters to surface alterations.”

Andrzej Nowak, right

Acclaimed structural engineering professor inducted into Academy of Engineering in Poland

Internationally preeminent structural engineer Andrzej Nowak, chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, has been elected to the prestigious Academy of Engineering in Poland.

The nomination was approved by the Academy’s General Assembly earlier this year. Nowak attended the formal induction in April in Kraków during the Academy’s ceremonial session.

“It’s a fantastic honor to have my work recognized by such an esteemed body in my native country,” Nowak said.

Established in 1992, Poland’s Academy of Engineering supports the development of modern technologies and technology transfer promoting Polish innovation in the country and abroad.

McCrary Institute director takes part in White House cyber workforce summit

More than 700,000 cyber-related jobs in the U.S. remain unfilled. Frank Cilluffo, director of the McCrary Institute for Cyber and Critical Infrastructure Security at Auburn University, joined a team of private sector executives, cabinet members, federal agency leaders and university presidents in Washington in July to explore possible solutions to the problem.

The National Cyber Workforce and Education Summit, hosted by the White House, served as a call to action and charted “a path toward a more secure future in which Americans have the opportunity to raise the bar on cybersecurity through greater awareness, education and training.”

“This is one of the most significant security challenges facing the United States today and universities have a unique opportunity and responsibility to rise to the occasion,” Cilluffo said.

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Program created to develop research writing skills among engineering students

Many graduate students are expected to conduct experiments and run tests in the lab. Eventually, their advisor steps in and says, ‘Hey, can you write a paper about your results?’ However, limited and inconsistent guidance is often provided to graduate students on how to write that paper.

A multidisciplinary team of Auburn University scientists and writing experts, led by Russell Mailen, assistant professor of aerospace engineering and the project’s principle investigator, have a proposed solution. Their four-step program, “The Writing SySTEM: A Systematic Approach to Graduate Writing Instruction and Intervention,” is designed to develop the communication/writing skills of researchminded graduate students, earning a three-year, $435,000 National Science Foundation Innovations in Graduate Education award.

“There is no science without writing what you learned. Otherwise, you were just in a room doing stuff,” said Christopher Basgier, Director of University Writing. “It must be shared to be science.” The project, which began in October, is initially open to aerospace engineering, civil and environmental engineering and biosystems engineering graduate students, with hope for expansion.

Four components — created by University Writing and adapted to engineering — are at the heart of the program, 1) workshops to teach writing skills and promote the recruitment of diverse participants into other components, 2) discipline-specific graduate study writing courses taught by engineering faculty, 3) peer writing groups, and 4) writing resources hosted on a publicly available web site.

Student in CSSE earns EPSCoR graduate research scholar award

Hai Phan, a fourth-year doctoral student in computer science and software engineering, was one of just 36 graduate students from all academic disciplines in the state to win the Alabama EPSCoR Graduate Research Scholar Round 17 Fellowship — a $25,000 prize.

In collaboration with Anh Nguyen, assistant professor in computer science and software, Phan’s research, “DeepFaceEMD: Re-ranking Using Patch-wise Earth Mover’s Distance Improve Out-OfDistribution Face Identification,” uses stateof-the-art technology to better distinguish human faces in photographs — particularly in an age of face masks.

“Face identification systems are ubiquitous and they can make costly mistakes when identifying people,” Phan said.

“This technology often performs much worse on women, people with a darker skin and faces that are partially occluded with masks or sunglasses,” he added.

As a consequence, in 2021, some innocent people were wrongly arrested and denied unemployment benefits as the face

identification systems employed by the law enforcement incorrectly identified people.

To improve the accuracy of face identification Phan and Nguyen proposed a novel method to teach Artificial Intelligence systems to learn to compare two faces at multiple stages — comparing two faces as a whole and at fine-grained details.

Chemical engineering graduate student awarded NSF INTERN supplement

The National Science Foundation awarded an INTERN supplement to graduate chemical engineering student Antara Mazumder. The supplement will allow Mazumder to live and conduct research at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California to learn how to build solar fuel devices and test the membranes she has been developing as part of a NSFfunded project. Solar fuel devices are electrochemical cells that convert carbon dioxide into chemicals such as methanol and acetate, which are feedstock chemicals for a lot of the chemical industry and which are predominantly sourced from petroleum. Mazumder conducts her research under the supervision of Bryan Beckingham, associate professor of chemical engineering and Ginn Faculty Achievement Fellow.

Bryan Beckingham and Antara Mazumder Hai Phan

Professor in wireless engineering exploring means to optimize AR/VR device speeds

Can wireless augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR) devices perform at optimal, real-time speed? Shiwen Mao, director of the Wireless Engineering Research and Education Center, will soon find out.

His three-year, $993,319 study, “Learning based Resilient Immersive MediaCompression, Delivery, and Interaction,” was one of 37 selected by the National Science Foundation’s Resilient and Intelligent NextG Systems (RINGS) program.

RINGS is jointly funded by the NSF, the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and several industry partners, seeking to accelerate research in areas that potentially have a significant impact on emerging Next Generation wireless and mobile communication, networking, sensing and computing systems.

Mao, who will explore innovative technologies to provide a unified media compression, communication and computing framework to enable real-time AR/VR, believes the study has the potential to make significant impacts within the research community and society. Mao also recently earned a pair of international research awards.

His co-authored work, “TagSense: Robust wheat moisture and temperature sensing using a passive RFID tag,” earned the Best Paper Award at the IEEE International Conference on Communications in Seoul, South Korea. Also, Mao’s project, “Environment-adaptive 3D human pose tracking with RFID,” won the Best Demo Award at the virtual IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications.

“It’s a great honor to be recognized by these highly regarded conferences … these are two of the best conferences in our field,” said Mao, also a recipient of the IEEE Internet of Things Journal Best Paper Award for 2021. “This is a validation of our hard work.”

Materials engineering senior tapped for prestigious Department of Energy fellowship

John Snitzer, a senior in materials engineering, was recently awarded a prestigious graduate fellowship, the University Nuclear Leadership Program (UNLP), administered by the US Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Energy.

Only 28 students across the nation receive this fellowship.

“This is a fantastic opportunity to collaborate with some of the experts in the field of nuclear science and engineering,” Snitzer said. “I am beyond excited to work in partnership with them to further the field.” The office’s primary mission, Snitzer said, is to advance nuclear power as a resource capable of meeting the nation’s energy, environmental and national security needs by resolving technical, cost, safety, proliferation resistance and security barriers through research, development and demonstration as appropriate. Snitzer has primarily worked under associate professor of mechanical engineering Xiaoyuan Lou.

“I extend my sincere congratulations to John to receive this prestigious DOE fellowship award,” Lou said. “This award demonstrates that Auburn Engineering offers excellent education and training opportunities to our students so that they can compete at a national level.”

UNLP works to attract qualified nuclear science and engineering students to nuclear energy professions by providing graduate-level fellowships awarded for graduate-level work leading to a master’s or doctoral degree in the fields or disciplines relevant to the Nuclear Energy and Department of Energy mission.

“This fellowship provides him an opportunity to work with the best scientists in our national laboratory system,” Lou said. “I am proud of John’s achievement knowing he is on the right track to becoming a future leader to solve our future energy challenges.”

Shiwen Mao

John Snitzer and Xiaoyuan Lou

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Abbishek Gururaj and Lokesh Silwal

Aerospace engineering students earn Vertical Flight Society scholarships

Two graduate students in aerospace engineering, Lokesh Silwal and Abbishek Gururaj, were awarded scholarships by the Redstone Chapter of the Vertical Flight Society (VFS).

Silwal, a fifth-year doctoral student and past president of Auburn’s VFS student chapter, focuses his research on the experimental investigation of aerodynamic characteristics of rotor systems. He was awarded a $3,000 grant by the VFS chapter.

Gururaj, a fourth-year doctoral student and currently the vice president of Auburn’s VFS student chapter, was awarded a $2,000 grant. His research interests are in the field of experimental fluid mechanics and aerodynamics.

“This is a great achievement and recognition for Lokesh and Abbishek,” said Vrishank Raghav, assistant professor in aerospace engineering and VFS student chapter advisor. “Not only have they contributed significantly to the field of vertical flight, but they have also given back to the vertical flight community by serving in the local chapter.”

Guarav Sharma, left

Doctoral candidate in aerospace engineering earns AIAA honors

Gaurav Sharma, a doctoral candidate and Woltosz Fellow in aerospace engineering, was named 2022 Graduate Student of the Year by the Greater Huntsville Section of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).

This award identifies the most outstanding graduate students in Alabama and Mississippi, especially those who go above and beyond in their technical accomplishments, active engineering research, service to the organization and active STEM community outreach. The Greater Huntsville Section extends over all of Alabama and the northern half of Mississippi.

“It was a real surprise and a feeling of gratitude when I found out,” said Sharma. “I am truly grateful to my advisor, Dr. Joseph Majdalani, for acknowledging my potential and providing me with a wonderful opportunity to join him and work with an amazing team of graduate students. I am equally honored to be part of the research program that supports America’s Space Plane and that my contributions to science will positively impact the future of aerospace engineering.”

CEE doctoral students participate in structural engineering conference in Poland

Six civil and environmental engineering doctoral students along with Andrzej Nowak, chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, recently participated in a special program sponsored by the National Agency for Academic Exchange in Poland and the European Union.

In May, students Jordan Nakayama, Tiana Lynch, Patricia Carcamo Barientos, Peter Collins, Fernando Cordero Montoya and Pablo Hurtado were among the nearly 500 designer, consultant, student, researcher and government official attendees at the 30th International Conference on Structural Failures in Międzyzdroje, which was organized by the faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering at ZUT University in Szczecin.

“The sessions were a good mixture of practical and analytical presentations and posters,” said Nowak, who was recently elected to the prestigious Academy of Engineering in Poland. “In addition to active participation in the conference, the students visited the construction site of a tunnel under the Swina River in Świnoujście.”

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Past,PRESENT,

FUTURE

College of Agriculture Dean Paul Patterson and Engineering Interim Dean Steve Taylor speak at the launch event for the Colleges of Engineering and Agriculture 150th anniversary celebration.

In 1872, Auburn got a new name. And a new purpose. The world hasn’t been the same since.

This year marks the 150th anniversary of Auburn’s reorganization under the Morrill Act from East Alabama Male College into the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama, which established the Colleges of Agriculture and Engineering.

On a late Friday afternoon in September, in the shadow of the building where Auburn’s cornerstone instructional programs were born, the year-long celebration began.

More than 450 College of Agriculture and Samuel Ginn College of Engineering alumni donors gathered on Samford Lawn to mark the historic occasion at an event featuring student and alumni speakers, as well as addresses from college and university administrators including former Dean of Engineering and current Auburn University President Chris Roberts.

“When choosing a location for this milestone event, we decided this was the perfect place to celebrate the two colleges that have meant so much to this university, our state and even our nation,” Roberts told attendees.

“Under the Morrill Act in 1872, Auburn University was reorganized as the South’s first land-grant institution. While we say that term a lot, it is an important one, and its purpose speaks to the mission of everything we do,” he added. And Auburn’s Colleges of Agriculture and Engineering have done a lot.

“If we look back 150 years to this very place where we are standing, we would see a completely different landscape,” Interim Dean of Engineering Steve Taylor said. “The vast contrast in the standard of living between 1872 and today is a testament to the combined power of agriculture and engineering. One hundred fifty years ago, Alabama was just beginning to industrialize, but our ability to produce and distribute food and fiber for this industrial growth was not ready to meet the demands of a growing state. Auburn University played a monumental role in the way our region developed, and many of the technologies developed through the Colleges of Agriculture and Engineering changed the landscape of the nation — literally.”

An early, major example of that role was an initiative by the Department of Biosystems Engineering, which is jointly administered by both colleges, that made national news in the mid 1920s, an era in which using electricity to boost farm production was still purely theoretical in every state… but one.

The headline that ran in papers across the state:

“API JOINS POWER COMPANY IN PLAN TO ELECTRIFY FARMS, WILL PUT ALABAMA IN FRONT.”

Auburn Engineering’s partnership with Alabama Power was the first cooperative electrification development agreement between an agricultural engineering department and an electric power company.

That chapter in the story of Auburn Engineering is one of many vividly told in “They Came from Auburn: A History of Engineering in the New South” written by Art Slotkin, a 1968 aerospace engineering graduate who has penned 10 books on Auburn during the past 12 years.

“What repeatedly struck me while researching and writing this book was the core conviction that defined the growth of engineering at Auburn, which was that engineering education was absolutely essential for the growth of the region and the nation,” Slotkin said. “Early engineering faculty knew that the hard work that went into the engineering discipline — the hard work that it would take young men and women to earn an Auburn Engineering degree — was the hard work necessary for the state and the country to reach its potential.”

Published by the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering, Slotkin’s book will be available in May 2023.

More than 450 College of Agriculture and Samuel Ginn College of Engineering alumni donors gathered on Samford Lawn to mark the historic occasion at an event featuring student and alumni speakers, as well as addresses from college and university administrators. Visit our magazine online at

eng.auburn.edu/magazine

for videos and a photo gallery of this story.

Awarded first undergraduate bachelor’s degree of engineering to B.H. Johnson

1908

Named the College of Engineering with the inclusion of civil, electrical, mechanical and mining departments

1913

Formed the Department of Chemical Engineering

1923

Maria Rogan Whitson becomes first female graduate, earning a degree in electrical engineering

1930-1932

The first courses in aeronautical engineering were offered and taught in the Department of Mechanical Engineering; name changed to the Department of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering

1945

Now a school, Auburn Engineering is reorganized into five departments: aeronautical, civil, electrical, industrial and mechanical, and two management programs: aviation and industrial

1965

Materials engineering becomes an official degree program

“The college overcame many, many struggles to get to where it is today,” Slotkin said. “There were financial struggles, cultural struggles, a Great Depression, two world wars, an unexpected accreditation crisis. But learning about how the college didn’t just survive, but thrived, in the face of adversity has made me even prouder to be an Auburn engineer.”

It’s made Taylor even prouder to lead Auburn engineers.

“The people whose names are on some of our historic buildings would be proud of what has been done inside them,” Taylor said. “Dean Wilmore laid the foundation for the Department of Aerospace Engineering in 1930 when it was just focused on aeronautics and aviation. A few decades later, what did you see? Auburn Engineering graduates in space, Auburn Engineering graduates putting man on the moon. And now this college is helping the country return to the moon. It’s leading the charge to Mars.”

And, of course, there’s that 1982 industrial engineering graduate from Robertsdale.

Scenes of engineering education at Auburn throughout the years.

“Exactly,” Taylor said. “Tim Cook, an Auburn engineer, leads the largest company in the world. I think that tells you something about the quality of education we provide, about the impact the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering continues to have across the country and across the world.”

Paul Patterson, dean of the College of Agriculture and director of the Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station, agrees.

“As we like to say in the College of Agriculture, ‘this is the work that makes the world work,’ and I know the same can be said for engineering,” Patterson said. “For the past 150 years, and even now, the Colleges of Agriculture and Engineering have not worked in silos. We have worked together on infrastructure, environmental sustainability, food, water, energy and the natural resources that keep the world moving. Our two colleges work in tandem to ensure that Auburn University is a source of knowledge and action for our communities, region and state.”

Though the theme of the sesquicentennial festivities celebrated past accomplishments, much of the night focused on both colleges’ present and future research thrusts, from combating biological threats to the state’s farms, to combating cyber threats to the nation’s infrastructure.

The College of Agriculture remains an international leader in animal nutrition and welfare. In addition to creating stronger plant varieties and animal breeds, agriculture faculty are developing new technologies and practices to make foods safer, enhancing strategies to advance environmental conservation on farms and throughout communities, and providing farmers with innovations that will secure higher yields with fewer resources. The Samuel Ginn College of Engineering, meanwhile, continues to deliver technologies for safer and more efficient transportation systems, develop commercial space applications, defend the nation against foreign and domestic threats, bolster American cybersecurity and speed the growth of American industrial and manufacturing sectors. The college has also taken the lead in advancing the pulp and paper and chemical refining industries; provided affordable and reliable electrical power; revolutionized wireless communications; and provided safe and abundant drinking water and effective sanitation systems.

“We have a great vision for the next 150 years for Auburn University,” Roberts said in his closing remarks. “The colleges of agriculture and engineering are fundamental to that vision. As history has shown us, Auburn Agriculture and Engineering graduates are change-makers. And our future is only brighter.”

The Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering is established

1998

Department of Agricultural Engineering, formed in 1919, changes name to Department of Biosystems Engineering to reflect its mission and scope

2001

College is renamed as the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering in honor of his vision and philanthropy

2002

College offers the nation’s first wireless engineering degree

2005-2011

The Shelby Center for Engineering Technology is constructed, housing the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, labs, classrooms and administrative areas

2019

The Brown-Kopel Engineering Student Achievement Center, housing flexible classrooms, computer laboratories, study rooms, a cutting-edge makerspace, project incubators and more.

Listen to our podcasts with Chris Roberts, Steve Taylor and Art Slotkin at eng.auburn.edu/ginning

150 YEARS!

Scan the QR code to read more about our past, present and future.

THE PIPELINE

coloring & activity book Auburn engineeringcoloring & activity book Auburn engineeringCOLORING & ACTIVITY BOOK VOLUME 3 AUBURN ENGINEERING The staff of the Office of Recruitment, K-12 Outreach and Scholarships, from left to right: Jessica Taylor, manager and director of recruiting and scholarships; Brooke Chandler, administrator for academic programs; Andrew McGill, student recruiting administrator; and Sydney Riley, outreach administrator.

It was late September 2020. They’d ordered 300 coloring books, just in case.

It would probably be too many — they were hoping it might get 100 people to register — but Sydney Riley, outreach administrator for the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering’s Office of Recruitment, K-12 Outreach and Scholarships since 2017, figured she could take the leftovers to local classrooms now that schools were returning to in-person attendance. Teachers would probably like that.

Promotion was minimal. Just a simple video for Facebook showing some of the stuff inside — pictures of microscopes and gears to color, graph paper to design with and some engineering-related word searches.

Jessica Taylor, the office’s manager and director of recruiting and scholarships, volunteered her daughter, Ally, to star. Ally was 4, right around the target age. They had her run to open a mailbox, then jump for joy over getting her own mail — getting something fun. It was short. It was cute. And it was viewed 60,000 times.

It’s still hard for Riley to believe.

“At first, I thought there might be something wrong with the software,” she said.

Three hundred signups. Six hundred signups. One thousand. “It was crazy,” she said. “I kept texting Jessica with updates. Within hours I was asking her ‘should we shut this thing down?’”

Finally, after two days, they did. They had to. Three hundred people hadn’t requested a book for their kids — 3,000 people had. And, in the process, signed up for the idea Riley had been brainstorming since joining the office in 2017, the idea that probably illustrates the unique, innovative lengths the office is using to recruit Auburn engineers better than anything else: the Future Engineer Club.

“We thought that parents would probably be eager for something like this, especially during the early days of COVID. We just didn’t know they would be this eager.”

There are members of the Future Engineer Club in Japan. There are members in Puerto Rico. There are members in middle school. There are members in kindergarten. There are members in diapers.

Seriously?

Riley smiles.

“Seriously,” she said. “We actually have several 6-month-olds in our system right now.”

Taylor couldn’t be prouder.

“We’re now at a point where we’re basically building our own recruiting pipeline, and that pipeline now starts with the Future Engineer Club,” she said. “Our office is just four people, but we’ve

The Office of Recruitment, K-12 Outreach and Scholarships now hosts more than 25 outreach events each year.

really scaled up our recruiting, outreach and scholarship efforts over the past few years.”

By that she means more than the Future Engineer Club. There are more campus tours than ever, a bigger presence at college fairs and wherever else Andrew McGill, the office’s student recruiting administrator, thinks he can find prospective students. And more events — way more.

Thanks in large part to Riley, offerings have broadened. Opportunities have expanded. The office now hosts more than 25 recruiting outreach events, all tailored for specific demographics. There are summer programs, such as the Auburn Engineering Expo for high-schoolers and the Senior Tigers Camp for rising 12th-graders. There’s the egg drop contest for K-8th-graders in the spring, plus InspiHER, designed to encourage middle school girls to explore engineering through hands-on activities. There’s the GRAND Engineering Showcase geared to show K-6th-graders how engineering can help solve the world’s problems. The list goes on.

So do the scholarships. Ten years ago, the office awarded 928 scholarships to incoming students totaling $2.08 million. Today, those numbers have more than doubled.

“We facilitated the awarding of 1,774 scholarships and $4.75 million in scholarship dollars this year,” Taylor said. “Our office works with thousands of prospective students each year. We want them to have the opportunity to pursue their dream of becoming an Auburn engineer. These scholarships are impactful. Students are able to attend and remain at Auburn because of our generous alumni and friends, and we work closely with the academic departments and the Office of Advancement to make this happen.”

Taylor’s also quick to point out the college’s new virtual campaign. In early 2020, her office launched a robust virtual tour of the engineering campus that, due to COVID, couldn’t have come at a better time.

“We were the first unit on campus to do that,” Taylor said. “It’s been such a valuable tool. It’s amazing to see how many people from across the world have taken a virtual tour of the college. It’s opened up opportunities we couldn’t have even planned for, like the outreach opportunity with the school in Knoxville.”

Late last year, a second-grade class at Emerald Academy, a charter prep school in Knoxville, Tennessee, emphasizing STEM initiatives, adopted the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering as a sort of sister school, thanks to the wealth of resources teacher Kevin Ickles found on the office’s website. Ickles connected with Taylor and Riley in hopes of also setting up a Zoom call for his students to ask questions about Auburn Engineering. Riley had a better idea.

“It just sounded like a great opportunity that could be even more than just a Zoom call,” Riley said. “I mean, we did the Zoom thing, too, at first, and they did the virtual tour. But we were so honored that they would want to get to know more about Auburn Engineering, we also asked if we could actually come and see his class.”

Ickles said absolutely and Riley hit the road, coloring books, other K-12 outreach materials, shakers and jugs of Toomer’s Lemonade in tow.

“It was such a great trip,” she said. “I was able to perform some engineering demonstrations for them in their class like the catapult and the slingshot car.

Office of Recruitment, K-12 Outreach and Scholarships annual outreach offerings include InspireHER (left) and egg drop (above).

I also got to teach them all how to say ‘War Eagle’ and how to cheer when the eagle flies around the stadium.”

She recently returned from her second visit to Ickles’ class.

“I think that’s such a great example of our office’s work ethic,” Taylor said. “I don’t mean to brag, but at the same time, I kind of do. We are doing something that universities in these students’ own state and even their own city aren’t. The vision of tying our outreach efforts to recruiting has really transformed our ability to educate the next generation of Auburn engineers. That idea has really broken new ground. I don’t know another engineering school in the country doing what we’re doing on this scale,” Taylor said.

And all it jumpstarted with a coloring book.

“We were using the book as a way to launch the club, but parents were also signing up for regular, do-it-yourself engineering activities for their students to receive throughout the year,” Riley said. “There’s the coloring book, there’s college readiness pamphlets, do-it-yourself engineering activity postcards and more. We want to engage with them as much as we can. Once they reach 9th grade, they receive a Future Engineer graduation certificate and a letter introducing them to our recruiter, Andrew McGill.”

Even though its impact on applications and enrollment obviously won’t be felt for several years, Riley said the new initiative is already paying tangible dividends, specifically with event registration.

“We held InspiHER in April and

I know that plenty of attendees learned about it directly through the Future Engineer Club,” she said. “That’s a great feeling because part of my job is introducing students to the idea of engineering in general, but, obviously, we’re trying to get them to Auburn. Tracking a kindergartner, or a 3-yearold or 4-year-old is difficult. But that’s one thing that makes our office unique. We’re actually doing it, we’re putting in those efforts. We currently have 5,000 students from around the world — or I guess I should say kids, because some aren’t actually students yet — registered in our Future Engineer Club.”

“And I’m looking forward to meeting them one day,” McGill said.

McGill doesn’t credit his success as the office’s recruiter — “I’m kind of like the closer,” he said — to the energy he brings to the job. He doesn’t credit it to the long hours pounding the pavement and shaking hands at college fairs and receptions all over the country, or at the Cookies and Cupolas events where admitted students can mingle and network with Auburn Engineering student ambassadors, or during “Life as an enGINNeer” days that allow prospective underrepresented students to experience a personalized day in the life of a current Auburn Engineering student. He credits it to the product he has to sell.

“What I really try to hit home for choosing Auburn University in general is the Auburn Family, and how real it is, but that also applies to engineering,” he said. “We’re always talking about Auburn providing the best student-centered engineering experience in the country. That’s not just some slogan. We have invested in the resources to actually provide that, to provide a collaborative experience instead of four years of competition with your classmates, which seems to be the norm at other schools. That really resonates with a lot of students.”

It definitely resonated in Indianapolis in October 2021.

Auburn’s Autonomous Tiger Racing team was competing in the first ever Indy Autonomous Challenge at the Indianapolis Motor

Students listen and learn during the Auburn Engineering Summer Expo.

Speedway. Thinking that enough engineering-minded highschoolers would be in attendance to make it worth his while, McGill made the trip. He set up shop outside the Auburn garage. Students stopped by to check out the team’s car. McGill introduced himself, handed out some of the slickest information packets around, and did his thing.

The gamble paid off.

“Two of the students I met there are freshmen right now,” McGill said. “One of them is from New Orleans. When she came for her tour, she brought us a King Cake.”

Another testament to McGill’s tactics is the roll of the freshmanlevel class he teaches, Engineering Success Strategies.

“There are 17 students in that class right now, and I met personally with 13 of them as recruits last year,” he said. “That’s rewarding. And it’s so great to already have that relationship when they get here.”

For the past two years, a lot of those relationships have started with Brooke Chandler, the office’s administrator for academic programs, and the first face people see when they walk through the doors of the Student Services office suite in the Brown-Kopel Center.

“I love sitting there right where people first come in because I’m a huge family person, and that’s what I want people to feel when they come here — to feel part of our family, the Auburn Engineering family. That’s what makes me feel good. That’s what I take pride in,” Chandler said. “I talked with one family for an hour and a half one time. Their student had come to E-Day but they still just wanted to know more. They actually lived just down the road from Auburn and probably could have come back whenever they wanted, but I wanted them to feel that we cared enough about them to personalize the experience for them as much as we would have had they flown in from California.”

Another aspect of the job she takes pride in?

The mail — the massive, massive amounts of mail — and the welloiled team of student workers she’s cultivated since joining the office in 2021 to help get it out the door.

“I mean, we recently sent out 50,000 pieces of recruiting material, and we really try to get every little detail perfect,” she said. “Pieces of mail can wind up meaning the most to people, whether it’s a postcard to a kindergartner or a list of resources available to transfer students.”

“Or,” Riley chimed in, “a coloring book.”

“Exactly!” Taylor shouted. “Please just order more next time.”

Listen to our podcasts with Jessica Taylor and Andrew McGill at eng.auburn.edu/ginning

GROWGROW PLAC

HUNTSVILLE 35806 from

HUNTSVILLE, THE WAR EAGLE HAS LANDED.

Auburn University expanded its footprint and opened its doors to a new facility in Huntsville in October with the grandopening celebration of the Research and Innovation Campus.

The 9-acre property, located at 345 Voyager Way NW in Huntsville’s Cummings Research Park, is in close proximity to numerous defense and aerospace collaborators, as well as the Bridge Street commercial development and the Gate 9 entrance to Redstone Arsenal.

“Much like Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin did in 1969, today is a monumental day for Auburn as we plant our flag in Huntsville,” said Steve Taylor, interim dean of Auburn’s Samuel Ginn College of Engineering. “We might even say that a different eagle has landed.”

The property, which formerly housed LogiCore, is well equipped to support applied research and development work for Huntsville/ Redstone customers as well as hosting alumni and advancement events. Designed to foster a new era of interagency and interdisciplinary collaboration necessary to secure the nation into the next century, the Auburn University Research and Innovation Campus will serve as a state-of-the-art, multi-million-dollar collaboration engine, conference center and research space that extends Auburn’s expertise and next-generation resources to the defense, space and law enforcement agencies.

“The Auburn University Research and Innovation Campus will be where today meets tomorrow,” said Auburn University President Chris Roberts. “Huntsville has been, and will continue to be, one of the hotbeds for our graduates to work, our faculty to partner and our students to explore. The facility will fast-track career connections that change the world, not only through the opportunity for next-generation cross-domain collaboration among agencies, but by supplying our partners access to Auburn’s mostpromising young minds.”

Experimentation with co-located laboratories will allow Auburn research professionals and students to conduct cutting-edge research and development across a range of technology readiness levels to help customers overcome national security, aerospace and biotechnology challenges. These laboratories will facilitate expansion in Huntsville of high-profile Auburn research programs such as advanced manufacturing, additive manufacturing,

Nearly 200 members of the Huntsville community came out to celebrate the grand opening of the Auburn University Research and Innovation Campus located at 345 Voyager Way NW in Cummings Research Park.

biotechnology, quantum metrology, cyber and critical infrastructure security, and assured position, navigation and timing. To elevate Auburn’s ability to conduct space research, facilities are available for use as an operations center for NASA, DOD and private sector missions.

“As the largest city in the state, Huntsville is dedicated to also being the leader in jobs and economic development,” said Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle. “Across the defense, aerospace, law enforcement, biotech and other sectors, Huntsville is quickly becoming a global leader in innovation, research and development as we unite our rich intellectual capital with new opportunities, such as this partnership with the Auburn University Research and Innovation Campus.”

Rose Allen, a 1985 Auburn industrial engineering graduate who serves as president of deciBel Research and formerly as chair of the Huntsville/Madison County Chamber of Commerce, also welcomed the Auburn University Research and Innovation Campus to the Rocket City.

“As the president of deciBel Research and someone who has spent their entire career in space and defense, I’ve seen firsthand the impact Auburn and its graduates have had on this community,” Allen said. “This is a special place made up of the brightest minds in the nation who are committed to making our world a better and safer place to live. And Huntsville just got better because Auburn is here.” Mike DeMaioribus, who retired from Dynetics in 2016 as executive vice president of business operations and currently serves as the Auburn University Board of Trustees’ District 8 representative, said he is thrilled to see Auburn expand its partnership with a community he’s called home for more than 60 years.

“Our hope is this facility will quickly become the primary connection for the Huntsville community to Auburn University and will be the go-to destination for government and industry entities in the area looking to meet in an unbiased, trusted location for technical interchange meetings and other events,” DeMaioribus said.

In addition to the research and technical aspects, the Auburn Research and Innovation Campus also showcases rotating exhibits from the university’s Jule Collins Smith Museum and original works by famed artist Gamaliel Rodríguez.

“In this building, we will also find limitless inspiration in humankind’s greatest achievements, as told through art,” President Roberts said. “This facility is for everyone… Our hope is that you, too, will call the Auburn University Research and Innovation Campus in Huntsville home.

Visit our magazine online at

eng.auburn.edu/magazine

for a video and photo gallery of this story.

The Auburn University Gulf Coast Engineering Research Station will be located on Terry Cove off Perdido Bay and will resemble the architecture of this nearby facility.

ORANGE AT AUBURN, IS MORE THAN A UNIVERSITY COLOR IT’S THE FUTURE.

Auburn University’s Board of Trustees approved a project in September to build a Gulf Coast Engineering Research Station in Orange Beach.

The building, which is being constructed on land provided by the City of Orange Beach on Terry Cove off Perdido Bay with direct access to the Gulf of Mexico, will consist of laboratory, office and collaborative meeting spaces. The project will provide dedicated space for research of coastal environments and communities of the Gulf Coast, while also providing collaborative opportunities with other Marine Environmental Sciences Consortium institutions.

“We are thrilled to announce this new endeavor to further Auburn University’s mission as one of the nation’s premier land-grant universities, and we are extremely appreciative of the support of the Board of Trustees and the president’s office,” said Steve Taylor, interim dean of Auburn’s Samuel Ginn College of Engineering. “This facility will expand collaborative opportunities with our friends and partners with the City of Orange Beach, the University of South Alabama and other regional institutions and industries as we work together to study, develop and implement infrastructure resiliency, environmental protection, restoration, sustainability and conservation actions that will continue to improve the quality of life and enhance economic advancement in this vital area to our state.”

Orange Beach Mayor Tony Kennon said the city is proud to work with Auburn and other universities to create long-term solutions for the state’s Gulf Coast, and beyond.

“The City of Orange Beach is extremely excited about the opportunity to partner with Auburn University and the collaborative effort with universities all over the country,” Kennon said.

The Auburn University Gulf Coast Engineering Research Station will focus on three broad coastal research areas: water quality and quantity protection and restoration; protection, restoration and conservation of habitat and living resources; and enhancing coastal community sustainability and resilience.

In addition, it will also provide residents and visitors a better understanding and appreciation of the natural, historical, cultural and environmental resources of the region through community outreach and continuing education opportunities.

The Gulf Coast Engineering Research Station will consist of laboratory, office and collaborative meeting spaces, along with water access adjacent to the facility.

Funding for the station was secured through the Alabama Gulf Coast Recovery Council in cooperation with the state’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.

The effects of natural and man-made disasters on the primary industries in the region have resulted in economic adjustments and dislocations primarily through reductions in tourism and the simultaneous effects on tourism-related industries, damage to public and private infrastructure, negative impacts to agriculture and fishing-related industries, and damage to the natural environment and natural resources. Through the creation of this facility, Auburn University and its partners will engage in fundamental and applied research of critical importance to the coastal environment and communities of Alabama and the larger northern Gulf Coast region. The station will be dedicated to addressing all the goals and objectives set forth in the 2016 Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Council Comprehensive Plan.

IDEAS big

Among the projects IDEAS program students are currently working on include critical projects such as NASA’s Space Launch System core stage and exploration upper stage (right) and the U.S. Air Force’s new digitally designed, built and tested T-7A advanced trainer.

The Samuel Ginn College of Engineering and Boeing have enjoyed a longstanding partnership in support of Auburn University students. Beyond funding scholarships and supporting underrepresented students and student organizations, Boeing is now providing opportunities for dozens of Auburn Engineering undergraduates to obtain hands-on, real-world design experience on groundbreaking aerospace projects.

The Industry Design Experience for Auburn Students, or IDEAS, program currently employs nearly 50 students through the university who are working on critical projects such as NASA’s Space Launch System core stage and exploration upper stage; the U.S. Air Force’s new digitally designed, built and tested T-7A advanced trainer; upgrades to the F-18 fighter jet and the B-1 bomber.

Students are issued a badge, computer and email address just like onsite Boeing employees, and some even have the opportunity to earn security clearances and work at Boeing facilities during summer or holiday breaks. The university provides a dedicated secure workspace for the students in the program.

Sushil Bhavnani, the Henry M. Burt Professor of mechanical engineering who has been a member of the engineering faculty for the past 35 years, serves as the director of the IDEAS program, while Samantha Allbrook serves as the program administrator through the college’s Business Office. To date, more than 150 Auburn students have participated in the IDEAS program with Boeing.

“Boeing is extremely proud of the relationship we have with Auburn University and its College of Engineering,”

Ken McCormick, ’90 Boeing Director of Executive Transport Structures and Innovation

Other projects the students have worked on include the B-1 bomber.

“Boeing is one of the premier aerospace companies in the world, and we are thrilled to have this partnership through the IDEAS program,” said Steve Taylor, interim dean of the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering. “Our undergraduate students are working on projects that are vital to our country’s success, and this real-world experience will serve them well as they work toward internships, co-ops and full-time employment. When we say we provide the best-student centered engineering experience in America, this is a perfect example of that.”

Ken McCormick, ’90 mechanical engineering and Boeing’s director of executive transport structures and innovation, said Auburn was selected for this program because of its outstanding reputation across the aerospace industry and it has benefitted everyone involved.

“Boeing is extremely proud of the relationship we have with Auburn University and its College of Engineering,” McCormick said. “Through this strategic partnership, we are training and inspiring the next generation of engineers by providing opportunities for students to gain hands-on engineering experience with real-world innovative products.”

Former IDEAS student employee Sean Farkas, ’22 mechanical engineering and current systems engineer/analyst at Torch Technologies, said his experience with the program paved the way for his current position and gave him an advantage over other applicants.

“As an entry level engineer who had multiple job opportunities right out of college, I want to stress the importance of gaining work experience while in school, whether that be through a co-op, internship, research or the IDEAS program with Boeing,” Farkas said. “For me, the IDEAS program provided fantastic opportunities to learn about how a company like Boeing operates, how the Space Launch System is designed and how to think like an entry level engineer when completing work tasks. Learning these skills as a college student furthered my interest in the defense and space industry and gave me the experiences that employers ask about when you’re searching to land a desired career.”

Listen to our podcasts with Sushil Bhavnani and Steve Taylor at eng.auburn.edu/ginning

Sean Farkas, ’22 mechanical engineering and current systems engineer/analyst at Torch Technologies, said his experience with the IDEAS program paved the way for his current position and gave him an advantage over other applicants.

AUBURN UNIVERSITY

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE INITIATIVE

Artificial intelligence (AI) is already impacting our lives in significant ways. You have a cell phone, right? Data received by all those crazy apps on your home screen provide information that otherwise couldn’t be tracked at once.

When we walk, our steps are magically recorded. It’s a good thing, because counting 10,000 steps by memory each day wouldn’t be fun.

When we listen to music, our app of choice keeps track of our favorite tunes — and those we dislike — to create an evolving rotation most pleasing to our ears.

Overnight, AI-powered apps track our sleep habits. Artificially powered applications even provide soothing sounds and the dreaded alarm at 6 a.m. AI has become a key player in chatbots, self-driving cars, cybersecurity and facial recognition. Just look at your cell phone and it unlocks.

When we shop, either online or in the store, AI tracks our spending habits via our credit/debit cards with product bar codes. Why else would we mysteriously receive pop-up advertisements for those Vlasic pickles we just bought or coupons in the mail from Kroger for Totino’s pepperoni pizza rolls? Just listen to the beeping noises at the grocery checkout aisle. There’s more going on than accumulating purchases.

“The world of AI keeps expanding,” said Gerry Dozier, the Charles D. McCrary Eminent Chair Professor in computer science and software engineering. “AI is making life easier for us all. Think about it… we’re all sheer data, just in human form. We generate data by the buttons we press, the cards we swipe and the websites we visit, what we write or say or how we write and say it. As long as there is a sensor, or program created, to capture that data, then this can be used to better understand our tendencies or preferences.

“But… some people are beginning to take the power of AI for granted. How so? As we generate tons of sophisticated solutions, or applications, these great advances aren’t new anymore. They’ve become a part of us,” he said.

AI is obviously improving our lives. But can we improve AI, harness the information it delivers and take it even further?

Auburn University believes so.

As the state leader in AI innovation, research and education, Auburn University bolstered this position through an investment of $2 million by the Office of the Provost with support from the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering to create AI@AU, the Auburn University Artificial Intelligence Initiative.

More than 115 professors from a variety of academic disciplines across Auburn University’s campus — including engineering, business, agriculture, and sciences and mathematics — have teamed to create perhaps the state’s largest AI think tank.

The project was created to: assemble a university-wide multi-disciplinary faculty team to expand AI research and education; build a computational infrastructure for AI research and education at Auburn University; develop Auburn’s faculty infrastructure for AI research and education; explore university-wide educational innovations in AI; and become the university’s focal point for participation in statewide, regional and national initiatives such as the SEC AI Consortium.

“This initiative puts Auburn in a leadership position in the field of artificial intelligence, and that leadership can benefit the university and the state in multiple ways,” said Hari Narayanan, Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering chair and AI@AU administrative lead. “It positions Auburn to compete successfully for all sorts of research opportunities, funding and collaborations with industry. This will also allow us to hire more faculty with experience and expertise in AI.”

Some of the initiative’s objectives include: • A university-wide faculty group for coordinating and supporting AI-related educational and research activities. • The installation of an AI computational resource to support AI-related education and research. • The creation of a university-wide distinguished lecture series, featuring prominent researchers in AI, those who

investigate the ethics of AI and its societal impacts, and those who apply AI to disciplines including the arts, agriculture, architecture, humanities and engineering. • The creation of certificate programs on AI in the disciplines for Auburn students — preparing them for the workplace. • The creation of a faculty-led AI think tank that eventually becomes a focal point for connecting with external opportunities and generating extramural funding for research and education.

“The idea is to use all of this as a springboard to establish a strong footprint in AI-related research and education across all fields of academic disciplines at the university,” Narayanan said. “We want to convey that AI is a top priority at Auburn University.”

Within four months of the initiative’s creation, more than 115 professors from a variety of academic disciplines across campus,

Thought leaders at Auburn University are identifying cutting-edge research ideas, from robotics to automated trucking to facial recognition, that utilize AI’s strengths and help create better business practices and novel approaches to solving everyday problems.

including engineering, business, agriculture, and sciences and mathematics have teamed to create perhaps the state’s largest AI think tank.

“AI is moving so quickly and you’re seeing a ton of changes,” said Dozier, the initiative’s technical lead. “We needed to find a way to bring campus researchers and faculty together, where we can collaborate and collectively get ahead of the curve on what’s going on in artificial intelligence. This gives us an excellent opportunity to work together to create even better solutions. A lot of the things we’re doing at Auburn are cutting-edge.”

For instance, Anh Nguyen, assistant professor in computer science and software engineering, is using AI technology to transform facial recognition toward improving healthcare, correctly identifying criminals, and even into improving transportation services.

Yin Sun, assistant professor in electrical and computer engineering, is using AI and machine learning techniques to help food pantries across the state of Alabama improve inventory planning to better meet the needs of the hungry.

ShubhraKanti “Santu” Karmaker, assistant professor in computer science and software engineering, is taking a deep dive into the intersection of natural language processing and information retrieval.

His long-term research goal is to answer the question: How can we leverage computers to help humans in assimilating and digesting vast amounts of unstructured information at scale and speed, and accordingly, build better decision support systems through effective human-AI collaboration?

Dozier said the future of AI research is based on the imagination.

“Really, it’s anytime a researcher can say, ‘I want to make something better,’” he said. “Where people have a need, or there’s a problem, this is where artificial intelligence research can be used. We humans are good at some things, and AI is good at some other things. The question is… how can we get that human-AI collaboration together? I’m confident that our researchers at Auburn University will figure this out.”

AI surrounds us, thus the demand for an educated workforce continues to develop within Alabama and nationally.

“In terms of AI education and training programs, it is extremely important that individuals know and understand the opportunities afforded by AI, its limitations and how they can collaborate with and use AI systems to become more productive,” Dozier added. “It is also extremely important to be aware of the ethical issues related to AI and how AI can and will impact our society at present and in the future.”

The initiative will set Auburn University apart as a center of artificial intelligence research, education and innovation in the state, Narayanan said.

“No university in Alabama has an initiative like this,” Narayanan said. “By strengthening AI education across the university, it will attract industries that desire a workforce built on a solid AI education to move to Alabama. Why? Because they can depend upon a university like Auburn to produce graduates who are well-prepared.

“To sum it up, Auburn University aspires to become and remain the leader for artificial intelligence expertise in the state for years to come,” he added.

Listen to our podcast with Anh Nguyen at eng.auburn.edu/ginning

10M MILLIONTEN MILES OF INNOVATION

The National Center for Asphalt Technology (NCAT)’s Test Track recently crossed 10 million miles driven. Opened in 2000 as a testing facility for asphalt research, the track has provided pavement engineers across the USA with an outdoor laboratory where they can experiment with pavement designs while avoiding risks associated with damaged pavements on real-world roadways.

“The Test Track has always been an indispensable research tool to help highway agencies and the asphalt industry answer questions and prove the viability of technologies,” said NCAT Director Randy West.

The Test Track offers researchers a unique chance to design, implement and show their findings on asphalt technology in one location, and has saved state departments millions of dollars each year with its results.

A Bridge Between the Real World and Laboratory

NCAT’s Test Track is a 1.7-mile oval where research is conducted on experimental asphalt pavements. Located on a 309-acre site about 15 miles east of Auburn’s main campus, the track is comprised of 46 200-foot test sections funded as a cooperative project among highway agencies and asphalt industry sponsors. The track was designed and built to simultaneously evaluate the performance of a range of roadway cross-sections and materials, and use those findings to improve sustainability, safety and cost effectiveness of roadways.

“We serve as a bridge between the real world and the laboratory,” said Test Track Manager Jason Nelson. “We utilize real drivers in real trucks.”

The track’s test sections are classified in three different ways: structural experiments, surface mix experiments and pavement preservation studies. Multi-depth temperature probes are installed in each test section, and are paired with an on-site automated weather station, to aid in characterizing how the test section responds to loading and environmental changes. These variables allow researchers to quickly analyze and implement their findings into improved pavement designs.

“In a three-year research cycle, you can put a design life’s worth of traffic in a couple years,” Nelson said. “You don’t have to wait

10 years, 20 years. You know what that pavement’s going to do out in the real world.”

Research cycles at the track last for three years and are broken down into three phases. The first phase focuses on construction, with research sponsors making on-site visits to ensure the sections satisfy their research needs. Various parameters are measured during the construction process to capture properties of the sections.

“Great research can be done in the lab and with computer simulations, but there is no substitute for proving that a new material or design method works on the Test Track,” West said. “Our sponsors know that if we can prove something works on the Test Track, it is ready for implementation.”

In the second phase, each section of the track endures rigorous heavy truck traffic in a period of two years. Each section of the track is subjected to 10 million equivalent single axle loads, which simulates long-term wear and allows researchers to deliver highly technical results to state highway departments quickly.

The final phase of the cycle involves forensic analyses of damaged sections on the Test Track to determine the contributing factors to pavement distresses. At the end of each cycle, test sections may remain in place for additional evaluation, or are replaced to support new research.

“We spend billions of dollars on roadway infrastructure in this country every year, so we have to do controlled experiments to see what works and doesn’t work,” said NCAT Associate Director and Research Professor Buzz Powell.

Besides asphalt testing, the NCAT Test Track is used for a variety of transportation-related projects including the development of new heavy vehicle suspension systems, truck platooning, evaluation of alternative fuels, improved tires, a vehicle rollover prediction system, advanced propulsion systems and improved vehicle electronics and safety.

The site of the track also has special geological characteristics that lend themselves to other engineering research studies.

“This site is unique because there is really shallow rock on the west end, but then really deep clay on the east end,” Powell said. “It’s a national geotechnical experimentation site.”

More Than Two Decades of Research and Counting

Before the track’s completion, NCAT’s work was already widely respected by the asphalt industry across the nation. Research had been conducted with a dozen state departments of transportation. In 1998, the Alabama Department of Transportation and NCAT began planning to construct and

operate the Test Track on 310 acres of land. The groundbreaking ceremony was held in September of that year.

The Test Track was finished in August 2000, with the first laps around the track completed that September. Initially, the Federal Highway Administration and nine states (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Tennessee) sponsored the work at the track. The track has 46 sections divided into 26 sections that are each 200 feet long on each straightaway and 20 additional test sections in the curves.

Finding truck drivers was another important step to operating the Test Track. During the track’s first cycle, driving was outsourced to a trucking company, but researchers learned that it was more cost-effective and efficient to hire their own drivers to do the job, a system that is still in place today.

Connecting Lab Predictions to Real-World Performance

Research at the Test Track unites real-world pavement construction with live heavy trafficking in a controlled environment. This allows highway agencies and commercial interest groups to quickly analyze and implement findings from the track.

“Our mission is safe and sustainable asphalt pavements at the lowest possible life-cycle cost,” Powell said. “We’re the only place that has a track like this. We’re the only place that has this outdoor laboratory where we can connect lab predictions to real-world performance.”

The type of research conducted at the Test Track is known as full-scale accelerated performance testing. The traffic that would normally travel on a roadway over many years is compressed and driven in only two years. Accelerated testing allows researchers to fully consider the effect of increasing traffic demands on future asphalt performance.

This distinctive type of testing has not only allowed for quick and accurate results, but has also allowed Test Track researchers to save money for their agencies.

In a poll conducted by NCAT, sponsors of the track indicated that on average, each dollar spent on research at the facility saved $46 in real world implementation. In an industry that often relies on a safe bet, the track is an invaluable asset.

“DOT engineers tend to be conservative because there’s no incentive for them to try something new that might not work,” Powell said. “We stand in the gap for them, and they can do things here that are high risk, high reward. We’re making a difference.”

Now in its eighth research cycle, the Test Track provides researchers in the asphalt industry opportunities to innovate that otherwise wouldn’t have existed. To Powell, learning through pavement failings on the track has brought invaluable insight to asphalt technology across the world.

“To me, it’s incredibly fun to be doing work that leaves the world better than how we found it,” Powell said. “In academia, there is a lot of emphasis on how many research dollars you’re bringing in. That’s never our focus. Our success is measured by the impact of the things that we learn.”

The test track’s sections are classified in three different ways: structural experiments, surface mix experiments and pavement preservation studies.

NCAT’s Test Track combines experimental asphalt pavement design with realworld testing to improve sustainability, safety and cost effectiveness of roadways.

Listen to our podcast with Buzz Powell at eng.auburn.edu/ginning

NCAT’s Test Track crossed 10 million miles driven May 4, 2022. The first laps of the track were completed in September 2000.