NYU Tandon - Year In Review 2024

CELEBRATING 170 YEARS OF HISTORY, 10 YEARS OF NYU ENGINEERING

AUGUST BEGINNINGS

In 1854, two schools were founded, forming the earliest foundations upon which NYU Tandon would ultimately be built: The Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute, and the University of the City of New York (now known as NYU) School of Civil Engineering and Architecture.

The two schools, founded to bring engineering education to America’s largest metropolis, would merge, diverge, and merge again over the next 170 years. Our institution has had many names — Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute, Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, Polytechnic University, to state just a few — but it has always held the torch for a foundational belief: that harnessing the power of science and technology will lead to a better society and more opportunity for all.

The path has been winding, crossing boroughs from the Bronx to the heart of Brooklyn — the city’s most populous borough and a place that has become the epicenter of arts, culture and technology in a city known for being on the cutting edge. We’re celebrating 170 years of engineering from this unique campus, in a one-of-a-kind borough, in one of the world’s most vibrant, global cities.

NYU BRINGS ENGINEERING INTO THE FOLD

In 2014, NYU completed the official merger with Polytechnic University, returning engineering education to the largest university in NYC. Since then, the school has risen in the rankings, expanded its facilities, evolved its education, and charted new research frontiers to build on a long history of excellence.

In 2015, Chandrika and Ranjan Tandon generously donated $100 million to the school to fund its mission and promise of engineering education excellence. The school was renamed NYU Tandon School of Engineering in recognition of the couple’s generosity.

In 2022, NYU announced that the University was committing an ongoing $1 billion investment in Tandon to significantly advance engineering at NYU by recruiting 40 new full-time, tenure-track faculty, fueling groundbreaking research, and growing and modernizing its Downtown Brooklyn campus. The funding will support basic and applied research in key interdisciplinary areas of global import — secure wireless ecosystems and supply chains, health engineering, sustainable engineering, and data science to improve the human condition — and enable expansion of new collaborative lab and research spaces as well as spaces to accommodate student community-building and large growth in experiential learning opportunities.

TANDON’S IMPACT

THROUGH TIME

What do microwaves, penicillin, light beer, and 5G all have in common? The discoveries that led to these life essentials were made by faculty, students, and alumni from the NYU Tandon School of Engineering.

Ernst Weber arrived at the school in 1930 and worked his way up from a visiting professor to president of the University — producing research fundamental to the development of radar systems and the microwave oven. Alums Jasper H. Kane and John McKeen developed the mass-production processes for penicillin and other antibiotics, creating one of the most important weapons in the fight against illness across the globe. Joseph Owades, another alum and a biochemist known as the “Godfather of the Brewing Industry,” spent a career developing and researching beers worldwide, and created the recipe for one of the first reducedcalorie beers. Wireless pioneers Theodore (Ted) S. Rappaport and Thomas Marzetta discovered the fundamental technologies underpinning the 5G era, and continue to chart the path for next-generation wireless here at Tandon.

These are only a few of the stories of how our students, faculty and researchers have left their mark on the world around us. Join us throughout 2024 to get more indepth stories about the ways the Tandon community has influenced — and continues to influence — how we live, work, and play today.

Clockwise: 1 Livingston Place in 1889; Silicon Valley, in the days of Eugene Kleiner (‘48); astronaut Paolo Nespoli (‘88, ‘89); Chandrika and Ranjan Tandon, NYC and NYU officials celebrate $1B commitment to engineering, students competing at CSAW; Intel’s 8086 chip, designed by Stephen Morse (‘63).

LETTER FROM THE EXECUTIVE DEAN

I am honored to join the NYU and Tandon communities amid a defining moment for science and engineering. I have spent the last 12 years at the University of Chicago doing incredible work with exceptional colleagues, and only one thing could have driven me to make a major change: the oncein-a-lifetime opportunity to lead a vast science, technology, and engineering enterprise here in New York, a global center of diversity, discovery, and innovation.

As I prepared for my roles at NYU, I learned a great deal about the growing quality of research, culture of collaboration across geographics and fields, and dedication to addressing societal challenges that are the hallmarks of Tandon. Tandon researchers are making significant advances in a multitude of vital areas, from human health to the sustainability of the planet. The examples you’re about to read barely scratch the surface. There are extraordinary opportunities ahead, and the STEM community is faced with both massive responsibility and the chance to change the world. What we accomplish over the next five years will be critical to the future of humanity, and if we are to make the momentous strides this era demands, it will take joining forces across disciplines, sectors, and geographic borders.

We will meet the challenges that we face as a society by harnessing our strengths as engineers, scientists, educators, and innovators. NYU Tandon is part of one of the most dynamic research, academic, and entrepreneurial ecosystems in the world, and I look forward to shaping and accelerating its progress.

Dr. Juan de Pablo is the University’s inaugural Executive Vice President for Global Science and Technology, and the Executive Dean of the NYU Tandon School of Engineering. He leads cross-University, multidisciplinary, and globally focused efforts to accelerate the momentum of NYU’s vast science and technology enterprise for the purposes of solving humanity’s largest challenges. Dovetailing with those efforts, de Pablo steers Tandon’s engineering research and education to play a central role in addressing a multitude of areas, from human health, to advances in materials discovery, to the sustainability of the planet.

Before joining NYU, Dr. de Pablo served as the Executive Vice President for Science, Innovation, National Laboratories, and Global Initiatives at the University of Chicago; the Liew Family Professor in Molecular Engineering at Chicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering; and a Senior Scientist at Argonne National Laboratory. Prior to that, he served as the Howard Curler Distinguished Professor and Hilldale Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He was a postdoctoral researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, Switzerland.

A prominent materials scientist and chemical engineer, Dr. de Pablo’s research focuses on polymers, biological macromolecules such as proteins and DNA, glasses, and liquid crystals. He is a leader in developing molecular models and advanced computational approaches to

elucidate complex molecular processes over wide ranges of length and time scales. He has developed advanced algorithms to design and predict the structure and properties of complex fluids and solids at a molecular level, and has been a pioneer in the use of data-driven machine learning approaches for materials design.

Dr. de Pablo is the author or co-author of well over 650 publications and a textbook on Molecular Engineering Thermodynamics. He holds more than 25 patents, one of which has been deemed critical to the semiconductor industry’s miniaturization goals and one of which is now used throughout the world to stabilize proteins and cells, including probiotics, in glassy materials over extended periods of time.

His many honors include the Polymer Physics Prize from the American Physical Society in 2018, the DuPont Medal for Excellence in Nutrition and Health Sciences in 2016, the Intel Patterning Science Award in 2015, and the Charles Stine Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers in 2011.

In 2016, he was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering for the “design of macromolecular products and processes via scientific computation.” In 2022 he was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences. He is also a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Physical Society, and the Royal Society of Chemistry, and is a foreign correspondent member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences and the European Academy of Sciences.

Amongst other distinctions, he has delivered the Lacey Lectures at Caltech (2020), the Dodge Lectures at Yale (2018), and the National Science Foundation’s Mathematical and Physical Sciences Lecture (2018). He has chaired the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Advisory Committee of the National Science Foundation and the Committee on Condensed Matter and Materials Research at the National Research Council. He is the founding editor of Molecular Systems Design and Engineering, and served as deputy editor of Sciences Advances and Physical review Letters. He served as the co-director of the NIST Center for Hierarchical Materials Design (CHiMaD) from 2013 to 2024.

Dr. de Pablo earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), as well as a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of California - Berkeley.

MORE LEADERSHIP UPDATES

ERAY AYDIL

Senior Vice Dean, NYU Tandon

Eray Aydil, formerly the Chair of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, has been named the Senior Vice Dean for NYU Tandon going forward. As Senior Vice Dean, he will oversee, together with the other Vice Deans and the Tandon leadership team, the daily operations in the school.

Aydil, who joined NYU Tandon in 2018 as Alstadt Lord Mark Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, is an expert in electronic, optoelectronic, magnetic, and catalytic materials synthesis, and applies his work to sustainable solar-to-electric energy conversion using solar cells. His lab uses both vapor phase deposition and synthesis techniques, as well as colloidal synthesis to produce nanostructured materials, coatings, and thin films.

MARTÍN FARACH-COLTON

Chair, Department of Computer Science and Engineering

Martín Farach-Colton was appointed to chair the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, the largest department at NYU Tandon. Farach-Colton brings expertise in big data algorithmics, storage systems, data structures, and streaming algorithms. He held a distinguished professorship at Rutgers University before coming to Tandon. He was also a senior research scientist at Google from 2000 to 2002, and founded the data-storage company TokuTek in 2006, which was acquired in 2015.

His many honors include fellowships from the ACM, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, IEEE, and Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and he has the distinction of being an elected member of Argentina’s Academia Nacional de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales (National Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences). He was also the winner of the inaugural Simon Imre Test of Time Award at the 2012 Latin American Symposium on Theoretical Informatics, and won a distinguished paper award at the ACM International Conference on Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems (ASPLOS).

In his role as chair, Farach-Colton also holds the title of Leonard J. Shustek Professor of Computer Science.

RAMESH KARRI

Chair, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Ramesh Karri has been appointed to chair the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Karri became a faculty member here in 1998. With a focus on hardware cybersecurity, his research and educational endeavors encompass trustworthy ICs, processors, and cyber-physical systems; security-aware computer-aided design, test, verification, validation, and reliability; nano meets security; hardware security competitions, benchmarks, and metrics; biochip security; and additive manufacturing security.

Karri — widely considered a founding figure in hardware security — recently stepped down from his role leading the NYU Center for Cybersecurity after serving in that capacity since co-founding the center in 2009.

RASTISLAV LEVICKY

Interim Chair, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

Rastislav Levicky has been named the interim Chair of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering with Aydil’s promotion. A member of the faculty for nearly 20 years, Levicky helms the Biointerfacial and Diagnostics Lab, where his research focuses on biomolecules, how they organize and function at interfaces, and how their behavior impacts biodiagnostics and other practical applications. In addition to his teaching and research, he also serves as the Speaker of the Faculty.

DAMON MCCOY

Co-Director, NYU Center for Cybersecurity

Professor of Computer Science and Engineering Damon McCoy has been appointed the new co-director of NYU Center for Cybersecurity (alongside Randy Milch, who is continuing his tenure), an interdisciplinary research institute that works across NYU. McCoy specializes in empirically measuring the security and privacy of technology systems and their societal impacts.

7,577 enrolled students as of Spring 2023

177%

growth in online master’s programs applications in 5 years

8

7

0

students participating in experiential-learning Vertically Integrated Projects, a 242% increase in 5 years

33 , 066

21+

New faculty starting in the 2024-2025 Academic Year, including our new Executive Dean and 10 tenure/tenure-track faculty applications for Fall 2024, a 76% increase in 5 years

$

3 3 0 M Capital Plan toward facilities upgrades

OFFICE HOURS

RESEARCHERS IN THEIR OWN WORDS

In the heart of Downtown Brooklyn, a vibrant group of researchers, students, technologists, and innovators is working to shape a new future. Learn about their work in Office Hours, a YouTube series about the latest research breakthroughs and what’s driving our Unconventional Engineers.

MAKING THE FUTURE

Engineers are at the vanguard of shaping a future brimming with possibilities, leveraging their boundless ingenuity to tackle humanity’s greatest challenges.

At NYU Tandon, our engineers are pioneering sustainable technologies, ushering in an era of renewable energy, and harnessing the power of the sun, wind, and water to create a cleaner, greener planet. They are designing smart cities that blend advanced infrastructure, transportation systems, and communication networks to craft vibrant, efficient, and resilient urban landscapes. They are building the next generation of wireless technology that will interconnect our world in even more profound ways, and establishing new methods for entertainment, education and emerging media. They are revolutionizing healthcare and biotechnology, heralding a new dawn of medical miracles. They are protecting our most sensitive digital systems from hackers, cybercriminals and bad actors of all kinds. And they are creating the next generation of AI and robotics, powered by cutting-edge advancements in data science.

To be an engineer is to dream of the future, and then build it. Our Unconventional Engineers are not merely building the technologies of tomorrow, but are creating a vision filled with hope, opportunity, and boundless potential for generations to come. We’ve been Making the Future Since 1854, but we’re only just getting started.

MAKING SCI-FI R EALITY

EALITY

EXPLORING THE UNKNOWN

In space, no one can hear you snore

For astronauts, a good-night’s sleep is harder to come by in a zero-g environment than their mattresses back on earth. Luckily, Tandon students are working on a way to bring them a little relief and a well-deserved rest.

Doctoral student Devjoy Dev, advised by Assistant Professor Khalil Ramadi (BME), took home the People’s Choice Award at the NYU Abu Dhabi GradSlam for his talk, “A Gut Feeling: Improving Astronaut Sleep with an Electric Pill.”

Work being done in Ramadi’s lab attracted widespread attention earlier this year, when news hit that a new electrical “pill” co-developed by him and his colleagues may be able to regulate people’s appetites without any drugs or invasive medical procedures. Similarly, Dev’s work also involves the neural pathway known as the gut-brain axis, which regulates many bodily functions, including eating and, as Dev pointed out, sleeping.

Dev, who had taken workshops in the foundations of communication and crafting a compelling narrative in the lead-up to the event, grabbed the audience’s attention immediately when he asserted that while humans are the only species on the planet that purposely deprives itself of rest, adequate sleep is directly connected to longevity. “Sleep is a non-negotiable biological necessity that we cannot afford to underestimate,” he explains. The device he is developing would be swallowed and sent into the gut where it would stimulate the millions of neurons there and may be able to modulate sleep in a way never before done.

Science fiction authors and engineers have one big thing in commonenvisioning the future. Concepts that were once bound to speculative fiction — self-driving cars, missions to Mars, and more — are now becoming a reality thanks to engineers like ours at NYU Tandon.

Dev, who serves as lead of the Sleep Medicine Working Group at the International Centre for Astronautical Development, is focusing his initial research on astronauts, who are now spending increasingly long periods in space and for whom feeling alert and rested is a literal matter of life and death, but he foresees it ultimately reaching the general public. “Even though the vast majority of us will never orbit the Earth,” he says, “we all want to get a good night’s sleep.”

Devjoy Dev at NYU Abu Dhabi GradSlam.

GOING TO SPACE WITHOUT THE CARBON FOOTPRINT

Brooklyn-based startup AIR COMPANY is helping power NASA’s next-generation rockets, thanks to an innovative collaboration with the NYU Tandon School of Engineering that aims to transform climate-harming carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions into sustainable rocket fuel.

AIR COMPANY researchers have joined with Donald F. Othmer Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering and director of NYU Tandon’s Sustainable Engineering Initiative (SEI) Miguel Modestino, to develop new applications for its AIRMADE™ technology that uses a process similar to photosynthesis to convert CO2 into high-performance fuels and chemicals.

In November 2023, the project was selected for NASA’s highly competitive Phase II Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) award, a program that funds projects in which small businesses work with research institutions for early-stage research and development (R&D) on technologies that advance NASA missions and help solve important problems for the benefit of all.

AIR COMPANY, which received early support from Urban Future Lab’s ACRE Incubator and Carbon to Value Initiative, needed access to hard-to-find laboratory resources and equipment, like wet benches and fume hoods, that NYU Tandon’s Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department maintains.

AIR COMPANY and Tandon developed a partnership that enables AIR COMPANY to conduct R&D out of NYU Tandon facilities, providing an opportunity to collaborate on shared sustainability research objectives, including those that inform SEI priorities.

In addition to use as rocket fuel, the sustainable fuel the AIR COMPANY team develops could be used on Mars to produce a stable and storable fuel in-situ — using only the Martian atmosphere, water, and solar photovoltaic electricity — which could power habitats, and more.

EXPLORING THE DEPTHS WITH DRONES

From the days when mapmakers drew dragons and sea monsters at the margins of the explored seas, the oceans have always offered unexplored mysteries. Centuries on, we have made surprisingly little progress — only around five percent of the world’s oceans have been mapped.

Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROUVs) may help us explore deeper and further than before, but then you run into another problem power.

The major obstacle lies in the short power cycles of batteries and the absence of persistent onboard power sources. To overcome these challenges, researchers are

focused on developing alternative power solutions that enable AUVs and ROUVs to operate without constraints on diving patterns or the need for resurfacing to recharge. Additionally, the aim is to create power sources for fixed underwater sensors and communication networks that do not solely rely on batteries or require a physical tether for power supply.

Solar power is a potential solution sunlight can penetrate surprisingly deep into the oceans. If that energy can be harnessed, it’s only a matter of converting it, and a group of researchers from NYU Tandon are exploring how to make solar power viable for underwater vehicles. In a new article in Nature Photonics

called “A dive into underwater solar cells,” a team including Industry Assistant Professor of General Engineering Jason A. Röhr and Professor André Taylor (CBE, SEI) lay out the problems faced by this burgeoning field.

Solar power, just as on land, is ubiquitous, available, and powerful, even below the surface. Sunlight remains consistent and can be harnessed efficiently. Visible light, particularly in the green to blue part of the spectrum, can penetrate waters up to 50 meters deep, providing sufficient energy to run basic appliances.

By utilizing solar cells, it becomes possible to power fixed sensors, communication devices, and even

combine solar power with OTEC for long-range AUV operations and true autonomy. But the solar cells we currently use may not be up to snuff.

The researchers delved into the potential of solar cells for underwater applications, highlighting examples of successful implementation in powering AUVs and communication devices while analyzing the downsides. Specifically, they identified key ways that common silicon solar technology falls short in underwater environments — beyond moisture and salt content, enemies to electronics in general, solar cells are designed to absorb red and infrared light, pieces of the spectrum that do not penetrate very far into water.

TRACKING VIRAL THREATS IN THE AIR

People could soon be alerted to potentially deadly airborne threats — including pollutants, bacteria, and viruses — in schools, buses, and other indoor spaces, thanks to groundbreaking research underway at NYU Tandon School of Engineering.

NYU Tandon faculty members

Herman F. Mark Professor in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Elisa Riedo and Associate Professor Davood Shahrjerdi (ECE, NYU WIRELESS, CATT) are working on developing sensors to detect pathogens in the air in places where they are installed.

The project is supported by Lendlease, an international property and infrastructure company, with an almost $1 million grant it provided to Riedo and Shahrjerdi to provide resources to build the underlying technology and prototypes of the sensors. Lendlease develops large residential communities and mixeduse urban districts around the world.

The NYU engineering researchers aim to create a novel technological platform that detects the presence of airborne viruses and other hazards electronically, through the use of a

special microchip that generates a digital signal when it interacts with an airborne threat.

Currently, the most reliable and widely used methods for detecting viruses rely on chemical analysis of physical samples, such as the polymerase chain reaction test for COVID-19.

The research by Riedo and Shahrjerdi, along with other advancements in electronic virus detection, hold the promise of revolutionizing the field by offering more efficient and accessible methods of virus detection. This has far-reaching implications for both public health and biodefense. It could, for instance, facilitate the instant lockdown of buildings upon detection of a dangerous virus in the air, or prompt a rapid emergency response to airborne biological hazards.

Riedo and Shahrjerdi’s work with Lendlease intersects with a project the two started early last year with Mirimus, a Brooklyn biotech company, to develop a wearable electronic device that detects the presence of a virus in the wearer.

YOUR AI DOCTOR CAN SEE YOU NOW

ChatGPT’s responses to people’s healthcarerelated queries are nearly indistinguishable from those provided by humans, a new study from NYU Tandon School of Engineering and Grossman School of Medicine reveals, suggesting the potential for chatbots to be effective allies to healthcare providers’ communications with patients.

An NYU research team led by Department Chair and Morton L. Topfer Professor of Technology Management Oded Nov (CUSP) presented 392 adults with 10 patient questions and responses, with half of the responses generated by a human healthcare provider and the other half by ChatGPT.

Participants were asked to identify the source of each response and rate their trust in the ChatGPT responses using a 5-point scale from completely untrustworthy to completely trustworthy.

The study found people have limited ability to distinguish between chatbot and human-generated responses. On average, participants correctly identified chatbot responses 65.5 percent of the time and provider responses 65.1 percent of the time, with ranges of 49.0 percent to 85.7 percent for different questions. Results remained consistent no matter the demographic categories of the respondents.

The study found participants mildly trust chatbots’ responses overall (3.4 average score), with lower trust when the health-related complexity of the task in question was higher. Logistical questions (e.g. scheduling appointments, insurance questions) had the highest trust rating (3.94 average score), followed by preventative care (e.g. vaccines, cancer screenings, 3.52 average score). Diagnostic and treatment advice had the lowest trust ratings (scores 2.90 and 2.89, respectively).

According to the researchers, the study highlights the possibility that chatbots can assist in patient-provider communication particularly related to administrative tasks and common chronic disease management. Further research is needed, however, around chatbots’ taking on more clinical roles. Providers should remain cautious and exercise critical judgment when curating chatbot-generated advice due to the limitations and potential biases of AI models.

IMPROVING SELF-DRIVING CARS

In a promising development for self-driving car technology, a research team at NYU Tandon School of Engineering has unveiled an algorithm — known as Neurosymbolic Meta-Reinforcement Lookahead Learning (NUMERLA) — that could address the long-standing challenge of adapting to unpredictable real-world scenarios while maintaining safety. The research was conducted by Associate Professor Quanyan Zhu (ECE, C2SMARTER, CCS, CATT) and his Ph.D. candidate Haozhe Lei

Artificial intelligence and machine learning have helped selfdriving cars operate in increasingly intricate scenarios, allowing them to process vast amounts of data from sensors, make sense of complex environments, and navigate city streets while adhering to traffic rules.

As they venture beyond controlled environments into the chaos of real-world traffic, however, such vehicles’ performance can falter, potentially leading to accidents.

NUMERLA aims to bridge the gap between safety and adaptability. The algorithm achieves this by continuously updating safety constraints in real-time, ensuring that self-driving cars can navigate unfamiliar scenarios while maintaining safety as the top priority.

The NUMERLA framework operates as follows: When a self-driving car encounters an evolving environment, it uses observations to adjust its “belief” about the current situation. Based on this belief, it makes predictions about its future performance within a specified timeframe. It then searches for appropriate safety constraints and updates its knowledge base accordingly.

The car’s policy is adjusted using lookahead optimization with safety constraints, resulting in a suboptimal but empirically safe online control strategy.

NYU NANOFABRICATION (NANOFAB) CLEANROOM

Designing chips is difficult enough, but computer science research needs access to state-of-the-art semiconductors and other materials. On October 18th of 2023, the ribbon was cut at the newly minted NYU Nanofabrication (NanoFab) Cleanroom, a specialized research environment in which scientists and engineers can fabricate cutting-edge semiconductor chips to advance research on quantum science and engineering, precision medicine, neurotechnologies, next-generation communications technology, and secure computing.

Located on NYU Tandon’s campus, the NYU NanoFab helps fulfill the promise of the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act, signed into law by President Biden in 2022.

The CHIPS and Science Act aims to bolster U.S. chip manufacturing to meet growing global demand, and to support related research and development and workforce cultivation. The NanoFab is the only such academic facility in Brooklyn, and is available to all NYU faculty and students, and to the academic and tech communities in Brooklyn and beyond. The state-of-the-art facility will allow researchers to make semiconductors that accelerate artificial intelligence advances, power quantum computing, produce new medical devices and develop other innovations that improve people’s lives, and create connected and safe communities.

The NanoFab Lab is led by Associate Professor Davood Shahrjerdi (ECE, NYU WIRELESS, CATT). Shahrjerdi’s work in future materials has earned him a host of honors, including his work improving the efficiency of van der Waals heterostructures, stacked graphene that power computers.

MAKING HEALTHIER

DRUG DELIVERY, REDEFINED

When it comes to delivering drugs to the body, a major challenge is ensuring that they remain in the area they’re treating and continue to deliver their payload accurately. While major strides have been made in delivering drugs, monitoring them is a challenge that often requires invasive procedures like biopsies.

Researchers at NYU Tandon led by Professor Jin Kim Montclare (CBE, SEI), have developed proteins that can assemble themselves into fibers to be used as therapeutic agents for the potential treatments of multiple diseases. These biomaterials can encapsulate and deliver therapeutics for a host of diseases. But while Montclare’s lab has long worked on producing these materials, there was once a challenge that was hard to overcome — how to make sure that these proteins continued to deliver their therapeutics at the correct location in the body for the necessary amount of time.

In a recent study published by the journal American Chemical Society Applied Nanomaterials, her lab was able to create biomaterials that were fluorinated. Thanks to this

fluorination, they can be monitored by simple FMRI scans, allowing medical professionals to ensure that the drugs remain at the treatment areas through non-invasive imaging technology..

The material is made up of natural proteins, but the research team introduced the non-natural amino acid, trifluoroleucine. Because fluorine is rare in the body, it allows the biomaterials to light up like a holiday display when the body is put into an 19FMRI scan.

Montclare’s lab performs groundbreaking research in engineering proteins to mimic nature and, in some cases, work better than nature. She works to customize artificial proteins with the aim of targeting human disorders, drug delivery and tissue regeneration as well as create nanomaterials for electronics. Through the use of chemistry and genetic engineering, she has made contributions to diseases ranging from COVID-19 to osteoarthritis to many more.

This breakthrough uses the same amino acids and proteins that characterize much of Montclare’s research. Because

Collaborating across all disciplines, NYU Tandon has been working at the intersection of engineering, healthcare, and life sciences for decades, and our researchers have the expertise to create next-generation solutions at every scale. From advances in drug delivery to integrating AI to healthcare experiences, we’re advancing the future of healthcare for all.

HEALTHIER BODIES

they are made of organic materials, when these biomaterials have completed their job and delivered therapeutics, the body can break them down without any kind of adverse effects. This separates it from other treatments that use non-organic materials that could cause a severe immune response or other reactions. In combination with the fluorination technique, these materials could provide a treatment for localized diseases that can be far less invasive than current treatments and is far easier and less disruptive to monitor.

In order to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, Montclare and her team focus on the design and development of a novel protein capable of binding to the spike proteins found on the surface of the coronavirus. The goal behind this innovative approach is twofold: first, to identify and recognize the virus for diagnostic purposes, and second, to hinder its ability to infect human cells.

The engineered protein, resembling a structure with five arms, exhibits a unique feature — a hydrophobic pore within its coiled-coil configuration. This feature enables the protein

not only to bind to the virus but also to capture small molecules, such as the antiviral drug Ritonavir.

Ritonavir, already utilized in the treatment of SARS-CoV-2 infections, serves as a logical choice for integration into this protein-based therapeutic. By incorporating Ritonavir into the protein, the researchers aim to enhance the treatment’s efficacy while simultaneously targeting the virus directly.

The study marks a significant advancement in the fight against COVID-19, showcasing a multifaceted approach to combating the virus. Through a combination of protein engineering and computational design, the team has devised a promising strategy that may revolutionize current treatment modalities.

Although the research is still in its early stages, with no human or animal trials conducted as yet, the findings offer a proof of principle for the therapeutic potential of the designed protein. The team has demonstrated its ability to enhance the protein’s binding affinity to the virus spike protein, laying the groundwork for future investigations.

DATA FOR HEALTH HOW CAN OUR SOCIAL SITUATIONS AFFECT OUR WELL-BEING?

Data science methods can help overcome challenges in measuring and analyzing social determinants of health (SDoH), according to a paper published in Lancet Digital Health, helping mitigate the root causes of health inequities that are not fully addressed through health care spending or lifestyle choices.

The paper came out of the NYU-Moi Data Science Social Determinants Training Program (DSSD), a collaboration between New York University, the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, Moi University, and Brown University that is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Through interdisciplinary training at NYU, DSSD aims to build a cohort of data science trainees from Kenya.

Associate Professor Rumi Chunara (CSE, CUSP, VIDA, NYU School of Global Public Health) is a DSSD Program Principal Investigator and wrote the paper with colleagues from DSSD’s collaborating institutions and the NIH.

SDoH are the diverse conditions in people’s environments that affect their health, such as racism and climate. These conditions can negatively impact quality of life and health

outcomes by shaping economic policies, social norms, and other environmental factors that consequently influence individual behaviors. The researchers identified three main challenges

1. SDoH data is hard to measure, especially at multiple levels like individual, community, and national, with racism being one notable example. Data science methods can help capture social determinants of health not easily quantified, like racism or climate impacts, from unstructured data sources including social media, notes, or imagery.

2. SDoH impact health through complex, nonlinear pathways over time. Social factors like income or education are farther removed from health outcomes than medical factors. They affect health through complicated chains of intermediate factors that can also flow back to influence the social factors.

3. It takes a long time, sometimes decades, to observe how SDoH ultimately affect health outcomes.

IDENTIFYING CONCUSSIONS WITH THE HELP OF AI

An artificial intelligence (AI) computer program that processes MRI results can accurately identify changes in brain structure that result from repeated head injury, a new study in student athletes shows. These variations have not been captured by other traditional medical images such as CT scans. The new technology, researchers say, may help design new diagnostic tools to better understand subtle brain injuries that accumulate over time.

Experts have long known about potential risks of concussion among young athletes, particularly for those who play high-contact sports such as football, hockey, and soccer. Evidence is now mounting that repeated head impacts, even if they at first appear mild, may add up over many years and lead to cognitive loss. While advanced MRI identifies microscopic changes in brain structure that result from head trauma, researchers say the scans produce vast amounts of data that are difficult to navigate.

A new study from NYU Tandon and NYU Langone including first author Junbo Chen, a Ph.D. student at Tandon, showed for the first time that the new tool, using an AI technique called machine learning, could accurately distinguish between the brains of male athletes who played contact sports like football versus noncontact sports like track and field. The results linked repeated head impacts with tiny, structural changes in the brains of contact-sport athletes who had not had a concussion diagnosis.

The study involved hundreds of brain images from 36 contact-sport college athletes (mostly football players) and 45 noncontact-sport college athletes (mostly runners and baseball players). The work was meant to clearly link changes detected by the AI tool in the brain scans of football players to head impacts. It builds on a previous study that had identified brain-structure differences in football players, comparing those with and without concussions to athletes who competed in noncontact sports.

Chen used similar artificial intelligence computer programs that process MRI results to show differences in how the brains of men and women are organized at a cellular level. These variations were spotted in white matter, tissue primarily located in the human brain’s innermost layer, which fosters communication between regions.

MODELING THE BRAIN

When Assistant Professor Erdem Varol (CSE, VIDA) arrived at NYU Tandon in 2023 and established his Neuroinformatics Lab, he explained, “Our goal is to find ways of understanding how the brain is wired. How do neurons fire and communicate? How are they connected?”

Those were the exact questions that interested doctoral candidate Alexander Ratzan

Ratzan, whose father is a physician working in public health, had considered pursuing medical school, but he recalibrated during his undergraduate years. In 2021 he earned a bachelor’s degree, magna cum laude, in Cognitive and Brain Science from Tufts University and subsequently accepted a post as a research technician and data analyst at Columbia University’s Irving Medical Center.

Ratzan is now building computational models that will allow for the extraction of useful information from massive datasets compiled via brain scans such as MRIs. “I’m working at the intersection of artificial intelligence and natural intelligence,” he explains. That work is expected to have significant real-world impact since gaining a better understanding of neural data could unlock valuable clues about the causes of conditions like schizophrenia, depression, multiple sclerosis, and Alzheimer’s disease — and lead to more effective treatments.

Ratzan recently received news that he had been selected as a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellow — the first in NYU Tandon’s history.

PREVENTING STROKES WITH LAB

TABLE-TO-BEDSIDE INNOVATIONS

Carotid artery disease occurs when the vessels that deliver blood and oxygen to the brain become clogged, increasing the risk of a stroke. Strokes are now the leading cause of death and disability in the nation, so it’s imperative for physicians to be able to detect problems with blood flow and oxygen levels early on and take steps to correct them.

In mid-2022, personnel from NYU Langone approached the NYU Tandon Future Labs with a proposal. A Langone neurologist who specializes in intensive care after stroke had conceived of a new stent (a small tube used to hold open passages in the body, including narrowed arteries). His proposal was for the stent to both directly monitor and control blood flow to the brain. Unfortunately, the engineering involved in the device as proposed seemed impossible without help from NYU Tandon students.

The Future Labs approached Chair of the Biomedical Engineering department Andreas Hielscher for help. Hielscher had won renown for developing new medical imaging technologies to provide information about the blood and oxygen supply in various tissues — work that had proved especially useful in the care of diabetic patients with peripheral artery disease (PAD). Hielscher was also focused on rapidly moving his discoveries from the lab to patientcare settings — a vital mindset when lives are at stake.

Within 30 days, doctoral candidate Nisha Maheshwari, Research Assistant Professor Alessandro Marone (BME), and others in Hielscher’s lab had

fashioned a version of both the hardware and software elements that would be capable of providing a real-time readout of oxygenation in the carotid artery and invited the neurologist to try it for himself.

Building on that success, a research team led by master’s student Lokesh Sharma called CaroRhythm is developing a flexible dynamic optical spectroscopic system that will noninvasively and non-pharmaceutically monitor and stimulate cerebral blood perfusion. In April 2024, Caro Rhythm triumphed over more than 90 other teams to win both the Grand Prize and the Audience Choice Award in the hotly contested Healthcare and BioMedical Ventures Category of the NYU Entrepreneurs Challenge.

STROKE REHABILITATION AT HOME

For survivors of strokes, which afflict nearly 800,000 Americans each year, regaining fine motor skills like writing and using utensils is critical for recovering independence and quality of life. But getting intensive, frequent rehabilitation therapy can be challenging and expensive.

Now, researchers led by Institute Professor and Director of the Center for Urban Science + Progress Maurizio Porfiri (MAE, BME, CUE), are developing a new technology that could allow stroke patients to undergo rehabilitation exercises at home by tracking their wrist movements through a simple setup: a smartphone strapped to the forearm and a low-cost gaming controller called the Novint Falcon.

The Novint Falcon, a desktop robot typically used for video games, can

The researchers collected data from a healthy subject performing tasks with the Falcon while wearing motion sensors on the forearm and hand to capture the true wrist angle. They then trained an algorithm to predict the wrist angles based on the sensor data and Falcon controller movements.

The resulting algorithm could predict wrist angles with over 90 percent accuracy, a promising initial step toward enabling remote therapy with real-time feedback in the absence of an in-person therapist.

AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION RECOGNIZES YOUNG RESEARCHER’S WORK

Biomedical Engineering Ph.D. student Kate Luu is currently studying vascular cell mechanobiology. She explains that as a person ages, the cells in the blood vessels get stiff and do not contract properly, leading to aneurysm and other heart conditions. “We’re trying to learn exactly why this happens, what factors contribute to it, and whether it can be reversed,” she says.

Her work, which she is conducting under the supervision of Professor Weiqiang Chen (BME, MAE), recently caught the attention of the American Heart Association (AHA). guide users through specific arm motions and track the trajectory of its controller. But it cannot directly measure the angle of the user’s wrist, which is essential data for therapists providing remote rehabilitation.

The organization awarded her a prestigious predoctoral fellowship, aimed at research “broadly related to fulfilling our mission to be a relentless force for a world of longer, healthier lives.” Her research was deemed to be in the top five percent of all the predoctoral proposals the group reviewed this past year, and the two-year fellowship will help Luu to complete her project.

Chen himself was elected as a Fellow of the American Heart Association this year. The FAHA is a recognition “for excellence, innovative and sustained contributions in the areas of scholarship, practice and/ or education, and volunteer service within the AHA/ASA.” Among his recent work, Chen has employed cutting-edge ultrasound tweezers systems to conduct a thorough

analysis of individual vascular smooth muscle cells in abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA). His groundbreaking approach utilized cellular biophysical dynamics to not only understand the physiological differences between healthy and diseased cells, but predict the progression of AAA and assess potential drug effectiveness.

The Novint Falcon, a desktop robot typically used for video games, can guide users through specific arm motions and track the trajectory of its controller.

The brain is the most complex machine in the known universe, so it’s only natural that engineers are looking into it to solve serious societal issues, from PTSD in refugee populations to restoring lost speech.

MAKING HEALTHI

MAKING HEALTHIER MINDS

EVERYDAY PLEASURES CAN IMPROVE BRAIN ACTIVITY

Listening to music and drinking coffee are the sorts of everyday pleasures that can impact a person’s brain activity in ways that improve cognitive performance, including in tasks requiring concentration and memory. That’s a finding of a new NYU Tandon School of Engineering study involving MINDWATCH, a groundbreaking brain-monitoring technology.

Developed over the past six years by Associate Professor Rose Faghih (BME, CUSP), MINDWATCH is an algorithm that analyzes a person’s brain activity from data collected via any wearable device that can monitor electrodermal activity (EDA). This activity reflects changes in electrical conductance triggered by emotional stress, linked to sweat responses.

In a recent MINDWATCH study, subjects wearing skinmonitoring wristbands and brain monitoring headbands completed cognitive tests while listening to music, drinking coffee and sniffing perfumes reflecting their individual preferences. They also completed those tests without any of those stimulants.

The MINDWATCH algorithm revealed that music and coffee measurably altered subjects’ brain arousal, essentially putting them in a physiological “state of mind” that could modulate their performance in the working memory tasks they were performing.

Specifically, MINDWATCH determined the stimulants triggered increased “beta band” brain wave activity, a state associated with peak cognitive performance. Perfume had a modest positive effect as well, suggesting the need for further study.

Ongoing experimentation by the MINDWATCH team will confirm the efficacy of the technology’s ability to monitor brain activity consistently, and the general success of various interventions in modulating that brain activity. Determining a category of generally successful interventions does not mean that any individual person will find it works for them.

IMPROVING MENTAL HEALTH OUTCOMES AMONG REFUGEES

Sheltering in refugee centers can positively impact asylum seekers’ mental health, according to a new study by researchers including Institute Professor and Director of the Center for Urban Science + Progress Maurizio Porfiri (MAE, BME, CUE), underscoring the benefits of providing migrants safe and welcoming transitional environments in which professionals in the host countries monitor their psychological and physical needs.

The study’s aim was to understand the impact of the first contact with the reception system on the mental health of asylum-seekers, and to delve into predictors of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among that population.

Twenty-three percent of asylum-seekers in the study had PTSD — higher than the four to ten percent incidence previously reported among the general global population. Pre-migration traumatic experiences were the key influencers in the the development of PTSD, including the infliction of bodily injury and torture, and witnessing

violence. The study found no specific demographic factors that played a crucial role in predicting PTSD. Social ties and education levels did not emerge as salient features to predict the onset of PTSD.

Despite the incidence of PTSD, the authors also observed that a 14-day stay in reception facilities appeared to positively impact asylum-seekers’ mental health, with the proportion of participants needing to undergo further psychological assessments decreasing from 51 percent to 21 percent throughout the quarantine period.

The study offers a significant step towards understanding the relationship between migration, mental health, and the reception environment. Asylum-seekers, who have already endured tremendous hardship, may find a glimmer of hope in the notion that a supportive and secure environment can significantly contribute to their psychological well-being.

RECONSTRUCTING LOST SPEECH

Losing the ability to speak due to neurological damage can be incredibly isolating. But thanks to recent advancements in technology, there’s hope on the horizon. Scientists have been working on neural speech prostheses, special devices that can help people who have trouble speaking by translating brain activity into speech.

In a recent study published in Nature Machine Intelligence, a team of NYU researchers led by Professor Yao Wang (ECE, BME, NYU WIRELESS, CATT), Associate Professor Adeen Flinker (BME, NYU Grossman School of Medicine) and Tandon ECE Ph.D. student Xupeng Chen presented a significant advancement in the decoding of speech using neural architectures — turning signals recorded from the brain and transforming them into audible speech. Building upon previous research, their work introduces modifications that enhance decoding accuracy across a broader range of voices.

One key innovation lies in the adaptation of neural architectures to accommodate diverse speech patterns. Recent strides in machine learning and Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) systems have propelled the development of neural speech prostheses, offering hope to those affected by speech impairments.

One effective method for gathering data to develop such prostheses involves Electrocorticographic (ECoG) recordings obtained from epilepsy surgery patients. Implanted electrodes provide a rare opportunity to collect cortical data during speech with high precision, leading to promising results in speech decoding. Previously validated on five patients, their updated approach now has been validated on 48 individuals — an order of magnitude larger

than in other similar work, ensuring a more robust and generalized decoding process.

The NYU team’s approach uses a unique speech synthesizer developed in their previous research. This synthesizer translates a series of interpretable speech “parameters” including pitch, frequency, loudness, etc., into natural sounding speech. The developed system leverages neural network architectures to decode neural signals into speech parameters which the synthesizer uses to produce the intended speech.

The team developed an efficient neural network training pipeline that works effectively with limited training data, and compared the efficacy of different neural network architectures. The system can produce speech that is much closer to the actual voice of the study participants — a unique feature of this approach.

Perhaps most intriguing is the discovery regarding the right hemisphere’s contribution to speech decoding. Traditionally the right hemisphere is overshadowed by the left hemisphere, which is predominantly associated with language functions. However, some of the participants had electrodes implanted on only their right hemisphere, providing the researchers no information about the left hemisphere’s activities. Crucially, they were still able to use the information from the right hemisphere to produce accurate speech decoding. Not only does this reveal how speech is processed and produced by the brain across the two hemispheres, it also opens new possibilities for therapeutic interventions, particularly in addressing speech disorders like aphasia, following damage to the left hemisphere.

Researchers at NYU Tandon School of Engineering are probing the frontiers of artificial intelligence, revealing both its extraordinary power and sobering limitations.

Their work spans from leveraging AI to democratize chip design to advancing image manipulation techniques, offering a comprehensive glimpse into AI’s future.

MAKING AI WORK: THE POWER AND LIMITS OF AI

CHIP CHAT

In a groundbreaking development, NYU Tandon researchers led by Hammond Pearce, at the time a NYU Tandon research assistant professor, created the world’s first microchip designed through conversations with an AI language model.

The team used OpenAI’s GPT-4 to author the Verilog code, a hardware description language crucial for explaining digital circuits and systems. The chip, named QTcore-C1, was fabricated by Efabless after winning that company’s AI Generated Open-Source Silicon Design Challenge in June 2023.

“Designing chips is normally time consuming, resource intensive, and dependent on the relatively few people with the necessary technical skills and experience. Chip Chat is groundbreaking because it suggests a different future,” explained Institute Associate Professor Siddharth Garg (ECE, NYU WIRELESS, CCS, CATT) who said the technique could democratize chip design by allowing experts from various fields to bring their ideas to life in silicon, without traditional chip-design training.

The QTcore-C1 chip, fabricated by Efabless, was the world’s first chip to be successfully designed through back-and-forth “Chip Chat” conversations with OpenAI’s GPT-4. Photo credit: Hammond Pearce

ALTERING AGE WITH AI

In the realm of image manipulation, NYU Tandon researchers, led by Associate Professor Chinmay Hegde (CSE, ECE, CCS, VIDA) developed a new AI technique to change a person’s apparent age in images while maintaining their unique identifying features, a step forward for the use of facial recognition software in a range of security settings. Their approach outperformed existing agemodification methods, demonstrating a decrease of up to 44 percent in the rate of incorrect rejections.

These advancements come with cautionary tales, however.

Hegde led another project that exposed significant vulnerabilities in methods meant to make text-toimage AI systems safer.

That study demonstrated how concept erasure methods could be bypassed, allowing the reconstruction of removed concepts, including hate symbols or celebrity likenesses. Hegde warns, “Rendering text-to-image generative AI models incapable of creating bad content requires altering the model training itself, rather than relying on post hoc fixes.”

NYU Tandon researchers led by Institute Associate Professor Siddharth Garg (ECE, NYU WIRELESS, CCS, CATT) have also uncovered potential biases in large language models when used to evaluate job candidates’ resumes. While race and gender didn’t trigger biased results, maternity-related employment gaps showed significant bias in some models. This research highlights the need for careful auditing of AI systems in hiring to prevent discrimination and ensure fairness.

In the field of data security, Assistant Professor Brandon Reagen (ECE, CSE, CCS) is leading research on fully homomorphic encryption (FHE). This advanced cryptographic technique allows users to process encrypted data while it remains encrypted, preserving data privacy throughout the computation process. Reagen and his team are designing specialized hardware accelerators to make FHE practical, promising a new level of data privacy and security.

As these diverse projects at NYU Tandon demonstrate, AI’s trajectory is both exciting and challenging. While it promises to democratize technology and revolutionize various fields, it also presents formidable challenges in ethics, privacy, and security.

The future of AI, as these researchers show, will be defined not just by its capabilities, but by our ability to harness its power responsibly and address its limitations effectively. From chip design to image manipulation, from augmented reality to data security, the work at NYU Tandon is shaping the future of AI, revealing both its immense promise and the pitfalls we must navigate as we advance into this new technological frontier.

YOUR NEXT AI ASSISTANT

As augmented reality (AR) assistants become more sophisticated, a team led by Institute Professor and CoDirector of VIDA Claudio Silva (CSE, CUSP, CATT) is developing new ways to assess and fine-tune their performance.

Among the innovations Silva’s teams introduced this year is ARGUS, a visual analytics tool that enables developers to monitor and analyze AR systems in real-time and retrospectively, helping them improve AI-guided task support in various applications.

“ARGUS is unique in its ability to provide comprehensive real-time monitoring and retrospective analysis of complex multimodal data in the development of systems. Its integration of spatial and temporal visualization tools sets it apart as a solution for improving intelligent assistive AR systems,” explained Silva.

On the heels of ARGUS, a Silva-led team unveiled HuBar, a visualization system to analyze AR training sessions that can process non-linear tasks where different sequences of actions can be successful and integrate multiple data streams, including brain activity and body movements, allowing trainers to gain unprecedented insights into trainees’ cognitive states and performance.

This comprehensive analysis could significantly improve AR-based training across various fields, from pilot instruction to surgical education, by helping tailor those systems to meet the specific needs of the subject.

It can be frightening to think about: we live in a world where dangers seem to lurk at every turn. Cybercriminals capable of sabotaging our energy grid, online disinformation aimed at influencing free and fair elections, easily obtained guns landing in the wrong hands . . . even simply sitting down to work can pose a hazard for employees in aging buildings.

Luckily, NYU Tandon researchers are working hard to protect the world and make it a safer place.

MAKING NEW PROTECTIONS

PROTECTING THE POWER GRID

In a bid to protect the nation’s energy sector against cyber attacks, a team from NYU is creating a digital twin to help weed out threats and fix software and firmware vulnerabilities. If left unchecked, these weaknesses could allow ransomware attacks that could cause severe havoc to critical U.S. energy systems.

Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, the project, dubbed Digital Twin for Security and Code Verification (DISCOVER), leverages a virtual simulation of real-world operational technology systems used in the energy industry, such as industrial control systems and programmable logic controllers. The digital twin allows the team to analyze and evaluate updates to software and firmware even before they are used in actual devices.

The project’s Principal Investigator, Professor Farshad Khorrami (ECE), explains, “Current cyber defenses can’t necessarily catch stealthy malware in critical systems before deployment, potentially leaving a window open for bad actors to access our energy infrastructure. Our digital twin approach aims to shut that window.”

The New York Power Authority (NYPA) and Tandon researchers are also collaborating to help the utility industry digitally monitor large transformers to better detect problems without taking the units out of service.

“Large power transformers are the backbone of electricity systems, designed to operate for decades,” says Professor Francisco de Leon (ECE, CATT). “But unchecked accumulated mechanical deformations triggered by short circuits elsewhere in the system cause expensive repairs, lengthy downtime, and even fire hazards.

Funded by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), the researchers aim to continuously and remotely monitor the voltage and currents of the transformer and send an alarm to the operator when leakage standards are not met — avoiding costly downtime that can cost some $15,000 per day and preventing larger equipment failures that can run up to $1.5 million per incident.

PROTECTING EMERGENCY VEHICLES FROM TRAFFIC JAMS

In a pioneering effort to help provide faster, more equitable life-saving emergency services in areas with high traffic congestion, researchers at NYU Tandon’s USDOT Tier 1 University Transportation Center, C2SMARTER, are using AI to analyze and improve emergency vehicle travel times in partnership with the New York City Fire Department (FDNY).

The year-long project, a first of its kind, involves the creation of another digital twin, this one a virtual model of neighborhood traffic patterns. This virtual

environment will enable C2SMARTER and FDNY researchers to understand the root causes of emergency response delays and test potential solutions before attempting them on actual streets.

This innovative approach aims to reduce FDNY emergency vehicle response times to life-threatening medical emergencies, which have risen to 7 minutes 26 seconds in fiscal year 2023 from 6 minutes and 45 seconds over a 10-year period.

PROTECTING BUILDING FACADES (AND BUILDING OCCUPANTS)

Poorly maintained building envelopes — the outer shell of structures — have long been silent contributors to New York City’s greenhouse gas emissions and quality of life problems, but a groundbreaking project from NYU Tandon is helping change that.

Institute Associate Professor Chen Feng (CUE, MAE, CSE, CUSP) and Associate Professor Semiha Ergan (CUE, CSE, CUSP, SEI, C2SMARTER) are developing AI-driven technology that identifies building envelope leaks through robot and drone scans, offering a cost-effective and efficient alternative to traditional inspections.

“Building envelopes have a significant impact on energy efficiency, occupant comfort, and overall structural integrity,” says Ergan. “Poor air and moisture sealing within these envelopes contribute to worse building emissions and can lead to adverse health outcomes for those who reside within.”

Their innovation will allow practitioners to perform more inspections than traditional methods, significantly reducing time and cost, especially for locations that are not easily accessible.

PROTECTING THE PUBLIC FROM THE DANGERS OF DEEPFAKES

In the evolving landscape of digital manipulation and misinformation, deepfakes (digitally manipulated images or recordings) can have diverse applications in art, science, and industry, but the technology’s potential for malicious use in areas such as disinformation, identity fraud, and harassment has raised concerns about its dangerous implications.

Researchers at NYU Tandon led by Professor Rachel Greenstadt (CSE, CCS) used quantitative and qualitative

analysis to explore online deepfake communities to gain a better understanding of them.

They discovered a complex dynamic in which the predominant discussions lean towards technical intricacies, with many members expressing a commitment to lawful and ethical practices — but the primary content produced or requested being nonconsensual and pornographic deepfakes.

DO YOU NEED PROTECTION FROM YOUR OWN SMART HOME?

Smart homes are becoming increasingly interconnected, comprising an array of consumeroriented Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices ranging from smartphones and smart TVs to virtual assistants and CCTV cameras. These devices have cameras, microphones, and other ways of sensing what is happening in our most private spaces — our homes.

An important question is: can we trust that these devices in our homes are safely handling and protecting the sensitive data they have access to?

Using data from the IoT Inspector developed by Assistant Professor Danny Huang (ECE, CSE, CCS, CUSP), an international group of researchers uncovered a plethora of previously undisclosed security and privacy concerns with actual real-world implications. For example, they found evidence of IoT devices inadvertently exposing unique device names and even household geolocation data — information that can be leveraged, without permission, by advertisers or users of spyware.

The findings underscore the imperative for manufacturers, software developers, IoT and mobile platform operators, and policymakers to take action to enhance the privacy and security guarantees of smart home devices and households. (The research team responsibly disclosed these issues to vulnerable IoT device vendors and to Google’s Android Security Team, already triggering security improvements in some of these products.)

BIOCHEMICAL PROTECTION

In the clandestine world of biochemical warfare, researchers are continuously seeking innovative strategies to counteract lethal agents. Researchers led by Professor Jin Kim Montclare (CBE, SEI) have embarked on a pioneering mission to develop enzymatic defenses against chemical threats, as revealed in a recent study.

The team’s focus lies in crafting enzymes capable of neutralizing notorious warfare agents such as VX, renowned for their swift and devastating effects on the nervous system. Through meticulous computational design, they harnessed the power of enzymes like phosphotesterase (PTE), traditionally adept at detoxifying organophosphates found in pesticides, to target VX agents.

Looking ahead, Montclare’s team aims to optimize enzyme stability and efficacy further, paving the way for practical applications in chemical defense and therapeutics. Their work represents a beacon of hope in the ongoing battle against chemical threats, promising safer and more effective strategies to safeguard lives.

PROTECTION AGAINST FIREARMS DANGERS

Firearm-related harms are a pressing societal problem that imperils America’s health and prosperity. The U.S. leads high-income countries in both firearm homicide and suicide rates, and in most recent years, the number of firearm-related deaths has surpassed that of motor vehicle-related deaths. Institute Professor Maurizio Porfiri (MAE, BME, CUE, CUSP) has been working to advance our fundamental understanding of the causal relationships among contributing factors, such as firearm prevalence, state legislation, media exposure, and perceptions of firearm safety.

His findings on the overall firearms ecosystem often challenge conventional wisdom, suggesting new possible solutions. His team’s investigation into the correlation between mass shootings and firearm sales, for example, found that contrary to popular belief, fear

or protective instincts did not significantly influence gun purchases after mass shootings. Instead, his research identified a strong causal link between media coverage of potential gun regulation and increased firearm sales.

His latest findings are similarly counterintuitive: this year Porfiri published a study that showed that national media coverage of police brutality influences public perceptions of law enforcement more than the performance of people’s local police departments, challenging the assumption that public confidence in police depends mostly on feeling safe from local crime.

The research reveals how deeply a single incident of police violence can rupture public trust in police everywhere and suggests that community dialogue and balanced media coverage could help build understanding between police and the public they serve.

MAKING DYNAMIC EXPERIENCES

NYU TANDON’S INNOVATIONS

ACROSS TECHNOLOGY AND ARTS

Creating dynamic, immersive experiences that bridge technology and human interaction can make engineering innovations accessible to people who may not otherwise reap the benefits.

Through a series of novel initiatives, NYU Tandon is offering new interpretations of how we experience everything from wireless communications to art installations.

In the realm of wireless technology, NYU Tandon’s NYU WIRELESS research center is working to optimize cellular services within the FR3 frequency range.

Professor Sundeep Rangan (ECE), Associate Director of NYU WIRELESS, is leading a team that aims to help optimize cellular services within what’s known as the FR3 frequency range, which covers 7 to 24 GHz and offers a balance between data capacity and coverage.

This work could play a crucial role in the development and improvement of 5G and 6G networks — ultimately providing faster, more reliable wireless communications — enabling new applications in areas such as autonomous vehicles, smart cities, and remote healthcare.

Tandon’s Game Innovation Lab, led by Associate Professor Julian Togelius (CSE), is pushing the boundaries of AIgenerated content.

Researchers there developed an AI system capable of creating The New York Times’ Connections puzzles that rival those made by human experts. This research is significant not only for its demonstration of AI’s creative capabilities but also for its potential to enhance our understanding of human cognition, creativity, and problem-solving processes.

NYU Tandon is also transforming how we experience the past.

Insitute Professor Claudio Silva (CSE, CUSP, CATT, VIDA) led a team that introduced PaleoScan, a low-cost 3D fossil scanner that has already digitized hundreds of fossils in Brazil, democratizing access to paleontological treasures.

This innovative technology is particularly beneficial for museums in resource-poor areas, enabling them to digitize and share their valuable collections with the global scientific community without the need for expensive equipment or specialized expertise. By making rare fossils accessible to researchers worldwide, PaleoScan could accelerate paleontological research and our understanding of Earth’s history.

In a fusion of technology and dance, a project led by Professor Yong Liu (ECE) with colleagues Professor Yao Wang (ECE, BME, NYU WIRELESS, CATT) and Co-Chair of the Department of Technology, Culture and Society and Director of Integrated Design & Media R. Luke DuBois, is reimagining dance education through Point-Cloud Video (PCV) technology.

Collaborating with Mark Morris Dance Group and NYU Tisch’s Dance Department, the team is creating immersive 3D dance content at NYU Tandon @ the Yard. The project introduces innovative compression and streaming techniques that will allow high-quality 3D video to be transmitted over standard internet connections, making it possible for students to view and interact with dance performances from multiple angles on everyday devices.

This technology could transform performing-arts education, making high-quality instruction accessible to students regardless of their geographic location, and providing a potent case study for the power of PCV.

For urban commuters with visual impairments, a team led by Associate Professor John-Ross Rizzo’s (BME, NYU WIRELESS, CUSP, NYU Grossman) developed the Commute Booster app to improve navigation in subway stations. The app uses smartphone cameras to recognize and interpret signage within transit hubs, achieving a 97 percent accuracy rate in identifying relevant signs and providing real-time guidance to users. By enhancing urban mobility for visually impaired individuals, Commute Booster not only improves quality of life but also promotes greater independence and social inclusion. This technology could serve as a model for creating more accessible smart cities, benefiting diverse populations with varying abilities.

By bridging the gap between complex technological advancements and practical, user-friendly applications, NYU Tandon is paving the way for a future where innovation directly translates to improved quality of life and expanded opportunities for learning, communication, and cultural engagement.

John-Ross Rizzo

MAKING SUSTAINABLE

Engineering holds the key to a greener, healthier future, and NYU Tandon engineers are working to develop comprehensive and tangible ways to address the vast array of environmental challenges now facing the world.

Home to a robust Sustainable Engineering Initiative, Tandon is focused on helping society thrive today, while ensuring the well-being of future generations.

IT’S ELECTRIC!

With so many of the items we interact with in our daily lives — from soaps and fertilizers to pharmaceuticals and petrochemicals — deriving from products of the chemical industry, the sector has become a major source of economic activity and employment for many nations, including the United States and China. But as the global demand for chemical products continues to grow, so do the industry’s emissions. These emissions are approaching a tipping point, and the companies responsible for creating these necessary products are increasingly looking at options to help offset their pollution outputs.

A new research organization was recently launched to tackle the most daunting task looming over the industry: How to make industrial chemistry — especially

petrochemistry — greener and more sustainable, partly to meet the escalating demands of these greenhouse emission regulations. The multi-institutional effort is called Decarbonizing Chemical Manufacturing Using Sustainable Electrification, or DC-MUSE, founded at NYU Tandon and directed by Professor André Taylor (CBE, SEI).

“The chemical industry has unique needs, because there are different requirements within the sector,” Taylor has said. “On one side, you have high volume, commodity chemicals that have low margins — products like feed stocks for example. And these are the products that generate most of the greenhouse gas emissions. But then you have specialty chemical companies that work with a little bit more higher end products that are low volume but highly profitable, like

SOCIETIES

drugs and medications. They have the same problem with sustainability, but the solutions are different. That’s what DC-MUSE is addressing.”

Last year, Miguel Modestino (CBE), the inaugural director of the School’s Sustainable Engineering Initiative — recognizing that young entrepreneurs whose work involves chemical processes face enormous burdens, since the wet benches and fume hoods they need are expensive and not readily accessible to most — decided to open his lab facilities to select start-ups.

The latest founder to take him up on that offer is Marissa Beatty, the CEO of Turnover Labs. Beatty was named to the 2024 Forbes “30 under 30” list, and the publication praised

her start-up’s efforts to move the chemical industry away from its reliance on petroleum-based chemical building blocks by providing carbon-neutral alternatives forged out of CO2 and renewable electricity. “Her goal is to build the ‘tractor’ of electrolysis: a system that can perform reliably under harsh conditions, with limited maintenance, for several years,” Forbes explained. “Instead of using the fanciest, highest-performing materials possible, she prioritized longevity and resilience. This approach has yielded electrolyzers that have a 500 percent increase in their lifetime and a 40 percent improvement in energy efficiency.”

She’s set her sights high by designing a system that can scale to consume 10,000 tons of industrially emitted CO2 per year, and with Tandon on her side, that goal seems attainable.

WATER, WATER, EVERYWHERE

NYU Tandon researchers achieved a major breakthrough in Redox Flow Desalination (RFD), an emerging electrochemical technique that can turn seawater into potable drinking water and also store affordable renewable energy. Led by Professor André Taylor (CBE, SEI), the team increased the RFD system’s salt removal rate by approximately 20 percent while lowering its energy demand by optimizing fluid flow rates.

RFD offers multiple benefits. These systems provide a scalable and flexible approach to energy storage, enabling the efficient use of intermittent renewable energy sources such as solar and wind, and also promise an entirely new solution to the global water crisis.

“By seamlessly integrating energy storage and desalination, our vision is to create a sustainable and efficient solution that not only meets the growing demand for freshwater but also champions environmental conservation and renewable energy integration,” Taylor has said.

Ph.D. candidate Luana de Brito Anton is making a splash in the world of water systems. The recipient of a scholarship from the New York Water Environment Association, she studies the light-driven degradation (also known as photodegradation) of pesticides in water — an important phenomenon since using pesticides benefits society by improving crop yields and ensuring food supply yet at the same time causes concerns when agricultural runoff leads to pesticides entering surface waters, where they may pose hazards to aquatic organisms and humans. Her aim is to better understand how pesticides photodegrade in a wide range of environmental and engineered systems and to ultimately harness the power of photodegradation to develop better water-treatment systems using artificial light.

The Venus flower basket sponge, with its delicate glass-like lattice outer skeleton, has long intrigued researchers seeking to explain how this fragile-seeming creature’s body can withstand the harsh conditions of the deep sea where it lives.

Now, new research by an international team that includes Institute Professor Maurizio Porfiri (MAE, BME, CUE, CUSP) reveals yet another engineering feat of this ancient animal’s structure: its ability to filter feed using only the faint ambient currents of the ocean depths, no pumping required. This discovery of natural ‘“zero energy” flow control could help engineers design more efficient chemical reactors, air purification systems, heat exchangers, hydraulic systems, and aerodynamic surfaces.

WASTE NOT

Since the 1950s, the surge in global plastic production has paralleled a concerning rise in plastic waste. In the United States alone, a staggering 35 million tons of plastic waste were generated in 2017, with only a fraction being recycled or combusted, leaving the majority to languish in landfills. Polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a key contributor to plastic waste, particularly from food packaging, poses significant environmental challenges due to its slow decomposition and pollution.

Efforts to tackle this issue have intensified, with researchers exploring innovative solutions such as harnessing the power of microorganisms and enzymes for PET degradation. However, existing enzymes often fall short in terms of efficiency, especially at temperatures conducive to industrial applications.

Enter cutinase, a promising enzyme known for its ability to break down PET effectively. In a recent study, Professor Jin Kim Montclare (CBE, SEI) and her colleagues have presented a novel computational screening workflow utilizing advanced protocols to design multiple variants with improved PET degradation capabilities.

The work underscores the transformative potential of computational screening in enzyme redesign, offering new avenues for addressing plastic pollution.

The e-commerce industry, which has seen remarkable growth over the past decade, experienced an even more accelerated surge in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. This exponential rise in online shopping has triggered a corresponding boom in the parcel delivery sector. However, a glaring gap exists in our understanding of the extensive social and environmental repercussions of this burgeoning industry.

To bridge this knowledge void, NYU Tandon researchers led by Institute Associate Professor Joseph Chow (CUE), the Deputy Director of C2SMARTER, a U.S. Department of Transportation Tier 1 University Transportation Center, have proposed a comprehensive model to study the multifaceted impacts stemming from the parcel delivery surge.

The model incorporates a parcel generation process, ingeniously converting publicly available data into precise figures detailing parcel volumes and delivery destinations. Additionally, a sophisticated continuous approximation model has been meticulously calibrated to gauge the lengths of parcel service routes.

The researchers hope to suggest more sustainable delivery methods, such as eco-friendly cargo bikes, which they predict could precipitate a more than ten percent reduction in vehicle-kilometers traveled, thanks to existing bike-lane infrastructure.

SOMETHING IN THE AIR

A comprehensive study on New York City’s subway air quality has revealed that longer commute times lead to higher exposure to hazardous air pollutants, a problem that disproportionately affects minority and low-income communities who endure more prolonged and frequent travel through the system.

The researchers, who included Professor Masoud Ghandehari (CUE, C2SMARTER) and doctoral alum Shams Azad, modeled subway riders’ typical daily commutes to determine exposure to particulate matter — tiny particles suspended in the air that, when inhaled, can enter the lungs and potentially the bloodstream, causing a range of short- and long-term health complications.

An NYC Air Pollution Exposure Map the researchers created can be used to calculate personal exposure for any origin and destination within New York City, and the public is encouraged to make use of it.

New York State has set a target of 100 percent clean electricity by 2040, and along the way, it aims to create 9,000 megawatts of offshore wind by 2035 — with the necessary transmission infrastructure to ensure continued electric reliability and with much of that power connected directly into NYC.

NYU Tandon is doing its part to make those goals a reality. The School helped to launch the Offshore Wind Innovation Hub, dedicated to identifying and developing promising start-ups to drive new innovations in the offshore wind industry. With the support of Equinor, one of the largest offshore wind developers in the world, and energy giant bp, the Hub recently graduated its first cohort of start-ups, with missions ranging from bringing the installation of offshore wind farms into the digital age with custom-built sensors and software to 3D-printing low-cost, concrete renewableenergy support structures and systems.

MAKING A MODERN CURRICULUM

At NYU Tandon, students are encouraged to think of how they will eventually use the knowledge they acquire to solve real-world problems and forge a solid career path.

That means incorporating more hands-on, experiential learning opportunities, such as Vertically Integrated Projects (see page 60); stressing sustainable practices, along with ethics and responsibility; and encouraging multidisciplinary teamwork — all elements that will allow students to thrive after they graduate

And sometimes it means making shifts — spearheading new courses, responding to industry needs, and ensuring that students become as well-rounded as possible. To that end, in recent years, Tandon has made several innovative enhancements to its offerings, hired exciting new faculty members, and launched new degree programs such as the urban science doctoral track — run under the auspices of Tandon’s Center for Urban Science + Progress (CUSP) and aimed at Ph.D. students from departments across the school who want to approach research in their own fields through an urban-science lens that encompasses sensing, complexity, and informatics — and the flexible, fully-online, “build your own” Master of Science in Emerging Technologies, which allows students to craft their own curriculums to match their professional goals.

The innovation starts well before the graduate level though. Incoming Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Augustin Guibaud is excited to be teaching in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering under the direction of Chair Katsuo Kurabayashi. In the offing is a new undergraduate course. “We’re planning to teach things like heat transfer, propulsion, and friction using toy models called pop-pop boats, so I think that will probably be very popular with students,” Guibaud has predicted.

A NEW FIELD DEMANDS QUANTUM CURRICULAR LEAPS

In the past decade, quantum technology — the use of quantum mechanics to create new devices and applications — has demonstrated remarkable promise with its ability to significantly enhance computing power, enable secure communication, and advance precision measurement.

The demand for people with quantum training and expertise far exceeds availability, however, with research showing only one qualified quantum candidate available for every three quantum job openings.

Tandon recently became one of an extremely select group of American universities offering an undergraduate program in quantum technology, situating it at the forefront of the fast-growing field.

John Di Bartolo, chair of NYU Tandon’s Applied Physics Department, worked with NYU colleagues and professionals from the educational outreach program at SandboxAQ — an enterprise SaaS company providing solutions at the nexus of AI and Quantum technology (AQ) — to create a minor that requires the completion of six courses: Introduction to Quantum Science, Introduction to Quantum Programming, Math Foundations for Quantum Computing, Introduction to the Physics of Quantum Computing, and two related electives. (This past year Tandon welcomed Industry Assistant Professor in Applied Physics Rupak Chatterjee, who will bring his expertise in quantum machine learning to courses for the minor.)

With quantum still a nascent field and the dearth of available education options at the undergraduate level reflecting that, organizers expect a groundswell of interest in learning these skills, similar to the trends in artificial intelligence education we first saw a decade ago.

WHAT IS QUANTUM?

There’s no question that the advent of the computer age represented an enormous leap forward for humankind — and we’ve made incredible technological progress since then: consider, for example, that at the time of the first Moon landing, NASA scientists had less computing power available than most of us literally carry around each day in the form of smartphones. But even in light of those strides, there are simply some problems that classical computers — which use binary digits (bits) with values of 1 or 0 — cannot help us solve.

Take protein folding. If you are going to genetically modify a crop in order to increase its resilience or yield, you need to understand the optimal way proteins interact. This is based on their 3D structure, a result of them folding. But depending on the size of the protein, there are about 3 to the 198th power possible configurations, so a classical computer would take an unimaginable length of time to try them all.

That’s where quantum computing, which employs quantum bits (qubits), comes into play. Qubits have two distinct states just like classical bits, but can also exist in superposition states. A computer using qubits can store enormous amounts of information, process it quickly (a million times faster than classical computers), and save energy while doing so.

SUMMER IN THE CITY

Just because a semester ends at NYU Tandon, it doesn’t mean the Brooklyn Commons isn’t bustling with students, thanks to curricular offerings for everyone from the city’s high schoolers on up.

The youngest aspiring engineers:

This summer, close to 300 New York City middle and high school students will immerse themselves in cutting-edge science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) research and hands-on learning, thanks to NYU Tandon’s free, summer education program, the biggest of its kind in the city.

Since NYU Tandon’s Center for K12 STEM Education launched in 2011, thousands of motivated young people ages 12 to 17 — predominantly from public schools in all five boroughs and reflecting demographic and income groups traditionally underrepresented in STEM fields — have completed rigorous non-credit course tracks covering topics including cybersecurity, urban engineering, sustainability, and noise pollution here.

On the fast track to a financial career:

Master’s students arrive at NYU Tandon’s Department of Finance and Risk Engineering (FRE) with a wide variety of undergraduate backgrounds, but they all have one thing in common: a determination to excel in one of the world’s most competitive industries. It’s fitting, therefore, that they’ve chosen to attend one of the highest-ranked and most-competitive quant programs in the world — one that will require them to be on top of their game and ready to work at a high level.

In order to prepare members of its new cohort, FRE offers an annual Pre-Program Boot Camp, and as the name

implies, its mission is to make sure “recruits” start the official semester with a solid intellectual foundation in such areas as basic finance, linear algebra, probability and statistics, advanced calculus, and computer programming and to introduce them to topics like capital markets and risk management. The two-week in-person summer boot camp, which was led this year by Adjunct Professor Derek Snow (FRE) and Ludovic Tangpi of Princeton, tackles those topics with an emphasis on solving problems that are typically asked in quant interviews, since the top financial firms begin seeking and interviewing potential interns soon after the start of the Fall semester.

A global gathering of grad students:

Graduate students from across the globe convened at CUSP for a three-week summer school dedicated to urban data science. Partnering universities included the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, the Technological University of Uruguay, the University of Lisbon, and the University of Tuscia.

Each week, participants explored cities through a different lens: hydrology, urban metabolism, and thermal conditions. Throughout the program, cross-cutting talks provided visiting faculty as well as those from CUSP with opportunities to present their research and make tangible steps in addressing the challenges our cities are facing.

2024 ARISE Colloquium

DOCTORAL DEGREES WITHOUT BORDERS

Doctoral students at nine New York City metropolitan-area graduate engineering programs can now take courses at each other’s institutions without any additional tuition, as part of a new multischool agreement announced this year.

The Inter-University Engineering Doctoral Consortium, led by NYU Tandon School of Engineering, encourages Ph.D. students to complement their primary program by taking courses of interest offered at different schools, providing access to specialty instruction and expertise that may not be available at their home universities.

The consortium signals the collective dedication of the institutions involved to remove barriers to advanced learning and rigorous scholarship, helping unleash the full potential of all students.

In addition to NYU Tandon, the schools include:

• The City College of New York’s Grove School of Engineering

• Columbia Engineering

• Cornell Tech

• New York Institute of Technology College of Engineering and Computing Sciences

• Princeton University School of Engineering and Applied Science

• Rutgers University School of Engineering

• Stevens Institute of Technology Charles V. Schaefer Jr. School of Engineering and Science

• Stony Brook University College of Engineering and Applied Sciences

RECORD-BREAKING CLASS

NYU Tandon has long been known for its innovative digital learning programs, and this year, Digital Learning celebrated a recordbreaking year. The initiative’s largest graduating class ever, with over 300 students from 31 states and 15 countries, achieved remarkable academic success while navigating diverse careers across industries like finance, tech, and pharmaceuticals.

Boasting an impressive average GPA of 3.73, with a third exceeding a 3.90 GPA and nearly 15 percent maintaining a perfect 4.00, these graduates balanced rigorous online coursework with demanding careers at companies like TIAA, Wells Fargo, Target, and AIG. Their dedication and perseverance are a testament to the power of online education.

WHAT THE “HAQ” IS A HAQATHON?

This year, NYU Tandon’s Department of Applied Physics joined forces with SandboxAQ to hold its firstever “hAQathon” (a name derived from combining AI and quantum), inviting interested students to tackle a sustainability-related problem via quantum computing.

The event — which was preceded by a series of classes that introduced students to the concepts they would need to participate — drew more than 350 applicants, and when the dust settled, “Team Qommute” was declared the first-place winner, with a project focused on quantum algorithms and machine learning to add Citi Bike docks at optimal locations and to implement real-time route optimization for the NYC bus system. This Fall 2024, the Haqathon returned, expanding to include City College New York and Columbia University and becoming the first New York City-based multiuniversity quantum hackathon.

NYU VIP teams clockwise from upper left: High Performance Computing, Concrete Canoe, Robotic Design, iGEM, Steel Bridge, College Students Studying College

VERTICALLY INTEGRATED PROJECTS

At NYU Tandon, engineering education extends far beyond the reaches of the classroom. Tandon’s Vertically Integrated Projects, VIPs for short, are multi-year projects that unite students across a variety of majors toward a common goal — whether that be an annual competition against other universities or innovative research.

This year, there were a total of 44 VIP teams for students to take part in, including five brand new teams as of Fall 2023. These new teams included High Performance Computing; two teams working with the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation; The Future of AI with Coding and Supply Chain Research; Smart Microphysiological System for Precision Medicine; and 6G Wireless.

Concrete Canoe made major waves this year, becoming the first all-freshman team in history to qualify for the ASCE National Competition. But they didn’t stop there, they were also the first team in the world to have produced a zero-cement and meshless concrete canoe. Concrete is the second-most-used material in the world, after water, and eliminating cement from the mix has an enormously positive environmental impact. Replacing traditional mesh reinforcement with PVA fibers also allowed the team to cast the canoe in a single layer, making the finished canoe exceptionally durable and significantly more cost-efficient. This talented rookie cohort ranked third overall in the regional competition and would go on to rank 8th at nationals out of 250+ teams. They’d also claim 6th Place in Project Proposal, 6th Place in Final Product Prototype, 8th Place in Women’s Final Sprints and 8th Place, Co-ed Final Sprints — with the latter two awards helping this team become the first in NYU’s history to place in the top 10 in two race categories.

Concrete Canoe weren’t the only team to make an impression during competition season. Rogue Aerospace earned high marks for their design prowess at the NASA Student Launch Competition, winning Best-Looking Rocket Award and placing 3rd in the STEM Engagement Award categories. iGem was awarded the silver medal for their project, “At-home Iron Level Detection Using Salivary Ferritin” at the 2023 Grand Jamboree in Paris, France. Steel Bridge took home silver overall in their regional competition, as well as 2nd in Construction Economy, 2nd in Construction Speed. and 3rd in Cost Estimation. They’d go on to place 29th overall at nationals, ranking 21st in Construction Economy, 33rd in Construction Speed and 23rd in Cost Estimation. Lastly, the Robotic Design Team set a personal best at the NASA Lunabotics Competition, earning a whopping 391 points, as well as the Systems Engineering Paper Leaps & Bounds Award.

Let’s not forget about Tandon’s research-based VIP teams, who also reached new heights this year. AI for Scientific Research, which is made up of consulting-like teams developing and delivering AI-enabled products of real value to scientific labs; organized and hosted the AI Meets Science Conference this spring. In just 60 days, the team was able to bring together 150+ speakers, panelists, and researchers from NASA, NIST, Princeton University, Cornell Tech, Arizona State University and more.

Six research-based VIP teams also presented papers and posters at conferences this year. This included Everyday Assistive Technology, a collaboration between Tandon, the NYU Ability Project and NYU Dentistry, presenting at the 2024 Association of Computing Machinery Conference; Smart Wearable Bio-Tracker for TeleRehab & TeleMonitoring presenting at the 2024 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA); Flexible AI-enabled Mechatronic Systems Lab (FAMS) presenting at the 2023 IROS Conference; College Students Studying College presenting at the 2023 Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE) Conference; Creating Connections presenting at the 2024 NYU Social impact Conference; and Project Mjolnir presenting at 2023 Autodesk Annual Conference.

NEW FACES AT TANDON

NYU Tandon’s new faculty members are exploring the possibilities of smart buildings, working to make entrepreneurship more inclusive, quantifying the risks of climate change, and a lot more. Whatever their areas of expertise, they share a focus on improving the world — and helping Tandon students do the same.

We asked them what the future might hold for their research, their fields, and the planet.

Industry Assistant

Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

JASPER AINSWORTH

It’s a very exciting time for chemistry - COVID and virtual learning revealed many of the flaws in how chemistry is taught, and there are many ways that we can work to improve students’ understanding. Adapting to students’ needs and making chemistry inclusive to all students is so important to make sure students get a strong foundation in chemistry and feel welcome in STEM.

Industry Assistant Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

PAOLA BARDETTI

We are becoming increasingly aware of just how important the microbiome is to our

health and well-being, so the study of microbiology is vital to the development of new therapeutics and treatments.

Charles S. Baylis Associate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering

AARON BERNSTEIN

While my work is, for the most part, theoretical, and thus not solely focused on practical applications, like all computer scientists, I hope to contribute to making computing faster and more efficient. We’re making enormous progress, and I’d expect that upward trajectory to continue.

Assistant Professor of Civil and Urban Engineering

MOHAMAD AWADA

I envision a future where our built environments seamlessly integrate advanced sensing technologies and AI

to create adaptive, health-optimized spaces that respond to our physical and mental needs in real-time, significantly improving our quality of life.

Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Engineering

EMILY BLACK

Increasingly, rules governing societal decisions are not just made in government but at tech companies and in academia— anywhere where predictive algorithms are created and reasoned about. But these algorithms do not always work in an equitable fashion,

and there are increasingly many headlines as algorithms are used in more and more sensitive places: for example, racially biased healthcare distribution systems, image recognition systems, or tax audit selection systems. While we have a good start with the AI Safety Executive Order and resulting regulatory guidance, as my recent work has shown, there are ways to game the requirements that exist, as well as ways to strengthen current laws that prevent AI discrimination through new interpretations. I would love for our work at NYU to continue to inform effective legislation around preventing AI discrimination.

Computer Science and Engineering Faculty Fellow

NAIREN CAO

Working with parallel algorithms has far-reaching and impactful applications. ChatGPT needs parallel algorithms, and we wouldn’t be able to compare long sequences, like those in DNA, without them. Processing electronic health records, predicting the weather . . . it all involves parallel algorithms.

Industry Assistant Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

CASSANDRA DIAZ-ALLEN

Visual aids like animations and 3D-models are becoming increasingly important in the classroom. Not only are they engaging, but when you’re discussing microscopic processes that you can’t readily replicate for an entire class to see, they become essential tools.

Industry Associate Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

GIUSEPPE MARIA DE PEPPO

Tissue engineering holds the potential to revolutionize medicine

by growing replacement tissues and organs on-demand, and thus to improve the health status and quality of life of millions of people worldwide. Someday, we’ll be able to grow patient-specific bone on-demand and circumvent the complications associated with current treatments for conditions requiring bone reconstruction. This could save the lives of millions of patients, especially kids suffering from devastating bone cancers whose bones are still growing and cannot be treated with alloplastic materials.

Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

AUGUSTIN GUIBAUD

Right now, too few researchers are studying wildfire smoke from generation

to inhalation. We just don’t know enough yet to fashion effective public policy. We can’t always predict with total accuracy how high and far the smoke will travel. We simply don’t know what’s in the smoke once it mixes with air and travels to cities with their own sources of pollution. And we’re only beginning to grasp what its health effects might be, especially on young children, the elderly, and those with pre-existing lung and eye conditions. We’re working on answering those questions.

Industry Assistant Professor of Technology Management and Innovation BERTHA JIMENEZ

I want my students to see how the intersection of technology and inclusivity can open up entrepreneurial possibilities for people of all levels of development, ability and support needs. There are few things as gratifying as seeing a good idea blossom into a thriving enterprise, and I’d like as many people as possible to experience that.

Assistant Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

PAVEL KOTS

Today, the chemical industry faces multiple crises from the, impacts of climate change to supply chain disruptions. To address these challenges industry and the public sector need solution-oriented creative chemical engineers well-equipped with modern tools and a lot of cutting-edge research. I also believe that our efforts should advance a more sustainable circular economy, where waste is reintegrated into the value chain.

quantitative analysis and data science to drive efficiency and innovation in management practices. I’m excited about the potential for interdisciplinary collaboration to create impactful solutions in the business world.

Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Center for Urban Science + Progress

YUKI MIURA

We must urgently address the growing spectrum of urban risks, including climate change. Failure to do so will expose our communities and economies to escalating threats from floods, heatwaves, and other hazards.

Industry Associate Professor of Technology Management and Innovation

SHIZHU LIU

My research and mentoring will continue to focus on leveraging the technologies of

Industry Assistant Professor at the Center for Urban Science + Progress

MANNY PATOLE

We’re educating students who increasingly understand that no issue exists in a silo and that you can’t resolve today’s problems with yesterday’s solutions.

Computer Science and Engineering Faculty Fellow

DISHITA TURAKHIA

With advances in AI and AR/VR, the EDTech field is transforming more profoundly now than ever before and is

projected to be a $40 billion industry in the next decade alone. With such a transformation on the horizon, we want to make sure that we stay focused on human-centered progress and not get carried away by the excitement of technologies.

Computer Science and Engineering Faculty Fellow

NIALL WILLIAMS

If I had to guess about the future of virtual and augmented reality, I would expect there to be a larger focus on using AI to create interfaces and virtual content that can change dynamically to be more compatible with your current physical surroundings. As for computing as a whole, I would not be surprised if other academic departments increasingly started having a computational track for their degrees, for example, computational biology or computational psychology.

Assistant Professor of Finance and Risk Engineering

RENYUAN XU

Stochastic analysis and probability are allowing us to quantify uncertainties and improve individual decision-making in complex financial markets, while AI techniques empower us with fast computation and information acquisition.

Assistant Professor of Finance and Risk Engineering

XIN ZHANG

AI is currently revolutionizing finance, particularly in areas like algorithmic trading. I believe AI will continue to play a crucial

role in developing sophisticated models and strategies. Additionally, mathematical theories such as partial differential equations (PDE) and optimal transport are poised to become increasingly popular for analyzing decision-making within large populations and ensuring the robustness of algorithm design.

AWARDS AND ACHIEVEMENTS

It was a winning year for many members of the NYU Tandon community. The entries here represent just a small sampling of the honors our faculty, students, and alumni have received this past academic year.

TANDON TEACHING AWARDS

Associate Professor Semiha Ergan (CUE, CSE, CUSP, SEI, C2SMARTER) was the recipient of our Inclusive Excellence Award for Faculty, established to honor someone who demonstrates inclusive leadership and manifests the ideals of diversity, belonging, and equity through research and scholarship, creative work, teaching, mentoring, and service.

Assistant Professor Elizabeth Hénaff (TCS, CUSP, SEI, C2SMARTER) was the recipient of this year’s Distinguished Teacher Award, which is bestowed upon someone who has demonstrated sustained excellence in teaching over the past five years and which is considered the premier teaching award at NYU Tandon.

The Jacobs Excellence in Education Award, aimed at recognizing and fostering innovation and excellence in teaching, went to Associate Professor Ludovic Righetti (ECE, MAE, CUSP), in honor of his unwavering commitment to innovation in teaching and development of inclusive and interactional strategies for robotics education.

TANDON RESEARCH AWARDS

The Excellence in Research Award – which is given annually to a senior faculty member in recognition of significant and sustained research accomplishments went to Professor André Taylor (CBE, SEI) for his work on clean electrochemistry; revolutionary photovoltaic systems; low-cost, rapid, rechargeable battery designs; and other renewable energy solutions.

Assistant Professor Qi Sun (CSE, CUSP) is the winner of this year’s Junior Faculty Research Award, presented annually to tenuretrack members of the faculty, in recognition of his work at the intersection of VR/AR and cognitive science to create human-centered wearable optics and computer graphics algorithms, including high-performance, safe, and energyfriendly displays, neural rendering, generative AI, and more.

IMPORTANT NEW TITLES

Zhong-Ping Jiang (ECE, CUE, C2SMARTER) was elevated to the status of Institute Professor, an esteemed title that recognizes exceptional and sustained contributions to our School of Engineering through outstanding research and educational activities.

Chen Feng (CUE, MAE, CSE, CUSP) now holds the title of Institute Associate Professor, an honor given to a newly promoted associate professor in recognition of significant accomplishments in research, teaching, and service, and the expectation that they will become a leader in their field.

OTHER FACULTY RECOGNITION

Professor Juan Pablo Bello (CSE, ECE, CUSP) was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), with the organization citing his “contributions to sound detection and retrieval.”

Professor Weiqiang Chen (BME, MAE) was elected as a Fellow of the American Heart Association in honor of his significant strides towards transformative healthcare solutions for cardiovascular disease and beyond.

Adjunct Professor Frank Corona (CUE) was elected to the College of Fellows of the Construction Management Association of America.

Associate Professor Rose Faghih (BME, CUSP) was the recipient of the IEEE Engineering Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS) Early Career Achievement Award “for pioneering transformative algorithms for next-generation health-aware and brain-aware wearable technologies, enabling inference and dynamic tracking of hidden health and cognitive states to enhance quality of life.” She was presented with the Award at the Society’s 46th Annual International Conference, where she also gave an invited talk about her work at a special session on “Advancing Neural Technologies Through Machine Learning,” discussed her career trajectory at a panel for students and young professionals, and helped facilitate a successful networking event.

Faghih also was the recipient of the prestigious Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA) for Early Stage Investigators by the National Institutes of Health, which singled out her work to create sophisticated algorithms that provide insights into four pivotal health indicators: inflammation, metabolism, fatigue, and interoceptive awareness.

OTHER FACULTY RECOGNITION (CONT.)

Leonard J. Shustek Professor of Computer Science and Department Chair Martín Farach-Colton (CSE) was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for “distinguished contributions to the theory of data structures and their use in computer systems.”

Assistant Professor Magdalena Fuentes (TCS) was recognized by Google’s Award for Inclusion Research (AIR) program, in the category of collective and societycentered AI, for her work to promote an inclusive, multicultural approach to music research.

Professor Nikhil Gupta (MAE, CUE, CCS, SEI) was elevated to senior membership in the National Academy of Inventors based on his creation of “technologies that have brought, or aspire to bring, real impact on the welfare of society,” including a strong yet lightweight syntactic foam that could speed next-generation ships, automobiles, protective gear, and other innovations to market.

Under the leadership of Professor Tom Mazzone (TMI), NYU Tandon’s Industrial Engineering master’s program was named among the top three in the nation.

Institute Professor Guido Gerig (CSE, BME, VIDA) was honored with the MICCAI Enduring Impact Award, a prestigious annual prize bestowed upon senior researchers who have made major contributions to the fields of medical image computing and computer-assisted interventions.

Institute Professor Zhong-Ping Jiang (ECE, CUE, C2SMARTER) was elected to the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, an organization whose mission is to stimulate crossdisciplinary collaboration between reputable scientists of all disciplines, leading artists and practitioners of governance. Additionally, he was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), in recognition of his “seminal contributions to nonlinear small-gain theory and to constructive nonlinear control design for mechanical, information, and biological systems.”

Institute Professor Maurizio Porfiri (MAE, BME, CUE, CUSP) and a team of collaborators received the 2024 Aspen Institute Italia Award for Scientific Research and Cooperation, for their pioneering collaborative study on the structural adaptations of deep-sea sponges.

David Lee/Ernst Weber Professor Theodore (Ted) S. Rappaport (ECE, NYU WIRELESS, CATT) garnered multiple honors over the course of the academic year. In addition to

being inducted into the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Vehicular Technology Society Hall of Fame, he was named one of the world’s most highly cited researchers by Clarivate Analytics, marking the fifth year in a row he has appeared on that annual list, and his “Commercialization of Wireless Technology” project was selected for NYU’s Technology Acceleration & Commercialization (TAC) program.

Assistant Professor Brandon Reagen (ECE, CSE, CCS) has earned an NSF Career Award, one of the most prestigious recognitions for young researchers. Reagan was recognized for working to create hardware and compilers to accelerate privacypreserving computation and keep data protected at all times.

Adjunct Professor David Soukup (TMI) was named a Fellow of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE), an honor akin to a lifetime achievement award in that profession.

Dean Emeritus and Eugene Kleiner Professor of Innovation in Mechanical Engineering Katepalli Sreenivasan has been honored several times this academic year, and his most recent laurels include: a fellowship in Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Honor Society; a research award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation; and the the J.C. Bose Lectureship of the Indian National Science Academy.

Industry Assistant Professor Nialah Wilson-Small (MAE) was named on the Forbes “30 under 30” list, in the science category, for creating algorithms used for human-drone interactions through touch — a development with the potential to expand robotic assistive devices that can be deployed in situations like crowd control, search and rescue, emergency evacuation situations, independent exercise or therapy, and workplace human-drone collaboration.

OUR ALUMNI SUCCESSES

Ursula Burns (Mechanical Engineering ‘80, ‘05, ‘10) was honored by the Arthur W. Page Center for her commitment to ethical communication and leadership.

Three recent alumni from Tandon’s Integrated Design & Media program — Isabella Heron (‘19), Melissa Canavan (‘21), and Christian Hadjigeorgiou (‘22) — took home Sports Emmys from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for their technical contributions to the broadcast of Super Bowl LVIII.

Joe Landolina (Biomedical Engineering, ‘14) was named an Empire BlueCross BlueShield Whole Health Hero; his enterprise, Cresilon, which recently won a second FDA clearance for a revolutionary, plant-based gel that stops severe bleeding immediately, was listed as one of the “Most Innovative Companies” in the world by Fast Company magazine.

Sanjay Macwan (Electrical Engineering ’90, Computer Science ‘92) was named one of 25 Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) to watch by Business Wire.

Sidney Perkowitz (Physics ‘60) was the recipient of the American Institute of Physics Andrew Gemant Award, presented to those who have made significant contributions to the cultural, artistic, or humanistic dimension of physics.

Samer Abdul Samad (Civil Engineering ‘92) was named to the Construction Business News “power list.”

Weijie Wang (Computer Engineering ‘23) had a podium finish in the “Find a Rover” competition sponsored by the Aerial Experimentation and Research Platform for Advanced Wireless (AERPAW) – a challenge that required participants to use a drone outfitted with a softwaredefined radio to pinpoint the signal from an unmanned ground vehicle.

Francheska Wilson (Electrical Engineering ’07), a Director of Operations at Con Edison, was honored as an “Achiever in Industry” by the Harlem YMCA for her contributions to the company’s mission of ensuring safe, reliable service while spearheading the transition to clean energy.

Joe Landolina and his wife, fellow alum Courtney Flood

STUDENT VICTORIES

Ph.D. candidate Luana de Brito Anton was honored by the American Chemical Society for her outstanding efforts and impact in research and safety mentoring.

Ph.D. candidate Caleb Beckwith was named a Fellow of the American Society for Nondestructive Testing, for his study of wave interactions of architecture metamaterials for defect detection and mechanical property measurements.

Ph.D. candidate Karthik Garimella was recently named a “Rising Star” by MLCommons, an AI consortium dedicated to encouraging open collaboration and improving the accuracy, safety, speed and efficiency of AI technologies.

Howard Hong, the president of TechSHRM, the NYU Tandon student chapter of the Society for Human Resource Management, was the recipient of the Sherman Award for leadership and service from the New York City chapter of the national organization. TechSHRM itself garnered an Outstanding Chapter Award, the highest level of recognition a chapter can receive.

Ph.D. candidate Alexander Ratzan was awarded a prestigious National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship for his wide-ranging work with neural data.

Ph.D. candidate Lucas Rosenblatt, who is exploring open questions on data privacy, algorithmic fairness and AI safety, was named an NSF Graduate Research Fellow.

NVIDIA — a leading global supplier of AI hardware and software — has recognized Ph.D. candidate Yiming Li for his work to develop robust, efficient, and scalable computational models for 3D scene-parsing and decisionmaking from high-dimensional sensory input, as well as to curate large-scale datasets to effectively train and verify these models.

Kate Luu, a member of the Department of Biomedical Engineering’s first doctoral cohort, was recently awarded an American Heart Association Fellowship, for her studies of vascular cell mechanobiology.

ON THE COURT

NYU’s women’s basketball team, the Violets, recorded an undefeated 2023-24 season to clinch the Division III Championship, with the help of four engineer-athletes from NYU Tandon. They included Natalie Bruns, who had helped the Violets land in the Elite Eight during the 2022-23 season and who hit the 1,000-points-scored mark as a senior; master’s student Morgan Morrison (eligible to play since the COVID-19 pandemic had upended her undergraduate years); and first-year students Yasmene Clark and Maria Alvarado

NYU’s second-ever NCAA Division III title stands as proof that with enough hard work you can dominate the paint while excelling in the classroom and lab.

Alumna Natalie Bruns, who is returning to pursue a master’s in cybersecurity, represented NYU at the White House in celebration of NCAA 2023 - 2024 National Champions.

TOP TANDON EMPLOYERS

Pilot Technologies

Bank of America

General Dynamics Electric Boat

Intel

NYU Langone Health

Omtou

AECOM

Arcadis

BlackRock

ByteDance

Citi

Civic Tech Structure

DemocracyLab

Expedia Group

Meta Metropolitan Transportation Authority

Mount Sinai Health System

Qualcomm Technologies

Salesforce