Unreal Research for the Real World

The phrase “tier-one research university” can feel like intimidating college jargon. It’s a classification given to institutions that have a high supply and high demand for research opportunities. On the Hill, “tier-one” is a title we’re especially proud of. It means that Tufts offers incredible research resources to its students—especially undergraduate students. Our students and faculty care about doing research that’s socially engaged, generating ideas that improve lives and the world. That “tier-one research university” designation becomes concrete when we look at the numbers: at Tufts, more than 60% of engineering students pursue independent research. And for the Class of 2020, 57% did research with a faculty member. By Chris Panella ’21

Those numbers always surprise me, but I’m more struck by the motivation behind this research; it’s fueled by passion and a desire to make the world a better place. I’m not an engineer, but it is apparent that Tufts engineers work to make themselves, their resources, and their work accessible. To learn more about what it’s like to do research with students, I call Associate Professor Ayse Asatekin.

At the end of her PhD, Asatekin co-founded Clean Membranes, Inc., a start-up company with the goal of commercializing a project she had worked on during her PhD—developing new materials for water filtration membranes. Then, in 2012, she joined the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Tufts. Asatekin’s lab does good work— both morally and evaluatively—that spans from research to thinking about commercial stages for companies. Her group studies the research’s real-world applications, which include “improving the energy efficiency of chemical and pharmaceutical manufacturing” and “designing new plastics that will create controlled properties” for the filters that the lab makes.

This work is impressive—I’m truthfully in awe of how lucky we are to have Asatekin at Tufts—but Asatekin’s connection with students is perhaps the most exciting part. “Research is an excellent way to mentor graduate and undergraduate students,” she says. Her group usually includes four graduate students, two postdoctoral students, and anywhere from two to five undergraduate students. “Being able to mentor them and being able to see them work together is really rewarding,” Asatekin comments, before adding that for some of those students, the skills they learn in the lab and the connections they make can lead to exciting job opportunities.

In Asatekin’s lab, students get involved and take lead on the work. But even outside of working with faculty, Tufts students can pursue independent research, allowing them to focus on their particular passions. To me, no student is a better example of this than Hezekiah Branch ’21.

Branch, who’s majoring in cognitive and brain sciences and double minoring in computer science and engineering management, has completed multiple projects involving data science. “I think about data science as working with information in multiple forms, whatever that may be,” Branch explains to me, “and whatever insights you can draw from it.”

Branch’s first exposure to data science—and the technical aspects of the field—was Dataquest, a coding boot-camp he was involved in during his first year at Tufts. Since then, Branch’s work in the field has ranged from data science internships to a computer science teaching assistant position. In 2018, he founded Code with Hezekiah, a coding boot camp that equips students with design and engineering skills, and in 2019, he co-founded Tufts Black Students in Computer Science, Tufts’ first organization for Black students studying computer science. “It was really good experience not only getting to learn about data science, but also being able to create events and programs,” he confirms.

Ian Jones ‘20 uses data gloves to control a complex audiovisual display, which harnesses the inspiration of synesthesia to model patterns in data.

And this experience continues, even during the summertime. “Right now, I’m working on a mobile app with a team of students through this IBM program,” he says. “It’s looking at streamlining donor processes. It’s really about creating an almost radical, transparent way of seeing where every donor’s dollar is tracked from the funds they contribute.”

But even with so much independent experience already under his belt, Branch still finds time to work with professors on research. “I was able to do research in the Psychology Department on artificial intelligence last year, and I’ll be working in a machine learning lab this fall.” Branch’s work in the lab this fall will directly connect to the School of Engineering’s Master’s in Data Science combined degree program, which Branch was recently accepted into.

Like Branch, many Tufts community members pursue multiple passions— through taking classes and participating in research projects that excite us. The phrase “multiple passions” seems especially relevant for Professor of the Practice James Intriligator.

I call Professor Intriligator—we’re having Zoom connection problems—and ask him about his career history, which includes working with high-tech consulting firms and being a professor of innovation and consumer psychology in Wales (UK). He was brought to Tufts in 2016 to work in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, specifically to become the director of Tufts’ Human Factors Engineering program. “I’m just trying to create more of a community in the program,” he explains. “And to involve more ideas of civic engagement.” Now, with student involvement and plenty of research projects, the program is thriving.

One of Intriligator’s most interesting ventures is a research project focused on an exo-suit. “A student, William Liu, and I got to talking about some ideas about exoskeletons and exo-suits. He started working in my lab and invited some other students, and—long story short—we now have about a dozen students volunteering in the lab,” says Intriligator.

The exo-suit involves soft robotics, which help guide human movement in a way that’s less abrasive and forceful than what we might think of when we imagine an exo-suit. “The idea is that it helps you make gentle adjustments, like making movements on your back when it measures that you’re not sitting up straight,” Intriligator explains. The work is making big progress. “We’ve evolved fairly quickly in the past few months,” he adds, but there’s more work to be done to think about what the exo-suit would look like—Intriligator chuckles that it could be shoulder pads or a “Michael Jackson glove”—and what it would be like on the commercial market.

Intriligator is working on plenty of other projects, as well, like MIDAS (a catchy acronym for Multisensory Interactive Data Analysis System). “My whole life, I’ve had synesthesia,” Intriligator tells me, “and whenever I hear music, I see patterns, colors, and shapes.” It’s the same neurological condition that music artists Lorde and Billie Eilish have. Intriligator’s synesthesia inspired him to think about how to apply these pattern phenomena to data. “I realized that we should be able to make a system that lets people see patterns in data,” he explains.

It’s certainly a cool idea. Intriligator offers examples, like using sounds or colors to show a consumer confidence pattern or a trend in data that we normally wouldn’t see. Now, MIDAS is funded by the Missile Defense Agency, partnered with Triton Systems, and full of students excited to complete research in the project. In addition to these projects, Intriligator has students working on projects ranging from self-driving cars and virtual reality to military cave exploration and collaborative public art works.

These research projects blend interests and areas of study, expanding far beyond the classroom. But I’m still not sure what research inside the classroom looks like for engineers. Is it all related to their specific fields of study? Or is it more interdisciplinary? To learn more, I talk to Becky Lee ’22, a human factors engineering major and engineering management minor. She’s also one of Intriligator’s advisees.

“I’m interested in the potential of human factors engineering in traditional business fields,” Lee explains. This led her to take a class in entrepreneurial marketing, which involved working with professionals from local start-ups and companies. “My group and I worked with S2N (Signal to Noise), a local MedTech business and market strategy consulting firm.” The firm was looking to market their new data analytics tool and wanted to learn what business strategies would work best.

A collection of shapes, diagrams, and colors.

Lee tells me how her group went about this research. They researched the medical technology industry and investigated competitors, their products, and their marketing strategies. It all sounds very Shark Tank to me. “In the end, we were able to fi nd a niche market area for S2N’s product and provide recommendations on how S2N could make their product more competitive,” Lee says. By the end of the project, S2N had congratulated the group on their suggestions and findings. What a fulfilling project! It shows how interdisciplinary research— even in the classroom—can be.

When I think about impactful research, I’m reminded of a class I took. In the fall of 2019, the Experimental College offered The Technology of Space Exploration: From Voyager to Mars 2020, a Robyn Gittleman Graduate Teaching Fellowship course. Taught by Margaret Stevens, a PhD candidate in electrical engineering, the class followed the history of space exploration and examined the technology behind space missions. I’ve always thought space travel was interesting, and the course material certainly didn’t disappoint.

I call Stevens to hear more about her PhD, which she defended in June. Her research occurs at the Renewed Energy and Applied Photonics Lab. “We look at new materials that can be employed in optoelectronic devices,” Stevens explains, “which are devices that interact with light and electricity.” The lab is directed by Professor Thomas Vandervelde, whose research is focused on optoelectronics and photonics. This includes thermophotovoltaics and solar cells—the former is just like the latter, except thermophotovoltaics can be tuned to absorb any heat source. They’re useful, versatile, and applicable for many projects. Stevens’ research is mainly spent understanding how that applies to space power systems, like for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

“My dissertation was focused on developing new materials for thermophotovoltaic radioisotope power systems,” Stevens explains. Radioisotope power systems are directly connected with space travel—they involve using the heat from the natural decay of plutonium-238 for electricity. It’s something Stevens explained well in The Technology of Space Exploration. But her first exposure to renewable energy research, and research in general, came long before her PhD. When Stevens was as an undergraduate, she was involved in solar cell research. “When I was looking at graduate schools, I was really looking to do solar cell research,” she explains, “and when I moved to graduate school, I began looking at materials that could go beyond terrestrial applications.” Her work began to make much more sense in other applications, like space travel.

As a NASA Space Technology Research Fellow and an intern at the US Naval Research Laboratory as well as the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Stevens saw how various technologies were being researched for space exploration applications and commercialization. It led her to think about designing an Experimental College course, which she saw as an amazing way to continue her work. “The opportunity to design and teach my own course is an unparalleled opportunity,” she notes.

Now, after Stevens has defended her dissertation—she chuckles as she calls herself Dr. Stevens—there is an exciting future for her. “I’m definitely looking forward to switching gears and working on something new,” she says. It won’t be the research she’s been doing at Tufts. Rather, Stevens will be at the US Naval Research Laboratory working on lasers and infrared neuro-stimulation. They’re working towards a rehabilitation device for people who suffer from spinal cord injuries. We take a moment to discuss her bittersweet departure. “I’m excited,” she tells me. “But it is really hard to leave a research project I’ve been working on for six years.”

When I finish talking to Stevens, I’m in awe of how expansive these engineering projects are. Researchers at Tufts aren’t driven by any alluring accolade or potential praise. Rather, every single person I talked to was focused on how their work could build something better for the world. For projects like Branch’s coding boot camp, the goals are to create community and teach new skills. In Stevens’ PhD work, the research is all about applicability and the future of energy consumption. And Asatekin’s water filtration work is sociological, ecological, and economic. No matter how you slice it, School of Engineering research takes the enormous resources that come from a “tier-one research university” and gives them to projects that make a difference. While those projects are so forward thinking that they can at times sound imaginary, their impact is real.