A new ASU school set to open in 2026 will offer students the opportunity to earn a combined Doctor of Medicine and medical engineering degree. The programs are designed to provide a curriculum that will give future physicians the ability to work with advanced medical technologies, particularly artificial intelligence, or AI, says Professor Heather Clark, director of the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools, and ASU’s senior associate dean for engineering integration. The school will provide future physicians training to give them the ability to work with AI to help make future medical and health care advances, Clark says. The new state-of-the-art medical school building is set to open in downtown Phoenix in 2028.

ASU has five times the number of engineering students it had 15 years, a jump that to a significant degree has been spurred by the semiconductor industry boom. That growth is reflected locally by the growth of the Taiwan Semiconductor’s Manufacturing Company, a global leader in the industry that along with other companies has invested billions of dollars to establish new operations in the U.S., including in Arizona. The company’s expansive hub in Phoenix is under construction across more than a thousand acres. Such projects, however, are highlighting the challenges of undertaking such exceedingly pricey and large-scale microchip factory projects. Still, advances being made by the semiconductor industry and the robust expansion plans are portending growing career opportunities for engineering students in Arizona and elsewhere. The article was also published in the Seattle Times. 

Investments are being made to finance construction of factories for dozens of companies in the Phoenix area that supply the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and other semiconductor chip makers. To be successful, many local people will need to be effectively educated to perform the necessary skilled factory work. That will require retraining people who have old-school thinking about manufacturing, says Binil Starly, director of the School of Manufacturing Systems and Networks, part of the Fulton Schools. ASU students are already learning to operate fully functioning modern semiconductor fabrication facilities, Starly says. In addition, the Maricopa County Community College system, from which many students transfer to ASU, is expected to create programs to help fill the semiconductor industry’s talent pipeline.

Engineering and related high-tech talent found at the Fulton Schools and elsewhere at ASU has been integral in preparing the EnduroSat satellite company to soon launch its advanced satellites. Two former ASU affiliates, Stan Herasimenka and Mikhail Reginevich, one of whom earned a doctoral degree in electrical and electronics engineering in the Fulton Schools, have started the company. They also started the Solestial company while still in school. At ASU, they utilized resources at the Engineering Research Center and MacroTechnology Works to do work that helped them form the foundation for EnduroSAT. Many of Solestial’s employees are ASU graduates. Herasimenka and Reginevich now hope to see their new company revolutionize energy output in outer space.

Among four ASU faculty members recently bestowed with the prestigious title of Regents Professor, recognizing their contributions to groundbreaking work in various professional fields, is Stephanie Forrest, a professor of computer science in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools and director of ASU’s Biodesign Center for Biocomputation, Security and Society. Forrest is credited for contributing to decades of groundbreaking research in computer science, biology and security, as well  as pioneering accomplishments in computational immunology that essentially transformed the computer security field. Her work has been especially noted as a model to guide ASU’s aspirations to provide research that best serves society’s needs.

A collaboration of the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, and experts connected to ASU’s Cybersecurity and Trusted Foundations, or CTF, organization, aims to find ways to more effectively anticipate cybersecurity risks and devise stronger defenses against cyberattacks. Fulton Schools Professor Gail-Joon Ahn, founding director of ASU’s Security Engineering for Future Computing lab, and Associate Professor Adam Doupé, director of CTF, are among leaders of projects that will also enable students to be involved in research. Arvind Sriram Raj, a Fulton Schools computer science doctoral student and researcher in Ahn’s lab, says researchers plan to alert computer programming developers about problems so they can help find ways to better fend off cyberattacks. 

The expanding operations of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or TSMC, in Arizona are boosting the state’s economic outlook. ASU’s significant output of new engineering talent that has been contributing significantly to boosting state’s semiconductor ecosystem is recognized as providing a key wellspring of talent needed to fulfill the company’s aspirations for continued robust growth. In an extensive interview about the company’s strategy for the future, the president of TSMC Arizona notes that ASU, with the largest enrollment of engineering students among U.S. universities, is a major source of the expertise the company will continue to rely on to meet the constant challenges of the global semiconductor industry.

Among the 20 winners of the 2025 global Digital Green Talent Award is Adesola Adegoke (pictured at right), a graduate research associate in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools. The award program is an annual initiative of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research to recognize outstanding young researchers whose work is applying innovations in digitalization to advance environmental sustainability. Adegoke is being recognized for his research on the use of fungi, specifically Mycelium, to enhance sustainable environmental efforts. He is focusing on ways to reduce the significant amount of harmful global carbon dioxide emissions produced by current construction industry practices.

Brad Allenby, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, whose expertise includes geopolitics, the implications of emerging military technologies and military ethics, has cast doubt on the legality of any punishment of Arizona’s Democratic Senator Mark Kelly, a U.S. Navy veteran, for his statements about the rights of members of the military to refuse to obey illegal orders. On social media, President Donald Trump has accused Kelly of seditious behavior and said the federal government might recall Kelly to active duty so he could be tried in a military court. The debate over this issue was also explored in an earlier Arizona Republic article in which Allenby is also quoted.

Pipelines that transport natural gas, crude oil and refined fuels are critical to keeping modern society running productively. But as underground infrastructure ages, it poses serious dangers. These threats are being addressed through work powered by artificial intelligence, or AI, technology, and soft, flexible inspection robots capable of navigating pipes to understand how pipelines fail and other technologies to help anticipate problems before they occur. Contributors include Fulton Schools faculty members Yongming Liu in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, Hai Yan in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence and Wenlong Zhang, in the School of Manufacturing Systems and Networks, along with Hanna Breetz, an associate professor in ASU’s School of Sustainability.

A new Semiconductor Ecosystem Master Class developed by Fulton Schools educators is providing 21 faculty and professionals in Thailand an intensive overview of design, fabrication, packaging, testing, and global supply chain strategies being used in the semiconductor industry. It is equipping teachers with knowledge to bring that expertise to Thai institutions. The ASU and Kingdom of Thailand partnership aims to foster a robust ecosystem for microelectronics education, research, and workforce training promising to bring thousands of highly skilled engineers and technicians into the global talent pool. The ASU-Thailand semiconductor workforce development collaboration is expected to also be catalyst for future innovation in artificial intelligence and advanced electronics.

See also: ASU and Thailand advance semiconductor collaboration through workforce development initiatives, ASU News

The Engineering & Design Institute London (or TEDI-London), co-created by ASU four years ago, has set the stage for ASU London, which will incorporate TEDI-London’s project-based engineering programs alongside new offerings of related degrees. Students will study within the global culture of London, guided by U.K.-based faculty in collaboration with faculty from the Fulton Schools, as well as ASU’s W. P. Carey School of Business. Collaborations will offer engineering and business students opportunities to engage in entrepreneurial endeavors to help fulfill ASU’s commitment to preparing students for careers as global citizens who can bridge cultural perspectives, work across borders and contribute solutions to major societal challenges.

See also: ASU London’ campus launches; now enrolling for fall 2026, Arizona Family (Channel 3 CBS News-Arizona)
Updated report: Arizona State University launches independent program overseas in London (Channel 3 CBS News-Arizona)
ASU launches new London institution, available to students across the globe, Arizona Republic
ASU launches ASU London offering 2 international degrees, KJZZ News (NPR)
Arizona State University launches ASU London, bringing global reputation for innovation to the UK, London Post
Arizona State University launches ASU London, THE PIE (London)
ASU expands global reach with ASU London, set to open in Fall 2026, The State Press
ASU launches ASU London as U.K.-accredited institution offering dual-degree pathways, ETIH (Ed Tech Innovation Hub)

Experts in the Fulton Schools are collaborating with peers in ASU’s Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory to help communities in three Arizona counties develop collaborations to provide secure and sustainable groundwater supplies to ensure a stable future for these vital resources. Community leaders, researchers, industry representatives, environmental and hydrology experts and others joined in a workshop in the Arizona town of Patagonia to examine water security challenges and potential long-term solutions with leaders of local groups focused on the resource management, restoration and conservation. 

Opportunities in the field of forensic science are projected to see a significant spike in the next decade. With the expected growth in employment already beginning to emerge, ASU has opened a school that will focus on education in the use of the expanding applications of forensics in many fields. The new School of Interdisciplinary Forensics plans to partner with other ASU schools and colleges, including the Fulton Schools, which will focus on educating students in designing and validating analytical instruments, digital imaging systems and AI-enabled forensic tools.

Researchers are seeking ways to enable distinguishing between human speech and AI-generated speech –– especially when not knowing the difference can pose serious danger. Among those efforts is work led by Visar Berisha, the Fulton Schools associate dean of research and commercialization, involving utilization of radar and microphone sensing to enable discerning between human speech and voices created by AI. A presentation on the project was made at the recent Proof of Presence: Grounding Media in the Human Body in the Age of AI seminar. Finding a solution is necessary to diminish serious threats posed by AI deepfakes to financial information, corporate security and related fraudulent activities that can affect even media communications and the arts.

AirJoule Technologies Corporation, an atmospheric renewable energy and water harvesting technology company, recently won a competition sponsored by the Net Zero Innovation Hub for Data Centers, a consortium founded by Google, Microsoft and other major tech companies. The achievement is seen as validating Airjoule’s technology as a promising tool for ensuring the sustainability of data center operations. Airjoule’s new system has been delivered to ASU’s Global Center for Water Technology, a leading atmospheric water harvesting research institution directed by Paul Westerhoff, a professor in School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools. The center will conduct research on AirJoule’s performance and potential applications for industrial operations in the Southwest. 

Students in ASU’s Theme Park Engineering and Design Club are applying what they’ve been learning in their classes in ventures such as a Ride Engineering Competition that has drawn more than 220 students from 21 universities. Vidhi Dharnidharka, a mechanical engineering student in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools, manages the club’s funding and travel expenses and helps to secure materials and equipment. Fellow mechanical engineering student Arial Antonini notes how club members learned new skills as they designed the team’s roller coaster for the competition. Such opportunities outside the classroom are providing students hands-on technical education as well as experience in developing and managing creative collaborative efforts.

Hundreds of millions of people rely on a virtual private network, or VPN, app to guard their data, but there’s cause for concern about breaches of the defenses set up to protect users’ data on the app. Benjamin Mixon-Baca, a computer science doctoral student in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering  has helped to expose ways information on the app can be revealed and shared. His paper, coauthored by Jedidiah Crandall, a Fulton Schools associate professor of computer science and engineering, and Jeffrey Knockel of Citizen Lab, details those security failures. Mixon-Baca applied skills he learned in school’s doctoral program to expose the threat to VPNs, Crandall says. An earlier version was posted on Full Circle, the Fulton Schools’ website news page. 

At the recent Manufacturing Day event, Professor Binil Starly, director of the School of Manufacturing Systems and Networks, gave high school students a primer on the manufacturing field and the career opportunities it could provide for future engineers and others in STEM fields. The event was presented by Access ASU, ASU Career Services, the Arizona Manufacturing Extension Partnership and the Arizona Department of Education on ASU’s Polytechnic campus, which has a new state-of-the-art manufacturing hub. Starly took the students on a tour of the facility, the ISTB12 building, where ASU students are working on complex manufacturing projects and taking interdisciplinary science courses.

Fulton Schools students Megan Duncan and Tamara Grujicic have been nominated for a prestigious postgraduate award for science, mathematics and engineering studies. They are among only 16 graduates from U.S. universities selected for the scholarship that funds a year of master’s studies engineering, the sciences and mathematics at the prestigious University of Cambridge in England. Duncan, a student in the Fulton Schools materials science and engineering program, plans to pursue an advanced degree in materials science and metallurgy. Grujicic, a student in the computer science program, will pursue an advanced degree in her field. The director of the organization announcing the scholarship awards describes Duncan and Grujicic as outstanding scholars who can be expected to drive innovation.      

Sai Prakash Maddineni and Yujian Huang, graduate students in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools, and research assistants in ASU’s Semiconductor Device Research Laboratory, are using artificial intelligence, or AI, machine learning and resistive random access memory, or RRAM, technologies to help develop ways of advancing semiconductor manufacturing and brain-inspired computing. The lab is also working to understand how similarities between the human synapse and RRAM technologies can be implemented into neuromorphic computing, which is inspired by human brain functions. They foresee the research leading to environmental benefits, bolstering the computer industry and reducing resource consumption, among other advances.

ASU is noted for progress in developing and graduating a strong pipeline of talented students prepared to meet a growing demand for new engineers and technicians in the resurgent and fast-evolving semiconductor industry in the U.S. Arizona overall is credited for being a prime example of how a collaborative ecosystem of government, industry, and academia can bring transformative change in major industries. The state is seen as playing a major role in the resurgence of American semiconductor manufacturing, providing a pivotal moment in the nation’s industrial history. After decades of offshoring operations, there’s an evolving trend of bringing semiconductor chip fabrication back to the U.S.

See also: Greater Phoenix Intelligence Report: Semiconductors: Where the Action Is, SITE SELECTION
ASU is noted for rising to the rank of the university with the a largest engineering school in the U.S. and partnering with a major industry organization to expand access to high-impact, on-demand training for the global semiconductor workforce.

The profuse sweating people experience in conditions of extreme heat — such as in Arizona’s desert climate — may be uncomfortable, but the salty sweat is a sign that nature’s way is at work to help protect our skin from those persistently hot conditions. The report links to a recent ASU News article looking at work led by Konrad Rykaczewski, an associate professor in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools, that explores  the biology of perspiration. One of the main goals for this research is to eventually find ways to help the human body be more comfortable on those 110-degree days. A wearable “heat suit” has been developed to aid the project.

The power of the photon is being applied to accelerate artificial intelligence, or AI, modeling as well as advanced infrared detection in research at the ScopeX Lab, directed by Jiaqi Gu, an assistant professor in the  School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools, and by the Yao Group, led by Yu Yao, an associate professor in the school. Researchers are demonstrating how the power of light can boost infrared sensing capabilities to see wavelengths undetectable to the human eye. The endeavor is expected to pave the way for improvements in medical imaging and diagnosis, as well as for detection of defects on surface of materials.

Combining expertise in genetics, synthetic biology, metabolic engineering and related fields, a team of ASU researchers has developed a new way to build more effective and reliable living systems that can be used to create more stable cell factories and develop new medical applications. Their progress provides a new design principle for researchers to ensure engineered cells work more consistently, says Xiaojun Tian, an associate professor in the in the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools. For the project, Tian teamed with David Nielsen, a professor in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools, and  Wenwei Zheng, an associate professor in ASU’s School of Applied Sciences and Art.

Robotics and artificial intelligence, or AI, advances are expanding possibilities to boost the beneficial capabilities of science and engineering and the technologies they help to create. At the same time, experts warn that ways are needed to prevent accidents caused by  machines equipped with AI from developing built-in biases, especially if those biases impact humans negatively. Those challenges are being addressed by Ransalu Senanayake (pictured), an assistant professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, and director of ASU’s Laboratory for Learning Evaluation and Naturalization of Systems. He says such smart technologies can be vulnerable to a kind of hallucination we must learn to guard ourselves against.

A news outlet focusing on defense, geopolitics, military affairs, science and technology issues reports on a study coauthored by Professor Stephanie Forrest and Assistant Professor Joshua J. Daymude in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, along with University of Michigan political scientist Robert Axelrod. They have developed a mathematical model illuminating decisions faced by individuals on whether to express dissent or remain silent when faced with potential retribution from authoritarian leaders. Their study presents a framework to understand variables influencing self-censorship and dissent in an era characterized by advanced surveillance technologies and social media.

Advances in the capabilities of artificial intelligence, or AI, technology are being made by leaps and bounds, resulting in hundreds of billions of dollars of investments in development of AI tools. At the same time, experts warn that AI is not flawless. In fact, they say AI technologies are falling prey to certain kinds of high-tech hallucinations. Subbarao Kambhampati, a professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, and other leading AI researchers talk about the complicated challenge of fixing the problem while still maintaining AI’s value. Some say the solution lies in a big change in how AI is trained.

How to stay cool in the summer? Learn to use the advancing capabilities of artificial intelligence, or AI, technology. That’s the advice from Hua Wei, an assistant professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools. On the Nation Public Radio outlet KJZZ’s “The Show” and its “Throwing Shade” series, Wei goes into detail about the ways people can strategize to protect themselves from long, uncomfortable and potential damaging exposure to extreme heat from the sun. AI is being used to construct 3D simulations of specific environments as a guide to effectively avoiding outdoor hot spots and generating shade.

Solar energy technology is undergoing innovative transformations that are increasing its productiveness and broadening the outlook for solar power sources to contribute to efforts to expand clean energy systems. Among these advances are hydropanels that capture solar energy combined with systems that extract water vapor from the air and turn it into clean water. The technology developed by Cody Friesen, an associate professor in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools, is being commercialized by major companies and backed by major investors. Such advances are viewed as providing future solutions for disadvantaged communities striving to develop and maintain sustainable vital resources.

Colleges and universities typically put engineering programs focused on manufacturing within mechanical engineering or industrial engineering programs. But ASU and the Fulton Schools gave that branch of engineering an equal place in the spotlight with the establishment several years ago of the ASU Interdisciplinary Science and Technology Building 12 on the ASU Polytechnic campus. That project convinced Binil Starly to become director of the School of Manufacturing Systems and Networks, headquartered on the campus. The building is now home to a new campus learning and innovation space designed to serve both students and the local community. ASU President Michael Crow says the facility will help give Arizona one of the most advanced manufacturing schools.

See also: Interdisciplinary Science and Technology Building 12 opens on Polytechnic campus, The State Press
New manufacturing school at ASU aims to revolutionize industry training with ISTB12 building, Phoenix Business Journal
State-of-the-art science and technology building opens at ASU’s Polytechnic campus in Mesa, KTAR News
ASU completes $185 million ISTB 12 in ASU Polytechnic Innovation Zone, AZ Big Media

The Tributary company, launched by Enrique Vivoni, a professor of hydro systems engineering in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, is helping communities measure water benefits provided by forest management. Vivoni, director of ASU’s Center for Hydrologic Innovations, is teaming with Zhaocheng Wang, a research scientist in the same school, and Josh Cederstrom, a graduate associate in ASU’s School of Earth and Space Exploration, to make rigorous science useful for water utilities and systems managers. The goal is to translate science knowledge, discoveries and engineering advances into guidelines to help water systems managers fulfill their mission to maintain healthy water environments.

See also: Bone-dry soil can trigger ‘drought heat wave’ events a nation away, ASU News
Arizona-based Tributary turns decades of hydrology research into tools for utilities, Phoenix Business Journal

Ysabella McAuliffe, a Fulton Schools student studying aerospace engineering who works in ASU’s Interplanetary Lab is among contributors to a satellite project designed to learn more about ultraviolet light from distant stars as part of a larger endeavor to  assess possibilities for the habitability of exoplanets. Balancing her coursework with a multimillion-dollar space project, McCauliffe says the endeavor has been especially rewarding because of opportunities to work closely with other engineers as the spacecraft went through the process of being assembled and tested to produce a final product that is scheduled to launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rideshare mission sometime in the next year. 

For what is described as the first AI-powered platform for home inspectors, the Phoenix-based Binsr Inspect company has raised more capital to launch what is described as the first artificial intelligence, or AI, platform for home inspectors. The platform uses AI for inspector onboarding data migration, voice and video for report building, digital agreements and payments, repair estimates for agents and appliance analytics for homeowners One of its co-founders is Aryash Dubey, a computer science student in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, who will provide technical leadership for the company.

The emergency medicine physician and health entrepreneur for whom ASU’s new John Shufeldt School of Medicine and Medical Engineering has been named prepared for his career in part by completing the Six Sigma Black Belt Training for Industry Professionals offered through the Fulton Schools Global Outreach and Extended Education program. The founder of the NextCare urgent care company, which has 60 facilities, Shufeldt has also founded other health care ventures. Along with its with primary clinical affiliate HonorHealth, the new ASU school will train students to blend studies in various disciplines, primarily medicine, engineering, technology and humanities, to prepare future health care leaders to be innovators and problem-solvers.

See also: 9-figure gift from John Shufeldt gives ASU medical school a new name, AZ Big Media

Two of the four ASU faculty members recently honored with the prestigious ASU President’s Professor title are Fulton Schools teachers and researchers. K. Selçuk Canden, a professor of computer science and engineering in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence and Sarah Stabenfeldt , a professor in the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering, have earned the designation to honor the innovation and inspiration they inspire through their  teaching, as well as research and scholarly innovations. Stabenfeldt does research in regenerative medicine strategies for acute neural injury. Candan is doing pioneering work in managing and analyzing large, complex datasets, ranging from multimedia and web content to scientific research data and medical records.

Recent federal funding cuts have stalled projects such as an ASU semiconductor advanced packaging and prototyping facility. Graduate student Carson Gockley , a process engineer at ASU NanoFab, and undergraduate Alex Stephenson, co-president of the Sun Devil Semiconductor Club, both students in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools, comment about the potentially troubling impacts of the funding cuts but also how students, schools and ASU leaders are pushing forward despite the cutbacks and note how Arizona’s semiconductor industry momentum remains strong.

Work on a microchip able to update electronic devices without having to completely replace those devices is being advanced in research led at ASU by Daniel Bliss, a professor in the in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools, and director of the Center for Wireless Information Systems and Computational Architectures. The chip project called DASH, part of the U.S. Defense Advance Research Project’s Administration’s Doman-Specific System on Chip program, is expected to produce wide-ranging advances, including improved radio systems and communications devices and a reduction in the need for costly technology systems updates. A spin-out company formed by Bliss will help to commercialize the new technology.

The Fulton Schools has been at the forefront of ASU’s commitment to establishing itself as “global university” that is welcoming to qualified students from around the world. Fulfilling that mission has become challenging in recent years due in large part to divisive political issues that have decreased the numbers of new foreign students in the U.S. The friction has led to various limitations on the granting of visas and shorter time limits on granted visas. Despite the trend of politization of international students, ASU — particularly the Fulton Schools — has remained steadfast in casting a global net for talent. “Engineering is global” says Kyle Squires, dean of the Fulton Schools, in which more than three-quarters of resident graduate students are international students.

Picking up an article from the Fulton Schools website’s news section, Space Daily reports on research aimed at preventing the damage caused by large communities of bacteria, known as biofilms, that grow in water systems on Earth and in space. Paul Westerhoff, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, is leading a multi-university effort looking at using cost-effective ultraviolet light as a safer alternative to disinfecting chemicals in ways that prevent biofilm growth. The research team’s Germicidal Ultraviolet Light Biofilm Inhibition experiment is among projects recently launched on a NASA  mission to the International Space Station.

ASU’s Bermuda Tuition Scholarship is helping undergraduate students from the British island territory of Bermuda in the northern Atlantic Ocean broaden their higher education hopes and possibilities. Four of the students who most recently came to ASU with support from the scholarship talk about how the opportunity is enriching their education and their aspirations for future careers. Among them is 18-year-old Ben Redburn, who is pursuing a degree in aeronautical management in The Polytechnic School, part of the Fulton Schools, with plans to become a professional pilot.

While artificial intelligence, or AI, technology is raising hopes that it can improve health care, research raises concern about AI’s abilities to provide accurate diagnoses of patients’ conditions and provide the best treatment options, says Bradley Greger, an associate professor in the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools. AI is helping medical professionals more speedily wade through the vast data that provides them a framework for making health care decisions, but the technology can sometimes also present the risk of inherent biases that could misguide treatment, Greger says. He and other experts stress that human insight is crucial in assessing what AI produces.

Ventures springing from work led by two Fulton Schools faculty members are among award finalists for the upcoming 2025 Governor’s Celebration of Innovation, which honors Arizona’s leading innovators, entrepreneurs and business leaders. Crystal Sonic, Inc., which sprung from work led by Mariana Bertoni, a professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering and director of Defect Lab at ASU, is a finalist for the spinout award. Enkoat, which emerged from the lab of Narayanan Neithalath, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, is also a finalist for the award. Both ventures are nominated for the Innovator of the Year award in the Small Company category. Read more about Crystal Sonic and Enkoat. 

A growing need to prevent water scarcity already threatening many communities around the world, including in the United States, has spurred researchers to focus on developing solutions to current water shortages and preventing their proliferation into severe crises. One such endeavor is decribed in a recent research paper co-authored by Claire Cropper, a graduate research associate in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, and Lee Voth-Gaeddert, a research professor in ASU’s Biodesign Institute. Their work is noted in this article about development of a 3D-printing device developed to help overcome water insecurity. More about their endeavors is detailed in an earlier ASU News article.

Recent data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency raises concerns about the harm that could be caused by contaminants being found in drinking water systems in many states. According to the agency’s data, carcinogenic chemicals — substances known or suspected to cause cancer — are in water that millions of people are drinking. Paul Westerhoff, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, says various water utilities throughout the country have different water sampling practices and states have different reporting requirements, both of which could hamper maintaining timely and accurate data and instituting needed water safety regulatory efforts.

ASU and the Applied Materials company officially opened the $270 million Materials-to-Fab Center facility in the MacroTechnology Works at the ASU Research Park. Seth Tongay, a professor in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools, noting the center is designed to keep great ideas from stalling, says the new center will ensure new discoveries will result in impactful manufacturing technologies. ASU’s record of propelling innovation in advanced materials engineering and the Fulton Schools, with the largest number of engineering students in any school in the nation, are seen as valuable contributors to boosting the future of materials-to-fab innovation.

See also: Applied Materials, ASU open $270M East Valley chip research center, Phoenix Business Journal

A decade ago, Associate Professor Laura Hosman challenged her engineering students to create a device to provide a solar-powered library small enough to fit into a backpack. Made of recycled material, the device provides a Wi-Fi hot spot that needs no electricity or internet connection for users to download content to a smartphone, tablet or laptop. More than 600 of the devices have been deployed. Hosman, whose faculty appointments include a position in the The Polytechnic School, part of the Fulton Schools, and technology adviser Bruce Baikie, an ASU adjunct faculty member, co-direct SolarSPell, which is working with numerous libraries and people in Arizona, Ethiopia, on the Hopi Reservation and with Peace Corps volunteers, among others, using SolarSpell to curate vast amounts of information customized for each group.

See also: This library device created by ASU professors, students named one of TIME’s 2025 Best Inventions, KJZZ News

A recent study published in Geophysical Research Letters predicted that as climate change continues, droughts that bring hotter weather will be more likely to spread across vast distances from country to neighboring country. Enrique Vivoni, a professor of in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, and the director of ASU’s Center for Hydrologic Innovations, says more places will be seeing dry soil conditions that cause and spread drought. To prepare for dealing with the trend, Vivoni recommends developing systems to alert countries to conditions likely to cause drought that are similar to systems now used to alert us to hurricanes.

See also: Parched soils can spark drought a nation away, American Geophysical Union Newsroom
Parched soils can spark hot drought a nation away, Maven’s Notebook
Dry soils in Mexico trigger extreme ‘hot droughts’ across the Southwest, earth.com

Research continues to raise alarm about the impacts of the microplastics to which many people have become widely exposed. The tiny plastic particles that are in the air, water, food and many common materials and objects are more prevalent than ever. The nearly continuous exposure to microplastics is a growing and potentially serious risk to human health, say experts such as Rolf Halden, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools. Halden, director of ASU’s Biodesign Institute Center for Environmental Health Engineering, stresses the need for public education to inform people how to reduce their exposure to the threatening microparticles.

Using artificial intelligence, or AI, technology, effective ways for people to protect themselves from extreme heat have been developed by a team of researchers led by Hua Wei, an assistant professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools. Among them is a shade routing tool that works somewhat like Google Maps. Instead of simply providing a map to the best route from one place to another, it enables mapping a route that will provide the most shade. Another tool is DeepShade, which can predict where shade might provide protection in specific locales. There are plans to collaborate with state government agencies in Arizona to test these shade finding tools.

Health care services are clearly benefiting from the use of artificial intelligence, or AI, technology. But at the same time, some notable drawbacks are emerging that point to AI systems’ current shortcomings. These systems are helping to overcome some bureaucratic drawbacks on the business side of operations and giving patients more time with health care providers. On the downside, research has found that AI can have biases when analyzing conditions to diagnosis patients’ conditions. Bradley Greger, an associate professor in the the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools, talks about the complicated technical factors that can lead to “super-biased AI.” Researchers are working on ways to overcome the inbred bias factor.

See also: AI reshapes health care but adopts bias, Arizona Daily Star (Tucson)

How long before one of the most coveted awards in science is given to an accomplishment by artificial intelligence or AI, technology? Some are skeptical but many foresee it as almost inevitable that AI will be credited for making science and engineering breakthroughs. Others say AI has limitations that inhibit it from being the sole creator of original technological advances. Subbarao Kampbhampati, a professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, says the life experiences of human researchers are critical to the creative process. He and others contend the lack of real-world experience will make it difficult for AI to pose the creative questions and gain the worldly insights that spark true innovation.

A section of the article cites two decades of data from five transportation surveys compiled by Professor Steve Polzin, Research Assistant Professor Irfan Batur and Professor and Director Ram Pendyala in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools. The data offered them a look at how commuting and transit ridership and other road travel habits in the U.S. have changed since the COVID-19 pandemic and the impacts of those changes. Their study details the trends that evolved during the pandemic and that still impact today’s road travel scenarios and points the way to potential solutions to many current automobile transportation challenges across the country.

The National Football League is putting environmental sustainability on the list of it major goals. Teams of the major sports organization are undertaking projects to equip stadiums and faculties with solar power systems and use recycled or recyclable materials for everything from cups to trophies. Tony Lamana, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, one of the Fulton Schools, says sustainability must involve not only making sports facilities more environmentally friendly, but also how teams influence fans’ habits in ways that enhance the going green trend. The new NFL Green program aims to help produce a “green legacy” in the communities where teams play.

Versions of the article have also been published or broadcasted across the country by the Associated Press, MSN, The Washington Times. Yahoo! News, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, NBC (Philadelphia), NBC4 Los Angeles, SF Gate, WKYC, WJBF, WHYY, Independent UK, WWLP (Massachusetts) 2News (Nevada), Winnipeg Free Press, Bozeman Daily Chronicle (Montana), KGET TV 17 (Bakerfield, California, WBOC CBS TV (Salisbury, Maryland), Imperial Valley Press (El Centro, California), Ottumwa Courier (Idaho), Temple Daily Telegram, Texas, and the trade journal Waste Advantage Magazine

ASU will be well represented in the upcoming largest microelectronics trade show in North American, soon to be held in Phoenix. ASU President Michael will give a keynote address while a discussion about how fabrication labs could benefit from the of artificial intelligence, or AI, technology and robots will be led by Binil Starly, director of the School of Manufacturing Systems and Networks, part of the Fulton Schools. Fulton Schools Dean Kyle Squires foresees an opportunity to introduce the broader microelectronics community to ASU’s ongoing contributions to advances in semiconductor technology, workforce development, research and innovation. Starly says ASU also has the opportunity to highlight that it has become one of the largest producers of talent for the industry.

Lauded as a trailblazer in sustainable materials in transportation and pioneer in the use of bio-based and bio-inspired binders as renewable alternatives to petroleum products, Elham Fini has also authored a widely used textbook and has had more than 230 publications reporting on her work, some of which has been covered by major news media outlets. Those and related accomplishments have put Fini, an associate professor in Del E. Webb School of Construction, within the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, among recent winners of the American Road & Transportation Builders Association Foundation’s Women Leaders in Transportation Design & Construction Awards.

A supercomputer named Sol is an extremely valuable tool for ASU researchers. It’s computing abilities are more powerful and faster and its data storage is more vast that those of the majority of computers. Gail-Joon Ahn, a professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, and founding director of ASU’S Center for Cybersecurity and Trusted Foundations, and Ananta Soneji, a doctoral student in the school, explain the value of Sol’s capabilities and why ASU should become proactive in taking on the challenging task of maintaining the security of the high-performing system.

Jesus Chavez (second from right in photo), the Fulton Schools coordinator senior for student success and engagement, was among the Latino speakers with ASU connections who recently shared their professional and personal experiences with about 100 local junior high school students at the ASU Chandler Innovation Center. Chavez drew on his experiences growing up in the East Valley as a first-generation son of Mexican immigrants before eventually earning a doctoral degree in engineering education and systems design at ASU. He spoke to students about gaining an understanding of how to best prepare themselves to benefit from higher education and the career opportunities it offers.

High-tech advances are opening new possibilities to enable people to beat the heat as temperatures in many places continue to climb. An article first published on the Fulton Schools website, details research led by Hua Wei, an assistant professor of computer science and engineering in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, that helps to provide ways to cope with the rising trend of extreme heat, especially in urban areas. Wei and his research team are developing new artificial intelligence, or AI, tools to predict and map the movement of shade. The DeepShade AI system produces maps giving detailed guidance to routes providing the most shade.

Robotic dogs that can help people in risky environments have been designed by Fulton Schools engineering teams. One is named SPARK-E (at lower left in photo), another is Unitree GO2. They are equipped with LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), remote sensing technology, voice interface capabilities and artificial intelligence cameras. The high-tech tools and devices enable the “robodogs” to adapt to various environments to take on tasks in precarious situations. Ransalu Senanayake, an assistant professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, is interviewed about the robodogs’ array of capabilities to deal with potentially dangerous circumstances. Read more in a previous post below linking to a recent article in Tech Briefs, dated September 22.

For contributing to advances in machine learning and related systems, Vidya Chhabria has been awarded a Google ML and Systems Junior Faculty Award. An assistant professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools, Chhabria’s research focuses on computer-aided design for large-scale integration. She is among more than 50 assistant professors at U.S. universities selected by a group of Google engineers and researchers to receive the award. Professor Stephen Phillips, director of the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, notes the impact of such awards can benefit students who will be motivated to learn from a teacher who is shaping the future of machine learning.

Philadelphia is among major U.S. cities seeing its neighborhoods’ temperatures heat up to uncomfortable levels due in part to their surface materials. In response, the Philadelphia Office of Sustainability is testing a reflective pavement in one of its more prominent city parks. Kamil Kaloush, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, explains how roads, parking lots and other large paved surfaces absorb daytime heat and reemit it into the atmosphere at night. Kaloush points to newly developed “cool pavements” that reflect the sun’s energy rather than absorb it. Philadelphia leaders see it as a promising defense against rising heat.

Dogs have long had the reputation as one of the animals that can be most helpful to humans. Now a quadrupedal robot known as a Robodog is poised to serve people in myriad ways. Using artificial intelligence, engineers have helped to design a four-legged robot that can perform some of the most useful and challenging tasks. Equipped with advanced artificial intelligence cameras, LiDAR and a voice interface, it is learning to aid search-and-rescue missions and guide visually impaired people through complex environments. A research team led by Ransalu Senanayake, an assistant professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Ira A. Fulton Schools, is making progress on maximizing the robodog’s capabilities. 

Along with its overall ranking of ASU as the most innovative U.S. university for more than a decade, the US News & World Report’s latest list of top colleges also pointed to the Fulton Schools as one of the main reasons for placing the university in the top spot. The Fulton School’s education and research in microelectronics, civil engineering, electrical engineering, computer science and computer engineering are cited among reasons for the high ranking. In addition, the Fulton School’s undergraduate engineering programs overall are ranked among the top 20 in the U.S. Rankings, based on a survey of college presidents, provosts and admissions deans, and their choices of the institutions making the most innovative advances in multiple areas.

See also: ASU is again the most innovative university, AXIOS Phoenix
ASU maintains its title as US News’ most innovative university, ABC15 Arizona
ASU maintains its title as US News’ most innovative university, Phoenix Business Journal

A vehicle in a city in Missouri recently went airborne after driving on a street that had buckled in the summer heat. The incident reflects a growing trend of roads and other public infrastructure being threatened by the impacts of climate change, particularly rising temperatures, says Mikhail Chester, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, and director of the Metis Center for Infrastructure and Sustainable Engineering. Such dangerous heat-related incidents are likely to increase until more infrastructure is designed specifically to withstand the intense heat and the stress it inflicts on roads, bridges, sidewalks and public power and other utility systems.

A Las Vegas-based startup venture is developing new technology to harvest water from the air, based in part on what it is learning about the capabilities of a small tree frog species in Australia. WAVR Technologies is designing a system that copies these amphibians’ process of hydrating themselves by absorbing water through their skin. Paul Westerhoff, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, who leads WAVR’s water working group, says the new system would help overcome environmental challenges urban areas are facing as they try to grow their economies while their populations and their need for water resources are also rapidly increasing.

Conventional paved surfaces trap atmospheric heat, particularly in cities because of their many paved streets, highways and parking lots. That is making the urban heat island effect more intense in busy metropolitan areas such as Philadelphia. Combined with climate change impacts, cities are experiencing even more intense urban heat. Kamil Kaloush, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, talks about the “cool pavement” materials developed to help mitigate city heat. The article reports on the cooling street pavements being used in Phoenix that are lowering surface temperatures — but not doing as quite as well at cooling the surrounding air.

ASU is among the leading universities at the forefront of weaving the abilities of the expanding realm of quantum computing into the spectrum of advanced science and engineering research. Funded and powered by ASU, along with the state of Arizona and industry partners, the university’s Quantum Collaborative is extending the reach of the field across network communications, sensing, computing, simulation and cybersecurity — and educating the future quantum workforce. Students are being introduced to endeavors that explore the use of quantum computing to solve real-world problems in logistics, finance, energy optimization and other fields. By working across disciplines, they’re tackling major physics, engineering, math and even business challenges.

An extensive analysis warns that water in the Colorado River basin’s reservoirs is being depleted at rates threatening to result in severe problems unless urgent federal actions are taken to cut down dramatically on the current level of use of the river’s water. Margaret Garcia, an associate professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, says an analysis of the situation clearly confirms the severity of the situation. Garcia notes the already extremely dry conditions in the river basin reservoirs. To achieve better water security in the future, she says, those reservoirs must at the least be able to better generate hydro power and to store substantially more water.  

Techiepalooza is designed to help students ASU students get involved in work seeking to help launch the next waves of tech innovation. The Fulton Schools’ Entrepreneurship and Innovation program, directed by Brent Sebold, recently held another of its gatherings designed to help students generate ideas and build project teams. Sponsored by the Honeywell-ASU Innovation Hub and Hool Coury Law, the event opened the way for students to access other ASU entrepreneurship opportunities such as Venture Devils and SkySong. Sebold says the E+I program is showing students that entrepreneurship is a team sport and Techiepalooza  is helping students to embark onto entrepreneurial journeys with each other.

ASU’s West Valley campus has seen student enrollment jump by more than 15 percent in the past two years. More than 500 students are now housed in campus residences. Some of the increase is attributed to the boost in engineering students. The campus is home to the School of Integrated Engineering, the newest of the Fulton Schools. Some of its curriculum is especially relevant to the booming semiconductor industry, and as a result the school has begun building a promising productive connection between ASU and the international Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s expanding West Valley operations.

In a video recording of an edition of Quirks & Quarks, Konrad Rykaczewski, an associate professor in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools, explores the biology of perspiration from inside a full-body, tube filled suit than enables observing the way water emerges from human sweat glands. The suit runs hot water around his body, which increases his body temperature. His research team focused infrared cameras on his forehead to get a macroscopic look at the pattern of sweat formation. The experiment has been detailed in a report published in Journal of Royal Society Interface.

See also: Sweat Science — This research really was 90% perspiration, Quirks and Quarks with Bob McDonald, CBC Listen

ASU is expanding its international outreach through new collaborations with Thailand’s Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation and Mahanakorn University of Technology. An ASU delegation led recently by Jeffrey Goss, the Fulton Schools associate vice provost for Southeast Asia programs, explored further joint endeavors within Thailand’s semiconductor industry ecosystem. Goss, who also helps to lead ASU’s STEM education engagement efforts, says such international partnerships are strengthening academic excellence, workforce development and innovation for all those involved. The delegation also visited the newly opened Interdisciplinary Science and Technology Building 12 on ASU’s Polytechnic campus, home to the School of Manufacturing Systems and Networks, part of the Fulton Schools.

Efforts ASU has led or contributed to have been major factors in the growing economic impact of the semiconductor industry’s growth in Arizona. Some of that progress has been achieved through the skills of Fulton Schools’ graduates and collaborations with the schools’ faculty researchers and leadership. Zachary Holman, the Fulton Schools’ vice dean for research and innovation, points to partnerships between ASU and semiconductor industry leaders that have been spurring industry progress, such as the investment to create the Materials-to-Fab Center at the ASU Research Park in Tempe. More than a dozen companies, from startups to multinational tech giants, have taken up residence at the park and invested in its expansion. 

Students who want to pursue careers in national security and government intelligence at a time when federal support for that pursuit is lacking could instead find help through a new ASU Intelligence Community Fellow program formed by the Intelligence Community Center for Academic Excellence. Fulton Schools computer systems engineering student Aysha Viene says the new program is now crucial to maintaining national security in the future, as well as the safety and privacy of citizens, and she is committed to using skills she is learning at ASU to help ensure those U.S. security protections.

Engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are testing a new device designed to extract water for the air in desert regions. The water harvesting device uses hydrogel, an absorbent material that looks black bubble wrap that absorbs water vapor directly from the atmosphere. It is now being testing in California’s Death Valley. The new technology can extract humidity from even the driest environments, says Paul Westerhoff, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools at Arizona State University. The process is expensive and raises some concerns, he says, but is nevertheless drawing widespread interest. He foresees commercial uses eventually multiplying.

See also: These devices harvest drinking water from the air in the planet’s driest places. Critics say they’re an expensive distraction, CNN Climate

Large Language Models, or LLMs, a type of artificial intelligence, or AI, technology capable of understanding and translating vast amounts of text data, don’t quite live up to claims of their comprehensive and superior reasoning power. Pushback against such a declaration has come from ASU researchers, including Chengshuai Zhao, a graduate research associate in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools. Zhao and his colleagues have published a research paper making the case that while AI is a sophisticated and useful form of structured pattern matching, it is not a mechanism for genuine logical inference — or, in other words, vastly superior reasoning powers.

The largest private engineering consultancy in India is enlisting the expertise of Fulton Schools’ leadership, faculty members and researchers to boost its efforts to strengthen the capabilities of the country’s semiconductor industry, as well as significantly advance its electronics manufacturing sector. A main thrust of the collaboration is to prepare the next generation of engineers to lead efforts to produce semiconductor breakthroughs, says Kyle Squires, dean of the Fulton Schools. Michael Kozicki, a professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools, says the focus will go beyond gaining technical knowledge to learning how to foster a vibrant culture of high-tech innovation.

See also: Tata Group’s New Semiconductor Partnership, Construction World
Tata Consulting Engineers, Arizona State University to jointly develop semicon workforce, ET Telecom
Industry leaders laud India’s semiconductor momentum at Semicon 2025, The Tribune (India)
Industry Leaders laud India’s semiconductor momentum at Semicon 2025, ANI News (South Africa)
How Tata Consulting Engineers is strengthening semiconductor workforce development. HrKatha
“Historic” Day for India’s Semiconductor Industry,’ Business leaders hail first Made-in-India chip ‘Vikram’ ANI News (South Africa)
Tata Consulting Engineers and Arizona State University Join Forces to Develop Semiconductor Workforce, The Realty Today
India’s Chip Ambitions Get a Boost as TCE and ASU Launch Semiconductor Talent Programme, Infrastructure Today (India)
Tata Consulting Engineers, ASU join hands for Semiconductor talent, BW People
Consulting engineers  Partnership with Arizona State University to enhance semicondustro development workforce development, Telecom Economic Times
Tata Consulting Engineers and Arizona State University Partner to Strengthen Semiconductor Workforce Development. CXO Today

Through the Fulton Schools Engineering Projects in Community Service, or EPICS,  program, students are putting to use the skills they are learning at ASU to aid projects that are serving communities in Arizona, throughout the U.S. and even in other countries. EPICS faculty member Daniel Frank, a Fulton Schools academic and student affairs instructor and Fulton Schools computer science student Balamurali Ravipalli and others describe EPICS endeavors such as a Monkey Enrichment project, and a project using artificial intelligence to develop ways for farmers in Canada to improve their operations through eco-friendly practices and making 3D printed tactile maps to help people with visual impairments.

Grok, an AI-powered chatbot developed by Elon’s Musk’s company, was heralded as being unbiased in its truth-seeking and therefore able to remain politically neutral. An analysis of thousands of Grok’s responses, however, has found its answers lean significantly toward politically conservative viewpoints. It reflects a trend of chatbots stoking ongoing battles over political issues. Subbarao Kambhampati, a professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, is among experts who point to the complexities involved in the use of AI within a highly charged, politically biased environment.

Experiencing the stress a desert climate can put on roads, bridges, railways and other infrastructure is motivating engineers to explore ways to effectively fortify materials to make built environments more resilient. Professors Barzin Mobasher and Narayanan Neithalath in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, have been helping to lead such projects. Through research and testing in ASU’s structural mechanics and infrastructure materials laboratories, they have been contributing to finding solutions, some of which not only strengthen public facilities but also ease the strain from the physical stress faced by many workers, as well as often also saving money on infrastructure projects. 

The Laboratory for Learning Evaluation and Naturalization of Systems, founded by Ransalu Senanayake, an assistant professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, focuses on forging technologies designed to help people overcome some of the most prevalent and pressing problems affecting their lives. That’s the motivation for the creation of a robotic canine, or robodog, and developing new artificial intelligence systems to guide robodogs in fulfilling various missions to serve people. The overall goal is combining deep learning technologies to enable the robots to understand their surroundings and communicate with people — especially visually impaired people who could benefit significantly from a robodog companion.

See also: Robotic Dogs: Pioneering AI for Real-World Solutions at ASU on the Entech website.

A human-shaped manikin designed and built to mimic the human body’s thermal regulation capability in various environments has been a major tool in research aimed at getting a better understanding of how people react to heating and cooling methods. Work led by Konrad Rykaczewski, an associate professor associate professor in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools, uses the manikin name ANDI to reveal in detail what the changes in humans’ core temperatures and skin temperatures look like in different climatological conditions. A primary goal is to gain knowledge of ways to protect people in extreme heat.

Turning off air conditioning units while your away from home can save money and energy. It can also cause mold problems in houses in humid environments and lead to wear and tear on air conditioning systems that requires frequent repairs. That’s one reason experts recommend simply setting the air conditioning up a few degrees when leaving the house. Patrick Phelan, a professor in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools, suggests using “smart thermostats” equipped with sensors that can monitor a house’s occupancy and raise the temperature when no one is home to conserve energy and lower temperatures when people return.

Fulton Schools researchers are working to help residents in the remote rural community on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona establish a reliable source of energy. The project is led by Kristen Parrish, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools. The Hopi community is facing energy challenges like those in small towns across the U.S., Parrish says. With a multimillion-dollar U.S. Department of Energy grant, the project will adapt an existing fossil fuel-based infrastructure to provide more sustainable and reliable energy. 

Their ability to reason is on par with humans’ reasoning powers. That’s a claim made about OpenAI’s new CPT-5’s reasoning and problem-solving capabilities. But in a new research paper, some experts in artificial intelligence claim that assertion is erroneous. Chengshuai Zhao, a computer science student in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, and Subbarao Kambhampati, a professor in the school, present their case for why CPT-5 does not quite qualify as a master of sophisticated reasoning. Kambhampati describes CPT-5 as a producer of “jagged intelligence,” referring to its ability to answer complex problems if those problems are in its training data, but if not then it fails to accurately answer extremely simple questions.

Recent research breakthroughs have set the stage for solar energy panels to be less expensive to make and to operate more efficiently. Now, in the latest advance, the panels can also be made to perform in a more environmentally friendly way. Developed by ASU researchers and the SolarCycle company, the system opens a path to manufacturing new solar panels using recycled materials that produce solar energy at peak performance levels that are more sustainable and scalable. Zachary Holman, Fulton Schools vice dean for research and innovation, says the project has gone beyond successful verification of the basic effectiveness of the process in the laboratory to verifying it can be fully and effectively integrated into solar energy industry operations.

See also: Solar Cycle, Arizona State University develop solar panel made with 50% recycled solar glass, Solar Power World 

The growing reputation of ASU’s West Valley campus as a center for hands-on learning and an active student-centered community has recently been bolstered by a 15 percent student enrollment increase over the past two years. With recent enrollees from 40 U.S. states and 71 countries, the number of students overall has jumped to more than 5,400. New and innovative Fulton Schools’ undergraduate and graduate courses and degree programs have contributed significantly to attracting more students to the campus. Those include a new engineering science degree program with a concentration on business, as well as another engineering science program with a focus on microelectronics.

ASU’s state-of-the-art research facilities are credited with helping to produce technological advances that have aided the rise of today’s semiconductor industry. ASU students are being prepared to contribute to future progress. Among them is Taylor Gowdy, a 2024 ASU graduate who earned her degree through the mechanical engineering systems program in The Polytechnic School, part of the Fulton Schools. Many courses Gowdy took provided hands-on, project-based learning, giving her experience that helped her to get hired by the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s Arizona operations, where she works as an equipment engineer. ASU’s many world-class researchers have been a key factor in drawing the thriving company to the Phoenix area, says Zak Holman, Fulton Schools vice dean for research and innovation. The booming semiconductor sector is now expected to produce more jobs and economic benefits extending beyond the tech manufacturing industry. 

Learning career skills that provide both immediate and long-term to value to students is among the major attractions of degree programs in many of ASU’s schools and colleges. The Fulton Schools has a place on the list of the top eight schools and colleges that are leading the way in fulfilling the mission to prepare students to excel in their chosen professions. One student earning an engineering master’s degree emphasizes that the education provided in the field has led to valuable insights into ways technological advancements are shaping not only industries but societies. Overall, students are saying there are graduating with a feeling of confidence about their readiness to contribute to the world at large.

Use of advancing virtual reality technology is proving its ability to boost student engagement and improve higher education, especially in engineering and science fields. This is being demonstrated at ASU, specifically at its Polytechnic campus, home to The Polytechnic School, one of the Fulton Schools, where the ability of virtual reality to help visualize scientific concepts is aiding instruction in engineering, along with medicine, biological science and even the arts. The various learning methods that virtual reality technology make possible — visual, auditory, kinesthetic, solitary, social, verbal and logical — enables class instruction to match students’ various individual learning styles, teachers say.

Describing his interdisciplinary research project intertwining computer science and biology, Ted Pavlic, an associate professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, explains how artificial intelligence, or AI, systems can suffer from “catastrophic forgetting.” In this podcast from an Australian news outlet, he describes a current drawback of AI systems that can learn to perform new tasks but then later forget how to do them when they need to focus instead on a learning a different task. In an effort overcome that drawback, Pavlic has been examining the workings of the brains of sleeping bees, which could contribute to knowledge on how to create more memory-efficient AI technology.

A civil engineering student in School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, will soon be selected to receive a scholarship from the Terracon company for the 2025-2026 school year at Arizona State University. The support comes from a new $50,000 endowment from the employee-owned company with more than 180 locations across the U.S. that is led by engineers and scientists specializing primarily in environmental consulting services in geotechnical engineering, construction materials testing and facility engineering. (Access to the article requires acquiring an account with the Wrangler News Daily Independent news service.)

The Colorado River, a major source of Arizona’s water supply, is expected to remain in a water shortage condition through 2026, presenting a major challenge for the state in facing potential serious drought situations. Enrique Vivoni, a professor of in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, and the director of the Center for Hydrologic Innovations, explains that much of the problem stems from dry soils soaking up precipitation during a long dry spell. Predictions show another year of only a small amount of water runoff from the reservoir system could pull the situation into a catastrophic condition.

Along with the W. P. Carey School of Business, Edson College of Nursing and Health Innovation, and the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts, the Fulton Schools is among ASU schools and colleges getting involved in new international partnerships that are helping young students in more than 30 counties earn college credits. The effort is part of a broader endeavor involving a collaboration with the Council on Foreign Relations and a partnership with International Baccalaureate, through which ASU is contributing to efforts to provide educational opportunities to high school students in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Middle East through online college education programs.

An advanced diagnostic test that uses tiny gold nanoparticles has been developed by ASU researchers, including Chao Wang, an associate professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools. The test detects the virus that causes COVID-19 with high accuracy, distinguishing it accurately from other infections. The technology exposes extremely small amounts of disease-related proteins after researchers coat nanoparticles engineered to detect specific diseases. The test is expected to help in reducing the hundreds of thousands of Americans who die or are disabled each year because of medical diagnostics errors. Wang has received an award related to his contributions to this research.

See also: Portable test detects infections from a single drop of blood in 15 minutes, Medical Express

New diagnostic tool offers rapid, low-cost blood test for multiple diseases, News Medical

For the coming fall semester, ASU is projected to enroll more first-year students than ever in the university’s history — close to 43,000 of them. Among the major areas of studies many new students have selected are mechanical engineering and computer science, fields that are the focus of two Fulton Schools degree programs. Beyond new students from around the U.S., ASU is projected to see enrollment of 14,600 international students this fall semester. An annual overall enrollment of more than 194,000 ASU students, including 43,00 graduate students over the past year, is a historically high mark for the university.

A research paper by the director of the Data Mining and Research Lab by Huan Liu, a professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, and several of his colleagues looks at artificial intelligence, or AI, and its impressive capabilities — as well as how impactful progress on the promising evolution of the technology might be close to reaching an end point. The focus is on the performance of Large Language Models, or LLMs, and questions about whether some of their powers of reasoning are being overblown.  AI Chain-of-Thought reasoning capabilities are also explored in highly technical detail and called into question, noting how and why they can fail.

Wenlong Zhang, an associate professor in the School of Manufacturing Systems and Networks, part of the Fulton Schools, is co-director and a principal investigator for the new Center for Digital Twins in Manufacturing, an ASU and University of Michigan collaboration pursuing ways to optimize manufacturing processes through advances in digital twin technologies. Those advances can enable engineers to better monitor, analyze and improve performance of these technologies to boost precision in manufacturing them. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the center is expected to help achieve advances in smart manufacturing while also educating students in the use of digital twin technology, enabling them to help the U.S. remain competitive in the global economy. Zhang says the project reflects Arizona’s expanding role in advanced manufacturing.

Climate change combined with a growing demand for water has led to a dwindling amount of water for seven western states, including Arizona, as well as 30 Native American tribes that depend on Colorado River water. Arizona could face losing a significant part of its water supply, creating a big need water reuse, such as turning wastewater into drinkable water. Enrique Vivoni, a professor of in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, and the director of the Center for Hydrologic Innovations, describes various steps Arizona could take to help maintain adequate water supplies. A change in water rights is also expected also present some challenges to various regions and communities. 

See also: Arizona’s declining share of Colorado River likely to hold steady for a year, Arizona Republic, Arizona Republic
Vivoni tells Central Arizona Project board member that dry soils are soaking up precipitation before it can reach the Colorado River, reducing the flow of water 

Preparing for a drier future on the Colorado River basin, ASU News
Vivoni is quoted

In a segment of a regular news update on water issues around the world, Paul Westerhoff, a professor in the  School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, voices concern about a shortage of adequate water supplies to sustain the increasingly critical semiconductor manufacturing industry in the U.S. Some semiconductor fabrication facilities use tens of millions of gallons a day, raising serious doubt about the ability of many of fabrication operations to maintain their production in water-stressed regions such as Arizona. Westerhoff and his colleagues are researching water-reuse technologies that could help to adequately maintain the operations of fabrication facilities. 

A study by ASU researchers and SOLARCYCLE shows solar energy panels made from recycled glass perform as well as those made from other new materials, a discovery  expected to boost the solar energy industry. The work involved Fulton Schools researchers testing solar panel prototypes made from both new and recycled glass. Fulton Schools Vice Dean for Research and Innovation Zachary Holman says the project demonstrates that solar energy panels can be built in ways that make them more sustainable without a sacrifice of a loss in the overall energy-generating performance of the panels. That development is seen as providing a big step to a promising future for renewable energy opportunities.

See also: Solarcycle produces recycled glass test module with ‘peak performance, PV Tech 

Recycled glass gives solar panels high-performance, makes them work like new, Interesting Engineering

This 50% recycled glass solar panel panel perform like brand new, Electreck

A booming U.S. semiconductor chip market is intensifyingdemand on the industry to provide more highly purified water for use in chip manufacturing processes, as well as raising a more pressing need for water conservation. Paul Westerhoff, an ASU Regents Professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, gives details of various processes and systems that chip manufacturers can use to achieve sustainable water conservation. He describes what Intel and other manufacturers can do to purify their water and use wastewater for productive purposes while also improving purification processes and protecting communities by reducing possibilities of pollution.

A mobile temperature-measuring tool owned by ASU Associate Professor Ariane Middel, a faculty member in ASU’s new The GAME School who has affiliations with the Fulton Schools, has been instrumental in recent research aimed at helping to find safe ways for young students to stay healthy and active in hotter climates such as those of much of Arizona. The team involved in the project is working with the Arizona Department of Health Services and Arizona Department of Education to develop a tool kit designed to help guide efforts to assist people in coping with hot outdoor environments and contribute information for a HeatReady Schools initiative. Middel’s affiliations also include one with ASU’s Urban Climate Research Center and the SHaDE Lab.

See also:  What are urban heat islands and what causes them?, Spectrum News (Ariane Middel is interviewed)

ASU researchers are contributing to an intensive evaluation of the effectiveness of team training techniques and related practices used by the U.S. Marine Corps. The goal is to provide the U.S. Department of Defense with optimal methods to assess team dynamics, performance and mission readiness of the nation’s military forces. Jamie Gorman, a professor in The Polytechnic School, part of the Fulton Schools, and director of ASU’s Center for Human, Artificial Intelligence, and Robot Teaming, is leading one of the efforts to help meet the project’s key goals. Gorman says the project is designed to maximize the resilience of U.S. military forces’ operations in undertaking today’s increasingly complex defense challenges. 

A manikin weighing 1,000 pounds, due to being equipped with a variety of sensing devices, is a new high-tech tool developed and being used by an ASU research team to understand how ambient heat impacts the human body. Led by Konrad Rykaczewski, an associate professor in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools, the team’s engineers and scientists (pictured with the robot/manikin) have been gathering data in a quest to design and develop tools and methods to protect human health during times of excessively high temperatures as much of the planet continues to experience more frequent sizzling temperatures.

Engineers are finding lessons from practices of ancient Roman builders could provide paths to manufacturing concrete in ways that reduce or eliminate the environmentally threatening greenhouse gasses produced in the making of much of today’s concrete. Narayanan Neithalath, a professor in the the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools,   notes that emissions of such gasses are required to be reduced by more than 20 percent in the near future in accord with the Paris Agreement, an international treaty  that seeks to spur efforts to halt detrimental climate change. The Roman concrete formulations could prove more sustainable in the long run because they may not need to be replaced or repaired often, Narayanan notes.

See also: Neither steel nor Portland—Roman concrete can last for centuries and could save the planet from climate collapse, LAGRADA
Farewell to modern cement – Roman concrete can last for centuries and could save the planet from climate collapse, Union Rayo

A new partnership involving Arizona State University and a semiconductor manufacturing association aims to expand access to on-demand training in semiconductor technology. ASU is collaborating with SEMI, an industry association, to provide high-quality learning experiences to university students and early-career professionals. Octavio Heredia, a director of Global Outreach and Extended Education at the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at ASU, says the students will learn all about the semiconductor industry and the manufacturing process. “I think the state of Arizona has become a critical ecosystem in the semiconductor microelectronic space from education, from research and advancing the industry in general,” Heredia says.

See also: SEMI, Arizona State University to Deliver Semiconductor Engineering, ink world magazine

Progress in work to develop cell-based therapies that can help treat diseases such as Type 1 diabetes has brought a prestigious Fulbright Scholar award to Jessica Weaver, an associate professor in the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools. In a collaboration with researchers at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel, known for its expertise in engineering vasculature, Weaver’s team will be integrating lab-engineered vasculature from that lab with her lab’s computationally optimized cell therapy devices. The goal is to improve oxygen delivery to encapsulated cells to help improve the effectiveness of clinical treatments to fight disease.

Sweat gets a bad rap as an off-putting bodily substance, but without sweat and its evaporation that helps to chill human skin in hot weather we would experience more discomfort in that and similar conditions, says Konrad Rykaczewski, an associate professor in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools. Rykaczewski, a materials and thermal engineer, is among researchers studying the mechanics of sweat and it affects to help develop more effective cooling technology. He and other experts are examining sweat from is its micro to macro scales to gain an understanding of various ways people could better protect themselves from dangers of overheating and related health threats.

Advances in artificial intelligence, or AI, technology could one day birth “brains” for humanoid robots that could enable them to more productively interact with humans in workplaces, homes and elsewhere, including in table tennis matches, researchers say. Those at DeepMind research laboratory foresee an evolution from the clunky metal robots of limited abilities long portrayed on television shows and movies to smarter and more human-like assistants. Heni Ben Amor, an associate professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, recently co-authored an article in IEEE Spectrum expressing optimism about development of increasingly capable robotic machines that will operate more effectively in the real world.

See also: DeepMind’s Quest for Self-Improving Table Tennis Agents, IEEE Spectrum, July 21
Heni Ben Amor co-wrote the article with Pannag Sanketi, a senior staff engineer and tech-lead manager on the robotics team at Google DeepMind, about how robots can learn new skills by challenging each other.

Sweat is not commonly thought of in a positive way but it’s actually a good thing, says Konrad Rykaczewski, an associate professor in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools. It’s the evaporation of sweat that chills human skin, giving it some protection against heat. So, studying sweat can aid scientists and engineers in designing and developing more effective technologies to help keep people cool, he says. Rykaczewski is working with colleagues to investigate possibilities for high-tech solutions that would alleviate or mitigate some impacts of extreme heat.

See also: Like AC for the Outdoors, The Atlantic (July 22)
To survive a heating planet, humans need shade ­­– a lot of it.
Associate Professor Ariane Middel, director of ASU’s Sensable Heatscapes and Digital Environments, or SHaDE, Lab, who has affiliations with the Fulton Schools, talks about using shade to help overcome the global environmental challenge of rising heat. (Signing up for one-year subscription or a one-month free trial subscription is necessary to access the full article.)

Use of public transportation in many communities is dropping by almost 50 percent when temperatures rise to uncomfortable levels, according to a recent study co-authored by researchers at University of Texas at Austin and University of Washington, as well as Ram Pendyala, director of the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, and faculty members in the school Steven Polzin, Mikhail Chester, Irfan Batur and Victor Alhassan. The article looks at the recent impacts of heat on ridership in 11 major cities and details the steep declines in use of buses and rail transit uses when heat rises to extreme levels. Officials are exploring solutions, but riders say they are experiencing increasing frustration.

Madeline Andrews, an assistant professor in the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools, is interviewed about her research involving reprogramming blood or skin cells into brain cells to study neurological disorders. Her lab is using induced pluripotent stem cells to investigate how cells change over time, particularly in healthy development and disease states. The focus is on glucose metabolism, because 20 to 25% of glucose consumed is used by the brain. Andrews wants to understand how glucose intolerance and other nutrients impact brain function and communication. Future research will examine these processes in patients with disorders such as autism and Alzheimer’s.

Recent research casts some doubt on the touted capabilities of Large Language Models, or LLMs — a type of artificial intelligence, or AI, technology that uses deep learning to generate and manipulate human language. It enables text generation, summarization,  translation and related results. But new studies led by Subbarao Kambhampati, a professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, and former president of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, cast some doubt on claims about the extent of the performance of LLMs.  He and others are showing that effective use of LLMS will require a more thorough understanding of these systems and verification of their actual abilities.

Artificial intelligence, or AI, is now enabling robust new advances in the materials science world. Combined with the abilities of high-performance computing and hybrid cloud technologies, AI is helping materials scientists accelerate discoveries of new materials and improve predictive modeling of their properties. Peter Crozier, a professor in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools, explains how blending of AI with electron microscopy to enable more advanced visualization of materials’ dynamics at the atomic level could open pathways to advances in areas such as electronics, industrial materials and pharmaceuticals.

People continue to die from heat-related health issues in Arizona’s hotter regions, says Ariane Middel, an associate professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools.  Middel, who uses various metrics to track extreme heat that go beyond simply air temperature, says more research is needed to understand the long-term impacts of extreme heat and air pollution. She points out that towns and cities often do not have sufficient resources to adequately shield people from high summer temperatures and says more cooperative connections between communities are needed to help provide better protection from extreme hot weather.

A new device is capable of analyzing the human metabolism in a way that provides data enabling physicians to develop personalized care plans for people to reduce their body weight. Called Breezing, the device developed by Erica Forzani, a professor in the the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools, analyzes the body’s oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide production. It has been approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration in the U.S. and by the European Union. The venture is also seeking expansion of such official approvals to help people in other countries address obesity.

A visit to the New York City headquarters of Synchron, a major Neuralink competitor, provides an intriguing look at the booming potential of brain-computer interface technology. An expert in the field, Bradley Greger, an associate professor in the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools, shares his view of the potential benefits and risks of this fast-evolving high-tech advancement. Greger cautions about the expected hype of the potential benefits of these interface capabilities as companies attempt to move it quickly into the marketplace. He and other academics see its potential to provide much of benefit but are also cautious about the possibly serious consequences if such systems become in some ways invasive.

See also: Elon Musk’s Neuralink Aims to Implant 10 Times More Brain Chips in 2025, Observer

Improving the health of soils also helps to improve water conservation. Among current projects contributing to advances in these areas is a collaboration between ASU researchers and a Phoenix-based soil health company. The project is using live, native microalgae to enrich soil is enabling farmers to achieve greater water use efficiency, increase crop yields and reduce negative environmental impacts. There’s a strong potential for the project to have a large-scale impact, says Enrique Vivoni, Fulton Professor of Hydrosystems Engineering in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton and the director of ASU’s Center for Hydrologic Innovations. Researchers’ goal is to see the effort to maintain better soil health result in significant increases in water conservation in agricultural uses.

See also: New algae system helps Arizona farmers grow better crops with less water, ASU News

ASU and the University of Michigan are teaming up to invite industrial partners to help produce innovations through the new Center for Digital Twins in Manufacturing. The goal is for the center to become an Industry-University Cooperative Research Center funded by the National Science Foundation. Leaders and faculty members of the universities plan to meet with industry representatives to discuss the center’s operations, vision and goals. Wenlong Zhang, an associate professor of robotics and manufacturing systems in the School of Manufacturing Systems and Networks, part of the Fulton Schools, says the meeting will be enable potential industry partners to understand the value of becoming members and helping to shape research projects.

See also: U-M, ASU Lead Efforts to Create Center for Digital Twins in Manufacturing, ExecutiveGov

As a result of its innovation-driven approach to education, ASU has emerged as one of the top choices among students aspiring to careers in growing and increasingly creative areas such as computer science. The university’s expanding offerings include a computer science education program focusing on applications of related emerging fields such as artificial intelligence, data science and human systems engineering into the computer science field. The program in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, is becoming known for its high-quality competitive curricula, active career support for students and connections to top-tier employers.

Its complex symptoms have long made it difficult to accurately diagnose and treat autism. Today, with promising new insights derived from examining the role of the human gut and the gut-brain connection in the development of autism, researchers are making strides in tracking autism’s onset and progression. Among them are recent fecal microbiota transplant studies by researchers such as Professor Rosa Krajmalnik-Brown, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, and director of ASU’s Biodesign Center for Health Through Microbiomes. They are revealing with the help of computational biology more about the gut-brain connection and the potential for new autism therapies.

The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics is among organizations validating the beneficial impacts of the magazine’s 2025 rankings of the best college aerospace engineering degree programs in the U.S. The aerospace engineering program in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools, is especially noted for the education it is providing to students in design thinking and prototyping, systems testing, solar-powered flight and electrical propulsion systems in the aerospace and aeronautics realm. Particularly noted is that the degree program’s industry board of directors ensures the curriculum aligns with the emerging priorities of job markets in the fields that employ aerospace engineering experts.

Applying his expertise in robotics and machine learning, Heni Ben Amor, an associate professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, teamed earlier this year with Google DeepMind to develop a robot that can play ping pong. Now Ben Amor and his research collaborators have a new project called Rosey the Robot — named after of the robotic maid on the popular TV cartoon show “The Jetsons,” which first aired in the 1960s. The new Rosie is a prototype for advanced artificial intelligence, or AI, technology that could become increasing capable of cooperating with humans to ably perform household chores and possibly more complex tasks as further tech advances are made. See also a previous post on this page dated May 12 linking to related previous news articles.

Experts are offering an expansive range of assessments on where artificial technology, or AI, is headed — for better or worse — in the near future. Among them is Subbarao Kambhampati, a professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, and past president of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. The article reports on his and other experts’ outlook on the future of AI and challenges to realizing its potential in positive and productive ways. (Accessing the full article requires purchasing a subscription or accepting a free temporary trial subscription.) 

Following up on an earlier report in The New York Times (see the post below on this page dated July 4), this article continues to raise concerns about authors of articles in science journals using artificial intelligence to write about their scientific research and what that research is discovering. Concern about the trend and it potential impacts is growing. Subbarao Kambhampati, a professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, and past president of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, is among experts who talk about the complicated issues and questions this trend could raise for the science world and its credibility.

There’s growing debate in the science world about when it is appropriate or inappropriate to write research papers with help from artificial intelligence, or AI, technology. Many words frequently used by ChatGPT, a conversational AI chatbot developed by OpenAI that’s designed to understand and generate human-like text responses, are showing up in research publications. Subbarao Kambhampati, a professor in the he School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, and past president of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, says there’s still lot of ambiguity in the science community about impacts of AI-generated content in reports on science and technology advances.  

Technological advances that are improving the effectiveness of atmospheric water harvesting systems are expected to help many of the more than two billion people in the world who lack access to clean water. The latest progress in this area is poised to improve on the technologies in use today that require a lot of energy use, can be costly and have limited geographic reach. Cody Friesen, an associate professor in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools, and an atmospheric water harvesting pioneer, says that with further refinements of advanced technologies for atmospheric water harvesting the costs for delivery of water could be significantly lowered.

Artificial intelligence, or AI, technology has progressed to the point that smarter-than-human systems will soon be available, say some AI industry leaders such as Open AI CEO Sam Altman. But authors of recent research papers are saying AI technology still sometimes falls short in its abilities reason at certain levels of complexity. Subbarao Kambhampati, a professor the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, is among the experts who assert that human are still demonstrably more broadly intelligent than AI systems in many ways.

A mission to position carbon as a valuable resource rather than a waste product that degrades the environment is being undertaken by the New Carbon Economy Consortium. At it’s annual meeting, the consortium has been involving leaders of industry, universities, national laboratories and nongovernmental organizations in promoting collaboration to develop large-scale carbon capture strategies. Klaus Lackner, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, and founding director of ASU’s Center for Negative Carbon Emissions, sees the effort as an opportunity to shift away from environmental degradation to transforming carbon in the atmosphere into a beneficial resource.

Adesola Adegoke, a graduate research associate in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, and a fellow Nigerian researcher have contributed to notable advances in research on predicting the strength of concrete using artificial intelligence, or AI, technology. In work based at ASU’s Center for Bio-Mediated and Bio-Inspired Geotechnics, Adesola has been working on projects that are helping to pave the way for development of cutting-edge solutions that combine artificial intelligence with civil and construction engineering. Some of the research achievements have drawn attention from construction companies and research institutions worldwide.

See also: Nigerian Engineer Develops Revolutionary Road Construction Technology Using Polypropylene Fibres, The Guardian

Improved self-driving automobiles and other related and ongoing advances in automotive engineering and technologies, including sensors, data systems and monitoring technology, are promising to make new automobiles and new traffic monitoring systems safer and more efficient. Yezhou Yang, an associate professor for in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, points to examples and rising expectations of progress that should enable making automotive travel more manageable through better systems to control traffic flow, reduce risks, employ computer-vison technologies, promote public trust in autonomous vehicles and otherwise help ensure a more predictable travel environment and driving experience.

Members of the Fulton Schools’s Next Level Devils student organization are getting hands-on training at ASU’s Interplanetary Lab workspace in pursuit of careers that could provide opportunities to help NASA fulfill its intriguing space exploration ambitions. Project teams are producing prototypes to guide development of new technologies and systems to achieve those goals and providing students valuable experience in using cutting-edge technologies such as machine learning and advanced manufacturing systems. Students say they’re also learning to persevere when progress doesn’t come easy. Gearing up for the next NASA challenge in the fall, the team is looking for new members to help it fulfill its sky-high aspirations.

Fulton Schools researchers are contributing to deeper understanding of Alzheimer’s as part of efforts at ASU to better diagnosis, treat and perhaps also prevent the debilitating disease. Researchers in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, for instance, are aiding work on advances in brain scans and positron emission tomography imaging techniques that can improve detection of Alzheimer’s disease. Fulton Schools engineers are also working with ASU’s Biodesign Institute to train doctoral students to help develop new artificial intelligence, or AI, to that can help people who have the disease. Fulton Schools graduate students are also getting opportunities to assist in the research projects.

It’s not only people in Arizona’s desert regions who are being challenged to cope with an extended extreme heat advisory. The warning is being shared this summer with tens of millions of people in locations across the U.S. High temperatures are impacting the structural stability of asphalt roads, affecting the operations of public transit systems and otherwise forcing people to restrict normal activities due to threats posed by debilitating heat. Mikhail Chester, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, and director of the Metis Center for Infrastructure and Sustainable Engineering, offers advice on ways to keep cool in the extreme conditions. See related reports in Axios and broadcast on North Country Public Radio and WRVO NPR News for Central New York.

See also: Understanding the impact of extreme heat on transportation infrastructure, NPR, June 26

Artificial intelligence, or AI, technology has already made its way into public transit in some notable ways. Some experts say it’s only the start of the inevitable widespread evolutionary transformation of the transportation environment throughout the U.S. More kinds of autonomous vehicles are certain. Quoted from a recent study, Steven Polzin, a research professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, and director the TOMNET University Transportation Center, talks about what recent transit investment and ridership data indicates — or does not indicate — regarding adaptation of the latest technological advances across the overall transportation environment.

ASU researchers find economically disadvantaged U.S. populations are most at risk of lack of access to water resources. A research paper documenting the problem has been coauthored Claire Cropper, a graduate research associate in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools. Her work on rural Alaskan communities facing depleted water resources shows the technological, engineering, economic and governmental complexities making it difficult to overcome the problem. Cropper notes solutions might be derived from the Arizona Governor’s Office focus on statewide water security that led to the Arizona Water Initiative, which identifies technology innovations and policy changes that could improve water security.

The role of the Metis Center for Infrastructure and Sustainable Engineering, directed by Mikhail Chester, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, is to help provide a basis for understanding, designing and managing the complex integrated built, human and natural systems shaping the planet in modern times. Chester’s recent book, co-written with Braden Allenby, a Fulton Schools Lincoln Professor of Ethics and Engineering, looks at how to best take on complex challenges of creating new infrastructure to strengthen the resilience of today’s built environment to ensure robust and sustainable energy, transportation and environmental management systems into the future.

Subbarao Kambhampati, a professor of computer science in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, give his perspective on recent issues in the realms of human-aware artificial intelligence, or AI, systems and related developments in “reasoning” technologies. He weighs in on issues arising as businesses integrate large language models, or LLMs, into exceedingly complex, mission-critical systems, which has sparked debate over how much of the internal workings of such models should be exposed, noting how some trends reflected in these developments have dangerous implications. Those concerns reflect growing caution about the evolving workings of ever-more powerful and complicated reasoning models and increasing access to them.

Algae blooms that can be harmful to the health of humans and even deadly for pets are increasing in Arizona lakes due to warming temperatures and nutrient buildup. The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality has requested that people report suspicious algae sightings through the department’s app. As dryer and hotter conditions become more frequent and intense in the state’s desert region the dangerous blooms are expected to become more common and their impacts more severe, says Taylor Weiss, an assistant professor of environmental and resource management in The Polytechnic School, part of the Fulton Schools, and a researcher with the Arizona Center for Algae Technology and Innovation.

ASU has become one of the leading U.S. universities among those with a growing global appeal — including among students seeking degrees and careers in engineering. Shashwat Srivastava, who earned a master’s degree in industrial engineering from the Fulton Schools, is among those who say ASU became their choice after they learned not only of the quality of its academic programs but also its support for international students, including ASU organizations such as Indian Students Association. Fulton Schools Dean Kyle Squires notes at least several recent engineering graduates from India who have becomes leaders in their fields in both the U.S. and India.

Resilient carbon fiber–reinforced polymers, or CFRPs, perform well in many useful applications, including aircraft, shipping containers, natural gas storage tanks, wind turbines and sporting goods. The problem is manufacturing the polymers is expensive and produces greenhouse gas emissions that have negative environmental impacts. Now a new method using acetic acid to break down polymers looks like it can help alleviate that threat and enable safer recycling of these materials. Bhavik Bakshi, a chemical and biomolecular engineer and professor in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools, agrees this method makes CFRP recycling easier but says other recycling methods being developed might be more effective.

Led by Professor Aviral Shrivastava and Assistant Professor Ashif Iquebal in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, ASU researchers are seeking to solve long-standing metal 3D printing challenges by reliably predicting the internal structure and strength of printed components. They want to develop an AI-driven system capable of forecasting how a metal’s microstructure will evolve during the printing process. Aerospace, defense and energy industries in particular stand to benefit from the project that aims to significantly improve the performance of metal components. Researchers say the achievement could also potentially birth a new era of high-precision manufacturing. The National Science Foundation is funding the project.

See also: ASU researchers use AI to improve metal 3D printing accuracy and speed, Australian Manufacturing, June 17

ASU researchers enhance 316L stainless steel 3D printing with AI, VoxelMatters, June 14
ASU’s efforts are not only accelerating advanced manufacturing but also weaving AI directly into engineering education and industry applications.

Artificial Intelligence’s Evolution, AZ Family News, June 12
Ross Maciejewski, director of the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, discusses the latest advances in AI technology

New direct air capture technology that promises to advance clean fuel production is based to a significant extent on the work of Klaus Lackner, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, and founding Center for Negative Carbon Emissions. Developed by the Aircela company, the system produces engine-ready gasoline using only air and water in a process powered by renewable electricity and advanced chemical processes. The technology works with current engines and fueling systems, without need for costly upgrades. In addition, the fuel’s purity, free from sulfur and additives, helps lower harmful emissions other than only carbon dioxide.

See also: This Machine Makes Gasoline From Thin Air: Revolutionary Tech Stuns Scientists and Could Obliterate the Fossil Fuel Industry Forever, Sustainability Times. June 15

Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Meta, owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, says the company will develop a Superintelligence Lab to create technology more powerful than today’s artificial intelligence. The announcement is raising questions about what superintelligence actually is and what its impacts could be on the high-tech industry and the world at large. Some say it could help overcome many societal challenges. Others express concern about harm it could do to humanity. Subbarao Kambhampati, a professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, notes that scientists and engineers are not yet close to creating superintelligence and the term is — at least for now — more of a branding and advertising term.

ASU is ranked highly in a recent Digital Leaders in Higher Education survey on what U.S. universities are doing to educate the next generation of leaders in the rapidly evolving fields of digital and artificial intelligence, or AI, technologies. ASU’s overall position in the poll was bolstered by the ranking of its computer science degree program, which placed fourth — ahead of such other leading universities as UCLA, Purdue and the University of Washington. The School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, is home to ASU’s computer science program. ASU was also ranked highly in the categories of data science, AI and business analytics, digital transformation management and digital entrepreneurship.

Fulton Schools engineering, sustainability and hydrology researchers and other experts are major contributors to the work of Impact Water — Arizona, part of the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative’s mission to ensure the state a reliable water supply in the midst of challenges presented by climate change and other factors. As a part of that effort, the Fulton Schools is aiding multiple projects to provide municipalities and communities the knowledge and tools necessary to ensure they have adequate and resilient water supplies well into the future. Those endeavors include expanding access to water education, supporting community-driven solutions and strengthening local capacity to address current problems and prevent future hardships.

Learning about the value of engineering and technology innovation through the careers of her father, an electrical engineer, and other family members, as well as her professional colleagues, Lu Baird was inspired to help make a difference in the world through science and engineering. Through ASU’s Biodesign Institute, she created the $1.7 million Baird Family Biodesign Support Fund. She is also supporting the next generation of engineers through the Baird Family STEM Scholarship. Most recently, she has updated the Baird family living trust to include $100,000 for each of the 16 ASU Biodesign Institute research centers, where Fulton Schools faculty members and students are frequently involved in a variety of projects.

Major electric vehicle make Lucid has acquired sites that significantly expand its Arizona operations, giving the company a wider capacity for advanced manufacturing activities, development of related innovative products and improved testing of new components and systems. Steven Polzin, a research professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, and director the TOMNET University Transportation Center, says the electric vehicle industry is facing a lot of challenges, but sees Lucid and other leaders in the field developing more economically viable products and improved manufacturing and benefiting from its ability to provide more products that help protect the environment more than fossil fueled automobiles.

Growing industries in Arizona and across the U.S. have an increasing need for clean water but keeping up with the demand for products these industries produce involves processes that create a lot of brine, a salty waste byproduct that can become an environmental problem. Shahnawaz Sinha, an associate research professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, is partnering with the Nestlé company to bolster the resilience of Arizona’s water resources by removing salt from water containing brine through a process that also extracts fresh water. Sinha foresees the project creating a way to sustainably manage waste byproducts while also extracting commercially viable materials from the process.

See also: ASU: Squeezing every last drop out of desalination wastewater, Mavens Notebook, July 16

Washington D.C.’s road pavements could be put to a test of their structural resilience by the U.S. Army’s 250^th anniversary celebration parade, which will feature a procession in the nations’ capitol city of large military combat vehicles and heavy artillery weaponry, along with almost 7,000 marching soldiers. By one estimate, damage that might be done could cost millions of dollars to repair. Kamil Kaloush, the FORTA Professor of Pavement Engineering in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, says damage might be only minimal, given that military tanks are built to distribute their weight across multiple wheels, which reduces the stress on the ground. But he adds that heavy, slow-moving vehicles combined with high summer temperatures might still cause some widespread damage.

A recently published research paper casts doubt on claims about the abilities of a new generation of artificial intelligence, or AI, technology. The paper by the Apple company raises the warning that large reasoning models, or LLMS, are not proving to be capable of consistently reasoning reliably. The research paper reinforces claims previously made by Subbarao Kambhampati, a professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools. He observed that people tend to assume these AI systems do something resembling steps humans might take when solving a challenging problem, but he shows these LLMs have the same kinds of problems Apple documented in its paper.

See related articles in which Kamhampati is quoted :
Apple Is Pushing AI Into More of Its Products—but Still Lacks a State-of-the-Art Model WIRED, June 9
Meta Is Building a Superintelligence Lab. What Is That? The New York Times, June 13

Development of technology that uses bacteria to remove contaminants from water and recover valuable metals that would otherwise go to waste is among the most potentially impactful goals of ASU’s Swette Center for Environmental Biotechnology, directed by Bruce Rittmann, a  professor  the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools. Rittmann, whose work has been recognized by the Internation Water Association, is focused on using tiny organisms to solve water challenges and ways to use bacteria to benefit both human health and provide economic benefits to society. Research progress so far also promises to open paths to progress in protecting various environments, preventing more kinds of diseases and boosting extraction of valuable materials.

Gaurav Gondane (pictured at left) was among ASU Library student employees recently given an ASU spring 2025 Tomalee Doan LibAid for Student Success Award. Gondane, who earned a master’s degree in computer science from the Fulton Schools this spring, was credited with strengthening the library’s connections with students and producing social media content for the library’s Instagram account. He also helped to organize library tours for international students who had recently arrived in the United States. Gondane plans to pursue additional certifications and professional development as he begins his career and to also volunteer as an alumni mentor for ASU’s Engineering Projects in Community Service.

Fulton Schools students are part of ASU’s Engineering Projects in Community Service, or EPICS, team of students who have helped bring books and videos to educate students in the African country of Kenya. Electrical engineering student Will Reinhart is chief operations manager of the team that travelled to Kenya to install a digital library they had worked on for three years. The library provides class curriculum and more than 300 books and videos in both English and Kiswahili, a language common to several regions in Africa. Reinhart says it is “really amazing” that as an undergraduate student he had an opportunity “to make an impact on the other side of the world.”

Sethuraman Panchanathan, former Fulton Schools professor and recent National Science Foundation, or NSF, director, has been awarded one of India’s most prestigious honors. India’s president presented Panchanathan the award that expresses the country’s gratitude for excellence in the fields of art, education, industry, science, medicine, social service and public affairs. Before his years as NSF leader, Panchanathan was named Foundation Chair in Computing and Informatics in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools. He will now return to ASU as University Professor for Technology and Innovation. In accepting this latest award, Panchanathan said the honor “really epitomizes the contributions of many people — including my colleagues from the NSF and ASU.”

The article is also publisheds on ASU News.

A soil project that will enable farmers to grow more high-quality crops but do so with less use of water is making progress with the help of Enrique Vivoni, a Fulton Schools Professor of Hydrosystems Engineering in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment and the director of the Center for Hydrologic Innovations. The project’s overall goal is to provide access to a nature-based soil health technology across thousands of acres of Arizona’s commercial farmland that would enhance water efficiency, reduce water consumption and improve the quality of water used for agriculture. ASU’s Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems is involved in the project. The article is also posted on News Wise and Farms.com.

ASU’s new Global Center for Water Technology will focus on strategies for ensuring sustainable water and energy sources seen as critical to  Arizona’s future. Paul Westerhoff, deputy director of the National Science Foundation’s Nanosystems Engineering Research Center for Nanotechnology Enabled Water Treatment, will lead the new ASU center, which will be part of ASU’s ongoing work with the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative. Westerhoff is also an ASU Regents Professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, and the Fulton Chair of Environmental Engineering. Westerhoff says he is optimistic about the water and energy sector’s next five years and stressed that these partnerships will play a significant role in adequately maintaining those vital resources.

Eight of this year’s 20 winners of the prestigious Arizona-based Flinn Foundation Scholarship have chosen to attend ASU, beginning in the fall semester. Three of the high-achieving recent high school graduates are enrolling in Fulton Schools engineering degree programs. Each will also be part of ASU’s Barrett, The Honors College. Rati Tabatadze is enrolled in the electrical engineering program. Eliut Gonzalez is enrolled in the aerospace engineering program and Alejandro Zayas Abril is enrolled in the biomedical engineering program. Tabatadze, who wants to be a software engineer, will also study data science in The College of Liberals Arts and Sciences. Each will also receive funding for study abroad experiences.

What’s the harm in putting a Styrofoam container in the microwave? Styrofoam, which is made of expanded polystyrene, is primarily derived from a chemical called a styrene monomer, or simply styrene. Although it has long been used to make a wide variety of commercial products, it’s not completely harmless to humans. When food is stored in a Styrofoam container, small quantities can be transferred to food. Microwaving speeds up that process. Rolf Halden, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, explains that the heat can generate more free chemical building blocks, and also accelerate the movement of chemicals out of the plastic and into food.

The gasoline used by the vast majority of vehicles worldwide continues to be among the most valuable resources for fueling mobility. The downside is the carbon dioxide emissions from gasoline-powered vehicles that produce air pollution and are accelerating the environmental threat of climate change. The costs of developing the infrastructure and systems to replace gasoline with alternative fuels and electric-powered vehicles is steep, but New York-based fuels company Aircela is claiming it has found a solution that uses the direct air-capture technology developed in large part by Klaus Lackner, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools. Lackner joined Aircela’s recent demonstration of his machine’s carbon-capture process to deliver a cleaner fuel.

Advances in robotics and have set the stage for advances that help improve the effectiveness of many engineering endeavors. Where the impact of modern robots has been less dramatic is in helping people with some of the simple domestic tasks of everyday life. In a recent edition of ASU Thrive magazine, Siddharth Srivastava, an associate professor of computer science and engineering in the School of Computing and Artificial Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, and director of Engineering and director of the Autonomous Agents and Intelligent Robots Lab, talks about the challenges of developing robotics with the ability to perform these types of tasks. Other Fulton Schools researchers talk about their progress in designing robots to perform many other similarly useful functions.

U.S. airports are facing critical shortages of air traffic controllers. The Polytechnic School, part of the Fulton Schools, is poised to help fill these vital positions with increasingly well-trained personnel. The school’s air traffic management and aviation program is using a state-of-the-art facility that simulates operations at one of Phoenix Sky Harbor airport’s largest and busiest terminals. Along with knowledge of the air travel industry and airport business management practices, students are learning about the rules of working under Federal Aviation Administration management and related requirements. This summer, the program is planning to acquire new technologies to further enhance the education students will be receiving to prepare them for careers in the industry. The report was picked up by yahoo! news.

ASU researchers are collaborating with the Maricopa County Department of Transportation to finds ways to shorten the time needed to build and repair roads from efforts that often take weeks to complete to work that may require only a weekend of labor. Barzin Mobasher, a professor of civil and environmental engineering the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, is leading an effort to educate and train the county transportation department’s road construction leaders in the use of a new ultra-high-performance concrete that he and his ASU colleagues have developed to make roadways and bridges not only more structurally resilient but also significantly less costly to install than standard road materials.

Ariane Middel, an assistant professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton schools, and director of The Shade Lab at ASU, was one of the go-to experts for a recent radio show interview on the critical need for refuge from the often extremely hot, sunny outdoor environments of Arizona’s desert regions — especially in the most densely developed urban areas such as Phoenix. Her research team’s work includes creating heat maps that can be used to pinpoint places most in need of more shade in the metro area. Middel points out the threatening impacts of extreme heat on both human physical and psychological health. She also identifies her favorite shade tree on ASU’s Tempe campus.

Along with Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, Princeton University, Cornell University and other prestigious institutions of higher education, ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering is among the 25 engineering education and research institutions selected as the most advanced in America for their contributions to pioneering breakthroughs in engineering, technology, life sciences and related fields. The Fulton Schools are specifically lauded for start-of-the-art research laboratories, forward-thinking curricula and industry partnerships. ASU is ranked seventh overall on the list, which particularly notes the Fulton Schools’ experiential learning opportunities in semiconductor research, microelectronics and space technologies, renewable energy and sustainable urban development.

A gaming platform venture developed by Sandul Gangodagamage, a sophomore computer science student in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence of Fulton Schools, part of the Fulton Schools, and business law major in ASU’s W.P. Carey School of Business, won first prize at the inaugural ASU Inferno Invitational Startup Cup competition sponsored by the Fulton Schools and ASU’s J. Orin Edson Entrepreneurship + Innovation Institute. Gangodagamage’s winning Legions Platform, a multiplayer gaming platform, can be accessed with slow internet speeds. The competition brought together entrepreneurial teams from ASU, Northern Arizona University, the University of Arizona, Grand Canyon University and Estrella Mountain Community College. Each team gave a five-minute pitch to judges. Gangodagamage’s venture already has 12 million users around the world. He plans to use the prize money to expand marketing for his business.

More than 70 Arizona college students have recently won scholarships from the Desert Financial Foundation. The scholarship winners include four ASU engineering students who are focusing their studies on areas such as bioinformatics, chemical engineering, electrical and electronics engineering, and civil, environmental and sustainable engineering. All of them are pursuing doctoral degrees in their engineering fields. In addition to their academic performance, the Desert Financial Foundation scholarship winners are also selected for the commitment they have also demonstrated to community volunteerism in addition to a commitment to higher education.

ASU researchers will help the Cargill Bioindustrial company in its pursuit of technological advances that promise to boost U.S. semiconductor industry operations. The university’s research and workforce development programs are seen as major sources of new engineering and science talent that will contribute to advances in manufacturing engineering and the performance of advanced materials. A leader of ASU’s Knowledge Enterprise says the university’s training of the next generation of engineers and scientists can also be expected to especially help to achieve innovations that boost the semiconductor industry’s important lab-to-fab ecosystem.

See also: Cargill, ASU Partner to Advance Semiconductor Material Innovation, BISinfotech, May 28

Some of the infrastructure of Phoenix is at risk of widespread crumbling that would put roads, buildings, bridges and dams at risk. Researchers have found the city is sinking sufficiently to cause that kind of serious damage through actions such as extensive groundwater pumping. Fulton Schools Professor Edward Kavazanjian, a geotechnical engineer in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, points to actions such as cities pumping treated wastewater back into aquifers and parts of the state that have few restrictions on pumping groundwater because they are not in groundwater management districts. Without such guardrails, experts warn the resulting sinking will amount to a slow-moving disaster.

Looming funding cuts to bus and rail transportation systems and services across much of the U.S. are one factor being pointed to in predictions of a dramatic drop in public transit services. With multi-million-dollar budget deficits in many parts of the country and waning funding support from President Donald Trump’s administration, public transit overall could be facing a major downward spiral, says Steven Polzin, a research professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, and director the TOMNET University Transportation Center. Polzin talks about factors discouraging ridership and sees more challenges coming.

Aram Chavez, an assistant professor in The Polytechnic School, part of the Fulton Schools, has drawn on his expertise in technology, entrepreneurship and management  to help produce a tool capable of boosting the ability of artificial intelligence, or AI, systems to better understand, process and store information, as well as reduce data storage costs. Working with mathematicians and programmers, the startup named Morphos.AI, was launched in 2023 with a team of co-founders. Chavez now plans to now hire more engineers and ramp up efforts to commercialize the company’s main product, called Green Vector AI. There’s also working being done to develop a tech tool to enable businesses to deploy Morphos technology with only a click of a button.

Many students, faculty and staff members depend on the Tempe Streetcar service to stay on schedule on its route through downtown Tempe and ASU Tempe campus. But the system’s reliability has been sporadic, and data about the Streetcar’s estimated time of arrival at various locations is frequently inconsistent. Now a team of Fulton Schools engineering students — Veraj Patel, Abraham Duran, Landon Hack and Gerald Bowers — is devising a way to help prevent the Streetcar from being delayed. They’ve developed a real-time tracking device, an app, a user interface and a website to enable viewing of the streetcar’s location and are working on implementing these technologies. Read more and see the video “Tempe Streetcar Tracker.”

Without water management that makes sustainability a priority, the future of the city of Hermosillo will be bleak, say an urban water management experts. Meteorologists and hydrologists agree with the outlook for dire consequences expressed by Enrique Vivoni, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, and director of ASU’s Center for Hydrologic Innovations,. Two recent seasons during which the city has had little precipitation has substantially worsened the potential for danger, Vivoni warns, saying multiple steps must be put in motion soon to prevent a more threatening situation. A spokesperson with a local water utility says efforts are underway to plan and take preventative actions.

Artificial intelligence, machine learning, human-robot interaction, robot vision and automatic motor skills acquisition are among the areas of expertise of Hani Ben Amor, an associate professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools. His recent work includes helping to create an AI athlete — a robot that is more autonomous than other kinds of robots and is demonstrating an ability to win at table tennis over many humans. Amor says that skill raises the possibility of developing such robots that are capable of helping humans with important endeavors such as search and rescue operations and the development of prosthetic devices for humans.

See also: ASU Researcher Creates AI Athlete That’s Here to Help Humanity, Newswise, May 13

Clayton Burkhardt is graduating from ASU with a bachelor’s degree earned in the Fulton Schools electrical engineering program. He now plans to pursue a master’s degree in engineering with a mission to help improve magnetic resonance imaging, known as MRI, and other medical imaging technologies that helped to diagnose and treat his life-threatening cancer. Burkhardt was piloting a U.S. military helicopter in Germany during a training mission when he was overcome by a debilitating feeling, which turned out to be an effect from a malignant brain tumor, which hindered his speech. He relearned to communicate, then returned to his online studies at ASU, which he had begun while in the military. He now wants to write book about his story.

See also: U.S. Veteran Overcomes Brain Tumor to Graduate from Arizona State University with Engineering Degree, Hoodline-Phoenix

Data from the Association of International Educators shows a growing dip in enrollment of international students in postgraduate programs at U.S. universities and colleges. Visa revocations under President Trump’s administration of students who are not U.S. citizens are apparently a cause of the decline. Many of these students in science, technology and engineering fields have been hired for jobs or had interviews with tech companies, notes Trevor Thornton, a professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools. The situation is especially disturbing to foreign students who are in the early years of their college education in the U.S., he says.

ASU engineering students were among the competitors in the recent SAE International Design Competition in Marana, Arizona, which gave teams of college students from across the U.S. — as well as Mexico, Canada and Brazil — the opportunity to showcase the high-performance off-road recreational vehicles they designed and built. These competitions simulate real-world engineering design projects and their related challenges. Students’ vehicles are put to the test to see if they can survive severely rough terrain. Organizers say the event gives students a look at all of the aspects of engineering skills involved in the automotive industry.

Hundreds of billions of pounds of plastic are being produced each year around the world and only a small percentage of it is getting recycled. That sets the stage for people to be more exposed to plastics waste that can have harmful effects on human health — particularly plastics made with the chemical called BPA. Matthew Green, an associate professor in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools, discusses safer and more sustainable alternatives being developed by ASU researchers, including plant-based plastic materials suitable for use in water filtration and medical devices in which BPA-based plastics might otherwise be used.

Breezing, a device that analyzes peoples’ breath to reveal information about their metabolism, is improving how people can lose weight and overcome obesity. The new technology was developed by Erica Forzani, a professor in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools, and a late colleague, Professor NJ Tao. Already approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the device recently earned the European Union’s Medical Device Regulation certification. Breezing provides health care professionals the data they need to help patients overcome weight loss challenges by adjusting diet and physical activity as the body changes. The technology is also an effective tool for use in bariatric surgery, endocrinology, family medicine and nutrition.

Drones that make deliveries, a navigation algorithm for self-driving cars, using heat from a hydrogen fuel cell to keep food warm, small robotic vehicles that clean debris off roadways. These are some of the projects featured during a recent event at which ASU students exhibited and demonstrated designs and models of potential new technologies they’ve been developing. The projects gave students hands-on basic training in conducting research, reinventing older technologies, mapping paths to innovation, exploring ideas for new tools and systems and using their skills to serve the public good.

Ryan Abernathy didn’t make it through college on his first try, but various ASU programs — including an industry partnership and ASU’s Earned Admission program — gave him a second chance and he eventually earned a degree through the Fulton Schools’ information technology program. He would become a technical specialist for IBM, the major multinational technology company known for its advanced computing and related technologies and services. Abernathy’s success reflects the Fulton Schools’ efforts to design flexible degree programs to serve students “at any stage of life,” says Kyle Squires, dean of the Fulton Schools.

The MechanicalTree is among the well-known technologies designed to help counter threats posed by an atmosphere in which carbon dioxide emitted from various industrial operations and vehicles that burn fossil fuels can be captured and rendered less harmful. The technology was developed based largely on work by Fulton Schools Professor Klaus Lackner, founding director of ASU’s Center for Negative Carbon Emissions. Earlier this year, ASU was awarded a large grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to help build a carbon capture hub in the Southwest with an industry partner, Carbon Collect. Despite its capabilities, however, there are critics who contend that carbon capture technology does not adequately protect the environment.

Many ASU students are taking the time and making the effort to step beyond their schoolwork and pursue real-world learning experiences by getting involved in community service projects and related volunteer ventures. Among them is Hassonil Jones, who is pursuing a degree in chemical engineering in the School for the Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools. Through the school’s Summer Research Initiative program, Jones is exploring possibilities of an alternative for lithium-ion batteries, which have a history of exploding. The project is part of his work to help overcome sustainability challenges through the Fulton Schools’ Grand Challenge Scholars Program.

Artificial intelligence and chatbot technologies that feature computer programs designed to simulate conversation with humans  are becoming a more prevalent way for customer service and data centers to communicate with the public. These high-tech systems are performing their basic functions adequately, but they are also requiring tens of millions of dollars in electricity costs. Yezhou Yang, (pictured) an associate professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, talks about the outlook for resolving the problem, which can also have a detrimental impact on other public services, such as water supplies. These challenges are continuing to grow in Arizona.

Some of the most accomplished ASU students are among the record number of more than 21,000 undergraduate and graduate students who will be awarded their degrees in May, including about 4,700 Fulton Schools students. Among them is Omkaar Shenoy, who has earned a degree in part through the computer science program in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools. Shenoy has already been hired by the Aramark company as a data engineer who will analyze food supplies and build dashboards to monitor inventory. He credits ASU for enabling him to build skills in coding, media and science and “to explore my creative side,” all of which has helped to provide him a “launchpad to start my career strong.”

Some of the ASU researchers seeking solutions to the most pressing environmental and societal challenges are studying the lives of bugs in pursuit of their goals. Among them is Ted Pavlic, an associate professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, and director of the  Bringing Ecology and Engineering Together Lab. Researchers on his team see possibilities for advances in nanomedicine and the use of nanobots being combined to provide applications in therapies cancer and other diseases. By studying ants’ various abilities, Pavlic and his colleagues have also designed decentralized systems for meeting the lighting and heating demands of smart buildings.

Airplanes and spacecraft are among things that can be built to be more structurally resilient by using a recently developed copper alloy. Kiran Solanki, a professor in the the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools, helped to create the new alloy. He explains how its chemical characteristics give it a combination of physical properties that enable materials to withstand very high stress from pressure and heat. That ability could open paths for industry and the military to create new materials to strengthen hypersonic and high-performance turbine engines. For more news of this advance, see previous posts on this page dated April 12 and March 28.

See also: New copper alloy achieves unprecedented high-temperature performance, Recycling Today, April 25

ASU’s Laboratory for Energy And Power Solutions efforts have been crucial to successful demonstrations of new technology that increases the reliability and reducing the cost of electricity almost anywhere where microgrids are being used. That progress could help to make power grids more reliable and expand use and production of clean energy. Among contributors to the work is Arnel Garcesa, who will graduate this spring after earning a doctoral degree in the systems engineering program of The Polytechnic School, part of the Fulton Schools. The new Adaptive Control of Energy Systems was developed by ASU’s Laboratory for Energy And Power Solutions, directed by Nathan Johnson, an associate professor in The Polytechnic School.

Of the almost 600 billion pounds of plastic waste  produced each year, less than 15 percent is being recycled and exposure to much of this waste threatens human health, especially plastics that contain BPA, a chemical that can interfere with the body’s hormones and increase the risk of heart disease, cancer and infertility. Researchers are seeking safer and more sustainable alternatives by developing plant-based plastic materials suitable for use in water filtration and medical devices. Matthew Green, an associate professor in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools, is among researchers trying to find ways to use natural products that could replace petroleum-based materials and reduce health risks.

Research led by Anamitra Pal, an associate professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools, is focused on developing and deploying monitoring systems to help protect electric power systems in the U.S. It’s one of many ASU science and engineering projects promising to help the U.S. and the world save and protect vital infrastructure. Pal has led development of the Wildlife Awareness and Risk Management System to deploy wireless sensors that monitor the environment around power transmission systems in remote locations.

A large portable canopy designed to track the movement of the sun and maximize the capture of solar energy is being developed through a collaboration of ASU and Cornell University researchers. Development of the canopy, called HelioSkin, emerged from a research partnership of Mariana Bertoni,  a professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools, and leader of ASU’s Defect Engineering for Energy Conversion Technologies lab, and Jenny Sabin, an architectural designer at Cornell University. They began by combining computational design, digital fabrication and 3D printing to create photovoltaic panel assemblies that boost sunlight absorption to generate energy.

Advances in medical diagnostics are playing a major role in many significant health care innovations. Much of this progress involves contributions from engineers. Among them is Erica Forzani, an associate professor in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools, and deputy director of ASU’s Biodesign Center for Bioelectronics and Biosensors. She and her colleagues have developed Breezing, a handheld device into which people can breathe and instantly get vital information about their metabolic rates. An advanced version, called Breezing Pro, is  being used in research, fitness and sports training and health management.

Much of the critical infrastructure the U.S. relies on for electrical power is falling victim to the impacts of climate change, especially rising heat that is stressing electricity distribution grids and inhibiting power delivery. Mikhail Chester, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, and director of the Metis Center for Infrastructure and Sustainable Engineering, warns that the onslaught of climate change is happening too quickly to allow for adequate re-engineering of the nation’s energy distribution networks. The problem could pose threats to public safety, economic stability and various critical community services, while reinforcing power infrastructure could be costly.

Members of ASU’s student chapters of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers and American Society of Mechanical Engineers pitched ideas for projects and business ventures at the recent Shark Tank event. Judges from the Honeywell and Education at Work companies evaluated students’ ideas, rendering decisions on whether they would invest in what students proposed. One team created an automated laser power bed fusion to automatically move and deposit metal powder. Another team presented a device for measuring heat, designed to work with operations using non-oxides. The event is meant to give students an idea of what is takes to achieve innovations.

Teaming with the U.S. Army Research Laboratory and researchers at Lehigh University and Louisiana State University, Kiran Solanki, a professor in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools, has developed a new copper nanocrystalline alloy that has groundbreaking level resistance to coarsening and deformation, including at melting point temperatures. The material is now among the superalloys that are in demand for many engineering, high-tech and industrial applications that require materials that are exceptionally resilient, highly corrosion resistant and stable at high temperatures. See a previous post, dated March 28, linking to other reports on this advance in alloy strength.

See also: New engineered copper alloy could improve reliability of high-performance electrical systems, Notebook Check, April 15

The city of Mesa, Arizona, has emerged as a growing hub for technology companies involved in cutting-edge endeavors. Among reasons the area has been seeing the rise in its attraction as a high-tech innovation environment are the impacts of research and education programs at ASU’s Polytechnic campus and its interdisciplinary programs in the sciences, engineering, technology and manufacturing. The campus in Mesa is home to the School of Manufacturing Systems and Networks and The Polytechnic School, both parts of Fulton Schools. The two schools’ educational offerings and research pursuits are geared to cultivating a workforce trained to meet the evolving demands of growing sectors of advanced high-tech industries.

A 1-year-old boy whose mother saw something powdery and gray on his shirt discovered he had eaten some of the ashes from her deceased father’s cremation. Quoted from a previous interview, Rolf Halden, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools and director of the Center for Environmental Health Engineering at ASU’s Biodesign Institute, says cremation mineralizes the body and produces ashes that contain carbon but are not a serious health threat, unless the deceased’s teeth contained heavy metals. Learning her son was safe, the mother says she laughed about this incident, because her father “definitely would have wanted me to laugh about it.”

A 3D-printed artificial blood vessel with the strength and flexibility of real blood vessels has been developed in part through the work of Yuxiang Zhu, who recently earned a doctoral degree in the School of Manufacturing Systems and Networks, part of the Fulton Schools. The achievement helps to provide a printed vascular graft with a flower-mimicking design that overcomes the drawback of existing grafts that cannot fully replicate how our blood vessels respond to movement and stress. Safer and more effective cardiovascular disease treatments and fewer bypass surgery failure rates are expected to result for the achievement. The project’s long-term goal is to see the grafts move from laboratory development to use in medical clinics.

Nancy Gonzales, ASU’s executive vice president and university provost, says the recent U.S. News & World Report’s rankings of the leading college graduate degree programs show the broad scope of academic excellence to be found at ASU’s various schools and colleges. The Fulton Schools reflect that trend. Graduate education fine-tunes the skills needed by business executives, policy makers, legal professionals, educators and engineers, Gonzales says. Among the ASU graduate programs that placed in the top 20 in the nation in these latest rankings are the Fulton Schools’ environmental engineering program and the industrial/manufacturing systems program.

Krishnendu Chakrabarty, the Fulton Professor of Microelectronics in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools, has  won a major award for developing quality assurance testing to improve the reliability and function of data servers. The award from the Open Compute Project Foundation acknowledges collaborations between foundries and university researchers to develop innovative data center design solutions, which can help the health care, security and finances and related industries successfully manage vast amounts of confidential user data. The new method is a breakthrough in the use of large language models that will have widespread impacts, says Chakrabarti’s ASU colleague Farshad Firouzi, an electrical engineering research scientist.

A rapidly growing population, persistent drought and outdated water supply infrastructure are among big challenges facing Arizona in ensuring clean, affordable and reliable water supplies. ASU’s Water Institute recently hosted the national Rethinking Water West conference to explore potential solutions to a variety of water-related issues throughout the U.S. Southwest. The Water Institute’s director stressed the need to fund and develop systems to deliver water security efficiently and affordably using cutting-edge water monitoring, prediction and management tools. Rujie Zeng, an assistant professor in ASU’s School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, discussed about how artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies could help produce robust and adaptable tools and systems to aid the cause.

Frustration seems all too frequent when it comes to peoples’ driving experiences on increasingly busy roadways in the greater Phoenix area, as well as much of Arizona. The ASU student’s commentary notes that one major cause of the annoying situation is that the state has some of the nation’s roadways on which drivers most frequently and recklessly exceed speed limits. Steve Polzin, a research professor at the TOMNET University Transportation Center in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, points to a variety of factors at the root of a persistent driving safety problem.

Fulton Schools researchers are aiding industry in developing more resilient electronic technologies to withstand the challenging environments of outer space. The ASU Center for Semiconductor Microelectronics, founded by Krishnendu Chakrabarty, is leading the collaborative efforts to provide compact, low-cost and low-power-use devices that function reliably in space. The work involves applications of advanced microelectronics in spacecraft, satellites and various related electronic devices. Chakrabarty is a Fulton Professor of Microelectronics in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools. His colleague in the school, Professor Hugh Barnaby, provides microelectronics radiation testing expertise for the researcher endeavors. Graduate and postdoctoral students also are getting opportunities to contribute to projects.

Golden algae, which can present an environmental threat to lakes and rivers, has recently been detected in some Arizona lakes. The presence of golden algae’s blooms, which are often toxic, has been confirmed in the state’s popular Canyon Lake and Saguaro Lake, where increasing fish deaths are being reported. Tayor Weiss, an assistant professor of environmental and resource management in The Polytechnic School, part of the Fulton Schools, says it could be only a matter of time before people and pets are threatened. Weiss and others warn the infestations can spread widely, especially where lakes and rivers are connected.

ASU has been expanding its engineering programs and repurposing its high-tech research facilities, which have been helping to attract large semiconductor industry investments of billions of dollars into Arizona. The university’s research is also helping Arizona become a global leader in microelectronics. As one example, Sarma Vrudhula, a professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, has been designing new microchips and systems that are helping to bring about the next phase of the AI revolution. His work in this area recently brought him a $2 million grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation. 

Years of violent and destructive conflict have left Gaza a dramatically war-torn region. Now there is talk of rebuilding, but that is seen as a complicated, long-range political challenge. Restoration would also require undertaking formidable reconstruction and extensive related engineering ventures, says Mikhail Chester, a professor and urban geography expert in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools. Chester, who is also director of the Metis Center for Infrastructure and Sustainable Engineering, gives his perspective on the time, effort, investment and commitment it would take to adequately rebuild Gaza.

Three Fulton Schools faculty members recently earned the National Academy of Inventors’ prestigious senior member status. Matthew Green and Hamidreza Marvi, associate professors of chemical engineering in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, and Chao Wang, an associate professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, both parts of the Fulton Schools, are among four recent ASU faculty members selected by the prestigious academy. Green was noted for work on the environmental impact of the planet’s rising temperatures. Marvi’s progress on robotic technologies inspired by nature earned him the honor. Wang was chosen for developing engineering solutions in advanced manufacturing, nanophotonics and biomolecular sensing.

A newly developed alloy features extraordinary mechanical strength and thermal stability. The nanocrystalline alloy has a high resistance to coarsening and deformation even when exposed to extremely high temperatures. Kiran Solanki, a professor in the the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools, is a member of the team that achieved the materials science and engineering advance, which was reported about in the prominent journal Science. Solanki and his partners in the project detail the technical capabilities of the new material and describe its resilience and other qualities that promise to make it useful in myriad engineering applications.

See also: An Unstoppable New Alloy Can Survive 1,400°F-and Could Transform the Planes You Fly On, Popular Mechanics Online, April 1

A big wave of growth in the fabrication of semiconductor technology in Arizona, especially by the Intel Corporation and the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, has been extensively supported through work at ASU facilities. At the university’s MacroTechnology Works operations, engineering faculty and students are contributing to development of processes that are boosting expansion of the domestic semiconductor microchip industry. Fulton Schools’ Vice Dean for Research and Innovation Zachary Holman, gives details on the research center’s multifaceted projects and the research and development ecosystem it has helped to foster that is serving the U.S. economy as well as national security through advances in chip technology and related areas.

As movies, television and other sources of popular entertainment have increasingly moved to digital sources, comic books remain popular as a print media product. That’s reflected by The Comic Book Club at ASU Poly formed recently by Fulton Schools human systems engineering student Kevin Cruz and software engineering student Jaden Broughten. Club members gather to talk about the still-growing comic book realm. Beyond the connection they feel to classic comic books of the past, they also appreciate the artistry and craftsmanship displayed by modern comic books and cartoon strips. Club members also compare adaptations of original comic books and cartoon series into today’s movies and television shows.

Many growing major metropolitan regions are weighing the pros and cons of developing extensive high speed rail lines in efforts to serve the needs of their swelling populations and expanding urban infrastructure systems. The Great Lakes region offers a look at the challenges involved in such endeavors. Mikhail Chester, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, and director of the Metis Center for Infrastructure and Sustainable Engineering, says these systems can provide environmental benefits but also present the challenge of maintaining the high ridership needed to make them economically viable.

ASU students are getting first-hand experience in research focused on space exploration, technology and policy in collaboration with faculty members and industry experts in those fields. Among them are Meilyn Guas Perez and Sayantika Choudhury, both aerospace engineering students in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools. Both are nearing completion of their undergraduate studies. Perez says by combining engineering studies with materials science studies, she is better equipped to handle complex engineering challenges. Choudhury says her studies have better prepared her to achieve a goal of contributing to astronaut well-being and to space mission success.

Fulton Schools students were among dozens of competitors in this year’s Designing Actionable Solutions for a Secure Homeland challenge. They joined in proposing and devising ways to effectively overcome obstacles faced by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. ASU engineering students Gavin Russo and Tyler Santos were among others from 15 universities taking on pressing artificial intelligence, or AI, challenges facing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Ron Askin, executive director of the ASU’s Center for Accelerating Operational Efficiency and an emeritus professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, said the event’s purpose was to stoke students’ interest in national security careers.

Despite progress in gender equality, there is still reluctance in some professions to fully accept females into the mainstream. Engineering is sometimes among them. But many women are maintaining solidarity in facing the challenges of acceptance. Alexandra Roselle, an aerospace engineering student in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools, and member of the Society of Women Engineers  at ASU, is in a field in which fewer the 14 percent of the workforce are females. Roselle recalls teachers in elementary and middle school telling her engineering is a job suitable for women. But she and other ASU students in engineering and other fields continue challenging barriers that have long limited women’s career opportunities.

Praniti Lakwara, an ASU aeronautical engineering graduate, is chief information officer at Zscaler, a leading cloud security company that provides cybersecurity solutions. Lakwara manages information technology solutions services for customers and employees. Her overarching goal is to drive a comprehensive strategy that will help rapidly scale the company into a world-class information technology organization. Those and other impressive achievements in her field has resulted in her selection as one of the most accomplished women who are shaping the fast-evolving networking industry as leaders of technology and business teams for the high-tech business world.

In an article in the first mass-circulation science and technology magazine from an Indian educational institution, Subbarao Kambhampati, a professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, gives a detailed technical overview on the quest by researchers to find ways to develop autonomous artificial intelligence, or AI, technology that offers not only information and knowledge but rationality. Such an advance would push AI into an evolutionary stage beyond merely “parroting” intelligence toward an ability to perform reasoning, say Kambhampati and other experts in the field. Some experts foresee the possibility of a machine that thinks like the human brain.

Increasing flight delays and cancellations have resulted from precautionary actions by the Federal Aviation Administration, or FAA, after a collision in January involving an American Airlines jet and a U.S. Army helicopter resulted in more than 60 deaths. The crash is still being investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board, while the FAA is expected to use new technology to both improve flight operations and reduce risk factors. Steve Polzin, a research professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, says airport officials will need to balance new safety guidelines with the need to improve flight times. (Access to the article requires a  subscription.)

Government, business and education leaders at the annual Arizona Space Summit  accessed progress in making the state a leading hub for global space exploration  and semiconductor industry enterprises. Details were presented on ASU’s involvement with several NASA missions and noted the university’s NewSpace Initiative as one of 12 initiatives or institutes striving to lead the integration of academia with the commercial space sector. Hugh Barnaby, a professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools, and Fulton Schools Vice Dean for Research and Innovation Zachary Holman pointed to ventures taking shape at ASU to accelerate space and semiconductor sector endeavors.

A significant expansion of one of the world’s major semiconductor manufacturers is underway at its Phoenix facilities, where the company will need to substantially increase its workforce. The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., or TSMC, recruits from universities across the U.S., but is focusing particularly on the Fulton Schools, from which about 7,000 students are projected to soon graduate with skills in semiconductor work. Many are currently engaged with TSMC through fellowships and company-sponsored research. The relationship has led to an ASU TSMC Partnership that has ambitious goals to enhance education in microelectronics, upskill the industry workforce and accelerate research.

Financial market watchers are indicating it’s time for innovation by the Geostationary Earth Orbit, or GEO, operators due to increased competition in the satellite sector, price pressure and risk of oversupply from Low Earth Orbit networks. One research analyst says the proprietary and specialized GEO infrastructure of the past is weighing down space industry veterans who must rapidly innovate as competition mounts. Daniel Bliss, a professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools, and director of ASU’s Center for Wireless Information Systems and Computational Architectures, talks about the engineering and technical challenges of ensuring the effective performance space satellite networks.

In the ASU Biodesign Institute’s basement lab, students are working on the compact X-ray free electron laser, or CXFEL, project, which potentially could help lead to revolutionary scientific progress. Among the research team members are Fulton Schools students, including mechanical engineering and physics student Albert Richardson and fellow engineering and physics student Gavin Russo, along with computer systems engineering Alexis Vasquez, among others. They and fellow students say the hands-on research and development experience with high-level technologies is energizing and motivating them to set their sights on pursuing efforts aimed at developing major engineering and technology innovations in their career fields.

As the world celebrates Women’s History Month, the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, better known as NASCAR, is heralding how women continue to emerge in the professional auto racing arena, Among the young up-and-coming standouts in the sport is Isabella Robusto, an aerospace engineering student in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools. At 20, Robusto is seen as part of the next generation of racing stars. She shares her views on the evolution of the sport, the challenges it presents, the rewards it offers and how it is preparing for her for a career in a competitive world.

Two ASU teams from among more than 130 student teams worldwide took on challenges in the EcoTech Emerge competition to develop cutting-edge, net-zero carbon emissions for innovative agricultural management systems driven by artificial intelligence technology. An ASU team including Xiaolin Xi, a student in the university’s W.P. Carey School of Business artificial intelligence in business graduate program, and four students in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, Saurabh Dusane, a computer engineering student, Sreehari Krishna Sadesh, a computer science graduate student, and  industrial engineering student Tanushri Magesh Sowmya earned a third place award, while computer science students Sahil Pai and Brandon Lim took a first place award.

Problems with a slow-acting computer and a lagging internet connection when he was a teenager are among annoyances that motivated Sandul Gangodagamage to seek solutions that would eventually drive him to start a company while still  in high school and later win several pitch competitions, including an ASU Venture Devils prize last year. Gangodagamage, now a second-year computer science student in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy,  part of the Fulton Schools, has scaled his Legion Games company, to what  he says has  more than eight million users across 190 countries. He describes his path to this success and the outlook for expansion of his ventures in coming years.

Among college faculty members who made notable contributions to the recent South by Southwest Festival in Texas was Laura Hosman, an associate professor in The Polytechnic School, part of the Fulton Schools. Hosman is co-founder and director of SolarSPELL, which evolved from an assignment she gave to her engineering students to create a humanitarian project to provide people around the world with portable, solar-powered library devices. It won the festival’s “best in show” award. Another Fulton Schools contributor was Klaus Lackner, director of the Center for Negative Carbon Emissions and professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, who talked about the carbon-capture technology he developed.

Why is Phoenix and municipalities in the surrounding metropolitan, suburban and rural areas a hotspot for training aircraft pilots? On this podcast, Anthony Wende, an assistant teaching professor in the aviation program at The Polytechnic School, part of the Fulton Schools, joons others in helping trace the local history and the region’s development over many decades. They reveal that Arizona became the first international airport of the Americas and how World War II brought many aspiring pilots to train in the state’s inviting climate, with its year-round blue skies.

There are new technologies that promise to help solve many of the world’s biggest water supply challenges. Those tools and systems were part of the focus of the recent International Atmospheric Water Harvesting Summit at ASU. The Fulton Schools were among hosts of the event, which as chaired by Paul Westerhoff, an ASU Regents Professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools. In this article, Westerhoff answers questions about the world’s most pressing water supply and sustainability challenges and related economic challenges. The interview also explores the possibilities of harvesting water from the Earth’s atmosphere to prevent water shortages.

Contributors to the second phase of the Phoenix Northwest Light Rail Transit system included a team of students in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, led by Fulton Schools Professor Barzin Mobasher.  The team helped to ensure the performance of the concrete used in the project, which has been named a finalist in the Engineering News Record, or ENR, Southwest regional competition for Best Projects completed in 2024. In an American Society of Civil Engineers publication, Mobasher wrote about how students verified that the use of an advanced concrete with steel fibers for the 1.6-mile, multimillion-dollar extension significantly improved ductility and met the 45-year service life of 2 million structural fatigue cycles.

A planned $100 billion expansion of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing operations in Phoenix was announced recently, bringing with it the challenge of finding the many qualified workers with a range of skills in a variety of high-tech fields the company will need to achieve it goals. One source is the Fulton Schools, with many of its more than 30,000 students whose studies are preparing them to support the needs of the booming microelectronics industry. The Fulton Schools, the largest engineering school in the nation, is poised to be vital partner in TSMC’s expansion, says an ASU spokesperson.

Arizona’s bridges, railways and roadways are increasingly providing the state safer, more sustainable and economic transit infrastructure, options and services. Some of those benefits are rooted in achievements enabled by research at ASU. Among examples of that impact is the development of fiber reinforced concrete by Professors Barzin Mobasher and Narayanan Neithalath in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools. Work they are directing in the Structural Mechanics and Infrastructure Materials  and Cement and Concrete Materials laboratories is contributing to improved construction materials for development and repair of transportation systems as well as broader innovations that are helping to enhance mobility and livability in communities.

ASU rose one spot among U.S. universities on the Academy of Inventors’ annual list of the top universities worldwide. Last year, ASU secured 180 utility patents, up by 10 from the previous year, earning a ranking in the top 10 in the U.S. Among achievements highlighted in this report is the development by ASU and Texas Instruments researchers of technology that helps semiconductor chip designers by improving the way electronic devices match to one another electronically inside a high-tech processing chip. Creators of the patented technology include Sule Ozev, a professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools.

See also: ASU among the top 10 universities for utility patents, Wrangler News Tempe Independent, March 17
Professor Sule Ozev and Associate Professor Wenlong Zhang, in the School of Manufacturing Systems and Networks are mentioned

A 30-acre Phoenix Bioscience Core innovation zone to be developed in the city’s downtown core will benefit from the resources of the Fulton Schools. The future ASU Health headquarters will be part of the complex that will include the university’s School of Medicine and Advanced Medical Engineering and the School of Technology for Public Health. Plans are for ASU Health to work closely with ASU’s College of Health Solutions, the Edson College of Nursing and Health Innovation and the Fulton Schools to form what one official said will be the “center of the universe” for dialog relating to health for Arizonans.

See also:  Officials announce plans for new ASU health headquarters in downtown Phoenix, ABC News 15 Arizona, March 10

ASU announces location for health headquarters in Phoenix, Daily Independent, March 10

ASU announces downtown Phoenix location of future medical school, KTAR News-Phoenix, March 11

ASU, City of Phoenix announce location for ASU Health headquarters, AZ Big Media, March 11

The U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, is among federal agencies undergoing a funding freeze and its work with ASU has stopped. ASU has supported more than 20 USAID projects in the past decade through research, technical support, administrative expertise and staffing. Those efforts have included help from the Fulton Schools in looking at public infrastructure for parks and transportation in El Salvador to consider modifications to help decrease harassment that is common there. The Fulton Schools collaborations with USAID are also lauded as the gold standard for matching public-sector goals and private-sector needs with education-sector abilities to help build workforces and provide investments for the future.

Billions of dollars have already been promised to U.S. chipmakers to provide the nation’s semiconductor manufacturers the advanced technology necessary to support the growth of the high-tech sector. President Donald Trump has called for halting this effort put in motion by the CHIPS Act, even though it has driven substantial new investments in the U.S. by major companies such as Taiwan Semiconductor. Binil Starly, director of the School of Manufacturing Systems and Networks, part of the Fulton Schools, and other experts say the value of the CHIPS Act is crucial to realizing the potential for an ongoing upswing in the country’s economy aided by a growing supply of cutting-edge manufacturing systems.

Rosa Krajmalnik-Brown is Among ASU researchers whose work extends beyond the study of health into applying what is being learned and taught about human health and how to protect it.   Krajmalnik-Brown is a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools and director of the ASU Biodesign Institute’s Center for Health Through Microbiomes. A video that’s part of this article detailing many of ASU’s health and medical research  endeavors includes a video on the work she and her colleagues are doing to improve treatment for people with autism. The video includes James Adams, a professor in the School  for the Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools, who is also doing research to improve autism treatment for children. Details of other ASU health and medical research projects are reported in the article.

As climate trends trigger rising temperatures and more persistent heat, ASU researchers are working to enable people to remain safe and healthy in such conditions. Among projects are a thermal manikin that can measure the effects of extreme heat on humans so they can design adequate solutions. Leaders of that work include Konrad Rykaczewski, an associate professor in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy. Other faculty members involved in related projects are Ariane Middel, an assistant professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence and Narayanan Neithalath, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., or TSMC, the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturer, is poised to invest an additional $100 billion in the United States. That will include significant funding to expand operations at the company’s facilities in the Phoenix area. Plans call for the TSMC Phoenix complex to grow to six fabrication plants. Binil Starly director of the School of Manufacturing Systems and Networks, part of the Fulton Schools, says the expansion shows investments by U.S. and Arizona state governments in manufacturing infrastructure are paying off. Starly says the next challenge will be providing the large number of skilled workers required by TSMC.

See also: In ‘major win’ for Arizona, Trump and TSMC announce $100B manufacturing expansion, The Arizona Republic, March 3
Governor Katie Hobbs said the TSMC announcement “cements Arizona as the epicenter of advanced chip manufacturing and innovation in America.” That achievement, she said, has been aided by university partners, notably ASU.

Sandra Watson on TSMC’s Historic $100 billion Investment, 3TV Phoenix, March 4
Arizona Commerce Authority President and CEO Sandra Watson comments on TSMC’s announcement of an additional $100 billion investment in Arizona to build three additional semiconductor fabs and related facilities. 

A look at how ASU research is paving the way for advances in fast-evolving artificial intelligence, or AI, technology that promise to change the world for the better provides details on a project to improve women’s health care. Research aimed at both protecting and improving women’s cardiovascular health is being lead by Sandeep Gupta, a professor in School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, and director of the  Intelligent Mobile & Pervasive Applications & Communication Technologies Lab. Gupta’s and Fulton Schools Associate Research Professor Ayan Banerjee’s efforts, funded by the National Science Foundation, focus on developing the technology to advance medical treatment options for women.

In an episode of a new podcast series that focuses on news and views of direct air capture technology, or DAC, which extracts troublesome carbon dioxide from the atmosphere,  Klaus Lackner, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, and founding director of ASU’s Center for Negative Carbon Emissions, is interviewed about the work that has earned him the unofficial title of the Grandfather of DAC. This look at his contributions to the field provides an informative overview of the challenges to ensuring a safe and healthy atmospheric environment.

ASU’s Luminosity Lab has relocated from a Fulton Schools location but at the same time is altering its strategy in ways designed to give students more experience in generating new research ideas. Students involved in the lab’s endeavors have carried out projects with goals that had been defined by the needs of corporations. The change is shifting to an emphasis on formulating research pursuits revolving around achieving progress that would benefit society at large in meaningful ways. Third-year Fulton Schools electrical engineering student Nabiha Ama, who has been on the lab’s team since her freshman year, sees the new direction helping to broaden the range of students’ educational and research experiences.

The Washington District of Columbia’s representative in the U.S. Congress has asked the U.S. defense secretary to stop nonessential VIP helicopter travel in the area. Citing the more than 60 lives lost recently in a collision between an Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines flight in the district, D.C. congressional delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton wants the U.S. Department of Defense to halt most of these VIP flights. Travel behavior and transportation policy expert Steven Polzin, a research professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, provides some perspective on exploring viable solutions.

Travel safety on roadways has typically been a high priority of all levels of government, and many local, state and national programs address travel safety issues. The new U.S. secretary of transportion has pointedly emphasized the issue. Still, progress in maintaining road transportation safety has been not only slow but showing some reversals, writes Steven Polzin, a research professor in the School of School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, whose work focuses on travel behavior and transportation policy. The consequences are often tragic for families and society, Polzin says, declaring that progress will require losing our tolerance of unsafe driver behavior.

Paulo Shakarian, an associate professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, is working with colleagues and students on software to help Arizona officials make critical decisions in reacting to potential dangers to the public that can result from wildfires, floods and similar rapid growing environmental threats. The team will explore if artificial intelligence, or AI, technology could help in determining what kinds of  threatening chain reactions could be ignited from these and other emergency situations. A recent research grant from the Arizona Board of Regents has already been approved to fund development the new AI software. 

See also: Arizona Board of Regents supporting AI-powered disaster response efforts, KTAR News, February 17

Cornell University researchers have developed photovoltaic panels using a lightweight fabric that wraps around complex shapes and be contorted to better absorb sunlight to provide a versatile component for renewable solar energy generation. Called HelioSkin, it evolved from a collaboration between Cornell Professor Jenny Sabin and Mariana Bertoni, a professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools, who is also a member of the HelioSkin team. They combined computational design, digital fabrication and 3D printing to produce customized filters and photovoltaic panel assemblies. The achievement advances efforts to enable integrated material systems of buildings to act like organisms to respond and adapt to their environments.

A building spree by Arizona State University is doing more than benefitting the university community. The projects are also offering multiple benefits and contributions to the state’s economy. Among them is the more than 170,000-square-foot structure that will provide office, meeting, instructional, research and collaboration spaces and be the home of ASU’s new School of Manufacturing Systems and Networks, part of the Fulton Schools. Planned for a fall 2025 opening, it will feature additive manufacturing labs, labs for robotics, smart manufacturing, industry automation, cyber manufacturing and operation research, as well as semiconductor manufacturing and manufacturing systems for the energy sector.

Brent Sebold, the Fulton Schools’ director of entrepreneurship and innovation, sees students in any area of academic studies getting valuable opportunities to contribute to Arizona’s emerging semiconductor technology industry ecosystem. The Chip In for Arizona competition, open to students 18 and older enrolled at Arizona’s accredited higher education institutions, is challenging them to create brand narratives to reflect Arizona’s growing stature in the semiconductor industry. The president and CEO of the Greater Phoenix Economic Council  says the competition offers those in the next generation of technology professionals a chance to both participate and invest in shaping the future of Arizona’s economic growth.

Nine new projects to be funded by the Security & Defence PLuS will support research to address critical national security and defense challenges. The organization is part of the PLuS Alliance, a partnership of three leading research universities — the University of New South Wales, King’s College London, and Arizona State University. Project leaders include three Fulton Schools faculty members: Heather Lum, an assistant professor of human systems engineering in The Polytechnic School ; Qijun Hong, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy and Professor; and Katina Michael in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, an expert on socio-ethical implications of emerging technologies with an emphasis on national security.

An ASU start-up, HydroGuard, developed an app that tracks peoples’ physical activities, heart rate, skin temperature and fluid intake to give them real-time feedback on their hydration status. The venture’s team includes biomedical engineering graduate student Saanya Aroura, (at far right in photo) in the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools, and Asiful Arefeen (second from left in photo), a master’s degree student in computer science with a concentration in biomedical informatics, in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, also part of the Fulton Schools. The team won an ASU College of Health Solutions pitch fest last September for the hydration monitor designed to help prevent the onset of heat-related illnesses.

A multi-university research team that has been discovering membranes capable of removing. harmful “forever chemicals” includes Tiezheng Tong (pictured in an ASU photo), an associate professor of environmental engineering in ASU’s School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools. Tong is helping to use advanced machine learning technology to perform membrane separation. The process enables researcher. to get a better understanding of the transport of forever chemicals across nanofiltration and reverse osmosis membranes, thereby expanding the boundaries of membrane separation science, Tong says. The project is a step to stopping the pollution caused by forever chemicals due to their toxic nature and their presence in water and common products found in most homes.

See also: Machine learning accelerates discovery of membranes to filter PFAS from water,  Tech Xplore, February 19
Researchers Unveil Breakthrough in Understanding Mineral Scaling in Water Desalination, CityBuzz, January 23

The Building Bridges to College and Beyond for Autistic and Neurodivergent Students event — led by the College Autism Network, with sponsorship from Arizona State University — will be at Mesa Community College February 20 and 21. It will spotlight ASU’s programs to help autistic students succeed in college and career pursuits. The Fulton Schools are contributing, with faculty members getting involved in discussion panels and presentations. ASU’s efforts to support students with autism include the Employment Assistance & Social Engagement program, or EASE, Developed by faculty in the Fulton Schools and ASU’s College of Health Solutions, EASE pairs autistic engineering students with peer mentors for training in social engagement, career preparation, technical expertise and skills needed for STEM careers.

Much of the success of student projects coming out of the Interplanetary Laboratory since it got started five years ago has stemmed from the pursuits and contributions of Fulton Schools students. A recent event to spotlight accomplishments made in the lab noted work of several ASU engineering students. They included recent graduate Chandler Hutchins, who now has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in aerospace engineering and space systems engineer job at Northrop Grumman. Second-year aerospace engineering student Beth McAuliffe says the lab is providing students valuable opportunities to learn and do research in multiple areas of engineering and take on science, engineering and technology projects with business partners from outside the university.

An initiative designed to pave the way for artificial intelligence, or AI, technology to help make disaster response efforts more effective calls for teaming ASU researchers and the Arizona Department of Emergency and Military Affairs to harness AI capabilities to enhance disaster response and planning, including identifying emerging threats to public safety and resources so that potential damaging impacts could be averted. ASU experts in technology development would lead efforts to develop advanced technologies capable of achieving the project’s goals. Paulo Shakarian, an associate professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, will be one of the co-principal investigators for the project. Shakarian comments about the project in a related Instagram post.

See also: Arizona Board of Regents supporting AI-powered disaster response efforts, KTAR News, February 17

Artificial Intelligence could be the future of Arizona disaster response, ABC 15 News, February 21

Electronic waste is piling up at a rate five times faster than the rate of e-waste recycling. The United Nations Institute for Training and Research has documented that in 2022 more than 62 million tons of e-waste were generated worldwide and forecast that it could exceed 80 million tons by 2030. Improperly discarded e-waste poses threats to the environment and human health. Dwarak Ravikumar, an assistant professor at the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, who researches circular economy solutions to address climate change solutions, talks about potential solutions to the problem and the benefits those solutions could have for businesses and communities.

Fulton Schools Associate Director of People and Talent Ashley Anderson is among the Business Journal’s Outstanding Women in Business for 2025. Anderson is among 25 executives chosen from more than 280 nominees from industries including real estate, health care, education and nonprofits. At a March 25 event in Phoenix, Anderson and others selected will be honored for their notable business achievements. The honorees will also be featured in special Business Journal print and digital publications. Anderson is part of the ASU Engineering Dean’s Office of Fiscal and Business Administration and has a professional certification credential as a senior-level human resources professional and a master’s degree in business administration from American Intercontinental University.

There are concerns about expanding use of the advancing capabilities of artificial intelligence, or AI, technology —including the prediction that AI will do jobs now done by millions of people. But some see AI doing more to help people than to replace them. Faculty and students in School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, are exploring possibilities for AI applications to prepare food for seniors who aging in their own homes, aid people with disabilities and help people communicate more effectively. Ross Maciejewski, the school’s director, says that throughout history new technologies have taken over tasks once done by people, but he sees AI eventually creating more jobs than it eliminates. The report is also on a YouTube video on ABC 15 News Arizona and a KRDO/CNN Regional News report.

ASU’s Global Security Initiative, or GSI, begins its second decade after 10 years contributing to research and education aimed at helping to ensure public and government security throughout the world as the tools and weapons employed by menacing sources continue to advance. GSI Director Nadya Bliss, who is also a professor of practice in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, talks about the growing challenges of geopolitical power competitions and the threats they create. Under her leadership GSI has become a global leader in addressing the complex issues and challenges involved in ensuring global security.

The Chinese start-up company DeepSeek recently became the leading artificial intelligence, or AI, app by developing a free version of a popular AI chatbot that goes into something like a human thought process before providing answers to users. That ability has led to DeepSeek quickly becoming the hot U.S. tech stock and has been prompting leading companies, such as Google and Amazon, to respond with similar AI apps. AI experts such as Subbarao Kambhampati, a professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, are assessing the probabilities for how these new models — despite their advances — could still fall short of accuracy and sound reasoning.

About 40 ASU chemical engineering students got a tour of one of Tempe’s water plant recently to learn how the city is aiding municipalities and communities as they try to implement sustainable operational and environmental solutions for their parks, water treatment and management systems and related facilities. It’s part of a project called Project Cities, designed to engage the university and communities in collaborating to address local quality of life needs. It’s challenging Fulton Schools students to use what they are learning in chemical engineering studies to devise scientifically grounded solutions to solve some challenge the city has faced for years.

For an eighth straight semester, 100 or more ASU Sun Devils athletes have earned a perfect 4.0 semester or cumulative grade point average, or GPA. ASU now leads the Big 12 Conference with more than 150 academic All-Americans among the ranks of its student-athletes. Among them is Tiago Behar, a fourth-year undergraduate computer science student in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools. Behar, the 2023–24 NCAA Elite 90 Award recipient for men’s swim and dive, also earned an award for a student athlete with the highest cumulative GPA who has reached the finals competition for each of the NCAA’s 90 men’s championships. He plans to pursue a career in cybersecurity.

While earning undergraduate and master’s degrees in information technology in the Fulton Schools through ASU’s 4+1 program, Torey Takahashi joined ASU Enterprise Technology, where she is now a full-time staff member contributing to a dynamic digital system through which the ASU community is learning, working and achieving success in their related pursuits. Takahashi collaborates with a team that includes software engineers, systems integration specialists and infrastructure management experts to provide scalable and reliable technology experiences to the community. Takahashi has earned promotions across various positions and now has a role as an orchestration engineer. 

Arizona’s aspirations to be an emerging green technology industry hub had been boosted by the decision of KORE Power Inc., a battery cell developer, to build a lithium-ion battery factory in Buckeye, a town west of Phoenix, to support electric vehicles, energy storage systems and more. The company recently pulled back on its plan, but state and local leaders are still intent on seeing the area become the “Sustainable Valley” to attract other battery industry operations. Candace Chan, a professor of materials science and engineering in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools, talks about challenges in gathering the array of high-tech knowledge and skills need to eventually make the effort successful.

An Engineering Projects In Community Service, or EPICS, student team is combining digital signal processing with accelerometer and gyroscope technologies to minimize negative health impacts of Parkinson’s disease — a neurodegenerative condition that causes people to loose muscle control. Fulton Schools electrical engineering student Dylan Levine leads of the Parkinson’s Sleeve development group. The device analyzes tremors and the signal processing send an electrical signal through a specially designed sleeve to the arm to stop the tremor. After work on the prototype, the team will test data and fine-tune the technology, says Jared Schoepf, an associate teaching professor in Engineering Academic & Student Affairs.

China’s coast guard recently deployed a sound cannon in a harassment effort aimed at Philippine vessels in disputed South China Sea waters. The cannons can blast noise loud enough to cause pain and damage hearing. A professor at the University of Hawaii’s School of Pacific and Asian Studies recommended the U.S. provide the Philippines with sound cannons to deter Chinese vessels pushing deeper into the country’s territorial waters. Brad Allenby, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, an expert in the geopolitical implications of emerging technologies, discusses the pros and cons of deploying sound cannons in response to China’s actions.

India is ASU’s largest source of international students — many of whom are Fulton Schools students — which is a driving factor behind a new initiative partnering ASU and India’s Rajalakshmi Engineering College. Designed to help redefine pathways for Indian students’ global education pursuits, the effort will include introducing new undergraduate and master’s degree programs in engineering, computer science, and business and management studies. The college will join the ASU-Cintana Alliance, a global network of progressive universities across Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. The alliance will also enable the college to leverage ASU’s extensive resources and collaborative research opportunities while also strengthening ASU’s global presence. The news is also reported in Investing.com’s Stock Market News and in Investment Guru India.com, Illustrated Daily News and The American Bazaar.

See also: Rajalakshmi Engineering College signs MoU with Arizona State University, USA ,The Hindu, February 12 (access to the article requires a subscription)

ASU partners with Rajalakshmi Engineering College to cater to Indian students, New India Abroad, February 12

ASU Expands Educational Horizons in India: A Leap into AI-Enhanced Learning, Devdiscourse (Discourse & Development) February 13

Search engines are increasingly integrating more tools into their services. Among them are knowledge panels and blurbs excerpted from a search result and provided before the links to web pages. These features use artificial intelligence, of AI, technology that vacuum up information from the internet and other sources and offer answers based on how they are trained to associate words. A complaint about them is that they often remove the user’s judgment from the equation. Paulo Shakarian, an associate professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, explains why such features are often not providing relevant and reliable information.

A new roof coating developed by an ASU spinoff company is continuing to be tested and showing its effectiveness as a moisture and heat barrier and in boosting the lifespans of roofs. Narayanan Neithalath, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, explains what testing is finding that the EnKoat coating system is capable of doing to protect and improve the durability of roofing structures and systems. EnKoat has a controlled microstructure to protect against extreme heat and help cool indoor temperatures in response to various ambient climate conditions. The advances promise to bring significant future progress in strengthening the resilience of many built environments.

An expanding range of factors is deepening the threat of more serious and widespread climate change impacting the U.S. Recent occurrences such as last summer’s 113 consecutive days of temperatures in Phoenix exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit and fewer than five inches of rain over the past year are among weather and climate trend warning signs. Climate adaptation and infrastructure expert Mikhail Chester, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, says extreme climatic conditions and the problems they cause, including wildfires, are becoming more common and likely to raise growing threatens to habitability, quality of live, community stability and overall prosperity.

The deadly midair collision between an Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines flight was the first major crash in the airspace near the Ronald Reagan National Airport since 1982. But the incident came after decades of near misses of aircraft in flight over the area. It is raising questions about why changes that might have prevented such an accident were never made. Steven Polzin, a research professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, and former senior research and technology advisor to the U.S. Department of Transportation, advises worried travelers to avoid crowded airports such as Reagan and peak travel periods.

A new ASU organization, Muslims in Medicine at ASU, intends to offer support to Muslim students pursuing careers in medical and other healthcare professions through their studies at the university. The new group’s vice president, Raheemah Gheyasi, a first-year computer systems engineering student in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, notes that there are other campus organizations focused on the medical field, but that he and fellow students wanted a group to address  specific needs and challenges faced by members of the Muslim faith. The organization has already begun efforts to support students. Through Muslims in Medicine, Gheyasi and another student plan to assist in offering panel discussions and training for Muslim students in collaboration with ASU’s Muslim Student’s Association.

Researchers are testing a new and advanced artificial intelligence, or AI, model to see how it handles hard tasks in areas such as in mathematics and neuroscience. Released by a Chinese company, DeepSeek-RI is an inexpensive and powerful tool being described as a technological game changer in enabling researchers to advance their work. But it’s also been found to fail at some tasks researchers might want to perform. As usual with Chinese AI models, experts note that it won’t answer politically sensitive questions. But AI expert Subbarao Kambhampati, a professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, says that censorship looks more like a clumsy add-on than something baked into system.

Since graduating from ASU more than two decades ago with a mechanical engineering degree, Missy Brost has been carrying on her family’s legacy of giving back to communities and institutions that have contributed to their career success. Brost has now established three new scholarships programs at the university — including an estate gift to provide endowed scholarships for female students in the Fulton Schools, for students from Los Angeles and students related to ASU graduates. Brost is a former winner of the Los Angeles ASU Alumni chapter award. Kyle Squires, dean of the Fulton Schools, says Brost is creating opportunities for more students to pursue their dreams in engineering.

Many ASU educational activities and research pursuits and the value they provide to Arizona’s progress and well-being are especially impactful in building up the state’s economic strength and improving the quality of life Arizona provides. Major pillars of this vital support are strengthened by work the Fulton Schools are contributing to in significant ways. Noted in this report is the research and development being done at ASU’s MacroTechnology Works, managed by the Fulton Schools, and how its advanced research supports the increasingly robust health of the high-tech sector of Arizona’s economy. In addition, the upcoming development of a U.S. Department of Commerce semiconductor research and development facility in Arizona will draw on expertise from the Fulton Schools.

The limitations of even the most advanced Large Language Models, or LMM’s — widely used deep learning models trained on vast amounts of data — are pointed out by am international research team that developed a benchmark for assessing the performance of these models. Researchers presented 70,000 questions to leading AI models and found 13,000 of the questions proved too difficult for the AI systems. Experts such as Subbarao Kamhampati, a professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, and a past president of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, are voicing some doubt about the effort producing comprehensive and meaningful results.

ASU faculty members will be teaming with colleagues at Australia’s University of New South Wales Sydney to carry out research that will provide groundwork for an effort to develop guidelines to assess how autonomous systems, such as artificial intelligence, could perform effectively in ethically sensitive military situations. The effort is being funded through a contract from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency aimed at pioneering new research in military ethics and autonomous technologies. Faculty researchers in three of the Fulton Schools — the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence and The Polytechnic School — will be involved in the project.

The Phoenix area is seeing a major expansion of semiconductor industry facilities bringing many new jobs, while more Arizona companies have made the Deloitte business services company’s North America Technology Fast 500 list and industry leaders continue to see growing opportunities in the state. To meet the demand for new employees, schools and universities are expanding engineering programs. Professor Binil Starly, director of the School of Manufacturing Systems and Networks, part of the Fulton Schools, notes plans to build the Interdisciplinary Science and Technology 12 building, a $185-million addition to ASU’s Polytechnic campus, and new academic programs to train the next generation of engineers to boost Arizona’s workforce.

Collaborations between experts in a wide range of professions are more necessary than ever in seeking solutions to the world’s most critical challenges, says ASU President’s Professor Amber Wutich, director of the university’s Center for Global Health. Wutich also leads Arizona Water for All, one of the five pillars of the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative, led by ASU’s Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory in collaboration with the Fulton Schools. She talks about what she sees as a major necessity for social scientists, engineers and biophysical scientists to find  common ground and successfully work together to adequately address increasingly serious water insecurity challenges. Paul Westerhoff, an ASU Regents Professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment and the Fulton Chair of Environmental Engineering, is closely involved in these and related endeavors at ASU.

Four ASU online degree programs earned first-place in the latest national rankings by US News and & World Report. One of them is a Fulton Schools online graduate degree program. From among hundreds of other college and university engineering degree programs, the Fulton Schools took the top spot in Best Online Master’s in Electrical Engineering Programs. The Fulton Schools were also ranked third for Best Online Masters’ in Engineering Management Programs, sixth for Best Online Master’s in Industrial Engineering Programs, seventh for Best Online Master’s in Engineering Programs for Veterans and 12th overall for Best Online Master’s in Engineering Programs.

Faculty members in three of the Fulton Schools — the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence and The Polytechnic School — will have roles in a U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, project aimed at pioneering new research in military ethics to guide the use of autonomous technologies. Working under a contract granted through DARPA’s Autonomy Standards and Ideals with Military Operational Values program, the project will aim to establish benchmarks to assess how well autonomous systems, including those employing artificial intelligence, can handle complex, ethically sensitive situations in military settings. ASU is partnering on the project with King’s College London and the University of New South Wales.

Advanced packaging technologies such as 2.5D and 3D stacking are at the forefront of major advances in the fast-emerging semiconductor technology assembly field. ASU has been gaining stature as an innovator in the fast-growing industry. Fulton Schools’ Vice Dean for Research and Innovation Zachary Holman, talks about the evolution of the university’s efforts to provide increasingly robust advanced packaging tools and processes. Research and development progress is also helping to place ASU and the Fulton Schools higher among the leaders in educating the next generation of professionals in the field, as well as expanding the horizons of advanced semiconductor packaging.

See also: How semiconductor industry is poised to power Arizona economy in 2025, AZ Big Media, January  20
ASU and the Fulton Schools are credited for a major role in the education needed to provide the current and future workforce needed by the robust semiconductor and related manufacturing fields.

ASU selected as home and partner for CHIPS and Science Act-funded national lab for semiconductor advanced packaging, Tha Manufacturer, January 16

Tempe will be home to a new national research lab for semiconductor microchips, KJZZ News-Phoenix, January 17

Fulton Schools Dean Kyle Squires says many years of extensive planning, increased student enrollment at ASU and more research funding for the university — specifically funding for research to advance semiconductors and related technologies — have been among the results of a major alignment of efforts by ASU, the business community and government representatives over recent years. One significant result is that Arizona has drawn more federal funding during that time than any other state to help drive technological progress. Squires also notes that ASU has the nation’s leading number of engineering students, many of whom will be needed by the semiconductor industry, as well as many engineering faculty members doing top-notch research in the field.

See also: New semiconductor lab is a major win for ASU and Arizona. What to know, Arizona Republic, January 10
The report notes the Fulton Schools’ enrollment of about 33,000 engineering students and 600 faculty members, plus its partnerships with other education institutions and researchers, as a major reason Arizona landed the new semiconductor packaging research laboratory.

New research has demonstrated some interesting and unexpected ways in which rattlesnakes collect water in desert environments — a practice enabled by ways in which the prairie rattlesnakes have evolved. Konrad Rykaczewski, an associate professor in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport, and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools, says the snakes’ rain catching and water collection abilities mimic that of roses. Using garden sprinklers and video cameras at a location where rattlesnakes hibernate near Steamboat Springs, Colorado, a research team recorded almost 100 snakes reacting to simulated rainfall, enabling the researchers to quantify the behavior of the snakes and examine precisely what the snakes can do through specific stages of their physical motions to collect water.

Phoenix and its neighboring municipalities may not come to mind when most think of the places where high-tech is booming. Somewhat off the radar, the region has grown into an innovation hub in areas such as autonomous vehicles, drone technology and advances in semiconductor manufacturing — helped along by science and engineering progress stemming from contributions from Arizona State University researchers, including the Fulton Schools. The management consulting firm Bain Global’s head of technology says the emerging innovation hub stature is largely a result of the close proximity of Phoenix’s favorable business climate and an attractive tech industry ecosystem and ASU’s strong engineering program.

Direct air capture technology pioneered by Klaus Lackner, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, and founding director of ASU’s Center for Negative Carbon Emissions, will be involved in a new regional effort funded by the U.S. Department of Energy funds to remove environmentally harmful carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The project includes building a Direct Air Capture Hub in the U.S. Southwest’s Four Corners area and endeavors to reduce the increase in global warming, enable full-scale commercialization of CO2-reducing solutions around the world and develop an educational pathway to build a workforce to make the Southwest Regional Direct Air Capture Hub successful.

See also: Collaboration receives $11M to build a Southwest Regional Direct Air Capture Hub, Space Daily, January 16

ASU’s Center for Cybersecurity and Trusted Foundations is able to draw on knowledge to inform its efforts to improve cybersecurity from the wide-ranging expertise in numerous fields found among  the university’s faculty members, says  Adam Doupé, the center’s director and an associate professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools. That ability is helping the center’s researchers come up with increasingly innovative and effective ways to overcome more complex cybersecurity challenges. In an extensive interview, Doupé provides details about the center’s current work and long-range aspirations, the educational opportunities it is providing to students and its team’s efforts to move closer to more completely fulfilling its critical mission.

Solar energy system installations in Seattle have doubled for several years while development of large solar energy farms in Washington State is underway. But progress in converting to more clean energy technology is facing hurdles. Many solar panels are reaching the end of their lifespans, while the state is behind in recycling solar panels. Combined with financial factors, the situation threatens to dampen the fervor for alternative energy sources. Meng Tao, a professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools, talks about the challenging technological, economic and public policy issues that must be resolved to recharge the Washington’s solar energy evolution.

Arizona’s status in the high-tech industry leader took a big leap with the announcement of that ASU has been chosen as the site for a major CHIPS for America research and development facility expected  to contribute to pioneering work in the field. As a venture designed to be a cornerstone in U.S efforts to regain a global lead in digital technologies, the facility will focus on semiconductor research and advanced packaging prototyping. The project could create hundreds of new job opportunities and billions of dollars in investments. The Fulton Schools will be supporting the facility. Read more in a post dated January 6 below linking to an ASU News article.

See also: ASU Chosen as Home for CHIPS and Science Act-Funded National Semiconductor Packaging Facility, formfees, January 17

ASU selected as home and partner for CHIPS and Science Act-funded national lab for semiconductor advanced packaging, The Manufacturer, January 16

ASU gets $1.2B for semiconductor research, development, Wrangler News Independent, Janury 16

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk plans to ramp up growth of his neurotechnology startup, Neuralink, which uses a robot to implant a brain-computer interface into human brains. The company has also developed a device that embeds threads containing electrodes into the brain, which could enable paralyzed people to engage with digital devices through their thoughts. Bradley Greger, an associate professor in the School Biological and Health Systems Engineering, part of the Futon Schools, says similar devised have typical failed within a few years. But he sees encouraging signs that Neuralink’s version might work. He also sees a possibility of Neuralink’s Blindsight device making a breakthrough in enabling blind people to experience some semblance of useful sight.

Sally Morton, executive vice president of ASU Knowledge Enterprise, which advances research, innovation and entrepreneurship at ASU, is interviewed about the recent announcement that the U.S. Commerce Department and the National Center for the Advancement of Semiconductor Technology selected ASU to be the home of the center’s Prototyping and National Advanced Packaging Manufacturing Program’s Advanced Packaging Piloting Facility. The facility is expected to bring numerous jobs and billions of dollars in investment. The Fulton Schools will help to support the facility. A previous post on this page, dated January 6, links to numerous news media reports about the new center. Morton says the facility will be a major “game changer” for Arizona’s stature in the high-tech realm.

See also: Tempe. Arizona Chosen For  Pioneering Chips For America Semiconductor R&D Facility, hoodline-Phoenix, January 6

 New semiconductor lab is a major win for ASU and Arizona. What to know, Arizona Republic, January 10

Tempe R&D Center could be game changer, Ahwatukee Foothill News, January 12

ASU Chosen as Home for CHIPS and Science Act-Funded National Semiconductor Packaging Facility, India Education Diary, January 13

Notable achievements in advancing social innovation and related productive changes to improve higher education earns universities the prestigious recognition of an Ashoka U Changemaker Campus designation. ASU has again been awarded the honor. One reason is Devils in Disguise, an annual ASU day of community service that involves thousands of students. Fulton Schools human systems engineering student Lizzy Cowgur is serving as the Changemaker Campus leader at ASU’s Polytechnic campus, home of The Polytechnic School, part of the Fulton Schools. Cowgur comments on the importance of the Devils in Disguise Day. ASU offers Changemaker Action Grants enabling students to contribute to innovative and sustainable solutions to local, national and global challenges.

Half a decade after the installment on ASU’s Tempe campus of the carbon capture system called the Mechanical Tree — developed by Klaus Lackner through the work of ASU’s Center for Negative Carbon Emissions, which he directs — the technology is seen as a playing a major role in efforts to protect the environment against the threats of climate change. ASU President Michael Crow talks about the success of Mechanical Tree systems and ASU’s plans to help develop ways to aid industry in adopting use of the technology and continuing to increase the amount of carbon that will be removed from the atmosphere. Lackner is a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools.

Ross Maciejewski’s achievements in visual analytics and data science as a graduate student at Purdue University earned him a scholarship from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to do research to help the agency to more effectively employ expertise in those fields to aid law enforcement efforts. Today, Maciejewski is director of the  School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, and leads the Center for Accelerating Operational Efficiency,  or CAOE, as part of ASU’s Global Security Initiative, or GSI. On it’s 10^th anniversary, Macijewski assesses the work of GSI and CAOE and the emerging challenges they continue to face, as well the learning opportunities they are providing to students.

ASU’s place among top-tier research universities is being further cemented by the recent by the National Semiconductor Technology Center’s selection of Arizona as the site of the co-located NSTC Prototyping and NAPMP Advanced Packaging Piloting Facility. To be located at the ASU Research Park, work the new facility will help pave the way for major advances in the U.S. semiconductor ecosystem strengthening the U.S. semiconductor supply chain and accelerate cutting-edge research and development. The Fulton Schools will support the facility through ASU’s Core Research Facilities and state-of-the-art research labs.

See also: Arizona will host third CHIPS R&D flagship facility, Manufacturing Dive, January 8

ASU Research Park in Tempe chosen for national semiconductor test facility, KTAR News-Phoenix, January 7 (updated)

ASU selected as home, partner for CHIPS, Electronic Products and Technology, January 6

ASU Research Park named one of nation’s 3 ‘flagship’ R&D facilities for microchips, Arizona Republic, January 6

Arizona State selected as third CHIPS Act facility, 3TV/CBS 5 News – Phoenix, January 6

ASU Research Park to be home to major Chips for America research and development facility, ABC 15 Arizona, January 6

ASU to host state-of-the-art CHIPS for America R&D facility, 12 News-Phoenix, January 6

Arizona, ASU score CHIPS for America flagship semiconductor facility, Phoenix Business Journal, January 6

ASU Research Park named flagship CHIPS R&D facility for U.S., AZ Big Media, January 6

Arizona State selected as third CHIPs Act facility, MSN, January 6

Commerce Dept picks Arizona to host chip packaging research lab, Capacity Media, January 6

Biden-Harris Administration Announces Arizona State University Research Park as Planned Site for Third CHIPS for America R&D Flagship Facility, U.S. Department of Commerce, January 6  (news release)

Biden-Harris Administration Announces Arizona State University Research Park as Planned Site for Third CHIPS for America R&D Flagship Facility, National Semiconductor Technology Center, January 6 (news release)

Arizona and ASU Selected For Flagship Prototyping And Advanced Packaging R&R Facility, Arizona Commerce Authority, January 6 (new release)

Read more in Business Facilities Magazine, HPC Wire, Arizona Senator Mark Kelly Newsroom, The American News, PIC (Photonics Integrated Circuits) Magazine, Semiconductor Industry Association, Construction Review, The Oregonian, Yahoo! News, inBusiness (Greater Phoenix), eeNewsEurope-Technology News, Shiksha Study Abroad (India), Daily Independent, Natcast (NIST’s CHIPS & Science Act’s operations arm), Tempe.Gov, Border Now, Blog for Arizona, Arizona Technology Council, Converge! Network Digest, Natcast (NIST’s CHIPS & Science Act’s operations arm), Albany (New York) Times Union

Advances in carbon sequestration and direct air capture systems are enabling significant progress in removing carbon dioxide, or CO2, from the atmosphere in efforts to stem the detrimental impacts of global warming. Klaus Lackner, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, and director of ASU’s Center for Negative Carbon Emissions, is among the leading pioneers who have developed and/or enhanced such valuable technologies and systems. The achievement has now earned Lackner election to one of the most prestigious organizations honoring impactful contributions to society.

Emerging technologies and geopolitics are among the areas of expertise of Brad Allenby, a Lincoln Professor of Ethics and Engineering and an ASU President’s Professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools. In this recent news analysis article, written in the Bosnian language, Allenby is quoted on his view of the limited value of predictions in a rapidly changing world, particularly in regard to current politics in the U.S. He suggests that to better to understand today’s highly complex and rapidly evolving world, one should focus on more stable and predictable underlying trends, and learn to be agile and adaptive amid pervasive, unpredictable and accelerating change.

Arizona is becoming a leading hub for semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S. In a notable shift in the industry, major players such as Intel and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company have been building advanced fabrication plants in the state. Among factors related to the emergence of those projects are Arizona universities and community colleges offering programs to train workers for the semiconductor industry and expand programs in engineering and advanced manufacturing. At ASU, researchers in the Fulton Schools are also engaged in efforts to drive innovation in microelectronics and chip design, including developing new materials, cutting-edge technologies and manufacturing processes and partnering with industry leaders to solve industry challenges.

Major developments expected to bolster the economic, community, commercial, cultural and educational features of the city of Mesa in the new year include anticipated outcomes of projects in which ASU is collaborating. Among them is the construction of a large, three-story building on the ASU Polytechnic campus to primarily house operations of the School of Manufacturing Systems and Networks, a part of the Fulton Schools. The school is expected to contribute to ASU’s efforts to reach it goals to eventually create more than 500 jobs and $800 million in economic activity in Mesa and neighboring municipalities and communities. See a related post below dated December 5 linking to a news article in the Arizona Republic.

Arizona is emerging as a wellspring of leadership and employment in cybersecurity. With billions of records being breached, there’s a critical need for more advanced data protection capabilities driving demand for a skilled labor force and more advanced training and expertise from leading educational institutions. The growing problem is drawing attention to institutions like ASU, which has a high national ranking for cybersecurity research. Adam Doupé, an associate professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, and director of the ASU’s Center for Cybersecurity and Trusted Foundations, has seen his research team win major support to expand its work in pursuit of cybersecurity advances.

More than two decades ago, research from the 3M company showed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, that sewage sludge, the raw material used for fertilizer, carried toxic “forever chemicals.” Since then, Rolf Halden, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, and a leading researcher of contamination in biosolids, met with EPA officials multiple times to warn that his research drew the same conclusion. These sludge materials continued to be used, including by farmers for growing crops. Over the years, however, more concerns were raised about unheeded warnings of the health and environmental dangers. Research by Halden and others eventually helped to lead to wastewater testing to help track the problem and make the case for more precautions.

U.S. President-Elect Donald Trump’s plans to reduce government regulatory restrictions on industry include some lifting or preventing of regulations on the operations of power plants. This could mean pulling back on new federal power plant regulations intended to cut back on emissions that contribute to global warming and other industries’ practices that contaminate the atmosphere and spread toxic substances. Klaus Lackner, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, and director of ASU’s Center for Negative Carbon Emissions, notes that cleaner and cheaper natural gas is helping to reduce harmful carbon emissions problem but that it remains critical to achieve zero emissions of all greenhouse gasses.

ASU and University of Arizona researchers are making progress on more effective and efficient ways to water and grow trees that provide shade to shield much of the state’s desert landscapes from the increasing number of days when temperatures hit 100 or more degrees Fahrenheit. Though not specified in the broadcast interview, contributors to the research include Associate Professor Zhihua Wang and Assistant Professor Tianfang Zhu in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools. Wang’s work includes urban climate modeling, land-atmospheric interactions, landscape and infrastructure management, and urban environmental sustainability. Zhu’s research focus includes simulation of groundwater flow and solute transport, uncertainty quantification and applications of machine learning in hydrology.

ASU’S Center for Human, Artificial Intelligence and Robot Teaming, or CHART, part of ASU’s Global Security Initiative, strives to develop ways to make human-machine teams more capable. The center’s director, Jamie Gorman, a professor of human systems engineering in The Polytechnic School, part of the Fulton Schools, helps meld his expertise with that of colleagues in psychology, social science, computer science and robotics to pursue innovations in the performance of these teams. He details why the center’s work holds great promise for serving society, what it’s contributing to student education and research skills, and which of CHART’s biggest challenges he would focus on tackling if the necessary funding is provided.

A growing number of automobiles in Arizona are electric vehicles, or EVs, with sales having increased significantly in recent years — and one Ford auto dealership in the Phoenix area set a U.S. record for selling more electric vehicles than any other dealership. Still, there remains some reluctance among the public to make the switch to EVs. Steven Polzin, a research professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, recommends car shoppers assess the benefits and potential drawbacks of purchasing new EVs. He and others suggest certain strategies for prospective auto buyers in ensuring their new car purchases turn out to be smart choices.

President-elect Donald Trump is indicating he will revoke a recently issued rule to help slow detrimental climate change. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has shown that the annual emissions of greenhouse gasses in the U.S. contain millions of metric tons of the carbon dioxide threatening human health. In the greater Phoenix area these emissions totaled more than 46 million metric tons in 2020. Klaus Lackner, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, and director of ASU’s Center for Negative Carbon Emissions, which is designing technologies to capture CO2 from outdoor air, explains why it’s critical to dramatically cut back on such emissions.  The article was also published in the Gila Herald.

Intense pursuits of innovation that require the melding of advanced expertise in numerous fields of science, engineering and technology are reflected in collaborative research projects that are combining the skills of engineers and scientists in ASU’s School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, and the School of Earth and Space Exploration. At a recent event to help facilitate these joint efforts, the directors of each of the two schools, Ross Maciejewski and Meenakshi Wadhwa, gave opening remarks about the high aspirations of the faculty members’ research endeavors and the potential of their wide-ranging projects to aid society in numerous ways.

During his sophomore year of college, a counselor told Tim Clark he wasn’t a good fit for an aerospace engineering path. But after graduating from ASU in 1988 with a degree in the field and in subsequent years overcoming many hurdles, Clark achieved notable success in the aviation profession. Clark is now celebrating a 35-year career that includes more than two decades as a flight test pilot. He guided the Navy’s Tomahawk cruise missile program through critical milestones and became a flight test engineer. The article by the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division details other impressive educational and professional accomplishments, including his training in the prestigious U.S. Naval Pilot School and a master’s degree in aviation systems. 

Growing use of artificial intelligence, or AI, technology promises to improve the quality of the services and work performed by many companies that are using today’s ever-advancing AI systems. But the trend also presents potential dangers for society. Nadya Bliss, executive director of ASU’s Global Security Initiative and a professor of practice in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, talks about risks posed by the many employees now in charge of the accelerating use of AI in business and industry. Misuse of AI or the unintended consequences of AI operations could pose serious security risks of data theft, business operation disruption and other problematic vulnerabilities and damaging consequences.

Kamil Kaloush (second from left) has been elected chairman of the International Road Federation for a two-year term. A professor and chair of the undergraduate program in civil engineering program in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, Kaloush has more  than 35 years of experience in engineering and is a globally recognized leader in sustainable engineering, pavement materials, and infrastructure systems. In his new role, he hopes to promote cutting-edge research, innovative practices and strategic policy making to address today’s transportation challenges. Kaloush also plans to promote sustainable solutions, embrace emerging technologies, and help to ensure roads and infrastructure worldwide are safer and more resilient.

Semiconductor companies need new employees who can step readily into roles armed with knowledge and experience necessary to work with the industry’s latest manufacturing tools, analytics and systems. Especially needed are manufacturing, chemical, materials and environmental engineers, as well as those trained in cybersecurity, information technology and software. ASU is graduating many students with expertise in these areas, says Binil Starly, professor and director of the School of Manufacturing Systems and Networks, part of the Fulton Schools. Many students are also gaining experience in the advanced fabrication techniques that are essential to advancing the semiconductor field and getting extensive lab experience.

The Southwest Advanced Prototyping, or SWAP, Hub, which is based in the Fulton Schools, has been awarded more than $21 million to continue its microelectronics operations. The funding from the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act includes $2.7 million for hub’s partner, Sandia National Laboratories. As one of eight such microelectronics groups across the country under the U.S. Department of Defense Microelectronics Commons, the hub helps keep the nation secure by enabling advances in microelectronics. The new funding keeps ASU and the Fulton Schools among leaders in the network that is building the infrastructure, connecting the talent and leveraging the resources to deliver advances for the country’s the semiconductor manufacturing industry.

Se also: ASU-led hub gets more federal funding for microelectronics projects, Phoenix Business Journal, December 18

ASU-led SWAP Hub gets $21.3 million to advance semiconductor industry in U.S., KJZZ News (NPR), December 16

ASU-led Southwest Advanced Prototyping Hub awarded $21.3M for 2nd year of funding for microelectronics projects, ASU News, December 16

ASU-Led Southwest Advanced Prototyping Hub Awarded $21.3M for Second Year of Funding for Microelectronics Projects, In Business/Greater Phoenix, December 13

A new course designed by the Fulton Schools and Global Launch will soon give opportunities to college students in Mexico to learn the fundamentals of microelectronics and nanoelectronics in a free, online ASU course. The course is part of ASU’s binational knowledge partnership with Mexico, designed to advance North American competitiveness and ensure the global semiconductor supply chain meets demands for digital security and transformation worldwide. ASU President Michael Crow says he expects hundreds of thousands of students to eventually be educated through the program. Mexico’s Secretary of Education Mario Delgado says the effort will propel a revolution to benefit the technology sector in the U.S. and Mexico.

See also: ASU, Mexico partner to build next generation of chipmakers, drive semiconductor innovation, Phoenix Business Journal, December 20

Despite that almost 30 percent of adults in the U.S. have a disability of some kind, there’s a lack of inclusive representation of disabled persons in the media. An interdisciplinary group of female ASU Online students is taking up of the challenge to change that situation. They are joining forces to explore how artificial intelligence, or AI, can help map the way to meaningful change toward equality in representation. As Team Fairplay, the group reflects both the diversity and interdisciplinary collaboration encouraged by ASU leaders. The team’s members include Liliana Chen, identified in the article as Yiyan C., an undergraduate computer science student in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools.

The 2004 ASU President’s Award for Global Engagement went to a team including students in the Fulton Schools for their work with students at the Addis Ababa Institute of Technology to reduce the amount of plastic pollution being left in Ethiopia’s Simien Mountains National Park. The project included developing a pipeline using small machines to transform plastic waste into valuable goods to be sold for profit by people living outside the park. The President’s Awards recognize solutions in innovation, social embeddedness, sustainability, global engagement and transdisciplinary collaboration. They also celebrate the commitment and contributions of ASU employees.

Artificial Intelligence, or AI, technology is certain to have a revolutionary impact on health care, says Baoxin Li, the associate director and a professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools. Li sees AI impacting the ways in which diseases will be diagnosed and treated. His outlook is confirmed by recent National Health Institute, or NIH, decisions to invest millions of dollars into ventures to use AI to do research on Alzheimer’s disease, including work to better detect the disease and reveal its warning signs. One new NIH grant will support training ASU doctoral students to build medical tools to treat and diagnose neurodegenerative diseases.

Fulton Schools mechanical engineering student Jamison Cabral, manufacturing engineering student Morgan Nunez and recent mechanical engineering graduates Payton Connelly and Paige Hasegawa are among ASU students who have benefitted from facilities at the ASU Chandler Innovation Center. The center gives students opportunities for experience in technology and product development, entrepreneurship, 3D printing and fabrication systems and other tools to build prototypes of new devices and tools. Students can get reimbursed for Uber rides from the ASU campuses to the center, work on projects related to their ASU experience, such as class coursework or creations for student clubs or organizations. There are free workshops daily on how to use the center’s equipment.

A new device to help make traveling on roadways safer for bicycle riders is being developed based in part on engineering research conducted at ASU. Robert Heinrichs, an associate teaching professor of software engineering in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, has guided some of his students in creating Cycle Safe. It’s a dash cam for bikes that uses an ultrasonic sensor to detect cars closer than three feet. It can also take photographs and collect data through an app, which will provide information to guide further advances in the technology. The next step to have prototypes to put on bikes for performance trials in early 2025.

See also: New Camera Tech Hopes to Stop Drivers From Close-Passing Cyclists, Streetsblog USA, December 11

Arizona universities to develop bicycle dash cam to increase cyclist safety

Innovative approaches to pursuing advances across a wide range of fields and disciplines is among the main reasons ASU is further cementing its place as a major research university. ASU will soon reach $1 billion a year in research funding, putting it among only 33 other U.S. universities to achieve that milestone. The accomplishment is credited to rapid growth in groundbreaking research in engineering, microelectronics, space exploration, health care, national defense and sustainability — much of which is connected to the work of Fulton Schools faculty members. ASU’s faculty also now boasts 11 members of the National Academy of Engineering, most of them leading researchers in their fields.

Open AI, a major artificial intelligence company has a launched a new generative-AI program that its chief executive touts as superior to existing artificial intelligence, or AI, software and able to more fully approximate the way humans think. The outcome could be a significant step toward superintelligence, industry leaders say. Subbarao Kambhampati, a professor in the the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, says the advance could enable AI to be more clever but does not push it beyond the capabilities of current AI tools to be skillful at making predictions. But along with those added capabilities. He says it raises concerns about humans losing control of the powers of superintelligent AI. (Full access to the article requires becoming a subscriber)

See also: Kambhampati is also quoted in The Guardian view on AI’s power, limits, and risks: it may require rethinking the technology, The Guardian

Recent research indicates that the Colorado River basin could get more precipitation in the next 25 years, which would be a major benefit to regions of the Southwest that depend on the river as a significant source of water. If the increased precipitation leads to higher average river flows — despite effects of rising temperatures due to climate change and other factors — it’s good news for the region’s population and economy. However, Enrique Vivoni, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, and director of ASU’s Center for Hydrologic Innovations, points out some challenges to accurately predicting increases in precipitation and its expected impacts.

The emerging artificial intelligence, or AI, industry is anxious to give its technology human-level intelligence and cognitive abilities. But some researchers and public policymakers are urging caution. As one safeguard, they are recommending scientists in academia and industry collaborate with these companies to guide further AI development in a prudent manner that helps to prevent problematic outcomes. Subbarao Kambhampati, a professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, is among those who advises  putting safeguards in place to ensure AI’s reasoning would be reliably coherent and provide verifiable benefits to society without the risks of accompanying detrimental impacts.

More than 1,000 deaths in Maricopa County in the past two years are attributed to Arizona’s desert heat. In the state overall, people in thousands of households are often more vulnerable hot weather conditions because they are without reliable access to water. In response to the problem, Arizona Water for All has been launched. It is now part of the Arizona Water Initiative partnership with the state of Arizona being led by ASU’s Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory in collaboration with the Fulton Schools. The partnership will focus on developing innovative engineering and social infrastructures to help Arizonans contend with the challenges of water scarcity, excess heat and other health threatening climate conditions.

In most U.S. universities, women continue to be in the minority among students enrolled in graduate-level engineering degree programs. The numbers, however, have been rising in some of those programs, including those at leading universities of high academic standing. In a recent ranking of the top 20 universities with the highest percentages of women in full-time, part-time, master’s and doctoral engineering programs, the Fulton Schools placed fifth in the nation. Along with its numerous graduate degree programs in person and online, ASU’s Fulton Schools has in recent times been the launching pad for 11 business startups, 178 invention disclosures, 34 license agreements and 106 U.S. patents issued based on ideas from students and researchers.

A major focus of work on an expansion of ASU’s Polytechnic campus is the development of the Innovation Zone, which will feature the 12th Interdisciplinary Science and Technology Building, or ISTB 12, to house the School of Manufacturing Systems and Networks, part of the Fulton Schools. The 300-acre Innovation Zone is the centerpiece of projects supported by a major investment partnership teaming ASU and the city of Mesa aimed at providing an educated workforce in response to the growing semiconductor chip manufacturing facilities in Arizona and their need for more skilled workers. ISTB 12 is anticipated to open in November 2025. The new building will house multiple classrooms and research labs.

Among the new ASU graduates who came to the university through the MyPath2ASU transfer program are Fulton Schools student Ricardo Ontiveras, who has earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering after transferring from Glendale Community College. His educational pursuits are motivated by a passion for math and science and to have a meaningful impact on society. At ASU, he got involved in the Sun Devil Satellite Laboratory, where he worked on a 1U CubeSat project scheduled to launch in 2025 and a Space Grant ASCEND program project to design and launch scientific payloads into the stratosphere with high-altitude balloons. He now plans to pursue a career using his technical skills to advance space exploration.

Jordan Yaron, an assistant professor in ASU’s Biodesign Center for Biomaterials Innovation and Translation, is leading work to use engineered substances that interact with living tissues to help boost the human body’s regenerative abilities. In collaboration with ASU colleagues in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport, and Energy, and the School for Biological and Health Systems Engineering, parts of the Fulton Schools, the research is showing promise for healing or treating wounds and injuries — including chronic wounds, such as those resulting from diabetes. The team’s studies show biomaterial formulations engineered to activate histamine receptors can speed up healing and pave the way to address both chronic and slow-healing wounds, and possibly  regenerative medicine to restore or replace damaged tissues and organs.

Open AI’s advanced large language models, or LLMs — a kind of artificial intelligence that can generate, process and understand human language by being pre-trained on large amounts of data — are raising talk about the possibility of achieving an evolutionary step toward creating artificial general intelligence, or AGI. Subbarao Kambhampati, a professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, and some of his ASU colleagues are among those whose work is showing promise for realizing the potential for developing AGI through use of LLMs — but also reflecting the intricate challenges of such an endeavor. More than LLM advances alone would be needed to fully realize such an AI advancement, Kambhampati says.

While the number of electric vehicles in use in Arizona has increased at a steady pace — tripling in the last year and a half — and the U.S. government has been investing hundreds of millions of dollars in efforts to promote electric automobiles, the state is seeing far from a big enough jump in ownership of the electric-powered automobiles to significantly realize their potential as an environmentally beneficial power source. Steven Polzin, a research professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, and a former U.S. Department of Transportation researcher, talks about the combination of various factors that appear to be slowing the transition to electric.

With rising cybersecurity threats, industry and government are frequently seeking out expertise to defend against cyber risks, which has brought more requests for skills found in Arizona’s leading tech companies and top universities. Arizona now ranks among the top 10 fastest-growing job markets for cybersecurity professionals, while its public universities are conducting high-level cybersecurity research. That includes the work of Adam Doupé, a professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, a hub for advanced cybersecurity research supported by partnerships with the U.S. Department of Defense and major companies. Doupé and his colleagues have helped raise ASU to a ranking of 11 among all U.S. university for cybersecurity research.

Under the leadership of longtime director Rolf Halden, ASU’s Biodesign Center for Environmental Health Engineering has made numerous discoveries of ways environmental monitoring can protect and improve human health. The center’s work has led to a U.S. Food and Drug Administration ban on some harmful antimicrobials, common pesticides and perfluorinated chemicals, which has led to lowering human health risks with new technologies for wastewater and groundwater monitoring. In an interview, Halden, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, talks about his skilled research team and issues revolving around research projects and balancing privacy rights with the need for public health assessments to protect at-risk populations.

The popular video game Minecraft is being used as a starting point in a project by ASU students aimed at making artificial intelligence, or AI, more socially intelligent. Nancy Cooke, a professor of human systems engineering in the Polytechnic School, part of the Fulton Schools, says adding human’s social intelligence capability to Minecraft’s ability to enable players to build their own virtual worlds could unlock paths to jumpstarting the social evolution of AI technology.  Cooke and Fulton Schools humans systems engineering doctoral student Myke Cohen say that approach shows promise for enabling AI and humans to become effective team players — a combination that Cooke thinks might evolve into enabling superhuman capabilities.

Economic and market forces are combining to produce an emerging trend that has many young job seekers initially pursuing vocational education instead of the deep knowledge provided by advanced college degree programs. Phoenix ranks high among U.S. cities with more students showing growing interest in opportunities to gain practical skills that could qualify them for jobs in relatively short periods of time. The trend is also reflected at ASU, as more students in the Del E. Webb School of Construction, part of the Fulton Schools, are in training to join the next generation of engineers and managers in the rapidly growing construction industry. Meanwhile, employers in some fields are shifting to a more skills-based approach to hiring, signaling a likely resurgence of vocational training and occupations.

Work by Teresa Wu and Baoxin Li, professors in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, is contributing to the development of artificial intelligence, or AI, systems for medical imaging that can improve the diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases. Their progress has helped to draw support from the National Institutes of Health to train ASU doctoral students in the use of AI in health care as part of broader efforts to educate engineers and biomedical researchers in the applications of AI in their endeavors. Li says the use of AI is promises to revolutionize health care, including how many diseases are diagnosed and treated.

More than 800 projects were entered as contenders for the major engineering and construction industry journal’s national recognition of recent outstanding examples of building design and construction excellence in the U.S. The journal’s judges selected 20 projects as the “ENR Best of the Best” in 10 construction categories. Among the judges was Cliff Schexnayder, emeritus professor in the Del E. Webb School of Construction in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools. He and others selected winning projects based on their performance in teamwork, safety, overcoming challenges, innovation and quality. Winning projects will be featured in the March 17, 2025 issue of ENR.

ASU will join Arizona’s two other public universities in a partnership to provide the state with a new generation of transportation experts. In collaboration with the Arizona Department of Transportation, the University of Arizona and Northern Arizona University will team with ASU to utilize the knowledge and skills of both university researchers and students in efforts to improve that state transportation systems and solve problems. The endeavor will be complex, says Kyle Squires, dean of the Fulton Schools. But by capitalizing on the knowledge and experience of multiple experts at the educational institutions, he says the partnership will be poised to develop solutions to wide range of transportation challenges.

One in 26 people will develop epilepsy and as a result some of them may experience dangerous seizures that can inhibit consciousness and present serious health risks. The Epilepsy Foundation urges the public to learn how to perform proper first aid to help ensure the safety and mitigate the potential problems that can afflict those experiencing these types of seizures. Bradley Greger, associate professor of bioengineering in the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools, provides some recommendations on what specific actions can be taken to help people in these circumstances, as well warnings about what not to do in such cases.

Researchers at ASU, the University of Arizona and Northern Arizona University will help lead efforts of the new Arizona Transportation Institute, created to increase the safety, efficiency and sustainability of transportation in the state. The Arizona Department of Transportation, or ADOT, is investing more than $6 million to support the consortium’s first projects. Kyle Squires, dean of the Fulton Schools, recently joined representatives of ADOT, the Federal Highway Administration and the other universities’ engineering programs to mark the establishment of the partnership. The new institute provides a structure for proposing and implementing projects, positioning universities to receive more federal transportation-related research dollars, improving transportation engineering outreach and education and boosting workforce development.

See also: 3 Arizona universities partner with ADOT to reduce crashes, solve other transportation issues, KJZZ, November 25

 Arizona Department of Transportation Taps Into University Talent To Drive Transportation Innovation, hoodline, November 23

In what ASU President Michael Crow says is a critical step for the U.S. to achieve independence in semiconductor manufacturing, the U.S. Department of Commerce has announced an award of up to $100 million in funds to propel innovation in semiconductor packaging. A team led by ASU and Deca Technologies, based in Tempe, has qualified for funding. Fulton Schools leaders and researchers have been collaborating with industry leaders such as the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, or TSMC, company, which is continuing to expand its state-of-the-art facility in Phoenix (pictured). The new funding will be used for research and development to boost commercial development of new technologies, strengthen supply chains and expand workforce development.

See also: ASU and Deca Technologies selected to lead $100M SHIELD USA project to strengthen U.S. semiconductor packaging capabilities, ASU News, November 21

ASU and Deca Technologies will lead $100 million semiconductor project, AZ Big Media, November 22

Early detection of Alzheimer’s disease in primary care facilities could improve with a new innovative and inexpensive screening test. The Quick Behavioral Exam to Advance Neuropsychological Screening, or qBEANS, can assess peoples’ motor learning abilities, visuospatial memory and other relevant functions while requiring no technology or wearable sensors. Information on the exam was presented at a recent meeting of the Gerontology Society of America by Sydney Schaefer, an associate professor in the the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools. Shaefer is a co-author of a study of the screening test’s effectiveness and co-founder of Neurosessments LLC, which developed the qBEANS test.

Making use of machine learning technology and bio-acoustic recordings, four ASU professors helped to develop an innovative way to measure and quantify biodiversity. The achievement earned them and their teammates the top award in the $10 million XPRIZE Rainforest competition. The professors were part of Team Limelight Rainforest, which included more than three dozen other scientists from around the world. Among them was Pavan Turaga, a professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools, and director of ASU’s School of Arts, Media and Engineering. Turaga provides technical details on how the novel technology was developed and the value of what it could accomplish in protecting the planet’s biologically diverse environments.

An ASU student team won the Systems Engineering prize in NASA’s recent 2024 Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-Changing, or BIG,  Idea Challenge, which presents teams with tough engineering design challenges. The ASU squad was awarded for its inflatable lunar landing pad system designed to deflect exhaust gasses from lunar landers to reduce disturbances caused by Moon dust during spacecraft landings. NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate sponsors the challenge managed by the National Institute of Aerospace and Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. Team presentations, technical papers and digital posters are on the BIG Idea website. Fulton Schools mechanical engineering student Connor Owens and electrical engineering graduate student Sarwan Shah were among the ASU competitors.

The Arizona Commerce Authority is investing $4 million to boost the talent pipeline for the semiconductor industry. The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., or TSMC, is investing more than $5 million in the program to fund on-the-job training and education tuition support for its apprentice employees. TSMC is expanding its extensive manufacturing facilities in the north Phoenix. Terry Alford, professor and associate director of the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools, says investments are needed to overcome acute shortages of engineers and technicians needed by industry. Fulton Schools Vice Dean for Research and Innovation Zachary Holman provides an additional perspective on the benefits of such funding.

What’s being called a sunscreen for roofs is showing promise as an effective protectant for structures against excessive heat. Named EnKoat, it was first developed by Matthew Aguayo and Aashay Arora when they were doctoral students in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools. The product is now available to contractors in the Southwest and EnKoat’s creators are working on a similar version of EnKoat that keep buildings warm in cold weather environments. Another version of EnKoat for residential buildings is in the works. A previous post below dated November 5 links to an ASU News article about EnKoat. A report is also published in Yahoo!Tech.

See Also: ASU preservation facility serves as test bed for rooftop heat mitigation, AZ INNO (The Business Journals) November 21

ASU Graduates Develop Innovative “Sunscreen” Roof Coating To Slash Energy Costs in Arizona, hoodline, November 19

Some ASU professors’ native accents can hinder students learning to learning in the classroom, especially when the subject matter is complex. Some accents pose obstacles to effective teacher-student communications. But Yulia Peet, associate professor in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools, who is originally from Russia, says there are ways such situations can be overcome. It’s a skill that should learned as part of one’s higher education and preparing for careers that involve working with people who speak different languages. It’s also pointed out that professors from various countries can enrich the overall multicultural experience at ASU.

Researchers have used the capabilities of machine learning technology to predict what types of inorganic pollutants are likely in specific groundwater supplies. It could help public health officials determine which aquifers should be prioritized for water quality safety testing. The new method promises to provide a path to advanced proactive water safety measures throughout the world, says Paul Westerhoff an ASU Regents’ Professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools. Westerhoff and Andreas Spanias, a professor in the School of Electrical, Computing and Energy Engineering, also part of the Fulton Schools, are coauthors of a report on the process in the Environmental Science & Technology journal.

Michael Crow is the first university president named to the TIME100 Climate list, an honor he says is recognition of ASU’s growing impact. A prime example is how the university has become a powerhouse of progress in climate-related action, including groundbreaking discoveries in sustainability. Among achievements are Cody Friesen’s solar-powered technology that generates water from sunlight and air, Klaus Lackner’s system for direct air capture to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and Bruce Rittmann’s work on a team that developed a new method to help microorganisms destroy “forever chemicals.” Friesen, Lackner and Rittmann are faculty members in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools.

The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., or TSMC, is making metro Phoenix a major center of the advanced technology industry that will provide significant numbers of new jobs. But development of the company’s expansive facilities are presenting some big challenges that will need to be overcome for its operations to be successful. One hurdle is finding new employees with adequate education and training for positions that need to be filled. So, it’s likely TSMC will look at the Fulton Schools, now the nation’s largest engineering school, for job candidates. Kyle Squires, dean of the Fulton Schools, notes the school is producing graduates with the skills to fill high-end positions in the semiconductor industry.

A collaborative effort by ASU and the Salt River Project water and power provider is using a new roof coating to reduce heat in several ASU buildings. The heat mitigation coating comes from the ASU spinout venture EnKoat, founded by Aashay Arora and Matthew Arroyo when they were doctoral students in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools. A professor in the school, Narayanan Neithalath, recalls that Enkoat started as a way to prevent thermal cracking in types of concrete, but research revealed it could also do that for some of the most common building coating materials. Now, a new IntelliKoat system promises to be an innovative and especially effective method for decarbonizing built environments.

Along with the challenges of maintaining adequate water supplies, Arizona also faces concerns about ensuring water quality and effective conservation. Treavor Boyer, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, is among the experts whose work focuses on the technologies, planning and processes of developing, managing and monitoring the systems that help maintain and deliver water that is safe for human use. Boyer explains that adequately treating water from a variety of sources requires effective implementation of multiple types of intricate processes, including coagulation, flocculation, sedimentation, and filtration followed by disinfection.

Fulton Schools students are among those from ASU who will be competing in the next NASA-sponsored Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-changing Idea Challenge. Fulton Schools mechanical engineering student Grant Lesley is the leader of ASU’s project for the challenge. Electrical engineering graduate student Sarwan Shah, mechanical engineering graduate student Vaibhav Khanna and mechanical engineering students Grant Lesley and Connor Owens are among those involved. Opportunities for students who have excelled in the BIG Idea Challenge have included internship offers and job offers. For this year’s challenge, the ASU team has developed a model of an inflatable lunar landing pad at the university’s Luminosity Lab.

A sprawling complex of some of the most advanced semiconductor manufacturing facilities is growing in north Phoenix as the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company makes progress on expansions of its operations. A major part of the plan is to install water reuse and water recycling systems. Research on semiconductor water treatment led by Paul Westerhoff, the Fulton Chair of Environmental Engineering and professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment,  part of the Fulton Schools, is expected to help enable the facilities to eventually reuse 90% of all wastewater on-site and have the technology to treat it to ultra-pure standards necessary to make the semiconductor chips.

Recent projects by a members of Mayo Clinic-ASU research teams have included work to help produce advances in medical care. Progress was made in efforts aimed at improving cancer treatment, including research in which Sung-Min Sohn, an assistant professor in the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools, collaborated with Dr. Tanya Rath, a Mayo Clinic diagnostic neuroradiologist. They explored ways to use magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, technology to help image throat disorders in ways that would make diagnosis more accurate, as well as achieve progress in the ability to provide care for cancer patients at risk of losing their voices. Another project could help ASU baseball players and other young athletes reduce the need for shoulder and elbow surgeries for baseball pitchers.

Those seeking to sharpen their computing skills will have a new opportunity to learn from leading experts. The new DEF CON Academy will be in the spotlight at next year’s DEF CON convention, an annual gathering of researchers and other professionals in computer programming and cybersecurity. Among the academy’s organizers are faculty and staff at ASU’s Global Security Initiative, supported by the initiative’s American Cybersecurity Education Institute, which provides education nationwide to bolster the U.S. cybersecurity workforce. Among those at the helm of these efforts are faculty members in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, including Yan Shoshitaishvili, Adam Doupé and Tiffany Bao, who are associated with the Center for Cybersecurity and Trusted Foundations.

ASU’s second annual Carbon Summit was led by the Carbon Council student organization, which focuses on promoting decarbonization — one of the major processes being utilized to reduce and prevent the detrimental impacts of climate change. Sandra Perez, a materials science and engineering student in the School of Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools, and a cofounder and the president of the Carbon Council, says one of the group’s major goals is to engage more ASU students earning degrees in a wide variety of fields to unite in pursuit of the group’s mission to enable ASU to contribute to helping the world achieve environmental sustainability.

Industrial operations in the U.S. are emitting about 30 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions that are contributing to harmful amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Among efforts to help decarbonize the nation’s industries are those of the Electrified Processes for Industry Without Carbon, or EPIXC, project directed by Professor Sridhar Seetharaman, the Fulton Schools vice dean for research and innovation. In this interview, he discusses projects involving ASU researchers working jointly with experts at three other universities to decarbonize cement, steel and iron to achieve significant greenhouse gas reductions. Seetharama is also a faculy member in the in the School of Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools.

Arizona has had rules setting standards for safe bicycling on its roads for more than two decades, but safety experts and the state’s bicycling community continue taking steps to further ensure riders take adequate safety precautions. Among more recent steps is a foundation project that encouraged college engineering students to design prototypes of new safety devices. Robert Heinrichs, an associate professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton schools, helped to lead a project that developed of a second version of software for an intelligent bicycle dashcam. The team is now preparing to bring its new safety devices to the market in the next year.

Tatum McMillan’s pursuit of a career as a biomedical engineer has taken her to three continents. Engineering projects in Europe, Asia and Africa have put McMillan on course toward fulfilling a mission to help sustain people, animals and the planet. To support those efforts, she earned the Jaap Sustainability Scholarship offered to students in ASU’s Barrett Honors College to fund summer internships and thesis projects. The funding helped her participate in a coral reef restoration project in Spain, a Vietnam Monkey Enrichment Project in Vietnam and a Clean Water Accessibility Project in Kenya. McMillan is a senior in the biomedical engineering program in the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools.

Among advances being achieved in robotics are those that replicate what some TV fiction shows have already long portrayed robots as being able to do —  the day-to-day chores that people would like someone or something else to do for them. Siddharth Srivastava, an associate professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools. With assistance from students, Srivastava is attempting to program robots to do peoples’ laundry, an endeavor being funded by the National Science Foundation. Srivastava notes that robots today perform well in controlled environments, such as factories. The goal of his research is to enable robots to perform reliably in uncontrolled environments. Read more: Dirty, dull or dangerous: Using AI to teach robots to do the jobs we don’t want

More evidence that actions to deal with climate change and its potentially devastating impacts are not a challenge that can be ignored without dire consequences, according to the meteorological data that scientists, engineers continue and others to compile. Margaret Garcia, an assistant professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment,  part of the Fulton Schools, is a coauthor of a recent National Climate Assessment that shows the severity of disasters ignited by the consequences of global warming and other factors related to climate change. Rising risks presented by fast-changing climate conditions include extreme heat, severe drought, water shortages, more wildfires, loss or productive farmland and fiercer hurricanes. (A subscription may be necessary to access the article online.)

A study by researchers at ASU, the University of Washington and the University of Texas at Austin accentuates the extent to which the trend toward more extreme heat is impacting society in people’s everyday lives, especially in large urban areas. The research project led by Professor Ram Pendyala, director of the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, provides suggestions for solutions to guide policymakers in taking actions to ensure urban planning and public transit systems are designed to help cities provide more heat-resilient urban environments. Ideas include more trees for shade, heat-reflective pavement materials and adjustable work schedules.

See also: Researchers make concerning findings about the way extreme heat impacts us: ‘This is a clear call for targeted policy interventions’, TCD-The Cool Down, October 24

A world of increasingly complex, sophisticated and powerful technologies increases the need for advances in cybersecurity to prevent exposure to threats that misuse of progress in the high-tech realm can present. Among ASU researchers working to help ensure protection from such dangers are faculty members in the ASU’s Global Security Initiative’s Center for Cybersecurity and Trusted Foundations. The center’s team includes Muslum Ozgur Ozmen, an assistant professor at the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools. Ozmen’s work involves studies of the Internet of Things and cyber-physical system security for those systems that use physical sensors or devices to transmit information or control processes.

Ryan Meuth, an assistant teaching professor in the  School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of Fulton Schools is partnering with the Wiley company, which focuses on academic publishing and instructional materials, to provide a new tutor powered by artificial intelligence, or AI, technology. It’s being designed to aid students in their work on online computer sciences labs. The goal is not for the AI tutor to provide answers to students but instead provide help putting them back on track to overcoming obstacles and challenges. The next phase of the study will assess the effectiveness of the AI tutor in helping student successfully complete their lab assignments.

CarbonCapture Inc. is building as large manufacturing facility in Mesa, Arizona, to produce systems to remove carbon dioxide, or CO2, from the atmosphere. The technology is essential U.S. efforts to develop a clean energy economy and reduce the environmentally harmful greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. The U.S. Department of Energy seeks to enable 100% carbon pollution-free electricity and net-zero emissions within the next 25 years. The ASU Center for Negative Carbon Emissions, directed by Klaus Lackner, a professor in the Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, is leading work to help meet those goals. (The article originally appeared in Cronkite News: Arizona companies building tech to reduce carbon emissions, October 22.)

Use of direct air capture technology is seen as one of the more promising ways to take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to help limit global warming and avoid the dire consequences of climate change. Recently reported advances in the technology may enable it to be more effective in cooling the Earth by enhancing its abilities to sequester atmospheric carbon, says Klaus Lackner, a professor in the Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, and director of ASU’s Center for Negative Carbon Emissions. Lackner explains what’s needed to deploy carbon capture systems at sufficiently effective levels. (A subscription or one-time access pass may be required to access the article.) The article is also published in the Tucson Sentinel.

See also: Yellow powder said key to capturing carbon dioxide from atmosphere, Los Angeles Times/Arkansas Democrat Gazette, October 27

As the use of artificial intelligence, or AI, technology is accelerating, enabling the use of deepfakes and other manufactured false images to perpetrate such misdeeds as identify theft and similar falsifications, experts are calling for actions to prevent these types of deceptions. Katina Michael, a professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, whose research focuses on the socioethical implications of emerging technologies, is among those calling for an international biometric bill of rights to deal with the problem. Protections that enable consumers to take legal action when they believe their data has been misused are needed, Michael says.

The U.S. Department of Energy wants researchers who will expand the boundaries of science and engineering to help provide the country the most advanced energy sources and systems. Eileen Seo, an assistant professor in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools, and researcher in ASU’s Biodesign Center for Sustainable Macromolecular Materials and Manufacturing, is among those contributing to these efforts. Her work involves tapping into the ability of new materials that respond to changes in their environment. That ability could enable integrating nanotechnology with sustainable polymer design to produce next-generation energy conversion using light-mediated processes, part of a larger goal to develop sustainable, self-repairing materials.

With the use of advanced digitalization expanding to more operations across a range of industries — especially in the manufacturing sector and related major tech-based businesses — reliable cybersecurity systems are becoming essential to the ability of companies to operate in safe digital environments. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security reports cybersecurity threats to critical infrastructure pose one of the greatest strategic risks for the country. The School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, now has a $4.5 million grant from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to establish an institute to develop national and global cybersecurity educational standards and curriculum.

NASA has successfully launched the Europa Clipper. The largest spacecraft the agency has ever built for a planetary mission is now on a multi-year journey to Europa, one of Jupiter’s largest moons, and loaded with equipment to study its potential to support life. The mission had been in doubt after researchers found some of the Europa Clipper’s transistors would fail under Jupiter’s extreme radiation levels. But the mission is in motion, due in part to progress on efforts involving Hugh Barnaby, a professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools. Barnaby has been helping to maximize radiation monitoring to mitigate its problematic effects.

Bridging skills in biology and computation is producing knowledge to help provide solutions in numerous science and engineering endeavors. Stephanie Forrest’s team at ASU’s Biodesign Center for Biocomputing, Security and Society is tackling challenges including modeling of immunological processes and evolutionary diseases, cybersecurity, software engineering and evolutionary computation. A professor of computer science in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Futon Schools, Forrest describes efforts to detect and mount defenses against malicious behavior across a wide range of complex systems to help thwart threats from malware, misinformation and similar ways of posing myriad dangers to society.

Studies are showing the recent long stretches of hotter than normal temperatures in desert locales such as the greater Phoenix are having widespread and significant impacts on peoples’ daily lives. Irfan Batur, a research assistant professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Futon Schools, describes how the extreme heat is causing people to cut back on use of public transit, do less shopping and socializing, and spend more time working at home and sleeping. Researchers says the extreme heat trends should motivate cities and communities to take steps to help people cope with the long stretches of sizzling temperatures.

A children’s hospital in Florida hit by the recent powerful and destructive Hurricane Milton was able to maintain access to water with a system that can capture moisture from the air. Contributions to the development of such water harvesting systems have been made by ASU researchers in recent years. Paul Westerhoff, an ASU Regents Professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, is among the ASU engineering researchers who have been contributing to progress in developing tools, techniques and systems to produce water from atmospheric moisture, which could help to provide water accessibility during disasters. (Access to the article requires creating a New Scientist account.)

As Phoenix and other cities break seasonal heat records, research is showing the extensive impacts the sizzling temperatures related to many societal activities and trends. A study by ASU, University of Washington and University of Texas researchers reports on how prolonged hots streaks are altering behavior in travel — particularly downturns in use of public transportation and overall travel — and putting a burden on low-income populations with limited resources. The situation is exacerbating inequalities, says Professor Ram Pendyala, director of the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Futon Schools, who leads the ASU research team. Irfan Batur, a research assistant professor in the school stresses that extreme heat is becoming a major public health challenge.

One of the solar-powered devices now being used by Hopi health care workers and crisis responders sprung from Laura Hosman challenging students to create a solar-power library that could fit into a backpack. The associate professor in The Polytechnic School, part of the Fulton Schools, and ASU’s School for the Future of Innovation in Society, is now is now the founder of the Solar Powered Educational Learning Library, or SolarSPELL. The SolarSPELL team has trained patient navigators with Hopi Cancer Support Services and an ASU doctoral student helped by providing more additional information and leading training sessions. SolarSPELL student workers are helping to further develop and curate the library content. 

When it comes to transportation, the freedom and flexibility of having one’s own vehicle is unrivaled, says Steven Polzin, a research professor at Arizona State University’s School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Futon Schools. Still, there’s a trend of among some families toward slightly reversing the trend of one car for each adult. Polzin and others see an embrace of one-car and car-free lifestyles. But among factors preventing such a change are public environments that don’t make it easy for people to forsake personal car ownership. Professor Ram Pendyala, director of the school, says an impactful shift away from personal motorized vehicles will require more investment and policies that enhance public and nonmotorized transportation options.  

See also: Imagining Peak Car — Can We Live Without The Private Automobile? Clean Technica, October 11

Fulton Schools researchers are aiding efforts by the U.S. Department of Energy to provide cost-effective, electrified alternatives for industrial process heating. Narayanan Neithalath, Fulton Professor of Structural Materials in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment,  is leading work to reduce the amount of environmentally harmful carbon dioxide emissions in the production of cement. ASU Regents Professor Vijay Vittal in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering aims to decrease those emissions from iron and steel production. The projects support the national Electrified Processes for Industry Without Carbon initiative to cut back on industrial greenhouse gas emissions.

Myopic macular degeneration, which causes vision loss and sometimes blindness, is on the rise. Among those leading research to seek solutions is a team in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools. Yalin Wang, a professor of computer science and engineering in the school, and his fellow researchers are looking at recent technological innovations to help find remedies. Their research is focusing on the use of artificial intelligence, or AI. As AI-powered technology advances and becomes more available, Wang sees it enabling more progress. Ross Maciejewski, the school’s director, says Wang’s work is an important example of new work using AI to address medical challenges.

See also: How AI could protect millions of people from vision loss, earth.com
AI Innovations in Diagnosing Myopic Maculopathy, labroots
AI to improve Myopic Maculopathy, MSN
AI to Improve Myopic Maculopathy, AZoRobotics
Using advanced AI screening tools to improve detection of early myopic maculopathy, News Medical
Researchers use AI to help people see more clearly, Medical Express

Men in hard hats swinging hammers. It’s an image from the past that reflected a widespread perception of what the construction industry involved: low-skilled physical labor. That picture has since changed dramatically, writes Eminent Scholar Timothy Becker, chair of the construction engineering and construction management programs in the Del E. Webb School of Construction in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools. Becker says the field today includes experts in robotics, data analysis, autonomous vehicles, electronics design and many related high-tech fields — all part of a thriving U.S. construction industry that added 235,000 jobs in the past year.

See also: My View: How technology, diversity help tear down the construction industry, Phoenix Business Journal, October 10

As Arizona experiences a summer of record-breaking desert heat, researchers in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, are continuing to report more findings about a multitude of ways extreme heat impacts many aspects of peoples’ lives and influences their behavior and choices in significant ways. Professor Ram Pendyala, the school’s director, emphasizes how the heat curtails shopping, recreational activities and general socialization in communities and more seriously impacts lower-income populations. These and other issues should prompt cities and growing urban areas to take steps to shield people from unavoidable and prolonged exposure to summer heat, Pendyala says.

See also: How Heat Waves Are Rewriting Urban Routines, E+E Leader (Environmental Energy Leader), October 2
How extreme heat changes our daily lives and travel habits, Knowridge, September 28

Arizona’s emergence as a leading center in today’s booming semiconductor industry has been shaped by many factors over past decades — among them the founding, growth and expansion of ASU and the increasing numbers of engineering graduates it provided for growing companies such as Motorola and Intel. Michael Kozicki, a professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools, points out that ASU’s focus on engineering excellence, especially since the 1980s, has helped to attract tech businesses and produce talent to fuel the success of such companies as Microchip Technology and NXP Semiconductors and to draw the booming Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. to the Phoenix area. The state now plays a leading role in the global microchip industry.

Vietnam is among countries the U.S. has chosen to join its International Technology Security and Innovation Fund, which has goals aligning with aims of U.S CHIPS and Science Act to provide workforce training for semiconductor and AI industries. Efforts involve the U.S. Department of State and ASU launching a program in Vietnam to train more than 4,000 engineers in packaging and testing integrated circuits in 2025. ASU signed an MOU with Vietnam last year to support the workforce development strategy. Jeffrey Goss, ASU’s associate vice provost for Southeast Asia affairs and executive director of the Office of Global Outreach and Extended Education for the Fulton Schools is part of the advisory team for the project.

In collaboration with the Fulton Schools, Honeywell Aerospace Technologies has opened a 30,000-square-foot facility on ASU’s Tempe campus as an innovation hub designed to help prepare students for careers in the aerospace industry. Kyle Squires, dean of the Fulton Schools, says the hub will help to bridge academia and industry, giving students insights into the aerospace technology business and opportunities to make connections that can position them for careers in aerospace engineering. ASU is also partnering with semiconductor companies to develop curriculum to help students prepare to work in that booming industry.

See also: Honeywell launches ‘innovation hub’ at ASU’s Tempe campus, Tempe Independent, October 1

Researchers at ASU have collaborated with colleagues at the University of Washington and the University of Texas on a study that reveals in detail how the trend of more frequent extreme heat is negatively impacting the quality of life. They study also provides insights about how communities and individuals can effectively adapt to rising temperatures. The study’s lead author, Ram Pendyala, professor and director of the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, emphasizes how extreme heat exacerbates inequities in mobility and participation in activity travel. This study explores ways people can adjust and change their activity-travel and time use behaviors to better cope with extreme heat.

See also: Climate Crisis: How is Extreme Heat Reshaping Travel and Daily Life of Vulnerable Communities? The Weather Channel/The Times of India, September 27.
Extreme heat altering travel plans, people’s daily routines worldwide, India Today, September 28
Ram Pendyala is quoted on results of research showing the needs for strategies to maintain quality of life being threated by increasing extreme heat. A similar article is published on the Prevention Web site.

An extensive look at a variety of ways that scientists and engineers are  proposing as effective ways to combat the threatening impacts of climate change include new technology developed through work led by  Fulton Schools Professor Klaus Lackner, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, and director of ASU’s Center for Negative Carbon Emissions. A forest of mechanical trees that can employ carbon-capture technology could significantly reduce harmful carbon dioxide in the atmosphere more quickly than natural trees can. The first mechanical tree was erected and instead on ASU’s Tempe campus in 2002.

A recent research study in the Water Emerging Contaminants & Nanoplastics reports on findings of a significant spike in concentrations of microplastic fibers after human activity in the Salt River. Some of the microplastic fibers came from synthetic plastics fibers in peoples’ swimsuits. ASU researchers are exploring ways to keep microplastics out of places where they contribute to environmental pollution — including polyester and polyamide synthetic fibers such as those in swimwear fabrics. Matthew Fraser, a professor in School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, is a co-author of the study. The nearly 200-mile-long Salt River runs through Arizona’s Gila and Maricopa counties and is the Gila River’s largest tributary.

A summer in which a record-breaking number of days with daytime temperatures of 100-plus degrees is emphasizing the need for communities to finds way to protect children at public recreational facilities from scorching summer heat. In direct sunlight the surfaces of playground equipment can heat to temperatures above 150 degrees. Ariane Middel, an associate professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, a part of the Fulton Schools, and a researcher in ASU’s Urban Climate Research Center and director of the SHaDE Lab, is among those seeking ways to help protect people from the increase in the frequency and severity of extreme heat , particularly in outdoor urban environments. Pouya Shaeri, a Fulton Schools computer science doctoral student is assisting in the research.

Use of solar energy as an alternative to energy sources that produce air pollution and environmentally harmful greenhouse gasses is on the rise. But along with that clean-energy trend, about 90 percent of the hundreds of millions of solar panels being installed throughout the U.S. are ending up in landfills at the end of their productive life cycles. Those solar panels pose a threat to the environment because of toxic contaminants that can leach into soil from various materials in the panels. Nick Rolston and Meng Tao, professors in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools, provide details about work being done in ASU’s MacroTechnology Works lab to help remedy the problem.

ASU continues an impressive streak in the U.S News & World Report Magazine’s annual rankings of the most innovative universities in the U.S., due in large part to its engineering programs. In the most recent rankings, the Fulton Schools came in at 13th nationally in environmental and environmental health engineering, 16th in civil engineering, 17^th for industrial manufacturing, 18^th for cybersecurity computer science education, 19^th in the electronics and electronics communications engineering, as well as in artificial intelligence computer science in the engineering category and 35^th overall for its undergraduate engineering program. These ranking helped to once again bring ASU the No. 1 spot overall in the “Best Colleges” rankings of the most innovative U.S. universities.

Fulton Schools researchers teamed with colleagues at the University of Washington and University of Texas at Austin for an extensive study of the impacts of extreme heat on human activity and mobility. The study makes a case for an urgent need to develop public policy to formulate strategies and guide actions needed to deal with rising temperatures and more frequent heat waves. The report is based on research led by Ram Pendyala, director of the School of School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools. The team includes two of the school’s professors, Mikhail Chester and Steven Polzin, research assistant professor Irfan Batur and doctoral student Victor O. Alhassan.

Much of the capabilities of the modern technologies that are driving the success of many of today’s high-tech industries and bolstering national economies are a result of advanced microchip manufacturing. It’s why the island nation of Taiwan is vital to many larger countries such as the U.S., and Arizona specifically. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., or TSMC, Taiwan’s leading industrial giant, is erecting a massive complex in Arizona that will include the company’s most advanced technology in the U.S. Kyle Squires, dean of the Fulton Schools, comments on how such expansions have also been motivating the U.S. to maintain its share of the semiconductor manufacturing market.

See also:
Diary of the deal: Years of courtship, pivotal helicopter ride brought TSMC to Phoenix
Arizona Republic, September 30. Kyle Squires comments on how the stage is set for the greater Phoenix area to be part of the semiconductor industry boom.

An ‘inviting place’: How Arizona emerged as a leader in the US semiconductor revival
Arizona Republic, September 25. Kyle Squires estimates that most of the 33,000 students enrolled  in the Fulton Schools would qualify for careers in the semiconductor industry.

Arizona’s semiconductor industry: What to know about the booming field
Arizona Republic, September 24. The high demand for engineers, including Fulton Schools graduates.

Warnings about the risks of drinking water from plastic containers were recently voices in an article in the BMJ Global Health Journal. The authors say water in plastic bottles can expose people to toxins and recommend instead drinking clean tap water from reliably tested sources.  Some brands of bottled water can contain amounts of tiny nanoplastics that could bring on inflammation and changes in metabolism, including in the brain and reproductive systems, that could threaten human health,” says Rolf Halden, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools,  and director of ASU’s Biodesign Center for Environmental Health Engineering. He and other experts point to the challenges in ensuring safe sources of water.

See also: Health experts issue warning to anyone drinking out of plastic water bottle, Mirror, September 20
Rolf Halden is quoted in the report.

Ayomide Laguda and Jayden Lynch are ASU honors students who have earned support from the Bidstrup Foundation and Barrett Research Undergraduate Fellowship program to do research related to their aspirations as future engineers. Laguda, pursuing a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, is focused on setting up software for simulating models of gene regulatory network dynamics, which involves genes interacting to control cell function. Jayden Lynch, studying to earn a bachelor’s degree in environmental engineering, is doing research with Anca Delgado, an associate professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools. The project is focused on the properties of soil on Mars and its possible uses for future missions to the planet.

In its latest list of the 100 most important people who have been contributing to significant technological progress and innovations in areas of analytics, artificial intelligence, data science and big data, the magazine features Subbarao Kambhampati, a professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools. In his more the three decades at ASU, Kambhampati has become a prominent and accomplished innovator in artificial intelligence, or AI, research, and a leading chronicler of AI’s societal impacts. He has served as president of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, a trustee of the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence and is a founding board member of the Partnership on AI.

Tim Silverman, one of the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s 2024 distinguished research staff members, says he gained valuable knowledge from years of breaking apart machines and various other devices. With what he learned from those curiosity-driven activities, along with knowledge gained in earning a degree in mechanical engineering from the Fulton Schools, Silverman is now 14 years into a career testing devices for the prominent government lab. Now a senior scientist for the lab, he was one of its first two researchers to receive the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The award recognized a significant contribution to solar energy. He has since continued to contribute to advances in photovoltaics and other energy-related fields.

In what’s been seen as a potentially substantial leap in artificial intelligence, or AI, technology, two new AI models are capable of reasoning by using what are termed chain of thoughts and reasoning tokens. It opens the possibility that smaller AI models can achieve effective reasoning capabilities. The new models use what is called reinforcement learning over auto-generated chains of thought, says Subbarao Kambhampati, a professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools. Kambhampati also points out one possible drawback — that these models could make it difficult to check the reasoning behind the solutions they generate.

New ASU Southwest Advanced Prototyping Hub projects will be accelerating the capabilities of U.S. manufacturers to produce the logic chip technologies that process data enabling computing systems and other modern electronic devices and systems to perform effectively. ASU researchers, including Fulton Schools faculty, will have leading roles in five of the projects. Kyle Squires, dean of the Fulton Schools and CEO of the prototyping hub, says Fulton Schools students will be among talented future members of a growing workforce with the research and engineering skills that will help to make the nation’s investments in chip technology innovation pursuits successful and boost many industries, especially manufacturing, in the U.S., as well as strengthen the nation’s overall economy.

See also: Tempe, Phoenix mayors show support at ASU for $29.6M federal microelectronics award
Tempe Daily Independent, September 19
In a report on the Southwest Advanced Prototyping Hub’s collaboration with the U.S. Department of Defense to accelerate microelectronic technologies development and production to aid national security, Fulton Schools Dean Kyles Squires expresses confidence in the effort to to reestablish U.S. dominance in semiconductor research, development and manufacturing. (Access to the article requires establishing an account.)

Solutions to some of humanity’s sustainability challenges could be developed from what’s being learned about unicellular aquatic organisms. Scientists are looking, for instance, at how the abilities of algae might provide a starting point for developing ways to ensure better food production and water treatments and useful organic compounds. Peter Lammers, a research professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, and with ASU’s Arizona Center for Algae Technology and Innovation, notes how these organisms can help to produce complex proteins and carbohydrates that could improve ecological protection by treating wastewater and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, among other similar potential environmental benefits.

One of the top honors for ASU faculty members, the President’s Professor award, recognizes innovation in teaching, the ability to inspire students to do original and creative work, demonstrating a mastery subject matter and making notable scholarly contributions to higher education. Among ASU faculty members recently chosen to join the ranks of President’s Professors is Teresa Wu, a faculty member and associated dean of global engagement in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools. Wu teaches in the industrial engineering program. Among her professional accomplishments have been earning a National Science Foundation CAREER award and being founding co-director of ASU-Mayo Center for Innovative Imaging.

The world’s new largest carbon capture plant, named Mammoth, doesn’t bring the world significantly closer to reducing the carbon dioxide emissions threatening the planet’s environment by contributing to global warming. But the faciility in Iceland is a notable as a step in the right direction, says Klaus Lackner, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, and director of ASU’s Center for Negative Carbon Emissions.  Mammoth is many times larger than other such facilities and can absorb almost 40,000 tons of carbon from the air each year. A carbon capture plant being built in Texas by a US-based company is expected to remove 500,000 tons of carbon annually.

There are reports that Large Language Models, or LLMs, are now generating new research ideas and then also writing the required code, doing the necessary experiments, summarizing research results, visualizing related data and providing scientific manuscripts reporting on research results. Those claims are questioned by Subbarao Kambhampati, a professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, and a past president of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. He points to cases of LLMs showing poor reasoning and planning abilities and struggling with deducing new facts from existing information. The article is also published in Startup News.

Facilities at ASU’s Polytechnic campus continue to be expanded. The latest new construction milestone is the Interdisciplinary Science and Technology Building 12, or ISTB 12.  The more than 173,000-square foot complex will house an array of educational and research spaces and facilities, primarily for the School of Manufacturing Systems and Networks, part of the Fulton Schools. Tim Smith, ASU’s facilities development and management interim vice president, and Carlos Diaz, project director for McCarthy Building Companies, say ISTB12 will also showcase high-quality building materials and advanced construction techniques and propel the advancement of the sophisticated technologies to benefit students, faculty members and researchers.

In the past two decades the Department of Homeland Security Centers for Excellence — coalitions led by U.S. colleges or universities in partnership with other institutions — have been addressing national challenges posed by terrorism, cybercrime, food insecurity and climate change, among other international threats. The centers have brought together some of the nation’s leading scholars and researchers to contribute to solutions. Among them has been Ross Maciejewski, the Ira A. Fulton Professor of Computer Science and director of the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, as well as director of ASU’s Center for Accelerating Operational Efficiency. Maciejewski talks about his path toward leading a DHC Center of Excellence.

ASU students are part of the Shellphish cybersecurity team that is among winners of a recent AI Cyber Challenge semifinal hacking competition — earning the team $2 million and entry into next year’s DEF CON, the world’s largest hacking competition. Adam Doupé, an associate professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, and director of ASU’s Center for Cybersecurity and Trusted Foundations, leads Shellphish, which includes members from Purdue University and the University of California, Santa Barbara. For the competition, the team developed an automated tool that checks computer programs for vulnerabilities.

See also: ASU Hackers Win $2 Million At ‘AI” Competition, Fox 10 News Phoenix, September 6

Fulton Schools semiconductor packaging courses drew about 40 students each semester about five years ago. Today, with the continuing growth of the semiconductor industry, the numbers of students in those courses have jumped to more than 200 every semester. Kyle Squires, dean of the Fulton Schools, points to the schools’ effort to spark the interest of students in the field’s expanding career opportunities. That effort has now been bolstered by a $40 million grant from the federal government to ASU to fund creating a regional network for microelectronics education. With course content shaped in collaboration with industry, Squires says courses will prepare students to work in a range of roles in the fast-emerging industry.

Phoenix and neighboring municipalities have seen more than 100 days of high temperatures of more than 100 degrees — with more likely to come before the seasonal transition to fall sets in. It’s been deemed an alarming benchmark in the trend toward more extreme head in area by Ariane Middel, an associate professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, a part of the Fulton Schools, and researcher in ASU’s Urban Climate Research Center. Middel says the trend is signaling an urgent need for regions across the U.S. for a heightened awareness of the dangers posed by the sizzling temperatures. She points to diseases and illnesses that can result from prolonged heat exposure. The report is also posted on the ABC News website.

See also: Workers Want Flexible Heat Standard as OSHA Eyes Trigger Temp, Bloomberg Law, September 3
Ariane Middel comments on a U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration proposal to dictate when employers must implement measures to protect workers.

Phoenix’s streak of over 100-degree temperatures reaches 100th day, WSJM News September 3

Amid fears that artificial intelligence, or AI, technology will replace humans in the workforce, pushing people out of their jobs, AI experts such as Siddharth Srivastava are saying computer scientists should be emphasizing that AI can free people from mundane work they don’t want to do and give people freedom to pursue more creative contributions to society. Srivastava, an  associate professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence and director of ASU’s Autonomous Agents and Intelligent Robots Lab, has his research team focused on helping to develop a new type of AI-enhanced technology to help bring about a more innovative and collaborative working relationship with humans.

A series of articles exploring how ASU is changing ways problems are solved in the world today looks at research pursuits, projects, programs and initiatives focusing on solutions to water challenges. The Fulton Schools and ASU’s College of Global Futures are training students to be future water leaders, including teaching them transdisciplinary approaches to water problem-solving. Paul Westerhoff, an ASU Regents Professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment , part of the Fulton Schools, leader of the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative’s Global Center for Water Technology has hosted the first Atmospheric Water Harvesting Summit at ASU and introduced students to advanced technologies for water augmentation, conservation, treatment and reuse.

High levels of toxic substances spread for decades across farmlands have come from fertilizers made from urban sewage. It has helped take sludge out of landfills, is rich in nutrients and its use has been encouraged by the federal government. But now there’s suspicion these chemicals are in crops, are sickening or killing livestock and threatening farmers’ health. Rolf Halden, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, and director of ASU’s Biodesign Center for Environmental Health Engineering, is among experts who assess the situation and risks and challenges it presents.

The U.S. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, policy, enacted in 2012, calls for temporary delays in deportation for some undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children. It allows migrant youth to legally drive, travel, study and work in the U.S. But some undocumented youths have continued to encounter barriers DACA was intended to prevent. Dulce Matuz, who as an undocumented immigrant earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the Fulton Schools in 2009, says such students are still facing the same challenges today as they have in the past. Matuz’s advocacy for undocumented students was a prominent theme of a popular documentary film.

An ASU initiative is driving innovation by providing seed funding to advance discoveries and technological innovation that paves the way for humans’ interplanetary future through science and engineering progress that is also benefiting society today. Among promising contributors to that progress is Oswald Chong, an associate professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, who leads the Lunar Minimum Viable Infrastructure pilot project team in its efforts to develop systems for establishing and sustaining human presence on the Moon. This and other projects bring together faculty from ASU and other universities, industry experts, government professionals and undergraduate and graduate students.

Large language models, or LLMs, large deep learning models that provide vast amounts of data and generate human language text, still face a big challenge because of the vast number of languages across the world, most of which have no text data. The problem is that this makes it difficult to gain certainty that the output of LLMs is producing verifiable factual knowledge, says Subbarao Kambhampati, a professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools. A recent research paper offers an LLM trustworthiness evaluation framework that could help offer a solution. The article links to the podcast Kamhampati did on Machine Learning Street Talk, “Do you think that ChatGPT can reason?”

Even relatively small breaks in water lines can cause serious damage, as demonstrated by a recent pipeline leak in a neighborhood that created a muddy mess and resulted in extensive damage. Such incidents reveal the challenges for municipalities and utility operations to keep pace on maintenance and upgrades, says Professor Samuel Ariaratnam, construction engineering program chair in the Del E. Webb School of Construction in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools. Factors such as the age of piping and its structural resilience  — or the lack of it — need to be regularly assessed to adequately monitor water delivery systems for deterioration and potential breaks, Ariaratnam says.

Extreme heat isn’t a more serious challenge only for U.S. Sun Belt cites anymore. Cities in regions with typically cooler climates are now seeing temperatures increase more severely than in the past. The problem will have more dramatic impacts in those once more temperate regions because infrastructure in those areas isn’t designed to withstand the rising heat, says Mikhail Chester, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools. But an equally big threat from heat exposure is to people, he adds. Chester advocates for both more resilient infrastructure systems and also those that can diminish the consequences when heat leads to the failure of those systems.

Three recent graduates of the Fulton Schools’ Engineering (Robotics) bachelor’s degree program — Jaqueline Villanueva Castro, Paulina Garibay and Litzi Matancillas — along with computer science undergraduate student Nancy Esquivel Vazquez, were the members of a team that won the championship title in the 27th International Robosub Competition. Their team, Desert WAVE, or Women in Autonomous Vehicle Engineering, competed with two autonomous underwater robots named Dragon and Baby Dragon. Castro was on the ASU electrical team led by Garibay. Matancillas, lead the mechanical team.

Perpetrators of identity theft, misinformation dissemination and perhaps even election fraud have a new tool that could enable their deceptive acts: advanced voice cloning technology. Academic, industry and government experts recently took part in a U.S. National Security Council discussion about the potential misuses of voice cloning. Professor Visar Berisha, Fulton Schools associate dean of research and commercialization, took part in the meeting. Berisha leads a team that was a winner of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s Voice Cloning Challenge. The team includes Daniel Bliss, a professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools.

Climate change and the heat it is generating is putting public infrastructure at risk of deterioration and failure. Roads, power lines, railways and batteries are among things threatened by the risk excessive heat poses for the steel, concrete and asphalt and other materials from which with many technologies and systems are made. Mikhail Chester, a professor in School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment and director of ASU’s Metis Center for Infrastructure and Sustainable Engineering, says engineers are capable of redesigning infrastructure to withstand higher temperatures, but the costs would be high and keeping up with the mounting effects of climate change would be especially challenging.

Biological design doctoral student Hannah Glesener in ASU’s School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools, is lead author of a new study introducing X-ray irradiation as a method of sterilizing contaminated corn that will neutralize a cancer causing poison. It raises hope for solutions to mycotoxin contamination, particularly in developing countries where food safety measures are limited. It could also provide ways to detoxify food before its absorption into the bloodstream. Glesener is graduate research assistant in the Biodesign Center for Health Through Microbiomes, directed by Rosa Krajmalnik Brown, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools.

See also: Researchers look to control aflatoxin in corn, FeedStrategy, August 16

As the U.S. works to boost the semiconductor industry throughout the Americas to reduce reliance on east Asia, Costa Rica has stepped up to aid the effort to support the U.S. semiconductor value chain by helping to reshape the global supply chain. Costa Rica offers an attractive lure for enhancing semiconductor assembly, testing and packaging capabilities in the Americas, says Jeff Goss, who leads ASU’s Engineering Online graduate degree programs for the Fulton Schools, as well as Global Outreach and Extended Education and executive and professional development programs.

Research leading to advances in the manufacturing and synthesis of semiconductor technologies and next-generation applications in quantum information, energy conversion and chemical engineering processes has earned a Navortsky Professor of Materials Research position for Seth Tongay, a professor in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools. The professorship provides support to expand career pursuits. Christina Birkel, an associate professor in ASU’s School of Molecular Sciences, also earned the professorship named after Regents Professor Alexandra Novrotsky in the School of Molecular Sciences, director of the Navrotsky Eyring Center for Materials of the Universe and a Fulton Schools faculty member.

Researchers are seeking better ways to control air pollutants — including those in the Phoenix area where the ozone layer is among the more serious atmospheric threats to human health. So says the American Lung Association, which has ranked the city as the fifth most ozone-polluted metro area in the U.S. Solutions are now being sought by ASU researchers, including urban air quality and pollution control expert Matthew Fraser, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools. He’s teaming with Professor Peter Herkes in ASU’s School of Molecular Sciences and two ASU doctoral students to investigate possible solutions. See a related earlier report on this page dated July 24.

Helping to bring more of the world’s population reliable access to clean, safe, resilient and affordable sources of energy is the mission of the Laboratory for Energy And Power Solutions. Director Nathan Johnson, an associate professor in  The Polytechnic School, part of the Fulton Schools, says fulfilling that goal is a significant way ASU can go beyond education and research to providing impactful public value. Among its efforts, the lab is working to provide better energy access to remote communities, make advances in using microgrids for electrification to replace unreliable energy sources and supporting countries in transitioning to clean energy sources to help develop productive and environmentally healthier low-carbon and zero-carbon businesses and economies.

Widespread power blackouts pose potentially severe public health and safety risks, as well as serious drawbacks for various communities, businesses and services of all kinds. Arizona has experienced a number of serious blackouts in the recent past, particularly due to its extreme desert heat. But the state overall has remained well below the national average in the frequency of power grid outages. In this news podcast, Nathan Johnson, director of the Laboratory for Energy And Power Solutions. and an associate professor in  The Polytechnic School, part of the Fulton Schools, and others talk about the kinds of climate goals the state needs to meet to sustain reliable defenses against blackouts and their  consequences into the future.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or TSMC, one of the world’s major makers of advanced computer chips modeled the large plant it built near Phoenix after its manufacturing facilities in Taiwan. TSMC is now finding some challenges as the company’s leadership and its American workers are experiencing friction arising from culture clashes over business practices and management and employee relationships. ASU has been a major source of TSMC employees in Arizona, says Zachary Holman, vice dean of Research and Innovation in ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, noting that the company funds research projects for students as a way to assess potential future workers.

Work is on track for the planned opening next year of ASU’s Interdisciplinary Science and Technology Building 12, which will set the stage for a major expansion of the university’s Polytechnic campus and provide a dedicated hub for the School of Manufacturing Systems and Networks, part of the Fulton Schools. ISTB 12’s features will include research labs and instructional and collaboration spaces to support education in semiconductor manufacturing, additive manufacturing, robotics for smart manufacturing and industry automation, cyber manufacturing and operations research, as well as manufacturing systems for the energy sector. The project is also part of a master plan that includes developing an Innovation Research District adjacent to the campus.

Alan Dupre, who recently graduated from ASU with degrees in mechanical engineering, global health and physics with honors from ASU’s Barrett, The Honors College, has  been awarded a scholarship from the U.S. Department of Defense. Dupre, a graduate student in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools, says the scholarship will give him experience in both research and engineering roles that will prepare him to support national defense missions. This summer Dupre got a preview of his future with the defense department in a visit to Washington, D.C., where he will be working in a division of the Naval Surface Warfare Center.

OpenAI is now using constrained decoding, a technique that may help  keep artificial intelligence technology from making mistakes by helping to ensure there is consistent data generation when it is attempting  provide complete and accurate information. In one recent attempt at clear reasoning, things got murky in relation to Jagged Intelligence, a term used to define the struggle that AI’s Large Language Models, or LLMs, have in dealing with dumb problems. Subbarao Kambhampati, a professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, explains that LLMs are impressive tools but there remain challenges that need to be addressed regarding the efficacy of LLM-based AI Agents.

Since a century ago, when summer Olympic Games were last held in Paris before this year’s games, summer days with hot  temperatures are now three times more frequent in the city. That jump in temperatures is enough to put significant physical stress on athletes, especially those competing in endurance events. Ariane Middel, an associate professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, a part of the Fulton Schools and director of the SHaDE Lab, talks about ways to reduce the debilitating impacts of physical exertion in hotter climates. She is co-author of a detailed study on heat stress and its impact on runners. (Middel is mistakenly identified in the article as a faculty member at the University of Arizona.)

Using a popular video game, two Fulton Schools faculty members have helped to generate a large publicly available human-AI research dataset that could make artificial intelligence technology capable of humanlike understanding. In ASU’s Center for Human, Artificial Intelligence, and Robot Teaming researchers used the Minecraft game to design complex and dynamic tasks in a simulated urban search and rescue mission — such as a fire sweeping through a small town. In doing so they’ve discovered clues to how to create machines with social intelligence. The project team members include Nancy Cooke and Jamie Gorman, professors of human systems engineering in in The Polytechnic School, part of the Fulton Schools.

Its looks just too weird to be true. That’s one clue casting doubt on a recent video posted on TikTok and seen by at least a million viewers that reported a tiger at the Phoenix Zoo was shot for being too human-like. Imperfections in the video make it relatively easy to discern as a fake, says Subbarao Kambhampati, a professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools. But he cautions that other videos being made with more advanced artificial intelligence, or AI, technology, than that used in the zoo tiger video are going to make it more difficult to discern real from false video images in the future.

Two extensive recent news articles report on rising sizzling temperatures and the severe dangers they pose to human and environmental health. There’s a focus on the greater Phoenix area as a region where heat is increasingly threatening livability for large populations. Among researchers working to understand heat, its impacts and how to reduce it are Ariane Middel and Jennifer Vanos, faculty members, respectively, in ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools and Engineering and the School of Sustainability. Both are with ASU’s Urban Climate Research Center, where solutions are being sought to reduce vulnerability to dangerous heat in both urban communities and ecosystems across the world. See also: Too hot even for cactuses” Phoenix offers taste of heat’s dangers, NZZ (Switzerland)

ASU’s Center for Cybersecurity and Trusted Foundations‘ summer program partners high school students with graduate student mentors from the center and the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, for collaborative research projects on campus. This summer, 23 high school students from the Phoenix area took part in an eight-week cybersecurity research internship guided by ASU students, including Fulton Schools computer science doctoral students Syed Navid and Ananta Soneji. More than more than 100 students competed to participate in the internship in the center directed by Adam Doupé, an associate professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence. One high school student said the internship enabled him to see how research can make important impacts on society.

It’s being called an invisible weather disaster. It’s extreme heat and it’s leading to more deaths than those resulting from floods, hurricanes and tornadoes — with Arizona’s Maricopa County seeing a steep jump in heat-related fatalities. The growing threat is motivating researchers to address the problem, among them Ariane Middel, an associate professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence and director of the SHaDE Lab, and Konrad Rykaczewski, an associate professor in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy. Both schools are parts of the Fulton Schools and both faculty members have developed technology to gain knowledge about extreme heat and find more effective ways to protect people from its dangers. 

A mobile biometeorological station that measures outdoor heat radiation is a major tool being used by ASU researchers in multiple studies on the impacts of hot environments on human health. Konrad Rykaszewski, an associate professor of mechanical engineering in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools, and Jennifer Vanos, an associate professor in the School of Sustainability, are among those employing the technolgy named MaRTy in efforts to finds ways to help project people from increasingly hotter environments.

As part of efforts to mount defenses against cyberattacks that would threaten critical national infrastructure and security, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is sponsoring a two-year hackathon contest offering a large monetary prize for writing programs that can scan millions of lines of open-source code to help identify security flaws and fix them. Teams from Arizona State University, the University of California at Santa Barbara and Purdue University recently gathered to begin taking on the challenge. One of the advisors is Yan Shoshitaishvili, an associate professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, whose expertise includes cybersecurity research and vulnerability detection techniques.

Zilin Jiang, an assistant professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, and a team of Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers were awarded the prestigious Delbert Ray Fulkerson Prize. The award, presented at the recent International Symposium on Mathematical Programming, recognizes outstanding research papers in discrete mathematics, including graph theory, networks, mathematical programming, applied combinatorics and applications of discrete mathematics to computer science and related subjects. The paper was published in the Annals of Mathematics. Jiang also holds a joint faculty position in ASU’s School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences, 

King’s College London has held its first graduation of students from The Engineering & Design Institute London, or TEDI-London, an international partner of the Fulton Schools and Australia’s University of New South Wales Sydney. TEDI students completed studies for a Global Design Engineering bachelor’s degree and many are expected to advance to a Global Design Engineering integrated master’s degree program. TEDI-London has about 120 students enrolled in its programs focusing on engineering education through practical, project-based learning and industry ties. ASU played a role in launching the Institute in 2021 as part of efforts to accelerate the Fulton Schools’ engineering expertise across multiple global academic partnerships.

Arizona’s extreme desert heat may be causing vegetation to release more emissions into the atmosphere and worsening ozone pollution. ASU researchers are examining the situation. Matthew Fraser, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, and an expert in urban air quality, air pollution control and atmospheric monitoring instruments, says unique interactions between vegetation and desert environments may be triggering the problem. The plan is to place sensors and other instruments in various Phoenix area locations to provide data for devising solutions to the problem. The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality is helping to fund the project.

Water conservation is increasing critical as a growing world boosts demand for the vital resource. A big step toward solutions would be more ways to reuse so-called greywater that’s already been used to wash laundry or dishes or for similar uses. One promising solution is being worked on by Zachary Bogart, an environmental engineering graduate student researcher in the the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools. Paul Westerhoff, an ASU Regents’ Professor in the school and director of the Global Center for Water Technology, part of the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative, says Bogart’s project is a prime example of the water recycling that would help prevent future shortages.

Long a suburban outpost of the greater Phoenix area, the town of Buckeye and the rest of the West Valley area have emerged as a wellspring of urban and economic growth. Along with residential and commercial development, the area is becoming a beacon of innovation. That trend includes the opening of three new schools at ASU’s West Valley campus, including the School of Integrated Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools. Shawn Jordan, the school’s interim director, says students’ engineering studies will give them the skills to have an impact on the West Valley communities. Sintra Hoffman, president and CEO of WESTMARC, a partnership of 15 West Valley communities, says the new school is aligning its programs with the area’s workforce development strategy.

Russia already has all of Europe within range of its missiles. Now the deployment of Russia’s weaponry can be expected to increase with the announcement that the U.S. plans to bring some its missiles to Germany in coming years. The move by Russia is not an imminent threat but primarily to send a forceful message about its preparedness to engage in future miliary conflict, says Brad Allenby, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, whose expertise includes geopolitics and the implications of emerging military and security technologies. The move by Russia is not a surprise given the country’s expansionist plans, Allenby adds.

Some places get so hot in the summer that governments issue heatstroke alerts. But experts such as Ariane Middel say sometimes simple acts like using an umbrella for shade can help keep people safe from extreme heat. Middel, an urban climatologist and associate professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, and author of the report “50 Grades of Shade,” says cooling towels, squirt misters or a good soaking in cool water can also provide effective protection against very hot environments. Middel gives further advice on beating the heat in other recent news reports:
12 News-Phoenix
Those neighborhoods get really, really hot: Phoenix’s heat island is no paradise
ABC 15 Arizona
Sizzling sidewalks, unshaded playgrounds pose risk for surface burns over searing Southwest summer
ABC News
Is air conditioning enough? Why extreme heat can still put you at risk

Arizona State University is poised to play a major role in the growth of the semiconductor industry. The U.S. CHIPS and Science Act provides billions of dollars in grants to companies such as Intel and the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company as incentives that will open the door for ASU to supply much of the engineering and technical workforce for these companies’ major operations in the Arizona. Workforce recruitment efforts include support to prepare students for leading roles in evolving semiconductor research and development efforts, primarily through programs in the School of Manufacturing Systems and Networks and the School of Integrated Engineering, both part of the Fulton Schools.

Arizona is one of over 20 states participating in the Biden Administration’s Federal-State Modern Grid Deployment Initiative to modernize the U.S. energy grid. Nathan Johnson, an associate professor in The Polytechnic School, part of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, discusses the need for grid modernization due to aging infrastructure and rising energy demands from electrification and data centers. Modernization efforts should encompass generation, transmission, distribution, and consumption, utilizing diverse energy sources and innovations. Challenges include expanding transmission capacity, accelerating project timelines, and addressing local energy needs to avoid outages. Arizona faces an urgent need for faster infrastructure development to keep up with rapid growth and increasing energy demands.

Fulton Schools biomedical engineering student Sheetal Jha was among a dozen ASU students who participated recently in ASU’s Edson College of Nursing and Health Innovation’s Health Entrepreneurship Accelerator Lab internship in partnership with HonorHealth. The group’s project involved reimagining a Workstation on Wheels cart for use by the company’s nurses. Jha and other students, including Karanraj Govindraj, a Fulton Schools industrial engineering graduate student, designed various components of the cart using computer-aided design software and conducting stress and structural analysis. An HonorHealth clinical director complemented the project team for its innovative approach and attention to the needs of the patients the cart will serve.

Numerous U.S. Environmental Protection Agency studies confirm there is lithium, an alkali metal, in water supplies of many communities. El Paso, Texas, and other cities and regions are testing for the amounts of lithium in their water supplies to help determine if it clearly has detrimental effects on local populations. Professor Paul Westerhoff, the Fulton Schools chair of environmental engineering, says there may be different levels of risk among various communities depending on varying concentrations of lithium. But he says the EPA would need to conclude lithium poses a major threat to human health before requiring water utilities to put stricter limits on its presence.

Arizona State University researchers are focused on leveraging AI across various disciplines while addressing potential issues. Anamitra Pal, an associate professor of electrical engineering with ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, is using AI to enhance the reliability and resilience of the power grid amidst diverse energy sources and extreme weather. Pal’s research aims to extract actionable insights from sensor data to prevent power outages. He emphasizes AI’s role in identifying complex patterns and incorporating prior knowledge to improve power system applications. Pal is particularly motivated by explaining AI operations and providing performance guarantees for AI models in power systems. 

Nancy Cooke, a professor in human systems engineering for The Polytechnic School, part of the Fulton Schools of Engineering, emphasizes the importance of integrating humans with artificial intelligence, or AI, and robotics. As the founding director of the Center for Human, Artificial Intelligence and Robot Teaming, she advocates for AI to complement human skills rather than replace them. Cooke explores the concept of AI as a teammate, citing examples like the centaur model in chess, where AI and human capabilities are combined for superior performance. She also discusses the need for effective measurement techniques to evaluate human-AI team performance and stresses the importance of AI literacy for all users. Cooke envisions a future where AI enhances human capabilities, leading to greater productivity and possibly shorter workweeks, while maintaining a human-centered approach to AI development.

See also: Designing a more sustainable future with AI, ASU News, July 12

Konrad Rykaczewski, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University, is investigating the initial phases of sweating, focusing on the formation and evaporation of tiny sweat droplets. Unlike the later profuse sweating stages, where evaporation dynamics are better understood, the early stages have been largely overlooked. Using a specialized ventilated capsule with high-magnification video capabilities, they studied droplet behavior on human foreheads, capturing details down to 20 microns. This innovative approach aims to enhance understanding of sweat’s cooling mechanism, potentially impacting fields from medicine to industrial applications.

A space-age method of measuring water storage across the world was pioneered more than two decades ago by Jay Famiglietti, a ASU Global Futures Scientist and an affiliate faculty member in ASU’s School of Sustainability and the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools. The method, which uses data from NASA satellites to measure gravity, can detect levels of surface water, groundwater and surface moisture. The method has been recently used to detect widespread water depletion in the Great Basin, which spans across much of the western U.S. Famiglietti and others say the impacts of increasing depletion could be wide-reaching and dramatic, including threatening water supplies needed to grow food.

Arizona State University’s AZNext Program is a public-private partnership designed to address the need for more skilled professionals, with an emphasis on the information technology, business/data analytics and advanced manufacturing industries. Partnering with major corporations and institutions like Arizona State University’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, AZNext offers free courses benefiting diverse professionals, including veterans. Virtual classes accommodate busy schedules, emphasizing upskilling. Supported by a U.S. Department of Labor grant, AZNext collaborates with industry leaders to tailor courses like cybersecurity and IT support, addressing workforce shortages. 

ASU’s Luminosity Lab developed Verdantt Fresh, an app that aims to tackle food insecurity and waste via a fresh produce vending machine. Chemical engineering student Ellie Moran says the startup emerged from a student project and progressed to compete at the Hult Prize Monterrey Global Summit. Though they didn’t advance to the next round, the experience bolstered their confidence. They are currently building community and corporate partners and plan to officially launch for public use in the spring of next year.

Arizona State University researchers have a $2.8 million National Science Foundation grant through the Expand AI initiative to advance artificial intelligence applications in technologies such as phones and smartwatches. Led by College of Health Solutions Associate Professor Hassan Ghasemzadeh, the research team includes Professor Pavan Turaga, director of the School of Arts, Media and Engineering and a faculty member in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, Associate Professor Giulia Pedrielli in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence and Professor Daniel Rivera in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy and others. The project aims to optimize AI for small, portable devices to enhance health monitoring and decision-making.

To reach its goal of seeing environmentally unhealthy emissions of greenhouse gases from heavy duty vehicles reduced to net zero in the next two decades, California must set early retirement dates for these vehicles. That’s the conclusion of a study by Stanford University and ASU researchers published in the journal “Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability.” Eleanor Hennessey, a postdoctoral scholar in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, is the study’s main author. The research findings are relevant to all countries trying to decarbonize motor vehicles to protect the health of their citizens. Many U.S. states have carbon neutrality goals similar to those set by California.

As temperatures in Southwest desert cities such as Phoenix and Las Vegas reach summertime highs there are increasing risks of serious burn injuries and heat strokes to people exposed to outdoor asphalt, concrete, metal and similar surfaces. For some, the injuries are fatal. Children in particular are not often unaware of risk they face in the sizzling heat, says Ariane Middel, an urban climate researcher and associate professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools. Middel says cities need to consider using other types of materials instead of those that turn urban infrastructure surfaces into heat sponges.

The prestigious Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program lays groundwork for international research collaborations to pursue solutions across a broad spectrum of engineering, science, economic, environmental, health care, human rights and related challenges. New projects to be undertaken include one to be led by Andreas Spanias, a professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools and director of the and the director of ASU’s Sensor, Signal and Information Processing Center. Spanias will work with fellow electrical engineers and information technology experts in North Macedonia to develop and deploy machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms to optimize rooftop solar energy systems performance.

Fulton Schools students, including members of the ASU chapter of Engineers Without Borders, teamed recently with fellow ASU students and ASU faculty members and mentors to help reduce the plastic waste problem in Ethiopia that is endangering the country’s fragile ecosystem and a rare species of monkey. ASU students worked with fellow students from the Addis Ababa Institute of Technology to build machines to help solve the area’s plastic problem. Another goal was to help find ways local residents could profit from region’s ecosystem. Organizers of the project plan to return to Ethiopia next year and offer more engineering students an opportunity to work on the project.

See also: ASU Student Engineer’s Embark On Mission To Safeguard Ethiopian Wildlife, India Education Diary, July 2

The life-threatening dangers posed by a combination of extreme heat and a lack of cooling facilities were made apparent by the numbers of deaths among people who recently took part in a popular traditional pilgrimage in India. Temperatures in the holy city of Mecca soared well above 120 degrees Fahrenheit, contributing to 1,301 deaths. Ariane Middel, an associate professor in the School for Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, and ASU’s Urban Climate Research Center, is quoted about what is both effective and ineffective in protecting people exposed to hot environments for extended periods of time.

See also: Is air conditioning enough? Why extreme heat can still put you at risk, ABC News, June 21
Middel says neither U.S. citizens nor government leaders are taking the deadly threat of extreme heat seriously enough

Geopolitics, national security and military technologies and strategy intertwine in the research interests of Brad Allenby, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, and a former associate director of energy and environmental systems at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories. In this recent article (written in the Bosnian language), Allenby, whose expertise includes the geopolitical implications of emerging technologies, assesses Russia’s current nuclear posturing in response to NATO’s support of Ukraine, especially given China’s increasing influence over Russia, and the systemic integration of artificial intelligence technology into nuclear systems. He concludes that fundamental shifts in nuclear weapons strategies may well be coming, but there is no need for alarm at present.

Jenavieve Echegaray, who will begin studies in manufacturing engineering in the Fulton Schools in the fall, is among students participating in ASU’s Joaquin Bustoz Math-Science Honors Program academic camp this summer. The program prepares incoming ASU students for the rigors of studies in STEM subjects. By completing the camp course, students will earn three college credits for studies in math, science and engineering. Echegaray says the experience showed that college “doesn’t have to be super hard or scary.” Kenneth Ho, who plans to major in computer science and eventually work as a software engineer, said the program is good preparation for the transition from high school to college.

To respond to a directive set forth in a new federal rule, Arizona will make use of the expertise of Treavor Boyer, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools. The goal is to reduce per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, in drinking water to meet new environmental quality standards. Boyer, whose work is also supported by the Global Center for Water Technology, will also help the state’s Department of Environmental Quality significantly limit exposure to the PFAS contaminant. Through research supported by the National Science Foundation, Boyer will also have a role in helping the state deal with a threat being posed by phosphorus in wastewater.

Studies show that in routine driving circumstances, driverless automobiles are involved in fewer accidents than cars driven by people. But research also reveals that autonomous vehicles are having more difficulties than human drivers when encountering low-light conditions and when making turns on roads. Still, experts say much more research must be done to get a more comprehensively accurate picture of the driving skills of automated cars versus the driving performance of humans. Junfeng Zhao, an assistant professor of engineering in The Polytechnic School, part of the Fulton Schools, stresses that more extensive data on autonomous vehicle testing and deployment — especially robotaxis — is needed to get a complete picture of the situation.

ASU and the Salt River Project power and water utility company have conducted a study showing how water supplies can be increased while wildfire risk is decreased on forest lands by certain forest-thinning techniques. Enrique Vivoni, director of ASU’s Center for Hydrologic Innovations and a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, comments about how watershed productivity can be significantly improved by forest thinning that protects the environment by meticulously removing only smaller and thinner trees that can fuel forest fires while at the same time helping to  produce significantly more water.

See also: ASU, SRP investigating if forest thinning could increase water supplies, ABC 15 News Arizona, June 6

SRP and Apple Team Up to Thin Out the Forests to Save More Water, 3TV-CBS 5 News-Phoenix May 22

Recent news media reports on high-tech advances in construction materials were based on findings detailed in the research paper New Generation Graphenes in Cement-Based Materials: Production Property Enhancement, coauthored by Narayanan Neithalath (pictured in his ASU workspace), a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, and director of ASU’s Center for Carbon Efficient and Advanced Manufacturing of Materials  and Structures. Testing by Neithalath and fellow Fulton Schools researchers validated the superior technical performance of a new kind of graphene developed by HydroGraph Clean Power Inc. to improve the effectiveness of cement. Repoerts were also posted on WGNO (New Orleans) and WDTN (Dayton).

A deeper understanding of how humans are affected by high temperatures is emerging with the help of a test dummy named ANDI. The heat-monitoring manikin is the primary tool being used in research led by Konrad Rycakzewski, an associate professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, one of the Fulton Schools. ANDI is one of only two such manikins in the world able to leave the lab and venture outside into the heat. That ability enables ANDI to contribute to knowledge that can be used to help develop defenses against weather conditions that are causing high numbers of deaths and health threats.

Semiconductor manufacturing has accelerated since the passage of the U.S. CHIPS Act two years ago. Colleges and universities have since been working to help create the trained workforce needed to fulfill the aspirations of the CHIPS Act. But, so far, those efforts are falling short in providing sufficient numbers of skilled employees for the nation’s semiconductor chip makers. Trevor Thornton, a professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools, says even large universities such as ASU are not graduating enough students to end the shortage of chip makers for the industry. One remedy might be recruiting new students from community colleges, Thornton says.

Researchers are envisioning a future in which people prefer environmentally friendly, energy-efficient, high-occupancy vehicles. To realize that goal they are exploring employing advanced technology that uses reinforcement learning, a type of artificial intelligence, to incentivize people to choose options to single-occupant motor vehicles. Their ideas for a more human-centric system are detailed in the journal “Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies.” Among the authors is Hua Wei, an assistant professor in School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, whose expertise includes machine learning, artificial intelligence, data mining, urban computing and multi-agent reinforcement learning.

Fulton Schools researchers are teaming with colleagues in ASU’s School of Molecular Sciences to study natural atmospheric emissions that are adding to harmful levels of the ozone pollution and giving the Phoenix metro area some of the unhealthiest air in the U.S. The project presents the challenge of controlling emissions from industry and motor vehicles, says Matthew Fraser, a professor in in the  School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, who will co-lead the project. Students are getting research experience through the endeavor, including Gabrielle Cano, a student in the Fulton Schools’ civil, environmental and sustainable engineering doctoral program.

An essay by the author of “The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet,” bolsters his warning about the possibility of a heat-triggered climate catastrophe by citing scenarios described by Mikhail Chester, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools. Chester recounts factors that worsened the impact on cities and regions from prolonged extreme heat events. The damage was more devastating because of the lack of preparedness for such severe climate threats, says Chester, director of ASU’s Metis Center for Infrastructure and Sustainable Engineering. Studies show large urban areas such as Phoenix can suffer more severe consequences in such situations.

See also: Hurricanes & Heat — It Isn’t Nice to Fool With Mother Nature! Clean Technica, June 3

A process that reduces waste while using sound to cut materials for solar photovoltaics technology was developed by the Defect Engineering for Energy Conversion Technologies lab at ASU, directed by Mariana Bertoni, a professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools. The process became the basis for a venture by a Phoenix-based startup now called Crystal Sonic. The company worked with ASU to further develop the technology and obtain a patent for the process. Crystal Sonic’s target customers include semiconductor material suppliers, device manufacturers and equipment manufacturers.

OpenAI’s newest version of the popular ChatGPT chatbot has the ability to upload photos for the bot to analyze. Other than that, there’s not much significantly improved over the previous version, which was ChatGPT-4. After putting the new chatbot through some tests, Subbarao Kambhampati, a professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, says he sees no meaningful improvement in bot’s reasoning capabilities. The new version needs some help from human intelligence to fulfill its purpose. But that is contrary to how advanced artificial intelligence should be working, Kambhampati says.

A increase in easily produced fake images and sound recordings meant to deceive viewers and listeners are prompting more intensive efforts to develop defenses against the perpetrators of these manipulated visuals and sounds — many of them altered by the use of artificial intelligence, or AI, technology. Visar Berisha, a professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools, leads a team that has created a tool to help solve the problem. The invention is microphone that authenticates human speech, making it easier to detect if voices are real or phony simulations. Named “OriginStory,” the device recently won the Federal Trade Commission’s Voice Cloning Challenge.

See also: New Techniques Emerge to Stop Audio Deepfakes, IEEE Spectrum, May 30
ChatGPT maker OpenAI’s ‘Sky” AI voice is similar to two more Hollywood stars, Times of India, June 3

Among growing threats to global health is the increasingly frequent extreme heat caused by climate change. That jump in temperatures is often exacerbated by the heat-island effect in urban areas. Three ASU associate professors and researchers are working on innovative ways to combat the rising heat problem. Ariane Middel (pictured) in the School of Arts, Media and Engineering and the School for Computing and Augmented Intelligence, parts of the Fulton Schools, Konrad Rykaczewski in the School for the Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, one of the Fulton Schools, and Jennifer Vanos in the School of Sustainability are developing tools and methods to deploy in the battle against scorching temperatures.

ASU researchers’ studies of the human gut microbiome are revealing how the gut’s microorganisms help manage weight. One recent study was based at ASU’s Biodesign Center for Health Through Microbiomes, directed by Rosa Krajmalnik-Brown, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools. Krajmalnik-Brown also participated in the research, which could deepen knowledge about the link between the gut microbiome and the human metabolism, thereby helping to devise more effective strategies for managing obesity. One promising strategy involves a regimen of intermittent fasting and regular protein intake.

Brad Allenby’s research has included exploring the impacts of the modern world’s rapid rate of technological evolution and societal change, especially their effects on the use of military force, national security systems and geopolitics. Allenby, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, is particularly interested in current conflicts and their ramifications. In this news report, Allenby comments on the Ukrainian War and what it reflects about deeper trends in international conflicts. (The article is in the Bosnian language and mistakenly identifies Allenby as a faculty member at the University of Arizona.)

For a third year, the Bakery Equipment Manufacturers and Allieds, or BEMA, organization, will partner with the Fulton Schools to bring together leading scholars in manufacturing education and members of  BEMA, an international not-for-profit trade association representing major bakery and food suppliers. Professor Binil Starly, director of the School of Manufacturing Systems and Networks, part of the Fulton Schools, and Farhad Ameri, an associate professor in the school, will be sharing the latest research findings and other knowledge of interest to leaders of the bakery and food suppliers’ industry. Starly is among the 20 most influential professors in smart manufacturing named by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers. Ameri’s expertise is in Knowledge-based Engineering, or KBE, in design and manufacturing applications, digital supply chains and related fields.

ASU is recognized as one of the U.S. universities where researchers are making the most significant progress in endeavors to curb the carbon emissions that pose an environmental threat. Much of that work is being done through by research and development projects in the Center for Negative Carbon Emissions, directed by Klaus Lackner, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools. The center is at the forefront of advances in carbon capture technologies, in particular an innovative carbon management cycle designed to capture carbon directly from the air. The center’s “mechanical tree” technology is much more effective than natural tress at removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

A recently announced proposal by the head of the Federal Communications Commission would add a layer of transparency that many lawmakers and AI experts have requested to keep AI technology from being used to mislead voters and the general public. Subbarao Kambhampati, a professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, and others say the legislative bill would aim to provide a piece of model legislation for the country to show how the dangers of AI and deep fakes in a political context can be addressed in a way that still respects the First Amendment.

Experts at ASU and the Salt River Project utility company are exploring the use of forest thinning to increase water supplies, as well as to reduce the risk of wildfires and protect critical infrastructure. The research is being conducted by the Center for Hydrologic Innovations, directed by Enrique Vivoni, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools. The endeavor is part of the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative,  a statewide project led by the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory in collaboration with the Fulton Schools. Vivoni says the project is critical to assuring both future forest health and water resilience.

See also: SRP, ASU collaboration gauges benefits of forest thinning, KJZZ News (NPR) News, May 21

SRP-ASU Collaboration Gauges Benefits of Forest Restoration, Energy Central, May 22

SRP and Arizona State University Gauges Benefits of Forest Restoration, T&DWorld, May 23

SRP Collaborates with University on Forest Restoration Project, American Public Power Association, May 29

ASU, SRP investigating if forest thinning could increase water supplies, ABC 15 Arizona, June 5

Four of the recent Arizona high school graduates to win the prestigious Flinn Scholarship to support their upcoming studies in ASU’s Barrett, The Honors College, will add to the number of Flinn Scholars already enrolled in Fulton Schools degree programs. Zahrah Ralph says her love for engineering and the engineering design process guided her decision to pursue a mechanical engineering degree. Her fellow new Flinn Scholarship winners are first-year students Vyktorianna Bowler in mechanical engineering, and Dominic Castagna and Edward Wang, both in electrical engineering. The Flinn Scholarship covers the cost of tuition, fees, housing, meals and at least two study abroad experiences.

Microsoft, HP, Dell and other computer technology companies have developed a laptop computer designed to work with artificial intelligence, or AI, technology. The computers will make it simpler to use AI to find websites users have browsed, emails they’ve read and documents and files they have worked on. The AI systems will also enable automating photo editing and language translation and speeding up video editing. The benefits of the new chip may still not be readily evident to consumers, says Subbarao Kambhampati, a professor and artificial intelligence researcher in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools. Most of the data processing for AI still has to be done on a company’s servers and not directly on the devices, Kambhampati says.

In his work for the Phoenix area’s Valley Metro light-rail system expansion, Barzin Mobasher, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, used a new fiber-reinforced concrete instead of concrete reinforced with traditional steel bars for the track slabs. In an article on the American Society of Civil Engineers, or ASCE, website, Mobasher provides details about how use of the new concrete helped in completing the  project at a lower cost and in less time than if convention rebar were used. Advances in alternative construction design processes and the use of reinforced-concrete track slabs were developed in Mobasher’s Structural Mechanics and Infrastructure Materials Laboratory. The article was first posted on ASCE’s website on April 12.

Advances in artificial intelligence, or AI, technology are sparking a new wave of medical research that is exploring how AI and machine learning can be used to improve diagnosis and treatment of diseases and other health problems. At ASU, faculty members in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering and the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering, parts of the Fulton Schools, including Professors Teresa Wu, Thurmon Lockhart and Visar Berisha, Associate Professor Bradley Greger and Assistant Professor Christopher Plaisier, are among those helping to expand the capabilities of health care through evolving applications of AI.

Arizona legislators are trying to hinder use of deepfake technology by making the creation of fake images for harmful purposes a punishable felony infraction. Two bills advanced by the Arizona House of Representatives would make it illegal to use manufactured video or audio recordings with the intent to defraud, harass or exploit the victims or their friends and families. But enforcing laws against altering images and recordings or creating fake ones will be challenging, say experts such as Subbarao Kambhampati, a professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools. He says evolving artificial intelligence technology makes it easier to produce more realistic fake image and voices — and harder to control how they are used.

A high-tech news website that focuses on trends in machine learning, deep learning, neural networks and artificial intelligence, or AI, technologies and business, reports on a new research paper authored by Subbarao Kambhampati, a professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, along with graduate student Kaya Stechly and graduate research associate Karthik Valmeekam in the same school. In the paper, they examine the popular AI “chain-of-thought” prompting technique that improves performance but also has some limitations. The authors write about how to avoid the hazards presented by the technique.

Among only 10 undergraduates selected for this year’s cohort of those awarded the U.S. Department of State’s Foreign Affairs Information Technology Fellowship is Isa Cohen, a student in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools. The program will provide support for two remaining years of undergraduate studies for Cohen, who is pursuing a degree in computer science. Through the fellowship, Cohen will aid the State Department’s efforts to ensure the security of digital environments. Ross Maciejewski, director of the  School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, says Cohen exemplifies Fulton Schools students who want to use their skills for the common good.

Along with recent promising advances in artificial intelligence, or AI, technology come warnings about how it could also be used as an instrument of deception. AI’s capability to imitate peoples’ voices is among the latest of those concerns. In response, a group ASU researchers, including, Visar Berisha, a professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools, have developed a prototype of a microphone capable of authenticating voices as human speech, which could expose AI imitations. Berisha talks about the various positive uses of the voice verification technology.

See also: Cyberattacks are disrupting critical infrastructure. This expert says we can all fight back, KJZZ (NPR) News
Katina Michael, a professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, talks about the growing threat of cyber criminals targeting public services operations, health care and educational institutions.

Some of a growing number of industrial facilities equipped to capture carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that threatens human and environmental health are ramping up their carbon capturing capacities — and a new plant called “Mammoth” is many times larger than other such operations. Still, the capabilities of many plants fall short of what is needed to sufficiently decarbonize the atmosphere, says Klaus Lackner (pictured in an ASU photo), a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, and director of ASU’s Center for Negative Carbon Emissions. Lackner and other experts also express hope of finding ways to reduce the current high costs of decarbonization that remain a major hurdle. (Access to the Washington Post online requires a subscription.)

Among the most important strengths of a good leader are recognizing, supporting and leveraging the skills of people on your team, and putting them in positions to be successful, says Professor Kyle Squires. That approach is essential to effectively managing an organization as complex as one of the largest engineering schools in the U.S., says Squires, dean of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at ASU and the university’s senior vice provost for engineering, computing and technology. Ongoing efforts to provide innovative education, research and productive industry partnerships present formidable challenges, he says. Squires provides insights into how the Fulton Schools is fulfilling its mission by meaningfully integrating itself into the various communities it serves.

New ASU graduate Hunter Mantle (pictured) will be applying what he learned while earning an electrical engineering degree in the Fulton Schools to his new job in avionics engineering with an aerospace industry company. Mantle, who aspires to contribute to a NASA mission through his employer, is among many recent ASU engineering students who have found employment in their fields before or soon after completing undergraduate studies. Kyles Squires, dean of the Fulton Schools, says Mantle and other recent graduates are among those who are increasingly equipped to not only contribute to engineering businesses but also prepared to be leaders in their professions.

Even the mother of pop music star Katy Perry was fooled by a picture generated by artificial intelligence, or AI, technology that showed an image of Perry at the recent annual star-studded Met Gala Costume Institute Benefit in New York City — which Perry did not attend. Subbarao Kambhampati, a professor of computer science and AI expert in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, says growing public awareness of the current disinformation ecosystem and new technologies will soon be helping people to better discern if images are fake or real.

See also: Even Katy Perry’s mom was fooled by what appeared to be AI-generated Met Gala pics, NBC News, May 7
Subbarao Kambhampati is also quoted in this report.

Phones, computers, light switches and just about every other modern electronic device, machine or gadget we interact with are powered by advanced microelectronic devices and semiconductors. That’s one reason the Fulton Schools have been leading a transformation of ASU into a leader in semiconductor chip development, manufacturing and innovation, says Professor Kyle Squires, dean of the Fulton Schools. Aided by federal and state government investments and industry partnerships, ASU is at the forefront of efforts to turn the Phoenix area into leading center of microelectronic device production, innovation and the source of growing labor pool for microchip production companies. Squires sees potential for a global impact on the high-tech manufacturing market.

ASU NewSpace is combining academic and commercial enterprises to expand U.S. leadership in space-related enterprises and drawing on ASU’s strengths in space science, engineering and education to explore the potential for what NewSpace could achieve, including paving the way to a future powered by renewable energy. Nicholas Rolston (pictured), assistant professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools, and a partner on NASA research grants, is working on an Air Force proposal to use next-generation space power. He is also focusing on academic-commercial partnerships to give students opportunities for roles in space research and industry. Two of Rolston’s engineering undergraduate students have already been NASA Space Grant fellows sponsored by NewSpace.

Thirty Fulton Schools students are on their way to Ethiopia to begin a project to help the community in the country’s Simien Mountains National Park area overcome a problem with a large accumulation of plastics waste. Machines the student team has been prototyping for the past two years will be used to transform plastic bottles discarded by tourists and turn them into products that can be sold. The team’s goal is to both protect the local environment while also providing revenue for people living in the area. Students will also use locally sourced materials to build their plastics transformation machines.

At the recent annual meeting of the Center for Accelerating Operational Efficiency, or CAOE, the director of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate led the featured discussion on the potential for the use of artificial intelligence, or AI, technology in helping the department address challenges to its effectiveness. Joining in the discussion were Ross Maciejewski, director of the and the School of Computing and Augmented and Intelligence. part of the Fulton Schools, and the CAOE Global Security Initiative, along with Huan Liu (pictured), a professor in the school. Maciejewski focused on how AI could provide new approaches to solving problems. Liu gave a presentation on countering misinformation in the era of AI technology.

Research at ASU to advance semiconductor technology — particularly by Fulton Schools faculty members —has been a major contributing factor to putting Arizona at the forefront of the microelectronics industry’s emerging boom. Kyles Squires, dean of the Fulton Schools, says the university has put itself in a position to help lead the revival through multiple efforts, especially the expansion of the Fulton Schools and re-inventing a facility as the MacroTechnology Works at the ASU research Park to focus on improving the performance of microelectronics. Another step is the opening of the School of Manufacturing Systems and Networks,  a part of the Fulton Schools, which will help increase ASU’s focus on growing the workforce for domestic semiconductor manufacturing.

Traffic safety experts say the statistics make it clear that it’s time to take a look at the underlying causes of increasing traffic deaths in Arizona and take action to reverse the trend. Former senior advisor to the U.S. Department of Transportation Steve Polzin, a research professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, points out how the public’s reaction to COVID-19 pandemic and the increase in safety features in newer automobile have been factors leading to more risky behavior by drivers.

See also: Planners Push Transit, But it’s A Hard Sell In Western Cities, Newgeography, April 25, Polzin notes factors that influence the public’s choices about using public transit versus driving their own vehicles.

A Fulton Schools computer science graduate student, along with a user experience graduate student and a clinical assistant professor are among those whose entrepreneurial ventures were recently awarded funding during ASU’s Demo Day to support individual or team projects. Almost 70 pitches were made as part of the Venture Devils program. The winners also included four early-stage student ventures that won support from the Fulton Schools eSeed Challenge Challenge project. More than $250,000 in all was awarded. Many of the awards also provide mentorship opportunities and access to working space for students and project teams.

 ASU’s new Interdisciplinary Science and Technology Building on the university’s Polytechnic campus is generating expectations as a driver of substantial growth in the area’s economy. That anticipation revolves around the School of Manufacturing Systems and Networks, the newest of the eight Fulton Schools. With a combination of traditional academic instruction and hands-on training, the school is gearing up to provide next-generation engineers to supply the workforce for tech-based industry ventures expected to open or expand operations in the East Valley area. Professor Binil Starly, the school’s director, foresees a jump from about 250 current students to between 3,000 and 4,000 in the future.

ASU is poised to be at the forefront of progress in the design and manufacture of microchips and the advanced packaging techniques that boost chip performance. The university is partnering with NXP Semiconductors to improve packaging techniques and has Arizona Commerce Authority funding to increase semiconductor research, development and workforce training. It’s part of multiple efforts to make ASU an advanced packaging leader, says Professor Zachary Holman, Fulton Schools vice dean for research and innovation. Christopher Bailey, a professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools, says students pursing degrees in various areas of engineering are being trained in advanced semiconductor packaging.

The Fulton Schools will be joining ASU’s Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, along with its Media and Immersive eXperience Center, Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College and Thunderbird School of Global Management in bringing students into ASU’s new Endless Games and Learning Lab. Students will be introduced to a facility equipped to enable them to become creators through video game-based learning experiences. ASU President Michael Crow says activities in the lab will merge cutting-edge technology and engaging game environments to provide innovative education techniques that will open future career opportunities for students in many growing and emerging fields.

Only a small percentage of the electronics waste  produced around the world is being properly disposed of in ways that would not pose a major threat to the environment or could be made useful by recycling. Dwarak Ravikumar, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, says lack of recycling is hindering efforts to create a circular economy in which old materials are used to produce useful new materials. Some of those unrecycled materials can become toxic and damage the natural environment. Ravikumar says the trend needs to be reversed toward recycling and reusing materials, and redesigning products, in ways that can both provide economic opportunities and protect the environment.

Demand for electric vehicles has slowed, but the trend toward adoption of the vehicles remains promising, says Steve Polzin (misidentified as Paul Polzin in the article), a research professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools. Polzin and other experts says the outlook remains strong for electric vehicles to be the wave of the future. While there may be bumps along the way, including some layoffs in the electric vehicle industry, Polzin and others says there is no going backwards in the prospects for electric vehicles, as well as hybrid vehicles, to eventually become more significantly prevalent.

ASU’s charter and culture put a high value on volunteer efforts that contribute to communities where the university’s campuses are located. The annual Devils in Disguise Week, a part of ASU’s Changemaker Central program, enables students to apply their knowledge and expertise to developing innovative solutions to local, national and global challenges. Among the students participating as volunteers in recent public service efforts were Fulton Schools human systems engineering student Lizzy Cowgur, mechanical engineering student Blake Huffman and biomedical engineering student Evelyn Dellaripa, who view their efforts as opportunities to use their skills to provide a valuable service for the benefit of others.

Erin Burgard’s goal is a career in which she can apply what she’s learned in undergraduate studies that covered a diverse landscape of interests. She recently graduated with a minor in Spanish, a certificate in environmental humanities and a bachelor’s degree from the environmental engineering program in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment. part of the Fulton Schools. Burgard, who was also a NASA Space Grant intern and an Engineering Futures mentor, now wants to work abroad in Spain, contribute to advances in solar energy and water quality, and perhaps fulfill an aspiration to tackle the problem of inequity in education.

A recent visit to ASU by two dozen European Union representatives focused in large part on discussion about the university’s involvement in efforts to realize the goals of U.S. CHIPS Act to advance the nation’s semiconductor industry. Calling the Phoenix metro area “ground zero for semiconductors,” Kyle Squires, dean of the Fulton Schools, says he sees Arizona becoming one of the “globally relevant” locations to contribute to boosting semiconductor manufacturing and research. With students from around the country and the world coming to study at ASU, talented engineering graduates are already increasingly finding jobs with major semiconductor manufacturers and with companies in industries powered by semiconductor technology, such as aerospace, defense and energy.

Timothy Chase, a student in ASU’s Barrett, The Honors College who is majoring in chemical engineering in the School for the Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools, is among recent winners of the Goldwater Scholarship, a prestigious award for undergraduate research in the natural sciences, engineering and mathematics. Chase has been involved in research on durable plastics with Fulton Schools Professor David Nielsen and is studying the most effective polymers for use in 3D printing with Fulton Schools Assistant Professor Christopher Muhich. Chase says his experiences in the scholarship program have bolstered his passion for chemical engineering.

In this commercial travel industry blog, Timothy Takahashi, a professor of practice in the School for the Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Fulton Schools, draws on his expertise in aircraft performance, aerodynamics, aerospace structures and materials to assess a touted next-generation aircraft. Called JetZero, it is described as a big leap forward in commercial aircraft architecture, featuring a creative design that reduces drag on the aircraft to enable more fuel efficiency than standard jets. Takahashi says JetZero has potential to be an evolutionary step forward but stresses that its capabilities and versatility need to be fully tested and refined before deploying it for military use or as a passenger aircraft.

Arizona, particularly the greater Phoenix area, looks poised to take a leading role as a center of technological advancement in the semiconductor industry. A recently announced multi-billion-dollar investment by the U.S. government will provide funding for the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. to expand its facilties in the metro region. It’s one of many substantial investments in recent years resulting in dozens of tech companies opening or increasing operations in Arizona. The boom is also drawing more funding for research and development at ASU, says Associate Professor Zachary Holman, the Fulton Schools vice dean for research and innovation. Multiyear projects by ASU researchers will help create the future of semiconductors, Holman says. (The article is accessible only to subscribers.)

Arizona’s government, business and education leaders — including Kyle Squires, dean of the Fulton Schools — are hopeful of seeing the state become an international leader in the semiconductor industry after recent news of the U.S. Department of State’s announcement of a $6.6 billion grant for the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., which is already building a $40 billion complex in north Phoenix. With the new grant, the CEO of the Greater Phoenix Economic Council says the greater Phoenix area is emerging as the heartbeat of U.S. advanced manufacturing capabilities. Squires says he anticipates an acceleration of ASU’s partnership with TSMC that will lead to breakthroughs in research, innovation and learning experiences and work opportunities for students.

See also: With $6.6B to Arizona hub, Biden touts big steps in US chipmaking, VOA (Voice of America News), April 8
Zachary Holman, Fulton Schools vice dean for research and innovation, is quoted.

Hallucination is a word that is being increasingly used to describe the tendency of artificial intelligence, or AI, technology to produce false or contradictory information. In response to the problem, some researchers say generative AI tools must be paired with fact-checking systems so that AI chatbots are supervised and any inaccuracies they generate can be readily revealed. The potential solution presents a formidable challenge, says artificial intelligence researcher Subbarao Kambhampati, a professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, because there is yet no reliable way to always assure the accuracy of computer generated material.

Cyber crime is proliferating as cyber criminals become more skillful. They are targeting vital operations such as energy, water and sewer systems, as well as health care facilities and educational institutions. Experts say the dangers these ambitious hackers pose will likely worsen. Katina Michael, a professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Fulton Schools, who researches the socioethical implications of emerging technologies with an emphasis on national security. Michael says the number cyber attacks are rising and becoming more threatening to society’s critical infrastructure, as well as to industries, businesses and organizations, in ways that are more disruptive to peoples’ lives.

Large concrete structures called Dolphins have been placed around piers that support bridges by deflecting ships that come too close to those bridges. Barzin Mobasher, a structural engineering professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools, and other experts comment on the extent to which these structures may or may not be adequate defenses for bridges like the Key Bridge in Baltimore recently destroyed by a large freight ship. Mobasher says Dolphins likely would not have prevented much of the damage, but could have given people enough time to react and possibly prevented the six deaths resulting from the incident.

Millions of tons of asphalt used each year on roads and roofs contributes significantly to the release of toxic airborne particles into the atmosphere that pose a major risk to human and environmental health. Researchers are developing biobased additives for asphalt as a way to construct and maintain roads without those negative impacts. Among the new pavement materials is AirDuo, developed by Elham Fini, an associate professor in School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, part of the Fulton Schools. Read more about Fini’s work.

Nick Rolston is among researchers working on ways to reduce the carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere to protect both the planet’s natural environment and its human inhabitants. Rolston, an assistant professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, part of the Fulton Schools, says achieving the goal will require different solutions for almost every source of significant carbon emissions. Other Fulton Schools faculty members taking on the challenge include Matthew Green, an associate professor in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, and Klaus Lackner, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment. Green and Lackner lead ASU’s  Center for Negative Carbon Emissions. The article was also posted by AZ Big Media.