Penn Engineering Research Gives Optical Switches the ‘Contrast’ of Electronic Transistors
Current computer systems represent bits of information — the 1’s and 0’s of binary code — with electricity. Circuit elements, such as transistors, operate on these electric signals, producing outputs that are dependent on their inputs. As fast and powerful as computers have become, Ritesh Agarwal, professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering in the University of […]
Celia Reina Receives Eshelby Mechanics Award for Young Faculty
Celia Reina, William K. Gemmill Term Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, has been selected to receive the Eshelby Mechanics Award for Young Faculty. This award is given annually to emerging junior faculty who exemplify the creative use and development of mechanics. It includes a $1,500 cash prize and a […]
Jason Burdick Receives Heilmeier Research Award
Jason Burdick, Professor in Bioengineering, has been named the recipient of the 2017-18 George H. Heilmeier Faculty Award for Excellence in Research for “pioneering contributions to designing and developing polymers for applications in stem cell biology and regenerative medicine.” The Heilmeier Award honors a Penn Engineering faculty member whose work is scientifically meritorious and has […]
Rakesh Vohra: Can we make our financial systems more resilient?
One of the major research areas in the Warren Center for Network and Data Science is resilience. Whether it’s a trader working the stock market, a doctor combating infections in a hospital, or a quadrotor flying in a swarm, the more connections there are between agents in a system, the more likely it is that […]
New Network Model of the Musculoskeletal System Can Predict Compensatory Injuries
Network science examines how the actions of a system’s individual parts affect the behavior of the system as a whole. Some commonly studied networks include computer chip components and social media users, but University of Pennsylvania engineers are now applying network science to a much older system: the human body.
Adding a Twist Makes 3D-Printed Structures Tougher
Some mantis shrimp kill their prey with a hammer-like appendage called a dactyl club. Despite being an organism only a few inches long and weighing about as much as a deck of playing cards, the shrimp can throw shell-shattering punches at more than 50 miles per hour. If human engineers were to design a hammer […]
IEEE Spectrum: ‘Microdrones That Cooperate to Transport Objects Could Be Future of Warehouse Automation’
Following up on an earlier story about the GRASP lab’s new swarming technology that uses only onboard cameras and sensors, IEEE Spectrum’s Evan Ackerman checks back in with GRASP research scientist Giuseppe Loianno to talk about another advance.
Network Neuroscience, Explained Via Twister
As a pioneer in the nascent field of network neuroscience, Danielle Bassett, Eduardo D. Glandt Faculty Fellow and Associate Professor in the Department of Bioengineering, studies the way the structure of neuronal connections give rise to cognitive traits. By mapping these networks while people perform different tasks, such as ones related to memory, creativity, or […]
IEEE Spectrum: ‘This Autonomous Quadrotor Swarm Doesn’t Need GPS’
The GRASP Lab’s flying robots do some amazing things under the invisible glow of PERCH’s motion-tracking camera system, but to have an impact in the real world, they will need to figure out where they’re going without that kind of eye-in-the-sky. Enter VIO-Swarm, the latest set of collaborative quadrotors from the lab, which fly together […]
Penn Engineers: Bone Marrow Transplant Stem Cells Can ‘Swim’ Upstream
When a cancer patient receives a bone marrow transplant, time is of the essence. Healthy stem cells, which can restart the production of blood cells and immune system components after a patient’s own are compromised, need to make their way from the circulatory system into the bones as quickly as possible. To do that, they […]