Aaswath Raman at TED2018: ‘The next renewable resource? The cold of space’
Aaswath Raman, one of the newest members of the Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering, is using his background in optics and materials science to take an ancient idea and apply it to a pressing, modern-day problem: cooling.
New Nanoparticle Synthesis Facility is Getting Stalled Neuroscience Research Back on Track
Nanotechnology is enabling new materials and devices that work at sizes so small that individual atoms and molecules make a difference in their behavior. The field is moving so fast, however, that scientists from other disciplines can have a hard time using the fruits of this research without becoming nanotechnologists themselves.
Nader Engheta Receives 2018 IEEE Nanotechnology Council Pioneer Award in Nanotechnology
Nader Engheta, H. Nedwill Ramsey Professor of Electrical and Systems Engineering, is the recipient of the 2018 IEEE Nanotechnology Council Pioneer Award in Nanotechnology for “his transformative contributions to the nanoscience and nanotechnology of photonic metamaterials and for the development of optical nanocircuits.” IEEE is the world’s largest professional engineering organization, boasting more than 375,000 […]
Ani Hsieh’s Robot Teams are Exploring New Frontiers
As a child, Ani Hsieh wanted to become an astronaut, but she soon realized there were a few obstacles that no amount of studying or training could overcome. “I’m short, I’m hopelessly nearsighted, and I get really bad motion sickness,” says Hsieh, research associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics. Thankfully, […]
Penn Researchers Show that Cells’ Perception of Stiffness is a Matter of Time
The relative stiffness of a cell’s environment is known to have a large effect on that cell’s behavior, including how well the cell can stick or move. Now, a new study by University of Pennsylvania researchers demonstrates the role timing plays in how cells perceive this stiffness.
Jan Van der Spiegel Elected to Chair of International Solid-State Circuits Conference
Jan Van der Spiegel, a professor of Electrical and Systems Engineering, has been elected Conference Chair of the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) for 2019 and 2020.
GRASP Lab’s ModQuad Robots on Discovery Canada’s Daily Planet
Imagine if you had construction materials that could move on their own. You could assemble a bridge to a nearby island without ever touching the water, or build a structure on top of a mountain without having to climb it. Engineers in the GRASP Lab are working toward this vision.
Penn-developed Robots Cameo on The Daily Show
If you caught The Daily Show on March 7, you might have spotted a familiar four-legged robot taking part in a futuristic court case. The robot’s name is Minitaur, and as noted in Technically Philly it is the product of Penn spin-off Ghost Robotics. Minitaur, Ghost Robotics’ flagship robot, is designed to deal with unpredictable […]
Penn Engineers’ Gold Nanorods Key to Measuring Materials’ Squishiness at the Nanoscale
Rheology is the science of studying how soft materials and complex fluids deform and flow under stress. These materials are everywhere in biology, and since their relative stiffness or squishiness is relevant to diseases, such as cancer, there is a need to accurately measure just how squishy they are. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s […]
Uncovering Shoddy Science
Konrad Kording, professor in the Department of Bioengineering, and colleagues have a new technique for identifying fraudulent scientific papers by spotting reused images. Rather than scrap a failed study, for example, a researcher might attempt to pass off images from a different experiment to give the false impression that their own was a success.