Seven faculty receive prestigious national awards

Dennis W. Prather, electrical and computer engineering, was among 21 of 216 applicants nationwide to receive a 1999 Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Award, which recognizes exceptional scientists and engineers in the early stage of their careers.

Prather is also one of seven UD faculty members, representing the Departments of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Chemical Engineering and Civil and Environmental Engineering, to earn prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) Career Awards this year.

The other NSF award recipients are John M. Lambros and Hai Wang, mechanical engineering; Kenneth E. Barner and Ashfaq Khokhar, both electrical and computer engineering; Nily R. Dan, chemical engineering; and Harry W. Shenton III, civil and environmental engineering.

Effective through 2003, the NSF awards will provide each faculty member with $200,000 to $300,000 in research support. Prather, for example, received $210,000 from the NSF, as well as $378,570 from the ONR. The funds will allow him to develop better optoelectronic interconnections for computer chips.

"We are very proud that these younger members of our faculty have received important national awards, just as we are proud of the accomplishments that led to these honors," UD President David P. Roselle said. "The combination of competence and enthusiasm evidenced by these and the other faculty who have recently joined the University of Delaware gives confidence that the Delaware tradition of offering varied and exceptional educational experiences for our students will continue into the future."

The extraordinary number of national science and engineering awards earned by UD faculty this year "speaks volumes about the quality of their research and the University's academic programs," Provost Mel Schiavelli said.

Neal Gallagher, electrical and computer engineering chairperson, described UD as "extremely fortunate to have so many talented young faculty." The award winners "are among the very best in the country," he said.

Following are brief summaries of each award recipient's project.

Accessible information

For people with visual impairments, computing technologies can open up a whole new world of information. But first, they must access on-screen data displayed in a visual format. Ken Barner's NSF project will result in new techniques, based on signal-processing algorithms, for "rendering" multidimensional data so that those with impaired vision can access it through their fingertips. Barner said he hopes to improve the accuracy and quality of visual data converted for use with "tactile and haptic" technologies. Images can be converted, for example, by extracting features through signal processing and displaying the extracted patterns on specially designed paper that raises when heated. Mechanical, haptic displays include a fingertip interaction device that allows the user to "feel virtual objects, surfaces and textures," Barner explained. With support from the NSF, Barner also will develop new courses to introduce an array of computing issues important to people with disabilities. Finally, Barner's research team will offer Internet-based mentoring activities, summer internships and research opportunities for high-school students with disabilities.

Gene transfer agents

Gene therapy promises to eliminate disease, by allowing scientists to manipulate the genetic content of cells. Yet, to succeed, researchers must find efficient, versatile, nontoxic gene carriers, capable of transporting healthy genes into diseased cells. The viral carriers commonly used in today's biotechnology industry can't be applied to human therapy, unfortunately, because of size constraints, as well as concerns about toxicity and immunogenicity. Synthetic carriers can be designed to overcome these obstacles, but their efficiency is extremely low. The goal of Nily Dan's research is to understand the relationship between the properties of synthetic carriers and their performance in the cell. Such information may suggest strategies for developing effective new gene transfer agents, she said. Toward that end, Dan said she will examine two types of synthetic vectors: liposome-based and polymer-based, in collaboration with researchers at two other institutions. Her research, initiated at UD, will continue at Drexel University, where she will work beginning in September.

Multimedia processing

Browsing, managing and transmitting multimedia data, including sound, images and video as well as text, requires massive computing power. To handle multimedia data more efficiently and achieve real-time processing, computer designers rely on parallel computational "threads" representing many different information pathways, Ashfaq Khokhar explained. His winning NSF proposal suggested a new strategy for developing algorithms and software tools to better manage multimedia processing tasks. Khokhar's algorithms should improve runtime efficiency by adapting to changing workload demands, he said. Improved multimedia processing is essential for defense, scientific and commercial applications such as reconnaissance, visualization and digital libraries, he noted.

Understanding fractures

How fast does the Earth's crust crack during an earthquake? Earthquakes may trigger cracks at supersonic speeds, according to John Lambros. Understanding these rapidly forming fractures might someday suggest new strategies for minimizing earthquake damage, or perhaps even predicting such events, Lambros said. Such fundamental knowledge would help researchers determine, for example, whether intentionally setting small quakes can help prevent major disasters--a strategy now commonplace for avalanche management. The research also should prove useful for preventing material fractures. Lambros and his group will use high-speed photography and detection instruments to study and numerically simulate every aspect of crack formation. The experimental work will enhance laboratory opportunities for UD students.

Optoelectronic advances

To make faster, smarter computers, Dennis Prather said, his research group is developing a promising, new technology that would use tiny laser beams to replace the wire interconnections in microprocessing chips. Known as optical interconnects, the technology has been successful in long-haul and local-area networks. But, its use within microchips has so far been limited by technological hurdles, including incompatible scales of integration, optical materials and fabrication methods. Prather has developed several new methods for accurately analyzing such small elements. Using these tools, he has designed optical elements that exceed, by more than an order of magnitude, the interconnect density of alternate electronic approaches. The UD devices can be seamlessly incorporated with the current manufacturing infrastructure, in terms of scale, materials and fabrication. Prather's ONR award will allow him to apply these methods toward the design of high-performance, electronic warfare systems. The NSF award will support work on advanced central processing unit (CPU) architectures, he said.

Smart structures

When earthquakes, hurricanes and other natural disasters strike, inspectors must manually assess damage to buildings, bridges and other infrastructure. The process is labor-intensive and time-consuming and it slows the recovery process, Harry Shenton said. Instead, he is investigating new "smart structure" technologies, which would automatically detect, locate and assess damage caused by disasters, or slow structural deterioration caused by environmental effects. Through computer models and, ultimately, full-scale experiments, Shenton will investigate integrated systems for "structural health monitoring," he said. Such systems use computers to analyze data captured by sensors on a continuous, real-time basis, he explained.

Burning benzene

To reduce pollutants caused by fossil-fueling burning and develop cleaner-running, more efficient engines, researchers must better understand the combustion process. Yet, the burning behaviors of certain components of gasoline and other fuels are not fully understood. In particular, the combustion of aromatic compounds, such as benzene and toluene, remain something of a mystery to scientists. Hai Wang will use his NSF award to create a chemical reaction model for predicting the combustion behaviors of these compounds. Ultimately, he said, the model should make it possible to analyze and forecast the rates and characteristics of pollutants formed by benzene and toluene during combustion. To achieve this goal, his team will also develop a new approach for modeling complex reactions. The approach is novel, he said, because it combines the fundamental theories of quantum and statistical mechanics with the engineering methods of detailed, kinetic modeling and systematic optimization.

-Ginger Pinholster

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