NSF News -- Engineering

National Science Foundation-Funded Researchers Present Commercial-Ready Technologies to Industry

Tue, 21 May 2013 10:06:00 EDT

For the first time in a national showcase setting, a group of National Science Foundation (NSF) grantees--who are funded through the Accelerating Innovation Research (AIR) program--presented to industry representatives various technologies they believe are ready for commercialization.

On May 14 in Baltimore, Md., 10 investigators, whose research support came from the NSF Engineering Directorate's AIR Technology Translation program, introduced a system that uses ionic liquids to ...

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This is an NSF News - Engineering item.

Challenges of Landing "Curiosity" on Mars

Mon, 13 May 2013 13:00:00 EDT

On May 16, the Directorate for Engineering at the National Science Foundation will host a Distinguished Lecture on the challenges of landing the rover, "Curiosity," on Mars.

Charles Elachi, director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, will discuss the intricate technical challenges and engineering steps undertaken to successfully land Curiosity.

The feat, accomplished on Aug. 5, 2012, ...

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This is an NSF News - Engineering item.

NSF Joins Forces with Intel and GE to Move the Needle in Producing U.S. Engineers and Computer Scientists

Wed, 08 May 2013 13:30:00 EDT

Imagine a young athlete arriving at a university with the potential to win big over the next four years. Now imagine this athlete sitting out an entire season while practicing with the team and getting the lay of the land. This strategy is called redshirting, and it has proven to be an effective way to prepare athletes for success.

Now imagine using the same concept for preparing undergraduates for a degree in engineering. It's just one of the creative approaches ...

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This is an NSF News - Engineering item.

Helping People through the Decision-Making Process Using a Web-Based Application

Tue, 07 May 2013 03:31:00 EDT

Not everyone likes to make decisions alone. People sometimes need feedback. Now they have a social media site that can give it to them.

"Think of it as 'Facebook for Decision-Making,'" says Ali Abbas, associate professor in the department of industrial and enterprise systems engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who designed the new system. "The idea was to build a decision support site online through a social network."

...

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This is an NSF News - Engineering item.

New National Inventors Hall of Fame Inductees Received Vital NSF Support

Wed, 01 May 2013 17:40:00 EDT

Today, Andrew Viterbi, Donald Bitzer and John Daugman will be among 17 honorees inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame at the United States Patent and Trademark Office headquarters in Alexandria, Va. The honor and their accomplishments are in part a testimony to the power of funding by the National Science Foundation.

Viterbi, an electrical engineer and cofounder of wireless technology giant Qualcomm, used NSF support to develop an important ...

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This is an NSF News - Engineering item.

NSF Joins Forces with Intel and GE to Move the Needle in Producing U.S. Engineers and Computer Scientists

Wed, 01 May 2013 17:52:00 EDT

As a new crop of graduates from U.S. colleges and universities hits the street, the country is counting on a new wave of skilled workers to navigate a complex set of challenges to national security, health and rehabilitation, energy security, and reliability of critical infrastructure, among others.

In the critical fields of engineering and computer science, industry leaders lament an-inadequate supply of graduates with the knowledge and skills needed in ...

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This is an NSF News - Engineering item.

Energy Efficient Brain Simulator Outperforms Supercomputers

Thu, 16 May 2013 01:07:00 EDT

In November 2012, IBM announced that it had used the Blue Gene/Q Sequoia supercomputer to achieve an unprecedented simulation of more than 530 billion neurons. The Blue Gene/Q Sequoia accomplished this feat thanks to its blazing fast speed; it clocks in at over 16 quadrillion calculations per second. In fact, it currently ranks as the second fastest supercomputer in the world.

But, according to Kwabena Boahen, Ph.D., the Blue Gene still doesn't compare to the ...

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This is an NSF News - Engineering item.

NSF Webcast for Earth Day: An EKG for the Earth With NEON

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 09:38:00 EDT

Earth Day invariably begs the question: What is the current and future state of our Earth's ecology?

Answers to this question have traditionally been woefully inadequate because scientists have lacked a mechanism to systematically measure the long-term health of large ecosystems. But that is now changing as a new, precedent-setting, nationwide, multidisciplinary infrastructure--the ...

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This is an NSF News - Engineering item.

National Science Foundation Participates in White House Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 12:48:00 EDT

President Obama today announced that the National Science Foundation (NSF) will participate in a White House initiative called Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN), which is designed to revolutionize our understanding of the human brain. NSF Acting Director Cora Marrett took part in the announcement at the White House, which also included the National Institutes of Health and the Defense Advanced Research ...

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This is an NSF News - Engineering item.

Extreme Algae Blooms: The New Normal?

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 15:00:00 EDT

A 2011 record-breaking algae bloom in Lake Erie was triggered by long-term agricultural practices coupled with extreme precipitation, followed by weak lake circulation and warm temperatures, scientists have discovered.

The researchers also predict that, unless agricultural policies change, the lake will continue to experience extreme blooms.

"The factors that led to this explosion of algal blooms are all related to humans and our interaction with the ...

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This is an NSF News - Engineering item.

Engineering New Tissue for Pediatric Heart Surgery

Wed, 15 May 2013 10:42:00 EDT

Unlike heart disease in adults, which typically develops over time, pediatric heart defects most often are present at birth. They are, in fact, the most common birth defect, affecting eight out of every 1,000 newborns, or more than 35,000 children annually in the United States, according to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.

These include simple problems, which either need no treatment or easily can be repaired, as well as more complex structural ones, which often ...

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This is an NSF News - Engineering item.

The National Science Foundation Names Electrical Engineering Researcher Mung Chiang its Alan T. Waterman Awardee for 2013

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 10:49:00 EDT

The National Science Foundation (NSF) will present Mung Chiang of Princeton University with this year's Alan T. Waterman Award. Chiang is an electrical engineering professor who uses innovative mathematical analyses to design simpler and more powerful wireless networks.

This annual award honors outstanding researchers under the age of 35 in any field of science or engineering that NSF supports. Chiang's ...

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This is an NSF News - Engineering item.

Clean Water: A Challenge for Researchers

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 04:21:00 EDT

The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) in partnership announced yesterday the intention to begin a joint parallel activity to fund trans-Atlantic research into the provision of clean water for all. The provision of clean water is widely recognized as a global engineering grand challenge, hence the EPSRC and NSF challenge researchers in the two countries to perform ...

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This is an NSF News - Engineering item.

Small Business Innovation Research Award Leads to Multimillion Dollar Investment

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 05:25:00 EST

At this moment in time, Twitter might well be the social soundtrack of our lives.

Twitter brings us public conversations that most often reflect our reactions to events and cultural phenomena--television, in particular--as well as our hobbies, interests and behaviors, making its content a priceless commodity for networks, as well as for companies that design, manufacture and market consumer products.

"Twitter is a public broadcasting network, like a ham ...

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This is an NSF News - Engineering item.

International Team Targets Innovations in STEM Learning

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 17:59:00 EST

Students in Finland have a reputation for doing well on international assessments in science and mathematics, an accomplishment that's long been of interest to educators and policy makers here in the U.S. A new research collaboration between the two countries is aimed at advancing the best ideas from both sides of the ocean, with the goal of bringing new innovations to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education in environments from kindergarten ...

More at http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=127063&WT.mc_id=USNSF_56&WT.mc_ev=click

This is an NSF News - Engineering item.