Category Archives: Campus News

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To the moon and beyond: Aerospace engineering is on the cutting edge of electric space propulsion

By | July 5, 2020
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(Image of an X3 thruster. From the angle of the image, it looks like four white rings with a small metal bullseye.)

The University of Michigan Aerospace Engineering Department’s Plasmadynamics and Electric Propulsion Laboratory (PEPL) is developing the next-generation of Hall thruster technology that may one day propel the first human missions to Mars. A Hall thruster is a form of electric space propulsion that replaces conventional rockets with a stream of charged ions that can propel a spacecraft for… Read More »

Distinctly Detroit podcast

By | July 2, 2020
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The Detroit Center is proud to present “Distinctly Detroit,” a Podcast on what makes one want to be in the D. Join host Katie Lehman as she interviews students, scholars, innovators, and leaders from across the city to learn how they came to live, work, and love in Detroit. Click here to listen to the latest episodes.

Semester in Detroit offers learning hybrid format for the fall

By | July 1, 2020
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U-M recently announced plans for the fall 2020 semester, which will include a combination of online and in-person courses. In keeping with this, and in recognition of the ongoing public health crisis, the Semester in Detroit (SiD) program will be offered in a hybrid format. For fall 2020, all SiD classes, including community-based internships and projects. will be offered… Read More »

Inclusive technology: How a single step could pave the way

By | June 30, 2020
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(Chad Jenkins standing with his arms around two robots that almost reach his shoulders standing upright.)

In the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd and other recent incidents of police brutality, a coalition of Black computer scientists drafted an open letter calling for action in the computing community to address systemic and structural inequities Chad Jenkins, a roboticist and associate professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Michigan, is among… Read More »

84 internships and research fellowships for the pandemic summer

By | June 30, 2020
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(Photo of five people in lab coats working on a piece of technology connected with many wires.)

With many students facing the cancellation of their summer plans to work as engineering interns, the Multidisciplinary Design Program has rushed to fill the gap. Cobbling together resources from inside and outside U-M, the program team created 54 paid internships and research fellowships, and 30 additional unpaid positions each mentored by U-M faculty.  The Multidisciplinary Design Program (MDP)… Read More »

Wireless sensors for N95 masks could enable easier, more accurate decontamination

By | June 30, 2020
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(Image of a wireless sensor in a T shape.)

Tiny wireless sensors for recycled N95 masks could verify, in real time, whether the respirators are being exposed to proper decontamination conditions.  These batteryless sensors are being developed and tested at the University of Michigan through a new National Science Foundation RAPID COVID-19 grant. They are designed to provide more accurate and less cumbersome monitoring during the decontamination… Read More »

NERS Professor Kevin Field wins DOE Early Career Award

By | June 30, 2020
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(Portrait of Kevin Field smiling.)

Kevin Field, associate professor in the U-M Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences (NERS), has been awarded funding for research as part of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science’s Early Career Research Program. Field is a nuclear materials scientist with expertise in advanced alloy development and radiation effects in material systems relevant for nuclear… Read More »

Weiser Food Allergy Center tapped to join elite research network

By | June 30, 2020
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(Photo of a woman wearing lab goggles while sitting in front of a microscope.)

The Mary H. Weiser Food Allergy Center (MHWFAC) at U-M has been named a Discovery Center of Distinction by FARE, the leading food allergy research, advocacy, and education organization. The prestigious award adds the MHWFAC to the FARE Clinical Network, which was established in 2015 to link top food allergy centers nationwide for collaboration on the development of… Read More »

MiXR Studios podcast: Immersion through the novel and virtual realities

By | June 30, 2020
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(Image of a person wearing a virtual reality headset sitting across from a virtually constructed person.)

This week’s MiXR Studios podcast explores how extended reality (XR) can be used in humanities to advance the University of Michigan’s liberal arts mission.  Sara Blair, the Patricia S. Yeager Professor of English, discusses how she designed a course to frame the novel with a goal of immersion using virtual reality (VR) as the object of comparison. She… Read More »

Tandem wins teaching innovation prize

By | June 30, 2020
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(Portrait of Robin Fowler smiling.)

Tandem, a tool that helps track and facilitate group projects, has received the University of Michigan Provost’s Teaching Innovation Prize. Tandem was developed by the Center for Academic Innovation and Michigan Engineering. Robin Fowler, a lecturer in the Department of Engineering, and one of the faculty leads who helped develop Tandem. She is talking about Tandem at the… Read More »

Students lead the way on State of Michigan web application to curb the spread of COVID-19

By | June 30, 2020
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(Image of a page from the "MI Symptoms" online health test. The page lists symptoms of COVID-19.)

A team of students at the College of Engineering have developed an online tool called “MI Symptoms” to help Michigan residents track potential COVID-19 symptoms, enabling state officials and employers to make the right call about reopening workplaces during the pandemic.  Among the web application’s key audiences are employers who will need to make sure they’re correctly following… Read More »

U-M faculty receive $1.9M in DOE funding awards

By | June 30, 2020
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(Photo of a building with trees and a fountain in front of it.)

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is awarding $65 million to support 93 projects spread across 28 different states. The U-M department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences (NERS) has received $1,883,668 to fund seven projects to advance nuclear technology. The awards are through two DOE programs: the Nuclear Energy University Program (NEUP) and the Nuclear Energy Enabling… Read More »

MiXR Studios Podcast: XR’s Impact on Society and Culture

By | June 29, 2020
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Lisa Nakanura

This week’s MiXR Studios podcast focused on diversity, race, ethnicity, and gender related to embodiment virtual reality (VR) in conversation with Lisa Nakamura and Chris Quintana.  Nakamura and Quintana discussed their XR experiences in the humanities and the possibilities of creating an XR classroom to study affordances in society and culture. Nakamura explained how she constructed a course… Read More »

U-M BLiSS team wins NASA ‘Moon to Mars’ challenge grant

By | June 29, 2020
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Bliss logo

The University of Michigan’s Bioastronautics and Life Support System (BLiSS) was selected by NASA, in partnership with the National Space Grant Foundation, to develop innovative design ideas that will help NASA advance and execute its Artemis project objectives. BLiSS is a student-run research team at U-M open to undergraduate and graduate students. It was founded by Daniil Abramov… Read More »

University alliance receives $51.5 million in funding from Defense Threat Reduction Agency

By | June 29, 2020
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The Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s (DTRA) has announced it is rewarding $51.5 million of funding to the newly formed Interaction of Ionizing Radiation with Matter University Research Alliance (IIRM-URA) program.  IIRM-URA is comprised of 12 universities and 8 partner institutions, national laboratories, and industrial companies. The University of Michigan is one of IIRM-URA’s four permanent university members.  IIRM-URA… Read More »

An autonomous HVAC system could provide more comfort with less energy

By | June 29, 2020
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As lockdown restrictions lift, COVID-19 is changing how we use indoor spaces, challenging those who manage these spaces, from homes to offices to factories. One of the biggest challenges concerns heating and cooling. In response to the need for smart, more flexible climate control to keep people comfortable without heating and cooling entire empty buildings, researchers from the… Read More »

New method ensures complex programs are bug-free without testing

By | June 29, 2020
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(Five spools of yarn — two pink, one purple, two blue — each with a string of yarn extended out, tied to the others.)

A team of researchers from the University of Michigan, Microsoft Research, and Carnegie Mellon have created Armada, a system that uses a technique called formal verification to prove whether a piece of software will output what it is designed to produce without bugs.  Armada targets software that uses concurrent execution, a method of performance boosting, and passes systems… Read More »

Reflecting on an impactful career: CEE Professor Nikolaos Katopodes retires

By | June 29, 2020
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After more than forty years of experience in institutional and global service, Prof. Nikolaos Katopodes’s CV lists a litany of awards, presentations, visiting professorships, and publications. Katopodes earned his BSc from Aristotle University in Thessaloniki, Greece, before receiving his MS and PhD in Engineering at the University of California at Davis. Following his service in the Greek Army… Read More »