Faculty and Student Highlights

David Bevly, the McNair Distinguished Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, is the principal investigator on a $100,000 grant from Integrated Solutions for Systems (IS4S). Under Bevly’s direction, the Autonomous Tiger Racing Team won the Tier 1 Time Trial at the latest Indy Autonomous Challenge held Jan. 13 in Las Vegas. Jake Ward, a Ph.D. student advised by Bevly, won the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Automotive and Transportation Systems Technical Committee Award at the 2024 Modeling, Estimation and Control Conference.

Ben Bowers, the McCartney-Chase Highway Engineering Distinguished Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, earned a $167,631 grant from the Virginia Department of Transportation to study the resilience of full-depth reclamation pavement mixtures to flood inundation.

Pengyu Chen, the Francis Family Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, was awarded $1.9 million by the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences for his five-year study, “Machine Learning-Assisted Integrated Optofluidic Nano-plasmonic Biosensing for Precision Immune Profiling and Monitoring Source of Support.” This renewal application aims to advance the next generation of immune biosensing by integrating machine learning to enable precision immune profiling and monitoring for better patient care.

Virginia Davis, the Daniel F. and Josephine Breeden Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering, co-founded the Auburn I-STEM Connectory with Mary Lou Ewald, director of outreach at the College of Sciences and Mathematics (COSAM). This center will be a hub for sharing ideas and building capacity in informal STEM education to support Auburn’s mission and Alabama’s workforce development needs. Davis is also principal investigator on a three-year $500K USDA NIFA Professional Development for Agricultural Literacy program grant titled “Project FARM: Fostering Agricultural Research and Mentoring” with co-PIs Jessica Gilpin and Ewald from COSAM, Eve Brantley, professor and extension specialist (water resources) in the College of Agriculture, and Becky Barlow, associate dean for extension and assistant director for agriculture, forestry and natural resource extension programs in the College of Agriculture.

Greg Harris, Chair of the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, and Director of the Interdisciplinary Center for Advanced Manufacturing Systems, was elected this past fall into the Society of Manufacturing Engineers College of Fellows.

Peter He and a team of Auburn researchers were awarded $3.16 million by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for their project, “Intensified and Energy Efficient Cultivation, Processing, and Conversion of Flue Gas Produced Algal Biomass to Aquafeed.” Part of a multi-university and industry DOE initiative aimed at advancing mixed algae developments for low-carbon biofuels and bioproducts, He is joined by co-PIs Jin Wang, the Woltosz Professor of Chemical Engineering, Zhihua Jiang, the Auburn Pulp and Paper Foundation Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering, and Allen Davis, professor at the Auburn University School of Fisheries, Aquaculture & Aquatic Sciences.

Zhihua Jiang, the Auburn Pulp and Paper Foundation Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering and director of the Alabama Center for Paper and Bioresource Engineering, is the principal investigator on a $1.88 million U.S. Department of Energy project designed to develop a process for the conversion of carbon dioxide to polyethylene using flue gas from the pulp and paper industry. Researchers will produce low-cost biocarbon from paper mill sludge and produce ethylene, which will replace petroleum-based ethylene to synthesize polyethylene. 

Allison Ledford, assistant research professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, is lead inventor of a new patent co-owned between Auburn University and the U.S. Army – “Physical Components Using Data Element Mapping and Analysis (DEMA),” which is a new approach to identify, isolate, document, and improve digital threads in data and information systems. There are currently projects with DoD, DOE and industry partners to use Data Element Mapping and Analysis to identify data threads for digital thread realization and improve the flow of data and information that support major systems and operations. Ledford and her Auburn teammates also have a follow-on patent pending for eliminating waste in data and information flows. Ledford was also featured by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers’ “Women Advancing Manufacturing” article in its January publication of Smart Manufacturing.”

Elizabeth Lipke, the George E. and Dorothy Stafford Uthlaut Endowed Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering, is a co-principal investigator on a one-year, $350,000 Phase I National Institutes of Health Small Business Innovation Research grant, “VivoSpheres: Tissue-Engineered Spheroidal Models for High-Throughput Screening.”

Masoud Mahjouri-Samani, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and director of the Auburn University LASE-END lab, was elected as associate editor of the Journal of Laser Micro/Nanoengineering and earned a $270,000 National Science Foundation grant for his collaborative research, “Effect of Twist Angle on the Interfacial Thermal Conductance of Homo/Heterojunctions.”

Scott Martin, assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, is co-principal investigator on a $100,000 grant from Integrated Solutions for Systems.

Yazhou Tu, assistant professor in computer science and software engineering, received the Distinguished Paper Award at the 2024 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Symposium on Security and Privacy in Oakland, California, in May. He serves as the publicity chair and travel grant coordinator for SmartSP 2024/2nd European Alliance for Innovation International Conference on Security and Privacy in Cyber-Physical Systems and Smart Vehicles.

Adriana Vargas-Nordbeck, associate research professor at the National Center for Asphalt Technology, was awarded $400,000 from the National Cooperative Highway Research Program to develop a field test to determine chip seal aggregate embedment. She was also part of a $1.7 million pooled research fund led by the Minnesota Department of Transportation for the project “National Partnership to Improve the Quality of Preventive Maintenance Treatment Construction & Data Collection Practices.” She was awarded $120,000 by the National Road Research Alliance to investigate the feasibility of using recycled materials in pavement preservation.