NSF

Photos by Johanna Carson.

Xiao Fu, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering and artificial intelligence, has received a Faculty Early Career Development, or CAREER, award from the National Science Foundation. Fu will use his five-year, $500,000 award to develop a suite of nonlinear factor analysis tools and contribute to a deeper understanding of unsupervised machine learning and sensing systems. 

Imagine a system of interconnected sensors and devices that can monitor a person’s health and alert them to seek treatment before a heart attack.

A future where Internet of Things technologies are predictive, rather than reactive, is the goal of the Pervasive Personalized Intelligence Center, a partnership between Oregon State University and the University of Colorado Boulder with several industry members.

In collaboration with the National Science Foundation (NSF), the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture has awarded Oregon State University a $1.5 million grant. This funding is part of the new NSF-USDA INFEWS program focused on accelerating discovery and innovation at the nexus of food, energy, and water systems.

Not long ago, Brian Paul considered metal additive manufacturing to be an expensive, niche technique best suited for fabricating a small number of one-off parts. From his perspective, the technology (also known as MAM, or 3D metal printing) held little promise for displacing conventional manufacturing processes, like investment casting or machining. Two unrelated developments changed his mind.

Jennifer Parham-Mocello (left), assistant professor of computer science, specializes in computer science education.

Researchers at Oregon State University are taking an innovative approach to teaching computer science concepts to middle school students using tabletop games such as Connect Four and Battleship. Working in partnership with teachers and administrators at Linus Pauling Middle School in Corvallis, Oregon, the team will develop and investigate a new curriculum to teach algorithmic thinking to sixth and seventh graders.

Opposites attract, and with funding from the National Science Foundation, Nick Bira, a doctoral student in robotics, is incorporating magnets (traditionally hard and rigid) with robots that are soft and pliable.

Jim Stasiak and Professor Pallavi Dhagat meet in the Applied Magnetics Lab at Oregon State to discuss the progress of their project to print electric and magnetic devices. Photo by Hannah O'Leary.

“I have a vison of printing an entire robot that would walk off the printer,” said Pallavi Dhagat, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Oregon State University and president of the IEEE Magnetics Society.