Research Highlights

    • Writing the Script for Cyber Security Research and Education Doug Jacobson’s leadership in cyber security research and education began before high-speed internet, smartphones and Google. It even predates the term “cyber security” itself. Jacobson, Stanley Chair in Interdisciplinary Engineering, University Professor of electrical and computer engineering, and director of the Center for Cybersecurity Innovation and […]

    • Deon Ploessel and Zengyi Shao

      If you remember just one thing from high-school biology, it’s that the mitochondria are the powerhouses of the cell. But could mitochondria also hold the key to gene therapy and new tailored drug development for diseases and disorders? Zengyi Shao, Vernon Guse Faculty Fellow and associate professor of chemical and biological engineering, and her team […]

    • Additive manufacturing (AM) holds the promise of transforming nearly every way that materials and components are conceived, designed, produced and used in service.  The possibilities and expected innovations are numerous, and their realization requires a truly multidisciplinary cadre of researchers.  Here at Iowa State, researchers are at the forefront of additive manufacturing, conducting leading research […]

    • Hongwei Zhang

      Iowa State is building a wireless “living lab” in central Iowa, laying the foundation for more affordable rural broadband service. The project will create a research testbed for a wide range of wireless technologies across Iowa State’s campus, the city of Ames and surrounding farms and rural communities in central Iowa – with an application […]

    • robot in soybean field

      NSF AI Research Institute: Using digital twins to multiply crop production A new $20 million National AI Research Institute led by Iowa State will use the latest artificial intelligence tools to develop digital twins of individual crop plants and entire farm fields. The discoveries will help plant breeders improve crop varieties and farmers boost production. […]

    • Zhaoyu Wang

      Problem:  Enhanced electric grid monitoring is needed to promote renewable integration while ensuring reliability, but current approaches rely on expensive sensors. Smart meters that electric utilities are already using for billing have potential, but without new computing innovations, smart meters only can provide limited insights into grid performance. Project:  Wang will unlock the potential of […]

    • Nigel Reuel

      Problem:  Therapeutic cells show promise as a new treatment option for chronic illness, but advances must be made in manufacturing reproducibility to get therapeutic cells out of clinical trials and into widespread use. Project:  Reuel will develop novel, real-time sensors and reinforcement learned (RL), dynamic control policies to improve reproducibility in large-scale manufacturing of differentiated, […]

    • smorphcade with facade outset

      “The Smorphacade project is the first-of-its-kind collaboration between structural engineers, wind engineers and control engineers to turn a passive building façade into a live façade that protects the building against wind load and turbulence,” said Alice Alipour, associate professor of civil, construction and environmental engineering. Alipour leads a team that’s combining a network of pressure, […]

    • Cybersickness. No, it’s not being tired of the constant stream of new emails in your inbox. It’s the physical illness some people feel in virtual reality environments. Angelica Jasper, a Ph.D. student in Humana Computer Interaction, is studying how to prevent VR users from experiencing nausea, disorientation, and oculomotor strain.

    • line art of lettuce

      A team led by Hongwei Zhang, professor of electrical and computer engineering, has developed CyNet, an open-source, wireless networking infrastructure to support data-driven research. CyNet takes on the challenge of quickly and reliably transmitting agricultural measurements from the crop field to plant scientists’ computers – and serves as a prototype for bringing much-needed broadband to […]

    • A new partnership with Boeing pairs undergraduate students with College of Engineering faculty and Boeing engineers to get hands-on research experience in cutting-edge projects in aerospace engineering, cyber security, autonomous systems, machine learning and more. “The Boeing Undergraduate Research Fellowship has created opportunities for undergrads to learn research by doing, work on high-impact projects, and […]

    • Rizia Bardhan, associate professor of chemical and biological engineering and Iowa State University Nanovaccine Institute researcher, is making life-saving advances in disease diagnosis and treatment by integrating nanoparticles and Raman spectroscopy.

    • Amy Kaleita, professor of agricultural and biosystems engineering, works at the intersection of food, energy, water and land use systems on data-driven precision conservation. Where there’s good soil and water data, she uses it, where there’s gaps in the data, she creates new models to estimate variables, and where there’s neither existing data nor a […]

    • Cary Pint

      Incremental improvement is the goal of most battery research programs, but Cary Pint isn’t looking to build on existing ways of doing things. He’s out to create new systems of energy storage for a sustainable future. “My background brings together diverse experiences in both academia and industry and across many different disciplines. That allows me […]

    • Cristina Poleacovschi

      Cyclone Engineer Cristina Poleacovschi studies how to build community resilience during challenges like natural disasters or economic shocks. Poleacovschi’s research suggests steps to increase shared resilience – even in unprecedented community challenges like the COVID-19 pandemic:

    • Mai Zheng

      Storage systems are the fundamental computing building block of our modern lives – and like physical building blocks, computer storage systems must function well in fair weather as well as sudden disturbances to keep data safe.

    • Paper Resonator

      Ask Nigel Reuel about his research and you start to hear a pattern in how he describes his goals: “merging,” “collaborating,” “tying together,” “multidisciplinary.” Look at his career, and you see how he’s combined industry experience with in-the-lab creativity to create engineering innovations. “When I was at DuPont, one of my roles was a technology […]

    • Martin Thuo in the lab

      Iowa State University is once again listed among the top 100 worldwide universities granted U.S. patents during a calendar year. Iowa State has made the list every year since 2013 when the rankings began.

    • Our gut microbiome – a collection of complex and varied microbes – is important to our health far beyond our digestive tract. We know that too much “bad” bacteria can make us ill, but the opposite may also be true. Engineering “good” bacteria could be key to fighting illness. Mansell seeks to overcome one big […]

    • Left to right: Gül Okudan-Kremer, Shan Jiang, Nigel Reuel, Ann Gansemer-Topf and Qing li. Photo taken February 2020.

      Could graduate students build more than just research skills during their thesis projects? An interdisciplinary project led by Cyclone Engineer Shan Jiang aims to address this question through the first of its kind Graduates for Advancing Professional Skills (GAPS) program.