7/3/2008 — NU NewsCenter --NCI Grant Launches Clinical Trials For Colon Cancer

EVANSTON, Ill. --- A Northwestern University biomedical engineer who has developed optical technology shown to be effective for the early detection of colon cancer has received a $7.5 million grant over five years from the National Cancer Institute to further study an instrument that potentially could become a routine colon cancer screening test and to launch large-scale clinical trials.

Colon cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States; more than 50,000 Americans die each year of the disease. Colon cancer, however, can be easily treated if detected early. But no existing population-wide screening test can accurately predict the presence of the disease with adequate sensitivity. Vadim Backman, principal investigator for the grant and professor of biomedical engineering at Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, believes the technology he has developed could lead to the first such test. A major part of the NCI grant is to validate the technology and have it ready for commercialization.

Backman is leading a diverse group of researchers from Northwestern and the four hospitals conducting the clinical trials.

Read the full article [pdf]

7/2/2008 — CBS2 Chicago (June 30, 2008) Northwestern University Students Build Solar Car

Northwestern University Students Build Solar Car (Video)
What's Under the Hood of Northwestern's Solar Car? (Video)

7/2/2008 — The Daily Northwestern - NuSolar Looks To Build 'Most Advanced Car Yet'

With an army of 600 silicon cells to trap sunlight and a backup pack of lead acid batteries for extra "oomph," a gas-free car built by Northwestern students boasts a seven-horsepower engine that carries its driver at highway speeds of more than 65 miles per hour. Now these students say they are ready for an upgrade. NuSolar, the Northwestern solar car team, has built four gas-free cars since its inception in 1998. The team's mission is to design, build and race solar electric vehicles with "perfection, craftsmanship and aesthetics," said McCormick junior Vytas Bradunas, head of operations for NuSolar. He said the team is ready to reach this perfection with plans for construction on a new car this month. NuSolar finished its last creation in 2005, using an old frame from a car it had built in 2003. Called nu'Nergy, it took fifth place at the 2005 Formula Sun Grand Prix, a national solar car race. The team qualified for the 2,500-mile North American Solar Challenge, but an "electrical failure" prevented it from continuing. Team members said they are now manufacturing a new vehicle from scratch, thanks to a new design and a $200,000 budget. They estimate the next gas-free vehicle will be completely race-ready in October, and they hope to race it in the North American Solar Challenge in the summer of 2008. "I look at the computer screen and I think someday this is going to be real," Bradunas said. Hopefully we can get it done." The new car will weigh between 500 and 600 pounds - the current car weighs 800. The team's first vehicle, made in 1998 and called SolarCat, weighed about 2,000 pounds. The frame will be built from lightweight, high-strength aluminum instead of steel, and its shell will be made of carbon fiber. It will use lithium ion batteries, which offer significantly more power than lead acid, Bradunas said. "We intend it to be the most advanced car yet," said McCormick sophomore Michael Awadalla, the team's business manager. The only problem, Bradunas said, is "it just needs a name." Bradunas, who joined the NuSolar team "pretty much as soon as (he) got (on campus)," said works on the project for 70 to 80 hours per week. "School pales in comparison with the amount of time I put in here," Bradunas said. "I'm not a school person. I don't like sitting in a classroom." He said between 80 and 100 students have contributed to the project over the course of two years, and a core of about 30 students are currently involved. The design began in January. "It's hand-constructed, so it gets a lot of man hours," said McCormick senior Andrew McDermott, the team's electrical specialist. "We actually built our shell. A lot of people who say they work on cars just buy a fender." Team members said they hope to place even higher at the 2008 North American Solar Challenge. "When it runs, those are the great moments," said McDermott. Reach Day Greenberg at d-greenberg@northwestern.edu. Article

7/2/2008 — NU Solar Car Team departs July 3 for Texas to compete in the 2008 North American Solar Challenge

The Solar Car Team (website) is readying the car for the North American Solar Challenge during July 2008. The car will race 2400 miles from Plano, Texas on July 13th to Calgary, Alberta on July 22nd. Check out the blog to find out what they are doing on the road.

Meet the team members.

The
Many important applications in the infrared are awaiting the right laser source. Advances in quantum cascade lasers will enable powerful new technologies to become commercial realities.

The diode laser has been around for more than 40 years. In the beginning, it was a scientific novelty. Later, it became a strategic technology, due to its small size, low power consumption and long lifetime. Now, thanks to mass production, millions of laser diodes are manufactured each month and appear in products ranging from telecommunications transmitters to DVD players to laser pointers. In fact, diode lasers made up roughly 55 percent of a $6.9 billion worldwide laser market in 2007.

Download a PDF of the full article.

6/27/2008 — NewScientistTech - Ad men to target social networking trendsetters

Think you exert an influence on your Facebook or MySpace friends? Then you could find yourself being used by advertisers to get people to pay more for products, according to US researchers. Using economic models they predict new tactics to exploit the personal information that online social-networking sites provide. One effective strategy could see free or cut-price products offered to the most influential online individuals to kickstart new fads, says Jason Hartline, at Northwestern University, Illinois, US.

Read the full article

6/3/2008 — North Carolina CBS-affiliate WRAL-TV interview Kemi Jona about future of STEM

In an interview for North Carolina CBS-affiliate WRAL-TV (5/30), Noah Garrett, former executive director of communications for the North Carolina Technology Association, discussed the future of STEM education with Dr. Kemi Jona of Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. Jona, when asked what the "biggest challenges" for STEM are, said that there "are two interrelated problems: STEM workforce and STEM education. The need for a workforce that is skilled in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics areas is closely linked to the idea of American competitiveness in the global economy." Jona explained that the media must better promote STEM. "There is a big misconception, left over from the bursting of the Internet bubble, that high-tech jobs are too risky or all being outsourced," he said. Furthermore, "right now...we don't have a single momentous event like Sputnik to galvanize the country's attention around STEM education." Jona pointed out that "[p]arents, employers, [and] teachers all need to do their part in helping make students aware of the breadth of STEM careers."

5/29/2008 — Applied Physics Letters cover article by Kong, Sahakian, Heifetz, Taflove, and Backman

Soon-Cheol Kong (post-doctoral associate), Alan Sahakian, Alex Heifetz (post-doctoral associate), Allen Taflove, and Vadim Backman report that their research article, "Robust detection of deeply subwavelength pits in simulated optical data-storage disks using photonic jets" has just appeared in the May 26 issue of Applied Physics Letters as its cover article. Link to article; Link to cover image.

5/28/2008 — Newsday: LI KIDS: Not too young to network

Newsday, May 25, 2008 - Justine Cassell, professor of electrical engineering and computer science and AT&T Research Professor in communications studies, comments on parenting. (Full article)

5/28/2008 — Virtual pal a real help

Chicago Sun-Times, May 20, 2008 -- Virtual pal a real help
Justine Cassell, professor of electrical engineering and computer science and AT&T Research Professor in communications studies, and her research team developed software for computer-generated playmates designed to help autistic children improve their conversation skills through interactive storytelling.

5/28/2008 — Laser Focus World - Type II semiconductor superlattice photodetectors new alternative to HgCdTe

LFW News Break -Type II semiconductor superlattice photodetectors new alternative to HgCdTe
While mercury cadmium telluride photodiodes and quantum-well infrared photodetectors are well established in military and other applications, the performance of these detectors at long-wave infrared (LWIR) and very-long-wave infrared (VLWIR) wavelengths is limited due to difficulties in producing uniform material. In an invited talk at SPIE's Defense + Security Symposium March 17 (Orlando FL), Manijeh Razeghi, professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Northwestern Univesity (Evanston IL) announced that Type II indium arsenide-gallium antimonide (InAs/GaSb) photodetectors may now be an important alternative to existing detectos at these wavelengths. Razeghi and her team fabricated Type-II InAs/GaSb superlattice photodiodes by growing multiple layers of Type II materials via molecular-beam epitaxy, enabling precise control of the cut-off wavelength from 3.7 to 32 mm.

The group created photodiode arrays up to 400 mm^2 in size with external quantum efficiency (QE) greater than 50% at a 9 mm wavelength. With optimized antireflective coatings, the single-pass QE could exceed 75%, says the group. The single-element detectors and arrays featured decreased dark current and increased sensitivity, and functioned as two-color detectors in LWIR with the differential resistance and QE of single-band devices.

5/28/2008 — New Superlattice Structure Enables High Performance Infrared Imaging

Scientists at the Center for Quantum Devices (CQD) in the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University have demonstrated for the first time a high-performance infrared imager, based on a Type II superlattice, which looks at wavelengths 20 times longer than visible light. Read the full article

5/28/2008 — New Mid-Infrared Lasers Show Doubled Efficiency

New Mid-Infrared Lasers Show Doubled Efficiency -- May 19, 2008
Researchers at the Center for Quantum Devices at the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University have recently doubled the efficiency of infrared lasers under the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Efficient Mid-wave Infrared Lasers (EMIL) program. Read the full article

5/6/2008 — Researchers use Akamai to find local BitTorrent peers

Researchers use Akamai to find local BitTorrent peers By John Timmer | Published: May 06, 2008 - 11:31AM CT

The rise of P2P traffic as a percentage of total network use has left ISPs looking for ways to limit its impact on their capacity. Comcast, notably, has chosen to throttle some P2P traffic, but that solution is generally viewed as a temporary fix. Testing of the hardware used for throttling P2P traffic reveals that it performs poorly when challenged with obfuscated or encrypted P2P traffic. Other ISPs, such as Verizon, are considering working with P2P software makers to help keep P2P traffic on local networks, and thus less burdensome. But computer science researchers from Northwestern University have been experimenting with ways of keeping the traffic local that don't require the cooperation of ISPs; the researchers provided Ars with a publication detailing some of the results. Read the full article here.

5/6/2008 — Bustamante and Choffnes' Ono discussed at Slashdot

Read the blog

2/21/2008 — Cassell: Virtual peers help children with autism

ScienceNOW Daily News, 2/15/08 -- Artificial Playmates for Autistic Children by Elsa Youngsteadt
MSNBC Technology & Science, 2/21/08 -- Digital tutors help children and adults develop advanced skills by Robin Lloyd

2/11/2008 — Media Summary: Manijeh Razeghi

ScienceDaily.com, February 1, 2008 Tiny Avalanche Photodiode Detects Single UV Photons
Science Centric, January 29, 2008 Tiny Avalanche Photodiode Detects Single UV Photons
SPIE Newsroom, January 29, 2008 Tiny Avalanche Photodiode Detects Single UV Photons

2/11/2008 — Tumblin's work noted in American Scientist.org

Computational Photography -- New cameras don't just capture photons; they compute pictures. By Brian Hayes. The article in the journal 'American Scientist' Volume 96, March-April 2008, Page 94-99, describes work by EECS Assoc. Professor Jack Tumblin and his collaborators at MERL (Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs: Ramesh Raskar, Amit Agarwal, Ashok Veeraraghavan, others) along with work at Stanford, MIT, Technion, Northwestern, and elsewhere.

2/7/2008 — Physics Today - Taflove, fellow optics researchers

"IBM Reports Milestone in Silicon Nanophotonics; Achievements from Japan's Kyoto University, Northwestern and the University of New Mexico Noted in Optics Express Focus Issue"

In 2004, Allen Taflove, Prof. Vadim Backman of BME, and students and postdocs discovered a new way that light can be concentrated into a beam that can be so narrow that its width is less than a limit thought to be absolute. The research group's most recent paper on this beam, which was dubbed the "photonic nanojet," appeared in the on-line journal, Optics Express, in December 2007. The nanojet could have applications ranging from detecting early-stage cancer in individual biological cells to enabling an entirely new generation of optical data storage devices which have much greater capacity than state-of-the-art BluRay (TM) disks.

Taflove's group's December Optics Express paper on the photonic nanojet has just been favorably mentioned in the Physics Today website. Please visit the URL: http://blogs.physicstoday.org/wht/2007/12/ibm_reports_milestone_in_silic.html

The website blurb is titled: "IBM Reports Milestone in Silicon Nanophotonics; Achievements from Japan's Kyoto University, Northwestern and the University of New Mexico Noted in Optics Express Focus Issue"

Scroll down and you'll see the following text:

"A new paper from Northwestern and the University of New Mexico explores new ideas about achieving super resolution using photonic nanojets, potentially for the detection of bio and nanoparticles in applications including cancer detection. 'Subdiffraction optical resolution of a gold nanosphere located within the nanojet of a Mie-resonant dielectric microsphere.' A. Heifetz, J. J. Simpson, S.-C. Kong, A. Taflove and V. Backman, Northwestern University and the University of New Mexico. pp. 17334-17342."

The University of New Mexico is mentioned because that is where Prof. Taflove's June, 2007 Ph.D. graduate, Jamesina Simpson, is now on staff as a tenure-track assistant professor.

12/5/2007 — Time, November 8, 2007

Don Norman, professor of electrical engineering and computer science, comments on technology and bad design in his book titled The Design of Everyday Things.

12/5/2007 — New Scientist, November 9, 2007

Don Norman, professor of electrical engineering and computer science, is a design guru helping to trace a route into science.

12/5/2007 — AScribe, November 12, 2007

Thrasos Pappas, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science, is one of the primary researchers developing a tactile surface that can facilitate communication between visually impaired and blind persons and computers.

11/26/2007 — Kumar's Quantum Group Highlighted in Science

Science, 23 November 2007: Better Computing with Photons
Excerpt: The experimental ability to generate, distribute, and use optical entanglement has steadily been improving over recent years. At the meeting, we heard of various advances in this field from P. Kwiat (Univ. of Illinois), A. Furusawa (Univ. of Tokyo), and H.-A. Bachor (Australian National Univ.). In particular, P. Kumar (Northwestern Univ.) described his group’s optical fiber–based entanglement source, promising the possibility of integration of quantum communication applications into standard telecom infrastructure. He presented results on a telecom-wavelength quantum controlled-NOT gate, which is perhaps the essential logic device necessary to build a quantum computer.

11/19/2007 — NU Programmers Take Midwest

A Northwestern undergraduate team has, for the second year in row, won the 5-state Mid-Central USA regional competition for the ACM Intercollegiate Programming Contest (ICPC). ACM ICPC is the oldest and most prestigious Computer Science problem solving competition in the world. The Northwestern team, the Wildcats (Nikolay Valtchanov (junior), Nikola Borisov (sophomore), and Anda Bereczky (sophomore)) beat 114 other teams in the region. The Wildcats will compete with 80 other teams, chosen from over 6000 world-wide, in the ACM ICPC World Finals, which will be held in April in Banff, Alberta, Canada. Northwestern also fielded a second excellent team, Northwestern Purple (Anish Godha, Julia Merryman, Henry Petrash). The teams are co-coached by Peter Dinda and Hai Zhou. More information about the competition can be found at this link.

11/1/2007 — Kumar featured in Chicago Tribune

By Jon Van, Chicago Tribune -- October 31, 2007 University researchers often study the spooky quantum world, but their discoveries rarely launch a business.

Prem Kumar, an electrical engineering professor at Northwestern University, not only launched a quantum-based business, but his company, NuCrypt, has raised millions of dollars and is showing prospective customers some products.

That is quite a feat for a field that asserts that the subatomic world is utterly uncertain, random and unpredictable, a notion that Albert Einstein found so repugnant that he famously declared that "God does not play dice." Kumar and his business colleagues might well respond that "dice is nice." Read the full story

10/16/2007 — CNNU Looks at News at Seven, October Launch

Read the full story at www.CNN.com/TECH

10/15/2007 — Alok Choudhary new Chair of EECS

It is my pleasure to announce that Professor Alok Choudhary will be the new chair of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at McCormick. Choudhary brings considerable distinction to this position. He received his PhD degree in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 1989, an MS degree from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in 1986, and his BE with honors from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science in Pilani, India in 1982.

From 1989 to 1996, Choudhary was on the faculty of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Syracuse University, where he received a Presidential Young Investigator Award form the National Science Foundation. He has also received an IEEE Engineering Foundation Award, and was among the first recipients of the Excellence in Research, Teaching and Service Award from McCormick. He is a fellow of the IEEE.

His research interests are in high-performance computing, data intensive computing, scalable data mining, computer architecture, high-performance I/O systems and software and their applications, and scientific computing. Furthermore, he has interest in the design and evaluation of architectures and software systems. In these areas Choudhary has published more than 300 papers, as well as a book and several book chapters.

Choudhary serves on the editorial boards of IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, the Journal of Parallel and Distributed Systems, and the International Journal of High Performance Computing and Networking. He is a member of the National Academy of Science's committee on Impact of High-End Computing on Science.

The chair of the Computer Engineering and Systems division of the EECS department, Choudhary was the founding director of the Center for Ultra-scale Computing and Information Security (CUCIS), and a member of the Center for Genetic Medicine at Northwestern. He was co-founder and VP of Technology of Accelchip Inc. which was eventually acquired by Xilinx. He has served on the boards of several companies.

Choudhary teaches marketing and technology industry management at the Kellogg School of Management, and is the academic director of the Executive Program on Managing Customer Relationships for Profit in Kellogg's Executive Education Program.

I do believe that McCormick and Northwestern are well positioned to climb to a higher level of excellence. We are extremely well positioned in emerging areas and we had unprecedented success in hiring top faculty across all levels in the last two years. Connectivity and collaboration are competitive advantages and our metrics indicate that progress is being made across a vast range of critical areas, spanning graduate and undergraduate levels. EECS is a critical component in reaching our goals.

I would like to use this opportunity to thank Professor Bruce Wessels for his valuable service to McCormick as interim chair of the EECS department. His leadership of the department at this transitional time has been very important for both the department and the school.

Sincerely,
Julio M. Ottino
Dean
R. R. McCormick Institute Professor
Walter P. Murphy Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering

10/9/2007 — Optoelectronic Sensor-Based Fashion Show

Professor Alan Sahakian of EECS, and Professor Anke Loh of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, have their first exhibition of optoelectronic sensor-based fabrics and garments on Wednesday October 10 in the Chicago Arts District in Pilsen. For details read the announcement.

9/24/2007 — AquaLab discussed on Torrentfreak

TorrentFreak - September 21st, 2007 Speed Up Your Torrents With Ono

"A plug-in developed by a university is promising improved BitTorrent transfers by selectively connecting to peers offering faster response times. Currently in use on over 25,000 Azureus installations, it identifies and connects to nearby peers in an attempt to accelerate downloads." This is part of David Choffnes' graduate research work. Dave works under the supervision of Fabián E. Bustamante, an assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science. Read more about AquaLab at the website.

9/18/2007 — Former ECE head Banerjee named director of HP Labs

HP named Prith Banerjee, Dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), as senior vice president of research, and director of HP Labs, effective Aug. 1. Prof. Banerjee was the Walter P. Murphy Professor and chairman of this electrical and computer engineering at Northwestern University until 2004. Read the story here.

9/18/2007 — Razeghi and CQD featured in Semiconductor Int'l

The Brighter Side of Semiconductors
Ruth DeJule, Contributing Editor -- Semiconductor International, 6/1/2007
Prof. Manijeh Razeghi discusses the Center for Quantum Devices (CQD). Read the full article.

9/18/2007 — Center for Quantum Devices laser design

Laser sets records in power and energy efficiency - July 18, 2007
EVANSTON, Ill. --- The rise in global terrorism in recent years has brought significant attention to the needs for more advanced sensors and defense technologies to protect civilians and soldiers. Next-generation laser-based defense systems are now being designed for this need, including the use of infrared countermeasures to protect aircraft from heat-seeking missiles and highly sensitive chemical detectors for reliable early detection of trace explosives and other toxins at a safe distance for personnel. Since practical systems must be easily portable by a soldier, aircraft or unmanned vehicle, they must be lightweight, compact and power efficient. In addition, such systems also would need to be widely deployable and available to all soldiers, airplanes and public facilities, which requires a low production and operating cost. While several types of lasers exist today that can emit at the desired infrared wavelengths, none of these lasers meet the above requirements because they are either too expensive, not mass-producible, too fragile or require power-hungry and inefficient cryogenic refrigeration. A new type of semiconductor-based laser, called the Quantum Cascade Laser (QCL), may soon change this situation. Like their computer chip cousins, semiconductors lasers are inherently compact and suitable for mass production, which has led to their widespread and low-cost use in everyday products, including CD and DVD players. The Center for Quantum Devices (CQD) at Northwestern University, led by Manijeh Razeghi, Walter P. Murphy Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, has recently made great strides in laser design, material growth and laser fabrication that have greatly increased the output power and wall-plug efficiency (the ability to change electrical power into light) of QCLs.

The CQD now has demonstrated individual lasers, 300 of which can easily fit on a penny, emitting at wavelengths of 4.5 microns, capable of producing over 700 milli-Watts of continuous output power at room temperature and more than one Watt of output power at lower temperatures. Furthermore, these lasers are extremely efficient in converting electricity to light, having a 10 percent wall-plug efficiency at room temperature and more than 18 percent wall-plug efficiency at lower temperatures. This represents a factor of two increase in laser performance, which is far superior to any competing laser technology at this wavelength.

These results have been submitted for publication, and Razeghi presented similar results at the Conference on Indium Phosphide and Related Materials, which took place in Japan this past May.

Razeghi's research work received funding in March from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) through the Efficient Mid-Wave Infrared Lasers (EMIL) program, which is overseen by Henryk Temkin and Mark Rosker from DARPA and Mihal Gross of the Office of Naval Research (ONR). The work is also partially funded by the Navy and Army Research Office (ARO) through separate contracts, which are overseen by Jerry Meyer from the Naval Research Laboratory and Michael Gerhold from ARO, respectively.

Allison H. Berger Associate Director, McCormick Office of Corporate Relations Northwestern University McCormick School of Engineering 2145 Sheridan Road Tel: (847) 491-3365 Fax: (847) 467-3033 Email: a-berger@northwestern.edu www.industry.northwestern.edu/

9/18/2007 — Flying Bike Game demo'd by Gooch, Rankin

Microsoft Research inventions are wacky and useful - 07/17/07
Dr. Bruce Gooch and graduate student Yolanda Rankin demo the Flying Bike Game, featuring Read the full story.

5/1/2007 — Student Lei Yang's invention ships in June 2007

EECS Ph.D. student Lei Yang's invention, CRAMES, will first ship in NEC FOMA 904i phones in Europe and Japan in June 2007.

3/20/2007 — Don Norman Co-Director of Segal Design Institute

Crate and Barrel Co-Founders Endow Design Institute at Northwestern

Gordon and Carole Segal, co-founders of Crate and Barrel, have made a significant donation to establish a new institute for design at Northwestern University, Northwestern President Henry S. Bienen announced March 20.

The generous gift will create The Segal Design Institute, which will significantly expand the University's existing undergraduate design curriculum in the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, support the development of new master's degree programs and fund research on design. Read the full story.

On May 22 the institute will host a conference on design at Northwestern that will showcase the talents of the design community in Chicago.