The University of Rochester is a special place where boundless opportunity awaits, and the Hajim School of Engineering & Applied Sciences is at the core of many of the transformational initiatives laid out in the University’s 2030 strategic plan.

In a landmark year for artificial intelligence, we used AI to advance fusion research, renamed our Goergen Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence to showcase our deep expertise in the field, and celebrated the 50^th anniversary of our Department of Computer Science and its five decades of leadership in AI.

As one of the nation’s top engineering schools, our partnerships with the Laboratory for Laser Energetics, the University of Rochester Medical Center, and the Eastman School of Music present us with truly unique opportunities for transformational interdisciplinary research.

Throughout this newsletter, you’ll see fascinating work happening in each of the Hajim School’s departments, see award-winning achievements by our faculty, students, and alumni, and learn about some of the qualities that make a Hajim School education so distinct.

University of Rochester photo / J. Adam Fenster

Can artificial intelligence-powered tools help enrich child development and learning? Zhen Bai, an assistant professor of computer science and the Biggar Family Fellow in Data Science at the Goergen Institute for Data Science, is determined to find out. From tools to help parents of deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children learn American Sign Language (ASL) to interactive games that demystify machine learning, Bai aims to help children benefit from AI and understand how it is impacting them.

Read about her work and watch it in action.

University of Rochester photo / J. Adam Fenster

Researchers from the Institute of Optics used surface acoustic waves to overcome a significant obstacle in the quest to realize a quantum internet. In a study published in Nature Communications, a team led by Associate Professor William Renninger describe a technique for pairing particles of light and sound that could be used to faithfully convert information stored in quantum systems—qubits—to optical fields, which can be transmitted over long distances.

Learn about the technique.

University of Rochester photo / J. Adam Fenster

Researchers in the Department of Biomedical Engineering are repurposing technology most often used for medical imaging as a new tool for restoring blood flow in tissue damaged from disease, injury, and reconstructive surgery.

A team led by Diane Dalecki, the Kevin J. Parker Distinguished Professor in Biomedical Engineering and director of the Rochester Center for Biomedical Ultrasound, secured a new $2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop in vivo acoustic patterning technologies.

See what the project entails.

University of Rochester photo / J. Adam Fenster

Researchers from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the University of Rochester Medical Center demonstrated that it’s possible to reverse age-related effects and restore the brain’s waste-clearing process. Professor Doug Kelley and Maiken Nedergaard, co-director of the University’s Center for Translational Neuromedicine, are lead authors of a Nature Aging study focused on restoring the brain’s glymphatic system with a drug currently used to induce labor.

Discover more about the brain’s cleaning system.

University of Rochester illustration / AJ Pow

Researchers from our Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering are helping to develop a new system that will allow people to speak anonymously in real time through computer-generated voices to help protect privacy and avoid censorship or retaliation. The technology is intended to help intelligence officers carrying out sensitive missions, crime witnesses concerned about being identified by perpetrators, and whistleblowers who fear retaliation.

The three-year project, led by Honeywell and including collaborators from Texas A&M and the University of Texas at Dallas, is funded by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) and part of the Anonymous Real-Time Speech (ARTS) program. Rochester’s contributions are being led by Associate Professor Zhiyao Duan.

Explore more about the initiative.

University of Rochester photo / J. Adam Fenster

The Department of Chemical Engineering has a new leader who is placing an emphasis on communicating with the public about the field and the intricacies of higher education. Darren Lipomi, who joined the department as professor and chair in July after previously serving as dean for students at the University of California—San Diego’s Jacobs School of Engineering, thinks chemical engineering is misunderstood and is on a mission to open eyes to its potential.

“Chemical engineering gets a bad rap because people associate it with developing the forever chemicals that are invading the environment, the microplastics catastrophe, global warming, and environmental degradation,” he says. “But you can’t have modern life without chemical engineering. The goal should be to make it better and part of the solution.”

Meet Darren.

Photo courtesy of UR Robotics

Experiential learning is a hallmark of a Hajim School education, and members of the UR Robotics student organization had an incredible experience in Florida this year during a NASA-sponsored competition against other top engineering schools from across the country. Our fledgling Lunabotics team squared off against 42 other universities in the culmination of the yearlong Lunabotics Challenge.

The teams build autonomous robots that are tasked with driving, digging, and depositing regolith—the fragmented rock material that covers the moon’s surface—in a lunar simulant. Lunabotics is in its 15th year, and Rochester joined in 2022. Despite being fairly new to the competition, our students completed all three tasks—driving, digging, and depositing—and finished 19^th of the 43 teams. The team is excited to build on this strong performance in the years to come.

Read about the experience.

Our Hajim School faculty received an impressive array of accolades over the past year. Here are a select few:

• Gilbert (Rip) Collins, the Tracy Hyde Harris Professor of Mechanical Engineering and associate director of science, technology, and academics at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics, was named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
• Eby G. Friedman, Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, was elected a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors(NAI).
• Christopher Kanan, an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science, was named a senior member by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI).
• Douglas Kelley, a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineeringand staff scientist at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics, was named one of 19 researchers in the third annual cohort of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s Experimental Physics Investigators.
• Allison Lopatkin’13, an assistant professor of chemical engineering, biomedical engineering, and microbiology and immunology , is one of 22 scientists selected to join the Pew Scholars Program in the Biomedical Sciences this year.
• Fatemeh Nargesian, the James P. Wilmot Distinguished Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science, has received a 2024 Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF).
• Jannick Rolland, the Brian J. Thompson Professor of Optical Engineering and director of the Center for Freeform Optics, has been inducted to Augmented World Expo’s (AWE) inaugural class of the XR Hall of Fame.
• Jessica Shang, an associate professor of mechanical engineering and a scientist at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics, was named the 2023 Young Engineer of the Year by the Rochester Engineering Society (RES).

The following faculty join us this academic year:

• Irving Barron ’18 MS, ’24 PhD joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering as an assistant professor of instruction after earning his PhD here at the University.
• Pooja Bhalode joined the Department of Chemical Engineering as a research assistant professor in October and tenure-track assistant professor next year after having served as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Delaware.
• Benjamin Castañeda joined the Department of Biomedical Engineering as a professor after having served as a professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (PUCP).
• C.M. Downey joined the Department of Linguistics and the Goergen Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence as an assistant professor after having earned a PhD in computational linguistics at the University of Washington.
• Yanan Guo joined the Department of Computer Science as an assistant professor after having earned her PhD in electrical and computer engineering at the University of Pittsburgh.
• Darren Lipomi joined the Department of Chemical Engineering as professor and chair after having served as a professor of nanoengineering and associate dean for students at the University of California San Deigo’s Jacobs School of Engineering.
• Yukun Ma joined the Department of Economics and the Goergen Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence as an assistant professor after having earned her PhD in economics at Vanderbilt University.
• Ibrahim Mohammad ’17, ’18 MS, ’23 PhD joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering as an assistant professor of instruction after having served as a postdoctoral research associate and lecturer here at the University.
• Eileen Otte joins the Institute of Optics this spring as an assistant professor after having served as a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University and the Center for Soft Nanoscience at the University of Muenster.
• Wenjie Zang joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering as an assistant professor after having served as a postdoctoral scholar at University of California, Irvine.

University of Rochester illustration / Michael Osadciw

Our faculty have been busy developing new academic programs that can prepare students for the careers of tomorrow. Even more are in development, but some of the most recent programs we have launched include:

• A minor in aerospace engineering offered by the Department of Mechanical Engineering
• A BA in audio arts and technology offered by the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
• A genomics track for the MS in data science offered by the Goergen Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence
• An MS in diagnostic imaging offered by the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

See the University’s latest degree programs.

Photo courtesy of Sphere Entertainment

I am always amazed by the incredible careers that Hajim School alumni go on to pursue, and one of the coolest jobs is held by Stu Elby ’82 (optics), the senior vice president of advanced engineering at MSG Ventures. Stu helped lead the way on technical advancements to bring to life the Sphere, the 366-foot-tall live entertainment venue in Las Vegas that is revolutionizing the concert experience.

Housed inside the world’s largest spherical structure, the performance venue features countless technical marvels. Its creative canvas spans 160,000 square feet of LED panels positioned precisely on the dome to produce a seamless image. The Sphere team even develop a one-of-a-kind camera system to record visuals for the curved display.

Go behind-the-scenes of Sphere with Stu.