In Falls River, Massachusetts, a textile manufacturing company established nearly 200 years ago is championing “Made in the USA” by embracing the advanced manufacturing technology the U.S. needs to regain competitive advantage.

Charlie Merrow, CEO and 8^th generation family member of the Merrow Manufacturing company, is collaborating with Pingbo Tang to optimize his company’s production lines.

“Factories aren’t relics. They’re extensions of the lab,” said Merrow. “When we connect research, universities, commercial problems, and production—we accelerate progress.”

In October 2024, a team of Carnegie Mellon University engineers and scientists led by Tang visited Merrow’s 300,000-square-foot facility to model their production processes with limited data. Their goal was to support business decision-making for using automation to scale up their manufacturing lines. The team visited the factory again in December 2025 to continue integrating human intelligence with artificial intelligence (AI). This was based on the previous work that has already helped the company identify opportunities to achieve a potential three-fold increase in their output of T-shirts they produce for the U.S. military.

Tang, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, focuses on human interactions with autonomous machines in airports, nuclear power plants, transportation, and construction systems, as well as manufacturing-related research.

In 2021, Tang received seed funding from Carnegie Mellon’s Manufacturing Futures Institute to study how enhancing human-machine collaboration could reduce waste in the manufacture of customized modular housing components, a process that requires frequent changeovers of equipment and production lines.

His team used digital twin technology to train computers to automatically diagnose human-in-the-loop (HITL) production histories reconstructed from field notes, videos of workers, and control system logs of production lines.

Researchers integrated intuitive human expertise, such as how materials behave and machines perform, with advanced machine learning techniques that used the data derived from actual human interactions. Tang’s team was then able to generate plans for safely and efficiently reconfiguring production lines that could accommodate the production of new products without building new lines.

In 2024, Tang received funding from the Manufacturing PA Innovation program to employ a similar human-machine teaming approach to identify and resolve time and resource waste associated with small orders of customized building products for Module, a sustainable modular home manufacturer, and DMI Companies, which provides ventilation ductwork for commercial and residential buildings.

By collecting waste-generation scenarios from four ductwork and connector production lines operated by workers, the researchers used simulations and data analytics to identify ways to reduce the waste of the costly materials used in making the ductwork.

Compelled to dig deeper, Tang is scrutinizing how human behavior informs AI. “Why is one worker better at a task than another?” he asks. “When we can more proactively observe and capture their historical behavior, we can organize that data and use AI to identify the optimal behavior.”

Tang is also working with DMI Companies to conduct human behavior analysis to determine better methods for training workers on a newly commissioned piece of equipment. Tang and his team analyzed the verbal exchanges between the trainers and users, video capture of their interactions, and biometric data of the participants to find better ways to convey how to set up and use the new equipment.

In this case, researchers are trying to determine which training methods and communication styles are most effective to standardize and optimize how workers can gain new skills.

Can a machine design, adapt, and improve other machines—safely, reliably, and without constant human oversight? Answering this question is at the heart of Yorie Nakahira’s research on next-generation autonomous systems.

Nakahira, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, has received a Young Investigator Award from the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) for developing a machine that builds autonomous systems.

Adaptation is essential because real-world environments are constantly changing. Robots often operate with limited data, limited memory, and limited computing power, making it unrealistic to train them once and expect safe performance forever.

To address this, Nakahira explores sequential fine-tuning, where systems learn gradually as new information becomes available. This enables continual adaptation rather than reliance on a single, massive training dataset.

However, adaptation introduces its own risks: the model can forget past skills or become overly confident. Nakahira’s work also emphasizes uncertainty awareness—teaching systems to recognize when they are unsure and to act cautiously in those moments.

In a breakthrough that could power next-generation electronics, sensors, and energy storage devices, CMU engineers have developed a fabrication technique that arranges MXene nanosheets, each a million times thinner than a sheet of paper, into complex 3D structures in just a single printing step.

“A 3D arrangement of this 2D nanomaterial can help us reach the performance requirements for miniaturized electronic devices like microsupercapacitors and batteries.” said Rahul Panat, lead author of the research published in Small.

MXenes’ outstanding mechanical strength and superior electrochemical stability have captivated researchers for more than a decade. However, their impressive properties alone are not enough to create high-performance devices. The material’s architecture plays a crucial role by governing how efficiently ions and electrons move through an electrode. Without a carefully designed structure, even the most advanced MXenes can run into bottlenecks and barriers.

Carnegie Mellon University’s standing as a powerhouse in engineering research is underscored by the election of Jonathan Cagan, CMU President Farnam Jahanian, and alumnus Ira J. Pitel to the prestigious National Academy of Engineering’s 2026 class.

Election to the NAE is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer.

Additive manufacturing has revolutionized manufacturing by enabling customized, cost-effective products with minimal waste. However, with a majority of 3D printers operating on open-loop systems, they are notoriously prone to failure. Minor changes, like adjustments to nozzle size or print speed, can lead to print errors that mechanically weaken the part under production.

Traditionally, manufacturers fix these issues on a case-by-case basis, ultimately “babysitting” the printer to manually adjust parameters and test samples in an effort to figure out what went wrong.

Amir Barati Farimani, associate professor of mechanical engineering, is automating 3D printing with a new large language model that fixes printer errors in real time without the need for any pre-training. The model is printer-agnostic and can be used by a wide range of printers for varying materials.

Looking at a sample of parasite-infected blood, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University noticed the unexpected movement of red blood cells. Due to their simple structure, red blood cells are unable to move on their own. So what was happening to them?

Like someone stealing a car to flee from the police, the parasite Babesia microti uses red blood cells to migrate. The newly discovered phenomenon may be a way for it to hide and escape from white blood cells, which do not typically attack red blood cells.

Looking at a sample of parasite-infected blood, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University noticed the unexpected movement of red blood cells. Due to their simple structure, red blood cells are unable to move on their own. So what was happening to them?

Like someone stealing a car to flee from the police, the parasite Babesia microti uses red blood cells to migrate. The newly discovered phenomenon may be a way for it to hide and escape from white blood cells, which do not typically attack red blood cells.

Looking at a sample of parasite-infected blood, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University noticed the unexpected movement of red blood cells. Due to their simple structure, red blood cells are unable to move on their own. So what was happening to them?

Like someone stealing a car to flee from the police, the parasite Babesia microti uses red blood cells to migrate. The newly discovered phenomenon may be a way for it to hide and escape from white blood cells, which do not typically attack red blood cells.

Looking at a sample of parasite-infected blood, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University noticed the unexpected movement of red blood cells. Due to their simple structure, red blood cells are unable to move on their own. So what was happening to them?

Like someone stealing a car to flee from the police, the parasite Babesia microti uses red blood cells to migrate. The newly discovered phenomenon may be a way for it to hide and escape from white blood cells, which do not typically attack red blood cells.

Carnegie Mellon University’s Erica Fuchs will join leaders from across government, technology, business, and academia to participate in the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland from January 19-23, 2026.

Every year, the Forum hosts forward-looking forums and panels to address widespread global challenges from economic stability to digital trust to climate resilience. This year’s theme, A Spirit of Dialogue, aims to serve as an impartial platform to exchange ideas, broaden perspectives, and support problem-solving during a period of significant geopolitical and societal change.

Fuchs, director of CMU’s Critical Technology Initiative and professor of engineering and public policy, researches how emerging technologies are developed, commercialized, and manufactured, and the policies governments need to support national competitiveness in those areas. Throughout the week in Davos, she will participate in sessions aligning with her expertise on topics such as intelligent infrastructure, workforce development for advanced manufacturing, industrial policy, and the future of research.

Fuchs will also moderate two sessions. The first, titled “How can governments innovate?,” explores how public institutions can adopt more adaptive and experimental approaches to policymaking. By adapting the approach of product designers, the panelists will consider the use of frontier tools, iterative methods, and future-focused perspectives to create bold and adaptive systems that are ready for tomorrow's challenges.

The second session, “AI for Curricular Value Chains,” examines how artificial intelligence can improve material design, efficiency, transparency, and reuse across global production systems, while at the same time enhancing economic competitiveness and supply chain resiliency. Fuchs will oversee discussion on the applications of AI in chemicals, textiles, and electronics, and considerations of the data standards, infrastructure, and cross-industry collaboration necessary to scale circular manufacturing processes.

Her participation builds on two decades of involvement in national and international discussions on technology policy, including at previous WEF meetings and on WEF committees. In 2012, Fuchs was selected as a World Economic Forum Young Scientist and has been an invited speaker at past WEF events, including the Annual Meeting of the New Champions.

Carnegie Mellon University’s Erica Fuchs will join leaders from across government, technology, business, and academia to participate in the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland from January 19-23, 2026.

Every year, the Forum hosts forward-looking forums and panels to address widespread global challenges from economic stability to digital trust to climate resilience. This year’s theme, A Spirit of Dialogue, aims to serve as an impartial platform to exchange ideas, broaden perspectives, and support problem-solving during a period of significant geopolitical and societal change.

Fuchs, director of CMU’s Critical Technology Initiative and professor of engineering and public policy, researches how emerging technologies are developed, commercialized, and manufactured, and the policies governments need to support national competitiveness in those areas. Throughout the week in Davos, she will participate in sessions aligning with her expertise on topics such as intelligent infrastructure, workforce development for advanced manufacturing, industrial policy, and the future of research.

Fuchs will also moderate two sessions. The first, titled “How can governments innovate?,” explores how public institutions can adopt more adaptive and experimental approaches to policymaking. By adapting the approach of product designers, the panelists will consider the use of frontier tools, iterative methods, and future-focused perspectives to create bold and adaptive systems that are ready for tomorrow's challenges.

The second session, “AI for Curricular Value Chains,” examines how artificial intelligence can improve material design, efficiency, transparency, and reuse across global production systems, while at the same time enhancing economic competitiveness and supply chain resiliency. Fuchs will oversee discussion on the applications of AI in chemicals, textiles, and electronics, and considerations of the data standards, infrastructure, and cross-industry collaboration necessary to scale circular manufacturing processes.

Her participation builds on two decades of involvement in national and international discussions on technology policy, including at previous WEF meetings and on WEF committees. In 2012, Fuchs was selected as a World Economic Forum Young Scientist and has been an invited speaker at past WEF events, including the Annual Meeting of the New Champions.

Carnegie Mellon University’s Erica Fuchs will join leaders from across government, technology, business, and academia to participate in the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland from January 19-23, 2026.

Every year, the Forum hosts forward-looking forums and panels to address widespread global challenges from economic stability to digital trust to climate resilience. This year’s theme, A Spirit of Dialogue, aims to serve as an impartial platform to exchange ideas, broaden perspectives, and support problem-solving during a period of significant geopolitical and societal change.

Fuchs, director of CMU’s Critical Technology Initiative and professor of engineering and public policy, researches how emerging technologies are developed, commercialized, and manufactured, and the policies governments need to support national competitiveness in those areas. Throughout the week in Davos, she will participate in sessions aligning with her expertise on topics such as intelligent infrastructure, workforce development for advanced manufacturing, industrial policy, and the future of research.

Fuchs will also moderate two sessions. The first, titled “How can governments innovate?,” explores how public institutions can adopt more adaptive and experimental approaches to policymaking. By adapting the approach of product designers, the panelists will consider the use of frontier tools, iterative methods, and future-focused perspectives to create bold and adaptive systems that are ready for tomorrow's challenges.

The second session, “AI for Curricular Value Chains,” examines how artificial intelligence can improve material design, efficiency, transparency, and reuse across global production systems, while at the same time enhancing economic competitiveness and supply chain resiliency. Fuchs will oversee discussion on the applications of AI in chemicals, textiles, and electronics, and considerations of the data standards, infrastructure, and cross-industry collaboration necessary to scale circular manufacturing processes.

Her participation builds on two decades of involvement in national and international discussions on technology policy, including at previous WEF meetings and on WEF committees. In 2012, Fuchs was selected as a World Economic Forum Young Scientist and has been an invited speaker at past WEF events, including the Annual Meeting of the New Champions.

Carnegie Mellon University’s Erica Fuchs will join leaders from across government, technology, business, and academia to participate in the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland from January 19-23, 2026.

Every year, the Forum hosts forward-looking forums and panels to address widespread global challenges from economic stability to digital trust to climate resilience. This year’s theme, A Spirit of Dialogue, aims to serve as an impartial platform to exchange ideas, broaden perspectives, and support problem-solving during a period of significant geopolitical and societal change.

Fuchs, director of CMU’s Critical Technology Initiative and professor of engineering and public policy, researches how emerging technologies are developed, commercialized, and manufactured, and the policies governments need to support national competitiveness in those areas. Throughout the week in Davos, she will participate in sessions aligning with her expertise on topics such as intelligent infrastructure, workforce development for advanced manufacturing, industrial policy, and the future of research.

Fuchs will also moderate two sessions. The first, titled “How can governments innovate?,” explores how public institutions can adopt more adaptive and experimental approaches to policymaking. By adapting the approach of product designers, the panelists will consider the use of frontier tools, iterative methods, and future-focused perspectives to create bold and adaptive systems that are ready for tomorrow's challenges.

The second session, “AI for Curricular Value Chains,” examines how artificial intelligence can improve material design, efficiency, transparency, and reuse across global production systems, while at the same time enhancing economic competitiveness and supply chain resiliency. Fuchs will oversee discussion on the applications of AI in chemicals, textiles, and electronics, and considerations of the data standards, infrastructure, and cross-industry collaboration necessary to scale circular manufacturing processes.

Her participation builds on two decades of involvement in national and international discussions on technology policy, including at previous WEF meetings and on WEF committees. In 2012, Fuchs was selected as a World Economic Forum Young Scientist and has been an invited speaker at past WEF events, including the Annual Meeting of the New Champions.

Imagine snapping a photo where every detail, near and far, is perfectly sharp—from the flower petal right in front of you to the distant trees on the horizon. For over a century, camera designers have dreamed of achieving that level of clarity. In a breakthrough that could transform photography, microscopy, and even smartphone cameras, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have developed a new kind of lens that can bring an entire scene into sharp focus at once—no matter how far away or close different parts of the scene are.

The team, consisting of Yingsi Qin, an electrical and computer engineering Ph.D. student, Aswin Sankaranarayanan, professor of electrical and computer engineering, and Matthew O’Toole, associate professor of computer science and robotics, presented their findings at the 2025 International Conference on Computer Vision and received a Best Paper Honorable Mention recognition.

Imagine snapping a photo where every detail, near and far, is perfectly sharp—from the flower petal right in front of you to the distant trees on the horizon. For over a century, camera designers have dreamed of achieving that level of clarity. In a breakthrough that could transform photography, microscopy, and even smartphone cameras, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have developed a new kind of lens that can bring an entire scene into sharp focus at once—no matter how far away or close different parts of the scene are.

The team, consisting of Yingsi Qin, an electrical and computer engineering Ph.D. student, Aswin Sankaranarayanan, professor of electrical and computer engineering, and Matthew O’Toole, associate professor of computer science and robotics, presented their findings at the 2025 International Conference on Computer Vision and received a Best Paper Honorable Mention recognition.

Chemical engineering graduates assisted by artificial intelligence (AI) will have the power to speed up scientific discovery, improve the replication of research, and unlock new paths of inquiry. Before they can responsibly combine high-throughput and remote experimentation with machine-learning-driven experimental design, they need skills in three areas.

First, students need domain knowledge. “You have to know about the problem you are solving, or you can’t evaluate the solutions you find,” says John Kitchin. Second, they need a foundation in machine learning to understand the math and ideas behind the models, as well as their capabilities and limitations. Third, students need programming skills. “Even when code is written by a large language model,” says Kitchin, a professor of chemical engineering, “you need the skills to steer the LLM and to evaluate if the code is correct and doing what is needed.”

For students who want the training to integrate AI and chemical engineering more deeply, the Department of Chemical Engineering offers the Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence Engineering-Chemical Engineering (MS in AIE-ChE). These students gain practical experience applying their skills through research. In a current collaborative project, MS in AIE-ChE students are developing a benchmarking testbed for a widely-used chemical process engineering time-series dataset. They are testing machine learning and deep learning models for anomaly detection in industry.

The National Academy of Inventors (NAI) has elected Marios Savvides from Carnegie Mellon University to its 2025 cohort of fellows for his work in applied AI, computer vision, and biometric security.

The NAI Fellows Program was established to highlight academic inventors who have demonstrated a prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development, and the welfare of society. Election to NAI Fellow status is the highest professional distinction accorded solely to academic inventors.

The National Academy of Inventors (NAI) has elected Marios Savvides from Carnegie Mellon University to its 2025 cohort of fellows for his work in applied AI, computer vision, and biometric security.

The NAI Fellows Program was established to highlight academic inventors who have demonstrated a prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development, and the welfare of society. Election to NAI Fellow status is the highest professional distinction accorded solely to academic inventors.

River Sepinuck has found a way to combine his long-time interest in 3D printing with his future career ambitions in industrial robotics. The mechanical engineering junior indulges both as a member of Sneha Prabha Narra’s research team.

Narra is an associate professor of mechanical engineering. A key area of her work is wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM), which is a 3D printing process that uses a robotic arm to move a welding torch that melts metal wire feedstock with an electric arc heating source. WAAM is capable of producing metal parts that are significantly larger than those produced using powder-based additive manufacturing methods.

Sepinuck used the Highway to Undergraduate Research in the Academic Year (HURAY) program to find his way onto Narra’s team, where he worked under the direction of Gala Solis, a doctoral student in mechanical engineering. Solis studies WAAM process monitoring using thermal imaging with commercial-grade cameras and a ratiometric method to measure accurate real-time temperatures while eliminating the dependence on emissivity. Monitoring these temperatures is critical for process control, ensuring the quality, consistency, and integrity of the metal parts being built.

River Sepinuck has found a way to combine his long-time interest in 3D printing with his future career ambitions in industrial robotics. The mechanical engineering junior indulges both as a member of Sneha Prabha Narra’s research team.

Narra is an associate professor of mechanical engineering. A key area of her work is wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM), which is a 3D printing process that uses a robotic arm to move a welding torch that melts metal wire feedstock with an electric arc heating source. WAAM is capable of producing metal parts that are significantly larger than those produced using powder-based additive manufacturing methods.

Sepinuck used the Highway to Undergraduate Research in the Academic Year (HURAY) program to find his way onto Narra’s team, where he worked under the direction of Gala Solis, a doctoral student in mechanical engineering. Solis studies WAAM process monitoring using thermal imaging with commercial-grade cameras and a ratiometric method to measure accurate real-time temperatures while eliminating the dependence on emissivity. Monitoring these temperatures is critical for process control, ensuring the quality, consistency, and integrity of the metal parts being built.

In the 1800s, people weren’t asking for cars, they just wanted to get from point A to point B faster. In the early 2000s no one was seeking out social media, they just craved more connection at home. That’s the challenge in product development: people have countless desires, but they can’t easily articulate a solution that doesn’t exist yet. Product designers know that understanding those preferences is essential to developing a meaningful solution, but weeding out what’s relevant in a sea of opinions is hard.

A new Large Language Model powered tool from Jon Cagan and Vince Sha converts wants and needs into succinct product attributes and requirements to help product designers think more strategically about solutions.

The tool, VOA LLM Bot, is based on the widely successful Value Opportunity Analysis (VOA) that, since its creation by Cagan and Craig Vogel, has helped to produce award-winning products, re-organize corporate structures, and teach students how to innovate.

VOA identifies seven opportunities to add value to a product:

• Emotion, Does the product appropriate and engage feelings?
• Aesthetics, Does the product entice all of the senses it’s supposed to?
• Identity, Does the product have a unique personality, different from its competitors?
• Ergonomics, Is the product easy and safe to use?
• Impact, Will the product align with customers’ social values?
• Core technology, Is the product enabling and reliable?
• Quality, Is the product durable?

“Products enable an experience for the user, so the better the experience, the greater the value of the product to the consumer,” said Cagan, department head and professor of mechanical engineering. “VOA helps designers understand what is most important to users and other stakeholders during the product experience.”

“The VOA LLM Bot is like a directed ChatGPT for product designers,” said Sha, associate dean of IT and operations at CMU’s Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences and technical lead for the Open Forum for AI. The VOA LLM Bot is built on the Dietrich Analysis Research Education (DARE) open-source platform, designed to provide a suite of tools for human-centric applied AI innovation.

It helps users to create a VOA, capturing and reporting their ideas and thoughts, then compares their goals to current products through a product opportunity gap analysis, and to uncover where a to-be-created product needs to focus and differentiate in order to be successful in the marketplace.

“The bot is flexible and responsive, allowing users to dive deeper into topics of interest or change design direction. This flexibility ensures users retain their agency and autonomy over the design process, which we believe is critical to encouraging creativity,” Sha said. “Once the bot has gathered all of the necessary information from the designer, it generates a product requirements document to show the designer what features the future product should have to provide consumers grounded in needs, wants, and even desires from the VOA report.”

For example, a conversation between a designer looking to build a service to help mobility impaired people get around and the VOA LLM Bot might look like this:

AI: Since you’re designing a service, let’s start exploring these VOA categories to better understand what matters most in your project. Let’s take them one by one. For Emotion, what attributes (adventure, independence, security, sensuality, confidence, power) do you think are most relevant to your mobility service?

User: I think all except sensuality 

AI: Thanks! Can you tell me a bit more about why these specific attributes are important to help mobility impaired people get around? What do these emotions mean for your target users?

Once the bot has collected all of the information, it provides the user with product attributes like these requirements for a driving service and a vehicle driver to ensure security needs are met:

Driver Requirements: Must implement rigorous driver screening including background checks, driving record, drug and alcohol screening. Must provide specialized training for drivers including safe operation accessibility equipment, effective communication with disabled users, and emergency situation management. 

Of course a more extensive and complete set of requirements are generated to provide the complete understanding of what the product must do and deliver.

When Vijayakumar Bhagavatula gave the opening remarks at the recent Milestone Moments talk, the interim dean of the College of Engineering seemed to genuinely wonder what the secret was to Maysam Chamanzar’s success.

In addition to touting the vitally important neuroscience breakthroughs the professor of electrical and computer engineering (ECE) has made in the development of next-generation brain-computer interfaces, Bhagavatula also marveled at the unusually high faculty course evaluations scores he received teaching Electromagnetics, one of the program’s toughest courses.

Chamanzar’s scores were not just high, they were a perfect 5.0 out of 5.0, noted Larry Pileggi, department head and professor of electrical and computer engineering, when he introduced Chamanzar.

“He is an incredible lecturer, and his research work is inspiring,” said Pileggi.

Chamanzar then revealed what may well be the secret to his success: the accomplished engineer is a philosopher at heart.

Chamanzar shared how his philosophy of life has guided his path and driven many of his achievements during his talk at the Center for Faculty Success’ fifth Milestone Moments event, which celebrates professors who have achieved the highest rank within their respective faculty tracks.

He says his upbringing in a close-knit Iranian family who valued education and learning led him to study philosophers like Nasir al-Din Tusi, the famous Persian polymath, astronomer, architect, physician, and scientist, who, like Chamanzar, wanted to understand the world through both science and philosophy.

Chamanzar who described the unexpected turns his career has taken declared, “When the destination is uncertain, the journey becomes wonderful and exciting."

Carnegie Mellon University Africa has partnered with the National Basketball Association Africa (NBA Africa) on a startup accelerator program that aims to support the next wave of early-stage African startup businesses transforming the sports and creative sectors. The NBA Africa Triple-Double Accelerator was launched by the league last year to support the continent’s technology ecosystem and the next generation of African entrepreneurs.

NBA Africa announced the partnership in a recent press release, as well as the 10 African startup companies that have been selected as finalists. The finalists will pitch their products to a panel of international industry leaders at an event, called Demo Day, which will be held at CMU-Africa in Kigali, Rwanda on December 5.

Five winners will be chosen to receive financial support and the opportunity to join CMU-Africa’s 12-month Business Incubation Program in their Innovation Hub, which helps African tech startups transform proof-of-concept prototypes and preliminary market assessments into scalable, market-ready products and services.

The 10 finalists who will pitch on Demo Day include:

• Athlon Technology (Egypt) aims to leverage accessible mobile technology and AI to provide video analysis for amateur and budget-constrained sports teams while addressing a market gap with a user-friendly, hardware-light solution.
• Atsur (Nigeria) leverages blockchain technology to promote investment in African art and support artists and art communities.
• CoLab (South Africa) is a platform that brings together creatives, entrepreneurs and industry professionals, providing a space to connect, manage projects and bring ideas to life.
• Contestify (Nigeria) is an all-in-one platform that streamlines contest management, offering real-time judging, transparent scoring and instant payouts.
• Fitclan (Egypt) is a digital fitness hub that leverages a flexible subscription model for individuals and corporate clients.
• Novate (Morocco) offers a unique, immersive virtual reality (VR) football viewing experience with features such as seat selection, camera switching, social voice chat, and live stats.
• ProPath Sports (Kenya) revolutionizes athlete discovery in Kenya with data-driven talent identification; its iSTEAM program covers all aspects of talent development.
• Reborn (Morocco) offers comprehensive performance indicators that give athletes deep insights into their physical condition and on-field performance, essential for identifying strengths, areas for improvement, and optimizing overall performance.
• Safia Health (Kenya) offers personalized training regiments that integrate fitness, recovery and mental wellbeing tracking into a unified platform, offering value to athletes and coaches.
• SongDis (Nigeria) provides comprehensive digital distribution and services tailored for African independent artists and labels. 

If you’ve ever moved into a new home, you know the challenge of packing a moving truck—it’s like solving a giant, three-dimensional puzzle. Everything needs to fit just right, and nothing can be left loose or unbalanced, or it risks shifting and breaking in transit. For humans, balancing objects, whether it’s a tray of food or a stack of moving boxes, comes naturally thanks to the coordination between our muscular and vestibular systems. But for robots, maintaining balance while carrying loads is far more complex. They must constantly track both the position of the object and their own body to make real-time adjustments to stay upright.

To overcome this challenge in robotics, researchers in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University have developed a tactile sensor that enables a four-legged robot to carry unsecured cylindrical objects on its back for long distances.

An estimated one trillion species of microorganisms reside on Earth, yet scientists have been able to study less than two percent of them. Because many microorganisms cannot be cultivated in laboratories, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are creating technology to cultivate them in the field.

Better tools for culturing previously unknown microbial species may lead to novel antibiotics or other therapeutic products. Tagbo Niepa developed a microcapsule system to cultivate microorganisms in their natural environment, rather than in laboratory conditions, where they behave differently.

Because each microcapsule can hold a nanoliter volume of microbial culture, these tiny bioreactors are referred to as “nanocultures.” Microorganisms natively found in soil, for example, can be sequestered inside nanocultures, which can then be put back into the soil.

An estimated one trillion species of microorganisms reside on Earth, yet scientists have been able to study less than two percent of them. Because many microorganisms cannot be cultivated in laboratories, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are creating technology to cultivate them in the field.

Better tools for culturing previously unknown microbial species may lead to novel antibiotics or other therapeutic products. Tagbo Niepa developed a microcapsule system to cultivate microorganisms in their natural environment, rather than in laboratory conditions, where they behave differently.

Because each microcapsule can hold a nanoliter volume of microbial culture, these tiny bioreactors are referred to as “nanocultures.” Microorganisms natively found in soil, for example, can be sequestered inside nanocultures, which can then be put back into the soil.

In the 1980s when micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) were first created, computer engineers were excited by the idea that these new devices that combine electrical and mechanical components at the microscale could be used to build miniature robots.

The idea of shrinking robotic mechanisms to such tiny sizes was particularly exciting given the potential to achieve exceptional performance in metrics such as speed and precision by leveraging a robot’s smaller size and mass. But making robots at smaller scales is easier said than done due to limitations in microscale 3D manufacturing.

Nearly 50 years later, Ph.D. students Steven Man and Sukjun Kim, working with Mechanical Engineering Professor Sarah Bergbreiter, developed a 3D printing process to build tiny Delta robots called microDeltas. Delta robots at larger scales (typically two to four feet in height) are used for picking, placing, and sorting tasks in manufacturing, packaging, and electronics assembly. The much smaller microDeltas have the potential for real-world applications in micromanipulation, micro assembly, minimally invasive surgeries, and wearable haptic devices.

Previous methods for making robotic mechanisms at these smaller sizes required manual assembly and folding of microfabricated components.

Bergbreiter’s team developed a 3D printing process for microrobotics that uses two-photon polymerization, an advanced nanofabrication technique in which a focused laser solidifies photosensitive material with extremely high precision. Then a thin metal layer is deposited that enables electrical functionality for the complex 3D geometries and actuators without folding or manual assembly.

“Eliminating the need for assembly has huge benefits in terms of rapid fabrication and design iteration,” said Bergbreiter. “At large scales, researchers can assemble robots from motors and mechanisms that you can buy off-the-shelf. We don’t have that luxury at these small scales where both making and connecting tiny pieces together is hard. That’s where this new fabrication process is incredibly beneficial.

Concrete 3D printing reduces both time and cost by eliminating traditional formwork, the temporary mold for casting. Yet most of today’s systems rely on extrusion-based methods, which deposit material very close to a nozzle layer by layer. This makes it impossible to print around reinforcement bars (rebars) without risk of collision, limiting both design flexibility and structural integrity of builds.

Kenji Shimada and researchers in his Carnegie Mellon University’s Computational Engineering and Robotics Laboratory (CERLAB), are breaking through that limitation with a new simulation tool for spray-based concrete 3D printing.

Although there’s no medal at the end of the Phonon Olympics, for Alan McGaughey, the collaboration required to evaluate the accuracy of three widely used open-source thermal conductivity calculation packages was worth more than gold.

For the last decade, researchers seeking to understand the properties of new materials have turned to open-source packages to perform thermal conductivity calculations. These packages enable a broader community to study thermal transport, but until now users had no way of knowing whether or not each package would produce consistent and accurate results.

Coordinated by McGaughey, six teams participated in the “Phonon Olympics” to test each of the three most cited packages: ALAMODE, phono3py, and ShengBTE. For each package, one team was made up of the developers while the other consisted of expert users. Each team conducted benchmark calculations for four materials: geranium, rubidium bromide, monolayer molybdenum diselenide, and aluminum nitride. As published in the Journal of Applied Physics, the thermal conductivities calculated by the teams fell within 15% of their mean values for each of the four materials.

Among the job seekers at a recent job fair hosted by Carnegie Mellon University’s Manufacturing Futures Institute (MFI), was a group of participants from the Step on Up – Maker to Manufacturer program.

Every other week for six months, 25 participants were introduced to various manufacturing skills and equipment at sessions hosted by MFI, Prototype PGH, and New Century Careers. The unique experience seeing and using these tools and machinery sparked a genuine interest in the manufacturing career opportunities the program was designed to encourage them toward.

One exhibitor at the job fair was so impressed with their knowledge and enthusiasm that he hopes to find ways for his company to support the program and look to it as a source for future talent.

Teamwork may fuel effective ideas, even at times better than a single person has the ability to generate on their own, but even the best groups need guidance. Teams become most effective when there is a facilitator who keeps conversations on track, draws out quieter voices, and helps steer decisions. To guide collaboration, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University introduce AI Coach, a novel artificial intelligence agent that can perform as well as, if not marginally better, than a human manager.

Backed by psychology-informed artificial intelligence, AI Coach doesn’t need to be trained on prior problem-solving examples to be successful. Instead, it monitors teams’ collective intelligence.

“Training AI for every problem-solving scenario is impractical,” said Chris McComb, associate professor of mechanical engineering. “If an AI can understand how members of a team contribute to the conversation, assess how aligned they are on the same goals, and prevent individuals from becoming disengaged, then the team will design better solutions regardless of what problem they’re solving.”

Burcu Akinci, head of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), has been appointed the next Dr. William D. and Nancy W. Strecker Dean of the College of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, effective January 1, 2026.

A member of the CMU community for nearly 25 years, Akinci is an exceptional leader who brings the strategic vision, research impact, and collaborative spirit necessary to lead the College of Engineering. Akinci served as associate dean for research for six years, driving institutional-level growth by helping to establish the “moonshot initiative” to cultivate large-scale research centers, developing the college’s strategic research direction, and increasing the value of new research awards.

As department head, Akinci fostered a culture of collaboration among students, faculty, staff, alumni, and external partners, encouraging shared learning and the open exchange of ideas across all levels of the department. Through initiatives such as the alumni-to-student and Ph.D.-to-Ph.D. mentorship programs, as well as the Industry Partnership Program that connects students directly to opportunities at more than 20 leading engineering firms, she helped drive innovation by creating pipelines for meaningful engagement.

Under her leadership, the department also expanded its graduate offerings, including CEE’s first online certificate program, AI Engineering - Digital Twins & Analytics, and a new interdisciplinary master’s degree in the emerging field of civil and computer engineering.

When robots are built with biological materials, they have the potential to achieve remarkable behaviors typically only seen in nature. For example, unlike traditional actuators, actuators built from muscle tissue can adapt and grow stronger with use. This means that a robot powered by living muscle doesn’t just move—it exercises and gains the ability to adjust to its environment and perform tasks more efficiently over time.

In order to deploy biohybrid robots for specific tasks, researchers must first understand how to design and control robots who can get stronger over time. The Biohybrid and Organic Robotics Group, led by Vickie Webster-Wood, has created a model to support just that. By using reinforcement learning, their approach learns to control a model of a biohybrid robot, even as the muscles get stronger each time they attempt the task.

Stepping into the offices of Near Earth Autonomy is a bit like stepping into a robotics exhibit at a science center. Various modules, sensors, and technologies line the wall, proudly displayed in the order they were developed, like a hall of fame for autonomous flight.

Two electrical and computer engineering doctoral students were among the 10 from Carnegie Mellon pursuing artificial intelligence research who will receive support from Amazon through the company’s new AI Ph.D. Fellowship Program. The remaining students come from the school of Computer Science and College of Engineering.

The students’ research tackles the foundational challenges, theoretical underpinnings, and deep technological systems critical to AI innovation.

“Close collaboration between academia and industry is critical to producing groundbreaking work that will shape technologies for years to come,” said Martial Hebert, dean of the School of Computer Science. “Amazon and Carnegie Mellon share a common vision that AI can transform how we work, play, shop, socialize, and learn. We are grateful for Amazon’s support of foundational research in pursuit of innovation.”

Amazon’s AI Ph.D. Fellowship Program aims to help drive the innovations that will underwrite the next step in the evolution of practical AI. The program will provide two years of funding for more than 100 Ph.D. students at nine universities who are pursuing research on core AI disciplines such as machine learning, computer vision, and natural language processing.

"Amazon’s AI Ph.D. Fellowship Program reflects our ongoing commitment to the academic community. We're fortunate to collaborate with some of the nation's brightest Ph.D. students who are advancing critical areas in AI—from high-performance chips and hardware to networking, software, foundation models, applications, and more,” said Rohit Prasad, a senior vice president and head scientist for Amazon AGI. “What makes this program special is how it brings together Amazon's real-world experience across diverse industries with the fresh perspectives of these top researchers to cultivate the next generation of AI leaders. We believe investing in future talent is essential to moving the field forward and creating truly useful AI that benefits everyone.”

Amazon selected students for the program from CMU; Johns Hopkins University; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Stanford University; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of Texas at Austin; the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; and the University of Washington.

The $68 million program provides $10 million in student funding each year and $24 million annually in Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud-computing credits. Each fellow is also paired with an Amazon mentor, a senior scientist working at Amazon on a topic related to the fellow’s work. Mentors will meet regularly with their fellows to offer guidance and to discuss the real-world implications of the fellows’ research.

Amazon’s AI Ph.D. Fellowship Program builds on the company’s long history of supporting academic research. Amazon and CMU recently announced the launch of the CMU-Amazon AI Innovation Hub to bolster research on generative AI, robotics, natural language processing and cloud computing technologies. Faculty and student research have received funding through the Amazon Scholar program and Amazon Research Awards, and AWS committed to supporting CMU CS Academy, allowing the free computer science curriculum for middle and high school classrooms to be hosted on its servers at no cost.

In addition to supporting foundational research, Amazon, with support from Gov. Josh Shapiro and other government leaders, announced this summer plans to invest at least $20 billion in Pennsylvania to expand its data center infrastructure for AI and cloud computing.

For more information on the AI Ph.D. Fellowship Program, visit the Amazon Science website.

The following students are part of the inaugural fellowship cohort.

Apurva Gandhi - Computer Science Department (CSD)

Aviation accounts for 10 percent of U.S. transportation greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and roughly three percent of the nation’s total GHG production, including carbon dioxide (CO₂). But the effects of airplane travel on the environment extend to more than just CO₂. These non-CO₂ effects known as contrails—the long, white streaks behind airplanes in the sky—have historically received far less attention than decarbonization efforts. But Han Ding is hoping to change that.

Ding, a mechanical engineering graduate student in Hamish Gordon’s group, has worked as an intern at Boeing for the past two summers. As a member of Boeing’s Graduate Researcher Program (GRP), Ding contributed to advanced modeling and sustainable aviation research, including the development of high-resolution weather simulation workflows for contrail forecasting and mitigation. Her work supported Boeing’s efforts to reduce aviation’s environmental impacts while building cross-functional bridges between research, data engineering, and real-world applications in the global aviation industry.

The radio spectrum is a fundamental resource for wireless communication. Cellular networks, WiFi, and bluetooth are all examples of wireless systems that depend on the radio spectrum. Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University have developed a soft antenna to better utilize radio waves, increasing connectivity and communication.

Historically, antennas are rigid metallic devices that need to be pointed in a specific direction to connect to the radio spectrum. Most programmable radios today either require mechanical or electronic switching between antennas, or wide-band antennas. With radio frequency being tunable, a static antenna can easily lose connection to the frequency. By introducing a soft, flexible antenna, the device can sense and move to the most efficient radio frequency available.

Researchers in Carnegie Mellon’s College of Engineering have developed Softenna, a first-of-its-kind soft-robotic highly reconfigurable antenna platform that dynamically adapts its radio frequency properties, including center frequency, beam pattern, directionality, and polarization. Softenna achieves this through a combination of mechanical and electronic reconfiguration.

“This is an unusual interdisciplinary project where we want to leverage advances in shape-shifting materials and surfaces from robotics for wireless antenna and meta-surface design,” says Swarun Kumar, professor of electrical and computer engineering, director of the WiTech Lab, and lead on the project.

For the estimated 1.2 million Americans living with limb loss, transplants offer a renewed opportunity for function, independence, and quality of life. Why then are fewer than four VCA transplants performed across the U.S. annually?

Vascularized Composite Allograft (VCA) transplantation is a complex procedure that requires highly specialized surgical teams to preserve and reconnect multiple types of tissue including skin, muscle, bone, blood vessels, and nerves. Similar to other types of transplants, recipients must take lifelong immunosuppressant medication to prevent their body from rejecting the transplant. However, the complexity of this multi–tissue procedure makes it more difficult for surgeons to preserve and accurately assess the viability of the tissue to predict acceptance.

With the goal of making transplants more accessible and better matched, Jessica Zhang, professor of mechanical engineering at is leveraging AI to assist autonomous monitoring and keep donor limbs alive outside of the body.

In collaboration with the originating PI John Brassil at Functional Circulation LLC, Dr. Byoung Chol Oh at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Dr. Xiangliang Zhang at University of Notre Dame, Zhang’s team will use normothermic machine perfusion (NMP), a process that pumps donor limbs with warm, blood-like fluid to keep them alive by simulating conditions inside the body. Unlike cold storage, which can only preserve an organ for four to six hours, NMP has the potential to extend that timeline. However, NMP alone cannot capture the complexity of real, physiologic life.

Disaster just struck, roads are inaccessible, and people need shelter now. Rather than wait days for a rescue team, a fleet of AI-guided drones takes flight carrying materials and the ability to build shelter, reinforce infrastructure, and construct bridges to reconnect people with safety.

It sounds like science fiction, but new research from Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Engineering combines drones, additive manufacturing, and large language models to rethink the future of aerial construction.

As the energy transition continues to shift the focus from fossil fuels to climate-friendly alternatives, adopting clean energy technologies could revolutionize the way we heat and cool our homes. From skyrocketing energy bills to inadequate indoor temperatures, energy insecurity is a growing concern among millions of households, suggesting the need for a new approach to improve indoor comfort.

Heat pumps are an emerging technology that have the potential to alleviate energy insecurity and reduce household energy expenses. Instead of generating heat, heat pumps work by transferring thermal energy between the inside and outside of a home.

In a new study published in Nature Energy, researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Maryland examined the relationship between heat pump adoption and household energy insecurity using electricity records from 8,656 households in Phoenix, Arizona. By employing a thermal comfort index (the temperature at which individuals turn on their heating or cooling system), the researchers found that households with heat pumps initiate cooling at nearly one degree Celsius lower than those without and consume less electricity per degree of temperature increase.

“Many low-income households currently don’t use enough energy to keep their homes safe during extreme weather. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates this is between 10–15 million homes, so it is important to understand how cooling and heating infrastructure will impact this divide,” said Destenie Nock, assistant professor of engineering and public policy and civil and environmental engineering at Carnegie Mellon, and lead co-author of the study.

Energy insecurity can disproportionately affect different groups of people and is exacerbated by several factors including income inequality, racial disparities, differences in energy access between rural and urban areas, COVID-19 pandemic impacts, and ongoing climate change issues. The disparities between income or ethnic groups in terms of the outdoor temperature at which individuals turn on their air conditioning can be defined as the energy equity gap.

A Multi-Party Team (MPT) represented by Carnegie Mellon University researchers and private industry partners has secured an award of up to $26.7 million from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) Platform Optimizing SynBio for Early Intervention and Detection in Oncology (POSEIDON) program to usher in a new era of proactive cancer screening, offering an at-home solution to detect more than 30 Stage 1 solid tumor cancers from a simple urine sample.

The R&D component of the CMU MPT project will be led by Rebecca Taylor, principal investigator, with research support from multiple co-investigators, including Burak Ozdoganlar. Both Taylor and Ozdoganlar are professors of mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. Combining recent advancements in synthetic biology with cutting-edge detection technology, the team will develop both a highly innovative orally administered pill containing specially engineered, tumor-targeting sensors and a user-friendly cancer screening device designed for at-home urine testing. Ginkgo Bioworks will serve as the commercialization partner, working to bring the team’s cutting-edge technologies to market.

As it becomes more evident to general contractors that autonomous drones can efficiently survey land and inspect infrastructure without pilots on the ground, the global drone construction market is expected to grow into a nearly $20 billion industry. Kenji Shimada aims to make this ever-growing industry safer by eliminating concern about onsite drone collisions.

Navigating dynamic environments

In order to avoid a collision, drones must be two steps ahead of the objects around them. This starts by ensuring the drone can “see” everything in its path. Shimada, a professor of mechanical engineering, does this by installing both a high-quality camera and radar sensor onto the drones. This allows the drone to “see” 3D objects around it and understand its distance from each object and person. Because the drone is collecting data from different sensors, each data set can be cross-checked for accuracy, which adds another layer of security.

Next, Shimada ensures that his drones can predict the course of the people around it using a model called the Markov Decision Process. Instead of predicting a single trajectory per obstacle, Shimada’s module generates all possible trajectories including stopping, turning, and forward movement. After processing this information, Shimada’s drones can plan the best route to avoid collision.

As it becomes more evident to general contractors that autonomous drones can efficiently survey land and inspect infrastructure without pilots on the ground, the global drone construction market is expected to grow into a nearly $20 billion industry. Kenji Shimada aims to make this ever-growing industry safer by eliminating concern about onsite drone collisions.

Navigating dynamic environments

In order to avoid a collision, drones must be two steps ahead of the objects around them. This starts by ensuring the drone can “see” everything in its path. Shimada, a professor of mechanical engineering, does this by installing both a high-quality camera and radar sensor onto the drones. This allows the drone to “see” 3D objects around it and understand its distance from each object and person. Because the drone is collecting data from different sensors, each data set can be cross-checked for accuracy, which adds another layer of security.

Next, Shimada ensures that his drones can predict the course of the people around it using a model called the Markov Decision Process. Instead of predicting a single trajectory per obstacle, Shimada’s module generates all possible trajectories including stopping, turning, and forward movement. After processing this information, Shimada’s drones can plan the best route to avoid collision.

What do hydrogen fuel cells, roads made from compacted ash, and photon-powered computers have in common?

They’re all innovations that engineers are designing or deploying to help make Germany a bit greener—just ask the undergraduates who went to go see them up close.

Through the Real World Engineering Program, now in its 13th year, a cohort of students recently embarked on a four-week journey to Germany to witness the engineering principles they’ve learned in the classroom in action.

Namky Eun Llovet, a senior mechanical engineering major, was excited to hear that the program was headed to Germany this year, a nation considered a frontrunner in manufacturing, mechanical engineering, and sustainability. He also had a little bit of German in his back pocket from some Duolingo lessons he’d completed in high school.

Many of the students on the trip, however, didn’t know the language at all. Luckily, they all kicked off the program with a three-week German language bootcamp in the town of Freiburg im Breisgau, where they quickly grew close. Especially strong bonds were forged over food, whether it be Lange Rote bratwurst—Freiburg’s famous “long red” sausage—or fresh fruit.

What do hydrogen fuel cells, roads made from compacted ash, and photon-powered computers have in common?

They’re all innovations that engineers are designing or deploying to help make Germany a bit greener—just ask the undergraduates who went to go see them up close.

Through the Real World Engineering Program, now in its 13th year, a cohort of students recently embarked on a four-week journey to Germany to witness the engineering principles they’ve learned in the classroom in action.

Namky Eun Llovet, a senior mechanical engineering major, was excited to hear that the program was headed to Germany this year, a nation considered a frontrunner in manufacturing, mechanical engineering, and sustainability. He also had a little bit of German in his back pocket from some Duolingo lessons he’d completed in high school.

Many of the students on the trip, however, didn’t know the language at all. Luckily, they all kicked off the program with a three-week German language bootcamp in the town of Freiburg im Breisgau, where they quickly grew close. Especially strong bonds were forged over food, whether it be Lange Rote bratwurst—Freiburg’s famous “long red” sausage—or fresh fruit.

Resistant to most antifungal drugs, the yeast Candidozyma auris is spreading globally and has caused recent outbreaks in US hospitals. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) classifies it as an urgent threat. To meet the need for better treatments, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are developing a novel way to combat drug resistance.

There are currently few methods to control C. auris infections, which spread through contact. Most infections start on the skin and can enter the bloodstream if unchecked. The mortality rate is high for immunocompromised individuals.

In Chemical Engineering Journal, Tagbo Niepa, Camila Cué Royo, and collaborators demonstrate the potential of electrochemical therapy to treat C. auris, both alone and in combination with currently available antifungal drugs. “We’re trying to maximize the effects of drugs that are already available but are not working,” says Cué Royo, a Ph.D. student in chemical engineering.

Electrochemical therapy delivers a low dose of electrical current. “The current is below our perception level, so we wouldn’t even feel it on the skin,” says Niepa, associate professor of chemical engineering and biomedical engineering. The technology has shown promise eradicating bacteria and other species of yeast. Niepa and Cué Royo’s study is the first to describe its effect on C. auris.

They evaluated cell viability and metabolic functions under three different levels of electrical current. Their findings show that C. auris responds in a dose-dependent manner. Treatment with electrochemical therapy becomes more effective as the level of current increases.

Most people know that electric vehicles (EVs) are at the forefront of sustainable technology in their own right. But did you know they can also have positive ripple effects on other aspects of vehicle infrastructure?

“Increased EV adoption can trigger investment in new power generators—especially wind, solar, and natural gas—as well as, energy storage (batteries),” said Jeremy Michalek, a professor of engineering and public policy, professor of mechanical engineering, and director of the Vehicle Electrification Group at Carnegie Mellon University.

College of Engineering faculty members Michalek, Corey Harper, and Destenie Nock worked with Lily Hanig (EPP Ph.D. ’24) to model the effect of plug-in EV adoption on U.S. power system generator capacity investment, operations, and emissions through 2050 in a study recently published in PNAS.

“We wanted to investigate EV adoption because as we add more demand for electricity we may affect power plant retirement and construction,” said Nock, an assistant professor of engineering and public policy and civil and environmental engineering. In each scenario, the researchers found that increased EV adoption would trigger new investment in wind, solar, storage, and natural gas capacity.

“When we account for this new infrastructure investment, the effect of EV charging on power system emissions is lower than we would otherwise expect,” said Michalek. “Basically, EVs can help make the power system more green.”

Immersing oneself in the virtual and augmented reality world is not only awesome for entertainment, it helps industries like manufacturing and medicine operate more efficiently. Nevertheless, as fast as the technology brings you into the world, the weight and stiffness of its hardware can just as easily remind you that you aren’t really golfing on the PGA tour or preparing for a surgery.

Inspired by Softbotics, researchers in the Soft Machines Lab at Carnegie Mellon University are developing wearable electronics to augment our senses with natural-feeling hardware. A paper published in Nature Electronics illustrates how a flexible, skin-mounted haptic interface can seamlessly bridge virtual and real-world experiences without unnecessary distractions.

“We are building imperceptible technology,” said Carmel Majidi, professor of mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University and head of the Soft Machines Lab. “This is technology to assist us that won’t cause distractions, doesn’t require a big cognitive load, and won’t take away from other areas of our lives that require our full attention.”

Policymakers and industry leaders in the US are striving for energy security amidst a global increase in energy consumption and global movement away from fossil fuels. The petrochemical industry, one of the most energy-intensive, faces growing pressure to adopt new and more sustainable technologies.

A decision-making tool from researchers at Carnegie Mellon can help individual industries like petrochemicals find their optimal decarbonization strategies.

In Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, Ana Inés Torres, Ignacio Grossmann, Sampriti Chattopadhyay, and their collaborators from Shell introduce a framework based on a multiperiod mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model. It predicts the optimal technology switch strategy for an oil refinery to implement decarbonization technologies. “A company can use our framework to find the best way to transition a refinery toward decarbonization,” says Chattopadhyay, a Ph.D. student in chemical engineering.

Within the US industrial sector, decarbonizing oil refineries is uniquely challenging because of their high efficiency and varied configurations, processes, and energy inputs. Torres, associate professor of chemical engineering, Grossmann, professor of chemical engineering, and Chattopadhyay based their framework on production capacity, plant structure, location, and availability and cost of renewable energy sources. Their approach minimizes cost while considering emissions restrictions.

The second annual New Faculty Orientation marked the start of year two for the Center for Faculty Success. Once again, new faculty were treated to a full day of encouragement and advice from faculty panels and practical information and resources from staff who support their efforts. The program concluded with a second day presentation: Intellectual Property: Knowing and Protecting Your Ideas.

Interim Dean Vijayakumar Bhagavatula advised new faculty to set clear goals, to pace themselves, and to ask for help when they needed it.

“Being an early career professor is very demanding, but it shouldn’t be depleting,” he said in his welcoming remarks.

Throughout the day, faculty repeatedly echoed those sentiments with a thoughtful balance of honesty and reassurance.

During the Engineering Success for Yourself and Your Graduate Students session, panelists confided that overseeing the work of their student researchers might pose new leadership challenges, but Professor of Mechanical Engineering Sarah Bergbreiter said that in addition to providing clear communication and encouragement, opportunities to travel to conferences and meeting deadlines for submitting papers were oftentimes good motivators.

During the Pioneering Research panel, Rosalyn Abbott, associate professor of biomedical engineering, told new faculty to be prepared for rejection.

“We need to normalize failure because there is a lot of rejection in this work,” she said explaining that it was not uncommon for experiments to fail and funding requests to be denied.

Biomedical Engineering Research Professor Phil Campbell softened that by reminding them that often failure and negative results can also be informative and lead them to where the need to go next.

The day also included presentations by staff of the Community Engagement and Outreach and Faculty and Graduate Affairs teams.

Staff from several offices were on hand to talk about research funding. Sumitha Rao, director of research initiatives from the Engineering Research Accelerator, described the support her team provides faculty and stressed that faculty should approach them as early as possible when they need help.

Matt Sanfilippo, chief partnerships officer, acknowledged that federal government funding has shifted significantly, but he also said that he doesn’t want faculty to feel they can no longer seek federal grants.

“We will continue to pursue these opportunities as hard as we ever have,” he said.

Lena Cominos, senior director of corporate partnerships, also pointed out that there are other opportunities for them to explore. She explained that the college has been very successful in funding student researchers through the Pennsylvania Manufacturing Innovation Program.

“Remember, industry still looks to Carnegie Mellon for innovation and talent,” she noted.

Members of the Transformative Teaching panel agreed that teaching a class for the first time will demand the most time and preparation but that the initial work pays off when faculty can teach the same course again.

The final faculty panel, How to Stay Human, concluded day one, giving panelists the opportunity to remind new faculty that they and many others would be there to help them in their new roles.

Peter Adams, head of the Department of Engineering and Public Policy, acknowledged that there would be many challenges but reminded them that their new jobs would also give them a lot of flexibility, autonomy, and many pathways to success.

Coming to college means navigating a new campus, maybe a new city, and definitely a new level of independence. Choosing what to study, who to befriend, and which extracurricular activities to pursue is all very exciting but can also be overwhelming.

The College of Engineering Class of 2029 is being invited to enroll in the new First Year Seminar—a semester-long series of weekly sessions designed to help first-year students build community and connect to resources that will help them succeed

“We designed this program to be interactive and appealing,” said Treci Bonime, assistant dean for undergraduate studies, who serves as an advisor to first-year students and understands the challenges they face.

Coming to college means navigating a new campus, maybe a new city, and definitely a new level of independence. Choosing what to study, who to befriend, and which extracurricular activities to pursue is all very exciting but can also be overwhelming.

The College of Engineering Class of 2029 is being invited to enroll in the new First Year Seminar—a semester-long series of weekly sessions designed to help first-year students build community and connect to resources that will help them succeed

“We designed this program to be interactive and appealing,” said Treci Bonime, assistant dean for undergraduate studies, who serves as an advisor to first-year students and understands the challenges they face.

Microscopic yet mighty, the particles within lithium-ion batteries that contain critical minerals determine how much energy batteries can store, how fast they charge, and for how many years they can power your device. Over time, chemical reactions crack the surface of these particles. Those cracks interfere with current flow, leaving us with a dead battery and critical minerals buried alive.

To build a domestic, circular supply chain for batteries, Reeja Jayan has developed a low-cost, activated nano polymer layer that extends battery life cycle by 10x, reduces charging time, and improves operating safety.

“Instead of mining entire ecosystems out of existence to collect very limited minerals, we need to focus on innovations that lead to cost-effective, scalable solutions that prolong battery life and reduce waste,” said Jayan, a professor of mechanical engineering.

When Jingyi Wu first arrived at Carnegie Mellon, he was an eager first-year student set on pursuing a bachelor’s degree in physics. Little did he know that his academic career at CMU would span nearly 10 years and include not one but three degrees.

“I chose to come here for undergrad because I knew that it would be academically challenging,” Wu said. “During my junior year, I started to think about what to do in the future and realized that I wanted to do something that felt more connected to people’s lives. That’s when I found Jana Kainerstorfer’s biophotonics course. It blended physics and biomedical science, which was exactly what I was looking for.”

After receiving his B.S. from the Mellon College of Science (MCS), Wu made the switch to the College of Engineering where he received an M.Sc. and Ph.D. in biomedical engineering under the mentorship of Kainerstorfer, professor of biomedical engineering.

While his time as a CMU student is coming to a close, Wu’s decade-long journey traversed multiple departments, driven by work that required both an interdisciplinary and entrepreneurial approach. His graduate research specifically focused on improving maternal and fetal health during childbirth by developing an algorithm to measure fetal oxygen saturation during labor and delivery.

Using his background in physics to study how light interacts with human tissue, Wu’s research explores the noninvasive use of light to measure how much oxygen a fetus is receiving. Currently, physicians can only measure the fetal heart rate, but Wu says that this single metric falls short in assessing overall fetal health.

Within the next decade, chances are your neighbors, or maybe even you, will be sharing a home with a robot roommate to lend a hand with everyday tasks. At Carnegie Mellon University, researchers in Ding Zhao’s Safe AI Lab are teaching robots to perform better by the day. The team has introduced a new machine learning framework that trains four-legged robot “dogs” how to perform versatile movements like pouring soda, organizing shoes, and even cleaning up cat litter.

Human2Locoman combines immersive teleoperation, large-scale data collection, and a modular learning framework to teach quadrupedal robots complex manipulation skills via human demonstrations and teleoperated robot movements. It bridges the “embodiment gap” between humans and robots and marks a significant advancement in quadrupedal manipulation learning.

AI-powered chatbots have become so ingrained into everyday life that it’s hard to imagine going back to a world without ChatGPT. But while these chatbots get better and better at generating code, drafting emails, and everything in between, they still have a lot of catching up to do when it comes to languages. More than a thousand languages are spoken in Africa alone, but ChatGPT only officially supports less than 60 languages worldwide.

So what happens when ChatGPT speaks your language poorly, or doesn’t speak it at all?

Participants in the first-ever Summer School on Digital Humanism in Africa gathered at CMU-Africa from July 14 to 18 to workshop just these types of questions.

Digital humanism challenges people to investigate the relationship between humanity and technology, improving our understanding of how technology can be designed and used in ethical, beneficial, and inclusive ways. Doing so requires interdisciplinary discussion and collaboration, involving perspectives from both engineering and technology-related fields and the social sciences and humanities.

Babesiosis is an infectious disease that manifests like malaria and spreads like Lyme disease. Once rare in the United States, it is now becoming more prevalent, particularly in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Upper Midwest.

To help scientists learn more about Babesiosis, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University developed a new platform for monitoring the infection in red blood cells.

The disease is caused by the parasite Babesia microti, which lives in the blood of rodents. It is transmitted when a tick bites an infected rodent and then bites a human. The parasite enters the bloodstream, infecting and damaging red blood cells.

Early and accurate diagnosis is critical for available treatments. Babesiosis can be asymptomatic or cause flu-like symptoms, which can be severe in older and immunocompromised people.

The parasite’s mechanisms of transmission and infection are not well-understood. In Advanced Science, Tagbo Niepa and collaborators introduce a microfluidic system that can be used to study Babesia microti.

The winningest team in DEF CON’s Capture-the-Flag (CTF) competition history, Carnegie Mellon University’s Plaid Parliament of Pwning (PPP), won its fourth consecutive title, earning its ninth victory in the past 13 years.

PPP joined forces with CMU alumnus and University of British Columbia Professor Robert Xiao's team, Maple Bacon, and hackers from CMU alum startup Theori.io (The Duck), playing under the name Maple Mallard Magistrates (MMM).

DEF CON’s three-day flagship competition, widely considered the “Olympics” of hacking, brought together some of the world’s most talented cybersecurity professionals, researchers, and students, as 12 of the world’s top teams (who qualified from a field of more than 2,300 teams) attempted to break each other’s systems, stealing virtual flags and accumulating points while simultaneously protecting their own systems.

As the number of cybersecurity attacks continues to increase worldwide, competitions like DEF CON’s Capture-the-Flag provide the opportunity for leading cybersecurity engineers to measure up against one another, learning and developing new techniques as they work through various challenges.

Carnegie Mellon students, faculty, and alumni took an early lead in the competition but faced some adversity during the LiveCTF portion of the event, which narrowed the gap in the race to the top of the leaderboard heading into Sunday. The team ultimately rebounded to pull away from its closest challengers in the competition's final hours and secure the victory. For the win, MMM earned eight black badges, the most elite recognition in hacking.

“DEF CON CTF involves a lot of teamwork and communication,” said Erye Hernandez, PPP team member and alumna of Carnegie Mellon’s Information Networking Institute (INI). “Many of our veteran players have known each other for a long time, and it’s great having that camaraderie, trust, and ability to depend on each other when it comes to this type of competition.”

PPP was first formed in 2009 and began competing at DEF CON in 2010. The team’s previous wins came in 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2022, 2023, and 2024, with second-place finishes in 2015, 2018, 2020, and 2021. The team runs and competes in several cybersecurity competitions each year and recently won its fourth straight title at the MITRE embedded Capture-the-Flag event (eCTF).

“This was not my first attack/defense CTF, but coming into the DEF CON CTF Finals for the first time was an entirely different world for me,” said Rohil Chaudhry (MS’25), a recent INI graduate. “The stakes are high, and I had a lot of fun experiencing the sheer pace with which the competitors work and learning new and interesting things from everyone on the team.”

Members of PPP contribute as problem writers to Carnegie Mellon University’s annual student-focused hacking competition, picoCTF, developing challenges of varying levels of complexity. picoCTF has long been the go-to CTF for middle and high school students looking to build and hone their cybersecurity skills, and in recent years has expanded to include an undergraduate leaderboard, as well as several country and continent-specific leaderboards.

Home to the CyLab Security and Privacy Institute, U.S. News and World Report’s top-ranked undergraduate cybersecurity program, and several world-class graduate programs and courses, Carnegie Mellon University continues to lead the way in cybersecurity education and research.

Like all other artforms, the process of jewelry making is a work in progress, constantly evolving and adapting to new techniques and technologies. From shells and stone that have been fashioned into beads, to lab-grown diamonds and laser-cut gemstones, it is no surprise that jewelry and technology have gone hand-in-hand. Modern technology continues to revolutionize the jewelry industry, pushing the boundaries of traditional design and manufacturing.

So when Tanner Aikens set out to fashion his own jewelry, it was only natural that he turned to 3D printing. With plans of proposing to his girlfriend of six years, Aikens (M.S. ’25, B.S. ’24) was inspired by his graduate additive manufacturing course at CMU to craft several pieces of custom jewelry to match the engagement ring he picked out.

3D printing has been used in jewelry making since the 1990s, but Aikens’ specific design and approach had never been done before, making his project novel and one-of-a-kind. Aikens and his girlfriend are mechanical engineers by trade, so it was only fitting to fashion her a necklace in the shape of a helical gear. As it turns out, the process of making this gear-shaped pendant come to life was much more difficult than he first thought.

“Originally, I thought it would be an unlimited design space because 3D printing is pretty flexible,” Aikens said. “It turned out to be a lot more difficult than I thought it was going to be because I wasn’t just thinking about the functionality of the piece but also its appearance.”

The PITA Fellowship program gives undergraduate students in the College of Engineering an opportunity to conduct cutting-edge research in a lab, while building connections with Pennsylvania-based companies. Launched in spring 2025, eight students were selected for the inaugural cohort and paired with faculty mentors leading research projects supported by the Pennsylvania Infrastructure Technology Alliance (PITA).

To be eligible for the PITA Fellowship program, students must first complete the EMERGE mentorship program during their first year.

Have you ever wondered how that new shirt you’ve been eyeing online suddenly appears as an advertisement on Instagram or Facebook? The answer is simple: cookies.

Chances are if you’ve used the internet recently, whether that be to catch up on the news, look up a recipe, or shop online, you’ve come across a cookie pop-up box. These pop-up boxes that many internet users often routinely accept without second thought, help websites track user activity and personalize their experience. By consenting to cookies, you are giving a website permission to place small text files on your computer or browser that store information about your activity online. Cookies help websites remember your login details, items in your shopping cart, and even tailor ad content based on your browsing history.

But with all of their benefits in enhancing the user experience, cookies can pose several drawbacks when it comes to user privacy and security. Digital privacy is a growing issue globally, as more users are becoming increasingly aware and concerned about how their data is used and protected online. Generally, collecting personal data without a user’s permission is considered a violation of privacy rights. Unlike Europe’s strict cookie regulations, such as the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, most cookie consent laws in Africa don’t legally require websites to ask permission before tracking users.

In a new study, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University Africa aimed to investigate digital privacy concerns in Africa by analyzing 1,793 popular African websites in 49 countries and reviewing the data protection laws of 37 countries. Their paper was presented at the 2025 ACM COMPASS conference, which focuses on the application of computing for social impact, sustainability, and global development.

Researchers found that 78 percent of the websites they analyzed used cookies and more than half included third-party cookies, which track user data with the use of external advertising or analytics services. Despite the prevalent use of cookies, only 17 percent of these websites included any cookie consent banner or pop-up, with many sites only including an “accept” button but not a “reject” option.

One of the primary challenges of the engineering design process is minimizing the time between iterations. Often, an engineer must perform a costly virtual analysis and evaluate the results before updating the design and repeating the process. Lengthy computing times are a bottleneck in the design pipeline, especially during the early stages, when high-fidelity simulations and analyses can waste valuable time and resources. To address this issue, data-driven machine learning surrogate models have emerged to reduce time between design iterations.

“Simulations inform how you can redesign the part or make adjustments so that you don't have to waste time or material building something that's going to just fail,” said Kevin Ferguson, Ph.D. student in mechanical engineering.

The assignment was easier to describe than it was to execute: create a program that empowers and celebrates success of the College of Engineering faculty throughout all phases of their careers.

Since relaunching the Center for Faculty Success last August, Faculty Director Reeja Jayan and Managing Director Katie Walsh have been doing just that. They developed programs for new faculty, for those who are actively building their careers, and for faculty celebrating major milestones in their careers.

Their recent announcement of the inaugural cohort of the new Engineering Leadership Fellows Program, means that in less than one year, they have created substantial opportunities for all faculty in the College of Engineering to participate in meaningful professional development.

“This new program is a cross-cutting effort that will empower our faculty with skills that not only will help them become stronger leaders but will also help them to be better teachers and researchers,” said Jayan.

Nine faculty members are slated to participate in the Engineering Leadership Fellows program, which has been designed to support faculty with a wide range of leadership experiences and give them opportunities to explore leadership as it relates to their teaching, research, and administrative pursuits.

“We want the program to meet faculty where they are in their leadership journey and give them perspectives that will prepare them to succeed at the next level,” said Walsh.

The program will begin with a full-day kickoff event in early September. Throughout the next academic year, the fellows will convene once a month in sessions that will include reviews of assigned reading materials, group discussions and activities, and an impressive lineup of guest speakers from Carnegie Mellon and other prestigious institutions, who will lead open conversations that both inspire and inform participants.

Adam Goodman, who directs Northwestern University's Center for Leadership and is a faculty member in the McCormick School of Engineering & Applied Science there, is working closely with Jayan and Walsh to craft a custom curriculum for the program that addresses the specific needs for the College of Engineering Faculty.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Trevor Jones, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, and Yorie Nakahira, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering the Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award. A prestigious five-year grant given to junior faculty who show promise of being leaders in their field, the NSF CAREER award supports the integration of research and education.

Jones’ research is inspired by understanding the physics of everyday objects to inform and develop new technologies. At CMU, Jones heads the Mechanically Intelligent Engineered Structures (MInEnS) Laboratory. Reimagining natural phenomena and human expression as tools to build and design materials, his research traverses multiple applications, including soft robotics, wearable technologies, and morphing structures.

With this award, Jones will explore the mechanical properties of beadwork as a new class of programmable metamaterial. Beadwork, a diverse art with cultural significance, comprises weaving thread through beads to form structures typically used for decorative applications. This patterning not only makes beadwork visually stunning but gives rise to emergent mechanical properties with potential functional applications. Beadwork combines the complementary mechanics of granular matter, an ensemble of macroscopic particles that has the potential to resist high loads, with the flexible, woven fibers of textiles, thereby positioning this metamaterial as both flexible and durable.

With the aim of using beadwork as a material to advance national health through development of soft robotics and wearable technologies, Jones’ work will investigate the interwoven relationship between beadwork design and its mechanical properties. This work will characterize beadwork’s mechanical response to nonlinear deformation, internal contact, and friction to develop predictive models for beadwork’s physics.

This award will also help support the next generation of STEAM researchers by establishing a graduate course on craft mechanics and offering K-12 STEM programming using beadwork.

“As a kid, I remember playing with beadwork headbands my mom made. The patterns and combinations of color would catch my eye, and the tactile feel once I picked them up made them impossible to put down. As I’ve grown to do mechanics research, when my mom crafted my daughter a beadwork embroidered vest, I was reminded of how mechanically fascinating beadwork is,” Jones said. “For these experiences to culminate in recognition from the National Science Foundation to research beadwork as a novel material platform is an honor to my heritage as an Ojibwe scholar.”

Nakahira’s research sits at the intersection of neuroscience, cell biology, cloud computing, and autonomous systems, as she applies the fundamental theory of optimization, control, and learning to these fields. She studies how theoretical foundations and computational tools can be used to enhance the stability and efficiency of autonomous systems and devices.

These autonomous devices, like the ones found in cars or robots, operate with little to no human intervention and are becoming increasingly utilized in today’s world. But to achieve efficiency, such devices must be equipped with real-time learning and control algorithms in order to actively respond to their internal and external environments.

With this award, Nakahira will develop techniques that mitigate against various risks in autonomous systems that operate in an uncontrolled environment. To design safer, more human-aligned autonomous control systems, Nakahira will quantify long-term risks and develop efficient control techniques that offer long-term assurance against human-perceived risks. Her research will also develop real-time control strategies that adapt their level of caution based on inferred human preferences, providing strong safety guarantees without sacrificing performance.

In addition, she will study how repeated interactions—such as those between autonomous systems and human users, or among multiple devices—can lead to unintended consequences like adversarial or unstable behavior. By modeling these dynamics and designing policies that anticipate and prevent such outcomes, her work will help ensure that autonomous systems remain trustworthy and cooperative over time.

The research supported by this award will also extend to classes and seminars as well as K-12 classrooms. A virtual game will be developed to help students gain a better understanding of key control system concepts.

“As a whole, this award will help us design high-performing, safer, and more human-aligned autonomous control systems,” Nakahira said. “I am very excited and grateful to receive this award.”

In a groundbreaking development, a team of Carnegie Mellon University researchers has demonstrated that large language models (LLMs) are capable of autonomously planning and executing complex network attacks, shedding light on emerging capabilities of foundation models and their implications for cybersecurity research.

The project, led by Ph.D. candidate Brian Singer, a Ph.D. candidate in electrical and computer engineering (ECE), explores how LLMs—when equipped with structured abstractions and integrated into a hierarchical system of agents—can function not merely as passive tools, but as active, autonomous red team agents capable of coordinating and executing multi-step cyberattacks without detailed human instruction.

“Our research aimed to understand whether an LLM could perform the high-level planning required for real-world network exploitation, and we were surprised by how well it worked,” said Singer. “We found that by providing the model with an abstracted ‘mental model’ of network red teaming behavior and available actions, LLMs could effectively plan and initiate autonomous attacks through coordinated execution by sub-agents.”

Moving beyond simulated challenges

Prior work in this space had focused on how LLMs perform in simplified “capture-the-flag” (CTF) environments—puzzles commonly used in cybersecurity education.

Singer’s research advances this work by evaluating LLMs in realistic enterprise network environments and considering sophisticated, multi-stage attack plans.

Using state-of-the-art, reasoning-capable LLMs equipped with common knowledge of computer security tools failed miserably at the challenges. However, when these same LLMs and smaller LLMs as well were “taught” a mental model and abstraction of security attack orchestration, they showed dramatic improvement.

Rather than requiring the LLM to execute raw shell commands—often a limiting factor in prior studies—this system provides the LLM with higher-level decision-making capabilities while delegating low-level tasks to a combination of LLM and non-LLM agents.

As a first-year student in Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Engineering, Tanvi Mittal knew that one day she wanted to work in the biomedical space. She never imagined that just four years later she’d be the chief operating officer of a healthcare startup before even receiving her diploma.

The startup, noVRel, is bringing augmented reality into the operating room by way of a hardware attachment that integrates smart headlights, virtual magnification loupes, and a fluorescence guided surgery microscope into existing AR headsets. Eliminating the need for equipment changes, this all-in-one technology enhances surgeons’ visualization, mobility, and their access to patient data resulting in more accurate, more efficient surgeries.

Every year, the Dean of the College of Engineering awards Early Career Fellowships, recognizing untenured faculty members who have been nominated by their department heads for their exceptional contributions to their fields. This year, the recipients are: Patjanaporn (Sang) Chalacheva, Vanessa Chen, Amanda Krause, and Ana Inés Torres. These faculty members receive discretionary funds for a three-year period or until they become promoted to full professors.

Patjanaporn (Sang) Chalacheva

Sang Chalacheva is an associate teaching professor of biomedical engineering. Her research focuses on computational modeling of cardiovascular autonomic control in sickle cell disease, and she has remained active in this field through publications and conference presentations. She has expanded her research in the field of educational scholarship, particularly on teaching AI/ML and their applications to biomedical engineers. She has served in various educational leadership roles in her department and plays a key role in the graduate and undergraduate curriculum design.

Vanessa Chen

Vanessa Chen is an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering. Her research focuses on AI-enhanced circuits and systems, including intelligent sensory interfaces, analog/RF hardware security, and ubiquitous sensing and computing platforms. Chen is a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award and other prestigious honors. She actively serves on multiple technical program committees and editorial boards of IEEE conferences and journals and was recently named a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society.

Amanda Krause

Amanda Krause, associate professor of materials science and engineering, works to improve the processing of ceramics used in many applications. She and her research group design and control ceramic materials’ microstructures to improve their performance in extreme environments. Krause has also received the 2022 NSF CAREER Award, the American Ceramic Society’s 2024 Robert L. Coble Award for Young Scholars, and the Carnegie Mellon College of Engineering George Tallman Ladd Research Award.

Ana Inés Torres

Ana Inés Torres is an associate professor of chemical engineering. Her current research lies in the areas of the decarbonization of the chemical industry, with an emphasis on electrification and the use of biomass; and the recovery and reuse of materials, including the development of theories for the analysis of circular economy initiatives and the design of environmentally-friendly processes for the recovery of rare earth elements. Torres received the NSF CAREER award in 2024, was selected as a consultant for the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) in 2024, and serves as an associate editor of Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy.

Ananyananda Dasari joined the lab of Conrad Tucker, director of Carnegie Mellon University Africa and professor of mechanical engineering, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. Like the rest of the world, Dasari adapted to a new, remote lifestyle full of Zoom meetings and telehealth appointments.

“A lot of communities were stuck in difficult scenarios during this time if they didn’t have access to a computer,” he said. “I always wanted to join a research area that was making a significant impact ,and the need for more scalable, remote health systems was clear.”

Dasari, a Ph.D. candidate in mechanical engineering, is the lead author of a research paper that demonstrates the effectiveness of a video-based approach to estimating an individual’s blood pressure.

On June 16, 13 fellows from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) gathered at Carnegie Mellon for a series of talks and laboratory visits focused on emerging technologies, cybersecurity, robotics, bioengineering, and expanding partnerships between government and academia. Hosted by CMU’s Critical Technology Initiative (CTI), Service Chiefs Fellows and Innovation Fellows received an inside look into the cutting edge research conducted at CMU’s main campus and other institutes, with a clear unifying message: the need for federally funded basic research is imperative.

DARPA, an independent research and development agency of the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), works with innovators inside and outside of government to advance national security capabilities. For 12 weeks, the Service Chiefs Fellowship allows uniformed leaders across the five services to gain insight into the latest innovative science and technology research. The DARPA Innovation Fellowship, which is open to early-career scientists, gives government civilians an insider look into DARPA’s role in advancing research and innovation.

The day kicked off with a tour of the Interactive and Trustworthy Robotics (Intent) Lab, led by Andrea Bajcsy, assistant professor in the Robotics Institute and School of Computer Science. The Intent Lab studies how robots and other AI agents can reliably interact with the open world by employing methods of optimal control, uncertainty quantification, and deep learning. Bajcsy’s goal is to ensure robots act safely within the context and complexity of real-life situations—just like humans do.

Cleaning products, candles, cribs, and cosmetics are just a few of the common household items that emit formaldehyde, a colorless, odorless chemical that when present in the air at levels higher than 0.1 parts per million has been found to be a risk to human health. 

To make indoor air quality monitoring more accessible, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have developed a low cost, long-lasting, indoor formaldehyde sensor. A unique polymer coating on the MXene-based sensor not only extends its half-life by 200% but also enables it to regenerate when performance begins to degrade.

MXene is a class of compounds that has shown promise in energy storage and gas sensing because of its superior electrical properties and versatile surface chemistries. Despite these advantages, MXenes are known to be highly susceptible to oxidation, particularly when exposed to air and/or humidity, posing a major challenge for MXene-based air quality monitors.

New research published this week in Science Advances, overcomes this challenge by encapsulating the MXene in a polymer coating. Using chemical vapor deposition, a materials processing technique that is fundamental to electronics manufacturing, the research team led by Reeja Jayan pumps vaporized precursor materials into a vacuum chamber housing the MXene sensor. The hot gases polymerize and form a nano-coating on the cold sensor in a way similar to how condensation coats the outside of an ice-cold drinking glass on a hot day.

As weather conditions become more unpredictable, agriculture yields grow increasingly uncertain. In Rwanda, rising temperatures and fluctuating rainfall patterns are shifting traditional growing seasons by one to two months and reducing rainfall predictability, making it harder for Rwandan farmers to reliably plan optimal sowing times. These changes will compound food insecurity in Africa, where 20 percent of the Sub-Saharan population faced undernutrition in 2021.

CMU-Africa student Stephen Augustine is addressing this problem by researching a hybrid rainfall forecasting methodology that combines data-driven predictive SARIMA and Hidden Markov models (HMMs) with agglomerative clustering.

From May 7–8, Carnegie Mellon University Africa hosted a social coding event called Reboot the Earth, a climate-tech innovation challenge organized by the United Nations Office of Information and Communications Technology. For just 48 hours, the hackathon charged participants with developing open-source solutions to address current climate challenges. This year’s event focused on creating advancements in agriculture and AI that support the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

In partnership with Salesforce, the Digital Public Goods Alliance, the Food and Agriculture Organization, CMU’s Open Source Programs Office (OSPO), and the Upanzi Network at CMU-Africa, Reboot the Earth brought together student innovators from the University of Rwanda and CMU-Africa. Together in teams, students developed novel approaches for optimizing the transport of agricultural commodities.

Abundant and persistent, red blood cells have a lifetime of about four months in the human body and travel to every organ and tissue. They could soon be leveraged to transport more than oxygen and carbon dioxide.

A team led by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University is receiving $5.4 million from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop technologies for loading red blood cells with drug molecules. DARPA’s Red Blood Cell Factory (RBC-Factory) program aims to create a medical device-based platform to insert biologically active components, like proteins and peptides, into red blood cells to provide enduring protection for service members in challenging environments.

The 21-month project, titled Visco-Elastic Large Volume Erythrocyte Transfection (VELVET), will study the feasibility of a new method for loading diverse components into red blood cells. Developed by Derin Sevenler, the method could enable delivery of medication at safe, effective, and consistent concentrations for extended periods of time. For example, drug molecules designed to remain inactive while inside the red blood cells could become active upon release when those cells are naturally recycled by the body.

“The vision is a single outpatient procedure with a therapeutic effect that lasts for months,” says Sevenler, assistant professor of chemical engineering.

The Sevenler Lab is developing a device to load drug molecules into red blood cells taken from a standard blood draw, with the goal of eventually infusing the drug-loaded cells back into the patient. They use manufacturing techniques originally developed for computer chips to make microfluidic devices that can precisely manipulate biological samples like cells.

In cities across the US, heat waves are becoming longer, more frequent, and more intense over time. Heat-related deaths are by far the most common weather-related fatality in the country, making extreme heat the most dangerous of the extreme weather events on the rise due to climate change.

Transportation methods vary greatly in how long they leave travelers exposed to the outdoors. Pedestrians and bikers bear the brunt of precipitation, extreme temperatures, and humidity; bus riders face these factors, too, while waiting at bus stops. Drivers or subway riders, on the other hand, are more insulated from weather conditions.

Yet little research has been done to understand how extreme weather, like intense heat, changes how people choose to travel, noticed Carnegie Mellon engineering faculty Jeremy Michalek, Destenie Nock, and Corey Harper. Having such information would empower transportation planning and policymaking that is more responsive to the predicted effects of climate change.

“There is a common misconception that using large language models in research is like asking an oracle for an answer. The reality is that nothing works like that,” says Gabe Gomes.

Gomes, assistant professor of chemical engineering and chemistry, does believe that large language models (LLMs) can transform chemical research, if they are adopted thoughtfully. In Nature Computational Science, Gomes and his coauthors offer a roadmap toward more strategic implementations of LLMs.

The current state of chemical research is generally separated into computer modeling and laboratory experiments. Scientists might spend months using computers to predict how a molecule can be made and will behave. Other scientists might spend months in the lab actually making and testing that molecule. The two approaches are not well-integrated.

“This is where LLMs become exciting,” says Robert MacKnight, a Ph.D. student in chemical engineering. LLMs have the potential to remove the silos between computer predictions and real-world testing, ultimately accelerating discovery.

In 2023, Gomes and his research group published Coscientist, an LLM-based system that can autonomously plan, design, and execute complex scientific experiments. As LLMs are increasingly implemented in scientific research, Gomes sees the role of the researcher shifting toward higher-level thinking: defining research questions, interpreting results in broader scientific contexts, and making creative leaps that artificial intelligence (AI) can’t make. Rather than replace human creativity and intuition, AI systems can amplify our ability to explore chemical space systematically.

Here, Gomes and MacKnight answer several questions about where LLMs can make an impact and where they might fall short.

How has your experience developing Coscientist influenced your views of the future of chemical research?

Developing Coscientist revealed to us that LLMs have tremendous potential to accelerate the pace of chemical research, particularly in data collection. It also showed us that LLMs alone aren't enough. The real breakthrough comes when you combine them with external tools, like databases, laboratory instruments, or computational software. Without tools, you're limited by what the model learned during training, and you risk hallucination. Tools help ground the LLM's responses in reality. One of the things we are most excited about is the move toward what we call "active" environments, where LLMs interact with tools and data rather than merely responding to prompts.

What is the difference between deploying LLMs in an “active” or a “passive” environment?

In a “passive” environment, LLMs answer questions or generate text based on what they learned during training. In an “active” environment, LLMs can interact with databases and instruments to gather real-time information and take concrete actions. This distinction is crucial in chemistry. A “passive” LLM might hallucinate a synthesis procedure or give you outdated information. An “active” LLM can search current literature, check chemical databases, calculate properties using specialized software, or even control laboratory equipment to run actual experiments. Instead of being limited to its training data, the LLM can coordinate different tools and data sources to solve real research problems. This transforms how we think about the role of the researcher. Instead of someone who executes experiments, the researcher becomes more like a director of AI-driven discovery.

What unique considerations are there for applying LLMs in chemistry, compared to other domains?

First, there are safety considerations. Hallucinations in chemistry aren’t just an annoyance. They can be dangerous. If an LLM suggests mixing incompatible chemicals or provides wrong synthesis procedures, you could have serious safety hazards or environmental risks. Second, chemistry has very specific technical languages that general LLMs struggle with. Third is the precision problem. Chemistry requires exact numerical reasoning, and LLMs aren't naturally good at that. A small error in molecular representation or spectral interpretation can completely change a result. Finally, chemical research is inherently multimodal. We work with text procedures, molecular structures, spectral images, and experimental data all at once. Because most LLMs are primarily text-based, incorporating all these types of chemical information is a particular challenge.

All of these constraints mean that the field of chemistry really benefits from the "active" LLM approach we advocate, where the model works with specialized tools and databases rather than trying to do everything from its training alone.

What are the biggest challenges you see for the adoption of LLMs in chemical research?

The biggest challenge is perceived trustworthiness. Researchers are rightfully cautious about adopting AI tools when safety and accuracy are paramount, and current methods for evaluating LLMs are insufficient.

Beyond trust, there are several technical hurdles. Hallucination is a major concern, as noted above. There is also the challenge of integrating LLMs with existing laboratory infrastructure and specialized chemical software, which often requires significant technical expertise. On the practical side, there is a learning curve. Many researchers lack experience with AI tools and may not know how to implement them effectively. Finally, there are ethical and resource considerations, such as the environmental cost of training and running these models, potential biases in chemical knowledge, and questions about how these tools might change the nature of scientific work itself.

If we can first improve evaluation methods to demonstrate that these systems are trustworthy and reliable, we will likely unlock progress on many of these other challenges.

How do you propose to better evaluate LLM capabilities in chemical research?

Current evaluations often test only knowledge retrieval. We see a need to evaluate the reasoning capabilities that real research requires, and we co-founded a consultancy firm for scientific evaluations of AI models.

To ensure we’re testing actual reasoning rather than memorization, we need to design evaluation tasks using information that became available after the model's training. For LLMs that use tools, we should test whether they choose the right tools in logical sequences and adapt when tools fail. Finally, we should incorporate human expert judgment alongside automated benchmarks. Chemical reasoning has subtle nuances that fixed tests miss. The goal is to have frameworks that predict how useful an LLM will be in real chemical research, not just how well it performs on standardized tests.

Where do you see the most promising applications for LLMs in chemical research?

LLMs can help researchers navigate vast literature, extract relevant information, and identify research gaps or contradictions across papers. They also show great potential for planning tasks. These include designing experiments and generating testable hypotheses. Automation is another key area. LLMs can translate between natural language and programming languages. In other words, they can take an English description of an experiment and convert it into executable code, making it easier to control laboratory equipment and cloud labs.

The common thread is that LLMs excel when they are orchestrating existing tools and data sources. The most powerful implementations leverage their natural language capabilities to make complex research workflows more accessible and integrated.

Drug discovery can be a long and complex process. Medicines for neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s Disease are among the most expensive to develop, as animal model results have not proven to be predictive of efficacy in humans. Scientists usually have to screen many biological targets before identifying a single potential new drug.

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are developing a platform to enable high-throughput drug screening. Their work is part of efforts to optimize each piece of the drug discovery process, with real impacts in the race to treat patients.

Anne Skaja Robinson investigates G-Protein Coupled Receptors (GPCRs), proteins that reside at the cell’s surface. They are the target of many small-molecule drugs, including therapies for diabetes, allergies, and cancer. The Robinson Lab is focused on the role of these transmembrane proteins and their downstream cellular responses. One side of a GPCR faces into the cell, where it’s associated with a G-protein. The other side of a GPCR is outside the cell, where a drug can bind; thus, they serve as sensors for a cell’s environment. 

“There’s a lot of untapped therapeutic potential,” says Sarah Sonbati. There are 800 known GPCRs, yet current drugs target less than 15% of those.

The gap in disease treatments exists because scientists don’t yet know what binds to some GPCRs. Identifying small molecules to activate these orphan GPCRs (oGPCRs) is one path to possible new drugs.

Superhydrophobic materials are found in many forms in nature, from scales on shark skin that reduce drag to lotus leaves whose surface enables water to roll off and remove dirt particles in the process. The way in which water interacts with these surfaces in nature is inspiring the work of a team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University.

A study published in Advanced Materials Technologies illustrates a new method for creating superhydrophobic surfaces using an aerosol jet printer and polymer solutions. The findings illustrate a technique through which polymer microgel particles are deposited onto a substrate in a specific pattern. This new method is unique in that it offers precise control over the shape and location of the structures, while requiring no post processing.

“The polymer we used is slightly hydrophobic and is widely utilized in wearables due to its durability and flexibility,” said Mohammad Islam, a professor of materials science and engineering who contributed to the research. “The superhydrophobicity of the surface can be attributed to its unique surface characteristics.”

In fish farming, the highest cost isn’t the fish—it’s the food. From buying the feed itself, to the labor needed to throw it out by hand multiple times a day, up to 70 percent of the cost associated with fish farming can be attributed to feeding. But Jesse Thornburg, assistant teaching professor at CMU-Africa, is looking to change that by automating the feeding process.

“We saw that the farmers’ big need was in tracking and improving the feeding of their fish,” Thornburg said. “Automatic feeders were key for improving their metrics.”

Through the use of solar-powered automatic feeders and computer vision, Thornburg and his team at the Grid Automation for Development Lab are working with industry partners, including Lakeside Fish Farm, to make tilapia farming in Rwanda more economical. Other feeding methods like demand feeders, which release food when triggered by a fish, can lead to excessive or wasted feed. As a result, many in the global industry have adopted automatic feeders, which are shown to increase feed accuracy and reduce waste. According to Thornburg, automatic feeders can also improve feed conversion ratios, or the measure of how the volume of feed converts to fish weight gain.

Despite the growing use of automatic feeders in aquaculture, by-hand feeding is still the standard in Rwanda and nearly all of Africa. Yet, Thornburg’s latest review paper, published in the Journal of the World Aquaculture Society, finds that automatic feeding produces better outcomes, including greater weight gain, when compared to traditional by-hand feeding.

Carnegie Mellon University has named Vijayakumar (Kumar) Bhagavatula, professor of electrical and computer engineering, interim dean of the College of Engineering. He will assume the duties of interim dean on June 6, 2025.

“Kumar will ensure leadership continuity as we launch and conduct a search for the next dean,” said Jim Garrett, provost and chief academic officer, in an email announce to the CMU community in January.

Carnegie Mellon University has named Vijayakumar (Kumar) Bhagavatula, professor of electrical and computer engineering, interim dean of the College of Engineering. He will assume the duties of interim dean on June 6, 2025.

“Kumar will ensure leadership continuity as we launch and conduct a search for the next dean,” said Jim Garrett, provost and chief academic officer, in an email announce to the CMU community in January.

Thirty-nine College of Engineering students have been awarded presidential and graduate fellowships for the 2024-2025 academic year. These prestigious awards provide financial support for some of Carnegie Mellon’s top students in their studies and research.

Biomedical Engineering

• Lara Abdelmohesen, Presidential Fellowship in the College of Engineering
• Yidan Ding, Liang Ji-Dian Graduate Fellowship
• Sarah Kim, Phillips and Huang Family Fellowship in Energy
• Emily Skog, Ronald F. and Janice A. Zollo Fellowship

Chemical Engineering

• Kareem Abdelmaqsoud, Richard King Mellon Foundation Presidential Fellowship in Energy
• Robert Burnley, Richard King Mellon Foundation Presidential Fellowship in Energy
• Richard Cobos Franco, Presidential Fellowship in the College of Engineering
• Nicholas Hattrup, Neil and Jo Bushnell Fellowship in Engineering
• Victor Sanchez, David H. Barakat and LaVerne Owen-Barakat College of Engineering Dean's Fellowship

Civil and Environmental Engineering

• Miaosi Dong, Liang Ji-Dian Graduate Fellowship
• Jordan Joseph, Presidential Fellowship in the College of Engineering
• Cheyu Lin, K&L Gates Presidential Fellowship in Ethics and Computational Technologies

CyLab Security and Privacy Institute (2024 Presidential Fellows)

• Quang Dao, CyLab Presidential Fellowship
• lan McCormack, CyLab Presidential Fellowship
• Qi Pang, CyLab Presidential Fellowship
• Prasoon Patidar, CyLab Presidential Fellowship
• Sara Mahdizadeh Shahri, CyLab Presidential Fellowship

Electrical and Computer Engineering Center

• Junting Deng, Liang Ji-Dian Graduate Fellowship
• Alex Deweese, David H. Barakat and LaVerne Owen-Barakat College of Engineering Dean's Fellowship
• Lee Haejoon, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Presidential Fellowship
• Veronica Muriga, K&L Gates Presidential Fellowship
• Yingsi Qin, James Sprague Presidential Fellowship
• Tong Yang, Wei Shen and Xuehong Zhang Presidential Fellowship
• Zeji Yi, Wei Shen and Xuehong Zhang Presidential Fellowship
• Kuang Yuan, Bradford and Diane Smith Graduate Fellowship in Engineering

Engineering and Public Policy

• Judy Park, Presidential Fellowship in the College of Engineering
• Nana Oye Djan, Steinbrenner Institute and Heinz Presidential Fellowship

Information Networking Institute

• Logan Shea O'Brien, Presidential Fellowship in the College of Engineering

Materials Science and Engineering

• Ece Gunay, Neil and Jo Bushnell Fellowship in Engineering
• Grant Kenny, Presidential Fellowship in the College of Engineering
• Hantian Liu, ATK-Nick G. Vlahakis Graduate Fellowship
• Matthew J. Melfi, Presidential Fellowship in the College of Engineering
• Haoran Ni, Richard King Mellon Foundation Presidential Fellowship in Energy
• Daniel Ranke, Neil and Jo Bushnell Fellowship in Engineering
• Vijay Vallurupalli, Richard King Mellon Foundation Presidential Fellowship in Energy

Mechanical Engineering

• Vasvi Agarwal, ATK-Nick G. Vlahakis Graduate Fellowship
• Michael Bennington, Presidential Fellowship in the College of Engineering
• Sparsh Garg, ATK-Nick G. Vlahakis Graduate Fellowship
• William Frieden Templeton, Bradford and Diane Smith Graduate Fellowship in Engineering
• Zexiao Wang, Neil and Jo Bushnell Fellowship in Engineering
• SirkHoo (Kai) Yun, ATK-Nick G. Vlahakis Graduate Fellowship

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Hamish Gordon, assistant professor of chemical engineering, and Sneha Prabha Narra, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, the Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award. The CAREER award is a five-year grant awarded to junior and early-career faculty to support their research and to help them serve as academic role models. It supports activities that integrate education and research as well as develops foundations for leadership.

Gordon’s atmospheric science research explores the impact of air pollution and particulate matter on clouds and climate. By developing weather prediction and climate models, Gordon and his team are able to simulate areas of interest to study atmospheric properties.

Jana Reiser is a third-year student majoring in environmental engineering with a minor in computational biology. Since the spring of her first year at Carnegie Mellon, she has worked in the lab of Greg Lowry, a professor of civil and environmental engineering. There, she conducts research on potential applications of nanoparticle delivery systems to increase plant resilience.

Current practices for delivering fertilizers, pesticides, or genes typically involve spraying, which leads to most of the chemicals ending up in runoff rather than being absorbed by the plant. Spraying nanoparticles instead of just the agrochemicals allows for targeted delivery and slow release of these agrochemicals to the plant.

Reiser’s work specifically concerns optimizing methods to get nanoparticles into plant cells using cell-penetrating peptides. “It’s something that you can stick on the outside of the nanoparticle, and then it functions like a key that allows you to get through the membrane of the cell,” she explains.

Reiser had her eyes set on the research in Lowry’s lab even before she arrived at Carnegie Mellon and says it motivated her decision to pursue her undergraduate studies here. In high school, she completed an architecture-related professional fellowship and internship before shifting her focus to her interests in biology. However, Reiser’s experiences in architecture helped her develop an environmental perspective, sparking her goals to conduct interdisciplinary research.

She plans to pursue a Ph.D. in environmental engineering, exploring relationships between plants and bacteria, and how they can be leveraged to enhance crop resilience, similar to nanoparticle delivery. “Plants and bacteria do form a very complicated ecosystem with each other, especially in the soil, and I always thought that would be very interesting to study,” she says.

Reisesr is one of three Carnegie Mellon students selected to receive the Barry Goldwater Scholarship in 2025 from a pool of more than 5,000 applicants. One of the most prestigious undergraduate scholarships in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields, the Goldwater Scholarship is awarded by the federally endowed Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation. It provides up to $7,500 per academic year to support costs such as tuition, fees, books, and room and board.

Learning that she had earned a Goldwater scholarship came as a very welcome surprise to Reiser. “I honestly can’t believe it’s real, but I also think it’s validating, because it shows that my research is worth something.”

Alongside the financial support provided by the scholarship, Reiser is looking forward to the ability to consult the community of other scholars for guidance. “The research that I want to do is very interdisciplinary, and a very new field, so it’s difficult to figure out what kind of programs I should go into for my Ph.D. And the best way to figure this out is to look at this network, figure out who else has done something similar to me, and ask them how they did it.”

Carnegie Mellon’s Office of Undergraduate Research and Scholar Development provides support to students as they search and apply for opportunities such as the Goldwater Scholarship. “We are beyond proud of these incredible student researchers,” said Alexander Johnson, scholar development coordinator within OURSD. “Throughout the nomination process, we were continually impressed by the clarity of their goals and their dedication to solving important global issues through research. Each of them has immense potential as scientists and we're excited to see where their careers take them.”

Outside the lab, Reiser is involved with the Sustainable Earth Club, where she does advocacy work. She also plays lacrosse, water polo, and tennis, and plays violin in the All University Orchestra.

Reiser has taken away many valuable lessons from her research experiences at Carnegie Mellon, which helped reinforce her goals to pursue a career in research.

“I’d always find that when I was doing literature reviews for my work, I would just get lost in the papers. I would start making new folders with interesting papers that aren’t even specifically related to what I’m currently doing, that I just want to look at in the future,” she says.

“It’s the fact that I was going above and beyond without really having to try—it definitely solidified that I want to do this for my future.”

Jana Reiser is a third-year student majoring in environmental engineering with a minor in computational biology. Since the spring of her first year at Carnegie Mellon, she has worked in the lab of Greg Lowry, a professor of civil and environmental engineering. There, she conducts research on potential applications of nanoparticle delivery systems to increase plant resilience.

Current practices for delivering fertilizers, pesticides, or genes typically involve spraying, which leads to most of the chemicals ending up in runoff rather than being absorbed by the plant. Spraying nanoparticles instead of just the agrochemicals allows for targeted delivery and slow release of these agrochemicals to the plant.

Reiser’s work specifically concerns optimizing methods to get nanoparticles into plant cells using cell-penetrating peptides. “It’s something that you can stick on the outside of the nanoparticle, and then it functions like a key that allows you to get through the membrane of the cell,” she explains.

Reiser had her eyes set on the research in Lowry’s lab even before she arrived at Carnegie Mellon and says it motivated her decision to pursue her undergraduate studies here. In high school, she completed an architecture-related professional fellowship and internship before shifting her focus to her interests in biology. However, Reiser’s experiences in architecture helped her develop an environmental perspective, sparking her goals to conduct interdisciplinary research.

She plans to pursue a Ph.D. in environmental engineering, exploring relationships between plants and bacteria, and how they can be leveraged to enhance crop resilience, similar to nanoparticle delivery. “Plants and bacteria do form a very complicated ecosystem with each other, especially in the soil, and I always thought that would be very interesting to study,” she says.

Reisesr is one of three Carnegie Mellon students selected to receive the Barry Goldwater Scholarship in 2025 from a pool of more than 5,000 applicants. One of the most prestigious undergraduate scholarships in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields, the Goldwater Scholarship is awarded by the federally endowed Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation. It provides up to $7,500 per academic year to support costs such as tuition, fees, books, and room and board.

Learning that she had earned a Goldwater scholarship came as a very welcome surprise to Reiser. “I honestly can’t believe it’s real, but I also think it’s validating, because it shows that my research is worth something.”

Alongside the financial support provided by the scholarship, Reiser is looking forward to the ability to consult the community of other scholars for guidance. “The research that I want to do is very interdisciplinary, and a very new field, so it’s difficult to figure out what kind of programs I should go into for my Ph.D. And the best way to figure this out is to look at this network, figure out who else has done something similar to me, and ask them how they did it.”

Carnegie Mellon’s Office of Undergraduate Research and Scholar Development provides support to students as they search and apply for opportunities such as the Goldwater Scholarship. “We are beyond proud of these incredible student researchers,” said Alexander Johnson, scholar development coordinator within OURSD. “Throughout the nomination process, we were continually impressed by the clarity of their goals and their dedication to solving important global issues through research. Each of them has immense potential as scientists and we're excited to see where their careers take them.”

Outside the lab, Reiser is involved with the Sustainable Earth Club, where she does advocacy work. She also plays lacrosse, water polo, and tennis, and plays violin in the All University Orchestra.

Reiser has taken away many valuable lessons from her research experiences at Carnegie Mellon, which helped reinforce her goals to pursue a career in research.

“I’d always find that when I was doing literature reviews for my work, I would just get lost in the papers. I would start making new folders with interesting papers that aren’t even specifically related to what I’m currently doing, that I just want to look at in the future,” she says.

“It’s the fact that I was going above and beyond without really having to try—it definitely solidified that I want to do this for my future.”

Jana Reiser is a third-year student majoring in environmental engineering with a minor in computational biology. Since the spring of her first year at Carnegie Mellon, she has worked in the lab of Greg Lowry, a professor of civil and environmental engineering. There, she conducts research on potential applications of nanoparticle delivery systems to increase plant resilience.

Current practices for delivering fertilizers, pesticides, or genes typically involve spraying, which leads to most of the chemicals ending up in runoff rather than being absorbed by the plant. Spraying nanoparticles instead of just the agrochemicals allows for targeted delivery and slow release of these agrochemicals to the plant.

Reiser’s work specifically concerns optimizing methods to get nanoparticles into plant cells using cell-penetrating peptides. “It’s something that you can stick on the outside of the nanoparticle, and then it functions like a key that allows you to get through the membrane of the cell,” she explains.

Reiser had her eyes set on the research in Lowry’s lab even before she arrived at Carnegie Mellon and says it motivated her decision to pursue her undergraduate studies here. In high school, she completed an architecture-related professional fellowship and internship before shifting her focus to her interests in biology. However, Reiser’s experiences in architecture helped her develop an environmental perspective, sparking her goals to conduct interdisciplinary research.

She plans to pursue a Ph.D. in environmental engineering, exploring relationships between plants and bacteria, and how they can be leveraged to enhance crop resilience, similar to nanoparticle delivery. “Plants and bacteria do form a very complicated ecosystem with each other, especially in the soil, and I always thought that would be very interesting to study,” she says.

Reisesr is one of three Carnegie Mellon students selected to receive the Barry Goldwater Scholarship in 2025 from a pool of more than 5,000 applicants. One of the most prestigious undergraduate scholarships in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields, the Goldwater Scholarship is awarded by the federally endowed Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation. It provides up to $7,500 per academic year to support costs such as tuition, fees, books, and room and board.

Learning that she had earned a Goldwater scholarship came as a very welcome surprise to Reiser. “I honestly can’t believe it’s real, but I also think it’s validating, because it shows that my research is worth something.”

Alongside the financial support provided by the scholarship, Reiser is looking forward to the ability to consult the community of other scholars for guidance. “The research that I want to do is very interdisciplinary, and a very new field, so it’s difficult to figure out what kind of programs I should go into for my Ph.D. And the best way to figure this out is to look at this network, figure out who else has done something similar to me, and ask them how they did it.”

Carnegie Mellon’s Office of Undergraduate Research and Scholar Development provides support to students as they search and apply for opportunities such as the Goldwater Scholarship. “We are beyond proud of these incredible student researchers,” said Alexander Johnson, scholar development coordinator within OURSD. “Throughout the nomination process, we were continually impressed by the clarity of their goals and their dedication to solving important global issues through research. Each of them has immense potential as scientists and we're excited to see where their careers take them.”

Outside the lab, Reiser is involved with the Sustainable Earth Club, where she does advocacy work. She also plays lacrosse, water polo, and tennis, and plays violin in the All University Orchestra.

Reiser has taken away many valuable lessons from her research experiences at Carnegie Mellon, which helped reinforce her goals to pursue a career in research.

“I’d always find that when I was doing literature reviews for my work, I would just get lost in the papers. I would start making new folders with interesting papers that aren’t even specifically related to what I’m currently doing, that I just want to look at in the future,” she says.

“It’s the fact that I was going above and beyond without really having to try—it definitely solidified that I want to do this for my future.”