Active Projects

Do state alcohol-related firearm laws reduce mortality? A multicomponent impact evaluation

This project is conducted in collaboration with James Mainko, Diana Silver, Jennifer Pomeranz, and Jean Bae.

More details here.

Phase II Navy STTR program with Luna Innovations: Multi-input strength loss sensing for webbing structures

This research is in collaboration with Luna Innovation and is supported by the United States Navy.

EAGER: Task DCL: Navigation in crowds for persons with blindness/low vision: A virtual environment to explore multimodal sensory processing

This project is conducted in collaboration with John. R. Rizzo and it is supported by the National Science Foundation.

More details here.

CLIMA/Collaborative Research: Riders on the storm: Climate adaptation of housing infrastructure for resilient communities in coastal cities

This project is conducted in collaboration with Luis Ceferino, Cristina Dragomir, and Susu Xu, and it is supported by the National Science Foundation.

More details here.

Surviving in the abyss: Skeletal adaptations of deep sea glass sponges

The deep sea glass sponge Euplectella aspergillum has fascinated researchers since its discovery in the late nineteenth century, for its beauty and unique physical properties. Despite extensive research, these fascinating abyssal dwellers remain largely mysterious due to the challenges of accessing live specimens for experimental testing. This project puts forward an integrated research approach, combining experimental and computational methods, to examine the mechanical response of deep sea sponges both in isolation and in groups. We aim to distill new design principles for lightweight naval structures capable of passive adaptation to flow conditions, thereby optimizing their mechanical performance.

This research is conducted in collaboration with Giacomo Falcucci and is supported by the Office of Naval Research.

NSF Convergence Accelerator Track M: Slime mold inspired self-assembling conveyor system for flood response

There is a growing climate threat with rising temperatures, more intense precipitation events, and sea level rise that highlight the urgent need for viable tools and processes to actively respond to the increasingly worse flooding events. We draw inspiration from the slime mold Physarum polycephalum development habits to create a robust, adaptive transportation network. We envision a novel robot swarm which will self-assemble into a conveyor system, able to transport goods and materials in flooded environments where it would be unsafe for human workers to operate. The goal of this research is to fortify community resilience in the face of this evolving challenge.

This project is conducted in collaboration with Petras Swissler, Simon Garnier, Semiha Ergan, and Jason Graham and it is supported by the National Science Foundation.

More details here.

NSF Convergence Accelerator Track H: Phase II smart wearables for expanding workplace access for people with blindness and low vision

This project tackles the prevalent issue of high unemployment rates, up to 81%, among the 285 million individuals with blindness and low vision (pBLV) globally. Focusing on urban challenges, especially in transportation and workplace navigation, it introduces the Visually Impaired Smart Service System for Spatial Intelligence and Onboard Navigation (VIS4ION) smart wearable backpack. This device incorporates miniaturized sensors for real-time navigation, scene understanding, and obstacle avoidance, offering audio and tactile feedback. Acknowledging socio-technical challenges, the project aims to enhance usability and safety, addressing mobility hurdles during commuting and work routines for pBLV.

This project is conducted in collaboration with John Ross Rizzo, Yao Wang, Sundeep Rangan, and Chen Feng and it is supported by the National Science Foundation.

More details here.

EAGER/Collaborative Research: Switching structures at the intersection of mechanics and networks

This collaborative project introduces the idea of switching structures – trusses and frames whose connections can be dynamically switched ON and OFF to attain a desired performance – and puts forward a convergent research plan to understand and predict their static and dynamic response, through the lens of network theory. The project will explore unconventional structures with engineered responses for application in damage prevention, vibration control, and robotics.

This research is conducted in collaboration with Paolo Celli and is supported by the National Science Foundation.

More details here.

NSF Convergence Accelerator Track H: Smart wearables for expanding workplace access for people with blindness and low vision

People affected by blindness and low vision (pBLV) suffer from high unemployment rates, as high as 81% in urban environments. Employment disparities stem, at least in large part, from difficulties with transportation to and from work and wayfinding within the workplace itself. This project takes a fundamental step in addressing the employment challenges of pBLV through a recently developed, powerful assistive-navigation platform, the Visually Impaired Smart Service System for Spatial Intelligence and Onboard Navigation (VIS4ION). This translational project seeks to overcome significant technical, business, social, and logistical challenges that plague the development and deployment of advanced, connected wearables in workplace environments.

This research is conducted in collaboration with John Ross Rizzo, Sundeep Rangan, Batia Wiesenfeld, William Seiple, Yao Wang, and Chen Feng and is supported by the National Science Foundation.

More details here.

UROL:EN Emergent energetic regulation in dynamic biological networks

Regulation mechanisms are essential for keeping systems within desired working conditions. Although typical biological and engineered regulation mechanisms take the form of circuits that connect sensors to actuators in a predictable way, systems that are composed of many loosely connected and mobile units rarely exhibit long-lasting connections that could support such rigid regulatory circuits. Using energetic regulation in ants as a model system, this project seeks to: i) understand how highly plastic collective systems regulate themselves in the face of changes, ii) unravel the modalities of information transfer between individuals and their contribution to the emergence of a functional, distributed regulation network, and iii) derive general principles to engineer artificial distributed systems that can autonomously regulate their collective activities to maintain function in uncertain environments.

This research is conducted in collaboration with Simon Garnier, Nicole Abaid, Michael Rubenstein, James Waters, and is supported by the National Science Foundation.

More details here.

Co-development of telehealth, remote patient monitoring, and AI-based tools for inclusive technology-facilitated healthcare work of the future

The adoption of data-intensive technologies in healthcare warrants a thorough investigation of misalignments between current frameworks and the proposed technologies that may undermine human-technology partnership. This project seeks to correct for such misalignments by co-developing tools that lower barriers to technology adoption and empowering individuals with diverse roles within the medical sector to use technologies and maximize patients’ gains.

This research is conducted in collaboration with Oded Nov, Yindalon Aphinyanaphongs, Rumi Chunara, Graham Dove, Devin Mann, Katharine Lawrence, Olugbenga Ogedegbe, John-Ross Rizzo, Antoinette Schoenthaler, Batia Wiesenfeld and is supported by the National Science Foundation.

This work is a part of the Digital Health Work initiative.

More details here.

Combined effect of fluid-structure interactions and extreme cold temperatures on the dynamic response of marine composites

Global warming is changing the polar landscape, posing new scientific challenges on the mechanics of marine vessels in arctic environments. We seek to establish an integrated experimental, theoretical, and computational approach to clarify the physical underpinnings of fluid-structure interactions in arctic environments. Through advancements in scientifically-principled experimental methods and physically-based mathematical models, this effort will inform the design of safe and high-performance marine composites.

This research is supported by the Office of Naval Research.

LEAP-HI: Understanding and engineering the ecosystem of firearms: prevalence, safety, and firearm-related harms

We seek to contribute fundamental research toward extending engineering methods for the understanding of the firearm ecosystem, as informed by state-of-art research in public health and social science. Through advancements in complex systems theory, data science, and hypothesis-driven experiments, the project will provide insights for improving public safety in the US. This research will advance the state of knowledge in information-theoretic causality analysis, multilayer complex networks, dimensionality reduction techniques, and human-computer interactions toward an unprecedented engineering understanding of the firearm ecosystem.

This research is conducted in collaboration with Igor Belykh, James Macinko, Shinnosuke Nakayama, Oded Nov, and Rifat Sipahi and is supported by the National Science Foundation.

More details here.

SCC-IRG Track 2: Transportation gaps and disability-related unemployment: smarter cities and wearables combating commuting challenges for the visually impaired

This supports foundational research needed to study low-vision behavior and develop more powerful wearables that can handle data-intensive processing, enabling parallel functionality. This reserach will afford VIS4ION, a revolutionary wearable platform that uses backpack-mounted sensors, advanced machine vision, wireless communications, and human-machine interfaces, the ability to perform connected dynamic localization and navigation assistance for the visually impaired in complex urban environments.

This research is conducted in collaboration with John R. Rizzo, Yi Feng, Sundeep Rangan, and Yao Wang and is supported by the National Science Foundation.

More details here.

FW-HTF-RL: Collaborative Research: Future expert work in the age of “black box”, data-intensive, and algorithmically augmented healthcare

We seek to contribute foundational research to understand and improve work in an age of data-intensive enhanced cognition, especially in healthcare where such new technologies are rapidly changing expert work. This research involves several disciplines bridging computer science, human-computer interaction, dynamical systems, and organization alongside with medical clinicians. Hypothesis-driven, engineering-principled experiments will be conducted toward to examine interactions between experts, clients, and cognition-augmenting technologies, while laying the foundations for technological and organizational interventions that will make the interactions between experts, clients, and technology more effective and empowering.

This research is conducted in collaboration with Oded Nov, Yindalon Aphinyanaphongs, Yvonne W. Lui, Devin Mann, Mark Riedl, John R. Rizzo, and Batia M. Wiesenfeld and is supported by the National Science Foundation.

This work is a part of the Digital Health Work initiative.

More details here.

NYU-Poly Mitsui USA STEM learning

We are developing and conducting a hands-on educational program aimed at impacting middle school students from public schools in Brooklyn. Through exciting activities involving robots, and by attending lectures on robotics, biology, and bioinspiration, middle school students learn important lessons in science and engineering. To provide a real-world connection for the classroom experience, the program culminates with an end-of-year workshop at the New York Aquarium where students conduct their own science and engineering experiments by observing the locomotive patterns of various swimming fish in a guided Aquarium tour.

This research is performed at MS 88 and is supported by the Mitsui USA Foundation.