Immunity, Pathology, and Engineering Lab

 

Directed by Jason Shoemaker, PhD

 

Understanding the control processes involved in immunity, i.e. systems immunology, is key to future immunomodulatory therapies. The immune system is charged with protecting our bodies from damaging changes. It is highly versatile; able to detect external threats (e.g. pathogens) and dangerous internal changes in our body (e.g. DNA damage or cancers). Once a threat is detected, the immune system carefully orchestrates a response so as to clear the threat while minimizing collateral damage. It is in maintaining this balance that engineering approaches can advance understanding in human health.

 

Immunity is an incredibly dynamic process that occurs at the molecular, cellular, tissue and whole body level. Importantly, differing immune responses between healthy responding and poorly responding patients has demonstrated that the dynamics of the immune response is a key factor in patient outcomes. Using mathematical models and simulations, we can integrate knowledge of the various elements of the immune system to increase our understanding of immunity and health. These models ultimately enable new therapies which apply engineering knowledge of optmization and feedback control to promote improved patient outcomes, patient-specific treatment and immune optimization.

 

Bopaya Bidanda, PhD
bidanda@pitt.edu

Industrial Engineering's Design Studios, provides students with computer facilities that are available 24 hours a day with computers and printers and with full Internet and e-mail access. The lab provides high-speed PC hardware and provides general University and School software and includes specialized Industrial Engineering software. The laboratory and its equipment are available to senior students participating in research projects and graduate students participating in research projects in the areas of computational intelligence and operations research.

Instrumentation and Controls Laboratory

Daniel G. Cole

Phone: 412-624-3069

Email: dgcole@pitt.edu

This mechanical engineering laboratory is dedicated to the study of cyber-physical systems. The lab's research lies at the intersection of real-time estimation and control, high-performance computing, and Bayesian and probabilistic estimation methods. Our focus is on the application of these techniques to industrial control systems, SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition), and cybersecurity. We investigate state of the art control systems from the physical systems to analog-to-digital conversion and industrial controllers all the way to the cloud. The 800 sq. ft. facility includes modern simulation platforms and networked controllers on which to implement and test new schemes. Past and current applications include nuclear instrumentation and control, control of small modular reactors, fault-tolerant systems, and cybersecurity.

IRISE is a research consortium housed in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department in Swanson School of Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh.

The nation’s, state’s and region’s highway infrastructure has largely been built. Due to its age, the challenges of today are driven by the need for costly rehabilitation and renewal. The high potential for rehabilitation and renewal projects to cause major disruptions makes it vital that these activities be performed in a more sustainable manner. IRISE research will produce solutions that will lead to more durable, longer lasting transportation infrastructure that will minimize these future disruptions such that:

• The right of all citizens to safe, efficient and affordable transportation is preserved.
• Accessibility to services, such as healthcare, is maintained at all times.
• Quality of life needs are met when planning projects. Improving roadway infrastructure durability should have a minimal cost to environmental health and quality of life.

William McGahey

Phone: 412-624-9697
Email:wem@pitt.edu

This laboratory in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, directed by Alex Jones, PhD, provides the hardware and software necessary for students to design and build digital circuits. It is used in two undergraduate laboratory courses where students are provided with an understanding of the three-way relationship between the mathematical abstraction of logic as expressed in Boolean algebra, schematics and simulations using CAD tools, and the physical realization of these circuits in hardware. The facility contains 24 networked high-performance workstations, complete with logic analyzers, oscilloscopes, and related equipment used to design, breadboard, and test digital circuits. In addition, the laboratory contains complete support for both Altera and Xilinx Field Programmable Gate Array system development. Finally, a full complement of software, including the Mentor Graphics Design Tools and the Microsoft Visual Studio, is available which allows students to simulate their designs and develop new hardware and software systems. This laboratory was created through a generous gift from John A. Jurenko, a Pitt alumnus and friend of the University.

https://engineering.pitt.edu/jjma

Our research is devoted to the computational study of correlated systems, mostly relying on exact simulations and tensor network algorithms. We address two main scenarios: many-body quantum systems, and turbulent flows.

Quantum Systems of Many Interacting Particles

Correlations in many-body quantum systems lead to spectacular states of matter such as insulating phases, magnetic order, and superconductivity. We rely on simple yet rich models, and on powerful tensor network algorithms, to analyze these states in and out of equilibrium. 

Quantum Mechanics for Fluid Dynamics

We develop tensor network and quantum computing algorithms to simulate partial differential equations, with focus on fluid dynamics. Advantages over standard numerical methods are assessed. This work opens the door for performing computational fluid dynamics on quantum hardware.

Alexis Kwasinski, PhD
akwasins@pitt.edu

Research at the e-LEAdERS lab focuses on expanding the knowledge of critical infrastructures resilience characteristics and on developing technologies for improved resilience of energy delivery infrastructures, such as electric power grids, and of energy dependent infrastructures, such as information and communication technologies (ICT) networks. Main thrusts related with this research involves the development of resilience models and metrics for critical infrastructures and the analysis of dependencies and interdependencies among critical infrastructures and community services. In a practical context, research activities include conducting damage assessments after relevant natural or man-made disasters in order to document critical infrastructure performance. Examples of damage assessments conducted in the past include hurricanes Katrina, Gustav, Ike, Isaac (2012) and Sandy, the Bastrop fire in 2011, the earthquake and tsunami that affected Chile in 2010 and Japan in 2011, and the earthquakes that affected Christchurch, New Zealand in February 2011 and Napa, California in 2014. Data collected during these damage assessments are used not only to validate models and support critical infrastructures energy resilience characterization but also as drivers for the development of new technologies for enhanced resilience. Examples of such technologies include the study of microgrids as the basis for cyber-physical power systems designed for achieving highly resilient power supply of critical loads, such as communication networks.

Hong-Koo Kim, PhD

kim@engr.pitt.edu

In the Laser and Opto-Electronics Laboratories, directed by Hong-Koo Kim, PhD, facilities exist for research in nonlinear optics, materials, and devices. As part of the Department of Electrical Engineering, these laboratories emphasize facilities for maskmaking, lithography, dry-etching, evaporation and sputtering of metals or insulators, diffusion alloying, and wire-bonding are available. The structural and electrical characteristics of fabricated material and devices are evaluated using state-of-the-art test equipment. Semiconductor devices can be characterized at low temperatures in a continuous flow cryostat, capable of reaching temperatures as low as 5 degrees Kelvin. These laboratories contain argon, Nd:YAG (frequency doubled and tripled), carbon dioxide and Ti:sapphire lasers.

 

Dr. Paul R. Ohodnicki, Jr. leads the Magnetic, Electronic, and Photonic Materials and Device Laboratory with an emphasis on developing an improved understanding of the interconnection between functional material properties, electronic band structure, and nano/microstructure as well as the optimal integration with emerging device platforms.  Dr. Ohodnicki brings a broad array of experience to his research including academic, industrial, and government laboratory research and development positions in areas spanning multi-layered thin film optical coatings for concentrating solar power (CSP) and energy efficient window applications, magnetic materials for large-scale inductive components (transformers, inductors, motors), and optical / electronic materials for harsh environment optical and wireless sensing.  He also has a strong interest in the development of new intellectual property and commercialization of ideas developed through university and government laboratory research.

An early focus of the MEMPDL is targeting exploration of novel processing methods for emerging high frequency magnetic materials using applied electromagnetic fields spanning the frequency range from DC to optical.  Successful pursuit of this research with scientific and technical rigor also requires a detailed understanding of the interplay between electromagnetic fields and emerging material systems under investigation, and so the characterization of material electromagnetic properties over a wide frequency range is also a core capability of the laboratory.  Novel photonic and electronic thin film materials are also of interest, including emerging materials with complex electronic band structures such as correlated electron and multi-phase nanocomposite-based systems.  Integration of novel functional materials with device platforms is also a core pursuit of the laboratory with applications including optical fiber-based sensors, passive wireless sensors, and inductive components for a wide range of power applications.  In all research endeavors, fundamental scientific questions that are pursued and explained have a clear linkage with real-world application needs now or in the future.

The MEMPDL was just recently started in February of 2020 and is currently in the process of being equipped with a range of instrumentation including: (1) furnaces and ovens for high temperature thermal processing with controlled heating profiles, (2) electromagnetic field assisted thermal processing, (3) high frequency impedance and vector network analyzers with magnetic and dielectric property test fixtures as well as a probe station, (4) automated sensor testing systems, and (5) portable electronic and optical measurement instrumentation.  A strong interest exists in tying these capabilities and research endeavors with fundamental and even first principle theoretical calculations to both inform and improve future theoretical modeling efforts as well as to pursue initiatives such as computational design of materials and processing approaches.  The laboratory also has an interest in applied electromagnetic modeling methods and techniques to understand the requirements for optimal integration of emerging functional materials systems with device level applications.

Key Publications:

Soft magnetic materials in high-frequency, high-power conversion applications, AM Leary, PR Ohodnicki, ME McHenry, JOM 64 (7), 772-781 (2012).

Plasmonic nanocomposite thin film enabled fiber optic sensors for simultaneous gas and temperature sensing at extreme temperatures, PR Ohodnicki, MP Buric, TD Brown, C Matranga, C Wang, J Baltrus, et al., Nanoscale 5 (19), 9030-9039 (2013).

SAW Sensors for Chemical Vapors and Gases, J Devkota, PR Ohodnicki, DW Greve, Sensors 17 (4), 801 (2017).

Composition dependence of field induced anisotropy in ferromagnetic and amorphous and nanocrystalline ribbons, PR Ohodnicki, J Long, DE Laughlin, ME McHenry, V Keylin, J Huth

Journal of Applied Physics 104 (11), 113909 (2008).

Metal amorphous nanocomposite (MANC) alloy cores with spatially tuned permeability for advanced power magnetics applications, K Byerly, PR Ohodnicki, SR Moon, AM Leary, V Keylin, ME McHenry, et al., JOM 70 (6), 879-891(2018).