Research Quick Takes

Nov 20, 2025

Toward Optimal Auctions

PhD student Mai Pham, will present her paper, coauthored with professors Vikrant Vaze and Peter Chin, titled "Advancing Differentiable Mechanism Design: Neural architectures for combinatorial auctions" for a workshop at the Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems. Although auctions are considered an effective way of allocating limited resources when demand is high, designing auctions that are simultaneously optimal for the participants, system operator, and greater society is challenging. The paper presents a new approach that leverages modern deep learning architectures and algorithms to meet this challenge.

Nov 20, 2025

TERMIS-AM Conference Winner

Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Founder and CEO of NovaGyn Becca Thomson '20 Th'21 Th'25 attended the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society Americas Conference in Detroit. There she was a finalist in the Business Plan Competition and winner of the $1,000 People's Choice Award and $2,000 Judges' Award. "Winning these awards was an incredible honor and a huge validation for NovaGyn's mission of advancing surgical solutions in women's health," said Thomson. "I'm thrilled that our innovative approach to tissue engineering resonated with both experts and the community. This recognition motivates us to continue pushing the boundaries of regenerative medicine and bring meaningful solutions to patients worldwide."

Nov 13, 2025

Research Startup Showcase

Postdoc researcher Yanqiao Li Th'25, advised by Professor Jason Stauth, presented his startup, uDrive, at The Engine's Blueprint Showcase in Boston—the culmination of a program that helps researchers build "tough tech" startups. Leveraging Li's PhD research at Thayer, uDrive develops technologies for next-generation haptics and compact cooling solutions for mobile devices. Smartphones currently use basic haptics [vibrations] for notifications," Li explained. "High-definition haptics, enabled by new piezoelectric actuators, can do much more—such as allowing you to feel the texture of clothes while shopping online. The widespread adoption of this technology, however, is currently limited by a lack of high-voltage, energy-efficient electronics. Our startup is bridging this gap."

Nov 13, 2025

Measuring Human-AI Trust

PhD student Bruno Miranda Henrique gave a presentation that won the research award for the graduate division in math and computer science at this year's International Forum on Research Excellence (IFoRE) by Sigma Xi. His research, titled "Dynamic Trust Calibration Using Contextual Bandits," addresses the need for a definitive and objective method for measuring trust between humans and AI. "Our indicator dynamically assesses when to trust AI contributions based on learned contextual information," reads the abstract. "These findings not only enhance theoretical understanding but also provide practical guidance for developing more trustworthy AI systems supporting decisions in critical domains, for example, disease diagnoses and criminal justice."

Nov 06, 2025

Advancing Space Science

Professor Jacob Buffo gave a video presentation about his recently completed Planetary Society "Science and Technology Empowered by the Public" (STEP) grant project. Buffo and his team investigated "Multiscale Characterization of Brine-Rich Planetary Analog Environments," with the goal of helping to optimize site selection for planetary and astrobiology missions.

Oct 30, 2025

Co-Designing Education

Professor Rafe Steinhauer authored "Improving Public Schools by Co-Design," published in the inaugural issue of Dartmouth's Social Impact Review. The article centers on Steinhauer's unique approach to combining design and education. "Our program [Upper Valley Education Design Clinic] prioritizes co-design. Together, district teams and undergraduate students [ENGS 15.11: Design and Education] learn design thinking ... This is an exciting model for town-gown partnership—not just universities serving schools, but higher education and K-12 communities working as co-designers of change," writes Steinhauer.

Oct 16, 2025

Predicting Nonadherence to Breast Cancer Screening

PhD student Jiahui Luo and Professor Wesley Marrero—with quantitative biomedical sciences PhD student Guofang Ma and Miranda Scully '26—co-authored "Modeling the impact of social determinants on breast cancer screening: a data-driven approach" published in Frontiers in Medicine. "The study identified opportunities for healthcare organizations to transform sociodemographic data into targeted, facility-level intervention strategies while adapting to payer incentives and addressing screening gaps," said Marrero.

Oct 09, 2025

Strategic Cyber Defense

PhD student Mai Pham and professors Vikrant Vaze and Peter Chin coauthored "Strategic Cyber Defense via Reinforcement Learning-Guided Combinatorial Auctions" which was chosen for presentation at the IEEE High Performance Extreme Computing Conference. "This work formulates the cyber defense problem, in which we act as a defense agent protecting a network from malware attackers, as a combinatorial auction," said Pham. "We combined reinforcement learning with differentiable mechanism design to find the best resource allocation for the hosts, which aims to upstream decision making and proactively protect the network."

Overview figure of fluorine-free electrolytes

Oct 09, 2025

Toward Greener Batteries

Research Associate Peiyu Wang Th'25, PhD students Huilin Qing and Ruiwen Zhang, and Professor Fiona Li coauthored "Fluorine-free electrolytes for sustainable lithium batteries: a review" published in npj Materials Sustainability. The paper highlights insights and advances in fluorine-free salts, solvents, additives, and interphases, along with challenges and opportunities, offering sustainable solutions potentially competitive with conventional fluorinated electrolytes. "Modern lithium battery electrolytes rely on fluorinated components to enhance performance and functionality, but such schemes raise safety, environmental, and cost concerns due to hydrogen fluoride generation and hazardous production," said Li.

Laasya Devi Annepureddy working in the Goods Lab

Oct 02, 2025

Biology of Human Milk

Goods Lab PhD student Laasya Devi Annepureddy is co-lead author of "Integrated ‘omics analysis reveals human milk oligosaccharide biosynthesis programs in human lactocytes" published in iScience. The study reveals pathways for how breastmilk cells produce sugars that are critical to infant health and development, and paves the way for being able to add them to formula or as a supplement to certain foods. "Being part of this project has been incredibly rewarding," said Annepureddy. "Our findings bring us one step closer to understanding the remarkable biology of human milk, and I’m grateful to the outstanding team whose collaboration made this work possible."

Oct 02, 2025

Atomic Neighborhoods in Semiconductors

Professor Jifeng Liu is coauthor of "Identification of short-range ordering [SRO] motifs in semiconductors" published in Science. Using electron microscopy and machine learning models, the study confirmed the presence of semiconductor SRO—where atoms form mini configurations or "neighborhoods" within the material. The concept of SRO has lacked experimental evidence, and this confirmation opens up new possibilities for controlling the properties of semiconductors. "My lab was the first to identify the samples that revealed signs of atomic ordering, and I initiated and promoted the idea that engineering atomic neighborhoods in semiconductors offers a new degree of freedom for controlling their electrical and optical properties," said Liu.

Sep 25, 2025

Applications of Liquid Metal Materials

Saifur Rahman Th'25 and Professor Will Scheideler coauthored "Liquid Metals in Radio Frequency Applications: A Review of Physics, Manufacturing, and Emerging Technologies" published in Advanced Electronic Materials. "Liquid metal materials are transforming soft and stretchable radio frequency devices by enabling highly-conductive, mechanically-adaptable components that can conform to wearable and bio-integrated applications," said Scheideler. "This work highlights the physics of energy loss in liquid metal systems, innovative fabrication techniques, and diverse applications."