Research Quick Takes

Wellness in Med School

Professor Wesley Marrero will co-lead a project funded by the American Medical Association's ChangeMedEd Innovation Grant Program, which adopts the holistic "Precision Well-Being" approach to create personalized wellness solutions for optimal learning and wellness in medical school. The team includes Thayer PhD student Zequn Chen, Geisel professors Thomas Thesen and Matthew Duncan, and LeChauncy Woodard at the University of Houston College of Medicine.

On the Cover

PhD candidate Xin Yue was featured on the (virtual) cover of Sensors in July for his work on a 20 million frames-per-second image sensor that can capture 108 sequential image frames over a period of 5.4 microseconds in burst mode. The sensor was designed and tested by Dartmouth for the Los Alamos National Laboratory for ultra-high-speed materials analysis. Yue, who recently completed his dissertation, is working for Apple in California.

Spidey-Sensors

Research article figure of sensor design

PhD students Huan Zhao and Xiangbei Liu, and Professor Yan Li co-authored "The Role of Fracture Patterns on Crack-Based Strain Sensors" published in the Journal of Engineering Materials and Technology. Taking inspiration from the vibration detection mechanism employed by spiders, this computational study provides physical insights for the design and manufacturing of crack-based strain sensors across various applications.

Early Career Runner-Up

PhD student Savannah Decker won 2nd place at the 2023 Early-Career Investigator Symposium of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine in Houston, TX. Her submission, "Expanding the inclusivity of Cherenkov surface dosimetry by quantifying the effects of skin tone in a multi-institutional human study," was one of 10 chosen from the hundreds submitted for oral presentation in the competition.

2D Materials for H2 Production

Postdoc Anand Tiwari, PhD students Shay McBride, Andrew Hamlin, Md Saifur Rahman, and Julia Huddy, and professors Geoffroy Hautier, and William Scheideler are co-authors of a study on designing 2D titanium carbide materials for hydrogen (H₂) production. Published in ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering, the study developed strategies to dope 2D MXenes with sulfur and nitrogen to engineer their activity as efficient—as well as low-cost and earth-abundant—electrocatalysts for large-scale H₂ production.

Measuring the Impact of Climate Legislation

Professor Erin Mayfield is a co-author of "Emissions and energy impacts of the Inflation Reduction Act" published in Science. The paper leverages "results from nine independent, state-of-the-art models to examine potential implications of key IRA provisions, showing economy-wide emissions reductions between 43 and 48% below 2005 levels by 2035."

Subglacial Hydrology & Ice Dynamics

Research Scientist Aleah Sommers and Professor Colin Meyer applied a simpler form of the SHAKTI subglacial hydrology model to the Helmheim Glacier in Greenland to predict high water pressure and other variables in seawater movement under glacial ice. Their model improves upon current models by reducing reliance on unconstrained parameters, which have posed challenges to reproducing results. Their findings were published in the Journal of Glaciology.

Best Student Presentation

At this year's IEEE Photovoltaics Specialty Conference in Puerto Rico, PhD student Julia Huddy received an award for best student presentation for a talk about her work in the SENSE Lab titled "Large-Area Uniformity Mapping of High-Speed Flexography-Printed Perovskite Solar Cells via Scanning Photoluminescence."

NSF Engines Semifinalist

Professors Liz Murnane, Vikrant Vaze, and Wesley Marrero are lead faculty on a team selected as one of 34 semifinalists for the inaugural NSF Regional Innovation Engines competition—spanning nearly all key technology areas and societal and economic challenges highlighted in the "CHIPS and Science Act." A partnership with UMass Lowell, their proposed engine is titled, "Advancing Health Equity Through Digital Technologies, Data Infrastructure, and Artificial Intelligence." Each Engine could receive up to $160 million over 10 years.

Better 3D-Printed Electrodes

Colorized image of 3D lattice structures

PhD students Julia Huddy and Huan Zhao, research associate Anand Tiwari, and Professors Yan Li and William Scheideler authored "Graph Theory Design of 3D Printed Conductive Lattice Electrodes" published in Advanced Materials Technologies. This work aims to model the electrical behavior of 3D lattice structures to guide the design of 3D printed electrodes for electrochemical device applications.

SuperDARN Up & Running

The newest addition to the international Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN) is officially fully functional! Professor Simon Shepherd: "After configuring the electronics, software, and computer network, followed by extensive testing, first-light (the first data collected by the radars) was achieved on January 24, and I am pleased to report that the arrays appear to have survived their first Icelandic winter."

Striving for Friendlier Skies

Professor Vikrant Vaze is one of only two academics cited in a report from The Government Accountability Office titled, "AIRLINE PASSENGER PROTECTIONS: Observations on Flight Delays and Cancellations, and DOT's Efforts to Address Them." Says Vaze on why his research was cited, "US airlines have faced some unusual disruptions recently. Our research has focused on how these disruptions impact passenger travel, and the importance of measuring the success of any disruption mitigation effort in terms of the extent to which it reduces passenger inconvenience."