Research Quick Takes

Glacier Surges & Floods

Research Scientist Aleah Sommers (pictured) and Professor Colin Meyer won a two-year ~$180,000 NASA grant to work with international collaborators in Pakistan to study the influence of water flowing at the base of glaciers in High Mountain Asia. "Improved understanding of subglacial drainage has great potential benefit for hazard prediction and water resources, in terms of how they are likely to change with continued warming," says Sommers.

Best Oral Presentation

PhD student Roman Vasyltsiv received a "Best Young Researcher Oral Presentation" certificate at the International Conference on 3D dosimetry in Aarhus, Denmark. Roman presented his work on detection of radiation dose delivery in real time from ultra-high dose rate proton therapy systems using scintillation meshes applied to the patient's surface and ultra-fast cameras.

Materials for Flexible Transparent Electronics

Professor Will Scheideler collaborated with Professor Kenji Nomura of UCSD to write a review titled "Advances in Liquid Metal Printed 2D Oxide Electronics," published in Advanced Functional Materials. Their paper highlights recent advances in ultrathin liquid-metal-derived 2D semiconductors for high-performance flexible circuits, display technology, and neuromorphic computing.

Travel Fellowship

Postdoc and lecturer Kasia Warburton was selected for a Thomas Hughes Fellowship to attend the 2024 International Congress on Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (ICTAM) in Korea in August, sponsored by the National Academies. She will present an invited talk on fluid mechanical challenges for sustainability and climate change titled, "Evolving permeability of sub- and supra- glacial flow."

Best in Physics

PhD student Megan Clark Th'21 is first author on a submission named "Best in Physics" for the National American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) Annual Meeting & Exhibition to be held in Los Angeles in July. The submission is titled "Anesthetic Concentration, Type, and Duration in Murine Model to Play an Essential Role in Tissue Oxygenation and Reproducibility of the Flash Effect." Coauthors include Arthur Pétusseau Th'23 and professors David Gladstone, Brian Pogue, Petr Brůža, and Jack Hoopes.

Oral Retractor for Robotic Surgery

resident performing a suturing task using a da Vinci Single Port

PhD researcher Yuan Shi, alum Xiaotian Wu '14 Th'19, Professor Ryan Halter, and Adjunct Professor Joseph Paydarfar co-authored "An Imaging-Compatible Oral Retractor System for Transoral Robotic Surgery," published in Annals of Biomedical Engineering. "This device enables artifact-free imaging, which makes intra-operative image guidance possible," said Shi. "We are getting ready to use this novel retractor system in a clinical study at DHMC."

Best Innovation Award

Professor Vikrant Vaze received the "Best Innovation" award at the Airline Group of the International Federation of Operational Research Societies' (AGIFORS) 2024 Crew Management Study Group Meeting in Modena, Italy. Vaze earned the award with a technical presentation titled "Integrated Crew Recovery Using Optimization and Machine Learning." Said Vaze, "This research combines interpretable machine learning with optimization to obtain high-quality airline recovery solutions rapidly and transparently."

Promising Material Properties

PhD student Weiru Chen, Research Associate Yihuang Xiong, and Professor Geoffroy Hautier co-authored "The Defects Genome of Janus Transition Metal Dichalcogenides" published in Advanced Materials. "This work combines advanced characterization techniques and modeling to precisely identify, at the atomistic scale, the defects in an important 'Janus' 2D material," says Hautier. "This is an important step toward better control and understanding of this technologically promising material."

Understanding Glacier Sliding

Photo by Meyer of Greenland's Heim glacier, taken from a helicopter.

Professor Colin Meyer and Luce Fellow Julia Bellamy Th'23 co-authored "Subtemperate regelation exhibits power-law premelting," selected for the cover of Proceedings of the Royal Society A. Meyer and Bellamy worked with collaborator Alan Rempel (Oregon) on wire regelation, or cold ice, which is important for glacier motion as they slide over sediments and bedrock. "We developed a model for the cold data and found excellent agreement between a power-law model and the laboratory data. These results advance our understanding of the role of temperature in glacier sliding by providing a link between the water, temperature, and friction," he said.

Unobtrusive Implantable Device

Professor Wei Ouyang's recent article in Neuron, entitled "An implantable device for wireless monitoring of diverse physio-behavioral characteristics in freely behaving small animals and interacting groups," was featured as a Science Highlight by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB). "This work reports a wireless implant that captures a diverse array of previously inaccessible physiological data taken during various behavioral tests, which has the potential to unlock numerous avenues of research such as the effects of brain disorders and treatments on sleep," says Ouyang.

Efficient Hydrogen Production

Research Associate Anand Tiwari, PhD student Saifur Rahman, and Professor Will Scheideler co-authored "3D Printed Microlattices of Transition Metal/Metal Oxides for Highly Stable and Efficient Water Splitting" published in Advanced Materials Technologies. The paper presents a novel 3D printing method to create low-cost and efficient electrodes for electrocatalytic hydrogen production. "The resulting materials have shown exceptional durability and electrocatalytic activity, making them promising for large-scale water splitting and sustainable hydrogen fuel production," said Rahman

EIT for Early Bleed Detection

PhD students Spencer Bertsch Th'19 and Navid Rashedi, alum Yifei Sun Th'22, and Professors Ethan Murphy (first author), Jonathan Elliott, Ryan Halter, and Vikrant Vaze—along with DHMC and Mayo Clinic researchers—co-authored "Non-invasive biomarkers for detecting progression toward hypovolemic cardiovascular instability in a lower body negative pressure model" published in Scientific Reports. The paper summarizes how electrical impedance tomography (EIT) can be used as a novel marker for early bleed detection.