March 06, 2020

Dean Elizabeth G. Loboa presented the winners of the third annual Research Day student poster session: (l-r) first place winner Taher Hajilounezhad, second place winner Hamed Majidifard and third place winner Weiyu Feng.

Lafferre Hall was bustling with activity March 5 as the College celebrated its third annual Research Day. The College’s research drives innovation and new technology, while exposing Mizzou Engineering students to cutting-edge ideas and discoveries, preparing them to become the engineering leaders of tomorrow.

Twenty-four student poster presentations lined the first floor of Lafferre, covering topics ranging from “Bubble Effects on the Turbulent Behavior within the Bubble Plume” to “Virtual Lab.”

Omiya Hassan, a graduate student majoring in electrical engineering in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), presented a poster on a “Smart Infant-Monitoring System.”

“It has the ability to detect sleep disorders, irregular respiratory behaviors, seizures and other detections a sleep lab would normally have,” she said. “The unique perspective is this is wireless, so it is not invasive and it is very infant friendly, so it can be used in neonatal intensive care units as well.”

Samira Shamsir (l) and Omiya Hassan with their presentation on “Smart Infant-Monitoring System.”

Hassan works as a graduate research assistant with EECS chair Syed Kamrul Islam. In addition to the poster presentation, she wore a prototype of the smart infant-monitoring system on her wrist.

Omar Ibrahim, also a graduate student in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, works with Prof. Marjorie Skubic at the Center for Eldercare & Rehabilitation Technology. His poster presentation, “Framework for Semantic Annotation of Eldercare Sensor Data,” was based on a project funded by a grant from the National Library of Medicine, a division of the National Institutes of Health.

“We have non-invasive sensors in assisted living care apartments, such as Tiger Place, so motion sensors capture gait data and bed sensors capture respiration and heart rate,” he said. “At the same time, the nurses document the status of the residents in an electronic health record. So, we are trying to correlate the data from the sensors and from the electronic health records in order to better predict early signs of illness or even to predict a fall.”

Graduate student Omar Ibrahim with his poster presentation, ““Framework for Semantic Annotation of Eldercare Sensor Data.”

Poster session winners were Weiyu Feng in third place for his presentation, “Virtual Lab”; Hamed Majidifard in second place for his poster, “Deep Learning Approach for Automatic Pavement Distresses Detection Using Google-map Images”; and first-place winner Taher Hajilounezhad for his presentation “Predicting Carbon Nanotube Forest Synthesis-Structure-Property Relationships Using Physics-based Simulation and Deep Learning.” The winners received gift cards from Amazon.

Following the student poster session, Elizabeth G. Loboa, vice chancellor for strategic partnerships and dean and Ketcham Professor of the College of Engineering, recognized the Dean’s Council for Teaching Excellence and the Dean’s Council for Research Excellence, the latter of which is made up of the top ten faculty members in terms of research expenditures.

Loboa said research drives new technology and innovation; it is important to share that knowledge with the campus as well as the wider community.

“At Mizzou Engineering, collaboration and creativity inform our research, which is conducted by world-class faculty working with our exceptional students to find solutions to the grand challenges facing the world,” she said. Loboa also noted the incredible growth in research success during the last fiscal year. “Our research expenditures increased 24% compared to the previous year and the total value of awards increased 47%.”

COE professors Sheila Grant (far left) and Jianlin Cheng (far right) introduced the keynote speakers for Research Day: (l-r) Satish Nair, Sanjeev Khanna, Marjorie Skubic and Derek Anderson.

The student poster sessions are just one way the College shares the knowledge it generates with the campus and the community. Another Research Day feature is the TED-style talks presented by faculty focusing on the College’s four Pillars of Pursuit: Educating Engineering Leaders, Big Data Analytics, Biomedical Innovations and Sustainability inFEWSed (Food, Energy, Water, Smart Cities). This year’s presenters were:

• Biomedical Innovations and Challenges // Squaring the Life Curve with Proactive Healthcare Technology // Marjorie Skubic
• Big Data Analytics and Cloud Computing // Will the Real Artificial Intelligence Please Stand Up? // Derek Anderson
• Sustainability inFEWSed // Growth and Sustainability: Can They Coexist? // Sanjeev Khanna
• Educating Engineering Leaders // Is ‘Soft Skills’ a Misnomer? Insights from Cognitive Neuroscience // Satish Nair

“Research Day is our opportunity to showcase the excellence in research our faculty and students are engaged in,” said Sheila Grant, associate vice chancellor for research and strategic initiatives for campus and associate dean of research in the College. “It demonstrates the interdisciplinary nature of our research and the impact it has on our state.”