Four Faculty Receive NSF CAREER Awards
Four young College of Engineering faculty members have received Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) awards, the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious award in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations. For each assistant professor, the honor includes $400,000 to support their research.
Can Emre Koksal, electrical and computer engineering, will investigate ways to enable the design and implementation of faster, more reliable, and more robust wireless networks operating under a variety of conditions. His project, “Design and Control of Wireless Networks on Network-Information-Theoretic Foundations,” aims to significantly improve the performance of wireless networks by developing practical network algorithms over an underlying infrastructure of multiuser channels along with the appropriate information-theoretic mechanisms. Koksal joined the Ohio State faculty in 2006.
Simge Küçükyavuz, integrated systems engineering, aims to develop novel models, theory and algorithms to solve a difficult class of optimization problems called chance-constrained mixed-integer programs. Her project, “Mixed-Integer Optimization under Joint Chance Constraints,” will advance decision-making tools used in several sectors, such as logistics, energy, telecommunications and emergency management, which invariably operate under uncertain environments, require high service levels and involve discrete choices. Kucukyavuz, who joined Ohio State in 2009, aspires to incorporate her research results into existing open-source mixed-integer programming modeling languages and software to improve their efficacy in practice.
Jeffrey Sutton, mechanical and aerospace engineering,a faculty member since 2008, will use his NSF award for “A New Understanding of Flame Dynamics and Turbulence-Chemistry Interaction from 2D/3D/4D Spatio-Temporal Measurements” to investigate how complicated turbulent fluid mechanics found within realistic combustion systems interact with and affect fundamental combustion processes in real time using a new class of high-speed laser diagnostics. Such understanding could bring improvements in efficiency, flame stability, and pollutant output in combustion systems, which account for more than 85 percent of the world’s energy usage and have important implications in terms of environmental sustainability and energy security.
Jin Wang, electrical and computer engineering,is working to enhance the efficiency and lower the cost of very large scale megawatt photovoltaic power plants with a new generation of power electronics circuits and associated control strategies for a hybrid photovoltaic-battery system. His project, “Power Electronics and High Voltage Intensive Solutions for Very Large Scale Megawatt Photovoltaic Systems,” will include a new breed of silicon carbide-based, switched capacitor converter/inverters with boost function, multiple voltage levels, redundant switching statues, and low voltage stresses on switches and capacitors. Wang joined Ohio State in 2007.
