Enginuity Podcast

Enginuity podcast graphic

Hosted by Dean Ayanna Howard, Enginuity explores stories of innovation (and ingenuity) within The Ohio State University College of Engineering. You’ll meet faculty and students that are pushing boundaries and developing game-changing technologies.
 

Episodes

March 7, 2024: Ep. 18: Understanding and Adapting to Climate Change (20 mins)

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kelsea Best

Climate change is among the world’s most urgent challenges, and it affects every person – make that every species – on Earth. Rising temperatures are fueling environmental crises, natural disasters, food and water insecurity, economic disruption, and increases in respiratory and infectious diseases. Assistant Prof. Kelsea Best’s research is focused on climate change, specifically how it interacts with human societies and infrastructure, how people may adapt to climate change effects, and how climate adaptation measures can be designed and implemented in a just and equitable way.


January 22, 2024: Ep. 17: Making Artificial Blood a Reality (8 mins)

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EP.17 Enginuity

On January 8th, The American Red Cross announced an emergency blood shortage as it experiences the lowest number of people giving blood in the last 20 years. Without a dramatic increase in blood donors, shortages will occur more often. That’s why Ohio Eminent Scholar Andre Palmer, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, has devoted his research lab to advancing viable artificial blood components.


November 7, 2023: Ep. 16: The M4 Lab, Where Engineering Meets Medicine (13 mins)

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Ayanna Howard speaks with Megan Malara in the podcast studio

In this episode, Dean Ayanna Howard chats with M4 Lab Director Megan Malara, who is also an Ohio State engineering alumna. The 4 Ms stand for Medical, Modeling, Materials and Manufacturing. It is one of the first residents of Ohio State’s spectacular Pelotonia Research Center on west campus. The engineers, physicians and students that work there leverage the power of additive manufacturing, better known as 3D printing, to improve – and in some cases, save – lives.


September 7, 2023: Ep. 15: Driving mobility innovation at TRC (16 mins)

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Dean Howard and Brett Roubinek in podcast studio

The Transportation Research Center (TRC), located on 45 hundred acres of land in East Liberty, Ohio, about 40 miles northwest of campus, is North America’s most advanced, independent mobility testing service provider, fulfilling the complex engineering, research, evaluation and testing needs of industries and governments worldwide. And it's closely affiliated with The Ohio State University College of Engineering. In this episode, Dean Ayanna Howard chats with Brett Roubinek, president and CEO of TRC.


June 8, 2023: Ep. 14: A new field of study: Imageomics (18 mins)

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Dean Ayanna Howard and Professor Tanya Berger-Wolf discuss imageomics in the podcast studio at The Ohio State University College of Engineering

A new field is forming at the intersection of computer science, wildlife biology and social sciences: Imageomics. With a $15 million grant from the National Science Foundation, Professor Tanya Berger-Wolf, director of the Translational Data Analytics Institute, is working with a team of researchers, scientists and students to leverage AI to lead a movement in wildlife conservation.


April 12, 2023: Ep. 13: Student entrepreneurs thrive at Ohio State (17 mins)

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Adithya Ramaswami, Ayanna Howard and Jack Murray smile at the camera on the fourth floor of Knowlton.

The President’s Buckeye Accelerator program at Ohio State supports students who launch startups, combining entrepreneurial skill building, deep mentorship, community building and funding with a structured process. Parawave, a startup formed by Engineering students Adithya Ramaswami and Jack Murray, was chosen as part of the program’s first-ever cohort. They join Dean Ayanna Howard to discuss launching a drone company while finishing their degrees.


February 13, 2023: Ep. 12: INTEL-ligent investments at Ohio State (19 mins)

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Ayanna Howard and Steve Rengel smile at the camera in the Engineering audio studio.

In January 2022, leaders from Intel announced a $20 billion investment in the construction of two new computer chip factories in central Ohio. And this past September, Intel awarded three grants to Ohio State – a combined $4.5 million – to prepare a highly skilled and diverse semiconductor industry workforce and to advance development of semiconductors and next-generation device technologies. Listen as Dean Ayanna Howard chats with Steve Ringel, Distinguished University Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, who also serves as executive director of Ohio State’s Institute for Materials Research, home of the new Center for Advancing Semiconductor Fabrication Research and Education.


January 10, 2023: Ep. 11: HAMMER: A Midwestern Manufacturing Revival (13 mins)

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Michael Groeber and Walter Hansen stand in a robotics lab with Dean Ayanna Howard and Professor Glenn Daehn.

Blending the agility of artisans and the reproducibility of machines, HAMMER, a brand new National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center, has the potential to create more robust local supply chains, lower manufacturing’s carbon footprint and create new economic opportunities.

Listen as Dean Ayanna Howard chats with HAMMER Director, Professor Glenn Daehn.

 

 

 


October 21, 2022: Ep. 10: Engineering a regenerative medicine breakthrough (16 mins)

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Professors Natalia Higuita Castro and Daniel Gallego Perez with Ayanna Howard

One of the most exciting developments in biotechnology is the emerging field of regenerative medicine. Our guests today are two Ohio State engineers advancing a technology called tissue nanotransfection that has the potential to drastically improve outcomes for patients battling chronic diseases and debilitating injuries.

Listen as Ayanna Howard, dean of the College of Engineering chats with Professors Natalia Higuita-Castro and Daniel Gallego-Perez about their cutting-edge research!


September 15, 2022: Ep. 9: HackOHI/O, the invention marathon (20 mins)

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Cal King, Dean Ayanna Howard and Adit Anup smile at the camera in Knowlton Hall.

HackOHI/O is a free, 24-hour hackathon that attracts over 800 participants for a full weekend of coding, learning, networking and innovation. The event is hosted by OHI/O, an Informal Learning Program dedicated to fostering tech culture at The Ohio State University.

This year, HackOHI/O is celebrating its 10th anniversary and has some exciting announcements. Dean Ayanna Howard chats with Cal King, Director of OHI/O and Student Co-Lead Adit Anup about how students benefit, how companies get involved and how much fun is had at the hackathon, happening October 8-9, 2022.


August 11, 2022: Enginuity Podcast Ep 8: Not your typical university airport (15 mins)

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Ayanna Howard, Dean of the College of Engineering and Stephanie Morgan,Executive Director of Air Transportation and the Aerospace Campus

While other universities own and operate airports, The Ohio State University Airport stands out for prioritizing education and research while providing exceptional service to its commercial and civil aviation clients.

In this episode, Dean Ayanna Howard chats with Stephanie Morgan, Executive Director of Air Transportation and the Aerospace Campus since 2019. Not only does Stephanie lead the business and operations of the airport, she’s also a veteran who attended the United States Military Academy and an instrument-rated private pilot who has a degree in aeronautical administration and an MBA. Among many honors, she was recently named a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society.

Tune in to hear all the exciting things happening in education, outreach and research at The Ohio State University Airport!


May 10, 2022: Enginuity Podcast Ep 7: Blazing New Trails in Mobility with the EcoCAR Team (15 mins)

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Colin Knight, Dean Ayanna Howard and Shaumya Jha

As the academic year wraps, Ohio State’s EcoCAR team heads out west for the final leg of the EcoCAR Mobility Challenge, a collegiate automotive engineering competition put on by the US Department of Energy. Dean Ayanna Howard connects with two of the leaders – Shaumya Jha and Colin Knight – of the team to talk about the challenge, what they’ve learned and how participating helps students prepare for life after graduation.

Sponsored by General Motors and MathWorks, schools participating in this competition each received a brand-new Chevy Blazer and were challenged to improve efficiency and connectivity. Provided with hardware and software resources, Ohio State Engineering students collaborated to come up with what might be the award-winning vehicle!

To learn more about the Ohio State EcoCAR team, follow them on Instagram or visit their website.
 


April 6, 2022: Smart Cities’ Promise and Problems (22 mins)

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The city of the future, we are told, is the smart city. By seamlessly integrating information and communication technologies into the provision and management of public services, such cities should enhance opportunity and bolster civic engagement. Smarter cities will bring in new revenue while saving money. They will be more of everything that a twenty-first century urban planner, citizen and elected official wants: more efficient, more sustainable and healthier. But will smart cities help us all be more inclusive? Will they end up positively helping or negatively amplifying existing inequities in our society? Will smart cities really live up to their potential?

Dean Ayanna Howard and Professor Jennifer Clark discuss Smart Cities

In this episode, Dean Ayanna Howard talks with Jennifer Clark, Professor and Head of the City and Regional Planning Section at the Knowlton School. She is also a Visiting Professor of City and Regional Planning at the University of Stavanger in Norway. She has provided expert testimony before the US Congress and policy advice to the Canadian, UK and US governments. Before joining the Knowlton School, Prof. Clark taught at Cornell and Georgia Tech.

In her most recent book, Uneven Innovation: The Work of Smart Cities, Professor Clark considers the potential of emerging “smart city” technologies as well as their capacity to exacerbate existing inequalities and even produce new ones. She reframes the smart city concept within the trajectory of uneven development of cities and regions, as well as the long history of technocratic solutions to urban policy challenges. She argues that urban change driven by the technology sector is following the patterns that have previously led to imbalanced access, opportunities and outcomes.


March 1, 2022: Democratizing AI (26 mins)

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Artificial intelligence (AI) is everywhere, but we can’t see it. More and more of us have heard about AI, but not many of us can explain it very well.

Dean Howard DK Panda Ness Shroff podcast recording

AI is showing up in new technology products and services across every industry. We are surrounded by AI, so we probably should all understand it better.

Dean Ayanna Howard, an artificial intelligence expert in her own right, discusses AI with the leaders of two NSF AI Institutes, Ohio State Engineering Professors DK Panda and Ness Shroff. They share their definitions of AI, outline the problems each AI Institute aims to solve and explain what “democratizing” AI means. And The Matrix comes up.

Professor DK Panda is a leader in the high performance computing world. He and his team developed supercomputing software libraries that are being used by more than 3,000 organizations in 89 countries. He recently received the IEEE Computer Society’s Charles Babbage Award. And, for the last few months he has been leading a National Science Foundation AI Institute, called ICICLE, working to build a cyberinfrastructure to make AI accessible to society.

Professor Ness Shroff is an IEEE Fellow and the Ohio Eminent Scholar of Networking and Communications. He is the editor-in-chief of the IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking journal and has earned numerous honors for his work including the prestigious IEEE INFOCOM Achievement Award. He too leads an NSF AI Institute, called AI-EDGE, to design the next generation of networks to optimize AI.

(Note: Dean Howard and Professors Panda and Shroff were wearing masks during the recording)


January 24, 2022: Breathing innovation into medical diagnostics (15 mins)

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Materials Science and Engineering Professor Perena Gouma joins Dean Ayanna Howard. She leads a team of Ohio State researchers developing a device capable of detecting viruses – including SARS-CoV-2 – with just a single exhaled breath. If you’ve had the distinct displeasure of a nasal swab test, you’re surely looking forward to a faster, easier, more comfortable test.

Dean Howard and Perena Gouma recording podcast

Professor Gouma’s research activities involve the synthesis and characterization of nanomaterials for bio and chemical sensors, as well as the development of artificial olfaction systems. She has established novel and highly successful programs on nanomedicine, with emphasis on the development of non-invasive breath and skin-based diagnostic tools. Her work has been featured in media outlets including NPR, The New York Times and WIRED, among many others.

In this episode, you’ll learn how she began applying nanotechnology to biomarker detection, why she believes more engineers should collaborate with physicians and how a February 2020 call from the White House spurred her team to focus on the looming pandemic.


Dec. 21, 2021: Can your clothes get smart? (19 mins)

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Dean Howard chats with Asimina Kiourti, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at The Ohio State University and an expert in bioelectromagnetics. She’s one of the researchers pushing boundaries in the emerging field of smart clothes and fabrics.

Ayanna Howard & Asimina Kiourti during podcast recording

Some smart clothes feature advanced textiles with interwoven circuitry and others implement sensors and additional hardware to give it high-tech functionality. While integration with your iPhone or Android could be considered a frivolous function, researchers and startups are developing smart clothes with important applications in healthcare, the military and high-performance athletics.

Listen and learn about Kiourti’s transformational research in wearable and implantable sensor technology that will undoubtedly lead to improvements in health outcomes and the lives of others. And hear her joyfully describe a fun program she recently launched to engage girls in STEM activities.


Nov. 17, 2021: Engineering solutions to back pain (29 mins)

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Lower back pain is the second most common reason people visit their physicians. It’s also the world’s leading cause of disability. Millions of people suffer from back pain. Many of them lose time at work. Many will be prescribed opioid painkillers and some will become dependent on them. In the U.S. alone, back pain accounts for more than 100 million annual lost workdays and $100 billion in treatment costs. That is as much as we spend fighting cancer.

Bill Marras and Dean Ayanna Howard record a podcast episode

From diagnosis to treatment, back pain remains a vexing problem for physicians. In this episode Dean Ayanna Howard speaks with Prof. Bill Marras, the executive director and scientific director of the Spine Research Institute (SRI) in Ohio State’s College of Engineering. He shares how at SRI researchers and practitioners from divergent fields apply their collective knowledge to solve what seems like an unsolvable problem. He tells Dean Howard how a systems engineer found himself researching back pain, why companies are interested in SRI’s expertise to prevent workplace injuries and how his team is helping tackle the opioid addiction epidemic that impacts so many families.

Interesting solutions happen at the intersection of disciplines. The work being done at the Spine Research Institute is an excellent example of this.


Oct. 18, 2021: The students who launched a clean energy company (22 mins)

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In the Knowlton Hall rooftop garden, College of Engineering Dean Ayanna Howard chats with computer science and engineering major Anita Nti and recent PhD graduate Danny Freudiger, co-founders of Electrion, an energy-storage-as-a-service startup.

Dean Howard with Anita Nti and Danny Freudiger
Dean Howard with Electrion Founders Anita Nti and Danny Freudiger

Startups and small businesses are vital for a thriving U.S. economy. And engineers possess the skills to launch companies and create jobs, so engineering students should be encouraged and nurtured to have an entrepreneurial mindset. The development of the Innovation District on Ohio State’s West Campus and a recently announced partnership with the State of Ohio will help Ohio State prepare more engineers to be entrepreneurs… or, “engipreneurs”. And sometimes students need role models and to see other students that are flexing their entrepreneurial muscles. In this episode, we highlight one group that is definitely flexing in the energy space. Last year, four Buckeye student engineers launched Electrion. They’re attracting media coverage and they recently received an initial venture capital investment. Learn how the Electrion team met, what “sparked” their startup idea, what it’s like being an entrepreneur while being an engineering student, how Ohio State football tailgates are involved and more.



 

Past Episodes

January 22, 2024:
Ep. 17: Making Artificial Blood a Reality (8 mins)

on Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | YouTube


November 7, 2023:
Ep. 16: The M4 Lab, Where Engineering Meets Medicine (13 mins)

on Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | YouTube


September 7, 2023:
Ep. 15: Driving mobility innovation at TRC (16 mins)

on Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | YouTube


June 8, 2023:
Ep. 14: A new field of study: Imageomics (18 mins)

on Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | YouTube


April 12, 2023:
Ep. 13: Student entrepreneurs thrive at Ohio State (17 mins)

on Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | YouTube


February 13, 2023:
Ep. 12: INTEL-ligent investments at Ohio State

on Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | YouTube


January 10, 2023:
Ep. 11: HAMMER: A Midwestern Manufacturing Revival

on Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | YouTube


October 21, 2022:
Ep. 10: Engineering a regenerative medicine breakthrough

on Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | YouTube


September 15, 2022:
Ep. 9: HackOHI/O, the invention marathon

on Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | YouTube


August 11, 2022:
Ep 8, Not your typical university airport

on Apple Podcasts |  Stitcher | YouTube


May 10, 2022:
Ep 7, Blazing New Trails in Mobility with the EcoCAR Team

on Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | YouTube


April 6, 2022
Ep 6, Smart Cities’ Promise and Problems

on Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | YouTube


March 1, 2022
Ep 5, Democratizing AI

on Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | YouTube


Jan. 24, 2022
Ep 4, Breathing innovation into medical diagnostics

on Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | YouTube 


Dec. 21, 2021
Ep 3, Can your clothes get smart?

on Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | YouTube


Nov. 17, 2021
Ep 2, Engineering solutions to back pain

on Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | YouTube


Oct. 18, 2021
Ep 1, The students who launched a clean energy company

on Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | YouTube