Pitt Swanson School of Engineering

Nathan Youngblood, an assistant professor in the engineering department at the University of Pittsburgh, works on reconfigurable or phase-change photonics, taking optical components like lenses or mirrors and making them switch between two states. When working with a startup called Bodle on color-changing technology displays, he and his coresearchers thought, If you can use a thin coating on something like a piece of glass to switch it between two different colors, can you also switch between two different states of reflection for infrared light?

"The major innovation is that these windows can change according to seasonal needs," explained Nathan Youngblood, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Pitt and first author. "They absorb near infrared light from the sun in the winter and turn it into heat for the inside of a building. In the summer months, the sun can be reflected instead of absorbed."

NPR's State Impact Pennsylvania features Vikas Khanna's work modeling the world plastics trade and its environmental impact.

"One of the reasons why this is so important is because when you look at issues related to climate change, one of the things that we think about is the consumption of all the goods that we as consumers buy on a daily basis. And not only that consumption, but where the waste happens," said Melissa Bilec, co-director at the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation.

“At our current rate of plastic waste generation, increasing waste management capacity will not be sufficient to reach plastic pollution goals alone,” said Vikas Khanna, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering. “There is an urgent need to take actions like limiting global virgin plastic production from fossil fuels and designing products and packaging for recyclability.”

ChemEurope reports on Mohammad Masnadi's research, which models the relationship between carbon impacts and market factors in the oil industry.

Pittsburgh-based ALung Technologies Inc. has received clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its premiere product, the Hemolung Respiratory Assist System, which helps patients with acute respiratory distress. The de novo review determined that the benefits of the medical device, developed out of Pitt, outweighs any risks.

“If there's a crisis in the [battery-production] supply chain, like we are seeing now, we are stuck,” said Prashant N. Kumta, the Edward R. Weidlein Chair Professor. For the U.S. to ensure its own fate in the battery market, researchers and manufacturers will need to make “critical breakthroughs” in several areas, including “dry manufacturing” and energy density, particularly when producing lithium-ion batteries for electric cars.

Recognized by Jason A. Scott last year as one of 30 U.S. black founders to watch in 2021, Berrien was one of 50 companies to receive a $100,000 Black Founders Fund award from Google for Startups. She participated in Google Startups for Women, which she completed last December, and has raised $2 million-plus in funds.

MEMS Alumnus and Optimus Technologies, Inc. co-founder Colin Huwyler BSMechE '15 wins the Pittsburgh Technology Council #Tech50 Innovator of the Year: Solutions Provider – Innovative Tech Award.

With transportation the top source of U.S. emissions, Pitt Engineering alumnus Harold Rickenbacker PhD '19 has worked on local air monitoring and teamed with Ikea on electric truck deliveries

A new perspectives piece co-authored by Carnegie Mellon University and University of Pittsburgh researchers relates machine learning to biological learning, showing that the two approaches aren’t interchangeable, yet can be harnessed to offer valuable insights into how the brain works.

A Greater Latrobe alumna has gained recognition for founding a 100% woman-­­owned company that is helping the Air Force update its maintenance process. Milissa Pavlik, a member of the Class of 1993 at GL and Chemical Engineering alumna (BSChE '97), has 25 years of experience in Department of Defense contracting. Drawing upon that background, she founded PavCon in 2012, began working with the Air Force three years later and landed a contract with the military branch in 2018.

Aleksandar Stevanovic, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at University of Pittsburgh, said simulations show AI could smooth traffic flow. But he questioned whether a tech company without traffic engineering expertise ultimately could bring such software to reality.

Over 15 million infants around the world are born prematurely each year and can experience health complications and lengthy hospitalizations as a result of underdevelopment and immature immune systems. But for babies whose mothers may be unable to produce milk due to their baby’s premature birth, or have health conditions or medications that preclude breastfeeding, and a physician recommends breast milk as the preferred choice for those infants’ needs, what are the options? Lisa Maillart and a team of researchers partnered with the largest donor milk bank in the U.S. to help improve their existing systems and processes and realize significant outcomes. Their work will be featured in an upcoming edition of the INFORMS journal Service Science.

"It is critical to prioritize our efforts so as not to be overwhelmed by the magnitude of the problem," said Dr. Carla Ng, a researcher at the University of Pittsburgh and lead author of the study, in a statement. "This paper identifies where focus is needed to effectively minimize environmental and human exposure to PFAS."

The lack of PFAS regulations in Pennsylvania is part of a larger problem of inadequate regulations locally, nationally and internationally, according to a paper published Tuesday in Environmental Science and Technology by University of Pittsburgh PFAS scientist Carla Ng.

The Swanson School of Engineering hosted its annual blood drive on Tuesday in partnership with Vitalant, a nonprofit blood donation organization that supplies blood to nearly 900 hospitals across the United States.

A team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh have shown for the first time that people are not the only primates that choke under pressure.

InsideEVs recaps electric vehicle news, leading with the Swanson School of Engineering's project with Powdermet to create motors for electric vehicles that avoid using rare-earth minerals.

A team of scientists recently published a paper suggesting that at least three rhesus monkeys will, in fact, choke under pressure. The authors told Ars that this lapse in performance is almost certainly true of all rhesus monkeys—and quite possibly other primates as well.

Monkeys ‘choke under pressure’ just like humans, according to a study into their performance, and it is more likely when the rewards for their actions are higher.

Research from Chris Wilmer's Hypothetical Materials Lab leads this story in Innovators about e-waste's role in a circular economy.

Researchers from UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh aim to use the ISS U.S. National Laboratory (ISSNL) to conduct biomedical research not possible on Earth and advance space-based biomanufacturing.