Featured Projects

Ushering in Hypersonic Flight

Two new high-speed wind tunnels in the College will help aerospace and mechanical engineering assistant professor Alex Craig identify problems of instability and materials failure in aircraft and missiles flying at Mach 5 and above.

Sidelining Hackers and Snoops

Salim Hariri is creating tools to track hackers and destroy their communications infrastructures. Fellow researchers are developing dynamic maps to visualize suspicious activity on computer networks and signature-free wireless transmissions to protect users from eavesdroppers.

Automating Border Control

Young-Jun Son, professor and head of systems and industrial engineering, and his team are designing an autonomous border-surveillance system to collect, assess and act on data in real time – and deploy drones that communicate with one another.

Getting Digital Data to Doctors

With $1.3 million and a top-priority ranking from the National Institutes of Health, Ali Bilgin and his co-PI Regents’ Professor Michael Marcellin, co-inventor of JPEG2000, are developing data compression software to make biomedical big data universally available.

Putting Genome Sequencing into Practice

Using ‘shotgun sequencing’ to study how microbial communities work together to influence biological processes in the environment and our bodies, metagenomic researcher Bonnie Hurwitz aims to help doctors quickly provide personalized treatment.

Making Rapid, Disposable Blood Tests

Professor Linda Powers, who has developed hand-held sensors to detect microbes and contaminants in air, soil and water, and her student research team are developing rapid, disposable blood tests for diseases such as HIV and hepatitis.

Testing Wearable Sensors for Seniors

Biomedical engineers and clinicians at the University of Arizona are developing devices that reduce risk of falling and increase quality of life for older adults with balance and mobility issues.

Ensuring Structural Safety

A multi-university team led by professor Robert Fleischman is turning its attention to steel collectors in concrete floor slabs or beams below them, which are responsible for horizontally transferring seismic forces, to help design earthquake-resistant buildings.

Delivering Water to the Navajo Nation

Professors Bob Arnold and Vicky Karanikola and their team partnered with Apex Applied Technology to build a solar-powered, water-purification system into a refurbished, operational school bus for a water-scarce Navajo community.

Getting Cars to Talk

Research and field tests overseen by professor Larry Head, Interim Dean of the College, are moving the infrastructure for vehicle-to-vehicle communication, technology that can reduce crashes and save lives, closer and closer to urban roadways.

Advancing Low-Cost Solar Power

A multi-university team, supported by a $7 million DOE award and led by Peiwen “Perry” Li is working to achieve higher temperatures in molten salt transfer fluids for concentrated solar thermal power systems.

Building Computers of the Future

Professor Pierre Deymier and his team are working to build a quantum computer that uses sound instead of quantum particles. Phonon-based computing could give way to more powerful computing for artificial intelligence, cryptography and big data analysis.

Making Semiconductors Safely

For nearly 20 years, the Engineering Research Center for Environmentally Benign Semiconductor Manufacturing, founded by Regents’ Professor Farhang Shadman, has been finding safer, more efficient ways to manufacture semiconductors.

Taking Space Testing to the Source

Professor Kelly Simmons Potter and students in her lab have published several papers on how their fiber optics fared in space aboard MISSE-7. Colleague Erica Corral tests ceramic and composite materials destined for extreme environments in an oven that reaches 2000 degrees Celsius but never gets hot to the touch.

Research Centers and Institutes

Arizona Materials Laboratory
The AML hosts a large array of equipment needed for research in materials science and engineering. This equipment is also available to the scientific community and industry.

Director: Pierre Deymier
520.621.6080

Arizona Research Institute for Solar Energy
AzRISE is a response to the challenge of planning for large-scale, affordable solar energy power generation and training the workforce that will make the transition possible. Research goals include identifying, funding and coordinating Arizona-specific solar energy research opportunities, developing intellectual property and promoting development and widespread adoption of solar energy.

Director: Kelly Simmons Potter
520.626.0525 

Broadband Wireless Access and Applications Center
BWAC researchers are developing technology and standards to overcome challenges associated with user access and spectrum ability to support the tremendous growth in wireless data traffic.

Director: Marwan Krunz
520.621.8731  

Co-director: Tamal Bose
520.621.6193

Nano Fabrication and Processing Center
Several advanced research projects are underway in the Nano Fabrication and Processing laboratory, including research projects supported by the National Science Foundation, Sematech, and private sponsors. The Center for Micro Contamination Control and the Center for Benign Semiconductor Manufacturing also conduct major research in the laboratory.

Director: Omid Mahdavi
520.621.9849

Lowell Institute for Mineral Resources
Recognizing that the sustainable development of mineral resources is fundamental to the prosperity of the United States in the next century, the IMR fosters and expands the USGS-university-private partnerships to undertake mineral resource scientific research and inventories.

Director: Mary Poulton
520.621.8391

NSF/UA Cloud and Autonomic Computing Center
CAC’s research is focused on cloud computing systems and applications and the use of autonomic computing methods for the management of these and other IT systems.

Co-director: Salim Hariri
520.621.4278

Co-director: Ali Akoglu
520.626.5149

SRC Engineering Research Center for Environmentally Benign Semiconductor Manufacturing
Work in the SRC Engineering Research Center focuses on studies in the areas of ultrapure water, water recycling, plasma processes, wet chemicals, chemical-mechanical polishing and risk assessment to reduce the environmental impact of semiconductor manufacturing.

Director: Farhang Shadman
520.621.6051

University Spectroscopy and Imaging Facilities
USIF is dedicated to the acquisition and analysis of images for life and physical science research and commercial applications. It provides access to multiuser equipment and the knowledge and skills necessary to assist investigators in academia, industry and at public and private institutions as well as students in use of the technology. 

Director: Brooke Beam Massani
520.621.3395