Faculty and Undergraduate Student Research Database

As a rising star, perovskite-based photovoltaics have been demonstrated to be the most promising solar technology for low-cost mass production through high-speed printing. The certified champion power-conversion efficiency (PCE) of perovskite solar cells (PVSCs) has been boosted to 25.7%, which is on par with the best performance of dominating silicon solar cells. However, PVSCs still must overcome a few obstacles before becoming economically competitive in the photovoltaic market. The primary challenges include instability causing reduction in lifetimes and lengthy annealing times limiting the mass production. In this project, undergraduate students research fellow will work with graduate students and postdoctoral research fellows to explo...

MOTIVATED, CURIOUS STUDENTS SOUGHT Multiple positions available on a paid, course credit, or volunteer basis for students interested in getting involved in a multi-disciplinary research project relating to human gesture and activity recognition technologies using radar. No prior radar experience required. Depending on student interests and background, specific role in project will be designed and level of responsibility determined. Potential topics include - programming and experimentation with a variety of software defined radio platforms - human kinematic modeling and skeleton tracking using multiple Kinect sensors - machine learning algorithm development for activity and gesture recognition - radar signal processing and radar...

Student can get involved in the following aspects of the project: 1. Development of novel radiation detectors optimized for the magnetic monopole searches. 2. Monte Carlo simulation and data analysis to support the current and planned searches for magnetic monopoles and other particles beyond the Standard Model of physics....

There are multiple projects that deal with interfacing of sensors to microcontrollers (MSP430, STM32). Skills in hardware and software interfacing are needed. These skills may include: microcontroller programming, PCB design, 3D design, sensor prototyping, smartphone programming, etc. Some of the projects may be taken for class credit in the research scholars program, some are paid positions. The paid positions typically are on time cards, but do not pay for time, but rather for the final result. Previous projects like this resulted in students writing papers and presenting them at various conferences. One project took the second place at student paper competition at IEEE Southeastcon, another took 3rd place (and a $5000 award) at TI Innov...

Designing new environmentally friendly and cheap materials for practical applications is one of the main challenges of our century. This process is however very slow because synthesizing and testing new materials take time and have considerable cost. Computational methods provide an alternative method to screen materials faster and circumvent the costly and slow experimental trial-and-error approach. In this research area, machine learning-based methods have emerged as flexible tools recently to predict the properties of hitherto unknown materials based on previously known information. The Szilvasi group is working on developing databases and machine learning-based workflows to design new materials in the area of catalysis, energy storage, ...

We have a number of occasional paid tasks associated with research. This is a good opportunity to develop design skills. The availability and selection of tasks varies from time time to time. Examples include: - software design: microcontroller programming, Bluetooth stack design, Java/Javascript - electronic design: sensor design, FPGA programming - 3D design: enclosure design and prototyping - manufacturing tasks, assembly - assistance with conducting human experiments and annotation of data...

The position is about developing deep learning tools to analyze geosocial media data for various applications, such as earth science, disaster management, and transportation. Required skills: 1. Strong Python programming skills 2. Have taken the class on statistics and probability 3. Being Self-motivated 4. Good time management and be a team player Preferred skills: 1. Knowledge in deep learning and tensorflow 2. Knowledge in machine learning or data science...

Catalysis is used to produce most chemicals worldwide. Thus, optimization of catalysts is relevant for both economic and environmental reasons. The ever-increasing computational power has led to the rise of computational research in catalysis that has been one of the main developments of the previous decades in the field. Computations have helped understanding chemical bonding, assign spectroscopic features, and explore reaction mechanisms among others. Regarding this latter, identifying rate-determining steps and analyzing critical chemical interactions have become standard tools to understand catalytic reactions and design more active, selective, and/or stable catalysts. As such, the Szilvasi group is interested in using computational met...

We have several projects that deal with development and testing of biomedical instrumentation. Depending on the project, the students may participate in several related research activities: 1) Sensor design, manufacture and testing. Practical hands-on tasks that often need 3D design skills, working with plastics, resins and other materials. 2) Signal processing and pattern recognition of signals collected by our sensors. The sensors are used in the human studies and the collected data need to be processed to recognize events of interest in the sensor data. Either direction can be used as a credit in research scholars program or for conference paper preparation....

Dr. Cheng is looking for motivated undergraduate students to join his group. The students will participate in several projects funded by NSF, GLPF and UA. As an example, his group is developing new implantable material, sensors and machine learning algorithms in order to remotely monitor people with disabilities. The students should be familiar with engineering principles, programming and problem solving....