Recent natural disasters, such as the 2005 Hurricane Katrina and the 2011 Tohoku Tsunami, have increased focus on the resilient design of coastal communities to these devastating large-scale hydraulic events. The loads from these events can be separated into hydraulic and debris loads. Debris loads, in particular, are difficult to evaluate in the field and […]

Improving the durability of superhydrophobic surfaces is of significant interest in the surface engineering community. We have recently developed a novel superhydrophobic coating with a hard nanocrystalline nickel matrix and embedded hydrophobic polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) particles. To further improve the mechanical robustness of the non-wetting coating, the soft polymeric PTFE particles were replaced with hard, hydrophobic […]

Circadian rhythms are processes which allows animals to regulate their physiology based on time of day. These rhythms are controlled by the circadian clock, a group of transcription factors that form a feedback loop. Over 40% of the genome is transcribed rhythmically, implicating the clock in many physiological processes. The cell cycle is another process […]

The most critical region for winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) winter survival is the crown. Exposure to different environmental cues during cold acclimation improves the crown’s resistance to freezing. This key fact is not taken into account in the design of controlled environment experiments and may not reflect actual mechanisms of cold hardiness in the […]

The proposed research seeks to examine and constrain possible theoretical extensions of the Standard Model of particle physics (SM). The SM is a theory which successfully describes almost all known particle interactions. With the discovery of the Higgs boson, which is responsible for the mass of elementary particles via electroweak symmetry breaking (EWSB), all the […]

A plants’ ability to withstand chilling and frost damage will dictate the geography in which production can occur. Global warming is predicted to increase chilling and frost injury in crops. It is important to note that frost injury is one of the key factors limiting production. In corn, chilling injury is an ongoing constraint for […]

Erythropoietin is a protein with attached sugars that stimulates the production of red blood cells. As such, it can be used by athletes to enhance their competitive performance, an act that is called doping. Erythropoietin that us used for doping is typically produced in animal cells, which functionalize the protein with sugars that differ from […]

Polymorphs are solid compounds that can take on various forms. Since polymorphs of the same type of material normally exhibit different physical properties, it is very important that polymorphs be known so that useful forms of materials can be consistently controlled in the production process. This project will look at improving pharmaceuticals by finding more […]

Our laboratory has developed an improved model of large scale offshore wind turbines systems for controller design. This model captures all the important dynamics involved in the system such as the 3 dimensional motion, wave disturbance and wind effects, allowing to design advanced control techniques to enhance the efficacy of the wind turbines and increase […]

Rheology is the branch of physics that deals with the deformation and flow of matter, especially the non-Newtonian flow of liquids and the plastic flow of solids, which is very important in the foaming process. Currently, the rheology of a pure polymer is mainly used to characterize the foamability of polymers. However, the processing conditions, […]

My Master’s thesis will investigate how ethnic minority livelihoods, specifically those of ethnic minority Hmong (Miao) , have changed in rural Southwestern China over the last 20 years. Hmong communities have traditionally made their livelihoods around household based semi-subsistence agricultural production, based primarily on rice or maize. However, new state policies, technologies, and opportunities are […]

A previous mathematical model of an offshore wind turbine was established and then, a positional controller was designed and simulated for a single Wind Turbine in order to provide movement around an area using the force of air that acts on the wind turbine. The goal of my research project is to validate this Position […]