Four University of Alabama engineering faculty recently received a prestigious national award for early-career research that will advance knowledge and enhance the educational experience.
The NSF CAREER Award honors researchers who push the boundaries of science, engineering and technology and who demonstrate leadership in education or community outreach. These awards provide funding for ground-breaking research, fostering innovation in science and technology and enhancing the connection between fundamental research and national priorities.
These awards are given by the NSF Faculty Early Career Development Program, which supports early-career faculty who show leadership in integrating research and education at their institutions.
Dr. Lina Pu
Department of computer science
Communicating underwater is much more difficult than communicating through the air. Radio waves, which are transmitted easily through air, attenuate very quickly when they touch water. Thus, underwater systems typically rely on acoustic communication, using sound waves to carry information, which has enabled long-range underwater communication.
However, because sound waves travel much slower underwater than through air and have a limited bandwidth, it is difficult for underwater robots, vehicles and sensors to communicate reliably.
Pu’s CAREER Award will support research into a new underwater communication development called underwater acoustic reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (UA-RIS), which are special panels that can control how sound waves reflect in water, enabling them to travel farther and carry more information.
Pu’s goal is to build the scientific foundation for smarter underwater communication and sensing systems that could impact ocean research, environmental monitoring, offshore infrastructure inspection and maritime security.
“This award gives us the chance to lay the groundwork for a new generation of underwater communication technology and to share what we learn openly with the field,” Pu said.
Dr. Zhongyang Wang
Department of chemical and biological engineering
Hydrogen is a critical element to numerous systems on earth, including long-term energy storage and the production of ammonia, which is used in synthetic fertilizers that support the global food supply.
Although hydrogen is one of the most abundant elements on Earth, it does not exist on its own in nature. Hydrogen is produced by water electrolysis, using electricity to split water into hydrogen gas and oxygen gas.
Wang’s CAREER Award will support research to manage a critical bottleneck in advancing anion exchange membranes for high-performance anion exchange membrane water electrolysis. The key innovation in Wang’s work is the development of a new copolymer platform that has the potential to decouple and optimize conflicting properties within a single material system.
Innovations in hydrogen production can eventually offer a cleaner, more cost-effective process, a development that could improve national energy security, environmental sustainability and the resilience of the global food system.
“This NSF CAREER Award provides our group with a unique opportunity to investigate polymer chemistries and structures that govern ion-conducting polymer properties for electrolysis and energy applications,” Wang said. “The five-year support allows us to pursue high-risk, high-impact research directions while simultaneously building educational activities in polymer science across multiple levels.”
Dr. Pan Zhao
Department of aerospace engineering and mechanics
Autonomous system technologies such as self-driving cars, autonomous spacecraft and delivery drones have the potential to transform the transportation, environmental monitoring, disaster response and space exploration industries. However, ensuring that they can safely operate in uncertain conditions, such as strong winds, gravitational changes and system damage, remains a major challenge for scientists and engineers.
Zhao’s research supported by the NSF CAREER Award aims to develop mathematic and computational frameworks that enable autonomous systems to operate under uncertainty while maintaining provable safety and performance guarantees. Using control theory and machine learning, Zhao aims to develop scalable and reliable control methods for high-dimensional autonomous systems.
“This award provides an exciting opportunity to advance foundational research at the intersection of control theory and machine learning while supporting the training of students in autonomous systems and aerospace engineering,” Zhao said. “I believe this recognition also reflects the strong research environment and supportive culture within our department and the Styslinger College of Engineering.”
Dr. Tianjiao Lei
Department of metallurgical and materials engineering
Grain boundaries can be thought of as the seams between microscopic crystals which make up a material. These boundaries control how things move and interact across a material; they strongly influence how electrons, ions, heat, stress and chemicals cross and interact at interfaces.
By combining state-of-the-art characterization techniques with innovative interface engineering approaches, Lei’s project aims to reveal how variations in grain boundary chemistry affect boundary structure and precipitation behavior, which ultimately determine key material properties, such as strength, ductility and long-term reliability. The research will establish new fundamental knowledge to enable more precise design of next-generation aluminum alloys with improved performance and will contribute to an open-access interface database to accelerate materials discovery.
“This award recognizes the potential of my long-term vision in interface engineering and provides an exciting opportunity to advance fundamental research,” Lei said. “I also believe that this award will strengthen the department of metallurgical and materials engineering’s leadership in advanced structural materials research, expand opportunities for student training and enhance our national research impact.”
