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Columbia University researchers report the use of SRS microscopy, a technique widely used in biomedical studies, to explore the mechanism behind dendrite growth in lithium batteries, the first team of material scientists to directly observe ion transport in electrolytes. They were able to see not only why lithium dendrites form but also how to inhibit their growth. Visualizing ion movement could help improve the performance of electrochemical devices, from batteries to fuel cells to sensors.

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New research from Columbia Engineering Professor Pierre Gentine demonstrates that machine-learning techniques can be used to accurately represent clouds and their atmospheric heating and moistening, and better represent clouds in coarse resolution climate models, with the potential to narrow the range of climate prediction. This could be a major advance in accurate predictions of global warming in response to increased greenhouse gas concentrations that are essential for policy-makers (e.g. the Paris climate agreement).

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Columbia Engineers have discovered a new fundamental feature of brain oscillations: they actually move rhythmically across the brain, reflecting patterns of neuronal activity that propagate across the cortex. The researchers also found that the traveling waves moved more reliably when subjects performed well while performing a working memory task, indicating traveling waves are important for memory and cognition: the waves play a significant role in supporting brain connectivity.

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Researchers have synthesized the first molecule capable of insulating at the nanometer scale more effectively than a vacuum barrier. The team’s insight was to exploit the wave nature of electrons. By designing an extremely rigid silicon-based molecule under 1 nm in length that exhibited comprehensive destructive interference signatures, they devised a novel technique for blocking tunnelling conduction. This new design principle has the potential to support continued miniaturization of classic transistors in the near term.

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A new Columbia Engineering study shows that photosynthesis in tall Amazonian forests--forests above 30m--is 3x less sensitive to precipitation variability than in shorter forests of less than 20m. Taller Amazonian forests were also found to be older, have more biomass and deeper rooting systems that enable them to access deeper soil moisture, making them more resilient to drought. The findings suggest that forest height + age are an important regulator of photosynthesis in response to droughts.

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Columbia Engineers have developed a non-invasive approach to permanently correct vision that shows great promise in preclinical models. The method uses a femtosecond oscillator for selective and localized alteration of the biochemical and biomechanical properties of corneal tissue. The technique, which changes the tissue’s macroscopic geometry, is non-surgical and has fewer side effects and limitations than those seen in refractive surgeries. The study could lead to treatment for myopia, hyperopia, astigmatism, and irregular astigmatism.

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Columbia investigators have made a major breakthrough in nanophotonics research, with their invention of a novel “home-built” cryogenic near-field optical microscope that has enabled them to directly image, for the first time, the propagation and dynamics of graphene plasmons at variable temperatures down to negative 250 degrees Celsius. If researchers can harness this nanolight, they will be able to improve sensing, subwavelength waveguiding, and optical transmission of signals.

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Researchers at Columbia Engineering have demonstrated, for the first time, a chip-based dual-comb spectrometer in the mid-infrared range, that requires no moving parts and can acquire spectra in less than 2 microseconds. The system, which consists of two mutually coherent, low-noise, microresonator-based frequency combs spanning 2600 nm to 4100 nm, could lead to the development of a spectroscopy lab-on-a-chip for real-time sensing on the nanosecond time scale.

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In exploring the optical properties of the Madagascar comet moth’s cocoon fibers, Columbia Engineering team discovers the fibers’ exceptional capabilities to reflect sunlight and to transmit optical signals and images, and develops methods to spin artificial fibers mimicking the natural fibers’ nanostructures and optical properties

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Columbia Engineering computer scientists invent FontCode, a way to embed hidden information in ordinary text by imperceptibly changing the shapes of fonts in text. The hidden information persists even when documents or images with perturbed texts are printed or converted to another file type. Method could prevent document tampering, protect copyrights, as well as embed QR codes and other metadata without altering the look or layout of a document.

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A new study reveals the geometric underpinnings of T-cell triggering through the precise engineering of T-cell receptor geometry in all three dimensions. The researchers used nanofabrication to create a biomimetic surface that simulates the key features of the APC, presenting T-cell receptor ligands in different geometric arrangements, with different inter-ligand spacings arranged in clusters of varying size. The results could have a significant impact on adoptive immunotherapy and the design of CAR T cells.

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A team led by Columbia University Biomedical Engineering Professor Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic has designed a creative new approach to help injured hearts regenerate by applying extracellular vesicles secreted by cardiomyocytes rather than implanting the cells. The study shows that the cardiomyocytes derived from human pluripotent stem cells (derived in turn from a small sample of blood) could be a powerful, untapped source of therapeutic microvesicles that could lead to safe and effective treatments of damaged hearts.

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Five Columbia Engineering professors have won the National Science Foundation’s prestigious Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) awards this year. The grants, each totaling $500,000 over five years, are among the most competitive given by the NSF.

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Columbia Engineering researchers have invented a new Robotic Spine Exoskeleton, a dynamic spine brace that enabled them to conduct the first study that looks at in vivo measurements of torso stiffness and characterizes the three-dimensional stiffness of the human torso. This device may solve current bracing limitations and lead to new treatments for children with spine deformities such as idiopathic scoliosis and kyphosis.

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Researchers have developed a radically new approach to growing in the lab adult-like human heart muscle from human induced pluripotent stem cells in only four weeks. They compressed the development timeframe into a faster, more complete transition to cardiac maturity than any other team has done so far. They formed cardiac tissues from early-stage iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes, soon after the initiation of spontaneous contractions, by subjecting the cells encapsulated in hydrogel to increasingly intense physical conditioning.

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Columbia Engineering researchers have found that vegetation plays a dominant role in Earth’s water cycle, that plants will regulate and dominate the increasing stress placed on continental water resources in the future. “This could be a real game-changer for understanding changes in continental water stress going into the future,” says Prof. Pierre Gentine. In this paper, he demonstrates vegetation’s key role in responding to rising CO2 levels and shows how plants will regulate future dryness.

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Computer Scientist Brian A. Smith has developed the RADa racing auditory displayto enable visually impaired gamers play the same types of racing games that sighted players play with the same speed, control, and excitement as sighted players. Developers can integrate the audio-based interface, which a player can listen to using a standard pair of headphones, into almost any racing video game, making a popular genre of games equally accessible to people who are blind.

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Columbia Engineers are the first to miniaturize dual-frequency combs by putting two frequency comb generators on a single millimeter-sized silicon-based chip. This could lead to low-cost, portable sensing and spectroscopy in the field in real-time. “This is the first time a dual comb has been generated on a single chip using a single laser,” says Electrical Engineering Prof. Michal Lipson who led the team with Applied Physics Prof. Alexander Gaeta. (Science Advances)

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A new optical imaging system developed at Columbia University uses red and near-infrared light to identify breast cancer patients who will respond to chemotherapy. The imaging system may be able to predict response to chemotherapy as early as two weeks after beginning treatment. Findings from a first pilot study of the new imaging system—a noninvasive method of measuring blood flow dynamics in response to a single breath hold—were published today in Radiology.

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Thanks to a DARPA grant, Columbia Engineers are working with colleagues at Stanford, UMass Amherst, and Trex Enterprises Corporation to develop a revolutionary lightweight glass that is able to dynamically monitor the wearer’s vision and display contextual images that are vision-corrected. “We are creating a game-changer, a completely novel glass design that enables high resolution projection and detection of light with no moving parts,” says Electrical Engineering Prof. Michal Lipson, who is leading the team.

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Columbia Engineering researchers have developed a prototype of a high-performance flexible lithium-ion battery that demonstratesconcurrentlyboth good flexibility and high energy density. The battery is shaped like the human spine and allows remarkable flexibility, high energy density, and stable voltage no matter how it is flexed or twisted. The device could help advance applications for wearable electronics. (Advanced Materials.)

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Columbia Engineering announces a $10 million grant from the Blavatnik Family Foundation to fund innovative research at the intersection of engineering and health and to expedite the development, application, and commercialization of breakthrough discoveries. The gift supports The Blavatnik Fund for Engineering Innovations in Health, which will invest in attracting graduate student talent, promote early-stage interdisciplinary research, and accelerate the translation of research from the laboratory to applications in the marketplace to improve people’s lives.

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Columbia biomedical engineers design a new, biomaterials-based system that takes a soft approach to improving cell manufacturing and may bring new hope to cancer patients for T-cell therapy.

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The NYC Health Department announced that since 2012, 10 outbreaks of foodborne illness were identified through a computer system jointly created with Columbia University’s Department of Computer Science. Launched in 2012, the computer system tracks foodborne illnesses based on certain keywords that appear in Yelp restaurant reviews. This strategy has helped Health Department staff identify approximately 1,500 complaints of foodborne illness in New York City each year, for a total of 8,523 since July 2012.

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Sunil Agrawal, professor of mechanical engineering and of rehabilitation and regenerative medicine at Columbia Engineering, working with Movement Disorders faculty from the department of neurology at Columbia University Medical Center, find that a single session of perturbation-based training, using their Tethered Pelvic Assist Device, increased stability of patients during walking while exposed to unexpected perturbations. (Scientific Reports)

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Chemical Engineering Prof Daniel Esposito has developed a novel photovoltaic-powered electrolysis device that can operate as a stand-alone platform that floats on open water. His floating PV-electrolyzer can be thought of as a “solar fuels rig” that bears some resemblance to deep-sea oil rigs--but it would produce hydrogen fuel from sunlight and water instead of extracting petroleum from beneath the sea floor. (International Journal of Hydrogen Energy)

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Researchers at Columbia Engineering, experts at manipulating matter at the nanoscale, have made an important breakthrough in physics and materials science, recently reported in Nature Nanotechnology. Working with colleagues from Princeton and Purdue Universities and Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, the team has engineered “artificial graphene” by recreating, for the first time, the electronic structure of graphene in a semiconductor device.

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Qiang Du, the Fu Foundation Professor of Applied Mathematics, has been elected a 2017 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for his “distinguished contributions to the field of applied and computational mathematics, particularly for theoretical analysis and numerical simulations of mathematical models in various applications.”

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A Columbia team has definitively observed an intensely studied anomaly in condensed matter physics—the even-denominator fractional quantum Hall  state—via transport measurement in bilayer graphene. “Observing the 5/2 state in any system is a remarkable scientific opportunity, since it encompasses some of the most perplexing concepts in modern condensed matter physics, such as emergence, quasi-particle formation, quantization, and even superconductivity …[It may have] great potential for real-world applications, particularly in quantum computing.” (Science)

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Researchers at Columbia Engineering and UT-Austin continue to break new ground in developing magnet-free non-reciprocal components in modern semiconductor processes. They have built the first magnet-free non-reciprocal circulator on a silicon chip that operates at millimeter-wave frequencies, enabling circulators to be built in conventional semiconductor chips and operate at millimeter-wave frequencies, enabling full-duplex or two-way wireless. (Nature Communications)

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.With so many hurricanes ravaging the Caribbean and the southern U.S., it has become clear that addressing threats to infrastructure is critical to keeping our communities safe, functional, and healthy. Storm surge has emerged as one of the most destructive forces on infrastructure, especially interconnected structures in cities. To address this issue, Columbia Engineering researchers recently won a NSF grant to study storm surge threats to New York City infrastructure.

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Researchers at Columbia Engineering have developed a 3D-printable synthetic soft muscle that can lift 1,000 times its own weight. The muscle has intrinsic expansion ability and, unlike previous artificial muscles, it does not require an external compressor or high voltage equipment, signaling a breakthrough in the creation of soft robots that can move independently. The new material also has a strain density – an ability to expand – that is 15 times larger than natural muscle.

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A Columbia Engineering team led by Professors Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic (Columbia Engineering) and N. Valerio Dorrello (Columbia University Medical Center) is the first to successfully bioengineer a functional lung with perfusable and healthy vasculature in an ex vivo rodent lung. Their new approach allows the removal of the pulmonary epithelium while maintaining the viability and function of the vascular network and the lung matrix (Science Advances).

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Researchers at Columbia Engineering have developed a simple, low-cost, and environmentally sound method for fabricating a highly-efficient selective solar absorber (SSA) to convert sunlight into heat for energy-related applications. The team used a “dip and dry” approach whereby strips coated with a reactive metal are dipped into a solution containing ions of a less reactive metal to create plasmonic-nanoparticle-coated foils that perform as well or better than existing SSAs, regardless of the sun’s angle.

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Columbia researchers published a study today in Nature Nanotechnology that is the first to reproducibly demonstrate current blockade—the ability to switch a device from the insulating to the conducting state where charge is added and removed one electron at a time—using atomically precise molecular clusters at room temperature. The study shows that single molecules can function as reproducible circuit elements such as transistors or diodes that can easily operate at room temperature.

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A new study led by Columbia Engineering Prof. Michael P. Burke has identified the significance of a new class of chemical reactions—previously ignored—involving three molecules that each participate in the breaking and forming of chemical bonds. The reaction of three different molecules is enabled by an “ephemeral collision complex,” formed from the collision of two molecules, which lives long enough to collide with a third molecule.

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Cognitive hearing aids that constantly monitor brain activity to determine whether a subject is conversing with a specific speaker would be very useful for the hearing impaired. Using deep neural network models, Columbia Engineering researchers have made a breakthrough in auditory attention decoding methods and are coming closer to making cognitively controlled hearing aids a reality. The study, led by Electrical Engineering Professor Nima Mesgarani, is published today in the Journal of Neural Engineering.

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3.6 out of 1000 children in the U.S. are diagnosed with cerebral palsy. Their symptoms can include abnormal gait patterns such as crouch gait, characterized by excessive flexion of the hips, knees, or ankles. A pilot study led by Columbia Engineering’s Sunil Agrawal was published today in Science Robotics that demonstrates a robotic training method that improves posture and walking in children with crouch gait by enhancing their muscle strength and coordination.

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Columbia Engineering Professor Ken Shepard, a pioneer in the development of electronics that interface with biological systems, is leading a team to invent an implanted brain-interface device that could transform the lives of people with neurodegenerative diseases or people who are hearing and visually impaired.

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Columbia Engineering Prof. Barclay Morrison has won a $2M grant from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation to study the underlying mechanisms of concussion. His award is part of a $9.25M grant given to the lead organization, the University of Pennsylvania, for research on the cellular mechanisms of concussion and potential clinical interventions.

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Columbia Engineers developed a technique inspired by the nacre of oyster shells, a composite material that has extraordinary mechanical properties, including great strength and resilience. By changing the crystallization speed of a polymer mixed with nanoparticles, the team controlled how nanoparticles self-assemble into structures at three different length scales. This multiscale ordering can make the base material almost an order of magnitude stiffer while retaining the desired deformability and lightweight behavior of the polymeric materials.

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Nature Geoscience study analyzes global satellite observations, shows vegetation alters climate and weather patterns by as much as 30%. The researchers used a new approach and found feedbacks between the atmosphere and vegetation can be strong, explaining up to 30 percent of variability in precipitation and surface radiation. The paper is the first to examine biosphere-atmosphere interactions using purely observational data, could improve weather and climate predictions critical to crop management, food security, and more.

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Columbia Engineering Professor Yuan Yang has developed a new method that could lead to lithium batteries that are safer, have longer battery life, and are bendable, providing new possibilities such as flexible smartphones. His new technique uses ice-templating to control the structure of the solid electrolyte for lithium batteries that are used in portable electronics, electric vehicles, and grid-level energy storage. The study is published online April 24 in Nano Letters.

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Columbia Engineering Professor Nanfang Yu has invented a method to control light propagating in confined pathways, or waveguides, with high efficiency by using nano-antennas. He built photonic integrated devices that had record-small footprints and were also able to maintain optimal performance over an unprecedented broad wavelength range. His method could lead to faster, more powerful, and more efficient optical chips, which in turn could transform optical communications and optical signal processing. (Nature Nanotechnology 4/17)

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Professor Matthias Preindl recently won an NSF CAREER grant to support his work reimagining how power converter technology operates. Inspired by virtualization that has become common in computer science, Preindl is designing virtual power converter systems with interchangeable converter modules and a software layer that controls the converter function. The result should increase reliability and speed up onboard charging for electric vehicles and cut costs.

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Researchers from Columbia Engineering and Columbia University Medical Center have—for the first time—maintained a fully functional lung outside the body for several days. They designed the cross-circulation platform that maintained the viability and function of the donor lung and the stability of the recipient over 36-56 hours, used the advanced support system to fully recover the functionality of lungs injured by ischemia and made them suitable for transplant. (Nature Biomedical Engineering 3/6)

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Professor Shiho Kawashima, assistant professor of civil engineering and engineering mechanics, has won a National Science Foundation CAREER Award to support her work developing concrete systems for use in 3D printing, a technology that could revolutionize the construction and repair of infrastructure.

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Professor Julia Hirschberg has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), one of the highest professional distinctions awarded to an engineer. Hirschberg was cited by the NAE for her “contributions to the use of prosody in text-to-speech and spoken dialogue systems, and to audio browsing and retrieval.” Her research in speech analysis uses machine learning to help experts identify deceptive speech, and even to assess sentiment and emotion across languages and cultures.

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Two Columbia Engineering professors were honored by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Gerard Ateshian won the H.R. Lissner Medal for his work on developing better modalities for the treatment of osteoarthritis, including stronger engineered cartilage for resurfacing knee, hip, and shoulder joints. Kristin Myers won the Y.C. Fung Young Investigator Award for her work in maternal and fetal health, studying the mechanics of the uterus and cervix to understand how to prevent premature births.

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Christine Hendon, assistant professor of electrical engineering at Columbia Engineering, has won the Presidential Early Career Award (PECASE), the highest honor the U.S. government gives to young scientists and engineers. Hendon, who develops innovative medical imaging instruments for use in surgery and breast cancer detection, is one of 102 researchers from across the nation named by President Obama on January 9.