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Research

Our faculty conduct nationally recognized, cutting edge research in a variety of disciplines, including the following core research areas:

We also play a leading role in several large-scale research centers and institutes, including:

Many of our faculty are internationally recognized experts in these areas and have received prestigious awards and honors including recognition as IEEE Fellows and the National Science Foundation’s Career and Research Initiation Awards. Research endeavors such as these not only push the frontiers of knowledge in their own right, but also provide tremendous opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students to participate in cutting edge research and make contributions within the scientific community.

Research News

143 current UK scientists and scholars were included on the list compiled by Stanford University in a partnership with Elsevier, and 22 of those included are UK Pigman College of Engineering faculty. 

Yaser Chulaee, PhD student, is shown on the left in the photo taken after the awards ceremony during this year‘s ECCE edition, together with co-authors Donovin D. Lewis, PhD student, and Dr. Dan M., Ionel, PhD advisor, ECE Professor, L Stanley Pigman Chai

Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky (PEIK) and SPARK Lab researchers received from the IEEE Industry Applications Society Electric Machines Committee (EMC) the Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition (ECCE) Second Prize Paper Award for the article: “Winding Losses in Coreless Axial Flux PM Machines with Wave and Spiral PCB Stator Topologies”.

Photo from Electrical and Computer Engineering Research Lab

Since May 2023, UK Pigman College of Engineering Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering faculty have received millions in grants and awards from the Department of Energy, National Science Foundation, Office of Naval Research and more.

Edward Wang looking over railing into courtyard.

Peng “Edward” Wang, Robley D. Evans Faculty Fellow and an assistant professor with a joint appointment in the Electrical and Computer Engineering and Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering departments, has received the a prestigious NSF CAREER award for his research on AI in manufacturing. 

The paper titled, "A Wearable Fiber-Free Optical Sensor for Continuous Monitoring of Cerebral Blood Flow in Freely Behaving Mice," was authored by eight UK researchers in the colleges of engineering and medicine. 

YuMing Zhang, Ph.D., James Boyd Professor in Electrical Engineering and UK Stanley and Karen Pigman College of Engineering director of International Partnerships, is one of 16 University Research Professors for 2023-24. 

Faculty Awards

The annual College of Engineering Faculty Awards ceremony was held on April 27 at Malone's Prime and Events. Awards were given in the areas of research, service and graduate studies.

Four engineering students and three engineering alumni have been awarded the coveted five-year fellowship. 

The University of Kentucky team that developed the Kentucky Re-entry and Universal Payload System (KRUPS) project received an Innovation and Technology Demonstration award at the International Space Station Research and Development Conference (ISSRDC) in July 2022.

This is the third consecutive year with such success for SPARK Lab students advised by Dan M. Ionel, ECE Professor and L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power.

Biyun Xie, an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, received a three-year $499,365 award from the NSF Foundational Research in Robotics program for her project titled, “Autonomous Fault-Tolerant Operation of Redundant Robotic Arms.” Xie is the PI, and Jiangbiao He is the Co-PI.

Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities (LG&E and KU), part of the PPL Corporation family of companies, and the Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky (PEIK) at the University of Kentucky have renewed their multi-year research-sponsored agreement.

A team of University of Kentucky researchers led by College of Engineering Professor Dibakar Bhattacharyya, Ph.D., and his Ph.D. student, Rollie Mills, have developed a medical face mask membrane that can capture and deactivate the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein on contact.

Electrical and computer engineering assistant professor JiangBiao He

JiangBiao He, assistant professor and L. Stanley Pigman Faculty Fellow in the University of Kentucky Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has been awarded a three-year competitive grant from the Office of Naval Research (ONR).

The UK Computational Electromagnetics (CEM) Group was awarded the 2022 NASA and Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) Director’s Innovation Award. The CEM team members are Rob Adams, John Young, and Cai-Cheng Lu. The three team members are faculty in the UK Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Jiangbiao He and Dan M. Ionel, ECE and PEIK faculty, to serve as PI and Co-Po for the UK project.

This award will be used to purchase critical research equipment that will enable investigators to pursue more future defense related grants and educate more undergraduate and graduate students.

JiangBiao He, assistant professor and L. Stanley Pigman Faculty Fellow in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has received a new award from the US DOE Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy.

Sayed Ahmad Salehi

The project is called, "FET: SMALL: New Abstraction and Design Automation for Complex Computations with DNA Using Fractional Coding.”

The SPARK Laboratory is affiliated with the Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky

Dan M. Ionel, ECE Professor and L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power, director of the SPARK Lab and of the PEIK Institute, will serve as UK's principal investigator for the project.

Peng Wang

The honor was awarded to the top paper related to manufacturing systems presented during the virtual conference.

Electrical and computer engineering assistant professor JiangBiao He

The project is titled “Collaborative Research: Smart Coils for AC Motors,” and will be a collaboration with Kansas State University.

The grant is in the amount of $300,000 and funding will span two years.

Reynolds Frimpong, senior research engineer at CAER, works on a carbon dioxide capture experiment.

In addition to capturing CO2, the system will produce two value-added streams, hydrogen (H2) and oxygen (O2,) which can be sold to offset the cost of CO2 capture.

Bourbon is Kentucky's signature spirit.

Faculty with the institute will serve as judges in an upcoming contest to find innovative solutions for using spent grains.

Electrical and computer engineering assistant professor JiangBiao He

Contributions from this project will establish a cost-effective, accurate and robust reliability improvement framework for modern electric propulsion systems.

Electrical and computer engineering assistant professor Luis Sanchez Giraldo

Nathan Jacobs, associate professor in the Department of Computer Science, will serve as co-investigator and senior mentor.

Damien Lawhorn

Upon graduation, Lawhorn will work as part of the Space Exploration Systems Group within Jacobs Engineering in Houston.

Five of UK's ten NSF Graduate Research Fellows are from the College of Engineering

The NSF GRFP is the country’s oldest graduate fellowship program directly supporting graduate students since 1952.

J. Todd Hastings, co-PI on the Kentucky NNCI

The program was renewed by the National Science Foundation with an additional $3.5 million of support. Professor J. Todd Hastings serves as co-principal investigator.

Carson Joseph Labrado: 2021 Outstanding Ph.D. Student Award Winner

Carson Labrado has made several outstanding contributions to research concerning cybersecurity for Internet of Things (IoT) devices and smart vehicles.

Dan M. Ionel, ECE Professor and L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power, Director of the SPARK Lab and of the PEIK Institute, will serve as PI for the project leading a team of researchers. 

Jesse Hoagg, Michael Sama and Josh Jackson have been developing a way for farmers to autonomously monitor cattle using drones.

Liaqat’s poster was titled, “Predicting ASD Diagnosis in Children with Synthetic and Image-based Eye Gaze Data.”

The project will be funded in the amount of $358,976 and span three years.

Machine Human Cooperative Welding System

Peng Wang, assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Department of Mechanical Engineering, will serve as co-PI.

Faculty members Akinbode Adedeji and  Kevin Donohue are developing ways to keep healthy U.S. apples in the supply chain.