School Notes: School of Engineering & Applied Science
January/February 2025

Professor wins DOE award

Aiming to create better ways to convert carbon dioxide into useful products, Professor Lea Winter ’15 has been awarded an Early Career Research Program award from the US Department of Energy (DOE). The award, which comes with a grant of $875,000 over five years, is part of the DOE’s efforts to develop the next generation of STEM leaders to solidify America’s role as the driver of science and innovation. Winter’s project focuses on combining the electrocatalytic conversion of the harmful greenhouse gas carbon dioxide with plasma to increase the number and quality of products that can be made.

Untangling the physics of highly coiled hair

Professor Theodore Kim will present a new paper at the SIGGRAPH Asia conference that is the first to examine the geometric properties of highly coiled hair for computer animation. The work could be key to realistically depicting various hairstyles—particularly those of non-white characters—in animated films and shows. Considered the premier conference in the field of computer animation, SIGGRAPH Asia is attended by leaders in both academia and industry. While many technical papers have proposed algorithms for animating hair, they have overwhelmingly focused on the straight or wavy hair closely associated with white characters. Ideally, Kim said, every type of hair will eventually get a similar amount of attention within the field.  

Developing a treatment for endometriosis

Professor W. Mark Saltzman has won this year’s Wendy U. (’83) and Thomas C. Naratil (’83) Pioneer Award, which he’ll use to develop and test long-acting degradable implants designed to treat endometriosis—a painful condition that can also affect the capacity to become pregnant. A medical condition that only affects women, endometriosis causes tissue similar to the lining of the uterus to grow outside of the uterus. Saltzman’s research team will determine if endometriosis can be treated noninvasively with a specific estrogen-blocking drug delivered through a degradable and implantable device.