The “heroic and extraordinary” efforts of Maryland engineers to deliver on the Clark School’s commitment to excellence in a COVID world are featured in the Fall 2020 issue of Engineering at Maryland magazine, published this week.

The lead story, “Engineering Against COVID,” shows how the coronavirus pandemic stoked the imagination, ingenuity, resilience, and resolve that define what it means to be a Clark School engineer.
On October 12, Distinguished University Professor and Christine Kim Eminent Professor of Information Technology K.J. Ray Liu was elected by Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Members as the 2021 IEEE President-Elect. As the first University of Maryland faculty member elected to head IEEE, he will begin serving as IEEE President on January 1, 2022.
The University of Maryland and U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) have announced a $22.8 million agreement to accelerate cutting-edge additive manufacturing materials and technology, aiming at helping the Army more efficiently and cost-effectively produce equipment with enhanced capabilities for service members. It follows a $7.2 million research award from the ARL to develop advanced batteries for troops working in harsh conditions.
With $1 million in National Science Foundation funding, UMD engineers, neuroscientists, microbiologists, and physicists have made significant progress in developing a platform that can monitor and model the real-time processing of gut microbiome serotonin activity. Their goal is to one day package the platform into an ingestible capsule capable of detecting, treating, and monitoring gut-brain-axis diseases.
An interdisciplinary team from the University of Maryland—led by students, faculty, and staff from the A. James Clark School of Engineering—will vie for solar-powered victory at the 2021 U.S. Department of Energy’s second annual Solar District Cup. UMD will go head-to-head against 58 collegiate teams from across the United States to design and model an optimized renewable energy system to power a real-world campus or urban district.
Experts from engineering and public health partner on recommendations to the Commission on Presidential Debates for helping to prevent the spread of COVID-19 at the 2020 presidential debates. They say that airborne transmission of the coronavirus at the debates can be reduced with three items from a local home improvement store.