April 2, 2019

Team led by Dr. Charles Lieber, 2009 Vannevar Bush Fellow, designs neuron-mimicking probes with increased viability for long-term use

In work supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the NIH, among others, Dr. Charles Lieber has created neural probes that approximate the size, shape, and flexibility of real neurons. In mouse studies, this allows the probes to integrate into the brain and record the functions of adjacent neurons over 90 days without an immune

April 2, 2019

2014 Vannevar Bush Fellow Creates Metamaterials for Solving Integral Equations at Unprecedented Speeds

Dr. Nader Engheta uses complicated composites called metamaterials to make computers that operate with light, rather than electricity. Boundary conditions are set by the phases and magnitudes of the light shining into a block of dielectric material with a carefully crafted distribution of holes, and the light that leaves the device solves the

March 26, 2019

2015 Vannevar Bush Fellow discovers novel ‘quantum scarring’ behavior with potential for quantum computer resiliency

Dr. Mikhail Lukin is a Professor at Harvard University and a 2015 Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowesearch interests include the behavior of isolated atomic systems. His work has recently uncovered what may be a completely a new class of quantum systems.  Dr. Lukin and his research group arranged a line of 51 rubidium atoms alternating between atoms at

Oct. 25, 2018

2017 LUCI Fellow and 2008 Vannevar Bush Fellow Co-Authors on APL Photonics Featured Article

A recent online issue of Applied Physics Letters (APL) Photonics featured an article whose co-authors include Dr. John Rogers, a 2008 Vannevar Bush fellow now at Northwestern, and Dr. Cameron Good, a 2017 Laboratory University Collaboration Initiative (LUCI) Fellow at the Army Research Lab.  The article highlights the recent emergence of active

Oct. 25, 2018

Team led by 2014 Vannevar Bush Fellow Dr. Charan Ranganath Finds that Brain Wave Device Could Enhance Memory Function

Electrical activity in the brain causes different kinds of measurable brain waves. One of these is the theta wave, which is associated with a brain actively motoring a task -like navigating a maze.  There is still debate among neuroscientists on their role and function. Some think that these waves have no role and are just a product of regular

Sept. 4, 2018

Team Led by 2016 Vannevar Bush Fellow, Dr Jennifer Lewis, Develops System to Print Using Sound Waves

Sound waves are incredibly important - we use them every day in applications like communications, medicine, and sensing. Vannevar Bush Fellow Dr. Jennifer Lewis and her team at Harvard University have potentially extended the utility of sound waves to additive manufacturing.  In a new paper published in Science Advances, the team created a tool

Aug. 27, 2018

Collaboration between 2014 Vannevar Bush Fellow and 2016 LUCI Fellow enables engineering of undomesticated bacteria

Synthetic biology is an interdisciplinary field involving the rational design and engineering of micro-organisms for a predetermined purpose. The field has shown tremendous potential in a wide range of applications including energy technologies, medical sciences, and environmental remediation. In order to reach its full potential, engineered

Aug. 7, 2018

DoD Announces Five DESI Awards for University-Industry Collaborations

The Department of Defense announced the selection of five university-industry teams for the Defense Enterprise Science Initiative (DESI). DESI is a pilot program supporting university-industry research collaboration focused on accelerating the impact of basic research on defense capabilities.  Read the Department’s press release here.  

July 23, 2018

Team led by Dr. Jian Luo, 2014 Vannevar Bush Fellow, Sheds Insight into What Makes Nickel Brittle

Nickel is essential to the stainless steel industry due to its ability to enable strong, corrosion-resistant alloys for applications ranging from gears and transmission shafts to turbines and cryogenics.  A long-standing issue in making these alloys is contamination with sulfur impurities during the manufacturing process, which cause them to fail

June 25, 2018

White Paper Submission Open for 2019 Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship Class

The Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship is the Department of Defense's most prestigious single-investigator award of up to $3 million over five years. The Fellowship supports bold and ambitious "blue sky" research that may lead to extraordinary outcomes such as revolutionizing entire disciplines, creating entirely new fields, or disrupting accepted