Click below to view GCoE statistics for proposals submitted and grants awarded. These dashboards are for internal OU use and require an OU login for access.
Cardiovascular disease affects nearly half of the adults in the United States, posing a significant public health challenge. To improve the diagnosis and treatment of one such cardiac condition, Rui Zhu, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Oklahoma, has received a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Program award to uncover the mechanisms behind cardiac arrhythmias. A healthy human heart beats in a regular rhythm, but cardiac arrhythmia disrupts this pattern due to malfunctioning electrical impulses in the heart’s muscular tissue. Zhu’s research focuses on modeling complex systems, and she plans to apply that expertise to tackle the challenge of modeling diseased hearts.
The University of Oklahoma has a new Bergey wind turbine, the latest in a suite of industrial-scale equipment housed at the university’s OpenLab. The equipment allows for system-level studies on hybrid energy systems combining wind power with solar, batteries or other renewables. “Oklahoma's abundant wind energy resources make it an ideal location for advancing renewable energy technologies. With the recent installation of a wind turbine at our lab facility, we are exploring opportunities to effectively utilize wind energy in diverse settings and integrate it with other energy systems, such as hydrogen production technologies.,” said Pejman Kazempoor, director of the lab and a professor in the School of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering.
University of Oklahoma engineering professor Steven P. Crossley has been awarded a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers by the U.S. government through the National Science Foundation. This award is the highest honor bestowed by the federal government to outstanding scientists and engineers for early career achievements. “Dr. Crossley is well deserving of this prestigious award,” said Carol Silva, OU interim vice president for research and partnerships. “His research is both ambitious and innovative, focusing on smart and efficient solutions to sustain and advance American industrial growth well into the future.” Crossley is the Sam A. Wilson Professor of Chemical Engineering and the Roger and Sherry Teigen Presidential Professor in the OU Gallogly College of Engineering.
Dr. Sepideh Razavi, Associate Professor in the Department of Sustainable Chemical, Biological, and Materials Engineering at OU, has been awarded the prestigious Royal Society Wolfson Visiting Fellowship. This fellowship supports outstanding scientists in pursuing 12-month collaborative research at leading institutions in the UK. As a Royal Society Fellow, Dr. Razavi will conduct research at the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, focusing on biological and soft systems.
Today, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Technology Transitions (OTT) announced 10 Faculty Explorer award recipients in the 2025 EnergyTech University Prize (EnergyTech UP) Faculty Track. Each winning faculty member was awarded $5,000 for showing promising interest, ideas, and/or materials promoting energy entrepreneurship at their collegiate institutions. OTT is excited to support these faculty as they work to effectively develop and refine high-quality and impactful activities in the coming months. EnergyTech UP is a collegiate competition for both students and faculty, aimed at growing clean energy entrepreneurship. Those competing as faculty develop and implement educational activities to engage more students in energy technology commercialization and entrepreneurship at their institution. The Faculty Track is designed to incentivize and support faculty directly, with $110,000 in cash prizes available for their efforts.
Addressing the need for improved stormwater management in the Great Plains, a multi-university initiative funded by a two-year grant from the Environmental Protection Agency will begin in January. Led by Jason Vogel, OU civil engineering and environmental science professor, the center will aim to provide sustainable, nature-based solutions to stormwater challenges while addressing underserved communities' needs as one of four Centers of Excellence for Stormwater. The center led by Vogel, called the Great Plains Center for Green Advanced Stormwater Solutions, spans five institutions: OU, Oklahoma State University, Pawnee Nation College, Langston University and Kansas State University.
As artificial intelligence and blockchain platforms like Ethereum revolutionize the tech landscape, two University of Oklahoma researchers were recently awarded academic fellowships to share their ongoing work at DevCon, a global conference for decentralized innovation presented by the Ethereum Foundation in Bangkok, Thailand. Ethereum is an open-source blockchain technology that allows users to deploy smart contracts online. These smart contracts are similar to an incredibly secure digital ledger that is shared across tens of thousands of computers worldwide instead of being controlled by a single company or person. Not only are they totally transparent, but they also reduce the need for intermediaries, reduce costs and fraud losses, and mitigate malicious events. Ethereum is considered a necessary component of a decentralized financial system.
Students from the Gallogly College of Engineering brought illuminating engineering to the Chickasha Festival of Light this year. Four students in OU’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering led a comprehensive redesign of the festival’s beloved Christmas tree, a focal point of the display. “We are thrilled that the City of Chickasha had the vision to partner with the OU Gallogly College of Engineering and give our students the opportunity to apply their technical skills for social good and community development,” said Senior Associate Dean Randa Shehab. “This special collaboration gives OU engineering students a chance to leave their mark on a strong Oklahoma tradition and know that they played a role in bringing joy and excitement to thousands of Oklahomans and visitors for many years to come.”
Alisa Javadi, Ph.D., professor at the University of Oklahoma School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Homer L. Dodge Department of Physics and Astronomy, has received funding from the U.S. Department of Energy Early Career Research Program for research that offers the potential for advancing quantum technology development. Javadi’s research will test the use of cerium oxide as a host for quantum bits, or qubits. Qubits, the building blocks of quantum computing, need an environment free of magnetic noise to function properly. Isotopic purification, which removes magnetic nuclei, is the only guaranteed solution, but it is costly. Currently, diamond is the leading material for quantum emitters. However, diamonds are expensive and contain magnetic carbon atoms, which require further isotopic purification.
A groundbreaking algorithm developed by Prakash Vedula, Ph.D., a professor at the University of Oklahoma School of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, and Alok Shukla, Ph.D., a professor in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences division at Ahmedabad University, has been incorporated into advanced computing software developed by Google and IBM. The algorithm is remarkable for its exponential improvement over previous methods. This significant breakthrough in the field of quantum computing was achieved during the summer of last year and published in Quantum Information Processing earlier this year. The algorithm focuses on creating uniform quantum superposition states, a critical part of quantum computing, and drastically reduces the complexity of this fundamental step. This efficiency is not just theoretical—it has practical applications across various fields, including quantum search, optimization, solution of differential equations, signal processing, cryptography, finance and artificial intelligence.
Dong Zhang, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the School of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Oklahoma. His lab brings together a diverse consortium of knowledge to understand how advanced control techniques push the boundaries of energy storage systems and how renewable energy resources can be integrated into the grid and transportation systems in an efficient and sustainable manner.
The University of Oklahoma has received a $4.8 million commitment from the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Complex at Tinker Air Force Base to create a primer free of chromium containing materials to protect U.S. military aerospace equipment from corrosion.
