Holmes, Stepp Receive NSF CAREER Award
Recognition of outstanding research and teaching capabilities
Douglas Holmes, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, and Cara Stepp, assistant professor of biomedical engineering and speech, language and hearing sciences, have received the 2015 National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award in recognition of their outstanding research and teaching capabilities. Collectively, they will net more than $1 million over the next five years to pursue high-impact projects that combine research and educational goals.
Holmes will study the mechanics of how thin rods move through soft and fragile media such as tissue and granular materials. Knowledge gained from the study could enable the construction of advanced, autonomous structures capable of navigating around obstacles in such media. Thin rods and other active materials that can bend and fold on command are essential to the engineering of smart needles, soft robotic arms, and other flexible devices.
“The results of this award will help predict the deformation and buckling of slender structures within complex media, while providing a general framework for designing structures that can actively and controllably bend within soft and fragile matter,” says Holmes.
Part of the funding will be used to develop open, online course content designed to improve the general public’s understanding of mechanical engineering.
Stepp, who has a joint appointment as an assistant professor at Sargent College, in the department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, will use her NSF CAREER award funding to develop new technology to empower severely paralyzed individuals to communicate as quickly and reliably as people with normal speech and motor functioning. The technology could dramatically increase their independence.
“The problem of low information transfer rates (ITR) is a critical one for people with severe speech and motor impairments, who must rely on augmented and alternative communication (AAC) to interact with other people,” said Stepp. “The CAREER award will enable me to develop hardware and software to boost ITR by optimizing human-machine interfaces that support AAC.”
Stepp, who has a joint appointment as an assistant professor of Speech, Language and Hearing Science at Sargent College, will also use the funding to create an organization for communication sciences and biomedical engineering students at Boston University in which teams will develop custom solutions for individuals with communication impairments.
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