Elisabeth Smela - US grants

This Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) program award provides funding to acquire a combined precision alignment system and wafer bonder. The aligner part of the instrument precisely lines up multiple wafers and substrates and puts them into contact. The bonder portion of the instrument permanently bonds the aligned substrates together. This instrument will be used at the University of Maryland for research and education in micro-electro-mechanical systems, integrated optics, chip-scale and wafer-level packaging, 3D interconnections, and hot embossing. Researchers will produce micro-turbine engines, biomedical drug delivery systems, microsurgical tools, micro-pumps for cooling high-density circuitry, and radio frequency devices. The wafer-to-wafer alignment system will be permanently located in a new 11,000 sq. ft. multi-user class 1000 clean room facility, the Engineering and Applied Sciences Building, dedicated to micro- and nano-systems research at the University of Maryland.

The availability of a wafer-to-wafer alignment system at the University of Maryland will benefit the following research projects: micro-turbomachinery, micro-combustion, safety and arming micro-systems, micromachined cooling structures, 3-dimensional micro-mechanisms, conjugated polymer films for microfluidics, and actively positioned neural probes. This equipment will also enhance education by making available to undergraduate and graduate students hands-on training on state-of-the-art equipment in a modern clean room environment. Newly developed undergraduate and graduate courses in microsystems in both the Electrical and Mechanical Engineering departments will also utilize this instrument for class projects. The instrument will also assist research and interdisciplinary collaboration between the University of Maryland and surrounding universities and national laboratories.

0225489
Smela

The PIs will develop integrated microstructures and circuitry for single cell
capture and characterization. Each of these "clinics" will consist of a
cell-sized cavity, or microvial, and a lid. The lid can be opened and
closed by hinges constructed from polypyrrole microactuators which link
rigid plates to the substrate. These clinics will be fabricated on
conventional bulk silicon as well as on ultra-thin silicon-on-sapphire
(SOS) substrates. Integration of the microstructures with CMOS
electronics allows integrating sensors, detection, and stimulation
circuitry together, while SOS provides a transparent substrate which
allows optical measurements of cell activity within the chamber. Sensing
modalities will be tailored for specific applications and include:
impedance measurements, extracellular recording and stimulation of
electrically active cells, optical measurements, and current or voltage
clamp measurements using microfabricated needles within the chamber.
The potential applications are numerous, spanning a spectrum from detailed
physiological studies of specific mechanisms to whole cell studies of
ecology or developmental biology to collecting concentrated cell
secretions to statistical studies of assayed cell properties.

Curriculum Enhancement to Introduce
Product Development with Bio-Inspired Concepts
Hugh Bruck, Satyandra Gupta, Edward Magrab, and Elisabeth Smela

Mechanical Engineering Department
University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland

Bio-inspired products and devices take their inspiration from nature. Current mechanical engineering curricula do not cover design concepts or manufacturing techniques needed to develop such products and devices. We propose to enhance the mechanical engineering undergraduate curriculum by integrating recent advances in the design, analysis, and manufacturing of bio-inspired products and devices through the following objectives:
1. Insert a new sequence of instructional materials on bio-inspired concepts into the mechanical
engineering curriculum.
2. Develop a new senior elective entitled Product Development Using Bio-inspired Concepts.
3. Revise two senior electives in micro-electromechanical systems area to include more complete
treatments of special manufacturing processes that can be used to realize bio-inspired products.
4. Assess the projects of the undergraduate mechanical engineering students in their capstone design
course to evaluate their retention and utilization of the new material.
5. Conduct one workshop to transfer the new materials and establish a feedback mechanism for
enhancing the curriculum.
6. Disseminate the materials developed for the new modules and the course notes for the new senior
elective through a dedicated web site.
7. Present a summary of our experiences at two conferences.

The result of the proposed curriculum enhancement will be a new generation of mechanical engineers who can develop products and conduct research for a wide variety of applications utilizing bio-inspired concepts. The proposed project will (1) integrate emerging manufacturing technologies and new design analyses based on biological principles into the Mechanical Engineering curriculum, (2) utilize multi-media technology for disseminating course content, and (3) train graduate students and faculty participating in its implementation in an emerging technology and thereby contribute to faculty development.

Proposal Title: PECASE: Development of Advanced MEMS Actuator Technology for Microrobotics
Institution: University of Maryland College Park

Intellectual Merit
This PECASE proposal addresses the development of a new actuator technology based on dielectric elastomers for microrobotics, flying microdevices, and micromanipulation. This will require the development of new fabrication processes. I shall: The processing advances will permit us to design and fabricate three types of elementary micro- actuation components: 1. Out-of-plane actuators, which will also allow the measurement of actuator metrics that provide data essential for device modeling. 2. Bending actuators, which will be used to realize novel articulated structures with 6 degree-of-freedom movement. 3. In-plane actuators that can be effectively coupled with Si MEMS devices.

Broader Impact
Research: The motivation for using dielectric elastomers actuators is that they are tough and compliant and have an extraordinarily high efficiency, whereas existing microactuators are either too brittle to transmit contact loads or consume too much power to carry their own power supplies. Dielectric elastomer actuators also inherently function as sensors. The proposed research will therefore make possible the realization of robust, autonomous actuators that MEMS devices can use for walking, manipulating, and perhaps flying, which will impact diverse fields.
Education: I will adopt inquiry-based teaching methods in order to improve learning outcomes. Students will formulate their own projects and use knowledge gained during the course to accomplish their objectives. These projects will expose students to actual research experiences. This approach will first be implemented in a 2-part undergraduate MEMS course in which students design and fabricate original building blocks of an ant-like, walking microdevice. These components will be the actuators, including legs, manipulating arms, and chemical-squirting self-defense system. The dielectric elastomer research will be utilized in the course, and the student's devices will advance the research, closely integrating the research and education. A broader curriculum development effort will establish a comprehensive MEMS core program at UMD.

This project was originally funded as a CAREER award, and was converted to a Presidential Early Career Award for Engineers and Scientists (PECASE) award in September 2004.

ABSTRACT
IIS-0515873
Abshire, Pamela

The goal is to develop and demonstrate enabling technology for cell-based
sensing. Cell clinics are microenvironments that enable the capture and characterization of cells. Each "clinic" is a micro-electro-mechanical system fabricated on a CMOS chip. Biological systems have high specificity, sensitivity, and adaptability that can be part of a highly integrated sensor. The first goals are sample preparation, cell loading, and system miniaturization using the tools of feedback control, integrated circuits, and microfluidics. Results will leveraged into two ongoing efforts in olfactory sensing and low-false-positive pathogen detection. Three aspects of the system will be demonstrated. (1) Electroosmotic flow control will remove all optically visible (>5 micron) particles from the sample. This will remove dirt, dust, and bacteria and leave behind odorants for presentation to the olfactory cell sensors. This system shall be capable of sufficiently high throughput to be used in real time. (2) Dielectrophoretic actuation for steering cells in three-dimensions will be used to position cells in the plane and to direct them into the cell clinic vials. (3)In order to develop field utility cell-based sensors, a vision system with the same dimensions as cell clinics for cell steering will be developed. The proposed technological advances will allow cell-based sensing to move toward actual implementation and use with real samples.

Cell-based sensing has the potential for selectivity, sensitivity, and speed that far exceed
today's chemical and biological sensors. Problems of olfactory sensing and pathogen detection are of immediate relevance to national security. This technology has clear applications in other diverse fields such as health care, pharmaceutical development, and environmental monitoring. The integrated transduction-actuation-control approach is expected to have an impact outside of cell-based sensing to labs-on-a-chip, microfluidics, and nanotechnology by developing basic technology and techniques for sophisticated manipulation of particles at the micro-scale. The PIs are engineers in several disciplines (fluids and controls, micro-fabrication and conjugated polymers, integrated circuits and biosensors) working closely with cell biologists, molecular pathologists, and experts in bio-functionalized surfaces and quantum dots. The PIs are pioneering the development of MEMS education kits that can be used outside of a clean room.

The objective of this research project is to develop a miniaturized system for detecting explosives based on odorant sensing using mammalian olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs). This will be achieved by fabricating an integrated microsystem on which OSNs are cultured and monitored. By detecting the electrical signals produced by OSNs, it would be possible to achieve high-sensitivity, high-specificity, high-speed, stand-off detection of trace amounts of compounds present in explosives.

Intellectual Merit
The research is expected to add biological components to traditional sensor microsystems, which will be transformative for many applications. This research will identify and develop means for solving the technical challenges facing the realization of cell-based sensors. In addition, it will provide a scientific tool to answer a number of outstanding questions about mammalian olfaction.

Broader Impacts
One of the broader impacts is that cell-based chemical sensors would have diverse applications, outside of IED detection: monitoring food and air, odor-based medical diagnosis, drug detection in airports, and screening of pharmaceuticals. Other broader impacts will be the education of students in this area through new courses, and raising awareness about the cutting edge in the nano-micro-info-bio fields through workshops for middle-school teachers in a range of disciplines, including science, history, and art.

The gold standard against which chemical sensors are compared is the dog?s nose. However, dogs are expensive to train and can only be used a few hours per day. By detecting the electrical signals produced by olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs), it should be possible to achieve high-sensitivity, high-specificity, high-speed, stand-off detection of trace amounts of compounds associated with volatile human compounds characteristic of gender, stress, individual ?fingerprint?, and various medical conditions. The team plans to develop a miniaturized system for human biometric characterization using, initially immortalized cell lines for detection of human compounds and then developing techniques for direct detection of airborne odorants using artificial mucous, thin membranes, continuous perfusion with water or a combination. Cell-based chemical sensors will have broad societal benefits through diverse applications, outside of biometric detection: explosives detection, monitoring food and air, odor-based medical diagnosis, drug detection in airports, and screening of pharmaceuticals, to name a few. This project will support two full time graduate research assistants. The PIs are actively engaged in educating graduate and undergraduate students and interdisciplinary curricular development. The PIs have demonstrated strong track records of mentoring and supporting students from underrepresented groups and of developing and supporting programs that train and promote these students.

The objective of this research is to discover new fundamental principles, design methods, and technologies for realizing distributed networks of sub-cm3, ant-sized mobile micro-robots that self-organize into cooperative configurations. The approach is intrinsically interdisciplinary and organized along four main thrusts: (1) Algorithms for distributed coordination and control under severe power, communication, and mobility constraints. (2) Electronics for robot control using event-based communication and computation, ultra-low-power radio, and adaptive analog-digital integrated circuits. (3) Locomotion devices and efficient actuators using rapid-prototyping and MEMS technologies that can operate robustly under real-world conditions. (4) Integration of the algorithms, electronics, and actuators into a fleet of ant-size micro-robots.

No robots at the sub-cm3 scale exist because their development faces a number of open challenges. This research will identify and determine means for solving these challenges. In addition, it will provide new solutions to outstanding questions about resource-constrained algorithms, architectures, and actuators that can be widely leveraged in other applications. The PIs will adopt a co-design philosophy that promotes cross-disciplinary research and tight collaboration.

Networks of ant-sized robots are expected to be useful in disaster relief, manufacturing, warehouse management, and ecological monitoring, as well as in new unforeseen applications. In addition, the new methods and principles proposed here can be transitioned to other highly-distributed and resource-constrained engineering problems, such as air-traffic control systems. This research program will train Ph.D. students with unique skills in the design of hybrid distributed networks and it will involve undergraduate students, particularly underrepresented minorities and women.

The objective of this research is to enable better training of robots by enabling them to physically communicate via human touch using new compliant multifunctional structures. To achieve this, arrays of conducting polymers will be developed to form a system similar to the human nervous system that can sense shape and forces distributions. This sensor array will be integrated into composite foam structures using a scalable additive manufacturing process. To support development of models and to serve as proof-of-concept for these multifunctional structures on robotic platforms, simulated co-robotics experiments will be conducted using a robotic arm interacting with objects of varying compliance. Experimental details of the associated contact mechanics will be quantified in real-time using Digital Image Correlation and conventional video imaging. Output from the sensor array will then be related to shape and force distributions by solving the nonlinear inverse problem using a novel Singular Value Decomposition method. Research results will be documented and disseminated, and the experiments will be converted to STEM demonstrations targeted at educating young girls.

This research will lead to new compliant, scalable, sensing structures that simultaneously monitor in real-time both global and local shapes, as well as force distributions. Since compliant multifunctional sensing structures do not yet exist for robots, it is envisioned that the proposed work will enable realization of new bio-inspired control principles for training robots. This will significantly advance the ability to make safer interactions and decisions in co-robotics by differentiating robotic interactions with humans from other objects in their environment. The proposed integration of research and education will train new mechanical engineers to create multifunctional products that enable new products and new capabilities in existing products in critical areas such as healthcare. The new fabrication methods will enable these structures to be manufactured in the United States in a cost-competitive manner, increasing employment.

Chemical detection using biological cells that live on the surface of an integrated circuit chip is a promising approach to identifying odors, disease, and pathogens. For example, the principal investigators have previously demonstrated that a chip can be used to detect electrical signals generated by odor-sensing cells taken from the nose when those cells are exposed to particular odors. Despite decades of research into olfactory sensors, we are still using animals, primarily dogs for odor detection; a cell-phone like device for odor detection would have widespread applications throughout society. This project aims to develop technology that overcomes the main practical challenge for devices based on cell-based sensing: the need to supply cells to these devices. Storage or supply of cells prior to device use has been challenging: shipping cells to the device location so that they can be loaded into it just prior to use is infeasible in many scenarios, as is keeping the cells alive for long periods of time during which power may be unavailable and environmental temperatures are varying. A dryable animal cell line that can be cultured in the lab and methods for genetically engineering these cells has recently been developed by others. The proposed research will lay the necessary groundwork for using such cells on chip for cell-based sensing, so that the cells can be stored in stasis on chip and later re-animated by the addition of water. The long term goal of the research is to develop a bionose-on-a-chip that can be used in a hand-held device for odor identification, replacing dogs in applications such as security, explosives detection, and search and rescue, and opening new possibilities for monitoring food safety and origin, controlling industrial processes, and even diagnosing disease.

The proposed work comprises three efforts to demonstrate the feasibility of using dryable cell lines on chip. First, a gel system will be established that is compatible with cell patterning and subsequent dessication. In the bionose application, cells expressing distinct olfactory receptors will be patterned onto particular sensing electrodes within a hydrogel host matrix, then dried in situ. The host hydrogel should be compatible with culture of cells, maintain mechanical integrity during and after drying, and support rapid exchange of ions and small molecules. A range of gel systems that can be patterned using a bioplotter will be studied. Second, the integrated circuit sensing chip will be packaged and integrated with microfluidics. This will facilitate the dehydration-rehydration process and promote testing of the system with odorants. Both conventional micro-molding and 3-dimensional printing will be evaluated. Third, the design of the on-chip micro-electrodes that monitor the electrical activity of the odorant cells will be optimized through modeling and simulation to maximize detection of the signals and to minimize anticipated crosstalk between different cell populations on the same chip. These developments will lay the groundwork not only for the bionose-on-a-chip application, but also other cell-based bioelectronic sensing devices. The proposed work is challenging because microfluidics and other organ on a chip approaches must be coupled with state of the art circuit technologies and cutting edge biology.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

This collaborative research brings together five public universities with the goal of developing, implementing, studying, evaluating and disseminating a state level AGEP Alliance model to increase the number of historically underrepresented minority (URM) tenure-track faculty in the biomedical sciences. This AGEP Alliance model represents a state system approach to recruiting and training URM postdoctoral fellows and transitioning them into tenure-track faculty positions. In addition to providing professional development and mentoring for a group of 16 URM postdoctoral fellows and early career faculty, this AGEP Alliance also addresses institutional URM faculty hiring and advancement policies and practices. This AGEP Alliance model work is through partnerships between the University of Maryland Baltimore County, Salisbury University, Towson University, the University of Maryland College Park (UMCP), and the University of Maryland at Baltimore.

This alliance was created in response to the NSF's Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) program solicitation (NSF 16-552). The AGEP program seeks to advance knowledge about models to improve pathways to the professoriate and success of URM graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and faculty in specific STEM disciplines and/or STEM education research fields. AGEP Transformation Alliances develop, replicate or reproduce; implement and study, via integrated educational and social science research, models to transform the dissertator phase of doctoral education, postdoctoral training and/or faculty advancement, and the transitions within and across the pathway levels, of URMs in STEM and/or STEM education research careers. While this Alliance is primarily funded by the AGEP program, additional support has been provided by the NSF INCLUDES program, which focuses on catalyzing the STEM enterprise to collaboratively work for inclusive change. The ADVANCE program also provided support for this AGEP Alliance model work, and the ADVANCE program embraces three goals that are relevant to this Alliance model's development, implementation and testing: To develop systemic approaches to increase the participation and advancement of women in academic STEM careers; to develop innovative and sustainable ways to promote gender equity that involve both men and women in the STEM academic workforce; and to contribute to the research knowledge base on gender equity and the intersection of gender and other social identities in STEM academic careers.

As the nation addresses a STEM achievement gap between URM and non-URM undergraduate and graduate students, our universities and colleges struggle to recruit, retain and promote URM STEM faculty who serve as role models and academic leaders for URM students to learn from, work with and emulate. Recent NSF reports indicate that URM STEM associate and full professors occupy 8% of these senior faculty positions at all 4-year colleges and universities, and about 6% of these positions at the nation's most research-intensive institutions. This AGEP Alliance's state system approach is advancing a model to improve the success of URM early career biomedical sciences faculty, which ultimately leads to improved academic mentorship for URM undergraduate students in STEM and innovative biological science research to benefit our nation's security, economic progress and prosperity.

The integrated research component, led by UMCP's KerryAnn O'Meara examines how the intersectionality of race, ethnicity and gender shape the experiences of candidates for assistant professorships, and the evaluation of those candidates by reviewers. Institutional faculty hiring practices, processes and procedures are also being studied to better understand how they advantage or disadvantage some candidates over others.

This AGEP Alliance state system model is engaging institutional leadership and external advisory boards, which will provide feedback to the team and suggest adjustments to model development, implementation and testing, as well as efforts for institutional transformation and sustainability. Staff at Westat will provide formative and summative evaluations. The dissemination plan includes article submissions to peer-reviewed social science, academic career diversity, and disciplinary education and research journals.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.