Princeton engineering students are participating in a research project to produce fiber-optic-based computational devices that work similarly to neurons, but are a billion times faster.
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Princeton University engineers have developed a new laser-sensing technology that may allow soldiers to detect hidden bombs from a distance and scientists to better measure airborne environmental pollutants and greenhouse gases.
Princeton has been certified as a federal hub for cybersecurity research, opening the door to more research to solve national security problems.
H. Vincent Poor, dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science, talks about the school's vision for future growth in the areas of energy and the environment, health, and security, and emphasizes the school's longtime tradition of intellectual freedom and exploration.
Edward Felten, Alex Halderman, and David Robinson talk about the Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP) whose mission is at the intersection of technology, policy, and the social sciences.
CITP's blog, Freedom to Tinker, is considered a must-read by many policy makers and thought leaders. CITP recently moved to its new headquarters, Sherrerd Hall.
Responding to the need for more women in theoretical computer science, Princeton hosted a Women in Theory workshop in 2008. The workshop was coordinated by Tal Rabin, a cryptographer at IBM Research, and computer science professors Boaz Barak and Moses Charikar.
Princeton University launched a five-year, $1.75 billion fundraising campaign Nov. 9, including a goal of $325 million to support initiatives under the category of Engineering and a Sustainable Society.
Among the day-long series of kick-off events, two panels of experts led vigorous discussions of major societal issues related to engineering: What is the future of the Internet and its role in society, and what are our prospects and responsibilities for dealing with global climate change?
The theme of this issue of EQuad News is engineering and security -- but new tools and technology, such as those for securing the Internet and for bringing stability to financial markets, are only part of the story. Like all major problems facing society, the subject of security has many dimensions. The work described here exemplifies how engineering connects to other disciplines and how these combined efforts yield dramatic benefits for both society and students.
"While many of us in operations research and financial engineering call ourselves financial engineers, what we really do is study risk with an eye toward reducing or otherwise mitigating its effects. Risk lurks everywhere and having a deep mathematical understanding of it is critical."
In the financial world, two plus two doesn't always equal four.
Within a given financial portfolio, each investment is typically assigned a number to indicate its level of riskiness, or how likely it is to lose money. Determining the risk of the entire portfolio, however, goes far beyond simply adding the risk measures of individual investments. Often, the investments are dependent on one another, meaning that the failure of one can trigger a chain reaction and have an effect on the entire po
Credit market turmoil -- driven by the sub-prime mortgage crisis and fueled by fallout from financial securities known as collateralized debt obligations -- has led to huge banking losses in recent months and continues to rattle Wall Street.
When it comes to research, Princeton computer scientist Edward Felten takes a different approach from Peterson and Lee, not just in his vision but in the execution of his vision.
Clean-slate efforts may require buy-in from many different players, cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and take years to implement. Felten, a professor of computer science, and his nimble band of graduate students specialize in projects with short time horizons -- say, nine months. Much of their high-impact work c
If we think of Felten as being at one end of the spectrum in his vision of how to best make the Internet secure in the future, and we think of Peterson and Lee as being at the other end, then Jennifer Rexford stands in the middle. Or, perhaps more accurately, Rexford stands simultaneously at both ends of the spectrum -- a shrewd strategist who sees the advantages of simultaneously pursuing orthogonal research agendas.
Larry Peterson is chairman of the computer science department and a force behind the Global Environment for Network Innovation, aka GENI, a National Science Foundation-backed effort to build a test-bed Internet -- one that parallels the actual Internet but which researchers can use to run all sorts of experiments.
While Peterson contemplates a clean-slate version of the Internet, Ruby Lee, the Forrest G. Hamrick Professor of Engineering, talks about "clean slate" design with personal computers, PDAs and cellphones in mind. That is not to say that the potential impact of her work is any less far-reaching than Peterson's. "I'm working on individual computing devices rather than entire networks," she said. "But there are trillions of those devices."
Like human society itself, our computerized infrastructure is wondrously complex, both spectacularly fertile and deeply flawed.
The Internet is, without question, a worldwide success. More than a billion people use it. On many places on Earth, the World Wide Web and e-mail have become so integrally woven into the fabric of life that it is hard to remember that just twenty years or so ago the Internet was an idea in its infancy. Banking, air travel, the electrical grid -- all have been transfo
Felten, Lee, Peterson, and Rexford are by no means the only researchers at Princeton Jennifer Rexford wrestling with security and information technology.
A new report should spur public debate about how science and technology can best sustain the earth while furthering the goals of humanity, according to Robert Socolow, one of 18 maverick thinkers convened by the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) to map the greatest technological challenges of this century.
For centuries, it has been recognized that threats can arrive from all sides -- a potential immortalized in Longfellow's Revolutionary War-era poem. While the advance of technology enables increasingly potent threats to security, they also herald the invention of tools and devices to detect and mitigate these assaults. Here, EQuad News profiles some of the technologies Princeton Engineering researchers are developing, including advanced surveillance and sensor systems, to offer protection on all
Two research groups at Princeton are harnessing the power of lasers to detect airborne dangers, including anthrax and toxic gases. A third program aims to mass produce enzymes that swiftly degrade potentially lethal nerve agents.
The multimillion dollar Mid-Infrared Technologies for Health and the Environment center, funded by the National Science Foundation and directed by electrical engineering professor Claire Gmachl, is developing state-of-the-art sensors that will detect trace amoun
Sensor technology is greatly advancing the ability to detect dangerous material. But how do we collect and interpret information as quickly as possible to respond to threats without generating false alarms? Princeton researchers are part of a $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for research on optimizing the management of sensors used in ports, on roadways and in the air to identify smuggled nuclear material that might be used to cre
Dangerous water conditions, hidden shipwrecks, enemy submarines -- all manners of threats can lurk within the ocean's depths. Princeton professors Naomi Leonard '85 and Sanjeev Kulkarni are currently working on two separate projects, each funded by the Office of Naval Research, to address these concerns and enhance security at sea.
Cameras are becoming ubiquitous -- tireless eyes watching over power plants and subway platforms -- but they will only provide protection if they quickly and accurately identify threats in the images they record.
"Recognizing faces and fingerprints or understanding objects and activities in video data is fundamentally a vision problem," said Fei-Fei Li '99, an assistant professor of computer science who directs the Vision Lab at Princeton. "The goal is to create computer systems that complete
Some disasters are preventable; others are not. In both cases, the insight and guidance of engineers is essential to avert those tragedies that can be stopped or lessen the impact of those that cannot.
In the following essay, reprinted from The New York Times, David Billington '50 explores the important role that good design plays in the lifetime and safety of bridges. Billington is Princeton's Gordon Y. S. Wu Professor of Engineering and directs the Program in Architecture and Engineering.
Earthquakes, tsunamis, fires, floods, droughts -- there are no easy answers when it comes to natural disasters. But, that doesn't mean we must be powerless in their wakes. Civil and environmental engineers are tackling big questions in efforts to increase understanding, prepare for, and, when possible, prevent major disasters.
A National Research Council panel that included alumna Alice Gast issued a report advocating the creation of a high-level "Science and Security Commission" to maintain U.S. competitiveness and mitigate security risks.
Robert Kahn, considered one of the fathers of the Internet, will join Larry Peterson, chair of the computer science department, in a public talk on the future of the Internet at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 27, in the Friend Center auditorium.
A new laser technique allows for instant detection of bioterrorism agents, permitting tests that previously were cumbersome or impossible, according to a report in the April 13 issue of Science.
Two of the world's worst natural disasters in recent years stemmed from different causes on opposite sides of the globe, but actually had much in common, according to researchers who are part of a large National Science Foundation-funded research initiative that has been studying both the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004 and the Hurricane Katrina of 2005.
The second annual Innovation Forum at the School of Engineering and Applied Science Feb. 27 showcased emerging technology ranging from a novel laser eye surgery technique to a new way to improve security on the Internet.
Princeton engineers have invented a method of stealth communication that disguises not only the information contained in a message, but the existence of the message itself.
In a paper published on the Web today, a group of Princeton computer scientists said they created demonstration vote-stealing software that can be installed within a minute on a common electronic voting machine. The software can fraudulently change vote counts without being detected.
