Possible Topics for Independent Research
Possible topics for past and future projects include the following:
Chemical Engineering
- Optimal design of reactor systems
- Robust control of chemical processes
- Reaction networks to model immune response
- Control based on microscopic/stochastic simulators
Civil and Environmental Engineering
- Smart buildings
- Active structural control
- Control of water resources
- Earthquake engineering
- Remote sensing
Computer Science
- The role of simplicity in reasoning by machines
- Machine learning, including game playing, photo identification, and semantic identification
- Using DNA for parallel computation
Electrical Engineering
- Applications of neural networks and other classifiers to image signal processing problems, such as character recognition and image segmentation
- Modeling and analysis of behavior of groups of animals (insects, birds, fish, etc.)
- Modeling and analysis of complex control problems in materials processing applications
- Algorithms for video analysis and manipulation
- Analysis, simulation, and applications of algorithms for pattern recognition and machine learning
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
- Autonomous sub-scale helicopter
- Anthropomorphic robots
- Autonomous undersea vehicles
- Robots for space exploration and development
- Neural network control of non-linear systems
- Neural network analysis of DNA microarrays
- Intelligent control systems
- Biological Informatics: Modeling, Dynamics, and Control
- System modeling and control of disease processes
- Cooperating robots for manufacturing and assembly
- Cooperative Control of Natural and Engineered Groups
- Flight research with model aircraft
- System Identification
- Nonlinear Tracking Control
- Computational Intelligence
Operations Research and Financial Engineering
- Intelligent transportation systems
- Financial management and risk analysis
- Dynamic resource management
- Optimal design
- Signal and image processing
Philosophy
- The role of simplicity in reasoning by machines
- Machine learning
- Default reasoning (or nonmonotonic reasoning) in artificial intelligence
Psychology
- Inference, reasoning, problem solving
- Neural network (connectionist) modeling of cognitive functions
- In vivo imaging of brain function, using fMRI, EEG, and optical methods
