OU Engineering

Kianoosh Hatami, a professor in the School of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science in the Gallogly College of Engineering, has been elected to fellow status by the American Society of Civil Engineers, an honor held by only 3% of ASCE members.  Hatami , a President’s Associates Presidential Professor, joined the University of Oklahoma in 2004. A well-known scholar in geosynthetics and soil reinforcement, he has five U.S. and international patents and more than 135 peer-reviewed technical publications. He has received numerous academic achievement awards from OU. In addition to being an ASCE Fellow, Hatami has been recognized by organizations that include McMaster University and the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, Southern Plains Transportation Center, Oklahoma Transportation Center and Oklahoma Department of Transportation. He has received industry support from many global manufacturers in geosynthetics and

Kash Barker, Ph.D., a David L. Boren Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering in the Gallogly College of Engineering, has been selected to receive a Fulbright U.S. Scholar fellowship for the 2022-2023 academic year from the U.S. Department of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. Barker and William Frick, Ph.D., in the Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education, are among approximately 800 U.S. scholars, artists and professionals selected for the honor. As Fulbright scholars, they will receive a grant to conduct research or teach abroad for the next academic year and will have the opportunity to exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to challenges facing communities and the world. Barker was selected for the Fulbright Finland Foundation’s Seeking Solutions for Global Challenges program. He will spend five months at Aalto University in Finland working with Ahti Salo, a leader in decision analysis, to research how to more effectively make relocation decisions

Two current members of the Center for Restoration of Ecosystems and Watersheds (CREW) have received top honors from the American Society of Reclamation Sciences (ASRS), an international society focusing on land reclamation and the protection and enhancement of soil and water resources.  OU doctoral student Nick Shepherd received first place in the ASRS Best Student Oral Presentation. A CREW member, Shepherd conducts research on watershed biogeochemistry and ecological engineering. His studies revolve around mine drainage at the Tar Creek Superfund Site ranging from the physical and chemical characterization of mine drainage to the biological impacts on receiving aquatic ecosystems.  OU doctoral student M’Kenzie Dorman was awarded second place in the ASRS Best Student Oral Presentation. Her research focuses on the passive treatment of acid mine drainage to create more sustainable treatment processes that limit the footprint and resources required to properly treat mine drainage. Her int

Four interdisciplinary biomedical research projects have been selected for funding through the 2022 IBEST-OUHSC Cross-Campus Program, a co-funding mechanism created to facilitate the development of multidisciplinary teams of OU Norman and OU Health Sciences Center faculty to compete for external funding on significant cross-disciplinary healthcare research topics.  The  Institute for Biomedical Engineering, Science and Technology in the  Gallogly College of Engineering spans research and education activities in bioscience and biomedical engineering on the Norman and Oklahoma City campuses. The four teams are: Project 1:   A pilot bedside-to-bench study, employing a pre-clinical localized ablative immunotherapy-based combination approach to modulate biomarkers of immunotherapy resistance identified in metastatic melanoma patients treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors.  Led by Abdul Rafeh Naqash, OU Health Sciences Center,  and Wei Chen , Stephenson School of Biomedical Engineering

  A research team, coordinated by the Oklahoma Aerospace and Defense Innovation Institute at the University of Oklahoma, is applying artificial intelligence and machine learning methods to improve autonomous routing of aircraft being operated by the U.S. Air Force. “The Department of Defense analyzes massive amounts of information to orchestrate the defense and security actions of allied forces,” said Dean Hougen , Ph.D., an associate professor in the School of Computer Science in the Gallogly College of Engineering. “Routing platforms, like those used to set the flight plans for aircraft, depend on massive quantities of data that are ever evolving, and current routing methods are often heavily dependent on direct human involvement.” Hougen is leading the project in partnership with the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Complex to develop a platform that will use natural language generation to improve autonomous routing capabilities. Co-investigators John Antonio and Lacey Schley, with OU en

A battered woman. A wounded warrior. A football player. All from completely different worlds. Yet, all are connected by one thing – traumatic brain injury. In the United States, traumatic brain injury affects around 1.7 million people, with most of the injuries occurring in adolescents ages 15-19 and adults aged 65 and older. In 2020, over 64,000 TBI-related deaths were reported in the United States.  Across the globe, hundreds of researchers have dedicated their careers to studying and testing methods to improve treatment options for TBI survivors. Michael Detamore, Ph.D., a biomedical engineering researcher at the University of Oklahoma, was recently awarded $2.4 million from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke at the National Institutes of Health for his project titled, “Single stage surgical intervention for treatment of severe traumatic brain injury.”  The total award is $2.4 million with $640,000 for the first year of a four-year award.  Patients who suffe

The 2022 Robert B. Anderson Catalysis Award from the Chemical Institute of Canada’s Catalysis Division was presented to University of Oklahoma engineering professor Daniel Resasco, Ph.D., for his research that deepens the understanding of chemical reactions in the production of sustainable energy.   The award, named after a prominent Canadian catalysis researcher, is given to an internationally recognized leader in the field of catalysis. Resasco was distinguished for advancing solutions for a lower-carbon future, including catalytic conversion of biomass feedstocks to carbon-neutral fuels and chemicals.  Among the various fundamental aspects of the reactions investigated by Resasco and his group is the molecular interactions occurring at the solid-liquid interfaces that determine the performance of the catalyst and govern the type of products that are obtained.   Earlier this year, the honor was bestowed at the institute’s annual meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. While t