Faculty invited to spring President's Colloquia series starting Feb. 22

The President's Colloquia for faculty members are resuming this spring with three opportunities. Hosted by President Mitch Daniels, the colloquia provide opportunities to hear faculty experts discuss their research in presentations specifically for non-experts.

The spring 2018 colloquia are scheduled for 4-6 p.m. at Westwood. To register or for more information, visit the President's Colloquia webpage.

Feb. 22 (Th)

Mark French, professor, School of Engineering Technology, on "Guitar Technology: What We Know and What We Don't"

Stringed instruments are created at the touchpoint of art and engineering. While a great deal is understood about them, much is not quantified. For example, there is no mathematical description of sound quality. Instrument production, continuous improvement, and build-variation control are good and getting better. But to actually know how a guitar will sound, you have to build it first.

March 28 (W)

Pedro Irazoqui, professor of electrical and computer engineering and the Reilly Professor of Biomedical Engineering, on "Electroceuticals: How Electrical Therapies Improve on Pharmaceuticals with Better Efficacy and Fewer Side Effects"

In the fall of 2014, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the National Institutes of Health and Glaxo-Smith Kline joined forces to fund three new programs in "electroceuticals." Electroceuticals is a newly coined term referring to the substitution of electrical stimulation for pharmacological therapy. The Purdue Center for Implantable Devices in the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering competed for all three funding opportunities: DARPA's ElectRx program, NIH's SPARC program and GSK's Innovation Challenge. The center was the only entity selected for funding by all three. Learn about the many electroceutical applications that Purdue is leading in this burgeoning field.

April 24 (T)

Alexandra Boltasseva, professor of electrical and computer engineering, on "Catching Light Rays: Making Light Work at the Nanoscale for Faster Communication, Denser Data Storage, Energy and Medical Applications"

Optics has revolutionized how we communicate, harvest energy, do computation and diagnose illness. Novel optical technologies fueled by nanophotonics "squeeze" electromagnetic radiation into tiny areas much smaller than the wavelength of light. Explore "flatland" optics, on-chip nanocircuitry, medical diagnostics, and therapy and green energy with nanophotonics.

For more information, contact Robin French at 765-494-9708 or rdfrench@purdue.edu.