The BNC Virtual Faculty Seminar Series is designed to provide faculty a platform to present an overview of their research and the opportunity for collaborative discussion with other BNC faculty and researchers across six colleges and 15 academic units.

Ali Shakouri

Director of the  Birck Nanotechnology Center

Professor or Electrical and Computer Engineering

September 10th, 2020 | 12:00pm

Join Zoom: https://purdue-edu.zoom.us/j/93857631004

Title: Overview of SMART Industry Consortium

Abstract: I will give an overview of the work of more than 50 students, researchers and faculty who are using low cost roll-to-roll manufacturing techniques to make aware and responsive devices for digital agriculture, food safety, healthcare and environmental monitoring. Wabash Heartland Innovation Network (WHIN) to establish regional internet-of-things testbeds in the ten counties surrounding Purdue will be described. In particular, interdisciplinary collaborations will be highlighted where advanced imaging, in-line sensing and physics-based machine learning are used to make reliable devices from unreliable components. 

Bio: Dr. Ali Shakouri is the Mary Jo and Robert L. Kirk director of the Birck Nanotechnology Center and professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue University. He received his doctoral degree from the California Institute of Technology in 1995 and his bachelor’s degree in engineering from Telecom ParisTech in France in 1990. He was a faculty member at the University of California, Santa Cruz from 1998 to 2011 where he directed a multi university research center focused on direct conversion of heat into electricity. He also initiated a sustainability curriculum and a California-Denmark summer program in renewable energies in collaboration with colleagues in sociology, political science and environmental studies.

Ali’s major initiative at the Birck Center focuses on nanomanufacturing and printing smart films. The goal is to develop low cost devices and internet of things (IoT) sensor networks to enable digital agriculture, smart food packaging, wearables for healthcare monitoring and smart infrastructure. This involves two dozen faculty from colleges of engineering, science, agriculture and pharmacy.

Ali received a Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering in 1999, an NSF CAREER Award in 2000 and the Thermi Award in 2014.