Institute for Sensing and Embedded Network Systems Engineering (I-SENSE)

We sat down with Jason Hallstrom, Ph.D., director of the Institute for  Sensing and Embedded Network Systems Engineering (I-SENSE), to talk about the Institute’s tremendous growth since it was founded nearly six years ago. Learn about the groundbreaking research that is taking place and see how these discoveries and innovations are having a transformative impact at FAU and beyond. 

 

Can you describe the original vision for I-SENSE when it was first created? 

Before we launched the Institute in 2016, we hosted a planning workshop, with almost 80 people from across the university. I believe every college was represented. We discussed the organizational structures that would work best in terms of our faculty expertise, future funding opportunities, and gaps that had to be addressed for us to maximize those opportunities.  

With broad consensus, we decided to focus on three key program areas: marine and environment (healthier air, land, and water), infrastructure systems (smarter cities and roads), and health and behavior (prolonged health, wellness, and independence). We then initiated an aggressive hiring plan, recruiting world-class faculty with expertise in the areas needed to catalyze growth. As a result of those hires and the tremendous effort of our faculty members, we’ve seen significant growth in all three areas. We now have nine faculty fellows within the Institute, as well as 62 affiliated faculty members across the university who participate in the institute’s various programs.  

 

Can you explain how those goals have evolved over the years?

The most significant change has been the introduction of two additional areas of technical emphasis. The first is cryptographic engineering – specifically in support of post-quantum cryptography. And the second is at the confluence of connected autonomy and artificial intelligence. Both areas are flourishing, driving student demand, publications, and of course, external funding. Most recently, we hired Dr. Ramin Pashaie and Dr. Mahsa Ranji, co-hires with the College of Engineering and FAU’s Brain Institute. Both faculty members have expertise in optics and photonics, with applications to neuroscience and medicine. The opportunities here are enormous, and we look forward to seeing Dr. Pashaie’s and Dr. Ranji’s programs grow.

 

How do the research activities at the Institute impact the College of Engineering and Computer Science, as well as the entire university?

I-SENSE was established to catalyze research growth within the colleges and across the university. By every quantifiable measure, the Institute is succeeding in that mission – and that is a result of our faculty and their achievements. There are a lot of ways to measure research success – but research awards are a reasonably good aggregate measure. On average, our awards already exceed $400K per faculty member in FY21 – on par with the best universities in the country. And that’s, of course, because our faculty are among the best in the country. 

In terms of overall impact, if we compare where we were in 2015 to where we are today, FAU’s culture has fundamentally changed. In 2015, we were an outstanding teaching institution, with pockets of high-quality research activity. Over the last five years, research activity has grown significantly across the university. Last year was the best year we’ve ever had as an institution, and we are having the best Q1 we’ve ever had in terms of research expenditures and federal awards, despite the pandemic. This is true for the Institute, the college, and the university.  

 

How has that growth been achieved? 

FAU’s pillar program has been essential to this growth. If we look at the return on investment, every dollar invested in the pillar program results in more than two dollars of federal awards. I-SENSE is approaching 3-to-1. We’ve been successful because we’ve hired the right faculty – and that would not have been possible without the tremendous support and partnership we enjoy with the College of Engineering. 

 

Can you tell us about some of the research projects that the I-SENSE fellows are currently involved in?

Our team is working on a range of high-impact projects, tackling some of society’s most important challenges.  

• Jinwoo Jang was recently awarded an NIH grant in collaboration with FAU’s College of Nursing to install sensors in older drivers’ (≥ 65 years) vehicles to detect early cognitive changes and to predict driver risk. It is estimated that there is currently between 4 and 8 million older drivers with mild cognitive impairment on the roads in the U.S., and the majority of these individuals may be unaware of the cognitive changes occurring. The testing and evaluation of a readily and rapidly available, unobtrusive in-vehicle sensing system could provide the first step toward future widespread, low-cost, early warnings of cognitive change for older drivers.
• Behnaz Ghoraani’s research is focused on integrating sensing and novel machine learning algorithms to enable individualized health monitoring. She recently received the highly prestigious NSF CAREER Award to develop algorithms, coupled with wearables and a smartphone, to develop a cognitive screening tool for early detection and monitoring at home, without the need for specialized equipment or staff. She has received additional funding from the NSF to develop algorithms to improve therapeutic management of patients with Parkinson’s disease by developing a home-based monitoring system to track response to medication. 
• Yufei Tang is developing new AI technologies and building complex embedded systems that are robust, adaptive, and fault-tolerant to uncertain environments.
• In the areas of autonomous communications and AI, Dimitris Pados and George Sklivanitis received funding from NSF, AFOSR, and AFRL to carry out basic research on training data set design and curation for AI team learning and real-time screening of sensed data for autonomous systems operations. Dimitris and George are also working on novel self-localization algorithms and methods to support autonomous systems deployments in GPS-less environments and mm-wave 5G connectivity. Research that they carry out on autonomous interference-avoiding networking enables direct machine-to-machine networked communication that is initiated and maintained without human intervention.
• Mike Twardowski, in collaboration with a team from Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute (HBOI), received a $10.2 million grant from the ONR to create a next generation sensor system to measure bioluminescence in the ocean. Research from this project could be critical to the protection of our nation’s coastlines.
• Jordon Beckler received a $2.2 million grant from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to use innovative sediment geochemistry to help prevent, detect, and address harmful algal blooms in an environmentally safe and cost-effective fashion.
• Reza Azarderakhsh received grants from the NSF, DoD, and NIST to design and develop security algorithms and protocols to be secure not only against the attacks from classical computers but also future-built quantum computers. His primary focus is on the computational aspects of algorithms to make them feasible into the small devices that we use every day in the connected world. 
• I am working on mobility intelligence within cities, to explore how to use wireless signals from devices to geolocate pedestrians and vehicles, to record mobility patterns, and analyze how people move about as a function of changes in their environment. Recently, we’ve begun to explore applications of this research in streetscape-level modeling of disease spread and studies of how policies associated with social distancing are interpreted by the population.

 

Looking ahead to the next five years, what are the future plans for the Institute?

It took five years to establish our team and infrastructure, and to establish a track record of success on a national scale. Now that we have a demonstrated track record, in the next five years, we want to establish center-scale funded programs. We consistently hit singles, doubles, and triples – awards ranging from $250,000-$1,000,000, and we’ve had some home runs. We’re now focusing on center-scale proposals – greater than $10 million. We’re looking for grand slams. 

These types of awards have a transformative impact on an institution. First, they dramatically accelerate research productivity. When you have center-scale awards, you have significant funding in place for 5-10 years, supporting large groups of faculty, students, and postdocs within focused technical areas. Equally important, these types of awards change perceptions – and those perceptions matter in virtually every national ranking. 

We’re competing with schools like MIT, Stanford, and Berkeley for these awards, and we came very close on multiple programs this year, making it to the final rounds in single-digit success rate competitions. Now we’ve dusted ourselves off, and we’re headed back to the plate.