News & EventsDepartment Events
Events
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Mar3
EVENT DETAILS
lessListening to Rock: Acoustic Emission in Fracture Testing
ABSTRACT: Fracture of a material such as rock involves microcracking, which generates elastic waves known as acoustic emission (AE). These transient waves propagate through the medium with very small amplitudes and high frequencies, and the AE signals carry information about the source, including location and mechanism. The acoustic emission technique is reviewed and basic features of the experimental system are outlined. Analyses involving rates, locations, and source mechanisms are discussed, along with imaging results that support the AE statistics. Data from fracture testing of a brittle rock (quartzite) and a brittle solid (glass) are highlighted to demonstrate the ability of AE to monitor the evolution of fracture.
Joseph Labuz is Professor and Department Head of Civil, Environmental, and Geo- Engineering at the University of Minnesota. He earned his PhD (1985) in civil engineering from Northwestern University. His research interests include the behavior of fluid-saturated rock, fracture of brittle solids, and development of novel apparatus. He is a Fellow of ASCE and ARMA.
TIME Wednesday, March 3, 2021 at 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
CONTACT Tierney Acott tierney.acott@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick - Civil and Environmental Engineering
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Mar4
EVENT DETAILSmore info
lessTAM Seminar Series Presents:
Wendy C. Crone
Karen Thompson Medhi Professor of the College of Engineering
Discovery Fellow in the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery
University of Wisconsin-MadisonAn Engineered Culture System for Human Cardiac Syncytium: Structural, Mechanical, and Electrical Readouts of Heart Cells in a Dish
Thursday, March 4th • 10:00AM CST
Please log on with your Northwestern account (https://northwestern.zoom.us) to join.
Abstract
Human pluripotent stem cell–derived cardiomyocytes (hPSC-CMs) have emerged as an exciting new tool for cardiac research and can serve as a pre-clinical platform for drug development and disease modeling studies. However, these aspirations are limited by current culture methods in which hPSC-CMs resemble fetal human cardiomyocytes in terms of structure and function. The Crone Lab has produced a novel platform for use with hPSC-CMs and human pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiac fibroblasts (hPSC-CFs), that includes patterned extracellular matrix (ECM) with physiological substrate stiffness to enhance these cells for in vitro studies. The platform is amenable to structural, mechanical, and electrical characterization.
When iPSC-CFs are confined to the micropatterned features of the platform they remodel the ECM into anisotropic fibers. Micropatterned lanes promote the cellular and myofibril alignment of hPSC-CMs while the addition of micropatterned bridges enable formation of a functional cardiac syncytium that beats synchronously over a large 2D area within the platform. Investigation of electrophysiological properties of the patterned cardiac constructs with optical mapping shows that they have anisotropic electrical impulse propagation, as occurs in the native myocardium. Interrogation of the mechanical function of the pattern constructs using digital image correlation (DIC) demonstrates the utility of this platform for mechanical characterization of coordinated contractions. Our results also show that iPSC-CFs influence iPSC-CM function with accelerated Ca2+ transient rise-up time and greater contractile strains in the co-culture conditions compared to when iPSC-CMs are cultured alone. Preliminary results will also be presented on the utility of this platform to investigate a hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) disease model.
Biography
Wendy C. Crone is the Karen Thompson Medhi Professor in the Department of Engineering Physics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and is a Discovery Fellow with the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery. Her research is in the area of solid mechanics and is connected with biotechnology and nanotechnology. She has applied her technical expertise to improving fundamental understanding of mechanical response of materials, enhancing material behavior through surface modification and nanostructuring, exploring the interplay between cells and the mechanics of their surroundings, and developing new material applications and medical devices. Prof. Crone is a Fellow of the Society for Experimental Mechanics and has served in several leadership roles at UW-Madison, including prior appointments as Interim Dean and Associate Dean of the Graduate School.
TIME Thursday, March 4, 2021 at 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
CONTACT Alison Rodriguez alison.rodriguez@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick - Civil and Environmental Engineering
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Mar5
EVENT DETAILS
lessRelating the chemical speciation and chemical forms of technology related metals to their bioavailability
An important challenge in environmental biogeochemistry is the determination of the bioavailability of toxic and essential trace compounds in natural media. For trace metals, it is now clear that chemical speciation must be taken into account when predicting bioavailability. Over the past 30 years, equilibrium models (free ion activity model, biotic ligand model) have been increasingly developed to describe their bioavailability in environmental systems, despite the fact that environmental systems are always dynamic and rarely at equilibrium. In these simple (relatively successful) models, any reduction in the available, reactive species of the metal due to competition, complexation or other reactions will reduce metal bioaccumulation and thus its effects. Recently, it has become clear that biological, physical and chemical reactions occurring in the immediate proximity of the biological surface also play an important role in controlling trace metal bioavailability through shifts in the limiting metal fluxes. This presentation will first discuss the important processes leading to biological uptake in order to make better predictions of metal bioavailability. Lessons learned from the classical metal pollutants are then applied to better understand the bioavailability of emerging contaminants such as the rare earth metals and nanoparticles. Since exposure measurements of nanomaterials in environmental compartments are currently limiting, recent technological advances into the measurement of nanoparticles at low concentrations in complex media will be discussed.
Bio
Kevin Wilkinson is Professor in the Chemistry Department at the University of Montreal since 2005. Prior to that, he was a junior faculty member at the University of Geneva for 10 years. Dr. Wilkinson’s work is in the environmental field, roughly split between the development of analytical techniques and the understanding of environmental processes. Present work examines the bioavailability and mobility of rare earth metals and nanomaterials in environmental (and biological) media. Wilkinson is an Editor of Environmental Chemistry (2010- ), has over 180 publications, over 11,000 citations to his work and an h-index of 59. He has established a world-class laboratory: CACEN-Center for the Analysis and Characterization of Engineered Nanomaterials. He currently leads two major team projects: the NSERC PURE (Pollution in URban Environments) CREATE team (2019-2025) and a major infrastructure project on particulate urban pollution (2020-2023). In 2018, he won the Canadian Institute of Chemistry-Environmental Research Award.TIME Friday, March 5, 2021 at 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM
CONTACT Tierney Acott tierney.acott@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick - Civil and Environmental Engineering
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Mar10
EVENT DETAILS
lessUnderstanding and Measuring the Role of Buildings in Community Resilience to Natural Hazards
Abstract
Light-frame wood buildings have historically performed well in earthquakes but there are limitations to how tall they can be constructed. Mass timber provides a unique opportunity to utilize a truly sustainable material while building to more socially needed heights and achieving high levels of seismic performance. This presentation will be being in the context of earthquake engineering with whole building tests of two apartment buildings – one tested in Miki Japan and the other in San Diego; and then a resilient mass timber building. The presentation hypothesis: Can superior building performance alone provide community resilience to earthquakes? To answer this we’ll explore the role of water and power networks that those buildings depend on to function – and then the households who depend on the functionality of physical infrastructure and social institutions. Moving to tornadoes and floods to discuss where the scope of a new modeling environment – the Interdependent Networked COmmunity Resilience Modeling Environment (IN-CORE), and prove or disprove our hypothesis.
Bio
Dr. John W. van de Lindt is the Harold H. Short Endowed Chair Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Colorado State University. Over the last two decades Dr. van de Lindt’s research program has focused on performance-based engineering and test bed applications of building systems for earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, tornadoes and floods. Van de Lindt led both the NEESWood and NEES-Soft project teams between 2005-2013 which consisted of two-story, four-story, and six-story shake table tests on the world’s largest shake tables, and currently serves as Chair of ASCE’s Executive Committee for the Infrastructure Resilience Division and Secretary of the Executive Committee for the Structural Engineering Institute. Professor van de Lindt current serves as the Co-director for the National Institute of Standards and Technology-funded Center of Excellence (COE) for Risk-Based Community Resilience Planning headquartered at Colorado State University and in its sixth year. He has published more than 400 technical articles and reports including more than 200 journal papers, and currently serves as the Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Structural Engineering.
TIME Wednesday, March 10, 2021 at 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
CONTACT Tierney Acott tierney.acott@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick - Civil and Environmental Engineering
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Mar11
EVENT DETAILSmore info
lessTAM Seminar Series Presents:
Itai Cohen
Professor of Physics
Cornell UniversityElectronically Integrated Microscopic Robots
Thursday, March 11th • 10:00AM CST
Abstract
What would we be able to do if we could build electronically integrated machines at a scale of 100 microns? At this scale, semiconductor devices are small enough that we could put the computational power of the spaceship Voyager onto a machine that could be injected into the body. Such robots could have on board detectors, power sources, and processors that enable them to sense, interact, and control their local environment. In this talk I will describe several cutting edge technologies we are developing to achieve this vision.
Biography
Itai Cohen is a professor of Physics at Cornell University. He received his BS from UCLA (1995) and PhD from the University of Chicago (Physics 2001). In addition, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University (2001 - 2005). His research at Cornell focuses on building robots the size of cells, controlling the shear thickening behavior of microscopic and nanoscopic particles suspended in a fluid, exploring the mechanics of materials ranging from biological tissues to origami inspired metamaterials, discovering the aerodynamic and neuromuscular mechanisms used by insects during flapping flight, and determining how Tango dancers and audiences at heavy metal concerts coordinate their movement. Understanding how emergent behaviors arise from the microscopic rules governing these systems remains one of the biggest challenges in Physics.
TIME Thursday, March 11, 2021 at 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
CONTACT Alison Rodriguez alison.rodriguez@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick - Civil and Environmental Engineering
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Mar12
EVENT DETAILS
lessExploring the Microbial Ecology of Our Homes
Microorganisms are ubiquitous in our homes. Although most of these microbes are innocuous, some of these household bacteria and fungi can impact human health. Unfortunately, we have a limited understanding of how and why these household microbial communities vary across geographic regions. I will highlight two projects that leverage the power of ‘citizen science’ to investigate the microbes found inside homes. In the first set of studies, we collected dust samples from ~1,500 households across the U.S. to understand the distributions of airborne bacteria and fungi inside homes. We assessed how airborne microbial communities are influenced by climate, home occupants, and home design. More recently, we have been focusing on those bacteria living inside showerheads. Showerheads can harbor large populations of mycobacteria, a diverse group of bacteria that includes opportunistic pathogens capable of causing nontuberculous mycobacterial (NTM) lung infections, an increasing threat to public health. To determine how the diversity and abundances of mycobacteria vary spatially and in response to changes in household water chemistry, we recruited >600 volunteer households from across the United States and Europe to sample their showerhead biofilms. We found that showerhead mycobacterial communities vary in composition depending on geographic location, water chemistry, and water source, with households receiving chlorine-treated water having particularly high abundances of certain mycobacteria. Regions where NTM lung infections are most common were the same regions where pathogenic mycobacteria were most prevalent in showerheads, highlighting the likely importance of showerheads in the transmission of NTM infections. Together these results demonstrate the power of a ‘citizen science’-based approach to improve our understanding of those microbes living with us in our homes and their effects on human health.
Noah Fierer is a Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and a Fellow of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is a microbial ecologist and his research program focuses on microbes living in a range of environments, including those bacteria, fungi, and protists living inside our homes, in soil, on plants, and in the atmosphere. His group uses various approaches, including DNA sequencing and high-throughput cultivation, to explore the diversity and structure of microbial communities, identify the fundamental controls on microbial processes, and examine the mechanisms by which microorganisms influence the health of ecosystems, plants, and animals (including humans). For more information, see: http://fiererlab.org/
TIME Friday, March 12, 2021 at 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM
CONTACT Tierney Acott tierney.acott@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick - Civil and Environmental Engineering
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Mar13
EVENT DETAILS
lessWinter Classes End
TIME Saturday, March 13, 2021
CONTACT Office of the Registrar nu-registrar@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR University Academic Calendar
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Mar15
EVENT DETAILS
lessWinter Examinations Begin
TIME Monday, March 15, 2021
CONTACT Office of the Registrar nu-registrar@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR University Academic Calendar
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Mar20
EVENT DETAILS
lessSpring Break Begins
TIME Saturday, March 20, 2021
CONTACT Office of the Registrar nu-registrar@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR University Academic Calendar
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Mar26
EVENT DETAILS
lessWinter Degrees Conferred
TIME Friday, March 26, 2021
CONTACT Office of the Registrar nu-registrar@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR University Academic Calendar
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Mar29
EVENT DETAILS
lessSpring Break Ends
TIME Monday, March 29, 2021
CONTACT Office of the Registrar nu-registrar@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR University Academic Calendar
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Mar30
EVENT DETAILS
lessSpring Classes Begin 8 a.m. Classes remote until Tuesday, April 6.
TIME Tuesday, March 30, 2021
CONTACT Office of the Registrar nu-registrar@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR University Academic Calendar