Auburn Engineering posts banner year for research in fiscal year 2020

Published: Dec 23, 2020 10:23 AM

By Chris Anthony

The Auburn University Samuel Ginn College of Engineering has again posted a banner year for externally sponsored projects, bringing in more than $74 million in awards during fiscal year 2020.

“We have now had two consecutive years of just outstanding grantsmanship,” said Christopher B. Roberts, dean of engineering. “Our faculty and research staff have really raised the bar in our extramural research program, and I commend them for all of their successes. They are a big reason why we are ascending among the nation’s top engineering colleges.”

Of the $74 million received in the fiscal year, which ran from Oct. 1, 2019 to Sept. 30, 2020, $70 million funded new research efforts and $4 million supported new outreach and instruction programs.

Auburn Engineering’s research expenditures have historically placed the college among the nation’s top engineering institutions, including in the top 10% for the past 15 years, according to data from the American Society of Engineering Education.

Notable research awards from this year include:

A $4.26 million award from the Department of Defense for the new Interdisciplinary Center for Advanced Manufacturing Systems (principal investigator: Gregory Harris)
A $3 million grant from the Federal Aviation Administration for the National Center for Additive Manufacturing Excellence (principal investigator: Nima Shamsaei)
A $2.6 million award from the National Institutes of Health for cancer immunotherapy research (principal investigator: Pengyu Chen)
Four National Science Foundation CAREER awards (principal investigators: Pengyu Chen, David Roueche, Majid Beidaghi and Debswapna Bhattacharya)
Two National Institutes of Health Maximizing Investigators’ Research awards (principal investigators: Robert Pantazes and Debswapna Bhattacharya)
One Department of Energy Office of Science Early Career Research award (principal investigator: Bryan Beckingham)

“Our research program is well positioned for further growth due to the continued investments in our infrastructure and faculty that are driving these advances in research funding,” said Steve Taylor, associate dean for research. “We have hired more than 100 new faculty in the past four years and completed construction of one of the nation’s top structural engineering laboratories as well as an all-purpose research facility in the Gavin Engineering Research Laboratory. Additionally, we are looking forward to the opening of a new autonomous vehicle research building next year.”

Auburn Engineering has five strategic research areas that form the heart of the college’s research portfolio: advanced manufacturing and materials; cybersecurity and intelligent systems; energy and environment; infrastructure and transportation; and biomedical and health systems engineering.

Read more about Auburn Engineering’s research at eng.auburn.edu/research.

Media Contact: Chris Anthony, chris.anthony@auburn.edu, 334.844.3447