Dear Friends and Colleagues ,

As spring bullies its way past a snowy Vermont winter, I welcome this opportunity to reflect on an exciting year and look forward to our coming commencement ceremonies. Our classrooms and labs are vibrant with activity as senior engineering students complete the capstone projects that are the culmination of their academic journey here at CEMS.

In the Center for Biomedical Innovation (CBI), teams of senior Biomedical Engineering students are developing innovative solutions to healthcare challenges as part of their biomedical engineering capstone course (BCAP), including a device whose technology allows for a more efficient method of testing cardiac tissue samples. Nearby, students assemble a prototype insole whose sensors provide audio indicators when a Parkinson’s patient's gait becomes unstable.

In the Senior Experience in Engineering Design (SEED) lab, our electrical engineering students are collaborating on real-world engineering challenges provided by local industry partners. The diverse range of projects includes an automated and customizable fixture for testing wireless power transfer systems in a 3-dimensional space. Another team is developing a multi-step, automated conveyor system that sorts, selects, and packages chocolate truffles.

Their innovation, passion, and teamwork serve as an important reminder of the value of the interdisciplinary, hands-on learning opportunities that are central to our curriculum.

I hope you enjoy this newsletter that shares some of the many achievements and accomplishments of our students and faculty this past academic year.

Warmly,

Marilyn J. Cipolla

Professor and Chair
Department of Electrical & Biomedical Engineering

The Center for Biomedical Innovation (CBI) is excited to announce that the RECLAIM Project (Real-Time Medical-Grade Fluid Recycling System to Support Rural Vermont Hospitals) has received a $250,000 grant from the Leahy Institute for Rural Partnerships. Originally conceived by Associate Professor Raju Badireddy in Civil and Environmental Engineering and Dr. Richard Grunert, Urologist at the UVM Medical Center, the project is now being advanced under the leadership of CBI Director Yuri Hudak, toward development and commercialization. RECLAIM brings together an interdisciplinary team of medical, engineering, and business students and is supported through partnerships with The Manufacturing Collaborative and Porter Medical Center, a critical access hospital in Vermont.

Pictured left to right: Sustainable Innovation MBA student Will Wright, Associate Professor Raju Badireddy, CBI Director Yuri Hudak, PhD student in Environmental Engineering Kehinde Ojasanya, Environmental Engineering student Luke O’Brien, and Urologist and Larner College of Medicine Assistant Professor Dr. Richard Grunert. (Not Pictured: PhD student in Biomedical Engineering Natalie Hawley, Medical student Miles Byrne, and Sustainable Innovation MBA student Cole Drozdek)

Electrical and Computer Engineering Assistant Professor Sam Chevalier has earned a prestigious NSF CAREER Award to advance his pioneering research to deploy machine learning performance verification techniques for use in the electrical power industry. Bridging AI verification and power grid optimization, Chevalier aims to provide operators with confidence—advancing safety, reliability, and innovation in one of the most critical systems we depend on every day.

Senior electrical engineering student Ethan Perry, a 2025 Richard Barrett Scholar, spent this past summer at NRG Systems in Hinesburg, tackling real‑world challenges in solar energy measurement. Ethan helped to enhance NRG’s Flare SRA towers—innovative instruments that measure solar irradiance—with a machine‑readable data model. He transformed technician photos, sensor logs, and metadata into an optimized digital system that enables automated quality checks, flags missing imagery, verifies sensor orientation, and detects anomalies. The result? Smarter, more scalable data for multi‑million‑dollar solar investments.

This past December, the Biomedical Engineering program hosted its fall semester Design Evening, featuring poster presentations from students sharing their final capstone projects as part of their BCAP course, as well as new project pitches from the Design 3 class, where students will incorporate the feedback they received as they move toward their own capstone work. Guests explored a wide range of engineering designs—from new approaches to cognitive assessment and advances in women’s health technology to the development of a cardiac tissue bioreactor.

This past year, CREATE (the Center for Resilient Energy & Autonomous Technologies in Engineering) has launched the Accelerated Testing Lab, where a team of CEMS faculty and graduate student researchers—including Executive Director Mads Almassalkhi and Co-director Hamid Ossareh, and a graduate student research team composed of Research Associate Tanmay Mishra and Research Assistants Madiha Akbar and Arash Omidi—aim to accelerate the development of new grid technologies and advanced approaches to address Grid Resilience and Renewable Energy Challenges. 

UVM Senior Nick Totten’s final semester is wrapping up nicely with a prestigious scholarship award and an equally impressive job offer. This past month, Totten was named an IEEE Power & Energy Society (PES) Scholar—a competitive honor with only 244 students selected from over 110 U.S. and Canadian universities. In addition, Totten recently learned he has secured a post-graduation role at ISO New England— essentially the "major leagues" of power distribution in the Northeast—as a Transmission Planning Engineer.

Devised and hosted by professors Tian Xia, Dryver Huston, and assistant professor Jackson Anderson, the SPARK (Summer Program Advancing Robotics and Knowledge in Microelectronics for K–12) program brought K-12 educators from across the region to campus this past year for a first-of-its-kind weeklong learning retreat providing an in-depth introduction to the field of microelectronics through a sequenced series of lessons and hands-on workshops aimed at enhancing the science curriculum in Vermont high schools by building stronger awareness of electrical and computer engineering disciplines.

A new Graduate Micro-Certificate in Biomedical Innovation was approved this Spring and will launch in the Fall of 2027. The two-semester, 6-credit program will bring together graduate students in medicine, nursing, health sciences, and engineering to work in multidisciplinary teams on real clinical challenges.

This fall, we are expanding our graduate program offerings with a new Certificate of Graduate Study in Autonomy and Robotics. This new 12-credit certificate builds skills in intelligent systems, AI, and robotics to prepare professionals to design and deploy next-generation autonomous technologies.

Our labs are bustling with activity as senior electrical and biomedical engineering students complete their culminating capstone design projects. The annual spring event returns to the Davis Center's Grand Maple Ballroom on April 24 at the UVM Davis Center from 5:00-7:00 PM as we celebrate an evening of student-driven engineering design and innovation.

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