University of New Haven
TCoE
Trends
Newsletter of the Tagliatela College of Engineering,
University of New Haven
Spring 2024
State Lawmakers Take a Close Look at AI.
The University of New Haven Paints the Big Picture for Them.
It’s a useful tool. It’s an epic catastrophe. It promotes equity. It enables disparity. It can assist in healthcare. It can empower criminals to harm us more efficiently.
Connecticut State lawmakers recently grappled with the bipolar nature of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in their efforts to write a bill that would regulate and control the potentially uncontrollable technology. In the careful parlance of public political statements, State Senator James Maroney said he viewed AI as a “net positive but that there’s not zero risk."
Ron Harichandran, Dean of the Tagliatela College of Engineering, recently gave the legislators the broad view of AI in a hearing of the General Law Committee of the Connecticut State Assembly in Hartford. He spoke of AI’s present state and its future, not shirking its downsides while presenting some of its exciting possibilities.
Workers should be trained on how to use AI to improve their work performance,” he said. AI will open up incredible opportunities for solving problems faster, increasing efficiency, and improving the economy.”
Interestingly, AI has a distant past as well as a present and future. The term “artificial intelligence” was coined in the 1950s, but at that time it was only useful and comprehensible to the rarified world of computer scientists, engineers and researchers. The public gained entrée to that world with the advent of programs like ChatGPT, released by OpenAI — a U.S. artificial intelligence organization founded in 2015. The opening of that Pandora’s Box is having a seismic effect on life as we know it, and we’re not even into the aftershocks yet.
In his testimony, Harichandran pushed the AI envelope further than the lawmakers expected. Their plan was both to educate and regulate the use of AI — but by governments and government workers. Harichandran came in with a different pitch — to provide that education to private companies.
Student News
A Landing in Utah Before Mars
What is driving the team to put in countless hours on creating a better Rover to assist astronauts? The Mars Society’s University Rover Challenge (URC), held annually in Hanksville, Utah. This premier competition attracts teams from all over the world. Each team submits an entry that includes project details such as mission approach, readiness, and the science involved in their prototype. Judges evaluate the entries to determine which teams will make the finals.
NSA Codebreaker Challenge Reveals University of New Haven Students’ Remarkable Talent in Cybersecurity.
Emon’s project using advanced 3D printing techniques for functional polymers was the impetus behind his selection as a University Research Scholar.
His research — officially titled “Nonplanar 3D Printing for Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting” — uses an ionic liquid (IL)-prepolymer mixture as the raw material in a 3D printer to produce components for electronics and bio-medical applications. After the components are printed they are transformed into IL-polymer membranes with piezoelectric properties.
Faculty News
How Does Compression Affect Cell Migration? A New NSF Grant Will Help in Studying Cells on the Move.
mission:
The national security threat above was a fiction, but it wasn’t far-fetched. In fact, the NSA itself created the Codebreaker Challenge to mimic possible real-life scenarios and the actual tasks that would be expected of an NSA employee.
Where did the University of New Haven students finish in the competition? Out of 450 schools, they came in 12th, putting them in the top 3%.
Introducing the 2024 Mars Rover: A new student-designed Rover could leave previous exploratory vehicles in the Martian dust.
TAGLIATELA COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
University of New Haven
300 Boston Post Road, West Haven, CT 06516
203.932.7168 | www.newhaven.edu/engineering
The Tagliatela College of Engineering has been ranked in the top tier of undergraduate engineering programs nationwide by U.S. News & World Report.
3D Printing and Polymers:
An Electric Combination
Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering Omar Faruk Emon has received a University Research Scholar Award, one of only four faculty members in the University to win the honor in 2023. The recognition spotlights faculty members who are doing outstanding research in their field.
The University of New Haven is doing something about that, and fast. The Tagliatela College of Engineering is engineering a veritable tech-talent pipeline to deliver job-ready tech professionals to the State’s private and public sectors.
The College is constructing the pipeline with strong material — tech camps for high-school students and their teachers, cemented with generous grants from the National Security Agency (NSA) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) in addition to two Connecticut Higher Educational Tech Talent Accelerator grants from the New England Board of Higher Education. The Tech Talent Accelerator program fosters partnerships between tech companies and higher education.
Well, maybe not in kindergarten — but soon after. In fact, elementary school is where the passion for understanding the ins and outs of technology usually starts, and high school is where the tech-passionate get serious, often taking college-level courses — for college credit — before they even start their higher-education career.
It’s a long haul to becoming a tech professional, and Connecticut is currently seeing the effects of arriving too late in the game. The State is understaffed in tech talent, with job openings often languishing in workforce limbo.
How Do You Fill a Skills Gap in the Tech Workforce? You Start Early. Very Early.
The camp for high-school students — the GenCyber Student Academy — is a unique and rigorous summer camp that gives students intensive, hands-on learning in how to protect the nation from cyber attacks. The camp, which was launched in 2021 with 40 students, was the brainchild of a former colleague of Mehdi Mekni’s, professor of Computer Science and a member of the University’s Connecticut Institute of Technology. Mekni continued his predecessor’s student initiative and then quickly made the mental leap to high-school teachers with STEM backgrounds, reasoning that by educating teachers, he could reach more students.
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Because good decisions often involve knowing what bad decisions look like and then not doing that, his work focuses on analyzing decisions made by both humans and machines, including AI. Behzadan hopes that by helping AI to become better at critical “thinking,” it will benefit the whole of society.
He is passionate about the safe and ethical use of AI but is blunt in stating that some regulations on the technology, though well intentioned are, nevertheless, misinformed. They could fall far short of anticipating the possible ways that AI may not stay in its lane, veering into unforeseen areas as the technology races ahead.
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So, what will ethical AI use look like? Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Data Science Vahid Behzadan is performing research on that critical question in the College’s Secure and Assured Intelligent Learning Lab (SAIL).
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The Good, the Bad, and the Ambivalent
The healthcare field, in particular, could see a massive transformation in terms of improved access, affordability, quality and patient safety. Hartford Healthcare already is using AI to predict surgery outcomes, the length of hospital stays, and as an early warning tool for patients with certain conditions.
“The downside, however, is that these tasks are going to be done more and more with AI help and, therefore, will need fewer people to accomplish them,” Harichandran added.
So, what is the rock-bottom line in terms of employment numbers? Senator Maroney had the figures: “Over the next 10 years, AI is project to eliminate 85 million jobs and create 97 million jobs.”
Not exactly a black-and-white issue.
Harichandran noted that one of the benefits of training workers in AI could be in helping to promote equity across socio-economic strata. But here again, thanks to the unpredictable benefit/harm swings of AI, the technology could exacerbate disparities. “The wealthier segments of the population may be in a better position to quickly adopt these tools, and, therefore, get ahead in the workplace, compared to the ones who are not as fortunate,” he theorized.
The lawmakers in Hartford plan to legislate that away. “An important piece of our bill is to make sure that we’re training everyone and that every citizen in Connecticut has the opportunity to benefit from AI and what it’ll bring,” said Maroney.
But with all of the possible scenarios for AI fall-out —working for good or for ill — there’s one that can’t honestly be described as an unintended consequence: bias.
Harichandran stated flat-out that inequities could be built into AI algorithms. In other words, who is writing the AI training modules? What degree of integrity do they have that would prevent their human prejudices from becoming AI prejudices?
The Science of Making Bad Decisions: AI Ethics Formation in the Lab
Thanks to his all-encompassing perspective on the technology and his expertise in artificial intelligence research, Behzadan was appointed to a task force last year — the Connecticut Artificial Intelligence Working Group — with the mission to bring his findings to Connecticut policymakers.
In pursuit of a sane and sensible AI policy, the Group met multiple times with policy organizations and tech leaders in the private sector, such as Google, to exchange ideas and perspectives. Behzadan believes that the diverse expertise of these leaders was critical to forming a balanced public policy.
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Making AI a Tool, Not a Tyrant
Thoughtful, informed legislation. Maintaining control of AI decision-making. White Hat cyber deception tactics to keep things fair and honest.
It’s all about keeping AI on a tight leash but knowing when to loosen our grip. Just as long as we never let go completely.
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investigators:
investigation:
Provide technical assistance to the U.S. Coast Guard after an unidentified signal was observed near U.S. waters.
Students from 450 schools from around the U.S. playing the role of National Security Agency (NSA) employees.
Identify the unknown object sending the signal by completing nine progressively more difficult tasks that build on each other. Exploit vulnerabilities in software to determine the bad actors involved and reverse engineer the software recovered from a spy balloon.
As impressive as that was, digging down into the arithmetic of the scoring revealed a level of concentrated talent in University of New Haven students that was somewhat hidden by the numerical place finishes, but which clearly put them in a class by themselves.
How? The students from each school completed tasks individually for points, and their combined scores made up the score their schools received. So, big schools, who brought more students to the competition, had an advantage in that more students = more points.
As a smaller school, the University of New Haven came in with fewer students so, to win their 12th place finish, they, in actuality, were more successful in completing tasks than many bigger schools.
A Landing in Utah Before Mars (cont.)
The happy news came in late March. The University of New Haven team has qualified for the finals — in a year that, according to the URC, is one of their most competitive years to date.
Shayok Mukhopadhyay, Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and faculty advisor for the project, has high praise for his team’s initiative and resourcefulness. “They took it upon themselves to learn all the necessary details to make this truly multidisciplinary project possible,” he said. “Their hope is subsequently to use the platform for robotics research work in the future.”
Right now, the University of New Haven team is over the moon with excitement, but back here on Earth, they will take their Rover to the southern Utah desert this summer.
If the Rover can survive the competitive heat there and come out on top, it stands a much better chance of making the Red Planet its next stop.
What does that mean? It means they can generate electric current and act as mini power plants for things like small-scale robotics, gripping mechanisms, prosthetics, and wearable devices. They’ve become energy harvesters.
The scene of this exciting research is Dr. Emon’s Smart Fabrication Lab at the University. There, he and his team constructed their own 3D printer for the process — a nonplanar printer, which confers significant benefits in printing curved and complex features. Planar printing, on the other hand, must use a stair-step effect to achieve curves, which is less accurate in following the contours of the model.
“We envision a future where electronic components are powered through 3D-printed, all-in-one energy harvesting devices,” enthused Emon. “We now have the potential to revolutionize the powering of consumer electronics, medical devices, and defense systems.”
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Embryonic development. Wound healing. Tissue regeneration. Cancer metastasis. They all depend on — or arise from — collective cell migration.
The part that’s still somewhat shrouded in mystery? The correlation between cells not staying put and compressive mechanical force. A new grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), however, will support research at the University to bring to light the mechanism involved.
Armed with the $377,255 award, Principal Investigator and Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering Shue Wang will use novel nano-biosensing techniques and an engineered 3D biomimetic (synthesized to emulate a biochemical process) micro-environment to study compression and mechanobiology — that is, how cells detect and react to physical forces in our bodies. Cells feel these forces and can change their behavior based on them. Wang hopes to clarify how compressive stress and matrix stiffness interact with non-coding RNAs in collective cell migration.
So, cells can feel pressure. What are we doing to make them feel that way? Think: the bending and movement of joints, the pressure on cartilage and bone from exercise, the force of blood coursing through our veins and arteries.
Cancer metastasis is absolute intolerance on the part of cells for pressure. As a tumor grows and takes up more and more space, it’s subject to squeezing from other cells, to being pulled, pushed, and rubbed against by its surroundings. Under such “claustrophobic” conditions, tumor cells will seek out a new neighborhood, where the local microenvironment is more spacious and less hostile.
In addition to supporting the research, the NSF award will fund the development of course curricula, summer research opportunities, and K-12 outreach. In fact, Wang is recruiting high school students, as well as undergraduates, to participate in the project by offering them hands-on training and mentoring.
Wang hopes that the knowledge gained through the project will help in understanding the basic rules of how cells move in a controlled way both during normal development and cancer growth.
We might find a special kind of marker that reacts to physical forces, which could be used both to identify conditions and serve as a target for treatment,” she said.
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The GenCyber Teacher Academy was the result and became a dynamic partner to the student camp. The program, which is free to participants thanks to the NSA/NSF grant, covers topics such as social engineering, Python, cybersecurity awareness, and network fundamentals. Teachers leave the program with lesson plans and other materials they can use in their high-school classes.
The teacher camp has been every bit as successful as the student camp and has led to several invitations for Mekni to speak to the teachers’ high-school classes. The invites have also been a great opportunity for Mekni to use his recruiting talent to identify the best students and bring them to the TCoE for a first-hand look around.
Meanwhile, the two Tech Talent Accelerator grants from the New England Board of Higher Education — one for $30,000 and a second one for $40,000 — are helping to support the College’s new Game Design and Development concentration in the Computer Science program.
The initial $30,000 grant went for a project titled “Embedding Unity Credentials to Catapult Connecticut’s Workforce in Game Design and Development.” Unity Technologies is a San Francisco-based video game software development company. Expertise in using the Unity platform is one of the most sought-after skills in the tech job market today.
Mekni explained the project.
Game Design and Development: A Serious Business
The second grant — Tech Talent Accelerator 2.0 — will take the achievements of the original initiative and run with them. First order of business is to refine and enhance the curriculum. In the process, Mekni hopes to make the Game Design & Development concentration in Computer Science so attractive that it will stimulate some cross-college migration — that is, pull students from other colleges over the border to the Tagliatela College of Engineering.
Perhaps unfairly (but ask us if we care), the crossing over doesn’t go both ways. That’s because the concentration gives computer science students who have a flair for design a sphere for flexing their creative muscle. That talent, in the past, could have led them to a graphic design program, but now they can marry it with their passion for technology.
In addition to curriculum refinements, the project will fund subscription fees for the Unity Academic Alliance, a resource to ensure access to Unity certifications, and provide for two research assistants to guide and assist students through the Unity certification assessments.
University of New Haven
TCoE
Trends
Newsletter of the Tagliatela College of Engineering,
University of New Haven
Spring 2024
The scene of this exciting research is Dr. Emon’s Smart Fabrication Lab at the University. There, he and his team constructed their own 3D printer for the process — a nonplanar printer, which confers significant benefits in printing curved and complex features. Planar printing, on the other hand, must use a stair-step effect to achieve curves, which is less accurate in following the contours of the model.
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Dr. Emon
Emon’s project using advanced 3D printing techniques for functional polymers was the impetus behind his selection as a University Research Scholar noteworthy.
His research — officially titled “Nonplanar 3D Printing for Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting” — uses an ionic liquid (IL)-prepolymer mixture as the raw material in a 3D printer to produce components for electronics and bio-medical applications.
Slide 1 of 4
After the components are printed they are transformed into IL-polymer membranes with piezoelectric properties.
What does that mean? It means they can generate electric current and act as mini power plants for things like small-scale robotics, gripping mechanisms, prosthetics, and wearable devices. They’ve become energy harvesters.
Slide 2 of 4
“We envision a future where electronic components are powered through 3D-printed, all-in-one energy harvesting devices,” enthused Emon. “We now have the potential to revolutionize the powering of consumer electronics, medical devices, and defense systems.”
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We don’t want to prevent innovation and the adoption of these tools,” Harichandran said. “At the same time, we want to safeguard citizens and organizations from the judgment effects that may occur as these things are more widely used.”
The Group’s initial mandate concluded in February. As a result, a new bill has been proposed in the CT State Senate that extends the scope of the previous bill’s approved regulations. Among other new mandates, the bill instructs each developer of a general-purpose AI model to maintain technical documentation that includes specifics such as the task the model is intended to perform, acceptable use policies, and the methods by which such general-purpose AI model is distributed.
In addition, “Algorithmic Discrimination” is forbidden and is defined as an AI system that materially increases the risk of unjustified differential treatment or impact that disfavors individuals or a group of individuals on the basis of actual or perceived age, color, disability, ethnicity and other protected classifications.
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AI Ethics Formation in the Lab (cont.)
When Deception Is Ethical
Hackers use deceptive techniques to wreak havoc on cyber systems. But, there’s a way to deceive the deceivers and beat them at their own game — or at least throw a monkey wrench into their plans. What does that have to do with AI?
One of the best persons in the University to ask about that is Nancirose Piazza, a Ph. D. student of Behzadan’s. Her dissertation research, titled “Characterization and Mitigation of Emergent Deception in Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning,” focuses on detecting deceptive behavior in intelligent learning multi-agent systems and, in effect, turning the tables on it by using cyber deception tactics to thwart, disrupt, and delay the attacks.
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When Deception Is Ethical (cont.)
AI, of course, is a multi-agent learning system. Multiple autonomous agents interact and collaborate to solve problems and complete tasks. (The autonomous automobile is one example.)
But multi-agent learning systems have to inspire trust. Fairness, accountability and an alignment with the values of society are essential elements of Trustworthy AI. The ability to fend off and/or mitigate cyber attacks through White Hat cyber deception can help keep Trustworthy AI from becoming Un-Trustworthy AI.
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When Deception Is Ethical (cont.)
Piazza performed additional work on cyber deception in an area known as Adversary Engagement — the strategic use of cyber deception to increase the cost and decrease the value of an adversary’s cyber operations. Thanks to a grant from the MITRE Corporation — a not-for-profit that operates federally funded R&D centers — the team at SAIL, with Piazza as a key member, developed an effective Adversary Engagement Ontology. For Piazza, the research has served as a springboard to international recognition. She was selected to participate in the prestigious Cooperative AI Foundation summer school in London, joining an elite cohort of students from leading AI labs around the world. She is also part of a collaborative effort between SAIL and King’s College London, investigating the theory of mind approaches to the detection of deceptive behavior in multi-agent systems.
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Ronnie Scarpa ’25, B.S. in Cybersecurity & Networks, was one of three University of New Haven students who completed Task 7, which was the most challenging, in his opinion. “It took a great deal of trial and error to figure out how the attacker’s server stored responses based on the IP address it came from,” he reflected.
The three did so well that the NSA recognized them as high achievers. It’s a designation that shimmers against the backdrop of the NSA recognizing the University of New Haven as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Operations thanks to its bachelor’s degree programs in Cybersecurity & Networks and Computer Science.
Included in its package of features is a powerful arm — which can lift the Rover and push it in the unlikely event it gets stuck on some Martian speed bump — autonomous navigation capabilities, AI-based object-detection capabilities, and the ability to generate 3D maps of the area. The students used the state-of-the-art machining capabilities of the University’s Makerspace as well as 3D printing techniques to create their vehicle.
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A Landing in Utah Before Mars
(cont.)
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That could take a lot of the pressure off for all of us.
Learn More About Camps
As part of the project, the University developed collaborative relationships with other leading tech companies, such as SphereGen, Arsome, and Pleiadian, whose representatives attend mini conferences with faculty and students to discuss the dynamic game design and development industry, its current state, and its future in Connecticut and the New England region.
Also earmarked: funds for participation in gaming-related events, such as the Game Developers Conference, for the outside-the-classroom experience that jumpstarts the metamorphosis of student to professional.
It’s important to remember that video games aren’t just pastimes — indoor recreation for tech-obsessed teenagers. The multi-billion dollar gaming competition business aside, game design and development is also used to create training videos for the fields of healthcare, criminal justice, fire science, architecture, engineering, construction, automotive, transportation, and manufacturing firms, to name a few.
With the in-depth education provided by Professor Mekni and the generous grants supporting the College’s exciting initiatives, game designers can join the cybersecurity professionals in the making that have begun to flow through the University’s tech pipeline.
At the other end of that pipeline? A Connecticut that will become one of the most exciting, successful, and fertile tech hubs in the United States.
The idea we presented from the University was to use our Game Design and Development concentration and embed credentials issued by Unity. This would be an important way for students to not just learn technologies and obtain a degree but to leave the University with professional, industry-recognized credentials.”
AI Ethics Formation in the Lab (cont.)
AI Ethics Formation in the Lab (cont.)
The test drive was conducted on a beach in West Haven. There, the multi-disciplinary engineering team that put together their vision of a better Mars Rover took it through its paces.
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The all student-designed prototype is no all-wheel vehicle. Instead — in a departure from the Rovers that NASA has been using since 1988 — it moves about on tank treads. The tread material, however, is flexible — unlike traditional rigid tank-tread material. The treads provide a huge area of contact with the surface and allow the Rover to float lightly over particulates and climb obstacles with aplomb.
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The Science of Making Bad Decisions:
AI Ethics Formation in the Lab
See More
Introducing the 2024 Mars Rover: A new student-designed Rover could leave previous exploratory vehicles in the Martian dust.
Meanwhile, the two Tech Talent Accelerator grants from the New England Board of Higher Education — one for $30,000 and a second one for $40,000 — are helping to support the College’s new Game Design and Development concentration in the Computer Science program.
The initial $30,000 grant went for a project titled “Embedding Unity Credentials to Catapult Connecticut’s Workforce in Game Design and Development.” Unity Technologies is a San Francisco-based video game software development company. Expertise in using the Unity platform is one of the most sought-after skills in the tech job market today.
Mekni explained the project.
The second grant — Tech Talent Accelerator 2.0 — will take the achievements of the original initiative and run with them. First order of business is to refine and enhance the curriculum. In the process, Mekni hopes to make the Game Design & Development concentration in Computer Science so attractive that it will stimulate some cross-college migration — that is, pull students from other colleges over the border to the Tagliatela College of Engineering.
Perhaps unfairly (but ask us if we care), the crossing over doesn’t go both ways. That’s because the concentration gives computer science students who have a flair for design a sphere for flexing their creative muscle. That talent, in the past, could have led them to a graphic design program, but now they can marry it with their passion for technology.
In addition to curriculum refinements, the project will fund subscription fees for the Unity Academic Alliance, a resource to ensure access to Unity certifications, and provide for two research assistants to guide and assist students through the Unity certification assessments.
Game Design and Development:
A Serious Business
300 Boston Post Road, West Haven, CT 06516
203.932.7168 | www.newhaven.edu/engineering
TAGLIATELA COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
University of New Haven