Research
Boldly innovating to impact society and transform the world.
Northeastern University has achieved the prestigious recognition as a top-tier R1 institution for research activity among U.S. colleges and universities by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. Our tradition of partnership and engagement guides a use-inspired and interdisciplinary research enterprise that is strategically aligned with three global imperatives: health, security, and sustainability. Our annual Scholarship Report highlights pioneering research and achievements over the past year.
The College of Engineering has over 195 tenured/tenure-track faculty, each bringing complementary areas of research expertise to address pressing global challenges. Their state-of-art-research looks at critical issues in materials, processes, systems, infrastructure, hardware and software at every scale—nano to macro to global—grounded in a translational approach that integrates the values of fundamental and applied research.
Our faculty boldly innovate by collaborating across engineering disciplines and the university, as well as with government, academia, and industry. The College of Engineering has 18 multidisciplinary research centers and institutes with funding from eight federal agencies. Our commitment to conducting transformative research to better the world can be seen by a 82% increase in external research funding from 2015 to 2021, and by an investment in research capabilities such as our 223,000 square foot, six-story Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Complex.
Government and Industry Partnerships
Industry and government partner with Northeastern for basic and applied research. The reason is simple: they know that at Northeastern, our two guiding principles are interdisciplinary collaboration and engagement with the real world. These principles are reflected in our research programs, which are driven by critical issues in materials, processes, systems and infrastructure. Our research collaborations are a win-win-win: our partners receive knowledge and products tailored to their needs, our researchers validate and extend their work, and our students receive training and experience to become the next generation of effective technologists.
Research At-A-Glance
a.alshawabkeh@northeastern.edu
Geoenvironmental engineering, soil and groundwater remediation; electrokinetic and electrochemical processes; contaminant fate and transport environmental restoration
Recent News
Improving Acoustic Wireless Communication
ECE Professor Tommaso Melodia and ECE Research Assistant Professor Emrecan Demirors were awarded a patent for designing a “method and apparatus for wireless communications.”
Ultrasensitive, Miniaturized, and Inexpensive Ion Detection Device
MIE Professor Yung Joon Jung and affiliated Physics Associate Professor Swastik Kar were awarded a patent for “Ion and radiation detection devices based on carbon nanomaterials and two-dimensional nanomaterials.”
Powering Reconfigurable Implantable Medical Devices
ECE William Lincoln Smith Professor Tommaso Melodia received a patent for creating a “Reconfigurable implantable medical system for ultrasonic power control and telemetry.” Abstract Source: USPTO A reconfigurable implantable system for ultrasonic power control and telemetry includes a charging device that includes an ultrasonic transducer to transmit and receive ultrasonic signals transmitted through a biological […]
Two Patents Issued for Naderi & Chowdhury Innovation
ECE Professor Kaushik Chowdhury and Research Assistant Professor Yousof Naderi were awarded patents for “Encoding and decoding data in communication frames of a communications protocol” and “Distributed wireless charging system and method.”