Recognition & Honors
Key Publications
Paul Chu (Physics, TcSUH) led an international team of researchers reporting a new compound capable of maintaining its skyrmion properties at room temperature through the use of high pressure. The work, described in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, holds promise for next-generation data storage. The results also suggest the potential for using chemical pressure to maintain the properties at ambient pressure, offering promise for commercial applications.
Seamus Curran (Physics) and colleagues are reporting a new material, pliable enough to be woven into fabric but imbued with sensing capabilities that could serve as an early warning system for injury or illness. The material, described in a paper published by ACS Applied Nano Materials, involves the use of carbon nanotubes and is capable of sensing slight changes in body temperature while maintaining a pliable disordered structure – as opposed to a rigid crystalline structure – making it a good candidate for reusable or disposable wearable human body temperature sensors.
Eva Harth (Chemistry) reported a new method of producing polyolefins – made from hydrocarbons and the most common building block of plastics – structured to address one of the biggest stumbling blocks to plastics recycling. The process also would allow plastics to be produced from food oils and other natural substances. The new method addresses a long-standing need for industrial plastics producers, without requiring a new catalyst or expensive additives. Harth is a corresponding author for the paper describing the discovery, published in the German journal Angewandte Chemie.
Ioannis Kakadiaris (Computer Science) and Dr. Winston Liaw, a researcher at the UH College of Medicine, co-authored a commentary in the Annals of Family Medicine. The piece encourages family medicine physicians to actively engage in the development and evolution of AI to open new horizons that make AI more effective, equitable and pervasive. The researchers contend that only with evidence-based recommendations from the physicians on the front lines of patient care can AI truly elevate the practice of family medicine. Kakadiaris and Liaw see a unique opportunity to steer the current AI advances so they can deliver on the original promise of electronic health records.
Ding-Shyue (Jerry) Yang (Chemistry) and his research group published studies of molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) in the ACS Nano Letters. The compound is widely considered for various potential electronic applications. The team was able to visualize atomic motions on the surface of the ultrathin material. They found MoS2 to have nearly isotropic atomic movements, meaning that the motions perpendicular to the compound’s ultrathin sheet resemble those along the sheet. Yang said, “this finding is somewhat counterintuitive and quite unexpected and prompts further research on other 2D materials to better understand the similarity and differences among them.”