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3D printing is popping up in a variety of sectors, Chen explains, noting that many “companies are using 3D printers to make very high-value parts.” Biomedical manufacturers can now easily print materials for their life-saving devices. Aircraft and aerospace designs can seamlessly move from computer to product in a matter of minutes. Even military research labs are implementing 3D-printed parts.

Despite its far-reaching potential, 3D printing is still a relatively new type of technology and currently faces the growing threat of stolen intellectual property (IP) and counterfeiting. Just as anyone’s computers, servers, or hardware are at risk for hacking, so too are 3D printers, companies, and their designs.

In response to these threats, Gupta and Chen published their groundbreaking research in 2017 in Materials and Design. In it, they detail how intentionally embedded hidden flaws they placed in computer aided design (CAD) files can disappear when printed under specific parameters. If anyone else besides the IP owner and trusted partners attempted to print with these files, they’d end up with defective parts.

Just this past August 2018, Gupta and Chen’s research team became the first to transform flat QR (Quick Response) codes into hidden 3D features within 3D-printed parts. Using a unique method that “explodes” a QR code in a CAD file, false QR tags thwart potential thieves.

“What you see in a file is not necessarily what you produce with a 3D printer when you use our design-security feature. You are the IP owner, and you will be the only one that can produce your high-quality part with these features that we’ve created. When anyone else tries to produce this part, they would print something that is defective and poor quality,” Chen says.

She presented her research at the Falling Walls Lab contest on September 13, 2018, placing third in the highly competitive international pitch event that was held at the Leslie eLab. Participants had only three minutes to showcase their research and business ventures to a jury. (The event was co-sponsored by the German Center for Research and Innovation New York and NYU Tandon.)

Out of the many applications submitted from all over the U.S., Chen was one of nine entrepreneurs selected to present, and the only student from NYU. Students and professors from universities like Virginia Tech, MIT, Harvard, and Columbia competed, but Chen soared to the top. “It was a very diverse selection of participants, working in distinct areas, including sociology, artificial intelligence, engineering designs, and biomedical applications,” she shares.

Describing to the audience the prototypes she, Gupta, and their research team created, Chen highlighted the common thread amongst all industries currently using, or thinking of using 3D printing: protecting their IP.

“In her pitch, Fei tried to strike a similar chord with everyone in the audience, rather than speaking to one specific application,” Gupta explains. “Our societies, economies, and people’s lives will be impacted by these threats of counterfeiting and intellectual property, but her findings present greater possibilities for doctors, engineers, and anybody using 3D printing.”

From Curious Student to Pioneering Researcher

Born in Baise, China, Chen spent most of her childhood in Dongguan before coming to Tandon in 2012. Earning her undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from both Beijing Jiaotong University and Tandon (when both universities had a dual-degree program), Chen quickly fell in love with the school and decided to pursue her doctoral degree here in 2015.

Gupta challenged Chen to explore the little-researched world of 3D printing and cybersecurity when she joined his lab. “Even though people have been developing new techniques and materials, the security concerns hadn’t been addressed in much research literature yet,” Chen says.                          

A world-renowned researcher, entrepreneur, and leading expert in additive manufacturing and composite materials, Gupta is an incredibly supportive mentor and adviser to Chen, and adamant that she is the brains behind their studies’ innovative methods. “It’s important to understand that while I’m probably the public face of this research, all the work and a lot of the ideas now originate from Fei,” Gupta explains. “Originally we started this research before Fei joined. We wanted to create this field where people were finding solutions to cybersecurity concerns in 3D printing field. When she came on board, she contributed tremendously.”

Gupta emphasizes that Chen manages the entire project, balancing multiple components and communicating with collaborators, including NYU Abu Dhabi researchers, computer scientists, and the U.S. Army Research Lab. While it may be exciting to be published in respected journals, Gupta and Chen both agree that their work is more about the process.

“In my experience, it’s rare that you test something and it works immediately. It always takes so much time, and many trials and little steps,” Chen says. “I don’t think that there’s any problem to that, though. It’s a good way to create new knowledge and inventions.”

She shares this advice to the high school students she mentors in the Applied Research Innovations in Science and Engineering (ARISE) — the K-12 STEM program she has been part of for three years. “I tell them on their first day to not worry about things you might see as failures, or if something’s not working out, but to enjoy the process and ask as many questions as they want,” Chen emphasizes. “This is the same for me, you cannot just feel frustrated when this one thing doesn’t work. Professor Gupta tells me this all the time: if this isn’t working, there may be another way to make it work.”

Now, as Chen prepares for her job search ahead of graduation, she’s determined to continue working with 3D printing and cybersecurity, and her own mentor sees unlimited possibilities for her. “Her research can branch out to other manufacturing methods, or it can be more focused on cybersecurity methods like encryption tools,” Gupta encourages. “We don’t know where this will end up, but she has a lot of unique ideas that she can test in her future research.”

On Friday, October 12, 2018, Chen will speak at the “Additive Manufacturing: State of the Art and Trends” workshop organized for American Society for Mechanical Engineers. The lecture also features Rakesh Kumar Behera and will be moderated by Nikhil Gupta.

ALIVE (Advanced Learning through Integrated Visual Environments) is a decades-long effort to bridge the information gap between research and real-life firefighting. Developed by the Fire Research Group under the leadership of Dr. Sunil Kumar, ALIVE is an online, scenario-based simulation training program created by a team of NYU Tandon Mechanical Engineering faculty and scientists working to disseminate firefighting tactics and research-based information to urban and rural fire departments. It is funded by the Department of Homeland Security’s Assistance to Firefighters Grant (AFG).

Spearheaded by Dr. Prabodh Panindre, a Senior Research Scientist and Adjunct Mechanical Engineering Faculty at NYU Tandon, ALIVE’s interactive online modules train firefighters in diverse firefighting issues such as residential fires, wind-driven high-rise fires, firefighter health and safety, and fire scenarios. Its latest module — Wildland Fires — focuses on training firefighters to manage and coordinate their attack methods on wildfires.

Culling together research, expertise from multiple fire departments and experts, and insight from national organizations such as the Underwriters Laboratories (UL), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the U.S. Forest Service, the modules provide firefighters, including part-time and volunteer firefighters, with life-saving and critical information on combating various types of fires.

The modules are engaging, adaptive, data-driven, and live — allowing departments to understand where more training is needed in specific areas. The online training teaches critical firefighting concepts, and lets users immediately apply what they’ve learned to realistic scenarios and quizzes. Even if you select the wrong answer, the program explains why an answer is or isn’t the most effective way to address a situation based on scientific research, reinforcing the best actions for firefighters when they’re out in the field.

Fighting Fire with Scientific Evidence-Based Learning

“When we first started the project, it was centered on training the FDNY on high-rise fires,” Panindre explains. After seeing the positive response, the team behind ALIVE spent three years researching its effectiveness on a national scale and discovered that firefighters retained more information using ALIVE’s online modules versus the traditional classroom training. “Now, more than 75,000 firefighters from all 50 states have gone through our training modules. More than 1,000 departments are incorporating these modules into their own training programs,” shares Panindre.  

One such department is the Houston Fire Department, which has been an ALIVE partner for many years and incorporates the ALIVE modules into their classroom training.

Senior Captain Jeffery King of the Houston Fire Department (HFD), a partner with ALIVE and NYU Fire Research Group, knows the importance of disseminating advanced firefighting research to fellow firefighters, having lent his expertise to ALIVE’s module development for Residential Fires and Fire Scenarios. He shared that HFD’s continuing education program trained their whole department in August 2018 with the Fire Scenarios module, and currently all of its members are using the cardiovascular health module.

“In the last 15 to 20 years, we have learned more about the science of firefighting, a better understanding of how to do our job, and more about the physiological impact of firefighting – one of those being cardiovascular health,” King says. “The health and safety of each firefighter is paramount to a department’s success. Getting this information out to firefighters through the module is absolutely critical. NYU has done a phenomenal job of taking difficult information and putting it into a format that is easily understandable, deliverable to the people in the fire service, and in a means that can impact what’s going on every day in fire departments.”

“Around 50-60% of firefighters die of cardiac events,” Dr. Kumar explains. “Using scientific data and interviews, our module explains how cardiac arrest occurs, the impact of firefighting gear and hot environments upon their health, signs and symptoms, and how to prevent cardiac problems in fire service.”

Managing Destructive Wildfires

ALIVE is currently unveiling its new wildland fire module. Aimed to help first responders and initial incident attack commanders effectively manage wildland fires, the module addresses the unique challenges of wildland fires due to their erratic behavior, more difficult terrain, and dangerous environmental conditions. The NYU Fire Research Group partnered with the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), Los Angeles County Fire Dept. (LACoFD), California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire), and Barona Fire Department (BFD) in developing the module.

Nationwide wildland fire experts provided insight into the critical issues and training points, including Former Battalion Chief for Cal Fire Pete Scully. With over 33 years of active service battling wildfires, Scully tapped into his vast knowledge and own experiences to distill the best information into the module.

“I thought back to areas where I made mistakes, and my own first-hand experiences as a chief officer regarding how incidents were or weren’t properly managed,” he says. “Wildland fires can be very intimidating, and often when someone first arrives on the scene that isn’t experienced, they don’t take the time to manage and size up the big picture of the situation. Often, opportunities are missed. They might be focusing on where the most smoke or most flames are, but that’s not really where the most efficient use of resources is. This module is designed to get firefighters thinking about managing an incident properly and efficiently.”

Both Scully and Panindre agree that ALIVE’s modules are not meant to replace classroom training, but rather to supplement and complement training programs within a fire department, and help volunteer firefighters gain more training.

Emphasizing ALIVE’s accessibility, Panindre explained that “70% percent of the nation’s fire service are smaller, rural fire departments, yet they don’t have the budget or resources of larger departments like FDNY. We tried to focus on helping those firefighter departments who have few firefighters and resources, but want to increase their training. We make sure we can reach them through our modules.”

All ALIVE training modules are free for all firefighters and fire departments. Firefighters can access the free training modules on the Fire Research Group’s website, and through mobile applications. Fire departments interested in offering ALIVE training to their members can register by emailing the NYU Fire Research Group at [email protected].

Iskander’s journey from university student to renowned educator features prominently in the latest issue of the Pile Driver magazine, a publication of the Pile Driving Contractors Association. The magazine’s feature article spotlights Iskander’s storied 30-year career, tracing his early days as a civil engineer in the Egyptian armed forces, to his doctoral research on the capacity of piles in sand, and up through his current research at NYU Tandon.

Pile drivers, also known as hammers, are devices engineers use to install piles, or poles, into soils to support buildings, skyscrapers, and other structures with deep foundations. (The magazine highlights the latest trends and technologies for pile driving, and reaches a global audience of industry professionals and engineering firms.)

Known internationally for his research on replacing conventional piling with recycled polymeric piling in structures near water, Iskander is also recognized in the article for his development of transparent soil surrogates — surrogates that are used to study the behavior of soils near foundations in model tests. His visualization techniques have widespread impact and applications, with 30 universities having employed them. His present work is experimenting with computer science and artificial intelligence (AI) and its potential to predict pile capacity.

Reflecting on his journey from a young student to his current place at the helm of NYU Tandon’s Civil & Urban Engineering department, Iskander remembers his lifelong fascination with foundations and piling. “I came to America exactly 30 years ago to study foundation engineering. In fact, I wrote my dissertation on the behavior of pipe piles in sand,” Iskander notes. “It is very gratifying that on the 30th anniversary of me arriving to the U.S. as a student, I have been recognized in one of the top foundation engineering trade publications, and one especially dedicated to piling.”

In the feature, Pile Driver also details Iskander’s dedication to teaching the next generation of civil and geotechnical engineers, in particular his involvement in Tandon’s K-12 STEM programs. Helping inspire students as young as second grade envision themselves as scientists and engineers, these programs bring authentic tools such as sensors into classroom experiments, engaging students who typically receive less opportunities and resources.

Almost 33 years since he graduated from university, Iskander recognizes that hard work and perseverance are at the heart of wealth and success, and emphasizes that students who take shortcuts seldom reach their goals. 

He also encourages students to always help others and expect nothing in return: “Those you help may never be able to pay you back, but somehow you will be repaid in full and more.”

Trained on massive collections of image data culled from the web, each of the AI agents has a distinct goal. Harrison works towards shaping its ecosystem that looks like a ‘natural’ wetland. Hans mimics landscape paintings to produce a wetland environment similar to artistic representations of nature. Nicholas seeks out attention, and optimizes its environment to try to attract visitors.

“Each system takes a photo every few minutes, looks as the photo and asks, ‘How close is it to becoming a natural wetland, or to becoming a work of art, or attracting the attention of gallery goers?’” Brain, an assistant industry professor in Integrated Digital Media, explains. “Each system will reinforce the conditions that score the highest in this process, and then tries to optimize its environment based on these settings.”

Deep Swamp debuted at the Chronus Art Center in Shanghai, China in July 2018 as part of the “Machines Are Not Alone: A Machinic Trilogy” exhibition. Playing with the exhibit’s theme of “machinic ecology,” Brain’s installation grapples with the role of AI and machine learning in trying to sustain ecosystems without human intervention. Expressive of her research and work that she deems “eccentric engineering,” Brain hopes her project prompts visitors to consider the complexity of trying to control our environment. “How ecological problems are framed, and therefore what gets engineered as appropriate ‘solutions’ are thorny questions that go way beyond the technical.”

“Wetlands are now seen as a technology, and we often build them to purify water, to reduce flooding, and improve water quality downstream, but historically we haven’t preserved them. They’re places we’ve built airports and parking lots.” Brain explains, who said her past work in building wetlands for urban stormwater treatment inspired her decision to experiment with these ecosystems. “Our understanding of the environment is only partial, yet we continually work with the assumption that we’re able to model, manage, and therefore optimize the environment in certain ways.”

Deep Swamp reveals a tendency that Brain sees to view nature as a machine, a view that is reinforced by our culture’s celebration of computational technologies. “We see the environment as data, a model, a thing to manipulate and engineer, but this is just one way to look and engage with it,” Brain shares, noting the environment’s continual resistance to being fully represented in a technological system.

The exhibit and the Deep Swamp installation will be on view at the Chronus Art Center through October 21, 2018. Brain will also be taking Deep Swamp on tour, as it will be featured in the 6th Guangzhou Triennial in December 2018 at the Guangdong Museum of Art, China.