Two Penn Engineering professors have received Office of Naval Research (ONR) 2019 Young Investigator Program Awards: Firooz Aflatouni, Skirkanich Assistant Professor of Electrical and Systems Engineering, and James Pikul, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and applied mechanics.

The program aims to “identify and support academic scientists and engineers who are in their first or second full-time tenure-track or tenure-track-equivalent academic appointment, who have received their doctorate or equivalent degree on or after January 1, 2011 and who show exceptional promise for doing creative research.”

Dr. Aflatouni received an award for his proposal “Deep Networks with Ultra-Fast Photonic Training for Instantaneous Direct Image Classification” in the Division 312 Electro-Optical/Infra-Red Sensors and Sensor Processing program, which has an objective of “developing high-performance, low-cost, next generation electro-optic sensors, devices and autonomous processing to provide real-time detection, tracking, classification, and identification of air, sea-surface and ground targets in all weather conditions.” This award will provide up to $750,000.

Dr. Pikul received an award for his proposal “Understanding Electrochemically Induced Surface Evolution and Transport at Metal-Hydrogel Interfaces for Metal-Air Scavenger Power.” This research is encompassed by the Division 302 Manufacturing, Maintenance and Logistics program, which aims to improve “additive manufacturing, condition-based maintenance and health system monitoring, efficient energy generation, novel energy harvesting techniques and solar cell chemistry, physics and manufacturing.” He will be provided with $650,000.