- University News Archive - ��Vlog��ý Little Rock

COSMOS Researchers Win Best Paper Award for Research into Australian Blogosphere

John Hill — Wed, 20 Apr 2022 12:56:37 +0000

��Vlog��ý Little Rock researchers at the Collaboratorium for Social Media and Online Behavioral Studies (COSMOS) received the Best Paper Award for the paper, “Developing Situational Awareness from Blogosphere: An Australian Case Study,” from the 11th International Conference on held in Barcelona, Spain. The study’s authors include Mainuddin Shaik, a doctoral student from Andhra Pradesh, India, Dr. Muhammad Nihal Hussain, data scientist at Equifax, Dr. Zachary Stine, assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Central Arkansas, and Dr. Nitin Agarwal, Jerry L. Maulden-Entergy endowed chair, distinguished professor of information science, and the founding director of . “Social media’s increasing proliferation provides great opportunities for gaining situational awareness to assist with strategic policy making, particularly in defense, security, diplomacy, and foreign policy. Our study of the Australian blogosphere identifies influential topics and discourse movers,” Dr. Agarwal said. “Being awarded the best paper is very rewarding. I am extremely proud of our students that can demonstrably conduct such a high quality of internationally competitive research.” The study of the Australian blogosphere identifies influential topics and discourse movers. The researchers analyzed more than 20,000 blog posts and more than 10,000 comments from July 2019 to December 2020. The researchers analyzed Australian blog posts that dealt with diplomacy, defense, trade tension surrounding Australia and China, and election-related discourse in Australia. “Our results showed that Australian bloggers were dominant and discussed the topics of interest compared to Russian and U.S. bloggers,” Shaik said. “The Australian blogosphere simultaneously discussed climate change along with defense-related topics, and they prefer to give attention to long-term topics over short-term topics.” The results can help policy makers reach informed decisions, visualize trending topics over time, and discover influential topics, as well as help political scientists and sociologists mine key concerns from influential discourse. “Analyzing topics of interest from online discourse can be challenging,” Shaik said. “Our results show that COVID-19 discourse absorbs much of the attention of bloggers during the time period considered, even though no COVID-related keywords were incorporated in the data collection. Our findings suggest that a topic can be influential even when it is not trending and vice-versa.” The research was supported by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, Office of Naval Research, U.S. Army Research Laboratory, National Science Foundation, Australian DSTO, Entergy, and Arkansas Research Alliance. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funding organizations. The researchers gratefully acknowledge the support.

Khodakovskaya Inducted into Arkansas Research Alliance Academy

John Hill — Tue, 14 Dec 2021 15:28:14 +0000

Dr. Mariya Khodakovskaya, professor of biology at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, has been inducted into the (ARA) Academy of Scholars and Fellows. The induction of the new cohort of distinguished scholars and researchers took place during a Dec. 9 ceremony at the Arkansas Governor’s Mansion. The cohort is composed of two new ARA Scholars, which is the recruitment of strategic research talent from outside the state, and six ARA Fellows, which is a recognition of outstanding researchers already residing in the state. “It is a big honor to join the Arkansas Research Alliance,” Khodakovskaya said. “I hope to be an efficient and enthusiastic contributor to cutting-edge interdisciplinary and inter-jurisdictional biological research with a focus on commercialization in Arkansas.” Khodakovskaya, who is also the director of Applied Science Graduate Programs at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock, has been honored as an ARA Fellow and will receive a $75,000 grant to continue her outstanding research, which focuses on improvement of agricultural and industrial plants using advanced methods of biotechnology and nanotechnology. “We can celebrate the importance of research and the announcement of a record number of new scholars and fellows that will be doing research in Arkansas,” Gov. Asa Hutchinson said. “As a state, we do support the research of our higher education institutions because it brings innovation, it brings scientific discovery, it brings us steps forward in medical research. Through ground floor innovation, Arkansas research helps existing companies be more competitive and creates new startups, jobs, and patents that boosts the state’s high-tech economy.” The ARA Academy of Scholars and Fellows is made up of research scientists from Arkansas’ six major research institutions: University of Arkansas (U of A), the University of Arkansas for Medical�� Sciences (��Vlog��ýMS), ��Vlog��ý Little Rock, Arkansas State University (A-State), University of�� Arkansas at Pine Bluff (��Vlog��ýPB), and the FDA’s National Center for Toxicological Research (NCTR). “ARA continues its mission to build the ARA Academy,” ARA President Jerry Adams said. “The members we’ve added today are truly representative of the enormous scientific talent that ARA is focusing on the future of the state of Arkansas.” Khodakovskaya’s collaborations with material scientists, nanotechnologists, and other plant molecular biologists and biotechnologists resulted in the development of a unique research area in the intersection of plant biology and nanotechnology. She was the first person to demonstrate that carbon-based nanomaterials can affect plants at genomic and metabolomic levels, which activates genes involved in water transport, cell division, and response to environmental stress.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson, left, congratulates Dr. Mariya Khodakovskaya, right, and other Arkansas Research Alliance Academy of Scholars and Fellows members during a ceremony honoring her and seven other new inductees. Photos by Ben Krain.

“Dr. Khodakovskaya is a true pioneer in the area of crop improvement by the application of a wide range of carbon-based nanomaterials,” ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Chancellor Christina Drale said. “She and her research team developed innovative approaches for the enhancement of plant tolerance to environmental stress using advanced methods of genetic engineering, molecular biology, and nanotechnology. The key to her success is a collaborative interdisciplinary approach used in her research.” Khodakovskaya’s recent research with the Arkansas Space Grant Consortium and NASA also holds potential to solve the problem of how to feed astronauts during long-term space exploration missions. An ongoing grant from NASA involves research to discover how to improve sustainability and stress tolerance in plants developed for exploration of Mars. Since 2008, Khodakovskaya has been a principal investigator or co-principal investigator on grants totaling more than $10 million. Her research has been supported by grants from the USDA, Department of Defense, NASA, Arkansas Science and Technology Authority, and Arkansas Space Grant Consortium. She is the founder and CEO of Advanced Plant Technologies, an outgrowth opportunity to commercialize her research products. “Her research is closely linked to the economy of Arkansas,” Chancellor Christina Drale said. “She is a co-principal investigator of a $4.5 million grant funded by NSF-EPSCoR, which is focused on identifying genes and mechanisms to improve resistance to high temperatures of rice, Arkansas’s primary crop.” The additional new ARA Academy members include Philip Massey and Hugh Churchill, both of U of A; Edward Yeh and Alan Tackett, both of ��Vlog��ýMS, Fabricio Medina Bolivar, A-State; Karl Walker, ��Vlog��ýPB; and Laura Schnackenburg, NCTR.

��Vlog��ý Little Rock researchers earn Best Paper Award for research using moviebarcode as video analysis method

John Hill — Wed, 01 Sep 2021 13:56:06 +0000

A group of researchers from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Collaboratorium for Social Media and Online Behavioral Studies (COSMOS) have been recognized for their research using moviebarcode, a technique used to summarize videos by compressing an entire video into a single image, to systematically categorize and analyze videos on YouTube. COSMOS researchers earned the “” for their submission, “,” at the ��held in Porto, Portugal.�� The paper was written by , Rick Rejeleene, and, doctoral students in computer and information science at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock, , a ��Vlog��ý Little Rock graduate, Dr. , post-doctoral researcher at COSMOS, and Dr. , Jerry L. Maulden-Entergy endowed chair and distinguished professor of information science and director of COSMOS.�� “Moviebarcodes are typically used to visualize a summary of videos,” said Erol, the lead author. “However, we used the color theory computationally so that we can categorize videos using this technology. This technique compresses a video into an image, then it summarizes the video. The computation time is very small compared to other deep learning-based algorithms.” Having a tool that allows a quicker method to analyze videos without watching them is important for researchers who study online videos. YouTube, for example, is a popular source of videos for researchers. Approximately one billion hours of video are added to YouTube daily. “Cosmographers have a knack of thinking out of the box and producing groundbreaking innovations,” Dr. Agarwal said. “Moviebarcode-based video data analysis is one such idea with numerous applications that COSMOS is developing including faster and efficient search and retrieval, computationally extracting noteworthy narrative elements in videos, identifying coordinated influence campaigns, among others.” The research idea stemmed from a project Young worked on during the spring 2019 Social Computing course offered by Dr. Agarwal. “What I find interesting about moviebarcodes is that hours of video content can be quickly digested by a user in a single glance,” Young stated. “After researching moviebarcodes further, I began considering possible applications to my work with COSMOS proposing the development of a moviebarcodes tool that can effectively visualize video data and provide impactful insights.” Each barcode consists of generated colors for every frame of the movie making it unique. All frames combined into one code showed color transition within videos and allowed for a comparison with other videos as well as a highly accurate grouping of videos without having to watch them.�� The team was also able to reduce time and computing energy required to categorize videos by creating video collections and then categorizing videos using a clustering method. “This is a big advantage on video processing. By just looking at moviebarcodes, one can easily find what kind of video it is,” Erol said. “Nowadays, deep learning-based algorithms and tools are used for similar purposes. However, video processing requires a huge amount of GPU computation power and resources. Not all researchers may have access to these resources. With our research, we try to minimize computing requirements for large scale video processing and make this tool available for all users.” The COSMOS team is already exploring how moviebarcode can be used for different research applications. “We are using the moviebarcode technique for different research areas including information retrieval, optimization of recommendation engines, video categorization, and video characterization,” Erol said. “As part of my Ph.D. research, I am developing another tool, specifically for YouTube video characterization, YouTube video search, and scalable YouTube video categorization to make social computing researchers’ lives easier.” This research is funded in part by the U.S. Air Force Research Lab, U.S. Office of Naval Research, U.S. Army Research Office, U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, U.S. National Science Foundation, Arkansas Research Alliance, and the Jerry L. Maulden/Entergy Endowment at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funding organizations. The researchers gratefully acknowledge the support.

Karabacak to serve as ARA Project Scope Speaker on June 16

John Hill — Fri, 04 Jun 2021 13:47:19 +0000

Dr. Tansel Karabacak, chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock, will share his work as the featured speaker of the June Arkansas Research Alliance Project Scope on June 16. The monthly talk takes a closer look at research in the state conducted by members of the Arkansas Research Alliance Academy of Scholars and Fellows. Karabacak will discuss his research on the synthesis of nanomaterials and their applications. The talk will begin at 11 a.m. Wednesday, June 16, via Zoom. The event is free, but . “I would like everyone to know that we develop novel materials that are relevant to Arkansas’ economy and that research is an integral part of education at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock,” he said.�� Karabacak was also recently featured in the column in Arkansas Money and Politics, where he reveals the challenges and rewards of developing laboratory research for use in the public sector.

Social Media Expert Nitin Agarwal to be featured in Jan. 29 Arkansas Research Alliance talk

John Hill — Thu, 21 Jan 2021 20:22:30 +0000

, Jerry L. Maulden-Entergy endowed chair and distinguished professor of information science and director of the Collaboratorium for Social Media and Online Behavioral Studies () at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, will be featured in a Jan. 29 discussion of science and discovery with the Arkansas Research Alliance (ARA).�� The ARA Project Scope Session with Dr. Agarwal will begin at 11 a.m. Friday, Jan. 29. The event is free and open to the public. Those who would like to attend may register online .�� “Dr. Agarwal is an ARA Academy member who has made incredible strides in helping us all better understand our cyber social behaviors,” said ARA President Jerry Adams. “His work truly has global impact.” As the founder and director of COMOS, Dr. Agarwal’s primary research interests are in social computing, (deviant) behavior modeling, studying group dynamics, influence, trust, collective action, social-cyber forensics, health informatics, data mining and privacy aims to be at the vanguard of the ever-evolving online behaviors. His research has applications in defense and security, health, business and marketing, finance and education.�� “In this talk, I will discuss COSMOS’ efforts in research, development, and education to advance our understanding of social behaviors on cyber platforms,” Agarwal said. “The work is multinational and multidisciplinary with applications to businesses, health, governance and policy making, matters of national defense and homeland security, strategic global affairs, among other areas. The work is supported by NSF, U.S. defense agencies (Army, Navy, Air Force, DARPA), Entergy Corporation, and Arkansas Research Alliance. We are extremely grateful for the support.”�� The ARA Project Scope invites members of the ARA Academy of Scholars and Fellows to share their science in a presentation and discussion that shines a spotlight on the incredible research in Arkansas. The ARA Academy is comprised of talented researchers from University of Arkansas, the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, Arkansas State University, ��Vlog��ý Little Rock, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (��Vlog��ýMS), and the U.S. FDA National Center for Toxicological Research (NCTR).

��Vlog��ý Little Rock makes COSMOS a designated research center

John Hill — Thu, 20 Aug 2020 16:37:54 +0000

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock Collaboratorium for Social Media and Online Behavioral Studies (COSMOS) Lab has received approval from the Arkansas Division of Higher Education (ADHE) to become an established research center on campus. “By designating as a formal center, ��Vlog��ý Little Rock will be a leader and pioneer in social media analytics and social media forecasting,” said Dr. Nitin Agarwal, director of COSMOS and Maulden-Entergy Endowed Chair and Distinguished Professor in the Department of Information Science. “When you look at the transformational research being conducted at COSMOS and the students who have gone on to do great things, it’s nothing short of spectacular. I am thankful to the Arkansas Department of Higher Education and Board of Trustees for their support.” The Board of Trustees of the University of Arkansas approved the creation of a new administrative unit for COSMOS in May, followed by approval by the ADHE in July. The designation represents the state’s endorsement of the need for the program and confirmation that ��Vlog��ý Little Rock should expand the program. “The work that Dr. Agarwal and his COSMOS team are doing is truly transformative and is already having wide-ranging impacts in the areas of defense, business, and politics,” said Dr. Brian Berry, vice provost of research and dean of the Graduate School. “The establishment of COSMOS as an official center will provide the platform and infrastructure needed to increase the impact of this work even more.” Since it began in 2014, COSMOS has brought in more than $20 million in research funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation, U.S. Office of Naval Research, U.S. Air Force Research Lab, U.S. Army Research Office, U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Department of Defense, and NATO. “Dr. Agarwal’s research is cutting edge as it focuses on social media and both the technical and social impacts,” said Dr. Lawrence Whitman, dean of the Donaghey College of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. “He is working with a wide variety of organizations with different applications and how social media affects our lives, both locally and globally. His work and his students’ work are impressive, impactful, and interesting. I am glad to see the state recognize his work with this center designation as it will further expand the reach and recognition of his work.” Dr. Agarwal and his team of about 30 researchers have studied phenomena that he describes as the good, bad, and the ugly of cyber behaviors. These include cyber campaigns promoting Saudi Arabian women’s right to drive, anti-NATO propaganda campaigns, predictive modeling of cyber flash mobs, medical informatics for patient care coordination and engagement, and Russian interference in western democracies. Most recently, he and his team are working with the Office of the Arkansas Attorney General to identify and track coronavirus-related scams and social media disinformation. “We are researching deviant and malicious behaviors on social media platforms, whether it’s related to misinformation about health behaviors and COVID-19, misinformation during elections, or propaganda that is targeting the U.S. and it’s allies like NATO,” Agarwal said. “We are trying to solve hard and thorny problems of the real world. Our work has significant contributions for the sciences as we are developing new applications and tools to collect information.” Dr. Agarwal and COSMOS researchers have created Blogtrackers and YouTube trackers applications through research supported by federal grants. These applications track information providers and narratives as misinformation is disseminated through social media networks including blogs, YouTube, and Twitter. “Most researchers focus on disinformation on Twitter and Facebook, and our research explores under-explored platforms as well,” said Dr. Nihal Hussain, a 2019 ��Vlog��ý Little Rock graduate and a postdoctoral researcher at COSMOS. “Blogs and YouTube provide malicious actors a platform to frame their narratives that can influence or polarize crowds. In most cases, disinformation is hosted on these platforms that is later disseminated on Twitter and Facebook.” Dr. Agarwal credits his decision to join ��Vlog��ý Little Rock in 2009 to the late Dr. Mary Good, the founding dean of the College of Engineering and Information Technology, who “had a vision of having a research program dedicated to web science.” “She had the vision to see this was a growing area that would have a lot of potential in the future,” Dr. Agarwal said. In 2018, Dr. Agarwal was named a fellow of the Arkansas Research Alliance, who thinks that research from COSMOS will have a positive impact on the region. “Nitin is a very strong member of the ARA academy, and we are excited about his evolution at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock,” said Dr. Jerry Adams, president and CEO of Arkansas Research Alliance. “This is a part of his rising trajectory in terms of added value to ��Vlog��ý Little Rock, the state, and the nation. We are excited about this announcement and look forward to the cutting edge research from COSMOS.” The mission of COSMOS is to coach motivated students to develop solutions for real-world problems that contribute to social good and innovation. So far, more than 60 college students have worked at COSMOS. “COSMOS’ accomplishments wouldn’t have been possible without the contributions of the numerous exceptional students over the years,” Dr. Agarwal said.

��Vlog��ý Little Rock researchers help identify COVID-19 misinformation and myths in new public website

John Hill — Mon, 06 Jul 2020 13:39:15 +0000

A research team at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock is working to warn the public about the dangerous spread of misinformation and scams surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Nitin Agarwal, Jerry L. Maulden-Entergy Endowed Chair and Distinguished Professor of Information Science at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock and director of the Collaboratorium for Social Media and Online Behavioral Studies (COSMOS), and his team of student researchers that educates the public about misinformation surrounding COVID-19 and provides tips on how to identify it. “This project began after I saw an email from the Arkansas Attorney General’s office that mentioned there is a lot of misinformation about COVID-19,” Agarwal said. “I knew we could leverage our years of work and research in misinformation to help our community identify the bad actors and groups who are disseminating misinformation.” With the help of the Arkansas Research Alliance, has partnered with the Arkansas Attorney General’s office to identify coronavirus-related misinformation and scams. This website has grown out of that partnership to offer a resource where the public can go to view websites and social media posts that have already been identified as false. Agarwal’s students who are working on the website include Mustafa Al-Assad, Hayder Al-Rubaye, Katrin Galeano, Rick Galeano, Maryam Maleki, Thomas Marcoux, Esther Mead, Adewale Obadimu, Billy Spann, and Karen Watts. Agarwal’s team has already identified close to 500 cases of a wide variety of coronavirus-related misinformation and scams. “My personal favorite is the one that said if you add pepper to your food, it will help prevent or cure you from the COVID-19,” Agarwal said. “I was laughing when I read this. There is another claim that states that orange peels will make you immune to the disease. Another man created an alcohol-based hookah. His argument is that washing our hands with alcohol kills coronavirus germs, so alcohol should also cleanse our body from the coronavirus. That was an interesting, unsubstantiated solution. People are becoming very innovative.” While some might consider the false claims to be relatively harmless, Agarwal warns that they are not all fun and games. There are plenty of scammers trying to steal the stimulus checks meant to help people while the economy is down. Fake cures can put a person’s health at risk. Meanwhile, other false claims are made with a political agenda in mind. “The motivation for spreading misinformation is monetization or to provoke hysteria. There are so many conspiracy theories, such as the U.S. Army manufactured the coronavirus,” Agarwal said. “Another theory is that the rich elites have created the virus to suppress the poor, which is coming from pro-Russian sources. Such narratives are not surprising as we are getting closer to the U.S. presidential election because we have seen polarizing narratives before during the 2016 U.S. presidential elections. These theories are completely unsubstantiated. They are only going to get worse.” Esther Mead, a doctoral student in information quality who lives in Sheridan, is one of the student researchers who searches for coronavirus-related misinformation as well as valid sources to debunk the information. “I’ve been passionate about this project since its inception,” Mead said. “During the first months of the COVID-19 crisis, I became extremely concerned with the amount of misinformation that was being disseminated across various social media platforms, and the intense speed of its propagation. I was hearing the misinformation being spread via word-of-mouth in my community, and I knew that I needed to do something to help stop it by communicating the truth in a very publicly accessible way.” Unlike other misinformation campaigns that Agarwal has studied that are usually limited to a particular geographic region of the world, the spread of COVID-19 misinformation is rampant and hard to contain due to the fact that it is a global event. “Misinformation is actually worse than the pandemic itself,” Agarwal said. “As cases rise exponentially, so do the cases of misinformation. It’s hard to track because they can rise in the dark corners of the internet and spread through multiple platforms. For misinformation, you can’t just shut down the internet.” Since Agarwal is well aware that his team can’t investigate all of the misinformation claims, the website also provides nearly 50 tips on how people can identify misinformation scams related to the coronavirus. A big warning sign is if people ask for financial information or your social security number. People who are unsure if what they are seeing online is true or false can submit the website to the COSMOS team, who will investigate the case, and then post it on the website for public review. One of the student researchers who manages the COVID-19 website, Thomas Marcoux, a computer and information science doctoral student from France, said he is happy to help keep the public safe and informed from online threats during a pandemic. “Our main goal with this project is to provide the community with a convenient, centralized resource for them to fact check the stories they might come across,” Marcoux said. “We also relay advice from official sources on topics such as fraud protection and online security in an effort to protect the community against those seeking to profit from the panic and confusion ensuing from the pandemic. It has been a great honor to be a part of this effort and to do our part for the community.”

��Vlog��ý Little Rock to research smart health in Arkansas, West Virginia with NSF grant��

Ajani Oyindamola — Thu, 22 Aug 2019 14:38:35 +0000

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock is one of five institutions sharing a $4 million grant from the National Science Foundation to develop a multi-scale integrative approach to digital health. This collaborative, multi-institution grant will be used to promote smart health in Arkansas and West Virginia.�� Dr. Nitin Agarwal, ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Jerry L. Maulden-Entergy endowed chair and professor of information science, will receive $600,000 for the study, entitled “Multi-scale Integrative Approach to Digital Health: Collaborative Research and Education in Smart Health in West Virginia and Arkansas,” which runs from August 2019 to July 2023.�� The other university partners include the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, West Virginia University, and West Virginia State University. “Healthcare costs are on the rise nationally and significantly more so in Arkansas and West Virginia. This is due to high poverty rates in these states and a significantly large population that is affected by cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes, and a general lack of physical activity,” Agarwal said. “To address these issues, we will conduct a collaborative, interdisciplinary, and a multi-scale integrative approach to trigger smart health initiatives with the goal to lower healthcare costs using artificial intelligence and big data analysis approaches. In addition to developing a big data and smart health research infrastructure, we will create education and outreach components to enhance the workforce in both states.” To accomplish these goals, Agarwal will develop novel social media mining algorithms to study health behaviors in Arkansas and West Virginia, including health attitudes, intentions, health conditions, lifestyle choices, overall sentiment, and mood. “Tapping into such an invaluable data trove is often challenging but rewarding,” Agarwal said. “We will study the effectiveness of health communities around predominant health issues in Arkansas and West Virginia and study the validity of social media data for examining patient-reported outcomes, assessing trust, influence, and misinformation in social media pertaining to health discourse.” Agarwal heads the at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock, which aims to be at the forefront of the ever-evolving field of social computing. COSMOS is leading several collaborative projects with total funding of more than $10 million from various U.S. federal funding agencies to address some of the most challenging problems of knowledge extraction from big social data and develop methodologies to diagnose novel pathologies of online social media.

College of Engineering and Information Technology announces award winners

Ajani Oyindamola — Wed, 02 May 2018 14:51:43 +0000

The George W. Donaghey College of Engineering and Information Technology at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock honored nearly 100 awards winners during the college’s annual awards ceremony on April 27.�� Earlier in the day, students from the college displayed their research and capstone projects during the third annual EIT Open House. The event was sponsored by Arkansas Research Alliance, Bernhard TME Engineering, Harrison Energy Partners, Little Rock Regional Chamber, Mainstream Technologies, and VCC. The awards winners include:

EIT College Awards

Laura Butler – Outstanding Associate Degree Graduate Award Hugh Benfer – Outstanding Bachelor’s Degree Graduate Award Hadi Salman – Outstanding Master’s Degree Graduate Award Li-hsin Chang – Outstanding Master’s Degree Graduate Award Yanyan Li – Outstanding Ph.D. Degree Graduate Award

EIT Student Support Center Undergraduate Awards

Jason Simmons – Third Place Yu Nie – Second Place Justin Parker – First Place

EIT Graduate Awards

Suzan Anwar – Third Place Adewale Obadimu – Second Place Evan Xiangwe – First Place

EIT Abstract Awards

Sandeep Munot – Third Place Shashank Khaire – Second Place Pablo Centeno – First Place

Elevator Speech Awards

Sandeep Munot – Honorable Mention Harrison Blume – Honorable Mention J’Von Jackson – Honorable Mention Eric Brasby – Honorable Mention Madhuri Ghorpade – Honorable Mention Trigun Maroo – Grand Prize

Mainstream Technologies Awards

Ruipeng Zhang – Applied Innovation Award Karen Watts – Professional Presentation Award Tuja Khaund – Complete Solution Award

Arkansas Research Alliance Awards

Vernard Henley (left) presents Adewale Obadimu (right) with second place in the EIT Grad Awards.

Adewale Obadimu – Third Place Suzan Anwar – Second Place Jaimes Krutz – First Place

Department of Earth Science Awards

Kayla Bolin, Jason Spencer, Jason Simmons, and Callie Pace – 2018 Field Camp Award Rebecca Bishop and Tyler Kee – Outstanding Laboratory Assistants Luke Tyhurst – Laboratory Assistant of the Year Matt Carey – Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Matt Carey and Tyler Kee – Outstanding Service Award Aaron Baggett – Outstanding Graduate Student Jason Simmons – Outstanding Senior Award Olivia Pate – Philip and Marietta Kehler Endowed Scholarship Recipient

Department of Construction Management and Civil and Construction Engineering Awards

Nicole Compton, Jonathan Henderson, David Greenwood, Amanda Hall, Jonathan Picking, Sandeep Munot, Daniel Trotta, and William Beggs – Excellence Award for Academic Scholarship

Blake Johnston, Edyta Osiecko, Harrison Hayworth, Kassandra Castrillo, and Sam Kincannon – 2018 American Society of Civil Engineers Student Chapter Service Award

Department of Engineering Technology Awards

Christa Hindman – Freshman Award Gregory Riley – Sophomore Award Abdellatif Elmansouri – Junior Award Cory Fortson – Senior Award Elias Perez Reyes – Freshman Award Pablo Centeno – Sophomore Award Steven Swaffar – Junior Award Chris Kelly – Senior Award Anthony Elkins, Robert Hurst, Trent Smith, and Spencer Young – Senior Project Award Matthew Hood – Senior Project Award Christopher Bohner – Departmental Service Award Garret Rich – Outstanding Graduate Award Matthew Hood – Outstanding Graduate Award Gordon Ward IV – Outstanding Graduate Award Zachary Setzer – Outstanding Graduate Award

Department of Computer Science Awards

Peyton Laughley – Outstanding Freshman Award Connor Stegeman – Outstanding Sophomore Award Cindy Monterroz – Outstanding Junior Award Thomas Goss – Outstanding Graduating Senior Award Tanner Marshall – Outstanding Service Award Yanyan Li – Outstanding Research Award Chen Xu – Outstanding Master Student Award Ramiro Serrano – Outstanding First Year Doctoral Student Award Suzan Anawar – Outstanding Publication Award Connor Young – Outstanding Doctoral Student Award

Department of Information Science Awards

Eric Grasby – Outstanding Student Evan Alden – Outstanding Student Ambassador James Watts – Outstanding Web Design Student Zachary Randolph – Outstanding Web Design Student April Lim – Outstanding ITEC Student

��Vlog��ý Little Rock/��Vlog��ýMS Graduate Program in Bioinformatics Awards

Ujwani Nukala – Outstanding Doctoral Student Dan Li – Excellence in Research Award Sunil Nokku – Outstanding M.S. Project Li-Hsin Chang – Outstanding Master’s Award Shilpa Karma Konda – Outstanding Service Award Yumeng Ye – Outstanding Research Award Bingyi Zhong – Outstanding Service Award Yu Nie – Outstanding Research Award Dr. Daniel Pullen – Outstanding Alumni Award

Department of Systems Engineering Awards

John Graham – Outstanding Sophomore Award Damon Wallace – Outstanding Sophomore Award Andrew Cherry – Outstanding Junior Award Patrick Elliot – Outstanding Junior Award Andrew Lockhart – Outstanding Senior Award Anderson Banihirwe – Outstanding Senior Award Shelby Wingate – Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award Bailey Barnes – Successful Doctoral Student Award Sheng Sang – Successful Doctoral Student Award He Zang – Successful Doctoral Student Award

Tansel Karabacak honored as Arkansas Research Alliance fellow

Ajani Oyindamola — Fri, 04 Aug 2017 21:52:53 +0000

Dr. Tansel Karabacak has joined the ranks of some of the most celebrated and promising researchers in Arkansas.�� Gov. Asa Hutchinson announced Thursday, Aug. 3, that Karabacak, ��Vlog��ý Little Rock professor of physics and astronomy, is a 2017 fellow of the Arkansas Research Alliance. “These five new Arkansas Research Alliance fellows will be an incredible asset to our state in the area of scientific research and progress,” Hutchinson said in a news release. “And in today’s continuously evolving economy, more people are recognizing the massive influence science and innovation have on our economy. Arkansas Research Alliance continues to serve the state well with its commitment to economic prosperity through science and technology based jobs.” The Arkansas Research Alliance was founded in 2008 to invest in research that stimulates innovation, collaboration, and economic opportunity where Arkansas possesses core competencies. The fellows program annually recognizes researchers at Arkansas State University, University of Arkansas, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, and University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. Chancellor Andrew Rogerson nominated Karabacak for the award in recognition of his research that focuses on the properties and applications of nanostructured and thin film materials. Karabacak is especially well known for his pioneering work on glancing angle deposited (GLAD) nanostructures. GLAD is a simple and low-cost fabrication method of producing a wide variety of materials in nanostructured form and can be used for several applications, such as fuel cells, solar cells, battery electrodes, photodetectors, optical filters, and biosensors. “Being named an ARA fellow was quite the surprise for me,” Karabacak said. “The people who are selected are all highly skilled researchers. I was very humbled by this recognition.” Karabacak recently received $400,000 from the U.S. Department of Energy for a to develop high-performance, cost-effective fuel cells that can be used in vehicles. Additional research being conducted at his Thin Films and Nanostructures Research Group includes a collaboration to improve the lifetime and durability of lithium ion batteries. The group is also working on fabricating materials that control the behaviors of oil and water. “By controlling such materials, we can fabricate materials with anti-freezing, anti-fogging, and anti-bacterial surfaces,” he said. “It could also be used in oil spills to separate water and oil from each other.”

Dr. Tansel Karabacak is one of the 2017 recipients of the Arkansas Research Alliance fellowship. Pictured from left to right is Jerry Adams, Julie LaRue, Tansel Karabacak, Gov. Asa Hutchinson, and Chancellor Andrew Rogerson.

As for receiving the fellowship, Karabacak is most excited about the potential research collaborations he can make through the Arkansas Research Alliance. “I feel more energized to work through the ARA, because I want to serve Arkansas on a big picture scale,” he said. “The ARA is helping me see the big picture by guiding me and other researchers to better contribute to Arkansas research, economic development, and industry.” As an Arkansas Research Alliance fellow, Karabacak will be awarded a $75,000 grant to be paid over the course of three years to assist him in his research. He would like to use some of the money to sponsor a graduate assistant at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock. More about Dr. Karabacak: Karabacak holds a Bachelor of Science degree in physics from the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey, as well as a master’s degree and Ph.D. in physics from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. Shortly after coming to ��Vlog��ý Little Rock from Rennsselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2006, Karabacak set about creating new thin films in a nanostructures lab. The lab houses state-of-the-art fabrication and testing equipment, as well as computational tools for analysis and modeling studies. In addition to being a professor, Karabacak is also the graduate coordinator of the applied physics master’s and Ph.D. programs. Karabacak served as chair of the American Vacuum Society Thin Films Division, the top ranking international organization for professionals in his field. He has been awarded the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Faculty Excellence in Research, 2017; the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock College of Science Faculty Excellence in Research, 2013; and the Kathleen Thomsen Hall Award, 2007 and 2012. He also was selected for the 2010 edition of Marquis Who’s Who in America. ��

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