THE VISION THING
CenSSIS comes into focus.
By Karen Feldscher
Michael Silevitch sees it all in his mind's eye-the toxins trickling through
grass and soil, the hazy outlines of ancient urns on the ocean floor, the
microscopic cells within embryos, the hidden cracks in suspension bridges.
The Northeastern electrical engineering professor wants to bring these
murky images into sharper focus, to translate his vision into a clearer
reality.
Or, to be more accurate, to translate reality into clearer vision.
Now, he'll be able to do it. Northeastern University, along with several
academic partners, just won what some call the Nobel Prize of engineering
research. The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Northeastern
and its partners a five-year grant worth potentially $16.2 million to establish
an interdisciplinary research center aimed at finding better ways to "see"
hidden objects-ranging from tumors, to buried land mines, to roaming schools
of fish.
The two-year effort to win the grant was led by Silevitch, already well-known
for his sixteen years of leadership of Northeastern's Center for Electromagnetics
Research and his long-standing effort to improve math and science education
in elementary and secondary schools. Working with Silevitch to win the
grant were dozens of engineers and scientists from Northeastern as well
as seven other academic and research institutions.
Make no mistake: This grant, announced in mid-September
by the NSF, is one of Northeastern's biggest coups in its bid to become
a premier research institution, and definitely the biggest thing that has
ever happened to the College of Engineering. As Silevitch puts it, "It's
an inspiration to have won. It's like winning the gold medal in the Olympic
Games."
Over the next five years, the NSF will provide from $2.5 million to
$3.5 million annually to help establish the Center for Subsurface Sensing
and Imaging Systems (CenSSIS), which will develop new technologies for
detecting objects and conditions underground, underwater, or embedded within
living tissue or man-made structures.
This multi-institutional engineering research effort is one of only
two such centers in the nation funded by the NSF for the 19992000
academic year-out of a field of eighty-nine contenders.
The center, which has already begun its work, brings together more than
fifty faculty and researchers from Northeastern and a handful of other
institutions. The primary academic partners in the venture include Boston
University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and the University of Puerto
Rico; together with Northeastern, these partners are contributing $12 million
to the venture over a five-year period. Other affiliated institutions include
Brigham and Women's Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institution, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Each institution brings different strengths to the multidisciplinary
effort, which focuses on finding hidden objects through a variety of approaches-optics,
ultrasound, radar, sonar, signal processing, and computational science.
The researchers hope to create new ways of producing clear images of
objects buried in environments as different as the interior of the brain
and the depths of the earth. The project's overarching goal is to solve
diverse problems with similar solutions. And the outcome could have a revolutionary
impact on the scientific communities targeted by the center.
"This is a particularly compelling topic," says electrical
engineering professor Carey Rappaport, associate director of CenSSIS, whose
own research focuses on locating buried land mines. "So often research
is relatively narrow-trying to make a better widget or a better process.
"Our thought is, you gain a lot by combining the expertise, the
capabilities, the mathematics of the various methods of looking into hidden
worlds-you can come up with a more generalized framework that will guide
in the design of new sensing systems, new and better ways of seeing hidden
things."
"A high-level, systems approach"
"One element of the NSF program," adds Silevitch, "is
the creation of a high-level, systems approach to problems. One element
of that is the unification of the disciplines.
"By attempting to unify what a civil engineering
group does in trying to assess the cracks in a bridge with what a medical
doctor wants to see when he assesses a tumor in the body, you're creating
vehicles by which innovations in one domain can be applied in another domain.
And, bingo, you can suddenly do things you couldn't do before."
CenSSIS isn't only about research, though. A strong education component
will let students ranging from middle-school age through the graduate level
learn about the systems approach to technology development through research
internships, undergraduate laboratories, team-taught courses, design competitions,
and summer pre-engineering programs for middle and high school students.
In fact, Silevitch says the NSF officials who reviewed the CenSSIS proposal
last winter said they'd never seen a more outstanding education program
in all their years of reviewing similar initiatives. "I've got to
tell you-that's praise," says Silevitch.
Industrial partners in the CenSSIS project are also playing a key role.
Industrial support for the project-most notably from Raytheon Company,
which helped put together the CenSSIS proposal, along with others such
as Genzyme, Textron, GTE Government Systems, MITRE, and Lockheed Martin-will
provide between $3 million and $4 million in the project's first year,
with the goal being roughly $4 million annually in cash, equipment, or
personnel.
The strong backing from industry isn't surprising, since CenSSIS research
could impact a national market of $100 billion or more in technology related
to subsurface sensing and imaging. Silevitch remembers when he and his
colleagues presented the CenSSIS plan to Raytheon, one senior official
commented, "This sounds good-we should do this."
To which another replied, "No, we must do this."
"This is a very neat thing for us," says Philip Cheney, Raytheon's
vice president for engineering. "The idea of tying together the work
of searching the oceans, or looking for mines, or discovering medical problems,
is a very powerful concept. We tend to work in almost all of these areas,
so we expect this will help us."
He adds that Raytheon has had a long and fruitful relationship with
Northeastern, hiring scores of co-op students and graduates every year,
and awarding other types of research grants. "Part of this is kind
of a payback," he says. "We get a lot of good people from Northeastern."
All told-when you add together the funding coming from the NSF, from
the academic partners, and from industry-CenSSIS is likely to become, in
short order, a $10 million annual operation.
Although the initial NSF grant is for five years, the agency typically
funds such centers for ten years. The NSF will review the project three
years from now to determine whether to renew the grant for another five
years. If all goes well, CenSSIS holds the promise of becoming a $100 million
project.
Following the ten-year NSF funding, CenSSIS-like other federally supported
engineering research centers across the nation-would be expected to continue
as a self-sustaining, nationally recognized research center.
"NSF provides the impetus and the imprimatur of being reviewed,"
says Silevitch. "It's like when you get the Nobel Prize-once you've
gotten it, you're always known as a Nobel Prize winner. That level of recognition
never goes away."
Playing in the big leagues
All this is heady stuff for Northeastern, which has found it difficult
to compete in the high-stakes research arena dominated by giants like MIT,
Stanford, Harvard, Yale, and Berkeley. These institutions have the name
recognition, the resources, and the researchers necessary to win significant
grants time and again. But this time, the NSF chose only Northeastern and
the University of Michigan to receive grants to create engineering research
centers, or ERCs.
Perhaps a few more facts will put the achievement into even greater
perspective. Since 1985, only thirty-seven ERCs have been funded, all with
the aim of providing opportunities for interdisciplinary teams from government,
industry, and universities to collaborate on crucial research in emerging
technologies, bring those technologies to the marketplace quickly, and
train the next generation of engineers.
In all that time, ERC grants have been awarded primarily to "Tier
I" universities-the top 25 percent of national research universities
according to U.S. News and World Report, which conducts an annual ranking
of U.S. colleges and universities. Tier I universities typically have well-established
research programs, solid academic reputations, high student selectivity
and retention, top-rated faculty, substantial financial resources and alumni
giving, and impressive graduation rates. A handful of ERC grants have gone
to Tier II schools. None has gone to Tier III schools like Northeastern.
Northeastern's undergraduate engineering program, also ranked by U.S.
News, "is in no way a Tier III program," says engineering dean
Allen Soyster. Still, because Northeastern's overall rank is Tier III,
"getting an ERC means you're battling uphill," Soyster says.
"People don't recognize yet what this really means for Northeastern,"
says Silevitch. "The fact that we were able to win this competition
has changed the perception of Northeastern in the eyes of the academic
community beyond the university."
"The engineering research center program is about the biggest you
can get in terms of straight research contracts," adds Rappaport.
"We were up against the best research institutions in the country.
Only three [ERC grants] have been given out in New England. Two of those
are at MIT. And now one is at Northeastern."
"Winning this grant represents the recognition that our College
of Engineering can absolutely compete in the big leagues of engineering
research nationally," says President Freeland. "You don't get
something like this unless you have the underlying intellectual strength
in science. This is a great, great vote of confidence in our abilities
scientifically in the areas of subsurface sensing and imaging."
The story of how Northeastern led the effort to win this grant is as
interesting as the grant itself. Securing any type of NSF grant can be
a challenge. But securing an ERC grant is apparently as elusive as finding,
say, buried land mines.
Pursuit of the grail
Institutions vying for the brass ring must pass four hurdles. They first
submit a "pre-proposal," and then-if that is deemed acceptable-write
a full proposal, which Silevitch describes smilingly as a "telephone
book" as he plops it on his desk for emphasis.
If the NSF likes the proposal, it sends a review team for a site visit,
the results of which allow only a handful of institutions to reach the
final stage: a visit to Washington, D.C., to solidify their claim that
their proposal is worth funding.
Each of these steps represents hours, weeks, months, even years of work.
When Silevitch, with backing from Soyster and Freeland, made the strategic
decision in late 1996 to vie for an ERC grant, it was understood that Silevitch
would need to devote himself to the effort full time.
"I did nothing else," says Silevitch. "I ate, slept,
dreamed the project. One of the things I said to the president at the very
beginning of this trek was that the only way Northeastern was going to
win this would be that there be no smoke and mirrors. That whatever we
did had to be potent, it had to be real, resources had to be put on the
table, that I would have to be freed up full time to lead this effort-just
to even get the grant. And the president and Al Soyster, to give them credit,
bought into that."
Even so, Northeastern's first attempt to win an ERC grant failed in
late 1997. At the time, the university was the sole academic partner behind
the project, then dubbed the Center for High-Resolution Sensing and Imaging.
"That first effort took a year and a half, and was a tremendous amount
of work," recalls Silevitch. "And then to fail. . . . But that's
the norm."
After that first attempt, the NSF suggested that Northeastern broaden
the project's scope to include other institutions. Already, though, Freeland
had committed $150,000 to finance the first grant proposal. The question
was: Would Northeastern be willing to front even more money for the project,
knowing the effort could fail again?
In fact, Soyster was troubled after the first go-round by what seemed
to be an "innuendo" in some NSF reviews-"like a raised eyebrow,"
he says, "as if they were saying, 'Northeastern wants an ERC? They're
not a Tier I university. They're not even a Tier II university.' There
was a snobbery that came across."
At that point, Soyster says, Northeastern officials realized they could
have the greatest proposal in the world, but because the university was
not seen as a player in the big-time research business, it might lose its
bid anyway.
Gutting it out
Still, Soyster felt-and Freeland agreed-it was worth another try. Silevitch
was also more than ready to try again. Freeland committed another $500,000
to the project. The infusion of funds was crucial, says Silevitch. "One
of the key elements of my strategy with NSF was to show them that this
was not just a proposal on paper, but it was a living center, that we were
testing the validity of the partnership and the collaborations and the
projects even before we got NSF funding.
"I wanted to create a self-fulfilling prophecy," he adds.
"I wanted to say, 'We're doing this anyway, because it's important.'"
And so, Silevitch and his Northeastern colleagues spent 1998 re-engineering
and refocusing the proposal. There were hundreds of phone calls, dozens
of meetings, and a lot of "agony and controversy and debate"
in creating what Silevitch calls a "seamless partnership" among
Northeastern and its academic partners in the venture. The industrial partners
also participated in strategic planning for the proposed center. In the
end, the companies were so compelled by CenSSIS goals that they committed
in excess of $3 million for the center's first year of operation.
This time, Northeastern and its partners got through the "telephone
book" stage of the grant-review process. The NSF announced in fall
1999 that Northeastern had been chosen for a site visit. At this point,
Silevitch and his colleagues left nothing to chance. They visited Johns
Hopkins, an existing ERC site, to gain some insight into what made a winning
proposal. They also held mock site visits in preparation for the real thing.
"Everybody saw it as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," says
Soyster. "The notion was that it was like the Olympics, and you had
one chance. And I think people seized it."
The NSF site visit, held in February, went extremely well. Silevitch
and Soyster were guardedly optimistic. And, sure enough, the NSF did ask
Silevitch to come to Washington for the final round-and eventually awarded
the grant.
Not only did Northeastern win, it won big. In past years, the NSF had
typically awarded four or five ERC grants; this year, because it funded
only two, it offered Northeastern and its partners an additional $4 million
over the life of the initial five-year grant. Silevitch laughs disbelievingly
when he tells that part of the story.
Why didn't the NSF fund more than two ERCs?
Silevitch smiles. "Because only two were good enough," he
says.
A wide range of expertise
With the NSF grant in hand, of course, CenSSIS must now move into high
gear. But the groundwork for the center is firm, bolstered by the combined
research expertise of its participants. In fact, each institution has strengths
in one or more of the three major research thrusts of the center-sensing
and modeling, signal processing, and information and data management.
Sensing and modeling refers to the first step in any effort to find
hidden objects-the process of gathering data through such methods as optics,
radar, sonar, ultrasound, or other "seeing" techniques.
Signal processing is the second step, whereby math procedures called
algorithms are used to enhance or focus the useful features of information
measured through sensing and modeling-in other words, to clear up, or process,
"cluttered" signals.
The third part involves storing, managing, and transmitting the data
efficiently and effectively.
Northeastern's primary role in CenSSIS is to bring all the partners
together, to stimulate the crossflow of knowledge and expertise the project
is designed to foster. The university also has research prowess in signal
processing, computational modeling (simulating with computers the behavior
of electromagnetic and acoustic waves), electromagnetics, database structures
(managing large amounts of data efficiently), hyperspectral imaging, and
biology.
Northeastern will also play a key role in developing the education component
of CenSSIS, drawing on Silevitch's decade of experience in boosting science
and math education for undergraduate, graduate, and K12 students.
Boston University researchers have expertise in photonics, acoustics
and ultrasound, and signal processing, says Bahaa Saleh, BU's chair of
electrical and computer engineering and CenSSIS deputy director. Photonics
refers to the use of optics, such as lasers and optical fibers, in sensors
searching for subsurface objects.
And BU's faculty in aerospace and mechanical engineering are world-renowned
experts in how different media-earth, water, skin, and bone-affect how
sound travels. In fact, says Saleh, BU's strengths could help lead to the
development of "dual sensors," which use both light and sound
to search for hidden objects.
At Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, a group called
the Center for Image Processing Research, led by CenSSIS associate director
James Modestino, is nationally recognized for its expertise in compressing
video so it can be quickly and successfully transmitted over computer lines.
Modestino-himself a 1962 Northeastern electrical engineering graduate,
who taught at the university in the early 1970s-explains that data management
is a crucial piece of the operation. CenSSIS researchers generate extremely
large data sets, and it's important to be able to store and share that
data through the Internet.
RPI researchers also work with biomedical image processing, in which
various optical instruments, such as infrared sensors and optical microscopes,
are used to create an image of structures within the body.
RPI also has expertise in impedance tomography, another biomedical procedure
that provides internal pictures of the body by sending weak electric currents
through tissue. Because different types of organs have different resistance,
or impedance, to the current, doctors can "see" what's happening
beneath skin and bone without using X-rays, which can be harmful.
The University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez brings expertise in satellite
assessment of environmental problems, such as the erosion of submerged
coral reefs and the flow of pollutants from rivers to oceans. This work
is conducted by the university's Laboratory for Remote Sensing and Image
Processing, led by CenSSIS associate director Luis Jiménez.
Each of the academic partners also has a strong interest in developing
the education component of CenSSIS, such as creating a high-tech "tools
and toys laboratory" in which students "play" with various
instruments to find hidden things.
From hidden tumors to sunken ships
The four strategic affiliates associated with CenSSIS-Massachusetts
General Hospital, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory, and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution-bring other strengths
and resources to the effort.
Researchers at the hospitals, for example, will team up with CenSSIS
engineers to develop noninvasive sensing and imaging tools to detect tumors,
cardiovascular plaque, and microscopic cell activity that sheds light on
diseases.
At Lawrence Livermore, scientists are examining how to monitor the migration
of contaminants into groundwater tables. Developing techniques to track
the flow of contaminants such as gasoline or solvents is important, says
the lab's Charles Carrigan, because knowing exactly where contamination
is makes cleanup cheaper and easier. Other Lawrence Livermore researchers
are studying how remote sensing methods can assess the structural integrity
of bridges, roads, and buildings.
And at Woods Hole, techniques such as sonar, radar, and video are used
to determine the location and characteristics of schools of fish, centuries-old
artifacts, hydrothermal vents, and shipwrecks, says scientist Hanu Singh.
One thing the NSF wanted to know before it funded CenSSIS was why it's
so important to have a center for subsurface sensing and imaging-why the
institutions involved couldn't simply continue to work on their own.
Those who put the CenSSIS proposal together expected this question.
And they convinced the NSF that, to gain maximum benefit in the area of
subsurface imaging, it makes good sense to pool a wide variety of methods
to coax clearer pictures from murky data.
"Our engineered system is going to systematize how we look under
surfaces," says Silevitch. "So, for example, in the biological
domain, instead of looking at a cell through one kind of microscope, we
envision five different kinds. With each microscope, you get a different
view of the cell, and the five microscopes can talk to one another, saying,
'Here's what I see-why don't you take that information and reconfigure
your own focusing.'
"The whole set of five microscopes can act as a unit to sort out
and visualize the image, and ultimately present to the doctor or the biologist
a composite image of that cell that is the best intelligence all the microscopes
together can give you."
"The most compelling aspect of this vision," says Rappaport,
"is the interaction of all these groups."
Adds Modestino, "It's just that, in the past, these people have
never worked together."
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