Year: 2023

The University of Alabama released a new promotion video about its water research: “UA: The Epicenter of the New Water Economy.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loEND7lBpdk
muNet lab and students are featured; see the video at 0:43, 1:21, 1:39, 1:51.

We are excited that two new PhD students joined our lab: Kai Liu and Bishal and Bishal Karmakar, in the fall of 2023.

Another year of SeaMATE competition! muNet lab has been mentoring the robotics team at the local Northridge High School (NHS). The NHS formed four sub-teams and attended the  at the 10th Annual Northern Gulf Coast Regional Competition for the Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) program from April 28 to 30, 2023. The four sub-teams of the NHS won the following three awards.NHS HydroHelix team: first place in the Scout class.

NHS PurpleTape: third place in the Navigator class.
NHS PureTide: third place in the Ranger class.

We thank Dr. Sevgi Gurbuz for her great support as the Team Manager. We thank all the parents (Meghan North, Dr. Hwan-Sik Yoon and Nahree Doh, CJ Lee and Gina Doh, Dr. Daniel Gibson, Margo Spring, Lisa Duan and Robert Yan, Robert Fuller, Vernon Boone, Prabharkar Clement, etc.) for their support. We thank Mrs. Fuller for sponsoring the robotics team. Without her support, we would not have had this trip. We thank the undergraduate researchers, Brodie Alexander and Anika Cho, for their support/help around the clock.

Dr. Song was invited to serve as the Associate Editor for the Journal of Acoustical Society of America (JASA). He will officially start his editorship in June 2023.

About JASA, “Since 1929, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA) has been the leading source of theoretical and experimental research results in the broad interdisciplinary subject of sound. The journal serves physical scientists, life scientists, engineers, psychologists, physiologists, architects, musicians, and speech communication specialists.”

Brodie Alexander won two awards for the 2022-2023 academic year:
a) Randall Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award at the University of Alabama for his contribution to mobile underwater network research. 
b) Outstanding undergraduate research award at the Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Alabama.
Anika Cho won Fred R. Maxwell Jr. award for her academic, research, and outreach achievements. She is also the recipient of the 2022-2024 NOAA Hollings Scholarship.

muNet lab student researchers, Brodie, Anika, and Joyce, presented their poster at AWI Water Symposium at Bryant Conference Center, University of Alabama, April 7-8, 2023. Their poster title was: µLink: Compact Acoustic Transceivers for Underwater Environments. They demonstrated their developed muLink modem in a small tub.

Featured article: The University of Alabama featured a store of MATHCOUNTS-Tuscaloosa, right before the 2023 MATHCOUNTS chapter competition:
https://stories.ua.edu/mathcounts/index.html
titled “UA Engineering Professor’s Leadership Adds up to Greater Math & STEM Education in Tuscaloosa City Schools.”

Chapter Competition: On Feb 18, 2023, mu-Net lab, with support from the MATHCOUNTS-Tuscaloosa organizing committee and parent volunteers, organized the 2023 MATHCOUNTS Tuscaloosa Chapter Competition; see the results and pictures at https://mathcounts.ua.edu/mathcounts-2023.html.

Many students from mu-Net lab volunteered at the event and helped organizing the competition. They were Murtaza Syed Rizvi, Rumman Rafi, Brodie Alexander, Anika Cho, Carter Pate, Joseph Hulcher, Alex Carlson, Camdyn Baldwin, and Aswanth Sampathkumar.