News

FLOW Academy students witnessed AUV tech in action on the Black Warrior River, where UA’s Dr. Aijun Song gave hands-on exposure to advanced hydrologic monitoring techniques that represent the future of water science research.

This experience exemplifies the Water and Science(USGS) FLOW Academy’s commitment to exposing future water scientists to innovative technologies that will define their careers. As autonomous systems become increasingly sophisticated, today’s students are witnessing the tools they may one day use to solve tomorrow’s water challenges. See the linkedin page:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/alabama-water-institute_usgsflowacademy2025-autonomousvehicles-waterscience-activity-7343639526084399104-u6iS?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAARBcAcBAPsXmR0HzNGalYUWE2jCUZuEiKw

Dr. Song won the Faculty Excellence for Outstanding Impact, College of Engineering, University of Alabama, April 2025. The award highlights individual faculty members’ outstanding impacts in teaching, research, and service.

Congrats to Carter Pate for successfully defending his Masters Thesis, Acoustic Communication and Control of Compact Autonomous Underwater Vehicles on June 13, 2025. Now he is ready to graduate with a Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering. Congrats!

Brodie Alexander, a student in the mu-Net lab, is featured as in the University ‘Where Legends Are Made’ campaign: “Engineering your Impact: https://legends.ua.edu/engineering-your-impact/. The video story can be accessed at https://youtu.be/dTHwDkDGNLs.

The University of Alabama’s 2024 ‘Where Legends Are Made’ campaign videos featuring muNet lab student, Brodie Alexander, and muNet research.
https://youtu.be/1cwwUYogeX0?si=ZhQ8FZLxx5_7f5bc

We had our first installment of the deployment camp, July 22 to 25, 2024. Seven participants joined. They were five graduate students and two faculty members from Lehigh University, Northeastern University, University of Notre Dame, University of Utah, and Purdue University.

The deployment camp allows external students to participate in field operations with our lake testbed. My team works with guest students to deploy underwater robots at the lake of Tuscaloosa and collect acoustic measurements during the camp. We have lots of fun.

One of muNet members, Anika Cho, was recently selected as one of two UA seniors to receive the Mitchell Scholarship. The scholarship, which is named to honor former U.S. Senator George Mitchell’s contributions to the Northern Ireland peace process, connects future American leaders to the island of Ireland while recognizing achievement, leadership and a commitment to service. Please join us in congratulating Anika on this outstanding honor and read the full announcement to learn more about the award.

https://news.ua.edu/2023/11/two-ua-seniors-awarded-mitchell-scholarships/
Congratulations to you, Anika.

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.