Electrical and computer engineering professors Nian Sun and Tommaso Melodia have been named National Academy of Inventors fellows.
Ten years ago while he was on a drive, Northeastern professor Nian Sun heard a story on the radio that piqued his interest.
An older woman was describing how her husband, who had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, had a distinct smell. It reminded him of how canines are used to locate drugs and bombs.
A nose is a powerful sensing tool, the electrical and computer engineering professor thought.
Inspired, Sun came up with an idea —- what if he developed an electronic nose capable of doing the same things?
Today, Sun has made several breakthroughs in those efforts at the W.M. Keck Laboratory for Integrated Ferroics at Northeastern University, having developed novel electrochemical sensors that have been used to diagnose several diseases and conditions, including COVID-19 and Alzheimer’s disease.
Health care is just one industry in which Sun has developed innovations. In total, Sun has filed 30 application patents and has been awarded 19, in industries from computer science to submarine communications.
He has been named a National Academy of Inventors Fellow, one of the highest honors bestowed to scientists and researchers working in the field today.
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The NAI has affiliations with more than 300 institutions and is composed of more than 4,600 members.
“As scientists, it’s one of the utmost honors that we wish to have,” says Sun. “Scientists hope that our research can benefit society.”
Tommaso Melodia, the William Lincoln Smith Chair Professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at Northeastern University, has also been named a fellow.
Melodia is the director of Northeastern University’s Institute for The Wireless Internet of Things, which conducts research in wireless communication technologies.
“This specific award recognizes the work we’ve been doing in translating basic and applied research in the lab into intellectual property that can actually be licensed and influence work in the private sector that can create opportunities, innovation, jobs and have real-world impact,” says Melodia.
He points to his work with medical devices as one example. The team has patented work that allows devices to predict the occurrences of seizures in epileptic patients up to one hour in advance.
“By using artificial intelligence models that we have developed, [these techniques] don’t need to be executed on the cloud, they can be executed on the implantable or wearable devices,” he says. “They can look at physiological signals, analyze them in real time and be able to predict whether there’s going to be something like a seizure in the near future.”
This work is being done in Melodia’s lab and through the Northeastern University spinoff BioNet Sonar, which is based in Northeastern University’s Burlington campus.
But that isn’t the only area in which Melodia is doing research. He has filed over 50 patent applications and has been awarded 30 in fields including underwater communication and cellular networks.
Sun and Melodia will be inducted at the NAI 14th annual meeting on June 26 in Atlanta.