Engineering News

"Computer science is having a bit of an identity crisis at the moment." William E. Lewis doesn't say it with alarm. The professor emeritus says it with the calm assurance of someone who has seen this movie before. Lewis joined Arizona State University in 1965 after earning his doctorate at Northwestern University, arriving as computer science was emerging as an academic discipline. When ASU estab…

A life shaped by ASU and shared with many Long before Arizona State University secured the university moniker, Fulton was part of the Sun Devil family, attending what was then Arizona State College in 1950 on a football scholarship. It was here that Fulton met his cherished wife, Mary Lou Henson, whom he married in 1954. Throughout his time at ASU, Fulton was known as a kind, generous and gregari…

Bob Miller wanted to be a pilot from the time he was 10. Riding as a passenger in a Cessna 150 while his older brother was flying, he would memorize flight manuals to the point where he could recite the information. That passion didn’t leave him. While at Arizona State University and serving in the U.S. Air Force, he put himself through flight school using personal loans. One banker took a chance…

Nine doctoral students from the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering are among 24 Arizona State University graduate researchers selected as recipients of the Achievement Rewards for College Scientists, or ARCS, award for 2026–27. Chosen by the ARCS Foundation Phoenix Chapter , the support gives them greater flexibility to advance their research, pursue innovative ideas and invest in their profess…

Future cybersecurity threats may not look much like past ones. Artificial intelligence is changing how attackers find vulnerabilities , automate attacks and probe digital systems. At the same time, federal agencies, businesses and communities are expanding their use of AI . These factors create a new, urgent question: Who will secure our vulnerable infrastructure and computer security systems? Th…

The United States will remain on top. Brazil will gain ground. China will expand its share. And some longtime European agricultural powers may fall behind. That is the picture of the global food trade in 2035 emerging from a new analysis led by Arizona State University researcher Deniz Berfin Karakoc . Karakoc is an assistant professor of industrial engineering in the School of Computing and Augm…

Artificial intelligence, or AI, is changing the way designers approach creative challenges, by expanding what's possible. For Lauren Crites , AI became a key tool for bringing her ideas to life. That innovative approach recently helped Crites, an instructor in the graphic information technology program at The Polytechnic School , part of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State U…

When the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted global supply chains, it exposed a reality many people had never considered. Manufacturing is about much more than what happens on a factory floor. Today, supply chains are an essential part of the manufacturing ecosystem, connecting suppliers, producers and customers in ways that require constant coordination and increasingly sophisticated decision-making. At…

In the middle of the Arizona summer, a small walking robot struggles to climb an icy hill as a group of teachers from across the Navajo Nation gather around a table, brainstorming tiny snowshoe designs that might give it enough traction to reach the top. The hill is nothing more than a cookie sheet covered in ice, and the tiny robot serves as a stand-in for a person navigating icy terrain. The en…

Your phone buzzes. A package couldn't be delivered. Your bank account has suspicious activity. The IRS says you owe money. Your power company threatens to disconnect your electricity unless you pay immediately. They feel like different scams because that's exactly what they're designed to do. To Arizona State University researcher Xusheng Xiao , however, they're variations on the same theme. Xiao…

Small robots dart across a white course, wobbling as they try to follow a thick black line taped to the table. Around them, middle school students huddle over laptops, tweaking lines of Python code before eagerly sending new instructions to their robots. A small adjustment here. A different motor speed there. Success isn't measured by a perfect grade but by whether the little machines make it to …

Middle schoolers don't usually spend their summer afternoons cracking secret codes. But inside a computer lab in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence , part of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University, groups of tweenagers gathered one day in May racing through password-cracking puzzles, deciphering secret messages and learning how hackers think. The exer…

When students begin their engineering education, there’s no way to predict where their work will take them. For most, projects remain in classrooms, laboratories or on computer screens. For a team of Arizona State University students, however, years of effort have reached Earth’s orbit. Throughout the last two years, students from Sun Devil Satellite Laboratory, or SDSL, designed, built and teste…

For millions of people around the world, magnetic resonance imaging , or MRI, remains out of reach. The scanners are large, expensive and energy-intensive, requiring specialized facilities and trained personnel. SungMin Sohn , an assistant professor of biomedical engineering in the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering , part of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona St…

Quantum computing has spent years existing in the space between promise and practicality. The machines exist. Tech giants are building them . Researchers have shown that, for certain problems, quantum computers could one day dramatically outperform today's fastest supercomputers. The obstacle isn't that the computers don't work. It's that they're extraordinarily fragile. Unlike traditional comput…

If your router still works, why replace it? That logic has kept countless aging internet-connected devices alive long past their intended lifespan. Old wi-fi routers keep humming in closets. Security cameras continue watching front porches. Forgotten network equipment soldiers on for years after manufacturers stop supporting it. New research from Arizona State University suggests that many of tho…

A professor who seemed to delight in teaching one of Arizona State University's hardest classes. Courses that inspired fierce competition for top rankings and coveted internships, quizzes that would arrive without warning and homework that pushed students to the edge of what they thought they could do. Those classrooms produced lifelong friendships, one marriage, an annual reunion and a network o…

Quantum computing is opening new possibilities for solving complex problems that are difficult for traditional computers to process. Through Amazon Braket , a cloud-based quantum computing service from Amazon Web Services, or AWS, researchers and students in the Sensor, Signal and Information Processing Center , or SenSIP, are gaining access to tools that support quantum computing research and ed…

Artificial intelligence, or AI, has become synonymous with disruption. Every week seems to bring a new warning. AI will replace jobs, spread misinformation, consume enormous amounts of energy or make decisions no human can explain. As the technology races ahead, it's easy to forget that AI can also tackle some of humanity's oldest challenges. For Hannah Kerner , that's always been the point. Kern…

The ASCE at ASU leadership team pose with the Spirit Bell award on the steps of Old Main, located at Arizona State University on the Tempe campus. Eighty ASCE at ASU team members attended and took part in competitions at the ASCE Intermountain Southwest Student Conference and Symposium in Salt Lake City on April 16-18, 2026. Photo courtesy of ASCE at ASU Members of the American Society of Civil E…