“When you’re muted, people don’t expect these apps to collect data,” says Fawaz (left), with Yang.

Kassem Fawaz’s brother was on a videoconference with the microphone muted when he noticed that the microphone light was still on — indicating, inexplicably, that his microphone was being accessed.

Alarmed, the brother asked Fawaz, an expert in online privacy and an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at UW–Madison, to look into the issue.

Fawaz and graduate student Yucheng Yang PhDx’23 investigated whether this “mic-off-light-on” phenomenon was more widespread. They tried out many videoconferencing applications on major operating systems, including iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac, checking to see if the apps still accessed the microphone when it was muted.

“It turns out, in the vast majority of cases, when you mute yourself, these apps do not give up access to the microphone,” says Fawaz. “And that’s a problem. When you’re muted, people don’t expect these apps to collect data.”

Fawaz and Yang, along with colleagues from Loyola University Chicago, used runtime binary analysis tools to trace raw audio in popular videoconferencing applications as the audio traveled from the app to the computer audio driver and then to the network while the app was muted. They found that all the apps they tested occasionally gather raw audio data while mute is activated, with one popular app gathering information and delivering data to its server at the same rate regardless of whether the microphone is muted or not. The findings raise privacy concerns.

“With a camera, you can turn it off or even put your hand over it, and no matter what you do, no one can see you,” says Fawaz. “I don’t think that exists for microphones.”

Turning off a microphone is possible in most device operating systems, but it usually means navigating through several menus. Instead, the team suggests the solution might lie in developing easily accessible software “switches” or even hardware switches that allow users to manually enable and disable their microphones.

Boutilier hopes research like his will nudge automated external defibrillators closer to mainstream implementation. Everdrone

As a kid, Justin Boutilier would get roped into helping his dad, a paramedic and firefighter, perform automated external defibrillator (AED) demonstrations. Two decades later, Boutilier, now a UW assistant professor of industrial and systems engineering, is reimagining how AEDs can save more lives.

Boutilier has detailed the framework for designing a network of AED-outfitted, autonomous flying drones, which could allow the life-saving devices to more quickly reach people suffering cardiac arrest. In out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, survival rates drop by as much as 10 percent for each minute that passes without treatment.

“Ambulances are not fast enough for this, especially in nonurban areas, so drones are just such a good fit,” says Boutilier, whose research harnesses optimization and machine-learning techniques to improve health care quality, access, and delivery. “They’re super fast with straight-line flight. And then AEDs are a relatively light payload, so it suits the drone. The best applications for drones in health care are things that are light and where time is of the essence.”

In January, an off-duty doctor used an AED delivered by an autonomous drone to save a 71-year-old man’s life in Sweden — the first such documented successful rescue. Boutilier hopes that research like his will help nudge the technology closer toward mainstream implementation.

Thevamaran has laid the groundwork for carbon nanotube use in lightweight, high-performance armor materials, such as bulletproof vests or spacecraft shields.

UW–Madison engineers have created a nanofiber material that outperforms steel plates and Kevlar fabric to protect against bullets and other high-speed impacts.

Basically, it’s better than bulletproof.

“Our nanofiber mats exhibit protective properties that far surpass other material systems at much lighter weight,” says Ramathasan Thevamaran, a UW–Madison assistant professor of engineering physics who led the research.

The material resembles cloth tape but is much stronger. To create it, Thevamaran and postdoctoral researcher Jizhe Cai mixed multi-walled carbon nanotubes — carbon cylinders just one atom thick in each layer — with Kevlar nanofibers. The resulting nanofiber mats are superior at dissipating energy from the impact of fast-moving tiny projectiles.

The advance lays the groundwork for carbon nanotube use in lightweight, high-performance armor materials — for example, in bulletproof vests or in spacecraft shields to mitigate damage from flying microdebris.

“Nano-fibrous materials are very attractive for protective applications because nanoscale fibers have outstanding strength, toughness, and stiffness compared to macroscale fibers,” Thevamaran says. “Carbon nanotube mats have shown the best energy absorption so far, and we wanted to see if we could further improve their performance.”

They found the right chemistry. The team synthesized Kevlar nanofibers and incorporated a tiny amount of them into their carbon nanotube mats, which created hydrogen bonds between the fibers. Those hydrogen bonds modified the interactions between the nanofibers and, along with just the right mixture of Kevlar nanofibers and carbon nanotubes, caused a dramatic leap in the overall material’s performance.

“The hydrogen bond is a dynamic bond, which means it can continuously break and re-form again, allowing it to dissipate a high amount of energy through this dynamic process,” Thevamaran says.

The researchers tested their new material using a microprojectile impact-testing system in Thevamaran’s lab. One of only a handful like it in the United States, the system uses lasers to shoot micro-bullets into the material samples.

In addition to its impact resistance, another advantage of the new nanofiber material is that, like Kevlar, it is stable at both very high and very low temperatures, making it useful for applications in a wide range of extreme environments.

NASA technicians prepare to move the Webb telescope into a clean room prior to launch. NASA/Desiree Stover

When NASA wanted to pack up the world’s most powerful telescope for delivery into space, it turned to a Badger. Wei-Di Cheng ’93 helped prepare the James Webb Space Telescope for its launch last Christmas — a journey that would take it about one million miles from Earth.

Webb’s revolutionary technology will explore every phase of cosmic history — from within our solar system to the most distant observable galaxies in the early universe. Cheng is a stress analyst at Northrop Grumman, and his job included working on the telescope’s forward and aft unitized pallet structures, the casing that contains its carefully folded sunshield.

The ultrathin sunshield, about the size of a tennis court, is essential to protect the telescope from the light and heat of the sun, Earth, and moon, allowing Webb’s instruments to cool down to the extremely low temperatures necessary to carry out its goals. Maintaining the sunshield’s shape as it unfolds into position involves a delicate process. Cheng played a key role in testing the unitized pallet structures to help ensure that the sunshield would successfully deploy in space.

“The unitized pallet structures are roughly three stories tall and made of a very thin and light composite material,” Cheng says. “At some points, the structure is about as thin as a few pieces of paper stacked together.”

The new software is saving airlines millions of dollars each year by helping them avoid delays. Corey Calvert

If you experience fewer air travel delays in the years ahead, you can thank your alma mater. UW–Madison’s Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS) collaborated on new software with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), providing a new tool for the National Weather Service to detect fog and low-lying clouds. The software, which took more than 10 years to develop, uses machine-learning techniques with near real-time data from weather satellites to monitor conditions 24/7 and issue potential fog warnings.

Satellite observations have traditionally struggled to determine the size of fog patches, especially when other clouds were present above the fog. Additionally, previous techniques were limited to nighttime use due to interference from reflected sunlight. Unlike thunderstorms that contain larger raindrops and ice crystals, fog is composed of smaller droplets that do not show up on radar.

The new tool, which circumvents those problems, is known as the GOES-R Fog and Low Stratus product. (GOES-R refers to the nation’s most advanced fleet of weather satellites.) According to CIMSS scientist Corey Calvert, the software “helps identify the type of fog over an area by evaluating every pixel in an image and generating a probability of the presence of fog and its intensity.”

The product is saving airlines millions of dollars each year by helping them avoid delays. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, weather was responsible for nearly 70 percent of flight delays from 2008 to 2013. Each hour of delay costs airlines from $1,000 to $4,000 per flight.

The new tool identifies dangerous conditions for both large and small aircraft and can be used to issue warnings around the country, making air travel safer.

A tour of the Humanities Building underscored the need for a new academic facility for the College of Letters & Science. Bryce Richter

In July, Wisconsin governor Tony Evers ’73, MS’76, PhD’86 signed the 2021–23 state budget with dozens of line-item vetoes, capping a months-long process that saw the legislature scrap his original proposal and craft its own. UW–Madison emerged from the process with several important wins, including new funds for a critical campus building.

As part of the budget bill drafted by the Republican-led legislature and signed by the Democratic governor, the UW System Board of Regents regained its authority to set tuition rates for in-state undergrads. That ends an eight-year mandated tuition freeze at UW–Madison.

The budget also provides 2 percent pay increases for university and state workers in each of the next two years, plus $2 million for the UW’s Division of Extension to hire additional agricultural specialists.

Last spring, university leaders invited state politicians to tour a campus artifact with structural challenges: the Humanities Building (pictured above). The effort underscored the need for a new academic facility for the College of Letters & Science. The final budget obliged, covering roughly 70 percent of the projected $88 million cost. The new building, planned for the corner of West Johnson and North Park Streets, will feature 19 modern classrooms and consolidate departments and programs from seven campus locations.

“This new academic building will modernize the student learning experience and build research connections across campus, better serving the needs of our growing undergraduate population,” said Eric Wilcots, the college’s dean.

High on the list for UW–Madison was funding for a new engineering building that would enable the university to increase enrollment in the in-demand field by nearly a quarter. While funding for the building was not included in the final budget passed by the legislature, the budget does fund a major utility project on Engineering Drive, which signals future support for constructing the facility.

“We begin the new fiscal year with a solid budget that invests in our valued employees and provides funding for important new building projects,” said Chancellor Rebecca Blank.

An electron microscope image of the scaffold used for growing retinal cells. Courtesy of the MA Lab

An interdisciplinary effort among UW–Madison researchers is the next step toward curing once-irreversible vision loss.

David Gamm, professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health and director of the McPherson Eye Research Institute (MERI), Shaoqin (Sarah) Gong, professor of biomedical engineering at the UW College of Engineering (COE) and the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, and Zhenqiang (Jack) Ma, professor of electrical and computer engineering at COE, have developed a microfabricated scaffold designed to deliver light-sensitive photoreceptor cells to damaged areas in the retina.

Gamm and his team at MERI had already developed a method for growing new photoreceptor cells from stem cells, but they struggled to deliver these cells to their intended target in the retina. That was when Gamm reached out to Gong and Ma, a team he calls a “one-stop shop” for solving this problem.

Where Gamm provided the cells, Ma and his lab supplied the meticulous work of microfabricating a scaffold that would uniquely suit the transport of photoreceptor cells in the retina. After multiple models, the team settled on a structure they dubbed the “ice-cube tray” mold, which maximizes the capacity for holding cells while minimizing the amount of material necessary to create the scaffold. Gong and her lab screened potential biomaterials to constitute the scaffold before selecting one that was compatible with the retina and that would degrade in a timely manner once the cells had connected with the retina.

“I can’t emphasize how complex it is from an engineering standpoint,” Gamm says of the project. “It’s easy for me. I already had the cells; we can make them now in billions. The focus of this project has always really been on the engineering, so it’s [Ma] and [Gong] who have brought this project to where it is.”

A feat of medicine, engineering, and UW ingenuity, the scaffold holds promise for treating vision loss caused by currently incurable optical impairments, such as macular degeneration. The scaffold may also have other medical applications.

According to all three researchers, a groundbreaking innovation like this starts with cross-departmental communication.

“Until I met with some professors, like [Gamm], we did not know what problems they are facing,” Ma says. “When we worked together, we found that there are so many things to work on, and this is a huge space to explore.”

The proposed facility would be “a vibrant, multifunctional, signature engineering building.” College of Engineering

Faculty and students in the UW–Madison College of Engineering are conducting research to address some of the world’s most pressing problems. They’ve recently made advances in preventing traumatic brain injuries, recycling plastics, and improving personal protective equipment during the pandemic.

But current space limitations prevent the college from having an even greater impact through research and education.

That’s why the University of Wisconsin System has made a new engineering building a top priority in its 2021–23 state budget request. The goal is to replace the 64,000-square-foot building at 1410 Engineering Drive with a 340,000-square-foot facility worthy of a tier-one research university.

“We’re looking to create a vibrant, multifunctional, signature engineering building,” says Ian Robertson, the college’s dean. “It will stimulate collaborations, spark discoveries, and allow us to attract and retain the engineering talent we need to solve the challenges we’re facing in society.”

The college typically receives 7,000 applications per year but can accept only about 1,000 students. The new building would nearly double enrollment capacity while offering the resources to prepare students for success in a field that’s very different today compared to even 10 years ago.

“We hear from companies that it’s no longer enough for engineering graduates to know their own disciplines,” says Robertson. “For example, mechanical engineers now need to know some electrical engineering and materials science. The new building will allow us to bring in multidisciplinary educational experiences.”

The planning process began with a 2015 space analysis, which found that replacing the antiquated building would be more cost-effective than renovating it. Construction would begin in 2023, with the first phase completed in fall 2025 and the second in fall 2027. The college is requesting $150 million from the state and will raise another $150 million in private gifts and grants. Governor Tony Evers ’73, MS’76, PhD’86 included funding for the building in his capital budget proposal; the legislature is expected to act on the budget in June, sending the final bill to the governor in July.

Robertson says the College of Engineering’s future is at stake.

“We need the new building to remain competitive with our peers so we can continue to produce excellent engineers and conduct the kind of research we’re known for.”

Jeff Miller

There is no question that COVID-19 introduced myriad challenges to the campus community, including the closing of labs in the early weeks of the pandemic. But UW–Madison researchers rose to the occasion, developing innovative approaches to help confront, understand, and reduce the negative effects of the disease.

Figures current as of January 2021

Chancellor Rebecca Blanks says that “investment in higher education is key to boosting our economy, even in difficult times.” Bryce Richter

If the coming state budget includes what UW–Madison hopes for, it will mean important changes, both visible and invisible. University leaders and the UW System Board of Regents have proposed new buildings for the Colleges of Engineering and Letters & Science, as well as greater borrowing power.

In particular, UW–Madison would like to have bonding authority for capital projects and for program-related revenue, such as the funds brought in through residence hall fees, athletics, and parking fees.

“The UW is the only Big Ten school without bonding authority,” says Ben Miller, a senior assistant in the office of UW–Madison’s vice chancellor for university relations. “We believe the university should be able to borrow to cover operational expenses, particularly for those programs that generate revenue to cover their costs.”

The two building projects are also major initiatives. The College of Engineering would like to replace the building at 1410 Engineering Drive. A new structure would enable the college to teach an additional 1,000 undergraduate students, which would help the UW meet America’s growing need for engineers and others who work in STEM fields.

The College of Letters & Science hopes to replace the Mosse Humanities Building, which has been home to many arts and humanities programs since it opened in the 1960s.

The building has long suffered from structural and materials flaws. Music and arts programs left Humanities in recent years — to the Hamel Music Center and the Art Lofts, respectively — and a new academic building will better serve the remaining humanities departments.

In addition, the UW is seeking funds to increase online learning opportunities, provide more health services to students, increase student financial support, and add agriculture positions to UW Extension. Chancellor Rebecca Blank described the requests as “a modest proposal that recognizes that investment in higher education is key to boosting our economy, even in difficult times.”

The regents sent their request to the office of Wisconsin governor Tony Evers ’73, MS’76, PhD’86, in hopes that he would include the initiatives in his budget proposal, which is expected in February. That proposal would then go to the Wisconsin legislature’s joint finance committee.

“We’re hopeful to see our goals achieved,” says Miller, acknowledging that the coronavirus pandemic has left the state with a weakened economy and that the UW is one of many priorities. “We’ll have to build awareness and educate lawmakers [on the need for these projects]. They’re all important proposals for campus.”