Bioengineering

Keeping his nose to the grindstone is not just how Andrew Hutsell approaches his academic career in engineering—it's how he cut a small slice of fame.  The George Mason University alumnus recently put his engineering skills to the test on national television, competing in an episode of the History Channel’s Forged in Fire, a competition show that challenges bladesmiths to create weapons under tight deadlines.

Understanding and treating complex eye movement disorders like strabismus has long been a challenge for clinicians. Now, researchers at George Mason University are pioneering a new approach using robotics and artificial intelligence to engineer a better future for vision care.

With state-of-the-art teaching labs and fabrication facilities, the Life Sciences Engineering Building (LSEB) lets students and faculty get their hands dirty in this brand-new multiuse active learning space. The ribbon cutting didn’t officially happen until March 27, but LSEB already experienced a housewarming.

A Mason team including a high school student, a postdoctoral scholar, and a mechanical engineering professor has developed a way to use spent coffee grounds to remove diverse contaminants from water.

Mason researchers Jeffrey Moran in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Rémi Veneziano in the Department of Bioengineering, and Monique van Hoek, a microbiologist in the School of Systems Biology, won the NBIB R21 Trailblazer award. The team will research methods to dissolve harmful biofilms.