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The essence of our excellence

Iowa State University is a Carnegie Foundation Research 1 university and a land-grant university. That means research is at the core of what we do. It sets the tone. It fills the air. It quickens our pace.

Research draws us from our ivory tower and guides us through a world of questions. Research makes us better teachers. And better learners. It broadens us. It gives us depth.

Research empowers us to become our best. It is the very essence of our excellence.

In the basement of the Black Engineering Building there is a darkened, windowless room where faculty and students “push the envelope” of high-speed computer graphics technology. They create synthetic environments where scientists and engineers use virtual reality to innovate the design and manufacture of most anything—from pharmaceuticals to tractors.

A few miles down the road on a hog farm near Nevada, there’s a full-scale pilot plant demonstrating ingenious methods to treat organic wastes anaerobically and recover methane for energy. The technology, developed by ISU engineers, also eliminates hog odors.

In Pasco, Washington, a manufacturer by the name of UniWest is producing a device that will help ensure the safety of aircraft engines. Developed by the Engine Titanium Consortium, of which ISU is a member, the portable eddy scanner detects specific defects in titanium like the one that caused the Sioux City crash in 1989.

On Interstate 80 in rural eastern Iowa, traffic often exceeds 30,000 vehicles per day during summer construction, sometimes causing excruciating delays for motorists. At the ISU Research Park, transportation researchers are developing a simulation model that will help the Iowa Department of Transportation and others better understand and manage traffic in work zone areas. The dynamic, animated, computer simulation model will allow its users to assess different scenarios, adjusting traffic levels, driver behavior, and merging discipline to evaluate cost trade-offs between driver delay and traffic control policies.

And, in a $1.3 million high-speed communication circuits lab that is under construction, faculty and students in the Analog and Mixed Signal VLSI (very large scale integration) Design Center already are setting industry standards with the development of a gigabit/second transmitter and memory test chip, along with a monolithic linear isolator.