UF engineer wins presidential award for young researchers

December 13, 2007

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — A University of Florida engineering researcher has won one of the nation’s most prestigious awards for outstanding young scientists and engineers.

Clint Slatton, an assistant professor with a joint appointment in electrical and computer engineering and civil and coastal engineering, has received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, or PECASE, award.

The White House describes the award, which comes with a five-year $1 million research grant, as “the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on outstanding scientists and engineers beginning their independent careers.”

“I am absolutely delighted that Dr. Slatton has been selected to receive the PECASE award,” said Pramod Khargonekar, dean of the engineering college. “This is the most prestigious research grant for junior faculty in science and engineering. I am very proud of the quality and originality of Dr. Slatton’s research and am very confident that he will make breakthrough contributions under this PECASE award grant.”

Slatton, 37, came to UF from the University of Texas at Austin, where he was an adjunct professor and postdoctoral fellow in UT’s Center for Space Research. He earned his doctoral degree in electrical engineering from UT-Austin in 2001.

He said the goal of his research is to develop a new approach to measuring and predicting how signals — not just electronic ones, but also light and sound waves — travel through complex environments, such as cities and forests.

The research is important because new approaches are needed to make better use of remote-sensing capabilities for military, scientific and civilian applications, he said. Traditionally, researchers either model such environments with complicated physical models that require numerous assumptions, or they use statistical methods to relate experimental measurements. Neither approach leads to robust predictions. Slatton’s work is aimed at a “hybrid” approach that pulls from both methods and is made possible by high-resolution measurements of three-dimensional topography using airborne lasers.

“It boils down to, ‘How well can I see?, How well can I hear?, and how efficiently can I communicate?’ as I move through this environment,’” Slatton said, “and finding ways to predict the answers in complex terrain where you know you cannot measure everything.”

The research will help the military improve its communication and remote-sensing abilities in forested and urban environments.

For example, Slatton said it could lead to better methods of determining where soldiers can operate with lower risk of being seen — and where sensors can be placed to most efficiently monitor areas for locating and classifying sources of noise or radio signals.

The research could also help civilian scientists use networks of wireless sensors that monitor and report on environmental conditions, such as water or soil quality in large watersheds. It can even help pinpoint the sunniest areas within a forest or city for any specified time of day, information that could be useful for predicting forest growth or deploying solar-powered equipment, Slatton said.

The PECASE awards are supported by 11 different funding agencies. The U.S. Department of Defense is the agency that nominated Slatton.

Slatton is the third UF engineering faculty member to receive the PECASE award since the program was started in 1996. The others were Zhuomin Zhang, a former assistant professor of mechanical engineering, who won the award in 2000, and Elliot Douglas, an associate professor of materials science and engineering, who won the award in 1997. Several faculty members in other colleges have received the award as well.