Manufacturing with Embodied AI

Celebrating manufacturing-related R&D achievements and their business impacts on National Manufacturing Day!

Leadership Remarks
-Northwestern University President Mung Chiang
-National Center for Manufacturing Sciences President and CEO Lisa Strama
-Northwestern University Provost Erik Luijten

Corporate Panel, Stan Rendon, 3M VP of R&D, Yu Cao, Applied Materials Chief AI Officer and Amey Deosthali, AMD Head of Robotics, Industrial & Healthcare (Physical AI)

NU Faculty Panel, Prof. Jian Cao, Prof. Ed Colgate, Prof. Mark Hersam, Prof. John Rogers

Founders/SME Panel, Jason Sebastian, Executive VP QuesTek Innovation, Demeng Che, co-Founder & CEO Converge Lab, Gino Domel, CEO HiDeNN-AI, Joe Mullenbach, co-founder Fluid Reality

Ecosystems Panel, Tom Kurfess, CTO, NCMS & Executive Director of Mfg Institute at Georgia Tech, Berardino Baratta, CEO MxD, Allison Fisher, Chief of Staff mHUB

Related Info

Register Now

Abstract:

Human mobility is often described through aggregate quantities such as origin-destination flows, travel distances, or traffic volumes. While these representations reveal important regularities, they can obscure how individuals actually move through transportation networks: the paths they take, how previous movements shape subsequent decisions, and how behavior varies across people and environments. In this talk, I will present recent work that shifts the focus from aggregate mobility patterns toward the structure and heterogeneity of individual movement. Drawing on empirical GPS data, agent-based simulations, and higher-order network models, we investigate how sequential dependencies shape mobility and its predictability, how faithfully commonly used benchmarks and synthetic populations reproduce observed human movement, and how mobility behavior changes across different built environments. Across these studies, a common picture emerges: systems that appear remarkably similar at an aggregate level can differ substantially in their path structure, behavioral diversity, and predictability. These findings highlight the opportunities offered by emerging mobility data and simulation models and motivate new network-based approaches for understanding, predicting, and designing transportation systems that better reflect how people actually move.

Bio:

Dr. Jürgen Hackl is an Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Princeton University, where he leads the Complex Infrastructure Systems group. His research lies at the intersection of network science, transportation, and infrastructure systems, with a particular focus on human mobility, spatial-temporal and higher-order networks, uncertainty quantification, and data-driven modeling of complex systems. His work develops new methods to understand how people, information, and resources move through infrastructure networks and how these dynamics can be represented, predicted, and incorporated into simulation and decision-making.

He received his PhD from ETH Zürich in 2019 and subsequently held research and faculty positions at the University of Zürich, the University of Liverpool, and the University of Cambridge before joining Princeton in 2023. His research spans transportation, power, and urban infrastructure systems and combines methodological advances in network science with applications to the analysis, design, and resilience of complex engineered systems.

Co-sponsored Event with the TC Seminar Series.

Presenters: Stephen Walsh (Civil Engineering and Transportation and Logistics Minor) and Ian Savage (Professor of Economics and Transportation)

Abstract:

Should Metra offer enhanced off-peak service as part of a “regional rail” concept? If so, should the enhanced frequencies apply on the entire length of each line or just for a shorter inner portion? If the enhanced frequencies are on just part of a line, where should the additional trains turn around? What enhanced frequencies should be offered? This presentation describes recent research that models the number of trainsets required for different combinations of frequency and turn-around point. It also describes earlier research on which stations show the most promise for enhanced off-peak operations. This event is meant to be an interactive discussion where information on costs and demand are an input to thinking about the nature of any regional rail offerings in Northeastern Illinois.

Bios:

Stephen Walsh is an undergraduate student in Civil Engineering at Northwestern University with a minor in Transportation and Logistics. Ian Savage is a longtime affiliated Transportation Center faculty member and a Professor of Instruction in Economics.

TBD

Abstract:

Microbial communities underpin the health of humans, animals, and ecosystems, shaping our world and how we experience it. Conversely, microbes are also shaped by human activities, including the widespread use of antimicrobial chemicals. Understanding how microbial communities respond to these pressures is essential for mitigating antimicrobial resistance, protecting public health, and developing sustainable biotechnologies. Drawing on studies spanning hospitals, homes, wastewater treatment systems, and host-associated microbiomes, this talk will explore how microbial ecology can reveal the mechanisms by which microbes adapt, survive, and evolve in complex real-world environments.

I will present recent work investigating the fate and impacts of antimicrobial chemicals in built and natural environments, highlighting how chemical exposures reshape microbial community structure and select for resistant organisms. These studies demonstrate the value of integrating analytical chemistry, cultivation-based microbiology, genomic approaches, and ecological theory to uncover microbial processes that are often hidden in laboratory model systems.

Building on these discoveries, I will discuss efforts to develop evidence-based policy and ecology-informed strategies for microbial control and microbiome engineering. The latter include advancing bacteriophage-based therapeutics for difficult-to-treat infections and engineering phage and microbial communities for applications ranging from human health to energy-efficient wastewater treatment. Together, these projects illustrate how a mechanistic understanding of microbial ecology can be translated into innovative interventions that move beyond conventional antimicrobial approaches.

By connecting fundamental questions in microbial ecology and evolution with applied challenges in medicine, the built environment, and environmental biotechnology, this work transforms our ability to predict, manipulate, and design microbial communities for healthier and more sustainable futures.

Bio:

Dr. Erica Marie Hartmann is an environmental microbiologist interested in the interaction between anthropogenic chemicals and microorganisms, as well as bio-inspired mechanisms for controlling microbial communities. Her career began at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She then moved to Arizona State University where she was the first graduate of the interdisciplinary Biological Design PhD program. She had two postdoctoral positions, the first, supported by a Fulbright, at the Commission for Atomic Energy in France. She began leading studies on antimicrobial chemicals and microbes found in indoor dust during her second postdoc at the Biology and the Built Environment Center at the University of Oregon. She is currently an associate professor at Northwestern University in the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, with affiliations in Pulmonary Medicine and the Center for Synthetic Biology. She was awarded an NSF CAREER to support her work on antimicrobial textiles and is leading an investigation of the respiratory tract microbiome in the NIH-funded Successful Clinical Response In Pneumonia Therapy (SCRIPT) Systems Biology Center. She is further designing new antimicrobial strategies based on bacteriophages.

TBD

TBD

The ceremony will take place on Saturday, December 12 in Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, 50 Arts Circle Drive.

Related Info