The
University of Pittsburgh received a combined $2.7 million grant to develop futuristic electron spin technology and study ways the military may improve diplomatic relations.
Pitt professor Jeremy Levy in the Department of Astronomy and Physics in the School of Arts and Sciences was awarded $1.1 million as part of a five-year, $6.5 million project to study the future applications of electron spin, a technology that may allow for faster and less power-consuming information technology.
Levy will collaborate with researchers from four other universities in an attempt to create devices that can store and transfer information with more density but by using less power. Electron spin—the interaction between spinning electrons and magnetic materials—is used in today's computer hard drives and allows highly sensitive sensors to probe the drive's minute magnetic domains. As a result, hard drives are smaller and maintain higher information density.
Michael Lewis, a professor in the School of Information Sciences, will receive a total of $1.5 million for two
Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) projects. One will evaluate the feasibility of a decentralized military communication system; another is meant to help military negotiators better cooperate with people of different cultures.
The work will involve a developing military communication system that bucks the traditional hierarchy and instead shifts information processing and decision making to a peer-to-peer network outside the chain of command. Lewis will consider if this could allow soldiers and robots to better communicate and react in fast-changing situations on the ground.