The first images from the James Webb Space Telescope (Webb)—the largest space observatory ever built—were livestreamed Tuesday, July 12 on NASA Live. The product of decades of development and testing, Webb carries contributions from a generation of University of Maryland engineering alumni.

Webb’s Near Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec), a breakthrough instrument developed at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, is designed to observe up to 100 space objects simultaneously. Two Maryland Engineering alumni—Wen-Hsien Chuang and Dan Kelly—played important roles in inventing and building the micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) microshutter array that controls how light enters NIRSpec. Alum Kan Yang also played a key role in determining whether Webb’s instruments would work in the extreme cold of space. 
A team of Maryland Engineering students won the National Institute of Standards and Technology Public Safety Communications Research Division’s inaugural First Responder UAS Triple Challenge 3.1: FastFind Competition. The challenge was to develop an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) system that could “increase the speed of search and rescue operations where direct visual contact with a potential subject may be obscured.”

Professor Alireza Khaligh received the 2022 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Power Electronic Society (PELS) Vehicle and Transportation Systems Achievement Award. He was cited for contributions to the “Advancement of power electronics for electrified transportation systems including electric vehicles and more electric aircraft.”

Disproportionately high COVID-19 mortality rates among Black populations in Louisiana parishes are the result of longstanding health vulnerabilities associated with institutional and societal discrimination, according to research conducted by an interdisciplinary team under the mentorship of UMD Clark Distinguished Chair Deb Niemeier and UMD Associate Professor of Kinesiology Jennifer D. Roberts in the School of Public Health.

The ethical and environmental issues surrounding elements such as cobalt and lithium will be a thing of the past as the world moves towards a greener world, according to Eric Wachsman, professor at the University of Maryland and director of Maryland Energy Innovation Institute.

Let’s look at some of the myths surrounding electric vehicle (EV) batteries.