CECS’s Jennifer Pazour Lands Prestigious Navy Grant

Only 16 researchers in the nation received prestigious 2013 Young Investigator Awards from the Office of Naval Research, and Jennifer Pazour, from the UCF College of Engineering and Computer Science (CECS), was one of them.

Dr. Pazour, an assistant professor in the CECS Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Systems, and another UCF award recipient, Dr. Sasan Fathpour, from the College of Optics and Photonics (CREOL), were recognized for showing “exceptional promise for doing creative research,” early in their tenure tracks, according to the Navy.

UCF is the only university in Florida with an award recipient. And, only two other universities – Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of Texas – claim two recipients.

Dr. Pazour is developing models and algorithms to evaluate and improve naval logistics. Her three-year, $509,000 grant will support her research in the design of sea-based logistic delivery systems which operate in challenging environments that include the need for increased security measures, synchronization of sea-based logistics with land operations, the absence of permanent infrastructure, and individual logistic-transport needs.

“Because of the wear and tear of identification information that can occur during transport, the difficulty of real-time transmission due to network bandwidth limitations, and the lack of scanning equipment at the receiving end, logistic decisions have to be made in an opaque network with imperfect visibility,” she said.

Dr. Pazour earned her bachelor’s degree from South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, and her master’s and Ph.D. from the University of Arkansas.

CREOL’s Dr. Fathpour, who holds an electrical engineering degree from the University of Michigan, was awarded a three-year, $680,000 grant to study novel nonlinear integrated photonic devices on silicon. His work involves fast, low-power optical modulators that are more compact than existing devices. The modulators are used to turn on and off the light generated by semiconductor lasers in order to send data over the Internet and other communication links. One day the devices may be used to optically connect the microelectronic chips of a laptop or to send huge amounts of 3-D video data to a TV, according to Dr. Fathpour.

Read the full UCF Today story here.

— CECS —