is northeastern a research university

About Northeastern

A global research university, powered by experience

Experience is at the heart of everything we do .

Founded in 1898, we’re renowned for our experiential learning model, high-impact research, deep partnerships, and worldwide reach. From day one, we’ve pursued innovative ways of teaching and research that place a premium on experience and engagement with the world. Today, our signature approach erases traditional boundaries, empowering not only students, but faculty, alumni, partners, and innovators to solve problems and pursue impact.

Opportunity is always in motion

We’ve created a one-of-a-kind global university system of 13 campuses, 49 alumni communities , and 3,500+ employer partners that forms a dynamic, diverse, and inclusive community. We create new opportunities for richer educational experiences and deeper collaborations across industries and disciplines to bring the right expertise together to go from promise to reality.

global university system map graphic large

Our campuses

Find unique opportunities for experience-powered learning and discovery.

Our hub for research and graduate education at the intersection of technology, security, and policy

Explore Arlington

Massachusetts

Established in 1898, our first campus is a comprehensive hub for learning, discovery, and urban engagement

Explore Boston

Home to world-class national security and defense research and a magnet for science-based startups

Explore Burlington

North Carolina

An engine for professional education in the life and health sciences

Explore Charlotte

Our hub in Europe, with undergraduate and postgraduate degrees—including a U.S./U.K. double degree—and world-leading network science research

Explore London

Graduate education and entrepreneurship programming to support the rapidly transforming finance and tech economies

Explore Miami

A vibrant center for coastal sustainability research and innovation

Explore Nahant

Our West Coast undergraduate campus offering unique entrepreneurship and social impact programming, and home to the Mills Institute

Explore Oakland

An engine for economic development with graduate degrees and research in technology, and home to the Roux Institute

Explore Portland

Graduate degrees and research focused on the region’s booming tech industry, and undergraduate summer programs

Explore Seattle

Graduate education for high-tech fields in the heart of California’s Big Tech region

Explore Silicon Valley

Preparing professionals to thrive in high-demand fields in North America’s third-largest tech market

Explore Toronto

Professional education aligned with British Columbia’s rising startup and high-tech ecosystem

Explore Vancouver

The leader in global experiential learning

Providing you with the world’s most dynamic, rich, and global undergraduate , graduate , and doctoral education

Research for global impact

Building powerful interdisciplinary teams of faculty and partners to solve widespread, global problems

Meet our president

Joseph E. Aoun, an internationally renowned scholar in linguistics, is a leading authority on global and experiential learning and is at the forefront of driving innovation in higher education. He is the author of Robot-Proof: Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence , a blueprint for the future of learning.

Big ideas, big results

of graduates employed full time or enrolled in graduate school within nine months of graduation (multi-year average since 2006)

in financial aid grants for 2023–2024

in external research awards for 2022–2023, up 480% since 2006

employer partners hire our undergraduate and graduate students for short-term projects that contribute to their organization

Initiatives with purpose

Driving the ideas, discoveries, and action to make communities everywhere more sustainable, resilient, and equitable

Creating a welcoming environment where everyone can thrive, succeed, and feel a strong sense of belonging

Academic Plan, Experience Unleashed

Going beyond the traditional boundaries of campus, and creating opportunities to learn, experience, and innovate wherever possible

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Campus Locations

Today, a vanguard of donors is driving Northeastern’s historic $1.3 billion fundraising campaign. With initiatives that span the globe, accelerating outcomes, we’re creating a better world right now. Learn more about our mission

Faculty & Research

Some of the world’s most influential academics call Northeastern home. They are attracted by the interdisciplinary collaboration and the increased focus, passion, and knowledge that students—as early as undergraduates—bring to the classroom from their global learning experiences.

Expert Faculty

Over the past five years, the university has appointed 250 tenured and tenure-track faculty members, with a focus on scholars who collaborate across disciplines. As a result, external awards for faculty research nearly doubled.

Northeastern is unlike other large research universities. You’ll have numerous opportunities to work hand-in-hand with faculty members to pursue research in cutting-edge fields such as nanotechnology, network science, biotechnology, and urban public policy. You’ll also have access to the very latest advances in your area of study and get the support and mentorship you need to succeed. It’s the best of both worlds—big opportunities at a large research powerhouse, and small, intimate research and classroom settings.

The University’s research support facilities provide the technology that faculty and students need to pursue their scientific and scholarly endeavors.

Did You Know?

Northeastern University has $282M in external research funding.

The Office of Undergraduate Research and Fellowships

At Northeastern we empower you to explore research opportunities beginning in your first year. Our research centers and institutes focus on interdisciplinary and translational research that meets societal needs in a variety of subject areas, including: Business, Computer and Information Science, Engineering and Technology, Health Sciences, Humanities and Arts, Law, Physical and Life Sciences, and Social Sciences.

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Visit northeastern.

Partnerships

Research at Bouvé

a bold approach to discovery

MRI research by the language acquisition and brain lab at Northeastern University

Video: Speech and Neurodevelopment Lab Research

Speech and Neurodevelopment Lab Research

Discovering the difference. And then making one.

Bouvé is an R1 research institution, which means we’re able to fund our community’s ideas in a big way — so what starts at the cellular level here can make a huge impact for society as a whole.

It all starts with our radical approach to healthcare research, where we see the person before the patient, and we work to improve their healthspan — the amount of time they are living and healthy.

The power of this research becomes greater in the hands of Bouvé students as they take what they learn here, and use it to impact communities around the world.

in new research awards

new patents pending 25 issued

faculty jointly appointed across colleges

worth of proposals submitted

What Research at Bouvé Really Looks Like

Video: The institute brings together people from all over Northeastern with external communities to address inequities in healthcare

The institute brings together people from all over Northeastern with external communities to address inequities in healthcare

Video: Interdisciplinary faculty, Max Shepherd talks about his research in prosthetic technology

Interdisciplinary faculty, Max Shepherd talks about his research in prosthetic technology

Video: Nursing PhD student talks about her experience at NU

Nursing PhD student talks about her experience at NU

Video: Logothetis and Plant Lab Tour

Logothetis and Plant Lab Tour

Research Areas

From health policy to biotechnology, research centers, institutes, and labs at Bouvé give students the unique opportunity to work with a community of changemakers taking on today’s most pressing health challenges.

Research Area

Drug discovery, delivery, development, and nanomedicine.

Bouvé researchers and students are exploring the complex world of medication, from concept to development to delivery. At the Bouvé Center for Drug Discovery, more than 60 scientists and students work at the cellular, molecular, genetic, and epigenetic level to pioneer new ways to fight cancer, degenerative disease, addiction, and more.

Graduate student doing research at Northeastern's Drug Discovery Lab.

Cognitive and Behavioral Science

With a focus on brain and behavior relations across the lifespan, our research incorporates cognitive neuroscience approaches with complex behavioral analyses to develop novel interventions for brain health across the lifespan and predict rehabilitation outcomes to better patient care.

Health Across the Lifespan

Bouvé researchers and students are combining clinical expertise with emerging technologies to study and address health challenges across the spectrum of human development. An interdisciplinary approach permits our researchers to innovate and achieve improvements across physical, psychological, and cognitive domains.

Ralf Schlosser, a professor in the department of communication sciences and disorders at Northeastern, demonstrates his award-winning research that uses everyday devices iPads, Apple Watches, etc. to help non-verbal autistic children and other disorders communicate with the world around them. Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University

Occupational and Environmental Health

At Bouvé, researchers and students are using biomonitoring, social epidemiology, product design, and community research to create healthier environments in homes, workplaces, and communities around the world.

Population Health and Health Equity

Equal access to healthcare is undoubtedly one of the most pressing challenges of the 21st century. Interdisciplinary teams of Bouvé faculty, students, and community partners have joined forces to improve racial, socioeconomic, and environmental justice in communities around the world.

Woman taking temperature of patient in quarantine

Technology and Health

In the new age of “precision medicine,” Bouvé researchers and students are harnessing the power of big data, mobile applications, virtual reality, robotics, and advanced biosensing to improve health outcomes.

Data Science and Health

To meet the health challenges of the modern world, Bouvé researchers and students study how the complex systems in which we live overlap and affect one another. At Bouvé, teams of interdisciplinary researchers are pioneering big-picture approaches to how politics, culture, and technology interact in the healthcare realm.

Alessandro Vespignani doing research in his office at Northeastern University

Faculty Labs and Research by Discipline

Communication Sciences and Disorders

Health Sciences and Public Health

Pharmaceutical Sciences

Physical Therapy, Movement and Rehabilitation Sciences

Student Research

Bouvé serves as a tier-one research institution not only because of the resources and support we give to discovery across the board, but because we bake these opportunities into the curriculum at all levels, for all students.

This means that students who join Bouvé have the ability to gain hands-on experience working alongside esteemed faculty and a motivated, like-minded community. For the entirety of their education, students can access research opportunities across disciplines, benefiting not just their own healthcare journeys, but the greater good as well.

Lots of research opportunities are provided just through the [professors]. They really care about you and they really want to make a positive difference in your life.

— Quarida Benitia, Health Science Major

Katherine O’Brien (left) and Grace Kennedy, Northeastern co-op students who spent semester in Baringo County doing research on exposure factors and treatment outcomes of visceral leishmaniasis, second only to malaria as parasitic killer.

Student researchers went to Kenya to find ways to prevent one of the world’s most deadly tropical disease

Both health science majors, Kennedy and O’Brien lived and worked together during their five months in Kenya, dividing their time between field research in Baringo County and academic projects in Nairobi.

STUDENT spotlight

What are the most common injuries for weightlifters and powerlifters? Student turns passion into research

In weightlifting, the knee was the most common injury, whereas, in powerlifting, it was the lower back and pelvic area. The difference, Tung says, is because of the biomechanics of the different lifts.

PhD student Arielle Scoglio with her research robot that focuses on helping people with wellness

Student researcher studies the use of social robots in mental health and well-being

Population health student, Arielle Scoglio and her colleagues recently published a literature review that looked into how social robots are being used in the study and treatment of mental health and well-being.

Research Centers, Institutes, and Partners

The 12+ research centers at Bouvé are where ideas created in the classroom meet their real-world counterparts. Research here transforms into real-world impact as students work with faculty to make groundbreaking discoveries.

Research Development and Funding

$22.9 million in research dollars has been spent, and there is a 115% growth of new award funding since 2018. Bouvé empowers students to pursue discovery based on their own ideas.

Surrounded by an equally ambitious faculty and network, students are able to pursue their passions across a variety of disciplines like nursing, autism research, and vocal and speech therapy — both in Boston and abroad. Discover the breadth of research opportunities available to students from day one, and how the current Bouvé community is using them to make their own path toward making a difference.

Research Support and Resources

Full Research Lifecycle Support

Bouvé College’s Research Administration Office (BCORe) provide a full range of grants and research services to all faculty and graduate students within the College.

BCORe is your reliable partner throughout the grants management process. As a full-service, life-cycle research administrative resource, we connect with the university’s central sponsored programs office, and collaborate closely with Bouvé’s Research Development, Innovation, and Biostatistics experts.

Undergraduate Research Resources

Connect with Faculty Mentors

Explore Research Opportunities

Undergraduate Research

The Undergraduate Research Club

This student club provides resources and support to students looking for research opportunities on any of Northeastern’s undergraduate-serving campuses (Boston, London, Oakland).

For more information: Akshita Virdy Student Director of Faculty Outreach [email protected]

Graduate Research Resources

Bouvé Research Support and Services (BCORe)

Library Research Resources for Graduate Research

Research Data Services

The Northeastern Writing Center

Faculty Research Resources

Find Funding

Funding Sources

Northeastern University Research

Research Development

Submit a Research Proposal

The Center for Research Innovation (CRI)

Health Services Research

Health touches almost every aspect of our world — from global issues to daily life. As a tier-one research university, Bouvé gives students the power to explore these touchpoints through the lens of their own experiences. Learn more about Bouvé’s interdisciplinary approach to research, and the discoveries that come from them.

Bradly Post, PhD, Northeastern University

Innovation in Healthcare

Researchers at Bouvé are working to understand today’s most pressing challenges, and how we can use them to prepare for the future. Innovation at Bouvé is not just a goal, it’s a necessity for the future as life-changing research here transforms into life-saving solutions out there.

Pharmaceutical Breakthroughs

Explore the complex world of medication — from concept to development to delivery. At the Bouvé Center for Drug Discovery, more than 60 scientists and students work at the cellular, molecular, genetic and epigenetic level to pioneer new ways to fight cancer, degenerative disease, addiction, and more.

Faculty and students at Northeastern's Drug Discovery Lab

Speech-Language, and Hearing

At Bouvé, groundbreaking discovery can start with a child’s first words. See how Northeastern University’s Language Acquisition and Brain Laboratory is on the cutting edge of research and patient care, and how students are working alongside faculty to do it.

Ganesh Thakur, Chair of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Northeastern University

Ganesh Thakur, Pharmaceutical Sciences

Pharmacy professor Ganesh Thakur is exploring a novel cannabinoid receptor that could pave the way for new medicines to treat opioid addiction and a host of other diseases. If his strategy is successful, it could lead to a new class of drugs for pain, PTSD, eating disorders, epilepsy, Alzheimer’s, glaucoma, and drug abuse.

faculty spotlight

Bouvé Research News

Research news.

Produced by Guardant Health, the “Shield” blood DNA test detected roughly 83% of colorectal cancers, with about a 10% false positive rate. Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University

The FDA approved a blood test to detect colorectal cancer. Should you take it? Here’s what you need to know

The unavailability of GLP-1 drugs has increased interest in older weight loss drugs. AP Photo/M. Spencer Green

Older weight loss drugs are in demand. But are they safe or effective? And should you take them?

Photo by Julian Stratenschulte/picture alliance via Getty Images

A Lyme vaccine is in late-stage trials. Could an anti-tick vaccine be next?

IUDs, like the one pictured here, are a highly effective form of birth control, but the insertion procedure can be painful, scaring some patients off. Photo by Lou Benoist/AFP via Getty Images

Decision to offer sedation for often-painful IUD insertion is ‘groundbreaking,’ Northeastern health experts say

Can parents’ attitudes toward alcohol affect their children’s drinking? New research finds an indirect influence. Getty Images

Can parenting styles affect whether a child uses drinking to cope with stress? New Northeastern research says potentially

Students on Northeastern's Boston Centennial Common

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Have more questions about Bouvé? We’re here to help.

Want to take the next step and start your journey at Bouvé?

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Northeastern University College of Science

Faculty Labs

Northeastern bioengineering professor receives NSF award to study pathogens in our lungs

Mona Minkara describes the protein molecules that detect and flag disease-causing pathogens in human lungs as scouts of the immune system.

Minkara, an assistant professor of bioengineering at Northeastern University, is investigating the chemical interaction involving these scouts — which are actually immunoproteins — and pathogens. She hopes the research will help scientists bolster the immune system and promote the development of new methods of treating airborne diseases such as COVID-19, RSV and the flu.

Read more from Northeastern Global News .

Getty Images

They’re living boulders on the ocean floor. Northeastern research explains the mysterious corallith

Waves generated by increasingly strong hurricanes and tropical storms have laid waste to endangered coral reefs by smashing coral branches and overturning colonies.

But an oddball type of free-living coral actually thrives on the energy generated by storms.

Called a corallith, it is known as the rolling stone of the shallow ocean floor.

Coralliths occur when he tumbling motion of wave energy shapes coral into spheres that can grow to be nearly 1.4 meters in diameter, at least in the Florida underwater living boulder field studied by Mark Patterson, a professor at Northeastern’s Marine Science Center.

How Northeastern researchers are helping predict the outbreak of bird flu on US dairy farms

Less than a year ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funded a disease prediction center at Northeastern University called EPISTORM: The Center for Advanced Epidemic Analytics and Predictive Modeling Technology.

Considered a “National Weather Service for epidemic threats,” the center was designed to help detect and prepare the United States for the next outbreak of infectious disease, especially in rural areas.

Now, EPISTORM researchers find themselves on the front lines of the bird flu outbreak.

Also known as H5N1, bird flu has been detected in 169 livestock herds on dairy farms in 13 states since March 25, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture .

The spread to cows is of particular concern to scientists, who say any extension to mammal species creates more opportunities for the respiratory virus to evolve into a strain more dangerous to people.

To help mitigate the outbreak, EPISTORM researchers have produced risk maps highlighting potential hot spots on farms based on the cows’ travel across state lines, says Alessandro Vespignani , director of Northeastern’s Network Science Institute, Sternberg Family Distinguished Professor and head of EPISTORM.

Galaxy clusters could be used as natural dark matter colliders to understand nature of invisible particles

What is dark matter? Even for astrophysicists, it’s a question that remains unanswered.

These invisible particles make up most of the matter in the universe and about a quarter of the universe as a whole. They are thought to be the cosmic glue that binds the universe together, but we still don’t know what kind of particle they are. Finding the answer to that question could provide us with an unprecedented understanding of the past, present and future of our known universe.

New research from astrophysicists at Northeastern University provides a potential new way of answering this age-old question.

“Everything in the universe is a particle and a wave and a field, so the baseline [assumption] is dark matter must be a particle,” says Jacqueline McCleary , an assistant professor of physics and author on this recent paper. “The question is what kind of a particle, as a particle is very vague.”

Your Tomorrow Starts Here. Learn More Today.

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As an R1 research university, Northeastern offers all students—undergraduate, masters, and PhD—opportunity to participate in a wide range of interdisciplinary research projects, and offers resources and support to encourage innovation. Students can work with faculty in their labs, as part of research centers , on co-op, or conduct individual research. Students can also present their research at university events, and participate in regional, national and global competitions.

View engineering faculty profiles for research focus areas and lab information.

Student looks at brain scans on a computer

Graduate Students

For graduate students, the College of Engineering offers hundreds of paid research assistantships and fellowships each year. Some research opportunities are posted to the Northeastern Student Employment Job Board .

View a video on the experience of PhD students working alongside faculty on lifesaving cancer research.

In addition to all of the resources available in the College and accomplished faculty with interdisciplinary research focus areas spanning five disciplines, students can take advantage of Northeastern’s university-wide research collaborations and initiatives with the PhD Network .

Xupeng Zhu, electrical engineering graduate student, ME’20, works in the new robotics laboratory on the fifth floor of the Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Complex. The space enables interdisciplinary research in a variety of areas, including manipulation of novel objects, field robotics, aerial robotics, and assistive robotics. With more than 12,000 square feet of space dedicated to robot fabrication, testing, and prototyping, the facility is the home for 16 principal investigators and more than 100 graduate students. It has state-of-the-art robot systems, including collaborative manipulator arms, drones, human support robots and field robots.

Undergraduate Students

Participating in undergraduate research allows students to enhance their learning experiences while still in school. Using the skills they develop, students will be more successful in their classes. Research also prepares them for an advanced degree or professional employment. Students can conduct their own individual research projects, work with a faculty member, or be part of a group project.

The College of Engineering also offers the UPLIFT Scholars program for highly talented students. Scholars work in their faculty mentor’s lab starting their first semester freshmen year, with further opportunities for research during their later years at Northeastern. Scholars also receive programming and community building opportunities through Northeastern’s Center for STEM Education.

Learn about Kathrine Graham’s experience working at the ALERT research center as a mechanical engineering student, and Natasha Mundis’ experience doing research as a civil engineering student. Some research opportunities are posted to the Northeastern Student Employment Job Board .

Undergraduate students packed wall-to-wall eagerly engaged with faculty, research scientists, and fellow students representing 30-plus labs to learn about projects covering fields from nanomedicine to environmental health, and magnetic sensing to machine learning.

How to Find Undergraduate Research Opportunities

In addition to attending Northeastern’s annual Undergraduate Research Fair (called SOURCE: Showcase of Opportunities for Undergraduate Research and Creative Endeavor) available in early Fall, there are several ways to find a research opportunity that matches your interests.

When looking for a research opportunity, have available the following:

Formal resume – Resume writing support
Letters of recommendation from academic faculty/professors – template for recommendations
Attend the Undergraduate Research Fair in the fall.
Check with College of Engineering Research Centers ; some Centers are also National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduate (REU) sites.
View faculty profiles to identify faculty research focus areas, and then contact individual professors in areas of interest via email or in person to find out who might need assistance.

Visit the Office of Undergraduate Research and Fellowships where you can search for research opportunities, connect with faculty mentors, and find fellowships and scholarships.

National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) sites
Summary of NSF REU Opportunities
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) HS-STEM Summer Internship Program
National Institutes of Health Undergraduate Scholarship Program
WebGURU site

Other opportunities will be posted on the BlackBoard Undergrad Community site .

Visit Northeastern’s Office of Undergraduate Research and Fellowships to explore a wide variety of scholarships and fellowships.
Honors students may apply for Honors Early Research Award .
For student work study employment research opportunities, the process is:
Meet a professor that has a research project you can contribute to.
Agree on the # of hours per week.
The professor must email [email protected] with the student’s NUID# and the # of hours per week.
The student will be hired and receive an email confirming the arrangement.
Please fill out this form and email it to [email protected]
Each week the student works, they fill in their timesheet on Student Employment. As long as they fill in the agreed-upon # of hours, the timesheet will be approved. The professors should notify [email protected] if the students are not complying with the agreed-upon hours so that the hours can be renegotiated.

Recent News

Predicting Rainfall With Artificial Intelligence

A research model that uses AI to quickly and accurately predict weather forecasts will be tested by the Tennessee Valley Authority. The model was created by Puja Das, PhD’27, interdisciplinary engineering, who is supervised by CEE Distinguished Professor Auroop Ganguly.

PhD Spotlight: Ankit Mittal, PhD’24, Electrical Engineering

Ankit Mittal, PhD’24, electrical engineering, focused his research on developing solutions for robust ultra-low power radio connectivity. Among many other accomplishments, he authored or contributed to 12 journal papers and 10 conference papers.

PhD Spotlight: Daniel Braconnier, PhD’23, Mechanical Engineering

Daniel Braconnier, PhD’23, mechanical engineering, led a project developing long-lasting superhydrophobic coatings, resulting in a paper published by the Royal Society of Chemistry. He also developed patent-pending thermally conductive polymer composites.

Undergraduate Research and Fellowships (URF) fosters a culture of undergraduate research and creative endeavor—broadly defined—at Northeastern University.

Research and creative endeavors are key components of Northeastern’s experiential learning model. Experiences can range from laboratory bench work to the analysis of big data to archival research to collaborative theatre productions. This work can take place in a variety of contexts and formats, including the following:

Courses, which generally fulfill major elective requirements
Labs or centers
Research or creative-based co-ops or internships
Community-based research or creative endeavor
Research or creative-based activity as the option for work-study work
Research or creative endeavor as a service activity
Junior/senior honors projects

Undergraduate Research and Fellowships, along with other offices and programs on campus, support students through workshops, mentoring, and consultation on applications for distinguished fellowships and advanced study; funding through the university-wide Project-Based Exploration for the Advancement of Knowledge, or PEAK Experiences Awards; and much more. Northeastern undergraduates are an important part of Northeastern’s research and creative culture, and they frequently present their findings at national and international conferences; in scholarly journals and other field appropriate venues; and at the university’s annual Research, Innovation, and Scholarship Expo. We believe that the best answers—and the best questions—are born out of bringing diverse perspectives, experiences, and knowledge into conversation with one another. Therefore, we believe that a diverse and inclusive community of researchers, creative practitioners, and fellowship applicants not only fosters innovation and creativity but is a precondition of the excellence for which we strive.

To this end, URF supports undergraduate students throughout the process of developing research or creative endeavor projects, from connecting with mentors and securing funding through sharing results. The office also works closely with students to identify and apply for appropriate fellowships for advanced study in the United States and internationally and provides guidance for those looking to do advanced study more broadly. These research, creative, and fellowship processes guide students toward a fuller understanding and clearer narration of their ambitions, talents, and projects.

For more information you may contact the office by emailing [email protected] or via telephone at 617-373-3202.

Groundbreaking work and published results in peer reviewed journals across disciplines.

‘Lipid Nanoparticles Target Haematopoietic Stem Cells’

In this review, University Distinguished Professor of pharmaceutical sciences and chemical engineering Mansoor Amiji, with co-author Dimitrios Bitounis, discuss “a novel class of non-viral lipid nanoparticle (LNP)-based formulations for the in vivo delivery of genetic therapies to HSC [haematopoietic stem cells] in the bone marrow with the potential to treat blood disorders,” which have the potential to overcome clinical risks that “require removal of the patients own HSC, their curative modification, and transplantation back to the patient.”

‘Live Streaming a Radio-Telescope Observation of the Solar Eclipse’

In this article, assistant teaching professor Baris Altunkaynak and professor of the practice Oleg Batishchev describe how they used a compact radio telescope to observe and live stream a 2024 solar eclipse. “The 2.5-hour solar eclipse gave plenty of time for us to engage and motivate students to learn more about astrophysics and radio astronomy,” they write. “Many Northeastern students who watched our live stream were curious about the difference between the optical and radio observations. The students were quite enthusiastic about the real-time radio tracking of the eclipse, so we plan to continue live streaming radio-telescope observations in the future.”

‘The Gendered Effects of Globalization: Recent Evidence From Developing Countries’

Associate professor of economics and international affairs Bilge Erten, working with Jessica Leight, has co-edited an issue of the Journal of Globalization and Development. “Over the past three decades, the world has witnessed a remarkable surge in global economic integration, propelled by increased trade, higher cross-border investment flows, and greater international migration. A growing body of research documents that this ever-increasing interconnectivity has brought about important changes in developing economies, and many of these shifts also have gendered effects,” they write. “This special issue aims to expand the body of evidence around the gender-specific impacts of globalization.”

‘Sweet and sensitive CE-MS method for quantitative characterization of native N-glycomes’

The Ivanov Lab has published a blog post detailing their “development of innovative sample preparation and nanoflow-based liquid phase separation techniques coupled with mass spectrometry for molecular (e.g., proteomic, glycomic) profiling of amount-limited biological and biomedically-relevant samples,” they write. “By minimizing the number of sample preparation steps and employing more efficient, low volume (nL-/pL-level)-based analytical techniques, we aim to detect, identify, structurally characterize, and quantify more molecular features (e.g., proteins and glycans) at lower sample amounts compared to conventional techniques.” Find the blog post and full list of authors in Springer Nature’s Chemistry Research Community.

‘Visceral Leishmaniasis Follow-Up and Treatment Outcomes in Tiaty East and West Sub-Counties, Kenya’

“Visceral Leishmaniasis (VL) is a neglected tropical disease (NTD) with the highest regional burden in East Africa. Relapse and Post Kala-azar Dermal Leishmaniasis (PKDL) contribute to the spread of VL in endemic areas, making their surveillance imperative for control and elimination. Little is known about long-term patient outcomes in Kenya through follow-up after VL treatment, despite its requirement for control and elimination by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Kenya Ministry of Health (KMOH).” Find the paper and full list of authors in PLOS One.

‘Methods for assessing and removing non-specific photoimmunotherapy damage in patient-derived tumor cell culture models’

“Tumor-targeted, activatable photoimmunotherapy (taPIT) has been shown to selectively destroy tumor in a metastatic mouse model. However, the photoimmunoconjugate (PIC) used for taPIT includes a small fraction of non-covalently associated (free) benzoporphyrin derivative (BPD), which leads to non-specific killing in vitro. Here, we report a new treatment protocol for patient-derived primary tumor cell cultures ultrasensitive to BPD photodynamic therapy (BPD-PDT). … The modifications in the protocol suggested here improve in vitro taPIT experiments that lack in vivo mechanisms of free BPD clearance (i.e., lymph and blood flow).”Find the paper and full list of authors at Photochemistry and Photobiology.

Wegst presents primer on ‘Freeze casting’

“When solutions and slurries are directionally solidified, complex dynamics of solvent crystal growth and solvent templating determine the final hierarchical architecture of the freeze-cast material. With continuous X-ray tomoscopy, it is now possible to study in situ intricate and otherwise elusive ice crystal growth and solvent-templating phenomena. … The freeze casting process is attractive because the features of the final hierarchical material architecture … can be custom designed for a given application … [and] can be tailored for applications in, for example, biomedicine, environmental engineering, catalysis, power conversion, and energy generation and storage.Find the paper and full list of authors…

‘Experimentally Probing the Effect of Confinement Geometry on Lipid Diffusion’

“The lateral mobility of molecules within the cell membrane is ultimately governed by the local environment of the membrane. … Here, we prepare model lipid systems on substrates patterned with confined domains of varying geometries constructed with different materials to explore the influences of physical boundary conditions and specific molecular interactions on diffusion. We demonstrate a platform that is capable of significantly altering and steering the long-range diffusion of lipids by using simple oxide deposition approaches, enabling us to systematically explore how confinement size and shape impact diffusion.”Find the paper and authors list in the Journal of Physical Chemistry B.

‘Rapidly Changing Range Limits in a Warming World: Critical Data Limitations and Knowledge Gaps for Advancing Understanding of Mangrove Range Dynamics’

“Climate change is altering species’ range limits and transforming ecosystems. For example, warming temperatures are leading to the range expansion of tropical, cold-sensitive species at the expense of their cold-tolerant counterparts. In some temperate and subtropical coastal wetlands, warming winters are enabling mangrove forest encroachment into salt marsh, which is a major regime shift that has significant ecological and societal ramifications. Here, we synthesized existing data and expert knowledge to assess the distribution of mangroves near rapidly changing range limits in the southeastern USA.”Find the paper and full list of authors in Estuaries and Coasts.

‘Effects of Aerobic Exercise on Cognitive Function in Adults With Major Depressive Disorder: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis’

“Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is a highly prevalent psychiatric disorder that impairs the cognitive function of individuals. Aerobic exercise stands out as a promising non-pharmacological intervention for enhancing cognitive function and promoting brain health. … Twelve randomized trials including 945 adults with MDD were included. Results indicated that aerobic exercise significantly improved overall cognitive function … and the sub-domains of memory … and executive function. … Significant benefits in cognitive function were found from moderate-to-vigorous (mixed) intensity … aerobic exercise conducted 3 times per week.”Find the paper and full list of authors in the International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology.

‘Revisiting the Roles of Catalytic Residues in Human Ornithine Transcarbamylase’

“Human ornithine transcarbamylase (hOTC) is a mitochondrial transferase protein involved in the urea cycle and is crucial for the conversion of toxic ammonia to urea. Structural analysis coupled with kinetic studies of Escherichia coli, rat, bovine, and other transferase proteins has identified residues that play key roles in substrate recognition and conformational changes but has not provided direct evidence for all of the active residues involved. … Here, computational methods were used to predict the likely active residues of hOTC; the function of these residues was then probed with site-directed mutagenesis and biochemical characterization.”Find the paper and authors list in Biochemistry.

‘Native Label-Free Protein Sugars are Cleaner and Sweeter To Identify, Quantitate, and Taste Using CE-MS!’

The Ivanov Laboratory is revolutionizing how blood samples will be analyzed in the future, and what it will be possible to learn from them. “Our research is focused on the development of new and innovative sample preparation and nanoflow-based analytical liquid phase separation techniques coupled with mass spectrometry for biomolecular (e.g., proteomic and glycomic) profiling of limited amounts of complex biological and biomedically relevant specimens,” they write in this blog post. “We aim to detect, identify, characterize, and quantify more molecular features (e.g., proteins and N-glycans) compared to conventional techniques for which higher amounts of material are required.”

‘Framework for Department-Level Accountability To Diversify Engineering’

“Diverse teams are more innovative and creative. Nevertheless, science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines, including bioengineering, continue to fall short in increasing representation from persons from groups historically excluded because of their ethnicity or race. … In this Perspective, we present a framework for building, assessing and continuously improving strategic plans to improve recruitment and retention and to make departments more inclusive, including the collection of demographic data, the establishment and assessment of DEI plans, specific goal setting and assessment of achievements, with specific examples and guidelines.”Find the paper and full list of authors at Nature Reviews Bioengineering.

‘Geometric Origin of the Intrinsic Transverse Spin Transport in a Canted-Antiferromagnet/Heavy-Metal Heterostructure’

“We theoretically study the conditions under which an intrinsic spin Nernst effect—a transverse spin current induced by an applied temperature gradient—can occur in a canted-antiferromagnet insulator, such as LaFeO3 and other materials of the same family. … Our paper provides a general derivation of a symmetry-breaking-induced spin Nernst effect, which may open a path to engineering a finite spin Nernst effect in systems where it would otherwise not arise.” Find the paper and full list of authors at Physical Review B.

‘Mapping Philanthropic Support of Science’

“While philanthropic support for science has increased in the past decade, there is limited quantitative knowledge about the patterns that characterize it and the mechanisms that drive its distribution. Here, we map philanthropic funding to universities and research institutions based on IRS tax forms from 685,397 non-profit organizations. We identify nearly one million grants supporting institutions involved in science and higher education, finding that in volume and scope, philanthropy is a significant source of funds, reaching an amount that rivals some of the key federal agencies like the NSF and NIH.” Find the paper and authors list at Nature Scientific Reports.

‘Hidden Citations Obscure True Impact in Science’

“References, the mechanism scientists rely on to signal previous knowledge, lately have turned into widely used and misused measures of scientific impact. Yet, when a discovery becomes common knowledge, citations suffer from obliteration by incorporation. This leads to the concept of hidden citation, representing a clear textual credit to a discovery without a reference to the publication embodying it. Here, we rely on unsupervised interpretable machine learning applied to the full text of each paper to systematically identify hidden citations.” Find the paper and full list of authors at PNAS Nexus.

‘Synthesizing Tight Privacy and Accuracy Bounds via Weighted Model Counting’

“Programmatically generating tight differential privacy (DP) bounds is a hard problem. Two core challenges are (1) finding expressive, compact and efficient encodings of the distributions of DP algorithms and (2) state space explosion stemming from the multiple quantifiers and relational properties of the DP definition. We address the first challenge by developing a method for tight privacy and accuracy bound synthesis using weighted model counting on binary decision diagrams. … We address the second challenge by developing a framework for leveraging inherent symmetries in DP algorithms.” Find the paper and full list of authors at ArXiv.

‘The Joint Effect of Task Similarity and Overparameterization on Catastrophic Forgetting — An Analytical Model’

“In continual learning, catastrophic forgetting is affected by multiple aspects of the tasks. Previous works have analyzed separately how forgetting is affected by either task similarity or overparameterization. In contrast, our paper examines how task similarity and overparameterization jointly affect forgetting in an analyzable model. Specifically, we focus on two-task continual linear regression, where the second task is a random orthogonal transformation of an arbitrary first task (an abstraction of random permutation tasks). We derive an exact analytical expression for the expected forgetting — and uncover a nuanced pattern.” Find the paper and full list of authors at ArXiv.

‘Project-Based Activities to Introduce Hardware in a Software-Focused Course’

“This workshop introduces attendees to the low-level components used in the design of computer hardware, allowing them to experiment with the hardware-software interface. Attendees explore hands-on experiments that are designed for students unlikely to encounter hardware topics in their course of study. These experiments are offered in bridge courses of a graduate program enrolling students without a Computer Science background at Northeastern University (the Align MSCS Program). The workshop consists of 3 groupings of hardware experiments. In one grouping, attendees use breadboarding to construct digital circuits.” Find the paper and full list of authors in the SIGCSE 2024 proceedings.

‘Stability of P2P Networks Under Greedy Peering (Full Version)’

“Major cryptocurrency networks have relied on random peering choice rules for making connections in their peer-to-peer networks. Generally, these choices have good properties, particularly for open, permissionless networks. Random peering choices however do not take into account that some actors may choose to optimize who they connect to such that they are quicker to hear about information being propagated in the network. In this paper, we explore the dynamics of such greedy strategies.” Find the paper and full list of authors at ArXiv.

‘SunBlock: Cloudless Protection for IoT Systems’

“With an increasing number of Internet of Things (IoT) devices present in homes, there is a rise in the number of potential information leakage channels and their associated security threats and privacy risks. Despite a long history of attacks on IoT devices in unprotected home networks, the problem of accurate, rapid detection and prevention of such attacks remains open. … This paper investigates the potential for effective IoT threat detection locally, on a home router, using AI tools combined with classic rule-based traffic-filtering algorithms.” Find the paper and full list of authors at ArXiv.

‘A Survey on Hypergraph Mining: Patterns, Tools and Generators’

“Hypergraphs are a natural and powerful choice for modeling group interactions in the real world, which are often referred to as higher-order networks. For example, when modeling collaboration networks, where collaborations can involve not just two but three or more people, employing hypergraphs allows us to explore beyond pairwise (dyadic) patterns and capture groupwise (polyadic) patterns. … We provide comprehensive taxonomies for them, and we also provide in-depth discussions to provide insights into future research on hypergraph mining.” Find the paper and full list of authors at ArXiv.

‘RichWasm: Bringing Safe, Fine-Grained, Shared-Memory Interoperability Down to WebAssembly’

“Safe, shared-memory interoperability between languages with different type systems and memory-safety guarantees is an intricate problem as crossing language boundaries may result in memory-safety violations. In this paper, we present RichWasm, a novel richly typed intermediate language designed to serve as a compilation target for typed high-level languages with different memory-safety guarantees. RichWasm is based on WebAssembly and enables safe shared-memory interoperability by incorporating a variety of type features that support fine-grained memory ownership and sharing.” Find the paper and full list of authors at ArXiv.

‘Fine-Tuning Enhances Existing Mechanisms: A Case Study on Entity Tracking’

“Fine-tuning on generalized tasks such as instruction following, code generation, and mathematics has been shown to enhance language models’ performance on a range of tasks. Nevertheless, explanations of how such fine-tuning influences the internal computations in these models remain elusive. We study how fine-tuning affects the internal mechanisms implemented in language models. As a case study, we explore the property of entity tracking, a crucial facet of language comprehension, where models fine-tuned on mathematics have substantial performance gains.” Find the paper and full list of authors at ArXiv.

‘Measuring and Controlling Persona Drift in Language Model Dialogs’

“System-prompting is a standard tool for customizing language-model chatbots, enabling them to follow a specific instruction. An implicit assumption in the use of system prompts is that they will be stable, so the chatbot will continue to generate text according to the stipulated instructions for the duration of a conversation. We propose a quantitative benchmark to test this assumption, evaluating instruction stability via self-chats between two instructed chatbots. Testing popular models like LLaMA2-chat-70B and GPT-3.5, we reveal a significant instruction drift within eight rounds of conversations.” Find the paper and full list of authors at ArXiv.

‘Fully Dynamic Matching: (2-√2)-Approximation in Polylog Update Time’

“We study maximum matchings in fully dynamic graphs, … graphs that undergo both edge insertions and deletions. Our focus is on algorithms that estimate the size of maximum matching after each update while spending a small time. … We show that for any fixed ɛ > 0, a (2 — √2— ɛ) approximation can be maintained in poly(log n) time per update even in general graphs. Our techniques also lead to the same approximation for general graphs in two passes of the semi-streaming setting, removing a similar gap.” Find the paper and authors list in the 2024 Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium…

‘A Retrospective Study of One Decade of Artifact Evaluations’

“Reproducibility is a vital property of experimental and empirical research, without whichit is difficult to establish trust in derived conclusions. If results cannot be independently confirmed, they may be affected by observer bias or other confounding factors. As the full-scale reproduction of scientific results from a study takes significant time, which does not match well with the conference-focused publication in computer science, a lighter quality assurance mechanism for scientific work has been established. … After a decade of artifact evaluations, we analyze the impact they have had on published articles and artifacts.” Find the paper authors list at Software Engineering…

‘The Arrangement of Marks Impacts Afforded Messages: Ordering, Partitioning, Spacing and Coloring in Bar Charts’

“Data visualizations present a massive number of potential messages to an observer. … The message that a viewer tends to notice — the message that a visualization ‘affords’ — is strongly affected by how values are arranged in a chart, e.g., how the values are colored or positioned. … We present a set of empirical evaluations of how different messages … are afforded by variations in ordering, partitioning, spacing and coloring of values, within the ubiquitous case study of bar graphs.” Find the paper and full list of authors at Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics.

‘Giant Mobile Coralliths From the Florida Keys, USA’

“Coralliths are spherical, free-living (motile), scleractinian colonies inhabiting present day and ancient coral reefs. They form by the coral rolling on the seabed which can occur through biological and/or physical processes. While diving and snorkeling in nearshore environments in the upper Florida Keys, we observed hundreds of coralliths of varying sizes and species. … The largest coralliths we observed were all [Solenastrea] bournoni and ranged between 0.5 and 1.4 m in diameter. The exceptionally large colonies identified (>1 m) may be the largest and oldest spherical coralliths described to date.” Find the paper and authors list at the Bulletin of Marine…

‘Twisty-Puzzle-Inspired Approach to Clifford Synthesis’

“The problem of decomposing an arbitrary Clifford element into a sequence of Clifford gates is known as Clifford synthesis. Drawing inspiration from similarities between this and the famous Rubik’s cube twisty puzzle, we develop a machine learning approach for Clifford synthesis based on learning an approximation to the distance to the identity. This approach is probabilistic and computationally intensive. However, when a decomposition is successfully found, it often involves fewer gates than the decomposition methods used in the Qiskit decomposition protocol, which uses a combination of several well-known Clifford decomposition schemes.” Find the paper and authors list at Physical Review A.

Central Research Development Team

Kim Holloway

Vice Provost for Research Development

Kim leads central Research Development, supporting college research priorities, interdisciplinary research institutes, and the global network of Northeastern campuses as they build out their research programs.