Dr. Rita Esuru Okoroafor is developing new best practices and frameworks that support alternative energy storage technologies through her research in porous media.

Researchers at Columbia Engineering have for the first time used DNA to help create 3D electronically operational devices with nanometer-size features.

A new study reveals that the devastating 2023 flood in Derna, Libya, was not merely the result of extreme rainfall but was drastically intensified by a major design shortcoming and its resulting collapse of two embankment dams. Through advanced hydrological modeling and satellite data analysis, researchers found that while Storm Daniel brought heavy rainfall, the catastrophe stemmed from dam failures and flawed risk assessment and communication—amplifying the destruction nearly twentyfold. The findings highlight the urgent need for improved flood mitigation strategies, especially in dryland regions where high uncertainty in risk analysis, coupled with vulnerable infrastructure, pose an ever-growing threat.

A University of Toronto Engineering team has collaborated with researchers in the Wilfred and Joyce Posluns Centre for Image Guided Innovation and Therapeutic Intervention at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) to create a set of tiny robotic tools that could enable ‘keyhole surgery’ in the brain. 

In a paper published in Science Robotics, the team demonstrated the ability of these tools — only about 3 millimetres in diameter — to grip, pull and cut tissue. Their extremely small size is made possible by the fact that they are powered not by motors but by external magnetic fields.