SoE Professors Awarded 2026 Rutgers Global Grants

Rutgers Global Grants provide seed grants to support faculty engaging in collaborative international research, partnerships, and new educational initiatives. According to Vice President for Global Affairs Eric Garfunkel, the grants reflect Rutgers' commitment to expanding global engagement, and belief in the ability of research and education to help transform lives the world over. 

This year, three School of Engineering professors received Global Grants. Professor of materials science and engineering Ashutosh Goel was awarded a grant for international collaborative research, while Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering Associate Professor Aziz Ezzat and Professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering Jingang Yi were each awarded Korea University-Rutgers University co-funded collaborative research support. 

Collaborating to Combat Infection with Antibacterial Glasses

Bacteria can quickly evolve to become antibacterial resistant, prompting researchers to develop increasingly stronger antibiotics to combat bacterial infections. Goel, together with a professor at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, will be working on a project focused on developing antibacterial glasses. 

"I've known my co-PI for ten or twelve years. He's a machine learning expert and I'm an experimentalist, so this is a perfect opportunity for us to complement each other," Goel says. The researchers will also work with a biologist who will test the glasses they develop. 

In developing countries, according to Goel, there is a pressing need for solutions to prevent infections from newly resistant bacteria. "In India, for instance, surgical stitches when coated in sweat can become infected," he explains. "We can make antibacterial glass coatings for surgical suture materials that would be able to kill bacteria in these conditions."

The collaboration presents an additional opportunity to establish a more formal relationship with IIT, Delhi, as Goel will travel to India in June for a project kick-off meeting, as well as a meeting with the school's dean of international affairs. 

What excistes Goel the most about this international collaboration is the fact that it is about serving underprivileged around the globe. "This can be an effective option for combating often potentially life-threatening antibiotic resistance in developing countries," he predicts. 

Developing Wearable Assistive Robots to Keep Construction Workers Safe

This year, the Global Grant program launched co-funded Korea University-Rutgers University grants based on a mutual agreement to foster collaborative research between the two universities. 

Working closely with Korea University, Yi's team aims to develop and deploy wearable safety and health assistive robots to mitigate risks for construction workers performing awkward movements in confined spaces. "The most exciting aspects of this project lie in the intersection of advanced technology and its potential to solve a critical, real-world safety crisis in the construction industry," Yi says. 

His collaboration with Korea University, he explains, "was established to combine the complementary research expertise of our two teams. The Rutgers team specializes in machine-learning-based modeling and control for human-robot interactions, while the Korea team will apply its specialized knowledge in novel wearable sensors and actuators and soft robotics to the project."

"Working together," he adds, "we'll bring an AI-enabled, smart wearable sensing exoskeleton system to prevent work-related musculoskeletal disorders and improve personal safety in high-risk industrial environments."

It's a multidisciplinary partnership that Yi expects will yield not only future collaborations, but also joint publications. Simply put, Yi is "also excited about building a long-term collaborative framework with the Korean researchers."

Advancing AI-Powered Energy Forecasting Methods

In response to the rapid expansion of energy-intensive data centers associated with AI workloads, Ezzat and his Korean counterparts have begun collaborating to advance AI solutions for AI-driven challenges.

"Specifically," he explains, "the project focuses on the co-development, benchmarking, and demonstration of AI-powered energy forecasting methods for future electricity systems characterized by increasingly large and uncertain AI-driven loads, with particular emphasis on risks affecting energy systems in the Northeastern United States and South Korea."

The project originated when Ezzat—who has spent more than a decade developing forecasting models for energy systems—visited Seoul in summer 2025 to attend Korea University's inaugural Climate Corps Conference and engaged with future collaborators eager to address the new challenges to conventional forecasting practices. 

The two teams bring together complementary expertise in AI-powered forecasting and operations for energy system risk analysis, and behaviorally informed energy demand forecasting, according to Ezzat. "I am hopeful working with my Korean colleagues to expand our collaborations by addressing one of the most important challenges of our time."

He notes that the project, with a timeliness that underscores its importance and urgency, "is the natural next step in strengthening the collaboration between the two universities."