Purdue Polytechnic graduate research assistants Rey (Alex) Gonzalez, Yifei Hu and Damin Zhang are members of a student research team competing in Amazon’s international Alexa Prize TaskBot Challenge, developing multimodal (voice and vision) conversational agents that assist customers in completing tasks requiring multiple steps and decisions. Julia Rayz, professor of computer and information technology, is their advisor.

An interdisciplinary team of Purdue Polytechnic researchers received National Science Foundation (NSF) funding to study how teams of humans and robots will work together at construction sites. The team hopes the NSF grant will serve as the foundation for years of collaborative research to improve the efficiency and scalability of human-robot teams in constrained and complex construction workplaces.

Purdue Polytechnic’s Kathryn Seigfried-Spellar has been named a recipient of Purdue’s 2023 Jefferson Award.

Purdue Polytechnic’s Tatiana Ringenberg earned the title of “Boilermaker” four times — as an alumna with bachelor’s, master’s and PhD degrees, all from Purdue, and now as a faculty member in the Department of Computer and Information Technology.

Purdue Polytechnic’s Chad Laux was one of four authors to receive two prestigious awards in recognition of their book, “The Ten Commandments of Six Sigma: A Guide for Practitioners.”

Purdue Polytechnic’s Umit Karabiyik is researching how ordinary citizens willingly share data with law enforcement, including photos, videos, text messages, and other data from cell phones — and how to collect this data in a way that maintains personal privacy and security.

Kathryn Seigfried-Spellar, associate professor of computer and information technology, has been selected as a Fulbright Scholar for her work in cybersecurity — specifically, for her upcoming research that will analyze the criminological differences and online grooming strategies of child sexual exploitation offenders in Spain, train Spanish law enforcement officers, and conduct community safety seminars.

Purdue Polytechnic faculty in the “Realizing the Digital Enterprise” research impact area are working to pair technological capability and social responsibility, creating successful cyber–physical experiences.

Alejandra J. Magana, the W.C. Furnas Professor in Enterprise Excellence, and a multidisciplinary team of researchers evaluated the effectiveness of multiple teaching strategies used during the pandemic.

Since 2018, Purdue Polytechnic faculty have been collaborating to explore the intersection between learning and work within the context of technology. Through new approaches to education and workforce training and development, their ongoing “Future Work and Learning” research aims to empower employees to take charge of their careers and become active, successful professionals and members of society.