Army awards WSE $90 million for new institute

The U.S. Army announced that the Whiting School of Engineering (WSE) has received an award, worth up to $90 million dollars, to be the lead institution in a consortium of universities undertaking research that will potentially contribute to the development of new armor for the U.S. Army.

The WSE won the U.S. Army’s award in Extreme Dynamic Environments after submitting a proposal that competed with numerous institutions nationwide. The award will be funding research over the next 10 years.

“I’m absolutely thrilled that we were successful in this competition,” Nicholas Jones, Dean of the Whiting School of Engineering, said. “It is a significant award for the Whiting School. In fact, it is one of the largest grants we’ve

ever received. Broadly for Johns Hopkins, it establishes us as clearly seen to be leaders in this community. That is something we are extraordinarily proud of.”

The money from the award will help develop a new institute on campus, the Hopkins Extreme Materials Institute (HEMI). This department will specifically be looking at how protective materials are impacted by extreme

conditions — when the environment is too hot, unusually fast or of unprecedented pressure. HEMI will be working to address present threats to the population as well as potential future dangers before they emerge. This eye towards the future is a preventative strategy towards crises in years ahead.

“What we do is fundamental science,” Professor KT Ramesh, founding director of HEMI, said.  “We are not going to do anything that’s sensitive, classified. We don’t make weapons, we don’t make armor, we look at materials. It’s up to the government to take our science and go do whatever they want with it. They expect to go on, they have army scientists to come understand what they do.”

HEMI will be studying a variety of different situations including, “impacts on personnel and vehicles, missile defense problems, blast protection including mitigation of traumatic brain injury, and planetary scale impact problems such as asteroid hazard mitigation,” according to HEMI’s mission statement. The goal is to spark mechanisms that one would not normally see in materials.

“We will create conditions in our labs which are equivalent to what would happen [for example, in the event of an] asteroid and we’ll be able to actually see what happens,” Ramesh said.

Ramesh heavily emphasized the idea of “fundamental science” and acquiring a genuine understanding of the phenomena and environments that affect the materials HEMI will be studying. He noted that the issue of protection and materials has been a question since prehistoric times, as civilizations built shelters and made clothes. This antiquity makes the rudimentary science even more crucial.

“First you have to be able to see what happens, then you’ve got to understand, and then only can you control,” Ramesh said. “That’s sort of our motto here, which is: see it, understand it, control it. That’s what we do. To do each of those things is actually quite difficult. But that’s what the science is about, that’s where we have fun.”

Hopkins will be leading three other universities. California Institute of Technology will be involved in the computational aspects of the project while the University of Delaware and Rutgers University will be developing the materials that will be tested at Hopkins. Minor contributors including UC Santa Barbara, Drexel University and Purdue University.

“Our job as HEMI is to give people a place to come together from of all of these different institutions to be able to talk,” Ramesh said.

HEMI will be housed in Malone Hall, a new building that is slated to begin construction later this year. However, work with HEMI will begin immediately as it looks for an administrative staff. It will temporarily be based in Hackerman Hall, Jones said.

Ramesh showed excitement about the potential for the entire Hopkins community to be part of this effort. He envisions undergraduate research assistants playing a big role in this project and possibly even doing research at other affiliated institutions.

“We’d like to see people excited about the study,” Ramesh said. “We would really like to see students get involved in this type of thing... we want to build collaborations and the best way to build collaborations is through people.”