Dr. Layton was selected as 1 of the 5 recipients of 2024’s Open Educational Resources Awards based on her outstanding achievements and dedication in support of free textbooks and resources in her courses, with over 70 faculty nominated this year. The 2024 Open Educational Resources Awards Ceremony was held in the Texas A&M Hotel and Conference Center on March 27, 2024. Dr. Layton was introduced for the award by BiSSL Ph.D. student Hadear Hassan who nominated her for the award.
The Open Educational Resources Awards are sponsored by A&M’s Student Government Association (SGA), the Texas A&M University Libraries, and the Administration of Texas A&M University. The goal of these awards is to recognize faculty members who go above and beyond in adopting and demonstrating exemplary usage of Open Educational Resources (OERs) in their classrooms or taking active roles in the creation or dissemination of these open access resources. These awards seek to recognize faculty who promote or contribute to a culture of utilizing free academic resources and knowledge sharing in order to lessen the financial burden on students, and mitigate the overall cost of receiving an education. These awards are administered by the Academic Affairs Committee in the Executive Branch of SGA, as it is a top priority for them to reward the successful use of OERs in the most meaningful way possible.
BiSSL Ph.D. student Alexander Duffy will be presenting his research at the annual Conference on Systems Engineering Research (CSER) on March 25-27, 2024 in Tucson, AZ. His paper, titled “Satellite Network Architecture Performance: Setting the Stage for Bio-Inspired Network Design,” covers:
Abstract: Satellite networks, here defined as groups of artificial satellites where the satellites are interconnected by communications links, are increasing in size, number, and criticality. As humanity’s reliance on these networks grows, so too does the need for these networks to be resistant against and quickly recover from disturbances – that is, they need to be resilient. Prior work has found that human networks such as supply chains, water distribution networks, and power grids can improve their resilience by mimicking biological food webs in their design. This paper begins an investigation into whether satellite networks can also benefit from this bio-inspired system approach. The performance of five hypothetical-realistic satellite network case studies is quantified here using global instantaneous coverage, architectural accuracy, and in-network latency. These performance attributes are then compared to the architectural characteristics of biological food webs using Ecological Network Analysis (ENA) metrics, relating species and their predator-prey interactions in a food web to interactions between satellites in a satellite network. The findings suggest that the bio-inspired route holds promise for improving both the performance and resilience of these critical space networks.
Dr. Astrid Layton, assistant professor in the J. Mike Walker ’66 Department of Mechanical Engineering and Donna Walker Faculty Fellow, received an esteemed Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) award from the National Science Foundation. The CAREER Award stands as one of the NSF’s highest honors, supporting early-career faculty in becoming exemplary academic leaders.
The accolade recognizes Layton’s scholarly contributions and underscores her research’s pivotal role in achieving resilience and sustainability in engineering. Layton is poised to transform engineering system design by drawing inspiration from the resilience and sustainability inherent in nature.
Resilience, the ability to withstand and recover from disruptions, is paramount for engineering systems, yet there are few methods for integrating resilience into the early phases of design. Layton’s research leverages insights from biological ecosystems so that engineers have quantitative tools for enhancing resilience when confronted with limited information.
“I envision a future where engineers don’t have to choose between settling for something that’s sustainable or resilient. This grant supports my career goal to learn, evaluate and adapt the complexity and interconnectedness of biological systems to engineering design for both sustainability and resilience,” said Layton.
“This grant supports my career goal to learn, evaluate and adapt the complexity and interconnectedness of biological systems to engineering design for both sustainability and resilience.”
Dr. Astrid Layton
Drawing from principles of engineering design, biological ecosystems, and ecological network analysis, Layton’s interdisciplinary approach promises to revolutionize system design by infusing it with findings from nature. The project will examine biological ecosystem traits to clarify when and how their effectiveness helps system designers improve a system’s ability to survive, respond, and recover, highlighting both targeted and random disturbance situations.
The future impact on critical infrastructure systems that underpin society’s essential services, such as water supply, power distribution, and pharmaceutical-type supply chains, is of particular significance. By drawing insights from resilient biological ecosystems, the project seeks to furnish designers with practical tools to effectively use resources, mitigate vulnerabilities, and fortify system robustness.
Layton’s project also includes a visionary “Walk Like an Engineer” program that engages participants in engineering design within natural settings. The program equips a future workforce with the intuition to tackle complex challenges by fostering interdisciplinary communication skills and an early interest in engineering design.
“Engineering from the perspective of nature — something that all human beings are inherently familiar with — draws interest from a diverse group of people,” said Layton. “This grant takes advantage of that to support a long-term career goal of mine to foster excitement and feelings of inclusion in engineering via bio-inspired design through the “Walk Like an Engineer” program that partners with our local nature center. These engineering and nature scavenger hunts will encourage participants to see themselves as design engineers learning from nature.”
BiSSL: Bio-inspired Systems Lab 