Science and Engineering Facilities, Centers and Labs

SLU’s Earthquake Center promotes this research on a regular basis, utilizing cutting-edge technology, faculty-student collaboration and partnerships with major geological organizations.

Saint Louis University's Center for Environmental Science focuses on public education, outreach, and research on how human activities are changing the Earth's atmosphere and how these atmospheric changes are impacting the biological environment.

The purpose of the Center for Fluids at All Scales is to promote research and disseminate knowledge on the study of fluids at all physical scales, from the microscopic to the macroscopic. The center also aims to promote research on the application of fluid knowledge to various areas of the sciences and engineering.

Examples of current research include studies of the micron-sized channels in microfluidic devices and blood vessels, the turbulence found behind parachutes and aircraft, and the superfluid interiors of neutron stars.

CFAS is inherently a multidisciplinary enterprise that regroups researchers and students from Saint Louis University and elsewhere. CFAS sponsors monthly seminars on the activities of its members, as well as on research presented by visitors and guests. CFAS also aims to promote joint research projects regrouping experts of various disciplines and academic departments.

Open Source with SLU provides a realistic software development experience for students while supporting open scholarship by building and maintaining tools researchers need to achieve their goals.

Open Source with SLU was established in July 2022 to help SLU researchers with their custom software needs and to give students practical software development experience. Our center was started with a grant from The Alfred P. Sloan foundation and employs Computer Science students to prototype, design, and deliver open-source software to help SLU researchers and their collaborators worldwide.

The center operates a small student co-working space in the ISE building. Undergraduate students enrolled in project-based courses join the center and work under the mentorship of our graduate students to contribute to ongoing development of a portfolio of software packages. The portfolio draws from requests by faculty across campus or our partners in the community and industry. 

Visit https://oss-slu.github.io for more information about Open Source with SLU.

The purpose of this center is to provide specialized technological research and development in the area of sensor and sensor-systems design and integration.

The center’s mission is to lead multidisciplinary efforts focused on the systemic development and evaluation of sensor systems aiding in the creation of automated safety and security applications. The goal of these efforts is to design, implement and evaluate such embedded systems as solutions to emerging needs, and to disseminate these solutions as widely as possible through research, publication, education, training and consulting.

PATH is a multidisciplinary group of researchers with a shared interest in rethinking technology for emerging and contemporary communication ecologies.

Technological advancements have impacted almost every facet of life as we know it. Our environment is replete with technologies that entertain, inform and connect us. This deep inter-connection means that we can no longer design and create new technologies without a deep understanding of human interaction, and we can no longer study human communication without a deep understanding of the affordances and limitations of technology. Treating these two domains as separate has stifled innovation and led to numerous unintended consequences - such as the release of designs that are unnecessarily restrictive and, at times, even counterproductive. We experience the outcome of this disconnected design process today - often feeling frustrated and fatigued with our technologies and wishing things were just “easier.”

The People and Technology Horizon group aims to bridge the gap between humans and technology. Through deep, multidisciplinary research collaborations, PATH integrates cutting-edge findings from linguistics and anthropology to engineer next-generation technologies that capture, facilitate, and augment human potential to meet the demands of the day. We co-create and collaborate with community partners, with an intentional focus on delivering intuitive, impactful designs rooted within a community’s existing ecology. Our unique research approach creates team-based, problem-centered learning opportunities for students across STEM and social science fields at SLU, preparing them for careers in industry and research, and establishing SLU as a distinguished center for socially engaged design.

Quantum Weather is a collaborative research project between Ameren Missouri and the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Saint Louis University.

WATER Institute faculty investigators conduct interdisciplinary research that addresses critical water-resource challenges while strengthening existing efforts across the University.

The research conducted at the WATER Institute focuses primarily on three critical areas:

• Addressing water-related social justice issues at home and around the world
• Protecting aquatic ecosystems
• Improving infrastructure to secure water supplies and address key societal needs

Visit slu.edu/water for more information about the WATER Institute.

The AirCRAFT Lab's goals are to leverage the advantages of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) - versatility, low cost, flexibility, minimal-risk overhead and the tacit acceptance of a potential loss. This makes them the ideal platforms for experimental evaluation of cutting-edge, high-risk/high-reward flight-control algorithms, especially those addressing adverse flight conditions such as failures of sensors and actuators.

We seek to address aircraft safety from a holistic perspective, starting from a more expanded definition of aircraft safety. This includes the performance of various sensors and actuators on the aircraft, its structure, the pilot and the performance capabilities of the aircraft itself.

We also work on novel interfaces to drones. At the AirCRAFT Lab you can control a drone through speech, gestures, or virtual or augmented reality. We consider our drones to be like newborn babies or toddlers, and we play the role of parents and teachers. We use neural networks, machine learning and supervised learning to help them. They are learning to understand their surroundings by recognizing landmarks, and to create maps with spatial relationships that will help them navigate a new environment. This allows them to use only their cameras, rather than GPS.

Our drones are also adaptive, able to change their shape in flight to navigate through tight spaces. Our unmanned systems are resilient, as they are learning to continue flying even when damaged. Our drones are friendly and like large crowds, learning to fly in swarms and reconfigure themselves as a need arises. They are also helpful, able to deliver bio-control measures for pest control in fields and farms. Our drones are sentries, learning to recognize intruders (drones) and track them to keep us safe. Our drones are also teachers, as they are used in the classroom to help crystallize fundamental concepts through real world applications.

Visit the AirCRAFT Lab webpage for more details.

The Aviation Safety, Aviation Physiology and Ergonomics (ASAPE) Lab is a laboratory in the Department of Aviation Science at Saint Louis University. The ASAPE Lab researchers study human factors, aeronautical decision-making, manual flying skills, cockpit automation, aviation safety, aviation physiology, aeromedical research. The lab also studies pilots’ selection, training and retention in commercial aviation.

The ASAPE Lab's mission is to evaluate the pilots’ cognitive workload, decision-making skills, and other associated human factors during inflight emergencies by assessing pilots' physiological, mental, and behavioral characteristics.

Equipment:

• Elite PI-1000 Advanced Aviation Training Device (AATD)
• Tobii Pro Glasses 2 – Eye Tracker
• Shimmer 3 GSR+ - Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) Sensor
• EMOTIV EPOC+ 14-Channel Electroencephalogram (EEG)
• Wellue Continuous Ring Pulse Oximeter

The Center for Aviation Education Research is a laboratory in the Department of Aviation Science at Saint Louis University. In this multi-use space, the researchers study three closely related areas:

• The scholarship of teaching and learning
• Complex psychomotor skill acquisition and maintenance
• Diversity

Research into these areas may be summed up as attending to four primary questions:

• How do people learn to fly?
• What is the best way to teach flight?
• How do people and machines work together to fly?
• How can we make aviation more accessible?

Collaborative research is conducted with faculty in the Aerospace Engineering and Biomedical Engineering departments. Within these collaborative efforts, the following research is conducted:

• Brain activity during simulation
• Human/controller interface psychomotor skill acquisition
• Ecological validity

Collaborative research in Diversity in Aviation is conducted between the department and faculty in the Department of Civil Engineering, SLU’s director of diversity and community engagement and SLU’s assistant director of the Center for Service/Community Engagement. These collaborative research efforts include the following:

• Efficacy of aviation programs for underrepresented youth
• The experience of the SLU Aviation undergraduate students as they engage in a diverse community

Additional research is conducted to provide a multimodal, collaborative environment that promotes innovative research, development, and delivery of educational theory and practice within the applied science domain of aviation education. The main goals of this research are to:

• Provide a space that facilitates research of the scholarship of teaching and learning in aviation education
• Provide a space for the research and development of innovations in teaching and learning with technology
• Provide a space for the creation and development of open educational resources in aviation education
• Provide a space that fosters the Jesuit mission of justice as it applies to aviation education

In the Collaborative Haptics, Robotics and Mechatronics (CHROME) Lab, our research is centered on how we can effectively promote effective human-machine interaction in numerous applications including education, medicine and consumer technologies. Here, engineers work collaboratively with professionals to create new technologies that make the world a better place.

In medicine, we work with neurosurgeons to design steerable devices that can remove tumors in the brain through a small hole in the skull. We frequently meet with surgeons to brainstorm new ideas and progress on current ones, and we often get to observe the surgeries that we are working to improve.

The CHROME Lab joined SLU neurosurgeon Richard Bucholz, M.D., and his talented team to perform automated neurological assessments toward increasing the accuracy of post-surgical assessments of ICU patients. This will ensure that no evaluations are missed due to heavy staff workloads.

In consumer technologies, we are building the next generation of touchscreens that will enable individuals to physically “feel” objects being displayed on screen. Imagine a touchscreen experience where you no longer feel the glass surface, but textures such as slippery, sticky, bumpy or smooth. Imagine having to no longer constantly look at the screen to navigate on it, but being able to feel your way around the screen. This is the experience the CHROME Lab is working to create.

In education, we are exploring how we can use vibrations and sounds on touchscreens to enhance the accessibility of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). Because much of the content in STEM disciplines is visual, it’s challenging for non-visual learners, particularly those who are blind or visually impaired, to have equal opportunities in these disciplines. In this project, we work to promote a more inclusive, universal experience for students of all learning styles and are interested in understanding how we can leverage new touch capabilities to do this.

More Information on the CHROME Lab.

This laboratory is located in the basement of the McDonnell Douglas Hall and forms a key component of the concrete research performed at Saint Louis University. The laboratory allows faculty, staff and students to test and evaluate various fresh and hardened concrete properties that influence the performance of concrete members.

Laboratory equipment includes:

Compression Testing Machine

A 500,000-pound compression machine equipped with a test-pilot digital indicator is available in the materials lab. The machine includes a channel system that is used to capture load data and additional channels to capture data from strain gages, compressometers and extensometers.

Milwaukee Core Drill

A core drill and rig equipped with diamond-dressed bits capable of coring reinforced concrete members. This 20-amp model features 4.8 peak horsepower and can handle core bits from 2 inches to 10 inches in diameter. Additional features include two speeds (450 and 900 rpm), clutch protection for gears and motor, and built-in water swivel.

Rapid Chloride Permeability Test

The system is used to evaluate the resistance of concrete to the ingress of chloride ions by indirectly measuring the degree to which chloride ions penetrate into saturated concrete. The system can also be used to measure the penetration depth of chloride ions after an electric potential has been applied to the specimen to determine the Chloride Migration Coefficient, which can be used to estimate the chloride diffusion coefficient for service-life calculations.

Cement Autoclave

The cement autoclave provides an accelerated means of estimating delayed expansion of Portland cement caused by the slow hydration of calcium oxide, magnesium oxide or both. In this operation, changes in length of test bars are measured after being exposed to controlled steam pressure and temperature for a prescribed period of time. The Boekel cement autoclave is ASME certified and is the leader in expansion testing equipment.

Sonometer

This tool is used to perform freeze-thaw tests, dynamic testing of concrete specimens, assess uniformity of in-place concrete, and evaluate the expansion, bending and twisting of materials by measuring changes in resonant frequency. The unit consists of a 30-watt portable driver, pick-up circuit with a cartridge mounted on an adjustable metal stand and control unit with a 3-inch (76.2 mm) oscilloscope, voltmeter counter and amplifier. Amplitude and frequency of vibrations can be controlled in the range of 0 to 25 watts, 400 to 12,000 cps and frequency displayed within a 2% range.

The SLU High Resolution NMR Lab is an open-access facility in Shannon Hall, Room 8. The lab houses a multinuclear Bruker spectrometer with a field strength of 16.4 Tesla. This spectrometer is a powerful tool to investigate the structures and dynamics of organic molecules and biomolecules as well as conduct new NMR experiments.

Laser peening is an emerging technology to improve the durability of precision metal components ranging from turbine blades and transmission gears to medical implants. The laboratory consists of a 1,064 nm infrared pulsed laser, target positioning table, and associated optics. The lab is used to perform experiments involving laser-induced residual stress fields in precision metal components, with the intent to extend the fatigue life cycles. In addition, this lab is also used to investigate the interaction between nanosecond laser and metallic materials.

The focus of this lab is the development and evaluation of biomaterial and stem-cell-based therapies for the enhancement of skeletal muscle regeneration and function following injury, disease and aging. The hope is to engineer functional skeletal muscle in vitro, that can be implanted, allowing for full recovery of skeletal muscle structure and function in vivo. The lab also works on electrical stimulation as a new approach to physical therapy following skeletal muscle injury.

Visit the Musculoskeletal Tissue Engineering Lab webpage for more details.

The Saint Louis University Department of Physics has three large laboratories for introductory physics courses. These laboratories feature extensive use of computers for data acquisition and analysis.

A major challenge of tissue engineering is to build three-dimensional in-vitro models for studying tissue physiology and pathology. Three-dimensional in vitro models are the bridge between conventional two-dimensional tissue culture and animal models. Two-dimensional tissue culture does not capture the complexity of human tissue, and animal models are costly, time-consuming and raise ethical concerns.

The goal of our lab is to engineer and characterize synthetic biomaterials in order to provide a complete toolbox for building 3D in vitro models as platforms for toxicology screening and for the study of disease progression. Our current focus is on models of solid tumors as well as models to study neurotoxicity, a side effect associated with chemotherapy. In addition, we actively seek to apply our work toward other disease systems and congruous research areas such as biosensors and drug delivery.

Visit the Soft Tissue Engineering Lab website for more details.

The mission of the Space Systems Research Laboratory is to perform world-class research in the design, fabrication and operation of space systems and to produce world-class space-systems engineers. Our emphasis is on the end-to-end system. It informs our research activities, as well as how we train our students.

The lab welcomes students of all majors and skill levels, from freshmen through doctoral candidates. No prior experience is required. There are many ways to participate in the Space Systems Research Laboratory: performing graduate or undergraduate research, as a student volunteer or summer intern, or while enrolled in the senior-design project and formal coursework.

The focus of this lab is the fabrication and evaluation of tissue-engineering scaffolds capable of replicating both the form and function of the native extracellular matrix. Through the creation of idealized tissue-engineering structures, we aim to harness the body’s own reparative potential and accelerate regeneration.

The lab is primarily interested in utilizing the electrospinning process to create nanofibrous polymeric structures for a wide range of applications. Of principal interest is the fabrication of scaffolds capable of promoting wound-healing and the filling of large tissue defects, as well as orthopedic applications such as bone and ligament repair.

The lab is equipped for a number of scaffold-fabrication techniques, scaffold-mechanical evaluation, protein analysis and the determination of cell-scaffold interactions.