The center's new research training lab in the college's Richard S. Shineman Center for Science, Engineering and Innovation builds on Oswego's commitment to help produce the trained workforce for jobs in environmental health and environmental medicine under terms of a NYSUNY 2020 Challenge Grant awarded last year to Oswego and three other Central New York SUNY institutions.

"The new laboratory provides our students the opportunity to work across academic disciplines to practice the problem-solving skills they are going to need in the real world, under supervision of our faculty and other experts who are coming up with solutions that will shape the health care of the future," said college President Deborah F. Stanley.

Patanjali Parimi, who directs the Advanced Wireless Systems Research Center, said two new courses -- "Computational Engineering" and "Computational Methods in Chemistry" -- will launch in January; one is full and the other nearly so. Two other courses are in development for fall 2015.

"This interdisciplinary center of excellence in wireless science, engineering and technology brings together a wide range of technological fields in electrical and computer engineering, computer science, physics, mathematics, medicine, health care and others," Parimi said.

The new wireless research training laboratory has state-of-the-art equipment that is either used or actively desired by industries. The instruments include signal generators, signal analyzers, network and impedance analyzers, and computers running cutting-edge software packages.

Expert assistance

The college is inviting companies to fund research in the lab, and faculty at the college may take advantage of the equipment for their own projects, Parimi said. Students will benefit from opportunities to carry out projects, assist faculty members and to study under the center's research staff, he said.

Oswego's focus on wireless technology seeks to harness curriculum and research to help serve industries around the globe whose collective applications of wireless total trillions of dollars, Parimi said.

While the new research training laboratory's primary focus is curriculum development and research in environmental health and environmental medicine, it can also carry out innovative research in commercial and military communication and radar systems, antennas and phased arrays, automobile communication systems and smart power grids, Parimi said. In health care alone, the center's research interests include mobile health care diagnostics, implantable devices, human-machine interface, non-invasive smart sensor systems and computational methods in new drug design.

SUNY Oswego is actively reaching out to Central New York and other businesses to collaborate with Oswego researchers and work with student talent and world-class wireless research facilities.

"It provides an advantage to our students when we develop collaborations with people and businesses outside our campus," said Lorrie Clemo, provost and vice president of academic affairs. "This is how our students are going to need to work in the 21st century."

To extend the Advanced Wireless Research Systems Center's research capabilities and its ability to collaborate with academic and industrial partners, the college is building a new communications and radars laboratory in Wilber Hall, due to open next year.

That is the next piece in the college's participation under the NYSUNY 2020 grant that totals $15 million and includes SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, SUNY Upstate Medical University and Onondaga Community College.

For more information about SUNY Oswego's Advanced Wireless Systems Research Center, contact Parimi through the Office of Provost at 315-312-2290. For business opportunities in collaboration with the college, contact Pamela Caraccioli, deputy to the president for external partnerships and economic development, at 315-312-2212.