Inaugural SMILab webinar attracts more than 100 from around the world

July 17, 2020 - by Kim Delker

The Smart Management Infrastructure Laboratory (SMILab) at The University of New Mexico held their first-ever webinar on July 9, attracting more than 100 participants from around the globe.

SMIWeb 2020 was a two-hour webinar geared toward a broad audience, from undergraduate and graduate engineering students to practicing engineers involved in infrastructure or maintenance, consulting firms, national laboratory researchers, and entrepreneurs and inventors.

School of Engineering Dean Christos Christodoulou introduced the event and congratulated the organizers and attendees for their leadership and emphasized the collaboration of UNM with the national laboratories in the state of New Mexico. Later, the dean introduced the City of Albuquerque Director of Innovation and Technology Brian Osterloh, who encouraged industry and research to work together.

Topics covered by the seven presenters included the latest innovations in smart structures, wireless sensing, augmented reality, computer vision, nonlinear dynamics, robotics and artificial intelligence.

Rafael Fierro, professor of electrical and computer engineering, concluded the webinar with the latest in robotics research. At the end of the event, a raffle was held for two drones. To choose the winners randomly, Matlab was used as a tribute to the famous software being originated at UNM by Cleve Moler. The winners of the drones were Andy Shearrer from Kansas and Walter Smith from California.

Fernando Moreu, organizer of the webinar and assistant professor of civil, construction and environmental engineering, said he and the student organizers were very pleased with attendance and are planning another webinar next year.