Can innovative engineering design modify the basic laws of acoustics? Arup Neogi (right), physics professor, is the principal investigator for a National Science Foundation grant of almost $2 million to explore such questions.

Zeke Walker ('12 M.S., '14 Ph.D., '16 M.B.A.), founder of Echonovus; Arkadii Krokhin, physics professor; and Tae-Youl Choi, mechanical and energy engineering associate professor (from left), are co-principal investigators. The four-year grant is funded through NSF's Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation program, designed to pursue research in new wave propagation and nonreciprocal devices.

The team will create a prototype of a device that changes the characteristics of ultrasound as its position is changed. It has potential uses in ultrasound technology, biomedical devices and imaging, and communications.