Saraju Mohanty, professor of computer science and engineering, is working with a global consortium to design the city of the future one piece at a time.

By 2050, 70 percent of the world's population will live in urban areas, according to estimates from Mohanty and his team.

"We are going to need to develop a way of living that will accommodate such a large number of people concentrated in a small area," he says.

Mohanty is working on the smart energy aspect of the project by developing a coordinated means of providing energy to the transportation sector. He also is researching sensors that can determine everything from a person's stress level to whether or not they are about to have a seizure.