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E-BULLETIN
UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science
February 13, 2008
DEAN'S
LETTER
In this month's E-Bulletin, I'm pleased
to share some great news on faculty, alumni and student organizations
here at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied
Science.
Last week, three of our faculty members were elected to the National
Academy of Engineering, among the highest professional honors
for an engineer.
They are:
* M.C. Frank Chang, professor
of electrical engineering, elected for the development and commercialization
of GaAs power amplifiers and integrated circuits.
* Yahya Rahmat-Samii, distinguished professor
of electrical engineering, elected for contributions to the design
and measurement of reflector and handheld-device antennas.
* William W-G Yeh, distinguished professor of
civil and environmental engineering, elected for the development
of methodologies for optimizing the management of water resources,
and for inverse methods of estimating subsurface parameters.
Election to the NAE recognizes significant contributions
to engineering and Bill, Frank and Yahya are outstanding scholars
and engineers who are richly deserving of this special honor.
I want to emphasize that this news is something that all of the
school’s stakeholders – alumni, students, faculty,
staff and friends – can celebrate, as it is a mark of the
world-class caliber of our faculty members. With these three additions,
we have 22 affiliated faculty members who have received this distinguished
honor. Since 2003, nine of our faculty have been elected to the
NAE, one elected to the National Academy of Science (NAS) and
three as fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In January, alumnus Vinton G. Cerf,
MS '70, PhD '72, Vice President & Chief Internet Evangelist
at Google, was announced as a winner of the 2008 Japan Prize.
This major international award honors landmark contributions to
science and technology. Dr. Cerf, along with his colleague Robert
E. Kahn, were recognized for their work in the "creation
of network architecture and communication protocol for the Internet."
Three of our junior faculty
members have received the prestigious National Science Foundation
CAREER Award – William Klug and Eric
Chiou of mechanical and aerospace engineering and Tatiana
Segura of chemical and biomolecular engineering. CAREER
awards are given to young faculty members who show great promise
in both the classroom and the laboratory. During the past five
years, 16 of our young faculty have received CAREER Awards. We
are delighted that these awards will jumpstart their careers in
academia for years to come.
This winter quarter, we’re delighted to
welcome Peter Pao as the holder of the L.M.K.
Boelter Visiting Professor Chair. Dr. Pao recently retired as
a Corporate Vice President and the Chief Technology Officer of
Raytheon. We are looking forward to working with him on interdisciplinary
research matters and benefiting from his insights from his many
years in industry.
On a more somber note, two exemplary members of
UCLA Engineering have passed away recently. Peter Staudhammer,
'55, PhD '57, was the chief engineer on the descent engine for
the lunar lander and was integral in the design of science instruments
that helped explore the Solar System. He capped his 42-year career
at TRW as Chief Technical Officer and Vice President for Science
and Technology and most recently was the director for the Alfred
E. Mann Institute for Biological Engineering at USC. Dr. Staudhammer
was the 1992 UCLA Engineering Alumnus of the Year. Rudolf
X. Meyer was an adjunct professor of mechanical and aerospace
engineering from 1986 to 1999. He joined the school after a long
career in industry, including as the Division General Manager
and Chief Engineer for The Aerospace Corporation. He was noted
for his textbook "Elements of Space Technology" and
taught students in related courses. Both
will be missed.
Finally, I would like to
highlight the efforts of two of our organizations – The
Center for Excellence in Engineering and Diversity (CEED) and
the Society of Women Engineers (SWE). Each recently held an annual
networking dinner to connect our future graduates with industry
partners and potential employers. I mention this as a reminder
that, perhaps more so than most other professions, engineering
must increase its workforce of women and underrepresented minorities.
On our end, we know that accomplishing this requires great dedication
from many different levels. But we take this responsibility with
great seriousness and I’m proud that on many fronts, we
are working toward this goal.
Sincerely,
Vijay K. Dhir
Dean
FEATURE
STORIES
Three UCLA Engineering Faculty Elected to the National
Academy of Engineering
Three faculty members of the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering
and Applied Science have been elected to the National Academy
of Engineering, among the highest professional distinctions awarded
to an engineer. M.C. Frank Chang, professor of electrical engineering,
Yahya Rahmat-Samii, distinguished professor of electrical engineering
and William W-G Yeh, distinguished professor of civil and environmental
engineering are among 65 U.S. members and nine foreign associates
who were elected in 2008 and announced by the academy today. To
read more,
click here.
Three UCLA Engineering Faculty Win NSF 2008 Faculty Early
Career Development Awards
Three faculty members at the UCLA Henry Samueli School
of Engineering and Applied Science have won the highly competitive
and prestigious National Science Foundation’s 2008 Faculty
Early Career Development (CAREER) award. The award, among the
highest of honors for young faculty, recognizes the dual commitment
of scholarship and education. The three this year are now among
16 UCLA Engineering faculty who have won CAREER awards in the
past five years. Tatiana Segura, assistant professor
of chemical and biomolecular engineering, Eric Pei-Yu Chiou and
William Klug, both assistant professors of mechanical and aerospace
engineering each received $400,000 in funding for support of their
research over a five-year period. To read more, click
here.
OTHER
NEWS
UCLA Alumnus wins 2008 Japan Prize
Vinton G. Cerf MS '70, PhD '72, received the
2008 Japan Prize, a very prestigious international award, which
recognizes original and outstanding achievements in science and
technology that have advanced the frontiers of knowledge and served
the cause of peace and prosperity for mankind. Cerf, along with
Robert E. Kahn, were honored for their "creation of network
architecture and communication protocol for the Internet."
To read more, click
here.
UCLA Impact E-Newsletter
Universities have a dual role when it comes to the environment
— to create knowledge about the Earth and to develop solutions
to problems. Here are seven things UCLA
is doing for the environment that will affect your everyday life
— from checking the weather report to your morning commute.
Plus, learn what you can do to make a big difference for UCLA
and the Earth.
(The work of several UCLA Engineering faculty members
featured). To read more,
click here.
In December, J. S. Chen, Chancellor’s Professor
and Chair of the Civil & Environmental Engineering Department,
delivered a plenary lecture "Galerkin and Collocation Meshfree
Methods: From Continuum to Quantum" at the Third Asian-Pacific
Congress on Computational Mechanics in conjunction with Eleventh
International Conference on Enhancement and Promotion of Computational
Methods in Engineering and Science. The Congress was held on December
3-6 in Kyoto, Japan.
MEDIA
WATCH: UCLA ENGINEERING NEWS HIGHLIGHTS
The Guardian (U.K.)
Peer-to-peer
network invites drivers to get connected
The name BitTorrent has become part of most people's day-to-day
vernacular, synonymous with downloading every kind of content
via the internet's peer-to-peer networks. But if a team of US
researchers have their way, we may all be talking about CarTorrent
in the not too distant future.
Researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles are
working on a wireless communication network that will allow cars
to talk to each other, simultaneously downloading information
in the shape of road safety warnings, entertainment content and
navigational tools.
United Press International
New
polymer solar cell technique created
U.S. scientists have created a new technique for fabricating organic
polymer solar cells -- a step toward producing low-cost, plastic
solar cells. Researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering
and Applied Science and UCLA's California NanoSystems Institute
used an electronic, glue-based lamination process, combined with
interface modification, to create a one-step method for semi-transparent
polymer solar cell fabrication. The scientists said the method
eliminates the need for expensive and time-consuming high-vacuum
processes now used in fabrication, and the resulting device has
the advantage of being low-cost and achieving high transparency
for various applications.
The Daily Bruin
Row,
row, row your concrete canoe: Engineering students put theory
into practice with annual project, hoping to outspeed others in
April
Civil engineering student Thomas Curtis said disbelief is the
most common reaction when he tells others that he is a member
of UCLA’s concrete canoe team. “When
we tell people we’re building a concrete canoe, almost nobody
will believe that concrete can float,” said Curtis, a fourth-year
who is the project co-director of the American Society of Civil
Engineers. At the start of each school year,
the civil engineering students embark on a yearlong process of
constructing a working canoe out of reinforced concrete to demonstrate
the versatility of the material. The students design and construct
a concrete canoe that floats when completely filled with water
to meet a state safety regulation for canoes.
CALENDAR
February 15
Materials
Science and Engineering Seminar
"Molecular Biommettics: Genetically-Engineered Molecular
Materials For Technology & Medicine" Mehmet Sarikaya,
University of Washington
10:30 a.m., 2101 Engineering V
Thermo/Fluids
Seminar
“Exploring the Asteroid Belt and Finding Exoplanets using
Advanced Propulsion” Richard Wirz, Advanced Propulsion Technologies
Group, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Noon, 38-138 Engineering IV
Chemical
and Biomolecular Engineering Seminar
"Molecular Engineering of Stem Cell and Gene Therapies"
David Shaffer, UC Berkeley
1:30 p.m., 8500 Boelter Hall
February 19
Bioengineering
Seminar
"Predicting Protein-ligand Interactions Using Atomistic
Simulations" David Mobley, UC San Francisco
Noon, 5101 Engineering V
February 21
Bioengineering
Seminar
"Scratching the Surface of Condensed Cellular-Matter
Physics" Thomas Angelini, Harvard University
8500 Boelter Hall
February 22
Structural
and Solid Mechanics Seminar
Topic TBA, Dewey H. Hodges, Georgia Institute of Technology
10:30 am, 38-138 Engineering IV
Materials
Science and Engineering Seminar
Topic TBA David Marshall, Teledyne
10:30 a.m., 2101 Engineering V
Thermo/Fluids
Seminar
“Recent Advances in Nuclear Science” Farzad Rahnema
, Georgia Tech
Noon, 38-138 Engineering IV
Chemical
and Biomolecular Engineering Seminar
Topic TBA, Jennifer West, Rice University
1:30 p.m., 8500 Boelter
February 25
Electrical
Engineering Seminar
“Multi-Robot Intelligence” Manuela Veloro, Carnegie
Mellon University
1 p.m., 54-134 Engineering IV
February 26
Bioengineering
Seminar
Topic TBA, Thomas Burg, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
5101 Engineering V
Earthquake
Engineering Seminar
"Earthquakes, Hurricanes and other Disasters: A View from
Space" Ronald T. Eguchi, ImageCat, Inc.
1 p.m., 4275 Boelter Hall
February 28
Bioengineering
Seminar
Topic TBA, Peter Kner, UC San Francisco
Noon, Boelter 8500
March 3
Electrical
Engineering Seminar
“Design and CAD Challenges for 45nm CMOS and Beyond”
Ruchir Puri, IBM Research
1 p.m., 54-134 Engineering IV building
March 7
Thermo/Fluids
Seminar
Topic TBA, Tait Pottebaum, USC
Noon, 38-138, Engineering IV
Chemical
and Biomolecular Engineering Seminar
Topic TBA, Suzie Pun, University of Washington
1:30 p.m., 8500 Boelter Hall
March 10
Thermo/Fluids
Seminar
"Turbulent Combustion Modeling: A Tempting Challenge and
Long-Awaited Tool" Alexander Snegirev, Saint-Petersburg State
Polytechnic University, Russia
noon, 38-138, Engineering IV
Electrical
Engineering Seminar
“Energy-Driven Circuit Design for Ubiquitous Sensing Applications”
Dennis Sylvester, University of Michigan
1 p.m., 54-134, Engineering IV
April 2
UCLA
Division of Physical Sciences, Annual Research Colloquium
"Next Generation Biofuels" James Liao, professor of
chemical and biomolecular engineering
4 p.m., April 2
room 1425, Physics & Astronomy Building
May 1
Jon
Postel Distinguished Lecture Series
"Data Management for New Applications" Stan Zdonik,
Brown University
4:15 p.m., 3400 Boelter Hall
May 6
Jon
Postel Distinguished Lecture Series
"An Ultimate Type System" John Gregory Morisett, Harvard
University
4:15 p.m., 3400 Boelter Hall
May 23
Ken Nobe Lecture in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
"Metabolic Engineering: Enabling technology for
the biological production of Fuels and Chemicals" Gregory
Stephanopoulos, Massachusetts Insitute of Technology
1:30 p.m., main lecture hall, CNSI Building
May 27
UCLA Engineering Technology Forum
8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Covel Commons, UCLA Campus
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The E-Bulletin is produced by the Office of External
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Science, and distributed on the second Wednesday of each month.
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