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DEAN'S LETTER
I would like to wish all of our alumni and friends a happy and prosperous new year, and a happy 60th anniversary to the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Nearly sixty years ago, the first Dean of the School, Llewellyn M. K. Boelter was preparing to welcome the first class of students to UCLA’s new College of Engineering. With just six full-time faculty, instruction in upper division course work began in the summer.

As we have grown into one of the top engineering programs in the country, we have changed in many ways, but we have not wavered from Dean Boelter’s early vision of an engineering program with imagination and integrity. Our renewed emphasis on interdisciplinary research and course work, encouraging our graduates to achieve both a breadth and depth of knowledge, ensures that they – like those before them – will be leaders and visionaries in both academia and industry.

Throughout the coming year, we will be hosting a series of 60th anniversary events – from lectures to reunions – that will bring our alumni back to campus. I invite you to join us in celebrating this milestone in the School’s history.

Sincerely,

Vijay K. Dhir
Dean


ON THE WEB
UCLA Engineering Celebrates 60 Years of Engineering Excellence
In 2005, the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science celebrates its 60th anniversary. Share your memories of life at UCLA or take a look back at the School’s rich history.
http://www.engineer.ucla.edu/history/60th.html


FEATURE STORIES
UCLA Engineering Alumni Honored as UCLA’s Alumnus of the Year and Professional Achievement Recipient
Dr. Henry Samueli (’76, ’76, ’80) will be honored as UCLA’s 2005 Alumnus of the Year and Dr. Ronald Sugar (’68, ’69, ’71) with the Professional Achievement award at the UCLA Awards Ceremony on Sunday, May 15, 2005. (Samueli and Sugar are both former UCLA Engineering Alumnus of the Year honorees: Samueli in 2000 and Sugar in 1996.)

The UCLA Alumnus of the Year Award is given for special and outstanding service to UCLA. It is awarded to individuals who have brought great honor and distinction to the University. The Professional Achievement award recognizes alumni for sterling records of distinguished career accomplishments, complemented by outstanding contributions to their profession.

For more information about the UCLA Awards Ceremony, please contact Robyn Goldberg at (310) 206-6062.

Keynote by Al Mann at 4th Annual Biomedical Engineering Symposium
Al Mann, chairman of Advanced Bionics Corporation, will serve as the keynote speaker at the 4th annual Southern California Biomedical Engineering Student Symposium on Saturday, January 22. He has also founded several other biomedical companies, including MiniMed, PaceSetter Systems, and Second Sight.

For additional information about the event or to register, please visit http://128.97.11.89/bmesociety/symposium/2005/index.asp.

Two Electrical Engineering Professors Elected Fellows of IEEE
Greg Pottie, associate dean for research and physical resources and an electrical engineering professor, and electrical engineering professor Jason Woo were elected Fellows of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Pottie was recognized for “contributions to the modeling and applications of wireless sensor networks” and Woo for “contributions to nanoscale silicon on insulator and bulk metal oxide semiconductor device physics and technology.”

For more about Pottie’s research, visit http://www.ee.ucla.edu/faculty/bios/pottie.htm and for more about Woo’s work, see http://www.ee.ucla.edu/faculty/bios/woo.htm.

Magma Design Automation Donates Licensed Software to Computer Science
The new year brings new tools to the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science’s integrated circuits and systems research. Magma Design Automation donated licensed Blast™ software programs to computer science professor Jason Cong for use in his very-large-scale integration (VLSI) computer-aided design (CAD) lab.
http://www.engineer.ucla.edu/news/2005/magma.html

Call for Nominations – 2005 UCLA Engineering Awards
You are invited to submit nominations for the 2005 UCLA Engineering awards, which recognize the extraordinary achievements of our alumni, faculty and students. (Self-nominations are welcomed.) The deadline for 2005 award nominations is Friday, April 1. The 2005 award recipients will be honored at an awards dinner on Friday, November 4.

To learn more about the awards categories or to submit a nomination, please visit http://www.engineer.ucla.edu/alumni/awarddesc.html or http://www.engineer.ucla.edu/alumni/nominationform.html.


MEDIA WATCH: UCLA ENGINEERING IN THE NEWS
Can Organics Take on Flash Memory?
Improved solar cells aren’t the only new devices on the horizon for organic materials. At the meeting, two separate California-based teams reported progress in turning organics into high-density, low-cost memory technology by using gold nanoparticles suspended in a simple polymer matrix.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5704/2034b

Cyber Vision
Occasionally it is possible to glimpse a rough outline of what the world might look like in the 21st century. So it was when an assembly of cyber- gurus gathered at UCLA in October to mark the 35th anniversary of the birth of the Internet.
http://www.magazine.ucla.edu/year2004/winter04_06.html

Without Borders
Thailand is a favorite summer haunt for college students, but most spend more time slinging back the local brew than swinging picks and shovels.
http://www.magazine.ucla.edu/year2004/winter04_10_07.html

Electrical Engineering Professor’s Research Honored
The Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences presented awards to select scholars, including UCLA electrical engineering professor Ali Sayed, recognizing their intellectual achievement in five fields. Sayed received the Kuwait Prize for Basic Sciences for his extensive research contributions in the area of adaptive systems.
Kuwait Times, December 15, 2004 (No longer available online)

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