| Computer
Science Professor Judea Pearl wins 2008 Benjamin Franklin Medal
in Computer and Cognitive Science
Judea Pearl, professor of computer science at the UCLA Henry Samueli
School of Engineering and Applied Science, has received the 2008
Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science for
his creation of algorithms to help compute and reason given only
uncertain evidence. He has greatly advanced the world of artificial
intelligence by allowing computers to uncover associations and
causal connections within millions of data points.
UCLA
Engineering Professor wins Rosenfield Distinguished Community
Partnership Award
Yoram Cohen, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering,
was named a 2008 recipient of the Ann C. Rosenfield Distinguished
Community Partnership Prize. The program honors outstanding examples
of engaged scholarship in which UCLA faculty or staff have collaborated
with Los Angeles non-profit organizations to address issues of
community concern.
UCLA’s
Center for Scalable and Integrated Nanomanufacturing (SINAM) Reaches
out to Young Minds to Replenish the Engineering Workforce
The Center for Scalable and Integrated Nanomanufacturing (SINAM)
was created in 2003, after the National Science Foundation awarded
the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science
a grant worth nearly $18 million over five years to establish
a new Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center (NSEC) that would
focus on developing cost-effective nanomanufacturing technologies
by working closely with industry.
Besides wanting to bridge the gap between scientific
research and economically feasible manufacturing solutions, SINAM
knew it needed to also address critical high tech work force needs
through an integrated research and education program.
One aspect of the center’s educational outreach
program is geared towards middle and high school students, grades
7 - 12.
UCLA
Engineering Obtains a Dual-Beam Focused Ion Beam/Scanning Electron
Microscope system. Advanced Scientific Instrument Allows Nanofabrication
and Characterization
The UCLA Department of Materials Science and Engineering has obtained
a dual-beam focused ion beam (FIB) - scanning electron microscope
(SEM) system – a very advanced imaging and nanomanufacturing
instrument that can create, modify, and image complex structures
that are a few tens of nanometers in size.
A focused ion beam (FIB) system uses ions –
positively charged atoms – to create three-dimensional structures
through the removal (or addition) of material in a precise and
highly controlled manner down to nanometer scales. Much like carving
in stone, this system allows users to manipulate and/or fabricate
complex shapes and sizes. This system equipped with a SEM, which
uses electrons to "see" surfaces of materials with nanometer
resolution, enables visualization of as-fabricated structures.
UCLA Engineering-led Team of Researchers Awarded $3.8 million
to Conduct Research on Electronics Cooling
An interdisciplinary team of researchers led by UCLA professor
of mechanical and aerospace engineering, Sungtaek Ju recently
received a $3.8 million award from the Defense Advanced Projects
Research Agency (DARPA) to conduct innovative research and development
in the area of electronics cooling for the next three years. DARPA
is an agency of the U.S. Department of Defense responsible for
the development of new technology for use by the military.
Other participants of the research
program include Ivan Catton, professor of mechanical and aerospace
engineering; Bruce Dunn, professor of materials science and engineering;
Massoud Kaviany, professor of mechanical engineering at the University
of Michigan; and engineers from Advanced Cooling Technologies,
Inc., based in Pennsylvania.
Computer
Science Department’s CS130 Course Brings the World to Its
Classroom
When Paul Eggert began teaching software development in his
CS 130 course for the computer science department in 2003 at UCLA
Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, he immediately
noticed a difference between what is taught in academia and what
is learned in the “real world.”
Researchers develop method to rapidly identify optimal drug cocktails.
New scheme holds promise for treating cancer, other diseases
UCLA researchers have developed a feedback control scheme that
can search for the most effective drug combinations to treat a
variety of conditions, including cancers and infections. The discovery
could play a significant role in facilitating new clinical drug-cocktail
trials.
The best known use of drug cocktails has been
in the fight against HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Drug cocktails
also have been used to combat several types of cancer. Often,
drugs that might not be effective in combating diseases individually
do much better in combination.
With the use of the new closed-loop feedback control
scheme, an approach guided by a stochastic search algorithm, researchers
at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science
and UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center have devised an
invaluable means of identifying potent drug combinations fast
and efficiently. Their findings appear in the March 17 online
version of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences.
UCLA
Engineering Receives Gift to establish New Endowed Faculty Term
Chair in Electrical Engineering
The UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science
has received a $500,000 gift from Drs. Jane J, PhD '71 and Tien
T. Yang, PhD '68, to establish a new endowed faculty term chair
in electrical engineering. The holder of
the Yang chair will have research interests in electrical engineering,
with a specialized focus in photonic technologies.
UCLA Engineering Receives Gift to establish New Endowed Faculty
Term Chair in Materials Science and Engineering
The UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science
has received a $500,000 gift from Edward K. and Linda L. Rice
to establish a new endowed faculty term chair in materials science
and engineering. The holder of the Edward
K. and Linda L. Rice Endowed Term Chair in Materials Science will
have research interests in materials science and engineering,
specifically in the field of cementatious materials.
UCLA
Engineering establishes Three
New Endowed Faculty Chairs
The UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science
has announced the establishment of three new endowed faculty chairs
— each made possible by a $1 million gift. The new chairs
will help the school strengthen the overall quality of its teaching
and research programs by attracting talented faculty, who in turn
will attract the brightest and most promising students. The new
chairs are:
* the Charles P. Reames Endowed Chair in
Electrical Engineering
* the Carol and Lawrence E. Tannas Jr. Endowed Chair in Engineering
* the Wintek Endowed Chair in Electrical Engineering.
UCLA Engineering Solution to Chemical Mystery could yield More
Efficient Hydrogen Cars
Environmentally friendly vehicles that use hydrogen gas can dramatically
reduce greenhouse emissions and lessen the country's dependence
on fossil fuels. While several hydrogen-fueled vehicles are currently
on the market, there is still much room for improvement in the
way they store and utilize hydrogen gas.
Now researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School
of Engineering and Applied Science, using molecular dynamics simulations,
have solved a decade-old mystery, and their findings could eventually
lead to commercially practical designs of storage materials for
use in hydrogen vehicles.
Three
UCLA Engineering Faculty Win National Science Foundation 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.
Three
UCLA Engineering Faculty Members Elected to the National Academy
of Engineering for 2008
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.
UCLA
Engineering researchers develop new method for the production
of more efficient biofuels
Researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and
Applied Science have developed a new method for producing next-generation
biofuels by genetically modifying Escherichia coli bacteria to
be an efficient biofuel synthesizer. The method could lead to
mass production of these biofuels.
The strategy, developed by UCLA professor of chemical
and biomolecular engineering James Liao, postdoctoral fellow Shota
Atsumi and visiting professor Taizo Hanai, appears in the Jan.
3 issue of the journal Nature.
UCLA
Engineering researchers capture optical 'rogue waves': Findings
could help resolve mystery of monster ocean waves
Maritime folklore tells tales of giant "rogue
waves" that can appear and disappear without warning in the
open ocean. Also known as "freak waves," these ominous
monsters have been described by mariners for ages and have even
appeared prominently in many legendary literary works, from Homer's
"Odyssey" to "Robinson Crusoe."
Once dismissed by scientists as fanciful sailors'
stories akin to sea monsters and uncharted inlands, recent observations
have shown that they are a real phenomenon, capable of destroying
even large modern ships. However, this mysterious phenomenon has
continued to elude researchers, as man-made rouge waves have not
been reported in scientific literature — in water or in
any other medium.
Now, researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School
of Engineering and Applied Science have succeeded in creating
and capturing rogue waves. In their experiments, they have discovered
optical rogue waves — freak, brief pulses of intense light
analogous to the infamous oceanic monsters — propagating
through optical fiber. Their findings appear in the Dec. 13 issue
of the journal Nature.
UCLA
Engineering establishes Off-Campus Institute for Technology Advancement
The UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science
announced today the establishment of the Institute for Technology
Advancement (ITA) –a new off-campus technology development
center dedicated to the effective transition of high-impact innovative
research from UCLA to product development and commercialization.
UCLA
Engineering Researchers Create Model to Help Identify Optimal
Hydrogen-Storage Materials: New method could advance development
of hydrogen-fueled cars
Researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and
Applied Science have developed a model that could help engineers
and scientists speed up the development of hydrogen-fueled vehicles
by identifying promising hydrogen-storage materials and predicting
favored thermodynamic chemical reactions through which hydrogen
can be reversibly stored and extracted.
The new method, published online in the peer-reviewed
journal Advanced Materials, was developed by Alireza Akbarzadeh,
a UCLA postdoctoral researcher in the department of materials
science and engineering; Vidvuds Ozolins, UCLA associate professor
of materials science and engineering; and Christopher Wolverton,
professor of materials science and engineering at Northwestern
University in Illinois.
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