Research symposium to honor Haddon
December 20, 2007
A free, one-day symposium on “Research in Superconductivity, Carbon-Based Materials and Spintronic Devices” will be held at the Bourns College of Engineering from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 10.
The symposium has been organized to recognizing University of California, Riverside (UCR) Professor Robert C. Haddon, a 2008 recipient of the James C. McGroddy Prize for New Materials from the American Physical Society. It will take place in Engineering Building II Rooms 205-206.
Among the researchers speaking with be Haddon himself, who is a Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Environmental Engineering and of Chemistry. Also speaking will be: Walt deHeer, Georgia Institute of Technology; Roland Kawakami, UCR-Physics; Sakhrat Khizroev, UCR-Electrical Engineering; Ashok Mulchandani, UCR-Chemical and Environmental Engineering; Richard Oakley, University of Waterloo, Canada; Thomas Palstra, University of Groningen, Holland; Christopher Reed, UCR-Chemistry; and Chandra Varma, UCR-Physics.
There is no charge for this symposium, but space is limited, so reservations are recommended and can be made by contacting Carol Lerner at (951) 827-5089, or carol.lerner@ucr.edu.
Rajwant Singh Bedi, a Ph.D. student in the Dept. of Chemical & Environmental Engineering under Professor Yushan Yan, was awarded First Place in Corrosion Engineering for his poster presentation at the 2007 NACE – Tri-Service Corrosion Conference on December 3rd, 2007 in Denver, Colorado. NACE International, a strategic partner of the Department of Defense Office of Corrosion Policy and Oversight, is a professional technical association dedicated to promoting public safety, protecting the environment, and reducing the economic impact of corrosion. Representatives from Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, NASA, and industry were in attendance at the meeting.
Professors Jay Farrell (l.) and Rajiv Gupta (r.) have been named Fellows of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), bringing their total number at the Bourns College of Engineering to nine.
This month, the California Alpha Beta Chapter of Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society initiated 20 new members. This was the largest number of initiates for a quarter in the chapter's history, other than the initial charter initiation on Feb. 12, 2005. Along with 19 students, Dean Reza Abbaschian was initiated as an eminent engineer.
Officials at Northrop Grumman Mission Systems Sector presented a check to Dean Reza Abbaschian and Electrical Engineering Chair Roger Lake on Friday Dec. 7 at the company’s San Bernardino facility. Pictured at the ceremony are (l. to r.) Hossny El-Sherief, Manager of Electronics & Software Engineering Center and an Adjunct Professor and Advisory Board member at BCOE; Professor Roger Lake; Maragret Calomino, Deputy Director of the Missile Engineering Center; and Dean Reza Abbaschian. The grant funds will be used to upgrade the Robotics and Controls programs and to support student projects for the Electrical Engineering Senior Design course. Dean Abbaschian has agreed to match the funds received at the ceremony.
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) has selected Computer Science & Engineering Professor Tao Jiang as a Fellow, recognizing him “for contributions to computational biology and computational complexity.” He is one of 38 members from leading universities, industries and research labs from around the world that have achieved this distinction. Bourns College of Engineering has one other ACM Fellow, Chair of the Department of Computer Science & Engineering Laxmi Bhuyan. ACM will introduce the new Fellows at its annual Awards Banquet June 21, in San Francisco.
Research universities are singularly well-positioned to play a significant role in affecting the long-term development of a sustainable society, according to Jean-Lou Chameau, president of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), speaking Dec. 5 as part of the Distinguished Lecturer Series of the Bourns College of Engineering at the University of California, Riverside. He is pictured (l. to r.) with Dean Reza Abbaschian and Peter Gevorkian, who presented the first Distinguished Lecture in the series on Nov. 7, 2007.
The University of Massachusetts Amherst has selected University of California, Riverside as a collaborating institution in its Center for Hierarchical Manufacturing (CHM), a Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center sponsored by the National Science Foundation.
Robert Haddon, Distinguished Professor of Chemical & Environmental Engineering, has been chosen to receive the 2008 James C. McGroddy Prize for New Materials from the American Physical Society (APS). His citation reads “For the discovery of high temperature superconductivity in non-oxide systems.”
Chemical & Environmental Engineering Professor Ashok Mulchandani and Bioengineering Professors Dimitrios Morikis and Bahman Anvari (l. to r.) have been elected to the College of Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). This places them in the top two percent of the organization’s medical and biological engineering community.
For the first time since Bourns College of Engineering was established, its staff and the staff of its three research centers were honored with an appreciation luncheon and awards ceremony on Friday, Nov. 16. Dean Abbaschian expressed his gratitude for the efforts of the staff and talked about teamwork being the key to success. A video highlighted the staff of each department and provided a review of achievements. The lunch buffet was served by the Chairs of the departments. Staff recognition awards were presented to one standout in each unit, selected by its chair or director. The winners were: from the Dean’s Office, Becki Jo Ray; Student Affairs, Sonia De La Torre; Bioengineering, Christina Reising; Computer Science, Andrea Gonzales; Electrical Engineering, Steven Haughton; Chemical & Environmental Engineering, Carol Hurwitz; Mechanical Engineering, Susan Aparicio; CE-CERT, Clementine Ellis; and CNSE, Evangeline Barriga.
Dean Reza Abbaschian and five BCOE professors traveled to Sendai, Japan earlier this month to sign a four party joint communiqué between UCR, Tohoku University, the City of Sendai and the City of Riverside. The signing marked the 50-year anniversary of Riverside’s Sister City relationship with Sendai. The College was also represented by Professors Alex Balandin, Matt Barth, Mark Matsumoto, Jerome Schultz and Yushan Yan. Diane Elton, UCR’s Director of the International Education Center, and Professor of Economics Anil Deolalikar also went to the ceremony. Representing Riverside was a delegation of city officials led by Mayor Ron Loveridge. The agreement will promote academic exchanges and research collaboration between the two universities and further strengthen the longstanding relationship between the two cities. In the smaller home page photo shaking hands after signing the agreement are (l. to r.) Sendai Mayor Umehara, Tohoku President Inoue, Dean Abbaschian and Mayor Loveridge. Delegates from the two countries are pictured in the group photo on this page.
A team of two recently graduated Chemical Engineering students, Nirav Patel (l.) and Shaena Stewart (r.), won first prize in Intelligen’s International Process Design Contest for 2007. The students received a cash prize, and their department got the latest simulation modeling software SuperPro Designer. They were honored for a very complex process, the commercial production of the anti-cancer agent Paclitaxel using the software. Shaena now works for the Southern California Gas Company. Nirav is currently working, but is applying for grad studies and medical scientist training schools.
Electrical Engineering graduate students Irene Calizo and Suchismita Ghosh have received 2nd and 3rd place awards respectively in the Best Collegiate Graduate Poster Competition at The Society of Women Engineers (SWE) National Conference held October 22 – 27 in Nashville, TN. Both doctoral students carry out their experimental research in Professor Alexander Balandin’s Nano-Device Laboratory (NDL). Ms. Calizo’s poster “Robust Micro-Raman Spectroscopic Identification and Characterization of Single Atomic Layers of Graphene” presents the results of the investigation of the properties of a unique new materials system – graphene – consisting of a single atomic layer of carbon atoms. Ms. Ghosh’s poster “Measurement of the Thermal Conductivity of the Nanocrystalline Diamond Films by the Transient Plane Source Technique” describes the results of her study of heat conduction in nanostructured materials important for the electronic industry. The finalists for the research poster competition, sponsored by IBM and Rockwell corporations, were selected from a nation-wide field of research abstracts. The posters, judged by the representatives of leading companies, government agencies and faculty, described original research with applications in engineering. Attracting over 5,000 people, including 250 exhibitors, the SWE National Conference is the largest and most comprehensive career advancement event for women engineers. Pictured from left to right are Suchismita Ghosh, Dr. Michelle Tortolani, President of the Society of Women Engineers, and Irene Calizo.
Two representatives from Southern California Gas Company presented a check to the College’s MESA program during an event for college-bound students on November 3 at Bourns Hall. Lea Peterson, Public Affairs Manager, and Zandra Marrero, Region Engineer for the South Inland Region, presented the check to Interim Director of UCR MESA Carlos Gonzalez, who thanked the Gas Company for supporting science and engineering education. The ceremony took place at the close of an information day for students and parents that included tours of the campus, hands-on science and engineering activities, and presentations on college entrance requirements and financial aid programs. The MESA (Mathematics Engineering Science Achievement) program assists students in middle and high school (and some elementary schools) to help them excel in math and science so they will be competitively eligible for the most rigorous colleges and universities. Pictured holding the check in front of event attendees are CSE student Diego Villasenor, Zandra Marrero, Lea Peterson and Carlos Gonzalez.
Ph.D. student Wei Wu and Prof. Sheldon Tan (at right and left in photo) have received a Best Paper Award from 25th International Conference on Computer Design (ICCD’07), held Oct. 7-10 in Lake Tahoe, CA. This is a primary conference for VLSI/CAD and computer architecture. Only about 2 percent of papers submitted win the Best Paper Award from ICCD annually. The prestigious award indicates the high-quality research results from Wei Wu, a Ph.D. student of Prof. Tan.
Electrical Engineering Professor Alexander Balandin has been elected to the rank of Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Each year the AAAS Council elects members whose “efforts on behalf of the advancement of science or its applications are scientifically or socially distinguished.” Professor Balandin has been honored for “distinguished contributions to understanding phonon and exciton confinement in nanostructures and investigation of the thermal and electronic noise phenomena in wide bandgap semiconductors and devices.” This election has increased the number of AAAS Fellows in the College to 18. AAAS is the world’s largest scientific society, and publishes the journal Science.
UC Riverside Electrical Engineering students were invited to travel to Taiwan to compete in the annual MicroMouse Robotics competition on Oct. 28 at the University of South Taiwan. Although they were given short notice, team members Henry Chen, Giovanni Denina, Ahn Vu, Elmar Palma and Alex Eisner have been diligently preparing their robot for this IEEE-sponsored event. The UCR IEEE Club has won the event three times in the West Coast division, but has never been invited to compete internationally. “This is a great honor for us, and shows how fast the Electrical Engineering scholastic program has grown and developed,” said Dan Giles, the team’s advisor and Development Engineer at the College.
Zhongwei Chen, a Ph.D. student of Chemical & Environmental Engineering Professor Yushan Yan, was one of three students selected for the 2007 Dr. Bernard S. Baker Student Award for Fuel Cell Research, presented at the 2007 Fuel Cell Seminar on Oct. 16 in San Antonio, Texas. The winners were selected from hundreds of applicants from all over the world by an international committee of individuals in the fuel cell industry. The award was created to recognize and encourage exceptional students in the field of fuel cell related technologies. Chen’s research focuses on nanomaterials development in composite membrane and electrocatalysts for Proton Exchange Membrane fuel cells.
The signing of an agreement between Bourns College of Engineering and Tsinghua University on October 9 in Beijing signaled a dramatic expansion of BCOE’s research presence in China. UCR’s delegation consisted of Dean Reza Abbaschian, College of Engineering-Center for Environmental Research and Technology (CE-CERT) Director Matt Barth, CE-CERT’s founding Director Joseph Norbeck, and Professors Charles Wyman and David Cocker. Dean Abbaschian and Tsinghua’s Dean of the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology Hao Jiming signed a Memorandum of Understanding that formalizes and strengthens an interaction that has been taking place for several years. Afterward UC Riverside and Chinese professors and graduate students discussed transportation and air quality, energy sustainability, protection of the environment and development of new technologies with low environmental impact. Research exchanges for students and professors of both institutions are being arranged.
Mechanical Engineering Professors Akula Venkatram and Marko Princevac have been awarded a grant from the California Institute for Energy and Environment to assess the air quality impact of distributed generation of electricity in California. Dr. Venkatram (Principal Investigator) and Dr. Princevac (Co-principal Investigator) will study the air quality impact of the distributed generation (DG) of electricity, in which large central generating plants are replaced with small generators placed in urban neighborhoods. This approach will save on the costs of transmitting energy from central plants, and allow neighborhoods to be independent of the economics of plants owned by large companies. Although these DG plants will run on clean fuels such as natural gas, they can have an impact in their immediate neighborhoods because they release their emissions relatively close to the ground. Field studies, water channel experiments, and modeling will be used to study this impact. Drs. Venkatram (right) and Princevac (left) are pictured in front of the water channel facility they will use for environmental flow modeling.
A multi-disciplinary project that encourages undergraduates to complete bachelor’s degrees and go on to obtain doctorates in biological sciences and engineering has won a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). A team led by Principal Investigator Sharon Walker, a Chemical & Environmental Engineering professor, Bioengineering professors Victor Rodgers and Valentine Vullev and nine other UCR faculty will provide research experiences and mentoring for undergraduate students from UCR and Riverside Community College (RCC).
Electrical Engineering Professor Alexander Balandin (pictured) has teamed up with industry and several other universities for research aimed at increasing the efficiency of solar cells based on nanostructured materials. The $1.3 million project, funded by the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) involves engineers from CFDR Corporation in Huntsville, Alabama, and researchers from UC Riverside, University at Buffalo and Rochester Institute of Technology. The research to be carried out in Dr. Balandin’s Nano-Device Laboratory (NDL) focuses on the design and optimization of intermediate-band (IB) solar cells, which have been predicted to have an enhanced photovoltaic efficiency (how efficient a device is in converting solar light to energy). The power conversion efficiency of conventional semiconductor solar cells is limited to about 30 percent, which prevents their wide application for commercial power generation. Nanotechnology, utilized for implementing the IB solar cells, has the potential to deliver a substantially higher photovoltaic efficiency. Theoretical models, which are under development in Balandin’s group, will be used for the physical-based modeling and design of the semiconductor solar cells. One of the project’s goals is the creation of commercially available software tools for accurate simulation of the performance of solar cells.
Electrical Engineering Professor Bir Bhanu and UCR Biology Professor John Heraty have been awarded a National Science Foundation grant to develop a framework for morphological image databases for insects that would facilitate automated species identification. Professor Bhanu is the Principal Investigator for the effort, which also involves several other biologists from UCR and the University of Pennsylvania who work with insects. An interactive system will help the computer learn concepts of biological entities with some initial feedback from the user, and over time the computer will become “smart”, providing the right answer to queries.
Mechanical Engineering Associate Professor Guillermo Aguilar and two colleagues from Mexico have received two awards from UC MEXUS (University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States), an academic research institute that encourages, secures and contributes to binational and Latino research and collaborative academic programs and exchanges. The funding will support a post-doctoral researcher and a visiting professor who will work in Dr. Aguilar’s lab.
Laxmi Bhuyan has been chosen to lead the College’s Department of Computer Science & Engineering and Qing Jiang was selected as Chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering.
Local girls aged 11-17 are experiencing what it’s like to be an engineer at a two-week summer camp and a one-week residential camp at Bourns College of Engineering sponsored by the San Gorgonio Girl Scout Council. Both camps teach the young participants how the engineering process works as they do hands-on projects, are mentored by female engineers, and go on field trips, including one that goes behind the scenes at Disney’s California Adventure to see how rides are designed.
Computer Science & Engineering Professor Eamonn Keogh, in collaboration with Dr. Agenor Mafra-Neto of ISCA technologies in Riverside, has been awarded a grant from the Army to create “Algorithms for Image Content Indexing and Information Retrieval from Unstructured or Semi-structured Complex Database”. The project involves building a tool to allow military intelligence officers to quickly search through massive collections of image data. While collaboration between an engineer and an entomologist may seem like an unlikely starting point for such research, Dr Keogh and Dr. Mafra-Neto impressed the Army with their experience in indexing and classifying images and videos of insects. The project for the Army will allow operators deployed in Iraq to photograph improvised explosive devices and quickly search an image database for similar devices, thus providing useful information on how to de-fuse the device. Researchers will also build a library of vehicles, weapons, tire and shoe treads for matching visual similarities. This technology could be further commercialized for a variety of uses, such as graffiti identification and e-commerce (“find me a handbag that looks like this one”).
Electrical Engineering Professor Jay Farrell has won three years of funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to investigate and develop self-organizing approximation-based control methods for systems such as aircraft subject to aging and damage, autonomous underwater vehicles, respirator air volume control and internal combustion engines. His studies focus on methods and conditions necessary to guarantee good repeatable performance for machines subject to the laws of physics acts – for instance, an aircraft that suffers in-flight damage. His research will improve the performance of current “smart” systems that adjust to changes in the environment or operating conditions while in use; better modeling will result in better controls. The concept is analogous to the growth of the nervous system within a biological entity as it learns new motor-control tasks. Funding for the project will directly support the education of engineering graduate students.
Matthew Barth has been chosen as the Director of CE-CERT (College of Engineering-Center for Environmental Research and Technology). He has served with distinction for three years as Interim Director, a position he assumed when CE-CERT Founding Director Joseph Norbeck was selected to lead UC Riverside’s Environmental Research Institute.
Mechanical Engineering Assistant Professor Junlan Wang is this year's recipient of the Ferdinand P. Beer and E. Russell Johnston, Jr. Outstanding New Mechanics Educator Award from the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE). The award was presented at the 2007 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, June 24-27, in Honolulu, Hawaii.
J. Wayne Miller, Associate Director of the College of Engineering–Center for Environmental Research and Technology (CE-CERT), has earned recognition from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for developing a test that will, for the first time, allow scientist to accurately gauge the contribution of jet aircraft particulate emissions to global climate change. The Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) Test and Data Quality Assurance Team, of which Miller was a key member, includes university, Navy, EPA, industry and NASA personnel. Their combined resources, skills and expertise developed a new test methodology to quickly, accurately and economically measure particulate matter (PM) emissions from aircraft gas turbine engines. A result of several years of testing of both commercial and military gas turbine engines, it also significantly reduces engine run times, lowering greenhouse gas and criteria air pollutant emissions and cutting the overall cost of engine testing by over $1,000,000 per aircraft engine tested. In the team photo, Miller is standing at right.
Professor Charles Wyman is part of a research team selected to receive a multimillion dollar grant from the Department of Energy. The funds will be used to establish one of three national bioenergy research centers that will search for ways to extract cellulose from plants and trees for conversion into liquid fuels such as ethanol. Dr. Wyman’s team is headquartered at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. He will be involved in pretreatment research, developing cost-effective ways to break down the lattice in plant cell walls to retrieve simple sugars that can be processed into fuel. The potential of deriving fuel from plants has caught the attention of government and industry at the highest levels, and is in line with the current administration’s goal of displacing 30 percent of current US fuel consumption with biofuels by 2030.
Six Bourns College of Engineering faculty members are part of a 30-member interdisciplinary stem cell research team at UC Riverside. The Stem Cell Center at UCR is one of a select few academic and non-profit institutions chosen to be financed by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), the State’s stem cell research initiative.
Irene Calizo, a grad student in Alex Balandin’s Nano-Device Laboratory, will be a Technical Scholar at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) this summer. Calizo will spend three summer months in LLNL conducting nanotechnology and advanced materials related research. Her doctoral dissertation research deals with the micro-Raman spectroscopic characterization of carbon-based materials and nanostructures.
Professor Amit K. Roy-Chowdhury has received an ONR grant which will enable research and education efforts in multimodal sensor networks and complement existing work on large video networks. Professor Bir Bhanu is the Co-Principal Investigator on the Office of Naval Research grant, which allows for the purchase of major equipment items that will contribute to the development of the science of automatic object recognition in multimodal sensor networks. This project will also be a valuable addition to Bourns College of Engineering courses in automated image analysis by providing students first-hand experience using the new state-of-the-art equipment.
Professor Sheldon Tan has had a new book published by Cambridge University Press. “Advanced Model Order Reduction Techniques in VLSI Design” incorporates recent work performed by Professor Tan’s research group at UC Riverside in collaboration with co-author Lei He’s group at UCLA. The book presents a systematic introduction to, and treatment of, the key compact modeling methods employed in reducing general linear circuits. It contains practical examples and over 100 illustrations, making it suitable for electrical and computer engineering researchers and graduate students as well as practitioners working in the VLSI design industry.
Professor Mihri Ozkan has received a three year grant from the Semiconductor Research Consortium (SRC) to investigate integration of carbon nanotubes on Si-electronics using bio-assisted assembly techniques. Dr. Ozkan is a theme-leader (nano structures and patterns) in the Functional Engineered Nano Architectonics (FENA) center that aims to create and investigate new nano-engineered functional materials and devices, where she coordinates the nanopatterning and self-assembly research activities across the group’s eight campuses (UCR, UCSB, UCLA, Caltech, Stanford, University of Massachusetts and University of Wisconsin.)
Walid Najjar, Professor of Computer Science & Engineering (CSE), captured one of two top honors in this year’s Itanium Solutions Alliance Innovation Contest. Dr. Najjar won in the Entrepreneurial Innovation category for the demonstrated usefulness of a tool for bioinformatics and computational biology research and applications. The BCOE CSE group developed and ran a new compilation tool called ROCCC (Riverside Optimizing Compiler for Configurable Computing). The cross-disciplinary project used BCOE’s Altix supercomputer, which was launched February 2 of this year. The contest recognizes projects that use the full potential of systems based on Intel Itanium 2 processors, such as SGI Altix. Najjar’s contribution included the use of BCOE’s Altix 4700 outfitted with an SGI(R) Reconfigurable Application Specific Computing (RASC) blade. ROCCC makes it easy to customize Field Programmable Gate Array technology, which is used in SGI RASC solutions. Other finalists for the award included Stony Brook University, New York; Imperial College, London, and Stanford University.
BCOE’s student chapter of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) hosted the first annual Merit Badge Fair on Saturday, May 12. This was the first time many of the Boy Scouts had done engineering-related activities or visited a university campus. Many expressed interest in exploring engineering as a hobby or future profession. IEEE members organized the event in collaboration with the Boy Scouts of America, and received many compliments from parents and Scoutmasters. The club hopes to hold this event several times a year and to expand it with the help of other BCOE student clubs. Nearly 70 scouts earned more than 125 badges in Electronics, Electricity, Computers, and Engineering, as they completed projects such as wiring a digital counter circuit, soldering, writing a simple computer program, creating an electric motor, and other engineering-related projects. IEEE President David Keith expressed appreciation to BCOE Ambassadors Jeremy Marks, Allen Pham, Giovanni Denina, Deep Shah, Angello Pozo, Sean Dowden, Kenneth Van and Craig Nolen, who gave tours of the engineering department, and to all UCR IEEE volunteers who helped make this event possible.
BCOE successfully launched its first tech transfer and commercialization conference on May 15-16. Approximately 200 attendees from business, industry, government, and across the UCR campus were universally inspired and excited by the program, requesting a repeat performance next year. Entitled “TechHorizons UCR: Connecting Engineering Research to the Market,” the conference featured 36 BCOE faculty and industry partners presenting current research that has near-, mid-, and long-term commercial potential. The event also featured a rousing Socratic debate (pictured) among seven Southern California leaders in tech transfer and commercialization. Many networking opportunities encouraged new research and innovation partnerships, including an industry networking reception, an awards and recognition dinner, and an industry networking breakfast. The keynote address, which set the conference abuzz, was delivered by Leroy E. Hood, M.D., Ph.D., founder and president of the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle. Dr. Hood, a world renowned molecular biologist and inventor, spoke on the future of medicine, the medical profession and healthcare. Noting explosive growth in the Inland Empire, he suggested ways in which UCR and Riverside can lead rapid biotechnology advances with golden application opportunities for UCR’s new medical school. BCOE’s External Relations group is already planning next May’s Second Annual event.
Two recent papers coauthored by Electrical Engineering Professor Alexander Korotkov are the basis for the May 12 cover story of New Scientist magazine. One paper (published in Science) presents an experiment on partial quantum measurement proposed by Dr. Korotkov and conducted by Prof. John Martinis’s group at UC Santa Barbara. The other paper, in collaboration with Prof. Andrew Jordan of the University of Rochester and published in Physical Review Letters, proposes an even more advanced experiment, which would show how to undo partial quantum measurement (so-called "quantum un-demolition"). The proposed experiment contradicts the commonly accepted point of view in quantum theory and could rewrite our understanding of reality. “It's a true cliffhanger,” says the New Scientist. Will Korotkov and Martinis save Schrödinger's cat, the most famous feline in physics, whose life is endangered by a quirk of quantum theory?
Nineteen BCoE engineering students traveled to the NASA Ames Research Center in Sunnyvale April 13-15 for the West Coast Human Powered Vehicle Challenge, sponsored by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. The weekend included time trials and a Grand Prix-style race with a top prize of $500. Besides participating in the competition, the students were given tours of the Ames research site, including a tour of the world's largest aircraft hanger. UCR's design this year was a three-wheeled recumbent with an aluminum frame, a four point safety belt, a Lexan fairing, and full rollover protection. Sponsors included CSC, Riverside Public Utilities, Loctite Henkel, ASUCR, and the Bourns College of Engineering. The project took nine months to design and fabricate. In the competition against 25 other west coast schools, UCR scored tenth in the endurance race, eleventh in the design competition, and tenth overall. For next year, the team is planning on making a two-wheeled, fully faired, all aluminum bike. All engineering students are encouraged to get involved in this project by contacting the UCR ASME chapter at www.engr.ucr.edu/~asme/
At the opening reception for Riverside Art Museum’s Canstruction competition on April 26, BCoE’s student team won the prize for “Best Use of Labels” for their depiction of campus landmarks built from cans of food, double-stick tape and foam board. They will advance to the national competition with their freestanding structure. Canstruction is a nationwide design/build competition that combines engineering, design and concern for others. The whimsical structures lift the spirits while raising public awareness of those who are in need, and eventually fill the shelves of local food banks. Four other teams competed; two professional architectural firms, another university and a Riverside artist/photographer. After being on display until May 23, the five entries will be disassembled and the cans will be donated to Second Harvest food bank. UCR’s construction team members are Nichola Kinsinger (Team Captain), Christina Zapata, Giovanni Denina, Deep Shah and Su Nwe. Their support team includes Rebecca Austin, Jesse Banuelos, Jordan Barta, Andrea Coba, Martin Gawecki, Jason Niccoli, Allen Pham and Anand Panchal. The team’s advisor and head cheerleader is Christian Foster, Director of Undergraduate Research. Pictured (l. to r.) are Nichola, Christina, Martin, Deep and Anand.
Computer Science Alumnus Brian Hawley (B.S. ’89, M.S. ’91) received the Bourns College of Engineering Honored Alumni Award at the Alumni Awards of Distinction banquet and ceremony on Saturday, April 21 at the University Theatre. Hawley is Chairman and CTO of Luminex, a data storage products company he co-founded in 1994. In 2003 Luminex was named to both the Inc. Magazine Inc. 500 and Deloitte Fast500 as one of the 500 fastest growing companies in the United States. Luminex is headquartered in Riverside, and has additional development offices in San Diego, California and Beaverton, Oregon. Jean Easum (B.S. Mathematics ’75), a member of the College’s Electrical Engineering Advisory Board, was honored on the same evening with the Alumni Service Award. She has been employed at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Corona Division, for the past 26 years, and pioneered the hiring of undergraduate students, primarily from UCR, who have all gone on to earn bachelors and in some cases advanced degrees. The College’s seven new Fellows of AAAS and three new IEEE Fellows were also recognized at the ceremony. In the photo, Easum and Hawley are second and third from the left.
A group of Bourns College of Engineering students are preparing for Canstruction, a competition that combines engineering, design and concern for others. They will build a freestanding structure at the Riverside Art Museum in an area 10 feet square by 8 feet high, using only cans of food, double-stick tape, and foam board for support, competing with four other teams’ sculptures on April 26. That evening the public may view the results at a “Can Opening” at the museum from 5:30 to 8:30, where winners will be announced. The whimsical sculptures will be on display until May 23, when they will be disassembled and all cans donated to the Second Harvest Food Bank. BCOE team members are Nichola Kinsinger (Team Captain), Christina Zapata, Giovanni Denina, Deep Shah and Su Nwe. Team supporters are Jesse Banuelos, Lindsay Yee, Martin Gawecki, Anand Panchal and David Keith. Pictured during a planning session are (l. to r.) Denina, Banuelos, Kinsinger, Shah and Zapata. For further details, call the Museum at 684-7111. Canstruction is a national charity of the design and construction industry.
Electrical Engineering Ph.D. candidate Manu Shamsa, who works in Professor Alex Balandin’s Nano-Device Laboratory (NDL), received the Silver Medal Award for his research presentation at the annual meeting of the Materials Research Society (MRS) in San Francisco. Manu presented a paper entitled “Thermal Conductivity of Nanocrystalline Diamond Films: Effects of the Nitrogen Doping and Boundary Scattering.” This work was carried out at NDL in collaboration with researchers from the Prokhorov General Physics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, Russia. Measurements conducted in Professor Balandin’s laboratory elucidated the physical mechanisms of thermal conduction in the nanocrystalline diamond films. Finalists in the MRS graduate research competition were students from the best US and international universities such as Harvard University, UC-Berkeley, Cornell University, UCLA, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Carnegie Mellon University, Purdue University, UCSD, Arizona State University and University of Tokyo. The annual MRS Spring Meeting in San Francisco is the world’s largest and one of the most prestigious conferences in the field of materials science and engineering.
Christian Foster, BCOE Director of Undergraduate Research, was elected to a three-year term as a member of the Board of Directors of the Southern California Conference for Undergraduate Research (SCCUR) at their spring meeting on April 7. The SCCUR organization presents a multi-disciplinary student research conference annually, hosted by a local institution on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. UCR was the host in 2005 (see photo of students displaying their posters on the Engineering patio) drawing 600 undergraduate student participants, their faculty mentors and guests. Participants come from approximately 80 institutions in Southern California and across the nation, with some international presenters. “Over the last several years BCOE student researchers have directly benefited from participating in this prestigious conference as their first conference experience,” said Dr. Foster.
The National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) Chapter at UC Riverside was named the "Region 6 - Small Chapter of the Year" for 2006-2007 at the 33rd National Convention, held March 28 to April 1 in Columbus, Ohio. The NSBE National Convention attracts over 10,000 attendees, including over 250 companies and recruiters. Chartered on the UCR campus in 2001, NSBE @ UCR has grown from just 6 members in summer 2006 to over 25 members, hosted two technical speakers last quarter, has built relations with companies, and has sent a record number of attendees to conferences this year. The organization’s faculty advisor is Dr. Victor G. J. Rodgers, Professor of Bioengineering. In the photo (left to right) are Penn Tasinga, Vice President; Johnathan Williams, Treasurer; Dorian Perkins, President; Gabrielle Goodman, Region 6 - Finance Chair; Briana Rice, Pre-College Initiative (PCI) Chair; Carl Mack, NSBE Executive Director; Etinosa Agbonwaneten, Public Relations Chair; Christopher Webb, Academic Excellence Chair; Jason Owens, Region 6 - Finance Chair Emeritus and Nema Blyden, Programs Chair.
UCR undergraduate Engineering students brought home two awards from the WERC (Waste Management, Education and Research Consortium) Environmental Design Contest at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, New Mexico, which took place April 1-4. Sean Brady, Gregory Leung and Christopher Salam won the teamwork award for innovation with their project “Zero Waste Biodiesel.” Gregory Leung won the biggest single award of the evening, Intel’s Terry McManus Memorial award, for $1,500. Brian Hawkinson, Dewi Nilasari and Tongzhou Wang also competed for UCR. The team is pictured celebrating at lunch. Their advisors are CEE Lecturer Kawai Tam (far right) and Professor Joe Norbeck.
An enthusiastic group of 22 SWE (Society of Women Engineers) chapter members were hosted on March 27 by Pasadena’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory for tours, lunch and conversations with practicing engineers. “It was an amazing experience,” said club historian Sonia Larios. “Visiting this site gave me the opportunity to talk to engineers, specifically women engineers, who simply loved their jobs…and shared a passion for creativity and engineering.” Highlights of the trip included the Robotic Laboratory, the Team X Project Design, and a meet-and-greet lunch with engineers. SWE is one of eleven UCR student chapters of national engineering organizations. Membership is open to both women and men. CEE Assistant Professor Sharon Walker is SWE’s advisor.
Yushan Yan is part of a team led by Los Alamos National Laboratory whose efforts to develop less expensive fuel cells has received a significant four-year grant from the Department of Energy. Current fuel cells are not commercially viable because of their high cost and low durability. The main objective for the Los Alamos proposal, titled “Advanced Cathode Catalysts for Fuel Cells,” is to develop an alternative to the very expensive pure platinum catalyst now used in fuel cells, replacing it with a low- or non-platinum catalyst. At UCR, Dr. Yan is researching nanostructure catalyst supports such as conductive polymer nanowires and nanotubes, and also developing supportless metal and alloy nanotubes. Other members of the Los Alamos team are the Brookhaven National Laboratory, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, University of New Mexico and the Argonne National Laboratory.
Members of a delegation from Riverside’s sister city Sendai, Japan visited the Bourns College of Engineering to explore collaborative issues and tour the College of Engineering – Center for Environmental Research and Technology and the cleanroom at the Center for Nanoscale Science and Engineering on March 22. The delegation was visiting in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the sister city relationship, and included several days of events. UCR hosted the group to encourage the expansion of the relationship into technological areas, to potentially include collaboration between UCR researchers and those at universities in Sendai and elsewhere in Japan. Two areas of engineering research – environmental technologies and nanotechnology – were showcased during the event with tours of the research facilities and panel discussions (pictured) exploring ways that academic researchers and public sector leaders can work together on innovations with potential for application, and the implications for trade between the U.S. and Japan.
Dean Abbaschian is meeting each quarter with a group of undergraduate students chosen to make up the Dean’s Council. The group is made up of a cross-section of the student body – representatives from engineering clubs, transfer students, and a balance between the College’s majors. Members advise the Dean on issues pertaining to engineering student life. Pictured from left at the second meeting on March 15 are Nikki Kinsinger, Luis Ordonez, Christine Zapata, William Pena, Martin Gawecki, Dorian Perkins, Dean Abbaschian, Megan Nix, Deep Shah, Miroslav Penchav, Lindsay Yee, Laura Hockaday and David Keith.
Seven editors have been chosen for UC Riverside’s new undergraduate research journal, and three are from the Bourns College of Engineering: Martin Gawecki, Deep Shah and Laura Hockaday (pictured l. to r. with Dean Abbaschian). The inaugural volume will be published during Spring Quarter 2007. Undergraduate students from all disciplines, who are involved in faculty mentored research, scholarship or creative projects, are invited to submit their work. The Call for Papers has been extended through March 30, 2007. Accepted articles will be published in a web version, and from those, six to eight will be chosen for inclusion in the print version, a significant honor that could help a student gain admission to a good graduate school. More information about the Journal and the submission process can be found at www.ugrj.ucr.edu.
Mechanical Engineering Assistant Professor Junlan Wang will receive a grant from the U.S. Department of Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP) to conduct research for the Army. She will be using the award money to buy a high-power laser system to expand her current capabilities in studying the impact behavior of Army weapon materials that are subject to a high strain-rate loading. The grant is part of $41.2 million being given to 112 academic institutions nationwide, according to the Department of Defense. These awards are the result of a merit competition for DURIP funding conducted by the Army Research Office, Office of Naval Research and Air Force Office of Scientific Research; each requested proposals from university investigators working in areas of importance to the DoD. This includes research related to information technology, remote sensing, propulsion, electronics and electro-optics, advanced materials, and ocean science and engineering. Dr. Wang’s research interests are in the fields of nano- and micromechanics of materials.
Srikanth Krishnamurthy and Michalis Faloutsos (l. and r.), professors of Computer Science & Engineering, are part of a team led by UC Davis that has just been awarded a large MURI (Multi-University Research Initiative) grant from the Department of Defense. The title of their project is “ARSENAL: A cross layer ARchitecture for SEcure resilieNt tacticAL mobile ad hoc networks”. UCR’s portion of the project, which is expected to last for five years, involves improving survivability of wireless communication networks a battlefield environment. Dr. Krishnamurthy is the project’s PI (Principal Investigator) and Dr. Faloutsos is the Co-PI. Three graduate student research assistants will also assist with the work. UC Davis’ Computer Science Professor Prasant Mohapatra is the lead investigator of the multi-university team.
Tau Beta Pi, the engineering honor society, is holding a mousetrap car design competition on April 11 from 4-6 pm at the Student Recreation Center Hockey Rink. The objective is to calibrate a car to travel an unknown distance with an unknown weight. There will be a reception for all participants following the competition, where winners will be announced. Each member of the First Place team will be awarded a $75 Best Buy gift certificate, and all Second Place team members will receive $25 Best Buy gift certificates. April 4 is the last day to register a team. Registration or questions may be submitted by email to jeremymarks11@gmail.com.
Bourns College of Engineering has been selected by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to host a new Research for Undergraduates (REU) site, thanks to a successful proposal by Bioengineering Professor Victor Rodgers (holding device in photo). Known as BRITE (Bioengineering Research Institute for Technical Excellence), it joins the College’s year-old REU site, SUNRISE (Summer Undergraduate Nanoscale Research Institute for Science and Engineering). Sixteen students will be selected to do research in the fundamental science and engineering based on recent advances in recognizing and exploiting genomic, proteomic and metabolic patterns in cells. The program will take place from June 18 to August 24, 2007. It includes a $4,000 stipend and some allowance for travel and housing on campus. The application deadline is April 9. More information can be found by emailing brite@engr.ucr.edu or visiting www.engr.ucr.edu/brite/. Chris Foster, the College’s Director of Undergraduate Research Opportunities, says that NSF typically receives around 150 applications but funds only a few new ones. He points out that these sites demonstrate to students across the nation the quality of the research base at UCR.
Two Bourns College of Engineering seniors received special merit awards at the CAMP (California Alliance for Minority Participation) statewide symposium in Science, Engineering and Mathematics held at UC Irvine on February 23-25. Dorian Perkins (l.) was recognized for his Computer Science poster presentation and Felipe Godinez (r.) for his Mechanical Engineering oral presentation. Felipe’s oral presentation was on laser assisted cryosurgery, which he studies with Professor Guillermo Aguilar. Dorian’s poster concerned a 3-D tissue culture microdevice for drug tolerance testing, research he performed as part of the Summer Undergraduate Program for Engineering Research at Berkeley with faculty advisor Luke Lee and Ph.D. student Mimi Zhanghis, his graduate mentor. Dorian and Felipe competed against more than 93 other presenters. Mechanical Engineering Professor Marko Princevac also attended the event, representing UCR as a judge at the symposium. The CAMP statewide symposium is supported by University of California and the National Science Foundation’s Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation. Looking toward next year’s symposium, UCR’s CAMP program has awarded Electrical Engineering senior William Pena a winter term research grant for ongoing work on organic solar cells that he is currently conducting for his senior design project with his advisor, Professor Mihri Ozkan. He will be eligible to present this research at next year’s statewide CAMP conference.
An Interdepartmental Graduate Bioengineering Program proposed by Bourns College of Engineering has received enthusiastic support from UC Provost Wyatt Hume and has been approved by UC President Robert Dynes. In his letter to President Dynes, Hume cited a high demand for graduate programs in this discipline, and the rapid advances that have occurred in the traditional fields of engineering and biological sciences. He stated that the field of Bioengineering provides the synergy and synthesis to have a significant impact on providing for the critical needs of society and enhancing the quality of life. Forty applications have already been received for the new graduate program. Department Founder and Chair Jerome Schultz is pictured at right with graduate student Yang Song.
Electrical Engineering Associate Professor Mihri Ozkan, one of the editors of the “Journal of Biomedical Microdevices”, has received the 2006 Referee of the Year Award for her editorial contributions. The forthcoming issue of the journal will report the award and include a biography of Professor Ozkan, who is the principle investigator of Biomedical Science and Nanotechnology laboratory. Her research interests include hybrid organic/inorganic systems where recent advances in nanotechnology are applied for the fabrication of future electronics, photovoltaics and biosensors. In addition, her laboratory applies hybrid systems for cancer diagnosis and therapeutics.
Bourns College of Engineering alumni gathered on Saturday, February 24 to talk to friends and professors, have lunch and see what’s new at the College. The beautiful weather allowed all activities to be held in the patio in front of the newest building, Engineering II, which was open for tours. At right in the photo are Chancellor France Córdova and her husband Christian Foster, the College’s Director of Undergraduate Research, who dropped by the event for awhile to speak with the former students.
Seven faculty members from Bourns College of Engineering received Fellow status at the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) annual meeting in San Francisco on Saturday, February 17. Three of the new Fellows, Dean Reza Abbaschian, and Bioengineering Department faculty Dimitrios Morikis and Victor Rodgers, attended the ceremony. Each received a certificate and rosette pin. This induction boosts the number of AAAS Fellows in the College to 18. Pictured are (l. to r.) Dimitrios Morikis, Reza Abbaschian and Victor Rodgers. Other honorees not at the ceremony were Wilfred Chen, Marc Deshusses, Tao Jiang and Charles Wyman
Electrical Engineering Professor Amit K. Roy-Chowdhury has received a gift from CISCO supporting his research on Advanced Data Analysis in Video Networks. Dr. Roy-Chowdhury's work will focus on researching algorithms for tracking and recognition of objects and activities in a coherent network of video cameras. It will involve developing network architectures, learning traffic patterns and scene analysis using these network models. CISCO is particularly interested in applications of the research in protection of critical infrastructure -- security of people in public places, and infrastructure such as bridges -- using a network of video cameras. Prof. Roy-Chowdhury will also actively interact with CISCO engineers during this research work; he expects to give talks at CISCO, and the company’s engineers will visit UCR to learn more details about the work so that they can use it down the line in their products.
Two BCOE fourth-year Ph.D. candidates were awarded prizes at the 2007 Annual Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Association Conference on Saturday, Feb. 17. The contest was open to graduate students from all UCR colleges. Abhilash Nigam, won a prize for Best Presenter, and Krishna Veer Singh (pictured) won a Best Poster award. Abhilash’s talk was titled “Regulated emissions from ship’s auxiliary engine: Effect of fuel sulfur and control technology.” Krishna’s poster was titled “Carbon nanotube (CNT)-PNA based bioconjugates: Candidates for future molecular level electronics”. Abhilash is the 2005 recipient of the Esther Hays Graduate Fellowship; Krishna was the recipient of a best poster award at the College’s 2005 Industry Day. Both students obtained a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in 2003.
Mechanical Engineering Professor Qing Jiang’s research on oscillating carbon nanotubes has been reported in PhysOrg, a national web-based news site specializing in science and technology, and will appear in print in the journal Nanotechnology. Dr. Jiang and co-author Jeong Won Kang have discovered that when one hollow nanotube is placed inside a slightly larger nanotube and placed between electrodes, they can achieve a telescoping motion and behave as a switch that can be applied to binary or triple digit memory for molecular scale computers. Their device could provide nonvolatile memory, eliminating the need for secondary storage devices such as external hard drives. Jiang feels it is likely that a functioning prototype of a molecular processor will be demonstrated in the next two or three years, although commercialization faces challenges such as the lack of infrastructure for mass production.
The largest single Altix 4700 supercomputer in the UC system was launched on Friday, February 2 with a series of presentations in the new BCOE facility, EBU II. Welcoming remarks were given by Chancellor Córdova, Dean Abbaschian and Computer Science & Engineering Department Chair Tom Payne, who introduced the research team, led by Professor Laxmi Bhuyan, whose NSF grant provided the money to purchase the system. Other team members are Walid Najjar, Gianfranco Ciardo, Stefano Lonardi, Frank Vahid and Jun Yang. An audience of around 90 professors, administrators and students then heard of the many capabilities of the Altix 4700 from SGI Chief Technology Officer Eng Lim Goh and from Thomas Mountcastle, President of James River Technical Inc., which partners with SGI to provide high-performance computing solutions to the higher education and research sector. The supercomputer has the capacity to boost high-end computing and data analysis by up to 1,000 times, and will encourage multidisciplinary research with physicists, biologists and chemists from across the campus that will come to use the facility. After a luncheon hosted by SGI, four well-attended technical sessions were presented. Pictured from left are Professors Vahid, Najjar, Bhuyan, Ciardo, Lonardi, SGI CTO Goh, Vice Chancellor for Research Charles Louis, Dean Abbaschian and CSE Chair Tom Payne.
Electrical Engineering Assistant Professor Ertem Tuncel has received a National Science Foundation CAREER award for his work in communications research. According to the NSF web site this Faculty Early Career Development Program is the National Science Foundation's most prestigious award in support of the early career-development activities of those teacher-scholars who most effectively integrate research and education within the context of the mission of their organization. Such activities should build a firm foundation for a lifetime of integrated contributions to research and education. Dr. Tuncel’s project is titled “Low-delay communication in sensor networks via prediction- and transform-based distributed source coding”.
Following last year’s successful premiere event, the Mechanical Engineering Graduate Student Association (MEGSA) is organizing and presenting a research symposium on Thursday, February 8, from 9 am to 8 pm in Engineering Building II Rooms 205/206. Highlights will be ten oral presentations by M.E. graduate students, more than 20 Graduate and Undergraduate research posters, and industry displays. Invited presentations will include a welcome from Chancellor Córdova, a talk by UCR Alumnus Mark Johnson, now with Abbott Vascular, and remarks from Dean Abbaschian. Sponsors for the event are the UCR Graduate Student Association, the California Inland section of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the UCR ME Department. Pictured are last year’s winners being presented their awards by ME Professor Aguilar. For more information, contact MEGSA President Sander Li at megsa@engr.ucr.edu
Roman Lysecky, a 2005 graduate of Bourns College of Engineering and now an Assistant Professor at the University of Arizona, will travel to Nice, France to claim his Outstanding Dissertation Award in the category of “New directions in embedded system design and embedded software” at the annual DATE (Design Automation and Test in Europe) conference. Lysecky was a Department of Computer Science & Engineering Ph.D. student; his thesis on Warp Processing showed that programs could be dynamically recompiled from processor execution to FPGA execution, often resulting in speedups of 10 times or more. The worldwide conference is awarding one prize in each of four categories, consisting of 1,000 € and a certificate. DATE is Europe’s largest electronic systems design conference, and is now in its tenth year. Speakers come from all five continents and nearly fifty countries.
Dr. Julian Hunt, Professor of Climate Modelling at University College London, was the Distinguished Speaker for the Department of Mechanical Engineering on Friday, January 26 in the Engineering II building. He was formerly at University of Cambridge, and is a visiting scientist at Stanford, NASA and Arizona State University. A Fellow of the Royal Society, he was created a Baron in the House of Lords in May 2000. His research has led to new approaches to modeling turbulence, atmospheric flows around buildings and over mountains, and the dispersion of environmental pollution. He spoke of the challenges of climate change, saying dealing effectively with them is only possible through new thinking and understanding, and by effective integration of specific and overall policies for building, energy and transportation.
For the second year in a row, the UCR chapter of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) has been chosen to receive a Diversity Action grant from the national organization. Only 23 such grants were awarded nationally this year. The chapter received a check for $1,000, which will help to sponsor the College’s annual Space, Science & Engineering Day for elementary and middle school Girl Scouts and their families. The award was created to increase the number of students who pursue engineering education. ASME will be joined by the UCR chapter of the Society of Women Engineers to plan and staff the event, where children engage in a number of fun and educational activities such as making constellations inside a planetarium, participating in rocket races and making craters. JPL, NASA and the Riverside Astronomical Society are also involved, providing equipment and sharing their expertise. Pictured from left to right are Albert Yi, Karel Jansen and Michael Sheppy holding the check, and Oren Bordo.
Bioengineering Assistant Professor Jiayu Liao is major player in a team that discovered a small molecule called Boc5, targeting Glucagon-like peptide (GLP1) receptor 1, that can cure diabetes in mice. This molecule can sensitize insulin function in responding to a high level of glucose, as well as reduce body weight by 20 percent. The discovery of a small molecule agonist for GLP1 receptor has been very difficult in the past. If it proves to be effective in humans, it can be turned into a drug that would be easier to use than current Type 2 diabetes medicine that must be injected twice a day. This molecule is also the first small molecule agonist for Class B GPCRs, which are involved in many human physiological processes. US scientist Andrew Young is also part of the team, as well as Ming-Wei Wang, director of China’s National Center for Drug Screening in Shanghai. The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and has been reported by the Washington Post, Business World Online and Yahoo! News.
Professors Sheldon Tan and Frank Vahid (l. to r.) have successfully improved engineering student retention at UCR through a grant from the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). Their efforts have attracted the attention of the Verizon Foundation, which will augment the program with four scholarships for undergraduates studying Electrical Engineering. These scholarship recipients will work with the SIA students on events, programs and mentoring activities designed to create a sense of community. Vahid and Tan’s SIA program has concentrated on improving the social interaction of students, and non-course-related interactions with faculty. These factors have proven to be critical in retaining students, particularly those from backgrounds that do not include a tradition of attending college. Further techniques include group projects, a web-based system linking freshmen to one another, and meetings to teach study habits and success strategies. Retention improvement rose from 55 percent to 62 percent, and the number of women in the program increased from 7.8 percent to 16.7 percent, over one year.
UCR’s student chapter of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) has been selected by the national organization to host their “Wow! That's Engineering?”outreach event in Fall 2007. Designed to bring young girls together with female engineers to learn more about the field of engineering through interactive activities and discussions, the program was kicked off last March in Chicago at the Museum of Science and Industry. Subsequent events took place in major cities. For this year’s events, SWE’s Career Guidance Committee reviewed 22 applications from 19 professional sections and 3 student sections from across the nation, and chose three sections: UC Riverside, Atlanta and Minnesota. Collaborators for West Coast event will include SWE National and the Orange County Professional Section. According to SWE, the demand for technology-savvy entrants in the workplace is growing three times faster than all other occupations, while enrollment in science-related courses is declining -- particularly among young girls. SWE is making an effort to change the current perspective of science, engineering, and technology fields among girls; less than ten percent of American engineers today are women. UCR SWE members are pictured at last year’s national convention.
Christian Shelton, Computer Science & Engineering faculty member, has been awarded a US Air Force Young Investigator Award for his research on continuous time structured stochastic processes. Dr. Shelton’s research represents a new way to predict and control continuous processes used in such dynamic systems as communication satellites that must manage their connections and monitor the security of their channels as resources and threats change. His research will develop tracking and control algorithms for continuous time systems, and his code base will be made publicly available so that others can extend the work. The Air Force’s Young Investigator Research Program (YIP) supports scientists and engineers who have received Ph.D.s in the last five years and who show exceptional ability and promise for conducting basic research. Professor Shelton’s was one of only 21 awards, selected from 145 proposals submitted from across the nation. His was the only one chosen from the state of California.