News for 2008

BCOE students grab top prizes at national conference

Second year Ph.D. student Sudeep Popat and recent graduates Lindsay Yee, Christina Zapata, Quoc-Hung Phan and Nichola Kinsinger grabbed three top prizes at the Student Poster/Paper competition at the annual Air & Waste Management Association’s Annual Conference & Exhibition in Portland, Oregon, on June 24. AWMA is a century-old professional association of environmental engineers and focuses on air pollution and waste-related issues.

Sudeep, a graduate student in the Chemical & Environmental Engineering working with Professor Marc Deshusses, won the first prize award in the Ph.D. students’ category and the second prize award in the Sustainability category for his poster titled “Green Technology for Removal of Siloxanes from Biogas.”

Lindsay, Christina, Quoc-Hung and Nichola won the first prize in the undergraduate students’ category for their poster titled “Power Plant NOx Treatment Using Bacterial Denitrification”, which was based on their senior design project, also carried out in Dr. Deshusses’s lab. They were required to submit an abstract and a paper in advance and then present a poster at the national convention. The posters were judged by leading experts in air pollution and waste issues, and senior members of the AWMA.

The awards were also accompanied by monetary prizes: Sudeep won a total of $2,700 ($1,800 for the Ph.D. award, and $900 from the Sustainability category), while Lindsay, Christina, Quoc-Hung and Nichola won $800 for their poster.

Pictured with the award certificates are (l. to r.): Lindsay, Nichola, Christina, Quoc-Hung and Sudeep.

Zordan lands UCR Innovative Teaching Award

Victor Zordan, assistant professor of computer science and engineering, has been chosen by UCR’s Academy of Distinguished Teachers for their Innovative Teaching Award. Zordan is being honored for his creative Video Game Development and Design course, in which students work in teams to design and construct original video games. Zordan’s class includes collaboration with two graduate courses in music and English that focus on digital media.

The course introduces students to the design of games, software architecture, and hands-on opportunities to build their own games. It also brings awareness to related topics surrounding games, such as violence and social impact, stressing the importance of the role of the programmer in such areas. In addition, it provides an introduction to techniques used in game engines, motion generation, behavior and Artificial Intelligence for autonomous characters, interfaces, and networks for multi-user play.

Students who participated commented on the course:

“I learned how to work cooperatively with a group. I learned how to manage my time and tasks.”

“Honestly, this is the class people should take... if they have any inclination toward pursuing video game design. It puts everything into perspective and creates a welcome understanding on just what it takes to design a video game.”

“It was a great learning experience... my favorite class taken yet!”

BCOE captures four of twelve prizes at UC conference

Four young researchers from Bourns College of Engineering were among twelve winners at the 9th Annual UC Systemwide Bioengineering Symposium, held June 20-22 at the UCR campus.

Sean Guthrie, a bioengineering major, won the Abbot Vascular Second Place Poster Award for “Quantitative Conversion of Alcohols to Aldehydes Using Alcohol Dehydrogenase”, outlining research he performs under the guidance of his advisor Professor Valentine Vullev.

Shadi Mahjoob, a mechanical engineering major, won the ResMed Second Place Poster Award for her project “Computational Investigation of Transient Heat Transport through a Porous Filled Heat Exchanger Applicable in Biological Sciences”. Her advisor is Professor Kambiz Vafai.

Feng Sun, a mechanical engineering major advised by Professor Guillermo Aguilar, won the Boston Scientific Second Place Award for his oral presentation “Thermal Modeling and Experimental Validation of Hair and Skin Tissue Heated by Intense Pulsed Light”.

Postdoctoral researcher Lorenzo Martinez-Suastegui won the Genentech Third Place Poster Award for “Temperature Measurements of Laser Irradiation for Tissue Protection During Cryosurgery.” He works in Professor Aguilar’s lab.

Pictured at the awards ceremony (l. to r.) are Professor V.G.J. Rodgers (presenter), and winners Dennis Yoon, Lili Peng, Rajaram Krishnan, Sean Guthrie, Shadi Mahjoob, Rachel Marullo, Lorenzo Martinez-Suastegui and Shay Edwards. Awardees not pictured are Feng Sun, Sunny Shah, Angela Chen and Sara St. James.

The UC Systemwide Bioengineering Symposium was created to foster exchange and discussions on bioengineering research performed on the 10 UC campuses. This year there was a focus on increased UC Bioengineering interaction and improved collaborations with California’s vast biomedical firms as well as government agencies.

• Event Photos

Ozkan invited to speak at NAE’s Frontiers symposium

When the National Academy of Engineering gathers 82 of today’s brightest engineers at the U.S. Frontiers of Engineering symposium, Bourns’ Mihri Ozkan will be one of its 15 featured speakers. Ozkan, an expert in the creation of biomedical microdevices and applications of nanotechnology for future developments in bioengineering, is an associate professor of Electrical Engineering. Her presentation will be presented during the Emerging Nanoelectronics Technology session.

Ozkan fabricates DNA or live-cell microarrays using electric fields or optical forces inside a sealed-chip arrangement. She focuses on the creation of biomedical microdevices and applications of nanotechnology for future developments in bioengineering.

The symposium, hosted by Sandia National Laboratories at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque on Sept. 18-20, will cover emerging nanoelectric devices, cognitive engineering, drug delivery systems, and understanding and countering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Ozkan’s presentation will be included in the Emerging Nanoelectronics Technology session.

The two-and-a-half day event will bring together the nation’s brightest young engineers, ages 30 to 45, who are performing exceptional engineering research and technical work in a variety of disciplines. The participants – from industry, academia and government – were nominated by fellow engineers or organizations, and chosen from more than 230 applicants.


Her many awards and honors include the “2006 Referee of the Year” by the Journal of Biomedical Microdevices; the Army’s “Young Investigator Award”; and the “Distinguished Engineering Educator of the Year Award” by the National Engineers’ Council.

Founded in 1964, the NAE provides engineering leadership in service to the nation and conducts independent studies to examine important topics in engineering and technology.

On and off campus recognition for CEE graduate student

Third-year Ph.D. student Berat Z. Haznedaroglu’s work has been recognized by Krieger & Stewart Inc.’s Fellowship Award and the Graduate Dean’s Dissertation Research Grant. Both awards will provide financial assistance to Berat for his ongoing research in the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering.

Berat is continuing doctoral studies in the Bacterial Adhesion Research Laboratory supervised by Dr. Sharon Walker. His work focuses on the fate and transport of bacterial pathogens in groundwater conditions, specifically understanding pathogenicity and transport behavior of Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Salmonella spp., both problematic in nation’s source water systems. This recognition of his work is especially timely in light of the current outbreaks of Salmonella across the country.

The Graduate Research Mentorship Programs (GRMP) are intended to enhance the mentoring of doctoral students during their second, third or fourth years of graduate study. Recipients are eligible for one, two or three quarters of support (including summers) to continue their research.

Founded in 1971 by Robert A. Krieger and Julian D. Stewart, Krieger & Stewart is a leading company providing civil and environmental engineering consulting services to numerous public agency clients throughout California, including cities, counties, redevelopment agencies, water and wastewater agencies, community services districts, parks and recreation districts, airport districts, and school districts.

Ten other BCOE students received Dissertation and GRMP fellowships, designed to provide a stipend and pay fees so the student may focus full-time on completing their dissertations. The selection process is rigorous, examining teaching experience, GPA, community involvement, strength of recommendation letters, and number of publications. Besides Haznedaroglu, Seung Kang, Jose Medina, Teddy Yap, Nissim Amos, Irene Calizo, Suchismita Ghosh, Alfredo Martinez-Morales, Zijun Fang, Jie Lian and Henry Vu were chosen to receive the prestigious fellowships.

Engineering undergraduates shine in UCR research publication

Fully half the research papers published in the 2008 UCR Undergraduate Research Journal were authored by undergraduate students from the Bourns College of Engineering (BCOE). This is outstanding, since the Bourns College hosts less than 10 percent of UCR’s total undergraduate population.

According to Dean Abbaschian, these numbers illustrate the extent to which the Bourns College emphasizes undergraduate research opportunities. A feature that makes Bourns stand out among top-tier engineering colleges is that it is large enough to have world-class research, yet small enough to give undergraduates personal attention.

“I am not surprised at all, but proud of our students,” Abbaschian continued. “A hallmark of our undergraduate programs is to provide opportunity to our undergraduates to participate in research with our faculty. The strong showing of BCoE students’ papers in the Journal is a good indication for the positive outcome of such research training.”

This was the second year for the refereed research journal in which a student editorial board judges the best of the university’s undergraduate research for the year.

Sean Brady, a ’08 graduate in environmental engineering, was recognized for his paper “Zero Waste Biodiesel: Using Glycerin and Biomass to Create Renewable Energy.”

Alexander S. Cheung, a third year bioengineering student, was included in the journal with his paper “Computational Prediction of Association Free Energies for the C3d-CR2 Complex and Comparison to Experimental Data.”

Deep Shah, a ’08 graduate in electrical engineering, was honored for his paper titled “Motion Based Bird Sensing Using Frame Differencing and Gaussian Mixture.”

Lindsay D. Yee, a ’08 graduate in environmental engineering, was honored for her paper on “Secondary Organic Aerosol (SOA) and Ozone Formation from Agricultural Pesticides.”

Elizabeth Zielins, a third year bioengineering student, was included in the journal with her paper “Bacterium-Induced Flourescence-Enhancement Kinetics: Breaking 100-Year-Old Traditions of Staining Bioanalyses.”

Five of the 16 winners at the UCR Graduate Student Association’s annual research conference also represented BCOE. Rajwant S. Bedi, (Chemical and Environmental Engineering), Marlon Thomas, (Bioengineering), Henry Vu (Mechanical Engineering) were winners in the best presentation category. Poster session winners included Mohammad A. Khayer (Electrical Engineering) and Shadi Mahjoob (Mechanical Engineering).

Commencement yields more than 200 new engineers

The Bourns College of Engineering class of 2008 marched across the stage to receive their diplomas on the morning of June 14, looking forward to careers or graduate studies after some time off. One of five ceremonies held over the weekend at UC Riverside, the ceremony also included the College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences.

Many of the young engineers completed their undergraduate years with distinction. In May, Commencement’s student speaker Lindsay Yee and student marshal Sean Foley received the Marlan and Rosemary Bourns Awards, recognizing the academic excellence of two outstanding graduating seniors, at the Honors Convocation in May. Lindsay also received the Academic Excellence Award for Environmental Engineering.

Deep Shah, who led the class in turning their tassels, received the Outstanding Achievement Award at the Convocation. This award is selected by the Dean of each of UCR’s colleges, for exemplary achievement in academics and research or creative activity, breadth of involvement in the college, and for commitment to service and citizenship.

Seven other students received awards at the Honors Convocation. Jeffrey Suhalim was chosen for the Bioengineering Academic Excellence Award; Van Nguyen for the Chemical Engineering Academic Excellence Award; Jonathan Basseri for the Computer Engineering Academic Excellence Award; David Cohen for the Computer Science Academic Excellence Award; Benjamin Guan for the Electrical Engineering Academic Excellence Award; Nicholas Guiffrida for the Information Systems Academic Excellence Award and Nicholas Hansen for the Mechanical Engineering Academic Excellence Award. One student is chosen from each of the College’s undergraduate programs by the program’s faculty.

To read reflections of some of the graduating seniors, click here.

• Event Photos

College hosts UC Systemwide Bioengineering Symposium

The ninth annual University of California Systemwide Bioengineering Symposium will convene at UC Riverside Friday through Sunday, June 20-22, bringing hundreds of researchers and students together to share the latest discoveries and ideas in the field.

The symposium will be hosted by the Bourns College of Engineering Bioengineering Department the week after the young program graduates its inaugural graduating class of bioengineering students.

Attendees will see the promise and contributions of bioengineering to medical science, techniques and avenues that were largely unheard of a generation ago. The next generation of University of California bioengineers will descend on the UCR Student Commons to present their own research in a number of broad categories:

Bioinformatics & Genomics/Biomedical Imaging/Nanotechnology & BioMEMS/Biocomputation, in Silico & Biosystems Modeling/Tissue Engineering/Biomaterials/Molecular & Cellular Engineering/Drug Delivery & Targeting/Biomechanics/Biophysics

“Bioengineering has helped ignite a revolution in the way medicine understands the healthy body and disease states,” said BCOE Dean Reza Abbaschian. “That students are inspired by those advances can be seen in our own program, which has grown from zero to more than 300 students in just three years.”

Three distinguished keynote speakers are scheduled during the three day conference. Don P. Giddens, Dean of Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology will deliver the Friday dinner keynote address at the Mission Inn on “Know Your Arteries, Know Thyself.”

John Anderson, President of the Illinois Institute of Technology, will speak after dinner on Saturday at the UCR Commons on “Biomedical Engineering, Bioengineering, Biological Engineering, Biotechology – What’s in a Name?” The final keynote will be given Sunday morning at the Commons by Kristine Kelley, Director of the Division of Discovery Science and Technology at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering.

Organizers for the conference are Jerome Schultz, and Victor Rogers, both professors of bioengineering at BCOE.

Sponsoring the symposium are Genentech Inc., Gilead Sciences Inc., ResMed Inc., Boston Scientific Corp., Abbot Vascular, Penguin Computing Inc. and Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc.

For more information about the symposium, or to register, visit the event website at www. bioeng.ucr.edu/2008UCBES.

Yan’s group developing electronic nose

Chemical and Environmental Engineering Professor Yushan Yan is part of a multidisciplinary team funded by NSF to develop an “electronic nose” system for the detection of explosives. Led by University of Connecticut Assistant Professor Yu Lei, the three-year project is developing ultra-sensitive sensor arrays capable of rapid detection of even trace quantities of explosives.

The aim is to develop a miniaturized sensing device capable of detecting potential explosives with great speed, selectivity and accuracy using simple instrumentation. This could lead to a hand-held unit that inspectors could use to inspect luggage of airplane passengers. Many bombs use nitrated compounds which emit scent molecules that at present may be detected by trained animals. The team envisions the unit as having the ability to capture and concentrate airborne explosive molecules, and the real-time capacity to distinguish and identify compounds commonly found in explosives.

Security employees operate in large open spaces where low concentrations of volatile explosive vapors make detection difficult. Yan is designing an ultra-thin molecular sieving zeolite membrane with pores half the size of a single nanometer (100,000 times narrower than the diameter of a human hair), through which small molecules of nitrogen and oxygen pass easily but not the larger molecules of explosives. The membrane will quickly capture and concentrate the explosive molecules on the surface of the membrane. They will then be subjected to an array of single-walled carbon nanotube-porphyrin conjugates acting as sensors. When planted onto microelectronic circuitry, they can signal the presence of explosives or other volatile compounds by a change of their conductivity. By using a variety of different porphyrins (large organic molecules that are particularly suited to interactions with nitroaromatic compounds) the sensors will respond differently to particular vapors, generating an electric response pattern that can be read by pattern recognition software to identify the explosive and trigger an alarm.

At this point the team is building a solid-state 32-sensor array to indicate common explosives such as TNT. As the project continues, they will expand the device's capability to recognize other explosives, and finish by combining the sensor device with the molecular sieving membrane. This technology could also be miniaturized and used for remote surveillance devices, and will yield a highly enhanced level of security for high-traffic areas such as airports, bus terminals, banks and post offices.

CEE students win World Water Forum grant

A team of Chemical and Environmental Engineering students has won the Southern California World Water Forum College award that includes a grant of $10,000 to implement their design. The check was presented at an awards reception held on May 30 at the Metropolitan Water District headquarters at the Union Station in Los Angeles.

Team members are Tongzhou Wang, Brian Hawkinson and Dewi Nilasari, pictured l. to r. with their research poster and equipment at another competition. (Dewi was unable to attend the ceremony.) Their project is titled “Silica Removal from Inland Brackish Water” and concerns the limited availability of fresh water in the Southern California region.

Population and industrial growth have depleted fresh water supplies. One potential source is the large supply of brackish water which can be found at San Joaquin and Imperial Valley in California. This water has more salinity than fresh water (although not as much as sea water) resulting from minerals leached from soil and evaporation that leaves salts behind. Reverse osmosis technology that uses pressure to force water through a membrane that retains the salt on one side is one of the most effective technologies used today, but one of its major challenges is the presence of silica. When silica becomes concentrated, it fouls the membranes, which must be frequently replaced.

The team proposes an innovative system for silica removal from brackish water prior to desalinization as part of the pre-treatment process. By implementing their removal system before reverse osmosis, they estimate that the silica content of brackish water can be reduced up to 90 percent, significantly improving the life span of the membrane and greatly increasing the water recovery. CEE lecturer Kawai Tam and Associate Dean Mark Matsumoto are supervisor and advisor to the team.

Cocker honored by UCR Alumni

David Cocker, Chemical and Environmental Engineering associate professor, was chosen to receive the 2008 Outstanding Young Alumnus Award at the annual Alumni Awards of Distinction Banquet on May 17. He is pictured (l.) at the ceremony accepting the award from Assistant Vice Chancellor Kyle Hoffman.

Beginning in 1986 the UCR Alumni Association has honored graduates who personify the University’s tradition of excellence and service, bringing distinction to UCR, contributing to the betterment of society and enhancing their communities through their personal and professional achievements. Winners are chosen by an awards committee made up of members of the Alumni Association.

Cocker now teaches classes he once took as a student at UCR. After graduating with a double major in 1996, he completed graduate studies at Caltech with John Seinfeld, a leading expert in the field of aerosol research. He received the prestigious NSF CAREER award in 2005, given to early-career academics that show great promise of becoming leaders in their fields. He is already recognized as an expert on aerosol formation in the atmosphere.

Besides his teaching duties he performs research at the College of Engineering-Center for Environmental Research and Technology (CE-CERT) in the state-of-the-art atmospheric processes chamber, and in the Emissions and Fuels Research Laboratory alongside his wife Kathalena who he met in undergraduate classes at UCR. They have two young daughters, Allison and Caroline, potential future alumnae of UCR.

Boretz Named Fellow of International Professional Organization

Mitch Boretz, who directs proposal and contact/grant operations at the Bourns College of Engineering, has been named a Fellow of the Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP).

He was recognized during APMP’s 19th Annual International Conference and Exhibits May 29 in Rancho Mirage.
Boretz has directed grant operations at the College since 2003. These operations produce $20-30 million annually in extramural funding activity. He also served in that role at the College of Engineering’s Center for Environmental Research and Technology (CE-CERT) for more than six years prior to that, generating about $6 million per year in contract and grant activity.

“Mitch has made outstanding contributions to our college,” said Dean Reza Abbaschian, “not only in the development of successful proposals but also in the formation of collaborative teams for multi-investigator programs. He is the best proposal management professional that I have ever encountered.”

With about 2,800 members, the mission of the Association of Proposal Management Professionals is "to advance the arts, sciences, and technology of new business acquisition and to promote the professionalism of those engaged in those pursuits." The APMP Fellows Award "recognizes individuals who have made substantial contributions to our profession and APMP. Fellows aid APMP as advisers and mentors, continuing their records of excellence and service."

Boretz was active in restarting APMP’s Southern California chapter in 2001 and has served continuously in leadership roles since then. He also serves as webmaster and handles marketing and communications for the chapter, which has about 150 members. In 2007 and 2008, Boretz was a speaker at the APMP international conference. He also has been a presenter twice at the Southern California chapter's annual Training Day symposium.

Student wins NASA Fellowship

First-year Computer Science graduate student Dorian Perkins has been named a Fellow of the NASA Harriett G. Jenkins Predoctoral Fellowship Program (JPFP), an award sponsored by NASA and administered by the United Negro College Fund Special Programs. Created to increase the number of graduate degrees awarded to underrepresented persons (women, minorities and/or persons with disabilities) the program selects approximately 20 students per year from a national field to receive a three-year fellowship for their graduate education in NASA-related fields.

Perkins received his B.S. in Computer Science from UCR in 2007. He was active in student organizations and as a recruiter for Bourns College. His work experience includes jobs at Northrop Grumman Integrated Systems and Southern California Edison. He now serves as graduate advisor to the College’s student chapter of NSBE (National Society of Black Engineers) and was recently hired as a software engineer intern at Google in Santa Monica.

NSF supports nanomanufacturing study

Associate Professors Cengiz Ozkan and Mihri Ozkan are principal investigator and co-principal investigator on a National Science Foundation (NSF) sponsored project on nanomanufacturing, for next generation devices based on nanotubes, nanowires and biological linkers.

Titled “Massively Parallel Assembly of Nanowires and Nanotubes on a Chip for Nanoelectonics and Circuits,” the project addresses the fact that the scaling down of silicon-CMOS (Complimentary metal-oxide-semiconductor) integrated circuits is reaching its physical limitations. Bio-inspired assembly, which looks at how Mother Nature does things, is one of the main objectives of this work. It is a revolutionary approach that could have a major technological impact on computing, storage and display applications.

Dr. Ozkan’s student assistants trained on this project will be well-positioned to pursue careers in academia and in the semiconductor, display and storage industries.

Drs. Cengiz and Mihri Ozkan (from l. to r.) are pictured while attending a Nanoelectronics Conference in North Carolina.

Fire fighting and drug delivery studies funded

Mechanical Engineering Associate Professor Guillermo Aguilar has received funding for two diverse projects: one to measure the temperature variation caused by liquid droplets falling on liquid pools, and one to study technologies for drug delivery directly through the skin.

Sandia National Laboratories is funding the first project, for applications in suppressing fires burning in pools of liquid. Studies have shown that as liquid droplets fall onto liquid pools at different temperatures they cause instability and splashing, but there are no reports on the temperature variation of the pool caused by the splashing. Aguilar will fabricate a thin film temperature sensor to measure temperature variation during impact and correlate it to droplet impact dynamics.

Aesthera Corporation is sponsoring a study of the effects of percutaneous (through the skin) drug delivery. Aguilar will study the penetration depth and concentration into the tissue of drugs applied to the skin while it is stretched under vacuum pressure and subjected to intense pulsed light. The benefit of this method is that drugs aimed at treating various skin conditions may penetrate faster and deeper compared to normal topical application, and potentially with customized control of penetration depth.

TechHorizons 2008 presents solutions for sustainability

Business leaders, academics and government representatives who attended the Bourns College’s two-day TechHorizons 2008 conference May 13-14 heard about many options to help preserve non-renewable resources through new technology. Subtitled “Engineering a Sustainable future: New Energy, New Materials, New Transportation,” the conference presented some of the most promising approaches to challenges such as continually rising fuel costs, the high cost of energy and the toll modern lifestyles take on the environment.

The conference was divided into four technical sessions: Sustainable Fuels, Advanced Materials, Solar Energy and Advanced Environmental Technology. Each session included four brief presentations by UCR faculty, local business leaders and representatives from Japan’s Tohoku University (located in Riverside’s sister city of Sendai) who were in town for the City of Riverside’s IE Tech Week’08. After each presenter talked, they joined to form a panel, fielding questions and concerns from the audience.

Richard Moorer, Associate Under Secretary for Energy at the US Department of Energy, delivered the keynote address at dinner Tuesday evening. Moorer surveyed several decades of U.S. energy research and federal policies effecting renewable energy sources. He presented an optimistic assessment of a range of new technologies that would provide a sustainable “mix” of energy resources without exacerbating other problems. Cellulosic ethanol, in particular, like the full scale plant being built in New Mexico by Viresco Energy, based on technology developed at the Bourns College of Engineering, offers a most promising path to cleaner fuels without adversely affecting food supplies.

During breaks in the presentations, guests were able to browse a poster display of student research projects (pictured) and were encouraged to act as judges. The winners received their awards at lunch on Wednesday. Capturing first place was Xiaoye Jing; Jennifer Reiger Kyle received second place; and two third places went to Haiwei Lu and Hayri Engin Akin. Mirvat Ebrik was the winner in the postdoc division.

Riverside’s Mayor Ron Loveridge gave concluding remarks at a luncheon on Wednesday sponsored by the Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development (WIRED) program. WIRED brings engineering students and business graduate students together to study what drives innovation through a series of visits to California corporations. These students were present at the conference, acting as guides and networking with industry guests.

• Event Photos

NSF sponsoring study on networked systems

Electrical Engineering faculty members Jie Chen (r.) and Ertem Tuncel (l.) have received a three-year grant from the National Science Foundation for their project “Fundamental Performance Limitations of Networked Control Systems”. Chen is Principal Investigator (PI) and Tuncel is Co-PI.

The project addresses fundamental bottlenecks and limitations when networked systems are transmitting control and communication signals in remote locations. Examples are space satellites or equipment such as the Mars Rover that are controlled from Earth; adverse conditions such as noises and other interference may cause signals to be jammed or delayed, allowing the equipment to wander on its own while waiting for instruction.

This program brings together experts in the fields of information theory and control, to fuse ideas and advances in each. After first identifying and quantifying bottlenecks and limitations, strategies and techniques to mitigate them will be designed. The project will also have a strong educational component, offering direct participation of graduate and undergraduate students and developing related seminars and design courses.

Engineering students focus on hunger

A giant microscope focusing on a strand of DNA that was made entirely from cans of food is the Bourns College entry in Canstruction, a nationwide contest combining the competitive spirit of a design/build competition with a unique way to help feed hungry people.

Competing teams of professional and student architects and engineers design giant sculptures made entirely out of canned foods. Our student team won the Riverside Art Museum Award during the opening reception on May 8 at the museum.

Team members are Amy Ferreira (team leader), Joshua Hockel, Naubahar Agha, Giovanni Denina and Amy Higa. In the photo (from right to left) are Amy Ferreira, Dean Abbaschian and his wife Janette Johnson, and Joshua Hockel. The team gives special thanks to Jun Wang, Shruthi Bala, Jesse Banuelos, David Bui, Catharine Hooker, Kevin Pauley, Chris Prasad, Christopher Webb, Eric Wittenmeyer and especially their sponsor, John Tavaglione, Riverside County Supervisor, Second District.

UC Riverside researchers fight world hunger by studying plant DNA so they can cross different natural strains of food crops to develop new varieties with desirable qualities such as pest resistance and drought tolerance; detect bacteria in food supplies; test for allergens; and determine the nutritional content of grains. This information may be used by all countries to produce nutritious food in the most efficient and economical manner, optimizing the world’s resources.

Over the weekend the displays will be carefully disassembled, and all food donated to the Second Harvest Food Bank of Riverside. Last year the contest yielded 17,000 pounds of food. As the number of teams participating doubled this year, the food donation is expected to double as well.

Undergrads spotlighted at symposium

One of the strengths of Bourns College of Engineering is the opportunity for undergraduates to participate in research with their professors. Several undergraduates were chosen to participate on May 2 in the second annual Symposium for Undergraduate Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity.

The symposium was designed to increase the visibility of undergraduate research and the commitment of faculty mentors at UCR by coordinating a professional conference setting in which undergraduate students present their research projects and creative activities.

Undergraduates displayed their research in oral presentations, a poster session and performance presentations. One was Jonas Gutierrez, pictured giving an oral presentation.

CEE profs harnessing the sun

Chemical and Environmental Engineering faculty members Sharon Walker (l.) and David Cwiertny (r.) have received funding from the USDA for a three-year project to investigate natural processes that lead to disinfection of pathogens in water supplies, especially those driven by sunlight.

In their study titled “Photochemical disinfection of pathogens: influence of extracellular polymeric substances on bactericidal capacity of reactive oxygen species” they seek to understand the combination of factors which contribute to the fate of agriculturally introduced bacterial pathogens such as E. coli occurring by photochemical disinfection.

Walker and Cwiertny propose that if they can understand how nature does it, they will be able to develop simple and sustainable approaches for water treatment.

NSF funds Chen’s collaborative proposal

Wilfred Chen, professor of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, leads a team that is developing a genetically programmable module for screening of protease inhibitors. The National Science Foundation (NSF) is funding the collaborative study; other members of the team are Chemical and Environmental Engineering Professor Ashok Mulchandani, Bioengineering Professor Jiayu Liao, and Marylynn Yates, Professor of Environmental Microbiology.

The study, titled “A Genetically Programmable Module for Screening of Protease Inhibitors based on Quantum Dot-Donor Fluorescense Resonance Energy Transfer”, investigates protease inhibitors, a class of medication used to treat infections by viruses such as HIV and Hepatitis C. It will provide a better understanding of the disease development process and identify targets for drug treatment.

Alumni Engineers Return for Career Night Assignment

Abbott Vascular was one of 17 tech firms getting special attention from engineering students during Career Night, April 16 at the UCR Recreation Center.

Anthony Oshinuga (left) and Mark C. Johnson (right) both made the journey from their Abbott workplace in Temecula, where they are engineers in the Manufacturing Cardiac Therapies Division, to recruit other Bourns College of Engineering students.

Oshinuga graduated in 2006 with a BS in mechanical engineering. Johnson earned his MS in mechanical engineering that same year.

Carl M. Burke, (pictured at right on previous page) Abbott Vascular’s recruiting manager for California, said his company has had great success recruiting at UCR. He added that when the company began to shift its recruiting focus to larger engineering programs he resisted.

“I like graduates here because they have a good grounding in academics, but they are also likely to have had practical experience,” Burke said. “As a manufacturer, that is right up our alley.”

All UCR majors were welcome at Career Night. More than 120 companies and organizations were present, offering full time career positions, internships and summer opportunities. At a last-minute preparation meeting earlier that morning at the Career Center job-seekers were advised to bring an ample supply of resumes, and corporate business attire was strongly recommended. Students had the opportunity to submit their resumes prior to the event to the Career Night employers of their choice.

Walker named top in engineering, science leadership

Sharon Walker, Assistant Professor of Chemical & Environmental Engineering, was chosen as the top female leader in Riverside and San Bernardino Counties in the fields of engineering, science, technology and math by the San Gorgonio Girl Scout Council. She was honored at the Women of Distinction Awards Luncheon on April 16 in Riverside.

Dr. Walker has two B.S. degrees in Environmental Studies and Environmental Engineering from USC, and an M.S. in Chemical and Environmental Engineering and a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from Yale. She holds the John Babbage Chair at the Bourns College of Engineering. She is a member of Tau Beta Pi, the national engineering honor society, and is currently an advisor to its UCR student chapter. She has acted as advisor to the UCR student chapter of the Society of Women Engineers, organizers of Bourns Space, Science and Engineering Day, for the past three years. During her years as a Girl Scout, she earned her Gold Award. She has also been involved with Minds for Design and Engineering IT Camp, two Girl Scout summer programs where participants solve practical problems by thinking like engineers.

The Women of Distinction Awards Luncheon honorees are chosen for making a significant impact in their community by demonstrating the ideals of Girl Scouting; their contributions inspire girls to develop into successful and confident young women.

“Dr. Walker is recognized for making outstanding achievements in her professional and personal lives that embody the Girl Scout ideal of courage, confidence and character,” said Jessica Lawrence, Chief Executive Officer of the San Gorgonio Council. She is pictured at right in the photo. Dr. Walker is at left, and Jan Solecki, San Gorgonio Council Board Chairman/President is at center.

Kids are space scientists and engineers for a day

A capacity crowd of Girl Scouts and other children from the community took a virtual tour into space on the afternoon of April 12 at Bourns Space Science and Engineering Day. The UCR chapter of the Society of Women Engineers presented a free hands-on space science and engineering event for Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, and Elementary, Middle, and High School aged participants. Girl Scouts were able to earn an event patch and work towards a badge. Highlights included talks and question and answer sessions by Astronaut Alvin Drew and NASA Planetary Scientist Dr. Jennifer Heldmann.
Fun, hands-on activity centers for a variety of ages explained aspects of the solar system. Activities allowed them to explore robotics, create their own unique star constellations in the planetarium, interact with the Mars rover, and much more. The Riverside Astronomical Society set up their telescopes for the children to try.

Co-sponsors included the Bourns Co., NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Girl Scouts of San Gorgonio Council, Xerox, the Riverside Astronomical Society, the Bourns College of Engineering, the Society of Women Engineers, and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Many BCOE student engineers volunteered their time to staff the activity booths and shepherd the young guests.

On the same day, the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) student chapter presented their Merit Badge Day for Boy Scouts and their leaders from 8 AM to 5 PM, the third such event within a year. The engineering students assisted the scouts in soldering, building circuits and performing experiments to stimulate interest in engineering and help them earn badges. Attendance was limited to the first 150 scouts that registered. During the morning session they worked on Computer, Electricity and Electronics badges. In the afternoon they joined the SWE event to hear the astronaut and planetary scientist speak, and worked on Space Exploration, Energy and Engineering badges. IEEE has helped with the completion of approximately 600 badges.

The many students who gave up their Saturday to assist with these two events are to be commended. They provided not only assistance to the younger guests, but served as inspirational role models for those considering science and engineering studies in college.

Events Photo Page

Yee selected for NSF Fellowship

Lindsay Yee has been awarded a highly competitive three-year National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship. She is one of two winners from UCR and the only undergraduate. Four UCR students received Honorable Mention, and two are from Engineering: Computer Engineering senior Kenneth Anguka and Jennifer Reiber Kyle, a second-year Electrical Engineering Ph.D. student.

Lindsay, a senior Environmental Engineering major with a concentration in Air Pollution Control, is a completed Lower Division Honors student with a 3.9 cumulative GPA. Currently in the process of choosing between three top graduate schools that have accepted her, she will work toward a Ph.D. in atmospheric studies, continuing research on Secondary Organic Aerosols (SOA). David Cocker, Associate Professor of Chemical and Environmental Engineering and Lindsay’s research mentor, says “Lindsay has been a top researcher in our Atmospheric Processes Lab for four years and is quite deserving of this national honor.”

Video Game Demo draws crowd

With advances in physical simulation and motion capture, engineering is increasingly a part of the entertainment industry -- in movies, games and digital music. On March 20 students in Victor Zordan’s Video Game Creation and Design course spotlighted projects that they designed with collaboration from graduate students in UCR’s Music and English departments.

The open house included a description of each game's design and development, a demonstration of its features, and a chance for audience members to play-test the games. In the picture, left to right, Alex Edgcomb, Ian Kremer, Stephen Jones and Joanne Lee are demonstrating their team’s game “Current Exchange”.

Zordan is a Computer Science and Engineering Assistant Professor and a faculty coordinator for the UCR Mellon Interdisciplinary Workshop on Affect, Technics, and Ethics. Each game was enhanced with original sound/music composition from digital music graduate students working with music Professor Paulo Chagas, and received valuable input from graduate students working with Professor James Tobias in the English department. Chagas and Tobias are also faculty coordinators for the Mellon workshop, which sponsored the demo event.

In the quarter-long class, Zordan has made a concerted effort to keep the class engaged and thinking. He included a discussion of ethics in the game class, arranged a field trip to a motion capture studio, and brought an industry game consultant to discuss careers in that field.

“Honestly, this is the class people should take... if they have any inclination toward pursuing video game design,” said Computer Science undergrad Stephen Jones. “It puts everything into perspective and creates a welcome understanding on just what it takes to design a video game.”

Keogh designated University Scholar

Eamonn Keogh, Associate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, has been chosen as this year’s UCR University Scholar, joining nine other University Scholars on the campus. He will hold the title for three years and receive $25,000 of research support per year for his investigations of data mining, databases and artificial intelligence.

Present and past University Scholars participated in the selection process for the first time this year. The designation recognizes early career tenured faculty of outstanding merit who show strong evidence of exciting and highly visible research programs. Keogh developed a method for “lower bounding” the distance between time series which has been adopted by more than 150 research groups worldwide. He also invented SAX, the first symbolic representation for time series.

More than a dozen of Keogh’s 110 published research papers have secured at least 100 citations, making him one of the most cited researchers in his field. He has won several Best Paper awards at top national computer science conferences. In 2004 he was chosen for the Bourns College of Engineering Outstanding Teacher Award.

Space Science day acquires new name

The College’s popular hands-on afternoon for Girl Scouts and other young people from the community has been re-named Bourns Space Science and Engineering Day in recognition of a gift of financial support from the Bourns family. Gordon Bourns will attend the event; his family is happy to support this outreach effort designed to capture the minds and imagination of young people and draw them into education and career options as future scientists and engineers.

The free event, hosted by the campus chapter of Society of Women Engineers, will be presented April 12 from 12:30-5 PM in the UCR engineering complex. There are limited spaces left, and pre-registration and a permission form are required. Girl Scouts will earn an event patch and work towards a badge; Boy Scouts and non-scouts are welcome too. To reserve a place and download a permission form, register at www.engr.ucr.edu/~ssed. Check-in begins at noon.

Participants will have a chance to talk to women engineers and scientists from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and to look through telescopes provided and operated by the Riverside Astronomical Society. Activities will include Catching a Whisper from Space, Search for a Habitable Planet, Robotic Arms and an inflated walk-through Planetarium. A wide variety of experiences are designed for elementary through high school students, allowing them to learn about the solar system, find out how robotics work, create star constellations in the planetarium and get up close and personal with a mini Mars Rover (pictured).

Bourns Space Science and Engineering Day is sponsored by the Bourns Company, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Xerox, the Riverside Astronomical Society, Girl Scouts of America, Bourns College of Engineering, the Society of Women Engineers, and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Thanks to the gift from the Bourns Family organizers had the ability to expand the event so that activities are targeted not only to middle school girls, but also to high school aged girls.

Wang chosen for NSF CAREER Award

Junlan Wang, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, has been selected to receive a National Science Foundation CAREER award, a prestigious honor recognizing the early career development activities of scholars most likely to become the academic leaders of the 21st century.

Bourns College of Engineering faculty have been quite successful in attaining this honor. In the last four years, seven engineering professors have received the award. Dr. Wang’s CAREER award raises our young College’s total to 15.

The award is for $400,000 over five years. Dr Wang will designate a portion to hire more graduate and undergraduate researchers to work “in the forefront areas of nanoscale science and engineering. It will also allow me to involve more K-12 students and teachers through summer research and outreach opportunities,” she said.

Dr. Wang’s research is in the fields of nano and micromechanics of materials. In particular, she is interested in developing new experimental techniques complemented by theoretical modeling and numerical analysis to study the mechanical behavior of thin films and other small-featured structures, mechanics of interfaces and surfaces. Her recent research includes characterization of thin film adhesion, scale bridging in fabrication and property testing of nano and microstructures, surface roughness evolution and residual stress development caused by nano-scale contact. Her work has applications in the electronics, energy, biomedical and defense fields.

Dr. Wang received her Ph.D. in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2002. She joined UC Riverside in 2003 after a year as a post-doctoral research associate at Brown University.

Graphene promises to keep nanochips cool

A UC Riverside team of researchers led by electrical engineering professor Alexander Balandin has discovered that graphene, a single plane layer of carbon atoms arranged in honey-comb lattice, manifests extremely high thermal conductivity exceeding that of diamond and carbon nanotubes. Carbon nanotubes were previously believed to be the best heat conductors among solids. The experimental work, published last week in the American Chemical Society’s journal Nano Letters, was carried out in collaboration with UCR physics assistant professor Chun Ning Lau and her research group.

The measurement of graphene, an object just one atom thick, required the development of a completely new experimental technique and data extraction methodology. “Our measurement of the thermal conductivity of graphene is the very first one,” said Dr. Balandin.

These measurements were performed using a non-contact optical method based on the micro-Raman spectroscopy. A single atomic-layer graphene flake was suspended across a trench in a silicon wafer and heated with laser light in the middle. The temperature of the sample was determined from the change in the spectral features of the light scattered by graphene. The unique experiment conducted in Balandin's Nano-Device Laboratory was featured by news organizations world-wide, including Physorg.com, Nanowerk and physicsworld.com.

The superb heat conducting property of graphene may have major practical implications. The high thermal conductivity, coupled with graphene's flat geometry and demonstrated integration with silicon, suggest that graphene can be used for hot-spot cooling and thermal management of nanometer scale electronic devices and circuits.

Link to Nano Letters

College installs symbol of excellence

Alumni and students celebrated the unveiling of the Tau Beta Pi Bent monument at the north entrance to the Bourns College of Engineering complex on Feb. 23. The ceremony was a highlight of the Dean’s E-week reception and Homecoming Weekend which brought alumni back to the college.

Dean Reza Abbaschian, UC Riverside Acting Chancellor Robert Grey, former Assistant Dean Dennis Rice (the chapter’s first advisor) and Prof. Christian Shelton (a current advisor) joined students and alumni in the unveiling ceremony.

The bent, a transverse frame that supports the ends of the stringers in adjoining spans of a trestle, is the symbol of Tau Beta Pi signifying the role of engineering excellence in building America. Tau Beta Pi is the nation’s second oldest honorary society, formed when Phi Beta Kappa limited their membership to liberal studies.

UC Riverside’s “Alpha Beta” chapter was chartered in 2005 after a three-year effort to fulfill requirements to affiliate with the national organization. Members are required to be in the top 1/8 of their Junior class or the top 1/5 of their Senior class, and must exhibit a desire to reach beyond academics to become the best in their field.

This Google search yields full house

A Google search always gets lot of hits – no surprise. But when Google came to the Bourns College of Engineering to search for potential employees the result was more than 200 hits – standing room only.

Four Ph.D. graduates of the Computer Science and Engineering Department were the special guests for the evening discussion of Google’s Software Engineering Internship Program. Alumni Li Wei, Qi Fu, Sharmila Subramanian, and Mike Stay addressed students on what its like to work at the unconventional company which was Fortune magazine’s No. 1 best company to work for.

Google decided to visit the college after noticing they were hiring an unusual number of Bourns students. Last year they hired seven computer science graduate students. “We were particularly pleased with the number of women Ph.D.s we have recruited,” said recruiter Kelly Studer, who with Jessica Bagley represented Google at the event. “Only about 16 percent of computer science graduate students are women so they are few and far between.”

“If we did that well without doing anything, how would we do with a little effort?” she said.

All product managers at Google have computer science Ph.D.s. Three of the four Bourns alumni had been hired after three month internships. It was like a three month job interview, they agreed.

Frank Vahid, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, said the department has done well in attracting female graduate students because there is no ‘old boys network.’

“We are a younger department and more modern in the way that we treat people so they stay,” Vahid said.

First BCOE med student accepted

Adam Cheng (right), a chemical engineering undergraduate student who works in the lab of bioengineering Assistant Professor Jiayu Liao (left), is the first student from Bourns College of Engineering to be accepted into the highly competitive UCR/UCLA medical school. Students accepted into this program complete the first two years of their medical education at UCR in an intimate learning environment before moving on to UCLA for their remaining two years. They receive their M.D. degrees from UCLA.

Cheng has been doing research in Dr. Liao’s lab for two years, where he has learned a lot of skills and bio-related knowledge which helped him attain one of 24 places in the UCR/UCLA medical school program.

In the past, medical schools used to admit only biologists and biochemists, but they are now accepting more and more engineering students who understand the technology of diagnostic tools such as gene chips and glucose meters, imaging machines, pacemakers and tools for minimally invasive surgeries.

“Bioengineering plays more and more important roles in healthcare,” says Dr. Liao. “Bioengineering not only plays critical roles in designing medical devices; it also is producing novel diagnostic developments, drug screening technologies, and ways to analyze complex biological systems. Its role will be even more significant in personalized diagnosis and medicine in the future.”

Myung’s article recognized as a top paper

An article by Chemical and Environmental Engineering Associate Professor Nosang Myung published in the journal Nanotechnology has been one of the most highly downloaded articles – 762 times to date – and has received a significant number of citations according to the publishers. The journal’s editorial board has recognized it as a paper of particular interest and made it available for free, and is promoting it as part of its top papers collection on Nanotechnology’s web site and on http://nanotechweb.org.

The paper is titled “Hierarchical magnetic assembly of nanowires.” Dr. Myung’s research interests are in synthesis of nanoengineering materials, thermoelectrics, spintronics, NEMS/MEMS, gas sensor, bio-sensor, environmental remediation and dental biofilm.

Dr. Myung’s top paper concerns using magnetic alignment for making nanowires grow straight, intersect each other at desired angles, and form T junctions on an unpatterned substrate base.
Link to article

Engineering alumni rally at Homecoming

Join fellow alumni, faculty, current students and staff for great food and fun capping off both Homecoming Week at UCR and National Engineers Week. The reunion will take place on Feb. 23 from 3-5 p.m. in the Bourns courtyard. Stay for the Homecoming game and cheer the Highlanders on to victory!

Reservations are required by Wednesday, Feb. 20, but these events are free to all BCOE Alumni and family, including tickets to the game. (There is a maximum of 4 tickets per family; additional tickets can be purchased.) For more information, call Richard Chute at (951) 827-2528.

Clubs offer E-Week activities to all

E-Week (Engineers Week), a national celebration taking place Feb. 19-23, is designed to increase awareness and interest in engineering as a profession. Founded in 1951 by the National Society of Professional Engineers, E-Week also raises public understanding and appreciation of engineers' contributions to society.

UCR’s student chapters of engineering societies are planning fun events for each dayopen to the entire campus. On Tuesday in the Bourns courtyard, members of AIChE (American Institute of Chemical Engineers) will make free ice cream using liquid nitrogen. On Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers) will host a carnival in the Engineering Building II lobby, and from 5:30 to 8 p.m. in rooms 205/206, SWE (Society of Women Engineers) will present a panel of women in engineering careers. On Thursday from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. SHPE (Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers) are staffing activities for young students from local elementary schools in the Pentland Hills conference room, and at the same time members of NSBE (National Society for Black Engineers) are holding a scavenger hunt in the Engineering Building II lobby. On Friday from 2 to 5 p.m., BMES (Biomedical Engineering Society) will create a carnival in the Engineering Building II lobby.

All these BCOE events are open to the entire UCR campus. On Saturday, also Homecoming, the Dean will hold a reception from 3 to 5 p.m., prior to the basketball game, in the Bourns courtyard for alumni, students and staff of the college. See preceding story for more details.

Tam recognized for innovative water curriculum

Dr. Kawai Tam has been recognized for her teaching promoting sustainability, a major focus of the Bourns College of Engineering. A lecturer in Chemical & Environmental Engineering, she was chosen by the Western Municipal Water District (WMWD) as a 2007 Water Educator of the Year award recipient. In the photo, WMWD Vice President Tom Evans is presenting the award to Dr. Tam (center). She was nominated by Monique Navarrette (right), Education Program Coordinator for WMWD.

The award is designed to recognize an educator within communities served by the agencies for his or her commitment and dedication to bring a better understanding of water issues to students, enhance the learning process through creative water curriculum, and cooperatively partner with the local water agency to bring successful curriculum into the classroom.

Dr. Tam’s award was presented at a banquet on Jan. 29 at the District offices in Riverside. She has been invited to attend the Metropolitan Water District Colorado River Aqueduct tour March 7-9. The Western Municipal Water District will cover the cost of a substitute teacher for the days she will be gone.

Dr. Tam received the College’s Outstanding Lecturer award for the academic year 2004-05. She has encouraged her students to enter national contests such as the Environmental Protection Agency’s People, Prosperity and Planet (P3) competition, which resulted in a $10,000 grant for their project on rainwater harvesting. The P3 competition supports student design projects that maintain economic growth while preserving natural resources. The team also won the Metropolitan Water District World Water Forum award of $10,000 for the same project. They used the money to purchase sampling and flow equipment to study rain collected in containers on the College’s roof. Dr. Tam, second from the right, is pictured with team members.

Watch the building materialize

Now you can view progress on the new Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) building without leaving your desk – visit www.engr.ucr.edu/newbuilding/mse/ to access a web camera trained on the site. The new building will be devoted to nanotechnology research, and shared by the Bourns College of Engineering and the College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences.

A formal groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 10, celebrating a new milestone in the university’s growing interdisciplinary excellence. Bourns College Dean Reza Abbaschian and Natural and Agricultural Sciences Interim Dean Donald Cooksey will lead the ceremony. Congressmen Ken Calvert and Jerry Lewis, Acting Chancellor Robert Grey, Distinguished Professors Robert Haddon and Jerome Schultz and Professor Alexander Balandin, materials science and engineering program director, will also speak.

The $56 million project, designed to foster interdisciplinary research among faculty of both colleges, is expected to be completed by 2010. It will provide nearly 77,000 assignable square feet of research and instruction space for the colleges’ joint programs in nanotechnology, materials science and bioengineering.

Taking aim at worst polluting streets

Sure major interstate highways are a major source of air pollution, but they may not all pollute equally.

A team of researchers from the University of California, Riverside and UC, Irvine are looking at how busy highways, or “arterials”, in different land use zones might produce greater pollution danger than others.

Marko Princevac, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and principal investigator on the project from UC Riverside, explained that there is reason to suspect arterials as a major source of risk, because they may trap elevated concentrations of air pollutants in close proximity to residences (such as street canyons created by multi-story condominiums and office buildings).

He and his faculty colleagues from UC Irvine (Marlon Boarnet, Rufus Edwards, Raul Lejano and Jun Wu) bring together expertise in transportation and land use planning and environmental modeling to analyze the environmental impacts of major arterials. The team’s research will provide information on relative risks which may be valuable in environmental planning by resource, land use, and transportation agencies.

Using a fine-scale wind field and dispersion model (Quick Urban and Industrial Complex), the team will simulate the transport of vehicular particulates around five heavily-traveled Southern California arterials chosen to correspond to five land use types. The field-calibrated model will be used to simulate the effects of alternative land development strategies (varying building height and setback requirements, infill patterns and zoning), and alternative transport policies (idling time reduction, stoplight synchronization, truck traffic scheduling and rerouting).

The research is a project of the University of California Transportation Center (UCTC) which is a multi-campus research unit funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) and the California Department of Transportation that works to improve transportation policy and analysis.