News & Events

08-05-20

The National Science Foundation (NSF) honors John O. Dabiri, Centennial Professor of Aeronautics and Mechanical Engineering, with the 2020 Alan T. Waterman Award. The Alan T. Waterman Award is given to an outstanding young U.S. scientist or engineer along with a medal and other recognition. "This year's scientific pioneers are innovators who are creatively addressing some of the most challenging scientific questions," said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan. "John Dabiri has looked to the fluid mechanics of sea life for inspiration to build better wind farms that appear to boost efficiency with a much smaller footprint." [NSF story] [Caltech story] 

Tags: honors GALCIT MCE John Dabiri Waterman Award

07-31-20

Mechanical engineering student Ari Rosner, has developed an interactive Excel worksheet powered by advanced algorithms to help schools with social distancing in classrooms. Schools can plug a room’s dimensions and social distancing parameters into the worksheet, and the most efficient configuration of students for a designated classroom would automatically be mapped out. Rosner’s model situates students in rows or in a hexagonal pattern, depending on a room’s shape, in order to safely maximize space. "I cried when I saw how this worked," said Rachael Burton, the development director at a small private school in Brooklyn, New York. "I knew Ari’s mathematical chart could save our lives." [Forbes story]

Tags: research highlights MCE Ari Rosner

07-16-20

A new study shows that superconductivity in twisted bilayer graphene can exist away from the magic angle when coupled to a two-dimensional semiconductor. "Our observations were quite unexpected. It implies that we only scratched the surface of graphene twistronics. These are exciting times for the field," says Stevan Nadj-Perge, Assistant Professor of Applied Physics and Materials Science. [Caltech story]

Tags: APhMS research highlights Stevan Nadj-Perge

07-14-20

Soon-Jo Chung, Bren Professor of Aerospace, Yisong Yue, Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, postdoctoral scholar Wolfgang Hönig, and graduate students Benjamin Rivière and Guanya Shi, have designed a new data-driven method to control the movement of multiple robots through cluttered, unmapped spaces, so they do not run into one another. "Our work shows some promising results to overcome the safety, robustness, and scalability issues of conventional black-box artificial intelligence (AI) approaches for swarm motion planning with GLAS and close-proximity control for multiple drones using Neural-Swarm," says Chung. [Caltech story]

Tags: research highlights GALCIT CMS Yisong Yue Soon-Jo Chung postdocs Benjamin Rivière Guanya Shi Wolfgang Hönig

07-03-20

Computation and neural systems student Matthew S. Bauer is a recipient of the 2020 Henry Ford II Scholar Award. The Henry Ford II Scholar Award is funded under an endowment provided by the Ford Motor Company Fund. The award is made annually to engineering students with the best academic record at the end of the third year of undergraduate study.

Tags: honors Henry Ford II Scholar Award Matthew Bauer

06-30-20

Computer science student Alexander Popov, advised by Professor Yaser Abu-Mostafa, is a recipient of the 2020 Henry Ford II Scholar Award. Some of the most interesting classes that Alexander has taken at Caltech have been team-based interdisciplinary project classes. These classes have allowed him to gain experience working in teams with varying specialties, while designing and implementing interesting projects (for example, a robot arm designed to recognize users’ hand gestures and assist them in executing complicated drawing-related tasks, such as exactly copying an area of a whiteboard). This summer he will be working as a software engineer at Facebook. After graduation, he aims to work at a company where he is able to further develop his knowledge of machine learning and the application thereof. The Henry Ford II Scholar Award is funded under an endowment provided by the Ford Motor Company Fund. The award is made annually to engineering students with the best academic record at the end of the third year of undergraduate study.

Tags: honors CMS Henry Ford II Scholar Award Yaser Abu-Mostafa Alexander Popov

06-26-20

Katie Bouman, Assistant Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences and Electrical Engineering; Rosenberg Scholar, is a recipient of a 2020 Okawa Foundation Research Grant for her work on "AI Meets Real-World Science: Optimal Sensing for Next-Generation Imaging." This is a prize awarded to faculty involved in the fields of computer science, information systems and/or telecommunications, and other scientific fields inspired by these approaches. [Past Recipients]

Tags: EE honors CMS Katie Bouman

06-26-20

Computer science mathematics student Joo Eun (June) Kim, advised by Professor Adam Wierman, is a recipient of the 2020 Henry Ford II Scholar Award. June is largely interested in software engineering and game programming. She has previously worked at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory as part of the Mars 2020 Lander Vision System team, and at Blizzard Entertainment as a full-stack engineer intern. This summer she will be working at Riot Games as a game engineer intern and is hoping to continue her professional career in the gaming industry. The Henry Ford II Scholar Award is funded under an endowment provided by the Ford Motor Company Fund. The award is made annually to engineering students with the best academic record at the end of the third year of undergraduate study.

Tags: honors CMS Henry Ford II Scholar Award Adam Wierman Joo Eun Kim

06-24-20

The student winners of the 2020 Demetriades - Tsafka - Kokkalis Prizes were announced at the end of this academic year. Manuel Bedrossian has received the prize in Biotechnology. His research is in the development of novel optical imaging devices to investigate and characterize microbial populations in extreme environments around the world. Vinayak Narasimhan has received the prize in Biotechnology. His research is in the utilization of nanostructures inspired from nature in practical biomedical applications. Tyler Ross has received the prize in Nanotechnology. His research is in guiding biomolecular filaments and motors to form structures and flow fields with patterned light. Adam Neumann has received the prize in Nanotechnology. His research involves incorporating nanoscale sensors into a mass spectrometer and using them to weigh individual molecules and perform rudimentary imaging of them. Joaquin Garcia Suarez has received the prize in Seismo-Engineering, Prediction, and Protection. His research is in fundamental research in Continuum Mechanics to better understand the behavior of civil structures during earthquakes.

Tags: honors MedE MCE Demetriades - Tsafka - Kokkalis Prizes Vinayak Narasimhan Joaquin Garcia Suarez Adam Neumann Tyler Ross Manuel Bedrossian

06-22-20

Applied and computational mathematics student Ishani A. Karmarkar is a recipient of the 2020 Henry Ford II Scholar Award. Ishani is interested in data science and numerical algorithms, as well as applications to physical problems. This summer, she will be working on a SURF project on graph-based semi-supervised learning algorithms with Dr. Bamdad Hosseini and Professor Andrew Stuart. In the past, she has also worked on a fluid modelling project with Professor Sandra Troian and completed a summer internship at Facebook. The Henry Ford II Scholar Award is funded under an endowment provided by the Ford Motor Company Fund. The award is made annually to engineering students with the best academic record at the end of the third year of undergraduate study.

Tags: honors CMS Henry Ford II Scholar Award Sandra Troian Andrew Stuart Ishani Karmarkar