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2008

Seeing a burgeoning new research field at the interface of biology and engineering, the Benjamin M. Rosen Family Foundation of New York has donated $18 million to the California Institute of Technology to establish the Donna and Benjamin M. Rosen Bioengineering Center. The Rosen Center will advance both basic scientific exploration and development of engineering analysis and synthetic approaches. Innovations in these areas are resulting in rugged and inexpensive diagnostic devices, in new insights into the functioning of the heart, and in the engineering of molecular devices capable of recognizing and responding to disease processes in individual cells. Read more... 04-03-08

The topping off of the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Center for Information Science and Technology occurred on April 24. The last girder, with the flag and a tree, was hoisted and placed. The building, designed by the architectural firm Frederick Fisher and Partners in Los Angeles, will serve as home to participants in the IST initiative, a program of interdisciplinary research and instruction that addresses the growth and impact of information as it relates to all science and engineering practices. The types of questions that IST researchers seek to answer are: What are the theoretical foundations of information? What are the fundamental physical limits to information? How does nature compute and communicate information? How does information shape social systems? The Annenberg Foundation donated $25 million toward the construction of the approximately 50,000-square-foot building. Caltech Trustee, Stephen D. Bechtel, Jr., donated $1 million in support of the final stages of construction. 04-24-08

Pasadena's largest-ever solar-energy facility will be installed on the Caltech campus. Read more... 04-18-08

David Boyd, Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering, graduate student James Adleman, Demitri Psaltis, Thomas G. Myers Professor of Electrical Engineering, and David Goodwin, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Physics, have crafted the world's tiniest still to concentrate scant amounts of micromolecules for easier detection. This device may help to overcome difficulties in tracking extremely low-abundance molecular biomarkers, which can indicate disease. Read more... 04-09-08

Nanotechnology: The Power of Small will be broadcast on KCETin Los Angeles on consecutive Mondays in April, beginning April 7, at 8pm. Michael Roukes, Professor of Physics, Applied Physics, and Bioengineering, is a contributor tothe second episode which explores nanotechnology’s potential contributions to health and human enhancement. 03-31-08

View the latest Watson Lecture on line: In a talk entitled The Next-Generation Neural Implant: Let's Start with Retinal Implants, Professor Yu-Chong Tai discusses the technology of retinal implants and recent progress in their development. 03-27-08

After 16 days in space and 250 orbits of Earth, space shuttle Endeavour touched down at 8:39 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, March 26, at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. According to NASA managers, the crew members, including Caltech alumnus Robert Behnken (MS '93, PhD '97), "are in excellent shape after a safe and successful landing". 03-27-08

Gordon E. Moore (PhD '54) and Carver Mead (BS '56, MS '57, PhD '60), Gordon and Betty Moore Professor of Engineering and Applied Science, Emeritus, chat about the electronics revolution (posted on You Tube in late 2007, conversation begins about 19 minutes into the clip). 03-27-08

Using a flight simulator, Michael Dickinson, the Zarem Professor of Bioengineering, and postdoctoral students Gaby Maimon and Andrew Straw, have come closer to understanding what guides the decision making of the common fruit fly as it zips through space. Their experiments were conducted on both free-flying flies and on flies tethered within a virtual-reality flight simulator. In the flight simulator, flies could steer toward or away from images displayed on an electronic panorama. "We can present the fly with different scenes and the fly reacts to them, like a 12-year-old boy playing a video game," says Dickinson. Read more... 03-25-08

Sam Wang (BS ’86, Physics), currently a professor at Princeton's Neuroscience Institute, a has written a kind of user’s manual for the brain called Welcome to Your Brain: Why You Lose Your Car Keys But Never Forget How to Drive and Other Puzzles of Everyday Life. Read more... 03-21-08

Two EAS faculty have won ONR Young Investigator Awards: John Dabiri, Assistant Professor of Aeronautics and Bioengineering, and Joel Tropp, Assistant Professor of Appliedand Computational Mathematics. The objectives of the Young Investigator Program are to attract to naval research outstanding new faculty members, to support their research, and to encourage their teaching and research careers. Tropp's award is for his research into "Compressive Signal Processing - Theory and Algorithms"; and Dabiri's award is for work in "Optimal Propulsion Methodologies for Hybrid Screw-based, Bio-inspired Systems". ONR announced 27 new awards for 2008. 03-17-08

Nathalie Vriend has been selected to receive an Outstanding Student Paper Award for her presentation at the 2007 Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. Her presentation, A mystery unraveled: Booming sand dunes was recognized as among the best of a strong group of student presenters. 03-17-08

Mechanical Engineering student Huaising (Cindy) Ko was named one of only 50 college seniors in the nation to receive a $25,000 Thomas J. Watson Fellowship for a year of "purposeful exploration." Originally Ko chose to major in the biological sciences due to her interest in the field of medicine. However, at Caltech she discovered that the field of mechanical engineering fascinated her and allowed her to do interdisciplinary work related to her interests in medicine. As a Watson Fellow, Ko will be able to embark on another aspect of medicine that interests her: the tension between modern and traditional medicine. Read more... 03-17-08

Christopher Somerville, one of the world's leading authorities on converting plant cellulose to energy, will speak on March 18 at 8 p.m. in Beckman Auditorium. He will discuss the technical issues involved with the U.S. Secretary of Energy's call to replace 30 percent of the liquid fuels used in the U.S. with cellulosic biofuels by 2030. The event is free and open to the public. 03-14-08

The NSF has announced three NSF CAREER Awards to Caltech faculty so far this year; they have been awarded to: Azita Emami, Assistant Professor of Electrial Engineering, Julia Greer, Assistant Professor of Materials Science, and Beverley McKeon, Assistant Professor of Aeronautics. Emami's award is for her research on "Hybrid Data Communication in Advanced Integrated Systems"; Greer's awared is for "Experimental Investigation of Plasticity at Nano-scale via in-situ Mechanical Deformation"; and McKeon's award is for her research on "Morphing Surfaces for Flow Control". The CAREER program offers NSF's most prestigious awards for junior faculty members. The level and 5-year duration of the awards are designed to enable awardees to develop careers as outstanding teacher-scholars. The minimum CAREER award is $400,000. 03-12-08

The famed ME 72 Contest was held on Tuesday, March 11. Teams of undergraduates competed to launch 50-gram payloads over a rope and then as far as possible across Caltech's North Athletic Field... and the winning team is: Team Savage Rabbit, composed of Jimmy Paulos and Matthew Feldman. Coming in second were Tim Curran and Kevin Watts. Congrats to all the participants! 03-11-08

On March 11, two Caltech mechanical-engineering alumni, Garrett Reisman (MS '92, PhD '97) and Robert Behnken (MS '93, PhD '97) lifted off on the Endeavor Space Shuttle as part of a seven-man team enroute to the International Space Station. The mission was directed from Houston by a third alumnus, Philip Engelauf (BS '78). 03-11-08

For the second year in a row, Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine has ranked Caltech as the best value among private universities in the United States. Go to Kiplinger online. 03-11-08

A National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Center of Excellence will be established at Caltech, under the direction of Michael Ortiz, Dotty and Dick Hayman Professor of Aeronautics and Mechanical Engineering. This center, one of five new centers to be established, will develop not only the science and engineering models and software for large-scale simulations, but also methods associated with the emerging disciplines of verification and validation and uncertainty quantification. The goal of these emerging disciplines is to enable scientists to make precise statements about the degree of confidence they have in their simulation-based predictions. The center will be funded for $17 million over a five-year period 03-10-08

Christopher Brennen, the Richard L. and Dorothy M. Hayman Professor of Mechanical Engineering, delivered the plenary opening lecture at the Twelfth International Symposium on Transport Phenomena and Dynamics of Rotating Machinery in February. After, he was awarded the organization's ISROMAC Award in recognition of "his outstanding research contributions in the area of cavitation and hydrodynamics in rotating machinery". 03.04.08

550 million years of jet-setting (and jet paddling): modes of jellyfish propulsion are finally beingunderstood and used for engineering inspiration. Read the recent cover story in Science News that highlights
the work of Professor John Dabiri. 02-23-08

Caltech Trustee, Stephen D. Bechtel, Jr., has awarded $1 million to Caltech in support of the final stages of construction of the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Center for Information Science and Technology. The Annenberg Foundation donated $25 million toward the construction of the building which will serve as home to participants of the IST initiative. Remarks Bechtel, "The collaborative opportunities provided by the Information Science and Technology initiative will support Caltech's effort to find solutions for many of our country's challenges," adds Bechtel. "I'm honored to be a partner in this effort." Read more... 02.20.08

Can we transform the industrialized world from one powered by fossil fuels to one that is powered by sunlight?
Watch Sossina Haile: Fuel to Electricity via Solid Electrolyte Fuel Cells 03-10-08

Thank You Sputnik: Fifty Years of Space Technology 03-10-08

Caltech is recognizing five alumni with its highest honor, the Distinguished Alumni Award. This year, the recipients are Ray Feeney (BS '75, engineering), Alexis C. Livanos (BS '70, engineering, MS '73, engineering science, PhD '75, engineering science), William H. Press (MS '71, physics, PhD '73, physics), Arthur D. Riggs (PhD '66, biochemistry), and Warren G. Schlinger (BS '44, applied chemistry, MS '46, chemical engineering, PhD '49, chemical engineering). For details on their accomplishements, please click here. 02.14.08

Christof Koch, the Troendle Professor of Cognitive and Behavioral Biology and Professor of omputation and Neural Systems, and his colleagues, have found that changes in pupil diameter correspondto the moment when a simple decision is made. The pupil, which is about 2 mm wide in bright light, dilated by as much as 1 mm at that moment--a change that, in theory, could be noticeable to a casual observer. Read more... 02-12-08

Changhuei Yang, Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Bioengineering, and colleagues, have invented a new technique, turbidity suppression by optical phase conjugation (TSOPC), that counteracts the scattering oflight and removes the distortion it creates in images, potentially allowing for light energy to be targeted to devices inside a human body. Read more... 01.28.08

Electrical Engineering undergraduate student, Matthew Lew, has received the a Newport and Spectra-Physics Research Excellence Travel Award at the SPIE Photonics West Conference, held January 23, 2008 in San Jose. He won the award for his work on "Two-dimensional differential interference contrast microscopy based on four-hole variation of Young's interference" conducted in Changhuei Yang's Biophotonics Laboratory. This award is typically given to graduate students for outstanding research, Matthew Lew stands out in this year's batch of recipients as he is the only undergraduate to receive the prize. 01.23.08

The FCC's auction of the 700MHz spectrum, with reserve prices set at $10 billion, was designed by Caltech economics professor Jacob Goeree and economics professor Charles Holt from the University of Virginia. The system was tested and refined through a series of laboratory experiments in which more than 200 Caltech undergraduates participated over the course of two years. Currently, a few companies dominate the U.S. wireless market. This auction is the last chance for new entrants to create a national footprint. The 700 MHz frequency is particularly appealing for wireless - the signal can penetrate walls, and each tower broadcasting in this range can cover at least four times as many square miles as conventional cell-phone towers. Read more... 01.10.08

Silicon nanowires are laying the foundation for a new type of cheap yet energy-efficient microscopic refrigeration, with no moving parts. Read more... 01.10.08

Nanosystems Biology Cancer Center (NSBCC) underway as joint collaboration between Caltech, UCLA, and Crump Institute. Read more... 01.07.08

Steven Low, Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, has been elected a Fellow of the IEEE for his contributions in internet congestion control.

Kerry Vahala, Ted and Ginger Jenkins Professor of Information Science and Technology and Professor of Applied Physics, has been awarded the Humboldt Research Award in recognition of lifetime achievements in research.

Joseph E. Shepherd has been named the C. L. "Kelly" Johnson Professor of Aeronautics and Professor of Mechanical Engineering. Shepherd is internationally recognized for his chosen specialities of combustion, fuel properties, and fluid dynamics relevant to explosion initiation and propagation. Congratulations! Learn more... 01.09.08

Michael Ortiz, Dotty and Dick Hayman Professor of Aeronautics and Mechanical Engineering, has won the first Rodney Hill Prize in Solid Mechanics! Read more... 01.03.08

Professor Sossina Haile, creator of the first solid-acid fuel cell, is profiled in Newsweek. Soild-acid fuel cells operation at much lower temperatures than conventional fuel cells. Early this year, the start-up company Superprotonic—founded by two of her former grad students—will ship the first commercial prototypes to energy-systems makers. Read more... 01.02.08

The third edition of the book, Transmission Electron Miscroscopy and Diffractometry of Materials, by Professor Brent Fultz and James M. Howe has been published by Springer. 01.02.08

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This page last updated: May 13, 2008