11-21-19
Amanda R. Bouman and Elena-Sorina Lupu, students in Caltech's Center on Autonomous Systems and Technology (CAST) program, receive the 2019 KMPG Innovation Award. The students are recognized for their extraordinary efforts in exploring interdisciplinary research in the field of autonomy.
11-20-19
Chris Roh, Research Engineer, working with Professor Morteza Gharib, discovered a unique way that bees navigate the interface between water and air. When a bee lands on water, the water sticks to its wings, robbing it of the ability to fly. However, that stickiness allows the bee to drag water, creating waves that propel it forward."I was very excited to see this behavior and so I brought the honeybee back to the lab to take a look at it more closely," Roh says. [Caltech release]
11-06-19
Beverley McKeon, Theodore von Karman Professor of Aeronautics, has unlocked some of the secrets behind turbulence, a much-studied but difficult-to-pin-down phenomenon that mixes fluids when they flow past a solid boundary. "We knew that, underlying these very complicated structures, there had to be a very simple pattern. We just didn't know what that pattern was until now," says McKeon. [Caltech story]
09-18-19
Professor Morteza Gharib, has designed a new generation of heart valves that are longer-lasting, cost less to manufacture, and are more biocompatible than options that are currently available to patients. One of the new valves has been implanted into a human for the first time. "This is among my proudest moments. Creating something with the potential to save and improve lives is one of the reasons I became an engineer," Gharib says. [Caltech release]
09-18-19
Wolfgang Knauss, Theodore von Karman Professor of Aeronautics and Applied Mechanics, Emeritus, has received the 2019 Founder’s Award from the International Digital Image Correlation Society (iDICs). It recognizes individuals who have made a pioneering contribution, either through a novel application of image correlation or development of methodologies that have significantly impacted the field. [List of award recipients]
08-09-19
Michael Ortiz, Frank and Ora Lee Marble Professor of Aeronautics and Mechanical Engineering, is the recipient of the 2019 U.S. Association for Computational Mechanics (USACM) John von Neumann Medal "for pioneering and sustained contributions in developing computational methods to elucidate material behavior across length and time scales (atomistic to continuum), development of the quasi-continuum method, and authorship of highly cited articles." This is highest award given by USACM. It honors individuals who have made outstanding, sustained contributions in the field of computational mechanics generally over periods representing substantial portions of their professional careers. [List of award recipients]
Tags: honors GALCIT MCE Michael Ortiz
07-19-19
Michael Ortiz, Frank and Ora Lee Marble Professor of Aeronautics and Mechanical Engineering, has received the highest academic distinction from the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM) in a ceremony chaired by its Rector, Guillermo Cisneros, accompanied by José Manuel Torralba, general director of Universities and Superior Artistic Teachings of the Community of Madrid. Professor Ortiz was recognized as one of the leaders in theoretical and computational solid mechanics. Rector Cisneros stated that the curriculum and life path of Professor Ortiz is "an example of what a true Master - teacher with capital letters - should achieve or at least maintain as a goal. " [elEconomista Coverage]
Tags: honors GALCIT MCE Michael Ortiz
07-16-19
Leonardo da Vinci studied the motion of blood in the human body. He was interested in the heart’s passive, three-cusp aortic valve, which he realized must be operated by the motion of blood. He theorized that vortices curl back to fill the cusps in the flask-shaped constriction at the aorta’s neck. Morteza Gharib, Hans W. Liepmann Professor of Aeronautics and Bioinspired Engineering; Booth-Kresa Leadership Chair, Center for Autonomous Systems and Technologies; Director, Graduate Aerospace Laboratories; Director, Center for Autonomous Systems and Technologies, has used modern imaging techniques to demonstrate the existence of the revolving vortices that Leonardo interpreted as closing the valve. [Nature Article]
06-17-19
David Huynh, a graduate student working with Professor Beverley McKeon, is a recipient of the 2019 Richard B. Chapman Memorial Award. His doctoral research investigates the interaction between a turbulent boundary layer and a compliant surface through experiments that employed a unique dynamic roughness forcing. The Richard B. Chapman Memorial Award is given to an EAS graduate student in hydrodynamics who has distinguished himself or herself in research.
Tags: honors GALCIT Beverley McKeon Richard B. Chapman Memorial Award David Huynh
04-25-19
Where there is water, there may be life, which is why students participating in the 2019 Caltech Space Challenge were tasked with finding a way to probe Saturn's moon Enceladus. In March 2019, 32 graduate and undergraduate students from around the world met at Caltech, divided into two teams, and designed their best proposals to meet this year’s challenge, with a theoretical budget of $1 billion. "It was important to dream big for this project, but equally important to be practical," explained Caltech aerospace graduate student Fabien Royer who co-organized the event with graduate student Simon Toedtli. [Caltech story]
