2018 Watson Fellow
03-23-18
Electrical engineering senior Michelle Wang, working with Professor Ali Hajimiri and Postdoctoral Scholar Alex Pai, has been selected to receive the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. She will spend a year abroad working on a series of projects related to the augmentation of humanity through machines. "Prosthetics for children need to be flexible, durable, and need to be able to grow with the child so that they don't have to be replaced constantly," she says. "But beyond that, we want to find ways to make them proud of their prosthetics. We don't just want to give them mobility but dignity." [Caltech story]
Tags:
EE
honors
Ali Hajimiri
alumni
Michelle Wang
Alex Pai
Inventor of Smart Concrete
03-21-18
EAS alumna Deborah Chung transferred to Caltech from Wellesley College seeking richer opportunities to study math and science. In June 1973, she became one of the first women to earn undergraduate degrees at Caltech. She is the inventor of smart concrete, a material in which short carbon fibers are added to concrete so that stress and deformation can be easily detected even before cracks appear. "A broad-based education, that's what Caltech gave me—basic science and engineering," Chung recalls. "With that under my belt, I was able to learn things on my own. I never took any concrete or cement course in my life, never mixed cement in my life. In fact, in my studies, I was more toward the electrical side. Concrete was something totally out of my realm. But, somehow, I married the electrical side with the concrete, and that led to smart concrete. The broadness of the education laid the foundation so that I could really jump across disciplinary boundaries. Most innovations nowadays are really the marriage of two different things that reside in two different disciplines." [Caltech story]
Tags:
alumni
Deborah Chung
Winding Back the Clock
03-12-18
Electrical Engineering alumnus Osman Kibar (BS ’93) wants to turn back time. His business, Samumed, makes drug therapies that may reboot the body’s capacity to renew damaged or diseased tissue. If these efforts pay off in full, society will see cures for everything from baldness to cancer. “Caltech showed me that there’s no reason to put arbitrary boundaries between different fields, whether it be science or business,” he says. “If you’re trying to solve a problem, you go at it with everything you’ve got—what you’ve learned in every other field.” [Breakthrough story]
Tags:
EE
alumni
Osman Kibar
Building a Legacy in Engineering
01-24-18
Caltech alumnus Cecil “Cece” Drinkward (BS ’50, Civil Engineering) defined himself as a man who skirted life’s easy paths and forged his own, more challenging ones. Drinkward and his wife, Sally Drinkward, have made a $5 million gift to endow a leadership chair for the Department of Mechanical and Civil Engineering (MCE). “One of the things Cece was most proud of in his life was being a graduate of Caltech, because, in his mind, he never could have accomplished what he did without the education he received here,” Sally Drinkward says. “He always felt he needed to give back to Caltech. It’s an honor to have his legacy live on with this gift.” [Breakthrough story] [ENGenious alumni profile]
Tags:
MCE
Jose Andrade
alumni
Cecil Drinkward
Sally Drinkward
Life in Transition
01-05-18
As she steps down as CEO of the Anita Borg Institute, Telle Whitney (PhD ’85) reflects on her career in tech—and the path ahead for the next generation of women. From Caltech to researcher to entrepreneur to advocate for women in technology, this Caltech alumna’s career has thrived on risk-taking and transition—and she’s inspired and assisted hundreds of thousands of women along the way. [Techer profile]
Tags:
EE
CMS
alumni
Telle E. Whitney
TechFest 2017
10-17-17
This year’s CMS Techfest was attended by five hundred members of the Caltech Community and brought together more than thirty companies and nonprofits developing the latest technologies related to the computing and mathematical sciences. Two thirds of the companies attending were from the local area, eight have Caltech alumni co-founders, CEOs, or CTOs. The main goals of the event were to expose students to the latest technologies and a wide range of career options, building and supporting the CMS alumni network, and supporting the local start-up ecosystem. This year’s Techfest involved a demo fair focused on providing startups, companies, students, postdocs, and faculty with a chance for meaningful interactions with each other. The Partners Program company members including as Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Northrop Grumman showed off cutting-edge research, and brand new technologies. Students learned about the breadth of applications for CMS across industries and networked with company representatives.
Tags:
CMS
alumni
Alumnus Tapped for Infiniti Engineering Academy
09-09-17
Mechanical Engineering alumnus Evan Sloan (BS '17) has been chosen to attend the Infiniti Engineering Academy. Sloan will spend six months at Infiniti's European Technical Center and six months with the Renault Sport Formula One Team. "Evan was always excited about race cars," says Professor Guillaume Blanquart and faculty advisor for the Caltech's Formula SAE Electric team. "As a sophomore, he converted a gas-powered go kart into an electric vehicle. Four months later, he was the mechanical lead on a 60-person team in charge of designing a Formula One-style race car from scratch. The team would never have reached the Formula SAE competition without Evan's drive, dedication, and perseverance." [Caltech story]
Tags:
honors
MCE
alumni
Guillaume Blanquart
Evan Sloan
