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Anne Campbell Receives Recognition from Northrop Grumman

12-08-08

Anne Campbell, Director Systems Engineering and Management at Caltech's Industrial Relations Center, has received recognition from Northrop Grumman Corporation for outstanding leadership, energy, and collaboration on providing innovative educational opportunities for the aerospace industry. The award was presented by Frank Flores, Vice President, Engineering and Programs, Northrop Grumman Integrated Systems on November 7, 2008.

Sergio Pellegrino's Paper Wins the IASS Tsuboi Award

12-08-08

The paper "Mapping Two-Way Grids on to Free-Form Surfaces" by Sergio Pellegrino, Professor of Aeronautics and Civil Engineering, and co-authors Pete Winslow and Shrikant Sharma has been selected as the winner of the IASS Tsuboi Award in the category of the most outstanding paper in the Proceedings of the 2007 IASS Symposium. Pellegrino has also received a best paper recognition for "Computation of Partially Inflated Shapes of Stratospheric Balloon Structures" with co-author Xiaowei Deng. This work has has been selected as the best paper by the ASME Aerospace Structures and Materials Technical Committee. The award will be presented at the 50th AIAA SDSM conference.

Tags: honors MCE Sergio Pellegrino

Professor Michael Elowitz Receives PECASE

12-08-08

Michael Elowitz, Assistant Professor of Biology and Applied Physics and Bren Scholar, has received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on scientists and engineers beginning their independent careers. The PECASE awards recognize outstanding scientists and engineers who, early in their careers, show exceptional potential for leadership at the frontiers of knowledge.

Tags: APhMS honors Michael Elowitz

Morteza Gharib and Abbas Nasiraei Moghaddam Show Function of Helical Band in Heart

12-01-08

Using an MRI technique, Morteza Gharib, Hans W. Liepmann Professor of Aeronautics and Professor of Bioengineering, and his colleague Abbas Nasiraei Moghaddam, a Caltech graduate and visitor in Bioengineering, were able to create some of the first dynamic images of normal heart muscle in action at the tissue level. They showed that a muscular band--which wraps around the inner chambers of the heart in a helix--is actually a sort of twisting highway along which each contraction of the heart travels. "We tagged and traced small tissue elements in the heart, and looked at them in space, so we could see how they moved when the heart contracts," Gharib explains. "In this way, we were able to see where the maximum physical contraction occurs in the heart and when--and to show that it follows this intriguing helical loop."

Tags: research highlights GALCIT MedE health Morteza Gharib

 
Caltech Undergraduates Placed Third in iGEM

11-14-08

A team of five Caltech undergraduates placed third in this year's international Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) competition.

EAS Faculty Cited in Discover Magazine's 50 Best Brains in Science Issue

11-14-08

Discover magazine recently published its annual 50 Best Brains in Science issue, and the "20 Under 40" list which highlights "a new generation of innovators changing the way we think about everything from theoretical mathematics to cancer therapy." Four researchers from Caltech (three from EAS) were cited: Michael Elowitz (Assistant Professor of Biology and Applied Physics; Bren Scholar; Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute), Sarkis Mazmanian (Assistant Professor of Biology), Tapio Schneider (Associate Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering), and Changhuei Yang (Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Bioengineering).

Tags: EE Changhuei Yang ESE Michael Elowitz Tapio Schneider

 
Man-made Reef Named in Memory Wheeler North

11-14-08

A man-made reef designed to grow into a self-sustaining 175-acre kelp forest - the biggest environmental project of its kind in the United States - has been named in memory Wheeler North (1922–2002), professor of environmental science at Caltech who pioneered the study of kelp and what makes for a healthy reef. The Wheeler North Kelp Reef is located off the coast near San Clemente. [OC Register Article]

Tags: ESE Wheeler North

 
Gates Frontiers Fund pledges $10 million

11-14-08

The Gates Frontiers Fund has pledged $10 million to support the establishment of the Charles C. Gates Center for Mechanical Engineering within the soon-to-be-renovated Thomas Laboratory. This gift marks the launch of a $20 million fund-raising effort for an endowment in Mechanical Engineering. With this endowment, mechanical engineering at Caltech will step up its efforts in energy innovation, helping the Institute address global energy and climate problems and the country develop energy-market leadership. [Caltech Press Release]

Tags: MCE Caltech infrastructure

Caltech Faculty Honored Among 100 Chemical Engineers of the Modern Era

11-08-08

Four members of the 11-member chemical engineering faculty at Caltech were honored by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) in their list of 100 Chemical Engineers of the Modern Era: Frances Arnold, Mark Davis, Julia Kornfield, and John Seinfeld. [Caltech Press Release]

Tags: honors John Seinfeld Frances Arnold Mark Davis Julia Kornfield

William Johnson Awarded the APS 2009 James C. McGroddy Prize for New Materials

11-08-08

William Johnson, Ruben F. and Donna Mettler Professor of Engineering and Applied Science, and Dr. Akihisa Inoue of the Institute for Materials Research have been awarded the American Physical Society 2009 James C. McGroddy Prize for New Materials "for the development of slow cooling methods for the fabrication of bulk metallic glasses with remarkable mechanical properties and the characterization and application of these materials" The prize will be awarded at the March 2009 APS meeting in Pittsburgh.

Tags: honors research highlights William Johnson