05-22-23
The Distinguished Alumni Award (DAA)—Caltech's highest honor for alumni—is presented this year to four alumni who, because of both personal commitment and professional contributions, have made remarkable impacts in a field, on the community, or in society more broadly.
Tags: EE honors distinguished alumni
12-14-22
Chris Umans, professor of computer science and inaugural holder of the Coughran Leadership Chair, says the Coughrans' gift has made a difference already. In addition to bolstering research, funds have provided start-up support for new faculty and partial funding for two postdoctoral scholars. Funds also have helped cover expenses associated with hosting conferences and seminars. [Caltech story]
12-12-22
Caltech’s annual Distinguished Alumni Awards recognize “a particular achievement of noteworthy value, a series of such achievements, or a career of noteworthy accomplishment.” The 2022 luminaries include Sudhir Jain (MS ’80, PhD ’83, Civil Engineering), India’s preeminent earthquake engineer, who helped improve his country’s seismic codes; and Kam-Yin Lau (BS ’78, MS ’78, PhD ’81, Electrical Engineering), an electrical engineer whose work ushered in the era of broadband cable and wireless internet. [Caltech Magazine Story]
Tags: EE honors MCE alumni kam-yin lau sudhir jain distinguished alumni
11-10-22
Marco Bernardi, Professor of Applied Physics, Physics and Materials Science; Jinsoo Park, Postdoctoral Scholar Research Associate in Applied Physics and Materials Science, and graduate student Yao Luo, have developed a new theory and numerical calculations to predict spin decoherence in materials with high accuracy. [Caltech story]
Tags: research highlights alumni Marco Bernardi Jinsoo Park Yao Luo Jin-Jian Zhou
08-17-22
A new control algorithm for wind farms that alters how individual turbines are oriented into the wind promises to boost farms' overall efficiency and energy output by optimizing how they deal with their turbulent wake. "Individual turbines generate choppy air, or a wake, which hurts the performance of every turbine downwind of them," says John O. Dabiri, Centennial Professor of Aeronautics and Mechanical Engineering. "To cope with that, wind farm turbines are traditionally spaced as far apart as possible, which unfortunately takes up a lot of real estate." [Caltech story]
Tags: research highlights GALCIT MCE John Dabiri alumni Michael Howland
08-04-22
Caltech researchers have developed a database containing global data on how humans have impacted the planet. The Human Impacts Database is designed to be accessible to scientists, policymakers, and everyday citizens. "In my view, the root to understanding is numeracy: once you have the numbers, it becomes clear what the problems are, which things are significant, and which things are less so," says Rob Phillips, Fred and Nancy Morris Professor of Biophysics, Biology, and Physics. [Caltech story]
Tags: APhMS research highlights alumni Rob Phillips Griffin Chure Rachel Banks
07-27-22
For the past two decades, Julia R. Greer, Ruben F. and Donna Mettler Professor of Materials Science, Mechanics and Medical Engineering; Fletcher Jones Foundation Director of the Kavli Nanoscience Institute, has been at the forefront of creating new materials whose structures are designed and controlled at the smallest level, giving them unusual and useful properties. [Caltech story]
05-17-22
Harsh Bhundiya has been selected to receive a 2022 Tau Beta Pi Fellowship. Tau Beta Pi Fellowships are awarded on the competitive criteria of high scholarship, campus leadership and service, and promise of future contributions to the engineering profession.
Tags: honors MCE alumni Harsh Bhundiya
03-23-22
Robots from five teams battled one another on the Ramo Auditorium stage on March 10, 2022. The all-day competition was the final exam for the ME72 Engineering Design Laboratory course, which is taught by Michael Mello, Teaching Professor of Mechanical and Civil Engineering. Each year, students in the two-term class are asked to design and build robots that meet particular criteria with the goal of having the machines square off in a design competition at the end of the second term. This was the 37th annual edition of the competition, which—in the years before the pandemic—always drew large crowds of student spectators as well as attention from media outlets. Overall, Mello says he is proud of all of the robots his students built. "I think we could enter some of these bots in an international competition and do pretty well," he says. [Caltech story]
Tags: MCE alumni ME 72 Michael Mello Allison Cheng Sofia Kwok Vy Le Martin Peticco Sydney Richardson Saskia van Nieuwstadt
03-01-22
Roy W. Gould, Simon Ramo Professor of Engineering, Emeritus, passed away on February 19, 2022. He was 94 years old. Gould earned his bachelor's degree from Caltech in 1949, a master's from Stanford University in 1950, and a doctorate from Caltech in 1956. After leaving Stanford, he worked as an engineer on missile guidance and control at JPL, which Caltech manages for NASA, and then at Hughes Aircraft. He joined Caltech's faculty in 1955. Gould started as an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering, became Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering in 1958, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Physics in 1960, and Professor in 1962. He was named Professor of Applied Physics in 1974 and became Ramo Professor of Engineering in 1980. He served as Executive Officer of Applied Physics from 1973–79 and Chair of the Division of Engineering and Applied Science from 1979–85. Gould's research focused on plasma physics and thermonuclear fusion. During his long career, Gould earned numerous awards and recognitions. [Caltech story]
Tags: APhMS EE EAS history alumni Roy Gould
