UCLA Samueli School of Engineering Newsletter February 2021
February 2021
#EngineerChange
February 2021
In recognition and celebration of Black History Month
, UCLA Samueli's Center for Excellence in Engineering and
Diversity (CEED) program will highlight throughout the month of February
the impact and contributions of African American visionaries who have
made significant contributions to UCLA, STEM and social justice. Please
visit CEED's website to learn more.
UCLA Samueli Hosted ASCE Lifelines 2021 Conference Commemorating the
50th anniversary of the 1971 San Fernando Earthquake, UCLA Samueli
hosted a virtual webinar featuring Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti,
engineers from the City of Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and
others on the importance of lifeline resilience.Los Angeles Times: 50 Years Ago, the Sylmar Earthquake Shook L.A. UCLA civil and
environmental engineering Prof. Jonathan Stewart highlighted in this
front-page Times article lessons learned from the 6.6-magnitude San
Fernando earthquake.
Global Experience Prof. Stewart has also been involved in another Webinar and report
on the Oct 30, 2020 M7 Samos Island (Aegean Sea) earthquake and in the
Geotechnical Extreme Events Reconnaissance Association’s report on the Aug 4, 2020 Port of Beirut blast.
IEEE Computer Society: Women in STEM with Jayathi Murthy The IEEE Computer
Society recently interviewed Jayathi Murthy, the Ronald and Valerie
Sugar Dean at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, as part of its
Women in STEM series. Murthy is the first female dean in the school’s
75-year history.
UCLA Among Major Universities to Receive Toyota Research Grant The Toyota Research
Institute announced funding support for UCLA and other universities on
artificial intelligence research, including a grant for computer science
professor Judea Pearl's research into data interpretation.
Three UCLA Samueli Faculty Named 2021 Sloan Fellows Kai-Wei Chang and Ravi Netravali, both assistant professors of computer science, as well as Harold Pimentel, an assistant professor of computational medicine — a department affiliated with both UCLA Samueli and the David Geffen School of Medicine — have each received a two-year, $75,000 Sloan Research Fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to support their research.
Chemical Engineer Receives Early Career Grant for CO2 Capture Carlos Morales-Guio,
an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, has
received a 2020 Scialog Collaborative Innovation Award to support
collaborative research in capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
and transforming it into solid carbon.
Electrical Engineering Professor Delivers Photonics Conference Keynote Aydogan Ozcan,
UCLA's Volgenau Professor for Engineering Innovation, delivered the
keynote address at the Inaugural Photonics Spectra Conference, covering
advances in optical microscopy for biomedical applications.
IDEA Hacks 2021 UCLA IEEE and Theta Tau presented the seventh annual Idea Hacks hardware hackathon virtually in January on home applications.
ALUMNI NEWS
In Memoriam: Lawrence E. Tannas Jr., 84, Innovator in Electronic Displays Lawrence E. Tannas
Jr. ’59, MS ’61, a visionary engineer who pushed the evolution of the
electronic displays industry from its early days in avionics to a global
presence, and a longtime supporter of the UCLA Samueli School of
Engineering, died Feb. 5 due to illness. He was 84.
Southern California Newspaper Pays Tribute to UCLA Samueli Alumnus The Downey Patriot
weekly newspaper features 2002 UCLA Samueli civil engineering graduate
Jose Rodriguez, who works in construction management with Turner
Construction and was recently elected to the Downey Unified School
District Board of Education.
Civil Engineering Alumnus Named University of La Verne Provost The University of La
Verne announced that Kerop Janoyan, will be its next provost and vice
president for academic affairs. Janoyan, who is a professor and dean of
the Graduate School at Clarkson University in New York, received his
B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. from UCLA in civil engineering.