Farewell, Dean Murthy! Distinguished Professor Jayathi Murthy officially stepped down as the Ronald and Valerie Sugar Dean of the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science on July 31 to become the president of Oregon State University beginning Sept. 9. On June 7, UCLA Interim Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Michael Levine announced the appointment of then-Associate Dean for Research and Facility Resources
Bruce Dunn as the interim dean, effective Aug. 1, and the school will soon begin a nationwide search for its next permanent dean. Greg Pottie assumed Dunn’s previous role as associate dean for research and facility resources.
“I want to say how privileged and honored I feel to have served as dean of our school these last six and half years,” said Murthy, who will remain an adjunct professor in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department. “We have a true jewel of a school here — phenomenal faculty, extraordinary students and a wonderful and dedicated staff. ... We’ve done a great deal of hard work together to take advantage of our unique position, and I am confident that our school will continue its extraordinary trajectory in the years to come.”
UCLA-Led Study Could be Step toward Cheaper Hydrogen-Based Energy A study led by Yu Huang, chair and a professor in the Materials Science and Engineering Department, could help accelerate the use of hydrogen as an environmentally friendly source of energy in transportation and other applications.
Encrypted, One-Touch, Human-Machine Interface Technology Unveils User Physiology Sam Emaminejad, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, led researchers at UCLA and Stanford University to develop a secure, one-touch technology to measure biometrics such as blood alcohol and drug levels. This can help prevent driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol that can impair a driver’s ability to operate a vehicle safely.
UCLA SwabSeq Funded by BARDA to Develop “Agnostic” Virus Test Eleazar Eskin, chair of the Department of Computational Medicine, which is affiliated with both the David Geffen School of Medicine and the Samueli School of Engineering at UCLA, and his team will collaborate with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority’s Division of Research, Innovation and Ventures to advance the ability to quickly respond to public health emergencies with a new diagnostic capability that covers all existing and new respiratory RNA viruses in a single test.
UCLA’s State-of-the-Art, High-Tech NanoLab is Open to All Electrical and computer engineering professor Subramanian “Subu” Iyer and Chang-Jin “CJ” Kim of mechanical and aerospace engineering along with other UCLA Engineering faculty members have worked in the UCLA Nanofabrication Laboratory, or NanoLab for short, which combines resources from the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering and the California NanoSystems Institute.
Bringing a Physicist’s Mindset to the Biosciences In his lab, Gerard Wong, a professor of bioengineering at UCLA, explores the molecular mechanisms behind basic processes of life and their influence on human health. His original training, however, was in physics — working with solids and liquids at the smallest scales.
UCLA Engineer Sam Taira Receives Department of Defense’s Most Prestigious Research Grant Kunihiko “Sam” Taira, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering who specializes in computational fluid dynamics, has received a 2022 Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship — the most prestigious research grant offered by the largest U.S. government agency that includes up to $3 million over a five-year period.
UCLA Engineering Professors Receive Multiple DOE and National Alliance for Water Innovation Grants Yoram Cohen, a distinguished professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering; Eric Hoek, a professor of civil and environmental engineering; and David Jassby, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, have each received major funding from the Department of Energy and NAWI to research energy-efficient and cost-competitive water treatment technologies.
UCLA Engineering Professor CJ Kim Launches New Journal ‘Droplet’ Chang-Jin “CJ” Kim, the Volgenau Chair in Engineering and a distinguished professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and bioengineering, has joined the founding editorial team as an editor-in-chief of Droplet, the first publication to focus specifically on droplets and bubbles as they relate to a wide range of disciplines.
UCLA and IIT Kharagpur Join Forces on Research Collaborations Then-UCLA Engineering Dean Jayathi Murthy and Dean of Outreach Jayanta Mukhopadhyay of the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur signed a memorandum of understanding during a ceremony held in July at UCLA. Engineering professors Shaily Mahendra and Sudhakar Pamarti will serve as coordinators at UCLA for the new alliance. Also in attendance were several UCLA faculty who are alumni of IIT campuses, IIT Kharagpur director Virendra Tewari and the president of the IIT Alumni Association of Southern California, Lakshman Rao.
The Microchip Era Is Giving Way to the Megachip Age Subramanian Iyer, a UCLA professor of electrical and computer engineering as well as materials science and engineering, was featured in this piece on the evolution of microchips.
Engineering Catastrophes Jonathan Stewart, a civil and environmental engineering professor at UCLA, examines the 1963 collapse of the Baldwin Hills Dam in this television episode. (Stewart is introduced at 23:56. A cable provider subscription is required to view.)
The Changing Story of Human Evolution Sriram Sankararaman, a UCLA associate professor of computer science, human genetics, and computational medicine, was interviewed about "ghost populations" of extinct human relatives found in the DNA of people who live in West Africa today. (Sankararaman is introduced at 31:30.)
The World Needs to Start Planning for the Fire Age B. John Garrick Institute for the Risk Sciences at UCLA Director Ali Mosleh, who is also a professor of materials science and engineering as well as mechanical and aerospace engineering, was featured in this piece addressing the importance of developing standards for wildfire evacuations.
Video Friday: ARTEMIS UCLA mechanical and aerospace engineering professor Dennis Hong shared a sneak peek of his next-generation humanoid robot platform ARTEMIS developed in his lab, RoMeLa.
STUDENTS
Spotify Pie: UCLA Computer Science Student’s Viral App Success Second-year computer science student Darren Huang created an app that he never thought would soon take social media by storm. The “Bake Your Monthly Genre Pie” web-based app shows users their favorite music genres and artists in a colorful pie chart.
ALUMNI
Bridging the Gap: How Julie Allen ’92 Brought LA’s Sixth Street Viaduct to Life Julie Allen, who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in civil and environmental engineering in 1992, was the project manager for the Sixth Street Viaduct for seven years, working since 2015 as a principal civil engineer at the Los Angeles Department of Public Works Bureau of Engineering to make the $588 million bridge a reality.
