engineering progressengineering.ucdavis.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/wi16... · 2019-06-04 ·...

ENGINEERINGWINTER 2016

progress

Welcome Jennifer Sinclair CurtisDean, UC Davis College of Engineering

http://engineering.ucdavis.edu/

2 UC DAV I S C O L L E G E O F E N G I N E E R I N G

UC Davis College of Engineering

2015 Distinguished Engineering Alumni Medal (DEAM) Recipients

BUSINESSn Scott Maxwell (B.S. ’84, MS ’86, mechanical engineering) Senior Managing Director, OpenView Venture Partners

n Babak Taheri (Ph.D. ’94, electrical engineering) Advisory Board, Novasentis Inc.

n Brian Underwood (M.S. ’91, materials science engineering) Co-founder, California Gold Almonds

EDUCATIONn Richard Corsi (M.S. ’85, Ph.D. ’89, civil engineering) Chair, Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental

Engineering, University of Texas at Austin (UT)

PUBLIC SERVICEn Carolyn Pura (B.S. ’77, M.S. ’79, mechanical engineering) Former Engineering Manager, Sandia National Laboratories

For more information, contact Oliver Ramsey at [email protected] or 530-752-7412.

OUTSTANDING FACULTY TEACHING AWARD n Matt Bishop

Department of Computer Science

OUTSTANDING SENIOR FACULTY AWARDn Dan Gusfield Department of Computer Science

OUTSTANDING MID-CAREER FACULTY AWARD

n Laura Marcu Department of Biomedical Engineering

OUTSTANDING JUNIOR FACULTY AWARDn Jane Gu Department of Electrical and Computer

Engineering

Saturday, February 20, 2016 • 5 p.m. • Exploratorium, San FranciscoRegister online at: http://conferences.ucdavis.edu/engineering

Plan now to attend the UC Davis College of Engineering’s annual gala awards dinner in San Francisco. Each year the college recognizes several of its notable graduates with the Distinguished Engineering Alumni Medal (DEAM), and also recognizes the achievements of the college’s outstanding faculty.

AWARDS DINNER


UC Davis Engineering Progress • Winter 2016

Engineering Progress is published twice a year by the College of Engineering at UC Davis.

Jennifer CurtisDean, College of Engineering

Jessie CatacutanExecutive Assistant Dean for Administration and Finance

Jeannie DarbyAssociate Dean for Undergraduate Studies

Jim SchaafAssistant Dean of Undergraduate Programs and Advising

Jean VanderGheynstAssociate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies

Felix WuAssociate Dean, Academic Personnel and Planning

DEPARTMENT CHAIRS

Bryan JenkinsBiological and Agricultural Engineering

Jinyi QiBiomedical Engineering

Roland Faller, Co-ChairSubash Risbud, Co-ChairChemical Engineering and Materials Science

Amit KanvindeCivil and Environmental Engineering

Nina AmentaComputer Science

Kent WilkenElectrical and Computer Engineering

C.P. van DamMechanical and Aerospace Engineering

ENGINEERING PROGRESS

Oliver RamseyAssistant Dean, Development and External Relations

Paul DornDirector, Marketing & Communications

Derrick BangWriter/Editor

Sean Michael Ayres, Scott Chernis, Karin Higgins, Katie Lin, Watson Lu, Brian Nguyen, Kevin Tong, Michelle Tran, Gregory UrquiagaPhotographers

Academic Technology ServicesDesign

College of EngineeringUniversity of California, Davis1 Shields Ave, Kemper Hall 1042Davis, CA 95616

http://engineering.ucdavis.edu

6 UC Davis Centrifuge

8 COVER: Welcome Dean Jennifer Sinclair Curtis

12 A Safe and Sturdy Infrastructure

14 Breakthrough PET Scanner

15 Helping Growers Optimize Irrigation

16 Nanoporous Gold Sponge Makes Pathogen Detector

17 Faculty & College News

31 Innovators Exhibit & Reception

CONTENTS

6

31

8

1412


IN CALIFORNIA, the predicted demand for professionals in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields will grow nearly 20 percent by 2018. Yet too few students are choosing STEM fields.

UC Davis alumni Nancy (’74, Cred ’75) and Tom Patten (Civil Engineering ’74, MS ’76) believe enthusiastic and well-prepared teachers are the key to unlocking the state’s potential for innovation and prosperity.

To help train the next generation of STEM teachers, the Pattens have pledged $100,000 to establish a new matching fund for the Next Generation STEM Teaching Award. The fund will support scholarships for UC Davis teaching credential students who have the interest, passion, and aptitude to teach STEM-related subjects in K-12 public schools.

By preparing educators to inspire the next generation of students to pursue STEM majors and careers, UC Davis strengthens California’s and the nation’s ability to tap the true potential of its future innovators.

MAKE YOUR GIFT TODAYEvery gift is matched dollar for dollar, doubling your impact on a future teacher. For more information, contact Oliver Ramsey at [email protected] or 530-752-7412.

Alumni Establish Matching Fund for

K-12 STEM TeachersTHE FUND WILL SUPPORT

SCHOLARSHIPS FOR

UC DAVIS TEACHING

CREDENTIAL STUDENTS

WHO HAVE THE INTEREST,

PASSION, AND APTITUDE

TO TEACH STEM-RELATED

SUBJECTS...


NANCY AND TOM PATTEN

E N G I N E E R I N G P R O G R E S S / Summer 20 15 5E N G I N E E R I N G P R O G R E S S / W in te r 20 1 6 5

UC DAVIS STUDENTS were pleasantly surprised, when returning to the Engineering Fabrication Lab (EFL) for the fall quarter. This popular “engineering workshop,” located in 1220 Bainer Hall, was upgraded with all sorts of cool new equipment during the summer.

The lab has been augmented with three DMG Mori machining centers; an OMAX 5-axis waterjet; a Trotec Speedy 400 laser engraver and cutter, for plastic and wood; a ShopBot Buddy with 12-inch Z-axis; three Miller MIG/TIG welders and two precision welding layout tables; upgraded fume extraction for the welding area; four Bridgeport knee mills; three Harrison lathes; two Ultimaker Extended 3D printers; a PCB prototyping area with mill, semi-auto pick-and-place, and reflow oven; a Baileigh powered tubing bender and notcher; 10 CAD/CAM workstations; and four electronics workstations with a full complement of pro-grade soldering and rework tools. The new equipment was acquired thanks to a a generous educational discount from DMG Mori, and financial support from the College of Engineering.

The equipment upgrades are the first visible step in an ambitious, multi-phase renovation, expansion and reconfiguration of Bainer Hall’s north wing, ultimately leading to the creation of a new Engineering Student Design Center (ESDC).

Nuts and Bolts Come Together in the College of Engineering’s Fabrication Lab

College leadership evaluated the future needs of engineering students to develop a list of desired equipment. “We knew what’s currently available in industry, and we knew some of the trends,” explains Mike Akahori, manager of the EFL. “We asked students and grad students what they needed or wanted; we also visited other universities, to see what they were buying and using.”

The EFL currently runs eight labs at a time: four mechanical and four biomedical. “We also support a series of small

ancillary labs for various departments,” Akahori notes, “like our engine lab, where students disassemble a gasoline engine, and then put it back together so that it runs again. We also have short-course labs for civil engineers and chemical engineers.”

“The best part, as we’re able to accommodate increased demand for hands-on opportunities is the improved collaborative atmosphere. Students from different majors will be able to work together on a single project. It’ll be a great think tank.”

Nurturing that innovative spirit is what makes Akahori’s “play space” so important.

“Students get into engineering to embrace the creative part of their career path,” he smiles, “and this is where they can get their first taste of such experience. A lot of today’s students are dreamers, and the EFL is a vehicle for achieving those dreams.”

A SHOP FOR DREAMERS


THE NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION will award almost $5 million over five years to UC Davis to include the large earthquake-simulating centrifuge at the Center for Geotechnical Modeling as part of the new Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure program.

The center operates a nine-meter (30-foot) radius centrifuge with a shake table, the largest of its kind in the world. Researchers can build complex models of soils and structures on the shake table, fit them with instruments and sensors, and shake them while they rotate on this massive machine. This allows accurate scale-model studies of soils and soil-structure systems such as buildings and foundations, near-shore and off-shore energy infrastructure foundations, underground structures, pipelines, ground improvement technologies, wharves, embankment dams, and levee systems.

The grant will support research operations at the center over the next five years, making it available to NSF-funded researchers nationwide as well as at UC Davis. The research performed will enable major advances in the ability of engineers to predict and improve the performance of soil and soil-structure systems affected by earthquake, wave, wind, and storm surge loadings.

The Center for Geotechnical Modeling, housed in the UC Davis Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, has operated the large centrifuge as a unique, shared national resource for more than 30 years. The facilities have been used by researchers from the Universities of California (Davis, Berkeley, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Irvine), Colorado, Texas, and Washington; Oklahoma State; Arizona State; Oregon State; Virginia Tech; and Tokyo Institute of Technology, among others.

Grant for natural hazards research at

UC DAVIS CENTRIFUGE

E N G I N E E R I N G P R O G R E S S / Summer 20 15 7

Grant for natural hazards research at

New technology will help define the environmental triggers of childhood asthmaUC Davis researchers receive funding to develop a wearable sensor device

UC DAVIS RESEARCHERS have received a four-year, $1.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop a small, wearable sensor that can measure the relationship between environmental exposures and pediatric asthma.

The hope is that the device will lead to new treatment options for the more than 5 million children in the U.S. who have asthma, a chronic, inflammatory lung disease that restricts breathing and is a significant cause of hospital visits and missed school days.

“Asthma is more common and harder to control in regions with high pollution levels, but we don’t know the specific chemicals that trigger it,” said co-principal investigator Nicholas Kenyon, chief of pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine at UC Davis and a specialist in difficult-to-treat asthma. “The new device helps by providing detailed, real-time data on the occurrence of bronchospasms in relation to environmental exposures.”

Co-principal investigator Cristina Davis, professor of mechanical and aeronautical engineering, worked with Kenyon to develop and test initial components of the device, which combines lung-function with breath-measurement and chemical-sensing technologies. Their initial work was funded by The Hartwell Foundation, UC Davis Clinical and Translational Science Center (CTSC) and the National Science Foundation.

The new grant — part of the NIH’s Pediatric Research using Integrated Senor Monitoring Systems, or PRISMS, Program — allows the team to integrate the technology into a form no larger than a pen that can be easily worn in the pockets of children. Once developed, the device will be pilot tested to determine its clinical potential.

“We are creating a critical tool in finding the ‘missing links’ in our understanding of asthma,” said Davis. “If we can identify the source and components of chemicals that lead to pulmonary exacerbations, we are well on our way to policy changes and treatments that protect children.”

In addition to Kenyon and Davis, researchers on the UC Davis grant are Robin Steinhorn, senior vice president of hospital-based specialties at Children’s National Health System; and Michael Schivo, assistant professor of pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine at UC Davis.

“WE ARE

CREATING A

CRITICAL TOOL

IN FINDING

THE ‘MISSING

LINKS’ IN OUR

UNDERSTANDING

OF ASTHMA.”

– CRISTINA DAVIS


Ready for Her Close-upJENNIFER SINCLAIR CURTIS EMBRACES HER ROLE AS NEW DEAN

JENNIFER CURTIS HIT THE GROUND RUNNING, when she arrived at UC Davis in late October.

“I thrive on being busy,” she smiles, “and I have lots of plans.”Curtis, who became Dean of the College of Engineering that month, is quite impressed by what

she’s found at her new academic home. “The raw power of the college’s faculty, and their level of creativity, are unbelievable. People are warm and collaborative, and they’re passionate about their work. They’ve also been recognized to an impressive degree: We have more national academy members, as a percentage of total faculty, than a number of the Top 10 schools.

“We need to be better about spreading the news that UC Davis is laden with great talent and achievement!”

Curtis comes to UC Davis following an 11-year tenure at the University of Florida’s College of Engineering, where she rose to Associate Dean for Research and Facilities after serving as Chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering. Her numerous executive responsibilities in the Sunshine State included a role as Director of the Florida Energy Systems Consortium, an energy research collaboration involving all 12 of Florida’s state universities.

Curtis completed her undergraduate work in chemical engineering at Purdue University, and earned her PhD in the same field at Princeton. An initial academic position at Carnegie Mellon University was followed by a return to Purdue, where — as Associate Dean of the College of Engineering — she helped launch a new Department of Engineering Education: the first in the U.S.

As a researcher, she is recognized for her pioneering work in the development of numerical models for the prediction of particle flow phenomena. The importance of her research has been validated, over time, via multi-year funding from major corporations such as Alcoa, Chevron, Dow, DuPont and Pfizer.

At UC Davis, she’s ready to embrace structure, organization and strategic planning. “I want to get all the pieces aligned, so we’re all moving in the same direction: toward large initiatives that will bring us even more national visibility.”

Curtis has devoted her career to enhancing the reputation and diversity of the next-gen engineering pool, and she’s eager to channel that energy toward UC Davis.

By Derrick Bang

Continued on page 10

“WE NEED TO BE

BETTER ABOUT

SPREADING THE

NEWS THAT UC DAVIS

IS LADEN WITH

GREAT TALENT AND

ACHIEVEMENT!”

– JENNIFER CURTIS


Dean CurtisContinued from page 8

“Consider industry internships,” she suggests. “There’s a sense that we don’t have enough students participating, possibly because they’re not aware of the wide range of internships and jobs that are available. We need to get that message across from the moment students arrive on campus, so I’d love to see a seminar course that brings in working professionals every week, to share their views on getting connected, and the mechanics of seeking out internships.

“On a similar note, industry frequently tells academia that students who embrace study abroad programs, who are willing to climb out of their comfort zones, are destined to be future leaders. And yet, right now, too few of our engineering students participate in study abroad programs. We need to develop methods that will further encourage student participation.

“We know that our students are outstanding technically, but I want to make sure that they gain leadership skills, and see themselves as global citizens.

“I’d also like to develop a certificate program in leadership and expand the existing technology management minor program so students can obtain this type of knowledge to supplement their

engineering degrees. I look forward to partnering with the Graduate School of Management to help develop and improve these skills in our students and faculty.”

Curtis points with enthusiasm to the College of Engineering’s recent entrepreneurial initiatives, such as the Engineering Student Startup Center (ESSC), the Dorf Design and Communications Classroom, and expansion plans for the college’s Engineering Fabrication Lab.

“Our entrepreneurial training is terrific, and the participating students love it just as much as our corporate advisory board members,” Curtis acknowledges. “However, the number of students served remains a small fraction of our undergraduate base. All these things are successful, but we need to scale them up, and to engage all of our freshmen.”

She understands that these goals would require a greater time commitment by faculty, since such interactive courses will be more like hands-on lab research.

“The size of the College is important, and we’re hiring 15 new faculty this academic year alone. Five years from now, I’d like to see a 15- to 20-percent growth, to bring our faculty to between 230 and 240. That’ll also achieve our goal of improving the faculty/undergraduate ratio, to decrease the number of students per professor, so we become commensurate with our peers.

“That also means adding to the infrastructure and facilities for education and research, so I plan to be very involved with our development efforts.”

Curtis also recognizes the crucial importance of high-profile research work.

“We’ve had several big wins during the past few months,” says Curtis, citing the $15.5 million National Institutes of Health Transformative Research Award to build the world’s first total-body PET scanner; the collaborative $18.5 million National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center grant, which will partner UC Davis in a new Center for Bio-inspired and Bio-mediated Geotechnics; and a $5 million National Science Foundation award to the UC Davis Center for Geotechnical Modeling as part of the National Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI) program.

Bringing the world to the UC Davis College of Engineering clearly is a top priority for Curtis.

“I want to hire proposal consultants, who will work alongside faculty from the very beginning of a research pitch: to help with team-building and visioning, through the entire process. I had great success with this at the University of Florida, and there’s no question that we’ll get many more submissions if our UC Davis faculty know that the college will support them during such large-scale proposal initiatives.

“When we win, it’s huge research dollars, and it’s also an outstanding educational opportunity for our students.

“And, best of all, research awards validate our talented faculty, bringing great credibility and prestige, which gains huge visibility for our College of Engineering.”


VIDEO: Meet Dean Jennifer Sinclair Curtis:http://engineering.ucdavis.edu/engineering-news/magazine/


UC DAVIS COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

APPAREL AND MORE!All UC Davis Stores profits go back to student programs and services.

Shop UC Davis Stores for all your College of Engineering gear, from T-shirts and sweaters to caps and messenger bags.

Visit our co-branded online store with Promoversity, where you can get specialized gear at competitive prices.

costore.com/UCDavisRetail


JASON DEJONG, a professor in the UC Davis Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, operates in a field — geotechnical engineering — that is (in)famous for its elusiveness.

“Geotechnical engineers don’t make cars or computers,” he laughs. “We don’t even work with known materials such as steel. I go to a site where a dam must be built, and I examine the material beneath. Do I need to improve it? Replace it? Or can I live with it, and build on top of it? Then what will it do?

“I like the uncertainly and ambiguity of soils and geotechnical engineering. I like the fact that after we do all the calculations, and believe we understand everything, uncertainties still exist. So we have to step back and consider the likelihood of possible outcomes, and balance that against a responsibility to build civil structures that will be safe for society.”

DeJong earned his bachelor of science in civil engineering, with high honors, from UC Davis. He earned both his master’s degree and doctorate at the Georgia Institute of Technology. After research assignments in the oil and gas industries in Western Australia and Norway, he joined UC Davis in 2005.

Since then, DeJong has become a mover and shaker in two distinct areas of his field: dam analysis, to determine structural integrity; and the development of an innovative, biologically enhanced method of improving a construction site’s pre-existing ground conditions. Between the two, he has secured five National Science Foundation grants.

By Derrick Bang

Most recently, he embraced a leadership role in the creation of a new U.S. geotechnical engineering center. UC Davis, Arizona State University, New Mexico State University and the Georgia Institute of Technology have joined forces to create the Center for Bio-inspired and Bio-mediated Geotechnics (CBBG), to expand the rapidly emerging field of biogeotechnical engineering. The National Science Foundation (NSF) will support this new center with a five-year, $18.5 million grant: the nation’s largest single investment in geotechnical research. DeJong will head the UC Davis team.

Back in 2006, his lab published the first peer-reviewed journal article that demonstrated how bio-mediated processes could improve the solidification of loose sands: one of the key geotechnologies within this new ERC. “In many respects,” he notes, “the technical content of the Center proposal built heavily on the work performed by our UC Davis research group.”

The basis for the CBBG also derived heavily from “white papers” that emerged from international workshops co-led in 2007 and 2011 by DeJong and Kenichi Soga, a professor of civil engineering at the UK’s University of Cambridge.

DeJong also remains heavily involved in a massive endeavor to analyze dams throughout the state of California, a project that gained even more urgency following the Richter-6.0 earthquake that struck South Napa in August 2014.

As it happens, many of California’s large dams were built on old river channels composed of gravel and sand, which can liquefy

GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEER JASON DEJONG EXPLORES “BIO-SOIL” AS A MEANS OF STABILIZING FUTURE DAMS, BRIDGES AND BUILDINGS

A SAFE AND STURDY INFRASTRUCTURE

JASON DeJONG


because of earthquake loading; state officials are increasingly concerned that many of these dams may not be safe. DeJong and his team spent much of 2015 observing two dams, in a research project funded by the California Department of Water Resources and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

The two sites are the Stone Canyon Dam, directly above Bel Air, which supplies Los Angeles’ Westside water subsystem; and the Bouquet Canyon Dam, northeast of Santa Clarita, which is the primary fresh water source west of the San Andreas fault, for the northern part of Los Angeles.

“The question, simply, is will the dams hold, or must we do something? And it’s a $50 million to $300 million question!”

Unfortunately, existing equipment couldn’t survive the punishing environment necessary for analysis.

“There wasn’t any known method available to industry, to characterize those gravel-laced soils beneath the dams, because they destroyed equipment and sampling methods. The sensors are at the bottom of a drill hole, being pounded by a pile-driving hammer, through a dam, and then through gravel; we need to take strain and acceleration measurements at 15,000 samples per second, while the computer and everything else are subjected to a thousand G’s of force every 0.6 seconds, with data streaming up to us the entire time.

“We spent 18 months trying to build a piece of equipment that could survive all those conditions, and that was after five earlier years of models that failed. And we finally succeeded.”

The result, dubbed an Instrumented Becker Penetration Test, could become an industry standard.

But analysis is only part of the equation. If a dam is deemed unsafe, can it be made stable by means that are less expensive and cumbersome than starting over, at some geologically superior location?

DeJong began exploring this aspect of his field back in 2003, as a result of his interest in ground improvement: the need to enhance pre-existing soil conditions that are insufficient to provide the desired performance at a construction site.

“Either the soil will settle, or it’ll slip and fail,” he explains. “We go in and improve the ground. Historically, this has been driven by people in industry and construction; they’ll inject grout, cement, si l icates, epoxy or something else. Or they’ll vibrate the heck out of it, to densify it. Either way, it’s a high-energy, high-carbon-footprint, brute-force tactic.

“I wondered if there might be a subtler, more optimized alternative. That led to the notion that perhaps we could ‘grow’ a binding calcite — the most stable polymorph of calcium carbonate — by finding

the bacteria, the ‘bugs,’ in the ground naturally, or by injecting bacteria and nutrients. If I could do that, I could help prevent buildings from settling, from the weight of a structure; I also could prevent liquefaction.

“So we researched and found the biogeochemical process of calcite precipitation by microbes. I worked with a microbiology colleague at UMass Amherst, and learned how to grow bacteria, get it to multiply,

and then harvest it. Then I figured out how to put it in a lab testing device, with soil and loose sand, and learned how to inject the stuff. After getting it to cement up, the result was free-standing, like a brick. It worked!”

Scaling up that lab success to full field deployment, however, would be impractical on many levels. DeJong therefore fine-tuned his approach: With the help of Doug Nelson, a UC Davis professor of microbiology and molecular genetics, the research shifted to the growth and stimulation of native bacteria. The results have been equally promising.

“We can take sand — naturally, from the ground, or from a quarry — and feed it this combination of nutrients, which stimulate the type of existing bacteria that we want to grow. Then we can pump through the calcium, which

precipitates and binds the sand particles.”The result can be called bio-mediated improved soil, or bio-soil, or

bio-cement. “The tactical name would be microbial-induced calcite precipitation: MICP. So, we call it MICP-improved sand. Point being, I can give you sandstone in five days.”

E N G I N E E R I N G P R O G R E S S / W in te r 20 1 6 13E N G I N E E R I N G P R O G R E S S / W in te r 20 1 6 13

“I GO TO A SITE WHERE A

DAM MUST BE BUILT, AND

I EXAMINE THE MATERIAL

BENEATH. DO I NEED TO

IMPROVE IT? REPLACE IT?

OR CAN I LIVE WITH IT,

AND BUILD ON TOP OF IT?”

– JASON DeJONG


A RESEARCH TEAM AT UC DAVIS is set to build the world’s first total-body positron emission tomography (PET) scanner: a device that could fundamentally change the way cancers and other diseases are diagnosed and treated.

Thanks to a five-year, $15.5 million Transformative Research Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the team will be able to build a full-size prototype, which could put the university on the nation’s leading edge of molecular imaging.

The EXPLORER project — led by Simon Cherry, a distinguished professor of biomedical engineering; and Ramsey Badawi, a professor of radiology — has been in the works for 10 years. The NIH award arrives at a time when technology has caught up with the vision, making it possible to efficiently process all the data generated from the half a million detectors needed for a total-body scanner.

“This could be a total game-changer,” said Ralph de Vere White, director of the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center. “If this works, it will change medicine. It will change cancer detection, and how we evaluate therapies.”

“The vision is to solve two fundamental limitations of PET, as currently practiced,” said Cherry. “The first is to allow us to see the entire body all at once. The second huge advantage is that we’re collecting almost all of the available signal, which means we can acquire the images much faster, or at a much lower radiation dose. That’ll have some profound implications on how we use PET scanning in medicine and medical science.”

Cherry and Badawi predict that by seeing the entire body simultaneously, their scanner could drop the radiation dose by a

factor of 40, or decrease scanning time from 20 minutes to just 30 seconds. A quicker scan also could reduce the incidence of images blurred by patient movement, resulting in images with more detail.

The technology would have implications in diagnostics, treatment and also drug development. With whole-body PET, physicians could diagnose a disease and then follow its trajectory in a way never before possible, and which could affect how patients are treated. This approach reflects the current trend in medicine: to develop systems-based treatments and more individualized care.

Cherry and Badawi are joint principal investigators. The team also includes Jinyi Qi, a professor of biomedical engineering, who leads the computational aspects of the project; and Terry Jones, a volunteer clinical faculty in diagnostic radiology, who has developed some of the key potential biomedical applications for the scanner, and will be directly involved in planning the early uses of the EXPLORER technology for human imaging studies.

The project is a consortium led by UC Davis, which also involves researchers at the University of Pennsylvania (led by Joel Karp) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (led by William Moses).

Down the road, the team hopes to see the technology commercialized, ultimately making it available to hospitals and researchers worldwide.

“This is the project of my career, no question,” Cherry said. “It’s an amazing privilege and responsibility to work on something of this scale, which has the potential to have so much impact in biomedical research and health.”

Breakthrough PET ScannerUC Davis Receives $15.5 Million for

SIMON CHERRY RAMSEY BADAWI



Helping Growers Optimize IrrigationTechnology developed at UC Davis is giving growers tools to help irrigate more effectively

UC DAVIS biology and agricultural engineering professor Shrini Upadhyaya and his team designed a sensor that attaches to a single leaf to measure temperature, light, wind, and humidity to help optimize plant irrigation.

The key to effective irrigation is giving crops the right amount of water in the right place at the right time. Easier said than done, but new technology developed at UC Davis is giving growers a convenient way to find that sweet spot.

“Now growers don’t even have to go to the field to decide when, where, and how much to irrigate,” said Shrinivasa Upadhyaya, a UC Davis professor of biological and agricultural engineering. “We developed a suite of sensors that delivers real-time plant-stress data to your computer or mobile device.”

The technology is now available from Cermetek Microelectronics in a device called LeafMon, designed for vineyards and almond and walnut orchards. As the research expands, more crops may come online. Frank Stempski, sales manager for the Milpitas-based company, says LeafMon will help growers save water and improve crop quality and yield.

“The goal is to keep crops in near ideal conditions, at all times,” Stempski said.

Traditionally, growers have irrigated on a schedule tied to weather conditions. More recently, soil sensors have helped growers water only when their soil is dry. But that can be misleading.

“Just because soil is dry near the surface, doesn’t mean plants are suffering,” Upadhyaya explained. “And just because soil is moist, doesn’t mean plants are happy. Orchard and vineyard crops have extensive root zones, so sensing moisture at a certain depth doesn’t guarantee the plant can access that water.”

UC Davis researchers helped develop pressure chambers to provide a more accurate read by gauging how hard a plant is working to pull moisture from the soil. Upadhyaya and his team have taken it one step further by designing a suite of sensors that attaches to a single, shaded leaf and measures leaf temperature, light, wind speed, relative humidity, and air temperature — all which affect a plant’s water needs.

“And the sensors interface with a wireless network to feed you this information 24/7,” Upadhyaya said. “It’s essentially effortless compared to pressure chambers, which you have to bring to the field at midday to directly measure water stress.”

Since the system provides a continual read of plant-water stress, growers can customize irrigation accordingly. Some crops, like grapes, benefit from a certain level of stress at various points during the growing season.

Luis Sanchez, senior research scientist with E&J Gallo Winery, says the sensor could also work well in tandem with other high-tech irrigation scheduling methods based on remote sensing.

“It could be a very useful tool for verifying our satellite-based irrigation schedules,” Sanchez said. “The plant-stress sensor system could help us fine-tune our irrigation to improve crop quality and yield.”

“NOW GROWERS DON’T

EVEN HAVE TO GO

TO THE FIELD TO

DECIDE WHEN, WHERE,

AND HOW MUCH TO

IRRIGATE.”

– SHRINIVASA UPADHYAYA

By Diane Nelson

Pho

to b

y D

iane

Nel

son

Shrini Upadhyaya (R) and Gallo Winery research scientist Luis Sanchez (L) in a vineyard where a research team is conducting tests with the sensor.


Nanoporous gold sponge makes

SPONGE-LIKE NANOPOROUS GOLD could be key to new devices to detect disease-causing agents in humans and plants, according to UC Davis researchers.

In two recent papers in Analytical Chemistry, a group from the UC Davis Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering demonstrated that they could detect nucleic acids using nanoporous gold, a novel sensor coating material, in mixtures of other biomolecules that would gum up most detectors. This method enables sensitive detection of DNA in complex biological samples, such as serum from whole blood.

“Nanoporous gold can be imagined as a porous metal sponge with pore sizes that are a thousand times smaller than the diameter of a human hair,” said Erkin Şeker, assistant professor of electr ical and computer engineering at UC Davis and the senior author on the papers. “What happens is the debris in biological samples, such as proteins, is too large to go through those pores, but the fiber-like nucleic acids that we want to detect can actually fit through them. It’s almost like a natural sieve.”

Rapid and sensitive detection of nucleic acids plays a crucial role in early identification of pathogenic microbes and disease biomarkers. Current sensor approaches usually require nucleic acid purification that relies on multiple steps and specialized laboratory equipment, which limit the sensors’ use in the field. The researchers’ method reduces the need for purification.

PATHOGEN DETECTORBy Jocelyn Anderson

ERKIN ŞEKER

“So now we hope to have largely eliminated the need for extensive sample clean-up, which makes the process conducive to use in the field,” Şeker said.

The result is a faster and more efficient process that can be applied in many settings.

The researchers hope the technology can be translated into the development of miniature point-of-care diagnostic

platforms for agricultural and clinical applications.“The applications of the sensor are quite broad ranging from detection of plant pathogens to

disease biomarkers,” said Şeker.For example, in agriculture, scientists

could detect whether a certain pathogen exists on a plant without seeing any symptoms. And in sepsis cases in humans, doctors might deter mine bacter i a l contamination much more quickly than at

present, prevent ing any unnecessary treatments.Other authors of the studies were Pallavi

Daggumati, Zimple Matharu, and Ling Wang in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

at UC Davis.This work is funded by the UC Davis Research Investments in the

Sciences and Engineering (RISE) program, which encourages interdisciplinary work to solve problems facing the world today, as well as the UC Lab Fees Research Program and the National Science Foundation.


WINTER 2016 FACULTY & COLLEGE NEWS

UC DAVIS COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING JOINS EDUCATION INITIATIVE

The UC Davis College of Engineering has partnered with 121 other U.S. engineering schools, in an effort to spearhead a transformative movement in engineering education.

In a Letter of Commitment presented to President Obama on March 23, 2015, during the fifth annual White House Science Fair, the UC Davis College of Engineering and its peer institutions promised to establish and enhance special education programs designed to better prepare undergraduates for solving the world’s so-called “Grand Challenges”: the complex, yet achievable goals necessary to improve health, security, sustainability and quality-of-life issues in the 21st century.

“We at UC Davis have recognized the need for a design-centric educational program that engages engineering students in learning leadership, social, entrepreneurship and global skills, and how these skills are applied in solving grand challenges,” noted Enrique J. Lavernia, former dean of the College of Engineering, in his own letter to President Obama.

Each of the 122 signatory schools has pledged to graduate a minimum of 20 students per year, who have been specially prepared to lead the way in solving such large-scale problems, with the goal of training more than 20,000 formally recognized “grand challenge engineers” during the upcoming decade.

“Our Grand Challenges for Engineering already have inspired more and more of our brightest young people to pursue careers that will have direct impacts on improving the quality of life for people across the globe,” said NAE President C.D. Mote Jr. “Imagine the impact of tens of thousands of additional creative minds, all focused on tackling society’s most vexing challenges. ‘Changing the world’ is not hyperbole, in this case. They’ll do it ... and they’ll inspire others, as well!”

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RICARDO CASTRO EARNS CALORIMETRY AWARD

The North American Calorimetry Conference (CALCON) has presented its 2015 James J. Christensen Award to RICARDO CASTRO, an associate professor in the UC Davis Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science. The award includes an honorarium of $1,000.

Castro delivered a keynote lecture at the 70th International CALCON, which took place July 12-16, 2015, in Baltimore, Maryland.

Since its inception in 1945, the North American Calorimetry Conference has served as the premier collegial forum for the dissemination of current research and state-of-the-art technological developments in calorimetry and thermodynamics. The Christensen Award was established in 1988, to honor Brigham Young University’s Prof. James J. Christensen (1931-87). The award is presented to a scientist who has made outstanding innovative contributions to the development and use of calorimetric instrumentation: the science of measuring the heat developed during a mechanical, electrical or chemical reaction, and of calculating the heat capacity of materials.

DEBBIE NIEMEIER RECEIVES GUGGENHEIM FELLOWSHIP

The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has awarded one of its prestigious Guggenheim Fellowships to DEBBIE NIEMEIER, a professor in the UC Davis Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. The Fellowships, sometimes regarded as “mid-career awards,” are presented to individuals who’ve demonstrated an exceptional capacity for productive scholarship.

Roughly 200 Fellowships are awarded each year, from a field of between 3,500 and 4,000 applications. Recipients are encouraged to spend the cash portion of their award as they see fit, since the goal is to provide Fellows with “blocks of time in which they can work with as much creative freedom as possible.”

Niemeier’s research interests span transportation, vehicle emissions and air quality monitoring; energy consumption and land use interactions; and public sector infrastructure programming and budgeting. She was a member of the independent review teams assigned to assess the cost increases in the construction of the new San Francisco Bay Bridge, and to review the cost methods employed for the proposed third locks of the Panama Canal. As part of a company formed with three former students, she also works with legal advocacy groups around the world, on social justice issues associated with access to transportation and related air quality.

Ricardo Castro

Debbie Niemeier


The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) presented a prestigious award to BAHRAM RAVANI, a professor in the UC Davis Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. The honor comes from the ASME Design Engineering Division’s Mechatronics and Embedded System and Applications (MESA) Technical Committee, which has acknowledged Ravani for “a cumulative contribution to the field of Mechatronic and Embedded Systems and Applications.”

Ravani joined UC Davis in 1987, where he rose to chair the Department of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering from 1996–2001. He also is a member of the graduate programs in Biomedical Engineering and Forensic Science and Engineering, and briefly served as interim chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Additionally, he is co-director of UC Davis’ Advanced Highway Maintenance & Construction Technology Research Center.

His research interests include kinematics and dynamics; advanced stress analysis and design; computer-aided design and computations; collision mechanics and biomechanics; the forensic evaluation of accidents and trauma; and mechatronics and intelligent transportation systems.

JAE WAN PARK AWARDED FUNDING FOR

‘CLEAN ENERGY’ PROJECT


BAHRAM RAVANI RECEIVES MAJOR ASME AWARD


Jae Wan Park (center), associate professor in the UC Davis Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, with lab researchers (left-right) Kenny Fung (Ph. D student), Antonio Tong (post doc), Matthew Klein (Ph. D student), and Nathaniel Cooper (Ph. D student). Photo by Katherine Lim/UC Davis College of Engineering

THE CALIFORNIA ENERGY COMMISSION has funded a “clean energy” proposal made by Jae Wan Park, an associate professor in the UC Davis Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. The project, titled “Demonstration of Community-Scale, Low-Cost, Highly Efficient PV and Energy Management System,” received a grant of $1.24 million.

The project addresses the major challenges faced as our nation attempts to increase its reliance on solar power: the intermittent nature of solar generation, and resulting grid instability; the imbalance between energy demand and production; and the expense of existing energy storage models. Park and his team plan to develop a smart electrical energy storage (EES) and management system that could reduce a community’s daily average energy demand, during peak times, by up to 87 percent.

The system will be tested at UC Davis’ Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, which already employs 120 kW of photovoltaic (PV) panels and an 800 kW diesel generator, and plans to add an additional 100 kW of PV panels and 250 kWh of EES units that will utilize second-life lithium ion batteries.

Park joined the UC Davis College of Engineering in September 2008. He is director of the UC Davis Green Transportation Laboratory, the U.S.-South Korea Transportation Study Program at the campus’ Institute of Transportation Studies, and the UC Davis Formula Hybrid Racing Team. His research interests include green energy systems with batteries and proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells.


AAES AWARD PRESENTED TO DIRAN APELIAN

DIRAN APELIAN, a visiting professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, has received the American Association of Engineering Societies’ (AAES) Joan Hodges Queneau Palladium Medal. Apelian was honored at the annual AAES awards banquet, held April 20, 2015, in Washington, D.C.

The award recognizes Apelian for “articulating an inspiring vision of sustainable stewardship of our earth’s resources, and then rallying varied disciplines and constituencies within the science and engineering community, to collaborate meaningfully toward outcomes that satisfy the interests of industries and conservationists alike.”

Apelian is the Alcoa-Howmet Professor of Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Massachusetts; he also directs the WPI Metal Processing Institute. He is known for his pioneering work in solidification processing, including molten-metal processing, filtration of metals and aluminum foundry engineering, which contributed to an improved process for the manufacturing of aluminum foil. Diran Apelian

CHEEMENG TAN

CHEEMENG TAN EARNS LIFE SCIENCES FUNDING AWARD

The International Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP) has presented one of its 2015 Young Investigator Grants to CHEEMENG TAN, an assistant professor in the UC Davis Department of Biomedical Engineering. The project, a collaboration between Tan and Michael Nash — a professor in the Department of Biophysics and Molecular Materials at Ludwig-Maximilians University, in Munich, Germany — is titled “Unraveling Dynamical Coupling Between Gene Expression and Cellulosome Assembly.”

Tan and Nash will share $250,000 per year for the three-year project, which integrates synthetic biology, microfluidics and single-molecule imaging for the study of cellulosome assembly. Cellulosomes are protein networks used by anaerobic bacteria to digest cellulosic biomass. The protein networks consist of subunits that are held together by receptor-ligand pairs, some of which have similar affinities to the same binding sites. It currently remains unclear how cells modulate the assembly of cellulosomes, because studies are hampered by a lack of tools to manipulate genetic compounds of native cellulosome-producing bacteria. In order to resolve these issues, studies of cellulosome assembly require nanoscale measurement methods.

Tan joined the UC Davis College of Engineering in August 2013. His research interests include the engineering of artificial cellular systems, novel strategies of antibiotic treatment, and the underlying mechanisms of cellular heterogeneity. His Artificial Cellular Systems Group focuses on the engineering of synthetic biological systems for therapeutic treatment.




YOUNG ROBOTICS CHAMPS READY FOR COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING INTERNSHIP PROGRAMS

MEMBERS OF THE DAVIS-BASED ROBOTICS TEAM CITRUS CIRCUITS, still celebrating their first-place victory on April 25, 2015, during the 2015 FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics World Championships, have ample reason to be proud.

The Citrus Circuits members — comprising students from Davis High School, Da Vinci Charter Academy, and Harper and Emerson junior high schools — also earned awards and accolades for their generous willingness to offer technical assistance to rival teams during those earlier matches.

Such collaboration also includes mentoring and financial support from the UC Davis College of Engineering: a level of assistance that has just expanded to further encourage these young engineers. Two engineering professors — Boris Jeremic, in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering; and Stavros G. Vougioukas, in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering — have developed internship projects for members of the robotics team.

“This is a perfect example of our college’s dedication to inspiring the next generation of engineers,” notes Jeff Lefkoff, the College of Engineering’s Executive Assistant Dean for Administration and Finance. “We’re an important part of the culture that has helped produce a champion grade-school team. We not only excel at our own undergraduate and graduate engineering education; we also serve society by enhancing the K-12 pipeline.”

BIOSYSTEMS ENGINEERS CELEBRATED AT DESIGN EXPO

JOSH CLAYPOOL and SARA PACE, UC Davis PhD students in biological systems engineering, and Morgan Rease, an undergraduate student in the UC Davis Department of Food Science and Technology, attended the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s 11th annual National Sustainable Design Expo, held April 11-12, 2015, at Oronoco Bay Park in Alexandria, Va. Their project, “Biorenewable Methane Production,” garnered an Honorable Mention amid stiff competition from the event’s other 41 participating student research teams.

The Expo is part of the EPA’s People, Prosperity and the Planet (P3) Student Design Competition for Sustainability. Claypool and Pace earned their spot at the Expo after their project secured a Phase I funding grant of $14,473 from the EPA in October 2014.

Claypool and Pace developed their project from a shared interest in anaerobic digestion, with the goal of simplifying and improving the production of biomethane, while minimizing related water usage, installation costs and energy costs. They continue to seek the ideal “colony” of microorganisms to enhance the efficiency of anaerobic digestion.

Claypool earned his undergraduate degree in biological systems engineering in 2011, at UC Davis; he expects to complete his doctorate in 2017. Pace earned her undergraduate degree in biological/biosystems engineering in 2011, at Penn State University, simultaneously completing a master’s degree in architectural engineering. She expects to complete her PhD in biological systems engineering in 2017.

Josh Claypool

Sara Pace


ROBERT L. POWELL APPOINTED TO AWIS BOARD OF GOVERNORS

ROBERT L. POWELL, a professor with dual appointments in the UC Davis Departments of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, and Food Science and Technology, has been named a councilor on the national governing board of the Association for Women in Science (AWIS).

The board sets the strategic direction and provides insight and leadership to

CITRIS LAUNCHES ‘PEOPLE AND ROBOTS’ INITIATIVE

The new program will support efforts by faculty and students working on robotics at the four CITRIS campuses: UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Merced and UC Santa Barbara. By building on four decades’ worth of robotics research, a network of alumni, and numerous active labs and project s, the “People and Robots Initiative” will focus on four research themes: cloud robotics, deep learning, human-centric automation and bio-inspired robotics. These themes will draw on rapidly advancing innovations in sensors, devices, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), networks, optimization and machine learning, with the goal of improving the human experience in healthcare, manufacturing, transportation, safety and a broad range of other applications.

The UC Davis wing of this initiative’s faculty executive committee is headed by STAVROS G. VOUGIOUKAS, an assistant professor in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering. He works in the area of mechanization and automation of specialty crops, focusing on the design, development and testing of agricultural robots, sensors and control systems.

In addition to launching this new “People and Robots” program, CITRIS has recalibrated its other major research initiatives in response to both the shifting technological landscape, and evolving societal trends and challenges. Two of these initiatives also involve the UC Davis College of Engineering.

The new “Sustainable Infrastructures Initiative,” expanded from previous efforts in energy and intelligent infrastructure, will pursue IT research in energy, water and transportation, as crucial elements of the cyber-infrastructure for a sustainable society.

Robert L. Powell

The UC Davis branch of this initiative’s core faculty committee is headed by Jay Lund, a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering; and Mark Modera, a professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.

Finally, CITRIS’ “Health Initiative” has expanded in response to three major trends: the impact of the aging U.S. and world population on the existing healthcare infrastructure; the maturation of precision and preventive medicine, with new possibilities for advanced data analytics and applications; and the proliferation of versatile sensors, mobile and digital devices, which can bring health care directly into the home. Core UC Davis faculty involved with this initiative include Rajeevan Amirtharajah, Soheil Ghiasi and S.J. Ben Yoo, in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering; David Horsley, in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering; Michael Neff, in the Department of Computer Science; and Tingrui Pan and Scott Simon, in the Department of Biomedical Engineering.

the national organization, its chapters and affiliates. The board members, each providing unique experience and expertise, reflect the broad range of scientific disciplines and work sectors represented by AWIS.

Powell joined UC Davis in 1984, eventually serving as chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science from 2002-11. He also was Special Assistant to the Provost from 1996 to ‘99, and served as Chair of the Planning Committee and Executive Committee of the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science.

Stavros G. Vougioukas with harvesting robot



COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING STARTUP EARNS DOE PHASE II FUNDING

R. PAUL SINGH WINS PRESTIGIOUS AGRICULTURE PRIZE

The Advanced Scientific Computing Research branch of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program has granted Phase II funding to Ennetix, a software start-up founded by UC Davis computer science professor BISWANATH MUKHERJEE and colleague PULAK CHOWDHURY. The $1 million, two-year award will fund product development of the Ennetix proposal titled “Cloud-Based Network Performance Modeling for Contingency and Long-Term Planning.”

This Phase II award follows last year’s SBIR Phase I grant of $150,000, which funded the successful completion of Mukherjee and Chowdhury’s proof-of-concept work on their product: XNet, a scalable, secure and multi-tenanted “Software-as-a-Service” platform tool designed for storing, analyzing and serving large datasets in a responsive and cost-effective manner. The next step, with this Phase II grant, will help Ennetix commercialize XNet and establish a business model to offer cloud-based network management services.

Mukherjee joined the College of Engineering in 1987, quickly establishing a strong reputation for his work with optical networks and security protocols, and soon became a popular speaker at optical networking conferences throughout the world. He chaired the Department of Computer Science from 1997 through 2000, and in ’05 was appointed to the College of Engineering’s Child Family Professorship.

Chowdhury earned his PhD in computer science at UC Davis in 2011, where his research focused on green networking technologies and the development of a prototype hybrid wireless-optical broadband access network (WOBAN).

R. PAUL SINGH, a distinguished professor with dual appointments in the UC Davis Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, and the Department of Food Science and Technology, was named the 2015 Global Confederation for Higher Education Associations for Agriculture & Life Sciences (GCHERA) World Agriculture Prize Laureate.

The award was announced at the annual GCHERA Conference, which took place June 24-26, 2015, at the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, Jounieh, Lebanon. Formal presentation of the award took place September 20, during a ceremony at Nanjing Agricultural University, Jiangsu Province, China.

Singh earned a bachelor’s degree in agricultural engineering at India’s Punjab Agricultural University, then a master’s degree and PhD — in the same field — at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Michigan State University, respectively. He joined the UC Davis faculty one year later, in 1975.

He quickly became recognized for a body of research in areas such as energy conservation, freezing preservation, post-harvest technology and mass transfer in food processing. He has helped establish and evaluate food engineering programs at institutions throughout the world, including Brazil, India, Peru, Portugal and Thailand.

Biswanath Mukherjee

R. Paul Singh

SIMON CHERRY, a professor in the UC Davis Department of Biomedical Engineering, received the 2016 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ (IEEE) Marie Sklodowska-Curie Award, for outstanding contributions to the field of nuclear and plasma sciences and engineering. He was recognized for his “contributions to the development and application of in vivo molecular imaging systems.”

The Marie Sklodowska-Curie Award, established in 2008, is administered by the IEEE Awards Board’s Technical Field Awards Council. Recipients are chosen on the basis of the following criteria: the importance of individual scientific contribution; the importance of scientific contributions made by teams led by the candidate; the seminal nature of the contribution; innovation/originality, societal benefit and impact on the profession; and the quality of the nomination.

Cherry directs the UC Davis Center for Molecular and Genomic Imaging, where his research focuses on positron emission tomography; multi-modality imaging systems; gamma and x-ray detector technology; 3-D image reconstruction; the use of imaging techniques in phenotyping and drug development; and the design of novel contrast agents and imaging probes, and their application in molecular diagnostics and therapeutics.

IEEE HONORS SIMON CHERRY FOR MOLECULAR IMAGING RESEARCH



Leyuan Wang

ENGINEERING UNDERGRAD HAILED AS A FUTURE MANUFACTURING LEADER

FARHAD GHADAMLI, who recently obtained his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering at UC Davis, has been named one of this year’s “30 Under 30” future leaders by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME). Ghadamli and the other honorees are pictured on the cover of the July 2015 issue of Manufacturing Engineering, which highlights the young men and women who have demonstrated leadership and excellence in manufacturing.

Ghadamli’s undergraduate work focused on additive manufacturing technology, with research projects related to the advancement and sustainability of 3D printing technology. He worked as an undergraduate research assistant at the UC Davis Manufacturing and Sustainable Technologies Research Lab (MASTeR), directed by Barbara S. Linke, an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.

In 2014, Ghadamli helped jump-start Solarri, the UC Davis Solar Car Team, and was actively involved in its goal to build — from scratch — the campus’ first solar-powered vehicle. He also was a member of the campus’ Additive Manufacturing Technical Team, which came together in October 2014 in order to design and manufacture a 3D sugar printer.

PHD COMPUTER SCIENTIST PRESENTS PAPER AT PRESTIGIOUS CONFERENCE

LEYUAN WANG, a PhD student in the UC Davis Department of Computer Science, presented one of only two “Distinguished Papers” of the 51 accepted at Euro-Par 2015, which took place Aug. 24-28, 2015, at Austria’s Vienna University of Technology. Her paper, Fast Parallel Suffix Array on the GPU, is co-authored with her advisor, John Owens, a professor in the UC Davis Department of Computer and Electrical Engineering; and Sean Baxter, a research scientist at New York’s DE Shaw Research.

The paper details Wang’s efforts to implement a linear time-suffix array construction algorithm — skew — on graphics processor units (GPUs), resulting in algorithmic improvements to existing state-of-the-art efforts, with a speed-up of 35 percent. This work has been added as a new “primitive” in CUDPP 2.2, and has been used in the BWT-based lossless data compression tool.

Wang completed her master’s degree in electrical and computer engineering at UC Davis in October 2014, after having earned her undergraduate degree in electronics science and technology at China’s Zhejiang University. Her research spans general-purpose computing on graphics units — GPGPU, also known as GPU computing — along with computer graphics, parallel algorithms programming, and data compression. Most recently, she has been implementing classic algorithms on GPU and large-scale GPU computing.



CHEMICAL ENGINEERING STUDENTS TAKE TOP PRIZE

A TEAM OF STUDENTS from the UC Davis Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science won first place in the Chem-E-Car competition, one of several contests held at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers’ (AlChE) 2015 Western Student Regional Conference, held April 24-25, 2015, at Cal Poly Pomona. This first-place victory qualified the Aggie engineering team to move forward and compete at the upcoming AlChE Annual Meeting, which will take place Nov. 8-13 in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Chem-E-Car is an AlChE competition that challenges university students to design and construct a shoebox-sized car powered solely by a chemical energy source; the vehicle must safely carry a specified load over a given distance, and then stop as close to the assigned range as possible. The UC Davis team was led by Chris O’Connor, Nick DiPressi, Amy Ly and Jordan Provost. More than 40 student engineers participated in the design and construction of their team vehicle, dubbed “Leadfoot.” When the dust had settled, Leadfoot’s run of 19.54 meters came closer to the goal — by roughly 2 meters — than any other competitor.


The UC System’s Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) has announced the recipients of its 2015 Seed Fund Awards, p r e s e n t e d e a c h y e a r t o s p u r multidisciplinary collaborations among its four campuses: UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Merced and UC Santa Cruz.

Twenty-four proposals were submitted after the 2015 parameters — a focus on data analytics to optimize health care, energy and agriculture applications — were announced earlier this year. Eleven proposals were selected for research grants averaging $55,000. UC Davis and the UC Davis Medical Center are taking the collaborative lead on seven of those proposals, three of which involve College of Engineering faculty.

The first, “Development and Prototyping of a Hardware-Agnostic, Self-Configurable, Integrated, Optimal Building Automation System for Small and Medium Commercial Buildings,” will be supervised by co-PIs Mark Modera, a professor in the UC Davis Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering; and David A. Auslander, a professor in the UC Berkeley Department of Mechanical Engineering.

The second, “Rapid, Portable and Structural Integrity Assessment

COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING PROPOSALS WIN CITRIS FUNDINGSystem for P re- and Post-D i s a s te r Infrastructure Monitoring,” will be supervised by co-PIs Kenneth Loh, an associate professor in the UC Davis Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering; and Steve Glaser, a professor in the UC Berkeley Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Finally, “On-Chip Light Sources for Multiplexed Molecular Biosensing” will be supervised by co-PIs Holger Schmidt, a professor in the UC Santa Cruz Department

of Electrical Engineering; and Subhash Risbud, the Blacutt-Underwood Distinguished Professor in the UC Davis Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science.

CITRIS was established in 2001, when UC system researchers realized that key opportunities lay not merely in developing new and innovative technologies, but in applying them. The Center addresses the most pressing social and environmental issues facing California, with a research focus on four core initiatives: energy, health care, intelligent infrastructure, and data and democracy. The seed grant program began in 2007, as a means of further encouraging mutual research projects among the four CITRIS campuses.

Mark Modera Kenneth Loh

The Aggie engineers were even more delighted by their subsequent “victory run,” when Leadfoot stopped after 23.66 meters: a mere 66 centimeters from the goal line.

Chem-E-Car, Chem-E-Jeopardy, a Student Paper Competition and numerous other activities, begin each year with multiple regional heats, all climaxing at the AlChE Annual Meeting. Aside from their mission to engage young engineers, these events are designed to increase awareness of the chemical engineering discipline among the public, educators, industry leaders and other students.


RAISSA D’SOUZA EARNS COVER STORY IN PRESTIGIOUS JOURNAL

RESEARCH CONDUCT-E D BY R AISSA M. D’SOUZA, a professor with dual appointments in the UC Davis Depart-ments of Computer Sci-ence, and Mechanical and Aerospace Engi-neering, has been hon-ored with a cover story in the July 2015 issue of Nature Physics. The report, “Anomalous Critical and Supercritical Phenomena in Explosive Percolation,” is co-authored by Jan Nagler, a professor in the Department of Nonlinear Dynamics & Network Dynamics Group, at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization.

The study focuses on a mathematical concept known as the “percolation transition,” which refers to large-scale connectivity on an underlying network or lattice. Because of the impact on such a system’s macroscopic behavior, it is desirable to control the location of the percolation transition, in order to either enhance or delay its onset, and, more generally, to better understand the consequences of such control interventions. D’Souza and Nagler have focused on “explosive percolation” — the sudden emergence of large-scale connectivity that results from repeated small interventions designed to delay the percolation transition — which could become an emerging paradigm for modeling real-world systems ranging from social networks to nanotubes.

D’Souza joined UC Davis as an assistant professor in 2005, rising to full professor in July 2014. She is a member of the UC Davis Complexity Sciences Center, and since 2007 also has served as an external professor at the Santa Fe Institute. Her research focuses on mathematical models of self-organization, phase transitions and the structure and function of networked systems.

ECE STUDENTS WIN MODEL

CAR COMPETITIONA TRIO OF UNDERGRADUATES in the UC Davis Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) — Andrew Chung, Sam Dawson and Justin Laguardia — became the North American champions at the National Freescale Cup Autonomous Model Car Competition.

The annual event, sponsored by Freescale Semiconductor, challenges students to design and build an autonomous model car that relies on optical sensors, a small computer and student-developed software, in order to navigate a complex racetrack. The UC Davis engineers — calling themselves “Team Dinky” — qualified for this national cup after defeating 17 other teams during the Western Regional competition, which took place April 18, 2015, as part of UC Davis’ Picnic Day activities.

Team Dinky then became one of the three U.S. teams to compete at the North America Freescale Cup Championship, which took place May 2 at New York’s Rochester Institute of Technology. The Aggie engineers’ vehicle sped aggressively through the racetrack and secured a decisive victory.

Team Dinky developed their car as part of ECE’s Autonomous Vehicle Senior Design project course, under the direction of instructor and development engineer Lance Halsted.

The Freescale Cup, formerly known as the Smart Car Race, began in 2003 when Korea’s Hanyang University hosted 80 teams of students. Since that modest origin, the annual event has expanded throughout North America, Europe, China, India, Malaysia and Latin America, impacting more than 15,000 students at more than 500 schools. The global competition requires student teams to build, program and race a model car around a track for speed, with victory going to the fastest car that completes the course without derailing.

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Raissa M. D’Souza


from his research into solar sails. Building on his development of an attitude control technique for large solar sails, Fu now seeks in-depth understanding of how the shape of sail membrane structures can be manipulated in order to optimize control of such crafts, thereby optimizing their potential to serve as a cost-effective method of space cargo transportation.

The N&M Sarigul-Klijn Space Engineering/Flight Research Award was established in 2003 by Nesrin Sarigul-Klijn, a professor in the UC Davis Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. That initial award commemorated the 100th anniversary of powered flight, and was designed to encourage graduate students to conduct research in flight-

related areas. The award is presented biannually, in odd-numbered years, by a subcommittee of the Space Engineering Research and Graduate Program (SpaceED), which Sarigul-Klijn directs.

MAE GRAD STUDENTS SHARE RESEARCH AWARD

JOSEPH BARTHEL AND BO FU, both graduate students in the UC Davis Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, are sharing this year’s N&M Sarigul-Klijn Space Engineering/Flight Research Award. The two aerospace researchers will split the $1,500 award.

Barthel was honored for his proposal, “Optimization of Passive Radiation Shielding Onboard a Space Habitat Equipped with an Active Magnetic Solenoid.” His research focuses on protecting astronauts from harmful radiation, via “passive shielding” generated by magnetic fields: an approach that would greatly reduce the overall spacecraft mass required to keep its human inhabitants safe.

Fu was acknowledged for his proposal, “Mechanics of Bounded Inextensible Membranes Subjected to External Forces,” which derives

UC DAVIS CIVIL & ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING (CEE) GRADUATE STUDENTS Kyle Fuller and Ezequiel Santillan, along with colleagues Solange Astorga and Lisa Marroquin, shared two first-place victories in this year’s Big Ideas@Berkeley competition. Their proposal, “Clean Water for Crops: As Simple as Sand and Seeds,” took top honors in the Global Health category, and was selected for the Grand Prize Pitch Day, where it also won first place in the Global Impact category. The combined awards include a $13,000 cash prize, which will be used to implement a pilot-scale system in the region targeted by the proposal.

Fuller, Santillan and their team have focused on Sololá, Guatemala, one of many communities surrounding Lake Atitlán. Population growth during the past two decades has led to increased sewage discharge into the lake, whose waters have long been used to irrigate local crops. Wastewater treatment plants mitigate some contamination issues, but the plants lack a disinfection process, which poses a health risk to those consuming these foodstuffs.

The winning Big Ideas proposal will employ slow-sand filtration, a tertiary treatment process already widely used to treat drinking water. Pathogen reduction will be enhanced further by including a filtration step through the seeds of the Moringa oleifera, a tree common to Guatemala and many other parts of Latin America. The seeds have anti-microbial properties that increase pathogen reduction by a factor of 10,000.

Such low-cost, gravity-fed technology can be used to treat wastewater to a level satisfactory for crop irrigation in small, developing communities, particularly those that lack a reliable supply of fresh water.

CEE GRAD STUDENTS TAKE FIRST PLACE IN ANNUAL

BIG IDEAS@BERKELEY COMPETITION


Bo Fu



Davis Genome Center, and the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center. His research interests include the statistical analysis of ge ne e x p r e s s ion , p r o t e om ic s a n d metabolomics data; radiation biology, and the effects of low- and moderate-dose radiation on human skin; and the applications of statistics in medicine, epidemiology, biology, environmental science and earth sciences.

Simon was recruited by UC Davis in 1999, as one of the founding members of the new Department of Biomedical Engineering, where he became a full professor in 2002. He

currently serves as department vice chair, and deputy editor of the journal Annals of Biomedical Engineering. He has a longstanding interest in the mechanisms that govern leukocyte adhesion and signaling during inflammatory disease, and his research focuses on white blood cell recruitment in cardiovascular and infectious diseases.

BME PROFESSORS ELECTED TO FASEB LEADERSHIP ROLES

DAVID M. ROCKE AND SCOTT I. SIMON, both professors in the UC Dav i s Department of Biomedical Engineering, have been elected to leadership positions by the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB).

Rocke, also a distinguished professor in the Division of Biostatistics in the UC Davis School of Medicine’s Department of Public Health Services, has been named Treasurer-Elect. Simon has been named Vice President-Elect for Science Policy. Both appointments are effective as of July 1.

Rocke joined the UC Davis College of Engineering in 2000, in the Department of Applied Science, where in 2007 he was named a distinguished professor. In 2011, he transitioned to the Department of Biomedical Engineering. By this time, he had accepted directorships of the campus’ Center for Biomarker Discovery, and the Clinical and Translational Science Center. He also is a member of both the UC

David M. Rocke Scott I. Simon

ALISSA KENDALL, an associate professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, has co-authored two related articles just published in the Journal of Industrial Ecology.

She’s lead author of the first article, “Life Cycle-based Assessment of Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Almond Production, Part I: Analytical Framework and Baseline Results.” Her collaborators are Elias Marvinney, a graduate student in the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences; Sonja Brodt, in the UC Davis Agricultural Sustainability Institute; and Weiyuan Zhu, a UC Davis graduate student in horticulture and agronomy.

Marvinney is lead author of the second article, in collaboration with Kendall and Brodt: “Life Cycle-based Assessment of Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Almond Production, Part II: Uncertainty Analysis through Sensitivity Analysis and Scenario Testing.”

California-grown almonds dominate the global market and provide more than 80 percent of the world’s commercial almonds. Both journal articles examine the environmental impact of this agricultural industry. Kendall and her colleagues noted that certain practices substantially reduce green-house gas emissions and energy use, including the strategic utilization of co-products, and the choice of water source and irrigation technology.

Kendall joined UC Davis in 2007. Her research interests focus on life-cycle modeling as applied to transportation systems, energy systems, industrial ecology, construction materials and buildings, with the goal of developing sustainable systems.

ALISSA KENDALL PUBLISHES RESULTS OF ALMOND STUDY


NIELS GRØNBECH-JENSEN, a professor with dual appointments in the UC Davis Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, and the Department of Mathematics, has been named the Statewide Faculty Executive Director of the California State Summer School for Mathematics and Science (COSMOS).

Grønbech-Jensen has been filling this role in an interim capacity since late 2014, when COSMOS’ statewide administrative home was moved from the UC Office of the President to UC Davis. He also has been an active instructional participant, having taught in the UC Davis COSMOS program since 2004.

“The founders of COSMOS created a unique interface between high school excellence in STEM and university education,” Grønbech-Jensen said, “and I’m dedicated to continue building on their vision. I’m excited to combine my instruction of the outstanding COSMOS students on my campus, with the efforts to sustain and grow the statewide program by coordinating administration and advocacy.”

State legislation in 1998 established COSMOS in order to engage talented and motivated high school students in an intensive program of study, experimentation and activities, to further their interests and skills in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). The University of California has administered the program since it began. Sessions initially took place at UC Irvine and UC Santa Cruz; increasing demand prompted an expansion to UC Davis in 2001, and UC San Diego in ’04.

Grønbech-Jensen’s research interests focus on computational materials and soft condensed matter, molecular dynamics, radiation damage, nonlinear dynamics and complex systems, numerical analysis and methods, macroscopic quantum phenomena, and superconducting device physics.

NSF GRANT AWARDED TO MAE PROFESSORS

NESRIN SARIGUL-KLIJN NAMED AN ASME FELLOW


NIELS GRØNBECH-JENSEN APPOINTED AS COSMOS EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR


The National Science Foundation’s Division of Under-graduate Education has awarded a two-year grant of $249,965.00 to BARBARA LINKE and MOHAMED HAFEZ, professors in the UC Davis Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering; and Lee Mar-tin, an assistant professor in the UC Davis School of Education. Linke is the PI on their project, titled An Integrated STEM Approach for Studying Aerospace Engi-neering Design and Manufacturing.

Linke, Hafez and Martin will develop a course to help undergraduate mechanical and aerospace engineering students understand how airplanes fly, by taking the students through the process of designing, modeling, manufacturing and testing a prototype wing. This combination of design, manufacturing and experimental validation will show students how to integrate key topics such as the physics of flight, manufacturing processes and sustainability. Such an active, project-based approach has been demonstrated by research to foster the development of deep, conceptual learning and, in turn, greater problem-solving flexibility in engineering.

Linke joined UC Davis in 2012. Her research focuses on manufacturing technologies; sustainable and energy-efficient manufacturing processes; home-scale 3D printing; surface engineering for aesthetic metal parts; food-processing equipment, automotive and aerospace parts, biomedical components and more.

Hafez came to UC Davis in 1986, to teach theoretical aerodynamics, aeronautical engineering and computational fluid dynamics. His many awards include the 1998 UC Davis Prize for Undergraduate Teaching and Scholarly Achievement, and he’s a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. His research focuses on transonic aerodynamics and computational fluid dynamics.

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) has named NESRIN SARIGUL-KLIJN a Fellow. She and the entire 2015 class of ASME Fellows were honored at the society’s annual recognition reception.

A professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Sarigul-Klijn was recognized for “significant research contributions in the fields of mechanical, biomedical and aerospace engineering, especially in the areas of fluid-structure interactions, acoustics and noise control, vibrations, space vehicle trajectory optimization, flight testing of scaled aerospace vehicles, human spine discography, vehicle health monitoring and the dynamic separation of air-launched, rocket-powered space vehicles.”

Sarigul-Klijn completed her doctorate in 1984 at the University of Arizona, and then spent five years as a professor of aeronautical and astronautical engineering at Ohio State University. She was awarded two NASA Faculty Fellowships during her tenure at Ohio State, and in 1989 she joined the UC Davis College of Engineering.

Niels Grønbech-Jensen

Barbara Linke

Mohamed Hafez


BME PROFESSOR SHARED INNOVATIVE TEACHING METHODOLOGY AT ANNUAL NAE SYMPOSIUM

UC DAVIS ENGINEERING UNDERGRAD WINS LAKE TAHOE APP CONTEST

EDUARDO A. SILVA, an assistant professor in the UC Davis Department of Biomedical Engineering, attended the National Academy of Engineering’s annual Frontiers of Engineering Education Symposium, which took place Oct. 25-28, 2015, at the National Academies’ Beckman Center in Irvine, Calif.

All invited participants were asked to outline their innovative teaching methods on posters displayed within an expo-style environment, where attendees circulated and listened to informal presentations from each speaker. Participants also met during smaller thematic sessions and panels, in order to collaborate and discuss different educational tools and strategies.

Silva shared the “peer review” methodology that he has employed in his interdisciplinary UC Davis course, Physiology for Biomedical Engineers. This approach shares the responsibility of both teaching and learning with all students, which results in a highly engaged class from an early stage. Students identify and learn from the strengths and weaknesses of their peers, and are taught to provide concise,

THE UC DAVIS TAHOE ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH CENTER (TERC) has launched a new smartphone app, “Citizen Science Tahoe,” that encourages visitors of all ages to tap in what they see at Lake Tahoe; creating crowd-sourced observational data that will be shared with the scientists to better understand conditions around the lake.

The app, available for download at CitizenScienceTahoe.org, was programmed by Shahzeb Khan, a UC Davis sophomore studying computer science who won a university-wide competition for the best app proposal.

“Working on the app and solving problems has been a fun challenge,” said Khan. “Collaborating with TERC has also been a great work experience.”

The Citizen Science Tahoe app, which launched in mid-August 2015, turns Tahoe shoreline visitors into research partners, by encouraging them to share observational data about what they see, while walking along the celebrated lake’s beaches.

This perceptual data will help lake researchers better understand Tahoe’s fragile nearshore: the lake region most frequently experienced, but — surprisingly — least investigated. Funding assistance for this project comes from the North Lake Tahoe Resort Association, along with a $150,000 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

constructive criticism while developing writing and analytical skills. Finally, the methodology itself teaches the essential skill of deconstructing a written idea/report into achievable and measurable tasks, which transforms the way students communicate with their peers and the surrounding society.

Silva joined UC Davis in 2011. His research focuses on translation stem cell bioengineering, with the goal of developing new material platforms that will enable the control of stem/progenitor cell trafficking in the body. His lab explores chemical and biologically inspired design principles that will produce new material platforms to negotiate biological barriers such as the endothelial walls found in vascular networks.

Eduardo A. Silva


M. LEVENT KAVVAS HONORED WITH INTERNATIONAL AWARD

M. LEVENT KAVVAS, a distinguished professor in the UC Davis Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), has received the 2015 Interna-tional Award from the Japan Society of Hydrology and Water Resources.

The award was presented Sept. 10, 2015, at the Society’s annual meeting, which took place at Tokyo Metropolitan University. Kavvas was honored for his “significant contribution to progress in the f ield of hydrology and water resources, and for valuable participation in the exchange of information on the international level within the Society.”

Kavvas is the Gerald and Lillian Orlob Endowed Chair Professor of Water Resources Engineering. He also directs CEE’s Hydrologic Research Lab and the J. Amorocho Hydraulics Laboratory. His areas of specialization include the mathematical modeling of integrated hydrologic-atmospheric processes at global, continental, country and watershed scales, for the simulation and prediction of hydrologic water balances in phenomena such as floods and droughts. He also investigates contaminant transport by inland surface waters, unsaturated flow and groundwater flow, and the physical hydraulic modeling of environmental fluid flows.

Kavvas is a member of the California Climate Change Advisory Board, the Asia-Pacific Water Forum’s Steering Group on Water and Climate Change, UNESCO’s Expert Group on Climate Change and Water, and the editorial board of UNESCO’s International Hydrology Series.

M. Levent Kavvas


CASSY GARDNER, who earned her undergraduate degree in biosystems engineering at UC Davis in 2013, has been named one of Control Engineering magazine’s “Engineering Leaders Under 40.” Gardner is the youngest in this year’s group of candidates, and one of only two women.

Gardner has been cited for the significant impact she has had — and continues to have — as a control systems engineer at the Banks Integration Group, a Northern California-based consulting firm that helps large biotech and pharmaceutical companies automate their manufacturing processes.

She also was a shining star during her undergraduate years. As a member of a UC Davis Biological Systems Engineering Senior Design Team dubbed “The Powerpuff Girls,” she and her colleagues — Kara Johnson and Marie West — developed an amperometric glucose biosensor that won the 2013 Sandia National Laboratories Design Award, for its potential impact in the biofuels industry. Their sensor enables efficient and rapid investigation into biofuels: a more secure and environmentally conscious form of transportation fuel which — as a viable alternative to petroleum products — has the potential to enhance national security.

BIOENGINEERING ALUM CITED AS ‘YOUNG LEADER’

Cassy Gardner

DAVID HORSLEY’S RESEARCH TEAM SECURES DARPA GRANT

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has presented a $1.8 million grant to a project headed by DAVID HORSLEY, a professor in the UC Davis Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. The project, “Ultralow Power Microsystems Via an Integrated Piezoelectric MEMS-CMOS Platform,” includes the participation of co-PIs Xiaoguang “Leo” Liu and Rajeevan Amirtharajah, both professors in the UC Davis Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE).

The grant has been made under DARPA’s “Near Zero Power RF and Sensor Operations (N-ZERO)” program.

Horsley’s group has teamed up with InvenSense, the company that makes the motion sensors — gyro and

accelerometer — in everybody’s smart phones. The UC Davis team and InvenSense are working to develop revolutionary, ultra-low-power sensors that will allow always-on sensing. The program goal is to develop an acoustic sensor and an acceleration sensor that run on near-zero power, producing a wake-up signal when a particular signature is detected: say, a car or truck driving by, or a generator being switched on.

Horsley earned his doctorate in mechanical engineering at UC Berkeley in 1998. He then entered industry and worked for Dicon Fiberoptics and Hewlett Packard Laboratories, where he was involved in founding Onix Microsystems and Picosense LLC. He joined UC Davis in 2003, and received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2009.


February 25, 2016 • 5 p.m.Bruce and Marie West Lobby, Kemper Hall, UC Davis

4th Annual

Innovators Exhibit &Reception

Join the UC Davis College of Engineering as we celebrate the careers of several personalities associated with the college. This fourth annual Innovators Exhibit focuses on the ground-breaking careers of John Cromie, Katherine Ferrara, Ken Giles, Shu Lin, Ryan Smith and the collaborative team of Bahram Ravani and Steven A. Velinsky.

Museum-quality exhibits featuring these innovators will be on display in the Bruce and Marie West Lobby for the subsequent 12 months.

More information:http://engineering.ucdavis.edu/events/innovators-exhibit-and-reception/Oliver Ramsey at [email protected] or 530-752-7412

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UC Davis College of EngineeringOne Shields AvenueDavis, CA 95616

Aggie EngineersTake Top Honors in NASA Aviation CompetitionUC DAVIS STUDENT ENGINEERING TEAMS won three of the four possible trophies in the undergraduate division of this year’s U.S. University Design Challenge: All-Electric General Aviation Vehicle competition sponsored by NASA. Team Bladessa won first place; second place went to Team Areion; and Honorable Mention went to the Aggie engineers of Team SCUBA Stingray. The competition, open to university teams throughout the U.S., challenged participants to design an all-electric, general aviation (GA) vehicle intended for service by the year 2020. First place winner Team Bladessa designed a four-seat, twin-engine, low-wing GA aircraft capable of cruising at 135 knots over a range of 520 nautical miles. Their design made use of lightweight composite structures and high energy density lithium ion batteries.

The all-electric, General Aviation aircraft designated Bladessa, designed by Team 151 at UC Davis.

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First place team, from left: Ethan Kellogg, Geoffrey Christensen, Junette Hsin, Keshavan Kope, Ben Schellenberg and Michael Starr

1st Place – Team 151, UC Davis


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