News Releases from 2012
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November 30, 2012
Jacobs School Student Named FAA Outstanding Student of the Year
A Ph.D. student at the University of California, San Diego, has been named one of two outstanding students of the year by the Federal Aviation Administration. Gabriela DeFrancisci works in the research group of Hyonny Kim, a professor in the Department of Structural Engineering at the Jacobs School. She be recognized Jan. 12, 2013 during an awards ceremony at the Transportation Research Board annual meeting in Washington, D.C., and receive a $1,000 award.
November 15, 2012
Jacobs School Shines at Fluid Dynamics Conference
Simulations that help doctors perform life-saving surgeries; a better way to model climate in urban areas; and optimized blood flow patterns for heart patients with pacemakers. Fluid dynamics researchers from the University of California, San Diego, will discuss their research on these topics—and many others—at the 65th Annual Meeting of the American Physical Society’s Division of Fluid Dynamics here in San Diego Nov. 18 to 20. With about 2,300 contributed presentations, the APS/DFD annual conference is the largest scientific meeting of researchers in fluid dynamics.
September 10, 2012
Computer Simulations Could Lead to Better Cardiac Pump for Children With Heart Defects
Structural and mechanical engineers at the University of California, San Diego, are working together to create blood flow simulations that could lead to improvements in the design of a cardiac pump for children born with heart defects. They hope that the design changes will improve young patients' outcomes.
August 30, 2012
Science study: 'Promiscuous' enzymes still prevalent in metabolism
Open an undergraduate biochemistry textbook and you will learn that enzymes are highly efficient and specific in catalyzing chemical reactions in living organisms, and that they evolved to this state from their “sloppy” and “promiscuous” ancestors to allow cells to grow more efficiently. This fundamental paradigm is being challenged in a new study by bioengineers at the University of California, San Diego, who reported in the journal Science what a few enzymologists have suspected for years: many enzymes are still pretty sloppy and promiscuous, catalyzing multiple chemical reactions in living cells, for reasons that were previously not well understood.
August 10, 2012
Company Co-Founded by Computer Science Professor Acquired by Leader in Virtualization and Cloud Computing
Pattern Insight announced Aug. 8 that it has come to an agreement with VMware Inc. to sell its Log Insight product, together with its team and technology. Yuanyuan(YY) Zhou, a computer scientist at the University of California, San Diego, co-founded Pattern Insight with several members of her research team when she was on faculty at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champain. She is currently the company’s chief technology officer. She joined the faculty of the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego in 2009.
June 7, 2012
Frieder Seible, Dean of the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego, Inducted into Chinese Academy of Engineering
Frieder Seible, Dean of the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego, has been elected a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. The honor recognizes his “outstanding achievements in engineering and technological sciences, as well as remarkable contributions to China’s engineering and technological developments.”
May 14, 2012
Engineers Conduct Seismic Tests on a Five-story Building Equipped with a Wide Range of Nonstructural Components
Researchers at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego will put a five-story building, fully equipped with an intensive care unit, a surgery suite, a working elevator, piping and air conditioning and fire barriers through a motion from the 7.9-magnitude Denali earthquake which occurred in Alaska. These tests are the second of two phases of seismic motion testing. The first phase involved isolating the building with large rubber dampers, while for tests tomorrow the building’s foundation will be anchored directly on the shake table. These tests will likely result in more severe damage to the structure and its contents.
April 20, 2012
'Blinking microbubbles' for early cancer screening take grand prize at Research Expo 2012
Carolyn Schutt, a Ph.D student in bioengineering at the University of California, San Diego is developing a new imaging technique that would enable highly-sensitive light imaging deeper inside the body, improving the way we diagnose breast cancer. Schutt’s research received the grand prize April 12 at the UC San Diego Jacob School of Engineering Research Expo 2012.
April 12, 2012
Engineers Conduct Seismic Tests on a Five-story Building Equipped with a Wide Range of Nonstructural Components
What happens when you put a fully equipped five-story building, which includes an intensive care unit, a surgery suite, piping and air conditioning, fire barriers and even a working elevator, through a series of high-intensity earthquakes? Structural engineers at the University of California, San Diego began to get some answers last week, when they launched a two-week series of tests conducted on the world’s largest outdoor shake table at the Englekirk Structural Engineering Center.
April 5, 2012
This Hospital is Wired for Earthquake Safety
At the UCSD-NEES site, earthquake and post-earthquake fire testing of a five-story building built at full-scale and completely furnished with nonstructural components and systems (NCSs) is underway. Unique to any building testing ever conducted, NCSs in the building include a functioning passenger elevator, partition walls, cladding systems, piping, HVAC, ceiling, sprinklers, building contents, as well as passive and active fire systems. Testing is planned for mid-April through May 2012.
April 2, 2012
Research Expo: Access Game-Changing Research and Technologies
There are many ways to engage with the Jacobs School of Engineering at the University of California, San Diego, but the only way to get face time with 230-plus graduate students working on game-changing research in a single afternoon is to attend Research Expo on April 12. Research Expo provides a glimpse into the engineering future – a future that will touch all of San Diego’s technology sectors. With $146.4 million in research expenditures in fiscal year 2010-2011, there’s a lot to look at.
March 5, 2012
Smart, self-healing hydrogels open far-reaching possibilities in medicine, engineering
University of California, San Diego bioengineers have developed a self-healing hydrogel that binds in seconds, as easily as Velcro, and forms a bond strong enough to withstand repeated stretching. The material has numerous potential applications, including medical sutures, targeted drug delivery, industrial sealants and self-healing plastics, a team of UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering researchers reported March 5 in the online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.