News Releases from 2015
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October 29, 2015
UC San Diego Launches Robotics Institute
The Jacobs School of Engineering and Division of Social Sciences at UC San Diego have launched the Contextual Robotics Institute to develop safe and useful robotics systems. These robotics systems will function in the real world based on the contextual information they perceive, in real time. Elder care and assisted living, disaster response, medicine, transportation and environmental sensing are just some of the helpful applications that will emerge from tomorrow’s human-friendly robots.The Contextual Robotics Institute will leverage UC San Diego’s research strengths in engineering, computer science and cognitive science and work collaboratively across the campus and the region to establish San Diego as a leader in the research, development and production of human-friendly robotics systems.
October 14, 2015
Meet the Jacobs School's 17 new faculty
The Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego is building and strengthening its research abilities by hiring 17 new faculty this year. With these hires, the school is increasing its impact in clinical medicine, robotics, wireless technologies, genomics, data sciences and cybersecurity, clean energy, advanced manufacturing—and more.
September 24, 2015
UC San Diego Engineers on Thomson Reuters list of Highly Cited Researchers
Three professors from the University of California, San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering have earned a spot on the Thomson Reuters list of Highly Cited Researchers in 2015 for exceptional impact in their fields. The three professors, Yuri Bazilevs, Bernhard Palsson and Joseph Wang are among 22 professors and researchers from UC San Diego named to the prestigious Highly Cited Researchers list.
September 24, 2015
World's largest outdoor shake table gets $5.2 million from National Science Foundation
The University of California at San Diego has received a $5.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to run the world’s largest outdoor shake table for the next five years. The table, which can carry structures weighing up to 2,000 tons, can replicate the ground motions of most of the world’s largest earthquakes. It has been used since 2004 as a resource for NSF-funded researchers from around the nation to test innovative technologies and designs for seismic safety of new buildings and retrofitting techniques for existing structures.
August 24, 2015
UC San Diego is No. 1 in Nation for Sixth Year, According to Washington Monthly
For the sixth consecutive year, the University of California, San Diego has been ranked the number one university in the nation by Washington Monthly for its contributions to the public good. The magazine released its 2015 College Guide today, an annual issue that takes a different approach to ranking the nation’s colleges and universities.
May 14, 2015
Event empowers students to study STEM fields
As a ninth grader, Diana has dreamt of being many different things, but an engineer has never been one of them.“I guess it just isn’t something you think could really happen for a lot of people. Those kinds of jobs feel so far away,” she said.She was among 150 students who attended the Empower High School Conference on Saturday, April 25—an event that hopes to make STEM jobs a more realistic career goal for students.By the end of the event, she was enthusiastic: “My favorite part of the day was touring the labs. Seeing all the resources here is definitely inspiring. It makes you feel like you could something really cool,” said Diana.
April 24, 2015
Jacobs School of Engineering Students Receive 2015 NSF Graduate Research Fellowships
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Graduate Research Fellowships to eight students from the Jacobs School of Engineering. This year, the NSF received approximately 16,500 applications and made 2,000 fellowship award offers. The fellowships provide three years of financial support – including an annual stipend and a cost-of-education allowance to the graduate institution – during a five-year period to individuals pursuing research-based master’s or doctoral degrees in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics.
April 20, 2015
Micromotors. Heart on a chip. Social media epidemiology. A Research Expo recap.
Micromotors that zoom through a mouse’s stomach. Heart tissues on a chip. Analysis of social media posts to prevent an increase in HIV infections. These were only a few of more than 200 posters on display at the Jacobs School’s Research Expo 2015 at the Price Center Ballroom on April 16.
March 4, 2015
Making the Past Present with Light, Warmth and a High-Tech Gaze
Late last year, two University of California, San Diego students set out for Florence, Italy, to diagnose a patient that had no prior medical record, couldn’t be poked or prodded in any way, and hadn’t been in prime condition for more than 800 years. The ‘patient’ in question is the Baptistery of St. John, a basilica that sits in the Piazza del Duomo, adjacent to the famous Florence Cathedral (known colloquially as “The Duomo”). The students, structural engineering Ph.D. candidates Mike Hess and Mike Yeager of the Center of Interdisciplinary Science for Art, Architecture and Archaeology, had been invited by the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo to conduct a structural 'health assessment' of the building, which was completed in 1128 and was the site where the Italian poet Dante and many other notable Renaissance figures were baptized.
January 28, 2015
How whales hear: 3D computer simulations of a baleen whale's head point to skull vibrations
Researchers at San Diego State University and the University of California, San Diego, shed new light on how whales are able to hear, and more specifically on the role of the skulls of at least some baleen whales—fin whales to be precise. In their study, published today in the journal PLOS One, marine biologist Ted W. Cranford of San Diego State and UC San Diego structural engineer Petr Krysl reveal that fin whale skulls have acoustic properties that conduct low frequencies directly into the marine mammals’ ear bones. The researchers digitally recreated in great detail the skull of a juvenile fin whale in order to run simulations that led to their findings—a first in computer simulation history.
January 6, 2015
Structural seismic design expert Nigel Priestley dies
Nigel Priestley, Emeritus Professor in the Department of Structural Engineering at the University of California, San Diego, passed away peacefully on Tuesday Dec. 23 in Christchurch, New Zealand, surrounded by his wife, Jan, and children, after a long battle with cancer.