News

03-21-13

Hillary Mushkin, Visiting Professor of Art and Design in Mechanical and Civil Engineering, worked with a group of students taking her new media art history seminar (E/H/Art 89 - the first Caltech course cross-listed in engineering and humanities) to conceptualize, design and fabricate their own original new media artwork using technologies and fabrication methods of their own choice. Students created electroencephalogram (EEG) art, automatic drawing machines, conceptual art-inspired visualizations of mathematical concepts, interactive video projections, electronic instruments and other novel forms. [Photos of the exhibit]

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Tags: EE research highlights MCE CMS Hillary Mushkin

03-14-13

The Caltech Division of Engineering and Applied Science and the USC Viterbi School of Engineering have established a new scholarship program, named after outgoing National Academy of Engineering (NAE) president Charles M. Vest at their institutions, along with six other universities around the country. "The Vest Scholarship is a superb opportunity for high-powered international graduate students to work with faculty and researchers who are international leaders in their engineering disciplines," says Chair Ares Rosakis. "At Caltech, due to its small size and strong interdisciplinary philosophy, the students will have the opportunity to work closely with not only these international leaders in engineering research, but also with their collaborators in all areas of science and technology." [Caltech Release] [Application Information]

Tags: APhMS EE GALCIT MedE MCE CMS ESE NAE

02-12-13

Richard M. Murray, Thomas E. and Doris Everhart Professor of Control and Dynamical Systems and Bioengineering, and Michael Ortiz, Dotty and Dick Hayman Professor of Aeronautics and Mechanical Engineering, have been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Professor Murray was elected for contributions in control theory and networked control systems with applications to aerospace engineering, robotics, and autonomy. Professor Ortiz was elected for contributions to computational mechanics to advance the underpinnings of solid mechanics. [Caltech Release]

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Tags: honors GALCIT MCE CMS National Academy of Engineering Michael Ortiz Richard Murray

01-17-13

Graduate student Matanya B. Horowitz, who works with Professors Joel Burdick and John Doyle, is one of the speakers at TEDxCaltech. He is active in several Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) challenges that seek to develop better control mechanisms for robotic arms, as well as develop humanoid robots that can do human-like tasks in dangerous situations, such as disable bombs or enter nuclear power plants during an emergency. [Caltech News]

Tags: MCE CMS John Doyle Joel Burdick Matanya Horowitz

11-20-12

Ray E. Feeney (BS 1975 EAS, Page House) has recently joined the Science and Technology Council of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He is the past recipient of several Academy Awards, including one for designing the first motion control camera system. Earlier this year, Feeney received a 2012 Engineering Emmy on behalf of The Academy for the ACES project which he co-chaired. He was named a Caltech Distinguished Alumnus in 2008, and now serves on the Board of Directors of the Caltech Alumni Association. [Learn more]

Tags: honors CMS Ray Feeney Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

11-06-12

Christopher Beck (BS '09 Computer Science and Mathematics) is a recipient of a 2012 Simons Graduate Fellowship. The fellowships are given to graduate students in theoretical computer science with outstanding track records of research accomplishments. Beck’s work seeks to establish the limits of how efficiently we can solve computational problems. One of his papers studies a popular class of algorithms known as SAT solvers and shows that if their memory is restricted, then they can require exponential running time. Another result concerns how well we can approximately sample from certain distributions when our computation must be small depth, that is, highly parallelizable. Beck and his co-authors showed that even exponentially large bounded depth circuits cannot sample with even exponentially small success from a certain simple distribution.

Tags: honors research highlights CMS Christopher Beck

10-25-12

Gerard J. Holzmann, Faculty Associate and Lecturer in Computing and Mathematical Sciences and Lead Scientist of the Laboratory for Reliable Software at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, has received the NASA Exceptional Engineering Achievement Medal "for exceptional and sustained achievement in developing and infusing advanced engineering practices for the verification of mission-critical software." [Learn more]

Tags: honors CMS Gerard Holzmann JPL

10-24-12

Michael C. Vanier, Lecturer in Computing and Mathematical Sciences, has been chosen as "Professor of the Month" by the Caltech Academics and Research Committee (ARC).  ARC serves as an objective liaison between students and faculty, to facilitate effective communication, and improve the quality of learning at Caltech. The students nominated Dr. Vanier as "a lecturer that is an outstanding teacher and someone who cares for the well-being of their students".

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10-24-12

Doug MacMartin, Senior Research Associate in Computing and Mathematical Sciences, and colleagues have shown that the outcome of geoengineering can be tunable. Geoengineering is the concept of how the planet's climate could be manipulated to counteract the effects of global warming. Using computer modeling, they have shown that varying the amount of sunlight deflected away from the earth by season and by region can significantly improve the parity of the situation. [Caltech Release]

Tags: energy CMS Doug MacMartin

10-04-12

For the third year the Times Higher Education world university rankings has ranked Caltech as number one in engineering and technology. [View Rankings] [Caltech Feature]

Tags: APhMS EE GALCIT MCE CMS ESE Graduate school rankings