News & Events

10-18-17

Amnon Yariv, Martin and Eileen Summerfield Professor of Applied Physics and Electrical Engineering, has been elected as a 2017 Honorary Member of The Optical Society. He was elected for pioneering scientific and engineering contributions to photonics and quantum electronics that have profoundly impacted lightwave communications and the field of optics as a whole. Professor Yariv joins a very select and highly distinguished group of Honorary Members which include George E. Hale in 1916 and R.A. Millikan in 1950 from Caltech. [List of Honorary Members]

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10-17-17

This year’s CMS Techfest was attended by five hundred members of the Caltech Community and brought together more than thirty companies and nonprofits developing the latest technologies related to the computing and mathematical sciences. Two thirds of the companies attending were from the local area, eight have Caltech alumni co-founders, CEOs, or CTOs. The main goals of the event were to expose students to the latest technologies and a wide range of career options, building and supporting the CMS alumni network, and supporting the local start-up ecosystem. This year’s Techfest involved a demo fair focused on providing startups, companies, students, postdocs, and faculty with a chance for meaningful interactions with each other. The Partners Program company members including as Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Northrop Grumman showed off cutting-edge research, and brand new technologies. Students learned about the breadth of applications for CMS across industries and networked with company representatives.

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10-17-17

Thomas Vidick, Associate Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, has been named an Azrieli Global Scholar by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR). This scholars program supports researchers within five years of their first academic appointment, helping them build research networks and develop leadership skills. Professor Vidick will receive $100,000 in research support and will become a part of one of CIFAR's 12 research programs for two years. [Caltech story]

Tags: honors CMS Thomas Vidick

10-17-17

Josette Bellan, Visiting Associate in Mechanical and Civil Engineering, is the recipient of the 2018 The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Pendray Aerospace Literature Award. The award recognizes outstanding contributions to literature with the emphasis placed on the high quality or major influence of the piece. The award was also established as an incentive for professionals to write eloquently and persuasively about their field. Dr. Bellan is recognized “for widely reaching, seminal and outstanding publications on bio-fuels, sprays and high pressure flows to meet future challenges of Aeronautics and Astronautics combustion systems.” [Publication list]

Tags: honors MCE Josette Bellan

10-13-17

Brent Fultz, Barbara and Stanley R. Rawn, Jr., Professor of Materials Science and Applied Physics, has been elected as a 2017 Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) “For seminal experiments demonstrating the importance of vibrational entropy to the phase stability of materials and transformational leadership in the development of neutron scattering techniques.” [APS Fellow Archive]

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10-12-17

Caltech alumni and members of the Information Science and Technology (IST) Advisory Council covered the cost of attendance for many of the forty Caltech students who participated in this year’s Grace Hopper Celebration—the world’s largest gathering of women in technology. [Breakthrough story]

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10-11-17

Marco Bernardi, Assistant Professor of Applied Physics and Materials Science, has won a 2017 Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) Young Investigator Award. The objectives of this program are: to foster creative basic research in science and engineering, enhance early career development of outstanding young investigators, and increase opportunities for the young investigators to recognize the Air Force mission and the related challenges in science and engineering. Professor Bernardi received the award for his proposal entitled, “Ab Initio Electron-Defect and Electron-Phonon Scattering for Understanding and Designing High-Mobility Semiconductors and Oxides.” [AFOSR Press Release]

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10-10-17

Brent Fultz, Barbara and Stanley R. Rawn, Jr., Professor of Materials Science and Applied Physics, and colleagues have pinpointed that arrangement of atoms is the main source of an increase in entropy during the glass transition. One persistent mystery about metallic glasses occurs at the so-called "glass transition." A cold metallic glass is hard and brittle, but when it is heated past a certain point—the glass transition—it becomes soft. [Caltech story]

Tags: APhMS research highlights Brent Fultz MatSci

09-29-17

Wei Gao, Assistant Professor of Medical Engineering, is interested in the future of personalized and precision medicine, and is engineering the next generation of wearable health monitors and nanomachines that could enable rapid and hyper-localized drug delivery and surgery. The sweatband health tracker he is developing is capable of studying health at a molecular level. By analyzing an individual’s sweat, the device can monitor dehydration levels as well as blood glucose levels in real time. [Caltech interview]

Tags: research highlights MedE Wei Gao

09-18-17

Stevan Nadj-Perge, Assistant Professor of Applied Physics and Materials Science, has been named the 2017 KNI-Wheatley Scholar in Nanoscience for his proposal to develop a novel nanofabrication technique to integrate atomic size objects, such as atomic chains, into superconducting interferometer devices. [Nurturing Nanoscience]

Tags: APhMS honors KNI Stevan Nadj-Perge