News & Events

06-02-21

Hrishika Basava, advised by Ali Hajimiri, Bren Professor of Electrical Engineering and Medical Engineering; Co-Director, Space-Based Solar Power Project, is one of four recipients of the 2021 Henry Ford II Scholar Award. Hrishika is interested in many different aspects of electrical engineering, and specifically applications in robotics and aerospace. She does research in inverse design techniques for nanophotonics with Ali Hajimiri. Hrishika has also worked on the Caltech Racing electrical team and has done research on the explosion mechanism of supernovae at the Carnegie Observatories. At Caltech, she has particularly enjoyed taking hands-on project classes, as well as being a teaching assistant in electrical engineering courses. This summer, Hrishika will be interning at Nuro, a robotics company working on a self-driving car. After graduating she plans to pursue higher education and eventually work in the technology industry. The Henry Ford II Scholar Award is funded under an endowment provided by the Ford Motor Company Fund. The award is made annually to engineering students with the best academic record at the end of the third year of undergraduate study.

Tags: EE honors Henry Ford II Scholar Award Ali Hajimiri Hrishika Basava

05-24-21

Mechanical Engineering student Luis Pabon Madrid, advised by Sergio Pellegrino, Joyce and Kent Kresa Professor of Aerospace and Civil Engineering; Jet Propulsion Laboratory Senior Research Scientist; Co-Director, Space-Based Solar Power Project, is one of four recipients of the 2021 Henry Ford II Scholar Award. Luis is interested in the intersection of robotics and aerospace with a focus on space exploration. Luis does research on aerial manipulation for a Mars science rotorcraft with Joel W. Burdick, Richard L. and Dorothy M. Hayman Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Bioengineering; Jet Propulsion Laboratory Research Scientist. He has previously worked as a Research and Development intern at Honeywell Aerospace and contributed to Caltech and JPL’s efforts for the DARPA Subterranean Challenge. He founded the Caltech AIAA Student Branch, which was selected as finalist for the NASA BIG Idea Challenge and awarded a grant to develop lunar dust mitigation technologies under the advisement of Soon-Jo Chung, Bren Professor of Aerospace and Control and Dynamical Systems; Jet Propulsion Laboratory Research Scientist. This summer, he will be working as a SURF fellow under Professor Chung, to continue his work on the challenge and explore the control of multirotor swarms. After graduation, he plans to pursue a Ph.D. The Henry Ford II Scholar Award is funded under an endowment provided by the Ford Motor Company Fund. The award is made annually to engineering students with the best academic record at the end of the third year of undergraduate study.

Tags: honors MCE Henry Ford II Scholar Award Joel Burdick Soon-Jo Chung Luis Pabon Madrid

05-17-21

Computer science and economics student Alexander Wang, advised by Adam Blank, Teaching Assistant Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, and by Antonio Rangel, Bing Professor of Neuroscience, Behavioral Biology and Economics, is one of four recipients of the 2021 Henry Ford II Scholar Award. Alex is interested in mathematical and computational modeling and financial markets, as well as neuroscience and decision making. He has previously worked as a quantitative research intern at the quantitative hedge fund Cannon Global Investment Management and as a data science intern at the biotechnology startup Metagenomi. He has also conducted computational neuroscience research at Caltech, studying the pharmacokinetics of neuropharmaceutical drugs with Henry Lester, Bren Professor of Biology, Neuroscience, and Biological Engineering, and studying the mechanisms involved in adeno-associated viral (AAV) transduction with Viviana Gradinaru, Professor of Biology, Neuroscience, and Biological Engineering. This summer, he will be working at Susquehanna International Group as a quantitative trading intern. After graduation, he plans to pursue graduate school in neuroscience, with a focus on computational neuroscience. The Henry Ford II Scholar Award is funded under an endowment provided by the Ford Motor Company Fund. The award is made annually to engineering students with the best academic record at the end of the third year of undergraduate study.

Tags: honors CMS Henry Ford II Scholar Award Antonio Rangel Adam Blank Alexander Wang Henry Lester

05-10-21

Computer science student Ethan Mann, advised by Adam Blank, Teaching Assistant Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, is one of four recipients of the 2021 Henry Ford II Scholar Award. Ethan is interested in machine learning and systems programming, and he enjoys taking technical classes that blend theory and coding. Last year, he researched with Yaser Abu-Mostafa, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, to model the trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic with artificial intelligence. He has also interned at the Big Memory startup MemVerge and researched efficient metasurface lens simulation with Sunil Golwala, Professor of Physics and Director of the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory, and Jack Sayers, Research Professor of Physics. This summer, Ethan will be interning at Facebook as a software engineer, and he looks forward to working in the technology industry after graduating. The Henry Ford II Scholar Award is funded under an endowment provided by the Ford Motor Company Fund. The award is made annually to engineering students with the best academic record at the end of the third year of undergraduate study.

Tags: honors CMS Henry Ford II Scholar Award Yaser Abu-Mostafa Adam Blank Ethan Mann

07-03-20

Computation and neural systems student Matthew S. Bauer is a recipient of the 2020 Henry Ford II Scholar Award. The Henry Ford II Scholar Award is funded under an endowment provided by the Ford Motor Company Fund. The award is made annually to engineering students with the best academic record at the end of the third year of undergraduate study.

Tags: honors Henry Ford II Scholar Award CNS Matthew Bauer

06-30-20

Computer science student Alexander Popov, advised by Yaser Abu-Mostafa, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, is a recipient of the 2020 Henry Ford II Scholar Award. Some of the most interesting classes that Alexander has taken at Caltech have been team-based interdisciplinary project classes. These classes have allowed him to gain experience working in teams with varying specialties, while designing and implementing interesting projects (for example, a robot arm designed to recognize users’ hand gestures and assist them in executing complicated drawing-related tasks, such as exactly copying an area of a whiteboard). This summer he will be working as a software engineer at Facebook. After graduation, he aims to work at a company where he is able to further develop his knowledge of machine learning and the application thereof. The Henry Ford II Scholar Award is funded under an endowment provided by the Ford Motor Company Fund. The award is made annually to engineering students with the best academic record at the end of the third year of undergraduate study.

Tags: EE honors CMS Henry Ford II Scholar Award Yaser Abu-Mostafa Alexander Popov

06-26-20

Computer science mathematics student Joo Eun (June) Kim, advised by Adam Wierman, Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences; Director, Information Science and Technology, is a recipient of the 2020 Henry Ford II Scholar Award. June is largely interested in software engineering and game programming. She has previously worked at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory as part of the Mars 2020 Lander Vision System team, and at Blizzard Entertainment as a full-stack engineer intern. This summer she will be working at Riot Games as a game engineer intern and is hoping to continue her professional career in the gaming industry. The Henry Ford II Scholar Award is funded under an endowment provided by the Ford Motor Company Fund. The award is made annually to engineering students with the best academic record at the end of the third year of undergraduate study.

Tags: honors CMS Henry Ford II Scholar Award Adam Wierman IST Joo Eun Kim

06-22-20

Applied and computational mathematics student Ishani A. Karmarkar is a recipient of the 2020 Henry Ford II Scholar Award. Ishani is interested in data science and numerical algorithms, as well as applications to physical problems. This summer, she will be working on a SURF project on graph-based semi-supervised learning algorithms with Bamdad Hosseini, Senior Postdoctoral Scholar Research Associate, and Andrew Stuart, Bren Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences. In the past, she has also worked on a fluid modelling project with Sandra Troian, Professor of Applied Physics, Aeronautics, and Mechanical Engineering, and completed a summer internship at Facebook. The Henry Ford II Scholar Award is funded under an endowment provided by the Ford Motor Company Fund. The award is made annually to engineering students with the best academic record at the end of the third year of undergraduate study.

Tags: APhMS honors GALCIT MCE CMS Henry Ford II Scholar Award Sandra Troian Andrew Stuart Ishani Karmarkar

06-12-20

Electrical engineering student Mohith Manohara is a recipient of the 2020 Henry Ford II Scholar Award. The award is made annually to engineering students with the best academic record at the end of the third year of undergraduate study. Mohith is currently a junior studying Electrical Engineering at Caltech. He does research on phased arrays with Ali Hajimiri, Bren Professor of Electrical Engineering and Medical Engineering; Co-Director, Space-Based Solar Power Project, and leads the electronics on the Caltech Robotics Team. This summer he will be doing an internship at a startup called Epirus, and afterwards he plans to pursue a PhD. The Henry Ford II Scholar Award is funded under an endowment provided by the Ford Motor Company Fund.

Tags: EE honors MedE Henry Ford II Scholar Award Ali Hajimiri KNI Mohith Manohara

06-08-20

Daniel Neamati is a recipient of the 2020 Henry Ford II Scholar Award. Daniel’s interests sit at the cross-section of mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering, and planetary science. Daniel's research includes modern computational techniques in microfluidic analyses, and he has contributed to JPL projects such as the Europa Lander and Mars 2020. In the near future, Daniel plans to conduct a SURF at Stanford, and a senior thesis with Soon-Jo Chung, Bren Professor of Aerospace; Jet Propulsion Laboratory Research Scientist, in the Aerospace Robotics and Control Laboratory. Thereafter, Daniel plans to pursue a Ph.D. in control systems in aerospace engineering. The Henry Ford II Scholar Award is funded under an endowment provided by the Ford Motor Company Fund. The award is made annually to engineering students with the best academic record at the end of the third year of undergraduate study.

Tags: honors GALCIT Henry Ford II Scholar Award Soon-Jo Chung Daniel Neamati