07-07-21
Wei Gao, Assistant Professor of Medical Engineering, has received the Pittsburgh Conference Achievement Award (PCAA). The Pittsburgh Conference Achievement Award is given annually to a researcher who has made a significant and independent impact in the area of analytical chemistry within the first ten years after his or her doctoral degree. [Past Recipients]
06-30-21
Undergraduate student Laura Lewis, advised by Elena Mantovan, Professor of Mathematics; Claire Ralph, Lecturer in Computing and Mathematical Sciences; Director, Career Development Center; and Thomas Vidick, Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, has won both the qBraid Technical Challenge in the Quantum Coalition Hack and the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT) 2021 Collegiate Award. [Caltech story]
Tags: honors CMS Thomas Vidick Claire Ralph Laura Lewis Elena Mantovan
06-28-21
Thomas Vidick, Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, has been named a Simons Investigator by the Simons Foundation. The intent of the Simons Investigators in Mathematics, Physics, Astrophysics and Computer Science programs is to support outstanding theoretical scientists in their most productive years, when they are establishing creative new research directions. Awardees are outstanding theoretical scientists who receive a stable base of research support from the foundation, enabling them to undertake the long-term study of fundamental questions. [Past Recipients]
Tags: honors CMS Thomas Vidick
06-28-21
Jennifer Sun, graduate student in Computing and Mathematical Sciences, has won Best Student Paper at CVPR 2021. The paper, titled "Task Programming: Learning Data Efficient Behavior Representations," studies how to use programmatic weak supervision to reduce the need for supervised labels.
Tags: honors CMS Jennifer Sun
06-25-21
Julia R. Greer, Ruben F. and Donna Mettler Professor of Materials Science, Mechanics and Medical Engineering; Fletcher Jones Foundation Director of the Kavli Nanoscience Institute, has developed a nano-architected material made from tiny carbon struts that is, pound for pound, more effective at stopping a projectile than Kevlar, a material commonly used in personal protective gear. "The knowledge from this work could provide design principles for ultra-lightweight impact resistant materials for use in efficient armor materials, protective coatings, and blast-resistant shields desirable in defense and space applications," says Greer. [Caltech story]
06-24-21
Without GPS, autonomous systems get lost easily. Now a new algorithm developed at Caltech allows autonomous systems to recognize where they are simply by looking at the terrain around them—and for the first time, the technology works regardless of seasonal changes to that terrain. The general process, known as visual terrain-relative navigation (VTRN), was first developed in the 1960s. By comparing nearby terrain to high-resolution satellite images, autonomous systems can locate themselves. The problem is that, in order for it to work, the current generation of VTRN requires that the terrain it is looking at closely matches the images in its database. To overcome this challenge, Anthony Fragoso, Lecturer in Aerospace; Staff Scientist, Connor Lee, Graduate student in Aerospace, Austin McCoy, Undergraduate, and Soon-Jo Chung, Bren Professor of Aerospace and Control and Dynamical Systems and research scientist at JPL, turned to deep learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to remove seasonal content that hinders current VTRN systems. [Caltech story]
Tags: research highlights GALCIT MCE CMS Soon-Jo Chung Anthony Fragoso Connor Lee Austin McCoy
06-18-21
When a person develops a kidney stone or a gall stone—hard accumulations of minerals and other compounds created by the body—they can experience a great deal of pain and discomfort. Lithotripsy is the practice of breaking gall or kidney stones into small pieces within the body using shockwaves produced by a machine called a lithotripter. A new form of lithotripsy has been under development with the help of Tim Colonius, Frank and Ora Lee Marble Professor of Mechanical Engineering. [Caltech story]
06-17-21
Mathieu Desbrun, Carl F Braun Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, was selected as a 2021 awardee for the ACM SIGGRAPH Academy. Professor Desbrun was selected for contributions to geometric processing and establishing the discrete differential geometry framework. The ACM SIGGRAPH Academy is an honorary group of individuals who have made substantial contributions to the field of computer graphics. These are principal leaders of the field, whose efforts have shaped the disciplines and/or industry, and led the research and/or innovation in computer graphics and interactive techniques. [Past recipients]
Tags: honors CMS Mathieu Desbrun
06-17-21
Simon Toedtli, a graduate student working with Professor Beverley McKeon, is the recipient of the 2021 Richard B. Chapman Memorial Award. His doctoral research combined direct numerical simulations and modal analyses to investigate the physics of closed-loop wall transpiration in a turbulent channel flow and to build low-order flow models for controller design. Both aspects contribute towards the development of drag-reducing control schemes for engineering applications, and will help make future transportation vessels more sustainable. Simon is continuing his studies in fluid mechanics as a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University, where he will work on data assimilation for turbulent flows. The Richard B. Chapman Memorial Award is given to an EAS graduate student in hydrodynamics who has distinguished himself or herself in research.
06-16-21
Adam Wierman, Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences; Director, Information Science and Technology, and Steven Low, Frank J. Gilloon Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences and Electrical Engineering, have received the SIGMETRICS Test of Time Award for their paper titled "Greening Geographical Load Balancing." The ACM SIGMETRICS Test of Time Award recognizes an influential performance evaluation paper whose impact is still felt 10-12 years after its initial publication. [Past winners]
Tags: EE honors CMS Adam Wierman Steven Low Minghong Lin Zhenhua Liu IST
