UCLA Engineering Magazine by ETCH Creative

UCLA Engineer

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spring 2011, issue no. 25

from the dean

The energy economy of the 21st century requires an urgent large-scale shift from limited and environmentally harmful fossil fuels to one based on clean and renewable energy sources, while greatly increasing efficiency. Here at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, there are many faculty and students working on innovative solutions for this complex set of challenges. The Spring 2011 issue of UCLA Engineer features a two-page infographic spread highlighting several UCLA Engineering-led energy research projects and the roles they will play in conquering the new energy frontier. Professor Richard Wirz is one such faculty member, focusing his research and passion on new technologies that will make wind energy more efficient, and therefore a much more viable option for the country’s future energy portfolio. Further, this issue continues in showcasing some of our amazing alumni and students. Since earning his master’s degree in 1990, alumnus Ben Horowitz has had an unstoppable career trajectory, taking him from product manager to technology executive, entrepreneur, and now, founder and partner of one of Silicon Valley’s leading venture capital firms. Today he is thrilled to have the opportunity and ability to help others find success. In addition, mechanical engineering doctorate student Julia K. Nichols is also one of America’s most accomplished rowers, having won several medals in international competition. After an excellent showing at the 2010 World Rowing Championships, held in New Zealand, she is currently training for the 2012 Olympics in London. Finally, this issue also includes an article on some of our special K-12 outreach programs based at UCLA Engineering. As a public engineering school, we have an obligation to engage and educate potential engineers before they get to college. We are very proud of our efforts in this area. I invite you to enjoy this issue of UCLA Engineer. Sincerely,

UCLA E Dean Vijay K. Dhir

Associate Deans Richard D. Wesel Academic and Student Affairs Jane P. Chang Research and Physical Resources Assistant Dean Mary Okino Chief Financial Officer Department Chairs Timothy J. Deming Bioengineering Harold G. Monbouquette Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Jiun-Shyan (JS) Chen Civil and Environmental Engineering Jens Palsberg Computer Science M.C. Frank Chang Electrical Engineering Jenn-Ming Yang Materials Science and Engineering Adrienne Lavine Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering UCLA Engineer Advisory Board Timothy J. Deming Vijay K. Dhir William Goodin Adrienne Lavine Mary Okino Richard D. Wesel External Affairs Communications Wileen Wong Kromhout Director of Media Relations and Marketing Matthew Chin Communications Manager Amy Gonsalves Communications Assistant

Vijay K. Dhir Dean

Office of External Affairs 310.206.0678 www.engineer.ucla.edu uclaengineering@support.ucla.edu design: Leslie Baker Graphic Design

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ngineer 6 8 10

C onquering the New Energy Frontier

14 Faculty News

Wind Energy Picking up Speed UCLA Engineering to Construct New State-Of-The-Art Building

12 B en Horowitz MS â&#x20AC;&#x2122;90 Trains Others to Reach Their Full CEO Potential

Research Summaries

School News

Student News

Alumni News

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research Summaries

1. A simple microfluidic “filter” structure converts microparticle streams with smaller interparticle spacings to trains of larger spacing. The channel width is about half the diameter of a human hair at the expansion. 2. A self-assembled lattice of 10 micrometer diameter particles flowing through a microfluidic channel. 3. Traces of flowing microparticle interactions (dark lines) over time (y-direction).

UCLA bioengineers discover

how particles self-assemble in flowing fluids Matthew Chin

rom atomic crystals to spiral galaxies, selfassembly is ubiquitous in nature. In biological processes, self-assembly at the molecular level is particularly prevalent. Phospholipids, for example, will self-assemble into a bilayer to form a cell membrane, and actin, a protein that supports and shapes a cell’s structure, continuously self-assembles and disassembles during cell movement. UCLA bioengineers have been exploring a unique phenomenon whereby randomly dispersed microparticles self-assemble into a highly organized structure as they flow through microscale channels. This self-assembly behavior was unexpected, the researchers said, for such a simple system containing only particles, fluid and a conduit through which these elements flow. The particles formed lattice-like structures due to a unique combination of hydrodynamic interactions. The research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was led by postdoctoral scholar Wonhee Lee and assistant professor of bioengineering Dino Di Carlo. The research team discovered the mechanism that leads to this self-assembly behavior through a series

3 of careful experiments and numerical simulations. They found that continuous disturbance of the fluid induced by each flowing and rotating particle drives neighboring particles away, while migration of particles to localized streams due to the momentum of the fluid acts to stabilize the spacing between particles at a finite distance. In essence, the combination of repulsion and localization leads to an organized structure. Once they understood the mechanism, the team developed microchannels that allowed for “tuning” of the spatial frequency of particles within an organized particle train. “Programmable control of flowing microscale particles may be important in opening up new capabilities in biomedicine, materials synthesis and computation, similar to how improved control of flowing electrons has enabled a revolution in computing and communication,” Di Carlo said. For example, controlling the positions of microscale bioparticles, such as cells in flowing channels, is important for the operation of blood analysis and counting diagnostic systems.

bacteria can

stand up and walk Wileen Wong Kromhout

any drug-resistant infections are the result of bacterial biofilms, structured aggregates of bacteria that live on surfaces and that are extremely resistant to environmental stresses. These biofilms impact human health in many ways — cystic fibrosis, for example, is a disease in which patients die from airway bacterial biofilm infections that are invulnerable to even the most potent antibiotics. Now, UCLA Engineering researchers and their colleagues have found that during the initial stages of biofilm formation, bacteria can actually stand upright and “walk” as part of their adaptation to a surface. “Bacteria exist in two physiological states: the freeswimming, single-celled planktonic state and the surfacemounted biofilm state, a dense, structured, community of cells governed by their own sociology,” said UCLA bioengineering professor Gerard Wong. In the study, which appeared in the journal Science, Wong and his research group describe the new surface adaptation — the “walking” motility mechanism, which was observed in Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a biofilm-forming pathogen partly responsible for the lethal infections in cystic fibrosis. What enables this upright walking are appendages called type IV pili, which function as the analog of legs. What’s more, walking allows P. aeruginosa to move with trajectories optimized for surface exploration, so that they can forage more effectively. The upright orientation is also the first step in surface detachment for bacteria. The research team was able to develop a series of search engines and computer programs that use particle-tracking algorithms to quantitatively analyze time-lapse microscopy movies of bacterial motion on surfaces. “Previously, graduate students had to look at cells manually and then laboriously track them from one frame to

Illustration of a walking bacteria the next,” Wong said. “Our computational approach allows us to increase the volume of data analyzed 100,000-fold and to perform the necessary analysis in a few hours rather than a few months. The research could lead to knowing how P. aeruginosa colonizes surfaces, and therefore better treatments. The research could also lead to a reduction in biofouling from biofilm formation across a wide range of industries. This research was funded by the National Institutes of Health under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the National Science Foundation and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. The complete release is available online at: http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/ucla-ledresearch-team-finds-that-172216.aspx

ucla Engineer 3

research Summaries

left: This is standard staining to locate a cell nucleus. right: Same frame taken for a pluripotent marker, this positive staining indicates that cells remain under the team’s culture condition.

Major Roadblock eliminated in

regenerative medicine Wileen Wong Kromhout

n regenerative medicine, large supplies of safe and reliable human embryonic stem (hES) cells are needed for implantation into patients, but the field has faced challenges in developing cultures that can consistently grow and maintain clinical-grade stem cells. Standard culture systems use mouse “feeder” cells and media containing bovine sera to cultivate and maintain hES cells, but such animal product–based media can contaminate the cells. And because of difficulties in precise quality control, each batch of the medium can introduce new and unwanted variations. Now, a team of stem cell biologists and engineers from UCLA has identified an optimal combination and concentration of small-molecule inhibitors to support the long-term quality and maintenance of hES cells in feeder-free and serumfree conditions. The researchers used a feedback system control (FSC) scheme to innovatively and efficiently select the smallmolecule inhibitors from a very large pool of possibilities. The research findings, published in the journal Nature Communications, represent a major advance to broadly transition regenerative medicine from the benchtop to the clinic. “What is significant about this work is that we’ve been able to very rapidly develop a chemically defined culture medium to replace serum and feeders for cultivating clinicalgrade hES cells, thereby removing a major roadblock in the area of regenerative medicine,” said Chih-Ming Ho, the Ben Rich–Lockheed Martin Professor at UCLA Engineering and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. Unlike current animal product–based media, the new medium is a “defined” culture medium — one in which every

This is a sliced section of teratoma (injected human ES cells growing into a tumor inside a host mouse). The observed heterogeneous tissue development indicate that the originally injected cells had multilineage differentiation potentials. component is known and traceable. This is important for clinical applications and as drugs or cells enter the world of regulatory affairs, including good manufacturing practice compliance and Food and Drug Administration supervision. “It is also the first defined medium to allow for long term single-cell passage,” said the paper’s senior author, Hong Wu, the David Geffen Professor of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology at UCLA’s school of medicine and a researcher with UCLA’s Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research. Single-cell passaging — a process in which hES cells are dissociated into single cells and subcultured through single-cell–derived colonies — is important in overcoming the massive cell death associated with hES cell dissociation during routine passage, and it allows for genetic manipulation at the clonal level. continued on page 29

New Transparent Electrodes for

Highly Flexible Electronics Wileen Wong Kromhout

he development of new electronic applications like thin-film solar panels, wearable displays and noninvasive biomedical devices, which require significant deformation to copy body movements, has heightened the need for transparent, highly flexible electrodes. Currently, indium-doped tin oxide (ITO) technology is used for electrodes in LCD displays, solar cells, iPads and smart-phone touch screens, and organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays for televisions and computer monitors. But

utilization efficiency in the manufacturing can be greater than 50 percent. And furthermore, the electrodes are manufactured by a low-temperature, low-cost process.” The resulting AgN W/polymer electrodes have high transparency, low sheet resistance comparable to ITO, and low surface roughness. They are substantially more compliant than ITO and would be suitable for the fabrication of high-performance and stretchable OLEDs and solar cells.

The flexibility of the transparent electrodes is demonstrated ITO can be fragile and toxic, and it is becoming increasingly more expensive to produce. A research team led by Qibing Pei, professor of materials science and engineering, has developed a new transparent electrode based on silver nanowires (AgN W) that could replace ITO. The research was published in the journal Advanced Materials. The new electrode uses low-cost, non-toxic, stable materials and is easy to fabricate. It is produced on a cross-linked, transparent polyacylate substrate, which is cheaper than glass and can be stiff and rigid or flexible and stretchable. “In ITO manufacturing, the indium utilization efficiency is only 15 percent,” Pei said. “It is lengthy and costly to recover the un-utilized indium. In the AgN W electrodes, the

The shape-memory property of the polymer substrate could lead to electronic devices that can be deformed to various stable shapes. The deformation is reversible, causes minimal damage to the devices and can be repeated for many cycles. “The improved flexibility paves the way for future highly deformable electronics including wearable displays, portable solar panels and non-invasive biomedical devices,” said post-doctoral scholar Zhibin Yu, one of the paper’s authors. The research was partially supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solid-State Lighting program and by the National Science Foundation.

ucla Engineer 5

feature

CONQUERING THE NEW ENERGY Faculty at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science are working across several areas to make energy cleaner, renewable, and more efficient. Their research ranges from the large system-scales of the electrical grid, down to the nanoscale-level, where new materials may pay new dividends for energy harvesting and efficiency. Here are a few highlights:

[ ENERGY EFFICIENCY]

Ann Karagozian and Owen Smith are working on several projects to make propulsion and energy generation systems more efficient. Sungtaek Ju is researching high-efficiency solid-state cooling devices that do not emit greenhouse gases; waste heat harvesting for vehicle exhaust and industrial structures; and liquid-based mechanical elements to integrate energy harvesting and storage capability into load-bearing structures.

Kang Wangâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s research on nanoelectronics and nanomaterials includes developing architectures for the next generation of ultra-low power,highperformance nanosystems.

The Smart Grid Energy Research Center (SMERC), led by Rajit Gadh, is wiring the UCLA campus as a test-bed for a next-generation electrical grid that will be more resilient, robust, secure and reliable.

[ EDUCATION ]

UCLAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Clean Green Integrative Graduate Education Research Traineeship (IGERT) fellowship program, led by Diana Huffaker, trains Ph.D. scientists and engineers for leadership roles in the clean energy sector.

Bruce Dunn is conducting research in material architectures for energy storage, including electrochemical supercapacitors, and 3-D batteries for electric cars and microscale machines.

Jane P. Chang is using atomic layer deposition to develop electrolytes for 3-D batteries that could be as small as a grain of salt, but with the same energy densities as current lithium batteries.

[ ENERGY STORAGE ]

FRONTIER [ CLEAN AND RENEWABLE ENERGY GENERATION/SOURCES ] Mohamed Abdou is researching the responses of solids and fluids for fusion energy, and leading an international team in designing a compact, low-cost fusion facility to demonstrate fuel sustainability and power efficiency.

Richard Wirz is using advanced design and modeling techniques to develop new technologies for wind and solar thermal energy.

Yang Yang is leading efforts to make photovoltaic cells thinner, lighter, much more efficient and cheaper to produce.

Vasilios Manousiouthakis has been developing technologies for hydrogen production and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and transportation systems.

Vijay K. Dhir is researching mechanistic models for boiling heat transfer that are applicable to nuclear reactors.

James C. Liao uses synthetic biology and metabolic engineering to develop efficient synthesis platforms for liquid biofuels and chemicals from carbon dioxide.

Researchers at the Molecularly Engineered Energy Materials (MEEM) Energy Frontier Research Center, led by Vidvuds Ozolins, are developing materials for greenhouse gas capture, solar energy generation and electrochemical energy storage.

Laurent Pilonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s research includes harvesting waste heat using pyroelectric and thermoelectric materials; developing nanostructured materials for energy generation, storage, and efficiency; technologies for photobiological carbon dioxide fixation and biofuel production.

Yu Huangâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s research at interface of functional nanosystems and biosystems could lead to nanocatalysts for artificial photosynthesis systems.

ucla Engineer 7

feature

Wind Energy

Picking up Speed Matthew Chin

The giant wind turbine at the North American Wind Research and Training Center.

One of the great challenges of the 21st century is converting from a high–carbon, fossil-fuel based energy economy, to one based on domestic resources that are clean and renewable. A very promising part of meeting this challenge is using energy from the wind. Wind was first harnessed thousands of years ago when humans used it to power sailing ships. In the past generation, towering turbines along wind alleys have provided energy. But the wind energy industry is still in its infancy, holding much potential via new technologies to make it a much more efficient and more desirable part of a renewable energy portfolio. UCLA mechanical and aerospace engineering assistant professor Richard Wirz is leading several research projects on energy solutions using advanced design and modeling techniques. One major area of his research is in wind energy, a resource that may be ready for a big jump in productivity and efficiency. “Wind has already proven itself as a viable large-scale renewable energy source, but just like airplane design over the last century, we want to continue to push our engineering knowledge and creativity to develop wind systems that are increasingly capable and economically viable,” Wirz said. One project is a spin-off of Wirz’s work on plasma thrusters for spacecraft propulsion. Because of the variability of wind speeds, wind turbine blades don’t always have an optimal pressure gradient along their surface. The addition of small plasma actuators along the length of a blade creates an electric field that accelerates ions, and thus the local flow, along the blade’s surface. The induced flow can create a more favorable pressure gradient along the blade for improved efficiency and operation over a larger range of wind speeds. Wirz is also conducting research on a new approach to blade design for large wind turbines that improves the aerodynamic performance and structural stability of the blades. The design could lead to larger and structur-

Professor Wirz, atop the giant wind turbine. Photos by R. Wirz. ally stronger turbines. In particular, this holds promise for offshore wind energy systems. The concept is being tested both computationally and experimentally. A grant from the California Energy Commission is helping to fund modeling and wind tunnel testing of the new design. Late last year, Wirz worked out an agreement for UCLA students to have research and training time at a working wind turbine. The 1.5-megawatt turbine is operated by the North American Wind Research and Training Center (NAWRTC), which is run by Mesalands Community College in Tucumcari, New Mexico. “The UCLA-NAWRTC relationship is exciting and unique since their turbine is specifically available for research and training the next generation of wind energy engineers and technicians,” Wirz said. “This is a wonderful opportunity for students in the UCLA research community to have hands-on experience with a state-of-the-art commercial-scale wind energy system.” And finally, Wirz is exploring designs for small vertical axis wind turbines that are specifically designed for the urban environment and can generate energy at relatively low and unpredictable wind speeds. More information on Wirz’ work can be found online at: http://www.wirz.seas.ucla.edu/

ucla Engineer 9

feature

Architectural Rendering of the new WIN-GEM building. image courtesy stenfors associates architects

UCLA Engineering to construct

new state-of-theWileen Wong Kromhout

he U.S. Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has awarded UCLA’s Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science $6 million to support the construction of the new state-of-the-art Western Institute of Nanotechnology on Green Engineering and Metrology (WIN-GEM). The new building will provide core research facilities that will serve UCLA Engineering’s “centers of excellence” dedicated to advancing energy conservation technologies for microelectronics and nanotechnology. WIN-GEM will include 35,000 square feet of laboratory space on four levels to support research on low-power, nonvolatile nanoelectronics; green manufacturing of novel nanomaterial-based energy technologies; and new materials for energy generation, storage and management. The roof of the building will include a solarcell array for energy supply and power-management experimentation. “We are grateful to NIST for the opportunity to be able to work on such a groundbreaking project as WINGEM,” said Vijay K. Dhir, dean of UCLA Engineering. “The world-class facility will allow our faculty to continue their innovative research in areas that will advance essential energy conservation technologies.” The Western Institute of Nanoelectronics (WIN), one of the centers of excellence to be housed in WIN-GEM,

is a consortium of major semiconductor companies in the U.S. and will partner with NIST to address the needs of electronics beyond today’s mainstream CMOS (complementary metal-oxide semiconductor) technology. Currently, the institute focuses on alternate spintronics technology, with an objective of achieving non-volatile electronics by the year 2020 in order to resolve the critical challenges of reducing power dissipation — for next-generation microelectronics, as well as green information technology. WIN and the Center on Functional Engineered Nano Architectonics (FENA) — another center of excellence, which explores low-cost, high-yield, energy-efficient nanoscale manufacturing technologies for semiconductor devices — have more than 80 principal investigators in the U.S. in addition to those at UCLA. FENA will also be located in WIN-GEM. “It gives us great excitement and pleasure to learn that NIST is funding our new WIN-GEM building,” said WIN-GEM’s principal investigator, Kang L. Wang, the Raytheon Professor of Electrical Engineering, and director of both WIN and FENA. “We are thrilled to be a part of this construction plan, and the support will further strengthen our continued collaboration with NIST. WIN-GEM will allow UCLA to consolidate and upgrade several other centers’ facilities and equipment

UCLA Engineering proposes Creativity Center

art building that are now spread out across multiple sites at the university.” The new building will house the most advanced metrology and characterization equipment and will help accelerate research on nanoelectronics and spintronics, as well as green energy programs like those being addressed by WIN-GEM’s third center, the Energy Frontier Research Center on Molecularly Engineered Energy Materials, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. “This award is extremely timely, given the current state budget constraints,” said Jane P. Chang, associate dean of research and physical resources at UCLA Engineering and co-principal investigator of the project. “State-of-the-art infrastructure is greatly needed to support the innovative and critical work of our faculty. Furthermore, the green engineering and manufacturing aspects of the project are in line with both the direction of the city of Los Angeles and state of California and promise a greater impact when construction is completed.” The N IST award was funded under the NIST Construction Grant Program. This project was chosen on the basis of scientific and technical merit, the need for federal funding, design quality and sustainability for the intended purpose, and the strength of the project-management plan.

To foster the creativity of future engineers, scientists and inventors, UCLA Engineering seeks to build a Creativity Center, a 5,000-square foot technology sandbox for UCLA engineering students, as well as aspiring high school students, teachers, advisors and parents. “The Creativity Center will be a place for students to create, design, build, disassemble and re-engineer devices and gadgets of their own imagination,” said UCLA Engineering Dean Vijay K. Dhir. “So much of engineering starts with a spark of an idea then carrying it out. Beyond the classroom and labs, we wanted to have a dedicated place where students can let their creativity and imagination run loose.” The center will be equipped with computers, open spaces, various tools, hardware, software, and equipment. During the summer, a high school summer technology camp will be held at the center. Throughout the academic year, the center will be home to several design-and-build student groups, such as the concrete canoe team; robotics; natcar and micromouse; rocket club and others. It will also support other hands-on learning activities, and projects such as those sponsored by the Engineering Alumni Association. The proposed center would be built inside part of the second floor courtyard of Boelter Hall. An effort to finance the center’s construction from private donors is already underway. To learn more about financing the center, contact Salvador Rivas at: srivas@support.ucla.edu Architectural renderings of the layout and location of the center.

ucla Engineer 11

feature

Climbing the laDDer

Ben Horowitz MS ’90 trains others to reach

Wileen Wong Kromhout

etween 2005 and 2009, Ben Horowitz MS ’90 and friend, Marc Andreessen separately and together invested $4 million in 45 start-ups, among them Twitter and Qik, a live mobile video company. During those four years, the two quickly became known as superangel investors: major players in a new trend of early-stage financing. Things were going well when the two decided to become business partners and open a new venture capital firm. Andreessen Horowitz, today seen as one of the hottest venture capital firms in the technology sector,

president and general manager responsible for much of the company’s server product line, which included more than 300 employees and $100 million in revenue. When Netscape was acquired by AOL, Horowitz was asked to continue as the company’s vice president in its eCommerce Division. “Getting an education at UCLA made it obvious that there was an incredible amount of opportunity still left in computer science and still left in building new software based companies and that we were just at the beginning,” said Horowitz.

My education at UCLA exposed me to almost everything that was going on in computer science at the time. All the things I learned there really helped me to understand and gave me the foundation to succeed.” was established in June 2009. Recently, it was announced that the firm would also be starting a second fund to invest in tech start-ups after raising $650 million, an unheard of feat for a firm so young. The success of Andreessen Horowitz is not surprising when you look at the history of the people behind it, in particular Ben Horowitz. Horowitz’s career, which began at Silicon Graphics in the early ‘90s, rose rapidly after graduating from UCLA. Horowitz soon joined Netscape in 1995 as a first product manager, that’s where he met Andreessen. At Netscape, Horowitz was rapidly promoted to vice

“My education at UCLA exposed me to almost everything that was going on in computer science at the time. All the things I learned there really helped me to understand and gave me the foundation to succeed.” Horowitz later honed his CEO skills as head of Opsware, a data center automation software provider. A cofounder of Opsware, then known as Loudcloud, Horowitz served as president and CEO of the two companies for their entire history. Loudcloud, a managed services provider, offered infrastructure and application hosting services to enterprise and Internet customers such as Ford Motor Company

Ben Horowitz MS ’90, general partner of Andreessen Horowitz

of success: their full CEO potential

and Nike, Inc. In 2001, Horowitz was able to take Loudcloud public. A little over a year later, he sold Loudcloud’s core managed services business to Electronic Data Systems (EDS) for $63.5 million in cash and began the transformation of Loudcloud into Opsware. Horowitz was able to grow Opsware to hundreds of enterprise customers, over $100 million in annual revenue and 550 employees. Finally in July 2007, Opsware, which nearly collapsed but rebounded under Horowitz’s leadership, was sold to Hewlett-Packard (HP) for $1.6 billion in cash. Following the sale, Horowitz spent another year at HP as their vice president and general manager in HP Software overseeing 3,000 employees and $2.8 billion in annual revenue. When creating Andreessen Horowitz, the two general partners knew their hands-on experience running companies would be of great value to others and both wanted to share that. Envisioning the firm serving as a boot camp for startup executives, they looked for companies with the technical founder still in charge. They wanted that person to learn how to be the chief executive. “We are hugely in favor of the founder who intends to be CEO,” explains Andreessen on the company’s Web site, “Not all founders can become great CEOs, but most of the great companies in our industry were run by a founder for a long period of time… we can help that founder develop the skills necessary to reach his or her full CEO potential.” “Building a good company is a hard and very complicated endeavor,” said Horowitz. “We want to help make it easier to build really high quality companies — successful companies that are great places to work and great places to do business with.”

Today, besides investing in new entrepreneurs, products and companies in the technology industry, Horowitz writes regularly for his blog in syndication (bhorowitz.com) with more than 6.5 million readers. Top posts have included topics like: “How to minimize politics in your company,” “Why start-ups should train their people,” “Hiring executives” and “The right way to lay people off.” “I really enjoy what I’m doing right now,” said Horowitz. “In particular I enjoy writing my blog which is becoming very popular. But the reason I like writing it is it’s a chance for me to basically share all the things that I’ve learned over the years. And the reason it’s been very gratifying is that people are really interested in my trials and tribulations.”

ucla Engineer 13

faculty news

UCLA Engineers receive

prestigious NIH Award

Wileen Wong Kromhout and Matthew Chin

Three young researchers in the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science are opening up new avenues of inquiry, developing new tools for the precise control of nanoparticles, figuring out new ways to “debug” the brain circuit and building

ultrasensitive biosensors for the early detection of disease. For their pioneering work, Dino Di Carlo, assistant professor of bioengineering, Yu Huang, assistant professor of materials science, and Jin Hyung Lee, assistant professor of electrical engineering, have been named recipients of the 2010 NIH Director’s New Innovator Award. Given to young faculty by the National Institutes of Health, the award includes funding of $1.5 million over five years for each investigator to support highly innovative research. “The work Dino, Yu and Jin do today will have a profound impact on the future of biomedicine,” said Vijay K. Dhir, dean of UCLA Engineering. “Having chosen three young faculty for the New Innovator Award is another testament to the quality of our faculty and their unwavering dedication to innovative research.” This NIH program is specifically designed to support creative new investigators with highly innovative research ideas at an early stage in their career, when they may lack the preliminary data required for traditional grants. The review process emphasizes creativity, innovative research approaches and the potential of a given project to have a significant impact on an important biomedical or behavioral research problem.

Dino Di Carlo New tools for controlling nanoparticles within cells “It is an honor to receive the New Innovator Award,” said Di Carlo. “This award will enable me to support the students working in my lab as we develop important tools that can be broadly used by biologists to uncover unique aspects of cellular function that will impact human health.” Our understanding of biological systems and the ability to apply that understanding to improve human health or quality of life are being limited by current tools to explore and report on the micro- and nano-level at which life functions, according to Di Carlo. By developing simple tools for the precise control of nanoparticles locally within cells, Di Carlo hopes it will be possible to understand and control aspects of cell behavior. The types of tools Di Carlo’s team hopes to develop will allow a more mathematical understanding of cell behavior. He anticipates that large amounts of data will be required to learn how cells statistically respond to stimuli. “It is my belief that transformative rather than incremental changes to biomedicine will require a critical mass of reliable quantitative data describing the dynamics of cellular processes,” said Di Carlo.

for young innovators Yu Huang

Jin Hyung Lee

Building ultrasensitive biosensors to detect diseases

Debugging the Brain Circuit

Detecting and identifying the presence of specific molecules and biological species are critical to medical diagnostics and biological research. For example, cancers and other diseases can be detected by the presence of specific proteins or molecular markers in the blood stream. However, current detection methods require complicated sample preparation or are limited in sensitivities. Huang is proposing to build ultrasensitive biosensors using the nanomaterial graphene — a single atom-thick carbon lattice. This could make the detection process significantly more sensitive than conventionally used materials. Her NIH Director’s New Innovator Award will go toward this research. “We have exciting projects in both nanoelectronics and biomaterials,” Huang said. “The NIH support allows us to break down the boundaries and put our efforts into making significant progress on the interface between the two.” The ultrathin profile of graphene means that the total electrical signals of the graphene device can be easily modified by a small number of binding molecules, making these sensors very sensitive to the target molecules. Huang was also a 2009 recipient of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientist and Engineers (PECASE).

At UCLA , Lee is leading research on advanced neuroimaging techniques. She is increasing their power, scope and precision by combining functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with optogenetics, a technology that allows genetically specified neurons to be activated through light. This novel technique is called ofMRI. The NIH award will fund her research using ofMRI to image stem cells in the central nervous system. “I feel fortunate that NIH had the vision to look past the risk and recognize the potential of my high-impact, high-risk project,” Lee said. “I am grateful for this opportunity to try out my innovative ideas, and I hope to achieve all the goals I laid out in my proposal.” Lee’s research has also shown that ofMRI has the potential to be a far more powerful and precise neuroimaging tool — one that can discern the brain’s specific internal structure, wiring and function in great detail. For future research, she is working in several areas that will continue to bridge engineering and biomedical imaging to enable advanced applications for medical research. The complete article on the NIH Young Investigators is available online at: http://www.today.ucla.edu/portal/ ut/young-science-innovators-take-176874.aspx

Carnesale elected to National Academy of Engineering Albert Carnesale, UCLA Chancellor Emeritus and professor of public policy and mechanical and aerospace engineering, was elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Election to the NAE is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer. Carnesale, who led UCLA from 1997 to 2006, was elected for “bringing engineering excellence and objectivity to international security and arms control, and for leadership in higher education.”

During his tenure, he led Campaign UCLA, which raised more than $3 billion for the university, and was then the largest and most successful fundraising endeavor in the history of higher education. The university’s academic excellence was strengthened under his leadership. Carnesale is an expert in many public policy areas where technology and national security converge.

ucla Engineer 15

school news

2010 UCLA Engineering Aw Alumna of the Year Josephine M. Cheng ’75, MS ’77 Vice President of IBM Almaden Research Center

Lifetime Contribution Award Asad M. Madni ’69, MS ’72 Past President and COO, BEI Technologies.

Alumni Achievement in Academia Augustine O. Esogbue ’64 Professor, School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology

Edward K. Rice Outstanding Student Awards Outstanding Doctoral Students Barton A. Forman PhD ’10

Alumni Professional Achievement Joanne M. Maguire MS ’78 Executive Vice President of Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company (SSC); officer of Lockheed Martin Corporation Distinguished Young Alumna Jun-Hong Cui PhD ’03 Associate Professor and Assistant Dean for Graduate Studies and Diversity, School of Engineering, University of Connecticut Engineering Alumni Association Service Award Gregory J. Glenn ’03, MS ’06 President and CEO of SySense

Thammanit Pipatsrisawat MS ’07, PhD ’10

Outstanding Master’s Students Vaibhav P. Karkare MS ’09

Julia K. Nichols MS ’09

Outstanding Bachelor’s Students Chandni K. Dhanjal ’10

Byron H. Kwan ’10

Industry Award

Lockheed Martin Excellence in Teaching Yahya Rahmat-Samii Distinguished Professor, Electrical Engineering; Northrop Grumman Chair in Electromagnetics Northrop Grumman Excellence in Teaching Richard E. Wirz Assistant Professor, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

A Special Thank You To All Our Sponsors Platinum Marjorie ’46 and Ralph ’50 Crump Gold Nancy and Aaron Cohen ’58, Intelligent Optical Systems, National Technical Systems, Susan and Henry Samueli ’75, MS ’76, PhD ’80, Symantec

Blue Aerospace Corporation, AMGEN, Blizzard Entertainment, Inc., Boeing Company, Broadcom, Josephine Cheng ’75, MS ’77, CTS Cement Manufacturing Corporation, Judy and Robert Green ’72, JD ’75, Lockheed Martin, Taj and Asad Madni ’69, MS ’72, Northrop Grumman, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, Qualcomm, Inc., RAND Corporation, Samueli Foundation

ards 11

1 UCLA Engineering students Ariana Thacker, Tiffany Yeh and Lily Bao, are among the volunteers from the Society of Women Engineers who helped out during the program.

2 Ralph Crump ’50, professor emeritus William Van Vorst ’PhD ’53 and their families.

3 UCLA Engineering 2010 Alumna of the Year Josephine Cheng speaks to the audience.

4 Past alumni of the year honored at the awards dinner: L to R: Ralph Crump ’50; Sam Iacobellis MS ’63; Asad Madni ’69, MS ’72; Gary MacDougal ’58; Dean Vijay K. Dhir; Henry Samueli ’75, MS ’76, PhD ’80; Dwight Streit MS ’83, PhD ’86; Paul Castenholz ’49, MS ’58; and Norman Friedmann ‘’50, MS ’52, PhD ’57.

5 Dhir, Samueli, UCLA Chancellor Gene Block and his wife Carol. 6 The event was held at the Beverly Hills Hotel. 7 UCLA computer science professors Jason Kong and Leonard Kleinrock. 8 Associate Dean Rick Wesel hands the 2010 Professional Achievement Award to Joanne Maguire.

9 Steve Trilling, senior vice president of Symantec Corporation, was the evening’s emcee.

photos by todd cheney

ucla Engineer 17

school news

The National Science Foundation’s Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering has awarded a team of researchers led by UCLA $7.9 million to develop a more efficient and robust Internet.

An Internet for the

21st century Wileen Wong Kromhout

Lixia Zhang, a professor of computer science at the

one another, resulted in the development of Internet proto-

UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and

col (IP). Based on point-to-point communication architec-

Applied Science; Jeff Burke, a professor at the UCLA

ture, like the telephone system, IP was designed to allow

School of Theater, Film and Television and executive

computers to find and communicate with one another. The

director of the UCLA Center for Research in Engineer-

use of IP addresses and hosts — the “where” model of the

ing, Media and Performance (REMAP); and Deborah

Internet — has been a huge success.

Estrin, director of the UCLA Center for Embedded

However, after 40 years, the network has experienced

Networked Sensing (CENS) and a professor of com-

exponential growth, evolving into a system of hundreds

puter science at UCLA Engineering who holds the Jon

of millions of computers and hundreds of thousands of

Postel Chair in Computer Networks, will be the three

networks used by almost a quarter of the world’s popula-

principal investigators on the project.

tion. And importantly, large numbers of Internet-connected

Van Jacobson of PARC, a Xerox company, will serve

devices have become mobile, losing their fixed “where”

as the network architect for the new approach, called

addresses. Many applications increasingly focus on content

Named Data Networking (NDN), working closely with

accessed independent of a single host location. The host-

Zhang. Partner institutions include Colorado State

based communication model of IP is beginning to show

University, the University of Arizona, the University of

some inherent limitations and constraints.

Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, UC Irvine, the Univer-

“Our vision is conceptually simple,” said Zhang, the

sity of Memphis, UC San Diego, Washington University

project’s lead investigator. “We plan to explore a new

and Yale University.

Internet architecture, Named Data Networking, in which

The transmission of the first message over the

we’ll replace the ‘where’ — addresses and hosts — with

Internet took place at UCLA in the fall of 1969. At

‘what,’ the content that users and applications care about.

that time, telephony was the one example of successful

By naming data instead of locations, the new architecture

global-scale communications. That, along with the goal

transforms data into a first-class entity.”

of connecting the few supercomputers that existed with

NDN will offer several new opportunities for Zhang’s team to explore. With regard to security, for example,

instead of the current one-size-fits-all model of armoring the

Co-principal investigator Jeff Burke, of UCLA’s

channel between two IP addresses, NDN will allow all data

REMAP, will be leading the effort to develop and

to be secured end-to-end, and the data’s name will provide the

deploy prototype applications.

essential context for security. Communications security will

Burke, along with collaborators at UCLA and the Uni-

no longer be divorced from the data it secures. Named Data

versity of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, will consider a

Networking will be able to tell if the data on a Web page was

broad range of future applications to inform the network

actually produced and signed by the owner of the site, similar

architecture. Prototypes built at REMAP and UCLA’s

to one’s bank. IP does not have that capability.

CENS will focus on three high-impact areas: streaming

“Technical challenges will be addressed to validate NDN

content distribution; media-rich, instrumented environ-

as a future Internet architecture,” Zhang said. “Routing

ments (often called “smart buildings”); and participatory

scalability, fast forwarding, trust models, network security,

sensing on mobile phones.

content protection and privacy, and fundamental communication theory will all need to be considered.” To test and drive the architecture, applications will be built to investigate how NDN best enables efficient authoring of

“REMAP’s research integrates cultural, social and engineering objectives; we are interested in applications that are both expressive and functional,” Burke said. According to Zhang and Burke, there will also be an

distributed and “cyber-physical” applications. Today’s appli-

education and outreach component to the project. Materials

cations are conceived in terms of what information one wants

to teach “architectural thinking,” integrated with NDN-

but still must be written to consider on which specific devices

enabled research, will be developed, encouraging students

that information is located. This means that application-spe-

to view networking in new ways. Graduate students will

cific middleware has to be used to map between the applica-

be involved in core research and thesis work, and a sum-

tion model and the Internet. With NDN, the application’s

mer internship program for traditionally underrepresented

‘what’ model can be implemented directly, removing all the

undergraduate students will be created.

middleware and its associated configuration and communication inefficiencies.

The complete release is available online at: http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/teamof-researchers-led-by-ucla-172127.aspx

ucla Engineer 19

school news

$12.5 million grant to increase

computer science instruction in urban schools Shaena Engle and Wileen Wong Kromhout

UCLA Project utilizes cell phones, Web technology to foster student engagement UCLA has been awarded $12.5 million from the National Science Foundation to help advance new

Students taking their mobile phone applications for a test.

and innovative computer science instruction in high schools, especially those in large urban school districts.

“Our goal is the increase student engagement and achieve-

The new project, MOBILIZE: Mobilizing for Innova-

ment in computer science, mathematics and other sciences,”

tive Computer Science Teaching and Learning, is a

said Todd Ullah, principal of Washington Preparatory

targeted mathematics and science partnership among

High School in Los Angeles and former LAUSD director

Center X at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education

of science education.

& Information Studies; the Center for Embedded

Through the project, high school teachers will work with

Networked Sensing (CENS) at UCLA’s Henry Samueli

UCLA science, technology, engineering, mathematics and

School of Engineering and Applied Science; and the

education faculty to develop new computer science materials

Los Angeles Unified School District.

that leverage mobile phone–based participatory sensing to

Using CENS-developed participatory sensing technologies, MOBILIZE will develop and implement challenging, engaging, hands-on projects and curricula

involve students in observing and analyzing environmental and social processes where they live, work and play. “This project is about students in the LAUSD being

for high school computer science courses, as well as

equipped with mobile and Web technology and learning

for standards-based mathematics and science classes.

about interdisciplinary problem-solving and the logical

Participatory sensing allows students to collect and

thinking of computing,” said Jane Margolis, co-principal

analyze data using mobile phones and Web technology.

investigator and a senior education researcher at

The pilot project will initially launch in urban

UCLA. “MOBILIZE is about equity and increasing access to

Los Angeles high schools and later be disseminated to

learning opportunities critical for the 21st century. Through

schools throughout the country.

MOBILIZE, students will learn about collecting, analyzing

and representing data, enabling them to communicate

“Computer science, and perhaps more broadly,

their stories about issues that are of concern to them, their

information technologies, have reshaped nearly every

families and their communities. It is a fantastic opportu-

disciplinary practice, and we therefore believe that

nity to show students the connections between their lives

computational thinking, as a pedagogical device, has an

and learning about math and science.”

important role to play in expanding science and math

“MOBILIZE takes a technology that is near and dear to students’ hearts — the mobile phone — and turns it

education,” said co-principal investigator Mark Hansen, a UCLA professor of statistics.

into a tool for collecting and analyzing data and for ap-

In addition, the teacher-development aspect of the

plying the scientific method to local environmental and

project will help create a new cadre of teachers with ex-

urban issues,” said Deborah Estrin, the project’s princi-

pertise in both computer science content and pedagogy.

pal investigator and a professor of computer science at

“We are also developing an innovative model of

UCLA. “Moreover, the data analyzed and insights gained

professional development for current and future high

will be about places and things that are important to the

continued on page 29

students’ daily lives.”

UCLA Engineers exploring new software for nanoscale devices As semiconductor manufacturers build ever-smaller components, circuits and chips at the nanoscale become less reliable and more expensive to produce. The variability in their behavior from device to device and over their lifetimes — due to manufacturing, aging-related wear-out, and varying operating environments — is largely ignored by today’s mainstream computer systems. Now a visionary team of computer scientists and electrical engineers from six universities, including UCLA, is proposing to deal with the downside of nanoscale computer components by rethinking and enhancing the role that software can play in a new class of computing machines that are adaptive and highly energy efficient. The National Science Foundation recently awarded a $10 million, five-year grant to these researchers for their research initiative “Variability-Aware Software for Efficient Computing with Nanoscale Devices.” The grant is part of the funding agency’s Expeditions in Computing program, which rewards far-reaching agendas that “promise significant advances in the computing frontier and great benefits to society.” UCLA electrical engineering professor Mani B. Srivastava is the team’s deputy director. Other UCLA Engineering researchers include Puneet Gupta and Lara Dolecek, both assistant professors of electrical engineering.

In the lab of Variablity co-P.I. Puneet Gupta, JPEG compression or the same image done with variability software (at right) produed the same result in quality, but using more than 40 percent less power.”

The research team seeks to develop computing systems that will be able to sense the nature and extent of variations in their hardware circuits and expose these variations to compilers, operating systems and applications to drive adaptations in the software stack. The complete release is available online at: http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/nsf-funds-expeditioninto-software-168236.aspx Details about the project can also be found online at: http://www.variability.org

ucla Engineer 21

student news

Doctoral Student and World Class Rower:

Julia K. Nichols MS ‘09 Matthew Chin

Julia K. Nichols, a doctoral student in mechanical engineering, received last year’s Edward K. Rice Outstanding Master’s Student Award. Her advisor is professor Vijay Gupta. Nichols is also one of America’s top rowers. For more than a decade she’s competed at the sport’s highest levels, and has won several medals in international competition. Nichols won the lightweight single sculls at the U.S. World Championships Trials in 2008 and in 2010; was an alternate on the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team; and most recently, competed in the 2010 World Championships, held in New Zealand, where she raced in the final round, finishing sixth. She is currently training for the 2012 Olympic Games in London. How did you become interested in pursuing a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering? During my time spent rowing, I thought quite a bit about biomechanics, the natural motion of the body, and optimizing human performance. It seemed to me that there is much room for improvement in the design of equipment intended to interact with human movement. I figured that there should be a scientific way to go about the optimization process. My undergraduate degree is in Chemical Engineering at UC Berkeley from 2000. In order to refresh my engineering degree and fill in the mechanical understanding, the advanced degree in Mechanical Engineering seemed like the most logical path. This degree was the best way to merge my love for sports with engineering. How does your graduate research relate to rowing? I have done research relating the body with sports equipment. Specifically, I measured tibial acceleration while running in several different variations of shoes. In rowing, I measured changes in boat speed with modified body geometry including changes in the shoe orientation and seat construction. I am still looking for my thesis topic and hope to find funding relating to body movement, joint function, and equipment design.

When did you start rowing and what made it so interesting to do? I was a runner in high school but when I went to college I was interested in a change and tried rowing. I grew up in the Bay Area and spent quite a bit of time around water and boats. I had more muscle than an average runner and thought I might be well suited for a sport that combines strength and endurance. I walked-on to Cal’s Rowing Team the fall of my freshman year, 1996. Why did you continue to compete at the highest levels after Cal, and was this unusual for others in the sport? When I graduated from Cal, I was still learning so much about the sport and had a lot of space to grow. I still do. That aspect of the sport is what keeps me coming back. No matter how much you learn or how fit you are there is room to improve. I had been competitive amongst the open weight rowers in college, stroking the Cal Varsity Women’s Eight to a Bronze Medal at the 1999 NCAA Championships. I was on the small side to be an open weight rower so in order to be competitive on the international scene I went to the lightweight category (130 lbs max or 125.7 lbs average in team boats). I had several teammates who also continued to row, but in the open weight division. However, this situation of several athletes continuing on from one collegiate program is unusual and only a small percentage of rowers move on to the elite level.

You’re taking some time off school to train for the 2012 Olympics. What will you be working on (endurance? strength? speed? technique? other?) What race discipline and length will you specialize in? I will be working on all of the above! Different workouts focus on each of these aspects but they are all important. Rowing is a dynamic, muscular endurance sport. Year round I work to increase endurance, strength, and technique. To address all of these aspects, I row, run, bicycle, and lift weights. Being a lightweight rower means I need to be incredibly efficient with my strength and power to stay within the appropriate weight range. The better my technique, the more efficient my rowing stroke, so more of my effort is translated into boat speed. Top-end speed work is emphasized leading into and during the competition phase of a training cycle. All Olympic Rowing races are 2000 meters long. The differences between events are boat class and weight class. For lightweight women, the only Olympic event is the Lightweight Women’s Double Sculls (two rowers with two oars each).

top: Julia Nicholas on a training row on Lake Karapiro, New Zealand, just prior to the 2010 World Rowing Championships. Photo courtesy of Will Jurkowski. lower: Nichols with an indoor rowing machine called a “rowperfect”, which is hooked up to a laptop computer to collect data.

If someone wants to give rowing a try, or get their child to try it, what’s the best way to do that? Most areas that have rowing will have learn-to-row programs, masters (adult) rowing programs, and junior (youth) rowing programs. In the Los Angeles area, there are several options in Marina Del Rey including the UCLA Marina Aquatic Center or MAC (http://marinaaquaticcenter.org/Rowing/index.htm) open to the general community with special rates for UCLA affiliates. Thanks to the kind support of the MAC, I was able to spend most mornings in LA on the water.

What are your post-Ph.D. plans? The more I learn here at UCLA, the more I realize the engineering world is vast and exciting. I am constantly astounded by things I never knew existed. I started my graduate studies with a plan to learn about biomechanics, the natural motion of the body, and optimizing human performance so I would be able to design better equipment for human use. At this point in my studies, I’m still learning so much that I’m not exactly

How do you see technology and engineering research continuing to evolve your sport? Other Olympic sports? The last big advance in rowing was the transition to composite materials. The boats and oars are now constructed primarily of carbon fiber. I see the next big leap to be in biomechanics. I think the industry is small enough that not enough time

Nichol’s U.S. Rowing Bio is available online at: http://www.usrowing.org/Pressbox/AthleteBios/ JulieNichols.aspx Anyone interested in more information can also reach Nichol’s at: Julia.k.nichols@gmail.com

has been spent researching the rower’s relationship to the equipment. Wearable electronics also seem like an exciting way to monitor athletes without inhibiting the user. Once the research shows results, the next hurdle is getting the community to accept and adapt to take advantage of the knowledge. I do not know other Olympic sports well enough to comment, but rowing does seem further behind than most in designing for the user.

sure which path I will follow.

ucla Engineer 23

student news

UCLA Engineering

leads K-12 science & engineering outreach Matthew Chin

he UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and

In addition, the school also offers the Engineering Science

Applied Science is leading efforts to increase the num-

Corps (ESC), which supports local middle and high school

ber of students interested in an engineering and other

students in their coursework, particularly in the math

scientific careers. Through a mix of on-campus programs and outreach to

and sciences, in order to prepare them for higher education. UCLA students volunteer their time as tutors in the

area schools, UCLA Engineering faculty, students and staff

program. Both the summer research program and ESC are

are making important efforts to nurture an interest in sci-

supported by the Nicholas Endowment.

ence, technology, engineering and mathematics, also known

http://www.seasoasa.ucla.edu/high-school/high-

as STEM, in K-12 students.

school-summer-research-program

“It is critical to this nation’s future that more young people pursue careers in science and engineering,” said UCLA Engineering Dean Vijay K Dhir. “As a public engineering school, our mission of preparing students for these careers goes beyond just our own undergraduate and graduate students. Part of this mission means sparking an interest in young students from all backgrounds, particularly in women and those from backgrounds traditionally underrepresented in engineering.” UCLA Engineering offers several formal outreach programs geared to K-12 education that helps introduce students to educational paths that can lead them to STEM careers. Here are a few examples: The UCLA Engineering Summer Research Program has been

The Center for Excellence in Engineering and Diversity (CEED) is devoted to the recruitment, retention, and graduation of underrepresented students in engineering and computing. Each summer, CEED hosts 30-40 local high school students in its Science Mathematics Achievement and Research Technology for Students (SMARTS) Program. The six-week summer college preparation program at UCLA is designed to engage traditionally underrepresented students in rigorous STEM instruction and training. The summer program includes math courses, SAT preparation, and college and career planning workshops. A hallmark of SMARTS is the Research Apprentice Program (RAP), in which 10 – 15 students spend part of their time conducting research in UCLA labs.

operating for several years. This year the program plans to

In addition to its summer program, CEED has several

bring 60 high school students to campus for an eight-week

support and retention programs for approximately 200 un-

program centered around laboratory research.

derrepresented and disadvantaged undergraduate engineer-

“I absolutely enjoyed this experience,” said Marvin

ing students at UCLA. CEED is supported by the National

Mena, a senior at Downtown Magnet High School in

Science Foundation (NSF) and corporate sponsors.

Los Angles, of his experience in 2010. “It was great to

http://www.ceed.ucla.edu/

learn about engineering and to have actually gotten first

The Center for Embedded Networked Sensing (CENS) offers an

hand experience in a lab. The other people in the program were all capable and it was the first time that I had ever been in this sort of environment.”

eight-week program where high school students from Los Angeles get hands-on experience at CENS, an NSF-funded

research center that develops wireless sensor technologies for

Culver City teachers in their classrooms to enhance the science

scientific and social applications.

curriculum, and serve as science and engineering role models

The students work on research project under the guidance of faculty and graduate student mentors. The 2010 high school scholars worked on projects using G1 Android phones

to students. Lessons range from plate tectonics for sixth-graders to atomic structures for high school students. “During one particular lesson all of the girls in class had

to explore a variety of topics, including invasive species, en-

their hands up to ask questions, and one girl stayed after for

ergy awareness, public safety and noise pollution.

a half an hour to talk to me about science and share stories

‘I walked into the lab for the first time last summer with an

about her life,” said Megan Burke, a SEE-LA fellow and Ph.D.

open mind, a ton of curiosity, and no programming experi-

student in civil and environmental engineering. “Their teacher

ence,” said Jenny Zhang, who participated last summer and is

told me that he had never seen that type of response from the

from left to right: Noemi Agagianian was one of several CENS high school scholars who worked on the a bird watch mobile app. Photo by Karen Kim Josue Villatoro worked on an algorithm to determine how fish find food; Courtney Salindong worked on biodiesel production analysis, and Alexandra San Pablo worked on soil testing. All three participated in the Summer Research Program. Photos by Todd Cheney now a freshman at Harvard and planning to pursue a career

girls in his class before. It was so rewarding to see these

in computer science. “I walked out two months later with

girls get excited about science because, maybe for the first

a finished individual coding and research project, a network

time they could see that this world is open to them too.”

of role models and mentors I aspire to be, friends for a life-

http://measure.igpp.ucla.edu/GK12-SEE-LA/

time, and a desire to change and shape the world we live in

The Center for Scalable and Integrated Nanomanufacturing

through the conceptualization, development, and implementation of innovative technologies.” The program pays special attention to ensure the students are entirely immersed as a part of the university research

(SINAM) offers a few educational outreach programs that complement its research mission of new nanotechnology manufacturing research. These include a photolithography module for eighth-

center’s community. http://www.cens.ucla.edu

grade classes, which is held a few times during the school

SEE-LA: The UCLA Science and Engineering of the Environment of

year. It also collaborates with CEED on Saturday work-

Los Angeles (SEE-LA) partners K-12 teachers with scientists in

shops. Further, the center offers virtual photolithography

an effort to improve science education.

— a Web-based instructional tool for carrying out a virtual

UCLA science and engineering graduate students serve

experiment. http://sinam.org/

as “scientists-in-residence” and work with Los Angeles and

ucla Engineer 25

Alumni news

Mark J. Miller MS ’82:

Keeping one’s career on track in today’s world Wileen Wong Kromhout

Mark J. Miller, vice president and chief technical officer of ViaSat Inc., co-founded the company in 1986. Before its initial public offering in 1996, ViaSat was named three times to the Inc. 500 list of fastest growing privately held companies. Since then, the company’s continuing superior performance has placed it on several “bests” lists by publications like BusinessWeek and Forbes. Miller’s main technical interests and active work lie in the areas of modulation, coding, digital signal processing and multiple access techniques. Considering your education and experience at UCLA Engineering, how do you think it’s contributed to your success? What has stayed with you throughout the years?

What was the hardest part about starting your own company?

My education at UCLA was very theoretically based. That

est. At that point it was all about surviving…bringing in

was a very good thing because much of the technology we

enough contracts to keep going. Sometimes I look back at

work with now wasn’t invented when I was at UCLA. But

the amount of work we had to do on our early contracts

given the theoretical background, learning new technologies

with minimal funding and short development schedules and

as they became available was quite straight forward. Tech-

can’t believe we ever agreed to accept those contracts. But

nologies will become dated, but theoretical understanding

we did, and we executed well, and they were stepping stones

will always be valuable.

to bigger, much bigger things.

For recent graduates or even current students who may read this column, what would your advice to them be as professionals just beginning a career in engineering? My advice is to figure out the things you like to do and the

Looking back, the position of a staff engineer is obviously very different from the management/leadership position you hold today… what would you say is the most fulfilling part of your work?

things you are good at. They are usually the same things.

I got into engineering because I enjoyed building things and

Then strive to keep yourself involved in those areas as much

solving problems. With my current position, I don’t think

as practical. There are a lot of working years ahead of you

anything is any different. I still get the most satisfaction see-

and you want to make them enjoyable as well as successful.

ing the communications networks that we develop and the

What are some things they should keep in mind that will help them to continue to grow their career?

The early years, particularly the first year, was the tough-

problems that we solve.

Engineering is the application of technology to the real

What is the secret to managing such a successful company and keeping it on the right track?

world. And in today’s world, technology is constantly

Definitely adaptability is a key ingredient. Plans are great,

changing. So the most important thing an engineer can do is

in fact I recommend them. But many times unforeseen and

keep current with the emerging and evolving technologies. I

unfortunate things occur necessitating the need to change

look at my college education as giving me the tools I needed

and adapt. Those who can adapt well are given an added

to start the learning process. But the learning process never

layer of protection against the unforeseen elements. As

stopped and should never stop at any point in your career.

John Wooden once said, “Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be.”

A gift for the future Build your legacy through a planned gift to ucla. Meet your estate planning goals, minimize taxes and conserve more for your loved ones. And youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll have the satisfaction of supporting future leaders and innovators who will enrich our neighborhoods, our nation, our world on a daily basis.

Contact the UCLA Office of Gift Planning for more information on how to include UCLA in your estate plans. UCLA Office of Gift Planning 800-737-UCLA www.giftplanning.ucla.edu

ucla Engineer 27

alumni news

ALUMNI CLASS NOTES 1940s George E. Gourrich ’47, MA ’49 is retired and lives with his wife of

40 years, Dorothy, in Beverly Hills, Calif. Unfortunately, Gourrich suffers from multiple myeloma. They have 3 children, 10 grandchildren, and 3 great-grandchildren. His children live in South Pasadena, Calif. and Texas.

1950s Robert S. Gaylord ’56, MS ’61 was re-elected to head the board of directors of the Plateau Area Writers Association, which is a non-profit corporation that helps writers form small critique groups, gives writers an opportunity to receive helpful criticism of their works, and helps writers produce their best work for publication. Gaylord will serve a two year term. Gary MacDougal ’58 recently spoke to an enthu-

siastic group of UCLA Engineering students about careers as entrepreneurs and managers. The following day, MacDougal presented an entrepreneurship lecture to MBA students at UCLA Anderson School of Business. MacDougal, 1979 UCLA Engineering Alumnus of the Year, was CEO of Mark Control’s Corporation where the stock rose from $10 per share to $160 per share (equivalent) during his 18 years at the helm. Lawrence E. Tannas, Jr., ‘59, MS ‘61, founder and owner of Tannas Electronic Displays, Inc., was recently awarded his 15th patent to resize LCDs for avionics and signage and license his technology internationally. The Tannases celebrated by taking their entire family of 18 to Cancun, Mexico for a week during the Christmas holidays.

1960s Harold B. Ray ’63 retired as executive vice president from

Southern California Edison Company (SCE) in 2006, and then accepted an appointment in 2008 as a member of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (USNRC) Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards. The appointment is for a term of four years. Prior to joining SCE in 1970, Ray had been an employee of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, the predecessor agency of the USNRC. He also was elected president of the American Nuclear Society (2002-2003) and has served on the UCLA Engineering Dean’s Advisory Council.

Wayne Stone ’65, MS ’67, MPH ’74, DEnv. ’78 assisted the Vietnamese

Ministry of Construction to formulate a draft National Action Plan for responding to climate change and sea level rise in the urban development sector, through grant aid support from the Danish government. To finalize the draft action plan, he presided over three regional workshops to receive comments from stakeholders. The workshops were held in Can Tho (Mekong Delta region), Hoi An (central coastal region), and Hai Phong (Northern Red River basin region). Miguel Diaz-Gonzalez ’66 retired from Boeing Aircraft Company in

Seattle after 21 years of excellent service. Bruce A. Deresh MS ‘66, PhD ‘71 retired after 20 years as a director of the MITRE Corp. in 2007, and then formed his own consulting firm, DD&A, in support of the U.S. Marine Corps. His principal contribution was to author the weapon-location requirements for their new multi-mission radar G/ATOR, which is currently being tested. In October 2007, Deresh married Phyllis Krasner, 50 years after their first date as seniors at Jamaica High School in Queens, N.Y. Deresh survived prostate cancer and is currently battling radiation cystitis resulting from the cure. The couple moved from Massachusetts to Dallas, Texas in March 2010 to live closer to their children and grandchildren. Recently, Deresh received a nice call from George Bradshaw MS ’65 and would love to hear from any alumni that remember him. Don Lund ’66 retired after a stint in the U.S. Army and 33 years as

a teacher of mathematics and computer science, with a unique opportunity to do something different. Following three years of required courses, Lund was commissioned as a Deacon in Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and presently serves at Bethlehem in Santa Clarita, Calif. Charles Rumbaugh ‘66 continues his legal practice exclusively as

a private judge, arbitrator, and mediator, and was elected to senior membership grade in IEEE. Michael H. Stafford ’66 (pictured with grandchil-

dren L-R Olivia Garcia, Geoffrey Stafford, and Brendan Klatt) was re-elected to the Del Rey Neighborhood Council Board of Directors last year and is the only original board member remaining. He served as president of the Stafford Society, a nonprofit genealogical research organization. Stafford retired in 2000 after 34 years as a civil engineer with the City of Los Angeles and also enjoyed retirement from the Air Force Reserve after 21 years service as a civil engineering officer.

Stephen J. Ferry ’67 retired from Raytheon Santa Barbara Remote Sensing as a program manager in 2003 after 35 years in the electronics industry. Currently, Ferry is a member of the boards of Santa Barbara Audubon Society and Audubon California. He serves as a nest watcher for the California condor, and as a docent for the snowy plover, a small shorebird. Thomas J. Stone ’67, MS ’69 With the Final Environmental

Impact Statement and Records of Decision scheduled for completion this month and the project slated to move to final design and construction next year, DesertXpress Enterprises announced that its president, Stone, has retired from full-time service on the DesertXpress High Speed Rail Project. DesertXpress and its partners express their gratitude and appreciation for the nine years of dedication that Stone has provided to the project serving as president and Member of the Board. His commitment, leadership and expertise has established a strong foundation setting the stage for a groundbreaking next year on the first dedicated high speed rail project in America.

C. Terry Dooley ME ’69 received a national

award from the American Society of Civil Engineers: The 2010 Citizen Engineer Award for Volunteer Service. It recognizes his efforts in founding and building the Los Angeles Metro Area chapter of the ACE Mentor Program. The program has teams in 20 local high schools, giving students career direction in architecture, construction and engineering (the ACE disciplines). Over eight years, the ACE Mentor Program has awarded 367 college scholarships. Asad M. Madni ’69, MS ’72 is the recipient of the 2010 IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society’s Career Excellence Award “for an extraordinary career of enlightened leadership in and pioneering contributions to the development and commercialization of intelligent sensors, systems and instrumentation.” This is the society’s highest honor and is awarded to recognize a career of meritorious achievement and outstanding technical contribution in the field of instrumentation and measurement.

Major Roadblock eliminated in regenerative medicine continued from page 4 “To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that combines defined cultures with routine single-cell passaging, which plays an important role in supplying a large mass of clinically applicable cells,” said Hideaki Tsutsui, a UCLA postdoctoral scholar and lead author of the study. “Thus, our hES cell culture system, guided by the FSC technique, will bring hES cells one step closer to clinical therapies.” The breakthrough, ultimately, was the product of a close interdisciplinary collaboration. Working together, the team was able to discover a unique combination of three small molecule

inhibitors that supports long term maintenance of hES cell cultures through routine single-cell passaging. The project received major funding from the National Institutes of Health Roadmap for Medical Research through the UCLA Center for Cell Control and a seed grant from the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research. The complete release is available online at: http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/ucla-researcherseliminate-major-191119.aspx

computer science instruction in urban schools continued from page 21 school teachers to include multidisciplinary teams of teachers organized into learning communities with STEM (science,

new pre-service computer science methods course.” The software, curricula and research findings

technology, engineering and mathematics) and education fac-

obtained through MOBILIZE will be disseminated

ulty,” said Jody Priselac, also a co-principal investigator and

nationwide, enabling policymakers and other school

executive director of Center X. “The faculty will provide a

districts to utilize them.

ucla Engineer 29

alumni news

1970s Barbara Meyers MS ’70, PhD ’75 retired from IBM after 30 years and has

embarked on a new career as a minister. After graduating from seminary, she began a community ministry focusing on mental health issues. Meyers recently received an achievement award for her work in educating the community at large about mental health issues. Alexander Thomasian MS ’72, PhD ’77 has a one-year (2010-11) outstand-

ing international faculty visiting position at Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He will be conducting research on storage systems. Kirby Black ’76 is founder and managing partner of Epic BioVentures,

LLC. Epic BioVentures is a venture capital firm focused on funding early stage healthcare companies. Ghasem Jaberipur MS ’76 is an associate professor in the Electrical &

Computer Engineering Department at Shahid Beheshti University (SBU), Evin, Tehran, Iran. Michael V. Frank PhD ’78 has been appointed director of engineering at

Washington Closure Hanford, LLC, a company that is remediating 220 square miles of the historic Hanford nuclear complex in Washington state. John Pruett ’78 finished building his new office space in his new

building in June 2010 in Redding, Calif. It was constructed with zero-emission paint, recycled carpet, and Marmoleum recycled flooring in the clinical areas. It truly is a green building, and boasts a 10kW solar electric system on the roof. Sean L. Leonard BSCE ’79 , president of S. L. Leonard & Associates, was

recently elected to vice chair of the Board of Directors of a Community of Friends, developers of affordable housing for people with mental illness. “The power of my engineering education continues to propel our practice forward, and has made a very positive impact on the care of our patients,” Leonard wrote. William “Bill” Milroy ‘79, MS ‘81, ENGR ‘86 is chairman and CEO of ThinK-

om Solutions, Inc. in Torrance, Calif. With a talented growing team of 40-plus full-time employees, including many UCLA Engineering alumni, ThinKom is a leading developer and manufacturer of high-performance, low-profile antennas for aeronautical, vehicle, and mobile satellite and terrestrial networks.

1980s Hamid Mahramzadeh, MS ’81 was promoted to vice president and department manager of the Structural Design Department at the URS Corporation in Los Angeles, Calif. Mahramzadeh manages 14 staff members in his department and comes to the ASCE Fall Career Fair at UCLA each year to look for summer interns for his department.

Heidi Shyu MS ’81, ENG ’82, former vice president for

Technology and Research at Raytheon, recently was named the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology. Shyu is the former chair of the U.S. Air Force Scientific Advisory Board as well as a former member of the Defense Science Board. Brian P. Wong ’83 has joined Enevate Corporation as president and chief executive officer. Enevate is an Irvine, California-based rechargeable battery solutions company focused on developing advanced materials and architectures to innovate energy storage. Prior to joining Enevate, he was president and CEO of D2Audio Corporation (Austin, Texas) until the merger with Intersil Corporation, after which he directed the Intersil-D2Audio business during the integration of the companies. Previously, he was CEO of Primarion, a company focused on power management and optical communications, which was later acquired by Infineon. Before Primarion, he was with TRW, where he held various management and engineering roles. Jane (Gienger) Kucera ’84 authored a book on reverse osmosis,

Reverse Osmosis: Industrial Applications and Processes, and authored chapter 13, “Reverse Osmosis Membrane Fouling Control,” in The Science and Technology of Industrial Water Treatment. Arthur Goldberg MS ’84, PhD ’91 joined Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center as a senior research scientist in computational biology. He is looking for improved diagnostic and treatment methods in cancer genomic data. He married his wife, Meira, in 1991. His children, Ruby, age 15 and Amelia, age 13, are healthy and excelling in school. They recently moved to Riverdale, Bronx, New York. Joseph Wise ’84 is CEO and chief engineer of Solar Traffic

Controls in Tempe, Arizona. The company designs and manufactures solar-powered traffic control systems for departments of transportation; police agencies; firefighters; public works; facility maintenance and industrial traffic safety. Wise and his wife, Linda Morimoto ’84, have two sons aged 16 and 13. Northwood University recently announced that William Newman ‘86 will join its adult development program faculty. Newman will instruct international management courses across several campus and program sites in Michigan in 2011. He also serves as managing principal of Newport Consulting Group, an independent management and technology consulting firm with services focused on strategy, sustainability, and innovation.

Kainam Thomas Wong ’85 has been an associate professor in the Department of Electronic & Information Engineering, at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, since 2006. Charles Hoover ’86 has 20 years of experience in advance rotat-

ing machinery and propellant valves for Rocketdyne and Allied-Signal (Honeywell). He successfully completed design of two-stage liquid hydrogen instrumented fuel turbopump for Rocketdyne’s next generation second stage rocket engine, which was a joint effort between Boeing and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. Turbopump was taken from concept, preliminary, and critical design reviews through hardware fabrication to direct integration in test stand at MHI Tashiro facility in Japan where it was successfully tested in 2005. His current assignment consists of development of main propellant valves and pneumatic actuators for Rocketdyne’s J-2X rocket engine. He has completed concept, preliminary, and critical design reviews before Rocketdyne peers and NASA customers. Currently, he is completing hardware fabrication and valve/ actuator assemblies for test in 2011. Wim Leemans MS ’87, PhD ’91 received the 2009 E.O. Lawrence Award from the Department of Energy and the 2010 J.M. Dawson Award for Excellence in Plasma Physics Research from the American Physical Society. He has been at Lawrence Berkeley National Labs since 1991. David Cristofaro ’88 is celebrating his 10th year as an entrepreneur and professional market researcher with his company, Actionable Research, Inc. Actionable Research is comprised of three practice groups: medical sciences and dental; digital technology and business services; and consumer research. The company specializes in product development and innovation; customer and market segmentation; and brand and customer loyalty tracking. Cristofaro lives with his wife Alexis in Aliso Viejo, Calif. and has three children: Briana, 16, Danny, 13, and Michelle, 9. Steve Heister PhD ’88 , professor at Purdue University’s School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, was named the Raisbeck Engineering Distinguished Professor for Engineering and Technology Integration. Heister has been a professor at Purdue since 1990. Roger Massengale ’88 is currently vice president of business

development at I-Flow Corporation, a subsidiary of KimberlyClark. He has been developing medical devices for the last 20 years and just received his 100th patent.

1990s Hareesh Thridandam MS ’90 completed 16 years of employment

at Air Products & Chemicals, Inc. in Carlsbad, Calif. He is the senior principal development engineer responsible for scale-up of purification processes for specialty chemicals used in the electronics industry. Thridandam is married to Bharathy, a psychosocial clinician at Kaiser’s Psychiatry Department for the last 16 years. They have two children: Vikram, age 13 — an avid musician, and Ananya, age 11 — an award winning artist. Jamyuen Ko ’92 invented Light Peak, which was announced on Intel Development Forum 2009 and 2010, and was shown to various OEMs in Taiwan. Ko was glad that his invention got some attention. Light Peak debuts in the market in 2011. Nora Lavelle ’93 welcomed her first baby,

Joseph, who arrived on May 17, 2010.

John Sun ’94, MS ’95 welcomed his daughter, Joy Enlin, with

wife, Wanyu Yvonne Law ’94, MS ’95, on October 24, 2010. Weixiong Zhang PhD ’94 authored a paper that was selected by AAAI-10 (Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, 2010) for the Outstanding Paper Award. Graduate student Ruoyan Huang is the first author and will present the paper at the conference. Huang is co-supervised by Yixin Chen and Zhang. The paper was chosen from 982 submissions through a double blind review process. Jason Weigold ’95 joined Analog Devices and worked on the development of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) including inertial sensors and microphones. Weigold developed a MEMS microphone that outperforms all others on the market. It is currently shipping in high volume and can be found in the Apple iPod Nano as well as a variety of other products. Weigold left Analog Devices to start his own company several years ago which has grown into a profitable, successful business. He has been married to his wife, Katrina, since 2010, and they live happily in Newburyport, Massachusetts. Ram Tuli MS ’95, is in the band Pscyhedelic Mooj, and the group

recently released their third album titled “Analog Soup.”

Rony Sawdayi MS’89 is vice president of engineering at

Jason K. Hui ’97, MS ’98, PhD ’02, a principal systems engineer at

Shopzilla, Inc., an online shopping price comparison site.

BAE Systems, was honored with the 2010 Young Engineer of the Year Award from the IEEE New Hampshire Section. The award recognizes engineers 35 years of age or younger for outstanding contributions in the leadership of technical

ucla Engineer 31

alumni news

society activities, in community and humanitarian activities, and shows evidence of technical competence through significant engineering achievements. In addition, Hui was elected as a 2011 Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). Wen J. Li PhD ’97 moved to Hong Kong to establish a research program in MEMS and Nanotechnology at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) after graduation. He was promoted to the rank of professor in 2006, and then appointed by the IEEE to serve as the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Nanotechnology Magazine in 2007. Li has been elected IEEE Fellow (class of 2011) for his contributions in the development of low-power integrated nanotube devices. Olivier Lépinoy MS ’98 works in the real estate

Tova Fuller ’02, MS ’04, MD/PhD ’10 is in the Medical Scientist Train-

ing Program (MD/PhD) at UCLA. She completed her first two years of medical school, and subsequently, in 2010, received her Ph.D. in human genetics with an emphasis on computational genetics, and completed a thesis on weighted gene coexpression network analysis. Fuller received the 2010 Marilyn Bersch scholarship for her graduate work. While obtaining her Ph.D., she served as national co-president for Student Physicians for Social Responsibility for three and a half years, co-planned two conferences and one leadership retreat. Fuller has since returned to the third year of medical school and plans to combine computational research with a satisfying career in internal medicine and pediatrics. Erwin Taganas MS ’02 and wife, Andrelee Garcia-Taganas, celebrated the first birthday of their baby boy. Taganas is currently working at O-I as a senior R&D engineer and is also pursuing an MBA at Bowling Green State University in northwest Ohio.

business as a land developer. His design, negotiation, and interpersonal skills have allowed him to work in the fields of architecture, landscaping, real estate, urbanism, education and research, and on a variety of projects of different scales. He is currently director of programs at VINCI –Department of Planning, and is a member of “The City Factory,” a think tank on sustainable cities

Luis Lopez ’03, MS ’08 has been working for Northrop Grumman as an M&P engineer for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) program. He recently married Elvia Aguilar. Lopez was also promoted to functional manager overseeing the electrical materials and processes specialists.

Kom Viriyavejakul MS ’99 is currently the Commander of the

Zhang Liu ’04, MS ’05, PhD ’09 and Silu Lee ’04, MS ’05 welcomed the birth

21st Field Artillery Battalion, Queen’s Guard in Cholburi, Thailand. Viriyavejakul is married to Chantana, who is an associate professor and they have a son, Viriya , who is 6 years old.

of their second son, Lucas Liu, in September 2010.

2000s Campbell Chiang ’01 is now an associate patent counsel at Qual-

comm in San Diego. His specialties include video technologies and open source software. Zack Krevor ’01 married a fellow UCLA alum

and golf captain Leilani Bagby ’04 in 2006. Most recently, he was the lead for a flight project within NASA’s CCDev program that was featured on NASA Dryden’s Web site. Nicholas Nyemah ’01 joined the law firm of Blank Rome LLP in Washington, D.C. as an associate attorney specializing in intellectual property and technology matters. He and his wife, Rina, welcomed their first son, Derek Reyes, in January 2011. Benjamin Chu ’02, PhD ’06 , traveled to France

and Italy in September 2010 with UCLA Engineering classmates John Ni ’02, MS ’03; Eugene Kim ’02; Kevin Fan ’02; and Jonathan Leung ’02 to celebrate turning 30 years old.

Kevin Kershner ’05 , in November 2010, reached his five-year

anniversary with Agilent Technologies. Kershner is a field applications engineer based in Chicago, Illinois, with nationwide support of Agilent’s high-speed digital test and measurement equipment. He has had a very fulfilling career and recently purchased his first home. Duy Le ’07 was promoted to mechanical engineering manager

at Microfabrica, which is a MEMS manufacturer of ultrahigh precision parts, sub-assemblies, and three-dimensional micro machines. Arash Nasibi ’07 recently joined StudentMentor.org, a non-profit organization, as chief information officer. Nasibi’s main responsibility is to strategize and manage their continuously evolving Web site and technology platform. StudentMentor.org offers a free online service that matches college students with professionals in real time. Matthew Yu ’08 matriculated into the College of Osteopathic

Medicine of the Pacific at Western University of Health Sciences as part of the class of 2014. Ka “Richard” Cheung Sia PhD ’09 married Terri Chen on November 20, 2010 at the Little Chapel of Flowers, Las Vegas. Their wedding reception was later held in Hong Kong on December 18, 2010. Additional pictures can be found at http://www.terrichard.com.

INVEST IN ENGINEERING EXCELLENCE

You have a stake in UCLA Engineering’s future Partnerships with alumni, parents and friends who give annually to the School allow UCLA Engineering to continue to be a bastion of cutting-edge education and research.

The UCLA Engineering Fund Make a gift this year — and every year — to enhance engineering excellence at UCLA. Every gift matters to every UCLA engineer.

www.engineer.ucla.edu/giving

Three UCLA Engineering Alumni elected to the National Academy of Engineering Three distinguished alumni of the school were among 68 new members and nine foreign associates elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) in February. Mark J. Kushner ’76, the George I. Haddad Collegiate Professor and director, Michigan Institute for Plasma Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, was elected for his “contributions to low-temperature plasmas for semiconductors, optics, and thin-film manufacturing.” Asad M. Madni ’69, MS ’72, retired president, COO and chief technical officer of BEI Technologies, Inc.; and an independent consultant, was elected for “contributions to development and commercialization of sensors and systems for aerospace and automotive safety.”

Joanne M. Maguire MS ’78, executive vice president for Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co., was elected for “individual and team leadership of successful space programs.”

Election to the NAE is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer.

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405 Hilgard Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90095-1600

Areas • Advanced Structural Materials • Aerospace Engineering • Computer Networking • Electronic Materials • Integrated Circuits • Manufacturing and Design • Mechanics of Structures • Signal Processing and Communications • Systems Engineering Distinctive Features of the Program • Each course is fully equivalent to the corresponding on-campus course and taught by the faculty members who teach the on-campus course. • The online lectures are carefully prepared for the online student.

The primary purpose of this program is to enable employed engineers and computer scientists to enhance their technical education beyond the Bachelor of Science level, and to enhance their value to the technical organizations in which they are employed. Additional Information and Online Applications 60 Available at www.msengrol.seas.ucla.edu 50