Engineering Progress Spring 2022

SPRING QUARTER IS UNDERWAY and I am excited to share more about the impactful initiatives that are ongoing and planned for the future at the College of Engineering.

Our college recently completed a robust strategic research visioning process to identify major challenges facing society and the planet, and for which we intend to make investments in future faculty, infrastructure, partnerships and more. Our intent is to be world-wide leaders in advancing human health, transforming mobility, strengthening climate resilience and revolutionizing energy systems. We will strive to leave no communities behind by developing engineering solutions and accessible technologies that improve the quality of life for all, we will employ intelligent systems and automation through artificial

Message from the Dean

intelligence and machine learning, and we will develop miniaturized technologies at the nano- and micro-scales to address and advance these four research challenges. I look forward to continuing to make significant investments to support our bold, new strategic research vision for our college throughout this year and beyond, and am excited about our continuing efforts to develop new strategic visions focused on education and community as well.

Our faculty are continuing to make substantial contributions to solving longer-term challenges that affect humankind and the planet. They have forged ahead with research, education and public service, from breaking ground on the new Aggie Square teaching and research facility in Sacramento to keeping food safe and fresh through travel at hypersonic speeds and developing a neural network to identify fake news.

The College of Engineering has also welcomed ten new faculty in the 2021-22 academic year with diverse experience and expertise in teaching, machine learning, security, pavement engineering, quantum computing, optics, food engineering and more. Additionally, we celebrate our faculty, who received various laurels, including four NSF CAREER awards this year and

13 in the past two years. These milestone achievements signify the exceptional talents of our early-career researchers.

Lastly, I am proud that our college continues to be ranked amongst the best public universities in the U.S., specifically in the top 13 percent among public universities surveyed. The college’s highest-ranking graduate programs are biological and agricultural engineering and civil engineering, ranking third and eighth among public universities respectively.

Computer engineering also saw a significant increase in rank, up ten from 2022. We will continue our cutting-edge research, along with mentorship of both graduate and undergraduate students involved in our research efforts.

In this issue of Engineering Progress, you will read more about some of our student, faculty and alumni accomplishments.

Go Ags!

Richard L. Corsi Dean, UC Davis College of Engineering

CONTENTS

Engineering

Richard

Corsi

Alyssa Panitch

Executive Associate Dean,

Personnel

Jessie Catacutan Executive Assistant Dean,

Ralph Aldredge

Associate Dean, Undergraduate Studies

Roland Faller

Associate Dean, Facilities and

and Graduate Studies

Cristina Davis Associate Dean, Research

Leigh Ann Hartman Assistant Dean, Development and External Relations

Lisa Nguyen Executive Director, Marketing and Communications

Steve Pigg

Executive Director,

Cindy Rubio-González

Faculty Advisor to the

Inclusion

CHAIRS

Fadi

Tonya

George

Christopher

André

MATERIALS SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING PROFESSOR RICARDO CASTRO

is turning the fantastic world of superheroes into a way to inspire kids to achieve the impossible through science and engineering. Castro is a lifelong fan of superheroes, and as he passed his passion on to his young sons, he realized he could use that love for good.

With his new Engineering Superheroes initiative, Castro produces a unique and fun series of videos that connect basic STEM concepts with superhero powers and technology like SpiderMan’s webs. His goal is to inspire kids to pursue STEM by getting them excited about the possibilities of making these powers a reality.

“Inspiration comes from showing,” he said. “Superhero movies, in particular, show a unique and fantastic world through CGI, and it’s a good exercise to ask, ‘if this were true, what would be the engineering concept behind it?”

Castro and his team filmed a pilot episode in summer 2021, asking, "how can science make Captain America's shield real?" The video, which has been viewed more than 6,000 times, introduces the concept of composite materials, followed by a short activity to demonstrate. The videos and corresponding lesson plans are free to all educators and parents.

He looks forward to the opportunity to expand the series and inspire kids to think about what’s possible.

Learn more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cp0FWg-C10Q

Castro demonstrates his lab's own fireproof version of Captain America's shield.

Photo: Ryan Wong/UC Davis

ENGINEERING design showcase

Thursday, June 2, 2022

1-4 p.m. UC Davis Credit Union Center

The Engineering Design Showcase is the culminating experience for graduating seniors. A senior design project synthesizes all the skills students learn at UC Davis and is required to complete an engineering degree. Teams work together to design and prototype a product, device, process or software system. This event brings together project teams from all eight departments for an opportunity to share student designs with the public.

The College of Engineering invites alumni and industry partners to review and provide expert feedback to student teams on their exhibits and project demonstrations.

Admission is free and open to the public.

Learn more and register to be an evaluator by May 19!

Story

6 UC DAVIS COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

An Algorithm to Detect Fake News

By Noah Pflueger-Peters

SINCE THE TERM WAS POPULARIZED DURING THE 2016 ELECTION CYCLE , fake news has been a focal point in American politics. These inaccurate or misleading articles posing as fact have already been shown to impact elections, society and the pandemic response, so identifying and stopping them early is key to mitigating their impact.

Though Meta and other social networks have begun taking steps to identify fake news, it’s a complex challenge because fake news is cheap to produce, easy to spread and disguised among trustworthy sources. Though human experts can separate fact from fiction, it’s timeconsuming, expensive and even the most efficient experts can’t keep up with the torrid pace of publication.

Computer Science Assistant Professor Jiawei Zhang thinks a potential solution is developing a neural network to do this. Neural networks are a type of machine learning algorithm modeled after the human brain comprised of a vast, layered web of “neurons” that make complex, probability-based decisions. By considering the relationship between an article’s author, topic and keywords, the program can potentially find, flag and stop suspicious news articles before they spread.

“We hope to detect fake news as early as possible, preferably in the first few minutes, so we can stop propagation in a very early stage and avoid some potential effects on society,” said Zhang.

SOCIAL MEDIA AS A GRAPH

Social media networks can be represented as graph data—a web of connected data points on authors, posters, topics and keywords. Graph data like this is also prevalent in biology, medicine and chemistry for applications ranging from molecular interactions to neuron behavior in the brain, but the complexity makes it hard for a neural network to understand. Zhang’s Information Fusion and Mining Laboratory focuses on solving this problem.

“We have such diverse graph data in the real world, but right now, the deep learning models for graph data have some limitations,” he said. “Our target is to propose a base model that can deal with all kinds of graph data and be useful for very diverse applications.”

Computer Science Assistant Professor Jiawei Zhang (Jiawei Zhang/UC Davis)

AN EFFECTIVE FAKE NEWS DETECTOR

During the 2016 election cycle, Zhang became worried after seeing friends and colleagues share misleading things online. As the problem became more apparent, he realized that he could use his research to make a difference.

“Fake news doesn’t appear in isolation,” he said. “Normally, there will be some correlation among authors, topics or issues, so if we check them in isolation, we’ll probably miss some information. We can bring in graph neural networks as a way to capture this correlation and detect these fake news articles.”

At his previous institution, he developed a graph-based neural network called FakeDetector that analyzes a news article’s contents, topic and author and assigns them a credibility score ranging from completely true (“True”) to completely false (“Pants on Fire”). The program was trained on data from the independent fact-checking website PolitiFact, where it learned that specific topics or keywords appeared more often in false articles than true ones and that certain political figures were generally more credible than others. It used this information to make decisions.

“If we find author credibility has some issues, then a news article from them is more likely to be fake or incorrect,” he explained.

In the team’s studies, published in the 2020 IEEE International Conference on Data Engineering, FakeDetector greatly outperformed other leading opensource fake news detection programs, showing the promise a graph neural network approach has for detecting fake news.

BUILDING ON SUCCESS

Zhang joined UC Davis this fall and has continued to build upon this success. He says he’s writing multiple proposals for projects in the area and is eager to collaborate with industry to make a real impact.

In the meantime, he and his group are working to make the program better. Zhang says his long-term goal is to develop a system that can tackle a broader range of fake news on social media, as the system has a harder time with shorter articles, images and videos.

“We can see fake news appearing in different sizes and topics and on different platforms nowadays, so I have plans to develop a system that can work for these diverse settings,” he said.

He also wants to make the program capable of factchecking, which would make it more useful and better at detecting fake articles.

“I plan to incorporate fact-checking and combine more information sources to help [the program] detect some of the fake news articles that are harder to assess based only on contents or authors,” he said.

Zhang also plans to consider the ethics of setting up and implementing the system as he continues developing it. He notes that it needs to be accurate enough not to incorrectly flag articles while also being free from corporate or government biases that might turn it malicious. This makes fake news a challenge from a technical and social perspective, but one Zhang thinks is worth tackling.

“This [program] is ambitious because it is very hard to build, but I think this is an important problem,” he said.

“I plan to incorporate factchecking and combine more information sources to help [the program] detect some of the fake news articles that are harder to assess based only on contents or authors.”

– JIAWEI ZHANG

IN MEMORIAM IN MEMORIAM

PETERSON

A. JAMES ‛‛JIM”

University friend supports hands-on experiences in environmental engineering

As an environmental science engineer, A. James “Jim” Peterson recognized the need for hands-on learning experiences to prepare individuals to handle ecological crises effectively.

In 2021, Peterson contributed more than $800,000 to support undergraduate and graduate experiential learning opportunities in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Peterson remained in the Sacramento area upon graduating with a Master of Science from Sacramento State University in 1998 and worked for the California Air Resources Board for more than seventeen years before retiring at age 57 due to health-related concerns.

After receiving health care through UC Davis Health, Peterson and his family wanted to give back to UC Davis. His niece, Anastasia Berg, is a UC Davis graduate. One of her College of Biological Sciences professors was Peterson’s oncologist. Berg graduated in 2020 and currently lives in Carlsbad.

The Arvid J. Peterson Environmental Engineering Endowed Fund and the Arvid J. Peterson Environmental Engineering Support Fund will support field and laboratory hands-on, practical experiences with air/water/soil/etc. sample collection and analysis, using appropriate methods and equipment.

The funds support these experiential learning opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students, both in the department and other units and programs the department collaborates with.

A. James "Jim" Peterson (Andrea Price/Sacramento State)

Meet our new FACULTY

By Noah Pflueger-Peters

Isaac Kim Assistant Professor, Computer Science Quantum computations can require millions or billions of steps to solve a problem, so Kim works from both a hardware and software perspective to ensure quantum computers can work efficiently and reliably. He received his B.S. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), his Ph.D. at Caltech and was a postdoctoral scholar at IBM, Stanford University and the Perimeter Institute in Canada. He also worked in industry and as a lecturer at the University of Sydney before joining UC Davis.

Assistant Professor, Computer Science Mitrović’s group develops new algorithms that help large, graphlike networks of machines to work together to process data and complete tasks. His goal is to design efficient, all-purpose algorithms that help these systems process data on a massive scale. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology–Lausanne and worked as a postdoctoral scholar at MIT before joining UC Davis in 2022.

Somayeh Nassiri Associate Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering

Nassiri’s research focuses on the sustainable design, construction, repair and maintenance of concrete pavement. Her lab also characterizes concrete materials and develops robust concrete infrastructure designs. She received her B.S. at the University of Tabriz, her M.S. at the University of Tehran and her Ph.D. at the University of Pittsburgh. Before joining UC Davis, she worked as a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Alberta and as a faculty member at Washington State University.

Hamed Pirsiavash

Associate Professor, Computer Science

Pirsiavash designs computer vision and machine learning algorithms that can recognize what’s happening in an image or video. His lab focuses on making these AI algorithms robust, capable of learning from unlabeled data and able to quickly adapt to different situations. He earned his B.S. at Iran Univer sity of Science and Technology, his M.S. at Sharif University of Technology and his Ph.D. at UC Irvine. Before joining UC Davis, he worked as a postdoctoral scholar at MIT and an assistant professor at the University of Maryland–Baltimore County.

Glaucia Helena Carvahlo do Prado

Assistant Professor of Teaching, Chemical Engineering

Prado is a chemical engineer by way of food engineering, a field that combines food science and chemical engineering. She is excited to use her unique background to connect with students, develop food engineering courses and research ways to improve engineering education for women and low-income students. She received her B.S. in food engineering at the University of Campinas, Brazil and her Ph.D. in chemical engineering at the University of Alberta.

Zahra Sadeghizadeh

Assistant Professor of Teaching, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Sadeghizadeh will use her teaching experience and background in propulsion and thermal fluid fields to develop, revamp and teach mechanical and aerospace engineering courses while connecting with students to inspire them to follow their dreams. She received her B.S. and M.S. at Sharif University of Technology and her Ph.D. at Missouri University of Science and Technology. She started her career at Florida Technical University before coming to UC Davis this fall.

Slobodan Mitrović

The College of Engineering welcomed ten new faculty in the 2021-22 academic year with diverse experience and expertise in teaching, AI/machine learning, security, pavement engineering, quantum computing, optics, food engineering and more. They are proud to join UC Davis and look forward to striking up collaborations with their new colleagues and industry to address significant engineering challenges in the 21st century.

Avesta Sasan

Associate Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Sasan’s research focuses on his dual passions for hardware security and machine learning. He is particularly interested in neuromorphic hardware—architecture that reflects the structure of neural networks—and developing solutions to detect malware, assess security and mitigate adversarial attacks. He is also interested in low-power design and methodology, approximate computing and the Internet of Things (IoT). Sasan received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. from UC Irvine and worked in industry and at George Mason University before joining UC Davis.

Yi Xue Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering

Xue’s group designs hardware and algorithms to develop high-throughput, high-resolution and high signal-to-noise ratio computational optical systems. These techniques will open new avenues for the optical study of neural circuits in the brain and form the basis for non-invasive brain-computer interfaces to treat mental disease and motor dysfunction. Xue received her B.S. in optical engineering at Zhejiang University and her M.S. and Ph.D. from MIT. She worked as a postdoctoral scholar at UC Berkeley before starting at UC Davis.

Jiawei Zhang Assistant Professor, Computer Science

Zhang develops deep learning models and neural networks that can learn from graph data, which describes networks of sometimes millions of connected nodes. With the emergence of big data and the prevalence of graph data in modern research, these data sets are crucial for studying social networks, molecular interactions and neuron behavior in the brain., among other applications. Zhang received his B.S. at Nanjing University, his Ph.D. at the University of Illinois–Chicago, and began his career at the Florida State University. He won an NSF CAREER award in 2020.

Jusnhan Zhang Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Zhang is a pioneer in edge AI and crosslayer optimization of wireless

networks. He brings significant expertise in edge AI, 5G, optimization and control of networked systems, and user privacy in the IoT. He is the recipient of an NSF CAREER award, the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award, and a co-author of several IEEE/ACM best paper awards. Zhang received his Ph.D. from Purdue University and was a faculty member at Arizona State University until joining UC Davis.

ONE SMALL STEP

UC Davis Students Fly, Run Experiments in Zero Gravity

NINE MECHANICAL AND AEROSPACE ENGINEERING STUDENTS from two research teams at UC Davis experienced zero gravity this December as they successfully tested two spaceflight technologies aboard two parabolic flights. Parabolic flight tests are a key step in making technology space-ready, as it’s the closest thing to a weightless space-like environment on Earth. A plane flies in a series of parabolas starting from level flight, then going steeply upwards at double gravity and back

By Noah Pflueger-Peters

down at a similar angle. In the middle, gravity becomes negligible.

The students say there’s no easy way to describe zero-g. Some called it dream-like, some said it felt like flying or swimming without limits and some compared it to a roller coaster. They can agree that it’s unlike anything they had ever experienced.

“Every time we pushed over the top of the parabola and started floating, I felt like everything I learned

SMALL STEP

about physics went out the door,” said M.S. student Kylie Cooper.

“It’s like dividing by zero,” said M.S. student Andrew Arends. “It’s the removal of one constant in your life—we’re born into gravity, we live in it and it’s everpresent. It makes you realize that it’s only a constant here on Earth.”

A TALE OF TWO TECHNOLOGIES

The teams, named HDD and CHANGES, are part of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Professor and former astronaut Steve Robinson’s lab. The lab researches spaceflight technology ranging from satellites to deepspace human habitats to human/systems engineering.

TOP: The CHANGES team runs an experiment in zero-g. (Dominic Alessandro Dal Porto/UC Davis)

LEFT: The teams fly the same UC Davis flag Robinson did while on the International Space Station. (Dominic Alessandro Dal Porto/UC Davis)

Parabolic flight has been called the “vomit comet” because the sudden transitions between gravities can cause disorientation and motion sickness. Astronauts face this challenge when going to space, but being sick while having to perform critical flight tasks could jeopardize a mission.

The CHANGES team—M.S. students Casey Miller and Andrew Arends and undergraduates Ruby Houchens and Preston Vanderpan, joined by Ph.D. students Tammer Barkouki and Chris Lorenzen on the flight—is developing a motion-sensing helmet as a solution. The helmet tracks rotational velocity and transitional acceleration on the head and chest and alerts users when they are moving too much. This alert will help users avoid getting sick.

“EVERY TIME WE PUSHED OVER THE TOP OF THE PARABOLA AND STARTED FLOATING, I FELT LIKE EVERYTHING I LEARNED ABOUT PHYSICS WENT OUT THE DOOR.”

– M.S. STUDENT KYLIE COOPER

“I’m sure you’ve seen how fluids clump up into little spheres in space, and that includes the vestibular fluid in our ear, which can cause motion sickness,” Arends explained. “Having this simple, non-pharmaceutical method of saying, ‘slow down, you’re gonna get sick’ can help humans adapt to different gravity levels in space and assist people who battle motion sickness on Earth.”

The HDD team—M.S. students Kylie Cooper and Abhay Negi, undergraduates Chris Andrade, Ashna Reddy and Miranda Godinez, joined by M.S. student Janine Moses as operations support—is developing a low-cost reaction wheel for CubeSats. CubeSats are tiny box-shaped satellites that can be equipped with cameras, antennae and sensors. Reaction wheels, which stabilize CubeSats in space by spinning and transferring momentum to turn the satellite or slow its rotation, are essential but expensive and difficult to manufacture reliably.

As undergraduates, Cooper and Negi came across a third option: using a hard drive disk. Like commercial reaction wheels, hard drive disks are precise, robust and can spin at a variable rate. They are also much cheaper and readily available, with modifications so they can spin in two directions. As they developed the idea, talked with professionals and continued their work as M.S. students, Cooper and Negi realized how much of an impact their design could make.

“We already had half of the technology we needed, and it’s a very low-cost alternative to what’s usually thousands or tens of thousands of dollars,” said Cooper.

PREPARING FOR ZERO-G

The two teams received grants to fly zero-g in fall 2020, which kicked off a year of preparation. Each zero-g session lasts for 18-20 seconds, which means they needed to spend months designing, rehearsing and refining their experiments to make sure everything was as foolproof as possible.

“It’s a very finite amount of time that you get to spend in zero-g, so you really want to maximize your results, and that means there’s a lot you have to prepare for,” said Negi.

The CHANGES experiments involved completing upperbody tasks in zero-g to make sure the helmet’s signals were working and flashed at the correct time. The HDD

team built a cage to give their CubeSat a controlled place to fly and then used special laser-engraved markers for each face of the cube and a computer vision system developed by Reddy to track its motion. Preparation was hard work, but the teams developed a fantastic synergy as they worked alongside one another.

“Our teams are close and we work really well together,” said Cooper. “There were a lot of late nights and we’ve all had our hands in every single part of all the systems. Although everything went well, that’s only because we put in so much extra effort to make sure we could overcome anything that happened to the hardware or the experiment.”

Robinson’s support was the common denominator. Not only could he speak from personal experience about zero-g, but he also brought in experts to share their experiences to help prepare the students. He was also constantly there to encourage and reassure them as they anxiously prepared for the flight. The Diane Bryant Engineering Student Design Center (ESDC) staff also played a big role in making sure the teams had the tools, resources and skills they needed to manufacture their parts.

“WINNING THE SUPER BOWL”

On each flight, the plane completes 30 parabolas. The first five simulate lunar and then Martian gravity before it dives into zero-g for the final 25. The teams were excited to

UC DAVIS COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

The two teams and their PI, Professor Steve Robinson on the left. (UC Davis)

experience these other gravities and the weird transitions between them, but they say zero-g was totally unique.

“I feel like we learned more in the first five minutes of the zero-g parabolas than we could have prepared for in weeks and months leading up to the flight,” said Moses.

Though weightlessness was disorienting at first, the students soon realized how fun it could be. Arends says he liked finding new ways to look at their experiments— literally. Vanderpan remembers playing around with gravity and watching a hat slowly float in zero-g or drop comically fast at two g’s.

“There’s this steep learning curve, but it becomes this wonderful, majestic experience,” said Arends. “The first time is nerve-wracking—the simplest touch will send you tumbling, and it’s this whole new way of moving your body. By the end, you learn very naturally like a child learning to walk, and you can have a lot of fun with it.”

Though the success was rewarding, the students say the best part was experiencing everything together.

“Even though none of us really know how to describe zero-g, we can all agree that being together and working together as a team is what made the experience so great,” said Andrade.

AD ASTRA

The teams became proud Aggies in Ft. Lauderdale and took a piece of history with them— the same UC Davis flag that Robinson flew on the International Space Station. It’s the first time the flag has flown since, and it represents a new era of space research at UC Davis.

The HDD team’s reaction wheel will go to space on CubeSats twice this year with the UC Davis Space and Satellite Systems club and NASA’s Johnson Space Center, respectively. The teams will also do two more parabolic flights this summer in Santa Maria, CA, where they will bring their technology even closer to operation in space.

Robinson warned that it’s rare that everything would work on the first try, and both teams were fixing and finetuning their designs up until the night before and even between flights. Despite that, everything went flawlessly. Negi compares it to winning the Super Bowl. When the teams saw their experiments working, they couldn’t help but cheer.

“When you work so hard with such a good team on something for over a year and then see it finally working, it’s really great,” said Cooper. “I’m so proud of our team and I think everyone can say the same thing.”

The experiments will complete three master’s theses and give all the students experience in zero-g testing, teamwork, experiment design and working under pressure that could help launch their careers. Perhaps most importantly, the teams can pass their knowledge on to the next generation of students to help UC Davis make the giant leap into space.

“Some universities have conducted multiple zero-g flights, and part of their success is passing along those lessons learned from project to project,” said Negi. “I think this is the beginning [of that] for UC Davis.”

The CHANGES team aboard the parabolic flight. (UC Davis)

The HDD team performs pre-flight maintenance on their CubeSat. (UC Davis)

IN MEMORIAM IN MEMORIAM

Founder of UC Davis’ Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Ronald Soohoo

UC Davis’ Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) department honors the life of its founder, professor emeritus Ronald Soohoo. He passed away peacefully Monday, March 28, surrounded by his family.

Born in Canton, China, Soohoo came to the United States with his family as a teenager shortly after World War II. He received his bachelor’s degree at MIT, then earned a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and physics at Stanford. While at Stanford, he developed ferrodevices such as limiters and isolators used in aerospace applications. These devices allow for better direction of radar beams. Later, he worked as an engineer at PG&E, designing and analyzing power generation systems, at firms involved with audio and video recording technology, and as a professor at the California Institute of Technology.

Read more: https://ece.ucdavis.edu/news/memoriamfounder-uc-davis-electrical-and-computer-engineeringdepartment-ronald-soohoo

Community Champion Jannie Wu supports COFFEE student club

As an electrical and computer engineering alumna, Jannie Wu understands the opportunities and challenges of pursuing an engineering degree at UC Davis. Wu has been a champion in supporting student engineers and exploring ways to encourage more females to pursue a career in electrical engineering.

In 2003, the Wu Family Foundation Scholarship was established by Wu to provide financial support to College of Engineering first-year undergraduates with financial needs.

When Wu recently learned of the Club of Future Female Electrical Engineers (COFFEE), she felt an immediate connection to their mission. To show her support, Wu surprised its members with pizza for their first COFFEE meeting of the 2021-22 academic year.

LIVE CONSTRUCTION

The Diane Bryant Engineering Student Design Center

will transform how our students engage in design curriculum, collaborate on interdisciplinary projects, learn about entrepreneurship and receive the hands-on guidance that complements theory explored in the classroom. In April 2021, Diede Construction Inc. started expanding and renovating the most exciting project the College of Engineering has launched in decades.

By John Marx

THE WHOLE IDEA OF AN INNOVATION CAMPUS –devoted to catalyzing research that links UC Davis faculty with industry and community partners — depends on space that is better-designed for collaboration than what we have now.

Aggie Square wants to be such a desirable place to engage in translational research and experiential learning that anyone going about their business as usual feels a little bit like they are missing out and really ought to get involved (through Quarter at Aggie Square, through new research connections, through the Alice Waters Institute for Edible Education, etc.).

Aggie Square will be different because of the innovative infrastructure that it provides, and the first piece of that infrastructure is coming together this summer. Thanks to the strategic vision of the UC Davis Department of Biomedical Engineering, we are configuring a cutting-edge makerspace that can be used by everyone from designers to surgeons to industry partners.

If you’ve been in the TEAM prototyping lab on the Davis campus, you’ll have some sense of what we’re building at Aggie Square, but bigger and with a wider range of 3D printers and other prototyping equipment.

Take a tour of the UC Davis TEAM prototyping lab to see the kind of equipment that will be in the Aggie Square makerspace.

The brain behind TEAM (which stands for Translating Engineering Advances to Medicine) is the engineer Steven Lucero. He has worked with faculty and students to build everything from circuit boards and prosthetics to anatomical models used by doctors preparing for challenging facial reconstructive surgery.

A display shelf along one wall in the current TEAM facility in Davis holds examples of what the lab can help you make, including a couple of 3D printed crania for surgical planning. There are also various gadgets and objects like a wrench and a bike chain printed in polymer. Steven cautions that you wouldn’t get very far on a polymer bike chain, but just wait until the Aggie Square makerspace opens up with a 3D printer that can print in metal.

First, nearly every project that TEAM facilitates involves multiple stages and several people from units across our campuses. For example, a radiologist or other bioimaging specialist might provide the data that informs computerassisted design work to make that data ready for the 3D printer. The output might end up in the hands of a surgeon, an orthopedist or another clinical specialist. Alternatively, perhaps a chemical engineer might invent new technologies to 3D-print more flexible objects with potential applications in fields like robotics and wearable technology. These are not just hypotheticals but rather actual examples of the broad range of collaborations that come from this kind of makerspace.

If you want hypotheticals, think about how much wider the orbit of multidisciplinary research will be in a makerspace located next to a food and health policy and research facility like the Alice Waters Institute or a cluster of School of Medicine faculty conducting research right up stairs.

Second, imagine all of the possibilities for researchers to rub elbows with other researchers! You could think of the makerspace as a 21st century water cooler, a meeting place where students, faculty and industry tenants are bound to bump into one another. Mechanical engineers will find themselves working alongside medical professionals and design experts and chemists and so on. Professors in all of these fields will run into undergraduate students involved in Quarter at Aggie Square Experiences

Aggie Square infrastructure like the new TEAM lab will bring cross-disciplinary faculty and students together in two ways.

Polymer 3D-printed objects like a bike chain, a wrench and a skull have been made in the TEAM Lab. (Photo courtesy of UC Davis)

UC Davis TEAM Prototyping Lab led by engineer Steven Lucero (Photo courtesy of UC Davis)

that use the makerspace and in new masters programs focused on device development. Industry tenants are sure to make use of the lab as well, which means there will be opportunities for UC Davis researchers to connect with their industry counterparts that would be much less likely without the makerspace.

To make sure these connections happen, we are putting the makerspace in the heart of Aggie Square.

The architects are drawing it into the ground floor of the Lab East building, and so if you look out the windows of the makerspace you’ll be staring straight across at a lab in the West Building as well as the Alice Waters Institute. You’ll be 10 paces away from the teaching center right next door in the Lifelong Learning building, moreover, which means students and faculty working in the makerspace will be able to move quickly back and forth to their classrooms.

Because a room full of 3D printers is really cool to look at, the TEAM makerspace will have glass walls and big garage doors that open onto the public square. It’s hard to imagine a better example of science on display. Students walking by for a class or members of the community coming to Aggie Square for a meeting will have a chance to see UC Davis research live as it happens.

Let me walk you through the space. In this image drawn by Steven Lucero, the garage doors that open outside to the square are on the bottom. You can see how the machine workshop on the left can open up for classes or demonstrations as well as to get big pieces of equipment in and out. The banks of 3D printers are on the right side of this image, with teaching/ presentation space in the middle.

Both of these aspects of the lab — bleeding edge tech and the opportunity for making connections to other researchers — are crucial to the makerspace and to Aggie Square. You can make entirely new things with the technology in the TEAM lab, and with the connections to other researchers you’ll make at Aggie Square you can put those prototypes into action.

Here then, is an example of how Aggie Square will connect people to do more innovative research together. With infrastructure like the new TEAM lab, we’re making Aggie Square the place at UC Davis to do collaborative, translational, multidisciplinary research.

TOP PHOTO: The Life Sciences, Technology and Engineering Building East, or LSTE East, will house the new makerspace on the ground level. Lots of windows will give the feeling of connection to other Aggie Square spaces. (Illustration by ZGF Architects)

BOTTOM PHOTO: With glass walls and big garage doors that open onto the public square, science will truly be on display in the Aggie Square makerspace. (Illustration by Steven Lucero)

Laurels List

National Academy of Engineering

DAN SPERLING Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Dan Sperling has been elected as a member of the 2022 class of the National Academy of Engineering for leadership and outstanding entrepreneurial contributions in transportation energy, advancing alternative energy policies and promoting government-industry-university collaborations. Sperling directs UC Davis’ Institute for Transportation Studies, and his research interests are in transportation planning and policy analysis and the environmental impact of motor vehicles.

The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), the National Academy of Medicine, and the National Research Council (now the program units of NASEM). Election to the NAE is among the highest professional distinctions for engineers.

American Society of Civil Engineers’ James Laurie Prize

JOHN HARVEY Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor John Harvey received the 2022 American Society of Civil Engineers’ James Laurie Prize. Harvey is the Director of the University of California Pavement Research Center (UCPRC) and past chair of the Transportation Technology and Policy graduate group. UCPRC has an ongoing Caltrans-sponsored project (Partnered Pavement Research Center [PPRC]) for research and development of a wide range of pavement technology, and with federal agencies and industry. He teaches concrete and flexible pavement design and rehabilitation, asphalt concrete materials and project management at UC Davis.

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) is a tax-exempt professional body founded in 1852— the oldest engineering society in the U.S.— to represent members of the civil engineering profession worldwide. Since 1966, the James Laurie Prize has been awarded based on contributions to the advancement of transportation engineering. It is administered by the Transportation and Development Institute through the Honors and Awards Program.

American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers International Food Engineering Award

ZHONGLI PAN Biological and Agricultural Engineering Adjunct Professor Zhongli Pan’s research focuses on improving the value and safety of agricultural products and their components through new and improved post-harvest and processing technologies. Pan characterizes the physical, chemical and rheological (tendency to flow) properties of agricultural and food products. He studies infrared heating technology for various food processes, including blanching, peeling, roasting, drying, disinfection and disinfestation. He also uses ultrasonic and pulsed electric field technologies for improving food processing efficiency.

The International Food Engineering Award recognizes food engineers from all over the world who have advanced the application of engineering technology for the food industry and also those who have contributed outstanding leadership, management, or teaching ability to the field.

By Cristina Deptula

RECENT RECOGNITIONS FOR UC DAVIS ENGINEERING PROFESSORS

National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Awards

The following UC Davis engineering professors earned National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Awards (NSF CAREER) - prestigious awards recognizing junior faculty who have the potential to become leaders in their fields.

The award is the agency’s highest honor for young faculty and funds five-year research and education projects that often serve as the foundation for faculty careers.

ROOPALI KUKREJA Materials Science and Engineering Assistant Professor Roopali Kukreja researches the optical manipulation of magnetic materials, complex oxide thin films and heterostructures.

She and her research group use ultrafast lasers and synchrotron-based x-ray techniques to understand and manipulate the evolution of magnetic, electronic and structural properties at femtosecond to nanosecond timescales. These studies will advance the development of new heterostructures for laser-based building blocks in future high-performance computing systems.

JASON LOWE-POWER Computer Science Assistant Professor Jason Lowe-Power develops both hardware and software to improve the efficiency and programmability of modern computer systems. As part of the Davis Computer Architecture Research Group, Lowe-Power investigates improving the efficiency and usability of heterogeneous systems, enhancing system security using hardware extensions and developing open-source simulation methodology to support computer architecture research.

SABBIE MILLER Civil and Environmental Engineering Assistant Professor Sabbie Miller’s research focuses on designing sustainable infrastructure materials and minimizing their environmental impacts.

The laboratory is working to develop methods to assess the local, regional and global impacts of materials production, advance alternative material manufacturing and pioneer ways to produce desired properties, such as carbon utilization, in sustainable materials. The team works primarily with cementitious materials, bio-derived materials and polymeric materials.

SEUNG SAE HONG Materials Science and Engineering Assistant Professor Seung Sae Hong works with materials that do not exist in nature: artificially-designed 2D materials. These include electronic and magnetic materials, for which he hopes to understand and harness new properties that emerge at the nanoscale. His research group also explores novel applications based on exotic 2D quantum materials, from smart electronics to renewable energy devices.

ECE Lab Develops Fetal Oximetry Device

ECE Lab Develops Fetal Oximetry Device to prevent unnecessary C-sections

By Cristina Deptula

POTENTIAL FETAL HYPOXIA IS ONE REASON

surgeons rush in to perform a C-section. Currently, doctors assess the baby's well-being using electronic fetal heart rate monitoring (EFM) during labor and delivery. As of 2016, data published in Clinical Obstetrics & Gynaecology showed that 30 percent of babies delivered in hospitals in the U.S. are detected as potentially hypoxic, but 60 percent of those detections are false alarms that can lead to unnecessary C-sections.

UC Davis Electrical and Computer Engineering

Professor Soheil Ghiasi's lab has built a transabdominal fetal pulse oximeter (TFO) to measure a baby's blood oxygen saturation levels non-invasively. A new father himself, he credits the birth of his young daughter with inspiration for this research, which is supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

Ghiasi expects this technology to be adoptable by many medical facilities worldwide.

"From my observations, nurses and obstetricians are well trained on how to use fetal monitoring devices, and this is something to which they can easily adapt. Placing TFO on the abdomen is similar to placing ultrasound transducers currently used for fetal monitoring at hospitals. A friendly graphical user interface can provide easy access to fetal oxygen saturation numbers outputted by the TFO and help with the adaptation. Additionally, TFO is composed of off-the-shelf components and is relatively low-cost.” - Dr. Soheil Ghiasi

Begum Kasap, a Ph.D. student, working on the project, explains the concept behind the TFO technology. "The technology works by placing multiple near-infrared LED light sources and a pair of photodetectors on the

Overview of how the transabdominal fetal pulse oximeter (TFO) measures a baby's blood oxygen saturation levels non-invasively. (Soheil Ghiasi/UC Davis)

mother’s abdomen placed at 'near' and 'far' positions. The measured reflected light at the near detector is impacted only by the mother’s tissue layers, and we use that as a baseline. The light at the far detector travels through both maternal and fetal tissues.

We filter the maternal signal from the far detector's measurement to extract a signal belonging to the fetus using adaptive noise cancellation and the near detector's maternal signal measurement. As a result of filtering, we can identify a PPG signal belonging to the baby which can be used to estimate oxygen saturation.”

Kasap explains further, “Light is absorbed at two different wavelengths, by oxygenated and then by deoxygenated blood. Comparing the amplitudes of the signals at each wavelength can say how much blood is oxygenated vs. deoxygenated.”

TESTING ACCURACY IN PREGNANT EWES

They are currently testing the accuracy of the fetal oximeter in pregnant ewes, in collaboration with Diana L. Farmer, a fetal surgeon at UC Davis Health.

Kasap says, “With the facilities available here, UC Davis is uniquely a good place for any research that involves both animals and humans.”

They also collaborated with Herman Hedriana and Aijun Wang at UC Davis Health; Weijian Yang, Naoki Saito, Andre Knoesen, Vivek Srinivasan at UC Davis; and M. Austin Johnson, previously at UC Davis Health and now at the University of Utah.

"We have conducted thirteen animal studies with various prototypes of the TFO device since 2019, thanks to all of these collaborators. Our latest animal study showed that our TFO could measure fetal oxygen saturation with about 10 percent mean absolute error," explains Kasap.

Accessing reference oxygen saturation values is necessary to characterize and calibrate any pulse oximetry system. To accomplish this, researchers can draw blood from sheep fetuses during the study to compare actual fetal blood oxygenation data with observations from the TFO technology. The procedure follows a strict protocol, approved by the UC Davis Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, where the sheep are under anesthesia.

In March 2022, researchers began observing the workings of this device in pregnant ewes undergoing contractions. “This is intended to be used in the delivery room during labor,” says Begum. “So, we need to see how uterine contractions affect oxygenation levels and device function and see what’s normal for blood oxygenation levels.”

In a separate 2022 study, researchers will compare the oxygenation levels suggested by the device with those of fetal lambs to determine whether the TFO can accurately detect fetal hypoxia. In collaboration with UC Davis Health, researchers will observe ten ewes, one per week, for the ten weeks. They expect to have results to report in summer 2022.

PRENATAL TESTING IN HUMANS

In 2021, this new oximeter was tested on a small group of humans in collaboration with Herman Hedriana, director of Maternal-Fetal Medicine at UC Davis Health. Healthy near-term pregnant patients coming in for their non-stress test (NST) visits were recruited for the study, approved by UC Davis' Institutional Review Board and conducted at UC Davis' Medical Center.

The evaluation of TFO for use in prenatal testing is an important step towards its integration into hospitals for fetal monitoring during labor and delivery. However, because researchers cannot draw blood from human fetuses during NST, the performance of TFO in this study is evaluated using proxy metrics, such as fetal heart rate and maternal heart rate.

"We had a mean absolute error of 6.3 beats per minute (bpm) for fetal heart rate with our technology and a mean absolute error of 1.3 maternal heartbeats per minute across three patients. We want an error of below five bpm for a clinical application, so we are working on this," says Kasap.

The device has been tested with patients with darker skin tones, and it has proven less accurate than those with lighter skin. "More light gets absorbed while passing through the body of someone with a darker skin tone, so less light is reflected to the surface, making it harder to obtain observations," said Kasap. To correct this, they've

made it possible to adjust the brightness of the LED light source. However, there's a safety-related upper limit on brightness to avoid the possibility that the LED in contact with someone's body will overheat.

Since 2018 researchers have been improving the device’s electronic circuitry. It’s now less sensitive to 'noise' - other things the sensors pick up that have nothing to do with fetal blood oxygenation - and can work with lower light levels.

They are also incorporating machine learning for analysis and training a neural network to estimate the oxygen saturation levels that correspond with their light absorption measurements. “Usually, when we’re estimating blood oxygenation this way, we’re looking at the tip of someone’s finger. Now we are passing light through both a mother and a fetus, and the data is becoming more complicated.”

Ghiasi, Kasap and other collaborators actively recruit patients at the UC Davis medical center for further oximeter tests during labor and delivery. Their goal is to expand and diversify their pool of human subjects in 2022.

Kasap says that she enjoys working on an electrical engineering project related to human health. “Both Professor Ghiasi and I find this work very impactful. Lots of people will use this device, and it will help them. It’s practical, not just theoretical, grounded in the real world.”

She points out that building the sensor is an electrical engineering project. “It’s an electronic circuit detecting data that we’re analyzing through machine learning. It just happens to have a biomedical application. And I love that I’m not just building a small component of something, that I can see the whole project and how everything will be used.”

The fetal-oxygen saturation mean across three ewes, example data from human studies showing how fetal heart rate and maternal heart rate curve over time and an illustration from the ewe testing. (Soheil Ghiasi/UC Davis)

FROM PANTRIES TO PROFESSIONS: Alumni Couple Give $8M for Holistic Student Support

By Lisa Nguyen

JOELLE AND MICHAEL HURLSTON want all students at the University of California, Davis, to have every opportunity for a successful future. The alumni and longtime donors are giving $8 million to support Aggies along every step of their college paths, from meeting basic needs to offering the very best career development, innovation opportunities and graduate school experiences.

“We want our gifts to touch as many UC Davis students on campus as possible, beyond just the colleges we graduated from,” said Joelle Hurlston. “We targeted different aspects of career and academic development at our three colleges, but also wanted to help all students by supporting a program to eliminate food insecurity.”

The portion of the Hurlstons’ gift will benefit three distinct undergraduate areas: the Diane Bryant Engineering Student Design Center in the College of Engineering; the Division of Student Affairs’ Internship and Career Center for career development for agricultural and environmental sciences students; and Student Affairs’ Aggie Compass Basic Needs Center.

“Joelle and Michael’s generosity shows just how much they love and care for the success of our students and leaders,” said Shaun Keister, Vice-Chancellor of Development and Alumni Relations and president of the UC Davis Foundation. “They are the quintessential alumni couple, and we deeply appreciate their passion for UC Davis.”

A DESIGN CENTER OPEN TO ALL

The Diane Bryant Engineering Student Design Center is a result of dedicated alumni and donors who understand the importance of hands-on educational experiences. Due to be completed in the fall of 2022, the center will provide an inclusive, supervised space to practice manufacturing and fabrication techniques and include a student startup center for entrepreneurial ventures.

When the Hurlstons learned more about the new design center, they loved the idea that students in any major could use the facilities to enhance their studies.

“We were impressed because of its wide reach on campus. We wanted to contribute to the center in some small way and recognize our affiliation with the College of Engineering,” said Michael Hurlston, an electrical engineering alumnus who serves on the college’s Dean’s Executive Committee.

“We are so very excited and thankful for the Hurlstons’ generous gift to support the Diane Bryant Engineering Student Design Center, which promises to transform the college’s educational and research opportunities, and positively impact the next generation of engineers,” said Richard Corsi, dean of the College of Engineering.

Joelle and Michael Hurlson. (Fred Greaves/UC Davis)

Materials Science and Engineering

Assistant Professor Scott McCormack

grew up in a small fishing village on the sapphire coast of Australia, where his high school dream of working for NASA seemed far-fetched to some of his teachers. However, he kept this dream alive. Now his lab studies materials that melt at temperatures as high as 4000°C (7232°F) and can withstand the extreme heat loads necessary for building space and hypersonic vehicles.

“I strove to study high-temperature materials because I knew that would have an application for space exploration,” he said.

McCormack received a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) Award in 2021. His project addresses the lack of thermodynamic data for ultra-high temperature, multicomponent materials in ceramic engineering. These materials’ properties and melting temperature can be controlled by adding different elements, or components, to the system. It’s possible to measure these materials’ properties at ultra-high temperatures, but it’s much more difficult, so there is nowhere near as much data.

“This makes it difficult to engineer advanced and tailorable high-temperature ceramic systems because we

UC Davis engineers are innovating at high and low temperatures to enable travel at hypersonic speeds and sustainably keep food safe and fresh, respectively.

By Noah Pflueger-Peters and Emily Dooley

and

don’t have the fundamental multi-component thermodynamic data to drive design,” he said.

McCormack’s solution is filling in phase diagrams for these materials, charts of properties at different temperatures and pressures. His group identifies parts of the phase diagrams with the greatest amount of uncertainty and conducts experiments to fill in the gaps with accurate data and get a better picture of the properties.

“It’s like using a plane to look over the forest to broadly identify the different types of trees before you target

each tree individually,” he explained. If successful, McCormack hopes this method can be applied to other material systems to collect thermodynamic data faster.

Though most of the group’s work is at low technology readiness levels (TRL), where the materials are still being explored, it has recently started moving in a more applied direction. With a recent $1.4M grant from the Air Force Office of Science and Research, the lab and its collaborators at Missouri University of Science and Technology and the University of Pittsburgh are studying

how to process ultra-high temperature ceramics (UHTCs) reliably.

“Different labs will follow what they think is the same procedure, but the UHTC components have quite a high variability in their properties,” he said.

Researchers in Biological and Agricultural Engineering Professor

Gang Sun’s lab have developed a plastic-free “jelly ice cube” that could revolutionize how food is kept cold and shipped fresh.

These plastic-free “jelly ice cubes” are alternatives to ice or traditional cooling packs that do not melt, are compostable and anti-microbial, and prevent crosscontamination.

Assistant Professor Scott McCormack (Josh Moy/UC Davis)

The team will study the UHTC zirconium diboride (ZrB2) at each of its three processing stages to study how processing affects the material structure and resulting properties. They will then develop and validate a computer model that recommends the processing parameters required to produce UHTC components reliably. If successful, the project is the first step toward standardizing UHTC processing and making these materials available for building hypersonics and other high-temperature applications.

“The core goal of the project is to reduce uncertainty when processing ultra-high temperature ceramics,” he said. “We’re developing a recipe with bounds that will allow us to say, ‘this is the impurity-range/processing time/pressure you need to reduce uncertainty.’”

“When ice melts, it’s not reusable,” said Gang Sun, a professor in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering. “We thought we could make a so-called solid ice to serve as a cooling medium and be reusable.”

The cooling cubes contain more than 90% water and other components to retain and stabilize the structure. They are soft to the touch like a gelatin dessert and change color depending on temperature.

A sample of Al2O3, which has a melting point of 2050°C, is heated up during an experiment. (Scott McCormack/UC Davis)

“I strove to study high-temperature materials because I knew that would have an application for space exploration.”

– SCOTT M c CORMACK

These reusable cubes can be designed or cut to any shape and size needed, said Jiahan Zou, a Ph.D. graduate student who has been working on the project for the past two years.

“You can use it for cooling, collect it, rinse it with water and put it in the freezer to freeze again for the next use,” Sun added.

A patent for the design and concept was filed in July.

The researchers hope to eventually use recycled agriculture waste or byproducts as the coolant material.

“We want to make sure this is sustainable,” said Luxin Wang, an associate professor in the Department of Food Science and Technology.

The researchers began working on the coolant cubes after Wang saw the amount of ice used at fish-processing plants and the cross-contamination that meltwater could spread among products or down the drain.

“The amount of ice used by these fish-processing sites is massive,” Wang said. “We need to control the pathogens.”

Sun also lamented mold found in the plastic ice packs used with school lunches for kids and frequently found in shipping packages.

Early tests have shown that the cubes can withstand up to 22 pounds without losing form. They can be reused a dozen times — just a quick wash with water or diluted bleach — and then disposed of in the trash or with yard waste.

The jelly ice cubes offer an alternative to traditional ice and could potentially reduce water consumption and environmental impact. They also offer stable temperatures to minimize food spoilage and could be ideal for meal prep companies, shipping businesses and food producers who need to keep items cold.

The application could potentially reduce water consumption and food waste by controlling microbial contaminations in the food supply chain.

Jiahan Zou, a UC Davis Ph.D. graduate student, holds one of the jelly ice cubes. (Gregory Urquiaga/UC Davis)

Story

Innovative Solutions and Industry Partnerships Keep UC Davis Students, Staff and Faculty Safe

PANDEMIC ENGINEERING

By Lisa Nguyen

SINCE WELCOMING STUDENTS, STAFF AND FACULTY BACK to campus in September 2021, the College of Engineering’s commitment to the health and safety of the community is evident through agility, the leveraging of industry partnerships and the innovative approach to tapping into the power of citizen engineering.

The college has provided approximately 7,500 N95 masks for students, staff and faculty use, materials to build more than 80 Corsi-Rosenthal boxes, supplied 60 high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters for use in communal areas. Indoor air quality is monitored in real-time through nearly 25 wireless sensor pods. Some of the unique people and partnerships helping the college keep the community healthy are highlighted below.

THE POWER OF CITIZEN ENGINEERING

HEPA filters can be expensive, and with the ongoing disruption in the international supply chain, the college needed another solution for cleaning the air. Its secret weapon was Dean Richard Corsi, who joined the college in fall of 2021. Corsi is the inventor

of the Corsi-Rosenthal (CR) box, a low-cost, do-ityourself air cleaner designed during the COVID-19 pandemic to reduce the number of virus-laden aerosol particles in indoor settings.

The Corsi-Rosenthal box was designed by Corsi and built by Jim Rosenthal, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Air Relief Technologies, Inc. and past president of the National Air Filtration Association.

“The idea came about in summer 2020 when many people were beginning to understand that COVID-19 was essentially transmitted by respiratory aerosols,” said Corsi. “We created this to make air cleaning accessible for all people.”

The design is straightforward: one box fan, four high-quality MERV 13 (MERV = minimum efficiency reporting value) air filters on each side, duct tape and some cut-out cardboard. Most boxes can be constructed in less than 45 minutes, with materials costing about $60 to $90.

The fan on top draws out the air purified by the filters on each side. Though the MERV 13 filters are generally less efficient than HEPA filters, the fan

PANDEMIC ENGINEERING

speeds up the rate at which air passes through the filters. This allows the system to clean a room’s air more effectively and efficiently than most standard commercial HEPA air filtration systems.

“For the general public, we have expanded from citizen science to citizen engineering,” said Corsi. “People can build their own Corsi-Rosenthal boxes for a quarter of the price of a regular HEPA air cleaner and do something positive to protect themselves and others in their communities.”

Civil and Environmental Engineering atmospheric aerosol expert Professor Chris Cappa published the first paper showing the effectiveness of the device. This simple and effective box has launched a nationwide movement to build and improve upon the technology. According to an article published on The Conversation, as of January 2022, more than 1,000 units were in use in schools, with thousands more in homes and offices. More than 3,500 people had used the hashtag #corsirosenthalbox on Twitter, and tens of thousands more contributed to the online conversation. News articles and explainer videos on YouTube had collectively accumulated more than 1.9 million views.

KEEPING THE CAMPUS COMMUNITY SAFE

Throughout the winter quarter, College of Engineering students, staff and faculty began building CorsiRosenthal boxes for use in labs and other shared indoor spaces, spearheaded by the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE).

ECE Chair André Knoesen, Professor Diego Yankelevich and graduate student Sean Alling constructed ten units within five days of receiving the materials. Cappa and graduate student Rachael Dal Porto trained ECE development engineer Lance Halstead and ECE undergraduate student Victoria Liera on performing particle decay measurements to evaluate the boxes.

After Liera confirmed that the ECE-built units operated at required specifications, they were deployed in all ten ECE instructional labs. In subsequent weeks, the team built 22 additional units for use in graduate communal office areas.

Dean Richard Corsi showing HEPA filter. (Katherine Hung/UC Davis)

Scan to learn how to build your own Corsi-Rosenthal box.

Students in the AvenueE and LEADR programs— which give engineering students from underrepresented backgrounds academic advising, mentorship and study spaces—participated in a Corsi-Rosenthal box building competition on February 15 in the Kemper Lobby. The ECE department and Texas Instruments generously sponsored supplies.

INDUSTRY PARTNERSHIP BRINGS WIRELESS ATMOSPHERIC MONITORING TO ECE LABS

In addition to building the Corsi-Rosenthal boxes, Knoesen brought a wireless sensor system to UC Davis’ engineering laboratories to observe and report air quality through an industry partnership with Opus One Winery in Napa Valley.

Knoesen’s group has a long-standing collaboration with the winery through research with Professor Roger Boulton in the Department of Viticulture and Enology on novel Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) technologies to monitor and improve wine production. Opus One Winery implemented a sensor network similar to one developed by an ECE senior design team in 2020 that monitors CO2, humidity, temperature and particle count. The sensor system is used when wine is fermented and has improved the winery’s air delivery system.

As the Delta variant peaked in January 2021, Knoesen sent Opus One winemaker Michael Silacci an urgent message, asking to borrow the system.

“We need to monitor CO2 and particles in as many of our undergraduate instructional labs as possible in realtime,” Knoesen wrote. “Therefore, having access to the Opus One wireless units will be essential.”

“Yes, of course,” Silacci enthusiastically responded less than 15 minutes later.

“Life is a two-way street!”

The Opus One wireless sensor network was retrieved and redeployed in four ECE laboratories within a week. The wireless sensor system project caught the eye of John Matranga, the director of business incubation and acceleration of AVEVA. In response, Matranga provided Knoesen’s group access to AVEVA Data Hub, which offers edge-to-cloud data visibility for industrial operations.

To date, 23 sensor pods take samples day and night at five-minute intervals to monitor the rooms. This allows a detailed study of how the rooms are used and how effective the ventilation is. This data are sent to the cloudbased Data Hub, which enables real-time monitoring of the labs. The wireless sensors have monitored the physical environment in four ECE labs during the winter quarter and will continue this spring.

Students participating in a Corsi-Rosenthal box building competition. (Katherine Hung/UC Davis)

Closeup of Wireless Atmospheric Monitoring System. (UC Davis)

RESEARCH IMPACTS

We make significant contributions to climate mitigation through innovations in energy e ciency, generation and storage.

We advance human and ecosystem resiliency in the face of potentially devas tating climate impacts through the development and implementation of leading-edge technologies and engi neering approaches.

We employ novel applications of machine learning and artificial intelligence.

We lead the development of transportation systems of the future, including systems for movement across land, water, air and extraterrestrial environments.

We develop and employ innovative technologies at the nano- and micro-scales.

We strive to leave no communities behind, developing engineering solutions and accessible technologies that improve the quality of life for all.

We improve population health and healthcare through the development of advanced technologies, devices for personalized health monitoring and health informatics.