Deans Report 2023 by UC Irvine Samueli School of Engineering

THE

EQUATION

University of California, Irvine

2022-23 DEAN’S REPORT

THIS REALLY IS

ROCKET METHALOX – THE PROPELLANT THAT CAN BE PRODUCED ON MARS – HAS BEEN CALLED “THE FUEL OF THE FUTURE.” That’s

why Space X, Relativity Space and others are racing to see who can send a methalox rocket into orbit. The UCI Rocket Project, a team of engineering undergraduate students, challenged themselves by taking on this progressive fuel - made of methane and oxygen - rather than using a more traditional kerosene one. “We wanted to expose ourselves to the future of propulsion,” said Operations Lead Kyle Deck, a junior in mechanical engineering. “And the blue flame looks a lot cooler.” In spring, they became one of the first undergraduate rocket teams to launch a methalox rocket. Their student-designed 20-foot bipropellant rocket traveled 9,300 feet above ground level with over 13 seconds of burn time. “Seeing it go up was our biggest dream this year,” said Chief Engineer Nitish Chennoju, a senior computer science engineering major.

2022-23 DEAN’S REPORT

SCIENCE The bipropellant rocket uses liquid natural gas (LNG) and liquid oxygen (LOX), which is difficult and dangerous to work with. “There are so many systems that can go wrong,” said Liquids Team Project Manager Sky Hargrove, a senior mechanical engineering major. LOX is extremely flammable so the students could only test in the desert. If there was a leak, which they fortunately did not experience, they would have to stop immediately.

The rocket team’s successful launch was a culmination of nearly six years, including delays due to the pandemic, of engineering by hundreds of Samueli School students. Most of the rocket parts and systems were designed by the undergraduates, with consultations from their project adviser Xian Shi, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, and the occasional call out to industry experts. “Our students have shown remarkable teamwork, ingenuity and a true passion for rocket science and engineering,” Shi said. “I have no doubt that this is only the beginning of their bright futures filled with countless more innovative and inspiring achievements.”

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SAMUELI SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING • UC IRVINE

CONTENTS

4 5 10 12 26 28 34

FACTS & FIGURES STUDENT SUCCESS MEDIA WATCH THE E+ EQUATION FACULTY ACCOLADES

LAB NOTES ALUMNI AND FRIENDS

University of California, Irvine

2022-23 DEAN’S REPORT The award-winning Dean’s Report is produced annually by the Samueli School’s Communications Department. Director of Communications: Shelly Nazarenus Communications Manager: Lori Brandt Contributing Writers: Natalie Tso, Brian Bell, Lilith Christopher, Rachel Karas, Yuika Yoshida, William Gary Photography: Steve Zylius, Debbie Morales, Hugh Berenger, Paul Kennedy, Kyle Deck Design: m2design group

FROM THE DEAN EVERY DAY WE MAKE DECISIONS ABOUT WHAT ACTIVITIES TO SUPPORT, HOW TO SPEND OUR TIME AND ENERGY, AND HOW TO PROJECT OUR MISSION TO THE OUTSIDE WORLD. In this

context, a strategic plan comes in handy. In 2017, the UCI Samueli School of Engineering released a strategic plan with a vision for what the school would look like in 2025. It was a solid plan with several important and actionable goals. But, it inevitably needed a refresh. Some goals have been achieved, some are no longer relevant, and the rapidly changing socio-technological landscape means that new challenges must be met. As a result, during the 2022-23 academic year, we launched a new plan with a 2030-time horizon, and this year’s Dean’s Report is a direct reflection of that effort. Apart from the plan itself, what I discovered during the process is that the journey itself was highly worthwhile, involving early connections with stakeholder groups (faculty, staff, students, alumni and industry partners), a faculty-staff group who collected and organized the information, a schoolwide, web-based opportunity to gather feedback, and a strategic plan launch party. I am very pleased with the end-result. Now, we just have to transition from “planning the work to working the plan” as management consultants are fond of saying. The 2030 Strategic Plan is centered around three main pillars: Educational Journeys, Collaborative Research and Meaningful Partnerships. These pillars were identified early in the planning process as the best way of talking about who we are and how we want to be known. But, as we dug in and started clarifying the goals and subgoals under each pillar, an additional, overarching theme emerged. For instance, the Educational Journeys pillar focused not only on what we should be teaching our students, but also on what

the experiences should be outside of the classroom, with more robust industrial connectivity, increased focus on cohortbased experiences and on the creation of more customizable, flexible educational pathways. The Collaborative Research theme called out that the big defining questions we face as a local society and a global community have engineering’s fingerprints all over them. Climate change, global health disparities, or the implications of AI and robotics on society are just a few examples. And as engineers, we need to team up and connect across traditional disciplinary boundaries to effectively be able to make a difference. And finally, Meaningful Partnerships is an explicit acknowledgement of how we as a public research university have a responsibility to go out and engage with organizations to better serve our constituents and be more effective in the scope and reach of our educational mission. Taken together, what these three observations boil down to is yes, we are conducting great engineering research and education. But we are undertaking way more than that, we are doing Engineering+. Engineering+, or e+, is the overarching theme under which the strategic plan is organized and how we see ourselves in a rapidly evolving world. This magazine highlights some of this work with inspirational stories. I hope you will share my excitement about all that is happening in the UCI Samueli School of Engineering. Sincerely,

Magnus Egerstedt, Ph.D. Stacey Nicholas Dean of Engineering

Publisher: Mike Delaney, Yebo Group

2022-23 DEAN’S REPORT

SAMUELIS GIVE $50 MILLION TO ESTABLISH ENGINEERING+ THE CREATION OF THREE NEW MULTIDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH INSTITUTES IN UCI’S SAMUELI SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING IS BEING MADE POSSIBLE BY A $50 MILLION GIFT IN JUNE 2023 FROM SUSAN AND HENRY SAMUELI. Unified under the banner Engineering+ or simply e+, the e+ health institute, e+ society institute and e+ environment institute will allow researchers from diverse disciplines to conduct transformational research addressing the most important issues facing humanity today. The endowment created by this generous gift will fund research and teaching; workshops, speaker series and events; administrative staff and infrastructure; research grants and faculty retention; and graduate student fellowships, among other needs connected to the broader e+ theme. In addition, a portion of the gift will be used to create the Office of Inreach, dedicated to the well-being, academic success, sense of belonging and career opportunities for current students. “The enduring generosity of Henry and Susan Samueli has enabled researchers to seek answers to the most challenging questions and make breakthroughs that impact all our lives,” said Chancellor Howard Gillman. “The investments they have made in UCI over nearly a quarter century – bridging engineering, health, interdisciplinary research and student success – have paid substantial dividends in our institution, our community and the world.” The Samuelis have made the largest gifts in UCI’s history. In 2017, they pledged $200 million to create the Susan & Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences. A $30 million gift from the Samueli Foundation funded the construction of the Samueli Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Building. And in 1999, engineering received a $20 million naming gift that, in part, endowed 10 chairs and professorships and funded two scholarships and a graduate fellowship. “Susan and I continue to invest in UCI as an expression of our belief in it as a world-class research and educational institution – and in the invaluable role that public universities play in innovation,” said Henry Samueli. “Engineers are hard-wired as problem solvers; we hope our new gift will allow them to focus their problem-solving skills on some of our world’s largest, most intractable issues.” “This support from the Samuelis helps us move a massive step closer to becoming a destination for the smartest, most diverse, most passionate and most driven set of students and faculty on the planet,” said Dean Magnus Egerstedt. “Through e+, we can articulate what’s different about us and why UCI is a place where you can not only get a great education and launch a great career, but also make the world a little better while you’re at it.”

SAMUELI SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING • UC IRVINE

FACTS & FIGURES

STUDENTS FALL 2022

3,504

Undergraduate

RANKINGS

1,056 Graduate

23rd

Public University Undergraduate U.S. News & World Report

35%

961

First Generation

266

B.S. 2022-23

M.S. 2022-23

32%

19th

Public University Graduate U.S. News & World Report

Female

29%

117

Underrepresented

Ph.D. 2022-23

DONORS

FACULTY

2022-23

FALL 2023

$55.3M

157

RESEARCH

Donor Support Raised

2022-23

Faculty

Departments

453

602

$62.2M New Sponsored Research

Gifts

Donors

2022-23 DEAN’S REPORT

STUDENT SUCCESS

#IAMUCI

You could say that KENT NITTA and UCI are a perfect match. The materials science and engineering major seeks to contribute toward the transition to cleaner energy by developing new materials for energy storage and alternative energy applications. Nitta, who grew up in Fountain Valley, found the perfect place to pursue this interest at UCI, a campus with a legacy of sustainability known for offering undergraduates the chance to participate in cutting-edge research. He’s the lead engineer on a design project seeking to use a type of graphene foam in the development of efficient and durable energy storage and transfer systems. The high-achieving student and researcher has a relaxing outlet in archery, an activity Nitta took up as a child. The hobby has taught him to do his best and be OK with the results. “In archery, it doesn’t help to get mad and frustrated,” he says. “Aggression doesn’t make you a better player. You just learn to let go and try again.”

Can you describe a time you felt most proud to be an Anteater? UCI is very research focused, and I’ve had the incredible experience of being able to design experiments and organize my team. The opportunity to present results during poster sessions is very satisfying. I don’t know if other materials science programs encourage such student-led efforts and entrepreneurial thinking, but they were gratifying experiences, and I’m thankful to UCI for the opportunity.

What are your plans after graduation?

I will pursue a Ph.D. in materials science and plan to focus on new fabrication methods for the semiconductor industry. “Since Kent Nitta joined my research group, he has exhibited an above-average enthusiasm for scientific research. He was motivated to first learn and then make important contributions to the synthesis of 3D scaffolds of graphene for energy applications. He has recently transitioned to formulating his own hypotheses for research, which is a strong indicator of his future potential to make contributions as a scientific leader,” said Regina Ragan, professor of materials science and engineering.

Who has been your biggest influence at UCI?

My principal investigator, Professor Regina Ragan, who gave me the opportunity to work in her lab and learn from her. Also my mentor Peter J. Santiago, a graduate student. Both were able to instill skills as a researcher and student. They helped me prepare myself to be able to get into graduate school. I wouldn’t have been able to do that without them. They gave me the opportunity to interact with people and allowed me to do a lot of problem solving, as well as working on my writing and research skills. Darryl Mack, research and development engineer supervisor, has helped with designing experimental systems and with how to see projects to fruition.

What advice would you give to your first-year self?

I would have started research sooner. I started at the end of my sophomore year, and then COVID happened. As a freshman, being able to be in a research group helps with hands-on experience and thinking about applying classwork to real-world situations. I would also advise incoming students to try to focus on fundamentals, even low-level chemistry or math courses. All these things you learn help you down the line to understand advanced concepts. Freshmen don’t always dig deep into those concepts.

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STUDENT SUCCESS

FIRST PLACE FINISH

A cross-disciplinary team of UCI GRADUATE STUDENTS in engineering, biological sciences, public health and anthropology earned the top prize in Phase 2 of the EPA’s Environmental Justice Video Challenge for Students. The team entered their video “Unearthing Lead: The Power of Historical Maps,” which reveals the dangerous levels of lead in soils in Santa Ana and encourages residents to enlist in bioremediation efforts.

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The EPA asked college students across the country to create a video “demonstrating innovative approaches to identify and characterize an environmental justice issue in a select community using data and publicly available tools” and were encouraged to collaborate with neighborhood groups to bring a local perspective of a challenge they are facing. The UCI students teamed up with faculty from the Program in Public Health and members of the Orange County Environmental Justice organization on the project.

SMART STEPS UCI’s team

ZOT<1M

EXCEPTIONAL EFFORT

Civil and environmental engineering doctoral student SHU LI earned the Outstanding Student Presentation Award for her presentation “Quantifying surface fuels using drone-based LiDAR” at the American Geophysical Union 2022 Fall Meeting in Chicago. Li is using drone-based LiDAR to collect data on the amount and structure of vegetation that will be fuel for forest fires. Li explains that using low-altitude drones to fly through a forest is more accurate when assessing fuel than airborne LiDAR that must penetrate the dense forest canopy. The data fills gaps in existing fuel maps and is collected into a surface fuel library that can be used for predictive wildfire models and fuel treatment strategies.

successfully advanced to the fourth round of the NIST-sponsored First Responder Smart Tracking (FRST) Challenge in March. The group of engineering graduate students received a cash prize of $44,000 and were among only 10 remaining competitors out of a field of 42 entries. The FRST Challenge is a national competition focused on creating life-saving indoor tracking technologies for first responders. Current tracking techniques for first responders are simple but reliable, explained team leader Chi-Shih Jao. Typically, first responders follow fire hoses back to the exit or attach a lifeline to themselves before entering a building. “There are drawbacks to this approach, however, because the current techniques do not allow you to report the numerical position,” said Jao. “When you’re inside a building, you don’t know which floor you are on; these pieces of information are critical for firefighters.” Zot<1M’s solution is a foot-mounted inertial navigation system with the goal of achieving one-meter accuracy, hence the team name. In dangerous firefighting scenarios, visibility is low and GPS signals are not strong enough to reach indoors. Inertial navigation, however, doesn’t depend on external signals. The team’s footsensor technology is programmed to produce real-time information about the wearer’s position, so first responders can see their exact latitude and longitude on a smartphone display.

BIOIMAGING CHALLENGE

ANNA GONZALEZ ROSELL, a doctoral student in materials science and engineering, won second place in StellarNet, Inc.’s 2022 Spectroscopy Application Challenge, along with her adviser, Assistant Professor Stacy Copp. The challenge rewards scientists from around the world who submit research using the most enlightening applications of light measurement spectroscopy. Gonzalez Rosell and Copp are investigating DNA-stabilized silver nanoclusters, a new kind of nanomaterial with great potential as fluorescent markers for bioimaging.

2022-23 DEAN’S REPORT

FLOOD DEFENSE

DANIEL KAHL, a civil and environmental

engineering doctoral student and UCI Flood Lab researcher, placed second in the 2022 Allianz Climate Risk Award competition for his research on flood modeling and risk assessment of Los Angeles. Kahl was one of four applicants worldwide selected to present his work in Munich, Germany, last year, and one of 12 researchers featured in Allianz’s November 2022 compendium “The Era of Resilience, Mitigating Climate Risk.” The Allianz Group, a worldwide financial services company, offers the award competition to support doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers whose work focuses on climate change and extreme weather.

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Kahl’s essay and presentation “Growing Flood Risks: How Can We Deliver Equity?” describes his research that uses a new computer modeling simulation program called Parallel Raster Inundation Model (PRIMo) to create a neighborhood-level flood risk assessment for California’s Los Angeles Basin. PRIMo was developed by Professor Brett Sanders, who is Kahl’s adviser. According to Kahl, mapping and modeling with PRIMo is more accurate than other large-scale flood models because of its distinct ability to utilize fine-resolution data and account for infrastructure, like levees and flood walls, which other models typically leave out. Kahl gathered publicly available spatial information about the area’s infrastructure and created a method for semiautomatically incorporating it into the model.

“It’s really difficult to know where there is flood infrastructure, and even if we do know where it is, it’s difficult to account for in these large models,” explained Kahl. “I developed a method that basically translates that information into our model.” Building on Kahl’s work, a research team analyzed which populations are more vulnerable to flooding. They found that low-income and nonwhite populations are disproportionately affected. “Once we identify which areas are at more risk for flooding, that information can be used to direct strategies to reduce flooding,” said Kahl. “We can target communities that would be more vulnerable.” For his efforts, Kahl received a cash prize from the competition.

STUDENT SUCCESS

FLYING HIGH UCI’s DESIGN, BUILD, FLY TEAM finished ninth out of 99 teams from 14 countries in the 2022-23 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics DBF competition. The Anteaters finished first among 11 teams from California universities competing in the event. Now in its 27th year, the contest is an opportunity for university students to apply real-world aircraft design experience by giving them the chance to validate their analytic studies. Student teams design, fabricate and demonstrate the flight capabilities of an unmanned, electric powered, radio-controlled aircraft to meet a specified preassigned mission. Each year, there is a new challenge. The Anteater team, advised by Jacqueline Huynh, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, and graduate student Nathan Yeung, includes 15 undergraduate students majoring in either mechanical or aerospace engineering. All members were new to the project this year and 10 of them traveled to Tucson, Arizona, for the flyoff. The mission for the 2023 competition was to design, build and test an aircraft to execute electronic warfare missions. The aircraft, payloads and all tools required to assemble the aircraft had to fit into a shipping box that complied with airline checked baggage limits on size and weight. UCI’s aircraft was the only one with double booms, connecting the fuselage to the wings. And their initial design report scored 86.27, landing them 14th in line for the inspection and several flight missions. When it was their turn to fly, the team successfully completed the three missions, each taking off within 60 feet.

PASSIONATE PURSUIT

OWEN TRIMBLE had little exposure to the opportunities of an advanced STEM education while growing up in Bishop, CA. His childhood babysitter, a retired rocket scientist, sparked his early interest in rocketry. In high school, he took introductory biology, chemistry and math courses, but the school did not offer physics and calculus classes until his senior year. He took them both and fell in love with using the math concepts he had learned throughout school in real scenarios. He then decided to apply as a first-generation college student to UCI.

“I have been continuously impressed with the DBF team this year and their top in the state of California position, despite consisting of entirely new members. When challenges emerged during the competition weekend, they were able to calmly yet diligently address them. It makes me proud for UC Irvine’s aerospace engineering program,” said Huynh.

Trimble, a mechanical engineering student who graduated in June, is headed to Denmark as a Fulbright scholar. During the 2023-24 academic year, he will start taking classes and conducting research at the Technical University of Denmark. Aiming to apply his engineering education to environmental studies, he plans to create and analyze numerical models for alternative fuels to be used in marine combustion applications. Specifically, he is focused on cutting emissions in the shipping industry by studying how cleaner fuels can feasibly replace diesel in boats. After his time in Denmark, he will attend Stanford to earn a doctorate in mechanical engineering and continue researching clean and alternative fuels. “I’m looking forward to this process of self-discovery and narrowing down exactly what field I want to work in long term,” said Trimble, as this will be his first time traveling internationally. “It will be super fun to live in another country and experience a different culture too.”

2022-23 DEAN’S REPORT

BE SEEN

“I wanted to be a face people can see,” said this year’s engineering student commencement speaker WEZAM PAULLY-UMEH, about why he became an Engineering Ambassador at UCI. That visibility comes pretty easy for PaullyUmeh who’s 6-foot-4 and has a strong instinct for building community. His affinity for people likely stems from his childhood in Nigeria, where he fondly recalls he could at any time join a soccer game with 20 other children, be invited to a neighbor’s house for dinner and pick up friends to ride in the back of his uncle’s truck where they played games on the way to church. Fast forward a decade and Paully-Umeh is active on campus in the National Society of Black Engineers, Nigerian Students Association and as president of Kappa Alpha Psi, which he proudly defines as a fraternity devoted to achievement and service. He recently took the ΚΑΨ brothers to personally hand out over 200 pieces of clothing and 50 hygiene bags to unhoused people on skid row in Los Angeles. “I love service ‘cause we can be with people in the moment and have a conversation with them,” he said. “It humbles us because no one’s above anybody.” His family braved immigrating to the United States from West Africa when he was 12. “Coming to this country was no easy feat,” he said. “We came with nothing.” Envisioning better prospects for their three boys, his mother and father ended their careers as an interior designer and water engineer in Nigeria to start a new life with the boys in America. His father’s skills were a marvel to him. “My brothers and I were rascals, we broke everything,” he said. But to his amazement, his dad would put the pieces back together again.

SAMUELI SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING • UC IRVINE

“I thought it was magic,” he recalled with a smile. Later as a teen, Paully-Umeh would do the same for his young nephews. “My curiosity drove my ambition in engineering,” he said. “I like to fix things and figure out how they work.” He went on to design award-winning robots in high school and came to UCI attracted by the engineering programs and the financial aid that covered tuition and housing. During his UCI years, he helped create a portable turbine for his senior project and enjoyed highlights like seeing a photo of the Nigerian Student Association Club appear on UCI and UC Instagram pages. This year the club hosted the 9th Annual Nigerian Student Coalition Conference that saw over 300 university students from all over California gather for panels, workshops and networking.

credits those qualities to his parents whom he describes as always humble and pillars of the community. They named him Chukwuwezam – Wezam for short - which in Igbo means “for God has answered my prayer.” His Catholic faith formed his discipline and drive, and is a source of strength for him. “When I’m down, I know I can always have a conversation with God.” Talking - be it to God or humans - is what PaullyUmeh likes to do. On commencement day, he shared this love for connection, aka “networking,” with his fellow graduates. “Talk to people, connect with them. That’s how you build community. That’s how you are seen.”

He and his ΚΑΨ brothers also got to perform a step show during halftime at a Clippers game during Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Night, a game dedicated to black excellence in colleges and universities. “Be seen,” he tells people of color and women in STEM. “There are so few of you, so make sure you stand out.” As an outstanding UCI mechanical engineering senior, Paully-Umeh received mechanical engineering job offers from General Dynamics, where he interned, and the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power. But the allure of aerospace led him to accept an associate aeronautical engineer position at Northrop Grumman. He also aspires to start a business in Nigeria one day to create new opportunities for his people. He’s a personable and confident young man and

MEDIA WATCH

A SAMPLING OF UCI ENGINEERS OFFERING THEIR NEWSWORTHY EXPERTISE

Rewritten genetic code allows bacteria to fend off viral attacks Science - October 20, 2022

By partially rewriting the genetic code in bacteria, two groups of researchers have found they can thwart invading viruses, which must hijack the microbes’ genetic machinery to replicate. … Such recoding might help prevent viral outbreaks in factories that use bacteria to churn out drugs or other products. … The bacteria could also help biologists study the evolution of the genetic code itself, says synthetic biologist CHANG LIU, [professor of biomedical engineering] of the University of California, Irvine. Now, researchers can “ask why the genetic code is the way it is.”

Experts say significant grid investments needed to phase out gaspowered vehicles in California CBS News Los Angeles August 25, 2022

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On Thursday, the California Air Resources Board voted to phase out gas-powered cars by 2035, but experts say significant investments in grid infrastructure will need to happen to make this a reality. Experts at the University of California, Irvine have been conducting much of that research, learning what exactly will be needed to make all cars zero emissions in little more than a decade. “The grid does not currently have the capability to add millions of battery electric or even fuelcell electric vehicles today,” [said] JACK BROUWER, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering [and director, Advanced Power and Energy Program] at UCI. “So, we have some time to make reasonable investments in the grid to enable this to actually happen and to happen well.”

Leaders warn of coastal erosion as passenger rail services between OC and San Diego resume KABC - April 13, 2023

A scenic and popular passenger train route between Irvine and Oceanside will fully resume service next week after months of emergency work in San Clemente to stabilize a hillside on one side of the railroad track and coastal erosion on the other side. … BRETT SANDERS, a civil and environmental engineering professor at UC Irvine, said climate change and human activity are starving beaches from sand supply, which is causing the coastal buffers to disappear and could impact railroad tracks along the coast. “Taking action to restore natural levels of sand is now crucial for the southern Orange County coast,” Sanders said.

How to Save a Forest by Burning It The New York Times - September 7, 2022

“Fire has made us civilized, but we still don’t understand it fully,” said TIRTHA BANERJEE, [UCI engineering assistant professor] …. “Scientists have been “just completely caught off guard about how fast things are changing,” said James T. Randerson, [UCI Chancellor’s Professor, Earth system science]. … Banerjee and his team of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers flew their drone repeatedly over the area, mapping it …. By comparing images from before, during and after the burn, Banerjee’s team could pinpoint exactly how the fire had transformed the forest floor.

2022-23 DEAN’S REPORT

Better camouflage is needed to hide from new electronic sensors The Economist March 30, 2023

A team at the University of California, Irvine is designing infrared camouflage by embedding tiny metal flakes into thin sheets of rubber. These sheets can then be incorporated into clothing. … Both designs would add but a trivial amount of weight to military fatigues, notes ALON GORODETSKY, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Irvine, who leads the project. The technology, he says, could be ready within a few years. Such materials, he adds, might also be used as insulation for the better control of heat flows in electronics.

Why EVs are considered greener AAA Journey - December 14, 2022

Could seaweed be the ‘fastest and least expensive’ tool to fight climate change? National Geographic - June 1, 2023

Climate change is intensifying, and people are “panicking,” says KRISTEN DAVIS, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and earth system science at the University of California, Irvine. But seizing on seaweed-based carbon removal as a solution before the science is settled, she says, could cause environmental harm or distract from more surefire strategies, such as swiftly cutting emissions. “The science is not there yet to actually confirm that it’s a good idea,” Davis says.

“That’s why reuse, purposing and recycling becomes important,” says IRYNA ZENYUK, associate professor in chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of California, Irvine. “Most EV manufacturers provide battery warranty of 8 years or more and about 100,000 miles of driving range. And during this time the battery will lose about 20% of its capacity essentially reaching 80% of its beginning of life capacity.” Rather than replace and discard those batteries, Zenyuk says these lithium-ion batteries still can work very well for stationary applications, where power density is not as demanding, and charging/discharging cycles are slower.

Rahim Esfandyar-Pour, University of California, Irvine – A Health Monitoring Wearable Operates Without a Battery

California’s winter storms have been deadlier than any wildfire since 2018 The Washington Post - January 14, 2023

The state’s years-long drought may have also had a psychological effect on residents, who lately have been praying for rain, said AMIR AGHAKOUCHAK, a civil and environmental engineering professor at University of California, Irvine. “Fire, when you see it, you immediately feel the danger,” he said. “But rain is different, especially in California, where we consider it a good thing.” Floods, then, can blindside people, he said. And it doesn’t take much water — sometimes just a quarter of an inch in a matter of minutes — to transform a benign hill into a mudslide, AghaKouchak said.

SAMUELI SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING • UC IRVINE

The Academic Minute - January 26, 2023

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Removing batteries from wearable tech can open it up to more people. RAHIM ESFANDYAR-POUR, assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science and biomedical engineering at the University of California, Irvine, explores how to do so.

FEATURE

THE 12

2022-23 DEAN’S REPORT

AS DESIGNERS AND BUILDERS OF THE MODERN WORLD, ENGINEERS HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY TO ADDRESS THE MOST IMPORTANT GLOBAL GRAND CHALLENGES FACING SOCIETY. The solutions will need to cross

disciplinary lines and require collaborative efforts between engineers and physical and social scientists, health professionals, business leaders and policymakers. At the UCI Samueli School of Engineering, we call this Engineering Plus, or simply “e+.” The interpretation of this inclusive concept is that although engineering is at the center of these big, impactful research questions, we must go beyond historical, disciplinary boundaries and adopt a deeply collaborative approach. “Looking outside of one’s own expertise is so important today in finding solutions for two reasons,” said Samueli School Dean Magnus Egerstedt. “First is the rate at which new technology is adopted. For example, ChatGPT went from nothing to really impacting society in

EQUATION a short amount of time. The second reason is the complexities of the questions themselves require more interdisciplinary thinking, such as climate change, which is a mega question.”

LORI BRANDT AND NATALIE TSO

The school’s recently launched 2030 strategic plan is designed to formalize the e+ notion and position the school as a leader in defining what a highly connected, innovative, inclusive and forward-thinking engineering program could look like. With a focus on impact, the school has identified three pillars around which the e+ initiative thrives. These pillars of educational journeys, collaborative research and meaningful partnerships come together to support the idea of innovation, where UCI’s Samueli School of Engineering develops technological solutions that enhance the human experience and make us healthier, more productive, more creative, more equal and more connected. To that end, we are embracing the e+ approach as exemplified in the following pages.

SAMUELI SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING • UC IRVINE

“We believe the co-op program is mutually beneficial to the student and the employer. We are happy to see it getting off the ground.” — Jon Sinskie, President and CEO of Advantest Test Solutions

2022-23 DEAN’S REPORT

EDUCATIONAL JOURNEYS RESEARCH SHOWS THAT STUDENTS WHO PARTICIPATE IN COHORT-BASED EXPERIENCES DURING COLLEGE PERFORM BETTER ACADEMICALLY, ARE MORE LIKELY TO FINISH THEIR DEGREES AND, GENERALLY, FEEL BETTER. What are cohort-based experiences? Dean Egerstedt explains that the school is taking a broader view of education with an increased focus on what happens outside the classroom with student clubs, affinity groups, makerspaces, industry experiences, design competitions, research projects and tutoring labs. “Our current engineering students are quite different from students two to three decades ago,” said Egerstedt. “Engineering students today are increasingly mission driven. They see engineering as a tool for going after things that interest them. “As an example, I spoke with an undergraduate student recently who wants to study mechanical engineering because she wants to build robotic exoskeletons to help paraplegic people walk again. We want to support that kind of passion, that kind of mission and those students.” Egerstedt aims to reach 100% of undergraduate students participating in some cohort-based experience on campus as part of their time at UCI. This means moving beyond the classroom to ensure experiences supplement the more traditional learning that happens with engineering faculty, and providing a curriculum that allows for more customization and multidisciplinary flexibility. “With this approach, we have something that is both an academic success mechanism and a student mental health mechanism, baked into one,” said Egerstedt. “How can you not lean into that?”

Inreach Helps Retain Students The Samueli School’s Stacey Nicholas Office of Outreach, Access and Inclusion (OAI) has embarked on a new initiative focused on “inreach,” helping students feel connected, which is key to retention and graduation. “We have many successful outreach programs that bring underrepresented, first generation and low-income students to our engineering program, but getting them here is only half the job,” said Analia Rao, executive director of the OAI office. “We have to get to know the students, understand their needs and help them succeed. With inreach, we are building a place our students can call home, a place to join with others and find support.” The OAI space offers free coffee and snacks, which not surprisingly consistently attracts students. It also offers a study room, meeting space, computer, multiple monitors, printer, 3D printer, a wellness corner and weekly group tutoring sessions. The office provides mentoring programs with faculty, graduate students and peers, runs multiple summer transition programs for incoming transfer students and incoming freshman who are first generation or underrepresented in engineering, and helps to connect students to research opportunities.

Mikal Muhammad, a fifth-year computer engineering student, was an incoming transfer student in 2021 when he was introduced to the OAI office through the NSF Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics program. As a first-generation student, he struggled that year academically and socially, but he found assistance at the OAI office, including the Club 4.0 Monday evening gatherings when graduate students were available to help undergraduate students with their coursework over pizza. He benefited from a peer mentor who not only helped him academically but also provided guidance on internship interviews and career pathways. He also appreciated the support the office offered to the UCI chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers of which he served as vice president.

As part of the inreach initiative, the OAI office works to make sure engineering students have a community and opportunities that support them on their educational journey, including tutoring sessions and mentoring.

“We focus on the student experience and pay attention to their well-being, sense of belonging, career opportunities and academic success,” said Rao. “What makes our program at UCI unique is that we house outreach and inreach activities under the same umbrella. This gives us the opportunity to be very intentional and purposeful in creating meaningful pathways to engineering for students from K-12 all the way to higher education, as well as the conditions to ensure their success once they arrive at UCI.”

SAMUELI SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING • UC IRVINE

Engineering students have multiple opportunities to network with industry representatives to find internship and job leads, such as the annual biomedical engineering Industry Night (below, top) and the Med/Tech Industry Symposium held last fall (below, bottom).

The office of OAI aids five student organizations with funds for national conferences, workshop preparation, meeting space and advising. “OAI was the most important support system for me personally; both my relationships with the directors and being able to meet and connect with others was very beneficial,” said Muhammad. “I can attribute a lot of my growth to how dedicated and considerate they were. It’s what inspired me to break out of my shell and reach for better.” Muhammad, who completed a summer internship at the Honeywell Company in North Carolina, will graduate in June 2024. He’s hoping to work for Google.

Extended Internships Prepare Students for Workforce To offer students a taste of real-world experience working as an engineer, the Samueli School is launching a new program called engineering+ practicum. The program will give students an opportunity to partner with businesses for six-month paid internships. Unlike a standard threemonth summer internship, this practicum will include an academic component that involves a faculty member’s oversight in conjunction with a work-site industry supervisor. Students can work at the internship full time during the summer and during the adjoining quarter, spring or fall, while also enrolled in a corresponding internship course to earn academic credits, ranging from two to 12 units. “There is always a huge interest in internships from our students,” said Nancy Da Silva, associate dean for undergraduate student affairs. “Traditionally students work or complete an internship during the summer, but three months is not always enough time for students to immerse themselves in a professional setting and learn valuable skills in a particular field. This program will provide students with a more in-depth experience but they won’t have to withdraw from their program for a quarter.” Previously, if students wanted to continue working with a company in the fall after a successful summer internship, they would have to withdraw from UCI and be readmitted the following quarter. This complicates their campus housing and health insurance, as well as separates them from campus resources and support staff. The option wouldn’t be available to some international students whose visas require they are enrolled full time during the academic year. A generous donor has funded the management of the engineering+ practicum for three years, to help it get off the ground. Hans Imhof, a partner at K5 Ventures and UCI Board of Trustee member, provided a gift of $300,000 to support the program. “This practicum offers students real exposure to what it’s like to be in the workforce as an engineer,” said Egerstedt. “On the flip side, it gives companies a way of engaging deeper with us and our students.” Initial partners include health care technology companies, defense companies, electric car makers and national laboratories.

2022-23 DEAN’S REPORT

“We believe the co-op program is mutually beneficial to students and employer,” said Jon Sinskie, president and CEO of Advantest Test Solutions, one of the businesses participating in the program. “The student gets real working environment experience while being able to apply their learnings. Our company benefits from new thought leaders helping us solve complex, technical problems that in turn helps our customers.”

Ideal Certificate for Chief Sustainability Officers Three deans walked into a hamburger joint for lunch one afternoon (Eureka! in Irvine) and came out with a new certificate program designed for students interested in learning about climate change and doing something about it.

After successfully completing the courses, students can apply for the certificate by reporting on their coursework, what they learned and their future goals. After review, students will receive a digital certificate that they can display on resumes and online. “Our lunch conversation started with brainstorming about what a future chief sustainability officer should know,” said Egerstedt. “They should understand a little bit about the science behind climate change, a bit about what’s technologically possible in terms of clean energy, managing infrastructure or whatever the company focus is, and also they need to understand public policies and how to affect change through policy and behavior. We are hoping to graduate students who will be the chief sustainability officers of the future.”

The deans of the schools of social ecology, physical sciences and engineering – Jon Gould, James Bullock and Magnus Egerstedt, respectively – had decided they wanted to collaborate on something they could offer quickly, and the new Environmental Changemakers Certificate was born. Available to all UCI undergraduate students, it is designed for students, through a selection of relevant courses from each school, to learn the science of climate change, the technological responses and the challenges of policy and behavioral change. “This ground-breaking certificate demonstrates the value of collaboration across disciplines in our quest to prepare students to become the best advocates for our planet,” said Gould.

SAMUELI SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING • UC IRVINE

“We are a research group with expertise in growing stem cells, but there are many things, for example, different types of hydrogels that we have less knowledge about. Collaborating opens more possibilities.” — Yuan-Chen Tsai, postdoctoral researcher in UCI’s School of Medicine

2022-23 DEAN’S REPORT

COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH UCI HAS A LONG HISTORY OF NURTURING INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH COLLABORATIONS. FOR ENGINEERS WHO ARE TACKLING TODAY’S SOCIETAL CHALLENGES IN HEALTH, CLIMATE AND SOCIETY, IT’S VITAL TO LOOK BEYOND ONE’S OWN EXPERTISE FOR INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS. “There are big important challenges we are facing as a planet and in our local communities today that require a deeply multidisciplinary approach, with engineering as its core,” said Dean Egerstedt. “How do we leave an environment for our grandkids that is still viable, how do we get affordable effective medical care to all corners of the world, or in my case, as a roboticist, how do we use artificial intelligence and robotics to create societies that work for everyone? Our engineering plus idea for research is about engineers as a scientific discipline connecting deeply with other disciplines.” According to Egerstedt, today’s questions are more complex, and technology development and adoption is more rapid than ever before. With this in mind, the school is explicitly focusing on cross-disciplinary initiatives with resources to support them. Here are three examples of Samueli School researchers who have made strategic alliances with others to make progress in stem cell research, clean energy and transportation technologies.

Stem Cell Research Holds Vast Potential for Improving Human Health Stem cell research can increase our understanding of how diseases occur, test new drugs for safety and effectiveness and generate healthy cells to replace those affected by disease. In a targeted hiring initiative, the school of engineering joined with the school of medicine to recruit five early career researchers who are advancing the field of stem cell tissue engineering. Over the past five years, this cohort has come from around the country to join the faculty: Tayloria N.G. Adams, Herdeline Ardoña and Quinton Smith in chemical and biomolecular engineering; Momoko Watanabe in anatomy and neurobiology; and Asuka Eguchi in physiology and biophysics. The strategic collaboration was designed purposefully to grow a team with essential skills and proficiency in stem cell-based bioengineering, leading to a competency hub. Today, UCI has faculty and students who are developing innovative biomaterial scaffolds, organoid derivation approaches, stem cell sorting techniques and fabrication strategies including extrusion and digital light projection bioprinting. They aim for a future where stem cells, biomaterials and characterization techniques can accelerate cell-based regenerative medicine and lead to potential treatments for a variety of diseases and conditions.

led by Adams, describing the team’s efforts in utilizing a microfluidic device with photoconductive surfaces for characterizing the electrical behavior of human mesenchymal stem cells. “Our goals in the stem cells in tissue engineering initiative are dynamic and consistently expanding due to advances in biotechnology,” said Smith, whose lab is using organon-a-chip platforms to create miniaturized models of stem cell derived tissues. “For example, with the generation of patient-specific stem cells, novel biomaterials and additive manufacturing tools, we now have the capacity to organize human cells in 3D environments with bioprinting, which enables new insight into how tissues develop, organize and transition from healthy to diseased states. It’s truly unique to be in a research environment that blurs the boundaries between engineering and cell biology.”

Chemical and biomolecular engineering graduate student Kiara Lacy explains the stem cell characterization and analysis technique used in research conducted in Tayloria Adams’ lab.

With labs of three engineering faculty located next to each other in Engineering Hall, the researchers are able to freely exchange ideas and build synergy. The arrangement pushes research forward. The Watanabe lab, focused on understanding human brain development and modeling diseases, uses hydrogels from Ardoña’s lab for engineering area-specific models of the brain’s cerebral cortex. The two PIs formed a team to secure a $1.5 million NSF award for a project to develop hydrogelbased bioengineering technologies to accurately mimic different areas of the cerebral cortex through microscale lab models called cortical organoids. Others in the cohort have published research together, including work

SAMUELI SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING • UC IRVINE

Clean Energy Institute Works Toward Post-Fossil Fuel Future Another engineering+ cohort is addressing climate change and pollution by developing clean energy technologies that can be scaled and applied all around the world to eliminate reliance on fossil fuel. Under the direction of Jack Brouwer, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, the new UCI Clean Energy Institute pulls together engineering and physical sciences research teams to discover and advance clean energy technologies and solutions. The institute leverages UCI’s established expertise and years-long focus on electrochemistry, hydrogen and nuclear energy as key to transforming the entire energy economy. The new institute facilitates interdisciplinary projects, and industry and agency connections.

Professor Jack Brouwer explains the process by which excess solar energy is converted to hydrogen gas at UCI’s cogeneration plant.

“We’re a platform for energy science, advancing real-world application of clean energy technologies and solutions, and educating the public to support the breakthroughs required to achieve a post-fossil fuel energy future,” said Brouwer. Many of the engineering and physical sciences researchers have labs in the same building and are

working on a large range of technical fields related to clean energy such as fuel cells and electrolyzers, zero emissions mobility, energy conversion and storage concepts and technologies. The team is driven to decarbonize and depollute the U.S. energy system by 2050 in a manner that can be adopted world wide for everything and everyone, which aligns with the national effort set forth by the Biden administration. The Center for Closing the Carbon Cycle (4C), affiliated with the institute, is working on gaining a better understanding of the chemicals needed to absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) from emissions sources and how to link processes of carbon capture and conversion to make useful products such as fuels and industrial chemicals. Led by Jenny Yang, Chancellor’s Professor of chemistry, the center is funded by a $10 million grant from the Department of Energy. The center’s structure, which includes researchers from 12 universities and three national labs, allows free flowing communication amongst participants, something that would normally not occur until conference and publication time. Robert Nielsen, assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, is one of the 20 primary investigators on the team. “CO2 capture and conversion are young enough that the materials that will eventually be involved in scaled-up processes are unknown now,” he said. His group is using models based in quantum mechanics to study the molecules formed when CO2 is captured, and predicting activation barriers for reactions that convert the bound CO2 into a variety of products. Added Nielsen, “We’re classifying the geometric and electronic changes induced in CO2 upon capture.” He explains that with one experiment they can learn if a reaction does or (more often) does not lead to a desirable outcome, but it takes many experiments and an array of tools to understand why. “As the experimentalists in the center report the results of exciting or disappointing reactions, we use modeling to help answer the ‘why’ and ‘how’ questions.”

2022-23 DEAN’S REPORT

Making Autonomous Vehicles More Efficient and Safer Samueli School engineers are coordinating with military researchers to improve performance and safety of autonomous vehicles. Off-road autonomous ground vehicles offer important advantages for military operations and could change the way soldiers fight and win battles. UCI recently became one of 12 academic research partners in the U.S. Army’s Automotive Research Center. Led by the University of Michigan, the ARC is a center of excellence for modeling and simulation of ground systems and a leading force in the development of the next generation of autonomous vehicles for both military and commercial applications. The engineering school is conducting two ARC-funded projects involving an engineering principal investigator, U.S. Army researcher, industry representative and a student. Materials science faculty members Lorenzo Valdevit and Diran Apelian are creating a new aluminum metamaterial for protecting the packaging of electronic components in autonomous vehicles. The electronic components are vital to the vehicle’s operation and must withstand impact and severe vibrations. Traditional packaging designs are adequate for common situations but have limitations in aggressive scenarios. The team is exploring an integrated all-metallic lightweight solution to provide mechanical integrity, vibration isolation, impact protection and active cooling of electronic components. “We expect that this system will increase the performance of electronic packages for autonomous ground vehicles while reducing the overall mass and volume of the system,” said Valdevit.

multiple sensors, large deep-learning models and powerful hardware platforms to perceive the environment and navigate safely at high speeds with strict latency requirements. However, when AVs operate in challenging, highly variable and rugged environments, some sensing modalities negatively impact perception while increasing energy consumption and latency, which can be detrimental to safety-critical missions. Electrical engineering and computer science professors Mohammad Al Faruque and Pramod Khargonekar are studying how varying levels of computation limitations and uncertainties, due to operational requirements, can disseminate through sensor fusion-based perception frameworks, determining possible new methods to account for the dynamic variabilities. Technologies developed by ARC partners over the years have helped make vehicles more affordable, better performing, cleaner, safer and more fuel efficient. “We are delighted to welcome the UCI Samueli School of Engineering as the newest partner in the ARC,” said Bogdan Epureanu, ARC director and Arthur F. Thurnau Professor at the University of Michigan. “The ARC plays a major role in the development of modern transportation systems, and UCI researchers bring excellent expertise to the team.”

Desai, who co-founded Heal to improve the delivery of quality health care through transformative technology, has seen the company thrive during the coronavirus pandemic.

The second ARC project aims to improve the perception performance of autonomous vehicles by introducing new sensor fusion methods, including adaptation mechanisms. Military off-road autonomous vehicles typically use

SAMUELI SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING • UC IRVINE

“I can’t quite believe our good luck that Magnus has the kind of vision that he has and that he has so quickly understood the impact we might have together.” — Kate Wheeler, CEO of the Crystal Cove Conservancy

2022-23 DEAN’S REPORT

MEANINGFUL PARTNERSHIPS LEARNING DOESN’T JUST HAPPEN ON CAMPUS. IT COMES TO LIFE AT A STATE BEACH, A NATIONAL LAB AND WHILE MINGLING WITH INDUSTRY LEADERS. That’s why the Samueli School partners with the Crystal Cove Conservancy, Los Alamos National Laboratory and innovative companies to inspire students outside the classroom. When UCI engineering students bring their minds and talents to these dynamic places, good things are bound to happen.

Crystal Cove Collaborations UCI environmental engineers are at the forefront of studying how to conserve one of California’s most famous resources – its beaches. Coastlines are shrinking from San Diego to Santa Barbara, and cities like San Clemente have already seen infrastructure like railways disrupted due to beach erosion. In partnership with California State Parks and the Crystal Cove Conservancy, the Samueli School offers a beach dynamics course where graduate students study the factors leading to beach erosion and discuss methods to replenish the coast. The state park has thus become an outdoor lab where sand and waves can be monitored firsthand. Professor Brett Sanders and his research group, the UCI Flood Lab, use advanced coastal dynamics simulation technologies they developed to predict the future movement of sand. The lab monitors the Orange County coastline using unmanned aerial systems to look for stress points along the coast. Sand erosion is a key factor that could lead to the loss of California’s beaches. Sanders’ beach dynamics course teaches students how waves shape the coast and takes the young engineers to monitor the currents, tides and sand by remote sensing. “Computer visualizations are an extremely powerful way for anyone to immediately appreciate complexity in beach dynamics,” said Sanders. In just 10 minutes at an altitude of 80 meters, hundreds of images are captured via unmanned aerial vehicles and combined with computer vision algorithms to construct a detailed 3D image of the coastline. Students also monitor the profile of beaches with simple tools such as emery boards that measure the size and shape of the waves and sand. Through the class, students develop beach monitoring expertise, and the actionable information is used to help coastal communities. The ongoing partnership with California State Parks and Crystal Cove Conservancy embodies the school’s engineering+ concept. As a Conservancy board member, Dean Egerstedt plans to design more fieldbased curricula for K-12 students and for UCI to inspire young people to strive to engineer solutions for a more sustainable world.

Wheeler. It is one of the rare coastal programs that give young students hands-on experience in engineering. Wheeler said many students leave the program not only with new skills, but also with a newfound love for the environment and a vision of themselves as future engineers. The school has also helped launch The Trouble with Trash!, a program that helps children contemplate how to deal with the problem of plastic in a marine environment. At the beginning of the course, the young students often depicted adults like park rangers when asked to draw a picture of someone solving a problem with nature. After they finished the class, they drew themselves as the problem solvers.

(Below) A recent study by the U.S. Geological Survey shows that up to two thirds of Southern California’s beaches could disappear by 2100 if sea levels rise 3 to 6 feet, which according to the State of California Sea-Level Rise Guidance Document is likely.

2008

UCI restored one of the park’s historic cottages, Cottage #20 aka the “Little Red House on the Hillside,” a venue to be used for on-site labs, workshops, discussions and retreats. This coastal engineering lab is an ideal place for students to contemplate the questions confronting their generation in areas like climate change, the environment and social justice. They are immersed in an environment where humanity engages with nature. “You’re awakened to the world in ways that you aren’t on campus,” Sanders said.

2021

(Left, top) Graduate students use Emery boards to measure the shape of the beach. The simple, yet accurate, survey tool enables researchers to take a series of beach elevation measurements at intervals parallel to the shoreline. Plotting the data points produces an accurate mapping of the slope.

(Left, bottom) Research specialist Jochen Schubert demonstrates drone-based technology for building a 3D digital model of the coastline.

“The program has huge potential to impact an incredibly diverse community of young people who can impact the planet,” said Crystal Cove Conservancy CEO Kate SAMUELI SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING • UC IRVINE

National Labs Connections Two leading institutions for scientific innovation - UCI and the Department of Energy’s National Labs - offer collaborative fellowships to engineering graduate students, broadening their research experiences. The UCI-National Labs Connections initiative began with a two-day forum hosted by the Samueli School in December 2021 that saw over 100 faculty, scientists and students exchange ideas on climate and environmental systems modeling, renewable energy, and materials and chemical research. “By leveraging the talent, expertise and commitment across our respective organizations, we will be able to have real impact on some of the most important questions we are facing as a nation,” said Egerstedt. In 2022, UCI and the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) began a fellowship program with four outstanding engineering graduate students. The fellows had the rare opportunity to be co-mentored in their research by a UCI professor and a LANL scientist. During his fellowship, Robert Marosi, an electrical engineering and computer science graduate student, developed new design methods and structures to make millimeter-wave traveling-wave tubes more efficient. He said the fellowship is a great opportunity for students to do collaborative research on topics of national importance and to broaden one’s network for future career opportunities.

interrelationships between rainfall and topsoil moisture content. He said having access to state-of-the-art facilities at a National Laboratory was a great opportunity to diversify his research and conduct more advanced experiments. Annika Hjelmstad, also a CEE graduate student researched impact-based attribution, aiming to causally link human-induced climate change with societal impacts such as population displacement, increased health risks and infrastructure damage. Her LANL mentor gave her access to a model of the entire U.S. power grid, which opened a valuable avenue for a process-based approach to attributing infrastructure impacts to climate change. She credits her mentor with training her to be a better scientist. UCI engineering Distinguished Professor Efi FoufoulaGeorgiou spearheads the partnership between the two institutions. She aims to expand the successful program to include more recipients and the UC SoCal Hub as well. The hub promotes collaboration between UC southern campuses - who together are the largest producer of science and engineering graduates in the United States and the National Labs.

Peiwen Ma, a graduate student in mechanical and aerospace engineering, focused on advancing understanding of strain- and defect-induced optical states in 2D materials. The fellowship enabled him to use the LANL Center of Integrated Nanotechnologies facilities and work with renowned researchers, scientists and engineers to expand characterization and synthesis techniques for his samples. Even after his fellowship ended, he and his mentor continue to collaborate and send samples to each other. Civil and environmental engineering graduate student Yifu Gao focused on understanding the heterogeneous and transient The UCI-LANL fellowship program gives graduate students an opportunity to conduct more advanced experiments.

2022-23 DEAN’S REPORT

Industry Alliances The Samueli School’s Industry Insights series connects students and faculty with industry innovators, leading to new research ventures and promising job offers for students. “The Industry Insights symposium is critical for maintaining UCI as the epicenter of industry collaboration and high-level research,” said Keith Yeung, senior associate director of development in engineering. In 2022, the school invited leaders in the electromobility and biomedical technology sectors to participate in panel discussions, showcase company products and job opportunities, and give industry tech talks. The eMobility symposium included executives from Lime, Rivian, Super73 and Motive Energy to discuss how electrification of vehicles is transforming the automobile industry. The eMobility leaders also imparted valuable insights into career development. Brian Sisk, senior director of energy storage systems at Rivian, suggested students diversify their skills and learn data science. “Data allows us to develop faster, solve problems and understand our products in ways that would have never been possible 10 years ago,” he said. “Everybody’s going to be a data scientist.” Lime Product Development Lead Harrison Lu encouraged future engineers to not only be adept at working with details but also strive to be a “high-level thinker” who encompasses the big picture in one’s work.

SAMUELI SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING • UC IRVINE

The second Industry Insights event featured MedTech executives from Edwards Lifesciences, Johnson and Johnson, Masimo, Medtronic and the NIH National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering who discussed the future of health care. They shared how medical technology is becoming more proactive and aiding preventative care. “With wearables, we can help people monitor their vitals at home and seek help before they become critical,” said Masimo Director of Systems Engineering Dan Ho.

The Industry Insights program brings innovative companies and engineers together to discuss technologies that have implications for what the future holds.

John Knudson, director of research and development at Johnson and Johnson, explained how AI is advancing capabilities in robotic surgeries. “It’s an exciting time for engineers,” he said. “There’s the mechanical side, the electromechanical side - there’s a huge space to work in, for those going into engineering today.” Next up in the series, NewSpace experts will join to discuss the commercialization of space travel, new markets in space, and suborbital and deep space research. Companies participating include Blue Origin, JPL/NASA, Northrop Grumman, Relativity Space and Terran Orbital. UCI Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Professor and Chair Julian Rimoli will moderate. The Samueli School is continually expanding its engagement with industry. Next year, engineering+ practicum will integrate expanded six-month internships into its curricula, giving students and corporations even more opportunities to make great things happen together.

FACULTY ACCOLADES

EARLY CAREER

RAHIM ESFANDYAR-POUR

MAXIM SHCHERBAKOV

HERDELINE ARDOÑA

RAMIN BOSTANABAD

International Society for Biofabrication Early Career Investigator

NSF Career

DARPA Young Faculty

NSF Career

ADEYEMI ADELEYE Chemical & Engineering News Talented 12

FANGYUAN DING

XIAN SHI

NIH New Innovator

Air Force Young Investigator Research Program

KAI HE

ZHIYING WANG

YANNING SHEN

QUINTON SMITH

NSF Career

MIT Technology Review 35 Innovators Under 35

NSF Career

PEW Scholar

NAMED/ELECTED FELLOW

PAYAM HEYDARI

JULIE SCHOENUNG

TRYPHON GEORGIOU

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Materials Research Society & American Association for the Advancement of Science

American Association for the Advancement of Science

G.P. LI

STACY COPP

HERDELINE ARDOÑA

ALEXANDRA VOLOSHINA

IEEE

HAITHEM TAHA

National Academy of Inventors

Hellman

2022-23 DEAN’S REPORT

17 1 14 1 41 9 5 8 13 19 5 2

NATIONAL ACADEMY OF ENGINEERING MEMBERS NATIONAL ACADEMY OF MEDICINE MEMBER

AMIR AGHAKOUCHAK ASCE Environmental Water Resources Institute

BRETT SANDERS

ASCE Environmental Water Resources Institute

JIM EARTHMAN ASM International

NATIONAL ACADEMY OF INVENTORS

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT

FAN-GANG ZENG

National Academy of Engineering Member

SOROOSH SOROOSHIAN European Academy of Sciences Foreign Fellow

KYRIACOS ATHANASIOU

Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society Lifetime Achievement & Federation of Cypriot American Organizations Lifetime Achievement & Herbert Voigt Distinguished Service Award

AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES MEMBER

NSF CAREER AWARDEES

NIH NEW INNOVATORS

DOE EARLY CAREER AWARDEES

EFI FOUFOULA-GEORGIOU

American Geophysical Association Horton Medal & IAHS-UNESCO-WMO International Hydrology Prize Dooge Medal

WILLIAM SIRIGNANO

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Honorary Fellow

LAWRENCE KULINSKY ASME Kornel F. Ehmann Manufacturing Medal

PRESIDENTIAL YOUNG INVESTIGATOR AWARDEES

ENDOWED CHAIRS AND PROFESSORSHIPS

ATHINA MARKOPOULOU

Association for Computing Machinery Distinguished Member

TIBOR JUHASZ

American Association for the Advancement of Science Golden Goose Award

NAOMI CHESLER

North American Vascular Biology Organization Florence E. Sabin Award

DISTINGUISHED PROFESSORS

CHANCELLOR’S PROFESSORS

LEE SWINDLEHURST

IEEE Signal Processing Society’s Claude Shannon-Harry Nyquist Technical Achievement Award

HAMID JAFARKHANI

IEEE Signal Processing and Computing for Communications Technical Recognition Award

SAMUELI SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING • UC IRVINE

CHANCELLOR’S FELLOWS

LAB NOTES

MICROBIAL MINERS

DAVID KISAILUS, professor of materials science and engineering, holds a model of crystal magnetite. He and his fellow researchers found that microbes living in Chile’s Atacama Desert transform magnetite to a different iron oxide phase called hematite in the process of acquiring the iron that’s necessary for their survival in a harsh environment. The researcher’s findings could provide a pathway for new biomimetic mining methods. The authors also said they see the results as a step toward using microorganisms in large-scale 3D printing or additive manufacturing at a scale that’s useful in civil engineering in harsh environments, like those on the moon and Mars.

MOMS

Biomedical engineers MICHELLE KHINE and BERNARD CHOI have combined their technologies to create the Maternal Obstetrics Monitoring Sock, a low-cost, point-of-care system to monitor pregnant women for preeclampsia, anemia and hemorrhage. According to the NIH, pregnancy and childbirth complications are a major global health problem and result in the deaths of more than 800 women and 7,000 newborns each day. The smart sock works by integrating the soft beat-to-beat blood pressure sensor that Khine has been developing in her lab with the photonic anemia and hemorrhage sensor from Choi’s lab. The health data is wirelessly transmitted to a smartphone and can alert patients if necessary. The technology is not significantly affected by skin pigmentation or motion artifacts and can be manufactured for under $100.

ANTHROPOGENIC CLIMATE CHANGE In the quarter century between 1996 and 2020, wildfires in California consumed five times more area than they did from 1971 to 1995. Researchers have concluded that nearly all the increase in scorched terrain can be blamed on human-caused climate change. AMIR AGHAKOUCHAK, professor of civil and environmental engineering, co-led the study that used climate modeling to find “anthropogenic forcing” – conditions created by human fossil fuel burning and land use practices – accounted for a 172% expansion in burned area over natural inputs alone. More alarming, the team predicts as much as a 50% increase in burned area from 2031 to 2050. They indicate that by acting now to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and pursuing more sustainable practices, the adverse effects of global climate change can be eased.

2022-23 DEAN’S REPORT

NOVEL TOOLS FOR BIOMANUFACTURING

HAN LI, associate professor of chemical

and biomolecular engineering, and GREGORY WEISS, professor of chemistry, have joined forces to improve clean energy processes with new innovative tools that could make the chemical reactions in cells easier to control. This would allow biomanufacturing to achieve a higher efficiency, and ultimately replace the current fossil fuel-based methods to make chemicals. “Engineered microbes can convert renewable resources and many kinds of waste, such as biomass or carbon dioxide, into commodity chemicals, medicines and fuels,” said Li. “However, it is difficult to program a microbial cell to perform this task efficiently and many steps need to take place before this can be a reality.” Li and Weiss have developed biological platforms that help advance this process. Inside microbial cells, such as E. coli and yeast, two natural reagents, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADP), provide the driving force for numerous chemical reactions. In

the laboratory, the researchers established an artificial equivalent to these reagents, called nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN), which can do the same thing, only better. Their molecule delivers a targeted high energy force for a desired chemical reaction, but without interfering with the cell’s natural metabolism. In their recent work, they developed two high-throughput selection platforms to rapidly and cost-effectively make enzymes that can generate or receive the NMN artificial reagent. With more and more enzymes engineered to take NMN, researchers can start building multiple-step assembly lines that lead to the production of complex, diverse and important chemicals. “With this ability, these enzymes could enable an expansion of useful chemicals that can be biomanufactured,” said Li. “Possibilities include anti-cancer drugs, antibiotics and nutraceuticals. This work advances our ultimate goal of sustainably conducting chemical reactions in living cells with the flexibility and simplicity we experience in the laboratory with test tubes.”

THE SUSTAINABLE, CARBON-FREE FUTURE WILL REQUIRE TO ACHIEVE.

OUT OF THE BOX THINKING

SAMUELI SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING • UC IRVINE

LAB NOTES

REPRODUCTIVE NAVIGATION TECHNIQUE

Sea urchins reproduce externally by releasing clouds of eggs and sperm into open ocean waters. The sperm cells don’t just get lucky by bumping into an egg. With a superb sense of direction, they deterministically follow the scent of a spermactivating peptide secreted by the eggs.

In the lab of HAITHEM TAHA, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, graduate student MAHMOUD ABDELGALIL discovered that the sea urchin sperm’s specific navigational technique is an implementation of a real-time computer search optimization process called extremum seeking. He built a mathematical model of the sperm’s pathway to better understand this behavior. His findings could potentially help researchers design microrobots with the same ability to follow cues, perhaps, for example, from an infected cell to deliver a targeted drug therapy.

“With no global positioning information, these sperm cells must quickly navigate a noisy environment to find an egg within a short time frame,” said Abdelgalil, who is studying mechanics, dynamic systems and control theory. His research showed that the sperm cell, with no instinctual knowledge of where it was in relation to the egg, reacted in real time to the dynamic local concentrations of the chemical that was being emitted from the egg. Extremum seeking is a real-time optimization control algorithm that drives a dynamical system toward the optimum (or extreme value of) performance. It is used by engineers to program technologies that help steer or direct systems for maximum function. This simple robust approach could enable autonomy in microrobots, which because of their miniature size face constraints on sensing, actuation and computing capabilities. “The direct application of this finding would be in bioinspired algorithms that require minimal sensory capabilities, making them suitable for miniaturized robots and robots that do not have access to global position information,” said Abdelgalil.

SEA URCHIN REPRODUCTION IS LESS ABOUT LOVE AND MORE ABOUT CHEMICAL ATTRACTION, AND THEIR SPERM HAVE A

SUPERB SENSE OF DIRECTION. 30

2022-23 DEAN’S REPORT

CLEAN ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES

VOJISLAV STAMENKOVIC, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, is leading a clean energy technology research team funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. The award is one of 22 issued by the DOE to advance critical technologies for producing, storing, deploying and utilizing hydrogen in support of President Biden’s goal of a 100% clean electrical grid by 2035 and net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Hydrogen technologies are the prevailing choice to effectively address decarbonization of the energy sector, electrify transportation and modernize the electric grid. The team aims to connect materials engineered at atomic scale with real-world devices. This would enable the widespread commercialization of hydrogen and fuel cell technology targeting medium- and heavy-duty trucks.

HEAVY METAL DETECTION E. coli has long been a workhorse in biotechnology. REGINA RAGAN, professor of materials science and engineering, and her team have demonstrated that the bacterium has further value as part of a system to detect heavy metal contamination in water. E. coli exhibits a biochemical response in the presence of metal ions. By using gold nanoparticles assembled with molecular precision and machine learning algorithms, the team created a novel E. coli-based water monitoring technology. In about 10 minutes, they were able to deduce the heavy metal type and amount with higher than 96 percent accuracy. The new water monitoring method is highly sensitive, fast and versatile, and can be broadly deployed to detect toxins at their sources in drinking and irrigation water and in agricultural and industrial runoff.

AN ENGINEERED JAW JOINT IMPLANT

Under the guidance of KYRIACOS ATHANASIOU, Distinguished Professor of biomedical engineering, the team developed Hyaleon, an engineered neocartilage implant designed to treat defects of the temporomandibular joint. As many as a quarter of adults will suffer a TMJ pathology. Severity ranges from minor to debilitating, affecting in many cases sufferers’ ability to speak and chew. The most widely accepted surgery is removal of the TMJ disc and its attachments, but this approach can lead to diminished quality of life for patients. The Hyaleon allows for the regeneration of the tissues of the TMJ disc complex without having to resort to total joint replacement. The research group is using a $6 million grant from the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine to conduct preclinical trial studies.

SAMUELI SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING • UC IRVINE

LAB NOTES

CALIFORNIA MICROGRID PROJECT UCI’s Advanced Power and Energy Program is partnering with SunPower, KB Home, the Department of Energy, Southern California Edison and Schneider Electric in pioneering microgrid residential communities. A microgrid is a self-supporting energy system that serves a specific geographic footprint, with one or more sources of energy that power the community along with the utility grid. Professor Emeritus SCOTT SAMUELSEN says the all-electric homes are in two adjacent communities and equipped with solar panels, home batteries, a smart water heater, a smart heating and air conditioning system, and controls that can isolate and energize the homes in the event of a grid outage. This is the team’s first demonstration project in Menifee to test smart and resilient homes for the future.

NANOSTRUCTURE PROPERTIES PUSHED TO NEW EXTREMES

Researchers, led by LORENZO VALDEVIT, professor of materials science and engineering, have greatly increased the strength and energy absorption properties of nano-architected structures – already recognized for their robust and lightweight qualities – by fabricating interpenetrating phased composites. In a paper published in Science Advances, they describe how their continuous architectures of three-dimensionally printed carbon shells and matrices of nickel outperform traditional carbonbased nanolattices and even bulk mono-materials. Valdevit said applications for strong and lightweight materials range from aviation to medical implants. Their work was featured on the publication’s cover.

FETAL MONITORING TECHNOLOGY

In the lab of HUNG CAO, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science, researchers have developed a novel method of monitoring fetal heart rate through a compact abdominal patch embedded with an algorithm called Lullaby. Looking to improve prenatal care, the innovative wearable device will allow expectant mothers to monitor fetal and maternal health while at home – users will just need a smartphone. Regular tracking of fetal heart rate is vital to monitoring the healthy development of a fetus. Many pregnant women rely on ultrasound tests, but these are not continuous and require a trained ultrasound technician. 2022-23 DEAN’S REPORT

THE SOUND OF MUSIC MOHAMMAD AL FARUQUE, professor of electrical engineering and computer science, and his team have discovered that the safe operation of a negative pressure room – a space in a hospital or biological research laboratory designed to protect outside areas from exposure to deadly pathogens – can be disrupted by an attacker armed with little more than a smartphone. The researchers say mechanisms that control airflow in and out of biocontainment facilities can be tricked into functioning irregularly by a sound of a particular frequency, possibly tucked surreptitiously into a popular song. “Someone could play a piece of music loaded on their smartphone or get it to transmit from a television or other audio device in or near a negative pressure room,” said Al Faruque. “If that music is embedded with a tone that matches the resonant frequency of the pressure controls of one of these spaces, it could cause a malfunction and a leak of deadly microbes.” Heating, ventilation and air conditioning infrastructure maintains the flow of fresh air into and contaminated air out of a given space. HVAC systems in scientific facilities typically include room pressure monitors, which in turn utilize differential pressure sensors (DP sensors) that compare the atmospheres inside and outside rooms. The researchers said that commonly used DP sensors are vulnerable to remote manipulation. They tested their hypothesis on eight industry-standard DP sensors from five manufacturers, demonstrating that all the devices operate with resonant frequencies in the audible range and are, therefore, subject to tampering. A more sophisticated attack might involve perpetrators embedding sound-emitting technologies into a DP sensor before it’s installed in a biocontainment facility, they said. The researchers have suggested several countermeasures to prevent a musical assault. Sound dampening can be achieved by lengthening the sampling tube of a DP sensor’s port by as much as 7 meters. The team also proposed enclosing the pressure port in a boxlike structure. Both these measures would reduce the sensitivity of the DP sensor.

A RESEARCH TEAM LED BY PROFESSOR MOHAMMAD AL FARUQUE FOUND THAT NEGATIVE PRESSURE ROOMS IN HOSPITALS AND BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH FACILITIES CAN BE BY MUSIC PLAYED ON AN ATTACKER’S SMARTPHONE.

MICROBES SAMUELI SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING • UC IRVINE

TRICKED INTO RELEASING DEADLY 33

ALUMNI AND FRIENDS

INTO THE HALL OF FAME ON A BEAUTIFUL SPRING EVENING, faculty,

friends and family gathered at the Inn at Mission San Juan Capistrano to celebrate the induction of three Samueli School alumni into the 2023 Engineering Hall of Fame.

SCAN TO WATCH INSIGHTS!

The alumni were selected for making a significant impact on their profession or bringing distinction to their alma mater. Sixty-one engineering alumni have now been named Hall of Famers since it was established in 2015 to coincide with UCI’s 50th anniversary. During the ceremony, Dean Magnus Egerstedt emphasized that the educational journey or student experience at the Samueli School was a priority. “Our number one product we are most proud of is you, our alumni, which is why we are here tonight to honor some amazing people.” The recipients included:

Pictured from left are Manu Gulati, Wendy Robello, Carlos Coimbra and in back Dean Magnus Egerstedt.

CARLOS F. M. COIMBRA, PH.D. 1998 – MECHANICAL AND AEROSPACE ENGINEERING

Coimbra is a global expert on thermal engineering and chair of the UC San Diego Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. Coimbra credits much of his career

success to the graduate experience he had at UCI, where he was advised by Roger Rangel and mentored by the late Don Edwards.

MANU GULATI, M.S. 1995 – ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING

After earning his master’s degree under the advisement of UCI Professor Nader Bagherzadeh, Gulati began his career as a chip designer at a small startup in Santa Clara. He went on to serve in lead roles at Broadcom, Apple and Google before starting his own company, NUVIA. It was bought by Qualcomm, where he now serves as vice president of engineering.

WENDY ROBELLO, B.S. 2004 – MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

Robello has over 18 years of systems engineering and strategy experience in the aerospace and defense industry, supporting systems across space, air, ground and underwater domains. She is currently national director of systems engineering for Northrop Grumman aeronautics systems, where she leads the long-term strategic planning in training, processes and tools to ensure systems engineering rigor across the sector. 2022-23 DEAN’S REPORT

PICTURE THE GOOD TIMES!

UCI ENGINEERING ALUMNI from the

classes of 1992 and 1993 celebrated their 30th year reunions together on campus in October, for an afternoon of reminiscing, rekindling friendships and a chance to flex their engineering skills on a team project challenge.

[1] Engineering alumni reconnect at their 30-year reunions in October. [2] Wow! The alumni see a lot of campus growth and changes during student-led tours.

5 7

[3] Friends from the class of ’92 show their Anteater engineering pride: Zot, Zot, Zot! [4] After the walking tour, three engineering alums reconnect and stop for a selfie. [5] Working in teams, alumni enjoyed the balloon-powered rocket challenge.

[6] Renee Chien, ’92 mechanical and aerospace, and Eric Shen, ’93 civil and environmental, join the fun in their original 1992 E-Week shirts. [7] The reunion ended with a networking reception to reminisce over food and drink.

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ALUMNI AND FRIENDS

SUPPORT FOR INCOMING GRADUATE STUDENTS

Two UCI Distinguished Professors - TRYPHON GEORGIOU AND EFI FOUFOULA - have made

a generous gift to support students at the Samueli School of Engineering. The couple have donated $100,000 to create an endowed fund and establish the Georgiou and Foufoula Endowed Graduate Student Award. The purpose is to support incoming graduate students who are majors in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering or the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgiou and Foufoula’s respective home departments. The award will be given with a focus on research excellence and on students from underrepresented minority groups. In recognition of the importance of the fellowship to reward and motivate students along their path to learning, UCI will provide an annual match for a period of 10 years, doubling the amount of support for students.

DIGNITARIES OFFICIALLY MARK INSTITUTE OPENING

THE HORIBA INSTITUTE FOR MOBILITY AND CONNECTIVITY research

facility was formally dedicated in a grand opening ceremony held last fall. Officiating the event was UCI Chancellor Howard Gillman who was joined by Atsushi Horiba, chairman and group CEO of HORIBA Ltd. The HIMaC2 facility houses researchers from multiple disciplines who are exploring new horizons in zero-emission, connected and autonomous vehicle technologies. They’re also studying the integration of energy and transportation sectors to improve the environment and people’s lives.

“As distinguished scholars and valued members of the engineering school, Tryphon and Efi’s investment in our graduate students is not only meaningful but deeply appreciated,” said Samueli School Dean Magnus Egerstedt. “Their support ensures our students have the resources necessary to solve global challenges and pursue important research.” Georgiou and Foufoula joined the UCI faculty in 2016, and Foufoula currently serves as the Samueli School’s associate dean for research.

“I’m very pleased to announce that this innovative and world-leading research institute has been completed under a longstanding cooperative relationship between UCI and HORIBA,” said Horiba. “HIMaC2 will contribute to realizing the new energy society and be an outstanding research institute to make our future society much more sustainable.” UCI Vice Chancellor for Research Pramod Khargonekar said, “HIMaC2 represents a collection of state-of-the-art research laboratories for conducting crucially important and highly innovative research in the future of transportation, energy, and their interconnections. It puts UCI in the forefront of this emerging field leading to breakthrough discoveries, inventions and their translation for benefits to society.” HIMaC2, which encompasses a portion of UCI’s Engineering Gateway building, was made possible by a pledged donation of $9 million by HORIBA to UCI. Since July 2021, HIMaC2 researchers have been active on a number of fronts, including a partnership with the California Air Resources Board on regulatory initiatives to enable market readiness for zeroemission medium- and heavy-duty vehicles. They were also granted $6 million by the U.S. Department of Energy for the Public Road Network Platform project to develop connected and autonomous vehicle technologies. UCI Chancellor Howard Gillman and HORIBA Group Chairman and CEO of HORIBA Ltd. Atsushi Horiba (above) cut a ribbon to formally open the HIMaC2 advanced mobility research center on the UCI campus. They are flanked by (on the left) HIMaC2 Director Vojislav Stamenkovic, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering; and (on the right) Dean of Engineering Magnus Egerstedt and Jai Hakhu, executive corporate officer for HORIBA Ltd.

UCI Distinguished Professors Efi Foufoula and Tryphon Georgiou have made a generous gift to support graduate students in engineering.

2022-23 DEAN’S REPORT

INDUSTRY NETWORKING NIGHT Thirty-two local and regional medical technology companies turned out for the

DEPARTMENT OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING’S INDUSTRY NETWORKING NIGHT last spring. More than 120 students attended, dressed in

their best, to speak with company representatives, some of whom were BME alumni.

The annual event is a chance for businesses, small, medium and large, to promote internships and job openings, network with students and each other. Professor Michelle Khine welcomed everyone and select industry representatives gave two-minute presentations about their companies. “We are so grateful for all of the industry representatives who attended as well as those who mentored our students in their capstone projects this year,” said Christine King, assistant professor of teaching. “The students gain a wealth of knowledge and workforce skills through events like these and the industry-driven mentorship in our program. This event was a great success in helping our students practice their networking skills and allowing them to pursue their career goals upon graduation.” The Department of Biomedical Engineering’s Industry Networking Night drew more than 30 medical technology companies and more than 120 students for a successful evening of engagement.

ENDOWMENT ESTABLISHED IN HONOR OF BELOVED PROFESSOR DEREK DUNN-RANKIN, affectionately known as DDR

by students, recently retired after 35 years on the UCI faculty. Since the late 80’s, the now emeritus professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering has conducted research and taught undergraduate and graduate courses on fluid dynamics, combustion, thermodynamics and laser diagnostics. He has mentored 35 doctoral students, 70 master’s students and dozens more senior scholars and visiting researchers. He developed and taught the mechanical engineering design/senior project course for 20 years, and he has served as the department chair twice. Over these years, Dunn-Rankin has touched the lives of countless students. This past fall, many of the School of Engineering’s alumni, with fond memories of their professor launched a ZotFunder to help raise money for an Excellence in Engineering Education Endowment in his honor. When Dunn-Rankin was approached by the engineering director of development about initiating an endowment in his name, he felt it wouldn’t be right to ask others for money unless he was willing to demonstrate a financial commitment to the initiative. So, he and his wife, Katherine Martin, contributed $50,000 to the effort. They chose not to establish a scholarship, which would only go to a few students, but to reward all students with improved educational experiences. The Derek Dunn-Rankin & Katherine Martin Excellence in Engineering Education Endowment will support the school’s priority in encouraging excellence and emphasizing inclusiveness in engineering education. Examples include providing travel funds for students and/or research staff to present at engineering conferences; support for the publication of academic papers where the first author is a student; and supplemental support for special materials to provide hands-on learning within the school. The endowment funds will be awarded under the direction of a

SAMUELI SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING • UC IRVINE

disbursement committee comprised of professors of teaching in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. “We hope the money can be used by those faculty most committed to providing an exceptional educational experience to our most important student body – the undergraduates,” said Dunn-Rankin. “I felt that the most committed faculty were the professors of teaching, and they were also the most overlooked, so giving them control of the endowment earnings seemed a good way to ensure effective use of the funds for educational benefit and broad participation.”

Derek Dunn-Rankin and Katherine Martin have contributed $50,000 to the Excellence in Engineering Education Endowment in support of the school’s priority in encouraging excellence and emphasizing inclusiveness in engineering education.

ALUMNI AND FRIENDS

BEST PITCH WINNER

The ninth annual BEALL AND BUTTERWORTH PRODUCT DESIGN COMPETITION culminated with an awards ceremony in

May, and many engineering students received prizes for their designs. The awards included a first, second and third place for both tracks, the Beall Student Design Competition for engineering and the Butterworth Product Development Competition for information and computer sciences. The engineering side focuses on solving current design problems and developing technology while the information and computer science side centers on creating new software and computing technologies.

MED/TECH SOLUTIONS Last fall, an overflow crowd attended the Samueli School’s Med/Tech Industry Panel discussion about the future of health care, which was moderated by NAOMI CHESLER, professor of biomedical engineering. Chesler began the discussion with a question. How can medical technology companies help with preventive care so that our health care system becomes more proactive and less reactive? “At Masimo, we develop noninvasive monitoring systems that are comparable to hospital systems,” said Dan Ho, director of systems engineering. “We’re figuring out how to get these technologies, sensors and devices, into the home. With wearables, we can help people monitor their vitals at home and seek help before they become critical. We also need to build platforms that allow clinicians to engage with patients, share a care plan and check in more easily.”

Thirteen Beall and 16 Butterworth teams participated, and the judges were industry specialists, entrepreneurs and UCI faculty. The six-month contest includes multiple design and coaching workshops and a demo day where the teams present their prototypes. The first-place winner in the Beall Competition was team Pulsera. The students won $10,000 for their slipper designed to help pregnant women detect their risk for preeclampsia, a high blood pressure disorder that can cause organ malfunction in the third trimester or postpartum. “We want to use the prize money to further develop our prototype and create a final version,” said team member Nicolette Fulcomer, a biomedical engineering student. “Then we’ll try to push it out to market and begin testing it. Hopefully, it can start helping people as soon as possible.” Pictured from left are biomedical engineering students who won first place for their product Pulsera: Ryan Hsu, Claire Livengood and Nicolette Fulcomer with David Ochi, board member of the Beall Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Virginia Giddings, vice president of exploration at Edwards Lifesciences, agreed. “How do we move care upstream and predict negative events earlier?” Diagnostic-led precision medicine is where we want to go and where things will be in 20 years, said Bruce Tromberg, director of NIH National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. “Right now, we are doing human biology snapshots, with blood panels and imaging for example, but what we need is to increase the frequency of these observations and measurements, increase the power in point of care, in-home access to this information. That’s where technology needs to go. We need to understand how to define someone’s health trajectory and how to alter or intervene. We need better input devices to gather higher value and actionable data.” (Above) A crowd attended the Med/Tech Industry Panel talks to learn about the future of technology in health care.

2022-23 DEAN’S REPORT

CELEBRATION OF LIFE PETE BALSELLS, FOUNDER OF THE BALSELLS FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM IN THE SAMUELI SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING, WAS HONORED AT A CELEBRATION OF LIFE EVENT IN JUNE AT UCI.

Balsells died Aug. 10, 2022, at age 94. The event was attended in person and remotely by many current and former fellows as well as Balsells’ family members and close friends.

Balsells was born in Barcelona in 1928 and was raised during the Spanish Civil War. In 1947, he emigrated to the United States. After graduating from University of Colorado Boulder, he married and started the Bal Seal Engineering Company with his wife, Joan, in 1958. Balsells partnered with UCI in 1995 to create the Balsells Fellowship to bring talented young engineers and scientists from Catalonia to study and conduct research at UCI. Since 1996, the program has housed over 225 Balsells fellows, many of whom have returned to Catalonia to teach and continue their research. “Pete Balsells’ impact on our engineering program is profound,” said Samueli School Dean Magnus Egerstedt. “Thanks to his vision, guidance and generous support, we have seen hundreds of talented young engineers and scientists from Catalonia come to UCI, and almost 50 of our faculty have been involved across virtually all areas of engineering.” “Pete’s vision and dedication to engineering education was based on his own personal experience as an immigrant in the U.S., an experience that he wanted to share with new generations of young engineers and scientists from Catalonia who could contribute to the betterment of both California and Catalonia,” said Roger Rangel, professor emeritus of mechanical and aerospace engineering and director of the Balsells Fellowship Program. At the event, fellows were invited to tell stories about Balsells and his impact on their educational journeys. Current fellows shared poster presentations about their research under the program. Pete Balsells pictured in 2005 visiting the UCI Samueli School. In June, a celebration of life event was held to honor him and his profound impact on the school’s engineering program.

SAMUELI SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING • UC IRVINE

A WORLD RECORD

2022-23 DEAN’S REPORT

UCI’S PETER BURKE AND FRENCH COLLEAGUE PATRICK JEANTY EARNED A GUINNESS WORLD RECORD FOR THEIR DEMONSTRATION OF REMOTELY FLYING A DRONE THROUGH THE INTERNET FROM HALFWAY AROUND THE WORLD. According to the official Guinness citation, the researchers achieved “the farthest distance to control a commercially available Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV): 18,411 kilometers (11,440 miles).” The drone was outside Engineering Tower on the UCI campus, and the pilot, Jeanty, a research engineer at the University of La Réunion Energy-Lab, was on the small French island of Réunion, in the Indian Ocean off the east coast of Africa. The feat was coordinated and videotaped on Dec. 17, 2021, and the group was notified of its world record status in December 2022. “The hard part was how to get the computer on one side of the world to tell the drone on the other side of the world what to do and see, and that’s what we did,” said Burke, a pioneer in nanoelectronics, who has been working toward this accomplishment with his students for the past few years. “Because the drone is connected and controlled through the internet, its range is practically infinite.”

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University of California, Irvine

5200 Engineering Hall Irvine, CA 92697-2700

JUNE’S COMMENCEMENT USHERED MORE THAN 5,500 NEW ANTEATER ENGINEERING ALUMS INTO THE WORLD. In his message to the Samueli School’s Class of 2023, Dean Magnus Egerstedt congratulated the graduates on their well-deserved achievement. “The completion of your engineering degree is a testament to your resilience, as well as your agility, hard work and fortitude. I have no doubt that your experience at UCI will provide you with the knowledge, skills and leadership that you will need to impact and benefit society in countless ways.”