Alumni News
ECE department launches virtual alumni mentorship program
November 19, 2020
In an effort to keep students and alumni engaged and connected to campus resources during months of remote school and work, the Jacobs School’s Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Department’s Alumni Advisory Board launched an ECE Alumni Mentorship Program (AMP) in October. Full Story
Alumni-led Lucira Health earns 1st FDA authorization for at-home COVID test
November 18, 2020
On Tuesday, the Food and Drug Administration gave emergency use authorization to the first rapid at-home COVID-19 test, developed by Lucira Health. Erik Engelson, a UC San Diego bioengineering and microbiology alumnus, is president and CEO of Lucira Health Full Story
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Alumni bring advanced 3D printing to space
November 16, 2020
UC San Diego alumni here on Earth and in space were part of the team that brought a Turbine Ceramic Manufacturing Module to the International Space Station. Full Story
Alumni battery startup raises $1.25M
November 6, 2020
Flexible battery startup Ateios, founded by Jacobs School of Engineering alumni, has raised $1.25 million in seed funding to bring its paper-thin, customizable batteries to market. Full Story
Company founded by engineering alumni advances 1-hour COVID test
April 7, 2020
Medical diagnostic company Fluxergy, founded by UC San Diego engineering alumni, submitted an Emergency Use Authorization to the FDA for their quick, point-of-care COVID-19 test. Full Story
Passion drives True Tritons to service
January 30, 2020
From creating scholarships and providing leadership, to student mentoring and preserving the arts, four shining examples of Triton passion and commitment will be honored Feb. 7 at UC San Diego’s True Triton Celebration to be held in the Great Hall on campus. Full Story
UC San Diego startup selected as finalist in UC Pitch contest
January 30, 2020
A startup founded by a UC San Diego electrical and computer engineering graduate student is one of five finalists in the 2020 UC Pitch Startup Showcase held Jan. 29 and 30 in tandem with the Global Corporate Venturing and Innovation Summit in Monterey, Calif. Full Story
Ozgur Sinanoglu (PhD '05), Cybersecurity Trailblazer
January 28, 2020
In Ozgur Sinanoglu’s Design for Excellence lab at New York University’s Abu Dhabi campus, a major development in cybersecurity has emerged. The Electrical and Computer Engineering professor and his team of eight researchers have made news over the last couple of years with their strides to create a chip that can stand up to a variety of threats and attempts to violate its security. A first-of-its kind chip that would be unhackable. Sinanoglu is an alumnus of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at UC San Diego. Full Story
The Epic Lives of Albert Lin
January 9, 2020
UC San Diego engineering alumnus Albert Yu-Min Lin can be described in many ways: explorer, engineer, scientist, artist, surfer, humanist, traveler, philosopher, father. It’s a challenge to capture Lin, whether in a few words or just for a quick phone call. He seems to have an endless supply of momentum—an energy, curiosity and optimism as big as the world he is continually exploring. Full Story
Bianca Zadrozny (PhD '03): Developing Novel Approaches to Natural Resources Discovery and Exploration
January 8, 2020
Since earning her PhD in computer science in 2003, Bianca Zadrozny has pursued her computer science career, in both industry and academia, in two countries. Her path has led her to IBM Research in Brazil, where she oversees natural resources analytics research. Her group’s mission is to conduct research projects in data-driven and physically driven analytics, aiming to develop novel technologies that can help in smarter natural resources discovery and exploration. Full Story
Preserving Libraries in the Sand
January 7, 2020
Interdisciplinary partners at UC San Diego are using drones and 3D-modeling to save Puerto Rico’s indigenous history from the sea. In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in late 2018, Eric Lo, a Jacobs School alumnus who now works at the Qualcomm Institute at UC San Diego, touched down in Puerto Rico with a single goal: find the ancient archaeological site he had helped monitor for more than a year and assess the damage. Full Story
News Obituary: Y.C. Bert Fung
December 20, 2019
Yuan-Cheng “Bert” Fung, known as “the father of biomechanics” and one of the founders of the discipline of bioengineering at the University of California San Diego, passed away Dec. 15, 2019 of natural causes. He was 100. Full Story
Understanding and Combating the Economic Pull of Cybercrime
November 27, 2019
Neha Chachra works as an Engineering Manager at Facebook, where she has been employed since 2016, leading a team that protects Facebook against abusive links, protecting the platform from harmful URLs that expose users to phishing, spamming and malware. The work is a natural progression of her research and interests at UC San Diego, where she received her Ph.D. in 2015. Full Story
UC San Diego Institute for the Global Entrepreneur launches Medtech Accelerator, Shah Family Fellowships, and Founders Fund
November 21, 2019
During its inaugural showcase, the Institute for the Global Entrepreneur announced it’s launching a new MedTech Accelerator, as well as the Shah Family Entrepreneur Fellowship, and a new IGE Founders Fund, seeded with an initial $1 million philanthropic gift from the Legler Benbough Foundation. Full Story
Franklin Antonio Hall Groundbreaking Celebration
November 21, 2019
The University of California San Diego celebrated the groundbreaking of its newest engineering building, Franklin Antonio Hall, on Friday. The building is designed for active learning, collaborative research and the transfer of innovation to society. Full Story
I Sit in the Red Chair Because...
November 21, 2019
They came in droves to sit in the Red Chair–graduate students, undergrads, faculty, staff, deans, the chancellor. They came to express their thoughts on diversity—and the results were powerful.“I sit so that one day every student can look at their classroom and see people who are like them,” said undergrad Joyaan Bhesania."I sit for my ancestors who could not,” said Becky Petitt, Vice Chancellor of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. “And I'm grateful that they opened doors for me to be able to sit here.” Full Story
Bioengineering Pioneer Y.C. Bert Fung Turns 100
October 3, 2019
Thousands of professors, engineers, scientists and students around the world work in the field of biomechanics, the study of physics and mechanics applied to living tissues. But they are all somehow connected to Professor Y.C. “Bert” Fung at the University of California San Diego. Some use Fung’s findings in their work. Others were trained by or worked with Fung’s students. A core group studied directly under him. Fung realized that physics and mechanics apply to living tissues just as they do to manmade structures. He is often referred to as “the father of biomechanics.” Full Story
App allows inspectors to find gas pump skimmers faster
August 14, 2019
A team of computer scientists at UC San Diego and the University of Illinois has developed an app that allows state and federal inspectors to detect devices that steal consumer credit and debit card data at gas pumps. The devices, known as skimmers, use Bluetooth to transmit the data they steal. Full Story
In memory of Robert Hecht-Nielsen, an influential neuroscientist, entrepreneur and UC San Diego professor
July 1, 2019
Robert Hecht-Nielsen was an influential neuroscientist, entrepreneur, and electrical engineering professor at the University of California San Diego. He passed away in his sleep on May 26, 2019 in Del Mar, Calif. He was 71 years old. A pioneer in the development of neural networks, Hecht-Nielsen authored the first textbook on the subject, Neurocomputing, in 1989. Full Story
How UCSD changed my life and might change your life too: A Q&A with ECE alumnus Dan Chang
June 10, 2019
Dan Chang feels that he left the world a better place after his 30 years in industry and credits his time at UC San Diego with putting him on that path. He is passionate about ensuring that our current engineering students know that they are capable of doing more than making a lot of money with their degree. Full Story
Engineering Students Find New, Unexpected Careers in Biomedicine
May 28, 2019
Two years ago, as fourth-year undergraduate students majoring in engineering, Yan Gong and Lu Xu had no idea they were about to enter the world of biomedicine. They were in a circuits class when their professor recommended them for positions in Imanuel Lerman’s lab, which was searching for students to help with developing a treatment for chronic pain. One of their first meetings with Lerman was at a hospital where Lerman, associate professor with UC San Diego’s Department of Anesthesiology, asked the two students to solve an issue with interference that was jamming his medical research neurotechnology devices. Without his tools, he couldn’t accurately measure his patients’ physiological responses to a novel neurotechnology he hoped would dampen their responses to pain. Full Story
Two Jacobs School alumni to be recognized at UC San Diego Alumni Awards Celebration
May 23, 2019
Taner Halicioglu, a computer science alumnus, will be recognized as Outstanding Alumnus during the 2019 Alumni Awards Celebration Weekend, May 31 to June 2. True Xiong, an electrical and computer engineering alumnus, will be recognized as a Changemaker. Full Story
UC San Diego Giving Day
May 15, 2019
The challenge is on! UC San Diego is hosting its inaugural Giving Day for 1,960 minutes on Thursday, May 16 with a goal of bringing the university community together to create collective impact. To make Giving Day a bit more fun, several generous donors have created matching gift challenges for Jacobs School of Engineering projects. Full Story
Anticancer vaccines, natural language for computers, and multifunctional materials take center stage at UC San Diego Research Expo
March 14, 2019
The University of California San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering was just ranked the #11 graduate engineering program in the country by US News. Hear from more than 200 of these talented graduate students as they present their research at the 38th annual Jacobs School Research Expo, a showcase of the top engineering and computer science work underway at UC San Diego. Full Story
Training Clinical Engineers
February 4, 2019
UC San Diego's Clinical Bioengineering course offers undergraduate engineering students hands-on learning experience to solve clinical problems. The course reflects the Institute of Engineering in Medicine's mission to connect engineers with physicians to produce medical innovations. Full Story
Jacobs School alum charges startup to $1 million prize
October 15, 2018
A startup with a Jacobs School alumnus as its CTO won the $1 million grand prize at 43North, the startup pitch competition with the largest prize pool in the U.S. Christopher Ellis, a 2017 electrical and computer engineering graduate, is the CTO of SparkCharge, which is developing a portable electric vehicle charging system that can fit in the trunk of a car, to make distance limitations on electric cars a thing of the past. Full Story
A Q&A with serial entrepreneur and alumnus Sergey Sundukovskiy
September 13, 2018
Sergey Sundukovskiy earned a degree in computer science here at the Jacobs School of Engineering in 2001. He is now the CTO, CPO and co-founder of Carlsbad-based Raken, a start-up that provides an app and software suite for the construction industry. In this Q&A, Sundukovskiy talks about his career, his memories of UC San Diego and gives some career advice for recent computer science graduates. Full Story
Remembering Kenneth Bowles, Creator of UCSD Pascal
September 7, 2018
Kenneth (Ken) Bowles, a computer science pioneer and professor emeritus at the University of California San Diego, passed away on Aug. 15, 2018 in Solana Beach, Calif. He was 89. Bowles gained world renown for initiating and leading a largely student-driven project that culminated in the creation of the UCSD Pascal programming system in the late 1970s, which included a programming language, an operating system and a whole suite of other tools. UCSD Pascal influenced many aspects of computing that are now ubiquitous, including modern PCs and Macs as well as Sun Microsystem’s Java language. Full Story
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Graduating students honored with Awards for Excellence
June 15, 2018
Here are some highlights from the impressive resumes of the 2018 Jacobs School of Engineering student award winners, recognized by the IDEA Engineering Student Center and Dean Albert P. Pisano at the Ring Ceremony. Full Story
Engineering students and alumni sweep Triton Entrepreneur Night
June 7, 2018
Two teams led by students and alumni of the Jacobs School of Engineering won big at Triton Entrepreneur Night, the signature event of The Basement—an undergraduate business incubator founded in 2015 with support from alumni. The teams competitively pitched their ideas, Shark Tank style, to a panel of esteemed investors and entrepreneurs. Full Story
Above all, build trust
May 24, 2018
For Greg Papadopoulos, a UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering alumnus and partner at NEA, one of the largest venture capital firms in the world, engineering leadership is all about trust. Papadopoulos was awarded the Professional Gordon Fellow honor at the 9th annual Engineering Leadership Awards event run by the Gordon Engineering Leadership Center Full Story
New Blood Test Rapidly Detects Signs of Pancreatic Cancer
May 17, 2018
UC San Diego researchers have developed a test that can screen for pancreatic cancer in just a drop of blood. The test, which is at the proof-of-concept stage, provides results in under an hour. It's simple: apply a drop of blood on a small electronic chip, turn the current on, wait several minutes, add fluorescent labels and look at the results under a microscope. If a blood sample tests positive for pancreatic cancer, bright fluorescent circles will appear. Full Story
You Can Eat That Fork
May 17, 2018
Zhicong “Zack” Kong, a 2017 bioengineering alumnus from UC San Diego, created compostable, durable, edible cutlery that is unique for several reasons:the ingredients, a scalable manufacturing process and an innovative mold technology. Full Story
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Growing Computer Science Tutor Community Reunites at UC San Diego
May 16, 2018
More than 170 current and alumni computer science tutors reunited at UC San Diego in April 2018 to celebrate a program that has become a hallmark of the department and a model for the rest of campus. Full Story
Eight Jacobs School alumni recognized at UC San Diego's first 40 Under 40 awards
April 12, 2018
From startup founders to VPs at major technology companies, eight alumni of the Jacobs School of Engineering were recognized in the first 40 Under 40 awards bestowed by the University of California San Diego. Full Story
A wearable system to monitor the stomach's activity throughout the day
March 21, 2018
A team of researchers has developed a wearable, non-invasive system to monitor electrical activity in the stomach over 24 hours—essentially an electrocardiogram but for the gastro-intestinal (GI) tract. Applications include monitoring GI activity for patients outside of a clinical setting, which cuts down costs. Monitoring for longer periods of time also increases the likelihood of capturing abnormal events. Researchers detail their findings in the March 22 issue of Nature’s open access journal Scientific Reports. Full Story
A Campus Hub for Data Science
March 1, 2018
The cross-disciplinary Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute, or HDSI, will become the campus hub for data science. It will help train students in the latest data-science techniques and transform the research of scholars who are now increasingly limited in making progress in their disciplines because of the need to make sense of the massive amounts of data generated from their research. Full Story
How Bacteria Steal Antibiotic-Resistant Genes
February 22, 2018
Researchers at the University of California San Diego Center for Microbiome Innovation have identified the mechanism by which a clinically relevant bacterium may gain antibiotic resistance, and have come up with a model for predicting the conditions under which it spreads. The findings, which establish a framework for understanding, quantifying and hopefully combating the emergence of superbugs, were published in a recent paper in eLife. Full Story
Using Computer Science and the Humanities to Step Back in Time
February 15, 2018
A collaborative group of researchers from the University of California San Diego traveled to Turin, Italy recently to digitally map an entire portion of the city—complete with historic architecture, expansive murals and stunning works of art. Full Story
UC San Diego innovator in data storage technologies elected to National Academy of Engineering
February 9, 2018
Eric Fullerton, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and nanoengineering at the Jacobs School and Director of the School's Center for Memory and Recording Research, was elected to the National Academy of Engineering “for invention and development of multilayer, high-density magnetic recording media.” His innovations made it possible for hard disk drives and non-volatile memories to store data at unprecedented levels. Full Story
Engineers, Technology Featured in New National Geographic Documentary on Maya 'Megalopolis'
February 6, 2018
Lost Treasures of the Maya Snake Kings," a new one-hour National Geographic special premiering FEb. 6 at 9/8 p.m. central, shows how LiDAR laser imaging technology is revolutionizing archaeology and features the WAVE data visualization technology created by researchers at the University of California San Diego. Albert Yu-Min Lin, who earned a Ph.D. at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego, hosts the program. Full Story
From Class to Clinic
January 11, 2018
It’s not every day that an undergraduate class influences the way surgeons prepare for operations. But that’s exactly what happened with a freshman bioengineering class co-taught by then-PhD student Jason Caffrey ’11, MS ’13‚ and professor Robert Sah. Full Story
Company Based on UC San Diego Technology Gets Infusion of Capital
December 15, 2017
Tortuga Logic, a hardware security company co-founded by computer science professor and Qualcomm Institute academic participant Ryan Kastner and two computer science alumni, is now positioned for new growth thanks to $2 million in seed funding from a venture-capital firm. Tortuga Logic offers a suite of hardware design tools to identify security vulnerabilities throughout the process of designing a semiconductor, including Prospect and Unison (used in the semiconductor, aerospace and defense industries). With its new funding, Tortuga Logic will develop new products and increase the feature sets of existing products. Full Story
Smart earplug company developed by UC San Diego undergrads acquired by Bose
December 7, 2017
Hush, a noise-cancelling smart earplug startup that was conceptualized by UC San Diego engineering undergraduates in professor Nate Delson’s Product Design and Entrepreneurship class has been acquired by audio giant Bose. Full Story
Self-Described School False Starter Aims to Pay It Forward in EdTech
November 30, 2017
What if we could use artificial intelligence to dramatically reduce the number of students who drop out of STEM-related majors? That's the question Monal Parmar, a first-generation UC San Diego alumnus, who is currently working on a master's at the Jacobs School of Engineering, asked himself. Parmar developed a device to that could help answer this question in the affirmative. He has received advice from the Jacobs School's Institute for the Global Entrepreneur. His efforts were rewarded when he was invited recently to compete in the Entrepreneurs' Organization's (EO) Global Student Entrepreneur Awards (GSEA) competition, held on Nov. 14. Full Story
Franklin Antonio, UC San Diego alumnus and Qualcomm co-founder, gives $30M toward new campus engineering building
November 17, 2017
University of California San Diego alumnus and Qualcomm co-founder Franklin Antonio is donating $30 million to the university in support of programmatic expansion of the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering. In recognition of the generous gift, UC San Diego will name a planned building for engineering research and education Franklin Antonio Hall. Full Story
Alan Turing Memorial Scholarship Celebrates Diversity in Computer Science
September 28, 2017
The Center for Networked Systems (CNS) at UC San Diego established the Alan Turing Memorial Scholarship in 2015 to encourage a more diverse community in computer science education and research. The award honors the memory of Alan Turing, the mathematician and cryptanalyst who founded the field of computer science. During World War II, he devised the techniques that led to breaking codes produced by Germany’s Enigma machine—a breakthrough credited with accelerating the Allied victory by more than a year. After the war, he was persecuted for being gay. He died by his own hand in 1954. Full Story
When Artificial Intelligence is Funny
September 15, 2017
What do you do if you’re an animal shelter and have to name a big litter of guinea pigs that suddenly become available for adoption and need to be named? Why, contact Janelle Shane, who earned a Ph.D. in electrical engineering at UC San Diego, of course. Shane works on lasers in her day job, but her hobby is using neural networks to create paint color names, band names and much more.Her efforts have received an onslaught of media coverage, from Gizmodo, to Wired, to The Atlantic Online. When the Morris Animal Refuge in Portland, Ore., came to her, Shane agreed. Full Story
A $100K gift from Cognex to UC San Diego Supports Research at Intersection of Deep Learning and 3-D Image Reconstruction
August 18, 2017
The University of California San Diego has received a $100K gift from Cognex Corporation, a leader in machine vision. The gift will allow teams of professors and graduate students at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering to explore research at the intersection of deep learning and 3-D image reconstruction. Full Story
Engineers talk VR, AI and nanotechnology at San Diego Comic-Con
July 20, 2017
It’s not every day that engineers get to speak side by side with the people behind hit movies and TV series. But that is exactly what two engineering faculty members are doing this week at Comic-Con in San Diego. Full Story