News Release

Three UC San Diego Engineering Professors Receive Presidential Early Career Awards

San Diego, Calif., July 3, 2019 -- Three faculty members at the University of California San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering have been named recipients of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on scientists and engineers in the early stages of their independent research careers.

The UC San Diego recipients are: Darren Lipomi, professor of nanoengineering; Piya Pal, professor of electrical and computer engineering; and Padmini Rangamani, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering.

Professors Darren Lipomi, Piya Pal and Padmini Rangamani

Awardees are recognized for their contributions to the advancement of science, technology and engineering and their commitment to community service as demonstrated through scientific leadership, public education and community outreach.

Lipomi was recognized for his work on the chemistry of electronic materials with properties inspired by biological tissue for health sensing, medical touch and human-machine interfaces, and for his efforts in public outreach. He was nominated for the award by the Department of Health and Human Services.

Pal was recognized for her fundamental contributions to signal processing by designing innovative geometries and developing new optimization techniques that overcome bottlenecks of traditional array designs, and for enhancing fundamental performance limits of sparse inference problems. She was nominated by the Department of Defense.

Rangamani was recognized for her exceptional research accomplishments in the advancement of Theoretical Biophysics in physical biology and medicine, and for fundamental contributions to the physical understanding of lipid bilayers. She was nominated by the Department of Defense.

Media Contacts

Liezel Labios
Jacobs School of Engineering
858-246-1124
llabios@ucsd.edu