News Release
Jacobs School Welcomes Eleven New Faculty
October 2, 2006 -- As the 06/07 academic year begins, the UCSD Jacobs School of Engineering welcomes eleven new faculty hires, bringing the School’s total faculty membership to 175. The new faculty help advance the School’s focus on nanotechnology and nanomaterials, and compliment existing strengths in earthquake engineering, broadband communications, computer architecture, information theory, machine learning, and visualization. Six of the new professors have already joined the School, and five begin their appointments later in the academic year.
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| Tara Hutchinson |
The Department of Structural Engineering hired four new faculty in 2006, including Associate Professor Tara Hutchinson,who joined UCSD July 1 from UC Irvine. Hutchinson’s area of expertise is structural and geotechnical engineering, and her research is focused on information technology applied to the evaluation of structural damage. Her IT research, combined with her expertise in earthquake engineering, strengthen the Structural Engineering Department’s efforts in sensing and monitoring of structural response, large-scale dynamic-model experimentation, preparedness and pre- and post-event characterization of structural integrity. Hutchinson works as both an experimentalist and theoretician, and has tackled issues in soil-foundation-structure analysis, seismic performance of structural and non-structural building components, and visual sensing for dynamic testing.
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| Falko Kuester |
Also joining the JacobsSchool from UC Irvine is Associate Professor Falko Kuester, who has a joint appointment as an adjunct associate professor of computer science and engineering. Kuester is an expert in scientific visualization and virtual reality, with specific emphasis on collaborative workspaces, multi-modal interfaces, and distributed and remote visualization. Hisfocus is on developing new methods for acquisition, compression, streaming, synchronization and visualization techniques for large datasets. Kuester is applying these techniques to research challenges posed by distributed virtual environments and their application to earthquake engineering, earth system science, biomedical engineering and medicine. At UC Irvine, Kuester directs the Calit2 research center for graphics, visualization and imaging technology, and he will continue to be actively engaged in forging collaborations among Calit2, structural engineering, and computer science and engineering at UCSD. Kuester begins his service at UCSD in January 2007. The Structural Engineering Department hired two additional faculty members in the area of advanced composite materials, nanomaterials and sensors.
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| Hyonny Kim |
Associate Professor Hyonny Kim comes to UCSD from Purdue University, where his research interests include composite materials and durability research, and composite materials for aerospace structures applications. He is also interested in electro-mechanical multifunctional materials, carbon nanotubes and nanomaterials, and adhesive bonding for composite joints. Kim’s work compliments the department’s existing strengths in composites design and mechanics with an emphasis on aerospace applications. His appointment begins in November.
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| Yu Qiao |
Associate Professor Yu Qiao’s research focuses on high-performance infrastructure materials, failure analysis, and mechanics of materials. His leading-edge research in the areas of nanofluidics and protective/energy absorbing materials provide synergy with the department’s ongoing blast mitigation program, and his work on composite materials development and smart materials compliment the department’s efforts in sensors, smart and multi-functional materials, and embedded actuators. Qiao joined UCSD July 1 from the University of Akron.
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| Eric Fullerton |
The most senior new faculty appointment at the JacobsSchool is Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor Eric Fullerton (UCSD alumnus, 1991), who will play a key role in the development of the Jacobs School’s programs in nanotechnology and nano-scale materials science. Fullerton is an internationally recognized scientist in thin-film magnetic materials and superlattice growth, magnetic recording and nanostructures, and x-ray and neutron scattering. He will hold an endowed chair in the UCSD Center for Magnetic Recording Research. Fullerton joins UCSD January 2007 from Hitachi Global Storage Technologies where he currently serves as a senior manager and research scientist with the Fundamentals of Nano-structured Materials Group.
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| James Buckwalter |
In addition, two assistant professors joined the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department July 1. Adding to the department’s strength in electronic circuits and systems, James Buckwalter’s focus is broadband circuit design for high-speed electrical and optical communication systems, including the design of transmitter, receiver, equalizer, and clock and data recovery circuits. His research weighs speed, power, and signal integrity tradeoffs in computer communication, chip-to-chip interconnection, and on-chip clock and signal distribution. Buckwalter earned his Ph.D. from Caltech in 2006, after working as a research scientist with Telcordia Technologies from 1999-2000.
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| Young-Han Kim |
Young-Han Kim joins ECE’s communications theory and systems group and works in the area of information theory and statistical signal processing. Within the context of today's high-speed, high-volume information processing systems, Kim primarily addresses challenges of describing information efficiently and transmitting it reliably in the presence of noise and interference. His other research interests include statistical inference, learning theory, and quantum information processing. Kim worked at Ton Yang Systems Corp. in
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| Lawrence Saul |
The Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) Department hired two new faculty in 2006. Associate Professor Lawrence Saul joins the department’s artificial intelligence group. Saul is known for his work on high dimensional data analysis and visualization. Combining ideas from the fields of computer science and statistics, he has developed algorithms for revealing low dimensional structure in high dimensional data. His work on nonlinear dimensionality reduction has applications to computational neuroscience, pattern recognition, and information processing in sensor networks. Saul is also interested in applying machine learning to problems in audio processing. His team is focused on improved acoustic models for automatic speech recognition, efficient (real-time) algorithms for auditory scene analysis, and robust integration of cues in different frequency bands.
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| Steven Swanson |
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| Jan Kleissl |
The Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering recruited Assistant Professor Jan Kleissl , who will add to the department's strength in environmental engineering group. Kleissl's expertise is in atmospheric boundary layer meteorology, turbulence, integrated field measurements, numerical modeling of evaporation, and use of sensor networks. His work has applications to a range of environmental problems including air quality and land-atmosphere interactions. Kleissl is currently serving as a postdoctoral research associate at New Mexico Institute of Technology and will begin his service at UCSD in January 2007.
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| Melissa Micou |
In the Department of Bioengineering, alumna Melissa Micou (PhD, 2001, UCSD Bioengineering) will be the department's first lecturer with potential security of employment (LPSOE). Micou will be teaching in the Bioengineering Senior Design course series, recently introduced into the undergraduate curriculum. An expert in tissue engineering, Micou will also teach a number of priority courses including Introduction to Bioengineering Design, a hands-on tissue engineering laboratory course, and Bioengineering Statistics and Dynamics. Micou joins UCSD January 2007 from the Cooper Union, Albert Nerken School of Engineering in New York , a small undergraduate college known for high quality and innovative teaching.
Media Contacts
Denine Hagen
Jacobs School of Engineering
858-534-2920
dhagen@ucsd.edu