News & Events

09-20-22

Of the many ways to treat cancer, the oldest, and maybe most tried and true, is surgery. The goal is to remove all of the cancerous tissue while preserving as much of the surrounding healthy material as possible. "It's very hard to grow bone, so if you cut out bone, you basically lose it," says Lihong Wang, Bren Professor of Medical Engineering and Electrical Engineering; Andrew and Peggy Cherng Medical Engineering Leadership Chair; Executive Officer for Medical Engineering. A new diagnostic imaging technology developed by researchers at Caltech is offering surgeons the ability to make cuts 10 times more precisely, allowing them to preserve as much as 1,000 times more healthy tissue and to give patients easier recoveries. [Caltech story]

Tags: EE research highlights MedE Lihong Wang Rui Cao Samuel Davis Yilin Luo Yide Zhang

09-15-22

Electronic computing and communications have come a very long way since the days of radio telegraphy and vacuum tubes, with consumer devices now containing levels of processing power and memory that would be unimaginable just a few decades ago. "The quality of the quantum states we have achieved surpasses the requirements for quantum information processing, which used to be the territory of bulky experimental setups," says Alireza Marandi, Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics. [Caltech story]

Tags: APhMS EE research highlights Alireza Marandi

09-15-22

Can AI Predict Economic Downturns? There has been a symbiotic relationship between financial institutions and the artificial intelligence community since the 1980s. That's when the field of neural networks started in earnest. Although there was lots of activity, we can see in hindsight that neural networks did not reach their full potential owing to the lack of computational resources and lack of abundant data. [Caltech story]

Tags: EE research highlights Yaser Abu-Mostafa

08-25-22

Caltech is working to transform energy systems by developing a "smart grid": a flexible, responsive, efficient, system that incorporates renewable energy sources while meeting growing power demands. "Engineering grand challenges are inspiring much of the research at Caltech, especially in the broad area of sustainability," says Harry Atwater, Otis Booth Leadership Chair, Division of Engineering and Applied Science; Howard Hughes Professor of Applied Physics and Materials Science; Director, Liquid Sunlight Alliance. [Caltech story]

Tags: Harry Atwater Adam Wierman Zachary Lee Kimberly See George Lee

08-11-22

Imagine driving home after a long day at work. Suddenly, a car careens out of an obscured side street and turns right in front of you. Luckily, your autonomous car saw this vehicle long before it came within your line of sight and slowed to avoid a crash. This might seem like magic, but a novel technique developed in the laboratory of Changhuei Yang, Thomas G. Myers Professor of Electrical Engineering, Bioengineering, and Medical Engineering; Investigator, Heritage Medical Research Institute, could bring it closer to a reality. "We can see all the traffic on the crossroads with this method. This might help the cars to foresee the potential danger that one is not able to see directly." explains electrical engineering graduate student Ruizhi Cao. [Caltech story]

Tags: EE research highlights Changhuei Yang MedE Ruizhi Cao

07-30-22

One of the major limitations of optics-based systems at present is that, at a certain point, they still need to have electronics-based transistors to efficiently process the data. Now, a team led by Alireza Marandi, assistant professor of electrical engineering and applied physics at Caltech, has created an all-optical switch. Such a switch could eventually enable data processing using photons. Device nanofabrication was performed at the Kavli Nanoscience Institute (KNI) at Caltech. [Caltech story]

Tags: research highlights KNI Alireza Marandi Rajveer Nehra Saman Jahani Luis Ledezma Arkadev Roy Qiushi Guo Ryoto Sekine Robert Gray

07-13-22

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has named Azita Emami to the Microsystems Exploratory Council (MEC) for a three-year term beginning this summer. Emami is Andrew and Peggy Cherng Professor of Electrical Engineering and Medical Engineering; Executive Officer for Electrical Engineering; and Director, Center for Sensing to Intelligence. MEC brings over 30 of the brightest scientists and engineers together to identify new areas of development in microsystems science and technology and to recommend future possible research directions. The MEC Group was established by DARPA in 2017 to support its technology offices and provide continuing and independent assessment of the state of advanced microsystem technology as it relates to the U.S. Department of Defense.

Tags: EE honors MedE Azita Emami

06-23-22

Amy Pham, advised by Steven Low, Frank J. Gilloon Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences and Electrical Engineering, is one of four recipients of the 2022 Henry Ford II Scholar Award. Amy is interested in robotics, cryptology, and cybersecurity, and enjoys taking classes that involve both programming and mechanical engineering. This summer, Amy will be interning at Amazon as a software engineer under the CloudTrail team. After graduation, she plans to pursue a masters in cybersecurity or robotics. The Henry Ford II Scholar Award is funded under an endowment provided by the Ford Motor Company Fund. The award is made annually to engineering students with the best academic record at the end of the third year of undergraduate study.

Tags: EE CMS Henry Ford II Scholar Award Steven Low Amy Pham

06-23-22

Louise Schul, advised by John Doyle, Jean-Lou Chameau Professor of Control and Dynamical Systems, Electrical Engineering, and Bioengineering, is one of four recipients of the 2022 Henry Ford II Scholar Award. Louise is interested in multiple fields in electrical engineering, especially signal processing and optics. This summer, she will be working on a SURF project with Professor Alireza Marandi to improve a tunable laser source. After graduation, she plans to attend graduate school and eventually work in industry. The Henry Ford II Scholar Award is funded under an endowment provided by the Ford Motor Company Fund. The award is made annually to engineering students with the best academic record at the end of the third year of undergraduate study.

Tags: EE honors Henry Ford II Scholar Award John Doyle Alireza Marandi Louise Schul

06-17-22

Carver Mead, Gordon and Betty Moore Professor of Engineering and Applied Science, Emeritus, has been awarded the 2022 Kyoto Prize by the Inamori Foundation of Japan. According to the Inamori Foundation, he was awarded the honor for his "leading contributions to the establishment of the guiding principles for VLSI systems design." [Caltech story]

Tags: EE honors CMS Carver Mead