Lihong Wang, Bren Professor of Medical Engineering and Electrical Engineering, has received the 2018 Michael S. Feld Biophotonics Award from the Optical Society (OSA) for “invention of the world’s fastest two-dimensional receive-only camera; enabling real-time imaging of the fastest phenomena on earth.” The award recognizes individuals for their innovative and influential contributions to the field of biophotonics, regardless of their career stage. [OSA release]
The latest advance in a new type of optics aimed at improving microscopy started with a game of tennis three years ago between Mooseok Jang a graduate of Professor Changhuei Yang's lab and Yu Horie working with Professor Andrei Faraon. "The hope is that our work will prompt further interest in this area of optics and make this type of microscopy and its advantages feasible for practical, everyday use—not just as a proof of concept," says Josh Brake, a graduate student in Yang's lab who continues to work on the project with Faraon and Yang. [Caltech story]
Four graduate students from the Computing and Mathematical Sciences (CMS) Department and one from the Electrical Engineering (EE) Department have been selected as 2017 Amazon Fellows. This fellows program is the result of a partnership between Caltech and Amazon AWS around Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. The EE fellow is Srikanth Tenneti who is exploring the potential of deep learning for Direction of Arrival applications, and extending Ramanujan Sums based techniques for multi-dimensional periodicity extraction. CMS graduate student Navid Azizan Ruhi is researching faster optimization algorithms for machine learning. He is looking forward to visiting Amazon AI as a fellow and exchanging ideas with their researchers. Computer science graduate student Hoang Le is developing methods for efficient and intelligent sequential decision making in realistic systems. Florian Schaefer, whose focus is applied and computational mathematics, is researching the interface of statistical estimation and the design of fast algorithms. Control and dynamical systems graduate student Ellen Feldman, working with Professor Joel Burdick, has used part of the funding to present her research at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting and looking forward to other future opportunities to share her research.
Victoria Kostina, Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering, has been awarded the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award for her 5-year project, “Information Theory of Dynamical Systems”. The CAREER program is NSF's most prestigious awards for junior faculty members. The level and 5-year duration of the awards are designed to enable awardees to develop careers as outstanding teacher-scholars. Awardees are chosen because they exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations. [Caltech story]
Lihong Wang, Bren Professor of Medical Engineering and Electrical Engineering, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Professor Wang was elected for "inventions in photoacoustic microscopy enabling functional, metabolic, and molecular imaging in vivo." Election to the National Academy of Engineering is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer. Academy membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to "engineering research, practice, or education, including, where appropriate, significant contributions to the engineering literature," and to the "pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education." [Caltech story] [NAE release]
Caltech and Disney Research have entered into a joint research agreement to pioneer robotic control systems and further explore artificial intelligence technologies. Pietro Perona will work with Disney roboticist Martin Buehler to create navigation and perception software that could allow robotic characters to safely move through dense crowds and interact with people. Aaron Ames will work with Disney Research's Lanny Smoot to further explore robot autonomy and machine learning by creating objects that can self-navigate and perform stunts. Yisong Yue has been working with engineers from Disney Research on the use of machine learning to analyze the behavior of soccer players and to measure audience engagement. [Caltech story]
As she steps down as CEO of the Anita Borg Institute, Telle Whitney (PhD ’85) reflects on her career in tech—and the path ahead for the next generation of women. From Caltech to researcher to entrepreneur to advocate for women in technology, this Caltech alumna’s career has thrived on risk-taking and transition—and she’s inspired and assisted hundreds of thousands of women along the way. [Techer profile]
Professor Venkat Chandrasekaran and graduate student Armeen Taeb have developed an empirical statewide model of the California reservoir network. This work offers reservoir managers insight on how to plan and respond to drought conditions. "The bread and butter of hydrology is using physical laws to describe water phenomena. But the behavior of these reservoirs is not solely determined by physical laws of the water cycle, but also by demands and what these reservoirs are being used for," Taeb explains. [Caltech story]
Lihong Wang, Bren Professor of Medical Engineering and Electrical Engineering, and colleagues have improved a technique for taking three-dimensional (3-D) microscopic images of tissue, allowing them to see inside living creatures with greater precision than before. "This gives us the ability to look through opaque materials and see what's inside," Professor Wang says. "It's like an extension of the human eye, like Superman's X-ray vision." [Caltech story]
Take a deep dive into a crucial moment in technological history with Carver Mead, Gordon and Betty Moore Professor of Engineering and Applied Science, Emeritus. In this first of a series of videos being produced by the Caltech Archives, titled 'My First Chip’, Professor Mead tells the story of meeting Gordon Moore, who would soon predict that every year the semiconductor industry would double the number of transistors that could be fabricated on a commercial integrated circuit. Carver Mead and his students worked on the physics of ultra-small transistors, and showed that, in addition to allowing greater density, they ran faster and used less power. This work proved that Moore’s prediction did not violate any laws of physics, and it became known as 'Moore's Law'–the term coined and made famous by Professor Mead.
Electrical Engineering Centennial: An Electrifying Century
Many of you joined the Electrical Engineering faculty, alumni, students, and staff as we celebrated 100 years of EE at the California Institute of Technology on November 5th & 6th, 2010.
