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Strategic Focus

Energy, Environment and Sustainability

Paul Linden (right), professor and director of the UCSD Environment and Sustainability Initiative, works with students to collect climate data on campus.
Paul Linden (right), professor and director of the UCSD Environment and Sustainability Initiative, works with students to collect climate data on campus.

Can we develop a stable and prosperous society and a stable and productive environment at the same time? The Jacobs School is addressing this question through a wide range of interdisciplinary and collaborative research and technology projects involving other divisions at UCSD, other academic partners, industry and government. Projects include:

  • Alternative energy supplies such as fusion, biofuels and solar and wind power
  • Cradle-to-cradle materials and structures
  • Enviro-informatics
  • Studies of air and water pollution
  • Design of energy-efficient buildings
  • New environmental sensors
  • Research into water supplies

Information Technology and Applications

Sensors installed in a composite bridge deck at UCSD send data over a wireless network to a campus database. The deck is video monitored 24 hours a day.
Sensors installed in a composite bridge deck at UCSD send data over a wireless network to a campus database. The deck is video monitored 24 hours a day.

Jacobs School engineers are at the leading edge of information technology development. They are also leaders in applying information technologies to new challenges. In one area of inquiry, Jacobs School engineers are developing new structural health monitoring approaches that identify deterioration in bridges and other key infrastructure. These research projects produce real-time diagnostic and prognostic assessments by exploiting the latest advances in:

  • Remote sensing
  • Communications
  • Data analysis
  • Predictive modeling

Engineering in Medicine

Stem cell differentiation is one place engineering and medicine meet at UCSD. Pictured: DNA (blue) and tubulin (red).
Stem cell differentiation is one place engineering and medicine meet at UCSD. Pictured: DNA (blue) and tubulin (red).

Engineering-medicine collaborations at the Jacobs School are speeding the development of new technologies to diagnose and treat disease. Collaborations with UCSD's School of Medicine have already yielded:

  • New biocompatible synthetic bone materials
  • Cancer treatments employing nanotechnology
  • Insights into insulin resistance from a systems level
  • The first mechanistic understanding of how embryonic stem cells differentiate into cardiomyocytes

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