Jacobs School Energy, Environment and Sustainability News: Top Stories

Nanosponges that Remove Toxins from Blood Take Top Prize at Research Expo 2013

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 00:00:00 PDT

More than 100 judges representing industry and engineering faculty circled around 200 engineering research posters at the University of California, San Diego April 18, asking the graduate students about their research. The students, representing the six academic departments of the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering, explained the content of their research to the judges as well as Research Expo attendees from industry, academia, the government and nonprofits. Judges ranked the students on their research and on how well they articulated their work to judges who may or may not work in their particular engineering sub-field. Students were called to explain the essential findings and why they matter to other researchers, to industry and to society.

Symposium at UC San Diego Marks 70th Birthday of Former Engineering Dean

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 00:00:00 PDT

Within days of each other, Robert W. Conn recently made two trips to Washington, D.C. to meet President Barack Obama at the White House. The Dean Emeritus of the University of California, San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering, Dr. Conn is President of The Kavli Foundation. As the Foundation’s President, on March 28, Conn visited the Oval Office with the 2012 U.S. winners of the Kavli Prizes. The visit was an opportunity for the President to acknowledge the newest laureates and to express how greatly the country depends on basic science. The meeting was also attended by the President’s Science Advisor, Dr. John Holdren, Norwegian Ambassador to the U.S. Wegger Chr. Strommen, and Mr. Rock Hankin, Vice Chairman of the Foundation’s board of directors.

Research Shows How Earthquake Damage Can Impact Building Fire Safety Performance

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 00:00:00 PDT

Damage to building structural elements, elevators, stairs and fire protection systems caused by the shaking from a major earthquake can play a critical role in the spread of fire and hamper the ability of occupants to evacuate, and impede fire departments in their emergency response operations. These are among the conclusions of a groundbreaking study of post-earthquake building fire performance conducted in 2012 by researchers in the Department of Fire Protection Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Student Develop App to Help Protect Marine Conservation Areas

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 00:00:00 PDT

A team of engineering students at UC San Diego have been working hard to help protect the beaches and waters off the La Jolla coastline. Their contribution to the environment is a web app that will allow volunteers to monitor the health of marine conservation areas off the coast of Southern California. Volunteers will input information about human activity, pollution, and even poaching into the app via an interactive form. The information will then be stored in a database.

Jacobs School Shines at Fluid Dynamics Conference

Thu, 15 Nov 2012 00:00:00 PDT

Simulations that help doctors perform life-saving surgeries; a better way to model climate in urban areas; and optimized blood flow patterns for heart patients with pacemakers. Fluid dynamics researchers from the University of California, San Diego, will discuss their research on these topics—and many others—at the 65^th Annual Meeting of the American Physical Society’s Division of Fluid Dynamics here in San Diego Nov. 18 to 20. With about 2,300 contributed presentations, the APS/DFD annual conference is the largest scientific meeting of researchers in fluid dynamics.

Cool Pavements, Warm Buildings, Rising Electricity Bills

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 00:00:00 PDT

A push to replace old, heat-trapping paving materials with new, cooler materials could actually lead to higher electricity bills for surrounding buildings, engineers at the University of California, San Diego, have found. Researchers published their findings Oct. 29 in the new Journal of Urban Climate.

Jacobs School Recruiting for 12 Positions in 2012-13

Fri, 05 Oct 2012 00:00:00 PDT

The Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego currently is recruiting for 11open faculty positions in the 2012-13 academic year. The positions fall within three strategic research focus areas identified by the school: energy, sustainability and environment; engineering in medicine; and information technology and applications. Several of the positions are part of a three-year recruitment plan in the area of advanced energy research.

Algorithms to Revolutionize Electric Battery Technology

Wed, 03 Oct 2012 00:00:00 PDT

Engineers at the University of California, San Diego, have developed sophisticated estimation algorithms that allow lithium-ion batteries to run more efficiently, potentially reducing their cost by 25 percent and potentially allowing the batteries to charge twice as fast as is currently possible. In one instance, electric batteries could be charged in just 15 minutes. The researchers at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego are sharing a nearly $4 million grant from ARPA-E, a research agency within the Department of Energy, with automotive products supplier Bosch and battery manufacturer Cobasys to further develop the estimation algorithms and the technology they will drive.

New Server Cooling Technology Deployed in Pilot Program at Calit2

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 00:00:00 PDT

The California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) at the University of California, San Diego has become the inaugural test site for a new approach to cooling computer servers – a technology that could improve energy efficiency and enable higher-performance computing.

Researchers Work Large and Small in New Jacobs School Building

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 00:00:00 PDT

Making buildings and bridges safer during earthquakes. Printed 3-D blood vessels and capillaries for regenerative medicine. Safer cardiac pumps for children born with heart defects. Giant art collections sorted with a click. Better composite materials for aircraft. In the new Structural and Materials Engineering building at the University of California, San Diego engineers, artists and medical device researchers who work at different scales and in different fields are pursuing these projects, and many more.