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What's New: Jacobs School of Engineering
By
Denine Hagen | November 13, 2006
What’s new this academic year? This Week@UCSD is taking a quick look at what’s in store for
different areas of campus. Here’s what the Jacobs School of Engineering is up to for 2006-07.
- California voters approved Prop. 1D, a $10.4 billion
statewide school bond, giving the green light for
construction of the Jacobs School’s new Structural
and Materials Engineering Building. The 110,000-square-foot
building will provide teaching, office, and lab
space for the department of structural engineering
and for faculty working in the area of materials
science. The first floor will also include studio
space for faculty and students in visual arts. Construction
of the $73 million building—the 11th major
engineering and technology facility on the UCSD
campus—is expected to be complete by 2010.
- The Jacobs School’s Teams in Engineering
Service program deploys multidisciplinary teams
of students to provide technology solutions for
San Diego non-profits. Among this year’s projects,
TIES teams developed a solar-powered water quality
monitoring system for the Lakeside River Park Conservancy
and created adaptive toys for the United Cerebral
Palsy’s library for children with disabilities.
In 2007, UCSD TIES plans to team medical students
with engineers to improve patient care for the underserved,
involve high school teams in engineering projects,
and design a “green home”for Habitat
for Humanity. More
- Eleven new faculty joined the Jacobs School in
2006-07, bringing the school’s total faculty
membership to 175. The new faculty help advance
the school’s focus on nanoscience and nanomaterials,
and complement existing strengths in earthquake
engineering, broadband communications, computer
architecture, information theory, machine learning,
and visualization. With a total enrollment of 5,015
students, the Jacobs School is the largest public
engineering school in California. More
- Weapons being developed at UCSD for the war against
cancer may soon include micron-sized “mother
ships” that seek out tumor cells, delivering
drugs, sensors and other payloads. The National
Cancer Institute awarded UCSD $3.9 million in the
first year of a five-year, $20 million initiative
to establish a Center for Cancer Nanotechnology
Initiative which teams engineers, chemists and biologists
with physicians at the Moores Cancer Center.
More
- Visitors to the future San Diego Children’s
Museum will experience a model of energy-efficient
architecture. The building features a zero-energy-use
ventilation system thanks in part to research by
Paul Linden, chair of the mechanical and aerospace
engineering department. More
- The Jacobs School celebrated two endowed chair
appointments this fall. Robert
E. Skelton, a Distinguished Professor of mechanical
and aerospace engineering was been named the Daniel
L. Alspach Professor of Dynamic Systems and Controls.
Alspach is a UCSD alumnus and is the former CEO
of ORINCON, now Lockheed Martin ORINCON. University
Professor Shu
Chien was appointed to the Y.C. Fung Chair in
Bioengineering. This chair was made possible through
gifts by 70 of Fung’s students, colleagues
and friends as well as the the Wallace H. Coulter
Foundation, Senyei Family Foundation, and Taiwan
Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd.
In all, 24 professors in the Jacobs School now hold
endowed chair appointments.
- More than 100 Jacobs School alumni attended a
reception hosted by Google this June. It was the
largest turn-out to date for a UCSD alumni mixer
outside San Diego. Google’s VP of Research
and Systems Engineering Alan Eustace will headline
the Jacobs School’s annual Research Expo on
February 22. More
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