2021 Stanford Engineering Donor Impact Report

Photo: Andrew Brodhead

YOU HELP US CONTRIBUTE SOLUTIONS TO THE WORLD.

DONOR IMPACT REPORT

DECEMBER 2021

As engineers, we search for solutions.

It’s in our nature.

It’s in our training.

Cover image: A new installation, Pars pro Toto by international artist Alicja Kwade, brought playful and thought-provoking art to the Science and Engineering Quad this past spring.

Photo: Andrew Brodhead

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Photo: Saul Bromberger

“As one of a small community of donors, you’ve played a vital role in our ability to continue innovating, educating, and learning, no matter what challenges we face from year to year. Your giving to the Engineering Fund helps support the exciting new ideas and people that make Stanford Engineering one of the truly great education and research institutions in the world. Thank you for your commitment to the work we do and the transformative impact we can have on the world around us. You make extraordinary things possible.”

Jennifer Widom Frederick Emmons Terman Dean of the School of Engineering Fletcher Jones Professor in Computer Science and Professor of Electrical Engineering

YOU’RE BUILDING THE BRIDGE TO OUR FUTURE. Your gifts to the Engineering Fund provide the school with flexible strength to prepare for a tomorrow that may look different from today.

Thank you for making us nimble. Unrestricted funding lets us direct resources wherever faculty need them most.

Thank you for keeping us steady. Our students flourish with consistent support over time and a true investment in their learning.

Photo: Andrew Brodhead

ENGINEERING FOR EVERYONE

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Designing for Frugal Science Manu Prakash is perhaps best known for creating a $1 origami microscope, ingeniously crimped from a sheet of cardstock. Its tiny lens has 140x magnification, allowing users to see objects as small as 2 microns.

Worldwide, 1.5 million Foldscopes have shipped to date, and his invention opens up scientific observation to communities where a single lens of a high-grade microscope might cost more than a person’s annual salary.

“I grew up in environments where I didn’t have much, and I carry that burden on my shoulders and in my heart,” says the associate professor of bioengineering.

Prakash says his childhood in northern India was full of creative freedom and financial scarcity.”

Photo: L.A. Cicero

At Stanford Engineering, we’re committed to seeking solutions that will improve our society and our world. From $1 microscopes to a free coding course, we’re working to ensure equity in access to technological advances and educational tools.

Manu Prakash, Associate Professor of Bioengineering and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment

The global inequities driving him to make cheap tools for science and health care were thrown into stark relief with COVID-19, which disproportionately harms low-income communities. With the onset of the pandemic, he immediately set to work.

So far, his research team has designed a way to convert full-face snorkel masks into reusable PPE, begun manufacturing a cheap, open-source ventilator, invented a low-cost COVID-19 saliva test, and even experimented with how cotton-candy machines could spin polypropylene for high-filtration masks.

Photo: Courtesy of Manu Prakash

Frugal science can provide humanity with the essential tools to better care for ourselves, our communities, and our environments.

Source: Stanford Magazine

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Coding Across Continents What happens if you teach part of one of Stanford’s most popular courses, CS106A: Programming Methodology, for free online during a pandemic? Assistant Professor Chris Piech and Professor Mehran Sahami quickly found out. In 2020, their community service project grew to more than 10,000 participants. In spring 2021, with the help of Julie Zelenski, a senior lecturer in computer science, Code in Place made an encore and this time reached 12,000 participants.

Mehran Sahami, James and Ellenor Chesebrough Professor in the School of Engineering, Professor and Associate Chair for Education in Computer Science, and Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education

Photo: Courtesy of Julie Zelenski

Photo: John Todd

Photo: Courtesy of Chris Piech

Even more impressive, the completion rate in the class was more than 10 times that usually reported for similar massive open-access online courses (MOOCs), which they credit to the human-centered solution of involving dedicated volunteers, called section leaders, who provided tailored instruction to smaller groups. Across both years, the student-to-volunteer ratio was 10:1.

Chris Piech, Assistant Professor of Computer Science and, by courtesy, of Education

Julie Zelenski, Senior Lecturer in Computer Science

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“Our course had around 90 hours of content across five weeks— that is a lot of work at a fast pace,” says Piech. “It just felt like a beautiful vision for how online learning could be truly human.

We imagined who gets to play the role of teacher. And it worked.”

Code in Place students came from 144 countries.

They were full-time mechanics, mothers of newborns, product managers, 35-year-old university students.

Some were bored and stuck at home, and all were looking toward better days ahead. Patrisha Sutton from Italy described it as “the most enjoyable, mentally stimulating and rewarding experience I have ever encountered.” Ebere Edem from Nigeria expressed it was “actually one of the best things that happened to me this season.”

Photo: Melissa P.

Sources: The Stanford Daily 2021 story and 2020 story; Stanford News; SIGCSE ’21 journal article; Scientific American; Code in Place website

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EDUCATING TOMORROW’S LEADERS We are committed to welcoming the best and brightest students from all backgrounds.

Creating Change in STEM Fields “As an incoming first-year student, I participated in the Stanford Summer Engineering Academy, which is designed to support students who have been systemically marginalized in engineering.

Photo: Courtesy of Bryce Johnson

When Stanford engineers reflect a broad variety of lived experiences, they can find better solutions to the world’s most pressing problems.

“That program gave me the chance to see the rigor here, to really be challenged, and to find mentors who guided me.

“For myself and a lot of minority students here at Stanford, we’re the few in every field we enter. Going into a lot of my STEM classes, I’m the only student of color. It can be daunting and disheartening to be in a space where you don’t see others who look like you, but I also see this as an opportunity to create change. Stanford has put in a lot of work in addressing my experiences and cultivating a more inclusive environment, and I am excited to see us continue to do so in the future.”

Source: Engineering Spotlight

Bryce Johnson, ’21, Computer Science

“I’d be lying if I said that excitement was the main reason I chose engineering. I chose it because, as a first-generation college student, I knew an engineer could get a good job. Coming from a family that always talked about budgets, the financial perspective initially played a bigger role than my personal passions in choosing a major. Yet soon I realized that science could fulfill my need for a creative outlet.

“When I arrived here in 2006, I was the first tenure-track woman in the materials science department. Because I’d had to navigate so much that was unfamiliar and intimidating as a first-generation college student, I felt that I could and should help younger students find their way and not be held back by imposter syndrome. I’ve participated for years now in SURF, the Stanford Undergraduate Research Fellowship, which offers a fully paid summer research fellowship to a select group of college students from around the country.

Sarah Heilshorn (left), Director, Geballe Laboratory for Advanced Materials (GLAM); Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and, by courtesy, of Bioengineering and of Chemical Engineering

“Stanford is not as diverse as it should be. A lot of our students come from groups that have been underserved and undervalued within the STEM community. Some won’t even apply here because they think of us as a place that wouldn’t welcome them. But I believe these students make Stanford a better place.

To be a good scientific leader, you have to create an equitable and inclusive work environment. I want to prepare my research team to do that in the best way possible.”

Photo: Jingjing Chang

Mentoring the Next Generation

Photo: Jingjing Chang

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Source: Engineering Spotlight

Engineering as Meritocracy Mechanical Engineering Professor Juan Santiago knows the moment, as a high school senior, when he got serious about grades.

Photo: Rod Searcey

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“I remember helping my father dig a sewer line when we were adding a second bathroom to our little house.

‘Do you like digging this ditch?’ he asked. ‘If you don’t, you need to go to college, or you will do this type of work the rest of your life.’”

His father spoke from hard-won personal experience.

Santiago’s parents had fled Cuba in 1961 with the clothes on their backs, as airport guards robbed them of their possessions as a sendoff. Miami welcomed the young couple with apartment-for-rent listings posted alongside signs saying: “No Dogs, No Cubans.”

Santiago listened to his father’s advice.

“My undergraduate college years were the hardest for me, a continuous panic,” says Santiago, whose dad died during this time in his life. “Academically I had a lot of catching up to do and I also didn’t know if I’d have enough money for rent and tuition.”

His research spans developing technologies for DNA and RNA detection—including a rapid test for the virus that causes COVID-19—to water filtration.

When mentoring students, some of whom, like him, are first-generation, he stresses that STEM is a meritocracy.

Juan Santiago, Charles Lee Powell Foundation Professor in the School of Engineering, Member of Bio-X, and Faculty Fellow, Stanford ChEM-H

“For me, engineering was a haven.

STEM fields, in my opinion, offer a more objective playing field where your background or accent or connections or heritage are not important. I tell students that respect and pride are things you earn and meaning in life is something you create.”

Photo: Andrew Brodhead Source: Engineering Spotlight

Source: Engineering Spotlight

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SOLVING FOR SUSTAINABILITY

Cleaner Water, Equal Education “Ethiopia, my country, is endowed with precious gifts of nature: fertile soil, a favorable climate, and abundant water. But despite all our advantages, we have so many people without access to safe water— even in urban areas, it’s common to see brown water pouring out of the tap.

“I came to Stanford Engineering for my master’s degree in environmental engineering so I can eventually establish my own environmental consulting firm. Until then, I want to work at the intersection of water and public health for organizations that are working to provide a safe and sustainable water supply for Ethiopia.

Photo: Courtesy of Mahilet Adem

Stanford engineers are finding ways to ensure clean water and food security for all while also protecting the planet.

Mahilet Adem, ’23, Civil and Environmental Engineering

“It’s my aspiration to see my country provide clean water so children will no longer die from waterborne diseases and all girls—who are often tasked with finding water for their families—can attend school without obstacles.”

Source: Engineering Spotlight

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Oceans of Drinking Water Desalination, the process of turning saltwater into freshwater, is in use in many arid coastal regions. Yet the technology is expensive, it’s energy intensive, and it produces up to 1.5 gallons of a salty, chemical-laden brine for every 1 gallon of drinking water. Without proper disposal, this brine is associated with fish kills in the ocean and other environmental issues.

“Desalination could be a powerful tool to mitigate water scarcity around the world,” says Tarpeh. “By reimagining brine as a resource, we aim to incentivize its collection and treatment before discharge.”

They are focusing on three chemicals: sodium hydroxide, better known as lye, used in soap making, as well as in paper, aluminum, and detergent manufacturing; hydrogen, a key component in emerging energy-storage technologies; and hydrochloric acid, used in batteries, food processing, and leather making.

Photo: Rod Searcey William Tarpeh, Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering and, by courtesy, of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Center Fellow, by courtesy, at the Woods Institute for the Environment

Photo: Courtesy of Linchao Mu

Assistant Professor William Tarpeh and Linchao Mu, a postdoctoral researcher in his lab, are exploring ways to transmute that harmful brine into useful chemicals that can be reused in industrial processes—turning trash into treasure, so to speak.

Currently, the chemicals are too diluted to be immediately useful commercially, but the researchers hope to continue developing their electrochemical water-salt splitting approach to get closer to that goal.

Linchao Mu, Postdoctoral Fellow

Desalination plants around the world produce about 27 billion gallons of drinking water each day.

Source: Stanford Engineering Magazine

Photo: Pixabay/Jarmoluk

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Planting Ahead When humans manufacture ammonia, the integral component of nitrogen fertilizer, it requires temperatures of 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit at extremely high pressure—and all the energy and climate burdens that go with it.

Nature does it better. In a process called nitrogenfixation, certain microbes that colonize the roots of plants have the capability to convert atmospheric nitrogen gas into ammonia.

“We think plants are among the world’s best chemists.

But while they are great at capturing CO2, that’s not all they need to create the biomass humans rely on for food and energy. Nitrogen is a critical ingredient, and is supplied in nature by soil microbes living near plant roots. The challenge is that nitrogen-fixing bacteria can’t keep up with the current pace of agriculture,” says Associate Professor Elizabeth Sattely.

Since the first breakthroughs in genetic engineering in the early 1970s, scientists have dreamed of turning these microbes into a free workforce, producing ammonia in abundance and sharing it with plants.

Yet the science has hit dead-ends despite decades of effort—until now, perhaps.

Sattely, together with Tim Schnabel, a graduate student researcher in her lab, were able to modify a strain of nitrogen-fixing bacteria called Azospirillum brasilense.

By creating what amounts to a genetic on-off switch, the researchers could force the bacteria to share its ammonia. The modified bacteria, when cultivated alongside plants, generated measurable increases in plant health and growth.

Photo: Courtesy of Elizabeth Sattely

Nitrogen is a primary ingredient in commercial fertilizer.

Photo: Stanford Engineering Magazine

Elizabeth Sattely, Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering, Member, Bio-X, and Faculty Fellow, Stanford ChEM-H Tim Schnabel, ’15, MS ’17, PhD ’21, Bioengineering

“Instead of working against nature with synthetic chemicals, we’re working with nature to solve one of the grand challenges in sustainably producing enough food for the world,” says Schnabel.

Sources: Stanford Engineering Magazine and Future of Everything Podcast

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RESPONDING TO CHANGE

Farming has long been at the mercy of natural disasters, illness, and geopolitical turmoil.

“The drug shortages we’re seeing around the COVID-19 crisis drive home why we need new and more reliable ways to source these plant-based medicines,” says Christina Smolke, adjunct professor of bioengineering.

Her team has spent three years making a total of 34 genetic modifications to the DNA of yeast in order to turn the cells into factory floors for medicine, an approach called metabolic engineering.

Doctoral student Prashanth Srinivasan carried out the reprogramming of the yeast. With an engineer’s mindset, he looked at each of the yeast organelles as workstations on an assembly line. He imagined the nucleus as the factory control center, regulating the step-by-step chemical process.

The researchers focused on producing a class of chemicals called tropane alkaloids, medicinal compounds found in two plant families—coca, the origin of cocaine, and nightshades, which include henbane and tobacco as well as the more mundane tomatoes and peppers. Today doctors prescribe a variety of drugs containing tropane alkaloids, such as scopolamine, used for relieving motion sickness or postoperative nausea.

Source: Stanford Engineering Magazine

Christina Smolke, Adjunct Professor of Bioengineering, Member of Bio-X, and Member of Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute

Photo: Courtesy of Prashanth Srinivasan

Turning Yeast Cells into Drug Factories

Photo: Courtesy of Christina Smolke

Stanford engineers anticipate the future, applying their knowledge to develop new methods for manufacturing medicines, creating semiconductors, and forecasting misinformation, among other advances.

Prashanth Srinivasan, MS ’18, PhD ’21, Bioengineering

By borrowing methods from botanicals, without being tied to their supply chains, researchers hope to find a stabler alternative to producing the plant-derived medicines needed for modern times.

Searching for the Next Semiconductor Silicon has been essential to Silicon Valley for 50 years. Yet as silicon chips have been integrated into technology from cell phones to cars, and game consoles to computers, global shortages are becoming common. At the same time, silicon has begun to reveal its technical limitations. New semiconductors are either complementing or pushing the limits of silicon with new functionalities and possibilities.

Srabanti Chowdhury is among the engineers hunting for the next wave of semiconductor materials. Her lab is exploring wide-bandgap semiconductors, where two particular materials look extremely promising: gallium nitride and diamonds.

“The diamonds that we are talking about are very cheap, called artificial diamonds,” says the associate professor of electrical engineering. Rather than mining for these precious stones underground, laboratories can now extract carbon from methane gas, and convert it into the famous gems, which can then be used for electronics.

Diamonds are not natural semiconductors, but when they are “doped”—altered slightly to contain another material—they can work well in this capacity. A micron of these special diamonds can carry 1,000 to 2,000 volts (compared to a micron of silicon only carrying 30 volts).

Both diamonds and gallium nitride are less “lossy,” meaning less of the electrical current is lost as heat as it is switched on and off. This is critical for every application, from smart grids to automotives to biomedical devices, such as pacemakers or even brain implants, where a temperature change of 1 degree Fahrenheit is meaningful to the human body.

Photo: Stocksy/Javier Pardina

Photo: Courtesy of Srabanti Chowdhury

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Srabanti Chowdhury, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Senior Fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy

“The discussion has just begun,” says Chowdhury, yet she is hopeful for what the future holds. “The problems we are dealing with from climate change to improving the life expectancy of human beings, all of this can be done with better connection to electronics, and that requires more efficient semiconductors like those we are building in our lab.”

Source: Future of Everything Podcast

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How Fake News Spreads Like a Real Virus

After comparing several analytical models, the duo found the closest fit was analyzing fake news as if it were a strain of Ebola. They discovered the term “going viral” isn’t just a metaphor. As with real viruses, people must come into contact with disinformation in order to be infected. And repeat exposure wears down resistance, increasing the risk of believing fake news, particularly for those who spend 10 hours or more online daily.

Strategies such as “pre-bunking,” warning citizens when fake news stories are likely to appear, could prove useful. Social media platforms could become Photo: Sarah Rieke

Photo: Courtesy of Terry Trammell

“We were trying to flatten the fake news curve before that term was as well known as it is today,” says Lieutenant Colonel Travis Trammell, PhD ’20, who conducted the research with his thesis advisor, Professor Elisabeth Paté-Cornell. Her specialty is in engineering risk analysis for complex systems.

Photo: Courtesy of Elisabeth Paté-Cornell

Long before the pandemic arrived, cyber-risk researchers at Stanford Engineering were studying fake news as if it were an infectious disease and searching for strategies to curb its spread.

Elisabeth Paté-Cornell, Burton J. and DeeDee McMurtry Professor in the School of Engineering

Lieutenant Colonel Travis Trammell, PhD ’20, Management Science and Engineering

much quicker at spotting suspect content. They could then attach warnings—a form of inoculation—or they could quarantine more of it.

“We want to find the most effective ways to cut the transmission chains, correct the information if possible, and educate the most vulnerable targets,” says Paté-Cornell.

“It’s an issue of how we can best manage our resources in order to minimize the risk,” she says.

“How much are you willing to spend, and what level of risk are we willing to accept?”

Sources: Stanford Engineering Magazine and Future Hindsight podcast

Data science and computation have been well established in engineering and medicine for many years, and Stanford Engineering firmly believes that these research methods will have an increasingly powerful impact on many other disciplines, including the humanities. To be a leader at the forefront of this trend, we need to leverage Stanford’s rich history of interdisciplinary collaboration to foster an ecosystem where cutting-edge research can incubate and thrive.

The Stanford Data Science and Computation Complex is that ecosystem.

The Complex will be home to a range of people and programs working to transform the way we apply data science and computation. In particular, it will enable Stanford Data Science to advance its mission to weave data science into the very fabric of Stanford research and education. Faculty from Computer Science and Statistics will be able to readily collaborate with institute researchers, with flexible project spaces supporting nimble work. Such cross-fertilization not only yields great research, but also helps us retain the talented faculty whose work requires innovative resources.

In addition to serving as the nexus of data science and computation on campus, the Complex will also bring together the undergraduate Computer Science, Mathematical and Computational Sciences, and

Photo: Stanford University Land, Buildings, and Real Estate

Transforming Interdisciplinary Discovery

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Garden Courtyard

Symbolic Systems programs, creating a vibrant crossroads of study, teaching, and collaboration. The Complex will also house the new Stanford Impact Labs, conceived to reshape how research is conducted in the social sciences so that it can powerfully influence policy and enable positive change. The Labs will be a destination for scholars to gather, share ideas, and access the advanced resources they need to solve the most complex societal challenges.

The Data Science and Computation Complex is part of a future that will see our faculty, researchers, and students making even greater worldchanging contributions to data science, computation, and policy.

Photo: Stanford University Land, Buildings, and Real Estate

Aerial view of the complex

YOUR SUPPORT CREATES POSSIBILITY Thank you for driving forward positive change.

3,603

graduate students enrolled

63%

increase in female graduate students over the last 10 years

47%

increase in incoming underrepresented minority graduate students over 10 years

723

graduate students receiving fellowship support

104

countries represented by SoE students

68%

of all coterm students on campus received their degree from SoE

In a 1902 speech, Jane Stanford shared her vision for the university: “The moving spirit of the founders ... was love of humanity and a desire to render the greatest possible service to mankind.”

Alumni continue this legacy of giving back today.

“I give back to Stanford because of the support I received to achieve personal success and because I am inspired by Jane Stanford’s vision.

I understand it is my privilege to help the school and my fellow students and professors.”

—Dominic Go, MS ’94, Electrical Engineering

“As an international student, I was super grateful to study at Stanford with the best researchers in the world, with financial support from Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. It helped me tremendously to build my career and later launch two startups in Silicon Valley. I feel a sense of belonging when I give back to this vibrant Stanford Engineering community.”

—Sam Liang, Founder and CEO, Otter.ai, MS ’99, PhD ’03, Electrical Engineering Photo: Rod Searcey

ENGINEERING FOR HUMANITY

Photo: Nancy Rothstein