SAMUELI SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING • UC IRVINE
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HOT TOPIC Antibacterial nanopillars, found on cicada and dragonfly wings to impale and kill bacterial cells, are replicated by materials scientist Albert Yee and his research team on synthetic polymers that could be used in artificial corneas and other medical devices. Yee’s graduate students – Rachel Rosenzweig, Elena Liang, Mary
Nora Dickson and Emma Mah – enter the research in the MIT Convergence Idea Challenge, beating out 22 other teams to win the first-place prize of $3,000, along with the $1,000 Community Choice Award. Biomedical engineering doctoral alumna Claire Robertson is one of five national
recipients of the 2015 For Women in Science Fellowship from L’oreal USA. Robertson, a postdoctoral scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, seeks to better understand how the normal environment in the breast acts to suppress tumor formation through biophysical mechanisms. Mechanical and aerospace engineering Distinguished Professor Said Elghobashi,
a National Academy of Engineering member, receives the Senior Award at the
9th International Conference on Multiphase Flows. Elghobashi has made
pioneering contributions to computational fluid dynamics over the course of his more than four-decade career. Biomedical engineering Associate Professor Arash Kheradvar receives a two-
year $150,000 Innovative Research Grant from the American Heart Association for his ultrasound-guided delivery system for transcatheter heart valve replacement. Electrical engineer Mohammad Al Faruque and graduate student Korosh Vatanparvar receive Best Paper honors at the IEEE/ACM Design Automation and Test in Europe conference. Al Faruque is among a select group of researchers who have received best paper awards at the top three CAD conferences worldwide: DATE (2016), Design Automation Conference (DAC 2015) and International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD 2009).
Tiny devices deliver big returns on keeping electronic devices cool Mechanical engineer Yoonjin Won is looking for new ways to dissipate heat in power-hungry computers and other electronic devices. “If there’s power, there’s heat, which causes a performance problem in high-tech devices,” she says. Air cooling – the equivalent of internal fans – is the current choice for cooling technology in computer components, but Won is thinking small – very, very small. She is looking at nanomaterial-embedded microfluidics carrying liquids to do the job instead. Microfluidic devices, tiny machines that transport fluids through submillimeter-sized tubes, can circulate cooling liquid around the electronics’ microchips. The tiny devices, however, would have nanomaterials built into their miniscule water channels, changing their properties and allowing for precise regulation of water absorption, repellence, boiling, condensation and evaporation. Specifically, Won is investigating a surface coating made of porous copper nanomaterial applied in layers, which can be arranged to control the material’s ability to absorb or repel water, and enabling fluid to be more efficiently cycled throughout the system to remove heat. “Recent research has shown that the basic physics of heat transfer is altered using nanoscale features, with potentially huge advances in efficiency,” she says. “By engineering nanomaterials into microfluidic devices, we can have a high level of control over thermal transport parameters.”
Assistant Professor Yoonjin Won and her team are combining microfluidics and recent advances in nanomaterials engineering to improve the cooling of high-powered electronic devices, furthering work done for the U.S. Department of Defense and
National Science Foundation.
Postdoctoral scholar Rishi Jajoo is awarded a three-year Jane Coffin Childs
Memorial Fund for Medical Research postdoctoral fellowship. The funds will help him in his work re-engineering the mitochondrial genetic code to produce new proteins with functions not found in nature, which could be used as novel therapeutics, or for fuels or biomaterials.
SAMUELI SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING • UC IRVINE
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