The beetle study is part of an $8 million project funded by the U.S. Air Force to explore how the biology of creatures such as mantis shrimp and bighorn sheep could help develop impact-resistant materials. “We’re trying to go beyond what nature has done,” said study co-author David Kisailus, a materials scientist and engineer at the University of California, Irvine. Read More
Chang Liu was hired as an assistant professor in BME in January by the Center for Complex Biological Systems. Professor Liu received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry with highest honors, summa cum laude at Harvard University, and his doctorate in chemistry at the Scripps Research Institute. He was most recently a Miller Fellow at the Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science at UC Berkeley.
UC Irvine Professor Brett Sanders, a coastal engineering expert, said … “We built dams all across the California coast. And the strategy behind the dams, in most areas, was either to provide flood control for downstream communities, in some cases to provide water supply,” Sanders said. “But the dams have now blocked the natural supply of sediment that the coastline needs to be healthy. And now we’re seeing accelerated rates of beach erosion.” [Starts 4:00]min Listen More
“We’re looking at probably some sort of automated technology-based contact tracing, I think, if we want to be realistic,” says Tyler Yasaka, a software engineer and junior specialist in otolaryngology at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine. He and his colleagues are among many teams of researchers around the world who have developed mobile apps to track the spread of COVID-19. Read More
Kristen Davis, UCI associate professor civil & environmental engineering and principal investigator, Coastal Dynamics Lab said, “The spill has a local effect, while that is a visible effect that we will be dealing with it for years, as far as wildlife and the cleanup, I also think it is important to realize that the effect of fossil fuels is much broader than the spill that we are seeing here today. And that we have a big challenge ahead of us as we go into the COP26 international climate talks in Glasgow next month.
CaliforniaEnergy and the Environment
6th Annual Industry Research Symposium
May 15-16, 2007
Internationally acknowledged faculty and academic visionaries from UC Irvine and other universities, together with key industry leaders, legislators, and national and state agency heads, will explore California's leadership in addressing the global connectivity and conflict between the quality of the environment and the energy demand for electricity and transportation.
The state’s years-long drought may have also had a psychological effect on residents, who lately have been praying for rain, said Amir AghaKouchak, a civil and environmental engineering professor at University of California, Irvine. “Fire, when you see it, you immediately feel the danger,” he said. “But rain is different, especially in California, where we consider it a good thing.” Floods, then, can blindside people, he said. And it doesn’t take much water — sometimes just a quarter of an inch in a matter of minutes — to transform a benign hill into a mudslide, AghaKouchak said.
