Iryna Zenyuk, Ph.D., is a researcher, associate professor of [chemical] and biomolecular engineering, and associate director of the University of California, Irvine National Fuel Cell Research Center. … Dr. Zenyuk also sees a major shift toward fuel cells for trucks. “For long-haul truck drivers and their employers, time and every pound of payload is money,” she said. “Heavy-duty trucks are virtually impossible to decarbonize with batteries.
The Hazel Crow Opportunity Fund supports expenses for WICS members to participate in conferences that focus on computer sciences, such as the annual Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. Nationwide, women earned only 18 percent of the bachelor's degrees awarded in computer science in 2010, according to the National Science Foundation. That's less than half the proportion in 1985, when 37 percent of those degrees went to women.
“Fire has made us civilized, but we still don’t understand it fully,” said Tirtha Banerjee, [UCI engineering assistant professor] …. “Scientists have been “just completely caught off guard about how fast things are changing,” said James T. Randerson, [UCI Chancellor’s Professor, Earth system science]. … Banerjee and his team of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers flew their drone repeatedly over the area, mapping it …..
To reduce reliance on fossil fuels in industries where electricity is impractical, unreliable or too expensive, California is building a massive “hydrogen hub” to generate a steady supply of an alternative fuel with no carbon emissions — bringing us closer, say advocates, to a completely green future. “It’s the beginning of the investment that must be made if we are to meet our zero-emission policy goals,” said UC Irvine engineering professor Jack Brouwer, director of the university’s Clean Energy Institute and an interim director for business development on the hub’s leadership team.
However, there’s no guarantee that an engineered cell will load the desired cargo into its vesicles. “The cells decide what to encapsulate,” says Young Kwon, a biomedical and materials scientist at the University of California, Irvine. Nguyen’s team is studying how cells make those decisions, to find ways to ramp up exosome loading with artificial cargo. Researchers have identified strands of code common in natural exosomal RNAs that probably play a part in packaging the molecules.
A disappearing California beach is partly behind the weekslong closure of one of Amtrak's busiest routes in the latest example of how changing weather patterns and eroding shorelines pose a threat to the state's coastal rail corridor. … “That stretch of the coast has really lost a significant amount of sand over the last decade or two,” said Brett Sanders, professor of civil and environmental engineering at University of California, Irvine.
One promising solution is hydrogen storage, and the University of California, Irvine just launched the first such project in the United States, paving the way for other universities or municipalities to do the same.
Deadline: N/A
Over the past decade, most California counties have seen double the area burned compared with the area burned in the previous decade. … It’s not necessarily the case that more large fires are burning now than in previous decades, but the ones that do ignite are charring through much more land, according to Tirtha Banerjee, a professor and wildfire researcher at the University of California, Irvine. “What that says to me is that fires are getting more intense and more severe, and behaving in more unexpected ways,” he said.
But even before that, [Microsoft] has been exploring ways to use fuel cells, beginning to explore the technology in 2013 with the National Fuel Cell Research Center at the University of California, Irvine, where they tested the idea of powering racks of servers with solid oxide fuel cells, or SOFCs, which are fueled by natural gas. Read More
In a state severely hobbled by drought and wildfires, flood concerns may not seem top-of-mind. But a new study out of UC Irvine found that Los Angeles County's aging flood systems may not be ready for a major flood. "Right now, our research suggests that our infrastructure and the way we've built it out is much more vulnerable to this type of event than I think anyone would have guessed," said Brett Sanders, a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UCI and one of the authors of the paper.
Jacob [Jack] Brouwer was one of those early adopters of hydrogen. … But these days, he drives a Tesla. It doesn’t reflect well on hydrogen when the director of UC Irvine’s Clean Energy Institute has decided that a car made by Elon Musk is preferable to one that runs on fuel cells. He blames California’s energy regulators for fumbling the rollout, failing to get to the promised 200 stations and leaving the project incomplete. … “Electricity goes to every business,” Brouwer said. “Electricity is available everywhere, but hydrogen isn’t.” He thinks it can get there.
UCI’s engineering school was renamed The Henry Samueli School of Engineering on Oct. 19, 2000, after Samueli, co-founder, chairman and chief technical officer of Broadcom Corp., made a generous donation in December 1999.
Samueli, who earned bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering from UCLA, began his career at TRW, Inc., where he was responsible for the development of military broadband communications systems. Later, he was chief scientist and co-founder of PairGain Technologies, Inc. a telecommunications equipment manufacturer.
University of California, Irvine's environmental engineers have developed a new framework for characterizing snow droughts around the world. "Snow is an important global water resource that plays a vital role in natural processes, agriculture, hydropower and basic socioeconomic conditions of various regions," said lead author Laurie Huning.
UC Irvine researcher Jack Brouwer, a professor of mechanical engineering, said SB 100 didn’t go far enough. Under a bill focused on decarbonizing the electric grid, homes could move more toward electrifying appliances which could be a lifestyle shift for some Californians, Brouwer said.
“Chiton grow new teeth every few days that are superior to materials used in industrial cutting tools, grinding media, dental implants, surgical implants and protective coatings, yet they are made at room temperature and with nanoscale precision," says David Kisailus, UC Irvine professor of materials and engineering, and the head of the school's
William A. Sirignano and G. Scott Samuelsen
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
University of California, Irvine
Irvine, CA 92697-3975
A team of researchers at the University of California, Irvine has found that negative pressure rooms, which are used in hospitals and laboratories to prevent the spread of deadly pathogens, can be compromised by an attacker using a smartphone. … “Someone could play a piece of music loaded on their smartphone or get it to transmit from a television or other audio device in or near a negative pressure room,” said senior co-author Mohammad Al Faruque, UCI professor of electrical engineering and computer science.
| Recipient | Department | Research Project Title | Faculty Advisor |
| Amiri, Mahsa | MMT | TBD | Lorenzo Valdevit |
| Bai, Xuesong | EECS |
