Media Watch Archives
"Empower Them To Succeed." A Female Alumnus Looks to Close the Engineering Gender Gap
Inside Philanthropy -
She [Stacy Nicholas] is the founder of the Irvine-based Opus Foundation, which supports STEM education outreach and the arts. This is her second major gift to a University of California campus, following a 2014 gift to UC Irvine’s Henry Samueli School of Engineering to fund scholarships and graduate fellowships, support outreach programs, and endow its deanship.
OC Insider
Orange County Business Journal -
Readers fascinated with the super-small semiconductors made by the Irvine tech firms featured in this week’s issue would do well to look at the work of H. Kumar Wickramasinghe, UCI Distinguished Professor and holder of the Nicolaos G. & Sue Curtis Alexopoulos Presidential Chair for Electrical Engineering & Computer Science. [Subscription required, you can request an electronic copy of the article by sending an email to communications@uci.edu.]
Why it's so hard to give up ridesharing
CNN -
Ride-hailing is not only for the young. An analysis of data from the 2017 National Household Travel Survey found that highly educated, affluent seniors in urban areas were among those who were more likely to be adopters of ride-hailing services. Often, these adults must give up their licenses, especially if they have a medical condition, said Suman Kumar Mitra, an assistant project scientist at the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Irvine. … Safety is a concern for this population, too, he said. But he surmises that the benefits of the services outweigh the safety concerns. "It gives them the freedom to go anywhere any place at any time," he said.
New “Metallic Wood” Could Lead to Super-Light Cars
Futurism -
Timothy J. Rupert, an associate professor of materials science and engineering at University of California, Irvine, who wasn’t involved in the research, also sees potential uses for the metallic wood in transportation. “One could imagine making a car with the same safety standards used today but a much, much lighter weight,” Rupert told The Philadelphia Inquirer. “This would have huge implications for energy efficiency.”
UCI Engineers Aim to Pioneer Tissue-engineering Approach to TMJ Disorders
Sleep Review -
“The TMJ is central to chewing, talking, and so many other daily activities, so when this crucial joint is impaired, there are significant negative effects on quality of life,” says Kyriacos A. Athanasiou, distinguished professor of biomedical engineering at the University of California, Irvine, in a release. “The problem may start with slight pain and clicking and get progressively worse to the point where it’s not just impacting the jaw but the entire body.”
UCI Now Developing Bioengineered TMJ Implants
Dentistry Today -
Noting that synthetic materials and other approaches have proved ineffective, researchers at the University of California Irvine (UCI) are developing biological temporomandibular joint (TMJ) discs that will be suitable for implantation in human beings. “The TMJ is central to chewing, talking, and so many other daily activities. So when this crucial joint is impaired, there are significant negative effects on quality of life,” said Kyriacos A. Athanasiou, PhD, PhM, MS, distinguished professor of biomedical engineering.
The waters are rising, the floods are coming. What are we doing to save ourselves?
USA Today -
At the University of California, Irvine, environmental engineering professor Brett Sanders and his team are building computer models that show both historic flooding and areas at risk because of climate change, to give residents access to as much information as is available. He hopes to make the program more widely available as they get more funding.
Researchers Predict Machine Sounds Could Potentially Pose a Threat to Biosecurity
Engineering.com -
Researchers from the University of California, Irvine and University of California, Riverside recently presented a paper at the Network and Distributed System Security Symposium highlighting the potential threat of the sounds emitted by lab instruments and machines. To address rising biosecurity concerns, the group devised a machine-learning algorithm that can successfully reconstruct what a lab instrument was used for through sound recordings.
A new world for hackers: Acoustic side-channel attack
Homeland Security News Wire -
Researchers from the University of California, Irvine and the University of California, Riverside have uncovered the possibility of an acoustic side-channel attack on the DNA synthesis process, a vulnerability that could present a serious risk to biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. … “A few years ago, we published a study on a similar method for stealing blueprints of objects being fabricated in 3-D printers, but this attack on DNA synthesizers is potentially much more serious,” said Mohammad Al Faruque, UC Irvine associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science.
Machines Whisper Our Secrets
STRN -
Brisk and UC Irvine electrical and computer engineering professor Mohammad Abdullah Al Faruqueand his doctoral student Sina Faezi; along with John C. Chaput, a professor of pharmaceutical sciences at UC Irvine; and William Grover, a bioengineering professor at UC Riverside, set microphones similar to those in a smartphone in several spots near a DNA synthesizer in Chaput’s lab.