Research Review Day at UC Santa Cruz's Baskin School of Engineering will showcase groundbreaking research by the engineering school's faculty and graduate students. The all-day event on Friday, October 12--part of the celebrations marking the 10th anniversary of the founding of the Baskin School of Engineering--also features a keynote address by James Hollenhorst of Agilent Laboratories.
Hollenhorst's talk, "Parallel Revolutions: How Breakthroughs in Electronics and Biology are Converging at the Molecular Scale," will take place at 9:30 a.m. in the Simularium (Room 180) in the Engineering 2 Building on the UCSC campus. Hollenhorst is senior director of intellectual property strategy at Agilent.
The convergence of biotechnology, information technology, and nanotechnology is among the major focus areas for research at the Baskin School of Engineering. Research Review Day offers a broad view of the exciting work being done at UCSC in many different areas to develop technology for a changing world. The program includes selected presentations by faculty and poster displays of graduate student research.
"This is a nontraditional engineering school that is tackling the problems of the 21st century," said Michael Isaacson, acting dean of the Baskin School of Engineering. "Engineering is about solving problems, and the Research Review Day will highlight some of the contributions our researchers are making in areas ranging from computer networks to health sciences and sustainable energy technologies."
The October 12 program is divided into six focus areas that cross departmental boundaries within the engineering school: bio-info-nano technology, cyber-infrastructure, bioengineering, systems design, mathematical and statistical modeling, and software and service engineering.
Among the faculty who will present their research are Michael Mateas, assistant professor of computer science, who will discuss advances in artificial intelligence and its potential to transform the computer game industry; Raquel Prado, associate professor of applied mathematics and statistics, who will describe her work applying Bayesian models to problems in the health sciences; Joshua Stuart, assistant professor of biomolecular engineering, who will discuss the use of new technologies for studying the responses of genetic networks in living cells; and Ali Shakouri, professor of electrical engineering, who will describe research on thermoelectric power generation for waste-heat recovery.
Hollenhorst, in his keynote address, will discuss how the techniques of electronics are now being married with those of chemistry and biology to enable the engineering and measurement of structures at the molecular scale. Fundamental to these advances is the emergence of new measurement technologies, and Hollenhorst will describe new methods enabled by applying the techniques of electronics to the problems of life scientists.
Hollenhorst's talk, which begins at 9:30 a.m., will be followed by faculty presentations from 10:30 a.m. to 2:45 p.m. (with a break for lunch at 12:30 p.m.). A reception featuring graduate student research posters will take place from 3:30 to 5 p.m.
Research Review Day should be of interest to technology industry leaders, project managers, and engineers who want to connect with UCSC engineering faculty, students, and industry partners. Registration and additional information, including a detailed program, are available online.
