Engineering

The American Institute of Physics has awarded its 2002 Andrew Gemant Award for communicating physics to Michael Riordan, adjunct professor of physics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Riordan is being honored for his teaching and writing, which explain physics concepts and history so that they are accessible to a wide audience. A citation…

The dedication of the Center for Adaptive Optics at UC Santa Cruz, with NSF Director Rita Colwell, has been postponed until June The dedication of the Center for Adaptive Optics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has been postponed until June to accommodate a change in the schedule of featured guest Rita Colwell, director…

EMBARGOED: Not for release until 11 a.m. Paris Time (5 a.m. U.S. Eastern Time) Friday, April 19, to coincide with Joel Primack’s talk at a UNESCO conference. The Bush administration’s plan to develop space-based missile defense systems has generated heated debate, but most commentators have overlooked an important and potentially destructive consequence of placing weapons…

Harold Widom, professor emeritus of mathematics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, will share the prestigious George Pólya Prize with UC Davis professor of mathematics Craig Tracy. The two mathematicians are being honored for their recent breakthroughs in the field of mathematical analysis. “Harold Widom has long been, and remains, one of the brightest…

Albert E. Whitford, an acclaimed astronomer, former director of the University of California’s Lick Observatory, and a professor emeritus of astronomy and astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz, died on Thursday, March 28. He was 96. Whitford died at Meriter Health Center in Madison, Wisconsin, after a short illness. “He was a very important figure in…

Rita Colwell, director of the National Science Foundation (NSF), will visit the University of California, Santa Cruz, in April for the dedication of the NSF-funded Center for Adaptive Optics. During her visit, Colwell will also meet with UCSC faculty and students, tour the campus, and give a speech on “Research Trends and Opportunities at NSF.”…

The National Research Council of Canada (NRC) has awarded the 2001 Herzberg Memorial Prize and Fellowship to Puragra GuhaThakurta, associate professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. The honor recognizes GuhaThakurta’s outstanding work in observational astrophysics. The award consists of a prize and a one-year fellowship. GuhaThakurta will spend his…

The most advanced optical spectrograph in the world begins a two-week journey today from the University of California, Santa Cruz, where it was built, to the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii, where it will be installed at the W. M. Keck Observatory, home of the world’s largest optical and infrared telescopes. The $10 million…

Luca de Alfaro, an assistant professor of computer engineering at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has received a prestigious award from the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program. De Alfaro will use the grant of $430,000 over five years to develop new methods and tools for designing embedded software. Embedded software…

Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, have installed a new supercomputer that ranks among the 100 fastest computers in the world. The computer will be used for research in planetary physics and astrophysics by scientists in the Departments of Earth Sciences, Physics, and Astronomy and Astrophysics. Research in these fields often involves computer…

Of all the extrasolar planetary systems detected by astronomers in recent years, the star 47 Ursae Majoris and its known companions, two Jupiter-sized planets, is the one that most closely resembles our own solar system. Computer simulations now show, however, that Earth-sized planets are unlikely to form in the so-called “habitable zone” of 47 Ursae…