News & Events

02-17-21

Graduate student Kuan-Chang (Xavier) Chen, working with Azita Emami, Andrew and Peggy Cherng Professor of Electrical Engineering and Medical Engineering; Investigator, Heritage Medical Research Institute; Executive Officer for Electrical Engineering, has received the 2020-2021 IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society (SSCS) Predoctoral Achievement Award. The IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society awards a small number of promising graduate students annually, which are made on the basis of academic record and promise, quality of publications, and a graduate study program well matched to the charter of SSCS. [Recipients]

Tags: EE honors MedE IST Kuan-Chang Chen Azita Emami

02-16-21

Wei Gao, Assistant Professor of Medical Engineering, has been awarded the prestigious Sloan Research Fellowship in Chemistry for 2021. Recipients represent the most promising scientific researchers working today. Their achievements and potential place them among the next generation of scientific leaders. [Past Fellows] [Caltech story]

Tags: APhMS honors MedE KNI Wei Gao

02-09-21

Yu-Chong Tai, Anna L. Rosen Professor of Electrical Engineering and Medical Engineering; Andrew and Peggy Cherng Medical Engineering Leadership Chair; Executive Officer for Medical Engineering, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Professor Tai was elected for "contributions to microelectromechanical system technologies and parylene-based biomedical microdevices." Election to the National Academy of Engineering is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer. Academy membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to "engineering research, practice, or education, including, where appropriate, significant contributions to the engineering literature," and to "the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education." [NAE release] [Caltech story]

Tags: EE honors MedE Yu-Chong Tai MCE

01-14-21

There are things in life that can be predicted reasonably well. The tides rise and fall. A billiard ball bounces around a table according to orderly geometry. And then there are things that defy easy prediction: The hurricane that changes direction without warning. The splashing of water in a fountain. These phenomena and others like them can be described as chaotic systems. Lihong Wang, Bren Professor of Medical Engineering and Electrical Engineering, has developed a new tool that might help to better understand chaotic systems. [Caltech story]

Tags: EE research highlights MedE KNI Lihong Wang

01-04-21

Julia Greer, Ruben F. and Donna Mettler Professor of Materials Science, Mechanics and Medical Engineering; Fletcher Jones Foundation Director of the Kavli Nanoscience Institute, has developed a process for generating three-dimensional architected polymers with heat-dependent "shape memory" properties: that is, when heated, the material folds and unfolds itself into a new preordained shape. These shape memory polymers could one day be used to perform complex tasks inside the human body, such as unclogging a blocked artery or pulling out a blood clot. [Caltech story]

Tags: APhMS research highlights MedE Julia Greer KNI Luizetta Elliott

12-10-20

Lihong Wang, Bren Professor of Medical Engineering and Electrical Engineering, has been named fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). Election as a fellow is the highest professional distinction accorded to academic inventors who have demonstrated a prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development and the welfare of society. The Wang lab has developed photoacoustic imaging that allows researchers to see into biological tissues noninvasively, and to peer deeper into the body by nearly two orders of magnitude compared to conventional optical microscopy. [Caltech story] [List of 2020 Fellows]

Tags: EE honors MedE KNI Lihong Wang

12-10-20

Changhuei Yang, Thomas G. Myers Professor of Electrical Engineering, Bioengineering, and Medical Engineering, has been named fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). Election as a fellow is the highest professional distinction accorded to academic inventors who have demonstrated a prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development and the welfare of society. The Yang lab develops technologies aimed at transforming the conventional microscope so that it can be used for high-throughput, automated applications. He also works on the use of "time-reversal" techniques to undo the effect of tissue light scattering. [Caltech story] [List of 2020 Fellows]

Tags: EE honors Changhuei Yang MedE

12-07-20

Lihong Wang, Bren Professor of Medical Engineering and Electrical Engineering, has received funding for neuroscience projects from the National Institutes of Health's Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative. Wang and his team aim to develop a technology called 3D photoacoustic computed tomography (PACT) that will rapidly image large-scale neural activity in human brains with high sensitivity. "Photoacoustic imaging of adult human brains is one of the most challenging frontiers in our field," says Wang. "It requires innovation to overcome the signal attenuation and wavefront distortion due to the skull. I'm glad that the NIH has the vision to fund this worthy research direction." [Caltech story]

Tags: EE research highlights MedE KNI Lihong Wang

12-01-20

Graduate student Yiran (Isabella) Yang has been named to Forbes magazine's 30 Under 30 for developing wearable sweat sensors to help intervene earlier and monitor progression of heart disease and other health problems. She recently adapted the sensors to detect Covid-19 antibodies in human saliva. The list honors people from 12 fields that range from finance and science to music and entertainment. [Forbes 30 Under 30 Full List]

Tags: honors MedE Isabella Yang

10-19-20

Lihong Wang, Bren Professor of Medical Engineering and Electrical Engineering, has developed technology that can reach blistering speeds of 70 trillion frames per second, fast enough to see light travel. Just like the camera in your cell phone, though, it can only produce flat images. Now, Wang's lab has gone a step further to create a camera that not only records video at incredibly fast speeds but does so in three dimensions. [Caltech story]

Tags: EE research highlights MedE KNI Lihong Wang