News & Events

06-13-23

At the 2023 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), three teams featuring Aaron Ames [Bren Professor of Mechanical and Civil Engineering and Control and Dynamical Systems] and a Caltech EAS student/postdoc received a best paper award.

MCE postdoc Jeeseop Kim received the ICRA 2023 Outstanding Paper Award (best overall paper at the conference) for co-authoring "Distributed Data-Driven Predictive Control for Multi-Agent Collaborative Legged Locomotion." CDS graduate student Noel Csomay-Shanklin and CMS graduate student Victor Dorobantu received the Outstanding Dynamics and Control Paper for "Nonlinear Model Predictive Control of a 3D Hopping Robot: Leveraging Lie Group Integrators for Dynamically Stable Behaviors." CDS graduate student Wyatt Ubellacker received the Outstanding Student Paper Award for "Robust Locomotion on Legged Robots through Planning on Motion Primitive Graphs." 

Tags: honors MCE CMS Aaron Ames CDS Noel Csomay-Shanklin Wyatt Ubellacker Jeeseop Kim Victor Dorobantu

05-31-23

The Henry Ford II Scholar Award is given annually to engineering students with the best academic record at the end of the third year of undergraduate study. This year’s winners are mechanical engineering students Kyle Lethander and Rithvik Musuku, and computer science students Kyle McCandless and Patrick Rim.

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Tags: honors MCE CMS Henry Ford II Scholar Award Adam Blank Rithvik Musuku Kyle Lethander Kyle McCandless Patrick Rim

03-22-23

EAS faculty from multiple departments are on project teams that have received an award from the U.S. Department of Defense’s Multidisciplinary University Initiative (MURI) Program. 

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Tags: APhMS honors GALCIT MCE CMS ESE Tapio Schneider Tim Colonius Kaushik Bhattacharya Andrew Stuart Aaron Ames Animashree Anandkumar H. Jane Bae

11-15-22

Caltech’s BIG Idea Challenge Team is presenting its final concept at the NASA Big Idea Challenge Forum at 11:25 PDT on November 15, 2022. [Tune in!]

Tags: GALCIT MCE CMS Soon-Jo Chung

06-23-22

Michael Gonzalez, advised by Joel Burdick, Richard L. and Dorothy M. Hayman Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Bioengineering; Jet Propulsion Laboratory Research Scientist, is one of four recipients of the 2022 Henry Ford II Scholar Award. Michael is interested in the crossover between Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science, focusing specifically on the widespread applications of robotics. This summer, Michael will be working as a SURF fellow under Professor Soon-Jo Chung with a focus on revamping the ARCG’s autonomous flying ambulance. The Henry Ford II Scholar Award is funded under an endowment provided by the Ford Motor Company Fund. The award is made annually to engineering students with the best academic record at the end of the third year of undergraduate study.

Tags: honors MCE CMS Henry Ford II Scholar Award Soon-Jo Chung Michael Gonzalez

06-09-22

The student winners of the 2022 Demetriades - Tsafka - Kokkalis Prizes were announced at the end of this academic year. Ida Qin, advised by Professor Joel Burdick has received the prize in Biotechnology. Her research is in comprehensive temporal understanding and state estimation during robot-assisted surgery. Alan Gu, advised by Professor Michael R. Hoffmann has received the prize in Entrepreneurship. His research is in capturing CO2 at point emission sources to accelerate reaching a goal of carbon neutrality. Joeson Wong, advised by Professor Harry A. Atwater has received the prize in Nanotechnology. His research is focused on the optoelectronic physics and engineering of atomically thin photovoltaics. Fengyu Zhou, advised by Professor Steven Low has received the prize in Environmentally Benign Renewable Energy Sources. His research involves the global optimality and relaxation exactness of the Optimal Power Flow problem in single-phase and multi-phase networks. Stacy Larochelle, advised by Professor Jean-Philippe Avouac and Professor Nadia Lapusta has received the prize in Seismo-Engineering, Prediction, and Protection. Her research uses geodesy, data analysis and modeling to further the understanding of mechanical interactions between water and the solid Earth, from fluid-induced earthquakes to groundwater extraction.

Tags: APhMS honors MCE Harry Atwater CMS Demetriades - Tsafka - Kokkalis Prizes Nadia Lapusta Jean-Philippe Avouac Steven Low Joel Burdick Ida Qin Stacy Larochelle Fengyu Zhou

04-25-22

Adaptive electric vehicle chargers and advanced battery designs are some of the ways Caltech researchers are building a more sustainable electric grid. Steven Low, Frank J. Gilloon Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences and Electrical Engineering, invented the Adaptive Charging Network (ACN). But Low and others warn that this grid is unprepared for the challenges of the 21st century. “The current grid will very soon hit a wall where, when we add renewable energy, it sits unused because the demand isn’t there at a time when the solar is running,” says Adam Wierman, Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences; Director, Information Science and Technology. That is why Caltech researchers are working on ways to break down that barrier to help empower an energy transformation. Julia R. Greer, Ruben F. and Donna Mettler Professor of Materials Science, Mechanics and Medical Engineering; Fletcher Jones Foundation Director of the Kavli Nanoscience Institute, is pushing the limits of the batteries themselves.  [Caltech story]

Tags: EE research highlights CMS Julia Greer Adam Wierman Steven Low Kimberly See

04-12-22

The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) announced the winners at the 2022 Region VI Student Conference at UC Merced. A Caltech team received the first place award in the team category for the region VI student conference for their paper entitled "Design of a Lunar Architecture for Tree Traversal in Service of Cabled Exploration (LATTICE)."

Tags: honors GALCIT MCE CMS Soon-Jo Chung Kaila Coimbra Malcom Tisdale Lucas Pabarcius Calle Junker Sravani Boggaram Nathan Ng Parul Singh Tomas Wexler Robert Daigle

04-12-22

Caused by collisions from asteroids, comets, and other astronomical objects, lunar craters give our moon its characteristic pockmarked façade. These craters hold the materials necessary for building sustained human settlements on the moon. Accessing the materials inside lunar craters is no easy task. NASA seeks new ways of getting around the moon that do not rely on wheels. The agency's Breakthrough, Innovative, and Game-changing (BIG) Idea Challenge asks university teams to go beyond wheeled rovers and create new solutions to the problem of traversing lunar craters. A team of more than 30 Caltech undergraduates in the Division of Engineering and Applied Science is among seven 2022 BIG Idea finalists. [Caltech story]

Tags: GALCIT MCE Harry Atwater CMS Soon-Jo Chung Brit Wylie Luis Pabon Rithvik Musuku Kaila Coimbra Polina Verkhovodova Tyler Colenbrander Lucas Pabarcius Calle Junker Sravani Boggaram Matticus Brown Sean Chang Bobby Daigle Nico Jimenez-Lozano Alec Laprevotte Joshua Lee Moya Ly Amrita Mayavaram Robert Menezes Nathan Ng Dilichi Nwankwo Jedi Alindogan Diego Attra Sulekha Kishore Aramis Mendoza Winter Pearson Jules Penot Kemal Pulungan Purvi Sehgal Parul Singh Aiden Swann Malcolm Tisdale Tomas Wexler Brooklyn Williams Benjamin Zeng Isabella Zuniga

03-28-22

James L. (Jim) Beck, George W. Housner Professor of Engineering and Applied Science, Emeritus, has been chosen as a Distinguished Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). Distinguished Membership is the highest honor ASCE can bestow. It is reserved for civil engineers who are either ASCE Members or Fellows. One class of recipients is formally inducted annually. [Distinguished Members]

Tags: honors MCE CMS James Beck ASCE