Chen explores computational neuroscience and deep unsupervised learning to build simple-to-explain and efficient artificial intelligence models. His goal? To create an AI that can dream.
Growing up in Norway, where 63,000 miles of coastline border the Norwegian Sea and 1,190 fjords guide waters further inland, new assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science Maike Sonnewald's connection to the ocean runs deep.
With the recent uptick in private spaceflight companies launching commercial flights into suborbital space, and NASA's Artemis program that aims to land people on the Moon in 2024, new assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Rich Whittle believes we are on the cusp of a new era of human spaceflight.
For many new faculty members in the College of Engineering, the interdisciplinary advantages of the University of California, Davis, are welcome discoveries. Mingwei Zhang, a new assistant professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, was already very familiar with the unique connections UC Davis creates across campus though.
Aidan Gilchrist, a new assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, believes there is an equal need to increase the quality of life as there is to extend it through medical advancements. He researches how the tissues surrounding our cells may be the key to reversing and preventing aging.
Dongyu Liu's website features the standard materials of an academic researcher: a CV, published research, a list of talks. But what catches the eye on Liu's site is a page of photos: Liu and his labmates at a lake retreat and on a ski trip; Liu's supervisor handing him a slice of cake at his graduation; a lab-wide breakfast after an all-nighter to hit a deadline.
According to researchers, alumni and students in the University of California, Davis, College of Engineering, it's a "sizzling" and an "exhilarating time" to be involved with quantum information sciences. Not just because it is grabbing headlines and inspiring blockbuster movie storylines but because there is a new surge of new opportunities related to quantum information sciences for students at UC Davis.
Photonics, which operate based on particles of light (photons), are increasingly important for applications such as optical communications, connections between electronic and optical networks, and imaging. But silicon, the go-to semiconductor for making electronic chips, is not a great material for photonic applications because it shows poor absorption of near-infrared light compared to other semiconductors such as gallium arsenide.
Jennifer Sinclair Curtis, Distinguished Professor in the University of California, Davis, Department of Chemical Engineering, has been named the 2023 recipient of the Margaret Hutchinson Rousseau Pioneer Award for Lifetime Achievement by a Woman Chemical Engineer by the American Institute of Chemical Engineering.
For most people, contracting Zika virus, a flavivirus carried by mosquitos, is akin to getting any mildly inconvenient virus. You might get a fever and a rash, and it's gone in a few days. But for pregnant people, there is a roughly 4% chance that a bite from a mosquito with Zika virus could have life-altering effects on developing fetuses in the form of microcephaly, a neurological condition that indicates an under-developed brain.
