In March 2021, Interim Dean Jeffery C. Gibeling announced the formation of the College of Engineering Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) committee for staff and faculty. The mission of the college DEI committee is to advise the dean and college leadership team on issues of equity, diversity and inclusion as they relate to faculty, staff and students within the college.
Marissa Gionet-Gonzales is a fifth-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. Her research focuses on engineering biomaterials to enhance mesenchymal cell regeneration for bone and muscle repair. During her Ph.D., she served as a mentor and presenter for the California Alliance for Minority Participation program, founding a diversity, equity and inclusion journal club within her lab and serving on the department’s Health Equity and Wellness Committee.
AvenueE is a program designed to help community college transfer students smoothly transition to UC Davis, and ultimately, a career in engineering or computer science. It aims to increase participation of women and underrepresented minorities in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), with the goal of creating a new generation of promising STEM talent and leadership.
UC Davis and RePurpose Energy, a clean energy startup, have executed a licensing agreement for an innovative system that repurposes batteries from electric cars to use as energy storage systems with various applications, like solar power. The license provides RePurpose access to commercialize the technology developed at UC Davis.
Harry Cheng is a professor in the UC Davis Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and is the founder and director of the C-STEM (Computing, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) Center.
The Student Startup Center (SSC) at UC Davis is a community of students and mentors interested in using innovation and entrepreneurship to make the world a better place. The center is designed to introduce students to entrepreneurs and early-stage investors, allow students to practice the work of entrepreneurs and early-stage investors and teach students useful knowledge and skills for their journeys as student entrepreneurs.
As a five-year-old, Tho V. Le watched a black-and-white movie and asked his mom: “Why is nobody in our community a singer or actor?” But as soon as he started school, Le fell in love with numbers, computers and science. He no longer wanted to become a singer or actor.
As part of Black History Month, the UC Davis College of Engineering is engaging our faculty and staff in considering our roles in implicit bias and systemic racism. We all play a part in addressing these long-standing issues and are making spaces to have open, collective dialogue that moves our college and university forward.
Materials science and engineering associate professor Marina Leite thinks machine learning is key to the next big breakthrough in renewable energy. With a new three-year grant from the National Science Foundation, Leite will use machine learning techniques to study perovskite solar cells, a class of highly efficient but volatile devices, to find the optimal conditions to run them reliably.
The Engineering Student Design Center (ESDC) hosted a well-attended Women in Engineering open house on Thursday, January 31. Student staff gave visitors a tour of the facility, showing off the lab’s nine 3D printers and demonstrating the laser cutter, which printed commemorative keychains before their eyes. The event also served an opportunity for female faculty, staff and graduate students from the UC Davis community to mingle and learn more about the facility.
