Structural Engineering Startup Grabs Venture Funding

AgileNano, a Jacobs School of Engineering structural engineering startup that is commercializing technology from the laboratories of Yu Qiao recently received funding from the Tech Coast Angels. Professor Qiao is the CTO and Jacobs School PhD Candidate Nicole Justis Truitt is the VP of Research and Development at Agile Nano.

I picked up this story from Xconomy San Diego. Thanks Bruce!

Nicole Justis Truitt was one of the co-founders of UCSD's Triton Innovation Network $50k Entrepreneurship Competition, which is currently called the UC San Diego Entrepreneurship Challenge.

Microsoft's Craig Mundie Came to UC San Diego

The students who came to see Craig Mundie were captivated by Microsoft Surface, a tabletop computing surface that allows several users to work independently or together without a mouse or a keyboard.

The grad students who showed off their posters and then participated in a roundtable with Mundie got to see into the inner workings of Microsoft Research that doesn't get covered in the fun demos.

Watch Calit2's Webcast here. See more photos from the event on Calit2's Flikr photostream.

Read the story on the Jacobs School Web site here.

Fat Study. Bioinformatics Core.

The bioengineers at UCSD are hard core. They consistently rank at the very very top of the national rankingings. The new chair of the department, Shankar Subramaniam, is putting that hard-core ethic into the "bioinformatics core" of a UCSD-led inititative to study how the role that fat plays in diabetes, stroke, cancer, arthritis, Alzheimer's disease and many other ailments.

The Union Tribune ran a great story on the project, which just received an additional $38M in funding.

Read the UC San Diego press release here.

Upside-down Undwerwater Slime-Supported Transport

Upside-down Undwerwater Slime-Supported Transport...the newest ride at the biggest amusement park less than a day's drive from your house? Nope. More like, a series of academic papers from Jacobs School mechanical engineering professor Eric Lauga.

The latest paper, called “Crawling Beneath the Free Surface: Water Snail Locomotion” appears in the journal Physics of Fluid.

Check out the press release and video here.

Root Beer Floats Your Boat

Jacobs School undergrads are dishing out rootbeer floats today and publicizing the first general meeting of the Triton Engineering Student Council (TESC) at the same time.

The meeting is Weds Oct 1 at 7:30 PM in Room 1202 of the computer science building. Ice cream served at 7:00 PM.

After the meeting, you'll have a chance to meet folks from all the different engineering student organizations.

Ultrafast & Nanoscale Optics Group in New Scientist Tech

In a New Scientist column covering exciting new patents, Justin Mullins highlighted work from the electrical engineers in Shaya Fainmfan's group here at the Jacobs School. (Fainman is in the photo).

The patent is for a "universal detector" that will use plasmonics to test for contimation on any type of surface.

Read the New Scientist column here.

Read the full patent application here.

Fainman directs the Ultrafast & Nanoscale Optics Group at the Jacobs School. Read about his work in a recent issue of the Jacobs School alumni magazine, Pulse.

The researchers listed as inventors on the patent application are:
Kevin TETZ
Lin PANG
Shaya FAINMAN

Computer science students talk "Android"

San Diego Channel 6 came to campus on Tuesday afternoon to find out what our tech-savvy student body thought about the new Google phones unveiled in New York. Channel 6's Jenny Hamel picked a good day to come to campus:

New computer science students, including Jeanne Wang, were streaming out of an orientation with plates full of free food and Calit2's Summer Scholars had just finished presenting the fruits of their summer research.

One scholar, Benjamin Lotan, and some friends were still hanging out in front of the big flat screen TV that Benjamin used to show off his exploration into digital video.

Check out the students and their thoughts on the new Google phone here.

This is up on the Calit2Life blog too...which a cool photo