Claire Hultquist, Hallie McNamara, Julia Lanoha, Rosie McDonagh, Shiyin Lim, Jamie Ferris, Michael Mehta, Evan Miscuraca, Paul Jin, Dara O'Sullivan, Bobby Kresge, Sydney Thompson, Riley Albright-Borden, and James Wang will give social impact pitches on projects addressing cancer detection, low-cost prosthetics, mental health, and sustainable farming at the Global Health & Innovation Conference held at Yale University in April.

James Wang '19 (electrical engineering) has a blog post about how his time in Zambia as a Global Social Benefit Fellow helped him discover things about himself and about his career path as an engineer.

Innovation and Entrepreneurship: A dozen School of Engineering faculty members attended the 2019 National KEEN Conference, attended by 450 university educators from more than 60 institutions. The conference focused on the intersection of undergraduate education and entrepreneurial/value-oriented thinking. Prashanth Asuri, Bonita Banducci, Christopher Kitts, and Lanny Vincent were presenters.

Chris Kitts and Mike Rasay (mechanical engineering)  received NASA Group Achievement Awards as part of the NASA EcAMSat satellite mission team investigating space microgravity effects on antibiotic resistance of E coli, to understand the effects of space travel on humans. After launch in Nov. 2017, SCU's team operated the satellite, executed the primary science experiment, collected and decoded data, and maintained the health of the satellite over several months.

Chris Kitts (mechanical engineering)  has been reappointed for another term as an Associate Editor of the IEEE Systems Journal. This journal focuses on systems-level and application-oriented research addressing complex systems, systems-of-systems, etc., of national and global significance. The journal has a 4.337 Journal Citation Reports impact factor.

Nam Ling (computer engineering), with colleagues from Apple and HiSilicon/FutureWei Technologies was awarded a U.S. Patent, "Method and Device for Reducing a Computational Load in High Efficiency Video Coding," U.S. Patent Publication Number US10085028B2. He also serves as a guest editor for IEEE Access (the multidisciplinary open access journal of IEEE) special section on Recent Advances in Video Coding and Security, 2018-2019.

Gregory Theyel, Ph.D. has been appointed as the Vern and Annie Norviel Executive Fellow in BioInnovation and Design, focusing on building biomedical industry partnerships, offering student training workshops, guiding capstone and other design project groups, advising the SCU BioInnovation and Design curriculum, and conducting research on biomedical industry market trends. More.

Congratulations to Stephen Hager '87 (BS mathematics) '89 (MS computer engineering) who was recently promoted from Army Brigadier General to Major General. Hager received his commission as an Army officer in 1987 with the SCU Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) Bronco Battalion. He currently serves as the Deputy Commander (Individual Mobilization Augmentee), Cyber National Mission Force, United States Cyber Command at Fort Meade, Maryland.

Nathaniel Tucker (B.S. '16 computer engineering and electrical engineering, M.S. '17 electrical engineering) is pursuing his Ph.D. at UC Santa Barbara and was recently featured in their Control/Dynamical Systems Research Center's student spotlight. In his profile, Nate credits Maryam Khanbaghi (electrical engineering, power systems and sustainable energy) as one of the reasons he chose to work in the field of online optimization for electric transportation systems. Find his spotlight here.

Dr. Jon Strauss, interim Dean of the School of Engineering, will retire Feb. 28, 2019. Dr. Ron Danielson has agreed to serve as Interim Dean of the School of Engineering while the national search for the permanent dean enters its final phase (on-campus interviews with finalists will begin in early March). Prof. Danielson has been a member of the SCU academic community for over four decades and is a seasoned administrator.

The Big Move is On: Big changes are underway for the School of Engineering with construction set to begin on the new Sobrato Campus for Discovery and Innovation. Over the Christmas break, most faculty and staff offices and teaching and research labs were moved to the newly renovated Heafey-Bergin Complex. Read what has happened, and find out who made it all happen, here.

Victoria Coleman SCU Computer Engineering Advisory Board member, has been named CEO of Atlas AI, a social enterprise established by the Rockefeller Foundation to develop data products to support global development. Among others, she is also is member of the Defense Science Board, Chair of DARPA's Microsystems Exploratory Council, Senior Fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, and member of Lockheed Martin's Technology Advisory Group. More.

The Frugal Innovation Hub was part of the Africa Diaspora Investment Symposium held at the Computer Museum, Jan. 24-26. Eight SCU African projects were showcased, catching the attention of companies as well as non-profits such as Johnson and Johnson, Village Reach and Families without Borders. Senior students developing projects in Africa also joined the event to expand their network and search for resources to develop their projects.

SCU's VR Brain Computer Interface Team, led by Julia Scott (bioengineering) and Maya Ackerman and computer engineering students Andreas Adolffson and Jonathan Bernal, presented their interactive installation at Night of Ideas 2019 in San Francisco— Their VR experience combines real-time generative art and multi-layered soundscapes to encourage a relaxed state of mind, heart and being.

School of Engineering Research Showcase, Feb. 22, 4-6 p.m.: Come see more than 30 posters covering everything from targeted drug delivery to model-based engineering of smart buildings and much more at this signature event featuring work by School of Engineering faculty, post-doctoral fellows, and Ph.D., master's, and undergraduate students. All are welcome! More.