SCU's rEvolve House team was named the champion of the inaugural Tiny House Competition in Sacramento! Santa Clara led the competition throughout the week in measured contests (lighting, energy use, hot water, etc.) and on the final day of competition, they won six of the twenty sub-categories (day lighting, integrated lighting, interior design, best kitchen, best program, and best tour) and two of the four main categories (energy and communications). Read more about the team's journey. Congratulations to faculty team leader Tim Hight and the entire undergraduate team. Their hard work and dedication to this project over the past two years have been inspirational and a great credit to our beloved Papa Reites. He would be so very proud, as we all are.
Student News
Haiti Project Update: In 2013, mentored by Shoba Krishnan (electrical engineering) Luanda Rotondano-Marinho, visiting engineering student from Brazil, designed a solar power system to bring electricity to a clinic in Haiti. Hurricane Matthew recently destroyed the area around the clinic, but Luanda's project withstood the storm and continues to provide power to care for the injured people.
Manav Jaiswal, Yuhong Liu, and Nam Ling (computer engineering student and faculty) won the Best Paper Award for "Design and Implementation of a Greener Home Automation System," at the 9th IEEE International Conference on Ubi-Media Computing in Moscow, Russia, Aug. 15-17, 2016.
Alejandra Huitron '16 and Nicholas Supan '16 (electrical engineering) designed educational lantern kits with a solar charging system and lesson plans for assembly to teach high school students in Ghana how to bring lights into their homes. This summer, SCU Global Scholars Catherine Murray '18 (mechanical engineering) and Nick Redfield '18 (political science), took the Solar Lights project to Abenoa, Ghana. Watch their video.
Faculty News
Silvia Figueira (computer engineering) received the Louis and Dorina Brutocao Award for Teaching Excellence, recognizing outstanding faculty who promote intellectual curiosity and active learning; model and foster intellectual rigor and honesty and a zest for learning; develop connections between course material and life outside the classroom; are available to students, attentive to their needs, and enjoy the teacher-student relationship.
Christopher Kitts (mechanical engineering) was reappointed for a three-year term as a research associate with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI). Recent and ongoing collaborations with MBARI have included the development of several marine robots as well as collaborative research in adaptive environmental sampling.
Sarah Kate Wilson (electrical engineering) has a new book: Transmission Techniques for Digital Communications; editors: S.K. Wilson, S.G. Wilson (no relation), and E. Biglieri; Elsevier Academic Press Library, 727 pages.
Congratulations to Yuling Yan (bioengineering) for receiving the President’s Special Recognition Award at the SCU Faculty Awards Celebration, Sept. 15. As founding chair of the Department of Bioengineering, Yan has been instrumental in the phenomenal growth of the program since its inception. An avid researcher, she has established a robust culture of encouraging student research while demanding ethical discernment.
Alumni News
Matt Blanco '12, M.S. '15 (bioengineering) MBA '16 was among the invited speakers at the XXIV Annual Pacific Voice Conference (PVC) US Edition at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He and bioengineering chair Yuling Yan also represented SCU at the EU Edition of the XXIV PVC held in Warsaw and Lublin, Poland, Oct. 5-8. Over 100 speakers from all continents presented.
Congratulations to Shawn Lange, MSME '06 and Derek Pietz, MSME '08, co-founders of L2F, which was named #2 on the engineering list and #267 on the Inc. 500, an annual ranking of America's fastest-growing private companies! L2F is our KEEN industry partner for the quarter, participating in speaker events, contests and more. Read more here.
Avery Lu '95 (electrical engineering), Co-Founder & Chief Marketing Officer of Palo Alto Scientific, Inc., a sports science analytics and wearable technology startup, received the Silicon Valley Innovation & Entrepreneurship Forum's (SVIEF) Top 30 Most Innovative Startups Award 2016.
School News
Mir Imran, Engineering Advisory Board member, is Chairman and CEO of InCube Labs. Their spin-off, Fe3 Medical, is developing a transdermal patch to deliver iron to those suffering from anemia who cannot tolerate the effects of traditional oral treatment. The company recently received $3.5 million in funding from the State of Texas to support clinical trials and regulatory submissions.
Maker Lab: In August, through the Makers For Good program, homeschool student Kainalu Palaualelo, a 4th grader from Hawaii, submitted a design to SCU's Maker Lab for a 3D hand to hold his phone, then collaborated with Maker Lab staff and watched the final design print via a livestream broadcast. Read more here.
The Mobile Maker Lab has been on the move this fall! More than 100 local middle and high school students have enjoyed using the Lab's laser cutter, 3D printers, vinyl plotter and hand tools to build gliders, catapults, and more. SCU staff and students operate the trailer and teach a variety of hands-on curricular modules that excite students and expose them to a variety of STEM topics.
Read more School of Engineering student, faculty, and alumni news in our fall newsletter available online now!
