Fulbright Semi-finalists! The School of Engineering is delighted to announce that two of our students and one alumnus are semi-finalists for Fulbright U.S. Student Program scholarships—part of a record crop of semi-finalists for SCU this year. Please join us in congratulating David Diebold, Sarah King, and Alexandra Rivera!

David Diebold '20, Research Award Semi-finalist

Hometown: Mililani, Hawaii
Bioengineering BS Degree
SCU Honors Program, Biomedical Engineering Society, Engineers Without Borders, SCU Global Fellows Program, SCU E.M.T.
Application Country: Ghana

Sarah King '21, Research Award Semi-finalist

Hometown: Boulder, Colorado
Bioengineering major, German Studies minor
Tau Beta Pi National Engineering Society member, executive member of SCU's Green Club, Cross Country and Track and Field athlete
Application Country: Cambodia

Alexandra Rivera '21, English Teaching Assistant Award Semi-finalist

Hometown: Olympia, Washington
Mechanical Engineering major, Spanish Studies minor
Orientation leader, Johnson Scholar, Pi Tau Sigma Mechanical Engineering Honor Society member
Application Country: Spain

SCU's SWE student chapter has won a Society of Women Engineers WE Local Award for their SWE++ outreach program! In weekly coding sessions, SWE++ teaches middle school girls how to code in Scratch and Python. Congratulations to the entire chapter, and particularly to SWE++ co-chairs Claire Murphy, Emma Pollans, and Arianne Soriano!

Congratulations, Hsiang Chao! The computer science and engineering graduate student's photo, "Always," received an honorable mention in the SCU Global Engagement Fall Photo Contest. Taken in San Francisco's Twin Peaks, the photo brings a message of hope and resilience.

Johnny Dimas Flores '21 (mechanical engineering) is a panelist on the upcoming "Chat with First-Gen Broncos." This open dialogue with a panel of first-generation students gives SCU faculty, staff, and administrators an opportunity to learn about our students' experiences and hear how SCU can better support them. 

Olivia Figueira '21 (computer science and engineering, minors in mathematics and economics) has been awarded the IEEE Frances B. Hugle Scholarship "in recognition of her outstanding academic performance and passion for engineering."

Soroor Ghandali and Michael Yue (electrical and computer engineering graduate students) presented two posters at the Underrepresented Groups in Cybersecurity (UNiSEC) Forum at the Silicon Valley Cybersecurity Conference (SVCC 2020). Soroor and Michael are advised by Assistant Professor Sara Tehranipoor, who also co-chaired the Forum.

Cinthya Jauregui '22 (general engineering) was able to forge her own academic path toward a degree in the relatively new field of Human-centric Design with advice from General Engineering Program Director Jes Kuczenski and other SCU faculty and students. Read Cinthya's story in the Ciocca Center's newsletter, here.

Mechanical engineering students Noah Lordi B.S. '20, Ke Qin M.S. '22, Kexin Zheng (Ph.D. student), with Associate Professor On Shun Pak and collaborators from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, New Jersey Institute of Technology, and California Institute of Technology, contributed four presentations at the 73rd Annual American Physical Society Division of Fluid Dynamics Meeting. 

Prashanth Asuri (bioengineering) has been invited to serve as a co-editor for the research topic: Protein-Material Interfaces: Fundamentals and Applications in the journal Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences. The aim of this research topic is to highlight original articles and reviews that describe the preparation and characterization of protein-material complexes for various applications, including those in bioanalytics, biocatalysts, diagnostics, and therapeutics.

Allan Báez Morales (Frugal Innovation Hub), along with a world-renowned author from Cambridge University and a professor from Murdoch University in Australia, presented a class about Frugal Innovation to 35 professors of multiple disciplines at Tech of Monterrey (México) as part of a special course to update professors from that institution on new trends related to innovation.

Yi Fang (computer science and engineering), co-PI, and Subbu Vincent (Markkula Center), PI, received a  $207,050 grant from Google News Initiatives to promote diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the news media. Dr. Fang will lead a group of engineering students to develop a toolkit for newsrooms to be used in the real world to automatically generate a report about the representativeness and DEI of quotes. Find more about the project here. 

Matthew Gaudet (engineering ethics) has co-edited a special issue of the Journal of Moral Theology on the theme of "University Ethics." The issue includes Gaudet's review essay of the field of university ethics as well as essays from the staff of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics and Lev Rickards and Shannon Keeley in the SCU library.   

Amin Ghafooripour (civil, environmental, and sustainable engineering) was elected Chair of the ASCE/SEI (Structural Engineering Institute), San Francisco Chapter. The chapter's vision is to "Inspire and advance the art and practice of structural engineering, develop and implement programs to enhance knowledge exchange, networking, and other professional development and educational outreach activities."

Nam Ling (computer science and engineering), will serve as General Co-Chair for the 2023 IEEE International Conference on Visual Communications and Image Processing (VCIP 2023), to be held in Jeju Island, South Korea. VCIP is a premier forum for the exchange of fundamental research results and technological advances in the field of visual communications and image processing. 

Tokunbo Ogunfunmi (electrical and computer engineering) is serving as a Guest Editor for a Special Issue of the journal Entropy, The Special Issue is titled “Adaptive Signal Processing and Machine Learning Using Entropy and Information Theory.” Deadline for manuscript submissions is May 31, 2021. Manuscripts can be submitted here.

Navid Shaghaghi (computer science and engineering, math and computer science) shares his thoughts on changing one's mindset to view "problems as change agents," in the Ciocca Center's latest newsletter. It's a quick read; find it here.

Fatemeh (Sara) Tehranipoor (electrical and computer engineering) has been invited to serve on the Technical Program Committee for the International Conference on Hardware/Software Codesign and System Synthesis (CODES+ISSS), 2021, to be held in October.

Yuling Yan (bioengineering) and a colleague from Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (Stuttgart, Germany) are guest editors for a new special issue of Bioengineering on “Magnetic Micro nanotechnologies for Bioengineering Applications." 

Sam Bertram '16 MS '18, Greg Del Vecchio '16, and Ben Hopner '16, shared their experiences and advice with current students at the (virtual) Mechanical Engineering Seminar, Life After Senior Design Project. Sam is CEO and co-founder of OnePointOne, Greg is Senior Product Manager at Akamai, and Ben is an Apple Product Design Engineering Program Manager. 

Pat Gelsinger ‘83 (BSEE) has been appointed CEO of Intel. He began his career at Intel, working his way up the ranks over 30 years to become the company's first-ever Chief Technology Officer. He later served as CEO of VMWare. In 2003 Pat received the School of Engineering's highest honor, the Distinguished Engineering Alumni Award.

Mariah Manzano '20 (web design and engineering), software engineer and CEO and co-founder of Opal, a mobile app that matches college students with professionals for mentorship, was a panelist on SCU Career Center's virtual event, The COVID Internship Search. Find out how SCU supported Mariah’s entrepreneurial aspirations here.

Adolph Quilici ’53, BSME, passed away Jan. 27. Adolph was a member of the Tau Beta Pi engineering honor society and worked at FMC Corp. for more than 40 years. He was a great friend to the School of Engineering and received the Distinguished Engineering Alumni Award in 1994. Read more here.

The School of Engineering has received the Bronze Level Recognition for the ASEE Diversity Recognition Program (ADRP) for "significant, measurable progress in increasing the diversity, inclusion, and degree attainment outcomes." While this marks achievement, we pledge to continue our diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts to make SCU Engineering a more welcoming and supportive environment for all.

Congratulations, Rima Nemechek, Staff Member of the Year!  Colleagues nominated Rima (director of finance and administration) for this award noting she is invaluable with providing assistance and giving guidance, always very professional, and always seeks to create a positive work environment. She is a credit to the SoE!

Robotics Systems Lab: RSL's ongoing research documenting effects of a tsunami that occurred up to 20,000 years ago was featured in an article in the Tahoe Tribune. Collaborating with the U.S. Geological Survey, University of Nevada-Reno, and Western Nevada College, RSL Director Christopher Kitts has furthered the research with the assistance of dozens of undergraduate and graduate students over the past 15+ years.

Mark your calendar: Gender and Racial Bias in Venture Capital, Feb. 24, 12 p.m. Join the School of Engineering, Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, and Association for Corporate Growth – Silicon Valley for a lively discussion, featuring Computer Science and Engineering Assistant Professor Maya Ackerman and others. Read more about her ground-breaking work here and register for the free event here.