DEI Distinguished Lecture Series: The School of Engineering presents the first speaker in our new Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Distinguished Lecture Series on March 11, 2021 at 2 p.m. PST. Join us for a conversation with Chancellor Gary S. May, UC Davis, and hear about his experiences and challenges throughout his career. More here.

John ’79 (electrical engineering) and Susan Ocampo have generously donated $25 million for the north wing of the new Sobrato Campus for Discovery and Innovation, which will house innovative programs and initiatives including a 3,000-square foot, 30-ft. high, glass-enclosed Innovation Zone and adjacent Innovation Lounge. Much gratitude for this tremendous gift! Read more here and in this donor profile story.

A big piece of the puzzle: In honor of National Women’s Month, we celebrate the School of Engineering’s amazing corps of women faculty, staff, and students. With about 30% of our tenure or tenure-track faculty comprised of women, SCU students have extraordinary role models. Read stories about our fabulous women and find a quick tribute here.

8th Annual Hack for Humanity: More than 150 participants took part in the virtual hackathon to solve pressing social issues using their creativity and code. First Place Team Vax Trax, Mubashir Hussain, Matthew Mistele, Grace Tantra, Patrick Lee, Manasvini Hothur, designed an app making it easier for seniors over 65 to find and register for a Covid-19 vaccination appointment online.

A team of SCU students won Second Place in one of the problems of the Associated Schools of Construction  Competition, attended virtually by 1092 students from 47 universities. SCU participated with 28 students in 4 problems, and placed 2nd in the Project Management problem. SCU's involvement in the competition is spearheaded by the Associated General Contractors (AGC) Student Club and their faculty advisor Hisham Said (civil, environmental, and sustainable engineering).

Joe Israel, S.J. (computer science and engineering Ph.D. student) received a best paper award from EAI's INTETAIN 2020 conference for his work, "On Trusting a Cyber Librarian: How rethinking underlying data storage infrastructure can mitigate risks of automation." This work breaks new ground in rethinking the use of data storage systems as a means of tackling tricky ethical questions that involve our use of data.

Maya Ackerman's research on gender and VC funding has uncovered a clear and consistent pattern that exists in most industries: the CEO’s gender is the most important factor for fundraising success. Even after controlling for external factors such as attending an Ivy League school or having a prior successful business “exit”—women were still disadvantaged in VC funding. Learn more in this Forbes.com article.

Prashanth Asuri (bioengineering and Bioinnovation and Design Lab) has been elected to serve on the Governing Committee of The National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals (NIIMBL), and serve as a representative for Tier 2 Academic/Non-Profit Member organizations. NIIMBL is a public-private consortium advancing innovation in biopharmaceutical manufacturing.

Matthew Gaudet (engineering ethics) has been named an inaugural Fellow at the Grefenstette Center for Ethics in Science, Technology, and the Law, an interdisciplinary hub for exploring the ethical aspects of robotics, artificial intelligence, data analytics and other emerging technological advancements. Gaudet will help define the mission and early focus of the center, and execute its initial scholarly agenda.

Chris Kitts (mechanical engineering, Robotics Systems Lab) presented a workshop on academic-industry partnerships as part of the online 2021 National KEEN Conference. KEEN is a partnership of more than 45 colleges and universities across the United States focused on graduating engineers with an entrepreneurial mindset.

Nam Ling and Yuhong Liu (computer science and engineering) are founding members of the United States Chapter of the Asia-Pacific Signal and Information Processing Association. APSIPA promotes a broad spectrum of research and education activities in signal and information processing, recognition, classification, communication, networking, computing, system design and implementation, security, and technology.

Story DeWeese '20 (computer science and engineering) was a panelist on the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics virtual event, "Ethics in Computer Science: Why Good Intentions are not Enough." Story is a technical marketing engineer at Cisco and is also co-founder of Opal, a mentorship app for college students.