News & Events

10-15-08

John Dabiri, assistant professor of aeronautics and bioengineering, has been named one of "Brilliant Ten" by Popular Science Magazine. Dabiri is the youngest scientist on the list at just 28 years of age. Dubbed "the jellyfish engineer" by the magazine, he garnered the award for his studies of the intricacies of jellyfish locomotion. Using a custom-built, high-definition video camera and a water-particle-illuminating laser, Dabiri and his colleagues are able to examine the fluid dynamics that determine how jellyfish propel themselves through their watery environment. Their hope is that those insights will be used to improve the designs of nonbiological systems as diverse as military submarines and onshore windmills. [Popular Science Article]

Tags: honors research highlights GALCIT John Dabiri fluid dynamics

09-02-08

Morteza Gharib, Hans W. Liepmann Professor of Aeronautics and professor of bioengineering, and his team has been honored with R&D Magazine's R&D 100 Award recognizing significant new technologies from the past year. The team designed a three-dimensional camera with a vast array of possibilities, ranging from 3-D movement tracking for rehabilitation to underwater surveillance. [Caltech Press Release]

Tags: honors research highlights GALCIT Morteza Gharib

05-07-08

Chiara Daraio, Professor Aeronautics and Applied Physics, has won the 2008 Richard von Mises Prize. This prize is awarded each year by the International Association of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics (GAMM) to a young scientist for exceptional scientific achievements in the field of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics. The prize was awarded at the opening ceremony of the Annual meeting of GAMM in March, in Bremen, Germany.

Tags: APhMS honors Chiara Daraio GALCIT

03-17-08

Two EAS faculty have won ONR Young Investigator Awards: John Dabiri, Assistant Professor of Aeronautics and Bioengineering, and Joel Tropp, Assistant Professor of Appliedand Computational Mathematics. The objectives of the Young Investigator Program are to attract to naval research outstanding new faculty members, to support their research, and to encourage their teaching and research careers. Tropp's award is for his research into "Compressive Signal Processing - Theory and Algorithms"; and Dabiri's award is for work in "Optimal Propulsion Methodologies for Hybrid Screw-based, Bio-inspired Systems". ONR announced 27 new awards for 2008.

Tags: honors GALCIT John Dabiri CMS Joel Tropp

03-10-08

A National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Center of Excellence will be established at Caltech, under the direction of Michael Ortiz, Dotty and Dick Hayman Professor of Aeronautics and Mechanical Engineering. This center, PSAAP, one of five new centers to be established, will develop not only the science and engineering models and software for large-scale simulations, but also methods associated with the emerging disciplines of verification and validation and uncertainty quantification. The goal of these emerging disciplines is to enable scientists to make precise statements about the degree of confidence they have in their simulation-based predictions. The center will be funded for $17 million over a five-year period.

Tags: GALCIT MCE Michael Ortiz

02-23-08

550 million years of jet-setting (and jet paddling): modes of jellyfish propulsion are finally being understood and used for engineering inspiration. Read the recent cover story in Science News that highlights
the work of Professor John Dabiri.

Tags: research highlights GALCIT John Dabiri

01-09-08

Joseph E. Shepherd has been named the C. L. "Kelly" Johnson Professor of Aeronautics and Professor of Mechanical Engineering. Shepherd is internationally recognized for his chosen specialities of combustion, fuel properties, and fluid dynamics relevant to explosion initiation and propagation. Congratulations!

Tags: GALCIT MCE Joseph Shepherd fluid dynamics

01-03-08

Michael Ortiz, Dotty and Dick Hayman Professor of Aeronautics and Mechanical Engineering, has won the first Rodney Hill Prize in Solid Mechanics! [Press Release]

Tags: honors GALCIT MCE Michael Ortiz

11-11-07

Full video presentation of the Fifty Years in Space Conference held at Caltech is now available: click here for details.

Tags: GALCIT EAS history

06-01-07

Ares Rosakis has received the 2007 D. R. Harting Award, from the Society of Experimental Mechanics (SEM) for the "Best Paper" published in Experimental Techniques. The title of the paper is "Supershear and Sub-Rayleigh to Supershear Transition Observed in Laboratory Earthquake Experiments". Rosakis and his co-authors, Dr. Kaiwan Xia and Professor Hiroo Kanamori received this award in June 2007 at the SEM Annual Conference, Springfield, MA.

Tags: honors GALCIT MCE Ares Rosakis D. R. Harting Award