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Watson Lecture: Mory Gharib (PhD '83) on the "Engima of the Heart"

03-02-23

Our circulatory system's 500 million years of evolution is on full display during the nine months of human embryonic heart development. The hallmark of this evolution is a beating, complex, autonomous muscular pump that sustains life. In this lecture, Mory Gharib (PhD '83), the Hans W. Liepmann Professor of Aeronautics and Medical Engineering, explains the wave system established by the beating heart that moves through the human body, which can provide a window to the health of the cardiovascular system and early diagnoses of its devastating diseases by utilizing modern data science. [Watch the lecture]

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Tags: GALCIT Morteza Gharib watson lecture

Caltech Faculty Lead Presidential Report on Modernizing Wildland Firefighting

02-22-23

When firefighters battle a blaze in a rugged, mountainous region, one of their biggest challenges is simply staying in touch. "The technologies that they're using today are not that different from what their grandparents would've used to put out fires 50 years ago," says John Dabiri, Centennial Professor of Aeronautics and Mechanical Engineering at Caltech and a member of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). [Caltech story]

Tags: GALCIT John Dabiri

Leonardo da Vinci's Forgotten Experiments Explored Gravity as a Form of Acceleration

02-14-23

Engineers from Caltech have discovered that Leonardo da Vinci's understanding of gravity—though not wholly accurate—was centuries ahead of his time. In an article published in the journal Leonardo, the researchers draw upon a fresh look at one of da Vinci's notebooks to show that the famed polymath had devised experiments to demonstrate that gravity is a form of acceleration—and that he further modeled the gravitational constant to around 97 percent accuracy. [Caltech Story]

Tags: research highlights GALCIT Morteza Gharib

Michael Stramenga and Kevin Yu Selected as 2023 KISS Affiliates

02-02-23

Michael Stramenga, Aerospace graduate student, and Kevin Yu, Materials Science graduate student, have been selected as affiliates for the Keck Institute of Space Studies (KISS). KISS Affiliates are an ongoing cohort of campus graduate students and postdocs who are seen as the next generation of space exploration leaders. KISS Affiliates are provided with unique experiences with industry CEOs, astronauts, space mission leaders, NASA leadership, and world-renowned space exploration researchers.

Tags: APhMS GALCIT KISS Michael Stramenga Kevin Yu

Izzy Ragheb Selected for the Brooke Owens Fellowship

01-30-23

Izzy Ragheb, an undergraduate studying Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, has been selected for the prestigious Brooke Owens Fellowship. The Brooke Owens Fellowship is a nationally-acclaimed nonprofit program recognizing exceptional undergraduate women and gender minorities with space and aviation internships, senior mentorship, and a lifelong professional network. As part of her fellowship, Ragheb will intern with Amazon Prime Air this summer. 

Tags: honors GALCIT MCE Izzy Ragheb

Jimmy Ragan and Benjamin Rivière Receive 2023 AIAA Best Student Paper Award

01-27-23

Jimmy Ragan and Benjamin Rivière, GALCIT graduate students working with Soon-Jo Chung, Bren Professor of Control and Dynamical Systems; Jet Propulsion Laboratory Senior Research Scientist, have received a Best Paper Award in the field of Guidance, Navigation, and Control at the 2023 AIAA SciTech Forum. Ragan and Rivière are co-first authors of the paper titled "Bayesian Active Sensing for Fault Estimation with Belief Space Tree Search." 

Tags: honors GALCIT CMS Soon-Jo Chung Benjamin Rivière Jimmy Ragan

Caltech to Launch Space Solar Power Technology Demo into Orbit in January

01-03-23

In January 2023, the Caltech Space Solar Power Project (SSPP) is poised to launch into orbit a prototype, dubbed the Space Solar Power Demonstrator (SSPD), which will test several key components of an ambitious plan to harvest solar power in space and beam the energy back to Earth. [Caltech story]

Tags: APhMS EE GALCIT Harry Atwater Ali Hajimiri Sergio Pellegrino SSPP

Caltech CAST to Collaborate with Abu Dhabi-based Technology Innovation Institute

12-16-22

Caltech's Center for Autonomous Systems and Technologies (CAST) and the Technology Innovation Institute (TII) in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, have signed an agreement to begin a global strategic partnership to collaborate on key research priorities. [Caltech story]

Tags: GALCIT Morteza Gharib Thomas Rosenbaum

Professor John Sader Elected to the Australian Academy of Science

11-30-22

John Sader, Research Professor of Aerospace and Applied Physics, has been elected to the Australian Academy of Science. Sader developed pioneering measurement techniques that revolutionized the characterization of materials using Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). The Sader Method is an international standard for AFM calibration, as is the Sader-Jarvis Method for atomically resolved AFM measurements.

Tags: APhMS honors GALCIT John Sader