News Archives - January 2006

3rd KAIST-UCLA MAE Joint Workshop

January 25 , 2006

    The 3rd KAIST-UCLA MAE Joint Workshop was held as scheduled on Jan. 19-20, 2006 at UCLA's MAE Dept. Participating in the Workshop were 26 students and 4 faculty from KAIST. The workshop covered a variety of topics, including pattern generation, biotechnology, lithography, microfabrication, and thermosciences. Discussions on research collaboration and personnel exchange followed technical sessions, and the Workshop concluded with a laboratory tour. KAIST faculty were received warmly by the UCLA faculty.

    Please contact the KAIST faculty if you have any research topics you want to pursue together. The MAE Dept. would be more than happy to serve as a liaison if you have difficulty contacting them directly.

    Thanks to all of those of you who were able to participate in the Workshop. It is hoped more faculty can participate in the future events with KAIST.

For more infomation, and additional photos, please visit the KAIST page.

MAE Alumna Julia Asfia (PhD '95) Receives 2005 Woman of Achievement Award

January 20, 2006

    Mechanical and aerospace engineering lecturer and alumna Julie Asfia (PhD ’95) has received the 2005 Woman of Achievement Award from the Amelia Earhart Society of the Boeing Company. The award is presented to women who have proven track records of significant achievements and accomplishments.

Prof. Gadh quoted on RFID and the Workplace of the Future

(Quoted from the article "Honing Technical Skills is Required", from the Ventura County Star, December 14, 2005)

January 06, 2006

Prof. Rajit Gadh

    Rajit Gadh, an engineering professor at UCLA, directs the school's Wireless Internet for Mobile Enterprise Consortium. He predicts that businesses in a few years will be using radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to instantly and surreptitiously find workers anywhere in large plants.

RFID's best-known use today is at Wal-Mart distribution centers, where tiny chip tags on products answer radio signals. Such use provides an easy method for locating pallets of merchandise. Chips broadcasting a worker's location could be installed in a laptop, cell phone or ID badge.

"Hospitals are studying RFID to track their staffs and improve productivity. They could tag every nurse, technician and doctor," Gadh said. "Of course, there can be privacy concerns, but organizations can use RFID to stay connected. The technology can be used for dynamic reconsideration of where and how a company's assets are being used."

Beyond that, he predicted that businesses will use RFID in a few years to instantly identify a worker entering a room and enable him or her to log on to a computer. It's envisioned that the worker's personal computer settings would pop up immediately on any desktop, thereby eliminating the need for carrying around a laptop.

"Literally speaking, an entire laptop could possibly fit on a small chip that's sitting in my pocket communicating with an RFID tag to a screen hanging on a wall, and all there is is just a keyboard sitting in the room and that screen," Gadh said. "There is no end, I think, to how people will keep innovating."

David Riley Completes CHR's Staff Enrichment Program

January 05, 2006

David Riley

    David Riley of the MAE staff has just completed a year-long program offered by Campus Human Resources called the Staff Enrichment Program. The program provides resources for selected staff to meet others across campus, to learn techniques for career growth, and to research a project. David and his group looked at staff compensation. Each group made a presentation of their research to their supervisors at a special meeting at the Faculty Center in December. Graduation day will be January 17, 2006. Congratulations to David on his hard work and his good use of the program.