When Particles Move
Wednesday, August 17, 2022
Landslides are one striking example of erosion. When the bonds that hold particles of dirt and rock together are overwhelmed by a force — often in the form of water — sufficient to pull the rock and soil apart, that same force breaks the bonds with other rock and soil that hold them in place. Another type of erosion involves using a small air jet to remove dust from a surface. When the force of the turbulent air is strong enough to break the bonds that hold the individual dust particles, or grains, together and cause them to stick to the surface, that’s erosion, too.
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Connecting the Molecular Dots of Cancer
Friday, July 15, 2022
Tumors are generally stiffer than the healthy tissue that surrounds them, and research shows that a stiffer tumor can contribute to the cancer’s progression. But exactly how a stiff tumor affects a cancer cell’s epigenome, the set of chemical modifications on a cell’s DNA that regulate expression of genes, remains unknown.
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Young Wizards of the MFL
Wednesday, July 13, 2022
In 2020, to address lab-access challenges presented by COVID, Microfluidics Lab (MFL) manager, Dave Bothman, began training a group of undergraduate engineering students he called the Workshop Wizards, to train lab users on equipment and do maintenance in the lab.
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The Microfluidics Lab: Enabler of Experimentation
Wednesday, July 13, 2022
The Microfluidics Lab (MFL) at UC Santa Barbara is one of the few campus labs where relatively little research is conducted. It is, rather, an enabling lab, where researchers and lab staff fabricate tools required for their experiments. Established in its current location in Elings Hall ten years ago, the lab began life closely aligned with semiconductor research, according to longtime manager, Dave Bothman, who has spent 36 years at UCSB and who, though officially retired, continues to work part-time in the MFL, which gets its name from the word for the easily described process of microfluidics, which Bothman says, is “simply making devices that have really small channels for fluids to flow through.”
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2022 End of the Year Award Winners for Mechanical Engineering
Friday, June 17, 2022
There will be plenty to celebrate when UC Santa Barbara’s College of Engineering hosts its first in-person Commencement on Saturday, June 11 from 3-4 p.m. on Commencement Green. During the 2021-’22 academic year, 402 engineering bachelor’s degrees have been awarded, including 76 degrees in mechanical engineering.
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Flexing the Power of a Conductive Polymer
Thursday, June 9, 2022
For decades now, field-effect transistors enabled by silicon-based semiconductors have powered the electronics revolution. But in recent years, manufacturers have come up against hard physical limits to further size reductions and efficiency gains of silicon chips. That has scientists and engineers looking for alternatives to conventional metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) transistors.
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Tyler Susko Wins 2022 CoE Outstanding Faculty Award
Wednesday, June 8, 2022
Graduating seniors in the Mechanical Engineering Department selected Tyler Susko for the 2022 Outstanding Faculty of the Year Award. An assistant teaching professor, he has received the honor five times in the past seven years.
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Wednesday, June 8, 2022
UC Santa Barbara College of Engineering faculty receive many of the most prestigious awards and honors bestowed by academic and professional societies in recognition of their leading-edge research and contributions to their fields. Here is a snapshot of the ME faculty recognized by their peers between June 2021 and May 2022, based on a list provided by the individual departments.
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