Spectra Newsletter

Mix together one part biosensors, one part batteries and one part anticorrosive coatings, and what do you get? The college’s W.M. Keck Foundation Advanced Materials Lab.

For 18 years, the lab, under the direction of manufacturing systems engineering and management professor Behzad Bavarian, has been a hub of cutting-edge research in CECS, supported by the Keck Foundation, Easton Foundation, Department of Defense and NASA, among others. Currently it is focused on three projects—the aforementioned biosensors, batteries and anticorrosive coatings.

A couple of years ago, with funding from Medtronics and the university, Bavarian began investigating several protective polymer coatings for biosensors that would be implanted under the skin. [Read more…]

CECS’s dean, S. K. Ramesh, now has another title (and responsibility): member of the board of directors of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, better known as ABET. ABET is the organization that accredits over 3,100 postsecondary education programs in applied science, computing, engineering and engineering technology at more than 670 colleges and universities in 24 countries. Its membership is made up of 33 different professional societies that serve the fields it oversees; each society is allocated board representation based on the number of accredited programs in its field. The largest is the IEEE, and when one of IEEE’s existing representatives was appointed secretary of the board, he could no longer represent the IEEE as a board member, so a special election was called. Ramesh was nominated for his seat and elected July 1 to the board.
[Read more…]

Two years after the CSUN College of Engineering and Computer Science was awarded the largest grant in its history—a five-year, $5.5 million U.S. Department of Education HSI-STEM grant—the program, called Attract, Inspire, Mentor and Support Students (AIMS2), is continuing its impressive momentum and showing unambiguous signs of success. [Read more…]

On the surface, the annual CSUPERB Biotechnology Symposium may not be the likeliest place to find alumni of the CSUN College of Engineering and Computer Science. The systemwide program is devoted to developing the professional biotechnology workforce, and its annual symposium is designed to broaden exposure to cutting-edge biotechnologies, product-focused innovation and career paths in the life sciences.

But last January, for the symposium’s silver anniversary, CECS alumnus Milad Girgis (BS ’97; MS ’01), who earned his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering, was one of the featured speakers, and it was a perfect fit. His talk, titled “From Machine Design and Internal Combustion Engines to Deep Brain Stimulation,” [Read more…]