all engineering stories

Samuel Kou appointed professor of statistics

404132862 — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 09:58:46 -0400

Samuel Kou, whose modeling of nanoscale processes within molecules has opened up important new frontiers at the intersection of statistics and chemistry, has been appointed professor of statistics in Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, effective July 1, 2008.

Kou, 33, was previously John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Natural Sciences at Harvard, where he has been on the faculty since 2001.

Five faculty members named young innovators by Technology Review

404132862 — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 12:24:12 -0400

Work on flying robots, surgical tape modeled on gecko feet, energy tips gleaned from plants, new ways to grow stem cells, and dramatically smaller medical imaging equipment has landed five Harvard faculty members on a list of the world’s top 35 young innovators.

The annual list is compiled by Technology Review magazine and features what the editors and a panel of judges see as the 35 top innovators in business and technology who are under the age of 35.

Scientists demonstrate highly directional semiconductor lasers

404132862 — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:42:02 -0400

Applied scientists at Harvard collaborating with researchers at Hamamatsu Photonics in Hamamatsu City, Japan, have demonstrated, for the first time, highly directional semiconductor lasers with a much smaller beam divergence than conventional ones. The innovation opens the door to a wide range of applications in photonics and communications. Harvard University has also filed a broad patent on the invention.

Creating semiconductor lasers

404132862 — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:45:57 -0400

Lasers are often considered to be highly directional light sources:
their beams are able to propagate over long distances without
substantial spreading. This, however, is not always the case.
Semiconductor lasers, the most commonly used among all lasers, suffer
from a large beam divergence. Such divergence is governed by the
principle of diffraction, which predicts bending and spreading of light
around small obstacles or apertures. Light beams endure strong
diffraction when emerging from the small light-emitting regions of
semiconductor lasers (the dimensions of which are comparable to the
laser wavelength). This leads to a beam divergence angle of tens of
degrees for most semiconductor lasers.

DARPA awards interdisciplinary research team $1.2 million grant to study surface enhanced Raman scattering

404132862 — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 10:19:05 -0400

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded a $1.2 million grant to an interdisciplinary team of Harvard researchers to study surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) for the first phase of a potential three-year effort. If all phases of the development program
are completed, researchers could receive up a total of up to $2.9 million in funding.

Researchers develop new technique for fabricating nanowire circuits

404132862 — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 12:11:39 -0400

Scientists at Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), collaborating collaborating with researchers from the German universities of Jena, Gottingen, and Bremen, have developed a new technique for fabricating nanowire photonic and electronic integrated circuits that may one day be suitable for high-volume commercial production.

Dean of Engineering and Applied Sciences to step down

404132862 — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 10:16:40 -0500

Venkatesh Narayanamurti, dean of the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), who for 10 years has directed the renewal and expansion of the former division and its transition to a School, has announced today (Feb. 15) his intention to step down from his position in September 2008.

Engineered weathering process might mitigate climate change

404132862 — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 14:34:16 -0500

Researchers at Harvard University and Penn State University have invented a technology, inspired by nature, to reduce the accumulation of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) caused by human emissions.

By electrochemically removing hydrochloric acid from the ocean and then neutralizing the acid by reaction with silicate (volcanic) rocks, the researchers say they can accelerate natural chemical weathering, permanently transferring CO2 from the atmosphere to the ocean. Unlike other ocean sequestration processes, the new technology does not further acidify the ocean and may be beneficial to coral reefs.

Harvard, Japanese science organization sign memorandum of understanding

404132862 — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 17:18:25 -0500

Officials of Harvard and RIKEN, Japan’s equivalent of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Lanoratories have October 29 signed a Memorandum of Understanding to encourage and facilitate collaborations between Harvard and RIKEN researchers.

Michael D. Smith, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Venkstesh Narayanamurti, Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and Jeremy Bloxham, FAS Divisional Dean for Physical Sciences, met at the Harvard Faculty Club with a RIKEN delegation to celebrate the signing of the agreement.

Harvard christens School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

404132862 — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 17:48:55 -0400

An afternoon of reflection, promise, and a bit of humor marked the official launch of the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences on Thursday (Sept. 20), the first new Harvard school since the John F. Kennedy School of Government was created 71 years ago as the Graduate School of Public Administration.

Harvard President Drew Faust officially ushered the former Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences into its new status a little after 2 p.m., unfurling the new School's banners during a luncheon ceremony held on the lawn of Pierce Hall.

Young scientists do summer research

50443248 — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 09:23:22 -0400

During this short hot summer, approximately 120 undergraduate scientists spent more time on the laboratory bench than at the local beach. These fledgling biologists, chemists, and engineers were participating fellows in the Harvard College Program for Research in Science and Engineering (PRISE), a project that came out of the 2005 report of the President’s Task Force on Science and Engineering headed by Barbara J. Grosz, interim dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and Higgins Professor of Natural Sciences in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Radhika Nagpal nets prestigious NSF award for up-and-coming researchers

50443248 — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 15:28:44 -0400

Radhika Nagpal, assistant professor of computer science in Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), has won a Faculty Early Career Development Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The honor is considered one of the most prestigious for up-and-coming researchers in science and engineering.

Nagpal, whose work bridges computer science and biology, plans to use the $400,000 award (paid over five years) to further her research on self-organizing systems. In particular, she is interested in learning how to better engineer self-organizing, self-repairing distributing computing systems. She also wants to gain a fuller understanding of robust collective behavior in biological systems.

French fries, other vegetable oil products help fuel recycling effort

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 11:16:00 -0400

Harvard Recycling and Waste Management fueled its truck with used vegetable oil from the Annenberg Hall kitchen this past Tuesday (Sept. 19) - marking a first for a Facilities Maintenance Operations (FMO) vehicle. According to recycling and waste management supervisor for FMO Rob Gogan, the oil performed "identical to diesel."

Up until recently, Harvard University Dining Services (HUDS) collected and shipped off the used oil from Harvard's deep fryers for use in cosmetics and animal feed. Now, Harvard's recycling truck will use about half of Annenberg's waste oil to fuel trips across campus picking up bulk recyclables such as computers, clothing, and scrap metal, and donations to Harvard Habitat for Humanity.

Schepens scientists first to discover angiogenesis switch inside blood vessel cells

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 06:27:34 -0400

Scientists at Schepens Eye Research Institute, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School, are the first to discover a switch inside blood vessel cells that controls angiogenesis (new blood vessel growth).

The switch, they learned, is turned on and off by the balance between two enzymes (known as PI3K and PLCg) that compete for the use of the same lipid membrane to fulfill opposite missions, growth and regression, respectively. This finding could lead to new, more targeted drugs for diseases such as cancer, diabetic retinopathy, and macular degeneration. The study, titled "Regulating angiogenesis at the level of PtdIns-4,5P2," is published in The EMBO Journal (May 17, 2006).

Researchers learn more about ways to regenerate the ear's hearing cells

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 06:27:07 -0400

Massachusetts General Hospital researchers have made important progress in their ongoing effort to regenerate the inner ear's hair cells, which convert sound vibrations to nerve impulses. In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they report successfully creating a mouse model that allows them to build on earlier findings about the effect of deactivating a protein that controls the growth and division of hair cells.