Five faculty members from UC San Diego are among the recipients of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), announced by President Joe Biden.
The UCSD honorees are John Hwang, Duygu Kuzum and Rose Yu from the Jacobs School of Engineering, Sophia Merrifield from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Sonya Neal from the School of Biological Sciences.
“We are pleased to see our early career faculty at UC San Diego receive these prestigious national awards, which acknowledge their exceptional research and innovative contributions,” said Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla.
He added that they “are not only redefining their fields, but also serving as role models and mentors to our students, shaping the next generation of visionary scientists, engineers and leaders.”
Here’s more on the award winners and their work:
Hwang, an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, was recognized for his leadership on a project involving 11 research teams working to develop computational design tools that will help US companies build more efficient air taxi designs, faster. The ultimate goal is a network of air taxis and shuttles for an urban environment. Hwang was nominated by NASA.
Kuzum, an associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, was recognized for research accomplishments that have advanced nanoelectronics for energy efficient neuromorphic computing and devices. She was also recognized for her innovative contributions in developing neurotechnology to better understand circuit-level computation in the brain.
Sophia Merrifield, an associate researcher at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, is a sea-going physical oceanographer who was recognized for her work on marine robotics, air-sea interactions, turbulence and the development of uncrewed systems for environmental characterization. She uses autonomous vehicles to study ocean dynamics and designs adaptive path-planning algorithms for unmanned systems. She was nominated by the Office of Naval Research.
Neal, an associate professor in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, studies mechanisms related to misfolded proteins in cells and the medical importance linked with such potentially toxic threats. She plans to support educational outreach by involving community college students in her research. She was nominated by the National Science Foundation.
Yu, an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, was recognized for her work to bring together AI models and real-world physics, in particular symmetries. She is working on innovative deep learning models that can reason about complex spatio-temporal dynamics. Yu was nominated by the Army Research Office and the Department of Defense.
Biden on Tuesday named nearly 400 scientists and engineers as recipients of the award, the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on outstanding scientists and engineers early in their careers. The honorees are employed or funded by 14 participating federal agencies.
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