From life-saving medicine to transportation innovation, the work of engineers at UC Riverside’s Bourns College of Engineering (BCOE) inspires students, sparks discovery, and drives solutions to pressing issues of the world today.

Two of those engineers, Matthew Barth and Xiaoping Hu, received appointments on July 1 as the Esther & Daniel Hays and Reza Abbaschian endowed chairs, respectively. The appointments confer prestige along with endowment investment income to expand the professors’ research.

Barth and Hu are the first to hold the new chairs after a competitive application process based on the strength of past and ongoing research, said Chris Lynch, the dean of BCOE. The college has 16 endowed chairs in all.

“They (Barth and Hu) are both outstanding in all respects and have a long record of accomplishments,” Lynch said.

Matthew Barth, from Boulder, Colo., has served UCR since 1992, after earning his Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from UC Santa Barbara in 1990. His research centers on applying engineering system concepts and automation technology to transportation systems, with emphases on energy, air quality, and climate issues.

Barth, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and former longtime director of the Center for Environmental Research and Technology (CE-CERT) at UCR, came to study transportation through his graduate-school training in robotics.

“Much of transportation (innovation) comes from the robotics field, including navigation and mobility,” he said. Working at CE-CERT, he also saw a strong need for improving traffic safety, mobility, and air quality in congested Southern California.

Key achievements

For decades, Barth has worked with U.S. and Japanese automakers to develop technologies, including on-board navigation, that support, assist and protect motorists and the environment.

Barth has pioneered eco-routing algorithms that chart the most fuel-efficient driving routes. He has also driven innovation in areas such as:

• Speed harmonization techniques, which use variable speed limits to smooth out traffic and avoid stop-and-go congestion;
• Eco-Friendly Adaptive Cruise Control, which sets a cruising speed while also ensuring a safe distance between a car and the vehicle in front of it; and
• Ramp metering techniques that minimize emissions and help prevent bottlenecks at freeway onramps.

By managing traffic, these approaches help protect human life; save time, fuel and energy; and cut air pollution and greenhouse gases.

What’s next

Barth’s latest research centers on smart intersections, which use cameras and sensors to communicate with cars, preventing accidents and keeping traffic moving at a steady flow.

BCOE has partnered with the city of Riverside to install smart intersection technology at University and Iowa avenues, with plans to roll the pilot project down University through the city’s 6-mile, 10-intersection Innovation Corridor between UCR and downtown.

The system works, for instance, by warning drivers if a truck is blocking the view of a pedestrian, or by sharing stoplight phase and timing information to help motorists optimize driving speeds. Many new cars, especially EVs, have technology to make this possible.

UCR is also one of 15 universities nationwide participating in the EcoCAR EV Challenge, a four-year engineering competition of the U.S. Department of Energy in which teams of college students coordinate to design smart technologies for a 2023 Cadillac LYRIQ EV.

“Being part of EcoCAR makes students very employable,” Barth said. “Automakers and other companies tend to hire them right away.”

On the Hays appointment

“Esther Hays was a big air-quality advocate and longtime supporter of CE-CERT, providing scholarships and meeting with students,” Barth said. “I was proud to receive this appointment, given my 20-year-long relationship with her at CE-CERT. My interaction with her all those years makes this very special.”

On life balance

“My wife and I enjoy hiking and the outdoors. I’m also very involved in Scouting – promoting opportunities for youth such as camping and outdoor activities.”

On success

“Do research on a topic you like, stick to it, and pursue it to a particular goal” such as writing a paper, developing a patent, or piquing student interest. “Also, have patience – do those things consistently.”

Xiaoping Hu, a native of Nanjing, China, received his Ph.D. in medical physics from the University of Chicago in 1988 and has served UCR since 2016. His areas of expertise include magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy, functional MRI, image reconstruction and processing, and molecular imaging.

Hu, professor and chair of the Department of Bioengineering and founding director of the Center for Advanced Neuroimaging at UCR, was drawn to science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) classes as a child. Intrigued by semiconductors and the science behind technology, he thought he’d become a physicist. But graduate-school physics projects left him cold: He found them remote and abstract.

“So I searched for a field that would still utilize my physics background and produce things that I could see and be immediately applicable,” Hu said. “I found MRI and never regretted switching to it.”

Key achievements

Hu indeed has brought tangible advances to the field of MRI, which uses tube-like machines with a magnet, radio waves and a computer to create images of internal organs and tissues. Over the years, he has devised techniques that enhance MRIs, improve the diagnosis and treatment of brain disease, and support brain health, function and recovery.

First, Hu pioneered technology to remove unrelated noise and fluctuations – from a person’s heartbeat and respiration – from brain MRI signals. Second, he pioneered methods for MRI scanning, particularly brain scanning at very high magnetic field strengths, to yield better images: “like a picture with more brightness and better contrast in some areas,” he said.

Both advances, now widely used in practice, have handed doctors and scientists better tools to diagnose, understand, and treat brain conditions such as Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, tumors, strokes, depression, and injuries from trauma.

Hu also created a brain atlas that maps the organ based on how different parts of the brain interact and are connected. This tool, used to study the brain’s connectivity and function in normal people or people with brain disorders, has also been broadly adopted.

What’s next

In addition to continuing his studies of Parkinson’s disease and aging, Hu’s current research includes clearing hurdles to using creatine to treat neurogenerative disease. Because creatine cannot readily cross the blood-brain barrier, Hu and his team are exploring delivery by nasal spray, an approach that has shown promise in animal testing.

Nasal delivery of creatine could provide more energy storage in the human brain, perhaps helping people with Alzheimer’s disease, Hu said.

Funding from the Abbaschian endowment will help advance this research.

On the Abbaschian appointment

“First of all, it is a great recognition,” Hu said. “Second, I have a lot of respect for Reza and am very honored to be named this particular chair. I was very elated when I found out.”

The Reza Abbaschian Endowed Professorship honors the former longtime BCOE dean who built the college into a Top 50 engineering school in the nation.

On life balance

“I am an avid badminton player and can still challenge players a third of my age in singles games. I also downhill ski as much as possible in the winter.”

On success

“I think interest in the work you do, thinking out of box, and drawing inspirations from related fields are the most helpful. My favorite quote would be ‘Chances favor the prepared mind.’”

Written by Gale Hammons

Our scholars got dollars.

Nearly 40 future engineers received financial support this past academic year in the form of scholarship awards ranging largely between $1,000 and $2,500.

While this financial support assists Marlan and Rosemary Bourns College of Engineering (BCOE) students in covering some of the costs of their education, the scholarship-application process is meant to do something more: encourage them to make critical connections with the campus community beyond the classroom.

In reviewing scholarship applicants, committees review student engagement. Examples of such engagement includes participating in the Highlander Orientation Peer Leader and Supplemental Instruction Leader programs, engineering-oriented professional societies, undergraduate research, and internships. The more terms students engage in such activities, the more they increase their chances of receiving a scholarship.

Student engagement are equally considered with academic performance, said Rod Smith, BCOE’s director of student affairs. 

“Student engagement is deeply important to the success of our future engineers,” he added. “Research suggests that when students are broadly and deeply engaged with the campus community, there are positive impacts to their learning, their satisfaction, and their achievement. When our engineers connect in meaningful ways with our Bourns and UC Riverside communities, good things happen!”

The 39 scholarship recipients that were selected last academic year were drawn from a pool of 314 applicants. The total amount of scholarship funds awarded was more than $46,372. Of all these scholarships, the minimum amount that was awarded—with the exception of one $500 scholarship—was $1,000.

The goal is to award between $500 and $1,000 annually per scholarship recipient, and to distribute the funds equally across first-year students and seniors. Another goal is to award between $2,000 and $3,000 to scholarship recipients over their entire time at BCOE, Smith said.

There are generally four types of scholarships BCOE students may receive. Some scholarships are specific to the college, such as the Allen Van Tran Award in Engineering Fund scholarship, a legacy left by a first-generation graduate Allen Van Tran, the youngest BCOE alumnus to establish an endowment at UCR.

The American Honda Science/Engineering Endowed Fund scholarship is geared to women or students from underrepresented communities in the Honors Program who are working on their senior thesis project.

Other scholarships are specific to a department, such as the Roberta Nichols Yakel Endowned Scholarship, which is intended for juniors who are Mechanical Engineerng majors. The Alexander Scott Bilderback Endowed Bioengineering Scholarship is geared toward undergraduate or graduate students in the Bioengineering program.

The Mark and Pamela Rubin Endowned Scholarship is a UC Riverside-wide scholarship that is specifically intended for engineering students. Other scholarships not tied to BCOE are connected to the UCR Alumni Association, the UCR Foundation, and the Office of Financial Aid.

The scholarship application period is typically in winter with the selection of awardees and notification taking place the following April.

AI is creating inequitable environmental consequences in the form of water consumption to keep servers cool and air pollution from power plants that supply the electricity. But the tech companies could distribute their processing loads to avoid environmental injustices, UCR study finds.

As our computers and other electronic devices become faster and more powerful, they are coming closer to an undeniable physical limitation: heat generated by the electrons that carry information as they move through semiconductors.

UCR study the first time estimates the huge water footprint from running artificial intelligence queries that rely on the cloud computations done in racks of servers that must be kept cool in warehouse-sized data processing centers. 

UCR team has shown in the laboratory the unique and practical function of newly created materials, which they called quantum composites, that may advance electrical, optical, and computer technologies.

New UC Riverside program will train doctoral students on translating science into public policy

UC Riverside engineers are developing methods to keep self-driving cars and autonomous drones from being hacked

The Marlan and Rosemary Bourns College of Engineering (BCOE) is adding three new makerspaces in Bioengineering, Electrical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering, as well as enhancing the existing Mechanical Engineering machine shop. The spaces will be accessible to all engineering departments and allow students to collaborate with other departments on a wide array of interdisciplinary engineering projects.

“At BCOE, our students have a track record of developing engineering solutions outside of the classroom,” said Dean Christopher S. Lynch. “These spaces will provide immediate support to bring out students’ creativity and help turn their innovate concepts into reality.”

The college is launching the #MakeRspaceMillion campaign to build the three unique spaces. Once the rooms are finished, the college’s makeRspace footprint will nearly double, exposing students to the latest technologies and immersing them in high-tech environments that encourage inspiration and entrepreneurship. 

“Having these new spaces is a game-changer,” said Queenie Xu, a third-year student in bioengineering. “Makerspaces amplify what we learn in the classroom and develop a mindset focused on what’s next.”

BCOE aims to raise one million dollars to outfit the new makeRspace facilities, have staff accessible to train students on the latest technology, and have the resources and supplies readily available for students. 

Thanks to generous donations from UCR Foundation Trustee Nora Hackett and parents of BCOE students, new gifts between $100 and $25,000 (up to $260,000 total) will be matched towards #MakeRspaceMillion. All contributions for the project will go to the BCOE Dean’s Innovation Fund. All those who donate $100 or more will be recognized by name on a permanent display for the new makeRspaces. In honor of the Class of 2022, any current BCOE student who gives $22 or more by June 30, 2022 will also be recognized.

To give towards the #MakeRspaceMillion to support our students’ bright ideas, visit https://crowdfunding.ucr.edu/o/university-of-california-riverside/i/ucrcrowdfunding/s/makerspacemillion.

Help us inspire tomorrow’s innovators, engineers and entrepreneurs!