Two UCLA professors were elected into membership with the National Academy of Engineering, earning one of the highest professional distinctions for an engineer in recognition of their contributions to research, practice and education.
John Kim, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, and Deborah Estrin, professor of computer science and electrical engineering, were among the 65 new members and nine foreign associates elected this year.
Estrin is the first female faculty member from UCLA to be elected into the academy and one of four women elected this year. Both faculty members will join the ranks of some of the greatest innovators in the field of engineering, such as Bill Gates, who has been a member of the academy since 1996 for his development of personal computing.
John Kim
From his start as a researcher with NASA and his transition to UCLA, Professor John Kim has followed his niche in the study of turbulent flows.
This is a common term to anyone who has flown on an aircraft, Kim said, but turbulence is actually everywhere.
There are turbulent flows present when driving a car and even when striking a golf ball, he added.
Kim brought up the example of Tiger Woods hitting a golf ball and sending it flying for up to 300 yards.
If the specific design of the golf ball did not have dimples and was smooth, Kim said that Woods could not even get it to 100 yards.
This is because the dimples create turbulence in the air as it flies through, allowing the air to surround it long enough to stay airborne, he said.
Without the dimples, no resistance or turbulent flow would occur, and the ball would aerodynamically come to the ground sooner, he added.
“These are unsteady and chaotic patterns,” Kim said. “It is very complex and difficult, but with the use of modern computers, full simulations of turbulent flow can be mapped to eventually design planes and wings more resistant to it.”
This will have many implications when the research gets to that point in the future where it can be applied, but the goal, Kim said, is to design an airplane wing that maximizes lift and minimizes drag.
This design will also do wonders for saving fuel and energy, he added.
This area of research has been of interest to Kim ever since he was a graduate student at Stanford University, where he received his doctoral degree in mechanical engineering.
It was then that turbulent flows began to interest him, and he realized that as computers advanced, the potential to study the topic would grow exponentially.
Kim was right, and he has been a pioneer in the development of computer simulations to study the physics of turbulent flow.
However, though he saw the implications computer technology would have on the study of turbulence, he was never an expert in computers.
“I picked up computer knowledge as I went along,” Kim said. “I was never a major in computer science, but it was always interesting to me and self-taught.”
But it is not all about the research for Kim; he said that preparing the next generation of mechanical engineers is very important to him as well.
Kim’s former graduate student, Shao-Ching Huang, said that it was the ability of Kim to stay fully focused in his work and push his students to form their own ideas that really set him apart.
“At meetings, he would never say much and would get to the core issues by bypassing all the unimportant issues,” said Huang, who has a doctorate in mechanical engineering.
From back in his graduate student days, Huang said that Kim was a tough professor and had an ability to simplify some extremely complex topics.
Kim is now teaching both graduate and undergraduate courses.
“From my point of view, it is important for the young generations to get involved with aeromechanical engineering since they’re the future of the field,” Kim said.
Deborah Estrin
It can be hard to imagine that the mobile phones people carry around everywhere come heavily packed with all sorts of technological capabilities, such as Internet access and GPS.
By recognizing the widespread use of this technology, Deborah Estrin, UCLA professor of computer science and electrical engineering, is researching ways to harness the power we each hold in the palm of our hands and use it to benefit the world at large.
“These devices we carry around will become ways to sense the world,” Estrin said. “This technology is ready and can be used by anyone now.”
With the ability to zero in on locations and take images in real time, Estrin said that some of her work includes projects that look at things such as the contamination process of water systems, ecosystems and even human systems to help people become more healthy and environmentally friendly.
The multidisciplinary nature of the research prompted Estrin to establish the Center for Embedded Network Sensing at UCLA, where she is the founding director.
The center brings researchers from a broad range of scientific fields together to brainstorm how to use the sensing technology to better observe and understand the specific topics of interest, Estrin said.
“Instead of taking measurements from far away and ending up with averaged data points, this technology allows for information to be gathered from physically embedded sensors in real time,” Estrin said.
In addition to tracking natural phenomena, sensing technology can track personal behaviors with the use of mobile phones, she added.
“It helps people design interventions for themselves without relying on self-report,” she said. “If someone is trying to eat healthier, their phone can check their location every 30 seconds, and the phone then asks you questions like when the last time you ate was and uploads the info into a database that can then be analyzed.”
Estrin was always interested in the development of Internet technology as well as applied scientific research, and she received her doctoral degree in computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before joining UCLA, Estrin was a member of the USC Department of Computer Science.
She said that the time she spent at both universities was rewarding, but that the teaching aspects of her work have been a source of passion for her as well.
“I love teaching students about the Internet and describing this technology that people take for granted all the time,” Estrin said. “I consider working with graduate students like an internship, and not just for the goals of getting the research done. It is a rewarding process. Undergrads are great, too, and we involve them in our research as well.”
One of Estrin’s current graduate students, Sasank Reddy, said that working with Estrin is always an exciting process.
“She is very focused on helping students evolve,” said Reddy, a fourth-year electrical engineering graduate student. “She recommends classes for us to take, activities to pursue and just spends a lot of time with us.”
Now, as a member of the academy, Estrin said that she is excited to be part of a group of individuals dedicated to the development of engineering and technological devices that improve the world every day.
Estrin said that the message was twofold in being the first woman to be elected to the academy from UCLA. On the negative side, being the first woman demonstrates the enduring disparity in terms of women in engineering. However, she also said that the positive side is that things are changing, and women are slowly becoming more and more present in the scientific community.