Lauren Mason – Page 23

Congrats to Jose Rodriguez for Being Recognized as One of the Most Inspiring Hispanic/Latinx Scientists in the United States by Cell Press

In honor of National Hispanic Heritage Month, we’re showcasing 100 of the most inspiring Hispanic/Latinx scientists working in the United States. This list—selected based on scholarly achievements, mentoring excellence, and commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion—represents only a subset of the scientific role models in the community. Our aim in assembling these names is to put an end to the harmful myth that there are not enough diverse scientists to give seminars, serve as panelists, or fill scientific positions. We highlight scientists encompassing careers within academia, government, and biotech and showcase individuals committed to serving diverse student populations at Hispanic-serving institutions. Although we understand this list is not fully representative of the Hispanic/Latinx scientific community, we hope it will help to change the perception of what a scientist looks like and makes our collective image more representative of society at large.

World’s Smallest ‘Refrigerator’

Thermoelectric devices represent a potentially transformative technology, one that could revolutionize power generation and temperature control. While they are robust, compact, noiseless, and have no moving parts, thermoelectric devices are implemented only in a few niche applications because of their low efficiency compared to conventional, compression-based heat engines. According to well-grounded theoretical considerations, thermoelectric materials might be made more efficient than their bulk counterparts via tailored nanostructuring. Given the large upside, even small improvements in thermoelectric materials might bring us to a tipping point where thermoelectric devices are routinely employed for recovering waste heat and refrigerating food.

A STROBE team led by Chris Regan (UCLA) has developed new imaging techniques for characterizing thermoelectric devices at the nanoscale, and has demonstrated these techniques on the smallest refrigerator ever constructed. Their thermoelectric refrigerator has an active volume of about 1 cubic micrometer, which is too small to be seen with the naked eye. Viewed in a microscope, it demonstrates its cooling abilities by forming a single dewdrop instantaneously when electrical power is applied. This work is continuing in collaboration with researchers at the STROBE/PEAQS partner institutions Fort Lewis College and Norfolk State University.

University of Colorado Boulder: Tenure Track Openings in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences

University of Colorado Boulder: Tenure Track Openings in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences

For the 2020-2021 search cycle, the College of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Colorado Boulder is conducting two tenure track searches.

1) Multiple Open-Discipline Faculty Positions in Engineering and Applied Science

As part of our commitment to creating a diverse, equitable, and inclusive academic culture in the College of Engineering and Applied Science (CEAS) at the University of Colorado Boulder, we are launching a new college-wide search for multiple tenured/tenure track faculty positions rostered among any/all of the six departments and six interdisciplinary programs in the college. We anticipate hiring at the assistant and associate professor levels, although qualified candidates will be considered at the full professor rank.

This search is motivated by the four core values of the college’s strategic vision: accelerate our research impact to produce advances in technology and benefits to society, embrace our public education mission including expanding access and participation of diverse and underrepresented communities in engineering and computer science, increase our global engagement, and enrich our professional environment.

https://jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDetail/?jobId=26989

2) Faculty Position in Electrical, Computer & Energy Engineering

The Department of Electrical, Computer & Energy Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder seeks well-qualified candidates for a Tenure-Track Faculty position in the areas of machine learning (distributed, explainable, secure, etc.), signal processing (statistical, sparse, distributed, high-dimensional data, etc.), network science, and/or information/communication theory (5G and beyond). Such candidates would have demonstrated, or potential for future, excellence in research in the theory, algorithms, and emerging applications of these disciplines. Synergistic and interdisciplinary research that cuts across them is a plus. Excellent candidates at the early Associate professor level with tenure will also be considered.

https://jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDetail/?jobId=27067

The University of Colorado Boulder is committed to building a culturally diverse community of faculty, staff, and students dedicated to contributing to an inclusive campus environment. We are an Equal Opportunity employer, including veterans and individuals with disabilities.

Postdoc positions available at UC Berkeley in EECS and/or Vision Science

First application deadline: November 1st, 2020

Adaptive optics imaging, computational imaging, basic vision science, future display technology

Available postdoc positions are interdisciplinary between Berkeley’s department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS), and the Vision Science (VS) program in the School of Optometry. Postdocs may be appointed in either division or jointly in both. Hires in both disciplines are intended.The project faculty are Ren Ng (EECS), Austin Roorda (VS) and William Tuten (VS). The project, called Oz Vision, conducts fundamental research in computational imaging systems directed at the emerging area of retinal stimulation at the level of individual photoreceptors, and associated applications in basic vision science and future-looking display technology. Representative research questions include: can we see colors beyond the natural human color gamut? Can we help a color-blind person perceive “full” color? Can we create a new class of display technology that fundamentally extends human vision by building visual percepts photoreceptor-by-photoreceptor?

The project includes multiple parts with high mobility and cross-disciplinary opportunity for motivated candidates. Representative project parts include:
– Apply machine learning in imaging the retina, classifying its cells, and predicting its perpetual motion.

– Design and build a next-generation retina stimulation device involving adaptive optics with one-photon and two-photon imaging/stimulation.
– Conduct human vision experiments to establish colorimetry for novel, out-of-gamut colors.
– Develop low-latency software control to prototype next-generation color displays by stimulating the retina at the level of individual photoreceptors.
– Design and implement experiments to study the potential to boost the dimensionality of human color perception.

The positions require a PhD in Computer Science, Optical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Vision Science or closely related fields. Deep experience with some, but not all, of the following topics is necessary (not in order of priority): optical engineering, imaging systems design, low-latency software engineering, computer vision, computer graphics, visual psychophysics, precision engineering, low-latency software, GPU programming, optimization, machine learning. Ideal candidates will possess outstanding communication skills, and talent for collaborating in and leading an intellectually diverse team.

Multiple positions are funded for two years with a possibility of renewal for a third year. The positions are available now and will be filled when a suitable candidate is found. The first rolling deadline is November 1st, 2020.

Interested candidates can send informal inquiries to Ren Ng (ren@berkeley.edu), or submit an application including CV, statement of research experience and interests, and contact information for three references.

The University of California is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or protected veteran status.

Announcement with images: https://tinyurl.com/oz-postdocs

UCLA scientists create world’s smallest ‘refrigerator’

How do you keep the world’s tiniest soda cold? UCLA scientists may have the answer.

A team led by UCLA physics professor Chris Regan has succeeded in creating thermoelectric coolers that are only 100 nanometers thick — roughly one ten-millionth of a meter — and have developed an innovative new technique for measuring their cooling performance.

“We have made the world’s smallest refrigerator,” said Regan, the lead author of a paper on the research published recently in the journal ACS Nano.

To be clear, these miniscule devices aren’t refrigerators in the everyday sense — there are no doors or crisper drawers. But at larger scales, the same technology is used to cool computers and other electronic devices, to regulate temperature in fiber-optic networks, and to reduce image “noise” in high-end telescopes and digital cameras.

An Introduction to EUV Light Sources

ASML’s EUV scanners are installed at customer factories and have begun high volume manufacturing (HVM) of high-end semiconductor devices. The latest generation of EUV sources, developed at Cymer in San Diego, operates at 250W of EUV power, while maintaining stringent control of energy stability and dose control, with improved availability and a design for serviceability concept. In this talk, we provide an overview of tin laser-produced-plasma (LPP) extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) sources at 13.5nm enabling HVM at the N5 node and beyond. The field performance of sources at 250 watts power including the performance of subsystems such as the Collector and the Droplet Generator will be shown. Progress in the development of key technologies for power scaling towards 500W will be described.

Diffractive Imaging in a Flash

Ultrashort light pulses on the time scale of attoseconds provide a window into some of the fastest electronic effects occurring in solid-state systems. Obtaining structural information through coherent diffractive imaging is usually done with monochromatic x-ray sources. However, ultrashort pulses are inherently broadband, and getting transient structural information on such short time scales is challenging. Rana et al. describe a method that works with the broadband nature of ultrashort pulses. They split the pulses into 17 different wavelengths and then used an algorithm to computationally stitch together the diffraction patterns from each wavelength to reveal the structural image optimized across all wavelengths. Demonstrating the technique at optical wavelengths illustrates the feasibility of applying the method to ultrafast x-ray pulses.

Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 086101 (2020).

Ultrafast Imaging at All Frequencies

A new algorithm could allow researchers to capture attosecond, multiwavelength images of an object. Illuminating a sample with attosecond x-ray pulses could let researchers image phenomena as fleeting as the rearrangement of electrons during chemical reactions. The uncertainty principle dictates that ultrashort pulses have a broad energy spectrum. However, because focusing different wavelengths typically requires multiple sets of optics, most attempts at attosecond imaging are spectroscopic, ignoring all but one radiation frequency. Now, Jianwei Miao at the University of California, Los Angeles, and colleagues have developed an innovative algorithm that can simultaneously reconstruct multiple images of an object at different wavelengths using attosecond pulses. The method offers a way to take spectroscopic images without the need for sophisticated instruments.

From nanotech to living sensors: unraveling the spin physics of biosensing at the nanoscale

Substantial in vitro and physiological experimental results suggest that similar coherent spin physics might underlie phenomena as varied as the biosensing of magnetic fields in animal navigation and the magnetosensitivity of metabolic reactions related to oxidative stress in cells. If this is correct, organisms might behave, for a short time, as “living quantum sensors” and might be studied and controlled using quantum sensing techniques developed for technological sensors. I will outline our approach towards performing coherent quantum measurements and control on proteins, cells and organisms in order to understand how they interact with their environment, and how physiology is regulated by such interactions. Can coherent spin physics be established – or refuted! – to account for physiologically relevant biosensing phenomena, and be manipulated to technological and therapeutic advantage?

Ultraviolet Laser Probes Nano-Film Stiffness

Extremely thin films of dielectrics and other materials play vital roles in many types of advanced microelectronics, but their tiny dimensions and atomic make-up can impair mechanical performance.

Now, researchers at the NSF STROBE Science and Technology Center in the U.S. have shown they can characterize the mechanical properties of silicon-carbide films as thin as 5 nm using tabletop sources of extreme ultraviolet laser light—showing them to be far softer than thicker films of the same material (Phys. Rev. Mater., doi: 10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.4.073603).

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About Lauren Mason