October 2022 Five10 Report

The Inspector Planet Beach Clean-Up at Twin Lakes State Beach in Santa Cruz, CA, took place on Oct. 9. What a huge success it was. Over 55 students, faculty, and staff showed up from across SCU (SoE, LSB, School of Law, CAS), with a mix of locals who saw what we were doing and just joined in. Overall we picked up over 60 bags of garbage, a car grill, and much more. Congratulations to our winners, the pair who picked up the most garbage: Katie Ott '25 (Mechanical Engineering) and Taryn Chisholm '23 (Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering) represented EWB and the org who picked up the most garbage: SCU Formula SAE.

Congratulations, Chris Kitts (Mechanical Engineering), for receiving the University Award for Sustained Excellence in Scholarship. The award recognizes the outstanding achievements and dedication of a faculty member who has demonstrated sustained excellence in scholarly or creative work and who has been a faculty member of Santa Clara University for a minimum of ten years.

Congratulations, Prashanth Asuri (Bioengineering), for receiving the Brutocao Family Foundation Award for Curriculum Innovation. The award recognizes faculty who have improved the quality of education at Santa Clara University through significant innovations in pedagogy or curriculum development--particularly when those innovations affect a significant number of students--and who have exhibited general excellence in teaching.

The De Novo Fellowship is awarded to outstanding students from underrepresented groups in the College of Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering. The fellowship allows students to work on “well-crafted research projects with faculty mentors who are committed to increasing diversity in STEM.” Congratulations to the 2022 School of Engineering Fellows Sihang Li '24 (Computer Science and Engineering), Courtney Rowe '23 (Mechanical Engineering), Karl Schumacher '24 (Bioengineering), and Nick Cmager '23 (Bioengineering). Please visit the De Novo website for additional information about the fellowship, including the application and eligibility requirements. 

Engineers Without Borders student leaders Aaron Juan '23 (Mechanical Engineering), Mia Gabriele '23 (Bioengineering), and Katie Ott '25 (Mechanical Engineering) traveled to Rwanda with alumnus Jon Borst '19 (Mechanical Engineering) and former civil engineering lab manager Brent Woodcock to implement a solar water pump system. During COVID, EWB students continued to work with partners NGO and EWB Rwanda to keep the water project moving forward. The trip was overwhelmingly successful, with the students, in partnership with community members, installing the solar pump to raise water over 275 vertical feet from the valley floor to waiting tanks and a water spigot. While there, the students also checked out the two electric carts that were implemented on previous trips. One was working perfectly, and the second needed minor maintenance and was given an upgrade.

Grace Ling ’19, M.S. ’21 (Bioengineering, Computer Science and Engineering), was invited to speak at this year's Adobe MAX 2022 Creativity Conference during the Tech and Creativity: Best Skills to Learn for a Future Job session. The session focused on learning about the variety of job opportunities in modern media, hearing from professionals in the field about their career paths, and how they got started. Grace is a product/UX designer at Electronic Arts, illustrator, content creator, and founder of the most popular creative Discord channel, Design Buddies. While an undergraduate at SCU she studied both Bioengineering and Computer Science and Engineering, and received her Master of Science degree in Computer Science and Engineering.

Ross Dakin ’07 (Computer Engineering) pitched the startup Criticality Sciences, Inc. live to VC investors at SCU’s Ciocca Center's BVA4 Demo Day at the Sobrato Campus for Discovery and Innovation. Ross is co-founder and CTO of Criticality Sciences, Inc. “Criticality Sciences helps increase the resilience of national critical infrastructure (e.g. power and water systems) by quantifying network fragility and optimizing risk mitigation to prevent cascade failure.” He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Engineering from Santa Clara University and his Master of Arts in National Security Studies from the Naval Postgraduate School. Ross is currently an active member of the School of Engineering’s Engineering Advisory Board.

Grand Reunion: Over 150 School of Engineering alumni/ae, faculty, and staff came together to celebrate the “Grand Bash” on Oct. 8 alongside the College of Arts and Sciences. This annual event welcomes alumni/ae to share memories, food, conversation, and camaraderie as well as allowing them the opportunity to see the Sobrato Campus for Discovery and Innovation and to learn about the new and exciting things happening around the SoE.