News

10-19-20

Four Engineering and Applied Science graduate students are among 26 who have been named as recipients of a Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship (DOE CSGF), which the DOE provides to future leaders in the field of high-performance computing (HPC). [Caltech story]

Tags: honors MCE CMS Alexandra Baumgart Emily de Jong Ethan Epperly Margaret Trautner

10-07-20

A new quantum chemistry tool, called OrbNet, uses machine learning, quantum-chemistry calculations that can be performed 1,000 times faster than previously possible, allowing accurate quantum chemistry research to be performed faster than ever before. OrbNet was developed through a partnership between Tom Miller, Professor of Chemistry, and Anima Anandkumar, Bren Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences. [Caltech story]

Tags: research highlights CMS Animashree Anandkumar

09-17-20

The 2-Photon Optical Clock Collaboration has been awarded OSA’s 2020 Paul F. Forman Team Engineering Excellence Award. The team comprises researchers and engineers from Caltech, Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Stanford University, and the University of Colorado, Boulder. Caltech contributed the microwave rate frequency microcomb to the clock. [OSA story]

Tags: honors Kerry Vahala Boqiang Shen Myoung Gyun Suh Ki Youl Yang

09-10-20

Urmila Mahadev, Assistant Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, has been named a recipient of the 2021 Inaugural Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prize for work that addresses the fundamental question of verifying the output of a quantum computation.

Tags: honors CMS Urmila Mahadev

09-03-20

The technology behind the quantum computers of the future is fast developing, with several different approaches in progress. Many of the strategies, or "blueprints," for quantum computers rely on atoms or artificial atom-like electrical circuits. In a new theoretical study in the journal Physical Review X, Caltech demonstrates the benefits of a lesser-studied approach that relies not on atoms but molecules. One concept behind the new research comes from work performed nearly 20 years ago by Professor John Preskill, Professor Alexei Kitaev, and their colleague Daniel Gottesman. [Caltech story]

Tags: research highlights CMS Alexei Kitaev John Preskill

08-27-20

Five new Department of Energy centers will apply quantum information science to emerging technologies. The centers will develop cutting-edge quantum technologies for use in a wide range of possible applications including scientific computing; fundamental physics and chemistry research; and the design of solar cells and of new materials and pharmaceuticals. Caltech faculty will participate in four of the new science centers: the Quantum Systems Accelerator, led by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, also known as Berkeley Lab; the Quantum Science Center, led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory; Q-NEXT, led by Argonne National Laboratory; and the Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage, led by Brookhaven National Laboratory. [Caltech story]

Tags: APhMS EE research highlights CMS Oskar Painter Andrei Faraon

08-25-20

A team of Caltech students, led by Professor Yaser Abu-Mostafa, have developed a tool to predict the impact of COVID-19 using artificial intelligence (AI). While many models to predict the spread of a disease already exist, few if any incorporate AI, which makes predications based on observations of what is actually happening as opposed to what the model's designers think should happen. AI has the power to discover patterns hidden in data that the human eye might not recognize. [Caltech story]

Tags: EE research highlights CMS Yaser Abu-Mostafa

08-06-20

Anima Anandkumar, Bren Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, has received the 2020 VentureBeat AI Research Award. The award is given in recognition for outstanding contributions in the AI field, from advancing the work in ethics and fairness in AI, to trailblazing research critical to AI innovation, to ensuring young women entering the field have the opportunity and mentorship necessary to thrive. 

Tags: honors CMS Animashree Anandkumar

07-14-20

Soon-Jo Chung, Bren Professor of Aerospace, Yisong Yue, Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, postdoctoral scholar Wolfgang Hönig, and graduate students Benjamin Rivière and Guanya Shi, have designed a new data-driven method to control the movement of multiple robots through cluttered, unmapped spaces, so they do not run into one another. "Our work shows some promising results to overcome the safety, robustness, and scalability issues of conventional black-box artificial intelligence (AI) approaches for swarm motion planning with GLAS and close-proximity control for multiple drones using Neural-Swarm," says Chung. [Caltech story]

Tags: research highlights GALCIT CMS Yisong Yue Soon-Jo Chung postdocs Benjamin Rivière Guanya Shi Wolfgang Hönig

06-30-20

Computer science student Alexander Popov, advised by Professor Yaser Abu-Mostafa, is a recipient of the 2020 Henry Ford II Scholar Award. Some of the most interesting classes that Alexander has taken at Caltech have been team-based interdisciplinary project classes. These classes have allowed him to gain experience working in teams with varying specialties, while designing and implementing interesting projects (for example, a robot arm designed to recognize users’ hand gestures and assist them in executing complicated drawing-related tasks, such as exactly copying an area of a whiteboard). This summer he will be working as a software engineer at Facebook. After graduation, he aims to work at a company where he is able to further develop his knowledge of machine learning and the application thereof. The Henry Ford II Scholar Award is funded under an endowment provided by the Ford Motor Company Fund. The award is made annually to engineering students with the best academic record at the end of the third year of undergraduate study.

Tags: honors CMS Henry Ford II Scholar Award Yaser Abu-Mostafa Alexander Popov