Science (Audio)

Increasingly frequent and intense wildfires in California and the western US are impacting communities across the state. Even areas not prone to fires suffer from degraded air and water quality – direct consequences of these extreme events. ALERTCalifornia combines a state-wide fire camera network with state-of-the-art sensor technology to support data-driven decision making before, during, and after wildfires. Join Dr. Neal Driscoll as he describes the scientific and technological expertise at UCSD that is being brought to bear on making California more resilient to climate change.  Series: "Jeffrey B. Graham Perspectives on Ocean Science Lecture Series" [Science] [Show ID: 38459]

As a mechanical engineer, Jin-Hyung Shim, Ph.D. has a unique perspective on tissue and organ regeneration. He discusses the present and potential of 3D printed biomaterials. Series: "Stem Cell Channel" [Health and Medicine] [Science] [Show ID: 38321]

Marion Nestle, Ph.D., MPH, reflects on her late-in-life career as a world-renowned food politics expert, public health advocate, and a founder of the field of food studies after facing decades of low expectations. She discusses her new memoir, "Slow Cooked," that tells her personal story, including her rise from bench scientist to the pinnacles of academia, while overcoming the barriers and biases facing women of her generation and finding her life's purpose after age 50. Series: "Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies" [Health and Medicine] [Humanities] [Science] [Business] [Show ID: 38620]

Anthropogeny, has provided many new discoveries over the past decade, ranging from new fossil finds to ancient DNA data, including from extinct hominins. New methods and multi-disciplinary collaborations are providing exciting new insights into the complicated evolutionary journey that gave rise to our species. However, we remain far from understanding some of the most striking human-specific characteristics: the reasons for our bipedality, the factors selecting for our dexterity at creating and using tools, and the true age of fire use in our distant ancestors. This CARTA symposium features advisory committee members who highlight where they hope future efforts should be focused and what type of novel collaborations are most promising for improving our understanding of the human phenomenon. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 38296]

Current knowledge of our deep past is primarily derived from ancient fossils of our ancestors that paleoanthropologists search for and discover in some of the most remote areas of the world. In the last two decades, significant fossil discoveries have been made and these discoveries have re-written some parts of our deep past. However, the fossil record is still far from complete, primarily due to the absence of fossils from some critical geological times and the lack of robust samples for the species already identified. The best way to fill temporal gaps in the fossil record and meaningfully increase the sample size is by conducting surveys and exploration to locate new areas of paleoanthropological significance. If we want to fully understand our evolutionary history, especially how we became who we are today and where we are going, continued paleoanthropological fieldwork is of paramount importance. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 38499]

Lei Li is an assistant professor in Computer Science Department at University of California Santa Barbara. His research interest lies in natural language processing, machine translation, and AI-powered drug discovery. He received his B.S. from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University. Series: "Institute for Energy Efficiency" [Science] [Show ID: 38476]

Rob Ober is Chief Platform Architect of NVIDIA’s data center products, and works with global Hyperscales to architect AI and Deep Learning clusters, develop systems and platform architecture, and influence NVIDIA hardware and software platform roadmaps. His background is in processor and system architecture, with experience in networking, storage, memories, and wireless. Rob has over 40 international patents in processor architecture, low power design, storage, networks, wireless, and mobile devices. Series: "Institute for Energy Efficiency" [Science] [Show ID: 38472]

Katharine E. Schmidtke received a B.Sc. Degree in physics and mathematics from Keele University, UK, in 1989 and Ph.D in laser physics and non-linear optics from the University of Southampton in 1993. She went on to do post-doctoral research in epitaxial growth of non-linear optical materials at Stanford University, CA, USA. She has a 25-year career in the optical communications industry including roles at Finisar, JDS Uniphase and New Focus. For the past 7 years she has worked at Facebook, Menlo Park, CA where she has driven the technology strategy for data center optical interconnects. She is currently Director of Sourcing for ASICS and Custom Silicon focused on AI/ML applications. Dr. Schmidtke is a fellow of the Optical Society of America and has been an invited speaker and served on committees for numerous international conferences, including Optical Fiber Communication Conference (OFC) European Conference on Communications (ECOC) and the Optical Interconnects Conference. Series: "Institute for Energy Efficiency" [Science] [Show ID: 38480]

Yufei Ding joined the Department of Computer Science (with a joint appointment in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering), University of California at Santa Barbara as an Assistant Professor in Nov 2017. Her research interests lie in the broad fields of domain-specific language design, architecture and compiler optimization, and hardware acceleration. Her current research focuses on building high-performance, energy-efficient, and high-fidelity programming frameworks for emerging technologies such as quantum computing, machine learning, and deep learning. Series: "Institute for Energy Efficiency" [Science] [Show ID: 38474]

Dan Nall is a professional engineer, a registered architect, an ASHRAE and an AIA Fellow, a LEED Fellow, an ASHRAE Certified Building Energy Modeling Professional, a certified High Performance Building Design Professional and a Certified Passive House Consultant. He is currently a member of the ASHRAE Task Force for Building Decarbonization, is Chair of ASHRAE Standards Project Committee 227P, the Passive Building Design Standard, and is a member of the Commercial Buildings Working Group of the New York City Local Law 97 (Building Carbon Emissions Limitation) Advisory Group. He has been involved in building energy efficiency and HVAC engineering for 45 years. Series: "Institute for Energy Efficiency" [Science] [Show ID: 38478]