Materials scientists at Harvard have used an extremely precise 3D printer to build lithium-ion batteries the size of a grain of sand.
Read more about 3D-printed microbatteries.
Images courtesy of Jennifer A. Lewis.
Applied physicist Federico Capasso is receiving the Humboldt Research Award today, and attending a special reception with the president of Germany. The award will fund a new collaboration with Nobel Laureate Prof. Theodor Hänsch at the Max Planck Institute near Munich.
The challenges facing the world are too consequential, the need for knowledge, imagination and understanding is too great, the opportunity for improving the human condition too precious for us to do anything less than rise to the occasion.
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| — | Harvard President Drew G. Faust, in her 2013 Commencement Speech |
You are the next generation of role models and mentors, with the power to make a difference in the life of a future engineer.
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| — | Cherry A. Murray, Dean of the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences |
Varun Kanade, Ph.D. ‘13, computer science
Varun’s doctoral thesis involved “trying to understand evolution as a process of learning.” As successive generations of organisms adapt to their environments, aspects of their evolution can be modeled computationally. As in many computational systems, there are limits to the level of complexity that can be achieved in a biological system. Varun’s research asked, “Can we understand what complexity can arise in a formal mathematical way?”
Varun has taken a postdoctoral research position at the University of California, Berkeley, where he will remain for another year while seeking a university teaching position.
Asked what he misses most about Harvard, he replies, “I miss the weather, as incredible as it may sound. I miss the changes.”
Heather Pon-Barry, Ph.D. ‘13, computer science
At the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Heather studied spoken language processing with adviser Stuart Shieber, James O. Welch, Jr. and Virginia B. Welch Professor of Computer Science. Her research, she says, was about “trying to get more than words out of speech.” By analyzing the pitch, timing, volume, and other qualities of the audio signal of the human voice, she developed new ways to recognize the emotional and affective state of the speaker. That work will help improve intelligent speech-recognition systems.
One of seven Commencement marshals selected by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences to lead the morning procession into Harvard Yard, Heather actually completed her Ph.D. mid-year and has just completed her first semester of teaching as an assistant professor of computer science at Arizona State University.
Balthasar Mueller, A.M. ‘13, physics
Balthasar is receiving his master’s degree en route to a future Ph.D. in applied physics at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). Working in the laboratory of Prof. Federico Capasso, Balthasar is conducting research on nanoelectronic and nano-optical devices that could one day be used in on-chip optical computing networks. He recently designed and built a micron-scale router that identifies optical signals and sends them in one direction or another based on the polarization of the light wave.
Looking forward to a Commencement in the near future when he receives his doctoral degree, Balthasar says he’s glad to be at SEAS because of “the unique spectrum of scientists who merge together to work on diverse problems.”
“It’s an incredible density of intelligent, interesting people,” he says.
Jonathan Ullman, Ph.D. ‘13, computer science
Jonathan studied privacy-preserving data analysis at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), with adviser Salil Vadhan, Vicky Joseph Professor of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics. When statisticians want to analyze sensitive data—such as medical records—to identify global statistics like risk factors for disease, Jonathan’s work helps to protect the privacy of the individual patients.
Jonathan plans to remain at SEAS for another year as a postdoctoral researcher while he looks for a teaching position. After that, he says, “I’ll miss my crazy office where I sit with the other theoretical CS students. And I’ll miss Boston a lot.”
John Lai, Ph.D. ‘13, computer science
A 2005 graduate of Harvard College, John spent four years at Google before coming back for more. Returning for doctoral studies in computer science, he studied the computational aspects of resource allocation with his adviser, David Parkes, George F. Colony Professor of Computer Science.
John’s thesis, which bridged economics and computer science, was about finding new ways to allocate resources to self-interested agents, using optimization, and the role of incentives in decision making. This research, while theoretical, can be applied to issues in e-commerce and in government—for example, wireless spectrum allocation.
John is now heading for a job as an engineer at Dropbox. “I’ll miss working with my adviser,” he says. “I had a really good experience.”
