Undergraduate Research
A world-class engineering school is judged by its excellence in research. At the Bourns College of Engineering, our undergraduate students not only benefit from our faculty research activities through current theory and practice included in curriculum, they also have the opportunity to engage in research first-hand.
Faculty welcome student research assistance and are often able to fund undergraduate laboratory positions. There are three research centers within the college that also offer additional opportunities to reinforce classroom knowledge with real-world experience. Bourns's facilities are state-of-the-art, incorporating the most advanced technology available from the get-go. And two new engineering buildings are approved for construction in the next few years.
UCR Engineering Research Programs
- UCLEADS
- MSRIP
- CAMP
- MY-BEST
- CEITRES (CHINA)
- IRES-CHINA
On-going Undergraduate Research Opportunities
Undergraduate research is a strong tradition at Bourns College of Engineering (BCoE). Students frequently co-author original research papers with faculty. Few other top-tier research institutions can match our commitment to having undergraduate students participate actively in the board range of research under way across the college.
BCoE has more than $30 million in sponsored research per year, and boasts some of the most active laboratories in the nation. Our undergraduate have real opportunities to participate in and contribute to the range of innovative work undertaken in these laboratories.
In addition to faculty research laboratories, research opportunities are also available in our College's numerous and active research centers, such as the College of Engineering Center for Environmental Research and Technology (CE-CERT). For example, Dr. J. Wayne Miller, manager of the Emissions and Fuels Research Lab at CE-CERT, recently was awarded the University's Distinguished Research Instruction Collaboration Award. He has supervised or co-supervised more than 20 undergraduates on work like the first comprehensive on-board testing of emissions from ocean-going vessels.
Undergraduate Research provides an excellent training in innovation, which is the central theme of engineering. Undergraduates become part of a team of researchers that includes graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and faculties. This provides important team work skills.
On-Going Faculty Mentored Research Opportunities
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Faculty |
Department |
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Specializations |
|---|---|---|---|
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Bioengineering |
Biophotonics, cell membrane, electromechanics. |
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Bioengineering |
Immunophycis and immunoengineering; computational modeling of biomolecular structure, dynamics, & interactions; structural bioinformatics; protein, peptide, & drug design; NMR spectroscopy. |
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Julia G. Lyubovitsky |
Bioengineering |
Biomedical imaging and non-destructive optical techniques, molecular-level control of protein/peptide assembly and disassembly. |
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Bioengineering |
Signal transduction pathways, small ubiquitin-like modifier ligase, G protein-coupled receptors, fatty acid insulin resistance, high throughput screening, bioinformatics. |
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Bioengineering |
Biophysics, microfluidics and charge transfer. |
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Bioengineering |
Optical imaging techniques such as optical coherence tomography to neuroscience. |
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Bioengineering |
Biotransport phenomena, bioreaction kinetics, redox cellular reactions, drug delivery vehicles, bioseparations. |
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Chemical and Enviornmental Engineering |
Synthesis of nanoengineering materials, thermoeletric, spintronics, NEMS/MEMS, gas senor, bio-sensor, environmental remediation, dental biofilm. |
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Mark R. Matsumoto |
Chemical and Enviornmental Engineering |
Hazardous waste treatment, soil remediation, water and wastewater treatment, and water quality assessment. |
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Chemical and Enviornmental Engineering |
Secondary organic aerosol formation; emissions characterization; air quality systems engineering. |
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David M. Cwiertny |
Chemical and Enviornmental Engineering |
Environmental chemistry, pollutant fate & transport, ground water remediation. |
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Chemical and Enviornmental Engineering |
Llies at the intersection of physical, chemical, and biological processes in natural and engineered aquatic systems. |
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Chemical and Enviornmental Engineering |
Nanobiotechnology, environmental biotechnology, biosensors, bioengineering. |
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Chemical and Enviornmental Engineering |
Bio-mimetics, bio-inspired materials synthesis for nanomaterials, photovoltaics, energy storage and conversation materials (fuel cells, batteries), biomineralization studies, ceramic processing, thin film growth. |
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Yushan Yan |
Chemical and Enviornmental Engineering |
Fuel cells and zeolite thin films for semiconductor, aerospace, and renewable energy applications. |
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Akua Asa-Awuku |
Chemical and Enviornmental Engineering |
Aerosol-cloud interactions; organic droplet formation and their impacts for air quality and health. |
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Joe Norbeck |
Chemical and Enviornmental Engineering |
Development of synthetic sustainable transportation fuels, air quality impact of vehicle emission and their control. |
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Chemical and Enviornmental Engineering |
Fuel and lubricant formulations, relationship between gasoline properties and tailpipe emissions. |
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Chemical and Enviornmental Engineering |
Biological conversation of abundant, non-food sources of cellulosic biomass to commodity products including ethanol for use as a transportation fuel, with emphasis on pretreatment and enzymatic hydrolysis. |
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Iulian Neamtiu |
Computer Science |
Programming languages, operating systems & software engineering. In particular: dynamic software updating, software evolution, static & dynamic approaches to making software safe, available, secure and scalable. |
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Gianfranco Ciardo |
Computer Science |
Tools & techniques for analysis of complex hardware & software systems; symbolic model checking; logic verification; Markovian & general classes of stochastic Petri nets; performance & reliability evaluation. |
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Computer Science |
Automated decision-making in uncertain or unknown environments; learning algorithms; sequential decision making. |
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Computer Science |
Computer architecture & parallel computing; compilation & code optimizations for reconfigurable computer systems; novel platforms & programming paradigms for sensor networks; lower power computer architectures. |
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Computer Science |
Embedded systems, FPGA-based computing. |
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Electrical Engineering |
Biologically-mediated assembly of materials for electronic, optoelectronic, & energy applications; nano-structured hybrid materials; novel top-down & bottom-up assembly techniques. |
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Electrical Engineering |
Learning control systems; autonomous vehicles and intelligent transportation systems; global position systems. |
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Electrical Engineering |
Semiconductor materials and devices. |
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Electrical Engineering |
Design automation for VLSI integrated circuits high performance power/ground distribution network design and optimization, simulation and synthesis of mixed-signal/RF/analog circuits, embedded system design based on FPGA platforms and signal integrity issues in VLSI physical design. |
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Electrical Engineering |
RF/Analog/Mixed-Signal Integrated Circuits (IC), On-Chip ESD (Electrostatic Discharge) Protection for ICs, SoC (system-on-chip), IC CAD & Modeling, Emerging Semiconductor & Nano Devices. |
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Electrical Engineering |
Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), transportation & emissions modeling, vehicle activity analysis, electric & hybrid electric vehicles, mobile robot navigation, active computer vision, panoramic sensing techniques, & distributed vision. |
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Electrical Engineering |
Computer vision, machine learning, pattern recognition, artificial intelligence, multimedia & spatial databases, image processing, graphics & visualization, robotics, sensor networks, biological image/video processing & intelligent systems |
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Electrical Engineering |
Nanoelectronics, molecular electronics, and photovoltaics. Novel materials and devices. Ultra-scaled devices and device physics. Electron transport through nanostructured materials and hybrid organic-inorganic interfaces. Modeling of atomistic structure to electronic functionality. Electrical Engineering |
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Electrical Engineering |
Vision-aided inertial navigation, multi-robot systems, distributed estimation in mobile sensor networks, simultaneous localization & mapping, & structure from motion. |
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Electrical Engineering |
Electronic, photovoltaic and thermoelectric materials; graphene properties and applications; thermal and electrical characterization of nanostructure and carbon materials; Rman spectroscopy of solids and nanostructures; phonon transport and phonon engineering in advance materials. |
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Mechanical Engineering |
Cryogen Spray Cooling, Medical Lasers and Transport Phenomena for Biomedical Applications. |
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Mechanical Engineering |
Fundamental & applied fluid mechanics research, the application of fundamental turbulence concepts to studies in environmental flows. |
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Mechanical Engineering |
Transport through porous media, multiphase transport, natural convection in complex configurations, analysis of porpus insulations, heat flux applications, free surface flows, unconventional heat pipes, and power electronics, transport though biological membranes, mine detection. |
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Mechanical Engineering |
Engines & emissions, air pollution nanoparticle science. |
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|
Javier Garay |
Mechanical Engineering |
Advanced material synthesis and processing. Nanocrystalline materials and nanocomposites. Fundamental investigations of solid-state processes. Mass transport, nucleation. |
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Mechanical Engineering |
Nanopatterning for beyod CMOS, molecular assembly, functional materials, MOCVD synthesis of nanowires, hybrid architectures, carbon nanotube and grapheme electronics |
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Christopher Dames |
Mechanical Engineering |
Thermal and electrical properties of nanostructures used for energy conversion. Modeling and experiments on individual nanowires and nanotubes. |
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Mechanical Engineering |
Development and application of novel micro/nanofabrication methods and materials for micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), microfluidics, and biomedical microdevices. |