Source: Pilar O'Cadiz, TANMS Education Director

In honor of National Transfer Student Week, TANMS would like to recognize Joshua Rodriguez, community college participant in the Center's Research Experience and Mentoring (REM) Program and our 5^th annual recipient of the Elijah S. Johnson Award for Engineering Inspiration, Integrity and Scholarly Promise.* Currently, Josh is enrolled as an undergraduate student at El Camino College and aims to transfer next year to UCLA to complete a degree in Mechanical Engineering. He came to TANMS through our partnership with the Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement (MESA) program at El Camino, where he has been an active member.

The REM program includes community college students in a TANMS laboratory research experience alongside high school students. Josh served as an excellent near-peer mentor to his two high school student teammates, Cheyenne Arnold and Aurion Montaque, working in the biochemical engineering laboratory of Professor Dino DiCarlo. Under the mentorship of graduate student Hiromi Miwa, Josh and his teammates completed the research project, Development and Use of Single-Domain Multiferroic Array-Addressable Terfenol-D (SMArT) Micromagnets for Capture and Release of Single Cells. He will be presenting this research at the Emerging Researchers National Conference in Washington D.C. February 3-5, 2022.

Josh is a natural leader with a keen ability to focus on the task ahead, which is not surprising given that he is a Veteran of the US Army serving overseas as a Sergeant in the Airborne Infantry. Reflecting on his TANMS experience Josh says, “I realize how vast the research opportunities are and how cooperative different disciplines can be;” and adds, “My involvement with the various grad students [in TANMS] has humanized my perception of postgraduate education.” Because of his TANMS involvement, Josh is now considering graduate school as a possibility in his future.

TANMS is very proud of all our REM participants from the past four years, many of whom have transferred and continued on STEM pathways since 2018.  After spending the 2021 summer in the Tolbert lab, Los Angeles Valley College student Ruben Bautista transferred to the Biochemistry program at Cal State Northridge this fall. Our 2020 REM participant and E. S. Robinson awardee, Ana Venerio, transferred from El Camino College to the UC San Diego Mathematics program. Another El Camino transfer student and REM alumni, Sepedah Ariana Naghibi, and E. S. Robinson awardee, recently completed her BS degree in Physics at UC Irvine and entered the Electrical Engineering Master's program at San Diego State University in fall 2021.

*This award is given to a TANMS research participant in memory of Elijah S. Robinson (2000-2017) who exemplified TANMS’ values and vision in his collaborative spirit, resilience and persistence in pursuit of higher education and engineering career goals. 

TANMS is proud to announce Ana Venerio as the 2021 recipient of the TANMS Elijah S. Robinson Award for Inspiration, Integrity, and Scholarly Promise in Engineering.* Ana Venerio participated in the TANMS Research and Mentoring Program (REM), which pairs high school and community college students in research teams to carry out a TANMS related research project. This past year, the REM program was offered online this year due to the UCLA campus closure and began in October 2020 through January 2021. Despite the virtual program experience, Ana stood out as a natural leader and a dedicated researcher and mentor to her high school research team partner, as well as a role model to her REM cohort. Ana and her partner Evan Jones carried out their research experience in the laboratory of Yuanxun Ethan Wang, Professor Electrical Engineering, undergraduate student Nancy Qian Gao's mentorship. They completed the project, Ferromagnetic Resonance Enhanced Electrically Small Antennas, and presented together at the national NSF 2021 Virtual REM Meeting,  February 11-12, 2021.

Ana says that the TANMS Research and Mentoring program “gave me the confidence I needed to know I can conduct research. She recognizes the value of learning about diversity in STEM, reflecting that, “It was very eye-opening to see that the sciences field is not as diverse as I thought it would be. This information gave me more fuel to work hard to be part of the science community and represent Hispanic people.  As a result of her REM experience, she is now interested in continuing to pursue “research on ferromagnetic materials and the different ways they can be used to improve different systems.”

Although born in Fresno, California, Ana's family moved to Nicaragua when she was an infant. She returned to the United States as a teenager and quickly devoted herself to learning English and preparing for college. Upon enrolling at Camino College, Ana began working as a Math Coach to fellow students, an experience that led her to discover her gift for teaching.  Ana's goal is to become a mathematics or physics professor. Ana Venerio is sure to achieve her objectives and make a positive impact where ever she ultimately lands.

Congratulations Ana, the TANMS family wishes you all the best!

*In memory of TANMS Elijah S. Robinson (2000-2017) 

Announced in a recent publication by Science Robotics titled "A ferrobotic system for automated microfluidic logistics", TANMS research team led by Professor Dino Di Carlo in UCLA Department of Bioengineering in collaboration with the UCLA Interconnected and Integrated Bioelectronics Lab led by Professor Sam Emaminejad has successfully devised a robotic system that uses a network of individually addressable ferrobots, each performing designated micro-/nanofluid manipulation-based tasks in cooperation with other robots.  This breakthrough provides a solution to resolving major bottlenecks encountered in fields such as medical diagnostics, -omics, drug development, and chemical/material synthesis.  Congratulations to the team for their outstanding work!Automated technologies that can perform massively parallelized and sequential fluidic operations at small length scales can resolve major bottlenecks encountered in various fields, including medical diagnostics, -omics, drug development, and chemical/material synthesis. Inspired by the transformational impact of automated guided vehicle systems on manufacturing, warehousing, and distribution industries, we devised a ferrobotic system that uses a network of individually addressable robots, each performing designated micro-/nanofluid manipulation-based tasks in cooperation with other robots toward a shared objective. The underlying robotic mechanism facilitating fluidic operations was realized by addressable electromagnetic actuation of miniature mobile magnets that exert localized magnetic body forces on aqueous droplets filled with biocompatible magnetic nanoparticles. The contactless and high-strength nature of the actuation mechanism inherently renders it rapid (~10 centimeters/second), repeatable (>10,000 cycles), and robust (>24 hours). The robustness and individual addressability of ferrobots provide a foundation for the deployment of a network of ferrobots to carry out cross-collaborative logistics efficiently. These traits, together with the reconfigurability of the system, were exploited to devise and integrate passive/active advanced functional components (e.g., droplet dispensing, generation, filtering, and merging), enabling versatile system-level functionalities. By applying this ferrobotic system within the framework of a microfluidic architecture, the ferrobots were tasked to work cross-collaboratively toward the quantification of active matrix metallopeptidases (a biomarker for cancer malignancy and inflammation) in human plasma, where various functionalities converged to achieve a fully automated assay.

On February 22, 2020, UCLA Samueli School of Engineering hosted its annual UCLA Samueli Awards Dinner where the UCLA Engineering Family gather to celebrate the school's impact and honor accomplished alumni, faculty and students.  This year, Professor Rob Candler, TANMS Faculty and 3D Thrust Lead, was recognized with the Lockheed Martin Excellence in Teaching Award.  The Lockheed Martin Excellence in Teaching Award honors the achievements of a senior faculty member who have proven records of offering students the best possible engineering education through innovative and inspirational teaching methods, curriculum development and support of student academic efforts.   

In Spring 2019, the Chen & Liang Inspiring Multiferroic Brilliance Awards (CLIMB) awards were established through the initiative and generous contributions of TANMS Alumni, Cai Chen and Cheng-Yen Liang to recognize the accomplishments and potentials of talented TANMS undergraduate and graduate students committed to making a positive impact in the world through engineering research, scientific and technological advancement, leadership and education. 

On January 28-29, researchers representing academia, industry, and government agencies gathered for the 6th Annual Research Strategy Meeting (ARSM).  This annual event has been generating growing interest in the potentials of multiferroic applications since its first meeting in 2014.  The 2020 meeting with the theme focused on advancing low frequency antennas may be the most successful yet.  As a result of this meeting, TANMS Center Director, Professor Greg Carman, organized a committee of leading experts in the field to propose a potential topic for the Department of Defense Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI).

36 postdocs and graduate students from across 6 TANMS institutions competed for the top spot at the 2019 TANMS Perfect Pitch Competition in September.  Most postdoctoral and graduate students are accustomed to presenting their research on a poster at conferences or symposiums; however, it requires a completely different set of skills to "pitch" their research in 90 seconds flat while succinctly addressing three key questions -- What is the real-life problem that their research addresses? How does their research solve the problem in an unique way? What is the impact on society and in achieving the Center's mission?