UCSB College of Engineering

by Angel Corzo, Santa Barbara News-Press A federally funded artificial intelligence program will give researchers from anywhere in the country access to equipment at OASIS, a technology and science hub for UC Santa Barbara students and startup companies. The four-year grant will fund an AI-programmable cloud laboratory at the UCSB facility that can be accessed remotely by any researcher in the country. Rep.

by Sarah Amandalore Kevin Plaxco, PhD, received an email with the subject line, “Rats 3, postdoc 0.” Because some days the rats win. Plaxco has spent two decades trying to build a biosensor that works for longer than a day in the human body, measuring any molecule in real time. Preliminary results and shorter runs — including an in vivo success in 2017 — suggested that he was getting close. Finally, after several iterations, a three-dimensional printed housing worked.

Each year, UC Santa Barbara’s open-access Nanofabrication Facility, known as the Nanofab, brings in more than five hundred users to its “makerspace” for microchips, where academic researchers, industry scientists, and students alike can design and build microchips — important components of everything from cutting-edge quantum communications research to potential tools for repairing bone with biomaterials. But once they’ve got their microchip, what do they do next?

Researchers from three institutions, including UC Santa Barbara, have demonstrated that artificial intelligence has the potential to make future visual prostheses, like a bionic eye, more precise, predictable, and responsive to an individual user.

To turn abundant carbon dioxide into valuable fuel, we need a fast and efficient way of determining which catalysts work best over the longest time. AI models have the potential to help guide catalyst selection, but as with internet chatbots, AI models are only as good as the data you put into them.

Step inside Playa House, at the edge of Isla Vista, and you’ll find builder heaven. Here, the common areas are packed not just with couches, but with workspaces, monitors, and a 3D printer. In the garage, there’s a hardware station for hands-on product building. Out back, you may see a LIDAR-equipped drone zooming overhead on a test run. Then there are the students. Starting in fall 2025, Playa House welcomed ten residents for the academic year, each intent on building and launching a startup.

Corals aren’t loners. Tiny creatures called coral polyps gather by the hundreds — and sometimes, hundreds of thousands — to create the ecosystems known as coral reefs. These living structures formed from the calcium carbonate that each polyp secretes host abundant wildlife, draw visitors to their beauty, and protect coastal communities from waves and storms.

UC Santa Barbara chemical engineering and bioengineering professor Michelle O’Malley has been selected as a Fellow of the American Chemical Society (ACS), one of the highest distinctions awarded by the organization which has more than 260,000 members in the fields of chemistry, chemical engineering, and related fields. The Cliff R.

Scientists searching for a stronger composite material, a more durable medical polymer, or a heat-responsive soft material may soon be able to test hundreds of possibilities at UC Santa Barbara without leaving their home institutions — no specialized instruments, travel, or building a laboratory from scratch.

Two research teams led by UC Santa Barbara faculty have been selected for Phase I support through the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Genesis Mission, a new national initiative designed to accelerate scientific discovery with artificial intelligence (AI). The projects are led by Michelle O’Malley, a professor of chemical engineering and bioengineering, and Justin Wilson, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry.