Dr. Albert Pisano

Dean of the Jacobs School of Engineering and the Walter J. Zable Chair in Engineering, UCSD | Fellow of the ASME & Member of the NAE

Lecture Information:
  • March 3, 2017
  • 2:00 PM
  • ECS 241
Albert Pisano headshot

Speaker Bio

Albert (“Al”) P. Pisano was appointed as the Dean of Engineering at UC San Diego 1 September 2013. He held appointments at the University of California at Berkeley for 30 years, serving in a number of leadership positions. He was elected to the US National Academy of Engineering in 2001 and to Fellow status in the ASME in 2004. At the Dean of Engineering, he holds the Walter J. Zable Chair of Engineering, and is appointed as Distinguished Professor both in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering as well as in Electrical and Computer Engineering. From 1997-1999, he served as Program Manager for MEMS at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) where he expanded the research portfolio to 83 contracts awarded nationwide with a total MEMS research expenditure in excess of $168 million over 3 fiscal years. Having graduated nearly 70 Ph.D. students and 75 MS students, he is an author of over 400 journal papers and 36 patents. He is a 10-time entrepreneur and his research interests include MEMS for a wide variety of applications, including harsh environment sensors systems and wearable sensors.

Description

After making a short introduction of the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego, Dean Pisano will outline several programs designed to increase research output, encourage commercialization, and enhance the educational experience for students. The majority of the talk will be focussed on the design, fabrication and optimization of a new class of microsensors, frequently fabricated in polymer, elastic electronic technologies, and purposed to obtain biophysical data so that the current physiological state of people may be known. This sensor class has promise of reaching trillion sensor volumes per year, and as such, stands as a major economic force in its own right, as well as a force for the public good. The talk will end with a description of new manufacturing methods for making such volumes of new sensors.