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It is with great sadness that we share news of the passing of Aiiso Doreen Li (Dongdong), a kind and generous person whose presence touched many lives. Doreen’s warmth, kindness and love will always remain in our heart. Doreen, together with her husband Aiiso Yufeng Li (Jeff), their children, and their extended family, supported the mission of the Jacobs School in many meaningful ways. This includes efforts to strengthen connections between chemical engineering and nanoengineering in research, education, and entrepreneurship to improve human health and well-being. This generosity was recognized in part through the naming of the Aiiso Yufeng Li Family Department of Chemical and Nano Engineering in 2024. Doreen was a strong believer in the power of education to improve lives. She is remembered with gratitude and admiration as a mother, a family member, a friend, a community builder and a philanthropist. She made people feel seen, welcomed and valued. A more complete remembrance will be shared in the near future. 

This soft, wearable ultrasound patch can continuously monitor a fetus for hours at a time — and it can do so consistently even as the fetus and umbilical cord constantly move during pregnancy. The technology could help doctors detect complications earlier in high-risk pregnancies. In one case during clinical testing, the patch detected prolonged abnormal fetal signals that prompted medical intervention through an early Cesarean delivery, which researchers say may have helped save the baby’s life. The technology could also expand access to prenatal care in low-resource settings, where skilled ultrasound technicians and continuous, long-term monitoring are often limited or unavailable. Read more

A major security vulnerability that allows attackers to easily fake their identity in smartphone text conversations has been fixed in the United States thanks to a team of computer scientists at UC San Diego. The vulnerability affected both Android and Apple smartphones as well as all major wireless carriers, including Verizon, T-Mobile and Google Fi, and smaller independent operators such as Mint Mobile. Once they discovered the vulnerability, which stems from the ability to send text messages via email, the research team worked closely with smartphone companies and cellular carriers to develop mitigation strategies and fix the issue. Read more

Astronauts on long space missions may one day use plants to produce fresh stocks of medicines on demand, thanks to new research by engineers at UC San Diego. The team developed a simple method to grow and repeatedly harvest pharmaceuticals from plants under space-like conditions, without destroying the plants or generating large amounts of waste. The researchers successfully tested the method on plants grown under conditions simulating microgravity, with the goal of incorporating it into future space missions. Read more

A new telescope technology could improve how future space missions study and monitor the Sun’s magnetic fields while simplifying onboard hardware and reducing costs. One of the big-picture goals of this project is to develop less expensive, smaller and more reliable space-based solutions for predicting surface eruptions from the Sun that can disrupt satellites, electronics infrastructure, communications systems, and power grids. The new technology was developed by electrical engineers at UC San Diego in collaboration with BAE Systems Space & Mission Systems. Read more

A new on-site data center in the computer science building is already accelerating computing and artificial intelligence research advances. At the same time, the facility provides graduate students and other computer science researchers with valuable, hands-on access to cutting-edge computing infrastructure. The updated facility features dynamic, intelligent, in-rack cooling tied into the campus chilled water system, enabling significantly more efficient liquid cooling. By moving the on-site data center to the basement, the department also created new first-floor spaces for student collaboration.  Read more

A new device developed by engineers displays different images in response to different humidity levels. Under normal conditions or low humidity levels, one image is visible; when humidity increases, a second image emerges and conceals the first. This transition can be triggered even when a person breathes on the device. It happens in a fraction of a second and can be repeated many times. The technology could lead to the development of new anti-counterfeiting labels, secure data storage, interactive displays and environmental sensors. Read coverage in Popular Science. Read more

Six outstanding Jacobs School undergraduates earned extra kudos for their research, leadership, service and academic achievements at Ring Ceremony 2026. This was the 20th annual Ring Ceremony at the Jacobs School, a special graduation ceremony where engineering and computer science undergrads take an oath to practice their chosen trades with integrity and high ethical standards. More than 1,300 engineering and computer science undergraduates will earn degrees from the Jacobs School in 2026. Overall, approximately 3,000 undergraduate, masters and PhD students will graduate from the Jacobs School this year, providing a powerful injection of talent to the regional and national innovation workforce. Read more

UC San Diego is hosting an event as part of the Competitiveness Conversations Across America series on July 21. The event offers an opportunity to explore practical strategies for strengthening San Diego’s regional innovation ecosystem, with the larger goal of improving the overall economy. This conversation at UC San Diego will focus on building the innovation stack for the economy of the future, with a focus on computing, AI, fusion and other advanced energy, health tech, autonomy and security. Please join leaders from the Jacobs School, UC San Diego and the University of California ecosystem, as well as senior leaders from business, national labs, and government, as we collectively chart a path forward. Read more

Ludmil Alexandrov, professor of bioengineering, discusses his lab's research into the genetic mutations of people who have never smoked and still get lung cancer.

Electrical and computer engineering postdoctoral researcher Asad Nauman describes a humidity-based image encoder that looks straight out of James Bond’s Q-Lab.

Computer science Professor Leo Porter explains the Jacobs School's efforts to adapt computer science education to the rise of generative AI. 

The Jacobs School of Engineering at the University of California San Diego ranks the #9 engineering school in the nation. With 278 faculty and 10,240 students in six departments, the Jacobs School of Engineering is the largest engineering school in California. We train the innovation workforce for the economy to come. This is one of the many ways that  we power emerging industries.