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This month, we are welcoming the second incoming class of students into our artificial intelligence major, which is a computer science major here at the Jacobs School, offered by our Department of Computer Science and Engineering. 

I’d like to use this new #8 ranking to step back and recognize the importance of work happening all across the Jacobs School to upgrade undergraduate and graduate education for maximum relevance in our ever-changing AI age. This is critical, ongoing work; and I will keep coming back to it. 

To all the faculty and staff who are working so hard to empower our students to thrive in tomorrow’s rapidly evolving workforce, thank you. These are absolutely essential efforts to pursue despite the headwinds. 

When I think about all the work that is ahead of us on this front, I know that we can’t do it all alone. We’ll do it in partnership with the campus and with our entire community: with individuals, alumni, families, foundations, funding agencies, national labs and industry partners. This work never stops. It is deep work that takes time and resources. And when we secure additional resources to help our faculty do this work at a faster rate, the wins pile up for our students, their future employers, and the nation’s innovation-driven economy overall. 

This month, we finalized our annual document that takes stock in the transformational philanthropy that has helped drive the Jacobs School to maximum positive impact this year. To all our donors, supporters and friends, thank you! And to everyone here at the Jacobs School — especially faculty and staff — who work so hard to make the connections and strengthen the relationships that make transformational philanthropy possible, thank you! 

The world is changing fast, and the Jacobs School is here to ensure that we make the most of what’s to come, in service of the public good. If you are interested in engaging with us in this critical work, please get in touch.

As always, I can be reached at DeanPisano@ucsd.edu.

Sincerely,

Al
Albert ("Al") P. Pisano
Dean, UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering
Special Adviser to the Chancellor for Campus Strategic Initiatives

Congratulations Liangfang Zhang! This UC San Diego chemical and nano engineering professor has defined his career creating cell-mimicking nanoparticles to treat disease. For inventing this technology — and advancing it toward potential treatment and prevention of cancer, infectious diseases and inflammatory disorders — Zhang has been named a 2026 MacArthur Fellow from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Known as the MacArthur “genius grant,” the award provides $800,000 in unrestricted funds over five years. Zhang’s invention is a kind of cellular disguise. He takes membranes from human cells and uses them to cloak tiny, biodegradable particles about one-thousandth the width of a human hair. Armed with these disguises, the nanosized particles are given some of the biological powers of the cells they mimic. Read coverage in the San Diego Union-Tribune. Read more

Four undergraduate programs at the Jacobs School of Engineering ranked in the nation’s Top 10 in the U.S. News & World Report’s 2027 Best Colleges ranking. Biomedical engineering ranked #6 in the nation, with bioinformatics/biotechnology ranked #7. Our artificial intelligence program, including our AI major launched in fall 2025, jumped five spots to rank #8 in the nation, and #5 among public schools. Our computer science cybersecurity program ranked #10. The Jacobs School has 11 programs that ranked in the Top 10 among public schools. Read more

The Jacobs School welcomes three new faculty this fall, driving advances in emerging industries including fusion energy and artificial intelligence. These faculty will lead teams solving the tough challenges holding back entire disciplines, while training our students to become the nation’s innovation workforce for the economy of the future. Read more

A multidisciplinary team including UC San Diego computer scientists has been awarded a $37.5 million grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) for a center aimed at designing practical and self-correcting quantum computers from top to bottom, and pointing the way forward for industry to build reliable machines. The Center is led by Yale, and UC San Diego Department of Computer Science and Engineering professor Yufei Ding is a co-principal investigator. She leads the research thrust focused on quantum error-correction theory, scalable fault-tolerant architectures, and software toolchain development. Read more

Electrical engineers developed a new type of supercapacitor that can do more than store electricity — it can also provide structural support and be quickly disassembled into reusable parts. The device, known as a structural supercapacitor, could offer a more sustainable approach to energy storage for lightweight electric vehicles and other applications where weight and space are important. The work was led by researchers in Professor Tse Nga (Tina) Ng’s lab. Read more 

UC San Diego is a global leader in applying simulation and robotics technologies to patient care, physician training and medical innovation. Nearly every corner of UC San Diego’s medical education and research enterprise is touched by simulation, often in partnership with engineers and computer scientists. Researchers at the Jacobs School use these simulated systems alongside clinicians for many healthcare engineering research efforts, including developing humanoid robots, and augmented‑and virtual‑reality telemedicine systems. Read more

Engineers at the Jacobs School are teaming up with maternal and fetal health researchers at UC San Diego Health to improve pregnancy outcomes. One such project investigates whether progressive weight‑bearing exercise can protect the pelvic floor during pregnancy and birth. Structural engineers created wearable sensors by printing nanomaterials directly onto commercial kinesiology tape, which adheres to the inner thigh, glutes and back, to track muscle engagement during exercise sessions. Another project aims to improve the detection of postpartum preeclampsia with the help of wearable devices. In still another research effort, engineers are creating a functional 3D-printed model of the human placenta to better understand the role it plays in preeclampsia. Read more

The Siebel Scholars Program recognizes the most talented students in the world’s leading graduate schools of business, computer science, bioengineering and energy science. UC San Diego’s 2027 Siebel Scholars are applying engineering and computer science principles in inventive ways to improve human health. Through their research, they are advancing computational tools for evolutionary biology; using pulses of light to improve biological imaging and cut the energy cost of storing data; and developing tools to enable targeted microbiome interventions. Read more

Eleven undergraduate engineering students at UC San Diego received scholarships to conduct research in labs on campus this summer as part of the IDEA Engineering Research Scholarship program at the Jacobs School of Engineering. This is the fourth year that the program has provided summer scholarships for undergraduates to master core research skills as they work on real-world engineering projects, thanks to support from San Diego-based industry partner General Atomics. Read more

The 2026 Forum theme is Robotics: A Confluence of Mechanisms, Compute, and AI. Robotics is experiencing its "smartphone moment," with intersecting performance curves for mechanisms, compute capacity at the edge, and ever-more-capable AI models. At the 2026 Contextual Robotics Institute Forum, we will explore advances in each of these technology areas individually, as well as delve into the confluence of mechanisms, compute and AI in the robotics space. Join us on November 3 to engage with leading roboticists from industry and academia, including UC San Diego faculty and graduate students. The Forum also features a Robotics Showcase, highlighting some of the recent advances made in UC San Diego labs. Register to Join us November 3.

A previously identified pattern of genetic mutations (a.k.a. mutational signature) has now been found to be a feature in some colorectal cancers. The team led by Ludmil Alexandrov, a professor of bioengineering and medicine, also found that this mutational signature appears relatively late as colorectal tumors develop. This suggests that something may change during tumor development that causes cancer cells to accumulate a new type of DNA damage or copying error. Read more

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.