stanford engineering year in review 2011-12

STANFORDENGINEERING

T H E Y E A R I N R E V I E W 2011-2012

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Dean gets asked many questions, but the

most frequent has to be: what is Stanford

Engineering’s secret? What has made the

school so successful, not just in recent

decades but over its 87-year history?

There are many things I could point to – our

world-class faculty, the quality of our students, our

technical facilities and our proximity to Silicon Val-

ley all come to mind. The secret, in truth, is all of the

above and yet none at the same time.

To me, the true essence of Stanford Engineering is

ideas – namely, big ideas.

Stanford is not afraid to look at the profound tech-

nical challenges of our time – environmental sustain-

ability, clean energy, human health, information

technology and innovation at the nanoscale – and to

pursue bold solutions to them. Our research is aimed

at the heart of problems that will need to be solved if

humankind is to continue to fl ourish on Earth.

In these four contexts, it is possible to look back at

2011-2012 and to put the accomplishments of the

School of Engineering in perspective. Engineers at

Stanford are forging ahead in all these areas.

In environmental sustainability, Stanford engi-

neers are working to ensure fresh water resources

for the nation. In pursuing clean energy, they are

coaxing microbes to make better biofuels. In human

health, our scientists are training computers to eval-

uate cancers and turning DNA into a form of rewrit-

able digital data storage. At the nanoscale, they are

illuminating physics at the thresholds of matter and

devising faster, more e� cient data communications

systems. In information technology, they are rede-

fi ning networking infrastructure.

Often these advances come from surprising places

that demonstrate Stanford’s emphasis on interdisci-

plinary research – in but one example, researchers in

the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics

developed a cost-e� ective touchscreen Braille writer

for the blind.

In short, the faculty and students of Stanford

Engineering are doing great things.

In hindsight, I am struck not

just by the tremendous breadth

and depth of the accomplishments

of Stanford Engineering’s faculty

and students, but most profoundly

by the potential impact of their

work. Great engineering is where

big challenges are met with even

bigger ideas. Nowhere is this more

apparent than at the Stanford

School of Engineering.

We hope you enjoy reading about

our big ideas from the past year and

that you continue to take pride in all

that Stanford Engineering has

come to represent.

Sincerely,

James D. “Jim” Plummer, dean

Big Challenges, Big Ideas: A Year in Review

a

letter from the dean

S T A N F O R D E N G I N E E R I N G �

T H E Y E A R I N R E V I E W � � � � � � � � �

STANFORDENGINEERINGc o n t e n t s

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A Glass Half FullHope is rising that solutions to our environmental challenges are close at hand.

Fantastic VoyagesEngineers are pushing the technological boundaries in human health.

Illuminating the NanoEngineers are transforming technology at the smallest of scales.

That Stanford TouchBuilding on a legacy of innovation, Stanford is reshaping information technology.

Letter from the Dean

Spotlight: Chemical EngineeringSurging toward the future

A Day in the LifeA pristine environment

Faculty News• Awards & Honors

• Newly Appointed & Emeritus

• In Memoriam

• New Heroes

Financials• About the School

• Financials

• Alumni Statistics

Endnote

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E N E R G Y A N D E N V I R O N M E N T

STANFORDALUMNI CREATE

IN GLOBAL ECONOMIC IMPACT

H U M A N H E A L T H

N A N O T E C H N O L O G Y

I N F O R M A T I O N T E C H N O L O G Y

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$3 trillion

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C O V E R P H O T O G R A P H S B Y J O E F L E T C H E R

engineer ing .stanford .edu

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EDITOR�IN�CHIEFLaura Breyfogle

EXECUTIVE EDITORJamie Beckett

MANAGING EDITOR/CREATIVE DIRECTIONAndrew Myers

WRITERSAndrew MyersMark ShwartzGlen Martin

Max McClureJamie Beckett

SOCIAL MEDIA/WEB MANAGERStaci Baird

PHOTO EDITORSteve Stanghellini

CREATIVE DIRECTOR/DESIGNSusan Scandrett

COPY EDITORHeidi Beck

PRINTERR.R. Donnelly

SCHOOL OF ENGINEERINGADMINISTRATION

James PlummerDean

Curtis FrankSr. Assoc. Dean, Faculty and Academics

Brad OsgoodSr. Assoc. Dean, Student A� airs

Laura BreyfogleSr. Assoc. Dean, External Relations

Clare Hansen-ShinnerlSr. Assoc. Dean, Administration

DEPARTMENT CHAIRSCharbel Farhat

Aeronautics and Astronautics

Norbert PelcBioengineering

Eric ShaqfehChemical Engineering

Stephen MonismithCivil and Environmental Engineering

Jennifer WidomComputer Science

Abbas El GamalElectrical Engineering

Peter GlynnManagement Science & Engineering

Robert SinclairMaterials Science and Engineering

Friedrich PrinzMechanical Engineering

Margot GerritsenDirector, Institute for Computational and

Mathematical Engineering

CONTRIBUTORSTim Bower, Thomas Broening,

Linda Cicero, Joe Fletcher, Norbert von der Groeben,

Mark Allen Miller, Joel Simon, Michael Sugrue, John Todd

STA N F O R D S C H O O L O F E N G I N E E R I N G | J E N�H S U N H UA N G E N G I N E E R I N G C E N T E R | �� V I A O RT E G A | STA N F O R D, C A ��

P U B L I S H E R James Plummer, Dean

Stanford ENGINEERING|

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Life. Energy. Environment. This triumvirate of engi-neering priorities is perhaps unmatched in both its scale and its importance to ensuring quality of life for all inhabitants of planet Earth. At the heart of all three is chemical engineering.

Countless industries depend on the synthesis and processing of chemicals and materials – on chemical engineering – for their very existence. The chemical and energy industries are obvious examples, but evidence abounds in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, electronic device fabrication and materials, medical applications and biology, water purification, environmental engi-neering and more.

In many ways, growing population and the challeng-es of a new century have produced in the fi eld of chem-ical engineering a shift in focus from the e� cient man-ufacturing of chemicals for industry to exploring the key environmental and biological questions of the day. From artifi cial photosynthesis to producing fuel with microbes to exploring the chemical processes in living organisms, chemical engineers are leading new discov-eries every day.

In this regard, Stanford Engineering is no exception. Fifty-two years after its founding, the Department of Chemical Engineering at Stanford – known as ChemE – has entered a period of dynamic expansion organized along three distinct lines of strategic focus – the chem-

istry of life, the chemistry of energy and the chemistry of the environment.

By shaping the department around these priorities, it is possible to under-stand the extensive impact chemical engineering has upon the everyday lives of billions of people across the planet. Chemical engineering holds the key to a healthier, cleaner and more efficient world, and a better tomorrow for all humans.

Among its major initiatives, the chemical engineering department at Stanford is looking forward to a gleaming new home in the Biological and Chemical Engineering Building, the fourth and fi nal building in the Science and Engineering Quad (SEQ). The building, set to open in 2014, will offer state-of-the-art teaching labs, ample office space and convenient social areas intended to foster the sort of vibrant intersection of people and ideas that is the hallmark of Stanford Engineering.

Each day at Stanford, chemical engineers are engi-neering the future and, in the process, reshaping their fi eld and the way we live on planet Earth. ▲

CHEMICAL ENGINEERING: SURGING TOWARD THE FUTURE

Stanford chemical engineers perform cutting-edge research in a world-class setting. The new Biological and Chemical Engineering Building (below) is set to open in 2014.

Chemical engineers are engineering the future, reshaping the fi eld and the way we live on planet Earth.


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A Day in the LifeIn a “cleanroom” at the Stanford Nano Center, a researcher reaches to open an evaporator. She wears a “bunny suit” to trap particles of dust and hair. The diameter of a human hair is 1000 times the size of the typical nanoscale device. A single strand of hair or particle of dust would render the device unusable. In the background, the yellow windows are a telltale sign of a lithographic area. The windows are coated with foil, giving them a jaundiced hue. The foil blocks light that would otherwise expose the light-sensitive lithographic materials. The School of Engineering shares the Stanford Nano Center and the Stanford Nanocharacterization Laboratory with several other schools under the aegis of the Dean of Research.

P H O T O G R A P H B Y J O E F L E T C H E R


Dr. Richard Luthy stands over Calera Creek, once a barren quarry in Pacifi ca, California, now restored with highly treated wastewater.


In the last decade, the challenges of replacing finite and harmful fossil fuels with clean and renewable options, combined with the vice grip

of dwindling water and rising population, have dra-matically reshaped engineering in the energy and environmental fi elds. Stanford Engineering is cre-atively and aggressively pursuing solutions to these challenges on a number of fronts through cutting- edge applied science. �

Engineers at Stanford are optimistic about

our nation’s environmental future.

A Glass

FullHalf

P H O T O G R A P H B Y T H O M A S B R O E N I N G

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SEWAGE TREATME NT PLANTS generally rate low on

anyone’s list of preferred recreation sites, and rightly

so. The architecture emphasizes utility over aesthet-

ics, and the aroma is – well, pungent to say the least.

But Richard Luthy, a Stanford professor of civil

and environmental engineering, foresees a day when

you may well visit a treatment plant to walk the dog,

watch birds – even have a picnic. Indeed, he says the

sewage plant of the not-too-terribly-distant future

could resemble a large urban park: a verdant com-

plex of ponds, marshes, woodlands and pathways

teeming with wildlife.

“It will provide multiple benefi ts, and recreation

will certainly be one of them,” says Luthy. “But it

will also generate reclaimed ammonia and phos-

phorous, which can be used for fertilizers. It will

yield methane, which can be burned to generate

electricity. And perhaps most signifi cantly, it will

reclaim water, turning a waste product into a valu-

able resource.”

Luthy is the project leader of a $20 million, fi ve-year

National Science Foundation grant to the Stanford

School of Engineering and three other universities to

create the Engineering Research Center for Re-inventing

the Nation’s Urban Water Infrastructure. They call it

ReNUWIt (renuwit.org).

ReNUWIt’s mission: identify new ways to supply

urban water and treat wastewater with greater e� -

ciency. Resource recovery and environmental mitiga-

tion are the foremost goals.

One of the thorniest problems, Luthy and his col-

leagues say, is the current water infrastructure. Exist-

ing water supply and treatment systems are, well, old

and big.

In the best of all possible worlds, he says, these

antiquated systems would be ripped up and replaced,

At the East Bay Municipal Utility District (below), a model wastewater facility is the fi rst in the nation to sell excess electricity back to the grid. Top right: Purple pipes pump recycled water in Palo Alto, California. Bottom right: Luthy and team examine soil samples from San Francisco Bay.

The sewage plant of the future could resemble a large urban park: a verdant complex of ponds, marshes, woodlands and pathways teeming with wildlife.


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but that is virtually impossible. The expense would

be far too great – and their wholesale replacement is

infeasible and impractical from the public policy per-

spective. New technologies that save water, energy

and money must therefore be embedded intelligently

into existing systems.

“The emphasis now is on saving, or even generat-

ing, energy and reclaiming water, rather than mov-

ing wastewater from homes and dumping treated

water into the ocean or a river as expeditiously as

possible,” says Luthy.

One way to incorporate new technology is to

decentralize current systems by establishing small

“neighborhood” plants to reclaim water from sewage,

he says.

THE WATER CAPTURED at these satellite facilities

could be treated and recycled for irrigation or other

non-potable uses, while the residual solids would be

sent back to extract nitrogen and phosphorous for

fertilizer, siphon o� methane for fuel and generate

compost for soil amendment.

“You’d burn the methane to generate electricity

that could power the treatment plants,” observes

Luthy. Anaerobic bioreactors would replace energy-

intensive aerobic systems to treat waste. “Ultimately,

you could have treatment systems that are energy-

neutral – or even energy-positive – while reclaiming

water,” he adds.

Another possibility is to address wastewater at the

point of use. “Think in terms of a small, robust unit

that could treat gray water right in the home or

neighborhood,” says Luthy.

ReNUWIt researchers are exploring another

mode of water treatment and reclamation. They

believe that strategically managed wetlands, engi-

neered groundwater replenishment systems, and

innovative storm water basins can augment local

urban water supplies – e� ciently and with low envi-

ronmental impact.

“[ReNUWIt] wants to be able to defi ne these pro-

cesses so we can scale them up – so ultimately, we can

use them for large cities,” Luthy says. “These will be

natural systems, but make no mistake – they’ll also

be engineered systems.”

Other ReNUWIt initiatives include establishing

storm water infi ltration basins in San Francisco East

Bay communities, and designing test beds that

employ mussels and clams as living filtration sys-

tems to remove particles from water.

“Our water treatment systems are at the end of

their design life,” Luthy observes. “We need new

infrastructure – and it has to be fi nancially, environ-

mentally, and socially sustainable.”

In all its projects, ReNUWIt’s overriding goal is to

make maximum use of a diminishing resource in an

energy-e� cient and environmentally sound fashion. �

�� E N G I N E E R I N G . S T A N F O R D . E D U


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Welcome to the Microbial ZooBy human standards, a methanogen leads an extreme life. It cannot grow in the presence of oxygen. Instead, it dines on atmospheric carbon dioxide and electrons it borrows from hydrogen. In turn, it excretes pure meth-ane, the key ingredient in natural gas.

This process intrigues clean-energy engineers, including Alfred Spormann, a professor of chemical engineering and of civil and environmental engineering. As part of the Global Climate and Energy Project at Stanford, Spormann and colleagues from the Pennsyl-vania State University are raising colonies of methano-gens in hopes of converting electricity into methane gas on a grand scale.

Their goal is to create massive microbial factories that will one day transform clean electricity generated by solar, wind or nuclear sources into renewable methane fuel and other valuable chemical compounds for industry.

“Most of today’s methane is derived from natural gas, a fossil fuel. Our microbial approach would eliminate the need for using fossil resources,” says Spormann.

From a renewable energy and environmental stand-point, the chemical equation at play is a beautiful thing. The methanogens extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and combine it with electrons generated by emissions-free sources. The result is a storable fuel: methane. Then, when the methane is burned, the car-bon dioxide simply returns to the atmosphere.

“The whole microbial process is carbon-neutral,” Spormann says.

Methane-producing microbes could help solve one of the biggest challenges of large-scale renewable ener-gy: where to store surplus energy generated by solar and wind farms for use in times when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining.

“Right now there is no good way to store electricity,” Spormann says. Batteries are unwieldy, expensive and often made of toxic chemicals. “If we can engineer methanogens to produce methane at scale, it will be a game changer.”

Methane could fuel airplanes, ships, vehicles and more, but the work is not without its challenges. “Micro-bial communities are complex,” Spormann says. “Oxy-gen-consuming bacteria can help stabilize the commu-nity by preventing the build-up of oxygen gas, which methanogens cannot tolerate. Other microbes com-pete with methanogens for electrons. We want to iden-tify the composition of di� erent communities and see how they evolve together over time.”

To accomplish that goal, Spormann has been feeding electricity to laboratory cultures consisting of mixed strains of microbes – his “microbial zoo” – looking for

Post-doc Svenja Lohner and Professor Alfred Spormann.

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the perfect combination that can coexist at scale. “There might be organisms that are perfect for mak-

ing chemicals like acetate or methane, but haven’t been identifi ed yet,” Spormann says. “We need to tap into the unknown, novel organisms that are out there.” �

Down the Wireless HighwaySomeday, we may drive electrifi ed highways that wire-lessly charge our cars and trucks as they cruise down the road. A Stanford team of researchers has designed a high-efficiency charging system that can wirelessly transmit electric currents large enough to make such a system a reality.

“Our vision is that you’ll be able to drive onto any highway and charge your car,” says Shanhui Fan, an associate professor of electrical engineering at Stanford. “Large-scale deployment would involve revamping the entire highway system and could even have applications beyond transportation.”

A charge-as-you-drive system would overcome the limitations in driving range and charging time for current plug-in electric cars.

“You could potentially drive for an unlimited amount of time,” says Richard Sassoon, managing director of the Stanford Global Climate and Energy Project (GCEP), which funded the research. “You could actually have more energy stored in your battery at the end of your trip than you started with.”

The wireless power transfer is based on magnetic resonance coupling. When two copper coils are tuned to resonate at the same natural frequency – like two wine glasses vibrating in unison when a specifi c note is

struck – electrical current is transferred from one coil to the next, without contact and without wires. Elec-trified coils in the road could theoretically transmit power to coils in cars traveling above.

To demonstrate feasibility of their vision, Fan and his colleagues devised a system that could transfer 10 kilowatts of electric power at a distance of 6.5 feet – enough to charge a car moving at highway speeds.

The secret involves bending the coils at 90-degree angles. Fan and his colleagues recently fi led for a patent. The next step is to test the device in the laboratory and eventually try it out in real driving conditions. Fellow Stan-ford Engineering professor Mike Lepech, in civil and environmen-tal engineering, is working on the challenges of integrating these systems into existing highways.

“We have the opportunity to rethink how electric power is delivered to our cars, homes and work,” Fan says. “Our work is a step in that direction.” ▲

.007%Share of the world’s

water that is fresh and available

Source: USGS

Associate professor Shanhui Fan (center), post-doc Zongfu Yu (right ) and

grad student Aaswath Raman (left)

Top right: Electric vehicles may one day travel highways that recharge them as they drive. Bottom left: Certain carbon-dioxide-eating bacteria excrete valuable methane that can fuel power plants.

�� S T A N F O R D E N G I N E E R I N G

Dr. Richard Luthy at Calera Creek in Pacifi ca, California, one of the degraded streams being restored by wastewater. The site was once a barren rock quarry.

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More than ever before, engineers are applying their problem-solving skills to challenges in

human health and medicine.

I L L U S T R A T I O N B Y T I M B O W E R

F A N T A S T I C V O Y A G E SFrom efforts that harness the power of computers to analyze vast amounts of data to genomics to advances in furthering our fundamental understanding of life, engi-neers are making a profound impact on human lives .

IF SOMEDAY YOUR doctor turns to you

and says, “Take two surgeons and call

me in the morning,” you may have Ada

Poon to thank.

Poon is an assistant professor of elec-

trical engineering developing a new class

of medical devices that can be implanted

or injected into the human body and pow-

ered wirelessly from outside the body

using electromagnetic radio waves. No

batteries to wear out. No power cables

needed.

“Such devices could revolutionize

medical technology,” says Poon. “Appli-

cations include everything from diag-

nostics to minimally invasive surgeries.”

Some of these new machines, like

heart probes, cochlear implants, pace-

makers and drug pumps, would be sta-

tionary within the body. Others, like her

recent creations, could travel through the

bloodstream to deliver drugs, perform�

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analyses and perhaps even zap blood clots or remove plaque from sclerotic arteries.

The concept of implantable medical devices is not really novel, but what has been a challenge is power-ing them. They require batteries, which are large and heavy and must be replaced periodically. Fully half the volume of most implantable devices is battery.

Poon’s implanted device picks up the radio signal through an antenna of coiled wire, which generates electricity through electromagnetic induction.

For 50 years, scientists have dreamed of wire-lessly powered devices, but they ran up against mathematics. According to the mathematical mod-els, high-frequency radio waves dissipate too quickly in human tissue, fading exponentially as they travel deeper into the body. Low frequency waves – according to the models – travel farther, but require antennas that are too large to be practi-cal in the body.

Poon realized that scientists were approaching the

problem in the wrong way. In their models, they assumed that human muscle, fat and bone were gen-erally good conductors of electricity. Poon chose instead to think of tissue as a dielectric – not a con-ductor at all, but an insulator governed by a di� erent set of equations. When Poon recalculated, she made a surprising discovery: radio waves travel much far-ther in human tissue than anyone thought.

“We realized that the optimal frequency for wireless powering is actually around 1 gigahertz,” says Poon. “That’s about 100 times higher than anticipated.”

The revelation meant that antennas could be 100 times smaller. In Poon’s latest device, the antenna is just 2 millimeters square, small enough to travel through large arteries.

“There is considerable room for improvement before such devices are ready for medical applica-tions,” says Poon, “but for the fi rst time in decades the possibility seems closer than ever.” �

Below: Assistant Professor Ada Poon (right), Daniel

Pivonka (left) and Anatoly Yakovlev (center) have

developed a wirelessly pow-ered device that can swim through the bloodstream.

Near right: The device is just a few millimeters across. Far

right: Artist’s rendering of a future version inside the

body. Below right: Professor Daphne Koller has trained

computers to evaluate breast cancer tumors.


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The Learned MachineSince 1928, breast cancer characteristics have been evaluated and categorized by pathologists looking through a microscope. They examine and score the cancers according to a scale developed eight decades ago. The scores help doctors assess the type and severity of the cancer, and to calculate the patient’s prognosis and course of treatment.

Daphne Koller, an associate professor of computer science, and pathologists at the Stanford School of Medicine have for the fi rst time trained computers to analyze microscopic images of breast cancers with greater prognostic accuracy than humans.

To do this, Koller’s computers pore over images of tissue samples from patients whose prognosis is known. Time and time again, the computer mea-sures and compares various structures of the tumors and surrounding tissues, and tries to predict patient survival. Those predictions are compared against the known patient data. Then, depending upon how accurate they are, the computers adapt. It is essen-tially trial and error, but at a much accelerated rate. Gradually, the computers figure out what tumor structures best predict survival.

“The computer learns,” says Koller. Pathologists have been trained to look at and eval-

uate specific cellular structures of known clinical importance, which get incorporated into the grade, explains Andrew Beck, MD, a doctoral candidate in biomedical informatics who worked with Koller on the research. But tumors contain innumerable addi-tional features whose clinical significance has not previously been evaluated.

“The computer strips away that bias and looks at

thousands of factors to determine which matter most in predicting survival,” says Koller.

Their model is called Computational Pathologist, or C-Path. It assesses not three or four or even a hand-ful of structures, but 6,642 cellular factors. In the end, C-Path yields results that are a statistically signifi cant improvement over human-based evaluation.

In a discovery that may prove even more valuable than improved prognoses, C-Path identifi ed struc-tural features in cancers that matter as much or more than those on which pathologists have tradition-ally relied. The computers confi rm, for instance, �



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that the characteristics of the outermost cancer cells

of a tumor – the epithelia – are predictive of outcome.

This was as expected, but somewhat to the research-

ers’ surprise, the computers found that the healthy

cells immediately surrounding the cancer, known as

the stroma, are just as predictive of outcome, and

perhaps more so.

The research is a glimpse into the future of pathol-

ogy in which humans and computers collaborate to

improve results.

“If we can teach computers to predict survival,

why not courses of treatment or drug therapies a

given patient might respond to best? Or even to look

at samples of non-malignant cells to predict which

will turn cancerous?” says Koller. “This is personal-

ized medicine.”�

Totally RAD“One of the coolest places for computing,” says pro-fessor Drew Endy, a bioengineer, “is within biological systems.”

Endy, his postdoctoral scholar Jerome Bonnet, and graduate student Pakpoom Subsoontorn have discov-ered a way to reapply natural enzymes to fl ip specifi c sequences of DNA in bacteria back and forth at will – creating a method for repeatedly encoding, storing and erasing digital data within a living cell.

In practical terms, the three bioengineers devised the genetic equivalent of a binary digit – a “bit” in data parlance.

“If the DNA section points in one direction, it’s a zero. If it points the other way, it’s a one,” Subsoontorn explains. The team calls it a “recombinase addressable data” module, or RAD for short.

With one bit down, Endy’s goal is to get to eight bits – or a “byte” – of programmable genetic data storage. With such a tool, researchers might count how many times a cell divides, perhaps someday providing us the ability to turn o� cells before they turn cancerous. “Looking ahead, we’re most interested in creating more scalable and reli-able biological bits as soon as possible,” Endy says.�


Modeling a Whole CellPersevering for 12 years and drawing upon data from more than 900 scientifi c papers, Markus Covert, assis-tant professor of bioengineering, has created the world’s fi rst computer model of an entire living organism that accounts for every molecular interaction that takes place in the cell’s life cycle.

Covert’s subject is Mycoplasma genitalium, a patho-gen with the smallest genome of any free-living organ-ism – just 525 genes. (E. coli, a more traditional labora-tory bacterium, has 4,288 genes by comparison.)

Even at this small scale, the data that the Stanford researchers incorporate is enormous. They model indi-vidual biological processes in 28 separate “modules,” each governed by its own algorithm, making use of more than 1,900 experimentally determined parameters.

Covert’s aim is to supplement, not replace, the era of one-dimensional biological experiments that knock out single genes just to see what happens.

“Many of the issues we’re interested in aren’t single-gene problems,” he says. “They’re the complex result of hundreds or thousands of genes interacting.”

“The goal,” says Covert’s collaborator, graduate student Jonathan Karr, “is to understand biology itself.”▲

1,200,000Pages of text to record

the human genome

Far left: A sample of breast cancer micrographs like those evaluated by C-Path. Near left: Assistant Professor Drew Endy and team have created a form of rewritable digital data storage inside DNA. Above: Assistant Professor Markus Covert has created the world’s fi rst whole-cell computer model.

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Dr. Richard Luthy at Calera Creek in Pacifi ca, California, one of the degraded streams being restored by wastewater. The site was once a barren rock quarry.


Assistant Professor Jennifer Dionne and a team of researchers explained why stained glass produces such vivid colors, with profound implications for nanotechnology.


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SStanford continues to push the boundaries of engineering at the nanoscale. These e� orts hold the promise of faster, more e� -cient electronics, more precise medical treat-ments and even those ideas once thought the realm of science fi ction, including the poten-tial to make things invisible.

THE YEAR WAS FILLED with great stories, like the one that made the cover of Naturewhen Stanford engineers discovered plasmons at the very smallest limits of matter. �

illuminatingthenatnatnantingtingeetttt


P H O T O G R A P H B Y M I C H A E L S U G R U E

Engineers are workinggat the thresholds of matter

to advance the possibilities

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Plasmons may sound like a George Lucas-inspired alien species, but to engineers working at the nanoscale they are a powerful key to new technolo-gies that could sear away cancers cells, improve pho-ton absorption in solar cells and make catalysis more e� cient.

Plasmons occur when light strikes metal, causing electricity to course across the surface of the metal like ripples on a pond and scatter light as it goes. In the very tiniest metal particles, plasmons had been shrouded in mystery until a research team led by Jennifer Dionne, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering, proved them to the world.

Previously, no one could say for certain whether plasmon resonances even existed at such scales and yet, all the while, they have been right before our eyes.

“When stained glass is illuminated, nanoparticles of metal in the glass resonate and they scatter specifi c colors of light. What color depends on the shape and size of the particles,” says Dionne.

The problem has been one of mathematics. As par-ticles near about 10 nanometers in diameter, just a few atoms across, traditional physics breaks down. A nanoparticle of silver responds to photons and elec-trons in ways profoundly different from a larger chunk of silver. Some scientists once believed that plasmons at these scales ran out of space and vanished – that they essentially got confi ned out of existence, as if wrapped in some sort of nanoscale straitjacket.

The Stanford team, however, achieved the first direct observation of plasmon resonances in parti-cles as small as just a few atoms across, 1 nanometer in diameter. Perhaps just as signifi cantly, they creat-ed a relatively elegant mathematical model to describe the systems.

The discovery opens up engineering possibilities at a new, ever-tinier threshold of matter. It clears new avenues of nanotechnology entering the 100- to

10,000-atom scale, smaller than ever before possible.“Because they were poorly understood,” adds Jon-

athan Scholl, a doctoral candidate in Dionne’s lab and fi rst author of the Nature paper, “plasmon reso-nances in quantum-sized metal nanoparticles have gone largely unutilized in engineering.”

The research could lead to novel, ultra-small, super-e� cient electronic or photonic devices that use the excitation and detection of plasmons in tiny parti-cles to improve catalysis, quantum optics, bio-imag-ing, therapeutics and many other fields, say the researchers. �

Lightning in a BottleFor those working to redesign the computer, two of the key engineering parameters are surely speed and e� ciency. They are holy grails of chip design. A

team at Stanford Engineering achieved both when it demonstrated an ultrafast nanoscale light-emitting diode (LED) that is orders-of-magnitude lower in power consumption than today’s laser-based systems and yet able to transmit data at the impressive rate of 10 billion bits per second.

It is a major step forward in on-chip data transmission, the researchers say.

“Low-power, electrically controlled light sources are vital for more efficient optical systems for the computer industry,” says Jelena Vuckovic, an associate professor of electrical engineering and leader of the lab where the breakthrough was produced.

The new device includes a bit of engineer-ing ingenuity, too. Existing devices are actu-ally two devices in one, a laser coupled with an external modulator to turn it on and o� .

Below: San Francisco artist Kate Nichols is using Jen Dionne’s plasmon research in her art. RIght: Associate Professor Jelena Vuckovic is making strides in nanoscale communica-tions systems.

When stained glass is

illuminated, nanoparticles

of metal in the glass

resonate and they scatter

specifi c colors of light.


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Both devices require electricity. Vuckovic’s diode

combines both functions into one, drastically reduc-

ing energy consumption.

In tech-speak, the new LED transmits data, on

average, at 0.25 femto-joules per bit of data. By com-

parison, even today’s “low power” device needs

about 500 femto-joules to transmit the same bit.

“This makes our device some 2,000 times more

energy e� cient than the best devices in use today,”

says Gary Shambat, lead author of the study and a

doctoral candidate in Vuckovic’s lab. �

Now You See Me, Now You Don’tIt may not be intuitive, but a coating of refl ective metal

can actually make something less visible. That princi-

ple was in full force when engineers at Stanford and

the University of Pennsylvania demonstrated a light-

detecting device that is also invisible. It is a device that

can “see without being seen.”

The Stanford researchers used a relatively new

concept known as plasmonic cloaking for the first

time to render the device invisible. At the heart of the

system are silicon nanowires covered by a thin cap of

gold. By carefully designing their device – by tuning the geometries, as they say – the engineers have created

a “plasmonic cloak” to make the device disappear.

The light waves in the metal and semiconductor

create a separation of positive and negative charges in

the materials – a dipole moment, in technical terms.

The key is to create a dipole in the gold cap that is

equal in strength but opposite in sign to the dipole in

the silicon wire. When the equally strong positive

and negative dipoles meet, they cancel each other and

the system becomes invisible.

“We found that a carefully engineered gold shell

dramatically alters the optical response of the silicon

nanowire,” says Pengyu Fan, a doctoral candidate in

materials science and engineering. He works in the

lab of Mark Brongersma, an associate professor and

senior researcher on the project.

Using this effect, light absorption in the wire is

maintained, but the scattering of light drops by some

100 times due to the cloaking e� ect.

“It’s invisible,” continues Fan. “It can detect light

without being seen.”

“It’s counter-intuitive, but you can cover a semi-

conductor with metal – even one as refl ective as gold

– and light still gets through to the silicon,” says

Brongersma. �

Left: Vuckovic’s latest device uses 2,000 times less energy than today’s comparable systems. Below: Associate Professor Mark Brongersma is engi-neering invisible devices.



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Graphene with a TwistIn what became known as the “Scotch tape technique,” researchers first extracted graphene with a piece of adhesive in 2004. Graphene is a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb, hexagonal pattern. It looks like chicken wire. Graphene is a wonder material. It is a 100-times-better conductor of electricity than silicon. It is stronger than diamond. And at just one atom thick, it is so thin as to be essentially a two-dimensional material.

Such promising physics have made graphene the most studied substance of the last decade, particu-larly in nanotechnology. Yet, while graphene is many things, it is not piezoelectric. Piezoelectricity is the property of some materials to produce electric charge when twisted, bent or squeezed. Perhaps more impor-tantly, piezoelectricity is reversible. When an electric fi eld is applied, piezoelectric materials change shape, yielding a remarkable level of engineering control.

Now, in a paper published in the journal ACS Nano, two materials engineers at Stanford have described how they have engineered piezoelectricity into graphene, extending for the fi rst time such fi ne physical control to the nanoscale.

“We can create physical deformations in graphene that are directly proportional to the electrical field applied. This represents a fundamentally new way to control electronics at the nanoscale,” says Evan Reed, head of the Materials Computation and Theory Group at Stanford and senior author of the study.

This phenomenon brings new dimension to the concept of “straintronics” – nanoelectronics based in piezoelectric materials – because of the way the elec-trical field strains, or deforms, the lattice of carbon making up graphene, causing it to change shape in pre-dictable and useful ways.

“Piezoelectric graphene could provide an unparal-leled degree of electrical, optical or mechanical control


for applications ranging from touchscreens to nanoscale transistors,” says Mitchell Ong, a post-doctoral scholar in Reed’s lab and fi rst author of the paper.

Though they pre-dicted the results, the s t re n g t h of t h e i r material surprised both engineers.

“We thought the piezoelectric effect would be present, but relatively small. Yet, we were able to achieve piezoelectric levels comparable to tradi-tional three-dimen-sional materials,” says Reed. “It was pretty signifi cant.”

While the early results in creating piezoelectric gra-phene are encouraging, the researchers believe that their technique might further be used to engineer

piezoelectricity in nanotubes and other nanomateri-als with applications ranging from electronics, pho-tonics, and energy harvesting to chemical sensing and high-frequency acoustics.

“We’re already looking at new piezoelectric devices based on other 2D and low-dimensional materials, hop-ing they might open new and dramatic possibilities in nanotechnology,” says Reed.▲

Assistant Professor Evan Reed (far left) and post-doc Mitchell Ong (inset left) successfully engineered piezoelectric graphene (illustration, top right) to create a super-thin material that produces electricity when bent or twisted.

100,000Width of a human

hair in nanometers


Information technology has the power to transform lives, bringing people closer together and putting valuable data, news and infor-mation within arm’s reach of virtually every person on the planet. Stanford Engineering’s role in the rise of the information technol-ogy age is legendary. Stanford continues to be the standard-bearer for the fi eld.

The year was another of advances and innovations, beginning with the development of a creative and low-cost device to help blind people developed by a small team during a summer course in high-speed computing.

AS ADVISORS TO the program in which undergraduates from across the country come to Stanford Engineering to learn the secrets of creating killer apps, Assistant Professor �


From apps to neStanford engineers are r

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Adrian Lew and then-doctoral candidate Sohan Dhar-

maraja faced a challenge: building a device that could

decipher Braille code into readable, editable text for the

non-blind.

“Originally, we thought we would create a charac-

ter-recognition application that used a smartphone

camera to transform pages of Braille into readable

text,” says Dharmaraja. But discussions with the

Stanford Office of Accessi-

ble Education – dedicated

to helping blind and visu-

ally impaired students

negotiate the world of

higher learning – prompt-

ed them to take a di� erent

approach.

“The killer app was not a reader, but a writer,” says

Dharmaraja.

“Imagine being blind in a classroom – how would

you take notes or jot down someone’s phone number?”

says Lew. “These are real challenges blind people

grapple with every day.”

It is not that devices that write Braille do not exist,

but they are essentially specialized laptops that cost, in

some cases, $6,000 or more – all for a device of limited

functionality, not an infi nitely customizable tool like a

tablet computer, which sells for a tenth the price.

“So, we developed a touchscreen Braille writer,”

says Dharmaraja.

Braille is a relatively simple code. Each character is

formed by variations of six raised dots arranged in a

2-by-3 matrix. The blind read by feeling the dots with

their fingertips. A modern Braille writer looks like a

laptop with no monitor and just eight keys – six to cre-

ate the character, plus a carriage return and a delete key.

Duplicating the Braille keypad seemed simple

enough to Lew and Dharmaraja, but for the blind,

fi nding virtual keys on a uniformly smooth glass panel

proved a challenge.

The two researchers, and the undergrad they were

advising, Adam Duran, arrived at a clever and elegant

solution. They did not create virtual keys that the fi n-

gertips must fi nd; they made keys that fi nd the fi nger-

tips. The user simply touches eight fingertips to the

glass and the keys orient themselves to the fi ngers. If the

user becomes disoriented, a reset is as easy as lifting all

eight fi ngers o� the glass and putting them down again.

Lew and Dharmaraja spent the better part of

the last year applying for patents, perfecting and

“The killer app was not a reader but a writer. Imagine being blind in a classroom – how would you

take notes or jot down someone’s phone number?”

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adding features to their app and creating an appli-cation programming interface that will allow other applications to integrate their virtual Braille keypad. Soon, their app will be on the market.�

A Clean SlateUntil VMware bought the little-known networking startup Nicira in July 2012, the terms “open network-ing” and “software-defi ned networking” had likely escaped the purview of all but the most hardened data managers. The purchase – and its $1.3 billion price tag – turned heads and provided a clear signal that the networking industry was in the midst of a dramatic shift.

Nicira traces its origins to Stanford in 2003, when then-grad student Martin Casado was charged with re-imagining how networking might work if started from scratch, if the Internet were a clean slate. Over the next several years, Casado published a series of papers that redefi ned networking, and in 2007 he co-founded Nicira. He is now the company’s chief tech-nology o� cer.

For decades, the vast arrays of routers and switch-es that deliver massive amounts of data to their intended recipients have been locked down by their manufacturers, with little or no room for customiza-tion. Networking has stagnated, remaining stub-bornly expensive, complex and di� cult to manage – virtually unchanged for decades.

Then, the Nicira sale made headlines. For those in tune with the industry, there had been hints of things to come earlier in the year when the team at Stanford and the University of California at Berkeley behind software-defined networking announced

that 12 of the world’s foremost networking compa-nies had founded the Open Networking Research Center (ONRC), a collaborative research effort to explore software-defined networking (SDN) and provide the real-world networking hardware – �

Far left: Assistant Professor Adrian Lew and colleagues developed a low-cost touchscreen Braille writer. Near left and below: Consulting professor Guru Parulkar and Professor Nick McKeown are tipping the IP world on its ear with open-source networking.


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routers and switches – necessary to transform the industry.

The center’s co-sponsors are a virtual who’s-who of networking: Cable Labs, Cisco, Ericsson, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Huawei, Intel, Juniper, NEC, NTT Docomo, Texas Instruments and, of course, VMware.

Under SDN, network engineers who were once little more than traffic managers are free to inno-vate and add capability, all while simplifying their systems and lowering costs. The shift promises to do for networking what the personal computer did for home computing in the 1980s – namely, democratize it.

“SDN is a complete reimagining of networking,” says Nick McKeown, professor of electrical engi-neering and computer science at Stanford and Casado’s one-time academic advisor. “We’re lifting it out of a proprietary, black-box paradigm that has

dominated networking for years and looking at a future characterized by open interfaces and open-source software.”

Guru Parulkar, a consulting professor of electrical engineering, is executive director of the ONRC. “The Open Networking Research Center will become a factory of ideas that turns the concept of open-source networking into the reality of practical tools and applications that will soon transform the industry,” he says.�

Period of TransitionStanford’s Department of Computer Science virtually invented computer science as an academic discipline in the United States. It boasts a curriculum that has made Stanford a leader and the department one of the top pro-grams in the world. Nonetheless, about fi ve years ago, the department decided to re-invent itself for a new century.

Oversight of the e� ort fell to Associate Chair for Edu-cation Mehran Sahami, and a committee of his fellow faculty members. Three years later, computer science is the number one undergraduate major in the entire uni-versity – a fi rst for an engineering discipline.

Things were not always so rosy. “Undergraduate com-puter science enrollment had been on a roller coaster, rising high with the dotcom boom in the late 90s and then plummeting,” says Sahami, who is a former research sci-entist at Google and now the Robert and Ruth Halperin University Fellow in Undergraduate Education.

On the bright side, the Bureau of Labor Statistics was projecting three jobs for every newly minted computer science graduate during the decade 2008-2018.

“We needed to make the major more attractive, to show that computer science isn’t just sitting in a cube all day. Computer science is about having real impact

The shift to software-defi ned networking promises to do for networking what the

personal computer did for home computing in the 1980s – namely, democratize it.



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in the world,” the professor explains.The goal was to cast a wider net, to allow computer

science majors to see how their skills could be directly applied in a variety of applications. Likewise, the depart-ment wanted to draw in students from other disciplines to see the impact of computer science on their fi elds and, perhaps, to encourage some of them to consider computer science for their major area of study.

“Virtually every fi eld is touched by computer science in some way,” says Sahami. “In medicine and biology, computational methods are used to analyze DNA, pre-dict treatment outcomes and model drugs at a molecu-lar level. In environmental sciences, there is need for cli-mate modeling. In investing and finance, algorithmic approaches are widely used.”

Even in fi elds once consid-ered far afi eld from computer science – the arts, for instance – computers have come to play an important role.

“We want to educate our students in modern com-puter science, in modern software engineering, and

especially in appreciating the incredible potential and reach of CS. That meant revising our curriculum to update and coalesce the fundamentals, and to highlight the synergy of computer science and other fi elds,” says Professor Jennifer Widom, chair of the department.

In re-imagining the curriculum, Sahami wanted to pro-vide students with more fl exibility. The previous core cur-riculum, which had become monolithic and inflexible, was pared to just six core courses – three with a theoreti-cal focus and three with an emphasis on programming and systems.

These courses provide a foundation that is built upon in a series of “tracks,” in which students can focus on their area of greatest personal interest. The set of tracks includes artifi cial intelligence, systems, theory, graphics, human-computer interaction, and several others. Addi-tionally, students can extend their studies through the choice of two to four electives, including course options in fi elds other than computer science with the approval of their advisor.

In the fi nal analysis, however, the proof has been in the classroom. “We were surprised at the level of interest and the speed at which the community responded,” says Sahami. “Today, more than 90 percent of all Stanford undergrads take at least one computer science course. It’s pretty astounding.” ▲

642 Exabytes of data

traffi cked yearly

on the Internet

Bottom left: While at Stanford, Nicira CIO Martin Casado wrote a series of papers that redefi ned networking from the ground up. Near left: Associate Professor Mehran Sahami led the re-imagining of the computer science curriculum. Below: Computer science chair, Jennifer Widom.

Source: CISCO, 2013 est.

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F A C U L T Y

Dave Barnett (ME, MS&E)• A. Cemal Eringen Medal, Society of Engineering Science

Kwabena Boahen (BioE)• NIH Transformational Research Award

Sigrid Close (AA) • CAREER Award, National Science Foundation

Mark Cutkosky (ME) • IEEE Fellow

Karl Deisseroth (BioE) • W. Alden Spencer Lecture and Award

Kathleen Eisenhardt (MS&E)• Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research

Chuck Eesley (MS&E)• International Young Scientist

Research Fund award, National Natural Science Foundation of China

Audrey Ellerbee (EE) • Young Investigator Research Award, U.S. Air Force

Charbel Farhat (AA, ME)• International Association for Computational Mechanics (IACM) Award

Gerald Fuller (ChemE)• Corresponding Member, Russian and International Engineering Academy

Bernd Girod (EE) • Technical Achievement Award, IEEE Signal

Processing Society

Peter Glynn (MS&E)• Member, National Academy of Engineering

Joe Goodman (EE, Emeritus)• Inductee, Silicon Valley Engineering Hall of Fame

Leo Guibas (CS)• IEEE Fellow

Je� Heer (CS)• Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow

Martin Hellman (EE, Emeritus)

• RSA Conference Lifetime Achievement Award

John L. Hennessy (EE, CS)

IEEE Medal of Honor

Thomas Jaramillo (ChemE)

• Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE)

Tom Kailath (EE, Emeritus)• EURASIP Athanasios Papoulis Award

Tom Kenny (ME)• IEEE Sensors Council

Technical Achievement award

Pierre Khuri-Yakub (EE)• Rayleigh Award, IEEE

Ultrasonics Society

Don Knuth (CS, Emeritus)• Member, American

Philosophical Society

Helmut Krawinkler (CEE)• Member, National Academy of Engineering

Jean-Claude Latombe (CS, Emeritus)• Pioneer in Robotics and Automation Award, IEEE

»

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»

»

F A C U L T Y H O N O R S

»

S T A N F O R D E N G I N E E R I N G ��I L L U S T R A T I O N S B Y M A R K A L L E N M I L L E R

Sanjiva Lele (AA, ME)• Best Paper award, AIAA Fluids Dynamics Technical Committee

Jure Leskovec (CS)• Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellows

Adrian Lew (ME)• Young Investigator Award, International Association for Computational Mechanics (IACM)

Chris Manning (CS)• Fellow, Association for Computational Linguistics

Ed McCluskey, (EE, CS, Emeritus)• John von Neumann Medal, IEEE

Yoshio Nishi (EE)• Fellow International, Japan Society for Applied Physics

Brad Parkinson (AA, Emeritus)• Robert H. Goddard Memorial Trophy

Arogyaswami Paulraj (EE,Emeritus) • Foreign Fellow, National Academy of Sciences,

India • PAN IIT Alumni Technology Leadership Award

John Pauly (EE)• Gold Medal, International Society for Magnetic

Resonance in Medicine

Norbert Pelc (BioE)• Member, National Academy of Engineering

Stephen Quake (BioE)• Lemelson-MIT Prize for Inventors

Eric Roberts (CS)• Taylor L. Booth Education Award,

IEEE Computer Society

Mendel Rosenblum (CS, EE) Computer Entrepreneur Award, IEEE

Bernard Roth (ME)• Robotics and Automation Award, IEEE• Egleston Medal for Distinguished Engineering

Achievement

Tim Roughgarden (CS)• Goedel Prize in theoretical

computer science

Amin Saberi (MS&E) • FOCS (Foundations of Computer Sci-

ence) Best Paper Award

Mehran Sahami (CS)• One of “The Best 300 Professors” in

the nation, Princeton Review

Krishna Saraswat (EE)• Professor LKM Foundation Distinguished

Alumnus Award• SIA University Researcher Award

Krishna Shenoy (EE)• NIH Transformational Research Award

Sheri Sheppard (ME)• Ralph Coats Roe Award, American Society

of Engineering Education

Jim Spilker (AA, Consulting)• Robert H. Goddard Memorial Trophy

Je� Ullman (CS, Emeritus) • Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Bruce Wooley (EE, Emeritus) • SIA University Researcher Award

NEWLY APPOINTED EMERITUS FACULTYDonald Cox • EE (2012)Robert MacCormack • AA (2012)Terry Winograd • CS (2012)

»

»

»

»

»

S A N D A W A R D S

�� S T A N F O R D E N G I N E E R I N G

Michel Boudart (1924-2012)• ChemE, Emeritus »

»

I N M E M O R I A M

Elliott Levinthal (1922-2012)• ME, Emeritus

Gene Franklin (1927-2012)• EE, Emeritus

Thomas Cover (1938-2012)• EE

»

Ted MaimanLaser pioneer

Morris ChangSemiconductor executive

Craig Barrett Former Intel CEO/Chair

George DanzigLinear program-ming authority Andy

BechtolsheimInventor, SUN workstation

Brad Parkinson GPS pioneerCal Quate

Inventor, atomic force microscope

Stephen TimoshenkoApplied mechanics expert

»

»

LINDA CICERO / STANFORD NEWS SERVICE ��; NORBERT VON DER GROEBEN; COURTESY: AUDREY ELLERBEE; COURTESY: STANFORD UNIVERSITY �� COURTESY: JURE LESKOVEC; BRIAN CASLIS COURTESY: TIM ROUGHGARDEN; JOHN TODD; COURTESY FAMILY OF GENE FRANKLIN; CHUCK PAINTER / STANFORD NEWS SERVICE; KATHLEEN F. MAIMAN COURTESY: TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING CO., LTD.; COURTESY: CRAIG BARRETT; DON FERIA

Helmut Krawinkler (1940-2012)• CEE, Emeritus

H E R O E S

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F A C T S & F I N A N C I A L S

STANFORD ENGINEERING IS ORGANIZED AROUND NINE DEPARTMENTS:

• Aeronautics and Astronautics

• Bioengineering

• Chemical Engineering

• Civil and Environmental Engineering

• Computer Science

• Electrical Engineering

• Management Science and Engineering

• Materials Science and Engineering

• Mechanical Engineering

STANFORD ENGINEERING AT A GLANCE: • Nearly 4,500 students

• More than 245�faculty members

• 130 national and international academy and society members

• Eight Top 10 National Research Council department rankings

• Three No. 1 department rankings

The School of Engineering is home to more than 90 departmental laboratories, centers, and a� liates programs, touching on academic areas that range from medicine and business to linguistics and physics.

The Stanford School of Engineering has been at the

forefront of innovation for nearly a century, turning

big ideas into solutions that have improved people’s

lives across the globe. The school’s mission is twofold:

to educate the next generation of engineering leaders

and to pursue research that tackles the world’s

toughest problems.

By collaborating across disciplines with colleagues in

fi elds like medicine, science, business and the humanities,

Stanford engineers are finding better ways to create

efficient energy sources, diagnose and treat diseases,

ensure clean water, enhance global communication

and unleash human creativity.

ABOUT THE SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING


FINANCIAL INFORMATION

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�� GIFTS AND AFFILIATE FEES

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�� RESEARCH VOLUME

Total expenditures by agency in millions (rounded)

In the fi scal year that began September 1, 2011 and closed August 31, 2012, the School of Engineering’s consolidated budget totaled $361.3 million, up 8.3% from the previous year. The charts below show the school’s largest expense categories (minus indirect costs) and the sources of funds used to support these expenses.

Revenues earned by the university from school activities, such as indirect costs and tuition, exceed the amount the university in turn allo-

cates to the school. These revenues are included in “University Funds” category. The school’s total research volume was $181.71 million, which refl ects contracts from government, corporate and nonprofi t sources.

Cash received from gifts and fees associated with industrial a� li-ate memberships totaled $69.5 million, which support research and teaching, additions to the endowment for faculty and graduate student support, and capital projects.


Total expenditures in millions (rounded) Total funding in millions (rounded)

�� OPERATING EXPENSES �� SOURCES OF FUNDING



Men��,��

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ALUMNI BY GENDER

ALUMNI BY DEPARTMENT �AS OF ��.��.��

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Aeronautics & Astronautics�,��

Civil & Environmental Engineering�,��

Bioengineering��

Materials Science & Engineering�,��

Mechanical Engineering�,��

Chemical Engineering�,��

Management Science & Engineering�,��

TOTAL��,��

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*Note: Some alumni have degrees from multiple departments, so the sum of alumni broken down by department is higher than the total number of Stanford Engineering alumni.

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“If you don’t make mistakes, you’re not reaching far enough.”

—David Packard

pa c k a r d b u i l d i n g , s t a n f o r d e n g i n e e r i n g | Photographs by Joe Fletcher

Stanford ENGINEERING| NONPROFITU.S. POSTAGE PAID

SENATOBIA MSPERMIT NO. 75

Stanford UniversitySchool of Engineering�� Via OrtegaStanford, CA ��

stanford engineering year in review 2011-12

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