School Notes: School of Engineering & Applied Science
May/June 2022

A bold investment in engineering

Yale University announced a substantial investment in the School of Engineering that will allow the school to even more aggressively pursue opportunities for breakthrough research and collaborative innovation. SEAS will be able to add 30 ladder faculty slots across the school’s six departments, allowing SEAS to increase the size of the Department of Computer Science—the school department with the most undergraduate majors. It will also allow SEAS to focus on initiatives in artificial intelligence, biological systems, materials science, mathematical modeling, and what it calls “robotics for humanity.”

Professor wins Micius Quantum Prize

Michel Devoret, the F. W. Beinecke Professor of Applied Physics and Physics, is a co-recipient of the Micius Quantum Prize for his groundbreaking work in quantum physics—including key contributions in the development of the artificial atoms of quantum information known as qubits. At Yale, working with colleagues including Robert Schoelkopf and Steven Girvin, Devoret has dramatically advanced the field of superconducting qubits with controllable dynamics. The Micius Quantum Prize, awarded since 2018, honors significant advances in quantum science ranging from early conceptual contributions to recent experimental breakthroughs. (For a Yale Alumni Magazine report, see page 18.) 

A better robotic grip

When we pick something up, we’ll often jostle it around a bit to get the best grip. Researchers have now developed a robotic hand that does something similar—a breakthrough that could advance the field of assistive robots. In the lab of Aaron Dollar, professor of mechanical engineering & materials science and computer science, the team created a robotic hand that can fully rotate various objects even as its grippers occasionally break contact with the object. The results were published in Robotics and Automation Letters.