School Notes: School of Engineering & Applied Science
March/April 2016

Invention wins UNICEF competition

For developing a small health-data–storing necklace that could save countless lives, the Yale-founded social enterprise Khushi Baby won the Wearables for Good challenge cosponsored by UNICEF. The device, developed at the Yale Center for Engineering Innovation and Design (CEID), was one of two winners chosen out of 250 submissions from 65 countries. Each winner receives a $15,000 prize, and incubation and mentoring from the competition’s sponsors. Ruchit Nagar ’15, a founder of Khushi Baby, said the device is currently the subject of extensive research in India. The device was developed as part of Appropriate Technology in the Developing World, a course designed to tackle ongoing global issues, cotaught by Dr. Joseph Zinter ’11PhD, ’11MHS, assistant director of the CEID, and SEAS lecturer Bo Hopkins ’86MBA. 

The secret behind sticky notes

A new study from the lab of Prof. Eric Dufresne ’96, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, unlocked the secrets behind the Post-it note and other adhesives. Led by postdoctoral associate Katharine E. Jensen, the study looked at what happens when very small rigid glass spheres come into contact with a silicone gel. The point of adhesion—long thought to be a three-phase contact line between air, the rigid solid (sphere), and the soft solid (gel)—is actually a four-phase contact zone in which air, the rigid solid, the gel, and the liquid from inside the gel all meet. More than just a better sticky note, the findings could lead to advances in the field of medical implants and other applications.

A concert of computer music

The Yale Haskell Group hosted the computer science department’s first concert of computer music at Euterpea Studio in Arthur K. Watson Hall. Performers included computer science lecturer Donya Quick ’14PhD, who presented a composition made by a computer program she developed that writes its own music, sometimes in the style of J. S. Bach. Cofounded by the late Paul Hudak, a professor of computer science who started the department’s computer music program, the Yale Haskell Group has played an integral role in the conception, evolution, implementation, and application of the Haskell programming language.