School Notes: School of Engineering & Applied Science
May/June 2016

Keeping the bugs out of software

Zhong Shao, a professor of computer science, is part of the project known as Expeditions in Computing: The Science of Deep Specification (DeepSpec), which aims to exterminate the kinds of software bugs that lead to security vulnerabilities and computing errors. Funded by a $10 million, five-year grant from the National Science Foundation, Shao and other researchers from Yale, Princeton, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania will develop tools to eliminate uncertainty from the complex task of software development. This will enable engineers to build bug-free programs and verify that their programs behave exactly as designed.

Cell-to-cell communication: more is better—up to a point

Andre Levchenko, the John C. Malone Professor of Biomedical Engineering and director of the Yale Systems Biology Institute, found that cells communicate to each other better in crowds. When there are too many cells together, though, they end up in a game of “telephone,” passing on increasingly unreliable signals. Working with researchers from Emory, Purdue, and other universities, Levchenko looked at how cells sense the chemical and mechanical cues that determine cell behavior. Two studies with their results—which have potential implications ranging from breast cancer treatment to semiconductor manufacturing—appear in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Hacking for solutions in mental health

In an effort to spark innovative thinking in the field of mental health care, Yale held its first mental health care hackathon over two days in February. Organized by the student group BulldogHacks and held at the Center for Engineering Innovation & Design, “Hack the Brain: Rethinking Our Approach to Mental Health” produced several innovative ideas in less than 24 hours. The $600 prize for innovations in the field of mental health was awarded to two student teams. One presented an app designed to help patients find a psychiatrist who was specifically matched to patients’ needs. The other team created an app that gives fast and accurate recommendations for doctors, currently a problem because existing databases are often out of date.