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Nearly 70 years after the launch of the first satellite, we still have more questions than answers about space. But a team of Berkeley researchers is on a mission to change this with a proposal to build a fleet of low-cost, autonomous spacecraft, each weighing only 10 grams and propelled by nothing more than the pressure of solar radiation. These miniaturized solar sails could potentially visit thousands of near-Earth asteroids and comets, capturing high-resolution images and collecting samples....
Boffins believe the future of space exploration may belong to small, affordable probes sailing away under the Sun's power.
In a pre-print paper titled, "BLISS: Interplanetary Exploration with Swarms of Low-Cost Spacecraft," authors Alexander Alvara, Lydia Lee, Emmanuel Sin, Nathan Lambert, Andrew Westphal, and Kristofer Pister outline a project that aims to go where no one has gone before with a fleet of cheap, tiny Linux-powered spacecraft...
https://engineering.berkeley.edu/news/2023/01/me-ph-d-student-takes-the-road-less-traveled-to-uc-berkeley/
For Ph.D. candidate and Chancellor’s Fellowship recipient Alexander Alvara, the path to UC Berkeley’s College of Engineering has been a long and winding road.
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He hopes that more students can receive the same support that he did through his fellowships and encourages them to pursue these opportunities. “You gain nothing but experience every time you apply, and sometimes you gain more than that,” he said.
And, finally, when life seems to keep throwing roadblocks in your path, Alvara has one piece of advice: “As much as it may be painful or difficult, if you’re already in it, just keep moving forward.”
Please join BSAC in congratulating Alexander Alvara of the Pister group on being awarded the 2021 Space Science Lab's Lin Fellowship.
Alexander is a doctoral student in the Berkeley mechanical engineering department working with Dr. Andrew J. Westphal and the Berkeley Autonomous Microsystems (BAM) Laboratory on the study of Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) such as asteroids and comets and is working on new low-cost methods for image and sample retrieval. He is designing, developing, and manufacturing new <20-gram solar sail spacecraft composed mostly of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components.
The Robert P. Lin Graduate Fellowship was established in 2012 with a gift from Prof. Lin’s wife, Lily Lin. It is used to support outstanding graduate students at the University of California, Berkeley who pursue research related to space sciences, including students studying Physics, Astronomy, or Engineering. Recipients of the fellowship demonstrate a high level of academic distinction. Preference is given to students who pursue research projects associated with Space Sciences Laboratory (SSL).
At the Roots will focus on the graduate students in the Bay Area, and across the country, who are responsible for the bulk of scientific research at universities, and telling their stories. Because science should not aim to be removed from culture and emotion, I hope to unite the personal experiences of these researchers with the ground-breaking work they are often performing.
Alexander Alvara is a PhD student studying mechanical engineering at UC Berkeley. With a focus on microscale and nanoscale science, he designs, creates and tests small components for various projects, including ones related to space exploration.
NextProf was founded in 2012, and has since expanded to three workshops. NextProf Engineering, founded in 2015, is held every spring and is open to all U-M students and postdocs. NextProf Pathfinder, founded in 2018, is open to first- and second- year PhD students and Master’s students considering a PhD. NextProf Nexus, the original NextProf workshop, began in 2018 when the University of California, Berkeley joined U-M as a partner and sponsoring institution; the Georgia Institute of Technology joined as a partner and sponsoring institution the following year. Now, the three universities jointly and equally put on NextProf Nexus, taking turns hosting it on each of the three campuses.
Hello World! My name is Alexander Alvara, I am a Fulbright Alum (2017-2018, Canada) and currently a Ph.D. student in Mechanical Engineering at University of California, Berkeley. My family is Mexican, Native American (Comanche and Tohono O'odham) and Puerto Rican.
In 2017, I started my research with the University of Toronto and The Hospital for Sick Children to develop, design, and test new surgical pediatric robotics. I worked closely with surgeons and scientists as a Fulbright Fellow to understand the problems faced by performing life-saving surgeries on small bodies and different techniques used to solve complex problems, or simply to diagnose illness better. As a leader in their field, Sick Kids and their Centre for Image-Guided Innovation and Therapeutic Intervention (CIGITI) was an ideal place for me to conduct next-level integrative robotic research.
During my off time in Canada, I made efforts to learn as much as I could about the local holidays, the food, the music, the lifestyles, and the politics. Looking into the politics of Canada was eye-opening and gave me a new insight into some of the indigenous politics as well as the international spectrum of people. Canada has a long way to go before the sovereignty of the indigenous tribes and the treaties engaged are upheld.
Now, speaking directly to those reading this. There are many more people who are smarter than I am, many more who come from a pedigree that traditionally agrees more with this life-style, but it shouldn’t stop you. You are good enough, you do deserve to succeed, you are smart enough, and the fields encompassed by the Fulbright program could use a little diversification in their elite ranks. I am the first in my family to pursue a Ph.D., a first-generation college student, a community college student, a high and college drop out, a low-income student, and someone who was previously homeless. If it weren’t for someone telling me to “at the very least try” then I do not think I would be where I am today.
So today I want to tell every person: “At the very least try. Apply, reapply, apply again and again and keep improving each time between applications. You will get it… eventually.”
#fulbright #fulbrightlatinx
FORD FELLOWS Press RELEASE
Ford Foundation Fellowships Scholar Award List 2019
The following 130 outstanding scholars have been awarded fellowships in the 2019 Ford Foundation Fellowship Programs competition administered by the Fellowships Office of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The programs seek to increase the diversity of the nation’s college and university faculties by increasing their ethnic and racial diversity, to maximize the educational benefits of diversity, and to increase the number of professors who can and will use diversity as a resource for enriching the education of all students.
Recipients of Fulbright awards are selected on the basis of academic and professional achievement as well as record of service and leadership potential in their respective fields.
In Toronto, Alvara will collaborate with Professor Emeritus Andrew Goldenberg, a key figure in the field of robotics whose research encompasses mobile and industrial robots and robotic arms for a variety of industries, including space, nuclear plants, laboratory automation and image-guided surgery, as well as personal robots.
In his work with Goldenberg, Alvara will strive to develop better hardware and software to improve robots’ abilities to grasp and handle objects they cannot “see” for surgical applications.
“I was in disbelief,” says Alvara of learning that he had won the award. “I tried to make sure it wasn't April Fools’ Day still, and then afterwards, fact-checked the email address and contact info. When the realization set in, I was pretty shocked.”
He describes himself as “just a transfer student from a poor and rough neighborhood,” and says everyone can be successful with the right approach. “Anyone can do what I did, especially those who have come from a place of hardship and those who seem like underdogs. …You will always lose … if you don’t try or [if you] don’t apply, so apply to them all and do your best,” he says.
Alvara is grateful for the help of his adviser, Sharnnia Artis, assistant dean for access and inclusion. “I want to make sure you know how much you have contributed to this and that I could not have done it without your guidance, time and dedication to each step of the process,” he wrote in an email to Artis. “You have made this a possibility for me.”
“Throughout Alexander’s time at UCI, I have witnessed scholarship as being one of his utmost important criteria,” Artis says. “In addition to being a triple major, he has research experience at UCI, Cornell, UCLA and University of Arizona, and is a peer mentor who serves as a great resource for students in and outside of the classroom.
“With Alexander’s research experience ranging from biomedical devices to robotics and nanostructures, this will be a great opportunity for him to expand internationally,” Artis adds.
The Fulbright Program, which aims to increase mutual understanding between the United States and other countries, counts a host of distinguished alumni, including those who have become heads of state, judges, ambassadors, Nobel laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners, MacArthur Fellows and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients.
Two other Samueli School students recently received honorable mentions in prestigious scholarship competitions. Jordan Edmunds, an electrical engineering and biological sciences major, received honorable mention for the Barry M. Goldwater scholarship, while chemical engineering undergraduate Shiaki Minami got honorable mention for the National Science Foundation scholarship. The UCI Office of Scholarship Opportunities, which advises candidates applying for 15 competitive national or international merit scholarships including the Fulbright, Goldwater and NSF scholarships, encourages students to apply. For more information or to make an appointment for scholarship advising, visit the SOP website.- Anna Lynn Spitzer
In a UCI workshop filled with dangling wires and strange machinery, a team of mechanical engineering majors started off wanting to build a real-life Iron Man suit but eventually devised something more down-to-earth: a robotic jacket that could help athletes recover from shoulder and elbow injuries.
“It makes your arm feel weightless, which reduces pain and improves mobility during rehabilitation exercises,” says senior Alexander Alvara, who co-developed the coat with three classmates – Mark Jakovljevic, Elena Vazquez and Juan Lopez – under the supervision of faculty mentor David Reinkensmeyer, professor of mechanical & aerospace engineering, anatomy & neurobiology and biomedical engineering.
Alvara and his fellow team members – all transfer students from Pasadena City College – brainstormed their antigravity jacket concept in the summer of 2015. The idea was to create an affordable and lightweight home alternative to the complex rehab machines used by some physical therapy centers. Instead of gears and motors, their rubber-infused prototype employs “soft robotics” – belts, straps and thermoplastic components – to redirect weight and pressure away from injured joints.
“We’re not fashion designers,” Alvara concedes, but the final product should resemble a regular jacket.
Make that a regular jacket with a brain. It’s lined with electronic sensors that monitor muscle strain and range of motion during therapy exercises, then forward the data via Bluetooth and a smartphone app to a doctor’s office. The students also wired a batting glove to track the wearer’s lifting ability.
As the patient progresses, the level of weightlessness provided by the jacket can be adjusted, Alvara notes. The coat could also someday lighten the load for workers who do a lot of hoisting, he says.
The next steps for the patent-pending jacket include adding a stylish fabric shell that hides the robotics, testing everything in clinical trials, seeking investors and – if all goes well – bringing it to market.
In May, Alvara and his colleagues unveiled their work in progress at UCI’s 23rd annual Undergraduate Research Symposium, a daylong event at which UROP participants formally present their scientific studies, artistic endeavors and inventions. Think of it as show and tell for the college set.Anna Lynn Spitzer contributed to this story.
BEST POSTER AND ORAL PRESENTERS
This symposium was initiated by UMET’s Science Honor Program to give our students the opportunity to present their scientific research experiences. Since 2000, we have expanded the reach of our meeting to other institutions in the nation with minority participation in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) areas. Now, in 2013, the symposium is implemented under the Student Research Development Center (SRDC), which is part of the Vice Presidency for Planning and Academic Affairs of the Ana G. Méndez University System (AGMUS). This opportunity will not only serve as a forum to learn about research experiences, but will also allow you to enjoy the wonders of our beautiful Borinquen scenery. For two days you will be able to learn about science and at the same time enjoy the beauty of our tropical Puerto Rico.
2015
Noel Alexander — Operations Research and Information Engineering, Cornell University
*Alexander Alvara — Mechanical Engineering; Aerospace Engineering; and Materials Science Engineering, University of California, Irvine
Rebecca Betances — Chemical Engineering, University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez
Kendrick D. Cancio — Operations Research and Information Engineering, Cornell University
*Desmond Caulley — Electrical and Computer Engineering, Cornell University
Jerry Gomez — Chemical Engineering, Syracuse University
*Tafari Clarke James — Mathematics/Philosophy, Haverford College
*Shane Michtavy — Chemical Engineering, University of Rochester/Monroe Community College
*Armisha L. Roberts — Mathematics, Howard University
* Currently Enrolled in a PhD program in STEM
** Indicates that LSAMP Scholar has earned a PhD in STEM
