Campus Combines Disciplines in Center

UCSD inaugurated a new Information Theory and Applications Center on Feb. 8 to study the fundamentals and develop applications in bioinformatics, communications, computer science, finance, statistics and other disciplines.

The center is part of the university’s recently opened California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology and will draw faculty and graduate students from the Jacobs School of Engineering.

UCSD has appointed Alon Orlitsky, who holds multiple positions in both the Jacobs School of Engineering’s electrical and computer engineering and computer science and engineering departments, as director of the center.

Researchers Grow New Veggie Hybrid

A new type of asparagus that delivers a higher harvesting yield than previous varieties of the vegetable and offers a higher quality of marketable spears has been developed by researchers at UC Riverside, the first time the campus has introduced a new hybrid vegetable since 1982.

Dubbed “DePaoli” asparagus, the new variety honors William P. DePaoli, a long-time advocate of asparagus-breeding programs and the first director of the California Asparagus Commission.

The new variety should appear in grocery stores within a few years, according to UC Riverside plant geneticist Mikeal Roose, who spearheaded the project.

Engineer Named to National Academy

UCSD bioengineering professor Bernard O. Palsson has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering for his “scholarship, technological advances and entrepreneurial activities in metabolic engineering.”

Considered to be one of the highest professional distinctions available to an engineer, Palsson joined the academy with 75 other new members on Feb. 8.

With Palsson, the total number of academy engineers from the Jacobs School of Engineering is 15.

Palsson, who joined the UCSD faculty in 1995, serves on the boards of several bioengineering journals and wrote the first textbook for the relatively new field of systems biology.