When Wesley Combs was attending Houston Community College in his 10th grade year, he was primarily interested in the liberal arts. Even before graduating, he had written novels, and he thought that would be his career.

Since January of this year, undergraduate Yonatan Mascorro of the Cullen College of Engineering’s Mechanical Engineering program has started a new morning regime – push-ups.

Researchers Report Rubbery Bioelectronic Cardiac Patch

Pacemakers and other implantable cardiac devices used to monitor and treat arrhythmias and other heart problems have generally had one of two drawbacks – they are made with rigid materials that can’t move to accommodate a beating heart, or they are made from soft materials that can collect only a limited amount of information.

Certain species of snake – think pit vipers, boa constrictors and pythons, among others – are able to find and capture prey with uncanny accuracy, even in total darkness. Now scientists have discovered how these creatures are able to convert the heat from organisms that are warmer than their ambient surroundings into electrical signals, allowing them to “see” in the dark.

Vijay Ramesh, a 2020 Cullen College of Engineering graduate in mechanical engineering, recently added another thing to his impressive list of accomplishments – serving as a mentor for the interns involved in the Army Educational Outreach Program (AEOP).

Projects Focus on Ways to Speed Transition to Low-Carbon Future

The Center for Carbon Management in Energy at the University of Houston has awarded $275,000 in research funding for projects focused on carbon management and the energy transition.

The projects cover a range of projects, from converting carbon to fuel and other useful products to a proposed new wireless monitoring system for carbon capture storage.

A team of researchers led by Dr. Cunjiang Yu, Bill D. Cook Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Houston, has developed a new form of electronics known as “drawn-on-skin electronics,” allowing multifunctional sensors and circuits to be drawn on the skin with an ink pen.

Gwen Salama, the wife of the late Dr. Kamel Salama – a professor at the University of Houston's Cullen College of Engineering and the director of the Materials Engineering program – said his charm and social nature were evident from their very first meeting, which was when she was having problems with her beat-up Volkswagen in November 1970.

The explosion of mobile electronic devices, electric vehicles, drones and other technologies have driven demand for new lightweight materials that can provide the power to operate them. Researchers from the University of Houston and Texas A&M University have reported a structural supercapacitor electrode made from reduced graphene oxide and aramid nanofiber that is stronger and more versatile than conventional carbon-based electrodes.