Cullen College Playing Key Role in $5m Offshore Energy Safety Institute

The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement awarded $5 million to the University of Houston, Texas A&M and the University of Texas at Austin to form the Offshore Energy Safety Institute. The institute will serve as a platform for communications and research among government, academia and industry in the field of offshore energy. Cullen College research and educational programs will play a key role in the organization.
Read More

News

Engineering Students Claim Third Place in National Chem-E Car Contest
It took more than a thousand hours and a few trips back to the drawing board, but the University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering’s Chem-E-Car competition team’s hard work paid off earlier this month when they clinched third place  overall at the annual national Chem-E-Car competition. This is the highest UH has ranked in the 15 years the competition has taken place. The team was also named Most Consistent by the judging panel. Read More

Freshman’s Programmable Capacitor Hits 250% of Kickstarter Goal
Rakshak Talwar may be a mere freshman, but he’s well on his way to becoming a giant in the technology world. Talwar is the inventor of the “Programmable Capacitor,” which is adjustable to over four billion value combinations, making it compatible with virtually every circuit imaginable -- and it only costs $25. To get production on his capacitor underway, Talwar started up a campaign on Kickstarter.com, a website used by independent inventors and creatives to fund startup projects. Talwar initially asked for $3,000 from backers to get production rolling on his capacitor. In a span of 15 days, he earned more than double what he asked for: $7,445. Read More

BME Professor Honored by Home Country for Heart Research
Ravi Birla, associate professor of biomedical engineering with the University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering, is one of the world’s leading researchers in the development of bioartificial hearts and heart components. Through this work, heart transplant waiting lists may one day be a thing of the past. Instead, patients at essentially any point in their care could receive bioartificial hearts grown in a lab. For his research, Birla’s home country of Trinidad and Tobago has recognized him with one of its most prestigious awards for medical researchers. Read More

UH Aerospace Director Talks Space Program on MSNBC
Bonnie Dunbar, director of the UH STEM Center and the aerospace engineering program at the UH Cullen College of Engineering, was featured on MSNBC’s live news program, the Melissa Harris-Perry show. The discussion centered on the U.S. space program and whether the government currently contributes too much or not enough funding to the program. The conversation also covered how we can encourage more young women to enter into STEM fields. Read More

Gifts Totaling $2 Million Fund Endowed Chair in Disease Diagnostics
Richard Willson’s efforts to develop highly sensitive disease diagnostic systems have made him one of the most accomplished researchers at the University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering. Now Willson, already John and Rebecca Moores Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, has been named the first Huffington-Woestemeyer Endowed Chair in Biomolecular Engineering for these efforts. The chair is intended to support research that will lead to earlier diagnosis and treatment of diseases and ultimately save lives. Read More