New Conversational AI Tool Uses Trusted Medical Protocols to Help People Decide When to Seek Care

April 23, 2026

A new chatbot could reliably help people decide what to do about their symptoms — and do so based on guidance that is both medically sound and easy to understand. Designed to improve self-triage, it could help reduce unnecessary hospital visits and ensure that those who need care seek it sooner. Full Story

Six New Projects Are Empowering Early-Career Engineering and Computer Science Faculty

April 23, 2026

Six teams from the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering have been awarded funding to accelerate interdisciplinary research collaborations that include an early-career faculty member. The big idea is to empower early-career faculty to build interdisciplinary research collaborations to the point that they are competitive for multi-year external funding. The effort is funded by Irwin Jacobs and his late wife, Joan. Full Story

MRI and Augmented Reality for Better Back Pain Surgery Wins at Research Expo 2026

April 21, 2026

Mechanical engineering Ph.D. student Songyuan Lu won the grand prize at this year’s Research Expo, where more than 150 students presented their research posters across the six departments at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering. Lu’s work focuses on computer-assisted surgery using MRI and augmented reality.  Full Story

AI-enhanced Microscopy Produces Crisp, Real-time Video Inside Live Cells

April 20, 2026

Using artificial intelligence, engineers have developed a new way to watch the inner workings of living cells in real time. The process both captures images that are twice as sharp as conventional microscopes and is fast enough to play as smooth video. Full Story

Using Physics, Engineers Create Fentanyl Test Strips That Are 100 Times More Sensitive

April 13, 2026

Engineers have developed fentanyl test strips that are about 100 times more sensitive than current commercial versions. They achieved this feat by creating a new physics-based model that explains, for the first time, how these test strips work and how to systematically improve them. Full Story

New Chip Design Could Boost Efficiency of Power Management in Data Centers

April 8, 2026

Engineers have developed a new chip design that could make data centers more energy efficient by improving a critical task in electronics: converting high voltages into lower levels for use in processors. Full Story

On the Rise: Jacobs School Ranks #9 Best Engineering School in the Nation

April 7, 2026

The UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering is ranked the #9 engineering school in the nation in the prestigious U.S. News & World Report Rankings of Best Engineering Schools. This is up from #10 last year.  Full Story

KatoMed, a UC San Diego MedTech Accelerator Company, Shines

March 31, 2026

KatoMed, a San Diego-based startup that developed a navigation tool for spine surgery that could result in safer, less costly procedures and improved workflow for surgeons, has deep ties to UC San Diego. Those connections were on display recently, as the current and incoming presidents of Japanese electronics giant Kyocera attended a demo of KatoMed’s technology on campus, at the UC San Diego Center for the Future of Surgery.  Full Story

Eight UC San Diego Researchers Elected 2025 AAAS Fellows

March 26, 2026

Eight researchers at the University of California San Diego have been elected 2025 Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS): Andrew D. Chisholm, Farinaz Koushanfar, Albert P. Pisano, Ravi Ramamoorthi, JoAnn Trejo, Emily Troemel, Meenakshi Wadhwa and Sheng Zhong. Full Story

Brain-inspired Device Could Lead to Faster, More Energy-efficient AI Hardware

March 11, 2026

A brain-inspired hardware platform could lead to the development of compact, low-power AI hardware. By mimicking how the brain processes information, the platform improved the speed, accuracy and energy efficiency of simulated tasks such as spoken-digit recognition and early seizure detection. Full Story

Automated Grading System Earns Inaugural Outstanding Teaching Innovation Award

March 11, 2026

A scalable, automated grading system designed to provide students with intelligent feedback on their work while freeing up instructor time for in-person student support was recognized with the Jacobs School’s inaugural Award for Outstanding Teaching Innovation. Full Story

UC San Diego Paper Defining Vision for 6G ISAC Among Most Downloaded in Proceedings of the IEEE

March 4, 2026

UC San Diego electrical and computer engineering professor Nuria González-Prelcic has co-authored a paper that outlines the future of 6G wireless networks and has been recognized as one of the most downloaded and cited articles of 2025 in Proceedings of the IEEE. Full Story

Improve Prostate Cancer Care with AI

February 27, 2026

Electrical engineers are key members of a team developing a new artificial intelligence model of the male urinary tract that could make prostate cancer radiation therapy more precise and help reduce side effects, such as urinary complications. Full Story

Six UC San Diego Faculty Elected to National Academy of Inventors for 2026

February 26, 2026

Six professors from the University of California San Diego have been named Senior Members of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) in recognition of their outstanding achievements in innovation, from controlling populations of disease-spreading insects to turning smartphones into health monitors.  Full Story

A Smarter Way for AI to Understand Text and Images

February 10, 2026

A new method trains artificial intelligence systems to more reliably solve complex problems that require interpreting both text and images. In tests, AI models trained with this method outperformed others in solving math word problems containing images such as charts and diagrams. Full Story