Have you heard of the new MakersFactory in Santa Cruz? If not, you will soon.

I’ve been helping MakersFactory get started and can say there’s a lot of buzz and excitement, validated by the 70+ attendees at last Friday’s first ever MakersFactory Meetup.

What is MakersFactory bringing to Santa Cruz?

1. Workshops, classes, courses all about 3D printing, modeling, animation, and robotics.
2. Lots of cutting edge equipment.
3. A brick and mortar workspace opening in November at 877 Cedar Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95060.
4. A community of makers, geeks, students, hobbyists, kids, parents, and other folks who are interested in this new technology.

For more about MakersFactory in Santa Cruz:

• Visit thewebsite: http://makersfactory.com. Sign up to receive the newsletter (at the bottom of the website).
• Follow on Facebook: http://facebook.com/makersfactory.
• Join the MakersFactory meetup: http://www.meetup.com/MakersFactory-Meetup-Group. (The next meetup is Nov 11, 2011, 6:30pm.)

Another reason to be proud of Santa Cruz.

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Arthur P. Ramirez named dean of the Jack Baskin School of Engineering

By Tim Stephens (831) 459-2495; stephens@ucsc.edu

Arthur P. Ramirez

Arthur Penn Ramirez, a leader in materials science and cutting-edge applied and basic research, has been named dean of the Jack Baskin School of Engineering at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Ramirez, who has held management positions at Bell Labs and Los Alamos National Laboratory, joins the school at the beginning of its second decade.

Ramirez is currently leader of composite materials and device development for LGS, a subsidiary of Alcatel-Lucent. He joined AT&T Bell Laboratories in 1984 and spent much of his career at Bell Labs, now a unit of Alcatel-Lucent. In 2000, he went to Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he led the materials integration science laboratory and the condensed matter and thermal physics group, before returning to Bell Labs in 2003. At Bell he served most recently as director of the device physics research department. Ramirez is also an adjunct professor of applied physics and applied mathematics at Columbia University.

Established in 1997, the Jack Baskin School of Engineering is UCSC’s first professional school and has developed to meet the technology demands of the 21st century. Its growing presence in Silicon Valley includes collaborations with industry partners to create new opportunities in research and education.

“With his knowledge, experience, and vision, Art Ramirez will be a great leader for our innovative Baskin School of Engineering,” said UCSC Chancellor George Blumenthal. “During its first 11 years, the Baskin School has recruited a dynamic faculty, focusing on 21st-century technologies and partnerships with universities and companies in Silicon Valley. Art’s experience and commitment to excellence will help our faculty, students, and staff build on the early successes of our engineering school.”

Ramirez will take the helm at the Baskin School of Engineering on May 1, 2009. He succeeds Michael Isaacson, Narinder Singh Kapany Professor of Optoelectronics, who has served as acting dean of the school since 2007.

Ramirez said he relishes the opportunity to lead an engineering school that emphasizes innovation in an interdisciplinary setting.

“Technology is becoming multidisciplinary. Engineers need an expansive mindset,” Ramirez said. “When we expose students at every level to technology-driven research, they become comfortable with unsolved problems and gain the confidence to explore them. Faculty define the areas of research and, through teaching, set the standards for excellence. At the Baskin School of Engineering, there exist the very best examples of research and its dissemination.”

Ramirez’s research interests include frustrated systems, multiferroic magnetic materials, and organic semiconductors. He also has led projects that moved successfully from research into the product development phase, such as a micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS)-based magnetometer developed at Bell Labs for applications such as low-cost perimeter security and navigation.

Ongoing research projects led by Ramirez include the study of fundamental charge transport in crystalline organic semiconductors. Potential applications of this work include the development of efficient, lightweight, and inexpensive photovoltaic cells.

In earlier research, Ramirez performed the first bulk measurements of superconductivity in both cuprates and carbon-60 “buckyballs,” pioneered effects of geometrical frustration in magnets such as the “spin ice” state, and led research in “colossal magnetoresistance,” among other accomplishments. He is the author of more than 200 technical publications.

A fellow of the American Physical Society (APS), Ramirez earned B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physics at Yale University. He has served on numerous advisory panels and committees, including the APS Council, the executive committee of the APS Division of Condensed Matter Physics, and the Solid State Sciences Committee of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

Ramirez will earn an annual base salary of $230,000. In keeping with UC policy, additional compensation will include a relocation allowance and eligibility for a Mortgage Origination Program loan. Additional details about the total compensation package will be available on theUC compensation web site.

UC Resources (see non-UC Resources below)

UCOP’s OTL: 
http://www.ucop.edu/ott/
http://www.ucop.edu/ott/contacts.html

UCBerkeley OTL: 
http://otl.berkeley.edu/ 
http://ipira.berkeley.edu/

UCDavis OTL: 
http://www.innovationaccess.ucdavis.edu/home.cfm?id=OVC,23,1728,1752

UCIrvine OTL: 
http://www.ota.uci.edu/contact.htm

UCLA OTL:
http://www.research.ucla.edu/oipa/contacts.htm

UCMerced OTL: 
http://research.ucmerced.edu/2.asp?uc=1&lvl2=9&contentid=15

UCRiverside OTL: 
http://www.ora.ucr.edu/IP/ContactUs.aspx

UCSD OTL: 
http://invent.ucsd.edu/

UCSF: 
http://www.otm.ucsf.edu/about/otmStaff.asp

UCSB: 
http://www.research.ucsb.edu/tech_transfer/index.shtml

UCSC: 
http://research.ucsc.edu/
http://research.ucsc.edu/intel_prop.html

Non UC Resources

Stanford’s OTL: 
http://otl.stanford.edu/

Harvard’s OTL: 
http://www.techtransfer.harvard.edu/

Stanford’s Entrepreneurship Corner:
http://ecorner.stanford.edu/
@ecorner http://twitter.com/ECorner

Asia-Pacific Student Entrepreneurship Society (Stanford)
http://stanford.edu/group/ases/cgi-bin/wordpress/

MIT Enterprise Forum
http://enterpriseforum.mit.edu/
@mitentforum http://twitter.com/mitentforum

The Stanford Summit 2009
http://www.stanford.edu/group/asessummit/2009/index.html
@stanfordsummit http://twitter.com/stanfordsummit

OnBioVC
http://onbiovc.com/
@OnBioVC http://twitter.com/OnBioVC

Northeastern University’s EntreTech Forum
http://www.meetup.com/EntreTechForum/
@Entretech http://twitter.com/Entretech

DePaul University Coleman Entrepreneurship Center
http://cec.depaul.edu/home/index.php
@colemancenter http://twitter.com/colemancenter

Entrepreneur Enclave
http://entrepreneurenclave.com/
@EntrepreneurEnc http://twitter.com/EntrepreneurEnc

Entrepreneur Magazine
http://www.entrepreneur.com/
@EntMagazine http://twitter.com/EntMagazine

Baskin Engineering’s Distinguished Lecture Series Presents:

Engineering Smart and Web-based Systems to Support Customers in a Global Economy

Joe Pinto, Cisco’s Senior Vice President, Technical Services

Details:

Friday, April 17, 2009, 4pm
Engineering 2, Simularium (Room 180)
Reception to follow.


Catch the event live at: mms://media.citris.berkeley.edu/ucsc

For additional information about Baskin Engineering Events: www.soe.ucsc.edu/events/

Engineering Smart and Web-based Systems to Support Customers in a Global Economy

Joe Pinto is Senior Vice President of Technical Services at Cisco, the leader in world-changing technology. More than 2,500 Technical Services employees worldwide provide Cisco customers and partners with a full range of world-class support services, including expert technical assistance over the phone, onsite and spare-part logistics, Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert® (CCIE) certification, and a wealth of Web-based technical support resources.

Smart services provide the ability to view and monitor status remotely, providing proactive and predictive services that keep business running in real time. Web 2.0 technologies enable a new level of collaboration and personalization in service delivery. They are moving services from a transaction to an interaction model, providing a new level of value.

Come and meet Mr. Pinto and hear him talk about the critical importance of smart and Web-based systems to the world’s economy. 

Baskin Engineering is pleased to celebrate with Cisco the ribbon cutting of the school’s new research entity, the Network Management and Operations (NMO) Lab. Cisco’s generosity and partnership has made it possible for UCSC engineering students and faculty to work on real-world networking problems in state-of-the-art labs located on campus.

Joe Pinto Bio:

Joe Pinto is Senior Vice President of Technical Services at Cisco, the leader in world-changing technology. More than 2,500 Technical Services employees worldwide provide Cisco customers and partners with a full range of world-class support services, including expert technical assistance over the phone, onsite and spare-part logistics, Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert® (CCIE) certification, and a wealth of Web-based technical support resources.

Since joining Cisco in 1991, Pinto has evolved and innovated the services organization to address the changing needs of customers and Cisco’s business. Honors that Cisco Services has received in this period include the Customer Contact Association (CCA) Excellence Award, STAR awards from the Service & Support Professionals Association (SSPA), a place in the SSPA Hall of Fame, and the Web Support Hall of Fame of the Association of Support Professionals (ASP).

Mr. Pinto is active in philanthropic work, serving on the boards of the Cisco Systems Foundation and the Pinto Family Foundation, which assists Northern California health, education, and welfare groups. He is Chair of the Engineering Industry Advisory Council at San Jose State University, and under his direction, Cisco is a partner with Wichita State University in the on-campus Cisco Technical Center. Mr. Pinto holds a bachelor’s degree in business from Golden Gate University.

I’ve got a new and exciting program starting up… VC1to1… as in Venture Capital 1 to 1…

The Baskin School of Engineering (BSOE) has started a pilot program chartered to foster the culture of entrepreneurship at BSOE. The new VC1to1 Program will kick-off by facilitating informal conversations between individual members of the Venture Capital community and individual BSOE Faculty.

For more information, see http://VC1to1.soe.ucsc.edu/