Blogs

When the robotics engineering field that Maja Matarić wanted to work in didn’t exist, she helped create it. In 2005 she helped define the new area of socially assistive robotics.As an associate professor of computer science, neuroscience, and pediatrics at the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles, she developed robots to provide personalized therapy and care through social interactions.Maja MatarićEmployer University of Southern California, Los AngelesJob Title Professor of computer science, neuroscience, and pediatricsMember gradeFellowAlma maters University of Kansas and MITThe robots could have conversations, play games, and respond to emotions.Today the IEEE Fellow is a professor at USC. She studies how robots can help students with anxiety and depression undergo cognitive behavioral therapy. CBT focuses on changing a person’s negative thought patterns, behaviors, and emotional responses.For her work, she received a 2025 Robotics Medal from MassRobotics, which recognizes female researchers advancing robotics. The Boston-based nonprofit provides robotics startups with a workspace, prototyping facilities, mentorship, and networking opportunities.When receiving the award at the ceremony in Boston, Matarić was overcome with joy, she says.“I’ve been very fortunate to be honored with several awards, which I am grateful for. But there was something very special about getting the MassRobotics medal, because I knew at least half the people in the room,” she says. “Everyone was just smiling, and there was a great sense of love.”Seeing herself as an engineerMatarić grew up in Belgrade, Serbia. Her father was an engineer, and her mother was a writer. After her father died when she was 16, Matarić and her mother moved to the United States.She credits her father for igniting her interest in engineering, and her uncle who worked as an aerospace engineer for introducing her to computer science.Matarić says she didn’t consider herself an engineer until she joined USC’s faculty, since she always had worked in computer science.“In retrospect, I’ve always been an engineer,” Matarić says. “But I didn’t set out specifically […]

In 1627, a year after the death of the philosopher and statesman Francis Bacon, a short, evocative tale of his was published. The New Atlantis describes how a ship blown off course arrives at an unknown island called Bensalem. At its heart stands Salomon’s House, an institution devoted to “the knowledge of causes, and secret motions of things” and to “the effecting of all things possible.” The novel captured Bacon’s vision of a science built on skepticism and empiricism and his belief that understanding and creating were one and the same pursuit. No mere scholar’s study filled with curiosities, Salomon’s House had deep-sunk caves for refrigeration, towering structures for astronomy, sound-houses for acoustics, engine-houses, and optical perspective-houses. Its inhabitants bore titles that still sound futuristic: Merchants of Light, Pioneers, Compilers, and Interpreters of Nature. Francis Bacon wrote The Advancement and Proficience of Learning.Public DomainBacon didn’t conjure his story from nothing. Engineers he likely had met or observed firsthand gave him reason to believe such an institution could actually exist. Two in particular stand out: the Dutch engineer Cornelis Drebbel and the French engineer Salomon de Caus. Their bold creations suggested that disciplined making and testing could transform what we know.Engineers show the wayDrebbel came to England around 1604 at the invitation of King James I. His audacious inventions quickly drew notice. By the early 1620s, he unveiled a contraption that bordered on fantasy: a boat that could dive beneath the Thames and resurface hours later, ferrying passengers from Westminster to Greenwich. Contemporary descriptions mention tubes reaching the surface to supply air, while later accounts claim Drebbel had found chemical means to replenish it. He refined the underwater craft through iterative builds, each informed by test dives and adjustments. His other creations included a perpetual-motion device driven by heat and air-pressure changes, a mercury regulator for egg incubation, and advanced microscopes.De Caus, who arrived in England around 1611, created ingenious fountains that transformed royal […]

A practical guide to designing log-periodic dipole array fed parabolic reflector antennas using advanced 3D MoM simulation — from parametric modeling to electrically large structures.What Attendees will LearnHow to set design requirements for LPDA-fed reflector antennas — Understand the key specifications including bandwidth ratio, gain targets, and VSWR matching constraints across the full operating range from 100 MHz to 1 GHz.Why advanced 3D EM solvers enable simulation of electrically large multiscale structures — Learn how higher order basis functions, quadrilateral meshing, geometrical symmetry, and CPU/GPU parallelization extend MoM simulation capability by an order of magnitude.How to apply a systematic three-step design strategy with proven workflow starting with first optimizing the stand-alone LPDA for VSWR and gain, then integrating the reflector, and finally tuning parameters to satisfy all performance requests including gain and impedance matching.How parametric CAD modeling accelerates LPDA design — Discover how self-scaling geometry, automated wire-to-solid conversion, and multiple-copy-with-scaling features enable fully parametrized antenna models that streamline optimization across dozens of design variants.Download this free whitepaper now!

Roughly 90 percent of hard tech startups fail due to funding constraints, longer R&D timelines for developing hardware, and the complexity of manufacturing their products, according to a number of studies.Generally, these startups require up to 50 percent more investor financing than software ones, according to a Medium article. Typically, they need at least US $30 million, according to a Lucid article. That’s double the funding needed by software companies on average.To help them connect with investors, IEEE Entrepreneurship in 2024 launched its Hard Tech Venture Summits. The two-day events connect founders with potential investors and other entrepreneurs. Attendees include manufacturers, design engineers, and intellectual property lawyers.“Even though there are a lot of startup investor conferences, it’s hard to find those focused on hard tech,” says Joanne Wong, who helped initiate the program and is now the chair. She is a general partner at Redds Capital, a California-based venture capital firm that invests in global early-stage IT startups.The IEEE member is also an entrepreneur. She founded SciosHub in 2020. The company’s software-as-a-service and informatics platform automates the data-management process for biomedical research labs.“Many investors are focused on AI software—which is good,” she says. “But for hard tech companies, it is still hard to find support.”The summit also includes a workshop to help founders navigate manufacturing processes and regulatory compliance. The event is open to IEEE members and others.IEEE is a natural fit for the program, Wong says, because hard tech is synonymous with electrical engineering.“Some of the domains we’re covering are robotics, semiconductors, and aerospace technology. IEEE has societies for all these fields,” she says. “Because of that, there are many resources within the organizations for startups, whether it be mentors or guides on how to commercialize products.”There are several venture summits planned for this year. Two are scheduled in collaboration with the IEEE Systems Council: this month in Menlo Park, Calif., and in October in Toronto.On 10 and 11 June, a third […]

On 8 January 2026, the Iranian government imposed a near-total communications shutdown. It was the country’s first full information blackout: For weeks, the internet was off across all provinces while services including the government-run intranet, VPNs, text messaging, mobile calls, and even landlines were severely throttled. It was an unprecedented lockdown that left more than 90 million people cut off not only from the world, but from one another.Since then, connectivity has never fully returned. Following U.S. and Israeli airstrikes in late February, Iran again imposed near-total restrictions, and people inside the country again saw global information flows dry up.The original January shutdown came amid nationwide protests over the deepening economic crisis and political repression, in which millions of people chanted antigovernment slogans in the streets. While Iranian protests have become frequent in recent years, this was one of the most significant uprisings since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. The government responded quickly and brutally. One report put the death toll at more than 7,000 confirmed deaths and more than 11,000 under investigation. Many sources believe the death toll could exceed 30,000.Thirteen days into the January shutdown, we at NetFreedom Pioneers (NFP) turned to a system we had built for exactly this kind of moment—one that sends files over ordinary satellite TV signals. During the national information vacuum, our technology, called Toosheh, delivered real-time updates into Iran, offering a lifeline to millions starved of trusted information.How Iran Censors the InternetI joined NetFreedom Pioneers, a nonprofit focused on anticensorship technology, in 2014. Censorship in Iran was a defining feature of my youth in the 1990s. After the Islamic Revolution, most Iranians began to lead double lives—one at home, where they could drink, dance, and choose their clothing, and another in public, where everyone had to comply with stifling government laws. Iran’s internet infrastructure is more centralized than in other parts of the world, making it easier for the government to restrict the flow of information. Morteza […]