Janet Yellen, vice chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve and a professor emerita at UC Berkeley, is one of two individuals currently being considered by President Barack Obama to replace Ben Bernanke as chair of the Federal Reserve.

Yellen is a professor emerita of economics at Haas School of Business, and if appointed, she would be both the first female and first UC Berkeley professor to serve as chair of the Fed.

Larry Summers, who was previously U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, director of the National Economic Council and president of Harvard University, is also being considered. Obama is expected to select either Yellen or Summers for the position at the end of August.

Yellen received her doctorate in economics from Yale University in 1971 and began her career at UC Berkeley in 1980 as a macroeconomics professor at the Haas school. In 1985 and 1988, Yellen received the school’s Earl F. Cheit Award for Excellence in Teaching.

“Janet was always a phenomenal teacher — partly because she worked very, very hard at it,” said David Levine, an economics professor at the business school, whom Yellen mentored. “She thought about literally every word she would say. As she has moved up in government, this level of thoughtfulness and reflection has always been increasingly important — and as a high official of the Federal Reserve system, where literally, the placement of a comma can move the markets.”

Yellen’s experience working at the Fed includes serving as a member of its board of governors and as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. She was also chair of Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers.

While Yellen and Summers rival each other in academic and government experience, their economic values are on opposite ends of the ideological spectrum.

Yellen advocates economic regulation, supports the usage of stimulus plans to boost the economy and is expected to continue Bernanke’s policies if appointed. Summers supports policies of economic deregulation, but following the economic crisis of 2008, he has openly stated that he wants more regulation of Wall Street transactions.

Although Henry Brady, dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy, acknowledges that Yellen and Summers have “tremendous ideological differences,” he said they would both know how to handle the responsibilities of the Fed, like knowing when to ease up on monetary expansion.

Campus economics professor Brad DeLong, who worked with Summers as deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury when Summers was treasury secretary, enthusiastically supported Yellen’s appointment but has been vocal about his preference for Summers for the position.

“Larry Summers has an edge as the most creative thinker likely to successfully think outside the box should outside-the-box thinking be called for, and least likely to bind himself to an institutional consensus past its sell-by date,” DeLong wrote in a New York Times article.

Andrew Rose, an economics professor at the Haas school, has known Yellen for 28 years and says that Yellen is very persuasive, easily forms a consensus and is very calm and collected.

“One of the gripes about her is that it isn’t clear how well she will respond to a crisis, but we went through the Loma Prieta earthquake together in Barrows Hall,” Rose said.  “We really both thought that the building was going to collapse, but she stayed quite calm during the earthquake, which is a pretty impressive thing.”

Brady also believes that if Yellen is appointed to the chair position, her well-developed inner circle will allow her to transition smoothly into the position.

Contact Sophie Mattson at smattson@dailycal.org.

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Anthony Bongco/Staff

During the years most young adults spend completing college, UC Berkeley student Steven Czifra was serving a four-year sentence in solitary confinement.

By all accounts, Czifra had a rough childhood. Born into a family of addicts, he was smoking crack at age 9, in juvenile hall at age 13 and sentenced to nine and a half years in prison at age 14.

Now, as a 38-year-old transfer and re-entry student of English literature at UC Berkeley, Czifra has become an advocate for California state prison reform, protesting the use of solitary confinement. Most recently, he went on a hunger strike in solidarity with inmates of Pelican Bay State Prison, in which thousands of prisoners have been on hunger strike for 21 days as of Sunday.

In total, Czifra has spent eight years of his life in solitary confinement. When Czifra was 17 and serving a prison sentence for carjacking, he says he was found guilty of initiating a prison fight, which landed him a four-year term in solitary confinement. When he was 24, he says he took a plea bargain for another four years in solitary confinement after being found guilty of spitting on an officer and in violation of California’s three-strikes law.

While he was imprisoned at a Secure Housing Unit at Pelican Bay State Prison, Czifra spent 22 and a half hours in his cell each day and was only allowed 90 minutes outside of his cell, which he would spend alone in a concrete, windowless pen. Czifra continues to suffer from severe anxiety and insomnia as a result.

“You take a person, you put them in a box, you don’t let them see the sun for eight years, you don’t let them talk to anybody or have fun,” Czifra said. “You don’t let them eat or make mistakes. The fact that I’m not a raving lunatic is a miracle.”

A few years after being released from prison in 2003, Czifra enrolled in a 12-step program, where he met his partner of seven years, Sylvia Garcia. Czifra began working odd jobs but found that they did not fulfill his academic ambitions.

“I owned a tree-trimming business, I was driving a tow-truck, I was swinging a hammer,” Czifra said, “and the entire time, I knew that I had other gifts that were being underused.”

Czifra originally received his GED in prison because of the promise of getting coffee and cookies in the prison quad. In his early 30s, he failed community college twice. The third time around, at the age of 34, he received straight A’s, helping him gain admission to UC Berkeley.

Today, Czifra lives in Albany with his partner and his 6-year-old son, Shane, whom he lovingly calls “the most incredible human being” he has ever met.
On an average sunny Tuesday afternoon, Czifra and his son spend the day bowling, playing with Legos and making lunch. Afterward, Czifra heads to his afternoon classes and does his homework for a few hours before having dinner with his family.

“If I could use one word to describe our family life, it would be ‘peaceful,’” Czifra said.

The 2-year old Czifra (left) is shown with his two siblings, Joy and Johnny.

Prison activism

Despite the joys that come with pursuing an education and having a fulfilling family life, Czifra still faces the lasting psychological effects of spending eight years detached from human interaction.

“The dominating theme of my life is overcoming anxiety,” Czifra said. “Unless I stop and think everything through, my life is an earthquake. I was by myself during the time when I learned how to be with other people … when my emotional and mental systems were forming.”

Czifra was introduced to the prison hunger strike movement by his friend and UC Berkeley peer Danny Murillo, who was also kept in solitary confinement.

In recent weeks, Czifra, Murillo and other members of the campus organization Human Rights of the Incarcerated at Cal have been holding demonstrations in support of the statewide Prison Hunger Strike Solidarity coalition, which began in Pelican Bay State Prison on July 8. Last Monday, Billy “Guero” Sell, a state prison inmate who had participated in the hunger strike, committed suicide after allegedly being denied medical attention.

Leaders of the movement are demanding that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation comply with core demands, which include ending group punishment, changing policies that force prisoners to snitch on gang members and expanding privileges for inmates in solitary confinement.

“The reason why I’m in this movement is that I’m in California and I care about my community, and this isn’t happening in Palestine or North Korea,” Czifra said. “This is happening here.”

The nine-year old Czifra (left) poses with Johnny.

A scholarly take on prison reform

When speaking about how he spends his time at UC Berkeley, Czifra says he is thankful that he is in a place that allows him to combine his activism for prison reform with his academic scholarship.

Last fall, Czifra began attending a prison studies independent reading group taught by UC Berkeley academics in the ethnic studies and gender and women’s studies departments. There, Czifra explored the intellectual meaning behind mass incarceration in society.

Patricia Penn Hilden, professor emeritus of ethnic studies, developed a bond with Czifra during the class and began meeting with him independently to discuss literature.

“I introduced him to my husband, who is a professor of comparative literature, and they talk about Descartes once a week,” Hilden said.

Czifra said that he read the classics while incarcerated but was unable to apply the knowledge he gained in a prison setting. Now, he is able to articulate his ideas with people from all backgrounds — both within and outside of the prison system.

“There’s nothing he likes more than diving headfirst deep into the pool of the literature,” said Victoria Robinson, a lecturer on campus in the ethnic studies and gender and women’s studies departments. “It is probably the thing that got him through his years in prison and solitary confinement.”

Czifra says that when he first started college, he wanted to teach inmates literature after graduating, but now, he says he is considering other careers, ranging from being a lawyer to a professor of literature. After an unexpected journey from solitary confinement to UC Berkeley, Czifra says he’s certainly not afraid of taking a chance.

Steven Czifra, at age 38, poses in a Halloween costume with his partner, Sylvia Garcia, and his 6-year old son, Shane.

Contact Sophie Mattson at smattson@dailycal.org.

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Arya Aliabadi/Staff

Six protesters were arrested Thursday after disrupting the appointment of incoming UC president Janet Napolitano and refusing to disperse pursuant to police orders at a UC Board Regents meeting at UCSF Mission Bay.

After a public comment session in which many spoke against Napolitano’s appointment, the regents approved Napolitano’s salary package in a quick vote.

As the board barreled toward full approval, many in the section cordoned off for the public took action.

Chants of “Undocumented is not a crime” and  “Don’t deport my education” erupted from the crowd, referencing Napolitano’s recent position as U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security.

“We were going to do this because we really believe that Janet Napolitano should not be the UC president, so we were willing to go to jail for it,” said Bruno Rosales Huizar, a UCLA student.

Shortly afterward, two protesters charged toward the regents, prompting police to declare the assembly unlawful. After five minutes of warning, four protesters remained and were arrested. Six were arrested in total, but all were released with citations.

More than 40 protesters turned out on Thursday to protest the appointment of Napolitano. Some demonstrated outside the meeting while others shared concerns at the meeting’s public comment session, indicating Napolitano’s history of deportation as homeland security secretary.

Speakers critical of Napolitano described their own experiences as undocumented students under the federal program Secure Communities, which allowed local governments to turn in undocumented immigrants to federal immigration authorities.

Huizar shared how his father was deported on his way to work at a construction site, severely affecting his family’s financial circumstances and his opportunities to pursue higher education.

“I had to worry about finding food for every meal,” Huizar said. “I couldn’t prioritize school anymore. My dream had been shattered. How are you going to tell a parent they don’t have the right to see their child?”

After the arrests, the meeting reconvened with discussion of Napolitano’s appointment. While some regents expressed support for Napolitano, student regent Cinthia Flores voted against her appointment, citing many of the same reasons voiced by protesters.

“I cannot and I will not deny the pain and experiences of countless students and families who have been negatively impacted by Secure Communities,” she said. “I know that their fear is real.”

But Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom defended Napolitano’s record on immigration, saying the responsibility for implementing Secure Communities was widely spread, with many decisions on enforcement falling to local governments instead of just the Department of Homeland Security.

“I just want to apply a broader level of responsibility that we all shared for the app of Secure Communities,” Newsom said, referencing his own history as mayor of San Francisco. “The application as it was processed created a lot of legitimate controversy that was rightly addressed, city by city and across this country.”

Regent Bonnie Reiss, who also sat on the selection committee, affirmed that Napolitano would address concerns of protesters who were fearful because of her prior experience. Reiss said Napolitano was eager to know the “real concerns among the student body” and that she sat with many and assured them she hears their voice.

Napolitano also addressed protesters’ criticism at a press conference following her appointment.

“I would say to these students, documented or undocumented, we are here for the business of education, and I will be an advocate of that in Sacramento and in D.C.,” she said.

Ju Hong, an undocumented UC Berkeley alumnus, was among those who demonstrated at the meeting. He said he will continue protesting Napolitano’s appointment as UC president despite the board’s decision Thursday.

“I know that undocumented immigrant communities are disappointed, and I know that this is just the beginning,” he said.

Contact Sophie Mattson and Andrea Guzman at newsdesk@dailycal.org.

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Sondheimer was placed on administrative leave on June 3, immediately after the university learned of allegations that he had engaged in inappropriate conduct, said UCLA in a statement.

According to a CBS 2 news report, Sondheimer had sent inappropriate messages on the Internet to an individual he believed to be a 13-year-old child. Sondheimer was in fact messaging a decoy from Operation Riptide, an organization dedicated to exposing child predators.

Sondheimer, a 1977 UCLA graduate, had served 36 years as UCLA’s associate athletic director and was heavily involved in on-campus recruiting and issues regarding athlete academics.

“The allegations were unrelated to his job at UCLA and did not involve students or any other employees of the university,”  UCLA said in the statement. “The university and its police department simultaneously began a full investigation, which is ongoing.

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Michael Tao and Tony Zhou/File

Following a failed last-minute attempt at negotiations, BART union representatives confirmed on Monday at midnight that there will be a workers’ strike, leaving over 400,000 daily commuters finding alternative means of transportation.

The contract for BART workers was up for renewal on Sunday evening at 11:59 p.m. Around 8:30 p.m., BART union leaders left the bargaining table, rejecting an offer of an 8 percent salary increase over the next four years. A strike by AC Transit workers is also imminent following a preliminary authorization vote. A strike by workers from one company could place a heavy burden on the other.

“The unions have not officially notified us that they are going on strike, but we think our riders need to be prepared for one,” said BART spokesperson Rick Rice.

According to the BART Labor News website, BART union workers are asking for a 23 percent increase in wages over three years as well as the ability to pay into their own pensions. The unions have also requested better security to protect themselves from violence on the job and general improvements such as better lighting on the tracks.

As of Sunday evening, BART had proposed solutions to a number of union demands, including pension reforms and two propositions regarding worker safety.

“BART is presenting an updated proposal on the offers on salaries, requests on pension, requests on benefits,” Rice said. “In addition, employees should start paying for a portion of their pensions.”

AC Transit workers are also negotiating their contract this week. According to Sharon Cornu, a spokesperson for Amalgamated Transit Union Local 192, AC Transit union workers have voted 97.4 percent in favor of a strike regarding their own negotiations, but the union president has not yet confirmed a strike.

According to Cornu, the BART strike will also put a burden on AC Transit resources, and AC Transit may not have enough buses to accommodate displaced commuters.

Clarence Johnson, a spokesperson for AC Transit confirmed that if AC Transit workers did not strike next week, they would continue their existing bus routes.

Rachel Wilson, a sophomore at University of Michigan who is taking a summer class at UC Berkeley, takes BART from Orinda to Berkeley and is frustrated that the strikes could affect both AC Transit and BART.

“I am probably going to have to catch a ride from one of my parents into class, which will cut into their schedules,” Wilson said. “If the buses and the train go on strike at the same time, I am really in trouble.”

Berkeley residents who use BART or AC Transit can visit 511.org for further information on bus and ferry schedules and on forming carpools.

Executive news editor Shirin Ghaffary contributed to this report.

Contact Sophie Mattson at smattson@dailycal.org.

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Yasir Motiwala/Courtesy

Instead of cracking codes and shutting down networks, UC Berkeley students participating in a hackathon hosted by Bloomberg this week put their computer programming skills to use improving their humanitarian business ventures.

The hackathon was a part of Bloomberg’s Next Big Things Summit, an annual event that showcases investors and entrepreneurs discussing trends in technological innovation. Around 11 UC Berkeley students and alumni made up three teams that worked nonstop from 3 a.m. on Monday until 3 p.m. on Tuesday in the executive board room at the Ritz-Carlton in Half Moon Bay during the 36-hour hackfest. The three teams — Flowbit, Free Ventures and M3D — were all previously selected top-three Big Ideas at Berkeley finalists, a prestigious annual innovation contest for UC Berkeley undergraduate and graduate students.

“We were looking for a group of young engineers and coders with computer science backgrounds who could demonstrate to us the ability to problem-solve on a quick timeline,” said Bloomberg West anchor Jon Erlichman, who helped organize the event. “When we reached out to UC Berkeley and learned more about the Big Ideas program, it was the perfect fit.”

One of the business ventures participating in the hackfest, Flowbit, is looking to provide remote monitoring sensors in wells and water kiosks in developing countries to analyze flow rates and water quality levels. This way, Flowbit founders said that individuals in developing countries will be able to tell which wells are safe to draw from. “(During the hackfest), we decided to build a feature for people who use our product to collect a lot of data for water systems,” said Nick Lee, founder and CEO of Flowbit. Lee and his team built a map application to plot water systems so that users can see benefactors who have donated to a fund and how many gallons of water the well has.

Lee originally formed Flowbit out of a class taught by UC Berkeley lecturer Ken Singer on entrepreneurship. After hearing from a friend about the insufficient amount of drinkable water in India, he thought of a device that monitored the amount and quality of water available in developing countries, and after pitching the idea to his classmates, the formation of Flowbit soon followed.

Another participating team, Free Ventures, co-founded by UC Berkeley seniors Sam Kirschner and Jeremy Fiance, aims to provide a network of mentors and support to students who wish to develop their ideas to minimize the risk involved with entrepreneurship.

The third UC Berkeley-affiliated team, M3D, founded by recent graduate George Ramonov and senior Sabrina Atienza, is building a search engine for hospitals to extract data about patients. The team used its time at the hackfest to complete an unfinished prototype of its search engine.

Participants in the hackfest said their experiences were successful, as all three teams were able to achieve their objectives on time.

“So often today, where technology goes is dependent in part on how it’s being adopted by younger people,” Erlichman said. “We wanted to have smart young innovators to showcase their abilities — as well as what is possible.”

Contact Sophie Mattson smattson@dailycal.org.

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The program, held at Laney College, is taught by Laney physics instructor Naima Azgui. Azgui created the program because she wanted to reach out to skilled workers who were laid off due to the recession.

Laboratory instruction for the students is conducted in the Biomolecular Nanotechnology Center in UC Berkeley’s Stanley Hall. Center Director Paul Lum and researcher Erik Jensen teach the students during their laboratory sessions.

The students learn about microfabrication processes and how to build microfluidic systems, and these skill sets make the students look attractive to new companies that manufacture with these technologies.

According to Jensen, microfluidics are important because they are able to condense larger scientific systems into a much smaller system of channels and pumps.

For example, microfluidic technology can allow cell biologists to control cellular environments, allowing them to conduct research more efficiently, Jensen said.

Hong Jiao, CEO of startup company HJ Science and Technology, which manufactures microfluidic systems, compared microfluidic technologies today to the production of computers in the 1960s. He said the technology is infantile in its development but will eventually become integral to many scientific technologies.

“It’s an emerging field,” Jensen said. “There has been a lot of academic work in building microfluidics for bioanalysis. There are a number of facilities building next-generation microfluidic technologies. As it continues to evolve, it will affect the industry on a larger level.”

According to Azgui, 16 participants were admitted to this year’s program, and 14 participated.

Azgui originally conceived the program back in 2005 and said she figured it would be convenient because Laney is so close to UC Berkeley. She originally projected that 20 to 30 people would be admitted.

The Alameda County Workforce Investment Board and Laney finance the program together, and center researchers contribute their own equipment. Participants also receive unemployment checks.

“We did our homework, and we decided to move forward with the program,” Azgui said. “The core was the partnership between the knowledge at UC Berkeley, the resources from Laney and the finances from the Alameda County Workforce Investment Board. We were very glad to see that more than 60 percent of students got jobs (in 2011).”

Lum said there are many worker training programs in the East Bay that have dry-lab-based teaching, which means that students learn material without being able to work in a lab.

With the Laney College program, in the beginning, the students spend a week in a classroom setting and one day in the laboratory. As time passes, students spend more and more time in the laboratory each week and less time in the classroom.

According to Lum, the students benefit from learning in the laboratory because they are able to interact with undergraduate and graduate students as well as researchers.

“It gave the individuals here self-confidence and self-respect,” Lum said. “There was a light that came on, and they were approaching the equipment with great confidence.”

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A UC Berkeley researcher who works on UC-owned research land in Albany known as the Gill Tract was awarded a $1.3 million grant on July 27 for his work on corn.

Damon Lisch, a researcher with the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology in the College of Natural Resources, was granted $1.3 million out of $3.4 million to conduct research on epigenetics using corn.

The project, which is being conducted by Lisch and three other researchers — one at the University of Minnesota, one at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minn., and another at the University of Texas, Austin — is being funded by the National Science Foundation.

According to Lisch, because the science community knows much less about epigenetic variation than genetic variation, the project will answer essential questions about the role of epigenetic variation in organisms. While epigenetic variation does not yield noticeable changes, genetic variation results in noticeable changes in the nucleotide sequence of a DNA molecule.

“What is fascinating about epigenetic variation is that it is much more unstable than genetic variation and can be affected by environmental conditions,” Lisch said.  “Scientists think it might be an important aspect of variation in all higher organisms, but we don’t yet know how important.  This project is an attempt to get at that question using maize as a model.”

Lisch has conducted much of his corn research on the Gill Tract, a site he said has yielded groundbreaking discoveries in epigenetics, plant development and plant gene regulation. The same land had been occupied in April and May by members of Occupy the Farm, who continue to break into the land to tend crops they had planted there.

According to campus professor Miguel Altieri, who conducts research on the Gill Tract and supported the Occupy the Farm protest, the results of the research conducted by Lisch directly affects the production of genetically modified organisms, known as GMOs, by large food production businesses.

“A survey of biotechnology patents that cites the research of Lisch and of his colleagues shows that some of their research has, in fact, resulted in the production of GMO technologies,” Altieri said in an email. “While Lisch might not be conducting GMO trials at the Gill Tract directly for Big Agribusiness, some of his findings are of key importance to researchers who are developing transgenic crops for their corporate employers.”

Lisch responded to Altieri’s claims by stating that his research is important regardless of how it can be used.

“Professor Altieri is certainly entitled to his opinion, and it is true that our research, like all basic research, can be applied to a variety of applications, including those that he disapproves of,” Lisch said. “That being said, knowledge is probably preferable to ignorance.”

According to Nathan Springer, an associate professor in the Department of Plant Biology at the University of Minnesota and principal investigator for the project, basic research on corn is still important to the study of genetics.

“First, in many ways corn provides an ideal organism for studies of genetics,” Springer said in an email. “It is easy to control crosses and to generate many offspring from any cross.  Second, the corn genome contains a mixture of genes and transposable elements. This genome organization is representative of most crop species.”

Springer said he is optimistic about the future of the project and anticipates that the capabilities of each of the researchers will yield a tremendous amount of discovery.

“Each of the four investigators brings unique research capabilities and expertise to this project,” Springer said. “I am excited about this collaboration and the potential for discoveries from this research.”

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Danielle Lee/File

Occupy the Farm protesters continue to trespass on UC-owned research land in Albany, illegally harvesting and weeding the crops that they planted on the Gill Tract earlier this spring, and campus officials say they lack the resources to keep the protesters away.

In order to tend to crops they planted during their occupation of the tract, protesters have cut the lock off the gate on three occasions — most recently on Sunday — since the encampment was broken up by police on May 14.

“We are in a difficult situation and don’t have the resources to monitor the Gill Tract around the clock,” said UC Berkeley spokesperson Dan Mogulof. “There is a group that seems to care little about property rights or the rule of law. We need to focus on ensuring that the research goes unimpeded and unharmed.”

On April 22, protesters — including campus students and alumni — erected tents on the Gill Tract and began planting crops in response to the proposition of the University Village Mixed Use Project.

The project, passed by the Albany City Council on July 9, entails the construction of a Whole Foods Market, a senior housing center and a retail center on a portion of the Gill Tract south of the research land.

The university filed a lawsuit against 15 members of Occupy the Farm on May 9. However, the lawsuit — which alleged that the protesters’ presence on the land interfered with research — was dropped on June 6 due to legal costs and the concern over the length of the process.

Mogulof said pursuing a second lawsuit against the protesters would be a long and expensive process and is not currently a priority for the campus.
UCPD Lt. Alex Yao said the tract is being monitored by both the community and the UCPD. He also said the participants of the break-ins are videotaped by officers.

Occupy the Farm member and UC Berkeley alumnus Krystof Lopaur said he thinks it is inappropriate to call tending the crops a break-in.
“When people talk about a break-in, people usually think it (took place) in a house,” Lopaur said. “This isn’t someone breaking into a screen door.”

According to campus alumna and Occupy the Farm member Stefanie Rawlings, the police have not said or done anything to keep the protesters from harvesting and weeding their crops. Rawlings also said as long as there is no open access to the Gill Tract, Occupy the Farm will continue to use the land to grow crops.

UC Berkeley researcher Damon Lisch, who grows corn for research on the Gill Tract, said the protesters have respected requests to leave his research intact, but he does not support the movement.

“I understand that the UC is trying not to escalate the situation, and I appreciate that the protesters are just harvesting their crops and not damaging our research, but it doesn’t mean that I am happy about it,” Lisch said.

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Aleli Balaguer/Staff

After three years of work by students and scientists from UC Berkeley and several higher education institutions around the world, a miniature satellite is to be launched into space this month.

The satellite was originally scheduled to be launched on Friday morning, strapped to a rocket along with 11 other miniature satellites built by other teams of scientists, but the launch has been postponed until Aug. 14 due to equipment failure at Vandenberg Air Force Base near Lompoc, Calif.

According to campus graduate student John Sample, who worked on the satellite, the countdown timer stopped at four minutes because a piece of ground equipment on the base had stopped working. Because it will take a few days to repair the equipment, the launch was postponed.

The satellite, called CINEMA — short for CubeSat for Ions, Neutrals, Electrons and MAgnetic fields — weighs eight pounds and measures 10 cm by 10 cm by 30 cm. Its dimensions are roughly the size of an average loaf of bread, despite it being one of the most complex miniature satellites ever built, according to Sample.

Campus graduate students and scientists from the campus Space Sciences Laboratory worked with students and scientists from Imperial College London, Korea’s Kyung Hee University, Inter American University of Puerto Rico and University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez, on the project.

The Imperial College London built MAGIC, a magnetometer that measures the magnetic field in space.

Once CINEMA is in space, a one-meter boom, or extension of the magnetometer, and two antennae for communication will extend from it.

“MAGIC isn’t quite as sensitive as lots of other science quality magnetometers, but it does represent a remarkably high-quality measurement in a package that is smaller and uses less power than anything comparable before,” Sample said.

According to a campus press release, CINEMA also contains STEIN, a device made in the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory that contains particle detectors, and is equipped with electronics made by CEA Saclay in Paris that work to economize power and space. The particle detectors will provide the scientists with research on particle precipitation and on magnetic storms in space.

According to the Space Sciences Laboratory, CINEMA is denser than water, and therefore the densest satellite that the Space Sciences Laboratory has ever built.

“By small satellite standards, CINEMA is one of the most complex ever built, but there are a lot of experienced people at Space Sciences Lab who build larger, more complex satellites, and they helped point us in the right direction,” Sample said.

Some of the scientists from the Space Science Laboratory who built CINEMA — including Sample, CINEMA principal investigator Robert Lin and physicist Thomas Immel — will have a chance to see their efforts become a reality when they operate the satellite post-launch.

“It was a real honor to be part of such a dedicated and talented team, but I am really excited about operating CINEMA and getting back some good science results,” Sample said. “I think a lot of people have had doubts that you could do great science in such a small package, but I think we’re on that track.”

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