The Lab Beat podcast highlights cutting-edge UCI engineering labs

Jan. 12, 2026 – A new way to get to know the UC Irvine Samueli School of Engineering is through The Lab Beat podcast, which highlights its cutting-edge labs in 5-8-minute audio features. Award-winning audio journalist Natalie Tso visits the labs and speaks with professors and researchers about their innovations and visions. Check out the newest episodes:

Episode five features Iryna Zenyuk, who shares her journey from top national chess player to director of the National Fuel Cell Research Center and UCI professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering. Zenyuk’s lab is working on enabling hydrogen to power trucks. They’ve also electrified the production of calcium oxide, a key ingredient in cement, with the aim to decarbonize the cement industry.

Stacy Copp, multiaward-winning associate professor of materials science and engineering, shares how her lifelong fascination with light and color has brought her lab to the cutting edge of making medical bioimaging breakthroughs by creating glowing infrared nanoclusters to see deep inside human tissues. Listen to Copp talk about The Power of Glowing Color.

Dean Magnus Egerstedt leads The UCI Robot Ecology Lab, which is devoted to making altruistic robots.  He shares about the SlothBot, RaccoonBot and upcoming OtterBot in this episode, which also explores the question Can a Robot Love? Student researchers share how they are seeing if swarm robots can be organically kind to one another.

Is hydrogen the fuel of the future? Jack Brouwer, director of UCI’s Clean Energy Institute, thinks so. In this episode, he explains about his work with industry and academic partners to create liquid hydrocarbon fuels to power airplanes and ships. This new technology could revolutionize the oil industry and create more energy equity.

Alon Gorodetsky is creating material that mimics the camouflage capabilities of cephalopods.  Listen to the episode on Becoming Invisible as Gorodetsky tells how he’s unlocking the secrets of squid skin and has created material that can change color, transparency and temperature.

For previous episodes, visit The Lab Beat.