Da Kine Lab @ UNLV

Da Kine Lab @ UNLV

Introduction

Aloha. The Da Kine Lab (DKL) is under the direction of Prof. H. Jeremy Cho in the UNLV Department of Mechanical Engineering. Here at the DKL, we focus on heat/mass transfer, soft materials, and interfacial phenomena to develop groundbreaking technologies for energy and environmental applications. We are designers, builders, experimentalists, analysts, modelers, tinkerers, and coders. We have a general curiosity about the universe and look for creative ways to live better and more sustainably.

Why do we call ourselves “da kine”? In Hawaiian pidgin, "da kine" is usually a placeholder word to really mean anything at all—similar to how we might say "watchamacallit". When local people in Hawaiʻi hear "da kine", it usually connotes a certain feeling of familiarity with the speaker and what the speaker is referring to. So we hope you also might find some familiarity with what we do at the DKL; please don't hesitate to reach out to us if you do as we always welcome collaboration no matter where you're coming from.

Recent news

Figure from the Droplet paper showing three-dimensional droplet geometry reconstructed from a single image

March 25, 2026 Our paper from Isaac Berk and Emilie Luong on a new technique to obtain the full 3D geometry of droplets from a single image has been published in Droplet. This method is more accurate and provides much more information than classical goniometry. This is a fully deterministic approach based on ray tracing and the Young-Laplace equation (no AI). This “reverse catch light” method, inspired by “catch lights” in photography, utilizes the specular reflections of known lighting positions to calculate the curved droplet surface.

Opening page of the PNAS paper on high-yield atmospheric water capture

October 22, 2024 Our paper on a new, ultra-fast, solid-liquid hybrid atmospheric water harvesting technique that is bioinspired from tree-frog skins and airplant cuticles has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The highly positive results have led to UNLV IP being secured and exclusively licensed to WAVR Technologies, a startup company co-founded by Dr. Cho and former DKL members Yiwei Gao and Ryan Phung.

All news →