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UC campuses celebrate National Engineers Week

02/21/19 — In honor of National Engineers Week, University of California campuses are presenting snapshots of exemplary UC engineers, many of whom excelled despite formidable barriers and challenging backgrounds.
Eli Yablonovitch

Eli Yablonovitch honored with Optical Society award

02/08/19 — The Optical Society, the leading global professional association in optics and photonics, announced that the 2019 Frederic Ives Medal/Jarus W. Quinn Prize will be presented to EECS professor Eli Yablonovitch. Yablonovitch is honored for “diverse and deep contributions to optical science including photonic crystals, strained semiconductor lasers, and new record-breaking solar cell physics.”
Claire Tomlin

Claire Tomlin elected to engineering academy

02/08/19 — The National Academy of Engineering has elected EECS professor and alumna Claire Tomlin (Ph.D'98 EECS) to its ranks. Tomlin was cited for her “contributions to design tools for safety-focused control of cyberphysical systems.”
UC Berkeley students Ben Truong, Surabhi Yadav, Erik Phillip, Zachary Chao and Andre Balthazard talk about solutions during "Hacking4 Local: Oakland"

Solve the housing crisis, fight climate change and more — all for credit

02/07/19 Mercury News — The 25 students enrolled in UC Berkeley's new “Hacking4Local” class are shooting for more than a good grade. They also intend to help solve the Bay Area's housing shortage, prevent wildfires in the East Bay hills and slow climate change. Those lofty goals, and more, are all part of the syllabus.

Activism 2.0: Coding against sex trafficking

01/30/19 — UC Berkeley's ongoing video series on the intersection of social activism and technology profiles recent CS doctoral graduate Rebecca Sorla Portnoff, who uses her computer security know-how to help catch sex traffickers.
Dean Liu and Angela Zheng outside the dean

Dean Liu chats with EngineerGirl

01/30/19 EngineerGirl — In an interview with Angela Zheng from EngineerGirl, Dean Tsu-Jae King Liu talks about her path to electrical engineering, her priorities as dean, and her advice to students from all backgrounds considering a career in engineering.

Berkeley launches accelerator to support blockchain startups

01/29/19 — UC Berkeley is launching a new blockchain-focused accelerator. The Berkeley Blockchain Xcelerator will help entrepreneurs pursue ventures in the blockchain space, tap into the vast resources of the campus and Silicon Valley, and receive expert industry guidance to create high-value blockchain startups.
Illustration of reserchers discussing fire response techniques

Modern technologies needed to prevent wildfires

01/23/19 Daily Californian — In an op-ed, mechanical engineering professor Tarek Zohdi writes about his new Fire Research Group's focus on actions needed to combat fire emergencies in both wildland and urban environments.

Clever clumsiness: Self-taught walking robot

01/09/19 Wired — Researchers from the Berkeley AI Research Lab and Google Brain have taught a robot to teach itself how to walk, through trial and error, in just two hours; the results "are as awkward as they are magical."
Ph.D. graduates taking a selfie at commencement

Minority STEM PhDs fare better with clear expectations, acceptance

01/09/19 — Women and underrepresented minorities in STEM fields are more likely to advance professionally, publish more research and secure postdoctoral and faculty positions if their institutional culture is welcoming and sets clear expectations, according to a new study.
Illustration of the proposed WAND device, with two of the new chips embedded in a chassis located outside the head.

Wireless ‘pacemaker for the brain’

12/31/18 — A new neurostimulator developed by engineers at UC Berkeley can listen to and stimulate electric current in the brain at the same time, potentially delivering fine-tuned treatments to patients with diseases like epilepsy and Parkinson's.
robotic finger on computer keyboard

Artificial intelligence opens health data privacy to attack

12/21/18 — Current privacy laws and regulations are nowhere near sufficient to keep an individual's health data private in the face of advances in artificial intelligence, according to a new study from IEOR professor Anil Aswani and his team.
Robots in the Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research (BAIR) Lab

These robots are learning the old-fashioned way—by playing

12/19/18 California Magazine — Unlike most robots, the ones in the Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research (BAIR) Lab haven't been programmed to perform a specific task. Instead, they've been programmed to learn new stuff by observation or through physical trial and error.
Diagram demonstrating recycling carbon dioxide into valuable chemicals through a copper catalyst

Greener days ahead for carbon fuels

12/18/18 Berkeley Lab — Researchers led by Joel Ager, MSE adjunct professor, have discovered copper's potential as a catalyst for turning carbon dioxide into sustainable chemicals and fuels without wasteful byproducts.
Illustration of metal carbides sparking a reaction that splits water into oxygen and valuable hydrogen gas

Jiggly Jell-O makes powerful new hydrogen fuel catalyst

12/13/18 — A cheap and effective gelatin-based catalyst, developed by mechanical engineering professor Liwei Lin and his Berkeley research team, can generate hydrogen fuel from water just as efficiently as platinum, the far more expensive current standard.