Berkeley research makes lead pipes safe
04/03/19 American Chemical Society — UC Berkeley researchers develop a rapid, cost-effective method to make lead pipes safe.
Civil engineering
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.
This innovation removes deadly arsenic from India’s water
12/12/18 The Better India — Everyday, tens of millions of people drink water that significantly increases their risk of cancer and other deadly diseases. UC Berkeley professor Ashok Gadgil amd Asian Institute of Technology's Joyashree Roy hope to fix that with an efficient and cost-effective system called Electrochemical Arsenic Remediation (ECAR) for removing arsenic contamination from drinking water.
Fire & water
11/14/18 — Restoring natural fire regimes to California's mountains could be a win-win-win: more water, improved biodiversity and a reduced risk of catastrophic fires.
Turning cars into robot traffic managers
10/29/18 — Berkeley transportation researchers are addressing the emerging era of smart vehicles with a project that uses machine learning to manage traffic where autonomous, semi-autonomous and manned vehicles share the road. They presented their project, called Flow, at the Conference on Robotic Learning.
Transbay Terminal’s cracked beams may be vulnerable
09/27/18 NBC Bay Area — Calling cracks in specially fabricated beams at San Francisco's new Transbay Terminal potentially “catastrophic,” Rune Storesund, executive director of UC Berkeley's Center for Catastrophic Risk Management, said, “You want to be looking at imperfections in the steel.”
Surveying expert James Anderson dies at 92
08/30/18 — Professor James Anderson, civil and environmental engineering faculty member for 25 years and an expert on the theory and practice of surveying, died on Aug. 23; he was 92.
Engineered sand zaps storm water pollutants
08/30/18 — Berkeley engineers have created a new way to remove contaminants from storm water using mineral-coated sand, potentially addressing the needs of water-stressed communities that are searching for ways to tap the abundant and yet underused source of fresh drinking water.
NSF funds extreme events reconnaissance network
08/15/18 PEER — The National Science Foundation has awarded a grant to the Structural Extreme Events Reconnaissance (StEER) Network, which aims to improve reporting and coordination by the natural hazards engineering community in the aftermath of earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes and other extreme events. UC Berkeley is one of StEER's three primary nodes.
A seismic change in predicting how earthquakes will shake tall buildings
06/28/18 New York Times — "There are going to be large changes coming" in the calculation of risk faced by by tall buildings during a major West Coast earthquake, adjunct civil and environmental engineering professor Norman Abrahamson told a conference of earthquake engineers in Los Angeles.
Alvarez-Cohen to lead academic planning for campus
06/18/18 — Lisa Alvarez-Cohen, the Fred and Claire Sauer Professor of Environmental Engineering, has been named as Berkeley's next vice provost for academic planning, effective July 1.
Then & now
06/02/18 — Over the past 150 years, Berkeley Engineering has created a legacy of innovation and public service.
Dam scanning
06/01/18 — CEE professor Robert Kayen used lidar technology to evaluate the health of the Hume Lake Dam.
Berkeley water engineer lands 2018 ‘Slammy’
05/04/18 Graduate Division — At the UC-wide Grad Slam competition on May 3, environmental engineering doctoral student Joseph Charbonnet brought home the first-place ‘Slammy' - and $9,000 in prize money - for his three-minute talk on using manganese-coated sand to capture, clean and re-use stormwater.
Grad program rankings edge still higher
03/19/18 — In the latest U.S. News & World Report rankings of graduate programs, Berkeley Engineering and its departments held steady or moved higher in all categories, including electrical engineering joining CEE as the top-ranked program in the nation.
Dam scanning
02/16/18 — Two civil engineering students built a 3-D model of Berkeley's campus to better understand what's going on with one of California's many aging dams.
Cheap, efficient cookstoves are small-tech solution with big payoff
02/13/18 — Ashok Gadgil, professor of civil and environmental engineering, redesigned a simple technology - the wood cookstove - to help women in refugee camps in Darfur, Sudan. The inexpensive and efficient Darfur stove not only reduced the danger of gathering firewood in the war-torn region, it also reduced health and climate risks from excessive smoke.
Stephen Mahin, earthquake engineering expert, dies at 71
02/13/18 — Civil and environmental engineering professor emeritus Stephen A. Mahin, former director of the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center, passed away on February 9. He was a world-renowned expert in earthquake engineering, with wide-ranging teaching, research and professional contributions to the field.
Why traffic apps make congestion worse
01/30/18 — Has your smartphone traffic app ever led you into a traffic jam? Professor and traffic engineer Alexandre Bayen, director of UC Berkeley's Institute of Transportation Studies, is working on smarter apps that will actually talk to one another to prevent clogged freeways and city streets.
Trump infrastructure plan’s tunneling claims raise questions
01/05/18 Newsweek — The Trump administration contends that underground tunnels to carry high-speed rail lines can be built without a dime of federal funding. But critics, including civil and environmental engineering professor C. William Ibbs, head of Berkeley's Construction Management program, suggest there's nothing easy about that kind of tunneling, and it will surely require government oversight.