Civil engineering

UC Berkeley graduates Brenton Kreiger and Sam Durkin stand with seniors Ruth McGee and Joan Gibbons after their solar house won third place.

Student-built solar home places third in national contest

10/23/17 — A joint Berkeley/University of Denver team's prototype for a stackable solar home took third place in the Department of Energy's Solar Decathlon, a collegiate competition to design and build full-size, solar-powered houses.

New École Polytechnique and the Institute of Transportation Studies agreement

École Polytechnique and Berkeley partner for new transportation program

10/11/17 — École Polytechnique and the Institute of Transportation Studies have signed a new partnership agreement for the new École Polytechnique's Executive Master degree program. The new program will train transportation leaders to design, deploy and manage strategies and projects for companies and organizations that have an international focus.

Brains for buildings, packaged in a smart briefcase

10/02/17 — Building-in-Briefcase is a new toolkit consisting of wireless sensors that monitor and communicate overall building health and function. The system, which can be used to retrofit intelligence into existing buildings, is designed to increase energy efficiency.

Zen and the art of Bug repair

09/26/17 California magazine — John Muir (the Berkeley civil engineering grad, not the naturalist) self-published How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive, AKA "The Idiot's Guide," almost half a century ago, gaining a cult following among hippies and their ilk that has kept the book in print to this day.

David Sedlak by the reflecting pool in front of Hearst Memorial Mining Building

Reduce and reuse: Surprising insights on making cities more water resilient

08/17/17 The Water Blog — In a Q&A, civil and environmental engineering professor David Sedlak, co-director of the Berkeley Water Center, discusses the World Bank's Water Scarce Cities Initiative, which aims to develop integrated and innovative water management solutions.

Introducing the Henry and Joyce Miedema Chair in CEE

07/31/17 — Civil and environmental engineering professor Mark Stacey has been appointed to the newly created Henry and Joyce Miedema Chair in Civil and Environmental Engineering. Alumnus Henry Jay Miedema (CE BS '61, MS '63) and Joyce Miedema created the award to support faculty teaching about California water issues.

I-Corps supports entrepreneurs building STEM companies

07/13/17 — The regional I-Corps program, an NSF-funded collaboration among UC Berkeley, UCSF and Stanford, teaches committed entrepreneurs from STEM disciplines to take a hard look at their ideas and turn them into real, sought-after products in the market.

On California, the drought and the ‘yuck factor’

06/23/17 — David Sedlak, professor of civil and environmental engineering, says our aging urban water infrastructure needs a major upgrade in order to keep our cities thriving. He spoke with Berkeley News about technologies being developed to recycle water, capture storm water and use water more efficiently.

Imagining a post-combustion world

06/19/17 — After teaching a climate change mitigation course for more than a decade, civil and environmental engineering professor William Nazaroff has drawn a few conclusions. One is that it's time to develop and deploy technologies that move beyond combustion.

Elizabeth Hausler delivering the 2015 Minner Lecture

Saving lives through safer buildings

05/08/17 Wall Street Journal — The nonprofit group Build Change, founded by Elizabeth Hausler (M.S.'98 Ph.D.'02 CEE), says it has helped create more than 51,000 earthquake-resistant homes and schools in developing countries.

Photo illustration: Brita filter pitcher in forest

Nature’s Brita filters

04/19/17 Salon — CEE professor Ashok Gadgil, co-lead for the Berkeley Lab's Water-Energy Initiative, talks about engineering new solutions to solve the water crisis using simple, cheap and abundant ingredients, like wood, sunlight, even human waste.

Worker examining the damaged Oroville Dam spillway

Serious design, construction and maintenance defects doomed Oroville Dam, report says

04/18/17 LA Times — In the first major assessment of the Oroville Dam spillway failure in February, civil engineering professor emeritus Robert Bea, co-founder of Berkeley's Center for Catastrophic Risk Analysis, has concluded that design and construction flaws, as well as maintenance errors, were to blame.

Engineering student team readies competition house

04/17/17 ASCE — A group led by Berkeley civil engineering students will take an innovative, zero net energy house into a Denver competition this fall, organized by the U.S. Department of Energy.

NSF’s $11M to fund natural hazards SimCenter

04/05/17 CITRIS — Structural engineering professor Stephen Mahin will lead a new center for computational modeling and simulation of the effects of natural hazards on the built environment, supported by a five-year, $10.9-million grant from the National Science Foundation.

CEE professor emeritus James Hunt passes away

02/28/17 — Jim Hunt, civil and environmental engineering faculty member for 33 years and an expert in groundwater transport of organic contaminants, died Feb. 20 after a brief illness. He was 66.

Hashtagging the way to safer infrastructure

11/29/16 — Civil and environmental engineering professor Kenichi Soga delivered a CITRIS talk about using social media and sensor-laden environments to build smart infrastructure.

Earthquake engineering pioneer Vitelmo Bertero dies at 93

11/08/16 PEER — Vitelmo V. Bertero, professor emeritus of civil and environmental engineering, died Oct. 24. Bertero, 93, a pioneer in the field of earthquake engineering, taught generations of students over his career of nearly 50 years.

Concrete thinking

11/01/16 — Concrete is the most commonly used building tool - yet one of the most environmentally damaging. Professors Claudia Ostertag, Arpad Horvath and Paulo Monteiro are finding ways to mitigate that.

Building the Berkeley Hyperloop

10/24/16 — Berkeley Hyperloop, currently crowdfunding for a January 2017 launch, is taking on an ambitious design challenge — and it’s part of a rich ecosystem of Berkeley students applying classroom learning and hands-on design skills to real-world challenges.

Wildfire management vs. suppression benefits forest and watershed

10/24/16 — An unprecedented 40-year experiment in Yosemite National Park, led by a team of Berkeley civil and environmental engineers, strongly supports the idea that managing fire, rather than suppressing it, makes wilderness areas more resilient to fire, with the added benefit of increased water availability and resistance to drought.