Bringing arsenic-safe drinking water to rural California
09/21/22 — Berkeley engineers have created a simple, low-cost arsenic treatment system to help low-income communities access safer water (With video)
Development engineering
Ashok Gadgil wins inaugural Zuckerberg Water Prize
04/05/22 — Award recognizes his outstanding vision and lasting global impact in water research
Richard Blum, UC benefactor, passes away
03/01/22 — Statement from Blum Center leaders mourns death of Berkeley alumnus and champion of development engineering
Dream on
11/15/21 — Researchers have developed a low-cost, non-electric, reusable warming device that can reduce infant mortality rates.
NSF awards $10M to higher ed alliance to increase Indigenous participation
08/06/21 Blum Center — Berkeley's Blum Center for Developing Economies will be a primary beneficiary, expanding its food, energy and water systems work in Native American communities
Student teams partner with armed forces to improve disaster response
06/24/21 Blum Center — Prototypes developed through a Blum Center for Developing Economies class tackle language, diplomacy and distance barriers
Infant-warming device proven safe, effective
04/29/21 Berkeley Lab — Technology developed by Ashok Gadgil's team shows a big drop in infant mortality in Rwanda hospitals
Patents for Humanity honors Berkeley-designed infant warmer
11/05/20 — An infant-warming device developed by civil and environmental engineering professor Ashok Gadgil and a Berkeley Lab colleague received an honorable mention
Safe to drink
11/05/20 — Professor Ashok Gadgil has found an affordable, scalable way to remove arsenic from drinking water.
Engineering Ph.D. student turns recycled plastic into face shields for Ugandan medics
04/10/20 Berkeley News — Paige Balcom is co-founder of Takataka Plastics, which has its roots in Berkeley's Big Ideas Contest.
ESS turns 10, Bechtel becomes a welcome center
10/07/19 — New center will help visitors and students learn what the college has to offer
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.
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.
Coding better healthcare
11/07/17 — Byron Zhang (B.S'15 EECS) is using computer science to make health care more accessible in developing economies.
Simple sanitation, a Q&A with Ashley Muspratt
09/12/17 — Over 90 percent of wastewater generated on the planet every day is dumped into the environment without any treatment. CEE alum Ashley Muspratt is working on a solution.
Christopher Ategeka: Health care access for all
08/22/17 PBS NewsHour — In a Brief but Spectacular video on PBS, Berkeley Engineer and entrepreneur Christopher Ategeka (B.S.'11, M.S.'12 ME) tells how he is using his influence to recruit health professionals to work in underserved parts of Africa.
Thinking inside the cardboard box
06/30/17 Berkeley Science Review — Traditional aid programs import finite resources that require an agency to distribute and maintain. Blum Center development engineers are changing the game by helping communities use their own resources, knowledge and people-power to solve their problems, says mechanical engineering alum Sonia Travaglini.
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.
Empowering communities through sustainability
01/12/17 Medium — Reflow Filament, cofounded by Fung Institute alumnus Rahul Mehendiratta (M.Eng.'14 ME), aims to create a new model for the 3D printing industry that empowers communities and encourages innovation in developing regions worldwide.
NSF awards $3 million grant to development engineering program
10/20/16 — The National Science Foundation grant will support graduate students working to find innovative solutions to food, energy and water challenges in developing countries.