Electrical engineering

Costas Spanos of EECS appointed new CITRIS director

01/27/14 Berkeley Research — Costas Spanos, professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences, has been named the fourth director of the multi-campus CITRIS (Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society). Spanos, who joined the Berkeley faculty in 1988, succeeds Paul Wright of mechanical engineering, who has led CITRIS since 2007.

Engineers create light-activated ‘curtains’

01/09/14 — A research team led by UC Berkeley's Ali Javey, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences, used carbon nanotubes and plastic polycarbonate to create a new material that moves in response to light. The material can be used to create “smart curtains” that open or close with the flick of a light switch.

Two Berkeley engineers win presidential early-career awards

12/23/13 White House Press Office — Four young Berkeley professors – including Benjamin Recht of electrical engineering and computer science and Junqiao Wu of materials science and engineering – were among 102 researchers named Monday by President Obama as recipients of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers.

Dreams of the world: Flight simulation of robotic birds

12/18/13 National Geographic — Cameron Rose, an EECS grad student whose research focuses on flapping-winged robots in flight, dreams of one day helping the field of robotics achieve "something even close to the level of maneuverability and control that animals possess," he told National Geographic. "I also dream to use my knowledge and passion for robotics to encourage other African American students to pursue similar paths."

Sculpting geometry: The art of math (and vice versa)

12/17/13 California magazine — Carlo Séquin lives in a world of impossible objects and mind-bending shapes. The computer science professor emeritus's office resembles an artist's studio - which makes perfect sense, given that he is both an engineer and an artist, simultaneously.

Cal football to be played on Kabam Field

12/09/13 San Francisco Chronicle — Kabam, a San Francisco-based mobile-gaming company, has secured naming rights for the playing field at Memorial Stadium. Three of Kabam's founders, including Michael Li, B.S. '01 EECS, are Berkeley graduates, as are 10 percent of the company's 700 employees worldwide.

David Culler to receive the Okawa Prize, 2013

12/05/13 CITRIS — EECS Department Chair and Director of the CITRIS Energy Initiative David Culler has been selected as a recipient of the 2013 Okawa Prize, which is awarded annually by the Okawa Foundation for Information and Telecommunications.

Susan Graham appointed to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology Policy

12/02/13 White House Press Office — Susan Graham, professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences, was appointed by President Obama to the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST).

Educating a maker: The Berkeley perspective

11/27/13 Forbes — Students are busy in the CITRIS Invention Lab, on the bottom floor of Sutardja Dai Hall. The lab, which is co-directed by Bjoern Hartmann and Eric Paulos, both EECS professors, houses new rapid prototyping equipment, such as 3D printers and laser cutters. Hartmann teaches an interactive device design class, while Paulos teaches a class called Critical Making. Both classes emphasize design thinking and hands-on learning.

Work out to charge up

11/22/13 — In early November, a retrofitted elliptical machine was installed in the university's Recreational Sports Facility. The specially outfitted machine charges users' cell phones while they work out. Watch a video of the Human-powered Gym in action.

George Leitmann receives French Legion of Honor

11/19/13 — George Leitmann, professor of the Graduate School and professor emeritus of Engineering Science, has been awarded Knight of the Legion of Honor, France's highest tribute recognizing military and civil service on behalf of the French nation.

Helping dissenters evade foreign eavesdropping

11/05/13 San Francisco Chronicle — Yahel Ben-David, a computer science doctoral student, has been working with other Berkeley Engineering researchers to create an Android application that will allow activists and citizens to communicate anonymously even when oppressive governments try to shut down communications channels.

Q+A with Ali Javey

11/01/13 — EECS professor Ali Javey has been widely covered in the science press for breakthroughs ranging from a new, low-cost method for manufacturing high efficiency photovoltaics to improved ‘e-skin'

Cracked encryption? Back doors? Cellphone snooping may be easier than ever

10/31/13 NBC News — Computer science professor Vern Paxson weighs in on the National Security Agency's interception of wireless communications, noting that even modern encryption may have flaws if done incorrectly. He also worries about allegations that the NSA is vacuuming up information at a heretofore unimagined scale.

Campus information security office works to stay ahead of hackers

10/18/13 Daily Californian — UC Berkeley's Information Security and Policy Office, aided by EECS graduate students and professors, is undergoing a three-year overhaul to strengthen the campus's online security.

The talk that wasn’t

09/27/13 Scientific American — A story from the Heidelberg Laureate Forum about EECS professor emeritus Manuel Blum -- a scientist, a teacher, a human, and "a person with a genuine curiosity about everything."

March of the ‘zombie vortices’

09/11/13 — A team led by Philip Marcus, a mechanical engineering professor and computational physicist, shows how variations in gas density lead to instability, which then generates the whirlpool-like vortices needed for stars to form. According to the researchers' models, the change in density is what triggers the violent birth of a new star, upending an otherwise stable dead zone of gas-or what Marcus calls ‘zombie vortices'

Berkeley’s computer science major places first in new ranking

09/06/13 Daily Californian — UC Berkeley won the top spot for computer science majors' return on investment in a new ranking compiled by Affordable Colleges Online, surpassing second-place Stanford in the comparison pitting lifetime earnings against educational costs.

8 Berkeley Engineers among 2014 Siebel Scholars

09/06/13 Siebel Foundation — The Siebel Scholars Foundation has named 85 talented graduate students to its Siebel Scholars class of 2014, including five bioengineering students and three computer science students from UC Berkeley.

New technique analyzes shadows to spot photo fakes

08/15/13 Inside Science — A new algorithm, developed by Berkeley computer science professor James O'Brien and colleagues at Dartmouth, can spot fake photos by looking for inconsistent shadows that are not always obvious to the naked eye.