Sustainability & environment

ME student team wins cleantech prize

02/25/16 — Students in mechanical engineering professor Hayden Taylor's group have won the $100,000 grand prize in the Berkeley Cleantech University Prize competition for their development of an omniphobic coating that can boost air conditioner efficiency.

The Eel River in the Angelo Coast Range Reserve

The critical zone: Studying where all of life happens

02/16/16 — Sally Thompson, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, directs an interdisciplinary group of researchers studying northern California's Eel River.

The road to sustainability

01/28/16 CNBC — In a new video series on sustainable energy, civil and environmental engineering professor Arpad Horvath compares the environmental footprints of emerging transportation technologies, from biofuels and high-speed rail to maritime shipping and aviation.

Sylvia McLaughlin along the bay in BerBerkeley

Sylvia McLaughlin, last living founder of Save the Bay, dies at age 99

01/22/16 San Jose Mercury News — Sylvia McLaughlin, a co-founder of the Save the Bay organization and widow of Berkeley Engineering dean Donald McLaughlin, died Jan. 19 at her Berkeley home; she was 99.

Filtering water with graphene

01/15/16 — CEE professor Baoxia Mi is developing a more efficient water filtration membrane constructed from graphene oxide, a carbon-based material that's made from naturally-occurring graphite, the same material found in pencils.

Building an organ in the marsh

12/16/15 — A Louisiana native and environmental engineering Ph.D. student, Madeline Foster-Martinez is studying the fluid dynamics of a local marsh to better understand tidal wetland restoration.

Making furniture from fungi

12/16/15 Scientific American — For three years, doctoral mechanical engineering student Sonia Travaglini has been studying inventor Phil Ross's mushroom composite as a sustainable alternative to wood, plastic and other materials.

Celebrating World Toilet Day, reinventing sanitation

11/17/15 — United Nations World Toilet Day on Nov. 19 is environmental engineering doctoral student William Tarpeh's main chance - a time to proselytize about all things sanitation. For mechanical engineering grad student Emily Woods, it's a boost for Sanivation, the company she co-founded to convert human feces into charcoal for a poor community in Kenya.

Discarded circuit boards ready for processing

Filtering the e-waste stream

11/16/15 — Alumnus Glen Langstaff (B.S'77 ME/NE) wants to use new technology to make disposing of old technology cheaper and more efficient. Here's how:

Pocket-sized docent tours

09/24/15 — For years, Arthur Bart-Williams (B.S'88 CE) had plans to build better tour-guide technology. Now he's done just that.

Vanessa Salas and Giovanni Pacheco discuss their project on particulate matter in West Oakland

GM Foundation funding connects engineers with underserved communities

09/18/15 — A poster session focused on community engagement and improvement brings together students in the Engineering Scholars as Engaged Scholars program and their supporters from the GM Foundation.

Environment takes big hit from water-intensive marijuana cultivation

06/24/15 — A new study from the Nature Conservancy, co-authored by environmental engineers and other researchers from UC Berkeley, highlights the toll that the illegal cultivation of thirsty marijuana is taking on the environment, particularly on fragile watersheds.

Photos of ruptured oil pipeline provide clues of spill cause

06/17/15 Washington Post — Photos of the pipeline that spilled oil on the Santa Barbara coast in May show extensive corrosion and suggest that a pressure leak tied to the restart of failed pumps caused the break, said Robert Bea, a civil engineering professor emeritus.

For clean water

05/01/15 — Susan Amrose is building new technologies to address arsenic contamination in drinking water.

Clarity

05/01/15 — Clarity is a wearable air pollution monitoring and reporting device.

London plane trees on the Campanile esplanade

Mobile tour tells campus story via trees

03/30/15 — A free, smartphone-based guided tour, developed by CNR experts in partnership with a Berkeley Engineering alum's software company, highlights the campus's landscape and cultural history through 16 exemplary trees.

Ashok Gadgil: The humanitarian inventor

03/09/15 IEEE Spectrum — Named one of IEEE Spectrum's Engineering Heroes for 2015, the civil and environmental engineering professor's work on water purification, cookstoves and arsenic removal has helped tens of millions of people worldwide.

Engineering is: Saving the world with cookstoves

KQED e-book explores engineering through cookstoves

03/02/15 KQED Quest — KQED's new Engineering Is… e-book series launches with the Berkeley Darfur cookstove, developed by environmental engineering professor Ashok Gadgil to improve the lives of refugees in the war-torn Darfur region of Sudan.

John Dueber (right) and bioengineering graduate student Zach Russ examine a culture of indigo-producing E. coli bacteria.

Greener blue jeans

02/23/15 Berkeley Research — The indigo that dyes your favorite pair of jeans blue is wildly popular, but very "dirty" to synthesize chemically. Bioengineering professor and Bakar fellow John Dueber thinks he has found an environmentally green way for industry to churn out the dye without toxic compounds.

A drop to drink

02/18/15 — Susan Amrose, a lecturer in the civil and environmental engineering department, is developing a modular and scalable technology to remove arsenic from drinking water.