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.
Sustainability & environment
Fresh ideas for nuclear power
08/24/17 — Two dozen students from all over the world gathered at Berkeley for two weeks over the summer to discuss, plan and help start building a new nuclear energy sector. The students, along with professional mentors and speakers, were part of the 2017 Nuclear Innovation Boot Camp.
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.
Toxic exposure: Chemicals are in our water, food, air and furniture
07/03/17 UCSF — As director of UCSF's Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment, Tracey Woodruff (B.S.'85 EECS, Ph.D.'91 BioE) believes that we need to know more about environmental toxics so we can reduce our exposure to the worst of them and protect ourselves and our children from their harmful effects.
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.
The fight to rethink (and reinvent) nuclear power
05/19/17 Vox — The latest in a series of Climate Lab videos produced by Vox Media and the University of California features the work of nuclear engineering professor and associate dean Per Peterson.
Shielding ice sheets
05/01/17 — Alumna Leslie Field founded Ice911, a nonprofit organization that uses salt-sized hollow glass spheres sprinkled on vulnerable ice to boost reflectivity and slow the melting process.
Q+A on resilient communities
05/01/17 — Nuclear engineering professor Kai Vetter has founded an organization called the Institute for Resilient Communities, designed to help authorities communicate scientific information following disasters.
Lab to table
05/01/17 — At the Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology, students are experimenting with plant-based, more eco-friendly alternatives to meat.
Plant-based seafood lab report
04/27/17 SCET — Moving on from its plant-based meat course last semester, the Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology is now tackling the challenge of creating plant-based seafood alternatives to combat the environmental problems caused by overfishing.
Fluoride in drinking water: Friend and foe
04/27/17 Berkeley Science Review — Environmental engineering Ph.D. student Emily Cook reports on the pros and cons of water fluoridation and fluoride-filtering technologies.
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.
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.
As 3-D printing grows, so does need to reclaim plastic waste
02/17/17 — With more than 100 3-D printers on campus, at least 600 pounds of plastic trash is generated each year. Undergraduates Nicole Panditi, a mechanical engineering senior, and Scott Silva, a CNR junior, have a solution.
Meat substitutes on the curriculum at Sutardja Center
01/25/17 San Francisco Chronicle — Most UC Berkeley students will tell you that they're shooting for an A. But the 45 young men and women enrolled in the “Challenge Lab” at the Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology are pursuing more ambitious goals: saving the world, and perhaps winning $5,000 in the process.
One big reflective band-aid
01/17/17 — “Post-carbon Future” series: Leslie Field (Ph.D'91 EECS), runs a California-based nonprofit that is developing new technology to slow the melting of ice in the Arctic.
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.
Clean tech rises again, retooling nature for industrial use
01/04/17 New York Times — Clean tech companies are aiming for a comeback in their quest to use genetic editing to make industrial chemicals. Among them is Lygos, spun out of Berkeley bioengineering in 2011 to create malonic acid from yeast (instead of the usual cyanide) for use in fragrances and cosmetics.