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.
Faculty
For this metal, electricity flows, but not the heat
01/26/17 Berkeley Lab — A study led by MSE professor and Berkeley Lab physicist Junqiao Wu finds that electrons in vanadium dioxide can conduct electricity without conducting heat - a law-breaking property that could lead to applications in thermoelectrics and window coatings.
Amy Herr to lead Bakar Fellows
01/18/17 — Bioengineering professor, Amy Herr, has been named the faculty director of the Bakar Fellows Program. The program supports the commercialization of faculty-led research with potential for positive impact in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and related areas (STEM+).
Arkin lab method may save lives during blood transfusion
01/05/17 Science Translational Medicine — Bioengineering professor Adam Arkin and collaborators have developed a method, using dynamic modeling, that can quickly calculate individualized blood transfusion requirements during an emergency.
Sutardja Center advances innovation and entrepreneurship Down Under
12/16/16 — As part of a keynote appearance at the Growing Entrepreneurs Summit in New Zealand, Sutardja Center Chief Scientist Ikhlaq Sidhu appeared on New Zealand television, speaking on whether entrepreneurs are born or made and explaining Berkeley's approach to developing entrepreneurs.
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.
New nukes
11/01/16 — Nuclear power production is on track for a reboot, with advanced nuclear technologies holding promise for cost-effective energy production.
Q+A on homebrewed drugs with John Dueber
11/01/16 — Bioengineering professor John Dueber discusses the possible risks and benefits of laboratory research aimed at converting glucose to morphine.
Farewell
11/01/16 — Obituaries for Berkeley Engineering faculty and alumni
$1.5 million to study language development, via bats
10/26/16 — Seeking insight into the neurobiological basis of language learning, the New York Stem Cell Foundation has granted a $1.5 million Robertson Neuroscience Investigator award to Michael Yartsev, assistant professor of bioengineering, for his novel studies involving bats.
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.
Dubon named to UC Davis chancellor search committee
10/04/16 University of California — MSE professor Oscar Dubon, Berkeley Engineering's associate dean for equity and inclusion and student affairs, has been named by UC President Janet Napolitano to join an advisory committee helping in the international search for a new chancellor to lead UC Davis.
Toward human-centric A.I.
09/20/16 — Twenty years ago, Stuart Russell co-wrote a book titled Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, destined to become the dominant text in its field. Near the end of the book, he posed a question: “What if A.I. does succeed?”
Q&A on homebrewed drugs with John Dueber
09/20/16 — Bioengineering professor John Dueber talks about the risks and potential rewards of using yeast to convert glucose into a key opioid compound.
NSF funds cyber-physical systems research
09/06/16 National Science Foundation — The NSF on Tuesday awarded $4.6 million to VeHICaL (Verified Human Interfaces, Control, and Learning for Semi-Autonomous Systems), a project led by by EECS professor Sanjit Seshia that seeks to "impact the way humans collaborate and interact with automation." Researchers include EECS professors Ruzena Bajcsy, Shankar Sastry, Bjoern Hartmann, Claire Tomlin, and Tom Griffiths.
Adam Arkin on Big Data and big problems
09/02/16 — Bioengineering professor Adam Arkin digs deep on current and future efforts to to harness the genetic potential of the earth to solve problems in soil quality, water quality, plant productivity, nutrition, and human-impacted health.
Berkeley launches center to align AI systems with human values
08/29/16 — Berkeley artificial intelligence expert Stuart Russell will lead a new Center for Human-Compatible Artificial Intelligence, launched this week. The primary focus of the multi-university center is to ensure that AI systems are beneficial to humans.
Seven Berkeley engineers named top innovators under 35
08/23/16 — Wei Gao, an EECS postdoc developing wearable sweat sensors to monitor health, and EECS assistant professor Sergey Levine, who helped pioneer “deep learning” for robots, are among seven Berkeley engineers on this year's list of top innovators under 35, compiled by MIT Technology Review.
How data can personalize mobile health
08/10/16 — IEOR professor Anil Aswani, in partnership with colleagues from UCSF and Stanford, is investigating how mobile health applications can help individuals live healthier lifestyles.
Head-Gordon leads Berkeley partnership to improve scientific software
08/04/16 — A nine-university partnership headed by Virginia Tech has launched the Molecular Sciences Software Institute, an NSF-funded program to improve software for the molecular sciences. Bioengineering's Teresa Head-Gordon is the institute's lead scientist at UC Berkeley.