Faculty

Seeking data wisdom

11/23/15 Berkeley Research — Science and engineering have a way of turning what seems like fantasy into reality - like "mind reading," or genetic organ formation, two promising research areas that rely on a powerful interlocking of science, computation and statistics that EECS and statistics professor Bin Yu calls "data wisdom."

Darwin performs actions after virtual and real-world learning.

Robot toddler learns to stand by ‘imagining’ how to do it

11/10/15 MIT Technology Review — Instead of being programmed, Darwin, a robot in the lab of EECS associate professor Pieter Abbeel, uses brain-inspired algorithms to “imagine” doing tasks before trying them in the real world.

Roberto Horowitz named mechanical engineering chair

11/09/15 — Roberto Horowitz, the James Fife Endowed Chair Professor of Mechanical Engineering, has been named chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the College of Engineering.

Robots: Will they steal your job?

11/06/15 Fortune — At a Fortune Global Forum roundtable on automation, Berkeley Engineering professor and roboticist Ken Goldberg took issue with the notion that workers in routine and repetitive jobs are likely to be displaced by robots.

3-D mapping your world with a backpack

11/02/15 KQED Quest — EECS professor Avideh Zakhor has extended 3-D mapping and rendering - what she calls ‘reality capture' - to interior spaces through a laser-equipped backpack that collects thousands of data points, then stitches them together into a 3-D model.

Heavy lifting

11/01/15 — With an eclectic array of equipment, the Glaser Lab is home to research projects ranging from seismic safety and geothermal energy monitoring to sensor grids to measure Sierra snowpack.

Farewell

11/01/15 — Obituaries for Berkeley Engineering faculty and alumni

Khalid Mosalam appointed director of Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center

10/12/15 — Khalid M. Mosalam, Taisei Professor of Civil Engineering at UC Berkeley, has been appointed director of the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center, a multi-institutional research and education center headquartered at Berkeley.

EECS faculty members awarded NSF grants for cybersecurity research

10/08/15 National Science Foundation — Three EECS faculty members, David Wagner, Dawn Song and Sanjit Seshia, were awarded cybersecurity research grants from the National Science Foundation. The grants are part of NSF's $74.5 million Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) program.

Berkeley to lead energy and water consortium

10/05/15 — Berkeley, in partnership with UC Irvine and Berkeley Lab, will lead a five-year, multi-million dollar international research effort to tackle water-related aspects of energy production and use. Civil and environmental engineering professor Ashok Gadgil will head the new consortium.

Berkeley Engineering professors leading World Economic Forum panel

Researchers talk new diagnostic methods at global tech conference

09/18/15 — Four Berkeley Engineering professors took part in the World Economic Forum's ninth Annual Meeting of the New Champions last week in Dalian, China, leading a discussion on how breakthroughs in medical diagnostic technologies are transforming healthcare.

David Dornfeld, green manufacturing expert, to lead Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation

08/17/15 — David Dornfeld, chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at UC Berkeley and recognized worldwide as an expert in smart and sustainable manufacturing, has been named faculty director of the Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation.

Cyber-defense and forensic tools turn 20

08/14/15 National Science Foundation — In 1995, when Vern Paxson (now an EECS professor) was a doctoral student at Berkeley, he began writing what eventually became Bro, the ground-breaking open source cybersecurity software that was used to build a network monitoring framework. Today Bro is used by many of the largest supercomputing centers, national labs, universities and Fortune 10 companies.

Siebel Energy Institute launches with major Berkeley presence

08/03/15 — The Siebel Energy Institute, a global university consortium focused on smart energy, marked its debut Aug. 3 by announcing 24 research grants nearing $1 million. The winning proposals, many of them led by Berkeley Engineering faculty, will accelerate improved performance in modern energy systems.

Artist’s rendering of photonic PCR on a chip

Bioengineers use light to turbocharge DNA diagnostics

07/31/15 — New technology developed by Berkeley bioengineers promises to make a workhorse lab tool cheaper, more portable and many times faster by turbocharging the thermal cycling of genetic samples with the switch of a light.

Robot from the science fiction fantasy film “Terminator Genisys.”

Musk, Hawking among experts to urge ban on military robots

07/31/15 New York Times — Thousands of artificial intelligence researchers and experts are calling for a worldwide ban on so-called autonomous weapons, warning that they could set off a revolution in weaponry comparable to gunpowder and nuclear arms. Signatories include EECS professor Stuart Russell, Apple co-founder (and Berkeley alum) Steve Wozniak, and dozens of other Berkeley Engineering faculty and students.

Rendering of early Americans during the last Ice Age

Genes yield clues to arrival of first Americans

07/21/15 — Statistical models, including one created by EECS and statistics associate professor Yun Song, confirm that the original Americans crossed a land bridge from Siberia in a single wave no more than 23,000 years ago, at the height of the last Ice Age.

Diagram of smart cap using 3D-printed plastic with embedded electronics to wirelessly monitor the freshness of milk.

3D-printed ‘smart cap’ uses electronics to sense spoiled food

07/20/15 — UC Berkeley engineers, in collaboration with colleagues at Taiwan's National Chiao Tung University, have expanded the range of 3D printing technology to include electrical components, successfully printing a wireless “smart cap” for a milk carton that detects signs of spoilage using embedded sensors.

The exoskeletons are coming

07/16/15 MIT Technology Review — Workers could soon strap on a power-assist suit to maneuver heavy objects, as several companies are working toward commercially available exoskeletons, including Ekso Bionics, cofounded by Berkeley mechanical engineering professor Homayoon Kazerooni.

Alice Agogino: ME trailblazer

07/15/15 Blum Center — When historians get around to investigating the trials and triumphs of women scientists in the late 20th century, they would do well to spend some time looking at the career of Alice Merner Agogino, a pioneer in mechanical engineering, development engineering and STEM gender equity.