Faculty

Dean Kuh in the new Bechtel Engineering Center

Ernest S. Kuh, Berkeley Engineering professor and dean emeritus, 1928–2015

07/08/15 — Ernest S. Kuh, dean and professor emeritus at the College of Engineering and an internationally renowned expert in electronic circuit theory, died on June 27. He was 86. A campus memorial will be held this September.

Radiation safety for sunken-ship archaeology

07/08/15 Berkeley Lab — Kai Vetter, professor of nuclear engineering and Berkeley Lab scientist, is helping researchers determine the radiation risk of exploring an underwater aircraft carrier scuttled off the Farallon Islands after World War II.

Grace O’Connell (right) and PhD graduate student Megan Pendleton in the lab

How to grow back the back

07/06/15 Berkeley Research — Grace O'Connell, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, is exploring ways to grow human disc tissue – the spongy, protective material between vertebrae – in order to repair or replace damaged cartilage.

Ernest Kuh, professor and dean emeritus, 1928-2015

06/30/15 — Ernest S. Kuh, who greatly expanded the College of Engineering's partnerships with its alumni and industry networks while serving as dean in the 1970s, died June 27 at age 86. A complete obituary will be published shortly.

Enhanced microscopic resolution for improved diagnostics

06/17/15 — Researchers in the Waller Lab aim to make diagnosing diseases easier by algorithmically boosting the power of ordinary optical devices.

Teaching robots to be moral

06/10/15 California magazine — As robots and other machines controlled by artificial intelligence are getting more sophisticated and more widely used, calls have gone out to try to instill morals in their decision-making pathways. But how? Computer science professor Stuart Russell weighs in.

Eric Brewer and graduate student Achintya Maduri inspect solar panels

Power to the people

06/01/15 Berkeley Research — Computer science professor Eric Brewer and the students in his cross-departmental Technology and Infrastructure for Emerging Regions (TIER) program are tackling power shortages in Africa, blindness in India, and other challenges where technology can make a major impact in the developing world.

Beyond drone warfare: Prof warns of ‘automated killing machines’

05/28/15 — In an op-ed piece for the science journal Nature, Stuart Russell, an expert in artificial intelligence, outlines the debate over the use of AI weapons systems, and notes widespread agreement on the need for “meaningful human control” over targeting and engagement decisions. “Unfortunately,” he adds, “the meaning of ‘meaningful' is still to be determined."

New ‘deep learning’ technique enables robot mastery of skills via trial and error

05/22/15 — UC Berkeley researchers have developed algorithms that enable robots to learn motor tasks through trial and error using a process that more closely approximates the way humans learn, marking a major milestone in the field of artificial intelligence.

Robots are really bad at folding towels

05/20/15 NPR — Seven years ago, Berkeley researcher Pieter Abbeel set out on a quest: to teach a robot how to fold laundry. This proved to be a remarkably difficult task - and the difficulty of the task illuminates some key things about the limits of machines. See story and hear four-minute podcast.

Discovery paves way for homebrewed drugs, prompts call for regulation

05/18/15 — Research led by Berkeley bioengineers has completed key steps needed to turn sugar-fed yeast into a microbial factory for producing therapeutic drugs. But because the work could lead to home-brewing of opiates and other controlled substances, the researchers warn that regulators and law enforcement need to pay attention, too.

Drug perks up old muscles and aging brains

05/13/15 — UC Berkeley bioengineers have discovered that a small-molecule drug simultaneously perks up old stem cells in the brains and muscles of mice, a finding that could lead to drug interventions for humans that would make aging tissues throughout the body act young again.

The skinny on skin

05/04/15 Inside Science — A study co-authored by materials science and engineering professor Robert Ritchie has shown, for the first time, that collagen explains the great durability of skin. The finding could help scientists develop better synthetic skin and improve the strength of man-made materials.

Claude Shannon, the creator of Information Theory, and Alan Turing, the creator of modern Computer Science

Through the computational lens

05/01/15 Simons Institute — EECS professor Umesh Vazirani discusses efforts at the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing to foster a dialogue between the disciplines of information theory and computer science.

David Patterson and Carlo Séquin, pictured in 1981.

Simplify: The RISC story

05/01/15 — EECS professors David Patterson and Carlo Séquin, along with the Reduced Instruction Set Computer team, were honored by IEEE for their landmark work from the 1980s.

Farewell

05/01/15 — Obituaries for Berkeley Engineering faculty and alumni

Smart scooter

05/01/15 — Modified Razor scooters are used in a cyber-physical system design course to how electric vehicles interface with the energy grid.

NASA Tensegrity robots

05/01/15 — These squishy robots are inspiring new ways of thinking about the form and function of automated systems.

‘Intelligent design’ — can it deliver?

04/28/15 Berkeley Research — Berkeley bioengineer David Schaffer uses a strategy known as directed evolution to find variations in a common virus that will allow it to effectively deliver drugs to target cells.

How to attract female engineers

04/27/15 New York Times — In a New York Times op-ed article, Lina Nilsson, innovation director for the Blum Center, writes that the key to increasing the number of female engineers may be to focus engineering projects and curriculums on achieving societal good.