Honors & awards

UC Berkeley wins $60 million for computer center

05/01/12 San Francisco Chronicle — UC Berkeley has won a $60 million grant to establish a worldwide center for theoretical computer science to explore high-level mathematical algorithms that could help a variety of scientific fields, including health care, climate modeling and economics. The award from the Simons Foundation of New York will be used to start the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing, which is expected start operations in July.

Diagram of how Berkeley0Darfur stove improves lives

It starts with a stove

05/01/12 — The Berkeley-Darfur Stoves project addresses the needs of families displaced by violence in western Sudan.

Innovation agents: Marvell Technology Group’s Weili Dai, semiconductor pioneer

04/23/12 Fast Company — If there's such a thing as geekdom, Berkeley Engineering alumna Weili Dai, cofounder of Marvell Technology Group, would be queen. As the only female cofounder of a global semiconductor company, Dai built an empire out of those little silicon chips. From humble beginnings in 1995, Dai now presides over an organization that employs 6,000 worldwide and has annual revenues in excess of $3.3 billion. This May, Weili Dai will be the first woman commencement speaker at the College of Engineering, as her son graduates.

Mechanical engineering doctoral student Christopher Ategeka receives Chancellor’s Award for Public Service

04/10/12 Cal Corps — Christopher Ategeka, UC Berkeley doctoral student in mechanical engineering, has received the Graduate Student Award for Civic Engagement, one of the honors offered as the Chancellor's Award for Public Service. Ategeka, who also received his B.S. from Berkeley Engineering, recounted his formidable journey to Berkeley from his rural Ugandan village in a commencement address in May

Weili Dai named one of “150 Women Who Shake the World”

03/06/12 The Daily Beast — Weili Dai, Berkeley Engineering alumna (B.S. '84 CS) and co-founder of Marvell Technology Group, has been honored by Newsweek as one of "150 Women Who Shake the World." With her background in computer science and software development, Dai founded Marvell with her husband and his brother in 1995. Today the microchip maker's revenue tops $3 billion annually. Dai is one of the only women to head a top-500 tech company and is a prime example of a leader with an environmental conscience.

Marvell CEO Dr. Sehat Sutardja honored with UC Berkeley Outstanding Alumnus Award in Electrical Engineering

02/24/12 Wall Street Journal Market Watch — Marvell co-founder, chairman, president and CEO, Dr. Sehat Sutardja, has been named the recipient of UC Berkeley's Outstanding Alumnus Award in Electrical Engineering. The award presentation took place during the Berkeley Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Annual Research Symposium 2012. "Through his engineering achievements, activism and support, Dr. Sehat Sutardja has made invaluable contributions to UC Berkeley and to the field of electrical engineering," said Professor S. Shankar Sastry, Dean of the College of Engineering. Dr. Sutardja received M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from UC Berkeley.

Three Berkeley Engineering students named finalists for 2012-2013 Hertz Fellowship

02/09/12 Wall Street Journal MarketWatch — The Fannie and John Hertz Foundation has announced fifty finalists for the 2012-2013 Hertz Fellowship, chosen from over 600 applicants. Considered the nation's most generous support for graduate education in the applied sciences and engineering, the Hertz Fellowship is valued at more than $250,000 per student, with support lasting up to five years. Berkeley Engineering students David Barth (ME), Nicholas Boyd (EECS) and Sean Lubner (ME) have been selected.

Bergeron Scholars Program for Women comes to UC Berkeley

01/11/12 Wall Street Journal MarketWatch — Sandra and Douglas G. Bergeron have announced the establishment of a scholarship-mentorship endowment at UC Berkeley for undergraduate women pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The program assists high-potential women with financial awards and a one-on-one mentorship program. In addition, each Bergeron Scholar will gain access to a comprehensive suite of support resources from UC Berkeley's Division of Equity & Inclusion.

Berkeley Engineering alum’s designs help Santiago’s skyscrapers endure earthquakes

01/03/12 Bloomberg — Civil engineer Juan Carlos de la Llera, president and co-founder of the engineering company Sirve, designed the quake-resistant technology that helped save Santiago's tallest skyscraper, the 52-story, $200 million Torre Titanium La Portada office building, during the 8.8-magnitude Chilean quake in February 2010. De la Llera earned his doctorate in civil engineering from UC Berkeley.

Tough act to follow

08/18/11 — MIT rejected him. CalTech rejected him. So did Duke and UCLA. But Berkeley saw potential in the teenager from a small Catholic high school in Modesto, and from the time he arrived on campus, Matthew Zahr didn't disappoint. The civil and environmental engineering student graduated this spring with a 3.988, earning his major's top undergraduate award, the department citation, and was nominated, along with four others, for Berkeley's highest undergraduate honor, the University Medal.

Graduation walk, reinvented

06/07/11 — Last month, on May 14, my faculty colleagues and I watched with great pride as more than 1,100 graduates crossed the Greek Theatre stage and walked into the world. Some will go on to more schooling, others to new careers, but all shared a cool, dry Saturday afternoon to mark this major milestone in their lives.

UC Berkeley nuclear engineering team to lead National Science and Security Consortium

03/07/11 — A UC Berkeley-led consortium of seven universities has been awarded a multi-year grant ($25 million for a 5-year period) from the U.S. Department of Energy NNSA Office of Proliferation Detection. The consortium will largely focus on education and hands-on training of undergraduate and graduate students in the core set of experimental disciplines that support the nation's non-proliferation and nuclear security mission: nuclear physics, nuclear chemistry, nuclear instrumentation, and nuclear engineering.

BMIC holds first University Mobile Challenge at the GSMA Mobile World Congress 2011

02/15/11 GSMA — Berkeley Mobile International Collaborative, a non-profit dedicated to creating strategic relationships between mobile companies, innovative universities, and entrepreneurial students, today held the finals of the first annual University Mobile Challenge at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The winning team 2011 challenge is UC Berkeley (Taylor Griffin, Karthik Lakshmanan, Apoorva Sachdev, Aaditya Sriram and Jade Trinh) for its "Noodle" app, a cloud-based college notes program.

UK animators use CellScope to film smallest stop-motion animation ever

09/20/10 Popular Science — Using a Nokia N8 smartphone and a CellScope -- developed by Berkeley Engineering's Daniel Fletcher and winner of a PopSci Best of What's New award in 2008 -- the team behind the Wallace & Gromit series has made the world's smallest stop-motion animation film. Nokia commissioned the film in celebration of CellScope's potential to improve medicine in the developing world. The film features a 0.35-inch-tall Dot as she runs through an obstacle course made of British currency and rides a bumblebee.

UC Berkeley Computer Science announces 2011 Siebel Scholars

09/17/10 Siebel Foundation — Computer Science graduate students David Wong and Jerry Zhang are recipients of the Siebel Scholarship for the Class of 2011. Both are enrolled in the 5th Year Master's Degree program. The Siebel Scholars Program was established by the Siebel Foundation to recognize the most talented students at the world's leading graduate schools of business, computer science, and bioengineering.

A 4.00 at Berkeley Engineering? Meet Reid Zimmerman

08/09/10 — Of the 4,767 seniors who graduated this spring from UC Berkeley, 25 of them earned an A in every class, a perfect GPA. Reid Zimmerman is one of them. That record, along with a portfolio of outstanding leadership, character and extracurricular involvement, helped catapult the civil and environmental engineering graduate into the final round of consideration for this year's University Medal, UC Berkeley's most distinguished honor given to a graduating senior.

Marvell Technology’s mobile connector

07/30/10 Forbes.com — Marvell's Weili Dai takes her place on Forbes' list of entrepreneurs, innovators and businesspeople who left home and made their mark in the U.S. Dai arrived in Silicon Valley from China at age 17 in 1978, coming of age at the same time as the U.S. tech hub. She moved in with her grandparents before going on to study at the University of California at Berkeley. Today Marvell Technology, the semiconductor design company she went on to cofound 15 years ago with her Indonesian-Chinese husband and his brother, employs 5,000 worldwide and trades on the Nasdaq with an $11 billion market cap. The trio donated the funds for a building named after them at Berkeley

Berkeley team shares first prize in Staples Global EcoEasy Challenge

04/30/10 EcoEasy Challenge — Four mechanical engineering undergraduates from UC Berkeley, all women and representing the only U.S. team that reached the finals in the inaugural Staples Global EcoEasy Challenge, have placed as runners-up for first prize for designing the EcoStapler, a mini-stapler made from environmentally preferable materials. Cynthia Bayley, Griselda Cardona, Maha Haji, and Sarah Stern, calling their team the Explosi-Divas, took home a $5,000 prize.

Team of Berkeley Engineering undergraduate women reaches finals in Staples green office product competition

03/31/10 Yahoo Finance News — Taking environmental consciousness to a global level, Staples, Inc., the world's largest office products company, today announced the universities with finalist concepts for the inaugural Staples Global EcoEasy Challenge. Four mechanical engineering undergraduates from UC Berkeley, all women, represent the only U.S. team that has reached the finals. Cynthia Bayley, Griselda Cardona, Maha Haji, and Sarah Stern, calling their team the Explosi-Divas, have designed the EcoStapler

Berkeley prof helped divvy up search to many servers

03/15/10 Wall Street Journal — A connection to the University of California at Berkeley - and a lengthy record for innovations - seem to be winning attributes in this year's big computing prizes. Eric Brewer and Charles Thacker have both.