Making waves: Turning ocean power into electricity
03/15/16 — Ocean waves constantly generate energy. Berkeley engineers are trying to build a device to harness that power and convert it to electricity.
Infrastructure
How to save water from California’s leaky infrastructure
03/07/16 California magazine — Thanks to outdated systems and structures, California's water managers don't know how much water the state truly has, how much we really use, or how much leaks from ancient pipes before it ever reaches a tap. Berkeley engineers like Paul Sagues (M.S.'80 ME) are working on ways to dry up that waste.
New app turns smartphones into worldwide seismic network
02/12/16 — UC Berkeley scientists are releasing a free Android app that taps a smartphone's ability to record ground shaking from an earthquake, with the goal of creating a worldwide seismic detection and warning network.
QuakeCAFE: A mobile wake-up call for Californians
12/16/15 CITRIS — No one likes to be reminded that there's a 99.7% chance that California will experience a major earthquake in the next 30 years. But a little preparedness can go a long way, and a new mobile-friendly website called QuakeCAFE can help.
Still shakin’ it
11/01/15 — The venerable Shake Table of the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER), the largest six-degrees-of-freedom table in the country, brings its illustrious past forward to continually improve seismic safety.
Build Change founder delivers CEE Distinguished Lecture
10/15/15 — Watch: Alumnus Elizabeth Hausler Strand, the founder and CEO of Build Change, is making homes safer, worldwide.
Photos of ruptured oil pipeline provide clues of spill cause
06/17/15 Washington Post — Photos of the pipeline that spilled oil on the Santa Barbara coast in May show extensive corrosion and suggest that a pressure leak tied to the restart of failed pumps caused the break, said Robert Bea, a civil engineering professor emeritus.
Aging wooden bridge needs all the support it can get
03/23/15 New York Times — Structural engineering professor Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl has been hired as a consultant on a fight by local residents to save the Albion River Bridge - California's last wooden bridge on a coastal highway.
What’s the state of California’s water infrastructure?
03/20/15 KALW — On a program about California's water crisis, David Sedlak, professor of civil and environmental engineering, talks about the extensive system of levees, aqueducts and pipes supply water to 25 million Californians and three million acres of farmland.
Beyond clean water: A development engineer profile
01/13/15 Blum Center — Listening to a dry academic lecture on flood prediction while monsoons flooded a fifth of Pakistan sparked a humanitarian drive in Syed Imran Ali, now a Blum Center postdoc pursuing his vision of safe water delivery through development engineering.
Study reveals resilience of Roman architectural concrete
12/15/14 — An international research team studying the mortar used to build ancient Roman architectural marvels, led by Marie Jackson of civil and environmental engineering, has found a secret to the material's resilience - formation during curing of a crystalline binding hydrate that prevents microcracks from propagating
Freedom phones
11/01/14 — EECS Ph.D. student Yahel Ben-David and alum Barath Raghavan lead the De Novo Group, a research team developing the Rangzen smartphone app, designed to support dissenters and protect identities.
Bullet train just a blur in California governor’s race
10/28/14 Los Angeles Times — Civil engineering professor Robert Bea, a pioneering expert in the field of risk analysis, comments on the relatively small role California's bullet train is playing in the state's gubernatorial election, and how that could become a problem down the line.
More Bay Bridge woes may validate concerns of span’s #1 critic
10/10/14 California magazine — Civil engineering professor Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl, one of the earliest and most vocal critics of the new Bay Bridge design, has been portrayed as a Cassandra, but these days he merely seems prescient.
What could collapse the Golden Gate Bridge?
09/19/14 KALW — At the movies, the Golden Gate Bridge has been leveled by earthquakes, apes, even a mega-shark. But how would the iconic span fare in more realistic disaster scenarios? Civil engineering professor Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl helps KALW radio figure it out.
Scholars on scooters
08/14/14 — Students zip around campus on electric scooters while learning about energy, transportation and vehicle-to-grid systems in a new civil engineering class.
Water 4.0
05/02/14 — An excerpt from civil and environmental engineering professor David Sedlak's new book, Water 4.0: The Past, Present and Future of the World's Most Vital Resource, which calls for major changes in urban water systems.
Q+A on L.A. seismic study
05/01/14 — Jack Moehle, professor of civil engineering, talked to Berkeley Engineer about his recently completed seismic study of unreinforced concrete buildings in Los Angeles, and its impact.
More woes for high-speed rail
03/31/14 San Francisco Business Times — The $68 billion cost estimate for a Los Angeles-to-San Francisco high-speed rail network is far too low, and the system may be eclipsed by emerging technologies before the 30-year project is completed, civil engineering professor C. William Ibbs warned the state Senate transportation committee last week.
Reducing the risk of earthquake collapse in California cities
03/04/14 Contra Costa Times — In a guest commentary, four California professors, including Berkeley Engineering's Jack Moehle, write about their joint research into the seismic risks posed by older concrete buildings, and the methods and costs of mitigating that risk.
