Public policy

Daniel Kammen named senior adviser to USAID

10/21/21 — Berkeley News: Kammen, who holds joint appointments in energy and resources, public policy and nuclear engineering, will serve as senior adviser for energy, climate and innovation for the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Five new hires in the Climate Equity and Environmental Justice cluster

New faculty cluster to focus on climate change, environmental justice

09/02/21 — CNR: Five assistant professors, including civil and environmental engineering's Maya Carrasquillo, will bring their disparate perspectives to research on battling the “climate gap”

Image from space of the Indian subcontinent.

Using satellite images to improve human lives

07/20/21 — Machine-learning breakthrough from Berkeley-based project could support action worldwide on climate, health and poverty

Randy Katz and Steven Chu flanking the U.S. Capitol dome

Researching while Chinese American

06/25/21 — EECS professor Randy Katz, vice chancellor for research, and former Berkeley Lab director and U.S. energy secretary Steven Chu will take part in a livestreamed June 30 congressional roundtable on ethnic profiling of Chinese American scientists

Time more important than funding for food assistance, study finds

06/25/21 School of Public Health — A paper co-authored by IEOR associate professor Anil Aswani showed that Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program recipients who had more available time were able to prepare higher quality meals

Video frame showing children on seesaw amid differing levels of air pollution

New studies of deadly air pollutant document environmental inequality

04/28/21 Washington Post — “The deck is stacked against people of color,” says civil and environmental engineering assistant professor Joshua Apte

Photo illustration of Donald Trump and Joe Biden

Farid: Online disinfo now targeting COVID-19, Black Lives Matter

06/26/20 Futurism — Digital forensics expert and EECS professor Hany Farid lays out the greatest digital threats facing the country, and how to combat them

Can tiny, invisible particles help stop the spread of nuclear weapons?

03/12/20 — Researchers are closer than ever to deploying technology that can help detect the illicit production of plutonium, a key fuel for nuclear bombs

Jack Moehle receives top earthquake engineering award

03/05/20 — The Earthquake Engineering Research Institute bestowed Moehle, a professor of civil and environmental engineering, with the George W. Housner Medal

Environmental engineering students win $25K grant from the EPA

02/20/20 — The team, supervised by Professor Ashok Gadgil, will use the money to develop ways to remove arsenic from drinking water in California.

French ambassador says global institutions needed to confront technology challenges

01/16/20 — Philippe Étienne said the quickening pace of technological change requires nations to immediately build “shared governance” of the internet through both existing and perhaps new global institutions.

Berkeley receives grant to grow public interest technology

10/07/19 — UC Berkeley received a $180,000 grant from the Public Interest Technology University Network to develop an innovative curriculum that encourages students to work across disciplines and understand the ethical, political and societal implications of technology.

Can cellphones help cities be more energy efficient?

09/23/19 — Berkeley Engineering, Berkeley Lab and MIT researchers have created a new tool that uses cellphone data to estimate building occupancy rates in urban areas, with the aim of optimizing energy use at a citywide scale - and helping to mitigate climate change.

Waze hijacked L.A. in the name of convenience. Can anyone put the genie back in the bottle?

08/21/19 Los Angeles Magazine — Traffic apps, like Waze, turned L.A. neighborhoods into "shortcuts." Los Angeles Magazine recently spoke to UC Berkeley's Alex Bayen and Susan Shaeen about how we got here and whether this trend can be reversed.

Government-funded research increasingly fuels innovation

06/20/19 — New research shows that cuts in federal funding for science might endanger the innovation that increasingly fuels the modern economy.

How can companies like Airbnb, Lyft or Uber help in disasters?

06/19/19 — Berkeley Engineering researchers suggest that emergency management agencies and local relief organizations should leverage Airbnb, Lyft, Uber and private citizens to ensure equity in emergency evacuations.

Berkeley engineers propose solutions for reaching U.N. development goals

05/28/19 — Three UC Berkeley undergrads attended the U.N. Environmental Assembly in Kenya and saw their proposals included in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Berkeley links up with Facebook, but wants to see tech giant’s accountability

05/17/19 — Stung by bad press and government investigations, Facebook is investing $7.5 million in a partnership with three universities - UC Berkeley, Cornell and Maryland - to develop new methods to improve detection of fake content, fake news and misinformation campaigns. At Berkeley, the work will be led by EECS professors Hany Farid and Alexei Efros.

Collage of photos of participants playing war game

The science of war games

05/01/19 — Researchers have built an online, multi-player video game to explore how nuclear weapons influence decision making in a conflict.

Berkeley research makes lead pipes safe

04/03/19 American Chemical Society — UC Berkeley researchers develop a rapid, cost-effective method to make lead pipes safe.