Public policy

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.

Winners of DOE energy efficiency innovation award

Students’ energy-efficiency proposal wins ‘Most Innovative’ in DOE competition

03/26/14 Daily Californian — A team of four Berkeley Engineering undergraduates won “Most Innovative” in one of six categories at the Department of Energy's Better Buildings Case Competition for its proposal to improve energy efficiency at universities. Members of the Golden EnergTech team were Nanavati Low (IEOR '16), Daniel Tjandra (ChemE '14), Michael Chang (CEE '15) and Grace Vasiknanonte (MSE '16).

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.

Researchers with energy-mapping backpack

Berkeley team takes its energy innovation to Capitol Hill

02/28/14 — A research team from Berkeley Engineering and the Berkeley Lab appeared on Capitol Hill Thursday to show off their innovation in energy efficiency: a backpack-mounted system for quickly mapping energy use throughout a building and identifying ways to reduce it

Time is now for a new revolution in urban water systems

02/18/14 — As California grapples with what state water officials have called a drought of "epic proportions," UC Berkeley urban-water expert David Sedlak, a professor of civil and environmental engineering, has been watching for signs that people are ready for a water revolution.

Berkeley, Stanford, UCLA, Caltech unite to boost number of minority Ph.D. students, faculty

02/13/14 — An unprecedented alliance formed among four elite West Coast universities aims to remedy a seemingly intractable nationwide problem: Too few underrepresented minority Ph.D. students in the mathematical, physical and computer sciences and in engineering are advancing to postdoctoral and faculty ranks at top-tier research universities.

UN Scientific Advisory Board aims to build ties between science and policy

02/04/14 UNESCO — At its inaugural meeting in Berlin Jan. 30, members of the United Nations Scientific Advisory Board, including Berkeley Engineering Dean Shankar Sastry, vowed to "pull our resources and wisdom together," strengthening cooperation between the scientific community and policy-makers "to put the world on a sustainable path."

Suburban sprawl cancels carbon-footprint savings of dense urban cores

01/07/14 — According to a new study by UC Berkeley researchers, led by professor Daniel Kammen of the Energy and Resources Group and Nuclear Engineering, population-dense cities contribute less greenhouse-gas emissions per person than other areas of the country, but these cities' extensive suburbs essentially wipe out the climate benefits.

Engineers see a path out of green card limbo

05/23/13 New York Times — In a video and story, foreign engineering graduate students at U.C. Berkeley reflect on how immigration reform could make it easier for highly skilled workers like them to stay in the United States.

Engineering benchmarks for cap-and-trade

05/01/13 — The Mechanical Engineering Laboratory for Manufacturing and Sustainability is helping the California Air Resources Board to develop methodologies for determining CO2 allocations for companies to help reduce the state's overall CO2 emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

Paris, San Francisco choose Inria and CITRIS to conduct ‘smart city’ research

04/05/13 CITRIS — The mayors of Paris and San Francisco recently signed an agreement focusing on the digital economy and smart cities, and designated France's Inria (National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control) and UC's CITRIS (Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society) to carry out joint research on the topic.

The ethical engineer

04/02/13 — In a world shaped by technology, engineers have the power and hence the responsibility to exercise tremendous influence on society. They must be able to solve problems not only with design and invention, but also with an understanding of the full range of human consequences, from the legal and economic to the ethical.

Decisions, decisions

11/05/12 — It has been a busy year for the developers of the new web app, Politify. It was only October of 2011 when Nikita Bier, then a political economy and business major, approached Jeremy Blalock, a second-year EECS student, to collaborate on an easy-to-use app to analyze public policy. They developed a non-partisan tool that enables voters to evaluate the costs and benefits of each presidential candidate's promised policies.

Decisions, decisions

11/01/12 — Two Berkeley students - an EECS and a political economy and business major- developed Politify, a non-partisan mobile app that enables voters to evaluate the costs and benefits of a candidate's policy platforms.

Inside a Gram Power-connected home in rural India

Prepaid power

11/01/12 — Two Berkeley alumni started a microgrid project to bring electricity to places too remote to have cost-effective connections to traditional utility-scale power grids.

White House report provides roadmap for revitalizing U.S. manufacturing

07/17/12 — The President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) released a report on July 17 that provides a roadmap for revitalizing manufacturing industries in the U.S. The report is a product of the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (AMP) Steering Committee, whose membership includes leading manufacturing experts from industry and six universities, including the University of California, Berkeley.“For the U.S economy to flourish, America must have a robust manufacturing sector,” said UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau. “This report maps out exciting and innovative strategies by each of the university, government and business sectors that can ensure that the U.S. will play a leadership role in advancing manufacturing. We at UC Berkeley are excited by this report and are ready to play an active role in moving forward the report's recommendations.”

Building a better world, one project at a time

05/01/12 — A new student group, Engineers Without Borders, is building a better world, one infrastructure project at a time.

Internet voting: Will democracy or hackers win?

02/16/12 PBS NewsHour — While it seems like everything can be done online these days, that's not actually the case when it comes to elections. Science correspondent Miles O'Brien explores the security, logistical and secrecy challenges of Internet voting. David Wagner, professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at UC Berkeley, joins the conversation.

How the private sector can help curb our engineering shortage

08/04/11 The Washington Post — Berkeley alumnus and Intel CEO Paul Otellini, now serving on President Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, explains how a chronic shortage of engineering students threatens America's role as the world's leading innovator and continues to impede our nation's fragile economic recovery. The council's high-tech education task force is focused on programs that will yield 10,000 more engineering graduates in the United States each year.

Engineering health reform

04/07/10 — The health care reform bill enacted last month is the most far-reaching domestic policy the nation has seen in decades. Only time will tell us all the ramifications of this historic legislation. As the acting dean of the College of Engineering I ask, how can engineers help patients, physicians and providers make the best use of the changes ahead?