Research

George Leitmann on rocket test track, Naval Ordnance Test Station, China Lake

Bancroft Library oral history, podcast highlight Berkeley Engineering achievements

08/01/19 — Berkeley Engineering's contributions to the rise of the semiconductor industry were featured in a recent library podcast, while mechanical engineering professor emeritus George Leitmann was interviewed for an oral history project.

You can’t squash this roach-inspired robot

08/01/19 — A new insect-sized robot created by Berkeley researchers can scurry across the floor and squeeze into tight spaces like a cockroach, a big advantage in search-and-rescue missions.

Making the invisible visible

07/22/19 Berkeley Lab — Berkeley researchers have developed a new type of sensor network that is affordable and capable of tracking soot (black carbon). With more than 100 custom-built sensors installed across West Oakland for 100 days, the team created the largest black carbon monitoring network deployed in a single city.

Drones will fly for days with new photovoltaic engine

07/17/19 — UC Berkeley researchers just broke another record in photovoltaic efficiency, an achievement that could bring ultralight engines that power drones for days and deep space probes for centuries.

Berkeley students get a global perspective of technology innovation

07/09/19 — Twenty UC Berkeley students - most with limited travel experience, including some who have never left the United States - went on a whirlwind educational tour of Singapore and the Philippines earlier this summer to learn firsthand how technology innovation and application is approached in countries outside of the United States.

Word cloud diagram of terms related to thermoelectric

Algorithms uncover hidden scientific knowledge

07/05/19 Berkeley Lab — A team of materials science researchers from Berkeley Lab and Berkeley Engineering has found that with minimal training, machine-learning text mining of the existing scientific literature can lead to new discoveries.

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.

Bats’ brains sync when they socialize

06/20/19 — A new UC Berkeley study from bioengineer Michael Yartsev is the first to observe synchronized brain activity in a non-human species engaging in natural social interactions. The finding opens the door to future study on how our brains process social interactions.

Crystal with a twist: scientists grow spiraling new material

06/19/19 — Materials scientists from Berkeley Engineering and Berkeley Lab have created new inorganic crystals made of stacks of atomically thin sheets that unexpectedly spiral like a nanoscale card deck.

Adobe Research and UC Berkeley: Detecting Facial Manipulations in Adobe Photoshop

06/19/19 Adobe — UC Berkeley and Adobe researchers have developed a method for detecting edits to images that were made using Photoshop's Face Aware Liquify feature. While still in its early stages, this collaboration between Adobe Research and UC Berkeley, is a step towards democratizing image forensics, the science of uncovering and analyzing changes to digital images.

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.

Aaron Streets named Pew Scholar in biomedical sciences

06/14/19 — Aaron Streets, assistant professor of bioengineering, is one of 22 early-career researchers joining the 2019 Pew Scholars Program in Biomedical Sciences.

Machines that heal

05/30/19 — Rikky Muller is building tiny, wireless devices that can be implanted in the brain, with the aim of treating conditions such as epilepsy or spinal cord injuries.

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.