Students

Making computer animation more agile, acrobatic — and realistic

04/10/18 — EECS grad student Xue Bin “Jason” Peng and his colleagues have made a major advance in realistic computer animation, using deep reinforcement learning to create a virtual stuntman that mimics natural motions.

Ph.D. candidate Sonia Travaglini measures a mushroom brick

From pollution cleanup to building houses, what can’t mushrooms do?

04/02/18 — There are more than 5 million species of fungi, each eager to digest a particular waste product - sawdust, plastic, heavy metals - and turn it into new, natural and compostable material. In this Fiat Vox podcast, mechanical engineering Ph.D. candidate Sonia Travaglini talks about her work with "nature's recyclers."

Postdoc Amal El-Ghazaly with EECS professor Jeffrey Bokor

California Alliance improving pipeline to the professoriate

03/13/18 — Women and underrepresented minorities in STEM fields, like EECS postdoc Amal El-Ghazaly, are moving into the pipeline for coveted faculty positions thanks to a creative coalition of four elite universities, led by UC Berkeley.

Mo Zhou and Yonatan Mintz at track field with blurred runner in background.

New exercise app uses machine learning to keep goals within reach

03/05/18 — Berkeley researchers are using machine learning to encourage people to get more exercise. They have developed an algorithm for an exercise app that automatically adjusts goals to keep them within reach and to keep users motivated.

Pandemic Resiliency team members Suyasha Gupta, Jasodhara Raj and Arnaud Bard de Coutance

Designing resiliency for the pandemic flu

02/23/18 Fung Institute — For their capstone project at the Fung Institute, a trio of master of engineering students are working on a software solution to combat the inefficiencies that currently impede efforts to report and track outbreaks of influenza.

Dam scanning

02/16/18 — Two civil engineering students built a 3-D model of Berkeley's campus to better understand what's going on with one of California's many aging dams.

Celebrating diversity in engineering and science

02/13/18 — The Black Engineering and Science Students Association and the Black Graduate Engineering and Science Students celebrated milestone anniversaries with a daylong event at Alumni House on Feb. 10, including a keynote address by alumnus and UC Davis Chancellor Gary May.

Taking the stage

02/09/18 — Drew McPherson (B.S'17 ME) recently took the stage in San Francisco to give a talk at “People That Don't Normally Lecture.” He talked about the accident he had at 19 that left him paralyzed. He also talked about what came next: a desire to design and build things that help people meet a need.

HBCU partnership brings new students to UC grad programs

02/02/18 University of California — A UC-wide collaboration that strengthens research ties with the nation's historically Black colleges and universities has helped more than 400 students to participate in summer internships. Among them: Tsegereda Esatu, now a Ph.D. candidate in electrical engineering at Berkeley.

A student uses wires, soap and a handheld device to explore bending effects

Exploring digital fabrication at Jacobs Hall

01/29/18 Jacobs Institute — A reconfigurable lampshade, a novel musical instrument, an affordable tool for surgery planning: these are among the student projects that used resources in Jacobs Hall to explore digital fabrication technology during the fall 2017 semester.

Winning students Eric Munsing, Allen Tang, Soeren Kuenzel and Jake Soloff with their prize check

Grad students win $100,000 in data science contest

12/04/17 — A team of UC Berkeley graduate students with serious data science and analysis skills, including EECS MS student Allen Tang and CEE Ph.D. candidate Eric Munsing beat teams from the likes of Harvard, MIT and Oxford to win the $100,000 top prize in an international data science competition staged by the hedge fund Citadel.

Bot-spotting college kids, doing what Twitter won’t

11/01/17 Wired — Berkeley computer science undergrads Ash Bhat and Rohan Phadte are doing what they say Twitter won't: sorting out and tagging the angry propaganda bots designed to undermine, destabilize and inflame American political discourse.

UC Berkeley graduates Brenton Kreiger and Sam Durkin stand with seniors Ruth McGee and Joan Gibbons after their solar house won third place.

Student-built solar home places third in national contest

10/23/17 — A joint Berkeley/University of Denver team's prototype for a stackable solar home took third place in the Department of Energy's Solar Decathlon, a collegiate competition to design and build full-size, solar-powered houses.

Berkeley student descending a staircase outside the RISE house

Berkeley-Denver team comes in third in Solar Decathlon

10/18/17 Denver Post — A collaboration between UC Berkeley and the University of Denver took third place in the Solar Decathlon 2017, a challenge for student teams to build and operate highly energy-efficient and innovative solar houses. The team's RISE house was designed specifically for the city of Richmond, Calif.

DeCal class creators Zuhayeer Musa and Jimmy Liu

In undergrad startup class, students learn to build the future

10/02/17 — The student-run DeCal class “How to Build the Future,” created by computer science students Jimmy Liu and Zuhayeer Musa in collaboration with EECS professor Scott Shenker, encourages aspiring entrepreneurs by providing direct experience from world-renowned founders and professors.

FEMtech leaders Lisanne van Engelen, Gresshaa Mehta, Andrea Lombard and Maia Rosengarten

Berkeley’s first campuswide tech club for women

09/19/17 — Young women interested in STEM fields founded FEMTech in 2015. Now, the group offers a full plate of workshops, events, tutoring services and even a robot building team - all helping make tech fields accessible to women of all majors.

Student-designed medical device wins Fast Company award

09/12/17 — Tabla, a low-cost medical device to diagnose pneumonia, has won the student category of Fast Company's 2017 Innovation by Design Awards. Tabla was created by a trio of mechanical engineering and bioengineering students as a classroom project for the Jacobs Institute's Interactive Device Design course.

Boot camp participants at California Memorial Stadium.

Fresh ideas for nuclear power

08/24/17 — Two dozen students from all over the world gathered at Berkeley for two weeks over the summer to discuss, plan and help start building a new nuclear energy sector. The students, along with professional mentors and speakers, were part of the 2017 Nuclear Innovation Boot Camp.

Students in the first M.E.T. class on the steps of Sutardja Dai Hall

Inaugural M.E.T. class prepares to study business and engineering

08/23/17 Haas News — The founding class of 40 students in the Management, Engineering, & Technology program arrived at Berkeley this week ready to learn from each other and from top faculty at both Berkeley Engineering and the Haas School of Business.

Armen Chouldjian demonstrates the web app he and Anuj Shah developed for BART

For BART engineering interns, a focus on safety, reliability and innovation

08/23/17 Mass Transit — When EECS senior Armen Chouldjian returns to UC Berkeley in the fall, he'll ride BART knowing his summer internship helped increase safety and reliability for all the transit system's riders.