News

Self-driven to solve transportation problems

11/21/14 San Jose Mercury News — Mechanical engineering professor Karl Hedrick, director of Berkeley's Vehicle Dynamics Laboratory, has spent decades researching the nonlinear control systems that set the foundation for today's smart cars.

Bioengineer Zeleznick selected for Silicon Valley Bank Trek

11/21/14 Silicon Valley Bank Trek — Bioengineering undergraduate Zachary Zeleznick was one of 18 students from around the country selected to participate in the 2014 Silicon Valley Bank Trek. The Trek brings together top student innovators for a 3-day series of events with a “who's who” of influential investors and entrepreneurs in the tech community.

Engineering’s Fiona Doyle named new dean of the Graduate Division

11/21/14 — Fiona Doyle, Berkeley Engineering's executive associate dean, has been named dean of the Graduate Division for UC Berkeley, a position she will take over Jan. 1. Doyle, the Donald H. McLaughlin Professor of Mineral Engineering, has been at Berkeley since 1983, serving in many leadership capacities.

The unknown start-up that built Google’s first self-driving car

11/20/14 IEEE Spectrum — The story behind Google's innovative self-driving car and the revolutionary Street View camera technology that preceded begins with 510 Systems, a tiny Berkeley start-up launched by IEOR grad (and later Google engineer) Anthony Levandowski and fellow Berkeley Engineering student Bryon Majusiak.

Stabilizing Strawberry Creek

11/17/14 — New construction repairs antiquated erosion control systems.

Professors honored for excellence in semiconductor technology and design research

11/13/14 Semiconductor Industry Association — Tsu-Jae King Liu, EECS chair and TSMC Distinguished Professor in Microelectronics, and engineering professor Kenneth O of UT Dallas have received University Research Awards from the Semiconductor Industry Association in recognition of their outstanding contributions to semiconductor research.

Ekso Bionics receives first NIH grant for CHORI partnership

11/12/14 Today's Medical Developments — Ekso Bionics Holdings Inc., founded by mechanical engineering professor Homayoon Kazerooni and ME graduate Nathan Harding, has been awarded a P20 Exploratory Grant from the National Institutes of Health to continue development of an exoskeleton prototype for children. The work will be done in collaboration with the pediatric rehabilitation department at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland.

What’s the Big Give?

11/10/14 —

Cookstove case study

11/07/14 — Students in the new development engineering class make lunch on cookstoves.

Synthetic biology could be big boost to interplanetary space travel

11/06/14 — Genetically engineered microbes could help make manned missions to Mars, the moon and other planets more practical, according to a new analysis by UC Berkeley bioengineers and NASA scientists.

Supercharging more electric cars risks crashing the grid

11/05/14 California magazine — U.S. electrical grids might not be ready for the new wave of electric vehicles expected within the decade. But the Smart Cities Research Center in civil and environmental engineering is working on data-driven ways to prevent a grid meltdown.

Barath Raghavan and Yahel Ben-David in a crowd of moving students

Join the crowd

11/01/14 — Follow the fall 2014 Berkeley Engineer magazine, now online.

Dean’s word: Engineering global solutions

11/01/14 — Globalized markets and leapfrog technologies, including mobile telecommunications, now offer opportunities to eradicate the root causes of global poverty.

The big picture

11/01/14 — EECS professor Alexei Efros seeks to bring large volumes of inaccessible visual data on the Internet to the public by filtering the information into more easily digestible nuggets.

Connor Landgraf and the digitally enhanced stethoscope

Devices: Smarter stethoscopes

11/01/14 — BioE alum Connor Landgraf has transformed the classic stethoscope into a tool with the potential to save lives and eliminate billions of dollars a year in unnecessary spending.

Q+A with Grace O’Connell

11/01/14 — Assistant professor in the mechanical engineering department since 2013, Grace O'Connell discusses her background, her first year at the college and her work in tissue engineering and spinal biomechanics.

STEM pipeline: Girls in Engineering

11/01/14 — This summer, the college launched an outreach program for middle school girls designed to bring engineering to life and inspire the girls to pursue an education in the STEM fields.

Great optics

11/01/14 — EECS professor Connie Chang-Hasnain, named associate dean for strategic alliances in July, has introduced a robust toolkit of nano-optoelectronic circuit elements.

Sight for sore eyes

11/01/14 — Brian Barsky, professor of computer science and vision science, teamed up with colleagues at MIT to improve vision-correcting display technology; given an eyeglasses prescription, researchers can now pre-correct the display to enable that user to see the screen in sharp focus without glasses.

Muscle cells before and after addition of oxytocin

Rejuvenating old muscles

11/01/14 — Led by bioengineering professor Irina Conboy, Berkeley researchers found that oxytocin-the hormone associated with social attachments, childbirth and sex-may combat age-related muscle degeneration.