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Rejuvenating innovation

06/17/14 — Conventional wisdom has it that entrepreneurs are born that way. At Berkeley, however, we thrive on proving conventional wisdom wrong. Our talented industry faculty and our hard-working staff have demonstrated that indeed, entrepreneurship can be learned, and that Berkeley can teach it.
Saddiq Nuru speaking at commencement

The graduate

06/17/14 — Saddiq Nuru, a recent graduate from the Fung Institute's Master of Engineering program, reflects on his education, experience and ambitions. Nuru was chosen to deliver the graduate student address at this year's College of Engineering commencement ceremony.
Breana Kastreba batting in a Cal softball game

Power hitter

06/17/14 — On the surface, the late Orlando Tafoya (B.S'53 ME) and Cal varsity softball player Breana Kostreba may not appear to have much in common. But the two were connected through the Orlando Tafoya Memorial Scholarship, awarded to engineering students interested in athletics.

On the road

06/17/14 — While working in their garage at the Richmond Field Station, the machine shop in Cory Hall, or the Hackerspace, CalSol - the UC Berkeley Solar Vehicle Team - has completely redesigned their competition vehicle. They will have the opportunity to test their new design in an upcoming endurance race that will take them across eight states, from Texas to Minnesota.
Main robot and small scout robot

Big to tiny robots on risky ground: You go first

06/13/14 Phys.org — Researchers at Berkeley Engineering's Biomimetic Millisystems Lab and ETH Zurich have suggested an approach for protecting expensive components in big robots when on difficult terrain: Send in little, inexpensively made robots ahead of them as scouts.
David Sedlak

Water researcher David Sedlak wins 2014 Clarke Prize

06/13/14 National Water Research Institute — The National Water Research Institute has named David Sedlak, Berkeley professor of civil and environmental engineering, as the 21st recipient of its Athalie Richardson Irvine Clarke Prize for his pioneering research on advancing the way water resources and urban water infrastructure are managed.
Per Peterson

EPA hits nuclear power with kryptonite

06/13/14 Forbes — A commentary questioning whether the EPA's new proposed emissions rule for nuclear power plants is politically motivated quotes a forum post by nuclear engineering professor Per Peterson, who wrote that "There exists no plausible public health or environmental reason to regulate [Krypton-85] emissions, since they do not and can never have any significant public health or environmental impact."
California Report Card app

Amplifying California’s collective intelligence

06/11/14 San Francisco Chronicle — In an op-ed article, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and IEOR professor Ken Goldberg write about the California Report Card, a mobile-friendly web-based platform from the CITRIS Data and Democracy Initiative that streamlines and organizes public input for the benefit of policymakers and elected officials.
Exoskeleton

World Cup may score points for exoskeleton development

06/10/14 University of California — When soccer's World Cup kicks off June 12, mechanical engineering professor Homayoon Kazerooni and his research assistants won't be watching the players. They'll be staring at the paraplegic teenager in a brain-controlled robotic suit kicking a soccer ball.
Slides of young and old blood, showing the effect of adding oxytocin

‘Trust hormone’ oxytocin helps old muscle work like new

06/10/14 — Berkeley researchers, led by Irina Conboy of bioengineering, have discovered that oxytocin – a hormone associated with maternal nurturing, social attachments, childbirth and sex – is indispensable for healthy muscle maintenance and repair. It is the latest target for development into a potential treatment for age-related muscle wasting.
Jay Keasling and Eni Award medal

Bioengineer Jay Keasling wins renewable energy prize

06/09/14 Joint BioEnergy Institute — Jay Keasling, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and bioengineering and CEO of JBEI, has won the 2014 Renewable Energy Prize portion of the prestigious Eni Awards for his achievements in “the microbial production of hydrocarbon fuels.”
Ruzena Bajcsy

Named lecture series honors pioneer Ruzena Bajcsy

06/06/14 Technische Universität Darmstadt — The new Ruzena Bajcsy Lectures on Communications at TU Darmstadt honors one of the first women researchers in electrical engineering and computer sciences and a role model for women scientists and engineers worldwide. The lecture series invites leading women researchers to Darmstadt. Bajcsy's work in EECS focuses on tele-immersive environments, image processing and robotics.
Cartoon of robot servant

So, where are my robot servants?

05/29/14 IEEE Spectrum — Four years after Berkeley engineers' video of a towel-folding robot went viral, IEEE Spectrum ponders what it will take to develop robots that can become true helpers and companions in people's homes. Berkeley roboticist Ken Goldberg says he doubts that ever-smarter machines will replace human contact, “but people aren't always available.”
diagram of laser sensing technology

New laser sensing technology for self-driving cars, smartphones and 3-D video games

05/29/14 Science Codex — A new twist on 3-D imaging technology, being developed at Berkeley Engineering, could one day enable your self-driving car to spot a child in the street half a block away, let you answer your Smartphone from across the room with a wave of your hand, or play "virtual tennis" on your driveway. EECS Ph.D. candidate Behnam Behroozpour will present the team's work at the CLEO: 2014 conference in San Jose in June.
Human brain

CNEP researchers target brain circuitry to treat intractable mental disorders

05/27/14 — Neuroscientists, engineers and physicians from Berkeley and other university and industry partners are teaming up for an ambitious 5-year, $26 million project to develop new techniques for tackling mental illness by using devices implanted in the brain to target and correct malfunctioning neural circuits in conditions such as clinical depression, addiction and anxiety disorders.
Bakar fellows Ana Claidia Arias, John Dueber, Shawn Shadden and Laura Waller

Four Berkeley Engineering faculty among new Bakar Fellows

05/27/14 Berkeley Research — The Bakar Fellows Program's new fellows for 2014-15 include Ana Claudia Arias (EECS), who is working to improve MRI hardware; John Dueber (bioengineering), who uses synthetic biology to improve green chemistry; Shawn Shadden (mechanical engineering), whose research integrates medical diagnostic imaging with computational modeling; and Laura Waller (EECS), who develops new methods for optical imaging as head of the Computational Imaging Lab.
Go Bears! hat at graduation

Berkeley Engineering commencement recap

05/20/14 — Relive the baccalaureate and graduate commencement ceremonies for the College of Engineering in words, pictures and videos via Storify and YouTube.
Pablo Rosado explains his team

Big Ideas@Berkeley 2014: Launching new generations of social innovators

05/14/14 — The annual Big Ideas@Berkeley competition continues to spur Berkeley students to change the world via life-changing innovations. This year's winning projects, honored at the Blum Center for Developing Economies, included a host of Berkeley Engineers representing several disciplines.