• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Departments
    • Bioengineering
    • Civil and Environmental Engineering
    • Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
    • Industrial Engineering and Operations Research
    • Materials Science and Engineering
    • Mechanical Engineering
    • Nuclear Engineering
    • Aerospace program
    • Engineering Science program
  • News
    • Berkeley Engineer magazine
    • Social media
    • News videos
    • News digest (email)
    • Press kit
  • Events
    • Events calendar
    • Commencement
    • Homecoming
    • Cal Day
    • Space reservations
    • View from the Top
    • Kuh Lecture Series
    • Minner Lecture
  • College directory
  • For staff & faculty
Berkeley Engineering

Educating leaders. Creating knowledge. Serving society.

  • About
    • Facts & figures
    • Rankings
    • Mission & values
    • Equity & inclusion
    • Voices of Berkeley Engineering
    • Leadership team
    • Milestones
    • Buildings & facilities
    • Maps
  • Admissions
    • Undergraduate admissions
    • Graduate admissions
    • New students
    • Visit
    • Maps
    • Admissions events
    • K-12 outreach
  • Academics
    • Undergraduate programs
    • Majors & minors
    • Undergraduate Guide
    • Graduate programs
    • Graduate Guide
    • Innovation & entrepreneurship
    • Kresge Engineering Library
    • International programs
    • Executive education
  • Students
    • New students
    • Advising & counseling
    • ESS programs
    • CAEE academic support
    • Student life
    • Wellness & inclusion
    • Undergraduate Guide
    • > Degree requirements
    • > Policies & procedures
    • Forms & petitions
    • Resources
  • Research & faculty
    • Centers & institutes
    • Undergrad research
    • Faculty
    • Sustainability and resiliency
  • Connect
    • Alumni
    • Industry
    • Give
    • Stay in touch
Home > News > 7 Berkeley engineers among 35 top innovators under 35
Portraits of seven Berkeley engineers named the Top Innovators Under 35 of 2016

7 Berkeley engineers among 35 top innovators under 35

Fall 2016 Berkeley Engineer magazine cover
November 1, 2016
This article appeared in Berkeley Engineer magazine, Fall 2016
  • In this issue

    Features

    Seeing is believing

    Dynamic duo

    New nukes

    Dean’s word

    Upfront

    • Raising rad awareness
    • Nobel (bike) parking
    • Collision-free Cal Band
    • “Who is the Michael Jordan of computer science?”
    • Eco-friendly tiny house
    • Materials database speeds innovation
    • Q+A on homebrewed drugs with John Dueber
    • New home for Fung Institute

    Breakthroughs

    • Next-gen batteries
    • Neural dust
    • Green cities
    • Concrete thinking
    • Brand new glue

    Alumni notes

    • Following the New Sun Road
    • 2 professors among the “7 over 70”
    • 7 Berkeley engineers among 35 top innovators under 35
    • Farewell

    Download this issue

  • Past issues

Five alumni — among seven engineers in all from the college — were named the Top Innovators Under 35 of 2016 by MIT Technology Review.

The alumni are: materials scientist Christine Ho (B.S.’05, M.S.’07, Ph.D.’10 MSE) of Imprint Energy (see page 13); bioengineers Kelly Gardner (Ph.D.’13 BioE) of Zephyrus Biosciences and Dot Laboratories CEO Heather Bowerman (B.S.’06 BioE); and two electrical engineering and computer sciences (EECS) alumni, Alex Hegyi (M.S.’12, Ph.D.’13 CS), now at Xerox’s PARC, and Oriol Vinyals (Ph.D.’13 EECS), now at Google DeepMind. Wei Gao, a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of professor Ali Javey, and newly arrived assistant EECS professor Sergey Levine, former postdoc with EECS professor Pieter Abbeel, also graced the list.

This year’s honorees were featured in the September/October edition of the MIT Technology Review as well as online, and were honored in person at the EmTech MIT fall conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Topics: Honors & awards, Alumni, Bioengineering, Electrical engineering, Materials science
  • Contact
  • Give
  • Privacy
  • UC Berkeley
  • Accessibility
  • Nondiscrimination
  • instagram
  • X logo
  • linkedin
  • facebook
  • youtube
  • bluesky
© 2025 UC Regents