Seven Berkeley engineers honored as 2022 Siebel Scholars

Seven Berkeley engineers have been named to the Siebel Scholars Foundation’s 2022 class. The graduate students — five from bioengineering and two from computer science — are among more than 90 selected worldwide for their academic achievements and demonstrated leadership.

The Siebel Scholars program annually recognizes top students at the world’s leading graduate schools of bioengineering, business, computer science and energy science. Now in its 21st year, the program awards each student a $35,000 scholarship. More than 1,500 of the world’s brightest minds are Siebel Scholars.

“We are very proud to see these talented students receive this prestigious award,” said Tsu-Jae King Liu, dean and Roy W. Carlson professor of engineering at Berkeley. “The program will give them opportunities to hone their research skills and broaden their perspective, to prepare them to be effective leaders in addressing the world’s most pressing challenges. I look forward to seeing all that these scholars will accomplish in the future.”

Meet the 2022 class of Siebel Scholars at Berkeley:

Sagnik Bhattacharya is discovering why deep neural networks learn difficult problems so well by studying their loss surfaces using techniques from differential and algebraic topology.

Kristen L. Cotner is focused on developing innovative microfluidic technologies that can analyze both the biomolecular and mechanical properties of single cells at high throughput.

K.L. Barry Fung is investigating zero radiation and highly sensitive immune tracking using magnetic particle imaging through the characterization of novel super resolution methods and in vivo preclinical experiments.

Kazuomori Lewis works with AAV-mediated gene delivery and is using high throughput screens to identify short synthetic promoters that increase our tools to address unmet needs in gene therapy.

Alden Moss is interested in the development of devices and assays for the diagnosis and study of disease at the cellular and molecular levels, including microfluidic technologies, cell biology and bioconjugate chemistry.

Jay Shenoy is broadly interested in computer vision and computational photography. Past research projects included the creation of an imaging and display device that directly stimulates the cone cells of the human retina.

Soo Hyun Shin is developing molecular MRI techniques to discover novel imaging biomarkers that can be used to noninvasively and quantitatively characterize renal pathophysiology.

The Siebel Scholars Foundation made the announcement today.