News

Making sense of big data

03/12/14 Berkeley Research — Ben Recht is looking for problems. Recht, an assistant professor with dual appointments in EECS and statistics, develops mathematical strategies that help researchers cut through blizzards of data to find what they're after, be they urban planners or online retailers.

Berkeley Engineering garners four No. 1 rankings

03/11/14 U.S. News & World Report — In the U.S. News & World Report rankings of graduate programs released Tuesday, Berkeley Engineering ranked 1st in computer science, environmental engineering, civil engineering, and electrical engineering. Bioengineering moved from 10th to 7th. All programs remain ranked in the top 10.

Do good, be in demand as an engineer

03/11/14 U.S. News & World Report — Berkeley Engineering alum William T. Hagen (M.Eng.'12 ME) is an example of how job prospects in fields that allow engineers to help the world – such as energy, civil and mechanical engineering – are projected to grow.

Scientists ‘herd’ cells in new approach to tissue engineering

03/11/14 — Berkeley engineers have found that an electrical current can be used to orchestrate the flow of a group of cells. This achievement sets the stage for more controlled forms of tissue engineering and for potential applications such as “smart bandages” that use electrical stimulation to help heal wounds.

Indian company licenses invention for arsenic-free water

03/10/14 Berkeley Lab — Berkeley researchers, led by Ashok Gadgil and Susan Amrose of civil and environmental engineering, have developed technology that uses electricity to remove arsenic from groundwater, where it can be a silent killer. More importantly, they have created a business model and partnered with a company in India to improve the technology's chances for longevity.

Ashok Gadgil with his Berkeley-Darfur stove

Gadgil’s inventions win him spot in hall of fame

03/04/14 National Inventors Hall of Fame — Ashok Gadgil, professor of civil and environmental engineering, had been inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Gadgil was honored for two inventions that have helped millions of people in remote areas: UV Waterworks, a low-powered water disinfection system that uses UV light to kill pathogens, and the Berkeley-Darfur Stove, which reduces fuel demands of those in displacement camps.

Bacteria interacting with a nanostructure

Scientists show which surfaces attract clingy Staph bacteria

03/04/14 Berkeley Lab — Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley researchers are investigating how shapes and surface texture influence the adhesion of infectious Staphylococcus Aureus bacteria. Their work, led by Mohammad Mofrad, a Berkeley Lab faculty scientist and a professor of bioengineering and mechanical engineering at UC Berkeley, could guide the development of bacteria-resistant materials.

Reducing the risk of earthquake collapse in California cities

03/04/14 Contra Costa Times — In a guest commentary, four California professors, including Berkeley Engineering's Jack Moehle, write about their joint research into the seismic risks posed by older concrete buildings, and the methods and costs of mitigating that risk.

Researchers with energy-mapping backpack

Berkeley team takes its energy innovation to Capitol Hill

02/28/14 — A research team from Berkeley Engineering and the Berkeley Lab appeared on Capitol Hill Thursday to show off their innovation in energy efficiency: a backpack-mounted system for quickly mapping energy use throughout a building and identifying ways to reduce it

Women missing out on lucrative careers in computer science

02/27/14 SiliconValley.com — A special report on women in computing profiles Ayushi Samaddar (B.S.'13 EECS), having a "marvelous" time in her first post-graduation job as an associate software engineer, and talks to EECS chair David Culler about the need to involve more women in shaping information technology, "something that is so important to our future."

What does an ‘energy transition’ look like?

02/27/14 National Geographic — On National Geographic's Great Energy Challenge blog, Daniel Kammen, professor of energy and society at Berkeley Engineering, talks about first-hand experience with the kind of dramatic transition to a clean-energy economy that he studies as director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory.

Portable potables: How to fight drought by reusing water

02/26/14 National Public Radio — David Sedlak, professor of civil and environmental engineering, talks with NPR's All Things Considered about the many methods of capturing and reusing drinking water.

For this software engineer, computer science is ‘key to the world’

02/25/14 San Jose Mercury News — Ayushi Samaddar (B.S.'13 EECS), having a "marvelous" time in her first post-graduation job as an associate software engineer at Pleasanton's Workday, would love to see more women follow her into the traditionally male-dominated field.

Astronaut Rex Walheim with a Berkeley pennant

Rex Walheim – NASA astronaut and Berkeley engineer

02/24/14 Insight@Berkeley — Rex Walheim (B.S.'84 ME), veteran of more than 500 hours in space, talks about the value of tenacity, the power of passion, and the need for engineers to lay down their computers and polish their people skills.

In Memoriam: Electron microscopist Gareth Thomas

02/19/14 Berkeley Lab — Gareth Thomas, founder of Berkeley Lab's National Center for Electron Microscopy (NCEM), a professor emeritus of materials science and engineering at UC Berkeley, and one of the world's foremost experts on electron microscopy, passed away on February 7. He was 81.

Time is now for a new revolution in urban water systems

02/18/14 — As California grapples with what state water officials have called a drought of "epic proportions," UC Berkeley urban-water expert David Sedlak, a professor of civil and environmental engineering, has been watching for signs that people are ready for a water revolution.

Revamped computer science classes attracting more women

02/18/14 San Francisco Chronicle — A gender flip in computer science classes -- with more women than men enrolled in an introductory course -- shows UC Berkeley at the vanguard of a tech world shift, beginning to see a payoff in efforts to attract more women to a field where they have always been vastly underrepresented.

Berkeley, Stanford, UCLA, Caltech unite to boost number of minority Ph.D. students, faculty

02/13/14 — An unprecedented alliance formed among four elite West Coast universities aims to remedy a seemingly intractable nationwide problem: Too few underrepresented minority Ph.D. students in the mathematical, physical and computer sciences and in engineering are advancing to postdoctoral and faculty ranks at top-tier research universities.

Congratulations to our colleagues

02/12/14 — As we start off the new year, I'm delighted to share with you some great news regarding several of my distinguished colleagues here at Berkeley Engineering.

Berkeley Lab scientist Baptiste Dafflon collects electromagnetic data

The underground: Studying the Arctic tundra

02/12/14 — Normally, scientists don't have to worry about a polar bear charging them at 30 miles per hour. But this can be a big safety concern for researchers in Barrow, Alaska, where geophysicist Susan Hubbard (Ph.D'98 CEE) studies the Arctic ecosystem to improve climate modeling.