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From Kenya to California

03/05/13 — Growing up in western Kenya, Lilian Kabelle had always dreamed of going to Berkeley-only 10,000 miles, an acceptance letter and the means stood in her way. Now, as a MasterCard Foundation Scholar, Kabelle is attending Berkeley at no cost as part of a $500 million education initiative to provide full scholarships for students in developing countries who exemplify a “give back” ethos.

Bob Bea, the master of disaster

02/25/13 Men's Journal — Civil engineering professor Bob Bea, who leads off testimony this week in the trial of BP and other companies involved in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout, is profiled for his work as "the nation's foremost forensic engineer ... the guy to call when levees break or oil rigs explode – to sift through the wreckage, assign blame, and try to prevent the same mistakes again."

‘Sprawl-Tuned’ insect bot skitters all over the place

02/22/13 IEEE Spectrum — Berkeley's Biomimetic Millisystems Lab has posted a video of a new, six-legged robot called STAR, for Sprawl-Tuned Autonomous Robot. The tiny mechanism can adapt its limbs to scramble over and under obstacles and run along smooth and rough surfaces.

Former dean David Hodges honored by Silicon Valley engineers

02/22/13 Silicon Valley Engineering Council — David Hodges, professor emeritus of electrical engineering and computer sciences and former dean of the College of Engineering, was one of four eminent technologists inducted into the Silicon Valley Engineering Hall of Fame at this week's SVEC Engineers Week banquet.

Who should share the responsibility for sustainability?

02/19/13 Environmental Leader — In a blog post for environmental and energy managers, David Dornfeld, professor and chair of mechanical engineering, writes about finding ways to include all the costs of a product into the price the consumer pays, insuring that everyone pays their “fair share” and encouraging innovation.

The science of bionic limbs

02/18/13 NBC TV — NBC Learn's Science of Innovation series for teachers focuses on the creation of robotic exoskeletons by mechanical engineering professor Homayoon Kazerooni and his team at the Berkeley Robotics and Human Engineering Laboratory.

SkyDeck wins Catalyst Award

02/15/13 Haas Newsroom — SkyDeck, the UC Berkeley startup accelerator in downtown Berkeley, won the Catalyst Award at the first-ever East Bay Innovation Awards celebration. The year-old SkyDeck is a collaboration between the College of Engineering, the Haas School of Business, and the Vice Chancellor for Research Office.

Manufacturing: Innovation’s secret sauce

02/07/13 — Thanks to our new master of engineering program and other initiatives, we're educating a new generation of entrepreneurial engineers with transformative products and services in mind. But to drive these innovative ideas to market, they will need manufacturing know-how as well.

Compressing breast cancer

02/07/13 — Berkeley engineers, in collaboration with scientists from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, have put the squeeze - literally - on malignant mammary cells to guide them back into a normal growth pattern. The work, led by bioengineering professor Daniel Fletcher, shows for the first time that mechanical forces alone can stop the out-of-control growth of cancer cells.

Sink or swim

02/07/13 — To test new modeling software from DARPA, teams of students from mechanical engineering professor Homayoon Kazerooni's ME 102B mechatronics design class spent months building a fleet of amphibious vehicles, along with other inventions and novel devices. Then in early December, they put their creations to the test on the soggy volleyball court behind Soda Hall - with splashy results.

A new loo

02/07/13 — Answering a challenge from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to improve sanitation in developing countries, environmental engineering professor Kara Nelson and postdoctoral researcher Temitope Ogunyoku have developed a toilet that safely disinfects waste. Their hand-cranked pHree Loo yields “safe sludge” that does not endanger human health.

Berkeley students make finals for Disney design competition

01/30/13 Daily Californian — A trio of UC Berkeley students, including Kathryn Moore from Mechanical Engineering and Andrew Lin from Bioengineering, have made it to the finals of a national Disney-sponsored design competition with their plan for SAMM-E, a robot-turned-food-truck.

Fastest-turning robot from EECS lab uses tail to take corners

01/29/13 New Scientist — A tail-swinging robot, developed by Nick Kohut and colleagues in Ron Fearing's Biomimetic Millisystems Lab, can turn precisely without slowing down, allowing it to corner more rapidly than any other legged robot to date. This video from New Scientist TV shows it in action.

New bioengineering master’s degree approved

01/24/13 — Berkeley's Master of Engineering program now includes a track in bioengineering. The one-year program integrates engineering and entrepreneurship, preparing graduates for industry leadership. February 1 is the deadline to apply for fall 2013.

BioE alumna advising legislator through science and technology fellowship

01/22/13 Daily Cal — An-Chi Tsou (Ph.D. '12), who received her doctorate from the UC Berkeley-UCSF Bioengineering Graduate Program, is serving in the office of Assemblymember Rob Bonta, D-Oakland, as a health and science adviser. Tsou is one of 10 scientists and engineers appointed to one-year advisory posts by the California Science and Technology Policy Fellowship.

EECS team to lead $27.5 million TerraSwarm Research Center

01/17/13 TerraSwarm — A nine-university team led by researchers in Berkeley's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences has been awarded $27.5 million over five years to spearhead the new TerraSwarm Research Center, which will address the huge potential - and risks - of the pervasive integration of smart, networked sensors connecting our world.

Engineering alum’s startup creates ultrathin batteries

01/10/13 San Francisco Chronicle — Imprint Energy, an Alameda startup co-founded by Engineering alumna Christine Ho, B.S. '05, M.S. '07, Ph.D. '10 MSE, is developing zinc-based batteries that are slim, flexible, powerful, and just might free gadget makers from the constraints of standard rechargeable batteries.

Physicist Art Rosenfeld to receive National Medal of Technology & Innovation

01/03/13 Berkeley Lab — President Barack Obama has named UC Berkeley and LBNL physicist Arthur Rosenfeld one of this year's 11 recipients of the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. Rosenfeld is often called the “godfather of energy efficiency” because of his pioneering work on reducing the nation's energy usage.

Flexing fingers for micro-robotics

12/19/12 Berkeley Lab — Researchers with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Berkeley Engineering have developed an elegant and powerful new microscale actuator that can flex like a tiny beckoning finger in response to a small temperature variation