News

Two engineering faculty named Sloan Research Fellows

02/12/20 — Sanjam Garg, an assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences (EECS), and Aditya Parameswaran, who has a joint appointment in EECS and the School of Information, were among nine Berkeley faculty members to win the prestigious research honor.

Two Berkeley Engineering professors named to NAE

02/06/20 — Per Peterson and Paulo Monteiro are among 78 Berkeley Engineering faculty members in the National Academy of Engineering

Berkeley’s data science division gets fresh new name

02/05/20 — The Division of Computing, Data Science and Society (CDSS) is the permanent name of Berkeley's interdisciplinary division launched in November 2018.

Technology developed by Berkeley robotics researchers put to real world use

01/29/20 New York Times — Covariant, an AI robotics company built on research that began at Berkeley, is garnering attention in the world of industrial automation.

Is spaghetti the key to building a better robot?

01/22/20 — Studying how spaghetti reacts to water might offer clues to how robots built from flexible materials can better mimic human movement, according to Oliver O'Reilly, professor of mechanical engineering.

Berkeley professor Doug Tygar, leading expert in cybersecurity and privacy, has died

01/17/20 I School — Doug Tygar, professor of computer sciences and information management, died on Thursday, Jan. 16, at the age of 57. Over his 20-year tenure at UC Berkeley, he made key contributions in the areas of computer security, cryptography, privacy and digital rights management.

French ambassador says global institutions needed to confront technology challenges

01/16/20 — Philippe Étienne said the quickening pace of technological change requires nations to immediately build “shared governance” of the internet through both existing and perhaps new global institutions.

UC Berkeley professor influences Facebook’s efforts to combat deepfakes

01/14/20 — The social media giant hired Hany Farid to help it detect fake videos, but Farid says company's new policy is problematic.

New discovery makes it easier to design synthetic proteins that rival their natural counterparts

01/08/20 — Researchers have created a synthetic membrane that could transform fields including medicine, life sciences, alternative energy and environmental science.

Tarek Zohdi named 2019 AAM Fellow

01/02/20 American Academy of Mechanics — Tarek Zohdi, Chancellor's Professor and Will C. Hall Endowed Chair in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, has been named the 2019 Fellow of the American Academy of Mechanics. This is an honor accorded to only one person per year in the country.

Anyscale co-founders Robert Nishihara, Ion Stoica and Philipp Moritz

Grad students, Databricks founder tackle programming challenge

12/17/19 Business Insider — RISELab spinoff Anyscale is building tools and infrastructure to run distributed applications, the next really hard problem for big data programmers.

Ceder peeks into the battery pipeline

12/16/19 Berkeley Lab — From cobalt-free to sodium-ion, Berkeley Lab scientist and MSE professor Gerbrand Ceder evaluates some of the most promising battery technologies in development.

Vacuum chamber used to test heat transfer

Heat energy leaps through empty space, thanks to quantum weirdness

12/11/19 — In a surprising new study, Berkeley researchers led by Xiang Zhang, professor of mechanical engineering, showed that heat energy can travel through a complete vacuum due to invisible quantum fluctuations, a discovery that could have profound implications for the design of computer chips.

Female students viewing a laptop screen as part of CS KickStart

Diversity initiatives help change the face of computer science

12/09/19 — Berkeley's population of burgeoning computer scientists has recently grown a lot more diverse, thanks in part to a series of programs that were launched to support women and underrepresented minorities in computer science.

Chenming Hu awarded IEEE Medal of Honor

12/06/19 IEEE — The electrical engineering and computer sciences professor emeritus was recognized for his distinguished work with semiconductor models, particularly 3D device structures.

Sustainable sand gives pollution a one-two punch

12/05/19 — Berkeley engineers have developed a mineral-coated sand that can soak up toxic metals like lead and cadmium from water.

Jupiter’s Great Red Spot not dying

12/03/19 NBC News — After studying the behavior of Jupiter's famous Great Red Spot with computer simulations, Berkeley researchers, led by mechanical engineering professor Philip Marcus, say there is no evidence that the giant storm is dying, despite observations over the past decade suggesting it is shrinking.

AI-powered Berkeley robot among Popular Science’s ‘Best of What’s New’

12/03/19 — Pieter Abbeel, professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences, led a team of researchers to develop Blue, the Berkeley robot for Learning in Unstructured Environments.

Abergel, Schaffer named to AAAS

11/26/19 — Rebecca Abergel, assistant professor of nuclear engineering, and David Schaffer, professor of bioengineering and of chemical and biomolecular engineering, are among five Berkeley faculty members named new fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Students share project demos during the CS KickStart program for incoming students interested in computer science

Hopper-Dean Foundation gift of $2M bolsters EECS diversity initiatives

11/20/19 — The Hopper-Dean Foundation has awarded $2 million over two years to the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences in support of diversity initiatives in computer science.