News

Forbes profiles AI pioneer Peter Norvig

01/20/17 Forbes — In a profile of artificial intelligence pioneers, Peter Norvig (Ph.D.'86 CS), director of research at Google, outlines his thoughts on human-machine partnerships and the disparate goals of neuroscience and AI research.

UC Berkeley awarded $2.2 million to strengthen campus entrepreneurship and innovation

01/19/17 — UC Berkeley has been awarded a $2.2 million grant from the State of California to help leading centers and programs accelerate innovation and entrepreneurship on campus.

County-level distributions of Kickstarter campaigns and venture capital investments

Crowdfunding brings innovation to underserved areas

01/18/17 — Crowdfunding platforms, such as Kickstarter, have opened a funding spigot to startups in regions that have suffered from a venture capital drought, a new Berkeley study shows.

Amy Herr to lead Bakar Fellows

01/18/17 — Bioengineering professor, Amy Herr, has been named the faculty director of the Bakar Fellows Program. The program supports the commercialization of faculty-led research with potential for positive impact in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and related areas (STEM+).

Bob Jewett’s double life

01/17/17 — While Bob Jewett (B.S.'75, M.S.'79 EECS) built a career as a corporate engineer, he continued to follow his passion for the physics of billiards.

One big reflective band-aid

01/17/17 — “Post-carbon Future” series: Leslie Field (Ph.D'91 EECS), runs a California-based nonprofit that is developing new technology to slow the melting of ice in the Arctic.

Can fitness apps make us fit?

01/12/17 — Despite tens of thousands of fitness apps already on the market, IEOR grad student Mo Zhou has built another. But hers, currently being tested on UC Berkeley staff and students, aims primarily at determining which app features and functions are most effective in motivating physical activity.

Rahul Mehendiratta working on plastic filament recycling

Empowering communities through sustainability

01/12/17 Medium — Reflow Filament, cofounded by Fung Institute alumnus Rahul Mehendiratta (M.Eng.'14 ME), aims to create a new model for the 3D printing industry that empowers communities and encourages innovation in developing regions worldwide.

Dubón honored for enhancing campus diversity

01/06/17 — Oscar Dubón, MSE professor and the college's associate dean for student affairs and equity & inclusion, has been selected as the winner of UC Berkeley's 2016 Chancellor's Award for Advancing Institutional Excellence and Equity.

Arkin lab method may save lives during blood transfusion

01/05/17 Science Translational Medicine — Bioengineering professor Adam Arkin and collaborators have developed a method, using dynamic modeling, that can quickly calculate individualized blood transfusion requirements during an emergency.

Timothy Downing, Ankur Aggarwal, Thibault Duchemin and Tim Wang

Berkeley engineers named to 30 Under 30

01/04/17 — Forbes magazine's 30 Under 30 list for 2017, a compilation of the brightest young entrepreneurs, innovators and game changers across 20 industries, includes four Berkeley Engineering alumni.

A crystallized version of malonic acid, made by yeast, at Lygos

Clean tech rises again, retooling nature for industrial use

01/04/17 New York Times — Clean tech companies are aiming for a comeback in their quest to use genetic editing to make industrial chemicals. Among them is Lygos, spun out of Berkeley bioengineering in 2011 to create malonic acid from yeast (instead of the usual cyanide) for use in fragrances and cosmetics.

The future of fungi

01/04/17 Berkeley Science Review — Doctoral researcher Sonia Travaglini (M.S.'15 ME) writes about her exploration of the many non-culinary uses of mushrooms, from engineering building blocks and faux leather to bioremediation of toxic waste.

Argonne Lab’s embedded entrepreneurs have Berkeley ties

12/20/16 — Justin Whiteley (B.S.'10 NE & ME) and Ian Hamilton, an alumnus of the Nuclear Innovation Boot Camp, are part of the first cohort for Chain Reaction Innovations, a start-up hub for sustainable energy innovators embedded at Argonne National Laboratory.

Berkeley ranks as #1 U.S. school for coders

12/16/16 HackerRank — In a contest to find the best college coders, run by HackerRank, a learning and competition community for programmers, UC Berkeley was the top-ranked American school and the only U.S. institution to crack the top ten globally.

Ikhlaq Sidhu (right) on the Breakfast program on New Zealand TV

Sutardja Center advances innovation and entrepreneurship Down Under

12/16/16 — As part of a keynote appearance at the Growing Entrepreneurs Summit in New Zealand, Sutardja Center Chief Scientist Ikhlaq Sidhu appeared on New Zealand television, speaking on whether entrepreneurs are born or made and explaining Berkeley's approach to developing entrepreneurs.

Alivisatos and Herr named National Academy of Inventors fellows

12/13/16 — Two Berkeley engineers - nanotechnology pioneer and materials scientist Paul Alivisatos and bioengineer Amy Herr - were among 175 distinguished academic inventors named fellows of the National Academy of Inventors, along with Berkeley chemical engineer Enrique Iglesia.

‘How might we’ design for dialogue?

12/12/16 — On the morning after the election, post-its beginning with the phrase, "How might we" covered a white board in a Jacobs Hall studio - products of an impromptu brainstorming session in Design Methodology - with questions that spanned a wide range of topics, from policy to issues of tolerance, safety and community.

Collegial airspace

12/09/16 — A fast-growing student group has taken to the skies, formalized unmanned aerial vehicle flying on campus and are set to launch an intercollegiate drone-racing league.

Cal’s first industrial engineer?

12/07/16 — In a talk titled “The Ingenuity and Courage of Lillian Gilbreth,” Purdue University professor emeritus Ferdinand Leimkuhler celebrated the pre-IEOR graduate for her engineering ingenuity and her efforts to get more women into the workplace.