News

Would you trust a robot surgeon to operate on you?

06/02/16 IEEE Spectrum — The role of surgeons may change dramatically as more and more surgical tasks are automated within the next 10 years, says Ken Goldberg, a roboticist and professor of industrial engineering who recently programmed a da Vinci surgical robot in his lab to conduct surgical incisions.

The faith and science of Georges Lemaître

06/02/16 America — Karl van Bibber, nuclear engineering chair, cosmologist and practicing Catholic, discusses his own work and that of priest-scientist Georges Lemaître, father of the Big Bang theory.

10 game-changing grad student startups

06/02/16 Medium — A roundup from the University of California features two startups - Bolt Threads' "stronger-than-steel" synthetic silk, and Eko Devices' digital recorder for stethoscopes - that emerged from Berkeley Engineering research.

Development engineering journal launches

06/02/16 SciDevNet — The online journal Development Engineering, which covers technological solutions to extreme poverty, launched at a recent conference in Switzerland. Civil and environmental engineering professor Ashok Gadgil is co-editor in chief.

Nuclear engineering postdocs explain DoseNet to high school science students in Moraga, CA

Radiation 101: DoseNet delivers environmental data as an educational tool

05/25/16 Berkeley Lab — Stretching from East Bay high school science clubs to a Japanese city hall, DoseNet measures natural background radiation levels as an international education and outreach project, run by UC Berkeley nuclear engineering faculty and postdocs working with Berkeley Lab researchers.

On the road to driverless cars

05/24/16 Berkeley Science Review — How Berkeley research, including foundational work by PATH plus recent advances in engineering and computer science, is fundamental to industry progress on automated transportation.

Congratulations 2016 graduates!

05/23/16 — Congratulations to the Berkeley Engineering Class of 2016.

This is how cities of the future will get their energy

05/23/16 Washington Post — In a paper written for Science magazine, UC Berkeley professor of energy and resources, public policy and nuclear engineering Daniel Kammen explores the potential for using renewable energy technologies in urban areas to promote low-carbon, resilient and livable cities.

President Obama awards national medals to Alivisatos, Hu

05/20/16 — President Barack Obama honored two UC Berkeley faculty members at the White House, awarding chemist Paul Alivisatos with the National Medal of Science and electrical engineer Chenming Hu with the National Medal of Technology and Innovation.

What you see is what you’ve got

05/17/16 — Bioengineering & EECS professor Steven Conolly and his lab are world leaders in development of a new nanoparticle-based medical imaging procedure, Magnetic Particle Imaging.

frugal cast prototype, made from soda bottle and shoelace

An ecosystem of impact

05/17/16 Medium — After a semester in which nearly 30 courses took place in Jacobs Hall, the Jacobs Spring Design Showcase offered a look at how an interdisciplinary ecosystem at Berkeley is fostering a focus on design for real impact.

Carlo Séquin, Anca Dragan and Paul Alivisatos

A college of arts AND sciences

05/11/16 — UC Berkeley is rich in both celebrated and hidden artistic talent, including a trio of engineering professors: computer scientist and geometric sculptor Carlo Séquin, roboticist and Lindy hop dancer Anca Dragan, and research vice chancellor and photographer Paul Alivisatos.

Postdoctoral researcher Florence Bonvin and David Sedlak use liquid chromatography as one of their tools to track chemical contaminants in water supplies

Hazards and opportunities in the pipeline

05/10/16 Berkeley Research — Environmental engineering professor David Sedlak, whose book Water 4.0 calls for a new revolution in urban water systems, is studying the fate of chemical contaminants in wastewater, seeking better ways to treat and clean the water we depend on.

Susan Shaheen speaking at the Smart City Challenge kickoff

San Francisco, UC Berkeley team up to tackle transit challenges

05/05/16 — UC Berkeley transportation researchers joined San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee in inviting the region's tech companies to join the Smart City Challenge, a Department of Transportation competition that could bring $40 million to the city and UC Berkeley to create the nation's first smart transportation network.

MOOC pioneer Armando Fox cited for leadership in education

05/05/16 Association for Computing Machinery — EECS professor Armando Fox, a trailblazer in technology-enhanced education and the Massive Online Open Courses field, has been selected to receive the Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award from the Association for Computing Machinery.

Siebel Energy Institute announces new grant winners

05/05/16 Marketwired — The Siebel Engineering Institute has awarded a second set of $50,000 seed grants to teams developing proposals that accelerate energy science research. The fifteen teams include two Berkeley Engineers, structural engineering professor Stephan Mahin (a lead researcher) and IEOR's Anil Aswani.