News

A (Golden) Bear of a Bridge

08/02/08 — It's the size of a theater catwalk and weighs just 142 pounds. But the gently arched bridge -- designed, built and ambitiously named "Calatrava" by Cal engineering students -- is the new heavyweight champ of collegiate bridge building. The 21-foot-long span swept a field of 42 finalists on May 23-24 to capture top honors at the 2008 National Student Steel Bridge

New Beginnings

06/02/08 — On May 24, I participated in my first commencement as dean of Berkeley Engineering. It filled me with pride to watch 1,045 excited and rain-soaked graduates walk, dance or otherwise cross the Greek Theatre stage to celebrate their success in completing some of the most difficult majors UC Berkeley has to offer.

Radical Transparency

06/02/08 — Someday, you might read the morning's news headlines on the back of your cereal box. That's the latest possibility demonstrated by the EECS Organic Electronics Group. They have recently been experimenting with zinc oxide, a familiar ingredient in sunblock and diaper cream that has the special properties of working as a semiconductor while also being 93 percent transparent. The researchers already have a palette of inks that can deposit conducting, semiconducting and insulating materials-the building blocks of all solid-state electronics-on a variety of surfaces.

Striking a Nerve

06/02/08 — Nanofibers that create a miniature scaffold for growing cells could soon help patients regenerate severed nerves in their arms and legs, says Shyam Patel, chief scientific officer for a Fremont startup called NanoNerve. Patel is developing a synthetic graft intended to guide neurons across gaps and restore lost connections in nerves serving limbs and other parts of the peripheral nervous system. In the United States alone, an estimated 800,000 people a year experience peripheral nerve injuries that require surgery and that can lead to a loss of sensation and movement. The new device-a flexible conduit that resembles a slender white straw-could open a new treatment option.

A Remedy for Deadly Water

06/02/08 — In Bangladesh last year, Johanna Mathieu saw unmistakable signs of the poisoning afflicting the impoverished country. "Everyone would show us their hands," says the 26-year-old doctoral student in mechanical engineering. The painful and disfiguring sores, blisters and dark spots are telltale indicators of the deadly toll exacted by arsenic-laced water wells. Mathieu is working with an interdisciplinary group to develop a simple, inexpensive process for removing the toxic element from the water supply.

A Hub of Sustainability

05/02/08 — There were plenty of clues around campus that April was Earth Month: tree plantings, conferences and summits, awarding of Sustainability Awards and granting of Green Initiative grants. But the maturity of UC Berkeley as a hub of sustainability awareness and action goes far deeper; Berkeley marks Earth Day every day, and its efforts are being felt on campus and far beyond.

Genealogical Conclusions

05/02/08 — There are about six billion base pairs in the human genome, and our family tree includes about six billion living humans. So, although DNA sequencing begins in a laboratory, it requires research-level computer science and statistics to crunch the resulting mass of data and make sense of the results. As EECS and statistics professor Yun Song remarks, “Just 15 years ago, it was very difficult for population genetics researchers to run their computationally intensive analyses on desktop computers. It's thanks to relatively recent improvements in computers and algorithms that these problems have become tractable.”

Building a Better Mouse

05/02/08 — Computer mice are a weighty matter for BingYune Chen. Chen, a senior who graduates this month in bioengineering, is studying how weight affects the speed, accuracy and ease of use of a computer mouse. “It's a new issue,” says the 22-year-old Chen, who helped conduct a pilot project as an undergraduate researcher at the UCSF–UCB Ergonomics Laboratory, where he is now an employee. While extensive research has been done on the design of computer mice, Chen says, little is known about mouse weight and its impact on performance.

Wired for Success

05/02/08 — For Berkeley-trained Sung-Mo "Steve" Kang, the work of a university chancellor is a lot like engineering. "Think of integrated circuits," says Kang (Ph.D. '75 EECS), who in March began his second year at the helm of UC Merced. Just as a chip relies on a network of connections to operate smoothly, so does a college campus. With that in mind, Kang is taking a collaborative approach to building his young institution into a world-class research university.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained

04/02/08 — Yes, it is a bold foreign partnership that has generated considerable controversy. But it is also an unprecedented opportunity for UC Berkeley to get involved at ground level in building a new research university, performing stellar multinational research, and facilitating constructive relationships in the Middle East.

Down to the Wire

04/02/08 — For years, nanoengineers have known how to create tiny wire transistors, sensors, light emitters and other useful components, but there's been no sure way to assemble them into integrated circuits because they're too small to manipulate. “You could look at things under a microscope, but you couldn't touch them,” explains EECS professor Ming Wu. But Wu and his research group have developed “optoelectronic tweezers” that can individually address wires and other nanoscale objects and convey them to precise locations. This has been the field's most challenging problem, and solving it paves the way for an entire class of devices from microdisplays to medical imaging tools.

A search giant

04/02/08 — It's no surprise that a Google search for Peter Norvig turns up tens of thousands of hits. Norvig (Ph.D. '86 EECS) literally wrote the book on artificial intelligence, coauthoring a bestselling textbook on the subject with Professor Stuart Russell in 1995. As the senior computer scientist at NASA Ames Research Center, he led the team that developed the remote artificial intelligence software that flew aboard the Deep Space 1 spacecraft in 1999. And today, as Google's director of research, Norvig is transforming the way information is organized and accessed on the Web.

A Doctor in the (Jazz) House

04/02/08 — George Ban-Weiss will soon have a new title to accompany his growing fame in Bay Area jazz circles. The professional bass player is about to become a Ph.D. Having performed at such venues as Yoshi's in Oakland, the Jazz Bakery in Los Angeles, and Smalls in New York City, Ban-Weiss expects to receive his doctorate in mechanical engineering from UC Berkeley in May. The 27-year-old is wrapping up research exploring emissions from gas and diesel vehicles and their respective impact on air quality.

Road Test

03/02/08 — UC Berkeley just conducted an unprecedented collaborative experiment involving 100 cars equipped with GPS-enabled cell phones to monitor real-time traffic flow over a seven-hour period on a 10-mile stretch of I-880. You can read more details about the project and its success in Abby Cohn's delightful story in this month's issue.

Debugging Election Codes

03/02/08 — Are voting machines secure? Not according to EECS professor David Wagner. Wagner, a computer security expert, explains that the main problem with current voting machines is that they are built on top of standard, non-secure computer hardware and operating systems. To ensure proper security for something as important as a voting machine, the security must be designed into the system from the ground up. Superficially, voting machines seem like ATMs. But what makes voting machines much more difficult, Wagner explains, is the secret ballot. A trustworthy system must break the link between the voter and votes in a way that cannot be reversed.

Rethinking Risks

03/02/08 — Early in his career, Network Appliance cofounder James Lau ventured out in hopes of developing one of the first hand-held personal computers. His PDA would have used a stylus to enter notes, appointments and other data, but after six months of work in 1991, he scrapped the project. But Lau never regretted his unsuccessful quest. When it comes to innovation, “there's no guarantee,” he says. “That's part of the exploration. You just need to move on.” Move on, he did. Today, Network Appliance has Fortune 1000 status, and last month James Lau received the 2007 Berkeley Engineering Innovation Award for lifetime achievement.

Dial “T” for Traffic

03/02/08 — On February 8, 26-year-old mechanical engineering student Kenneth Armijo hit the road in a unique experiment exploring the use of GPS-equipped cell phones as traffic monitors. Nearly 150 UC Berkeley students were behind-the-wheel participants in the “Mobile Century” test. Navigating a fleet of 100 cars carrying special mobile phones, the student drivers traveled up and down a 10-mile stretch of the Nimitz Freeway for more than seven hours. The result was a computerized map bristling with tiny flags for each car and its velocity, creating a detailed picture of actual traffic conditions.

Students Grab Gold with Bacteria-to-Blood Project

02/02/08 — A team of Cal undergraduates has demonstrated how genetically modified E. coli bacteria might be converted into a cheap-and safe-blood substitute. The engineered product, called “Bactoblood,” addresses a global shortage of human blood for transfusions, particularly in developing countries and emergency situations, the young developers say.

The State of Engineering

02/02/08 — When the governor speaks about our profession, we listen. In the run-up to his January state of the state address, Governor Schwarzenegger invoked some startling statistics about our engineering workforce and proposed a plan to fortify it.

Hard-Hitting Research

02/02/08 — For 10 years, mechanical engineering professor Dennis Lieu moonlighted as an instructor in the martial art of taekwondo. Concerned about safety, he began testing commercial martial arts headgear that had become standard and required for competitions. His results were startling: many of the helmets failed his tests and would not prevent injuries. His continued research has produced the first technical standard for martial arts protective headgear.