News

Design Note: Björn Hartmann on design, teamwork and expertise

12/08/14 berkeleyByte — In an interview with the student-run berkeleyByte design blog, Björn Hartmann of EECS and the Jacobs Institute discusses what led him to human-computer interaction, where he thinks design education is heading, and the importance of interdisciplinarity.

Smithsonian creates first-ever 3-D presidential portrait

12/04/14 Smithsonian Institution — EECS alumnus Paul Debevec and a team of 3-D imaging specialists led by the Smithsonian Institution created the first 3-D presidential portrait for Barack Obama, assembling a high-speed system with eight cameras and 50 LED lights at the White House to capture the president's facial features in detail.

Students at Emerson Elementary School with tutors from the LEARNS Program

Cal students make crowd-funding site for Berkeley schools

12/02/14 Berkeleyside — A crowdfunding website, build by Berkeley Engineering computer science students from the Blueprint club, is helping teachers in the Berkeley public schools raise money for everything from books to robotics kits.

Emmunify team member Jessica Watterson in New Delhi with an outreach worker to conduct a usability test.

Project uses tech to help boost vaccination rates in India

12/02/14 — UC Berkeley students from public health and EECS are creating a new tool to store patient vaccination records on a portable chip, which could soon make it far easier for children in developing nations to get life-saving vaccines.

Kiva robot moving goods in an Amazon warehouse in Tracy, CA

Meet Amazon’s busiest employee — the Kiva robot

12/02/14 CNET — As consumers buy more from the Internet's largest retailer, it keeps up by outfitting warehouses with robots that work at speeds humans can't. "Robots are essential for meeting that kind of demand,"says Berkeley Engineering robotics professor Ken Goldberg.

A screen fix for vision-impaired among top 10 world-changing ideas of 2014

11/25/14 Scientific American — Technology to pre-correct displays on computer screens for vision-impaired users, developed by professor Brian Barsky in collaboration with MIT colleagues, has been named one of the top 10 “world-changing ideas” of 2014 by Scientific American magazine.

Self-driven to solve transportation problems

11/21/14 San Jose Mercury News — Mechanical engineering professor Karl Hedrick, director of Berkeley's Vehicle Dynamics Laboratory, has spent decades researching the nonlinear control systems that set the foundation for today's smart cars.

Bioengineer Zeleznick selected for Silicon Valley Bank Trek

11/21/14 Silicon Valley Bank Trek — Bioengineering undergraduate Zachary Zeleznick was one of 18 students from around the country selected to participate in the 2014 Silicon Valley Bank Trek. The Trek brings together top student innovators for a 3-day series of events with a “who's who” of influential investors and entrepreneurs in the tech community.

Engineering’s Fiona Doyle named new dean of the Graduate Division

11/21/14 — Fiona Doyle, Berkeley Engineering's executive associate dean, has been named dean of the Graduate Division for UC Berkeley, a position she will take over Jan. 1. Doyle, the Donald H. McLaughlin Professor of Mineral Engineering, has been at Berkeley since 1983, serving in many leadership capacities.

The unknown start-up that built Google’s first self-driving car

11/20/14 IEEE Spectrum — The story behind Google's innovative self-driving car and the revolutionary Street View camera technology that preceded begins with 510 Systems, a tiny Berkeley start-up launched by IEOR grad (and later Google engineer) Anthony Levandowski and fellow Berkeley Engineering student Bryon Majusiak.

Stabilizing Strawberry Creek

11/17/14 — New construction repairs antiquated erosion control systems.

Professors honored for excellence in semiconductor technology and design research

11/13/14 Semiconductor Industry Association — Tsu-Jae King Liu, EECS chair and TSMC Distinguished Professor in Microelectronics, and engineering professor Kenneth O of UT Dallas have received University Research Awards from the Semiconductor Industry Association in recognition of their outstanding contributions to semiconductor research.

Ekso Bionics receives first NIH grant for CHORI partnership

11/12/14 Today's Medical Developments — Ekso Bionics Holdings Inc., founded by mechanical engineering professor Homayoon Kazerooni and ME graduate Nathan Harding, has been awarded a P20 Exploratory Grant from the National Institutes of Health to continue development of an exoskeleton prototype for children. The work will be done in collaboration with the pediatric rehabilitation department at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland.

What’s the Big Give?

11/10/14 —

Cookstove case study

11/07/14 — Students in the new development engineering class make lunch on cookstoves.

Synthetic biology could be big boost to interplanetary space travel

11/06/14 — Genetically engineered microbes could help make manned missions to Mars, the moon and other planets more practical, according to a new analysis by UC Berkeley bioengineers and NASA scientists.

Supercharging more electric cars risks crashing the grid

11/05/14 California magazine — U.S. electrical grids might not be ready for the new wave of electric vehicles expected within the decade. But the Smart Cities Research Center in civil and environmental engineering is working on data-driven ways to prevent a grid meltdown.