News

Data and development: The Mezuri platform

02/25/15 Blum Center — Computer science professor Eric Brewer, leader of the Technology and Infrastructure for Emerging Regions (TIER) group, talks about his platform to better understand development projects through integrated data analysis.

John Dueber (right) and bioengineering graduate student Zach Russ examine a culture of indigo-producing E. coli bacteria.

Greener blue jeans

02/23/15 Berkeley Research — The indigo that dyes your favorite pair of jeans blue is wildly popular, but very "dirty" to synthesize chemically. Bioengineering professor and Bakar fellow John Dueber thinks he has found an environmentally green way for industry to churn out the dye without toxic compounds.

Engineers Week 2015

02/23/15 — Engineers Week (EWeek), a national celebration of science and technology, is underway February 23-27 on campus.

Decision analytics program announced

02/18/15 — Announcing a new part-time, evening program in data-driven decision analytics.

A drop to drink

02/18/15 — Susan Amrose, a lecturer in the civil and environmental engineering department, is developing a modular and scalable technology to remove arsenic from drinking water.

Ana Claudia Arias with a printed electronic circuit

Wearable circuits could extend MRI’s reach

02/13/15 Berkeley Research — EECS associate professor Ana Claudia Arias is creating new wearable electronics based on printed circuits, to allow easier and better MRI imaging of sick infants, among others.

Engineering the spark that starts the wildfire

02/11/15 National Science Foundation — Hot metal fragments cast off by power lines, overheated brakes or other common sources can ignite a blaze if they land on the right fuel source. Now Berkeley mechanical engineers, supported by the NSF, are learning what ingredients and conditions cause this type of spot fire ignition.

Thanking the Academy

02/10/15 — James O'Brien, an EECS professor, walks the red carpet for a technical achievement award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Breakthrough Technologies to Shape Our Future

02/10/15 — Arati Prabhakar, director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), will deliver a View From the Top lecture, “Breakthrough Technologies to Shape Our Future,” on campus this Friday, Feb. 13, 2015.

Per Peterson appointed executive associate dean

02/06/15 — Per Peterson, the William and Jean McCallum Floyd Professor in the nuclear engineering department, has joined the college's leadership team as executive associate dean.

Berkeley, Stanford excel at producing VC-backed entrepreneurs

02/05/15 Tech Cocktail — A report from the research firm PitchBook shows that Stanford and UC Berkeley rank first and second, respectively, in producing successful entrepreneurs with venture capital backing.

CEE’s Jon Bray elected to engineering academy

02/05/15 — Jonathan Bray, who holds the Faculty Chair in Earthquake Engineering Excellence, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering for his contributions to earthquake engineering and advances in mitigation of surface faulting,

Stress defects in titanium cross-section

Study reveals how oxygen is like kryptonite to titanium

02/05/15 — Materials scientists at Berkeley Engineering have discovered how titanium, prized for its strength and corrosion resistance, becomes brittle with just a few extra atoms of oxygen. The discovery could open the door to expanded use of the lightweight metal.

Optical antenna enables LEDs to rival lasers

02/04/15 Berkeley Lab — A Berkeley Lab team, led by EECS professor Eli Yablonovitch, has used an external optical antenna to greatly enhance the spontaneous emission of light from a semiconductor nanorod. This advance opens the door to LEDs that can replace lasers for short-range optical communications.

Devices: Sun Fridge

02/03/15 — Alumnus Steve Lanzisera (Ph.D'09 EECS) is part of a Berkeley Lab effort to design a portable solar-powered refrigerator to safely deliver vaccines to the developing world.

Gordon and Betty Moore endow chair to honor UC Berkeley engineering professor Paul Gray

02/03/15 — Paul R. Gray, former executive vice chancellor and provost at UC Berkeley and former dean and professor emeritus in Berkeley's College of Engineering, has been honored with the naming of a distinguished faculty chair at Berkeley, endowed by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore and his wife, Betty.

A collage of the work and life of Charles Townes (Collage by Sarah Wittmer)

Nobel laureate and laser inventor Charles Townes dies at 99

01/29/15 — Charles Hard Townes, a professor emeritus of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, who shared the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics for invention of the laser and subsequently pioneered the use of lasers in astronomy, died early Tuesday, Jan. 27, in Oakland.

Stripes showing differences in electron density in graphene

Graphene advances as viable silicon substitute

01/27/15 — A new study demonstrating a way to control the movement and placement of electrons in graphene moves the wonder material a major step closer to knocking silicon off as the dominant workhorse of the electronics industry. Among the study's lead authors is Berkeley Engineering's Lane Martin, associate professor of materials science and engineering.

Breaking the sound barrier in deaf communication

01/21/15 — Thibault Duchemin (M.Eng'14 IEOR), who grew up as the only hearing person in his family, has developed a novel communications tool called Transcense.

Eko Devices founders with Core stethoscope

Forbes’ “30 Under 30” includes Eko stethoscope

01/20/15 California magazine — The SkyDeck Berkeley startup accelerator landed two teams on Forbes magazine's "30 Under 30" list of the brightest entrepreneurial stars, including Eko Devices (founded by Berkeley bioengineer Connor Landgraf), which developed the Core digital stethoscope.