Told in tears
05/01/12 — Bioengineering professor Amy Herr and graduate student Kelly Karns developed a microfluidic assay to test human tears for eye disease-specific proteins.
News
Powerboost
05/01/12 — Artificial photosynthesis, in which solar energy is converted directly into fuel, may just have gotten an important boost.
Slow going
05/01/12 — In California, single drivers of hybrid vehicles could drive in carpool lanes until 2011, but after the state put the brakes on the program, transportation engineer Michael Cassidy and graduate student Kitae Jang found that hybrids in standard lanes slowed traffic on Bay Area freeways.
Startup incubator
05/01/12 — UC Berkeley's new SkyDeck start-up accelerator lets young entrepreneurs skip the borrowed-garbage phase while launching their innovative ventures.
Green governor
05/01/12 — Computers have gotten faster, but the transistor hasn't kept pace with the push for greater efficiency; EECS professor Sayeef Alahuddin and graduate student Asif Khan have demonstrated that transistors can indeed be green.
Molecular Legos
05/01/12 — Led by bioengineering professor Seung-Wuk Lee, researchers have found a way to more easily work with collagen.
Putting water online
05/01/12 — In spring 2012, the Floating Sensor Network project, led by associate professor of EECS Alexandre Bayen, launched a flotilla of 100 robots down the Sacramento River to provide data on water movement and pollutant spread.
From smart dust to smart rooms
05/01/12 — Small and inexpensive wireless sensors placed throughout our physical world are capturing and transmitting streams of information about conditions in places, things and even our behavior.
Winging it
05/01/12 — A small, roach-like robot with plastic wings borrowed from a toy is providing important insights into the natural history of flight.
Building a better world, one project at a time
05/01/12 — A new student group, Engineers Without Borders, is building a better world, one infrastructure project at a time.
Alumni notes
05/01/12 — News and photos of Berkeley Engineering alumni from decades past.
Hats off
05/01/12 — Marvell co-founder Weili Dai (B.S'84 CS) delivered the commencement speech to the college's baccalaureate graduates at the Greek Theater on May 12, 2012.
Seeds of social change
05/01/12 — Kushal Chakrabarti (B.S'04 EECS) founded Vittana, a start-up that helps students from low-income or poverty-stricken homes around the world get an education.
Girls meet “the science of better”
05/01/12 — Rhonda Righter (M.S'82, Ph.D'86 IEOR) usually applies sophisticated mathematical models to challenges such as improving the efficiency of an auto manufacturing plant, but most recently, she served as a volunteer role model to 35 middle-school girls.
Comments
05/01/12 — Friends, followers and readers: Thank you for posting your comments online. Here is a recent sampling: Re: “Berkeley gears up for new era of enterprise with SkyDeck incubator,” Berkeley NewsCenter Wish we’d had something like this when we were at Cal. Hope to see more resources for entrepreneurs as time goes on. —Eva M., via […]
What’s next?
05/01/12 — Berkeley Engineer asked undergraduates to tell us about their upcoming ventures.
Berkeley Engineering student makes “ridiculously automated dorm”
04/30/12 Berkeleyside — UC Berkeley student Derek Low is nothing if not inventive. A few months ago Low set out to make his Berkeley dorm room as fully automated as possible. The result, as you can see in the video he uploaded to YouTube, is BRAD: the Berkeley Ridiculously Automated Dorm. Through remote controlled lighting and curtains, Low's room manages to wake him up, put him to sleep and provide the right ambiance for homework and even romance. Its "party mode" is particularly impressive.
Innovation agents: Marvell Technology Group’s Weili Dai, semiconductor pioneer
04/23/12 Fast Company — If there's such a thing as geekdom, Berkeley Engineering alumna Weili Dai, cofounder of Marvell Technology Group, would be queen. As the only female cofounder of a global semiconductor company, Dai built an empire out of those little silicon chips. From humble beginnings in 1995, Dai now presides over an organization that employs 6,000 worldwide and has annual revenues in excess of $3.3 billion. This May, Weili Dai will be the first woman commencement speaker at the College of Engineering, as her son graduates.
Charles K. (Ned) Birdsall, professor emeritus of electrical engineering, dies at 86
04/21/12 San Francisco Chronicle — Charles Kennedy ("Ned") Birdsall, Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, and a pioneering inventor and educator in microwave tubes and plasma physics, died March 6, 2012, at his home in Lafayette. He was 86. Ned joined the Electrical Engineering Department in 1959, launching a four-decade academic career. Ned became known as a pioneering inventor and educator whose contributions to plasma science have made lasting impacts on communications and other
Introducing the Kuh Distinguished Lecture Series
04/17/12 — I recently had the honor of introducing a new annual lecture series to the college community. Thanks to a generous gift from Professor Emeritus Ernest Kuh and his wife, Bettine, we now have the opportunity to hear from the world's most creative and inspiring scientists and engineers tackling our most pressing problems.