News

Teaching coding and hacking skills to summer camp students

UC Berkeley holds NSA-sponsored hacking summer camp for teens

07/06/15 KGO-TV — It is summer camp season and at UC Berkeley it is the government's cyberspies - the National Security Agency - who are sponsoring the summer fun. Instead of cloak and dagger, it's all about codes and hackers.

Multicampus ‘People and Robots Initiative’ targets advances, challenges

07/01/15 CITRIS — Cloud Robotics, Deep Learning, Human-Centric Automation, and Bio-Inspired Robotics are among the primary research themes of the new CITRIS initiative that focuses on innovative theory, benchmarks, software, and approaches to address challenges in the interest of society.

Institute of Physics awards Newton Medal to Eli Yablonovitch

07/01/15 — The United Kingdom's Institute of Physics has awarded its prestigious Isaac Newton Medal to EECS professor Eli Yablonovitch, a pioneer in the field of optoelectronics and nanophotonics.

Ride-sharing forces automakers to rethink how they sell cars

06/30/15 Los Angeles Times — Every vehicle that goes into a full-time car-sharing service, such as short-time rental company Zipcar, supplants four to six new car sales and postpones the purchase of up to seven more, says Susan Shaheen, a transportation sustainability researcher and adjunct professor of civil and environmental engineering.

Ernest Kuh, professor and dean emeritus, 1928-2015

06/30/15 — Ernest S. Kuh, who greatly expanded the College of Engineering's partnerships with its alumni and industry networks while serving as dean in the 1970s, died June 27 at age 86. A complete obituary will be published shortly.

Steve Wozniak receives top alumni honor

06/29/15 Cal Alumni Association — The Cal Alumni Association presented Steve Wozniak ('86 EECS) with its most esteemed honor, the 2015 Alumnus of the Year award, at a gala event at Memorial Stadium's University Club.

Environment takes big hit from water-intensive marijuana cultivation

06/24/15 — A new study from the Nature Conservancy, co-authored by environmental engineers and other researchers from UC Berkeley, highlights the toll that the illegal cultivation of thirsty marijuana is taking on the environment, particularly on fragile watersheds.

New Sandia director will be first woman to lead national security lab

06/23/15 Sandia National Lab — Jill M. Hruby (M.S.'82 ME) has been named the next president and director of Sandia National Laboratories, the country's largest national lab. She will be the first woman to lead a national security laboratory when she steps into her new role July 17.

To teach the world robotics

06/17/15 — An electrical engineering professor and a graduate researcher designed a massively open online course to teach an intro to hacking electronics course.

Why do buses always come in bunches?

06/17/15 CityMetric — Lewis Lehe, a transport engineering Ph.D. candidate, has built a game of sorts to demonstrate the math behind the unfortunate truth that city buses serving the same route tend to arrive in clumps, one right behind the other.

Photos of ruptured oil pipeline provide clues of spill cause

06/17/15 Washington Post — Photos of the pipeline that spilled oil on the Santa Barbara coast in May show extensive corrosion and suggest that a pressure leak tied to the restart of failed pumps caused the break, said Robert Bea, a civil engineering professor emeritus.

Scientists use molecular ‘lock and key’ for potential control of GMOs

06/17/15 — UC Berkeley bioengineers have developed an easy way to put bacteria under a molecular lock and key in order to contain its accidental spread. The method shows promise as a practical method of biocontainment to safeguard advances in synthetic biology and genetic engineering.

Happy National Week of Making

06/17/15 — Berkeley engineers attended the National Maker Faire in Washington, DC and got the chance to meet other engineers, makers and government officials while showcasing recent projects.

Enhanced microscopic resolution for improved diagnostics

06/17/15 — Researchers in the Waller Lab aim to make diagnosing diseases easier by algorithmically boosting the power of ordinary optical devices.

More women in engineering – what’s working?

06/17/15 — From Dean Sastry: In order to increase the representation of women in engineering, we are moving beyond good intentions with proven strategies for sustaining their interest and fostering leadership.

Designer of scrolling mouse and Oculus Rift funds design innovation

06/16/15 — Prolific inventor and designer Jack McCauley (EECS '86) has made a $2.5-million gift to establish the McCauley Family Fund in Design Innovation, which will support programs within the Jacobs Institute.

Google engineer Eve Andersson working to empower people with disabilities

06/10/15 EFE/Fox News Latino — Eve Andersson (M.S.'98 ME) leads the Google team tasked with developing new products for the disabled, and dreams of helping those with disabilities "work at whatever they want, study what they like, travel wherever they wish, feel free and empowered."

Teaching robots to be moral

06/10/15 California magazine — As robots and other machines controlled by artificial intelligence are getting more sophisticated and more widely used, calls have gone out to try to instill morals in their decision-making pathways. But how? Computer science professor Stuart Russell weighs in.

The mapping backpack

06/08/15 — Berkeley engineers are building a backpack equipped with high-tech cameras and scanners that is capable of sensing and mapping indoor spaces. The backpack's potential applications include energy audits, search and rescue situations and more.

Bay-Area startup spins lab-grown silk

06/04/15 Bloomberg Business — David Breslauer (Ph.D'10 BioE) is the chief scientific officer of Bolt Threads, a startup company developing technology to genetically modify yeast to produce silk-like proteins - a potentially revolutionary development for the apparel industry.