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05/01/14 — Comments from our readers.
News
Bot on a budget
05/01/14 — Lavanya Jawaharlal, with her sister Melissa, co-founded STEM Center USA and developed the affordable Pi-Bot robot kit to increase access to science, technology, engineering and math fields.
Cal Human-Powered Vehicle team mends, but does not brake
05/01/14 California magazine — Things were looking bleak for the Berkeley Engineering Human-Powered Vehicle team last weekend, and the timing couldn't have been worse. Just a day before the big ASME regional race, their state-of-the-art vehicle, nicknamed Reuben, crashed and broke in two on the first practice run. Then came a bigger surprise.
Research on the literal edge of 2D semiconductors
05/01/14 Berkeley Lab — Researchers at Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley, led by Professor Xiang Zhang of mechanical engineering, have recorded the first observations of a strong nonlinear optical resonance along the edges of single layers of molybdenum disulfide. The existence of these edge states is key to the use of molybdenum disulfide in nanoelectronics, as well as a catalyst for the hydrogen evolution reaction in fuel cells, desulfurization and other chemical reactions.
Alumni notes
05/01/14 — News and photos of Berkeley Engineering alumni from decades past.
Memorial Stadium goes Kabam
05/01/14 — Michael Li (B.S'01 EECS) is the founder and general manager of Kabam, the company that pledged $28 million over 15 years to purchase the naming rights to the newly remodeled Memorial Stadium.
Tundra scientist
05/01/14 — Geophysicist Susan Hubbard (Ph.D'98 CEE) leads a research team from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Barrow, Alaska as part of the 10-year Next-Generation Ecosystem Experiment.
Farewell
05/01/14 — Obituaries for Berkeley Engineering faculty and alumni
Bin Yu of EECS among five new NAS members
04/29/14 — Bin Yu, a Chancellor's Professor in the departments of electrical engineering and computer science and of statistics, is one of five UC Berkeley professors newly elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences. Yu works on statistical machine learning theory, methodologies, and algorithms for solving high-dimensional data problems.
EECS professor emeritus George Turin dies at 84
04/22/14 Daily Californian — George Turin, a UC Berkeley professor emeritus and former chair of the department of electrical engineering and computer sciences, died in mid-March. He was 84.
Neuroengineers bring science cred, Berkeley feel to ‘Transcendence’ film
04/18/14 — When Hollywood knocked on the doors of UC Berkeley engineering professors Michel Maharbiz and Jose Carmena, the researchers answered. Director Wally Pfister tapped the researchers' expertise in neural engineering and brain-machine interfaces during the filming of his movie, “Transcendence.”
Student hackers design new ways to research the Free Speech Movement
04/18/14 — A student team that included EECS undergrads Kevin Casey and Craig Hiller took first place in HackFSM, a 12-day hackathon organized by the Bancroft Library and Digital Humanities@Berkeley that shared the Free Speech Movement's aim to create a free marketplace of ideas.
Adam Arkin wins DOE’s 2013 Lawrence Award
04/16/14 Berkeley Lab — Bioengineering professor Adam Arkin, director of Berkeley Lab's Physical Biosciences Division and a biologist who is recognized as a leading authority on the evolutionary design principles of cellular networks and populations and their application to systems and synthetic biology, has been named one of six recipients of the 2013 Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award, the Department of Energy's highest scientific honor.
Students show off design projects from TI lab
04/15/14 Texas Instruments — As the first anniversary of the Texas Instrument-funded Electronics Design Lab approaches, TI highlights some of the cool student projects -- from a tic-tac-toe board to an autonomous quadcopter -- that were made possible through this $2.2 million teaching lab and adjoining "maker lounge."
Email innovator Eric Allman named to Internet Hall of Fame
04/09/14 Internet Society — Software pioneer Eric Allman (B.S.'77 EECS, M.S.'80 CS), whose creation of the sendmail program in the 1980s made possible email as we know it today, has been inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame. Joining him as a member of the class of 2014 is the late Douglas Engelbart (Ph.D.'55 EE), father of the computer mouse.
Executive education for engineers, by engineers
04/04/14 — Berkeley Engineering's newest offering: Executive and Professional Education, extends the college's educational mission by providing non‐degree engineering and leadership education to executives and engineering professionals.
Measuring your DNA health
04/04/14 — Sometime soon, Sylvain Costes (Ph.D'99 NE) hopes that annual medical checkups will include a simple blood test to determine levels of DNA damage. The list of things assaultive to the body's basic building blocks is long - radiation, ultraviolet light and toxins, to name a few - and errors occur even during normal cell division. The body continually repairs this damaged DNA, but sometimes, the routine repair process can fail. DNA damage and genetic mutations can lead to serious health problems like cancer, immunological disorders, neurological disorders and premature aging.
Control design at Lift Labs
04/04/14 — Anupam Pathak's (B.S'04 ME) idea to build a device to assist people with Parkinson's disease or essential tremor evolved from helping soldiers survive combat. Pathak started his mechanical engineering doctoral research at the University of Michigan at the height of U.S. troop deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan in 2004. Field reports showed that large numbers of freshly minted troops, with little experience in war zones, were facing stress-induced tremors during combat situations. A soldier with shaky hands is dangerous; the situation was so bad that tremor was affecting casualty rates.
Be the change, Code the Change
04/04/14 — Christine Loh first heard of “Code the Change” in a Facebook post as a junior electrical engineering and computer science major in 2012. Shortly after, she and classmate Brian Tseng (Class of 2016) launched a Berkeley chapter of the national organization, began hosting a student-run course, and connected eager classmates with more than a dozen nonprofit organizations in need of technical help.
Ashok Gadgil named an I-House alumni of the year
04/03/14 International House — Ashok Gadgil, a prolific inventor and Berkeley professor of civil and environmental engineering, and philanthropist Wendy Schmidt have been selected as Alumni of the Year 2014 by International House at UC Berkeley.