News

Teaching AI about human values

02/08/18 Forbes — Computer scientist and robotics engineer Anca Dragan has a cool name, an impressive CV and an important job: ensuring that our interactions with robots and other artificially intelligent agents are positive ones.

Constance Chang-Hasnain, Diane Greene and Gary May

EECS professor Chang-Hasnain named to NAE

02/07/18 — EECS professor Constance Chang-Hasnain is among 83 new members elected to the National Academy of Engineering. Two alumni also were elected to the academy.

Grace OConnell, Laura Waller and Avideh Zakhor

Honors for three Berkeley Engineering faculty

02/07/18 — Three members of the Berkeley Engineering faculty - Grace O'Connell from mechanical engineering and Laura Waller and Avideh Zakhor from EECS - have recently received awards from scientific societies honoring their contributions to research and innovation in their fields.

Nikita Bier (right) being interviewed by Jeremy Fiance of the House Fund

How to build a viral app

02/06/18 Sutardja Center — Telling a Newton Lecture Series audience that he got "really good at failing," Berkeley alumnus Nikita Bier recounted his difficult journey to creating TBH, a viral app that allows teenagers to anonymously compliment each other through a series of polls.

HBCU partnership brings new students to UC grad programs

02/02/18 University of California — A UC-wide collaboration that strengthens research ties with the nation's historically Black colleges and universities has helped more than 400 students to participate in summer internships. Among them: Tsegereda Esatu, now a Ph.D. candidate in electrical engineering at Berkeley.

Animation of atomic motion in a 2-D material

Rotating ‘chiral phonons’ could enable new form of IT

02/02/18 Berkeley Lab — Researchers at Berkeley Lab, led by mechanical engineering professor Xiang Zhang, have found the first evidence of naturally occurring circular rotation in an atomically thin material, a phenomenon that could enable exotic and microscopic forms of electronics.

Why traffic apps make congestion worse

01/30/18 — Has your smartphone traffic app ever led you into a traffic jam? Professor and traffic engineer Alexandre Bayen, director of UC Berkeley's Institute of Transportation Studies, is working on smarter apps that will actually talk to one another to prevent clogged freeways and city streets.

A student uses wires, soap and a handheld device to explore bending effects

Exploring digital fabrication at Jacobs Hall

01/29/18 Jacobs Institute — A reconfigurable lampshade, a novel musical instrument, an affordable tool for surgery planning: these are among the student projects that used resources in Jacobs Hall to explore digital fabrication technology during the fall 2017 semester.

Keeping watch on nuclear weapons

01/22/18 — With her hand in a few different research projects, ranging from nuclear weapons detection to war-game simulations on social media, Bethany Goldblum also finds time to direct and establish groups whose aim is to shape nuclear security policy.

Slide containing cesium-doped perovskite that is transparent at room temperature but turns dark at high temperatures

Study shows solar power potential for smart window material

01/22/18 — Smart windows that automatically adjust their transparency in response to light conditions could potentially generate power as well, according to a new study led by Berkeley researcher Peidong Yang, who holds a joint appointment in materials science and engineering. The new study shows that perovskite can switch back and forth between transparency and non-transparency while retaining its electronic properties.

New research centers to help usher in future of microelectronics

01/19/18 — The Semiconductor Research Corporation announced six new multi-university research centers, and Berkeley Engineering faculty are leading partners in three of them. The centers aim to jump-start future technologies for the microelectronics industry.

NAS honors Prasad Raghavendra for computer science work

01/17/18 — Prasad Raghavendra, an EECS associate professor, was honored by the National Academy of Sciences for his revolutionary research in computer science, sharing the inaugural $100,000 Michael and Sheila Held Prize with David Steurer of ETH Zurich.

AI innovation at The House

01/17/18 — In collaboration with several Berkeley Engineering faculty, the Berkeley-based startup institute The House has formed a new AI-focused startup accelerator.

Ravi Prasher, with Berkeley and the San Francisco Bay in the background

Batteries to provide renewable energy anytime, anywhere

01/16/18 — Ravi Prasher, adjunct professor of mechanical engineering, and his Berkeley colleagues are searching for new battery materials to help store renewable energy so we can use it when we need it.

Radical new battery technology for a $130,000 electric sedan

01/12/18 LA Times — Solid-state automotive batteries, like those being designed for Fisker Inc.'s all-electric EMotion supercar, will eventually exist, says materials science and engineering professor Gerbrand Ceder, but “it's not going to happen as fast as people think.”

High-speed rail tunnel construction site

Trump infrastructure plan’s tunneling claims raise questions

01/05/18 Newsweek — The Trump administration contends that underground tunnels to carry high-speed rail lines can be built without a dime of federal funding. But critics, including civil and environmental engineering professor C. William Ibbs, head of Berkeley's Construction Management program, suggest there's nothing easy about that kind of tunneling, and it will surely require government oversight.

24-hour giving blitz is on!

01/01/18 — Gifts of all sizes make a BIG difference!

Presentating equations on a whiteboard at NIPS conference

All the buzz at AI’s big shindig

12/20/17 Economist — At the annual Neural Information Processing Systems conference this month, thousands of researchers flocked to Long Beach to devour algorithms, keynotes by famous speakers and all things artificial intelligence, prompting EECS associate professor Ben Recht to lament the event's growing corporatism.

Diagram of an adeno-associated virus, and cross-section photo of mouse spinal cord tissue showing cells in which the CRISPR-Cas9 gene has been expressed

First step toward CRISPR cure of Lou Gehrig’s disease

12/20/17 — Berkeley scientists led by Davis Shaffer, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and bioengineering, have for the first time used CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing to disable a defective gene that causes amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in mice, extending their lifespan by 25 percent.

Robert Full showing students the adhesive pads of a gecko

New course to tap Berkeley’s diversity and maker spirit

12/20/17 — Thanks to a $1 million grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Robert Full, professor of integrative biology and EECS, can realize a dream to show students how hacking the secrets of biology can help them design their future and give back to their communities.