Class Notes

Choose a decade to view: 2000s 1990s 1980s 1970s 1960s 1950s 1940s 1930s 1920s Nones

2000s

LOUCYNDA P. ESCOBAR (B.S. 2005 ME )

is a quality engineer at Cisco Systems in San Jose. She’s planning to pursue an MBA beginning in fall 2009.

KAREN TRUONG (B.S. 2005 IEOR )

works full time at IBM in Burlingame, California, and is pursuing a master's degree in industrial and system engineering at San Jose State University.

Loucynda Escobar (BS 2005 Mechanical Engineering )

Working at Cisco Systems in San Jose as a Quality Engineer. Looking to pursue an MBA beginning in fall 2009.

Misha Leybovich (B.S. 2005 Eng. Physics )

began working on his Ph.D. in aerospace engineering and technology policy at MIT this fall. Before settling into graduate school, he spent five months traveling through four continents and 20 countries in a tour that featured, among other highlights, a trek to Mount Everest Base Camp and running with the bulls in Pamplona. He also spent five months working at The Aerospace Corporation in El Segundo and worked as hiking director at Camp Oski at the Lair of the Golden Bear, Berkeley's family camp in the Stanislaus National Forest. He writes, "Getting to live and hike in the wilderness on a regular basis as well as meet hundreds of cool alums and befriend the dozens of amazing fellow staffers made for the best summer job I've ever had."

Anthony Azevedo (B.S. 2005 Eng. Physics )

spent nine weeks this summer in the 2006 WISE program, Washington Internships for Students of Engineering. One of eight students selected nationwide, Azevedo was sponsored by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. The program sends engineers to Washington, D.C., to learn how they can get involved in legislative and regulatory public policy decisions on complex technological issues.

RUI MA (B.S. 2004 EECS )

of Shanghai, China, completed three years of technology investment banking and is now a member of the real estate investing team at Morgan Stanley Shanghai.

ELIZABETH A. VARGIS (B.S. 2004 BioE )

is in a biomedical engineering Ph.D. program at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. She is studying the use of optical spectroscopy to identify tissue changes due to brain and cervical cancers.

JAMES M. ALPERT (B.S. 2004 EECS )

of Alexandria, Virginia, is an associate attorney with Birch, Stewart, Kolasch & Birch, LLP, an intellectual property law firm located in Falls Church. He previously worked for the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.

Marc Ramirez (B.S. 2004 ME )

started this past fall as a master's student in UC San Diego's mechanical engineering program.

Peter Chien (B.S. 2004 EECS )

of Sunnyvale works as application engineer for Cypress Semiconductor of San Jose, a leading supplier of SRAM, clocks, physical layer devices, and communication system applications.

Xinyan Deng (Ph.D. 2004 ME )

of Newark, Delaware, received the National Science Foundation's prestigious Faculty Early Career Development Award, one of its highest honors for young faculty members. Deng, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Delaware, is working to develop microaerial vehicles inspired by real flying insects and other creatures capable of stable and maneuverable flight. The award will provide $455,000 over five years in support of her work.

Lisbeth Blaisdell (M.S. 2004 CEE )

of Wall Township, New Jersey, received the American Institute of Steel Construction, Structural Steel and Education Council Fellowship in 2005. She is also a graduate of the Marine Academy of Science and Technology, Sandy Hook, where she was valedictorian, and of Princeton University, where she received the David W. Carmichael Prize for Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Picasso Bhowmik (M.S. 2004 CEE )

of Fullerton, California, is currently working as a project engineer at Oltmans Construction Co. in Whittier.

GREG DALTON (B.S. 2003 ME )

is an aerospace engineer at UC Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory, where he works on satellite instruments for space exploration. He’s now involved in NASA’s THEMIS project, which sent five satellites into space in February 2007 to determine what triggers geomagnetic substorms, the phenomena responsible for the northern and southern lights. “The fun starts when the parts return from the machine shop and I begin to build,” he writes. “Then I test the finished product in a vibration lab and thermal vacuum chambers that reproduce a space environment.” He recently travelled to San Diego’s Mt. Palomar to deliver an infrared telescope he helped build that will hunt for nearby small stars and detect any orbiting Earth-like planets.

TOBIN BASTA (M.S. 2003 CEE )

recently joined Q&D Construction of Reno, Nevada, as project manager on the Ritz-Carlton Highlands Lodge, a 173-room, $200,000,000 project featuring a six-story ski resort and spa. At the time of his report, Basta's team had installed the 110-foot concrete core, footings and walls.

Marc Oman (B.S. 2003 IEOR )

is living in San Francisco and working for ZS Associates, a global management consulting firm. He comes back to campus as often as possible, especially to visit Hearst Pool and his friends in the College of Engineering.

Scott Newman (B.S. 2003 Engineering Physics )

iscurrently in the EECS Ph.D. program at UC Santa Barbara,researching gallium nitride lasers and LEDs.

Rishi Chopra (B.S. 2003 EECS )

of Burlingame is currently working at IBM on the WebSphere Product Center . He is considering pursuing an M.S. in electrical engineering at Texas A&M this fall.

Yeonjoon Park (Ph.D. 2003 MSE )

of Yorktown, Virginia, writes, "Let the miracles of the class of 2003 begin! UC Berkeley was my academic hometown and remains in my mind forever."

Chunghau Lee (B.S. 2003 EECS )

of Camarillo, California, attended UC Santa Barbara after Cal and earned a master's in computer science. He is now working at Amgen providing technical support.

Nicholas Hansen (B.S. 2003 ME )

of Orange, California, completed his master's in mechanical engineering at Cal State University Long Beach.

NICOLE E. HURLEY (B.S. 2002 BioE )

received her Ph.D. in bioengineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta last December.

MEHMET GUMUS (M.S. 2002 IEOR Ph.D. 2007 IEOR )

became an assistant professor last September at McGill University’s Desautels Faculty of Management in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Gumus is married and has a young child.

ANTHONY S. LEVANDOWSKI (B.S. 2002 IEOR M.S. 2003 IEOR )

took his robotic motorcycle, Ghostrider, all the way to Washington, D.C., to the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. The modified motorcycle, which balances, navigates and rights itself independently, was on display from early December through late January as part of the “Treasures of American History” exhibition presented by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History (see photo). Levandowski designed and built the vehicle with the Cal Blue Team to compete in the DARPA Grand Challenge in 2004 and 2005. www.ghostriderrobot.com

CAROL HU (B.S. 2002 EECS )

worked for the national law and consulting firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP, as a 2007 summer associate in the Los Angeles office. Hu is in the 2008 class at UCLA's School of Law, where she is articles editor on the Entertainment Law Review and a member of the Asian/Pacific Islander Law Students Association. She also volunteers at El Centro Legal Clinic and spent last summer at Hogan & Hartson, LLP. Before law school, Hu worked as a senior applications engineer for Oracle.

ILAN GUR (B.S. 2002 M.S. 2003 Ph.D. 2006 MSE)

is helping launch a startup called Seeo with colleagues from UC Berkeley. The company develops novel materials for the next generation of rechargeable batteries, and Gur-in addition to contributing to the technological effort-is managing the early stages of business development. "I'm having a blast so far," he writes. "While I'm sad to drift away from photovoltaics, I'm thrilled to have this opportunity to work with a great team and have an impact on energy storage, the proverbial yin to my yang." igur@berkeley.edu

Nicole Hurley (B.S. 2002 Bioengineering )

In December 2007, Nicole Hurley will receive her Ph.D. in bioengineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.

Duc Biev Pham (B.S. 2002 EECS )

of Campbell,California, is running his own photography business in the Bay Areashooting concerts, sports and action, fashion shows, and otherevents. Recent shoots have included the Tour de France in July andthe Summer Olympics in Athens in August.

Stanley (B.S. 2002 EECS )

of Atherton writes, "Hey Jan: Working in San Francisco now; e-mail me if you see this message."

EUGENE RYU KANEKO (B.S. 2001 ME )

of San Diego is a product engineer at OXO International, the consumer goods company. “I work closely with industrial designers developing innovative kitchenware products,” he writes, including brands such as OXO Good Grips.

FRANK D. GENNARI (M.S. 2001 Ph.D. 2004 EECS )

is founder and chief technology officer of the design for manufacturability startup CommandCAD, recently purchased by Cadence Design Systems. Electrical engineering and computer sciences professor Kurt Keutzer is technical advisor to the company.

WESLEY D. FREY (B.S. 2001 NE )

is working on a Ph.D. in radiation health physics at Oregon State University. He creates computer algorithms that allow detectors to record and analyze signals digitally, which could ultimately facilitate screening for plutonium-based nuclear weapons.

AUTUMN M. FJELD (M.S. 2001 Ph.D. 2006 MSE )

is a postdoc at the University of Leoben in Austria.

Karen Rayment (B.S. 2001 EECS )

of Alameda is working in hardware design and as an R&D engineer at a Bay Area broadband equipment and services company.

Vibert Greene (M.S. 2001 ME )

of Newark, Calif., writes, "I have been working for the California Public Utilities Commission for 34 years now."

Diane Floresca Smith (B.S. 2001 CEE )

of Foster City, California, is working as a project manager at Project Management Advisors, Inc., in San Francisco, managing 600,000 square feet of biotech development space in the Bay Area.

Shuyi "Chris" Shi (B.S. 2001 EECS )

of Orange County writes, "I graduated in a tough year. It was just after the dot-com bust and very tough to find decent work. But no losers come out of EECS! After taking a low-paying job in Texas, I have climbed my way up within four years of graduating to become a lead software engineer commanding a six-figure income. Give me a holler if you are looking for programming work. Go Bears!"

CHRISTY S. HURLBURT (B.S. 2000 EECS )

is living in San Francisco. She recently got a job managing a service team at Medtronic and writes that she’s “enjoying life as a Cal grad.”

Anita Villanueva (B.S. 2000 EECS MSE )

of Cambridge, Massachusetts, writes, "I'm currently having a great time in grad school at MIT!"

Meena Makhijani (B.S. 2000 ME )

of Berkeley writes, "I work in the medical device industry as a product development engineer. I am on my company's Cal recruiting team, so I remain tied to the campus. I continue to play tabla and perform Indian classical dance."

T. John Koo (Ph.D. 2000 EECS )

of Nashville, assistant professor of computer engineering in the Department of EECS at Vanderbilt University , received the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development award for his work on "Computation Platform for the Design of Hybrid Systems." He has been an associated faculty member of the NSF Information Technology Research Center for Hybrid and Embedded Software Systems since 2004 and was a visiting professor in Berkeley's EECS department in 2002.

Christina Hwang (B.S. 2000 BioE )

writes, "I've been working in Tokyo for the past few years, but now I'm back in San Francisco. I've digressed from engineering and currently work for a hedge fund [a type of mutual fund investment partnership]."

Michael J. Feldstein (B.S. 2000 BioE )

is a medical student at Harvard Medical School. After completing his M.D. at Harvard, he will start his Ph.D. in EECS at Massachusetts Institute of Technology this fall.

Jerry Fairley, Jr. (Ph.D 2000 MSE )

is assistant professor at the University of Idaho Department of Geological Sciences.

Shadrach Roundy (M.S. 2000 Ph.D. 2003 ME )

, a lecturer at Australian National University, was cited in the TR100,

Celia (Lin) Tsao (B.S. 2000 EECS )

writes, "My husband Perry and I went on a four-week vacation in May with our tandem bicycle. We flew up to Seattle and bicycled down the Pacific Coast back to our house in Sunnyvale, for a total of 1,150 miles! Traveling by bicycle is a terrific way to experience the beauty of the coast. We had an amazing time and I highly recommend bicycle travel."

Mike Tao Zhang (M.S. 2000 IEOR Ph.D. 2001 IEOR )

of Phoenix won the Outstanding Young Industrial Engineer Award from the Institute of Industrial Engineers in 2006. He has been elected co-chair of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Robotics and Automation Society Technical Committee on Semiconductor Factory Automation. He writes, "Anyone interested in joining the committee is welcome!"

Choose a decade to view: 2000s 1990s 1980s 1970s 1960s 1950s 1940s 1930s 1920s Nones