Class Notes

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1990s

Marjan Abadian (B.S. 1992 EECS)

of Greenbrae, California, writes, "After working with Cisco Systems as a software engineer, I am now a full-time mom. I have two daughters, two and a half and four years old. The family is preparing to go on a two-week bike tour with all four of us riding on one tandem bike and trailer."

RANDY C. BEAUDREAULT (B.S. 1994 MSE)

of San Carlos, California, received his preliminary teaching credential in physics and chemistry last November. He's now looking for a teaching position in the Bay Area.

ROBERT L. BERTINI (Ph.D. 1999 CEE)

of Portland, Oregon, was named deputy administrator of the Research and Innovative Technology Administration, which coordinates the U.S. Department of Transportation’s research programs and advances cross-cutting technologies in the nation’s transportation system. A professor at Portland State since 2000, Bertini headed the Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium and developed the university’s graduate program in intelligent transportation systems.

CHRISTOPHER J. BLUME (M.S. 1993 EE)

of Chicago and fellow Berkeley alum CESARE LOBASCIO (M.S.'93 CE) cohosted a conference in June called Classmates Collaboration for the Advancement of Environmental Engineering Science. The pair gave a presentation at the meeting entitled "The Zero Discharge Environment: The Technological Heritage of the International Space Station and Future Challenges of Planetary Exploration." Blume is chairman of the Lake Michigan States Section of the Air & Waste Management Association. cblume@gaiatech.com

Randy Beaudreault (B. S. 1994 MSE)

Received Preliminary Single Subject Teaching Credential in Physics and Chemistry on 11/7/07. Currently in the process of looking for a teaching position in a Bay Area HS District.

Colleen (Delgadillo) Beller (B.S. 1991 EECS)

of Greenwood Village, Colorado, has a 21-month-old son, Ethan, and was expecting another little boy in July of this year.

Robert Bertini (Ph.D. 1999 CE)

of Portland, Oregon,was promoted and awarded tenure in 2004 and is now associateprofessor of civil and environmental engineering and urban studiesand planning at Portland State University. He is a recipient of theNational Science Foundation's CAREER award and director of Portland's Center for Transportation Studies.

Robert L. Bertini (Ph.D. 1999 Civil and Environmental Engineering)

Robert L. Bertini was promoted to full professor of civil and environmental engineering and urban studies and planning at Portland State University. He is also the director of the Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium (OTREC) a National University Transportation Center that is a partnership between Portland State University, the University of Oregon, Oregon State University and the Oregon Institute of Technology.

Stephen J. Blackburn (B.S. 1998 EECS)

moved to England in 2001 and is working as a software engineer for a startup company in Cambridge. E-mail:

Tom Boardman (B.S. 1990 CE)

is a geotechnical engineer with Kleinfelder in Oakland, Calif. He writes, "Katherine and I are getting married next May and plan to honeymoon in southeast France." E-mail:

Brian Boardman (B.S. 1990 CE)

of Oakland is a seniorproject engineer in the geotechnical department at Kleinfelder,Inc. His specialties include liquefaction and seismic hazardanalysis.

R. Glenn Booker (M.S. 1990 ME)

of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, was appointed auxiliary assistant professor at Drexel University.

Gleb Budman (B.S. 1995 Mechanical Engineering, M.B.A 1999 Business)

Serial entrepreneur and seasoned executive co-founded netRelevance, led products and marketing for startups Kendara and MailFrontier from pre-launch through acquisition, and is currently co-founder and CEO of online backup company Backblaze (www.backblaze.com).

Jason Burke (B.S. 1995 mineral engineering)

moved to Big Timber, Montana, to work in underground platinum and palladium mining for Stillwater Mining Co. He has two daughters, 5 and 3, and he and his wife are expecting a third child in February.

MICHAEL MONKANG CHU (B.S. 1997 EECS, M.S. 2000 EECS)

of San Jose is software product manager for the stream computing group at Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., a global provider of computing and graphics processing solutions. Previously he was manager of the application engineering group at DRC Computer Corporation and held key positions in software and hardware engineering at Stretch and Andes Networks. Chu has been flying since 2002 and also enjoys motorcycling, hiking, photography and spending time with his wife, Lucy. mmchu@mmchu.com

VICTOR K. CHU (Ph.D. 1996 ME)

of Milpitas, California, and his wife, Sheree Wu, cowrote the book Angelic Force: A Modern Medium's Communication with the Spirit World, available in English and Chinese, about their experience with an American trance medium. victor@doublelight.com

LEE E. CLEVELAND (B.S. 1990 EE)

of Santa Clara, California, is senior vice president of engineering at Sipex Corporation in Milpitas, where he employs numerous Cal grads. "Berkeley gave me a real advantage in my career," writes Cleveland, who travels the world for fun and has been to every continent except Antarctica.

Naomi Calick (B.S. 1993 EECS)

of Fort Collins, Colorado, celebrated 10 years with Intel.

Robert Cedeno (M.S. 1994 CE)

of Weston , Florida , graduated from law school and is practicing construction and real estate law in South Florida.

Jay Chang (B.S. 1991 IEOR)

is vice president of consumer products at Visa International in Foster City , supporting Visa's regional offices in the U.S., Asia, Latin America, Europe, Canada, the Middle East, and Africa.

Eugene Chow (B.S. 1995 Eng Physics)

formerly of Mountain View , writes: "Tina and I are finally leaving the Stanford farm and moving to Fremont. We'll miss the Cal band trumpet raids by our apartment and blasting the big "C" during Big Game Week for the naïve Stanford frosh."

Tennille Christensen (B.S. 1999 BioE)

of Mountain View, California, is now in her third year of law studies at UC Hastings College of the Law.

Michael Monkang Chu (B.S. 1997 EECS, M.S. 2000 EECS)

Michael Monkang Chu, of San Jose, California, is the manager of the application engineering group at DRC Computer Corporation, a leading provider of dynamically reconfigurable co-processor systems. He has over a decade of experience working with innovative FPGA and reconfigurable computing technologies. Michael has published several papers and has a patent pending in the field of reconfigurable computing.

Prior to DRC, Michael held senior and lead positions in software and hardware engineering at Stretch and Andes Networks. At Stretch, he led the team responsible for developing the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for the company's tools suite. At Andes Networks, Michael helped architect and implement the first and second generations of the main network processing chip for the company's SSL acceleration appliance. As a graduate student at UC Berkeley studying under Professor John Wawrzynek, he conducted research in runtime scheduling of reconfigurable compute elements for the SCORE computational model. Michael maintains a strong interest in high-performance computing technologies as well as helping define and deliver technologically innovative and challenging products. He enjoys working with the engineering, marketing and sales teams to understand customer needs and deliver a compelling product.

Not content to take on technical challenges on the ground, Michael holds a private pilot's certificate with an instrument rating and has been flying since 2002. When he is not flying, Michael enjoys motorcycling, hiking, photography and spending time with his wife, Lucy.

You can contact Michael at mmchu@mmchu.com.

Florence Yao Claros (B.A. 1996 CS)

has worked as an information technology engineer for Hewlett-Packard and Agilent Technologies. She lives in San Francisco.

Virgilio Cristobal (B.S. 1997 EECS)

is a financial planner with Waddell & Reed in San Mateo .

ELI DARLAND (B.S. 1997 ME)

of Bellevue, Washington, is president of nightclub promotions company Rare Form Productions and chauffer service company Rare Form Limousine.

TEJAL A. DESAI (Ph.D. 1998 BioE)

is professor of physiology, bioengineering and therapeutic sciences at UCSF and director of UCSF’s Laboratory of Therapeutic Micro and Nanotechnology. She is co-chair of the UCSF/UC Berkeley Joint Graduate Group in Bioengineering and inventor of an artificial pancreas that produces insulin using micromachining techniques. She won Berkeley Engineering’s 2006 Distinguished Engineering Alumni Award (now the BEIA) and has three children ranging in age from 6 months to 5 years. Desai volunteers for classes and career day events promoting science to seventh- and eighth-grade girls.

JOHN F. DEWAR (M.S. 1990 CE)

was named a principal at the consulting firm Freese and Nichols, Inc. Dewar has two decades of design and management experience, 13 of them with Freese and Nichols. Earlier this year, he became a manager of the transportation/infrastructure and structural groups at the company's Fort Worth, Texas, office.

Staci A. (Edlund) Davis (B.S. 1993 ME, M.S. 1995 ME)

and her husband, N. Peter Davis, announce the birth of their daughter, Sara Marie, on Oct. 1 in Los Angeles.

Eric DeVries (B.S. 1990 ME)

of Union, Kentucky, is project leader for installation and startup of Toyota 's V8 engine plant in Huntsville , Alabama . He's now starting a digital engineering project for application of 3-D data in Powertrain production preparation.

Rula Deeb (M.S. 1994, Ph.D. 1999 CEE)

of Walnut Creek was awarded Malcolm Pirnie Inc.'s 2002 Paul L. Busch Prize, recognizing her outstanding technical achievements and leadership. She is a senior project engineer at the company, and her research in water and wastewater treatment and hazardous waste remediation has been recognized with numerous awards.

Reginald DesRoches (B.S. 1990 ME, M.S. 1992, Ph.D. 1997 CEE)

of Roswell, Georgia, is co-researcher on a major project studying the risk earthquakes pose to U.S. ports and possible consequences for the economy. DesRoches, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Georgia Tech, first became interested in quake research as a graduate student at Berkeley, when the Loma Prieta quake struck the Bay Area in 1989. Researchers will investigate ports in Savannah, Charleston and West Coast cities in an effort to identify better construction and retrofitting techniques for use in ports as well as preparation and recovery plans for public officials.

Roelof Drenth (B.S. 1999, M.S. 2000 ME)

is a mechanical engineer for Arcturus Marine Systems of Rohnert Park, California.

Charles Fields (M.S. 1995, Ph.D. 1997 EECS)

of Calabasas, California, writes, "Hello friends: Hope you're all well. I'm still working at HRL Laboratories in Malibu and enjoying life in sunny Southern California. Life is good."

Bryan Fox (B.S. 1996 ME)

works for Capstone Turbine Corp. in Chatsworth, Calif., as a quality-control manager. He and his wife, Tammy, live in Agoura Hills. E-mail:

Elizabeth (Green) Francois (B.S. 1996 ChemE, NE)

of Jemez Springs, New Mexico, is working in high explosives research at Los Alamos National Lab.

Nader Ghaffari (B.S 1997 IEOR)

of Los Altos, Calif., is a program manager within the supply-chain, e-business initiative at Intel Corp.

MING-LUN HO (B.S. 1995 Engineering Math)

receives tenure this June at Chabot College in Hayward, where he teaches math. He's a member of the Deer Creek Morris Men, who perform traditional English Morris dancing—incorporating bells, ribbons, sticks and shouts—around the Bay Area.

AUREN HOFFMAN (B.S. 1996 IEOR)

is the CEO of San Francisco–based Rapleaf (www.rapleaf.com), a private startup whose software product lets users search name, age and social networking affiliations for anyone with a known email address.

PETER C. HSUEH (B.S. 1993 MSE, B.S. 1993 NE)

was promoted to special counsel at the Southern California intellectual property law firm Christie, Parker & Hale, where he specializes in prosecuting high-tech patent applications. Hsueh earned a master's degree in radiation health physics from Texas A&M University and graduated summa cum laude from Southwestern University School of Law. peter.hsueh@cph.com

Tina Herrera (B.S. 1991 ME, M.B.A. 2004 Bus. Ad.)

of Montara , California , writes, "I recently returned to Cal as a part-time evening student while continuing to work full-time at Cisco. I completed my M.B.A. in May 2004 and was honored to be our class speaker at graduation."

ARI JUELS (Ph.D. 1996 EECS)

of Brookline, Massachusetts, is chief scientist and director of RSA Laboratories in Cambridge. His new novel, Tetraktys (Emerald Bay Books), is a thriller hinging on concepts in cryptography that takes place partly within UC Berkeley’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences. For more information, visit http://www.ari-juels.com.

Jamey Jacob (M.S. 1992, Ph.D. 1995 ME)

was recently promoted and received tenure as associate professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Kentucky in Lexington.

KARA M. KOCKELMAN (B.S. 1991 CEE, M.S. 1996 CEE)

is associate professor of transportation engineering at the University of Texas, Austin. She chairs the Transportation Research Board's Travel Survey Methods Committee, sits on the National Academy of Sciences Energy and Transport Committee and is on the editorial boards of five transportation and regional science journals. She writes that she "enjoys research, teaching and chasing around after my twin four-year-olds."

EDWARD L. KOSYDAR (M.S. 1991 CEE)

is a project management supervisor in Boise, Idaho.

YOUNG HOON KWAK (M.S. 1992 CE, Ph.D. 1997 CE)

of Potomac, Maryland, received the International Project Management Association’s 2008 Outstanding Research Contribution Award.

Gene Kan (B.S. 1997 EECS)

died June 29, 2002. Hebecame an unofficial spokesperson for the Gnutella file-swappingcommunity during the height of the Internet's peer-to-peer softwarefad.

Saul M. Kane (MS 1996 CE)

is a traffic engineer in San Diego, Calif.

Kara Kockelman (B.S. 1991, M.S. 1996, Ph.D. 1998 CE)

was promoted to associate professor of civil engineering at the University of Texas at Austin and gave birth to twins last year.

Kevin Kornegay (M.S. 1990 EECS, Ph.D. 1992 EECS)

, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Cornell University , received the 2004 Dr. Janice A. Lumpkin Educator of the Year Award from the National Society of Black Engineers. Founder and director of the Cornell Broadband Communications Research Laboratory, which conducts research on high-frequency integrated circuit design, Kornegay also received the Cornell Provost's 2004 Award for Distinguished Scholarship in recognition of his work in radio frequency and wireless system devices. He was selected by

Kamala Krishna (Ph.D. 1992 ChemE)

of Danville joined ChevronTexaco in 1992, working at the company's El Segundo, California, refinery for five years. He is now involved in catalytic process development at the Richmond refinery.

Sunil Kulkarni (B.S. 1993 ME)

of Menlo Park writes, "After Cal, I went to law school and have been with the Palo Alto office of Morrison & Foerster LLP for the last seven years. I handle patent litigation, which is a great reason to keep my engineering textbooks around. I was married this past July to Dr. Sujata Patel, who sadly is an unrepentant Stanfurd alum. I love her anyway."

TUAN H. LE (B.S. 1995, M.S. 1997 EECS)

is software architect for the Mountain View financial tracking startup Mint. "I love developing software that I would use myself," he writes.

ZHEN H. LIU (B.S. 1992 EECS)

of San Mateo, California, has been a database system developer for 15 years and is a consulting member of the technical staff at Oracle, where he works on XQuery and XML data management.

Jason Liao (B.S. 1997 EECS)

died in a car accident last December at age 25. He was living in Salinas after accepting an engineering position with CTB/McGraw-Hill.

Armando de la Libertad (B.S. 1993 CE)

of Santa Ana, Calif., won the 2002 Peter E. Haas Public Service Award, which recognizes activity at the grassroots level to illustrate the impact that an individual can have on society through creative social change. The award will be presented during the Charter Day celebration at Cal on March 7. He writes, "This is a tremendous honor for me." E-mail:

Francisco Llosa (B.S. 1997 ME)

is in the MBA program at McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin, and plans to specialize in operations and energy finance.

Lisa (Lehman) Lyons (M.S. 1994 CE)

of North Andover, Massachusetts, writes, "I'm enjoying life as an environmental project manager and the mother of Jimmy, age three. My husband Jim and I recently celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary."

WOJCIECH MATUSIK (B.S. 1997 EECS)

of Lexington, Massachusetts, is senior research scientist at Adobe Systems, Inc. He received the 2009 Significant New Researcher Award from ACM SIGGRAPH, the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques. His computer graphics work includes virtual humans that interact with the environment, a wearable system for capturing human movement and a 3-D television system for acquiring and displaying data in real time.

STEVEN R. MCCANNE (B.S. 1990 EECS, Ph.D. 1996 EECS)

cofounded San Francisco–based Riverbed Technology in 2002 and is the company's chief technology officer. Riverbed's devices coax wide area networks into behaving like local networks, allowing businesses to centralize servers and IT staff, reduce the amount of bandwidth they need and streamline work from remote offices. The company was the top IPO of 2006, according to the Wall Street Journal, and more than 20 of their employees are alumni of Berkeley Engineering.

Liwen Mah (B.S. 1994 IEOR)

is back at Berkeley studying law at Boalt Hall.

Jason Mikami (BS 1998 EECS, BA 1992 Oriental Languages)

Over the past year, I have been promoted to Sr. Director of Program Management at new media company MobiTV, been featured in Time Magazine last March, and had my first child last October.

Debjit Mukerji (B.S. 1994 ME)

got an M.S. and Ph.D. from Stanford, finishing graduate school in 2001, and is now employed in the aerospace industry in Los Angeles, doing technical consulting on the side.

Karen Navas (B.S. 1992 EECS)

of San Jose, Calif., writes, "I have started a nonprofit organization to benefit our local school and community. The organization has a goal of obtaining at least $100,000 by September 2003 to get a federal grant of $450,000. We hope to put this money into purchasing lab buildings and equipment for music, math, science, and computers. This is a Title 1 school with nearly half the children on subsidized lunch programs. Through grants and generous donors, we can help. Any donation would be greatly appreciated. Please contact Northwood Elementary School at 408-923-1940 or 2760 E. Trimble Road, San Jose, CA 95132." E-mail:

Jeffrey Neal (M.S. 1998 CEE)

of Vienna, Virginia, writes, "I'm in the Navy Civil Engineer Corps, currently with Amphibious Construction Battalion Two. We're preparing to deploy personnel to the Indian Ocean to provide tsunami relief. While stationed in Norfolk, I look forward to alumni events in the area."

U. AYTUN OZTURK (B.S. 1999 IEOR)

was appointed assistant dean of business at Hawaii Pacific University and will continue to teach in the MBA program as associate professor of quantitative methods. Ozturk's research interests include applied stochastic optimization, combinatorial optimization, energy modeling and applications of optimization in health care.

ELLEN M. RATHJE (M.S. 1994, Ph.D. 1997 CE)

received the 2006 Shah Innovation Prize from the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, a national nonprofit technical society. The award is given to cutting-edge young professionals and academics for "creativity, innovation and entrepreneurial spirit" in the study of earthquake risk and management. Rathje is an associate professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, where she studies seismic performance of structures, site responses, soil improvement methods and use of remote sensing to assess damage.

CHRISTOPHER A. RIDLEY (M.S. 1999 CEE)

and FRANK ROLLO (M.S.’88 CEE) founded Rollo & Ridley Inc., a geotechnical engineering firm based in San Francisco.

Allison (Faris) Reilman (B.S. 1998, M.S. 1999, Ph.D. 2004 CEE)

is married and working in Los Angeles.

Brendan Robinson (B.S. 1991 ME)

of Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., is a program manager within the supply-chain, e-business initiaive at Intel Corp.

JAMES M. SCHOFIELD (M.Eng. 1991 CEE)

of Arnold, Maryland, is an engineering consulting and underwater inspection specialist at his company, Schofield, LLC.

BERNARD R. SMITS (B.S. 1992 ME)

of Oakland, California, is principal mechanical engineer for Bay Area Rapid Transit.

MADHU SUDAN (Ph.D. 1992 EECS)

is professor of computer science at MIT and a member of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. He won the Rolf Nevanlinna Prize in 2002 for his work in advancing the theory of probabilistically checkable proofs, the Association for Computing Machinery’s Distinguished Doctoral Dissertation Award in 1993 and the Gödel Prize in 2001.

Jeffrey Shneidman (B.S. 1999 EECS)

of Lake Forest Park , Washington , received a master's degree in computer science from Harvard in 2003.

Lokesh Sikaria (B.S. 1994 EECS)

of Folsom, California, is CEO of Sparta Consulting, a systems, applications and products provider.

Mark Stevenson (M.S. 1998 CE)

of Berkeley, previously an associate with Structural Design Engineers in San Francisco , is currently a project manager with Tipping-Mar & Associates in Berkeley .

Ken Susilo (B.S. 1990, M.S. 1991 CE)

of Culver City recently joined GeoSyntec Consultants and opened their west Los Angeles branch office.

BASSAM TABBARA (M.S. 1998, Ph.D. 2000 EECS)

of Sunnyvale, California, recently moved and changed jobs. He's now a senior research and development engineer at Synopsys in Mountain View, a leader in the electronic design automation industry.

MISHA V. TROYAN (B.S. 1999 CEE)

writes, “Married and living the easy life in sunny San Diego!”

Bassam Tabbara (M.S. 1998 EECS, Ph.D. 2000 EECS)

of San Jose, Calif., is busy with the Verdi™ product as well as other projects. Outside of work, he is volunteering in the community and planning a vacation trip to Lebanon. E-mail:

Ming Dat Tam (B.S. 1999 EECS)

is a software engineer in aerospace and defense in Los Angeles.

Seth Taylor (M.S. 1998, Ph.D. 2002 MSE)

of Schenectady, New York, works as a materials scientist at General Electric's Global Research Center in Upstate New York. He does materials research and development as part of several advanced technology programs focused on developing new technologies and new products for various GE businesses.

Chris Tow (B.S. 1993 EECS)

of Redwood City, Calif.,finished a Master's degree in 1994 at the University of California,Los Angeles. He worked for Oracle Corp. from 1996 to 1999 and hassince been working for Openwave Systems Inc., formerly

Amin Vahdat (B.S. 1992 EECS, Ph.D. 1998 EECS)

has been named director of the UC San Diego Center for Networked Systems, the second director of the industry-funded center since it was established in July 2004. Vahdat is an associate professor in the Computer Science and Engineering Department at UCSD's Jacobs School of Engineering and an academic participant in the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology . He worked as a research associate at the University of Washington, then at Duke University, before joining the UCSD faculty in January 2004. He has been the recipient of an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, an IBM Faculty Partnership Award, and a National Science Foundation CAREER Award.

Wei-E Wang (Ph.D 1993 NE)

of Fremont, Calif., is an FSG manager at Intel in Santa Clara.

Joseph Wartman (M.E. 1996, Ph.D. 1999 CEE)

led a team of geotechnical engineering experts on an engineering reconnaissance of the region damaged by the 7.8 magnitude earthquake in Colima, Mexico, last January. An assistant professor of civil, architectural, and environmental engineering at Drexel University, Wartman was principal investigator on the team, which was supported by a National Science Foundation Small Grant for Exploratory Research.

Marlene Wong (B.S. 1994 CE, MS 1997 CEE)

is a geotechnical engineer in San Francisco.

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