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Did you hear the one about the CEE professor?
GNAWING ON A FUNNY BONE:
Civie students share a laugh and some pizza with Roy W. Carlson
Distinguished CEE professor Filip Filippou. The casual dinner-with-faculty
event was organized and sponsored by Cal’s chapter
of the American Society of Civil Engineers. Students weren’t
intimidated to chat it up with Filippou. The conversation
ranged from skiing at Tahoe to life after graduation. When
one student floated the idea of marriage and children, Filippou
said this to resounding glee and laughter, “Nah, that
comes later. Now is the time for exploration!” (Rachel
Shafer photo)
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Growing up in Queens, New York, Kevin Kornegay was “a nerd and
proud of it,” he says. “I was always building radios or
oscilloscopes and tearing apart electric motors.” His natural
tendency to tinker was fueled not only by the electronic gadgets his
mother bought him, but also by techno-wizard Barney Collier, the character
played by black actor Greg Morris on CBS television’s 1966–73
hit spy show, Mission Impossible.
“Collier was a technologist, and that had a significant impact
on me,” Kornegay
says. “When African Americans are portrayed positively in the
media, kids looking for examples to emulate can find important role
models.”
Kornegay (M.S.’90, Ph.D.’92 EECS) began his professional
career as a researcher at IBM’s T.J. Watson Research Center in
Yorktown Heights, New York. In 1998 he joined Cornell, where he is
now associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, focusing
on mixed-signal integrated circuit design for broadband communications.
Best known for founding Cornell’s Broadband Communications Research
Lab and his work on high-performance circuit design, he has recently
mentored a number of award-winning student teams building autonomous,
or unmanned, submarines. [FULL STORY]
Forget football. Forget basketball. In competitive table tennis, UC Berkeley
is a contender. The team is ranked first in northern California according
to the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association. Led by U.S. national
table tennis member and Berkeley architecture student Jackie Lee, Cal is 4-0,
ahead of second-ranked UC Davis and third-ranked Stanford.
Two members of this team are engineering students: EECS sophomore Kenny
Schang and BioE junior Erik Tsou. They took time out of their practice
one Thursday afternoon to explain their sport to Engineering News.
First off, it is a sport. “There’s this misconception that you
don’t get exercise playing table tennis,” says Schang, whose individual
record is 5-1. “Your brain is working and your feet are working. You’re
always adjusting to the movement of the ball.”
[FULL STORY]
In a stylish suburban coffee shop in Concord, ChemE sophomore Noah
Grant plays to a small audience of families and working professionals.
With the espresso machine whirring in the background, Grant sings his
own material and strums his acoustic Martin guitar. After songs, the
audience politely claps and Grant engages them in chitchat. By the
end of the evening, he’s earned a few dollars in tips and an
invitation to play again.
Not a bad gig for this Berkeley engineer and singer-songwriter, who
recently released his first CD, “Rituals are Rituals.” The
EP (a short-length record) is a self-produced album that contains seven
tracks. “I’m a person who pretends he’s in a rock
band but is solo and playing an acoustic guitar,” says Grant. “I
like to rock out a lot and occasionally sing with grit in my voice.” His
influences, he says, are Pearl Jam and 90s singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley.
Over spring break, Grant will embark on a coffee house mini-tour through
Los Angeles and Arizona in hopes of kick-starting a West Coast following.
But he’s not about to scuttle engineering for a full-time recording
career, à la former Berkeley engineering sophomore William Hung,
who gained notoriety after being turned down on TV’s “American
Idol.” “I’m gung-ho about school,” Grant says,
claiming his grades so far have been A’s. “I saw what life
was like without a college education, so now I want to do it right.” [FULL STORY]
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