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Document ActionsFaculty in the News
Imagine an environmentally friendly household refrigerator that is affordable and helps break people's energy-wasting habits when they use the appliance. That is what team of UC Berkeley grad students in engineering and industrial design students from the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico envisioned when they were asked by appliance manufacturer Mabe to develop a cost competitive fridge that is kinder to the environment than others available to consumers in Mexico.
The College of Engineering has launched a new major--driven largely by undergraduate interest--that focuses in a comprehensive way on the generation, transmission and storage of energy, with additional courses on energy policy. Beginning in fall 2012, the new interdisciplinary Energy Engineering major will be offered through the Engineering Science Program and extract from the best energy-related courses already offered by the College. "The objective of this major is to produce students who are well-rounded energy experts," says Tarek Zohdi, mechanical engineering professor and chair of the Engineering Science Program.
Feb 09, 2012
Wall Street Journal MarketWatch
Three Berkeley Engineering students named finalists for 2012-2013 Hertz Fellowship
The Fannie and John Hertz Foundation has announced fifty finalists for the 2012-2013 Hertz Fellowship, chosen from over 600 applicants. Considered the nation's most generous support for graduate education in the applied sciences and engineering, the Hertz Fellowship is valued at more than $250,000 per student, with support lasting up to five years. Berkeley Engineering students David Barth (ME), Nicholas Boyd (EECS) and Sean Lubner (ME) have been selected.
Scott Shenker, professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, is joining the ranks of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), one of the highest professional honors accorded to an engineer. Shenker, an expert in Internet architecture and software-defined networks, is among 66 new members and 10 foreign associates elected to the NAE.
Venture deep inside the new skyway of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, and it becomes clear that the bridge's engineers have planned for the long term. The new eastern span of the Bay Bridge is meant to last at least 150 years after its expected opening in 2013. "We wanted to make this bridge flexible so that when the earthquake comes in, the flexibility of the system is such that it basically rides the earthquake," said its lead designer, Berkeley Engineering alumnus Marwan Nader (M.S.'89, Ph.D.'92 CE).
A relatively fast, easy and inexpensive technique for inducing nanorods to self-assemble into one-, two- and even three-dimensional macroscopic structures has been developed by a team of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researchers. Leading this project was Ting Xu, a polymer scientist who holds joint appointments with Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division and UC Berkeley's Departments of Materials Science and Engineering, and Chemistry.
Dr. David Dornfeld, Chairman of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Laboratory for Manufacturing and Sustainability at UC Berkeley, has received the Association of Manufacturing Technology's Charles F. Carter Jr. Advancing Manufacturing Award. Dr. Dornfeld is specifically recognized for his research toward advancing the understanding of burr formation and prevention, sustainable manufacturing, micro-machining, precision manufacturing and chemical-mechanical planarization.
Many UC Berkeley researchers' discoveries -- including cancer therapies, Internet search engines, vaccines, increased DVD storage capacity, robotics and computational and design software -- and the companies created to manufacture them are spurring the U.S. and California economies and saving lives. Boris Rubinsky, Jay Keasling, and Kris Pister are some of the Berkeley Engineering faculty who are motivated by the UC mission of conducting research that benefits the public and advances the frontiers of knowledge.
UC Berkeley civil and environmental engineering professor Anil K. Chopra has been confirmed as one of the notable presenters to speak at the "Panama Canal 2012 International Engineering and Infrastructure Congress." The first-ever Congress, organized by the Panama Canal Authority, will be held in April in Panama City and will convene more than 40 experts from 10 countries, who will discuss large scale projects and future trends in the maritime industry. Chopra will share an earthquake analysis and well as design and safety evaluations of concrete gravity dams.
In the latest edition of its "Revenge of the Nerds" white paper research series, Identified has discovered that company founders and CEOs today more than three times more likely to hold advanced engineering degrees than MBAs and that the overall age of business leaders is steadily trending downward. This shift could have a significant impact on corporate culture with younger, more technically inclined entrepreneurs at the helm.
UC Berkeley civil and environmental engineering professor Ashok Gadgil has won the Lifetime Achievement award of the 2012 Zayed Future Energy Prize. The $3.5 million prize recognizes and rewards innovation, leadership and longterm vision in renewable energy and sustainability. Gadgil was recognized for "his sustainable humanitarian work in Darfur -- providing energy efficient cooking stoves known as Berkeley-Darfur stoves, cutting the need for firewood by 55 percent."
Recent field studies conducted by UC Berkeley civil and environmental engineering professor Robert Harley and his research team show that emissions of unhealthy pollutants from diesel trucks in West Oakland have been reduced by half in a matter of months, as a result of state regulations that banned the oldest, dirtiest trucks and set deadlines for retrofitting middle-aged trucks with diesel particle filters.
It's the stuff of science fiction: a marriage of brain and computer that allows the disabled to walk, the mute to speak, and all of us to control our reality with our thoughts alone. The visionary scientists at the Center for Neural Engineering and Prostheses, the Bay Area's bold new research hub, are making it a reality. Several Berkeley Engineering professors are involved, including Jan Rabaey, Jose Carmena and Michel Maharbiz.
Paul Alivisatos, director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, UC Berkeley professor of materials science and engineering, and the Larry and Diane Bock Professor of Nanotechnology, has won the prestigious Wolf Foundation Prize in Chemistry for 2012. Alivisatos is an internationally recognized authority on nanochemistry and a pioneer in the synthesis of semiconductor quantum dots and multi-shaped artificial nanostructures.
Sandra and Douglas G. Bergeron have announced the establishment of a scholarship-mentorship endowment at UC Berkeley for undergraduate women pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The program assists high-potential women with financial awards and a one-on-one mentorship program. In addition, each Bergeron Scholar will gain access to a comprehensive suite of support resources from UC Berkeley's Division of Equity & Inclusion.
Carlo H. Séquin, professor of electrical engineering at computer sciences at UC Berkeley, has received an award for his mathematical sculpture, "Lawson's Minimum-Energy Klein Bottle," in the Mathematical Art competition hosted by the American Mathematical Society. Séquin has been creating abstract geometrical art since the early 1980s, and created the winning artwork using a program called Sculpture Generator 1, "which allows me to explore many more complex ideas...and to design and execute...geometries with higher precision."
S. Shankar Sastry has something in common with Olympic divers. Poised high above a pool of budgetary cuts and institutional obstacles, Sastry -- dean of the College of Engineering at UC Berkeley -- recognizes that success for a barrier-busting joint initiative in China will be determined by his department's ability to metaphorically tuck and rip into the future fabric of higher education. Sastry hopes new technology for education will be achieved through a collaboration between UC and the Shanghai Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park.
Jan 06, 2012
Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technologies
Synthetic biology: Key field of the future
Synthetic biology and bioengineering could have a significant future impact with the potential to pro-actively manage biology and reshape many industrial sectors. The current status of the field was indicated at a recent industry event, the Synthetic Biology conference at the University of California, San Francisco, held on December 14, 2011 and featuring presentations by many faculty and students from UC Berkeley's bioengineering department.
What happens when a lizard slips just before leaping into the air? Does the tail go up or down? And what on earth does it have to do with emergency first responders and retaining students in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields? The answers start with a study by scientists and engineers at the University of California, Berkeley.
Zam Zam refugee camp in North Darfur is home to 200,000 refugees fleeing the civil war in Sudan. Women in the camps cook over open fires and then walk for miles through dust and desolation to search for firewood. Every wood-collecting trip exposes women to rape by Sudanese militiamen. UC Berkeley's Ashok Gadgil thought the women of Darfur deserved better cooking technology. So he not only worked with the women to develop a better stove, he also created a local market for it.
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