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Document ActionsForefront Spring 2008Cover StoryThe tides are returning: Environmental engineers help turn back the clock 200 years for San Francisco BayUC Berkeley professor of civil and environmental engineering Mark Stacey and colleagues are doing research that will help restore San Francisco Bay's salt ponds — created when the bay area started manufacturing salt in 1854 — to an ecosystem better suited to the flora and fauna that enjoyed coastal living long before we did. Features
Inspired by nature itself: Tissue engineers devise elegant tools to heal vessels, nerves and skinSong Li, a leader in the fast-growing field of tissue engineering, is developing replacement arteries, nerve grafts and wound healing technologies that work in concert with the body's own natural repair systems. Three of his students are forming startup companies that will bring these technologies to the clinical setting in just a few years. 
A breath of fresh air: How alumna Gail Brager opened the workplace to a natural coolBuildings account for more than one third of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. Gail Brager (M.S. '82, Ph. D. '84 ME) is trying to make a dent in that statistic through her more than 20 years of investigating thermal comfort in office buildings. Her most forward-thinking contribution may be this simple: windows that open. 
Blum Center boosts Berkeley outreach to developing nationsLaunched on campus just two years ago with a gift from San Francisco philanthropist and UC Regent Richard C. Blum, the Blum Center for Developing Economies is sending multidisciplinary teams of student researchers into the field to turn innovative technologies into concrete solutions to the staggering problems of global poverty. 
King of coolNow a fellow at HP Laboratories working on a new generation of energy-efficient data centers, Chandrakant Patel (B.S. '83 ME) came to Berkeley from his native Gujarat, India, on youthful optimism. As a student, he spent four years living at the Graystone Hotel in what was, at the time, one of San Francisco's roughest neighborhoods. Contents |
