SME, an association committed to advancing manufacturing and developing a skilled workforce, today announces that 15 achievers have been selected to receive the 2020 SME Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award. The 2020 awardees, from the U.S. and Canada, have centered their research and management efforts around manufacturing processes, environmental sustainability, additive manufacturing, smart manufacturing, medical …
UC Berkeley Engineering Faculty, Students Mobilize to Assist in COVID-19 Relief Effort
Students and faculty from the UC Berkeley College of Engineering are mobilizing to assist in the COVID-19, or the novel coronavirus, relief effort. Various members of the college are working on projects related to several health aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Projects include finding ways to decontaminate N95 masks for reuse, converting sleep apnea machines …
Turning Sleep Apnea Machines Into Ventilators
With some simple modifications, consumer devices used to treat sleep apnea could be converted into life-saving ventilators for patients with COVID-19, according to a coalition that includes UC Berkeley engineers, emergency room doctors, critical care pulmonologists and military generals. The solution could help alleviate the critical shortage of ventilators as the number of COVID-19 patients …
New Faculty Spotlight: Michael Gollner
The Department of Mechanical Engineering would like to introduce you to one of our newest faculty members: Assistant Professor Michael Gollner.
Professor Gollner joined us here in Etcheverry Hall in the Spring of 2020. Click to learn more about Professor Gollner and his research into how fires spread, how emissions from fires are generated and how buildings ignite, with the goal of reducing their devastating effects in the future.
Join Us Remotely on May 19th for a Celebration of the Berkeley Engineering 2020 Graduates
We are saddened to announce that due to the continuing public health threat posed by COVID-19, the College of Engineering’s Spring 2020 Commencement must be postponed. We are waiting to evaluate how the current situation will progress before determining a new date. We invite all graduates, their families and friends and the college community to …
COVID-19 First Target of New AI Research Consortium
The University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) are the headquarters of a bold new research consortium established by enterprise AI software company C3.ai to leverage the convergence of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and the internet of things (IoT) to transform societal-scale systems.
ME Professor Kameshwar Poolla Awarded AACC’s 2020 O. Hugo Schuck Best Paper Award
ME Professor Kameshwar Poolla has been awarded the prestigious 2020 O. Hugo Schuck Best Paper Award, by the American Automatic Control Council (AACC), for his paper “Distributed Storage Investment in Power Networks,” presented at last year’s American Control Conference. This is Professor Poolla’s second time winning this award; his first was in 1993 for his …
Science Daily: New Technique ‘Prints’ Cells to Create Diverse Biological Environments
With the help of photolithography and programmable DNA, researchers have created a new technique that can rapidly ‘print’ two-dimensional arrays of cells and proteins that mimic a wide variety of cellular environments in the body. This technique could help scientists develop a better understanding of the complex cell-to-cell messaging that dictates a cell’s final fate.
New Technique ‘Prints’ Cells to Create Diverse Biological Environments
Like humans, cells are easily influenced by peer pressure. Take a neural stem cell in the brain: Whether this cell remains a stem cell or differentiates into a fully formed brain cell is ultimately determined by a complex set of molecular messages the cell receives from countless neighbors. Understanding these messages is key for scientists …
How to Approach Ethical Dilemmas in the Workplace
On Tuesday, January 14, 2020, the Fung Institute had the pleasure of hosting Sonia Banerji as a guest speaker for the E270M: Professional Ethics in Technology, Law, and Business, a Spring bootcamp class within the Master of Engineering program. The organic class discussion ranged from topics like insider trading, internal investigations, alcohol in the workplace, …
UC Berkeley’s Department of Mechanical Engineering Ranked #3 Among ME Graduate Programs
Berkeley Engineering’s graduate program continues to rank among the best of its peers, according to U.S. News & World Report. Overall, the college ranked third out of the more than 200 graduate engineering schools the magazine surveyed, and was the highest ranking public university program.
Alumni Spotlight: Andrew & Mark Ansell
“I’m Andrew Ansell and my twin brother Mark and I graduated from Cal, each with simultaneous degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Business Administration, in December 2019. Funnily enough, we now both work at Microsoft, as Mechanical Engineering Program Managers for different Surface products. We’re also considering attending Stanford University, where we both got in as …
Meet Our New Faculty: Michael Gollner, Mechanical Engineering
Name: Michael Gollner Discipline: Mechanical engineering Degrees: B.S., 2008, M.S., 2010, and Ph.D., UC San Diego, 2012 Research interests: My work focuses on understanding the physical processes controlling wildfires and other complex thermal-fluid phenomena. We investigate how fires spread, how emissions from fires are generated and how buildings ignite, with the goal of reducing their devastating effects in the future.
Artificial Intelligence Gives Stethoscopes a Much-Needed Upgrade
Over its 200 years of existence, the stethoscope has emerged as the ultimate symbol for the medical community. Dangling from the neck of a doctor or nurse, the acoustic device seems to bestow upon the wearer an instant veneer of competence and credibility. But here’s something people might find surprising, perhaps even shocking: the health …
Coronavirus Resources
To help prepare for disruptions, please refer to our Coronavirus Resources page.
ME Ph.D. Student George Moore to Receive Chancellor’s Award for Public Service
ME Ph.D. student George Moore has won the 2019-2020 Robert J. and Mary Catherine Birgeneau Recognition Award for Service to Underrepresented Students, one of the Chancellor’s Awards for Public Service. The Robert J. and Mary Catherine Birgeneau Recognition Award for Service to Underrepresented Students honors an undergraduate or graduate underrepresented student, or student ally, who …
Clarity of Thought: An Interview with Somayeh Sojoudi
Somayeh Sojoudi is an assistant professor in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS) and Mechanical Engineering at UC Berkeley. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Shahed University (in Tehran, Iran), her master’s degree in ECE from Concordia University, and her PhD in Control and Dynamical Systems from CalTech. After earning her PhD, she worked as a …
ME Professor Alice Agogino Named Among Top 10 Women in Robotics Industry
Squishy robots are quickly deployable mobile sensing robots for disaster rescue, remote monitoring and space exploration, created from the research at the BEST Lab or Berkeley Emergent Space Tensegrities Lab. Prof. Alice Agogino is the Roscoe and Elizabeth Hughes Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Product Design Concentration Founder and Head Advisor, MEng Program at the University …
ME Assistant Professor Michael Gollner to Give Plenary Lecture on Wildland Fires
ME Assistant Professor Michael Gollner will be giving a Plenary Lecture on Wildland Fires at the 2020 Spring Meeting of the Western States Section of The Combustion Institute (WSSCI). This year, the meeting will be held on March 23-24 at Stanford University. The spring meetings bring together researchers, scientists and engineers from academia, national labs …
ME Alumnus Darryll J. Pines Named President of University of Maryland, College Park
Pines (B.S.’86 ME), the current dean of the A. James Clark School of Engineering, will start his appointment July 1.
ME Professors Jyh-Yuan Chen, Robert Dibble, and Michael Frenklach Elected Fellows of the Combustion Institute
Members of the international combustion community recognized by their peers as distinguished for outstanding contributions to combustion, whether it be in research or in applications, may be designated Fellows of The Combustion Institute. This lifetime honorific title confers no special rights, privileges or duties. Fellows are active participants in The Combustion Institute, as evidenced by …
ME Professor Panayiotis Papadopoulos Wins 2020 Berkeley Faculty Service Award
The Berkeley Faculty Service Award (BFSA) honors a member of the Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate for their outstanding and dedicated service to the campus, and whose activities as a faculty member have significantly enhanced the quality of the campus as an educational institution and community of scholars. This award recognizes Senate service, which …
In the Same Boat: Rower Matthew Mesman Demonstrates Teamwork in the Classroom
The same enthusiasm and determination Matthew Mesman displays in the boat, he also demonstrates in the classroom. A mechanical engineering major on the Cal men’s rowing team, Mesman recently completed his ME 102B project – a team assignment in which he and fellow classmates devised and built a paper recycling machine. CalBears.com recently spent time …
UC Berkeley Researchers Find Pasta Can Help Build Assistive Robots
UC Berkeley professor of mechanical engineering Oliver O’Reilly and campus graduate mechanical engineering student Nathaniel Goldberg constructed a model showing changes in the shape of spaghetti after it is placed in water, which could help researchers create more human-like robots.
Former ME Chair C. Daniel Mote Awarded 2020 Benjamin Franklin Medal
C. D. “Dan” Mote, Jr. is a Renaissance man of engineering. From sawmills to ski slopes, Mote’s research has made a variety of everyday objects and processes more efficient, safe, and ecologically sound. His early work on rotating disc stability, which transformed sawing technology while reducing wood waste, has been applied to drive belts, computer …