Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) today announced that Grace Gu, a faculty member in mechanical engineering at the University of California (UC), Berkeley, has been selected as the inaugural recipient of the LLNL Early Career UC Faculty Initiative. The initiative is a joint endeavor between LLNL’s Strategic Deterrence Principal Directorate and UC national laboratories at the University of California Office of the …
‘Shoulders to stand on’: Statue of campus’ first Black professor unveiled
In 1952, Joseph Thomas Gier became the first tenured Black professor in the University of California system and the second at any highly-ranked predominantly white university. Despite his historical significance, the record of his existence as a UC Berkeley professor of engineering became lost over time. After uncovering details of his past, a sculpture now …
‘Reaching new heights’: STAR launches rockets, future careers
The first custom flight computer developed by Berkeley Space, Technologies and Rocketry, or STAR, will be tested this week. Conor Van Bibber, a deputy in the avionics specialty, is excited to see his hard work come to fruition. Since joining STAR in 2021, Van Bibber has been able to learn about a variety of specialties …
UC Berkeley’s Big Ideas Contest Builds Student-Led Social Innovations
Paige Balcom, the co-founder, co-CEO and CTO of Takataka Plastics, is changing Uganda — one plastic bottle at a time. In 2017, Balcom, who earned her Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, was settling into campus life after spending a year in Uganda on a Fulbright research grant. Only a month into …
UC Berkeley MEng Class of 2024 Full-Time Profile
Each year, the UC Berkeley Master of Engineering (MEng) program admits students from around the world who go on to become leaders in their respective fields. With 40 countries represented in the Class of 2024, the Fung Institute welcomes a student body of technical leaders who come from many different backgrounds and perspectives. The class …
U.S. News ranks Berkeley Mechanical Engineering undergrad program No. 3 in the nation
Berkeley Engineering continues to rank No. 3 in the top undergraduate engineering schools nationwide, according to U.S. News & World Report’s 2024 undergraduate program rankings. The college also remains the top public engineering program, tied with Georgia Tech. While most of the individual undergraduate programs retained their 2023 positions, three moved up this year: materials engineering …
Berkeley engineers partner with Siemens Energy on $3.7M DOE project to explore direct air capture for carbon sequestration
The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded Siemens Energy, Inc., and partners Constellation Energy, UC Berkeley and Battelle a $3.7 million grant to explore the feasibility of a multi-technology direct air capture (DAC) hub that will extract carbon dioxide directly from the air to help combat climate change. According to the DOE announcement, made Aug. 11, the Teras …
‘Hidden Revolutionaries’: Campus alumni inducted into CA Hall of Fame
“Our state’s most revolutionary, innovative, and brightest” was the phrase Gov. Gavin Newsom used to describe the California Hall of Fame, according to a press release announcing its 16th class of inductees Aug. 14. Two of the seven remarkable inductees were UC Berkeley’s very own alumni — Olympic gold medalist and educator Archie Williams, ’39, …
New Technique Could Facilitate Rapid Cryopreservation of All Coral Species
Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute (NZCBI) researchers have achieved a breakthrough in the fight to save the world’s coral reefs from climate change annihilation, and it may further the goal of cryopreserving human organs. In a paper published today, Aug. 23, in Nature Communications, Mary Hagedorn and E. Michael Henley, research scientists at NZCBI, and colleagues …
‘Look to the atmosphere’: Campus researchers develop technology to collect clean water from fog
UC Berkeley researchers have developed a method of collecting and purifying water from fog, offering an alternative water source. Microscopic droplets of water can be harvested from fog as it passes through a mesh, which is coated with particles that degrade pollutants in the water, said Thomas Schutzius, assistant professor of mechanical engineering on campus …
This device from Berkeley’s Squishy Robotics looks like a toy, but acts like an action hero
A recently posted YouTube video shows a firefighter putting what looks like a toy, but is actually a robot, into a clear testing chamber. He fills the chamber with hydrogen gas, and then gleefully ignites the atmosphere. “You can guess what happens then — there’s a BIG boom,” said Alice Agogino. Agogino, the co-founder and CEO of Squishy …
Why wildfires are at their deadliest in more than a century
Washington Post: Large wildfires are happening more often because the hazards that trigger them — dry conditions, strong winds, plenty of stuff to burn — are becoming more common, says Michael Gollner, associate professor of mechanical engineering, who heads Berkeley’s Fire Research Lab.
Scientists develop parallel method for fog harvesting and water treatment
Fog harvesting offers regions devoid of lakes and rivers another source for freshwater, but in urban centers, where water is often scarce, there is the added challenge of air pollution. Now, researchers have developed a simple way to simultaneously collect water from fog and remove harmful contaminants, an advancement that could help provide millions of …
Combining superlative AI research with Berkeley’s next unicorn
Shelton AI, a San Francisco-based start-up, is making waves in the financial world with its groundbreaking AI for sovereign wealth funds. Since its inception, Shelton AI has had major success by combining Berkeley’s top engineering talent with the highly regarded industry expertise of C-level executives from top sovereign wealth funds and financial firms. A deep …
2023 Tillman Scholar: Gregory Zaborski Jr.
Gregory served as a infantry team leader in the Marine Corps, deploying in 2008 on the USS Tarawa with the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit and then in 2009 deploying to Helmand Province, Afghanistan for Operation Khanjar, the largest Marine offensive since the Battle of Fallujah and the biggest offensive airlift by the Marines since the …
Researchers achieve extremely fast charging speeds for commercial lithium-ion batteries
For consumers considering an electric vehicle (EV), long charge times, some up to 12 hours, can be a deal-breaker. But researchers may have discovered a way to reduce the charging time of the lithium-ion batteries used in EVs to less than 15 minutes. Led by Ravi Prasher, adjunct professor of mechanical engineering at UC Berkeley …
ME Professor Boris Rubinsky Helps Team With Advances in Cryopreservation
The rat kidney on the operating table in front of Joseph Sushil Rao looked like it had been through hell. Which it had—a very cold one. Normally a deep pink, this thumbnail-size organ was blanched a corpselike gray. In the past 6 hours, it had been plucked from the abdomen of a white lab rat, …
A Eureka-1 Moment
“Let’s light this candle!” yelled Benjamin Tait (B.S.’23 EECS), the since-graduated chief engineer for Space Enterprise at Berkeley (SEB). On the count of five, Eureka-1 shot up into the sky to the loud cheers of the undergraduate throng.
Keep it cool
Salt has been long used to prevent ice from forming on roads by lowering the freezing point of water. Now, mechanical engineering Ph.D. student Drew Lilley and adjunct professor Ravi Prasher, working with Berkeley Lab researchers, have used this same concept to develop a new method of heating and cooling. Known as ionocaloric cooling, the technique has the potential …
ME Professor Van Carey to Lead Machine Learning for Energy Tech Workshop at the 2023 ASME Summer Heat Transfer Conference in Washington, DC.
On July 11, 2023 ME Professor Van Carey will lead a workshop at the 2023 Summer Heat Transfer Conference on Use of Machine Learning Tools for Thermophysics and Heat Transfer Research and Energy Technology Development. The workshop will provide a summary of recent innovative uses of machine learning to enhance thermophysics research and develop adaptive …
Evolution on fast forward: Grace Gu engineers AI-optimized, bioinspired materials
The CITRIS principal investigator and assistant professor of mechanical engineering takes inspiration from nature and uses machine learning to create more efficient materials.
ME Associate Professor Michael Gollner Wins Early Career Award in Fire Science
ME Associate Professor Michael Gollner has won the Early Career Award in Fire Science by the International Association of Wildland Fire. This award is to recognize a promising early-career professional who has demonstrated outstanding ability in any field of wildland fire science. Congratulations, Professor Gollner!
ME Associate Professor Grace O’Connell Named ASME Fellow
ME Associate Professor Grace O’Connell has been named a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. The ASME Committee of Past Presidents confers the Fellow grade of membership on worthy candidates to recognize their outstanding engineering achievements. Congratulations, Professor O’Connell!
ME Assistant Professor Hannah Stuart Wins NSF CAREER Award
ME Assistant Professor Hannah Stuart has won the NSF CAREER Award for Robotic Augmentation of Human Reflexes and Reach through Collaborative Grasping. Professor Stuart’s CAREER project will create a new generation of effective and affordable wearable robotic assistance for people with severe weakness or partial paralysis of the hands and arms, such as might arise …
International Fire Safety Consortium Releases Free, Open Access Video Webinar Series on Wildland Fires in Partnership with UL’s Fire Safety Research Institute and UC Berkeley
The International Fire Safety Consortium (IFSC), a network co-led by the University of California, Berkeley that brings together leading higher-education institutions and fire safety research organizations from around the world, has announced the release of a new series of free, open access educational video webinars on wildland fires, in partnership with UL’s Fire Safety Research Institute …