On August 26, 2020, the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced it will be funding a new food systems research center in partnership with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). The award of $20M over five years will aim to improve US food systems to address issues such as …
ME Alum Negar Mehr Wins 2020 IEEE ITS Best Dissertation Award
ME Alum Negar Mehr has won the 2020 IEEE ITS Best Dissertation Award. The IEEE ITS Best Dissertation Award is given annually for the best dissertation in any ITS area that is innovative and relevant to practice. This award is established to encourage doctoral research that combines theory and practice, makes in-depth technical contributions, or …
ME Professor Masayoshi Tomizuka Receives IEEE ITS Lifetime Achievement Award
ME Professor Masayoshi Tomizuka is the recipient of the 2020 IEEE ITS Lifetime Achievement Award. The Lifetime Achievement Award is given to (a) an outstanding leader in the organizations they have led; (b) a thought leader in the ITS field; and (c) a champion of vision of ITS and its fulfillment within and beyond the …
Why ‘Fire is Normal’ in California and How Communities Can Change to Cut Risks
Michael Gollner, UC Berkeley Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering, joins Yahoo Finance to discuss the risks of wildfires on the West Coast and how residents can adjust to stay safe.
ME Undergraduate Spotlight: Bryant La
Meet Bryant La, a third-year undergraduate in the Department of Mechanical Engineering here at UC Berkeley with a 4.0 GPA.
Bryant is a first generation student and he is proud to be from Oakland. He is a valuable member of our community, serving as the president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. He grew up just east of Lake Merritt and is an alum of Oakland High School.
Berkeley ME Group Wins Best Paper Award at ASME Design Conference
UC Berkeley Mechanical Engineering faculty (Alice Agogino and Kosa Goucher-Lambert), PhD graduates (Eui-Young Kim, Vivek Rao) and a visiting student from the University of Minnesota (Jieun Kwon) have been recognized for their research paper on decision making about design methods. They won the 2020 Best Paper Award in the Design Theory and Method division at the ASME …
BART Summer Internships Give Students Real-World Experience in Public Transportation
Jennie Nguyen’s summer internship with Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) let her stretch her computer science skills with real-world experience, architecting a new faregate patron sensor solution and coding the sensors to work in the new faregates “It definitely gave me experience that I couldn’t get in the classroom alone,” said Nguyen, a senior in …
New California Fire Science Seminar Series
This new online seminar series will cover the breadth of wildland fire research relevant to California and introduce researchers to new topics and research groups across the state. Topics will include fire weather, wildfire risk, fire ecology, remote sensing, emissions, fire dynamics, fire modeling and public health. Featuring many early-career researchers, this series is aimed at …
ME Community Spotlight: Dr. Pamela Eibeck
Meet Dr. Pamela Eibeck, a former professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering here at UC Berkeley. After working in gas systems design at Pacific Gas and Electric and attending grad school, Dr. Eibeck was a professor in the department from 1985 to 1995. Since then, Dr. Eibeck went on to become the Chair of …
Closed, Open, Still, Stirring: Pandemic-Era Berkeley in 30 Photos
You’re miles from UC Berkeley, maybe even overseas, working remotely and wondering if central campus has become a COVID-19 ghost town with cobwebbed windows, withering brown lawns, locked doors and barely a human, or even a peregrine falcon, in sight. Is anybody there? If you were here, you’d see nearly empty outdoor expanses and darkened …
The Clean Air Car Race Turns 50
This summer, as thousands of Americans drive their lower-emission cars on the nation’s roads and highways, very few of them are aware that this month marks the 50th anniversary of a seminal event that paved the way to the invention of their vehicles. On August 24, 1970, Berkeley’s College of Engineering students participated in the …
UC Berkeley Team Advances Food Systems Research in New $20M NSF Center
A new research center funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) will aim to improve U.S. food systems to address such issues as pandemic-driven food system security and safety; improving crop yield, quality and nutrition; decreasing energy …
ME Alumni Spotlight: Boeing
Howard McKenzie was named vice president and chief engineer for Boeing’s Global Services business unit in May 2020. He is responsible for leading the alignment of 7,000 engineers into one cohesive engineering function that supports commercial and government customers worldwide.
ME Alumni Spotlight: Dr. Debbie Senesky
Debbie G. Senesky is an Associate Professor at Stanford University in the Aeronautics and Astronautics Department and by courtesy, the Electrical Engineering Department. In addition, she is the Principal Investigator of the EXtreme Environment Microsystems Laboratory (XLab). Her research interests include the development of nanomaterials for extreme harsh environments, high-temperature electronics, and robust instrumentation for …
UC Berkeley Researchers Motivated by Society, Personal Interests, Scientific Community
Mechanical engineering professor Homayoon Kazerooni, who has developed marketable exoskeletons — wearable devices that assist people who have limited mobility — sees applied research as a more effective means of accomplishing his goals. “There are urgent technological problems that need to be solved since the results would be life changing,” Kazerooni said in an email. …
GLOBE Include Program: A New Model for Engagement
To enhance Berkeley’s mission: Teaching, Research, and Public service, the GLOBE Include Fall 2020 Program is an online program that provides opportunity to engage with Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Hispanic Serving Institutions through remote platforms. Transitioning to remote education offers a scalable approach to offer access to specialized courses. Students are able to engage in …
UC Berkeley researchers receive grant for biopreservation research, center establishment
UC Berkeley researchers — in collaboration with researchers from the University of Minnesota, Massachusetts General Hospital and UC Riverside — won a National Science Foundation award Aug. 4 of $26 million over the next five years to fund a new center for biopreservation research.
Alumni Advice: How to Maximize Your Job Search
Looking for a job can be a daunting task. But it can be made easier if you know your end goal and the steps in between. Here, I’ve compiled some takeaways and tips from my experience searching, networking, and interviewing. In particular, I have three separate areas of the job-searching process that I would like to …
UC Berkeley Team Creates Respiratory Devices From Sleep Apnea Machines
The coronavirus pandemic’s arrival earlier this year prompted Stephen McNally, a videographer for University Development and Alumni Relations (UDAR), to jump on a call with campus researchers discussing how they could turn their labs into workspaces to tackle COVID-19. Faculty member Grace O’Connell agreed to let McNally come to her lab and shoot her team at work …
The Fung Institute Summer 2020 Alumni Magazine Is Out Now!
This year’s Fung Institute alumni magazine is focused on the steps towards resilience and leadership that we’ve taken together as a community in the time of COVID-19. In this issue: Fung Institute responds to COVID-19 Tips for effective remote teaming Student life snapshots Class Notes: Fung Fellowshup & MEng Alumni Updates
ME Professor Michael Frenklach Wins Jürgen Warnatz Gold Medal
ME Professor Michael Frenklach has been awarded the Jürgen Warnatz Gold Medal by the Combustion Institute. The gold medal recognizes exceptional scientific contributions having a major impact on combustion applications or combustion research; bestowed biennially to one scientist during the International Symposium on Combustion. The gold medal is named after Jürgen Warnatz (1944-2007), a former …
Professor Murat Arcak Awarded 2020 Automatica Paper Prize
ME and EECS Professor Murat Arcak has been awarded the 2020 Automatica Paper Prize by the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC). Professor Arcak will receive the prize at the upcoming virtual IFAC World Congress for his paper, “Symmetry reduction for dynamic programming.” The Automatica Paper Prize is awarded for outstanding contributions to the theory …
CVR Abnormalities Evaluated in HIV-Infected Women Using Quantitative Whole Brain ASL
A team of scientists from the UC San Francisco Departments of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, Neurology, and Division of Infectious Diseases along with the UC Berkeley Department of Mechanical Engineering and Subtle Medical, Inc. (Menlo Park, California) set out to assess whole brain and regional patterns of cerebrovascular reactivity (CVR) abnormalities in HIV-infected women using …
The EDG Lab Discovers How to Better Design Skin for Handling Wet and Submerged Objects
Real world environments, such as kitchens, present objects covered in viscous fluids: soap, oil, water, etc. Understanding and designing for slippery and submerged contact, where fluid lubrication is present, is a continuing challenge in the robotics community. Contact area, bending stiffness, and the presence of a viscous fluid affect friction. This work focuses on milliscale …
This Ugandan Startup Turns Plastic Waste into Construction Materials and COVID Face Shields
The team, led by a PhD student in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, created small machines that sort, shred, and melt the plastic so that it can be remade into construction materials and, most recently, reusable, locally made plastic face shields for medical workers who are fighting COVID-19.