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Wildfire season is here. UC Berkeley scholars are helping Bay Area communities prepare.
UC Berkeley Professor Michael Gollner and his students are applying advanced wildfire simulation tools to help neighborhoods understand their specific wildfire risks.
Read MoreInspired by nature, this engineering professor’s designs fold, move and morph
From self-folding chairs to self-planting seeds, UC Berkeley’s Morphing Matter Lab is transforming what’s possible in engineering design with their biomimetic materials.
Read MoreIE Sci-Tech and UC Berkeley ME Department Partner to Advance Digital-Twin Simulation for Financial Systems
The IE School of Science & Technology (IE Sci-Tech) and the Mechanical Engineering Department of the University of California, Berkeley, are pleased to announce a strategic research collaboration under the IEX Research Xcelerator, aimed at advancing digital-twin modeling of global financial systems. The initiative supports IE School of Science & Technology’s mission to drive interdisciplinary…
Read MoreWhen Student Athletes are Also Engineers
As artificial intelligence, autonomous cars, intelligent robots, and space exploration dominate social media, science and engineering are now in style. And the students with the unique capability to find solutions that save the earth, make life easier, and help explain the inexplicable, are cool, especially if they are also elite athletes competing at the collegiate…
Read MoreNo robot can match a squirrel’s ability to leap from limb to limb — until now
Engineers have designed robots that crawl, swim, fly and even slither like a snake, but no robot can hold a candle to a squirrel, which can parkour through a thicket of branches, leap across perilous gaps and execute pinpoint landings on the flimsiest of branches.
Read More‘An extra special place’: UC Berkeley alumni start a new chapter of their love story with the sweetest marriage proposal in Morrison Library
As a student at UC Berkeley, Helen Kirkby was no stranger to the libraries. Kirkby, who studied political science and history, remembers digging through the Free Speech Movement papers for a research project, poring over old newspaper articles on a microfiche reader, and studying medieval manuscripts from The Bancroft Library. Morrison Library, tucked within Doe,…
Read MoreA. Carlos Fernandez-Pello, 2024 Recipient of the Alfred C. Egerton Gold Medal
In this second installment of a series of articles recognizing the combustion scientists who were honored with medals and awards during the 40th International Symposium – Emphasizing Energy Transition, we will be highlighting A. Carlos Fernandez-Pello (University of California [UC] Berkeley, United States), the 2024 recipient of the Alfred C. Egerton Gold Medal. Prof. Fernandez-Pello was selected to receive this…
Read MoreUC Berkeley engineers create world’s smallest wireless flying robot
The bumblebee-inspired robot, less than a centimeter in diameter, can hover, change directions and even hit small targets.
Read MoreNew assistive device enhances grasping for people with spinal cord injuries
More than 15 million people worldwide are living with spinal cord injury (SCI), which can affect their sensory and motor functions below the injury level. For individuals with SCI between C5 and C7 cervical levels, this can mean paralysis affecting their limbs and limited voluntary finger and wrist flexion, making it difficult to grasp large,…
Read MoreWildfire scientist Michael Gollner on protecting the East Bay from disaster
As LA continues to burn and a blanket of smoke, ash and toxins covers Southern California, an atmosphere of dread hangs in the air over Berkeley and the fire-prone East Bay. Are we next? The lush landscape of forests with homes nestled into the Berkeley hills is beautiful to behold for many aspiring homeowners. But…
Read MoreWhite House honors engineering faculty with early career awards
UC Berkeley engineering professors Grace Gu, Sergey Levine and Grace O’Connell have been awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government to scientists and engineers in the early stages of their careers. President Biden made the announcement this week.
Read MoreNew electromagnetic material draws inspiration from the color-shifting chameleon
Talk about inspo. The chameleon, a lizard known for its color-changing skin, is the inspiration behind a new electromagnetic material that could someday make vehicles and aircraft “invisible” to radar. As reported today in the journal Science Advances, a team of UC Berkeley engineers has developed a tunable metamaterial microwave absorber that can switch between absorbing,…
Read MoreHealth, housing and the path ahead: UC Berkeley researchers on the Los Angeles fires
The areas burning in L.A., such as the Santa Monica Mountains, have a long and extensive fire history. Malibu, for instance, has had over 30 wildfires in the last 100 years. Dense vegetation that regrows quickly fuels fires that can spread into neighboring population centers. When Santa Ana wind events occur, winds are channeled through…
Read MoreNew Big Ideas Lab episode explores how additive manufacturing is reshaping the future
Another groundbreaking innovation is Computed Axial Lithography (CAL), a Star Trek replicator-like process that builds objects using principles similar to a CT scan, but in reverse, and does so quickly and seemingly out of thin air. Hayden Taylor, associate professor of mechanical engineering at UC Berkeley, explained: “[CAL] allows us to print materials that are very low…
Read MoreFour game-changing researchers in materials science
Grace Gu is taking inspiration from a wide range of places when she comes up with designs for composite materials that are more robust, adaptable and cheaper to produce than current forms. Turning to “the hidden gems of the mathematical world” to inform her designs has been especially rewarding, says Gu, who works as a…
Read MoreNASA-funded project offers new insights into fire behavior in space
In the coming years, NASA plans to launch long-duration missions to the Moon and to Mars, where astronauts will spend weeks, months or even years living in spacecraft. Understanding fire behavior in these environments is important to ensuring crew safety, but flammability testing conducted on Earth does not always give a complete picture of how…
Read MoreMeet the Newest Faculty to Join the Department of Mechanical Engineering
Over the past year, we’ve had four new faculty members join the Department of Mechanical Engineering – Professors Negar Mehr, Lining Yao, Ken Kamrin, and Claudio Hail. Negar Mehr received her Ph.D. in mechanical engineering for UC Berkeley. Dr. Mehr’s research focuses on creating algorithms and mathematical models for autonomous systems to interact safely and…
Read MoreBerkeley Engineering welcomes eight new faculty members
Claudio Hail, assistant professor of mechanical engineering Hail completed his Ph.D. at ETH Zürich in Switzerland. His research will focus on leveraging nanoengineered optical materials and micro/nanomanufacturing to address clean energy technologies and global challenges ranging from new concepts for space travel and manufacturing quantum hardware to advancing imaging/sensing devices.
Read MoreNew research center to develop innovative solar power plant technologies
UC Berkeley Engineering and Nextracker Inc. are partnering to launch the CALNEXT Center for Solar Energy Research, with the goal of developing sustainable, next-generation solar power plant technologies to meet rising global energy demand. Funded by a $6.5 million gift from Nextracker, this collaboration will support a leading-edge research program and planned state-of-the-art test field.…
Read MoreME Professor Homayoon Kazerooni elected to the National Academy of Inventors
Kazerooni, a leading expert in robotics and human-machine systems, is known for creating medical exoskeletons that have allowed those who have been paralyzed to stand and walk.
Read MoreNew model sheds light on how wildfires spread through communities
California has already recorded more than 6,000 wildfires this year, underscoring the need for better mitigation strategies to reduce their devastating impact. Now, researchers have created a model that may shed light on how these fires spread through communities in the wildland-urban interface (WUI), enabling us to better assess the risks of wildfire and take steps…
Read MoreBerkeley Engineering welcomes new faculty to campus
Ken Kamrin, associate professor of mechanical engineering Kamrin received his Ph.D. in applied mathematics from MIT. His research interests include theory and modeling of granular media, gas- and liquid-sediment mixture modeling, computational methods for soft media and multiphase problems, and analytical techniques and model reduction.
Read MoreNew $150 million research center to develop sustainable model for materials production
UC Berkeley will partner with the new Rio Tinto Centre for Future Materials to develop a sustainable model for materials production to support the global transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Rio Tinto will contribute $150 million over 10 years to fund the center, which will be led by Imperial College London and act as a hub for…
Read MoreME Professor and Ph.D. Student’s Research Featured in Soft Robotics
Squishy Robotics, UC Berkeley’s BEST (Berkeley Emergent Space Tensegrities) Lab, and a NASA Ames co-author were on the cover of the June 2024 issue of Soft Robotics journal. The referenced paper was co-authored by Dr. Kyunam Kim, as lead author, with ME Professor Emeritus Alice M. Agogino and Dr. Adrian K. Agogino, a NASA Ames…
Read MoreBerkeley researchers send 3D printer into space
Imagine a crew of astronauts headed to Mars. About 140 million miles away from Earth, they discover their spacecraft has a cracked O-ring. But instead of relying on a dwindling cache of spare parts, what if they could simply fabricate any part they needed on demand? A team of Berkeley researchers, led by Ph.D. student Taylor…
Read MoreWinners of 2024 CITRIS Aviation Prize reach great heights
What would it take to connect the University of California’s campuses in Berkeley, Davis, Merced and Santa Cruz with a safe and sustainable system of air taxis, equipped to ferry students, faculty, staff and cargo across Northern California? That’s the question posed by the 2023–24 CITRIS Aviation Prize, the student design competition organized by CITRIS Aviation, a…
Read MoreResearchers design soft actuators that mimic ‘bone-in-flesh’ structure of human limbs
Berkeley engineers have developed magnetically controlled soft actuators that mimic the “bone-in-flesh” structure of human limbs. Ultrafast and highly precise in their movements, these bioinspired actuators are easily made with low-cost, off-the-shelf components — qualities that may lead to their expanded use in soft robotics systems. In a study published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials,…
Read MoreME Undergraduate and Alumni Among Berkeley Engineering Commencement Speakers
Born and raised in the Philippines, Abhinav Subramaniam has worked with UC Berkeley’s Invention Corps on numerous projects—such as designing and building solar-powered refrigeration in rural areas—and was a member of the Model United Nations Team. After graduation, he plans to work with social impact-oriented startups and eventually pursue a master’s degree in public policy.
Read MoreME Undergraduate Lilly Etzenbach Among 2024 University Medal Finalists
In the remarkable diversity of the 2024 University Medal finalists, there is a striking theme: All of the finalists started their Berkeley studies in isolation, and through their undergraduate years, each found ways to build communities of study and service that were essential to their success. University Medal winner Christopher Ying has lived this story, and…
Read MoreUC Berkeley innovators featured in ‘Pathways to Invention’ film
Are inventors born or made? Berkeley engineers explore that question in the award-winning documentary “Pathways to Invention,” set to premiere in May on PBS stations nationwide. The 60-minute special follows eight “modern inventors of diverse backgrounds and their journeys as they develop life-changing innovations.” Among those profiled are Berkeley alumni Paige Balcom (Ph.D.’22 ME), Corten Singer (B.A.’17…
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