When I was a kid, I remember watching my mom water her garden. She put a lot of time and effort into her small, budding rose bushes, treating them with love and rich soil. And every spring, they would bloom with big, vibrant colored petals in front of our two-bedroom apartment. People would walk by …
Capstone Spotlight: Lunar Kinetic
Each year, Berkeley MEng candidates embark on a two-semester capstone experience where they work with faculty or industry partners to bring solutions for real-world problems to life with engineering skills and leadership practices. Here, we place a spotlight on the capstone experience of the Lunar Kinetic capstone team.
ME Alum Ryan Shelby Receives Mark Bingham Award for Excellence in Achievement by Young Alumni
ME Alum Ryan Shelby (M.S. ’08, Ph.D. ’13) has received the 2022 Mark Bingham Award for Excellence in Achievement by Young Alumni. All recipients of the 2022 Achievement Awards will be honored tonight, Thursday, May 12, 2022 at the Berkeley Charter Gala. The Gala will take place at the Residence Inn Berkeley at 2121 Center …
ME Lecturer Ala Moradian Elected ASME Fellow
ME Lecturer Ala Moradian has been elected a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). The ASME Committee of Past Presidents confers the Fellow grade of membership on worthy candidates to recognize their outstanding engineering achievements. Nominated by ASME Members and Fellows, an ASME Member has to have 10 or more years of …
Study of aqueous salt solutions deepens our understanding of icy planets’ oceans
Researchers at UC Berkeley, in collaboration with the University of Washington, have developed a new way to measure properties of salty water that may help us better understand whether the icy moons in the far reaches of our solar system can support life. In a study published in Cell Reports Physical Science, a team of researchers …
Join Us for a Commencement Celebration!
The Department of Mechanical Engineering is hosting a commencement reception on Tuesday, May 17, 2022, from 11:30-1:30PM in the Etcheverry Breezeway. The reception will be for graduating undergraduates, M.S and M.ENG graduates, and their families.
Making the cut
Wearable sensors are often used by researchers to gather medical data from patients over extended periods of time. They range from adhesive bandages on skin to stretchable implants on organs, and they harness sophisticated sensors to monitor health or diagnose illnesses. In the past, researchers have built systems for these devices using photolithography, a multistep …
Researchers develop innovative 3D-printing technology for glass microstructures
Researchers at UC Berkeley have developed a new way to 3D-print glass microstructures that is faster and produces objects with higher optical quality, design flexibility and strength, according to a new study published in the April 15 issue of Science. Working with scientists from the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg, Germany, the researchers expanded the capabilities …
ME Professor Tarek Zohdi Appointed an Editor of Computational Methods of Applied Mechanics and Engineering
As of January 1, 2022, ME Professor Tarek Zohdi has been appointed an Editor of Computational Methods of Applied Mechanics and Engineering, which is the leading journal in the field of computational mechanics. Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering was founded over three decades ago, providing a platform for the publication of papers in …
ME Graduate Student Atsushi Matsuda Wins Biophysical Society’s Student Research Achievement Award
ME Graduate Student Atsushi Matsuda has won the Biophysical Society’s Student Research Achievement Award in the “Theory and Computation” category for his work titled “Structural Flexibility of FG-Nucleoporins Regulates the Molecular Transport Through the Nuclear Pore Complex.” The award was presented at the 66th Biophysical Society Annual Meeting held during February 19-23, 2022. Winners were …
How a dancer’s personal experiences influenced the first student-initiated capstone project
Each UC Berkeley Master of Engineering (MEng) cohort forms teams of students to engineer solutions using cutting-edge technology and methods to address crucial industry, market, or societal needs. Capstone projects are usually proposed by either industry partners or UC Berkeley faculty. This year, however, students are also allowed to initiate their own projects! In this …
Fung Fellows: Austin Portinause, Conservation + Tech ’22
Austin Portinause is a Conservation + Tech fellow studying Mechanical Engineering. Here, he shares about how his experience in the Navy and enrolling in UC Berkeley, ultimately led him to the Fung Fellowship.
2022 Eaton-Hachigian Fellowship Recipients
The College of Engineering and the Fung Institute for Engineering Leadership are pleased to announce the recipients of the 2021–22 Eaton-Hachigian Fellowships, awarded this year to two students pursuing Master of Engineering degrees at UC Berkeley. Selected by the Dean of the College of Engineering, the Eaton-Hachigian Fellows are engineering graduate students, pursuing studies in …
Humans of Fung: James Cheney, MEng ’21
James Cheney is a current Berkeley MEng candidate studying Mechanical Engineering with a concentration in control of autonomous systems and robotics. Here, he shares his goals as an engineer and his hobbies outside of the MEng program.
Archie Williams: The Black Bay Area Gold Medalist, Pilot and Teacher Who Fought Racism Abroad and at Home
After winning the gold medal in the 400-meter race in the Berlin Olympics in 1936, Oakland-born Archie Williams was honored with a parade. But when he graduated from UC Berkeley with a mechanical engineering degree in 1939, he couldn’t get hired in his chosen field because he was Black. So he dug ditches for the East Bay …
ME Assistant Professor Grace Gu Named Sloan Research Fellow
Four UC Berkeley assistant professors have been awarded a Sloan Research Fellowship, one of the most prestigious honors given to early-career scientific researchers. The four are among 118 new 2022 fellows announced this week by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The fellowships recognize young scholars whose “achievements and potential place them among the next generation of scientific …
Slicing the way to wearable sensor prototypes
Engineers at UC Berkeley have developed a new technique for making wearable sensors that enables medical researchers to prototype test new designs much faster and at a far lower cost than existing methods. The new technique replaces photolithography — a multistep process used to make computer chips in clean rooms — with a $200 vinyl …
ME Professor Masayoshi Tomizuka named to National Academy of Engineering
The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) announced today that it has added another Berkeley Engineering professor to its ranks, one of the highest professional honors bestowed on engineers in the United States. Masayoshi Tomizuka, the Cheryl and John Neerhout Jr. Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering, studies optimal and adaptive control, digital control, signal processing, motion control, mechatronics and their …
Humans of Fung: Tiffany Tao, MEng ’20
Tiffany Tao graduated from the Berkeley MEng program in 2020, where she studied Mechanical Engineering with a concentration in Product Design. Since graduation, Tiffany has worked at Blue Goji, a wellness technology startup company focused on improving the health of users through fitness gamification. Now, she returns to the MEng program as an advisor for an …
Meet the MEng students behind the Automotive Affinity Group
Affinity groups are a unique part of the Fung Institute ecosystem, where students come together and form communities based on their technical and career interests. With the support of the institute, groups typically host social events, career development programs, and speaker series. They act as a space for students to collaborate, connect, and learn from …
ME Assistant Professor Kosa Goucher-Lambert Receives NSF CAREER Award
CAREER: The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program is a Foundation-wide activity that offers the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious awards in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization. Activities pursued by early-career …
Berkeley Discovery: ME Undergraduate Student Lekha Duvvoori
Lekha Duvvoori is a senior Mechanical Engineering major and Linguistics minor with a passion for working with her hands. She’s been a member of CalSol, the UC Berkeley solar vehicle team since her very first semester. She was brakes lead her sophomore year and Engineering Director her junior year, overseeing the Mechanical, Electrical, and Solar …
Dream On
Hypothermia is one of the greatest factors in preventable infant mortality — particularly in low- and middle-income countries — contributing to the deaths of about one million newborns each year. Ideally, infants have skin-to-skin contact with their mother, but in some cases, that’s just not feasible. To help address this issue, civil and environmental engineering …
Could liposomes be the unsung heroes of the pandemic?
Liposomes may be the unsung heroes of the COVID-19 pandemic. Without the protection of these microscopic vesicles, the delicate strands of messenger RNA (mRNA) that lie at the heart of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines would be quickly destroyed by enzymes in the body, making it nearly impossible for their genetic instructions to reach the …
Ottobock Acquires Exoskeleton Specialist suitX
AUSTIN, Texas & DUDERSTADT, Germany–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Ottobock, a leading global innovator for prosthetics, orthotics, and exoskeletons, today announced the acquisition of 100 percent of the shares of suitX, a US-based company spun out of the Robotics and Human Engineering Lab at the University of California, Berkeley, which specializes in the research and development of occupational and …