The Graduate Division and Graduate Student Instructor (GSI) Teaching and Resource Center recently presented Lisa Anne Torres with the Outstanding GSI Award in Engineering. The Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award honors over 200 UC Berkeley GSIs each year and recipients are nominated from within their teaching department. She received this award for the E295: Communications for Engineering …
Innovative Early-Career Engineers Selected to Participate in The Grainger Foundation Frontiers of Engineering 2022 Symposium of the National Academy of Engineering
Eighty-four highly accomplished early-career engineers have been selected to take part in the National Academy of Engineering’s The Grainger Foundation Frontiers of Engineering 2022 U.S.-based symposium. Engineers who are performing exceptional research and technical work in a variety of disciplines will come together for the two-and-a-half day event. The participants — from industry, academia, and …
Oliver O’Reilly, Victoria Plaut selected as 2022-23 vice provosts
UC Berkeley selected Oliver O’Reilly as the vice provost for undergraduate education and Victoria Plaut as the vice provost for faculty. Previously the interim vice provost for the same position, O’Reilly now serves the full role of supporting “diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging and justice efforts” starting July 1, according to a campus press release. “I’m …
UC Berkeley advances cyber-physical systems research as part of $6 million NSF project
A new project funded by the National Science Foundation will revamp the way we engineer the cyber-physical systems (CPSs) underpinning self-driving vehicles and aviation controls, enabling safer and more reliable autonomous transportation systems. The NSF announced a $6 million grant for a five-year, multi-institutional project for research to resolve key engineering challenges of CPSs. The project …
Parallel Journeys, Lasting Legacies
When Reggie DesRoches assumes the presidency of Rice University on July 1, he will become the fifth Black leader of a top research institution. He will also be the third Black president in the 65-member Association of American Universities who attended the UC Berkeley College of Engineering, along with Gary May, now the chancellor of the …
Patrick Lai, MEng ’19 (ME): “Product design is at the intersection of art and engineering.”
Patrick Lai earned a Mechanical Engineering degree from Berkeley MEng in 2019. Here, he discusses his interest in creative design as well as his discovery of and passion for product design.
Oliver O’Reilly is Berkeley’s new vice provost for undergraduate education
Oliver O’Reilly, whose 30-year career at UC Berkeley is characterized by a deep passion for teaching and student success, will be the campus’s new vice provost for undergraduate education starting this Friday, July 1, officials announced today. O’Reilly has been interim vice provost for undergraduate education during the past year. A mechanical engineering professor who’s …
Perovskite development heralds quantum breakthrough
“This is exciting,” said Xiang Zhang, Bao’s collaborator, now president of Hong Kong University but who completed this research as a mechanical engineering faculty member at UC Berkeley. “We show that XY spin lattice with a large number of coherently-coupled condensates that can be constructed as a lattice with a size up to 10×10.” Its …
Researchers devise a new way to detect and quantify SARS-CoV-2 in pooled samples
Testing wastewater for SARS-CoV-2 is one way public health departments are monitoring the spread of COVID-19 within their communities, but dilution in these large, pooled samples can prevent accurate readings of viral levels. Motivated by this challenge, UC Berkeley researchers have developed a new, more sensitive method for detecting and quantifying this virus in large …
“Together Again” at annual Fung Institute end of year showcase
On Thursday, May 5, 2022, the Fung Institute community gathered at the Mudd Hall Lawn to highlight year long projects from both the graduate Master of Engineering and undergraduate Fung Fellowship student teams. The “Together Again” theme celebrated the first in-person end of year showcase since before the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 100 teams showcased …
Bakar Fellows program names seven new Spark Award recipients
From artificial ligaments and a novel approach to cancer treatment to “soft” batteries and a way to give voice to silent speech, new innovations from UC Berkeley faculty are getting a big vote of support from the Bakar Fellows program. Seven faculty members have been selected to receive the 2022 Bakar Fellows Spark Award, which …
ME Professor Lisa Pruitt Awarded 2022 Brown Engineering Alumni Medal
Brown Engineering has named North Carolina State professor Christine Grant ’84 and University of California, Berkeley professor Lisa Pruitt Sc.M. ’90, Ph.D. ’93 as its 2022 Brown Engineering Alumni Medal (BEAM) winners. The presentation of the BEAM medals took place at the annual engineering awards dinner held over Commencement and Reunion weekend. The BEAM award …
UC Berkeley researchers develop COVID-19 detection for large samples
UC Berkeley researchers have created a method to detect and quantify COVID-19 in a large sample. Their study, published in Analytical Chemistry on May 18, introduces the method of detecting an intact virus by exogenous-nucleotide reaction, or DIVER. This quantifies the amount of virus in a pool without being affected drastically by dilution. The method …
Berkeley students flip, float and experiment on zero gravity flight
Last week, two teams of UC Berkeley researchers had the opportunity to test their experiments — and stomachs — aboard ZERO-G’s G-Force One, an aircraft that flies in a series of parabolic arcs to mimic the zero gravity conditions of space flight. During the flight, which took off and landed at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on …
UC Berkeley graduate Alberto Ibarra: ‘Succeed through the thorns’
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 …