Grad News

For Ph.D. candidate and Chancellor’s Fellowship recipient Alexander Alvara, the path to UC Berkeley’s College of Engineering has been a long and winding road. As a teenager, he would help his six younger siblings get ready for school each morning, while his mother, a single parent, juggled two jobs. He never minded the extra responsibility, …

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 …

Among universities across the nation, UC Berkeley has historically topped the list of National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellows. This prestigious and competitive fellowship provides significant funding over one to three years, allowing students to pursue important research in fields ranging from cognitive neuroscience and bioengineering to public policy and particle physics. Since 2015, the …

ME Ph.D. student George Moore has been selected to receive a 2021-22 University of California Dissertation-Year Fellowship. The fellowship is open to graduate students in academic Ph.D. programs who demonstrate strong potential for university teaching and research, and who are in their final year of dissertation work. Congratulations, George!

Paige Balcom is a lifelong engineer, beginning as an “Inventioneer” in middle school and later winning the 2010 FIRSTLEGO League World Championship with her teammates. She earned a full academic scholarship to study mechanical engineering at the University of New Hampshire where she joined Engineers Without Borders. Her work with Engineers Without Borders led to …

We rely on water to quench our thirst and to irrigate bountiful farmland. But what do you do when that once pristine water is polluted with wastewater from abandoned copper mines? A promising solution relies on materials that capture heavy metal atoms, such as copper ions, from wastewater through a separation process called adsorption. However, commercially available …

ME Ph.D. student Angel Rodriguez, of the FLOW Lab, has won first place in the Great Minds in STEM Research Poster Competition for his poster titled, “X-ray Computed Tomography of Vertical Bubble Column.” The GMiS Research Poster Competition provides a premiere, national forum for traditionally underserved and underrepresented STEM undergraduate and graduate students to showcase …

George Moore, doctoral candidate in Mechanical Engineering at UC Berkeley, was awarded one of the Chancellor’s Awards for Public Service, the 2020 Birgeneau Recognition Award for Service to Underrepresented Students.  Chancellor Christ hosted the awards ceremony in honor of the recipients, nominators, and nominees on Tues., Sep. 23, 2020. See video of the award ceremony.

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.

ME Graduate Student Rachel Rex has been awarded the 2020 GE Women’s Network Scholarship from the Society of Women Engineers (SWE). The Scholarship Selection Committee reviewed over 1,500 applications this year, and awarded Rachel with the scholarship for her “outstanding academic achievement as well as strong engineering potential.” SWE Scholarships support those who identify as …

In 2016, Paige Balcom fell in love with Uganda. It happened in Lukodi, a village outside of the town of Gulu, where she was on a Fulbright research grant. Working with farmers and a school for child mothers, she tested whether aquaponics — in this case, raising fish and using their nutrient-rich water to fertilize …