News

jacobs institute for design innovation, uc berkeley

Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation in the spotlight

The Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation was spotlighted in an article in the California Council on Science & Technology (CCST) website titled “UC Berkeley and UC San Diego Explore Engineering Education of the Future through Making”. The Jacobs Institute is UC Berkeley’s interdisciplinary hub for students, teachers and practitioners who work at the intersection of design and technology to turn insights into prototypes and through testing and iteration design solutions that benefit people and society.  Prof. Björn Hartmann is the interim faculty director.

Women In Technology Roundtable group pictures

EECS Women In Technology take matters into their own hands

The Women in Technology (WIT) Leadership Round Table, started by Prof. Tsu-Jae King Liu, EECS grad student Virginia Smith, EECS alumna Gitanjali Swamy and Sheila Humphreys is featured in Medium, an online community of writers, in an article titled “Women in Technology: How a Handful of Leaders in Tech are Taking Matters into Their Own Hands”, written by Virginia Smith.  Aimed at developing sustainable solutions to increase the presence of women in technology, WIT is bringing together technology leaders in academia, industry, and non-profits to spark solutions-oriented discussion among women who can go back to their organizations and immediately make change.

Billy Kluver

How Billy Klüver helped shape modern art

Alumnus Billy Klüver (EE MS 1955/ Ph.D. 1957), who then became an assistant professor in EECS from 1957-58 is featured in a Little Atoms online article titled “How AT&T shaped modern art”. Born in Monaco in 1927, Klüver installed a television antenna on top of the Eiffel tower and developed underwater filming equipment for Jacques Cousteau before coming to Cal.   He eventually joined Bell Telephone Laboratories where he began collaborating with artists  on works incorporating new technology and was co-founder of Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.).   Klüver felt artists "helped make technology more human."

Alexandra von Meier

Alexandra von Meier imagines a way to detect cyber-attacks on energy grids

The research of Prof. Alexandra von Meier is featured in an IEEE Spectrum article titled “Detecting Cybersecurity Threats by Taking the Grid’s Pulse”. In 2013 Prof. von Meier and collaborator Alex McEachern built a “micro-PMU (phaser measurement units)” that could take snapshots of distribution grids, whose power flows have become increasingly complex. While developing this advanced power sensor they produced a promising tool to protect power grids from cyber attack and will compete in a $77M power grid cyber security R&D contest that DARPA is kicking off next month.

seth sanders

Seth Sanders participating in Advancements in Storage Technology at the STUDIO Conference in SF

Prof. Seth Sanders is featured in a Yahoo Finance article about his participation in a panel discussion on Advancements in Storage Technology at the STUDIO Conference in San Francisco on August 3. Prof. Sanders is the chief scientist and co-founder of Amber Kinetics, Inc., developer of the world’s first commercially ready four-hour flywheel energy storage system.

Tsu-Jae King Liu selected to receive the 2016 Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) Aristotle Award.

Prof. Tsu-Jae King Liu has been selected to receive the 2016 Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) Aristotle Award. The Aristotle Award was created by the SRC Board of Directors in March 1995 to recognize supported faculty whose deep commitment to the educational experience of SRC students has had a profound and continuing impact on their professional performance and consequently a significant impact for members over a long period of time. It is a tribute to the unwavering commitment of Prof. King Liu to all aspects of education. Past winners of this award include Profs. Andrew Neureuther, Chenming Hu, David Allstot and Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli.

Sanjam Garg and Nir Yosef awarded Okawa Foundation Research Grants

Prof. Sanjam Garg and Nir Yosef have been awarded Okawa Foundation Research Grants for 2016. This award recognizes promising young faculty members in the fields of information and telecommunications. Prof. Garg, whose research interests are in cryptography, security and more broadly theoretical computer science is awarded for his work on software obfuscation. Prof. Yosef, whose research interests are in utilizing high-throughput genomic data sets, and immune cells, covering various aspects of their biology, is awarded for his work on annotating the regulatory genome of mammalian cells.

Tsu-Jae King Liu appeals to Silicon Valley to collaborate to increase the number of women in computer technology

EECS Prof. Tsu-Jae King Liu and Belle Wei (Chair of Engineering Education and Innovative Learning at San Jose State) penned an article for the Mercury News titled "Closing tech workforce gap calls for interdisciplinary model."   In it, they argue that there is a desperate need to increase the future number of computer scientists in the US workforce and this need can be met by women if Silicon Valley companies increase their efforts to collaborate with university educators. "Our educators are up to the task. What they need is incentive and support, along with resources to help them transcend outdated disciplinary divides...We need leaders across a broad spectrum of industry to identify the knowledge and skill sets that new employees will need to succeed."