EECS alumnus Gary S. May (M.S. '88/Ph.D. '91, advisor: Costas Spanos), the first Black chancellor of UC Davis, has penned an op-ed for the San Francisco Chronicle titled "UC Davis chancellor: George Floyd could have been me" in which he observes that "at a traffic stop, no one knows I am a chancellor. No one knows I have a doctorate."  He explains that building an inclusive society that recognizes and respects people of all socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds, and a wide variety of political views, gender identities, and personal experiences, will increase our capacity to "make discoveries and solve problems."  "It requires collective effort," he writes.  "It requires each one of us, in our own way, working to make a difference, whether that’s through video recording, peaceful protest or working to change procedures that reflect bias."

EECS alumna Andrea Goldsmith (B.A. ’86/M.S. ’91/Ph.D. ’94, advisor: Pravin Varaiya), who was named Berkeley EE Distinguished Alumna in 2018, has been named dean of Princeton University’s School of Engineering and Applied Science.  Goldsmith has been a professor of electrical engineering at Stanford since 1999 and is a leader in the fields of information theory and communications. She helped lay the mathematical foundations for increasing the capacity, speed and range of wireless systems, and among her 29 patents are many inventions central to cell phone and Wi-Fi networks.  Earlier this month, Goldsmith became the first woman to win the Marconi Prize, said to be the highest honor in telecommunications research.  She has also been active in efforts to increase diversity in STEM fields and is the founding chair of the IEEE Board of Directors Committee on Diversity, Inclusion and Ethics.  When she starts her tenure as dean in September, she will oversee a school comprising six departments and four research centers, including new initiatives in bioengineering, data science and robotics, among others.

EECS Prof. Ruzena Bajcsy has won the 2020 NCWIT Pioneer in Tech Award which "recognizes technical women whose lifetime contributions have significantly impacted the landscape of technological innovation, amplifying the importance of capitalizing on the diverse perspectives that girls and women can bring to the table. "   Bajcsy pioneered a new area of study within the field of robotics called Active Perception and was the first to argue that robots should be able to autonomously control the movements of their own sensors and other apparatus for interacting with their environment. She  is known for creating the  first 3D computer atlas of the human brain, which revolutionized brain surgery by allowing doctors to more accurately locate tumors.  Bajcsy also pioneered the process of elastic matching "in which computers match defined points in the human body with standardized medical images, enabling non-invasive diagnostics of the brain and other organs."  Like other winners of the award, Bajcsy serves as a role model whose legacy continues "to inspire generations of young women to pursue computing and make history in their own right."

CS Prof. Emerita Susan Graham, the first and only woman professor in the EECS department for 17 years,  is the subject of a profile in the Daily Cal in honor of the 150th anniversary of women at Berkeley.  Graham arrived in the CS department (then part of the College of Letters & Science) in 1971, became the first woman professor in the College of Engineering in 1973 when the CS department merged with the EECS department, and remained the only woman on the EECS faculty until the arrival of Avideh Zakhor in 1988.  Graham, who played a key role in the development of Berkeley Unix, is known for her work in software tools, programming language implementation, high-performance computing and software development environments.  She is the "Ace of Diamonds" in the "Notable Women in Computing" playing cards and appears in the "Notable Women in Tech" online solitaire game.

Ruzena Bajcsy has won a 2020 RISE! Women Leader Award from the UC Berkeley Gender Equity Resource Center in the Division of Equity and Inclusion.  RISE! Leader Awards highlight "the exceptional endeavors and efforts of women leaders as they continue to support and empower our community of Berkeley women through their participation and representation" and recognize women who have demonstrated "strong leadership, care and love for the community, as well as, inspired resilience in other women."  Bajcsy was honored at the RISE! Celebrating Women, Community Love and Leadership celebration on March 4th.

The 4th Annual Women In Tech Symposium, part of the Women In Tech Initiative (WITI) will be held at UC Berkeley on Friday, March 6, 2020.  The theme will be "Reimagining Cybersecurity for All."  Many members of the EECS community will be involved, including: alumna and Prof. Dawn Song (PhD '02) - opening remarks; WITI@UC co-founder and dean of Engineering Prof. Tsu-Jae King Liu - fireside chat; Prof. Raluca Ada Popa - Panel: What’s at Stake? Global and Systemic Cyber Threats;  and CITRIS Director Prof. Costas Spanos - Athena Awards presentation. Tickets will be available until Monday, March 2nd.

Valerie Taylor (EECS Ph.D. '91, advisor: David Messerschmitt), one of the winners of the 2020 EE Distinguished Alumni Award to be presented next week, is also the subject of our February EECS 150W profile in honor of Black History Month.  Taylor grew up in a STEM-forward family and attended Purdue before coming to Berkeley for her doctorate.    She had never seen a black woman professor before she began teaching at Northwestern University in 1992.  She is now the Director of the Mathematics and Computer Science Division of Argonne National Laboratory (where she is a Distinguished Fellow), and the Executive Director of the Center for Minorities and People with Disabilities in IT (CMD-IT).  Her honors include the CRA A. Nico Habermann Award and the  Richard A. Tapia Achievement Award.

In celebration of the anniversary of 150 Years of Women at Berkeley (150W) in 2020, the EECS department will profile a number of remarkable women who have studied or worked here.  This month, Berkeley EECS is highlighting ten trailblazing women who were the first to reach important milestones over the past 50 years.  Learn how professors Susan Graham, Avideh Zakhor, Shafi Goldwasser and Tsu-Jae King Liu, and alumnae Kawthar Zaki, Carol Shaw, Paula Hawthorn, Barbara Simons, Deborah Estrin, and Susan Eggers, broke through glass ceilings on campus, in their fields, in industry, and in the world.

2020 is the 150th anniversary of the first year women students were admitted to UC Berkeley.  EECS Emerita Director of Diversity and unofficial department historian Sheila Humphreys is co-chairing the History Steering Committee for the year-long campus celebration, for which she will be collecting, creating and archiving information about the history of the contributions of women to UC Berkeley.  The EECS department will post stories throughout the year, highlighting the extraordinary women of EECS and the impact they have made on our community and the world.  If you have any information or ideas to share, please contact 150w@berkeley.edu or upload them to the 150W History Project website.

Alumnus Kirk Tramble (B.S. EECS 1993) is both the son and father of proud UC Berkeley alumni.  His father, Thomas, earned a B.A. in Sociology/African American Studies in 1971, and his son, Gabriel, graduated with a B.A. in Media Studies in 2018.  The family is profiled in a Cal Alumni article which compares their experiences as Black students at Cal during three different eras.  Kirk arrived on campus at a time when academic support for students of color was at an all-time high, and watched as everything changed after the passage of Proposition 209 in 1996, when the percentage of black students dropped from 8% to 2%.  “The response [to Prop 209] was to ultimately shut down many of the programs that were the highest serving programs for African Americans on campus,” he said.  He and his father now administer a scholarship offered by the African American Initiative to encourage and support Black students at Cal.