CS Profs. Krste Asanović and Peter Bartlett have been named 2018 Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). ACM Fellows are composed of an elite group that represents less than 1% of the Association’s global membership. Asanović was named "For contributions to computer architecture, including the open RISC-V instruction set and Agile hardware." Bartlett was named "For contributions to the theory of machine learning."
CS Prof. Stuart Russell has the won the 2019 Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI )Feigenbaum Prize. Named for AI pioneer Edward Feigenbaum, the prize is awarded biennially "to recognize and encourage outstanding Artificial Intelligence research advances that are made by using experimental methods of computer science." Russell won in recognition of his "high-impact contributions to the field of artificial intelligence through innovation and achievement in probabilistic knowledge representation, reasoning, and learning, including its application to global seismic monitoring for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty." The award will be presented in early 2019 at the Thirty-Third Annual AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-19) in Honolulu, Hawaii.
CS Assistant Prof. Raluca Ada Popa is interviewed by TechTarget for an article titled "The future of data security threats and protection in the enterprise." Popa is the co-founder of the RISElab as well as co-founder and CTO of PreVeil, a security startup providing enterprise end-to-end encryption for email and filing sharing. In the Q&A, Popa discusses the future of data security and the challenges of ensuring adequate defense.
Berkeley Engineering has profiled EECS Prof. Emeritus Donald Pederson (1925-2005) for it's web series celebrating Berkeley's 150th anniversary. Pederson created an integrated circuit computer simulation program called SPICE (Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis), one of the first open-source computer programs. It allowed computer engineers to analyze and design complex electronic circuitry quickly and accurately. Today, every electronic chip manufacturer uses SPICE or one of its derivatives during critical stages of design.
EE Adjunct Prof. David Tse has won the IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal, awarded "for exceptional contributions to information sciences, systems, and technology." Tse, who is currently a professor at Stanford, won “for seminal contributions to wireless network information theory and wireless network systems.”
Profs. Elad Alon, Sayeef Salahuddin and Dawn Song have been elected to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Fellows class of 2019. An IEEE Fellowship is a distinction reserved for select IEEE members whose extraordinary accomplishments in any of the IEEE fields of interest are deemed fitting of this prestigious grade elevation. Alon was elected for contributions to mixed-signal integrated circuit design and methodology, Salahuddin for contributions to low power electronic and spintronic devices, and Song for contributions to systems security and privacy.
EE Prof. Katherine Yelick, who is also the Associate Laboratory Director (ALD) for Computing Sciences at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, has been elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the nation’s largest scientific organization. AAAS fellows are members "whose efforts on behalf of the advancement of science or its applications are scientifically or socially distinguished." Yelick was honored “for significant research contributions to programming languages, compilers and parallel computing, and for exceptional service to the computing research community.”
EE Prof. and Dean of Engineering Tsu-Jae King Liu is the subject of an interview in the Berkeley Engineer. She is the first female dean in the College of Engineering's 150-year history and a pioneer in semiconductor devices and technology. King Liu talks about her background and near-term goals, diversity in education, and some of the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead in engineering education at Berkeley.
EE alumnus and Prof. Kris Pister (M.S.’89, Ph.D.’92), his grad student Daniel Drew, and research being done in the Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center (BSAC), are featured in a Berkeley Engineering articled titled "Microrobots fly, walk and jump into the future." Roughly the size and weight of a postage stamp, micro-robots consist of a mechanical structure, propulsion system, motion-tracking sensor and multiple wires that supply power and communication signals. They evolved from Pister’s invention of “smart dust,” tiny chips roughly the size of rice grains packed with sensors, microprocessors, wireless radios and batteries. Pister likes to refer to his microrobots as “smart dust with legs.” “We’re pushing back the boundaries of knowledge in the field of miniaturization, robotic actuators, micro-motors, wireless communication and many other areas,” says Pister. “Where these results will lead us is difficult to predict.”
A research study led by EE Prof. Chunlei Liu (senior author) and postdoc Nan-Ji Gong (first author), which is the cover story of the November issue of Neurobiology of Disease, found that a single season of high school football may be enough to cause microscopic changes in the structure of the brain. The team (which included researchers from Duke and UNC Chapel Hill) used a new type of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to take brain scans of 16 high school players, ages 15 to 17, before and after a season of football. They found significant changes in the structure of the grey matter in the front and rear of the brain, where impacts are most likely to occur, as well as changes to structures deep inside the brain. This is one of the first studies to look at how impact sports affect the brains of children at this critical age.
