EECS PhD student Justin Yim (with advisor EECS Prof. Ron Fearing and ME undergraduate co-author Eric Wang) has won the best student paper award at the 2019 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) (May 20-24, Montreal) for his paper "Drift-free Roll and Pitch Estimation for High-acceleration Hopping."  The robot "Salto" (Saltatorial Agile Locomotion on Terrain Obstacles) was previously restricted to only indoor operation in a room equipped with a motion tracking system. In the newest paper, Salto can now estimate its own position by combining its onboard inertial sensor with a model of its takeoffs and landings. This improved estimate allows
Salto to hop outside with human steering.

A paper co-authored by freshly minted alumnus Tianshi Wang (Ph.D. '19, winner of the 2019 EECS David Sakrison Memorial Prize for "truly outstanding research") and Prof. Jaijeet Roychowdhury has won Best Paper Award at the International Conference on Unconventional Computation and Natural Computation (UCNC) 2019.  The paper, titled "OIM: Oscillator-based Ising Machines for Solving Combinatorial Optimisation Problems" will be presented at the conference in Japan next week.

CS Prof. Hany Farid was interviewed for an article in the Washington Post titled "Faked Pelosi videos, slowed to make her appear drunk, spread across social media."  A video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was slowed to about 75 percent of its original speed and altered to modify the pitch of her voice in an effort  to convince the public that she was intoxicated.  “It is striking that such a simple manipulation can be so effective and believable to some,” Farid said. “While I think that deepfake technology poses a real threat, this type of low-tech fake shows that there is a larger threat of misinformation campaigns — too many of us are willing to believe the worst in people that we disagree with.”

EECS Profs. Hany Farid and Alexei Efros will be working with Facebook to help develop new methods to improve detection of fake content, fake news and misinformation campaigns. Facebook has launched $7.5 million partnership with three universities, including UC Berkeley, to create the technology.  Farid is a long-time crusader for holding social media companies accountable for removing and preventing harmful content, and Efros specializes in artificial intelligence, graphics and computer vision.  Some immediate steps that can be taken include having the company hire more people to monitor the site, charging a nominal fee to use the service, redefining Facebook and other tech giants as publishers--rather than as platforms, and creating unambiguous rules.

EE Assistant Prof. Rikky Muller is the subject of a Berkeley Engineering article titled "Machines that heal."  She is using her expertise in integrated circuits to build tiny, implantable devices that are intelligent, safe and so minimally invasive that they can last over the course of a patient’s lifetime.  “I’m absolutely passionate about finding treatments and maybe someday cures for neurological diseases,” says Muller. “Almost everyone knows someone impacted by neurological diseases like epilepsy, Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s. That’s why this is such an important area to invest time and resources into.”

Two EECS professors have won awards from the IEEE Technical Committee on Cyber-Physical Systems (TCCPS).  Edward Lee won the Technical Achievement Award, which recognizes significant contributions to the field sustained throughout the recipient's career, ‘‘for pioneering and fundamental contributions to the design, modeling and simulation of cyber-physical systems.’’  The previous winner was Prof. Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli in 2017.  Sanjit Seshia won the Mid-Career Award, which recognizes a mid-career researcher who has made outstanding contributions to the field, ‘‘for fundamental contributions to formal methods for cyber-physical systems design and to cyber-physical systems education.’’  The previous recipient was Prof. Alexandre Bayen in 2018.

Salto the robot, first unveiled in 2016 by the Biomimetic Millisystems Lab, is now equipped with a slew of new skills, giving it the ability to bounce in place like a pogo stick and jump through obstacle courses like an agility dog. Salto can even take short jaunts around campus, powered by a radio controller.  Salto creators Justin Yum, Eric Wang and Ronald S. Fearing will describe the robot’s new skills today (Tuesday, May 21) at the 2019 International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Montreal.

Prof. Jeffrey Bokor, the current Chair of the EE Division, will assume the post of EECS Department Chair on July 1, 2019.  Bokor earned his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from MIT in 1975, and his M.S. and Ph.D. from Stanford in 1976 and 1980, respectively.  His research interests include physical electronics and nanotechnology.  He joined the Berkeley faculty in 1993 and served as Associate Dean for Research in the College of Engineering from 2012-2017.  He currently holds a joint appointment as a Senior Scientist in the Materials Science Division at LBNL.  He will replace outgoing EECS Chair James Demmel.

Prof. John Canny will become the new Chair of the Computer Science Division on July 1, 2019.   Canny joined the Berkeley faculty in 1987.  He received a B.S. in CS and Theoretical Physics (1979) and a B.E. in EE (1980), both from Adelaide University in Australia, and an M.S. (1983) and a Ph.D. (1987) from MIT.   He has made significant contributions to various areas of CS and mathematics including AI, robotics, computer graphics, human-computer interaction, computer security, computational algebra, and computational geometry.   He will replace outgoing Chair James Demmel.

Five new Computer Science faculty will be joining the EECS department in June:   Assistant Prof. Alvin Cheung, whose research interests include database management and programming systems; Prof. Hany Farid, who will have a joint appointment with the I-School; Assistant Prof. Nila Ioannidis, who will have a joint appointment with the Center for Computational Biology; Prof. Jelani Nelson in computing theory; and Assistant Prof. Aditya Parameswaran, who will also have a joint appointment with the I-School.