News

Katherine Yelick uses supercomputing to solve big problems

Prof. Katherine Yelick is featured in MIT’s EECS Connector online news page titled “Putting the pieces together”, an overview of her career. Prof. Yelick, who is an alumna of MIT, upon entering as a freshman was determined not to study computer science. But after taking one computer science class, to her surprise she enjoyed it. Today she gives lectures on “How to Save the World with Computers” and is associate lab director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Ron Fearing sees insects as inspiration for a special breed of robots

The research of Prof. Ron Fearing and Mechanical Engineering graduate student Carlos Casarez on cooperative step climbing is featured on the NSF Engineering Discoveries website in an article titled “Roach-like robots run, climb and communicate with people”. Since the 1990’s, Prof. Fearing has been developing biomimetic robots capable or remarkable feats of speed and maneuverability.

Shankar Sastry and Connie Chang-Hasnain help establish Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute

Profs. Shankar Sastry and Connie Chang-Hasnain are involved in the establishment of the Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute (TBSI) that will offer a new dual-degree program designed to fuel economic growth through transdisciplinary and translational research. Established in October, 2015 this program will begin Fall 2016 and will allow students to spend 2.5 years pursuing a master’s degree in engineering at UC Berkeley and a master’s of science degree at Tsinghua.

Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli and Chung-Wei Lin awarded 16 TODAES Best Paper Award

A paper titled "Security-Aware Design Methodology and Optimization for Automotive Systems," co-authored by alumnus Chung-Wei Lin and Prof. Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli has received the 2016 ACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems (TODAES) Best Paper Award. This paper was written in collaboration with researchers from UC Riverside and supported by the TerraSwarm research center. The award will be presented at the opening session of the Design Automation Conference (DAC).

Rikky Muller, Ken Goldberg, and Anca Dragan create machines with the intelligence to work more effectively with humans

Assistant Prof. Rikky Muller, Prof. Ken Goldberg, and Assistant Prof. Anca Dragan are featured in a Berkeley Engineer article describing their research into how machines and humans come into physical contact, behave independently and interact with one another, with the common goal of creating machines with the intelligence to better serve and work with human beings.

Chenming Hu honored by President Barack Obama at the White House

Prof. Emeritus Chenming Hu was honored in May 2016 by President Barack Obama with the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. Prof. Hu and Chemistry Prof. Paul Alivisatos, who was honored with the National Medal of Science, received their medals from the president at a ceremony in the East Room of the White House.

Sanjit Seshia receives 2016 Frederick Emmons Terman Award

Prof. Sanjit Seshia has been selected to receive the 2016 ASEE Frederick Emmons Terman Award. The Hewlett-Packard Company initiated this award in 1969 to recognize one outstanding young electrical/computer engineering educator each year. Prof. Seshia is receiving this award in recognition of his outstanding contributions to electrical engineering and computer science education. Together with Edward Lee, he wrote the textbook Introduction to Embedded Systems: A Cyber-Physical Systems Approach, which is used at Berkeley for EE C149 and at many other universities around the world.  He also developed technologies to support a MOOC offering of EE C149, which was the first online course to use a physics-based virtual robotics laboratory with built-in automatic grading and feedback.

Stuart Russell contemplates AI's effect on our future

CS Professor Stuart Russell is featured in a Voice of America article in which he discusses how developments in artificial intelligence may impact global manufacturing, agriculture, business services, the financial industry, health care, and weaponry. "If we are going to make systems that are going to be more intelligent than us, it’s absolutely essential for us to understand how to absolutely guarantee that they only do things that we are happy with," he says.