EECS Prof. Emeritus Allen Joseph Lichtenberg passed away on February 21, 2023, at age 92. Lichtenberg’s research is associated with high-temperature plasma, nonlinear dynamics, and energy utilization. He had been a part of this research since the inception of these fields,  publishing over 150 articles in the area. His monograph, “Phase Space Dynamics of Particles,” was published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. in 1969 and was later translated into Russian. His second book, “Regular and Stochastic Motion,” co-authored by Michael Lieberman, was published by Springer-Verlag in 1983 and was also translated into Russian. A second edition was published in 2005, with translations into Chinese and Japanese. Lichtenberg received his A.B. degree from Harvard University in 1952, and his M.S. degree from MIT in 1954. In September 1957 he joined the Department of Electrical Engineering (pre-EECS) as an Acting Assistant Professor. He left in 1959 to obtain his Ph.D. degree in Applied Physics from Oxford University. He returned to the Berkeley campus in 1961. From 1965-1966 he was a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow and studied radiation from high-temperature plasmas and phase-space concepts in particle dynamics. He held a Miller Research Professorship during 1968-1969, and he chaired the newly formed campus Energy and Resources Graduate Group from 1974-1978.

2021 Distinguished CS Alumnus Hari Balakrishnan (Ph.D. 1998, advisor: Randy Katz) has won the 2023 Marconi Prize “for his fundamental contributions to mobile sensing, networking, and distributed systems.” The Marconi Prize, which is the highest honor of the Marconi Society, is given each year to innovators who have made significant contributions to increasing inclusivity through the advancement of information and communications technology. Balakrishnan is the Fujitsu Professor of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT. He is also the Founder, CTO, and Chairman of Cambridge Mobile Telematics (CMT). His graduate work at Berkeley won the ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award in 1998. He was inducted to the National Academy of Engineering in 2015 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2017; he received the Infosys Prize in 2020 and the IEEE Koji Kobayashi Award for Computers and Communication in 2021 for his important contributions to networks, mobile systems, and telematics. He is also a Fellow of both the ACM and IEEE.

The Black Engineering and Science Student Association (BESSA), and Black Graduate Engineering and Science Students (BGESS), celebrated their 55th and 35th anniversaries, respectively. The anniversary celebration and community building event, which took place on February 11, 2023, was hosted by the Black Engineering and Science Alumni Club (BESAC), and began with a daytime speaker series, followed by a reception at Alumni House. Several EECS alumni were in attendance, such as UC Davis Chancellor and EECS distinguished alumni Gary May (M.S.’88, Ph.D. ’91 EECS) and Valerie Taylor (Ph.D. ’91 EECS), director of the mathematics and computer science division at Argonne National Lab. Other notable alumni who were present include Marie-Ange Eyoum Tagne (M.S. ’03, Ph.D. ’06 EECS), head of product at Yahoo! and Omoju Miller (Ph.D. ‘16 CS Education), CEO and founder of Fimio; Hakim Weatherspoon (Ph.D. ‘06 CS), now a professor of computer science at Cornell, participated in a Black faculty panel. The celebration also marked the 5th anniversary of BESAC. “Being with my fellow BESSA peers and hearing the inspirational stories of BESSA alumni was a very emotional experience for me,” said Bridget Agyare, who is an undergraduate EECS major and BESSA board member. “These successful and distinguished alumni were just like us– they invested time and effort into BESSA’s legacy, they were passionate about STEM, and they were leaders in their community– and seeing what they have achieved reassures me that one day our hard work will pay off and we will succeed as well."

CS Assistant Prof. Angjoo Kanazawa has been selected as a 2023 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow in Computer Science. Awarded annually since 1955, the Sloan fellowships honor "the most promising scientific researchers working today...extraordinary U.S. and Canadian researchers whose creativity, innovation, and research accomplishments make them stand out as the next generation of scientific leaders."  Kanazawa's research lies at the intersection of computer vision, computer graphics, and machine learning. She is focused on building systems that can capture, perceive, and understand the complex ways that people and animals interact dynamically with the 3-D world–and can use that information to correctly identify the content of 2-D photos and video portraying scenes from everyday life. Sloan Fellows receive $75,000, which may be spent over a two-year term on any expense supportive of their research.

EE Prof. Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli has won the 15th BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Information and Communication Technologies. He was cited “for ‘radically transforming' the design of the chips that power today’s electronic devices, giving rise to ‘the modern semiconductor industry.’” Prof. Sangiovanni-Vincentelli transformed chip design in three fundamental ways: first, he created simulation tools that sped up electronic circuit design and fabrication; second, he invented a program to automate circuit design with hardware programming languages, eliminating the need for what was once a complicated and arduous process; and finally, he developed algorithms to geometrically optimize circuit placement for performance and energy efficiency. From this body of work, he founded two companies, Cadence and Synopsys, both of which are instrumental to the semiconductor industry today, and continue to provide technology to companies like Apple, GM, Intel, Tesla and Boeing. He received 28 nominations for this award, both individual and institutional, from all over the world. The Frontiers of Knowledge Award was established in 2008 with the goal of promoting “the value of knowledge as a public good without frontiers, the best instrument to take on the great global challenges of our time and expand the worldviews of individuals for the benefit of all humanity.” Each recipient is awarded €400,000.

Hannah Joo, an undergraduate student studying computer science and cognitive science at Berkeley, has won a Brooke Owens Fellowship. Along with 47 undergraduate women and gender minorities from all over the world, Hannah will receive “space and aviation internships, senior mentorships, and a lifelong professional network.” In her freshman year, Hannah joined Space Enterprise at Berkeley, a student-run rocket team. With limited engineering and coding experience, she found her passion at the intersection of avionics and computer science, culminating in a summer internship with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory last year. Now in her 3rd-year, Hannah will intern with SpaceX. The Brooke Owens Fellowship was founded in 2016 to honor the memory of D. Brooke Owens, a beloved industry pioneer, and accomplished pilot, who passed away at age 35 after battling cancer.

CS Prof. Emeritus Scott Shenker has won the 2023 IEEE Computer Society Women of ENIAC Computer Pioneer Award. Established in 1981, the Computer Pioneer Award was created "to recognize and honor the vision of those people whose efforts resulted in the creation or expansion and continued vitality of the computer industry. The award is presented to outstanding individuals whose main contribution to the concepts and development of the computer field was made at least fifteen years earlier." Shenker was cited “for pioneering contributions to scheduling and management of packet-switched networks, impacting the theory and practice of communication networks.” Shenker won the IEEE Internet Award in 2006. He is an IEEE Fellow, an ACM Fellow, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Sciences.

EECS Ph.D. student Yicheng Zhu (advisor: Robert Pilawa-Podgurski) has won an NVIDIA Graduate Fellowship. Zhu, whose research interests include enabling technologies for high-performance electric power conversion, is one of five recipients of the fellowship, which awards up to $50,000 to each recipient in support of research in areas such as accelerated computing, with fellows tackling projects in deep learning, robotics, computer vision, computer graphics, circuits, autonomous vehicles, and programming systems. Awardees are selected from a highly competitive, global applicant pool and will participate in a summer internship with NVIDIA. Spanning 22 years, NVIDIA has awarded $6 million to nearly 200 students to support graduate research. “Our fellowship recipients are among the most talented graduate students in the world,” said NVIDIA Chief Scientist Bill Dally. “They’re working on some of the most important problems in computer science, and we’re delighted to support their research.” Zhu’s research will explore extreme-performance hybrid switched-capacitor voltage regulation modules for ultra-high-power GPUs, which enables highly efficient and ultra-compact vertical power delivery with fast transient response.

A community is defined by the heroes it chooses to celebrate. We invite you to join the EECS department in recognizing a previously overlooked hero, Berkeley EE Prof. Joseph T. Gier, the University of California's first tenured Black professor. Raised in Oakland by a single mother, Gier came to Berkeley as an undergraduate in 1930, and earned two degrees (B.S. ME '33 and M.Eng. '40) before becoming an EE lecturer in 1944, associate professor with tenure in 1952, and full professor in 1958. He was a world authority on thermal and luminous radiation, and an inventor of devices used in the early days of aerospace exploration and solar power harvesting.  He was also said to be an extraordinary teacher and role model during a period of deep national segregation and social unrest.  We have commissioned artist Dana King to create a bronze monument representing Gier and his contributions to ensure that his profound legacy is restored to the life of the Berkeley campus, and to permanently establish him as a mainstay in our cultural narrative.  We hope to raise $150K to fund the creation, installation and upkeep of the sculpture, which will be placed at the entrance of Blum Hall.

EECS graduate students use leftover printed circuit boards (PCBs) to create art. The result is a beautiful Cal EECS bear in Berkeley blue, centered over the letters E-E-C-S in green, all made up of PCBs, on a towering six by seven plywood base held together by very-high-bond (VHB) double-sided tape. Rahul Iyer, an EECS Ph.D. student advised by EE Prof. Pilawa-Podgurski, had the idea over Thanksgiving break to make use of what would otherwise be e-waste. With the help of Rod Bayliss III, Maggie Blackwell, Sahana Krishnan and Nathan Brooks, all Ph.D. students advised by Pilawa, they set out to repurpose the leftover PCBs, first by printing the silhouette of the Cal bear on a mounting board, tracing the outline of the bear, and then using VHB to tape the PCBs onto the mounting board, filling in the outline. “It was a great bonding activity over Thanksgiving break, especially recollecting projects and past memories when we came across some of the boards,” said Rahul. “I’m so glad I had an opportunity to share in this creative endeavor with my peers. Looking forward to another project in a few years when we collect more PCBs!”