News

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.

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.

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.

Scott Aaronson answers every ridiculously big question thrown at him

EECS alumnus Scott Aaronson (Computer Science Ph.D. '04) "Answers Every Ridiculously Big Question (John Horgan) Throws at Him" in a Cross-Check interview for Scientific American.  Aaronson, an Associate Professor at MIT (soon UT Austin) and an authority on quantum computation, riffs on simulated universes, the Singularity, unified theories, P/NP, the mind-body problem, free will, why there’s something rather than nothing, and more.

Jacobs Hall recognized as Top 10 Green Building

The Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation has been named one of the nation’s top 10 examples of sustainable architecture and ecological design projects that protect and enhance the environment. “It Is devoted to introducing sustainable design innovation at the core of university life."  This award is presented by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and its Committee on the Environment (COTE).

Armando Fox receives ACM 2015 Karl. V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award

Prof. Armando Fox has been selected to receive the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) 2015 Karl. V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award. Recipients of this award are recognized for advancing new teaching methodologies; effecting new curriculum development or expansion in Computer Science and Engineering; or making a significant contribution to the educational mission of ACM. Prof. Fox was selected for his contributions to computing education through leadership and curriculum development in international online education; creating innovative courses, tools and inexpensive textbooks for software engineering; and outstanding teaching.

AMPLab singled out as successful collaborative lab model

The AMP (Algorithms, Machines and People) Lab was featured in the NEA Venture Capital Firm’s blog by Peter Sonsini, in a post titled "Veriflow: The next great startup with Cal connections”. Veriflow is the 3rd and latest EECS UC Berkeley startup to join the NEA portfolio. The successes surrounding Cal’s computer science program stem from the uniqueness of its “lab” model--the open and collaborative project-based approach that focuses on specific objectives over a specific period of time.

Matthias Vallentin and Colin Scott recognized at Microsoft Research Student Summit

Microsoft Research brought together top-notch computer science PhD student researchers who are about to embark on their careers with researchers and engineers who have proven research and technology impact for the 2-day Student Summit on Mobility, Systems, and Networking. During the summit, students presented their work to an ideal audience--their academic peers and a small group of Corporate Vice President-nominated engineers and researchers from Microsoft’s worldwide labs. Out of the 4 students recognized in the “Best Of” competition, two are from Berkeley EECS: Matthias Vallentin won Best Poster and Colin Scott received Honorable Mention.