The research work of Prof. Ken Goldberg is featured in an IEEE Spectrum article titled “Would You Trust a Robot Surgeon to Operate on You?” Today’s surgical robots extend the surgeon’s capacities; they filter out hand tremors and allow maneuvers that even the best surgeon couldn’t pull off with laparoscopic surgery’s typical long-handled tools. Using a da Vinci robotic surgical system Prof. Goldberg is teaching it how to independently perform a surgical task.

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.

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.

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.

CS Prof. Carlo Séquin (sculptor) and EECS Assistant Prof. Anca Dragan (roboticist and Lindy Hop dancer) are profiled in a Berkeley News article about multi-faceted artists on campus.

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.

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.

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).

CS post-doctoral researcher Julian Shun has won the ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award for his dissertation "Shared-Memory Parallelism Can Be Simple, Fast, and Scalable." This award is presented annually to the author of the best doctoral dissertation in computer science and engineering.

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.