Our Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Divisions both ranked third in the 2016 Academic Ranking of World Universities.  UC Berkeley was once again named the top public university worldwide.  The ARWU annually ranks more than 1,200 universities on the quality of both faculty and research.

EECS came in third after Stanford and MIT in both fields.  The CS top five was rounded out by Harvard and Princeton,  while Nanyang University and Georgia Tech followed Berkeley in the EE top five.

A new undergraduate program that integrates the study of engineering and business, the Management, Entrepreneurship, & Technology Program (M.E.T.), will be taught at Berkeley’s top-ranked Haas School of Business and the College of Engineering.  The Business + EECS track combines study in these two areas so that students can pursue interests in creating new technologies, software or mobile apps, as well as ventures that take these products to market and deliver significant social impact.

M.E.T. students will enroll in one program but earn two Bachelor of Science degrees, one in engineering and one in business administration. The integrated curriculum consists of liberal arts, engineering and business courses and can be completed in four years.

The Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation was spotlighted in an article in the California Council on Science & Technology (CCST) website titled “UC Berkeley and UC San Diego Explore Engineering Education of the Future through Making”. The Jacobs Institute is UC Berkeley’s interdisciplinary hub for students, teachers and practitioners who work at the intersection of design and technology to turn insights into prototypes and through testing and iteration design solutions that benefit people and society.  Prof. Björn Hartmann is the interim faculty director.

EECS Prof. Tsu-Jae King Liu and Belle Wei (Chair of Engineering Education and Innovative Learning at San Jose State) penned an article for the Mercury News titled "Closing tech workforce gap calls for interdisciplinary model."   In it, they argue that there is a desperate need to increase the future number of computer scientists in the US workforce and this need can be met by women if Silicon Valley companies increase their efforts to collaborate with university educators. "Our educators are up to the task. What they need is incentive and support, along with resources to help them transcend outdated disciplinary divides...We need leaders across a broad spectrum of industry to identify the knowledge and skill sets that new employees will need to succeed."

The L&S Computer Science Division is featured in a Tech Crunch article titled "How generation Z females could be the answer to tech’s gender diversity problem."  The article discusses challenges in closing the gender gap and new initiatives designed to attract and retain girls to science and technology fields.  The CS Division was singled out for having almost doubled it's percentage of female CS majors  between 2009 and 2013.  By 2014, 21% of CS majors were women.  "Berkeley emphasized the impact computing has in the world, and worked to tone down elements that may put females off."

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.

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).

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.

The latest rankings from U.S. News & World Report, “America’s Best Graduate Schools 2017” has placed our Electrical Engineering program at #1, tied with Stanford and MIT, and our “Computer Engineering” program ranked #2, tied with Stanford. For the U.S. News rankings of graduate engineering programs, 215 engineering schools that grant doctoral degrees were surveyed.

EECS alumni Jeffrey Forbes (Ph.D. ’00, advisor Prof. Stuart Russell) has been named Chair of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Education Policy Committee. Created in 2007, the ACM Education Policy Committee is a high-level committee of acclaimed computer scientists and educators dedicated to improving opportunities for quality education in computer science and computing education around the world. Prof. Forbes is an Associate Dean of the Trinity College of Arts and Sciences at Duke University and has served as Program Director for the Education and Workforce program in the National Science Foundation’s Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering.