President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev attended a farewell ceremony for Prof. Emeritus Lotfi Zadeh, held at the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences (ANAS) in Baku.  The ceremony was attended by many prominent Azerbaijani state and government officials, scientists, and public figures.  Education Minister Mikayil Jabbarov said that his last wish was to be buried in his homeland. “This shows that he lived with Azerbaijan in his heart till his last breath. His contributions to world science are unparalleled.”  Zadeh passed away on September 6, at the age of 96.  He was laid to rest in the 1st Alley of Honor in Baku.

U.C. Berkeley is #3 in the Best Computer Science Schools rankings of the 50 Best Master’s in Computer Science Degrees for 2017. The rankings were based on a methodology which aggregates data from Payscale, U.S. News and World Report, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as well as information from the schools.  It measures institutional strength, return on tuition investment, and student happiness.  MIT and Stanford took first and second place.  They state "The Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS) at UC Berkeley offers one of the most brilliant research and instructional programs anywhere in the world."

CS Prof. Emeritus Lotfi Zadeh has posthumously won a 2017 Golden Goose Award for "Fuzzy Logic, Clear Impact," sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).  The award honors teams of scientists whose silly-sounding taxpayer-funded research has returned serious benefits to society.  "Zadeh proposed these revolutionary concepts in 1965 to deal with the mathematics and logic of imprecise information, receiving a skeptical response and howls of 'complete nonsense.' He even drew the attention of Senator William Proxmire and the infamous Golden Fleece Award. But since the concept's debut, the original research paper has become one of the most widely cited in history, used in more than 16,000 patents and applied to efficiency improvements for HVAC systems, healthcare devices and more."  The winners will be honored at a ceremony at the Library of Congress this evening."  Prof. Zadeh passed away earlier this month.

The American Institute of Architects (AIA)'s Committee on Architecture for Education (CAE) has awarded the Jacobs Institute of Design Innovation a 2017 Award of Merit.  "Education continues to evolve, and the projects from this year’s Education Facility Design Awards program...represent the state-of-the-art learning environments being developed in today's learning spaces,” states the AIA. “These projects showcase innovation across the entire learning continuum, displaying how today's architects are creating cutting-edge spaces that enhance modern pedagogy.”  Jacobs Hall is devoted to introducing design innovation at the center of engineering education and university life, and is designed as an interdisciplinary hub for students and teachers who love working at the intersection of design and technology.  It is "both a team-based, project-centric educational space and a compelling symbol to the region of the University’s commitment to enlightened, sustainable innovation."

Management, Entrepreneurship, & Technology Program (M.E.T.) student Arvind Sridhar (CS/Business) has been awarded a $25,000 Davidson Fellows scholarship.  The award is presented annually by the Davidson Institute for Talent Development to 20 students based on “significant work” in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, literature, music and philosophy. Sridhar’s scholarship was granted based on a study he undertook at the Stanford University School of Medicine over the summer.  He sought to create algorithms and computational models that would allow doctors to diagnose the health of cardiac tissue using only images and videos of a tissue sample, and then use an injectable hydrogel, which mimics the heart’s micro-environment, to anchor and nourish stem cells to parts of the heart, allowing them to enable cardiac regeneration.

EECS Prof. Ruzena Bajcsy has won the 2017 John Scott Award which has been presented by the City of Philadelphia since 1822 to "the most deserving men and women whose inventions have contributed in some outstanding way to the comfort, welfare and happiness of mankind."  Bajcsy's award is for her contributions to robotics and engineering science, including the development of improved robotic perception and the creation of better methods to analyze medical images.  Many luminaries have received the award including Marie Curie, Thomas Edison, the Wright Brothers, Jonas Salk and Glenn Seaborg.  Bajcsy will share the award with Warren Ewens (theoretical population genetics) and Masatoshi Nei (evolutionary theory).

Once again, the EECS Department is one of the top ranked in the nation.  Our Computer Science undergraduate program ranked 2nd (after MIT),  up from 4th place in 2017, and our Electrical/Electronic/Communications undergraduate program came in at #3 (after MIT and Stanford), holding steady from last year.

CS Assistant Teaching Professor John DeNero is the inaugural recipient of the Charles and Dianne Giancarlo Teaching Fellowship.  This fellowship supports excellence in undergraduate teaching in EECS and was made possible by a generous donation from alumnus Charles Giancarlo (EE M.S. '80)  and his wife, Dianne (co-founder of the Women’s Achievement Network and Development Alliance).  The College of Engineering will be hosting a reception to celebrate the appointment on September 19th.

CS Prof. Scott Shenker has won a  2017 Visionary Award from the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce.  The award was created to acknowledge entrepreneurs and "celebrate people with the imagination and persistence to innovate in the City of Berkeley."  Shenker co-founded Nicira,  a company focused on software-defined networking (SDN) and network virtualization, which was sold to VMware in 2012 for $1.26 billion.   The award will be presented at ceremony at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre on September 11th.

For the second year in a row, U.C. Berkeley has ranked No. 2 among the 50 undergraduate programs that produce the most venture capital-backed entrepreneurs, according to PitchBook’s 2017-18 report.  The report distinguishes undergraduate and MBA programs, compares Ivy League colleges to other universities and analyzes numbers such as companies per sector, female founders and total capital raised by founders’ companies. This year, UC Berkeley produced 1,089 entrepreneurs and 961 companies.