Prof. David Wagner has won the ACM Special Interest Group on Security, Audit and Control (SIGSAC) 2016 Outstanding Innovation Award. This award is given for outstanding and innovative technical contributions to the field of computer and communication security that have had lasting impact in furthering or understanding the theory or development of secure systems. Prof. Wagner is recognized "For innovative research in systems security, software security, and cryptography that has inspired research in sandboxing, static analysis for security, and cryptanalysis."

Prof. Chenming Hu has been elected to be inducted into the 2017 Silicon Valley Engineering Hall of Fame by the Silicon Valley Engineering Council (SVEC). Hall of Fame members are selected based on demonstration of significant engineering or technical achievements, provided significant guidance in new and developing fields of engineering-based technology, and/or has managed or directed an organization making noteworthy contributions in design, manufacturing, production or service through the uses of engineering principles and applications. Hall of fame members represent the cream of the crop of the Valley and, and counts among its membership people like Gordon Moore, William Hewlett and David Packard in addition to our esteemed colleagues Paul Gray, Dave Hodges, Lotfi Zadeh, David Paterson, and Ernie Kuh.

Alumna Prof. Colleen Lewis (EECS B.S. '05/CS M.S. '09), now teaching at Harvey Mudd College, is profiled in an article about the award-winning women attending the 2016 Grace Hopper Conference.  Colleen won the 2016 Denise Denton Emerging Leader ABIE Award for young tenure-track faculty doing research involving engineering or physical sciences, who positively influence and promote diversity.  Colleen created CSTeachingTips.org, a National Science Foundation funded website that offers tips for teaching computer science.

Prof. Ruzena Bajcsy has been awarded the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) Simon Ramo Founders Award. This award acknowledges outstanding professional, educational, and personal achievements to the benefit of society. Prof. Bajcsy has led pioneering research in electrical and computing engineering for nearly 50 years, and is honored for two groundbreaking contributions: active perception, the basic principle and methodology that combines sensing and perception with the control of sensors to build intelligent robots; and computational anatomy, the discipline that has enabled many exciting developments in medical imaging that have clinical and research applications. The impact of her work has spread far beyond the lab, spanning scientific, engineering, and health fields. Bajcsy has also been responsible for the establishment of significant institutions that promote STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) education. She is the second woman to receive the Simon Ramo Founders Award.

EECS sophomore Alexandria Finley has been selected to compete in the 2016 Genée International Ballet Competition as one of the 10 participants sponsored by the Royal Academy of Dance.  One hundred dancers will compete over 10 days this December in Sydney, Australia, at the Genée,  one of the most prestigious ballet competitions in the world.  Alexandria describes how she balances her passions for dance, computer science, and physics in an interview with Heather Levien.

EECS alumnus Gene Luen Yang (CS B.A. '95) has been selected for a MacArthur fellowship, one of the most prestigious prizes in the United States.   Awarded for exceptional “originality, insight and potential,” a MacArthur prize comes with a no-strings-attached grant of $625,000 distributed over five years.  In January, Gene became the first graphic novelist named national ambassador for children’s literature by the Library of Congress.

Last week 18 undergraduates, three graduate students, two faculty, and four staff from UC Berkeley’s EECS Department attended the 2016 ACM Richard Tapia Diversity in Computing Conference in Austin, Texas.  In addition to making new connections with diversity leaders in academia and industry, Berkeley EECS participants reconnected with several EECS alumni: Jeffrey Forbes (Associate Dean at Duke University), Beth Trushkowsky (Assistant Professor at Harvey Mudd College), Valerie Taylor (Associate Dean at Texas A & M), and Hakim Weatherspoon (Associate Professor at Cornell). Teaching Professor Dan Garcia co-led a birds-of-a-feather session for Hispanics in Computing, and was a panelist on a session titled “Engaging Students of Color in Computer Science", which reflected on the department's recent efforts to broaden participation in computing.  *Dr. Raquel Romano of Google, and former LBL Postdoc, delivered a Keynote on "Redefining Inclusion: Technology as an Act of Service." *  EECS Director of Diversity Tiffany Reardon presented a poster highlighting the department’s support of women in undergraduate computing.  A highlight of the conference for many of us was seeing David Patterson receive the Richard Tapia Achievement Award for Scientific Scholarship, Civic Science and Diversifying Computing.  For years Professor Patterson has been an ardent supporter of the Tapia Conference as past Conference Chair, serving on the steering committee and funding large UC Berkeley contingents to attend the event. Well deserved, Dave! Berkeley students and faculty have attended every Tapia conference since the first one, in 2001. 

EECS graduate students Paul Bramsen and Wesley Hsieh have been selected as Siebel Scholars for 2017. The Siebel Scholars program promotes leadership, academic achievement and “the collaborative search for solutions to the world’s most critical issues." Paul builds data structures and Wesley leverages human intuition and demonstrations to improve robot learning.  Siebel Scholars are recognized as exceptional graduate students in business, computer science, bioengineering and energy science and comes with an award of $35,000.

ETH Zürich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich) has awarded CS  Prof. Christos Papadimitriou the ABZ Gold Platinum Medal at a ceremony in Switzerland. This Medal is awarded to individuals who have fundamentally contributed to the development of computer science and the practice of computer science education.  Previous recipients include Niklaus Wirth, Donald Knuth, David Harel, and Ronald Rivest.

EECS alumna Colleen Lewis (B.S. EECS '05/M.S. CS '09), who is now Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Harvey Mudd College has been recognized as the 10th recipient of the Denice Denton Emerging Leader ABIE Award at the Grace Hopper Celebration. This award recognizes a junior faculty member who specializes in computer science education. Prof. Lewis is passionate about broadening participation in computer science as one strategy she can use to fight inequity and injustice, and this goal drives her teaching, research, and service at Harvey Mudd College.