A postdoc working in Prof. Laura Waller's Computational Imaging Lab, Loza Tadesse, has been included in the Forbes 2022 list of 30 Under 30 in Healthcare.  Tadesse was cited for "developing diagnostics for extreme environments. To that end, she has developed a rapid system using machine learning and a light scattering approach that can identify infectious bacteria much faster which will lead both to better treatments and less reliance on the use of broad spectrum antibiotics."   She co-founded Frontiers in Science for Africa (SCIFRO) which "works with institutions in Africa to enable African high school and college students to innovate affordable technologies that solve local problems in areas of health and energy." Tadesse received her PhD in BioE from Stanford last year and has accepted a faculty position in MIT's engineering department.

The EECS Director of Undergraduate Student Instruction, Christopher Hunn, and the EECS Director of Undergraduate Affairs, Antoine Davis, have won 2020 and 2021 Advising and Student Services Awards.   These awards are presented by the UC Berkeley Council of Advising and Student Support to "recognize the positive and innovative impact our recipients have on student learning, engagement, and belonging on the Berkeley campus."   Hunn won an Equity Champion Award for coaching TAs, undergraduates (especially CS Scholars and CS Mentors), graduates, staff (including student services personnel), and faculty "with evidence-based practices that have increased student engagement, success, self-efficacy, and belonging."   Davis won an Outstanding Advising or Student Services Administrator, Director, or Manager Award for supporting  and strengthening his staff team and the EECS and CS undergraduate populations, particularly during the pandemic, with his unique blend of humor and calm positivity.  "His relaxed approach fosters an environment where we are able to engage in self-reflection and open-mindedness toward each other and our students."  The winners will be celebrated at a virtual ceremony on December 15th.

EECS Prof. Emeritus Lotfi Zadeh (1921 - 2017) is being honored with a Google Doodle feature today.  In 1964, Zadeh conceived a new mathematical concept called fuzzy logic which offered an alternative to rigid yes-no logic in an effort to mimic how people see the world.  He proposed using imprecise data to solve problems that might have ambiguous or multiple solutions by creating sets where elements have a degree of membership. Considered controversial at the time, fuzzy logic has been hugely influential in both academia and industry, contributing to, among other things, "medicine, economic modelling and consumer products such as anti-lock braking, dishwashers and elevators."   Zadeh's seminal paper, "Fuzzy Sets -- Information and Control," was submitted for publication 57 years ago today.

CS alumni Xiaoye Sherry Li (Ph.D. '96, advisor: James Demmel) and Richard Vuduc (Ph.D. '03, advisor: James Demmel) have, along with Piyush Sao of Georgia Tech, won the 2022 Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) Activity Group on Supercomputing (AG/SC) Best Paper Prize.  This prize recognizes "the author or authors of the most outstanding paper in the field of parallel scientific and engineering computing published in English in a peer-reviewed journal." Their paper, "A communication-avoiding 3D algorithm for sparse LU factorization on heterogeneous systems,” was published in 2018 in the IEEE International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium (IPDPS).  Li is now a Senior Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) where she works on diverse problems in high performance scientific computations, including parallel computing, sparse matrix computations, high precision arithmetic, and combinatorial scientific computing.  Vuduc, now an Associate Professor in the School of Computational Science and Engineering at Georgia Tech, is interested in high-performance computing, with an emphasis on algorithms, performance analysis, and performance engineering.

EECS Prof. Emerita Ruzena Bajcsy has won the PAMI Azriel Rosenfeld Lifetime Achievement Award.  This award is presented biennially by the IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee for Pattern Analysis and Machine Learning (TCPAMI) to honor outstanding "researchers in Computer Vision who have made major contributions to the field over their career and who have influenced the field in an extraordinary way."  Bajcsy founded the pioneering General Robotics, Automation, Sensing, and Perception (GRASP) Lab in the Department of Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania in 1978.  The GRASP Lab was one of the first groups to foster interdisciplinary research between computer and cognitive scientists, electrical and mechanical engineers, and psychologists.  Her robotics research focused on computer vision, tactile perception, and the problem of system identification. Her work in medical imaging involved coupling a digital anatomy atlas with elastic matching algorithms in order to automatically identify anatomic structures of the brain.  This now standard technology was first used in X-ray tomography and later with MRI and positron image tomography.  At Berkeley, Bajcsy was the founding director of the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) in 2001, a collaboration between four University of California campuses.   Before coming to Berkeley, she headed the NSF Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate.  EECS Prof. Jitendra Malik, one of the speakers at ICCV 2021 where the award was announced, said "Ruzena has been a pioneer in so many ways, with her work on active perception, medical image analysis, robotics and her mentorship of generations of researchers in whom she has inculcated the highest of values. Her career is full of many, many 'firsts.'"

CS Prof. Stewart Russell has been selected as the 2021 BBC Reith Lecturer.  Considered among the most prestigious lecture series across all fields, Reith Lectures are delivered annually by leading authorites invited by the BBC "to advance public understanding and debate about significant issues of contemporary interest."   Russell will deliver four lectures this fall, held in four locations across the UK, on the subject of "Living With Artificial Intelligence." The series, which will be and broadcast on Radio 4 and the World Service as well as made available on BBC Sounds, will "explore the impact of AI on our lives and discuss how we can retain power over machines more powerful than ourselves."  The first lecture, titled "The Biggest Event in Human History," will be held in London and will cover the birth of AI; the second lecture, in Manchester, will cover "AI in Warfare;" the third, in Ediburgh, will cover "AI in the Economy;" and the final lecture, in Newcastle, is titled "AI: A Future for Humans?"  Russell, who is the Director of the Berkeley Center for Human-Compatible AI, has developed a new global seismic monitoring system for the nuclear-test-ban treaty and is currently working to ban lethal autonomous weapons.  His book "Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach" is the standard text in AI, used in 1500 universities in 135 countries.

The 2019-20 EECS Teaching Awards recognize three members of our faculty whose extraordinary performances kept students focused and engaged during a particularly difficult year.  The CS Diane McEntyre Award for Excellence in Teaching was presented to Anca Dragan in the spirit of McEntyre who was know for her "dedication to teaching and her innovative programs for women in mathematics and computer science." Students said Dragan was "passionate, dedicated, inclusive, and enthusiastic," and "literally the most entertaining and helpful professor I’ve ever had." The CS Jim and Donna Gray Faculty Award for excellence in undergraduate teaching went to Raluca Ada Popa. She was commended by students for her passion, clarity, care, and enthusiasm, and was described as an "AMAZING" and entertaining lecturer who "encourages a lot of class discussion and gets us involved, even over zoom."   The EE Award for Outstanding Teaching, which recognizes innovation and excellence in curriculum and teaching methods, publication of quality textbooks, graduate and undergraduate advising, and personal inspiration of students, was presented to Thomas Courtade.  He was described by students as "a brilliant instructor" whose "ability to teach the fundamental core concepts of this content is incredible." He was also said to be "amazing when it comes to interacting with students. It is hard to believe how many people are in the class, because he makes it feel very personal."

EECS Prof. Tsu-Jae King Liu has been selected to receive the 2021 IEEE Electron Devices Society (EDS) Education Award.  This award is presented annually by EDS to honor "an individual who has made distinguished contributions to education within the field of interest of the Electron Devices Society."  Liu, who is currently the dean of Berkeley Engineering, was cited “For outstanding contributions to education in the field of electron devices and achievements on diversity and inclusion.”  She has been a strong advocate for fostering inclusion and respect for women and members of underrepresented minorities in engineering.  She was the first woman to Chair the EECS department (2014), the second woman to join Intel's board of directors (2016), and the first woman elected dean of the Berkeley College of Engineering (2018).  She won the Chang-Lin Tien Leadership in Education Award in 2020.   Liu is also renowned for her research into novel semiconductor devices, non-volatile memory devices, and M/NEMS technology for ultra-low power circuits.  She is probably best known for the development of polycrystalline silicon-germanium thin film technology for applications in integrated circuits and microsystems; and as the co-inventor of the three-dimensional FinFET transistor  which is the design that is used in all leading microprocessor chips today.

EECS Ph.D. student Matthew Anderson (advisors: Jan Rabaey and Ali Niknejad) has won the Google-CMD-IT LEAP Fellowship Award for 2021-22.  The award recognizes computer science scholars from underrepresented groups who are "positively influencing the direction and perspective of technology."  Anderson, who also won the 2021 Berkeley EECS Eugene L. Lawler Prize, has been a pioneer in the department's anti-racism efforts, including taking a leadership position in the EECS and Division of Computing, Data Science, and Society (CDSS) faculty/staff/student Anti-Racism Committee. His research interests include design of mixed-signal and wireless circuits for bio-sensing, brain machine interfaces, and accelerated neural networks.  This award is part of a joint effort by Google Research, the Computing Alliance of Hispanic-Serving Institutions (CAHSI), and the Center for Minorities and People with Disabilities in Information Technology (CMD-IT) Diversifying LEAdership in the Professoriate (LEAP) Alliance to increase the diversity of doctoral graduates in computing.  Anderson is one of three winners of this year's award. Last year's inaugural award was won by EECS grad student Gabriel Fierro.