Foundation honors 9 Berkeley graduate students as Siebel Scholars
The Siebel Scholars Foundation has named its 2016 class of exceptional graduate students, including nine from Berkeley. The Berkeley cohort includes five students from bioengineering, three from computer science and one from energy science.
“We are proud of our Siebel Scholars and grateful to the foundation for investing in their promise,” said S. Shankar Sastry, dean and Carlson professor of engineering at Berkeley. “This prestigious recognition advances our students’ academic careers and prepares them for lifelong contributions as leaders and innovators in science and engineering.”
The Siebel Scholars program recognizes top students at the world’s leading graduate schools of business, computer science and bioengineering. With the Class of 2016, the program has expanded to engage students in energy science. Today, more than 1,000 Siebel Scholars are active in the program, which promotes leadership, academic achievement and the collaborative search for solutions to the world’s most critical issues.
Meet the 2016 class of Siebel Scholars at Berkeley:
- Malav Desai, Bioengineering: By studying the effectiveness of protein-based materials and developing high yield synthesis strategies, Malav hopes to encourage the scientific community to embrace the use of protein-based materials.
- Kathryn Fink, Bioengineering: Her work focuses on blood flow behavior in microchannels, and on hot embossing and electrodeposition techniques for the development of microfluidic devices.
- Kunwoo Lee, Bioengineering: His research focuses on drug delivery to develop new therapeutics. His recent publication in Nature Materials presents a new molecule that delivers a therapeutic protein to cure acute liver failure.
- Anusuya Ramasubramanian, Bioengineering: Her research focuses on using screening and selection strategies to engineer novel peptide-based materials with applications in stem cell and tissue regeneration.
- Zachary Russ, Bioengineering: His work focuses on the synthesis of natural products and novel derivatives in microbes such as yeast and E. coli. These products include environmentally friendly dyes, nontoxic fluorescent pigments and dopamine.
- Siyuan He, Computer Science: He wants to build systems that seamlessly connect cyberspace to our physical world. Such systems will improve the user experience, enable new functionalities and make technologies accessible to more people.
- Erik Krogen, Computer Science: With an interest in large-scale systems and infrastructure, he is investigating areas for performance improvement in modern web frameworks.
- Nathaniel Mailoa, Computer Science: With a focus on integrated circuits and machine architecture, he is involved in research on brain-machine interface systems.
- Ranjit Deshmukh, Energy Science: His research addresses clean energy in developing economies, with interests at the intersection of renewable energy, energy access, climate change, demand response and electricity markets.
Read the full story in the Siebel Scholars Foundation newsroom.