New & noteworthy
Electrical engineering and computer sciences professor Pieter Abbeel has received the Association for Computing Machinery Prize in Computing, which recognizes an early- to mid-career computer scientist who has made a fundamental innovative contribution in computing.
Rediet Abebe, assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences, has been named to the 2022 class of Andrew Carnegie Fellows.
Zakaria Al Balushi, assistant professor of materials science and engineering, has been named a CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar. He has also been recognized as a “rising star of nanoscience” by Nature for his work in devising ways to produce next-generation nanomaterials.
Electrical engineering and computer sciences professor Ana Claudia Arias has been conferred an honorary doctorate from Tampere University in Finland.
Ruzena Bajcsy, electrical engineering and computer sciences professor emerita, and her daughter, Klara Nahrstedt, are the first mother-daughter pair to be elected to the National Academy of Engineering. Bajcsy was also awarded the Slovak Medal of Honor in recognition for her scientific achievements, leading by example and setting a positive image of the Slovak Republic abroad.
Siva Bandaru (Ph.D.’20 CEE), civil and environmental engineering postdoctoral researcher, is this year’s recipient of the Rien van Genuchten Early-Career Award of Porous Media for a Green World for his contributions to the development and implementation of electrochemical arsenic remediation in rural South Asia.
Roderick Bayliss III and Vivek Nair, graduate students in electrical engineering and computer sciences, have been selected to receive Hertz Fellowships.
Civil and environmental engineering professor Jonathan Bray (Ph.D.’90 CEE) is the recipient of the American Society of Civil Engineers’ 2022 H. Bolton Seed Medal in honor of his advancements in geotechnical earthquake engineering.
Maya Carrasquillo, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, was named to the Georgia Tech Alumni Association’s “40 Under 40” list.
Jeffrey Cawlfield (M.S.’84, Ph.D.’87 CE) has been named chair of the Department of Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering at Missouri University of Science and Technology.
Materials science and engineering professor Gerbrand Ceder (Ph.D.’91 MSE) was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was also named a fellow of the Electrochemical Society.
Electrical engineering and computer sciences professor emerita Constance Chang-Hasnain (Ph.D.’87 EECS) has won the 2022 Welker Award at Compound
Semiconductor Week.
Jennifer Chayes, associate provost of the Division of Computing, Data Science and Society and professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences, was awarded an honorary doctorate from Bard College.
A paper co-authored by electrical engineering and computer sciences professor Alvin Cheung has won the ACM SIGPLAN Distinguished Paper at the Conference on
Programming Language Design and Implementation.
Kaichen Dong, materials science and engineering postdoctoral researcher, has been named to MIT Technology Review’s “35 Innovators Under 35” list for his invention of a smart roof coating that has both insulating and radiating properties. Magi Richani (M.S.’12 CEE), CEO of Nobell Foods, and Rui Wang (M.S.’16 MSE), assistant professor at Westlake University, were also named to the list.
Leslie Field (M.S.’88, Ph.D.’91 EECS) has won the inaugural 2022 Mark Shannon Grand Challenges Award, which recognizes “long-term contributions of members of our technical community with a vision to address humanity’s pressing issues.”
Bioengineering professor Daniel Fletcher has been named the new faculty director for the Blum Center for Developing Economies.
Electrical engineering and computer sciences professors Armando Fox (Ph.D.’98 EECS) and Dan Garcia (M.S.’95, Ph.D.’00 EECS) — based on their proposal in partnership with El Camino College and California State University, Long Beach — have been selected to receive a California Education Learning Lab Award.
Ashok Gadgil, professor of civil and environmental engineering, has been named the inaugural winner of the 2022 Zuckerberg Water Prize by the Zuckerberg Institute of Water Research at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel.
Michael Garcia (M.S.’80 ME) recently retired from Los Alamos National Laboratory after a 40-year career — including employment at Sandia National
Laboratories and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory — performing research and development on several national security programs. He was awarded an individual Distinguished Performance Award and two Department of Energy and National Nuclear Security Agency Defense Program Awards of Excellence during his career.
Rakesh Goel (M.S.’85, Ph.D.’90 CE) has been selected as the next dean of the School of Engineering at UC Merced.
A research team led by Ken Goldberg, professor of industrial engineering and operations research and of electrical engineering and computer sciences, was recently honored with the Best Paper Award by the IEEE Conference on Automation Science and Engineering.
A student team mentored by civil and environmental engineering associate professor Marta Gonzalez and lecturer Jasenka Rakas was awarded the Professor Joseph M. Sussman Best Paper Prize 2021 for its paper about COVID-19’s impact on U.S. aviation. Gonzalez also received a top paper award from IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems for her research on advancements in smartphone applications for drivers.
Kosa Goucher-Lambert, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, has received the 2022 Young Investigator Award in Design Theory and Methodology from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
Bioengineering professor Amy Herr has been named the inaugural chief technology officer of the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Network, an effort to develop the science and technologies to observe, measure and analyze human biology in action.
Civil and environmental engineering professor Arpad Horvath has been elected to the National Academy of Construction for his work as “an academic leader in the area of infrastructure sustainability, including resiliency.”
Peter Hosemann, nuclear engineering professor and department chair, was chosen as the winner of the 2022 TMS Brimacombe Medalist Award for his contribution to micro- and macroscale mechanical testing.
Computer science professor Michael Jordan has been selected as the inaugural WLA Prize Laureate in Computer Science or Mathematics by the World Laureates Association.
Jessica Kahn (B.S.’07 NE) is the new public works director for the city of Capitola, California.
Angjoo Kanazawa, assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences, was named to the 2022 Society of Hellman Fellows.
Bioengineering professor Sanjay Kumar stepped down as chair of the Department of Bioengineering to become director of Berkeley’s California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3).
Kam Lau, electrical engineering and computer sciences professor emeritus, has received the 2022 California Institute of Technology’s Distinguished Alumni Award, the institute’s highest honor.
Elizabeth Lun (B.S.’06 CE) has been named to the “Rising Stars of 2022” list by Progressive Railroading. She is the assistant director of design at Metrolink Southern California Regional Rail Authority.
Arun Majumdar (Ph.D.’89 ME), an internationally recognized expert in advanced energy systems and renewable energy, has been named the inaugural dean of
Stanford University’s Doerr School of Sustainability.
Benjamin Mildenhall (Ph.D.’20 CS) and Pratul Srinivasan (Ph.D.’20 EECS) jointly received an honorable mention for the 2021 Association for Computing Machinery’s Doctoral Dissertation Award.
La Academia De Ingenieria of Mexico has inducted Khalid M. Mosalam, professor of civil and environmental engineering and director of the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center, as corresponding member for his lifetime contributions to earthquake engineering. Mosalam also received the 2021 Hojjat Adeli Award for Innovation in Computing for a paper co-written with Yuqing Gao.
Jelani Nelson, electrical engineering and computer sciences professor, has won the Best Paper Award at the 2022 ACM Symposium on Principles of Database for his paper “Optimal Bounds for Approximate Counting,” co-written with Huacheng Yu.
Janeen Obeid (B.S.’12 CE) has been named one of the awardees of the Arab America Foundation’s 40 Under 40 initiative.
UC Berkeley has selected Oliver O’Reilly, professor of mechanical engineering, as the vice provost for undergraduate education, supporting “diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging and justice efforts.”
Vern Paxson (M.S.’91, Ph.D.’97 EECS), professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences, has won the USENIX Security Test of Time Award for his 1998 paper, “Bro: A System for Detecting Network Intruders in Real-Time,” which has been cited 3,852 times, according to Google Scholar.
Nuclear engineering professor
Per Peterson (M.S.’86, Ph.D.’88 ME) has been awarded the 2022 American Nuclear Society’s Walter H. Zinn Medal in recognition of “his contributions to the development of technologies for passive safety in nuclear reactors, and his leadership to develop and commercialize fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactors.”
Amy Pickering (M.S.’04 CEE), civil and environmental engineering assistant professor, has received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award.
Raluca Ada Popa, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences, has received the Association for Computing Machinery’s Grace Murray Hopper Award, recognizing an outstanding young computer professional who has made a single recent major technical or service contribution to the field of computer science before the age of 35.
Brown University’s School of Engineering awarded Lisa Pruitt, professor of mechanical engineering, with a Brown Engineering Alumni Medal.
Materials science and engineering professor Ramamoorthy Ramesh (Ph.D.’87 MSE) has been named as Rice University’s vice president for research. Ramesh was also elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and, with colleagues, was named the Europhysics Prize 2022 winner.
Robert Ritchie, professor of materials science and engineering and of mechanical engineering, received the 2022 Robert Henry Thurston Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
Computer science professor Stuart Russell has won the International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence 2022 Award for Research Excellence.
Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli, electrical engineering and computer sciences professor, received an honorary doctorate from AGH University of Science and Technology in Krakow, Poland.
Nuclear engineering assistant professor Raluca Scarlat (Ph.D.’12 NE) is among 11 new members named to the Department of Energy’s Nuclear Energy Advisory Committee.
Electrical engineering and computer sciences assistant professor Sophia Shao has won the IEEE Technical Committee on Computer Architecture Young Computer Architect Award. She is also among the 15 recipients of this year’s Intel Rising Star Award.
Timothy Shea (M.S.’63, Ph.D.’68 CE) received the Stanley E. Kappe Award of the American Academy of Environmental Engineering and Science for his contributions to advancement of the environmental engineering profession, including his service as president of the academy in 2005.
Scott Shenker, professor emeritus of electrical engineering and computer sciences, has won the Fiat Lux Faculty Award from the UC Berkeley Foundation and Cal Alumni Association, honoring a faculty member who has advanced the university’s philanthropic mission and transformed its research, teaching and programs.
Emily Stednitz (B.S.’18 ME) is now one of the 777X flight-test directors at the Boeing Company.
Ion Stoica, electrical engineering and computer sciences professor, has won the 2023 IEEE Koji Kobayashi Computers and Communications Award “for contributions to the design of cloud and computer network services.”
The Phi Beta Kappa Northern California Association has recognized Clancy Wilmott, faculty member of the Berkeley Center for New Media, with a 2022 Teaching Excellence Award. She was also named to the 2022 Society of Hellman Fellows.
Junqiao Wu, materials science and engineering professor, has been named the recipient of the 2023 Functional Materials Division John Bardeen Award from The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society.
Ting Xu, professor of materials science and engineering and of chemistry, was recognized with a Science Breakthrough of the Year award from the Falling Walls Foundation for her work on biodegradable plastics. She is also the recipient of UC Berkeley’s 2022 Faculty Excellence in Postdoctoral Mentoring Award.
The University of Lausanne Business School (HEC Lausanne) has selected industrial engineering and operations research professor Candace Yano as the new laureate of its Female Career Award in recognition of her pioneering research in operations management, as well as her efforts to educate the next generation of scholars.
Electrical engineering and computer sciences professor Katherine Yelick has won the 2022 CRA Distinguished Service Award, which recognizes a person or organization that has made an outstanding service contribution with a major impact to the computing research community.
Zeyu Zheng, industrial engineering and operations research assistant professor, has received the prestigious Hellman Fellowship with his team of students — Natalie Andersson, Sophea Bonne and Lucie Chen — for their proposal to enhance housing subsidy programs to aid low-income families.