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B er k e l ey ENGINEER College of Engineering University of California, Berkeley Fall 2014 Volume 6 Body mechanics Hacking anatomy Launching ‘dev eng’ A new field emerges Into the light Xiang Zhang’s XLab FREEDOM PHONES The future of dissent on the 50th anniversary of the Free Speech Movement

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College of EngineeringUniversity of California, BerkeleyFall 2014Volume 6

Body mechanics

Into the light

BerkeleyengineerHacking anatomy

Freedom phones

Xiang Zhangs XLab

The future of dissent on the 50th anniversaryof the Free Speech Movement

Launching dev engA new field emerges

DeansWord

Engineering global solutionsExtreme poverty is not a new problem. But given the widening of globalized marketsand the confluence of leapfrog technologiesincluding access to mobile telecommunications and niche manufacturing operationsenormous opportunities now exist toeradicate the root causes of global poverty.It is clear that traditional top-down models of international development arelimited: material aid leads to dependence; well-meaning policies become mired bypolitical instability.In addition to market forces and access to technology, it will take human capitalto build human capacity. That is why we take our responsibility to train the nextgeneration of engineers very seriously.Recognizing trends in the global landscape, the U.S. Agency for InternationalDevelopment (USAID)the countrys largest international aid agencyrecentlysignaled a change in tactics. With a collaborative, fast-moving posture (more SiliconValley than Inside-the-Beltway), USAID administrators have made a commitment toending extreme forms of poverty by 2030.With USAIDs support, we opened the Development Impact Lab (DIL) on campusin 2012 to design, execute and scale poverty-alleviating systems and technologies.The grant is managed by the Blum Center for Developing Economies and theCenter for Effective Global Action in Economics, and includes many engineeringfaculty who have answered the call for socially responsible development engineering.As an outgrowth of the DIL mission, and in response to an outpouring of student andfaculty demand, this semester we launched a development engineering designatedemphasis (the graduate equivalent of a minor) for Ph.D. students. Many of the studentsin the program are engineers, but others come from economics, business and otherquantitative disciplines. (Read more on page 2.)While much of DILs focus is on international solutions, in the words of advisoryboard member Arun Sarin, solutions often boomerang back to the developed worldin the form of financial inclusion, arsenic-free drinking water for the Central Valleyand so on.Beyond our ethical and societal obligations, aggressively pursuing solutions toalleviate global poverty through smart infrastructure, adaptable technologies andinclusive systems will create better global adaptability and resiliency in times whenthe worlds big problems show no signs of recognizing international borders.As always, I welcome your thoughts and ideas.

Training the nextgeneration of engineersto tackle the root causesof global poverty

S. Shankar SastryDean and Roy W. Carlson Professor of Engineering

Matt Beardsley

Director, Blum Center for Developing Economies

UNDER CONSTRUCTION: Dean Sastry oversees construction of Jacobs Hall. Hometo the Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation, the LEED-certified buildingto openin fall 2015will serve as a hub for hands-on learning for undergraduates.

in this issueBerkeleyengineer Fall 2014

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The big picture

Great Optics

body mechanics

Alum Tami bond

A new field emerges

Averaging Internet images

Harnessing light for circuitry

Hacking anatomy

New MacArthur Fellow

Daniel McGlynn

L. Brian Stauffer

launching dev eng

more

>

2-5UPFRONT

6-7B reakthroughs

14 W here visio n meetsknow-how

Comments

Sight for sore eyes

Smarter stethoscopes

Rejuvenating old muscles

Xiang Zhangs XLab

Q&A with Grace OConnell

Evolutionary algorithms

Girls in Engineering

Herding cells with electricity

17-20 Alumni nOTES

8 F reedom phones

SpotlightsFarewell

The future of dissent onthe 50th anniversary of theFree Speech Movement

> Cover photo noah berger

dean

assistant dean, college relations

Berkeley Engineer is published twice yearly to showcase the excellence of Berkeley Engineering faculty, alumni and students.S. Shankar SastryPublished by: UC Berkeley College of Engineering, Office of Marketing & Communications, 312 McLaughlin Hall #1704,Melissa NideverBerkeley, CA 94720-1704, phone: 510-643-6898, website: engineering.berkeley.eduexecutive editor Karen RhodesReach editors: [email protected] editor Kap StannChange of address? Send to: [email protected] editor Daniel McGlynnDonate online: engineering.berkeley.edu/give, or mail to: Berkeley Engineering Fund, 308 McLaughlin Hall #1722,Berkeley, CA 94720-1722, phone: 510-642-2487contributors Preston DavisJulianna Fleming 2014 Regents of the University of California / Not printed at state expense. Jennifer HuberPlease recycle. This magazine was produced from eco-responsible material. Miranda KingKirsten MickelwaitThomas Walden LevySarah Yangdesigner Alissar Rayes

Upfrontn e w progr a m s

Launching dev engA new Ph.D. specialty in development engineering teachesstudents how to build, scale and evaluate technologies designedto combat extreme poverty and other complex internationaldevelopment issues.Development engineering is a new interdisciplinary field thatintegrates engineering with economics and business, energyand natural resource development and social sciences, saysAlice Agogino, Hughes Professor of mechanical engineering.To build an academic framework for dev eng, Berkeley facultymembers with research expertise in related areas formed adevelopment engineering graduate group last year. The group isestablishing a research agenda that includes human-centereddesign and requires innovators to develop multiple skills inethnographic studies, qualitative research, hardware, analyticaltools, hypothesis testing, prototyping, business model development and continuous impact analysis, says Agogino, whochairs the group.

Courtesy William Tarpeh

With the support of Berkeleys Blum Center for DevelopingEconomies, the group launched a designated emphasis in development engineering for doctoral students this fall. The specialization is open to Ph.D. candidates across campus, includingstudents pursuing research in social sciences with quantitativecomponents, such as public health or social welfare.

William Tarpeh, a Ph.D. student in environmental engineering, works on a sanitation projectin Nairobi, Kenya. His goal is to develop technologies to make marketable products out ofnitrogen recovered from urine. The designated emphasis is really meaningful, Tarpeh says,because it recognizes the interstitial space that otherwise just isnt recognized.

..!

In 2012, the U.S. Agency for International Development awardedBerkeley $20 million to start the Development Impact Lab (DIL).The lab supports academic research and a community of facultyand students interested in development engineering.A number of faculty were engaged with the DIL lab and students doing these projects, but as one-offs in various groupswithout mentoring outside their discipline, Agogino says. Thecreation of this multidisciplinary program was a natural fusioncoming from a compelling need.

commentsFriends, followers and readers: Thanks for your comments. Here is a recent sampling.

Re: Engineering social justice, Berkeley Engineer, spring 2014I was extremely happy to learn that an engineering in society coursewas still being taught at Cal. Looking back on my career and personalevolution, its that course I took back in 1978 that I remember the most.It shaped my thinking about what it was to be an engineer, yes, butmore importantly, a just and positively contributing member of society.At the time, this topic was rarely taught in harder STEM paths acrossthe country, and I was very proud that Cal had the foresight to offer it.Engineers gravitate toward the profession because of their love of things,but an engineers true purpose is to translate scientific discoveries intosocietal benefits. For this, one must have not only a sharp intellect anda pragmatic outlook, but also open eyes, mind and especially heart.As pointed out in the piece, the control volume for any engineeringproblem must include its environment and its people.Shaun Simpkins, B.S.79 EE, via e-mail

Re: The last firewall, Berkeley Engineer, spring 2014In the last issue, the juxtaposition of an article on mind-reading technology and one on social justice was not likely lost on readers. While EECSprofessor Jan Rabaey pointed to the need to develop technical solutions sooner than later, whats missing is a broader conversation aboutwhether mind-reading technology is something we want to develop atall. We have a culture that promotes and rewards the heroic principalinvestigator who pushes the limits of science like Prometheus bringingthe gift of fire back to the clan. Only too late do we understand and reactto the unintended effects of these discoveries, such as greenhouse gases,nanoparticles, endocrine disruptors and GMOs. The university promotesa myriad of micro changes to our complex system, and we as a societyare left reeling with the large systemic changes that emerge as a consequence. Indeed, when have we, in 500 years of the Enlightenment, everdecided against technical advancement?Tse-Sung Wu, B.S.89 ME, via e-mailHow do I find out more?

2 engineering.berkeley.edu

Find links to web extras through the college website at engineering.berkeley.edu/magazine.

compu ter visio n

The big picture

Noah Berger

Finding the Internet cat

EECS professor Alexei Efros

Efros is part of the Visual Computing Lab.His research combines computer graphicsand computer vision to investigate largerconcepts related to the visual aspects ofartificial intelligence. Its a multidisciplinary problem connecting philosophy,neuroscience and developmental psychology. Efros says. It really goes to theheart of who we are.The Internet is awash with visual data.Given our current ability to access andprocess information, most of that data isinaccessible. I hope to make visual dataa first-class citizen, says Efros. Rightnow the transfer of information is tiedto language. I love literature, but there ismuch more to the visual world. There areso many things that we just dont havethe words for.Using computation like cheesecloth, computer-vision researchers filter massiveamounts of data into digestible nuggetsof information. To understand our visualworld you need to have a lot of data,

Efros says. You cant understand it justwith equations; you need to have the databecause our world is so rich and there isso much entropy in it.Efros balances data-heavy computervision research with creative computergraphics work. You get to hack, code andplay with computers. What comes out onthe other end are often beautifulsometimes bizarre, sometimes intriguingvisual representations, visual narrativeseven, he says. To me, that is very appealing aesthetically.Being creative while wrestling with bigresearch questions is a priority for Efros.He once contemplated pursuing a careeras a theater director. He hopes more artstudents will take his computationalphotography class in the future.Efross research is also informed by hispoor eyesight. For me, this fascination forlarge amounts of data definitely comesfrom personal experiencethere is thisincredible power that prior experiencehas on what you perceive. If I have beento a place many times, then I think thatIm seeing way more than Im actuallyseeing. In a familiar environment, mybrain fills in the details, he says.

Courtesy the researchers

This past fall, in the wide-open spacesacross campus, students from AlexeiEfross computational photography classwere easy to spotthey were the onestaking camera obscura pictures with imagecapturing devices made from shoeboxes.The point, says Efros, who joined theBerkeley faculty last year as an associateprofessor in electrical engineering andcomputer sciences, was for students tobecome one with the photons.

The AverageExplorer is a tool designed tobetter search digital visual data. The newsoftware, developed along with doctoral studentJun-Yan Zhu and former post-doctoral researcherYong Jae Lee, is one of EECS professor AlexeiEfross latest projects.We have this enormous collection of imageson the web, but much of it remains unseen byhumans. People have called it the dark matterof the Internet. We wanted to figure out a way toquickly visualize this data by systematically averaging the images, Efros says about the project.Unlike text-based data that can be organizedand searched relatively easily, no intuitivesystem exists for indexing visual information.AverageExplorer addresses that problem bycompiling millions of images into one averageimage. Users can then refine the search byadding visual constraints to the query usingbasic image-editing tools, such as strokes,brushes and warps.For example, to find images of a particularspecies of cat from among the vast sea ofInternet cat images, a user starts with a massivecompilation. With AverageExplorer tools they canthen narrow down the results based on specificvisual characteristics, such as color or earlength, yielding a new average image.Beyond cats, potential applications for theAverageExplorer include online shopping andfurther refining computer vision and computergraphics systems based on data collectedfrom users.

I realized how having lots of data makes allof the difference, and this is true for everyone, not just for people with poor sight.

Berkeleyengineer

3

Upfrontd evic es

Smarter stethoscopesAs an engineer with a passion for medicine, Connor Landgraf (B.S.13, M.Eng.14 BioE)started designing digital enhancements for stethoscopes as an undergraduate. Withguidance from bioengineering professor Amy Herr, Landgraf continued this work withfellow master of engineering students Jiarong Fu, Zhengda Zhao and Robert Sibilia(all M.Eng.14 BioE), as the teams capstone project.Problem

According to Landgraf, up to 80percent of new primary care physiciansdont receive enough training to accurately diagnose common heart problems withstandard analog stethoscopes. Existingaudio-amplification devices for stethoscopes are pricey and unpopular withphysicians, many of whom prefer classicstethoscopes.

Solution

Noah Berger

The team took a two-prongedapproach to making classic stethoscopessmarter. First, they designed a Bluetoothenabled hardware device, which is placedbetween the stethoscope bell and therubber tubing delivering sound to a clinicians ears. A slender conical attachmentamplifies and digitizes heart sounds,recording an audio clip and sending it,along with a waveform image, to a secure,cloud-based server via a smartphone.

Chestpiece connectorPower switch

Result This hardware-software-data-

Volume control

base combo has the potential to save livesand eliminate billions of dollars a yearin unnecessary spending on cardiologyreferrals and electrocardiograms. A studyin the British Journal of Cardiology in 2001found that up to 60 percent of cardiology referrals were based on erroneous diagnoses, a figure the teamaims to drastically reduce.

LED

Earpiece connector

In 2013, the smart stethoscopeteam joined Berkeleys SkyDeckincubator and named theirventure Eko (pronounced echo)Devices. They anticipate FDAapproval this fall. Meanwhile, a localhospital is beta-testing the device.

Be fact

Berkeley ranks as the#2 university producingVC-backed entrepreneursSource: PitchforkCourte

4 engineering.berkeley.edu

This makes findings easy to processthrough the second tool Landgrafs teamis developing: a proprietary algorithmable to discern the difference betweennormal and abnormal heart sounds. Thiswill provide what Landgraf calls real-timedecision support.

sy E ko Devices

Q+A with Grace OConnell

Matt Beardsley

Grace OConnell joined theBerkeley Engineering facultyin August 2013 as an assistantprofessor in the mechanicalengineering department. Sheearned her Ph.D. from theUniversity of Pennsylvania andwas a post-doctoral researcherat Columbia. We asked her abouther background and her firstyear at the college.

When did you know you wanted to become an engineer?I was always fiddling with things as a kid, and then I took anengineering class at my high school in Philadelphia. Both myparents were computer programmers, so that may have alsoinfluenced me. As a girl, I was definitely in the minority in myclasses, but I was so focused on my studies, I wasnt even awareof it until I was a senior in college.Why did you choose mechanical engineering in particular?As an undergraduate, I originally studied aerospace engineering.In graduate school, I switched over to have a more direct impacton peoples lives. My work is biologically based. I have colleaguesin bioengineering departments at other schools who do similarresearch to mine. It all depends on how each university structures its departments.Your research focuses on tissue engineering and spinal biomechanics.What are the applications of your work?Around 80 percent of adults will experience back pain in theirlifetime. Im studying soft-tissue degeneration so we can grow abiological repair strategy. We use cells to grow new tissues in the

lab. We look at the mechanical function of native tissue to tryto mimic this function in the repair tissue we create.What has your introduction to the Berkeley campus been like?Im finding the culture here to be very open to collaborationand working across disciplinestheres a real generosity insharing information. In the biomechanics group, for example,lab space is shared across multiple labs to encourage cross-talkand collaboration.As an instructor in the Girls in Engineering camp in July, what was itlike to be a role model for young women?Theres a big challenge ahead to balance the gender numbersin the engineering professions. Research indicates that girls areusually around middle school age when they become turnedoff to math and science. At the Girls in Engineering camp, I wasexcited to see how many of the campers dove right in, experimenting with tissue samples. In my own lab, Ive tried to createa diverse workforceits currently a 60/40 male-to-female ratio.And because Im half African, half American, Im sensitive toracial diversity as well.

S TEM pip e li n e

Matt Beardsley

Girls in EngineeringThis summer, the college launched an outreachprogram for middle school girls designed to bringengineering to life and inspire the girls to pursuean education in STEM fields. Led by women facultyand graduate students, the camp was also designedto instill the confidence needed to master both thehard and soft skills required of engineering leaders.Offered free to students from five East Bay schools,

the summer camps were part of the collegescommitment to increasing the ranks of women intechnology. Research shows that by high school age,many girls have already dismissed the potential ofcareers in engineering.Supported by grants from the National ScienceFoundation, General Electric and the BaskinFoundation, two weeklong sessions includedhands-on projects in nanotechnology, robotics,optics and more, as well as field trips to nearby PixarAnimation Studios and Lawrence Hall of Science.

Berkeleyengineer

5

Breakthroughs

circ u i ts

Noah Berger

Great optics

Whinnery Distinguished Professor of electrical engineering and computer sciencesConnie Chang-Hasnain was named associate dean for strategic alliances in July.

Harnessing light with photonic integratedcircuits on silicon promises to catalyzepowerful new applications in energyefficient telecommunications, computingand more, as standard electronic circuitsdid in the past. This requires photonicdevices to be integrated into dense, highperforming circuits, which may now bepossible using semiconductor nanostructures developed in the lab of ConnieChang-Hasnain, Whinnery DistinguishedProfessor of electrical engineering andcomputer sciences. Her team has designeda robust toolkit of nano-optoelectroniccircuit elementsincluding light emitters,photodetectors, a photovoltaic powersupply and optical links to connect thesedevices into circuitsthat were found toperform as well as their traditional counterparts. Chang-Hasnain and her studentsdiscovered a new method to grow lightefficient nano-resonators on a siliconsubstrate. Then they can use conventionalnanofabrication techniques to make photonic integrated circuits, making productmanufacturing easier down the line.

visio n

Sight for sore eyesWhat if everyone could clearly see their smartphone, tablet, computer and TV screens without having towear eyeglasses? Brian Barsky, professor of computer science and vision science and affiliate professor ofoptometry, teamed up with colleagues at MIT to improve vision-correcting display technology. Using aniPod for their prototype, theydevised algorithms to makeadjustments in the display tocompensate for various visionimpairments. They designedways to manipulate the intensity of light emanating fromeach pixel and added a perforated touchscreen mask tofurther control light and sharpenfocus. Given an eyeglasses prescription, researchers can nowpre-correct the display to enable that user to see the screen in sharp focus without glasses. The technologycould not only help millions who wear glasses, but it could also be transformative for those with vision problemsthat cannot be corrected by eyeglasses. People who are unable to view displays are at a disadvantage in theworkplace as well as in other aspects of their lives, says Barsky.

6 engineering.berkeley.edu

hormon es

Rejuvenating old musclesYour muscles grow larger and strongerfrom birth until your thirties, when theynaturally start to lose mass, strength andmobility. Now, bioengineering researchershave discovered that oxytocinthe hormone associated with maternal nurturing, social attachments, childbirth andsexmay combat this age-related musclewasting. Led by associate professor IrinaConboy, Berkeley researchers foundthat mice required oxytocin for healthymuscle maintenance and repair, andoxytocin levels in blood and receptors inmuscle stem cells reduce with age. Whenthey injected oxytocin into older mice,

genes

the researchers found that it improvedmuscle regeneration to a level comparable to young mice, with no ill effects. Thisdemonstrates that extra oxytocin boostsaged tissue stem cells without makingmuscle stem cells divide uncontrollably,explains project scientist Wendy Cousin.Also, by experimentally inhibiting oxytocin, researchers detected premature agingin adult mice. Cousin noted that relatedinvestigations will determine if oxytocin isa viable alternative to hormone replacement therapy to impede the effects ofaging in humans.

After

Before

Irina Conboys bioengineering lab found that aging muscle cells in mice naturally degenerate (at left), but appearrevitalized after oxytocin is administered (at right).

EvolutionaryalgorithmsDarwin was the first to marvel at thediversity of life that natural selection hasproduced, given that the evolutionaryforces of survival of the fittest and diversity appear to be in opposition. Thereis a paradox in evolution, says UmeshVazirani, Strauch Professor of electricalengineering and computer sciences anddirector of Berkeleys Quantum Information and Computation Center. Supposethe mixing of genes through sexualrecombination helps create a perfectindividual. That perfection gets lost inthe next generation, because the offspring inherits only half the perfect parents genes. Vazirani and his colleagueshave developed an algorithm that helpsdemystify this paradox, demonstratingthat diversity results from the selectionprocess as well as genetic mutations.They noticed that genes prefer a 50-50distribution; even if there is an extremelysuccessful genetic trait, evolution doesntwant lesser traits to become extinct. Theiralgorithm works to maximize the tradeoff between going all-in on a successfulgenetic trait and hedging bets by notcommitting to any one specific trait. Thistype of algorithm has been used in computer science, statistics and economics,but researchers have now discovered thatit can be applied to nature, as well.

cu rr ent s

Herding cells with electricity

+_

Drawing inspiration from sheep dogs that herd their flock,researchers are now able to similarly herd biological cells fortissue engineering. Led by associate professor Michel Maharbizfrom electrical engineering and computer sciences and bioengineering graduate student Daniel Cohen, the researchersfound that an electrical current can orchestrate the migration ofgroups of cells. By applying electrical current to single layers ofepithelial cells (binding cells that line organs and body cavities),they were able to herd cells from side to side or to make U-turns.With stencils, they sorted cells into shapesincluding the familiar shape of the Cal bearand investigated effects on electrified cell motion. One application of this cell-herding technologycould be smart bandages: with a grid of electrodes, bandagescould stimulate currents into wounds to expedite healing.

How do I find out more?

Find links to web extras through the college website at engineering.berkeley.edu.

Berkeleyengineer

7

Freedomphones

The future of dissent on the 50th anniversary ofthe Free Speech Movement

Story by paul preuss Photos by noah berger

On January 28, 2011, the news was everywhere: just after midnight in Egypt,the Mubarak regime had cut off mostInternet and cell phone service to 82million citizens, and tens of thousands ofthem were already moving toward CairosTahrir Square for what would become adecisive Friday of Anger.Damn, this is a pretty extreme formof censorship, was Yahel Ben-Davids firstreaction. A Ph.D. candidate in electrical engineering and computer sciences,Ben-David is an expert in citizen accessto communications. When a governmentthat controls the infrastructure decidesto shut it down, what kind of dissentnetwork would it take for people to stayin touch?Ben-Davids research had turnedup many papers, but nothing practical. Much theoretical work focuses onwireless mesh networks, with multiplewifi nodes that can reroute around localfailures by means of overlapping coverage. From his own experience, Ben-Davidknew that mesh networks that try tomaintain full Internet connectivity dontscale wellthe more nodes, the lesscapacity in each. Even legally permissiblecell phone towers or rooftop antennascould attract unwelcome attention todissenters.

8 engineering.berkeley.edu

However, says Ben-David, if a systemis delay-tolerantif messages can waita while before they are passed alongsome things, like smartphones, canwork, by functioning as nodes on themove. Mobility is both a challenge and anadvantage.Anonymity is essential in a dissentnetwork, as Ben-David had also learnedfrom experience. Not mere pseudonymity;phony IDs are easy to crack when a government controls the infrastructure andhas access to whats known in cybersecurity lingo as out-of-band informationknowledge gained, in essence, by thegovernment spying on its citizens.Knowing what wouldnt work, BenDavid set out to recruit fellow studentsand faculty in the College of Engineeringto help him create a system that couldfunction discreetly when networks aredown, reach as many people as necessaryand protect the identity of its users.Learning from the real world

Yahel Ben-David is not your usual doctoral student. Now in his mid-40s, heserved in the Intelligence Corps of theIsrael Defense Forces (IDF), co-founded asuccessful Internet security and servicescompany with headquarters in SiliconValley and built an innovative wifi meshnetwork that brought the Internet to ruralnorthern India. Before all that, he wasone of Israels most notorious hackers

although, because he was a teenager, hisname wasnt made public until long afterthe authorities had tracked him down.Growing up the son of schoolteachersin the village of Tivon in northern Israel,Ben-David says he was not a good studentand was later diagnosed as dyslexic. Iwas math-challenged and still am. ButI found if I could teach myself, I couldflourish.Socially active, a community volunteer, a motorcycle racer from the tenderage of 13 and a rock climber by 18, hewas far from a stereotypical nerd, and infact calls himself an adrenaline junkie.Yet computers were his passion. He builthis own modem, which meant sleepingon the floor: the circuitry took up theentire surface of his bed. In 1984, as ahigh-school junior, he gained anonymousinfamy when he used his Commodore 64(all 64k RAM) to hack into Israels biggestnewspaper and plant a front-page articlelambasting an unpopular teacher, usingthe byline of one of the papers leadingjournalists.Like most young Israelis, Ben-Davidwent straight from high school into theIDF, wherenot least because they wereaware of his hacking adventurestheIntelligence Corps already had its eye onhim. He spent over four years in intelligence, in cybersecurity and on the groundin Lebanon.

Yahel Ben-David and Barath Raghavanof the De Novo Group have designedRangzen, a smartphone app to supportdissenters and protect identities.Berkeleyengineer

9

In 1993, after active service, Ben-Davidjoined two IDF friends to co-found theXpert Group, a networking and securityconsultancy firm. They soon scored abusiness coup by winning the contract toestablish Moroccos government-ownedInternet service, the countrys first. The40-page request-for-proposal, mostlyverses from the Koran, reflected a concern to protect youth from the horrors ofthe Internet, Ben-David says, but theircore needs were straightforward, and ourfour-page proposal beat out major international players.When the Xpert Group moved itsheadquarters to Silicon Valley, Ben-Davidkept an apartment in San Francisco butnever unpacked his boxes. I was alwayson a plane somewhere. Life was aboutmaking money. Then a friend called fromDharamsala, India, home of the DalaiLama. He said, Were getting hammered,and we need help.

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engineering.berkeley.edu

Having visited Indian cities on business,Ben-David wasnt eager. But I fell in lovewith rural India. He says, I had neverconsidered myself a philanthropistsomeconsidered me ruthless. India wholly shapedmy awareness of social issues. In 1999,he sold his holdings in the Xpert Group.The Tibetans security problems wereformidable, and opened his eyes to issuesof privacy and anonymity that had neverbefore concerned him. He knew from hissecurity work that existing technologicalsolutions were inadequate. I was supposedto teach the technology, and I did. But I alsotold them not to over-trust it. I had littlefaith in technology up against rubber-hosecryptography.Meanwhile, he introduced theInternet to the Himalayan foothills.The company he founded, AirJaldi, hasextended broadband coverage outwardfrom Dharamsala with a series of lowpower wifi nodes on short masts plantedon mountain peaks and hilltops.

During his travels to and fromDharamsala, Ben-David met Yael Perez, atriathlon competitor trained in architecture, committed to using design to address the needs of underserved communities. They married and, in 2004, movedto Dharamsala.By 2006, however, Ben-David wascommuting again, now to Berkeley, wherePerez was enrolled in a doctoral programin the College of Environmental Design.Ben-David joined Technology and Infrastructure for Emerging Regions (TIER), theresearch group founded by EECS professorEric Brewer, whom hed met at an AirJaldiconference. Commuting ended whenBen-David told Brewer, I guess Ill be herea while. Im going to be a daddy.Building a dissent network

When Egypt shut down the Internet,Ben-David went into high gear. Clandestine restoration of instantaneousInternet access was clearly impractical,but a delay-tolerant network, in which

The basicassumption isthat governmentagents havefewer friends.Giulia Fanti, EECS doctoral student andprivacy researcher for the De Novo Group

information would be exchanged on ascale of hours or days instead of seconds,might work. In this scheme, users phoneswould automatically exchange storedmessages directly, via an app using thesmartphones built-in wifi or Bluetoothwireless capacity, whenever they camewithin range of one another.The name was easy: Rangzen is theTibetan word for freedom, liberty or independence. What wasnt easy was protecting Rangzens users while achieving goodmessage propagationa tolerably fastrate of spreading the word.The core problem was how to prioritize what messages should be passed onwhile maintaining anonymity, Ben-Davidsays. I would not start work on anythingelse until I could solve this.Giulia Fanti, a Ph.D. candidate studying censorship and privacy, volunteered tojoin the team. She provided the key, basedon her familiarity with trust graphsamessages trust score determines whether

it is sent. The algorithm trusts a messageif the sender and receiver share manymutual friends, Fanti explains. The basicassumption is that government agentshave fewer friends.Ben-David had meanwhile joinedforces with Brewer to found the De NovoGroup, a nonprofit corporation affiliatedwith the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society(CITRIS) through their data and democracy initiative. Ben-David describes DeNovos purpose as making sure dissertations dont stay on the shelf but helppeople. Through De Novo, Rangzen issupported by a grant from the U.S. StateDepartments Bureau of Democracy,Human Rights and Labor.To build a Rangzen trust graph, usersmust first establish authentic, out-ofband trust relationships, best done bymeeting friends face-to-face. Thereafter allidentitiesincluding other contacts in theface-to-face friends listsare mathematically scrambled and cant be recoveredfrom what Rangzen stores on a phone.In exchanging messages, the Rangzenalgorithm recognizes links, not identities.The more links shared between the contact lists of two users, the more trusted themessage and the higher its priority whenit is passed along. Less trusted messagesare transmitted last and deleted first.Fanti worked with Barath Raghavan,De Novos vice president and a seniorresearcher in networking and securityat the International Computer ScienceInstitute at Berkeley (ICSI), to validatethe algorithms security. Giulias idea isa refinement of existing algorithms, butreally new in the sense that it has neverbeen used in this way, says Raghavan.We had to validate that there existedcrypto primitives to do the friendshipintersection in this specific context. Thatis, they had to verify there were cryptographic tools to compute the number ofmutual friends in a way that didnt revealthe names of either partys friends to theother. If that worked, they had to verifythat Rangzen could weed out messagesfrom the adversary.To code Rangzens phone app anddesign its interface, Fanti and Raghavanwere joined by Adam Lerner, a Ph.D. studentin computer science at the University ofWashington and De Novos systems security researcher, and Jesus Garcia, a Berkeleyundergrad majoring in computer science.Teachers invited Rangzen team representatives to make short presentations toa number of College of Engineering classes,during which they asked for volunteers to

download the app to their phones. Whilethey had to understand caveats such asbattery drain from having their phonesalmost always on, the volunteers didntneed to give their names.Says Raghavan, We didnt care whothey were by name, because the first testwas to establish that the system worksfor communication. On top of Rangzensnormal version we built a measurementlayer, reporting to a server that all userscould access. It shows where you werewhen you encountered another user andexchanged messages.Rangzen began preliminary testing inJuly 2014. Tests, simulations and analysisindicate that during an Internet blackoutRangzen can spread honest messages(time and place of a rally, say) to over 80percent of the user population in lessthan two days, with adversarial messages(a false time and place, say) considerablyfewer and later.In a nutshell, says Ben-David, wehave shown that Rangzen can work andthat we can solve the remaining problems.Some are technical. From a commercial perspective, what were doing is unusual, says Lerner. Androids and iPhonesrequire you to respond that you want toconnect. Rangzen needs opportunistic,automatic connections. We can enablethat, but were trying to find simpler waysin newer smartphone systems.A more basic obstacle, says Fanti, isthat we dont yet understand how ourapproach will work in practical dissent settings. We cant know ahead of time how apowerful, government-level adversary willreact. In all Rangzen-like systems theremay be a fundamental trade-off betweenhow fast messages can propagate and theanonymity of their senders.Its like theres a big knob, Ben-Davidsays. You can turn it one way for blanketanonymity with slow propagation, or theother way to fast propagation but morerisk. Where is it realistic to set that knob?The team has already been approachedby dissent groups, he says. Were reluctant to work with them until werecomfortable that anonymity is secure. Thisis a dangerous business. Were not going tomake claims we cant substantiate.While adversarial gaming could helpdetermine where to set the propagationversus-anonymity knob, with some usersplaying dissenters and others playingagents trying to foil their plans, Ben-Davidhas no illusions: Eventually well have todive into cold water and get Rangzen tothe people who need it.

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Robert Ritchie, a professorof mechanical engineeringand materials science, studiesthe microstructural mechanismsof hard mineralized tissue, includingbones and teeth. His work in biomaterialsextends to examining damage toleranceand life prediction in biomedical implants,such as stents (pictured right) and prosthetic heart valves.

Stent man

Professor Amy Herr is buildingbetter diagnostic devices for clinicalapplications (at right, a microfluidicdevice designed by Herrs group candistinguish protein markers in humantears). From her bioengineering lab,Herr aims to improve diagnostics byaccelerating development of bioanalyticalmethods, streamline sample preparationstrategies and enhance biomarkervalidation.

Deployablediagnostics

Illustration by jason lee

Highresolution

Jose Carmena leads efforts atBerkeleys Brain-Machine InterfaceSystems Laboratory to build bridgesbetween cognition and mechanicalfunction in the form of neuroprosthetics (at left, a postage stamp-sizedneural interface, which is surgicallyattached to the brains motor cortex).Carmena has appointments in bothEECS and neuroscience, and his workdraws from a variety of fields, includingsensory-motor learning and control, neuralensemble computation, intelligent systems,robotics and computational biology.

BMI REFLEX

Berkeley engineers are building better bodies, one part at a time. Working across fields anddisciplines, researchers are developing solutions ranging from early disease detection tobrain implants and bionic-like exoskeletons. These advances hold the potential to improvequality of life for millions of people. Here is a rundown of a few of the most notable bodyhacks that have come out of Berkeley Engineerings labs in recent years.

Body mechanics

Re:engineering

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Homayoon Kazerooni designs and buildsexoskeletons that enable paraplegics andpeople with challenged mobility to walk.A professor in mechanical engineering,Kazerooni and members of his lab alsodeveloped the Human Universal LoadCarrier, the first lower extremity exoskeleton, which allows users to carry200-pound weights over any sort ofterrain for an extended period of timewithout extra exertion. Kazerooni is alsofounder of Ekso Bionics, which commercializes exoskeletons internationally.

Wearable robots

Lisa Pruitt runs stress tests on orthopedicimplants and artificial joints. With appointments in mechanical engineering andbioengineering, Pruitt looks to improveorthopedic devices and tissues by betterunderstanding structural relationships,biomaterials and medical polymers.

Finding fault

Michel Maharbiz, a professor inthe EECS department, is developing micro/nano interfaces to cellsand exploring bio-derived fabricationmethods. One of Maharbizs projects isa sensor-laden smart bandage that candetect electric signals produced duringhealing without the need to disturb thewound.

Second skin

Grace OConnell, on the mechanicalengineering faculty, models soft tissuesto study the biomechanics of cartilageand intervertebral discs. By understanding the mechanical function of healthy,degenerated and injured intervertebraldiscs and applying tissue engineeringand regeneration concepts, OConnellhopes to develop physiologically soundrepair strategies.

Spine space

Steve Conolly specializes in novel medical imaging and biosensing hardware.With appointments in EECS and bioengineering, Conolly researches magneticparticle imaging and magnetic resonance imaging for enhanced diagnostics.Applications include safe angiographyfor kidney disease patients, in-vivo celltherapy tracking, tuberculosis imaging,functional imaging and noninvasive,early-stage cancer diagnostic imaging.

where visionxiang zhangs xlab

Xiang Zhang greets the visitor to his airy,ground-floor office in Etcheverry Hallwearing cargo shorts, a colorful sportshirt and a broad smile. Hes relaxedenough to be on vacation, a deceptivelook for someone who holds the ErnestS. Kuh chair as professor in the mechanical engineering department, directs theNational Science Foundations Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center,was recently appointed director of thematerials sciences division at LawrenceBerkeley National Laboratory and whoin less than two decades has publishedmore than 240 papers in such journals asScience, Nature and Physical Review.Zhang is a world leader in the burgeoning field of photonic metamaterials. He makes light perform astonishingtricks by means of artificial structures14

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that dont occur in nature: superlensesthat capture light that ordinary lensescant see; tiny motors called light mills,powered by beams of light; invisibilitycloaks to make objects vanish.He calls his group of more than 30Ph.D. students, postdocs and visitingscientists the XLab, not because weremutants, but because were really looking for nontraditional research topics. Xstands for explore, for experiment, forexcellence.As much as depth of scientific thinking, Zhang seeks creativity in recruitingXLab members, even if their test scoresare not the absolute highest. I mightask, he speculates, What would youlike to do if you had unlimited resources? If the answer is I want to goto Mars, Id ask, What would you need?How would you do it?

Getting an idea off the ground canmean not worrying about feasibility tooquickly, a point Zhang makes by describing a kooky scheme from his early yearson the UCLA faculty. The neighborhoodwas expensive, and a lot of the facultycouldnt afford housing. I came up withthe idea of an inflatable apartment wecould pump up at night, float up in theairgreat views!and come down inthe morning. We did a cost estimate; theprice was actually reasonable, comparedto the market. He laughs. Housing forthe future, maybe.

Into the XLabVisionary from the start, metamaterialsare a young field of research, wide openfor exploration. Joining disparate componentsmetal versus insulator, say

meets know-how

metamaterials owe their surprising newproperties not to chemistry or crystallography but to their architecture.Everything we do begins in nature,says Zhang. But we think of the naturalmaterials as parents, lending their DNAto designs with properties the parentsdont have.To make these artificial structurespossible, the labyrinthine shops andworkstations of the XLab wind throughthree campus buildings, housing anarmory of tools including lasers, atomicforce microscopes, ion mills, electronbeam evaporators and other precisioninstruments.Metamaterials embrace such macrodevices as the XLabs acoustic hyperlens, bringing high resolution to sonarand ultrasound images ranging from a

school of fish to a fetus in the womb; thefan-shaped array of 20-centimeter-longbrass strips can focus meter-scale soundwaves to a fraction of their wavelength.The nanoscale, however, opens new vistas for metamaterials.In the realm of acoustics, XLab Ph.D.candidate Kevin OBrien uses lasers inSutardja Dai Hall to create trillionth-ofa-second pulses that excite plasmons(quantized waves of electrons) in goldnanostructures shaped like Swiss crosses, having 90-nanometer short arms and120-nanometer long arms.The cross-shaped nanostructuresheat up and expand rapidly to generate coherent acoustic phonons, OBrienexplains. These quantized sound wavestravel through solids at 10 gigaherz, afrequency many hundreds of times

higher than conventional ultrasound.Detecting the in-phase or out-of-phaseoscillation of the nano-arms, says OBrien,is a step toward potential applications,in principle including higher-resolutionimaging.Scale is a secondary concern fortheorist Hamidreza Ramezani, an XLabpostdoc. His whitewashed-concrete office in Hesse Hall houses only a computer; with it he is designing a unidirectional laser by applying quantummechanical principles and symmetriesof time and parity (mirror symmetry) onthe scale of long-established classicalphysics.Instead of a traditional laser cavity with mirrors, were looking for anopen cavity that amplifies light in onlyone direction, Ramezani says. Its anBerkeleyengineer

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optical structure that allows photons totake many different paths, but eventuallythey find one way out, as a laser beam.The test version of this resonant cavitycombines three distinct materials.The metamaterial that Ph.D. studentDavid Barth is making in a crampedcorner of Etcheverry Hall combines twomaterials that could hardly be more ordinary: silicon and air. Using a techniquecalled photoelectrochemical etching,were drilling little holes in the silicon,most about 30 nanometers big, Barthsays. We control the density and the sizeof the holes to change and control therefractive index of the material, manipulating the speed of light through thematerial to steer its path.A mediums refractive index indicateshow fast light travels through it; at index 1,the vacuum is fastest. Airs refractive indexis only a few ten-thousandths greaterthan 1, while silicon, through which lighttravels slowly, has an index well over 3. Alight ray traveling through pocked silicondoes not respond to the air holes, whichare smaller than the lights wavelength.But the light bends or accelerates according to how the density of holes changesthe refractive index.To etch the hole patterns, Barth beginswith nothing fancier than a PowerPointimage projected onto the silicon wafer; thetest case was a photo of Xiang Zhang himself. Depending on the size and patternof the nanoscale holes, how light movesthrough the material and emerges from itcan be controlled at will. Barth says, Nowthat we can bend light in various interesting ways, were making devices thatconcentrate light where we want it.

If a student tells methey want to go to Mars,Id say, What wouldyou need? How wouldyou do it?Xiang Zhang

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A visionary bolt of lightningThe XLabs evolving design methodologies, Zhang says, make possible newmaterials based on the imagination.Most are destined to produce practicalcommercial advances in fields includingtelecommunications, biomedicine and national security. Yet some of the most startling ideas are pure speculative science.In 2012 two independent groups,Zhangs at Berkeley and that of NobelPrize-winning theorist Frank Wilczek atMIT, were musing on special relativityand the possibility of broken-time symmetrywhich suggested the possibilityof a space-time crystal, a clock to keepperfect time for eternity.Zhang and postdoc Tongcang Li proposed a unique system of trapped ions,rotating perpetually at their lowest quantum energy level in a static magnetic field.By leading to a breaking of time-translational symmetry, this makes timeforthe first time!discrete, not continuousas we experience it, Zhang says. Thisexotic four-dimensional crystal is not onlyperiodic in space, but also in time.Explorations of space-time only a littleless far out are made possible by continuous-index photon traps, describedin 2009 by Zhang, visitor Dentcho Genovand then-postdoc Shuang Zhang. In thesemetamaterial devices, light behaves likemassive bodies, allowing investigationsof celestial mechanics, including blackholes and other manifestations of generalrelativity, right on the lab benchtop.Zhangs fascination with physics began as an undergraduate at Nanjing University. He then spent a years researchat Fermilab, hoping to pursue particlephysics when the Superconducting Super

Collider started operations; its defundingin 1993 caused an abrupt career switch.Zhang was soon pursuing a masters degree in environmental engineering at theUniversity of Minnesota.I designed a few monitoring devicesfor air pollution, and I learned hard lessons about instrumentation, he says.The most fundamental lesson: Creativitymust be combined with practical skills.Working toward his 1996 Ph.D. atBerkeley, Zhang learned from mechanicalengineering professor Costas Grigoropouloshow to use laser light to pattern devices.It unleashed his imagination. A few shortyears later, Zhang was a full professor atUCLA, where he founded the first largemetamaterials program in the U.S.He returned to join Berkeleys ME faculty in 2004 and today views himself as anapplied scientist, but one who sees thingsthe other way around: Im interested inhow technology enables new science.Thats only part of the picture. Askhim where his all-embracing vision, fromthe mundane to the cosmic, could haveoriginated, and his answer is quick: Iwent to school during the Cultural Revolution. Crazy people were running theschools. Education was done with.There was an upside, he says: nohomework and total freedom for the mindto grow. To guide that growth he dependedon his father, a middle-school historyteacher. Zhang remembers when he wassix or seven, and the two of them werebicycling into a thunderstorm; they tookshelter and watched the lightning streakacross the sky. My father said, Somedaysomeone will harvest all that energy.He wasnt a scientist, Zhang says,but he taught me you can think aboutanything.

AlumniNotesas an assistant professor in thedepartment of civil and environmentalengineering in 2011. Previously, Yoonwas a researcher at the National Centerfor Excellence for Aviation OperationsResearch.

Bo Zou (Ph.D.12 IEOR) joined thefaculty at the University of Illinois,Chicago as an assistant professor inthe department of civil and materialsengineering in 2012.

2000+Soyoung (Sue) Ahn (M.S.01,Ph.D.05 CEE) is an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Wisconsin,Madison, with research interests intraffic flow theory and operations,intelligent transportation systemsapplications and traffic operationimpacts on environment and safety.

Mikhail Chester (M.S.05, Ph.D.08

Grace Kang (B.S.81, M.Eng.87 CEE), started her new position as director of communications atthe Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER), just in time. Two weeks later, the BayArea was hit with its largest earthquake since Loma Prieta, and a deluge of media inquiries, pressreleases and site observations descended on the center. A registered structural engineer, Kangworked in engineering consulting for over 25 years. She is a director on the board of the StructuralEngineers Association of California, was president of the Structural Engineers Association of Northern California and served on the steering committee for Loma Prieta 25: Still on Shaky Ground, apublic policy symposium marking the 25th anniversary of the 1989 quake.photo Noah Berger

CEE) received the 2013 departmentalteaching award from Arizona StateUniversity, where he has served as anassistant professor of civil, environmental and sustainable engineeringsince 2011.

Christian Claudel (M.S.09, Ph.D.10EECS) has been an assistant professorof electrical and mechanical engineeringat King Abdullah University of Scienceand Technology in Saudi Arabia since2010.Nikolaos Geroliminis (M.S.04,

2010+Eleni Christofa (M.S.08, Ph.D.12CEE) and Eric Gonzales (M.S.07,Ph.D.11 CEE) were married on June22, 2014 in Christofas hometown ofMytilini, Greece. Both are assistantprofessors of civil and environmentalengineering at the University ofMassachusetts, Amherst. Christofaresearches intelligent transportationsystems, while Gonzales focuses onthe operation, management and design of urban transportation systems.Amy Kim (M.S.02, Ph.D.11 CEE)was an associate transportation engineer at Dowling Associates, Inc. anda traffic engineer at Declan Corporation before joining the faculty of theUniversity of Alberta as an assistantprofessor of civil and environmentalengineering in 2011.

Adam Mendelsohn (Ph.D.11 BioE),Kayte Fischer (Ph.D.10 BioE) andLily Peng (Ph.D.10 BioE) competed in the Berkeley Business PlanCompetition; several competitionslater, the classmates co-founded NanoPrecision Medical, a start-up companydeveloping implantable drug-deliverysystems. The company has raised$3 million in financing and has eightemployees.

been awarded an Air-Sage-funded PASSscholarship, one of only three in thecountry.

Yoonjin Yoon (Ph.D.10 CEE) joinedthe faculty of the Korea AdvancedInstitute of Science and Technology

Ph.D.09 CEE) joined the facultyof cole Polytechnique Fdrale deLausanne as an assistant professor ofcivil and environmental engineering in2009. Previously, Geroliminis was anassistant professor at the University ofMinnesota.

Volker Sorger (Ph.D.11 ME),assistant professor at George Washington University in Washington D.C.,won a young investigator researchprogram grant from the Air ForceOffice of Scientific Research to conductresearch on nanophotonics deviceswith capabilities beyond classicalphotonics limits.Daniel Tischler (M.S.11 CEE), atransportation planner at San Franciscoscounty transportation authority, has

Send your class notes to [email protected], or mail to:Berkeley Engineer, UC Berkeley College of Engineering, McLaughlin Hall #1704, Berkeley, CA 94720-1704.

The new mobile-friendly College of Engineering website is stocked with usefulinformation, timely news, lively videos and forms and tools to help you get thingsdonefind us at our new URL: engineering.berkeley.edu.Berkeleyengineer

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AlumniNotesAnne Goodchild (M.S.02, Ph.D.05CEE) joined the University of Washingtonfaculty as an associate professor ofcivil and environmental engineeringin 2005. She directs UWs FreightMobility Lab and is associate directorof the freight operations researchprogram.Arjun Gupta (B.S.08 CEE) wasnamed one of 37 Young Leaders of2014 by The Economic Times, oneof Indias largest newspapers and thehost of the competition, from a field ofmore than 20,000 applicants.Yanfeng Ouyang (M.S.05 IEOR,Ph.D.05 CEE) has been on the civiland environmental engineering faculty

at the University of Illinois, UrbanaChampaign since 2005. In 2010,Ouyang received the Xerox award forfaculty research. Ouyang developsstrategic, tactical and operationalmodels and solutions for problemsthat arise in multidisciplinary areasof transportation systems, networkoptimization and logistics systemsplanning.

Megan Ryerson (M.S.06, Ph.D.10CEE) joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania as an assistantprofessor of city and regional planningand electrical systems in 2013. Previously, she was an assistant professor atthe University of Tennessee, Knoxville.She researches fuel consumption and

Smart spoonsAnupam Pathaks (B.S.04 ME) idea to build a device toassist people with Parkinsons disease evolved fromhelping soldiers survive combat. Pathak started hisdoctoral research at the University of Michigan in 2004,at the height of U.S. troop deployments to Iraq andAfghanistan. Field reports revealed large numbers oftroops facing stress-induced tremors during combat. Asoldier with shaky hands is dangerous; tremors wereactually affecting casualty rates.Pathak researched the actuator, the part of a weaponstabilizing device that counters the tremor. By the timehe graduated in 2009, he was thinking about otherapplications for stabilization technology and learnedthat more than 10 million people in the U.S. are facingtremor-related challenges. It turns out that a solutiondoes not exist for a lot of people, Pathak says.After more than a year of R&D, Pathak founded LiftLabs in 2012. Their first product, Liftware, consists ofa mechanized handle with different attachments. Thesensor in the handle interacts with the actuator tocounter the tremor in a users hand.While designing, building and getting feedback aboutLiftware, Pathak says he thinks back to an engineeringethics class he took as an undergraduate at Berkeley.We were taught to think about who you are affectingby your work. I think that is so important in how wedevelop this product.In September, Lift Labs was acquired by Google andwill be part of Googles life sciences division.Story and photo by Daniel McGlynn

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the impact of high fuel prices on thetransportation system.

1990+

Athulan Vijayaraghavan (M.S.05,

Orla Feely (M.S.90, Ph.D.92 EECS)

Ph.D.09 ME) is chief technologyofficer at Berkeley-based SystemInsights, a global supplier of manufacturing software.

Daniel B. Work (M.S.07, Ph.D.10CEE) joined the faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaignas an assistant professor in thedepartment of civil and environmentalengineering in 2010.

has been appointed vice presidentfor research, innovation and impactat University College, Dublin. Feelyjoined the UCD faculty in 1992 andnow heads up electronic engineering.

J.D. Margulici (M.S.99 CEE)established his consultancy, NovaviaSolutions, in 2010 and recentlyembarked on a new venture by cofounding Vehicle Data Science, wherehe serves as chief technology officer.He reports that life at home isntparticularly quiet either, with sonsAnthony and Mateo, both under fiveyears of age.

Measuring DNA healthstory by Jennifer Huber photo Courtesy Exogen Biotechnology

Jason Mikami (B.A.92 East AsianLanguages, B.S.98 EECS) is theowner of Mikami Vineyards, a smallfamily operation in Lodi that wasrecognized in the July 2014 WineEnthusiast as a trail-blazing artisanwinery.

Jorge Prozzi (M.S.98, Ph.D.01CEE) is an assistant professor in thedepartment of civil, architectural andenvironmental engineering at theUniversity of Texas at Austin, wherehe chairs the international activitiescommittee of the transportation research board. Prozzi joined the facultyin 2002, after working as a technicalspecialist at the Council for Scientificand Industrial Research for more thana decade.Karen Smilowitz (M.S.98, Ph.D.01CEE) is an associate professor of industrial engineering and managementsciences at Northwestern University. In2012, she was a visiting professor atthe University of Newcastle, Australiain the school of mathematical andphysical sciences.

1980+Scott Jordan (B.S.84, M.S.87,Ph.D.90 EECS) was named thechief technology officer of the Federal

Sometime soon, Sylvain Costes (Ph.D.99 NE, right) and JonathanTang (Ph.D.10 BioE) hope that annual medical checkups willinclude a simple blood test to determine levels of DNA damage.The list of things assaultive to the bodys basic building blocksis longradiation, ultraviolet light and toxins, to name a fewand errors occur even during normal cell division. The body continually repairs this damaged DNA, but sometimes the routinerepair process fails. DNA damage and genetic mutations can leadto serious health problems, like cancer, immunological disorders,neurological disorders and premature aging.To map DNA damage in tissue or blood samples, the BerkeleyLab scientists developed a new technology that automates measurements with a high-throughput microscope and proprietaryimage analysis software to spot DNA breaks. The result is a moreaccurate count, in a fraction of the time compared to conventional methods.The pair founded Exogen Biotechnology to translate theirtechnology into an affordable product the public can use tomonitor personal DNA health. Exogen technology can measureDNA damage levels from blood samples easily collected with anin-home kit.To me, this will become the cholesterol test of cancer, saysCostes. Your genetics place you in a certain range, but yourlifestyle can change where you are within that range. In contrastto genetic testing, we feel like this test can bring hopebecauseyou have a way to act.

Communications Commission. As acomputer science professor at UCIrvine, Jordan was well-known for hisresearch on net neutrality and Internetpricing. He has previously served as acongressional fellow on Internet andtelecommunications policy in the U.S.Senate and also on the FCC OpenInternet Advisory Committee.

1970+Howard Pines (M.S.77 ME) workedfor more than 30 years in researchand technology, earning five patentsin wireless voice technology beforebecoming a novelist. The WhaleSong Translation is a scientific thrillerabout an engineer, by an engineerand for engineers, says Pines. Thestory follows an engineering professoras he contacts another earthly speciesof intelligence. In the 1960s, Pineswas captivated by the race to themoon, spurring his career in alternative energy technology at LawrenceBerkeley National Laboratory.

Mark Schanfein (M.S.74 MSE) isprincipal advisor of nonproliferation,arms control and international safeguards at Pacific Northwest NationalLaboratory. He provides technicalleadership in development operationsand implementation across multiple

Environmental engineer Tami Bond (M.S.95 ME), professorof civil and environmental engineering at the University ofIllinois at Urbana-Champaign, was named a 2014 MacArthurFellow. She was recognized for research that measures theglobal impacts of black carbon emission and atmosphericpollution on human and environmental health.Bonds goal is to refine the integration of black carbon intoclimate models to create a more comprehensive globalframework for how black carbon inventories and impactsare quantified and classified. The first step is to developstandardization for black carbon emission observations.The annual genius grant is given to professionals acrossa variety of disciplines as recognition for original thinking.My first reaction was not to have a reaction, Bond told theDaily Cal. I was so surprised. You dont have any skills fora moment like that. The very first reaction was blank shock.photo Courtesy of the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

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AlumniNotesgovernmental agencies, including theDepartment of Energy and the Department of Defense.

1960+

George Tyris (B.S.78 ME) has

retired this past July after 40 yearsin the U.S. Air Force, PG&E and theCalifornia Public Utilities Commission.A loyal alumni volunteer, Ante hasmentored over 100 students throughout his lifetime and has establishedseveral Cal Alumni Association Scholarships. He is now a manny for hisClass of 2034 grandson.

published Tau Centi: A Ship fromEarth, the first in a series of novelschronicling the growth of a colony ona planet in the Tau Centi system. Thestory follows the colony from a quietbackwater to an independent worlddefending itself against the manipulation of interstellar politics.

Jesse Ante (B.S.68, M.S.70 ME)

Steven Dodge (B.S.67 Eng. Phys.)received an M.S. in systems science

at UCLA while working at a navallaboratory in 1970. He had workedfor three aerospace companies insonar and new business acquisitionbefore retiring in 2001. He remainsactive with hiking, traveling and hismodel railroad hobby.

1950+Tommy Woo (B.S.58 EE) workedin high-tech jobs for over 10 yearsbefore changing careers. For the past

30 years, he has been designingrestaurants.

1940+Edwin Fong (B.S.49 EE) workedfor CalTrans from 195078 and theCalifornia Public Utilities Commissionfrom 197882. A father of three(including two Berkeley graduates),Fong is now living at Saint PaulTowers overlooking Lake Merritt inOakland.

Farewell

Arthur Bergen, professor emeritus of electrical engineering and computer sciences, died in July 2014at the age of 91. As an officer in the U.S. Army,Bergen served in World War II; after the war ended,he served with the Signal Corps in the Army ofOccupation in Germany. He received his doctoratein electrical engineering from Columbia Universityin New York. As a field engineer for Westinghouse,his first foreign assignment was in Brazil, wherehe worked on the installation of a generator on ariver in the rainforest. Subsequent jobs took him toother remote locations in the U.S. and abroad. Hejoined the Berkeley faculty in 1958 and retired in1991, serving as associate dean for 10 years in theinterim.

Chieh Hsu, professor emeritus of mechanicalengineering, died in July at age 92. Born in Beijing,Hsu lived through the Japanese invasion of China in1937, when he was forced to evacuate. After serving in the army, Hsu was one of 60 students chosenin a nationwide competition for a scholarship tostudy abroad, in what he would later call the luckybreak which changed my whole life. Hsu receivedhis Ph.D. from Stanford in 1951 and went to workat IBM in New York. Returning to academia, hisfirst appointment was at the University of Toledoin Ohio. He joined the Berkeley faculty in 1958,where he remained until he retired in 1991. Hewas the editor of the Journal of Applied Mechanics,invented the technique of cell-to-cell mapping forthe analysis of dynamical systems and was honoredwith many awards, including election to the NationalAcademy of Engineering in 1988.Gareth Thomas, professor emeritus of materialsscience and engineering, died in February at age81. Thomas grew up in Wales, obtained a doctoratein metallurgy at Cambridge University in 1955and brought his skills as an electron microscopist20

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to the Berkeley faculty in 1960. Thomas proposedand oversaw construction of the National Center forElectron Microscopy at Lawrence Berkeley NationalLaboratory and served as its first director from1983 to 1991. According to Uli Dahmen, directorof the NCEM and a former student of ProfessorThomas, He put Berkeley on the map and madeit a worldwide center for electron microscopy thatattracted scientists from all over the world. Thomasalso achieved the rare honor of being elected intoboth the National Academy of Sciences and theNational Academy of Engineering.

George Turin, professor emeritus of electricalengineering and computer sciences, died in March2014 at the age of 84. Born in New York City in1930, Turin received his S.B. in 1951, S.M. in 1952and his Sc.D. in 1956 from the MassachusettsInstitute of Technology. Turin joined the Berkeleyfaculty in 1960 and later served as EECS chair. In1983, he became dean of the school of engineeringand applied science at UCLA before returning toBerkeley. He helped found Teknekron, a Bay Areafirm designed to strengthen ties between hightechnology firms and university research. His careeralso included work at MITs Lincoln Laboratory inLexington, MA and the Hughes Research Laboratoriesin Culver City and Malibu, CA.

Chieh Hsu

George Turin

Arthur Bergen

Gareth Thomas

Archive photos

This year, the college lost four professorsemeriti, with more than a century of serviceto the college.

Your legacy gift securesthe colleges futureCandy Penther and Howard Friesenmet at Berkeley in 1948 and married threeyears later. Devoted to helping Berkeleysstudents, the Friesens have funded nearly 300undergraduate scholarships. Theyre thinkingahead, tootheir estate plans include provisions for endowed faculty chairs.Thanks to smart financial planning and expertadvice from Berkeleys gift planning specialists, they found they could start funding threechairs now. Berkeley Engineering professorsDavid Culler and Scott Shenker hold two ofthem. Thanks to the Friesens generosityand foresight, these distinguished facultymembers are able to pursue groundbreakingresearch and mentor promising students.You too can benefit from a legacy gift, inseveral ways:M ake a larger gift to Berkeley Engineeringthan you thought possibleR educe or eliminate capital gains taxes onthe transfer of appreciated assets Reduce your income tax immediatelyP ass assets to family members orothers at a reduced tax cost

Peg Skorpinski

I ncrease your current income orprovide income for a family member

We recognize that the excellence of Berkeleys faculty needs to be supported.Were glad to know we can count on the university to carry out our intentions.howard (b.s.50 ee) and candy (b.a.50 humanities) friesen

To include Berkeley Engineering in your plans, contact Jasmine Payne in CollegeRelations at (510) 642-2097 or visit engineering.berkeley.edu/give.

Berkeleyengineer

nonprofit org.u . s . p o s ta g e

PAIberkeley

Change a life, change the worldSupport our students and their dreams with your gift to the Berkeley Engineering Fund.Learn more and give online: engineering.berkeley.edu/give.

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university of california,

Noah Berger, Matt Beardsley photos

University of California, BerkeleyCollege of EngineeringOffice of Marketing & CommunicationsBerkeley, CA 94720-1704