News

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BSAC would like to thank all of the researchers who presented their research during BSAC's Fall 2020 Research Review, September 21-23.

BSAC Industrial Members voted for their favorite oral presentations and the results are in. Please join us in congratulating the winners of the Fall 2020 Best of BSAC honors, Mallika Bariya and Daniel Teal!

Research Review Posters & Oral Presentations*

Richard White, a professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, and an eminent researcher who made seminal contributions in the field of micro-electromechanical systems, died Friday, Aug. 14, due to complications from injuries related to a fall. White was 90 when he died at his Berkeley home, surrounded by family.

While rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere cause great concern worldwide, most of us pay little attention to risks posed by CO2 changes indoors.

CO2 concentration in fresh air is about 400 parts per million (ppm). But get a group of people packed in a closed indoor space, and CO2 concentration can rise quickly. Recent studies suggest that as levels increase above 1,000 ppm, decision-making and other cognitive abilities decline.

Tuesday, April 28, 2020*

Today’s augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) technologies simulate a vivid interactive experience by altering what users see and hear. But what if users could also feel their way through an experience?

Professor Michel Maharbiz is working with medical device makers to allow hospital staff to remotely monitor and adjust patients' ventilators.

Health officials have advised the public to practice physical distancing and remain at least six feet apart from other people.

But when treating patients stricken with COVID-19, healthcare workers don’t have that luxury. For one thing, they must keep entering each patient’s room to make sure the ventilator is working properly and make any necessary adjustments.

In today's world of wearables, we have begun to receive information about our bodies in real time, and with relative ease. What if we could take this a step further to not only track our health rate or burnt calories, but to understand organ function? Extreme Miniaturization Engineer Michel Maharbiz is actively working to make this a reality. As a co-inventor of "neural dust," Michel uses an ultrasonic interface of millimeter-scale implants to get a closer look at organs in real time.

BSAC Co-Director Kris Pister  has been named the new faculty director of the UC Berkeley Marvell Nanofabrication Laboratory (NanoLab) at CITRIS. The appointment, which became effective Jan. 1, brings in a veteran user known for his advances in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) to head the cutting-edge facility.

BSAC Co-Director Ming Wu wins the 2020 IEE EDS Robert Bosch MEMS Award for his pioneering contributions in MEMS optical switches and optoelectronic tweezers.

The award was established in 2014 "to recognize and honor advances in the invention, design, and/or fabrication of micro- or nano- electromechanical systems and/or devices" with the proviso that individual contributions "be innovative and useful for practical applications."  

BSAC would like to thank the 102 researchers who presented their research during BSAC's Fall 2019 Research Review, September 18-19.

BSAC Industrial Members voted for their favorite oral presentations and posters. Please join us in congratulating the winners of the Fall 2019 Best of BSAC honors!

Lab Tour Overview*

Dr. Mike Cable, Executive Director - BSAC Welcome and Tour Overview (1001.17 KB)

If the sight of a skittering bug makes you squirm, you may want to look away — a new insect-sized robot created by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, can scurry across the floor at nearly the speed of a darting cockroach.

And it’s nearly as hardy as a cockroach, too. Try to squash this robot under your foot, and more than likely, it will just keep going.

The Bakar Fellows Program at UC Berkeley fosters faculty entrepreneurship in the STEM+ fields including Engineering, Computer Science, Chemistry, Biological Sciences, Physical Sciences, and Architecture. On a competitive basis, Bakar Fellows are awarded discretionary research support to mature & translate their ground-breaking discoveries and innovations into commercial solutions. Started in 2012, the Bakar Fellows Program enriches Berkeley by supporting entrepreneurial faculty & their research groups.

Engineers at the University of California, Berkeley have built a new photonic switch that can control the direction of light passing through optical fibers faster and more efficiently than ever. This optical “traffic cop” could one day revolutionize how information travels through data centers and high-performance supercomputers that are used for artificial intelligence and other data-intensive applications.

BSAC would like to thank the 107 researchers who presented their research during BSAC's Spring 2019 Research Review, March 6-8.

40+ attending industrial members from 28 member organizations voted for the best presentations and posters, resulting in Best Paper and Best Poster awards.

Faculty Research Overview*