Blog

September 8, 2009

A portable tribute to Earl Warren

The name of one of Berkeley’s most distinguished alumni, Earl Warren (undergraduate class of 1912, law school class of 1914), three-term governor of California and history-making chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, graced a large building along Oxford Street for over half a century — until the structure was torn down in 2008 to make way for the badly-needed Li Ka Shing Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences, named for its lead donor.

September 2, 2009

The Tech World’s Big Boost from Berkeley

This is not a Cold War stereotype with impossible claims to breakthrough inventions. UC Berkeley has not felt the need, for institutional pride, to assert pioneering involvement in, say, the steam engine, the electric light, or the airplane.

August 27, 2009

London Calling

Claire Weldin took her master’s degree in architecture to London a decade ago, “fascinated by the complex structure of cities: the multiplicity of urban experience and, underlying it, the presence of the past.” Today, as an Associate with Allies and Morrison Architects, she is leading the £370 million phase 2 King’s Cross Underground Station redevelopment.

July 9, 2009

Above the Napa Valley: George Rubissow Pairs Science with Wine

While the spanakopita rests on the counter to cool, George Rubissow suggests a walk through the vineyards. He leads us to the picturesque front porch of his yellow farmhouse, its blue chairs surrounded by spring flowers that tumble downhill toward a breathtaking view of the Napa Valley. We follow him uphill past a small redwood grove to the sustainable vineyards, environmentally-friendly and planted to follow the contours of the property. This is Mount Veeder, an appellation famous for Cabernet Sauvignon, where for nearly a quarter of a century Rubissow and his partner-in-wine Tony Sargent have produced award-winning wines.
person hiking snowy mountain

May 22, 2009

More honors for Chemistry’s high-climbing Arlene Blum

Biochemist and mountaineer Arlene Blum Ph.D. ’71, who won the $100,000 Purpose Prize late last year for mobilizing society to protect its members by reducing toxic chemicals, has received still more honors in 2009, and the year isn’t even half over.
Paula Argenteri

May 22, 2009

Two grad students are honored by the Chancellor for civic engagement

At the annual Chancellor’s Awards for Public Service ceremony, which took place April 24, two Ph.D. candidates were singled out for their extensive community work. Paula Agentieri of the School of Education’s social and cultural studies program was honored for her 14 semester of serving as the lead GSI and co-cordinator for Education 190, the core class for education minors, during which she has taught more than 1,000 students and has trained more than 70 undergraduate teaching assistants to teach and facilitate a class democratically and to serve the local community.
NAS

May 22, 2009

The NAS picks six from Berkeley in its crop of new members

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS), one of America’s most prestigious societies of scholars engaged in science and engineering research, at the end of April announced its election of 72 members, six of whom are Berkeley researchers.
Sarlo and FMA Winners from 2009

May 22, 2009

Heaping honors on the highly helpful

The Graduate Division, which oversees graduate education at Berkeley, and the Graduate Assembly, the grad students’ government, are making up for lost time. For decades, the campus did little to reward the vital role many faculty members play as mentors to their students. Countering that non-trend, the two groups have joined forces for the third year in a row, presenting their own faculty honors in a combined ceremony.

May 17, 2009

Adventure Man

In a field where the progress of research and career are usually sequential, orderly, and predictable, Rich Muller is a wild card, rocketing wherever the first tantalizing inkling of a puzzle takes him until he has the explanation pinned down satisfactorily. Then he abruptly goes elsewhere, as if cued by the Monty Python catchphrase (first used to introduce a sketch about a man with three buttocks) — “And now for something completely different.”
Nanosong

May 6, 2009

Nanosong

Everything you need to know about the wonders of nanotechnology, as a musical, with puppets.

April 28, 2009

Learning to teach, with a little help

The GSI Center: from baby steps to national example Great at what they do: the 2006 crop of Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award recipients, at the presentation ceremony in Alumni House. Peg Skorpinski photo. BEING A GRADUATE STUDENT INSTRUCTOR is not only a good way to offset the…
Larissa Kelly and Alex Trebek

March 18, 2009

Seven Days in May: Grad student Larissa Kelly asks the right questions and becomes the #3 winner in Jeopardy! history

The drama that actually took place in a much more compressed interval back in February of this year played out over seven separate days in the latter part of May. That its star, Larissa Kelly, was no longer in California, or even the United States, didn’t matter. It was literally academic. (Kelly was, like the serious Ph.D. candidate she is, pursuing her dissertation research, which took her to Mexico.)
Post-Stem-Cell-Ban Era Begins

March 12, 2009

Post-stem-cell-ban era begins at Berkeley

MCB professor Ellen Robey (Berkeley Ph.D. '86), two of her postdocs, and a grad student are in Nature's coverage of their lab as the post-stem-cell ban era begins.