A Cal grad alum at UW snags a MacArthur — just in time The Seattle Post-Intelligencer told its readers on September 22, 2008, that University of Washington professor David Montgomery was one day into his…
Public Health Hero is a Champion of Teens A summer job during high school proved to be life-changing for Barbara Staggers. The high achieving teen who aspired to be a ballerina or maybe a veterinarian was working for a recreation program for inner-city kids. “My job was to teach swimming and gymnastics so at the end of the day they’d be too tired to get into trouble,” she recalls. Among her youngsters was a quiet, beautiful 14-year old girl — until a man came to take her away. “He looked like the classic pimp from the movies and said he needed her to work,” recounts Staggers, who went to her supervisor. But when they phoned the girl’s mother, she said, “Let her go. We need the money.”
How to Save a Life In 2004, the United States Agency for International Development contacted Ashok Gadgil, of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, for help. Gadgil’s idea: design a fuel-efficient, portable stove for Darfur.
In his own words: Wilson Shearin, Classics Ph.D., 2007 Few disciplines are as traditional, in every possible sense of the term, as the field of Classics. Indeed, it could be said that Classics – the intensive study of Greek and Roman literature, language, and culture – is an originary site for the notion and study of tradition. traditio (a noun: “handing over, delivery; the handing down of knowledge”) and its cognate tradere (a verb: “to hand over; to hand down”) are both Latin words. These two terms encode a double sense: first, the notion of making a present-time gift and second, the notion of wisdom handed down through time. One powerful example of this duality is the Homeric rhapsode, a bard who professes in each performed song to enact “Homer” – the ever-same, traditional poems by the ever-same poet. Yet each performance is a different event. Ancient evidence suggests that different performances produced drastically different, if structurally similar, poems. Each performance thus relies upon tradition (traditio), even while it delivers (tradit) the present-time gift of a new poem.
In her own words: Julia Menard-Warwick, Education Ph.D., 2004 In February 1999 when I learned that I was being offered a Berkeley Graduate Fellowship, I had been a part-time English as a Second Language (ESL) instructor at a small community college in Washington state for 10 years. In 1997 I had been awarded a Part-time Faculty Award of Excellence at my college, based on both my teaching and program development work, and then in 1998, I was turned down for a full-time position. I was ready for something new, and excited about the idea of doing research on the social contexts of second language learning in immigrant communities. I also had a house, a husband, two children, and a large extended family in my town in Washington, and it was difficult to consider uprooting. Berkeley’s offer of a prestigious fellowship helped to reassure me that I wasn’t completely out of my mind.
Civil Rights Pioneer, Federal Judge, Biopic Subject, and Alumnus of the Year Now an esteemed and controversial federal judge, Thelton Henderson came to Cal from Los Angeles on a football scholarship. The law was not on his mind.
Enriching the culture, educating the next generation Andrew Szeri savors his walk to work each day, winding through the scenic neighborhoods of Berkeley. He says the journey to Sproul Hall is peaceful and provides time to think before he dives into the emails and voicemails that await him.
Rewarding mentors, the academy’s unsung secret weapon Five faculty members, accompanied by colleagues and students who nominated them and friends and fans, were given special awards for mentoring grad students, an activity that historically has received little fanfare but is seen as vital by its recipients, often leading to key intellectual breakthroughs and providing the motivation to persevere despite daunting obstacles.
What makes the wheel go around When I was a graduate student, I was a teaching assistant (more than once) for a very inspiring mentor, a man named Manos Vakalo. His teams of teaching assistants had remarkable autonomy. He never questioned a grade we gave, and he always treated us as respected equals. In retrospect, we could be dumb at times; I remember bringing beer to a critique for our undergraduates, and Manos simply raising an eyebrow in reprimand. That, however, was enough. He had remarkable expressions, every one of which I think I could still imitate perfectly today, nearly 20 years later.
Protecting a National Treasure G. Wayne Clough, Ph.D. ’69 UC Berkeley Civil Engineering Ph.D. recipient elected as the Smithsonian's 12th Secretary.
2008 Mentoring Awards Announcement We are pleased to announce the 2008 recipients of the Sarlo Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Awards. These awards have been made possible by a grant from the Sarlo Foundation of the Jewish Community Endowment Fund. They are administered by the Graduate Division in collaboration with the Graduate Council of the Academic Senate.
Important Notice to Plaintiffs in the Kashmiri vs. The Regents Class Action Lawsuit Students who were identified as members of the plaintiff class in the Kashmiri vs. The Regents of the University of California class…
Whale of a story for a Berkeley grad student and colleagues Big gulp: to drink in a good portion of tiny krill, a Fin Whale somehow more than doubles its size for a few seconds. Nicholas Pyenson studied how and why.
Avoid the brat pack: Website makes raising joyous kids more practical Reams of academic research abound across the country on how to raise happy children, but who has the time to read this myriad of findings, boil down the facts, and then turn them into practical parenting advice? The University of California, Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center is taking on the job with its new website on how to foster joy and avoid brattish behavior in children.
John W. Gofman: a nuclear chemist who raised questions John Gofman in 1979. Photo: Egan O’Connor In mid-August, John Gofman died at the age of 88. He was widely known in…
‘Invisible economy’ scholar straddles the divide between barrio and Ph.D. seminar room A stint as a day laborer on the star-studded Malibu coast launched Alvaro Huerta’s career in academia.
David Wagner: debugging the vote The State of California had a Swiss-cheese factor in all three of the electronic voting systems used in its elections, a team of UC Davis and UC Berkeley researchers found.
Out of the lab to the top of the world; Berkeley biophysicist relishes first ascents One September evening in 1970, working alone in my chemistry lab in Latimer Hall, I was preparing nucleic acid for my final experiments for my Ph.D. in biophysical chemistry. The lab was quiet except for the repetitive tick of the spinning centrifuge. After finishing the purification, to my horror, I knocked the vial onto the floor, where it shattered, the precious liquid lost.
Rich Newton engineered the future Few on campus even knew Richard Newton was sick. Then, suddenly, he was gone. On the second day of 2007, only six weeks after he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, he died at UC San Francisco Medical Center.
A brainy night in Berkeley: If it’s Thursday, this must be the corpus callosum. Has anyone seen my homunculus? For the inexperienced traveler, Aubrey Gilbert’s “whirlwind tour of your nervous system” blows past the hippocampus and cortex of the frontal lobes like a five-day package excursion through the great cities of Europe. Looking back, there’s no doubt it's been a remarkable trip, but you’re unsure in which region of the brain you encountered Broca’s area, or the precise location of the olfactory bulb; your most vivid take-home memory is apt to be Gilbert's admonition never, ever to order brains for lunch.