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Donald Glaser, a Nobel-prize winning physicist who reinvented himself as a biotech pioneer and later dove into the field of neurobiology, died in his sleep Thursday morning, Feb. 28, at his home in Berkeley. Glaser, a professor emeritus of physics and of molecular and cell biology, was 86.
Faculty/Staff archive
UC Berkeley to guide job-training reboot for green economy
June 17, 2013: Under a $500,000 contract with the Public Utilities Commission, researchers at the Vial Center for Employment in the Green Economy will help utility companies like PG&E implement improvements in workforce training to achieve state energy-efficiency goals.
Neuroscientist Hillel Adesnik named Pew Scholar
June 14, 2013: Assistant professor Hillel Adesnik, a neuroscientist in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, was named a Pew Scholar, one of 22 early-career faculty members from around the nation so honored. A former UCSF post-doc, Adesnik uses novel optical probing technologies to uncover the neural basis of perception.
Five new Bakar Fellows pursue path to marketplace
June 11, 2013: Five UC Berkeley scientists eager to take their lab-bench discoveries into the marketplace have been awarded Bakar Fellowships to help them achieve their goals. They are chemist Felix Fischer, biologist Daniela Kaufer, mechanical engineer Lydia Sohn, physicist Feng Wang and plant and microbial biologist Mary Wildermuth.
New book highlights harsh lives of migrant workers
June 10, 2013: A new book by Dr. Seth M. Holmes, assistant professor in the School of Public Health, documents the stories of undocumented Mexican migrant farmworkers. Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies is based on five years of research, during which Holmes embedded himself with migrant workers. He shows how social inequalities, racism and anti-immigrant prejudice detrimentally affect the health of those who harvest our food.
Berkeley joins international effort to share human genetic data
June 6, 2013: UC Berkeley and some 70 other research institutions, non-profits and funding agencies around the globe have signed an agreement to create a way to securely share the genetic information gathered in human research but unavailable now to other scientists.
Dirks: ‘We are all in this together’ 
June 4, 2013: In an introductory video, Nicholas Dirks — on his second day as Berkeley’s new chancello — declares himself “thrilled finally to be here,” “deeply honored to take on this role at UC Berkeley,” and “unreservedly enthusiastic about our future.”
Dirks’ first day: Chancellor No. 10, day No. 1
Staff appreciation 2013: A full week of events, plus Summerfest
June 4, 2013: This year, Summerfest will be part of an entire week of staff appreciation, with events planned daily from Monday, June 10, through Friday, June 14. Summerfest, the annual staff celebration with entertainment and food, will take place on Thursday.
Finance prof wins 2013 AQR Insight Award
June 3, 2013: Finance professor Martin Lettau has received the 2013 AQR Insight Award for his research about how an extension of the widely taught capital asset pricing model can explain returns of equity, commodity, sovereign bonds and currencies and offer a unified risk view of these investments.
J. Keith Gilless reappointed as CNR dean
May 31, 2013: J. Keith Gilless has been reappointed as dean of UC Berkeley’s College of Natural Resources, effective July 1, for a five-year period, Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost George Breslauer announced Thursday (May 30).
NPR’s ‘Teacher Feature’ profiles biologist Tom Carlson
May 31, 2013: NPR’s Flora Lichtman of Science Friday profiles ethnobotanist Thomas Carlson and his love of teaching in a new segment called “Teacher Feature.”
Le Grande eager to take up student-aid challenge
May 30, 2013: State legislators approved the appointment of Berkeley’s vice chancellor for student affairs to the California Student Aid Commission earlier this month.
ACLS awards bolster research and teaching in humanities
May 24, 2013: A cluster of American Council of Learned Societies fellowships will benefit humanities research and teaching at Berkeley.
Emeritus English professor Paul Alpers dies at age 80
May 22, 2013: Paul Alpers, a UC Berkeley professor of English for 38 years, died May 19 at his home in Northampton, Mass. Alpers was the husband of Smith College President Carol Christ, who served as Berkeley’s executive vice chancellor and provost from 1994 to 2000.
Sociologist a KQED Asian Pacific American ‘local hero’
May 21, 2013: Each May KQED radio honors a number of ‘local heroes” of Asian Pacific American heritage. Among its 2013 honorees is UC Berkeley sociologist Evelyn Nakano Glenn, cited for groundbreaking scholarship on the intersectionality of race, gender, citizenship and labor.
Law school’s Altholz wins 2013 Yamashita Prize
May 14, 2013: This year’s Foundation for Change: Thomas I. Yamashita Prize has been awarded to Roxanna Altholz, an assistant clinical professor of law and associate director of the International Human Rights Law Clinic at Berkeley Law. Altholz successfully represented 127 family members of 28 individuals who were forcibly “disappeared” between 1983 and 1985 by Guatemalan security forces.
What’s the matter with sports fans?
May 13, 2013: Author, J-School instructor and sports nut Eric Simons set out on a quest to figure out why he, and millions of other fans all over the world, act the way they do. He gathered his findings in a new book, The Secret Lives of Sports Fans.
Douglas Clark appointed new College of Chemistry dean
May 9, 2013: Douglas Clark, the current chair of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and the Warren and Katharine Schlinger Distinguished Professor in Chemical Engineering, has been designated the new dean of the College of Chemistry.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute names three new campus investigators
May 9, 2013: Three young faculty members – Nicole King, Michael Rape & Russell Vance – have won the most sought-after appointment for a researcher at any American university: as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. The institute will pay their salaries in the Department of Molecular & Cell Biology and provide research funding, freeing them from constant application for federal research grants.
Berkeley GM crop specialist featured in KQED program Wednesday, May 8
May 6, 2013: UC Berkeley cooperative extension specialist Peggy Lemaux’s efforts to engineer crops to reduce malnutrition in developing countries.will be featured in a half-hour program, “Next Meal: Engineering Food,” that will be shown on KQED’s Quest on Wednesday. The program explores the pros and cons of GM crops, as well as the future of research and regulation.
Two faculty named Guggenheim Fellows for 2013
May 1, 2013: Two UC Berkeley faculty — improvising pianist and composer Myra Melford and English literature scholar Joanna Picciotto — have been named Guggenheim fellows for 2013, an award conferred for both achievement and promise.
Nicholas Dirks, history prof
May 1, 2013: Appearing not as a future chancellor but as a fellow faculty member, Nicholas Dirks led a history department colloquium Tuesday on the topic of “Scholars and Spies: World War II and the Emergence of South Asian Area Studies.”
Three faculty members named to National Academy of Sciences
April 30, 2013: Structural biologist James Berger, immunologist Daniel Portnoy and mathematician James Sethian have been elected members of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), one of the highest honors given to a scientist or engineer in the United States.
Chancellor looks back: ‘a period where leadership mattered’
April 26, 2013: In an interview with NBC11, Robert Birgeneau talks access and excellence, Dreamers, and how — despite a budget model for UC Berkeley that has changed in response to severe state funding cuts during his time as chancellor — “we still spend our money, as we should, like a public university.”
Fourteen staffers, six teams win Chancellor’s Outstanding Staff Awards
April 25, 2013: Fourteen staffers and members of six teams will be honored Monday (April 29) as the UC Berkeley campus recognizes the 2013 recipients of the Chancellor’s Outstanding Staff Awards. Chancellor Robert Birgeneau will hand out awards and shake the honorees’ hands. The 2 p.m. event will be streamed live online.
Ten Berkeley faculty named to American Academy of Arts and Sciences
April 24, 2013: Ten Berkeley professors have been named members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a prestigious 233-year-old honorary society of national leaders from academia, business, public affairs and the humanities.
Haas faculty turn to crowdfunding for solar light research in Uganda
April 19, 2013: Three Haas professors are bypassing traditional grants and going straight to crowdfunding to raise money for a study on how to get people in rural Uganda to replace dangerous kerosene lanterns with life-changing solar lamps.
Jay Keasling wins George Washington Carver award for biotech innovation
April 18, 2013: Jay Keasling, a professor of biochemical engineering, associate laboratory director at Berkeley Lab, CEO of the Joint BioEnergy Institute and director of the Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center, is the recipient of the 2013 George Washington Carver Award for innovation in industrial biotechnology. The award is presented annually by the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO).
Margo Bennett named UCPD’s new police chief
April 18, 2013: Margo Bennett, a University of California Police Department captain with more than 35 years of law enforcement experience that ranges from community policing work to expertise in investigating major crimes at the federal level, has been named UC Berkeley’s new police chief, campus officials announced today (Thursday, April 18). She has been interim police chief since the previous chief retired in December.
Groundbreaking sociologist, playful spirit
April 12, 2013: In her consciousness-raising scholarship on work, family and emotional labor, Arlie Russell Hochschild has reshaped popular understandings of society and social change. Her alma mater, Swarthmore College, profiles the Berkeley professor emeritus, a leading feminist sociologist of her generation, in its alumni magazine.
Free software award for wrestling a Python
April 11, 2013: Physicist and applied mathematician Fernando Pérez has received the Free Software Foundation’s 2012 Award for the Advancement of Free Software for his open-source application iPython, which makes it easier for scientists to use the powerful Python programming language to crunch Big Data.
