SubscribeForty young U.S. scholars — four of them with a UC Berkeley pedigree — have been named to receive the 2012 Gates Cambridge Scholarship, a prestigious award that pays the full cost of a graduate degree in any field of study at Cambridge University.
News archive
Four from Berkeley win prestigious Gates Cambridge Scholarships
February 22, 2012:
Campus celebrates Black History Month
February 22, 2012: The annual monthlong commemoration of African American contributions to American society draws to a close with a series of events.
Cal Corps’ Megan Voorhees garners statewide honor
February 22, 2012: Megan Voorhees, director of Berkeley’s Cal Corps Public Service Center, has been named winner of the 2012 Richard E. Cone Award. The California Campus Compact, a statewide professional association, bestows the honor annually on an individual who has made important contributions to partnerships between communities and institutions of higher education.
New from CSHE: A critical look at for-profit ed
February 22, 2012: The rise of for-profit higher education amounts to a policy abdication in the United States, as public universities have proven unable to keep up with growing demand, according to a new paper published by professor John Douglass published by Berkeley’s Center for Studies in Higher Education.
Berkeley Law teams win awards in major advocacy competitions
February 22, 2012: Two Berkeley Law teams bested hundreds of competitors to advance to the finals at major advocacy competitions this winter — the National Moot Court Competition and the American Bar Association Employment Law Trial Advocacy Competition.
Social Welfare emeritus James Leiby, 89
February 22, 2012: School of Social Welfare Professor Emeritus James Leiby, a faculty member since 1961, passed away at his home in Berkeley at age 89.
Protest Response Team outlines ‘evolving approach’ to campus unrest
February 22, 2012:
In a CalMessage to the UC Berkeley community, George Breslauer, executive vice chancellor and provost, and John Wilton, vice chancellor for administration and finance, lay out the campus’s new guidelines for dealing with protests that violate campus policies. Co-chairs of the campus’s Protest Response Team, Breslauer and Wilton note that the guidelines “proved helpful in reaching peaceful resolutions” of three recent protests.
’49 Cal alumna reunited with her lost passport – and its finder
February 21, 2012: Adventurous UC Berkeley alumna Betty Werther was finally reunited with her first-ever passport on Saturday (Feb. 18) in Paris. Portuguese medical student Nuno Fonseca, who found it last summer at a flea market, hand-delivered the passport to Werther, along with a bouquet of flowers and a red scarf knitted by his 90-year-old great aunt.
Weekend Occupy Cal activities end peacefully
February 21, 2012:
Two tents were put up on an International House lawn near campus and about 100 protestors marched across campus over the weekend, but all events ended peacefully.
Huts, artifacts in Jordanian excavation offer new perspectives on life 20,000 years ago
February 21, 2012: Archaeologists working in eastern Jordan have announced its discovery of 20,000-year-old hut structures, the earliest yet found in that country. Along with materials found in the huts, the find suggests the area was once intensively occupied and offers a new perspective on how humans lived at the time.
Sethian, Saye win Cozzarelli Prize for applied math paper
February 21, 2012: Two UC Berkeley and LBNL mathematicians, James Sethian and Robert Saye, have won the Cozzarelli Prize from the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences for their paper on a new numerical method for tracking large numbers of interacting and evolving phases of materials. The prize is named after the late UC Berkeley biochemist & PNAS editor Nicholas Cozzarelli.
Yosemite’s alpine chipmunks take genetic hit from climate change
February 19, 2012: Global warming has driven Yosemite’s alpine chipmunks to higher ground, prompting a startling decline in the species’ genetic diversity. The genetic erosion occurred in the relatively short span of 90 years, highlighting the rapid threat changing climate can pose to a species, and putting the alpine chipmunk on a trajectory toward extinction.
To campus’s town-gown envoy, bridges are for building, not for burning
February 17, 2012: To Julie Sinai, a “policy junkie” who recently ended a nine-year stint as Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates’ chief of staff, the time was right for a return to education, which she believes “is under siege right now.”
Occupy Cal encampment ends without conflict
February 17, 2012:
BERKELEY — Occupy Cal protesters ended their one-week encampment at University of California, Berkeley, early Friday morning (Feb. 17), after UCPD officers instructed the individuals to leave or face citation. No one was arrested. The encampment, which included 13 tents, was located outside the entrance to the main campus library. Police asked protesters for identification and determined that seven were [...]
Stockholm logician to present Tarski Lectures (PDF)
February 17, 2012:
Per Martin-Löf, University of Stockholm emeritus professor, scheduled to give three talks
The world according to musicologist Richard Taruskin
February 16, 2012: Music professor Richard Taruskin, best known for his six-volume “Oxford History of Western Music,” was honored at a recent professional conference in Princeton. In tribute to a man known to suffer no fools, a colleague offered a serenade: “My fearsome valentine/big scary valentine/you make me quake in my boots.”
Through engineering prof, girls meet ‘the science of better’
February 16, 2012: Rhonda Righter, professor of industrial engineering, is tackling a new assignment: serving as a volunteer role model to 35 middle-school girls. During a recent presentation at Oakland’s American Indian Public Charter School, she talked about her field: “Industrial engineering is all about making things better,” Righter said. “We’re like detectives who solve puzzles.”
Feb. 27 campus memorial to honor former chancellor I. Michael Heyman
February 16, 2012:
A public memorial honoring the life of I. Michael Heyman, the sixth chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, will be held at 4:30 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 27, at the International House, located in the southeast corner of the UC Berkeley campus.
Alan Schoenfeld awarded highest international distinction in math education
February 15, 2012: Alan Schoenfeld, a professor at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Education, has received the 2011 Felix Klein Medal for Lifetime Achievement from the International Commission on Mathematics Instruction.
Two faculty named Sloan Research Fellows
February 15, 2012: Faculty members Sylvia Ratnasamy and Allan Sly are among 126 young scholars awarded prestigious research fellowships this year from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The $50,000 research award recognizes “rising stars” early in their careers. Read a Q&A with each.
Q&A: Allan Sly on probability theory and random processes
February 15, 2012: Newly awarded a 2012 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, Allan Sly, assistant professor of statistics, talks about his research into probability theory, his students and his own days a UC Berkeley graduate student.
Q&A: Sylvia Ratnasamy on helping students build their own networks
February 15, 2012: Newly awarded a 2012 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, Sylvia Ratnasamy, an assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences in UC Berkeley’s College of Engineering, talks about her passion for improving the Internet and for helping students build their own networks.
Be vigilant global ‘netizens,’ not passive ‘users,’ Internet scholar-activist urges
February 15, 2012: How do we protect civil liberties, privacy and even the character of democracy in a networked world where private interests control much of the digital real estate? Scholar-activist Rebecca MacKinnon, author of Consent of the Networked, covers fertile ground in a talk at the School of Information.
Guess which West Coast campus tops ‘politically active’ list
February 15, 2012: UC Berkeley is one of the three most politically active college campuses in the nation, according to the “next-generation news and politics” website Policymic. From its “iconic protest of the Vietnam War in the 1960s” to today’s Occupy Cal
movement, Berkeley is a place where “political fervor reaches far beyond the norm,” it says.
most politically rkeleyis one of the three most poitically active campuses in the “next generation news and politics” website “Policymic”
Carlos Bustamante honored with Vilcek Prize
February 15, 2012: Carlos Bustamante, a professor of molecular and cell biology and of physics and chemistry, has been awarded the 2012 Vilcek Prize, given annually to individuals born abroad who have made lasting contributions to American society. Born in Peru, Bustamante uses magnetic beads, atomic-force microscopes and laser “tweezers” to explore the inner workings of the cell and DNA.
Berkeley senior wins prestigious Churchill scholarship
February 14, 2012: As Berkeley’s first Churchill scholar since 1991, civil and environmental engineering major Colin Meyer will use his $50,000 award to continue his studies at England’s University of Cambridge.
At subdued Boalt Hall forum, Nov. 9 protest clash gets a hearing
February 14, 2012: A Police Review Board forum drew a sparse crowd, but elicited powerful testimony from students, faculty and others who said they were victims of, or witnesses to, police violence during November’s Occupy Cal protests.
Protest and tents move to Doe library
February 14, 2012: Student protesters moved their tents early today (Tuesday, Feb. 14) from Sproul Hall Plaza to the north entrance of the campus’s main library, administration officials report.
‘Greater Good’ Valentine’s tips for emotionally intelligent guys
February 14, 2012: Looking for Valentine’s Day inspiration? Jeremy Adam Smith, Web editor and relationships pundit at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, draws on scientific studies to showcase some unlikely romantic heroes: Zebras, astronauts and a mindfulness teacher.
