Three Bioengineers finalists at UCSF Grad Slam
Lindsey Osimiri, Olivia Creasey, and Hardik Kothare are all finalists in the UCSF Grad Slam, which challenges students to give a compelling presentation of their research in 3 minutes or less
UCSF receives record NIH funding
UC San Francisco was the top public recipient of funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2018, the 12th year in a row that UCSF claimed the top spot among public institutions, and the eighth straight year in which the University ranked second overall among institutions nationwide.
Tejal Desai Named Director of UCSF Health Innovation Via Engineering Program
The Health Innovation Via Engineering (HIVE) program will drive connections and collaborations with faculty members in UCSF’s schools of Dentistry, Medicine, Nursing and Pharmacy to address unsolved challenges at the intersection of engineering and health.
Athena Award for Winkler and Wolf
BioE PhD students Sally Winkler and Kayla Wolf are receiving a 2018 Women In Technology Initiative Athena Award for Next Generation Engagement, for Double Shelix, their podcast all about women in STEM, the grad school grind, and inclusive science.
House and Senate delegation meets with bioengineers
Visitors from the US House and Senate Labor, Health and Human Services visited UC Berkeley on Tuesday, October 16 and toured Professor Amy Herr’s laboratory.
The appropriations staff met with several bioengineering graduate students, as well as Professor Herr, who were able to provide specific stories of NIH funding impact on both research and the leaders of tomorrow.
Rao wins UCSF Shark Tank Pitch Competition
PhD student Adam Rao won the UCSF Shark Tank 2018 competition with his ongoing project, Tabla: Acoustic Pneumonia Detection Device. Six Surgical Innovations Accelerator finalists pitched their devices to a panel of experts, with Tabla winning the $50k in seed funding prize.
5 students named 2019 Siebel Scholars
Andrew Bremer, Marc Steven Chooljian, Phillip Kang, Stacey Lee, and Nicole Anne Repina have been named the 2019 UC Berkeley Siebel Scholars in Bioengineering by the Siebel Foundation.
Kwasi Amofa receives LBNL Bridge Fellowship
First-year PhD student Kwasi Amofa has been awarded a summer 2019 Bridge Fellowship by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The Bridge Fellowship program immerses graduate students into Berkeley Lab research with a paid summer internship partnered with a laboratory researcher.
CRISPR diversifies: Cut, paste, on, off, and now– evolve!
Researchers led by BioE PhD student Shakked Halperin, working in the laboratories of David Schaffer and John Dueber at UC Berkeley, have described yet another creative application for CRISPR: a platform to spur evolution of specific genes inside cells.
Diassess wins HHS BARDA award for home influenza test
Alumni startup Diassess has been selected for an award of up to $21M for further development of a consumer at-home influenza diagnostic, which could have significant impact on controlling the spread of the flu. The company was founded by PhD alumni Debkishore Mitra and John Waldeisen.
Thomas Carey – Using Saliva For Cancer Diagnostics
Learn more about Thomas Carey’s work developing a microfluidic-based platform to detect the presence of biomarkers present in virtually every fluid, particularly saliva. Carey won the 2018 Early Innovator Award at the Molecular Medicine Tri Conference for this research.
Alumna Sode at MIT SOLVE
Watch PhD Alumna Miki Sode, Commercial Innovation Program Manager, Center for the Advancement of Science in Space, discuss how the technologies being designed to make future life in space safe, efficient, and sustainable might be adapted to do the same on Earth.
Yiqi Cao takes second at UC GradSlam
Congratulations Yiqi Cao, who took second place at the 2018 UC System-wide GradSlam! Yiqi represented all of UCSF against students from across the UC system, competing to do the best 3-minute explanation of their PhD thesis.
BioE alumni on different continents win grant to to see molecular structure of membraneless organelles
Bioengineering PhD alumni Nick Fawzi and Sapun Parekh started a conversation about something completely different and ended up with a grant from the Human Frontier Science Program to study membraneless organelles.
2018 Outstanding GSIs
Congratulations to Nicole Repina, Kayla Wolf, Albert You, and Xinyi Zhou, 2017-2018 Outstanding Graduate Student Instructors at UC Berkeley. These GSIs were nominated by their instructor for excellent teaching and mentoring as GSIs in a bioengineering class.
Congratulations!
Ayad named Schlumberger Faculty for the Future
BioE PhD student Nadia Ayad has been awarded a 2018-19 Faculty for the Future fellowship. The Schlumberger Foundation selected the most recent Faculty for the Future women in STEM from emerging and developing countries engaged in post-graduate studies at various universities around the world.
Congratulations NSF Fellows!
Prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowships have been awarded to four continuing and three incoming Berkeley-UCSF graduate students!
You do Belong in Science – a podcast event by BioE PhD students
You do belong in science – even if it doesn’t always feel that way. The Double Shelix podcast, hosted by UC Berkeley Bioengineering PhD Candidates Sally Winkler and Kayla Wolf, launches on April 3 with a series of 7 episodes on the the theme of belonging in STEM. Every Tuesday, they’ll bring conversations with experts in science, education, and inclusion in conversation about how we can create STEM communities where all feel belonging.
Outstanding student poster at Microtechnologies in Medicine and Biology (MMB)
BioE PhD student Alison Su, in Professor Amy Herr’s lab, won the Outstanding Student Poster award at this year’s International Conference on Microtechnologies in Medicine and Biology.
BioE Ph.D. student learns how to tug at federal purse strings
BioE PhD student Andrew Bremer attended the Catalyzing Advocacy in Science and Engineering (CASE) workshop, held by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Washington DC. CASE educates STEM students on science policy matters – including in-depth learning about the mechanisms of federal research spending and how to engage with policymakers as scientists.
BioE sweeps UCSF Grad Slam
PhD student Yiqi Cao took first place and the People’s Choice award at the 2018 UCSF Grad Slam competition, which challenges students to give a compelling presentation of their research in 3 minutes or less. Cao will now go on to compete in the UC system-wide Grad Slam event. Student Inez Raharjo took 2nd place, landing BioE in all of the top spots. Go BioE!
BioE leaps into national Top Five
US News and World Report has ranked the UC Berkeley-UCSF Graduate Program in Bioengineering FOURTH among bioengineering graduate programs in the US. Go BioE!
In memory of Frank Tendick
Frank Tendick, Bioengineering PhD 1993, passed away on February 7, 2018. In addition to being an alumnus, Tendick taught Introduction to Robotics and several other graduate and undergraduate courses in bioengineering at UC Berkeley for many years. He established and directed the Milton J. Pearl and Leonard D. Rosenman Surgical Skills Center at UCSF, where he was also a faculty member, from 2003–2007. Our fondest thoughts and memories go with him.
Alumna Woodruff talks toxic flame retardants and maternal health
Alumna Tracey Woodruff, Ph.D., MPH, who directs the UCSF Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment, has been collaborating with clinicians at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital (ZSFG) since 2008 to follow pregnant women and measure blood levels of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs).