Congratulations to first-year PhD student Chance Bowman, awarded one of only nineteen 2025 Hertz Foundation Fellowships! The highly prestigious Hertz Fellowship is among the oldest and most coveted awards in science and engineering graduate studies.
Indigenous knowledge helps biotech find new drugs. This grad student wants those companies to give back.
Bioengineering doctoral student Maria Astolfi and her colleagues argue for a new type of partnership with indigenous peoples to create a more ethical bioeconomy, one that will sustain indigenous biodiversity and bring these communities into science as equal partners.
Congratulations new NSF Fellows!
Congratulations to our new NSF Graduate Research Fellows! Among the winners are current PhD students Ashley Qin and incoming PhD students Erin Ahern and Steven Robles Blasini. Well done!
Schoen and Sipes are UCSF Grad Slam finalists!
Devin Schoen and Benjamin Sipes are two of this year’s ten finalists in the UCSF Grad Slam competition. On April 2 each finalist will present their research in three minutes or less, in language accessible to a general audience, and the winner will go on to the UC Grad Slam. Attend in person or tune […]
Science with a story: diverse paths to discovery at UC Berkeley
BioE graduate student Jazmin Isabel Velazquez examines the unique paths graduate students take on the road to their PhD in this story based on her experience in the Healy and Rubinsky Labs.
Cao’s research brings new clarity to computational imaging
Research by PhD student Ruming Cao has developed a new computational imaging tool for visualizing moving samples. Led by Professor Laura Waller, the neural space-time model (NSTM) uses a small, lightweight neural network to reduce motion artifacts and solve for the motion trajectories.
Congratulations 2025 Siebel Scholars
Three Bioengineering PhD students have been named Siebel Scholars of the class of 2025: Claire Hilburger, Eric Markley and Sakshi Shah. The Siebel Scholars program annually recognizes top students at the world’s leading graduate schools of bioengineering, business, computer science and energy science.
Tang wins Shortliffe Doctoral Dissertation Award
MD/PhD student Alice Tang has achieved first place in the 2024 AMIA Edward H. Shortliffe Doctoral Dissertation Awards, a prestigious honor for top doctoral dissertations that contribute to the science of informatics in any biomedical application domain. Tang’s work is on “Leveraging Clinical Data and Knowledge Networks to Derive Insights Into Alzheimer’s Disease.”
Congratulations UCSF Merit Awardees
Congratulations to bioengineering students Devan Shah and Serena Tang, awarded 2024 Achievement Rewards for College Scientists Scholarships!
Congratulations Ilina Bhaya-Grossman, UCSF Grad Slam Winner!
Congratulations to Ilina Bhaya-Grossman for winning the UCSF Grad Slam on April 3, 2024! The annual Grad Slam competition challenges PhD students to present a compelling presentation of their dissertation research in three minutes or less, using language that not only their peers but also non-specialists will understand. Each campus holds their own Grad Slam and send the winner to compete in a UC-wide Slam on May 3. You can check out her presentation online>>
Congratulations 2024 Siebel Scholars!
Five Bioengineering PhD students have been named Siebel Scholars of the class of 2024: Cindy Ayala, Ruiming Cao, Sita Srinivasan Chandrasekaran, Cameron Tadashi Kato, and Andre Lai. The Siebel Scholars program annually recognizes top students at the world’s leading graduate schools of bioengineering, business, computer science and energy science.
New Paper Points the Way to Make CRISPR Safer by Avoiding Chromosome Loss
PhD student Connor Tsuchida is first author on a new paper in “Cell” from the Doudna and Ye labs, using single-cell analysis to look at chromosome loss after CRISPR-Cas9 editing using a broad range of guide RNAs. The authors suggest a protocol to prevent chromosome loss
Elghazali and Graham are Berkeley Grad Diversity Fellows
Nafisa Elghazali and Yasmin Graham are 2023-24 Graduate Diversity and Community Fellows! Dedicated to building healthier communities for grad students at Berkeley, fellows provide academic and professional support to peers, with a special focus on underrepresented students.
Olivia Teter advances to UCSF Grad Slam finals
PhD student Olivia Teter is one of ten finalists competing April 4 in the UCSF Grad Slam! The Slam challenges PhD students to present a compelling presentation of their dissertation research in three minutes or less, using language that not only their peers but also non-specialists will understand. The top prize winner will compete in the UC systemwide Grad Slam competition in May. Cheer her on Tuesday, April 4, at 4 p.m. PDT.
Sekar named Quad Fellow
Congratulations to Nandini Periyapalayam Sekar, first year PhD student, named to the 2023 class of Quad Fellows! The Quad Fellowship is an initiative of the governments of Australia, India, Japan, and the United States, designed to build ties among the next generation of scientists and technologists. The program sponsors 100 exceptional master’s and doctoral students in STEM to study in the United States.
Congratulations 2023 Siebel Scholars
Five Bioengineering PhD students have been named Siebel Scholars of the class of 2023: Jordan Baker, Kelsey Gray DeFrates, Juan Eduardo Hurtado, Gabriela Lomeli, and Connor Tsuchida. The Siebel Scholars program annually recognizes top students at the world’s leading graduate schools of bioengineering, business, computer science and energy science.
Congratulations UCSF fellowship winners!
Four bioengineers will be receiving 2022-23 UCSF Graduate Division PhD fellowships! Gauree Shriram Chendke receives the Achievement Reward for College Scientists (ARCS), Nadia Mohammed Elmassalami Ayad the Lloyd M. Kozloff Fellowship, Caleb Tong the Shurl and Kay Curci Foundation PhD Scholarship, and Diana Cruz Garcia the NIGMS Initiative for Maximizing Student Development (IMSD) Fellowship. Congratulations!
Nadia Ayad wins 2022 Outstanding Student Leader award
Congratulations Nadia Ayad, inaugural recipient of the Outstanding Student Leader of the Year award from UCSF Student Life. Nadia was recognized for her work leading the student group BE-STEM, as well as her work developing initiatives to apply justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion via the GRAD 210 course, and her phenomenal commitment to leadership in […]
Congratulations new NSF Fellows!
Congratulations to bioengineers receiving new NSF Graduate Research Fellowships! Our winners are current PhD students Deniz Akpinaroglu, Joana Cabrera, Joy Chen, Benjamin Lesch, Alvince Pongos, Caleb Rux, Gabriel Sturm, and Jazmin Velazquez, and incoming PhD students Maple Chen, Russell Ro and Esther Sim. Great work!
Congratulations Outstanding GSIs!
Congratulations to Outstanding GSI Award Winners for 2021-22 from Berkeley BioE courses: Erin Akins, Gabriela Lomeli, Amanda Meriwether and Vivien Tran! The UC Berkeley Outstanding GSI Awards are given to the best GSIs of the year, nominated by the course instructor.
Project to Connect African and U.S. Materials Scientists Receives Google Award for Inclusion Research
Graduate student Kwasi Amofa is one of the leaders of the Joint Undertaking for an African Materials Institute – Open Computing Facility (JUAMI-OCF), an effort to connect African scientists to state-of-the-art computing tools for materials discovery and innovation on a free-to-access Google Cloud platform.
Andre Lai wins MicroTAS poster award
Congratulation PhD student Andre Lai, winner of the “Outstanding Sensors and Actuators, Detection Technologies Poster Award” at the 25th International Conference on Miniaturized Systems for Chemistry and Life in Palm Springs. His poster was entitled “Microfluidic Platform for Multi-Frequency Viscoelastic Phenotyping of Single Cells,” describing work done in Lydia Sohn’s lab.
Congratulations 2022 Siebel Scholars
Five Bioengineering PhD students have been named Siebel Scholars of the class of 2022: Kristen Cotner, K.L. Barry Fung, Kazuomori Lewis, Alden Moss, and Soo Hyun Shin. The Siebel Scholars program annually recognizes top students at the world’s leading graduate schools of bioengineering, business, computer science and energy science.
Meet graduate student Sierra Lear
Bioengineering graduate student Sierra Lear – engineer, neuroscientist and foosball master – was profiled by the Gladstone Institute, where she works with faculty member Seth Shipman.