PhD Candidate Drew Ramos, a member of Adam Abate’s lab, has been named to the 2026 class of Berkeley Life Sciences Entrepreneurship Center – Nucleate Venture Fellows!
Student Profile: Alonso Torres
Alonso Torres had used all he learned growing up, in the military, as a parent, and completing his PhD to build a full and balanced life. Read more at https://bioeng.berkeley.edu/profile/student-profile-alonso-torres
Congratulations new NSF Fellows!
We are very proud to announce that seven of our current students are receiving NSF Graduate Research Fellowships this year – one of the most competitive and prestigious awards for early-career PhD students. Congratulations to Taylor Elliot, Julia Jamieson, Samantha Lydon, Joyce Mo, Uma Paithankar, Vi Nguyen and Margaret Zhang. Outstanding work!
James Pai named Soros Fellow!
PhD student James Pai is one of only 30 outstanding graduate students in the US who received a 2026 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans, a highly competitive award is for immigrants and children of immigrants who are poised to make significant contributions to American society. James is a member of Iain Clark’s lab, where he is developing scalable ways to measure how genetic and chemical changes reshape cell state.
Congratulations Kavita and Nadja
Congratulations to all of our 2026 Grad Slam finalists! Nadja Michelle Maldonada Luna took 3rd place at UCSF on April 7, and Kavita Parekh and Grace Hu competed at Berkeley on April 8, with Kavita winning the People’s Choice prize. Amazing work showcasing a passion for their research!
Outstanding Graduate Peer Mentor Awards for Leen and Carlos
Congratulations Leen Arnaout and Carlos Ng Pitti, winners of UC Berkeley’s 2026 Outstanding Graduate Peer Mentor Award! Peer-to-peer mentoring is a critical part of graduate education — we appreciate our fantastic student guides.
Three bioengineers are Grad Slam finalists
Grad Slam challenges PhD students to present their research in three-minute talks. Grace Hu and Kavita Parekh are finalists in the UC Berkeley slam (April 8), and Nadja Michelle Maldonado Luna at UCSF (April 7)! The winners from each campus will compete in the UC-wide Slam on April 22.
Scientists Build ‘Speed Scanner’ to Test Thousands of Plant Gene Switches at Once
PhD student Lucas Waldburger is co-lead author on a paper describing their new tool which promises to vastly accelerate plant engineering. ENTRAP-seq can simultaneously screen thousands of transcription regulators for plants, and shrinks experiments that previously required a whole plant or whole leaf down to a single cell.
Torres and Brener receive UCSF Mentoring Awards
Congratulations to awardee Alonso Torres and Honorable Mention Stephanie Brener, recognized in the 2026 Dean’s Awards for Excellence in Mentoring for Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Scholars at UCSF!
Bowman receives Hertz Fellowship
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.