Seniors launch Gift Campaign with pizza, music A senior engineer contemplates making a donation to the Senior Gift Campaign while munching pizza at the campaign's noontime kickoff party on Tuesday, November 30. Free pizza, sodas and lively dance music lured around 30 seniors to Wozniak Lounge. The Senior Gift Campaign is a way for seniors to express their appreciation for Berkeley Engineering by giving something back. Seniors who pledge $25 or more receive a Berkeley Engineering license plate frame. For more information about the Senior Gift Campaign, contact nrinetti@berkeley.edu.

Teams pitch better dating, efficient drug distribution, and other ideas at ME 221 tradeshow

At last week's ME 221 tradeshow, graduate engineers donned suits, ties and a salesperson's enthusiasm to present their prototype products to over 50 visitors cruising table to table on the "tradeshow floor" -otherwise known as the second floor of Etcheverry Hall. This year's prototypes featured next-generation applications of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology.

The 11 teams, which also included graduate students from the Schools of Business and Information Management Systems (SIMS), cultivated hope that among those listening to their pitch would be an equally enthusiastic venture capitalist to fund their projects.

That's the secret wish of Team LuGuardian, said SIMS graduate student Joshua Solomin. Solomin and his team were selling a secure tracking system for airport luggage that uses an RFID tag fastened to each bag. The tag links the luggage with another RFID tag on the traveler's ...[FULL STORY]

Speeding is a way of life for cycling national champion and CEE alumna

CEE alumna Kate Maher (M.S. '01) races her bike at one speed: faster. In her favorite type of cycling race, the criterium, she exceeds 30 mph, flashing by onlookers, brushing handlebars with competitors, and leaning into the never-ending corners that comprise the criterium's two-city-block loop. Usually, there are crashes.

Her last crash was this summer when she broke two ribs. She recovered and is cycling again; not even the possibility of more broken ribs prevents her from taking it slow.

"I like the aggressiveness and risk-taking," says Maher, who alpine ski raced when she was younger. "As soon as the gun goes off, you go as fast as you can."

Maher's racing provides a healthy counterbalance to the slow, careful rhythm of science, which has been...[FULL STORY]

During Fulbright year in Australia, CEE professor helps uncover method for purifying wastewater

For the last nine years, Australia has experienced the worst drought in its history. Water has been rationed; car washing, swimming pools and lawn watering have all been strictly regulated. But demand for water hasn't decreased. Australia's population, for example, grew 1.3 percent from 1993 to 2003, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Down Under, with a finite water supply, needed ways to reuse existing water.

The problem sounded familiar, thought CEE Professor David Sedlak, who studies the behavior of chemical contaminants in wastewater and identifies cost-effective methods to remove them. It sounded like....[FULL STORY]

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