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UC President Dynes visits Berkeley campus
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EECS
professor and CITRIS researcher David Culler (left) explains
to President Dynes how he uses sensors to create a network
that can collect and transmit weather and other habitat data
from remote ecosystems.
PEG SKORPINSKI PHOTO |
"This is like a vacation," UC President Robert Dynes
told a labful of Berkeley engineers and scientists after hearing
their presentations on top research efforts, including new sensor-powered
technologies in development by faculty at CITRIS,
the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest
of Society.
Dynes, a scientist by training, joined UC San Diego in 1991 as
a physicist after 22 years at AT&T Bell Laboratories. He was
named UCSD chancellor in 1996 and became president of the UC system
last October. In lieu of a formal inaugural ceremony, he took
organized tours of all 10 campuses, which he says have opened
his eyes to the individuality of each of the campuses and their
impact on the daily lives of Californians. He referred to Berkeley
as the "mother lode" of the UC system.
The two-day tour of Berkeley—a whirlwind series of meetings
with students, faculty, and staff—included a budget meeting
with Chancellor Berdahl’s cabinet, an alumni reception at
International House, a dinner with Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates and
several regents, and an early morning run with the men’s
and women’s track teams.
In addition to CITRIS, the Berkeley Health Sciences Initiative
and the California Institute for Quantitative Biomedical Research
(QB3) reported to Dynes on their high-level interdisciplinary
research projects. He asked detailed questions about how research
faculty plan to allocate space and administrative funding and
resolve intellectual property issues.
The CITRIS projects presented included the "heads-up"
display firefighter helmet in development by ME professor Paul
Wright, the redwood habitat-monitoring sensor networks in use
by EECS professor David Culler, and the "Chiclet"-sized
syringes for delivering medication in the works by BioE and ME
professor Dorian Liepmann. Also presented by ChemE professor Jay
Keasling, who is working in the area of synthetic biology with
BioE professor Adam Arkin, was a production method for malaria
drugs involving transplantation of yeast and plant genes into
the E. coli bacterium.
by Bonnie Azab Powell,
Campus Public Affairs
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