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Dean's Digest

Lab Notes Update

January 2004

Friends of the College of Engineering,

I hope you had a happy and safe holiday and wish you all the very best for 2004.

In this month's edition of Lab Notes I am pleased to include a brief reflection on the groundbreaking invention of "Fuzzy Sets" by our distinguished computer sciences colleague Professor Lotfi Zadeh. Next month we will be celebrating the 30th anniversary of our Computer Sciences division in the College, and we have a lot to celebrate! Over the past thirty years, our computer sciences faculty and their students have made an unparalleled impact on the field that has led the division to a position of national and international leadership. Lotfi's early pioneering work has been a cornerstone of that reputation.

In these monthly letters, I am constantly praising our outstanding students, faculty and alumni, almost always for their research accomplishments and academic achievements. This month I'm also pleased to report that computer sciences professor Christos Papadimitriou has just published his first novel, Turing: A Novel about Computation. Named after Alan Turing, the father of computer science and code breaker of the World War II Nazi Enigma, the novel is set in Christos' native Greece. As the San Francisco Chronicle reviewer wrote:

Of course, as you might expect from a Berkeley professor, along with an ingenious storyline, Christos slips in some basic education about the history of computer science and his own passion for the field's fundamentals. Congratulations Christos!

On Dec. 30, EECS faculty member Edward Lee was featured on ABC's World News Tonight with Peter Jennings. With support from NASA, Edward has developed a system called " Soft Walls," that will prevent pilots from entering restricted "no-fly" zones around critical areas such as cities, nuclear power plants and government buildings. Restricted areas would be programmed into a passenger jet's database and, says Edward, "If a pilot attempts to come around and aim straight for a no-fly zone, the aircraft will be diverted." When implemented on aircraft, this groundbreaking technology could prevent a repeat of the tragedies of September 11.

Finally, a resounding cheer for our Bears football team which won its first bowl game in ten years on December 29th, beating Virginia Tech 52-49. Best wishes from the College and Go Bears!

/rich

A. Richard Newton
Dean, College of Engineering and
the Roy W. Carlson Professor of Engineering

Lab Notes is published online by the Public Affairs Office of the UC Berkeley College of Engineering. The Lab Notes mission is to illuminate groundbreaking research underway today at the College of Engineering that will dramatically change our lives tomorrow.

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© 2004 UC Regents. Updated 1/01/04.