Summer 2007
 Dear Friends of the College of Engineering,
At commencement last May, nearly 900 new graduates walked across the stage of the Greek Theatre to join the extraordinary community that is Berkeley Engineering. No doubt we will soon be seeing their names in the headlines and on the rosters of up-and-coming leaders in engineering and every other conceivable discipline.
It was, as always, a rousing and memorable event, thanks to our graduates, their professors and families, and our commencement speakers, Silicon Valley entrepreneur Dado Banatao and mechanical engineering senior Vivek Rao. This marked Lisa Alvarez-Cohen’s final turn as faculty marshal, a role she has fulfilled most admirably for the last two years. On July 1, Professor Alvarez-Cohen assumes the chairmanship of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, the top-ranked civil engineering department in the nation.
In another development, the College will be part of a new outreach program, the Empowering Leadership (EL) Alliance, funded by a three-year, $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation. Professor Ruzena Bajcsy and Director of Diversity Sheila Humphreys, both of Berkeley’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, are on the leadership team of the initiative, which involves UC Berkeley and five other top U.S. universities as well as 24 research centers, corporations, professional societies and laboratories.
The goal of the EL Alliance is to engage underrepresented minority students in computing studies at the undergraduate level and keep them excited and motivated—through research projects, mentoring, career guidance and other personalized support—to continue their studies all the way to the doctorate level and become technical leaders. For more on this visionary program, go to www.empoweringleadership.org.
I'm pleased to report that the Engineering Dean Search Committee is busy reviewing applicants and interviewing candidates. Check for the announcement from the Regents at www.coe.berkeley.edu.
Fiona Doyle, Acting Dean
Donald H. McLaughlin Professor of Mineral Engineering
College of Engineering
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