Professor Jose Rodriguez received tenure at UCLA in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Congratulations, Jose!
Prof. Jose Rodriguez received his Ph. D in Molecular Biology from UCLA in 2012. He was then a Postdoctoral Researcher at UCLA and subsequently joined the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry as assistant professor in 2016.
The Heising-Simons Faculty Fellows Program catalyzes scientific discovery by investing in high-risk, high-reward research directions. The Program supports exceptional faculty working on topics in a diverse set of fields, including astronomy, physics, geology and geophysics, materials sciences (in both physics and engineering), and physical and materials chemistry. Program awards will focus on creative and novel approaches that promise to lead to important scientific breakthroughs contributing to a greater understanding of the universe and its components, from the molecular and atomic to the geological and planetary scales, among other areas. Awards also fund the development of new tools, techniques and measurements that help probe these physical phenomena in new ways.
The Heising-Simons Faculty Fellows awards will be made to two UC Berkeley faculty members each year. Each $1M faculty award will be distributed over a period of five years. All early- and mid-career UC Berkeley faculty regardless of their home department are eligible to apply.
Prof. Xu’s project is “Single-Molecule Electrophoresis Microscopy”.
Dr. Marcus Gallagher-Jones joined Professor Jose Rodriguez’s group in 2017. In the Rodriguez group he has developed pioneering methods in electron diffraction and determining important structures. “Everywhere he goes, Marcus makes a lasting positive impression on colleagues,” said Rodriguez. “He is highly regarded in our structural biology group, is an active member of our NSF-sponsored science and technology center. In short, Marcus is an outstanding colleague and an exceptional young scientist and leader”. Marcus received his bachelor’s degree in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry from Durham University (2010) and his Ph.D. in Molecular Biophysics from the University of Liverpool (2015). While his Ph.D. was awarded by Liverpool, Marcus conducted his thesis work half-way around the world, at one of the most powerful X-ray lasers in the world – the Japanese X-ray free electron laser facility (XFEL) and synchrotron source (Spring-8).
Charles Dove uses artificial intelligence (AI) to harness the physics of light. A PhD student in electrical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, Charles uses principles from machine learning and differentiable programming to create new methods for the simulation and fully automatic design of light-based technology. This capability would enable significant growth in the scale, scope, and capabilities of nearly all light-based technology, including biomedical imaging, cellular manipulation and characterization, optical telecommunications, photonic quantum computing, and LIDAR.
A researcher in AI since his freshman year at Clemson University, Charles is the inventor of multiple technologies that combine electromagnetic wave physics and machine learning. His method for the efficient recovery of blood-flow information from scattered laser light is currently being evaluated for potential use in optometry and brain surgery, and his method for 3D artificial vision through multi-frequency scattering offers a promising and practical alternative to conventional LIDAR.
Presented annually to an Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences graduate student who is beyond the preliminary examination and is proceeding to a doctoral degree. The purpose of the award is to recognize students who, in addition to conducting research, unselfishly take the time to help colleagues beyond the normal cooperation existing between fellow students. The award was established in 1979 in memory of Demetri Angelakos, a UC Berkeley student working toward his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at the time of his death.
The altruistic attitude of the recipient may be evidenced in the following ways: volunteering to conduct laboratory procedure sessions attended by colleagues, explaining intricate equipment usage, promoting greater research cooperation, etc. Because of the primary interests of the EECS graduate student in whose name the award was established, the general areas of solid state, optical electronics, electromagnetics and semiconductor electronics will be given first consideration.
The Tom Angell Fellowship is awarded annually at the Office of Inclusive Excellence’s Mentoring for Achievement and Excellence event, this fellowship is intended to honor Tom Angell’s contributions as the UCI Graduate Counselor to graduate student wellness and retention.
Awards are open to graduate students, faculty, and postdoctoral scholars.
Award recipients demonstrate outstanding mentorship by going above and beyond their normal duties to create new opportunities to mentor UCI students.
Leyla Kabuli, a senior graduating in music and electrical engineering and computer sciences, is the winner of the 2021 University Medal from UC Berkeley. The 150-year-old University Medal recognizes a graduating student’s outstanding research, public service and strength of character, and comes with a cash prize. Leyla is currently working in Laura Waller’s research group and will continue with the Waller group as a graduate student in fall 2021.
By her senior year, she was fielding offers of full graduate fellowships from Berkeley, Stanford and MIT. She’s sticking with Berkeley for graduate school. “I might be biased, but Berkeley has the best electrical engineering program in the country,” says Kabuli, who was born in Berkeley and raised in Davis, California. She also credits the campus’s culture, diversity and grit for her decision to accept the Berkeley Fellowship for Graduate Study, which provides financial support for five years. As top graduating senior, Kabuli, 21, a simultaneous degree student in EECS and music, with a perfect 4.0 GPA, will speak this Saturday, May 15, to thousands of her peers, in cap and gown, at a campus-wide virtual commencement ceremony.
Congratulations to Elizabeth Blackwater for Receiving the 2021 Don Rabern Department Service Award from the Fort Lewis College Physics & Engineering Department.
Congratulations to James Ferguson for Receiving the 2021 Outstanding CE Student Award from the Fort Lewis College Physics & Engineering Department.
JILA Fellow Margaret Murnane has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Limerick this year – her 6th Honorary Doctorate.
“I hadn’t even known I was being considered for it,” Murnane says of the award. Murnane, a native of Ireland, is excited to add another excuse to return to the country. Growing up in the 1960s and 1970s in Ireland, only 10% of high school graduates at that time had the opportunity to attend university. It wasn’t until the 1980s and 1990s that Ireland had the resources to invest in higher education by expanding their university system, later followed by flourishing science research. Murnane grew up very close to the University of Limerick, which became a university in 1980. She is excited to hopefully be attending the awards ceremony in person in August of 2021. When speaking of her future trip, Murnane stated: “It’ll be great to be able to be with family and friends again.”
Murnane’s group at JILA focuses on ultrafast laser and X-ray science. This year Murnane was also awarded the Franklin Medal in Physics for her work. She shared the award with JILA Fellow Dr. Henry Kapteyn.