Innovations Home Innovations Volume 2, Issue 9, October 2008 Archive
Dean’s MessageFocus on InnovationWith Wall Street in a tailspin these last few weeks, it is a pleasure to have positive financial news to report for Berkeley Engineering. Alumnus Coleman Fung (B.S.’87 IEOR) has pledged a $15 million gift that will enable the college’s Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research (IEOR) to broaden its scope and enhance its programs. Among comparable departments in the country, UC Berkeley’s is the smallest. Coleman Fung’s gift will provide the resources to pursue new strategic directions. The phrase industrial engineering still conjures up images of clipboards and stopwatches in an era before computers became mission critical to engineering and every facet of our lives. Berkeley’s department spun off from mechanical engineering in the early 1960s as an umbrella for studies in manufacturing and military logistics and tactics. Today, the discipline has reshaped itself. The powerful underlying methodologies of operations research are making critical contributions to many emerging areas—including service sciences, health care, energy regulation and, yes, financial engineering. A key goal is to improve the quality of both products and services without increasing costs, using principles from economics to improve efficiency. Coleman’s gift will enable us to develop IEOR into the college’s home for teaching and research on management of the innovation chain, from emerging technologies to marketplace models. The department will also serve as the anchor for our Technology and Leadership Studies program, launched earlier this year to focus engineering studies on innovation, leadership and entrepreneurship in a global economy. You may know that this is not Coleman’s first major gift to his alma mater; he has already endowed an IEOR chair in financial modeling, a risk management research center in the Department of Economics and a media center in the C.V. Starr East Asian Library. He has appropriately timed his latest pledge to coincide with the public launch of the Campaign for Berkeley, the campus’s major development initiative, which includes a $300 million fund-raising goal for the college over the next five years. In the coming weeks, we will be seeking approval to rename IEOR to acknowledge Coleman’s generosity, creating the first named department in the college and the second on the Berkeley campus. At the same time, the new name will reflect the evolving field. As you can see from our newsletter title, innovation is my top priority for the college and for all of engineering. I welcome your thoughts and ideas. S. Shankar Sastry View from the Top Lecture Series October 9: Craig Mundie, Chief Research and Strategy Officer, Microsoft
October 30: Judith Estrin, Chief Executive Officer, JLabs November 6: James Truchard, President & Co-Founder, National Instruments November 19: Arun Sarin, Chief Executive (retired), Vodafone
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In This Issue:
Most people hope to live healthy, independent lives through their elderly years. But that's not always the case because, as people age, they and their loved ones have to worry about not only illnesses, but also injuries, especially from falls. For seniors, falling is the leading cause of injury deaths, nonfatal injuries and hospital admissions. But one team of researchers is working to enable the elderly to live independently through a network of body sensors. The project could allow computers to remotely monitor and analyze the activity of seniors so that, if they fall or stop moving, help can arrive quickly.
In the fall of 1975, a young General Motors engineer named Larry Burns loaded up his customized Chevy and headed to Berkeley. The Michigan native came west for doctoral studies in transportation engineering. “It’s an area that has served me quite well,” he says. Today, Burns is in charge of next-generation cars and other leading-edge technology for the world’s largest automaker. “I wake up every day focused on reinventing the automobile,” he says. A 2007 New York Times article called him “the most visible executive at the American auto companies on green issues.”
What started as a six-week project for freshmen engineering students may create culturally sensitive and energy-efficient housing for a small California Indian tribe. A roundhouse-style design conceived in last spring’s E10 Engineering Design and Analysis course has been embraced by members of the Pinoleville Pomo Nation. The tribe plans to submit the UC Berkeley concept when it applies for federal funding to build up to 25 new homes in the Mendocino County community of Ukiah.
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