News

Brian Xi, B.A. ‘24, became interested in public interest technology during his first data science course. His professor used the 1854 cholera outbreak in London to teach about causation, showing how a physician proved water supply differences explained varying death rates. That discovery saved lives. Today, Xi does similar work on a project at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Negotiators have the ability to nearly eliminate plastic pollution by 2050 through a developing international treaty, according to a study published today in Science. Leaders could pick any of several policy combinations addressing plastic’s production, use or disposal to achieve this goal, the University of California team found.

Kyle Gerstenschlager, M.A. ‘20, attended UC Berkeley’s statistics professional master’s program because of its 10-month duration, collaborative nature and excellent reputation. “Berkeley invested in me,” he said. “I had a wonderful time building strong relationships with the professors and with my peers.”

Advances in generative AI and other areas could enable robots to assist human surgeons during certain tasks that require significant dexterity like suturing, experts said in a new Science Robotics paper published today. Under an “Augmented Dexterity” approach, a human surgeon would closely oversee the robot’s work and take over if needed.

A new type of absorbing material developed by chemists at the University of California, Berkeley, could help get the world to negative emissions. The porous material — a covalent organic framework (COF) — captures CO2 from ambient air without degradation by water or other contaminants, one of the limitations of existing DAC technologies.

Alan Jian hadn’t always envisioned a career in government. As a data science major at UC Berkeley, he saw himself following the same path many of his peers pursued: working for a major Silicon Valley company, where he’d be surrounded by cutting-edge technology. But Jian's experience in a human contexts and ethics of data class sparked a new curiosity about how his skills could be...

Recent polls show public trust in the integrity of U.S. elections is decreasing, largely among Republicans. But this doesn’t signal that our elections are getting less reliable, UC Berkeley scholars said. In fact, elections in the U.S. are more secure and the results are more accurate than 20 years ago, said David Wagner, a Berkeley professor of computer science.

Computer science is entering the clinic through a first of its kind graduate program from two of the Bay Area’s foremost academic institutions. The UCSF/UC Berkeley Joint Program in Computational Precision Health (CPH) welcomes its second cohort of PhD students this fall. The program applies computing and AI advances to the vast amounts of high-quality data that are generated in medicine, research and public health...

UC Berkeley assistant professors Bronwyn Lucas and Preeya Khanna will each receive $1.5 million over multiple years from the U.S. National Institutes of Health to fund their work improving scientists’ understanding of disease causes and therapies to repair individuals’ motor functions.

Berkeley News: At UC Berkeley, researchers are reimagining how to support freedom of expression online while minimizing the potential for harm. By holding social media companies accountable, building tools to combat online hate speech, and uplifting the survivors of online abuse, they are working to create safer and more welcoming online spaces for everyone.