News

The UC Board of Regents today voted to establish UC Berkeley’s College of Computing, Data Science, and Society (CDSS), the campus’s first new college in more than 50 years. The college will develop, implement and share high-quality, ethics-oriented and accessible curricula, educating a diverse student body in data science, computing and statistics. It will also create new fields, applications and solutions to societal problems through...

UC Berkeley’s Division of Computing, Data Science, and Society will receive four grants to increase access to and awareness of data science, a California state initiative announced. The California Education Learning Lab grants will fund CDSS and partner institution efforts to expand data science curriculum and pipelines at state community colleges and UC Merced. CDSS will also be the lab’s cohort coordinator for other academic...

College of Engineering: The National Science Foundation (NSF) has announced a sweeping effort to address risks and advance the science and technology and broad applications of artificial intelligence, involving universities across the nation. The $140 million investment will establish seven new National Artificial Intelligence Research Institutes (AI Institutes). Five UC Berkeley faculty members will join one of the key institutions, the AI Institute for Agent-based...

College of Engineering: The National Science Foundation (NSF) recognized electrical engineering and computer sciences assistant professors Yakun Sophia Shao and Gireeja Ranade with Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) awards. The awards are part of NSF’s prestigious Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program, which supports early-career faculty “who have the potential to serve as academic role models” and to become leaders in their field, according to...

When Alice Xie moved from China to California as a teenager, she experienced major culture shock. She understood the words people spoke, but conversations were still hard to follow. She often felt isolated and underestimated. Through art, Xie found a way to explore and communicate about this period in her life. So it was no surprise when she came to UC Berkeley and became an...

Safe, clean and affordable drinking water is a human right in California. But making that legal requirement a reality is a difficult challenge exacerbated further by climate change. Two water engineers believe artificial intelligence can help. Working with UC Berkeley’s Data Science Discovery program students, they are building a chatbot they hope will help California Water Resources Board staff discern, communicate and enforce rules to...

Berkeley News: John Schulman cofounded the ambitious software company OpenAI in December 2015, shortly before finishing his Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer sciences at UC Berkeley. At OpenAI, he led the reinforcement learning team that developed ChatGPT — a chatbot based on the company’s generative pre-trained (GPT) language models — which has become a global sensation, thanks to its ability to generate remarkably human-like...

School of Information: Nestled atop the sprawling Berkeley hills and on the ancestral land of the Chochenyo Ohlone stands the Lawrence Hall of Science, a place of scientific discovery and exploration. With opportunities to get up close and personal with animals, build and test inventions, and watch engaging 3D films, the Lawrence offers youth a chance to explore their STEM-related interests. However, one of the...

On March 14, 2020, the United States was on the brink of a pandemic. Covid-19 had killed at least 60 people and two cruise ships with ill passengers were set to dock in San Francisco. That’s when DJ Patil received a call: How can data help California combat this? So the former White House chief data scientist put together a plan. His team acquired hospital...

Technology companies are racing to release increasingly powerful artificial intelligence (AI) tools. Some researchers claim this technology exhibits artificial general intelligence (AGI), a significant milestone where AI could independently learn and complete tasks like human beings. This technology has the power to change the world, said Stuart Russell, a UC Berkeley computer science professor and leading AI expert. It could improve quality of life for...