‘Tis the season for retrospective lists, and Berkeley Engineering is here to bring you the best of our research, accomplishments and community in 2025! Brace yourself for everything from classic arcade games to swanky student hubs to Nobel prize wins.

As we head into the holidays, we wanted to express our deep gratitude for all who make up the Berkeley Engineering community! To brighten this wish, we are featuring the Strauch Hypercube, a dynamic art installation that illuminates the Grimes Engineering Center. Fiat Lux!

Did you know? Mussels attach to surfaces with protein fibers called byssal threads… and this biological feature is inspiring professor Phillip Messersmith to develop cutting-edge adhesives.

Ana Claudia Arias and Tahir Ghani, both faculty members in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, have been elected to the National Academy of Inventors! The honor, awarded to 185 inductees this year, marks the highest professional distinction awarded solely to inventors.

Congrats to CEE PhD student Albert Cao, Professor Marta Gonzalez, and the HumNet Lab team for earning second-best contribution at ACM SIGSPATIAL 2025 for their work, “sparkmobility: A Spark-based Python Library for Processing, Modeling, and Analyzing Large Mobility Datasets.”

Check out these outtakes from our photo shoot in Professor Lining Yao’s Morphing Matter Lab for Berkeley Engineer magazine! Yao, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, envisions a future where materials respond through interaction with the environment. Read all about it: bit.ly/4nSSDbI

Eugene Jarvis (B.S.’76 EECS) is a certified game changer — as in, a pioneer of the arcade gaming space! His storied career got its start in Birge Hall, next to the Campanile. It was in the basement where he got his first taste of video games, specifically 1962’s Spacewar!

"Engineering is more than design. It is a way to heal, to help and to make a difference. My goal is to use technology to fill what is missing, restore what is broken and create tools that help hearts and lives feel whole again.” — Nikolai Seva (MEng’25 ME) on his adaptive ski prosthetic #VoicesOfBE

Did you know? Boris Rubinsky, professor emeritus of bioengineering and of mechanical engineering, is behind one of TIME’s Best Inventions of 2025! The NanoKnife is revolutionizing care for prostate cancer by using electric currents to quickly and easily reach remote tumors.

My story on Lining Yao and the Morphing Matter Lab was recently published by @berkeleyengineer.bsky.social in Berkeley Engineer magazine.

ICYMI: We launched the Student Organization Applied Research (SOAR) labs at Richmond Field Station (RFS) on Saturday! Now, student orgs can design, build and develop projects using high-end technology and equipment that improves both efficiency and safety. Read our story: bit.ly/3XxlPKr

We’re SOARin’, flyin’ ✈️ At the Student Organization Applied Research (SOAR) labs, that is! Today marks the launch of this new hub for creativity, hands-on learning and teamwork at Richmond Field Station. Here’s to kicking off a new era of student innovation!

From the latest issue of Berkeley Engineering mag: Research by QB3-Berkeley affiliate Amy Pickering shows that stored drinking water is a major source of E. coli transmission in developing countries. Read more from @berkeleyengineer.bsky.social: engineering.berkeley.edu/news/2025/11...

The new issue of Berkeley Engineer magazine is out now! Our cover story highlights how science meets shapeshifting at the Morphing Matter Lab. Other features cover medical innovations, an at-home diagnostic test and a new color "olo." Read the issue: engineering.berkeley.edu/magazine

Mark your calendars to celebrate a new class of graduating Bears! Winter (Commencement) is coming, December 20, 2025! #UCBerkeley #CalGrad #Commencement

No one knows when the next major earthquake will strike. In the meantime, researchers are working to understand how these events could disrupt access to healthcare in densely populated regions — and how best to prepare for them.

Berkeley engineers just made a discovery that could help advance heart failure therapeutics! Using a heart-on-a-chip model, a team led by Professor Kevin Healy found a lipid nanoparticle that could penetrate the heart muscle to deliver therapeutic gene therapies. Read our story: bit.ly/4qEeK87

It’s been the spookiest of seasons. So here’s a #FBF to this hauntingly beautiful view of a solar eclipse over the Campanile in October 2023. Happy Halloween! 👻🎃 (Photos by Adam Lau / Berkeley Engineering)

Alumni Todd Roberts and Owen Kent first developed Reflex, their robotic rehabilitation device, in a UC Berkeley course. Now, six years later, they’re launching it through their company, ATDev, which aims to bring high-quality rehabilitation into the home. engineering.berkeley.edu/news/2025/10...

Let there be light! 💡 “The Strauch Hypercube” lit up the Grimes Engineering Center during our Dean’s Society event tonight. This installation is a visual representation of the relationship between exploration, innovation and community — and unlike anything else on campus.

Congrats to Bioengineering Professor and Blum Center Faculty Director Dan Fletcher for his induction into the @nam.edu! Dan was recognized for his work developing mobile phone-based microscopy to diagnose infectious diseases in developing countries, among other contributions!

UC Berkeley researchers have created a 3D printer that works in zero gravity, potentially giving astronauts the power to create replacement parts on the fly.

Here’s a glimpse of the PrintSprint 3D printing bootcamp for PREP students! Participants built their own printers, learned CAD design and competed in a design challenge. Grace Gu, associate professor of mechanical engineering, led the workshop. Learn more: bit.ly/46RwtkV

Thank you to Murat Arcak, @berkeleyengineer.bsky.social Mechanical and Electrical Engineering Professor of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering in UC Berkeley’s EECS department who presented Control Across Scales in Traffic Management at the ITS Transportation Seminar on Friday, October 3, 2025.

UC Berkeley Engineering alum William Tarpeh (M.S.’13, Ph.D.’17 Environmental Eng) has been named a 2025 MacArthur Fellow! Now an assistant professor of chemical engineering at Stanford University, he's working on sustainable methods to recover valuable chemical resources from wastewater.

Omar Yaghi was awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry today! He has an appointment in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering alongside his primary affiliation with the College of Chemistry.

Rikky Muller, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences, spoke with us about her newest projects and their potential to transform the way we manage many common health conditions.

🚨 NEW Faculty Search Alert! 🚨 @berkeleyengineer.bsky.social is on the hunt for visionary faculty in “Engineering + AI”! 🌉🤖 Join the world's top public engineering program, shaping the future of tech from the heart of the Bay Area. Open to all ranks! Details & apply: aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05144

"I hope to apply what I’ve learned as a Berkeley engineer to help shape the future of bicycles and inspire more people to get outside and ride!" — Justin Peck (B.S.’25 ME) Full #VoicesOfBE profile: bit.ly/3ifpSXy

Chef-turned-chemist Vayu Hill-Maini has a passion: to transform food waste into culinary delights using fungi.

A team led by Lining Yao, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, developed an AI-driven framework to optimize and automate the design of complex truss robots! Read our story: bit.ly/3IKp4KT

This just in: We remain the No. 3 undergraduate engineering program, according to U.S. News and World Report’s annual rankings! That means UC Berkeley Engineering holds onto our title as top public program, tying with Georgia Institute of Technology (also a public university). 🏆

#BioBSE researchers Jay Keasling and @cdscown.bsky.social are contributing to a cleaner planet by being part of a newly funded project to develop biodegradable bioplastics from domestic biomass. #WorldCleanupDay @berkeleyengineer.bsky.social @berkeleylab.lbl.gov go.lbl.gov/bioplastics

Five UC Berkeley students — all from the graduate program in computer science — were honored as Siebel Scholars Foundation's class of 2026!

You did it! The Engineering Academic Support Fund raised $21,953 from 50 donors during this year’s #OskiBday Bear-a-thon! Your generosity will go toward programs that support student success, helping future generations of engineers thrive on campus. Thank you, and Go BEars!

Excited to be part of @calenergy.bsky.social $1.1 million award to berkeleyengineer.bsky.social Prof Scott Moura, @udelaware.bsky.social, and EV charging company It's Electric to develop, certify, and commercialize world's first curbside vehicle-to-grid EV charger:

It’s still the #OskiBday Bear-a-thon, and we're celebrating by raising money for programs that support student success, now through Sept. 19! Make an impact: bit.ly/48blLGJ

Get ready to party like it’s 1941 — because today is Oski’s 84th B-day, and you’re invited! Instead of cake and candles, Oski’s got one big birthday wish: Help every Cal student feel at home and flourish at UC Berkeley. Make an impact: bit.ly/48blLGJ

Excited to see over 70 undergrad and graduate students from @berkeleyengineer.bsky.social and College of Environmental Design who came to Partners for Advanced Transportation Technology open house to learn about getting involved in #AI #AV research!

Scientists are studying a cataclysmic 2023 earthquake in Antakya, Türkiye, to devise new ways to reduce casualties. According to Luis Ceferino, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, that work begins with understanding how people are injured inside buildings.

Great to hear about Ilina Bhaya-Grossman's research in the @changlabucsf.bsky.social last week at the Exploratorium! Her PhD work has focused on how the brain processes word boundaries, which are incredibly difficult to identify in a foreign language. @berkeleyengineer.bsky.social 🧪 🧠🟦

SafeTREC director Julia Griswold discusses #RoadSafety in @sfgate.com story "Bay Area suburb grapples with car crash that killed 4-year-old boy": www.sfgate.com/local/articl...

Eugene Jarvis (B.S.’76 EECS) is a pioneer in the video game space. It was in Birge Hall, adjacent to the Campanile, where he got his first taste of video games in the mid-’70s. Now, he’s made his mark on a whole new part of campus.

A multi-institutional team has been awarded a $15 million grant from the NSF to launch the Center for Land Surface Hazards (CLaSH). Civil engineering professor Dimitrios Zekkos is co-principal investigator of the project.

Now that Fall 2025 is here, what are you most excited about this semester? New students can take advantage of resources at bit.ly/45G8RyX

In two new papers, UC Berkeley roboticist Ken Goldberg explains why robots are not gaining real-world skills as quickly as AI chatbots are gaining language fluency.

This fall, we welcome 11 new faculty members to the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences!

Scenes from the International Symposium of Academic Makerspaces (ISAM) 2025 earlier this month! Learn more: isam2025.hemi-makers.org (Photos by Adam Lau / Berkeley Engineering)

Interested in learning how the brain turns sound into meaning? Hear from bioengineering PhD student Ilina Bhaya-Grossman about her research in the @changlabucsf.bsky.social as part of the Exploratorium's After Dark series. #SciComm 🧠📈 @berkeleyengineer.bsky.social @ucsanfrancisco.bsky.social