I hope you're enjoying the relative peace and quiet of Berkeley in the summertime. I wish things were less dramatic on the budgetary front, but we are doing our best in Graduate Division — as I am sure is true in your departments and programs — to stay with our campus priorities. (More information will be disseminated by the campus as more becomes known.)
This month my theme is web-based services you might find useful.
First is www.housingmaps.com. This is a clever combination of Craigslist and Google (though affiliated with neither) that puts available rental properties on a map. This can help with your hunt for a room or apartment, especially if you are trying to optimize your location with respect to other things.
Second is www.graduatejunction.com. This is a social networking site for graduate students (and postdocs), started by students at the Universities of Durham and Oxford in the UK. You can exchange research information, make or join research groups with other members, exchange information on travel to field work in a specific country, find out about conferences. If we had many students from Berkeley join, just imagine the consequences for new collaborations and useful information sharing!
Do you know of other web-based services that students should know about? Drop me a line at graddean@berkeley.edu and I will pass along any gems.
Best,
Andrew J. Szeri
Dean of the Graduate Division
Graduate Funding
- A wide menu of possibilities to help fund your graduate education
Recognition
- 2009’s especially effective GSI problem-solvers
- GradLink-on-the-Web wins UC’s top technology honor
- A Berkeley alumna will be UCSF’s new chancellor
- Two new roles for Dean Szeri
- J-alum Charles Burress wins five awards
- Professor Chenming Hu wins the IEEE’s Nishizawa Medal
Calendar
- Fall orientations and receptions
Texture
- Wat’s happening to the Campanile
Listed chronologically by deadline date.
Resources provided by the Graduate Services: Fellowships office
Applications are invited from candidates in any area of the humanities and social sciences whose work falls within the scope of Edinburgh’s Institute for Advanced Studies’ research themes or across disciplinary boundaries in the humanities. Applications from both within and beyond the University of Edinburgh are welcomed. Applicants must have been awarded a doctorate, normally within the last three years, and should not have held a permanent position at a university. Further information is available online, as is the application. The closing date for the receipt of applications is July 10, 2009.
A limited number of fellowships are available for graduate students studying at U.S. institution who are interested in attending the American Society of Mechanical Engineering’s first Global Congress on NanoEngineering for Medicine and Biology, to be held in Houston, Texas, in February 2010. Full funding will include attendee registration for a special tutorial on nanoengineered therapeutics and full congress access. Attendees are encouraged to submit posters. The congress is co-sponsored by the NSF Summer Institute on Nanomechanics, Nanomaterials, and Micro/Nanomanufacturing. More information is available by email and the application is available in PDF form online.
The competition for the 2010-2011 round of Fulbright Scholar Grants is open. The application deadline is August 1, 2009. Grants typically begin about one year following the application deadline. As a traditional U.S. Fulbright Scholar you can enjoy an experience of a lifetime, one that will provide broad cultural perspectives on your academic discipline or professional field and connect you with colleagues at institutions around the globe. Grants typically range from three months to an academic year. More information and materials to download are online.
J. William Fulbright (1905-1995) was a U.S. Senator from Arkansas for three decades and had been a Rhodes Scholar and served as president of the University of Arkansas. His 1945 bill to use surplus war property to fund the “promotion of international good will through the exchange of students in the fields of education, culture, and science” created what has become the Fulbright Program, the U.S. government’s flagship international exchange program. Approximately 500 American institutions of all sizes are represented in each year’s competition. To date, there have been 294,000 participants in Fulbright programs in more than 125 countries throughout the world. If you are a researcher with above average qualifications, at the beginning of your academic career and completed your doctorate during the last four years, consider applying for a Humboldt Research Fellowship. This fellowship for postdoctoral researchers allows you to carry out a long-term research project (six to 24 months) you have selected yourself in cooperation with an academic host at a research institution in Germany. Scientists and scholars of all nationalities and disciplines may apply to the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation directly at any time. The foundation grants approximately 600 Humboldt Research Fellowships for postdoctoral researchers and experienced researchers annually. Deadline: Open. This is a continuous application opportunity. Applications are considered in the order received. More information is available on the Humboldt Foundation website.
The Humboldt Foundation is named for German naturalist and explorer Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander Freiherr von Humboldt (1769 1859). Humboldt was one of the first to propose that the lands bordering the Atlantic Ocean, particularly South America and Africa, were once joined. His five-volume 1845 work, Kosmos attempted to unify the various branches of scientific knowledge. He is memorialized in the names of animal and plant species, geographic features (such as California’s Humboldt Bay and Nevada’s Humboldt Sink), place names (among the Humboldt County in California, Nevada, and Iowa), and a variety of universities, schools, and lectureships. Of him, Cuban scholar Jose de la Luz y Caballero said "Columbus gave Europe a New World; Humboldt made it known in its physical, material, intellectual, and moral aspects." The Humboldt Foundation’s original endowment, created by friends and colleagues to continue Humboldt’s own support of young scholars, was lost in the German hyperinflation of the 1920s, and again as a result of World War II, but the German government later re-endowed the institution so it could make awards to young scientists and distinguished senior scientists from abroad. Left: Alexander von Humboldt (Painting by Joseph Stieler).
Teaching Effectiveness Award honorees and those who honored them (left to right, standing in top row): Kim Starr-Reid (assistant director of the GSI Center), Timothy Pepper, Christopher Clark, Jennifer Morazes, Jason Purcell, Zoe Harris, Nicholas Arpaia, and Natalia Cecire; (bottom row, seated) Seemay Chou, Linda von Hoene (director of the GSI Center), Jeff Reimer (chair of the Graduate Council’s Advisory Committee for GSI Affairs), Joe Duggan (Graduate Division associate dean), Sener Akturk. Not pictured: Paul Bruno, Charles Chang, Kathryn Jasper, Shanthi Nataraj, and Ko-Ay Timmy Siauw.
(Photo: Peg Skorpinski)
They were already among the 270-plus grad students honored with the Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award, and as such they were invited to submit essays about teaching problems they encountered and how they solved them.
The 14 new winning Teaching Effectiveness Award essays are posted on the GSI Center website in a treasure-trove archive of inventive teaching tips that stretches back to 1999.
The Graduate Division’s Teaching Effectiveness Awards were presented May 20. The winners, from among recent Outstanding GSI Award recipients, have identified a teaching/learning problem in their own classes, laboratories, and sections, then come up with a method, strategy, or idea to address the problem, implemented it, measured its effectiveness, and described the process in an essay. These essays become part of a permanent archive.
These are the Teaching Effectiveness Award recipients for 2009, listed alphabetically with teaching department and essay title:
Sener Akturk (Political Science) – “Negotiating European Integration Yourself: Role-Playing, Simulations, and Counterfactuals in Teaching Political Science”
Nicholas Arpaia (Molecular and Cell Biology) – “Training ‘Molecular MacGyvers’ Using the Immunologist’s Toolbox”
Paul Bruno (Physics; home department: Education) – “Helping Students Learn (and Effectively Use) What They Already Know”
Natalia Cecire (English) – “Creating a Research Community”
Charles Chang (Linguistics) – “Fun with Phonetics on a Saturday: Bringing Linguistics Up to Date with the Other Sciences”
Seemay Chou (Molecular and Cell Biology) – “Teaching Young Scientists to Speak the Way They Think’”
Christopher Clark (Integrative Biology) – “Improving Biology Papers through Peer Review”
Zoe Harris (Public Health) – “From Theory to Obama: Innovative Teaching Methods to Increase Participation”
Kathryn Jasper (History) – “The Fourth Crusade Charges into the Classroom”
Jennifer Morazes (Social Welfare) – “’Why Don’t They Just Go Get Help Themselves’ --- Illustrating the Challenges of Accessing Social Services”
Shanthi Nataraj (Agricultural and Resource Economics; home department: Economics) – “Applying Economic Concepts to Environmental Problems”
Timothy Pepper (Classics) – “Teaching the Ancient Greek Optative and Subjunctive by Staging Cultural Practice”
Jason Purcell (Political Science) – “Teaching the 3-Speed Class”
Ko-Ay Timmy Siauw (College of Engineering) – “The E7 Robot Tournament”
The 14 new winning Teaching Effectiveness Award essays are posted on the GSI Center website in its treasure-trove archive of inventive teaching tips that stretches back to 1999. Anyone facing a classroom might find something useful there. The essay site has a wide range of visitors, from beginning GSIs to long-term tenured faculty at Berkeley, across the U.S., and elsewhere in the world.
In mid-June, the Graduate Division’s GradLink-on-the-Web (GLOW) project won a somewhat arcane but highly coveted honor, the Larry L. Sautter Award for Innovation in Information Technology. A few definitions are necessary for further understanding.
GLOW, which was initiated in 2006, has streamlined many procedures, eliminating steps that were time-consuming and, as is often the case with manual transfer of information, error-prone. It provides live data, much of which used to be available only in periodic paper reports, viewable on-screen as needed. It speeds and simplifies many complex processes, among them the University Fellowship Competition and the payment of fee remissions to student academic employees.
The way GLOW was built will allow it to change and adapt to new circumstances far more easily than its paper-based predecessor. By moving away from proprietary and toward open source technologies, costs were lowered, and using lean software development principles has made creating new modules for GLOW easier and faster, with far fewer bugs.
"We use an agile, lean approach to develop software and get products out quickly," says Betsy Livak, co-director of Systems and Technology in the Graduate Division. In software-development terms, agility means the ability to accomplish tasks quickly and flexibly. And being lean means looking at processes with a critical eye and eliminating unnecessary steps. Livak contrasts her group's productivity — two to three projects a semester — with that of typical software rollouts that require a year.
GLOW serves the Graduate Division's constituents — more than 10,000 graduate students and 25,000 applicants, as well as faculty and staff in 100-plus graduate programs. User reaction has been largely favorable, exemplified by Niek Veldhuis, associate professor of Near Eastern Studies, who said, "Usually, having to work with a new computerized system spells bad news. Not this time — I found GLOW to be very useful and a big improvement over reading paper files."
Winners: the Graduate Division’s GLOW team with the newly-acquired Sautter Award. Their product helps departments serve grad students faster and better. Seated, from left: Joe Gallo, Benjamin Darmoni, Judy Dobry, Betsy Livak, and Bill Clark; standing: Morgan Milligan, Yehonatan Sella, Dennis Andersen, Moira Pérez, and Andrew Bullen. Dobry and Livak (holding the plaque) are co-directors of the systems and technology unit; Pérez, the Graduate Division’s chief administrative officer, helped secure funding and submitted the award nomination. (Photo: Dick Cortén)
For questions about GLOW, e-mail the Graduate Division Systems and Technology unit gradsys@berkeley.edu.
Susan Desmond-Hellman
As August begins, the University of California, San Francisco — UC’s med-school campus — will have a new chancellor, Susan Desmond-Hellmann, M.D.
She brings outside-world experience to the job along with insider knowledge of the UC system. She spent 14 years as an executive at Genentech, the South San Francisco biotech giant, most recently as president of product development. UC President Mark Yudof characterized her as “an ideal choice,” being “an accomplished clinician, researcher, and manager” who also “did her internal medicine and oncology training at UCSF.” One of Fortune magazine’s “Top 50 Most Powerful Women in Business” in 2001, she received her master’s degree in public health at Berkeley in 1988.
Graduate Dean Andrew Szeri has been chosen as the incoming chair of the Graduate Record Examination board, which oversees GRE tests, services, and research in order to make the GRE as useful as possible to students, institutions, and higher education. The GRE is a program of the nonprofit Educational Testing Service, the world’s largest private educational testing and measurement organization. Szeri, a professor of mechanical engineering who has taught at Berkeley since 1991, was also elected this year as a fellow of the American Acoustical Society. His major research interests included fluid dynamics and applied mathematics, and extend to ultrasound in medicine and shockwave lithotripsy, a non-invasive treatment using an externally-applied, focused, high-intensity acoustic pulse.
The San Francisco Chronicle won a passel of honors in a recent Excellence in Print Journalism competition held by the East Bay Press Club, including five to reporter Charles Burress, three of them first-place. Burress earned his master’s degree in journalism here in 1995.
Chenming Hu
(Photo: Peg Skorpinski)
The IEEE’s Jun-Ichi
Nishizawa Medal
Chenming Hu, a professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences here who received both his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Berkeley (in ’70 and ’73 respectively), has been honored by the 85,000-member Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) with the 2009 Jun-Ichi Nishizawa Medal (named for the "Father of Japanese Microelectronics”).
The medal — sponsored by Japan’s Federation of Electric Power Companies and the Semiconductor Research Foundation — recognizes Hu for technical contributions to MOS device reliability, scaling of CMOS, and compact device modeling. MOS reliability and device modeling has had enormous impact on the continued scaling of electronic devices, enabling smaller yet more functional and higher-performance integrated circuits.
Hu has received other honors from the IEEE, including its 2002 Solid State Circuits Award, for his work on the BSIM transistor. (BSIM stands for Berkeley Short-channel IGFET Model.) BSIM is now an industry standard for simulation of integrated circuits, and is used in the design of most products in that industry.
Hu has taught at Berkeley since 1976. He is currently the TSMC Distinguished Professor of Microelectronics in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences.
This student-created six-bed vegetable plot between Memorial Glade and Evans Hall was planted to be extra-green and educational during Berkeley’s weeklong celebration of Earth Day in April. It served that function, and, like all good gardens,kept on giving — edibles themselves and an object lesson for sustainable food production and healthy eating. The core group of gardeners needs volunteers to help tend the garden over the summer.
The story of its launch (Photo: Dick Corten)
Graduate Division Calendar
Campus Events Calendar
Denotes Graduate Division sponsored event
July 2 (Thursday)
Workshop: Applying for a Fulbright-IIE Grant
1 to 3 p.m., 370 Dwinelle Hall
This workshop will provide an introduction to the application process for the Fulbright-IIE grant. Students are encouraged to bring their own copies of the Fulbright application and booklet to the workshop. The Fulbright program adviser from the Graduate Fellowships Office and the Graduate Division’s director of academic services will be on hand to answer questions. Online preregistration for the workshop is required. For more information about the Fulbright Program, check the Fulbright website. For more information about the UC Berkeley Fulbright application process, contact Gina Farales, UC Berkeley Fulbright program adviser, by phone at (510) 642-7739 or by e-mail. The workshop is wheelchair accessible. For disability-related accommodations, please call (510) 642-7739, ten days in advance. The Fulbright-IIE U.S. Student Program is administered through the Institute of International Education in New York City.
July 19 (Sunday)
AIDS Walk San Francisco: Join the Cal team
Last year the Cal team raised over $43,000 and was in the “top 20.” The funds provide important support to over 60 HIV/AIDS organizations in six Bay Area counties. Register online and read the inspiring “Why I Walk” stories. Join the UC Berkeley team (#0087) as a walker or a sponsor. For more information, contact Karen Hughes, 2009 team co-captain, by phone (643-9073) or email.
August 18 (Tuesday)
New International Graduate Student Orientation
International House Auditorium
More information is available online
August 19 (Wednesday)
New International Student Resource Fair
International House Auditorium
More information is available online
August 20 and 21 (Thursday and Friday)
Fall 2009 Teaching Conference for GSIs
Presented by the Graduate Division’s GSI Teaching and Resource Center, this is a campuswide teaching conference to prepare new GSIs for teaching. All GSIs teaching for the first time at Berkeley are required to attend.
The first day (Thursday) is for international GSIs and addresses teaching in the U.S. classroom. It takes place in Dwinelle Hall from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. The event includes a plenary session and workshop on several topics.
The second day (Friday) consists of intensive teaching preparation for all new GSIs, international and domestic. The site is Wheeler Hall, from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. The event includes a plenary session and discipline-cluster workshops.
Preregistration is required via the GSI Center website.
August 24 (Monday)
Orientation for New Graduates
12:30 to 5 p.m., Pauley Ballroom and other rooms in Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union
All new graduate students are invited to attend. Registration starts at noon. A plenary session is followed by breakout sessions (by discipline, in separate rooms in the student union). All new graduate students will receive information on many aspects of the graduate student experience — coping with heavy workloads,
making good use of free time, negotiating the financial aid process, and getting help with personal challenges. Co-sponsored by the Graduate Assembly and the Graduate Division.
More information via email or on the Graduate Assembly website.
August 24 (Monday)
Dean’s Reception for New Graduate Students
5 to 7 p.m. Pauley Ballroom, Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union. This event immediately follows the Orientation for New Graduate Students. All new graduate students are invited to attend.
Graduate Dean Andrew Szeri (white shirt and blue tie, in left photo) and Associate Dean Susan Muller (black shirt, in right photo) greeted students at the 2008 Dean’s Reception. (Photos: Peg Skorpinski)
August 25 (Tuesday)
New Graduate Minority Student Orientation
Time and place to be announced. An orientation for all focusing on issues facing underrepresented students. Duration: approximately one-half day.
More information via email or on the Graduate Assembly website.
Top
Left: Sather Tower, June, 2009. (Photo: Dick Cortén)
Right: Cambodia’s Angkor Wat temple in 2004. (Photo: Andrew Lih)
It’s not permanent, but Berkeley’s Sather Tower, better known as the Campanile, has acquired an unexpected resemblance to a Southeast Asian temple. Some have called it a pagoda look, but it seems closer to Cambodia’s venerable Angkor Wat.
Built in the 12th century, Angkor Wat is now the epitome of high-classical Khmer architecture. The huge sandstone structure was at the center of what may have been the largest preindustrial city in the world — the seat of the Khmer empire, an urban sprawl of more than 3,000 square kilometers with a population of perhaps one million people. Abandoned in the 15th century, Angkor Wat remained cloaked by thick forest until archaeologists began restoration work in the 19th century; a French explorer of that time called it “grander than anything left to us by Greece or Rome.” It has been depicted on every Cambodian flag since 1863.
Designed by John Galen Howard, foremost architect of the Berkeley campus, and the better part of a millennium younger than Angkor Wat, the Campanile was completed in 1914. At 307 feet high, it’s the third-tallest bell-and-clock-tower in the world, and is UC Berkeley’s most recognizable symbol. It has 13 floors (the observation deck, with its 61-bell carillon, is at level eight, 200 feet up).
The appearance of a very tall crane alongside the tower in late May signaled the start of some much-needed repair to the structure’s tapering spire. According to plan, the roof work should be done before the fall semester begins in August, and the stepped scaffolding will be gone. The result will be noticeable in color if not detail, even at a distance. The light greenish tint many thought to be an oxidized copper roof was actually a relatively even coat of staining by metal leached in rainwater washing down from the light housing at the very top The roof is actually marble. The facing of the rest of the structure (over the steel frame and reinforced concrete) is light gray granite from the Sierra foothills.
TopeGrad is produced by Graduate Communications & Events, distributed by email, & archived online. Graduate students, alumni, faculty, and staff are invited to send timely news and announcements of interest to or utility of graduate students and the graduate community.
Please submit items to Dick Cortén, editor, at gradpub@berkeley.edu.