Alumni News

John Markels announced as new College of Chemistry Advisory Board Chair

January 22, 2021

John Markels

John Markels, President of Vaccines, Merck (photo courtesy of Merck).

The College is delighted to announce that John Markels (Ph.D. '93, ChemE), President of Vaccines at Merck, will be our next...

UC Berkeley grad takes a closer look at nuclear forensics chemistry

January 14, 2021

In 2017, radiochemistry graduate student Mark Straub left the comfortable academic environs of UC Berkeley and moved to the middle of New Mexico, where he spent his summer working full time at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), the birthplace of the Manhattan Project. There, Mark teamed up with LANL scientists ...

UC Berkeley-led university alliance formed to increase STEM diversity in academia

November 2, 2020

Attendees of the 2018 UC Berkeley led Research Alliance conference

Attendees at the California Alliance AGEP Research Conference and Annual Retreat, UC Berkeley 2018. (photo: Research Alliance)

The Research University Alliance, or RUA,...

Alumna Carol Burns receives Garvan-Olin Medal

September 3, 2020

Carol Burns, alumna, Los Alamos Lab

(Photo: Los Alamos Lab)

Carol Burns (Ph.D. '87, Chem) executive officer for the Deputy Director for Science, Technology & Engineering at Los Alamos National Laboratory, was selected as the recipient of the 2021 American Chemical Society’s (ACS) Francis P. Garvan‒John M. Olin Medal. This national award recognizes...

Scientists discover new clue behind age-related diseases and food spoilage

February 26, 2020

criegee intermediate research

Scientists in the lab of Kevin Wilson (Ph.D. '03, Chem), at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have made a surprising discovery that could help explain our risk for developing chronic diseases or cancers as we get older, and how our food decomposes over time. What’s more, their findings, which were reported recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), point to an unexpected link between the ozone chemistry in our atmosphere and our cells’ hardwired ability to ward off disease.

Learn about food packaging from this green chemist

February 26, 2020

martin mulvihill

Wondering which plastic containers to avoid and which are safe to eat from? How to learn about chemicals in food packaging? Or how to make sure you are buying BPA-free foods? Foodprint recently held a Twitter chat with Dr. Martin Mulvihill (Ph.D. ’09, Chem), researcher and advisor at the Berkeley Center for Green Chemistry and general partner with Safer Made, a mission-driven venture capital fund that invests in companies that remove or reduce the use of harmful chemicals in products and manufacturing processes and asked that very question.

Meet alumna Yao Yue Lao

February 19, 2020

Yao Yue Lao

In honor of Engineers Week, Aerospace Corporation is spotlighting a few of our many great engineers and getting a peek at the exciting projects that they’re focused on. Find out about Yao (B.S. '08, Chem) wound up at the Aerospace Corporation doing exciting work in photovoltaic characterization and solar array modeling.

David Altman: Alumnus and Bay Area rocket scientist turns 100

February 12, 2020

David Altman

On the brink of his 100th trip around the sun, the secret to David Altman’s (Ph.D. '43, Chem) long and illustrious life isn’t rocket science. At least, not entirely. It’s a strategy that seems to have worked well for Altman, who will officially become a centenarian on Thursday. His dizzying number of accomplishments in rocket science — papers written, patents held, awards won — seem to indicate that not a moment was wasted in all of his one hundred years.

Forbes 30 under 30 in Science: Joaquin Resasco

December 7, 2019

Joaquin Resasco

Alum Joaquin Resasco (Ph.D. '17, ChemE) has been named one of "Forbes 30 under 30 in Science" for 2020! Resasco has been reconginzed for his work aimed around shifting the decades-old paradigm of using petroleum for chemical energy into one that uses water and the atmosphere as stock for commodities, powered by renewable energy. To that end, he’s focused on designing catalysts that can be used for the sustainable production of essential chemicals and polymers.

Alphabet Appoints Nobel Laureate Frances Arnold to its Board of Directors

December 10, 2019

Frances Arnold joins the Board of Alphabet

Alphabet Inc. has announced the appointment of Frances Arnold (Ph.D. '85, ChemE) to its Board of Directors. Ms. Arnold is the Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry and the Director of the Donna and Benjamin M. Rosen Bioengineering Center at the California Institute of Technology. A renowned innovator, she is also a celebrated leader in science having won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2018. Her appointment is effective immediately and she will serve on Alphabet’s Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee.