the Ontogen Medtech Biomedical Innovation Scholarship is intended to support promising biomedical engineering students who are passionate about building real-world medical devices and contributing to patient impact—especially students pursuing hands-on product development, manufacturing, and commercialization pathways. Applications due August 31

We are very proud to announce that fifteen Berkeley Bioengineers are receiving NSF Graduate Research Fellowships this year – one of the most competitive and prestigious awards for early-career PhD students. Congratulations to graduating seniors Esha Ananth, Emilie Petit and Christopher Zavala; recent BS alumni Sina Ghandian ’21, Pamela Herrera ’25, Cassandra Reyes ’24, Hanen…

PhD student James Pai, a member of Iain Clark's lab, is one of only 30 outstanding graduate students in the US who received a 2026 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans. The Soros Fellowship is a highly competitive award for immigrants and children of immigrants who are poised to make significant contributions to American society.

Professor Michael Yartsev has been named to the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation’s 101st Class of Fellows for his trailblazing work in neuroscience and neuroengineering. One of the country's most prestigious awards, fellowships are given to innovators in a wide range of disciplines with a monetary stipend allowing them to pursue independent work at the highest level under “the freest possible conditions.”

The photograph on the April 2 cover of Science magazine features an image of an octopus mating captured by the late Roy Caldwell, professor emeritus of integrative biology at the University of California (UC), Berkeley. Read the tribute to Professor Caldwell in Science, contributed by Robert Full, Eileen A. Lacey, Tony Morelli, and Michael Caldwell. 

UC Berkeley News: One-of-a-kind experiment tracked plant evolution in response to climate change at 30 sites worldwide: Moisés Expósito-Alonso with the two lead authors of the new study, Tatiana Bellagio and Xing Wu (holding a tray of Arabidopsis seedlings).

UC Berkeley News: Sunbirds suck, scientists find. Hummingbirds don't: “It’s just a really amazing example of the power and beauty of convergent evolution, where in nature we have two organisms filling the same ecological role, but when you look in detail, they’re achieving that outcome in two completely different ways,” said Rauri Bowie, UC Berkeley professor of integrative biology and a study author.

Congratulations to all of our 2026 Grad Slam finalists! Nadja Michelle Maldonada Luna took 3rd place at UCSF on April 7, and Kavita Parekh and Grace Hu competed at Berkeley on April 8, with Kavita winning the People’s Choice prize. Amazing work showcasing a passion for their research!

Congratulations to Bioengineering Department Manager Janna Conway-Hamilton, recipient of a 2026 UC Berkeley Excellence in Management Award. This year’s theme, “Leading Through Uncertainty: Vision, Resilience, and Mission-Driven Leadership,” highlights managers who foster environments of steadiness and courage. Congratulations Janna!

Maro, Corl and Dudley published a paper in the journal Royal Society Open Science, coauthored with their Berkeley colleagues, Rauri Bowie and Jimmy McGuire, both professors of integrative biology and curators in the campus’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. Check it out on UC Berkeley News.

Sarahi Arriaga Ramirez is an associate specialist at the Ornithopterus Organismal Dynamics Lab in IB. In collaboration with the Morphing Matter Lab, Arriaga Ramirez led a study on phantom crane flies and robotics that was recently featured in Science News. She presented her findings at the Global Physics Summit in Denver on March 17.

Congratulations to Professor Steve Conolly for his well-deserved receipt of the 2026 Carol D. Soc Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award at UC Berkeley. This award recognizes his many years of work as Head Graduate Advisor for the UC Berkeley - UCSF Graduate Program in Bioengineering, where he has advised literally hundreds of students with a sympathetic ear, constructive criticism/feedback, and sound advice rooted in many years of experience. Professor Conolly is trusted, candid, and cares deeply about our graduate students.

Recent research from Professor Derfogail Delcassian's lab explores how the stiffness of swollen lymph nodes increases the strength, but decreases the precision, of cancer-killing immune cells.

IB PhD candidate, Aleksey Maro, used novel urine analysis to prove wild chimps ingest significant ethanol.

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Dr. Moisés Expósito-Alonso, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Freeman Hrabowski Scholar and Assistant Professor, wins the Genetics Society of America Early Career Medal for outstanding contributions to the field of genetics.

Professor Phil Messersmith explained all about adhesives on the family science podcast, Brains On!

Congratulations to bioengineering MEng alumna Brontë Kolar, named to the 2026 Forbes 30 Under 30! Kolar co-founded Zeon Systems, a company using natural language AI with intelligent robots to automate repetitive and time-consuming lab work.

A research project on "the protein code of brain aging: from molecules to mechanisms," by Professor Amy Herr has been selected for a Weill Neurohub Investigator Award. The Investigators program funds top faculty to form cross-campus, interdisciplinary teams to explore, create, and test bold new concepts and technologies.

Congratulations to Monica Albe on winning the 2025 Excellence in Advising and Student Services Award!