The Berkeley Engineering Design Scholar Program is a 10-week summer research program open to all undergraduates in the College of Engineering or with relevant experience in design innovation. The Scholars actively contribute to the growing design ecosystem at UC Berkeley—participating in seminars, workshops, and special events with members of the design community, including their cohort of fellow undergraduate Design Scholars, graduate students, and faculty. In addition, they learn and practice critical skills of making through the Maker Pass program. Scholars also receive a $5000 stipend. The per week commitment will fluctuate, but students should prepare to be able to commit at least 20 hours/week towards research.
During the program, each Scholar is matched with a faculty advisor based on their interests, and conducts faculty-guided research in areas such as Engineering Design, Design Methodology, Human Computer Interaction, and Data-driven Design. If there is mutual interest from both the Scholar and faculty advisor, they may have the option of continuing their research beyond the summer.
The program is led by Professor Kosa Goucher-Lambert (Mechanical Engineering), with additional mentorship and project supervision from Professor Bjoern Hartmann (Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences), Professor Hannah Stuart (Mechanical Engineering), Professor Sarah Chasins (Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences), Professor Eric Paulos (Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences), and other UC Berkeley faculty.
The Berkeley Engineering Design Scholar Program will be run as a remote experience in summer 2021, starting on June 7th and ending on August 13th.
All program activities, including research, mentor meetings, cohort seminars, and prototyping & fabrication will be conducted remotely. In lieu of direct access to the makerspace, which is currently unavailable, Scholars will receive priority access to the Jacobs Project Support program.
The application for the summer 2021 cohort is now closed. Applicants will be notified about selection results by the end of March. To get notifications about future application cycles of the program, please sign up for an email alert.
The program is open to all continuing Berkeley undergraduate students in the College of Engineering (COE). Students outside of COE with a track record of experience in design (e.g., Design Innovation courses at Jacobs) will also be considered. Student veterans, persons with disabilities, women, transfer students, and students of color are especially encouraged to apply. Participants must be matriculated Berkeley students at the time of the program.
Applicants should demonstrate their broad range of applicable skills, desire to learn about cutting-edge research in engineering design, and commitment to advancing equity and inclusion in the Berkeley engineering design community. Ideal candidates will have experience and/or interest in human centered design, qualitative data collection and analysis, electro-mechanical-software prototyping, and data science topics applied to design.
To learn more about the program, please contact Amy Dinh (amydinh@berkeley.edu).
You can also sign up for an email alert to receive updates about the Berkeley Engineering Design Scholar Program.
Despite unexpected challenges from COVID-19, the Berkeley Engineering Design Scholar Program successfully launched in summer 2020 as a fully remote experience, with eight inaugural Design Scholars. Meet the Scholars and learn about their research projects below.
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Juan Carrillo Major/Class Year: Mechanical Engineering 2021 Project: Lucid Fabrication: Voice Controlled Six Axis Robotic Arm Faculty Advisor: Eric Paulos |
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Ashlyn D’Orazio Major/Class Year: Bioengineering 2021 Project: Assistive Hand Exoskeleton Faculty Advisor: Hannah Stuart |
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Michelle Gantos Major/Class Year: Mechanical Engineering 2022 Project: CollageCAD Faculty Advisor: Eric Paulos |
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Rafi Hanafiah Major/Class Year: Mechanical Engineering 2021 Project: The Search for an Intelligent Design Assistant Faculty Advisor: Kosa Goucher-Lambert |
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Amy Jiang Major/Class Year: Mechanical Engineering 2022 Project: Pervasive Game Design to Motivate Sustainable Energy Consumption Faculty Advisor: Kosa Goucher-Lambert |
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Erin Kraemer Major/Class Year: Computer Science 2021 Project: VehiCal – Modeling Driver Interaction in Semi-Autonomous Vehicles Faculty Advisor: Bjoern Hartmann |
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Omotara Oloye Major/Class Year: Computer Science 2021 Project: AuthorIVE – Authoring Interactions for Virtual Environments through Disambiguating Demonstrations Faculty Advisor: Bjoern Hartmann |
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Natalia Perez Major/Class Year: Mechanical Engineering 2020 Project: Firefighting Robot Faculty Advisor: Hannah Stuart |