Matias Tarnopolsky is new director of Cal Performances

CAPTION: Matías Tarnopolsky, formerly with the New York Philharmonic and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, has been named the new director of Cal Performances.

Credit: Kat Wade

Top graduating senior, Emma Shaw Crane, is an intellectual superstar

CAPTION: Emma Shaw Crane is the winner of UC Berkeley's 2009 University Medal. As the campus's top graduating senior, she will speak at Commencement Convocation and receive a $2,500 scholarship. Her major is Interdisciplinary Studies and her minor is Global Poverty & Practice.

Credit: Peg Skorpinski

Neil Henry named dean of Graduate School of Journalism

CAPTION: Award-winning journalist, author and professor Neil Henry is the new dean of the University of California, Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism.

Credit: UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism

Jennifer Wolch named new dean of UC Berkeley's College of Environmental Design

CAPTION: Jennifer Wolch, incoming dean of UC Berkeley's College of Environmental Design, will take the helm at CED on July 1. Wolch comes from the University of Southern California, where she was a professor of geography and urban planning and director of the Center for Sustainable Cities.

Credit: Courtesy of UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design

Al Gore to speak at groundbreaking of new Blum poverty studies building

CAPTION: Artist's rendering of planned renovations to the Naval Architecture Building (right), which will house the Blum Center for Developing Economies and College of Engineering faculty. The rendering includes a new wing (left), and plazas and raised connectors that will link the complex to other buildings on campus. Launched in 2006, the Blum Center is a multi-disciplinary initiative established to combat global poverty.

Credit: UC Berkeley Capital Projects

Economist James L. Pierce, authority on banking and monetary policy, dies

CAPTION: James L. Pierce, a professor emeritus of economics at UC Berkeley and an authority on banking and monetary policy.

Credit: Jon Pierce

John Whinnery, University Professor Emeritus and distinguished innovator in electromagnetism, dies at 92

CAPTION: John Roy Whinnery, former dean of engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and a distinguished innovator in the field of electromagnetism and communication electronics.

Credit: Peg Skorpinski

Barack Obama names Christina Romer, economics professor and monetary policy expert, as top U.S. economist

CAPTION: Christina Romer

Credit: Peg Skorpinski

UC Berkeley and Nokia turn mobile phones into traffic probes with launch of pilot traffic-monitoring software

CAPTION: A GPS-enabled cellphone displays real-time traffic information using software being tested by UC Berkeley and Nokia researchers.

Credit: Peg Skorpinski

CAPTION: Lisa Alvarez-Cohen (right), professor of civil and environmental engineering at UC Berkeley, is among the first early adopters to download the pilot traffic software, with assistance from visiting graduate student Aude Hofleitner.

Credit: Peg Skorpinski

CAPTION: Adib Kanafani (left), UC Berkeley professor of civil and environmental engineering, observes his new traffic-information software with Rick Warner (center) of Parking Carma and Randell Iwasaki, chief deputy director of Caltrans.

Credit: Peg Skorpinski

Denser computer chips possible with plasmonic lenses that 'fly'

CAPTION: In this schematic of plasmonic lithography, the plasmonic flying head produces nanoscale patterns onto the spinning disk covered with photo sensitive chemicals. Ultraviolet light is delivered through the flying head onto the plasmonic lenses, which are used as optical styluses in this process. The setup resembles a stylus playing a record on traditional LP turntables.

Credit: Liang Pan and Cheng Sun, UC Berkeley

CAPTION: In this scanning electron image of a 4-by-4 array of plasmonic lenses, each lens is 4 micrometers in diameter and can be used as an optical stylus in the pattern writing process.

Credit: Courtesy of Xiang Zhang Lab, UC Berkeley

PACE studies offer recommendations for California schools

CAPTION: This chart shows the differential rates at which groups of students are chosen to participate in the Gifted and Talented Education program. It indicates that white and Asian students are overrepresented by as much as 100 percent relative to their representation in the population.

Credit: Policy Analysis for California Education

Sharper Jupiter images from next-generation adaptive optics

CAPTION: This false color image of Jupiter combines a series of images taken over 20 minutes on Aug. 17 by the Multi- Conjugate Adaptive Optics Demonstrator (MAD) prototype instrument mounted on ESO's Very Large Telescope. The image sharpening corresponds to seeing details about 300 kilometers wide on the surface of the giant planet. The observations were done at infrared wavelengths where absorption due to hydrogen and methane is strong. This absorption means that light can be reflected back only from high-altitude hazes, and not from deeper clouds. These hazes lie in the very stable upper part of Jupiter's troposphere, where pressures are between 0.15 and 0.3 bar. Mixing is weak within this stable region, so tiny haze particles can survive for days to years, depending on their size and fall speed. Additionally, near the planet's poles, a higher stratospheric haze (light blue regions) is generated by interactions with particles trapped in Jupiter's intense magnetic field.

Credit: ESO/F. Marchis, M. Wong, E. Marchetti, P. Amico, S. Tordo

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CAPTION: UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau

Credit: John Blaustein photo

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CAPTION: UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau

Credit: John Blaustein photo

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CAPTION: UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau

Credit: John Blaustein photo

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CAPTION: UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau and his wife, Mary Catherine Birgeneau

Credit: John Blaustein photo