ITS Professors Win CITRIS Seed Funding Awards

April 25, 2019

Congratulations to Civil and Environmental Engineering Assistant Professor Scott Moura and Chancellor’s Professor Kenichi Soga and NEC Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Ruzena Bajcsy for winning CITRIS seed funding awards.

Moura, Soga and Bajcsy are principal investigators on three separate collaborative teams, of which 10 were chosen, for a one-time award of up to $60,000 each for interdisciplinary work that can lead to larger research programs and extramural grant proposals by the signature seed funding program of the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society(CITRIS) and the Banatao Institute.

Sustainable Infrastructures: Multi-hazard risk analysis to inform distribution grid upgrades for reliability and resilience

Researchers will develop probabilistic methods for modeling regional power distribution networks exposed to different types of natural hazards. The principal investigators are Yu Zhang at UC Santa Cruz and Scott Moura at UC Berkeley.

People And Robots: Soft robotic, autonomous and intelligent wireless router

This project aims to demonstrate an intelligent system that can move autonomously, interact with, learn from, and adapt to its environment for optimal and robust functionality and survivability. The principal investigators are Michael Wehner at UC Santa Cruz, Ruzena Bajcsy at UC Berkeley, and Linda Katehi at UC Davis.

Cognition to action in extreme events: policy interventions for disaster risk reduction

Researchers will use rapid prototyping to explore how to make city-scale transportation models, visualizations, and communication strategies effective and responsive to community needs when constituents must make life-altering decisions. Principal Investigators are Thomas Maiorana (UC Davis), Kenichi Soga (UC Berkeley).

CITRIS and the Banatao Institute create information technology solutions for society’s most pressing challenges. Established in 2001, the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) leverages the interdisciplinary research strengths of multiple UC campuses to advance the University of California’s mission and the innovative spirit of California. The institute was created to shorten the pipeline between world-class laboratory research and the development of cutting-edge applications, platforms, companies, and even new industries.