Class of 2016: First Cohort of Development Engineers
In May 2016, the 1st Cohort of Development Engineering PhD Students graduated. Launched in 2014, the Designated Emphasis in Development Engineering trains UC Berkeley graduate students who aim to use technology to address the needs of people living in poverty. The program’ s coursework prepares students in engineering, business, and the social sciences to create, pilot, and evaluate technological interventions and solutions for low-resource settings. The program is the first of its kind in the country.
Dr. Jessica Vechakul, PhD in Mechanical Engineering
Department: Mechanical Engineering Advisor: Alice Agogino, Mechanical Engineering Research Interests: Human-Center Designed approaches to product design, technology for development Dissertation Title: Human-Centered Design for Social Impact: Case Studies of IDEO. org and the International Development Design Summit
Dr. Daniel Wilson, PhD in Mechanical Engineering
Department: Mechanical Engineering Advisor: Ashok Gadgil, Civil and Environmental Engineering Research Interests: Cookstoves, biomass combustion, and tropospheric black carbon soot Dissertation Title: Quantifying the Crisis of Cooking: Next-Generation Monitoring and Evaluation of a Global Health and Environmental Disaster Where He’ s Headed Next: He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory focusing on scaling up several hardware and software products for monitoring technology adoption.
Dr. Ajay Pillarisetti, PhD in Environmental Health Sciences
Department: Environmental Health Sciences( School of Public Health) Advisor: Professor Kirk R. Smith, Global Environmental Health, Household Energy, Climate, and Health Research Group Research Interests: Household energy use in developing countries, technology adoption, impact assessment Dissertation Title: Inspecting What You Expect: Applying modern tools and techniques to evaluate the effectiveness of household energy interventions Where He’ s Headed Next: Ajay is currently a post-doctoral researcher with the Household Energy, Climate, and Health Research Group with a focus on two projects in India-- one measuring and modeling the impact of household sources on ambient air quality and a second evaluating novel ways to drive clean cooking adoption.
Dr. Angeli Kirk, PhD in Agricultural and Resource Economics
Department: Agricultural and Resource Economics Advisor: Elisabeth Sadoulet, Agricultural and Resources Economics Research Interests: Development microeconomics, specifically in technology adoption, agriculture, gender, nutrition / health investments, and time preferences Dissertation Title: Health, Human Capital, and Behavior Change: Essays in Development Microeconomics Where She’ s Headed Next: Angeli recently started working as a Staff Economist at Premise Data, a mobile data and analytics platform bringing visibility to the world’ s hardest-to-see places.
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