University Of California Berkeley Alumni

"On the contrary, these collaborations serve as an important channel for sharing US culture and values, especially when rooted in academic research and education. They also help build strong relationships between the US and the UAE where we’ve received enthusiastic support from many US diplomats, government officials, and legislators for the work we are doing."

"Real cognitive science, however, is necessarily based on experimental investigation of actual humans or animals. We will leave that for other books, as we assume the reader has only a computer for experimentation.”"

"What we need is not paranoia, but a well-policed and secure arena for international collaboration. This means clear guidelines for research partnerships, robust safeguards against unauthorized technology transfer, and a culture of transparency and ethical conduct in AI research."

"Many of the affiliations and co-appearances with people of Chinese background during our professional activities, as cited in research papers or advisory capacities—like mine or those of scholars from Oxford and MIT—are standard among top global academics."

"To clarify: I suggested that the way we use computers had changed so much, as had our knowledge of human cognition, that Turing himself might ask a different question now. My new question is rooted in our now knowing that collaboration is essential to intelligent behavior and seems to play a fundamental role in the ways infants learn. Can we design systems that behave so well that they pass for human? One big challenge, which my team is addressing in our research, is getting delegation to work well. Delegation of particular responsibilities to different team members is a hallmark of teamwork. To make teamwork work (or as we might say in computer science, to make it tractable), team members have to share information but not overwhelm each other with too much information. An enormous challenge for systems is to be able to determine what information to share with whom when."

"For example, I’m making dinner with Bobby and Susie. Susie is assigned appetizers, Bobby is assigned the main dish and I’m assigned dessert. I don’t ask Bobby how he is making the main course because if he has to tell me everything he’s doing, it’s a huge cognitive load. That said, it’s still crucial to know certain things, such as if we both need the same pan."

"Right. We’re working with a pediatrician at Stanford University Hospital whose patients have complex diseases, many of them seeing 10 to 15 doctors. The cognitive load for coordinating care among 15 people (turning the group into a real team) is enormous — no care giver needs to see everything everyone else is doing but they may need to know something about each other’s work. A key question is when one member of the team learns something new about a patient, who should get that information and when? Our goal is to build the foundations for smart computer care coordination systems to help. To do that, we need to figure how to effectively compute the information to be shared in the absence of detailed models of how people are carrying out their responsibilities. If we do this, we’ll also know how to build computer agents that are good teammates."

"When I was working on speech understanding systems at SRI in the 1970s, other research team members were responsible for syntax and grammar — determining the structure and building a computer representation of the meaning of an individual sentence. Everyone involved in early speech understanding systems knew that wasn’t enough. When people talk, the context matters. They use pronouns and definite descriptions. They depend on each other to interpret those imprecise expressions appropriately in context. For example, depending on the setting, “the cup” might mean my coffee cup or the cup you received as a gift. We knew that if we were going to have a system that could carry on a dialogue and be able to handle the way people actually spoke, we needed to have a computational model of dialogue that could track context. Many researchers thought if they sat in a chair and thought really hard, they could figure it out. I expected that wouldn’t work and devised a way to capture dialogue about the same topic from many different pairs of people. This was actually the first “Wizard of Oz” experiment in dialogue systems, though that name came later. I placed two people in separate rooms and had one give the other instructions in how to put together a piece of equipment — an air compressor. My analysis of the way they talked led to the first computational model of discourse."

"These systems are major accomplishments, but they don’t come close to human dialogue capabilities. When Siri first came out people said to me, ‘you have nothing left to do, right?’ So, I borrowed a phone with Siri and it took me two questions to break the system. I asked, “Where are the nearest gas stations,” and then I asked, “Which ones are open?” It replied, “Would you like me to search the web for ‘which ones are open?’” It had no context, no discourse. Siri has improved since then, but it’s still pretty easy to break the system with a question that depends on dialogue context. No current system is thinking to the extent Turing imagined computers might be by now."

"If you’re going to build agents that interact with people, you have to think about people’s cognition and the ways they behave. That doesn’t necessarily mean you have to do cognitive modeling — although that is an interesting approach — but you do need to care about how people process information and communicate."

"One of the things I want students to learn is the importance of designing artifacts for the people who will use them. A computer system should make us feel smarter, not dumber and work seamlessly with us, like a human partner. I tell students to look for limitations and cracks in a system and think about the unintended consequences of those limitations. If you’re only focused on what you’re building, you’re blind to what a system may do that you hadn’t thought about."

"The fear of AI systems running amok or taking over the world is greatly exaggerated. Some of the predictions are based on lack of understanding of the current state of AI (or even of what’s actually computable). Also, it’s important not to lose sight of who’s in charge: people design AI systems, and they can design any number of plugs to pull. If we design systems to work with people — which has always been my goal — then the probability of them running amok is greatly lowered."

"Even so, as the people who develop these systems, AI scientists and practitioners need to take responsibility for the uses to which AI capabilities are put. We should be clear about the limitations of the technology. Should we think – and talk – about negative or potential unintended consequences? Absolutely! Are these concerns reasons not to develop systems that are smart? Absolutely not."

"Right now, we have three priorities. First is to recapture the annual meeting’s reputation as a must-attend event. Second is to expand our visibility and membership, especially among young investigators. Third is to restore the prominence and stature of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, where we’ve been fortunate to appoint Lila Gierasch as editor-in-chief and Fred Guengerich as deputy editor."

"I attended the ASBMB annual meeting during my graduate studies, and it was at this meeting that I gave my first public research talk and got to meet the leaders in enzymology. That was a spectacular experience. When at the end of my first postdoc I had no way to pay for an accepted manuscript, the Journal of Biological Chemistry generously waived page charges, allowing me to publish. Since then, I’ve helped organize symposia at the annual meeting and served on the ASBMB Council. It was the support by the ASBMB during the crucial early years of my career that engendered my long-lasting love for this society."

"I try to be involved in every aspect of my lab, but I let my students and postdocs — currently eight in all — work independently enough to discover their strengths, while following behind to support them. That’s not too different from the way I view leadership elsewhere, where my instinct is to try to solve the most important problems and avoid fixing what’s not broken."

"I’m not a flashy or provocative person, although I am unafraid of taking a stand when it’s important. As president, I plan to focus on gaps and weaknesses at the ASBMB and the detailed steps needed to address them."

"The ASBMB has profoundly influenced discovery, and the importance of BMB in our current era is growing, not shrinking. This is obvious just by looking at the approximately one-third of human open reading frames and majority of noncoding RNAs whose functions are unknown and the overwhelming numbers of new regulatory connections generated from large-scale studies. Our discipline is the cornerstone of what’s needed to discover the functions of new molecules and mechanisms underlying their connectios."

"I still work on MAP kinase and other signaling pathways. When I started at the University of Colorado, I began applying the new technology of protein mass spectrometry to address questions in signaling. This was done in collaboration with my late partner, Katheryn Resing. My lab’s applications of proteomics to signal transduction have led to broad discoveries, ranging from new mechanisms for cell regulation to mechanisms for allosteric control of MAP kinases."

"I grew up on U.S. military bases in Korea and Japan. My father emigrated from Korea and worked at the U.S. embassies in Seoul and Tokyo. My mother was a finance clerk at the embassy. I have one brother who’s an engineer and builds airplanes."

"I was always interested in science. When John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth, I remember riding my tricycle and thinking that I too wanted to be an astronaut. Later, when I became an assistant professor at the University of Colorado, three of my first lab members had segued into biochemistry after first starting in aerospace engineering. So I appreciate how NASA and other big-science efforts promote science by inspiring kids."

"After finishing a high school degree overseas, I majored in chemistry at the University of Washington in Seattle and did undergraduate research in X-ray crystallography with the late Lyle Jensen and protein hydrodynamics with David Teller. I obtained my Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, where I studied enzymology with Judith Klinman. Judith is an incredibly deep thinker as well as a generous and courageous individual who continues to be one of my greatest inspirations."

"My first postdoctoral job was with Christoph de Haën at the University of Washington, where I studied hormone receptor binding. Christoph was unable to renew his funding and had to close his lab, and that’s how I learned about the importance of grants! He ended up great anyway, eventually becoming director of preclinical research at Bracco and director of the Milano Research Center. I then moved to the lab of the late Edwin Krebs for a second postdoc, where I was among the first to describe MAP kinases and MAP kinase kinases. That started my career in signal transduction."

"Women are door-mats and have been,— The years those mats applaud,— They keep their men from going in With muddy feet to God."

"Lesbian images and language, especially the images and language of lesbians of color-because we have lost more than many others may be some of the most subversive texts being written today. It isn't just the challenge to the state's notions of normalcy as represented by someone like Jesse Helms. Our challenge to authority does not come alone in the area of reimagining and reconstituting our sexuality. For years now we have reconstituted on some level the family, the community, the schools, and perhaps even the military. The meaning and value of these institutions have come under scrutiny and reevaluation and change by those of us who have functioned in and survived them. We lesbian writers have taken it as our responsibility to articulate our survivals and transformations in this war on our integrity. We represent a challenge to the Western way of thinking at a primal level. The more we tap into those tribal roots and quench our thirst on the milk and honey of our mother tongue, the more we can withstand the shock of living in this deadly and soul-annihilating system. We have to scramble their messages and learn to read the code we devise out of it. We have to go into the place of the great solitary vision of our own being - a being intimately attached to and integrated with the net of all being and beings - and humble ourselves and ask for a song, a vision, a dream, a language that promotes and heals, that nurtures and provides. We have to humble ourselves, perhaps before the little bug that causes the mirage or before the northern flight of birds, on whose shiny backs we may find the words that ensure our survival and the survival of those who come after us."

"I would suggest that any time a group of people participates in an antilinear thinking, any time a group of people practices customs and beliefs, contrary to the norm, any time a group of people begins to speak negatively and unflatteringly of God and the state, any time a group of people organizes itself into a cohesive whole with a language that tells the truth as it knows it and experiences it-and calls that language art, poetry, song, sculpture, work, study, lovemaking, child-rearing, or what have you then the powers that be order in the troops. And the troops stand guard, infiltrate, imprison, and in various ways attempt to control all of those who would subvert the "natural" order of things, the construction of the world as we know it today: patriarchal and imperious, bloated on its own self-importance, pompous, cruel, and dominating."

"The purpose of ritual, ceremony, and prayer is to open ourselves to that power, to bring into our everyday, existence the knowledge and memory of that time, to reinvoke it and reparticipate in it. And the gate through which we enter the dream world, the world of time immemorial; the place of inception, conception, and perception, is language. For without language, there are no stories; there is no speaking and singing the world into existence."

"No scientific discovery is named after its original inventor."

"Biologists, or rather botanists and zoologists, studied flora and fauna in exhaustive detail, in niches, in situ, penetrating the mysteries of their local habitations, measuring them, counting them, tracking cycles, writing all this down in the equivalent of field guides, and developing the ability to predict many natural phenomena, including phenomena of change: if frost falls, the bud is harmed; if the soil is enriched, growth improves, and so on. The world of life forms was a text whose meaning the biologist interpreted. But these interpretations did not explain and were not meant to explain the biological processes according to which these species could exist in the first place, or descend, or develop, or differ. To explain these more basic issues required the theory of evolution, which, once it was available, became an indispensable instrument in the professional study of local, narrowly coordinated, in situ life forms and the niches they inhabit."

"Selfless, dedicated and an experienced coalition builder, Anita exemplifies the best definition of a community organizer. Her passion for people and the community is unparalleled."

"Anita believes in the promise of every student to learn, grow, and succeed in an increasingly competitive job market and she truly understands that a quality education is the best way to combat the social pressures that many of our students encounter."

"She will listen to these leaders’ opinions when voting on issues of importance to their communities."

"While at Berkeley, Anita developed a passion for progressive politics and advancing the civil rights and women’s rights movements."

"Taking a strategic and results-oriented approach, Councilmember Bonds conducts rigorous oversights of the committees under her purview and has helped to direct hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to critical public programs and services that benefit residents of all socio-economic backgrounds."

"Every day I problem solve and develop reasonable solutions and opportunities to help neighbourhoods, young families, seniors, businesses, and workers move forward in our rapidly changing city."

"Councilmember Bonds is also deeply concerned about shielding senior citizens from physical and financial abuse and neglect and ensuring that they have the resources needed to age in place."

"Adams' legacy nonetheless broke barriers for women in the legal profession and established a precedent for women achieving high political office."

"There was a communist revolution in 1974 and we were lucky enough to be able to flee the country. I was almost 10 when my sisters and I got out – our parents had left about seven months earlier because soldiers came to our house to try and arrest my father. They shot my dad that night."

"I definitely considered different career paths. As I kid, I knew that I liked math and science, and that was fun. But I also liked art and writing, as well as architecture and photography. I was kind of a student activist too, so was contemplating something in the government. It was a hard decision, but mostly I really enjoyed science and was good at it, so that’s what I chose."

"Statistically speaking, I am certain I have suffered from discrimination through my career. I’ve seen plenty of studies showing that men are awarded more research grants than women, that men are promoted more quickly than women and that men have higher salaries than women. I don’t think that I’m outside of the norm. And if we don’t believe that women are less capable, on average, than men, then by definition, I have been discriminated against."

"New challenges driven by evolving global technology inspire fresh trends and approaches in teaching statistics in business schools of the 21st century."

"NASA’s Cosmic Background Explorer satellite mission, the COBE, laid the foundations for modern cosmology by measuring the spectrum and anisotropy of the and discovering the . ... The COBE observed the universe on the largest scales possible by mapping the cosmic microwave and infrared background radiation fields and determining their spectra. It produced conclusive evidence that the hot Big Bang theory of the early universe is correct, showed that the early universe was very uniform but not perfectly so, and that the total luminosity of post–Big Bang objects is twice as great as previously believed."

"The Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite, under study by NASA since 1976, will map the spectrum and the angular distribution of diffuse radiation from the universe over the entire wavelength range from 1 micron to 1.3 cm. It carries three instruments: a set of differential s (DMR) at 23.5, 31.4, 53, and 90 , a far infrared absolute (FIRAS) covering 1 to 100 cm-1, and a covering 1 to 300 s. They will use the ideal space environment, a one year lifetime, and standard instrument techniques to achieve orders of magnitude improvements in sensitivity and accuracy, providing a fundamental data base for cosmology. The instruments are united by common purpose as well as similar environmental and orbital requirements. The data from all three experiments will be analyzed together, to distinguish nearby sources of radiation from the cosmologically interesting diffuse background radiations."

"… the technical question was, “Is the Big Bang the right story? Is the expanding universe the right story?” And there are a lot of sub-questions in that. If it is the right story, then how did the galaxies come? Where did they come from? Because it seemed quite mysterious. People were just beginning to realize that there was a structure that had been seen in the maps of where the galaxies are located, and that we had no clue what made that happen. So what is there to measure? Well, there’s not very many things to measure. You can measure the galaxies or you can look for this cosmic background radiation. And if you could measure it, it would tell you something that you never knew before."

"My grown-up novels have been translated into several languages, but my relationship with my translators has always been limited to a few e-mails to clear up some point or other. With William Rodarmor, all that changed! He started by telephoning me to introduce himself, and we very quickly built a relationship of trust. And he got passionately involved with the text, wanting to know everything about everything, including somewhat remote elements of the historical context that would better enable him to understand this or that detail. He literally bombarded me with messages and sometimes tracked me to my lair, because he wound up knowing the book better than I did! And he managed it all with great humor."

"As a writer de Villiers had a serious shortcoming: The man could not write. (...) Indeed his French prose is so mechanical, so flat and so replete with Franglais. (...) William Rodarmor's English translation of Madmen is actually better than the original."

"Rodarmor's translation is seamless, rendered with that appearance of effortlessness that only the most gifted and painstaking translators can accomplish."

"Jokes [are] the bane of every trasnlator's existence."

"Like most translators, I’m a ventriloquist, and I work hard to make people sound like themselves, and not like me."

"[Literary translation work] has all the pleasures of creative writing, and you never have writer’s block."