CCST Newsroom

JPL Partners with DWR to Scan Levees from the Sky
California’s Department of Water Resources (DWR) has turned to a trial partnership with NASA to assist in monitoring the vast stretches of levees protecting the Sacramento Delta. The project, “Monitoring Levees and Subsidence in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta”, demonstrated over a three-year period that an airborne radar system is capable of accurately detecting movement and […]
California Legislature to Recognize National Academy of Sciences Sesquicentennial
The California Senate and Assembly are honoring the National Academy of Science’s sesquicentennial anniversary with a resolution recognizing the service and contributions of the Academies. “The Legislature takes great pleasure in honoring the National Academy of Sciences for its 150 years of commitment to providing unbiased, peer-reviewed advice on science, technology, and medicine to our […]
CCST Council Meeting: Taking a Closer Look at China
The June CCST Council meeting focused on the impact that China’s quest to become a global science, technology and innovation leader will have on California, and the global community as a whole. The dinner speaker, Tai Ming Cheung, is the director of the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC) at UC San Diego. IGCC […]
CCST Report Examines Role of Biofuels in California’s Energy Future
CCST has released the seventh and final report in its California’s Energy Future (CEF) project, “California’s Energy Future: The Potential for Biofuels“. The CEF project seeks ways the State could meet the mandated reductions of the state’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, exploring possible energy strategies for California through in-depth […]
Reinventors Round Table Focuses on Higher Education
On April 18, a virtual roundtable in the “Reinventors” series was held on how to tackle intractable problems in higher education. The roundtable was co-chaired by CCST Senior Fellow Mohammad H. Qayoumi, President of San Jose State University, and Silicon Valley entrepreneur Kim Polese, who collaborated on a 2012 white paper on reinventing public education. […]
CCST Council Member Katherine Yelick Honored by ACM Council on Women
CCST Council Member Katherine Yelick has been honored by the Association for Computing Machinery’s (ACM) Council on Women, which has named her the 2013-2014 Athena Lecturer. The Athena Lecturer award celebrates women researchers who have made fundamental contributions to computer science. Yelick, a Professor of Electrical Engineering Computer Sciences at UC Berkeley and also the […]
Oceanographer at Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation Helps Charts Course Towards Good Science Policy
Jon Kaye, who was recently recognized with a profile by The Oceanography Society, is not your typical oceanographer. He has left the traditional academic path for the world of philanthropy and public policy, helping the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation work to facilitate better science and technology related policy in California. “It boils down to a belief […]
Calit2 to Build High-speed Network for ‘Big Data’
Researchers in the UC San Diego division of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) are using a $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to build a high-performance digital network capable of carrying more than twenty times the bandwidth of the current research network. The project, Prism@UCSD, is the latest in a […]
CCST Council Member Named President of KAIST
CCST Council Member Sung-Mo “Steve” Kang has been appointed the new president of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Korea’s leading technology school. Kang’s four-year term is scheduled to begin on February 23. “I did not expect this development,” said Kang. “KAIST is facing some organizational challenges, and there was a need […]
Cal TAC Briefs Legislators in D.C. on Digital Education Work
A delegation from the California Teacher Advisory Council (Cal TAC) spent three days in Washington, D.C. last week, introducing Cal TAC as an organization dedicated to strengthening STEM teaching and learning throughout California, and briefing Senate staff and Congressional members about their current work on digitally enhanced education. The delegation included Cal TAC Chair Brian […]
CCST Senior Fellow David Okrent Dies at 90
CCST Senior Fellow Dr. David Okrent, Professor Emeritus of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of California, Los Angeles and world renowned nuclear physicist and expert on nuclear reactor safety, died at his home in Los Angeles on December 14, 2012, after a sudden illness. He was 90. Dr. Okrent obtained his MS and […]
San Jose State University Launches Online Course Program
San Jose State University has announced a partnership with an online education startup to offer low-cost online classes for credit. The experimental pilot project marks the first significant foray into online education for the California State University system, and could be the harbinger of a paradigm shift in higher education in California. “The state’s public […]
Newly Appointed S&T Policy Fellows Arrive in Sacramento
The California Science and Technology Policy Fellowship program has placed its fourth consecutive group of fellows in the California state legislature, continuing to build on a growing legacy of making S&T expertise available to lawmakers in a way most states do not have. Each year, the program places ten professional scientists in yearlong appointments in […]
Curiosity Rover Adds to Dual JPL Legacy of Exploration and Education
Four months after landing on the red planet, NASA’s largest-ever Mars rover, Curiosity, is fully functional and writing the latest chapter in a story of exploration that the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has been building for decades. “JPL has a long tradition of exploring Mars,” said David Seidel, JPL Deputy Education Director and Manager, STEM […]
New CEF Report Examines California’s Building and Industrial Efficiency
CCST has released the sixth publication in its California’s Energy Future (CEF) project, “California’s Energy Future: Building and Industrial Efficiency“. The CEF project focuses on exploring possibilities for California’s energy strategy through the coming decades, seeking ways the State could meet the mandated reductions of the state’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels […]
UC Davis Institute Focuses on Energy and Environmental Policy
A new initiative at the University of California, Davis is promoting collaborative engagement between University researchers and policy-makers to help better inform energy and environmental policy. The Policy Institute for Energy, Environment, and the Economy was created earlier this year to bring to bear expertise at the University of California and other research institutions to […]
AAAS Issues Statement on Labeling of Genetically Modified Foods
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) issued a statement on October 20 on the labeling of genetically modified foods, stating that there is no scientific evidence to justify efforts to mandate labeling of genetically modified (GM) foods for consumers. “The science is quite clear: crop improvement by the modern molecular techniques of […]
Integrating Digital Media into Teacher Preparation: Cal TAC Summit Report
A new summary report has been released detailing the proceedings of a June 2012 summit on integrating digital media into teacher preparation in California. (Click here for the report.) The summit, convened by the California Teacher Advisory Council (Cal TAC), brought together science and math teachers, university faculty, philanthropists, and technical experts to develop a strategy […]
Innovation and Entrepreneurship, from Existing Data
A successful culture of innovation depends as much on enabling entrepreneurship as on the ideas themselves, according to CCST Council Member Atul Butte, who spoke at the October Council meeting. Butte, MD, PhD, an associate professor and chief of systems medicine in the Department of Pediatrics at Stanford University, runs a laboratory which focuses on […]
Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions by 2050: California’s Energy Future
CCST has released the next report in the California’s Energy Future (CEF) series, which focuses on exploring possibilities for California’s energy strategy through the year 2050. Portraits of Energy Systems for Meeting Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets examines a variety of scenarios for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. “We believe that the CEF energy system portraits report […]
CCST Conducting Water Technology Survey
CCST is seeking input from water experts on the future of California’s water plans. “Science and Technology for California’s Water Future” is a yearlong project to determine how innovations in science and technology can be used to improve California’s integrated water management. Through the use of an on-line survey CCST is working to identify innovative technology […]