CITRIS and the Banatao Institute

Creating information technology solutions for society's most pressing challenges

UC Berkeley

The headquarters of CITRIS and the Banatao Institute are located in Sutardja Dai Hall (SDH) on the UC Berkeley campus. Specially designed to house this interdisciplinary research institute, the building contains 141,000 sq. feet of laboratory space for collaborative research, faculty offices, the 149-seat Banatao Auditorium, conference rooms on each floor, and modern classrooms. SDH also hosts the CITRIS Invention Lab, a rapid prototyping space used by UC entrepreneurs in our CITRIS Foundry startup accelerator program and the student maker community. The Marvell Nanofabrication Laboratory occupies a two-story, 15,000-square-foot wing of Sutardja Dai Hall where academic and industry researchers develop prototypes for new biosensors, photonics devices, and other MEMS/NEMS sensors. SDH is equipped with hundreds of sensors and sophisticated systems for building management that form a living laboratory on campus for energy research and proof-of-concept demonstrations.

Contact CITRIS and the Banatao Institute, UC Berkeley

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Jie Yao

Prof. Jie Yao obtained his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley in 2010 and conducted postdoctoral research at Stanford University after that. He joined the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at UC Berkeley as an assistant professor in 2013. His research interests are  focused on optical materials for nanophotonic applications, including optical sensors, communication devices, etc. Recently he is also developing new material platforms for low-power optoelectronic devices that are essential to future sustainable infrastructures and biomedical applications. Prof. Yao has won the CAREER award from the National Science Foundation and Early Career award from SPIE. He is also a recipient of the Hellman Fellowship from the Hellman Foundation and Bakar Fellowship from the Bakar Fellow program at UC Berkeley. 

Our energy grid is vulnerable. Locally sourced power may be the answer.

Berkeley News: Kara Manke spoke with CITRIS PI and CIEE Electrical Grid Director Alexandra “Sascha” von Meier about the risks posed by the current energy grid and the EcoBlock project, a possible solution moving forward. The EcoBlock project is looking to develop microgrids separate from PG&E in the City of Oakland.

Paul Duguid

Paul Duguid came to the UC Berkeley School of Information from Xerox PARC and its affiliated Institute for Research on Learning. He brings from these enduring interest in work, learning, and research, the ways in which each gets reduced to “information,” and what often gets left out in the process.

Research interest(s): critical information studies

Jill Miller

Jill Miller is a visual artist who collaborates with individuals and communities in the form of public interventions, workshops, and installation art. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally, and collected in public institutions worldwide including CA2M Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo in Madrid and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.

Hamilton Sensors: How to make buildings smarter

Detecting temperature, humidity, or occupancy can make buildings “smarter.” The information can lead to reductions in energy consumption and improve the comfort of occupants by responding to energy demands in real time. We commonly see a single thermometer or humidity sensor per room, which can only provide limited information. What about deploying many cheap and disposable sensors to capture more granular data about buildings and energy use patterns?

CITRIS Foundry announces fall 2019 cohort

Spin microscopy for quantum computing, underwater nanoscience for clean tech, and bio-prospected hemp are a few of the novel technologies represented in the fall incubator cohort announced by the CITRIS Foundry, the innovation hub of the multicampus Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) and the Banatao Institute, headquartered at UC Berkeley.

New Decal Course: Inclusive Pathways Into Tech & Entrepreneurship

Inclusive Pathways into Tech and Entrepreneurship is for students who want to get hands-on experience in creating a project that advances diversity in tech. This course engages in an innovative approach to teaching by bringing together students from tech and non-tech majors to learn what kind of diverse perspectives they need on their team to solve the world’s problems.