Five researchers affiliated with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have been elected into the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), one of the highest professional honors accorded to an engineer. Joining this year’s class of 68 new members and nine foreign associates were Lisa Alvarez-Cohen, Eugene Haller, Jay Keasling, Art Rosenfeld and Xiang Zhang.

Lisa Alvarez-Cohen

Lisa Alvarez-Cohen is a faculty scientist with the Ecology Department of Berkeley Lab’s Earth Sciences Division and the Fred and Claire Sauer Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where she also chairs the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Her NAE citation reads: “For discovery and application of novel microorganisms and biochemical pathways for microbial degradation of environmental contaminants.”

Eugene Haller

Eugene Haller heads the Electronic Materials Program for Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division and is a professor with UC Berkeley’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering where he also hold the Liao-Cho Innovation Endowed Chair. His NAE citation reads: “For improvements in semiconductor performance through contributions to the synthesis of ultrapure and doped crystals.”

Jay Keasling

Jay Keasling is the acting deputy director of Berkeley Lab and the Chief Executive Officer of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Joint BioEnergy Institute. In addition, he is UC Berkeley’s Hubbard Howe Jr. Distinguished Professor of Biochemical Engineering, and director of the Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center. His NAE citation reads: “For developing synthetic biology tools to engineer the anti-malarial drug artemisinin.”

Art Rosenfeld

Art Rosenfeld has been a member of the California Energy Commission for 10 years and presides over both the Research, Development and Demonstration Committee, and the Dynamic Pricing Committee. During his time as a scientist at Berkeley Lab, among many other achievements, he founded the Center for Building Science. His NAE citation reads: “For leadership in energy efficiency research, development, and technology deployment through the development of appliance and building standards and public policy.”

Xiang Zhang

Xiang Zhang is a faculty scientist with Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division and both the Chancellor’s Professor and the Ernest S. Kuh Endowed Chair Professor at UC Berkeley. He also directs UC Berkeley’s Nano-scale Science and Engineering Center. His NAE citation reads: “ For the pioneering contributions in metamaterials and creation of the first optical superlens with resolutions beyond the fundamental diffraction limit.”

The election of the class of 2010 brings NAE’s total U.S. membership to 2,267 plus 196 foreign associates.

Berkeley Lab is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory located in Berkeley, California. It conducts unclassified scientific research for DOE’s Office of Science and is managed by the University of California. Visit our Website at www.lbl.gov/

Additional information:

For more about the election of new members to the National Academy of Engineering, visit the Website at

http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=02172010