We are so excited to get this campaign off the ground and thanks to your generous contribution we are off to a great start! 

The Cal Energy Corps team will keep you updated on our progress via this update section of our campaign page. Plus, keep a lookout for shoutouts, updates, and other fun stuff on our Facebook page, our Twitter account, and by subscribing to our biweekly email digests (link coming soon)!

A few of our new Cal Energy Corps members show their thanks below:

Matthew Liu, who will be interning at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in Berkeley, CA this summer.

Carrol Xia, who will be interning at Academia Sinica in Taiwan this summer.

Jahaan Ansari, who will be developing novel rechargable batteries at Imprint Energy in Alameda, CA this summer.

Please share our campaign with your friends and coworkers to help us reach our goal! If we reach $20,000, Power Standards Lab will donate an additional $10,000! We want as many students as possible to be able to share in this amazing experience and become energy and climate leaders at Cal and beyond!   

Thanks again for your support! We're excited to see the impact this campaign will have on future students.   

Best,

The Cal Energy Corps Team

Hello everyone,

As our crowdfunding campaign enters its last week, we just want to again express our deep appreciation for everyone that has donated to give Berkeley students life-changing energy and climate research opportunities!

A very talented cohort of 2015 participants is gearing up to travel all around the world to conduct research on topics as diverse as soybean genetics, the urban heat island effect, green building materials, and next-gen hydrogen fuel cells.

One of this year's Cal Energy Corps students is Lisa Yang, who will be researching novel zinc-based rechargeable battery technologies! (See this short video to learn where Lisa will be this summer.)

We're sure that in the years following their summer internships, these students will be just as enthusiastic about their experiences as 2014 participant Saundarya Mehra, who wrote about CEC's impact in a blog post on the Berkeley Energy & Resources Collaborative (BERC)'s website.

Through her research on distributed generation and community-owned power generation systems in Germany, Saundarya had a life-changing opportunity to pursue her passion for renewable energy and sustainable development abroad.  She explained the big-picture, long-term goal of the program:

"The completion of our internships opened doors to research opportunities in Berkeley, creative start-up ideas, and a support system of like-minded individuals that comprise the Cal Energy Corps Alumni Network. Our goal is to strengthen the bonds of this support system through numbers."

With the help of your contributions, we can secure the future of Cal Energy Corps and inspire even more bright individuals to pursue energy and climate solutions!

Many thanks!

The Cal Energy Corps Team

Hello Cal Energy Corps Supporters,

Thanks to your generous contributions, we've now raised $6,500 from over 50 individuals!  With only 2 days remaining in the campaign, we'd like to ask one final time that you comb through your personal and professional networks for people interested in climate, energy, and education, and tell them why it is so valuable to support these undergraduate research internships!

Tonight, many of this year's 28 participants attended a reception with alumni and some of the Berkeley campus' energy and climate leaders.  Particularly for those sponsoring institutions that have continued to host Cal Energy Corps researchers for 2,3, or even 4 years, this was a great opportunity for alumni to give advice to their successors about what to expect this summer. 

We are committed to building an enduring family of CEC participants, alumni, and mentors.  With future funding from campus institutions as uncertain as it is, your contributions will help make this commitment a reality!

Thanks again, and please join us in finishing the final 48 hours of our campaign!

The Cal Energy Corps Team

Hello Cal Energy Corps supporters,

We hope you are enjoying your summer!  At the moment, 27 UC Berkeley undergraduates are in the middle of their research internships, halfway around the world as well as right in the Bay Area.  Their experiences wouldn't be possible without your generous help, so we wanted to again thank you for participating in our crowdfunding effort this spring.

We are looking forward to seeing what insights and connections these students bring back to Berkeley!  They will have an opportunity to present their research in the Fall at a symposium open to the public - stay tuned for more details on the date and location of this event.

In the meantime, here are some excerpts from the blog posts that program participants are writing to chronicle their time abroad (or nearby!).

Katie Zheng is a Civil and Environmental Engineering major, third year, and is working for blueEnergy in Nicaragua this summer to work on green building materials and construction practices.

"...I have been assigned my project for this summer. I am working on building an Eco-Sanitation model for human waste composting. Human waste composting is exactly what it sounds like – converting human waste into compost that can be used as fertilizer."

"I’ve also been working with SketchUp, making models of our bins and designing the lids. So far, so good in terms of work. We held a practical workshop to teach the process to representatives of the local university, municipality, and other organizations interested in getting involved in human waste composting."

As you can see, Cal Energy Corps are actively engaging community stakeholders to further their innovative energy and climate solutions.

Again, thank you so much for helping fund these internships!

Cal Energy Corps Team