About University of California, Berkeley

Joelle Miles serves as the Program Director for the Master of Advanced Study in Engineering (MAS-E) at UC Berkeley's College of Engineering. She oversees Berkeley's first fully online master's degree program, designed specifically for working engineers and STEM professionals. In her role, she manages a comprehensive curriculum that spans four distinct concentrations: Electronics and Systems Engineering, Advanced Manufacturing and Materials, Infrastructure, Energy, and the Environment, and Robotics and Controls. The program she directs allows students to complete their degree in one to four years while maintaining their careers, with coursework priced at $1,750 per unit for a total of 24 units. Her leadership has helped establish a flexible, self-paced learning environment that combines Berkeley's elite engineering education with practical career advancement opportunities. Through the MAS-E program preview course on Coursera, she introduces prospective students to the program's innovative structure and career-focused concentration areas, demonstrating how the degree can help engineers develop critical knowledge and technical skills for senior-level positions.

Tarek Zohdi serves as Faculty Director of the Master of Advanced Studies in Engineering program while holding multiple prestigious positions at UC Berkeley, including Associate Dean for Research in the College of Engineering, Will C. Hall Endowed Chair, and Chair of the Computational & Data Science & Engineering Program. His academic excellence began with a Ph.D. in Computational and Applied Mathematics from the University of Texas at Austin, followed by significant research work in Germany where he earned his Habilitation in General Mechanics. At Berkeley, he has established himself as a leading figure in mechanical engineering and computational science, focusing on advanced manufacturing processes and computational mechanics. His research contributions include over 175 refereed journal papers and seven influential books in his field. As Director of both the UC Berkeley Next Generation Food Systems Center and the Fire Research Group, he leads cutting-edge research initiatives while maintaining his role as Faculty Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Labs. His teaching excellence earned him UC Berkeley's Distinguished Teaching Award, and he continues to shape his field as Editor-in-Chief of Computational Particle Mechanics and editor for several prestigious journals.