Letter from the Dean

There are ideas connected to the college that are so big or complex that they suggest some sort of special attention. We started to save up a few of these, and the Big Ideas issue was born.

A prime example: Professor and bioethicist David Winickoff has been contributing to the growing debate on geoengineering—environmental manipulations meant to lower global temperatures. While the topic has advanced far beyond old cloud-seeding and sci-fi schemes, Winickoff says there’s a lot to think about before moving forward (page 8).

Sometime a huge issue starts with something small. Tiny newborns and their even tinier genomes have generated a new public health question: Should genome sequencing become part of standard newborn screening? As with geoengineering, the question we must ask is: Just because we can do this, should we? Enormous potential benefits must be weighed against unintended consequences (page 14).

Pilot programs are critical laboratories to test new ideas. Two Berkeley alumni working at The Nature Conservancy have tested a novel reverse-auction strategy that partners farmers and conservationists. If their success continues, the project could scale up to have an impact on the entire Pacific Flyway (page 20).

Other Big Ideas include Holos, a big-data project building access to 100 years of ecological research; the longest ongoing climate-change experiment in the world; a distinguished alumna’s vision for CNR’s UC Davis counterpart; and a celebration of UC Berkeley’s past and future partnership with the U.S. National Parks Service—often called “America’s best idea.”

Perhaps the biggest idea of all is one that supports this fertile intellectual environment in perpetuity. It came, without fuss or fanfare, from forestry alumnus John Gross, whose $15 million gift is the largest in CNR history. Gross’s generosity has truly inspired us and we hope it inspires you (page 24).

I welcome your comments at gilless@berkeley.edu.