Angela Zhang

California has a wildfire problem and an affordable housing problem, and UC Berkeley Wood Lab co-director Paul Mayencourt hopes his work advancing an underused material can help address both. It’s called mechanically laminated timber (MLT), a relatively inexpensive and accessible way of creating wood panels that’s been more widely adopted in modern Europe than in the United States. In this short video, part of our ongoing video series Born at UC Berkeley, learn about the innovation from our host, Angela Zhang. Mayencourt, an assistant professor… teaches both students and local lumber business owners about engineering wood products. His efforts to expand awareness of MLT have been paying off: He recently partnered with a Humboldt County company, Mad River Mass Timber, and helped it become the first in the nation to commercially produce dowel-laminated timber, a type of MLT.