Orange County college leaders and a menagerie of mascots converged on Sacramento on Thursday, May 8 to demonstrate the importance of higher education to the state’s economy and urge legislators to protect the higher education budget. UCI Chancellor Michael V. Drake (center) and UCI mascot Peter the Anteater joined representatives from Cal State Fullerton and three Orange County community college districts in meetings with State Sens. Dave Cogdill and Dick Ackerman. They delivered 2,000 letters written by students, staff and faculty to Gov. Schwarzenegger's office. On the State Capitol Building steps, the Orange County contingent held a press conference to communicate the collective value of higher education to workforce preparation and the economic well-being of the county and the state.   More »

UC Irvine computer science professor Nikil Dutt (pictured) and doctoral student Sudeep Pasricha have co-authored a book titled On-Chip Communication Architectures: System on Chip Interconnect. The work, a detailed reference on concepts, research and trends in on-chip communication architecture design, provides readers with a comprehensive survey of all current standards for on-chip communication architectures - information unavailable anywhere else. Dutt's research involves compilers, architectures and computer-aided design, with a specific focus on the exploration, evaluation and design of domain-specific embedded systems that span research issues in hardware, software, networked and ubiquitous systems.   More »

Susan Trumbore, professor of Earth system science at UC Irvine, will talk on “Amazon Forests and Global Climate Change” as part of the 2007-08 Discover the Physical Sciences Breakfast Lecture Series at UC Irvine. Trumbore (pictured) will discuss her studies of Amazon forest dynamics, including the consequences of slow growth rates for forest management and the degree to which these forests might soak up fossil fuel carbon dioxide. The event, sponsored by the School of Physical Sciences, is 7:30-9 a.m. Tuesday, May 13, at the University Club. It is free and open to the public, but reservations are requested to 949-824-7252 or events@ps.uci.edu.   More »

UC Irvine was awarded $27.2 million today (May 7) from the state to build a new stem cell research facility that will unify and strengthen the campus’s fast-growing stem cell biology program and serve as a hub for research in Southern California. When completed, the three-story, 61,600-square-foot building will house the UCI Sue and Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center, as many as 26 laboratory-based and clinical researchers, a stem cell techniques course for young scientists, a master’s program in biotechnology with an emphasis on stem cell research, and an array of programs and activities that involve and educate patients and the general public. In all, $271 million in stem cell research infrastructure funding was awarded to 12 institutions statewide. This award brings total CIRM funding to UCI to $46.8 million.   More »

Christina Zdenek, a biology undergraduate student at UC Irvine, has been selected by the Australian-American Fulbright Commission to receive a 2008 Fulbright U.S. Postgraduate Fellowship. Zdenek will go to Australia in September to conduct wildlife conservation research on the green python at Australian National University. She also has been active in local conservation biology, and is a founding executive board member of the Orange County chapter of the Society for Conservation Biology.   More »

As the nation’s largest volunteer service organization, the Lions Club has supported eye care research and treatment for more than 70 years. And its Lions Eye Foundation of Southern California has established an exclusive partnership with the UC Irvine Department of Ophthalmology to provide high-quality vision care to those in need in Southern California. In addition, the foundation has awarded a $50,000 grant to the department, which will be used for the UC Irvine Eye Institute. “We are helping give back to the community by working with Lions,” said Dr. George Baerveldt, the Leopold Chair in Ophthalmology (pictured). “It’s a perfect match.”   More »

Daniel Whiteson, assistant professor of physics and astronomy at UC Irvine, has received a Department of Energy Outstanding Junior Investigator Award. The program identifies exceptionally talented new high-energy physicists early in their careers, and it assists with the development of their research programs. Whiteson is interested in probing the structure of matter and the nature of its interactions at the very smallest scales using high-energy particle colliders, such as the Large Hadron Collider scheduled to turn on this fall outside Geneva, Switzerland.   More »

Patients at the UC Irvine Family Health Center in downtown Santa Ana will have access to another needed service – free legal aid. The Legal Aid Society of Orange County and UCI have created the MedLaw Project to help address some of the critical legal needs of low-income patients served at the FHC. The project will help ensure children of Santa Ana and surrounding areas obtain and keep basic necessities such as food, housing, education, health care, safety and stability by improving the front-line health care staff’s capacity to screen, identify, triage and refer basic needs legal issues. “This partnership will enhance access to our clinical services and help resolve many of the non-medical obstacles to the well-being of these children and their families,” said Dr. Charles Vega of the Department of Family Medicine. Vega (pictured) helped spearhead the MedLaw Project, which will hold a kick-off event 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Friday, May 16, at the FHC.   More »

China may have a robust economy, but its rural areas are some of the poorest on Earth. And it is in one of these impoverished regions in the Yunnan province where Dr. Robert Detrano, UC Irvine professor of radiological sciences, works to help stem the rising incidence of hypertension and cardiovascular disease. In late April, Detrano, along with Nathan Wong and Jenchen Yang from UCI, hosted a hypertension seminar training program at which they taught village doctors the importance of hypertension screening and how to measure and treat blood pressure. Detrano accomplishes his hypertension training and treatment efforts through a clinic run by the China California Heart Watch, a nonprofit charity of which he is president.   More »

Dr. Shahram Lotfipour, associate clinical professor of emergency medicine, has been appointed as the assistant dean of clinical science education in the UC Irvine School of Medicine and program director of the proposed combined M.D.-master’s in public health program. In his new role, Lotfipour will oversee a significant part of the clinical curriculum and direct patient care training for medical students. Well known in the School of Medicine for his commitment to education, Lotfipour has been the recipient of numerous teaching awards, including the medical student Excellence in Teaching award for 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007. His appointment is effective May 1.   More »

UC Irvine’s Center for Unconventional Security Affairs will present “The Voyage for Cleaner Energy,” a lecture and discussion with Robert Swann, 7-8:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 13, at the Calit2 Building. Swann is a polar explorer, environmental leader and the first person to walk unsupported to both the North and South Poles. The talk, sponsored by CUSA and the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, is free and open to the public. R.S.V.P. to 949-760-4310 or mscherer@samueli.org.   More »

Rafael L. Bras, a prominent MIT hydrologist and hydroclimatologist, has been named dean of The Henry Samueli School of Engineering at UC Irvine, effective Sept. 1. Bras is currently the Edward A. Abdun-Nur Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT, and he also holds an appointment in the university’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences. “Rafael Bras is an internationally renowned scientist and educator with extensive expertise on water and the environment – two tremendously important topics to our community, state and to the world at large,” said Chancellor Michael V. Drake. “I am excited to welcome this distinguished leader and scholar to our university.”   More »

Dr. Laura Mosqueda, the Reagan Endowed Chair in Geriatrics at UC Irvine, recently received the Donald N. Phelps Community Service Award from the Elder Financial Protection Network. Mosqueda (pictured) was honored for her contribution to elder financial abuse protection. In addition, Mosqueda will join other UCI geriatricians at the American Geriatric Society Annual Scientific Meeting in Washington next month. Dr. Lisa Gibbs will moderate a symposium on “Death by Neglect: What HealthCare Providers Need to Know;” Dr. Solomon Liao will moderate a pre-conference session on “Intervention and Prevention of Elder Mistreatment: Policy and Practical Implications for Practitioners,” and Mosqueda will speak at a pre-conference session on “Opportunities for Clinical Care and Education: The Importance of an Interdisciplinary Approach.”   More »

Last year, UC Irvine neurobiologist Gary Lynch (pictured) published a groundbreaking set of research studies showing how the brain forms memory. And beside him every step of the way was Los Angeles Times staff writer Terry McDermott, who chronicled the struggle and ultimate achievement of the Lynch research team. Last August, the Times published a lengthy four-part series on their effort, titled “Chasing Memory: One Man’s Epic Quest for Understanding,” for which McDermott recently received the 2008 Wistar Institute Science Journalism Award. The judges praised him for bringing to light a scientific problem – how memory is stored – that has defied explanation for decades, and for capturing what it's like to work in a research lab. McDermott’s reporting on Lynch will be expanded into a book, 101 Theory Drive: A Scientist’s Pursuit of the Memory Machine in the Brain, due next year.   More »

Edwin Amenta, UC Irvine sociology professor, has received a $150,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to study the rise, decline and persistence of social movement organizations throughout the last century. Armenta will track changes within and across social movements using coverage from national newspapers to determine which movements and organizations have received the most media attention and what accounts for their media coverage. Armenta's study will serve as the first long-term mapping of social movements that have impacted public sentiment over the last 100-plus years. The program will cover a two-year period.   More »