68 new faculty members welcomed
Eight full professors join the engineering, law and medical schools.
UC Irvine welcomed 68 new faculty members for the 2011-12 school year at a campus gathering Monday, Sept. 19. The event celebrated UCI’s unwavering commitment to academic excellence despite decreased state funding.
“Although we’ve dealt with some budget issues over the last few years, the university has continued to move forward in significant ways,” said Chancellor Michael Drake. “One of the measures of our progress is the caliber of people we attract. The cohort of faculty we recruited this year is among the most talented in our history, and we couldn’t be more thrilled.”
The Henry Samueli School of Engineering added nine faculty members, including new dean Gregory Washington. The school’s academic strength contributed to its recent ranking as 42nd nationwide among doctorate-conferring engineering schools in U.S. News & World Report’s 2012 edition of Best Colleges.
With instruction under way for its third class, UCI’s School of Law also grew by nine faculty members. It received provisional accreditation in June – the earliest possible date – which will allow the inaugural class graduating next spring to take the bar exam.
The School of Medicine saw the largest increase in faculty: 15. Other schools boosting their teaching ranks were arts, biological sciences, business, humanities, physical sciences, social ecology and social sciences, as well as the Department of Education and the Program in Nursing Science.
Full professors, listed by academic unit, who have joined UCI since October 2010 are:
ENGINEERING
Gregory Washington is an accomplished administrator, having served as associate dean for research and interim dean of engineering at The Ohio State University from 2008 to 2011. He joined OSU in 1995, one year after earning a doctorate in mechanical engineering at North Carolina State University. Washington’s core research interests lie in the area of dynamic systems, with an emphasis in the modeling and control of “smart” materials. He’s been involved in the design and control of mechanically actuated antennas, advanced automotive systems incorporating smart materials, and hybrid electric vehicles, as well as structural position and vibration control with smart materials.
LAW
Richard Hasen is a nationally recognized expert in election law and campaign finance regulation and is co-author of a leading casebook on election law. He served for nine years as founding co-editor of the quarterly, peer-reviewed publication Election Law Journal and has written more than four dozen articles on election law issues. The Los Angeles Daily Journal named him one of California’s top 20 lawyers under age 40 in 2002 and one of the state’s 100 most influential lawyers in 2005. Elected to the American Law Institute in 2009, Hasen has taught at the Illinois Institute of Technology’s Chicago-Kent College of Law and was the William H. Hannon Distinguished Professor of Law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.
Olufunmilayo Arewa has a joint appointment in law and anthropology. Her research centers around intellectual property and business – including accounting, corporate and securities law, private equity and entrepreneurship – with a primary focus on copyright and music law. Before becoming a law professor, she practiced law in New York and California, working mainly inside fledgling companies.
Katherine Porter is a bankruptcy, consumer and commercial law specialist. She comes to UCI from the University of Iowa College of Law and has been a visiting professor at Harvard University, UC Berkeley, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. While studying at Harvard Law School, Porter realized after the first lecture in Elizabeth Warren’s bankruptcy class what her own career focus would be. She also saw firsthand in her Iowa hometown the human costs of financial hardship. Often quoted in news articles, Porter blogs about credit and debt issues at www.creditslips.org.
MEDICINE
Dr. Leif Havton is a professor of anesthesiology & perioperative care. He earned his medical degree at Sweden’s Umea University in 1988 and a doctorate at the same institution in 1989, followed by a research fellowship at Columbia University. Havton completed a neurology residency at Stanford University in 1995 and a pathology fellowship in 1997. He’s an international expert on neural repair in spinal cord injury models. Havton’s work is funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense and the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.
Dr. Shu-Ming Wang is also a professor of anesthesiology & perioperative care. She received her medical degree from the University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey and completed an anesthesiology residency at New York University Medical Center. She was fellowship-trained in pediatric anesthesiology at Yale University and in acupuncture at the American College of Acupuncture in New York. Wang is chief of the UCI department’s new division of perioperative integrative and complementary medicine and also the department’s director of pediatric pain services. A member of the Susan Samueli Center for Integrative Medicine, she researches the perioperative use of acupuncture and acupressure; the surgical use of complementary and alternative medicine; and acupuncture in pregnancy.
Dr. Steven Small is the Stanley van den Noort Chair in Neurology, as well as a professor of neurology, cognitive sciences, and neurobiology & behavior. Most recently professor of neurology and psychology at the University of Chicago, he earned a medical degree at the University of Rochester and trained in neurology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, where he served as chief resident. Small’s work focuses on human brain organization for language and motor function, with significant effort devoted to uncovering the neurobiological mechanisms underlying human language use – which could inform the treatment of language disorders after neurological injury. He’s editor in chief of the international journal Brain & Language and founder of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language.
Dr. Jaime Landman accepted the position of urology chair in January. Formerly director of minimally invasive urology at Columbia University, where he earned his medical degree, Landman has extensive clinical skills in laparoscopic renal and prostate surgery and endoscopic management of urinary tract pathology. He is a pioneer in minimally invasive management of renal malignancies and has developed novel techniques used globally for laparoscopic partial nephrectomy. In addition, Landman is an internationally recognized expert on minimally invasive techniques for ablation of kidney cancer. He directs the American Urological Association courses on management of kidney cancer and on kidney and prostate ablation.
