Honors & Awards

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5 junior faculty awarded $50,000 Hellman Fellowships

Five assistant professors at the University of California, Irvine will receive $50,000 Hellman Fellowships, which are bestowed annually to support research by junior faculty. They join an elite group of 53 UCI Hellman Fellows since 2013, when the Hellman Fellows Fund established the program here. The 2019-20 awardees, representing a cross-section of disciplines, are: “Each […]

UCI student’s empathy-based AI project is among finalists in NSF ‘big idea’ competition

Karishma Muthukumar’s “Promoting Empathy-Based AI” project has been chosen as one of 33 finalists in the National Science Foundation’s 2026 Idea Machine competition. The entry from the cognitive sciences major, who just completed her freshman year, was one of 800 nationwide. If selected as one of the four winners, her “big idea” will help guide […]

Chancellor’s Professor Emeritus wins award from Society for Study of Southern Literature

Brook Thomas has won the 2018 C. Hugh Holman Award from the Society for the Study of Southern Literature for The Literature of Reconstruction: Not in Plain Black and White (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017), described as “the go-to book on Reconstruction for at least a generation” by the SSSL panel. Drawing on 19th-century historiography […]

Distinguished Professor Ngugi wa Thiong’o wins 2019 Erich Maria Remarque Peace Prize

Ngugi wa Thiong’o, UCI Distinguished Professor of comparative literature and English, has been awarded the 2019 Erich Maria Remarque Peace Prize for Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature, about language and its constructive role in national culture, history and identity. The collection of essays advocates for linguistic decolonization and is one […]

Barbara Finlayson-Pitts is awarded the 2019 Royal Society of Chemistry Environment Prize

Britain’s Royal Society of Chemistry has awarded its Environment Prize to Barbara Finlayson-Pitts, UCI professor of chemistry and co-director of AirUCI, “for outstanding contributions to the chemical sciences in the area of environment, sustainability and energy.” Specifically, she was recognized for her pioneering research revealing new processes in the formation of photochemical air pollution and […]

UCI is No. 1 in nation among public universities for ‘best value,’ according to Forbes

Ranking is based on costs, quality, graduation rates, student debt and postgrad earnings

Alum Jordan Edmunds named a Hertz Fellow

Jordan Edmunds, who earned bachelor’s degrees in electrical engineering and biological sciences at UCI in 2018 before becoming a doctoral student in electrical engineering & computer sciences at UC Berkeley, has been named a 2019 fellow by the Fannie and John Hertz Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing groundbreaking applied science with real-world benefits […]

Forbes ranks UCI among best large employers

Forbes has named UCI one of the best large employers in the U.S. The campus rated No. 40 overall and No. 4 among educational institutes. This comes on the heels of a January Forbes ranking, in which UCI rated the seventh best for employee diversity – the second-highest ranking for both a California employer and […]

Clare Yu is named a fellow by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences

Physicist joins 34 other UCI faculty members in the prestigious organization

Vicki Ruiz gets distinguished service award from the Organization of American Historians

Vicki Ruiz, Distinguished Professor Emerita of history and Chicano/Latino studies, has received the 2019 Roy Rosenzweig Distinguished Service Award from the Organization of American Historians. The annual award recognizes those who have significantly enriched the understanding and appreciation of American history. Ruiz led the way in making Chicano/Latino history fully part of U.S. history, highlighting […]