Honors & Awards

Jasmine Fang

Keen on kindness

Last summer, UC Irvine senior Jasmine Fang traveled to the rural Dominican Republic province of Elías Piña to build latrines for residents and teach public hygiene. She learned something too: the value of community. Evenings and weekends, families would gather to play basketball, jump rope or just socialize. Says Fang: “People in the Dominican Republic […]

The entertainer

Ragtime — that bright, toe-tapping piano music that flourished in bars, brothels and parlor rooms in the early 1900s — has found an unlikely promoter and practitioner at UC Irvine: a young civil engineering student named Jared DiBartolomeo. DiBartolomeo belongs to a generation that worships technology, was raised on rap and is addicted to keyboards […]

Fountain pen next to writing

Well versed

“Do not say anything against rhyme! It is a mighty goddess indeed, the deity of very secret and very ancient coincidences, and one must never let the fires on its altars burn out.” — Rainer Maria Rilke They are small in number, the writers who have come to UC Irvine to study poetry through the master’s-level Programs […]

Dr. Ralph Clayman

Patient advocate

Levity, gossip and idle chitchat have no place in Dr. Ralph Clayman’s operating room. The pioneer in minimally invasive surgery once asked a gabby colleague to leave in the middle of an operation because the chatterbox lacked focus. Clayman, a urologist so dedicated he gives his home phone number to patients, makes no apologies for […]

Renowned molecular biologist Masayasu Nomura

Wise scientist

When he was in his 50s, renowned molecular biologist Masayasu Nomura wrote a poem for a friend’s 65th birthday. “To the Wise Scientist” reads: “Someday I too hope to attain the age of sixty-five.Then I wish to live as you live:Giving sympathy and help to young people,Receiving friendship and respect in return.No more worries, no […]

Nobelist F. Sherwood Rowland (right) and chemistry chair Donald Blake

Perfect chemistry

The first person Donald Blake met when he walked into UC Irvine’s chemistry department in 1978 was F. Sherwood Rowland, clad in shorts and sandals, a towering 6 feet 5 inches tall. Rowland, department chair, was considering the UCLA senior for a graduate position.   “We talked about lots of things, and in the end […]

The art of giving

Medici Scholars program helps arts students launch their dreams

UCI professor emeritus honored in special-edition journal

Kenneth Small, professor emeritus of economics at UC Irvine, is the subject of a special issue of the Journal of Urban Economics, which published a selection of essays in his honor. Small was named a fellow of the Regional Science Association International in 2006 and was recently recognized as the 2007 UC Irvine Lauds & […]