faculty

Founder of Earth system science department was also physical sciences dean, NAS head

As a child, Robert Liebeck loved tinkering with model airplanes. The UC Irvine adjunct professor of mechanical & aerospace engineering is still at it — but now he’s working on a much different kind of model, one that could revolutionize air travel. Called the blended wing body, the concept results in aircraft that look more like […]

Anyone who frequents a Starbucks at UC Irvine has seen them: customers who camp out at coveted tables. They mark their territory with papers, backpacks, computers and coffee cups. They wear ear buds to discourage conversation and toss their jackets over empty chairs to keep interlopers from invading their space. Some hunker down with their […]

Here’s the pitch: A brilliant neuroscientist who can identify psychopaths by studying their brain imaging scans and genetic data makes a startling discovery. After learning there are eight killers among his ancestors — including notorious ax murderer Lizzie Borden, a distant cousin — he finds that he shares their biological predisposition to murder. Mitigating environmental […]

Mizuko “Mimi” Ito spends a lot of time “geeking out” at her computer. She plays video games, trolls the Internet, chats, and visits social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter for hours on end. “My kids often say, ‘What’s it like to have a normal parent?’” she says with a laugh. Ito’s not going […]

Serendipity has played a great part in the careers and personal lives of Aileen Anderson and Brian Cummings, the UC Irvine husband-and-wife team that has helped move stem cell therapy for spinal cord injury a giant step forward. They met as undergraduates at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Cummings would visit his then-girlfriend in her dorm, and […]

Behind its stylish art deco facade, the Gillespie Neuroscience Research Facility has hosted some of the most important scientific discoveries in UC Irvine’s brief history. From its laboratories came the first stem cell therapies for spinal cord injury, and breakthrough findings by researchers there on the roots of neurodegenerative diseases offer real hope for people with Alzheimer’s […]

Al Valdez was looking for sprinkler parts at a discount store when he sensed somebody was watching him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a security guard peeking at him from the next aisle. Valdez had run to the store after working in his yard and was wearing grubby gardening clothes. “I […]

In a bustling trailer at the El Sol Science & Arts Academy in downtown Santa Ana, UC Irvine’s Program in Nursing Science offers a window to healthcare’s future. Children and their parents fill a sparse waiting area, but the people in white coats who move from room to room seeing the young patients aren’t physicians. […]

They call it the “Book of Records” — a well-worn folder filled with old papers that Rameen and Shauhin Talesh have had since childhood. Every time the brothers played basketball, football, foosball, backgammon, Scrabble or any other game, they would duly note the winner. “We’d write down all of our matches,” Rameen says. “I had […]