News Archive

January 21, 2025 — A multiyear collaboration between UC San Diego’s School of Arts and Humanities and the San Diego Community College District (SDCCD) to increase the number of students studying and embarking on successful careers in the arts and humanities is receiving a $3 million grant from the Mellon Foundation, the third grant garnered since the program’s inception in 2016.

January 21, 2025 — San Diego-based business leader and philanthropist Aiiso Yufeng Li (Jeff) and his wife DongDong Li (Doreen) have made a new $3M gift to the University of California San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering. The gift celebrates the Jacobs School’s ongoing efforts to empower researchers to translate their innovations to the marketplace.

January 20, 2025 — In a joint experimental-theoretical work, a team of researchers, including theorists from UC San Diego, have shown for the first time that heat transfer in the form of infrared radiation can influence chemical reactions more strongly than traditional convection and conduction methods.

January 17, 2025 — President Joseph R. Biden announced this week the recipients of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), including five faculty members from the University of California San Diego. The PECASE is the highest honor bestowed by the United States government to scientists and engineers in the early stages of their independent research careers.

January 17, 2025 — Researchers have developed a noninvasive method to monitor the electrical activity inside heart muscle cells from the outside, avoiding the need to physically penetrate the cells. The method relies on recording electrical signals from outside the cells and using AI to reconstruct the signals within the cells with impressive accuracy.

January 16, 2025 — A new tool could make it easier to study scarce and mysterious plant molecules. Researchers co-led by the University of California San Diego have developed so-called microbial cell factories—using E. coli and yeast—to produce a special class of plant hormones, known as strigolactones, at unprecedented levels. By amplifying production of strigolactones, which occur in such low amounts in plants, researchers now have the ability to study these elusive plant molecules in much greater depth than before. The work could help improve sustainable agricultural practices by offering deeper insights into how plants make and use their natural hormones to adapt and survive.

January 16, 2025 — Nancy Guy, an ethnomusicologist and professor of music at UC San Diego, has dedicated her career to studying the music of Taiwan. From the way environmental concerns seep into songs to how politics proliferate opera, Guy is passionate about discovering and sharing the diverse ways music shapes culture and society in Taiwan. Now, Guy has been appointed the inaugural holder of the Chiu-Shan and Rufina Chen Chancellor’s Endowed Chair in Taiwan Studies in the School of Arts and Humanities in support of her research and teaching activities.

January 16, 2025 — Six faculty from the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering have been named 2025 Fellows of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the world’s leading professional association for advancing technology for humanity.

January 16, 2025 — Sixth College’s redesigned honors program encourages its students to dig deep—literally—through a revolutionary approach grounded in community engagement.

January 16, 2025 — Now in its 8th year, UC San Diego’s Accelerating Innovation to Market (AIM) program kicks off what promises to be yet another successful year with the announcement of its latest roster of awarded projects for 2025. This dynamic initiative, led by the Office of Innovation and Commercialization, focuses on expediting groundbreaking university technologies into market-ready solutions through resources and funding. Unique to this year, however, the total award pool leaped to an impressive $400,000, over 60% larger than in previous years, which then allowed the program to double the number of startups it could fund. The record increase was due in large part to the support of the University of California Office of the President, which graciously matched funding with the Entrepreneurship Council.