News Archive

May 26, 2016 — Not all habits are bad. Some are even necessary. But inability to switch from acting habitually to acting in a deliberate way can underlie addiction and obsessive compulsive disorders. Working with a mouse model, an international team of researchers demonstrates what happens in the brain for habits to control behavior

May 26, 2016 — More than 8,000 students of the University of California San Diego will graduate during the campus’s commencement weekend June 11 and 12, beginning with the All Campus Commencement featuring keynote speaker Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel Peace Prize recipient and founder of the global microfinance movement. The event, at 10 a.m. on Saturday, June 11, will mark the first time in 16 years that UC San Diego will convene all of its graduating undergraduate and graduate students for a campus-wide commencement ceremony.

May 19, 2016 — George Mandler – founding chair of the University of California San Diego’s Department of Psychology and one of the central figures in psychology’s cognitive revolution – died in his Hampstead, London home on May 6, 2016. He was 91.

May 17, 2016 — The unorthodox historian and journalist, Tom Segev, has been intrepid in exploring and illuminating the tortured history of Israel and the Holocaust, often exposing painful truths that many would rather not have to grapple with. Born in Jerusalem to parents who fled Nazi Germany, Segev is a leading figure among the so-called “New Historians” of Israel, who have continued to challenge many of the nation’s traditional narratives or “founding myths.”

May 17, 2016 — The University of California San Diego’s Division of Arts and Humanities significantly increased its presence on the recently released list of 2016 – 2017 Hellman Fellowships, a university program designed to provide financial support to promising faculty for activities that enhance progress toward tenure. Last year’s divisional recipients included an associate professor from the Department of History, but this year four junior faculty earned recognition. Making up one-third of the 12 awardees, they are: Amy Marie Cimini, Department of Music; Deborah Isobel Stein, Department of Theatre and Dance; Matthew Werner Vitz, Department of History; and Alena Williams, Department of Visual Arts.

May 16, 2016 — Researchers at the Kavli Institute for Brain and Mind at UC San Diego have developed a technique for imaging brain activity in a freely walking fruit fly. Working with one of the most common model organisms in science, the team shows for the first time what goes on in the brain of the fly during courtship – when it’s unrestrained.

May 13, 2016 — The Pacific island country Palau has released a Monitoring, Control and Surveillance (MCS) Plan to combat illegal activity and manage emergency responses in its ocean waters, which are protected by a recently established national marine sanctuary. Researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego were key contributors to the plan.

May 5, 2016 — At the outset of the 2015-2016 El Niño season, researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego recognized that all the ingredients of a major event were in place.

May 5, 2016 — From the experiences of an East African immigrant working as a dishwasher to those of a long-term, loving couple, UC San Diego’s 2016 Wagner New Play Festival features five new plays, May 3 – 12, in The Joan and Irwin Jacobs Theatre District located on the La Jolla campus. Two of the premiere pieces, described as highly personal and powerful, are by award-winning M.F.A. playwrights in the Department of Theatre and Dance.

May 4, 2016 — What can you do about climate change? The better question might be: What can we? University of California San Diego researchers show in a new study that framing the issue collectively is significantly more effective than emphasis on personal responsibility.