Where others might see obstacles, Dejanay Wayne sees opportunity. For the past two months, the UC San Diego undergraduate has taken the initiative to meet one-on-one with campus leadership to share her ideas on how to make the university more welcoming to students of color. As a result of her newfound alliances, she secured bookstore giveaways to help recruit underrepresented students to UC San Diego, introduced ethnic hair and skin products to campus, and is now working to develop a retention program that pairs current undergraduates with first-year underrepresented students.
UC San Diego Department of History Professor Natalia Molina, who also teaches urban studies and serves as associate vice chancellor for faculty diversity and equity, was recently awarded the 2015 Susanne M. Glasscock Humanities Book Prize for Interdisciplinary Scholarship for her book, “How Race Is Made in America: Immigration, Citizenship, and the Historical Power of Racial Scripts.” Molina’s publication examines Mexican immigration from 1924 to 1965 to understand how broad themes of race and citizenship are established. She will discuss her research publicly as the next keynote speaker in the Division of Arts and Humanities’ Degrees of Health and Well-being lecture series, Wednesday. Jan. 27, 7:00 p.m., in UC San Diego’s Great Hall.
The University of California, San Diego’s New Writing Series (NWS) is anything but new. In fact, the series, originally rooted in poetry, is among the longest running programs in the state, dating to the early 1970s. Each quarter the Department of Literature hosts the “new” writing series, and this winter’s series, which began Jan. 13 and runs through March 2, takes a transnational focus with guest writers John Gibler, Lorena Gomez Mostajo, John B. Washington and Marivi Blanco. The next presentation, featuring Washington, takes place Jan. 27, 4:30 p.m., in the Visual Arts Presentation Lab on campus.
Description In the wake of Apple’s acquisition of the startup Emotient, Calit2’s Qualcomm Institute will take over the lab where Emotient’s technology was first developed. QI will also take over Diego-san, the robot created by Emotient’s founders, who have left UC San Diego to join Apple.
An international team of researchers has taken a step toward achieving controlled nuclear fusion—a process that powers the Sun and other stars, and has the potential to supply the world with limitless, clean energy. The team, led by researchers at the University of California, San Diego and General Atomics, developed a new technique to “see” where energy is delivered during fast ignition experiments and improve energy delivery to the fuel target.
Alumni play a key role in a university’s fundraising efforts. Casey and Matthew Shen are prime examples. The University of California, San Diego alumni couple recently donated one-half million dollars to their alma mater to establish the Casey and Matthew Shen Endowment to support graduate student fellowships in the Department of Literature.