Times Higher Education has placed the University of California, San Diego as the 40th top university in the publication’s World Reputation Rankings. The Reputation Rankings complement the Times’ annual World University Rankings, published in fall 2013, in which UC San Diego was also ranked 40th.
Sneha Jayaprakash, a sophomore at UC San Diego, is passionate about two things: computer science and social change. As part of the 2013 Microsoft YouthSpark Challenge for Change contest, she developed a winning proposal for a mobile app to engage students with volunteerism and social issues—and received a prize of $2,500 to get the project going. Now, with an additional $10,000 awarded by the Microsoft Imagine Fund last month, Jayaprakash is getting the opportunity to turn her idea into a successful startup.
Designed as a cultural laboratory, La Clase Magica uses storytelling to bridge the lives of local underserved youth and UC San Diego undergraduate students. As “amigo/as,” undergraduate mentors share anecdotes of life in college and encourage their mentees to pursue higher education. In turn, by facilitating digital media projects that draw upon the traditions, language and history of the youth, undergraduates discover the broad diversity and cultural breadth that exists in local San Diego communities.
As part of the annual Kyoto Prize Symposium, world-renowned evolutionary biologist Masatoshi Nei, Ph.D., will speak at the University of California, San Diego on March 18 at 3:30 p.m. in the Price Center West Ballroom on campus.
Larry Smarr, a physicist whose work at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on calculating black hole collisions led him to champion a federal commitment to dramatically enhance U.S. computing power – which in turn led to the development of NCSA Mosaic, the precursor to web browsers – was named today as the first 2014 recipient of the Golden Goose Award, which goes to three or four winners annually.
Drawn to Barcelona for the excitement of a large metropolitan city and the opportunity to interact with a global community, Mireya Pinell-Cruz recently embarked on a yearlong study abroad journey to Spain. Sharpening her language skills and opening her mind to new possibilities, Pinell-Cruz enriched her experience by becoming involved with a ballet folklorico dance company, teaching English and participating in an internship with a local cultural association.
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