Alumnus Tim Lee wasn't supposed to be a comedian. A biologist by training, he graduated in 1993 magna cum laude from UC San Diego with honors in biology. He went on to complete his Ph.D. at UC Davis. He spent years developing simulation and analytical models of population dynamics before he discovered that this bored him to tears. So he tried comedy, and has become an underground sensation, with over 4 million views on his YouTube videos. He now sells out performances from New York to Sydney. In this interview, Tim talks about his transition from biology to comedy, and how his biology research recently helped him out in a San Francisco coffee shop.
Getting people to change their behavior is much easier than getting them to maintain it. That is one of the key challenges Dr. Bess Marcus has faced over the course of her career as a clinical health psychologist. She has spent the last 25 years conducting research on physical activity behavior, and her primary research interests are in the prevention of cardiovascular disease and cancer, and the promotion of women's health. Now she serves as Chair of UC San Diego's Department of Family and Preventive Medicine.
You don't have to take a class to learn something new at UC San Diego. Just take a tour. Every Sunday, knowledgeable adult volunteer guides offer free tours of the campus through the UC San Diego Visitors Tour program. The guides present a general overview of our 1,200-acre campus, imparting their insight about UC San Diego's history, architecture, and our mission of education, research and public service. This interview features a conversation with the program's director and three of the tour guides; keep reading and you'll probably learn something you didn't know about our university. For more information on the bus and walking tours, click here.
Being Director of Environmental Health & Safety (EH&S) at UC San Diego is a 24/7 job that requires quick thinking, resourcefulness and preparation. Fortunately, we have Garry Mac Pherson leading the department, and he is a self-professed "Plan B type of guy." He came to UC San Diego in 2009 after serving more than 30 years as a fire division chief in fire prevention, emergency management services, and operations and training for the City of Poway. On any given day on campus, he's dealing with a wide range of high-tech and low-tech issues, from coyotes to cancer research. In this interview, Mac Pherson talks about the significant role EH&S has at UC San Diego and how the campus dealt with the recent regional power outage.
Paul Glick, a second-year mechanical engineering student from Washington, DC, has lived in some of the oldest student housing at Revelle College and now lives in some of the newest—the Charles Keeling apartments. The residence features a rooftop garden, solar panels, a storm-water management system, efficient plumbing fixtures, rain and sun screens, high ceilings, modern furniture, eco-friendly landscaping and some of the best views on campus. In this interview, Paul talks about what he likes best about living on campus, the research he worked on over the summer, and why it’s important to him to be “green.”
Many of you know Suresh Subramani as the Executive Vice Chancellor (EVC) of Academic Affairs. And you probably know that he is a highly distinguished cell and molecular biologist. But you may not know that he has worked at UC San Diego for 30 years, or that he is a vegetarian, or that he has two favorite places on this planet and they are nowhere near each other. In this interview, he talks about his responsibilities as the campus' chief academic and operating officer; his long career at the university, from faculty member to EVC; and he gives us insight into the future of education and research at UC San Diego.
