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Sue J. Gross Foundation $3 Million Gift to UCI Will Advance Nursing Training & Education

Friday, January 14, 2022

A $3 million gift to the University of California, Irvine from the Sue J. Gross Foundation will expand training and education opportunities in the Sue & Bill Gross School of Nursing, which was established by a naming gift from The William and Sue Gross Family Foundation, where Sue Gross served as co-founder and director. The gift from the Sue J. Gross Foundation includes $2 million to fund construction of a high-tech, state-of-the-art simulation center for team-based interprofessional exercises and an additional $1 million to establish the Founding Dean Adey Nyamathi Endowment, which will provide nursing Ph.D. scholarships. “This gift is a continuatio...

2021: A year of Renewal and Growth for UCI

Wednesday, January 05, 2022

(UCI News) For University of California Irvine, 2021 was a year of renewal and growth. The campus renewed its bustling self by welcoming all students, faculty, staff and visitors back to campus in September. Following safety protocols and requiring COVID-19 vaccinations, classmates and colleagues – who may have not been face-to-face, other than virtually, for 15 months – came together again to learn, to teach, to research and to create. UCI marked this transition year with one of the most ambitious growth plans in its history. The Interdisciplinary Science & Engineering Building opened its doors to diverse teams of researchers; a “toppin...

UCI Paul Merage School of Business Receives $375K Gift to Support Undergraduate Students

Friday, December 24, 2021

(UCI News) Timothy Leyden MBA ’92 and his wife Margaret have promised a $375,000 endowed gift to the UCI Paul Merage School of Business. The new Leyden Family Endowed Scholarship will reward undergraduate business students for exceptional academic merit, enabling them to pursue their studies with a renewed commitment to hard work and innovative problem-solving. Thirty-five years ago, Leyden moved his family across the sea from Ireland to Southern California after accepting a job offer with Western Digital Corporation. The relocation and job change marked a pivotal step forward in his career, and he was able to earn his MBA from the Merag...

Crowd Favorite, Chris Schwarz Returns as Greater Irvine Chamber Business Outlook Keynote Speaker

Wednesday, December 22, 2021

Editors Update: This event will take place in spring 2022. Details and registration to be announced. Chris Schwarz, associate professor of finance and faculty director of the Center for Investment and Wealth Management at University of California, Irvine’s Paul Merage School of Business and popular speaker, returns for the fourth year to the Greater Irvine Chamber Business Outlook event. “An expert in the field of economics, Chris Schwarz is also a crowd favorite, capturing the attention of large audiences with his knowledge, insights, and good humor about a salient topic,” said Bryan Starr, president and CEO, Greater Irvine Chamber. “His observations and analyses are important as we look at market indicators to help us mak...

Irvine Sets Gold Standard for Safety, Celebrates Golden Anniversary

Tuesday, December 21, 2021

(UCI News) For 16 straight years, Irvine has been named the safest city of its size in the U.S., based on FBI Uniform Crime Reporting statistics for 18,000 jurisdictions. With the city’s 50th anniversary on Dec. 28, the co-directors of UCI’s Irvine Laboratory for the Study of Space and Crime, John Hipp and Charis Kubrin, decided to learn why that is – despite the municipality’s evolving demographics. The result: a comprehensive, 57-page report titled “Irvine at 50: A Tale of Continuity and Change.” Kubrin, professor of criminology, law & society as well as sociology, says of the title, “The continuity is the consistently low crime rates tha...

Inaugural Born in California Demo Days a Success at UC Irvine

Wednesday, December 15, 2021

Forty-four UC startups, from Davis to San Diego, descended upon UC Irvine to showcase their inventions at the inaugural Born in California demo days, presented by U.S. Bank. This invitation-only University of California (UC) systemwide event, held at the Cove @ UCI and hosted by UCI Beall Applied Innovation, featured startups from all 10 UC campuses deemed the most investment-worthy in the life science, digital health, consumer, technology and sustainability sectors. Before a crowd of 400 attendees, including almost 200 potential investors, UC President, Dr. Michael Drake, virtually opened the event and discussed the innovation that consistently takes place in the UC system. “Incubator...

UCI Institute and Museum of California Art receives naming gift from Jack and Shanaz Langson

Wednesday, December 15, 2021

A naming gift from Jack and Shanaz Langson to the University of California, Irvine will support the construction and operation of a state-of-the-art building facility to house the Institute and Museum of California Art and its important collection of California art. In recognition of their generous support, IMCA will be named the Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art. In addition, their gift will serve to catalyze the growth of a multi-million-dollar endowment to provide long-term support, and it will enable Langson IMCA to advance its manifold mission in arts research and scholarship, conservation, presentation and interdisciplinary learnin...

City of Irvine Mayor Farrah N. Khan Establishes Innovation Council

Wednesday, December 08, 2021

Irvine Mayor Farrah N. Khan hosted on Dec. 8 a press conference at City Hall to announce the creation of an Innovation Council comprised of representatives from local business, education, and government. Mayor Khan’s Innovation Council will work to define specific actions needed to help position Irvine as a regional hub of innovation and technology. The goal is to create a collaborative and multifaceted Strategic & Action Plan to help attract, retain, and support scalable, sustainable, and high-growth technology businesses. In particular, there will be a focus on pipeline programming to encourage innovation at local schools. The Innovation Council will be made up o...

Irvine Leaders Approve $5.7 Million Deal to Make UCI Health the Great Park’s Top Promoter

Wednesday, December 01, 2021

(Orange County Register) UCI Health will be the presenting sponsor of the Great Park, Irvine leaders have decided, approving a deal that will mean roughly $5.7 million for city coffers over 10 years and will include the medical center name on Great Park signs and logos, as well as provide other branding opportunities. The Irvine City Council, acting as the Great Park board of directors, voted Tuesday, Nov. 23, by 4-0 (Councilman Anthony Kuo was absent) to make UCI Health the park’s top promoter. Before the proposed agreement goes into effect, its language will be altered to refer to the exchange a...

UCI Ranks No. 3 Top College in the West for Diversity

Friday, November 26, 2021

The Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education College Rankings has ranked University of California, Irvine No. 3 for Diversity in its annual ranking that was released on Nov. 17, 2021. UCI, Cal State Northridge, and San Francisco State all tied No. 3 nationally for the diversity of their students and faculty. In the WSJ/THE rankings, diversity accounts for 10 percent of a school’s overall score. The WSJ/THE ranking is based on 15 factors across four main categories: Forty percent of each school’s overall score comes from student outcomes, including measures of graduate salaries and debt burdens, 30 percent from the school’s academic resources...

UCI Breaks Ground on New Hospital, Specialty Care Centers $1.3 Billion Project

Wednesday, November 17, 2021

The University of California, Irvine and UCI Health have broken ground on a new medical complex on the north end of the Irvine campus. The $1.3 billion complex was approved by the UC Board of Regents in January and will include a 144-bed acute care hospital with an emergency room, an outpatient Center for Advanced Care with primary and specialty health services, a Center for Children’s Health and the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center and Ambulatory Care building. “Today we mark a milestone in the history of UCI, of the history of Irvine, and of anywhere in our region where peopl...

Irvine: At the Heart of Orange County’s Medical Technology Ecosystem

Friday, November 12, 2021

UCI’s Edwards Lifesciences Foundation Cardiovascular Innovation and Research Center enters a new era with its latest philanthropic gift. National Institutes of Health experts say that people who are fortunate enough to survive a brush with COVID-19 may go on to suffer poor cardiovascular health in the future because of the infection. As these millions stand to join others with heart disease – the leading killer of men and women worldwide – the need for affordable, accessible, advanced treatments is becoming increasingly urgent. Scientists and engineers in UCI’s Edwards Lifesciences Foundation Cardiovascular Innovation and Research Center (CIRC) have been anticipating this outcome since th...

UCI Study: Businesses Selling Non-FDA-Approved Stem Cell Products Grew Four-Fold in Five Years

Friday, November 05, 2021

More than four times as many businesses and clinics than were identified in 2016 are selling stem cell products not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and lack convincing evidence of safety and efficacy, according to a five-year study conducted by University of California, Irvine Program in Public Health professor of health, society and behavior Leigh Turner. The analysis appears online in the journal Cell Stem Cell. Using tools such as Google Search and Google Maps, Turner found 1,480 U.S. businesses and 2,754 clinics selling purported stem cell treatments compared to a study conducted five years ago that foun...

$3M Grant From NSF To Help UC Irvine Retain STEM Students

Thursday, November 04, 2021

(Diverse Issues in Higher Education) A $3 million grant from the National Science Foundation will help The Institute for Meaningful Engagement at the University of California, Irvine identify and address environmental factors that are pushing underrepresented students out of STEM programs. Dr. Pheather R. Harris, director of the university’s California Alliance for Minority Participation, says the intervention will emphasize faculty involvement in student success. She wants to see two outcomes from the project: “The first is for faculty to recognize who they are in this conversation we’re having about inclusion and be able to have the tools they need to continue the work of enhancin...

UCI, CHOC Join New NORD Rare Disease Centers of Excellence Network

Thursday, November 04, 2021

University of California, Irvine (UCI) and Children’s Health of Orange County (CHOC) have been jointly designated a National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD) Center of Excellence, joining a new and highly select group of 31 medical centers seeking to expand access and advance care and research for rare disease patients in the United States. The NORD Center of Excellence program aims to foster the sharing of knowledge between experts across the country, connect patients to appropriate specialists regardless of disease or geography, and improve the pace of progress in rare disease diagnosis, treatment, and research. Dr. Virginia Kimonis, professor of genetic and genomi...

Fourth Annual UCI Innovator Awards Ceremony Recognizes Distinguished Researchers and Inventors

Tuesday, November 02, 2021

Top researchers and faculty members from UC Irvine (UCI) gathered virtually for the fourth annual UCI Innovator Awards ceremony. UCI Beall Applied Innovation, with generous support from Don and Ken Beall, created these awards to recognize UCI researchers working actively to promote commercialization of university intellectual property, which supports industry growth and moves inventions from the lab to the market to benefit humankind. This can be done through invention disclosures filed, patents applied for and/or received, technologies licensed or startup companies formed. “Beall Applied Innovation plays several key roles for UCI: they lead our technology transfer efforts, develop industry sponsored research and...

UCI Named Among Inaugural Cohort of Fulbright Hispanic-Serving Institution Leaders by State Department

Wednesday, October 27, 2021

The University of California, Irvine has been named an inaugural Fulbright HSI Leader by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. The newly created designation recognizes the noteworthy engagement that selected Hispanic-Serving Institutions have achieved with the Fulbright Program, the federal government’s flagship international educational exchange program. UCI is one of 35 HSIs to receive this distinction, announced today during an international plenary session at the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities’ 35th annual conference. All have been highly involved with Fulbright participants during the 2019 to 2021 academic years and have promoted Fulbright opportunities on campus. “This recognition underscore...

UCI Public Health Launches Center for Environmental Health Disparities Research

Wednesday, October 13, 2021

The University of California, Irvine Program in Public Health has launched the Center for Environmental Health Disparities Research. The center is dedicated to addressing environmental justice through community-based research and promotion of equitable environmental health policies locally and nationally. UCI Public Health professors Jun Wu and Alana M.W. LeBrón will direct the center. Wu serves as a professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health and has an extensive background in population-based research on environmental exposures and environmental epidemiology, specifically for air pollution, climate change, and environmental justice issues. LeBrón, in addition to serving as an assistant professor in th...

UCI Renews as Greater Irvine Chamber Leaders Circle Platinum Sponsor

Tuesday, October 05, 2021

University of California, Irvine (UCI) has renewed as a Greater Irvine Chamber Leaders Circle platinum-level sponsor. “Sixty years ago, in this place, there were no buildings, no roads, and for all intents and purposes no people. Not a city in sight — just open grazing land on a 90,000 acre, dusty ranch in the San Joaquin foothills. Yet the University of California, acting on behalf of the people of this great state, chose to build a new public research university here. Why? Because it knew the power of such an institution to drive growth and innovation, to spur development and advancement, to provide an environment where business flourishes an...

Irvine: The City of Education

Monday, October 04, 2021

By Bryan Starr, President and CEO, Greater Irvine Chamber | Destination Irvine As published in the Orange County Business Journal, October 4, 2021 (Text included below flipbook.) It’s not surprising that Irvine is one of the best places in the nation to receive an education, from K-12 to Ph.D. More than six decades ago, Irvine was master-planned with education in mind. Visionary city leaders knew that prioritizing education would be the key to the city’s long-term economic vitality and quality of life, so they designed the city around a research institution — known today as the University of California, Irvine (UCI). As the cit...

Great Park Could be ‘Presented by UCI Health’ Under Sponsorship Deal

Wednesday, September 29, 2021

(Orange County Register) Under a 10-year, multi-million dollar deal, UCI Health could become the Great Park’s top sponsor, giving the medical center a range of branding perks that include featuring its name on the park’s logo beside the words “presented by.” Irvine’s City Council on Sept. 28, will consider approving the sponsorship agreement, under which UCI Health would pay roughly $5.7 million over the next decade with the opportunity for the city to extend the contract for two more five-year terms. The deal would allow the medical center to host and take part in health and wellness initiatives, including seminars and multiple event...

UC Irvine to Add $50 Million Health Science Facility, the Campus’s Largest Research Center

Monday, September 20, 2021

(Orange County Register) Adding to a “health sciences district” taking shape on the southwest side of campus, UC Irvine announced it will build a new 200,0000-square-foot facility for collaborative research on cancer, neuroscience, regenerative medicine, and other specialties. Called the Falling Leaves Foundation Medical Innovation Building, it will be the largest research building on campus and one of the largest in the western U.S., UCI officials said. It will be funded by a $30 million donation from the Huntington Beach-based foundation of the same name and $20 million in other private contributions. The new facility will offer research lab and teaching spaces wher...

UCI Health Gastroenterologist Recognized as Innovator of the Year, UCI Vaccine Center Director Honored for Global Impact

Friday, September 17, 2021

Dr. Kenneth Chang, gastroenterologist and executive director of the UCI Health Digestive Health Institute, has been named Orange County Business Journal’s Innovator of the Year. The publication’s special Global Impact award went to UCI’s Philip Felgner, PhD, professor in the School of Medicine’s Department of Physiology & Biophysics and director of UCI’s Vaccine Research and Development Center. The Innovator of the Year award recognizes Chang’s development of the endoscopic ultrasound-guided portal pressure gradient (EUS-guided PPG), a tool critical to diagnosing liver health, especially in those with a form of fatty liver disease that can lead to needing a liver transplant. After Chan...

UCI Ranked Among Nation’s Top 10 Public Universities for Seventh Consecutive Year

Monday, September 13, 2021

The University of California, Irvine has been ranked ninth among the nation’s public universities – and 36th overall – on U.S. News & World Report’s 2022 list of Best Colleges. This is the seventh consecutive year in which UCI has placed in the top 10. For the second year in a row, the university is ranked No. 2 in the subcategory of social mobility, which takes into account the graduation rate of students awarded Pell Grants. The latest edition of U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Colleges” rankings – now in their 37th year – assesses 1,466 of the country’s bachelor’s degree-granting institution...

UCI-Led Study Finds Disparities in OC Rates of COVID-19 Infection, Mortality

Thursday, August 19, 2021

Socioeconomic, geographic and demographic factors all played critical roles in the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 mortality among Orange County residents last year, according to a study led by the University of California, Irvine. The findings, published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, show that some groups were more likely to test positive and die from the virus. Furthermore, risk factors for infection shifted over time. “At the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020, cases were clustered in the more affluent coastal areas of the county but then shifted to north-central locations, particularly in the cities of Santa An...

Bryan Starr Discusses the Legacy of Irvine’s Master Plan in Podcast

Tuesday, August 10, 2021

In a recent radio interview with OC Talk Radio, Bryan Starr, President and CEO of the Greater Irvine Chamber and its destination marketing and economic development divisions, discussed the legacy of Irvine’s Master Plan, the city’s many assets, and the Chamber’s role as convener, champion, and catalyst for economic vitality in the greater Irvine area. “Everything comes back to the master plan,” Starr said, referencing Irvine centered around what is now University of California, Irvine. “The initial step, right away, made us a city of innovation, a city of education, that has been perpetuated into the 21st century.” Impact OC Talk Radio...

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