UC Riverside honored faculty members for their achievements at the 2025 Faculty Awards Dinner on Thursday, Feb. 6.
About 170 people attended the dinner at the Mission Inn including faculty honorees and their family members, campus leaders, and deans, department chairs, and distinguished faculty. Faculty members were recognized for their promotions and advancements in the last academic year.
Elizabeth Watkins, UCR’s provost and executive vice chancellor, congratulated faculty members on their advancements, noting that she reviews all merit and promotion files.
“Each year, I am reminded of the extraordinary talents, dedication, and impact of our faculty,” Watkins said. “Advancing in rank or achieving tenure is no small feat. It requires not only excellence in research, teaching, and service but also perseverance, focus, and a significant investment of time.”
Faculty members were also honored for receiving awards in research and creative activities from a wide variety of groups including national and international organizations. They include fellowships, early career awards, and recognition from academic societies.
Watkins praised faculty members not only for their individual achievements but also for helping to raise UCR’s profile through those recognitions.
Visit the Awards and Honors section of Inside UCR to read more about some of the faculty achievements recognized at the ceremony. The honorees are listed below by college and school.
College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
The following faculty members were promoted to associate professor with tenure: Ademide Adelusi-Adeluyi, Jody A. Benjamin, Xóchitl C. Chávez, Joseph Cummins, Annie S. Ditta, Yasemin Irepoglu Carreras, Anthony R. Jerry, Dana E. Kaufman, Aleca Le Blanc, Steven Liao, Noel P. Pereyra-Johnston, Emma T. Stapely, and Carlos Varón González.
The following faculty members were promoted to full professor: Juliann Emmons Allison, Elizabeth L. Davis, Alfonso Gonzales Toribio, Catherine Gudis, Kimberly Norris Guerrero, Rebecca Kugel, Maria Covadonga Lamar Prieto, Bronwyn Leebaw, Liz Przybylski, Setsu Shigematsu, James Tobias, and Weiwei Zhang.
Khaleel A. Abdulrazak, Christina Schwenkel, Tuppett M. Yates, and Amir Zaki advanced to step VI. Patricia Cardoso, Bella Merlin, and Dylan Rodríguez advanced to distinguished professor. Among non-senate faculty, Tod Goldberg advanced to step VI.
The following faculty members were promoted to senior continuing lecturer: Luis Carazo, Christine Duverge, Michael Hawkins, Shu-Liang Hsu, Benjamin King, Kyoko Sagawa, and Sabine Thuerwaechter.
The following faculty members were recognized for awards: Anna Betbeze (Guggenheim Fellow), David Biggs (Fulbright Scholar), Patricia Cardoso (Governor of Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences), Edward Chang (Mellon Humanities in Place Fellowship), Luca Ferrero (fellowship at Center for Ethics and Public Affairs at the Murphy Institute), John Fischer (American Academy of Arts and Sciences), Kim Frost (Center for Human Abilities fellowship), Farah Godrej (Charles Taylor Book Award), Sherine Hafez (Fulbright Scholar), Juan Felipe Herrera (MacArthur Genius Grant Fellow), Jennifer Scheper Hughes (Yang Visiting Scholar in World Christianity), Anthea Kraut (NEH Fellowship), Laila Lalami (Radcliffe Institute Fellowship), Susan Laxton (Borchard In-Residence Fellowship), Won Ju Lim (Guggenheim Fellow), Sonja Lyubomirsky (American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow), Christina Schwenkel (Fulbright Scholar), Sherryl Vint (Fulbright Scholar), Sage Ni’Ja Whitson (Herb Alpert/Macdowell Fellowship; DAAD Artist-in-Berlin Visual Arts Fellowship), Jasmin Young (Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History, Harvard University, Fellowship), Weiwei Zhang (Association for Psychological Science Fellow), Wei Zhao (Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences, Peking University, Fellowship), and Susan Zieger (Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Residency Program Fellowship).
College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences
The following faculty members were promoted to associate professor with tenure: Simeon Bird, Weitao Chen, Roby Douilly, Heather Anne Ford, Joseph Genereux, Sydney Glassman, Jose Luis Gonzalez, Boerge Hemmerling, Peter M. Homyak, Thomas E. Kuhlman, King-Fai Li, Dawn Hekina Nagel, Marko James Spasojevic, Qixuan Wang, Sachiko H. Yamanaka, and Samantha C. Ying.
The following faculty members were promoted to full professor: Kurt Anderson, Emma L. Aronson, Matthew P. Conley, James M. Flegal, Abhijit Ghosh, James Kelliher, Jessica Purcell, Naoki Yamanaka, and Shuheng Zhou.
Quan (Jason) Cheng and Ryan R. Julian advanced to step VI. Daniel Schlenk advanced to distinguished professor.
Among non-senate faculty, David Rankin was promoted to associate professor. James Baird, Sohrab Bodaghi, and Paul Rugman-Jones were promoted to full professor. Mark Hoddle was promoted to distinguished professor.
The following faculty members were recognized for awards: Mark Alber (Fulbright Scholar), Miguel Arratia Munoz (Department of Energy Early Career Research Program Award), Barry Barish (US National Medal of Science), Weitao Chen (NSF Career Award), Brian Collier (NSF Career Award), Mary Droser (Paleontological Society Medal), David Eastmond (Environmental Mutagenesis and Genomics Society Education Award; Women in Toxicology Special Interest Group of the Society of Toxicology Mentoring Award), Allison Hansen (Entomology Society of America Plant-Insect Ecosystems Award), Mark Hoddle (Entomology Society of America Team Work Award), Hailing Jin (American Phytopathological Society Fellow), Kevin Kou (NSF Career Award), Chow-Yang Lee (Fellow of the Entomological Society of America), Quinn McFrederick (Entomology Society of America Plant-Insect Ecosystems Award), Jessica Purcell (Entomology Society of America Plant-Insect Ecosystems Award), Helen Regan (Ecological Society of America W.S. Cooper Award; American Association of Geographers Henry C. Cowles Award), Tim Su (Cottrell Scholar Award; NSF Career Award), Serguei Triapitsyn (Entomology Society of America Systematics, Evolution, and Biodiversity Award), Shawn Westerdale (Department of Energy Early Career Research Program Award), Naoki Yamanaka (Entomology Society of America Psychology, Biochemistry, and Toxicology Award), Weixin Yao (American Statistical Association Fellow), and Francisco Zaera (American Vacuum Society Medard W. Welch Award).
Marlan and Rosemary Bourns College of Engineering
The following faculty members were promoted to associate professor with tenure: Robert Edward Jinkerson, Iman Noshadi, Venkatarama Bhargav Rallabandi, and Luat T. Vuong.
The following faculty members were promoted to full professor: Shane Andrew Cybart and Nanpeng (Eric) Yu.
David Cocker advanced to step VI. Xiaoping Philip Hu and Akula Venkatram were promoted to distinguished professor. Among non-senate faculty, Tom Durbin was promoted to step VI.
The following faculty members were recognized for awards: Bahman Anvari (National Academy of Inventors Fellow), Juhong Chen (NSF Career Award), Ran Cheng (NSF Career Award), Tom Durbin (Society of Automotive Engineers Fellow), Yan Gu (NSF Career Award), Trent Jaeger (Association for Computing Machinery Fellow), Tao Jiang (International Society for Computational Biology Fellow), Eamonn Keogh (St. Patrick’s Day Medal for Science), Chung-Hao Lee (American Heart Association Fellow), Hiunan Liu (American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering Fellow), Cengiz Ozkan (American Society of Mechanical Engineers Fellow; Turkish Academy of Sciences Fellow), Giulia Palermo (Camille & Henry Dreyfus Foundation Teaching Scholar Award in Chemistry), Kadangode K Ramakrishnan (Association for Computing Machinery Lifetime Contributions Award), Elaheh Sadredini (NSF Career Award), and Heng Yin (Dependable Systems and Networks Conference Distinguished Best Paper Award).
School of Business
The following faculty members were promoted to associate professor with tenure: Mingyu Joo, Adem Orsdemir, and Greg M. Richey. Long Gao was promoted to full professor.
Also recognized for an award: Margaret Campbell (Society for Consumer Psychology Fellows Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Field of Consumer Psychology).
School of Education
Kinnari Atit and Soojin Park were promoted to associate professor with tenure, and Rita Kohli advanced to full professor. Joseph E. Kahne advanced to distinguished professor.
School of Medicine
The following faculty members were promoted to full professor: Nicholas V. Dipatrizio and Meera G. Nair. Iryna Ethell advanced to step VI, and Mario Sims was promoted to distinguished professor.
Among non-senate faculty, the following advanced to associate professor: Pamela Anderson, Moazzum Bajwa, Alexander Friedman, Stephanie Handler, Eduardo Javier, Anas Kawayeh, Ardeshir Khosraviani, Brandon Nathaniel, Daniel Novak, Bruce Weng, and Jami Woods.
Kendrick Davis, Sameh Fayek, Lawrence Faziola, and Ricardo Restrepo were recognized for promotion to full professor. Stephen Stahl was promoted to distinguished professor.
Also recognized for awards: Deborah Deas (Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association) and Stephen Stahl (University of Cambridge, UK, Psychiatry, Lifetime Achievement Award for Service in Psychiatry; and Sapienza University of Rome Lifetime Achievement Award).
School of Public Policy
Sharon S. Oselin was promoted to associate professor with tenure, and Kevin M. Esterling advanced to step VI.
Also recognized for an award: Kurt Schwabe (Fulbright Scholar).
