John Jennings, a professor of media and cultural studies at UC Riverside, has won a 2021 Hugo Award for the graphic novel adaptation of Octavia Butler’s science fiction novel “Parable of the Sower.” Drawn by Jennings and scripted by his longtime collaborator Damian Duffy, the adaptation won in the best graphic story category in the December awards...

UC Riverside has received a $50,000 grant from two groups that will provide summer internships for students with the Greater Riverside Chambers of Commerce. The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, or APLU, and the Coalition of Urban Serving Universities announced on Dec. 15 that UCR was among five universities selected to receive the...

UC Riverside received a Silver Seal from the All In Campus Democracy Challenge for having a student voting rate of about 69% in the 2020 presidential election. The campus saw a 29% increase from the 2016 election and, for the first time, surpassed the national average, which was 66% last year. The voting rate reflects the percentage of eligible...

Distinguished Professor of Psychology Sonja Lyubomirsky was recently awarded an honorary doctorate Nov. 26 by the University of Basel in Switzerland. It was part of the university’s Dies Academicus 2021, an annual faculty ceremony. The ceremony was the 561st held by the university, which was founded in 1460 and is one of the oldest surviving...

Carlos Cortés, a professor emeritus of history at UC Riverside, is one of two professors to be honored by the University of California with the 2020-21 Constantine Panunzio Distinguished Emeriti Award. The award recognizes professors for outstanding scholarly or educational work performed since retirement in the fields of humanities or social...

Joanna Szupinska, senior curator at the California Museum of Photography at UCR ARTS, has been named a Fulbright Specialist working with curators and collection staff at Muzeum Sztuki (Museum of Art) in Łódź, Poland. As part of the project funded by the Fulbright Commission in Poland, Szupinska will collaborate directly with museum staff as well as...

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has approved a grant of $225,000 to the University of California, Riverside to support a Sawyer Seminar on the Comparative Study of Cultures titled "Unarchiving Blackness: Why the Primacy of African and African Diaspora Studies Necessitates a Creative Reconsideration of Archives.” The Mellon Foundation's Sawyer...

G illian Wilson, a professor of physics and astronomy, has been named a fellow of the American Physical Society, or APS, “for pioneering techniques and significant contributions to clusters of galaxies, massive galaxies and cosmology, as well as for sustained leadership in research administration, broadening participation and outreach.” Wilson is...

Two UC Riverside School of Education doctoral students have received grants from the Hammill Institute on Disabilities to support research aimed at improving the education of individuals with disabilities. Zaira Jimenez, a fourth-year student; and Aya Shhub, a third-year student; will each receive $5,000 to support their studies and data collection...

Psychology researcher Jimmy Calanchini has received a grant worth more than $431,000 from the National Science Foundation to fund a study of intergroup recognition. The project title is “A Model of Generalized Ingroup Recognition Advantage,” and the duration of the funding is from Sept. 1, 2021 to Aug. 31, 2024. Calanchini’s study will research the...

B randon Brown, an associate professor in the Department of Social Medicine, Population and Public Health in the School of Medicine at the University of California, Riverside, has been named a 2021 Emerging Leader in Health and Medicine Scholar by the National Academy of Medicine, or NAM. Brown is one of only 10 Emerging Leaders in Health and...

Irma Andrade, a senior custodian with UC Riverside’s Facilities Services, has been honored by an industry magazine as an exceptional employee with an attention to detail. Andrade was featured as one of the “Faces of the Frontline” in a recent issue of Clean Link, an online site which covers the cleaning industry. The article describes how she’s...

UC Riverside’s Dining Services won top prizes in two categories in the National Association of College and University Food Services 2020 Loyal E. Horton Dining Awards. Emerbee’s took the silver prize in retail sales, awarded to campus retail locations with innovative features and techniques. The 600-square-foot café, located next to the...

K enneth Barish, a professor of physics and astronomy, has received a three-year renewal grant of more than $1 million from the Department of Energy, or DOE, to support the activities of the Nucleon Spin Physics Group at UC Riverside. Physicists have made significant theoretical and experimental progress in understanding where the total spin of the...

J onathan Richardson, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy, has received a grant of $480,000 from the National Science Foundation to develop advanced instrumentation for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, or LIGO, based at sites in Louisiana and Washington. Completed in 2002, LIGO detects gravitational waves —...

Ten UC Riverside staff members have been honored by UCR Staff Assembly as part of its annual Outstanding Staff Awards. The awards are meant to recognize staff members for excellence in their work, commitment to the university’s mission, and making UC Riverside and their communities a better place for all. Staff and faculty employees nominated staff...

D eclan McCole, a professor of biomedical sciences in the School of Medicine, has received a three-year grant from the National Institutes of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, a division of the National Institutes of Health, to explore how a certain protective gene’s loss of function can increase the risk of infection with SARS-CoV-2, the...

UC Riverside has earned a top rating for sustainability in an index of the nation’s most sustainable colleges and universities. The campus received a gold rating from the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education’s Sustainability, Tracking, Assessment & Rating System, or AASHE - STARS. AASHE’s STARS program has more than 900 participants in...

Earlier this year, Viji Santhakumar, an associate professor of molecular, cell and systems biology, received funding from the National Institute of Neurological Disaster and Stroke of the National Institutes of Health, or NIH, to further pursue research on moderate concussive brain injury. Now three scientists in her lab have received federal...

Seema Tiwari-Woodruff, a professor of biomedical sciences at the UCR School of Medicine, has been installed as president of the American Society for Neurochemistry. Tiwari-Woodruff will serve a two-year term in the position and is the second School of Medicine faculty member to serve in the role. An expert on multiple sclerosis, or MS, and...