| The 2004-05 Featured News Archive contains
summaries of press releases about prominent news developments
at UCSB from July 2004 to June 2005. The heading of each
item links to the full text of that story. All first appeared
on the
UCSB Featured
News page.
 Anti-fungal
Drug Could Be a Cancer Treatment A drug that has been used for 40 years for the treatment
of skin fungus has been found to be a possible cancer
treatment, according to Leslie Wilson, professor of biochemistry
and pharmacology at UCSB. The accompanying image shows
cells that were treated with the drug, griseofulvin. 6/28/2005
International
Scholars Here to Study Religion American studies scholars from 18 countries around the
world are at UC Santa Barbara this summer studying the
religious diversity of the United States and finding out
first hand how people with widely differing beliefs can
coexist. The program that brought them here, now in its
fourth year, was developed by the Department of Religious
Studies and is sponsored by the State Department.
6/22/2005
Evelyn
Hu Receives NSF Director's Award Evelyn Hu, a professor of electrical and computer engineering
and of materials and co-director of the California NanoSystems
Institute, has received the National Science Foundation's
Director's Award for Distinguished Teaching Scholars.
She is one of seven national winners of the award, through
which the NSF is seeking to promote improvement and innovation
in the teaching of science, technology, engineering, or
mathematics. The award includes approximately $300,000
in project support over four years.
6/21/2005
101
Seniors Elected to Phi Beta Kappa Faculty members have inducted 101 high-achieving seniors
into the UCSB chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, the nation's
oldest honorary academic society.
6/20/2005
New
Partnership to Focus on Satellite Imagery UCSB scientists say that a new collaboration
between the campus and a private company, Terra Image
USA, headquartered in Santa Barbara, will have a major
impact on research that utilizes satellite imagery. The
partnership will allow UCSB researchers virtually unlimited
access to high spatial resolution commercial satellite
imagery, a research asset that has previously been available
to universities in very limited quantities.
6/20/2005
 U.S.
Presidential Science Award Presented to UCSB's Frank Brown Frank L. H. Brown, a young
assistant professor in UCSB's Department of Chemistry
and Biochemistry, has been awarded the highest honor that
a scientist at the beginning of his or her career can
receive in this country. He was among 58 individuals from
across the nation who were presented with the Presidential
Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE).
6/13/2005
UCSB
on Team Awarded $13 Million for Nano-Attack on Plaque A partnership of 25 scientists
from the College of Engineering at UCSB and The Burnham
Institute and The Scripps Research Institute, both of
La Jolla, has been awarded $13 million to use nanotechnologies
in the design of new ways to detect, monitor, treat, and
eliminate "vulnerable" plaque, the probable
cause of death from sudden cardiac arrest. The organizations
were selected as a collaborative "Program of Excellence
in Nanotechnology" by the National Heart Lung and
Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of
Health (NIH). 6/13/2005
Graduating Seniors Win Top
Awards
 Three
outstanding graduating seniors will
receive the university's top three awards for their scholastic
achievements, their extraordinary service to the university
and the community, and their personal courage and persistence.
6/2/2005
Six
graduating women will receive cash awards totaling $49,000 from the now-defunct
Santa Barbara City Club, whose members sought to reward
top female graduates at UCSB for a "job well done."
6/2/2005
Two
graduating seniors and two doctoral candidates have been recognized for their outstanding
contributions to undergraduate research.
6/6/2005
Four
College of Letters and Science graduates are being recognized with awards for their academic achievements.
6/7/2005
 Marine
Sponge Yields Nanoscale Secrets, UCSB Scientists Report The simple marine sponge is
proving to be an inspiration to UCSB scientists. In a
cover story in the journal "Advanced Materials,"
they explain how the sponge is helping their cutting-edge
research on the design of new materials. The publication's
cover shows a version of the illustration here, featuring
gold nanoparticles coated with a layer of molecules.
5/23/2005
Discovery
May Lead to Cancer, Fertility Drugs A recent discovery in cell fusion at UCSB may allow scientists
to enhance organ regeneration by stem cells, prevent the
progression of cancer, and control fertility. The discovery
by a team of researchers was made in the laboratory directed
by Joel H. Rothman, professor of molecular, cellular and
developmental biology. 5/19/2005
Scholar
Says Atomic Bombs Not Main Cause of Japan's Surrender
In his new book, "Racing
the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan,"
UCSB history professor Tsuyoshi Hasegawa argues that the
atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August
of 1945 had little effect on a Japanese leadership squabbling
over how to end the war with their monarchy, honor, and
privileged positions intact. It was only when the Soviets,
jockeying with the United States for post-war influence
in Asia, declared war and invaded Japanese-held Manchuria
that Japan's leaders capitulated to prevent falling under
Soviet dominance. 5/18/2005
 Busy
UCSB Playwright Honored With Alpert Award in the Arts Naomi Iizuka, a professor of
dramatic arts and director of the Playwriting Program
at UCSB, has been named one of five winners of the prestigious
2005 Alpert Award in the Arts. The award, which includes
$50,000 and a residency at the California Institute for
the Arts, recognizes artists who have demonstrated exceptional
talent and who are particularly responsive to the complex,
challenging, and fertile role of the artist in society.
5/16/2005
 Graduate Student Wins International 'Science as Art' Competition Scientific research into the
world of the very small led one UCSB student to develop
an artistic and award-winning image of the natural world
using the "eyes" of the scanning electron microscope.
For his image of the complex skeletal system of a marine
sponge (above), James Weaver won first place in the "Science
as Art" competition at the Materials Research Society's
recent international conference.
5/12/2005
Orfalea
Foundation Backs New Global Studies M.A. and Center UCSB is establishing a novel graduate
program and center in global and international studies
that will focus on the academic preparation of professionals
to work in the global non-profit sector as well as in
international government and multinational business. Kinko's
founder Paul Orfalea (above, with his wife, Natalie) and
the Orfalea Family Foundation of Santa Barbara are providing
critical seed money for the new effort in the form of
a major financial pledge.
5/3/2005
Two
Faculty Members Elected to National Academy of Sciences
Two members of the UCSB faculty
have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences
in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements
in original research. The election of Anthony G. Evans,
a professor of materials in the College of Engineering,
and Joseph G. Polchinski, a professor of physics and a
permanent member of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical
Physics, brings to 25 the number of current UCSB faculty
members who have been elected to the National Academy
of Sciences. 5/3/2005
Blinding
Diseases Found to Have Genetic Link Alterations in a gene involved in the body's immune system
dramatically increase the likelihood of developing a blinding
disease—age- related macular degeneration—late
in life according to new findings by UCSB's Center for
the Study of Macular Degeneration and an international
team of scientists. The researchers believe that the new
genetic findings will lead to the development of diagnostic
and therapeutic treatments.
4/30/2005
Academy
of Arts and Sciences Elects Three From UCSB UCSB professors Joseph H. Connell,
Reginald G. Golledge, and Galen Stucky have been elected
fellows of the prestigious American Academy of Arts and
Sciences. Their election brings the number of UCSB faculty
elected AAAS fellows to 21.
4/27/2005
Campus
Offers Admission to 19,753 for Fall UCSB has offered a place in its fall 2005 entering class
to a total of 19,753 high school students. The prospective
freshmen were selected from a pool of 37,498 applicants.
Of those admitted, 93 percent are enrolled in California
high schools. Both the academic quality and diversity
of the class of students accepted appear to be the strongest
ever for UC Santa Barbara.
4/19/2005
Art Department Students Create Mural for QAD Corporate
Offices The global corporate
headquarters of QAD in Summerland now features a dynamic,
large-scale abstract mural created by students in UCSB's
Art Department. Commissioned by the company, the 70 x
30 foot acrylic painting (a working drawing appears above)
is called "Collide-A-Scope." The mural will
become part of QAD's permanent art collection, "Innovations
on Light and Color," which showcases contemporary
artwork from around the world.
4/18/2005
 National
Award Crowns Lifetime of Achievement for Chemist
Thomas C.
Bruice, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry, is
this year's winner of what is considered to be the country's
highest honor in chemistry from the National Academy of
Sciences. The pioneering biochemist, nearly 80 years old,
is still prolific, writing as many scientific articles
as he did when he was 40—about one per month. Of
his 560 scientific articles, only five were written with
co-authors. He came to UCSB in 1964 in part because, as
he put it, "I liked to surf."
4/18/2005
 UCSB
Historian Wins Prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship
Sharon Ann Farmer, a professor of history
at UC Santa Barbara and a member of the faculty since
1986, has been awarded a prestigious Guggenheim fellowship
for 2005. She is among just 186 artists, scholars, and
scientists from the United States and Canada to receive
the honor this year. 4/13/2005
 DavidAwschalom Awarded the 2005 Agilent Europhysics Prize
The European Physical Society
has awarded the 2005 Agilent Europhysics Prize for Outstanding
Achievement in Condensed Matter Physics to Professor David
Awschalom of UC Santa Barbara. He and two others are being
honored for their investigations of magnetic semiconductors
and spin coherence in the solid state, which has paved
the way for the emergence of spin electronics, or "spintronics."
The Europhysics Prize is one of the most prestigious physics
awards in Europe. 4/7/2005
 UCSB
Selected as New Home of UC Arts Research Institute
The campus has been selected as the
new home of the UC Institute for Research in the Arts.
The two UCSB faculty members pictured above will serve
as campus co-directors of the institute: Kim Yasuda, professor
and former chair of art, and Dick Hebdige, professor of
art and film studies and current director of the Interdisciplinary
Humanities Center, where the institute will be located,
beginning July 1. 4/5/2005
'CAREER'
Grants From National Science Foundation Given to 4 at
UCSB
Four young UCSB faculty
members have received the prestigious CAREER award from
the National Science Foundation in support of early career
development activities. The award is designed to support
those teacher-scholars who are most likely to become the
academic leaders of the 21st century to help them build
a firm foundation for a lifetime of contributions to both
research and education. 3/21/2005
 NanoSystems
Institute Chief Evelyn Hu Chosen 2005 Faculty Research
Lecturer The UCSB faculty
has selected Evelyn Hu to receive its most prestigious
honor, the Faculty Research Lectureship. Hu, director
of the California NanoSystems Institute, is an internationally
recognized researcher and a professor of electrical and
computer engineering and of materials. Hu's lecture on
her research, titled "Michelangelo's Laser: Sculpting
Form into Function," will take place Tuesday, May
24, at 4 p.m. in Room 1001 of the Engineering Science
Building. 3/10/2005
Four Young Faculty Members Win Prestigious Sloan Fellowships The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has
selected four young members of the UCSB faculty to receive
prestigious Sloan Research Fellowships this year. The
four (from left in photo above: Frank L.H. Brown, chemistry;
Everett A. Lipman, physics; Milen T. Yakimov, mathematics;
and Jeffrey M. Moehlis, mathematics) were among 116 scholars
nationally to win Sloan Research Fellowships this year. 3/8/2005
Marine
Science, Channel Islands Sanctuary Win U.S. Funds for
Educational Outreach The
campus's Marine Science Institute will expand its partnership
with the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary in
a new center to be built at UCSB and financed, in large
part, with federal funds. Senator Dianne Feinstein and
Rep. Lois Capps were instrumental in helping secure funds
for the new building. 3/1/2005
 Sea-Floor
Venting Yields Clues to Early Life on Earth
New keys to understanding the evolution
of life on Earth may be found in the microbes and minerals
vented from below the ocean floor, say scientists at UCSB.
Newly discovered geological and biological manifestations
of hydrothermal activity at two sites on the sea floor
to the west of Central America are reported in the journal
Geology by Rachel Haymon (pictured), a professor of geology,
and three other UCSB geologists. 2/28/2005
 $1
M. Gift Supports Entrepreneurship Program and Research
on Impact of Technology UCSB Foundation Trustee Mark Bertelsen and his wife, Susan,
have made a $1 million gift to the campus that will foster
entrepreneurial education through the College of Engineering's
Technology Management Program and support research at
the Center for Information Technology and Society. 2/28/2005
Scientists
Entice Superconducting Devices to Act Like Pairs of Atoms
UCSB physicist John Martinis and collaborators
at the National Institute of Standards and Technology
have coaxed "artificial atoms" to mimic real
atoms, an advance with possible applications for an ultra-powerful
quantum computer of the future. 2/24/2005
National
Academy Elects Two UCSB Engineers Two more College of Engineering faculty members have been
elected members of the prestigious National Academy of
Engineering. The election of John E. Bowers, a professor
of electrical and computer engineering, and Robert M.
McMeeking, a professor of mechanical and environmental
engineering and of materials, brings to a total of 26
the number of UCSB professors who are members of the academy. 2/11/2005
 New
Ways Found to Assess Phytoplankton
A team of researchers from UCSB, NASA, and other institutions
has announced the discovery of a method to determine from
outer space the productivity of marine phytoplankton—a
breakthrough that may provide a new understanding of life
in the world's oceans. Phytoplankton are the abundant
microscopic plant forms that provide the basis for most
of the marine food chain and half the oxygen in our atmosphere. 2/10/2005
 Researchers
Discover New Coral Species A new species of black coral—dubbed
the Christmas tree coral—has been discovered off
southern California by Milton Love, UCSB marine researcher,
and Mary Yoklavich of NOAA Fisheries. The discovery came
during dives by the researchers in "Delta,"
the submersible. 2/9/2005
 UCSB Anthropologist Wins Top Marine Conservation Fellowship Shankar Aswani has been named one of
five scholars across the globe and the only American to
receive the world's most prestigious award in marine conservation
this year. The Pew Fellowship in Marine Conservation includes
$150,000 to support a three-year project. Aswani, the
first anthropologist to be so honored, will use the fellowship
to continue and expand his work with communities in the
western Pacific's Solomon Islands. 2/7/2005
 Professor's
Book Examines Globalization and the Anti-Sweatshop Movement Each day,
thousands of people around the world report to factories
where they toil in arduous conditions for very low pay
to produce clothing for the global market. Efforts to
organize these sweatshop workers into effective unions
that can effectively fight for better pay and working
conditions have yielded little change. In his new book,
"Globalization and Cross-Border Labor Solidarity
in the Americas: The Anti-Sweatshop Movement and the Struggle
for Social Justice," Ralph Armbruster-Sandoval
looks at four cases of labor organization in Central America
and why those efforts ultimately did not succeed. 2/7/2005
Geologist¹s
Work Recognized With Two National Awards Tanya Atwater, a professor of geology and a pioneering
researcher in plate tectonics, has recently won two national
awards for her contributions to the field. Atwater's interest
in plate movements includes the particular kind earthquake
that causes tsunamis. She is currently creating animations
to show why the December 26th tsunami occurred where it
did. 2/3/2005
Record
Number of Applicants Seek Fall 2005 Admission UCSB received a record 45,997 undergraduate
admission applications for fall 2005. Applications from
both prospective freshmen and from those looking to transfer
were up over the previous year. The average GPA of all
freshmen applicants is 3.71, and 30.8 percent of all applicants
have a high-school Grade Point Average (GPA) of 4.0 or
higher—641 more than last year. 2/2/2005
Chemist
Wins National Academy of Sciences Medal Thomas C. Bruice, a professor in the Department of Chemistry
and Biochemistry, has received the National Academy of
Sciences Award in Chemical Sciences. The medal and prize
of $15,000 is awarded annually for innovative research
in the chemical sciences that contributes to the better
understanding of the natural sciences and to the benefit
of humanity. 2/1/2005
Campus
and Canada Sponsor Visiting Fulbright Research Chair The campus will host a visiting scholar
from Canada for four months each year under a new program
developed by the College of Letters and Science, Canada's
Foundation for Educational Exchange Between Canada and
the United States of America, and the J. William Fulbright
Scholarship Board. 2/1/2005
Oiled
Birds Prompt Studies by UCSB Experts of Oil Seeps in Santa
Barbara Channel Oil-coated
birds turning up on southern California beaches in recent
weeks have raised concern about potential oil sources.
Scientists at UCSB are studying a possible relationship
between the storms that pummeled the region in January
and these increased oil emissions. 1/31/2005
Writing
Instruction Is Topic of National Conference More than 250 writing educators from
all over the country and other nations are expected to
participate in a conference at UCSB February 5-6 that
will address questions about how best to teach writing
to today's students at all levels of their education.
The conference, "Writing Research in the Making,"
will offer more than 100 panel discussions and workshops. 1/20/2005
Ford
Foundation Supporting New Project in Racial Studies A group of faculty from many disciplines
at UCSB has established a racial studies project aimed
at developing and supporting new research on race and
racism. Supported by an $110,000 grant from the Ford Foundation,
the project will also look at new ways of studying racial
issues. Participants include social scientists and humanists
who study race from different vantage points: global,
national, local, and experiential. 1/19/2005
Retired
UCSB Police Chief John MacPherson Dies of Cancer Former UCSB Police Chief John L. "Mac"
MacPherson, Jr., passed away on Friday, January 14. He
was 57 and had been fighting cancer since November of
2003. "Our entire campus community is deeply saddened"
by his death, said Chancellor Yang. "Mac was a dedicated,
important, and valued member of our UCSB family." 1/19/2005
 Scientists
Build Nanoscale 'Jigsaw' Puzzles Made of RNA
Working at the leading edge of bionanotechnology,
scientists at UCSB are using assembly and folding principles
of natural RNA, or ribonucleic acid, to build beautiful
and potentially useful artificial structures at the nano-scale.
Possible applications include the development of nanocircuits,
medical implants, and improved medical testing. 12/17/2004
Scholars
Report Gains in Retina Research Scientists at UCSB's Neuroscience Research Institute are
reporting significant advances in their studies of retinal
detachment, including the fact that cellular changes that
occur in the retinas of animals with retinal detachments
also occur in humans. The research has broad implications
since the cell types involved are the same as those in
the brain and spinal cord.
12/14/2004
Communication
Department Graduate Programs Ranked Best in Nation
A recent survey of communication scholars
by the National Communication Association shows the graduate
programs in UCSB's Department of Communication to be the
most highly regarded in the country. Conducted in the
2003-2004 academic year, the study asked NCA members to
judge the reputations of 132 doctoral programs in nine
specialty areas of communication. 12/8/2004
External
Research Support Reaches Record Level in 2003-04 For the eighth consecutive year, research
support from external sources reached a record high at
UCSB last year when a total of $161.4 million was received
from federal and state agencies, corporations, and foundations.
Such funds have nearly doubled over the past decade. The
campus was awarded more than 1,081 research contracts
and grants last year. 11/22/2004
Annenberg
Foundation Donates $1 Million to Center The Annenberg Foundation has made a $1 million grant to
support the Center for Film, Television and New Media.
The Annenberg grant brings to $6.75 million the total
raised thus far toward a goal of $10 million for the privately
funded center. 11/22/2004
 Anthropologist
Michael Gurven Wins Prestigious Plous Award Michael Gurven of the Department of
Anthropology has won the Harold J. Plous Award for 2004.
The honor is given annually by UCSB's Academic Senate,
on behalf of the faculty, to an assistant professor who
has shown exceptional achievement in research, teaching
and service to the university. Gurven's research involves
extensive fieldwork with the Tsimane people of Bolivia. 11/16/2004
David
Awschalom Wins American Physical Society's Buckley Prize David D. Awschalom, a professor of
physics and of electrical and computer engineering, has
been awarded the American Physical Society's 2005 Oliver
E. Buckley Prize for fundamental contributions to experimental
studies of quantum spin dynamics and spin coherence in
condensed matter systems. 11/10/2004
See
also a report on the latest discovery by Awschalom's research
group. 11/11/2004
 English
Professor Alan Liu Lays Down 'The Laws of Cool'
Society considers many things to be
'cool.' But according to Alan Liu, a professor of English,
right now the coolest things of all have to do with technology
and information. In his latest book, "The Laws of
Cool: Knowledge Work and the Culture of Information,"
published by the University of Chicago Press, Liu examines
the influence of cool on popular culture, education, and
the knowledge-work corporate world where what's cool is
at times at odds with what is required or necessary. 11/10/2004
NSF
Picks UCSB for New International Materials Center UCSB has been selected by the National
Science Foundation to host a new International Center
for Materials Research. The project has received initial
funding of $3.5 million over five years. The center's
mission will be to promote global excellence in materials
science and engineering through a series of research and
educational programs. 11/3/2004
 Young
Scholar Receives Packard Fellowship Jonathan Levine, assistant professor
of biology in UCSB's Department of Ecology, Evolution
and Marine Biology, has been awarded a prestigious Packard
Foundation Fellowship for Science and Engineering. The
fellowship of $625,000, paid over five years, is designed
to provide support for unusually creative researchers
early in their careers. Levine studies the invasion of
species into new biogeographic regions. 10/19/2004
 Economist
Kydland Wins Nobel Prize Finn E. Kydland, the Henley Professor of Economics at
UC Santa Barbara, has been awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize
in Economics. He shares the prize with Edward C. Prescott
of Arizona State University. Kydland joined the UC Santa
Barbara faculty on July 1, 2004. He previously taught
at Carnegie Mellon University, where he earned his Ph.D.
Prescott is the W.P. Carey Chair of Economics at Arizona
State's W.P. Carey School of Business and a senior monetary
adviser at the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank. He was
a visiting professor at UCSB in winter quarter 2004, when
he held the Maxwell and Mary Pellish Chair in Economics.
10/11/2004
Physicist
David Gross, Director of the KITP, Wins Nobel PrizeThe 2004 Nobel Prize in physics has
been awarded to David Gross, professor of physics and
director of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics
at UC, Santa Barbara, and two others. The prize is for
the "discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory
of the strong interaction" and is shared with H.
David Politzer of the California Institute of Technology
and Frank Wilczek of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
(Wilczek also served on the faculty at UCSB from 1981
to 1989.) Gross, above left, is joined by Chancellor Henry
Yang at the campus press conference. 10/5/2004
UCSB
Picked for Library of Congress Effort to Preserve Endangered
Digital Information Concerned
that millions of nationally important digital information
resources are in danger of being lost or corrupted, the
Library of Congress has partnered with eight institutions—including
the University of California, Santa Barbara—to begin
a $15 million effort to build a nationwide digital collection
and preservation system. 9/30/2004
3
Professors Win Fulbright Fellowships Three UCSB faculty members are among the 800 academics
nationwide who have been awarded grants through the Fulbright
Scholar Program for the 2004-2005 academic year to study
or lecture abroad. 9/30/2004
In addition, UCSB
will host four foreign scholars who are among those
selected to be Fulbright Visiting Scholars for the year.
9/30/2004
NCEAS Will Help Develop
Tools for Sustainable Coastal Management The National Center for Ecological Analyses and Synthesis
(NCEAS) has been awarded a $2 million grant by the David
and Lucile Packard Foundation to design a pioneering program
to synthesize and evaluate existing ecosystem-based management
data, and develop new tools to address gaps in knowledge
that are critical for sustainable coastal management.
9/16/2004
Annual
Philanthropic Support for UCSB Reaches a Record $80 Million
Alumni and friends of UC Santa Barbara
contributed a record $80 million to the campus in private
philanthropic support during 2003-2004 for teaching, research,
and programmatic support. The year was the most successful
ever for UCSB, surpassing the fund-raising achievement
of the previous year by more than $30 million. 9/14/2004
Scientists'
Discovery Increases Understanding of MS Scientists at UC Santa Barbara have made an important
discovery that will increase the understanding of multiple
sclerosis, a debilitating disease of the central nervous
system in which the myelin sheath, an insulating membrane
surrounding the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord,
starts to unravel for reasons as yet unknown. 9/14/2004
National
Science Foundation Picks UCSB for New Chemical Bonding
Center UCSB is one of three
sites selected by the National Science Foundation for
one of its new Chemical Bonding Centers. The Chemical
Design of Materials Center will be headed by Nicola A.
Spaldin, an associate professor of materials. 8/30/2004
Analysis
of Biological Clock May Lead to Greater Understanding
of Disease
Our biological
clock, or circadian rhythm, is upset by traveling across
time zones, but soon the body adjusts to the new day/night
cycle. New studies of the computational models of the
circadian rhythm of fruit flies show that the internal
clock is robust—that is, not easily perturbed. These
studies by researchers at UCSB's new Institute for Collaborative
Biotechnologies may eventually lead to greater understanding
of human jet lag as well as human disease. 8/30/2004
UCSB
Given Archives of the Late Mexican-American Music Legend,
Don Tosti The late Don Tosti,
known as "the Godfather of Latin Rhythm and Blues,"
had an illustrious career as a composer, musician, bandleader
and television personality. Before his death August 2
at age 81, he donated his personal papers, music, and
other memorabilia from his long career to the California
Ethnic and Multicultural Archives, housed in Davidson
Library. 8/27/2004
 UCSB
Again Named One of 'Hottest Colleges' For the
second time in the past three years, UC Santa Barbara
has been named one of the country's "hottest colleges"
by the popular and widely read Newsweek/Kaplan "How
to Get Into College" guide. Only 25 institutions
were featured in the "America's Hottest Colleges"
section of the 2005 edition of the guidebook, and just
10 of them, including UCSB, were also featured in a Newsweek
article headlined "Hot Schools" that appeared
in the issue dated August 23. 8/25/2004
 Research
Could Help Efforts to Restore Iraqi Wetlands A UCSB geographer has developed a new
technique for monitoring changes in wetland size that
could be helpful in documenting the restoration of the
depleted Mesopotamian Marshlands in Iraq. Leal Mertes,
a professor in the Department of Geography, has come up
with a system that uses data collected by NASA satellites
to map both open water and inundated vegetation. 8/24/2004
 New
Faculty Member Receives Dreyfus Research Award
Song-I Han, assistant professor of
chemistry and biochemistry who joined the UCSB faculty
in July, has been named a recipient of a Camille and Henry
Dreyfus New Faculty Award for 2004. Han was one of only
nine recipients nationwide. 8/10/2004
KITP
Director Receives France's Highest Scientific Honor David J. Gross, director of the Kavli
Institute for Theoretical Physics, has been selected the
2004 recipient of France's highest scientific honor—the
Grande Médaille D'Or (the Grand Gold Medal)—for
his contributions to the understanding of fundamental
physical reality. Gross will receive the award, conferred
by the French Academy of Sciences, at ceremonies in Paris
on November 23.
 Foundation
Supports Study of Technology and Learning
Although instructional technology is
widely used in higher education, research on how students
learn with technology has not kept pace. Now a team of
UCSB researchers led by Bruce Bimber, director of the
Center for Information Technology and Society, is conducting
a major study to determine if the use of instructionally
relevant technology in college classrooms affects the
quality of learning. The project is supported by a $340,000
grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. 8/4/2004
Campus
Center Now a Key Source of Wildfire Information Fire season is an extremely busy time
for the Southern California Wildfire Hazard Center at
UCSB. The U.S. Forest Service is now using the computer
model based at UCSB, which was designed in cooperation
with a consortium of universities, research organizations
and the Los Angeles County Fire Department. The center's
focus is the management of fire hazards at the urban-wildland
interface. 7/21/2004
New
Research Expected to Improve Cancer Treatments
Researchers at UCSB have determined
that a new drug combination containing two natural products—the
yew tree derivative Taxol and a chemical from an ocean-growing
sponge—might eventually help patients with breast,
lung, and ovarian cancer as well as Kaposi's sarcoma.
The researchers found that the synergistic effect of the
two drugs together is greater than either one alone. 7/15/2004
 Fermilab's
Witherell Appointed Vice Chancellor for Research
The head of the Fermi National Accelerator
Laboratory, Dr. Michael S. Witherell, has been named vice
chancellor for research at UCSB. A former member of the
UCSB faculty, he also will hold an appointment in the
Department of Physics. Witherell is a leading physicist
who has received numerous honors for his achievements
in and contributions to science. His appointment as vice
chancellor is effective July 1, 2005, pending approval
by UC President Robert Dynes and the Board of Regents.
7/7/2004
Gift Supports Expansion of Engineering Pavilion for Graduate
Students Engineering graduate
students will have a centralized gathering place with
office space and meeting facilities as a result of a $500,000
contribution from UCSB Foundation Trustee Richard A. Auhll.
The gift will support the expansion and renovation of
an existing pavilion located in the courtyard of Engineering
II (see illustration). It will be named the Richard A.
Auhll Engineering Graduate Student Pavilion in honor of
the donor. 7/1/2004
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