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Eleven UC Riverside professors receive prestigious NSF CAREER Awards

ilseu — Fri, 17 Jul 2020 16:40:39 +0000

Eleven UC Riverside professors receive prestigious NSF CAREER Awards ilseu Fri, 07/17/2020 - 09:40 More College News Holly Ober | Inside UCR July 16, 2020

Eleven UC Riverside faculty members received 2019 National Science Foundation CAREER Awards, more than in any previous year.

Seven of these prestigious awards, which support early career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models and lead to the advancement of their organization’s mission, went to women — another record for UC Riverside.

CAREER Awards are given to faculty members to fund research that is expected to form a firm foundation for a lifetime of leadership in integrating education and research. UC Riverside’s 2019 CAREER Award recipients and the projects funded by the award are listed below.

Hoori Ajami (Environmental Sciences) Frequent drought and changes in snowpack in the Sierra Nevada are expected to change groundwater recharge rates, posing challenges to California’s water security, sustainable water management, and agriculture production. Ajami’s project will investigate the most important drivers of groundwater recharge in the Kaweah River watershed in southern Sierra Nevada, and will quantify surface water and groundwater responses to climate variability, droughts, and changes in vegetation.

Jiasi Chen (Computer Science & Engineering) Chen’s vision is to create augmented reality, or AR, technology where multiple users can visually scan the environment, and a common set of relevant virtual objects swiftly pop up on top of the real-world objects. Her project seeks to develop the network capabilities of the underlying AR platform. This will support future multi-user AR applications, such as multiple AR-equipped students in a classroom, and multiple AR-equipped first responders in a disaster scenario.

Jeffrey Diez (Botany and Plant Sciences) Diez will examine how changes in the timing of life events of plants, such as blooming time, may influence their competition with other plants, which in turn may influence the types of plants that will be found in an area. While focusing on wildflower communities in California, the research will inform the broader understanding of how plant diversity can be maintained given changing environmental conditions.

Hyoseung Kim (Electrical & Computer Engineering) Kim wants to enable greater capabilities across the Internet of Things and cyberphysical systems like smart cars, smart buildings, factory automation, and mobile health. His project will improve the real-time performance of data-intensive applications, improve data-oriented scheduling, and enable intelligent applications to deal with software infrastructure failures and dynamic environmental conditions.

Mohsen Lesani (Computer Science & Engineering) Distributed systems are the backbone of modern computing. However, they are complicated and prone to bugs. Lesani’s project addresses programmer productivity and reliability of distributed systems that spans both the client applications and the supporting distributed middleware. His group will examine both novel automatic synthesis techniques for client applications and novel verification techniques for distributed middleware.

Joshua Lui (Physics & Astronomy) When a semiconductor absorbs light, some electrons can be freed. The vacancies left behind, called holes, behave like particles with positive charge. In atomically thin semiconductors, the electrons and holes can attract each other to form robust bound states, called excitons, which govern the materials' optical properties. Lui's research explores strong interactions between excitons and other particles in atomically thin semiconductors and how such interactions can lead to novel quantum states and phenomena.

Dawn Nagel (Botany and Plant Sciences) Nagel’s project seeks to understand how extreme temperature affects circadian clock function and growth in plants. The circadian clock, which regulates physiological processes in 24-hour cycles, is an internal timekeeping machinery found ubiquitously in bacteria, plants, fungi, and animals. Both temperature and the clock affect fundamental processes such as growth in plants. Through the identification of new temperature regulators of clock function or links to clock-controlled growth responses, Nagel will uncover new insights regarding how temperature affects the clock, as well as the growth and resilience of life forms. Integrated within this proposal is a 10-week summer research class followed by mentor-guided research experiences to promote recruitment and retention of transfer community college students that are members of underrepresented minority groups.

Jessica Purcell (Entomology) Recent evidence from insects, birds, plants, and fungi suggests many different complex traits, such as social behavior, may be controlled by common genetic structures called supergenes, which lock together two or more genes with coordinated actions so that beneficial combinations are transmitted together to offspring. Purcell’s group will investigate characteristics of a supergene that controls social organization in a group of ants. The project will specifically investigate how an ancient supergene changes in form and function in a group of related species.

Carolyn Rasmussen (Botany and Plant Sciences) Despite the fundamental importance of cell division, we know relatively little about how division planes are oriented in multicellular organisms. Rasmussen will investigate how dynamic structures within plants promote proper positioning of the new cell wall, how proteins that help position the division move within cells, and how mechanical and biochemical cues regulate the position of the division plane.

Laura Sales (Physics & Astronomy) Although dark matter plays an important role in the formation and the complex dynamics of galaxies, there remains a discrepancy between the amount of dark matter predicted versus the amount observed. Sales will conduct a detailed study of the dark matter content of dwarf galaxies found in galaxy clusters. Sophisticated computer simulations will be used to complement and inform current observations of globular clusters in dwarfs. These results should lead to insights that could help resolve the controversy concerning the amount of dark matter in the universe.

Rachel Wu (Psychology) Learning to adapt to a changing environment, especially to technological advances, is important for older helping older adults live independently. For example, as health care providers move toward only accessing patients' medical records online, older adults would benefit from learning to use new online portals rather than asking others to access their personal medical records. Wu will test whether providing older adults with an informative, rich, and encouraging learning environment helps them identify what to learn, and how to learn in new situations.

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Five students awarded NSF fellowships

ilseu — Fri, 08 May 2020 16:57:13 +0000

Five students awarded NSF fellowships ilseu Fri, 05/08/2020 - 09:57 More College News Imran Ghori | Inside UCR April 22, 2020

Five UC Riverside students have been selected to receive a 2020 Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation, or NSF.

The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master's and doctoral degrees at accredited U.S. institutions. Fellows often become life-long leaders, achieving high levels of success in their academic and professional careers.

Each fellow receives a three-year annual stipend of $34,000 as well as a $12,000 cost-of-education allowance for tuition and fees, opportunities for international research and professional development, and the freedom to conduct research at any accredited U.S. institution of graduate education.

This year’s recipients of the highly competitive fellowship include two undergraduate students and three graduate students. Learn more about them below:

Crysthal Alvarez

Alvarez, 25, is a first-year doctoral student in mechanical engineering who also received her bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from UCR, serving as class commencement speaker.

A first-generation student who began her studies at Chaffey College before transferring to UCR, Alvarez plans to become an engineering professor and have her own research lab. Her goal is to provide opportunities to other first-generation, low-income, and transfer students to succeed in STEM fields.

Dylan Enright

Enright, 27, is a second-year doctoral student in microbiology doing research at the Glassman Lab, primarily on the effects of wildfires on soil microbial communities.

A first-generation student, Enright called the fellowship life-changing and a validation of many years of work. As the sole provider for his wife and 2-year-old daughter, Enright said the fellowship will provide him financial security and freedom to pursue his research.

Nicholas Higgins

Higgins, 22, is a fourth-year student studying bioengineering and working in two laboratories. In the fall, he will be pursuing his graduate studies in a joint bioengineering doctoral program at UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco.

Higgins said the fellowship will allow him greater flexibility in choosing research areas and give him the opportunity to work with professors who may have less funding.

Kayla Rodriguez

Rodriguez, 23, is a first-year graduate student studying atomic-molecular-optical physics, which she hopes to continue researching. Last year, she worked on a laser-cooling molecules experiment and is now working on an electron-trapping experiment.

She said she’s excited about the award and the chance to spend more time on research.

Tyler Smith

Smith, 28, is a fourth-year student studying physics who will be pursuing his doctorate in physics at UC Irvine this fall. Over the summer, he will continue his work at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, returning as an intern to work on its Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope's Coronagraph Instrument team.

A first-generation and transfer student, Smith said the fellowship will provide financial stability for him and his family, allowing him to begin his research in his first year as a graduate student.

Honorable mentions

Nine graduate students also received honorable mentions:

•   Lauren Gedlinske, evolutionary ecology and organismal biology
•   Jessica Trinh, microbiology
•   Alex Valenzuela, plant biology
•   Nathan Sy, environmental sciences
•   Molly Powers, chemistry
•   Jaimie Kenney, entomology
•   Jacob Elder, psychology
•   Christopher Drozd, plant pathology
•   Alexander Borowsky, plant biology

"The NSF GRFP opens up so many doors for the graduate students who receive it,” said Hillary Jenks, director of UCR’s GradSuccess office, which promotes the academic and professional development of the graduate student community. “The fellowship makes it possible to focus on research rather than juggling additional work obligations, and there are even NSF opportunities that are only open to GRFP recipients.”

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New work has potential to accelerate development of nanotechnology

ilseu — Mon, 09 Mar 2020 21:09:58 +0000

New work has potential to accelerate development of nanotechnology ilseu Mon, 03/09/2020 - 14:09 More College News IQBAL PITTALWALA | UCR News March 09, 2020

Nanoscale technology has greatly improved our daily lives with products such as computers, phones, and solar cells. To develop the next-generation nanotechnology, new classes of materials need to be explored. Two-dimensional “valley semiconductors,” such as monolayer molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂) and tungsten diselenide (WSe₂), have remarkable properties and novel applications.

When these materials absorb light, some electrons can get freed, leaving behind vacancies called holes. The electrons and holes can form bound quantum states called excitons, which govern the materials’ optical properties. Moreover, these materials possess two different valleys, which are energy minima in the electronic band structure. The excitons can occupy either valley; their valley index can be used to encode information. Novel applications in excitonic and valleytronic technology can be found by exploring and manipulating these valley excitons.

Chun Hung (Joshua) Lui

Chun Hung (Joshua) Lui, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy, and his research team recently combined ultraclean devices and strong magnetic fields to reveal new properties of valley excitons in monolayer WSe₂. In particular, they observed the magnetic quantization of excitons, manifested as quantum oscillations.

“Remarkably, excitons at different valleys show different quantization behavior under a magnetic field,” said Lui, whose lab focuses on laser spectroscopy and ultrafast science of innovative materials. “This reveals interesting fundamental properties of the valley excitons, which can contribute to excitonic and valleytronic technology.”

The results were recently published in Physical Review Letters.

Lui is the recipient of the National Science Foundation’s prestigious Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award in 2020. The five-year CAREER award with a total funding of about $500,000 will allow Lui’s team to conduct pioneering research on the novel excitonic physics of 2D materials.

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UCR ranks No. 3 in graduating Hispanic students in STEM majors

ilseu — Tue, 25 Feb 2020 17:46:05 +0000

UCR ranks No. 3 in graduating Hispanic students in STEM majors ilseu Tue, 02/25/2020 - 09:46 More College News Imran Ghori | Inside UCR February 21, 2020

A National Science Foundation report found that UC Riverside ranks third in the nation when it comes to graduating the most Hispanic or Latino students in science and engineering fields.

The data is included in a 2019 report called “Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering”, which looks at the progress of underrepresented groups in science and engineering education and employment.

The report includes a data table showing UCR conferred 4,656 bachelor’s degrees in science and engineering to Hispanic students between 2012-16. Only Florida International University in Miami and University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez, had more Hispanic graduates in the STEM fields.

“Given our students’ commitment to learning, and the dedication of UCR faculty and academic staff to their success, I’m not surprised that UCR ranks high for Hispanic and Latino/a STEM graduates,” said Kathryn Uhrich, dean of the College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences. “At CNAS, our classes, laboratories, research experiences, and student success programs are designed to help students thrive.”

The college offers a number of programs providing underrepresented students with support and resources, including CNAS Learning Communities, First Year Success Series, Science Ambassador Program, and STEM Pathway Program.

In 2018, UCR received the Inspiring Programs in STEM Award from INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine for the Riverside Bridges to the Baccalaureate Program. A partnership with Riverside City College, the program identifies students committed to pursuing a career in science and facilitates their transfer and successful completion of a UCR degree in STEM fields.

The report states Hispanics or Latinos have gradually attained STEM degrees over the last 20 years, but they still remain underrepresented in degree completion and in the workplace.

Hispanic Serving Institutions — a federal designation for colleges and universities with a Hispanic student population of more than 25% — have played a large role in increasing their representation, the report found.

In 2016, 46% of Hispanic students who earned bachelor’s degrees in STEM majors graduated from Hispanic Serving Institutions, and 37% who earned doctorates between 2013 and 2017 attended one, according to the report.

UCR was designated a Hispanic Serving Institution in 2008.

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UCR is #3 in Hispanic STEM graduates

ilseu — Thu, 06 Feb 2020 18:32:09 +0000

UCR is #3 in Hispanic STEM graduates ilseu Thu, 02/06/2020 - 10:32 More CNAS in the Media CNAS Communications February 06, 2020

NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION - NSF's National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES), ranked UCR #3 in Hispanic STEM graduates in the nation, in its 2019 Report, Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering.

The report provides statistical information about the participation of underrepresented groups in science and engineering education and employment.

The rankings are available at https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf19304/digest/about-this-report in tables 5-12, under "data".

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NSF CAREER Award supports astronomer's quest to further understand the universe

ilseu — Mon, 03 Feb 2020 23:40:04 +0000

NSF CAREER Award supports astronomer's quest to further understand the universe ilseu Mon, 02/03/2020 - 15:40 More College News Eureka Alert | AAAS February 03, 2020

Laura Sales first fell in love with astronomy when she was in middle school in Argentina, her country of birth. Today, she is an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at UC Riverside and the recipient of the National Science Foundation's prestigious Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award, one of the most coveted recognitions a young faculty member can receive.

The five-year award supports early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and build a firm foundation for a lifetime of leadership in integrating education and research.

When she received news of the award, Sales couldn't help recalling how in middle school her geography teacher made her class study the solar system, with close attention paid to each planet.

"I was immediately hooked," she said. "I remember going through the chapter on the solar system quickly. I did not want it to end. I even walked home from school reading the rest of the book."

Soon after, a biweekly collectible edition on space, comprised of a magazine and a VHS tape on the mysteries of the universe, began arriving at bookstores. Sales managed to purchase the entire collection.

"I watched each video several times," she said. "The videos inspired me to study the universe for the rest of my life."

With the nearly $720,000 CAREER Award she has received, Sales will be doing just that. Specifically, she will study dark matter -- a mysterious nonluminous material in space -- that is understood to constitute 85 percent of the matter in the universe.

"The nature of dark matter is unknown and understanding what it is made of is one of the most important leading challenges in physics, astrophysics, and cosmology," Sales said.

The CAREER Award will allow Sales to study the dark matter content of dwarf galaxies found in major concentrations of galaxies astronomers refer to as clusters. Dwarf galaxies are small galaxies that contain between a thousand to a few billion stars. In contrast, the Milky Way has 100-400 billion stars. Dwarf galaxies are the most abundant galaxy type in the universe and often orbit larger galaxies.

"The most successful theory we have about dark matter is the Lambda Cold Dark Matter, or LCDM, model, which makes predictions that agree remarkably well with our observations and experiments on astronomical scales," Sales said. "As we move toward smaller scales and low-mass galaxies, however, these predictions begin to deviate from observations. Only by observing small galaxies can we learn more about dark matter and refine and correct our theoretical models."

Sales explained that the specific nature of dark matter defines not only the behavior of stars in galaxies, but also dictates how the universe evolved from tiny fluctuations in mass after the Big Bang to the spectacular collection of galaxies, groups, clusters, filaments, and other structures that populate the universe.

Her research team also plans to use hydrodynamical simulations to determine the many paths by which dwarf galaxies start and stop forming stars in high-density environments.

"Such simulations can successfully bring us a step closer to understanding how exactly the faintest galaxies form and evolve in the universe, particularly in complex high-density environments such as clusters," she said.

Sales is most interested in addressing one question that relates to the different morphologies of the smallest galaxies. She explained that observations show that the stellar mass of a galaxy correlates well with the size of the galaxy. For example, more massive galaxies are more extended than smaller ones.

"This has been the standard bread-and-butter of galaxy formation models for decades," she said. "This completely breaks down, however, if we look at dwarf galaxies that have about a thousand times fewer stars than our Milky Way. For these dwarfs, the mass in stars says nothing about their sizes. Two dwarfs with similar stellar content can be up to 100 times different in radius. We suspect that dark matter and star formation play a leading role in defining this, but we don't really know. Our simulations will attempt to answer this particular question also."

Sales received her doctoral degree at the Universidad Nacional de Cordoba in Argentina. Subsequently, she held prestigious postdoctoral fellowships at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Germany and at the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard University. She joined the UCR faculty in 2015. Two years later she received a Hellman Fellowship.

The CAREER Award Sales received will support two graduate students and summer internships for several undergraduate students. Sales' group will also run a summer program for high school students in the Riverside area; the students will take and analyze astronomical images. The grant will also make possible the purchase of state-of-the-art computational nodes to run demanding numerical simulations.

"Our research will foster important collaborations with other institutions, in particular, with the Max Planck Institute in Germany, Harvard University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology," Sales said.

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11 CNAS Students Receive Prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships

edraws — Wed, 26 Jun 2019 18:52:24 +0000

11 CNAS Students Receive Prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships edraws Wed, 06/26/2019 - 11:52 More College News April 16, 2018 Riverside, Ca

Five CNAS undergraduates headed to grad school and six current graduate students were awarded the highly-competitive National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (NSF GRFP).

This program provides recipients with three years of financial support within a five year fellowship period, supporting graduate study that leads to a research-based master's/doctoral degree in a STEM field.

According to the NSF GRFP press release, 2,000 awardees were chosen from more than 12,000 applicants hailing from all 50 U.S. states, as well as the District of Columbia and U.S. territories.

UCR recipients are listed below:

Recipient	Bachelors Institution	Field of Study	Current Institution	Status
Fischer, Natalie	UCR	Life Sciences - Organismal Biology	UCR	Recipient
Gallegos, Alejandro Aron	UCR	Engineering - Chemical Engineering	UCR	Recipient
McGuire, Rosa Maria	UCR	Life Sciences - Ecology	UCR	Recipient
Sweitzer, Shannon	UCR	Mathematical Sciences - Applied Mathematics	UCR	Recipient
Valdez, Joseph	UCR	Life Sciences - Neurosciences	UCR	Recipient
Meza, Leticia	Chicago State University	Life Sciences - Developmental Biology	UCR	Recipient
Adams, Julia	Wellesley College	Life Sciences - Ecology	UCR	Recipient
Cowger, Win Colton	Iowa State University	Geosciences - Hydrology	UCR	Recipient
Dundon, Morgan	Towson University	Materials Research - Biomaterials	UCR	Recipient
Frausto-Vicenio, Isis	UC Los Angeles	Geo Sciences - Atmospheric Chemistry	UCR	Recipient
Nguyen, Thien-Y Catherine	UC Davis	Life Sciences - Ecology	UCR	Recipient

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Several students receive prestigious NSF fellowships and honorable mentions

ilseu — Wed, 26 Jun 2019 17:59:45 +0000

Several students receive prestigious NSF fellowships and honorable mentions ilseu Wed, 06/26/2019 - 10:59 More College News Iqbal Pittalwala | Inside UCR April 24, 2019 Riverside, Ca

Nine University of California, Riverside, students received National Science Foundation, or NSF, Graduate Research Fellowships this year. The oldest graduate fellowship of its kind, the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics — the STEM — disciplines who are pursuing research-based master's and doctoral degrees at accredited U.S. institutions.

Fellows often become life-long leaders, achieving high levels of success in their academic and professional careers.

The nine UCR recipients of the highly competitive fellowships and their fields of study are:

Graduate students Holly Christenson, astronomy and astrophysics; Alexandria Nicole Costantino, particle physics; Martin Fernandez, cosmology; Marie Laura Leger, entomology; Jill Marzolino, evolutionary biology; Gregory Michael Newkirk, microbial biology; and Samantha Smith, systematics and biodiversity. Undergraduate students Sofia Rose Martinez Alberga, algebra, number theory, and combinatorics; and Cindy Cristina Yanez, climate and large-scale atmospheric dynamics.

This year, nine students also received honorable mentions – itself a significant achievement. Additionally, three UCR alumni received the Graduate Research Fellowships.

“Congratulations to this year’s recipients of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowships and honorable mentions!” said Shaun Bowler, Graduate Division dean. “These awards are a testament to the continuing quality of our students and programs. Well done to the students and their advisors.”

Hillary Jenks, director of the GradSuccess summer fellowship writing program in which more than half of recipients participated, said the awards cover the cost for faculty advisors to support the students in their labs.

“The 2019 awards to our students will save UCR $1.4 million-1.5 million over three years,” she said.

Christenson, Costantino, and Fernandez are leaders of the Department of Physics and Astronomy’s student-run Physics Organization for Women and the Under-Represented, or POWUR. Yanez is a physics major and a 2018 Chancellor's Research Fellow.

“It’s phenomenal that four students in the department won these fellowships this year,” said Kenneth Barish, chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy. “Congratulations to them and their faculty advisors!”

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National Science Foundation award helps UCR train tomorrow’s STEM teachers

ilseu — Wed, 26 Jun 2019 17:53:15 +0000

National Science Foundation award helps UCR train tomorrow’s STEM teachers ilseu Wed, 06/26/2019 - 10:53 More College News Jules Bernstein | Inside UCR April 30, 2019 Riverside, Ca

A $1.5 million National Science Foundation award will help transform more than 50 UC Riverside students into the next generation of science, technology, engineering, and math teachers.

The Foundation’s Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship is building a pipeline to move talented undergraduate STEM students through UCR’s teaching credential programs and into nearby school districts. The award program addresses the critical need for highly effective middle and high school STEM teachers.

“I’m thrilled this grant will fund a new generation of STEM teachers in the Inland Empire where they’re really needed,” said School of Education Dean Thomas Smith.

The grant covers tuition and fees for 53 students working toward their credentials. It will also pay for an additional 10 students’ senior year of college, and for the apprenticeships they complete in nearby Val Verde Unified School District.

An initial group of students from the Marlan and Rosemary Bourns College of Engineering and the College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences will begin moving through this program in June.

The colleges are working in partnership with CalTeach, a facet of UC’s Science and Math Initiative. CalTeach-SMI’s program director is Leslie Bushong. Smith and chemistry professor Jack Eichler serve as faculty co-directors. Program funding continues through June 2024.

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