Top Academicians Range from Smallpox Vaccine Expert to Pulitzer Prize Finalist

UC Irvine has added 75 new faculty members since October 2003, including scholars whose acclaimed research ranges from criminal justice to heart disease; smallpox to cryptology.

"We are extremely pleased with the depth and caliber of faculty that has joined our university," said Herb Killackey, associate executive vice chancellor of academic personnel and professor of neurobiology and behavior. "UCI already has a reputation as one of the world's top academic institutions and research universities, and the addition of these faculty members can only enhance our reputation."

The full professors who have joined the university include:

Claire Trevor School of the Arts

Anthony Kubiak - Kubiak specializes in philosophy and critical theory, dramatic literature (especially American and modern), and modern poetry. He is currently completing a book, "Theatre and Survival: Art as Consciousness," and has previously published "Stages of Terror: Terrorism, Ideology, and Coercion as Theatre History," and "Agitated States: Performance in the American Theater of Cruelty."

College of Medicine

Dr. Jagat Narula - Narula is chief of the Division of Cardiology. His research focuses on two main areas: the creation of noninvasive methods to image and break down plaque in arteries, and the role of cell and tissue death in congestive heart failure (Narula and colleagues have developed methods to analyze and diagnose its development and progression).
School of Biological Sciences

Paul Gershon - Gershon's research focuses on the three-dimensional structures of the components of poxviruses, and how the proteins of viruses and cells change in quantity and character during infection and therapy. His work on poxviruses extends back 20 years, and for the past 11 years he has focused on vaccinia virus, the sole vaccine used in the successful worldwide elimination of smallpox by 1977.


School of Social Ecology

Elliott Currie - Currie's research focuses on the analysis of crime and criminal justice policy. His work has been widely read by both the scholarly community and general public and his acclaimed book, "Crime and Punishment in America," made him finalist for the 1999 Pulitzer Prize in general nonfiction. Currie has offered assistance to the U.S. Congress, the state of California, the British Home Office and other government offices.


School of Humanities

Jayne Lewis - Lewis is a scholar of British 18th-century literature and culture. She is the author of "The English Fable" and "Mary Queen of Scots: Romance and Nation." Her current project, "English Air: Writing and the Invention of Atmosphere, 1660-1778," focuses on conceptions of atmosphere and their relationship to changing literary styles in the 18th century.

Rajagopalan Radhakrishnan - Radhakrishnan is chair of the Department of Asian American Studies. He has made significant contributions in the fields of critical theory, diaspora and ethnic studies, particularly with his books "Diasporic Mediations: Between Home and Location" and "Theory in an Uneven World." In addition to writing these and other scholarly works, he is a published poet and writes in his native language, Tamil.


School of Physical Sciences

Robert M. Corn - Corn is an expert in the area of surface chemistry, with particular emphasis on biological molecules and optical sensors. He has developed novel biochips - microchips that, in a few seconds, perform thousands of biological reactions - that can be used in biosensor applications such as cancer detection, gene expression and biowarfare agent identification. He also has ongoing laboratory projects in DNA computing at surfaces and the study of liquid/liquid surfaces such as cell membranes.

Michael Cranston - Cranston is an internationally recognized mathematician currently working in three different areas of probability. His work applies to a wide range of critical issues, such as the dispersion of pollutants under turbulent and diffusive flow, or how long a steel pillar will support a bridge before rust eats deep enough to let it snap. Cranston recently found a mathematical basis for predicting when a single point on a surface will erode to a critical depth.

Alice Silverberg - Silverberg is a number theorist, arithmetic geometer and cryptographer. She most recently has used her expertise in these areas to make significant advances in public-key cryptography - an area of mathematics that is now used widely to keep credit card numbers and passwords secure over the Internet, as well as keep wireless phone calls private and enable the military to securely communicate information. Silverberg is very active in the mathematical community, having served on many American Mathematical Society committees and given over 200 invited lectures worldwide.

Chuu-Lian Terng - Terng is a leading researcher in the theory of partial differential equations and modern geometry. Her specialty is the study of soliton equations - equations that have increasingly found applications to important real world technologies such as high bandwidth telecommunications over optical fibers and the search for clean energy through hydrogen fusion. She received the Humboldt Senior Scientist Award in 1997 and is currently on the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute at Berkeley. Terng also is a chair of UCI's ADVANCE program - a program supported by the National Science Foundation that aims to recruit, retain and advance women faculty in the sciences at UCI.

New faculty hires among the schools also include the previously announced appointments of Andrew Policano, dean of the Graduate School of Management; Michael Clegg, Donald Bren Professor of Biological Sciences; Karl Rubin, Edward and Vivian Thorp Chair in Mathematics; David Brodbeck, chair of the Department of Music, and Albert Yee, UCI division director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology. (Previous press releases may be found at http://today.uci.edu/news/releases.asp.)

Note to Editors: For bios on all new faculty members, including appointments previously announced by the university, please call (949) 824-7687.

About the University of California, Irvine: The University of California, Irvine is a top-ranked public university dedicated to research, scholarship and community service. Founded in 1965, UCI is among the fastest-growing University of California campuses, with approximately 24,000 undergraduate and graduate students and about 1,300 faculty members. The third-largest employer in dynamic Orange County, UCI contributes an annual economic impact of $3 billion.

UCI maintains an online directory of faculty available as experts to the media. To access, visit: www.today.uci.edu/experts.