By: Ethan Perez, UCI Beall Applied Innovation
Photo by: Kate Wokowsky and Julie Kennedy, UCI Beall Applied Innovation

UC Irvine (UCI) Beall Applied Innovation recently held a virtual reception recognizing the second cohort of Faculty Innovation Fellows.

The Faculty Innovation Fellowship program – created by Applied Innovation with support from the Beall Family Foundation – recognizes faculty who are having an impact on society and are committed to enhancing UCI’s culture of innovation. The program brings together UCI faculty from all schools and fields to nurture campus-wide innovation. As part of their two-year appointment, fellows receive a stipend and actively engage in and learned about Applied Innovation’s resources to become ambassadors for innovation at UCI.

With the addition of 18 faculty in the second cohort, the program now boasts 35 fellows who will not only work toward innovation within their own departments, but also between schools and across disciplines.

Hosted by Richard Sudek, executive director of Applied Innovation and UCI chief innovation officer, the event also featured Vice Chancellor for Research Pramod Khargonekar, who welcomed the new cohort and spoke on the program’s benefits.

“With this program, we have created a cohort of 35 people who, together as a network, can really catapult UCI to the next level in terms of not just discoveries and knowledge creation and creative activities, but also translate them for the benefit of people,” said Khargonekar.

Afterward, UCI Interim Provost Hal Stern announced the new fellows with David Tiemeier, managing director of the Research Translation Group at Applied Innovation, and Ronnie Hanecak, senior director of licensing at Applied Innovation.

Here are the 2021-2022 Faculty Innovation Fellows:

Maksim Plikus, Professor | School of Biological Sciences
Nia Dowell, Assistant Professor | School of Education
Mo Li, Associate Professor | Henry Samueli School of Engineering
Alex Borucki, Associate Professor | School of Humanities
Theresa Tanenbaum, Assistant Professor | Donald Bren School of Information & Computer Sciences
Yama Akbari, Assistant Professor | School of Medicine
Kevin Beier, Assistant Professor | School of Medicine
Hamid Djalilian, Professor |School of Medicine
Michael Oh, Professor | School of Medicine
Raj Vyas, Associate Professor | School of Medicine
Shawn Xiang, Associate Professor | School of Medicine
Young Jik Kwon, Professor | School of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences
Shane Ardo, Associate Professor | School of Physical Sciences
Matthew Harding, Professor | School of Social Sciences
John Crawford, Professor | Claire Trevor School of the Arts
Holly Poe Durbin, Professor | Claire Trevor School of the Arts
Vincent Olivieri, Professor | Claire Trevor School of the Arts
Kelli Sharp, Assistant Professor | Claire Trevor School of the Arts

Read full article on the UCI Beall Applied Innovation blog.