Monthly Archives: October 2021

Gillian Hayes Receives Impact Award for Connecting Disability Studies to Assistive Technology

October 25, 2021

Gillian Hayes

On Oct. 22, 2021, Gillian Hayes, Kleist Professor of Informatics and vice provost for graduate education at UCI, was one of three researchers recognized by the Special Interest Group on Accessible Computing (SIGACCESS). At the 23rd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS), the 2021 Paper Impact Award was presented to Jennifer Mankoff, Gillian Hayes and Devva Kasnitz for their 2010 paper, “Disability Studies as a Source of Critical Inquiry for the Field of Assistive Technology.”

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Professor Sam Malek Receives GAANN Award to Strengthen Cybersecurity

October 19, 2021

UCI recently received six awards totaling $5,157,732 from the U.S. Department of Education’s Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need (GAANN) program, supporting 34 Ph.D. student fellowships each year. Seven of those fellowships will be in the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences (ICS), thanks to a $1.14 million GAANN award going to Informatics Professor Sam Malek.

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Game Design and Interactive Media Program Receives Distinguished Educator Award

October 18, 2021

The Greater Irvine Chamber celebrated Irvine’s world-class education at the Hilton Irvine on Oct. 13, 2021 at an awards ceremony for its inaugural Distinguished Educators program. The program recognizes exemplary educators as well as outstanding STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) programs, and the Distinguished Educator Award for Technology was presented to UCI’s game design and interactive media (GDIM) undergraduate degree program. Informatics Professor Constance Steinkuehler, the GDIM program chair, accepted the award on behalf of UCI’s Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences (ICS).

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Alumni Spotlight: ‘Timely Rejections’ Propel Aylwin Villanueva ’10 to Blockbuster Success

October 12, 2021

Aylwin Villanueva

After graduating from UCI in 2010 with a double major in informatics and studio art, Aylwin Villanueva joined Lucasfilm and eventually became a technical director at its visual effects studio, Industrial Light & Magic. He has since left his mark on blockbuster movies ranging from Star Wars Episode VII: Force Awakens to Avengers: Endgame. At first glance, his road to success seems straightforward, but when asked about his career path, he stresses that “it’s been a path of interesting and timely rejections … every rejection led to where I am today.”

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ICS Welcomes 3 New Faculty for 2021

October 5, 2021

The Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences is pleased to introduce the following three faculty who joined ICS in academic year 2021-22. These outstanding researchers and educators advance our school’s strategic priorities in the areas of computer vision, health informatics, information sciences, machine learning, operating systems, and security. With these new hires, ICS has more than 100 tenure-track faculty, reflecting the unprecedented growth in our enrollments and research activity.

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