Content Authored by: Imran Ghori

UCR to appear on “The College Tour” television series

UC Riverside will be showcased in an upcoming episode of “ The College Tour,” a television series that profiles campuses through student stories and is available on Amazon Prime and many other streaming platforms. A television crew completed a week of filming across multiple campus locations that included interviews with 10 students in late July...

By Imran Ghori |

Rare bloom draws record crowds to UCR Botanic Gardens

It was the little plant that raised a big stink for a brief window of time. The UC Riverside Botanic Gardens drew record crowds over the past week with visitors from all over Southern California coming by to catch a glimpse and whiff of Little Miss Stinky. The rare corpse plant, which grew from 1999 seeds and was acquired in 2007, began blooming...

By Imran Ghori |

UCR practices for cyber threats against special archives

It began with angry social media messages before ballooning into full threats and a takeover of UC Riverside computer systems controlling fire sprinklers at Tomas Rivera Library. That was the scenario of a cultural heritage preservation and cybersecurity drill held Wednesday, July 13 that included 25 participants from campus departments and off...

By Imran Ghori |

Corpse plant ready to bloom at the Botanic Gardens

A rare sight — and smell — is on display at the UC Riverside Botanic Gardens with a corpse plant expected to bloom in the coming days. This will be the first time it has bloomed since the gardens began growing the tropical plant, officially known as Amorphophallus titanum, in 2007 from seeds acquired from the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and...

By Imran Ghori |

UCR welcomes Operation Purple Camp back

UC Riverside welcomed Operation Purple Camp back to campus last week, giving 80 military-connected kids a taste of college life with summer camp activities. The campus first hosted the camp, a program organized by the National Military Family Association, in 2019. The week-long stay, from July 10 to July 14, was its first return since then as the...

By Imran Ghori |

Employees honored with Outstanding Staff Awards

Nine UC Riverside staff members were honored by UCR Staff Assembly as part of its annual Outstanding Staff Awards. The awards were presented at an afternoon ceremony Wednesday, June 29, at the Alumni and Visitors Center. It was the first in-person presentation of the awards since 2019. The awards recognize staff members for excellence in their work...

By Imran Ghori |

How UCR’s Library got one of the world’s largest Japanese hip-hop collections

Journalist and filmmaker Dexter Thomas ’06, who is among the alumni featured in UC Riverside’s 40 Under 40 list in the latest issue of UCR Magazine, achieved success in his field by following his passions, no matter how eclectic. One of those interests is Japanese hip-hop, which led him to acquire hundreds of CDs and magazines while in Japan for a...

By Imran Ghori |

UCR wins CASE award for student marketing efforts

UC Riverside won a top award from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education, or CASE, for a student recruitment brochure that showcases the campus’ welcoming and diverse community. In the Circle of Excellence Awards, announced June 22, UCR’s University Communications won a gold award in the student recruitment publications category...

By Imran Ghori |

Lt. governor discusses UCR needs during campus visit

California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis joined UC Riverside Chancellor Kim A. Wilcox and other campus leaders Friday, June 17, on a tour of the campus while discussing classroom space needs as the student population continues to grow. “It’s wonderful to be back on campus,” said Kounalakis, who previously visited UCR in 2019 while a candidate. The...

By Imran Ghori |

Improved Eucalyptus Walk reopens

A UC Riverside walking path between the Barn and Rivera Library has reopened to the campus following a repair project. The 350-foot section of the Eucalyptus Walk that connects to Rivera, Watkins Hall, and Olmstead Theatre was closed in January for the construction project, which was completed in late May. The heavily used pathway, near a bus stop...

By Imran Ghori |

Physicist conferred honorary doctorate by Universitat de València

Barry Barish, a distinguished professor of physics at UC Riverside, has been conferred an honorary doctorate by the Universitat de València for his work in experimental physics and discovery of gravitational waves. The recognition is the highest honor given by the university, which is one of the oldest in Spain and considered one of the country’s...

By Imran Ghori |

Education student wins Rutgers internship

Alexis Weatherspoon, a graduate student at UC Riverside’s School of Education, has been accepted as one of three 2022 John Smartt Summer Scholars at the Rutgers Center for Minority Serving Institutions. Weatherspoon is working on a master’s degree in diversity and equity and is a TRIO Scholars graduate mentor who participated in the Chancellor’s...

By Imran Ghori |

Two students recognized for excellence in research

Two UC Riverside seniors are the recipients of the 2021-22 Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement. Preeti Juturu, a fourth-year public policy and economics major, and Shayan Saeed, a Middle East and Islamic studies major, were selected for the award, given annually by the Academic Senate to two...

By Imran Ghori |

Dining options expand with new North District store and reopening of Bytes

Two new dining facilities have opened on campus as UC Riverside Dining Services continues to expand its offerings. The Market at North District, located in the new student housing complex that opened last fall, launched in April. Bytes café, which had been closed for over two years due to the pandemic, reopened the same month. Dining Services has...

By Imran Ghori |

Education Secretary calls UCR a model for delivering mental health support

U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona held a roundtable discussion on mental health support with four UC Riverside students Thursday, May 19, lauding the campus as an example of how to support student needs. During the hour-long Zoom chat, Cardona asked the students about UCR programs supporting student mental health well-being during the...

By Imran Ghori |

Two professors receive Chancellor’s Award for Excellence

Cell biologist Manuela Martins-Green and parasitologist Adler Dillman are this year’s recipients of UC Riverside’s Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement. The award is presented every spring to faculty members with a distinguished record of fostering undergraduate research or creative activity. The...

By Imran Ghori |

Taking the scenic route

Riding a bicycle to work comes naturally to Boris Baer and his wife Barbara Baer-Imhoof, both researchers at UC Riverside’s Center for Integrative Bee Research, or CIBER. The couple are originally from Switzerland where they never owned a car. Later, when they moved to Copenhagen, Denmark, and then Perth, Australia, they commuted regularly by bike...

By Imran Ghori |

May fundraiser celebrates staff and faculty support

As his 40th birthday approached, Dennis McIver decided to use the date to celebrate UC Riverside as well as his own life milestone, encouraging friends and family members to donate to campus programs. “I consider myself lucky in that I’ve been able to reap the benefit of so much here,” he said. “UCR has always been so good to me, and I wanted to...

By Imran Ghori |

New School of Medicine building beginning to take shape

Construction work on a new School of Medicine building is continuing to make progress. A large tower crane has been stationed at the construction site on the east side of campus in the last couple months as crews put up walls, columns, and components of the building structure. “The construction team has been working very hard to get the building...

By Imran Ghori |

UCR among ‘Best Value Colleges’

UC Riverside was named among the top 25 public universities in the Best Value Colleges for 2022 ranking by The Princeton Review. The campus was among 209 institutions included in an unranked list of more than 650 colleges and universities surveyed. The list ranked return on investment for students based on academics, affordability, and career...

By Imran Ghori |