Medical Center Expands Neonatal Intensive Care
Unit to Address Rising Numbers of Premature Babies
UC San Diego Medical Center-Hillcrest celebrated the opening of an expanded Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Wednesday designed for the 24-hour specialized care of premature infants and newborns with complications. Nine licensed beds have been added to the existing 40-bed unit to increase the number of infants who can receive Level III neonatal intensive care from 780 newborns per year to more than 900. The $2.6 million project is the first of a series of initiatives to expand and improve women’s and infant’s services at the Medical Center. More

Roots of Sustainability
Strong at UCSD, Jane Goodall Says
Legendary primatologist Jane Goodall has raised attention to the plight of endangered chimpanzees — and the state of the environment — since she first began her research in Africa in the 1960s. On April 1, the famed conservationist and scientist brought her message to UC San Diego, where she took part in a tree-planting ceremony and an honorary luncheon. The luncheon, which included a speech by Goodall, recognized the efforts of several student organizations and paid tribute to UC San Diego’s sustainability initiatives. More

Going Far, Doing Good
Ashley Nall went to a small, rural school in China and fell in love with the children who study there. She and scores of other UCSD students fanned across the globe last month for spring break. They took part in alternative spring breaks, a program that allows students to take one-week service trips to many destinations, from China, to Russia and Guatemala. This is Nall's story. More

Muir College to Celebrate 40^th Birthday
Four decades ago, the perfect name for the newly formed second college at the University of California, San Diego, came to then-provost John Stewart while hiking with his wife — John Muir College, in honor of the nature writer, conservationist and Sierra Club founder.  John Muir College is now one of six colleges at UC San Diego, all designed to offer students a smaller educational environment with all the advantages of a large research university renowned for its local impact, national influence and global reach. More

UC San Diego Becomes First SoCal University to Contribute Books to Google Book Search Library
UC San Diego announced Wednesday its first shipment of books to be digitized as part of the Google Book Search Library Project, a global effort launched in 2004 to digitize collections from the world’s top universities and libraries to make them searchable and discoverable online. The UC San Diego Libraries will contribute thousands of volumes from its East Asian language collections and from its International Relations & Pacific Studies Library, in such diverse subject areas as history, literature, public policy and economics. More

New Species of Infectious Disease Found in Amazon
While investigating the tropical disease leptospirosis in the Peruvian Amazon, an infectious disease specialist from the School of Medicine has uncovered new, emerging bacteria that may be responsible for up to 40 percent of cases of the disease. Patients with severe forms of leptospirosis have jaundice, renal failure and lung hemorrhage, with high fatality rates. More

Alumni Association Announces Top Award Recipients
An internationally acclaimed novelist and physician, an entrepreneurial biotech leader driving to advance diagnosis, a champion of undergraduate diversity, a charismatic professor and administrator, and two outstanding students have all been named by the UCSD Alumni Association as top recipients of the 30th Annual Awards for Excellence distinctions. The awards will be presented June 7 in the Grand Ballroom of the newly expanded Price Center. More

UCSD Professors Win Guggenheim Fellowships
Two members of the faculty have just been announced as recipients of prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship Awards for 2008.  Selected, on the basis of “distinguished achievement and exceptional promise,” are Rae Armantrout, professor of writing in the Department of Literature and Jason X.-J. Yuan, professor of medicine and associate chair for research in the Department of Medicine. More

Top Bank Economist to Address
San Diego Economics Roundtable
With turmoil widespread in the U.S. economy the views of Peter Hooper, managing director and chief economist of Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc., and a veteran of 26 years at the Federal Reserve Board, will be particularly timely when he speaks at the UC San Diego Economics Roundtable on April 22.
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Noted UCSD Art Historian to Lecture on Masterpieces
of San Diego Painting at Oceanside Museum of Art
Nationally recognized scholar and art historian Bram Dijkstra, a professor emeritus of American comparative literature at UC San Diego, will give a talk Thursday at the Oceanside Museum of Art on an exhibit of some of the finest works of San Diego painters that recently opened at the museum. More