UCSD Alumna Karen Hunter Moraghan
Stays the Course with 15-Year U.S. Open Connection
With the U.S. Open Golf Championship to be played in UC San Diego’s backyard the week of June 9 to 16, Karen Hunter Moraghan couldn’t be more proud of her alma mater.  A Third College (now named Thurgood Marshall College) graduate with a double major in communications and sociology and a visual arts minor, this will be her 15th year involved with one of the world’s premier golf championships. More

Surfing to Academic Success
Physics of Surfing Class Introduces Students to Research
It was a sunny Saturday morning in La Jolla and a UCSD student was getting ready to wade in the waves with his surfboard. But the undergraduate wasn’t there to just have fun. He also was trying to measure the physical forces at work when he surfed. Two devices were snugly duct-taped to the front and the back of his board. The experiment was part of a class titled “The Physics of Surfing” taught by Professor David Sandwell at UCSD’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. More

Nine Commencement Ceremonies
to Honor 6,000 Graduates June 21 to 23
One of the world’s leading genomic researchers, a member of the “Little Rock Nine,” who desegregated Little Rock High School and a co-founder of the world’s leading supplier of excimer light sources are among speakers who will address nearly 6,000 graduates at nine ceremonies on campus June 21 to 23. More

Eight Faculty Members and Three Graduate
Students Honored for Teaching Excellence, Inspiration
“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires,” said author and educator William Ward. Eight professors and three graduate students at UCSD were honored for just this kind of excellence in teaching June 6 in the Atkinson Pavilion of the Cecil and Ida Green Faculty Club. They received Distinguished Teaching Awards, sponsored by the San Diego Division of the Academic Senate at UC San Diego. More

Computer Science Undergraduates
Showcase Multiplayer Online Games at Calit2
As the deadline for CSE 125 final projects drew near, the most sought-after item among undergraduates in UC San Diego's Software System Design and Implementation course wasn't a high-speed computer or fancy piece of visualization software. It was the inflatable aerobed mattress that some bleary soul had dragged into the computer lab, hoping to get some shut-eye between bouts of programming. More

Women, Smoking and Heart Disease
In a first-of-its-kind study, research results show that toenail nicotine levels can help predict risk of coronary heart disease in women. Researchers at the UC San Diego School of Medicine, in collaboration with colleagues from Harvard University, showed that the higher the level of nicotine in the toenails, the higher the risk of coronary heart disease, no matter the number of cigarettes smoked or level of exposure to second hand smoke. More

Anti-estrogen Drug Therapy Reduces Risk
of Invasive Breast Cancer in Older Women
New analysis of a drug approved for osteoporosis prevention and treatment has provided definitive evidence that the medication is also effective as a breast cancer preventative for certain cancers.  Women who took the drug raloxifene were less likely to develop invasive, estrogen-receptor positive breast cancer compared with women who did not take the drug. The results of the randomized controlled trial were published in the June 10 online issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. More

Michael L. Norman Appointed
Chief Scientific Officer of SDSC
The San Diego Supercomputer Center has appointed Michael L. Norman, distinguished professor of physics at UC San Diego, to the new position of Chief Scientific Officer for SDSC. More

Academic Interns Recognized
Six academic interns at UC San Diego— ranging in disciplines from politics to medicine and from museum studies to real estate—were recognized for their outstanding performances during the 2007-2008 academic year at a ceremony and reception last month at the Price Center. More