Campus Venues Fill to Brim as Students, Faculty,
Staff, Gather to Witness Dawn of New Presidency
A standing-room only crowd applauded and a big cheer rose at the Great Hall at Eleanor Roosevelt College when Barack Obama took the oath of office Tuesday morning. Obama’s image filled TV screens at the Great Hall and at several other venues on campus, including The Loft at the Price Center East, which broadcast the presidential inauguration. Hundreds of students, staff and faculty turned out for the occasion. They said they had to come to watch history unfold and to witness the beginning of a new political era. More

Greening the Internet Economy
The California Public Utilities Commission and UC San Diego, one of the nation’s greenest universities, are joining for a groundbreaking symposium on January 22-23 to explore how to improve the technology sector’s energy efficiency while developing innovations to help other industries reduce their carbon footprints. More

National Institutes of Health Awards $16.6 Million to
UC San Diego Researcher for New Epigenome Center
Bing Ren, associate professor of cellular and molecular medicine at the School of Medicine and head of the Laboratory of Gene Regulation at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, was recently selected as one of four grant recipients in the National Institutes of Health Roadmap’s Epigenomics Program, an initiative developed to study stable genetic modifications that affect and alter the behavior of genes across the human genome. More

UC San Diego Among Peace Corps “Top Colleges”
Nemo Curiel, who received a math degree from UC San Diego in 2005, will begin service as a Peace Corps volunteer in Kenya in late January. Sarah Termondt, who graduated in June ’08 with a degree in environmental systems, will begin Peace Corps work in the Dominican Republic in March. They’re among the 49 UCSD alumni currently serving overseas who have helped place the campus as 18th on the Peace Corps “Top Colleges” rankings among large universities. More

Campus Parking Plans Outlined
The price of parking permits will not go up for the 2009-10 academic year, officials announced last week. It will be the second consecutive year that fees have stayed flat. Permits cost $55 per month for students, $81 for staff members and $93 for faculty. Other permits, with various restrictions and conditions, are available at different prices. More

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Reviving the United States:
Nobel Prize Winners Offer Their Perspectives
Two Nobel laureates—Mario J. Molina and F. Sherwood Rowland—will discuss how science can revive the United States and restore its standing in the global marketplace in terms of science, education and the environment at 5:30 p.m. Jan. 29 at the Price Center East.  Molina and Sherwood Rowland shared the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Paul J. Crutzen for elucidating the threat to the Earth’s ozone layer of chlorofluorocarbon gases, or CFCs. In addition, Molina, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at UCSD, was recently selected by President Barack Obama as co-leader of the transition team to develop plans for the nation’s science and technology policy. More

Renowned Geophysicist and Scripps
Professor Victor Vacquier Sr. Dies
Victor Vacquier Sr., professor emeritus of geophysics at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, died Jan. 11, 2009, in La Jolla, Calif., from pneumonia. He was 101 years old. Vacquier’s distinguished science career included the invention of the fluxgate magnetometer and airborne and marine magnetic surveying, which led to the discovery of magnetic field patterns preserved in the seafloor. More

Scripps Oceanography Building Honors
Late, Legendary Oceanographer Fred Spiess
Chancellor Marye Anne Fox along with Scripps Institution of Oceanography Director Tony Haymet will rededicate the existing Scripps Nierenberg Hall Annex building as Spiess Hall. The naming of the building recognizes the exceptional career and life of late, legendary Scripps oceanographer Fred Noel Spiess. The building rededication will take place at a ceremony to be held at 2 p.m., Friday. More