2023 Newkirk Faculty Fellows
Adriana Briscoe is an evolutionary biologist and lepidopterist. Her research has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, U.S. News and World Report, National Geographic, Scientific American, NPR and PBS/NOVA. She is a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow, a member of the…
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and was honored with the Distinguished Scientist Award from the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science. She is working on her first book, a memoir about butterflies.
Diane Campbell (B.S. Stanford University, Ph. D. Duke University) joined the faculty at UC Irvine in 1989 and is now Distinguished Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. She seeks to understand how plants evolve, the influence of animal pollinators on plant populations, and how those…
processes are impacted by climate change including increased drought and fire. Her current research tests whether plant populations can be rescued from extinction through evolutionary adaptation to new environmental conditions. Her work involves field research in southern California, the mountains of Colorado (at Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory), and around the globe. More information is at: http://faculty.sites.uci.edu/campbelllab/
John Crawford (Newkirk Lecture) is an intermedia artist, performance director and systems designer. Engaging directly with the emerging technologies of our time, he creates immersive environments, interactive experiences and media productions that are presented online as well as in theatres, galleries and other public…
spaces, featuring creative exploration of environmentalism, climate justice and community engagement. His work investigates how the human desire to transform our environment is unleashing destructive forces that endanger the world and everything in it, including ourselves. He is a Professor of Intermedia Arts in the UCI School of the Arts, where he directs the Embodied Media Research Group (EMRG). More information at http://emrg.embodied.net
Jesse Jackson (Newkirk Lecture) is a Canadian artist and designer based in Southern California. Jesse explores the architectures we construct—from buildings to landscapes to virtual worlds—through objects and images made with digital visualization and fabrication technologies, and through intensive collaborations with…
scientists, humanists, and other creatives. His interactive Marching Cubes performances and installations (2016—present) have been featured in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Mexico City, Stockholm, Tehran, and across America. Solo exhibitions of his work focused on the places we live have been reviewed in the LA Review of Books (2021) and The Globe and Mail (2014, 2019). In 2016, Jesse edited Urban Ecologies 2013, which examined the impact of emerging categories of research and practice that are shaping the future of our cities. Jesse is currently editing Experimental Engagements in Interdisciplinary Art: An Anthology of Contemporary Practices, forthcoming in 2023. He is an Associate Professor of Electronic Art & Design at the University of California, Irvine Claire Trevor School of the Arts, where he also serves as Associate Dean, Research and Innovation and Executive Director of the Beall Center for Art + Technology.
Hosun Kang is associate professor in the School of Education. As a science education and teacher education researcher, her work focuses on re-imagining and transforming science education toward a more just, sustainable, and thriving future. Dr. Kang works collaboratively with educators, students,…
scientists and community members to co-design and enact innovative science learning experiences, and study and improve the design based on robust research findings. Her research interests include minoritized students’ identity development in relation to science, expanding opportunities to learn in science classrooms, environmental and climate education, and supporting science teachers to engage in equity/justice-centered pedagogy.
Yanning Shen (Newkirk Lecture) is an assistant professor with the EECS department at the University of California, Irvine. Her research interests span the areas of machine learning, network science, and data science. She received her Ph.D. degree from the University of Minnesota in 2019. She was selected as a Rising Star in…
EECS by Stanford University in 2017. She received the Microsoft Academic Grant Award for AI Research in 2021, the Google Research Scholar Award in 2022, and the Hellman Fellowship in 2022. She is also an honoree of the MIT Technology Review Innovators under 35 Asia Pacific in 2022.
Sanghyuk Shin (Newkirk Lecture) is in infectious disease epidemiologist with background and expertise in genomic epidemiology and public health. My research involves the integration of infectious disease genomic data with traditional epidemiological data to understand how infectious diseases spread. My current research includes…
NIH-funded research projects of the spread of tuberculosis and SARS-CoV-2 in populations affected by HIV. I am also the PI of an NIH Administrative Supplement to explore bio-ethical issues related to the rollout of tuberculosis genomic sequencing technology in Botswana.
Golnaz Tabibnia is an affective neuroscientist. Her research focuses on the interplay of emotions and cognition (“passion and reason”) in the human brain – particularly emotion regulation, impulse control, social decision-making, and psychological resilience…
Ultimately, her work centers around using insights from neuroscience to enhance behavioral tools for improving mental wellness. As a Newkirk Center fellow, she will explore the idea that learning about the neuroscience of self-regulation can improve self-regulation. She is currently assistant research faculty in the Department of Psychological Science at UCI. Prior to that, she was an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University (BA UC-Berkeley, PhD UCLA).
Leigh Turner is a Professor in the Program in Public Health’s Department of Health, Society, and Behavior. He is also a member of UCI’s Stem Cell Research Center and Ethics Leader for UCI’s Institute for Clinical and Translational Science. Turner’s research addresses ethical, legal, and social concerns related…
to businesses selling unlicensed and unproven stem cell interventions. He has also written about ethical dimensions of health-related travel, globalization of health services, and medical crowdfunding. As a Newkirk Center Faculty Fellow, Turner will investigate ethical issues related to academic medical centers commercializing stem cell products with limited evidence base.
Nícola Ulibarrí is an associate professor in Urban Planning and Public Policy at UC Irvine. She is an interdisciplinary scholar who studies environmental policy and governance, with a focus on redesigning environmental decision-making processes to result in better environmental and social outcomes…
Topically, she focuses on water governance, coastal resilience, and climate change adaptation. Dr. Ulibarrí earned her PhD through the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment & Resources at Stanford University.
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