The goals of Newkirk Faculty Fellowship are to: 1) provide a forum for cross-disciplinary interaction; 2) increase the visibility of UCI scholars and their activities within and outside the university; 3) build community around the strategic mission of the Newkirk Center for Science & Society.
The fellowship term will be January 1, 2025 through December 31, 2025. Newkirk Faculty Fellows will be expected to:
- Hold a UCI faculty appointment at any career stage
- Give a public presentation or workshop on a topic of their choosing
- Attend a monthly lunch discussion with other Fellows and center staff (food provided)
- Interact with Newkirk Center staff, students, and fellows (e.g. as a guest speaker or reviewer of fellowship applications)
- Be open to new collaborations and program development
- Provide a head-shot and short bio for posting on the Newkirk Center website
- Receive a $5,000 grant to a university account of their choosing
2024 Newkirk Faculty Fellows
Newkirk Faculty Fellowship Symposium
“Existential Crises and Imagining Futures”
Friday, January 24, 2025
9am – 1:30pm
Beckman Center, Huntington Room
100 Academy Way, Irvine, CA 92617
Please RSVP and join us for the Newkirk Faculty Fellowship Symposium, “Existential Crises and Imagining Futures” on Friday, January 24, 2025 from 9am – 1:30pm at the Beckman Center, Huntington Room. The symposium will highlight the creative activities of the Newkirk Faculty Fellows and end with an interactive discussion with guests. Continental breakfast will be served at 8:30am and lunch will be served at noon. Seats are limited. Parking is free.
Solmaz Kia is an associate professor at the mechanical and aerospace engineering department of UCI. Additionally, she has a joint appointment with the computer science department at UCI. Her research focuses on optimal decision making and estimation theory for networked systems, with applications in multi-robot motion planning and navigation.
She was a recipient of the UC president’s postdoctoral fellowship in 2012-2014 and an NSF CAREER award in 2017. Dr. Kis received his Ph.D. from UCI in 2009. Before joining UCI as a faculty member in 2014, she worked in industry and held a postdoctoral appointment at UC San Diego. Additional information: solmaz.eng.uci.edu
Charis E. Kubrin is a Professor of Criminology, Law and Society. She is co-author or co-editor of 6 books and has published dozens of journal articles, many of which focus on the intersection of music, culture, and social identity, particularly as it applies to hip-hop and youth of color in disadvantaged communities.
She is a frequent media contributor whose writing has been featured in the The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Forbes, and CNN. She is co-author of two amicus briefs on rap music that were filed with the U.S. Supreme Court (Elonis v. U.S.; Bell v. Itawamba County School Board), co-author of a legal guide for attorneys involved in rap on trial cases, and has served as an expert witness and consultant in numerous criminal cases involving rap music as evidence of alleged underlying criminal activity. Charis gave a TEDx talk, The Threatening Nature of…Rap Music?, on the use of rap lyrics as evidence in criminal trials.
Jung-Ah Lee is a Professor and Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belongings in Sue & Bill Gross School of Nursing at UC Irvine. Lee is a nurse scientist with expertise in gerontological research using mixed methods. Her research focuses on translational approaches to improve care delivery and quality of life of patients and caregivers.
Currently Lee and her interdisciplinary team conduct an NIH-funded randomized controlled trial, a culturally and language specific, community health worker led, home-based intervention for underserved dementia family caregivers to reduce burden and stress and improve responses to difficult behaviors of persons living with dementia.
Annie Loui works as a director/choreographer, and is the Artistic Director of Counter-Balance Theater. She trained with dancer Carolyn Carlson (at the Paris Opera), and studied in France with Etienne Decroux, Ella Jarosivitcz and Jerzy Grotowski. Original physical theater pieces have been seen in France, Monaco, West Germany, Italy, and in the United States at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, among other venues.
She was the resident choreographer at the American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.), Boston and taught extensively for Brandeis and ART Harvard, before coming to the University of California, Irvine where she is Head of Movement for the MFA Actor Training Program. Her book The Physical Actor is published by Routledge Press.
Michael Méndez is an assistant professor of environmental policy and planning at the University of California, Irvine, an Andrew Carnegie Fellow, and Visiting Scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (through a National Science Foundation Early Faculty Career Award).
He previously was the Pinchot Faculty Fellow in Sustainability Studies at the Yale School of the Environment. Michael has more than a decade of senior-level experience in the public and private sectors, where he consulted and actively engaged in the policymaking process.
Simon Penny is an artist and theorist with a longstanding focus on emerging technologies, embodied and situated aspects of artistic practices, and critical analysis of computer culture. Much of his career has been at the intersection of engineering and art – developing custom immersive, sensor-based systems for embodied interaction.
More recently his research foci are the climate crisis and embodied cognition. Originally from Australia, Penny was Professor of Art and Robotics at Carnegie Mellon (1993-2000). He founded the Arts Computation Engineering (ACE) graduate program at UCI 2003-2012. He published Making Sense: Cognition, Computing, Art and Embodiment in 2017 (MIT press). Penny is professor of Electronic Art and Design (Dept of Art) with appointments in the dept of Music and in Informatics. More at simonpenny.net
Kris Peterson is an anthropologist who focuses on science and technology studies, political economy, African studies, and political theory. Kris has written two books, Speculative Markets: Drug Circuits and Derivative Life in Nigeria (2014) and (with Valerie Olson) The Ethnographer’s Way: A Handbook for Multidimensional Research Design (2024).
Kris conducted research on HIV-related, African-based clinical trials as well as the politics of Ebola during 2014 West African outbreak. Currently, Kris is working on two projects: 1) the relationship between cancer and American settler colonialism, and 2) a study of examination of four viruses as they relate to West African and Sahelian geopolitics.
Jessica Pratt is a community ecologist and teaching professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. She is broadly interested in the application of ecological theory to environmental problem-solving and in effective pedagogy to train the next generation of environmental leaders and Earth stewards.
Dr. Pratt’s current research examines the affective dimensions (i.e. emotions, moods, attitudes) of learning and working in the environmental and climate justice space. Through her research and teaching, she hopes to develop effective approaches to teaching about planetary crises while also instilling critical hope, emotional resilience, and a determined self-efficacy in her students.
Tanya Vasylyeva is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Population Health and Disease Prevention. After completing her DPhil (PhD) in Molecular Epidemiology degree at the University of Oxford (UK), she obtained a Junior Research Fellowship in Biological Sciences at the New College (University of Oxford) and a Branco Weiss Fellowship (Branco Weiss Society in Science).
Dr. Vasylyeva is an expert in molecular and socio-behavioral epidemiology, with a particular focus on HIV epidemics in forcibly displaced populations. Her work is aimed at utilizing phylodynamics to describe the spread of viral infectious diseases in a population and assess different prevention strategies.
S. Ama Wray, Professor of Dance at UC Irvine is the custodian of Embodiology®, an award-winning neo-African improvisation practice. Redefining practices for human flourishing, she is a Fellow of the Mind and Life Institute and 2023 California established Artists Awardee. Formerly a performer with London Contemporary Dance Theatre and Rambert Dance Company, for over 30 years she advanced the integration of music and dance through JazzXchange.
Her scholarly work, which is rooted in practice-based field research in Ghana’s Kopeyia Village, centers artists and community members of the Dagbe Center. Her monograph Embodiology: From Ancient Movement and Music Practices to Phenomenal Being is forthcoming on Routledge, and her teacher training program to develop Embodiology instructors is in its 3rd year. As a National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts Fellow her exploration have led her to create performances that are intertwined with technology, manifested as Texterritory – a cell phone based interactive storytelling. Her innovations continue through AI 4 Afrika, an initiative she co-founded with choreographers, data scientists, scholars, and entrepreneurs in 2020.
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