This is my first — and quite possibly my last — message to you from College Building North. Don't get me wrong — I plan to be here a long time; but when I arrived at UCR to serve as CNAS dean in January, it quickly became clear that the old saying is true: "Location, location, location." While our parking situation is the envy of everyone on campus, College Building North's fringe-of-campus location does not serve the mission of the dean's office well. That mission is multi-faceted, of course, but at its heart is a responsibility to serve our faculty. To do this, we are moving to the near-center of campus in the weeks ahead and invite you to visit us in our new quarters on the second floor of the Geology Building.

As you will see in this newsletter and in other stories on our website, our faculty and students continue to impress with their research, teaching and accomplishments. Not only did we add 30 new scientist/scholars to our ranks this past fall, we have Mark S. Alber, Vincent J. Duncan Family Professor of Applied Mathematics at the University of Notre Dame, joining us in June. He will become part of a distinguished cohort that includes Professors Julia Bailey-Serres and Yadong Yin, who were recently named to Reuters' list of the most influential scientists in the world. Congratulations go out to them and to Tracy Kahn, curator of UCR's Citrus Variety Collection, who was recently named Givaudan Endowed Chair. Sadly, we also report on our recent loss of two emeritus faculty members. We all owe the late Professors Bruce Chalmers and Earl Oatman a debt of gratitude for their roles in the success of our students, our college and our university.

While the Student Success Stories section of our website is bursting with good news, we are proud to recognize two most-recent accomplishments. Ph.D. candidate Eleinis Avila-Lovera has been selected for a U.S. Agency for International Development fellowship and will work with the Universidad Central de Venezuela to study cultivating cacao in an agroforestry system. Fourth-year undergraduate physics major Connor Richards, who serves as president of the CNAS Science Ambassadors, is the first UCR student to be awarded the Gates Cambridge Scholarship, which Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education Steven Brint called, ". . . the most prestigious award for graduate study that any UCR undergraduate has ever won."

It's an exciting time to be part of CNAS and I look forward to sharing with you in the months and years ahead many more stories of our success.

With warm regards,

Kathyrn Uhrich
Dean