2005 - 2015
A new chancellor, the Merage School naming, UC’s first online degrees and a law school approval.
Milestones
This decade marked law school approval, Alzheimer’s breakthroughs, a new hospital opening and Olympic medals for Anteaters.
2005
R. Duncan Luce, Distinguished Professor of cognitive sciences, received the 2003 National Medal of Science from President George W. Bush at the White House on March 14, 2005. He was honored for his “advances in economics, psychology and sociology based on mathematical modeling of behavior” over 50 years.
2005
In 2005, UC Irvine’s Graduate School of Management became The Paul Merage School of Business, recognizing the Paul Merage Family Foundation for its $30 million gift. The same year, the Merage School created the Center for Investment & Wealth Management and the Dean’s Leadership Circle. Paul Merage is best known for co-founding Chef America Inc., which created Hot Pockets.
2005
Michael V. Drake, M.D., was appointed the fifth chancellor of UC Irvine in July 2005. During his administration, the number of applicants for undergraduate admission increased by more than 90 percent and the university’s four-year graduation rate increased by more than 19 percent. He launched programs in public health, pharmaceutical sciences and nursing science and oversaw the creation of UC Irvine’s School of Law and School of Education.
2005
In 2005, the UC Irvine Foundation launched the $1 billion Shaping the Future campaign, the largest fundraising effort in UC Irvine and Orange County history. As of February 2015, more than 110,000 supporters had contributed $957 million. Campaign highlights include doubling the number of UC Irvine endowed chairs, creating more than 2,000 new scholarships and fellowships, naming schools and establishing new research facilities.
2005
Established in 2002, UC Irvine’s Master of Advanced Study in criminology, law and society was the first online degree program offered in the UC system. In 2005, its first cohort – 15 students – graduated.
2005
The Arts Plaza at the Claire Trevor School of the Arts opened on Oct. 25, 2005. Designed by celebrated artist and architect Maya Lin, it’s an environment that embraces the senses, inviting visitors to connect with their surroundings. It features one of Lin’s signature water sculptures, an amphitheater and colorful lighted pathways.
2006
Hyperthymesia, or highly superior autobiographical memory, was identified by UC Irvine researchers Elizabeth Parker, Larry Cahill and James L. McGaugh in 2006. After conducting a five-year study of “AJ,” a 40-year-old woman who could remember every detail of her life since age 14, the three published their findings in the academic journal Neurocase. It’s believed to be the first documented case of hyperthymesia.
2006
Biologist Anthony James ’73, Ph.D. ’79 received a $19.7 million grant from the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health in 2005 to develop methods of controlling the transmission of dengue fever, a mosquito-borne disease that occurs in tropical and subtropical areas of the world. In 2006, James and his colleagues announced they had successfully genetically engineered mosquitoes with a high resistance to the dengue fever virus. The same year, he was elected to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences.
2006
In 2006, professor of neurobiology & behavior Frank LaFerla and his team identified a compound to block the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers administered daily doses of the drug AF267B to mice with Alzheimer’s and tested their ability to find a hidden platform in a tank of water. Mice who received the compound performed better than mice that did not. The drug also was found to reduce Alzheimer’s plaques and tangles and increase levels of an enzyme that suppresses production of beta-amyloid.
2006
The UC Board of Regents approved the UC Irvine School of Law in November 2006. It was the first new public law school created in California in more than 40 years. The inaugural class comprised 60 students.
2007
UC Irvine celebrated the grand opening of Orange County’s first hydrogen fueling station on Feb. 27, 2007. In October of the same year, the campus was selected by General Motors to help launch the world’s largest fleet of fuel cell electric vehicles.
2007
The UC Irvine men’s volleyball team won its first NCAA championship in 2007, defeating Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne in the final. It was UC Irvine’s first national championship since the men’s water polo team took the title in 1989.
2007
UC Irvine’s baseball team made its mark in history with its first College World Series appearance in 2007. The Anteaters were the first to win extra-inning games on consecutive days and played the longest game in the event’s history, a five-hour-40-minute, 13-inning victory over Cal State Fullerton. UC Irvine was defeated in the semifinals by Oregon State University.
2008
Construction on a world-class hospital at UC Irvine Medical Center finished four months ahead of schedule in 2008. The 482,000-square-foot facility initially called University Hospital replaced the original building, erected in 1960. Features of the new hospital included larger operating rooms, additional patient rooms and a meditation/prayer room.
2008
Four former UC Irvine students – Ryan Bailey, Tim Hutten, Jeff Powers and Rick Merlo – played on the U.S. men’s national water polo team and took home silver medals at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. Additionally, two UC Irvine volleyball coaches, John Speraw and Jay Hosack, were on staff for the men’s national indoor volleyball team, which took home gold.
2008
Eight UC Irvine faculty members, dozens of postdoctoral researchers and staff members were involved in the 2008 launch of the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. UCI affiliates developed electronics, computer systems and software integral to collecting and recording data. Andrew Lankford, professor of physics & astronomy, served as deputy director of the LHC’s ATLAS experiment. In 2013, the Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to scientists Francois Englert and Peter Higgs for their elementary particle mass theory, confirmed via the LHC discovery of the Higgs boson.
2009
In 2009, a $21 million posthumous donation from M.A. Douglas, a former Orange resident who valued integrity and passion for life, enabled the campus to reach its $50 million fundraising goal for the new hospital at UC Irvine Medical Center. Douglas was the founder of IPS, a company that developed, built and managed upward of 10,000 apartment units, primarily in Orange County.
2010
UC Irvine dedicated the newly erected Sue & Bill Gross Hall: A CIRM Institute on May 14, 2010. The $80 million, 100,000-square-foot facility was the state’s first built from the ground up specifically for stem cell research. It was made possible by $27.2 million from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, a $10 million donation from Sue and Bill Gross, private funding, and support from the University of California.
2011
UCI Health doctors Nitin Bhatia and Samuel Bederman became the first to conduct a robot-assisted spinal surgery on the West Coast in March 2011. Using a robotics system called SpineAssist, they increased the precision of spinal implant placement in a Los Angeles woman with a degenerative disk.
2012
UC Irvine’s Department of Education expanded into the School of Education in July 2012. Two years later, the school became the first in the UC system to establish an undergraduate major in education sciences.
2012
In 2012, UC Irvine was ranked first in the country and fourth in the world among the 100 best universities under 50 years old by Times Higher Education. The campus maintained this ranking for three consecutive years until it celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2015.
2013
The $39 million, 70,000-square-foot facility housing UC Irvine’s Gavin Herbert Eye Institute opened in September 2013. Part of UCI Health, it boasts 34 patient exam rooms, an optical shop, faculty offices and conference space. The building is the first on campus to require no government funding. Gavin Herbert, founder and chairman emeritus of Allergan; his wife, Ninetta; and his mother, Josephine Herbert Gleis, provided the initial naming gift in 2007. Other major donors included Abbott Medical Optics, the Alcon Foundation, the Allergan Foundation, Julia and George Argyros, the Arnold & Mabel Beckman Foundation, Bausch & Lomb, Esther and James Cavanaugh, the Discovery Eye Foundation, the Kratz Foundation, Marsha and Bill Link, and Kelly and Jim Mazzo.
2014
At UC Irvine’s invitation, President Barack Obama delivered the commencement address on Saturday, June 14, 2014, at Angel Stadium of Anaheim, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the campus’s dedication by President Lyndon B. Johnson. At the all-graduate ceremony, Obama gave kudos to UC Irvine for being “ahead of the curve” in terms of climate change research and awareness.
2014
Howard Gillman was appointed UC Irvine’s sixth chancellor by UC President Janet Napolitano and the UC regents on Sept. 18, 2014. Gillman had previously served as provost & executive vice chancellor and then interim chancellor. During his tenure, he has launched Illuminations, the Chancellor’s Arts & Culture Initiative; the Medical Humanities Initiative; Water UCI; and the Data Science Initiative.
2015
In 2015, UC Irvine men’s basketball team made history with its first Big West Conference Tournament championship and first March Madness appearance. The No. 13-seeded Anteaters took on the No. 4-seeded University of Louisville in the NCAA second round on March 20, but fell to the Cardinals 57-55. Read more here.
2015
Vicki Ruiz, Distinguished Professor of history and Chicano/Latino studies, received the 2014 National Humanities Medal from President Barack Obama at the White House on Sept. 10, 2015. She is the first UC Irvine recipient of the award. Ruiz was recognized for her pioneering work sharing the stories and histories of twentieth-century Latinas.
