Our monthly UC Spotlight celebrates the UC locations, teams and individual staff members who are helping to make UC a great place to work. Fiat Lux!
Individual staff who are making a difference
UC Merced Chief of Police and Assistant Vice Chancellor Chou Her gave the keynote speech at the Merced County 50th anniversary celebration of Hmong American Day. Chief Her encouraged Hmong community members to follow his footsteps in seeking positions of leadership and influence.
Barry Oh, UC Irvine campus controller and assistant vice chancellor for accounting and fiscal services, has been selected for the 2025-26 NACUBO Fellows Program, which prepares senior higher education professionals for future roles as chief business officers.
UC Irvine’s 12th annual Dynamic Womxn Awards recognized Megan Belmonte, director of access and engagement at the Claire Trevor School of the Arts, and Monica Schnapp, assistant director of sorority and fraternity life in Student Affairs.
UC Merced Executive Director of Recreation & Athletics David Dunham has been named California Pacific Conference Athletic Director of the Year for the second straight year and for the third time in four years!
UCSF Professor Laura Wagner and Clinical Nurse Coordinator Jocelyn Murgatroyd won the 2025 Association of periOperative Registered Nurses Journal Writers Contest, demonstrating the value of collaborative research between School of Nursing faculty and UCSF Health nurses.
Maria Yefimova, lead nurse scientist at UCSF, was a keynote speaker at the Penn Medicine Nursing Research and EBP Conference. Her talk focused on how partnerships between nurses in academic and practice roles advance nursing science.
Clint Allard, Triton alumnus and head coach of the UC San Diego men’s basketball team, shared insights into his coaching style, along with his experiences with the Big West Championships and March Madness, insights on the team and plans for the future.
UC Riverside Mental Health Promotion Specialist Gomez Manzo starred in a video about “Therapy Fluffies,” a finals week tradition that brings therapy pets to campus to bring students joy and help relieve stress.
Impactful team and group initiatives and awards
Several UCSF staff were recognized with Founders Day Awards — which celebrate exemplary service to the university and community at large — including Joey Convento, Miriam Gonzalez-White, Maria S. Jaochico, Kim Jarboe LaPean, Belle Lao-Ngo, Monica Mapa, Kate Shimshock and Jennifer Tuveson McElroy.
Teams at UC San Diego Health were honored for improving patient care, boosting efficiency, and creating innovative models now inspiring changes at hospitals nationwide.
The UC Riverside Student Well-being, Intervention and Follow-up Team, aka SWIFT, is a mobile mental health team that meets students in crisis where they are.
The UC Davis Children’s Hospital Child Life and Creative Arts Therapy Department partnered with SeaWorld San Diego to bring a sloth, alligator, porcupine and other “animal ambassadors” to meet patients and their families.
In honor of Mental Health Awareness Month in May, the UC Davis Health Workplace Violence Prevention Unit created a podcast focused on workplace violence in health care.
The UC Santa Cruz Spring Give 2025 campaign united 94 project teams and over 1,750 donors, raising $140,000+ to directly support student success in just 11 days!
The UC Riverside Facilities Services team is exploring innovative approaches to campus maintenance — including leaf-blowing drones.
Events and milestones
UC San Diego celebrated Asian and Pacific Islander American (APIA) Heritage Month with campus festivities, a variety of engaging events, service awards, an essay contest and more.
UC Irvine hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the completion of the Falling Leaves Foundation Medical Innovation Building
The UC Davis Mike and Renee Child Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship held its 25th annual Big Bang! Business Competition, awarding over $100,000 in grants to California college student entrepreneurs.
The UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute hosted its inaugural Latino Policy Day. More than 200 faculty, students, alumni and policy leaders — including Assemblymember Joaquin Arambula — learned about UCLA research that’s addressing critical challenges facing Latino communities.
The UC Santa Cruz Humanities Institute marked 25 years of championing research, public engagement, fellowships, community partnerships, student success, and interdisciplinary innovation.
In May, the UC San Diego community celebrated Jewish American Heritage Month by hosting a multicultural “Shuk” night market, along with other community-focused events, programs and resources.
UC Davis Health Procurement, UC Davis Supply Chain Management and the Office for Health Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion hosted 230+ local businesses and 24+ university departments at the UC Davis Supplier Expo, which helps small business owners learn how to work with the university.
UC Riverside Health cemented plans to build a 21‑acre medical complex in Riverside. The new complex will improve health care access, bringing world-class care to the Inland Empire.
UC San Diego Medical Scientist Training Program students, faculty and staff commemorated the program’s 50th anniversary with a full weekend celebration — including a gala and a research symposium.
The Promise Institute for Human Rights at UCLA School of Law partnered with the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative to host the 2025 Human Rights and Humanitarian Forum, which drew activists, policymakers, legal advocates, academics and journalists from around the world.
The newly opened Goeddel Family Technology Sandbox at UC San Diego offers a collaborative place for interdisciplinary researchers to gain hands-on experience with the latest tools and equipment that will drive the future of biology and medicine.
UC Santa Cruz celebrated the 50th anniversary of its foundry — the last of its kind in the UC system to teach classes —with a festive bronze pour, alumni and student collaboration, and heartfelt tributes.
The Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at UC Davis’s Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner Certificate Program and Doctor of Nursing Practice — Family Nurse Practitioner Degree Program have gained full accreditation.
UC San Diego celebrated Mexican Mother’s Day and NSF’s 75th anniversary by hosting an Imperial Valley STEM event, which engaged 300+ attendees with interactive science, technology, and family‑centered festivities.
Ratings and rankings
UC Irvine Health and UCLA Health were recognized among in Becker’s Hospital Review 2025 list of “150 top places to work in healthcare.”
UC Irvine Health was designated a Recognized Leader in Caring for People Living with Diabetes by The Leapfrog Group and the American Diabetes Association, in recognition of the critical and complex inpatient care that UC Irvine Health and its diabetes programs provide to patients. Only 36 hospitals received this distinction nationally.
UC Irvine has once again earned a STARS Gold rating, recognizing its ongoing commitment to expanding upon campus sustainability initiatives and practices. Several other UC campuses also hold gold and platinum ratings.
UC Davis Children’s Hospital has been named one of America’s Best Children’s Hospitals 2025 by Newsweek magazine and Statista, a global market research and consumer data firm.
Submit your achievements!
UC Spotlight honors workplaces, teams and individual staff members that make UC a great place to work. To send a recognition or achievement for consideration, email the relevant URL to ucnetwork@universityofcalifornia.edu. Please note that UC Spotlight is intended to reflect staff-specific achievements; to that end, we do not accept recognitions that are student, faculty or alumni-focused. Submissions are chosen for publication at the editor’s discretion. Funding and promotion/hiring announcements are not appropriate for this feature.