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Sean Brenner

UCLA-led project receives $1.3 million NSF grant to connect creativity and innovation

UCLA researchers from the humanities, arts and engineering aim to foster stronger ties between America’s vibrant creative sector and those involved in pioneering scientific research, technology innovation and workforce evolution. Funded by a $1.3 million award from the National Science Foundation, the yearlong project will include a series of activities exploring how to connect regional strengths in culture and technology, foster U.S. competitiveness in industries involved in the creative sector and strengthen workforce development at the nexus of creativity and technology in critical and emerging areas of innovation, such as artificial intelligence. UCLA has launched a project office supported by the NSF’s new…

Arushi Avachat selected as 2024 Marshall Scholar

Arushi Avachat, who plans to graduate in June with degrees in English and political science and a South Asian studies minor, is the latest UCLA student to win the prestigious Marshall Scholarship. This is the third consecutive year in which a UCLA student or alumnus has received the highly competitive scholarship, which funds up to three years of graduate study in the United Kingdom for U.S. undergraduates or recent graduates. Avachat is one of 51 winners chosen from among more than 1,000 applicants for 2024. She plans to pursue master’s degrees in English and American studies, and in global and imperial…

English major named fifth Arthur Ashe Jr. Scholar

Sydney Do credits an entire community with paving her path to UCLA. After high school, the Maryland native moved to California to live with her grandparents and attend community college. But when her grandmother died and her grandfather’s health failed, the teenage Do found herself living on her own with no family support. Searching for connection in the wider world, she volunteered at Mary’s Kitchen, an Orange County nonprofit supporting people experiencing homelessness. When the city temporarily shut down the facility, Do became an advocate for its guests, many of whom had mental illnesses or disabilities. She also volunteered at…

Newest issue of UCLA College Magazine celebrates a spectacular century

When UCLA was founded in 1919, it only offered a two-year undergraduate program, with no option for a bachelor’s degree. In 1923, the UC Board of Regents approved expansions that transformed what was then known as the Junior College into the UCLA College of Letters and Science. The latest issue of UCLA College Magazine celebrates 100 years of the UCLA College with a range of stories highlighting the people, events and achievements that defined the past century, as well as a fascinating look ahead to what the next 100 years might bring. Join in the celebration by diving into the…

$2 million gift to create endowed chair in the study of religion

With a gift of $2 million from an anonymous donor, UCLA plans to establish the Robert E. Archer Chair in the Study of Religion, the first endowed chair of its kind for the campus. Pending the approval of the UCLA Academic Senate, the permanent appointment chair will support a distinguished faculty member in UCLA’s interdepartmental degree program in the study of religion, founded a half-century ago within the Division of Humanities. “We are profoundly grateful to our anonymous donor for this generous and forward-thinking gift, which will advance the growth and continued impact of a vital UCLA program,” said Alexandra…

New creative writing minor is open to all UCLA undergraduates

A newly established minor will expand the opportunity for UCLA students to receive official credit for their creative writing pursuits. In replacing UCLA’s concentration in creative writing — which had been accessible only to English majors — the new creative writing minor will be open to all undergraduates, making it one of only a few UCLA minors in a creative practice. The minor also is more expansive in subject matter than the concentration was. While the minor requires students to complete two workshops in a core genre —fiction or poetry — students in the minor can pursue such diverse practices…

Exploring the sacred music of nuns in colonial Mexico and Latin America

In his first book, Cesar Favila book takes an imaginative approach to recounting the lives of nuns who sang devotional music in Catholic churches in 17th- and 18th-century Mexico and Latin America. Favila, an assistant professor of musicology at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, is a faculty affiliate of the CMRS Center for Early Global Studies, the Center for 17th- and 18th-Century Studies, and the LGBTQ Studies Program in the UCLA Division of Humanities. “Immaculate Sounds: The Musical Lives of Nuns in New Spain,” published in November by Oxford University Press, examines rarely studied printed and manuscript sources…

New English course embraces the potential of AI

A new UCLA English class is built around the premise that the best way to understand artificial intelligence tools, including their biases and limitations, is to experiment with them. The class, “Algo-Lit: An Introduction to AI Literature,” is taught by Danny Snelson, an assistant professor of English. “I think that the use of generative AI — to be specific, the type of large-language models or image synthesis tools built on massive accumulations of data — presents real ethical and moral concerns,” Snelson said. “But these tools, and the new ways of making they present, are not going away. That box…