Promising young scholars to represent UC at Nobel conference in Germany
The University of California today (May 11) announced its third class of UC President’s Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings Fellows, outstanding young scientists and economists from UC campuses and affiliated national laboratories who will join dozens of Nobel laureates from around the world at this year’s Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting in Germany.
“UC attracts some of the world’s brightest young minds and the fellows chosen to attend the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings will represent the University well as they rub shoulders and exchange ideas with Nobel laureates and scholars from around the globe,” said President Michael V. Drake, M.D. “I will not be at all surprised if future Nobel prize winners are among this class of 2022 fellows.”
The three-year-old fellows program is funded by UC Investments and UC National Laboratories. The one-of-a-kind scholarly summit in Lindau, Germany, now in its 71st year, will be held from June 26 to July 1, 2022 and focus on chemistry. A separate event in August will center on the economic sciences. Since 1953, more than 35,000 students, Ph.D. candidates and postdocs have taken part in the program. This year’s Lindau meeting marks a return to fully on-site sessions. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the past two years of meetings were held virtually.
“Having attended the Lindau meetings myself, I can attest to the powerful impact this event can have on young minds,” said UC Chief Investment Officer Jagdeep Singh Bachher, who conceived of the fellowships. “These fellows are already extraordinary. It’s my hope that providing the means to attend the Lindau meetings will broaden their networks of mentors and peers and help spark many ‘a-ha’ moments for years to come.”
This past year, UC National Laboratories nominated its first group of postdoctoral fellows to Lindau and is pleased to do so again, said Craig Leasure, vice president for national laboratories.
“This is a remarkable group of young people who have already accomplished so much,” he said. “I know their participation in the Lindau meetings will inspire them to do even more for UC and the world.”
The UC fellows — graduate students, postdocs and one undergraduate — were chosen in a multistep process that required an essay, letters of recommendation, an evaluation of their research accomplishments, and approval by the Lindau meetings organization in Germany. A UC work group that included a Nobel Prize winner narrowed down the candidates, who were then approved by Drake, Bachher and Leasure.
This year’s fellows from UC campuses for the chemistry meetings are:
Ali Abou Taka, UC Merced
Isabel Barraza Alvarez, UC Santa Barbara
Emma Berger, UC Berkeley
Estefania Cuevas-Zepeda, UC Merced
Andrew Cypcar, UC Irvine
Bing Gu, UC Irvine
Cooper Jamieson, UCLA
Caleb Karmel, UC San Francisco
Daniel Keefer, UC Irvine
Paul Klauser, UC San Francisco
Taylor Lewis, UC Riverside
Samuel Mann, UC San Francisco
Zachary Mauri, UC Merced
Aoon Rizvi, UC Irvine
Hannah Slocumb, UC Irvine
Nicholas Snyder, UCLA
Minh Tran, UC San Francisco
Emma Vargo, UC Berkeley
Yen-Yu Yang, UC Riverside
This year’s fellows from UC-affiliated national laboratories are:
Gozde Barim, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Chaochao Dun, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Magi Mettry, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Johanna Schwartz, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Katherine Sytwu, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Jennifer Wacker, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
The fellows chosen for the economic sciences are:
Tomas Breach, UC Berkeley
Cesia Sanchez, UC Berkeley
Isabelle Picciotto, UC Davis