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Dear friends, alumni and supporters,
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Summer greetings! I just returned from a weeklong trip to Beijing, China, and wanted to share some exciting updates with you about our research and collaborations there.
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It was a very productive trip - and UC Irvine was well represented, with a delegation consisting of myself as well as Dean Nancy Guerra (Social Ecology), Dean Richard Arum (Education), Vice Chancellor Brian Hervey, newly hired faculty members Gustavo Oliveira and Li Zhang (who are spending the year at Peking University), as well as our friends Brian Chuan from South Coast Plaza and George Zhao from the Kay Family Foundation. I was traveling with John, Marilyn, and Vivian Long, who were in China visiting other sites and, like me, participating in the Global Chinese Philanthropy Initiative (GCPI), sponsored in part by the Long U.S.-China Institute. The GCPI brings together prominent Chinese and Chinese-American philanthropists to discuss trends in giving and to stimulate conversations between philanthropists, policy makers, academics, and nonprofits in the U.S. and China.
I spoke on a panel of deans - together with deans from USC, Sun Yat-sen University, and Tsinghua University - about the increasing importance of philanthropy in higher education.
Dean Guerra and I also had the pleasure of dining with the president of Beijing Normal University, along with faculty members from BNU and UCI who were attending a joint conference on neuroscience. We are exploring ways to deepen our relationship, focusing on research and programs on pathways to successful aging, and bringing in perspectives from the arts, sciences, traditional Chinese medicine, neuroimaging, public policy, and housing. I'm very excited about this, especially since it leverages key strengths of UC Irvine across the whole university, while harnessing some core areas of distinction in the social sciences.
Vice Chancellor Hervey and I had the honor of meeting Professor Shing-Tung Yau of Harvard, a Fields Medalist, one of whose former students now chairs the UC Irvine math department. He will help us brainstorm about an advanced and applied mathematics center that will bridge physical sciences and the Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Sciences in social sciences. I also met some entrepreneurs working in robotics, pharma, and AI, all interested in how social science research can inform their businesses and product development. |
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I got in a little bit of sightseeing, and visited the Summer Palace.
Those of you who know my culinary habits will not be surprised to learn that I very much enjoyed eating - everything! Duck intestine, insect grubs and larvae, jellyfish, alongside more conventional items like duck tongue and cow stomach were just a few of the more adventuresome treats. |
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And I had a fun afternoon exploring the wild world of Chinese mobile payments and the future of retail with my colleagues from American University, Chap, and Sibel Kusimba. If you've never heard of the Chinese supermarket Hema, look it up - it's Jeff Bezos' dream come true, a unified platform for online and mobile grocery ordering and delivery as well as freshly made (and freshly killed) food you can eat on the spot. I was astounded (and I won free prizes of still more delicious food). |
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Since returning, I've already had a wonderful brainstorming call with a new friend I met in Beijing from the Gates Foundation, who is interested in the research on philanthropy we're hoping to advance through the Long U.S.-China Institute.
All in all, a very successful visit! If you're interested in some of our upcoming China-related events and activities, see below for what's on the menu for fall. I am thrilled with the partnerships we've been developing and really excited about how we can carry forward these relationships to the mutual benefit of UC Irvine and our sister institutions in China.
Happy summer to one and all!
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Bill
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up-coming china-related events
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UC-Fudan Fintech Conference
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| keynotes from Amrit Pal, Square, and Mara Hvistendahl, journalist who wrote on Sesame Credit in China for Wired |
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| California Econometrics Conference |
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| hosted by UC Irvine and Xiamen University, includes a special UCI/Xiamen side conference, "Leveraging Big Data for Econometrics Research and Policy" |
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If you want to get involved in UC Irvine's China Initiative, please contact Tracy Arcuri at tarcuri@uci.edu.
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