HAPPY NEW YEAR 2026

 Wishing you happiness, prosperity, health, and a productive New Year

Our third General Meeting in this year is on February 3rd at 5:30 PM at the University Club.

Our keynote speaker is Distinguished Professor of medicine Felicia Marie Knaul, senior advisor to the dean of the David Geffen School of Medicine and to the president of UCLA Health; director of global health, UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center; and associate of the chancellor.

Details are published in our UPDATE January through March 2026 issue: HERE 

Dr. Felicia Marie Knaul presented her work at the 2026 FWC Scholarship Dinner

Marianne Afifi and Dianne Homsher with
FWC scholarship recipient Sonya Brooks with her guest Infinity Brooks

Associate of the Chancellor Dr. Felicia Marie Knaul, our guest speaker,
with Zorana Ercegovac, FWC VP Programs 2025-2026

FWC 2026 Scholarship recipients at the General Meeting
Brooks, Dorairaj, Rooney, Cole, Pineda, Chan, Salem, Kaptanian, Cornejo

~~ ANNOUNCEMENTS for General Meetings in April and May 2026~~

On April 21st, Dr. Silvia Forni, director of the UCLA's Fowler Museum, will present her talk titled "Understanding art from multiple perspectives: collection care and exhibition planning at the Fowler Museum at UCLA." This General Meeting presentation will be via zoom starting at 1:30 PM.

Dr. Silvia Forni, Director of the Fowler Museum at UCLA

Our last General Meeting is Spring Luncheon, scheduled for May 19th, at 11:30 AM at the University Club. Our invited speaker is Professor Dr. Leana Golubchik, who will update us about “AI for Health and Data-driven Personalized Wellness.” Dr. Golubchik is the Stephen and Etta Varra Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, with a joint appointment in Computer Science, at University of Southern California (USC). She also serves as the director of the Women in Science and Engineering (WiSE) program. 

Before joining the faculty of the Viterbi School of Engineering at USC, Professor Golubchik was on the faculty at the University of Maryland and before that, Columbia University. 

Her current research focuses on applying Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods to improve the performance of computer and communication systems, e.g., datacenters, hybrid clouds, and networks,  and on optimizing performance of systems running AI applications. Her work also includes robustness, privacy and security of AI systems, with a more recent interest in data-driven personalized wellness. 

See our UPDATE April - June 2026 issue for the full information on the May General Meeting.

Dr. Leana. Golubchik

Professor Golubchik is a Triple Bruin, having received her Bachelor’s, Master’s, and PhD degrees from UCLA’s Computer Science Department in the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science. We look forward to welcoming her back to the UCLA family.