Dean's Message

Associate Dean Leadership Transition

July 2022

Please join me in recognizing Computer Science Professor Christine Alvarado on her extraordinary accomplishments as Associate Dean for Students here at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering from 2019 to 2022.

On behalf of our Jacobs School community, I would also like to congratulate Professor Alvarado on her new role as the inaugural Associate Dean of the Division of Undergraduate Education at UC San Diego. The entire UC San Diego community is extremely fortunate to have Professor Alvarado in this new role.  

As Associate Dean for Students at the Jacobs School, Professor Alvarado has been both a strong advocate for our students and a talented steward of our undergraduate and graduate programs. In many different ways, she has advanced equity, diversity, and inclusion while working to improve the Jacobs School experience for all students.

In her time as Associate Dean for Students, Professor Alvarado was instrumental in working with the IDEA Engineering Student Center to implement a system that ensures all Jacobs School student organizations not only create EDI plans, but also have resources to carry out the EDI plans. Professor Alvarado also created the Racial Equity Fellows program, and co-created and co-chaired the Student and Faculty Racial Equity Task Force. She created and managed the Jacobs School Guaranteed Transition Funding program; she was the faculty chair of the time-to-degree task force, which has made significant progress on reducing time to degree for engineering students; and she oversaw creation of Jacobs School undergraduate major videos for prospective students.

Professor Alvarado holds the Paul R. Kube Endowed Chair of Computer Science in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. Her scholarship is focused on designing curriculum and programs to make computing and computing education more accessible and appealing, with the specific goal of increasing the number of women and Black, Latinx, Native American and Pacific Islander students who study computing. Her work has been funded by several grants from the National Science Foundation including a CAREER award. Among many other awards and accolades, Professor Alvarado won the 2022 Joanne McGrath Cohoon Service Award.

Please join me in thanking Professor Alvarado for her extraordinary service as Associate Dean for Students at the Jacobs School. I'm sure I speak on behalf of the entire Jacobs School of Engineering when I wish Professor Alvarado great success in her new position as Associate Dean of the Division of Undergraduate Education. I look forward to working with her in her new capacity.

Sincerely,

-- Al

Albert ("Al") P. Pisano, Dean and
Walter J. Zable Distinguished Professor
Jacobs School of Engineering
University of California San Diego