Professor Michael Dennin has been appointed as UC Irvine’s Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning, and Dean of Division of Undergraduate Education, effective May 1, 2015.
Before his appointment as interim dean of the Division of Undergraduate Education in October 2014, Professor Dennin served as an acting associate dean for the Division of Undergraduate Education in 2003. He has worked for many years within DUE on the Undecided/Undeclared Advising Program and also actively mentored UROP students. He co-directed the ChaMP program and worked on the Curriculum Task Force for the UC Teach Program. Professor Dennin holds a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research focuses on dynamics of foams, Langmuir monolayers, and modeling of ice mélange. These studies in complex fluids are crucial for many applications including foam use in oil recovery as well as granular matter in the form of powders and pills in the medical industry.
Professor Dennin is very active in on-line education and in increasing the public awareness of science. He has served as Chair of the Academic Senate Committee on Courses, Chair of the Council on Educational Policy, and Chair of the steering committee for the Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter. In addition to being a Sloan Fellow and a Cottrell Scholar, he is a recipient of UCI Senate awards in all three categories: UCI Senate Distinguished mid-Career Award for Service, UCI Senate Distinguished Faculty Award for Teaching, and UCI Senate Distinguished Assistant Professor Award for Research.