June 14, 2014


Richard and Joe welcomed the eighth chancellor of the University of California San Diego (UCSD), Pradeep K. Khosla. As an internationally renowned electrical and computer engineer, Chancellor Khosla began his appointment on May 3, 2012 and began his term as chancellor on August 1, 2012. Most of his career has been spent at Carnegie Mellon, the same university where he received his MS and PhD. He has also served on advisory boards for commercial industry and government agencies.

Chancellor Khosla connects with the UCSD community via a blog that features issues and events at the university.

Podcast

April 29, 2012.

March 5, 2016

March 5, 2016

Photo by Suszi Lurie McFadden

This week’s special guest was Dr. Lucy Kalanithi, MD, FACP, the widow of Dr. Paul Kalanithi. Paul authored the critically acclaimed, #1 New York Times bestselling memoir, When Breath Becomes Air, for which she wrote the epilogue. An internal medicine physician and faculty member at the Stanford School of Medicine in Palo Alto, CA, she completed her medical degree at Yale, where she was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha national medical honor society. She completed her residency at UC San Francisco, and a postdoctoral fellowship training in healthcare delivery innovation at Stanford’s Clinical Excellence Research Center.

Her medical career and personal experience intersected as she stood alongside her husband during his life, lung cancer diagnosis, treatment, and death. Dr. Kalanithi has special interests in healthcare value, meaning in medicine, patient-centered care and end-of-life care. She has appeared on PBS NewsHour, NPR Morning Edition, Yahoo News with Katie Couric, and has been interviewed for People Magazine, NPR, and The New York Times. She also wrote about life after Paul’s passing for The New York Times. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her daughter, Elizabeth Acadia.

Paul Kalanithi, M.D., was a neurosurgeon and writer. Paul grew up in Kingman, Arizona, before attending Stanford University. He graduated in 2000 with a B.A. and M.A. in English Literature and a B.A. in Human Biology. He earned an M.Phil in History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine from the University of Cambridge before attending medical school. In 2007, Paul graduated cum laude from the Yale School of Medicine, winning the Lewis H. Nahum Prize for outstanding research and membership in the Alpha Omega Alpha medical honor society. He returned to Stanford for residency training in Neurological Surgery and a postdoctoral fellowship in neuroscience, during which he authored over twenty scientific publications and received the American Academy of Neurological Surgery’s highest award for research. Paul completed his neurosurgery residency in 2014.

Paul’s reflections on doctoring and illness—he was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer in 2013, though he never smoked—have been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Paris Review Daily, in addition to interviews in academic settings and media outlets such as MSNBC.

Podcast

February 27, 2016

February 19, 2016

April 29, 2012

Richard and Joe Interviewed Theresa Moore, Hank Bauer, and Ron Mix Following the Film Presentation

For all fans of the San Diego Chargers and pro football, this is the for you! On April 29th the San Diego SmartScreen Film Series launched with a presentation of Third and Long: the History of African Americans in Pro Football, 1946-1989.

The post-screening panel discussion was moderated by former Chargers standout and broadcaster, Hank Bauer. Panelists included the filmmaker, Theresa Moore and NFL Hall-of-Famer and former Charger Ron Mix, who is featured in the film. Ron Mix took a heroic position when he was the only white player to stand with black players who boycotted the 1965 AFL’s version of the Pro Bowl. Black players weren’t allowed to go into restaurants and bars in New Orleans, and there were situations where whites were pulling guns on the black players. This hostility continued until they ultimately moved the game to Houston.

You can view photos from the event are here.

Podcast

February 13, 2016

February 13, 2016


This week Richard and Joe welcomed Dr. Ramesh R. Rao. Dr. Rao has been a faculty member at UC San Diego since 1984, and Director of the Qualcomm Institute, UCSD division of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2), since 2001. He holds the Qualcomm Endowed Chair in Telecommunications and Information Technologies in the Jacobs School of Engineering at UCSD, and is a member of the school’s Electrical and Computer Engineering department.

Prior to QI (Calit2), Professor Rao served as the Director of UCSD’s Center for Wireless Communications (CWC). Dr. Rao is involved on a day-to-day basis with a wide variety of research initiatives at QI. He leads several major interdisciplinary and collaborative projects and has been a PI on dozens of federal-, state-, foundation- and industry-funded grants. Dr. Rao is an IEEE Fellow and Senior Fellow of the California Council on Science and Technology. He was named a Member of the UC San Diego Health System Advisory Board, a Member of the Board of the Academy of Neurosciences for Architecture, a Member of the Rady Children’s Hospital and Health Center Board IT Task Force and serves as the Vice President of the San Diego Indian American Society.

Dr. Rao earned his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park in 1984, after receiving his M.S. from the same institution in 1982. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in 1980 from the University of Madras (the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirapalli). Dr. Rao received the distinguished alumnus award from the National Institute of Technology in 2010, the ECE Distinguished alumni award from the University of Maryland in 2012, the Professional Gordon Engineering Leadership Award from UCSD’s Gordon Engineering Leadership Center in 2010. He also received the 2011 Casa Familiar Abrazo Award for engagement with underprivileged area of San Diego.

Podcast

January 30, 2016