The commemoration at UC Merced on Main marked 25 years of the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) and the Banatao Institute and 20 years of UC Merced, one of its member institutions.
"Together these anniversaries tell a shared story - rooted in innovation and access and public impact," UC Merced Chancellor Juan Sánchez Muñoz said.
Two UC Merced alumni were honored for their post-graduation work in carrying forward CITRIS's mission.
Daniel Emilio Sabzehzar, who got a degree in biochemistry and epidemiology in 2017, is managing partner at Tesserakt Ventures, where he invests in deep tech companies and has helped raise $600 million for Tesserakt-backed companies from Founders Fund, 8VC, Y Combinator, and many of Silicon Valley's leading venture capital firms. He is also the CEO and co-founder of Tesserakt Technologies, an organization focused on creating a unified system of community health information to bridge gaps in care using innovative tools and services.
Brenda Yu, a 2019 graduate with a degree in biological sciences and psychology, is pursuing her medical degree at Stanford University after obtaining her Ph.D. there. As a first-generation, low-income student from Merced, Yu is an advocate for mentorship programs and demystifying STEM pathways.
CITRIS leverages the research strengths of University of California campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Merced and Santa Cruz. It was created in 2001 by then-Gov. Gray Davis as one of four institutes for science and innovation to shorten the pipeline between world-class laboratory research and the development of applications, platforms, companies and new industries.
In 2016, the institute was renamed the CITRIS and the Banatao Institute, in recognition of Dado and Maria Banatao's early commitment to CITRIS and their ongoing leadership.
CITRIS and the Banatao Institute facilitates interdisciplinary work among hundreds of University of California faculty members, students, corporate partners and international institutions.
"CITRIS has played a vital role in helping our students bring research out of the lab and into the fields," Muñoz said. Hundreds of UC Merced students have taken part in programs through CITRIS, conducting research, attending conferences and exploring opportunities that otherwise wouldn't have been open to them.
The event also paid tribute to Joshua Viers, currently UC Merced's associate vice chancellor for Interdisciplinary Research and Strategic Initiatives, who was the university's CITRIS director for 10 years starting in 2013.
Viers expanded the center's scope and reach, including several programs oriented toward students, such as the Mobile App Challenge, where students competed with app development for social impact; and NexTech, where UC Merced students served as near-peer advocates in local middle schools to elevate curricula in computer science and robotics.
"CITRIS has been a fun part of my career," Viers said, "mostly because it involves students. They have ambition and they have energy and the ability to tap into that is what leads to greatness."
"CITRIS about one thing - taking ideas and making them become solutions that make a difference in people's lives," said Professor Erin Hestir, director of CITRIS at UC Merced. She described numerous projects that started as research and have grown into real-world solutions, including agricultural robots, a solar-over-canals system and advancements in electric vehicle safety.
And it's not just UC Merced students and faculty who benefit. More than 100 middle school students annually in the Merced region engage with robotics and dronesthrough CITRIS programs in the classroom, and hundreds have learned about these technologies through community outreach events across the San Joaquin Valley.
"This is impact, not just in research but in people, in pathways and in possibilities," Hestir said.
Alexandre Bayen, the director of CITRIS, said he is excited about the possibilities ahead for CITRIS and its impacts on its member campuses and beyond.
"As we continue this journey, I really want to support the vision that together we are not just the four campuses but all the University of California."
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