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Tour Chapman University’s Orange Campus from Home

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Chapman Forward: Learn How Chapman Research is Changing Lives

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Changing Math For Good

Cathery Yeh’s excitement is palpable as she addresses the room full of K-12 educators at the Better Together: California Teachers Summit. “We need to move away from fi xing students to fixing the environment,” Yeh says. “We should be designing math classrooms with the idea that there is no norm. You’re going to have a diverse group. And what we know is that diversity is beautiful.”...

Alumni in the Outfield

The Science of Shelf Life.

Appalachian Awakening

The thrill of opportunity, experience the joy of discovery and curiosity driving your experience..

1,801 first-year 2023 fall enrollment (projected)

3.87 average GPA for admitted fall first years

86% first-year students receive financial aid

21% first-generation students in incoming class

30,911 average scholarship for first-years

At Chapman, you’ll be embraced by a community that thrives with an indescribable social, intellectual and creative vibrance.

Academic Excellence

Ranked #121 out of 399 top-tier universities in the country according to U.S. News & World Report , Chapman offers students personalized educational opportunities and a world-class faculty. And since Chapman is also one of the Top 50 Schools for Best Undergraduate Teaching, our students get more from all we have to offer.

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Groundbreaking Research

At Chapman, research isn’t just an idea, it’s a way of life. As an R2 research institute, the University supports diverse programs, projects and centers with over $14M in annual research funding. We offer state-of-the-art facilities, collaborative work environments and unparalleled experience solving real-world problems.

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Individualized Curriculum

From your first day at Chapman, you’ll work alongside faculty to reach your goals. Whatever your passion, you’ll find professors ready to guide you along your path. From dynamic classes with other creative students, to hands-on learning experiences where you’ll discover your own potential, opportunity is waiting. 

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Transform Your Curiosity Into Mastery.

Explore chapman university graduate programs., at chapman, we rise to the challenges of a changing world through our distinctive research and teaching., food security breakthrough, chapman forward, cosmic archaeology.

From food shortages to health care to the impact of civilization on our environment, Chapman researchers endlessly confront our world’s most urgent problems. Reflecting the growth in transformative projects and our world-class facilities, the university shares groundbreaking discoveries and advances in knowledge in the research magazine Chapman Forward. In the current issue, you’ll find stories on diverse subjects such as the potential of assistive technology and machine learning, algorithms that can predict famines, and extraterrestrial culture on the International Space Station.

View Chapman Forward Magazine Online »

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Bill Hader Gives a Heartfelt and Humorous Address at Chapman University’s Commencement Ceremony

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Friday evening, Emmy-winning actor, writer, and director Bill Hader delivered a sincere and light-hearted commencement address at Chapman University, where he was also awarded an honorary Doctor of the Arts degree. 

Students in the class of 2024 finally had the chance to walk across a graduation stage as the pandemic prevented them from doing so at their high school graduation ceremony. This evening was a time for the 2,600 graduates to celebrate their achievements and reflect on their time spent at Chapman. 

Chapman President Daniele C. Struppa began the proceedings with advice for the students. “This is the bookend to your journey as a student but just the beginning of your lifelong journey of learning. This weekend you will walk across the stage and experience one of the most important moments of your life. My recommendation – enjoy it.”

Hader started his address with his signature humor, greeting the audience with a casual “Hey guys.” His speech, filled with anecdotes and practical advice, was well-received by graduates, families, and the Chapman community. 

“I guess the main thing I would say is do a good job, be on time, learn from your mistakes, be drama free, and you’ll work forever. “

Hader’s 25 years spent in Hollywood provided fodder for humorous stories about his humble beginnings to his current achievements, “I’m here right now. I’m a doctor, dude.”

Chapman’s graduation ceremonies will continue throughout the weekend on Wilson Field in Orange, California. 

About Chapman University

Founded in 1861, Chapman University is a nationally ranked private university in Orange, California, about 30 miles south of Los Angeles. Chapman serves nearly 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students, with a 12:1 student-to-faculty ratio. Students can choose from 123 areas of study within 11 colleges for a personalized education. Chapman is categorized by the Carnegie Classification as an R2 “high research activity” institution. Students at Chapman learn directly from distinguished world-class faculty including Nobel Prize winners, MacArthur fellows, published authors and Academy Award winners. The campus has produced a Rhodes Scholar, been named a top producer of Fulbright Scholars and hosts a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honor society. Chapman also includes the Harry and Diane Rinker Health Science Campus in Irvine. The university features the No. 4 film school and No. 60 business school in the U.S. Learn more about Chapman University: www.chapman.edu .

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Chapman University and students reach agreement; Gaza Solidarity Encampment to dismantle

S tudents for Justice in Palestine at Chapman University said Thursday it reached an agreement with campus administration and will shut down its Gaza Solidarity Encampment that formed about two weeks ago, ahead of Friday’s start of commencement weekend.

The student group will be given time during a September meeting of the university board’s investment committee to present its requests on divesting from interests that support Israel and for transparency in investments.

It will also receive help from university officials on creating an effective presentation. And a university spokesperson said the board committee will vote on the student’s proposal.

The university will not pursue disciplinary action against students for their involvement in the encampment as long as it is cleared by noon on Friday.

The first campus graduation ceremony is planned at 10 a.m. on Friday, there is another at 12:30 p.m. and the big all-class ceremony – featuring guest speaker actor Bill Hader – is at 7 p.m.

There are a dozen ceremonies planned between Friday and Sunday.

The university provost has also agreed “to place urgency” behind the creation in the school’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Department of an advocate position for the support and education of students of Middle Eastern and North African descent.

“I’m overjoyed,” Duran Aziz, a first-year master’s student in the film studies program and vice president of the SJP group at Chapman said of the agreement.

“We thought that this offer was close to the best that we could take by the end of this semester because it gives us that meeting with the board,” he said. “It gives us the support from MENA and the DEI office, and, of course, it gives us the amnesty, as well. But I want to emphasize that to my knowledge, no students are facing disciplinary conduct charges due to involvement with the camp.”

Aziz acknowledged there is a possibility the university does not change any of its positions this fall after students make their pitch for divestment and disclosure.

“That’s actually our main concern right now,” he said. “While the president has approved us presenting to the investment committee of the board, there’s no guarantee that they will actually vote to disclose or divest.”

This summer, while most students involved with the encampment will be away from campus, Aziz said the plan is to “do a lot of research” on Chapman University’s investments to make the strongest pitch possible to the board. He admitted preparation for this will be a challenge since, as a private university, Chapman can withhold more financial information than public universities.

However, Aziz said the agreement SJP reached with the school includes a commitment from the university president, provost and dean of students to work with the group in early August so that it can fine tune the best possible presentation to the board. But, the burden is on SJP to prepare a list of suggested investments that the group will recommend to the board.

Since the camp was erected on May 2, Aziz said about 15 or 20 students have been spending most nights there and 500 unique visitors have checked into the encampment at least once.

On Thursday afternoon, the encampment was quiet with Aziz and only a handful of other people around. Aziz said his group plans to decamp on Friday morning.

The encampment is coming down, but “the hardest work for us lies ahead,” Aziz said.

The agreement was reached just as the other Gaza Solidarity Encampment in Orange County was dismantled at UC Irvine by police as they responded to a protest Wednesday . Negotiations between students and administration there had broken down last week when the university issued suspension notices to several participants in the encampment.

Staff Writer Destiny Torres contributed to this report.

Related Articles

• News | UC and USC grad student workers authorize strike over handling of campus protests
• News | UC official says system has $32 billion in holdings targeted by students protesting Gaza war
• News | Moorpark College professor to stand trial in death of pro-Israel protester in Thousand Oaks incident
• News | 47 arrested in UCI protest, encampment crackdown Wednesday; Chancellor says ‘I’m brokenhearted’
• News | Police take some protesters at UC Irvine into custody, break up Gaza Solidarity Encampment

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The Voice of Wilkinson

From Moscow to Beirut: The Adventures of a Foreign Correspondent with Trustee David C. Henley

January 30, 2013

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Wilkinson College 2024 Student Award Winners

May 6, 2024 by Allison Devries | Awards/Scholarships

Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences students were recently recognized with honors in a series of events that constituted this year’s annual Wilkinson award ceremonies and the 16th annual Campus Leadership Awards. Congratulations to all the winners! Cecil F. Cheverton Award Finalists The Cheverton Award is the oldest and highest undergraduate student honor

Behind the Scenes: “Our War Too: Women in Service”

March 21, 2024 by Dr. Charissa Threat | News

Dr. Charissa Threat (Wilkinson College Associate Dean and Associate Professor of History) recently served on the “Our War Too” Exhibit Advisory Committee for the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. For nearly eighteen months, Dr. Threat and other committee members worked with Kimberly Guise, Senior Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs, and Erin

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Experience the most beautiful school in Idaho (MSN), and learn about life as Vandal with a campus visit!

Choose your own adventure — explore with a campus tour or virtually from the comfort of your home. Select from options that fit into your schedule: a daily visit (offered weekdays and select Saturdays), a specialty event (like Envision ), one of our college or program events or a virtual visit that you can take at your own pace.

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Interact and engage with the Vandal family through our virtual resources . Tour our facilities from home or schedule a virtual session with your admissions counselor.

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Why Schedule a Campus Visit?

You’re making an important decision. You’ve browsed our website, reviewed brochures and done your research. Still, getting a feel for campus can help you make your final choice. Take in the culture and our Moscow location, experience life in the dorms and dining halls and see where you’ll be learning. Begin to see yourself at U of I with a campus visit.

Confirm your initial impression. If research grabs your attention, a campus visit goes beyond. Determine if you feel at home as a Vandal and if a particular program of study is right for you. Use your visit or campus tour to meet professors and other students, narrow down your list of majors and make a definite decision once you receive your acceptance letter in the spring.

Make the Most of Your Campus Visit

You’ve heard this advice before — don’t just look at buildings. Instead, keep the following in mind whether you’re attending an event, campus tour or a virtual session:

• When to schedule your visit: Check out our Moscow campus as students attend class, engage in research and go about their day-to-day lives as Vandals. Ideally, attend a tour before submitting your application, preferably in the spring of your junior year or early fall of your senior year.
• Be ready to ask questions: Make a list ahead of time to ask your tour guide, admissions counselor and students you see around campus.
• Consider multiple campus visits: Start virtually to get a feel for our campus. Then, to get a more personal perspective, consider attending an on-campus visit. Here, opt for a student-guided campus tour, and schedule in visits with schools or departments for programs you’re curious about.
• Take notes: What makes U of I unique? How does being a Vandal resonate with you? Document your visit with notes and photos to reference later.
• Prepare ahead of time: Avoid attending a campus visit on a whim. Instead, schedule your visit in advance, make plans for a college or program visit, explore our virtual resources, review a map to understand the layout of our campus and make travel arrangements. Additionally, continue your research to ask questions during your visit.

Have Questions About Visiting University of Idaho?

Bring them to our Campus Visits Office! Reach out by email or by phone at 208-885-6163 today to learn more.

Graduate School

Fyodor d. urnov: pioneering gene editing for medical breakthroughs.

A trailblazer in the field of therapeutic genome editing, Fyodor D. Urnov’s research focuses on developing medicines for devastating genetic diseases.

Fyodor D. Urnov ‘96 Ph.D. is Professor of Molecular Therapeutics in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley and Director of Technology and Translation at the Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI). He co-developed the toolbox for human genome and epigenome editing, co-named the term “genome editing”, and was on the team to advance the first-in-human applications in a clinic. 

Urnov also helped identify the genome editing target for the first medicine approved to treat sickle cell disease and beta-thalassemia. A major goal for the field of genome editing and a key focus of Urnov's work is expanding access to CRISPR therapies (which modify genomes) for genetic diseases to those most in need. 

He will receive the Horace Mann Medal at the Doctoral Ceremony during Brown University’s Commencement weekend. 

Prior to attending Brown, Urnov completed his undergraduate studies in biology at Moscow State University in Russia. He then joined the Molecular and Cell Biology and Biochemistry (MCB) department at Brown where he earned his doctoral degree. His dissertation work focused on the DNA structure and chromatin dynamics of one of the scarce origins of replication that are thoroughly understood, initiating DNA synthesis prior to cellular division. He worked in the lab of Susan Gerbi, the George Eggleston Professor of Biochemistry and founding chair of the MCB department. 

Urnov credits his pioneering work on gene editing to the doctoral training he received at Brown. Urnov then completed postdoctoral training at the National Institutes of Health before joining Sangamo BioSciences, a biotech firm in the San Francisco bay area as a Senior Scientist and Team Leader. 

At every stage of his career, Urnov’s exceptional work has been marked by medical breakthroughs and awards. One of the most groundbreaking biological advancements in recent years involves the ability to safely and precisely modify DNA sequences within genes - gene editing. This innovation began with the development of proteins designed to selectively bind to specific DNA sequences and enact targeted alterations. These proteins, known as "zinc-finger nucleases" or ZFNs, have paved the way for transformative research in genetic engineering.

In 2005 at Sangamo, Urnov spearheaded a pivotal study showcasing the efficacy of ZFNs to precisely target a disease-causing  sequence in the genome and correct it. The study was published in the journal Nature. The field of therapeutic genome editing, which Urnov co-named, was thus born. This paper marked the inaugural instance of mutation correction in human cells. The study demonstrated remarkably efficient repair (i.e. editing) of a mutated gene linked to severe combined immune deficiency, underscoring the potential of gene editing technology in addressing genetic disorders - potential that has recently started to be realized.

After this initial publication, interest in using gene editing technology exploded. Stuart Orkin, the David G. Nathan Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute collaborated with Urnov to use gene editing to cure sickle cell disease (SCD) and beta-thalassemia (both inherited blood disorders), ushering in the first CRISPR gene editing clinical trial for a genetic disease, treating both SCD and thalassemia patients. In both of these inherited diseases, the gene for making beta-hemoglobin is disrupted. 

“Fyodor Urnov has been a visionary in the field of gene manipulation and editing, and is widely recognized both for his scientific contributions and his remarkable skill in communicating the work to other scientists and the public,” shares Orkin.

The outcome of the clinical trials have thus far been transformative for the around 100 patients involved; all have been symptom-free after gene editing. Based on these results the FDA has approved this approach as the first-ever gene-editing based medicine - a medicine for which a key foundation was the work Urnov did in collaboration with Orkin.

Urnov’s other collaborations at Sangamo led to the deployment of genome editing in human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) for basic science and translational applications. Examples include applied gene editing to Down syndrome and in vivo therapeutics for Huntington’s disease and Alzheimer’s dementia.

In 2019 Urnov moved to the University of California, Berkeley, where he took on the challenge of building CRISPR Cures research and development teams for genetic diseases of the blood and the brain, genetic disorders of the immune system, radiation injury, cystic fibrosis, and neurological disorders. 

Urnov explains gene editing technology in a New York Times article from December of 2022.

“Gene editing relies on a molecular machine called CRISPR, which can be instructed to repair a mutation in a gene in nearly any organism, right where that “typo” occurs. Impressively versatile, potential applications for CRISPR range from basic science to agriculture and climate change. In medicine, CRISPR gene editing allows physicians to directly fix typos in the patients’ DNA. And so much substantive progress has been made in the field of genetic medicine that it’s clear scientists have now delivered on a remarkable dream: word-processor-like control over DNA.” 

As Urnov explains in this piece, a wealth of regulatory hurdles and healthcare economics challenges have, to date, prevented gene editing from making a greater impact. Urnov shares, “the invention of CRISPR gene editing gave us remarkable treatment powers, yet no one should do a victory lap. Scientists can rewrite a person’s DNA on demand. But now what? Unless things change dramatically, the millions of people CRISPR could save will never benefit from it. We must, and we can, build a world with CRISPR for all.”

An effort to bring us closer to that world is now the centerpiece of Urnov’s professional life. His work currently focuses on developing scalable, affordable platforms to engineer gene editing cures on-demand for severe disorders of childhood. Urnov directs a unique academia-industry partnership, the IGI-Danaher Beacon for CRISPR Cures, that is advancing to the clinic innovative treatments for inborn errors of immunity that cause severe diseases of infancy.

Urnov has made an impact at UC Berkeley and IGI beyond his research. As the Covid-19 pandemic commenced, he assumed the task of organizing resources to set up a nonprofit diagnostic clinical laboratory at IGI for swift testing of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. The objective was to offer greater throughput, faster results, and enhanced accuracy compared to existing commercial options - and provide such testing for free to communities most in need. 

As described in Walter Isaacson’s best selling book, The Codebreaker , Urnov emerged as a pivotal figure in this initiative, playing a significant role in resource mobilization encompassing equipment, personnel, and funding - and ultimately providing over 500,000 free COVID tests to individuals in socioeconomically disadvantaged communities when for-profit testing laboratories failed at the task.

Not only is Urnov renowned in the field of gene editing, but his list of publications, teaching ability, and public speaking acumen is also exceptional. Urnov has authored more than 100 scientific publications and is an inventor on 87 published patents related to genome editing and targeted gene regulation technology. His 2005 Nature paper has been cited over 2000 times, and a subsequent paper he wrote for Nature Reviews Genetics has been cited over 2500 times. Many of his other papers have been cited over 1000 times.

“Fyodor is a world class researcher at the forefront of arguably the most exciting and important biomedical research advance in our lifetimes – genome editing – because he is perhaps the most engaging orator I have ever heard speak, because he is a scholar of truly extraordinary depth and breadth of knowledge in biomedicine, and because he is a dedicated and highly effective teacher and mentor,“ shares David Drubin, Ernette Comby Chair in Microbiology and a professor of Cell and Development in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at UC Berkeley.

Urnov is also known for being a dynamic public speaker and teacher and is much sought after. Urnov credits his experience as a graduate student instructor here at Brown for his interest in teaching, starting with watching faculty at Brown, including George Eggleston Professor of Biochemistry, Susan Gerbi and Professor of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and Biochemistry  Kenneth Miller, in his first stint as a graduate student instructor. 

Urnov’s awards, not surprisingly, are quite notable. As far back as his time at Brown he was selected for the Barry J. Rosen Memorial Award For High Achievement In Molecular Biology and the President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching.

In 2014 he was named as one of “The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds” by Thomson Reuters and received a Fellows Award for Research Excellence from the National Institutes of Health.