UC Irvine Extension Awards Continuing Education Certificates For 2012-2013 Academic Year

IRVINE, Calif., June 21, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- The University of California, Irvine Extension issued more than 1,700 Certificates and Specialized Studies Awards to continuing education students completing programs in the 2012-13 academic year. These accomplishments, recognized at University Extension's annual graduation ceremonies held June 19, 2013, included certificates granted in 72 program categories encompassing a spectrum of disciplines including business, management, finance, education, engineering, information technology and arts and humanities.

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"We celebrate and congratulate our Extension graduates on what they have achieved, in earning a certificate and gaining mastery of a body of knowledge," said Gary W. Matkin, Ph.D., Dean of Continuing Education, Summer Session and Distance Learning at UC Irvine. "This celebration indicates a start of a new phase in the lives of our new alumni, and we look forward to watching our graduates advance and anticipate the impact they will make in their fields locally, nationally and internationally."

In addition to honoring this year's graduates, UC Irvine Extension bestowed the Partnership Award to Life Technologies Corporation, represented by Associate Director of Global Marketing Andrea McMullen, in recognition of their educational relationship with UC Irvine Extension.  Since 2011, Life Technologies has formed a partnership with UC Irvine Extension to enhance and support the expertise and skills of its employees through continuing education programs and to improve lives of people around the world through their product innovations.

UC Irvine Extension also awarded two former students with its Alumni Achievement Award. Each recipient demonstrated how the education and skills gained from a UC Irvine Extension certificate program have been applied in a distinctive and notable way.

Award recipients included:

• Karen Nguyen, a graduate of the Project Management and Business Analysis certificate programs, also continued into the Advanced Project Management program and became an active member of the Project Management program advisory committee. Her Extension studies have supported her professional career growth with three significant promotions in five years at Kia USA.
• Carlos Trillo Suarez is a graduate of the accelerated certificate programs in International Business Operations and Management and in Project Management. After expanding his knowledge at an internship offered by an Extension instructor, he has continued to excel by founding EVINEX, a mobile application and web development company based in Los Angeles.

The final award category, "Student Achievement Award," was presented to two students for demonstrating extraordinary commitment to completing a program of study.

• Jessica Aivazian is currently a supply chain operations intern for Mazda and previously held roles as an IS engineer for L'Oreal and a project manager for Renault. At Extension, she completed two accelerated certificate programs in Project Management and International Business Operations and Management.
• Lindsay Olson entered the Extension program in E-Learning Instructional Design. Based on her Extension classroom training, she developed online instruction to help train audiologists using online instruction which will be used by Kaiser.

About UC Irvine Extension: University of California, Irvine Extension is the continuing education arm of UC Irvine. Through thousands of courses and programs offered on campus, online and on site, UC Irvine Extension helps adult learners reach their career advancement and personal enrichment goals —has now celebrated over 50 years of providing universally accessible, university-level learning to local, regional, and global communities. Learn more at extension.uci.edu, or join us on Facebook at facebook.com/uciextension.

About the University of California, Irvine: Founded in 1965, UCI is a top-ranked university dedicated to research, scholarship and community service. Led by Chancellor Michael Drake since 2005, UCI is among the most dynamic campuses in the University of California system, with nearly 28,000 undergraduate and graduate students, 1,100 faculty and 9,000 staff. Orange County's largest employer, UCI contributes an annual economic impact of $4.2 billion. For more UCI news, visit www.today.uci.edu. 

CONTACT:Vivian Chan-Slater, 714-573-0899 ext. 235, [email protected]

SOURCE University of California, Irvine Extension