Mesa Consolidated to sponsor students Mesa Consolidated...

Mesa Consolidated

to sponsor students

Mesa Consolidated Water District’s board of directors plans to

present Costa Mesa High School’s 2005 Solar Cup team with a $3,000

check at the district’s meeting today.

The board is cosponsoring the team along with the Municipal Water

District of Orange County. The two agencies are donating the needed

sponsorship money.

Sponsored by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern

California, Solar Cup is a three-day event held in May at Lake

Skinner. Twenty-six teams spend six months constructing solar-powered

boats for the competition.

UCI professor

earns national award

UC Irvine’s Susan Bryant, dean of the university’s School of

Biological Sciences, was elected as a 2005 Assn. for Women in Science

fellow. She received the award Sunday at a ceremony in Washington.

Bryant is a professor of developmental and cell biology who, in

November, was selected to oversee California’s oversight commission

for stem-cell research conducted with Proposition 71 funds.

After she became dean in 2000, she secured a $3.45-million grant

to improve gender equity at UC Irvine. Three years after the grant,

44% of professors hired at the campus were women, according to a UCI

release. That number was up from 22% before the grant.

A fellowship is the highest honor the Assn. for Women in Science

gives to individuals. The group was created in 1971 to assist women

studying the sciences and related fields.

Newport lawyer is now a super lawyer

Newport Beach lawyer Violet P. Woodhouse was designated Southern

California Super Lawyer for 2005. Woodhouse received the accolade

after responses from more than 65,000 ballots dispatched to lawyers

in Orange and Los Angeles counties were evaluated by a panel from Law

& Politics magazine.

Law & Politics, a magazine with editions published in Minnesota

and Washington state, compiles Super Lawyer lists in 13 states. The

Southern California Super Lawyers list is set to be published in the

February issue of Los Angeles magazine and a special Law & Politics

issue set to be sent to all practicing and licensed lawyers in Orange

and Los Angeles counties.

Woodhouse has a family law and financial planning firm in Newport

Beach. Her website describes her legal specialty as “financially

complex divorce issues.”