A University of �鶹��ý at Mānoa senior student has earned one of Stanford University’s most competitive graduate awards, underscoring the growing impact of UH Mānoa’s engineering programs.

Andrea Murillo, who is graduating this spring, has been admitted to the PhD program in electrical engineering at Stanford and is believed to be the first UH Mānoa recipient of the Stanford Graduate Fellowship, an award given annually to about 100 incoming doctoral students across the university. The fellowship provides up to three years of funding, including tuition and stipend support, to top scholars in science and engineering fields.

Murillo’s path at UH Mānoa reflects a multidisciplinary journey shaped by hands-on research and mentorship. She began her undergraduate journey as a mechanical engineering major before transitioning to computer engineering and ultimately electrical engineering in the electrophysics track, where she found her passion in mixed-signal circuit design.

Through work in several research labs, including projects on embedded systems, TinyML (Tiny Machine Learning), and integrated circuit design, Murillo discovered a passion for building more efficient hardware. She plans to continue that work at Stanford, focusing on circuit design and new technologies that can make electronics faster and use less energy.

“My experiences at UH helped me discover not just what I enjoy studying, but how I want to contribute to the field,” said Murillo, who is an international student from Mexico. “The support from faculty, mentors and my peers gave me the confidence to pursue graduate school and aim for opportunities like this.”

Community leadership

Beyond the classroom, Murillo has been active in the community as a leader in the FabLab maker space, a member of engineering student organizations and a leader who won an award at the 2024 Honolulu Tech Week hackathon.

Her achievement highlights the role of UH Mānoa in preparing students for advanced study and contributing to innovation in high-demand fields such as electrical engineering and artificial intelligence hardware.

“By leveraging the full breadth of opportunities at UH, Andrea developed a profound understanding of the grand challenges facing contemporary hardware design. Reflecting her unwavering commitment to excellence, she has secured a place in one of the country’s most prestigious doctoral programs,” said UH Mānoa Professor Boris Murmann, who mentored Murillo and was on the faculty at Stanford for 20 years.

Murillo is expected to begin her doctoral studies this fall.

The No. 2 University �鶹��ý at Mānoa team dominated the postseason honors once again, placing five players on the Big West All-Conference First Team as selected by the league’s six head coaches.

The honorees are setter Tread Rosenthal, outside hitters Adrien Roure and Louis Sakanoko, opposite Kristian Titriyski and libero Quintin Greenidge. The five selections were the most of any program in the conference.

Rosenthal earned his third career first-team selection and has been one of the most productive setters in the nation. He leads the Big West and ranks second nationally with 10.66 assists per set while directing the country’s No. 4-ranked offense (.377 hitting percentage). He is also a semifinalist for the AVCA (American Volleyball Coaches Association) National Player of the Year award and has been named Big West Setter of the Week a record 11 times this season.

Roure posted 2.91 kills per set on a .325 hitting percentage, while adding 1.39 digs per set and a team-high 34 aces. He reached double-digit kills 14 times and earned All-Tournament honors at the OUTRIGGER Invitational for the second straight year.

Titriyski made a major impact after returning midseason, averaging 3.90 kills per set in conference play and hitting double figures in every Big West match. He leads the team with a 3.98 kills-per-set average and a .328 hitting percentage.

Sakanoko averaged a career high of 3.18 kills, 1.37 digs and 0.61 blocks per set while hitting .358. He recorded double-digit kills in 15 matches and ranked among team leaders in nearly every offensive category.

Greenidge anchored the back row in his first season as libero, leading the Big West with 2.11 digs per set, posting double-digit digs in eight matches, including a career-best 15 against Pepperdine.

Individual Big West awards for Player of the Year, Freshman of the Year and Coach of the Year will be announced next week, with UH players expected to be strong contenders across multiple categories.

The Rainbow Warriors head to the Big West Conference Tournament as the No. 1 seed and will play the winner of No. 4 UC Santa Barbara and No. 5 UC San Diego in the semifinals on April 24 at 2 p.m. HST.

Read more at .

University of �鶹��ý at Mānoa pitcher Isaiah Magdaleno earned a spot as a semifinalist for the 2026 National Pitcher of the Year Award, by the College Baseball Foundation.

The right-handed junior currently boasts a stellar 2.37 ERA over 60.2 innings, racking up 71 strikeouts while issuing just 26 walks in his 10 starts.

Magdaleno’s ability to limit baserunners ranks among the best in the country. He ranks second in the Big West and 12th nationally in hits allowed per nine innings at just 5.64. Additionally, he ranks second in the conference and 14th nationally, holding opposing batters to a .179 average.

The ʻBows have played well under Magdaleno’s lead, posting a 7-3 record in his starts and holding opponents to an average of just 3.0 runs in those contests.

Magdaleno is one of three Big West pitchers featured on the semifinalist list, with the winner to be announced at a later date.

UH Mānoa will face No. 6 Oregon State on the road April 24–26, as the season winds down.

Read more at .

The University of �鶹��ý at Mānoa (CTAHR) is reopening the (ADSC). Local farmers will once again have access to soil and plant testing here in �鶹��ý at a reasonable cost, instead of sending samples to the U.S. continent.

The center’s reopening also allows CTAHR to offer free soil and plant testing through July 21, 2026 to farmers whose land and crops were affected by Kona low flooding in March and April.

Every affected farmer can submit up to three free samples for each of the following services:

• Soil nutrient analysis: To determine if essential minerals were leached.
• Plant tissue nutrient analysis: To assess the current nutrient uptake and health of surviving crops.
• Plant disease diagnostics: To identify plant pathogens/outbreaks that may impact crops following flooding.
• Insect identification: To monitor for shifts in pest populations following the storms.

The ADSC will continue to provide soil and plant testing services at reasonable prices to farmers who were not affected by the floods.

“The reopening is a pivotal moment in CTAHR’s mission to support stakeholders and food security across the state,” said CTAHR Dean Parwinder Grewal. “Fortunately the timing of the reopening also means we can deliver more support to farmers recovering from the floods. We are providing these tests at no cost for the next three months to help our agricultural partners get back on their feet.”

“ADSC has reopened with an improved customer experience, including online payments, rapid turnaround of results, and interpretation of results and recommendations by CTAHR experts,” Parwinder said.

Brian Miyamoto, executive director of the Hawaii Farm Bureau, noted, “The reopening of the ADSC, along with three months of free testing, comes at a crucial time and helps farmers move forward with recovery and replanting. CTAHR is truly stepping up for our farmers, and we appreciate their leadership and commitment to supporting �Ჹ�ɲ���ʻ��’s agricultural community during this critical time.”

CTAHR is working to further expand its services to include seed testing, heavy metal testing, animal health diagnostics and food nutrient content analysis for food product labeling. ADSC is also expanding its seed production capacity and will add clean seedling production, which are young plants that are free from germs or disease.

Order soil, plant tests online

Farmers can order tests, find sampling instructions, and a list of CTAHR facilities on Oʻahu, �鶹��ý Island, Maui, Molokaʻi and Kauaʻi accepting samples at the .

Temporary in-person collection site until July 21, 2026

To increase accessibility for ��ʻ�����’s heavily affected north shore community, a temporary collection site has been set up at Twin Bridge Farms in Waialua:

• Soil and plant samples can be dropped off at Twin Bridge on Mondays between 8 a.m and noon
• Soil samples can also be dropped off on Thursdays between 8 a.m. and noon.

Farmers should call CTAHR at (808) 453-6050 or ugc@hawaii.edu to confirm they are dropping off samples at Twin Bridge Farms.

Permanent collection sites

Drop off sites for samples on Oʻahu are:

• The Urban Garden Center in Pearl City on Mondays from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and Tuesdays from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m., 955 Kamehameha Hwy., behind the Home Depot.
• Farmers should contact (808) 453-6050 or ugc@hawaii.edu to confirm they plan to drop off samples.
• UH ��ā�ԴDz�’s Sherman Lab, room 115, weekdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., 1910 East-West Rd., Honolulu HI 96822.
• Farmers should call (808) 956-5437 or adsc@hawaii.edu to confirm they plan to drop off samples.

Visit the ADSC of drop off locations, including the neighbor islands.

University of �鶹��ý at Mānoa researchers revealed that Waikīkī is facing a fundamental shift in flood hazards as sea levels rise—transitioning from a flooding that is driven primarily by rainfall to events increasingly dominated by tidal processes. The team identified two key pathways that will become more significant with sea-level rise, both of which will increase public exposure to sewage-contaminated waters. The study was published in .

“Our findings make clear that current flood management strategies for Waikīkī are incomplete,” said Kayla Yamamoto, climate modeling analyst at the in the UH Mānoa (SOEST). “Most planning focuses on surface damage and economic loss from storms, but largely ignores the contamination dimension. Our results show that contaminated flooding will become more frequent, more extensive, and eventually a daily occurrence rather than a storm-driven one. There are currently no effective management strategies in place to address this.”

Simulating future scenarios

The team used an open-source, physics-based flood model to simulate how multiple flood sources interact in Waikīkī. The team used an advanced flood model that, unlike previous models, integrates all sources of flooding—rain, tides, underground water behavior, and storm drains—to provide a single, complete view of the hazard

“What we found is that during extreme rainfall like we’ve been experiencing, high tides and elevated water levels in the Ala Wai can combine to create conditions where contaminated water flows back into low-lying streets and sidewalks,” said Shellie Habel, study co-author and coastal geologist with the Coastal Research Collaborative and . “As sea level rises, it will take less extreme rainfall and tides to cause similar flooding in the future.”

The two key pathways they identified were: storm drain backflow, where polluted water from the Ala Wai Canal is forced into streets and public spaces in Waikīkī through drainage systems, and groundwater emergence, which brings sewage and other contaminants from aging and leaking sewage infrastructure to the surface.

The model simulations show that storm drain backflow is projected to occur even when there is no rainfall:

• 1 foot of sea-level rise: Storm drain backflow occurs during extreme tides, even without rain.
• 2 feet of sea-level rise: Storm drain backflow occurs during moderate daily tidal conditions.
• 4 feet of sea-level rise: Groundwater emergence (bringing sewage to the surface) begins to occur without rain.

Researchers compared their model simulations against tide gauges, canal water level sensors, groundwater monitoring wells, and photographs of street-level flooding during three real recent storm events, including a major 50-year Kona storm in December 2021, a moderate storm in April 2023, and a five-year Kona storm in May 2024.

Implications for Waikīkī, beyond

The Ala Wai Canal is one of the most polluted waterways in �鶹��ý, containing sewage, heavy metals and pathogens such as Vibrio and MRSA. Exposure to these waters is a documented risk, with MRSA infections linked to �鶹��ý waters already contributing to an estimated 200 deaths per year in the state. Because Waikīkī is a primary economic engine where residents and visitors are in constant contact with coastal waters, the anticipated flooding represents a growing public health and environmental crisis.

Many coastal cities around the world rely on estuarine waterways to drain their stormwater, and face the same combination of aging infrastructure, rising seas and contaminated waters.

“Our modeling framework is transferable, and we hope this study serves as a wake-up call to modernize stormwater and wastewater infrastructure, integrate contamination risk into coastal flood planning, and build early warning systems before these thresholds are crossed,” Yamamoto said.

This week’s UH News Image of the Week is from Windward Community College’s Nicole Tessier.

Tessier shares: J-Pop Demon Killaz and The Hangry Games are two world premieres presented by the students of �鶹��ý Conservatory of Performing Arts at Windward Community College.

Satirizing the popular films K-Pop Demon Hunters and The Hunger Games, these shows will feature singing, dancing and combat! At Palikū Theatre April 24–May 3, more information at .

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A big mahalo to everyone who has sent in their images! If selected, they will be posted throughout the semester, so check back to see the amazing work, research and experiences of the UH ʻohana!

Want to get in on the action? The next UH News Image of the Week could be yours! Submit a photo, drawing, painting, digital illustration of a project you are working on, a moment from a field research outing or a beautiful and/or interesting shot of a scene on your campus. It could be a class visit during which you see an eye-catching object or scene.

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Please include a brief description of the image and its connection to your campus, class assignment or other UH connection. By submitting your image, you are giving UH News permission to publish your photo on the UH News website and UH social media accounts. The image must be your original work, and anyone featured in your image needs to give consent to its publication.

—Fun; to have a good time.

More ʻŌlelo of the Week

“E leʻaleʻa kēlā lā me kēia lā. (Everyday should be fun.)”

—Maluhia Nahuina, he haumāna ʻŌlelo �鶹��ý (Hawaiian language student), Kulanui Kaiāulu o Honolulu (Honolulu Community College)

For more information on other elements of the definition and usage, go to the UH Hilo .

University of �鶹��ý at Mānoa Athletics Director Matt Elliott announced on April 21 the appointment of Khalilah Mitchell as the ninth head coach of the .

Mitchell, an integral figure in UH’s ascent to Big West prominence over seven seasons as an assistant coach, succeeds Laura Beeman, who announced her retirement on March 30 to cap a 14-year tenure as head coach.

Mitchell agreed to an initial three-year term with UH, and her promotion marks the start of a new era for Rainbow Wahine basketball in two significant ways. UH will join the Mountain West as a full member effective July 1, while welcoming new leadership atop the women’s basketball program.

“After an extensive search that drew interest from across the country, it became clear that the best leader for our program was already right here in Mānoa,” Elliott said. “Khalilah Mitchell embodies everything we look for in a head coach: integrity, a relentless work ethic, and a deep-seated passion for the student-athletes. She has played an instrumental role in our championship culture, and demonstrated that she is ready to be our head coach. I am confident she is the right person to lead the Rainbow Wahine into this next chapter.”

“I am incredibly honored and humbled to be named the head coach of the University of �鶹��ý women’s basketball program,” Mitchell said. “I want to thank Matt Elliott for his trust in me. �鶹��ý has become my home, and these student-athletes are my family. Coach Beeman set a standard of excellence here that is unmatched, and I am eager to build upon that foundation. Our goal remains the same, to compete for championships and represent this state and this university with pride.”

Mitchell first joined the UH Mānoa coaching staff in 2018 and helped guide the Rainbow Wahine to four postseason appearances and three Big West regular-season championships. The ‘Bows went 124-81 during her tenure as an assistant and posted at least 20 wins in each of her last four seasons with the program.

“Khalilah Mitchell is a proven leader with a strong commitment to player development and a deep understanding of the Rainbow Wahine program,” UH President Wendy Hensel said. “As an integral part of our recent success, she brings continuity, credibility and a clear vision for the future. We’re confident she will build on the foundation established by Coach Beeman and continue to elevate our student-athletes on and off the court.”

Mitchell will be formally introduced as head coach at a press conference on April 22.

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Six students from the University of �鶹��ý at Mānoa dance program in the returned from an international dance tour across London, Paris and Poitiers, France this spring, performing and collaborating with artists from around the world.

The group, joined by two dance instructors, traveled in March and April for a tour that culminated at the innovative Festival à corps at the Université de Poitiers in France. The festival explores and questions the body and its aesthetic, physical and contemporary representations.

“Participating in an international tour showed me that movement transcends borders,” said Karissa Thuy Deen-Bugaj, a theatre and dance master of fine arts (MFA) candidate. “To feel an audience connected with the work across borders is one of the reasons I love my craft.”

Hina inspired

At the center of the tour was the original and dynamic production of Tides of the Moon, a 20-minute dance theater performance created by university educators and artists Sami L.A. Akuna and Kara Jhalak Miller.

Inspired by the Pacific Moon goddess Hina, the choreography explores the connection between water and sky, body and tide while reflecting on climate, change and transformation. The process based work was performed in Poitiers as part of an international festival. Tides of the Moon sold out and ended with a standing ovation.

“When the audience rose to their feet, cheering and applauding, I felt something happen that I’ve only read about in theory: the dancing body really can speak across cultures,” said Kun Zhou, a theatre and dance, and performance studies graduate student. “As a dance PhD student researching cross-cultural embodiment, that standing ovation turned theory into something I could feel in my own body.“

According to Akuna, Tides of the Moon drew from moʻolelo of Hina, the Hawaiian moon calendar and themes of climate change. While on tour, the dancers took part in performances, workshops and creative exchanges at the Intercultural Roots conference, dedicated to the cultivation of supportive environments in which artistic practices grow, contributing to positive transformation locally and globally.

“Our students interacted with performers from Portugal, Berlin, Korea and France through various workshops and performances and left with new friendships and a lasting experience they will never forget,” Akuna said.

Student artists

Students on the tour were Zhou, Thuy Deen-Bugaj, Ellie Fischenich, Santiago Isaac Rivera Rodas, Bayardo Rodriguez Jr. and Zhenhao Wen, who performed, taught and presented original choreography and dance films throughout the trip.

Former �鶹��ý Gov. George R. Ariyoshi died on April 19, 2026, at the age of 100. As �鶹��ý’s third and longest-serving governor (1973–1986), and the first Asian-American elected to a governorship in U.S. history, Ariyoshi left an indelible mark on both the nation, state and the University of �鶹��ý.

Ariyoshi’s connection to UH began early in his academic journey—he attended UH Mānoa before transferring to Michigan State University. In 2009, he was named a distinguished UH alumnus. He received an honorary doctorate of humane letters from UH Mānoa in 1986. Throughout his remarkable career in public service, his leadership continually intersected with and championed the university’s research and educational missions.

‘Quietly and effectively’

His campaign slogan touted him as working “quietly and effectively” for �鶹��ý. During his time in office, Ariyoshi played a pivotal role in advancing critical health research at UH. He notably signed the legislation that created the , working alongside former director Lawrence Piette. This foundational legislative support helped the grow into the world-class, NCI-designated research institution it is today.

Ariyoshi’s visionary approach to international relations laid the groundwork for expanding UH‘s global academic footprint. Drawing on his family’s roots, he spearheaded the creation of the �鶹��ý-Fukuoka sister-state relationship more than three decades ago—�鶹��ý’s first sister-state international relationship. This enduring diplomatic tie directly paved the way for system-wide international agreements between UH and the Fukuoka-based Tsuzuki Education Group, enriching student exchange and collaborative research in fields such as sustainability, traditional medicine and disaster resilience.

Reflecting on Ariyoshi’s monumental impact, Gov. Josh Green said in a statement: “Governor Ariyoshi devoted his life to �鶹��ý with humility, discipline and an unwavering sense of responsibility to the people he served. He led our state during a pivotal moment with quiet strength and integrity, and his legacy as a trailblazer and public servant will endure for generations. Our hearts are with his family and loved ones.”

Pacific connections

Ariyoshi also played (EWC). In 1975, he worked with the �鶹��ý State Legislature to establish the center as an independent educational nonprofit corporation. He served as a member of its Board of Governors from 1995 to 2003, including six years as chair.

EWC Board of Governors Chair John Waiheʻe served as �鶹��ý’s lieutenant governor under Ariyoshi from 1982 to 1986 before succeeding him as governor.

“George Ariyoshi was a leader of deep integrity and vision who understood the importance of �鶹��ý’s connections across the Pacific,” Waiheʻe said in a statement. “His support for the East-West Center and the Pacific Islands Development Program reflected his lifelong commitment to bringing people together in pursuit of shared progress.”

Ariyoshi is survived by his wife Jean, daughter Lynn, and sons Ryozo and Donn.