Marilyn Olmstead, a leader in X-ray crystallography and a stellar teacher who shared her passion for chemistry with thousands of students, died September 30. She was 76.
UC Davis alumna Mary L. Gray, an anthropologist and media scholar who investigates how labor, identity and human rights are transformed by the digital economy, has been named a 2020 MacArthur Fellow. Gray (B.A., anthropology and Native American studies, ’92) is one of 21 fellows announced Oct. 6 by the MacArthur Foundation.
Jaroslav Trnka, associate professor of physics, has won the 2020 Henry Primakoff Award for Early-Career Particle Physics from the American Physical Society (APS). Trnka is a member of the Center for Quantum Mathematics and Physics (QMAP), a joint center in the UC Davis Department of Physics and Astronomy and Department of Mathematics.
The UC Davis Department of Physics and Astronomy has received a $7.4 million award from the U.S. Department of Energy. The three-year grant will support more than 70 faculty and students (undergraduate and graduate) pursuing experimental and theoretical research in topics including the Higgs boson, neutrinos, dark matter and quantum physics.
Ryan Suleiman, a doctoral student in music composition at UC Davis, has long been concerned with the environment, nature and climate change. Over the past few years, Suleiman has written works titled Drought, Skies of Smoke and Burning. In the spring he reached out to other musicians to see what they had to say about music that explores the natural environment, with an emphasis on climate change, for a series of YouTube interviews.
Information has become increasingly important in how we understand our world, from sprawling social networks to the tiniest building blocks of matter. The idea that information underlies reality has long fascinated physicist Fabio Anza, a postdoctoral fellow at the Complexity Sciences Center who researches quantum mechanics and quantum information theory.
Joy Geng, a professor in the Department of Psychology and at the Center for Mind and Brain, was recently named a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science (APS) for her contributions to the understanding of human cognition.
The Department of Physics has changed its name to the Department of Physics and Astronomy to better reflect its breadth of teaching and faculty expertise.
Albert J. McNeil arrived at the UC Davis music department in 1969 and, during his 21 years as a faculty member, transformed the music program, students and the campus. McNeil celebrated his 100th birthday in February.
Concerts honoring Albert McNeil
Concerts by UC Davis, Pomona College and the Albert McNeil Jubilee Singers earlier this year celebrated McNeil's 100th birthday. All can be viewed online.
According to Einstein’s theory of General Relativity, gravity is curvature in the fabric of spacetime. Shockwaves can distort spacetime, causing singularities where the laws of physics appear to break down.
Now two mathematicians at UC Davis have come up with equations that remove these singularities. In doing so, they also extend a theorem called Uhlenbeck Compactness to the setting of General Relativity.
