Book Fiction Submission Period Opens for Maurice Prize

Attention unpublished Aggie alumni novelists! After a yearlong hiatus, the Maurice Prize for Fiction is back — and bigger than ever before. The $10,000 award, doubled in size this year, recognizes the best book-length prose fiction written by a UC Davis graduate who has not yet published or been accepted for publication by the contest deadline. Manuscript submissions are being accepted through July 15 for the 2022 contest.

‘Secrets’ in the Multiverse

To uncover something new, first you must look far into the past. That’s what the producers of the IMAX film Secrets of the Universe did, explaining how physics professor Manuel Calderón de la Barca Sánchez’s hunt for answers about what happened moments after the dawn of time is built upon scientific discoveries of the past.

Jesús Velázquez Receives 2022 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award

Assistant professor Jesús Velázquez, a material chemist in the UC Davis College of Letters and Science, is one of 18 faculty in the U.S. selected as Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholars for 2022. These faculty are within the first five years of their academic careers, have each created an outstanding independent body of scholarship and are deeply committed to education. Each Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar receives an unrestricted research grant of $100,000.

Asiatic Society Honors UC Davis India Scholar

Sudipta Sen, a professor of history and Middle East/South Asian studies, was recently awarded a Sir Williams Jones Memorial Medal from the Asiatic Society of India for his influential work on the history of South Asia. Sen is a historian of the late Mughal and early British India and the British Empire, and of the environment. 

State Department Names 2 College Students as ‘Critical Language Scholars’

Two UC Davis College of Letters and Science students will travel to Morocco and Brazil this summer for intensive foreign language and cultural studies as part of a U.S. Department of State program. Charles Sills, a history doctoral student, and Carlie Whiteman, an undergraduate communication major, are among five UC Davis students selected by the State Department as 2022 Critical Language Scholars.

Three College Faculty Honored for Teaching

The UC Davis Academic Senate and Academic Federation recently announced their annual awards given to members for exceptional research, teaching and mentoring, and public service. Three faculty members in the College of Letters and Science have been recognized.

Inaugural Winners of Dean’s Faculty Fellowships Give Talks

The first three recipients of the UC Davis College of Letters and Science Dean’s Faculty Fellowships will give talks about the research they have been conducting with support from the fellowship. All talks are online and begin at 4 p.m. on April 5, 19 and May 17.

Alumna Debby Stegura Honored for Service

The UC Davis Cal Aggie Alumni Association named Debby Stegura (B.A., mass communications and political science, ’79) as the recipient of its 2022 Aggie Service Award on March 8. Stegura is a longtime community leader and University of California and Aggie advocate.

Industry Group Creates UC Davis Energy Economics Fellowship

Energy economics studies at UC Davis recently received an investment in its future with a power industry group’s creation of a graduate student fellowship. The Western Power Trading Forum (WPTF), a Sacramento-based association that advocates for competitive market rules in Western states, funded the fellowship for five years to help cultivate the next generation of energy thought leaders.

Chemist, Psychologist and Physicist Named AAAS Fellows

Three faculty from the UC Davis College of Letters and Science are among 564 newly elected Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science: Professor Davide Donadio, Department of Chemistry, Professor Fernanda Ferreira, Department of Psychology, and Distinguished Professor Emeritus John Gunion, Department of Physics and Astronomy.