Students from across the College of Letters and Science at UC Davis shared their research on some of California’s most pressing policy issues in a fast-paced poster session during this summer’s UC Center Sacramento Undergraduate Research Showcase.
Funded by a three-year $900,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, Distinguished Professor George R. Mangun, director of the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain, is launching a project to better understand the cognitive mechanisms behind realistic voluntary attention, or attention directed by an individual’s free will. The project will be conducted in collaboration with engineering colleagues at the
University of Florida.
A prevailing narrative about immigration is that migrants displace U.S.-born residents in the workforce, but new research from UC Davis economists shows that’s not the case. The study published in the Journal of Population Economics details how the COVID-19 pandemic led to a decrease in immigration to the U.S. and how jobs often filled by migrants were not filled by U.S.-born residents.
With the movie “Oppenheimer” drawing big crowds to see the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, who led the development of the atomic bomb, it’s a good time to catch up with UC Davis alumnus Stephen Whisler (B.A., art, ‘76), who created many works connected to the bombs dropped on Japan.
Encouraging Latinx adolescents of Mexican origin to embrace their ethnic pride, cultural values, and connections to their cultural community contributes to positive development and better adjustment during adolescence, a new University of California, Davis, psychology study suggests.
“We found evidence suggesting that increasing ethnic pride and connection to cultural values may significantly improve psychological well-being for Mexican-origin adolescents,” said Lisa Johnson, lead author and doctoral student in the Department of Psychology and the Center for Mind and Brain.
As we reckon with the effects of climate change, so too must the other organisms that
call Earth home. But what if you couldn’t move away from your dwelling to escape a
threat? What if your shelter, your refuge, was a part of your body? Shellfish face this
plight. Supported by an $80,000 California Sea Grant Graduate Research Fellowship,
UC Davis doctoral candidate Hannah Kempf is exploring how to unify modern scientific
techniques with Indigenous shellfish management practices to help protect shellfish
from ocean acidification.
The first meeting of Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social (MALCS), a professional organization for self-identified Chicana, Latina, Native American, Indigenous and gender non-conforming academics, students and activists, took place at UC Davis in 1982. Forty years later, the organization, founded by Adaljiza Sosa Riddell, professor emerita of Chicana and Chicano studies, is back on campus for its 2023 summer institute.
In modern society, one parent may take a daughter to ballet class and fix dinner so the other parent can get to exercise class before picking up the son from soccer practice. To an observer, they seem to be cooperating in their very busy, co-parenting, monogamous relationship. These people may think they are part of an evolved society different from the other mammals that inhabit earth. But their day-to-day behavior and child-rearing habits are not much different than other mammals who hunt, forage for food, and rear and teach their children, researchers suggest.
An international team of researchers, including UC Davis Associate Professor of Anthropology Nicolas Zwyns, has uncovered the earliest known representation of a sexed personal ornament in human history. The study, published in Scientific Reports, describes and analyzes a phallus-shaped black pendant discovered in northern Mongolia and dating back to 42,000 years ago. In addition to pushing back the timeline for sexed symbolic representation in the archaeological record, the pendant was discovered in a location where Homo sapiens mingled with other ancient human species, including the extinct Denisovans. The research adds more fuel to the debate about whether figurative depictions in art was a trait exclusive to Homo sapiens in ancient human history.
Using his knowledge of sports and politics, UC Davis political scientist Ethan Scheiner wrote,
"Freedom to Win," which recounts the story of a group of hockey players from a small
Czechoslovak town who inspired their country by defeating the Soviet team at the
1969 world championships.
Violence during climatic change has evidence in history. University of California, Davis, researchers said they have have found a pattern of increased violence during climatic change in the south central Andes between A.D. 470 and 1500. During that time, which includes the Medieval Climatic Anomaly (ca. A.D. 900-1250), temperatures rose, drought occurred, and the first states of the Andes collapsed.
When the day is filled with news of mass shootings, police malfeasance and “me too” courtroom escapades, people turn to entertainment media, where they watch — as it turns out — more negativity, a new University of California, Davis, study suggests.
Researchers have long known that people use media to manage their emotions. But why do some people watch a Disney animated flick and others a biopic about the holocaust, asked Richard Huskey, assistant professor of communication and corresponding author of the study.
Magdalena Wojcieszak, professor of communication at UC Davis, was recently named a fellow of the International Communication Association, the largest academic association of communication scholars with over 7,000 members in over 80 countries.
UC Davis political scientists receive a $1.35 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to develop new models for keeping a cold war from turning hot.
An aspiring psychologist who aims to improve mental health care for people on the autism spectrum and a political science/English double major who plans to be a legal advocate for marginalized communities are the recipients of the College of Letters and Science’s top prizes for graduating seniors at UC Davis.