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New Choir Director Joins Music Department

Nicolás Alberto Dosman has joined the UC Davis Department of Music as director of choirs and assistant professor of teaching. He will lead the Concert Choir, a large mixed ensemble, and the Chamber Singers, a select ensemble of 16 to 24 students. He will lead his first concert at UC Davis on Dec. 8.

Using Machine Learning to Detect Coronavirus Threats

An artificial intelligence model has successfully identified coronaviruses capable of infecting humans, out of the thousands of viruses that circulate in wild animals. The model, developed by a team of biologists, mathematicians and physicists at UC Davis, could be used in surveillance for new pandemic threats. The work was published in Scientific Reports.

Psychology Student's Study Shows Ethnic Pride Enhances Latinx Youth Well-Being

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.

Helping Clams Deal With Climate Change Using Interdisciplinary Tools

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.

UC Davis to Host Prestigious International Mathematics Conference

The UC Davis campus is readying to host the 35th International Conference on Formal Power Series & Algebraic Combinatorics (FPSAC), a prestigious event that attracts a global audience and runs from July 17 to 21. Since 1988, FPSAC has brought together the brightest minds in mathematics to discuss the latest advances in algebraic and enumerative combinatorics, and to explore the field’s impact on other disciplines, including physics, chemistry, biology and computer science. 

Activist Scholar Group Founded at UC Davis Back for 40th Anniversary

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.

Study Looks at Reproductive Inequality in Humans Compared to Other Species

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.

International Research Team Discovers Oldest Known Sexed Personal Ornament

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.

Four Faculty Receive Incentives for Large Grant Awards

A mathematician, a linguist, a chemist and a physicist are among this year’s cohort to receive Incentives for Large Grant Awards from the College of Letters and Science at UC Davis. The Incentives for Large Grant Awards program provides faculty with up to $80,000 in support over two years to pursue large grants over $1 million. “Large proposals require a significant investment of time and resources,” according to the Strategic Initiatives team behind the Incentives for Large Grant Awards program. “Often, our faculty are unable to pursue large grants because there is simply insufficient time to devote to proposal development and submission.” The Incentives for Large Grant Awards program aims to ease that difficulty.

F. Javier Arsuaga and David Wittman Awarded 2023 Chancellor’s Fellowships for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

A mathematician working in the life sciences and an astrophysicist studying dark matter from the College of Letters and Science at UC Davis are among the recent cohort awarded Chancellor’s Fellowships for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. The fellowships recognize exceptional contributions in supporting, tutoring, mentoring and advising underrepresented students and/or students from underserved communities. In letters to the recipients, Chancellor May cited their “commitment to reducing opportunity gaps.”

2023 UC Davis Medal Goes to Maria Manetti Shrem

UC Davis Chancellor Gary S. May presented the 2023 UC Davis Medal, the university’s highest honor, to international arts patron and philanthropist Maria Manetti Shrem at the afternoon commencement ceremony on June 18 at the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento. The award presentation was followed by a ceremonial tree planting on the UC Davis campus and a dinner at the UC Davis Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts.

Program Gives Jumpstart to Student Researchers

A program that gets students into labs as early as their first year at UC Davis transforms lives — leading many to pursue careers in research. Accelerating Success by Providing Intensive Research Experience, or ASPIRE, has begun reaching out to a wider pool of students. “We wanted to find the students who, given this opportunity, would go the farthest relative to where they started,” says co-founder Steve Luck, Distinguished Professor of Psychology.

Earth and Planetary Sciences Doctoral Candidate Receives National Geographic Society’s 2023 Wayfinder Award

A UC Davis doctoral candidate investigating the hydrochemistry of southern Africa’s largest and most precious freshwater wetland was recently selected as a winner of the National Geographic Society’s 2023 Wayfinder Award. Goabaone Jaqueline Ramatlapeng joins 14 other trailblazers who were selected for their exemplary achievements in exploration through science, education, conservation, technology and storytelling.

Removing the Arrow of Time from The Equation

How did the universe become so good at hiding quantum physics? In two new papers appearing in Physical Review Research, UC Davis and Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers introduce a new model to explain the phenomenon of decoherence, when a system’s behavior shifts from being explainable by quantum mechanics to being explainable by classical mechanics. The new model divorces the arrow of time from the go-to theoretical tool for understanding decoherence: the Caldeira-Leggett model.