Denise Simard is an assistant director of development for the UC Davis College of Letters and Science. She is responsible for identifying, qualifying, cultivating, soliciting and stewarding individual prospects capable of making major gifts of $50,000 or more. Prior to her role at UC Davis, Denise was the associate director of external relations at UC Berkeley’s School of Information, where she was a writer on the communications team, ran alumni and student events, and programmed the yearly Data Edge conference. She held previous UC Berkeley roles at the UC Botanical Garden and the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences. She has a B.F.A. from the University of Maine at Farmington, and an M.F.A. from St. Mary’s College of California.