What Shells Tell: Studying Abalone with Meghan Zulian

Shellfish, along with other marine organisms, are facing a crisis, one that affects the integrity of their shells. As carbon dioxide emissions increase in the atmosphere, so too does the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by our oceans, leading to ocean acidification. Graduate student Meghan Zulian has devoted her doctoral studies to understanding how ocean acidification, and more broadly climate change, affects culturally, economically and ecologically important shellfish, including abalone

College Honors Four Faculty as Prized Teachers

Four faculty members have received the 2023 College of Letters and Science Teaching Awards. The awards recognize outstanding teaching on the undergraduate and graduate levels, both inside and outside the classroom.

Annaliese Franz: Karate Chemist

After a full day of teaching, research and meetings, Annaliese Franz dons a brown cotton jacket and indigo pants, cinches her black belt into a tight knot and, bowing, steps barefoot onto the wooden floor of a karate dojo near campus.

Building Materials for the Future

Beneath the concrete world discernible to our senses is a world of building blocks. A world of molecules, and beneath that, atoms. The organization of these individual parts dictates the properties of materials. In Professor of Chemistry Davide Donadio's lab, Frank Cerasoli, a postdoctoral researcher, uses computer simulations to model materials at the molecular level, with the hope of discovering new materials that can advance our technologies.

23rd Annual R. Bryan Miller Symposium to be Held In-Person for First Time Since Pandemic

Mark your calendars because the R. Bryan Miller Symposium returns this April for its first in-person event since 2020. Featuring a stellar lineup of high-profile speakers and leading-edge researchers in chemical biology, organic, medicinal and pharmaceutical chemistry, the 23rd annual symposium creates a pipeline between academia and industry, allowing students to network, present their research and learn skills pivotal to their future professional careers. The free event is scheduled for April 13 and 14 at the UC Davis Conference Center.

Receptor Location Matters for Psychedelic Drug Effects

Location, location, location is the key for psychedelic drugs that could treat mental illness by rapidly rebuilding connections between nerve cells. In a paper published Feb. 17 in Science, researchers at the University of California, Davis, show that engaging serotonin 2A receptors inside neurons promotes growth of new connections but engaging the same receptor on the surface of nerve cells does not.

5 Honored as Chancellor’s Fellows

Five associate professors in the College of Letters and Science have been honored with an additional title: Chancellor’s Fellow. Jessica Bissett Perea (Native American studies), Rana Jaleel (gender, sexuality and women’s studies), Xiaodong Li (statistics), David Olson (chemistry) and Caitlin Patler (sociology) are among 13 faculty campuswide selected to the 2022-23 class of Chancellor’s Fellows.

The Language of Chemistry

There’s no word in Bao Vue’s native language for “chemistry.” The science subject is not easily expressed in Hmong vocabulary. In fact, the same can be said for the concept of “science” itself. But when Vue was 9 years old, she and her family fled their home for safety. Today, she's a chemistry doctoral candidate in UC Davis Professor of Chemistry Jacquelyn Gervay-Hague’s lab, which is focused on developing sustainable methods to produce antiviral and anticancer agents from natural products.