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.

UC Davis Professors Bring Chemical Engineering Back to Its Whiskey Roots

Chemical engineering professor Greg Miller and chemistry professor Mike Toney teach the “Chemical and Engineering Principles in Whiskey and Fuel Alcohol” (ECH/CHE 168) course at UC Davis, which teaches undergraduate students the chemical engineering and chemistry of making whiskey.

Justin Siegel Elected to National Academy of Inventors

Chemist Justin Siegel is one of two UC Davis faculty members elected to the National Academy of Inventors’ 2022 class of fellows. Siegel's work in computational enzyme engineering is focused on discovering catalysts that improve health and environmental outcomes. He holds more than 100 global patents and has co-founded eight startups in the last 10 years.

Annaliese Franz Named Fellow of the American Chemical Society

Annaliese Franz, professor of chemistry, was recently selected as a 2022 American Chemical Society Fellow. Franz is one of 45 chemists across the country named in August as 2022 fellows for their outstanding contributions to science, the chemistry profession and the ACS.

How to Make Chemistry a Gateway — Not a Gatekeeper — to STEM

As a college freshman, Mya Ajanel’s dreams of a veterinary degree were nearly derailed by chemistry. “I barely passed the first quarter, so I definitely had fear of just finishing the general chemistry series,” she said. “I remember crying and thinking I’m not going to be a vet, it’s too hard.”

Alternative Energies, Mentorship and Building Community at UC Davis

The spark for science was always within Jessica Ortiz-Rodríguez. As a child growing up in Puerto Rico, she loved visiting the Discovery Channel Store. And when the holidays rolled around, Ortiz-Rodríguez’s parents always knew there’d be something there that they could gift their daughter. Telescopes, microscopes, chemistry sets, the list went on and on.