When it came to commemorating their father’s life, two alumni and another sibling followed his lifelong example by giving back. Emery Pharma founder Ron Najafi (Ph.D., chemistry, ’89), ophthalmologist Kathryn (Katy) Najafi-Tagol (B.S., chemistry, ’90), both pictured above, and brother Alex established the Dr. Mohsen Najafi Pharmaceutical Chemistry Research Fund in the UC Davis Department of Chemistry.  

For more than 10 years, Richard C. Larock (B.S., ’67), Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at Iowa State University in Ames, has supported undergraduate research in chemistry through a generous gift that funds a yearly research conference organized by the Department of Chemistry in the UC Davis College of Letters and Science.

Longtime UC Davis professor and administrator Winston Ko and his wife Katy Ko have endowed a faculty chair in science leadership in the College of Letters and Science.

A generous gift from Alexandra Navrotsky, Interdisciplinary Professor of Ceramic, Earth, and Environmental Materials Chemistry at UC Davis, will endow a new research institute, the AlexInstitute, at Washington State University’s Gene and Linda Voiland School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering and Department of Chemistry. 

Ian Agol, winner of this year’s prestigious Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics, has made a $150,000 gift to UC Davis in memory of late mathematician William Thurston. 

Thomas Cahill, professor emeritus of physics and atmospheric sciences, and Virginia Cahill, J.D. ’81, who teaches water law in the Department of Land, Air and Water Resources, established the Cahill Applications of Physics to Environmental Research Fund to encourage faculty in the Department of Physics to conduct research that tackles important environmental challenges.