UC Davis

Buring grass in the foreground, then several people stacked front to back. From front man in plaid shirt and green stocking cap bent over working, woman with long dark hair holding buring sticks, behind her man with black hair reaching down. Several more people in the background.

How the Indigenous Practice of 'Good Fire' Can Help Our Forests Thrive

  • by Robyn Schelenz
  • April 07, 2022

In the past several years, California has endured the most extreme fires in its recorded history.

2018’s Camp Fire grew into the state’s deadliest and most destructive fire on record, devastating the towns of Paradise and Concow. Last year the state suffered the Dixie Fire, raging for months through five Northern California counties on its way to becoming the single-largest blaze in state history.

Tracy Camacho

Pursuing Undergraduate Research Outside the Lab

  • by Becky Oskin
  • January 13, 2020

Getting research experience as an undergraduate student doesn’t have to mean working in a laboratory. Instead of days spent transferring fluids from one tube to another, math major Tracy Camacho explored matroids, complex mathematical objects with many different uses. 

Eric Prebys

$3.75M to Explore Synthetic Diamond Semiconductors at Crocker Lab

  • by Becky Oskin
  • November 26, 2019

Although diamonds are mostly thought of as jewelry, synthetic diamonds are being explored for semiconductors because of their unique properties. Structurally identical to diamonds, synthetic diamonds are produced by a controlled process, as compared to natural diamonds, which are created by geologic processes. 

Author Assist

  • by Donna Justice
  • November 14, 2019
Best-selling author John Lescroart says it took winning a prestigious award early in his career to “believe I could be a writer.” The Maurice Prize for Fiction at UC Davis, now in its 14th year, is Lescroart’s way of paying it forward. A UC Berkeley graduate and resident of Davis, Lescroart established the Maurice Prize, named for his father, to encourage UC Davis alumni writers. Peter Shahrokh (English, M.A. ’75, Ph.D. ’83; MBA ’99) won the 2019 prize for his manuscript, "A Wind Will Come."
Gorman Collections Lab simulated

Gorman Museum Move

  • by Donna Justice
  • November 13, 2019
Volunteer leadership is helping to ensure the longevity of the venerable C.N. Gorman Museum and its smooth transition to a new home on campus. Longtime arts champions Bill and Nancy Roe recently pledged $250,000 toward its expansion.
Design major at UC Davis explains a project.

Designing It Forward

  • by Donna Justice
  • November 13, 2019
Ronald Whitney-Whyte (B.S., design, ’75) has made a planned gift of $1 million to the College to support undergraduates majoring in design. Whitney-Whyte’s gift will establish two endowed funds, one to provide students with supplies and the other to support scholarships for junior and senior design majors.
Three photos showing young man in wheelchair, artificial sweetenerrs, chinese skyline,drone.

American Studies at UC Davis: Breaking Down Walls for 50 Years

  • by Jeffrey Day
  • November 07, 2019
With the United States taking its place as a global power after World War I, scholars began exploring questions that would develop into a discipline known as American studies in the 1930s. Over the next several decades, American studies programs were created across the United States, including in 1969 at UC Davis. The program, a department in the College of Letters and Science since 2016, is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. It is the only Department of American Studies in the University of California system.
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