News Articles

For donors Ron and Diane Smith, giving to UC Davis is a natural combination of two passions: their love for and pride in family, and their deep interest in lifelong learning and sharing knowledge.

The first time Steve and Tammy Conston set foot on the UC Davis campus, they felt right at home. That visit was a college tour with their youngest son Jacob (B.S.’15, M.S. ’19), and they all sensed that Davis was the right fit. “We just knew, and Jacob knew,” reminisces Tammy. “I know it sounds sappy, but there’s just something about the atmosphere at Davis. You feel like you’re home.”

Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra, a professor in the Department of Evolution and Ecology at the University of California, Davis, has been awarded the prestigious National Academy of Science Prize in Food and Agriculture Sciences for 2024. Ross-Ibarra was awarded the prize in recognition of his “pioneering studies on the evolutionary genetics of maize, a key crop species for global food production.”

Life on Earth runs on a 24-hour cycle as the planet turns. Animals and plants have built-in circadian clocks that synchronize metabolism and behavior to this daily cycle. But one beetle is out of sync with the rest of nature.

Ben Cox and Rebecca McGillivary, postdoctoral researchers in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, are among 10 early career scientists selected to receive 2022 Hartwell Biomedical Research Fellowships, which were announced in August, 2023.

The Hartwell Foundation, which supports innovative and cutting-edge biomedical research that may benefit children, provides fellows with $100,000 in funding, split between two years.

Coming to Davis from Colorado was a shift – the scenery, the climate (no more show shoes!) – but after almost ten years in California, it’s now a bit of a shock when things get cold. But that is exactly what it is here now. (By cold, I mean 50°F, admittedly.)

College seniors don’t get assigned “what I did last summer” essays for homework, but if they did, Amrit Bains’s summer would have the whole class envious. Bains—a pre-med biological sciences major who is a member of the Phi Sigma Honor Society—traveled to Milan with a program called Doctors in Italy, which lets undergraduates shadow physicians abroad.

Plants have to be flexible to survive environmental changes, and the adaptive methods they deploy must often be as changeable as the shifts in climate and condition to which they adapt. To cope with drought, plant roots produce a water-repellent polymer called suberin that blocks water from flowing up towards the leaves, where it would quickly evaporate. Without suberin, the resulting water loss would be like leaving the tap running.

A failed field test has led to a major discovery about the Asian citrus psyllid, the insect that spreads the devastating citrus greening disease. According to new research, the bacteria that cause citrus greening can interfere with the insect’s sense of smell, rendering some kinds of insect traps useless. The work is currently available as a preprint.

Each year, the start of the holidays seems to get here earlier and earlier. This year is no different. It feels like just yesterday (or maybe last week) that we welcomed 6,400 CBS students back to campus for the start of fall quarter. And now, here we are—it’s time to wish them luck on their finals, and then send them back to their friends and loved ones for a well-deserved break.