Student Researchers

Our DNA is built of base pairs, a spiral ladder of adenines, cytosines, guanines and thymines. In this molecular dance, adenine pairs with thymine and cytosine pairs with guanine. Undergraduate researcher Madeline Bright is trying to figure out just how damage to our DNA at the molecular level leads to disease-causing mutations.

Every summer, the UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory offers summer classes to undergraduate students interested in coastal and marine sciences. Marine and Coastal Sciences student Tessa Filipczyk spent the summer taking classes and conducting her own research on the effects of clamming.

As director of the Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute, Richard Grosberg oversees an interdisciplinary body that includes membership from the College of Biological Sciences, the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, the College of Letters and Science, the College of Engineering, the School of Law, the School of Veterinary Medicine and the Graduate School of Management.

This fall, the College of Biological Sciences will launch the Advancing Diversity in Neuroscience Research (ADNR) Program to help grow diversity in biomedical, behavioral and clinical neuroscience research professions.

In Richard McKenney’s lab, Wenzhe Li studies the motor protein cytoplasmic dynein. Aided by her interest in psychology, Li aims to link cellular and molecular biology processes to mind and behavior. For her work, she was awarded the Ronald and Lydia Baskin Research Award.

Population Biology Ph.D. student Victoria Morgan uses genetics to understand how land crabs adapted to living on land. Her research has taken her all the way to Christmas Island, home to the annual Christmas lsland Red Crab migration.

For her outstanding research activities and scholarship, Joleen Cheah was awarded the College of Biological Sciences Medal. She was also recently awarded the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research and the University Honors Program’s Research and Innovation Award.

Senior biochemistry and molecular biology student Lynne Hagelthorn is one of the recipients of this year’s Ronald and Lydia Baskin Award, which recognizes a graduating senior for excellence in biological sciences research.

Neuroscience Ph.D. student Lindsay Cameron and other researchers at UC Davis are actively exploring drugs capable of restoring health in the brains of those with mood disorders. Some dark horse candidates are psychedelics like LSD, psilocybin and DMT.

A University of California, Davis, senior is one of 90 students from around the world who have been awarded the Gates-Cambridge Scholarship for postgraduate study at the University of Cambridge.