From digital data and technology to the environment, healthcare and the body, graduate students from across the College of Letters and Science at University of California, Davis, are pushing boundaries with their experimental research and creative expression. The results, varied in medium and discipline, will be on display at the Arts & Humanities 2026 Graduate Exhibition.
Alum Harry Shontz (LS '12), who majored in history and psychology at UC Davis, received a 2025-26 Milken Educator Award. The award, one of the most highly regarded honors for K-12 teachers, recognizes overall excellence.
When Carson Jeffres looks at the Yolo Bypass, he sees much more than a heavily trafficked strip of I-80 cutting across land meant for water overflow and agriculture. He sees an ecosystem amidst transformation, one integral to making California, as Jeffres calls it, a “salmon society.” Jeffres shared this vision of California as a salmon society with a packed house at G Street WunderBar for the May edition of the Davis Science Café.
Chemistry graduate student Cocoro Nagasaka works at the interface of environmental and energy sciences. And now he’s continuing his research at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, or LLNL, through the prestigious U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) program.
Gözde Göncü-Berk, associate professor of design and a leader in the emerging field of wearable technology, recently received the prestigious Jacquelyn Anderson Wellness Innovation Award from the UC Davis Office of Wellness Education (OWE). The award honors individuals who exhibit outstanding innovation in research, education or advocacy within the realm of wellness.
In a new internship with the City of Davis, UC Davis students are helping the city better meet the needs of its Spanish speaking residents. A cohort of five students spent months working with City staff, learning best practices when it comes to translating content such as city documents, press releases, public service announcements and social media posts.
On Presidents Day weekend, children at the SMUD Museum of Science and Curiosity, or MOSAC, in Sacramento played Wreathies, a game created by graduate and undergraduate students in the Department of Communication’s UC Davis Media Lab. The game is part of a scientific study to test whether kids between 8 and 12 years old prefer to have choices in their learning.
Attraction, attachment, being in love: These topics have all been fodder for magazine articles in publications as varied as Nature, The Knot and Cosmopolitan. In fact, multiple UC Davis researchers have been quoted in hundreds of stories to talk about the science of love. Turns out, most people — and many animal species — are geared toward pairing up. And life — and often, living well and healthy — depends on these bonds. At UC Davis multiple labs are investigating these unions.
UC Davis launched an undergraduate business major in the 2025-26 academic year. Out of more than 8,500 applicants, only 150 students enrolled in UC Davis’ inaugural business major cohort. The program is watching that carefully selected class begin to make its mark. Here, four business majors speak about their experience.
UC Davis economist Ina Simonovska, a leading expert on global finance and trade, is serving on the California Governor's Council of Economic Advisors, which makes policy recommendations across a range of pressing issues for the state.
