An expert in quantum precision measurements, Nancy Aggarwal creates technologies to detect the universe’s unseen phenomena. In her lab, she’s developing two major experimental platforms: a first-of-its-kind gravitational-wave observatory and precision measurement systems for next-generation dark matter searches.
Program coordinator Sarah Solar is the nexus point for the UC Davis Institute for Psychedelics and Neurotherapeutics. They liaison between campuses, establish connections between faculty affiliates and the institute, track funding, and coordinate and manage communications, among a host of other tasks. Their fingers are on the institute’s pulse, ensuring its operational functionality.
The University of California, Davis, is pleased to announce new awards totaling $1.2 million from the Bridge Funding Initiative supported by the W. M. Keck Foundation. This investment will provide critical resources to six high‑impact basic science projects during a period when early‑stage research often faces significant funding uncertainty. The funded projects include one from Associate Professor of Chemistry Jesús M. Velázquez.
What if you could talk Shakespeare’s Macbeth out of violence? A new UC Davis-developed game lets players do just that, using AI to simulate dialogue and teach real-world conflict de-escalation skills through interactive storytelling rooted in some of the greatest dramas in the English language.
The American Geosciences Institute, or AGI, recently announced that paleontologist Sandra J. Carlson, a Professor Emerita in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the College of Letters and Science at UC Davis, has been named the 2026 recipient of the William B. Heroy Jr. Award for Distinguished Service to AGI. This award is given in recognition of exceptional and beneficial long-term service to the AGI.
UC Davis Professor of Physics and Astronomy Andrew Wetzel has been appointed to the newest class of the U.S. Defense Science Study Group, a program directed by the Institute for Defense Analyses. The program invites outstanding science and engineering professors to apply their skills and research to the United States’ security challenges.
Mathematicians are challenging the idea that dark energy is responsible for the accelerating expansion of the universe. In a new paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society A, mathematicians from the University of California, Davis, provide mathematical proof that instabilities inherent in the Einstein-Euler equations imply that the current model of the expanding universe is not viable.
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 program.
When her ovarian tumor symptoms were misdiagnosed, UC Davis researcher Elizabeth Neumann trusted her instincts and it changed the course of her work. Now, she’s using advanced imaging and mass spectrometry to improve early detection of ovarian cancer, while also speaking out about the challenges women face in healthcare.
