The eight faculty members who comprise the newest class of Chancellor’s Fellows are early career academics doing exemplary work in their fields.
The program, created in 2000, awards $25,000 in unrestricted philanthropic funding to support recipient's research or scholarly work. Chancellor’s Fellows awards are supported by private contributions to the UC Davis Annual Fund, Parents Fund and Davis Chancellor's Club Fund.
The 2024-2025 Chancellor's Fellows in the College of Letters and Science at UC Davis are:
Claudia Sánchez-Gutiérrez
Associate professor, Spanish and Portuguese, College of Letters and Science
She is a first-rate scientist in applied linguistics, according to colleagues, specializing in vocabulary and among many things, second-language acquisition.
In her data-based approach to language study, she focuses on how students develop language proficiency, how textbooks structure student’s learning, and how instructors can become more successful in the language classroom. Colleagues praise the visibility that her ground-breaking research is bringing to UC Davis across several disciplines.
“Her scholarly productivity and high standards of academic excellence have exceeded expectations for her rank and step,” said Dean Estella Atekwana in her nomination letter.
Lauren Young
Associate professor, Political Science, College of Letters and Science
Lauren Young studies how violence and coercion influence political behavior, including the psychology of people’s political beliefs and action. Much of her work is on Zimbabwe, where the ruling political party relies on repression to maintain power. Her work also extends to coercive politics in Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. Her book and journal articles have won multiple awards. She also leads two major grant-funded projects that seek to improve ethics in violence research.
“Professor Young has become an intellectual leader on the important topic of transparency and ethics in empirical research on violence,” wrote Estella Atekwana, dean of the College of Letters and Science. “She is an outstanding scholar, dedicated teacher, and committed member of the university community."
A version of this article originally appeared on the UC Davis Dateline website.
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