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.
The Regeneration Research Program is designed to help faculty fill gaps created by the current constrained funding environment. Grant awards range from $5,000 to $20,000, depending on proposed needs and budget justification.
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.
At the April Davis Science Café, environmental toxicologist Andrew Whitehead explored not only how our actions as a species affect ourselves, but also how they impact the innumerable species we share the Earth with.
Inside a room on the fourth floor of the Chemistry Annex, a mechanical leviathan helps UC Davis scientists unravel the mysteries of chemical biology. Developed by Bruker Scientific with the assistance of Assistant Professor of Chemistry Elizabeth Neumann, the timsTOF fleX system enables the high-throughput chemical analysis of single organelles to whole body systems. Check out five of our favorite images from the Neumann Lab!
At the March 2026 Davis Science Café, protein biochemist Sascha Nicklisch discussed how some toxicants, like DDT, sneak past the body's molecular bouncers. Nicklisch's functional research is elucidating exactly how these harmful chemicals bypass our cell’s defense system.
The Excellence in Teaching for Global Learning Award recognizes UC Davis instructors of the Academic Senate or Academic Federation who go above and beyond in designing and teaching UC Davis global learning programs. This year’s recipients are Ozcan Gulacar (Academic Senate), and Marc Ishisaka-Nolfi (Academic Federation).
