Five researchers from the University of California, Davis, including two from the College of Letters and Science, were listed among recipients for the inaugural awards through the U.S. Department of Energy’s, or DOE, Genesis Mission — a national program leveraging artificial intelligence to accelerate breakthroughs in energy, discovery science and national security.

Seven early career faculty members at UC Davis are being recognized with awards from the university and the UC Office of the President that highlight their research and creative exploration.

With support from a UCOP Early Career Faculty Research Excellence Award, sociologist Tina Law is constructing and analyzing a database of more than 50,000 YouTube videos to learn how they contribute to the general public’s understanding of AI and the potential for broader oversight.

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 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.

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.

For her innovative research in Indigenous studies and on the politics of knowledge, de la Cadena was recently elected as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honorary societies. 

Monique Borgerhoff Mulder has been recognized again with the 2026 Constantine Panunzio Distinguished Emeriti Award, which exemplifies tremendous contributions of emeriti to the continued excellence of the University of California system.  

An author blending fact and fiction in her second novel, an anthropologist studying the origins of rituals and pilgrimages, and a mathematician investigating the complexity of large datasets have been named the 2026 Dean’s Faculty Fellows for the College of Letters and Science at UC Davis.

TIME has named University of California, Davis Distinguished Research Professor Tony Tyson, of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, to the 2026 TIME100, its annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world.