As dean of the College of Letters and Science at UC Davis, the largest college on campus that more than 14,000 undergraduate students call home, Estella Atekwana envisions the college as a bridge that helps students make their dreams a reality while being a powerhouse for interdisciplinary research.
An economics doctoral candidate in the College of Letters & Science at UC Davis has been studying how 25 corporate mega-projects have affected local markets. Among the findings so far are that tax breaks and other incentives often don’t pay off by creating jobs as they were meant to.
A fellow of both the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Geological Society of America, geochemist Kari Cooper, a professor of earth and planetary sciences in the College of Letters and Science at UC Davis, won the American Geophysical Union’s Norman L. Bowen Award, which honors a mid-career or senior scientist for outstanding contributions to the fields of petrology, volcanology and geochemistry.
The Gorman Museum of Native American Art at the University of California, Davis — unique in focusing on, exhibiting and collecting contemporary Native American art — will reopen in a new, greatly expanded location with a celebratory weekend Sept. 22 and 23 (Friday and Saturday). The occasion also marks the museum’s 50th anniversary.
Psychologist Dean Keith Simonton would have studied chemistry if not for an introductory textbook that would define his 50-year career studying greatness. Simonton will receive the 2024 Ernest R. Hilgard Lifetime Achievement Award for his work.
Modern birds and mammals are “warm-blooded” or endothermic, maintaining a constant body temperature and generating heat internally, while reptiles rely on heat from their surroundings. It has been known for some time that at least some dinosaurs, including the direct ancestors of modern birds, were also endotherms.
“Black mustard” is what people call the thick oil that is often visible — particularly at sunset — on the surface of Newtown Creek, which borders Queens and Brooklyn in New York City. The estimated 30 million gallons of oil is one of many toxins in the creek, an Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site. This would seem an unlikely place to not only inspire, but to also be the venue, for an opera, but it is. The opera "Newtown Odyssey," by UC Davis professor Kurt Rohde, visual artist Marie Lorenz and writer Dana Spiotta, is being premiered this weekend.
A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that there is an association between how songs sound and their place in our emotional lives. Sourcing songs from across the globe, Manvir Singh, an assistant professor of anthropology in the College of Letters and Science at UC Davis, and his fellow researchers found that people from different types of societies can successfully identify a song’s type by how it sounds, regardless of the language of its words.
While adoration for Disney princesses continues to grow in terms of film ratings, some parents wonder what effects these idealized images of young women might have on how their children feel about and express themselves. In new research, a favorite princess improved—but did not harm—young children's confidence in their own bodies and the diversity of the ways in which they chose to play.
