5 Honored as Chancellor’s Fellows

Associate professor, Department of Native American Studies

An interdisciplinary musician-scholar whose research is Indigenous-centered, she is the author of Sound Relations: Native Ways of Doing Music History in Alaska (Oxford University Press, 2021). She is a member of the Knik Tribe, raised on Dena’ina homelands in Alaska. Among her recent grants and fellowships are “Improvising Futures,” Social Science and Humanities Council of Canada, and “Racial Radical Storywork: Performing Relational Approaches to Inuit Food Fermentation and Food Security.”

“An immensely dedicated trans- and interdisciplinary scholar who seamlessly engages the fields of music, Native American and Indigenous studies, cultural studies and critical ethnic studies, Professor Bisset Perea has published a monograph and several peer-reviewed articles and book chapters in sound studies across these fields.” — Estella Atekwana, dean, College of Letters and Science

Associate professor, Department of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies

Her work examines the politics of evidence: how concepts like reproductive labor, sex/gender, race, property and sexuality are sustained or transformed through the recognition, narration and redress of harm. Her first book, The Work of Rape (Duke University Press, 2021), received the Author of Color First Book Award from Duke University Press. The book explores how the 1990s’ redefinition of sexual violence in international law — the prosecution of sexual violence as a war crime, crime against humanity, and genocide — owes a disturbing and unacknowledged debt to power and knowledge achieved from racial, imperial and settler colonial domination.

“A true Renaissance scholar, Professor Jaleel has three terminal degrees (Ph.D. in American studies, M.F.A. and J.D.) and publications across the interdisciplinary critical humanities, law and creative writing. ... The depth and breadth of her scholarship, along with her commitment to service and teaching, make her an asset to UC Davis.” — Estella Atekwana, dean, College of Letters and Science​​

Associate professor, Department of Statistics

The recipient of a prestigious CAREER award from the National Science Foundation, he is a foremost expert in methods and theory for high-dimensional statistics, theoretical machine learning and optimization, and has investigated statistical methods for unsupervised learning, a type of machine learning technique for finding patterns in large, complicated datasets. Unsupervised learning is widely used in online applications such as searches, recommendations and advertising, as well as managing complex networks such as power grids.

“His research is of outstanding quality and his areas of research are distinguished by the depth of their theoretical as well as computational challenges. Professor Li’s contributions produce a novel and top-notch methodology that finds its way into applications in other fields almost instantaneously.” — Estella Atekwana, dean, College of Letters and Science

Associate professor, Department of Chemistry

Operating at the interface of chemistry and neuroscience, he studies a class of compounds called psychoplastogens, which are small molecules capable of promoting neural plasticity. Such compounds have enormous potential for treating a wide variety of neuropsychiatric diseases, including depression, anxiety disorders and addiction. He is the founding director of UC Davis’ newly launched Institute for Psychedelics and Neurotherapeutics.

“Professor Olson is a trailblazer at the intersection of several scientific fields, who is establishing himself as a leader in the area of neuropsychiatric disease drug discovery.” — Estella Atekwana, dean, College of Letters and Science

Associate professor, Department of Sociology

In studying the origins and reproduction of inequality in the U.S., she gathers data on hard-to-reach populations — undocumented immigrants and incarcerated immigrants — thereby expanding the boundaries of sociology, influencing economics, health science and other disciplines, and benefiting the public good. Her work has been cited in Supreme Court and other federal cases, and she has served as an expert for policymakers and immigrant justice organizations. A co-founder of the Global Migration Center and the recipient of a 2021 Distinguished Teaching Award for Undergraduate Teaching from the Academic Senate, she involves dozens of undergraduates in her research projects.

“Caitlin Patler is the kind of faculty member who makes her colleagues and students proud to be Aggies. She produces top-rate scholarship … master teacher … a public intellectual. In these ways and more, Caitlin demonstrates her relentless, resolute commitment to improving the lives of others through her work.” — Erin Hamilton, professor, and Jacob Hibel, associate professor, Department of Sociology