Two Alumni Named ACLS Emerging Voices Fellows

Two alumni scholars who use digital media to help Indigenous communities recover their history and ancestral language have been selected by the American Council of Learned Societies as inaugural Emerging Voices Fellows.

Man About Town: Bob Dunning

The irony in columnist Bob Dunning’s nearly 50-year career at The Davis Enterprise is that when he applied for a job at the newspaper, he thought he might get hired as a night janitor.

2014 - Aileen Zhong

Aileen Zhong (B.A., political science and sociology, '14) said she was motivated to shape her career by the results of the 2016 elections.

Sky's the Limit

For her second career, Vicky Benzing ’80 went in a completely different direction. Benzing worked as a vice president at semiconductor manufacturing company Novellus Systems before going part-time and then retiring in 2012. When she decided to retire, she became an aerosport pilot.

Mother-Daughter Team Teaches English Worldwide

In 1985 Carol Burrill held her baby girl, Kate Burrill, in her arms as she posed for a graduation photo next to the ARC Pavilion. She had just earned her master’s degree in linguistics. Twenty-two years later, Kate stood in the same spot for a photo the day she graduated in 2001 with a bachelor’s degree in the same field.

Artist Incubator

Major takes students from studio to practice.

One of the toughest courses Shawn Sullivan ever took at UC Davis was an art class with Professor Lucy Puls.

Alumnus Shares Thoughts on Winning Fiction Prize

2019 Maurice Prize for Fiction: Peter Shahrokh (English, M.A. ’75; Ph.D. ’83; MBA ’99)

I started my winning novel, A Wind Will Come, 30 years ago. The premise was that a professional engineer had chosen to become a chef, and he was then lured by the promise of owning his own restaurant by an ex-girlfriend if he found her lost lover. The lover was a psychopath, and that made things a little interesting. After I’d done the first two chapters, I couldn’t figure out where I was going with it. Ten years later I picked it up again and finished the last three chapters.

Author Assist

Best-selling author John Lescroart says it took winning a prestigious award early in his career to “believe I could be a writer.” The Maurice Prize for Fiction at UC Davis, now in its 14th year, is Lescroart’s way of paying it forward. A UC Berkeley graduate and resident of Davis, Lescroart established the Maurice Prize, named for his father, to encourage UC Davis alumni writers. Peter Shahrokh (English, M.A. ’75, Ph.D. ’83; MBA ’99) won the 2019 prize for his manuscript, "A Wind Will Come."

Playful and Potent

Artist embraces the light and dark.

Tavarus Blackmon (M.F.A., art, ’18) has been making art his entire life. First comics as a kid, then experimental music, tattoos, video and film, short stories, poetry, painting, and now art that brings it all together. His work gives viewers a noisy, candy-colored, loop-the-loop ride that journeys to darker places, and tackles issues of poverty, labor, and violence.

Tales of Afghanistan

Debut novel captures Afghan American coming of age story.

When Jamil Jan Kochai was 12, his family traveled from their West Sacramento home to their native Afghanistan. During that 2004 trip, Kochai was attacked by the family dog, witnessed what the U.S. invasion had wrought, and soaked up stories of the distant and recent past. A decade later, he brought a short story inspired by that trip to his first graduate writing workshop at UC Davis.