A digital noticeboard celebrating achievements and highlights in the college,
from grant updates to best paper awards.
Take a bite of some byte-sized news.
Susan Gentry Named Faculty Speaker for Undergraduate Commencement
The associate professor of teaching of materials science and engineering will address the graduating class of 2025 and their guests at the commencement ceremony at 9 a.m. on Sunday, June 15. Gentry has often been recognized for her initiative in materials education, most recently receiving the Academic Senate's Distinguished Teaching Award.
Computer Science and Engineering Alum Receives Energy Innovation Award
Pranav Gupta '18 earned the 2025 Innovation Award from Energy Central for his work at ICF, which includes Sightline, a platform that creates digital twins for utilities to model the energy savings and grid demand of adjustments like attic insulation and heat pumps at the scale of millions of homes.
How Federal Funding Powers Dementia Insights
Audrey Fan, a professor of biomedical engineering, develops imaging technologies that lead to transformative insights for brain health. In a recent Labs to Lives video, Fan discusses how research support from the National Institutes of Health is critical for advancing brain health, such as earlier diagnosis and improved treatments for Alzheimer’s.
Emma Bernard Selected for DOE Office of Science Graduate Student Research Program
The materials science and engineering Ph.D. student will spend a year at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Advanced Light Source facility to image magnetic spin textures in three dimensions and use advanced algorithms to reconstruct their magnetization vectors, which could lead to revolutionizing how information is stored and processed.
UC Davis Hosts Annual NorCal Control Workshop
Organized by assistant professors Shima Nazari of mechanical and aerospace engineering and Matt Ellis of chemical engineering, the event brought together over 100 researchers from Stanford and the UC campuses of Davis, Berkeley, Merced and Santa Cruz, to discuss the current challenges and future directions in automation, systems and controls.
Discussing Ways to Improve the Built Environment
Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Sabbie Miller was the featured guest on the National Science Foundation’s Discovery Files podcast, which explores the latest breakthroughs in science, technology and engineering. Miller discussed her research on next-generation building materials that can capture carbon from the air.
Raissa D’Souza Speaks on Federal Funding Impacts in UC Davis Labs to Lives Series
The associate dean of research and professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and computer science emphasized the crucial role of federal funding for academic research, particularly in this time of developing artificial intelligence. “Without federal funding, we hand over AI dominance to foreign nations,” she said.
Alum Honored for Exceptional Contributions to Industry
Mechanical and aerospace engineer Farhad Ghadamli ’15, M.S. ’17 has received the 2025 Shiv Kapoor Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineers award from SME. The honor celebrates Ghadamli’s outstanding contributions to the field of additive manufacturing throughout the early stages of his professional career.
Health Tech at the Exploratorium
Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Jonathon Schofield discussed the intersection of technology, fitness and happiness — and whether technology can improve our health — with a panel of experts at the Exploratorium’s After Dark series in San Francisco. The event was held in partnership with UC Davis Grand Challenges.
Alum Receives CSU Award for Outstanding Faculty Innovator in Student Success
Civil and environmental engineering alum Kimberly Stillmaker, M.S. ’13, Ph.D. ’16, an associate professor of civil and geomatics engineering at CSU Fresno, received a CSU Wang Family Excellence Award for her work as the director of the Foundation for Success Program, which aims to improve outcomes for first- and second-year engineering students.
Simon Bare Receives 2025 ACS Division Award
The Catalysis Science and Technology Division of the American Chemical Society has chosen Simon Bare, a UC Davis adjunct professor of chemical engineering and distinguished scientist at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, to receive the 2025 Award for Exceptional Achievements for the excellence and impact of his work in the field of catalysis.
Artificial Intuition at the Exploratorium
Assistant Professor Christina Harvey and Associate Professor Zhaodan Kong, both of mechanical and aerospace engineering, discussed different ways to align machines with our social and natural values, from care-based AI to biomimicry with a panel of experts as part of the Exploratorium’s After Dark series and UC Davis Grand Challenges.
