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.
Federal Support of Biomedical Research Invests in Health of Americans, National Economy
Professor of Biomedical Engineering Kent Leach's NIH-funded lab develops biomaterials to help the body heal damaged bone, crucial innovations for the 1 in 2 American adults with a musculoskeletal disorder. In 2034, when seniors will outnumber children in the U.S., these breakthroughs will have significant implications for the national economy.
Q&A: Alum Builds Aerospace Future in India
Shreya Rastogi '18 founded S R Aerospace Solutions to advance India’s aerospace industry. A licensed pilot and UC Davis aerospace science and mechanical engineering alum, she champions innovation and inclusion in STEM — especially for women and underserved communities.
New AI System Reshapes Understanding of Bird Wing Evolution
Assistant Professor Christina Harvey's aerodynamic expertise and development of a proxy metric to estimate the pitch agility of birds have contributed to an AI system that automatically identifies and measures bird bones from photographs. A collaborative study using this system has observed that birds in warmer climates have longer limbs.
Federally Funded Open Source Software Project Crucial to World Infrastructure
In a recent Labs to Lives video, Professor of Computer Science Vladimir Filkov details his multidisciplinary NSF-funded initiative, which develops AI algorithms and software analysis tools to help open-source software projects stay on sustainable trajectories. These projects are an integral part of innovation in the digital landscape.
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.
