Education & Outreach

UC Davis' fifth annual give day was held this year on April 16-17. Give Day is a 29-hour online fundraising drive that brings the community together to celebrate the Aggie spirit by sharing, following or financially supporting UC Davis programs that have made an impact on the lives of people everywhere.

With a $2.4 million grant from the National Science Foundation, the UC Davis Center for Integrated Computing and STEM Education (C-STEM) will establish a new initiative to introduce Black/African American girls to engineering and robotics and provide them with resources to be leaders in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) in their schools, communities and careers.

As part of the UC Coro Systemwide Leadership Collaborative, I recently participated in a year-long project that focused on addressing the systemic racism within our campuses. Although we cannot solve these deeply-rooted challenges with one project alone, our cohort felt we could make an impact.

The Leadership in Engineering Advancement, Diversity and Retention (LEADR) program is a student support program within the College of Engineering.

LEADR’s mission is to recruit, retain and graduate a diverse population of students from the College of Engineering and to prepare students for post-graduation careers, whether it be in industry or graduate school.

Dr. Shafi Goldwasser, the Director of the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing and a professor of computer science at UC Berkeley, discussed how cryptography and computational learning have shared a curious history at the College of Engineering’s virtual distinguished lecture on November 9, 2020.

Goldwasser’s talk was titled “Cryptography for Safe Machine Learning.” She explained how the goals of these two fields are aligned, but a scientific success for one has often provided an example of an impossible task for the other.

Dr. Sandra K. Johnson, the founder of Global Mobile Finance, Inc., a fintech startup company, and the founder of SKJ Visioneering, LLC, a technology consulting company, presented an overview of blockchain and discussed her experience as a hidden figure in engineering at a virtual distinguished lecture on October 22, 2020.

“Blockchain opens the door for new, innovative and creative ways of doing things that are different than the processes we have in place now and I’m excited for the prospect,” said Johnson.

Ralph Aldredge, associate dean for undergraduate studies at the UC Davis College of Engineering, and Tanya Whitlow, director of the Leadership in Engineering Advancement, Diversity and Retention (LEADR) program, secured scholarship funding from the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME), with matching funds provided by the college and the Offices of the Chancellor and Provost.

The Mentor Collective program connects first-year and transfer engineering students with a recent UC Davis engineering graduate to help them navigate challenges and recognize the various opportunities the College of Engineering has to offer. These alumni mentors are ready to listen, inspire and guide students when needed.

College of Engineering Dean Jennifer Sinclair Curtis developed a new course, Securing and Succeeding in an Engineering Job, when she realized that there was a need for a holistic, consistent career development course across all of the majors in engineering. This course, ENG 98, is geared toward the development of first-year engineering students, so they can start preparing for a successful engineering career early on in their academic studies. She began teaching the class in spring of 2018 and has continued to lead this course every other quarter.

When Yolo County issued a shelter-in-place order on March 18, the College of Engineering’s graduate student teaching assistants (TAs) and faculty members had less than two weeks to transition their spring classes online. While spring 2020 will be remembered as anything but a normal quarter, innovation in teaching and community among students and TAs have helped keep the college running and make the best of the situation.