UC Davis researchers found that red-tailed hawks adjust their wing and tail movements during molt to maintain flight performance despite missing feathers. The findings could improve wildlife rehabilitation practices and inspire more resilient drones and uncrewed aerial vehicles.
UC Davis undergraduate teams captured three of four major awards in the 2025-26 CITRIS Aviation Prize, developing innovative software and simulation tools to support California’s future advanced air mobility network and electric air taxi transportation systems.
The National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development will fund the assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering’s work investigating the wing movements hawks use to conduct lateral flight maneuvers.
Inspired by her father's life-changing spinal cord injury, student athlete Lillie Vehling is pursuing mechanical and aerospace engineering to help others. Whether she's designing solutions at the Engineering Student Design Center or competing in Division I water polo, community remains at the center of her world.
The National Science Foundation has selected five students associated with the UC Davis College of Engineering for its Graduate Research Fellowship Program, which will fund their research for several years.
UC Davis and Oxford researchers are the first to document live birds actively shifting flight stability mid-maneuver, a discovery that could reshape how engineers design drones that adapt to their environments.
Mechanical and aerospace engineering students Esther Kung and Huy Tran were selected to receive scholarships from the Vertical Flight Society’s Vertical Flight Foundation, which recognizes and supports outstanding students pursuing careers in vertical flight.
The fourth-year aerospace science and mechanical engineering double major has been selected for the first-ever Solastra Fellowship, which recognizes Latin American student leaders in aerospace.
A collaboration between engineering and veterinary medicine, the new Center for Animal Locomotion and Innovation at UC Davis will use cutting-edge technology to understand birds of prey in flight, advancing the design of uncrewed aerial vehicles and the treatment and rehabilitation of birds.
by Hope Muñoz, Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society and the Banatao Institute, and College of Engineering Communications
Associate Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Zhaodan Kong has earned a CITRIS-CDSS Innovation Fellowship to pilot FireFly, an AI-powered sensor and drone system designed to detect wildfires at their earliest stages.
