UC Davis Grand Challenges

Addressing our planet’s most complex issues requires new perspectives and visionary action. UC Davis Grand Challenges is catalyzing our campus community to go beyond team science to holistically tackle wicked problems. We draw upon UC Davis’ enduring strengths, capacity for innovation, and culture of collaboration — bringing together world-class researchers from all areas of study to address the Earth’s most daunting challenges.

Learn more about Grand Challenges

Team Develops AI Tool to Measure Real-Time Crop Health from the Field

by Emily Dooley, College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences
September 24, 2025

With a quick leaf scan, the AI-powered Leaf Monitor delivers real-time nutrient insights for crops. By replacing weeks-long lab tests, the new tool, developed by UC Davis engineers, can help farmers boost yields, cut fertilizer waste and manage fields with precision and sustainability.

Cheaper, Sustainable Plant Biomanufacturing on Earth and in Space

by Neelanjana Gautam, UC Davis Office of Research
September 15, 2025

Researchers at the University of California, Davis, have been awarded a $3 million National Science Foundation grant to develop new technologies and workforce training programs to grow plants in low-resource environments both on Earth and in space.

New Research Points to Improved Nitrogen Management in Almond Production

by Alireza Pourreza, Assistant Professor of Cooperative Extension for the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, and Kristin Singhasemanon, AIFS Communications and Marketing
April 11, 2025

Researchers at UC Davis are using drone imagery and advanced modeling to track nitrogen levels in almond orchards — a step toward more efficient farming. This approach could help growers optimize fertilizer use, protect water quality and improve sustainability in California agriculture

Charging Ahead

by Jessica Heath
February 03, 2025

Renewable energy sources like wind and solar need a storage system capable of charging and discharging to relieve the power grid. Instead of building new infrastructure, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering imagines a system built from half-used EV batteries.

Setting the Table

by Jessica Heath
February 03, 2025

Research

UC Davis engineers are investigating new ways to feed a growing population, from fungus-grown jerky to cultivated beef and sustainable systems for wine and coffee.

Two students in blue lab uniforms filtrating a substance

Students Advance to Final Phase of Biomanufactured Food Challenge

by Jessica Heath
January 28, 2025

This summer, a multidisciplinary group of undergraduate students participated in a biomanufactured foods research challenge. Now, they are taking their project — turning agricultural waste into food using fungi — to Washington, D.C.

UC Davis Joins $26 Million Engineering Research Center Aimed at Decarbonization

by College of Engineering Communications
December 17, 2024

Assistant Professor Yi Wang is part of a new NSF-funded engineering research center using biomanufacturing as a means to shift the manufacturing industry toward zero or negative emissions by converting carbon dioxide into environmentally friendly chemicals and products.

California Bioresources Alliance Symposium

Please join us at the University of California, Davis, on November 19-20 for the 19th Annual California Bioresources Alliance Symposium on Refining California's Future: Innovating Together for a Thriving Circular Bioeconomy.

Researcher Zhaodan Kong stands behind wildfire drone

Bridging Minds and Machines: Zhaodan Kong Designs Safer, More Successful Human-Tech Teams

by Anna Lin, Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society and the Banatao Institute
October 25, 2024

From fire-detecting drone swarms to optimally efficient human-autonomy collaboration, the UC Davis mechanical and aerospace engineering professor and a principal investigator at CITRIS uses complex technological systems to address complex challenges.

Wijaya looks at media in a cell plate through a microscope

Bryan Wijaya Is Bringing Cultivated Meat to Market

by Jessica Heath
October 17, 2024

At UC Davis, the chemical engineering Ph.D. student and iCAMP researcher aims to lower the production costs of cultivated meat, making it a sustainable, affordable solution for a global problem.

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