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Fourth-year Biomedical Engineering Ph.D. candidate Eden Winslow won first place at the UC Davis Grad Slam Semi-Final round on Friday, April 3, 2026. Her winning presentation "Born Without a Hand: Changing the Narrative of Children's Prostheses" earned her a $5,000 first prize.

Winslow's presentation and research examined how children born without a hand use the muscles in their arms, with the aim of showing that they're capable of using advanced prostheses.

The UC Davis Weill School of Veterinary Medicine took the No. 1 spot in the nation for veterinary medicine in U.S. News & World Report’s rankings of professional and graduate programs.

U.S. News updated rankings for the disciplines of business, education, law, engineering, medicine and nursing as well as some specialties in its 2026 edition of the Best Graduate Schools.

Spending entire days — or longer — trying to find meaning in a single poem is the opposite of quick, online activity many students might be used to, but that type of slow study is something that still resonates with them, Professor Archana Venkatesan said.

In 1925 — before there was a chancellor on campus or bicycles pervading pathways — 12 individuals quietly made history at the institution now known as University of California, Davis. They were the very first graduate students studying agriculture at what was then the University Farm for UC Berkeley.

And while much has changed over the last century, one question still lingers like the Central-Valley Tule fog: 

Who were the 12?

On a crisp fall morning in 1925, a dozen graduate students in white button-down shirts with their slacks cuffed over worn brogans arrived at the University Farm in Davis. They were united by a shared ambition: to pursue advanced studies in agriculture at what was then the research extension of UC Berkeley.

It was a quiet beginning for graduate education in Davis — seeding what would grow into one of the top graduate education programs in the country.

The University of California Board of Regents today (Wednesday, July 16) appointed UC Davis graduate student Miguel Craven as the 2026-27 student regent. Craven will serve from July 1, 2025-June 30, 2026 as student regent-designate. He will have voting privileges when his one-year term as student regent begins on July 1, 2026.

Graduate Studies is pleased to announce and recognize the dedicated and talented individuals who have earned awards and recognition for their outstanding achievements in the 2024-25 academic year, as well as acknowledge incoming fellows.

The following graduate students and postdoctoral students are recognized for their exceptional contributions in research and teaching. The incoming cohorts for the President's Postdoctoral Fellowships / Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellowships and Professors for the Future program are also listed.

Graduate Studies and Graduate Council are thrilled to honor two extraordinary faculty members with this year's Distinguished Graduate and Postdoctoral Mentorship Awards. These awards shine a light on the power of mentorship in shaping the academic and professional journeys of UC Davis graduate students and postdoctoral scholars.

Yara Khatib, a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in the Pharmacology and Toxicology Graduate Group, won second place in the UC Grad Slam competition held on April 29 at the UC Student and Policy Center in Sacramento. This is the first year the University of California hosted its systemwide competition in the state’s capital after moving it from the LinkedIn Center in San Francisco. Khatib competed against nine other graduate students representing each of the other universities in the University of California system.

Alumna and communication researcher Laura Lindenfeld Ph.D. ’03 will return to UC Davis as the keynote speaker for the 2022 Graduate Studies Commencement on Thursday, June 9, at the University Credit Union Center.

Lindenfeld is the Dean of the School of Communication and Journalism and a professor of journalism at Stony Brook University, where she oversees a team of dedicated faculty and staff, including Pulitzer Prize winners, to educate and train the next generation of multimedia journalists and communication professionals.