Featured News

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.

Public Scholarship and Engagement is proud to announce the inaugural cohort of UC Davis graduate students who were accepted into the competitive Public Scholars for the Future fellowship. This program, which launched in spring 2022 in partnership with UC Davis Graduate Studies, is designed to support doctoral students in developing community engaged research with non-university partners.

Third-year Biological Systems Engineering Ph.D. student Alice Dien won first place at the UC Davis Grad Slam Semi-Final round on Wednesday, April 6, 2022. Her winning presentation “Cooling Down with the New Hot Air: The Future of Drying in Agriculture” earned her a $2,500 first prize. 

Dien's award-winning presentation examined the role of drying in food processing and examined how to make drying systems cleaner and cheaper. 

Supporting Graduate Student Success Through Mentorship 

Having a strong mentor can be a life-changing experience. Positive mentor-mentee relationships have shown to increase academic persistence, productivity and satisfaction in graduate student mentees. Additionally, mentorship can help increase overall graduate student well-being. Students with mentors report feeling less imposter syndrome, anxiety, and depression. 

Graduate Studies is excited to introduce the graduate community to Daisy Hernandez, the 2021-2022 Graduate Student Advisor to the Dean and Chancellor (GSADC). Hernandez is a fourth year Ph.D. Candidate in plant pathology and will serve as the primary student representative for graduate students at UC Davis, serving as a voice for graduate student concerns, needs and perspectives.

The Graduate Center at Walker Hall will open its doors to the graduate student and postdoctoral community on September 20, 2021. The building’s much-awaited opening comes as students, staff, and faculty return to campus for fall quarter, with an anticipated grand opening event in April 2022.  

Graduate Studies is excited to offer the new Graduate Mentoring Initiative (GMI) program for UC Davis faculty beginning October 2021. GMI is a quarterly initiative designed to foster an engaged culture of faculty-graduate student mentoring across all academic disciplines. The application is now open for the fall quarter program. 

Graduate studies is pleased to announce the 26 recipients of the Graduate Program Advising and Mentoring Awards. Graduate Studies recognizes the importance of mentorship and advising for graduate student success, and this award celebrates individuals who provide outstanding service in this area.

The annual exhibition by UC Davis arts and humanities graduate students will showcase works across the disciplines of art, design, music, creative writing, Native American studies, English, Spanish and French. The exhibition is hosted by the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art and can be viewed June 10 through Sept. 6 on the museum’s website.