California’s Tule Fog is always thick, but not always as persistent as it has been lately. With finals concluded last week and the students home, campus has been grey, cold and dreary – until today. For the first time in almost two weeks, blue sky was visible, the sun was out, and we were reminded of how beautiful our region is.

2025 was a busy year. As you can see on our year in review webpage, we’ve had a number of remarkable highlights. This year was not without challenges, certainly, but we saw many new discoveries (including a parasite that dresses in the remains of the cells it kills), impressive rankings (UC Davis in the top 10 public universities in the nation, and in the top 40 for biological sciences globally) and many (many) outstanding achievements from our faculty and staff.

As we wind down 2025, we will be with friends and loved ones. Wherever you are, this is a time for unity, compassion and hope. In that spirit, it is my hope that the close of 2025 is happy, and the start of 2026 auspicious.

Happy New Year!