Growing up, Majken Horton (pronounced MY-ken; B.S. ’22) always wanted to know how things worked. She’d study the property she lived on with her parents in Loomis, Calif., and spend summers exploring Alaska with them. Her parents, both UC Davis alumni and salmon biologists, encouraged her to investigate the tiny ecosystems she found and look them up in books to learn their ways.
Though animals respond well to music, humans are usually the ones to choose it. To change this, a senior design team in the College of Engineering developed a device that lets horses choose which music they want to listen to.
For the past two years, Population Biology Ph.D. Candidate Victoria Watson-Zink hasn’t solely spent her time at the UC Davis College of Biological Sciences studying the intricacies of land crab genetics. When she wasn’t in the lab, conducting fieldwork or teaching classes, Watson-Zink, a first-generation college student, dedicated her time to making the college a more welcoming and equitable place for its underrepresented students.
All three of the Science, Engineering and Math winners at this year’s Norma J. Lang Prize for Undergraduate Information Research are College of Biological Sciences students. Barry Nguyen, a biochemistry and molecular biology major, won first-place, and the second- and third-place winners, Katherine Hand and La Rissa Vasquez respectively, are neurobiology, physiology and behavior majors.
Four years after plant sciences professor Kentaro Inoue was struck and killed while riding his bike, the last three graduate students from his lab are ensuring his scientific legacy lives on through their published research, careers in industry and academia, and mentoring of future science students.
Philip Day, Laura Klasek and Lucas McKinnon successfully completed their doctoral degrees in the past year, having continued their studies with the support of plant biology professor Steven Theg, one of Inoue’s colleagues, and the Department of Plant Sciences.
Neuroscience Graduate Group student Jaleel Jefferson investigates the neuropathology of a condition known as HIV Associated Neurocognitive Disorders (HAND), which encompasses “a spectrum of cognitive, motor, and/or mood problems” that affect people with HIV. In this Science Snapshot, he walks us through some neuronal imagery and shares some of his path to science.
Working with the Marine Mammal Center and Adjunct Professor of Animal Science Jason Watters, Animal Behavior Graduate Group student Karli Rice Chudeau explores behavioral management strategies that humans can use to better prepare rehabilitating pinnipeds for reintroduction into the wild.
As a Ph.D. student in the Biochemistry, Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology Graduate Group, Yulong Liu investigates the cellular mechanisms underlying female reproductive development in the lab of Associate Professor Bruce Draper. For his research, Liu was recently awarded the UC Davis Dissertation Year Fellowship.
Working out of the UC Davis Center for Neuroscience, Kathryn Prendergast studies how viral infection during pregnancy leads to an increased risk of offspring developing autism spectrum disorders or schizophrenia.
