University News

Linda and Bill Sullivan have invested $1 million in UC Davis students to advance the donors’ belief that all scholars deserve an enriching college experience without the burden of high levels of debt.

The couple’s gift to the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences will support the college’s annual fund — which Dean Helene Dillard directs to areas of highest need — and their existing William and Linda Sullivan Environmental Sciences Scholarship Fund.

World-renowned celebrity chef of more than 40 years, host of the public television show “Yan Can Cook” and UC Davis alumnus, Martin Yan ’73, M.S. ’77, and his wife, Susan ’75, recently made a gift to the UC Davis Library Archives and Special Collections to create the Chef Martin Yan Legacy Archive.

Agriculture is the cornerstone of livelihoods across the world. In Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, where small-scale farmers’ livelihoods depend on the food they can grow, climate change has worsened the risk of drought and unpredictable weather, increasing barriers to opportunities for a better future through agriculture.

• Brian Bailey
• Kyle Crabtree
• David Gold
• Marie Heffern
• Jonathan Herman
• Seung Sae Hong
• Fereydoun Hormozdiari
• Roopali Kukreja
• Ambarish Kulkarni
• Xinfan Lin
• Rebecca Lybrand
• Scott McCormack
• Tran Nguyen
• William Putnam

Happy holidays from the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences! Thank you to our faculty, staff, students, friends and partners for your dedication and commitment to the college and campus this year. Your contributions made our college and campus a place of excellence. We are incredibly proud of our accomplishments and the strength and resilience that resonates within our community. Our holiday video captures examples of that excellence and the spirit of our work throughout the past year.

The season of gratitude is upon us, and we have so many reasons to feel joyful this fall. We are thankful for the campus’ approach to managing COVID-19 and the diligence applied to keeping us safe through vaccinations and accessible testing. Our vaccination rates are at 98 percent with a positivity rate of 0.06 percent for the past 30 days.

A UC Davis alumnus is gifting $4.5 million to support the Department of Animal Science’s Horse Barn and related programming.

Richard “Dick” E. Jorgensen, who graduated from UC Davis in 1960, spent his senior year as a student herdsman living at the barn, feeding horses at night, keeping an eye on mares ready to foal and occasionally riding the black stallion Araza.

“You got to live in the barn,” he said. “That was the best prize of all.”

Biological and agricultural engineering assistant professor of cooperative extension Alireza Pourreza was elected to the prestigious Club of Bologna at the club’s annual meeting last month.

Dean Helene Dillard of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences announced two changes in her leadership team:

Fall is here! The campus is active, students and faculty have settled into a routine, and the leaves are beginning to turn colors. We also celebrated the first rain in several months for our parched state. While our transition to in-person instruction has gone smoothly and our COVID-19 numbers stay manageable, we know that many members of our community are experiencing additional stress and anxiety due to the ongoing pandemic.