As 2019 comes to a close, we wanted to take a moment to look back on the year captured in images. The efforts of our faculty, students, staff, alumni and friends really do make a difference in keeping the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at the forefront of the issues facing our rapidly changing world. Please scroll down to enjoy some of the highlights from this past year.

David Bunn has been selected to serve as director of the Master of Science in Environmental Policy and Management (EPM) program at UC Davis, a unique professional degree developed by the John Muir Institute of the Environment and the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences to train the next generation of environmental professionals.

As director of the EPM program, Bunn will lead a team of key contributors including the Muir Institute, faculty from across campus, and institutional partners in Sacramento and beyond.

November is one of my favorite months. The softer light of day, colorful displays of fall foliage and the sound of migrating waterfowl overhead always make me pause and reflect on the many reasons to feel grateful.

Sixteen UC Davis researchers have been named in the annual Highly Cited Researchers 2019 list released by the Web of Science Group, which compiles statistics on scientific publishing. The list identifies scientists and social scientists who have published multiple papers ranking in the top 1 percent by citations in a particular field and year, over a 10-year period. 

Citation counts represent how often a particular paper has been cited in other scientific publications. 

UC Davis researchers included in this year’s list are:

UC Davis has named 12 assistant professors from a variety of disciplines as the university’s newest Hellman Fellows, beneficiaries of a San Francisco-based fund that provides research support to promising faculty members when they need it most, in the early stages of their careers.

I am occasionally asked, “Just what is human ecology?” For an answer, I turned to our new Associate Dean for Human and Social Sciences, Patsy Eubanks Owens. She is a landscape architect who joined the UC Davis faculty nearly 30 years ago with her passion for getting communities engaged in the design process. 

Turns out, UC Davis food safety expert Linda Harris and her team also excel in lab safety. Harris, chair of the Department of Food Science and Technology, recently received a Safety Services Lab Safety Award by the UC Davis Chemical and Lab Safety Committee. 

The faculty-led group honors campus labs with a strong commitment to safety procedures.

Da Yang, a UC Davis atmospheric scientist who studies the physics of intense rainstorms like hurricanes and their relationship to the Earth’s climate, has been awarded a 2019 Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

Yang is among 22 early-career scientists and engineers nationwide to receive the prestigious award this year. Each will be awarded $875,000 over five years to pursue their research. He is the first recipient of the Packard Fellowship in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at UC Davis.

The John Muir Institute of the Environment at University of California, Davis, announced the selection of the 2019 Muir Institute Fellows during its annual open house on October 1 at The Barn.

Launched in 2017, the program recognizes exemplary UC Davis faculty and staff whose career and research epitomizes the mission of the Muir Institute: Discover. Research. Solve. Each recipient receives $5,000 to help seed their research.

Welcome to the start of a new school year. As students and faculty return to campus, we are preparing for a busy year of academics and transition. Fall is a season of change, and one big change we’ll see this year is in how we do business. After many years of planning, preparation and training, we are in the midst of transitioning to UC Path, a system-wide solution to modernize how we deliver payroll, benefits and personnel services.