2020 College Award Recipients

Amanda Nguyen, who is graduating with a degree in global disease biology and a minor in social and ethnic relations, is the 2020 recipient of the College Medal. She grew up in the Bay Area but found community in Davis and Sacramento, where she was inspired by all of the people she met through her work.

As the manager of the Willow Clinic, which provides free care for people experiencing homelessness in Sacramento, she learned that the clinic is a critical space not for passive charity but for active solidarity. Over the past three years she started new initiatives, obtained grants and led advocacy efforts focused on promoting harm reduction and patient care.

For the past four years, she worked in Distinguished Professor Earl Carsten’s lab studying the neurophysiology of itch. She studied psoriasis under a National Psoriasis Foundation grant, was an author on two publications and presented at the international conference of the Society for Neuroscience.

In the summer of 2019, she spent six weeks in Mishima, Japan, as a research intern at the National Institute of Genetics, where she identified areas of the brain involved in the aversive memories of itch.

Nguyen’s undergraduate career has been a time of intense personal growth through diverse clinical, research and advocacy experiences. Within these spaces, she has found opportunities to express her love for the community and a passion for both medicine and research. After graduation, she plans to pursue both an M.D. and Ph.D.

Hana Minsky, who is graduating with a degree in global disease biology and a minor in Spanish, is a 2020 recipient of the Mary Regan Meyer Award. She grew up in Berkeley and Albany, California. In her first quarter at UC Davis, she joined Challah for Hunger, an organization that focuses on alleviating food insecurity through direct donations and advocacy activities. This experience sparked her passion for supporting access to basic needs. Minsky explored her interest in biological research by working as a student assistant in the Plant Transformation Facility and Professor Philipp Zerbe’s plant biology laboratory. She also discovered an interest in clinical research through her participation in the Emergency Medicine Research Associate Program at the UC Davis Medical Center, where she eventually served as head trainer and chief research associate. One of her favorite parts of the program was being able to teach new research associates about informed consent and other clinical research fundamentals. Working in the emergency department inspired Minsky to join Joan Viteri Memorial Clinic, a UC Davis student-run clinic that provides care to the Oak Park community of Sacramento. Her experiences have inspired her to continue in the medical field, to learn more about medicine and what can be done to create inclusive, welcoming spaces in healthcare. After graduating, she plans to apply to M.D. and Ph.D. programs to pursue her interests in clinical and biological research.

Julia Nguyen, who is graduating with a degree in global disease biology and a minor in human rights, is a 2020 recipient of the Mary Regan Meyer Award. The daughter of Vietnamese refugees, she learned much about her family history through documentaries and books about the Vietnam War. It was her recognition of the intergenerational consequences of public policy and legislation that sparked her interest in advocacy. As part of HOPE, a student-run organization that advocates for community members who are experiencing housing insecurity, Nguyen worked to promote equitable access to hygiene facilities. As a volunteer at the Joan Viteri Memorial Clinic in Sacramento, she worked to expand the clinic’s reproductive health program. Recognizing that the hardships community members face are tied to larger systemic issues, Nguyen also advocated for legislative change. She has participated in Davis City Council meetings to advocate for community-based resources and was one of the founders of the “Policy for the People” webinar series featuring UC Davis student advocates. Nguyen currently holds a policy fellowship at the nonprofit Asian Americans Advancing Justice. She credits much of her accomplishments to friends, advocates and community members who shared their life experiences and stories with her. She is especially grateful for faculty and peers in the global disease biology program, who made the classroom a space for critical thinking and for encouraging her to examine the role of culture in the study of One Health sciences.

Haley Adel, who is graduating with a degree in clinical nutrition, is a 2020 recipient of the Charles Hess Community Service Award. She grew up in Sacramento, and was raised in an Aggie-proud family with a mother and four aunts who all graduated from UC Davis. As a dietetic aide assistant at the UC Davis Medical Center, she was able to build connections with patients as she helped them with their menu selections. Adel also was a research intern in the Lönnerdal Lab in the Department of Nutrition. She assisted with a study focused on excess iron and helped present the results at the 2020 UC Davis Undergraduate Research Conference in May. This past year, Adel was a peer nutrition counselor for Living Well at the Activities and Recreation Center on campus. She counseled students on nutrition and wrote content for blogs and newsletters for the Davis community. Throughout college, Adel was also an NCAA Division I athlete on cross country and track and field teams. She served as captain of cross country beginning her junior year. The knowledge and experience from these opportunities have encouraged Adel to pursue her goal of becoming a registered dietitian. She will be attending CSU Long Beach next year for a Master of Science in nutritional science.

Timothy Crowell, who is graduating with a degree in sustainable environmental design (SED), is a 2020 recipient of the Charles Hess Community Service Award. Originally from Vacaville, California, he came to UC Davis to explore strategies for building more sustainable cities of the future. He quickly recognized the need for a platform that supported his fellow students both academically and socially. He and another student established the SED Club on campus to bridge the gap between the faculty and students. While the organization is still in its infancy, it has quickly become the foundation for a growing sense of community among those in the program. Outside of his major, Crowell is the lead student researcher for The Green Roofs Project, which promotes the use of California native grassland species for green roof plantings. Crowell realizes the importance of the project’s goal in developing a blueprint for other green infrastructure projects and for implementing the technique on a broader scale. Beyond UC Davis, Crowell dedicates time during the summer as an intern with the GLORIA (Global Observation Research Initiative in Alpine Environments)Great Basin project. GLORIA is an international organization with an objective to monitor global distributional shifts of alpine plant species in response to climate change. The goal is to establish a worldwide, comprehensive understanding of the altitudinal shifts taking place in response to the warming climate. Crowell gained valuable experience assisting botany experts while exploring California’s natural environment. After graduation, he hopes to pair the skills he developed at UC Davis with future opportunities in food systems and agriculture.

Amanda Burns, who is graduating with a degree in environmental toxicology and a minor in East Asian studies, is a 2020 recipient of the CA&ES Dean’s Circle Award. Originally from Arizona, she first became interested in the field of toxicology when she gave educational presentations with her father on rattlesnake awareness and venoms to local schools and hospitals. After her family moved to the Sacramento area, she planned to attend UC Davis to be close to home and combine her premedical studies with environmental toxicology. Within the environmental toxicology department, she worked as a student research assistant in the Nguyen Atmospheric/Environmental Chemistry Lab examining electronic cigarette chemistry and composition. This past year, she presented her lab’s findings at a conference of the American Chemical Society and co-authored a recent publication from her lab. While at UC Davis, she found her work as an organic chemistry and biochemistry tutor at the Academic Assistance and Tutoring Centers to be very rewarding. Burns spent her free time volunteering at the Davis Community Meals Program and at the Sacramento VA Medical Center. She is grateful for all of her friends, family and faculty who have supported her throughout her undergraduate career. After graduation, she hopes to continue exploring the interconnections between the environment and human health and will attend medical school this fall.

Chloe Celniker, who is graduating with a degree in environmental science and management, is a 2020 recipient of the Dean's Circle Award. She grew up in the Bay Area and chose to attend UC Davis because of its excellent environmental science programs. She double minored in biology and geographic information systems. During the summer of 2018, Celniker studied abroad in Thimphu, Bhutan. She traveled through the remote Asian country and learned about Bhutanese natural resource management. For two years, Celniker interned in Professor Emeritus Alan Hastings’ beetle ecology lab. She performed her own ecology experiment and presented her results at the 2019 Undergraduate Research Conference. Celniker also was a specialized flower intern at the UC Davis Student Farm, where she learned organic gardening and sold CSA flower bouquets. As a senior, she completed an honors thesis that calculated how much energy, cost and greenhouse gas emissions the UC Davis campus could potentially save. She worked in affiliation with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UC Davis Energy Efficiency Institute. This summer, Celniker will finalize her energy savings results and make a recommendation to the University of California Carbon Neutrality Initiative. After that, she hopes to gain hands-on climate mitigation experience and eventually attend grad school to study climate science. 

Sara Shin, who is graduating with a degree in animal science, is a 2020 recipient of the Dean’s Circle Award. Originally from Cypress in Southern California, Shin decided to attend UC Davis as an undergraduate with a goal to attend the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine to become a companion animal veterinarian. Several experiences confirmed her passion for working with animals—bottle feeding kid goats and calves through an internship, helping the Mercer Clinic provide medical care for pets of Sacramento’s homeless, conducting research for a bovine respiratory disease study, and shadowing veterinarians during summers back home. She also fueled her love for the arts by playing alto saxophone in the Davis jazz band, and her short story was featured in the campus literary magazine, Open Ceilings. She is grateful to the people she met while at UC Davis who broadened her horizons and the possibility of what she could do with a degree in veterinary medicine. After taking two largely influential courses—biochemistry with Professor Michael Mienaltowski and genetics with Professor Marina Crowder—she was inspired to serve as a science tutor. Now, her goal is to become a veterinarian who, like her mentors, combines both science and creative teaching in order to help both people and animals. For four years, Shin has been a recipient of the Regents’ Scholarship and maintained a 4.0 GPA. After graduation, she is excited to be returning to Davis as a veterinary student where she will continue to be inspired by her professors and peers.