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University of California, Davis (UC Davis)


University of California, Davis

University of California, Davis

The University of California, Davis (UC Davis) is a public research university located in Davis, California, and one of ten campuses in the University of California system. Referred locally as UCD, the school was originally established in 1905 as the University Farm, an extension of UC Berkeley. UC Davis welcomed its first class in 1908. It was later formally established as a UC campus by the Regents of the University of California in 1959.
UC Davis’ graduate and professional programs include the UC Davis School of Medicine (which includes the UC Davis Medical Center), the UC Davis School of Law, UC Davis School of Education, UC Davis Graduate Studies, The Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing, and the UC Davis Graduate School of Management.
The UC Davis Aggies compete in the NCAA Division I level primarily in the Big West Conference as well as Great West Conference, Pacific-10 Conference, and Mountain Pacific Sports Federation in other sports. In its first year of full Division I status, 11 UC Davis teams qualified for NCAA post-season.

University of California, Davis (UC Davis) Rankings in 2010

University of California, Davis (UC Davis) Rankings in 2011

University of California, Davis (UC Davis) Tuitions and Fees

Costs for a Year at UC Davis

The costs listed in Average Student Costs Annually are average costs and your own living expenses may differ somewhat from these. Cost of living expenses are adjusted annually and fees are subject to change without notice. More information on living expenses can be found in the section on housing or from the Financial Aid Office.

Undergraduate
Fees$8,635
Health Insurance$849
Books and supplies$1,544
Housing and Food$11,978
Personal expenses$1,308
Transportation$697
Total (on-campus residence)$25,011
Total (off-campus residence)$21,721
Graduate (single; living off campus)$27,054
Graduate School of Management (first/second year)$43,568
Graduate School of Management (evening program):

Sacramento: $30,447-$32,103 entering and dependent on year admitted

Bay area: $34,047–$36,441 entering and dependent on year admitted

School of Law
(depending upon the year in school)		$45,228-$45,010
School of Medicine
(depending upon the year in school)		$46,930-$46,830
Family Nurse Practitioner/Physician’s Assistant (FNP/PA):

First year: $34,481; Second year $32,843

School of Veterinary Medicine
(depending upon the year in school)		$45,855-$51,098
* Undergraduate fees are $30,092; non resident tuition of $20,021 and fees of $10,071 (includes health insurance fee of $849.00).
NOTE: These costs are accurate as of April 2008; however, they are subject to change when the California State budget passes in July. Students are advised to visit the Financial Aid Web site at http://financialaid.ucdavis.edu for the most current information.

Schools of University of California, Davis

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University of California, Davis News

  • UC Davis faculty, staff achievements listed - Wed, 16 May 2012

    Two University of California, Davis, professors are among seven of the world’s leading biomedical researchers selected to give presentations this year in the Harvey Lecture series that has previously featured most recipients of the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine.

    Stephen Kowalczykowski, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Microbiology, College of Biological Sciences, gave his lecture, “Watching Individual Proteins Working on Single Molecules of DNA: From Biophysics to Cancer,” on March 15.

    Jodi Nunnari, chair of the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, also in the College of Biological Sciences, is scheduled to give her address on May 17, on the topic “The Behavior of Mitochondria.”

    The sponsoring Harvey Society was founded in 1905 by a group of New York scientists and physicians to forge a closer relationship between practical medicine and laboratory experiments. The society’s namesake is William Harvey (1578-1657), the English physician who first proposed that the heart pumps blood around the body.

    Each year the society sponsors seven lectures, free public talks, at Rockefeller University in New York. The collected lectures are published in book form every year.

    •••

    Professor Adela de la Torre of the University of California, Davis, has had a new Latino honor society named after her at Northern Illinois University.

    UC Davis alumna Emily Prieto, director of NIU’s Latino Resource Center, founded the honor society and named it after her mentor, a professor in the UC Davis Department of Chicana/o Studies.

    Prieto holds three degrees from UC Davis: a Bachelor of Arts in community rhetoric (2002), a master’s degree in sociocultural studies (2005) and a doctorate in language, literacy and culture (2007).

    She has been director of the NIU Latino Resource Center since August 2007.

    The Dr. Adela de la Torre Honor Society aims to recognize and promote excellence among Latinos, build student leaders and help render service through a unified effort, according to the society’s mission statement.

    De La Torre, a national expert on Chicano and Latino health issues, last year received a five-year, $4.8 million federal grant for a Central Valley study titled "Nios Sanos, Familia Sana" (Healthy Children, Healthy Family), to discover the best ways to help Mexican-heritage children maintain healthy weights.

    The study will take place in the Central Valley towns of Firebaugh and San Joaquin.

    •••

    Professor Emerita Sarah Hrdy of the University of California, Davis, has been awarded the J.I. Staley Prize, often called the Pulitzer Prize of anthropology, for her book Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding.

    “The award recognizes innovative works that go beyond traditional frontiers and dominant schools of thought in anthropology and add new dimensions to our understanding of the human species,” states the award website.

    Hrdy joined the faculty of the Department of Anthropology in 1984 and took emeritus status in 1996. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society and the California Academy of Sciences.

    The Staley award presentation is planned in November during the American Anthropological Association’s annual meeting, scheduled to be held this year in San Francisco.

    •••

    Ramona Hernandez, a Student Housing administrator at the University of California, Davis, is on her way to becoming president of the Western Association of College and University Housing Officers, or WACUHO.

    Hernandez is director of Business Services for Student Housing, after previously serving as an associate director from 2009 to 2011. She joined UC Davis in 2001 as manager of privatized housing.

    She has been active in WACUHO for many years. She served as treasurer for two years (2008-10) before being elected recently as president-elect, to hold office in 2013-14.

    She has served on many committees, including finance advisory (five years, including three as chair), legislative affairs and corporate relations.

    She was chair of WACUHO’s annual conference in 2008, the year UC Davis hosted the event (in Sacramento).

    •••

    "Egghead," the campuswide research blog at the University of California, Davis, is “an academic paradise,” one of the “50 Best Must-Read College Campus Blogs,” according to Online Colleges, a website that aims to help students choose where to pursue higher education.

    “Featuring research conducted by UC Davis students and staff, visitors can read up on the latest science news,” states the "Egghead" description in the Online College list.

    University Communications science writer Andy Fell writes and compiles "Egghead," which, according to Online Colleges, lives up its name.

    The top 50 blogs are broken into eight categories, including dean and administrator blogs, student blogs, sports blogs, political blogs and mixed bag, for “blogs that refuse to be categorized.”

    "Egghead" fell into the category of “Learning Beyond the Book: Academic Blogs.”

  • UC Davis partners in $8.3 million effort to fight childhood malnutrition - Mon, 14 May 2012

    Researchers at the University of California, Davis, will join in an international research effort to develop new ways to diagnose, treat and prevent malnutrition in infants and children around the world.

    The Breast Milk, Gut Microbiome and Immunity Project is funded by $8.3 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and will be led by the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. UC Davis will receive $1.1 million of the total.

    The UC Davis researchers who will participate in the project are nutritionist Kathryn Dewey and microbiologist David Mills.

    Severe malnutrition has long been thought to stem simply from a lack of adequate food. But now scientists understand the condition is far more complex and may involve a breakdown in the way gut microbial communities process various components of the diet.

    The community of intestinal microbes and its vast collection of genes, known as the gut microbiome, is assembled right from birth and influenced by babies’ early environments and the first foods they consume, such as breast milk.

    Through theBreast Milk, Gut Microbiome and Immunity Project, scientists will evaluate the relationship among first foods, the developing community of microbes in the intestine, and the developing immune system.

    The new research builds on ongoingclinical studies in Africa, South Asia and South America of malnourished and healthy infants and children and their mothers; the Gates Foundation also funds those studies.

    “This multidisciplinary project will allow us to expand our understanding of how to prevent infant malnutrition, which is a major focus of the UC Davis Program in International and Community Nutrition,” Dewey said. “The results of these experiments will provide critical information about whether the lipid-based nutrient supplements that we are evaluating in ongoing research have an influence on the collection of microorganisms in the human gut, which will help us understand the impact of our interventions on child growth."

    As director of the International Lipid-Based Nutrient SupplementsProject, Dewey is involved with two projects in Malawi that are providing biological samples for the newly funded research consortium. More information about the lipid-based nutrient supplement project is available at: http://ilins.org.

    As part of the new project, Mills and his colleagues at the UC Davis Foods for Health Institute will examine the complex, protective sugars in breast milk and characterize specific bacteria in the guts of these infants. The researchers also will look for similar protective sugars in existing dairy products.

    “This project will identify specific milk components from commercial dairy streams, which -- in combination with milk-responsive bacteria -- may extend the natural protection of mother's milk past weaning to a fragile population of children who desperately need that protection,” Mills said.

    “The opportunity to deliver diet-based solutions in the near term – sourcing from commercial milk operations – is truly exciting, ” he said.

    More information about the UC Davis Foods for Health Institute is available at http://ffhi.ucdavis.edu/.

    The overall project will be led by Jeffrey I. Gordon at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

  • UC Davis West Village a global model for sustainable urban planning - Mon, 14 May 2012

    UC Davis West Village overcame funding constraints, delays, regulatory changes, a housing market collapse and other challenges to become the nation’s largest planned zero-net energy community, according to a new report on sustainable, low-carbon developments.

    The pioneering development is one of four case studies featured in the current issue of the journal Planning Theory & Practice.

    The report, “Exploring the Challenges of Environmental Planning and Green Design: Cases from Europe and the USA,” highlights UC Davis West Village as a model for new town construction and an example of how progressive planning and creative partnering can lead to new possibilities in energy conservation.

    The UC Davis case study was selected from among several international green design projects submitted for inclusion in the report.

    “Our inclusion shows that West Village is a global example of an eco-district and of net zero energy development,” said case study co-author Stephen Wheeler, a professor in the UC Davis Landscape Architecture program.

    Situated on 130 acres just west of the main campus, UC Davis West Village opened in 2011 to roughly 800 students living in 315 apartments. Eventually, the community will include 343 for-sale homes for faculty and staff and be home to an estimated 4,200 residents. The project also includes a village square; recreational, study, retail and office facilities; and the first community college center located on a University of California campus.

    UC Davis West Village is designed to produce as much energy as it consumes in the course of a year. Highly energy-efficient design, photovoltaic solar panels and a planned waste-to-energy biodigester are expected to make the community meet that goal. UC Davis West Village also features bicycle and bus transportation, streets oriented to maximize passive solar design, on-site drainage, and relatively high residential density, all of which embody many goals of sustainable development, the report says.

    UC Davis West Village overcame several challenges during its decade-long planning process.

    While the university administration recognized a need for affordable, local housing to attract students, faculty and staff, the Davis community had historically resisted new developments, particularly those displacing agricultural lands.

    To ease initial community concerns, the university held public workshops and eliminated direct street access from UC Davis West Village to surrounding city neighborhoods. Campus planners also secured and preserved farmland five miles west of campus, between Davis and the neighboring town of Dixon, to mitigate loss of agricultural lands at the new community.

    The challenges continued when an unsuccessful lawsuit by a neighborhood group delayed selection of a developer.

    Then the housing crash, beginning in 2008, presented new uncertainties. Developer Carmel Partners of San Francisco now plans to construct homes only when pre-sold, which could slow future build-out of the neighborhood.

    Regulatory incentives discouraged the large-scale community solar “farm” that planners originally preferred, causing them to erect a system of combined rooftop and parking lot photovoltaic panels instead.

    Though initially a challenge, the slow-growth culture of the Davis community became an asset. “The strongly pro-environment views of Davis residents encouraged planners to make the project highly green in order to gain community support,” the report says.

    Davis residents had long supported bicycle and pedestrian transportation, energy-efficient development, and compact development. Village Homes, built in the 1970s and located roughly a mile from UC Davis West Village, had set a positive example of ecological suburban development. When zero-net energy emerged as a concept in the design process — well after the original plan was approved in 2003 — the Davis community was ripe for it.

    The strongest advantage that UC Davis West Village planners had, the report says, was the university itself. UC Davis owned the land, provided a built-in market for the development, and, as a state agency, was exempt from the need for local planning approval. It was able to establish clear development guidelines and secure $7.5 million in state and federal planning grants to study zero-net energy systems.

    The university was also able to draw on its faculty, research centers and community and business partnerships to create UC Davis West Village. Among others, the UC Davis Graduate School of Management, Energy Efficiency Center, California Lighting Technology Center, and Western Cooling Efficiency Center all contributed expertise toward helping the project approach zero-net energy.

    Yet constructing UC Davis West Village would not have been possible without private investment, the report says. While the university invested roughly $17 million to bring utilities to the border of the site, San Francisco-based developer Carmel Partners agreed to invest about $263 million in the project. The developer also took advantage of tax credits and incentives available only to the private sector, and brought financial analysis and construction experience to the energy efficiency and renewable power investments.

    Wheeler hopes that others seeking to replicate the community’s efforts will have fewer hurdles to overcome now that UC Davis West Village has helped paved the way.

    “The first examples of anything new will be the most difficult,” said Wheeler. “It may take special leverage to make them happen. But then you can work to try to mainstream it.”

    Wheeler's co-author is Robert Segar, assistant vice chancellor for campus planning and community resources at UC Davis.

    The other case studies in the paper include a large renovation project in Alingsas, Sweden; a comparison of low-carbon developments in Stockholm, Sweden, and a car-free suburb near Freiburg, Germany; and the carbon-neutral Aldo Leopold Legacy Center in Baraboo, Wisconsin.

  • When, where and how wood is used impact carbon emissions from deforestation - Mon, 14 May 2012

    A new study from the University of California, Davis, provides a deeper understanding of the complex global impacts of deforestation on greenhouse gas emissions.

    The study, published May 13 in the advance online edition of the journal Nature Climate Change, reports that the volume of greenhouse gas released when a forest is cleared depends on how the trees will be used and in which part of the world the trees are grown.

    When trees are felled to create solid wood products, such as lumber for housing, that wood retains much of its carbon for decades, the researchers found. In contrast, when wood is used for bioenergy or turned into pulp for paper, nearly all of its carbon is released into the atmosphere. Carbon is a major contributor to greenhouse gases.

    “We found that 30 years after a forest clearing, between 0 percent and 62 percent of carbon from that forest might remain in storage,” said lead author J. Mason Earles, a doctoral student with the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies. “Previous models generally assumed that it was all released immediately.”

    The researchers analyzed how 169 countries use harvested forests. They learned that the temperate forests found in the United States, Canada and parts of Europe are cleared primarily for use in solid wood products, while the tropical forests of the Southern Hemisphere are more often cleared for use in energy and paper production.

    “Carbon stored in forests outside Europe, the USA and Canada, for example, in tropical climates such as Brazil and Indonesia, will be almost entirely lost shortly after clearance,” the study states.

    The study’s findings have potential implications for biofuel incentives based on greenhouse gas emissions. For instance, if the United States decides to incentivize corn-based ethanol, less profitable crops, such as soybeans, may shift to other countries. And those countries might clear more forests to make way for the new crops. Where those countries are located and how the wood from those forests is used would affect how much carbon would be released into the atmosphere.

    Earles said the study provides new information that could help inform climate models of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the leading international body for the assessment of climate change.

    “This is just one of the pieces that fit into this land-use issue,” said Earles. Land use is a driving factor of climate change. “We hope it will give climate models some concrete data on emissions factors they can use.”

    In addition to Earles, the study, “Timing of carbon emissions from global forest clearance,” was co-authored by Sonia Yeh, a research scientist with the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies, and Kenneth E. Skog of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service.

    The study was funded by the California Air Resources Board and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

  • UC Davis to offer about 600 summer courses - Wed, 09 May 2012

    UC Davis will offer about 600 summer courses -- from high-demand science and writing courses to the explorations of personal finance and introductory sculpture -- beginning June 25. And they are open not only to university students but also to the general public and some high school students.

    Summer Session I runs from June 25 to Aug. 3, and Summer Session II goes from Aug. 6 to Sept. 14; registration continues through June 29 for Session I and Aug. 10 for Session II.

    Offerings also include classes on the presidency, the scientific study of war, and hip hop in urban America, along with instruction in Chinese, Japanese and Spanish.

    Mary Wall, director of Summer Sessions at UC Davis, said many students take summer courses to complete a series of major prerequisites that can be tough to get into during the school year. These include chemistry, biology, statistics and calculus.

    Top high school students often take calculus and introductory science courses. To be eligible, students must have completed their junior year and have their school principal or counselor verify that they are capable of handling university work.

    Courses and class schedules are posted on the Summer Sessions website.

    Last year, more than 14,600 people enrolled in 580 courses.

    Fees, based on the 2011-12 academic year, are $271 per unit for UC students and $340 for non-UC students; for each session enrolled, there is an additional campus-based fee of $292, mostly for student services and uses of facilities.

    Those other than continuing UC Davis students must submit an application.

    Limited financial aid for Summer Sessions is available to UC Davis students who filed a 2011-12 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form; financial aid applications are due June 18 for Summer Session I, and July 30 for Summer Session II.

    Applications for on-campus housing for Summer Sessions are due June 15 for Summer Session I and July 27 for Summer Session II.

  • Study: Prepare grad students for work beyond academia - Wed, 09 May 2012

    Universities need to work more closely with business, nonprofit and government sectors to better prepare graduate students for careers beyond academia, according to the report for a national project that a UC Davis dean helped guide.

    Jeffery Gibeling, dean of Graduate Studies, was part of the 14-member commission that produced the report “Pathways Through Graduate School and Into Careers,” recently released by the Council of Graduate Schools and Educational Testing Service.

    The report challenges universities -- and especially their graduate faculties -- to help students explore career opportunities outside of academia and then prepare them for success in those arenas.

    “We talk about graduate education as a ‘pipeline’ to the professoriate,” Gibeling said, “but having students head into business or government should not be viewed as a ‘leak’ in the pipe.

    “There are many different opportunities available,” he added, “and when students take them, they are able to work in areas of their interest and share a wealth of knowledge,” Gibeling said.

    By 2020, 2.6 million new or replacement jobs will require a graduate or professional degree, according to the report. But the nation won’t be able to tap graduate students unless universities, business and other sectors better collaborate.

    The Pathways report calls on university officials to:

    • track career outcomes and job placements of their graduates;
    • make stronger career counseling services available;
    • connect graduate students with graduate alumni;
    • broaden the focus of graduate education to include development of more professional skills; and
    • build more opportunities for graduate school faculty members and students to engage with industry, government and other sectors.

    The study found that employers wanted more emphasis in graduate school training on business savvy and teamwork, communication and problem-solving. Employers also suggested that more graduate students need to be taught to innovate, apply their subject knowledge to other areas, and think like entrepreneurs.

    At UC Davis, a joint administration and Academic Senate task force is envisioning the future of graduate education at UC Davis, and Gibeling is preparing a proposal to expand professional development opportunities for graduate students.

    One opportunity already in place is the yearlong UC Davis Business Development Certificate Program, which teams MBA students with engineering and science graduate and postdoctoral students to develop the commercial potential of cutting-edge research.

    UC Davis has almost 4,200 graduate students in 90 programs in addition to its undergraduate and professional students.

    The Pathways study surveyed individuals who took the GRE General Test (ETS’s admissions test for graduate and business school) between 2002 and 2011. Graduate school deans were surveyed as well, and interviews were conducted with executives and senior hiring managers in business and government.

  • UC Davis plans 13 commencements, will graduate first nursing students - Tue, 08 May 2012

    Thousands of students from the University of California, Davis, will participate in 13 commencement ceremonies this spring, including the first class from the new Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing.

    Commencement season begins Thursday, May 17, and concludes Sunday, June 17.

    Guest speakers will include:

    • Goodwin Liu, an associate justice of the California Supreme Court, at the commencement for the School of Law on May 17;
    • Marie V. McDemmond, president emeritus of Norfolk State University in Virginia, at the commencement for the School of Education on June 13;
    • James C. Davis, president of Chevron Energy Solutions, at the commencement for the Graduate School of Management on June 16; and
    • Secretary General Chris Buijink of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation for the Netherlands, at the commencements for the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences on June 17.

    For more about speakers, visit: http://commencement.ucdavis.edu/speakers.html.

    Commencement dates, times and locations are as follows:

    • May 17 — School of Law at 2 p.m. at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts;
    • May 19 — School of Medicine at 10 a.m. at the Mondavi Center;
    • June 13 — School of Education at 4 p.m. at the Mondavi Center;
    • June 14 — Graduate Studies at 4 p.m. in the ARC Pavilion;
    • June 15 — College of Biological Sciences at 9 a.m. in the ARC Pavilion;
    • June 15 — School of Veterinary Medicine at 10 a.m. at the Mondavi Center;
    • June 15 — College of Engineering at 3 p.m. in the ARC Pavilion;
    • June 16 —College of Letters and Science at 9 a.m., 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. in the ARC Pavilion;
    • June 16 — Graduate School of Management at 10 a.m. at the Mondavi Center; and
    • June 17 — College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. in the ARC Pavilion.

    In addition, the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing will hold a special celebration of its first graduates at 12:30 p.m. on June 14 at the UC Davis Conference Center, before students participate in the Graduate Studies commencement. About 25 nursing students are candidates for a Master of Science degree.

    Established in 2009, the nursing school admitted the first students to its master’s and Doctor of Philosophy programs in fall 2010. The school focuses on preparing graduates as educators, researchers and leaders to promote health, advance quality of care and safety, and shape policy.

    The School of Law will award 23 Master of Laws and 202 Juris Doctor degrees at its ceremony, and the School of Medicine will award 108 Doctor of Medicine, four Master of Health Informatics and 24 Master of Public Health degrees.

    Estimates of degrees to be awarded at the other ceremonies will be available in June. In 2010-11, UC Davis conferred 8,350 degrees.

    Tickets are required for all commencement ceremonies except Graduate Studies, and they are distributed to graduating students by individual schools and colleges.

    UC Davis will offer live and on-demand webcasts of each of the commencements at http://commencementvideo.ucdavis.edu/.

  • Campus tech incubator graduates first tenant - Tue, 08 May 2012

    Hear this: Dysonics, a startup based on audio technology research conducted at the University of California, Davis, is the first company to "graduate" from the UC Davis College of Engineering's fledgling high-tech business incubator, the Engineering Translational Technology Center, also known as ETTC. After less than a year of incubation, Dysonics secured $750,000 in funding from angel investors, enough to set out on its own.

    “We are very pleased to see Dysonics, our first ‘graduate,’ exit with a solid financing round under its belt,” said Harris Lewin, vice chancellor of research at UC Davis. “We are proud of the pioneering research conducted by Professor Ralph Algazi and his colleagues in the College of Engineering that made this successful spin-off possible,” he added. “UC Davis has a long track record of translating cutting-edge research into technologies with strong commercial potential, and we expect to see many more such new ventures being formed from the quality research being pursued by our faculty.”

    The Engineering Translational Technology Center was established in 2010 to help technology startups, based on intellectual property developed at UC Davis, attract support from external financial investors. The ETTC provides member companies with campus space close to the college’s laboratories as well as support, mentorship and introductions to potential investors and strategic partners.

    Members are selected for admission into the business incubator through a review process that includes an assessment of the commercial potential of the faculty research and its readiness for commercial development.

    “Within the incubator, professors can stay close to their research and teaching while they develop their ideas, and students can get experience in translational technology research," said Bruce White, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at UC Davis, director of the ETTC and former dean of the College of Engineering. “The center identifies and nurtures promising research in the college, then supports faculty in the early stages of turning their academic research into commercial products.”

    Dysonics was founded in 2011 by Algazi of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Robert Dalton Jr., an alumnus with a master's degree in engineering from UC Davis, and Richard Duda, a former research scientist at UC Davis.

    The company, which has relocated its headquarters to San Francisco, is developing products for reproducing three-dimensional, immersive sound over headphones. The technology is based on UC Davis patents stemming from years of work conducted in Algazi's laboratory at UC Davis.

    “The experience of hearing sound involves more than reproducing some acoustic vibrations at their source," Algazi said. “The shape of the head and ears, motion of the listener, and the acoustics of the room all play a role in the experience.” Algazi's research has explored how to capture and reproduce these nuances, for a more realistic, immersive listening experience.

    Dysonics plans to market its technology initially to mobile device users seeking a richer, more engaging listening experience and new ways to interact with their content on their devices. Companies can also use the Dysonics technology for better audio quality for existing media and to develop new audio products and services.

    Two other companies are currently being nurtured in the incubator. These are PutahGreen Systems, which makes software to dramatically reduce the energy needed to run networks by consolidating data traffic at less busy times, and Inserogen, which aims to grow vaccines for animal and human diseases in tobacco plants. Several other campus startups are being evaluated for potential admission into the ETTC.

    The ETTC is one of several initiatives being undertaken at UC Davis that are designed to foster entrepreneurial activities and translational research on campus and facilitate effective technology transfer and new company creation as a means of achieving the university’s mission of service to people and society. Since 2004, more than 40 new companies have been spun off from UC Davis research. The university held 375 active patents at the end of the 2011 fiscal year.

  • White House hails blind chemistry grad student as “Champion of Change” - Mon, 07 May 2012

    Henry "Hoby" Wedler, a graduate student in chemistry at the University of California, Davis, will be one of 14 individuals honored today (May 7) at the White House as Champions of Change for leading the way for people with disabilities in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).

    “STEM is vital to America’s future in education and employment, so equal access for people with disabilities is imperative, as they can contribute to and benefit from STEM,” said Kareem Dale, special assistant to President Obama for disability policy. “The leaders we’ve selected as Champions of Change are proving that when the playing field is level, people with disabilities can excel in STEM, develop new products, create scientific inventions, open successful businesses, and contribute equally to the economic and educational future of our country.”

    Wedler, who is blind, is working toward his Ph.D. in organic chemistry. Inspired by programs offered by the National Federation of the Blind in high school and with encouragement from professors, colleagues and others, Wedler gained the confidence to challenge and refute the mistaken belief that STEM fields are too visual and, therefore, impractical for blind people.

    Wedler is not only following his own passion; he is working hard to develop the next generation of scientists by founding and teaching at an annual chemistry camp for blind and low-vision high school students. Sponsored by the National Federation of the Blind, the camp's goal is to demonstrate to these students, by example and through practice, that their lack of eyesight should not hold them back from pursuing their dreams.

    Wedler was nominated by Douglas Sprei of Learning Ally, a nonprofit formerly known as Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic. The organization allowed Wedler to excel in school.

    The Champions of Change program was created as part of President Obama’s Winning the Future initiative. Each week, a different sector is highlighted and groups of champions, ranging from educators to entrepreneurs to community leaders, are recognized for the work they are doing to serve and strengthen their communities.

    To watch this event live, visit http://www.whitehouse.gov/live at 1:30 p.m. ET, 10:30 am Pacific Time today (May 7).

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