Graduate Student Stories

Mentorship in the life sciences plays a crucial role. One generation helps the next, and together new discoveries are made, techniques are developed and skills are honed, by both mentor and mentee.

The CBS Dean’s Mentorship Awards, which are made possible through donations to the college’s Annual Fund, recognize exceptional graduate students who have mentored undergraduate students in the lab and classroom. This year’s recipients were honored at a college award ceremony on Saturday, June 3.

In the College of Biological Sciences, principles of diversity, equity and inclusion are guiding principles. As such, an array of special DEI-related programs led by graduate students, each of whom was awarded a Graduate DEIJ Leader Fellowship for the 2022-23 academic year, will culminate in an open house event highlighting their achievements from 1:00-3:00pm on June 8, in Walker Hall. 

The final round of the UC Davis Grad Slam had a flurry of PowerPoint slides, a giant deck of cards and a stuffed monkey, but in the end the top prize went to someone talking about genetic “ghosts.”

Three graduate students in the College of Biological Sciences are among this year’s finalists for the UC Davis Grad Slam competition.

Early this year, graduate students in the Scientific Filmmaking course (ECL 290/PBG 298) shared their short films at the Ecology Film Festival, which was held at both the Bodega Bay Grange Hall and at the Veterans Memorial Theatre in Davis.

I love coffee. I love it so much that I don’t even want to tell you this: 

From Chilean tidepools to the High Sierra, 12 UC Davis graduate students traveled the world this summer in search of answers to ecology’s most pressing questions.

In the blazing 100-degree Texas sun, Jon Aguiñaga waded through polluted waters on the side of freeways to capture tiny fish, which he then ran experiments on in the garage of an Airbnb. Marissa Sandoval flew to Florida to extract sexual-selection perfumes from the green inflorescent legs of orchid bees. MJ Farruggia trekked more than 1,000 miles in the Sierra backcountry for 240 days and is “still not tired of it.”

Coral reefs are home to a spectacular variety of fish. A new study by biologists at the University of California, Davis, shows that much of this diversity is driven by a relatively recent innovation among bony fish — feeding by biting prey from surfaces. The work was published the week of July 25 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

This year’s graduate student awards emphasize the importance - and success - of mentoring younger scientists, and demonstrate the UC Davis commitment to collaboration, support and partnership that define interdisciplinary science. Graduate student awards support travel, research and professional development opportunities, and are made possible by generous philanthropic contributions to the college.

The Dean’s Mentorship Award recognizes graduate students who have demonstrated excellence in the mentorship of undergraduate students.

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.