Education

Congratulations to Mandy Rousseau, advisor for the Marine and Coastal Science major, who was selected from a very competitive field for a 2023 NACADA Global Outstanding Advising award.

From the award notification: "Established in 1983, the NACADA Global Awards Program for Academic Advising honors individuals and institutions making significant impact on academic advising. NACADA is a representative and advocate of academic advising and those providing that service to higher education.”

We celebrate all of you and the enthusiasm, passion, and dedication to marine science that has brought you here, and will lead you to revolutionize scientific understanding of our field, communicate, connect, and engage with communities, and become educators, researchers, and world-changers.

While the wettest storm season in California’s recorded history crushed roofs and swelled snowbanks in the Sierra Nevada, the state’s coastal communities suffered plenty of their own losses. The casualties included waterside businesses swamped by storm surges, fishing piers smashed by rising seas, and coastal roads collapsed by debris flows.

CMSI Affiliate Mei Blundell is among the winners of the 2023 National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) awards. The purpose of the NSF GRFP is to ensure the quality, vitality, and diversity of the scientific and engineering workforce of the United States. GRFP seeks to broaden participation in science and engineering of underrepresented groups, including women, minorities, persons with disabilities, and veterans.

Brian Gaylord, a professor in the Department of Evolution and Ecology, part of the College of Biological Sciences, has been awarded a Distinguished Teaching Award for outstanding undergraduate teaching. An enthusiastic and passionate lecturer, Professor Gaylord creates a learning environment that supports students tackling difficult topics, together. He emphasizes critical thinking and understanding processes over memorization, and he engages students in effective and thought-provoking ways.

Congratulations to Genece Grisby, a UC Davis Marine and Coastal Science undergraduate major, who is one of the recipients of a 2023 Aquarium of the Pacific African American Scholarship.

Distinguished Professor Walter Leal is shining a spotlight on some of our newest emeriti, featuring them in a video and a lecture series. The next talk, by paleobiologist Geerat Vermeij, is scheduled for 3 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 15.

You can find us in the middle of everywhere! Join UC Davis interns Dawson and Alexa on a journey to the coast, where they meet up with Dr. Ellie Fairbairn and Dr. Suzanne Olyarnik at the Bodega Marine Laboratory and Bodega Marine Reserve. Along the way, they'll see the gorgeous coastline, meet furred, feathered and finned friends, and show you where to grab a tasty meal in Bodega Bay.

Sentiments of gratitude for commitment and personalized attention to graduate students were among the testimonials spoken about this year’s winners of Graduate Program Advising and Mentoring Award winners.

Please join us in congratulating Dr. Andrew Whitehead, a professor in the Department of Environmental Toxicology at the University of California Davis, who was among the 30 faculty members who won the 2022 award.

The UC Davis Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and the Center for the Advancement of Multicultural Perspectives on Science (CAMPOS) welcomes six new faculty to its 2022 cohort of Faculty Scholars! They will be officially recognized during the CAMPOS Induction Ceremony on November 4, 2022 at the Manetti Shrem Museum.

Students from 2021's BIS 124 (Coastal Marine Research) class won first and third prize, plus two honorable mentions, in the 2022 Research Rockstars Undergrad Slam Video Contest. Congratulations to Su Chung and Yessica Gonzalez for winning first prize, Michaela Lai and Nicole Cox for winning third prize, and Tena Dhayalan, Adri Penix, Jacquie Rajerison, and May Schulz for their honorable mentions.

Watch the winning videos

The Coastal and Marine Science Institute is pleased to announce the ten recipients of the UC Davis Bilinski fellowship at Bodega Marine Laboratory for 2022-2023. Russell J. and Dorothy S. Bilinski’s life goal was to be “independent and challenged intellectually.” They strongly valued self-sufficiency, a sense of ambition, and above all, responsibility.

We are delighted to announce that Dr. Alyssa Griffin will start a position as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at UC Davis on July 1, 2022!

We welcome Dr. Griffin’s continued collaboration with the Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute as she transitions from being a Postdoctoral Fellow to an Assistant Professor, and hope that you will join us in congratulating Dr. Griffin and welcoming her to this new role.

About Dr. Griffin:

Stress can test our limits to the utmost and, sometimes, it can push us to become more resilient than ever before. From the Bodega Marine Laboratory to the oyster flats of Tomales Bay, exploring how stress builds resilience has been at the heart of Priya Shukla’s research for the last several years. She is compiling a doctoral dissertation focused on how we might teach some species to tolerate warmer waters and in essence, “climate-proof” them against shifting temperatures.

Public Scholarship and Engagement is proud to announce the inaugural cohort of UC Davis graduate students who were accepted into the competitive Public Scholars for the Future fellowship. This program, which launched in spring 2022 in partnership with UC Davis Graduate Studies, is designed to support doctoral students in developing community-engaged research with non-university partners.

CMSI Affiliates Hollis Jones (Ecology), Andrea Odell (Ecology), and Meghan Zulian (Earth and Planetary Sciences) are among the 11 doctoral candidates chosen.