Awards and Distinctions

(DAVIS) Christina Kim, faculty member of the Center for Neuroscience and assistant professor in the UC Davis Department of Neurology was selected as a 2023 NIH Director’s New Innovator Award recipient as part of the NIH Common Fund’s High-Risk, High-Reward Research program.

(SACRAMENTO) Born with the intent of fostering interdisciplinary research, the Large Interdisciplinary Applications in Neuroscience (LIAN) Planning Grants program will support two teams led by Drs.

UC Davis last week presented its annual Faculty and Staff Stewardship Awards, honoring three individuals considered exceptionally dedicated to building the strong relationships that are critical to the university’s fundraising efforts.

This year’s recipients are recognized as leaders in a variety of fields on the Davis and Sacramento campuses:

Charan Ranganath, a professor of psychology, core faculty member at the Center for Neuroscience and director of the UC Davis Memory and Plasticity Program, has been selected for a Psychonomic Society 2022 Mid-Career Award for his research on the science of human memory.

Christina Kim, assistant professor in the UC Davis Department of Neurology and faculty member of the Center for Neuroscience, has been selected as a 2022 Searle Scholar in recognition of her research on the molecular code that determines synaptic wiring and functional activity in neural circuits that regulate motivation.

Nine faculty from UC Davis are among 564 newly elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, announced today (Jan. 26). AAAS fellows are scientists, engineers and innovators who have been recognized for their achievements across disciplines ranging from research, teaching and technology, to administration in academia, industry and government, to excellence in communicating and interpreting science to the public.

The University of California, Davis, today named the recipients of the 2021 Chancellor’s Innovation Awards. The awards recognize faculty, project teams and community partners for their work, dedication and success in improving the lives of others and addressing the needs of our global society through innovative solutions. David E.

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) has awarded a $15.7 million grant to the UC Davis Silvio O. Conte Center, one of only 15 Conte Centers nationwide.

Psychiatric illnesses and neurodevelopmental disorders, including schizophrenia, affect 15-20 percent of the population worldwide, yet current treatments are at best only partially effective. The UC Davis Conte Center was first established in 2016 through the Center for Neuroscience to determine how maternal infection increases risk for these disorders and to identify new targets for novel treatments.

(DAVIS) Mental health research at the University of California, Davis, has received dedicated endowed support thanks to Bryan Cameron ’80, director of research and senior vice president at Dodge & Cox Investment Managers.

Cameron, a member of the UC Davis Chancellor’s Board of Advisors, gave a $1.5 million gift, to which the UC Office of the President added $500,000, to establish the C. Bryan Cameron Presidential Chair.

David Amaral, distinguished professor and Beneto Foundation Chair in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and the MIND Institute, has been elected to the prestigious National Academy of Medicine.

An autism expert, Amaral joins an elite group of physicians and scientists in the National Academy of Medicine. Only 100 new members are elected each year from the U.S. He is one of 13 UC Davis faculty members who have been elected to the Academy since its founding in 1970 and the only one from UC Davis elected this year.

Consciousness, perception, memory, behavior. Questions about how exactly our brains carry out these functions, and much more, have long tantalized neuroscientists. Definitive answers aren’t easy to come by in science, but one thing is clear to Professor W. Martin Usrey, of the Department of Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior. 

An advocate for computational and quantitative biology, CNS faculty member Mark Goldman has been appointed to the Joel Keizer Endowed Chair in Theoretical and Computational Biology. The position honors the late Professor Joel Keizer, a pioneering UC Davis faculty member and theoretical biologist who spent 28 years on campus. He died on May 16, 1999 from lung cancer at the age of 56.

Cameron Carter, MD, professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and former director of the Center for Neuroscience, is one of 19 researchers from the University of California, Davis, named in the annual Highly Cited Researchers 2018 list released by Clarivate Analytics. The list identifies exceptional scientists and social scientists who have demonstrated significant influence by publishing multiple papers that rank in the top 1 percent by citations in a particular field and year, over a 10-year period.

This year’s UC Davis Young Alumnus Award winner Richard Addante Ph.D. ’11 – only seven years out from graduating with a PhD in Neurosciecne – is already the only psychologist to participate in a NASA simulation mission to Mars. During the mission, his team helped develop NASA’s understanding of challenges that may arise for humans confined together in a long mission.