Department news

Students, staff and faculty in the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences come from a wide range of cultures, from all over the world. To celebrate the strength we find in our diversity, the department for several years has placed an evergreen tree in the lobby of the Plant and Environmental Sciences building amid the year-end holidays, and invites everyone to bring a symbol of their own heritage to hang on the tree.

The UC Davis community continues to mourn the death of Trisha “Tris” Nicole Sabay Yasay, a junior in the Department of Plant Sciences. We send our deep condolences to her family. She is remembered by her friends and colleagues in plant sciences and by the campus community for her vision, energy and enthusiasm for taking what she was learning at UC Davis and using it to better the world.

Staff and faculty in the Department of Plant Sciences took time to socialize over coffee and celebrate several colleagues who have reached milestones in their employment with the University of California.

“It takes a team to be the No. 1 in the world for plant sciences, and here we honor the long service of our colleagues and staff,” said Gail Taylor, professor and department chair. “Last year, they helped us to submit 250 grant proposals, to win $35 million in external research funding and to run a world-beating stable isotope service.”

The University of California, Davis, has appointed Associate Professor Amélie Gaudin as the holder of the new Endowed Professorship in Agroecology. The position was established thanks to donations at UC Davis to support the teaching, research, and service of a professor leading research in agroecology or a related field who serves in the Department of Plant Sciences.

Poplar trees stand to transform the bioenergy market – a promising means to mitigate climate change – for the better. Michael White, an editor for the peer-reviewed science journal Nature, recently met with members of the Taylor Lab from the University of California, Davis for a tour to learn how they are developing drought-tolerant poplar trees positioned to sustainably and cost-effectively meet the challenges of our climate emergency.

The American Society of Plant Biologists, or ASPB, has released interviews with Distinguished Professor Patrick Brown and Associate Professor Troy Magney to discuss their Dennis R. Hoagland and Early Career Awards respectively.

The awards are two of the most esteemed honors given by ASPB, recognizing the world-class impact of both senior and up-and-coming researchers in the Department of Plant Sciences.  

The Department of Plant Sciences welcomes Imtiyaz Khanday as an assistant professor of plant reproductive biology and as an assistant agronomist for the Agricultural Experiment Station in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at the University of California, Davis.

Giulia Marino, a crop physiologist, is the new UC Cooperative Extension (UCCE) Specialist in Orchard Systems, and a faculty member in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis). She is primarily based at the UC Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Parlier, California, and has a second office in Wickson Hall at UC Davis.