Spotlight on…
Image: Remote-controlled helicopter

Look, Mom, no pilot!

Professor Ken Giles and a development engineer are flying a remote-controlled helicopter over UC’s Oakville Experimental Vineyard in the Napa Valley, to study the copter’s possible benefits to U.S. agriculture, for applying herbicides and pesticides. Japan has been using such helicopters to spray rice fields for 20 years — but there’s been no U.S. testing until now. [ More, with video… ]

NEWS SUMMARY

More stories at Dateline UC Davis and UC Davis News and Information

Chancellor expresses gratitude in year-end message

Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi celebrates faculty, staff and students for their contributions to the university, and for individual achievements that led to national and international accolades for the university as a whole. [ More… ]

IET Vice Provost Pete Siegel takes similar post at USC

Pete Siegel, vice provost of Information and Educational Technology and chief information officer here since 2006, is leaving UC Davis for a similar post at the University of Southern California, with 40,000 students and 23,600 faculty and staff. [ More… ]

Undergraduate Research Center gets first faculty director

Angelique Louie, professor of biomedical engineering, will strengthen the Undergraduate Research Center’s ties with faculty — with a goal of identifying new strategies to connect students with mentors and research opportunities. [ More… ]

Hero dog going home to the Philippines

See the “new” Kabang upon her discharge after eight months of treatment at the Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital. First the staff dealt successfully with her heartworm disease and cancer. Then surgeons closed a gaping facial wound — suffered when she got between a motorcycle and two little girls, in what many people believe was a deliberate move to save the children. [ More, with video… ]

Professor: Dispersants important tool in oil-spill toolbox

In an interview with Chemical & Engineering News, Professor Ron Tjeerdema defends the use of chemical dispersants in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill three years ago, but he’s cautious about how other scientists are doing follow-up research. If it isn’t done right, he says, emergency officials may hesitate to use dispersants in the future — even though, Tjeerdema says, they are useful when used safely and correctly. [ More… ]

LAURELS: Young, Trexler win U.S. grant for work in Vietnam

The U.S. government’s Vietnam Education Foundation has awarded a U.S. Faculty Scholar grant to Glenn Young, Department of Food Science and Technology, and Cary Trexler, School of Education. … Plus, honors for Lisa Thompson, Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology; Michael Barbour, plant sciences; and “Hap” Dunning, law. [ More… ]

Breathe Free: Tobacco-free policy takes effect Jan. 1

The Davis campus and all of UC gear up for a strict prohibition on smoking, the use of smokeless tobacco products and the use of unregulated nicotine products (e-cigarettes), indoors and outdoors, including parking lots and residential spaces. [ More… ]

NEWS BRIEFS: Nursing school adds master's degree programs

The Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing expands its graduate programs this summer to include master’s degree offerings for aspiring nurse practitioners and physician assistants. … UC Davis has a new agreement with the Comunidad de Madrid to increase intellectual, academic, scientific, business and cultural relations. … UCPath, the PPS replacement, is scheduled to launch here Jan. 1, 2015. … Did you know you can send old batteries and used plastic pens through campus mail for recycling? [ More… ]

DIRECTIVES and ANNOUNCEMENTS

No directives or announcements were issued this week.

EVENTS

EXHIBITIONS: Celebrating student art

Today and Saturday, June 7 and 8

Opening reception today for the 2013 Master of Fine Arts Exhibition at the Nelson Gallery; and open house and reception Saturday at TANA, where interns are showing their screen prints. The Nelson event is indoors and out, with an adjacent field serving as the venue for a student’s depiction of two breaching whales. [ More, with slideshow… ]

Open house: How to Find Insects

Sunday, June 9, 1-4 p.m., Bohart Museum of Entomology, 1124 Academic Surge

The museum’s last open house of the academic year, offering one more opportunity to visit the Bohart on a weekend (when the museum is normally closed). [ More… ]

Creative Writing Farewell Reading

Wednesday, June 12, 7 p.m., Wyatt Deck, arboretum

Master of Arts students read from their theses, in this second annual event, presented by the Creative Writing Program and the arboretum. [ More… ]

Shakespeare in the arboretum: As You Like It

Thursday-Sunday for three weeks, June 13-30, gazebo

The Davis Shakespeare Ensemble presents one of the Bard's most celebrated comedies, substituting the hills and trees of Appalachia (as played by the arboretum!) for the forest of Arden. [ More… ]

More calendar listings…