April 15, 2021 | Issue 18
A Message from the Vice Provost

Spring is upon us - the season of rebirth, rejuvenation and renewal - and with a new quarter underway and the veil of pandemic-induced isolation beginning to lift, it certainly feels like a fresh start. This flurry of activity and excitement can also make it feel like we’re getting pulled in a million directions. That said, it seems like an opportune time to ground ourselves and reemphasize Public Scholarship and Engagement’s role within the university.

My last message focused on our mission, vision and values, really encapsulating who we are as an office. This month I want to focus on what we do, or rather who we serve.  

Our office is dedicated to building and supporting meaningful relationships between communities and UC Davis scholars that work together to solve today’s problems and tomorrow’s challenges. Put another way, we serve those who serve others, and one of the primary ways we do this is by connecting communities to university resources through research and student learning experiences, technical assistance and training, workshops and events.

Along these lines, we are raising funds to support the Graduate Public Scholars Program. Formerly known as the Mellon Public Scholars, this program combines professional development, mentorship, interdisciplinary learning, and practical training for a uniquely transformative educational experience at UC Davis. Graduate students are paired with a faculty mentor to develop a community-based research project stemming from community-identified needs; recent foci include prescient issues such as climate crisis, racial justice and health equity. Since the program was initiated at UC Davis, it has supported over 65 graduate students and faculty members, 23 different departments, five colleges and schools, and 60 community organizations across our region and the world. Instilling in graduate students the value of public scholarship has led program alumni to find meaningful careers in research, education, policy, design, and advocacy.   

We believe this work furthers the university’s mission to serve the public in a way that is both equitable and inclusive, resulting in reciprocal and mutual benefit to California’s communities and beyond. I hope you will join us in supporting programs such as Graduate Public Scholars that enable transformational relationships between our students and communities by making a Give Day donation today!  


In community,


Michael Rios
Vice Provost, Public Scholarship and Engagement
Updates and Announcements

We have our own Give Day Challenge, and we only need 12 more gifts to unlock $3,000 for the Graduate Public Scholars program. Donations directly support students within the program and have an immediate impact on community-led projects, graduate support, ongoing partnerships, and new community collaborations.
a fence jutting into ocean: "this issue of deportation is something that does target a certain community, and I am part of that community, so through my scholarship - we always talk about what you do to contribute to the field - this is my contribution."

Our Public Scholarship Faculty Fellows program is now open to individuals who are working to develop new avenues of scholarship with high potential for public impact. This program aims to support individuals developing new publicly engaged research or scholarship, including, but not limited to: developing relationships with community partners, identifying ways to integrate scholarship with policy, applying for extramural funding or awards, and writing or presenting on their research for broad audiences. All full-time members of the UC Davis Academic Senate and non-represented Academic Federation members are eligible to apply.
Public Scholarship and Engagement welcomes the second cohort of Community Engaged Learning Faculty Fellows from a diversity of disciplines including environmental science and policy, entomology and nematology, human ecology and design. The program was established to create and improve community-based student learning experiences that will cultivate and foster a culture of engagement at UC Davis. Meet the 2021 Fellows!
We are proud to co-sponsor the 9th Annual UC Davis Native American Studies Graduate Symposium, April 26-29, 2021. Organized by and for graduate students, this conference provides opportunities for up and coming Indigenous studies scholars to share their work, make professional connections, develop presentation skills and promote the vitality and importance of Indigenous knowledges, methodologies and cultures.
a man standing in a greenhouse looking at wheat
Congratulations to Paul Kasemsap, a PhD candidate in Horticulture and Agronomy whose research explores how we can make wheat–a staple crop supplying a significant amount of protein and calories in human diet worldwide–resilient to changes in the climate system. His project highlights the need for everyone to work together to mitigate climate change and ensure global food security, a great example of public impact research.
Public Scholarship and Engagement just released our 2020 Year in Review, which provides a high-level overview of what we were able to accomplish this year. We could nit have achieved what we did without collaboration with departments, units and centers across the university and continued support from our advisory committee members, the ESEL collaborative, program participants and more. Thank you!
Recognitions and Celebrations

Congratulations to our Community Engagement Advisory Committee member, Assistant Professor Caitlin Patler for receiving the Academic Senate's Distinguished Teaching Award, and to all this year's recipients - we're especially excited to support and champion the scholarly public service awardees.

In case you missed it, our Associate Vice Provost Tessa Hill was a co-author on the most extensive study yet of how seagrasses can help buffer ocean acidification. The study carries implications for aquaculture management, as well as for climate change mitigation and conservation and restoration efforts.

With support from our Public Impact Research Initiative, Dr. Katherine Kim from the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at UC Davis partnered with the Nature Rights Council (NRC), a non-profit organization in the Klamath Basin led by Yurok Tribe member Samuel Gensaw and Amber Shelton to increase the research capacity for Yurok food sovereignty.
Events and Opportunitie

The Activist and Public Scholarship (Un)Working Group is a collaborative online series that seeks to provide a space for scholars to gather and exchange ideas about activist and public scholarship. The series is open to UC Davis graduate students and recent UC Davis graduate student alumni who do activist work and public/engaged scholarship in the arts, design, humanities and humanistic social sciences.

Event: April 20, 2021 | 1 – 2 p.m.

Join the UC Davis Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute for a virtual seminar and workshop series to explore how scientists can leverage their training and expertise to support the climate justice movement. This month's seminar features Dr. Hilda Lloréns from the University of Rhode Island.

Event: May 3, 2021 | 1 – 2 p.m.

This is the fourth and final seminar in a series focusing on environmental justice. The final webinar event in the dialogue series will explore the connections between climate justice, energy justice, and housing justice, featuring scholars Shalanda Baker, Diana Hernandez, and Sanya Carley.

Event: May 3, 2021 | 3:30 – 4:30 p.m.

In conjunction with the Global Affairs Curriculum Enhancement through Global Learning program, please join Public Scholarship and Engagement and Global Affairs for a workshop on “Community-Based Global Learning."

Event: May 7, 2021 | 2 – 4 p.m.

Join the UC Santa Cruz Institute for Social Transformation for a discussion on how we can seize the moment to help transform universities in the post-pandemic world, to be truly powerful partners in co-creating knowledge for justice.

Event: May 7, 2021 | 11 a.m. – 1 p.m.

The Center for the Advancement of Multicultural Perspectives on Social Science, Arts and Humanities (CAMPSSAH) is accepting nominations for the 2021-2022 cohort of Faculty Scholars. CAMPSSAH provides a space for these faculty to strengthen and enhance their engagement with underserved communities through their research and service, within and beyond the campus of UC Davis. Department chairs, in consultation with deans, may nominate candidates that have been interviewed and offered a position for a UC Davis Academic Senate faculty position in the social science, arts, or humanities (that is at least a 50% tenure-track/ladder-rank position).

Deadline: May 30, 2021

The Science Communication Fellowship is a nine-month program for early career PhD scientists who want to maximize the impact of their work to benefit public health and the environment, and share their passion for science. Fellows are chosen from the fields of green chemistry/engineering and the environmental health sciences, and work in academia and government. The program focus is on the skills necessary for confident and effective engagement with the range of non-scientists Fellows will encounter in their careers as they share rapidly evolving environmental health and green chemistry research.

Deadline: Final selections June 2021
In Other News
UC Davis Health has opened a COVID-19 community vaccination clinic in Sacramento’s Oak Park neighborhood – the latest in a series of rapidly emerging initiatives to immunize the medically underserved across the region.
Students at University of California, Davis, School of Medicine (UC Davis) took note of access issues with telehealth and developed a workaround at their student-run clinics.
A study by researchers from the University of California, Davis, and the American University of Beirut, found that heat inequities exist throughout the Southwest, from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Fresno, California.
Cheng says he believes that as a university we have an obligation to address these challenges and provide an equal education to all people in California. He says we need to do our share and use our expertise to create a better society and address the diversity, equity and inclusion issues in collaboration with our K-12 partners.
SpillOver is the first open-source risk assessment tool that evaluates wildlife viruses to estimate their zoonotic spillover and pandemic potential. It effectively creates a watchlist of newly discovered viruses to help policymakers and health scientists prioritize them for further characterization, surveillance, and risk-reducing interventions.
Partnering for the Public Good
At a time when our planet and its people face unprecedented challenges, UC Davis is reimagining the vital links that connect university, community and society. Philanthropic support plays a vital role in advancing UC Davis research, education and collaborations that make the world a better place. We invite the partnership of university friends who share our vision of discovery, learning and engagement for the public good. 
About Public Scholarship and Engagement
Public Scholarship and Engagement is building and supporting meaningful relationships between communities and UC Davis scholars that work together to solve today’s problems and tomorrow’s challenges. We envision a university unbound that seeks to serve the public, equitably and inclusively, resulting in reciprocal and mutual benefit to California’s communities and beyond.

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