Student Researchers

Landmark Discovery Reveals How Chromosomes Are Passed From One Generation to the Next

When a woman becomes pregnant, the outcome of that pregnancy depends on many things — including a crucial event that happened while she was still growing inside her own mother’s womb. It depends on the quality of the egg cells that were already forming inside her fetal ovaries. The DNA-containing chromosomes in those cells must be cut, spliced and sorted perfectly. In males, the same process produces sperm in the testes but occurs only after puberty.

EVE Scholar’s Summer at BML “Best Job Ever”

It’s early—almost too early to be out walking. But Leo Konefat, a rising third-year undergraduate at UC Davis and one of the 2025 EVE Scholars, has an urgent appointment with a low tide. On that first morning, getting up at dawn to reach the field site on time, the fog was low, the stars were overhead, and the foghorn’s low bleat in the distance offered a first glimpse of the coastal world he would be immersed in for the next ten weeks.

Course Inspires Next Generation of California Naturalists

Nobody knew that badgers were inhabiting an ecosystem near Davis until recently — and finding them is the kind of discovery that would excite any seasoned biologist. But that’s not who identified the rare species just last year. It was spotted by undergraduates in Laci Gerhart’s popular “Wild Davis” course (EVE 16), who have also had rare glimpses of ringtails and other species. 

Exploring the Inner Lives of Primates, Birds and Whales

The day that Josephine Hubbard met Twain, she didn’t realize at first how unusual the encounter was. 

Hubbard, who earned a Ph.D. in animal behavior in the College of Biological Sciences, is now a post-doctoral researcher at UC Davis. She is 33, five foot seven, has kind, serious eyes, and grew up in upstate New York. She’s animated as she describes the afternoon, three summers ago in Alaska, when she met Twain. Yes, it was a stilted conversation — that’s often the case when there’s a language barrier — but she’ll remember it for the rest of her life.