Children in Maripá de Minas don’t think of pursuing a higher education, likely because they don’t know what opportunities await them in Brazil or beyond. Isabella Loureiro Muller Costa, a third year Ph.D. candidate at UC Davis and Brazil native, plans to show these students what their future could entail with her outreach efforts.
Materials Science and Engineering Ph.D. candidate Pallavi D. Sambre is taking the first steps toward engineering lifelike artificial materials that reconstitute a cell’s ability to change their membrane shape to move from one part of the body to another.
The natural curiosity about the world Sevag Momjian '22 has always had led him to materials science and engineering, and he's excited to help the field realize its potential to solve some of the greatest challenges of the 21st Century.
The Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) celebrated its graduating seniors from the class of 2022 during the Senior Send-off held on Sunday, June 12, 2022. The graduates and their families were invited to Kemper Hall after the main graduation ceremony held at UC Davis Health Stadium to recognize and celebrate their accomplishments.
After completing a bachelor's degree in philosophy, Chad Serrao '22 decided to go back to school to pursue engineering and became hooked on materials science and engineering and looks forward to playing a role in using the field to build a sustainable future.
Avery Adams '22 was drawn to materials science and engineering because of the versatility of the field that allows her to do both experimental and applied work for a wide range of fields.
Pooja Rao '22 thought she would get her B.S. and immediately leave academia, but she developed a love for research as part of Assistant Professor Roopali Kukreja's group and decided to continue her studies as a master's student.
Meghna Srivastava is this year’s recipient of the of the College of Engineering’s Jeffery C. Gibeling Master’s Thesis Excellence Award, which recognizes the M.S. student who has submitted the best master's thesis. Srivastava earned her M.S. in materials science and engineering under the mentorship of Associate Professor Marina Leite.
Second-year materials science and engineering Ph.D. student Margaret Duncan, part of Associate Professor Marina Leite’s lab, received a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship. The fellowship is the oldest and one of the most prestigious of its kind and it recognizes and supports outstanding STEM graduate students who have the potential to become knowledgeable experts and significantly contribute to research, teaching, and innovation.
One of materials science and engineering major Ethan Suwandi’s favorite things to do is “nerd out” about materials with his friends, classmates and professors at UC Davis.
“It’s very cathartic, at least for me,” he said. “Materials is a niche topic that you can’t discuss with many people, so I think all of us would take the chance to say, ‘look at this cool thing I found’ or ‘look at this cool thing I’m researching and let me tell you all about the mechanisms behind it!’”
