News

In honor of International Women’s Day on March 8, the University of California, Davis, College of Engineering recognized some key female engineers  in recognition for how they inspire inclusion in engineering. Among those recognized were two researchers from the UC Noyce Initiative: Child Family Professor in Engineering Chen-Nee Chuah and Associate Professor Marina Radulaski.

The following are excerpts from the Q&A featuring Chuah and Radulaski:

In February 2024, National Geographic prominently featured the work of UC Noyce Initiative researcher and neuroscientist from UC Santa Barbara, Emily Jacobs, in an article that focuses on how the brain changes throughout the menstrual cycle. 

Congratulations to UC Noyce Initiative researcher Brittany Dugger, Ph.D. for being named one of the 2024 Chancellor's Fellows for UC Davis. Dugger was one of nine early career academics who were given this title in recognition of doing exemplary work.

“These outstanding faculty members are some of our brightest and most promising scholars,” UC Davis Chancellor Gary S. May said. “I know they will continue to impress and shine a light on the groundbreaking work happening here at UC Davis. I expect this recognition and support will help propel them to even greater heights.”

UC Noyce Initiative researcher Yoshimi Fukuoka, Ph.D., R.N., F.A.A.N, was recently (Jan 26) named one of UC San Francisco's "24 People to Watch in 2024."

Ann Schmeltz Bowers, a technology industry executive pioneer and longtime philanthropist who inspired the founding of the UC Noyce Initiative, died on January 24, 2024, at her home in Palo Alto, California. She was 86.

Among the many accomplishments UC Noyce Initiative researchers realized in 2023, UC Noyce Initiative research Ziad Obermeyer was name among one of the top 100 leaders in artificial intelligence by TIME.

Learning more about women's brains, protecting the grid from cyberattacks, exploring the capacity of quantum computing — these are transformational research projects being pursued because of a new, five-campus, University of California consortium called The UC Noyce Initiative. 

Two UC Noyce Initiative researchers are co-authors of a recently published a collaborative study investigating the extent to which interactions with smart speakers, like Amazon's Echo devices, are being used for ad targeting.

In mid-2022, Instagram began asking an assortment of its users to complete a survey about their race, ethnicity and gender. By the end of the year, a huge number of people had filled out the survey, which was part of a new effort to ensure that the social media platform was fair and inclusive.

Behind the scenes, Professor Dawn Song, PhD, an expert in computer security and privacy, was helping ensure that the sensitive data was staying safe while still enabling researchers to analyze it.

When he was 12 years old, Hartmut Haeffner got his first computer— a Commodore 64. On the C64, Haeffner learned to program, first for fun and then as a job, using the computer to track sporting events in his native Germany. He was fascinated with both what the computer could do, and the underlying technology that made it possible.