Prof. Emilija Pantic has been selected for a Graduate Program Advising and Mentoring Award. The Graduate Program Advising and Mentoring Awards recognize faculty providing outstanding service in advising and mentoring at the program level. Emilija was selected for her excellent service to our graduate program, as well as her positive impact on graduate students and colleagues.

Greg Watry, of the College of Letters and Science, wrote, "A UC Davis physicist is among the third annual cohort of Experimental Physics Investigators supported by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Associate Professor Inna Vishik, Department of Physics and Astronomy at the College of Letters and Science, joins 18 other researchers nationwide who will each receive a five-year, $1.25 million grant to pursue new research goals and explore uncharted, innovative ideas

NSF-DOE Rubin Observatory will capture the unseen cosmos: Dark matter, dark energy and millions of exploding stars

NASA selected Fiona McCluskey for a Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST) award. Fiona is a PhD student in Andrew Wetzel’s group. This $100,000 fellowship will fund two years of Fiona’s PhD project "Deciphering Galactic Disk Formation: Galactic Archaeology in a Cosmological Context”. Congratulations Fiona!

Avi Hertz, Ben Eustis-Guthrie, and Ian Lim were nominated by their students in order to recognize their teaching achievements. Ian and Ben are well known in the UC Davis graduate teaching community over at the Center for Educational Effectiveness

The Physics and Astronomy Club at UC Davis has selected a excellent and diverse cast of officers to lead the Club in the next academic year. These new officers are committed to bolstering the prowess of physics at UC Davis and in the local community. President: Stelo Xu (yqsxu@ucdavis.edu) Vice President of Physics: Justin Lemmon (jlemmon@ucdavis.edu) Vice President of Astronomy: Kat Galdamez (kigaldamez@ucdavis.edu) Secretary: Ayush Gilotra (agilotra@ucdavis.edu) Treasurer: Pahulpreet Cheema (pscheema@ucdavis.edu) Project Team Lead: Lynn Hironymous (lhironymous@ucdavis.edu) Media Manager: Yoyo Fung (cyfung@ucdavis.edu) Outreach Manager: Santi Hernandez (sohernan@ucdavis.edu) Catering Coordinator: Brian Khov (blkhob@ucdavis.edu) Picnic Day Lead: Charles Jordan (chmjordan@ucdavis.edu) Astronomy Coordinator: Oliver Ortiz Garcia (ojortizgarcia@ucdavis.edu)

Dr. Thomas Weideman been selected as the Academic Federation winner of the 2024 College of Letters and Science Teaching Award. This award recognizes outstanding teaching both inside and outside the classroom. The committee was very impressed by the excellence of Tom's teaching and his dedication to educate students in the UC Davis College of Letters and Science."

On April 27 an exciting milestone for the Vera Rubin Observatory (VRO) was reached. The 8.4 m primary mirror received its reflective coating. You can watch the process in a short video, and read about it here. This brings the observatory a critical step closer to carrying out its 10-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). UC Davis is providing significant leadership in this project. Emeritus Professor of Physics and Astronomy J. Anthony Tyson started the project in the 1990s and currently serves as the LSST Chief Scientist. Senior Researcher Craig Lage is down at the site in Chile now and reports that the construction phase of the project is nearly complete.