"Congratulations on reaching this wonderful milestone! Today is a moment to celebrate and connect with fellow classmates, families and loved ones, and feel the support from our entire UC Davis family."

"When you came to UC Davis, you joined a community that’s driven to make the world a better place. You understood that academics are paramount, and you discovered that the college experience is about so much more. You learned to outgrow the expected, to exceed what’s needed and to do what’s just. And you did it all during some of the most challenging times in recent history."

Microbes found in the immature stages of a solitary bee that nests in sand cliffs along Pacific Coast beaches may be helping the bee defend itself from pathogens and protect it from cold stress, according to newly published research led by microbiologist Shawn Christensen of the Rachel Vannette Lab, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.

UC Davis doctoral candidate Shawn Christensen, who studies ecology and evolution through a microbial lens in the laboratory of community ecologist Rachel Vannette, is the 2024 recipient of the Merton Love Ecology and Dissertation Award, an annual award that celebrates the university’s most outstanding doctoral dissertation in the fields of ecology and evolutionary biology.