Undergraduate Stories

Abiel Malepeai is guided by an old Samoan proverb that translates to English as “The pathway to leadership is service.” The recent UC Davis graduate has advocated for Pacific Islander students, served as a student EMT with the UC Davis Fire Department and helped meet the basic needs of students.

The college’s top graduating seniors were honored for their achievements at an award ceremony on Saturday, June 3. The event included both college and campus awards.

With promising futures ahead for each, the students took to the mic upon receiving their awards to share their post-graduation plans, including remaining at UC Davis for graduate school, attending medical school and continued volunteer and community service efforts.

Earlier this month, the UC Davis Library announced the 2023 winners of the library’s Lang Prize! Now in its seventh year, the Norma J. Lang Prize for Undergraduate Information Research recognizes students who make exceptional use of library resources and services — such as primary source materials and special collections, online databases and journal articles, interlibrary loan services, or consulting with a librarian.

The Arboretum and Public Garden at UC Davis is about to get a fresh set of water quality data after students fanned out earlier this month along the Arboretum Waterway to measure salinity and fecal coliform levels.

The three-hour session began with a lecture, then moved to the Arboretum for sampling and back to a lab to analyze what students collected. The information will be shared with Arboretum management to help provide a glimpse into the health of the creek.

Growing up, Majken Horton (pronounced MY-ken; B.S. ’22) always wanted to know how things worked. She’d study the property she lived on with her parents in Loomis, Calif., and spend summers exploring Alaska with them. Her parents, both UC Davis alumni and salmon biologists, encouraged her to investigate the tiny ecosystems she found and look them up in books to learn their ways.

Though animals respond well to music, humans are usually the ones to choose it. To change this, a senior design team in the College of Engineering developed a device that lets horses choose which music they want to listen to.

When UC Davis student Madison “Madi” Burns joined the Davis Rewilding Society during her freshman year, it helped bring her future into focus. The second-year landscape architecture major said she has developed a much better understanding of the importance of native plants from her involvement with the student-run organization.

“Being part of the club has really expanded my knowledge and has made an impact on what I want to do with my life and my career,” Burns said. “I want to design spaces to incorporate native species.”

When McKensey Middleton holds horse reins, every slight movement conveys something. Where she places the reins on the horse’s neck gives the horse direction, a path; a tug on them signals for the horse to stop or slow down.

“When you watch a rider, you’re really watching them communicate with the horse,” said Middleton, ’22 B.S. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. “Your legs, your voice, your hands, you’re using these things to communicate with the horse.” 

Each year, CBS undergraduates who have demonstrated exceptional academic performance are invited to join the Phi Sigma Biological Sciences Honor Society, Gamma Delta Chapter. Each year’s cohort of student leadership help engage with and administer society activities.

Six top graduating seniors were honored for their achievements at a luncheon on Monday, June 6, 2022, in the Green Hall courtyard. College leadership, faculty, friends and family attended the celebration of the students’ individual and collective accomplishments. Each received awards that recognized their research, community service and academic achievements.