Postbaccalaureate Research Education Program at UC Davis

PREP@UC Davis alumni continue to make substantial contributions to improving access to STEM.

Jonathan Amezquita (PREP@UCD 2018 cohort) just presented his exit seminar at the University of Washington, with Dan, Carole, and mentor JoAnne Engebrecht watching on zoom. Beautifully executed and an impressive amount of very cool work on the regulation of sensory neurons in C. elegans. 

You can read the publication from the first part of his dissertation at PLoS Genetics, 2024 Dec 13;20(12):e1011496. A second manuscript is in review.

Dr. Iván Olaya gave the UC Davis Molecular and Cellular Biology seminar yesterday, Chromosome asynapsis and unrepaired DNA double-strand breaks fail to elicit a strong meiotic prophase checkpoint response in zebrafish. In presenting his dissertation research, he told a detailed story about his meticulous work to investigate the mechanisms that regulate repair of double-strand breaks in zebrafish DNA. 

We've heard from a few of our alumni.

November addition: Colton Baumler now is a Fellow of the UC Davis Professors for the Future. His project focuses on training graduate students to use modern research tools to help organize their projects. UC Davis folks, watch for notices of upcoming workshops.

September version:

From Johnny Vertiz at UC Irvine:

Our chests are puffing out with pride! Congrats to Maribel Anguiano for coauthoring a review published in this week's issue of Science!

The paper summarized new tools from chemical biology that scientists can use to monitor neuromodulator and neuropeptide signals in awake organisms. 

Neuromodulator and neuropeptide sensors and probes for precise circuit interrogation in vivo

J. Muir, M. Anguiano, and T. Kim.

To close out the year on an energetic note: Emari Mann created a TikTok to depict a typical day in her life as a PREP@UCD scholar: professional development, research, social time with her cohort, and more research.

Check it out!

Clarification: the postbacc program is PREP@UC Davis, which differs from the one referenced by a commenter. 

Thanks, Emari! We will miss you and the others in the 2023-2024 cohort!

Iván Olaya, a UC Davis alumnus and PREP@UCD scholar from our founding cohort, has received an IRACDA postdoctoral fellowship at UCLA! 

The UCLA IRACDA program awards postdoctoral fellowships to scholars who have demonstrated interest in academic careers and promoting DEI in STEM disciplines. In addition to mentored research, the program supports its fellows with training in pedagogy and a faculty-mentored teaching experience at partner institution CSULA.

The College of Biological Sciences wrote a iovely profile of the 2023-2024 PREP@UCD cohort! Check it out when you have a chance!

There's lots of celebratory joy out our way... our PREP scholars have made decisions about their destinations for next year.

Count 'em, four.

We are proud and happy (i.e., giddy and thrilled) to announce (i.e., shout to the world) that four PREP@UCD scholars from the 2023-2024 cohort received fellowships from the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program. And one affiliate who joined partway through the 2022-2023 program year received an Honorable Mention. 

From time to time (often coinciding with the drafting of our annual progress report...), we'll post an update on scholars' work resulting from their research as PREP scholars.

Cameron Vasquez from the 2023 cohort recently published a preview article with his mentor, John Albeck

In November, the PREP@UCD scholars made our annual pilgrimage to ABRCMS for a few days of science, networking, professional development, and reconnecting with alumni, friends, and colleagues. Since 2018, ABRCMS has been an important part of our fall program, and this year was no exception. 

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a science philanthropy that seeks to advance basic biomedical research and science education to advance humanity, today announced the 2023-2024 cohort of HHMI Gilliam Fellows. This program recognizes graduate students and their advisors for outstanding research and work to increase inclusion in science.

Members of the 2022-2023 cohort of PREP have figured out destinations for graduate study. They all were accepted into top schools in their fields, and for some, the final choice of program was very very difficult because they had totally amazing choices.

Congratulations to PREP@UCD scholars Arielle Hancko and Johnny Vertiz for being awarded NSF GRFPS! And PREP@UCD alum Brayan Vilanova, now at Cornell, received one too!

And alums Brandy Weathers (USC) and Kaitlynn Gov (UT Southwestern) received honorable mentions!

We're so proud of ALL of our PREP scholars and alums -- they've learned so much and we look forward to seeing all that they do in their careers.