By Andy Evangelista
Without graduate students, UC research would languish. Who else would spend days on rivers and in deserts doing field work or spending seemingly endless hours in laboratories perfecting experiments? The following is just as sample of some current and past projects and achievements of graduate students and programs:
UC Berkeley
19 Nobel Prize winners, including Carol Greider in 2009, received their graduate degrees from UC Berkeley.
UC Berkeley granted its first Ph.D. degree in 1885; today it awards more doctorates than any other institution in the United States.
Its graduate alumni have been leaders in the information revolution, including inventors of the computer mouse and UNIX, developer of PowerPoint and co-founders of Sun Microsystems and Intel Corp.
UC Davis
Nathan Parker, a graduate student in transportation technology and policy, is developing models looking at bioconversion technologies, feedstock data and the biofuel supply-and-demand chain to guide policymakers in the western states who are looking to curb greenhouse gases in the next five years
Tracy Ellen Caldwell, who received her Ph.D. in chemistry, is a NASA astronaut who has logged more than 300 hours in space.
Graduate student Mariana Carlomagno is part of a UC Davis team helping rice farmers in Uruguay stop polluting their waterways — including drinking-water sources and a globally valuable nature reserve.
UC Irvine
Richard Ford, alumnus of the humanities graduate program, won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize in fiction for "Independence Day."
While a graduate student in computer science, Roy Fielding developed the now familiar "HTTP" that guides the flow of Internet information.
UC Irvine has been a pioneer in the Alliance for Graduate Education and Professoriate program, which helps underrepresented minority students become professors in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
UCLA
Graduate students in applied mathematics develop programs that allow surgeons to practice virtual heart surgery, compute densities of burglaries in Los Angeles, and even help Disney animate Rapunzel's hair.
Randy Eckert, a graduate student in microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics, created an antimicrobial that could eliminate cavity-causing bacteria in the mouth.
Research by Sharmila Lodhia, a graduate student in women's studies, provides insight into the lack of access to the legal system for women who are poor, immigrants or persons of color.
UC Merced
Ricardo Cisneros, Ph.D. in environmental systems, earned UC Merced's first doctoral degree in 2009. It was the first time a major U.S. university awarded its first doctoral degree to an underrepresented minority.
Malgorita Skorek, a Ph.D. candidate in social and cognitive sciences, received the 2009 Visual Communications Studies Top Paper Award for her article comparing gender role portrayals in magazine ads.
The campus has received numerous honors for its green and environmentally friendly buildings. Several UC Merced graduate research programs focus on sustainability and the campus' physical infrastructure.
UC Riverside
Julie Kang, a graduate student in cognitive psychology, studies what drivers see and how they respond, and her findings may help designers of dashboard displays and transportation experts who want to keep drivers' attention on the road.
In 2009, a study by graduate student Hongwei Yuan linked second-hand cigarette smoke to liver disease.
In 2008, graduate student Allison Hansen identified an organism causing millions of dollars in damage to potato, tomato and pepper crops.
UC San Diego
A group of bioengineering students led by Raj Krishnan founded a start-up company, Biological Dynamics, aimed at inexpensive and early detection systems for cancer.
Marcia McNutt, who earned her Ph.D. in Earth sciences, is the first female director of the U.S. Geological Survey, which tackles tough issues including climate change and energy independence.
Anthropology graduate student Beniamino Volta is part of a team exploring Google SketchUp to model a Mayan archaeological site.
UC San Francisco
Neuroscientist Melody Wu received the prestigious 2010 Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award. She recently led a study that found estrogen as a key player in brain circuits that drive male aggression.
Julie Theriot, an alumnus of the UCSF Program in Biological Sciences, was named a MacArthur Fellow, also known as the MacArthur "genius award," for unraveling secrets of bacterial infection.
Of graduate students conducting biomedical research, 53 percent are women, 5.3 percent international students and 14 percent underrepresented minorities.
UC Santa Barbara
Research by a team of environmental science graduate students suggested new practices for disposing of pharmaceuticals, which were showing up in treated wastewater.
Lilyann Ndanu Oyugi, a Ph.D. candidate in special education, disabilities and risk studies, recently received a major grant to study school children with disabilities in the villages of Kenya.
The Department of Chicana/o Studies is the first of its kind in the nation to offer a Ph.D.
UC Santa Cruz
In a survey of engineering schools, UC Santa Cruz ranked third in the nation in the percentage of master's degrees awarded to women (44 percent).
In 2005, UC Santa Cruz became the first UC campus to offer a Doctorate of Musical Arts in composition.
In 2008, four graduate students won first prize in a national robotics competition for their design of a solar-powered robot climber demonstrating a method to transport material into space.