NEWS BRIEFS: LinkedIn goes ‘IRL’ on campus tonight

LinkedIn, the online networking site for professionals, is going “IRL” (in real life) at UC Davis tonight (April 21) at a free event for students and alumni, offering them tips on improving their LinkedIn profiles and job interview skills.

It will be LinkedIn’s first-ever such presentation at a university. The world’s largest professional network chose UC Davis because of the breadth of areas study at the university.

The Internship and Career Center is partnering with LinkedIn to present tonight’s program from 6 to 8:30  in The Pavilion at the ARC. A UC Davis student identification card or Cal Aggie Alumni Association membership card is necessary for admission. 

Students and alumni can participate in mock interviews with recruiters and hiring managers from Fortune 500 companies and receive real-time feedback; get one-on-one advice on strengthening their LinkedIn profiles; hear from UC Davis alumni on successfully transitioning from campus to career; and pose for free professional headshots to use as profile photos.

More information.

$100,000 restitution ordered in explosives case

Former UC Davis chemist David Snyder has been ordered to pay nearly $100,000 in restitution to UC Davis and Tandem Properties in connection with an explosion in his campus apartment in January 2013.

A Yolo County Superior Court judge on April 17 ordered Snyder, in jail since November 2014, to pay $81,597 to Tandem Properties, which manages the Russell Park apartments where Snyder was a tenant, and $18,162 to UC Davis for soil testing.

The laboratory and hazardous chemicals in Snyder’s apartment became known on Jan. 17, 2013, after Snyder sought hospital treatment for a hand injury caused by a small explosion. Campus police discovered unsafe chemicals in his apartment and detonated them in controlled explosions at remote sites.

In September 2014, Snyder pleaded no contest to all 17 counts against him, including weapons and explosives charges; he is serving a sentence of four years and four months, half in county jail and half under supervision. He was also ordered to pay a $20,000 fine.

Snyder, who received bachelor's and doctoral degrees in chemistry from UC Davis, had been hired for two months as a junior specialist at UC Davis. Immediately after his arrest, Snyder was put on investigatory leave. His employment with UC Davis ended on Jan. 31, 2013.

Global Food Initiative fellowships to continue

The UC President’s Global Food Initiative Student Fellowship Program is being extended for two years, 2015-16 and 2016-17, in support of student-generated research, related projects or internships that focus on food issues.

The Office of the President will continue to fund three fellowships per campus, in the amount of $4,000 per student (that’s up from $2,500 in 2014-15, the inaugural year).

“After we opened up the Global Food Initiative Student Fellowship Program, I was so impressed by the quality of the fellowship recipients — and applicants — that we decided to extend the program,” UC President Janet Napolitano said. “Students play an important role in the Global Food Initiative. We’re looking to the global food fellows to be leaders in the initiative’s efforts to address food security, health and sustainability.”


All 10 UC campuses, the Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are participating in the student fellowship program. It is open to undergraduate and graduate students, and administered at each location to ensure that student efforts align with local needs.


UC Davis’ first fellows and their projects:

  • Ryan Dowdy, graduate student, food system sustainability, converting food waste into electricity
  • Sophie Sapp Moore, graduate student, food security for the Papaye Peasant Movement in Haiti
  • Samantha Smith, graduate student in public health, scientist interviews (Smith’s fellowship is through Agriculture and Natural Resources)
  • Jessica West, undergraduate, pest management of the spotted wing drosophila

Earlier coverage: “Dozens of UC students awarded Global Food Initiative fellowships,” UC Office of the President (Dec. 9, 2014)

Center named to lung cancer ‘Dream Team’

The UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center has been named to one of Stand Up to Cancer's "Dream Teams," this one given $20 million to fight the No. 1 cancer killer in America: lung cancer.
The announcement came April 20 in Philadelphia, at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research

David Gandara, an internationally renowned specialist and the cancer center’s senior adviser for experimental therapeutics, will be a principal investigator on the lung cancer team, which is funded by the organization Stand Up to Cancer and the American Cancer Society.

Stand Up to Cancer now has 16 “Dream Teams,” including the lung cancer team and the ovarian cancer team that also was announced April 20.

Read the Comprehensive Cancer Center’s news release.

Follow Dateline UC Davis on Twitter.

Media Resources

Dave Jones, Dateline, 530-752-6556, dljones@ucdavis.edu

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