News

The Association for Psychological Science selected Professors Beck, Mosely, and Yoneda as Rising Stars. This international competition identifies faculty in the earliest stages of their research career whose innovative work has already advanced the field and signals great potential for their continued contributions. 

Professor Priscilla San Souci has won the 2026 Academic Federation Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award.

Professor Camelia Hostinar has been named one of the 2025-2026 Chancellor's Fellows. The award is to recognize the outstanding achievements of early career faculty.

Professor Tamara Swaab was elected into the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities (Koninklijke Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen—KHMW)!  Election as a member is one of the highest honors bestowed on Dutch scholars and civic leaders: https://khmw.nl/nieuwe-leden-khmw-2026/

Karen Bales, a professor in the Departments of Psychology and of Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior at UC Davis, has been named director of the California National Primate Research Center. She has served as interim director of CNPRC since January 2024. Learn more here.

Wendi S. Williams, Ph.D., a UC Davis undergraduate alumna in psychology, will be the next president of the American Psychological Association. Learn more about her new position and her career here.

Professor Ariel Mosley has been selected as a Hellman Fellow for new investigators. Her project focuses on Diverse Ideologies on Perceptions of Cultural Appropriation in Interracial Interactions. 

A new study led by Professor Tiko Yoneda suggests that when older couples experience positive emotions together in everyday life, they have lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol that can cause health problems over time when elevated. The study was published in August in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Read the full story here.

Professor Luis Parra was selected as a UC Davis CAMPOS Fellow. Professor Parra’s research centers on the effects of identity-based discrimination on the identity development, neurobiological stress regulation, and psychological health of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people of color (LGBTA POC) across adolescence and emerging adulthood. 

In a first-of-its-kind study appearing in Nature Communications, Professor Stolzenberg led an interdisciplinary team from the university’s Institute for Psychedelics and Neurotherapeutics (IPN) to study effects of psilocybin in mouse mothers and found that the drug amplified anxiety and depressive-like symptoms associated with perinatal mood disorders — mental health conditions that can arise during or after pregnancy.