U21 Funds Three Graduate Collaborative Research Projects
Universitas 21 (U21) has announced the 2021 Graduate Collaborative Research Award projects. Graduate students were invited to apply for funding to pursue more collaborative methods of research, and were required to include in their application how they might benefit from the U21 member network. With many excellent projects from a variety of unique and vital disciplines, two of the three funded projects included graduate students from UC Davis.
Focusing on autism, gut microbiomes, and immune pathway activation, Inglis Tucker, a Ph.D. student in the Biochemistry, Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology graduate group at UC Davis received funding for their project, Microbiome-Immune Interactions In The Mouse Model of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Tucker is collaborating with the University of Auckland, the University of Connecticut, utilizing the vast global differences of each university to produce more accurate and expert-level data.
Patrick Dwyer, an graduate student who does autism research and is a Ph.D. candidate in the UC Davis department of psychology is part of the project team collaborating with the University of Hong Kong and the University of Birmingham on A Cross-Cultural Study on Knowledge and Stigma Towards Autism Among University Students in Hong Kong, the United Kingdom and the United States. Through this study, they hope to raise awareness about the stigmas towards autism in a global context.