Human Development

A group of students from the University of California, Davis, spent the summer helping imagine how young people might experience the nation’s first museum dedicated to preventing violence. Through a six-week internship, they designed concepts for the Courage Museum, where exhibits will encourage visitors to practice empathy, build courage and explore the role they can play in creating safer and more connected communities.

A basic income program in Yolo County — one of the first such programs nationwide — lifted unhoused families above the California poverty line for two years. Families could, for a while, spend less time worrying about money and more time being a family, according to new University of California, Davis, research. 

The program provided a monthly stipend to 76 mostly single-parent families between 2022 and 2024, helping them gain housing, food and general wellbeing for two years. 

Teens who are lonely and those who experience conflict in their home life are more likely to act aggressively toward peers or become victims themselves. These are some of the findings in a new University of California, Davis, study that creates a detailed picture of children’s social lives by identifying patterns and predictors of adolescent social health. 

At the end of a grocery run, shoppers in Berkeley are now more likely to face fruits and nuts than candy and soda in the checkout lane. A first-of-its-kind city ordinance that took effect in 2021 requires large grocery stores and other retailers to replace sugary drinks and sweets at checkout with healthier options like water, nuts, seeds and fruit.

The UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CA&ES) is pleased to introduce Professor Adrienne Nishina as the new chair of the Department of Human Ecology. She started her new role July 1. 

Nishina has been with the department’s faculty since 2006. She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees, as well as a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Not far from the lush banks of Putah Creek sits a charming cluster of yellow cottages on the edge of campus that serves as a hub for studying early childhood development. This setting, once dedicated to the practical art of home economics, has evolved into the Early Childhood Lab School (ECLS), a place where the science of growth meets the heart of care. 

For many people, especially younger generations, social media is an integral part of their daily routines. Platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok have changed the way people communicate, share information and connect.

From concept to completion – UC Davis student Mariah Padilla has taken what she’s learned in class to help create a tool that aims to enhance a local community’s social and economic health and well-being. Padilla, a community and regional development major going into her senior year, took a community economic development course (CRD 156) last spring which empowered students to provide an assessment of food security and community violence in two neighborhoods located in South Sacramento.