​​​​​​​Veterinary medicine doctoral student Amanda Crofton is helping animals and people—and advancing global education for all—right in our own backyard.

Oanh Meyer is no stranger to Alzheimer’s disease. Her everyday life revolves around caring for those who suffer from the ailment. Through her research and her experience as a caregiver, Meyer found that many Vietnamese elders lack knowledge about Alzheimer’s and wait a long time before seeking help or diagnosis.

A 2018 survey shows that mountain gorilla numbers have increased in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda, and Sarambwe Reserve, DR Congo, according to the Uganda Wildlife Authority. From July 2018 to July 2019, in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park alone, Gorilla Doctors conducted 126 health checks and performed 23 veterinary interventions to treat ill or injured gorillas.

Ramón Zermeño, a sophomore at the University of California, Davis majoring in human development, greets patients every week at Clínica Tepati, a free health care clinic serving the Sacramento area. "Being able to translate to patients that don’t understand a few words," said Zermeño. "Just knowing that the patient [will] be reassured and comfortable with having a Spanish speaking person there, that brings me happiness."

Jann Murray-García knows health inequities, policy disparities and detriments to living well in marginalized communities are best addressed in the environments where they occur, when students leave the classroom and get out in the field. For that reason, she has been working for many years with community partners and her nursing students to address health inequality in California.

Schmidt is part of a group at UC Davis studying the effects of wildfires on pregnant women and their unborn children. The goal is to find out what chemicals these women and their unborn children were exposed to and what long-term effects they could have.

Detection dogs trained to sniff out the scat of an endangered lizard in California’s San Joaquin Valley, combined with genetic species identification, could represent a new, noninvasive sampling technique for lizard conservation worldwide.

UC Davis professor of medicine and epidemiology, John Madigan has a habit of going where others wouldn’t dare, often traveling in a helicopter; but it is on these adventures, to help rescue animals in distress.

When medical student Pauline Nguyen was recently awarded one of the most prestigious medical education scholarships in America – the Herbert W. Nickens Medical Student Scholarship – it confirmed that both Nguyen and UC Davis are national leaders in addressing health inequities.

Laura L. Van  Auker has been a nurse practitioner for nearly 40 years. In addition to her decades in private practice, she also serves as an assistant clinical professor in the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at UC Davis. But it is her deep commitment to public health that has run steady throughout her entire career.