Student stands with giant check made out to Julia Mouat for $2,500 — Julia Mouat won the UC Davis Grad Slam with her presentation, “Grandmas, Ghosts and Genes.” Teresa Dillinger, director of the GradPathways Institute for Professional Development, who served as emcee for the event, congratulates Mouat. (Karin Higgins/UC Davis)

Grandma’s Genes Top UC Davis Grad Slam

by Cody Kitaura
April 10, 2023

"The final round of the UC Davis Grad Slam had a flurry of PowerPoint slides, a giant deck of cards and a stuffed monkey, but in the end the top prize went to someone talking about genetic “ghosts.”

The winner of the rapid-fire research showcase Thursday (April 6) was Julia Mouat, a Ph.D. candidate in the College of Biological Sciences’ Integrative Genetics and Genomics Graduate Group. Her talk, “Grandmas, Ghosts and Genes,” explained her research into whether women’s smoking during pregnancy raises the risk of autism in their grandchildren. The “ghosts” in question are molecules on DNA that are believed to be responsible for switching certain genes on and off.

She will now represent UC Davis at UC’s systemwide Grad Slam, May 5, in San Francisco."

Read the full story at UC Davis News