About Us
The Department of Applied Science (DAS) at the University of California, Davis is a two-campus organization, with a beautiful new building containing state-of-the-art labs at the Davis Campus, and Hertz Hall, adjacent to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories. At the Davis Campus we not only have graduate research opportunities, but we also offer one of the most attractive undergraduate majors in any College of Engineering in the country: Optical Science and Engineering. This four-year program prepares students for jobs in the telecommunications, lasers, and optics industries, as well as providing an outstanding training platform for students who wish to pursue advanced degrees in applied physics, applied science, engineering, and even basic physics.
The graduate program of the UC Davis Department of Applied Science has been in existence for over forty years, and has graduated more than 350 Ph.D. students, many of whom have obtained positions in the national laboratories or in Silicon Valley companies. The program specializes in virtually all combinations of traditional fields, with emphasis on laser physics and technology, plasma diagnostics, fusion energy, accelerator technology, computational sciences, bioscience and biotechnology, materials technology, and environment/energy sciences. The Department has a core faculty of outstanding scientists, many of whom have joint appointments with national laboratories.
In addition, the Department has a number of Adjunct Professors from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. These professors accept students in their research program; such students have unparalleled access to the finest research equipment, ultra-high-speed computational facilities, and a rich environment of dynamic, cutting-edge excellence in Applied Science.
The Department of Applied Science is proud of our commitment to work with all degree students to find the right combination of disciplines to construct a research program precisely tailored to the interests of each student. With the resources of all ten campuses of the University of California and two of the national laboratories, we find the best research and course instruction in a given area of physical science available anywhere, be it a combination of laser technology and medical instrumentation or a mixture of super-computer computational studies and analytical chemistry.
To maximize your choices of science opportunities, and the prospect of excellent employment opportunities in the Bay Area and other prime locations, I encourage you to consider the Department of Applied Science at UC Davis.