Yolo County News

She’s a ‘genius’ and now she’s UC Davis’ Picnic Day parade marshal

Professor Stewart shows off Shock Compression Lab at UC Davis

Sometimes the most useful tools are unexpected and this might be said of Professor Sarah Stewart’s Shock Compression laboratory, where huge cannons are fired (indoors) to study the early history of our Solar System. By
Up Next
Sometimes the most useful tools are unexpected and this might be said of Professor Sarah Stewart’s Shock Compression laboratory, where huge cannons are fired (indoors) to study the early history of our Solar System. By

UC Davis announced Friday its picks for theme and parade marshal of the 2019 Picnic Day open house event.

This year’s event titled “Adventure Awaits” will be held on April 13. Davis professor and planetary scientist Sarah Stewart has been named parade marshal.

In October, Stewart won the MacArthur Fellow “genius” grant, which aims to encourage “people of outstanding talent to pursue their own creative, intellectual and professional inclinations,” according to the organization’s website.

The fellowship awards recipients with a stipend of $625,000 spread out in five annual installments, and the organization said they hope fellows will use the opportunity “to advance their expertise, engage in bold new work, or, if they wish, to change fields or alter the direction of their careers.”

Stewart has focused on planetary science since graduating from California Institute of Technology in 2002. She was a faculty member at Harvard University before joining UC Davis in 2014. Stewart recently published a journal article offering a new theory as to how the moon was formed, according to a news release from the university.

“Sarah Stewart’s passion for discovering the unknown and her recognition via the MacArthur Fellowship parallel going on an adventure,” Picnic Day vice chair Nicole Deacon said in the news release Friday.

  Comments