UC Davis to create 250 jobs with stimulus funds

UC Davis to create 250 jobs with stimulus funds
Sacramento Business Journal - by Kelly Johnson Staff writer
Friday, October 30, 2009

The University of California Davis will be able to hire 250 people as a result of federal stimulus funds, including 53 people who have already been put to work.

The UC Davis job numbers were announced Friday as part of a national report from the White House on initial outcomes from the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and are based on an analysis of $69.9 million in stimulus awards the campus had received as of Sept. 30. UC Davis has submitted requests for more than $500 million in stimulus dollars.

So far awards to UC Davis have created 53 full-time jobs on campus, ranging from lab technicians to professors, a news release said. At least 200 more workers will be needed soon to carry out research projects funded by stimulus money, UC Davis officials say.

“In addition to creating and preserving jobs in a difficult economy, these grants will support important research in medicine, basic sciences and engineering that will have long-term benefits for the economy of California and the nation — and they will help us to train the next generation of scientists,” Barry Klein, UC Davis vice chancellor for research, said in a news release. “Moreover, we are optimistic that discoveries made in the course of stimulus-funded research will create new enterprises and additional long-term, sustainable jobs.”

Some of the 174 stimulus grants the university has received as of Sept. 30 include:

* $2.3 million to study the spread of tuberculosis
* $2 million to develop a new, more powerful electron microscope
* $1.5 million to the Clinical and Translational Science Center, which tries to bring promising medical research to the bedside
* $780,000 for research on building foundations that can withstand earthquakes
* $685,000 for cardiovascular research
* $548,000 for tools for predicting outbreaks of West Nile virus
* $490,000 to study the use of ultrasound in cancer treatment
* $478,000 for influenza virus studies
* $379,000 to explore causes of autism
* $378,000 for engineering and implanting replacement knee joint tissue
* $330,000 for technology that could lead to new materials for storing data
* $240,000 for research on cobalt water-splitting catalysts, a possible source of clean energy
* $206,000 to explore use of virtual reality technology for social-skills training of children with autism.