Work by UCLA Fielding's Dr. Yifang Zhu in aftermath of Los Angeles County wildfires lauded by University of California as among "10 awesome" projects in 2025
Work by UCLA Fielding's Dr. Yifang Zhu in the aftermath of the 2025 Los Angeles County wildfires was lauded by the University of California.
10 awesome discoveries from UC research in 2025
New treatments, new technology, new ways to stay safe during disasters and new insights on the mysteries of the galaxy, our planet and our past.
2025 has been a tumultuous year for science. The federal government suspended, cancelled or delayed billions of dollars in funding to academic and government labs across the country. Courts have since paused or reversed many of these changes, but not before thousands of important research projects were affected.
The challenging environment hasn’t stopped University of California scientists from making their mark in 2025. Four UC faculty won the Nobel Prize, setting a new world record. And across all 10 UC campuses, researchers made progress against devastating diseases, invented new technologies, devised new ways to stay safe during disasters and shed light on the mysteries of the galaxy, our planet and our past.
Federal funding has made many of these and so many other UC breakthroughs possible by supporting research advances that improve lives, power America’s security and grow the country’s economic strength. That’s why UC leaders continue to speak up for science, urging Congress to invest in discovery and reject proposed cuts to federal science agencies in next year’s budget.
Read on to learn more about 10 amazing UC discoveries from the past year, brought to you by the incredible partnership between federal research funding and UC ingenuity.
Guiding recovery from LA wildfires
UCLA public health professor Dr. Yifang Zhu led the charge to install 20 air quality sensors across west L.A., giving residents across the region up-to-date data on air quality as reconstruction work moves forward after the Palisades fire.
No Angeleno who lived through it will ever forget the ordeal that began on Jan. 7, 2025, as flames fueled by hurricane-force winds tore through the communities of Altadena and the Pacific Palisades. As the fires raged, the UCLA community turned out en masse to serve meals, coordinate donations, and offer housing and support. In the months since, faculty and students in nearly every field have provided real-time information residents need to protect themselves from ongoing hazards, and to recover.
For instance, an early UCLA study found that climate change made LA’s landscape 25 percent drier on the eve of the fires, pinpointing climate as a key factor in the disaster’s severity. Nearly 20 faculty from UCLA, UC Davis and UC Irvine are part of the LA Fire Health Study, a long-term effort to track pollutants released by the fires over time and provide science-based guidance to residents about the health risks. And over 40 UCLA faculty joined an independent recovery commission that recommended dozens of specific critical policy actions to ensure an equitable and resilient recovery.
More from UCLA Magazine: Out of the ashes: How Bruin researchers are leading the way to mitigate future fire risk
READ MORE from the University of California on "10 awesome discoveries from UC research in 2025."
