Isabel Montañez, the winner of the 2021 UC Davis Prize for Undergraduate Teaching and Scholarly Achievement, is an expert in ancient climate change. She’s pictured in front of equisetum plants on campus, which she calls “living fossils” because their ancestors evolved more than 300 million years ago. (Karin Higgins/UC Davis)
Although she grew up speaking Spanish and French, like many children who immigrated to the United States, Distinguished Professor Isabel Montañez struggled with English in high school and college. One university professor told her she would never graduate, Montañez recalled.
Those difficult experiences inform her interactions with undergraduates at UC Davis. For Montañez, that means respecting every student as an individual and taking time to recognize and support their goals. “She made me feel like a priority even while she was teaching classes, reviewing scientific papers and traveling around the world for research projects,” said former student