Dr. David Harris founded the Stable Isotope Facility at the University of California, Davis in 1997. Since then the facility has grown to support well over 190,000 analyses annually from academic, governmental, and private clients in California and from around the world. To meet this demand, the SIF now employs twelve full-time staff, including three PhD-level academic staff. Currently, the SIF houses 14 isotope-ratio mass spectrometers and a cavity ring-down spectrometer, as well as a wide range of supporting analytical and sample preparation equipment.
The facility offers a graduate fellowship program in stable isotope studies and participates in collaborative research in the application of stable isotopes with scientists. The diversity of analytical capabilities provided by the SIF offers University of California, Davis faculty and students access to the latest technology in stable isotope analysis.
The SIF is a campus wide facility, housed in the Plant & Environmental Sciences Bldg. and administrated by the Department of Plant Sciences. A steering committee aids in the direction of the facility and presently consists of Drs. Chris Van Kessel, Arnold Bloom, and William Horwath.
The SIF Celebrates 20 Years of Service
December 1, 2017 marked the SIF’s 20th anniversary. To celebrate, the SIF hosted an open house with refreshments and door prizes for free analyses.
How has the SIF been a part of your research? In commemoration of our 20th anniversary, we are compiling a list of articles for our website. Please email sif@ucdavis.edu with your citations, including DOI if applicable.
