November 10, 2022 by The California Aggie

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VOLUME 143, ISSUE 8 | THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2022

NEW 360-DEGREE MULTISENSORY ROOM LAUNCHED FOR FOOD PRODUCT RESEARCH AT UC DAVIS The immersive room simulates real-life environments with visuals, air conditions, scents and sounds BY KAYA DO-KHANH campus@theaggie.org The Department of Food Science and Technology at UC Davis has launched a new multisensory immersive room for testing sensory science and consumer behavior research, according to a recent press release. The 360-degree real-life environment experience is located in the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science’s Sensory Building. The room has six video projectors that, according to the release, display highdefinition videos on the walls featuring diverse environments like hiking trails and restaurants. The scenery can be changed using an electronic tablet. The immersive room appeals to the senses in different ways. Controlled heating lamps, misters and fans can adjust the room’s temperature, a variety of scents can be released to alter the smell and sounds that produce spatialized audio can be played through mounted speakers. Julien Delarue, an associate professor in sensory and consumer science, started working on the project to redesign a pre-existing sensory lab that consisted of standard sensory booths around a year and a half ago. He said that it took almost a full year to complete the remodeling. Delarue is currently planning to use the room to test how different environmental cues affect consumers’ reactions to food products. His first experiments in the multisensory room will be conducted with energy bars, and he said that he hopes there will be different reactions to the product in a more real-life setting than in a standard lab. “It’s nothing like a lab, and for me, that’s very important, because that was the goal,” Delarue said. ”It’s really not what you expect. They’re coming to a lab, and then they’re immersed in that environment.”

In regards to the future of the 360-degree multisensory immersive room, Delarue said there is a possibility of installing the same sensory immersive rooms in other locations around campus and even across California. He also said that the immersive room could be used for other departments, such as for

creative purposes in design. “In terms of research, it’s an extremely powerful tool,” Delarue said. “There could be different usage for creativity, design or education.” Christopher Simmons, the chair of the Food Science and Technology Department, said that this ability to

depict life-size environments could be a new way of teaching other food science concepts, such as the inspection of food processing and service facilities or creating virtual tours of industrial facilities and agricultural field sites. “Going forward, the multisensory immersion room will transform how

many food products are evaluated by enabling research related to the interactions between consumers, food, and their surroundings,” Simmons said via email.

The Department of Food Science and Technology launches their new sensory immersive room which will be used for more authentic product testing. (Christine Minarik / Aggie)

UC DAVIS’S LOVE LAB IS HERE TO REMIND CITY OF DAVIS APPROVES STUDENTS OF THE IMPORTANCE OF SEXUAL NEW WINTER SHELTER WELL-BEING PLAN, PARTNERSHIP WITH DOWNTOWN STREETS TEAM Through comprehensive education, the Love Lab is advocating for sexual health on campus BY UMAIMA EJAZ features@theaggie.org

The UC Davis Love Lab, founded in 2007 and located on the third floor of the Student Health and Counseling Services (SHCS) building, is a mobile cart that offers educational materials, rapid testing kits for sexuallytransmitted infections, safe sex products such as condoms and birth control and merchandise for students. But the Love Lab does much more than supply students with condoms and coveted stickers, according to Blake Flaugher, a sexual well-being specialist in the Health Education and Promotion (HEP) Department at SHCS. “Our work is about life and death and not just throwing condoms at people,” said Flaugher. It’s true, Flaugher’s work is a lot more than just selling students commonly available products — it involves frequent collaboration with other student groups to create awareness around sexual health initiatives for students. This includes educating students about reproductive health, consent, communication, sexual violence prevention and safer sex. Flaugher has been working at UC Davis SHCS for six years and said that he thinks sex education is “more important than ever” since Roe v. Wade, a Supreme Court case that legalized abortion nationwide in the United States, was overturned in 2022,

READ MORE ASUCD ENTERTAINMENT COUNCIL’S SUNSET FEST BRINGS TOGETHER UC DAVIS COMMUNITY

Directors, volunteers and performers share what makes the cost-free concert so memorable. SEE PAGE 4

Downtown Streets Team to work with City of Davis to set up winter shelter, offer pay and support for unhoused community

BY LA RISSA VASQUEZ city@theaggie.org

The Love Lab is located at the HEP office on the third floor of the Health and Wellness Center. (Kazim Jafri / Aggie) according to Planned Parenthood. But despite the importance of the topic, he thinks that because of the stigma surrounding sex, many people undermine the seriousness of sexual and reproductive health work. Stephanie Ha, a fourth-year human development major and student coordinator with the sexual wellbeing team of the HEP, said that while presenting at residence halls, the team sometimes faces behavior from students that is disrespectful or otherwise conveys a lack of interest in the presentation. “Educating them is our goal,” Ha said. “If they ask us something that they think is funny or disrespectful, we answer it very seriously to give them the best care that we can provide. And that usually that kind of makes them and the people around them realize that we are a resource, and we are here to support them. [Student coordinators] make sure that, if anything does get a bit too out of hand at the forefront, they handle it, and we only deliver a presentation if we are comfortable.” Allyson Kahn, who, like Ha, is a fourth-year human development major and student coordinator with the sexual well-being team, said that talking about sex can be difficult. She said that because sexual activity is such a personal matter, tackling a project centered around sexual health in a respectful way can be challenging. Every quarter, the students involved

with the Love Lab read books and articles and discuss different aspects of sexual health in order to become better equipped to provide information to students. “We are in charge of reading ‘Sexual Citizens: A Landmark Study of Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus,’ [which is] a book by Jennifer S. Hirsch and Shamus Khan,” Kahn said. “It’s a chapter a week. Then, we discuss it at the end of the week at our weekly meeting. In the past, […] we were each in charge of bringing in an article to the meeting […] It definitely changes quarter to quarter, but we’re making sure that we have some way of taking in material about sexual health while we’re doing the work.” The Love Lab team also gets a lot of feedback and information from the students that they serve. “We’re always doing a survey, a focus group, putting polls on our Instagram stories,” Flaughter said. “We really try to get a lot of student feedback so that it is student-centered, and so that we can tailor information and resources that way.” But it isn’t all serious conversations. The Love Lab acknowledges that sex is supposed to be fun. They hold Kahoot game nights at residential halls to engage with students and educate them on sexual health and safety in fun ways as well. LOVELAB on 6

On Oct. 18, at their weekly meeting, Davis City Council passed two proposals aimed to better support people experiencing homelessness in Davis: creating a 2022-2023 Emergency Winter Shelter and piloting a Downtown Streets Team (DST) program. The Council unanimously voted for both. According to Chris Richardson, the Chief Program Officer of the Downtown Streets Team, the program will employ a 15-member team of unhoused people in the Davis community to clean areas around the city. In exchange, each team member will receive a stipend for basic needs and a case management representative to help them establish more permanent housing and employment. “When we launch, we want to be a vital part of the community’s fight against homelessness and to build partnerships with other service providers that are long lasting,” Richardson said. “A big part of the goal is to provide a low barrier entry point for unhoused

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individuals to meet their basic needs to go from survival mode to goal setting mode.” Case managers work extensively — 20 hours or more a week on average — according to Richardson. Each team member develops employment and interpersonal skills, receives assistance with building their resumes, preparing for interviews, increasing financial literacy, and applying to federal and state resources, according to the DST website. “We provide a low barrier way for folks to start addressing their basic needs and engage with community resources, including affordable housing to put them on a path to long term selfsufficiency and housing,” Richardson said. Although the DST program cannot provide physical shelter, the city of Davis will be contracting with the Davis Community Meals and Housing (DCMH) organization to operate an emergency winter shelter from November to the end of March 2023 for up to 10 individuals on a first come, first served basis. HOUSING on 6