This column offers a sampling of honors recently awarded to UC Davis faculty, staff and units:

Jack D. Forbes has won a Lifetime Achievement award from the Native Writer’s Circle of the Americas. A professor emeritus of Native American studies and anthropology, Forbes helped found the Native American studies programs at UC Davis and D-Q University. He is a historian, poet, novelist, essayist, journalist and advocate for indigenous rights.

Jade Rosina McCutcheon, assistant professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance, has been selected to receive the Journal of Research Administration’s 2009 Rod Rose Award for an article on professional development in the fall 2008 issue of the Journal of Research Administration.

Two UC Davis faculty members are among 60 professors worldwide to receive Innovation Research Programs Awards from HP Labs. Associate professor of electrical and computer engineering John Owens is a first-time winner, while computer science professor Kwan-Liu Ma was granted a renewal of his 2008 award.

Xi Chen, an associate professor of chemistry, has been named a 2009 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar by the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation. The award provides $75,000 to young faculty in the chemical sciences who have shown a commitment to education and outstanding scholarship

Microbiologist Riccardo LoCascio has been chosen as one of 13 scientists to participate in the first class of Kauffman Postdoctoral Fellows. The yearlong program in entrepreneurship and mentorship is intended to help scientists commercialize their scientific discoveries.

Physics professor Nicholas Curro spoke at two international conferences in Japan last week — the International Conference on Materials and Mechanisms of Superconductivity and the Novel Spin Pairing 2009. Curro talked about a new state of superconductivity that exists under high magnetic fields and low temperatures.

Law professor Donna Shestowsky has been awarded $190,000 from the Law and Social Science division of the National Science Foundation to fund her research on civil disputants’ preferences for dispute resolution procedures.

Dirk Van Vuren, professor in the wiildlife, fish and conservation biology department, was chosen as an associate editor for the Journal of Mammalogy, the top publication in that field.

Kent Bradford, academic director of UC Davis’ Seed Biotechnology Center and a professor of plant sciences, and Jamie Miller, center assistant director and a Discovery Fellow, have been awarded $30,000 from the American Society of Plant Biologists 2009 Grant Awards Program to strengthen the center’s public education efforts.

— Dateline staff