Author Sasha Abramsky, lecturer in the University Writing Program and a freelance journalist whose work frequently appears in UC Davis Magazine, wrote one of the “100 Notable Books of 2013,” as declared by The New York Times.

Abramsky

Abramsky’s The American Way of Poverty: How the Other Half Still Lives is an “ambitious study (that) both describes and prescribes,” The Times declares in its Nov. 27 listing.

In an earlier review for The Times, David K. Shipler said this about Abramsky and his book: “He travels the United States meeting the poor, whose wrenching tales he inserts in tight vignettes among data-driven analyses and acute dissections of government programs.

“The country he portrays is damaged by indifference at high levels — his American heroes are not in Congress or boardrooms — but is rescued here and there by caring citizens at the grass roots, their inventive programs achieving small successes.”

Video: Abramsky talks about his book on C-SPAN2’s “Book TV.”

Abramsky received an undergraduate degree in politics, philosophy and economics from Balliol College, Oxford, and a master’s degree from Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism.

His work has appeared in The Nation, The Atlantic Monthly, New York, The Village Voice, Rolling Stone, Salon, London Guardian and many other publications. His other books are Inside Obama’s Brain, Breadline USA: The Hidden Scandal of American Hunger and How to Fix It; American Furies: Crime, Punishment and Vengeance in the Age of Mass Imprisonment; Conned; and Hard Time Blues.

He is a research affiliate with UC Davis’ Center for Poverty research and a senior fellow at the New York City-based Demos think tank. 

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Neil Flynn, professor emeritus of internal medicine and a leading AIDS physician for three decades, is the recipient of a Sacramento organization’s first Drs. Sandy Pomerantz and Harvey Thompson Memorial Award, recognizing honorable achievement in HIV-AIDS research, science, education, service and care.

Sacramento’s Strength in Numbers, a social networking organization of people with HIV and AIDS, named the award in memory of two other pioneers in AIDS care in Sacramento, and presented it to Flynn during Sacramento’s World AIDS Day observance, Dec. 1, where he was one of the featured speakers.

“Dr. Flynn was one of the first leaders in the care of HIV-infected individuals in the Sacramento region," said Richard Pollard, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at UC Davis. "His efforts resulted in the establishment of the CARES clinic, which remains as a unique partnership between an academic health-care center and a community clinic.”

Pomerantz and Thompson, who worked together in private practice, joined with Flynn in 1983 in opening Sacramento’s first AIDS clinic, at the UC Davis Medical Center.

They also laid the groundwork for the Center for AIDS Research, Education and Service, or CARES, an outpatient clinic that will celebrate its 25th anniversary next year. Today, CARES is known as Cares Community Health, and Flynn still works there.

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Professor John Iacovelli has received the NAACP Theatre Award for set design for the second year in a row, this time for the Pasadena Playhouse production Intimate Apparel, starring Vanessa Williams and David St. Louis.

He won last year for Blues for An Alabama Sky, starring Robin Givens.

The awards are presented by the Beverly Hills-Hollywood branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

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The American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ Bioengineering Division announced that it will present its highest honor, the H.R. Lissner Medal, to Kyriacos Athanasiou, for outstanding achievement in the field.

Lissner, the award’s namesake, is considered a father of biomechanics, starting in 1939 at Detroit’s Wayne University, now known as Wayne State University. He established the Bioengineering Research Center in the Department of Engineering Mechanics, and eventually became the first director of the Bioengineering Center when it became an independent research center within the university.

Formal presentation of the medal is set to take place during the Seventh World Congress of Biomechanics, scheduled to be held in Boston in July.

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The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society announced that it will present “a pinnacle award” to Subhash Mahajan, a distinguished professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science.

The Robert Franklin Mehl Award honors the memory of a Carnegie Mellon University metallurgy professor of international renown.

Presented by the society’s Institute of Metals, the award comes with an invitation to deliver a lecture at the society’s annual meeting. As the 2014 award recipient, Mahajan’s lecture is scheduled in 2015.

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Nefretiri Cooley-Broughton, marketing and communications director for Student Affairs, and UC Davis alumna, made the Sacramento Business Journal’s annual list of “40 Under 40” — “young professionals already making their mark in the Sacramento region.”

Her “40 Under 40” profile notes how the 17-year marketing communications professional transformed Student Affairs’ pilot marketing program into a full-fledged, well-respected department.

Cooley-Broughton received a Bachelor Arts degree from UC Davis in 1996, as a double major in English, and rhetoric and communication. She earned a Master of Arts in publications design from the University of Baltimore. She has worked for UC Davis for seven years.

Asked by the Business Journal to describe her “greatest civic achievement,” Cooley-Broughton spoke in terms of her being a first-generation college graduate in her family, then returning to UC Davis to help students connect to support services. She also cited the work she does with Sacramento’s FUTURE Foundation, serving academically gifted, low-income students.

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Professor Stephen Cramer, affiliated with the Department of Chemistry and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, is the recipient of a research award from the German government’s Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

The award, valued at 60,000 Euros (about $82,000 as of Dec. 26), will fund collaborations with researchers in Berlin and Hamburg.

Cramer works with the Berkeley lab’s Advanced Light Source, a national user facility that generates intense light for scientific and technological research.

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Dateline UC Davis welcomes news of faculty and staff awards, for publication in Laurels. Send information to dateline@ucdavis.edu.

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