Professor Douglas O. Adams has been named the 2016 recipient of the American Society for Enology and Viticulture’s highest honor, the Merit Award. The presentation is scheduled for June 30 during the society’s 67th national conference, in Monterey, in conjunction with Adams’ lecture on “Representations and Interventions in Growing Grapes and Making Wine.”

Adams, a biochemist, joined the faculty of the Department of Viticulture and Enology in 1986 after earning three degrees at UC Davis: a bachelor’s in biochemistry, and a master’s and Ph.D. in plant physiology.

The American Society for Enology and Viticulture gives its Merit Award annually in recognition of significant contributions to the progress and advancement of enology and viticulture in the industry and-or to the society.

Adams, who received the society’s Honorary Research Lecturer Award in 2006, studies grape berry ripening, and, in particular, the biochemical changes that occur during ripening, and the development of tannins in skins and seeds of red wine varieties.

“Working with talented students and learning from the keen observations of growers and winemakers has been my reward for being a part of this dynamic industry,” Adams said.

He teaches “Introduction to Winemaking” and a graduate level class in grape berry development and composition.

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Four more faculty members of the Department of History have been named to the Organization of American Historians’ Distinguished Lectureship Program: Kathryn Olmsted, professor and chair; Andrés Reséndez and Louis Warren, professors; and Lisa Materson, associate professor.

With their appointments, UC Davis now has eight historians in the speakers bureau, the most of any UC campus. The others from UC Davis are Ari Kelman and Eric Rauchway, professors; and Gregory Downs and Ellen Hartigan-O’Connor, associate professors.

“I’m honored to be selected to receive this distinction,” Olmsted said. “And as chair, I’m thrilled that so many members of our department have been selected. I think these distinctions demonstrate the depth and breadth of the research in U.S. history here at UC Davis.”

Lecturers are invited to speak each year to audiences at museums, libraries, universities, community centers, churches and synagogues, and other venues across the country.

More than 400 scholars nationwide have been Organization of American Historians’ Distinguished Lecturers for their contributions to the field of American history. Participating speakers each give at least one lecture a year and donate their fees to the organization, which promotes scholarship, teaching and presentation of American history.

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The international Community Development Society announced its selection of Professor Dave Campbell to receive the 2016 Ted Bradshaw Outstanding Research Award, named after the late UC Davis professor of community studies and development.

Campbell’s research illuminates the policy dynamics and collaborative mechanisms shaping local implementation of federal, state and foundation programs. His policy work has focused on welfare-to-work, youth civic engagement and community food systems, often by means of detailed ethnographic case studies of community change initiatives. The goal of his research and extension work is to deepen the practice of democratic citizenship in California communities.

Campbell is a professor of community development in the Department of Human Ecology. He also serves as an associate dean of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

He described the award as “especially meaningful given that it is in the name of Ted Bradshaw, a former departmental colleague who died much too young.” Bradshaw, a rural sociologist, died in 2006.

“Ted was the person who encouraged me to join CDS, helped me land two big evaluation grants, was the driving force behind the creation of the Center for Regional Change, and was always a spirited, warm-hearted colleague and friend to all.”

The award presentation is schedule in July during the society’s annual meeting, being held this year in Bloomington, Minnesota.

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Lisa Oakes, a professor in the Department of Psychology and researcher at the Center for Mind and Brain, is the new president-elect of the International Congress on Infant Studies.

Oakes, who studies the origins and early development of mental abilities in infancy, was elected by members in the society, which comprises more than 800 scholars. After two years as president-elect, she will begin a two-year term as president in June 2018.

She has been active in the organization since her days as a graduate student. A member-at-large on the governing board since 2014, she oversaw this year’s annual meeting, May 26-28 in New Orleans, where her selection as president-elect was announced before about 1,200 scholars from around the world.

Oakes said the 40-year-old society is growing and changing — focusing on promoting good science through its journal, Infancy, and using the internet and social media to share research findings with the public.

“This is something I care deeply about,” said Oakes, whose research has been funded by the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health for 20 years. “I have a strong desire to disseminate the results of science about infant development to the broader community.”

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Carolyn Slupsky, a professor with appointments in the Department of Nutrition and the Department of Food Science and Technology, has been selected to serve as a member of the Clinical and Integrative Diabetes and Obesity Section at the Center for Scientific Review in the National Institutes of Health. Her term begins July 1 and runs through June 30, 2020.

Membership on a study section provides a unique opportunity to contribute to the national biomedical research effort. Study sections review grant applications submitted to the NIH, make recommendations on these applications to the appropriate NIH national advisory council or board, and survey the status of research in their fields.

Slupsky’s research includes understanding the impact of diet on human health from the perspective of nutrition, the gut microbiome, and host-microbial co-metabolism. In addition, she is looking into the implication of food processing, agricultural practices, and plant health status on the nutrient content and sensory aspects of food.

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Steve Carlip, professor of physics, recently received a third-place award from the Gravity Research Foundation for his essay, “Spontaneous Dimensional Reduction in Quantum Gravity.” The foundation awards acknowledge exceptional research on gravity-related topics.

In his essay, Carlip described evidence that suggests quantum gravity at very short distances may behave as a two-dimensional theory. (Our everyday world has three dimensions of space and one of time.) If true, this could require drastic revisions of our conception of space-time, and might point toward new directions in quantum gravity.

Carlip previously received first place in the writing competition in 2007. Past winners also include Stephen Hawking and several Nobel Prize honorees.

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The University of Minnesota’s Department of Entomology recently presented its Hodson Alumni Award to UC Davis Professor Karl Kjer. The award is named after the late Alexander Hodson, a former chair of the department where Kjer earned a master’s degree and Ph.D.

Kjer, a molecular phylogeneticist, joined the UC Davis faculty last July, as the Schlinger Chair of Systematic Entomology in the Department of Entomology and Nematology. He came here after 18 years at Rutgers University, where he was a member of the faculty of the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Natural Resources.

He is a co-founder of the 1000 Insect Transcription Evolution project, or 1KITE — a study of the transcriptomes (that is, the entirety of expressed genes) of more than 1,000 insect species encompassing all recognized insect orders.

The project has so far revealed that insects originated some 450 million years ago, around the same time as the first plants, and that together they shaped the Earth's earliest ecosystem. Insects, such as dragonflies and damselflies, inhabited the earth 150 million years before dinosaurs.

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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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