The American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers has named UC Davis’ Ken Giles as the recipient of the 2015 Cyrus Hall McCormick-Jerome Increase Case Gold Medal. Established in 1932, the award is named after the inventor of the self-rake reaper and the developer of the “reliable” threshing machine, respectively.

 

Giles

Professor Giles specializes in agricultural chemical application. His research focuses on spray applications — including pesticide spraying and industrial spray coatings — along with the reduction of “spray drift” and environmental contamination.

His major accomplishments have been in the development of new technology for mobile spraying systems. Since November 2012, he and UC Davis development engineer Ryan Billing have supervised field tests of a motorcycle-sized, remote-controlled helicopter at UC Davis’ Oakville Station, a research vineyard in Napa Valley. Watch a video.

Giles and his team are one of very few research entities to have received Federal Aviation Administration clearance to operate an unmanned, remote-controlled aircraft for such purposes.

The McCormick-Case gold medal recognizes “exceptional and meritorious achievement in agriculture that has resulted in new concepts, products, processes or methods that advanced the development of agriculture.”

The award presentation is scheduled during the society's international meeting July 26-29 in New Orleans.

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Professor Robert Powell has been elected to the governing board of the Association for Women in Science. He joins two other newly elected councilors on the 14-member board, which sets the strategic direction, and provides insight and leadership to the national organization, its chapters and affiliates.

The association is dedicated to driving excellence in STEM — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — by achieving equity for women and their full participation in all disciplines and across all employment sectors. Membership is open to anyone who supports that mission.

Powell holds appointments in the departments of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, and Food Science and Technology, and he is a former chair of the Academic Senate at the campus and systemwide levels. He chairs the Science and Technology Committee of the board of governors that oversees the corporations that run the Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos national laboratories, and he serves as the science adviser to the head of the California Department of Natural Resources.

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Scientific American recently named the 100 most influential people in biotechnology, including two at UC Davis: Roger Beachy, founding director of the UC Davis World Food Center, and Pamela Ronald, professor of plant pathology.

 

Beachy

 

Ronald

Beachy is known for groundbreaking research related to disease-resistance in crops. Ronald focuses on rice genetics; her lab has engineered varieties of the grain for resistance to disease and tolerance to flooding.

Scientific American announced the WorldVIEW 100 during the BIO International Convention in Philadelphia last month. The list also includes Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health and former head of the Human Genome Project; Nina Fedoroff, a molecular biologist and National Medal of Science winner from Pennsylvania State University; and Bill and Melinda Gates of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The WorldVIEW 100 emerged from a list of 400 nominations. Leaders in biotechnology and the biosciences did the nominating, choosing people in science as well as industry, academia, public policy, finance and law.

Beachy joined UC Davis in 2014 as the World Food Center’s founding director. He previously served as the first director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, 2009-11. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and received the Wolf Prize in Agriculture in 2001. 

Ronald, besides her appointment in the Department of Plant Pathology, serves as the director of grass genetics at the Joint Bioenergy Institute, a U.S. Department of Energy research center in Emeryville.

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David Rocke and Scott Simon have been elected to leadership positions in the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. Collectively, the federation’s 27 affiliated societies have more than 125,000 members.

As of July 1, Rocke is the treasurer-elect for the federation as a whole, while Simon is the vice president-elect for science policy.

Both are professors in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. Rocke, a distinguished professor, also has an  appointment  in the Division of Biostatistics, Department of Public Health Sciences, School of Medicine.

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Professor Simon Cherry, Department of Biomedical Engineering, has been named the recipient of the 2016 IEEE Marie Sklodowska-Curie Award for outstanding contributions to nuclear and plasma sciences and engineering.

The IEEE, a professional association for engineers and technologists, cited Cherry’s “contributions to the development and application of in vivo molecular imaging systems.”

Cherry’s work led to the development of positron emission tomography scanners for small animals, and scanners that combine PET technology and MRI, or magnetic resonance imaging, for medical and research use.

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Restore Hetch Hetchy has presented its Stephen Mather Visionary Award to law professor Richard Frank, recognizing his 40-year career practicing and teaching environmental law. The award is named after the first director of the National Park Service.  

Frank is a professor of environmental practice and the director of the School of Law’s California Environmental Law and Policy Center. He’s a 1974 graduate of the law school.

The nonprofit Restore Hetch Hetchy, as its name implies, seeks “to return the Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park to its natural splendor ─ while continuing to meet the water and power needs of all communities that depend on the Tuolumne River.”

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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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