Susan Mann, history professor emerita, is one of three scholars who will receive 2014 lifetime achievement awards from the American Historical Association.

The Awards for Scholarly Distinction will be presented in New York in January, during the association’s annual meeting. She is the first UC Davis professor to win the award.

Mann is a historian of women and gender in late imperial and early modern China. She received the Association for Asian Studies’ Levenson Prize for the best book on pre-1800 China, Precious Records: Women in China’s Long Eighteenth Century (1997); and the American Historical Association’s Fairbank Prize for the best book in East Asian history, The Talented Women of the Zhang Family (2007).

“Both were path-breaking interventions, the first by recognizing the influential role of elite Chinese women, the second by exploring the importance of same-sex social environments for elite Chinese women and men,” according to a statement from the American Historical Association. “Both brilliantly demonstrated how placing women and gender at the center of the inquiry changes our overall view of Chinese history.”

Mann retired in 2010 after 21 years on the UC Davis faculty. She’s a former chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, and the Department of History, and received the Faculty Research Lecture Award, the Academic Senate’s highest honor, in 2008.

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Three UC Davis professors and a Cooperative Extension specialist are part of a western U.S. team that recently received a national award for decades of research on microirrigation — to make it even more sustainable and economical.

The Award for Excellence in Multistate Research — for the workgroup on “Microirrigation for Sustainable Water Use” — is from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, and the Experiment Station Section of the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities. The annual award recognizes successful, well-coordinated, high-impact research and extension efforts.

The UC Davis honorees: Professors Patrick Brown and Ken Shackel, Department of Plant Sciences; Professor Jan Hopmans, Department of Land, Air and Water Resources; and Larry Schwankl, recently retired Cooperative Extension specialist (Department of Land, Air and Water Resources), whose webpage on Maintenance of Microirrigation Systems recently received the Educational Aids Blue Ribbon from the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers.

The microirrigation group — today comprising 38 agricultural engineers and plant and soil scientists from 17 universities and the U.S. Department of Agriculture — has been working since 1972 on practical ways in which growers can optimize irrigation to reduce water waste, protect groundwater and enhance crop productivity.

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Charles Fadley, distinguished professor of physics at UC Davis and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, has received an award named after his doctoral adviser: the David A. Shirley Award for Outstanding Scientific Achievement at the Berkeley lab’s Advanced Light Source.

The award recognizes Fadley’s “significant contributions to a better understanding of surfaces and interfaces through the development of novel x-ray photoemission spectroscopy techniques.”

Shirley was a chemistry professor at UC Berkeley and director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory from 1980 to 1989, and was instrumental in having the Advanced Light Source built.

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Professor Jesus De Loera and Professor Emeritus Arthur J. Krener of the Department of Mathematics have been elected as fellows of the American Mathematical Society.

The fellowship program recognizes members “who have made outstanding contributions to the creation, exposition, advancement, communication and utilization of mathematics.”

The society cited De Loera “for contributions to discrete geometry and combinatorial optimization as well as for service to the profession, including mentoring and diversity,” and Krener for his contributions to the geometric theory of nonlinear control and estimation.

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The Packer, trade publication for the fresh fruit and vegetable industry, has named plant disease expert Trevor Suslow to the 2104 edition of “The Packer 25: Profiles in Leadership.”

“There’s no greater benefit to the perishable industry than Trevor Suslow,” said Steve Patricio, president and chief executive officer of Firebaugh-based Westside Produce, quoted in Suslow’s profile in The Packer.

Suslow works as a Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of Plant Sciences. His research and industry outreach efforts focus on the postharvest quality and safety of fresh fruits and vegetables. His work extends throughout California and nationally, dealing with high-profile food safety issues in a variety of crops ranging from spinach and other leafy greens to cantaloupe.

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The College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences recently presented its Awards of Distinction for 2014:

• Faculty — Christine M. Bruhn, consumer food marketing specialist in the Department of Food Science and Technology, an international authority on consumer attitudes and behavior.
• Staff — Corwyn “Corky” Lovin ’76 and M.S., 1976, agricultural specialist in CA&ES International Programs, who, during his 30-year career, has developed training programs to enhance overseas markets.
• Alumni — Frank Muller ’79, instrumental in bringing sustainable agricultural practices into large-scale production. (See him in UC Davis’ “One California” video.)
• Alumni — Chris Zanobini ’88, president and chief executive officer, Ag Association Management Services, who has helped gain industry support for research and new facilities at UC Davis.
• Friend — François Korn, a pioneering entrepreneur (owner and managing director of SeedQuest) whose advocacy for research, education and outreach at UC Davis has invigorated the seed industry in Northern California and beyond.
• Friend — Stephen Leveroni, business leader, winegrower and philanthropist, who has helped the college’s scholarship programs, endowed chairs and research projects through his stewardship and counsel.
• Friend — Thurman “T.J.” Rodgers, founding CEO and president of Cypress Semiconductor Corp., who is the driving force behind technological innovations at UC Davis that are setting a new standard in research winemaking.

Read more about the recipients.

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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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