Chancellor Gary S. May and Distinguished Professor Jay R. Lund took center stage in Washington, D.C., last weekend for their induction into the National Academy of Engineering.

The academy announced their election in February, among 99 new members, and the induction ceremony took place Sunday (Sept. 30) as part of the academy’s annual meeting at academy headquarters.

Alton D. Romig, the academy’s executive officer, announced each of the new inductees.

• “Gary S. May, chancellor, University of California, Davis, for contributions to semiconductor manufacturing research and innovations in educational programs for underrepresented groups in engineering.”

• “Jay R. Lund, distinguished professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Davis, for analysis of water and environmental policy issues leading to integrated water resources planning and management.”

Counting May and Lund, UC Davis now has 15 faculty members — including retirees — in the National Academy of Engineering. It is one of four organizations that comprise the National Academies, established by Congress to advise the nation on a wide range of scientific and technical issues.

UC Davis faculty members’ national and international honors.

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The Purdue College of Engineering will present a distinguished alumna award to Jennifer Curtis, dean of the UC Davis College of Engineering, in February. Purdue engineering bestows distinguished alumni status in recognition of outstanding contributions within their fields.

Curtis holds a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering from Purdue and a Ph.D. in the same discipline from Princeton University. She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and the American Society of Engineering Education.

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News from the World Molecular Imaging Society:

• Professor Julie Sutcliffe is the new president-elect, for 2018-19, and will serve as president in 2019-20. She is affiliated with the departments of professor of internal medicine and biomedical engineering, and the Comprehensive Cancer Center.
• The society’s Women in Molecular Imaging Network presented its inaugural leadership award to Katherine Ferrara, professor emerita, Department of Biomedical Engineering. The network fosters career development and advancement of women in molecular-imaging sciences and advocates within the society on issues of importance to women.

Established in 2011, the society is an international scientific educational organization dedicated to the understanding of biology and medicine through multimodal in vivo imaging of cellular and molecular events involved in health and disease and the use of imaging in patient care.

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Professor Robin Erbacher is among the newly elected fellows of the American Physical Society. She was nominated by the Division of Particles and Fields, and cited for significant contributions to measuring the properties of the top quark and using it to probe for a variety of new physics signatures.

The top quark is the heaviest subatomic particle ever observed. Erbacher was a member of Fermilab team that confirmed the top quark’s existence in 1995. She also is a member of the Compact Muon Solenoid, or CMS, experiment at the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, Switzerland. The CMS collaboration recently measured direct interaction between the Higgs boson and the top quark.

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Distinguished Professor of Chemistry R. David Britt, who holds the Winston Ko Chair in Science Leadership, recently received the 2018 Zaviosky Award from the Kazan Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The award recognizes outstanding applications or developments of electron paramagnetic resonance, or EPR, in any field of science. The center cited Britt for his pioneering advances in EPR spectroscopy and subsequent implementation in the study of biologically significant metalloenzymes like the oxygen-evolving complex in photosynthesis. Britt leads the CalEPR center, the largest center of its kind on the West Coast.

He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and has been awarded the Royal Society of Chemistry Bruker Prize and the Gold Medal of the International EPR Society.

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Three faculty members of the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics recently received honors for a journal article and a book. The honorees and their awards from the Applied Economics Association:

• Colin Carter, distinguished professor, and Aaron Smith, professor — Outstanding American Journal of Agricultural Economics Award for the article "Commodity Storage and the Market Effects of Biofuel Policies," co-authored with Gordon Rausser, distinguished professor, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, UC Berkeley. Read the article.
• Jeffrey Williams, professor — Publication of Enduring Quality Award for the book Storage and Commodity Markets (2010), co-authored with Brian Wright, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, UC Berkeley. More about the book.

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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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