The American Veterinary Medicine Association recently honored professors Edward Feldman and Niels Pedersen for their canine and feline research, respectively.
Both are alumni of the School of Veterinary Medicine, started their careers elsewhere, and eventually returned to join the Department of Medicine and Epidemiology.
Feldman, former department chair, received the American Veterinary Medical Foundation-American Kennel Club Career Achievement Award in Canine Research.
Pedersen, Distinguished Professor and director of the Center for Companion Animal Health and the Veterinary Genetics Laboratory, received the American Veterinary Medical Foundation-Winn Feline Foundation Award for long-term contributions to advancing feline research.
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UC Davis’ Engineering Translational Technology Center is one of “Ten College Business Incubators We’re Most Excited About” — the “we” being BestCollegesOnline.com.
The center, part of the College of Engineering, appears on the list alongside Syracuse University’s Student Sandbox and Harvard’s Innovation Lab.
“This incubator is all about supporting technology transfer, sharing learning experiences with students, providing professor support, and facilitating partnerships and collaborations with other groups on campus, like the UC Davis Center for Entrepreneurship (the Child Family Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship),” according to BestCollegesOnline.com.
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The International Association for Food Protection recently honored two scholars in the Department of Food Science and Technology:
• David Reid, professor — He received the third annual Freezing Research Award, given by the association and the Frozen Food Foundation, in recognition of Reid’s research achievements that helped shape the understanding of the fundamental basis of food freezing.
• Christine Bruhn, Cooperative Extension specialist in consumer attitudes and perceptions — One of only two people appointed as new fellows of the association. She serves as an adviser to many national and international organizations and agencies on food safety and communication.
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Distinguished Professor Rand Conger of the Department of Human and Community Development is the recipient of the National Council on Family Relations’ highest award for lifetime achievement in family research.
The council, a professional association for the multidisciplinary understanding of families, presents the Ernest W. Burgess Award once every two years in recognition of continuous and meritorious contributions to theory and research in the study of families.
Conger’s research focuses on social and economic stress, life course development, family interaction processes, and family research methods.
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The International Society of Chemical Ecology announced that UC Davis entomology professor Walter Leal will receive the society’s highest honor at next year’s annual meeting, to be held in Melbourne, Australia.
Leal, who will be the 23rd recipient of the society’s silver medal, researches how insects detect smells and communicate within their species.
He is “one of the foremost authorities on the integration of chemical ecology with the molecular, biochemical and physiological interactions among insects, and between insects and plants,” said a fellow chemical ecologist, Coby Schal, professor at North Carolina State University, who nominated Leal for the award.
Leal is a fellow of the Entomological Society of America, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Royal Entomological Society, and a past president of the International Society of Chemical Ecology.
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Plant geneticist Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra, assistant professor in the Department of Plant Sciences, is the recipient of a $675,000 award from the chemical company DuPont.
“This award will support work in the lab on the genetic basis of hybrid vigor,” Ross-Ibarra said.
The award came through DuPont’s Young Professors Program; the class of 2012 comprises eight faculty members from the United States and one from Germany.
Learn more about the Ross-Ibarra lab.
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English professor Lynn Freed’s essay “Gloria Mundi” is included in the all-nonfiction fall issue of the literary journal Ploughshares.
Freed’s work has previously appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, The Atlantic Monthly, Southwest Review, The Georgia Review, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, National Geographic and Narrative Magazine, among other publications.
She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the inaugural Katherine Anne Porter Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a PEN/O. Henry Award, fellowships and grants, and support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation.
Ploughshares, based at Emerson College in Boston, has a guest editor for each issue. The fall editor was Patricia Hampl, best known for her memoirs and most recently as the author of The Florist’s Daughter.
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Did you see the Sierra County exhibit at the state fair?
The exhibit, which won a gold award and a separate honor for best use of produce-products-artifacts, included 12 short videos made in collaboration with UC Davis’ Art of Regional Change.
The “Passion for the Land” videos use personal stories to explore connections among the people, the environment, agriculture and the communities of the Sierra Valley in the high desert region of Sierra and Plumas counties in northeastern California.
The Art of Regional Change, a joint initiative of the Center for Regional Change and the Humanities Institute, brings together scholars, students, artists and community groups to collaborate on media arts projects like “Passion for the Land.”
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Dateline UC Davis welcomes news of faculty and staff awards, for publication in Laurels. Send information to dateline@ucdavis.edu.
Media Resources
Dave Jones, Dateline, 530-752-6556, dljones@ucdavis.edu