This column offers a sampling of honors recently awarded to UC Davis faculty, staff and units:

The Sacramento chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations awarded its Lifetime Achievement Award to chancellor emeritus Larry Vanderhoef on Nov. 21.

Vanderhoef received the award for his services to foster harmony among diverse communities and for his support of institutions of public service locally and globally. The award was presented at the group’s annual banquet in Sacramento.

“Chancellor Vanderhoef has been instrumental in bringing together the Davis community. Under his leadership UC Davis has made a name for itself around the world,” said the council’s executive committee member Hamza El-Nakhal.

The California Cattlemen’s Association has presented its highest honor, the Gordon K. Van Vleck Memorial Award, to Bennie Osburn, dean of the School of Veterinary Medicine.

The award recognizes an individual outside of beef-cattle production who has made significant contributions to the California beef-cattle industry. Osburn, who has served as dean since 1996, oversees the school’s teaching, research and service programs. His own research career has focused on the health and welfare of food animals, particularly cattle and sheep.

The Pacific Seabird Group will honor Professor Emeritus Daniel Anderson of the Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology and his former graduate student Franklin Gress for their extensive research and fieldwork on the California brown pelican. Anderson will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award and Gress, a former UC Davis researcher, will receive a Special Achievement Award from the group, which is an international, nonprofit organization founded in 1972 to promote the knowledge, study and conservation of Pacific seabirds. The awards will be made at the Pacific Seabird Group’s upcoming 37th annual meeting in Long Beach.

The Academy of Sciences Malaysia honored Gurdev Khush, an adjunct professor in the Department of Plant Sciences, with the Mahathir Science Award, Malaysia’s most prestigious science award for the tropical sciences. A UC Davis alum, Khush was the chief plant breeder at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines from 1967 until 2002. Khush was honored by Prime Minister Mohd Najib of Malaysia in recognition of his perseverance and work in pioneering rice varieties that have overwhelmingly contributed toward the alleviation of world hunger.

Douglas Kahn, a professor of technocultural studies, was invited to be on the policy board for the UC Institute for Research in the Arts for the period of 2009-2012. He was also awarded a five-week national speaking tour in Australia by the Australian Network for Artwork and Technology.

Giacomo Bonanno, a professor of economics, published a paper on rational choice and “AGM belief” in Artificial Intelligence. The paper shows that two quite different theories (rationalizability of choice in economics and minimal belief revision in computer science and philosophy) are mathematically equivalent.

Stanley Sue, professor of psychology, has won two awards. He received a Presidential Citation from the American Psychological Association, and he also received the 2009 Distinguished Service to the Profession of Psychology Award from the Los Angeles County Psychological Association.

Robert Svoboda, a professor of physics, was elected as a spokesperson for the LBNE Collaboration, the large water cerenkov neutrino detector, a key program for the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy in the next decade. The experiment is projected to cost between $500 to $700 million and will study neutrino oscillations and astrophysical neutrinos.

— Dateline staff