IN THIS COLUMN

• Colleen Bronner, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
• Honora Knopp, Undergraduate Academic Programs, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
• Kayton Carter, Academic Advising Enrichment, Undergraduate Education
• Paul Griffin, Graduate School of Management
• David Horton, School of Law
• Lisa Pruitt, School of Law
• Michele Barbato, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
• J.P. Delplanque, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
• Fabian Bombardelli, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
• Fadi Fathallah, Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering
• Jeffery Gibeling, Department of Materials Science and Engineering
• Maury Hull, Department of Biomedical Engineering
• Deb Niemeier, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
• Roopali Kukreja, Department of Materials Science and Engineering
• James Letts, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology
• Aditya V. Thakur, Department of Computer Science
• Camelia Hostinar, Department of Psychology

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A faculty member, an academic advisor and an advising administrator recently won top honors from NACADA, “The Global Community for Academic Advising.” Here are UC Davis’ winners in NACADA’s 2021 Global Awards competition:

• Colleen Bronner, associate professor of teaching, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering — Outstanding Advising Award, Faculty Academic Advising
• Honora Knopp, academic advisor, Undergraduate Academic Programs, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences — Outstanding Advising Award, Primary Advising Role
• Kayton Carter, executive director, Academic Advising Enrichment, Undergraduate Education -— Outstanding Advisor Administrator

“These individuals have made extraordinary contributions to advising on our campus and exemplify the transformational work happening in academic advising at UC Davis,” said Helen Schurke Frasier, assistant vice provost, Undergraduate Education.

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Distinguished Professor Paul Griffin, a founding faculty member of the Graduate School of Management, has been appointed an honorary professor in the Department of Accounting and Finance at the University of Otago, New Zealand. A leading international authority in accounting, financial information and disclosures, Griffin collaborates with researchers at the University of Otago and has presented his research there.

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Honors for law school faculty:

• The Association of American Law Schools Section on Alternative Dispute Resolution named David Horton, a Martin Luther King Jr. Professor, as the recipient of the section’s Best Scholarly Article Award for 2022, for “Infinite Arbitration Clauses,” published in the January 2020 volume of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit cited “Infinite Arbitration Clauses” in a recent decision affirming a district court’s denial of a rental car company’s motion to compel arbitration for customer disputes. Horton’s article “In Partial Defense of Probate: Evidence From Alameda County, California” won the association’s Scholarly Papers Competition in 2015.
• Lisa Pruitt, a Martin Luther King Jr. Professor, recently received the Rural Sociological Society’s Excellence in Research Award. The society’s Awards and Endowment Committee lauded Pruitt’s contributions to rural research and scholarship as “truly unique,” noting that Pruitt has “brought important attention to rural legal issues.” Her recent work explores the legal relevance of rural spatiality, including how it inflects dimensions of gender, race and ethnicity. She also considers rural-urban difference in transnational and international contexts.

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New fellows in engineering:

• American Society of Civil Engineers — Michele Barbato, professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
• American Society of Mechanical Engineers — J.P. Delplanque, professor, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and vice provost and dean, Graduate Studies.
• Environmental and Water Resources Institute — Fabian Bombardelli, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

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Other engineering honors:

• Fadi Fathallah, professor and chair, Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering — Ergonomics, Safety and Health Award from the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, and SMV Technologies.
• Jeffery Gibeling, professor, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and interim dean of the college — Oleg D. Sherby Award from the Minerals, Metals and Materials Society, recognizing significant contributions to understanding how materials behave at high temperatures.
• Maury Hull, distinguished professor emeritus, Department of Biomedical Engineering — Robert M. Nerem Education and Mentorship Medal from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
• Deb Niemeier, professor emerita, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (who now holds the Clark Distinguished Chair in Sustainability, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Maryland) — Elected to the American Philosophical Society, honoring extraordinary accomplishments in all fields.

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The Office of Science, Department of Energy, announced its selection of three faculty members for Early Career Research Program Awards. The recipients and their projects:

• Roopali Kukreja, assistant professor, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, College of Engineering — “Ultrafast Coherent X-ray Scattering Studies of Quantum Materials”
• James Letts, assistant professor, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, College of Biological Sciences — “Characterizing Plant-Specific Features of Mitochondrial Respiratory Complexes”
• Aditya V. Thakur, assistant professor, Department of Computer Science, College of Engineering — “AutoNeurify: Automatic Infusion of Learning in HPC Applications

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Another early career research award:

Camelia Hostinar, assistant professor, Department of Psychology, College of Letters and Science; director, Social Environment and Stress Lab, UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain; and research affiliate, Center for Poverty and Inequality Research — Boyd McCandless Award from the American Psychological Association’s Developmental Psychology Division, in support of her research into how poverty influences children’s development.

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Dateline UC Davis welcomes news of faculty and staff awards, for publication in Laurels. Send information to dateline@ucdavis.edu.