The U.S. government's Vietnam Education Foundation has awarded a U.S. Faculty Scholar grant to two associate professors: Glenn Young, Department of Food Science and Technology; and Cary Trexler, School of Education.

The one-year grant will support the establishment of a participatory research class in Vietnam, for Vietnamese undergraduates, to guide them through projects related to preharvest, postharvest, food science, crop science and food safety.

The research projects will connect students from Hanoi Agriculture University and Nong Lam University (Ho Chi Minh City) to small farms and farmer groups at research sites already established by Trexler, Young and others through an ongoing project supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Trexler, whose expertise includes agricultural education, has been working with Vietnamese universities for several years, serving as an intermediary for faculty interested in transforming agricultural education in Vietnam.

Congress established the Vietnam Education Foundation to foster educational exchanges between Vietnam and the United States in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine.

With the grant, Young becomes part of the sixth cohort of U.S. professors selected to teach at Vietnamese universities as U.S. Faculty Scholars. Trexler, who co-authored the grant application, is co-scholar.

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The American Society of Civil Engineers has honored UC Davis for the second year in a row with the Best Research-Oriented Paper Award for work published in the society’s Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management.

Lisa Thompson, associate specialist in Cooperative Extension, Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology, served as lead author on the winning article, “Water Management Adaptations to Prevent Loss of Spring-Run Chinook Salmon in California Under Climate Change.”

Samuel Sandoval Solis of the Department of Land, Air and Water Resources won the same award last year.

Thompson accepted the 2013 award during the World Environmental and Resources Congress in Cincinnati. She collaborated on the paper with Professor Peter Moyle, Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology; Christopher M. Mosser of the Graduate Group in Ecology, who is due to receive a Master of Science degree in June; Marisa I. Escobar and David R. Purkey of the Stockholm Environment Institute, UC Davis office (Escobar and Purkey each hold a doctorate from UC Davis); and David N. Yates of the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the Stockholm Environment Institute.

Said Thompson: “We developed a multidisciplinary decision support tool incorporating future climate, water supply and management, and fish population biology, to test the effectiveness of different water management adaptions in providing cool water for salmon in a warmer world.

“We are now working on proposals to link the hydrology and fish models to an agricultural economics-crop choice model. With this framework we will be able to examine (and hopefully optimize!) water use trade-offs between hydropower, fish and farms, either under current climate conditions or under potential future climate scenarios.”

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Michael Barbour, professor emeritus in the Department of Plant Sciences, is getting an honorary degree, a Doctor Honoris Causa from Complutense University in Madrid.

The degree, the university’s highest academic distinction, recognizes Barbour for his 15-year research and teaching collaboration with Complutense Professor Daniel Sánchez-Mata, an internationally recognized botanist and plant ecologist.

The partnership stemmed from a UC Davis-Complutense agreement that fosters joint projects and programs.

Barbour expressed his appreciation to UC Davis students, staff, colleagues and administrators who were supportive of his trips to Spain and who welcomed Spanish researchers and graduate students to Davis when they were able to come to California to work on their own research projects.

“Truly, travel and research moved on a two-way street, from Davis to Madrid and from Madrid to Davis,” he wrote on his page on the plant sciences website. “This recognition accorded to me is largely a recognition of the success of a cooperative agreement entered into by two great universities.”

One celebration of Barbour’s honorary degree already took place, during a gathering of UC Davis affiliates for Picnic Day in Madrid. Sánchez-Mata was there, talking about his work with Barbour, but Barbour could not make it.

He’ll be there Jan. 28, though, to receive his degree during convocation.

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The Bay Institute, which works for the conservation of San Francisco Bay and its watershed, recently presented a lifetime achievement award to Professor Emeritus Harrison C. “Hap” Dunning, honoring him for 40-plus years of environmental advocacy.

Dunning, who helped found King Hall’s environmental law program, has been a member of the nonprofit institute’s board of directors since 1983; he was chair in 1984-85 and has chaired the policy committee in recent years. He also serves on the board of the Tuolumne River Trust.

Dunning’s scholarly work contributed to the establishment of the Public Trust Doctrine as a key principle in California environmental law, and helped provide the legal basis for the restoration of Mono Lake and portions of the San Joaquin River.

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Kathy Keatley Garvey, Diane Nelson and Alison Van Eenennaam are being recognized for their stories, photos and a video highlighting UC Davis’ work in agriculture and the life sciences.

The recognition is from the international Association for Communication Excellence in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Life and Human Sciences, or ACE, specifically its annual Critique and Awards Program.

The awards presentation is scheduled to take place at the annual ACE conference, scheduled this year from June 11 to 14 in Indianapolis.

Garvey is classified as a senior writer in the Department of Entomology and Nematology, but she is known as much for her writing as her insect photography — for which she is receiving the ACE Outstanding Professional Skill Award for the second year in a row (she won it last year with a bee sting photo).

Her 2013 skill award goes along with two gold awards (first place) in photography, one for a feature photo and the other for a picture story. The feature winner shows a praying mantis lunging at a honeybee (taken in UC Davis’ Haagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven), in a photo titled Missed! (the caption begins with the word “Danger!” in this post on Garvey’s Bug Squad blog). The picture story shows a gulf fritillary butterfly laying an egg (in Garvey’s back yard); see the picture story on Garvey’s blog.

Garvey received a silver award (second place) in writing for newspapers and an honorable mention in writing for magazines.

The silver recognizes her work in reporting on a doctoral candidate who answers questions on the online site Quora and who received an award for one of his answers, to the question: “If you injure a bug, should you kill it or let it live?”

Matan Shelomi’s answer went viral, according to Garvey’s story, and netted him recognition in the 2012 Shorty Awards, honoring the best in social media — in this case first place for the best answer on Quora.

Nelson, senior writer, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, is the recipient of a gold award for promotional writing, for “Hope Dawns for UC Davis Feed Mill,” exploring UC Davis’ effort to replace its aging mill, and why that matters to the people of California, the nation and the world. Nelson won the 2010 ACE outstanding skill award for writing.

Van Eenennaam, a Cooperative Extension specialist in animal genomics and biotechnology, Department of Animal Science, is the recipient of an ACE honorable mention for a video that she wrote and directed: Were Those the Days, My Friend? It previously received the most votes in a contest sponsored by the American Society of Animal Science. Read about the video and see it here.

The competition for the 2012 calendar year also recognizes three editors with UC’s Agricultural and Natural Resources: Janet White, Hazel White and Janet Byron, for their work on “Analysis reveals potential rangeland impacts if Williamson Act eliminated,” which appeared in the October-December 2012 issue of California Agriculture.

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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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